Adam Slater - Hunted

‘I know!’ said Melissa suddenly. ‘The time when you were born must be on your birth certificate.’

‘Maybe,’ admitted Callum. ‘But I’ve no idea where it is. Besides, we don’t need a piece of paper to say I’m a chime child. I think you’ve already proved that. And I don’t think Gran would be convinced anyway. She doesn’t believe in magic or anything like that.’

‘All the kids at school say she’s a witch!’ Melissa blurted suddenly, her big eyes very wide again.

‘Well, they say that about you too,’ Callum retorted. It was true, and Melissa must have known it. ‘And they say she’s a gypsy, which is rubbish, and they say Mr Gower has an artificial leg, which I bet is also rubbish.’

‘You can sort of see why people might think your gran’s a witch,’ argued Melissa. ‘I mean, living out here in the middle of nowhere with only you and the cat.’

‘Having a cat doesn’t make her a witch, any more than wearing crystals makes you one!’ Callum snapped. ‘She doesn’t know a thing about the supernatural – after I saw the Grim I asked her if there were any local legends about Marlock and she told me to look at a book of old photos of Stockport!’

‘Sounds like she’s in denial,’ said Melissa. ‘A bit like you. Or else she’s hiding something.’

Callum squirmed uncomfortably. He hadn’t forgotten how strangely interested Gran had been when he told her about being followed by the Church Grim, even though she’d tried to explain it away. And then there was the crumbling black and silver book hidden on the ledge above the window . . .

‘Don’t go in for a career in MI6,’ Melissa said. ‘Because your poker face is rubbish. What are you thinking about?’

‘Books,’ admitted Callum, tracing his fingertips over the Dictionary of the Supernatural.

Melissa looked around the room. ‘You said your gran was only into gardening books and novels. Does she have other books here?’

‘I’ve only seen one,’ Callum admitted. ‘But yes. She was looking at it last night. She keeps it hidden. I saw her taking it down to have a look at it.’

‘Were you asking her about the Grim last night? Maybe that’s what she was looking up!’

Callum jumped to his feet and dragged a straight-backed chair over to the window.

‘She won’t be home for another hour,’ he explained. ‘The book’s up here. She hides it behind this front row of newer stuff. Come and help – we’ve got to keep track of what we move, because she’s bound to notice if they’re not put back in the same way. You wouldn’t believe how organised she is.’

Melissa scrambled to her feet as well and studied one of the lower shelves for a moment.

‘You’re right. She’s got all these novels arranged in alphabetical order by author. Did she used to be a librarian?’

Callum didn’t answer. He was already standing on the chair and pulling books off the high shelf.

‘Here, take these,’ he said. ‘Stack them on the floor by the door. In the exact order I pass them to you.’ Much as he was growing to like Melissa, he didn’t quite trust her not to make as much of a mess with the books as she’d made with the hot chocolate. ‘OK, now I’ve got another load . . .’

Bit by bit, Callum emptied the shelf. Just as he had thought, the top shelf was double depth, the books at the front concealing the extra space behind. But it was too dark to see what was there.

‘Can you turn the big light on?’ he asked, pointing. ‘That switch.’

Melissa flicked the switch. Light flooded the room. The telltale flash of silver glimmered from the depths of the hidden shelf, and Callum gasped.

There wasn’t just one book back there. There were dozens.

All the books were bound in leather, but there the similarity ended. They were all different sizes, from small notebooks to thick, chunky tomes. Very few had anything legible written on their spines – either the letters had worn away or they had been blank to begin with – so it was impossible to tell what they were. But one thing was certain: hidden behind Gran’s discarded gardening journals was a row of books as old as the crumbling alms cottage itself. Maybe even older.

‘Is it up there?’ Melissa asked, craning her neck to see.

‘I can’t tell,’ said Callum. ‘She’s got a whole shelf of them here.’

The books were wedged so tightly together, Callum had to pull out a short, fat one to make himself some slack. It was bound in thick, cracked leather, like an old Bible.

‘What do you make of this?’ he asked, passing it down to Melissa.

‘Campanalogia – 1677,’ she announced, peeking inside the front cover. ‘It’s all about the secrets of ringing church bells.’

‘This is more like it,’ said Callum, pulling down another. He opened it and found it was entirely handwritten in painstaking eighteenth-century script.

‘What is it?’ Melissa asked.

‘Hard to tell – the writing’s awful. It looks like a collection of stories, though. Fairy stories or something.’

‘Well, your gran was obviously telling porkies when she said she didn’t have any books about folklore,’ Melissa said. ‘Can you see the one she was reading yesterday?’

Callum frowned, his eyes skimming over the spines.

‘No, I can’t. Hang on a sec, it must be here. It was a black book with silver binding.’

It wasn’t easy to find. Gran had double-hidden it, laying it flat against the wall behind the row of old books. Callum only noticed it when he pulled a third book off the shelf.

‘Got it,’ he said triumphantly.

It was heavy. Callum handed the book to Melissa carefully, holding it with two hands. It was wider than it was tall, and fat as a photograph album, but so old it looked as though it ought to be under glass in the British Library. The leather of the cover was slightly greasy with ancient mildew.

Callum hopped down from the chair and laid the book carefully on the drop-leaf table. He wiped his hands before opening the book’s heavy black cover. He and Melissa sat side by side and stared at the strange pages.

It was some sort of compendium of legendary creatures, made up of handwritten and pasted-in entries, like a scrapbook. Some of the collection was obviously hundreds of years old. The most ancient entries weren’t even on paper, but on thick, crackling parchment or thin skin, sewn on to pages of stiff linen cloth. Generations of collectors must have contributed to it.

‘This beats your Dictionary of the Supernatural,’ Callum breathed.

‘Is there an index? How do we look something up?’ Melissa asked.

‘I don’t think you can,’ Callum said. ‘See – it isn’t organised at all. The oldest entries are at the beginning. We’ll just have to go through it and see what we find.’

Neither Callum nor Melissa could make sense of the early entries, which were easily four hundred years old. The writing was faded and spiky, in Old English – some of it in Latin. There were drawings, too, of monstrous creatures emerging from tombstones and tree stumps, or rising out of chimneys and wells. One picture showed a thin, hairy creature, like a werewolf, with its stomach cut open. Three dead babies lay inside it. Melissa turned the heavy page over quickly.

Callum stared at the strange collection, astonished. Where in the world had Gran got this, and why did she keep it? Some of the pictures made him want to be sick. The book was like something from another world – a world which Callum had assumed his down-to-earth, no-nonsense grandmother neither knew nor cared about.

As they turned the pages, the entries became easier to read. Some of the sewn-in pictures were printed broadsheets; some were torn from other books; some were handmade sketches. One, of a strange, brown, leafy creature, was embroidered directly on to the linen page with thin, shining threads.