Anthony Horowitz - Raven_s Gate

“What is this?” Matt demanded.

“An eye.”

“Why is it here?”

The chemist turned the jar round and examined the specimen, his own eyes magnified by the lenses. “The vet requested it,” he said. He sounded irritated. “He was doing tests.”

“I’ve come to collect something for Mrs Deverill.”

“Oh yes. You must be Matthew then. We’ve all been looking forward to meeting you. We’ve all been looking forward to it very much.”

The chemist produced a small package, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “My name is Barker. I hope I’ll be seeing more of you. In a village like this, it’s always nice to have new blood.” He handed the packet over. “Do drop in again any time.”

Matt came out of the shop, noticing that more of the villagers had arrived in the square. There were at least a dozen of them, talking among themselves. He hurried over to the bike. There was a bag behind the saddle and he thrust the package in. He just wanted to get back on the road, away from the village. But it wasn’t to be. As he wheeled the bicycle round, a hand suddenly appeared, grabbing hold of the handle-bars. Matt followed the arm it belonged to and found himself looking up at a man in his thirties with straw-coloured hair and a round, ruddy face. He was dressed in a baggy jersey and jeans. He was strong. Matt could tell that from the ease with which he held the bike.

“Let me go!”

Matt tried to pull the bike away but the man held on to it. “That’s not very friendly,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“You’re Matthew Freeman, aren’t you?”

Matt said nothing. They were both still holding the bike. It had become a barrier between them.

“They sent you here on this project?”

“That’s right. Yes. You all know that – so why ask?”

“Listen to me, Matthew Freeman,” he said suddenly. “You don’t want to be hanging around this village. You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me? I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get away. You’ll go as far away as you can and you won’t come back. Do you hear me? You need to-”

He broke off. The chemist had come out of his shop and was standing there in the doorway watching the two of them. The man let go of Matt’s bike and hurried away. He didn’t look back.

Matt got on to the bicycle and pedalled out of the village. Ahead of him, the pine trees waited, black and ominous. Already it was growing dark.

Matt was standing on a tower of glistening stone. It was the dead of night but somehow he could still see. Far beneath him the waves rolled forward as if in slow motion, thick and oily. There were rocks slanting outwards, each one razor-sharp. The waves hovered, then threw themselves forward, tearing themselves apart. The wind howled. There was a storm raging. Jagged spears of lightning crashed down – but the lightning was black not white – and now he realized that the entire world had been turned inside out, like the negative of a photograph.

In the distance, he could see four people, standing on a grey, deserted beach. Three boys and a girl, all of them about his own age. They were too far away for him to be able to see their faces, but somehow he recognized them and knew they were waiting for him. He had to reach them, but there was no way. He was trapped on his tower of rock. The storm was growing and now there was something dark and terrible stretching out across the sea. A giant wing that was folding around him. The girl was calling to him.

“Matthew! Matthew!”

The wind caught the two words and tossed them aside. The girl pleaded with him but time was running out for her too. The beach cracked and began to break up. Dark crevices appeared, the sand spilling into them. The waves were rushing in. The four of them were trapped, unable to move.

“I’m coming!” Matt called.

He took a step towards them and stumbled, then twisted forward and fell. He cried out. But there was nothing to stop him. Everything spun as he plummeted through the night sky, down towards the sea.

Matt woke up with a start.

He was lying in bed at Hive Hall. He could make out the wooden beams on the ceiling, the dried flowers in their vase on the chest of drawers. There was a full moon, the pale light washing through the room. For a moment he lay still, thinking about his dream. He had dreamt it many times, not just at Hive Hall but before. It was always the same, apart from two things. Each time, the presence he had felt forming itself – the folding wing or whatever it was – had come a little closer to taking shape. And each time, he woke up a few seconds later, a few centimetres nearer the end of his fall. He wondered what would happen if he didn’t wake up in time.

He looked at his watch, turning it to the window to check. It was almost midnight. It had been ten o’clock when he went to bed. What had woken him up? He had been exhausted by the day’s work and should have slept through.

And then he heard it.

It was faint and far away, and yet still quite clear, carried on the stillness of the night. It came from the wood, sliding over the silver tips of the trees under the moonlight.

Whispering.

At first Matt thought it was nothing more than the wind rustling through the branches, but there was no wind. And as he threw back the cover and sat up in bed, he heard another sound. It was underneath the whispers, constant and unchanging. A soft, electronic hum. The whispers stopped, then started again. The hum went on.

Despite himself, Matt felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. The sounds were far away but the horrible thing was that they could have been coming from somewhere inside the building. They were all around him. He got out of bed and went over to the window.

The moon slid behind a cloud and for a moment everything was dark. Yet there was a light. In the surrounding darkness, somewhere not far from the edge of the wood, he could see a faint glow. The light was being swallowed up by the trees, hemmed in on all sides. However, some of it had escaped through gaps in the branches and had spread out, the cold white shafts evaporating in the air. It was electric, not the light of a fire. And it seemed to be coming from the same source as the sound.

Who was there? What could be happening in the middle of a Yorkshire wood – and could it have something to do with the warning he had been given only that afternoon?

“You don’t want to be anywhere near here. Do you understand me?”

Suddenly Matt wanted to know – and almost before he had worked out what he was doing he had put on his clothes, opened the door and slipped out. He paused for a moment, listening for any sound within the farmhouse. Mrs Deverill’s room was at the end of the corridor. The door was closed and Matt had never seen inside her room. He guessed she would be sound asleep. She always went to bed at exactly half past nine. The last thing he wanted to do was wake her up. Moving more carefully now, he tiptoed down the stairs and into the living room. Again, the portrait of Mrs Deverill’s ancestor watched him as he made for the front door. Its eyes almost seemed to follow him. The face was dark and secretive.

It was cold in the yard. Nothing stirred. Matt could hear the whispers more clearly now. They seemed not only louder but closer. He could even make out some of the words – not that they made any sense.

“NODEB… TEMOCMOD… EMANY… NEVAEH… NITRA.”

The strange sounds danced around him as he stood there, alone in the night. They were human whispers. Human and yet at the same time unworldly. He wondered what to do. Part of him wanted to get out the bicycle and try to get nearer. Part of him wanted to go back to bed and forget the whole thing. And then he noticed something that he should have seen straight away.