Where Monsters Lie Page 8

  ‘Exactly. But different ones. These were a bit smaller than the ones in the morning. So I got rid of them . . . And now it’s happened again.’

  ‘They like the binoculars,’ I concluded.

  ‘Yes, exactly. They’re drawn to them. That’s why they’re coming in.’

  ‘But why?’

  Finn puckered his nose in thought. ‘I don’t know. But there’s one way of finding out for sure.’

  ‘Finding out what?’

  ‘If it’s the binoculars or not.’ Finn’s steady brown eyes fixed on the idea as though he could see it before him. ‘We just have to keep putting them in different places and see whether the slugs find them . . . not just in your house or my house but all over Mivtown. We could start with the Tree Cave. We’ll leave them there overnight and see what happens.’

  Finn went to pick up the binoculars, but hesitated when he saw that they were coated in slime.

  I opened Finn’s window, picked up the binoculars by the strap and, using the metal ruler from the desk, flicked the slugs out of the window, one after the other.

  ‘You get used to them,’ I said grimly.

  ‘Well, if it’s the binoculars, then we keep them away from us and we won’t have to!’ Finn said triumphantly.

  But later that afternoon I disproved Finn’s theory of the slugs only being drawn to Mum’s binoculars.

  Tommi suddenly shouted out to me, ‘Suggies! Suggies, Effie!’

  I looked up from my homework and saw them straight away.

  Slugs. One fat black one was trailing across the kitchen wall; three smaller ones were working their way round the skirting board.

  It wasn’t just Mum’s binoculars; something else was attracting them. I looked around to see if they were heading towards anything in particular. They were in the corner of the room where I was doing my homework.

  ‘Slugs,’ I said to Tommi. ‘They’re slugs.’

  ‘Suggies,’ Tommi parroted back.

  ‘Close enough,’ I said.

  I picked up a dirty spoon from the sink, scraped the fat one off the wall and slung it out into the garden. I should probably have dumped it a long way down the lane. Finn had told me that slugs have an incredibly strong homing instinct: if I just chucked them in the garden they would definitely find their way back in, but I was looking after Tommi until Dad got back from work.

  I scooped up the other three slugs so they were piled on top of each other in a writhing black pile.

  ‘And stay out,’ I said, my breath making smoke in the cold air. I catapulted them out but let go of the spoon too; it clattered onto the stone path. I looked at Tommi. She was sitting on the big armchair with her teddies in a row, talking to them very seriously.

  I stepped out into the garden and retrieved the spoon, shaking off the slugs. They disappeared into the long grass.

  It was that time of the day just after sunset but before it’s dark. In those few moments it’s like the world is wearing a veil.

  I was standing near where we’d buried poor old Buster. The ground had settled into a patch of mud now. No one would guess what was there.

  I glanced back through the window. Tommi was still talking to her teddies; she was wagging her finger at them, as if telling them off.

  I turned back to Buster’s grave.

  Suddenly I thought I saw something . . . Something shifting slightly under the earth – just a flicker of movement, like the second hand of a clock, except without rhythm and order.

  I walked over to the garden shed and lugged out the heavy spade, dragging it across the grass towards the hedge.

  I couldn’t help thinking that it was Buster under there, wanting to escape. That he had been waiting for me all this time, that I hadn’t lost him after all.

  I started to dig.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Soon I had a large pile of earth mounting up next to me, and I’d cleared away the top layer of the hole in which Buster lay. The ground opened up in front of me like a scar, clods of soil, tufts of grass and white clusters of root.

  It was only a pile of earth and a hole in the ground, just like the ones that Finn and I used to dig at the end of the garden. Nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps I’d imagined something moving; perhaps it was a large insect or a trick of the light. It wasn’t Buster – I could see that now.

  I stopped digging and looked at the hole in front of me. It felt like only moments had passed since I stood here next to Dad when we buried Buster.

  And then, at that very moment, I saw something else move.

  In Buster’s grave.

  In the soil.

  Something dark and shadowy; I couldn’t see where it began and where it ended.

  Every part of me turned cold. I understood for the first time what people meant when they said, ‘I froze.’ It’s not just about standing really still. It’s because the very inside of you, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, is instantly chilled.

  I started backing away, although I knew I couldn’t leave without seeing what it was. I didn’t want to be haunted by dark imaginings of what it could have been. I needed to see for myself.

  The light had faded now. Darkness had crept around me. I made my way back to the shed. I had to feel around for the torch that we kept on the back of the door, hurting my hand on the sharp nail it was hanging on.

  I began to panic as I grappled for the on button – until the torch’s thin beam illuminated the dark garden. But it was a feeble light: the batteries were dying.

  I could hear Tommi singing now. She hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t there.

  My feet had rooted themselves to the ground. ‘Keep walking,’ I told myself.

  I crept back towards the grave, shining the pale yellow light in front of me.

  A metre away, I saw it again.

  Moving.

  Writhing.

  In the soil.

  The light was growing faint.

  I leaned forward, pointing the dying light towards the earth.

  The torch flickered. And went out.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I think I might have stopped breathing. You know when you hold your breath and your chest begins to hurt? I think that’s what happened. Only for a few dark moments, though, because suddenly the garden was illuminated by yellow light that streamed out of the kitchen window. And I saw for myself what was moving in the darkness of Buster’s grave.

  The hole I’d dug was full of writhing black slugs.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  I screamed. So loudly that Dad ran out of the kitchen.

  ‘Effie! Effie! What are you doing out here?’

  I closed my eyes and let my head sink onto Dad’s chest. His shirt smelled musty. It comforted me, but even when I shut my eyes, I could still see the slugs. Twisting and twisted, in one moving black mass.

  ‘Slugs,’ I said into his shirt so he couldn’t hear what I was saying.

  ‘What’s that, love?’

  ‘There’s slugs, Dad. In Buster’s grave.’

  Dad looked over to where we had buried Buster and frowned – two lines, so deep that they looked like they would always remain on his forehead.

  ‘Get inside, Effie,’ he said.

  ‘But—’ I started to say.

  ‘Please, Effie, get inside. I don’t know why you’re doing this.’

  I limped towards the warm light of the kitchen, feeling defeated not only by what I had seen in Buster’s grave but by Dad’s words. My body felt hunched and raw, as if I had fallen over and hurt myself, and I couldn’t stop crying.

  ‘Andda yooo, andda yoo, andda yoo,’ chirruped Tommi. She was still talking to her toys.

  I sat down on the floor beside her. I could hear Dad shovelling the soil back into the hole I’d dug. It made a sort of whooshing sound as he scooped up a shovelful, and then a pitter, pitter, pitter as the soil was sprinkled into the hole.

  Whoosh. Pitter, pitter, pitter.

  Whoosh. Pitter, pitter,
pitter.

  Whoosh. Pitter, pitter, pitter.

  All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement. Something was there that hadn’t been there just moments before. A shiny black slug, slowly but surely making its way over the arm of the chair, right next to Tommi.

  I couldn’t stop myself. I bent over and threw up all over the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Tommi started crying. Which brought Dad straight back inside. With every footstep he left little piles of soil on the floor.

  Tommi’s screams grew louder as the foul smell of my sick rose up to greet me.

  I felt very faint and fixed my gaze on one of the patches of earth; I stared and stared, waiting for the moment to pass. The soil was dark brown and grainy, and I could see the pattern from the underneath of Dad’s shoe. And as I looked, I saw something else . . . something so small that I wouldn’t have noticed it had I not been staring so intently.

  A slug was inching its way over the little pile of soil.

  I simply opened my mouth and my stomach convulsed again and again until there was nothing left.

  ‘Oh, Effie,’ Dad said. ‘Let’s get you upstairs into the bath, pet.’ He lifted me up in his arms, even though he never, ever carried me any more, and took me upstairs to the bathroom.

  He turned on the taps and the room started to fill with steam.

  ‘I’ll just sort Tommi out, OK? I’ll be right back,’ he said, and was gone.

  I sat on the toilet, shaking. The warm steam was licking around me, but I felt terribly cold and the nausea would not leave me, even though I was quite empty now. At one point I had to quickly turn and wrench the toilet lid up as my stomach started to churn again, but I brought up only a rank-tasting liquid that burned my throat and mouth and made me feel sicker still.

  Dad came back and turned off the taps. He had to really screw the hot one tightly to stop the trickle of water.

  I suddenly had a picture in my mind of the bath being left to run so that the water flooded all the way over the white rim and trickled between the floorboards and down the walls to the ground floor. And the water flowed for so long that in the end our house simply floated away and was carried into the loch, disappearing from sight under the murky waters.

  But of course, baths don’t overflow like that. There are special little holes near the top, by the taps; the water escapes instead of overflowing. And houses can’t float away; they’re too heavy. They would sink.

  ‘In you go now, Effie,’ Dad said. He sloshed the water around to check the temperature, but as I lowered myself in, it already felt too cold.

  I didn’t stay in for long. I just wanted to go to sleep and I started to worry that I might doze off; my head might sink under the water and I would never wake up again.

  After I got out, I brushed my teeth hard and even gargled with the bright green mouthwash that Dad uses, but I couldn’t get rid of the sweet, stale taste in my mouth.

  It lingered even after I fell asleep.

  I woke when it was still dark and I could still taste it.

  The only way to be rid of something is to expel it.

  It takes force.

  You throw it out of your house with all your might; you spit it out of your mouth until your stomach starts to turn over.

  But even when you do all this, things have a way of returning.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The next day was a Saturday, and so as soon as I rose, I went to see Finn. I told Dad that I felt better, but I wrapped myself up in layers of clothing and then a coat over the top, even though the sun was shining down brightly and it wasn’t that cold outside. I felt I needed to protect myself somehow.

  I saw that there was a stain on the living room carpet where I had vomited.

  ‘You can barely see it,’ Dad said, and in some lights it was not that visible, but I could still make it out. There was something about the shape of it that made me think of a fat slug. I tried to avoid it, although my eyes were always drawn to it.

  Dad didn’t seem that fussed about the slugs in Buster’s grave. ‘There’s weirder things than that in the world, Effie. Put it out of your mind.’ He was more concerned about the fact that I had been digging up the grave in the first place. He asked me if I thought it had something to do with Mum and whether I wanted to talk to someone. He told me that he could speak to Miss Bell about it; that I could see someone at school.

  I wanted to tell him about the slugs creeping onto Mum’s binoculars; I wanted to tell him what Old Bill had said about the legend – about the girl who would awaken the monsters . . . And the only detail he had shared about the monsters: that their skin was cold to the touch, and slippery, like the body of a slug.

  But Dad looked worried, and I didn’t say any more about slugs or legends. Instead I told him that I would think about speaking to someone at school – though in my mind I had decided: I wasn’t going to talk to anyone but Finn.

  Dad didn’t want to hear my theory that Mum hadn’t thrown herself in the loch. Just a week earlier, I had come home after school and Dad had been waiting anxiously for me in the living room.

  ‘Dad!’ I exclaimed in delight when I saw him there instead of one of the oldies. Then I realized how strange it was. ‘Are you OK? Is Tommi all right?’

  ‘Everyone’s fine, Effie. Sit down. There’s something we need to discuss. Miss Bell rang me today.’ I quickly scanned through my memory of the school day but found nothing unusual; I wondered what Dad could possibly want to talk to me about.

  ‘Miss Bell said . . . Miss Bell said that you have been writing about what happened to your mum in class.’

  ‘Umm . . . well, we were set a writing assignment about—’

  ‘Mysteries,’ Dad finished for me. ‘She read it to me. Effie, why do you continue with this . . . with this . . .’ His face started to change, as though the skin was not really his but a mask that was starting to slip off. ‘I know how painful it is, but it’s time to accept that your mum has gone.’

  ‘But, Dad, we don’t know for sure what really happened . . . She might have—’ But as I spoke, Dad began to sob. Raw, gasping sobs that shook his whole body.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ I would have said anything to stop him crying.

  ‘Effie, we’ve got to move on. We have to let her go,’ he said, his face streaked with tears. From that moment on, I didn’t tell anyone other than Finn that I thought Mum might not have thrown herself into the loch that day.

  It felt good to be outside again, on my way to see Finn. My spirits rose as soon as I had closed the front door behind me and with every step that took me that little bit further from home.

  The sky was the kind of blue that made it look like it would be bouncy if you were able to touch it. I felt myself uncoiling, standing taller, and the tenderness in my stomach drained away.

  I always smelled Finn’s house before I saw it. Even from the other side of the cherry tree, the smell of something treacly and sweet or the strong, clear scent of a freshly baked loaf would rush to meet me. Later, I wondered how it could have been the same every time. Did Kathleen really bake every single day? But that’s how it was.

  That morning it was something herby and rich that made my mouth water and reminded me of the dull ache in my tummy.

  ‘Just in time, Effie,’ Kathleen said, and turned cheese scones onto a plate next to Finn. He tore his in half, and rich plumes of steam obscured his face, though I could see that it was fixed in a wide grin.

  ‘Right, kids. I’m off to Abiemore now. See you later,’ Kathleen said.

  I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I smelled those cheese scones; then I remembered that I hadn’t eaten last night – and what had happened to my lunch.

  ‘Bye, Mam.’ ‘Bye, Kathleen,’ we mumbled through mouthfuls of hot, floury scone.

  ‘You all right?’ Finn said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, because that’s what you’re programmed to say whenever anyone asks
you how you are. And then, ‘No,’ because it wasn’t anyone asking me, it was Finn. ‘Fancy a walk?’ I asked. I wanted to be outside that day.

  We headed for the loch. Without even meaning to, our feet led us there. The loch stretched out before us, wide and open, giving me a sudden feeling of freedom, of release. I breathed more easily, and when I started to tell Finn what had happened the night before, my voice didn’t waver.

  I told him how I’d seen the earth move; how I’d dug up Buster’s grave; about the mass of slugs in the earth; how I alone had noticed the shiny black body of the tiny, tiny one.

  Finn’s eyes widened as I spoke, and when I got to the part about being sick, his body seemed to hunch over a little in sympathy.

  ‘Are you all right now?’ he asked when I’d finished.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ I said. ‘I still feel . . . kind of sick. But apart from that, I’m all right.’

  ‘So these slugs . . . They are attracted to the binoculars, your house – in general – and Buster’s grave. You know what links them all, don’t you? I mean, apart from you.’

  Finn looked at me levelly. His brown eyes seemed to fill his face; I could only see those eyes, as steady, as sure, as the waters of the loch.

  ‘Your mum.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I had started to imagine that there were slugs in the room when there were none. I couldn’t relax at home. I avoided the garden, where Buster’s grave was dark with freshly turned soil, a scar upon the earth.

  If the slugs had something to do with Mum, I wanted to find out what; but more than anything, I wanted to be rid of them. And then Finn had a brilliant idea.

  ‘Ask Mrs Daniels to get rid of them,’ he suggested. ‘A slug’s more likely to survive a nuclear disaster than one of her cleaning sprees. It’ll be outright war.’

  Finn was, of course, quite correct.

  The next afternoon, instead of throwing a muttered goodbye over my shoulder as she left the house, I sidled up to her.