Read Online Vanishing Girl by Shane Peacock - Free Book Online Page B

lord was never seen again, eaten, many think, by one of his beasts. People claim the animals still live on the grounds, behind those walls with the iron fence on top.”
    “No one knows that for sure?”
    “No one goes near, Master Bell.”
    “But what about the three who live there now?”
    “They came maybe three or four months ago, spent time in town at the outset, heard about Grimwood and made inquires, and then paid for their lodgings in cash. At least that’s what’s said. For the first few weeks they was often seen in town: at the public houses, the greengrocers, the tobacconist’s in Little Barford, but then they started keeping to themselves. Those who dare to look for long up that way, say that the lights were only on in one part of the house for the first while, but then one began showing upstairs too.”
    The boy swallows.
    “Thank you,” he murmurs.
    “They’ve only ever had one visitor that folks know of. The same man come three, maybe four times: reasonably well-to-do … stood very upright when he walked, some say he had a military bearing … but he wasn’t dark-haired like you.”
    “Not who I am looking for, you think?”
    She takes his hand. “You mustn’t go there.”
    “Of course not.”
    “It’s haunted if ever a house was.”
    “I am not superstitious …”
    “If your father really is one of them, then find another way. Hide in the countryside near the village and see if they come down. They do go out on occasion, one at a time.”
    “I won’t go there. I promise.”
    She has a mother’s nose for a liar.
    “What is your name? The truth, this time.”
    “Sherlock Holmes, my lady.”
    “Master Holmes, my daughter was a free spirit like you. She liked to play up near the manor as a youngster, though her father whipped her when she did. The day she disappeared, the blacksmith said he saw her walking up the hill toward Grimwood. It is my hope … that she just ran away.”
    “I am sure she will return.”
    “May God be with you, my child.”

    The distance to Grimwood from the town is much farther than he’d assumed. In fact, it seems like he walks for an hour and the mansion keeps moving away. Only a few minutes into his journey everything grows black; the terrain is wet and marshy, then rocky for a stretch, like a moor. Far below, down near the town, the citizens of St. Neots are setting bonfires to celebrate that day, long ago, when England was saved from the villainy of the rebel, Guy Fawkes. Ghoulish faces watch the flames, like sinister little circles sitting atop devils warming themselves in the underworld. The town is alight. But up here, Sherlock fumbles his way forward in nearly complete darkness, almost blind, starting each time he hears a distant shriek or a Roman candle explode with a crack in the night. He struggles forward and the sounds fade. Finally, he arrives. Soft lights from a few windows cast lambent beams into the darkness, giving him a dim sense of what is before him. A tall granite wall with a short iron fence on top surrounds the expansive lawns. Though it isdifficult to be certain, when he stands on tiptoe and looks through the bars, he sees what appears to be a labyrinth of hedges, unkempt bushes, long grass, and forests of copper beeches and weeping willow trees, hanging down their manes like distressed giants on the sloping land. Sherlock cups his sore hands and blows on them.
    Something roars inside the walls and the boy feels as if every little hair on his neck and down his spine stands up straight.
    What, in God’s name, was that?
    It sounds exotic indeed, but before he can identify it, he hears other animals respond: growling like a pack of dogs, or even wolves.
Can that be the wind?
    Sherlock looks up at the bleak house stretching along the top of the hill. Webs of ivy grow across its surface.
    Has he lost every last one of his marbles? Is he a
lunatic
? Why doesn’t he just turn around, sleep in a field near St. Neots, and steal back onto a