House of the Lost

CHAPTER TEN

Romania, early 1970s

The lane winding up to the Black House was narrow and lonely. A spiteful little wind blew through the trees, like somebody sobbing somewhere in the darkness. The trees partly screened the house, but the lane twisted and turned sharply so that little bits of it kept coming into view and then vanishing. Each time this happened the house was a bit nearer, until the jeep went round the last curve of the track and they came out into a clearing and there it was, rearing up in front of them.

It was built out of harsh black stone, and all the walls seemed to be leaning in the wrong direction so it looked twisted. It was surrounded by blackness – a thick oozing darkness like black goblin juice bleeding into the sky, shutting out all the light for ever. Old trees grew right up to it, and some of the upper branches leaned down to the windows like bony fingers trying to get inside. There were bars at some of the windows, and shutters closed over others as if it might be empty, but when the men pulled Mara from the jeep, she saw a thin curl of smoke coming from one of the chimneys.

At the centre of the building was a thick iron-studded door, and when one man pulled on a bell rope it made a dry rusty scraping inside the house like bones rattling together. There was the sound of footsteps, somebody fumbled with a bolt or a lock, and a woman wearing a grey dress opened the door. Her face was pale as if she did not go into the fresh air very often, and she was thin and sharp-featured. She took Mara into the bad-smelling dimness of the house, closing the door with a heavy clanging sound and turning the key in the lock. Mara gave a sobbing gasp and tried to pull her hand free, but the woman held her too tightly. In a sharp angry voice that made Mara think of tiny hard pebbles, she said, ‘None of that, now.’

‘Please – why am I here?’ said Mara, desperately. She saw the woman look down at her in surprise as if she was not used to being questioned, and this brought some of the courage back. ‘I won’t try to run away, but tell me why I’ve been brought here.’ Greatly daring, she said, ‘Who are you?’

At first she thought the woman was not going to answer, but then she said, ‘My name is Zoia – no need for any other name. I look after everything inside the Black House. As to why you’re here – see now, you’re eight, aren’t you?’

‘Nearly nine.’ Mara thought this sounded a lot older than eight.

‘Then that’s not too young for you to understand what goes on in the world. You’re what they call a pawn.’

Pawns were something in a game that clever people played for hours and hours at a time, taking it very seriously. Mara did not really understand what the woman meant, but she was not going to let her know that, so she said, ‘Why am I a pawn?’

‘There are important people who need to know certain things,’ said Zoia. ‘Things your very particular friend knows.’ She grinned nastily as she said this, as if the word friend meant something different to her.

‘Friend?’ But Mara had already guessed who Zoia meant.

‘Your friend Matthew. Those important people want to find out the secrets from him. The Party doesn’t allow secrets, so they tried bargaining with him – you know what a bargain is, do you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘The bargain was that if Matthew told them all the secrets, you would be allowed to go back to your home. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes. Matthew will tell them whatever they want,’ said Mara, confidently. ‘As soon as he knows it’s to rescue me, he’ll tell them. Only I’m not sure if he knows any secrets,’ she said, suddenly doubtful.

‘It’s not Matthew who has the secrets, you silly little girl, it’s his father,’ said Zoia. ‘It’s Andrei. He’s the one they need to know about.’

‘Why?’ But even as Mara spoke she was remembering the whispers about Matthew’s father, and she remembered all the things her grandmother had said.

‘Andrei Valk is what we call “an enemy of the people”,’ said Zoia. ‘That’s a very wicked thing to be. You’re not too young to start learning that, either.’ She tightened her grip on Mara’s hand and took her along a corridor and up a long flight of stairs. ‘You’re to be kept here,’ she said. ‘If your friend talks, you’ll go home. If not, you’ll stay.’

They went up another flight of stairs. The walls were dingy, and there were wall lamps every few metres. Mara thought they were lamps that burned oil: her grandmother told how there had been oil lamps in the house where she had lived as a girl, but they were a terrible nuisance and, if you did not clean them properly, they began to smell. The oil lamps in the Black House smelled as if they had not been cleaned for a hundred years: it was a fatty, greasy smell like rancid butter. A few of them were lit and burning with a thick smeary yellow light, and several dripped with hot bad-smelling oil which ran down the walls. In the narrow passage they looked like yellow lidless eyes peering down to watch everything that happened, with tears oozing out.

‘In here,’ said Zoia and, opening a door at the end of the corridor, she thrust Mara inside.

Beyond the door was a big room – bigger than any room Mara had ever seen. There was grimy plasterwork near the ceiling with cobwebs hanging from the corners, and a smeary bluish light came in from two narrow windows set high up near the ceiling. Six or seven iron beds stood along the wall but no one was sleeping in any of them – Mara could not decide if this was a good thing or not. At the far end was a huge elaborate fireplace with a squat black stove where the fire would normally be, and a wide grille at the front like a grinning mouth, big enough for a person to be fed into.

‘Into bed.’

‘But it isn’t my bedtime.’ Mara had no idea where she had found the courage to say this, but the small show of defiance made her feel brave for a moment.

‘Times don’t matter in here,’ said Zoia. ‘You’ll be less trouble if you’re in bed. You’ll be fed when it’s tomorrow morning. The lavatory’s along the passage, so no dirty wet bed, mind. There’s a punishment for wet beds in this place. There’re punishments in this place for a lot of things.’ She did not say this as if she enjoyed telling about punishments or as if she was threatening Mara. She simply said it, then went out closing the door behind her.

Until now Mara had managed not to cry, but alone in this terrible room tears sprang uncontrollably to her eyes and she huddled against the pillow, sobbing miserably. But then she remembered about being brave and getting back to her brother, so she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, took off her shoes, and got under the covers. The bed was uncomfortable with scratchy stale-smelling sheets, but the sooner she went to sleep, the sooner morning would come and they would let her go home. Matthew had probably told them the secrets already; Mara thought this ought to make her feel better.

But she did not feel better at all. She felt frightened and lost. The wind breathed gustily in the room’s massive stone chimney, and there were little rustlings and tappings as if something was trying to get in. The faraway ceiling had fungus growing on it, like the mushrooms Mara and her brother sometimes gathered in the autumn and toasted on the fire for supper, and her bed was under a really big bit of mushroomy growth. If she went to sleep it might break off and fall on her face and smother her.

I can’t bear this, she thought suddenly. I can’t lie here like this all night – I won’t lie here like this. With the thought, anger came surging up, and she looked about her, trying to see if there was any way of getting out without anyone knowing. The door of this room was not locked; could she tiptoe through the darkness and find a door leading outside? Sister Teresa at school said if you were frightened you should take several deep breaths and ask God to help you, so Mara took several deep breaths and asked God to help her get out of the Black House. If she could get back to Three Lanes Cottage she would be safe. Even if the men came looking for her again, her grandmother would help her hide and this time it would be a proper hiding place where she would not be found. Or she would run away for miles and miles and no one would know where she had gone.

She had not undressed because she had not had anything to undress into, so she pushed back the blankets, slid her feet into her shoes, and tiptoed across the room to the door. If anyone caught her she would say she was going to the lavatory. Zoia had said it was along the passage so it would be a reasonable thing to be doing.

The door made a scraping sound, and Mara waited, but nothing stirred so she slipped out into the dark passage, closing the door behind her. All she had to do was find her way to the ground floor, and look for an unlocked door or even a window. Once she was outside she would run down the hillside as fast as her legs could carry her. But the Black House was so big and so full of puzzling corridors and shadowy echoing halls that Mara began to panic. As she went warily through the shadows, glancing back over her shoulder every few minutes, the oil lamps stared down at her, and the Black House sighed and creaked to itself. She crept down the stairs, trying not to listen to the whispery echoes, and was just thinking the main staircase with the panelled walls should be ahead when she became aware of a sound that made her skin prickle with terror. Footsteps. Someone was walking through the dark corridors of the Black House. Zoia?

Mara did not wait to hear if the footsteps were coming towards her; she fled into the darkness, not caring where she went, only intent on finding somewhere to hide. She was out of breath and her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might burst out of her chest. She could no longer hear the footsteps, but there was another sound now, which was not the wind moaning in the chimneys or the windows rattling. Mara’s skin prickled and she forgot about escaping and hiding from the footsteps, because this was a thin crying. It made her think of her brother, because it was how he used to cry when he was very small and afraid of the dark. Was it children she was hearing? Very young children, frightened or in pain?

She was in a narrow, stone-floored passage, and the crying seemed to be coming from behind a door a little way ahead of her. It’ll be locked, thought Mara, staring at the door. Even if it isn’t, it won’t lead outside, and I’ve got to find a door that leads outside. I mustn’t think about anything else. She was starting to feel unreal, almost as if she might be asleep and inside a nightmare that had a fairystory mixed up in it.

She had not meant to open the door, but another sound came that changed her mind. The footsteps were coming back and now they were coming straight towards her. In panic, Mara reached for the handle of the door.

She tumbled instantly into a nightmare far worse than anything she had ever dreamed in her whole life. The thin sad crying had prepared her for the sight of children, but it had not prepared her for what was beyond the door.

A windowless chamber, very like the one she had been taken to earlier, but with a grey light filtering in from somewhere, showing up damp-looking walls. There was straw on the floor and several of the oil lamps hung from the walls. The room was divided into sections by iron grilles – frameworks made up of bars that did not reach all the way up to the ceiling, but created four or five enclosures, each one open-fronted but each one forming an unmistakable shape. Cages, thought Mara in disbelief. They’re cages like you’d have for animals.

But these cages did not contain animals, they contained children. Each cage held two small figures and there was just enough room for them to sit up and lie down. Most of them were little more than babies, and she had a sudden vivid image of her brother at this age, and how he had crawled at top-speed across the floor of the cottage, chuckling as he went, delighted with his own ability. Mara and her grandmother had laughed with him, snatching things out of his way so he could not knock them over or cannon into furniture. But these children could not do that; they could not toddle or crawl, because there was no room. All they could do was sit or lie in the tiny space inside the bars. This was dreadful, it was dreadful.

Several were crying with thin wailing sounds, but they stopped when they saw her and turned their heads, curious at this small interruption. Bright intelligence shone from most of their faces and several of them held out their hands. Mara wanted to run to them and take their little hands in hers and comfort them, but she did not dare.

The pity of it all slammed into her throat like a fist, and tears stung her eyes because these mites were so tiny, so helpless, and most of them were so pretty under the uncombed hair and shapeless grey garments. A scalding anger burned up, and she clenched her fists and made a silent vow to the children. I can’t help you now, said Mara to them, not this very minute, I can’t. But if I get away from here I’ll tell people about you. I’ll tell what I’ve seen and you’ll be rescued – I promise you’ll be rescued, even if it takes years and years.

She stepped back from the terrible room and closed the door. She was still trembling from seeing the room with the children, and had almost forgotten about escaping and about the footsteps. But to her horror, Zoia was standing in the narrow passageway. In a voice like a nail scratching across tin, she said, ‘It’s a pity you tried to run away, Mara. We don’t let people run away from here. It’s an even greater pity you snooped into that room because we don’t like people knowing the Black House’s secrets. Especially when we aren’t told secrets in return.’

Mara managed to say, ‘Matthew will tell you the secrets, I know he will.’ She tried to speak bravely but her voice came out muffled and hiccupy.

‘I hope he does. But until then, you’ll have to learn a lesson,’ said Zoia. ‘A lesson that will show you what can happen to snooping children who see things they shouldn’t, and who won’t share their secrets.’