The Making of Gabriel Davenport Read online

  Noah tried to stop his mind from imagining what it could be. Increasingly, he had found his brain dwelling on the affairs of The Manor instead of affairs of the church. Guilt plagued him when he went to pray. And the fire last night had unsettled him more than he thought it should.

  Carver said to meet him here, but there were no cars outside, only Ollie’s bicycle leaning against the wooden bench by the rose bushes. Noah caught a waft of scent as he ran up the steps. It was strange not being met by Ella, but Carver had insisted she stay at her sister’s for longer if she wanted to. He had a sudden mental image of The Manor as an old watch filled with cogs and springs and without Ella, it all pinged apart.

  Noah hesitated, then pushed open the front door and stood a little self-consciously in the hallway. The tick-tock of the grandfather clock seemed louder today, as though making up for the lack of other noise. Shafts of sunlight from the high window at the top of the stairs patterned the walls. From the bowels of the house came the shutting of doors and muffled voices. He called out a hello and the voices stalled, then responded.

  ‘Hi, Reverend,’ Ollie came into view, closely followed by a sheepish-looking Gabe. ‘If you’re here for the boss man, he’s out. Not quite sure where.’ Ollie’s voice seemed unnaturally bright. Gabe stared at the floor.

  ‘He wanted me to meet him here. I got a text.’

  Ollie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You had better frame that one. I didn’t think his phone had a message app.’

  Noah studied the two boys as he hung his jacket on the coat stand. There was something odd about the way they were trying to act like everything was normal. They were keeping a secret. And this house had too many of those.

  The low thrum of an engine and the crunch of gravel interrupted the slightly awkward silence in the hallway. The glass panels on either side of the door filled with blue as Olivia’s car pulled up.

  Noah’s jaw dropped as he opened the door. Carver tipped the passenger seat up to help Beth from the back. Olivia sat clasping the wheel with her forehead resting on her hands.

  ‘Liv?’ Ollie pushed his way past and ran to the car. He pulled open the door and knelt by the sill.

  ‘Beth’s cold, we need to get her inside...’ Carver’s voice tailed off as he met Noah’s gaze. His usual, brisk air had deflated like a discarded balloon.

  In Noah’s gut, an old dread stirred. He found himself pushed out of the way again as Gabe shot out of the door. There was a moment when he thought Gabe might hug Beth, but instead he took her hand in his. Her dark eyes stared into space.

  ‘Gabe, can you take Beth upstairs and find her something warmer to wear? I’ll take questions after she’s comfortable.’

  Gabe looked as if he was going to object to Carver’s request, but he clammed up and led his mother into the house.

  Noah’s jaw ached. He realised he had been clenching his teeth.

  ‘Noah, can you make tea? Or bring brandy. I don’t care which.’ Carver turned his attention to Ollie, who was helping his sister out of the car.

  ‘Ollie, take Olivia into the parlour. Don’t leave her side. I need to talk to you all before Gabe comes downstairs.’

  Noah leant against the doorframe. Things seemed to be moving unnaturally, as if in another orbit. He was right to have felt an undercurrent of foreboding as he drove here.

  Carver paused, waiting for Ollie to take his twin into the parlour. Strong sunlight filtered through the bay window, highlighting dust motes that floated through the air like tiny gold flakes, the worn leather on the wing-back chairs, the browned edges on the leaves of the aspidistra. The room suddenly looked tired as if it had wanted to die decades ago, but had been made to continue on into another century that it didn’t understand.

  Carver ran his finger over his lower lip, pressing it against his teeth. ‘Noah, I think we might be in trouble again.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Olivia Taverner lowered herself onto the leather couch opposite the hearth. It was a simple task, but her brain-to-body communication had all but ceased.

  Her brother, his face pale and drawn, knelt by her side. She didn’t remember how she’d got here from the farmhouse. Autopilot had kicked in. Shock soaked through her, chilling her to the bone. She had wanted to say that she hadn’t seen the man, had wanted to dismiss him as a trick of the light. Fear crept into her veins and froze. Olivia saw dead people, but people who had died recently, who hadn’t found their way to the crossing. Her first thought was that he must have been inside the house when it was alight. But that was impossible.

  She wasn’t sure if it was that relief that had caused her to admit that she saw him, too. But Beth’s husband had been dead for fifteen years. Why was he still in spirit and why choose now to make an entrance?

  Beth hadn’t been fazed at all. Olivia had been more than surprised that Beth understood about her gift, but it reinforced the little twinge she’d always had. The one telling her that, while the woman might be away with the fairies most of the time, she was highly intuitive.

  Noah and Carver spoke in the hallway, in hushed tones.

  Laughter drifted down from upstairs. Beth—the woman who had barely uttered a word in the four years since Olivia had been here—was laughing. Ollie squeezed her fingers, his eyes full of questions. It was broad daylight, and the sun was trying its best to convince the world it was still high summer. But Olivia felt as if the shutters had been drawn on what she knew and cracked open on what waited in the dark recesses of imagination.

  She had always been afraid of her own gift, whereas Ollie had delighted in his ability to be able to move objects even the tiniest distance. They had grown up in care, the system placing them with various foster families who were overjoyed to nurture twins. Until odd things started to happen. A particular birthday party for their reception classmates had ended with terrified parents scooping up their offspring and dashing for the door, after Ollie had made his jelly rise up from the table. A few weeks later, Olivia was found huddled in a corner of her bedroom, clutching her teddy bear and obviously upset. When questioned, she had said she didn’t like the lady in the corner with the blue tongue. Her foster parents were wakened in the middle of that same night by the rotating blue flash of an ambulance light. The woman opposite had been found strangled in her kitchen. The twins were back in care within a month.

  Ollie rarely used his talent now, and she wondered if he practised it sometimes out of sight.

  Carver came into the room and stood by the window. He hadn’t talked much to her about what she had seen. But she knew by the set of his jaw there was as much swirling about his mind as within her own.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ Ollie half raised himself and sat on the sofa arm, his hand on his sister’s shoulder.

  ‘Wait for Noah,’ Carver answered. Ollie opened his mouth to speak but Olivia quietened him with a glance.

  They could all hear the sounds from the kitchen, the shushing noise as the kettle began to boil, the opening of cupboard doors and the clink of earthenware on the table. Normal sounds. Let’s make tea, it solves everything. Olivia gritted her teeth.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Noah came through, carrying a tray full of mugs and a packet of ginger biscuits. He set the tray on the table as Gabe appeared. Carver sighed, a tiny exhale of breath.

  ‘She’s sleeping,’ Gabe said, to no one in particular. ‘But she’s happy, like really happy. What happened out there?’ This last was to Carver.

  ***

  How much to say?

  Carver looked at the expectant faces, all with their gazes firmly fixed on him. Usually, he revelled in these moments. He was a true patriarch and lived for the times when his family were close and awaiting whatever pearls of wisdom tripped from his tongue. But this was different. Part of him knew this day would come, even after all of this time. His old mentor had once told him nothing supernatural happens at random. It always has an agenda, be it in another week or another hundred years.

  �
�Beth wasn’t in her room when I checked this morning. We found her at the farmhouse.’ He squeezed Gabe’s shoulder. ‘Hear me out, Gabriel. You can ask any questions you want afterwards.’ The boy threw his hands up in frustration but kept quiet.

  ‘She was fine, animated, if anything. She told us that she heard a baby cry.’ Noah’s eyes met Gabe’s. ‘Then she asked Olivia if she could see the man inside the wreckage.’

  Carver kept his eyes fixed on Gabe. He had said he was okay about the fire at breakfast, but that was clearly not the case now. His shoulders trembled and his blue eyes darkened with anger.

  Noah grabbed his arm. ‘Please Gabe, a few minutes.’

  ‘Beth said the man was your father, Gabe. And yes, I saw him too,’ said Olivia quietly. Any qualms Carver might have had about not telling Gabriel that part were stamped on. This was the kind of day where tact had decided to stay in bed.

  The colour drained from Gabe’s face.

  Noah reached for a mug of coffee and handed it to him. ‘Drink this. And yes, it has a healthy dose of brandy in it. I don’t think this is the time to start worrying about alcohol.’

  Gabe grasped it in two hands, his fingers curling tight around it as though it could save him.

  ‘Does this mean we should be on high alert?’ said Ollie. His usual studious expression had been replaced by a quieter, somehow older, mask.

  ‘We should always be on alert, all of us.’ Carver’s gaze swept the room again. ‘I don’t know why Stu should choose now to materialise, but we can’t ignore it.’

  ‘I might know why.’ Olivia pulled the cushion out from behind her back and hugged it to her chest. ‘The fire, it wasn’t an accident. I set it.’

  A tangible shock wave reverberated around the room.

  Gabe dropped his mug. It fell to the floor, its contents puddling on the worn, red rug.

  ‘What gave you the right to do that?’ Gabe clenched his fists by his side. Although his voice was quiet, anger hung on every word.

  ‘Gabriel...’ Noah held out his hand.

  ‘Don’t, just don’t!’ Gabe spun round. His dark eyes flashed.

  ‘I had a reason, let me explain.’ Olivia tried to intervene, but the look Gabe gave her would have withered a lesser mortal.

  Carver’s orderly world tipped off its axis.

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. Do you realise what you’ve done?’ He was a few feet away from her now, not caring what flew out of his mouth, consumed by hurt and disbelief. ‘You took away the only thing I had left that was normal. The only place where my family was happy.’

  He strode from the room, slamming the door behind him. Olivia flinched and Ollie’s frown deepened.

  ‘Leave him to digest it all,’ said Carver. ‘It’s all been a huge shock. I didn’t quite envisage everything being put on the table like this. But now it’s out in the open, we have to deal with it.’ He took a mug from the tray and gulped the contents.

  ‘Miss Taverner,’ he focused his attention on the girl barricading herself behind the cushion. ‘You had better have an excellent reason for setting that fire.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Hot, angry tears welled up in Gabe’s eyes. He knew he was acting like a child, but that didn’t stop them. He thumped up the stairs and into his room, shutting the door with such force that his windows rattled. He hadn’t meant to lash out at Olivia, or maybe he had, things had suddenly gone into free-fall and he didn’t have a parachute.

  Ollie’s questions in the vault had been cut short. The echo of Noah’s car running over the cattle grid on the narrow track outside The Manor announced his arrival, in just time enough for them both to get to the main house. Gabe could still feel his cheeks burning as he followed Ollie up the stone steps. He had no answer that would possibly get him out of this pit he had dug for himself. It had all seemed so easy in his mind. He would discover what had really happened when he was a baby, and Carver, Noah, and the rest of the house would be amazed at his determination and sheer brilliance. They would all live together happily and he would find a cure to bring Beth out from her twilight world.

  He threw himself face down on the bed and let the pillow soak up his tears. How could he face everyone again? Ever since he was little, Carver had reinforced the golden rule that the house ran on teamwork. He should have listened to what Olivia had to say, and then laid into her if the explanation was pathetic. The reasoning side of his brain was trying very hard to gain the winning hand, but deep down, he was seething. He let the dark, viscous thoughts churn to the surface and bit into his pillow.

  For a long time, he had mulled over why his family had been targeted by evil. But any leads had come to a grinding halt with his mother’s descent into her own make-believe world. Mother. Gabe had never called her that, only in his mind as they sat gazing out of the window. She didn’t know who he was and that fact cut so deep into his heart, it might as well have been carved in two. Two separate chambers: one ruling his everyday tasks and how he let others perceive him, and one that hid, encased in ice and rarely thawed.

  Years ago, he had overheard Ella talking to her sister on the phone. ‘It was heart breaking, the way the poor mite squirmed to get out of Beth’s arms. As if he knew she was changed.’

  The only clue was the wooden box Noah had found when the snow finally melted. Upended on the lawn and looking sorry for itself, the hinges rusted solid and the varnish peeling away from its lid. Carver said he had investigated thoroughly, had researched long and hard for any clue, but he had come up with nothing. It could have been simply something his mother kept seeds in, forgotten in the autumn clear up. Noah had told him about the piled-up furniture and he still remembered the sliver of ice that ran down his spine at that moment. He must have been about seven. Growing up in a house where the words ‘intelligent haunting’ and ‘demonic apparition’ were as common as ‘what’s for dinner?’ it took quite a lot to faze him, but this, this was personal.

  He felt safe cocooned here, though. Ella fussed over him like an adopted aunt and Carver never treated him as a child, or as someone too small to understand. The danger of what went on here had been firmly ingrained from an early age. He knew there were certain places in the house which were off limits, but that never worried him. It was vast, with rooms aplenty to play in and grounds perfect for any child’s imagination to run riot.

  One day, he had asked why he didn’t go to school—not because he wanted to go, but because he was curious. Carver said he had decided home schooling would benefit him more. Gabe had a quick and intelligent mind. He could read fluently by the time he was four. Carver had a teaching diploma, something he had picked up when he didn’t have any idea what he wanted to do with his life. It turned out to be a useful acquisition.

  Gabe’s curriculum was diverse. Carver instilled in him the importance of learning, he thrived on the complexities of Latin and Greek, of Egyptian history, of civilisations long lost to the world. Children his own age baffled him and Noah gave up trying to forge him friendships.

  He thought he knew how to fix all the questions everyone had. But really, if he thought about it properly, what would he have looked for if he had managed to get inside of the vault?

  Still, the knowledge that the last thing that had tethered his family to the earth was now a burnt-out shell stung so badly, he could feel it piercing his skin like tiny venomous needles. No one knew he slipped out to visit, that he spent hours staring at the frontage imagining his mother playing with his infant self and his father.....what? All he had of his father was a few photos and some tarnished silver cuff links. Hard to make an image out of that. What would his life be now, if none of this had happened? He raised himself up onto one elbow, half wanting to go downstairs and face the music and half wanting to crawl under the covers and hide.

  Beth slept in the room across the landing. If he concentrated, he could still hear her laughter in his mind. It was beautiful. Today, his father had returned too. If he had gone with Carver and Olivia, would
he have seen him? Gabe tried to take stock of his feelings. There was no reason he would have seen him. He didn’t have Olivia’s gift.

  Envy and anger descended like a red mist and obscured his vision, obliterating any common sense. He snatched a glass paperweight from the windowsill and hurled it at the wall. It rebounded with a dull thud and fell onto the floor. Apart from a dent in the plaster work, it was intact. He couldn’t even do that right.

  ‘Fuck it!’ His voice echoed around the room, probably loud enough to be heard downstairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In the parlour, the echo of Gabriel’s exit still hung heavy in the air. Noah mopped up the spilt coffee with a tea towel just to do something.

  ‘Ella will think you’re after her job,’ Carver said, but there was no warmth in his tone.

  Olivia sat bolt upright in the chair as though sitting and relaxing might open her up to more accusations. Ollie’s hand still rested on her shoulder. Her fingers busied themselves twirling the satin tassels on the cushion.

  Used to a lifetime of consoling distraught parishioners and injecting hope into hopeless circumstances, Noah spoke first. ‘In your own time, Olivia. Maybe start with why you felt like you had to do it. The how you did it can come after.’ In the back of his mind, he wondered if the fire officers would find anything in the shell to link her to it. He remembered her certainty that there was no one inside.

  She chewed her bottom lip, and took a deep breath. In the silence, it seemed an intake of courage. ‘The house was a link, even though none of the original party lived there.’ She resorted to the impersonal professional speak Carver had taught her. ‘I went over your research,’ her eyes fell to her mentor, who seemed relaxed, but Noah could tell from the set of his shoulders that he was far from it. ‘From what I could fathom, you hinted the entity could always return to its base if it needed to and the base remained.’