The Hunt for the Seventh

PROLOGUE

SOMEBODY DIED HERE ONCE. I’m convinced of it. Somewhere here, in this huge garden. I feel them watching me.

It happens at odd times when I’m feeding the peacocks or helping Dad burn the fallen leaves. The back of my neck will prickle. My hands will go sweaty. Turn around slowly, I’ll think. There is someone behind me. But when I turn around, there is never anyone there.

I can’t tell Sal: she’d just get hysterical. Then I’d get into trouble for trying to scare my little sister again. And I can’t tell Dad. He’d only think it was Mom. He’d get ill again; he’d sit like a stone for hours; he’d stop shaving, stop eating again. He’d lose this new job.

Me? Above all, I’d love it to be Mom. I’d give anything to be able to look up and see her there just one more time. But it’s not Mom. She would never want to scare me.

It’s a child, I think, because they seem to like playing games. They take me by surprise by rearranging the flowerpots or setting the swing swaying under the apple tree. But that’s happened only twice. Most of the time they just creep up behind me. They move up very close. I can hear their breathing, sometimes even feel it on my neck.

The first time it happened was when the old gardener, Harold, was showing Dad around that very first day. It was windy, and they were struggling to keep the maps from flapping away across the lawns. We were in the Tudor Garden. Sal was skipping her way down the paths.

I was standing behind a cherub fountain, when suddenly I heard it. A breath; a soft footstep came up close behind me.

I peered out from behind the statue. I walked all around it twice. I was alone.

Yet I heard someone speak. It sounded like a young girl’s voice—such a small, cold whisper.

Find the Seventh! she said.

Then the old gardener laughed at something Dad had said, and they strode off, maps flapping in their hands like struggling birds.

Find the Seventh.

I’ve described it all, except for the fear. The instant dry mouth. The sweat that forms. The tears that prickle. The sickly feeling. Whoever it is who is watching me in the garden I’d rather not find at all.

But I can’t tell Sal or Dad.

I don’t know what to do.

CHAPTER ONE

WE’VE BEEN GIVEN some rooms all the way at the top of the south turret. They are the old embroidery rooms and the seamstresses’ quarters from centuries ago. The retiring gardener showed us up some old back stairs that led from the kitchen. Then we came to a small landing with several doors leading off. One of these led to a narrow spiral staircase. We struggled up it with the suitcases.

"Always always use the back stairs, said the old gardener. The master hates to meet up with anyone. Phew! Nearly there."

We came out into a long circular corridor with doors lining it. One by one he opened them, and we followed him into each curved room.

I’ve never lived in a turret before. I’ll feel like a medieval knight! First, the bedrooms. The biggest one is for Dad. Mine and Sal’s are crummy, small things, both leading off the living room. Sal instantly claimed the best one for herself. In my room there was nothing much except for a wonky bookshelf, filled with dusty old encyclopedias. One of them was being used to prop up one leg of a wobbly chair. The whole thing didn’t look very promising. On the living room floor was a cat dish with some old tuna caked in it.

Suki’s vanished, Harold said. Sulking, no doubt! She hates change. If she shows up, I’ve left my phone number on the kitchen bulletin board.

Sally looked around with her nose screwed up. "It’s kind of…smelly!" she said. (At ten she is much too fussy about Everything.)

Next, we filed into a tiny kitchen and then a bathroom, with a dripping shower over an ancient bathtub. Then back to the chilly living room. And two tiny storerooms. Back in the curved corridor Dad sat down on a suitcase.

It’ll do, he said.

There was one door left unopened. I stared at it. What’s through there? I asked.

Harold glanced at it briefly. Through there? Nothing.

How can there be nothing? It’s a door!

It’s locked, said Harold, as if that settled it. I’ve never bothered with it myself.

But I didn’t quite like the way he said it, as if he didn’t want to be asked any awkward questions. Well, who has the key? I insisted.

Harold frowned down at me. If there’s one thing the master dislikes more than children, it’s questions! You’ll find out when you meet him later. He nodded darkly to Dad. And you two, you’d best keep your mouths shut around him, that’s for sure.

I opened my mouth again, but Dad cut me short. That’s enough, Jim! said Dad. Let it go now.

He looked tired. Gray. So I let it go.

But it didn’t let me go.

Find the Seventh! a young girl’s voice whispered, right at my ear.

I glanced back at the door before scuttling to catch up with Dad in the living room. I was too scared to be out here by myself, even for a few seconds.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like it here at all.

It was almost bedtime by the time we were finally summoned to the master’s study. The royal summons. We walked nervously through the Grand Hall, upstairs, and along the echoing corridors. The passages were lit by dim lamps or, in more remote places, just the tiny glow of emergency lights set into the ceilings.

The only sounds were the ticking of the many clocks we passed. Every so often as we walked along, I heard the faint whirring of something small, set high into the walls. This puzzled me until I glanced back and spotted the small electric red dot of a security camera as it swiveled our way.

I wondered who was watching us.

The butler met us at the top of a long flight of stairs. With an impassive face, he ushered us into a dim study and closed the doors on us. Now we were alone, just us and Lord Louis Minerva III.

He was sitting in his wheelchair in front of a huge log fire—a grumpy-looking old man with a glass of amber brandy in one hand. He gestured us to step forward into his golden halo of firelight. When he smiled at us, his eyes were cold and filled with dislike. He made me think of a lizard.

Mr. Brown—and your delightful children! Do come in. I trust your rooms are sufficient?

Perfectly, thank you, sir, said Dad.

I glanced around the room. One whole wall held screen after screen, the monitors of a vast closed-circuit TV system. Each screen flickered with ghostly images of various parts of the grounds. There was the great staircase. And the calm face of the lake. And the gatehouse with its flag, floodlit, on top.

The only light came from the flickering fire and those screens flashing a cold silver from frame to frame. I began to feel as if I’d stepped into some old silent movie.

Lord Minerva gestured Sal and me to step even closer. He regarded us silently. This made both of us fidget. Eventually he gestured toward the screens.

I don’t get out much these days, he said with a tight little smile. Nevertheless, as you can see, I am in complete control of my entire estate. I have eyes everywhere, some of them hidden. I trust I shall not have cause to regret your coming here.

He was staring more at me than at Sal. I got the impression there was something about me he didn’t like at all.

No doubt you will want to explore your new home, he said. "But may I remind you that this is my home, not yours. Your home, for now, is in the rooms at the top of the south turret. As for my home, there are only certain areas that are open to the public. The rest of Minerva Hall is roped off. You are forbidden to go beyond those boundaries. Do I make myself clear?"

Yes, sir, I said. Sal nodded and stared down at the carpet. I could feel her begin to tremble slightly by my side.

I didn’t blame her. He was a scary man. His face was filled with dislike. His eyes were dark, sharp, and piercing. Sal swallowed hard.

Dad, for once, picked up our unease. He stepped forward.

My children’s names are James and Sally, he said. I think you’ll find, sir, that they won’t go anywhere they shouldn’t.

I nudged Sal. We’d heard it, the clipped, polite way Dad talks to people he really does not like.

James and Sally, eh? Lord Minerva observed. There was something slightly mocking in the way he said our names. He seemed to hate us already. Well, James and Sally, take a good look at these closed-circuit TV screens there. Your father comes here on a trial basis. It would be a pity if you two were to mess things up for him—especially after his recent bereavement.

I felt my face going red. I hated the way he mentioned Mom like that…so coldly. I hated him. We glared at each other, he and I, until he turned his mean little eyes away at last.

And now, Brown, if you would be so kind as to ring for Montague? Just pull that bellpull there. He will escort you back to the main staircase.

Dad pulled the embroidered bellpull beside the fire. The door opened instantly, and the butler came in. I got the distinct impression he had been listening at the door.

If you would please follow me? said he, very crisp and polite.

We filed out after him, strangely unsettled.

That night I lay awake, too scared to sleep.

It wasn’t just the whispers I’d already heard. It was the feeling of such a massive, ancient house creaking all about me, the many dimly heard clocks chiming the night away. It was spooky, to say the least.

When Dad first told us he was going to be the Head Gardener at Minerva Hall, I’d never imagined a place as big as this. It’s almost a castle, with four turrets and thousands of mullioned windows. There are sixty-two main rooms, apparently, and Good Queen Anne once came and slept her fat body in one of them. So people come and stare pointlessly at the enormous royal bed and then traipse around certain sections of the Hall.

At last on that first night I sat up in bed. It was hot and stuffy, so I went to the window and struggled to pull it open. The grounds were lit by floodlights here and there. I could just make out the dozens of white tourist signposts, which I knew pointed to the Tudor Garden or to the Elizabethan Gardens or to the great hothouses.

I let my eyes roam to the distant lake. Its face was quiet and calm. There was a tiny island in the middle of it, I noticed, filled with small trees. I wondered if there might possibly be a rowboat I could use. I made up my mind to try to explore the island, whether the master disapproved or not.

An owl hooted far away as I continued looking at it all. Nearer the house I could see the dark corner of the kitchen garden with all its hundreds of herb pots. There were the orchards, where the cook got fruits to make her famous chutneys and jams, to be sold in the gift shop.

The moon suddenly came out from behind the clouds and lit up the strange shapes of the Topiary Garden, its hedges trimmed into the forms of castles or chessmen or cockerels. There was a bear pit somewhere too, I suddenly remembered, a real bear pit, where a real bear used to be chained up during Victorian days. And somewhere there was an enormous maze that people could get lost in for hours and hours.

And there were statues, statues everywhere. The old man loved his statues. Everywhere I looked there was another! They gave me the creeps, standing there so white and silent all over the estate.

Of course, I’d seen some of these already as we’d explored. Sal and I had tried to count them all, but we lost count after 103. There were statues of haughty queens and marbled giants who glowered over high hedges. Turning a corner of the Rose Garden, we came across groups of centaurs and archers, their muscles rippling. In one spooky section leading to the lake we’d found a row of hooded men who looked like monks. Their carved sandaled feet seemed to follow one another down the gravel paths soundlessly, their hands clasped in prayer.

My eyes traveled outward to the far edge of the estate. Somewhere in those dark trees stood a small family chapel. Harold had warned us about it. "No one is allowed in there. It’s private, he’d said. Don’t go anywhere near it. And don’t go getting in Cook’s way, either."

That’s another thing: People don’t seem to use names here. Just their occupations. Cook is really named Mrs. Benson. But everyone just calls her Cook. It’s the same with them all.

Cook.

Second Cook.

Head Housemaid.

Master’s Personal Butler.

Head Chambermaid.

The list goes on and on. Then there’s a whole gaggle of Parlormaids.

But there’s only one Head Gardener. That’s Dad. He has a few undergardeners to help him, but they’re only part-timers, so he’s already worried that all this will be way too much for one man to do. Then, of course, there’s Head Gardener’s Boy. (That’s me. Sal doesn’t even get a title. There’s no such thing as Head Gardener’s Girl.)

I’m the only boy here. Well, so they said. But I know they were lying. There is definitely another boy here. Just after supper, when I went out to feed the peacocks, I spotted him sneaking into the maze.

It was dusk. The last of the tourists had just gone; the huge gates had swung closed for the night.

He looked a bit younger than me. Ten, eleven maybe? He wore a scruffy red fleece and dirty jeans. He was small and walked in a funny, plodding way, lifting his feet up too high. It was as if he were treading in glue and didn’t want his feet to get stuck. I called out to him, but he totally ignored me. I know he heard me, though, because he glanced around, then slunk into the maze anyway.

I decided I might go there the next night, go right into the maze and lie in wait, in case he came again. I would hide in the middle and jump out at him when he arrived. That would serve him right for ignoring me!

On that first night, as I stared over the grounds from my chilly turret window, something caught my eye. It was a small movement, a shadow, over there by the lake.

The moon went behind a cloud, and all I could see was what looked like a small, bent figure in black. But when the clouds moved on, it was gone. Something about this made me feel uneasy, unsafe.

Was there someone out there, creeping about? What was he doing? Was it the boy? Or someone else?

I thought again of that cold, urgent whisper I’d heard in the corridor, from someone I couldn’t see.

Find the Seventh!

The Seventh what?

As I climbed back into bed, I found I was shaking. The whispered words wouldn’t leave me. The cold whisper kept running around and around my head. Had I really heard it? I knew that I had. I just couldn’t make sense of it.

It goes without saying that it was a long, long night.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEXT MORNING I heard the missing cat. It was meowing sadly, over and over. The sound was coming from the locked room.

It must be Harold’s cat! She must have gotten fed up with sulking and was looking for him in his old rooms.

Me, me, me! cried the cat, over and over.

I put my eye to the keyhole. There was nothing but a faint gloom. The thought of her starving to death in there was horrible.

I turned and ran to find Dad, down the spiral stairs, down and down in that great house with shadows and windows flashing past. I ran into the kitchen, where Dad was kneeling, fiddling with something in the corner.

Dad! I panted. I’ve found Suki, Harold’s cat! She’s meowing like mad!

The cook was there. She looked up from the stove, where the spout of the huge kettle gave off gentle wisps of steam.

"Dad, come on! We have to let her out; she’s in the locked room—she’ll be starving. Mrs. Benson, have you got any tuna?"

Mrs. Benson just shook her head, staring at me. You heard a cat? she said. In the locked room?

Why on earth was she looking at me like that? Meanwhile, Dad turned to face me. Found Suki? he said. I don’t think so, Jim. Look!

By his side was an old cat basket he’d just finished tying with rope. Inside was a black cat, settling down onto a blanket.

Meet Suki, said Dad. The butcher found her when he delivered the weekly meat. She was stuck in the cold store. She’s a bit chilly but hardly starving. She’s as fat as a pig!

She lay there, a smug thief, purring. Mrs. Benson poured hot water into a mop bucket.

That cat always was greedy, she said. "I’ll have to scrub the whole place down with disinfectant. Filthy animal! Sausages and chops scattered all over the place, and I can’t begin to tell you what she did on the floor!"

She clattered off indignantly with a mop, along the passageway and into the cold store. I followed her in.

It was