GUARD THE TREASURE UNTIL OUR MASTER RETURNED. ARE YOU OUR MASTER?
“No,” said Bod.
And then, with a hopeful whine, WILL YOU BE OUR MASTER?
“I’m afraid not.”
IF YOU WERE OUR MASTER, WE COULD HOLD YOU IN OUR COILS FOREVER. IF YOU WERE OUR MASTER, WE WOULD KEEP YOU SAFE AND PROTECT YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME AND NEVER LET YOU ENDURE THE DANGERS OF THE WORLD.
“I am not your master.”
NO.
Bod felt the Sleer writhing through his mind. It said, THEN FIND YOUR NAME. And his mind was empty, and the room was empty, and Bod was alone.
Bod walked back up the stairs carefully yet quickly. He had come to a decision and needed to act fast, while the decision still burned in his mind.
Scarlett was waiting for him on the bench by the chapel. “Well?” she said.
“I’ll do it. Come on,” he said, and side by side they walked the path down to the graveyard gates.
Number 33 was a tall house, spindly-thin, in the middle of a terraced row. It was red-brick and unmemorable. Bod looked at it uncertainly, wondering why it did not seem familiar, or special. It was only a house, like any other. There was a small concreted space in front of it that wasn’t a garden, a green Mini parked on the street. The front door had once been painted a bright blue, but had been dimmed by time and the sun.
“Well?” said Scarlett.
Bod knocked on the door. There was nothing, then a clatter of feet on the stairs from inside, and the door opened to reveal an entryway and stairs. Framed in the doorway was a bespectacled man with receding grey hair, who blinked at them, then stuck out his hand at Bod, and smiled nervously, and said, “You must be Miss Perkins’s mysterious friend. Good to meet you.”
“This is Bod,” said Scarlett.
“Bob?”
“Bod. With a D,” she said. “Bod, this is Mr. Frost.”
Bod and Frost shook hands. “Kettle’s on,” said Mr. Frost. “What say we swap information over a cuppa?”
They followed him up the steps to a kitchen, where he poured three mugs of tea, then led them into a small sitting room. “The house just keeps going up,” he said. “The toilet’s on the next floor up, and my office, then bedrooms above that. Keeps you fit, all the stairs.”
They sat on a large, extremely purple sofa (“It was already here when I came”), and they sipped their tea.
Scarlett had worried that Mr. Frost would ask Bod lots of questions, but he didn’t. He just seemed excited, as if he had identified the lost gravestone of someone famous and desperately wanted to tell the world. He kept moving impatiently in his chair, as if he had something enormous to impart to them and not blurting it out immediately was a physical strain.
Scarlett said, “So what did you find out?”
Mr. Frost said, “Well, you were right. I mean, this was the house where those people were killed. And it…I think the crime was…well, not exactly hushed up, but forgotten about, let go…by the authorities.”
“I don’t understand,” said Scarlett. “Murders don’t get swept under the carpet.”
“This one was,” said Frost. He drained his tea. “There are people out there who have influence. It’s the only explanation for that, and for what happened to the youngest child…”
“And what was that?” asked Bod.
“He lived,” said Frost. “I’m sure of it. But there wasn’t a manhunt. A missing toddler normally would be national news. But they, um, they must have squashed it somehow.”
“Who are they?” asked Bod.
“The same people who had the family killed.”
“Do you know any more than that?”
“Yes. Well, a little…” Frost trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m. Look. Given what I found. It’s all too incredible.”
Scarlett was starting to feel frustrated. “What was? What did you find?”
Frost looked shamefaced. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Getting into keeping secrets. Not a good idea. Historians don’t bury things. We dig them up. Show people. Yes.” He stopped, hesitated, then he said, “I found a letter. Upstairs. It was hidden under a loose floorboard.” He turned to Bod. “Young man, would I be correct in assuming your, well, your interest in this business, this dreadful business, is personal?”
Bod nodded.
“I won’t ask any more,” said Mr. Frost, and he stood up. “Come on,” he said to Bod. “Not you, though,” to Scarlett, “not yet. I’ll show him. And if he says it’s all right, I’ll show you as well. Deal?”
“Deal,” said Scarlett.
“We won’t be long,” said Mr. Frost. “Come on, lad.”
Bod stood up, darted a concerned look at Scarlett. “It’s okay,” she said, and smiled at him as reassuringly as she could. “I’ll wait here for you.”
She watched their shadows as they walked out of the room and up the stairs. She felt nervous, but expectant. She wondered what Bod would learn, and was happy that he would learn it first. It was his story, after all. It was his right.
Out on the stairs, Mr. Frost led the way.
Bod looked around as he walked up toward the top of the house, but nothing seemed familiar. It all seemed strange.
“All the way to the very top,” said Mr. Frost. They went up another flight of stairs. He said, “I don’t—well, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but—um, you’re the boy, aren’t you?”
Bod said nothing.
“Here we are,” said Mr. Frost. He turned the key in the door at the top of the house, pushed it open, and they went inside.
The room was small, an attic room with a sloping ceiling. Thirteen years before, it had held a crib. It barely held the man and the boy.
“Stroke of luck, really,” said Mr. Frost. “Under my own nose, so to speak.” He crouched down, pulled back the threadbare carpet.
“So you know why my family were murdered?” asked Bod.
Mr. Frost said, “It’s all in here.” He reached down to a short length of floorboard and pushed at it until he was able to lever it out. “This would have been the baby’s room,” said Mr. Frost. “I’ll show you the…you know, the only thing we don’t know is just who did it. Nothing at all. We don’t have the tiniest clue.”
“We know he has dark hair,” said Bod, in the room that had once been his bedroom. “And we know that his name is Jack.”
Mr. Frost put his hand down into the empty space where the floorboard had been. “It’s been almost thirteen years,” he said. “And hair gets thin and goes gray, in thirteen years. But yes, that’s right. It’s Jack.”
He straightened up. The hand that had been in the hole in the floor was holding a large, sharp knife.
“Now,” said the man Jack. “Now, boy. Time to finish this.”
Bod stared at him. It was as if Mr. Frost had been a coat or a hat the man had been wearing, that he had now discarded. The affable exterior had gone.
The light glinted on the man’s spectacles, and on the blade of the knife.
A voice called up to them from further down the stairs—Scarlett’s. “Mr. Frost? There’s someone knocking at the front door. Should I get it?”
The man Jack only glanced away for a moment, but Bod knew that the moment was all he had, and he Faded, as completely, as utterly as he could. The man Jack looked back to where Bod had been, then stared around the room, puzzlement and rage competing on his face. He took a step further into the room, his head swinging from side to side like an old tiger scenting prey.
“You’re here somewhere,” growled the man Jack. “I can smell you!”
