Chapter Three #4
Back in the main courtyard, he searched the darkness with mounting unease.
He saw the two girls, arm in arm, by the ruined west wall.
Their shadows danced, confusing him, but a second later Toby spotted his brother.
He froze. Theo came up behind him; she gasped and grabbed his sleeve, but Toby couldn’t move. The blood hammered in his ears.
Theo ran across the courtyard with her heart in her mouth. Kit had climbed a section of the ruined wall. Far, far too high. Earlier that day he’d come close to falling. If he did so now, there was no hope of landing without injury.
‘Missy!’ Kit waved his arms. ‘Missy! Look – I said I could do it!’
‘Kit!’ Theo called. ‘Do come down, at once!’
He didn’t seem to hear, or even to notice her. She barrelled into Missy and Joanna, who were arm in arm, heads together, whispering.
‘Watch out, clumsy ox,’ Missy said.
‘Missy! Missy!’ Kit called.
Missy took another swig of cider and walked away.
‘Kit, listen to me – please climb down!’ Theo cried. ‘It isn’t safe – the walls aren’t solid!’
Kit made a small, desperate sound, his eyes fixed on Missy.
‘Missy! Help me!’ Theo hissed.
Missy looked at her blearily. ‘What do you expect me to do? He got himself up there . . .’
Theo stared at her, aghast.
Missy rolled her eyes. ‘If we all go off over that way,’ – she pointed – ‘he’s bound to come down and follow us, isn’t he?’ She linked arms with Joanna again. ‘Come on. You’ll see.’
Theo couldn’t. On the other side of the courtyard, Toby was still rooted to the spot. Why didn’t he come and help?
‘Kit, please come down!’ she begged. ‘Stop waving your arms about – you’ll fall!’
But Kit only had eyes for Missy, now holding hands with Joanna and spinning her around.
His mouth worked in silent anguish. Theo’s heart was pummelling.
She glanced over her shoulder again and saw, with a burst of relief, that Toby was finally on his way over, sprinting through the darkness.
It would be unimaginably awful if Kit got hurt.
Toby would never forgive her – she would never forgive herself. Her throat was too dry to swallow.
A small chunk of masonry hit the grass behind her.
She looked up, and saw Kit crouching, searching. She thought for a moment that he was readying himself to climb down, and that his feet had dislodged the loose piece of stone. But then he straightened again.
‘Missy, look at me!’ he cried, raising his hand.
‘Don’t—’ Theo began.
The stone described a smooth arc against the stars. Theo lost sight of it before it landed, but she heard the quiet, muffled percussion when it did.
Missy sank to the ground as though her strings had been cut.
Toby reached the foot of the wall with his skull buzzing. After the horribly long time he’d been paralysed his mind was now clear, and focused completely on getting his brother to safety. Kit had stopped flailing his arms, at least. He gathered himself.
‘Christopher Meriwether.’ He used the tone that said he wasn’t playing any more, that the fun was definitely over, that Kit had overstepped the mark. ‘Come down from there, immediately.’
With a whimper, Kit looked down at him and then back at the trio of girls, two of them fussing over the third. He wobbled, and Toby held his breath. If Kit stepped backwards for balance, he would fall. Toby’s knees ached. He felt sick, and fought to keep the right tone of voice.
‘Now you listen to me, Kit – look at me, not at them. Good. Crouch down and take hold of the wall with your hands.’ Toby paused, swallowing hard. ‘Can you remember the way you climbed up?’
Kit nodded.
‘All right. You’re going to climb back down the same way. Exactly the same way, but in reverse. Start right now, Kit.’
His brother finally did as he was told. Crouching, finding handholds, and inching his way back down the jagged edge of the wall. Toby watched in silence, willing him to safety. A toehold disintegrated into a shower of gravel; Kit slithered perilously, hands clawing for purchase.
Toby’s heart stopped.
Kicking and scrabbling, Kit found his grip, and was soon only twenty feet up, instead of thirty or more. Then ten. Then he was jumping down, and landing on the turf.
Toby shut his eyes for a moment, weak with relief. ‘Come along, Kit,’ he said. ‘We’re going home. Right now.’
Kit ignored him and headed towards the girls, tiptoeing, his hands flexing at his sides. Why was Missy still on the ground? She couldn’t be that drunk. With the sick feeling returning, Toby followed.
She seemed to have fainted. Then he saw blood on her face, dribbling from a cut on her forehead. Her cheeks were pale, her eyes closed. Theo’s eyes were glassy with shock, and horror emptied Toby’s head of everything else.
‘Wh . . . what on earth—?’
Then Missy opened her eyes and swore. Gingerly, she sat up. A second rush of heavenly relief for Toby, again with anger at its heels.
Missy touched her head and winced. Her eyes found Kit. ‘What did you do that for?’
Theo’s relief was palpable. ‘Missy, are you all right?’
‘What happened?’ Toby snapped.
‘He threw a rock at her!’ Joanna said. She looked around for it, and pointed. ‘That one there!’
‘No.’ Kit shook his head. ‘No, I . . . I never . . .’
Toby’s reply was automatic. ‘He would never do that.’
‘But he did! Look – look at the cut on her head!’
Kit whimpered.
Joanna reached out her fingers but Missy jerked her head back. ‘I don’t need you poking it,’ she said, then did exactly that herself. ‘Ow!’
‘But are you all right?’ Theo said.
‘I suppose I am, since I’m sitting here telling you so. It’d better not leave a scar or I’ll have your guts, Kit Meriwether.’
‘I expect there are a lot of loose stones up there. It was an accident, that’s all.’ Toby heard how strangled the dishonesty made him sound. He remembered the time Kit had got on to the church roof and thrown clumps of moss at the verger.
‘It weren’t no accident!’ Joanna cried.
Missy raised her arms. ‘Help me up, then.’
Theo and Joanna grabbed a hand each and hauled.
Missy staggered a bit once she was on her feet. ‘I’ve gone all giddy.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be all right,’ Theo said.
‘Well,’ Toby said. He felt oddly breathless. ‘I need to get Kit home.’
He almost left it there, but Missy was dabbing at her head and shooting daggers at Kit, who was pacing like a cornered animal, in obvious distress.
‘Did you tell him to climb that wall?’ Toby snapped at her.
‘It’s not my fault your brother’s such a ninny,’ Missy said. ‘Who knows why he does anything?’
‘Missy!’ Theo gasped.
‘Kit? Did Missy tell you to climb the wall?’ Toby asked.
Kit shook his head. ‘She said . . . she said, “Bet you can’t.”’
Toby rounded on Missy, outrage swelling in his chest. ‘There! He could have been killed, you stupid girl! Come on, Kit. We’re going home.’
‘Wait!’ Theo sounded stricken. ‘Toby, don’t go – please.’
‘Why in heaven’s name not? If Kit had fallen . . . if he’d fallen—’ Toby couldn’t finish the sentence. ‘Just . . . take Missy back. Go to bed, all of you, and let that be an end to it.’
‘But . . . they’ll ask how she hit her head. They’re bound to ask!’
Toby hesitated. ‘And what will you tell them?’
Theo glanced back at Missy and Joanna.
‘We can’t say what really happened, can we? Any of us. We can’t say that we were here.’
‘You’d be in trouble, I suppose? The pair of you?’ Toby said.
Joanna looked terrified; Missy’s frown deepened.
‘I think we all would,’ Theo whispered.
‘You’ll have to invent some story,’ he said. ‘Just say that you fell on the stairs at the cottage. Can you do that, at least?’
Toby marched down the castle mound with Kit at his side, tripping now and then on tussocks of grass.
The night had no glamour any more, no hint of the ethereal.
It was all too real – the danger Kit had been in, the terrible clarity of what might have happened.
Toby held himself tight inside. It had not happened.
And he would never, ever put his brother in such danger again.
‘Kit, you mustn’t tell anyone about any of this,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Do you understand? Not anyone.’
Kit nodded, his face a mask of unhappiness. ‘Toby, did I hurt her?’
‘No,’ Toby said at once.
‘I never meant to!’
‘You didn’t,’ Toby said tersely. ‘It was her fault.’
‘S-sorry, Toby.’
‘Don’t say sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong.’
But once they’d sneaked back inside and he’d got Kit into bed, and much later, when Kit had gone to sleep, Toby lay awake.
He needed to rest, to be able to study in the morning, but the scene kept playing in his mind.
Seeing Kit from across the courtyard, so close to disaster, and being helpless, rooted to the spot.
Then the blood on Missy’s forehead. When he finally dozed off it was only to fight himself awake again, gasping, having relived in a dream the worst part: Kit about to fall, and himself powerless to do a single thing about it.