CHAPTER ONE
The Island
Angus was good at rowing and made it look easy as he pulled and pushed the oars in time to a song that kept going around in his head, as songs sometimes do. The lake was in the grounds of Angus’s home: a large country house where he had lived since he was born, as had his father before him and his father before that. His family had lived at Shottem Hall for hundreds of years, and they were very wealthy. His father had been something to do with the government, but Angus wasn’t quite sure what.
It was the middle of summer and Angus was too hot. There wasn’t any shade except right at the edge of the lake or by the shores of the island at the far end, and his parents insisted that he must wear a life jacket in the boat, even though he’d pointed out to them at least a hundred times that he wasn’t a baby and could actually swim. He’d also told them that his life jacket was far too small but they took no notice of that either, and now it was rubbing his armpits even though he was wearing it over his shirt. This made it difficult for him to row properly, and he felt sure that he’d have absolutely no skin left by the end of the day and it would be their fault if he was permanently injured.
The sun climbed higher and higher in the summer sky as the morning wore on and the breeze that blew across the lake seemed to grow even hotter. Little beads of salty sweat ran down his forehead and dripped into his eyes making them sting, so he had to complete the tricky manoeuvre of rubbing them with the back of his hand while trying not to drop the oars into the water.
Angus always enjoyed spending time by himself, he was an only child and had never had to share anything, and that was the way he liked it. His parents had always given him whatever he’d asked for; his mother had often told him, ‘Angus my darling, as long as you are happy, then we are happy’. He had them both exactly where he wanted them.
Angus was hungry, he was always hungry. It hadn’t been long since he’d eaten breakfast — a large bowl of cornflakes and three pieces of toast and jam — but he decided that he’d probably worked that off with all the rowing. He opened the lunch box which the cook had packed for him and found a jam sandwich — because jam was always the best thing to eat— with a bag of cheesy crisps, a small bunch of grapes and a chocolate biscuit. Angus ate his lunch greedily, occasionally gulping mouthfuls of orange squash from a plastic bottle to wash it all down. His attempt to lick the melted chocolate from his fingers while he was still pushing the last chunk of biscuit into his mouth only succeeded in making more mess on his already very sticky hands. He washed them in lake water and dried them on the tail of his shirt leaving a few stains, but he didn’t care, laundry was someone else’s problem.
He lounged quietly in the boat enjoying its gentle rocking and watching as tiny birds swooped down to drink from the lake before flying back up into the blue sky. He wondered if any of them had ever misjudged their aim and ended up diving into the water, and for a moment he imagined a world where birds lived under the water and fish flew in the sky. He yawned and closed his eyes, the warmth from the sun and the motion of the boat made him feel drowsy and soon he was fast asleep, floating gently on the calm water.
“Angus, Angus, are you all right darling?” He awoke suddenly to the sound of his mother shouting from the grassy bank, perhaps he’d just nodded off for a second or two. He stretched, yawned and rubbed his eyes, “ Yes, I’m fine thank you Mother,” he replied, trying not to sound as though he’d just woken up, then he sat up and picked up the oars again. He glanced over to his mother, who was dressed in a bright yellow gown and carrying a frilly parasol to protect her delicate skin from the rays of the sun. He gave her a wave and watched as she turned away to join his father at the small table where they were drinking tea and awaiting the guests that they had invited for lunch. Angus rowed back towards the middle of the lake. The life jacket rubbed under his arms again and he wondered whether, if he was out of sight of his parents, he might just be brave enough to take it off. After all, he’d already told them that he knew how to swim and that he was quite capable of looking after himself in the water, he could always put it on again before they saw him and they’d be none the wiser with no harm done. If he rowed around to the far side of the island, they wouldn’t be able to see him. He’d never been allowed onto the island. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been told not to go near it, but when he asked why, his father would only say was that it was dangerous and he might get hurt. The island had always fascinated Angus and he would make up games as he floated around it. In his imagination, tribes of flesh-eating cannibals lived there and he was a brave captain who had come to save their next victim. He would shout orders to his imaginary crew to set the cannons and blast the murderous scoundrels to bits. He had sword fights, slicing at the branches and that hung over the edge of the island, stabbing at the pretend foes that dared to come too close. He always won, of course, but he knew the games would be so much better if he could actually get onto the land; then he’d be able to build a fort, and maybe even a campfire. Angus glanced over to his parents and saw that they were deep in conversation with the vicar, the first of their lunch guests to arrive. Now was his chance! He grabbed the oars tightly and dug them deep into the water, rowing as quickly as he could until he had disappeared from view behind the island.
It wasn’t easy to find a place to land. The island was overgrown with brambles, nettles and bindweed, and the trees that grew around the edge were old and twisted. Their gnarled trunks ended in exposed roots that snaked downwards into the water and looked almost as if they were about to step off the edge and go in for a swim. Angus brought his boat as close as possible to the edge of the island and stowed the oars in the bottom of it. He pulled himself along using overhanging branches and exposed roots until eventually he found a clear patch of ground that was large enough to stand on. He tied the boat to an old root, dragged his life jacket over his head and with a little cheer of victory he threw it into the bottom of the boat. Using whatever he could grab, Angus hauled himself up onto dry land. Success! He had conquered the island, the first explorer to set foot in this unknown land. He wished that he’d brought a flag with him so that he could plant it in the ground as a lasting memorial of where he, Angus, had first landed; he decided that he would try to remember to bring one the next time he came. Angus squinted into the gloomy half-light of the wooded area in front of him. He couldn’t really see anything and he wasn’t sure whether he’d made a foolish mistake by disobeying his father and trespassing in this spooky place with its smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation, but he decided that if he was to be remembered as a brave explorer then he would have to continue, whatever the cost to life and limb. The trees and bushes had grown together so thickly that very little sunlight managed to penetrate down to ground level, leaving the centre of the island in a state of constant greenish twilight, but after a few minutes his eyes became accustomed to the gloom and he decided to try and push his way through the tangle to see what mysteries this place held and why it had always been out of bounds to him. He wanted it to be his secret den, his hiding place away from the boring grown-ups who constantly told him what to do; this would be his island, he would be the king and he would make the rules and everyone would obey him.
As Angus made his way slowly through the undergrowth he realised how quiet it was; he hadn’t heard a sound since he landed, not even the chirp of a bird. He walked carefully along, snapping small overhanging branches where he could, trampling the weeds underfoot and gradually making a small pathway. Now and again he would stop and listen just in case anyone was calling him, but he heard not a single sound, so he carried on exploring. He looked under stones and logs and up into the branches of the trees, he parted the leaves of the bushes, but he couldn’t find any sign of life. It seemed that no insect, bird or animal of any sort lived on the island. This was odd, he thought, but if that was the case, why had his father made such a fuss about him staying away from it? After all, if nothing lived here, there was nothing here to hurt him.
His imaginary version of the island was full of wild beasts which could jump out at him at any moment, and he was so busy keeping alert that he hardly noticed the twigs and thorns scratching his arms and legs. He picked up a good-sized stick and snapped off the leaves and little twigs that ran along the length of it, to make a spear, now he was invincible. He beat at leaves until the branches were bare, then he used it as a sword, running his enemies through, showing no mercy to the terrible beasts that lurked in the shadows. He was truly the king of his island. Was that a damsel in distress he heard screaming just ahead? Angus rushed to the spot and saw that she was tethered to a tall stake that was buried deep into the ground. She was about to be eaten by a fire-breathing dragon! Immersed in his fantasy, Angus ran to her and slashed with his sword at the ropes that bound her. As she fell to her knees in gratitude, he told her to run away, he would kill the dragon for her and she would forever be in his debt. The imaginary dragon was a terrible beast, as it came roaring at him Angus could smell on its’ scorching- hot breath, the rotting flesh of its previous victims. It stared at Angus through bright yellow eyes and snarled with a low rumbling sound. Its’ teeth were the size and shape of carving knives and thick streams of saliva spilled from the beast’s gaping jaws onto the ground below. Angus ran to a nearby tree and climbed onto a low branch; from there he would be able to spear the terrible beast through the eye, or maybe even slice into its throat. Its jaws were only inches away from his face when it opened its mouth to snap at him a second time and he managed to stab it through the tongue. The dragon screamed in pain and turned away, Angus bravely jumped onto its back to try and finish the job by plunging his sword through the dragon’s heart, but the creature managed to shake him off and Angus landed heavily on the ground. Quickly picking himself up and jumping sideways Angus tried to dodge the jet of bright orange fire that the dragon spat in his direction, but his foot got caught under a tree root. He overbalanced and fell through the undergrowth, tearing his shirt and grazing his elbow as his arm slid down the rough bark of a tree and he landed in a heap on the ground.
He wasn’t going to cry. His elbow really, really hurt but he wasn’t going to cry; he tried to look at it but it’s not an easy thing to do, looking at your own elbow. He touched the grazed area with the palm of his hand then checked it for blood. There wasn’t much, the injury, from what he could see, was mostly little shreds of skin and possibly a few splinters. He picked off the skin, gave his elbow a rub and clambered to his feet. He found his sword in a nearby patch of nettles and made one last lunge at the imaginary dragon, killing it instantly with a lucky stab to the heart. He decided that he was indeed a hero and that later that day he would award himself a medal for being so brave. Angus pushed his way past the tree which had been his downfall and found that he was at the edge of a small clearing. It was very odd. In front of him was a large, square patch of ground with absolutely nothing growing on it: no trees, no bushes, nothing. Not even a weed poked its head out of the dusty earth; it looked as if Sam, their gardener, had been over this part of the island with several buckets of weed-killer. He didn’t know quite what to make of it. Stranger still was the small wooden hut in the middle of the clearing, Angus dropped the stick and slowly made his way towards it. He walked around it, checking if it was rotting or damaged and trying to guess how long it had been there. It seemed to be in good order and there was nothing extraordinary about it. It had four walls, one with a small, dusty window, and a sloping roof with a waterproof covering. Angus looked through the window but he couldn’t see anything, even if he put his nose right up to the glass and cupped his hands around the sides of his eyes to block out the light. He gave up, hit the glass with his fist in frustration and carried on around to the front.
He spent a minute looking at the little shed and trying to work out how it had got there and, more importantly, what was hidden inside it. Even if the gardener had run out of room in the big shed in the vegetable garden and decided to build another for extra storage, why would he put it here? Maybe his father had asked Sam to clear the undergrowth from the island and this was where he kept the tools for the job, that would also explain why there were no trees or bushes in the immediate area. Angus grabbed the door handle, he pulled and twisted it this way and that, shaking it until the hinges rattled, but it wouldn’t open — he could see now that the door was locked with a long bolt which slid into the frame of the door and then secured with a big rusted padlock. Angus wondered why anyone would need to lock a shed in the middle of an island which was in the middle of a lake! As hard as he tried, he just couldn’t get the door open. He tried hitting it with his fists, but that just made his hands sore; he tried kicking it really hard, but that didn’t work either. Not even his best flying karate kick worked, the door just wouldn’t budge. As a last resort he tried running at it and barging it with his right shoulder, he knew that would work because he’d seen people do that in the cinema and it worked every time. He hit the door at an alarming speed, jumping slightly as he hurled himself towards it. He heard a loud crack and slid downwards, landing in a heap on the dusty ground.
It took a couple of seconds before the pain started, a sharp, agonising pain that leapt along his shoulder and down his arm into his fingers. He tried to get up but his head was spinning and he felt sick, what had he done? Had he broken his arm? He sat up and carefully prodded the top of his arm at the shoulder joint. It felt a bit bruised, but nothing more. He then moved his left hand gently down his arm towards the elbow, probing at the fleshy parts with his fingertips and trying to feel whether the bone was in one piece. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for as he had never broken a bone — he wasn’t even sure whether it was possible to tell without an X-ray — but as he checked further down past his elbow he concluded happily that his arm was still in one piece. The cracking noise he’d heard had actually been the wooden planks of the door splintering.
After a moment or two Angus managed to stand up, he flexed the fingers of his right hand and gave it a shake, it was throbbing a bit and he was getting a pins-and--needles sensation in the ends of his fingers. He bent his elbow up and down a couple of times and moved his arm in a circular motion at the shoulder, everything seemed fine. Even better, although the door of the shed was still locked by the bolt, it was now attached by only one of the hinges on the other side. The wooden panel at the top had split at the hinge, and splinters of rotten wood poked out beneath rusty screws that had been twisted out of shape by the impact of Angus’s shoulder. He’d never felt so proud of himself. Not only was he king of his own island, he had proved that he was truly invincible; now nothing stood in his way. He grabbed the split panel and pushed it inwards, it gave way with another loud crack and fell onto the floor of the shed. Angus poked his head through the opening and looked in. A strange light-green mist seemed to float around inside the shed, highlighted by the beam of sunlight which now shone through the gap in the door. There was a strange smell which reminded Angus of boiled cabbage. He coughed and held his breath and at the same time tried to get a good look at what might be inside the mysterious shed. From where he stood he couldn’t actually see very much, the gap in the door was quite high up which meant he had to stand on tiptoe, so in order to get a better look he was going to have to break the door down completely. He grasped the edge of the broken panel and shook it again and again but it wouldn’t budge, the rough edge cut into his hands and pushed splinters into his palms. He gave up on that idea and rubbed his hands together to rid them of the splinters, picking the smallest bits out of his skin with his short, grubby fingernails. Angus stood and looked at the door. He was so close to getting inside. In frustration he took aim at the bottom hinge and gave it a mighty kick, and to his amazement and utter joy the wood cracked and the door fell inwards until it was hanging at an awkward angle, supported only by the bolt and the padlock on the opposite side.
Stepping slowly over the corner of the door, Angus entered the shed. The smell was even worse now that he was inside. He coughed and sneezed as his nostrils were filled with a foul stench that made him want to gag. He’d never smelt anything so horrible, not even when the cook had prepared sprouts at Christmas; it was disgusting. Holding his breath whilst waving his arms around, Angus tried to clear the terrible smell. He hoped that the fresh air from outside would clear the green, foggy atmosphere now that the door was open, and when a stiff breeze blew in through the gap in the door the air gradually became clearer. Now able to breathe more easily and ready to explore, Angus kept close to the wall of the shed, feeling his way with the tips of his fingers and waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. A thick, layer of dusty earth covered the floor and each step threw up little clouds which swirled around and turned his ankles a pale shade of grey. He noticed, now that he could see properly, that the shed was completely empty, he looked into each corner and up at the rafters above his head, but there was absolutely nothing in there. Wondering even more why anyone would bother to lock an empty shed, he decided that this would be his headquarters, his castle; nobody would be allowed in without his permission and he would fight anyone that tried to invade.
Angus stepped over the broken door and ran back outside to retrieve his spear and set about gathering dry wood and sticks for his campfire. He wouldn’t be able to light a fire — he didn’t have any matches — he would just have to imagine a roaring camp fire until he could sneak some out of the house the next time he came to his island.
The afternoon wore on and Angus was hot and tired. He’d fought many battles since establishing his headquarters. Angry lions had tried to get in through the broken door and he’d fought them off bravely, using his trusty sword he’d slaughtered every one. He had set traps to catch anything or anyone who might try to sneak up on him. He needed a drink; the orange squash was long gone, but he didn’t want to go home yet. Angus decided to look for a water supply close to his fort because he couldn’t keep going back to the lake for water, that wouldn’t work at all. He had left his spear in the shed after his last battle, so he ran back and jumped into the shed, over the broken door. His eyes were once again unaccustomed to the dim light and as he lunged at the far wall to grab his spear he tripped over something on the floor and fell down. His toe was throbbing; he’d stubbed it on something hard. As his vision cleared he inspected his broken toenail and watched as a little stream of blood mingled with the dust on his toe and dripped from the end of his nail, onto the ground, in fat, purple blobs. It really hurt but, in his own world, Angus now had a war-wound, he’d been injured in battle and would award himself another medal once he’d finished exploring and had found water. He looked at the floor to see what he had fallen over and saw the edge of what looked like a flat stone which had been concealed by the deep layer of dust. Angus knelt and started to scrape away the debris. The stone was square and quite large, and he had to stretch across almost the length of his own body to clear its surface. Pushing handfuls of dusty earth away, Angus gradually unveiled his buried treasure. He wasn’t a hunter any more, now he’d become an archaeologist digging in the earth for the remains of ancient tribes and looking for treasures from long-forgotten civilisations. As he cleared the stone he noticed that words had been carved into its surface. The words weren’t easy to read; it was as if the letters were from a much earlier time, with fancy curls and lines where there shouldn’t have been any. Angus let his fingers trace out each letter and tried to work out what they spelled. The first looked like a capital ‘D’; the next two were obviously an ‘a’ and an ‘n’. He couldn’t make out the next couple of letters, but he could see that the last letter of the first word was an ‘r’. He carried on tracing the rest of the letters and writing what he could decipher in the dust on the floor beside him. Eventually he had written ‘Dan__r Li_s Wi_hin’. He said the phrase aloud to himself a couple of times to see if it made it easier to work out what the words actually were. ‘Dan r li s wi hin, dan r li s wi hin.’ Perhaps what he’d found was an ancient language and this had been the burial place of someone very important, a chief or even a king? He returned to the letters on the stone and tried once again to work out what they were. Tracing the shapes with his fingers, he worked out that the missing letters were a ‘g’, two ’e’s and a ‘t’. So he put them into the spaces and stared at what he had written: Danger Lies Within.
Angus sat on the floor for a long time looking at what he’d written in the dust. This must have been the dangerous thing that his father had told him about, the reason he’d never been allowed on the island, but what could it be and why was it dangerous? The stone had obviously been put here a very long time ago, so surely whatever it was couldn’t be dangerous any more, could it?
Angus wanted to move the stone and take a look at whatever was underneath. He knew that he probably shouldn’t, but nobody would know and he could always put it back again once he’d had a look and made sure it was safe. The next problem would be moving the stone. He didn’t know how heavy it was but he was quite sure that he wouldn’t be able to lift it all by himself, so he started to dig around the edge of it. He scraped and pulled the earth out from around the stone, he hadn’t realised quite how far down he would have to go in order to find the bottom edge: as well as being long and wide, the stone was also very deep. As he dug away the earth became wetter and heavier, so he gave up using his hands and used his spear instead to scrape at what was now thick black mud. After digging for about ten minutes he’d managed to undermine one corner of the stone, and he noticed that there was a crack across it which had only become visible because the earth supporting it had been scraped away. Angus grabbed at the loose corner and pulled and, although it was very heavy, he managed to move it slightly, creating a small gap behind where it had been attached to the main body of the stone. He pushed his spear into the gap and used it as a lever, pushing down on it with all of his body weight until the corner finally flipped over, creating a space big enough to admit his head and shoulders.
It had been hard work. Angus sat for a while on the floor of the shed puffing and panting, trying to get his breath back. He was sweating heavily and mud was painted in thick streaks across his face where he had wiped itchy droplets of sweat from his forehead, in fact he was splattered from head to toe with smelly black mud. He wiped his hands on his shorts and left a large smeary handprint on each leg and then knelt down with his weight on his hands and put his head down into the gap. It was dark, very dark, he couldn’t see anything and wished he’d brought his torch. He transferred his weight onto one hand and reached into the gap with the other, but he couldn’t feel anything, his hand just waved around in the space beneath the stone. He sat up again and concluded that this obviously wasn’t a grave, but what was it and how far down did it go? Angus was determined to find out more, and he knew that he had to do it quickly. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out on the lake but he knew that it was getting late, and it wouldn’t be long before his mother called him to go home again. He got up, clambered back over the broken door and went outside.
The shadows were getting longer as the sun continued on its downward path towards late afternoon, and the temperature outside had become slightly cooler. He was looking for something to throw down the hole, something heavy enough to make a sound when it hit the bottom so he could tell whether it was possible to climb down into it the next time he came over to the island. To investigate properly he would need to get inside the hole, so he decided that he would keep a torch and a rope here in future.
Angus had given up his search for a suitable stone and returned to the shed when he had an idea. The broken corner from the stone slab was lying on the floor in the dust, all he had to do was position it correctly and it would drop through the hole. After a bit of effort, pulling and pushing, Angus managed to move it to the edge of the gap that it had left when it broke away. He measured the width of it by using his spear as a ruler and scratching a mark on the wood, he thought it would go through if he positioned it with one of the corners of the broken edge pointing upwards, then all he would have to do was push it over the edge with his foot, using his spear as a lever if necessary. He performed a countdown as if he were launching a rocket into space: “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Go!” His calculations were correct, the stone dropped through the gap and disappeared from view in a split second. Angus lay face down, stuck his head and his right arm and shoulder back into the void and waited to hear the stone hitting the bottom of the hole. Instead, he heard something so terrifying, so awful and so loud that it made his head spin and his teeth rattle, it was as if a thousand people were scraping their fingernails down a blackboard, and his ears started to ring with pain. The ground around him began to rumble and shake as if he’d been caught in the middle of a tremendous earthquake. The vibrations moved the large stone, making the gap smaller. To his horror, Angus found that he was trapped. His head and shoulders and right arm were stuck fast and he couldn’t get out.
He struggled and yelled, but it was no good. Angus was starting to panic, he didn’t know what to do and the awful shrieking noise from the bottom of the pit was filling his head and pushing out any sensible thoughts he might have had, then suddenly there was silence and everything became still once again. Angus had never heard so silent a silence before. He looked down into the inky blackness below, and strange thoughts filled his head, it was as if he was nowhere, as if the entire world had just… gone.
A peculiar sensation come over him, he felt almost as if he were floating. Staring into the deep blackness below, he saw a faint green light. It seemed to be a very long way down, maybe it was right at the bottom of the hole, assuming the hole had a bottom. As he watched it, the ghostly green light started to move. It twirled and gradually changed its shape and became a mist that swirled around the sides of the hole. Long, finger-like, misty tendrils curled upwards towards him, changing shape as they came nearer and nearer. He was terrified; too terrified even to scream. He started to struggle again in an effort to get away from whatever it was that was coming to get him, but he knew it was pointless, and all the time the mist was getting closer and closer.
Then the awful smell reached him, the boiled cabbage smell that had made him gag when he’d opened the shed earlier, but this time it was a thousand times worse: it was like bad breath, garlic and smelly drains and rotting potatoes all mixed together. Angus felt his stomach heave and the bitter taste of vomit hit the back of his throat. Whether it was from fear or disgust at the awful smell he didn’t know, but he couldn’t help himself and suddenly, a stream of warm sick rained down into the hole. Slimy strings of snot hung like green elastic bands from his nostrils as he choked, each one swaying and stretching to breaking point before they too followed the vomit down into the depths of the pit. The boy watched, wide-eyed and frozen with terror as the green mist crept closer to the top of the hole until finally it enveloped him in its pungent odour.
