The graveyard book

She thought, I wonder what Mum’s thinking right now. She’ll be phoning Mr. Frost’s house over and over to find out when I’m going to get back. She thought, If I get out of this alive, I’m going to force her to get me a phone. It’s ridiculous. I’m the only person in my year who doesn’t have her own phone, practically.

She thought, I miss my mum.

She had not thought anyone human could move that silently through the dark, but a gloved hand closed upon her mouth, and a voice that was only barely recognizable as Mr. Frost’s said, without emotion, “Do anything clever—do anything at all—and I will cut your throat. Nod if you understand me.”

Scarlett nodded.

Bod saw the chaos on the floor of the Frobisher mausoleum, the fallen coffins with their contents scattered across over the aisle. There were many Frobishers and Frobyshers, and several Pettyfers, all in various states of upset and consternation.

“He is already down there,” said Ephraim.

“Thank you,” said Bod. He clambered through the hole into the inside of the hill, and he went down the stairs.

Bod saw as the dead see: he saw the steps, and he saw the chamber at the bottom. And when he got halfway down the steps, he saw the man Jack holding Scarlett. He had her arm twisted up behind her back, and a large, wicked, boning-knife at her neck.

The man Jack looked up in the darkness.

“Hello, boy,” he said.

Bod said nothing. He concentrated on his Fade, took another step.

“You think I can’t see you,” said the man Jack. “And you’re right. I can’t. Not really. But I can smell your fear. And I can hear you move and hear you breathe. And now that I know about your clever vanishing trick, I can feel you. Say something now. Say it so I can hear it, or I start to cut little pieces out of the young lady. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” said Bod, his voice echoing in the chamber room. “I understand.”

“Good,” said Jack. “Now, come here. Let’s have a little chat.”

Bod began to walk down the steps. He concentrated on the Fear, on raising the level of panic in the room, of making the Terror something tangible….

“Stop that,” said the man Jack. “Whatever it is you’re doing. Don’t do it.”

Bod let it go.

“You think,” said Jack, “that you can do your little magics on me? Do you know what I am, boy?”

Bod said, “You’re a Jack. You killed my family. And you should have killed me.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. He said, “I should have killed you?”

“Oh yes. The old man said that if you let me grow to adulthood your Order would be destroyed. I did. You failed and you lost.”

“My order goes back before Babylon. Nothing can harm it.”

“They didn’t tell you, did they?” Bod was standing five paces from the man Jack. “Those four. They were the last of the Jacks. What was it…Krakow and Vancouver and Melbourne. All gone.”

Scarlett said, “Please, Bod. Make him let go of me.”

“Don’t worry,” said Bod, with a calm he did not feel. He said to Jack, “There’s no point in hurting her. There’s no point in killing me. Don’t you understand? There isn’t even an order of Jacks of All Trades. Not anymore.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “If this is true,” said Jack, “and if I am now a Jack-all-alone, then I have an excellent reason for killing you both.”

Bod said nothing.

“Pride,” said the man Jack. “Pride in my work. Pride in finishing what I began.” And then he said, “What are you doing?”

Bod’s hair prickled. He could feel a smoke-tendril presence twining through the room. He said, “It’s not me. It’s the Sleer. It guards the treasure that’s buried here.”

“Don’t lie.”

Scarlett said, “He’s not lying. It’s true.”

Jack said, “True? Buried treasure? Don’t make me—”

THE SLEER GUARDS THE TREASURE FOR THE MASTER.

“Who said that?” asked the man Jack, looking around.

“You heard it?” asked Bod, puzzled.

“I heard it,” said Jack. “Yes.”

Scarlett said, “I didn’t hear anything.”

The man Jack said, “What is this place, boy? Where are we?”

Before Bod could speak, the Sleer’s voice spoke, echoing through the chamber, THIS IS THE PLACE OF THE TREASURE. THIS IS THE PLACE OF POWER. THIS IS WHERE THE SLEER GUARDS AND WAITS FOR ITS MASTER TO RETURN.

Bod said, “Jack?”

The man Jack tilted his head on one side. He said, “It’s good to hear my name in your mouth, boy. If you’d used it before, I could have found you sooner.”

“Jack. What was my real name? What did my family call me?”

“Why should that matter to you now?”

Bod said, “The Sleer told me to find my name. What was it?”

Jack said, “Let me see. Was it Peter? Or Paul? Or Roderick—you look like a Roderick. Maybe you were a Stephen…” He was playing with the boy.

“You might as well tell me. You’re going to kill me anyway,” said Bod. Jack shrugged and nodded in the darkness, as if to say obviously.