Bod walked down the narrow stone stairs for the first time in six years. His footsteps echoed in the chamber inside the hill.
He reached the bottom of the steps and waited for the Sleer to manifest. And he waited, and waited, but nothing appeared, nothing whispered, nothing moved.
He looked around the chamber, untroubled by the deep darkness, seeing it as the dead see. He walked over to the altar stone set in the floor, where the cup and the brooch and the stone knife sat.
He reached down and touched the edge of the knife. It was sharper than he had expected, and it nicked the skin of his finger.
IT IS THE TREASURE OF THE SLEER, whispered a triple voice, but it sounded smaller than he remembered, more hesitant.
Bod said, “You’re the oldest thing here. I came to talk to you. I want advice.”
A pause. NOTHING COMES TO THE SLEER FOR ADVICE. THE SLEER GUARDS. THE SLEER WAITS.
“I know. But Silas isn’t here. And I don’t know who else to talk to.”
Nothing was said. Just a silence in reply, that echoed of dust and loneliness.
“I don’t know what to do,” Bod said, honestly. “I think I can find out about who killed my family. Who wanted to kill me. It means leaving the graveyard, though.”
The Sleer said nothing. Smoke-tendrils twined slowly around the inside of the chamber.
“I’m not frightened of dying,” said Bod. “It’s just, so many people I care for have spent so much time keeping me safe, teaching me, protecting me.”
Again, silence.
Then he said, “I have to do this on my own.”
YES.
“That’s all, then. Sorry I bothered you.”
It whispered into Bod’s head, then, in a voice that was a sleek insinuating glide, THE SLEER WAS SET TO 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…”