Midwinter Lucie

By Alan Porter

The village of Midwinter Lucie hides a terrible secret.
When Martin Lewis stumbles on a grave with his name on it, at first he thinks it's just a weird coincidence. But later, guided by the sinister Archibald Snode, he discovers there have been other Martins, all of whom died on their thirteenth birthdays, all exactly one hundred years apart.
And Martin turns thirteen on Friday.
With time running out, Martin must decipher the riddle of Midwinter Lucie and stop the curse that threatens to destroy not only him, but everyone he knows.

A very strong debut... inventive and intriguing.
Book and Magazine Collector

Skillful and exciting... a superb ghost story.
WriteAway

The characters are real... the horror is palpable. Children's literature has found an important new talent.
TES website

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eyelevel Books
• Release date: Mar 7, 2013
• ISBN: 9781902528779

Book preview

Chapter One

Grave Omen

Again he felt a chill across his scalp and down his neck, the icy touch of disembodied fingers seeking out his warm flesh. The first of the evening mist pooled around him in ghostly pockets as the light retreated and colour drained from the landscape. He moved swiftly among the autumn shadows, now only dully aware of the taunting jeers behind him, the sound muted and filtered by the stale air of this other world into which he had plunged.

Dully aware too of the figure in the distance, the man in black watching him from the foot of the tower.

Martin searched frantically for a route through the damp mess of decay. He lurched forwards over ancient mounds and fallen stones. Suddenly he saw it. The red and black bag poked incongruously from a dew-sodden tangle of grass ahead, lying where Gary and his mates had tossed it from the other side of the wall. The wall that separated the real world from the forbidden world of Dead Man’s Corner.

Something snagged his foot, sending him crashing headlong into the wet grass. Rubbing at his knee, Martin glanced up at the man standing by the tower. The figure remained impassive, unmoved, waiting. Martin breathed deeply and pulled his bag towards him.

He could see a route out now: a thin winding path among the briars and graves that was only apparent from this low angle. With a glance over his shoulder at the now-deserted wall, Martin flexed his knee and prepared for the final leg of his escape. His dare was done; maybe now he would be left alone for a while.

Then something caught his eye.

Partly obscured by moss and lichen and softened by the gloom, he saw the most familiar words in his life: ‘Martin James Lewis’. Instinctively he reached out, the tips of his fingers making contact with the worn carving of a bell above the name. The stone felt warm for an instant, before the icy chill of death spread into his hand.

Dew soaked through his trousers, numbing the ache in his knee as Martin scrambled closer. Scratching the moss away he struggled to read the rest of the inscription.

‘Martin James Lewis, Born 24 Oct 1895,’ it said. His stomach lurched. Same date. One hundred years earlier to the exact same day. His head spun, his mind searching for a logical explanation. He had cracked his head… was lying unconscious… trick of the mind. That was it: just a dream. Any minute the man in the cloak would shake him, waking him from his stupor. Take him home, away from Dead Man’s Corner, away from…

He forced himself to focus on the stone. If he were unconscious, he would not be able to feel the wet moss under his finger-nails, the cold grass, the chill of approaching evening. The cold stare of the figure in the black cloak.

Frantic now, he scratched at the stone, tearing at history, desperate to see what came next. Please, a long life, please.

‘Died,’ it said, ‘24 Oct 1908, aged 13 years.’

It couldn’t be. He peered closer, his one good eye struggling to decipher the crumbling words. No one died that young.

Died… aged 13.

October the twenty-fourth – this Friday. The day he had been looking forward to for weeks. The day he too would turn thirteen.

A powerful, shapeless fear gripped him, turning his bones to jelly. His breath came cold and shallow, his heart pounding somewhere in his throat. No hands reached up from the cold grave, but in his mind Martin reached down, down through the wet earth to the dead child that mirrored his own existence.

No one died that young, at least no one he knew. No one so close to being just like him.

A murder of crows alighted from the skeletal elm beside the churchyard and wheeled overhead in the darkening sky. Their cawing wrenched him upwards, out of the dream, out of the wet earth and back to reality.

At the far end of the church the cloaked figure still stood watching him. Their eyes met, locking together for several uncomfortable seconds. The man dropped his head and turned away, leaving Martin to confront his fear alone.

As he scrambled to his feet and ran, stumbling out of the graveyard and up the road to the comforting light of home, he knew that in that moment everything had changed.

* * *

Archibald Snode watched the boy run from the graveyard. He watched as he shoved past the other three boys who’d thrown his school bag into Dead Man’s Corner. Watched as Martin James Lewis tried to outrun the past, escape a history he could never leave behind.

Snode pulled his cloak closer and retraced his steps past the vestry. He’d waited a long time for this moment. All along he’d known that Martin would come, would find the grave, would catch his first glimpse of what lay in store.

He smiled to himself as the churchyard sighed in the gathering mist. The only thing he could not control was what Martin would do now, but he’d been watching a long time. This boy was special. This boy would find a way.

Snode began the long walk back up the hill to the bleak, forbidding Chadian House.

Chapter Two

First Rumblings

What happened to you? Mrs Lewis said as Martin dumped his bag in the kitchen.

Nothing. I’ll be back in a minute.

Not so fast! She caught him and spun him round, glancing with a trained eye at the mud encrusting his trousers. Is this Gary Harding’s doing?

No. I slipped over.

Just like last time, and the time before that! It’s all very well you playing rough-house on the way home, but it’s me that has to clean up your mess.

I’ll do it. It’s only a bit of mud.

Just leave it. I’ll be glad when you grow out of this.

She returned to massacring the vegetables for dinner as Martin took the stairs to the bathroom two at a time.

He stood for a long time in the stark light over the wash-basin, staring into his own deathly pale face in the mirror. Sweat still shone on his grey features.

It had to happen today. All that Friday, Martin had planned a quick escape. Half term was coming and if he could just make it through today he would be relatively safe for a week. Gary and his pack of trailing morons would be going on the insane Wild Quest course held annually by their geography-games teacher, Powell the Owl, and thankfully Martin wasn’t.

All the way home he had sat near the front of the bus ready for a swift exit. With practised indifference, he ignored the plans being made for the days away in Wales. Gary kept raising the bids in how extreme his bravado would be in the face of rock climbing, abseiling, canoeing and general mayhem. As long as Gary, Tony and Nick were nowhere near Midwinter Lucie for a few days, Martin couldn’t have cared less.

He had been caught before, of course. Many times. But today had been different. More than just humiliating. Like a train rattling over points, life’s certitude had been shaken down there in the ruins of Dead Man’s Corner. He’d been snared by the dead; a strand of him pulled down into a cold grave. He wondered if Gary had known, had planned this moment to coincide with his upcoming birthday.

It was just the sort of thing he would do. Martin would not put it past the thick-necked oaf to actually fake the gravestone himself just for a laugh. Except that Martin, for one, was not laughing.

He changed and rubbed hot water over his face to dispel the look of death from his features. By the time he got back downstairs, Sarah was leaning on the fridge talking to their mother.

You look a bit pale. Mrs Lewis examined him, sweeping the straggly ends of her mop of curly black hair from her face. Sarah smirked at her weedy little brother.

Poor lamb, you look like you’ve seen a ghost, Sarah said, feigning deep concern. Actually, you look like you are a ghost. But I guess we’re not going to get that lucky, are we?

I’m fine, Martin said.

They both watched him critically as he fumbled through the fruit bowl looking for a banana with more yellow than black on it. He struggled for something to say that would throw them off track.

Mum, do you know how long our family’s lived in the village? he said.

What? I really don’t know.

Dad’s side’s been here for generations, Sarah said. Why? What are you planning?

Nothing. I just wondered how many Lewises there were around. In the old days, you know.

No, I’m sure I don’t, Mrs Lewis said. Why don’t you ask your father when he gets back? Now, I’ve plenty to do without you two under my feet. Go and find somewhere else to explore family history, will you?

Looking for the freak-gene, weed? Sarah said as she pushed him from the steamy fug of the kitchen. You won’t find it – you’re certainly the first one in this family. She shoved him and disappeared up the stairs.

Martin scowled up at her receding backside. There was no point in arguing: she did have a point. A point that was plain for everyone to see, especially Gary Harding and his mates.

Martin had been a month premature: a tiny baby who had never fully caught up. The only permanent damage had been his right eye that had remained stubbornly blind – and blue – since birth, while his left one turned a deep brown. And that was enough material for any bully to work with. Problem was, Gary Harding seemed to have stumbled onto something altogether more powerful now, whether he knew it or not. Someone with his name and his exact birthday had lived in Midwinter Lucie before. Which was odd. But what was really frightening was that this other version of himself had died – one hundred years ago on Friday.

* * *

That night Martin lay awake, the ‘I-want-to-go-to-sleep’ side of his brain being roundly thrashed by the ‘not-until-we-sort-this-out’ side. Over and over he replayed the incident in the graveyard. Each time the mist was that little bit thicker, the cold that bit more bone-chillingly intense. And each time he reached out to the worn gravestone and touched the carving of the bell above his name, the stone felt warm. Just for a moment, but that was enough.

As soon as he had thought of it, the sound of that bell echoed around his mind. Tolling for the dead. Tolling for him as he reached down into the earth; reached up into the light. Two halves of him, alone in the autumn gloom, so nearly making contact.

But they had not been alone, had they? Even after Gary had got bored and