The Boy in the Cemetery Read Online Free PDF Page B

white fixture that she pulled. Immediately a single bare bulb lit the cellar with a buzzing sound. Carefully she walked down the creaking stairs. Each step of her Converse trainers flicked dust. At the bottom she found a musty-smelling room. The ceiling that held the bulb by a wire was made of thick oak beams with copper piping running parallel. Its walls were old with crumbling plaster. In places there was white paint, other places blue or red. But whatever the decorations had been they had long ago grown old and died. A single window no bigger than a crawl space was broken where green ivy had pushed its way in and climbed down the far wall. It was the most interesting room she had ever seen. Her concentration was broken by a scratching sound behind her. She turned and followed the noise with the curiosity of Alice. Except from the corner there was no white rabbit but instead a fat, greasy black rat.
    Carrie Anne took a few steps back as the thing scuttled out, sniffing the air. She wasn’t afraid, more fascinated than anything. But she did gasp when she realised it was not alone. It chittered and from the shadow more came. Carrie Anne took to the stairs and stood on the first rung as at least thirty rats flowed into the cellar. They carpeted the floor in dirty fur and continued to the corner where the plaster had crumbled to reveal holes in the brickwork. Fascinated, Carrie Anne looked on as one by one the rats fled into the hole. Where they went from there, she had no idea. But she dare not tell her parents what she had witnessed; this was hers and hers alone. A happy distraction from herself. It was then she heard her mum calling her name.
    “I’m coming,” she called back, leaving the cellar and switching off the light on the way back into the house. She found her parents in an empty bedroom at the back of the house. It was a pleasant lilac room with a dark wooden floor and blinds over a large bay window.
    “There you are,” said her mother. “Where have you been? You’re covered in webs.”
    Carrie Anne hadn’t noticed and brushed dirt and cobwebs from her long hair.
    “I found a cellar,” she offered by way of explanation.
    “Never mind that,” Dad added. “This is your room; what do you think?”
    The words made her skin crawl but she hid it well. He made
your room
sound so much like
our room
.
    “It’s nice; what is my view like?”
    Dad turned and found the rope to open the blinds. The slats opened up and the room lit up with more light than was allowed in moments before.
    The picture from the window was the most remarkable thing Carrie Anne had seen that day, despite her experience minutes before.
    “Ah,” said Father, “I suppose I couldn’t keep it secret for long.”
    “What is that?” Mother asked also looking from the window.
    The garden was slightly overgrown with long emerald grass. It was the end of the garden that drew their attention. Where the grass ended there were black metal railings covered by the same ivy that invaded the cellar. Beyond the ivy there lay a cemetery. A cemetery that had died long ago, that much was clear from the overgrown ruin, but a cemetery no less. The other houses that surrounded the cemetery had large panelled fences blocking the view. Here it was different and it seemed an extension of the garden itself, with only the railings separating the garden and graves. It was beyond that where all three stared. There was a sea of thickets and weeds. In the sea the remains of gravestones jutted like rocks, all too numerous to count.
    “Is that a graveyard? Is there a graveyard at the back of our new home?” panicked Mum.
    “Don’t worry,” Dad replied. “It is not in use; it’s abandoned.”
    “You’ve moved us to a house with a graveyard?”
    “No not really. I mean yes, but that was why the house was so cheap. There are some legal arguments about what to do with it; it’s nearly two hundred years old.” He spoke as if he was proud of his historical