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  The Hunting

  Other titles by Hodder Children’s Books Incarceron

  Sapphique

  Catherine Fisher

  The Diary of Pelly D

  Cherry Heaven

  The Glittering Eye

  Burning Mountain

  Lucy Adlington

  Text copyright © 2012 Sam Hawksmoor First published in Great Britain in

  by Hodder Children’s Books

  The right of Sam Hawksmoor to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978 0 340 99708

  Typeset in Berkeley by Avon DataSet Ltd, Bidford on Avon, Warwickshire

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey The paper and board used in this paperback by Hodder Children’s Books are natural recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Hodder Children’s Books

  a division of Hachette Children’s Books 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH

  An Hachette UK company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  SPURLAKE GAZETTE

  C O M M U N I T Y N E W S

  Thirty-four children are now missing from the Spurlake/

  Cedarville area over a two-year period. Are you being vigilant? Are you able to recognize the signs of a teen in trouble? Do you know where your child is after school?

  Need help?

  Come to the town meeting led by the Reverend A C Schneider – 7pm Princeton Park, Fir and Geary Streets. Prayers and parental advice from the Mayor’s Office.

  All concerned families welcome

  Have you seen this child?

  Denis Malone

  DOB: Aug 8,

  Missing since: Oct 16,

  Sex: Male

  Race: Caucasian

  Hair: Brown

  Eyes: Blue/Green

  Height: 4’8” (146.3 centimetres) Weight: 90 lbs (40.8 kgs)

  Missing from: Spurlake, BC

  Possible abduction.

  ANYONE HAVING INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT

  Royal Canadian Mounted Police

  National Missing Children Services Toll-Free: 1-555-318-3576

  Telephone: (555) 993-1525

  Facsimile: (555) 993-5430

  * * *

  1

  The Munby Girl

  Six weeks, four days, sixteen hours and twenty minutes since the jail door had slammed on Genie. Seven weeks since the school broke up for summer. God had got her into this room but it would take more than prayers to get her out. How do you pray against God? Reverend Schneider with his snake-oil hair came every day and prayed for her soul. Her mother, the grand inquisitor herself, had drugged Genie and had the Reverend carry her up to her room after they had installed the jail door.

  It was all for her own good, they said, the devil had possessed her, taken her, duped her, and the great and wonderful Reverend was going to cleanse her, drive him out. The Church of Free Spirits was going to send an army of the devout to make sure of it.

  Three specific events precipitated this cataclysm in Genie Magee’s short life. It all happened with a relentless logic and there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.

  The first, and most important in her calculation, was

  that she discovered that she had fallen for Rian Tulane in the first year of high school. Fifteen, with beautiful eyes and a lopsided grin that just made her heart beat like a hummingbird. Quiet, bright, kept to himself a lot and always scored the highest grades in her year. No one bothered him; he could talk to a geek without being labelled and laugh with the jocks without being one. You could tell from just looking at him that he had a lot on his mind. He was already planning which university to apply for and he took knowing stuff really seriously. Sure he tried out for the ice-hockey team to make himself look more normal, but they rejected him after only one trial.

  She had watched the game from the bleachers and made some soothing remarks to him as he limped towards the locker room after. He actually stopped to look at her. He’d never said a single word to her in his entire life, but there he was looking all dejected and sorry for himself and she had to say something.

  ‘They should’ve taken you. You were real fast out there.’

  He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I was kinda hoping there wouldn’t be any witnesses to my shame, but thanks, Genie. I guess not fast enough, huh?’ He pointed to his swelling bruises. It had been brutal out there. Boys with their sticks. ‘Basketball is more my game I think, at

  least no one is carrying a lethal weapon.’ He smiled at her, then just turned on his heels and went to change. He probably had no idea of the devastating effect his smile had made on her.

  She hung around for him, hoping that this wasn’t as stupid as it looked. He’d most likely just walk right by her when he came out. But when he finally emerged, he smiled shyly, genuinely surprised she’d been waiting for him.

  He walked her home in the rain that evening and she realized that he liked her. He’d noticed her watching him in class and admitted he’d been too shy to say anything to her. Today somehow was different. Her being there in the ice rink for one thing. She didn’t seem to mind that he’d been turned down by the team and they shared so many classes it was stupid they never spoke to each other.

  Nothing else was said as they walked, but that September evening, when he finally took her hand at the junction of Waterfall and Fraser Avenue, she fell in love, and he with her. Not even a kiss was exchanged. But she knew. And then every day from that moment on, each morning he would be waiting for her at the corner of Fraser and together they walked to school, and back home again in the afternoon.

  They spent every moment they could in each other’s company. She didn’t even mind when he made her read

  the set books and talk about what they were learning.

  Her grades leaped up. She’d gone from ditzy low achiever to genius and done nothing extra but actually read the books.

  Her old school friends fell by the wayside. Genie was no longer ‘fun’ and Genie thought that was kinda odd since she’d never been allowed any ‘fun’ anyway. It was the rule in her mother’s house that she went to school and came home. So many kids were going missing now they were talking of making them wear electronic tags.

  The epidemic of crystal meth dropouts in Spurlake and other nearby towns had parents scared enough without them worrying their kids might disappear entirely. Even though Genie’s mother had little liking for her daughter, apparently she didn’t want her abducted. So, no deviations on the way home, no visits, no hanging out at the DQ, absolutely no parties. No nothing. The Church of the Free Spirits forbade it and even though Genie never actually attended the church, she had to abide by God’s rules. God’s stupid petty rules. Naturally she never mentioned the existence of Rian to her mother. God forbid she’d have an actual boyfriend.

  And then came the fatal moment whilst
preparing lunch on a Saturday when she turned to her mother and said: ‘Grandma’s dead. She just died. I know it.’

  It was a normal sunny morning, but it was as if a bolt of lightning had pierced her mother’s heart. Her mother screamed at her, yelled every horrid thing she could think of and told her to get to her room for disrespecting the living.

  Sure enough, an hour later they got a call from a doctor’s clinic in Hope and Grandma was dead. Fallen over in Cooper’s Foods and her heart expired.

  Her mother went crazy. Claimed Genie had killed her, had always hated her grandmother and sent evil spirits to kill her. It was even more puzzling for Genie because her mother and grandmother weren’t even on speaking terms.

  They had only ever visited her three, maybe four times, in the log cabin by the old railroad where she lived. She made her living by telling fortunes in the orange CNR

  Caboose abandoned on the rails. Built in 1917, she’d converted it to a magical place filled with First Nation rugs, wind chimes, cedar baskets and art objects that dated back hundreds of years. Grandma Munby was half-Stó:lo-herself and she was always saying that it was the better half. The trains had stopped running thirty years before on this spur line and she had walked Genie along the rusting rails one spring, picking wild flowers that grew beside them. She seemed to know the name of every single one and what they could cure. False Solomon’s Seal

  (not to be confused with poisonous Hellbore), Fireweed, Indian Paintbrush (the bright red flowers were used for warpaint dye), Lady Fern, Oxeye Daisy (interlopers from Europe, she discovered).

  Genie had loved learning the names and her quaint cabin. She desperately wanted her own fortune told, but her mother forbade it. Grandma’s home was filled with feathers, strange unrecognizable objects, rocks bearing gold she’d found by the river and hanging crystals; almost fifty wind chimes noisily swung in the breeze outside. She dressed like a rodeo queen, was loud and laughed, drank homemade wine, smoked a cigar and was never embarrassed by anything.

  She had taken Genie’s hand, held it hard and told her immediately that she was unique and special and should never ever be afraid of her gift. Genie had no idea what she meant at the time. Her mother wouldn’t let her discuss it and never talked about Grandma if she could help it, as if she was ashamed of her. Genie remembered staring at the big red ruby Grandma wore around her mottled neck and the way she seemed to make you feel warm and safe.

  The exact opposite of her cold and anxious mother.

  But now Grandma was dead, it was seemingly all Genie’s fault. Her mother had fled to the Reverend Schneider’s church to pray for her soul. Pray for help to deal with the

  evil daughter who’d killed her grandmother.

  Thus began a month of craziness. She was banned from the funeral. Then the people from the church started coming and kneeling outside her bedroom door at night to pray for her soul. Genie was amused at first. She had no idea that there were so many crazy people in the world, besides her mother. Reverend Schneider, with his comb-backed hair and pimp moustache, was the craziest of them all. He had all these women seeing the devil in everything. Every time another child disappeared from the town, the Church of the Free Spirits would be outside the parents’ house praying for the kid’s safe return. Whether they wanted them there or not. Genie’s mother kept saying the devil was coming for his own, meaning her. She was terrified that the devil was coming to take Genie for his ‘bride’. Genie, the fifteen-year-old bride of the devil. Some days Genie couldn’t wait for him to come – anything had to be better than staying in this crazy house.

  The only thing that had kept her sane in this world was Rian, who, before this madness had begun, had taken her hand, held her tight, promised faithfully that he would take her out of there if it got too bad, and when he kissed her, which he did often, she felt as though she was going into outer space. Rian always laughed about it, he could see her float off, always knew when she had gone, but he

  still held her tight and instinctively knew that this was Genie’s way of being happy.

  Sometimes the trance would last as much as ten minutes, but he loved her for it. Adored the way she trusted him completely. He loved her deeply, but knew that he had to deliver her home by five every day or else there would be trouble. They never had an actual date, not once in nine months. No movies, no ice-skating.

  Genie was never allowed to do anything, but he didn’t care. As long as she was there every day and her hot hand placed in his as they walked to and from school, they were happy. He planned out a whole life with her and she with him. Neither spoke of it to the other for fear of being mocked, but that is what each was thinking.

  And then, on the last day of school, Reverend Schneider struck with the jail door. The devil had sent him a message, he told Mrs Magee. It troubled him deeply and seared a terrible scar upon his heart. The devil had told him Genie was possessed. She was the one he was going to take next. A day later, her mother, in complete hysterics, imprisoned her in her bedroom.

  For the first two weeks they maintained a twenty-four-hour watch, shouting abuse to drive the devil from her soul. Took away her laptop, her phone and her sketch pad and pens. The one pleasure Genie had was sketching

  and even that was now an instrument of Satan.

  On the first day Genie tried to escape out of her window, despite a sheer drop, but discovered it had been nailed shut. A day later they fitted bars to make sure.

  Teams of rabid women came to her jail door spitting and screaming a torrent of foul language. One woman brought food, then grabbed her through the bars as she handed it over, tried to burn a red-hot silver cross on to Genie’s bare arm. She held on, hysterically screaming about ‘Satan’s bitch’ in Genie’s face and saying that she should be burned like the witch she was. Genie wrenched free, wishing she could retaliate – but the bars got in the way. She nursed her wounds for a week, hoping it wouldn’t scar. She couldn’t but help take this personally.

  She watched the hate in the worshippers’ faces, wondered how anyone, any so-called ‘Christian’ human being, could believe this stuff they screamed. Had any of them ever seen the devil? No. Had Reverend Schneider? She severely doubted it. But Genie had, every day, in the faces of these disciples. She had never seen such evil, as if snakes were crawling out of their eyes. All this because she had somehow known her Grandma had died.

  That was her mistake. Telling her mother. The image of her fallen Grandma had caught her by surprise, that was all, and she hadn’t thought to suppress it. Wasn’t the

  first time it happened, either. When she was six, she’d known that Henry, next-door’s Doberman, was about to die. ‘I’m going. I’ll miss you,’ Henry had told her. She hadn’t told anyone about that. Who’d believe a dog could talk, let alone know when it was about to die? Or that time when Rian was in danger. She knew he was supposed to go with his uncle to Kamloops for a week and that there would be an accident. She made Rian stay, fake the flu. He didn’t understand at first. She had to demand it and she didn’t like to stress their relationship because it was so fragile. But he’d gone to bed with a fever as she asked and the uncle went on his own.

  The uncle made it to Kamloops safely and Rian was pissed at her for a few days, but at school on the Monday his mother called him on his cell, totally distraught. His uncle’s car had been hit by a truck on the way home, just outside Spuzzum, and he was dead. Rian was shocked. He would have been in that vehicle too if he’d gone.

  Genie said nothing and they didn’t discuss it – not properly, because Rian was a little scared of stuff like that, but he did write in her notebook when she wasn’t looking: I will always remember that you saved my life, and that was enough for Genie.

  *

  Six weeks, four days, sixteen hours and forty minutes imprisoned in her room, practically the whole summer.

  They fed her, passed barely edible food through the bars.

  She left most of it. She lost a lot of weight, which was cool at first because sh
e knew she had to, but now she knew she was too skinny and so very pale, since the sun never came into this room. Fortunately she had her own tiny bathroom and showered more often than she used to, out of sheer boredom. She had no TV – the devil ran the networks apparently, the only true thing her mother ever said, Rian had joked. All she had was an old AM radio permanently tuned to some angry talk-show jock who ranted and raved even worse than her mother.

  Everything in Spurlake seemed to be about spewing hate.

  ‘ Bring back the noose for those monsters selling drugs to our kids! What was wrong with frontier times when a few burning torches and a mob made townsfolk safe in their homes! ’

  shouted some guy. She was learning a lot about lynch mobs listening to the radio. She wondered when they’d come for her. They burned witches, didn’t they? She had regular visions of her mother leading the angry mob down the street baying for her blood. She was glad when the batteries died.

  Not long now before school began again. She speculated as to whether she would be as crazy as her mother by

  then. She often wondered if she should kill herself, as the praying ladies suggested she should, so the devil couldn’t possess her, least ways, not in the ‘flesh’. They seemed to be obsessed by that. Genie figured that not a few of them probably wanted Satan to take them when their husbands weren’t looking and were almost jealous that Genie had been chosen instead. But that was the road to insanity, even thinking it was possible. All she longed for was to be in Rian’s arms, feel his lips on her own and hear his reassuring voice say, ‘When we graduate, Genie, we’ll quit Spurlake and never, ever come back.’ Had he meant it? Did he still mean it? Couldn’t they go now?

  Graduate some other place? ’Cause one thing was for sure, the moment they opened that gate again, she was out of there forever and she’d never speak to her mother again as long as she lived.

  She wished every day for Rian to come and rescue her, but how? Metal bars on the windows, strong steel bars on her door. He’d have to demolish the whole house to get at her and they kept watch, all the time. She still had faith he loved her. There would be temptations out there, all summer long, as all the girls flaunted their brown bodies down by the river and the swimming pool. But Rian would resist, would wait for her and for school to start. She was almost confident about it. But then some