Chill by Alex Nye

Sebastian were, if they were still wandering about in the dark.
    “Hold on tight,” Fiona said, and she walked Emperor down the hill towards Dunadd at a brisk pace.
    At the bottom of the hill the white tower and turrets of the house loomed up ahead, smoke pouring from the chimneys. Samuel was glad to be back.

The Ebony Box
    That night, Samuel couldn’t sleep. He got up and looked out of his bedroom window. Everything sparkled and glistened in the moonlight.
    Making up his mind, he grabbed his coat and boots, opened the door and stepped outside. There was no wind tonight, and for once the huge beech trees were silent.
    He crossed the courtyard and opened the side door to the big house. Mrs Morton didn’t appear to worry about security, and left it unlocked day and night. He was worried the dogs would bark and wake the whole household, but thankfully they recognized him and on waking wagged their tails sleepily. He took off his boots and crept through the dark house, along its winding corridors and passageways. He stole past the sleeping cockatoo in the kitchen, who didn’t so much as stir in her cage, down the hallway, past the grandfather clock, and up the spiralling staircase.
    The drawing room was empty and he crept quietly across it, his feet making hardly any sound on the cold boards. Then he opened the door to the library. He had been afraid he might find it locked.
    Portraits of Morton ancestors stared down on him from above, watching him with an air of disapproval. He dreaded Mrs Morton appearing in the doorway behind him. She wouldnever forgive him this time. There would be no mistaking what he was up to, and that would be the end of it. He and his mother would be sent packing, and have to find somewhere else to live.
    He looked up and saw the carved ebony box. There it was, where he had last seen it, on top of the bookcase. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was within his grasp at last. There was a sliding ladder for reaching up to the highest places, and he took this now and pushed it along the shelves, wincing at the sound it made. He climbed up, then lifted the box down in his arms, clutching it carefully like a baby so as not to drop it. It was a heavy object, and he had difficulty in getting it down the ladder. Although covered in dust and cobwebs it was beautiful and intricately carved.
    He knelt on the floor with his find, and tried to open it. It was locked. He ought to have known. Her words came back at him from the past.
“The key I have hidden away so that no one will ever find it.”
He sat back on his heels, gazed round the library, and let out a long sigh of defeat. It could be anywhere. Chances were it had been lost a long time ago, misplaced.
    He searched the drawers of the desk, but found nothing, then he went to the little bureau under the window, and began searching its cubby-holes. He did at last locate a bundle of little keys, and tried each one for size, but none of them fitted.
    He stroked the carved surface of the wooden box, wondering what use it was to him without a key. He wondered how old it was. It smelt quite ancient, an old wooden smell, time-worn and precious.
    After a while he got up and went to the window. He stood looking out at the silvered garden, the little stone fountain covered in snow and draped in icicles, the archways andtrellises, the stone steps set into the embankment at the end of the garden, leading the way into snow-covered woods and hills beyond.
    Maybe the key would be in Catherine Morton’s old room, he speculated wildly, the one that Granny Hughes and her husband were now sleeping in. He couldn’t explore there just now. Then he thought about the chest in the attic, where they’d found the papers from the journal in the first place. It was worth checking it again. If it contained her embroidery and papers from her journal, there was a distinct possibility it might also hold the key to the ebony box. It was worth a try, anyway. But dare he venture up into