The Hunting Ground by Cliff McNish

as well. A cleansing ritual.’
    I found myself peering closely at the picture. It was fascinating the life-like way the water was dripping from Cullayn’s red beard, the drops glistening, clinging to his chin, almost as if …
    ‘Don’t!’ Janey stepped in front of me. ‘See? See!’ She snapped her fingers in my face. ‘I told you it’s not just Eve being influenced. He’s doing it to you as well. Don’t you get it, Theo? He’d love to have you in his power, doing his killing for him.’ She waved her hand in front of my face. ‘He wants to cast a spell over you.’
    She knocked the swimming portrait off the wall. When the fragile old wooden frame hit the ground it broke. I gasped, scandalised, but before I could stop her Janey went further, jabbing a sharp fingernail into the canvas and deliberately tearing at it, ripping away Cullayn’s face.
    ‘The paintings are worth a fortune!’ I roared, fighting her for the picture. ‘They’re—’
    ‘Shut up!’
    ‘But they’re not ours!’ I shouted. ‘They belong to the property. You can’t—’
    ‘Listen to you!’ Janey danced away, keeping the picture out of my reach. ‘Look how much you wantto protect it! You can’t even bear me touching it, can you?’
    ‘Just give me the picture!’
    I was furious. All I wanted to do in that moment was mend the portrait and hang it back on the wall. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything else damaging it.
    Janey refused to hand it over. ‘I’ve told you all about him and you
still
want to protect it,’ she said. ‘Strange, eh? But it’s not just you. It’s everyone. Look at the East Wing. Filthy, ugly place it is, everyone’s terrified of it, but it’s been preserved. The ghost children tell me that not one portrait has been moved inside it since Cullayn died. Don’t you think that’s odd, Theo?’
    I breathed in heavily, forcing back my anger. Even now I wanted to make sure no more harm came to the swimming portrait. Janey finally handed it back to me, and I managed to patch it up, jamming the frame joints together again.
    Janey leaned back, watching me closely as I repositioned the picture on the wall. It was only then, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye, that I noticed something unexpected. I saw that Janey wasn’t half as calm as she pretended to be. Both her hands had a white-knuckle grip on the wall. She was having to make a real effort to look away from thecanvas. Her gaze was drawn towards it just like mine was and, though she spat on it when she saw me looking, and smiled defiantly, I knew then that even Janey wasn’t immune to Cullayn’s influence.

UNTIL MY WILL MATCHES HIS
     
    The diary extract ended with that line. Elliott flipped the page over, desperate for it to continue.
    Ben, wide awake again, was reading over his shoulder. ‘There are a few more,’ he said.
    ‘A few more what?’
    ‘Pages of the diary.’
    Elliott raised his eyes.
    ‘I found them just after these,’ Ben said.
    With a sense of dread, Elliott turned to face him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the new pages before? Why didn’t you just add them together?’
    ‘Dunno.’ Ben shrugged. ‘Forgot, I suppose.’
    ‘What do you mean, you forgot?’
    ‘I don’t know, all right?’ Ben said, matching Elliott’s growl. ‘Look, I can’t remember where I found them, OK? Do you want to read them or not?’
    Elliott saw from Ben’s expression that he genuinely couldn’t recall where he had found the latest set of diary pages. He watched anxiously as Ben reached into hisjeans pocket for the four sheets of paper. ‘I put them here,’ he said. ‘To make sure I didn’t lose them,’ he added, as if that made perfect sense.
    Are we being fed this diary in dribs and drabs? Elliott wondered. Not finding it accidentally, but being
given
it to read in pieces? If so, why?
    ‘That’s all I have,’ Ben said, handing the sheets over.
    Elliott felt a shiver leap through him as he studied Ben’s calm,