Free Gravenhunger by Richard; Harriet; Allen Goodwin

had,” said Phoenix. “I thought I saw it glinting up at me from the bottom of the burrow. But it wasn’t the angel. It was something else. Something a bit weird, actually.”
    He opened his fist and they both gazed down into the palm of his hand.
    Lying there, half covered in earth, was a rusty iron bolt.
    “It’s warm,” said Phoenix, holding it out to Rose. “Hot, even. Just like the earth I found it in. Here – feel it. What do you think it is?”
    Rose didn’t answer.
    She was pulling something out of her jeans pocket and placing it beside the object in her cousin’s hand…
    …an identical glowing bolt.
    “Where did you get that?” exclaimed Phoenix. “Have you been over here too?”
    Rose shook her head. “I found it in the house about twenty minutes ago. Just before you fell into the burrow. It was underneath a loose floorboard in my bedroom.”
    “In your bedroom ?” echoed Phoenix. “In Mum’s bedroom?”
    Rose blinked at him. “ What? ”
    There was a moment’s silence.
    Phoenix placed the two bolts side by side on the mound and trailed his finger over them.
    “Gravenhunger Manor used to belong to my mother,” he said softly, his eyes fixed upon the bolts. “She lived here for a while when she was a child. That’s why we’re here.”
    Rose gaped.
    “To your mother ? But that’s not what your dad said. He told me you were looking after the place for someone over the summer. A friend, I thought.”
    “That’s because I asked him not to say anything,” said Phoenix. “He only told me about it a couple of days ago, and I needed some time to get my head around it all. Even Dad didn’t know about the house until the solicitor’s stuff came through a few weeks after Mum died.”
    Rose stared past him into the thickening sleet, a glazed expression on her face.
    “Of course,” she murmured. “The initials in the headboard. So that’s what they stand for…”
    “Initials?”
    “E.P.,” explained Rose. “Your mother’s initials. They’re scratched into the bed in the attic.” She looked back at her cousin. “I still don’t understand, though. Why would your mother want to keep a house a secret?”
    Phoenix picked up the bolt he had found at the bottom of the burrow and began to scratch away the surface covering of earth.
    “Just before we came down here I found a letter,” he said. “A letter my mum had written to Dad shortly before she died.”
    He paused.
    “Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you this. It feels weird talking about it. Like I’m breaking Mum’s trust or something.”
    “Oh, please go on. I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise…”
    Phoenix prised away the last of the earth and rubbed the bolt on the sleeve of his waterproof.
    “In the letter it said that something terrible had happened here when she was a child. Something she didn’t want anyone to know about.”
    “And it didn’t say what it was?”
    “No,” replied Phoenix. “Just that it had been her fault. And that she had never been able to forgive herself for it.”
    Rose’s eyes widened.
    “Have you tried to find out what this terrible thing was?”
    Phoenix shook his head. “I haven’t had the chance,” he said. “I promised myself I would, of course. I was planning on searching the house, in case something had been left lying around. And I thought I’d ask a few questions down in the village too. See if there was anyone there who remembered that far back. But then I lost the angel on our first day here, and I haven’t got round to doing anything except look for that. I feel so terrible about losing it. It’s the last connection I’ve got with my mum.”
    Rose brushed the sleet off the face of her torch.
    “You must really miss her,” she said.
    Phoenix looked away.
    “I’m all right,” he muttered. “I’d rather not talk about it, actually. It’s kind of easier that way.”
    For a time neither of them spoke.
    “I suppose your dad doesn’t know about you reading this