OXRUN STATION HAS ALWAYS BEEN DIFFERENT. Nobody can really explain it. You just have to understand that bizarre things happen there. They just do. Weird things. The kind of things you don't even want to dream about in your worst nightmares. Maybe it really is the rare conjunction of Mars and Saturn with Venus, lowering the barriers between our world and another, shadowy realm . . . or maybe it is just that the full moon always brings out the strangeness in that place. Eleanor Trent's research into Halloween uncovers a secret history of ancient rituals and sacrificial rites that allow the creatures of the night to cross into our world and steal the souls of the living . . . The fabric of the cosmos is unravelling and dark and dangerous things are leaking across the borders . . . For five unsuspecting teenagers, their lives will never be the same again as they discover the hidden terrors lurking beneath the surface of their quiet town and experience the most horrifying Halloween of them all . . . This year in Oxrun Station, THE TRICK IS TO STAY ALIVE!
Release date:
October 7, 2011
Publisher:
Little, Brown Book Group
Print pages:
160
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Eleanor Trent watched the sky darken through the dusty window of Oxrun Station Public Library. Across the way, beyond Williamston Pike and Park Street, the woods that fringed
the town were already deep in shadow although – perversely, Eleanor thought – late sunlight was shining in through the library’s far window, so that a bright fiery pattern was
cast on the high bookshelves lining the east wall.
Eleanor checked her watch. It was already past four o’clock and time she set off for Hawksted. She admitted to herself that she was not particularly looking forward to her meeting with
Robert Gill, for all kinds of reasons. He was, for a start, Rob Gill’s father. Eleanor had grown fond of Rob over the past couple of months: he had become important to her and so, it seemed,
had she to him. But she had hoped that the relationship would not grow too serious, though when Rob suggested the meeting with Rob Gill senior, she feared it might have done so.
Then there was Eleanor’s mid-term project for the folklore module of her American Studies course: Halloween, An American Holiday. It sounded grand, and Eleanor felt sure that Miss
Lance, her history tutor, would credit her fairly. But there was some considerable difference between earning the praise of a high school ma’am five years off retirement, and impressing the
author of The Origins, Rites and Ceremonies of Halloween in the Northeastern States of America; a definitive text that Eleanor had drawn from heavily in the writing of her own work. She just
knew that Doctor Gill would pick up on every phrase she had lifted, every fact she had got wrong, every opinion that was unfounded, and embarrass her dreadfully in front of his son. She just knew
it . . .
“No, you don’t know it. Stop being such a scaredy cat and go on over to Hawksted!”
She had been talking to her reflection in the window, cast clearly by the library’s fluorescent lights, which Miss Ross, the senior librarian, had switched on a few minutes ago. The same
Miss Ross now shushed Eleanor sternly from behind the issuing desk. Eleanor stuck her tongue out and smiled at her reflected face. She would never dare show such disrespect openly. And
besides, more seriously, Kay Ross would ban her from using the library for months!
Eleanor’s thoughts tilted back to Rob junior. He’d offered to drive her over to Hawksted College, and bring her back home too and, maybe, they could stop off for a pizza on the way .
. . But Eleanor said she’d prefer to cycle across by herself. Trying to make small talk while she sweated over what Doctor Gill might say would be impossible. The ordeal was going to be bad
enough anyway, without feigning ease and cheerfulness for Rob’s benefit.
But with Rob in mind, Eleanor checked that her hair was tied back neatly in the ponytail he said he liked, and which she found sensible for a bike ride. It was long hair, pale blonde, and, in
Eleanor’s estimation, her best feature. It outweighed the disadvantage of a thinnish face, eyes of a startling green that betrayed far too many of Eleanor’s innermost emotions, and a
mouth that she thought was just a little too wide, though plenty of people said that her smile was ‘sunny’. Eleanor hoped that associations of ‘cute’ would gradually be
replaced by associations of ‘sensual’. She was no longer a little girl and no longer wanted to be one . . . though the pale window-mirrored face was still innocent and still slept
serenely each night on the soft pillow of ignorance. Most of all, she hoped that what beauty she possessed made up for her twisted left hand. She’d been born with it, and while it meant or
mattered little to her now, she knew that it tainted some people’s impressions of her for the worse.
Eleanor packed up her folders and books and tucked them away into the canvas shoulder bag she’d bought cheap at the surplus store. She said good evening to Miss Ross and offered her
sunniest of smiles. Miss Ross’s reply was a rather thin stretching of the lips and a lingering stare that Eleanor felt was perhaps tinged with envy . . . I’m young, Eleanor thought,
I’m happy; I have all that I want or need. Life has not been bad to me . . .
Juggling those advantages in her head like polished pennies, Eleanor hurried down the library steps, unchained her bicycle from its rack and set off to the east, into the gathering gloom,
flicking on her lights as the last street lamps on Chancellor Avenue gave way to trees.
2
Hawksted College lay three miles east of Oxrun. Its appearance matched the prestigious nature of its reputation. You had to earn your place there, as Eleanor hoped one day to
do. Kids that didn’t make the grade went to college at Harley, though that option soaked like a stain into one’s academic record and made a career in medicine, law or research a little
less likely. Eleanor was still far enough away from the hurdle of Hawksted’s entrance exam to regard it with confidence and optimism. Even so, Harley wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, as
the wind lifted in the trees around her and made the woods roar softly. At least Harley would be better than dropping out early to stack supermarket shelves, or wait tables like the strange dark
girl Glynis from Mildenhall Woods. Eleanor gripped the bike’s handlebars more tightly thinking of that ultimate humiliation: serving Cokes and pizzas to the likes of John Montague or Jeff
Dacre or Benjamin Leech, three of several boys she’d dated briefly during the year she’d lived in Oxrun. The vision actually made her sweat, and her suddenly increased determination to
reach Hawksted educationally made her push down harder on the pedals in order to get there more quickly.
Minutes later she swished off the road and into the long sweeping driveway to the College, standing on the pedals to manage the upward slope towards the main entrance in the south-facing facade.
Eleanor had been on the campus several times and never failed to be impressed by the imposing Gothic-style buildings and the air of ancient academe that they evoked. The quadrangle that formed the
old nucleus of Hawksted, a place of towers and turrets and high leaded windows, looked more Old England than New. Eleanor wondered if the place had been transported from Britain brick by brick
– then chuckled and dismissed the notion as fanciful.
She leaned her bicycle against one of the glass-globed lampposts in the quad, picked up the lock chain and then dropped it back into the pannier. No-one was likely to steal the bike in a place
like this, were they? She hefted her folder under her arm, swept a final glance across the rather dark and solid architecture all around her, and went in the side door to find Robert Gill’s
study.
Eleanor’s smile, she was surprised herself to discover, was both sunny and unforced. Doctor Robert Gill was delightful; friendly, chatty, not at all superior or stuffy. He treated Eleanor
from the start like a favourite niece – though she found it impossible to treat him like a favourite uncle, exactly. He was far too handsome for that, despite his corduroy trousers and the
fact that he wore them with a tweed jacket leather-patched at the elbow and hem. He had hair that was much darker than his son’s, and had combed it back severely with some hair cream, so that
it shone glossily. His dark moustache made him look older than he was; his twinkling eyes made him look younger. Eleanor enjoyed this paradox and the way his easy manner threw her a little off
balance.
“Halloween, An American Holiday. Hmm . . . It sounds very grand.” He smiled, and so did Eleanor. “Are you pleased?”
“Yes, sir, I’m happy with it, I—”
Gill held up his hand. “No, no. Not ‘sir’, please. That embarrasses me. Makes me sound like some kind of expert.”
Eleanor’s laughter bubbled out. “But you are an expert! You know more about Halloween than – anyone!”
Gill smiled again, so that attractive crow’s feet crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “I think not.”
He stood up and walked over to a small chalkboard framed on the wall between bookcases. He began drawing circles.
“There is an old story, and a very wise one, that goes like this . . . ‘When the white man came to America, he was very keen to impress the native Indians, whom he thought simple and
primitive. Arrogantly, the white man showed the chief of a local tribe his guns and his pocket watch. Then h. . .
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