The next few days were spent locked away at the manor, giving our bodies the chance to heal and recover from what had happened at Ravenwood School. On the very next morning after handing McCain over to Banner, I telephoned Elizabeth Clarke and told her what I had discovered. She wept over the phone, as she had been unable to come straight down to see me. I didn’t want Elizabeth to find out what had happened to her sister by watching the news or reading it in a newspaper.
Elizabeth said that she needed just a couple of days, then she would come to Hallowed Manor to find out everything that I had discovered. Over those few days, Kayla spent most of her time looking after Sam, who we had placed in one of the many spare rooms. Potter seemed less agitated than before. Isidor seemed quiet and content as he sat quietly in the study and passed his time by reading. If he had noticed the cracks around his healing wound, he didn’t say anything. I considered talking to him about it, but I felt the time wasn’t quite right. I didn’t understand it myself.
Several times I went back to the summerhouse, but the statue had gone. I went to the tiny graveyard hidden beneath the willow trees, and to my surprise, I found Murphy’s crucifix hanging from the cross that Potter had made for his friend. Taking the crucifix in my hands, I listened to the wind rustling through the willows, then hung the cross back around my neck.
I was glad I had told Elizabeth about her sister when I had, because the news of McCain’s arrest and what had happened at Ravenwood was front page news, and occupied hours of airtime on the TV. The Council of Wolves and the United Nations Commission of Wolves held emergency meetings. The video was undeniable proof, that a werewolf — Skin-walker — had breached the Treaty of Wasp Water by murdering a human. The punishment for McCain, for the breach, was to be sentenced to death. The Council of Wolves was enraged by this, and threatened to walk away from the Treaty if McCain was executed. But the United Nations held firm and said that all parts of the Treaty had to be adhered to, and that McCain would be sentenced to death for his crime. McCain continued to protest his innocence. But beneath the grounds of Ravenwood, forensic teams had found a chamber where the teachers and some parents had been held. A shack was found on the grounds of the school, where children claimed they had been held prisoner for days, fighting off giant rats that came to feed on them. The children had given this shack a name — they had called it the Rat-House. McCain didn’t deny this, but he continued to protest that he was innocent of the murder of Emily Clarke. His lawyers persisted that a body had never been found, but the prosecution said that the video evidence and the amount of blood found at the scene was enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Emily Clarke was indeed dead.
But what really sealed his fate was how he rambled on and on about a group of winged creatures who had killed thirteen wolves at the chapel during the matching ceremony. His talk was brushed aside as nothing more than the insane ramblings of a killer. Justice proved swift in this new world that had been pushed, and McCain’s execution was going to be televised live across the world. It was to be shown on the night that Elizabeth Clarke was coming to visit.
I didn’t want to watch McCain be beheaded live on TV, but Potter did and he brought a portable television into the study, which I had prepared for Elizabeth’s visit.
“You are kidding me?” I breathed as he placed it on the table.
“No, why?” he asked, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
“Do you really think Elizabeth is going to want to watch McCain being beheaded on TV?”
“She might,” Potter said, positioning the television. “It’s all part of the healing process, sweetcheeks.”
Before I’d had the chance to object further, the door was opened as Isidor and Kayla led Elizabeth Clarke into the study. Again, I could see that Isidor was struck by her beauty.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed this, as Potter looked at him and said, “For crying out loud, kid, put your tongue away as you’re gonna trip over it.”
Isidor flushed red and took a seat at the table, next to Kayla. Elizabeth sat down, her thick long blond hair resting on her shoulders, lips painted bright red. She didn’t look like someone who was in mourning.
“Thank you for coming down to see us,” I said.
“No, thank you, Miss Hudson, for uncovering the truth about what happened to my sister,” she smiled, her eyes almost seeming to sparkle. “He was right about you; you don’t leave any stone unturned in your search for the truth.”
“Sorry?” I asked, starting to feel confused.
“The person who recommended you to me,” she smiled back.
“But I thought you said you saw Kiera’s advert in that shop window?” Kayla asked.
“Yes, yes,” Elizabeth said. “But it was a friend of mine who actually recommended you.”
“Who’s your friend?” Potter asked her, his voice flat. Like me, he sensed that something wasn’t quite right.
“I can introduce him to you, if you’d like,” she smiled again, taking a mobile phone from her pocket.
I looked at Potter and he glanced back at me. Where was this going? I wondered.
With the phone to her ear, Elizabeth said into it, “Come in, they’d love to see you.”
Then, whoever it was she had brought with her must have been waiting on the other side of the door the whole time, as it slowly opened.
“Hey, that’s the Oompa Loompa we saw help McCain carry Emily’s body from her room,” Potter snapped, as the burnt little boy from the video stepped into the study.
“Dorsey, what are doing here?” Kayla gasped.
“This is my son,” Emily said.
“He’s that burnt kid?” Potter sniped, looking at me in disbelief.
“They are not burns,” Elizabeth said, standing and placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “They are the result of a bad matching.”
“Apart from seeing your son on that video helping to carry your murdered sister from her room, I’ve never seen him before,” I frowned, realising that there was now more to this murder than I had first seen. “How could he have recommended me?”
“Oh no, it wasn’t my son who gave you such a glowing report,” she smiled down at me.
“No, it was me, Kiera Hudson,” someone said, and I looked up to see Jack Seth stroll into the room.