The Secrets Tree Read online

  The night seemed to grow even darker as clouds appeared and covered over the moon, clouds that seemed to boil up from nowhere, and Polly realized that they were back in the past. This was an October night three hundred and fifty years before, and that night there had been cloud.

  “Where is the brat?” someone muttered, and Polly’s eyes widened. She had assumed from the way Patch had told his story that Nat loved his brother as much as Jake loved him. But this man sounded so angry. Not like a loving brother at all.

  “He’ll be here, just wait a while.” The darkness in front of the tree shifted a little, and Polly realized that there were two men, not just one. Nat had brought another of the gang with him. Or from the way the men were talking, the first man had made Nat bring him. He was the ringleader, Polly thought. She could hear the stamping of hooves and a faint jingling. The highwaymen had muffled their horses’ bridles with rags so they wouldn’t be heard when they stood waiting for their prey.

  The moon shone through a break in the cloud for a minute and Polly gasped. There they were, their horses standing quietly by the tree. The fierce-sounding man was huge. He had massive shoulders and the caped greatcoat he was wearing only made him look even bigger. Beside him, Jake’s brother looked thin and young – and scared.

  “I promise, Bear. He’ll be here. And he’ll have news. I told him. I told him we must have news. He’s a good boy, he knows what he needs to do.”

  Polly clenched her fists as she watched Nat stammering and pleading with the bigger man. That was his little brother he was getting into trouble! She had a feeling that Nat was in this way over his head. All his boasting to Jake, and the presents and the good clothes – it was all a show.

  At last another figure appeared at the edge of the clearing – a smaller figure, stumbling through the darkness. Polly wanted to shout to Jake to go away, to run, but she knew it would do no good. Even if he could hear her, he was desperate to warn his brother and keep him safe.

  “So this is the brat!” Bear lurched forward and grabbed Jake by the shoulder of his worn jacket, and Jake yelped with fear.

  “Hey! Have a care of him, Bear!” Nat cried. “He doesn’t need you manhandling him. It’s me, Jake. I brought Bear with me, he’s another of the gang. He’s come to hear what you know about the carriages. What you’ve found out. Ye have, haven’t ye? Ye’s got the goods? We need it, Jake.”

  Polly could hear the panic in Nat’s voice, but it didn’t make her feel sorry for him. She wanted to kick him in the ankles, grab Jake and run. Beside her, Patch was growling under his breath, a nasty low growl that suggested he felt the same way.

  “So tell us then, brat. Who’s coming? What do the carriages look like? What crests should we be watching for on the doors?” Bear gave the boy a shake, as if he wanted to rattle the information out of him.

  “I don’t know!” Jake yelped. “I don’t know nothing! Leave me be!”

  “Whaaaat?” The man’s voice deepened and Polly saw where he got his name. It wasn’t just the size of him – he growled like a bear too. He gave Jake another shake, harder this time, so hard that Polly was sure she heard the boy’s teeth chatter together. Then he roared at Nat, “What’s this then? Ye said he’d have the news for us!”

  “He does, he will! I promise!” Nat’s words tumbled over each other, he was so eager to please the bigger man. “Jake, ye must know, ye must. I promised them,” he added, hissing desperately in his little brother’s ear.

  “Don’t know nothing,” Jake squeaked again. “But ye gotter run, Nat!” His words were muffled though, as Bear shook him again.

  Polly whimpered as she looked on, terrified that Bear was really going to hurt Jake. She glanced down at Patch – this must be even harder for him to watch. It was only then that she realized Patch wasn’t there. And neither was Rex.

  Polly pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle a wail. She didn’t want to be out here in the dark on her own. She could be brave – she’d clambered through secret passages looking for smugglers, of course she could be brave. But until now she’d only had to be brave with Rex. Never on her own.

  She shook herself crossly. Nothing was going to hurt her. This was just like watching a film. (Except that it really happened! a voice inside her yelped.)

  Where had Patch and Rex gone? Were they taking their old places in the story? Polly leaned forward, her heart thumping faster as Bear’s rumbling threats echoed through the clearing. He seemed to be getting angrier and angrier. If Rex had some plan to help, he needed to be quick.

  Then she gasped. The moon had broken through the cloud once more, and there they were, watching from behind a tree on the other side of the clearing. Rex’s golden-brown muzzle, and Patch’s tawny one, much lower down. Watching, waiting for their moment. Polly dug her fingernails into her palms. How much longer?

  “I’ve had enough of this,” Bear snarled. “The lad doesn’t know anything. All this time ye’ve been promising us heaven and earth, and it was all a hum! Useless, the pair o’ ye!” He made a swift movement and Polly saw something flash in the moonlight. She gasped, and leaped up, even though she knew she couldn’t change what had happened so many years before. That was a knife in Bear’s hand – she could see it despite the dark.

  “No point in keeping ye around to blab, if ye’s got no use, is there?” Bear raised the knife to Jake’s throat, but as the blade gleamed in the moonlight there was a sudden thunder of barking from the woods and two shadows broke out of the trees. The smaller one flung itself furiously at the big man’s legs, ripping and worrying at his long coat – but the great dark shadow that was Rex went for the knife.

  Polly had never seen Rex like this. Of course she knew that he was a wolfhound, bred to hunt and fight and guard his people. But he was always so gentle when he was with her. He flung himself at the blade, slamming into Bear’s arm and knocking the knife to the ground.

  Polly sprang up. She didn’t care if this was three hundred and fifty years ago, she felt as though she was here and she wasn’t going to let Bear get hold of that knife again. Or Nat, for that matter, because she didn’t trust him, either. She snatched the knife and darted back behind the tree. She stood there watching with the knife heavy in her hands as Jake rolled away from Bear. Patch herded him back towards the trees with little snarls and yaps, desperate to get his boy to safety.

  Bear was on the ground, cursing, as Rex stood over him, growling in his face. Bear knew that Rex wasn’t just any dog, Polly was sure. The man’s face was dead pale and he stayed perfectly still. He wasn’t trying to push the great creature off. He wasn’t trying to get up. He just lay there, staring into Rex’s eyes.

  At last Rex stepped back and he spoke. Not in the voice he used to speak to Polly, which could be loving or sad or full of laughter. This was a deeper sound, far more eerie – it was a voice that Bear could hear, and Nat and Jake. All of them were staring at this not-just-a-dog.

  “Get up, you. Get up and go. Leave my land – and don’t ever come back.”

  Bear lumbered up, his breath coming fast, and disappeared away among the trees, his black clothes mingling with the shadows. Polly watched Nat creep away after him, leading the two horses.

  Then she looked back as Rex and Patch nudged Jake to his feet and sniffed him over carefully. The stable boy stared at the enormous wolfhound as though he wasn’t sure what to believe – had he really heard the dog speak?

  “Do ye belong to the master?” Jake asked, cautiously smoothing a hand over Rex’s head. “I never seen ye before. Ye’s a grand boy, aren’t ye? Did my Patch find ye?” He looked down at Patch and then crouched to make a proper fuss over the little terrier. “Hey! I’ve just remembered – I shut ye up in the shed. How did ye get out?” He glanced up at Rex and Rex gave him back look for look, his dark eyes serious.

  “Surely I should have trusted ye to help. Sorry, Patch. I didn’t want ye anywhere near Nat nor any of his mates. I don’t like them.” He looked around the clearing and sighed. �
��Nat’s gone, hasn’t he? I didn’t see him go off with Bear but he must have done.” He patted Rex again and stood up, saying, “I’d better get back to the stables then, before I’m missed.”

  He smiled as the two dogs fell in on either side of him and they walked away across the clearing. But as they came to the trees, Rex looked back at Polly and jerked his head, telling her to follow. Polly nodded and then glanced down at the knife – she didn’t want it. Just imagining what Bear might have used it for in the past made her feel sick. She scratched a hole at her feet with the tip of the knife and buried it. Then she hurried to catch up with the others.

  They headed along the dark path – Polly wanted to turn her torch back on again but she was worried that Jake might see it. She had been able to pick up the knife, after all. About halfway back to the stables, Jake suddenly stopped and the two dogs stopped with him, their ears pricking up. Polly nearly walked into Jake and she was almost sure that he saw her. He looked wide-eyed and nervous but he seemed to convince himself that he’d imagined the strange figure walking behind him.

  “Dark night, that’s all,” Jake muttered to himself. “Did ye hear that, Patch? The whistling?”

  Polly pressed herself back against a tree out of the way and tried to listen. At first, all she could hear was the wind, Jake’s fast breathing and the thump of her own heart – but then there it was. Quiet but definite – a thin, breathy whistle.

  “It’s Nat!” Jake looked around eagerly for his brother but Polly frowned. She knew that tune too, and she was pretty sure she’d never heard The Tragical Ballad of Johnny Marks. It was Greensleeves. She knew because she could play it on the recorder from when they’d all had lessons in Year Four. Then again, Greensleeves was definitely old – their teacher had told them that a lot of people thought that Henry VIII had written it for one of his wives. Perhaps the ballads all got sung to old tunes, she thought to herself. It would make it easier – the ballad sheet hadn’t had any music with it, so people would have to just know the tune.

  “Over here,” a voice whispered, and Polly shrank closer against the tree as Jake’s brother slid past her, holding up a lantern. “Did Bear hurt ye?” he asked anxiously, turning Jake’s face from side to side to look for marks. “I’m sorry, Jake. I never thought he’d turn nasty like that.”

  Polly suppressed a disbelieving sniff. She didn’t think Nat should have brought someone like Bear anywhere near his little brother – but then maybe he hadn’t had a choice. Once you were part of a gang with someone like Bear, it was probably very hard to get out.

  “That dog is staring at me,” Nat muttered to Jake, eyeing Rex nervously. “Where’d he spring from, anyway? Does he belong to Sir Anthony?” He hesitated for a moment. “Jake, did ye—Did ye hear him…? Oh … never mind.”

  “I don’t know who he belongs to. He just came to help. Where did ye go, Nat? I thought ye had run off with Bear.”

  “No…” Nat sighed. “Jake, that’s what I came to tell ye. Likes working in the stables, don’t ye? More than ye thought ye would when ye started?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t mind it. I’ve got Patch, and I like Emperor and Lady Lily fine.”

  “I can’t keep coming back to see ye, Jake. Not for a while, anyway.” Nat put a hand on his shoulder. “Bear’s gone, that dog of yourn scared him off, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last. I don’t want to keep on this way. It’s asking for trouble, Jake. I reckon the authorities are looking out for us.”

  “They are!” Jake burst out. “That’s what I was coming to tell ye, only Bear wouldn’t let me talk. Sir Anthony’s setting up a trap for ye – the servants armed and ready to fight. He’s proper teasy with all of ye holding up his guests. He’s jumping, he’s vowed he’ll have ye all hanged, Nat. Thee has t’ go.”

  “Like a goose walked over my grave.” Nat shivered. “I’m going to London. Don’t know what sort of work I’ll get there, but there’s gotter be something I can do. I’ll write, Jakey, I promise ye that.” He put an arm round his brother’s shoulders and hugged him awkwardly, and Jake huddled against him. He looked really small, Polly thought, smaller than her. He was so young to be left all alone without any family.

  She looked on as Nat pressed a coin into his little brother’s hand and then hurried away into the wood, leaving Jake staring white-faced after him. Jake watched the trees until the last sound of his brother’s footsteps disappeared. Then he crouched down and picked up Patch, holding him tight in his arms, and began to trudge back towards the stables.

  “It’s better,” he mumbled into Patch’s ear as they came into the yard. “He’s better off in Lunnon. Safer there, without that Bear and the others. He’ll write, he said. He will.”

  Polly could hear it in his voice, the way he was telling himself a story about Nat making his fortune in London. Telling himself that everything was going to be all right. It made her want to cry.

  A gang of excited children rushed past her and Polly pressed herself back against the wall, blinking in the flickering light of their lanterns. There were lights everywhere – strung across the stable yard in great long strings, glowing from deep inside the huge carved pumpkins and shining out from the glowing paper lanterns everyone around her seemed to be carrying. She was back in her own day, she realized. Rex and Jake and Patch were gone, and everyone was shouting and laughing. The parade must be nearly about to start.

  But she couldn’t bear the brightness and the laughter. Not just yet. Not after being so sad for Jake, left with only Patch as his family.

  Keeping to the shadows, out of the way, she ducked back along the carriage drive and across the garden to the terrace and sat down on the steps beside Rex’s statue.

  Rex was stretched out on his plinth again, as if he’d never moved. Polly leaned her head against him.

  “You were very brave, jumping for that knife,” she whispered. “I don’t think I could do something like that. I wonder what happened to Bear. Did he listen to you and go away, or did he try one last raid? Some of them got caught, anyway.” She shivered, and Rex leaned down from his stone slab and nuzzled her hair.

  “It was a long time ago,” he murmured. “Don’t be sad.”

  “Don’t be sad,” echoed another little growly voice, and Polly saw that Patch was sitting next to her on the step. He licked her hand. “It was ye picked that knife up, so Bear never got it back. Ye did well, Mistress. Ye helped us between ye, and us is proper grateful. Me and my boy.”

  William and Magnus were standing at the top of the flight of steps too, watching Patch. Magnus was pressed close against William’s legs as though he didn’t ever want to let him go.

  “That parade’s starting, Polly.” Rex stood up on the plinth, his ears pricking. “I can hear it. Shouldn’t you be there?”

  “Oh! Yes.” Polly jumped up, about to run back to the stables. Then she stopped and took off her witch’s hat, tucking it in between the stone pillars that ran down the side of the steps. “I’ve changed my mind about my costume,” she explained to the two dogs. She grabbed one of the long fringey bits she’d cut in the bottom of her witch’s cloak, and pulled, tearing it off into a long strip. “Rex, can you bite this? For eyeholes?” she asked hopefully.

  “Give it to us,” Patch said. “Ye need a terrier for neat work like that, missy. Not a gurt big hound like him.”

  Polly held the strip in front of him, and Patch ripped it carefully with his teeth, two neat slashes. It left the highway robber’s mask a little damp, but Polly didn’t mind. She opened up the holes a little with her fingers and tied the strip of fabric around her head. “It’s perfect. Thanks, Patch. I’d better go.”

  The lantern parade was winding up the carriage drive towards the house as she ran to catch it up, peering along the lantern-lit faces to find her mum.

  “Polly! I didn’t know where you were!” Her mum waved from beside the huge dog lantern. He was strung on four tall poles now, with Nina and Stephen holding them up. As the lantern-dog sw
ayed through the air, he looked like Rex loping along the beach, or galloping along the path through the woods to catch a highwayman.

  Stephen grinned at Polly and called, “Like the mask!”

  “The dog looks amazing,” Polly panted. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Isn’t he?” Her mum smiled. “This was such a good idea, Polly. We’ll have to do it every year.”

  Polly nodded. Every year. That sounded good. As though they’d be here for a long, long time.

  A gentle nudge against her hip made her look down and she reached out one hand to stroke Rex. “Do you like it?” she murmured to him. “That’s you.”

  “Could be bigger,” Rex muttered but Polly knew he was pleased. He bounded out across the lawns, with Patch jumping and yelping after him in a wild game of catch.

  Polly’s mum blinked and turned to look out over the grass. “Polly – did you see… No, it must just have been a trick of the light. I suppose the lanterns make a lot of shadows when they’re swinging, it’s so spooky. Perfect for Halloween.”

  “What did you see?” Polly asked gently, and her mum laughed.

  “Nothing – I was being silly. It was just for a moment I thought I saw two dogs running across the grass. One huge one and then a little tiny dog chasing after him.” She put her arm round Polly’s shoulders. “They looked really happy.”

  Codes

  I loved writing about the code Jake and Nat use to send their messages. Just like William, I think codes are fascinating! Mind you, I know I would be terrible if I ever had to solve one for real… So here are a few famous codes and ciphers (did you know that those are actually different things?) Try sending some secret messages!