The Graveyard Book

“I almost couldn’t. At first I thought you were a shadow or something. But you look like you did in my dream. You sort of came into focus.”

He walked over to the bench. He said, “Can you actually read that? Isn’t it too dark for you?”

Scarlett closed the magazine. She said, “It’s odd. You’d think it would be too dark, but I could read it fine, no problem.”

“Are you…” He trailed off, uncertain of what he had wanted to ask her. “Are you here on your own?”

She nodded. “I helped Mr. Frost do some grave-rubbings, after school. And then I told him I wanted to sit and think here, for a bit. When I’m done here, I promised to go and have a cup of tea with him and he’ll run me home. He didn’t even ask why. Just said he loves sitting in graveyards too, and that he thinks they can be the most peaceful places in the world.” Then she said, “Can I hug you?”

“Do you want to?” said Bod.

“Yes.”

“Well then.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t mind if you do.”

“My hands won’t go through you or anything? You’re really there?”

“You won’t go through me,” he told her, and she threw her arms around him and squeezed him so tightly he could hardly breathe. He said, “That hurts.”

Scarlett let go. “Sorry.”

“No. It was nice. I mean. You just squeezed more than I was expecting.”

“I just wanted to know if you were real. All these years I thought you were just something in my head. And then I sort of forgot about you. But I didn’t make you up, and you’re back, you’re in my head, and you’re in the world too.”

Bod smiled. He said, “You used to wear a sort of a coat, it was orange, and whenever I saw that particular color orange, I’d think of you. I don’t suppose you still have the coat.”

“No,” she said. “Not for a long time. It would be a wee bit too small for me now.”

“Yes,” said Bod. “Of course.”

“I should go home,” said Scarlett. “I thought I could come up on the weekend, though.” And then, seeing the expression on Bod’s face, she said, “Today’s Wednesday.”

“I’d like that.”

She turned to go. Then she said, “How will I find you, next time?”

Bod said, “I’ll find you. Don’t worry. Just be on your own and I’ll find you.”

She nodded, and was gone.

Bod walked back into the graveyard and up the hill, until he reached the Frobisher mausoleum. He did not enter it. He climbed up the side of the building, using the thick ivy root as a foothold, and he pulled himself up onto the stone roof, where he sat and thought looking out at the world of moving things beyond the graveyard, and he remembered the way that Scarlett had held him and how safe he had felt, if only for a moment, and how fine it would be to walk safely in the lands beyond the graveyard, and how good it was to be master of his own small world.

Scarlett said that she didn’t want a cup of tea, thank you. Or a chocolate biscuit. Mr. Frost was concerned.

“Honestly,” he told her, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Well, a graveyard, not a bad place to see one, if you were going to, um, I had an aunt once who claimed her parrot was haunted. She was a scarlet macaw. The parrot. The aunt was an architect. Never knew the details.”

“I’m fine,” said Scarlett. “It was just a long day.”

“I’ll give you a lift home then. Any idea what this says? Been puzzling over it for half an hour.” He indicated a grave-rubbing on the little table, held flat by a jam jar in each corner. “Is that name Gladstone, do you think? Could be a relative of the prime minister. But I can’t make out anything else.”

“’Fraid not,” said Scarlett. “But I’ll take another look when I come out on Saturday.”

“Is your mother likely to put in an appearance?”

“She said she’d drop me off here in the morning. Then she has to go and get groceries for our di

“Do you think,” asked Mr. Frost, hopefully, “there are likely to be roast potatoes?”

“I expect so, yes.”

Mr. Frost looked delighted. Then he said, “I wouldn’t want to put her out of her way, I mean.”

“She’s loving it,” said Scarlett, truthfully. “Thank you for giving me a lift home.”

“More than welcome,” said Mr. Frost. They walked together down the steps in Mr. Frost’s high narrow house, to the little entrance hall at the bottom of the stairs.

In Krakow, on Wawel Hill, there are caves called the Dragon’s Den, named after a long dead dragon. These are the caves that the tourists know about. There are caves beneath those caves that the tourists do not know and do not ever get to visit. They go down a long way, and they are inhabited.

Silas went first, followed by the grey hugeness of Miss Lupescu, padding quietly on four feet just behind him. Behind them was Kandar, a bandage-wrapped Assyrian mummy with powerful eagle-wings and eyes like rubies, who was carrying a small pig.

There had originally been four of them, but they had lost Haroun in a cave far above, when the Ifrit, as naturally overconfident as are all of its race, had stepped into a space bounded by three polished bronze mirrors and had been swallowed up in a blaze of bronze light. In moments the Ifrit could only be seen in the mirrors, and no longer in reality. In the mirrors his fiery eyes were wide open, and his mouth was moving as if he was shouting at them to leave and beware, and then he faded and was lost to them.

Silas, who had no problems with mirrors, had covered one of them with his coat, rendering the trap useless.

“So,” said Silas. “Now there are only three of us.”

“And a pig,” said Kandar.

“Why?” asked Miss Lupescu, with a wolf-tongue, through wolf teeth. “Why the pig?”

“It’s lucky,” said Kandar.

Miss Lupescu growled, unconvinced.

“Did Haroun have a pig?” asked Kandar, simply.

“Hush,” said Silas. “They are coming. From the sound of it, there are many of them.”

“Let them come,” whispered Kandar.

Miss Lupescu’s hackles were rising. She said nothing, but she was ready for them, and it was only by an effort of will that she did not throw back her head and howl.

“It’s beautiful up this way,” said Scarlett.

“Yes,” said Bod.

“So, your family were all killed?” said Scarlett. “Does anyone know who did it?”

“No. Not that I know. My guardian only says that the man who did it is still alive, and that he’ll tell me the rest of what he knows one day.”

“One day?”

“When I’m ready.”

“What’s he scared of? That you’d strap on your gun and ride out to wreak vengeance on the man who killed your family?”

Bod looked at her seriously. “Well, obviously,” he said. “Not a gun, though. But yes. Something like that.”

“You’re joking.”

Bod said nothing. His lips were tight-pressed together. He shook his head. Then he said, “I’m not joking.”

It was a bright and su

“Your guardian. Is he a dead person too?”

Bod said, “I don’t talk about him.”

Scarlett looked hurt. “Not even to me?”

“Not even to you.”

“Well,” she said. “Be like that.”

Bod said, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” just as Scarlett said, “I promised Mr. Frost I wouldn’t be too long. I’d better be getting back.”

“Right,” said Bod, worried he had offended her, unsure what he should say to make anything better.

He watched Scarlett head off on the winding path back to the chapel. A familiar female voice said, with derision, “Look at her! Miss high and mighty!” but there was no one to be seen.

Bod, feeling awkward, walked back to the Egyptian Walk. Miss Lillibet and Miss Violet had let him store a cardboard box filled with old paperback books in their vault, and he wanted to find something to read.