“Mum! Mum! Come and see, you have to come and see!”
I was yelling for all I was worth, tripping over my shoelaces, as I ran across the hallway. From the kitchen Mum emerged with Aunt Julia, her eyes were red, she’d been crying – again. Why couldn’t she just be happy for Dad and Carrie? Why did everything have to be about her? I shook my head, surprised that I’d become so easily distracted. I had to focus – there was something to tell, something important.
“Carol’s dead!”
Mum stared at me. “What?”
“Carol’s dead. I was sitting at your desk and I thought I’d send her an email. I asked if she was okay and I had a reply, Mum, a reply! She’s not okay, she’s dead.”
Why I was so euphoric I don’t know – it was bad news, the worst.
Mum glanced at Aunt Julia and then looked at me. “Let’s go and see what you’re talking about.”
Oh, the ghosts, the clever ghosts! They’d erased the email! Why hadn’t I printed it off? I knew how to do that. I’d seen Mum do it a thousand times.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” Mum said, caught between confusion and anger too.
“No, it’s true! I had an email. Honestly. It said she’s been dead for years.”
Aunt Julia endeavoured to come to my rescue. “Perhaps she erased the email, Hel, by accident, I mean.”
Mum ignored her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, she can’t be dead. She can’t. If she is who the heck am I paying rent to?”
Aunt Julia had been inspecting the computer too. She’d gone onto the Internet page I’d been reading. “What’s this?” she asked, baffled. “Why are you looking at stuff like this, Hel?”
Mum looked to what she was pointing at. “Me? I wasn’t…” Her face clouded. “Is this you, Corinna?”
“I… Yes. I’ve seen that symbol before, I wanted to know what it meant.”
“I don’t think you have, why would you have done? It’s nasty, plain nasty. There’s no way you’ve seen it before.”
She was getting angrier, her cheeks flushing.
“You need to find out what happened to Carol,” I said, standing my ground.
“Carol’s fine, she’s busy that’s all. She’s certainly not dead. What a thing to even suggest. I’m disappointed in you, Corinna, very disappointed.”
Aunt Julia interrupted. “I’ve seen that sign too… I was going to tell you.”
Mum’s confusion increased. “What are you talking about?”
“That sign, the pentagram with the circle around it, I’ve seen it here, in the graveyard.”
“Graveyard? What graveyard?”
“It’s also in the attic,” I blurted out. “Carved into the window frames.”
Mum threw her hands in the air. “What’s wrong with you both? You’re both spouting such nonsense.”
“I don’t know about the attic, Hel,” Aunt Julia’s voice was only slightly hesitant, “but there’s a graveyard in the grounds, closer to the woods than the house but… even so. There are crosses in there, strange crosses.”
“They’re inverted,” I said. They both looked astonished I’d come out with such a word but then Aunt Julia nodded.
“Yes, Corinna’s right, they’re inverted, and there are names carved onto them, unusual names, as well as those symbols.”
“You knew about this?” There was shock on Mum’s face.
“As I said, not about the attic, I had no idea.”
“I can show you where in the attic,” I piped up, but Mum was still looking at Aunt Julia.
“You knew about the graveyard, about the fact that there’s a bloody graveyard on our grounds?”
Aunt Julia’s face was as red as the top she was wearing. “Yes.”
“When did you find out?”
“Erm… quite a while ago.”
“When?”
“A couple of years.”
“You’ve known for a couple of years and yet you’ve said nothing?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Another look passed between Aunt Julia and me – my co-conspirator. “I had my reasons, but I think it’s time to tell you now.”
It was, and time for me to tell what I knew too.
* * *
Mum and Aunt Julia went into the attic. Half of me wanted them to, the other half was scared they’d never emerge, but they did, with Mum looking completely shell-shocked, what she’d discovered eclipsing for the moment what she’d found out about Dad and Carrie. I hadn’t told her everything I’d experienced here, I stuck to cold, hard facts. One of them being what was in Ethan’s wardrobe. That was their next port of call. Ethan was stunned when they burst in, as he’d been playing one of his games, totally immersed, and it took him a few seconds to register what was happening.
Mum went straight to his wardrobe, opened it, and gasped in horror.
“What the fuck…?”
“Oh, God!” Aunt Julia couldn’t believe it either.
Mum might have been cross with Aunt Julia for hitting Ethan that day in the graveyard but she looked as if she was the one who could slaughter him now.
“What’s wrong with you, Ethan?” she screamed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
To be fair, Ethan didn’t look as if he knew what was wrong with him either – he stared at the contents of his wardrobe, just as stunned.
“Get out,” Mum said. “Get downstairs, out of this room. I’m calling your father.”
She followed him, practically on his heels. Phoning Dad, he didn’t answer the phone. “Typical!” she said. “He’s probably too busy with that tart of his.”
“Mum,” I reminded. “She’s his wife.”
“Who cares? Who the bloody hell cares?”
We were all in the drawing room, Mum and Aunt Julia on one faded sofa, Ethan and me occupying the other. The Christmas tree purchased only a week before and fed plenty of water, looked as if it wouldn’t last another day. As for the mould, in some places the walls appeared to be an inch thick with it.
“We have to get out,” Aunt Julia was muttering, wringing her hands together. I’d focused mainly on Mum up until then but I realised she was just as agitated.
“We have to find out what happened to Carol first,” Mum countered. “That’s imperative.”
“Is there anyone else who knew her – that you know too, I mean? Maybe you can get in touch with them.”
Mum shook her head. “She’s an old friend from college. I’ve lost touch with a lot of people from those days.”
“Does she have a sister or a brother?”
“A sister yes, Rose, Rose Mathieson. That was her married name if I remember correctly. She’s a few years older than Carol. I could try and contact her, look her up in the phone directory, try all the bloody Rose Mathieson’s until I get the right one.”
“Or we could email again,” I suggested, fearing her plan may take a lifetime. “I’m telling you I got a reply.”
“But who was it that replied if not Carol?”
Aunt Julia looked at Mum. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
Mum considered her words. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
We all trooped through to the morning room, ill-named because night had fallen, had really taken hold. En route, I thought I heard a tinkling of piano music. It was such a solemn tune, familiar too, the hymn Mum tended to favour: Silent night, Holy night, All is calm, All is bright. They knew how to mock, those spirits.
Mum sat at her computer and emailed the same address as before, I read as her fingers flew over the keyboard.
I am truly sorry to hear Carol has passed. Could you tell me the circumstances surrounding her death please and when it happened? I’m an old friend of hers and I rent the house she owns – Blakemort. I’ve been renting it since December 1999 and if she’s dead, I’d like to know who I’m paying rent to. I’m very confused. I’ve emailed this address several times but never received a reply until this evening.
> Regards,
Helena Greer
Mum sent the email and we waited with baited breath, even Ethan, who was clearly as bewildered as the rest of us.
“She won’t reply,” Mum said, chewing at her nails. Anger flashed through me. Why’d she have to be so defeatist?
We waited and we waited, I was beginning to give up hope too and then a reply pinged back.
Dear Helena,
My name is Dianne and I was Carol’s former partner. She died shortly after leaving the house. It was suicide. She committed suicide. As for owning Blakemort, she didn’t. I don’t know where you got that idea. She rented it as you apparently do. You say you’ve emailed this address several times before but I’ve never received any correspondence from you until this evening. Perhaps they went straight into the spam folder, I’ll have to run a check on that. If you’d like to discuss this matter further, I’ve included my telephone number in the subject line of this email.
Thank you for getting in touch,
Dianne Parker
Reading the email a second time, Mum grabbed the phone and started dialling.
* * *
Back in the drawing room, Mum was pacing up and down.
“Dianne doesn’t know who we’re paying rent to, she’s got no idea at all.”
“How’d you pay it?” Aunt Julia asked, biting at her nails too.
“Just before she left we arranged that I’d send a cheque every couple of months to a PO Box address Carol supplied me with. And yes, before you ask, the cheques have been cashed, every single one of them. It’s quite a relaxed arrangement, I suppose. But that’s Carol all over. She’s very relaxed.”
“Doesn’t sound it to me, not if she took her own life.”
“No, there is that.”
“Do you know why she did it, did Dianne say?”
Mum shook her head. “She was stunned when the news came through. They’d split up by that time you see, run into problems. Theirs was a bit of a rocky relationship apparently. Poor Dianne, I think she feels guilty about what happened, responsible in a way.”
Aunt Julia murmured as if in agreement. “How long did Carol live here?”
“Not even a year, although she gave me the distinct impression she’d been here a lot longer than that.” She shook her head. “But then, as you know, she also gave me the impression she owned it. I didn’t think to delve deeper, to ask too many questions, why would I? She was my friend, I trusted her.” Sighing deeply, as though exasperated, it was a moment before she continued. “As I now know, before she moved in she was living with Dianne. When things started to go wrong, Carol wanted her own space. This place came up, it belonged to a friend of a friend, and the rent was low, irresistibly low.” Mum paled further when she said that, at the parallel of it. “Carol thought it was ideal. With plenty of room to stack her canvasses, she could really spread herself out.” Again she was quiet. “I can’t believe she’s dead, Ju. We used to have such a laugh, Carol and me, in our art school days. She was so talented, she specialised in fine art, you know. Portraits mainly. Dianne hardly ever visited Carol at Blakemort. She didn’t like it. She found it… oppressive. But Carol seemed settled, until she decided completely out of the blue to up sticks and leave, that is.”
“How did she…?” Aunt Julia’s voice trailed off.
“It wasn’t here,” Mum rushed the words out, keen to dispel that notion. “She didn’t kill herself here. She told Dianne she was going to live and work abroad, just like she told me, that she wanted to do a fair bit of travelling in-between, see and paint the world, get her head straight, her priorities right, that kind of thing, perhaps even settle permanently overseas. But she never left the country. She caught a train to London, checked into a hotel, one of those big, anonymous ones, stayed there for quite a while actually, a few weeks, and then…” Mum closed her eyes briefly, “hung herself.”
Aunt Julia’s expression was as pained as Mum’s. “Did you say she specialised in portraits?”
“Yes, why?”
“When we went into the attic, I noticed some canvasses stacked up against the wall. An old sheet was thrown over them but it had slipped off, they were easy enough to spot. Whilst you were looking out of the window at the graveyard I went over to look at them, they were portraits too. I didn’t like them.”
“Why not?” Mum asked.
“Because the subjects all had their eyes closed as if… as if they were dead.”
Like the photos then – the ones I’d seen in the attic and those they’d subsequently seen in Ethan’s wardrobe.
“What… who are these people?” Mum’s voice was a whisper.
“God alone knows,” Aunt Julia answered.
I pressed my lips together. It was either God or the antithesis of God.
“There were quite a few paintings,” Aunt Julia elaborated. “Old people, children as well, some of them were modern, others historical, dressed in… you know, strange clothes, Victorian, Edwardian. I’m no expert, but I think some clothing dated back even further than that. And all of them had that one thing in common.”
Mum stared at Aunt Julia for a few seconds and then repeated her sister’s words of earlier. “We have to get out.”
Although despair was apparent in her voice, her words were like music to my ears. She tried calling Dad again but got no reply.
“Let’s just take the car and go,” Aunt Julia suggested when Mum replaced the receiver.
“But what about all our stuff?”
“Your stuff?”
“All our belongings, I can’t just leave everything.”
Aunt Julia seemed as small as Mum suddenly, no longer statuesque. “I… I don’t know, Hel.”
Mum shook her head, came to a decision. “I think we’re panicking. We do need to leave but perhaps not tonight. Let’s… let’s just hang on ’til tomorrow. It’s really icy and… well, country roads can be dangerous when they’re icy. Paul’s intending to take the kids out in the morning, so let him do that whilst we pack the essentials. It’s much more sensible to leave in daylight. We’ll be calmer too, able to think more clearly. It’s important to stay rational.” Focusing on Aunt Julia, she asked, “I know your place is small, but can we go to yours? It’ll just be for a few nights, until we find out what’s going on here.” Aunt Julia said, “Of course.” And Mum sighed in relief.
“We can all go to my room tonight, bunk down tog—”
“Not your room, Mum,” I interrupted. “Can’t we light the fire and stay here?”
Mum glanced at the ceiling, no doubt thinking about the symbols engraved in the window frames directly above her bedroom and didn’t insist otherwise.
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Six
On Christmas Eve there was more terrible news. We learnt that Dad and Carrie had been in a car crash. He wasn’t badly hurt, thank God, but she’d received quite a jolt, and there were fears for the baby. We wouldn’t be seeing him as planned because he was remaining in hospital by her side. Carrie was distraught, Mum told us, and understandably so, as was Dad.
“I couldn’t tell him about Carol,” she continued to explain, the rest of us huddled on sofas, shell-shocked too, “or about the house. How could I? He’s got enough to deal with. We have to take care of ourselves.”
We started packing, just a small suitcase each, Mum helping Ethan or rather just grabbing clothes from his floor and stuffing them in. What presents we had were put into one of those big blue laundry bags. Mum said we could take them too. As for me, I was quite capable of packing my own suitcase and Aunt Julia had barely unpacked. Alone in my room, the whispering started.
You can’t leave. You can’t.
“Yes I can, I bloody can!”
I’d never sworn before, not really, but I thought I’d give it a go.
There was laughter, the kind I never wanted to hear again. My resolve hardened. Once I’d left and got out of there, I wouldn’t go back, I’d refuse. Mum could send in the removal men to get the rest of ou
r stuff surely? We didn’t have to go back.
I turned to get more clothes and tripped over a pile of books on the floor, books that hadn’t been there before. I fell to my knees, landing heavily. Raising my head, I looked around me. Who’d done that?
“You can’t stop me,” I repeated. And that’s when I saw it, even though to this day I try and tell myself otherwise, that it’s just not possible – that my eyes were playing tricks on me, fear causing my imagination to go into overdrive. The walls surrounding me were breathing – that’s right, breathing – in and out, slowly so slowly as if all four had a heartbeat. I gasped and staggered to my feet, continued to pack, but not so carefully this time. Like Mum I just threw things in.
We met on the landing, all four of us, and eyed each other.
“Ready?” Mum asked.
We nodded.
She took the lead. “Be careful coming down the stairs, hold on tight to the bannister.”
None of us needed telling.
Walking across the hallway, I could sense so many pairs of eyes on me. We’re leaving. I fired the thought like an arrow. And there’s nothing you can do about it!
Fear gave way to elation; Mum and Aunt Julia were on my side at last and Ethan too, in his own way. He was scurrying just as fast as the rest of us.
I half expected the front door to resist, but it didn’t, it yielded easily enough – something else that ignited hope.
The car! There it was, our means of escape. We chucked our bags into the boot and bundled into its worn interior. Mum inserted the key and turned the ignition. It started first time and I exhaled in relief, not aware until then how hard I’d been holding my breath.
We’re on our way! We’re finally on our way.
And I wasn’t going to look back, not even a glance.
Moving forwards it became obvious that something was wrong. The car was dragging, making a strange noise. Mum stopped the car and I tensed. We all did.
She got out and went to inspect.
“What is it?” called Aunt Julia.
Mum had bent down but then she straightened up, fury and confusion on her face.
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