“Use me?” Is that a siren in the distance? “What do you mean, use me? Is that why you took Meghan, to use her instead?” I press. “What’s the final thing you need, Tommy?”
He’s too fast on his feet and I realize, too late, that he’s been playing me. Before I can react, he drops Jane’s lifeless body to the floor and wraps his hand around my ponytail, dragging me up to standing by my hair. My vision starts to tunnel as pressure builds around the base of my neck, where he’s holding me with one strong hand.
“A heart, my beautiful Niamh. Your warm and beating heart.”
I come to, blinking slowly, my eyes and throat dry and dusty. I’m lying flat on my back, staring into the dark, domed roof of the mausoleum, its little rectangular indentations messing with my vision. I close my eyes again and try to push myself up, but my arms and legs are constricted. I am wrapped in something slippery and soft, covering me from neck to toes. I stretch and glance down as far as I can.
I’m in Jane’s funeral shroud.
And I’m not alone.
“Tommy?” I say. I try to force down the panic but Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, I’m in a coffin and there’s a dead girl crammed in here next to me.
“Shush, it’s fine.” A cool hand reaches out to stroke my brow and I flinch. “It’s nearly over, not long now.” I swivel my head around desperately, trying to shake the stinking shroud off of me. I can see that Tommy is re-erecting the main wreath again, piecing bits of hair back together, wrapping the tarot cards in it. Hard lumps press into the back of my head and my hands and I realize I’m lying on top of those little glass bottles. My stomach recoils as I realize what must be in them.
“Tommy.” My voice comes out pleading, broken. “Please. You don’t have to do this. We. . .”
“We?” He laughs harshly, grabbing the edge of the coffin and peering down at me. “There is no ‘we’, Niamh. Don’t you see? You’re here for a higher purpose, to sacrifice yourself, so she can finally come back!” I see tiny white flecks of foam start to gather at the corners of his mouth. “Now, shut up. I’m trying to concentrate.”
I shut my eyes and try to recall all of the stupid horror movies that Meghan has ever made me watch. Ironically, she’d probably be great in this situation, the one I’ve saved her from.
I start to spread my fingers out as Tommy mills around, setting up his horrific little altar. I hear a familiar clink of metal and a stream of sunlight flashes off the sharp set of curved, metal nails – claws – that Tommy is ceremoniously sliding on to his fingers. Tears roll down the side of my face.
“Why the nails?” I choke out.
Tommy turns to me and leans closer, tracing a finger down my face, only this time it’s hard, brutal and I feel the white-hot pain of the claw’s knife-sharp edge parting my flesh and the warm rush of blood down my cheek.
“These?” He asks innocently. “I suppose you could say they were part of the original costume.”
“Costume? You’re actually him, aren’t you? Spring Heeled Jack.”
“What a ridiculous name,” he snorts, removing his hand from my face. “People can be so stupid. Have you read some of those stories?”
“I don’t understand.” I need to keep him talking. As he does, I work one hand out of the shroud, slowly enough to escape his notice.
“You wouldn’t,” he sneers. His handsome face has long departed and I wonder if it was ever there in the first place. “It started as a way to be separate from it all. I could do these. . .” he waves at the grimoire, “things as someone else. The newspaper industry in London was booming then and as soon as they got wind of the attacks, they created a monster.”
I pat around frantically with my free hand and it lands on long, spindly fragments that can only be Jane’s fingers. I pull away automatically, a sharp, searing pain slashing into my fingertips.
Wait.
Bones are sharp, too.
“Sorry, Jane,” I whisper, gasping out a raspy cough to cover the sound of snapping bone as I wrench one finger off. Tommy ignores me, so I carry on, manoeuvring the now needle-sharp bone inside the shroud.
“But it was you all along?” I ask. “Spring Heeled Jack, the Terror of London.”
“I suppose so,” he mumbles, engrossed in his gruesome task. “Though I couldn’t scale ten-foot walls or breath blue fire. I might be immortal but I’ve had to do things the hard way. It’s all lies.”
I cough again and thrust the finger bone upwards. A small indentation appears in the cloth, but no hole, so I persevere, wiggling it around until a shard of yellowing calcium pokes through. Adrenaline floods through me as I feel the brittle material start to rip. I start to cough again, desperately trying to mask the tear of threads ripping through the little cavern-like room until my entire arm is free and I can see the outline of Jane’s remains curled up by my side.
“What are you. . .” Tommy leans over the casket again, his claws wrapped around the lip of the coffin, but I’m too fast for him this time. I lift my hand, wielding the spiked shard of bone and, before I can overthink it, I plunge it deep into the side of his neck. He looks at me for a second, his mouth a little circle of surprise, before I wrench it out.
Horror movie tip number one: never drop your weapon.
Dark, viscous liquid sprays out across the wall and Tommy clasps a hand to the wound, looking at the blood in shock. I take my chance and jump, throwing my full weight at him, thrusting my shoulder into his chest as hard as I can. I tumble myself and the contents of the casket down on top of him and watch in slow motion as the little, stoppered bottles and final mortal remains of Jane Alsop explode across the floor. Tommy gapes at me in horror, blood spurting from between his fingers.
“NO!”
I try to push myself off him, but I’ve landed awkwardly, my arm at a crazy angle. I stagger to my feet. My arm dangles down at my side, floppy and useless.
“No! Look what you’ve done!” His tears are genuine now, floods of salty regret mixing with the blood still trickling from his neck. He’s sweeping the fragments of bone into a pile, desperately trying to put her together again, smearing his blood across the floor, mixing it in with the dirt
“It’s over, Tommy,” I whisper. He looks up at me with huge, wet eyes. His skin is dulling quickly, his hair turning from sandy to grey right in front of me. “You need to leave her to rest. She’s not coming back.” I choke back a sob. “You need to rest.”
“Over?” he repeats, his lips thinning by the second. I nod and he fumbles in his pocket, pulling out something that he rolls across the floor to me. “It’s really over?”
“I think so. I think you just need to accept that she’s not coming back.” I pick the object out of the dust with my good hand and rub my thumb across it, lifting the lid with a click. It’s a small glass cylinder with a large lever on the top and I realize it’s an old type of lighter, like the one Geoffrey said had been stolen. I get it. I know what the girl in my nightmare – Jane, I remind myself, watching Tommy weep into her broken body – was trying to tell me. She wasn’t warning me to run, I just didn’t see at the time. I do now. The letters seem to merge before my eyes and rearrange themselves into another word as I stare at the lighter.
BURN.
“It was mine,” he whispers and I realize he’s fading by the second. “She had it made for me. I lost everything and when I saw the museum had them I had to take them back.”
“I understand,” I lie, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Tommy, what’s the secret meaning for Butterfly Weed?”
He gazes past me to the open door, the tiny orange flowers glowing. He sighs, his body sagging in on itself.
“Butterfly Weed? It means let me go.”
Of course.
I flick the lever with my thumb, but my hands are slick and nothing happens. I wipe my palm across my shirt, leaving streaks of desiccated flesh behind, and try again.
A beautiful little flame jumps up and smiles at me.
“Fire,” Tommy rasps, loo
king at me through cloudy, painful looking eyes. “For cleansing.”
I hold his gaze and stretch my arm out to the closest wreath, the one holding the grimoire and the cards. The dry locks catch like tinder and the sickly smell of burning hair fills the room. I watch, mesmerized, as flames begin to eat away the gold leaf and ancient parchment, breaking a spell that’s been binding him for almost two hundred years. It only takes seconds for them to go up in smoke.
“Go,” he mutters, lying down next to the pile of bones he’s gathered into a heap, curling himself around them. “Go!”
I don’t need telling twice.
I fight through the rising smoke, towards the door, and pour myself out of the crack and on to the soft, mossy ground. Tears are streaming down my face and my arm is starting to hurt now, but I can hear the crackle and pop of a fire catching inside, so I drag myself away from the building, leaning back on a small fence that rings a nearby grave.
“Niamh?” Meghan appears from behind the headstone, Jess and Will holding her up on either side. “Niamh, oh, thank God!” She shrugs them off and limps towards me, wrapping her arms around my waist and sobbing, little girl hiccups.
“Shhhh.” I grasp her with my good arm and realize I’m still clutching the lighter. I drop it and hug her the best that I can as she apologises into my midriff over and over again.
“Tommy?” Jess asks. Flames are starting to lick out from the gaps around the domed roof, the fire reflecting in her glasses.
“In there,” I nod. Heavy footsteps crunch on gravel behind us and I hear Derek’s voice. I sigh in relief as I lean back, hold on to my sister.
And watch the world burn.
The museum looks exactly the same as it did when I left it. But it will never feel the same. This is the last time I will ever see this street again.
“Ah, Niamh! What a lovely surprise. I must say, I didn’t think I’d see you back here after, ah, everything. Who was to know young Tommy was a bad sort, eh?”
“Hi to you too, Geoffrey.” I grin. I’m going to miss working with him. “Here.” I awkwardly hand him Jane’s beautiful costume with my good hand. It’s been lovingly cleaned and folded by Ruth and is now back in its rightful place. “I had to bring this back to you. Plus, I have to say thank you, too.”
Turns out Geoffrey had eventually thought my behaviour before I got in the Uber was weird enough to call Derek – his husband. Couple goals right there. Derek told him off for stopping for a hot whiskey first and notified Detective Moran, who Jess had just managed to get through to. Derek hotfooted it across the river and still hasn’t let it go that he beat London’s Finest there, even though he is retired.
Geoffrey’s round face flushes behind his neatly trimmed beard as he chuckles. “Oh, nonsense. I only wish I’d realized sooner, I was supposed to be keeping an eye on you,” he sputters, as I throw myself at him in a hug. “Oh, goodness me, now that’s quite enough, you need to watch that arm, my dear.” I grin at him again.
“OK. I’m not going to stay long, I just wanted to give you the dress. Oh, and this.” I pull the lighter from the folds of my sling and hold it out to him, flat on my palm.
“Exquisite,” he breathes, fetching another pair of glasses from his top pocket and switching them with the pair he’s wearing. “It looks remarkably like the one we used to have. Where did you get this?”
“Um. . .” I glance over at the doorway, towards my sister who is huddled next to my parents. They flew straight over after the police had been in touch about their delinquent children. They weren’t happy with us and they don’t even know the whole story. I spoke to Jess and Will the morning after the fire and we decided that it was probably best to slightly tinker with the truth for some people. I don’t want to end up on a psychiatric ward somewhere. I think I’ve made a friend for life in Jess, though; we’re already planning her trip to Kilkenny. Not that I’ve told my parents yet.
My insides tug a little as a bittersweet memory leads me to the best fib I can think of. “Mudlarking,” I say and Geoffrey’s eyes light up. “I found it. On the Thames, just near here.”
“Marvellous! May I?” He picks it up from my hand and begins to study it. “Early nineteenth century, I think, possible eighteen-thirties. Very unusual though, certainly handmade, based on a very early German model. See this here?” He points to a monogram, a pair of swooping hearts wearing a crown, decorated with a thistle and two swirling initials wrapped around one another. “This is a Luckenbooth. It originated in Scotland and shows it was a love token, something probably given to a man by his lover. It was often used as a sign of betrothment, or engagement. I can’t quite make out the initials. . .” He holds the lighter away from him and I fill the silence.
“That’s a J.” I point with my good hand. “And a T.”
“Oh, yes, good eye!” He smooths a thumb over the initials again. “J and T. I wonder who they were.”
If only he knew.
“Well, thank you my dear, that’s quite lovely to see.” He drops it back into my palm. “You did have a licence, I take it? To mudlark?”
“Errr, yes?”
He regards me slyly. “Our little secret then. Well, finders, keepers, I suppose. Enjoy it, it’s a wonderful little trinket.”
“Oh, no.” I hold it up to him. “I want to donate it to the museum. Something to remember me by.”
“Really?” he blusters, red creeping back into his cheeks. “Well, that’s very kind. We do need to replace some of the stolen objects.”
“Really.” I drop it into his hand, trying not to feel guilty about the priceless things I had destroyed in the mausoleum. I turn to see my mother glancing at her watch. “I’d better go,” I say. “Sailing home today.”
“Oh, dear. You didn’t make the cut with your essay then?”
“No. But never mind. Some things just aren’t meant to be, I guess.” Jasmine had been awarded the place after handing in a stellar essay (that I suspect Will wrote the majority of) not that she needed a free place. However, to my delight she was kicked off the course when she was caught shoplifting in Harrods. Turns out she had a proper case of kleptomania, which I should have known when I saw her wearing my cardigan. She’s welcome to keep that one, though – the rest of my London wardrobe is currently hanging on a rail in Jess’s local charity shop. Ben from the creepy theatre party was given the scholarship instead but I don’t care any more. I glance back at my family and my heart swells. I just have more important things to care about right now. “Geoffrey?”
“Mmm?”
“Can I have one last walk around?”
“Of course! You’re always welcome, my dear.” He reaches out a huge paw and shakes my good arm just a touch too firmly. “It has been a joy to meet and work with you.”
“You too, Geoffrey.”
I turn to Mammy and Daddy and hold a finger at them. “One minute,” I mouth, earning a glare in response, but they don’t stop me. I take a deep breath and make a beeline for the parlour, not stopping until I reach the portrait of Jane.
“Thank you,” I whisper. She doesn’t move, of course, and I feel absurd talking to a painting, but I have no idea what else to do. I mean, I did burn her eternal resting place down.
I start to turn away, when a small, golden glint catches my eye. I glance down at her painted hands, rosy and lightly freckled, one placed on top of the other and there it is. A thin, gold band decorates her wedding ring finger, something I’m sure wasn’t there before. I smile sadly and turn my back to her, walking away from the museum and towards my family.
I’m going home.
First of all, thank you for buying and reading my book allllllll the way to the end. You are the best. Sorry about the nightmares.
A huge thank you to my fabulous agent, Stephanie Thwaites, who saw the potential in my weird little book from day one. Your guidance, enthusiasm and occasional soothing of my writerly neurosis has kept my head above water this year and I couldn’t ask for a better champion of my writin
g. A huge thank you must also go to Anna Davies and Jennifer Kerslake at CBC for making sure we connected and to Isobel Gahan for keeping me organized (and the gloriously creepy submission boxes).
To Yasmin Morrissey, my editor extraordinaire – you “got” this book in a way I could only have dreamed of. With your guidance and encouragement, it’s now the shiniest a manuscript can be. I feel so fortunate to be working with you and hope we keep trading doggy pics and stories about Galtee cheese for a long time to come. Thank you for taking a chance on me. Massive thanks must also go to Gen Herr for her insightful copy-edits and Peter Matthews for his keen eye – and for teaching me that “any more” is actually two words. For the stunning cover of my dreams, thank you to Jamie Gregory – I haven’t stopped looking at it since it arrived in my inbox. Thanks to Lauren Fortune for plying me with books and talking all things Point Horror. A massive thank you to Harriet Dunlea, who has organized the most exciting debut launch ever. Prob best we didn’t go with the Zoom séance, though.
By day, I teach, and I want to acknowledge every single child that I have ever had the pleasure of educating. Each one of you has something special and you have taught me to have a level of compassion and resilience I never knew I was capable of. Thank you. Thank you also to the greatest colleagues a girl could have, particularly Sian, Georgina, Victoria and Rebecca who gave me feedback on an early draft of LOTD. You guys are the best, and who knows, I might stop talking about my book now. I shall continue to be troublesome and intolerable, though, because I know you secretly love it. Sorry, Sam.
To the Scribblers (aka the best CBC group ever) particularly Lorna and Lisa B, for always being there to read and encourage my morbid ideas. To the members of the writing community who have welcomed me so readily – particularly Kat Ellis and Rhian Ivory for a life-changing week at Ty Newydd. Thank you to the generosity of other early readers, Emily Barr, Amy McCaw, Laura Pearson and Kathryn Foxfield for your wonderful quotes – I can’t quite believe real authors have read my book.
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