Beyond the Dark Waters Trilogy
Page 33
Jenny threw her book onto the bed. “Guess what? It looks like I’ll be home this weekend.”
It was the news I’d longed for.
“I’ll be able to go to Amelia’s funeral.”
I smiled. There was no way I’d leave her behind, even if it meant incurring the wrath of the doctors. Jenny had to be there when they lowered Amelia’s coffin into the ground. The funeral would bring closure to our dalliance with the spirit world. An end to the nightmares, the cryptic messages on the fridge door, bogus songs and pictures that fell off tables. Life would return to normal—whatever normal was.
For Jenny, normal would be the two of us rubbing along from day to day, and although I still longed to tell her about Josie, approval would not come easily. Jo and I would have to play the good friends game for a while longer, and the late-night chats over coffee at Tammy’s would be a thing of the past.
In the meantime, I would make plans. We’d book some time away, just the two of us, father and daughter spending some quality time in the sun, as far away from here and the home that had become a stage for a drama that was finally drawing to a close.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sebastian was watching a wild life documentary, surrounded by copies of National Geographic, sipping at a large brandy. I sat in silence, allowing him to see it through to the end.
“Some of these creatures are almost like things out of children’s fairy stories,” he said, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Unless you saw it with your own eyes, you wouldn’t believe they existed.”
Sebastian lived a life of isolation. He didn’t seem to have many friends; at least, there were none that he’d mentioned, and he rarely saw any family. Yet he never struck me as being lonely. I guess his life was full—a man at peace with his books, his dog, and his documentaries. A man with an active mind and eyes that saw beyond the surface of a materialistic world. I envied him. I envied his wisdom, but most of all, I longed for the peace he possessed.
He flicked off the TV, turning towards me. “Thank you for that,” he said. “I didn’t want to appear rude but I love this stuff—even the sparrows and the squirrels that I see on my walks.” He placed an empty glass on the table at the side of his chair, “Anyway, how are things with you?”
I told him about my plans for a holiday with Jenny, hopefully sometime after Christmas. The very mention of the festive season brought a grimace to the old man’s face. “Ah, Christmas. I expect that’s something you’ll have to wade through once again.”
I understood exactly what he meant. Elizabeth and I had found ourselves carried through December on a sleigh ride of anticipation, planning, buying and decorating, only to be unceremoniously dumped back into our routine amid a pile of empty boxes and bottles along with a maxed-out credit card and an empty bank account. I hated the week between Christmas and the new year; I hated the whole new year thing, and my resolution usually involved something to do with never touching alcohol again.
Needless to say, I’d usually broken that one before the end of January.
“I’ll be glad when it’s over,” I told him. “I think Jenny will be glad to see the end of all this stuff.”
Sebastian looked at me. “Stuff?”
“It’s been pretty freaky, this spirit world. I just want to get back to normal.”
Normal? Could I ever live with normal?
The old man nodded warily. “I must warn you,” he began, “Jenny is sensitive to things. I’m not suggesting she’ll be walking around talking to dead people, but she might find herself picking up on things other people don’t feel.” Sebastian thought for a moment, weighing his words. “Imagine you are in a room full of people. They’re all talking, and when you close your eyes, all you can here is a murmur of sound. But just suppose that a short distance away there are two people. You want to know what they are saying to each other, so you train your ears—you begin to concentrate.
“At first, their conversation is lost. There is just a wall of sound, but slowly, you begin to decipher their words, you begin to hear.” Sebastian paused, checking that I was following his train of thought. “Jenny wanted to contact the spirit world and speak with her mother. She made the effort. She wanted to hear.” Sebastian gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s just a thought—an off-the-cuff theory—and you may never experience anything like this ever again.”
I mulled over the old man’s words trying to recall a time when I’d trained my spiritual ears and eyes on Amelia. All I’d ever wanted was to prove her existence, and I could never deny the things I’d experienced, but now, I just wanted them to stop. No more faces in the trees, no more strange smells and sudden changes in temperature. I wanted to live in my world. The one I knew.
***
I picked Jenny up from the hospital early on Saturday morning. She looked slightly bewildered, gazing around at her surroundings like a girl who had arrived home after years rather than weeks away. I was anxious. Did she want a coffee? Something to eat? To maybe catch a movie?
She looked at me, and her eyes filled. “Dad, I know you want to help, but please don’t fuss. I just need some space.”
Space was the last thing I wanted to give her. If she had been a child then I’d have held her till she fell asleep. That’s what I wanted—to hold my daughter and never let her go. Space? That meant backing off, leaving her to make a move while my heart ached for the contact that would reassure me everything was okay.
“She loves you, hun,” Josie told me. “She told you that, so hang in there.”
But I was scared of losing her, and while my head told me Jo was right, my heart refused to believe.
“She’s back in her room,” I told Sebastian. “All weekend!”
The old man told me the same thing. Jenny needed time.
The following Wednesday, Blakely called me suggesting we meet at the Lakeside Hotel in Tabwell. Jenny was welcome to tag along. The call was short; Blakely was driving and he would message me with a date and a time shortly. He did.
Hi Rob! Lakeside, Friday 14:00 ok?
Jenny looked nervous throughout the journey, having spent most of the week in her room, venturing down to watch some TV and make small talk. We had fifty miles of road to travel in a metal capsule. There was no bedroom to which she could escape, no space. Physically, this was the closest we’d been for several days. I decided it might be time.
“What’s bothering you, babe?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
Jenny stared out at the road ahead.
I turned briefly. “Jen, please talk to me.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “I don’t know if I can handle this,” she replied.
“Handle what?”
She paused, trying to find the words. “There will be a coffin. I’ll be looking at the coffin!” Jenny looked at me. “You don’t understand, Dad. I died with that girl. She took me through the final hour of her life on Earth. I felt everything she felt—that longing to escape her miserable life. It was awful. I felt the mud drawing me down and the water filling my lungs. No one should ever have lived and died the way she did. I want it all to be a horrible dream—something I can forget. But I can’t. I have to watch her carried to a grave, knowing what she went through—what was in her heart.”
I wanted to stop the car and turn and look my girl in the eye. I wanted to assure her that, in time, everything would be okay. But I drove on, my heart as heavy as lead.
We arrived at the Lakeside fifteen minutes early. Blakely was waiting and waved us over from the table by the window. “I booked this one,” he told us, shaking my hand. “And you must be Jenny,” he said, planting a kiss on her cheek. He pointed towards the large bay window. “No point eating at the Lakeside Hotel without a lakeside view!”
We chatted while we waited for the waiter to take our orders. “This is on the company,” he said. “So I wouldn’t scrimp if I were you.”
Jenny blushed. That usually meant she was in the presence of someone she found attractive.
I tried to protest but Blakely held up his hand.
“Rob! Don’t even try! Seriously.”
I smiled and thanked him. Jenny looked as if she was going to cry again, but Blakely caught her.
“No tears. You both need the break,” he said softly. “I can tell.”
Jenny ordered fish and chips. It was hardly going to break the company bank, but my daughter was never one for what she called ‘flash food’. I abandoned my original low-fat, healthy choice and decided that nothing on the menu would taste better, so it was fish and chips three times. The company finances were safe.
Blakely eyed his plate of food like a man who hadn’t eaten for several days. He was the sort who would be comfortable with anyone—a kind of social chameleon who changed his colours with little effort. He slipped easily from the small talk to the business he really wanted to discuss.
“I’ve spoken to the folk at St. Jude’s,” he began, “and I don’t think it would be appropriate to have her buried within their grounds.”
Jenny looked up at Blakely and then at me.
“Would you agree?”
“Yes! Yes!” Jenny replied with unguarded enthusiasm. “She wouldn’t want to be anywhere near that place!”
Blakely sounded wary. “It’s all very sensitive, and I’ve had to tread carefully. Reverend Francis seems like a good man. I feel a bit sorry for him, to be honest, and I’m guessing there have been several other very good men who have been at the church since Allington died.”
Jenny shrugged. “So what will happen to the centre he set up? I mean, it’s still running under his name. They still think he’s a saint.”
Blakely was guessing like the rest of us. “I suppose that will depend on the parish council,” he said. “But if you asked me to predict the future, then I’d say that it will be running under the name of the church itself, this time next year.”
Jenny grinned. To her, that was a minor victory. “And what about Allington’s grave?”
“That’s up to them, too,” Blakely replied. “But they may be less willing to exhume a body. Maybe they will erase the inscription and try to forget he ever existed.”
Jenny pulled a face that suggested it wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing.
“It’s amazing,” Blakely continued, clearly delighted to be part of the whole thing, “to think that all this started with a dream. It’s one hell of a ghost story!”
Jenny shuddered. “I’m just glad it’s over,” she muttered. “Or it will be, after the funeral.”
Blakely smiled. “Okay, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I was thinking of having Amelia buried in the grounds of the house. We would have a brief inscription on her gravestone, and visitors will have access to a more detailed history of her existence. It would be in a brochure. I was thinking of leaving one in all the rooms.”
Blakely saw that Jenny looked uneasy. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to give away too much…nothing of the family tree.”
Jenny nodded. She was only walking this Earth as a consequence of Allington’s actions. “It will just include the story of how Amelia was born to the mistress of the house after an affair with the gardener—like that famous novel—and how her birth was never recorded and how she was locked away in the attic, taught by a governess. It’s classic stuff.”
“I guess people will buy into the Lady Chatterley thing,” Jenny mused.
“But this is true. That’s why I think people will be fascinated,” Blakely added.
He had seized the commercial aspect of Amelia’s miserable existence, yet I didn’t begrudge him anything. Amelia would have her grave and her story would reach thousands. I couldn’t see anything wrong with that. Blakely was just a frustrated ghost hunter who had a little corner of his father’s dream park. If he’d been a model railway enthusiast he would no doubt have had tiny trains running across the grounds.
“The lake itself will be named after her,” he told us. “It will be a picnic area and the water will be packed with fish. Of course, there’ll be fountains and a small waterfall—you can’t have water without fountains! I’m going to light it from beneath—all different colours—so that families can sit round till late on summer evenings.” Blakely beamed. “It will be beautiful. And, of course, you two can visit anytime—free of charge.”
So Amelia was going to be something of a theme park attraction. I never saw that coming when I found Jenny in the bath or found her sobbing in the vestry of a church fifty miles from home. But the funeral worried me. I really didn’t want a circus, so I asked Blakely exactly what he had planned.
“I have the Farridays’ permission to use their land, but the service itself will take place at the local crematorium. I’ve asked Reverend Francis to lead the service. He wants to make it a kind of public apology.” Blakely paused. “It will take place in two weeks’ time. I think there’ll be plenty of media interest.”
Jenny stiffened. “How do you mean?”
Blakely was taken aback by my daughter’s obvious concern. “It’s one hell of a story, Jenny. Like I said before, who would have thought when all this started in your bedroom—”
“I don’t want to talk to any reporters! I won’t! It’s not a sideshow!” Jenny’s eyes flashed with anger.
Blakely looked as if he’d had his face slapped. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “If you don’t want to talk to anyone, then you don’t have to. I’ll tell them that you want to be left alone.”
“And you honestly think they’ll take any notice? When have those leeches ever done that?”
“They will. I’ll make sure of it. They’ll have their story. I’ve got everything I need from the first interview with your father. I’m not going to go into all the personal stuff.”
Jenny backed down, but her eyes were still dark. “They’ll start digging,” she said. “You know what they’re like.”
Blakely smiled. “I wouldn’t worry too much. I’ll give them enough to keep them happy. The funeral will make the news and then it will all be forgotten by the following week.”
I placed a reassuring hand on Jenny’s arm. “He’s right, Jen. Just get yourself through the day.”
Blakely leaned across. “I’ll pay for the two of you to get away for a couple of weeks. You can be on a flight to Mexico the following day if you want.”
I looked at Jenny, who smiled and shook her head. “This is something I can’t run away from. I need to be at home.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Blakely was right. Amelia Root was news. The story appeared in the national press and even ended up on the local six o’clock news, but Jenny and I had been shielded from the attentions of the media. Blakely remained true to his word; he had given them everything they needed from the beginning to the end.
“A body, believed to be that of a young woman who died in the late 1800s, has been recovered from Mosswood Lake in Tabwell. Divers discovered the skeleton after the diaries of the woman were discovered in the attic of the Crest Hill Rest home, former home of the Stanwick family. It is unclear how the woman’s body came to be in the lake, but it is believed that she may have taken her own life.”
Pictures of Mosswood flashed across the screen as Jenny and I sat, transfixed. My heart thumped. It had all come down to this, from that first encounter with the girl in the attic, the dream, the nightmare.
“According to letters recently discovered, the young woman, Amelia Root, was the illegitimate child of Mrs. Stanwick, and her birth was never recorded. The diaries suggest she was kept locked away in the attic of the Stanwicks’ home and taught by a governess, Sarah Bell. A funeral is to be arranged, and her bod
y will be laid to rest in the grounds of Crest Hill Rest Home.”
The papers carried a similar report, keeping to the facts. Of course, Blakely’s net failed to catch all the sharks. We received the odd call—reporters wanting Jenny to give them a personal account—but I made it clear that we had nothing to add. They figured it wasn’t worth the hassle and left us alone.
We were relieved they showed little interest in pursuing the paranormal side of the story. Blakely had thrown the wolves enough meat to keep them happy, although I wondered how long it would be before the article in the Tabwell Herald resurfaced. I was already wishing I hadn’t told them quite so much.
Sebastian called me the day after the TV report. He sounded ruffled. “The not-so-Reverend Allington seems to have got off rather lightly, don’t you think?” he said sharply. Before I could respond, he continued, “Not one single mention of the fact he raped that poor girl and stole her child! Why do you think that is? Do I need to ask?”
I knew what was coming next. The old man’s anger and obvious frustration were barely under control. “Might I suggest that your Mr. Blakely is looking after his own interests? He hasn’t told the media about Allington because he doesn’t want to upset the parish, and he doesn’t want to upset the parish because he doesn’t want any opposition to his activity park project!”
I’d already worked that one out but there was something about Blakely that I really liked. Tint was right; Blakely had always been cautious when it came to besmirching the name of a local saint, but I knew he was quite prepared to wade in with the whole story when his park was up and running, and that was okay by me. Sebastian wasn’t so sure.
“Look, Rob, I understand why the church would feel uncomfortable about this, and I know it will upset a lot of the local people, but he was a flawed man—a wolf in sheep’s clothing, preying on a wretched, vulnerable girl. Personally, I would dig the bastard up and throw his remains in the local rubbish tip! Even a stinking, stagnant pond is too good for him!”