by Ben Cheetham
“Just give me a minute. I need something to drink.”
“I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“No. I need something stronger.”
Ella went to the kitchen. Henry trailed after her, his head sinking even lower. She poured him an orange juice and herself a glass of wine. After a large mouthful, she sighed and briefly closed her eyes. “OK, so I’ve been talking to teachers, social workers and police all afternoon.”
“Police,” Adam echoed apprehensively.
“I’ve spoken to more police in the past few days than even when Jacob–” Ella broke off with a grimace.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Henry piped up, directing pleading eyes at Adam. “But he wouldn’t stop teasing me.”
“About what?”
From the What do you think? look Ella gave him, Adam guessed the answer before Henry replied, “He said our house is haunted. I told him to shut up, but he kept calling me ghost boy. And then the other boys started saying it, so I...” He fell silent, hanging his head again.
“He pushed him over,” Ella said in a pained voice. “The poor boy hit his head and was knocked unconscious.”
Adam was momentarily too gobsmacked to speak. “How is he?”
“They’re saying he could have neurological damage.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“How the bloody hell should I know?”
Adam pressed his fingers to an ache between his eyes. “So what happens now?”
“There’s going to be an investigation. Henry’s been suspended, but I don’t see how he can ever go back to that school. For that matter, I don’t see how we can stay in this area.”
“Whoa!” Adam put up his hands. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is bad, but it’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Ella repeated in disbelief. “Our son almost killed someone.”
“He pushed someone who got in his face.” Adam added meaningfully, “It happens.”
“Oh so that makes it alright, does it?”
“Of course not. He obviously has to be punished, but let’s keep this in perspective. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred that boy would have walked away unhurt and we wouldn’t have even heard about it.”
“So how do we punish him?”
“Well for starters you’re grounded,” Adam said to Henry. “That means you don’t go out of this house unless it’s absolutely necessary. And don’t think being suspended means you can laze around. You’re going to be doing schoolwork every day on top of whatever chores your mother and I can find for you.”
“But I didn’t even start it!” protested Henry.
“No, but you certainly finished it.”
Henry looked accusingly at his parents. “Why didn’t you tell me this house is supposed to be haunted?”
Adam’s tone softened with self-reproach. “Perhaps we should have, but we didn’t want to scare you.”
“I wouldn’t have been scared because ghosts aren’t real.” An uneasy edge came into Henry’s voice. “Are they?”
“Of course they’re not. I’m sorry, Henry. It’s my fault. I should have realised you wouldn’t be silly enough to be scared. But that doesn’t excuse your behaviour. You know what I’m going to say now, don’t you?” Adam pointed towards the stairs. “Go on, go to your room. And this time you will be staying there for the rest of the day.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’ll bring you up something to eat,” said Ella.
Henry sloped from the kitchen.
Feeling Ella’s eyes on him, Adam said, “Go on say it. Say I told you so.”
“Playing the blame game is the last thing on my mind right now,” she said. “You should have seen the way they all looked at me at the school. I felt like a criminal.” She heaved a sigh. “Christ, what a day.”
“The police didn’t find that girl. So we can at least put that behind us.”
A sharp dismissive gesture made it clear that Ella no longer gave a shit about any of that. “Sometimes I think we’re cursed.”
“I’d hardly call this house a curse.”
“To hell with this house! I’m talking about us. Our family.” Ella snatched up the wine bottle, took it to the patio and dropped onto a chair.
Adam followed and laid his hands on her shoulders. “We’ll get through this. We’ve got through far worse.”
“I don’t want to have to keep getting through things,” she said bitterly. “Why can’t life ever be easy?”
Adam had no answer to that. They were silent for a while. Ella finished her wine and poured another glass.
“Somehow I managed to get some work done this afternoon,” said Adam. “Do you fancy reading it?”
Ella shook her head. “All I want to do is get drunk and forget today ever happened.”
“That’s why you should read it. It’ll take your mind off all that.”
“Alright, but don’t expect to get much sense out of me.”
Adam fetched the new material. Ella settled back with the pages in one hand and her wine in the other. Adam made a sandwich and took it up to Henry. He was surprised to find Henry asleep. He quietly set down the sandwich on the bedside table and studied his son’s face. Adam’s own face was troubled as he left the room.
He returned to the study with the eagerness of someone seeking the refuge of a make-believe world. He hadn’t been working for long when Ella stormed into the room and threw his manuscript on the desk as if it offended her.
“Is that really what you think of your son?” she demanded to know.
Adam looked at her bemusedly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s pretty obvious where the inspiration for this crap came from. The boy’s the killer, isn’t he? The boy who just happens to have curly hair and freckles like Henry.”
“I’m not sure who the killer is yet. I’m just following where the story leads.”
“Well I’d say your subconscious is trying to tell you something.” Ella jabbed at the manuscript. “That’s the last I’m reading of that.”
She left the room, slamming the door behind her. Adam stared at the manuscript with a line like a knife cut between his eyebrows. Was she right? He thought about the boy Henry had pushed over. He thought about the dead robin and mutilated bunny. He thought about Jacob bleeding to death at Henry’s feet. He heard Henry’s voice – It was an accident, Dad. Honest. The words seemed to have a hollow ring to them. His mind looped back to the present – Henry’s sleeping face. How could he sleep after what had happened? Adam shoved the manuscript off the desk, scattering pages across the floor. It was one thing to wonder whether Henry had deliberately hurt a bird. But this... this made him nauseous with self-disgust.
He went after Ella. She was in the orangery, drinking wine and drunkenly stabbing a trowel at the soil. “You’re wrong,” he said forcefully. “I don’t believe Henry would ever hurt anyone on purpose.”
She gave a contemptuous laugh. “You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
Adam dropped to his haunches, seeking Ella’s eyes. “It’s been a shitty enough day already. Let’s not fall out on top of everything. It’s just a book. If you don’t like it, I’ll tear it up and start again.”
Ella looked at Adam narrowly for a moment, then her expression softened and she shook her head. “I overreacted. I’m just stressed.”
Giving her a Don’t-worry-about-it smile, Adam took her hand and led her to the sitting room. “Lie down,” he instructed. “I’ll make you that cup of tea.”
While he waited for the kettle to boil, Adam checked on Henry. The sandwich was gone, but Henry still appeared to be asleep. A sharp sense of shame stealing over him, Adam retrieved the plate and returned downstairs. When he took Ella her cup of tea, he found that she too was asleep. He covered her with a blanket, went to the study, gathered up the scattered pages and took them to the kitchen. He opened the Rayburn and made as if to throw the manuscript onto the glowing embers,
but hesitated, his features twitching with uncertainty. He shook his head. No. Burning the thing would be as good as admitting Ella was right. He would complete it and prove to her and himself that she was wrong.
Chapter 23
Determined not to stop until the manuscript was finished, Adam set to work more fervently than ever. He wrote in a white heat, pausing only to flex the stiffness from his fingers. Like someone sprinting towards a cliff edge in darkness, he could sense the end getting closer but couldn’t see it. It was the dead of night when he stopped suddenly, feeling more like he’d hit a wall than fallen off a cliff. He stared in dismay at a page as blank as his mind. For long minutes his pen hovered over the paper, but nothing more would come. A finger of panic touched him. Had his block returned? You’ve just burned yourself out, he told himself. Take a break.
He rose and opened the door. The hallway was pitch dark. He flipped a light switch and went to the sitting room. Ella was snoring on the sofa. The grandfather clock ticked in its corner. Another sound caught his attention – the distant ringing of a bell. Ding, ding, ding it went as rapidly as an alarm.
The ringing seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the house. But where? Adam returned to the hallway. The sound was faintly louder there. It drew him towards the stairs and, with a creeping sense of inevitability, into The Lewarne Room. As if afraid something might be waiting to leap out at him, he warily opened the secret panel. The ringing jumped up a notch in volume. His heart following suit, he fetched matches and a candelabra.
He ducked into the passageway and, brushing cobwebs from his eyes, climbed the wooden stairs. The noise was louder on the first-floor. He carried on up the next flight of stairs. The tolling continued to rise in volume, jangling along the passageways like an old fire engine. Ding, diNG, DING!
Suddenly, like a throttled scream, the noise stopped.
He stood motionless, ears straining. Silence.
Who had been ringing the bell? He could think of one obvious candidate – Faith. But why would she want to alert them to her presence? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe it was part of the ritual she and her friends had been enacting in the sitting room. Anxiety swelled his chest. The sitting room. Ella!
The candle flames guttered as Adam whirled on his heels and hastened back downstairs. He let out a breath of relief at the sight of Ella sleeping soundly. His eyes travelled the room, checking for anyone lurking in the shadows.
A faint sound, like a mouse scratching inside a wall, drew his gaze to the centaur painting. His forehead wrinkled. Was there something different about the centaur’s eyes? As if he’d been shoved, he suddenly reeled backwards and landed heavily on his backside. The centaur had winked! Heart hammering, he scrambled to his feet and edged towards the painting. He ran his fingers over the eyes. They were remarkably lifelike, but they weren’t real. Had it been a trick of his imagination or had someone been looking through the peephole?
“I know you’re there,” he said with a tremor in his voice.
Dead silence.
He flinched and span around as Ella said, “Who are you speaking to?”
Moving quickly to her side, he said, “Faith’s boyfriend could have been right. I think she’s still in the house.”
Ella jolted upright. “What makes you say that?”
“I’ll explain later. We need to check on Henry.”
Hand in hand, they hurried upstairs. Henry lifted his head as they entered his room. “What’s going on?” he asked sleepily.
Ella opened her mouth to reply, but Adam raised a silencing hand and jerked his chin towards the mirror. He scooped up Henry.
“Has someone else broken in?” asked Henry, wrapping his arms and legs around his dad.
Adam shushed him and they made their way down to the entrance hall, peering into every shadow. Adam put down Henry, picked up the phone and dialled 999. “I think there’s an intruder in our house,” he told the operator.
The operator took his address and instructed him to wait outside for constables to arrive.
“Put your shoes and coat on,” Adam said to Henry.
As Henry turned to the coat-stand, Ella said to Adam in a sharp whisper, “Just what makes you think Faith’s in the house?”
Adam glanced to make sure Henry wasn’t listening. “The centaur’s eyes moved.”
Ella’s mouth formed an O of understanding.
Both of them flinched as an unearthly scream ripped through the house. Ella reached out protectively for Henry. He hid behind her as a figure emerged from The Lewarne Room.
Faith’s trembling arms were outstretched like a crucifixion. She was naked. Her slender body was criss-crossed by bloody scratches and mottled with ugly bruises. She was panting heavily and her pupils were glassy and unfocused. Like a sleepwalker, she shuffled towards Adam.
Ella caught hold of Adam’s hand and tried to pull him towards the front door.
He prised her fingers away. “She needs help.”
“Be careful,” hissed Ella as, holding his hands up in a calming gesture, Adam approached Faith.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
A glimmer of focus swirled into Faith’s blue eyes. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, her arms dropped limply to her sides.
“Get a blanket,” Adam said to Ella. Towing Henry behind her, she hastened to the sitting room. Faith shied away as they passed her. They returned with a blanket. As Adam wrapped it around Faith, she trembled like grass in a breeze.
“Who did this to you?” he asked.
Faith’s eyes flitted between Adam and Ella, full of desperate appeal. Her mouth opened and closed, but no words came. Tears spilled over her eyelids.
“We need to open the gates for the police,” said Ella. Adam motioned for her to go. She left the house, once again pulling Henry along after her.
Adam eyed Faith worriedly. Her breathing was a dry rasp. Her lips were cracked as if she hadn’t had a drink in days. He turned towards the kitchen. She let out a low moan and feebly grasped his hand. “It’s OK,” he soothed. “I’m just going to get you a drink of–”
He was interrupted by another ear-splitting scream tearing from Faith. Her eyes swelled like over-inflated balloons as if she’d seen something over Adam’s shoulder that terrified her beyond words. He followed her line of sight and saw only an empty space. She broke away from him. The blanket fluttered to the floor as she ran out of the front door.
Adam gave chase, calling out. “Faith, stop. There’s no need to be scared.”
Faith showed no sign of having heard him. Heedless of the gravel biting into her bare feet, she streaked down the driveway. Ella and Henry were returning from the front gates. They shrank to one side at the sight of the wild-eyed girl. She passed them without a glance.
“What happened?” Ella asked Adam.
“I don’t know,” he replied, not slowing his pace.
Beyond the gates, Faith veered through a gap in the hedge. A grassy field sloped down towards the coastal path. The first blue-grey light of dawn was parting the curtains of night. Adam caught up with Faith near the far side of the field. He tried to catch hold of her, lost his balance and fell flat on his face. Winded, he struggled upright. Faith was scrambling over a dry-stone wall. He dove after her and grabbed a trailing foot. With a desperate strength, she wrenched herself free and hurtled across the path.
“No!” cried Adam as she disappeared over the rim of Satan’s Saucepan.
He climbed over the wall and peered into the yawning void. The waves boiling on the boulders far below were still hidden in darkness. There was no sight of Faith either. He shouted her name. Only his voice echoed back at him. He stood rooted by shock until he heard Ella calling him. Tears glazed his eyes as he went to her.
Chapter 24
Day Seven
Ella was waiting by the gates with Henry shivering in his pyjamas at her side. “Where is she?” she asked anxiously.
“She’s gone,” said Adam.
“What do you mean?”
Adam darted a glance at Henry. “She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”
Catching his meaning, Ella pressed a hand to her mouth. Adam started towards the house. Henry made to follow, but Ella caught hold of his hand and pulled him backwards. “I’m not going back in that house,” she said.
Adam looked over his shoulder at her. “We can talk about this later, Ella. Right now I need to phone the coastguard.” He motioned with his chin at Henry whose teeth were chattering like castanets. “And he needs to get warm.”
Adam quickened his pace. Keeping tight hold of Henry’s hand, Ella followed slowly. She paused on the porch, staring at the front doorway as if it was a mouth that wanted to swallow her whole. “I’m freezing,” said Henry, dragging at her.
Footstep by footstep, Ella allowed herself to be drawn into the entrance hall. Adam was on the phone. “Yes, that’s right, Satan’s Saucepan,” he was saying. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see her. OK. I will.”
Adam put the phone down and turned to Ella. “A helicopter is on its way. I have to go back to the cliffs and show them where she fell.”
“Is that woman going be OK, Dad?” asked Henry.
Adam shook his head sadly. “No, Henry. I’m afraid she’s not.”
“Wait,” Ella said with a tremor in her voice as Adam turned towards the front door. “Do you have to go right now?”
“There’s nothing to be scared of.”
Ella’s eyebrow pinched together. “So you keep saying, but that girl looked–” She broke off, glancing at Henry. “Go warm yourself up by the Rayburn. Shout if you need me.” Her eyes uneasily followed Henry into the kitchen, then returned to Adam. “That girl looked as if she’d been attacked by a wild animal. What could have done that to her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she did it to herself.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know,” repeated Adam, irritation sharpening his tone. “I do know this – she wasn’t right in there.” He tapped his temple.
“But what if–”
“What if what, Ella? What if she was attacked by a ghost or a demon? Are we really going to stand here talking bollocks when a woman’s fallen from the cliffs?”