by Amy Cross
Mac turns to him.
“I mean the toilet,” Toby continues. “Obviously we're not gonna be, like, holding hands in the bathroom, are we?”
He waits for an answer.
“Is there a bathroom?” he adds. “I mean, like, in a haunted house, where...”
His voice trails off.
“I was just wondering about the... I guess, the practicalities.”
I turn to Mac, and for a moment I wonder whether his famous temper is about to rear its ugly head for the first time on this project. I've heard stories about how he can sometimes be heard all across campus, yelling at some poor unsuspecting student or colleague who asked the wrong question. I've never experienced him bawling someone out myself, but it's starting to look as if he might be about to unleash his fury on Toby.
“The vans,” he says finally, sounding surprisingly calm. “There are portable camping toilets, use them behind the vans. It's not complicated.”
“Oh,” Toby replies, seemingly a little relieved. “I'm glad you... I'm glad you thought ahead like that. I was worried we'd have to go behind the curtains, like they did back in Versailles.”
Mac stares at him for a moment longer, before muttering something about equipment and heading back outside.
“Sorry about the vase!” Toby calls after him.
“That was close,” Helen says with a sigh. “I've seen him go ballistic with less provocation.”
“What provocation?” Toby asks. “I just wanted to know the toilet arrangements. Is a man not allowed to ask that? I mean, I was doing it for you girls, anyway. I can always go pee in the bushes, but I was worried about the arrangements for you two.”
“Let's just bring the other equipment in,” I reply, turning and heading to the door. “Mac's right. We have a lot to get done today. For one thing, we need to have the cameras set up before nightfall.”
Chapter Six
“Say something,” I mutter a couple of hours later, as I peer through the viewfinder and watch Toby on the other side of the hallway.
He turns and smiles.
“I'd like to thank the academy for -”
“That's fine,” I continue, interrupting him as soon as I see that the microphone is working properly.
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I've got a whole routine about -”
“Don't worry about it,” I tell him, closing the camera's container and sliding it out of the way. “Another time.”
“No-one wants to hear my jokes around here,” he mutters. “I'm actually thinking of trying stand-up some time, and maybe -”
He lets out a frustrated gasp.
“Damn it!”
I glance over at him. “Something wrong?”
“I'm fine.”
I watch as he starts threading another jack onto the hard-disc mounting, and I can't help noticing that his hands are trembling. Stepping closer, I realize that despite his constant attempts to make little jokes, Toby seems more nervous than the rest of us, to the extent that it's starting to interfere with his work.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Me? I'm fine. Why?”
“You just seem -”
“Damn it!” he hisses again. Stepping back, he bumps against a camera and knocks it over. “Don't tell Helen,” he continues, righting the camera again. “I'm sure it's not damaged.”
“What's wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“But -”
Before I can finish, there's a loud bumping sound from elsewhere in the house. I turn and look over at one of the open doorways that leads away from the hall, but I quickly realize that Mac and Helen are working in the next room. Still, when I turn back to Toby I see fear in his eyes.
“It was Mac and Helen,” I tell him. “Don't worry about it.”
“Who said I was worried?” he asks unconvincingly, looking back down at the box of jacks. “I don't know about you, but I certainly haven't seen or heard anything untoward since we set foot in this place.” He continues to work, but a moment later his trembling fingers drop another jack and he lets out a couple of muttered curses as he reaches down to pick it up again. “So far, this just seems like a big, dusty old house that got abandoned due to some dumb old ghost stories.”
“But you do believe in ghosts, don't you?” I reply, watching him carefully as he tries to work.
“Says who?”
“Said you, the other night in the campus bar.”
“I did?”
“You had a few too many beers and started going on at great length,” I remind him, although I doubt he remembers. “Then you were sick right outside the library.”
“Aye, sure,” he mutters, “I mean, Mac said that was one of the reasons he brought me on-board. He wanted someone with an open mind, someone who's studied this kind of thing.” He forces an unconvincing smile. “Despite outward appearances, I actually have a fine academic mind. My supervisor says my PhD paper on the Enfield business is exceptional.”
“I don't doubt it,” I tell him.
“So Mac hired Helen, who's a skeptic,” he continues, “and he hired me, because he wanted someone who believes in this kinda stuff.”
He pauses for a moment, eyeing me with a hint of suspicion.
“Why did he hire you, then?” he asks finally. “No offense, but you're nobody. Academically speaking, I mean.”
“I...”
Pausing, I realize I don't actually have an answer. I've been asking myself the same thing for a while now, but so far it seems as if Mac simply plucked me at random from a list of students. I'm grateful, and I know it's the opportunity of a lifetime to work with him, but I still wish I could summon the courage to ask him point-blank what he sees in me, or what he thinks I have to offer. Then again, maybe I'm over-analyzing the situation. Maybe I'm just here to carry things and generally carry out the dogsbody work. He probably picked me at random.
And I don't have a problem with that. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Hearing footsteps in the distance, I turn just as Mac and Helen emerge from the next room. Helen is trying to separate twisted cables, while Mac is once again looking through one of Josephine Pullman's little yellow notebooks.
“We've got everything set up in here,” I tell him. “We're just about ready to go take a look in one of the other rooms. I was thinking we could do the drawing room next.”
I wait for a reply, but Mac simply stops at the foot of the stairs and continues to read the notebook. After a moment, he turns to another page, and it's almost as if he didn't hear me at all. I'd take it personally, but I've learned by now that he regularly seems to stop paying attention to the rest of us.
“Mac?” I say cautiously. “Toby and I were thinking about -”
“Do it,” he replies, keeping his eyes fixed on the notebook. “That sounds fine. Take Helen with you.”
Helen turns to him. “I thought I was -”
“I'm going upstairs for a moment,” he continues, closing the notebook and slipping it into his pocket. “While I'm gone, I want the three of you to stick together.”
I glance at Helen, and then at Toby, and I can see that they're both concerned.
“But you said...” I hesitate, not wanting to challenge Mac, but still trying to understand as he starts making his way up the stairs. “You said we're supposed to stick together. You said no-one's meant to go off alone.”
“I just need to check something,” he replies. “I'll be back soon.”
“I'll come with you,” Helen tells him as she starts to follow. “Just in -”
“No, stay down here with the others,” he continues, not even turning to look back at her. “I'll be quick. Everything will be okay, you three go set up in the drawing room. We have to stick to the schedule.”
We stand in silence and watch as he follows the curve of the spiral staircase, and finally he disappears from view. For a few more seconds, his footsteps can be heard echoing through the house, before finally fading into the distance. I know from the plans I s
tudied that there's a long corridor at the top of the stairs, lined with doors on either side.
“Huh,” Toby mutters, getting to his feet. “So it's one rule for him, and another rule for the rest of us?”
“He's probably just following the notebook,” Helen suggests. “Maybe Josephine Pullman went off alone shortly after she and her team arrived, so he's doing the same.”
I turn to her. “Do you really think he's copying her every move? In that much detail?”
“I think he thinks it's the only way to find out what really happened to her,” she replies. “He wants to know what she saw while she was here. He thinks if he can figure that part out, maybe he can still help her.”
“But she's in a psychiatric hospital, isn't she?” I ask. “Surely there are specialists who -”
“Mac doesn't trust anyone except himself. It doesn't matter what field they work in. He thinks his instincts are always going to come out on top.”
“Phew,” Toby mutters. “For a moment there, I thought you were gonna make him sound like an arrogant asshole. God forbid, eh?”
“We should just do as he asked,” Helen continues, grabbing a fresh set of leads from the box by the wall. “You guys might be new to working with Mac, but he and I go back a long way. One thing you need to learn pretty fast is that you'll never, ever be able to change his mind about anything, so don't even waste your breath. And don't make the mistake of thinking he'll respect you if you challenge him, because that's not how he works. He'll respect you if you do your job properly, and if he can rely on you. We're not a team here, not really. We're here to help him do whatever he thinks needs doing. He neither wants nor needs our input.”
“Again,” Toby says with a sigh, “that's not arrogant at all!”
“Get what you need and let's start work in the drawing room,” Helen says, turning and heading toward the closed door over by the foot of the stairs. “There's no point standing around like this.”
“Are you still thinking about quitting?” Toby whispers to me as I grab a fresh camera.
“Of course not,” I reply, perhaps sounding a little too defensive. “I'm here, aren't I?”
“Sure, but no-one would blame you if -”
“I'm staying,” I tell him, already turning to follow Helen. “If I was going to quit, I'd have done it already. Let's just get on with the job. We have a schedule to stick to, remember?”
***
“What do you think he's doing up there?” I ask Helen later, as I help her loop a wire behind one of the old sofas. “Mac's been gone for a while now.”
I take a moment to wipe dust from my hands. I swear I've never seen so much dust in my life, and I'm even starting to feel it in my lungs. If I didn't know better, I'd say the house seems to be trying to reach inside my body.
“He'd let us know if he needed help,” she replies. “I'm sure he's keeping busy.”
Glancing up at the high ceiling, I can't help thinking about Mac wandering around alone upstairs. He's probably still going through that yellow notebook, still lost in Doctor Pullman's words. For the first time, I'm starting to think of him as a forlorn, lost figure.
“No signal,” Toby mutters, tilting his cellphone in various different directions. “I guess I should've known, huh? Spooky old house, middle of nowhere... God forbid there'd be a signal.”
“We have a satellite phone in one of the vans,” Helen tells him.
“Can't hunt for Pokemon on a satellite phone,” he replies. “Relax, that's another of my hilarious jokes. You girls really aren't in a very good mood, are you?”
He waits for one of us to say something, but a moment later we hear a very faint creaking sound. We all look up toward the high ceiling, where yet another chandelier hangs completely still in the dusty air.
“He's still copying Josephine's every move,” Helen says after a few seconds. “It's kind of creepy if you think about it. Retreading every step of a woman who ended up losing her mind.”
“Do we really need to talk about that?” Toby asks.
Smiling, she turns to him. “Nervous?”
“It just seems like we're tempting fate a little,” he continues, glancing at me as if he expects me to back him up. “I doubt -”
Before he can finish, there's a loud bump from elsewhere in the house. This time, we all look toward the door at the far end of the drawing room, since the noise seemed to come less from upstairs and more from somewhere nearby.
“You know what's gonna happen, don't you?” Toby asks after a moment. “Mac's gonna come in and say he's been out in the van all this time, and then we're all gonna poop ourselves.”
“This is the room we were watching last night,” Helen says, ignoring him as she turns to me. “You know the one with the windows where we thought we saw a blur? This is that room.”
Turning, I see three windows nearby, and I realize she's right. Of course, Mac agreed with Helen that the blurs were most likely just a form of digital noise, even if they did seem to move from window to window in a uniform manner. Still, craning my neck, I can just about make out the two vans about thirty feet from the front of the building, and I can't help imagining something else standing in this exact spot last night, watching us from the darkness. It's crazy how little it takes for the human imagination to run wild.
“What if he never comes back?” Toby asks suddenly.
I turn to him.
“What if Mac's gone forever?” he continues.
I sigh. “Why would -”
“Don't talk rubbish,” Helen mutters, interrupting us. She adds something else under her breath, something that doesn't sound very complimentary.
“Oh, I remember now,” Toby says. “It's tomorrow when things are supposed to get weird, isn't it? That's one of the big stories about this house. The first night inside is always fine, nothing much happens, but it's the second night when things start to get all weird. Well, that's the popular version, anyway. Some versions say it's the third night.” He frowns. “Or is tomorrow the third night, 'cause we were here last night too, but we were outside. It's confusing, isn't it? It's almost as if the whole thing's a pile of rubbish. Does the night in the vans count, or -”
“Shut up,” Helen says firmly.
“But -”
“Let's not fuss over that stuff right now,” I add. “We need to stay focused.”
“Can you grab me a screwdriver from one of the toolboxes?” Helen asks. “I brought the wrong one.”
I get up to head back to the hallway, although after a moment I hesitate as I see the empty doorway ahead. It's almost as if the house is waiting for me to go through.
“What's wrong?” Toby asks. “Scared to toddle off by yourself?”
“Of course not,” I reply, bristling at the suggestion.
“Go with her,” Helen tells him. “I'll be fine here.” She glances up at one of the large oil paintings on the wall. “Unless one of those things decides to fall on me.”
“No, I'm good,” I continue, forcing a smile. “It's only the hallway, right? Mac's probably out there again, anyway.”
“I'm not entirely sure where I put the pack of screwdrivers,” Helen explains. “Sorry, it's definitely in one of the ones we brought in, though. Just root around 'til you find them.”
“Absolutely.”
Turning, I head across the drawing room and then – without looking back – I make my way to the entrance hall. There's no sign of Mac, but I figure his rule about not being alone probably doesn't apply to a part of the house that we've already made our own. That's the theory I'm running with for now, anyway. I can already hear Helen and Toby arguing about something behind me, so I feel pretty comfortable as I wander to the far side of the hall and crouch next to one of the toolboxes. Rooting through the contents, I find no sign of the screwdrivers, so I scooch along to the next toolbox and try again.
Still no luck.
Just as I'm about to turn and call back to Helen, however, I hear a brief but very distinct bumping s
ound from one of the other rooms.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see that a door at the far end of the hall is now open, whereas I'm sure it was closed earlier.
I wait, and sure enough there's another bump just a few seconds later.
“Mac?” I call out, loud enough that he'd be able to hear me in there, but not loud enough for Helen or Toby to hear me all the way back in the drawing room.
The last thing I need is for Toby to come and make more lame jokes.
“Mac, is that you?”
No reply.
I hesitate for a moment longer, before getting to my feet and heading over to the doorway. When I get there, I look through and see a large room lined with bookshelves, so I guess I must have found the house's library. I've seen photos of this room, but it's still somewhat surprising to see that the shelves are still filled with the same leather-bound volumes that the house's occupants must have read many years ago. Over in the far corner, there are even some sofas and armchairs, and it's as if the room has barely been touched since the house's last family departed more than a century ago.
I turn to head back to the toolboxes, but suddenly my attention is drawn to a desk next to the farthest window. There's a small piece of paper on the desk, and I feel a faint ripple of fear in my chest as I realize that this is the window I looked through last night when I was with Toby. I remember seeing that exact desk and that exact piece of paper.
I know I should just go back to the toolboxes, but the room is relatively bright thanks to the large windows, and I figure there's no way anything bad can happen if I just take a look inside. After all, Mac has been upstairs alone for over an hour, and his rules were probably more of a suggestion than an absolute set of guidelines. So after taking one more look around to make sure that everything seems okay, I step into the room and make my way cautiously toward the desk.
As I get closer, it becomes apparent that there are some words on the note, and I can tell that the handwriting is pretty old-fashioned. That doesn't mean it's genuinely old, of course, but once I reach the desk it's clear that the lettering adheres very much to the standards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Not that I'm an expert, but still...