Twenty thousand pounds!
Delores put her chin on the tips of her fingers.
Getting up, Thea wandered over to the window. Below was the village green with the forest looming behind, reeds rustling around the pond and her ‘family’ out doing star jumps for their afternoon exercise session. Rosie was at the front, star-jumping like a demented jack-in-the-box, going twice the speed of everyone else and still managing to hold a conversation with Ethan. Not a conversation, Thea noted: a monologue. Ethan was his usual grim self, looking stern even when jumping up and down.
It was ridiculous. She had barely coped on one hour’s sleep, but Delores thought Morpheus could successfully get rid of even that? It wouldn’t work. And would probably nearly kill her in the process.
But – the money. She needed it. She couldn’t continue the way she had been – she saw that now. All of her energy had been going into just getting through each sleep-deprived day, and every day doing that dragged her down just a little more. The money would give her 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. every morning whilst she worked out what to do with her life; it would give her breathing space.
But she’d be a breathing guinea pig.
She turned to face Delores. ‘I’d like those shoes, please, and I’d like to go out for a walk around the island to think it through. With Rosie. I think … I’d also like to phone my mother.’
Delores smiled coldly and nodded. ‘I would need an answer by the end of the day.’
Suddenly her mother took control of Thea’s mouth.
‘And, I think … it’ll probably have to be more than twenty thousand …’
Chapter 15
Thea had her own angel and devil, except they weren’t sitting on her shoulders but walking beside her.
‘I’d chew my own arm off for that kind of money!’ Rosie panted up the hill, still dressed in her gym gear from earlier, the wind fluffing her crazy hair into even crazier shapes. ‘Let them know that, yeah – if they have some more money lying round? Totally up for chewing my own arm off in the name of science!’
‘It’s danger money,’ Ethan called back to them, waiting a little further up the path.
They hadn’t been able to get hold of Rory, but, as Harriet had handed her the trainers with a look of puzzlement on her face, Thea had spotted Ethan hovering nearby trying to act as if he wasn’t listening in. It had been easy enough to get another pair of trainers for him.
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t get through to your mum, though.’
They’d tried. But mid-afternoon was peak plotting time for the women at HQ – and by “plotting” they often meant “napping”. There was no answer.
Thea continued to plod, staring at her newly issued trainers, the same as Rosie and Ethan’s. They had springy soles and she felt like she could walk for hours, at least twice around the small island. The cult clothes had been replaced by fleece-lined leggings and a puffy jacket that kept her warm despite the chill air.
‘My mother would probably suspect this is all a patriarchal conspiracy of some sort,’ Thea said.
Rosie nodded seriously. ‘Well, most things are,’ she said.
Thea wasn’t sure if Rosie actually knew what a patriarchal conspiracy was.
‘You could talk about it to Harriet,’ Rosie said.
‘Yeah, you could.’ Ethan cracked his knuckles together. ‘But you wouldn’t get a straight answer.’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad.’ Rosie stopped as if to admire the view stretching out below them, but really trying to catch her breath. ‘Fierce shoes! Gave me a lipstick a few days ago, just cos I complimented her on the colour. Bet she’s got a great Insta page.’
‘It’s a science experiment, that’s all,’ Thea pondered. ‘It’s what scientists do, isn’t it? Try to push things a bit further?’
‘Yeah!’ Rosie grinned. ‘Like Frankenstein, right? Make a new human being.’
Thea stopped and there was a pause as Rosie’s brain caught up with what she’d just said, ‘’Cept of course it was a monster, wasn’t it? Not that you’ll—’ Rosie’s eyes went wide in dismay, slow-loris-style.
‘Turn into a monster?’
‘You might.’ Ethan laughed, just briefly, but it was an actual laugh. He looked as surprised at it as they did.
‘Why do they want to do it, though?’ Rosie frowned. ‘I thought they were helping us to get more sleep, not less. I don’t understand.’
Ethan called over his shoulder as he marched on ahead of them, ‘Bet the MOD have been trying to do something like this for years. A soldier who doesn’t sleep? An army that doesn’t sleep?’
‘Or a doctor,’ Thea added, both women walking quicker to keep up with him. ‘Think of all the lives that could be saved if there were no sleep-deprived doctors.’
‘Or the lives that could be taken by those wide-awake soldiers.’
Rosie’s eyes became bigger still. ‘What? People who never sleep? But that’s just … unnatural.’
The monastery was close now, and though Thea had been thinking of sleepless soldiers and twenty thousand pounds, she had also been thinking of this place. They were standing at the side of it, between them and its walls a stretch of spiky weeds. Clouds had started to roll in while they had been walking: fat and heavy and grey, squatting in the sky like miserable buddhas. The walls of the monastery blended in, towering above them, the bell tower still wounded and bleeding rust.
‘Grim place,’ Ethan said softly.
‘Is this where you were?’ Rosie asked. ‘Y’know when you saw it?’
‘Saw what?’ Ethan asked, fixing her with a glare.
Thea blushed. ‘I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t tell what it was.’
A bird. A piece of plastic. A face.
‘Ooh, I bet there are some juicy ghosts up there.’ Rosie rubbed her hands together. ‘I love a good ghost story. Don’t believe them, but love watching all of that real ghost hunters’ stuff; the psychics pretending like they’re talking to the dead. It’s hilarious!’
Ethan cracked his knuckles and sighed and Thea could tell by his expression that he thought they were a pair of impressionable idiots.
‘Helllloooo!’ Rosie threw her arms wide and twirled around. ‘Heeelllllooooo, ghosties! Here we are! Come talk to us, ghosties!’
‘Cut it out, Rosie.’ Thea grabbed her arm, uncomfortable suddenly, as if they were prodding a sleeping predator that they really, really shouldn’t wake. There had been abuse here, sadness, fear; there was a menace in those walls, porous walls that had sucked up every scream and drop of torment over the years.
‘Come on, ghosties! Helllllloooooooooooooo!’
Rosie shrugged Thea off and picked her way through some of the shallower bracken that formed a thick barricade around the monastery itself. Ethan sighed.
‘I’m carrying on to the lighthouse,’ he said to Thea. ‘You deal with your weird friend.’
They both heard a sharp yelp and the sound of rustling.
‘Rosie!’ Thea yelled.
But Rosie had disappeared.
‘Rosie!’
A patch of bracken moved in response.
‘I’m okay!’ a faint voice called back. ‘I twisted my ankle … The ground’s a bit uneven … I’m fine …’
A pause.
‘Okay, maybe I’m not fine. I can’t seem to put much weight on this ankle …’
Ethan muttered something under his breath, pushed past Thea and stomped into the undergrowth. A few moments later he came back out, supporting a limping Rosie, who looked quite ashen-faced but probably didn’t need to cling to him as tightly as she was.
Thea raised an eyebrow.
‘It was the ghosts!’ Rosie defended herself. ‘They got me. Don’t mess with the supernatural, kids!’
She sank down onto the path and hauled herself over to lean against the nearest tree. Thea and Ethan continued to look unimpressed.
‘Look, sorry for being an idiot, okay? You guys go on to the lighthouse without me. I don’t want
to go back yet – our time’s not up. I’ll just stay here, enjoy the view and wait for you to return.’ She prodded her ankle gently and winced as she tried to move it.
Thea gazed at the monastery. It was just a ruin, another rotting place full of woodworm, mould and broken glass. Each window was a black hole with nothing in it. No flicker. No face. She had been wrong.
She hugged her jacket tighter to her.
Ethan hadn’t even looked back but was already climbing further on up the path. Thea lingered near Rosie, unwilling to leave her on her own, but Rosie shooed her away, shouting after them, ‘If you see a ghost, give me a yell!’
Chapter 16
Standing at the cliff edge, Thea wasn’t afraid of falling; she was afraid of jumping.
Her leg muscles twitched as if they wanted to leap without permission. She’d lose control and hurl herself straight down onto the eager rocks below, the waves like a tongue licking its lips. She wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to swim; her mangled body would be thrown against the rocks before she had time to try and take a breath.
Swimming looked so easy, so graceful. On television, she watched people dive, their bodies curving like commas and then they flicked through the water so fast. So little effort. For her, it had always been nothing but effort, which then quickly turned into panicked flailing, and chlorine water up her nose making her brain sting.
‘See them?’
Thea could make out things that looked like smooth grey rocks, which ducked in and out of the water, as if playing whack-a-mole on their own. Maybe they were seals. Or maybe they were rocks being dunked by the waves.
‘Yeah.’
Ethan looked at her. ‘You don’t, do you?’
Thea squinted. ‘Not really.’ She laughed. ‘But that’s probably my fault. I never seem to spot, y’know, nature stuff when people point it out. Y’know, they go “Oooh, look over there, at that lesser-spotted whatsit” and I look and I can never see it. Then it’s gone. Sorry.’
‘Ah well, it can be tricky sometimes.’
It was quite sweet that Ethan took the time to help her, trying to point out the seals. They stood companionably for a while, watching the gulls swoop as if rehearsing an aerial show, screeching to each other and squabbling on the cliffs. They had taken the path that climbed upwards. The wind had become stronger now, no more playful bumps and nudges. Its mood had darkened and it roared in Thea’s ears, trying to get under her jacket, tangling her hair and whipping it into her eyes so they watered.
‘Thanks for letting me come,’ Ethan said, not making eye contact.
‘That’s okay.’
‘I think I needed a break from the place, y’know. It was getting to me.’
‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’ Thea gave him a sly glance and for one terrible moment thought he hadn’t got her joke. But then he smiled, the lines on his forehead smoothing out.
‘So why are you here then?’ Thea asked, emboldened.
He sniffed and hurled a pebble out to sea. ‘I don’t do the whole sharing thing, just so you know.’ The smile disappeared.
‘Oh! Right! Sorry!’
‘Don’t mean to be rude. Anyway, Harriet told everyone, didn’t she? Nightmares. Leave it there.’
‘Yes! Of course! Sorry! None of my business.’ Thea blushed furiously.
Then suddenly, as they rounded the curve, there it was: the lighthouse.
It wasn’t as tall as Thea had expected. In fact it was quite dumpy and stunted-looking, the runt of the lighthouse litter, its white paint looking rather dirty now. Unloved.
‘People came to see that?’ Thea said in a disdainful tone.
‘I guess it looked better when it was properly maintained? I think they came because of the stained glass at the top. See the colours? I think it’s quite unusual for a lighthouse. They’re pictures, scenes or something …’
They dutifully stood and gazed at it because they had walked all that way to come and stare. So stare they did. Determinedly.
‘Obviously, we’ll tell Rosie that it was amazing,’ Thea said.
‘Best lighthouse ever.’
‘Epic.’
They had no other choice but to make their way back. Thea had hoped that somehow making it to the lighthouse would magically give her the decision she needed to make, so it was with a sigh that she followed Ethan back to the path, noticing that he was shortening his stride so she could keep up.
‘I could live on an island like this.’ Ethan cracked his knuckles again. ‘No people, with their constant bloody chatter: who did this? Why do that? What happened there? It drives me crazy, all the time, just talking for talking’s sake. The noise of it.’
It only took him a few seconds for realization to dawn. ‘Ah. Not you. Didn’t mean you. You’ve been fine.’
He sounded like he meant it. Thea felt absurdly proud.
‘It’s okay,’ she reassured him. ‘I’m not great sometimes at the whole talking-to-people thing.’
He held a massive fern leaf aside for her to pass, the green of it glossy like a jungle plant.
‘So … going to do it?’ he asked.
Skidding a little on the loose gravel of the path, Thea steadied herself as sleepless soldiers and red-eyed guinea pigs danced together through her mind. The fern leaf sprang back against her shoulder, a soft green hand on her neck.
She shrugged. ‘We’d better get back to Rosie.’
But, when they got to the monastery, Rosie was gone.
Chapter 17
Thea felt like the grey, hulking monastery at her back would unsheathe its claws at any moment and pounce on her, snapping her little rodent neck.
There was only silence.
‘Rosie!’ Ethan yelled, veins bulging in his throat.
‘How could she not be here?’ Thea went around the tree they’d left Rosie propped up against. ‘She can’t walk far – where would she go?’
‘I know she’s your friend and all, but the girl’s a bloody idiot.’
Ethan strode a little way into the bracken, swiping at it as if it was attacking him, while Thea, at a loss, took to staring at the ground, as if she could track her, as if she knew what to look for. Which she didn’t.
That’s when they heard it.
From the monastery.
A low sound, weak.
A moaning. Something in pain. A wretched sound.
The pit of Thea’s stomach went cold and her heart flopped sickly into her throat. The moaning continued and Ethan looked at her, eyes wide, both of them seemingly frozen by the sound.
‘What is that?’ he hissed.
‘I don’t know.’
He carefully backed away from the monastery. ‘Do you think it’s Rosie?’
Thea really hoped it wasn’t because that tortured noise should never come from a human being. ‘The last time I came here … I think I saw something … a face, at the window. I think it could have been a face. I don’t know.’
‘A face? Someone in the monastery?’
‘I don’t know.’
The moaning choked off. Silence oozed back over them, thick with menace. Then a voice came, mewling and shattered: ‘H-h-help … help me!’
Watching in horror, Thea and Ethan stared at one of the lowest windows and kept on staring, not able to do anything else, as something began to move along the bottom edge. Something pale. Something unfurling.
Hard to tell at the distance but they looked like …
… fingers …
… spreading, one by one, clawing themselves upwards, clutching at the windowsill as if trying to drag the rest of – whatever it was – up behind them. Spidery, questing, pale … fingers.
‘Help me …’
A face bobbed up.
‘I’m just a ghostie …’
Ethan sighed. Rosie waved and laughed through the empty hole of the window, leaning on the sill for support and slapping it at intervals as she gasped with glee. Thea relaxed her shoulders, not even realizing that she had hunched
them up. Ethan crossed his arms.
‘The look on your faces!’ Rosie yelled. ‘That was so worth dragging myself over here! I knew I’d get you!’
‘Hilarious,’ said Ethan, stony-faced.
Thea cringed a little for Rosie, inwardly promising to take her aside and tell her to tone it down a bit if she was to have any chance with Ethan.
‘How did you get in there? What about your ankle?’ she called over.
‘I went all Swiss Family Robinson! Made a crutch from a branch I found,’ Rosie shouted proudly. ‘Took it slow over here, then got in through this window. It’s pretty low to the ground.’
‘Well, stay there! I’ll come and help you out.’
‘I’m not.’ Ethan walked back towards the path. ‘Clearly she doesn’t need any more help if she can do that. I’m going back. She does my head in. Nice meeting you again.’
He strode off. Thea couldn’t really blame him.
She turned back to the monastery and set off through the prickly bushes, picking her way carefully. Rosie threw her crutch out of the window and onto the ground below, steadying herself with both hands as she tried to get her knee on the edge, tongue poking out of the side of her mouth, her frizzy curls bouncing over her eyes.
She didn’t see it coming.
But Thea saw it; she saw it all.
It was over in a flash, so quickly it took her brain a few moments to catch up.
Something moved behind Rosie as she looked up and smiled at Thea.
Something pale
and fast
and strong.
One moment, Rosie was smiling at Thea and the next, her head slammed hard, sickeningly hard, into the thick stone wall and her body then slumped, doll-like, over the sill.
Thea had been close enough to hear the crunch of bone and teeth.
And close enough to see the face behind Rosie, its mouth stretched unnaturally wide in a howl of pure fury before it vanished back into the gloom.
Chapter 18
‘Hello, you old rogue. I knew you’d be here. I need to pick your brains.’
The restaurant was softly lit and hushed. Vivian slid into a seat at a table for two, opposite a man who would cut himself if he was any more sharply suited. There was a silk triangle of pocket-handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket.
Sleepless Page 7