We drove to one of the hotels further down the coast and sat on the terrace overlooking the water. From there we could see the island of Arran cloaked in mist.
‘You must be fed up with your old auntie, Tyler,’ she said over her hamburger (made fresh, chargrilled medium rare, just the way she liked it. I opted for chicken Caesar salad).
‘I could never be fed up with you, Aunt Belle,’ I assured her.
‘I think I’ll arrange for that realtor to come tomorrow, to take a look at the house.’
‘Realtor?’
‘What do you call them here? Estate agents?’
It was late afternoon by the time we got home, and while Aunt Belle called the ‘realtor’ and arranged for someone to come the next day I tried to text my friends. None of them got through. Their mobiles had either been left at home, or they were in a place where there was no reception. I did miss not being able to talk to them every day. Later, Aunt Belle and I walked along the beach and sat on some rocks to watch the sun sink lower in the sky. It was that beautiful time between dark and light, when the sky is ablaze with colours, orange and purple and topaz. The gloaming, we call it here in Scotland. Such a lovely word.
It had been a perfect day. Aunt Belle seemed almost back to her normal self and there had been no shadows frightening me. While Aunt Belle got ready for bed, I went into the kitchen to make her some hot chocolate. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I stood at the window looking out at the waves crashing up on to the beach. There was something bold and dramatic about this landscape. I would miss this house too when it was sold.
I filled her cup and picked it up, ready to take it into her when I heard a sound in the hall, and a murmured voice. I called out, ‘Aunt Belle, is that you?’ There was no answer.
I stepped to the kitchen door and gasped. There was an old lady in the hallway. Her white hair was wound in a bun at the top of her head and she was wearing an old-fashioned black coat and carrying a small case.
‘Why, my dear, this is lovely,’ she said softly. But not to me.
‘Excuse me, who are you?’ I asked her. She ignored me. She couldn’t see me, yet she was as real as I was. I took a step back and when I looked around, the hall was different. There was floral wallpaper, old-fashioned fittings, a claw-footed table of dark wood against the wall. It wasn’t our hall at all . . . yet, it was our hall.
‘I’m so glad you like it, Eleanor,’ a kind voice said, a gentle voice. But I couldn’t see who that voice belonged to. There was no one else there. No one, but this old lady, Eleanor.
I reached out to touch her, that’s how close she was, but my fingers sank into nothing.
Eleanor rubbed at the arm I had tried to touch, and she shivered. ‘I suddenly felt cold there,’ she said.
The unseen voice said kindly, ‘I think there must be a draught somewhere. I’ll get it fixed.’
‘Oh, no need,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re being too kind as it is.’
And I knew then I was in the past, watching a scene from another time, just as I had been before when I helped Ben Kincaid. And I knew something else too and the thought chilled me. I knew I was the ghost, not Eleanor, not the unseen voice I could hear. It was me who was the ghost.
But why was I seeing these things? There had to be a reason.
‘And this is your room,’ the kind voice said. ‘I hope you like it.’
The door of my bedroom opened. Someone was there, opening the door. Someone I couldn’t see. And now it was no longer my bedroom. There were no green curtains, no tall mirror, no old chest at the bottom of the bed. Everything was white, clean and crisp like snow. Eleanor walked inside and I followed her.
‘I just love it,’ she said as she laid her case down on the bed. Sister Kelly, you’re an angel.’
Eleanor turned and looked straight at me, straight through me. I swung round to see who it was she was talking to. There was no one there. Then, in the blink of an eye, the room was no longer hospital white. It was green and it was mine again, and there was no Eleanor. No invisible Sister Kelly.
And the door slammed shut.
And a shadow shifted in the chair.
Chapter 13
The sixth day
The cup slipped from my fingers and hot chocolate splashed everywhere. It seemed as if I was moving in slow motion. I wanted to pull at the door, but my hands would not obey me. I could not move. My fingers curled tightly into my palms. Something was sitting there, in that armchair in the corner. Something that meant me harm. And if I stood there long enough, it would come alive, stand up, come towards me.
The door was flung open. Light spilled in from the hallway and Aunt Belle stood there in her lilac dressing gown.
‘I’ll dehydrate waiting for that hot chocolate.’ Then she saw the cup on the floor, her hot chocolate spilled on the carpet. She looked back and saw my face. ‘Are you all right, Tyler? What are you doing standing here in the dark?’
I longed to tell her what I had just seen. But even Aunt Belle, with her rich imagination, so like mine, might find it hard to believe. I hardly believed it myself. I managed a smile. ‘I only came in for a book, and the door slammed shut again. It scared me to death.’
She slipped her arm in mine. ‘Well, let’s head out to the light and make some more hot chocolate.’
She led me back into the kitchen, and I glanced back for a second and in the shadow of my room something stirred. I was sure it did.
I spent the rest of the night curled up in the armchair in Aunt Belle’s room. She didn’t know. Aunt Belle was in a sound sleep well before midnight. When the sun was up, I went back to my own room and fell into an exhausted sleep. I slept soundly too, until Aunt Belle came bustling in with a late morning cup of tea for me. ‘The realtor’s coming at two,’ she said. She felt my brow. ‘Are you sure you’re not coming down with what I have?’
She always made me smile. ‘You think I might have jet lag too?’
‘I think I more likely have a virus of some kind . . . I was sick this morning. Maybe that hamburger was off.’
She waved away my worry about that. ‘Oh, I’m fine now. I’m never ill. Not for long. I just don’t want to pass anything on to you,’ she said.
I swung my legs out of bed. ‘Don’t worry about me, Aunt Belle. I’m just lazy.’
The ‘realtor’ was a young woman in a black business suit, wearing heels that were too high and carrying a leather briefcase. Power dressing, I think they call it. We went into the living room and she opened her briefcase and took out her sheaf of papers and I saw how her hands trembled. She was nervous, I thought, probably new to the job.
‘Call me Susan,’ she insisted as she sat asking questions about the bungalow. Eventually, she stood up. ‘I’ll just have a look around now, if that’s OK?’ She began to walk around the room, informing us of all its features as if we didn’t know them already. ‘A lovely front room, with a bay window. Being on this promontory you’re surrounded by the sea. So every room has a sea view. A great selling point. I love the bay windows.’ She smiled and opened a cupboard beside the fireplace. ‘Ample storage space.’ As she spoke she was listing all the house’s selling points on the pages on her clipboard. She began walking round from one room to another. Aunt Belle and I followed in her wake. She admired the dining room. ‘Could, of course, be a third bedroom.’ She was growing more confident as she walked. Her step became a stride. She came to my bedroom and pushed open the door. ‘Green,’ she said, ‘such a relaxing colour.’
If only she knew, I thought. Relaxing was the last thing I would call this room. But I couldn’t help but notice how she shivered as we left the room.
From there we moved to Aunt Belle’s room. I almost tripped over Aunt Belle’s book lying again on the floor. But Susan didn’t notice that. She was too busy gushing about the view from the window. Did she too sense the warmth in here? Feel the difference between the two bedrooms?
‘And of course, having the en suite in this room is a big plus,’ s
he said.
We ended up in the kitchen. ‘Put the kettle on, Tyler. Let’s have a cup of tea,’ Aunt Belle said.
Susan gushed about the kitchen too, as I suspected she would. It was bright and modern and with doors leading out to a little patio.
It was as we sat having tea that Susan, checking her housing schedule, realised something she had almost missed. ‘Oh, wait a minute . . . there’s a cellar in this house.’
‘Do you know, I forgot all about that,’ Aunt Belle said. She stood up. ‘It’s in the hall, Tyler. Almost below your room. No wonder it’s cold. The draught is probably coming up from there. Fancy me forgetting we had a cellar.’
We all went into the hall. ‘It’s supposed to be just here,’ Susan said. ‘May I?’ She moved aside a rug on the floor just outside my room.
No one would have known there was a hatch there. The handle folded in flush against the floor. It took a few pulls to lift it free.
A gust of cold air hit us. I stepped back.
There were steps that descended into darkness. Susan went down first. ‘Have you got a flashlight?’
‘Oh, there’s electricity. There’s a switch somewhere.’ And, with that, Aunt Belle was off down the stairs. I stood at the top, didn’t fancy going down into that dark place.
‘I remember we were so excited when we found this,’ Aunt Belle went on. ‘Thought it could be a wine cellar, or we could store food in it.’
Aunt Belle found the switch and the cellar lit up. I had expected the cellar to be damp and dirty, but it wasn’t. It was a bright, white square room.
‘It is a good size,’ Susan said. ‘Yes, a great feature. It could be used as a games room or a den.’
She continued talking but her voice began to fade. And it seemed then that I was in another place, another time. Aunt Belle and Susan seemed to be moving in slow motion. It was as if there was a veil between them and me. The cellar was no longer bright and white and clean. It was the way it once must have been – dark and damp and full of shadows. Moving shadows.
My heart pounded at my chest. I had to get out of here. I took a step back and turned.
And I was looking right into watery blue eyes and an old wrinkled face, skin like a withered apple, close to my own. Too close. It was the old lady, it was Eleanor’s face, but changed so much I hardly recognised her. Her white hair was wild and loose about her shoulders and her eyes looked terrified. She was so close. Her hand touched my shoulder, turned it to ice. Her breath was grave cold against my ear.
‘Help me, Tyler,’ she whispered.
And I screamed.
Chapter 14
‘Tyler, Tyler,’ said a voice. It sounded as if it was coming towards me down a long tunnel. ‘Tyler.’
I was afraid to open my eyes. Afraid of what I might see.
‘Tyler! Tyler, honey!’ I opened my eyes at last. Aunt Belle’s worried face broke into a relieved smile. ‘Oh, honey, you gave me such a scare.’
I was still in the cellar, but now it was light and bright again. ‘If I hadn’t caught you, you would have gone down the whole flight of stairs,’ she said. Now that I seemed to be fine, Aunt Belle could even see the funny side. ‘Lucky I’ve got a bit of fat on me. I broke your fall.’ Then she hugged me.
I wanted to tell her, I longed to tell her, about the face, the shadow in my room, the cold. If Susan hadn’t been there, I’m sure I would have told her right at that moment. But then Susan’s face appeared behind my aunt.
‘Let’s get you back upstairs,’ she said. ‘You just lost your footing. Easy to do on these steep steps.’
When we reached the hall Susan asked, ‘Do you want to lie down?’ She indicated my room.
‘No!’ I almost shouted it. My room was the last place I wanted to be. ‘No, I’ll be fine in the front room.’
They must have wondered why. I saw them exchange glances, but they didn’t say anything. But I couldn’t bear the thought of going in there, in case that old woman was waiting there for me too.
I limped into the front room and Aunt Belle went off to the kitchen to make more tea. Aunt Belle’s answer to everything.
‘It’s a lovely little house,’ Susan said, dropping back into estate agent mode for want of anything else to say. ‘It really will be easy to sell.’
‘Were you the one who rented it out to the last people?’ I asked her.
‘The Forbes? Yes, I was.’
‘They left because of his job, didn’t they?’
She didn’t answer straight away. Maybe she was just writing something on her clipboard, but I didn’t think so. She was thinking about what to say. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Funny though, they rented another house not a mile from here. Up on the hill.’
‘They’re still here? In the village?’
She turned to me then. ‘Yes, up on Craigview Drive. They rented a semi-detached house up there. Nice, but not half as nice as this.’
Now I was puzzled. Why did they leave so suddenly and move only a mile from here? Had something scared them too?
It was just as Susan was leaving that Aunt Belle was sick. Her face went suddenly pale and she ran into the bathroom. I hurried in after her. ‘What’s wrong?’
She splashed her face with water. ‘I don’t know. It just came over me.’ She smiled at Susan, who was standing in the doorway looking concerned. ‘It’s Tyler here, I think she’s trying to poison me. She’s my sole heir. She gets this house if anything happens to me.’
Not used to Aunt Belle’s sense of humour, Susan looked a bit taken aback.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said to Susan, ‘your tea was OK. I only poison one person a day.’
We giggled as we watched Susan drive off. ‘Poor soul,’ Aunt Belle said. ‘You’d better take good care of me, or she’ll be having you arrested.’
Then she ran into the bathroom again and was sick. ‘I think I’ll lie down,’ she said as I lead her back into her bedroom. ‘I got quite a shock there in the cellar. When I saw you just about to tumble down those stairs, my stomach did a somersault too.’
She lay down on her bed. ‘Maybe you can go and get me some fruit. Some oranges maybe.’
‘Sure I will. As long as you’ll be fine on your own.’
‘Feel better already,’ she said. But she lied. I picked up her book and put it on her bedside table.
‘Here’s your book if you want to read.’
I had planned to tell her all about the things that had happened to me. I had promised myself I would tell her after Susan left. But how could I do it now, when her face was so pale and she looked so tired?
‘I think I just need a nap,’ she said.
She was sound asleep by the time I left the house. I wasn’t really wary of leaving her by herself. Somehow I knew she was safe in her own bedroom. It was me the ghosts wanted to reach . . . But now I had another thought. Maybe they had tried to reach someone else too. Perhaps the Forbes family had also experienced strange things.
I had to meet them, talk to them. Find out the reason they had left so suddenly.
Chapter 15
Craigview Drive was situated high on the hill overlooking the village. It only had four houses on it. It was easy finding the one the Forbes were renting. A woman opened the door. A redhead. She looked as if she was sucking something sour. ‘Yes?’ She didn’t smile.
‘Hello, my name is Tyler Lawless . . . My aunt owns Mille Failte.’
Did she catch her breath when I mentioned the name of the house? I was sure she did, but her face stayed as tight as ever.
I had a story ready and began to blurt it out before she could shut the door on me. I had found something in the house, I said, and I wanted to check if it belonged to any of her family. I had a soft leather purse in my hand, one of my old ones.
I held it out to her as I told her my story. I had hoped she would invite me in so I could get talking to her. But by the grim expression on her face as she took the purse from me and turned it over in her hand, I doubted that now.
/> ‘Never seen this before,’ she said, and she handed it back to me. She managed a muttered sorry before she began to close the door on me. I couldn’t let her do that. I decided to be honest with her.
‘Please, that’s not the real reason I came here.’ I held out the purse. ‘I know this doesn’t belong to you.’ The door was almost closed.
‘So why are you here?’
‘I need to know why you didn’t stay in Mille Failte. Why you left so suddenly.’
Her eyes flashed angrily and she sucked in her cheeks. ‘We left because of my husband’s job.’
I wasn’t going to accept that. ‘You’ve only moved a few streets away. That’s not the truth.’
‘Are you calling me a liar?’
I was getting her back up. I took a step closer, afraid, this time, she would shut the door in my face.
‘It’s actually none of your business why we left. I didn’t like the house. All right?’
‘I’m living there now. I need to know if something happened in that house. Something weird.’
That shot home. She couldn’t hide the sudden flash of understanding in her eyes. For a second I thought it might make a difference, but I was wrong. ‘Good luck,’ was all she said.
She was about to shut the door so I splayed my hand against the wood, holding it open. ‘Why would I need good luck?’
I thought again she was going to tell me something, say something more. She stared at me for a long moment. Giving herself time to think. Then she glanced back into the house. She’d made a decision. ‘I have to go. I have something on the hob.’ And a second later, I was staring at a closed door.
I stood for a moment, not quite knowing what to do. If I knocked again, she would ignore me, somehow I knew that. Was she even now standing in her hallway, watching the door, praying for me to go away? I imagined I could see her through the wood and glass, willing me to leave. She was afraid. Couldn’t she see I was afraid too? Why couldn’t she tell me what she was afraid of? What harm could come to her now? So far away from Mille Failte?
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