Secret of the Shadows

by Cathy MacPhail

  She was having none of that. ‘I’ve had enough nice days in. I need a day out.’

  We decided to walk along the beach, drink in that invigorating sea air and go for an early dinner at the steakhouse at the far end of the shore. If Aunt Belle didn’t feel like the walk back, we would call for a taxi.

  While she got herself ready, I made her bed. I picked her book up from the floor again and tidied her dressing table. I smiled at the number of creams and lotions she had.

  ‘That’s why I look so young,’ she once told me. ‘You know, my doctor says I have the body of a twenty-year-old.’

  Gran had been there at the time and she had answered her so quickly I fell about laughing. ‘Well, I think it’s time the twenty-year-old got it back,’ she had said.

  The memory of that day made me want to cry. I sat on the chair, next to the bed and remembered my gran. What’s happening, Gran? I thought, praying to her silently. I wish you could help me. You knew something, I just know you did.

  I closed my eyes and I felt her warm presence all around me. I was sure if I opened them she would be there, standing in front of me, smiling, telling me all I needed to know.

  ‘Tyler? Are you ready?’ I opened my eyes and there she was. Aunt Belle, so like my gran that just for a second I could have sworn it was her.

  ‘I thought you were having a nap,’ Aunt Belle said.

  She took my arm as we walked the length of the beach, stopping now and then to watch the tide come in. I could see the tiredness etched in her face by the time we had reached the restaurant. She didn’t have the steak. And she pushed the salad she had ordered around her plate, but ate little of it.

  ‘I’m spoiling your summer, honey,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Aunt Belle, I’m having a lovely time. I just want you to feel better. Maybe,’ I ventured, ‘we should go to a hotel. Stay there? All your meals made for you, room service every day . . .’

  She looked at me as if I had just gone crazy. ‘A hotel! And leave our lovely little house. What on earth are you suggesting that for, Tyler? I wouldn’t leave there for the world. It’s my last tie with your gran. I want to stay there till I see it sold.’

  And that was the end of it. We would have to stay there. Nothing was going to convince her to leave.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be OK tomorrow,’ she said confidently.

  Always tomorrow, I thought.

  We took a taxi home, and she was back in bed half an hour after we stepped inside the house. I went into the kitchen to make her some hot chocolate. On my way, I checked the chest of drawers was still firmly in place on top of the hatch. I had no intention of sleeping in that room, but I would have to go in there to get some fresh pyjamas. It seemed sensible to go in there while it was still light and I was waiting for the kettle to boil. I could hear Aunt Belle’s TV. She was watching an old episode of Star Trek and the sound of her programme reassured me that there was nothing to fear in here. Not with the setting sun sending rays of orange twilight into the house.

  Yet, I felt as if I was stepping into another world, venturing into the unknown. I took a deep breath, it would only take a moment, I told myself. I would be in and out in seconds.

  The cold wrapped itself around me. I pulled open the drawer where my pyjamas were kept, promising myself that the rest of my clothes were coming out of here tomorrow.

  And in the blink of an eye it happened. One second I was bending over the drawer, and the next the door of the room had closed. There was no twilight in here any more, only darkness. The room had changed too. The bed was no longer my modern divan, but an old iron bedstead with brass knobs. No duvet, just a thin woven spread.

  And I wasn’t alone.

  Eleanor was there. She looked just the way she had when I had seen her in the cellar. Her grey hair was falling untidily on her shoulders. Her thin dress was worn and stained. She was hitting against the door with frail fingers. ‘Please . . . Let me out . . . Oh, please.’

  I got to my feet and as I moved she swung round, seemed to lose her footing and stumble against the wall. Without thinking, I reached out to help her. Her eyes grew wild and she screamed. I knew she could see me, and to her I was a ghost.

  She sank to the floor. ‘Let me out! Please. Let me out!’ Her eyes never left me. ‘This room’s haunted, I tell you. There’s a ghost in here.’

  I reached out again. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ My voice was like a far whisper, a sound from another time. ‘I want to help.’

  But she was just too scared. She shifted back against the door and began scratching at it again with her nails. ‘Let me out . . .’

  And then I heard another voice. The same voice I had heard before. But now with no gentleness or kindness in it. Sister Kelly. ‘Shut your old moaning face. If I’d known you would be this much trouble, I’d never have taken you in.’

  The voice scared me. There was so much cruelty in it. Eleanor began to cry softly. I wanted so much to help her. Drag her back to my time. To safety. But when I reached out again, my hands only passed through air. ‘I want to help you,’ I said again softly.

  Could she hear me? I don’t know, but her eyes seemed to clear, as if she suddenly recognised me, and her voice shook. ‘Help me, Tyler. Please, help me.’

  And then, she was gone.

  Chapter 20

  The eighth day

  Eleanor had come back, appeared once again, to let me see what had happened to her. To make sure I stayed. She wanted me here, wanted me to help her. But how was I meant to do that?

  I had changed the past before, but how was I supposed to do it again!

  I sat by Aunt Belle’s bed until darkness fell. I so needed someone to confide in and I thought about Paul Forbes. He had been afraid too. I could tell him, talk to him. But I had no number to call him. The only way I could get in touch with him was to go back to his house, and I knew I was probably the last person his mother wanted to see.

  ‘Don’t you sleep in here with me,’ was the last thing Aunt Belle said to me before she drifted off to sleep. ‘You get into your own bed. Get a good night’s sleep.’

  A good night’s sleep was the last thing I could get in my own room.

  ‘I’m not going to die tonight,’ she said, and she laughed. But if she could see herself. So frail-looking without her wig, without her make-up.

  ‘I’m going to call the doctor tomorrow,’ I said.

  I did sleep in her room that night, though she wasn’t aware of it, deep in sleep long before me. But I felt safe in here with her. Nothing could reach me here. Even in darkness, there were no menacing shadows.

  The next day shone bright and clear, if a little cold. I left Aunt Belle sitting up in bed, watching television. I promised her I would be back shortly. I was going to the chemist, I told her, and it wasn’t a lie. I would go to the chemist, but before that, I took the long winding road from the shore up the hill to Paul Forbes’s house.

  I had to gather my strength to knock at the door and I prayed Mrs Forbes wasn’t going to be the one who opened it.

  My prayers weren’t answered. She looked angry when she saw me.

  ‘You again. What do you want?’

  ‘Something’s happening to me in that house. I know it happened to you too.’

  ‘Who told you something happened to me?’

  I tried to look behind her. ‘Is Paul in?’

  She pushed the door further closed. Held it. ‘How do you know Paul? What do you want with him?’ She wanted me away. One more second the door would be closed in my face. ‘Leave us alone. But I’ll give you one bit of advice. Get out of that house.’

  I wanted to explain to her that I couldn’t, but she had already slammed the door in anger.

  I stood for a moment, and I heard raised voices from inside the house. I stopped, because one of those voices was Paul’s. A moment later the door was hauled open again and Paul was there, his hair ruffled. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts that looked as if he’d slept in them.
<
br />   ‘I don’t want you involved in this, Paul!’ his mother shouted from inside the house. ‘That girl’s trouble. I just know it.’

  ‘Give me five minutes, Mum,’ Paul called back.

  He pulled the door closed behind him. ‘Has something else happened? he asked.

  ‘I’ve seen Eleanor again. Sister Kelly did keep her prisoner. I heard her voice. Only this time, it was different. It sounded so cruel, Paul.’

  ‘My mum’s right, you know. You should get out of that house.’

  ‘My aunt won’t leave.’ I sat on his wall, aware of his mother’s grim eyes watching us from the window. ‘And I can’t leave either. I think that . . .’ I hesitated to say what I felt was the truth. ‘I think that Eleanor is keeping me there.’

  He sat on the wall across from me. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I think you’re right. There’s something that wants me out, the way it wanted you out – that something evil you talked about . . . it’s trying to scare me away. But there’s something else that wants me to stay. I think that something is Eleanor. I think I’m supposed to be there. For a purpose.’

  Now he was even more puzzled. ‘For a purpose?’

  ‘I think I’m here to help the old lady. Eleanor.’

  ‘You said that before, but . . . help her? She’s long dead. How can you help her?’

  Could I tell him, I wondered. Confide in him. Tell him something so unbelievable. ‘I think maybe I’m meant to stop her from dying. Save her from Sister Kelly.’

  I carried on quickly. If I stopped now, I would never have the courage to go on. ‘Please listen to me, Paul. I promise you I’m telling the truth about this. I know I can save her. I’ve done it before. There was a boy in my school, Ben Kincaid. He’d died a long time ago. I kept seeing his ghost, and he kept asking me to help him. I couldn’t understand how, or why. And I was so scared.’ And I told him everything about what happened with Ben Kincaid. I saw his face change. I was sure he was going to get up and walk away and I had to keep him there. ‘I know it sounds totally unbelievable, but it’s true. It happened. I went back in time and changed the past.’

  Paul was still watching me, saying nothing. ‘And there’s something else you have to understand. To save Eleanor I’ll have to change the past again, and everything will be different. If I save her, then there won’t be any ghost in the house, so your family won’t have been forced to leave, and I’ll never have met you. You won’t remember any of this, because it never happened.’

  How unbelievable it all sounded. If I was Paul, I would think it was all nonsense.

  But I was surprised by his reaction. His face broke into a smile. ‘You can really do that?’ He beamed. ‘Cool trick.’

  ‘So, you see, I have to stay. That’s what I’m here for.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Give me your phone.’ He held out his hand. ‘I should have given you this the last time I saw you.’ I handed over my phone and he keyed in his number for me. Then he glanced back at the house. His mother was still at the window, peering through the venetian blinds.

  ‘I better go. But remember, you can call me anytime. Day or night. I mean that.’

  I felt better after speaking to Paul, and now, knowing his mobile number, I felt at least I had someone I could talk to. Someone who believed me.

  Chapter 21

  The chemist was at the far end of the main street. I told her my aunt’s symptoms and she seemed to think Aunt Belle was right. It was probably just a bug she had picked up on the plane. I so wanted that to be the case I didn’t even question it. ‘But if there is no improvement by tomorrow, call the doctor. No matter what she says,’ she told me. ‘At her age you can’t take any chances.’

  Aunt Belle was sleeping when I got back in the house. But it looked as if she’d been up. Looking for her book again by the way books were scattered across the floor. Her own book was the first one I picked up. Angels of Death.

  I held it in my hand and began to think. How often had I picked this book up from the floor? I’d lost count. Angels of Death. Always there on the floor waiting for me.

  Waiting.

  Now why should I use that word?

  And it wasn’t a murder mystery as I had first thought, but real-life case histories of unsolved murders. I opened the book, and there written in her neat hand, was my gran’s name. Rosina Tyler Crawford. She always wrote her name in her books. This wasn’t Aunt Belle’s book at all. It was my gran’s. I turned to the title page.

  ANGELS OF DEATH

  Nurses Who Kill

  I sat on the floor and began to flick through the pages. This book wasn’t just about unsolved murders. It was about murders by nurses, by doctors, by carers. Chapter after chapter told stories of people in the medical profession who had abused the trust placed in them. This was my gran’s book. A message from the other side, meant for me to find. She was trying to pass information on to me. I looked around this room, always so warm and welcoming, and I knew then, without seeing her, that my gran was present here. She was in this room, watching over me and Aunt Belle. It was Gran who had made sure I would find this book, though it had taken me ages to figure that out.

  ‘I won’t let you down now, Gran,’ I whispered. And as if in answer a breeze came in from the window and the curtains fluttered.

  I looked back to the book. One of the pages was bookmarked. I opened it.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Missing Murderess

  And that’s when I saw that it wasn’t a bookmark in the page at all. It was a photograph. A photograph of a tall woman with dark hair. Her hand was raised, as if she was trying to cover her face, as if she wanted to hide it from the camera. As if she didn’t want to be photographed at all. And she was standing at the front door of this bungalow. I recognised the honeysuckle and the sign. Mille Failte. I turned the photograph over and there, written in my gran’s fine hand, was a name.

  Sister Kelly

  And a question.

  The missing murderess?

  Chapter 22

  I took a deep breath and began to read the chapter.

  In the early years of the First World War, a young nurse, Mary Duff, worked with wounded soldiers in Italy. She was popular with soldiers and staff alike, always willing to work extra hours, a nurse who would never leave the side of a dying soldier. Then it began to be noticed that the soldiers she remained with usually did die, even when they were expected to survive. She was always on hand when there was an emergency and it seemed there were more emergencies on her shift than anyone else’s.

  But soldiers die all the time in the theatre of war so no great notice was taken of it until one young soldier who was brought in refused to be treated by her. The Angel of Death, he called her. No one listened to him. He was considered delirious. That night, on her shift, the young soldier suffered a massive trauma and died. Though nothing could be proved against her, Nurse Mary Duff was sent home. And seemed to disappear . . . or did she?

  1925. A veteran’s hospital in Florida, and another spate of unexplained deaths, and always when Sister Catherine Macey was on the ward. But Catherine Macey was a saint, everyone said so. A nurse who spent long hours on the ward tending her patients. But was she in fact, Mary Duff? The ages certainly match. Catherine Macey was almost thirty, the same age Mary Duff would have been. It took another two years, and many unexplained deaths in the hospital before Catherine Macey was forced to resign.

  She seemed to disappear too. But did she resurface in a Cincinatti hospital in 1933? The caring Dorothy Blake. Another saint. But once again, patients started dying who had been expected to live. Then, just as investigations about her began, Dorothy Blake resigned and moved on.

  Did she move to New York? In 1944 there were more unexplained deaths on the watch of Sister Margaret Campbell, and was this Margaret Campbell also Mary Cameron, who worked at an old people’s home in England in the 1950s?

  There is no concrete evidence. The only photograph of any of these women th
at exists is a blurred photograph of Dorothy Blake taken at a party at the hospital where she worked.

  Where did these women go? Or are they all the same woman? And what happened to her after Mary Cameron disappeared? Did she die? Or did she continue her catalogue of killing under yet another identity?

  I looked back at the photograph in my hand. Sister Kelly trying to turn her face from the camera, reluctant to have her photo taken at all. Could anyone be this evil? And just how many deaths had all these women been responsible for? In each case, this nurse was at first considered a heroine, a saint, just like Sister Kelly, when in fact she had been something else . . . something evil.

  I had to find out more.

  I went into the living room and powered up my laptop. I keyed in each of the names in turn, from Mary Duff to Mary Cameron, and read all the information there was about each of them. The same facts emerged time after time.

  And then, just when I thought I had exhausted everything, I came across the photograph mentioned in Gran’s book. The one of Dorothy Blake taken at a party. You could hardly make her out, her face was so blurred. She was standing at the back, her hand once again reaching up to cover her face, but the camera had been too quick for her. I stared at the screen, looking from the photograph there, to the other, taken outside this house, trying to see a resemblance.

  I clicked to enlarge the image. And as I peered closer I thought, surely this had to be the same person? Same dark hair, same features, same face. It had to be her.

  I maximised the image even further, so that the screen was filled with that face. ‘Yes,’ I said aloud. ‘You are Sister Kelly.’

  And as I spoke her name I heard a roar, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of darkness.

  And I screamed in terror.

  Chapter 23