The Girl at the Window

by Rowan Coleman

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think it really might be. I know it is.’

  ‘That’d pay for the renovations,’ Ma says.

  ‘It’s worth so much more than money,’ I tell her. ‘It’s something new. Something we’ve never seen before. And I think there might be more hidden in the house – I just need to look for it.’

  ‘Well then,’ Ma says, ‘Will can be with me tomorrow. This morning I went up to Jean’s and she let me use her phone to call some telephone companies to come and survey us and see how long it’d take to get a line in here. They thought it should be easy enough. They say if they can get a phone line in they can get TV and that Internet too. Coming in the afternoon. Will can be with me and Mab; I’ve got books and I found a load of scrap paper he can draw on, and he said he wanted me to watch a film with him on that laptop computer. I’ll keep him safe while you look for more. It’s important, what you’ve found, lass. It means something.’

  ‘I don’t think we should tell anyone else about this yet,’ I say. ‘I don’t want strangers here until we are ready.’

  Ma nods. ‘At last you are seeing things my way.’

  ‘The night I found this, I thought I saw something. Just for a second. A figure out of the corner of my eye, there and then gone.’ I hesitate. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve felt something at Ponden. This has always been a house of feelings – but this was … I thought it was probably a trick of tired eyes but after what happened earlier, I’m not so sure.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’ Ma’s voice is tight. ‘You saw Greybeard.’

  ‘I thought I did,’ I say. ‘But I was just a kid …’

  ‘You’ve come home after a long time away,’ Ma says. Her voice is tense, but beneath is a kind of gentleness and it takes me off guard ‘You are almost like a ghost yourself, a memory become flesh. You’ve come home full of grief and anger, with a child who feels the same way. Everything you feel here, hear or see, even what happened earlier … it’s nothing to be afraid of, nothing that can hurt you. It’s like when the wind blows and all the branches in the forest bend in the same direction. Your loss and pain, Will’s too, it chimes with all the other losses there have ever been, here at Ponden, and they echo back at you, answering your cries.’ Ma sit back in her chair, looking suddenly bone-weary and I take a moment to process her words. I’ve never heard her speak like that before, like she understands this house, like she understands me.

  ‘It’s just … Ghosts, Ma, I can’t believe in ghosts. Emotions that linger, atmospheres … but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for what happened. Tiles falling off the roof, maybe ….’

  ‘There is a logical explanation,’ Ma says. ‘Ghosts.’

  ‘So, if you’re right, then what do we now?’ I ask, not quite able to believe the conversation we are having.

  ‘Nowt.’ Ma shrugs her narrow shoulders. ‘Well, not nowt. I think we should all sleep together until the spirits have calmed down again, Will on the sofa, you bring your sleeping bag down. And you need to search the house for more treasure. That roof ain’t going to pay for itself.’

  ‘The girl that Will says he talks to says that the bad one is coming. She was trying to warn him.’ I shake my head. ‘Kids say things all the time, but he was so adamant, Ma.’

  ‘The thing you have to remember,’ Ma says, ‘is that spirits don’t see the world like the living do. They don’t see time like us; the past and the present and the future happens all around them at the same time. The danger might have been from when she was alive, or another ghost in the house. Greybeard, waiting for another Heaton to die. Danger is coming, has come, will come – it’s all the same to them, because they are always caught in the worst moment they have ever lived, over and over again. And not even really them, just what’s left behind, ripples of emotion, that sometimes reach out into this world too.’

  Carefully I pick up the papers and slide them back into their folder.

  ‘I didn’t know you were an expert on the paranormal,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve been the only living soul in this house for a very long time,’ Ma says, turning her hollow gaze to meet mine. ‘But not the only soul.’

  1658

  I thank you, O God, Our most Righteous Saviour for your guidance, for since coming into this new situation, I have prayed as hard as I might, visiting the church every day, morning and night, and now I feel sure of my purpose. My purpose is simply to make what is ungodly godly, what is sinful, pure. To bring my heart’s husband to God’s house and make our marriage vows before a man of God, for there is no reason to delay any longer.

  Betty’s brother Timothy and his wife are kind, good Christian people, to take me in even though vile stories of what happened between Robert and I now spread over the hills as fast as cotton weed. They do not mark any word but Betty’s and she is still my champion, Praise God. I have little to give them in return for their charity, in truth, except labour that they do not need. Now I am free of Casson for good, I will not wait a moment longer than I have to to begin my life as Mrs Heaton before the whole world.

  But first I needed to see my Robert, for it has been five long days, and I have not had a word, nor have I dared venture anywhere near Ponden Hall. Betty has sent no further word either, and my heart is full of dread, but still, with God’s good guidance, I knew what I had to do, and so last night I set off to visit him as soon as the sun was set.

  Betty near enough dropped dead in her shoes when she saw me creeping into the kitchen and did chastise me most strongly for frightening her, and also for coming anywhere near, while Casson is still threatening to have me hung like the witch he claims I am. Dear Lord, protect me from his sin.

  I said to Betty I am no witch. Would that I were and I’d curse them all. And Betty hushed me and crossed herself, and hushed me again. I asked her where my Robert was, and if he was very badly beaten, and she told me that since that night, and for all day and all night, Casson had kept Robert locked in the cellar, and such fury and indignation filled my mouth that Betty had to hush me and cross herself again.

  I begged her to give me the keys so that I might free him and we might be on our way.

  ‘I cannot,’ Betty told me. ‘I do not have the key. And besides, if I’m caught helping you then I’ll be next without a roof over my head.’

  And I was chastened then, knowing that if I were discovered with Betty I would bring much hardship down on her, and she has only ever shown me kindness and charity. Still, she took pity on me, instructing me to creep down the cellar stairs and see if Robert would hear me through the cellar door, though she made me promise to whisper only and keep myself invisible in the shadows.

  I was not afraid, though I should have been, for to be caught would be very grave for me, but I felt that I was protected, cloaked in the Lord’s Light that shieldeth those that are doing right.

  I called Robert’s name through the door as quietly as I could – and no answer came. A great terror gripped me. Was he dead, down there?

  ‘Oh, Robert, answer me!’ I called, this time too loud, but, Praise God, it was only my beloved that answered me.

  ‘Agnes? His voice was faint but it was there.

  ‘He says I am a witch, and you are to be sent away,’ I told him. ‘I need to free you and then we can be married at once and no one will ever be able to tear us apart.’

  Robert’s voice was weak, and worse, meek. He told me he was too badly injured to run with me, too badly injured even to stand.

  ‘Then I will help you,’ I told him. ‘I will hold you up straight and be strong enough for us both, Robert, I swear it. I will steal a key and take you away from here.’

  But Robert would not allow it. He told me to go back to Haworth and find work, to wait for him to heal and get strong, and then at last we will be married.

  ‘I swear it, Agnes,’ he told me. ‘He’ll let me out of here on the morrow if I’ll agree to his plans, and the moment I am fit I will come and find you and we will leave toge
ther, I swear it. For my soul is yours and yours is mine. I will love you until my death and beyond. You are my heart, my wife before God. Go, before he finds you, and wait for me.’

  I did as he asked and returned to Timothy’s to wait as directed by my God and my Husband. I pray only that my wait will not be long now, for my heart yearns to be near its twin once more.

  Agnes Heaton

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Sitting on the floor in Cathy’s room, I look, my eyes scanning every surface, searching for some obvious hiding place, somewhere Emily might have concealed more of her notes, more of Agnes’s story.

  Downstairs I can hear Ma and Will talking, her tones muted, his bright as a knife blade.

  When he woke this morning, Will seemed cheerful and rested, as if all the drama of yesterday had blown away in the morning breeze. I watched him carefully as he slathered his toast with too much butter, and I couldn’t detect any of that distress, that almost-fear that I’d seen in him last night. He didn’t mention a girl that told him stories or any of the happenings that Ma and I experienced last night. I had let her talk of spirits get to me by the light of the fire. This morning it’s so much easier to believe it was the wind, the house creaking and settling, a pair of farm cats scrapping. The bright sunlight dappling on the table top makes any one of those ideas seem so much more likely, so much easier to believe.

  After Will finished eating, Ma gave him a pile of Dad’s old National Geographic magazines, some ancient glue and a selection of empty packaging that she’d been saving for God only knows what – this moment, perhaps. Will’s eyes lit up as she set the haul down in front of him with a baked-bean tin full of coloured pencil stubs that I think used to be mine, and together they sat at the long table, talking, cutting, sticking. Watching them for a while, I noticed Ma’s smile as she listened to Will, her clear pleasure in following his thoughts, of simply being near him.

  One of the magazines slid to the floor with a plop and Ma groaned as she bent to scoop it up.

  ‘Hidden tribes of the Amazon,’ Ma read aloud, as a girl covered in tribal art smiled up at me, half her face painted white, and half red. ‘Imagine that, Will, living away from all technology, none of your Internet or your phones, lad.’

  ‘That’s just like living here,’ Will replied.

  Listening to them laugh together, I made my way upstairs.

  I always thought Ma never wanted to be close to me and Dad, at least that’s how I remember it. But what if Dad was the one who pushed her away, shut her out in the cold? What if it was me that marginalised her? Something tight tugs at my centre, and I get a glimpse, just a slight insight, into a life of unbearable sadness and loneliness. And all those years after he died, when we did everything we could to hurt one another, was there a moment when we were pulled so far apart that every last bond between us was broken? I can’t remember it, but there must have been one.

  Now Cathy’s room feels utterly benign, peaceful and flooded with morning warmth. It would so easy to lie down on the welcoming boards and watch the sky pass by outside the window, just like I used to when I was little.

  Instead, I look.

  I can’t see an obvious place where more papers might be concealed, and to be honest, although I had to check, I didn’t expect it to be that easy. After all, I would never have found the secret package if I hadn’t had my cheek to the floor, my fingers grazing the floorboards. The only way to thoroughly check this room is to repeat that intimacy with every inch of floor, walls and beams.

  Crawling over to one corner, I start to search every floorboard, fingertips running over and probing each surface, every knot and groove. Working my way methodically up and down and along the floor, I scrutinise every detail until I think I see words made out of scratches, and treasures jammed into fissures, that simply are not there. When I meet the wall opposite from where I started I have discovered nothing new, unable even to find again the letters that first pointed me towards the hidden treasure.

  Next I run my fingers over the walls, searching in webbed crevices and ancient boltholes. Crouching down, I shine my torch into the murk of the chimney breast, steeling myself against the creep of many spindled legs as I push my way through thick dust and sticky threads to search as deep inside as I am able. Nothing. Shuddering, I brush the remnants of desiccated insects out of my hair and off my face, and turn to the box bed. Bolted into the wall, it stands there in the corner, and somehow it feels as if it is waiting for me, beckoning me. When I was very little, in that dimly distant period of my very early childhood, when all I really remember is sunshine and the taste of strawberry ice cream off a silver spoon, I was scared of this bed. It was like a great crouching monster biding its time, and I used to worry that if I got too close to it, it would eat me up. Something I had forgotten entirely until just now, as I eyeball it. It seems to stare right back at me, but as ancient and as infamous as it is, I’m not going to be defeated by furniture.

  Sliding open the door, I climb inside, refraining from shutting myself in. Outside the tiny square window, set deep into the stone, the morning has grown steely grey and ominous. The hum of the wind vibrating against the glass plays steadily as I search every surface, every panel, lifting the elderly mattress to check the cavities beneath. Diligently, I explore every etched scratch and notch in the wood, and all I find is dirt and dust, the detritus of a thousand lives and deaths.

  Pausing for a moment, I press my palm against the cold glass and feel it shift and brace against the air, remembering myself running across the field outside with my long hair streaming in the wind behind me, socks round my ankles, laughing and talking to … to who? For so much of my life there was never anyone else there.

  Maybe the girl that used to be me is a ghost here, too.

  ‘If you are here, show me something.’ I say the words as I get out of the bed and instantly regret it, every muscle clenching, arms wrapping around me, afraid that I will be answered when the last thing I want is a reply. The ever-present wind courses around the exterior of the house and the boards sigh under my feet. I have the strangest sensation of … something … like a word about to be spoken on an inward breath. And then nothing at all, but a sudden drop in my spirits, a deep, abiding sense of hopelessness and a very sudden need to be outside, tipping my face upwards to a rain-laden sky to taste the very first drops on my tongue.

  And a bitter truth hits me like a falling tree.

  I didn’t look for Abe the way that I should have. I didn’t cover every inch of terrain where he might be, I didn’t look in the places where no one would expect. I let grief defeat me and I gave up. From the moment Abe and I met, I fought to be with him, until he was lost deep in the rainforest. I lost hope, then, when I needed it most of all. I lost hope … Nearly a year has passed and I know, I know he must be dead, but he is still there, somewhere amongst the trees; he is there, all alone, on the other side of the world, waiting for me to find him.

  A sliver of silver light escapes from the dense cloud and bounces off the box-bed window. For a moment, the confluence of light and shadow creates an illusion of a face looking back at me as I stand in the garden. When I turn around to look down the valley, a rainbow arcs across the reservoir and suddenly I know something new, as if a voice, just this moment, whispered it to me.

  The fight is never lost if you have the courage to keep fighting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ‘Thank you for coming in.’ Mrs Rose smiles at me. ‘When you called to say that you were delaying Will’s start with us for a few more days, we understood, of course, and I’m so sorry for what happened. I thought it was only right to show you the footage of Will leaving school.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but I feel that it was my fault; I brought him too soon and he just wasn’t ready,’ I tell her as she leads me into an empty staffroom, a laptop open on a table.

  ‘Every day after drop-off, our caretaker, Mrs Bennett, locks the gates,’ Mrs Rose explains as she offers me a chair at the t
able. ‘We know that sometimes children get ideas into their heads, and we keep a close eye on them, all of the time. And of course we take the threat of someone coming onto school premises very seriously. I called the register after lunch and Will was present, and I saw him a few minutes later in the home corner, reading, before I began some work with one of the other children. He wasn’t mixing, but he seemed content. Both myself and my teaching assistant checked in with him throughout the afternoon, and she remembers him waving at someone through the window. She thought it must be you, but it could equally have been a squirrel – you know how kids are. But then we saw this …’

  Mrs Rose turns the laptop to face me. There is a freeze-framed image of the school gates.

  ‘We wondered who this person might be?’ She points to a fuzzy image of a person, haloed by a peculiar glare of red light, even though the footage is black and white. ‘If they are a friend of Will’s, someone he might have seen and followed?’

  Mrs Rose presses play and there seems to be a jump from one frame to the next, and a figure that could be male or female looking through the gate directly into Will’s class. Two frames later and the image is gone.

  ‘Was that even a person, or just a trick of the light?’ I ask.

  ‘Keep watching,’ Mrs Rose tells me. A few seconds later I see Will open the gate, look up the hill, and begin walking out of shot.

  ‘The time shows Will opening the front gate and walking out of school at a quarter to three – but I am certain I saw him with my own eyes, just as they were putting their coats on. At three twenty-five the caretaker went out to open the gates and she swears that the gate was padlocked, and the footage seems to show her unlocking it, though we can’t be sure … The truth is, we aren’t yet sure how he got out so easily.’