“Are you inside me now?” he asked the mirror. “Have you decided to – to take up residence? To live through me?”
He waited for a response but heard none. He went back into the living room, started to email Mike Bryson, then gave up. There was nothing Mike could do. He was tired after the day’s ordeal, and resolved to try and get some sleep. He went to bed expecting nightmares. But, to his surprise, it seemed that only moments after his head hit the pillow, he was looking up at the ceiling, bright with an English summer dawn.
‘Time to go, Paul.’
The voice was insistent, excited. A girl’s voice. Paul sat up, swung his legs off the bed, decided to do without breakfast or shower. He had a task to perform. He had rested. Now came the challenge. He had made a promise and was expected to keep it.
‘This is the end. I know it is. Don’t be afraid.’
***
“You okay?” asked Kate. “Because frankly, you look terrible.”
Paul looked at Rookwood’s manager as if he did not recognize her. His hair was disheveled, he had not shaved, and he was wearing old sweats and sneakers that looked in need of a wash. Kate wrinkled her nose as he walked closer, stepped back. He smelled of stale sweat.
“We’re fine,” the American said, his voice expressionless. “We’re just going outside for a moment. We won’t be long.”
Kate stared as Paul crossed the foyer to the main entrance, stopped. He stood for a moment, seeming to gather himself, as if he was preparing to leap through the open doorway. Then he took one step, gingerly putting his foot over the threshold. Suddenly Kate recalled Imelda Troubridge’s behavior.
“Paul!” she shouted. “Is it Palmer?”
He did not respond. He lifted his other foot, swung it forward, seemed to become paralyzed. Then, like a man battling against some incredible force, he completed the second step. Kate started forward, then hesitated, afraid to risk intervening. Then she caught sight of Declan leaving his office and shouted for him.
“What’s up?” the Irishman asked, running into the foyer, then caught sight of Paul. “Oh, Christ.”
Paul was moving slowly, painfully, down the gravel driveway. Kate thought he almost looked like a mime walking against the wind. But there was nothing funny about it. Instead, she felt a sense of dread, wondering if this new development would herald more suffering, perhaps another death.
“What if he just walks into the road?” she asked Declan.
“We’ll – I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” replied the caretaker. “Maybe you should stay here. He might turn violent.”
Kate watched as Declan walked briskly after Paul, feeling useless but unwilling to go after them. Her experiences the previous day had rattled her so badly she was thinking of leaving her job.
“Be careful, Dec!” she shouted, knowing it was a stupid thing to say.
Declan gave her a wave and a grin, then he was alongside Paul. The American showed no sign of noticing Declan and kept trudging painfully on toward the gate. The Irishman was talking to him now, but Kate could not hear what he was saying. Then Declan put out a hand, grasped Paul’s arm.
A second later the caretaker was spinning wildly away from him, as if he was caught in a mini-tornado. But there was no hint of wind. As Declan staggered and fell onto his backside, Paul continued to walk, slowly but without hesitation, towards gates of Rookwood.
Kate ran out to see if Declan was hurt. By the time she got to him he had already gotten up and was brushing his pants down.
“Well,” he said ruefully, “I won’t be touching that feller again. It was like being grabbed by a mad gorilla or something.”
“An invisible gorilla.”
Kate watched as Paul reached the open gate, stepped through on stiff legs, and vanished around the corner.
“Come on,” she said. “We can at least watch out for him.”
***
Liz was buried deep within his mind, a passenger of sorts. But whatever confined the ghosts to Rookwood could not be tricked. As soon as he stepped into the foyer, Paul felt something pulling him away, toward the East Wing. With each step he took, the influence became stronger, and he had to focus all his efforts on simply putting one foot in front of the other. He was only vaguely aware of his surroundings as a throbbing pain started to develop behind his eyes. The marks of electrodes and shackles grew more inflamed. Pain spread from the stigmata of Palmer’s brutal experiments, and soon his whole body was in agony.
He heard a voice he recognized, felt someone touch his arm. Then the touch was gone. The throbbing pain behind his eyes evolved into a terrible migraine that impaired his vision. The sunlit lawns around him turned into a hellscape of lurid colors and blurred shapes. A noise like a surging ocean roared through his head. He reached the gates, stepped out onto the sidewalk.
‘She has to be here. I know she is.’
Paul could not make sense of the words. He only knew that he had to keep going. He had given his word, he had promised to help. But the pain was submerging him, erasing all sense of self, burning away his good intentions, undermining his will power.
I can’t go on! This will kill me. I have to go back.
Another voice now, one whose words he could not understand. It was a kindly voice, one that he thought he knew. Again, someone touched his arm. This time the hand was not snatched away. Instead, the contact brought a sudden lessening of pain, and Paul gasped in relief.
“I said, are you all right?”
His vision cleared enough for a round, worried face to become discernible. It was the gray-haired woman, looking up with concern in her eyes. It had not struck him before, but now Paul thought she looked kind, gentle. He felt a surge of emotion, so powerful he felt dizzy and staggered back against the wall of Rookwood.
“My baby.”
The words left his mouth, but he had not spoken them. The woman looked startled, pulled her hand away. Paul tried to say something, apologize, explain, but he had lost control of his body.
“Oh, my baby!” he heard himself shout as he fell to his knees, sprawled on all fours. “My baby.”
Emotion overwhelmed him, a sense of loss so great he began to sob uncontrollably. Paul knew he could not bear the feeling for long, that it would destroy him. There was a sudden spike of pain, blinding in its intensity, and then all discomfort was gone.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
The woman was staring down at him, puzzled and a little afraid. Then, her eyes widened, she put a hand to her mouth. Paul felt Liz, no longer a cold presence within him, but warm and shining like a miniature sun. The bright energy flowed out of him, played around the woman for a moment like a golden aurora, and then vanished.
Tears were streaming down the woman’s face. Paul felt exhausted, shaken, but the only discomfort he felt was from the rough paving slabs under him. He tried to get up, realized he was drained, weak, and had to support himself against the wall.
“Did you – did you feel her?” he asked. “Did you sense her in some way?”
The woman nodded, her bottom lip quivering with emotion.
“I dreamed about this place,” she stammered. “But I never dared go in. Every time I started to walk toward the gate something told me I had to turn back. Now I know why.”
Paul nodded, still catching his breath.
“She didn’t want you to be hurt,” he said. “A good mother always tries to protect her child.”
Chapter 11
“It was finally meeting her daughter,” Paul explained. “Knowing that the one person she had ever truly loved was still alive and well. That was what freed her. Apparently, Sharon had been living down south for years, but she felt compelled to come back here. She was drawn to Rookwood but didn’t know why.”
Kate looked over to where Declan was giving a mug of hot, sweet tea to the gray-haired woman. Annie Semple’s daughter had only said a few words since the bizarre encounter by the gates. She seemed to be suffering from mild shock, which was not surpri
sing. But, like Paul, she seemed to have sustained no serious harm from the incident.
“Sharon’s connection to Liz, or Annie, that was what freed her – her spirit, psyche, whatever you call it?” Kate asked.
Paul nodded.
“I guess so. Liz knew at some level that her daughter was the key to her freedom, even if she couldn’t quite grasp it or articulate the truth. Do ghosts have subconscious motives? Anyway, it was the love she had felt for Sharon, the desperate need to see her again, that drove Liz. It freed her from this place.”
Kate mulled that over for a few moments.
“Do you think something – well, similar, might get rid of the others? Some connection with the world beyond this place?”
Paul shook his head.
“I can’t see love counting for anything with a callous son of a bitch like Palmer. Power, control, fame, they were all he ever wanted.”
Kate shook her head in despair.
“Then we’ve not really moved on, have we?”
Paul shrugged.
“Put it this way,” he said. “I’m moving out as soon as possible. With Liz gone, there’s nothing to hold Palmer back.”
***
“He might have been wrong. It’s been very quiet.”
Declan and Kate were standing at the furthermost end of the East Wing. It was almost three days since Paul Mahan had moved out. In that time, however, nothing unusual had happened. Kate had reconsidered her resignation and stopped applying for other positions.
Declan had gradually become less nervous. Now they were considering hiring a firm to finish the job of refurbishment, something that would have been unthinkable mere days ago.
“Fingers crossed,” Kate replied. “The big boss has been on at me, asking when we can start advertising apartments again. I keep dodging the question.”
“What about that scientist bloke?” asked Declan. “Is he still interested?”
“Another problem,” Kate admitted. “I don’t trust him – but he’s very persistent. My real concern is that he’ll stir things up again.”
Seeing Declan’s puzzlement, she went on.
“See, I’ve got my own theory – maybe things have stabilized. Maybe the conflict between Liz and Palmer was powering the whole haunting. Without that clash, the energy isn’t there.”
Declan felt dubious, but did not disagree.
Just so long as I don’t get waylaid by any more phantom gunmen, he thought.
They walked back through the East Wing, discussing the best way to progress work and keep the head office happy. Their footsteps echoed through empty rooms and hallways. As they reached the door leading into the main block Declan looked up. He could still make out the message that had been scrawled in blood. He had hastily covered the words with a layer of matt emulsion.
Note to self, paint over it again.
“Okay,” said Kate, as they reached his office. “As it’s the weekend, I get to knock off early and leave Rookwood to your tender mercies. If anything comes up, I’ll be kicking back with my very good friend Pinot Grigio.”
“Don’t worry, you have a good one,” Declan said.
Kate was almost out of the building when the screaming began.
***
Sadie Prescott filled the kettle for her midday cup of Assam tea. It was one of many rituals that gave form to her life. Today was Saturday, therefore she would read another two chapters of a not-too-literary novel, do her laundry, and clean the apartment.
While she waited for the water to boil, she dusted the photographs that adorned her fine Edwardian sideboard. As always, she murmured a little prayer for those relatives who had passed on. But this particular Saturday, she paused, feather duster in hand, and stared at one photograph in particular.
It was an old black and white picture of Sadie and her father on holiday in Brighton. Sadie had been twelve, her father a handsome forty-five. It was an image Sadie preferred to the way her dad had been at the end; unable to recognize anyone, an empty shell that barely resembled the strong, clever man she had worshipped.
“But that doesn’t excuse what you did.”
The voice was her father’s, strong, authoritative. Sadie looked around the room, saw no one. For a moment she wondered if she had somehow heard a television set turned up far too loud, or one side of a conversation outside in the corridor. But the voice came again, and this time she was in no doubt the speaker was close by.
“My little girl, my little Sadie Sunshine. How could you do that to me?”
Only her father had called her Sadie Sunshine. Sobbing in fear and confusion, she covered her ears. But the voice was just as loud.
“It was murder. You picked up the pillow, held it right over my face, pushed down just hard enough.”
“I couldn’t stand it any longer!” she cried, running out into the kitchen, needing to do something and hoping to flee from the voice. “It was too much to bear! He was dead inside, he wasn’t the man we’d all known. It was what he would have wanted!”
“My little Sadie Sunshine.”
The voice was gloating, cruel. Sadie let her hands fall to her sides as the voice continued its litany of accusations.
“You are so selfish, cruel. A hypocrite, posing as a good woman, a believer, but always hiding a rotten heart, a corrupted soul. You don’t deserve to live out your life content, secure, in peace.”
Her father’s face appeared in the cloud of steam issuing from the spout of the kettle. It was angry, contemptuous, judging and condemning her. Sadie’s little kitchen suddenly seemed darker, and oddly crowded, as if it had suddenly filled with an unseen throng of people. The invisible crowd seemed to merge, condense into a single shadowy form that walked toward her, two brief glimmers of light where its eyes might be.
“No!” she gasped.
“Oh, but yes.”
Sadie felt the darkness move inside her, take possession of her body, drive the battered remnants of her mind into a corner, stripping it of power. She was a spectator now, silently screaming as she felt her arm move, raising itself, reaching out. She saw her hand pick up the kettle, watched her arm raise it until the spout was level with her face.
***
“It was a message,” Paul insisted, trying to keep his temper. “It was Palmer telling us all that he’s still in business, that Rookwood is still his domain.”
“Nonsense,” retorted Rodria. “A mentally unstable woman committed an act of self-harm. It might not even be connected with the so-called haunting.”
The two were arguing in the foyer of Rookwood. Since Sadie Prescott had been horribly disfigured, the apartment building had emptied of its remaining tenants. Lawsuits had been threatened, compensation demanded, rent withheld. The publicity had been devastating for the company. Kate’s employers had ordered her to co-operate with Rodria, despite her reservations.
“You’ve no right to call Sadie mentally unstable,” Paul protested. “She was as sane as me.”
“With all due respect,” Rodria said, his voice dripping with condescension, “the woman believed in spiritualism. And your belief that you’ve been in touch with the ghost of a dead girl doesn’t say much for your mental state.”
Declan grabbed Paul as he started toward Rodria.
“No punch ups, now,” said the Irishman. “Let’s keep this debate nice and intellectual, shall we?”
Paul tried to shake off Declan, but then felt ashamed. There was no way that an ego as big as Rodria’s would be deflected from the chance to get some publicity. The university authorities weren’t averse to it either, as Paul had found when he tried to block Rodria’s plans.
“At least leave him to it,” he said, turning to Kate. “Don’t risk staying behind here.”
“I’ve got no choice,” the manager said. “Whatever I may think of this – this experiment, I’m required to supervise it.”
Paul looked at Declan. It was clear from the caretaker’s expression that he would not leave Kate. Paul smiled wryly and l
ooked out of the foyer windows. A clump of reporters was gathered near the gates. Even they, it seemed, had gotten the message about Rookwood. Which made Rodria’s confidence all the more infuriating.
“Max,” Paul said, determined to make one final attempt. “A scientist is always skeptical, even of his own theories. What if you’re wrong?”
Rodria did not even bother to reply, instead he turned to Kate to explain what was required of her ‘and her staff.’ When Kate asked for details on exactly what Rodria intended, he answered with a flood of technical language.
“Delousing?” interrupted Declan, with an innocent face. “We’re not dealing with fleas.”
“Degaussing,” snapped Max Rodria. “The process is sometimes called degaussing.”
The scientist seemed to have taken an instant dislike to the caretaker, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. Paul wondered if he could exploit this in some way, but couldn’t see how. Meanwhile, Rodria was delivering an impromptu lecture.
“The process was used during wartime to make ships less vulnerable to magnetic mines. Of course, we have refined it considerably, but the principle remains the same. A powerful electromagnetic field will neutralize any similar field in the fabric of the building. It’s simply a case of reversing the polarity.”
He broke off when a petite young woman in red-rimmed glasses appeared. Rodria’s assistant was a small, meek-looking grad student, who seemed in awe of the scientist. She reminded Paul of Liz, in that she seemed far too young for adult responsibilities.
“Ah, Chris – the caretaker here will help unload the equipment. Won’t he, Miss Bewick?”
Declan looked as if he might tell Rodria where to go, but after Kate gave him a pleading look he went outside. The degausser wheeled into the foyer from the rented van looked impressive. It consisted of a large, roughly cubic mass of metal and plastic with a set of controls on one side.
The device was accompanied by a small gasoline generator. As Rodria explained, the regular electricity supply would not be reliable during what he termed ‘the process.’ Paul watched, still racking his brains for a way to stop the experiment, as Rodria supervised the placement of the equipment. He had chosen the room where Paul had first encountered Palmer, and where Liz had tried to scare off Imelda Troubridge.
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