by David Haynes
“I can see you,” she said again.
He slipped and slid and scrambled around the meadow. Her voice was everywhere. It was in the wind, in the sea, in the grass and in his head. He shone the torch into the darkness but it was pathetic.
She was everywhere.
“I can see you.”
He stopped moving. The voice had come from behind. A chill ran through his body and made him shiver.
“I can see you,” she repeated.
His hands were shaking but he held the phone like a shield and turned around slowly. He didn’t want to move but someone had switched the automatic button inside his head. The torch lit up a face, as pretty as any he’d ever seen. She was beautiful and her deep, dark eyes were like, like... Had someone followed him here?
He opened his mouth to say something but as he did, her face started slipping away. Slowly at first as if she were melting, then faster and faster until all that was left were two voids, two deep voids and he was falling into them.
“I can see you.” She spat the words through teeth that fell from her mouth as she spoke and festering, murky water dripped from her lips.
He wanted to close his eyes. He wanted to do it so badly but he knew that if he did, she would follow him in there. She would always be there. She would always be inside him, just as she had always been inside his dad and Pat. She would always be inside Ollie too now, unless he could do something. Anything...
“I can see you, I can see you, I can see you...” she repeated over and over again until he thought his mind would simply curl up in a little ball and send him to the cliff...
The foghorn boomed into the night and jolted him. It sent him reeling backwards away from her, crashing into the perimeter wall. He cried out as the back of his head smashed into the wall. The pain was excruciating but the force of it knocked her out of his head, momentarily.
He held the torch up again but he had no need, she was almost on him.
The foghorn blasted again and the depth of its tone shook the earth beneath his body. It had sounded before on the night he was here with Pat. There was no fog then. She was almost on him again and wherever he ran, wherever he took Ollie, she would always be there.
The wind whipped across his face, snapping it out to sea. The lighthouse shot a beam of light across the water. There was no fog. There was a storm, there couldn’t be any fog.
It blasted again in agreement and the creature Carol had become looked up at the great funnel. Briefly and just for a split-second, Chris saw something other than the blackness; he saw a star, or something that shone. But then it was gone.
“I can see you!”
He turned before he was trapped by her eyes and jumped up. He reached the top of the wall and clung on with his fingers. The hand that had beaten Tallack was broken in places that could never be fixed but he poured his strength into it and hauled himself upwards onto the top of the wall. He looked back briefly, watched her rise as if there was no wind. Hair as black as the deepest-dwelling seaweed blew out from her head.
He was transfixed again. “No,” he muttered and fell backwards off the wall. The rattle his bones made as he landed was overshadowed by the bellow of the foghorn, but he kept hold of his phone and pointed it into the darkness.
The pendant.
The pendant had bounced off something metallic when his dad had thrown it. He’d taken it from Pat’s hand and thrown it away like a piece of junk.
As he rolled over, he could feel the tendrils of her breath on his neck as she whispered into his ear.
“I... can... see... Ollie.”
He screamed and flailed his arms at her but it was like punching fresh air. His blows did nothing. She smiled down on him with those rotten teeth and oh so dark eyes. So dark, so full of grief and anger and...
The foghorn boomed but it sounded softer now, like it was losing strength.
“Your pendant.” His voice was little more than a whisper but it pushed her away and suddenly she was a woman. She was Carol again.
He jumped up and sprinted to the foghorn. It was in there. It had to be. As he reached it, he could feel her behind him again but he wouldn’t look at her. No matter the guilt he felt, the fear or the anger. He would not look at her again.
He grabbed the rim of the horn and looked inside. It was as wide as the span of his arms and as deep.
“It’s in there!” he shouted, as much through hope as expectation, his voice landing with a dull thud.
He reached inside.
“Ollie,” she whispered. She was retreating away from him. She was going back to the house to get Ollie.
“No, no, no!” He shone the little light into the horn and a glimmer rebounded. His heartbeat went up another notch, if that were possible, as he reached inside and touched it. It was just within his reach but his fingers were so cold he could barely close them around it. He stretched every sinew in his body, pushed his fingers down and dragged it out.
He withdrew his hand and turned around “I have it!” he roared, but she was gone. There was nothing but the night around him now.
“No more.” He dropped to his knees. “No more, Carol.” He held the pendant up to the sky. It was as light as a feather and in places had perished to nothing. Whatever chain it had been attached to was still at the bottom of the foghorn but he hoped this was enough. The top half of the locket was missing and there was nothing inside, nothing he could see at least.
There was a silence again, as nature took a deep breath, and then she was there, staring at him with those bottomless pits. He held the pendant higher. “Take it,” he whispered.
She lowered her head and slowly she became the girl again. She became Carol.
“Take it,” his voice trembled.
But she didn’t reach for it. She just touched her neck where it should have been. Where it had probably been on the night she died.
“Take it, please!”
“I can see you!” She spoke softly, without menace or threat. Her eyes were only on the locket.
“I can see you, Mum.” As she spoke, a shiny locket appeared at her neck. She touched it, twirled it between her fingers. “I can see you, Mum.”
And then the locket blew away like dust and Carol simply floated away into the darkness.
Chris fell back, stared at the dark sky above his head and allowed the tears to flow down his cheeks. The wind tried to whip them away and the rain tried to dilute them. But they slid down his cheeks, tasting like the saltwater had done when his dad rescued him.
Chapter 22
Chris stood on the headland and watched Ollie skimming stones across the sea. The sun bounced off the ocean in a silvery haze. It was beautiful.
Ollie looked up at him and gave him a thumbs-up sign. He returned it with two thumbs.
Six months had passed since the night at Pendeen. They had been long months. Long months filled with nightmares, long sleepless nights spent sharing the bed with a seven year old boy and a wife.
This was the place, the exact spot where he’d stood with his dad on that day. That was a huge step forward for him. He’d watched the waves come in as the storm approached. The sounds were the same, the waves, the wind and the birds. It was all here and it would always be here. Hawk’s Cove had been here long before it had ever been called Hawk’s Cove.
He looked up at the car park. Joe was up there in the car. His legs had started giving way and his daily walks to the pub were a thing of the past. They were weekly visits now, usually on curry night with his grandson and great-grandson.
“Make mine as pokey as Lollipop’s,” Ollie had said to Susie. When the curry came out and Ollie had taken a mouthful, his face turned a very bright red.
“Good isn’t it, lad?” Joe had laughed and Ollie hadn’t been very well the next day, but he never wanted to miss curry night at The Queen’s Head. He just asked for less poke.
They had moved here permanently two months ago, although in the intervening time, Joe had never been alone for m
ore than a few weeks. One, both or all of them had stayed at some point. Now the move was permanent, he seemed happier than ever. He looked tired and sometimes Chris heard him talking to people who weren’t there. Or rather, people who weren’t visible to him. He never did it when Ollie was around though.
Lou hadn’t asked questions about what happened. She would in time, and when he told her, that would be when they’d go looking for Carol’s family. Lou wouldn’t allow it to be any other way.
But Carol hadn’t come back. She had what she needed.
Atonement. That was what Carol had wanted and the only person capable of giving it to her was him. His father had thrown her pendant away like it was worthless trash. It might not have been the most expensive piece of jewellery but it meant everything to her. How could she ever be at peace without the thing she treasured above all else?
Chris froze. Ollie was on the slipway and standing beside him were two people. People he didn’t recognise. Where was Lou?
“Lou!” he shouted but they were too far away. She must have been sitting at the top of the slipway.
Who were they? Both of them put a hand on Ollie’s shoulders and it sent a cold chill down his back. He sprinted along the path and skidded at the turn for the cove. The smell of lobster pots was fleeting but it still held a memory, not a good one either.
He reached the slipway and almost fell into Lou. She was sitting reading a book.
“Watch it!” She edged away from him.
He looked down the slipway at Ollie. “Who were they?”
“What?” She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Who?”
He pointed at Ollie. “The couple who were standing there!”
Lou looked down at Ollie. “There’s nobody else here. Just us.” She touched his ankle. “He’s safe, don’t worry.”
He looked down and tried to smile. “I thought I saw...” He stopped. He was just over-sensitive about Ollie, that was all.
“I’ll go and throw a few stones with him for half an hour.”
He walked down to Ollie. The tide was out and the bottom of the slipway was covered in a tangle of seaweed.
“How’s it going, big man?”
Ollie threw another stone into the calm sea. It skimmed three times and then sank. “See that?”
Chris stepped off the side and gathered a handful of flat pebbles. “Not bad, watch this.” He threw the stone. It skipped across the surface twice and then sank.
“That’s rubbish, Dad.”
“It was just the wrong stone, that’s all.” He pushed through the stones and found another.
“So, who were those two?”
Ollie wound his arm back. “Don’t know, just a couple of people.” He threw the stone and crouched down for another.
“What did they say to you?” Chris asked.
“Something about taking care of me.” He stopped searching for stones and looked up. “One was called Lizzy and the other was called Jack.”
The End