“You need to sleep.”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do!” he snapped suddenly. “What do you know? I see him everywhere!”
“He doesn’t come up here. He will not cross the stream —”
“I said I see him everywhere, Ida. Even when I shut my eyes, he is on the inside of my eyelids, inside my head… .”
The clock chimed the half hour. It gave me a moment to collect myself.
“What are you doing about the church services?” I said. “Apparently everyone was waiting for you at Saint Mary’s on Sunday. Where were you? It’s happening more and more… .”
Jasper leaned his elbows on his gaunt knees, lowered his head, and pushed his long fingertips into his hair, rocking gently backwards and forwards. I saw tears trickling down his face.
A part of me ached for him, but I had so hoped for comfort myself. Who would ache for me? Jasper had not slept in a long time, but neither had I. My nights were haunted by bleak despair over Annie and plagued by a fury at Susan that I could not bear to shake off. With Susan at the heart of my rage, I didn’t have to confront my own guilt.
After a while, Jasper sniffed, wiped his cheeks, and sat up straight.
“Sometimes I feel like two people,” he said, “one looking in a mirror at the other, and I’m not even sure which of those two men I am.”
I also saw two people, two little girls — one Annie on that last morning, with me tucking her in for her nap, a cup of warm milk and honey on the cupboard by the bed — the other a child in the graveyard in years to come — hollow-eyed, dry-skinned, wasted, ragged, old …
“Jasper,” I said, hoping to catch this fleeting moment of calm in him. “Why is my brother Tom less and less my brother? Why is my son Edward not quite my son? Although I can’t keep away from the churchyard because I long to see them, I am also afraid of them. As the years have gone by, they’ve become more — more like Lankin himself. Of course, they are no longer of this world, but they are also … not of heaven.”
Jasper stared at the carpet and pondered this for a while, but the moment was disturbed by the dull throbbing of aircraft engines.
He got up, walked to the half-closed doors, and looked up at the night. “Wellington bombers,” he said, “heading for the sea.”
“To Germany?”
“Maybe.”
He watched as the silhouettes of the heavy planes passed over the house.
“If Lankin drank their blood, as you suggest,” he said at last, his back still towards me, “then I think he has taken part of their life force into himself. He has fed off them, and now they are compelled to dwell with him in this strange place, which is neither of the earth nor of paradise. The longer they inhabit the world of the monster, the more monstrous they themselves become. They are bound to Lankin, therefore they cannot be saved unless Lankin’s own life is forfeit.”
He turned towards me, the bones of his face unnaturally highlighted, the hollows of his cheeks dark and shrunken. Again, slow tears fell from his eyes, but he did nothing to check their flow, raised not so much as a finger to his face.
“Why are you weeping, Jasper?”
“I seem — I seem to cry for nothing most days, Ida,” he said. “But now I cannot bear the thought of what may have to be done, and I know I am the one who must do it.”
“What are you talking about?”
He moved to his chair and cast his watery eyes over the papers on the table beside it. He rifled through them, dropping page after page onto the floor, then grasped a sheet with tremulous fingers.
“This is the statement of Neville Harper, the surgeon who attended poor Thomas Sumner as he was dying of his burns after the fire at the old rectory. Remember I showed it to you before? It was in Haldane Thorston’s chest. Lankin came into the house to steal a child, Margery Skynner, and Piers Hillyard threw a candle at him?”
“Yes, I recall it.”
“Well, I don’t think I read it before today with any kind of particular insight, but listen — what does this mean? ‘But before they quitted the chamber, Piers Hillyard fell down upon the floor and died.’” Then Jasper spoke very slowly: “‘And the spirit of the said Cain Lankin took the life of the above named Piers Hillyard unto himself… .’ What on earth does it mean, Ida? Have you ever asked yourself why Piers Hillyard is in the churchyard, and how he actually died?”
“Well, we’ve always known how he died,” I said. “In the fire, of course. I have always believed that it was his choice to remain on earth to warn others, in recompense for the fateful decision he made to bury Cain Lankin’s body in consecrated ground. He tried to warn in life by carving out Cave bestiam everywhere, and … he warns in death. He appears, especially to children… .”
“Well,” said Jasper, “in this statement it also says, ‘Thomas Sumner affirmeth that he being badly burned and Piers Hillyard gravely burned also, he agreed to depart with him together.’ Obviously Hillyard was in a bad way, but he was not in extremis at that moment. I would think that he and Sumner possibly suffered a similar degree of injury, but Sumner didn’t actually succumb until two days later. Hillyard seems to have fallen down and died suddenly, unexpectedly, just as they were about to leave the room. Lankin, on the other hand, was in the thick of things, not consumed, but rather roared and danced. Somehow, when he believed he was on the point of death, he was able to preserve himself by taking the life of the one who was causing him to lose his own.”
We sat in a kind of daze.
“So, just as the children are condemned to remain with Lankin because he has consumed their blood,” Jasper continued, “so Hillyard is trapped in the half-world, too, because the monster absorbed his life.”
I struggled to make sense of it. “Are you saying,” I said, “that if you try to take Lankin’s life, you forfeit yours?”
Jasper sat down slowly, his body shrinking into the depths of the chair.
“Maybe Kittie Wicken tried to kill Lankin as well,” I said, “when he came for her baby.”
“She died in the creek,” added Jasper. “Could it be that she attempted to destroy him with water?”
“As Hillyard tried with fire,” I said. “Like Hillyard, she comes when there are children in the house. I have never seen Kittie clearly, just a fleeting glance, a shadow in the wrong place, but as a child, I did hear her singing, sometimes quite close to me. My brother Roland must certainly have seen her. He always said that a woman had shown him where the priest’s hole was, somewhere to hide if Lankin came in. Kittie must still have been employed at Guerdon Hall when they were constructing it. She knew the secret. But Roland used it against his brother. Instead of saving Tom, it — it —”
“Hush, hush, Ida,” sighed Jasper.
He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, bowed his head, and closed his palms together as if in prayer.
“I keep thinking of Christian,” he said, “prepared to stand his ground in the Valley of Humiliation against the monster Apollyon. Apollyon was wounded by a blow from Christian’s sword, but he still spread his dragon’s wings and flew away. How can we be certain that, in that moment of sacrifice, when someone is prepared to confront Long Lankin, no matter what it might cost them, Lankin still won’t confound death, as he has confounded it for centuries?”
“So you fear that the sacrifice will be in vain?”
“I do, Ida.”
“But Hillyard and maybe Kittie Wicken were not aware of the consequences of what they did. Maybe — maybe if someone was willing …”
“How can we know, Ida? …”
And he began to weep again.
“Not long into the following year, Jasper was in Coldwell Hospital,” said Auntie Ida, staring into space.
“Auntie Ida, is — is Mum in a hospital like that — like Coldwell?”
“Oh, Cora …”
I shut my eyes. Auntie reached across the table to take my hand. I snatched it away. It could all have been so different. Auntie should have written a letter to
my mum’s mum and dad.
It’s all my fault — all my fault. Nobody had ever told Mum it wasn’t.
“He — Jasper — was discharged just as the war ended,” Auntie Ida went on quickly, “but — but a couple of years later, he was taken back in again. That’s when Hugh Mansell came.”
“I’m really scared, Auntie Ida,” I said, looking down at the tabletop. “I want to take Mimi home.”
“You must go home, Cora.” Auntie leaned her forehead on her outstretched fingers. “I feel Lankin is getting closer and closer. Three times now I have seen him near the house. He is waiting for one little moment of weakness, one small second when we let down our guard. We’re all trapped, Cora, you and me too, not just the children down in the graveyard … my little lost Edward … we’re all trapped… .”
Auntie raised her head.
“Maybe — maybe I could find somebody in the village to look after the two of you for the time being, until I can get you back to London. And then, somehow I could try to undo what Hillyard did… .”
“Auntie, please don’t say such a dreadful thing. It can’t be done.”
“Maybe that’s what I have to do … but who would help me?” She sank down again. “Nobody would want to help me.”
Auntie’s tears began to flow again.
I found myself putting my hands on her drooping shoulders and giving them a little squeeze. Then I leaned over and put my cheek against hers.
Auntie reached up and touched my hand. I didn’t shake it off this time.
“I’ll see if Hugh Mansell’s in,” she said, “so I can leave a telephone message for your father at the pub. I’ll need to run a flannel over my face first.”
I was tying up my shoelaces when Pete came in.
“Where we going, then?” he said, slopping the milk over his shredded wheat so it overflowed onto some spilled sugar.
“Thought I’d go down Mrs. Eastfield’s. Don’t put the box on top of that milk. It’ll stick to the table.”
“Mum’ll wipe it up,” he said. “Wait for me. I’ve got to find some socks.”
“Hurry up then. I’ll get the bikes out.”
It was going to be a really blazing day. On the main road, the tarmac was slightly soft, and the air above it already shimmering.
We stood at the top of the hill on Old Glebe Lane, levelling up to race each other down to the bottom.
“Can you feel that buzzing feeling?” I asked Pete.
“Don’t be daft. What buzzing feeling?”
“Like — I dunno, like when you’re standing under an electric pylon — you know, like the big one near the woods.”
“Nah. You ready?” Pete took off.
“Oi! Hang on! We’re meant to go together!” I shouted after him.
The ground was so hard we whizzed round at the bottom and into the Chase without stopping. The mud was baked into big lumps. Sometimes we had to stand up on the pedals to get along, but mostly it was a case of getting off the bikes altogether and pushing.
We waited for a while on the bridge outside Mrs. Eastfield’s.
“D’you reckon there are frogs?” said Pete.
“I don’t expect there’ll be any here. I think the water’s salty.”
“Don’t you get frogs in the sea, then?”
The tide was just about out. Only a trickle of water remained in the middle of the creek.
The electricity wire drooped from its pole near the bridge. All seemed strangely still, despite the busy humming of the insects in the wildflowers and the quiet babbling of the stream as it disappeared under the road. Not a single bird was singing from the trees around Guerdon Hall.
We dropped our bikes on the path and walked up to the house. I banged on the front door, and the dog started barking.
“Who is it?” came a voice from the other side of the door. “Quiet, Finn. I can’t hear.”
“It’s us.”
We heard the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door opened a tiny crack, and I saw Cora’s eye.
I’d already decided that if she was still going to be in a mood, Pete and me should just leave it and go down the woods instead, but she called out over her shoulder to Mrs. Eastfield, waited for a reply, then opened the door wide.
“Auntie Ida’s gone to get washed,” said Cora. “Best come in the kitchen.”
Auntie Ida came down, scrubbed up but a little flushed and puffy.
“Mimi’s still asleep but stirring,” she said. “In ten minutes or so, go up and check her. If she’s too hot, wring out a flannel in some cold water and wipe her forehead with it. I’m going up to Father Mansell’s to make this telephone call, and you absolutely must promise me you won’t leave the house, absolutely promise.”
We stood listening, our eyes round with serious attention.
“I should be less than half an hour. I’ve checked the windows. The front-door key is still in the lock.”
“What a blimmin’ palaver,” whispered Pete as Auntie put on her scarf.
She locked the back door behind her, taking the key. For some time, Finn jumped up on his back legs and scrabbled at the door, whining.
“It’s blinking sweltering in here,” said Pete, getting himself some water to drink from the tap. “Why’s she locked us in? What if there’s a fire and we’re stuck and get burned to death?”
“We can get out the front,” I said. “Anyway, you get used to it.”
“I’m flippin’ sweating,” he said.
“We can go up to your house when she gets back.”
“Blinkin’ well hope she won’t be long,” he grumbled. “It’s like a great big oven in this place. How do you stand it with the windows all shut? What’s there to do in here?”
“There’s a parrot,” said Roger.
I got the bag of seeds out from under the sink and took Pete to show him how to take out the feed box.
Auntie Ida said the parrot had been in that same cage for years and years, that if you opened the door and told him he could fly away, he wouldn’t want to, wouldn’t even know how.
“He’s lost loads of feathers,” said Pete, fascinated. “You can see his skin.”
When the parrot said, “Hello,” Pete laughed his head off and kept saying, “Hello” till the old bird said it again. I left him and went back into the kitchen, where Roger and I started washing up the dishes from breakfast. Roger was blinking hopeless at it, just slooshing the things around in the water instead of wiping them properly with the dishcloth. I tried to tell him as much as I could about what Auntie Ida had said.
Harry must come. It’s urgent now. How could I send Cora with the message I’m going to leave? He is her father, after all. It’s bad enough her mother being the way she is. He must come. There’s still time today — if not, then tomorrow. He must come quickly.
Everything’s locked up. I checked every window. I’ve got the back-door key here in my pocket. I hope to God Hugh is in. Maureen Mansell must be there, or I can try the Treasures. Somebody will be around. How will I find the telephone number of the Half Moon? Hugh will help me. Why am I so uneasy? I must hurry. It’s so hot. I’ll have to take my scarf off.
They’ve got Finn. I won’t be long.
I must take off my coat. The air is laden. Another storm must be on the way.
Finn starts pawing at me. Maybe Auntie Ida hasn’t fed him, what with everything going on this morning. I open up a can of Chappie and fork it into his dish. He wolfs it down.
He’s still unsettled, gruffling and whining. I can’t give him any more food. Auntie would be cross.
When Roger and I go out into the hall, Finn sits at the bottom of the stairs and looks up, fitful, his eyes wide open, his whole body bristling and alert.
Roger and I leave him and go into the sitting room, where Pete is trying to make the parrot say “Bye-bye.”
Roger sits down on the settee on one side of the spring, and I sit on the other, the loose stuffing itchy on the back of my legs. It’s stifling. We lean b
ack, close our eyes, and blow out hot air.
Pete is starting to get annoying with his “Bye-bye, bye-bye.”
“Leave off, mate,” says Roger. “He’s too flippin’ old. He’s never going to say ‘Bye-bye.’”
Finn comes in and sits restlessly on the floor by our feet. He puts his paw up on my knee.
It just occurs to me to go up and check Mimi when a sudden, massive thud from upstairs rattles the parrot’s cage.
“Blimey! I hope Mimi ain’t fallen out of bed,” I say, quickly standing.
Finn gets up. He growls from deep in his throat, then, drawing back the sides of his mouth, bares his curved teeth in a snarl.
“Shut up, Finn!” I say. “Why’re you doing that? Shut up!”
Down the length of his back, the hair begins to rise. Half crouching, he moves towards the door. Puzzled, I slowly follow him. Roger gets up. Pete stops saying “Bye-bye” and looks over.
“What’s the matter with him?” he says.
A nasty smell fills the hall. I hear light, faltering footsteps on the staircase. Finn growls a long, menacing growl.
A small figure in white brushed cotton pyjamas, dotted with yellow ducks, is descending the stairs. A little white hand with Sid dangling from it moves downwards, loosely touching the thick wooden rail. Mimi herself is as quiet as a whisper, but from farther up the stairs comes the sound of creaking and the noise of slow, rasping breathing.
With one huge bound, Finn leaps along the hall to the bottom of the staircase. He crouches at the bottom, threatening and snapping, his eyes fixed on something higher up the stairs, something beyond Mimi.
“Cora, Cora …” Mimi cries in a small, weak voice.
Finn barks wildly, his eyes bulging, saliva spilling out of his mouth.
I rush to the stairs and look up. My jaw drops open. Behind Mimi, Cain Lankin is crawling down like an animal. The tip of his tongue, wet with thick grey spit, is sticking out from between his sharp yellow teeth like a black pointed stone.
Mimi is in a dream.
I push past Finn, leap up four stairs, and fling my arms round her. Long fingernails, hard as iron, snatch at me. I stagger backwards with Mimi. I fall onto the wooden floorboards, gather her up, and dash back to Roger and Pete. They stand there, open-mouthed. Finn leaps forward a few steps, barking and growling, barring Lankin’s way.
Long Lankin Page 27