Out of Sight

by Rebecca Duval

  Isla cut between two buildings, taking a shortcut through one of the closes, with its steep, narrow steps. Steam from air vents swirled like fog, as Isla jogged up the steps, the sound of her heels on the stone bounced off the walls either side, creating an echo...but one that was slightly delayed, and out of sync.

  She paused, for a fraction of a second, her knuckles white on the iron handrail. The footsteps continued.

  Someone was behind her.

  Isla’s mouth went dry. On the one hand, why shouldn’t someone be behind her? This was a public footpath, and she probably wasn’t the only person taking a shortcut to get out of the rain, but on the other...her head swirled with tales of ghosts, shadowy reflections in mirrors, empty rocking chairs creaking in a silent draft of air. A trickle of fear ran down her spine.

  Isla took a deep breath and turned.

  Nothing. There was no one there. But had that bin moved, slightly? Jutting out further from the wall than before? Or was she imagining it?

  “Hello?” she shouted.

  Only her echo answered.

  Steeling herself, Isla turned back to the steps, but it was too late, adrenaline had flooded her system, and now, with nothing to fight, and no one to run from, it juddered through her limbs, making her feet clumsy, and her hands shake. By the time she made it to the top, and out onto the busy street, she was exhausted. Sweat and rain mingled on her brow, and she caught a flash of her pale face in a shop window.

  What was wrong with her? Since when couldn’t she walk through an alleyway in the middle of the day without breaking into a panic?

  Isla pressed through the throngs of people, ducking and weaving to avoid umbrellas and puddles. She could stay with the crowds, and take the long way back to the shop, or cut through the kirkyard, and save herself ten minutes. She faltered at the gates.

  “Get a grip,” she growled.

  A student walking past looked sideways in surprise.

  “Oh, not you, I was-” Talking to myself? Isla cringed, finishing the sentence off in her head, as the teenager passed by. This was ridiculous.

  She strode purposefully through the tall, black gates, and followed the winding path around the church. The graveyard sloped gently away from her, a mish-mash of leaning gravestones, flat tombs, and towering monuments. Last Halloween, she’d joined a midnight tour of the place, rolling her eyes, and giggling with Zoe, as the solemn tour guide had spoken of poltergeists, and gravediggers. They’d gone to the pub afterwards and laughed the whole thing off.

  Isla didn’t feel like laughing now.

  Dusk crept over the treetops, and rolled across the damp grass like a carpet, laid out for the dead. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, blurring her vision like static. She considered running, but Isla knew that if she did, she might never stop. The panic from earlier swirled in her veins, just waiting for a sign, a sound, a movement, anything, to set it off.

  Isla pressed on, keeping her eyes on the path. She didn’t want to look into the shadows beneath the trees or see the names etched into the weather-beaten headstones. She wanted to get out of there, preferably with her sanity still intact.

  The gate out onto the street came into view. Isla quickened her pace fractionally, and it was then that she heard it. Footsteps behind her. And this time she was certain she wasn’t imagining it. They were clear, close, and moving quickly. She considered turning, to confront whoever it was, but she was only yards from the gate now, tantalisingly close to safety. Isla took a deep breath, and she ran.

  Her heels thundered against the pavement, and her hood fell, the rain plastering her hair to her scalp within seconds.

  She crashed against the closed gate and fumbled with the catch, her hands shaking. Finally, she unlatched it, and yanked it open, slipping through it and closing it behind her with a crash, still not looking back.

  The street beyond was bustling with shoppers hurrying to get out of the rain, and folk leaving work late. Isla fell into step behind a group of men and women in workwear and risked a glance behind her.

  A solitary figure in dark clothing stood by the gate to the kirkyard. Isla’s stomach lurched. It looked to be a man, but with a hood pulled close around their face it was impossible to be sure.

  She turned away quickly, and overtook the group of colleagues, veering into the road to scurry past them. The shop was metres away, but she could already see that the shutters were down.

  Damn. Isla ducked into the narrow passageway at the end of the row and jogged to the metal staircase that led up to the front door of her flat.

  Her footsteps clanged against the steps in time with her heartbeat. At the top, she yanked on the zip of her bag and began rummaging for her keys.

  Oh god, where were they?

  Her fingers skimmed over lipstick, tampons, her purse...everything but the keyring and set of keys she needed. Damn it.

  She gulped in air and glanced over her shoulder. The cobbles below remained empty...but for how long?

  She fished desperately into her bag again, her heart pounding. Yes. At last, her hand closed around the familiar shape of her keys. She fumbled with them, dropping them twice before she managed to get the door unlocked, and fell inside, slamming it behind her and locking it with shaking hands.

  Isla slid to the floor in a heap. Either someone was following her, or she was losing it. And Isla wasn’t sure which idea scared her more.

  Sixteen

  Wednesday morning brought a fresh downpour of rain. Isla watched it through the windows of one of the third-floor bedrooms at Rosehill.

  Her eyelids felt heavy, but her brain was whirring, as it had been all night. The longer she’d lay in her bed, thinking about her walk home from the restaurant, the more convinced Isla had become that she’d imagined the entire thing. So someone had been walking the same direction as her? Big deal. It was a big city, there were no laws against it. Still, she’d struggled to sleep, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to get through a full day of cataloguing and valuing. But moping in front of a window wasn’t going to help.

  Isla turned from the window, blinking to adjust to the dim light in the shadowy room. The ghostly furniture stood in wait, promising that the next dust-sheet she ripped off would reveal something miraculous when she knew it wasn’t true. She couldn’t save Parsons & Co with anything in this room. She couldn’t save it full stop. She could delay the inevitable, but the day would come when the money would run out, and the little life she’d built for herself would be over.

  Realisation hit Isla like a bullet. Len hadn’t sent her here to save the business. He was opening a door, knowing another was about to slam shut. Giving her a chance to prove herself. Not to him, or even Tim, but to herself, to show her what he knew but she didn’t- that she was capable of doing this on her own. That she could go it alone, if -or when - she needed to.

  But did she want to? Antiques were her life, but without the shop - without her surrogate family - would it be the same?

  Isla tugged at the nearest sheet, and it fell away in a swirl of dust motes to reveal a solid walnut French armoire, with mirrored doors. The glass of the mirror was almost opaque with dust and grime. She thought better of wiping it away and pulled open the doors, giving a small murmur of surprise when she found it full of clothes.

  Women's clothes- day dresses, blouses and crepe skirts, backless evening gowns, all in a 1930’s style. Isla ran her hands over the fabrics, releasing a smell of mothballs and stale perfume. She pulled out a hanger and held the dress up in the light. Champagne silk cascaded from an ornate brooch on one shoulder. The fabric had faded unevenly, lilting from gold to cream. Isla marvelled at the cut of it - the deep ‘v’ neckline, the narrow waist, that she couldn’t hope to fit into - and wondered who it had belonged to, and why they’d left it behind, along with all the others.

  Over the patter of raindrops against the window pane, came another, very different sound. Isla quirked her head as the melody glided beneath the bedroom door.

  Las
t time she’d heard music playing at Rosehill, she’d followed it down a gloomy corridor and ended up in a row with Ethan. Not this time.

  But ignoring it was easier said than done. As the tune came to an end, Isla found herself holding her breath, wondering if that would be it, but then another began- faltering and hesitant. And after that, another, and another. This was no record on a turntable. Someone, somewhere in the castle, was playing the piano. And Isla thought she could guess who.

  Eventually, as yet another tune began - one that Isla dimly recognised - she couldn’t bear it any longer. She closed the wardrobe doors on the time capsule of clothing and crept out into the corridor. She followed the lilting piano notes down the grand staircase, oblivious for once, of the curious gazes of the portraits, too engrossed in the melancholy strain drifting from the floor below.

  Isla paused on the landing, listening.

  He made a mistake, not one that Isla would have recognised, but it was clear from the pause, and then the repetition - getting it right this time- before the song continued, building to a faultless crescendo. A twinge of pain in her palm caused her to look down to where she was gripping the balustrade, and Isla saw that she wasn’t alone.

  Halfway up the staircase from the ground floor, stood Ryder. He too had one hand on the bannister, and his face, turned up to the first-floor landing, his lips parted and his blue eyes wide, caught somewhere between astonishment and reverence.

  He caught her eye, and Isla loosened her grip on the railing and gestured towards the west wing.

  “Does this happen often?”

  Ryder shook his head. “Never.”

  “Oh.”

  The song ended, and they both stood in anticipation of another, but silence raced along the corridor, chasing the final notes away.

  Isla met Ryder’s eye once more. It seemed as though he wanted to say something, but he only nodded and turned. Isla watched him descend the staircase, and then she too forced herself to walk away.

  Climbing the stairs to the second floor, the memory of Ethan’s music echoing in her mind, Isla couldn’t help but feel like she’d intruded on something private. Something not meant for her.

  *

  By four o'clock, the light from the window was no longer enough for Isla to work in, and with the electricity still out, she was forced to give up.

  There had been no further piano playing, or music of any kind, only a silence that had somehow grown louder now it had been broken. The castle was so still and quiet, that as Isla made her way down the main staircase she began to feel like she was the only one there- that everyone else had upped and left whilst she’d worked. It was a surprise, and a relief when she found Ethan sitting alone in the study. Dusk painted the garnet walls burgundy, and a fire licked the grate at his feet.

  Ethan’s head jerked up when she stepped through the door, as though he’d been deep in thought and she’d yanked him from the recesses of his mind. His hair was damp and he pushed it back from his face, revealing the silver-pink scars of his past.

  “Isla?” he said, and she wondered how he knew it was her, and not Ryder, or someone else entirely.

  “It’s getting too dark here,” she said. “I’ll take some smaller items back with me, and continue working at the shop.”

  “You dinnae have to do that.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Ethan grunted and got to his feet. He crossed to the desk, leaving his cane beside his chair. His thigh grazed the edge of the desk, but otherwise, Isla wouldn’t have known he couldn’t see.

  “They’re installing a phone line.” He lifted a solitary sheet of paper from the desktop and held it out to her.

  She stepped forward to take it. “What’s this?”

  “I’m told the number is on there if anyone needs to contact you, or…” he trailed off.

  Isla stared at the number, and then back up at Ethan, his head dipped as though he was studying the surface of the desk.

  “I didn’t know you played the piano,” she blurted.

  Ethan’s head snapped up, his expression wary. “Used to,” he corrected.

  Isla was going to joke that it had sounded pretty current to her, but something about the way Ethan looked stopped her. “It must be difficult, without your sight...”

  “No more so than anything else.” He said it with a finality, that suggested the topic wasn’t open for discussion.

  “I only wanted to say that I thought you were...that it was, beautiful.”

  “Isla,” Ethan said her name like it caused him pain.

  “I should go-” Isla moved to pass him, but he caught her by the arm. Isla looked down at where his fingertips pressed against her pale skin, and then up at his face. The turmoil she saw there reflected her own.

  “I cannae do this.”

  “Do what?” Isla whispered. Her nerves thrummed beneath Ethan’s fingers, and she thought of the letter she’d read out on Friday and felt sure he must be able to tell. How could he not?

  “This,” he said. “I may be blind, but I amnae stupid, and neither are you. Tell me you dinnae ken what I’m talking about.”

  She couldn’t. She knew exactly what he was talking about. Isla swallowed and said nothing.

  Ethan dropped his hand back to his side, but he didn’t move away, and neither did she. Mere centimetres separated them. If she lifted onto her tiptoes and leaned forward, she could close the gap…

  “It’s nothing, it’s...chemistry, that’s all.” Isla’s voice wavered. She wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince.

  “Are you sure?” Ethan’ sounded unconvinced.

  “Yes.” No. Isla wasn’t sure of anything, least of all herself.

  “So, we ignore it?”

  Isla’s eye was level with Ethan’s throat, and she watched the rise and fall of his adam’s apple, bobbing with his words.

  “Yes.” Her voice was barely a whisper now. “Or…”

  Ethan’s dark eyebrows raised, his scars lifting. “Or?” The low growl of his voice shot straight to Isla’s core. How could one word hold so much temptation? So much promise?

  Isla’s eyes flickered to Ethan’s mouth, and she licked her lips instinctively. Tearing her eyes away, she found his eyes dancing across her face as if he was searching for her in the darkness.

  Isla took a half-step forward, narrowing the distance between their bodies to millimetres now. She could see the pulse working in Ethan’s jaw, the pink shadow behind the silver of his scars, the amber flecks in the hazelnut of his eyes. She tilted her head, and Ethan lowered his.

  Isla closed her eyes and held her breath, the seconds stretching out endlessly until Isla was sure she would pass out. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she saw Ethan before her - his eyes closed - and an expression of pure anguish on his face. His eyes flew open, and he stumbled backwards as if she’d shoved him.

  “You should go.”

  Hot tears pricked the backs of Isla’s eyes, but she fought them back. She wouldn’t cry. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t see. He would know.

  She pushed past Ethan, not caring if she knocked him off balance. Her entire world had been off-kilter since she’d met him. Let him be disoriented for a minute. She stumbled out of the study, into the black corridor.

  “Isla-” He called after her, his voice like gravel, but she didn’t look back,

  Outside the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and as she drove away from the castle, Isla pretended her blurred vision was the result of the droplets against the windscreen, and nothing to do with the dull ache in her chest.

  Seventeen

  Ethan was avoiding her. Not that it was exactly hard, in a place the size of Rosehill. If it hadn’t been for the way they’d left things, Isla might not have thought anything of the fact she didn’t see him at all on Thursday, but when Friday lunchtime came and went, without so much as a glimpse of him in a corridor, Isla knew it was no coincidence.

  What she didn’t know was why. Clearly, it was about what had hap
pened - or almost happened - between them in the study, but that didn’t explain his fear. And it was fear, Isla felt sure of it. The way he’d reeled from her, as though the brush of their lips would have brought the castle walls crumbling down around them. Maybe it would have. Isla recalled the frisson of electricity that had charged the air between their bodies. Maybe Ethan was right to be scared of what would happen if they acted on their chemistry, maybe she should be too. Isla had certainly never felt anything like it before.

  The bronze candelabra she was holding slipped through her fingers. She snatched it up before it could clatter to the floor, and placed it gently down on the dusty sideboard, her pulse racing. Focus.

  She lifted the camera from where it hung around her neck, and photographed the candelabra from various angles, before setting the camera down on the surface.

  A low, bloodcurdling moan keened through the castle, raising the hairs on Isla’s neck. She froze, listening. It seemed as though it would go on forever until it was broken by an almighty crash from somewhere above her, followed by footsteps thundering up the stairs.

  What the-?

  Acting on instinct, against all reason, Isla ran in the direction of the turmoil, her stomach twisting, and heart pounding as she took the stairs two at a time. The door to Ethan’s bedroom had been flung open, but from her angle at the top of the stairs, all Isla could make out was the shattered fragments of glass, strewn across the dark wood floor, glinting in the midday sun. She crept closer, the blood roaring in her ears, her imagination in overdrive.

  “Isla?”

  She jumped out of her skin, swearing at the top of her voice. “Ryder!” Isla placed a palm flat against her chest. “You scared the life out of me. What happened? Is everything okay?” She craned her neck, but it was no use, Ryder’s wide frame obscured the doorway from view.