House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  Trapped more or less, for the moment. Give or take.

  Georgie supposed that she could climb over the bookcase that made the wall of this alcove and down into the next. And the next, and the one after that, until she reached the door. Or she could unbar the shutter here, open the window, climb out that way; that’d be easier. Or . . .

  Grace had a weapon, heavy in her hands. She thought she could walk from here to the open door, sweet and easy, crushing as she went.

  One good thing about being Grace: she wasn’t going to wait for anyone’s permission. Not Georgie’s, not anyone’s.

  She took a step out into that gap she’d torn in the neat line of candles, ready to rip it like muslin, all the way back to the hem – only, just as she did so she heard footsteps on the stairs, bold and deliberate, a voice in the hall.

  A voice she knew.

  Grace ducked back into the alcove out of sight, pressed her shoulders against the wall of books, clutched the folio against her chest almost as though she were trying to disguise herself, trying to pretend to be a book herself.

  Suddenly she was shaking again, and her skin was prickling with sweat. That wasn’t all Georgie.

  The candles, she saw, were just candles again, burning to give light, a little, to mark a path from the door to the far end of the library. Nothing more than that: no fiery gauntlet, no tiny deadly fingers reaching.

  They were going to walk in here, walk all the way down that aisle of lights, because what else would you do, what else could you do? It was an open invitation.

  Except that there was a gap in the line, and they’d see that, and wonder, and look into the alcove – and see her.

  And then what?

  She didn’t know; but she knew who was coming, or one of them, and she hated that. Whatever this was, whatever it was for, it wasn’t anything good: it was creepy and scary and possibly worse than that, something deep down wicked maybe, and she hated that Tom was at the heart of it.

  She stood there and listened for him, hiding like a child, eavesdropping like a child. She could feel her own heart beating, pounding like a child’s against the rigid leather of the book; she could hear her own breathing and was sure that he must too.

  She waited to hear him exclaim: no, wait, this isn’t how I left them. Someone’s been here. They might be here still . . .

  Instead she heard him laugh, still in the doorway, well out of sight. She heard him speak a word she didn’t know, something dark and strong and beyond her understanding.

  All the lights went out.

  TEN

  They went away then, Tom and his companion.

  She stood in the dark for a long time, still hugging that book. Maybe she was waiting for the candles to leap into flame again. Maybe she was waiting for some kind of understanding to come, or Tom to come back, or someone else, or . . .

  Mostly, she thought she was just standing there because it was easier than moving, when she had absolutely no idea where to go, what to do with this, what this was.

  She didn’t, she wouldn’t believe in magic. Ghosts were allowed, ghosts were inevitable; but to her mind magic was something else, something other. Insupportable, beyond belief.

  And Tom was . . . an innocent, she’d thought. Sweet boy.

  If she’d expected anyone, it would’ve been Webb; but there really wasn’t any question. Tom had stood there in the doorway and spoken a word – in Webb’s rational language, she supposed – and out went all the lights.

  Which was magic, and impossible. And him, which made no sense. And . . .

  And so she stood there, at least until she’d stopped shaking and nothing had happened, nothing worse. No more voices, no more lights.

  That long, and just a little longer.

  It was remarkably hard to move, in fact. That first little step, out from the shelter of this charmingly solid bookcase: really astonishingly hard.

  Still, she managed it eventually, if only because the alternative was only to stand there until someone came looking.

  One step, and then another: out from shelter, out into the open darkness of the library floor. Perhaps she should still feel sheltered by that darkness, but of course she didn’t; ghosts could see in the dark. She felt brutally exposed. Even if nobody came.

  She might have followed the line of dead candles, feeling her way with her foot, kicking it; but in fact she didn’t need to. The doors were still ajar, and that friendly oil-lamp was still burning in the hallway. She could walk towards the glow and not worry about tripping. She could hurry, even: worrying as she did so about discovery or worse, a figure, a silhouette suddenly appearing in the gap between the half-open doors . . .

  It didn’t happen. She came to the doors and through them, and only then realized that she was still clutching the folio. And wasn’t going to take it back into the shadowy library, so she set it down just there beside the doors, like a mysterious confession, I did this, without quite saying either who or what.

  There was another door – less tall, more square – which ought, she thought, to lead out on to the courtyard, but it was locked. Back up the stairs, then: all the way to the top, where she was confident of her route even in this fallen darkness.

  If there were light switches she didn’t grope for them, with the electrics unreliable. She just wanted to be out of this wing, gone from here before anyone came again. Not to get caught. Oh, Tom . . .

  She was suddenly afraid of him, rather. Which wasn’t anything she’d expected, or anything she knew how to handle. Grace had been afraid often and often these last years, she was used to that – but never of a boy. Of institutions, yes, men in uniform, judges and policemen and prison warders, but those had been impersonal. They called her Harley, or they called her by a number; they had nicknames and legends of their own that were whispered behind their backs, all up and down the galleries, in and out of cells. They weren’t people.

  This house . . . wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a battleground. It shouldn’t be.

  Tom wasn’t like that. He wasn’t in authority; he had no power over her. He shouldn’t have.

  He’s a magician. He shouldn’t be, but she had seen it. That was power, strange and fearful. And she had seen it when she ought not, where she ought not to have been. There was power in that too, but only if she found a way to use it. Whoever he’d been showing off for – it had been a performance, a demonstration: what else? – it was not her.

  Georgie thought he’d be angry, if he found out. She was very fearful of men and their anger. It was a simpler way to be afraid, but just as potent.

  She should probably stop thinking of him as a boy.

  Through long empty attics, back towards the dormitories – and here was someone coming, flashing a torch against the increasing gloom. For a moment she froze; but only for a moment. Terror faded, as soon as she realized: not Tom. Tom wouldn’t use an electric torch, where he could use a candle. Wouldn’t need to, if he could control flame with a word; but he wouldn’t do it anyway.

  This figure was shorter than Tom, and stouter. And female, dressed in something long. Long and white . . .

  ‘Mother Mary!’

  ‘Ah, there you are, dear. I’ve been looking for you.’ For an instant, the torch beam shone into her face; then it was snapped off. ‘Sorry. I made you flinch, didn’t I? I don’t like to come this way without a light, and don’t tell anyone else I said so but frankly candles are such a nuisance, always going out, and oil lamps are too heavy. Florence Nightingale must have had shoulders like a navvy. Or someone else to carry her lamp for her. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least. Behind every great man there’s a woman, you know – so it’s probably true about great women too. Now come along – our own great man would like a word with you.’

  ‘The captain?’ she said hopefully, not really hopeful.

  ‘No, the doctor. You’ve met him, he said.’

  ‘Yes. They gave me a lift back from town. The doctor and his wife.’ The woman in her proper place
, presumably, behind him.

  ‘Yes. Sometimes I think Ruth knows this house better than I do, even. She was here in the war, you know. Well, they both were; but she nursed, and I know what that means. On her feet all day and half the night, in and out, up and down. Men don’t have a clue, what we really do for them.’ Of course, she’d been a nurse herself; natural sympathy came through. And she was herself the woman behind a great man, or she thought so. Georgie thought she did. ‘I’ve had people running all over, trying to chase you down, since the doctor lost you; it was Ruth who suggested you might have wandered over to the empty wing. What were you looking for?’

  Privacy was on the tip of her tongue, but that would be a killer. Grace kept quiet; Georgie said, ‘You’ll think me silly, but at first I was only trying to find my suitcase. Someone’s put it somewhere, and what with everything that went on last night, and changing rooms and so forth, I’ve lost track of it completely. So I went looking, without really a clue where to start; and once I’d started, I just sort of kept going. To be honest, I think maybe I was glad to be alone for a little bit. I’m not used to so much company . . .’

  ‘Hmm. That’s what Ruth said, more or less: that you’d gravitate that way for the solitude. Well, take us slowly, by all means; there is no hurry here. But remember, dear, this house is a community. You didn’t come here to be alone, and we won’t leave you so. And don’t worry about your case. There’s nothing there you need. Things don’t matter, only people. Now come along, the doctor wants a word.’

  Perhaps the doctor did want a word. She wasn’t sure, once they got there. He asked questions, and she answered them. But they were back in the room of her utter guilt, with the object of her great offence laid out there, stark and unremitting: Kathie pale and empty on her mattress, barely living. Swallowed.

  Not to be rescued, even by the so-clever doctor. He knew that, she thought, as well as she did. He might not know the truth – I fed her to my terror, to save myself; I gave her up to nothingness – but he did know the house, that was clear. He knew what kind of things could happen to people here. Things had happened in the past that were nothing to do with her. Grace might have found that a comfort, might have offered it up as an excuse. Georgie couldn’t do that.

  It was odd, that the invented girl should prove to be the honest one between them. She thought she liked Georgie, a lot better than she did Grace.

  She thought Georgie didn’t stand a chance, though, here in the house or out there in the world. Grace at least was a survivor.

  The doctor was really only going through the motions now. She knew, if no one else did. If he saw more deeply into her than anyone else did – if he saw her guilt, her distress just at being here – he said nothing about it. Showed no sign of it, made no accusations.

  Let her go at last, wearily, like a confession of failure.

  Georgie hesitated, like a nice girl would: ‘Please, what will happen to Kathie now?’

  ‘We’ll order up a private ambulance and take her down to London. We have a clinic there.’ He and his wife, apparently: a shared enterprise, an unexpected concession of equality. ‘We can look after her, try some new drugs, other treatments just coming through . . .’

  He didn’t expect any of them to work. Nor did she. She nodded and left the room, like a confession of guilt that no one but herself could hear.

  Time still marches slowly, even without a ticking clock to keep it regular. The evening closed in, and dinner came. She found her way to the great kitchen and asked how she could help; she found shelter among a troop of women carrying bowls of salad, jugs of water. The doctor and his wife sat with the captain, of course, and Mother Mary. No need to go near them. Tom was present too, but he could only be on one side of the hall; she could sit on the other when she stopped to sit at all, with her back turned to him. Out of sight, out of mind – or almost. She had no idea what to do about Tom, no real idea what to do about anything.

  She thought the house was big enough and full enough to avoid him, at least for the moment, while she thought. She thought there were people enough that she could avoid anyone, everyone. It’s what she’d been doing, more or less. Years now. Even at parties: shrieking people’s names, air-kissing them, getting stoned with them, going to bed with them. Avoiding them.

  But here she was washing up, scrubbing pots – and suddenly here was Tom, beaming at her, bouncing at her like a puppy, nothing like a magician.

  Except that that was what he wanted to talk about, exclusively; except that he wouldn’t call it magic, he wouldn’t call it anything, he wouldn’t even say what it was. Just, this fabulously exciting thing had happened this evening, it was like a test only it had gone extraordinarily better than he ever would have expected, he wasn’t allowed to talk about it yet and that was such a shame because it was just so cool, but it was like the scales had fallen from his eyes and he’d realized just how powerful the rational language could be, how it really truly was going to change the world and save the world, just as Webb had always said it would, and he’d been looking for her everywhere ever since and where on earth had she been . . .?

  I was right there, Tom. Watching you change the world. Nearly dying first, and being left terrified after; and I suppose that was Webb with you, was it? Webb who set up your little demonstration? That makes better sense . . .

  It was easier to see Webb as the true magician, setting his candles in place like he set his people, his network, all around the world. Setting them on guard, perhaps, like a snare for the unwary, her. What he’d been holding against her, guarding against, and why it was worth her life to him – or Kathie’s life before her – she couldn’t guess. She hadn’t been his enemy, till now.

  Now, though . . . Now she’d seen the power and felt the terror . . . Now she could be his enemy, oh yes.

  Tom’s too, perhaps. If Tom was knowingly standing with Webb, learning his magic. Understanding what it meant.

  She didn’t answer Tom’s question directly. Instead, she just shrugged and gestured with the dish mop. I’ve been right here, doing my share. Doing woman-things, cooking and cleaning. It was an alibi, of sorts. She didn’t think he was going to start interrogating anyone to find out how long she’d been there, when she turned up, where she might have been before that or what she might have been doing.

  Webb, she thought, would ask such questions, maybe. Webb might have noticed the candles knocked aside, out of his careful flight-path; he might know that something – someone – had triggered his snare. Someone more than the colony’s cat.

  He might even know who. He might—

  He might do anything, and there might be nothing she could do about it. He’d said nothing, done nothing over dinner; that meant nothing, of course. He wouldn’t want to show his hand. Reveal himself to the whole commune for what he was: magician. Only to his favourites, his special people, like Tom . . .

  Kathie had been one of his. She wondered what the girl had done, to have him turn against her so thoroughly. So viciously.

  She didn’t need to be vicious herself to get rid of Tom tonight. Only a little cold, a little distant, a little unkind. Just enough to suggest that she had better things to do than talk to him. Better things, like scrubbing out these pots and chatting over her shoulder with the other women, handing drying cloths around but not handing one to him. Not inviting him to be one of the women.

  Poor boy. There he was all full of himself and his own achievement, only wanting to share – and maybe wanting to share everything tonight, thinking he had a chance: her body and his in a bed for two, behind a door that closed, the crowning triumph of his perfect day – and here she was bursting his bubble with a casual pinprick, a cruel lack of interest.

  It took a little while to penetrate, but he did get the message in the end. She saw all the effervescence leak out of him, she saw him deflate, and at last she saw him creep away to – presumably – a solitary bed in a crowded dormitory. She hoped his disappointment wouldn’t fester, but if it did
, well. Again, there was nothing she could do.

  Herself, she kept to what shelter these new companions could provide. When the kitchen work was done, she drank a companionable mug of barleycup with them and shared a companionable joint; when it was time, she went upstairs with them to her own solitary bed in her own crowded dormitory.

  At first, she never thought she’d sleep.

  It was like Grace’s fantasy of a girls’ dormitory at boarding school. No doubt Georgie would know the reality of that, but this seemed close enough, all whispers and giggles from one end to the other, muttered complaints and hisses from the sleepy, the constant shift of restless bodies in the dark.

  Once her eyes adjusted, it wasn’t that dark. Windows were open, uncurtained; starlight was light enough for a sleepless girl to see figures move between the beds, to understand that actually not all of them were as solitary as her own.

  She saw one couple slip off towards the stairs and away. Hand in hand, she thought they went. She hadn’t checked from one end to the other, but she did think that there were only women in this long dorm, that they divided for sleeping in a way they didn’t for the bathrooms. Well. She’d lived a Soho party life for a while now, with prison before that and the country-house circuit before that; nothing was new to her any more, and she really didn’t care so long as no one came to trouble her, to try to share her bed.

  Honestly, between Grace and Georgie, her own bed wasn’t that solitary anyway. Sometimes she really did think she was two different women; there really wouldn’t be room for a third.

  At first she thought she’d never sleep. Then she thought she must have done.

  It was later, darker, quiet.

  No, not quiet. Quieter, yes. No more voices now.

  Something, though: something hung in the air, the memory of sound. Something had woken her.

  In her head – in her dream, if she’d been sleeping, if she’d been dreaming – it had been the sound of bells.

  Which was why she thought she must have slept and dreamed it. There weren’t any bells now. Tom had silenced them, or taken them away.