Out of the Depths

by Cathy MacPhail

  And I had burned my boats with him too. He hated me.

  I would have left at lunchtime, if it hadn’t been for Jazz and Aisha. But nothing happened I couldn’t handle because they were beside me, and the sun grew strong, and filled the long corridors with spears of yellow light.

  But it didn’t last.

  It was between classes. The corridors were filled with herds of pupils stampeding to the next class.

  And there he was again, standing amongst them, solid as they were. Ben Kincaid, staring at me.

  I turned to Jazz and Aisha, right beside me, and it seemed they were in a different time. Moving slower than I was, and slower still, until they stopped, everyone stopped. As if time had been frozen.

  I looked back at Ben Kincaid. His eyes were still watching me, but he began to back along the corridor. He wanted me to follow him. He beckoned me to follow him. Holding out his hands, calling me to him. ‘Help me, Tyler.’

  I didn’t understand what was happening, but I wasn’t going to let it go. Not this time. I was going wherever he led me.

  34

  The school was silent, every pupil still as death, moving yet not moving. As if they were the ghosts, not Ben Kincaid. I brushed past them, my eyes never leaving the boy I was following. He turned back to me at the end of the long corridor and his face was pale and there were shadows under his eyes. But he was as real as I was. How could he be a ghost? He was real. Or I was mad. I turned back for a split second to look at Jazz, held by some kind of magic.

  When I turned back, he was gone. In the blink of an eye, he had vanished. The corridor led off in three directions, to the right, to the left, and straight ahead, up a short flight of steps. I hadn’t seen which way he’d taken. There was no sign of him. No sound of him. Yet, I knew this time I couldn’t let him go. I had to confront him. I had to exorcise Ben Kincaid. This had to be over.

  I stood at the crossroads at the end of the corridor looking from one way to another. I felt like crying again.

  And then something made me look up at the statue in the corner. She stood on her plinth, with a kindly smile on her face, roses at her feet and her alabaster hand outstretched. A saint who always had her fingers clasped in prayer, I was sure of it, with rosaries wound round her closed hands. Now the beads hung from her outstretched fingers. As if she was pointing down the corridor to the left, as if she was telling me, ‘Go that way.’

  The kindly face, the pointing fingers. The eyes watching me. The statues were always pointing, or looking a certain way. I remembered Mum’s story about my gran. And the picture that had been trying to tell her something.

  Was that what they had been doing all along, since I came here? Those statues that had so frightened me? Always helping me, always trying to show me the way. Never trying to make me afraid? Wanting me to help Ben Kincaid too?

  I began to run, and as I ran I looked at each statue I passed. Each one pointed the way for me, first this way, then that, as I twisted and turned round corners, up staircases, while pupils barely moved around me. All the statues were telling me where to go, all sending me after Ben Kincaid. I didn’t yet understand why. I only knew I had to follow where they led.

  I was at the far end of the school now. The corridors were almost empty here. There were no classrooms. The only sound I could hear was the tap of my own footsteps. I had lost sight of Ben Kincaid, but I knew this time I wasn’t going to lose him. The statues wanted me to find him. They’d always wanted me to find him. So that I could help him. They wanted to help him too. I knew that now as sure as I knew anything.

  I stopped running. And looked behind me. The corridor stretched down into blackness, into the shadowy gloom. It was silent, empty.

  The sky grew dark. I could see through the high windows the black, ominous clouds racing past. It was as if night had fallen fast.

  I was alone here. My heart beat wildly. My mouth was dry as dust. Everything was strange, weird.

  And now I was afraid. Afraid of the darkness all around me. Something was changing and I didn’t know what.

  Yet, I couldn’t go back. Didn’t know how, and anyway, didn’t dare go back into that gloom. I could only go on. I had no choice.

  There was another statue ahead of me. His eyes were turned towards me, watching me. I imagined they were alive. All the statues were alive. I imagined they could step from their plinths at any moment and walk beside me. I looked at his hands. And they were pointing down towards the chapel.

  I had known it was here I was headed, here I was being led. The inevitable place to finish the story. Ben Kincaid was murdered there. I knew then that’s where I would find him.

  I began to run towards it.

  35

  The chapel door lay closed before me. But even as I ran towards it, the door swung open. As if it had been waiting for me. As if the chapel was waiting for me.

  Expecting me.

  I stepped warily inside. The chapel had been dark and silent when I’d come with Jazz and Aisha. Never used since Ben Kincaid’s murder. A sacrilege had been committed here. I’d wondered why it hadn’t been destroyed, if the memory of that murder had been so appalling.

  Yet, here, now, the chapel had come alive. Candles were flickering around the statues, and there were more statues now too, not just St Anthony. There were statues in every alcove, on every altar. And every altar was draped with a crisp white cloth, trimmed with gold. There were fresh flowers in every vase and the air was filled with their scent, and with a hint of incense.

  And still dominating it all, in the corner of the chapel, St Anthony. He carried the baby Jesus in his arms. I moved towards him, waiting for him to guide me, by a look, by a gesture. But nothing happened. He stayed still.

  Why had I been brought here?

  I looked again at St Anthony. He was the patron saint of lost things … and I clasped my hands over my mouth as I realised the truth.

  The finder of lost things!

  Standing high on his plinth.

  My mind went back to the day we had all tumbled against another statue, and I had seen inside the plinth. And it had been hollow. Hadn’t I seen how hollow the plinths were?

  A space large enough for a body, for Ben Kincaid’s body.

  And it seemed to me in that split second I understood everything. Why I had been led here, to the chapel.

  Out of the depths.

  Not deep in the lake at all.

  But in the depths of St Anthony’s plinth.

  I thought back to the night of the murder. The story I’d read on a website. Father Michael desperately trying to think of where he could hide Ben’s body. He only had moments to cover his terrible deed, and he saw the statue. Could he have moved it by himself? Lifted Ben’s body, dropped it inside? He looked like a big, powerful man in the photo I had seen. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

  And his mind was so taken up with hiding the body, that he’d forgotten to hide the other thing that could convict him … the knife with Ben’s blood, and his fingerprints all over it. Perhaps he’d been disturbed, had heard someone coming, and had snatched up the knife slipped it in his pocket, and he had run.

  I took a step back. My mind was racing. Surely this was the truth at last.

  Ben Kincaid’s body had been hidden in this chapel all along.

  Could I move the statue myself? Impossible! Did I have the nerve to push it over? See Ben’s bones tumble out on to the chapel floor? Did I even have the strength to push it over, smash it on the cold stone floor, see it fragment into tiny pieces? St Anthony? Or would that be a sacrilege too?

  And did I have any other choice? No one would ever listen to me again, not after yesterday. How could I convince anyone that Ben’s body was there?

  At that second, I heard the chapel door slam open, and I turned sharply.

  Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Couldn’t be happening!

  Ben Kincaid came rushing in.

  But not the Ben Kincaid I had seen with the pale face and
the dark shadowed eyes.

  No, this Ben Kincaid was bursting with life. And with something else. With fear. No, more than fear. Terror. I could see it in his wild eyes. There was sweat dripping from his brow.

  He looked around the chapel, as if he was searching for somewhere to hide. Then he glanced back at the door. There was no silence now. I could hear footsteps pounding down the corridor towards the chapel, angry footsteps. Then Ben’s terrified eyes turned to me. And I knew he could see me.

  ‘Help me, Tyler,’ he pleaded. ‘Help me!’

  Then he was past me, searching desperately for a hiding place.

  ‘How can I help you?’ I called to him, ran after him. I even reached out to him, but my hands passed through his body and I stumbled back, terrified. He turned back for a second and his glance passed through me too. He couldn’t see me. I seemed to have disappeared for him now.

  He cowered at the foot of St Anthony’s statue. I could hear those angry footsteps hurrying ever closer, and I saw the terror in Ben Kincaid’s face … and I knew then what I was about to witness.

  The murder of Ben Kincaid.

  My heart drummed in my chest. I was as terrified as Ben now. I didn’t want to watch this. Didn’t want to be here. My eyes, like Ben’s, were fixed on the chapel door. And the sound of those footsteps coming closer.

  Any second now Father Michael would burst through, and I was afraid. I wanted to run, but there was no escape. Not for me. Not for Ben Kincaid.

  The footsteps stopped. The door flew open with such force it crashed against a pew, sent it flying backwards to the floor. And Ben Kincaid’s murderer came rushing in.

  But it wasn’t Father Michael.

  It was Mr Hyslop.

  36

  It was the Rector. Mr Hyslop. Younger, as I’d seen him in the photograph outside his office, but unmistakable. His eyes were wild, mad eyes. He held the long, sharp knife in his trembling right hand, held it ready to strike.

  He looked around, searching the gloomy chapel for Ben. ‘You can’t hide from me, Ben Kincaid.’ There was madness even in his voice. It shook with fury. I moved further against the wall, as if he might see me too. But his gaze passed over me, unseeing. His anger terrified me.

  The Rector had murdered Ben Kincaid. The truth of it amazed me and yet all at once it seemed so logical. Why shouldn’t it be him? The teacher who had stayed in the school, rising to Rector. In control. Not allowing the chapel to be pulled down, keeping St Anthony there, isolated and alone, because that way the statue wouldn’t be moved.

  The statue that hid his secret.

  The statue that hid his guilt.

  And he’d let Father Michael take the blame? Why? How could anyone be so evil?

  There was a sound: Ben stumbling back, trying to squeeze himself further behind the statue. Mr Hyslop caught sight of him then.

  ‘There you are! There you are!’ he screamed at him. He lifted the knife high. It was like a spear of silver caught in the candlelight.

  Ben pushed himself far into the corner, but he had chosen a place with no escape. There was nowhere left for him to run. He was cornered, like a rat.

  ‘Please!’ he pleaded, his voice shaking with fear. But the Rector had no mercy in him. Madness has no mercy. He ran at Ben. In a second he would plunge that knife into him … Ben Kincaid was about to die, again.

  NO!

  Couldn’t let that happen. Not again!

  Some instinct took over. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I ran from my hiding place, screaming, yelling, even though I knew I could do nothing to stop them, even though I knew they couldn’t see me, still I ran between them, held up my arms and screamed out, ‘Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!’

  And the Rector fell back. His eyes flared in terror, and the knife dropped with an echoing clatter on to the chapel floor.

  He could see me.

  He crossed his arms in front of him, as if he was protecting himself from me. ‘Who are you?’ His voice trembled with terror. ‘Who are you?’ And then he crumpled to the ground. His eyes never left me. Not once.

  I turned to Ben. He was still crouched behind the statues, watching me too. Tears of relief streamed down his face. ‘I knew you would help me. I knew it … Thank you, Tyler, thank you …’

  I was mixed up and afraid, and couldn’t understand anything. I wanted to ask him what was happening, but he was on his feet, and running past me. Out of the chapel. I tried to grab him, wanted some kind of explanation, but once again, my hands touched only air. I wanted to scream out. Wanted someone to explain what was happening to me. But Ben was gone. Escaping while he could, afraid perhaps that the Rector would, even now, leap to his feet, snatch up the knife. Come after him again.

  But there was no real fear of that happening. Not now. The Rector lay at the feet of St Anthony, whimpering. His whole body was shaking. He still looked at me, yet through me, terror never leaving his eyes. And in that second I realised the truth. That to him, I was the ghost.

  I was the ghost.

  He held out his hands towards me, spreading his fingers wide, as if he was shielding himself from me. As if I was some evil spirit he was desperate to ward off. ‘Who are you?’ he said again.

  I could only stand and watch while he lay there, terrified, his eyes never leaving me. Was it seconds later or minutes? Time was nothing now. Another figure burst into the chapel.

  And this time it was Father Michael.

  He hurried across to the Rector, bent to him, took his hands in his own. His words were soft. ‘What has happened here?’

  The Rector’s answer came in a sob. ‘Father Michael … I almost killed him. I wanted to kill him. He had broken into the school. I found him stealing. You should have heard the way he taunted me. The way he always taunts me. I couldn’t take it any more. I lost my mind. I wanted to kill him.’

  ‘But you didn’t kill him,’ Father Michael said. ‘In that final moment, you couldn’t do it. You’re not a killer, Robert.’

  The Rector looked up once again at me. He raised a wavering hand. ‘She stopped me, Father. I would have killed him, if it hadn’t been for her. She saved both of us.’

  Father Michael looked up then. How could I ever have thought his blue eyes were sinister? They were full of kindness and concern. But his gaze looked beyond me, or through me. And to him I was invisible.

  ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s there, I tell you. Right in front of you …’ The Rector’s voice grew hysterical. His fingers clutched at Father Michael’s robes. ‘You must see her!’

  Yet, when the Rector looked back I saw that I was gone for him now too. No longer there.

  ‘Maybe,’ Father Michael said softly, ‘she was your guardian angel.’

  He helped Mr Hyslop to his feet. ‘No harm’s been done here. I’ll help you. You need to get away from this school for a while. We’ll help Ben too.’

  I stood unseen, watching them. Father Michael picked up the knife, slipped it into his pocket. Was that what had happened before? It seemed clear to me now. The Rector had killed Ben, hidden his body. The Rector was strong enough to do that. He’d been a mountain climber, an athlete. And when Father Michael arrived, the Rector had confessed to him, I bet he had. Mr Hyslop had confessed his crime, and so Father Michael had no choice but never to tell, to carry that confession to his own grave. And perhaps on that night long ago, he had also picked up the bloodstained knife, putting his own fingerprints all over it.

  But what had happened here now? Had I really changed anything?

  I watched as the Rector and Father Michael seemed to dissolve like smoke into the shadows of the chapel.

  I was alone.

  37

  I was terrified to leave the chapel. Afraid of what I’d find out there. I looked up through the windows. The clouds seemed to be standing still, as if time itself had stopped. And then the sky changed, the moon disappeared, it grew light again, then dark. The clouds began to spin across the sky. The world was spinning out
of control. It was as if I was on a rollercoaster. I stumbled against one of the pews, clutched at it to steady myself, and still the world spun. Faster and faster, I dared not look. I tried to move my hands to cover my eyes. I ordered them to move but they would not obey me. I was sure any second the sky would fall, the moon, the sun would come crashing down on me.

  At last my hands moved. I folded my arms across my eyes and with nothing to hold on to I fell back against a pew and cracked my head. Did I black out? For a second I thought I had, and then I heard the chapel door bang open. I screamed. I wasn’t alone any more.

  ‘Tyler, what on earth are you doing in here?’

  It was Jazz. Could it really be Jazz? I peered over my elbow. ‘Is that you?’

  She stepped towards me nonchalantly. It was Jazz. Flesh and blood and pierced eyebrow and all.

  ‘Are you OK?’ She rubbed at my head. ‘Did you trip up?’

  I jumped to my feet. ‘Oh, Jazz, something terrible happened in here.’

  ‘Something’s happened all right. We are going to get into so much bother. We’re late for the next lesson.’

  And Aisha was there too, holding open the door. She was trying hard not to smile. ‘We’ve been hunting for you. What are you doing in here?’

  I was dying to tell someone, to tell them. ‘I stopped the murder. I don’t know what it means, but I stopped the murder. I saw it all happening again in here, just moments ago.’ Or … had it been thirty years ago? I was so confused.

  Jazz glanced back at Aisha, then at me. What she said next stunned me.

  ‘What murder?’ she asked me.

  I was puzzled. ‘You know what murder. Ben Kincaid’s murder. And it wasn’t Father Michael who did it at all. It was the Rector, Mr Hyslop.’

  Jazz stopped in her tracks. Pulled at me. ‘What are you talking about, Tyler? Ben Kincaid got murdered? Am I missing something here?’