He was here, somehow. At Calderwood. Not in the murky waters of a lake, or in the ancient stones of a nightmare castle, not even in the mists of her addled imagination. But physically here. In her house. Her sanctuary. She whimpered, pulling Ruby even tighter to her. Burying the child’s head into the crook of her neck and shoulder so that she might not see it.
This was their home, where they were supposed to be safe, where Martha was supposed to keep Ruby safe. Her mouth attempted to form a word, to call Will’s name, but she suddenly remembered – how could she have forgotten – that there was no point. That Will wasn’t here. But Sue was . . . Sue was here. Martha opened her mouth to try to call her, but, like a scream in a nightmare, no sound came from her terrified throat. What little whisper she managed was instantly drowned by Ruby’s screams. Martha gazed at the figure that filled the doorway and realised that there was no one to help.
Jack Ball’s features were indistinguishable. Martha couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. How could this happen? What was he made of? Was he really there or was he a by-product of her imagination, something to do with the painkillers the hospital gave her maybe? Did they cause hallucinations when they wore off, perhaps? But what about the lights . . .
In a flash, the vision was gone. Martha found herself frozen with fear, immobile, still staring at the door where she had seen him, willing herself to get to her feet and fill that vacant space and pass through it. If she could just get out of the room, she thought . . . but then, what good would that do? Surely if he were in the dark water at Dubhglas Castle, and then in her cosy, safe living room at Calderwood, he could be anywhere?
Martha squeezed Ruby even tighter and staggered to her feet. The toddler’s tears had abated somewhat, but she was now struggling to be released, wriggling as hard as she could. Martha tried to restrain her. She couldn’t allow her loose in the room – who knew what other dangers were there? It became suddenly clear to her how the baby had managed to get hold of the scissors in the first place. A fresh wave of terror washed over her as she replayed the clinking noise she had heard in her mind. He had done it. Just as he had unlocked the sliding door at Dubhglas and released Ruby into the storm. He had been in here with her all along. Why was he here?
Alone with her child. Martha’s terror was replaced by desperation. What had he done, she wondered? And what else was he capable of doing?
Her answer came a second later as in the darkness she caught movement behind her, from the wall to the right of the fireplace. Was it a trick of the dark? Her tired, addled mind making the bookshelves look in the darkness like they were rocking back and forth somehow? Too late she realised that it was all too real. Martha screamed and twisted her body to cover Ruby’s as the shelves, floor to ceiling, packed tight with books, came crashing down on her, missing her head by inches but landing fully on her back. It wasn’t heavy enough to crush her but as books spilled off the shelves over her body like an insect swarm, she felt blow after blow as they bounced against her, sliding over her head, burying her. Her back ached where the shelves had impacted on her body, hunched in this position with Ruby screaming underneath her, the wriggling worse now, the cries of pain turning to terror as she was smothered by her mother.
Martha stayed where she was, raising her head, feeling the last of the books slide off her and on to the floor. Where was he gone? she wondered frantically.
She looked around her, tried to take in as much of the room as she could. She could see no dark shape in front of her – outlined against the window that overlooked the garden, for instance. But she couldn’t turn, couldn’t see what was behind. There was silence for a moment, an unnatural stillness broken then by Martha’s screams as crash after merciless crash came from around her. It was as if she were being shelled. Item after item, a glass dish here, a picture frame there, smashing around her head, each time missing, but getting closer and closer as her possessions, her trinkets rained down, flung by a force that she couldn’t see, that she didn’t want to see. She made herself as small as she could, curled into a tighter ball, folded her body as best she could around her daughter.
Finally, when Martha thought she could bear it no longer, it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The room was filled by an eerie, electric silence. Martha squirmed in discomfort, still trapped under the bookcase. She stopped, feeling instinctively that she should lie still, like a hunted animal, like she was playing dead. She mustered every ounce of self-control that she could as the room was still, and stayed still for a long time. For too long. She had to get out.
With a sudden, adrenalin-fuelled roar she pushed as hard as she could and managed to crawl out from under the bookcase, Ruby still clutched to her, hearing it crash onto the floor behind her. She stood then, grappling to hold on to the squirming toddler. She tried to clutch Ruby closer to her again, stumbling in an attempt to regain her balance as she looked around, her eyes flickering frantically from one corner of the room to the next in case he was there, in case he was moving quickly, in case another missile would be launched at them. Ruby, terrified, with a final lurch half-wriggled, half-fell from Martha’s arms. Grabbing and grappling at her clothing and then the air, Martha screamed as Ruby freed herself and bolted for the door. Martha howled her name, assaulted with fresh fright as she heard a voice from the hallway.
Then she realised it was Sue.
Martha was stumbling over her belongings, strewn all over the floor, when Sue was hit full-force with Ruby’s fleeing body. The toddler howled in frustration as she was hoisted into her godmother’s arms. Martha leaned against the arm of the couch for support, her relief that someone was holding Ruby, keeping her safe, enormous.
“Martha, what the hell is going on?” Sue cried, her voice filled with panic. “All the lights are blown – I was asleep, but I heard an almighty crash . . . are you okay? Ruby . . .”
Her voice trailed off as she made out the dark markings on the child’s face, and she turned her to catch the faint light streaming in through the fanlight over the hall door. She gasped as she saw the streaks of blood, catching Ruby’s head in the palm of her hand as the toddler arched her back in temper, in another attempt to writhe free.
“Jesus!” she exclaimed. “Is this . . .? Is it blood?”
Martha felt winded suddenly, closed her eyes for a moment to catch her breath. “She got hold of a nail scissors but I think she’s okay,” she managed. “But, Sue, it’s Ball . . . he’s here . . . in this room . . . he knocked over the shelves . . .”
Martha’s sentence faded into silence as she opened her eyes again. Because she could see him again. In the hall behind Sue. This time, his silhouette framed in the same beam of light that shone faintly through the fanlight. She could make it out clearly, his hands on his hips, watching the scene play out, observing them so that he could make his next move. Why? But this time, somehow, Martha could see his face. It shouldn’t have been possible – the shaft of light was too faint – but she could clearly make out his hideous sneer, the mottled skin streaked with greys and purples. The scar, closed this time, vivid against the paleness of the cheek through which it sliced. He stared at them, silent, cold, lifeless yet filled with danger.
Martha pointed. “There!” she screamed. “He’s there, Sue!”
But of course by the time Sue turned to look he was gone. And at the same time Martha felt his breath close against her neck before she felt the sudden and painful smash of something hitting her full force at the base of her back.
Sue turned back just in time to see Martha’s legs buckling underneath her and the fragments of what had been a small, wooden footstool lying on the floor. The whole thing had happened in an instant. Sue’s instinct was to run to Martha but something stopped her and she reversed the decision in a split second. Instead she turned in the opposite direction and ran, gripping the wriggling child as hard as she could.
Through the agony and disbelief of what had just happened, Martha felt relief wash over her as she heard the jingle of ke
ys from the hall table and then the front door slam. They were gone, at last. Safe. He mustn’t go after them, she thought and, instead of sinking to the floor as her body urged her, she grabbed the couch for support and turned her body as best she could to see behind her, to watch for the next attack.
It came as an ornamental lamp was knocked to the ground, the glass globe and the bulb it contained smashing into hundreds of tiny pieces on the wooden floor, exploding upwards. Martha’s hands flew to her face to defend her eyes and, in doing so, managed to unbalance herself. She instinctively took a step forward to regain her balance and in a second felt the sharp burning pain as the needles of broken bulb sank through her thin socks and into her foot. She cried out in pain, stepped backwards, was again unbalanced and instinctively brought the same foot down to prevent herself falling over but this time on yet more tiny pieces of glass. She screamed this time. As much in temper at the pain and frustration as anything else. Who did he think he was? Like Dan, how dare he invade the asylum that she had found in her home.
“What do you want from me?” she screamed at last.
An immediate, ominous stillness fell across the room.
Martha could feel her foot pulse as the blood continued to seep out. She could clearly detect the moist warmth spreading across the sole and it crossed her mind for a second to pray that the shards of glass could be removed easily. It was banished again as the stillness was broken by another shift in the darkness, this time in the alcove where her bookshelves had stood before falling, being knocked to the ground. He’s watching again, she thought. A part of her still petrified, yet relieved that he was here, with her, and not with Ruby. She constantly warned Will about this, she remembered. Don’t bring anything home with you, she remembered saying in the past. It was he who had told her that there was evidence of spirits attaching themselves to the living and travelling with them, covering great distances, going overseas, moving house. She hadn’t believed him. Yet here she was, the one who had brought someone – something – home. A physical threat. She had no idea what to do next as she fixed her eyes on the now-still darkness of the corner of the room. Was he even still there?
“What do you want from me?” Martha growled in a low voice. It trembled, she knew, but somehow, confronting him, communicating with him as if he were just another person made her feel braver.
“Why are you here?” she said, louder now. She held her injured foot an inch off the ground, to avoid pushing the glass in any further. She felt the sock adhere to her foot, made sticky with the blood that flowed from God knew how many wounds on the soft sole. Martha hissed, suddenly aware of the pain, which drove an anger to rise within her again.
“You have no right to be here!” she shouted, bellowing the words as loud as she could in a primal reaction to everything – the fear, the pain, the uncertainty.
Enough was enough.
“This is my home and you should just get back to where you belong, do you hear me?” she roared, her rage gathering momentum. “I know what you did, you know. What you did to Martin Pine, what you wanted to do to Laurence McKenzie. We all do. We found your photographs – we know what kind of man you were!”
She fell silent, hearing the reverberation of her own words in her ears. It all felt so strange, suddenly. The surroundings. This room where she had always been so comfortable now felt cavernous and unwelcoming, filled with places where things could hide. She suppressed a shiver that ran the length of her body, bitterly cold all of a sudden. And all the time the silence, as if he were biding his time . . .
How dare he, she thought again.
“The police know too,” she added, softer now.
For a brief moment she thought she felt the air grow thicker somehow. Her hair stood on end, as if some sort of electrical current had passed along the ground and up into her body. A reaction, she knew.
Keep him here.
“There are special places nowadays for people like you. You’d be on a list. And everyone would know exactly what you were capable of. Kids nowadays are warned about bullies and perverts like you!”
Her voice rang again around the room and she paused for breath, realising exactly what she was doing. Provoking, Will called it. Pushing spirit for a reaction. And not in a way that produced positive results either. Too late, she thought. She’d have to keep going, for Ruby’s sake. To give her and Sue time to get away. Sue would know what to do, would know to call Gabriel and get Ruby to A&E. In the meantime, however, what sort of reaction would greet her provocation?
The darkness seethed again in the alcove and Martha suppressed a whimper. Her bravery evaporated suddenly at the sight of the movement. It was like some deadly animal in the corner, waiting to pounce. He was so strong, she acknowledged. He had really hurt her. He was truly evil.
She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to continue. Make it sound good, she thought to herself. Don’t show him you’re scared.
“I’m not frightened of you,” she growled at the shape in the corner. “You think you’re the big tough guy but you’re not. You’re nothing but scum who hurts little children. Does that make you feel big? Does it?”
In retrospect, what happened next was indescribable but Martha could somehow remember every split second with terrifying clarity. It wasn’t any single thing but, as she provoked Jack Ball’s spirit, it felt as though she had ignited a nuclear explosion. Unable to distinguish whether it was in her head, or happening outside her body, Martha was suddenly filled with colour and sound, overwhelmed by a vision of his hideous face pressed up against hers. She felt everything then – electricity, pain, sorrow, regret, hatred, evil – the purest terror imaginable. It was as if all of the dead were suddenly more alive than they had ever been and Martha felt – no, Martha knew that she was not alone with Jack Ball in that room. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was all real. That the room had gradually filled with other presences.
Her body burned suddenly as she felt them all around her – her mother, her grandmother, Henry, Lily, Laurence McKenzie, Martin Pine . . . shielding her on all sides . . . dark shapes, there, yet not there . . . somehow working together to keep her safe.
And when it was over, when everything was still again and the space where she stood, so alone, covered in blood, her own and Ruby’s, was nothing more than her own living room, Martha experienced a feeling like no other. The house around her was more empty than it had ever been but she herself felt somehow totally fulfilled. And safe.
There was no doubt in her mind that Jack Ball was finally gone. The atmosphere was completely empty of him, of anyone or anything. What’s more, she knew that he hadn’t gone of his own volition, but had been taken away forcibly. By spirits and souls who wanted to protect her. Shades that she herself had somehow summoned.
As Martha turned and limped from the room, her body aching and beyond exhaustion, she realised that she hadn’t thought it possible to feel so fearless, yet she understood implicitly that she had never felt more protected in her life. And that something had changed forever.
CHAPTER 45
And at the precise moment that Calderwood grew suddenly empty, that Jack Ball’s spirit was forcibly removed by those who wished to keep Martha safe, Gabriel McKenzie woke with a start in his apartment a couple of miles away. As before, he knew that he was not alone. That there was someone in his room with him. Yet this time, unlike the last, he felt no fear, just comfort, as he sat up in his bed and saw at the foot the vision of a boy. Gabriel smiled and sat completely upright, a sense of calm pervading every inch of his body. With the inner voice that was only heard by one other soul, Gabriel greeted his brother’s spirit with relief.
CHAPTER 46
December 15th
For the second time in only a matter of weeks, Martha stood nervously in a room with Gabriel. She looked at her surroundings for the tenth time since entering. It was hard to believe that she had last been in this place only a fortnight before. It felt like a lifetime since that night a
t the lake. She had tried to block it from her mind and was still shaken at having had to relive it earlier that day for the Dubhglas police. They wanted a statement, they’d told her when they phoned, but needed to speak to her in person, to verify that what had happened involved no foul play. Martha was grateful to Gabriel for making the day trip with her, but hadn’t expected him to suddenly announce a diversion to Dubhglas Castle while they were there.
Martha limped over to the window, her foot still throbbing from the procedure to remove all of the glass from the shattered lamp. She stood beside Gabriel and together they gazed out over the lawn, over the remaining stumps of the copse of apple trees and beyond – to the glimpses of the lake, now glinting in the winter sunshine between the trees.
“You’re sure that you feel nothing here?” Gabriel asked again.
Martha sighed, and turned her back to the window, looking instead at the grim surroundings of the bedroom. “I told you, Gabriel, I can’t feel anything here. Why would I? I never did before?”
Gabriel tutted impatiently, dismissing what she said with a wave of his hand. He was tired of her constant denials.
“You know damn well what I mean when I ask you if you can feel anything,” he said flatly. “Now I’ve brought you here for a reason. And you bloody well agreed to come. Can you feel any spirits here now? Any evil? Any sense of discomfort?”
Martha shrugged and shook her head. She wished Gabriel would stop asking her these things. Not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she did. As sure as she was standing there, she knew that there was no threat in that room. The same as now there was no threat – or presence – in Gabriel’s apartment. Or in Calderwood.
“And you’re sure that there’s nothing at home either?” he continued.
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