by Amy Cross
Her voice trailed off, and they sat in silence for a moment.
“And hurt Lizzie?” the lawyer asked finally. “Is that your contention? Some kind of spirit or paranormal force is responsible for everything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours?”
She nodded.
“I have to tell you,” he continued, “that in a court of law, it's going to be very difficult to make those claims.”
“You wanted the truth,” Emily replied, with tears in her eyes. “This is the truth.”
“And this ghost, or whatever it is, caused the bruises on Lizzie's face?”
She nodded again.
“I see,” he muttered, making some notes on a pad of paper.
“We need to find somewhere else,” she told him. “I don't have any money, I don't have anyone I can stay with...”
“Don't worry about that right now.”
“Then where the hell are we going to sleep tonight?” she asked, as her desperation began to build again. “You don't get it, do you? That hotel room last night used up almost everything I've got left! I can't even work, because wherever I go, people find out who I am and they make my life hell! We're living off benefits, and even those are shrinking.”
“Well,” the lawyer replied cautiously, “you could work, it just might be uncomfortable. Maybe you have to ignore the brickbats people throw at you. Develop a tough skin, so to speak.”
She shook her head.
“You could try,” he added. “If not for your own sake, then for your daughter's.”
“I worked in a factory for a few weeks in November,” she replied. “At first I thought it was going to be okay, that I'd finally managed to get away from the past. And then one morning they all started making ghost noises. Someone had found out about what happened when I was a little girl, and for the next few days they just made more and more jokes. I tried to ignore them, but I was so nervous, I just ended up making mistakes until eventually I was fired. Then I tried finding online work, but I'm no good at that kind of thing, and now...” Looking down at her hands, she felt tears in her eyes. “I can't take Lizzie back to that house, but there's nowhere else for us to go. I'm scared they'll make her go to her father, which would be a disaster.”
“Have you considered changing your name? It'd be one way to try putting the past well and truly behind you?”
“Maybe I should have done that a long time ago,” she replied. “I'll start looking into it tonight, once I've got Lizzie back.”
“Emily,” the lawyer said after a moment, “the protective custody order for Elizabeth is for one month. That means she's going to be at the care home for thirty nights.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, shocked by the idea.
“I mean you won't be with her tonight.”
“No, I have to be with her!”
“It's not possible. Besides, you'll be transferred to a hospital so you can be examined and assessed, because the police want to understand your emotional state before they decide whether you can be released. You might get out tonight, or you might not. Most likely, the process will take a day or two.”
“I haven't done anything,” she replied, getting to her feet and hurrying to the door, only to find that it was locked. “Let me out of here! I have to go and find my daughter!”
“You're not helping yourself by getting upset,” the lawyer replied calmly. “Come and sit back down.”
“Where is she?” Emily asked, turning to him. “Where's Lizzie?”
“I can't divulge that information.”
“Where's my daughter?” she screamed. “I want to see her right now! She needs me! She -”
Before she could finish, the door was pushed open, knocking her forward as two police officers hurried through and grabbed her arms.
“It's okay,” the lawyer told them, “she's just a little -”
“Lizzie!” she shouted, trying to get free as the officers turned her around and pushed her firmly against the wall. “Lizzie, I'm coming! Lizzie!”
Chapter Twenty-One
“And you'll need this,” the receptionist added, sliding the key-card over to Robert. “Take the elevator to the fourth floor, turn left when you exit and you'll find room 405 at the first corner.”
***
“Jesus,” he muttered as he sat on the edge of the bed and felt a twinge of pain in his knees. “Oh... God...”
Looking around the room for a moment, he saw all the usual suspects of a mid-price hotel: a flat-screen TV, a single bed, a trouser-press he'd never use, a pile of glossy, useless magazines on the table by the window. Reaching into his pocket, he took out his phone and tried to call Jenna, only to get put straight through to her voice-mail.
“It's me,” he told her, “I just... Well, I arrived, and now I'm kicking my heels for the night. This whole thing seems insane, but...” He paused, trying to imagine her reaction when she heard the message. “I hope you're right,” he continued finally. “I hope this really is the right thing to do. I've got a horrible feeling it could blow up in my face and make things worse for everyone.” Another pause. “Give me a ring when you get this.”
Cutting the call, he tossed the phone aside.
“What am I doing here?” he whispered, leaning back on the bed and staring up at the stationary fan. “Damn you, Jenna, why did I let you talk me into this?”
***
“You have to understand that Lizzie only arrived with us three days ago,” Catherine explained the following morning as they headed along the corridor, “and we don't try to push them too hard in the early stages. We like to let the children get used to their new surroundings before we really move into the tough questions. Some of them are very damaged.”
“Of course,” he replied. As soon as they stopped at a window overlooking the main play area, he spotted a little girl with a bruised face sitting all alone, and he knew she was the one he'd come to see. She even looked like Emily, enough to send a shiver down his spine.
“She misses her mother,” Catherine continued, with a hint of sadness in her voice. “All she asks about is when she's going to see her again. One thing I can say for certain is that she's definitely not scared of going back to her, although the house is another matter.”
“Is Emily not allowed to visit?”
“Emily...” She paused. “I don't know how much you've been told, but Emily Stone was committed on a non-voluntary basis to a psychiatric facility at the hospital in Mellingham. From what I gather, she had an episode at the police station when she was informed that she wouldn't be able to see Lizzie for a while. She had to be restrained by officers, and I think she even managed to give one of them a cut lip before they got her under control.”
“So she's not going anywhere in the near future,” Robert muttered.
“They might release her at any time, but she certainly won't be told where Lizzie's being kept.”
“And then what?”
“We have Lizzie for another twenty-seven days, minimum, but I imagine we'll find a home to take her after that. My understanding is that given her emotional state and the continued questions surrounding recent events, Ms. Stone would be unlikely to gain custody of her daughter any time soon.”
“What about Lizzie's father?”
“He lives in Scotland and has indicated that he can't take her right now.”
“She looks...” Pausing for a moment, Robert watched as Lizzie flicked through a book. He still wasn't entirely sure why he'd made the journey, although he'd assumed it was due to some ill-advised attempt to show Jenna that he could still rouse himself to action; now, however, he realized for the first time that he actually might be able to help Lizzie, and that there was a real danger the girl could end up losing her mind, just like Emily. “She looks sad,” he said finally. “I remember her mother had the same look about her, back in the day.”
“Do you have children, Doctor Slocombe?”
He shook his head, while keeping his eyes fixed on Lizzie.
“She's a very sweet girl,” Catherine continued. “Kind of quiet, maybe shy, definitely reserved, but also intelligent.” Reaching out, she knocked gently on the window. When Lizzie looked over at them, Catherine gestured for her to come out. “She also has the loudest nightmares of any child who's ever been here.”
“Loud?” he asked.
“Screaming in the middle of the night. Pure terror in her eyes, waking up covered in sweat, and just... shaking, her whole body, right to the core. Sometimes the fear is so bad, she's soiled herself. The craziest part is, she always swears she doesn't remember what the nightmares are about.”
***
“Nothing,” Lizzie whispered, staring down at the floor with tired, worried eyes. She'd clearly been crying a lot.
“Nothing?”
She shook her head.
“But you wake screaming,” Robert continued, making a note in his journal. “Don't you remember what you were dreaming about in the moments before that? Not even little flashes?”
She paused for a moment, and then she shook her head again.
“Are you telling me the truth?”
She paused again, before looking over at him.
“I understand that you might want to lie,” he told her, “but there's really no point.”
“I...” Another pause. “I'm not lying.”
“And what about all the pauses?” he asked. “Every time I ask you a question, you seem to pause, as if you need to think about your answer first.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out.
“Did your mother teach you to do that?”
No reply.
“Oh, the irony,” he muttered, making another note. “If your dreams -”
“There are people,” she said suddenly.
He looked back at her. “What kind of people?”
“Dead people.”
He watched her for a moment. She looked so much like Emily, the resemblance was uncanny, and Robert couldn't shake the feeling that he was falling for exactly the same trick as before, albeit one generation later. Still, he felt he was better placed to deal with lies this time around, since he was approaching the situation from a position of skepticism rather than belief. He'd also learned to never trust anyone, not even a child.
“What kind of dead people?” he asked cautiously.
“Shouting,” she replied, as her voice started to tremble a little. “Screaming. They want to get out.”
“Out of where?”
“The dead place.”
He allowed himself a faint smile as he realized Emily must have coached the girl. After all, this part of the story was simply too familiar. “Did your mother tell you that's what it's called?”
She shook her head.
“Then who did?”
She wriggled on her seat a little. “The voice.”
“And what voice is that?”
She paused, and then she shrugged.
“But these dead people in their dead place,” he continued. “Do they want to get out and come here? Is that what you're saying?”
“The voice says they want to come through people. Certain people. People who make good doors.”
“And you're a good door?”
She nodded.
“Just like your mother, huh?” he asked.
“I don't know. The voice didn't say anything about her.”
“Right.” He made another note. “This is actually quite similar to the things your mother told me a long time ago, Lizzie. Almost word for word, in fact.”
“Mummy told you about the dead place?” she asked with a hint of surprise in her voice. “Have you seen her? Is she here?”
“No, she's not here, she's... She's somewhere else, Lizzie.”
“I want to see her.”
“You can't. Not right now.”
Lizzie frowned, as if she was focusing on holding back the tears.
“Has your mother talked to you about this a lot?” he asked. “Did she tell you what you can and can't tell me?”
She shook her head.
“It's okay if she did,” he continued. “I just need to know.”
“She didn't. The dreams are... They didn't start until I came here.”
“So you feel as if whatever was in the house has followed you to this place?”
She paused, as if she was giving the matter great thought, before finally nodding again.
“More pauses?” he asked, with a faint smile.
No reply.
“And we're, what, about twenty miles from the house?” He made another note. “On a scale of one to ten, Lizzie, with one being -”
“It said the Myrkia is true,” Lizzie said suddenly.
“The -” He paused. “I'm sorry?”
“I think that's the word. Myrkia? Morkia? The voice said that everything written in the Myrkia will come true. I asked what that meant. Mummy didn't know, but the voice said...”
She paused again, as if she was too scared to continue.
“The Myrkia? Well, Lizzie, that's a...” For a moment, he felt a sensation he hadn't felt for a long time, as if he was entering the shadow of something he didn't understand. “It sounds to me,” he continued finally, “as if your mother has been talking to you a lot, even if you don't want to admit it. Tell me something, does she spend a lot of time on the internet, looking things up?”
“I don't know.”
“Well, you don't want to...” He sighed, trying to work out how best to explain things to a child. “You were probably raised to think that your mother is always right and that she always tells the truth, but you need to understand that sometimes adults get... poorly. They start saying things that are wrong, and it can be hard to know what to believe and what to ignore.”
“Mummy didn't tell me about the Myrkia,” she replied. “It was the voice that told me about it.”
“Is that really true, Lizzie?” He paused for a moment, hoping to give her time to think and to reflect on what she was saying. “Your mother is sick and she might have tried to persuade you that a voice has been talking to you, but if you think really hard about everything that has happened, you'll realize that maybe she's made you remember things that aren't real. For example -”
“The voice told me,” she said firmly.
“I'm sure that's what your mother -”
“Everything in the Myrkia is going to come to pass,” Lizzie continued, with a hint of fear in her voice. “Everything. That's what the voice told me. The age of chaos, the opening of the dead space, the rise of the twelve-sided god, it's all true.” She paused, fixing him with a determined, unblinking stare, and then slowly she lowered her head, looking down at her shoes. “The voice told me about the place she's trying to escape,” she continued. “She said the world of the dead is like the world of the living in some ways, that...”
He waited for her to finish.
“That what?” he asked finally.
No reply.
He waited.
“Lizzie?”
After a moment, he realized she seemed to be whispering to herself. He couldn't see her face, but he could tell her lips were moving and he could hear the faintest, softest voice.
“Lizzie, can you look at me?”
He waited again.
“Lizzie, I want you to look at me.”
No reply.
Sighing, he got to his feet and moved his chair closer, finally sitting down next to her.
“Lizzie,” he said after a moment, “I'm here to help you. I don't know if your mother threatened you or told you bad things would happen if you told the truth, but I'm worried -”
“Hello again,” Lizzie said suddenly, still looking down. This time, however, her voice sounded darker and deeper, almost as if someone else was speaking through her.
“Hello, Lizzie.” He paused. “Did your mother teach you to -”
Suddenly Lizzie looked up at him, staring with unblinking eyes and the faintest of smiles.
“Right,” he continued, trying not to let her see that he felt unnerved. “Your mother coached you to give this little performance, did she?”
“I knew you'd be here again,” Lizzie told him, tilting her head slightly. “I've seen you before.”
“You have?”
“I've looked out of this place through other eyes,” she continued, “and you were there. You were younger, but it was definitely you.”
Sighing, he made a note on his pad.
“It took me so long to climb up here,” Lizzie continued, as her voice became even deeper. “I'm a much better climber than the others.”
“And what exactly have you been climbing up?” he asked.
“The wall of souls,” she replied. “I had to reach one near the top, one I could look out through and see you. One I might be able to break through, in time.”
“Lizzie -”
“The wall,” she continued, “is vast and huge. It rises up further than the eye can see, and it runs in both directions. I climbed for days, and I still can't see the top. The wall is made of the souls of living people, and most of them are strong but some... Some can be broken through. In this part of the dead place, we push and push at this wall, sometimes we climb up, trying to find one of the weak points. We scream and beg and claw at each other, trying to escape the darkness that surrounds us. All we want is to get through, to break into the light of our world, but it's so hard. I'm better than most of them, though. I can climb much higher.” Slowly, her smile began to grow. “I will get through eventually.”
Robert waited for her to continue, but she seemed lost in thought.
“Lizzie?” he said finally. “Did your mother tell you this story?”