by Kim Wilkins
“I just want Maisie to be home and for things to be normal again,” Janet said.
Adrian wanted that too. Craved a world where seances and spirit possession were back in books and movies where they belonged. “But Maisie has inherited some of this power, right?”
“How do you know that?” Janet snapped. “Did Maisie tell you that?”
Here, Adrian remembered that Roland had told him in confidence. “I…ah…no. Actually Roland mentioned it.”
“And you told Maisie?”
Adrian nodded, guilty.
Janet’s hands began to tremble once more. “But she wasn’t supposed to know. Ever. I took steps so she wouldn’t…” She trailed off, distressed.
“Janet?”
“I love my daughter, Adrian.”
“I know.”
“When she was little, she started having dreams,” Janet said, leaning forward and placing her glass firmly on the table. She stood and went to open a window. Cool, soft air rushed into the stuffy kitchen. She leaned on the sill. “I guess you’d call them prophetic dreams. My sister-in-law grew ill and Maisie knew about it before we did. That kind of thing. I was so terrified. She was such a tiny thing, all big black eyes and innocence, and I couldn’t bear that she had been touched in some way by that awful power that Sybill had. The dreams became more regular. She would complain of a headache before sleep, and then during the night or the next morning she’d come to our bed and say that she dreamed a bad dream, and almost always it would come true. I couldn’t bear it. So I did something that you might think is cruel or hateful, but I only did it because I loved her so much and I wanted to protect her.”
Adrian held his breath. A glimmer of lightning flashed far away on the horizon. “What did you do?”
“When she complained of a headache before bed, I would give her Ipecac syrup. To make her vomit.”
“Why?”
“So she began to associate these prophetic dreams with being sick. And then after a few months, I didn’t need to give her the syrup any more. She would have a dream and be sick immediately, by association. Then she stopped having the dreams – like her body was protecting itself. And I thought that the psychic power must have gone away.”
“So you think she’s safe now?” Adrian asked. “You think you drove this psychic ability out of her for good?” Though he shouldn’t approve of her methods, he had to admit he was glad she’d done it.
Janet shook her head. “Do you remember last September, one night Maisie became violently and unaccountably sick in the middle of the night?”
“Yes, of course. She threw up so much I thought we’d have to take her to hospital.”
“That was the night my mother died.”
“So…”
“It means two things, Adrian. First, she must still be psychic. Second, my mother and she must have an incredibly strong bond.”
Adrian shook his head. “You should have told us, Janet. If I’d known all this, I could have stopped her going.”
“She’ll be home soon,” Janet said. “And I doubt if we could have stopped her. You can imagine if I’d said, don’t go because my mother was a dangerous psychic – it would have made her twice as interested. Because, you see, Maisie has made an error of judgement. She thinks that all grandmothers make teacakes and love children. She thinks that just because Sybill was old she must have been kind and good.”
“But she wasn’t?” Adrian asked.
Janet turned her head and gazed outside at the rain. “No,” she said firmly, “she most certainly wasn’t.”
“This commuting is tiring me out,” Sacha said, dropping his van keys on the kitchen table.
“You don’t have to come over every night,” said Maisie, hopping up to kiss him. His hair smelled like a hot bread oven.
“Yes, I do. You’re only here for nine more days.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“Where’s Ma?”
“Taking a bath.” Mila was leaving in a few days, and Maisie had to admit she was glad about it. Sacha’s mother was working her hard, and robbing her of precious time alone with Sacha.
“You know,” said Sacha, “I was thinking about the diary today, Virgil’s letter, what Flood was up to.”
“Don’t get me started. I’ve given up on that.”
“You’re too easily discouraged.”
“I have nine days,” Maisie said, slumping into a chair. “The chances of me cracking a centuries-old secret are slim.”
“No. Think again. You have an intense psychic ability. You’ve been drawn to this place. Maisie, it might be your destiny to solve this mystery.”
She looked at him, eyes wide, afraid. “I…”
He sat across from her, his hands folded in front of him. “You’ve been to Flood’s chamber, in a dream.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Virgil got his information out of one of Flood’s books – something about ‘soul magic,’ right?”
“Yes,” she said again, slower this time. “What are you suggesting? That we go down there and see if the books are still there? Constable Blake would have his fat hands around our skinny necks before we even got the trapdoor open.”
“No, you don’t have to go down there for real. Just in a dream.”
Maisie contemplated the idea for a few moments. It unsettled her. She remembered the awful dread she had felt in her last dream of Flood’s chamber. “Do you think it will work?”
“It could. All you do is dream of his chamber again, then see if you can look in any of the books,” Sacha said. “Then we find out Solgreve’s nasty secret, maybe even how to get rid of the Wraiths.”
“I suppose I could try.”
“Tonight?”
She smiled across at him. “I don’t know if I can dream with you lying next to me.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “If you can sleep, you can dream. The way my mother is sharpening up your psychic skills, it should be really easy.”
In fact, it was easier than she could ever have imagined. She was dreaming about seashells disappearing into bigger seashells when awareness washed over her and she found herself outside on the street. Although she was getting used to the cold, dislocated feeling of travelling outside her body, she still hated it. She felt lonely and frightened, and wanted to get this trip over with as quickly as possible.
Just as Sacha had suggested, all Mila’s help had put Maisie in superb control of her Gift. No other dreams bled into the edges of this one. Outside in the winter night, she glided effortlessly towards the abbey, past the cemetery with the sea in the background, under bare trees and pale moonlight. She paused for a few moments at the entrance to the tunnel, remembering what Mila had advised her. Go directly to the books, use your presentient skills to select the correct one, don’t try to read it as much as to absorb it – then even if she didn’t remember the information consciously, Mila could put her into a trance and get her to recall it. She dove down through the hatch and along the tunnel, through the door into Flood’s chamber.
It was like hitting a wall. The feeling of drifting weightlessness was replaced by a massive resistance. She had long enough to draw a breath before she was repulsed violently, shot out of the room and back up the tunnel, only coming to rest when she found herself once more in the moonlight. But in that half-moment drawing breath in the chamber, she had seen something which horrified her into waking.
“Flood!” she cried, struggling to sit up. Sacha was awake next to her, taking her hand in his.
“What is it?” he asked.
She turned to him in the dark, her whole body trembling with fear. “He’s still alive,” she whispered in the dark. “Flood is still alive.”
Nobody slept after Maisie’s dream. Mila made tea and they sat in front of the fireplace. Tabby, excited that everybody was up at three a.m., raced about the house chasing imaginary mice.
“I suspected it, you know,” Maisie said, stretching her hands out towards the fire. Though no
thing could warm her after what she had seen. “After Cathy gave me that article about Doctor Flood, I had to allow that he might still be down there. But to see him. God, it was terrifying.”
“And he was protecting himself,” Mila said darkly. “He knew you were there.”
Sacha shook his head. “We’ve been idiots. We assumed that everything had changed between Georgette’s time and our own – but nothing has changed. Flood is still alive, he still commands the Wraiths, the local priest is still involved…And Sybill is dead because of it.”
“But what’s he doing down there? How is he staying alive?”
“I don’t know, but I bet Sybill knew. I bet that’s why he had her killed.”
Maisie dropped her head and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. “God, I wish I had more than nine days to sort this out.”
“Eight,” Sacha said.
Maisie looked up at Mila. “Any ideas?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“We need to know what he’s doing,” Sacha said. “Virgil knew. If only we could find that letter.”
“The letter is long gone.”
“Not necessarily. Georgette’s diary survived,” Mila said.
“I don’t know what else to do.” Maisie stood and paced. “I’m tired and I’m frustrated and I have to go home soon.”
“Maisie,” Mila ventured. “Do you think you could try to find the diary psychically?”
“You’re assuming there is more diary. The last entry was the night her husband died. If I were her, I wouldn’t want to write any more.”
“But she still had a son. And she wrote to keep herself sane, she often said as much.”
Maisie considered this, nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’ll try. Mila, will you help me get centred?”
Half an hour later, after a fruitless wander through the house hoping to sense the presence of Georgette’s diary, Maisie was despondent and just wanted to go back to sleep.
“It’s no use. We’ll have to admit that we’ll never know,” she said to Mila and Sacha. “And we can’t go to the police and tell them what happened because the story’s ridiculous and there’s a death certificate saying Sybill died of old age.”
“But what if Flood’s doing something evil down there?” Mila asked. “We have a responsibility to stop him.”
“We do?”
“Maisie, you’ve been given your Gift for a reason,” Mila snapped. “It’s not just to tell fortunes and make beer money.”
Maisie was about to come back with a sharp retort, but Sacha stepped in. “Maisie’s not just interested in beer money, Ma.”
“Sorry,” Mila said, instantly contrite. “I’m tired.”
“We’re all tired,” Maisie said, collapsing once more in front of the fireplace. She despised the inference that she was shallow.
“Well, let’s go back to bed and think about this some more in the morning,” Sacha suggested.
Maisie stared at the fireplace, the uneven brickwork and the old mosaic, and a sudden moment of clarity – natural, not supernatural – washed over her.
“Sacha, Mila. Sybill never found more of the diary.”
“Not that she told me,” Mila said.
“And she found all the other pieces while renovating.”
“Yes,” Sacha said slowly. “What are you getting at?”
“And do you remember the first time you came here and showed me how to light a fire, you told me of the only thing inside this house that is still original?”
Sacha and Mila both turned to the fireplace.
Maisie stood. “Let’s take it to pieces.”
Dawn was bleeding into the sky and the hearth was a mess of old mortar and chipped stones when they finally found it, rolled up in a hollowed-out brick in the right outer wall of the fireplace.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” Mila suggested. “It’s too cold in here without the fire burning.”
Maisie was already unrolling it, looking over the pages. “It’s legible. There’s nothing missing this time.”
“Is the letter still in there?”
Maisie flicked to the back, beyond many empty pages, but found nothing. “No,” she said with a tone of despair.
“But there might be other information we can use,” Sacha said.
“Kitchen,” Mila repeated. “I’ll make tea.”
Maisie wandered into the kitchen behind Sacha, trying to read the first few lines. “It’s in good condition, considering where it’s been.”
Sacha sat, and Mila went to fill the kettle. “Read it aloud, Maisie.”
“Okay,” she said, settling herself at the kitchen table and smoothing out the pages as well as she could. “Okay, listen up.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Saturday, 27th December 1794
Because I cannot starve, because I have a child to feed and clothe and care for, I can no longer sit in a miserable stupor. Virgil has been two days in the ground, and there is nothing I can do. It has addled my mind – I forget things, I lose track of time for I am always lost in a deep, dark reverie. Perhaps if I were not a mother, perhaps if Henri’s warm little heart did not beat, I might let my grief overcome me and sink full-willing into its pit, take my own life and sleep in peace. But Henri is very much here, dear little prince, and I simply must overcome my pain.
Flood owes Virgil money – it is as uncomplicated as that. The thought of going to him to request it is abhorrent to me. I still suspect him implicated in Virgil’s death, for the Wraiths belong to him. But perhaps, like rabid dogs, they also have a taste for death which is independent of their master, and Flood assured me once that he was extremely fond of Virgil. He showed me tolerance and kindness once before, I can only hope he will do so again.
Late
Henri is finally asleep. The poor babe has supped only on stale bread and watered-down milk, but he did not complain. Nor would he, Darling Child, for he is the most sweet-natured creature that ever God put on this earth. I watch him sometimes, late at night (for I can barely sleep at all since Christmas), and I see the resemblance to my family growing in him. How I wish that I could see instead the fine lineaments of Virgil’s countenance, for I could then feel as though I were gazing upon him again. It is not to be. Henri is a Chantelouve and not a Marley, not that it matters, for both names are now worth nothing.
I went to Flood. How my hands tremble while I write his abhorred name. I now have little doubt that he is responsible for Virgil’s death, that he is as evil and wicked a monster as Edward first suggested, those many happy months ago when we first came here.
His chamber was even dimmer than I remember. The single candle he burned was spluttering in the dark. Only the vague phosphorescence of the glass bricks behind him gave illumination to his work. He led me in, but this time he did not attempt any smiling or friendliness. He sat behind his bench and eyed me coolly. It took a short while for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I had reluctantly left Henri sleeping in his cradle at home, and was now very glad that I had not brought him. The dank atmosphere would have upset him, I am sure.
“What can I do for you, Mrs Marley?”
“I believe you owed my husband money. I have come to collect it.”
He didn’t refuse me outright. He gazed at me for a while, as though thinking. Or even as though he were trying to read my thoughts – I don’t know why I should suppose that, but there it is.
“Mrs Marley, did your husband tell you anything unusual before his death?”
“My husband was not in his wits all the time, Doctor Flood. He told me many unusual things.”
“I’m wondering specifically if he said anything unusual about me.”
Vaguely, because as I have said my mind has been so addled by grief, I remembered Virgil talking about the doctor’s extraordinarily advanced age, and that he used the Wraiths as his eyes and ears above ground. I shook my head, “No, he said nothing but that you owe him money, and that is why –”
“You believe me in le
ague with spirits, Mrs Marley?”
“I believe there are spirits in this village, and I purpose to leave it as soon as possible.”
“That would be wise.” He shifted in his chair, pressed his chin into his hand. “I believe that you know little about my activities, Mrs Marley, and you are safer the less you know of me. Were Virgil still alive, he would attest to that.”
A threat. At this precise moment I realised Flood had ordered Virgil’s murder. My blood grew icy in my hands, making my fingers tingle. Yes, my husband had spoken about Flood and some evil he was involved in, but I could not remember the details. So much of the last few days before Virgil’s death elude me in this way. It was all I could do just to repeat my earlier request, “Doctor Flood, the money.”
“No, I don’t believe I shall give it to you.”
“My child and I are starving. You once kept in your heart some fondness for Virgil. Please do not let his infant starve.”
“I care not for your infant. Virgil is gone. You are no use to me.”
“But we are owed the money, fairly and truly.” He laughed.
“Fair and true? Whatever shall you do, Mrs Marley? To whom will you turn? Can you imagine a single person who will hear your case?
“I –”
“Leave Solgreve. Beg elsewhere. A healthy young woman like you would find employment. Or you could return to France.”
“My family are all dead.” And the horror of my aloneness weighed upon me so heavily as I confessed this, that I could feel my knees tremble and begin to give beneath me.
He stood and strode towards me, catching me under the elbow and leading me towards the door. “To lose so many loved ones is careless, Mrs Marley. Perhaps you should exercise more caution with him who you have left.”
“But my money?”
“You are owed no money. Go.” He opened the door and I was gently propelled beyond it, into the dark tunnel.
And so that was my meeting with Flood. I don’t know quite what to make of him and of what he said. Truly, my mind is already so engaged with the barest details of surviving, that I scarce have the energy to contemplate it. I will leave Solgreve. God help me, I will go to Edward, for nothing is so important as eating. Tomorrow I will approach the church for some food for the few days until I leave for York.