The Shape of Darkness

by Laura Purcell

  Her carpet bag contains a set of Cedric’s clothes and a large cap that belonged to Agnes’s grandfather. One of Papa’s greatcoats sits under the collection, still faintly speckled with tobacco.

  ‘If you could not do a séance today, I was going to ask you to creep out and come to my house at a later date,’ Agnes explains. ‘I have drawn you a detailed map of the buildings, you see. You can understand where to go even if you cannot read the words. I thought that if you dressed as a boy, there would be less danger in walking alone …’ Only now does she realise how absurd this plan sounds. Hurriedly, she puts the map away. ‘But tonight I can bring you there myself. If I wear the greatcoat, we will pass for a man and his son, no one will remark upon it. And our séance will not be disturbed at my house. My family sleep deeply, believe me.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ Pearl asserts.

  Of course she isn’t. The girl may be young, but she has a steady head on her shoulders, which is more than Agnes can say for herself. What was she thinking? Has she really grown desperate enough to come up with this half-baked scheme?

  She nods, defeated. ‘I understand.’

  Pearl watches her repack. The small, white face shows reluctance, but there is something harder under there, pushing against it.

  ‘We could … go upstairs,’ she suggests. ‘Further away from Myrtle. Maybe we won’t wake her.’ The light is burning dangerously near to Pearl’s fingers and she blows it out. ‘But there’s a condition,’ her whisper continues from the pitch-blackness. ‘I won’t do any séances unless you agree to it.’

  ‘Anything, my dear.’

  ‘These circles won’t just be for you. We’ll talk to your dead men, but then I want to contact my mother.’

  Agnes feels a flicker of annoyance; she does not see why the girl cannot do that in her own time, but in the grand scheme of things, what is one more ghost amongst so many? She does not hold the power here; she must remember that. ‘Very well. I agree.’

  Small, hot fingers thread themselves through her own. The little hand tugs at her, forces her to walk onwards into the dark.

  The bedroom door opens softly. Pearl seems perfectly comfortable in this twilit world, pulling her down the hall and up the first few stairs with ease.

  Agnes reaches out a hand for the bannister. She cannot see her feet.

  ‘Shhh!’ Pearl hushes her.

  Shabby as the house is, the stairs are actually in better condition than the ones where Agnes lives; they have endured less use and the treads hold their tongues.

  On the landing, Pearl loses some of her confidence. She does not seem to know which way to turn. Choosing a door on the left-hand side, she drags Agnes into a room that is bare of furniture and even carpet. Ash stains the maw of the fireplace. There is one bottle-glass casement, blinded by dirt, but it lets in a faint tint of lamplight from the streets.

  Pearl scowls. ‘I’d prefer it to be completely dark.’

  ‘Oh, but we had candles at the séance. Surely this light is comparable? I am positive a talented girl like you can manage.’

  Pearl shrugs and seats herself cross-legged on the floor. Apparently it does not occur to her that Agnes cannot do the same with ease.

  She holds out two lily-white palms. ‘Come on, then. Form the circle.’

  Painfully, Agnes lowers herself onto her knees. Her dark skirts pool around her. She hopes there are no mouse droppings on the floorboards.

  She reaches out, clasps the child’s hands in hers.

  There is a connection.

  She remembers standing like this with Montague, ready to lead a dance.

  ‘Do we … sing?’

  Pearl shakes her head. Locks of hair pale as lint rustle. ‘We’re doing it my way tonight.’

  Agnes attempts to concentrate, shut out the squalor and focus upon the little girl who, in another life, might have been her own. She notices there is a yellowish tinge to her, like the first rays of a rising sun.

  ‘No talking through me,’ Pearl orders whatever she sees in the darkness. ‘I don’t want to be possessed this time. You can speak to me with knocking. Three raps for yes, one for no. Two if you’re not sure.’

  Agnes feels a tremor in the small hands – or is it in her own?

  Pearl closes her eyes and waits. Agnes does not feel comfortable doing the same. Whatever takes place here tonight, she needs to see it.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ Pearl calls softly.

  Silence replies.

  Time seems to stretch. The house groans, settling. Five, perhaps ten minutes pass.

  Eventually, Agnes tires of staring at Pearl and begins to study the leprous walls of the room. They are misty, blurring together. She can just make out a faint outline where a cupboard must have stood, and dirty prints smeared across the floorboards.

  Nothing in this abandoned chamber reminds her of the downstairs parlour with its theatrical paraphernalia, but there is a similar sensation: a current seething beneath the surface, just waiting for someone to tap into it.

  Pearl’s breath comes in gentle bursts.

  The hours of standing in a wardrobe are beginning to take their toll. Agnes feels her own eyelids begin to close in spite of herself. She could, she could let them fall, ever so briefly …

  But then the atmosphere shifts.

  There is no sound, no movement, yet all at once it feels as though someone has stepped inside the room.

  ‘Are you there?’ Pearl asks again. This time, her voice shakes.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  They flinch so violently that they nearly break the circle. The sound comes from the wall behind Pearl and ripples out to where they sit; Agnes feels the vibrations in her knees.

  ‘Mother?’ Pearl gasps.

  Knock.

  Desperately, Agnes tries to gather her scattered thoughts. One rap meant no. It is not Pearl’s mother. That can mean only one thing. She pushes words through the fear that congests her throat. ‘You are here for me.’

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Each tap hits her like a physical blow. Her hands are drenched in sweat and slip within Pearl’s.

  ‘Ned—’

  Knock.

  ‘Mr Boyle?’

  Knock.

  ‘Please! I need your help. I need you to tell me who killed you and—’

  Knock. Knock.

  Pearl’s glassy eyes shine out of the darkness, wide with amazement. ‘Two knocks. That means they don’t know.’

  ‘You must know something! Anything. Why else would you be here?’ Agnes is speaking too loudly but she cannot control herself; the words will either come with force or not at all. ‘Please help me. Give me some clue! My nephew, my little nephew may be in terrible danger—’

  The ash in the fireplace ignites.

  Agnes’s voice drains away. She can feel the heat from across the room as the flames leap and claw upwards.

  ‘What’s that?’ Pearl twists around to see, pulling Agnes with her.

  Shadows flee across the plaster like a fantascope.

  Pearl squints and lowers her chin to protect her eyes. ‘There’s no kindling,’ she squeaks. ‘There’s nothing in that fireplace.’

  But they can hear it crackle and pop.

  The dark patterns begin to take form: they flatten out, grow edges, spread into faces – no, profiles. They are shades; the shades Agnes has cut with her own hands. Astonished, she watches them flick past as quickly as the pages of her duplicate book.

  The Carfax children, Montague, Mr Boyle, Ned – and other faces with names she has long forgotten. Was that Mrs Campbell, there? She cannot be sure, the images are cycling by so fast …

  But the last shape she knows.

  It flickers, suspended, as if held underwater.

  ‘Constance?’ she cries.

  Soot rattles down the flue, raining black over the flames. Constance’s profile breaks and scatters.

  As quickly as the fire burned, it winks out.

  The room falls
into darkness and whoever it was – whatever it was, it has gone.

  Pearl releases her hands. Without their support, Agnes topples.

  ‘Careful!’

  She catches herself just before she meets the floorboards. Her arms shake under the strain; her knees feel like they have had knitting needles driven through them.

  ‘Here, let me help you stand up.’

  Looking at the room, Agnes can barely credit that any of it really happened. The house around them seems tranquil. Their noise has not awoken Miss West or the neighbours.

  Pearl steals up to the fireplace and pokes one of her fingers into the ash heap.

  ‘It’s cold,’ she marvels. ‘How can it be cold after that fire?’

  The entire place feels cold to Agnes, even though she is slick with sweat. She keeps seeing the way those flames rippled, more like water than fire, and Constance’s face beneath the river.

  ‘Are you sick, ma’am? It’s usually me what gets ill after a séance. Take a big breath. I’d give you a glass of water if I had any.’

  At the mention of water, Agnes shakes her head.

  ‘Who …’ Pearl starts cautiously. ‘Who’s Constance? You called out her name. Was that your sister?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did your sister die?’ Pearl whispers.

  Agnes closes her eyes. ‘She …’ She is about to say drowned, but she bites the word back. That is only the socially acceptable version of the story. This girl who has hidden her all day and risked so much for her sake deserves honesty.

  ‘No one was able to tell us exactly what killed her. Whether it was her injuries or … You see, there was … an accident. We were in a carriage when the horses bolted. It ended up in the river. They say my friend Simon rescued me but I cannot recall that. I lost consciousness underwater. When I came to myself, I was safe and Constance was … gone.’

  Pearl clutches her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

  But here is the nub of it: they were not sorry. Simon was released from a loveless marriage that had led to embarrassment and financial loss. Cedric had always been closer to his aunt, anyhow. The family had been … relieved that Constance had died.

  It eats her with shame to think of it now.

  And yet death has not altered her sister. She is still enigmatic and infuriating, pushing in front of the other spirits to claim Agnes’s attention. Why? It is next to no use for her to be popping up here, there and everywhere; if she truly wants to contact Agnes, why does she not use words?

  She shakes herself. ‘It does not do to dwell upon these tragedies. I must return home now, I have been away too long.’

  ‘It’s very late. Will it be dangerous out there?’

  ‘I will wear the greatcoat in the carpet bag. I will pass for a man in the dark.’

  Still, Pearl clings on to her hand. ‘You’ll come back?’ she pleads.

  Agnes wonders if it is worth the effort. She has learnt no more tonight than she did in the last séance, and that was precious little. Ghosts, it seems, are contrary creatures. Not the oracles she had hoped for but imps, out to tantalise and tease.

  No wonder Constance fits in amongst them so well.

  ‘I did not receive any answers,’ she says, non-committal.

  Pearl’s teeth show as she smiles. They are discoloured, darker than her skin. ‘Then you’ve got to come back, haven’t you? We’ll find your killer, and we’ll talk to my mother. I can’t …’ She sweeps an alabaster arm towards the fireplace. ‘I can’t do that alone.’

  But Agnes is no longer looking down into the girl’s eager face. A slice of lamplight near the window shows the dust on the floorboards has been disturbed.

  ‘Are those mouse droppings, Pearl?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Or did you do that when you …’ She trails off, frowning. Pearl would not have passed across the area when she went to the fireplace, although she was near it.

  Slowly, Pearl follows her gaze. Gasps.

  ‘What is it, Pearl?’

  ‘I …’ She finally lets go of Agnes and steps closer. ‘I can’t read, but they look like some kind of letters?’

  Dread is a leaden ball behind Agnes’s ribs. She wanted words, and now she has them. She ought to be more careful with her wishes.

  She slinks up to the child, peers over her shoulder. It’s the same writing. The very same as on the notes pushed under her door and hidden in Cedric’s pocket, only this time a finger has traced the words in the dust.

  ‘What does it say?’ Pearl urges.

  Agnes blinks. She would give worlds to believe that her cataracts have deceived her, and she read the wrong message.

  But it is still there, defiant in the dust.

  ‘Ma’am? What does it say?’

  ‘Too late,’ she croaks. ‘The writing says: Too late.’

  CHAPTER 20

  Agnes does take the greatcoat in the end, for warmth more than anything else; being seen out alone, or accosted by a rough man no longer register as legitimate fears in her mind. The writing has warned her that something far worse waits ahead.

  Too late.

  Walcot Street lies deserted. Shutters cover the shops and night has dulled the cheerful gilt letters on their signs. A breeze slips down the road, flattening the lights in the street lamps. She hears her weary footsteps – just the one pair, stumbling along – and yet she has the peculiar feeling that she did not leave that house alone.

  Shadows flee across the cobbles and climb up walls. Agnes has spent her life studying them, but she has not appreciated their sheer number until tonight. She sees shadows thrown by a dancing flame, the shadow of a tree branch, of an alley cat, shadows from nothing at all.

  Twice she winces at the sight of a figure rising up a wall. Each time, it turns out to be her own. The shape of the greatcoat changes her silhouette, confuses the eyes. She curses herself for a coward. Afraid of your own shadow – that is how the saying goes. Cedric scoffs at this. He says the real monsters, like vampires, do not even cast a shade. You never see them coming.

  Well, Agnes can certainly feel something approaching fast behind her: a terrible premonition that bites at her heels as she walks. She will not turn and examine it, will not let it develop into a clear thought until she is home.

  Too late, too late.

  Her mind has never felt so disjointed and febrile. A crescent moon curves behind tattered clouds and she finds herself absurdly grateful that it is not shining full – why should that be? A large moon would help her to see. She does not believe in Cedric’s ghouls and lycanthropes.

  But then, a few weeks ago, she did not believe in ghosts.

  In another turn, she is greeted by the welcome sight of the abbey, a bulwark of protection. If she had the strength, she would run to it. No murderer or monster would dare attack her there.

  Panting, she crosses the churchyard and looks up at the place of worship. Angels are carved either side of the great arched doorway, where they climb Jacob’s Ladder. They seem to be leaning in, offering Agnes a hand. Their stone faces are mottled the colour of decay; she notices for the first time how stern their features are. Perhaps they are not going up to Heaven at all. They might be spirits climbing down.

  The house she has lived in nearly all of her life appears from the darkness, just the same as it always was: with its portico and sleeping magpies, its sightless windows locked secure, and the little whiskers of foliage that grow between the lintels. Nothing has been disturbed.

  She breathes a sigh of relief.

  Tiredness makes her all fingers and thumbs, but she finally manages to fit her key in the lock and turn it. She opens the door and steals inside.

  What strikes her most about the house is not its lack of light but its silence, weighted and profound. She finds herself closing the door behind her with infinite care, so as not to disturb it.

  Why does everything seem so airless and strange?

  A smoky, charred smell breathes across her face as she passes the parlou
r door; Mamma must have doused the fire before going to bed. Agnes cocks her head, considers the stillness of the room. That is the anomaly: Papa’s grandfather clock. It has stopped ticking.

  She stifles a childish plunge of panic. She liked to hear the clock’s steady rhythm, always in the background, as if dear Papa were there watching over her. Without that wheezing tick, it feels like the heart of her home has ceased to beat.

  But there is no real cause for alarm; the clock may not be broken, she may simply have forgotten to wind it. She will investigate further in the morning.

  Perhaps it is nearly morning already; she has lost all sense of time. Even her full bladder, hitherto so imperious, no longer complains.

  Groping for the bannister, she pulls herself up the staircase. Each tread offers a feeble creak. Beneath this noise, another sound: Mamma’s rumbling snore.

  Proof at least that Mamma is safe and fast asleep. The nerves that have fluttered through Agnes like so many moths still their wings. Nothing is wrong, no one is hurt and she is certainly not too late.

  Perhaps she has let her imagination run away with her. Seeing Constance’s shadow again at Walcot Street flustered her. Maybe the words said something else entirely? They had looked the same as the handwriting on the notes, but it was dark, and Agnes’s eyes struggle in poor light: there is a chance they were just incidental marks in the dust.

  The door to her own chamber stands wide open. Tempting as it is to enter and fall straight upon the bed, she knows her mind will never settle to sleep unless she checks on Cedric first.

  Carefully, she creeps past Mamma’s room and edges the door of Cedric’s bedchamber open. Dark shapes litter the floor: the toys and books she has bought him over the years. She is pierced by the contrast with the hovel that Pearl calls her room. Agnes suspects it was converted from a maid’s cabinet. There were certainly no ornaments or trinkets there, no little touches of decoration to make a child feel loved.

  At least Agnes has given Cedric that.

  She steps inside and navigates her way towards the small brass bed. The boy does not snore; he always sleeps quiet as a lamb. Even as an infant, she does not recall him wailing in the night; perhaps he did not dare to, with Constance as his mother.