There was a sadness in here, a confusion, as if this room, this house, could not understand why it had been left behind. What had happened? One day there was life — beds that were warm with sleep, fires burning pockets of light into the dark cold. But the flames had flickered and grown weak, dwindling into loss. And then they were gone. No one was left and there was no explanation. Something took those last two sisters away — death or a life elsewhere. Spear knew something about it. Could I trust he’d tell me the truth? This house, though, would never know what had happened or why it now echoed to the sound of so much desolate emptiness.
The rain tapped incessantly at the window. It had been left half-open as though the old women had just deserted the place and fled for the hills with no care for securing the place from the weather. A cruel little draught scuttled through the room making it seem even more bleak.
Outside on the landing, Angel was murmuring about how he’d been the victim of a theft and nobody cared. Bridget and the others were talking as if they’d forgotten I was there. Their muted voices seemed to drift further away.
Only tokens of life remained in this room, in the superstitions nailed up in more dolls and tangles of hair above the door frame. Over the mantelpiece was an old etching of some joyful Victorian scene, a man playing with three children, one child pulling at his coat insistently. I could hear the room ring with their broken laughter.
It stopped, as if they’d seen me watching, as if they’d been painted into that moment and all they could do was turn their eyes to look at me. They watched me now from the picture, their eyes following the smallest movement.
Suddenly, the figures were distracted. I thought I saw their eyes glance towards the large bay window as if something else had moved, as if someone else was here. I followed their gaze. There was no one. I looked back to the picture but still they watched the area just beyond me by the bay window. There was something like fear in their eyes now.
The windows let only the faintest sense of dawn’s light through the dust. Beneath the dull glass was a lame, old rocking horse. A breeze whispered through the horse’s mane, tugging at it like a child’s eager hands. I took a step towards it. Did the horse move or was it just my crude disturbance of this untouched space? Did it see out, see me through those sorrowful eyes?
It must have taken many long years for this weak light to strip this horse of so much colour. A ghost of its glories remained in a single, frayed rosette and the occasional memory of scarlet paint on its saddle and down its rich brown mane. Someone’s favourite, a forgotten Derby winner left in its stable with no riders. Any children who remembered hours here and glory days, had long since grown up and been blown far away by the years.
I reached out and cautiously pushed it.
Clunk. Slare. Clunk.
‘Ursula?’ I’d forgotten Spear was at the door. ‘Ursula, what is it?’
‘I’m fine,’ my eyes remained fixed on the rocking horse. ‘There’s nothing here.’
But as I looked to the floor, the bare footprints that led across the carpet of dust said otherwise. I didn’t mention them to Spear.
Mother was by his shoulder at the open door. ‘What are you doing?’ Her cold eyes looked around the room before settling on me. ‘Why are you in here?’ Her words were sharp with suspicion. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Looking for things to steal? Like my bracelets?’ Angel called from behind them.
Mother turned and gave him The Look. He immediately turned his attention back to his jewellery.
Mr Bojingles gave out a quick, sudden bark and jumped down. He ran panting across the room, disrupting all the dust on the floor.
‘Control your bloody dog!’ Mirabelle snapped. ‘What the devil’s going on here? What’s she doing in there?’
‘There’s been a theft.’ Angel folded his arms across his chest. ‘And Little Miss Crazy thought someone or something was in this room.’
‘Oh, here we go again.’ Mirabelle gave a dramatic sigh and shook her head.
‘Perhaps it was another one of those sealed-up door mysteries you like, dear,’ Aunt Charlotte said, as if I was the one who was struggling to keep up. ‘It did look quite difficult to open. In fact, all the doors—’
‘Thank you, Aunt Charlotte, but we have been through this before, haven’t we?’ I said. ‘It’s “locked-room”. They’re called “locked-room mysteries” and they’re not in any way relevant here as there is no mystery and no one is dead.’
‘They are,’ Jess’s voice was solemn and definite. We all turned to look at her. She seemed even more sallow than before, as if the grief was infecting every part of her.
‘I think she meant inside that room,’ Bridget offered with a smile. ‘Now, come on, Mr Bojingles, let’s get you some rest. You need a little more sleep.’
‘I think we all do.’ Mother looked at me pointedly. ‘It’s only just dawn. If we’re going to stand any chance today we need a few more hours’ rest. All of us.’ She held my gaze before moving closer and lowering her voice. ‘You know what Bob said about a full night’s rest, don’t you? Remember Bob’s Bedtime Rules?’
‘You mean the ones involving sleeping with my mother?’
She looked round quickly at everyone. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean! I’ve never been so—’
‘Yes, you have, so let’s not bother rehearsing this again.’
‘Wait, is no one going to do anything—’ Angel’s voice was beginning to sound disjointed — ‘about the theft?’
‘No,’ Mother said with finality.
She walked towards the stairs. Jess drifted to her room beside this one, the bird room. Angel had chosen a dilapidated bed in a small room on his own directly opposite the top of the stairs and between this one and the room Bridget and Bottlenose had slept in. There was a large dead cow’s head above the door but rather than inspiring a gentleman’s-club aesthetic, it brought more of an abandoned-abattoir feel to the house. Its black glass eyes looked out at us forlornly, reflecting every movement.
‘You’ll all regret this,’ Angel shot before slamming the door. A singed cowhide fell from its hanging on the wall. We all stopped.
‘Oh,’ Bottlenose slurred. I’d forgotten he was there. ‘That be there to ward off faeries, daemons, witches and the like. He’ll be unprotected now!’
‘Perhaps you could offer to replace the animal,’ Mirabelle sniped.
‘All these poppets and paraphernalia around the house is just grim.’ Mother turned to me. ‘It’s worse than your bedroom, Ursula.’
‘Nice.’
‘At least you haven’t resorted to nailing up plaited hair.’
‘Maybe I have, Mother. Snip, snip.’ I mimed cutting her hair and she looked suitably horrified.
Bottlenose spat something into the corner, which rolled around collecting dust. ‘When the head o’ the family dies, custom is to nail a large piece of their hair to the door frame to keep away faeries.’ He staggered a little before laughing and stumbling back into the room next to Angel’s.
‘Shame you didn’t remember all this about the house last night,’ Mother called, ‘or perhaps even the fact that there was a house, before we slept outside and nearly died of exposure.’
‘Who’s been exposing—’
‘Be quiet, Charlotte.’
Mirabelle nodded along with Mother as usual. ‘Yes, exactly, what Pandora said. How could you have left us out in the wind and rain when you knew which island this was? You must have known there was a house here.’
Bottlenose coughed again and threatened to clear whatever there was blocking it into the hallway. ‘Aye, I knew. But no one would sleep here who was in their right mind. This place is haunted. Evil walks here.’ He grinned as if he might very well be the malevolence he spoke of.
Bridget and the dog trotted into the bedroom after him. ‘I don’t care what evil there is. I’m happy to sleep anywhere so long as Mr Bojingles has a comfortable bed.’ There was a large nest of threadbare blan
kets in one corner that she and the dog settled into. Bottlenose sprawled himself out under the window. Bridget and the dog watched him closely as he proceeded to slowly cover himself with the faery-repelling cowhide that had fallen down earlier.
The floorboards creaked behind me. Jess had wandered into the rocking horse room and was crouching down next to the toy looking up at it hopefully. She seemed calmer now but walked with the hunched-over shoulders of someone who didn’t want to see the world anymore.
I couldn’t bring myself to disturb her and what more could I say to her? He would always be dead? It wouldn’t get easier, just different? She didn’t look at me but drifted back out of the room as if it was her who had died and become the ghost. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could say. No one can navigate grief for you.
As I walked away, I saw a small cabinet standing just beside the door to the room. There was a single photograph of two middle-aged women, neither smiling, just caught in a moment of their lives. They weren’t young and, from the photograph, it was hard to imagine they ever had been. Yet, there was the rocking horse in the corner of the picture, its mouth wide, with its lips pulled back over the teeth, its eyes staring straight back at the viewer. Perhaps it had been a childhood memento they’d kept. Perhaps.
They’d all gone and I was alone. Mother, Mirabelle and Aunt Charlotte had gone downstairs, Angel and Jess to their own rooms and Bridget with Bottlenose and Mr Bojingles, of course.
Like the eyes in the painting, the women’s eyes in the photograph seemed to follow me then flick away when I looked back. I peered closer. Behind them I could just see through the window, down towards the dark outline of the chapel. Had their deaths been mourned there?
A rusted handle caught my eye. There was a small door just behind the cabinet that I hadn’t noticed before. There were still so many things we hadn’t discovered here. This house had so many layers, but I wasn’t sure how many I should peel back. But then a large handle on a cupboard door wasn’t something anyone would have left unturned. Even if they should have.
It wasn’t as big as the other doors and the handle was much lower down, as if it was more of a large cupboard than the door to another room. I reached out and again that quick draught passed over my skin. I’d left the window open in the rocking horse room and the door was still open. There was always a rational explanation. I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
The opening to the cupboard was stiff and I could see where it had been painted shut previously. But someone had forced it open, cracking through the paint and leaving a sharp, jagged edge around the door frame.
As I eased it open, I quickly looked behind me to see if anyone had heard. I waited. No one came out. I can’t really explain my need for secrecy, only that it increasingly felt like a currency here, as if there was a value in the things we knew that others did not.
The stale air escaped as if it had been crouched waiting behind that small door ready to be released. Inside, there was complete darkness. As my eyes slowly grew accustomed, it seemed like some sort of linen cupboard with shelving down both sides. It was bigger than it had first appeared and there was enough room to walk in.
It was cooler in the cupboard than out on the landing as if there was some sort of vent or small window to the outside. The weak light from the hallway fell across the strange pale shapes stacked in perfect rows. It wasn’t linen at all but something like large ivory pots. They had a dull sheen to them that the light glanced off.
The cupboard, although small, stretched far enough for the back of it to be entirely in shadow. The shelves were floor-to-ceiling and there must have been almost a hundred of these strange, domed bowls. I stepped closer to one shelf and the floor creaked noisily. I looked back at the landing behind me again, keen to keep my secret for the moment at least. The dust stuck in my throat and made my skin itch. I reached out to touch one of the strange matching pots but as I stepped closer, two dark hollows looked back at me.
I fell against the opposite wall and into another shelf. The pots clicked together and one fell to the floor by my feet. I carefully bent to pick it up and felt with my fingers around the rough stone of the bowl.
I’d broken it. A sharp section lay next to me and I picked it up to look. I stared open-mouthed.
There in the palm of my hand was a long, thin tooth.
I looked down at my feet. The dull-white pot was staring up at me with empty eyes. It was a skull, a human skull.
My eyes travelled frantically down the long shelves. I could still barely see but as I stepped closer and peered down the line, I could see the uneven curve of each head. Row upon row, placed in perfect lines, many were turned with their faces away from me. My pulse raced through my head, my breath stuttered in my chest. Slowly, I reached out.
It felt like smooth chalk beneath my fingers and as I turned it, I could feel it grate slightly against the shelf. It clicked against the neighbouring skull. There it was, staring out at me from the dark holes where its eyes should be.
I stood utterly motionless, staring back at it and felt my legs begin to slowly buckle at the knees. I could feel myself gasping for air. I looked down the long rows of domes that had morphed so easily into menacing faces.
‘Oh . . . I . . .’ I staggered back towards the door and a hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed my shoulder.
‘What are you doing in here?’
I was about to scream.
‘Ursula, it’s me.’ A face pulled towards me.
‘Spear?’ I stared at him. ‘Is this your cupboard?’
‘What?’
‘Are these your skulls?’
‘What the hell are you talking about? Skulls?’
I pointed and he looked past me. ‘Christ! What is this place?’ He looked back at me. ‘You seriously thought I had my own little catacomb going on here?’
‘No, no, no.’ I laughed a little. ‘Of course not.’ It didn’t sound convincing.
He raised his eyebrows before turning back to look further into the cupboard. ‘What is this place?’ He reached out for the skull I’d knocked to the floor and picked it up. ‘It’s got a label on it.’ He squinted closer. ‘It’s just a number.’
‘What the bloody hell is going on now?’ Mother stood framed by the small door. ‘And why is he holding that and being all Alas, poor Yorick?’
‘Poor who?’ Aunt Charlotte was just behind Mother. My family like to travel as a pack.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have left you up here alone.’ She looked knowingly at Spear. ‘Only you’re not alone, are you?’
‘Mother, surely the noticeable thing here is that there are rows of skulls, not the fact that I’m in a cupboard with some man.’
‘Some man?’ Spear stared at me, still holding the skull.
‘Yes, she means you, SAS Boy!’ Mother folded her arms and began scanning along the shelves. ‘And what the hell is this? This is worse than your bedroom when you decided to go goth for a year.’
‘It was the man.’ Bottlenose had arrived.
‘Oh, here he is, Captain Jack Sparrow,’ Mother sighed.
‘Yes, I thought Bottlenose must be a nickname.’ Aunt Charlotte nodded confidently.
‘Still floundering around, are we?’ Bridget stood by the door with Mr Bojingles by her feet.
‘We need to listen,’ I said. ‘Bottlenose, please explain what you mean by that.’ I turned to Spear. ‘You can put the skull down now.’
He looked at me and paused before carefully placing the skull back on the shelf. ‘Can we get out of the cupboard now, as well?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Let’s just close the door on this for a second, shall we?’ I pushed the door to and looked around at the silent faces.
‘The man,’ Bottlenose repeated. ‘He collected skulls. Not here anymore. Just upped and left. Didn’t take his skulls, neither. All a long time ago now.’ He grinned and wiped the spit from the sides of his mouth.
‘Let’s go downstairs.’ I looke
d around the confused faces.
They nodded slowly. ‘This changes everything. We need to talk about this,’ Mother said sternly as if it was in some way my fault that there was a large cupboard lined with skulls.
They walked down the stairs and I hung back a little, staring at the cupboard door. I looked up to where the light touched the outlines of various antlers and dead animal heads. Dark spindles of shadow were thrown out, their broken fingers lifting as if appealing to something. This was a desperate place, a place where people reached up for salvation, pleading for nothing more than to be allowed to leave. My mind lingered on one idea — how long before we were dead heads, nothing more than skulls in a cupboard?
I could tell Spear was hanging back too.
‘Sorry,’ he looked away. ‘I just wanted to ask . . . well . . . what exactly did you see? Out there in the water.’
I closed my eyes. ‘I don’t know. I’ve told you everything I saw.’ When I opened my eyes again and looked at him, there was anguish in his face but something else as well. It wasn’t quite anger but it was close. ‘Spear, I . . .’
‘Look.’ He stepped closer and for some reason, I stepped back. His face tensed. ‘You don’t have to move away. I wouldn’t hurt you or anyone else, no matter what they’d done.’
‘Spear, wait—’
He turned and brushed past me, leaving me standing alone at the top of the stairs.
CHAPTER 18: A DEATH
We discovered Angel’s body later that morning at around eight o’clock. No one could be exactly sure of the time as most of us had replaced watches with mobile phones and the sea had either taken them or flooded them beyond repair. Spear had some sort of diver’s watch, which only functioned eighteen metres below sea level and might have been useful if we had drowned but was of no use whatsoever on land. Bottlenose said he was a human sundial which, in the absence of any sunlight, was completely useless. Time was becoming very difficult and it felt like there were too many gaps in the day.
We’d all tried to get some more sleep but that had proved to be almost impossible in a house with a cupboard full of human skulls. Bottlenose, having collapsed into a drunken stupor, could provide no further details as to who the mystery man was that liked to collect human remains. So we’d lain there in the darkness with nothing more than our imaginations to fill the spaces.
BODY ON THE ISLAND a gripping murder mystery packed with twists (Smart Woman's Mystery Book 2) Page 15
