by G. P. Taylor
‘Did Strackan bring him here?’ Jago asked.
‘Brought us all. One by one and night by night. We are but broken jars waiting for what is to come.’
‘And what is that?’ Jago asked.
‘To be set free. We have no more use to Strackan. We are the remnants of the rage that burns within him.’
‘You’re ghosts?’
‘To live long and never leave this place.’
‘How can you be free?’
‘If Strackan is killed then we too will die with him. We are a memory of what we once were. In life I was a tailor, a maker of fine clothes, and now look at me - a man of rags.’ The man held out his hands to Jago. They were covered in blisters and worn to the bone.
‘How can you kill a shadow?’ Jago asked
‘Strackan is a man like you – a man of long life – a Vampyre,’ the ghost said. ‘He told us he saw you – scratched your face with his fingers.’
‘Who is he?’ Jago asked just as he saw Jack Henson turn the corner of the churchyard and walk towards him. ‘No – Jack Henson.’
‘He can’t see you,’ the man said, ‘but be careful what you say. He listens to us all the time.’
‘What? What?’ Henson asked. ‘Who is it you are speaking to, Ebenezer Goode?’
‘The one you buried screams to be free,’ the ghost of Ebenezer Goode said.
‘She can stay where she is. I told you before. I’m not having Strackan taking what he likes from the town – do you hear me?’
Henson looked about him, trying to see where the words were coming from. Jago could see him clearly. There was brightness to his face that he had never noticed before. The wisps of his beard swirled about his long chin
‘He speaks not to us,’ the ghost replied.
‘Who is with you?’ Henson asked. ‘I sense someone listening to me.’
‘Can he see me?’ Jago asked in a whisper.
The ghost shook his head. ‘You are quite invisible.’
‘Invisible?’ Henson ranted. ‘Who is it with you?’ He reached out with his open hand as if to sense the temperature of the air. ‘Tell me, Ebenezer.’
‘Go, boy,’ Ebenezer said. He waved with his bony fingers for Jago to leave him. ‘Stay to your world. It is not safe for you here.’
‘Boy – what boy? World – what world?’ Henson muttered as peered into the darkness that surrounded the high stone walls of the church. Jago watched as Henson then closed his eyes and reached out with his hands. ‘Jago Harker – I know you are meddling. Do as Ebenezer says – get away from here.’
Jago looked on as the ghost of Ebenezer Goode held up his hand and smiled.
‘Go now, boy,’ the ghost whispered as he crossed his thin lips with his finger to bid Jago to be silent.
‘It’s him, I know it,’ Henson screamed as he smashed his spade into the mired dirt and holly leaves that covered the grave. ‘I will find you, Jago, and so will Strackan. Do not meddle with this boy, Ebenezer – do not meddle.’
‘But he could be the one?’ asked Ebenezer Goode.
‘You pin your hopes on such as that?’ Henson shouted, his words echoing in the night. ‘Just because he can see you?’
Jago waited no longer. He ran from the churchyard, winding his way in and out of the graves until he reached the steps. Stopping, he looked out over the dark roofs of the cottages that clung to the cliff. In the estuary below, he saw the conning tower of a submarine making its way out to sea. All was quiet. Jack Henson continued to dig a grave. Jago could hear the chiselling of the metal spade as it cut through the hard earth. He looked back to Streonshalgh Manor. Moonlight shone on the layer of frost that clung to every slate on its vast roof. The town was silent and in his dreaming he felt a breeze cut across his face.
Taking the steps two at a time, he was soon in Church Street. The narrow cobbled road fell away in a slight hill towards the marketplace. The houses were tall, thin and crammed together, some of them converted into shops with bowed windows. He remembered each one from his walk back from Hagg House. The street appeared darker than before and even in his dream the comet still hung in the sky. Hiding under the portico of the town hall was a man – Jago could see his shadow cast by the moon. It was as if he was waiting for him to arrive. Jago too waited.
The door to the bookshop opened. Jago heard the bell chime as a young woman in a short coat and bow hat stepped into the street. He saw her stop and look towards him, staring as if she could see him. The young woman turned suddenly and walked away. Her footsteps echoed on the cobbles and then, as if this was an encore of the night before, the shadow of a man stepped from his hiding place and followed her.
Jago knew instantly that it was Strackan. The figure skulked in its long black coat, the collar turned against the wind, fedora hat tilted across the brow. The man walked faster, keeping pace with the woman, and Jago followed.
It was then that Strackan looked back. He saw Jago and started to run.
‘Come on, boy – catch me before I get to her,’ he taunted in a voice that only Jago could hear.
Jago hesitated and then without knowing why began to run. It felt as if this was what he was meant to do. Stride by stride he chased after Strackan, who by now was just behind the woman. She turned and before she could scream, Strackan had taken hold of her throat.
Jago ran even faster, his feet hardly touching the stones. It was not like any other dream he had ever had.
‘Never!’ he screamed at Strackan as he gained ground and then, when close by, Jago leapt towards him as he dragged the woman towards an alleyway.
Strackan looked up as Jago landed, knocking him to the floor. The woman started to scream as Strackan’s hand was freed from her face.
‘Get off me!’ she cried tearfully. She lashed out at Jago, snatching the button from his leather coat.
As Strackan lunged for the woman’s throat Jago saw him properly for the first time. The black fedora hat fell to the floor in the struggle, and Jago stepped back in horror. Strackan had the face of a man. It was old, wrinkled with gnarled features as if made of oak. The bark-like skin was stretched over the thick bone, the lips were cankerous and pulled tightly back over the teeth of a dog. The woman tried to scream but before the sound could leave her throat she collapsed back, unable to move.
‘What did you expect?’ Strackan said remorselessly, staring at Jago with burning red eyes. ‘Died of fright, what use is she to me now?’
‘Why take her?’ Jago asked.
‘What else am I supposed to do? It is my life.’ Strackan snarled as he sniffed the air. ‘I had been waiting for her and waiting for you. I had to teach you what is to be done.’
‘I would never do that, never,’ Jago said.
‘One day you will – one day not too far from now. When the comet has gone. You will seek people just like me,’ Strackan answered, smiling at him.
‘You’re mad. Mad as hell,’ Jago shouted.
‘You will come to know hell better than most, Jago Harker. I have waited all these years for you to come back to this town. Why do you think you are here?’ Strackan’s breath wheezed and groaned as if he could barely breathe.
‘I am an evacuee, from London … My mother sent me here,’ he answered.
‘Your mother always knew that your fate lay in this place. She didn’t dare bring you back. Is she dead? It is your nature and your future, and … Jago Harker, born of Martha, one day you will be just like me.’
‘Never!’ Jago shouted as Strackan got to his feet and picked the fedora from the ground.
‘Your fate and mine are entwined. We are the same root. Did she not tell you?’ he asked as he walked back into the shadow of the alleyway.
‘I know nothing of what you say – you are a dream, Strackan.’
‘Then explain the marks on your face – how did they get here?’
‘I did them whilst I slept.’
‘And the mirror – who wrote upon it?’ Strackan asked. ‘Ask yourself why I haven’t ki
lled you.’
‘Because you don’t exist,’ Jago replied.
Strackan laughed. With a swirl of his coat he disappeared into the dark shadows.
Jago followed, wanting to know more. ‘Who are you? What are you?’ he screamed, but the shadow was gone.
There was a murmuring from the entrance to the alleyway. Jago turned. The woman moved slightly. He ran back to her and lifted her head from the floor, cradling it in his arms.
‘Vampyre?’ the woman muttered, her lipstick smeared across her face in a gruesome smile.
‘I am not a Vampyre,’ Jago answered as the woman opened her eyes. ‘Where are you from? I will take you home.’
The woman didn’t speak; she slumped back in his arms and groaned. It was then that Jago saw the three razor like cuts to the base of her neck. They were the same as those on his face. She gripped the sleeve of his jacket and then looked at him.
‘Vampyre?’ she asked again, She gasped for breath and then sighed.
Jago laid her down against the side of the alleyway as carefully as he could. Strackan could not just disappear, he thought. The woman didn’t move. He was sure she was dead. Jago didn’t notice her hand gripping tightly to the button from his coat or the slight, faint pulse of life that beat erratically beneath the porcelain white skin of her neck.
Following the alleyway, Jago ran from the street until the cobbles narrowed to no wider than his shoulders. The path twisted and turned through a labyrinth of houses and yards that were cut into the cliff. With each stride he went higher and higher, until he was on an old donkey path that led out of the town. Looking back, he could see Whitby. The harbour was just as it always was. Several fishing boats were tied against the quayside. The streets were empty as they always were just before the curfew and the church clock chimed midnight.
Soon the low walls gave way to slight hedges and then open fields. The path wound its way down and then up the side of a narrow valley. Far below, Jago could see Hagg House. It cast its moon shadow towards the estuary and nearby, surrounded by trees, the chimney of the factory bellowed out gusts of acrid black smoke.
Like a wise dog chasing its prey, Jago knew in his heart that this was the way he should go. There were no tracks or sign of Strackan, just a feeling that the man had been on the pathway moments before. He could sense that the essence of the air had been cut through. The atoms had been disturbed and swirled about him like the orbs he had seen in the library.
The path soon opened out into a small lane that led across the top of the moor. Jago could see the ruins of the abbey on the cliff top, its stone ribs breaking from the ground like the carcass of a gigantic dead whale washed up on the shore. An old window at the peak of a tall facade of ruined stones caught the full moon. Just for the briefest glimpse it held it like the eye of the leviathan.
Jago’s feet trudged in a worldly pace, not like a dream. The hedged lane rose up and up to the brow of a hill. On each side was a copse of trees that looked to be purposefully planted as a boundary to a great estate. A wall of neatly mortared stones ran from east to west as far as he could see. There was no sign of Strackan, the air here was crisp and still. The dark of night was fading as the dark clouds moved across the sky and the blood-red light of the comet fought against the moonlight.
Climbing the stone wall, Jago looked across a land far different from that through which the track had led him. On the far side, where the hill fell away steeply, small trees laden with fruit covered the ground. In the midst of this vast orchard was a tall spire, and beneath it the roof of a large house with a stone castle-like turret at each corner. Jago could clearly see the tall green hedges of a vast maze or labyrinth. In the garden below, the shadow of someone was moving through the trees.
‘Strackan,’ he whispered to himself, knowing that in his dream this was the place of the creature.
‘Jago! Jago!’ he heard Bia calling him.
Opening his eyes, he looked up. Bia stood above him, in her hand a tall candlestick. The flame flickered against the ceiling of his room and cast her shadow against the wall.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
‘Looking for you. Henson has been at the door demanding to see you. He told Mrs Macarty you were in the churchyard talking to Ebenezer Goode – he’s been dead for years. He gave her this, said he found it and it belongs to you.’ Bia unfurled her hand to show him the button from his leather coat.
‘But I’ve been asleep,’ Jago answered. Bia looked confused; her brow was furrowed as she looked away. ‘What is it?’
‘When I came in the room the bed was empty. You weren’t here, Jago. I called your name and looked in the cupboards, thinking you could be hiding from me. When I turned around you were on the bed. You just appeared. You weren’t here … And look – the button – it is missing from your coat.’
‘But I was asleep. I dreamt of Strackan. He attacked a woman from the bookshop. I was here.’
Bia looked sullen and anxious. Her hand cupped the side of her face.
‘That’s the other thing he told Mrs Macarty. He found a woman in an alleyway. She’d been attacked. Henson had heard her screaming. She was from the bookshop.’
Jago shuddered visibly.
‘It can’t be … Is he still here?’ he said.
‘Henson has gone. Jago, you haven’t been dreaming – what you saw was real.’
‘Say nothing, Bia. Tell Mrs Macarty I am in my room asleep. Please.’
[ 12 ]
The Thirteenth Step
JAGO NEVER SLEPT at all that night. The room appeared to move with his every breath. Thankfully the candle on the mantelpiece lasted until the sunrise. Bia had gone down stairs and told Mrs Macarty that he had been asleep and couldn’t have left the house. Jago had heard the woman stomping about and cursing and shouting that he would have to explain everything in the morning – that had been one cause of his sleeplessness. The other was far more painful. As he fought sleep, everything began to bubble and burst inside his mind. In a heated rush of thoughts, every word, every memory replayed, as if they were happening again and again. It was something that Jago could not control. He could see the face of his mother bathed in sunshine, moments before she was killed, and then that of Strackan edged in darkness. The voice of the man in the carriage on the train whispered to him constantly. He waited out the hours, counting each one by the chimes of the church clock as the waking nightmare went on. The spell was only broken when he got from his bed as the sun touched his window and bathed his face in the cold water from the bowl on the washstand.
He took a deep breath and looked at his reflection in the mirror. The word on the glass, which had been so plain the night before, had gone. Jago hid the Cup of Garbova under the thick mattress of the bed and in it he placed all the money given to him by his mother. He smoothed the sheets and folded everything neatly. He pictured Mrs Macarty searching his room and knew this was a warning, just like when he could see the bombers long before they arrived.
With the needle and thread his mother had left him in his bag, he took the spare button and sewed it on his leather coat. Opening the door, he clutched the other button in his hand, expecting Mrs Macarty to be waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.
As he turned the landing he could see her shadow by the door to the refectory. She waited impatiently as Staxley and the Griffin pushed by him and ran on without speaking.
‘Did Biatra give you something last night?’ she asked. He saw she was inspecting the front of his coat to see if anything was out of place.
‘This?’ he asked as he handed her the button. ‘She said that Mister Henson thought it was mine.’
‘And was it?’ she asked, not convinced by the obvious newly sewn button on his coat.
‘Must have dropped it in the churchyard when I went to find Biatra,’ Jago said with a forced smile.
‘Must have,’ she echoed as she looked in to the dining room. ‘I have bagged you some food to eat on the way. Biatra thought you migh
t prefer that. The word is that you did not have a very good night last night. The cleaning cupboard is not a place I would advise you to explore. There are some things I know it is best to leave for others to sort out, Jago. Lorken is one of them.’
Jago nodded as Bia came from the kitchen clutching a brown bag. Mrs Macarty obviously knew some of what had gone on. Lorken would tell a different story to the truth. As he followed Bia through the door he cast a glance to Staxley. He sat by the fire, flanked by his eager hounds. Jago nodded to Griffin and Lorken, then without thinking smiled at Staxley. He didn’t reply, but before Jago walked on, Staxley slowly drew his hand across his throat. The sign needed no explanation.
‘Come on, Jago,’ Bia said as she sprung out of the door. ‘If we walk quickly I know a place where we can eat.’
Jago said nothing until they had got to the statue. Agasias the bronze warrior stared down at them and cast his shadow across the cobblestones. Bia seemed excited; she walked nervously ahead of him, turning back every now and then to see if he still followed.
‘I had a cat like you once,’ Bia said as they reached the gates of the churchyard. ‘He followed me down the street and I would look back to see how far he would go. He always stopped when I got to the river. Then he turned back and when I got home he would be sitting on the doorstep.’
‘What happened to him?’ Jago asked.
‘Disappeared,’ she said as she hitched the bag higher on her shoulder.
‘Why am I like the cat?’ Jago asked.
‘No … I just wondered when you will vanish and not come back,’ she replied.
Jago didn’t know what she meant. He followed because he could smell the hot meat and bread in the hessian bag.
‘So where shall we eat?’ he asked. ‘Did you cook?’
‘It was Tallow. He said you needed something to fill your boots. Just down the steps and along the harbour. Won’t matter if we’re late. It’s Tuesday, Clinas won’t be there today. Well, not until later.’ Bia saw Jago shrug his shoulders, ‘Servants’ day off – even in the war they get a day off.’
‘Why wasn’t he called up to fight?’ Jago asked. ‘He’s not too old.’
