The Death House

by Sarah Pinborough

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Clara says, her words echoey in the sudden stillness. ‘We should bring that candle from Ashley’s church down here or search the kitchen stockroom for more. And some cushions and stuff from the playroom. Make it our own secret night-time den!’

  I look down at the dregs of seaweed clinging to my shoes. ‘Wouldn’t work. The tide must come right in here. It would wash everything away.’ The walls are damp and slick with sea slime, but we find a couple of rocks near the mouth and sit down and eat our sandwiches gazing out at the sea.

  ‘This is beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says, chewing.

  ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’

  She looks at me and smiles happily, and my sandwich almost sticks in my throat as I swallow. I’m not talking about the beach or the water. Her long hair falls around her face in thick, red, wind-battered coils, almost matted like dreadlocks by the salty wind. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright and alive. How can I not have seen how beautiful she is?

  ‘You look like a mermaid,’ I blurt out, from nowhere. ‘A mermaid who comes ashore at night and sits in this cave wondering what it would be like to be human, before the tide comes and carries her back out to her people in the deep.’ I don’t know where the words are coming from. I wish I could just shut up. She’s going to laugh at me. She doesn’t. She just studies me for a moment as she finishes her food.

  ‘I love that,’ she says when she’s done. She looks out again to where the star-littered sky meets the whispering sea. ‘It’s magical. I wish I was a mermaid.’

  ‘We should get back.’

  ‘We have to come here again,’ she says.

  ‘We will.’ I don’t look behind me at the cave as we amble along the beach to the path. I don’t need to.

  When we reach the road, we stop to shake sand out of our shoes and clothes, not wanting any evidence of our escape to be spotted by the eagle-eyed nurses, and after brushing each other’s backs down, we walk a little further on from the house in the night that’s slowly creeping towards dawn to take in the surroundings we haven’t yet seen. The island is not very big, probably not much more than a mile or so in any direction. We can’t see any houses. There might be one or two dotted out of sight, but it’s unlikely. Who would live here? What would they do?

  ‘Over there,’ Clara says softly. At first I don’t see what she’s looking at, but then I notice the shine of paint between a grassy knoll and a clifftop.

  ‘We should go back.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute.’ She jogs forwards for a better view and I follow. ‘That must be where boats from the mainland dock,’ she says as the small building and the wide, sturdy jetty cutting a little way out into the bay come into view. ‘Look – the road leads up from it.’ The slope down to the sea is gentler there and a flat stretch winds up the hill to where we stand now. ‘Do you think anyone lives in that house?’ she asks. ‘Like a gatekeeper?’

  She makes it sound like we live in a fantasy castle rather than a Death House. ‘Maybe. I guess they need someone to guide the boat in.’ I’m making it up. I know nothing about boats.

  ‘We should find out when that supply boat’s due again.’ She’s not smiling now, her eyes narrow and thoughtful. ‘We could escape on it. Go somewhere no one knows us and have the rest of our time to ourselves.’

  I don’t know what to say to that. Too many thoughts whirl in my head to focus on, but one floats to the surface now that we’re in the shadow of the house. We can make whatever plans we like, but first we have to survive until the boat comes back.

  ‘Come on,’ I say quietly and tug her arm like a child. I don’t want to get caught. I don’t want to play heads or tails with Clara.

  The sun was warm on his back and his skin itchy with dried salt from where they’d run in and out of the sea, whooping and shrieking in water so cold they couldn’t help but laugh. His mum had even sworn a couple of times as she’d sprinted in behind him, throwing herself into the waves to get the shock of it over faster, and that had made him howl with laughter.

  He was thirteen, probably too old to be enjoying a family holiday so much, but school was an age away and it had been a brilliant two weeks. Long days on the beach, the trip to the waterpark, the funfair, the circus, candyfloss, ice creams, fish and chips, and wandering through the cobbled alleyways where all the shops were filled with souvenirs and hand-crafted jewellery, and cafes served clotted cream teas and Cornish pasties. The cottage they’d rented had a hot tub and a huge shelf of DVDs, and every night, if they didn’t play cards, they sat together on the sofa and watched movies until they fell asleep.

  Sometimes when he’d been growing up, Toby had wished for a brother – or even a sister – to play with, but those days had gone. He couldn’t imagine someone else being part of their family – his dad ruffling another kid’s hair the way he did Toby’s, or his mum smiling at someone else with so much love it made her nose crinkle. They were his parents and his alone and he was lucky to have them. They loved him and he loved them, and although the way he showed it would change in the years to come – he could already feel the pull of ‘coolness’ and wanting to hang out with friends rather than family – on that holiday, growing up was part of an unknown future, and his mum and dad were the best people to be with.

  It was the last day, and while his dad lay on a sunlounger reading an old spy thriller, Toby and his mum wandered the beach looking for shells to take home.

  ‘Hey, Toby,’ she called to him. He was paddling in the shallows and enjoying the feel of the sand being sucked away from his feet as each roll of the water pulled back, and watching the sunlight glitter on the surface, and thinking about everything and nothing in that way you can when the weather’s warm and there are no clouds in the sky or your mind.

  ‘Come over here! I’ve found something.’

  It was black and leathery in his hand, a flat oblong with four thin prongs like strips of leather curving away from each corner. ‘What is it?’ he asked, rubbing the smooth surface clean of sand.

  ‘It’s called a mermaid’s purse. They say that mermaids leave them behind when they come up to the water’s edge. Like lost handbags. Sailors used to search the beaches for them. They thought they were lucky.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as mermaids,’ Toby said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Everyone knows!’ He was thirteen. Too old to believe in all the magic of childhood any more. He knew there was no Father Christmas. The tooth fairy didn’t exist. The only one he still partly believed in was the bogeyman, and then only at night in the dark when he couldn’t sleep. ‘What is it really?’

  His mum’s shoulders slumped slightly, the wind taken from her sails by her growing-up boy. ‘It’s an egg sac. Fish lay their eggs in them and they grow there until they’re ready to come out and swim by themselves. I prefer the mermaid story, though.’

  Toby stared at the sac a moment longer and his mum started to wander away.

  ‘Hey, Mum,’ he called after her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe we should put it back where you found it. You know, in case the mermaid comes looking for it.’ She smiled at him then, a beaming grin that made her look like a teenager rather than an old woman in her thirties, and Toby was happy. He had the best mum in the world and he’d believe in the magic if she wanted him to.

  ‘Let’s get Dad and grab another ice cream. I’m sure there’s still a couple of flavours at that stand I haven’t tried yet,’ she said as they bedded the mermaid’s purse into the damp sand. ‘It’s our last day. We may as well eat until we feel sick. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  The perfect end to the perfect holiday.

  Nine

  We find the bird the following night after we’ve scaled the wall and put the bench on the lawn and are just about to climb into the house through the kitchen sash window. It’s fallen clos
e to the large black bins next to the locked side gate and one wing hangs awkwardly from its body, a gash down the centre. It’s still breathing, though, the small body warmish under the feathers, and for a moment, after Clara has picked it up, we don’t know quite what to do. In the end I pull off my hoodie and we wrap it carefully inside.

  ‘Let’s hide it somewhere. But we’ll have to be quick.’

  We’re a whirlwind in the kitchen, Clara finding an old food box we can turn into a bed, me soaking some bread in milk in a saucer and getting another to put water in, to take with us.

  The house is still and silent and we creep through it until we find an empty room far from the others where an old wardrobe, abandoned and lonely, is pressed up against a wall. We make a home for the bird on its floor and Clara carefully wipes his cut clean before settling him down into it.

  ‘It’s a baby,’ Clara says as she picks up a small piece of the milk-soaked bread and holds it close to his beak, tempting him. ‘Poor little thing.’

  ‘He’s probably in shock,’ I say. ‘If we leave him in the quiet, he’ll calm down. At least he’s warm here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, little bird,’ Clara coos softly. ‘We’ll make you all better again, and then you can find your mother.’ She pauses. ‘Let’s just hope she’s a better mother than either of ours.’ She glances at me and spots my immediate confusion. ‘Harriet says that your mum was a bitch.’

  I shrug, awkward. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve forgotten how people still hold on to those early-days conversations. But still, she’s talked to Harriet about me. That gives me a good fizz inside.

  ‘What shall we call him?’ Clara asks as we close the wardrobe door reluctantly and get to our feet.

  ‘You pick something. Maybe he’s a she?’

  ‘Georgie, then,’ Clara says. ‘That works for both. We’ll have to take it in turns to check on him during the day. I’m on washing-up again so you do the morning, okay?’

  I’d almost forgotten about Jake and the washing-up and a small flare of jealousy burns through me, but then I remind myself that Jake doesn’t have the boat and the bird and the cave.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Okay, then. Until tomorrow night!’ She grins and wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me right on the lips before turning and heading back to her dorm. I stand there, suddenly breathless and as stunned as the bird wrapped in my sweatshirt. My lips tingle from the contact. My head is throbbing. She kissed me.

  By the time I crawl into my own bed, I’ve convinced myself I’m being stupid and it doesn’t mean anything. It wasn’t a proper snog or anything. It was just friendly. But still, she did kiss me. It’s enough to keep the dread at bay when Joe’s hacking cough cuts through the silent dawn.

  Ten

  ‘What the hell are they doing?’ I ask.

  The temperature’s dropped over the past few days and I’ve wrapped up warm to come outside, but still my nose runs each time I bend over to dig around in the soil. I can’t remember it ever being this cold and I just want to get back inside and go to sleep for the afternoon. I’ve found three worms and they’re wrapped in toilet paper in the pocket of my jacket. I hope I don’t crush them before I can escape up to Georgie and see if he’ll eat them.

  ‘Baptising him,’ Louis says.

  ‘They’re always in the church now. Talking about Bible stories and stuff.’ Will scuffs his feet to keep warm. ‘You never notice anything any more.’

  I don’t answer that. It’s true. Not that I paid much attention before, but that was different. Now even when I’m awake I’m thinking about Clara and the bird and what the night may bring, and everything else feels unreal. I like it. I feel as if I’m not part of the house any more. Mainly, at the moment, I’m thinking about the bird.

  ‘I’m not sure that standing out here in the freezing fucking cold and pouring water over his head is going to make Joe better.’

  ‘The point of baptism isn’t to make him better,’ Louis says. ‘It’s to introduce him to God or something.’

  ‘There’s more of them.’ They’re gathering by the swings – Ashley, Joe, Harriet and a couple of boys from another dorm whose faces I know but can’t remember ever speaking to.

  ‘Wake up, Toby,’ Will says. ‘Ashley’s got his own gang now.’

  ‘Hardly a gang. More like a bunch of sad twats.’

  Joe sits down on one of the swings and the others bow their heads as Ashley speaks softly. I can’t hear his words but his face is serious and his eyes closed. Joe’s skin is blotchy with fever and even with no sun out his hair is shining with sweaty grease.

  Ashley’s voice rises as he pours water from a bottle over Joe’s tipped-back head. ‘I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ Three splashes of water. The small congregation smile at each other as if this is some magic fucking cure for Defectiveness, and then Joe stands up and Harriet takes her turn. I didn’t think it was possible for Joe to get any thinner but his clothes are hanging from his bones.

  ‘Why haven’t they just taken him to the sanatorium already?’ I grumble. It feels like Joe’s been ill for ever. I don’t want to see the reality of the house. What’s waiting for us all. Not now. Not after the kiss.

  ‘That’s obvious, isn’t it?’ I hadn’t noticed Tom join us. He looks as displeased with the baptisms as I feel. ‘Whatever he’s sick with, that’s not it.’

  All three of us turn to look at him. Even Louis with his super-sized brain hasn’t thought of that.

  Tom shrugs. ‘Makes sense to me. He’s grieving for his twin – of course he’s fallen sick. When my brother died, I caught the worst flu I’ve ever had. Couldn’t get out of bed for two weeks.’ He shivers and turns away. ‘I’m heading back inside. Albi’s teaching Jake to play some stuff on the guitar. He’s going to teach me the drums.’

  ‘The drummer never gets the girl, you do know that, right?’ I say, unable to stop myself. I’m not sure whether he hears me or not, but he doesn’t react.

  ‘Did you know Tom had a dead brother?’ Louis asks.

  ‘His poor mum.’ Will’s small face is awash with sadness.

  ‘Who gives a fuck?’ My words come out harsher than I mean them to. Why would Tom tell us something like that? I don’t need to know things like that. I don’t want to feel sorry for him. Or Joe. I don’t want to think about them at all.

  I don’t get to take the worms upstairs. As we go back inside, fingers and toes numb after watching Ashley’s crazy display in the garden, the gong rings out and we all have to return to our dorms where the nurses are waiting for us. Even for Ashley and his God that he carries with him everywhere like some shield that can save him.

  ‘Blood tests,’ the nurse says as she snaps on her plastic gloves and prepares the first syringe, as we sit in dread. What do they need to test our blood for? We’re all Defective – they know that already. Are we like some kind of lab animals here? Are they studying us to try and understand it better? I stare at the nurse while my heart thumps. She’s not that old, under thirty, I’d guess, and wisps of her fine ginger hair escape from under her hat. ‘We need to see how you’re all progressing,’ she says as if reading my thoughts.

  As she jabs the needle into Ashley, Will goes pale and squeezes his eyes tight shut. Louis sits close to him and holds his hand. I can’t remember if either of them had brothers or sisters on the outside, but they’re brothers now.

  ‘I’m not sure “progressing” is the right word.’ I try to dispel some of the tension in the room. I don’t want Will to be scared. I don’t want to be scared, either. ‘Do we get a badge if our genes are more fucked than anyone else’s?’ I smile at the nurse as she comes over to me. It’s my best cheeky-Toby grin but she doesn’t even look up. ‘An A-Star? A full pass grade in Defectiveness?’ I wink at Louis and Will and they both manage small smiles, maybe one proper one between them.


  ‘Keep still,’ is all she says as she tightens the pressure on my arm and the needle goes in. I watch my blood come out, thick and red as it fills the small tube. It looks perfectly normal. No different than it ever has done through all the tests and scrapes and cuts over the years. I can’t even remember looking at it before. The last time I was tested I was too busy feeling high over the prospect of Julie McKendrick’s party. Maybe if my surname had started with a different letter, I’d have even got to go to it before they dragged me here. A few more days of normality.

  ‘I hate needles,’ Will whispers. ‘I thought I was done with needles.’

  ‘I’ll go next,’ Tom says. ‘You go after me, then Louis, okay?’ Will nods. My heart and stomach ache a little. By the time the nurse has finished with Tom, Will’s breath is coming fast. Tom picks up the book Eleanor gave him and opens it to where the corner of one page is turned down. ‘How about I read this to you?’

  ‘You’ll think it’s silly,’ Will says, defensive. ‘It’s a kids’ book.’

  ‘I want to hear some,’ Louis cuts in.

  ‘Me, too,’ Ashley says, and for a moment I almost feel warm towards him.

  ‘Read some, Tom,’ I hear myself saying. We are family now, however much I pretend we’re not. We’re Dorm 4. We stand together.

  ‘Okay, here goes.’ Tom takes a deep breath and starts to read. ‘ “‘This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!’ thought Lucy, going still further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room for her. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet. ‘I wonder is that more mothballs?’ she thought, stooping down to feel it with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor of the wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold. ‘This is very queer,’ she said, and went on a step or two further.” Who’s Lucy?’ Tom looks down at Will. The nurse is ready with her needle. She waits until Will looks up at him.