by Emma Snow
He had promised to protect her, protect them both. Martha had gone, disappeared, her trauma too great to bear. He didn’t blame her although it had hurt to lose contact with her. Lisa told him that Martha had done it to try and free herself from her past. But the two girls had kept in occasional touch with each other. He hadn’t pried, he had just made Lisa promise to let him know if Martha needed anything.
It had been a long time ago but he hadn’t forgotten his vow to protect them both, to make up for the failures of the past. He had let them down back then. He had let down all five of them.
Samuel Lyons had abused five girls at Beeches Care Home, although Martha had borne the worst of it, the most sickening treatment. Three of them had died in the fire with Samuel in the care home, at his care home. He had invested in it, he had profited from it. Was it his fault?
Although he hadn’t liked Samuel, he wasn’t responsible for staffing, that was the job of the home manager who had reeled off a list of the new employee’s credentials, all of which turned out to be false. But the truth didn’t come out until after the fire.
Samuel had abused at one care home after another, there were even rumours that he had killed, rumours which were proved accurate in the detailed enquiry that took place after the fire. The pieces had been put together. He had killed children, he had abused and murdered them. And then when the net had tightened around him, he had burned the place down with him and five children inside.
Timothy had been able to get two of them out, Lisa and Martha.
Martha had screamed at him, hating him for rescuing her instead of the others. She had to live with seeing three of her best friends burned alive. Even then, Burleigh had his doubts about Samuel or the Gamesman as he was already being called by the papers. Martha’s interview with the police had been leaked, the gruesome details of the board game he made them play, the way he made light of what he was going to do, the tabloids lapped it all up.
They chose that element to focus on, playing down the rest. It was barely mentioned that he had told the girls about a prophecy. He had been searching for an offering. He had to sacrifice the shining light among them, the others mere vassals to assist him in his quest. They had to burn in the flames, their essences going up to the Churymov comet, a comet that arrived once every ten years, a comet that held the Gods within it. If he failed to make the offering, the earth would be doomed.
Burleigh hadn’t forgotten that part of the interview. Ten years until the comet came back. What if there wasn’t just him that believed in the delusion? The police thought Lisa and Martha were safe. He wasn’t so sure.
Three dead because of a delusion. That was what had broken Martha. Knowing they had died because Samuel believed in an arcane ritual from the cult his mother had belonged to, a belief that allowed him to play with the offering first, to play in the most sickening manner.
Martha had vanished, hiding from her past. His only link to her was Lisa. Lisa who hadn’t sent her daily message for the first time ever.
He’d come to an agreement with her a month after the fire, when he became certain that it wasn’t Samuel’s body that had been found in the ruins, when he thought the Gamesman would come back to try and finish the job, complete the sacrifice, make his offering.
She would message Burleigh every day to say she was safe. Reassure him about her and Martha. She had kept to that agreement until today.
Something was wrong.
Martha refused to contact him every day, refused to even speak to anyone from that time except Lisa. She had been just twelve years old when it had happened. Orphaned, living in a care home, abused, then nearly burned to death, her friends killed. Was it any wonder she had decided not to trust adults with her safety? To run, to trust only herself?
THREE
By the time Burleigh decided to call the police, Samuel had left Lisa’s house and was driving north. Lisa had told him the truth in the end. He’d never really doubted she would. His mother would have been so proud.
He had left Lisa in the bath, her limbs still bound, the gag still tied around her mouth. He had wanted to stay and play with her but he had a job to do. Mother had made it clear. He was the saviour of mankind. He was going to save the world. And time was running out.
He was going to save everyone. That thought had kept him going through the long years of waiting. He had wanted to find Martha sooner. He missed her throughout the years of hiding. But he knew if he gave in to his urges, he wouldn’t be able to offer her up.
He even thought about kidnapping her soon after the fire, before she vanished, keeping her with him for the decade until the comet came back. But the risk was too great. Ten years was a long time for her to escape, tell the police, get him locked up. Then the world would be doomed.
If he didn’t make the sacrifice before Martha turned twenty-five, it would be too late. Why twenty-five? He had asked his mother that and been slapped across the face for his audacity in questioning her and her beliefs. That was just the way it was. No more questions were acceptable.
She had made him see the truth. You did not question what had to be done. You just did it.
It was the same when his search for an offering first began. He wouldn’t know who it would be until it happened. One day he would meet the offering. He would know who it was the moment he saw her. All he had known was that it would be a girl. It was always a girl. The offering was always a girl. Girls were sluts and dirty and deserved to die. He thought, when his mother told him that, that it meant the offering wasn’t as pure as it should be. If girls were bad, why sacrifice them? His mother had dripped the truth into his ears until all doubt was gone. It was a girl. He was not to question the way things were. He was to accept the truth as it was.
His mother sent him out into the world to find the one, setting him up at work at his first care home, telling him that was where the daughters of whores always ended up. He should begin his search there. His reward would be freedom until he found her. He was free from the laws of man as long as he didn’t get caught, as long as he didn’t kill her until the time was right.
He could play with them while he searched, as long as he was careful. At the age of sixteen he began looking at the Shady Oak, finding no girls good enough for his purpose. The comet came and went and he had found no one worthy. His mother died but his search still continued. It came and went again. Doubt was just beginning to creep in, he was beginning to wonder if he would ever find the one after so many years of looking without any sign. What if his mother was wrong? Then he met Martha at Beeches. The clock had begun ticking.
FOUR
It was Martha’s favourite time of day. She had the entire castle to herself. For a few minutes every evening, she could almost believe it was hers and hers alone. She had worked there for a little over five years and yet she still enjoyed the fantasy each time she locked up. Close her eyes and she was a princess, sweeping across a courtyard past her subjects. But she always had to open her eyes and see the reality, the faded burn on the back of her hand a permanent reminder that she was no princess, she was just daydreaming damaged goods.
The sun was slowly setting behind her, colouring the grass in the soft light that only came at that time of day, taking the edge off the jagged stone of the chapel wall. She crossed the drawbridge over the earthworks, glancing down to check below. It wasn’t unknown for people to try and hide under the drawbridge at closing time, teenagers for the most part, hoping to remain on site after the staff had left, unaware that Martha lived in one of the houses next to the castle, close enough to hear their laughter on the few occasions it had happened. It hadn’t happened since she’d begun making a point of checking every potential hiding place before locking up.
The castle consisted of a roughly rectangular curtain wall, complete in some places, down almost to nothing in others. Within the boundary was a wide stretch of grass containing the remains of the East Tower, the Great Hall, the chapel and two underground storerooms, reachable down crumb
ling stone steps. The tower was missing one wall, pulled down during the Civil War, the roofless insides open to the elements. The Great Hall, in contrast, was still complete, the rooms divided up into exhibition spaces.
Walking through them, Martha ducked down the spiral staircase to what was once a secret escape route out to the earthworks, now a door to nowhere. In front of the permanently locked door was the alarm and she punched in the code, counting down the seconds as it beeped loudly in time with her counting. She had half a minute to get outside, any longer and the alarm would go off. She made it in twenty seconds, locking the door with the heavy iron key as the sound faded to nothing.
Once that was done, she paused, looking around her at the growing darkness. The place was so peaceful when the visitors left, just her and the pigeons which waddled slowly across the grass. Through a gap in the curtain wall, she could see the town, the castle overlooking it, built on high ground, designed to impress and command the surrounding population during the middle ages. Amongst the pantiled roofs was the one that belonged to her. It brought a warm feeling to her heart to think of it. A place of her own. She might not have paid to buy it, she might only be renting it from the owner, the same man who owned the castle, who had given her the job all those years ago. But it was still hers, a sanctuary.
For a long time, she hadn’t had a home, somewhere she could return to, somewhere she felt safe. For too long she’d felt lost, the result of everything that had happened to her as a child. Sometimes, most often when a happy family passed through into the castle grounds, she felt a flare of jealousy, wondering what it would be like to have a childhood that wasn’t filled with fear and self loathing. But she had no way of knowing and she knew if she let thoughts like that in, they would consume her. They almost had, for more than two years after the fire, she had sunk into the depths of despair, wishing she had died in the blaze, not survived to feel the guilt of leaving Sophia, Janet, and Clare behind. They would never grow older than twelve. It was a thought that ate away at her for a very long time.
Taking the job at the castle had saved her really, given her a purpose, a distraction, a way of redefining herself. She wasn’t a victim anymore. She was a survivor. And when she was alone, looking at the town from inside the castle, she was a medieval princess.
She was glancing that way, squinting as the light continued to fade, when the wind began to pick up, the leaves on the trees that surrounded the car park beginning to rustle softly. The weather was due to turn, the last of the autumn warmth due to die out in a storm according to the forecast. She zipped up her coat as she began to walk back towards the gatehouse, passing through and looping around the earthworks for one final check before returning to the visitor centre to finish up the paperwork. The castle had been put to bed for another day.
When she walked into the office that adjoined the gift shop, she found the red light on the phone was blinking urgently. Someone had left a message. She hit the button, fairly certain it would be from Peter, wanting to know if his baby had been put to sleep properly. For a man heading towards retirement he didn’t seem to find it easy to let go of control of the place. Even on his days off, he’d pop in to check on her and the other staff, to dust the shelves, to talk to the visitors, tell them about the history of the place. Martha doubted he’d ever retire. Even when he did, she couldn’t imagine him sitting at home completing jigsaw puzzles. He’d probably be haunting the place long after his death, joining the ranks of ghosts said to roam the grounds late at night.
The site had been owned by his ancestors for generations, all the way back to the 1700s when the family who built it, the Especs, decided it was too old fashioned for their needs. They’d built a mansion a couple of miles up the road, the descendants still living there. The castle itself was left empty for fifty years, long enough to begin to crumble, a process sped up when local residents began carting away stone to build their cottages almost up to its doorstep.
The Robertson family had bought the place in the late eighteenth century, looking after it ever since, slowly consolidating the ruins, keeping the ivy in check, employing first sheep to cut the grass, then lawnmowers as the twentieth century began. It had been open as a visitor attraction since 1890 at a shilling a time with a free glass of lemonade thrown in. Times had changed but the castle had remained pretty much the same since then, though the visitor centre had been built in the 1970s to accommodate the growing number of day-trippers who were drawn to Helmsley and the moors beyond.
A voice emerged from the answerphone, filling the office as Martha listened. “This is Doctor Harris at York Hospital.” Her heart began to race. A doctor ringing was not going to be good news. “I’m trying to reach Martha Coleman. We have a Peter Robertson here with us, he’s been in an accident. Could you please ring as soon as you pick up this message.”
Martha scrambled for a pen as he read out the number. She hit play again, making sure she had it right before punching the number into the phone.
Ten minutes later she was in her car, heading towards York. The doctor had refused to be drawn over the phone as to how serious it was but she could tell by his voice that it was bad. Peter had been driving out of Helmsley when a lorry had come barrelling down the hill. At the bottom, just as you entered the town, there was a humpback bridge, the road narrowing over it. Martha had had a few near misses herself driving over it. The lorry hadn’t slowed, assuming anyone coming the other way would react quickly enough to move. But Peter hadn’t been able to swerve in time, or the lorry had been going too fast. Either way, the result was he’d been slammed into by a vehicle four times the size of his, ending up trapped in what was once his car, crushed between the side of the lorry and the stonework of the bridge.
He’d been rushed to hospital and had regained consciousness long enough to give them her name and location which was why they’d rung her.
She tried not to cry as she drove, knowing that if the tears started to fall, she’d risk being in an accident of her own. She’d just driven over the bridge, seeing the missing section of wall where it had fallen into the river, pushed off by the impact of Peter’s car. The sight shocked her, it must have been a hell of a smash. She tried not to think of her parents, how they’d died in a car crash all those years ago. Was it her? Was she cursed?
She put her foot down, catching up with the car in front before swerving out and around it. She would have set off sooner if it wasn’t for having to deal with the man knocking on the visitor centre door, asking if he was too late to look around. She had tried to get around him but he’d blocked her path, trying to be polite in his needling. “Just a couple of minutes,” he said. “I won’t take long.”
“Come back tomorrow,” she’d replied, pushing roughly past him and heading for the car park. That often happened. Visitors would expect her to work on their time, not accepting that she might need a break after slogging solidly for twelve hours or more. Normally, she was polite, explaining to them the hours of business, how much they valued their visitors. But not when her employer might be dying.
It took forty minutes to get to the hospital. She left the car haphazardly parked in the Accident and Emergency car park, crossing the few yards to the entrance at a run, getting inside and skidding to a halt by the desk. “Peter Robertson,” she said to the nurse who looked up at her. “Where is he? I’m Martha Coleman. Doctor Harris rang me.”
“Through that door, turn left,” she replied. “He’s expecting you.”
She ran over to a set of automatic doors which remained stubbornly closed.
“You need to push the button,” the nurse called after her, pointing at the side of the door.
Swearing under her breath, Martha saw what she meant, hitting the green button on the wall, waiting impatiently as the doors slid open. She marched through, turning down the corridor, the smell of disinfectant knocking her back. She was just turning another corner when a man walking the other way bumped into her. He stopped short, looking at her with tired eye
s. “Miss Coleman?”
“Martha, yes.”
“I’m Doctor Harris.”
“How is he, Doctor?”
“I’m not going to lie, it doesn’t look good. He lost a lot of blood before we could get him stabilised. His left leg’s broken in two places and he’s cracked a couple of ribs.”
“He’ll live though, right?”
“If we can get the swelling of his brain to come down, then he’s in with a chance but if he’s got any relatives, you might want to get in touch with them, just in case.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not at the minute. My team is still working on him. Does he have any family that you know of?”
“A son and an ex-wife. That’s it.”
“Are you in touch with them?”
A voice called out from behind the doctor. “Martha, is that you?”
“That’s Peter,” she said.
Doctor Harris spun on his heels and stuck his head in the room behind him. “Wait there,” he said as he disappeared inside. She caught him asking, “Is he conscious?” as his voice faded away.
Peter shouted out again. “Martha, get in here.”
She stood in the doorway, torn between the doctor’s command and her employer’s. For a few seconds she couldn’t move but then she pushed open the door, finding Peter laid on the bed surrounded by people. “Just try and relax,” Doctor Harris was saying. “Someone get a hold of him before he does any more damage.”
Martha moved around the bed, finding Peter’s flailing hand and wrapping it around hers. “I’m here, Peter,” she said. “I’m right here.” She tried to focus on his eyes, not wanting to look at the blood, the swelling, the way his body looked so broken.
“I told you to wait outside,” Doctor Harris snapped at her.
“She stays,” Peter snapped right back at him, turning his gaze to her. “Take care of the castle for me, Martha, won’t you? Don’t let her get her claws into it.”
