by Ariel Dodson
Alice was about to reply, but Aunt Maud was off again.
“Is he hurt badly?” she asked then, and her eyes were very bright.
Alice squared her shoulders to reply that no, he was not alright. He had a concussion and was very lucky he hadn’t anything worse, but she was cut off once more.
“He’ll live,” Arlen shrugged nonchalantly.
“Hmm,” muttered Aunt Maud, and looked around the kitchen, her tirade apparently over. “I suppose you’ll be wanting some tea now?”
“Not for me, thank you, Auntie,” Arlen replied, gripping the door handle, her knuckles very white. “I’m not hungry.”
“No, I’m not either,” Alice agreed, although if it hadn’t been for the combined memory of that morning’s meal and the fact that she wanted to talk to Arlen alone, she felt that she could have been persuaded.
Aunt Maud made no protest, but nodded quickly. “Off to bed then, and stay there.”
Aunt Maud did say some very odd things, Alice thought, but had no time to reflect on the matter as she hurried up the narrow, winding staircase after her sister.
“Arlen, wait,” she called, but Arlen continued up the stairs, only pausing at the door with a strange, drained look. How could she look like that? Alice wondered, a sudden stab of anger shooting through her. She hadn’t been the one to take the fall. If anything, it seemed that she had –
She stopped the thought right then. That was silly. It was Aunt Maud’s crabbiness and this strange horror house of a place playing on her nerves.
“What?” Arlen asked, her face drawn, as she began to turn down her covers.
“What happened out there?” She didn’t really know where to start. But Arlen’s face was blank, and for some reason it infuriated her. “You know what I’m talking about. Flipping out like that because Robbie found the cave – so what? It’s not private property, even if you’re the only one who’s been in it for years. And on the cliff – it was almost like – ”
“Almost like what?” The life snapped back into Arlen’s face suddenly and she stood upright, her eyes black and her voice threatening.
“You know what,” Alice replied, her anger swelling. “You did it on purpose!”
“Did what?” Arlen cried, and her voice took on a frightened tinge.
“Robbie!” Alice was almost shouting. “You did it! And what did he ever do to you?”
“Girls!” The door flew open suddenly and Aunt Maud faced them, her bony face flushed and cross. “I told you to go to bed. Now, in bed, both of you, and I don’t want to hear another word.”
It was a familiar line from television and books, and Alice almost welcomed it.
They undressed silently and crawled into their beds, and Aunt Maud extinguished the flame of the kerosene lamp herself.
“Now no more talking,” she warned them, and closed the door firmly behind her.
Alice didn’t like the sound it made, quick, like a gaol cell click in the old movies she had watched at the weekend, reverberating in the cold, stone room. But she was too tired suddenly to think about it, a wave of exhaustion consuming her, and she drifted helplessly within it. Not a sound came from Arlen. But Alice couldn’t help thinking oddly, before she surrendered herself completely to slumber, that it had been a strange thing to say, to accuse her sister of such a thing. He had lost his balance, what with the wind and all. Arlen had been nowhere near him at the time.
And Robbie tossed and turned uneasily in his grandfather’s attic room, bothered by the wind outside his window, the lopsided front gate, swinging on one hinge, that he had promised to mend the following day, making an eerie, squeaking noise, which seemed to ride on the gusts and mock him. He couldn’t help but remember the strange vision of the eyes before him suddenly, red and glaring through the wind, and the menacing sound, almost like a chuckle, as it lifted and threw him. That same chuckle that was out there now, playing with the gate, tapping with the swirling leaves on his window, the same chuckle that had seemed to follow him home.
Chapter Six
The twins slept long that night, dreamlessly, although Arlen tossed and turned restlessly as the surf crashed onto the rocks beneath the window, pounding against the thick stone foundations of the castle, burrowing into the girl’s consciousness as she twisted, disturbed in her sleep, uncomfortable thoughts lurking, shadowy, somewhere in her mind.
It was very quiet when she awoke. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, the tense events of the previous day resurfacing in her memory in small snatches, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She shuddered. The room was grey and dull, with a light sea mist that had crept through the narrow window and now hung damply in the room, like a spider’s web. Arlen could not prevent herself from trying to brush it from her face.
Outside the scene was still. The waves lapped gently and silently against the foot of the tower, and the fine mist lent a thick, tarnished glow to everything, like unpolished silver. Further out, the sea seemed strangely placid, still and smooth as glass, but opaque and impenetrable. A lone seagull glided noiselessly through the air, casting no shadow on the dark water below.
She could see the outline of the jagged circle of rocks as she leant out of the window, and within it, the charred black twigs of the dead fire. By the circle, almost overhanging it, lay the hulk of the wreck that had been coughed up the day before, spewed by the waves in their anger, impaled mercilessly on the harsh rocks. Arlen was almost sure she could hear it groan and sigh as it settled itself, a last resting place. She felt sorry for it. She wouldn’t have liked to end her days there, stabbed by a sharp tooth of stone.
“Is that the wreck?” Alice had woken and was trying to see out of the narrow window behind her. “It’s a beauty.”
“It’s very old,” Arlen murmured quietly. “I’ve seen something like it – once before. I can’t remember where.”
“Shall we go and explore it?” Alice had barely been listening. After a good night’s sleep everything almost seemed like a very bizarre dream, although Robbie’s accident and the argument with Arlen played unhappily on her mind, and she was eager to make it up to her sister.
“I don’t know,” Arlen said slowly. “I seem to – recognise it. I – ” she stopped suddenly. “Come with me to the library. You’ve never been into it.”
“No,” Alice agreed, and followed, rather half-heartedly, it must be admitted. Her sights had been set on the wreck.
Down and down they circled, passing the thick wooden door that led to Aunt Maud’s room at the bottom of the stairs. Not even Arlen had been in there, and Alice couldn’t help wondering what she did with her time. She did seem to disappear an awful lot.
They passed the small, cold bathroom which still required the use of buckets of water, and stepped into the shabby hallway. It must have been very grand and impressive once, when the castle was young, and the people who lived in it were wealthy and cared to show it. But now it was drab and very dark, and the shadowy portraits of ancestors and a large, ancient tapestry peered blindly into the gloom. They must have been young once, and bright in their fresh oil paint and coloured threads. But the damp sea air had loved them too well, and patches of mould had formed in the corners. The once fine threads of the tapestry were so thin and worn that the picture had blurred into a shapeless mass of dull greens and reds and greys. The memories of what once must have been people hovered palely in the background, but they could not escape their faceless forms, and were lost, trapped in the blur. Alice shuddered. This was not a nice place.
What was even more depressing was the way that the hall disappeared further down. Just vanished, for the end rooms belonged to the part of the castle that had been destroyed, and although the hole had now been blocked up, it was horrible to think that there had once been more rooms and stairs and floors and people.
Fortunately, the library was through the first door opposite, too far in to have been caught in the mass of falling rubble all those years ago, and it was through its tired, oak doors that Ar
len now led her sister.
Alice found that she was almost holding her breath. She had seen too much television and read too many books not to have some preconceived notion of what to expect, and her imagination was running wildly on shining mahogany staircases, handsome oak desks and polished leather furniture, a blazing fire, and books, books, books, climbing the walls to the sky. Once again, she was sorely disappointed.
She was led into a very wide, round room, with high ceilings and long walls, the original of those Hollywood movie sets. But, as with the rest of the castle, nothing had been maintained, and many of the bookshelves had long since disappeared into oblivion. The stone walls were glaringly bare and grey, and Alice, gazing upwards, could see that the vaulted roof must have fallen in parts at some point, and had been loosely patched with timber. This was not sophisticated enough to prevent the ills of the cold and damp, and a steady train of greenish-grey mould was slowly moving down the walls from the ceiling in a large, unpleasant stain. Alice shivered. This was nothing like the libraries she’d seen and used, underfunded as they might have been. The room was chill with the damp sea air which seeped in via the dilapidated roof, the narrow, arched windows which boasted wooden shutters rather than glass, and the grey, useless fireplace, the chimney of which had crumbled to rubble long ago. Over the dull mantelpiece Alice could again make out the faded image of a dragon, its scales gradually blending with the peeling paint and encroaching fungus.
Arlen drew the shutters open, and a thin grey light entered feebly, casting strange shadows across the room. Alice, shivering, cast a glance outside, and was met with a long, dismal landscape of still sea and empty shoreline beyond. Suddenly she longed very much for the strong cabbage smell that had pervaded her favourite landlady’s sitting room.
The corner of the room by the windows still boasted books, but the shelves there had long gone, and the heavy tomes were piled in tall, wobbling stacks along the wall. Arlen was moving some of them around, dusty and grimy and damp, despite the frequent use of her small, eager fingers, and depositing them on a dusty old table, which she had vainly tried to polish every time she used it. The table’s chief recommendation, aside from being there, was the fact that its legs gripped the floor with sturdy wooden claws, something that Alice had only seen in the V&A on a long ago school trip, and had been fascinated by ever since. So engrossed was she with admiring the paws that she almost forgot the whole purpose of the visit, and was only drawn back to it by a nudge from Arlen.
“Can you take this lot?”
“What are we looking for?” Alice asked eventually, after what seemed like hours of turning heavy parchments with facefuls of dust.
“I don’t know,” Arlen replied vaguely. “I’ve been through all of these before. It’s something about that ship – I’ve seen it somewhere. It must be here.” She was frustrated, snapping shut the last thick volume with a fierce crack.
Alice sat silently. The books had been interesting, with their strange letters and colourful pictures. The library must have been amassed over many centuries and by many generations – some of the older manuscripts were like ones she had only seen in museums, whilst others, regular printed volumes, were still very old and falling apart.
She would have liked time to explore them all. Arlen obviously knew them well; she only needed to glance at the first page to see that it was not what she was looking for. Now she was frowning and frustrated, deep in thought.
The room, although cold to begin with, suddenly became alive with a fierce chill. Alice could feel the icy fingers on her skin, and shuddered. Outside the wind sang eerily, and she could hear a strange moan crying in its arms in a voice of creaking, tired wood.
It was then that Arlen rose, and her eyes held a determined light. “I think it’s about time we explored that ship.”
The hallway seemed even colder and damper than before, as Arlen shut the door carefully behind her. The gentle click reverberated across the silent stone walls, and Alice turned her glance away as the faded eyes in the portraits seemed to turn reprovingly towards them. It was only when they reached the kitchen, which seemed comparatively friendly, that she realised she’d been holding her breath.
“I wonder what happened here,” she said softly, holding herself, as if to keep warm. “It’s all so long ago.”
“But it’s still here,” Arlen answered, grimly. She reached into the pantry and tore off a hunk of dry bread. “Not the greatest breakfast, but it will do,” she said, and half laughed.
“Do what?” The deep voice sounded from nowhere, and Alice jerked forward, startled. Arlen, more used to her great-aunt’s sudden appearances, subtly tucked the bread into her pocket, her face innocent.
“We were just going for a walk,” she said, which was true, in a way.
“Now, Arlen, I really haven’t the time this morning,” Aunt Maud shook her head with a painful expression. She appeared to be in one of her industrious moods, a phase which Arlen dreaded. Most of Aunt Maud’s outlook on life seemed to be that nothing was right and that everything, particularly her niece, had been sent to try her, but her industrious phases were even worse. She would suddenly start a seemingly endless round of baking or cleaning or tidying books in the library, which usually meant throwing them away. Arlen could remember many occasions of sneaking out at night to rescue discarded volumes from the rubbish heap.
Furthermore, she always wanted to enlist Arlen’s help, and she seemed to purposely time such moods for when Arlen had something particularly interesting to do. Today was no exception.
“I need you to run down to the village, dear,” she said firmly. “It’s been a while since that room of yours was cleaned properly. We’ll need some new sponges and detergent, and you’ll need another scrubbing brush.”
Arlen stood still, dismayed, fervently trying to think up some excuse. Why did Aunt Maud always choose such moments? This was too important to wait. And why her room again? Aunt Maud had given it a thorough scrubbing only a fortnight before.
“Oh, but Auntie – ” Alice, thinking it might be better if she were the one to protest, tried in vain.
“Now, Alice, I think you can be spared for a little while. Go on with your walk, dear, and get some colour into those cheeks. They’re far too pale. Arlen, I’ll give you a list.”
Arlen was rolling her eyes behind her aunt’s back as she counted out the money. Alice shrugged her shoulders. What should she do?
“I’ll be as quick as I can,” Arlen mouthed. “Wait for me.”
“OK,” Alice nodded, and watched, a little forlornly, as Arlen left, almost at running speed, jingling the change in her pocket.
Aunt Maud had vanished upstairs again, and it seemed that the only thing left for her to do was to explore the grounds until Arlen came back. She left through the kitchen door and stood blinking in the dull grey light, still brighter than the unelectrified interior of the castle, and tried to decide which way to go.
It was then that she saw it.
A strange glinting, flashing on and off like a beacon, just touching the corner of her eye from somewhere in the castle grounds beyond her immediate vision. It was deep and red and bright, and it seemed to be winking at her.
Frustrated and curious, she turned in the direction she thought it must be. She could see it clearly now, a sharp red flashing, dancing in midair, moving somewhere in the distance towards the back of the castle, near the sea. Arlen had not taken her through there, and she vaguely wondered why. Feeling dully determined, almost as if she couldn’t help it, she started in search of the source.
It wasn’t very pretty. No wonder no tourists ever came here. A far cry from the manicured lawns and tidy borders of most English castles that flocked with millions of visitors each year, the grounds which now lay before her were wild and unkempt and looked as though they had not known a gardener for many years. The greenery consisted mainly of gorse and a few straggling trees. The lawn was patchy and ill-looking in the thin, sandy soil. There were no flower
beds, although a few ragged blossoms drooped bright heads amongst the weeds.
Behind her, she could hear the sea, a constant pounding against the rocks and walls of the castle, like a dull sonorous heartbeat. She stood and listened until the thumping seemed to move in rhythm with her own heart and become a part of her, and she rocked for a moment on her feet, unsteadily. The wind caressed her cheek gently, playfully, seeming to coax her on with small, insistent gusts. From some line beyond her vision she could still see the glinting, now flashing purposefully, as if sounding to the ocean’s steady beat, beckoning her onwards with its deep glow.
She could not tell what it was, could almost not remember how she had found herself outside, but she did know that she had to find that glint. Somewhere, someone was calling her, and some long forgotten incident that she could not quite grasp, danced tantalisingly on the edges of her memory. As if mesmerised, she turned and followed the call, and a lone seagull glided slowly into the heavy air above.
Arlen, meanwhile, had just selected the last item on her aunt’s list and was now waiting at the counter, rather impatiently, it must be admitted, as old Mrs Rosslyn counted out change with trembling fingers. Notoriously slow, she had been mistress of the shop for as long as anyone could remember, and seemed to take even longer to serve her customers. Arlen would have told her to forget the change, had she not known that Aunt Maud would be cross. “Watch the pennies,” she had always said, “and the pounds will take care of themselves,” but as far as Arlen could see, that maxim had never helped her finances at all. And it was so typical of Aunt Maud to want to clean when she and Alice had things to do. As an afterthought, she chose a small torch from a stand at the counter and added it to the pile, watching as Mrs Rosslyn scooped up the money and started again. Trying hard not to sigh, she waited quietly as a queue formed behind her, and dug her nails harshly into her palms, hoping fervently that the foreboding feeling which was rising in her stomach was just nerves.
