The Wayward Girls

by Amanda Mason

  She practically dragged him inside this time, and Loo was scared now, properly scared, because she was sure once the policeman found out what they’d been doing they’d really be in trouble.

  She wanted to hold her mum’s hand. She wanted to cry.

  Bee and Loo followed the adults upstairs.

  ‘It’s just the four of you then?’ the policeman asked. ‘You, your – husband and the two girls.’

  ‘My husband’s away,’ said Cathy.

  ‘Flor and Anto are asleep,’ said Bee. ‘I looked.’

  ‘My son Dante is here,’ said Cathy. ‘He’s checking outside.’

  Dan had been busy, before Cathy called him downstairs. In the girls’ room the wardrobe doors hung open, the drawers were pulled out and their clothes, pretty much all they had, were draped around the room and scattered on the floor.

  The window was wide open and the net curtain flapped lazily in the breeze.

  Loo couldn’t help it. It all looked so – scary. She grabbed hold of her mother’s hand.

  ‘It wasn’t like this,’ said Cathy. ‘It wasn’t. My God, who did this?’

  He made them wait downstairs while he searched the house. That was the worst bit. Loo was sure that he’d find some sort of clue Dan had left behind, or see that the shape in Flor’s bed was a bolster covered by a sheet. The idea, pinched from a book, that she’d thought so clever now seemed obvious and childish, but Dan – who had kept just out of sight in the garden – told them later that the policeman wasn’t much of a detective, he’d barely searched the house at all. They’d spooked him good and proper, him and Cathy both.

  ‘There’s no one here, you’re quite safe.’ The policeman hadn’t spotted anything, and now she was sure of that Loo felt much better.

  ‘No.’ Cathy stood in the centre of the room, her back to the fireplace. ‘You don’t understand. There’s something here, there’s a – presence.’

  ‘Well.’ The policeman was starting to look uncomfortable.That’ll teach him, Loo thought suddenly, that’ll teach him to go on at us about the truant officer, the kid-catcher. ‘Well, that may be, but it’s not something I can do anything about. Have you thought of the vicar, perhaps?’

  Behind Cathy the chair shuddered, and began to shift a little across the carpet.

  ‘Look.’ Loo pointed at the chair, just as they’d rehearsed, giving Flor his signal. ‘Look at that.’

  ‘He saw it move,’ says Lucy. ‘Flor was squashed underneath it and he could make it shake, could make it slide a little way over the carpet – and after that people couldn’t help themselves, they told stories, they embellished …’

  This is not what they want to hear.

  ‘… and the reporter they sent, not Issy, this bloke from the Gazette once they’d got interested – I don’t think he ever believed us at all, I think he just wanted a good story so he elaborated too, I suppose. And that was the version everyone read, you see, everyone seems to forget that, and it coloured everything that came after. We were going to stop, but after the policeman came, after Isobel turned up, then Michael, Simon … Whatever we did seemed to fit in with that story and the ones that followed. No one was really interested in verifying what had happened. They just wanted a headline.’

  ‘My father wanted more than that,’ says Nina.

  ‘He was very kind,’ says Lucy. ‘He was, truly. But you have to remember it was Michael Warren who was in charge, and he set the tone, I suppose. And it was so much easier to fool someone who wanted to believe.’

  ‘And all the time it was Dan and his brother shoving the furniture around while everyone kept an eye on you,’ says Hal.

  ‘Yes, largely. We didn’t always know what someone might do. We didn’t always plan it. If we saw a chance, any of us, we took it.’

  Messing up the house, the bedroom.

  Tearing up her books and scattering them across the carpet; she’d never been sure who had done that.

  Everything in pieces, beyond repair.

  ‘It was our job – mine and Bee’s – to make sure no one ever looked the wrong way: to keep their attention on us. We stole stuff, we switched things around, we eavesdropped on the grown-ups,’ says Lucy. ‘Sometimes Dan was out at work, but sometimes we just said he was. No one ever checked up on that. And when it seemed we might run out of ideas, we could look in Simon’s books – he just left them lying around in the tent. We could work out what they wanted, him and Michael, how a haunting was supposed to go.’

  And everyone was so willing for it to be true, that was the real trick to it, it wasn’t hard at all, and once you know the method, as with most illusions, it is disappointingly obvious. Here it is, the great secret of her life, and now it’s out in the open it’s a poor pathetic thing.

  ‘And you fooled them all,’ says Lewis.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even Simon?’

  Lucy glances up at Nina. ‘Yes. I think he believed us. I’m not sure about Issy; she used to get this look on her face sometimes, towards – towards the end – when Bee was being particularly dramatic, or – or when I did Tib’s voice.’

  ‘No,’ says Nina.

  ‘That was you?’ asks Lewis.

  ‘Yes,’ says Lucy, her mouth dry, wishing she’d never begun this, wishing she could get to the end of it. ‘We read about mediums producing ectoplasm and we knew we’d never get away with that, but there were some who could channel spirit voices … We all tried it, ventriloquism. Dan was pretty good, but he wanted to stay – behind the scenes. Bee was dreadful, I was better … which isn’t really saying very much. I always leant forward and let my hair fall over my face. Sometimes I even covered my hand with my mouth, especially if I was nervous.’

  ‘Where did you get the name from?’ Nina asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lucy feels as though she may cry now. ‘It just – came out one day. I must have got it from a book.’

  ‘Did Cathy know?’ asks Lewis.

  ‘God, no. That was the whole point. She hadn’t a clue.’

  It had been funny at first. Losing your marbles, Dan had said, when they were planning it all, making Bee laugh until she could barely breathe, until she went scarlet in the face, sucking greedily at her inhaler, swearing at Dan for setting her off.

  Lucy can’t bear to look at them any longer. She goes to the window; she can see the road, and their cars parked in front of the house, but the valley is fading into the dark.

  ‘So.’ Nina’s voice is low, but steady. ‘You go along with us for the whole weekend just so you can, what? Make sure we don’t get anywhere? Keep us from the truth? And then when we do make a breakthrough, when it turns out we don’t need you any more, when it turns out there is something here after all—’

  ‘Nina,’ says Lewis.

  ‘Because there is, isn’t there? You may be a fucking liar, but we’re … The stuff we’ve got, on video, on tape – that’s not us. And it’s not you either, is it?’

  Lucy doesn’t reply.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Come on,’ says Hal. ‘Please.’

  ‘It won’t work,’ says Nina. ‘We’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘Why?’ says Lucy. ‘What is so very important that you need to stay? I’m offering to tell the truth.’

  ‘But you’re not,’ says Nina. ‘You’re lying. You’re still lying. Even now.’

  The photos, Lucy thinks, too late.

  ‘Because that’s not the whole story, is it?’

  ‘My dad was planning to retire,’ says Nina, going through her father’s folders, sifting through the black and white prints and the contact sheets, and her father’s typewritten notes, spilling them onto the table, arranging and rearranging them. ‘He wanted to donate his work, all the cases, to the Society’s archive. So, he was going through it all. And he was doing that, and—’

  Nina pushes her fingers into her hair and looks at them all, refusing to cry. ‘It was very sudden,’ she says, ‘and things were a bit – difficult for a while. A
nyway, after the funeral, I was sorting out his files, and I found Isobel’s pictures – all these pictures – and I could see that it didn’t make sense.’

  She spreads out the contact sheets, picking through them. ‘There’s so much material, that’s the problem. You see – here, that’s the séance in the living room, just before it, anyway.’ She picks up a sheet and examines it before discarding it and picking up another. ‘There’s stuff taken in all the sessions they ran, loads of random stuff, just of the family.’

  ‘Nina.’ Hal stands, places one hand over hers. ‘It’s OK. We get it.’

  ‘There’s too much,’ she says, pausing to gather her thoughts. She steps back from the table, from Hal, folding her arms. ‘It’s in his notes. It’s all bits and pieces, stuff that looks like he might have started transcribing tapes, interspersed with a sort of journal he kept, but that was mostly times and dates of the interviews with the girls – and there are Issy’s photos. Not many, but it’s there.’

  She looks at Lucy, straightening her back, raising her voice and aiming for a confidence she doesn’t yet feel. ‘It’s all bits and pieces, really, but there’s enough to put you there in the barn, you and Bee, Michael, my dad. Everyone.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ says Lewis, ‘the haunting was centred on the house. All the evidence—’

  ‘The haunting was centred on the girls,’ says Hal, ‘on Bee, and on Loo.’

  ‘I think you ran a second séance but not in the house – up in the barn. And that’s when everything went wrong.’

  Nina falls silent, and they stand there, the three of them, waiting. The room is cold, and it seems to Lucy that it’s darker too, that the light bulb is dimming slowly, and the faint buzz of it is working its way inside her head.

  ‘It that true?’ Hal is looking at Lucy. ‘They did it again? Another séance?’

  ‘No,’ says Lucy softly.

  They have to go, she thinks. They have to get away while they can.

  ‘Cathy didn’t want to,’ she says eventually, ‘not really, but yes. They did.’

  ‘In the barn, because you said something had happened there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you say that?’ asks Lewis.

  ‘Oh, God, I don’t know, I was just … Look, can’t we just leave? If we pack up now we can go through all of this later. I promise I’ll—’

  ‘Why did you say it?’ Nina’s eyes are bright with tears.

  ‘I don’t know, I was just a kid, I was just …’

  Caught up in it all.

  32

  Then

  Isobel listened as Cathy went through her conditions with Michael and Simon, the latter making notes and managing to give the impression they were setting down some kind of binding agreement.

  Every ‘yes’ and ‘I see’ seemed to calm Cathy a little more. They could use the barn, the studio, but only once, only this evening, and that was to be the end of it.

  Her priority was the wellbeing of their daughters.

  They were to talk to Tib with the aim of laying her to rest.

  This was no longer an investigation; they were going to rid her daughter of this … presence.

  Round and round they went, the same fears being voiced, the same responses, edging closer to an understanding.

  Olivia was in the garden. Issy could see her through the open door, sitting underneath the tree, her head tilted back, her eyes shut, sunning herself, or meditating, it was hard to say. Her long legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles, and her skirt had ridden up a little. Issy raised her camera.

  As the shutter clicked, Olivia opened her eyes and looked right at her.

  ‘When do you want to start?’ asked Cathy.

  ‘As soon as we can, Cathy, don’t you think?’ said Michael.

  Loo had given them the slip. She could hear them, thumping up and down the stairs calling her name, and someone, Issy, she thought, had walked right past where she was hiding and through the kitchen into the garden. She had the hazy idea that if they couldn’t find her, they wouldn’t be able to try again and then maybe Olivia would leave and it would all stop.

  ‘Loo … Lucia …’

  It was cooler in the scullery. She’d tried to reach the jars of jam her mother still kept on the top shelf, but after a couple of half-hearted attempts – kneeling on the lowest shelf and then pulling herself up by her fingertips – she’d given up.

  She’d found the newspapers though. They were spread around her on the floor and her fingers were stained grey with newsprint. She liked the photos. She and Bee looked different, as if they might be in a film or on the telly. She wasn’t impressed with the stories though – they’d written things she couldn’t remember Cathy saying, and things she was certain she would never say in a million years. So there they were, themselves and not themselves, printed onto the paper.

  She was just considering another attempt at the high shelf when the door began to move. The latch lifted and as she watched she almost expected to see Tib appear, in her long dark frock and with her sad-angry face. In the newspapers Tib was just as real as Loo and Bee. Sometimes it felt as if Tib wasn’t just inside her head; she was outside too, getting stronger, wanting to play her own game now.

  The figure at the door looked at her and Loo could feel her heart beating.

  ‘Hello,’ said Olivia.

  She closed the door behind her and leant against it.

  ‘I was hungry,’ said Loo.

  ‘I see.’ She looked at the papers on the floor. ‘Here.’ Olivia moved closer, reaching up over Loo’s head to produce not only jam, apple and bramble, but a packet of digestive biscuits.

  ‘Thank you.’ Loo opened the biscuits and offered them to Olivia. They were a bit stale but they still tasted OK, especially when dipped in the jam.

  ‘We’ve been looking for you,’ said Olivia.

  ‘Are we going to do it again? The séance?’

  ‘Yes. But this time we’re going to go into the barn to talk to Tib.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think Tib is unhappy and I think the barn is important to her. Is that OK?’

  Loo thought about this, about the way Olivia had joined in when Tib was speaking, almost as if she was part of the game too. She nodded. ‘Does Michael want to know what happened to her?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, he does.’ Olivia took another biscuit and snapped it in two. ‘And we’ll ask her all about that. But this time, when I talk to Tib, I’m going to help her go away, and when she goes, she won’t ever come back.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Would that be all right too? Would you like that?’

  ‘Yes.’ Loo didn’t even have to think about this question. She dipped a bit of biscuit into the jar, scooping out the clear purple jam. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.

  Michael undid the padlock, and he and Simon pulled both barn doors open. Everyone stood still for a moment, beneath the bright sun, peering into the dark. Issy coughed, cleared her throat, raised her camera.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Bee slipped past her and led the way in.

  They worked quickly to clear a space by pulling the trestle tables to one side and by stacking, at Cathy’s insistence, a dozen or so half-finished canvases by the door, covering them carefully with torn and stained oilcloth.

  Issy took a few shots: dusty brushes left propped up in grimy jam jars, a couple of pheasant’s feathers wedged in the window pane, a handful of flints left on the sill. Still life.

  ‘Can we go upstairs?’ asked Bee, one foot on the ladder that led up to the hayloft, with Loo right behind her.

  ‘No,’ said her mother.

  Bee pulled herself up onto the first rung, ready to ignore Cathy, filled with a blazing energy that seemed to cut through the gloom, the muscles in her neck and outstretched arm tensed. Ready for a fight.

  ‘We need you here,’ said Olivia, and Bee hesitated before stepping down, kicking the ladder hard enough to make it rattle before
turning away.

  ‘All right, then,’ she said. ‘Where do you want us?’

  Olivia turned to Loo. ‘I’m getting a very strong sense … Tib said there was blood on the stones. Did she mean here?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so.’ Loo looked at the rough stone floor, the brick remnants of the animal byres. For a moment she could hear it – the double doors above rattling, scraping over the floorboards, a silence, then something crumpling; she could see the blood. Outside, she thinks, the words fluttering away before she can speak, outside on the overgrown flagstones.

  ‘Loo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  They should go.

  They should go.

  Go now.

  ‘Loo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Now, I’ll tell you again what’s going to happen. We are going to talk to Tib, you and I, and we are going to help her understand what happened to her and we’re going to help her move on.’

  Move on where? Lucy wanted to ask, but Olivia was squeezing her hand so tightly. ‘Look at me, Loo. I need you to look at me, I need you to concentrate.’

  Where would Tib go?

  Dust fell from above as a floorboard settled and Loo wanted to call out to everyone, ‘We have to go now’, but Olivia’s grip was strong and behind her Bee was glaring as if she’d messed it up already. It occurred to Loo that if she did this one thing then maybe Olivia would keep her word and maybe Tib would move on. Even if she didn’t want to, maybe Tib would leave her alone. She’d like that.

  ‘Can you do that, Loo? Can you help me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’

  Olivia let go and the blood in Loo’s fingers tingled.

  ‘We need to make a circle here,’ Olivia said. ‘Hold hands and step back and make a circle.’

  And as the light grew dim and the shadows lengthened, they did as they were told.

  Olivia stood to her right, Bee to her left, then Simon, Cathy and Michael. Bee stretched out a hand and wrapped her fingers around Simon’s.

  ‘No, wait,’ said Olivia. ‘You too, Isobel.’ Issy was by the door, her camera, as ever, in her hand.

  ‘Oh, no. Not me.’