The Wayward Girls

by Amanda Mason

  She was a broken thing, white and still, leaking black-red blood onto the bleached grass and cracked flagstones of the old farmyard, only a little blood but enough; Bee was still, and silent.

  Issy moved closer. The girl was lying on her back, her hair spread out, looking up at the clear blue sky, her big dark eyes open, fixed. Gone.

  ‘Oh, Bee,’ she said, her camera, her stupid camera, still in her hand. She looked up to the open barn doors above where Simon held Loo, or she held him, gripping fiercely, her thin frame heaving with sobs, her face hidden as he looked down at them all, pale and blank.

  No one moves as the noise builds. It’s definitely above them, something heavy beating down on the floor of the loft, shaking the beams, disturbing the years’ accumulation of dust that scatters gently on them.

  ‘We should go up,’ says Nina.

  ‘No,’ says Hal.

  ‘No,’ says Lucy.

  The knocking stops and they can all feel it then, Lucy is sure, the way the atmosphere charges, the way the air seems to crackle, ready to ignite.

  It charges and then …

  The lights fade – their torches, the camera, everything.

  ‘Shit,’ Nina says. ‘We got it, right? Is the camera still working?’

  There’s enough light from the open door to make them out, the three of them, Hal with his camera, Nina and Lewis side by side.

  ‘I think so,’ says Hal. ‘I think—’

  Behind them the barn door slams shut and they are plunged into darkness.

  It won’t open.

  They all take turns pushing at it, but the barn door, neither door, will shift.

  ‘Shit.’ Hal steps back and considers his options.

  It’s not too bad, the darkness, once you get used to it. Lucy’s eyes have adjusted a little, and Hal has replaced the batteries in the camera light, working by the flickering flame of his lighter. They have used it to scan the room, to make sure everyone is OK, to check that they are still alone.

  There’s no one there.

  But still, Lucy would like to get the door open.

  ‘It’s no good,’ says Lewis, ‘we’re trapped.’

  ‘Hang on,’ says Hal. ‘Let’s just stop and think.’

  Lucy leans back against the door and considers her options. If there were some tools left behind, perhaps they could find something to use on the hinges.

  ‘Maybe if we can find something to force it,’ says Nina, tugging at the handle.

  ‘Wait.’ Lucy picks up a torch from the nearest window ledge, shakes it and flicks the switch. A frail beam of light cuts through the gloom. ‘Try the other ones,’ she says.

  Lewis’s torch doesn’t work, but the other two come back to life, after a fashion, casting a sickly glow through the interior of the barn. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. Lewis uses an app on his phone instead, following as Nina leads the way across the uneven floor. Lucy and Hal are slower, she sweeping her torch up and across the walls, he adjusting his camera.

  Nina has reached the back wall of the building. It’s dark and the stone is soaked through with damp. She’s hoping to find some tools they could use but all she can see are a few rusting tractor parts. They need a hammer, an axe, or a blade perhaps.

  They all hear it then, the long cold scrape of a blade across stone.

  Lucy can remember how it was, in her dad’s day; the sickle and the scythe, propped up behind one of the tables. Another reason to keep out. They weren’t to touch them, Joe had said; even a blunt edge can cut.

  ‘What’s that?’ says Lucy.

  ‘I …’ says Lewis. ‘I don’t …’ and Lucy’s not sure what happens next.

  Nina moves towards Lewis, she takes one step, two, and then she’s there, behind her, the girl – or maybe it’s just her shadow – and Lewis staggers and falls forward. ‘No,’ he says, dropping his phone. Does he cry out? Lucy thinks he cries out, and in the sudden darkness as Lewis folds and crumples, it seems to her that something flexes and coils, something reaches out and knocks him against the wall.

  ‘Jesus! Did you see that?’

  Hal doesn’t want to think about the tone in Nina’s voice.

  Wary of tripping and falling in the dark, he makes his way carefully over to Lewis. He’s slumped against the wall, one leg twisted underneath him at an impossible angle. Hal puts the camera down, then lifts Lewis’s head gently; there’s a rapid pulse fluttering under his fingers and his eyes are open, even if they are glassy, confused.

  ‘Lewis, Lew, can you hear me?’

  A cut runs from just below his eye to his chin, not too deep, he thinks, he hopes. Behind him someone breathes softly on his neck.

  He won’t look. He won’t.

  ‘We need to call an ambulance,’ he says.

  ‘How will they get in?’ asks Nina.

  ‘I don’t bloody know, but we have to call them.’

  Nina goes through her pockets, slowly, too slowly, and Hal wishes he had something he could put against Lewis’s face, something to stem the bleeding.

  ‘I’ve lost my phone,’ Nina says and for the first time her voice is tinged with panic.

  Lucy tries hers, but there’s no signal. ‘Nothing,’ she says.

  ‘Jesus.’

  Hal leans down over Lewis. ‘Lew? Lewis? It’s all right. We’re going to get you out of here, OK? We’ll find a way out.’

  Lucy retreats to the door under the pretext of trying her phone again. She stumbles over the uneven floor, bits of stone and rubble shifting under her feet, tears stinging her eyes.

  She doesn’t know how this is all possible, she can’t reason it out. The girl she thought she’d conjured up a lifetime ago is here – is present – once more. Lucy is eleven years old again, caught up in a game she can no longer control, almost breathless with fear. She’s forced her way through again, and this time …

  She’s allowed them to be locked in.

  Locked in with her.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She tries the phone again, but she can’t make her hands work, stabbing at the lock screen once, twice before she sees the emergency icon, presses that, and puts the phone to her ear. She feels sick. The urge to drop the phone, to curl up on the floor, eyes tight shut, is near-overwhelming.

  She wants her mother.

  Nina is sweeping her torch slowly across the wall. ‘What about these windows?’ she says. ‘Have we tried any of these yet?’

  There’s no reply.

  Lucy’s phone is useless. She shuts it off, waits, tries to steady her breathing, tries to think

  Nina tries again, raising her voice. ‘I said—’

  The pounding on the floorboards above them drowns her out.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Then silence.

  The ladder rattles against the loft.

  Lucy has to do something.

  ‘OK,’ she says, trying to sound confident, as though she has a plan. ‘I want you two to stay here with Lewis. Try your phone please, Hal, try mine again,’ she hands it over, ‘and get the door open if you can.’ She’s shaking, she hopes they don’t notice, she hopes they’ll listen and do as they’re told.

  ‘Why? Where are you going?’ says Nina. Lucy glances up towards the hayloft.

  ‘No,’ says Hal. ‘No way.’

  ‘You can’t,’ says Nina.

  Lucy takes off her coat, long, heavy, expensive, and drapes it gently over Lewis. ‘Keep him warm and try to keep him conscious. Get out and ring for an ambulance. Walk down to the village if you have to. Do not come after me.’

  ‘No,’ says Hal again, grabbing her wrist.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ says Lucy. ‘I promise.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asks Nina.

  ‘I don’t know. Try to talk to her, I suppose, make contact, anyway. That’s what she wants, isn’t it? That’s what all this has been about.’ She pulls herself free and goes to the ladder; she places one hand on a
rung and tries not to think of woodworm or dry rot. She can feel the wood vibrating under her hand, humming with life. She begins to climb.

  Simon set off for the phone box in the village even though he knew there was no point, it would make no difference, Bee was beyond help.

  Between them Olivia and Isobel were able to get Cathy away from the body, not back to the house, she wouldn’t do that, but back inside the barn at least, in the shade, out of sight. Issy held her and let her cry for a while, murmuring nonsense, making comforting sounds, even though there was no comfort to be had.

  Michael vanished, returning after a few minutes with a sheet from the laundry basket, which he shook out clumsily. Olivia stood in the doorway and watched the white sheet unfurl in his hands, watched it billow and fall gently on the girl on the ground. Then he stood for a moment, head bowed, almost in prayer; unwilling, she suspected, to leave the dead alone.

  He turned and made his way back to the barn.

  ‘Cathy? Cathy, can you hear me?’

  Cathy’s sobs had subsided a little; she sat quietly on the ground, clutching at Isobel, her tears falling silently, helplessly. Her expression was blank. It was as if grief had suddenly removed her from the world, as if she might never find her way back.

  ‘Cathy?’ The professor knelt down in front of the two women. ‘This is important. We need to think about what happens next. The police are coming, Cathy. We need to be clear on what you will tell them.’ When Cathy didn’t reply, he reached out and took her hand. ‘You need to think about the others, Cathy. Cathy, can you hear me?’

  ‘What?’

  Cathy looked bewildered, the way people do when you wake them suddenly. She looked young and afraid, and Issy could feel her shivering despite the heat of the day. It’s the shock, she thought, she needs a doctor.

  ‘If you tell them about us, if you tell them what we were doing …’

  ‘You said it would help. You said you would help.’ Cathy looked past him, looked at Olivia. She wanted to go outside again, Issy could feel her body straining. If she moved, if she decided to go to her daughter, Issy didn’t think she’d be able to hold her back. ‘I – you said it would be all right …’

  ‘It would look bad for you, Cathy, if it got out that you’d allowed the children to participate in a séance.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We don’t have very much time. You need to decide quickly.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘An investigation, a scientific investigation is one thing. But a séance – they won’t understand that. They will look for someone to blame.’

  ‘It was your idea—’

  ‘You’re her mother. They will blame you, do you understand? They will punish you. They’ll take the children away, put them in care.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that,’ said Isobel. ‘We can explain it was an accident. We were here, we’re witnesses.’

  ‘Well,’ said the professor, ‘we could try. But I didn’t see what happened, did you?’

  ‘No. I – no.’ It had all been too quick. She’d followed Simon up the ladder, she’d raised the camera and hit the shutter release, it was second nature these days, a reflex, but she hadn’t really seen anything.

  ‘And the stories in the papers won’t help. For every believer there is a sceptic. Some people might choose to believe you are unstable, Cathy, unfit to be a mother.’

  ‘No,’ said Cathy, ‘no, no, no.’ She began to cry properly again, deep, heavy sobs. Issy pulled her close. This is unbearable, she thought, impossible.

  ‘Listen to me,’ the professor went on. ‘If you listen to me, I think we can help.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Isobel. ‘You have to stop. She can’t possibly … The best thing to do is tell the truth. Michael? Olivia?’

  Finally, Olivia moved away from the door. She stepped into the shadowy barn, smiled sadly at Issy, at Cathy. ‘I think Michael is right,’ she said.

  Upstairs Loo lay as still as she could, curled up on the floorboards, the dust tickling her nose, making her wheezy, a bit like – she tried not to think about her sister.

  ‘What happened?’ Simon had asked. ‘Tell me what happened, Loo.’

  But she couldn’t say, she wasn’t sure.

  Tib, it was Tib. She wasn’t real, but she’d done it anyway.

  Did she say that?

  ‘No. I don’t know. I can’t—’

  There were so many lies, she couldn’t see straight. They’d lied about the knocking in the walls, the marbles flying through the air. Bee had lied about Cathy and Joe, she’d enjoyed that – frightening Loo with her stories about the knife. Telling her Cathy had hurt him, sent him away – worse. They’d lied about Tib too, only in the end Tib had seemed the most real thing of all, the only real thing, the most – dangerous.

  She remembered Simon climbing up into the loft, the look on Bee’s face.

  And then …

  ‘Wait here,’ Simon had said afterwards, as he’d disappeared back down the ladder and Loo had sat quietly for a while, waiting, not looking to see where Bee had landed, how very still she was now, before deciding she’d like to lie down, maybe go to sleep.

  She kept her eyes closed, and a careful ear out for Tib, but she was quite alone.

  They hadn’t really forgotten her, she knew that. She could have called down, for Olivia, for her mum, but she didn’t know what she should say to them.

  Better to stay here for a bit then.

  Perhaps when she woke up, it would all be better.

  She could hear the grown-ups’ voices buzzing through the floorboards; they were talking to Cathy. It was a bit like being back in her bedroom, when you could half hear people chatting in the kitchen. Her mother wasn’t saying much. Michael was doing most of the talking, his voice deep, serious. Occasionally Olivia said something, Issy too.

  Issy sounded cross.

  If she lay still, Loo could almost imagine she was back in bed. With her eyes closed she could almost imagine Bee was safe, asleep in the bunk above her. She cried for a little bit then, as quietly as she could.

  It was Isobel, in the end, who came up and found her, who helped her to her feet and back down the ladder. When Cathy saw her, she let out a terrible moan, and pulled her close, holding on so fiercely, Loo thought she might never let go.

  By the time Loo could struggle free, they had all gone, Michael and Olivia, Simon and Isobel. Dan was there, with Flor – too shocked to cry for once – and with Anto, who was slumped in his arms, still half asleep. No one asked again what had happened, and anyway, by then she couldn’t remember.

  ‘Listen,’ Cathy said. ‘I need you all to listen to me.’

  Isobel found Simon packing up his belongings. It was still warm, but if you looked towards the horizon, you could see the faintest sketch of cloud, a thin charcoal line that promised rain; summer was finally going to break. Simon paused, his hands full of clothes, grubby T-shirts and worn jeans.

  ‘You look awful,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks. So do you.’ She sat on the grass in front of the tent, collapsed and waiting to be packed away, and looked down over the farm. The emergency vehicles were long gone and Cathy and her children were somewhere in town, awaiting the arrival of Cathy’s parents. Simon had never seen anyone die before, he couldn’t really take it in – the sudden, shocking, permanent absence of her, Bee.

  ‘What do you think will happen to them?’ he asked, sitting next to her.

  ‘Depends on the police findings, I suppose.’ Isobel wasn’t really convinced that their plan, their shoddy and shameful scheme to save face, would work. She found herself half-hoping it wouldn’t.

  ‘But it was an accident, Issy. That part’s true.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They hadn’t had much time, once Cathy had agreed, and Issy had been the last person to leave, to follow the others along the shortcut to the farm. ‘I’m so sorry, Cathy,’ she’d said.

  Cathy was clutching at Loo,
holding on so tight the poor kid could hardly breathe. Dan stood to one side, cradling the baby in one arm, keeping a firm grip on the little boy, Florian, with his free hand. Half a family now, incomplete.

  ‘Go,’ Cathy had said. ‘Go now.’

  Issy had driven them away, Olivia and Michael, passing the ambulance as it rattled along the moors road, its siren howling, useless. They had left them behind: Cathy barely there, lost, adrift, all the fight gone out of her, surrounded by her children.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ Isobel said.

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t …’ Simon looked down at his hands, afraid suddenly that he might cry. ‘I can’t – remember …’

  Issy crossed her legs, shading her eyes as she gazed down towards the farm, the barn, the sun lowering in the sky. She could still feel Cathy in her arms, sobbing, trembling, bereft. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t untangle it,’ he said. ‘I – shit.’ He rubbed at his eyes, cleared his throat. ‘I asked Loo, she was closer – but she – she’s just a kid, Issy.’

  ‘I know,’ said Isobel, ‘and anyway, it was an accident.’ She was quiet for a time, until she was sure he’d be able to speak again. ‘Here,’ she said, pulling several bulging manila folders out of her bag. ‘I want to give you these.’

  He opened one and out slid pages of proofs and bundles of negatives held together with elastic bands.

  ‘And these.’ She held out three black plastic cylinders, film canisters. ‘Today’s stuff too. That’s all of it, I think.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean – there’ll still be a book?’ It was a terrible thing to ask, but she had to know.

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He didn’t like to admit it, but he was fairly certain the professor would carry on. As they were walking back to the farm he had said something about protecting the integrity of their research. It had sounded logical at the time.

  ‘Right. Well. You’ll let me know what you want to use?’ He could hear the effort Isobel was making to sound professional. ‘Then we’ll go on from there. You know, payment, copyright, acknowledgements. I don’t want them back, not any of them.’

  ‘Of course. Yes. All right.’ He ran his fingers over the bundles of pictures, dropped the canisters onto his pile of clothes; there wasn’t much else to be packed.