And he reached out and shoved me, and I hit the ground rolling …
And slipped right off the cliff edge.
Chapter Thirty-three
IVY
CARLET!” I screamed.
My world shattered into pieces.
I think I passed out, just for a second. I hit my head on the rock, and I could feel a cut there, and I knew it was bleeding. But it meant nothing to me. Everything was dull, lifeless.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Ariadne was shaking me, saying something, but it wasn’t hitting my ears. My eyes were squeezed shut.
I was back in the past, being told that my twin was dead. Listening to my stepmother telling me there was nothing they could do. I was drowning in the rain. It was all over.
“Ivy, Ivy, please,” Ariadne was crying. The wind howled around us.
And then I heard something that snapped me out of it. Something I’d never heard before.
“HOW COULD YOU?” It was Rose, and she was shouting. Screaming at the top of her lungs.
Slowly, I opened my eyes. My chest hurt. Everything hurt.
Phyllis was tugging on Julian’s coat, her face drawn with horror. “No, no, no, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Julian …”
“Look what you made me do!” Julian whirled round. “If you’d just given me the—”
“SHUT UP!” Rose screamed. “Just shut up!” She put her hand inside her jumper and ripped the necklace from her throat. Julian visibly flinched. Rose shot out her hand and dangled the locket at arm’s length, over the lake. “I have …” she gasped, panting, like she wasn’t quite sure how to get the words out. “I have carried this key my whole life. Fitzwarren Manor is mine by right. My … my mother hated you, and with good reason! She called you a vulture!”
“Now she speaks!” Julian said, throwing his hands up, but Rose loosened her grip and he choked into silence.
“I am Lady Rose Fitzwarren!” she shouted into the wind. “And I would rather that NOBODY had the family fortune than see a MONSTER like you take one penny of it!”
I watched, cold and numb and sick, as Rose gripped the locket tightly in her hand, and pulled her arm back.
“NO!” Julian roared, running towards Rose, reaching for the locket. But Rose threw with all her might, and the locket arced through the air.
And Julian tumbled after it.
I heard a distant splash from far below.
And I realised something, but hardly dared to think it at that moment – I hadn’t heard a splash when Scarlet had fallen …
Phyllis let out a wail of anguish that was unlike anything I’d ever heard, and fell to her knees.
With Julian gone, I got up and ran forward, not knowing what was powering my legs, knowing only that I had to look. I threw myself on the ground and crawled to the cliff edge. “Scarlet!” I called out.
“Ivy!”
It was Scarlet. She was hanging on to the cliff.
The colour flooded back into the world.
“Oh, thank God,” I sobbed.
“Help me!” Scarlet yelled. She was clinging on by her fingertips a little below the cliff edge, her feet just balancing on a tiny rocky outcrop.
Seconds later, Ariadne and Rose were beside me.
“Pull her up!”
I reached down, and clamped my hand round Scarlet’s right wrist. Rose and Ariadne took the left.
“I don’t want to let go!” said Scarlet, tears in her eyes.
“We’ve got you!” I nodded at the others.
“On three!” Ariadne said. “One … two … three!”
Scarlet let go. We pulled as hard as we could, and she scrambled up over the edge as we all fell backwards, her knees scraping on the rock.
We all lay there for a moment, in a wet heap, not quite believing any of what had just happened. And then Rose pulled Scarlet into a tight hug, and we all joined in. I felt relief like I had never felt before. Scarlet was safe. We were safe.
“He’s gone,” Rose sobbed. “He’s gone.”
“It’s OK now,” Ariadne said. “We’ve got you.”
“I thought I’d lost you again,” I said to Scarlet as I hugged her, tears streaming down my cheeks.
“You can’t lose me that easily,” she said, hugging me back. “We’re a team, remember? A team that can’t be broken.”
Phyllis was in hysterics, crying and screaming. Scarlet, who had stood up and brushed herself off, grazed knees and all, limped over to her. “Oh, stop that,” she said. “This is mostly your fault, you know.”
I followed Scarlet over. Phyllis’s blonde hair was wild, her eyes red. Her trousers were covered in mud and she was shaking. She looked up at Scarlet. “Julian …” she wailed.
“Who are you really?” Scarlet demanded breathlessly. “Is Phyllis Moss even your real name?”
Phyllis gulped in the cold air. The rain was starting to ease off a little, I thought. “Phyllis Fitzwarren,” she said sadly.
Rose and Ariadne came and stood beside us. “You’re his new wife,” Rose said, just loud enough to be heard. “That’s why I hadn’t seen you before.”
Phyllis nodded, staring out at the lake, not saying a word.
“And you planned all this?” I asked shakily. I was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that the nice orienteering instructor and her birdwatching husband had been out to get us this whole time.
“I …” Phyllis gulped. “I was just trying to help him, to …” she gave another gasping sob, “to get him what he wanted …”
Scarlet grabbed her arm and pulled her up, and Ariadne took her other arm to stop her running away. “Come on,” Scarlet said. “We’re going back to the hotel.”
I held on to my sister’s hand as tightly as I could while we walked down the hill. I wasn’t letting her get away again. Not after I’d only just got her back!
As the storm quietened down, we rowed across the lake, Phyllis sitting silently at one end of the boat. Ariadne was still holding on to her in case she tried to escape, but she didn’t look like she was going to.
There was no sign at all of Julian. I wondered what had happened to him. Had he drowned, joining the lost souls at the bottom of the lake? It made me feel nauseous to think about it. I hoped he wouldn’t come back, but I wasn’t sure I wanted him to be dead.
I didn’t know what Phyllis believed had happened to him. She wouldn’t say a word, her blonde hair sticking to her face as she stared blankly out at the water.
Rose, on the other hand, was unusually talkative. Her voice had gone back to being quiet as a mouse’s, and we still strained to hear her over the last of the rain, but there was a fierce determination that I didn’t think had ever been there before.
“It was him,” she said. “He had me locked up. Since …” she choked a little on her words. “Since I lost my parents, I’m the sole heir to the Fitzwarren estate and the family fortune. Julian wanted to take it all for himself. When I came to Rookwood, I thought I’d escaped him, so long as I didn’t tell anyone who I really was.”
We stayed quiet, and listened.
“Nobody ever wanted me.” Rose held her head down, the last of the rain dripping from her golden hair. “They all thought I was a freak. That I was mad or cursed. I … I think I believed them.” She paused again, then looked up at the rest of us. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“Rose … I …” I felt I needed to say this, but it was hard. “We had doubts. The sleepwalking and everything, it was all so unusual.”
She bit her lip. “It’s all right,” she said. “You saved me in the end.”
“It’s not all right,” I said, determined to make up for it. “We’re your friends and we should’ve trusted you, and not let what everyone else said get to us just because things were … well, unusual. I’m sorry.”
“We’re sorry,” I heard Scarlet and Ariadne echo, and I knew they meant it.
“We’re all a bit unusual though, aren’t we?” Scarlet said as sh
e heaved the oars back and forth. “I was locked up in the asylum too, because I couldn’t stay out of trouble. Everyone thought I was dead. Ivy spent weeks pretending to be me.”
“I once burned down a shed!” Ariadne piped up.
“There, you see?” Scarlet said. “You’re not alone, Rose. We can all be freaks together.”
And for the first time that afternoon, Rose began to smile.
Chapter Thirty-four
SCARLET
stopped the Adventure next to the jetty, and threw the rope over one of the wooden poles. For a moment, I sat back and just felt glad to be alive. I had come close to death so many times now. How many chances did I have left?
I stood up and climbed out of the boat. The rain was turning to drizzle that was fading to mist, and I could feel the sun starting to peek through the clouds. I heard the roar of the dam as it let the water out of the lake.
As the others followed me out, Phyllis just sat there, still staring. I wondered what we were going to do with her.
That was when I heard someone shouting.
“GIRLS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GIRLS!”
To no one’s surprise, Miss Bowler pounded into view, huffing and panting in her raincoat. “Where have you been!?” she demanded. She looked over and spotted Rose and Phyllis. “And you two! We’ve been looking everywhere! What on earth has been going on?”
I looked at my friends. “Um,” I said. “That’s a bit of a long story, Miss …”
We did our best to explain on the way back up to the hotel, Miss Bowler marching Phyllis along after we’d told her exactly what the orienteering instructor had really been up to.
“The police will be coming for you, young madam,” she’d chastised, as if Phyllis was one of her students. Phyllis still didn’t say a word. She seemed to have given up.
Although Miss Bowler had been furious at us for going out during the storm, she seemed more relieved that it was all over. I was sure Rookwood had had more than enough bad publicity as it was, without losing pupils on the school trip.
We finally made it to the hotel, and we all sat gratefully in the reception area while Miss Bowler got Mr Rudge to send for the police. The police in this case apparently consisted of two constables who lived in the village over the hill, and Mr Rudge had ordered a kitchen boy to ride over and find them. At least the storm had finally stopped.
After some time and a lot of shouting, Mrs Knight came out from the room where she’d been resting. She looked a good deal better, with her arm in a sling. “Oh, girls,” she said when she saw us sitting there. “What have you been up to this time?”
I started to explain, but she held up her hand.
“Miss Bowler has already been telling me, but I’m not sure I can quite believe it. In fact, I may need to sit down again.” Right on cue, she collapsed into the armchair in one corner. “Julian seemed like such a lovely man.” She sighed, and her cheeks flushed red again. “I think I’ve had enough excitement for one trip.”
Mrs Knight called for the doctor with the walrus moustache, who cleaned up the cut on Ivy’s forehead while she winced, and looked at my bruised and scraped limbs. He declared I was fine, if a little battered.
The evening drew in, and the constables from the village arrived on horseback with the harassed-looking kitchen boy. They told us they had set people to work moving the fallen tree, then wasted no time in getting Phyllis to spill her guts about everything that had happened.
She kept repeating that she was just doing what Julian wanted. I didn’t know what she was thinking. No man was worth all that.
Apparently, Julian had concocted a plan to have Rose locked away in the asylum, knowing that, as next in line, he would then become the heir to the fortune. But there was a flaw in his plan – he’d recently heard that, shortly before their deaths, Rose’s parents had written a new will cutting Julian out of any inheritance. Rose was the sole heir, and if anything were to happen to her everything would go to charity rather than to any of the other relatives. The new will was secured in their safety deposit box, and only Rose had the key. The key that was now at the bottom of the lake. Julian had been spitting with fury when he’d heard about the new will, and he’d decided his only shot was to make sure that it was destroyed.
He’d apparently caused a scene at the asylum when they had admitted that they’d lost Rose, but he’d learnt that she’d been close to Violet. That had led him and Phyllis to investigate Rookwood, and they’d read about the school trip from Mrs Knight’s announcement in the local paper. They’d been stalking us ever since.
I realised, then, how close they’d been to us this whole time. Following us in the bus, hiding out in the bushes, combing through our room at night after setting off the fire alarm. All this to get Rose’s necklace. It was all so clever and so stupid at the same time. And now the police were going to take Phyllis away, and who knew what fate Julian had met.
And much to my surprise, the police weren’t the only people who arrived. Later that night, once we were mostly dry and had been given a blissful roast dinner (I wasn’t looking forward to returning to stew), there was a commotion in the reception area. We headed over there to find Bob Owens, his hat in his hands, talking to the Rudges.
We’d talked about showing them Ariadne’s photographs, but we couldn’t believe that he’d actually decided to come clean on his own.
“It was you?” Mrs Rudge said, her hand over her heart.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Mr Rudge had gone almost purple. “How dare you? This is our home, and our business! How dare you try to scare us?”
We stepped in between them. I waved at Bob, hoping he would continue.
“I …” He ran a hand through his grey hair. “I’m sorry. I thought it would make up for what happened to my family, see. To my village. But it didn’t …”
“That’s no excuse! I’m going to tell the constables about this right away—” Mr Rudge started, but his wife grabbed his arm.
“Oh, stop it, Gerald,” she said. “I want to hear what Mr Owens has to say.”
So they stood, and listened, Mrs Rudge keeping a tight hold on her husband, while Bob explained everything, just as he had done to us.
Just to add to the surprises, by the time Bob had finished, it was Mr Rudge who had tears in his eyes. Mrs Rudge just looked a little stunned. “Is all of that true?” she said finally.
Bob nodded. “You have my word. Not that my word means much to you, I know. I am sorry, truly.” He turned away from them. “I’ll pay you back for the damage. Send the police after me, if you like. I haven’t got anything left to lose.” He started walking towards the door, but Mrs Rudge ran after him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Mr Owens … Bob … We didn’t realise any of that. I’d heard stories about the place being haunted, and I knew about the village, but that was as much as I knew. That’s why I was so scared by it all. We shouldn’t have tried to cover it up, but I just didn’t want to lose all our guests.” She looked down at the carpet, ashamed. “I’m sure there’s something we could do to help you.” She looked back at her husband, who just sniffed and wiped his eyes, and then back at Mr Owens. “Would you like a job?”
“What?” Bob said, along with all the rest of us who were standing in the doorway.
For the first time, I actually saw Mr Rudge smile, and then Mrs Rudge’s uncertainty faded away. She wanted to do this. “You know the local area better than anybody. Why don’t you work as a tour guide for us?”
Bob couldn’t seem to meet her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I should …”
“And we’ll do something for your family,” she said. “We’ll build a memorial for them, and we’ll put up a museum about the village. So that people won’t forget. Their ghosts can be laid to rest.”
“You’d do that?” he asked, his eyes brightening. “For me?”
“Come into the office,” she said, “and we’ll talk about it.”
Chapter Thirty-five
IVY
he next day dawned bright and hot, which was just another of the unexpected things that happened on the trip. It was as if the sky had rained all it could, and now it was trying something completely different.
The hotel, too, seemed to have changed. It was lighter somehow. Like it was breathing a sigh of relief. I woke up in the four-poster bed and stretched, looking through the tattered curtains at the lake. There were still some silvery clouds, but the sky was blue behind them, and the sun was shimmering on the water.
And then there was Rose. Without her locket, she seemed lighter too. I wondered how she felt, now that her destiny was in her own hands. What would be next for her?
We walked down to breakfast, where we saw Mrs Rudge bustling between the tables with a wide smile on her face. Mr Rudge and Bob had apparently been helping the local men to cut up and move the tree that had fallen over the road. I hoped it might be the start of a friendship between them. Bob certainly needed it.
We were enjoying our food when Elsie and Cassandra walked up to us.
“Oh no,” Scarlet said, rolling her eyes. I braced myself.
Elsie was looking at the floor. “Um,” she said.
“Um,” said Cassandra.
“What’s the matter?” Rose asked quietly. “Cat got your tongue?” She had a mischievous smile on her face.
Elsie and Cassandra went bright red.
“MissBowlersayswehavetoapologise,” Elsie said in one mouthful.
“What was that?” Scarlet asked, putting her hand to her ear.
“Miss Bowler says we have to apologise!” she repeated. “So we’re sorry, all right?”
I looked at Rose. “Is that all right with you, Lady Rose?”
Rose made a show of thinking about it, and then she slowly nodded.
“And?” Ariadne prompted, twirling her hand around.
The Lights Under the Lake Page 18
