Chapter Twenty-Six
Roxy wondered if they would be already searching for her in the old house. Perhaps they knew another doorway leading here, and after exhausting their search in the main house and the grounds, they would realise there was nowhere else for her to go. She imagined them going from room to room as sunset gold streaked through the shutters. In her favour, they had no idea that she had already explored these secret places. Places to hide from the Dragons. That was how she saw them now, as dragons, evil witches.
Could it be true?
Could there be real witches here, in modern-day life?
Yet what other explanation fitted the facts? What else could explain their wickedness? They wanted her baby, all their babies, for their coven, for their spells. Not just the Dyces, but witches all over the world. A universal organisation of evil. Witches and warlocks and spells.
She sat on the narrow servants’ stairs and couldn’t stop herself from drifting into an uneasy sleep. She had tried to stay awake and alert, but weariness overtook her. It was a fitful sleep. She was constantly jerking awake, sure she could hear them closing in on her. Maybe, she thought once, listening for a sound, hearing nothing, maybe they had given up. How she wished they would, but she knew that was unlikely. Roxy knew too much. It was more than they could risk to keep her alive. But first they would take her baby. Her poor defenceless baby who only had her to depend on.
And she was useless. No one had ever been able to rely on her. She’d let her mother down. All the time her dad was ill, what had she been doing? Out enjoying herself, pretending Dad’s illness was too much for her to take. Well, her mum had had to take it, and so had Jennifer, and they hadn’t made any excuses. She could see it all now. All her mistakes came back to haunt her as sunset sank into dark. She’d been rebellious, determined to go against every rule. She’d made new friends, dangerous friends. Why could she see it all so clearly now, here in a darkening staircase with shadows in every corner? They hadn’t been friends at all, egging her on to do things she knew she shouldn’t.
When her mother had needed her support it was Jennifer she had relied on. Her wee sister, Little Miss Perfect. Roxy saw now that Jennifer was indeed perfect. She was thoughtful and caring and never put herself first. She’d been a rotten sister to Jennifer. She’d let her down too.
And Anne Marie, and Aidan. There was nothing she could do to help them. Nothing. It was too late. She had let everyone down.
She hugged herself, aware of her baby snuggling inside her. She wouldn’t let him down. Her last chance to prove she could do something worthwhile. ‘You hear me?’ She caressed her stomach gently. ‘I won’t let you down. I promise.’
But she knew she couldn’t hide here for ever. What she was waiting for was complete darkness. Under cover of the night and a moonless sky she could possibly sneak out of the house, make her way through the gardens and climb the gates to freedom. The thought frightened her, but what other option did she have?
She’d considered everything else. Even sneaking back into the main house, into the Dyces’ office, using the phone, calling for help. But what could she tell them? She didn’t even know where she was. She had no idea where this house was situated. She could ask them to trace the call, but how long would that take, and did she have that much time?
Roxy gasped as she heard a noise. Footsteps? Somewhere in one of the distant rooms? They were searching for her, room by room, she was sure of it now. She would have to keep moving, she decided, and after a moment waiting for more footsteps and hearing none, she began to crawl up the dusty stairs silently, her ears alert for every sound.
She reached the hallway and she stood listening. There was no sound. The house grew silent. But she knew they wouldn’t have given up. She was sure they would be here somewhere, closing in on her.
Her heart fell when she saw moonlight streaking in between slats on a window. There was a full moon. Another bright clear night. So much for her picture of escaping under cover of darkness. How was she going to get away now? Why was everything against her?
She wanted to cry, but she held her tears back. Crying wouldn’t help. She needed to think.
She moved silently to the window at the far end of the hallway. She was almost afraid to look through the broken shutters, sure the Dyces would be standing below, looking up, watching for her. From one of the rooms in the house music played, happy violin music. She imagined the girls sitting there, feeling safe. After all they had probably come through, they thought they were safe now.
Be afraid, she wanted to shout to them. Don’t believe anything they tell you! She remembered how suspicious she’d been from the beginning. Questioning everything. Anne Marie had been annoyed with her sometimes. Well, Roxy had been right to be suspicious. Everything the Dyces had told them had been lies. They had all been in danger from the beginning.
She was hungry. So hungry. She needed something to eat, to drink. Especially something to drink. Her mouth was parched.
‘When this is over, baby, we’ll have a slap-up meal. A big juicy steak, and Coke, and fish and chips and hamburgers and chicken and …’
At that moment she would have swapped them all for an ice-cold drink of water.
As she moved away from the window she realised she must be somewhere above the Dyces’ office. They mustn’t hear her. She slipped off her shoes. She should move as far away as possible from anywhere they might be. She shuffled back and stopped abruptly as she heard voices, coming from an open window below and drifting up through the still night air. Their voices, loud and angry. Not afraid to shout. Who would understand them? No one.
‘We have to find her. She has to be here somewhere,’ Dragon Woman was saying harshly. Yet her voice was as ever soft and husky. Roxy could imagine her striding about the room, fire shooting from her nostrils.
‘I’ll find her. I’ll smoke the little bitch out.’ This was Dragon Man. How could she ever have thought his voice was gentle? It was harsh and cruel and vicious.
Their voices were too close. One floor below her. She had to move away from this part of the house. Unconsciously, she moved backwards, not taking her eyes from the shuttered window, almost expecting them both, that Dragon couple, to ooze through and swallow her up. If only she could think of some way to bring help. But she was too tired, too hungry, too confused. She needed rest, time to think things out.
Back and back she moved, one silent step at a time, afraid to breathe, because if they heard her breathe they would know where she was. They would find her. Further into the shadows she moved, safer in the dark corner, where they couldn’t see her. She stopped for a moment, listened. Nothing now. Were they already heading back into the old part of this house, knowing she must be here?
Her foot touched another bag of rubbish, thrown into the corner and left there. Roxy turned around to move it gently, quietly out of the way. She crouched down and clutched at it, afraid that it might topple over with a whoosh and a crash and they would hear that, and she would be found.
She reached out for it, only wanting to hold it steady, expecting to feel plastic. But it wasn’t a bag of rubbish.
It was Stevens’ body.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
What stopped her from screaming? Roxy couldn’t tell. She wanted to scream. Every instinct yelled at her to scream. Looking at his so dead face terrified her. His eyes were open, staring at her. Dead eyes. Roxy scrabbled away from him as if she thought he might reach out and grab her, drag her close to him.
They had killed him. He had come back for the jeep and they had killed him. Because they knew he had been planning to help her escape. That had to be what had happened. What other reason could there be for such evil? Now they had even more reason not to let her live.
She had to get away.
She stumbled as her eyes searched the dark corridor, expecting the Dyces to leap out at any second. They had been here at this very spot only recently. They had probably shoved Stevens’ body here just till it was
dark, and they could come back and dispose of it. They might return at any second, find her here and then she would be done for.
For a second she couldn’t breathe. Panic. She mustn’t panic. She had to stay calm, think things through.
How had they killed him? A stab wound through the heart like Sula? But she could see no blood. No wound. Yet he was dead. There was no life in those eyes or in that face. Drained of life.
She’d never seen a dead body before. She had refused to look at her dad. Couldn’t bear to see him with the life gone out of him. Looking at Stevens, slumped on the floor, his eyes open but dead of life, she was glad of it.
Had they poisoned him? No, that would have been too slow. Did they have time to do that between Stevens leaving her and the Dyces coming back?
What did it matter? she screamed to herself, biting her lip until it almost bled. He was dead, wasn’t he? Proof, if she’d needed any more, of just how evil they were. And if they found her, she would be dead too.
Witches, every one.
No.
Wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it …
* * *
She hauled herself back from her memories. Here she was, still crouched in a corner, still listening to the sounds of Dragon House. But she wasn’t shaking now.
Remembering had helped her to think more clearly, though she could not forget the dead man lying by her side.
Perhaps, she thought, Stevens had something in his pocket that she might be able to use. Keys to the jeep? Could she try to drive it off? Would she know how? She’d watched her mother often enough. And Paul could drive, so it couldn’t be that hard.
Or a mobile phone? Even better. It would be worth a try to call someone. She might not know where she was, but if she could phone her mum she knew she would believe her. She’d get help, find her no matter where she was.
But where was she? And could she keep hidden here until help came?
When she thought like that she lost all hope. So she pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. First things first. She would search Stevens’ pockets and see what she might find. Could she do that? Put her hands in a dead man’s pockets?
If she had to, she decided. If it was going to help save her baby she would do anything.
It was harder than she imagined. If only his eyes were closed, but they stayed open, watching her, accusing her.
Every second she expected him suddenly to flash those dead eyes at her, come to life, in the dusk of that corridor. Reach out for her like a zombie from a horror film, grab her, pull her to him. She watched for the least sign of movement, a finger twitching, a rattle of breath coming from his lips.
No, no, no, mustn’t think like that. He is dead. Dead!
Powerless to hurt her.
Powerless to help her.
It took her an age to reach out to his pockets. Her hand shook, her breath came in short gasps, but she had to. She swallowed hard, steeled herself to lean towards him and slip her hand into his top pocket. Ready to scream out at the least sign of a heart beating against her fingers.
A half-smoked cigarette. The stub of a pencil. That was all he had in there.
Now, his left pocket. She drew her hand out again in disgust. A dirty handkerchief, stiff and grimy. She threw it from her and wiped her hands frantically on her dress. It was even more difficult to go back into his pockets after that. But it had to be done.
She found a comb, and that amazed her. Stevens, with his hair always wild and unkempt, looked as if he didn’t even know what a comb was. And a box of matches.
She now had to force herself to dip into his trouser pockets. Would she ever have believed she could do such a thing? But it was a waste of time. Apart from some loose change, there was nothing. No miracle find. No mobile phone. Not even an address book to give her a clue to where this house was situated.
Roxy sat back on her heels and cried. Why was nothing going her way? Now what else could she do? She knew she had to help herself, only had herself to rely on, but she was backed into a corner and there was no way out.
So what was left?
If she could get up to the roof of this building she could draw attention to herself. Wave a sheet or a towel, signal to a passing plane that she was in danger.
Stupid idea. How could she, eight months pregnant, ever hope to climb up on to the roof, a sloping roof, clinging on to the tiles, waving a sodding towel?
If she could only send up a flare of some kind. That’s what they did at sea. A distress signal. That’s what she needed. But there were no flares lying handily about that she could set off.
A distress signal.
A flare.
She felt the matches still clutched in her hand, and knew in that instant what she had to do.
It was as if a cartoon bulb had been switched on above her head.
She was going to make the biggest distress signal anyone had ever seen.
She was going to set fire to Dragon House.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A fire! Why hadn’t Roxy thought of it before? This had been the hottest summer on record, the driest. Hadn’t that paper said that forest fires were starting up all over the place? Scorched grass bursting into flame. She remembered the photo of the hotel fire too. The fire service were on constant alert. Nobody could ignore a fire. Nobody could miss it. Surely, Dragon House couldn’t be so remote that a fire would be missed. But even if it was, a fire would give her just the diversion she needed to get away. This time she wouldn’t fail. This dry old house, with its wooden floors and panelled walls and ceilings, with its ancient tapestry curtains lying around, and the broken wooden chairs and the worn carpets, yes. It was a perfect torch. It would crackle and hiss and go up like a firework.
Roxy began to get excited at the thought of what she was about to do. She would climb to the top of the house, to that warren of attics, and as she climbed, on each floor she would pile up rubbish and curtains beside windows, in corners. She would start the fire in the old library. All those dry-as-dust books would go up like tinder. She would drop Stevens’ matches, setting alight to one floor, before moving quickly down to the next.
From room to room, from floor to floor, lighting a beacon, lighting her way to freedom.
What of the other girls? Surely, she told herself, this was their chance of freedom too. The fire would start far from their part of the house. They would get out. There would be time for them to escape and one day she would tell them all that she had saved them and their babies.
As for the Dyces, she didn’t care what happened to them.
Witches and warlocks.
Evil. Pure evil. She hated them.
Her hands were shaking. Here in the dark with a dead body close by her, she was suddenly afraid of nothing – except failing her baby.
Silently she began her journey. On each floor she dragged as much as she could, stacking it together like a bonfire. At last, exhausted, she reached the library. Here she dragged curtains to one of the old bookcases that was crammed full of old dry books. She began hauling books from their shelves and the curtains muffled the noise of their falling. Dry as dust, they almost crumbled as they fell. Now was the moment. She checked behind her to make sure she had a close access to the doorway leading to the lower floor. She had to escape quickly, and be ready to start the next fire.
How quickly would it take hold? Too quickly, and she wouldn’t have time to make it to the next floor. She knew this had to be the craziest thing she had ever done.
She would never do anything crazy again, she promised herself. Enough of excitement. When this was over she would live a nice quiet life with her baby. She’d never complain about being bored again. If she lived through this night, she could handle all the dull, boring days life would throw at her.
If she lived through tonight.
The moment had come. She struck a match, held it for a moment, its flame wavering in the dark. It was now or never. No going back when she dropped this. She took a deep bre
ath and let the match fall from her fingers on to the curtains.
At first she thought it wasn’t going to catch. She stepped back, ready to run, stopped when nothing seemed to happen. The weak flame flickered and then seemed to die. Roxy held her breath, not sure what to do. She moved forward to look closer. A little pall of smoke appeared from the folds, and then there was a hiss and a flash, and like a demon, the flame leapt into life.
She couldn’t move though she knew she must. Something kept her there. Some fascination she couldn’t explain kept her watching as the flames licked round the edges of the tattered curtains, like something alive. She had been right about the books. The flames reached out to them and seemed to eat them up in one fiery gulp. Yet, still she stood. She had to be sure that fire would stay alive, burn, and keep burning. She watched and it amazed her and appalled her how quickly it caught hold, and grew. As if it had a life of its own.
She had once heard a saying – it came back to her now with a horrifying clarity – ‘fire was a good servant, but it was a bad master’. She’d never understood what that really meant, until now.
This fire was going to be nobody’s servant.
Already, it was spreading, grabbing, snatching with fiery fingers at every loose curtain and dry splinter, devouring every book, searching around hungrily for something more to feed it.
Now she had to get away. She shook herself free of the nightmare that held her, and began to move. She began running down to the next floor. Already the flames were after her. She threw tapestries and bags of rubbish, broken chairs behind her as she ran. She dropped anything that would feed that fire. Somehow, noise didn’t matter now. Fire was taking hold. She lit another match, dropped it on another pile on the next floor, then another match, just to make sure, before running down the next flight of stairs. This time she didn’t wait to watch. She didn’t dare. The chase was on and the fire was after her. Knew it had a hold on her, that it could mesmerise her, transfix her, hypnotise her until it could feed on her too.
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