The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “Don’t be silly,” Faith said, frowning. “We brought you, we’ll take you home.”

  Judy caught a glance from Lisa and nodded. “Sure, not a problem.”

  Faith shrugged then shook her head but didn’t bother fighting. She got into the driver’s seat of Adrian’s car and started adjusting the mirrors. Judy offered a feeble wave then got in her own car, Lisa jumping in the back. As Judy drove from the car park, Lisa burst into tears on the back seat. Without skipping a beat, Judy passed her the packet of tissues she kept in the side pocket of the door. “Don’t worry.”

  Jemma looked nervously around, unsure what she was meant to do in this situation.

  “I’m sorry,” Lisa said. “I didn’t think it would go like that.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m sure it will all work out OK.”

  “Thanks for the lift. I didn’t fancy getting back in the car with Dad. I don’t know why he reacted so oddly.”

  “He’s just going to take a while to get used to the idea.”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Exhaustion had beset them all and even Jemma was slouching in her seat, the phone forgotten on her lap. By the time they’d navigated the town’s endless series of traffic lights and pulled to a stop outside Lisa’s house, it was almost ten.

  “Do you want to come in for a drink?”

  Judy glanced at her daughter. “We’d best not, school night.”

  “Wait,” Jemma said, more alert than she’d been for most of the evening. “Is Ellis in?”

  Ellis was Lisa’s housemate. The pair shared the rent on a semi-detached house and had always been friendly enough when Judy had dropped in. Despite the age difference, Judy had often wondered whether Lisa and Ellis would have made a good couple. Judy looked up at the windows. They were black, the curtains hadn’t yet been closed and she could make out nothing but dark shadows and unfamiliar edges.

  “I don’t think so. He said he was going out.”

  Movement from a front bedroom window caught Judy’s attention, and she glanced across, certain that she’d seen…

  “Why are you interested in Ellis?” Judy asked. Then she remembered that Ellis had the latest Xbox and had invested in a 60-inch TV for the shared lounge. “You’re hoping for a game of Fortnite on his big telly?”

  A smirk appeared on Jemma’s face.

  “Come in,” Lisa said, smiling for the first time in what must have been over an hour. “If he’s not in, you can still play, just use your own account.”

  The house was empty. Ellis had left a note saying he’d gone out to the pub to watch the game. Whilst Judy switched the kettle on, Lisa helped Jemma get settled with the Xbox.

  “Just one game,” Judy shouted from the kitchen.

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  “You can pretend all you like, but it’s one game and then we’re done.”

  Lisa pulled out a stool from the breakfast bar and sat down. “I shouldn’t have said anything to Dad. I could still have done this without him.”

  “Has it been on your mind a lot?”

  She shrugged. “Off and on. I spoke about it a few times with Phil but he was never that interested. I think he thought it would upset Dad too much. I guess he was right.”

  “He should have respected your right to find your birth parents.”

  “Well, we both know that’s not how it was with Phil.”

  Lisa knew Phil as well as Judy did, probably more so, but then there was that side of him that she doubted anyone but Judy had got to witness. The angry side that would be let out as simply as the wrong word said at the dinner table, or the wrong type of beer being in the fridge on football night. Tarnishing his memory with his wider family was never on Judy’s agenda. What would be the point in destroying their image of him just so she could score a few points? It would only be them she would be hurting. Phil had been dead almost a year and the time for getting even with him had long passed.

  “Do you miss him?”

  A strange thing to say. “Sometimes. Do you?”

  “When we were kids, we were pretty much inseparable.” Lisa’s voice trailed off.

  “I’m sorry that you miss him.” Judy poured the boiled water into their cups, stirred, then added the milk.

  She passed Lisa’s cup across. “Is that why it’s important to you now to find your birth parents, because Phil’s gone?”

  Lisa cradled the cup in her fingers and let the steam drift up over her face. “Maybe. I don’t know. Is that wrong?”

  An expletive came from the lounge and Judy shouted at Jemma to mind her language. There was no reply, only the continued sound of guns blasting. Another curse and then Jemma called out, “I’ve been disconnected. Has the internet gone off?”

  Lisa checked her phone. “Yeah, looks like it.” And then to Judy. “I’ll check the router. Won’t be a minute.”

  She hurried from the room, her footsteps patting on the hall floorboards.

  And Judy was not alone.

  She shivered, then glanced around looking for the open window that must be causing the draft she could feel across her neck and back. The windows were all closed behind her. Instinctively, she began counting doors. A habit she’d gotten into after the paranormal night of hell at Ravenmeols. Her life had gotten very complicated, very quickly after Phil died. She’d been exposed to the paranormal and found that she herself was attuned to the unnatural. Counting doors was her way of protecting herself against the portals that would sometimes appear in paranormal hotspots—doorways to another realm that housed the worst of the worst.

  But, there were no more doors here than there should be. They were safe.

  Lisa came back into the kitchen. “The ethernet cable had come unplugged.” She shrugged. “Jasper must have knocked it.”

  Judy stood and tipped the rest of her drink into the sink then placed her cup on the draining board. “So sorry, but I’m really tired. Can we catch up later in the week?”

  Lisa grinned. “Yeah, of course. I didn’t mean to keep you out all night.”

  “It’s not a problem. What will be a problem is trying to get Jemma out of bed in the morning. She might not yet be thirteen, but to all intents and purposes, she’s acting like a total teenager pretty much most of the time. Just listen to this.”

  Judy poked her head into the lounge. “Time to go, sweetie.”

  But, Judy had been wrong. Jemma was fast asleep on the sofa, the Xbox playing loudly on the screen, the controller ignored in Jemma’s lap.

  3

  Something woke her.

  Lisa had been dreaming. Deep dangerous dreams where her imagination and her anxiety came together into a furious melting pot. She was in the middle of an argument with her dad over who should get to pay the bill for the meal. As it was her announcement, she demanded that she should pay, but he was being as stubborn as ever and countered that as he was her legal owner, she was technically a pet who couldn’t have her own money. She was about to throw the table aside and enjoy the sight of linguine hitting his smug features, when the floorboards creaked and she was thrown out of her dreamworld and into reality.

  The reality of her bedroom at night.

  Her fingers stumbled at the bedside table as she reached for the lamp, but she only succeeded in knocking her phone onto the carpet and almost tipping over her glass of water.

  “Jasper,” she whispered, reaching a hand over the top of her duvet, looking for the comforting touch of her tabby’s fur. In the middle of winter, he’d normally be found either curled up in his radiator hammock, or lain beside her. But he wasn’t beside her, and her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dark edges and corners of her room to say for certain whether he was in there.

  She blinked, readying her eyes for the light.

  Another noise that could have been the floorboards at the end of her bed.

  Someone was in her room.

  She sat upright, and scrambled for the light switch a second time, this time finding i
t, not caring what she knocked over. The light came on, the initial burst of pain that came with it subsided, just in time for her to see her bedroom door swing wider open.

  She must have startled Jasper, he heard her struggling in her dreams and came to see if she was OK, then got scared by the noise of her messing with the light and bolted from the room instead.

  Her heart began to slow down to its regular pace. Jesus, why did her imagination do this to her? Was it trying to put her into an early grave?

  Lisa almost convinced herself that she was being the most irrational person on the planet, when she noticed the black shadow stretching out from the cat bed on the radiator. Jasper hadn’t been as flighty as she’d thought. She took another look at the bedroom door and noted it was still swinging ever so gently.

  4

  Judy woke with a headache and a surprising amount of guilt. She wasn’t sure what she had to be guilty about so racked her memories of the conversation she’d had with Lisa the previous night. What had she said about Phil? Anything that would get back to Adrian and Faith and cause upset?

  She took her time making breakfast. There was no rush this morning. Despite the late night, Jemma was already in the bathroom getting ready for school. She needed to leave the house in a little under an hour to meet her friends at the bus stop. Jemma hadn’t spoken much about her dad recently. It can’t have escaped her memory that it was coming up to the anniversary of his death. Should she bring Phil up in conversation? Would that be the right thing to do to give her daughter a chance to talk about him?

  A notification sounded on her phone. An email from the bank. A tremble in her stomach as she tried to recall the balance of the account.

  Seconds later, another notification popped up. This time a jobs website with three positions that fitted her experience. In a prior life, Judy had taught primary school kids. Eight-year-olds mainly. Everything she’d wanted in a job. Apart from the money—that could never hope to compete with Phil’s. He’d suggested she move to part time status when Jemma was born and after a year of that, had recommended she should give it up completely. After all, there was no need for both to be working and then having to waste money on childcare when they didn’t need to. Regretfully now, Judy had agreed and thrown away a ten-year career at the school. She’d told herself that it was for the best and that when one door closed, another surely opened. But life had gotten complicated, and she’d never sought to go back, not even when Jemma moved to high school and Phil had become ill.

  What about now? She’d filled in the forms on the job site and here she was, looking at three positions for teaching jobs, none of them local. The nearest was an hour away in a part of Liverpool she didn’t much care for. But they were jobs. It would be a foot back on the ladder and who knew where it might lead?

  Upstairs, the toilet flushed. Judy checked her watch and then flicked the kettle back on. A flash of memory of the previous evening came to her, making tea in Lisa’s kitchen, feeling not quite alone after Lisa had gone to check on the router. A sensation that had made her think of the Almost Doors and her time at Ravenmeols. She glanced at her phone again. It would only take a minute to send Seth a text and see how he was doing. She almost did it too, had the phone in her hand, unlocked and scrolling through her contacts. Seth’s number wasn’t in the most recently contacted list. Seth was busy working for the Vigilance Society, or Vigilance, or whatever they called themselves.

  Vigilance had been hovering around the periphery of their lives for the last few months, monitoring the aftermath from Ravenmeols, and then later when Adam Cowl had targeted Seth’s uncle. Since then, Seth had been quiet with her. He owed her nothing, she’d realised, after that first week of no contact. Together, they’d defeated the Adherents’ plans twice, and she considered him a friend, but that didn’t mean that they needed to live in each other’s pockets. Seth had a whole new life ahead of him with his uncle’s occult collection, a new house, and mysterious job with Vigilance.

  And Judy had nothing going on in her life that would help her move forward. It wasn’t exactly jealousy she was feeling. Seth had been through a load more pain than Judy ever had and deserved to have some direction to his life.

  “You OK?” Jemma asked, startling her from her thoughts. Her daughter, so smart in her uniform with immaculately braided hair and bright eyes. She had no right to look this energetic after their late night.

  “I’m a little tired. How are you this morning?”

  “What’s for breakfast?”

  “Whatever’s in the cupboard.”

  “Pancakes?”

  “If there are some in there, knock yourself out.”

  Judy fetched a plate and cutlery and pulled a tub of ice cream from the freezer. For herself, she settled on a single piece of buttered toast and that second cup of tea. Whilst Jemma scooped a huge portion of ice cream, she glanced up. “You were talking in your sleep.” A teasing smile flashed on her face.

  “Really?” Judy thought she’d slept well, free from the many interruptions she’d normally experience. “What was I saying?”

  “Nothing much, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  A pause. Then Jemma snapped the lid back on the ice-cream tub. “It sounded like you were talking to Dad.”

  Judy’s stomach fluttered. She circled the rim of her teacup with her finger, enjoying the heat from the china. “Just a dream.”

  “You were angry at him.” Jemma avoided her mother’s gaze, concentrating a little too much on chopping up pancakes with the side of her spoon. “It was a little spooky to be honest.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Really, just a bad dream.”

  “I thought it might be something to do with…”

  “What?”

  “The other stuff. The stuff from a few months ago when you were still talking to Seth. The hospital and everything.”

  “No. Don’t think about that. It’s all in the past.”

  “But is it? You’re different, aren’t you?”

  “Not the last time I checked.”

  “You see things. The doors. And the rest.”

  “Not for a long time.” Judy took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it. “Sometimes it can be just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Jemma smiled in relief and Judy went back to sipping her tea. She wanted to believe everything she’d just told her daughter, but the hairs standing up on the back of her neck were making it difficult to.

  5

  The Costa was crowded, and it had taken Judy a few minutes to find a decent table in the corner. A discarded tray from the previous customers had been left on the table along with a napkin soaked in hot chocolate and a teaspoon sitting in a puddle of coffee. She grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter and did a quick tidy, trying to focus out the noise from the other tables. A middle-aged professional couple were heatedly talking about a client who’d tried to mess them about with missed appointments and deadlines. A young mum was futilely entertaining her three children that were running around her table, playing with plastic toys from a half-eaten McDonald’s box.

  Lisa appeared at the entrance and spotted Judy. She hurried over.

  “What can I get you?” she asked.

  “No, sit down, I’ll get them,” Judy said. From the table behind her, wafted the tempting smells of toasted panini and her stomach grumbled. “Did you want something to eat?”

  Five minutes later, Judy was sitting opposite her sister-in-law, two paninis and coffees in front of them.

  “Busy day?” Judy asked.

  “No more than usual. Feel like I’ve gotten a rotten hangover though.”

  “You weren’t drinking last night.”

  “I know, totally not fair.”

  Judy frowned. There was something else going on here. Lisa wasn’t hungover, she was upset. There were shadows under her eyes that she’d done her best to cover with makeup.

  “Have you spoken to your parents yet?”


  “Mum’s sent a message asking if I’m OK. I’ve sent a message to Dad but no reply. I really didn’t think he’d react like that. I thought he would be happy for me.”

  “I don’t know how I’d feel if I was in the same situation with Jemma. It’ll just take him a little while to get used to the idea. Once he sees you’re serious—.”

  “I am serious.”

  “Yes, I know. But once he sees that, I’m sure he’ll do all he can to help.”

  Lisa shrugged. “Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Just me being stupid again. Phil told me enough times to let it go. Maybe I should listen to that advice.”

  “Phil gave out plenty of advice over the years. I’m not sure how much notice you should take of it.”

  Lisa’s eyes narrowed. “You rarely talk about Phil.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Were things really that bad between you?”

  Judy hesitated. “It was complicated. I guess I’m still trying to process that.” She picked up her plate and took a tentative nibble from the edge of her panini. The cheese had cooled enough to not melt the roof of her mouth off, so she took another bite.

  “If you ever want to talk about it, you know where I am.”

  Judy nodded, swallowing. “Thanks. One day, perhaps. But, we’re here because you wanted to talk. You said there was something else on the phone.”

  Lisa hadn’t touched her coffee or her food, but now that she was asked a direct question, her hands took her cup and she cradled it in her hands.

  “I think there’s someone else in my house.”

  Judy’s heart stumbled. “What do you mean? You mean Ellis has been bringing someone home?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I mean there’s someone uninvited getting into the house. I see them. And the thing is, I don’t think they’re even bothered about being seen.”

  Judy thought back to the shape she saw last night in the front bedroom window. The shape she’d first thought was Ellis, only Ellis was out when they’d arrived at Lisa’s house.