The Feast of All Souls

by Simon Bestwick

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “But it’s not just for me. If this goes anywhere, you’ll be exposed too.”

  “Exposed?”

  “To ridicule. You know, from the Richard Dawkins brigade. The ones who sneer at people for being weak or stupid or crazy enough to believe in ghosts.” John sighed. “It’s not exactly a helping hand to your career, you know? I can speak from experience on that one.”

  “Okay. I understand, John. I get where you’re coming from now.”

  “Good. I got to be careful with this. I’ll be playing fast and loose with my ethical code as it is.”

  “Your what?”

  “Ethical code.”

  “I didn’t know there was one.”

  “I have one and so do some others. One of the big problems with the community is there isn’t a standard code of ethics. Christ, I don’t need to tell you about some of the chancers and nutcases who end up in this field.”

  “No. That’s true.”

  John sighed. “Normally I wouldn’t touch anything involving a recent bereavement, or stuff in someone’s actual home. Ethically speaking, it’s a minefield. In a case like this, though...”

  “I appreciate it, believe me, John.”

  “I’ll give you a written copy, but the basics are this – no spiritual or religious stuff during the investigation, and no pseudoscience. The objective is to find out what’s causing this through rational enquiry.”

  “I told you, John, that’s what I want.”

  “Now all of this will be done in strict confidence. I won’t be approaching the media on any of it. I’m assuming you won’t be either.”

  “Hell no.”

  He smiled. “Good. Re the confidentiality – I can’t guarantee that if I discover evidence that a crime’s been committed or that someone’s at risk –”

  “Like if I start trying to self-harm, right?”

  He nodded. “I normally aim to produce a written report. If I do, you’ve got the option to have any identifying details censored. That’s in written material, photos, audio stuff – the lot. Okay?”

  “That everything?”

  “It’ll cover the main points, at least for now. By the way, did you get a surveyor in when you bought the place?”

  “No. I thought I’d just buy a house and wait for it to fall down around my ears. Of course I got a survey done, John.”

  John grinned. “Great. I could do with seeing their report, see if anything jumps out.”

  “Yeah. I’ll dig it out. It’s around somewhere.”

  “And here we are at Blackfriars Bridge. This way, madam.”

  The hotel loomed up. His arm was warm and solid where it looped through hers; so was the rest of him, his body inches from her own. Maybe they hadn’t grown so far apart after all. Maybe there were still enough loose threads on either side to pick up and knit back together. It would be very easy to invite him into the hotel bar for a drink, or back up to her room. If she stopped and turned her face up to his, closed her eyes and parted her lips, would he be able to resist?

  Jesus, that double brandy had gone straight to her head and was having a merry dance-a-thon with her medication.

  It was tempting, very tempting, but it was also a bad idea. She had a lot to deal with, a lot to get past and overcome, before she could even think of a new relationship, let alone rekindling an old one. So, no. Outside the main entrance she slipped her arm out of John’s, stepped away from him and pressed a hand against his chest. “Okay, big boy. Thanks for walking me back.”

  He nodded up at the building. “Afraid of the ghosties and ghoulies, then?”

  “What do you think?”

  He opened his mouth and she knew he was going to try some line on her; something about it being easier to deal with when you had a little company. She put a finger to his lips. “Sh,” she said. “Give me a call tomorrow.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, sighing. “How about we swap mobile numbers, then?”

  “Okay. Strictly for professional purposes only, Mr Revell.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, Miss Collier.”

  She gave him her number; he rang her mobile, and now she had his too. A long way from the ’nineties, having to ring people from payphones and jot numbers down on scraps of paper. “There,” she said, and stood on tip-toes to kiss his cheek. “Good night, John.”

  “Night,” he said. She went inside, turned back once to look. He was still standing there, watching her. She waved to him and walked to the lifts.

  IN HER ROOM, she splashed cold water on her face and refilled the bottle of Volvic she’d picked up along the way. She undressed, folding the new clothes neatly, eyed herself in the mirror again to make sure her body hadn’t undergone catastrophic weight gain or breast droop in the past few hours, then pulled on the T-shirt she’d worn earlier and crawled into bed.

  “Still got it,” she murmured contentedly to herself. Guilt at the thought stirred again, but it was deep down and out of sight and she dismissed it. Grief couldn’t occupy your every waking thought past a certain point; the old banalities crept back in. Sometimes that was almost comforting. She yawned, stretched, curled up, and then she was asleep.

  WHISPERS WOKE HER. Alice blinked and stirred in her cocoon of sheets.

  Can’t let her...

  She’ll help him...

  Not fair if...

  Children’s voices. Dread stirred in her belly. She wanted to stay where she was, to pull the covers over her head and stay there, but she instead threw back the sheets and got out of bed, then padded across the bedroom to the door.

  When she got there, she looked out onto the landing and saw the children standing there, gazing at her with white, hating eyes.

  Alice braced herself for their attack, hoping she could slam the door and hold it shut, but they didn’t move. Instead, they glared at her with intense concentration, their fists clenched. What were they trying to do? Attack her with the sheer force of their loathing?

  Alice felt a wind rising, cold and hard, blowing down the landing towards her. There was a rattling sound; she could see the posts and railings of the banister begin to shake and threaten to come loose. Wood cracked. Something flew past her head.

  Perhaps her guess hadn’t been so wrong. But why did they loathe her so much? What cause could she have given them?

  That didn’t matter now. She grabbed the door knob and forced the door slowly shut, fighting the wind. Outside, the children screeched with rage as she slammed it. She pushed the bolt across, then stumbled back towards the bed. There was a key that would lock the bedroom door, but where was it?

  Then she realised; she was in the house on Collarmill Road. But her last memory was of going to bed in the hotel off Deansgate. Had she lost time in between? No, she was sure she hadn’t. This had to be a dream, then, or a nightmare. But it didn’t feel like one. She was dressed as she had been in the hotel: a pair of knickers and the same T-shirt. The worn carpet felt rough and gritty under her bare feet.

  There was a creaking, splitting sound; she turned and saw the bedroom door beginning to bulge inward. The key, she needed the key. Objects rattled on her dressing table: coins, lipstick, a mobile phone. The coins flew first, at her face – she ducked with a cry and heard them thudding into the wall behind her.

  The wind rose; one of the door panels split lengthways.

  Alice lunged for the window, wondering if she could climb out and down. She had little hope of that in any case, and the first glance outside confirmed her fears. Below her there was no street, no cars, only the slope of a bare hillside under a sky a-glitter with stars, unpolluted by the lights of a city. And at the foot of the slope there was movement. Something dark. A huge clump of shadow that stirred and heaved itself forward into the light. Even as the moon glimmered on its piebald, bristle-furred hide, the ogre lifted its head and gazed up at her with vast, lamp-like eyes.

  Alice stared down at the ogre, and the ogre stared into her. A moment later it roared and charged u
p the hill. Would it smash in through the front of the house and batter its way up the stairs, or launch itself at the upper storey, smashing through walls and windows? Both seemed likely, but as Alice stepped back from the window, the bedroom door finally gave way and exploded inwards, in a storm of splinters and wood chunks.

  Alice threw up her hands and flung herself to the floor. She heard the fragments thudding into the wall behind her. She didn’t hear or feel any of them fall to the ground, so she realised they must have embedded themselves in the wall itself. She didn’t want to imagine what they would have done to her if she’d still been standing; she pressed her face to the floor. The wind kept blowing, but nothing else flew through the air but puffs of dust snatched up from the carpet.

  Alice started to get up. As she did, the first of the children filed in. They spread out to either side of the door, blocking her exit, then began to advance.

  The wind rose, buffeting her; Alice tried to fight it, but it was too strong and forced her back. She collided with the wall. Splinters and jagged wood stabbed into her back and she cried out.

  The children heard her cry, and grinned. They stopped, their brows furrowed, and the wind rose higher. The wood fragments dug further into her; warm wetness trickled down her back where they broke the skin.

  And then the Red Man stepped into view, just at the edge of her vision, and shouted, or sang, or chanted – whatever that sound was, it stopped the wind and seemed to blow the children away. She couldn’t be sure exactly what happened, because it took a fraction of a second, but it seemed the children were flung back through the door as if they were suddenly as light as paper, and caught in another wind much fiercer than the one they’d raised.

  The room fell silent, and Alice stumbled away from the wall. The Red Man turned, lowering his upflung hand, and she stared into his face.

  Except that the Red Man, as far as she could see, had no face. What appeared to be his face was in fact a mask, of some white substance like alabaster. Long and thin, ascetic in appearance, hairless and – of course – white, it was lifelike, but not alive. There were holes for eyes, neatly contained by the elegantly sculpted lids, and between the parted lips, but nothing beyond them, nothing but the dark.

  Although it surely couldn’t be possible, the impression she had was that the Red Man’s cowl was entirely hollow, a rigid empty shell fronted with the white mask. On the other hand, Alice’s entire sense of what was possible and what wasn’t had been shaken pretty hard over the past few days.

  And, as if to underline that point, the lips of the mask moved.

  “They are becoming stronger,” said the Red Man. His voice was strange. It sounded like four voices speaking together in perfect unison: the high soprano of a child, a feminine alto, a male tenor and another, deeper male tone – bass, perhaps. High and fluting, down to deep and rumbling. “And I must keep him at bay. I can no longer protect you from them.”

  Alice realised her legs were shaking. She felt dizzy. No, she couldn’t, mustn’t faint, not now. There were things she had to know – and now, they all came pouring out. “Who are you? What are they? Why are they trying to kill me? What do I do?”

  The Red Man ignored all but the final question. “The time is getting closer,” he said. “You must arm yourself with knowledge.”

  “What knowledge?” But now her legs gave way. No, no, no! Not this! Not now! She had to stay conscious.

  His hands caught her. Her own fingers clutched at the worn red robe.

  “First protect yourself,” said the mask’s lips. “A charm in rowan wood. Listen to me.” Alice blinked, focused on the white face. “Rowan wood is a charm. If danger threatens you on Browton Vale, hide among the rowan trees. Make a cross of rowan wood – bind twigs with your hair, or better yet, carve one. Do you hear?”

  “Rowan wood. A cross.” Alice was suddenly more tired than she’d ever been. Standing, even assisted, was impossibly wearisome, and her eyes were closing. Her legs collapsed under her, but hands clutched her tight, lifting her, lowering her to the bed.

  “Good,” said the Red Man’s multi-toned voice. “Remember that.”

  ALICE WOKE WITH a muffled cry, thrashing in tangled bedclothes heavy with sweat. She threw them off, sat up.

  The hotel room was empty; at least it seemed to be, in the dim light drizzling in through the window. There were still too many shadows, though, even when Alice switched the bedside light on. She stumbled out of bed and flicked the main light switch, then threw the en-suite bathroom’s door open and turned that on too.

  Light, beautiful light, chasing all the ghosts and devils away. Alice tiptoed to the window, parted the curtains. Yes, there was the river, and the city, just where they’d been. But the house, the house was waiting for her.

  A cross of rowan wood. Alice snorted; Christ, even days before she’d have mocked the idea, but now... Which were the rowan trees, again? She’d have to power up the smart phone, Google it.

  She pottered back towards the bed, then stopped, looking at something on the coverlet.

  She padded closer and reached out to pick it up.

  It was a piece of red cloth, a little bigger than the palm of her hand, frayed and tattered at the edges. When she looked at her hand, she saw wisps of the same-coloured material still sticking to her fingers. But the bedding was blue and white, and nothing she’d worn yesterday had been red.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Setting Up

  30th – 31st October 2016

  ALICE CHANGED BACK into her casual clothes, neatly folding up the black dress and boxing away the jewellery. She checked out early without bothering with breakfast – she had no appetite anyway – and caught a bus heading up to Crawbeck.

  She got off a stop before her usual one, and popped into a charity shop. She emerged later with a worn old backpack and a Swiss Army knife. She put the second item in her jeans pocket and her clothes and shoulder bag in the first.

  Spending your money like water, Mum would have said. True, but the plain fact was she didn’t know what might be waiting for her at home.

  Walking up Collarmill Road, Alice nearly laughed at the melodrama of it – but she didn’t, because melodrama or not, it was also true. She didn’t just have the Swiss Army knife in her pocket; the swatch of red cloth was there to keep it company. And before leaving the hotel, she’d peeled off her T-shirt and inspected her white back in the mirror. It had been studded with black and purple bruises, as if she’d been struck hard with a few dozen small objects. Or, alternatively, rammed back into a wall full of them.

  Dead leaves dripped from the roadside trees. She passed flats and semi-detacheds, the little cobbled sidestreets that led across to the Brow. Finally Collarmill Road itself gave way to the cobbles and the iron rails of the old tramlines. Across the road, she glimpsed the plastic skull in the neighbours’ window. HAPPY HALLOWEEN read a gaudy green-and-orange sign above it.

  She eased the Swiss Army knife out of her pocket, gripped it tight as she reached the Fall and took the steps down. Two things would mark the rowan trees out for her, she’d determined: first there were the leaves, like rows of long thin blades pointing outwards, and second – assuming there were any left – there were the berries, orange or red in colour.

  Alice breathed in the deep rich scent of the autumn air, felt fallen leaves crunch underfoot. The sky was grey and the damp cool air held a hint of mist. She’d always found autumn beautiful, but it was only now that it occurred to her that it was at least partly because of, not despite, its transient nature. All the beauty of autumn was of transition: the leaves falling, dying, summer cooling away into winter. It couldn’t last. It was liminal, a borderland between one world and another.

  She walked through the woods at a fast clip, glancing behind her. There was never anything there, but that didn’t help. She hadn’t realised before how full of sounds a wood in autumn was: the tick and snap of leaves breaking from their stems and falling to the ground, the flutter of birds and th
e scuttle of animals in the undergrowth. After the past few days’ events, and last night’s dream – if it truly had been a dream – the woods felt like an echo chamber of menacing noise, and the menace only gathered strength from the sense of its being poised, unseen.

  Just for a moment she saw how Halloween could be – might once have been – something deeper, older, more primal than the gimcrackery of the shops and the neighbour’s window, of the plastic skulls and jack o’lanterns and witches’ masks. The Fall had the feel of a held breath, of a place between; between seasons, between worlds. Between the world she knew and another, whose occupants watched and waited in the deepening shadows beyond the light of fire and window, as the shortening days grew dark.

  At last she saw the berries. They hung in bright red clusters from the branches of a stand of slender, light-coloured trees that stood beside the footpath. The leaves were still there, too, both on the branches and the ground.

  Alice approached. Brittle twigs lay among the leaf debris – but what if they weren’t all from rowans? What if some of them had snapped off other trees?

  She reached for a low branch on the nearest tree. It branched in its turn, and several of its twigs were both close enough and thin enough to cut through with the knife’s saw blade, while being long and thick enough to make a decent cross. She snipped through half a dozen of them – mumbling, as she did, a brief apology and thanks to the tree, much to her own surprise.

  So much for the scientific mind, it seemed. A few nights of weird phenomena and she was calling in ghost-hunters and talking to trees? What next, Alice? Crystals? Homeopathy? Fairies? Dancing naked in the woods? She had to giggle at that; at least that would give the locals something to look at before she was carted off to the psychiatric ward.

  Bushes rustled somewhere behind her. A moment later, a dozen or so twigs and branches snapped in a brittle, ragged volley, loud in the chill damp air.

  Alice spun, but saw nothing. The woods were empty, and yet something had changed.