by Sarah Dalton
I pull back. “Is it Seth?”
Neil shakes his head and moves to the side. That’s when I see the shape on the ground. Above it, someone is punching its chest, and I dash forward to stop them. That’s when I realise that the shape on the ground is Igor, and the shadow punching his chest is Seth attempting to resuscitate him.
“Oh no…” I drop to my knees next to Igor’s long, lumpy body. My fingers grope for his hand. “What happened?”
It’s Lemarr who answers. He almost startles me as he appears from a shadow, but I’m too worn out to be frightened anymore. “He took a tumble down one of the hills and hit his head real bad. I managed to get a signal on the hill over there and phoned the police. They’re sending an air ambulance, but it might take some time to find us. I tried to call you, Mary, but your phone kept cutting out. We looked all over for you. Seth was beside himself.”
Seth blows air into Igor’s mouth and pumps his chest in a rhythm. All I can do is hold Igor’s hand and try to get some warmth into his body.
“How long has he been like this?”
Lemarr doesn’t answer. He drops his eyes instead.
“Have there been any more of those shadows?” I ask, meaning the strange creatures that tried to pull us into the ground. The thought of them sends a shiver up and down my spine.
“No. What happened to Amy? I can’t believe… I can’t believe I saw her.” Lemarr fiddles with one of his dreadlocks, staring down at the grass with wide eyes. “She was so real.”
“Very real,” I reply. I’m half aware of Lacey, sitting next to me on the grass, and the electricity of her ghost form. “But she’s gone, now. She showed us what happened to her, and I found something… Something that I need to give to Seth.”
“Guys, I think Igor has gone,” Neil says. “He’s dead.”
“No,” I say. “Not yet.”
It’s Lacey who whispers into Igor’s ear, “It’s time to go, old man.”
And he does.
It’s not like in the films where a soul haloed in white light floats out of a body, it’s more like a crackle and a pop and then there’s a person who looks exactly the same as the person on the grass, but now he’s next to you. I stand up and face him.
“Looks like I’m off, lass,” he says. “You’d better keep hold of that Athamé, eh?”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, don’t be. Maybe I’ll finally find her.”
“I hope you do.”
Igor flickers once, twice, and then he’s gone.
But Seth still doesn’t stop. He pumps at Igor’s chest, keeping that rhythm, that relentless rhythm. I approach him slowly.
“Seth… stop now,” I say. I ease my hands onto his shoulders. “Stop now. It’s over.” I crouch down so that I’m at his level, and run my hands down to his, pulling him away from Igor’s body.
“No, it’s not over. He can still come back,” he says.
“He’s gone.” I pull Seth up, letting him lean his full weight on me.
A gradual roar sounds from above, and a light beams down on us. As the air ambulance flies overhead, Seth whispers into my ear, “It’s all my fault.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
My parents are mad. Oh goodness me, they are very mad indeed. Mum can’t even look at me. Dad tuts under his breath and repeats the same question over and over again: what were you thinking?
We all agreed on one explanation. We employed Igor to take us on a special ghost hunt on the moors because we wanted to find Little Amy. But when we were out there, we were spooked by the creepiness of the moors, scattered, dropped our torches and freaked out. It was then that Igor fell down the hill and landed on the rocks.
The young detective gave us all a lecture on moor safety. He glared at each of us, and as he talked, spittle flew from his mouth.
“A man is dead! A man is dead.”
Lemarr bursts into tears when he says that.
Of course we can’t tell him what we were really doing on the moors at night. We can’t tell him about our dangerous mission, and about how we stopped Little Amy from claiming any more lives from Nettleby. We can’t tell him any of that, because I will end up back in a psychiatric facility.
After he leaves, I manage to get some time alone with Seth. We walk to his mother’s ward in silence. When we’re alone, I tell him about the knife and his father’s shirt in my bag.
At first he’s quiet, and I’m unsure whether he is going to agree with me about taking it to the police.
“Amy showed you where it was buried?” he asks.
“Yes, she made me dig it up.”
“Then she wants the world to know who killed her. You should give it to the detective with the spittle.” He flashes a half-hearted impish grin laced with sadness.
“What about you and your mum?” I ask.
“Mum is never going to wake up again. I have to face up to that. And me… well, I will tell the police everything.”
“But you could implicate yourself. You could be seen as an accessory to murder,” I insist.
“And if I don’t, I live with this burden for the rest of my life. That, to me, is a prison cell anyway.” He turns away and stares out of the window.
“You were fine before I came along,” I say, following his gaze. The sun is in the beginnings of rising, but it is blocked by an outbuilding. Still, the sky is tinged pinky-blue and laced with thin clouds. It reminds me of candy floss from the carnival. That seems like so long ago now. “I brought all of this back up. I pulled open the past—”
Seth moves to me and takes my hands. “Are you kidding? I thought I was going to die, last night. I thought I had until I was twenty-one, and then that was it. I carried that for a long time. No one ever knew. Then you came along. Have you any idea what it feels like to share that kind of secret?”
Tears burn at the back of my eyes, and my throat thickens. I can only nod.
“Well, then you know what it’s like.” His fingers find their way to my hair. He strokes my cheek, moving down, trailing the scars on my neck. “You’ve changed everything, from the way I see the world, to the way I want to live my life.”
My face flushes. I know I’m turning red, but there’s nothing I can do about it. “Seth…”
“I know,” he says. “You don’t have to say it.”
“It’s time to let go, Seth.” My eyes mist with unshed tears.
We kiss for the last time. When I leave, he stands by the window with his profile to me. The pinks and yellows of the sunrise light up his face, like on the first night I saw him.
*
When the young detective sees the knife, he stops shouting. He goes very quiet and hurries off back to the police station. I’ve probably just made his career.
Mum and Dad decide to cut the holiday short. They are reluctant to let me say goodbye to Neil and Lemarr.
“I’ll email you my address in Brum so you can visit.” Neil lowers his voice. “Bring the Athamé, yeah?”
I’ve already agreed to go ghost hunting with them both. What am I getting myself into?
As I pack up my things in the caravan, Lacey sits on the bed and we talk in whispers. It’s going to be a while before I have the same sort of freedom as I’ve had this week. I crossed a line with my family’s trust, I know that, but I also know it was necessary.
“You know, in a weird way, I’m going to miss Nettleby,” Lacey says. “I’m going to miss Neil and Lemarr a lot. I might pop in on them, every now and then.”
“You’re going to end up making them poo their pants, Lace, if you keep popping in on them,” I remind her.
She grins. “Yeah, that might be an added bonus.” She pauses as I try to fit my clothes into one suitcase. Even though I haven’t bought anything extra, for some reason I can’t fit everything in. “I’m sorry I said those things about Seth.”
I look up from my suitcase. “It’s okay. You were right to be cautious.”
“You’re going to keep in touch with him, th
ough?”
“No, we’ve decided not to. He’s going to the police about what he saw his father do to Amy and I think he’s got too much on his plate.” I think about Seth’s mum in the hospital. He’d faced up to her death, at last. He didn’t say it, but I know he’s going to turn the machines off.
“I’m sorry,” Lacey says.
“Thanks. That means a lot.” I flash her a grin. “Seeing as you didn’t like him.”
She feigns incredulity. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on.”
“All right, yeah, but it was because I didn’t trust him. He seemed all right in general.”
“Wow, that almost sounded convincing.”
Lacey stands up and paces the room, swinging her arms from side to side. We’re avoiding saying the rest—about how Lacey became jealous of a minor change in my life, and about how she turned on me on the moors. Somehow it doesn’t feel like the right time. It feels like one chapter is ending, and another is beginning, and somewhere along the story, Lace and I will have to face up to our issues. Right now, we just need to move on.
“Lace,” I say.
She turns to me with her eyes open wide. It’s one of those moments when she looks so real, so alive, that I almost forget she’s dead. “Yeah?”
“I want to carry on Igor’s work. I want to help ghosts like Amy. And I want you to help me.”
Lacey smiles. “I want to do that, too.”
Later that day, as Dad’s car pulls out of the Five Moors car-park, I can’t help but think about how much was let go in the last week. Seth let go of his dark past, and faced up to letting go of his mother. Amy let go of her revenge and moved on to the other side. Igor let go of one life and accepted his new journey, whatever it is. Lacey let go of me for a short time, and found her own feet.
I let go of Seth.
Mum was right about my holiday romance, and what a romance it was—all intense, and mysterious, and passionate, and all-encompassing. But it belongs in Nettleby. It was destined to last a week and, somehow, that seems perfect.
It has been a week where many things have fallen into place for me. I’ve figured out what I want to do with my life. I want to listen to those without a voice, and Lacey is going to help me. In the boot of my parents’ car, nestled amongst many suitcases and bags and old blankets, is my backpack. Inside my backpack, tucked in a leather sheath, is the Athamé that once belonged to Igor. Now it’s mine.
Shadow
A Mary Hades short story
Shadow
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EBOOK EDITION
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Copyright © 2014 Sarah Dalton
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Cover Design by Sarah Dalton
Stock images from Depositphoto.
I was born five months after Lila. The second grandchild. In my psychology class, theorists teach us that the order in which children are born affects our psychological health. As the second grandchild I should always be seeking approval, made self-conscious by the fact that my older cousin gets all the attention. It’s true that Lila was more outgoing as a child. She was chattier and funnier. At Christmas she would sing songs in front of the television and make my Grandma giggle. But as the first, second, and last grandchildren amongst the Quirkes, and the only children in our respective families, we were able to seal an almost sisterly bond that could never be broken by petty rivalries or pseudo-psychology.
It was a prickly beginning to a beautiful friendship. One blue truck in a pile of red and we both wanted it. Lila won, and that set the precedent for us both. After the loss of the blue truck, followed by an afternoon tantrum, Lila brought me her last gummy bear, and all was forgiven.
The blue truck is my earliest memory. A few years ago I asked Lila if it was her earliest memory, too, but she said hers was us playing on Scarborough beach with a bucket and spade. This was after the truck incident. I remember it because our mothers had a row and I cried when Lila had to go home early. Lila told me not to be sad and hugged me, our chubby, childish arms grasping each other.
Mum is always arguing with Aunt Izzy. That’s why I visit her alone now. They would make up for a few months each year, and Lila and I would spend blissful weekends on the beach, exploring coves and squealing at the sight of a jellyfish washed up by the sea.
I loved those weekends, but for some reason, when I think back to them, there is the itch of a memory, like a half-formed scab. I feel as though if I scratch the scab and let the memory pour out like blood, there will be something unpleasant lurking beneath. I shake the thought away.
It hardly ever rains when I am with Lila, as though the force of her personality can hold the weather at bay.
It’s sunny now as I pack my belongings into the car. I don’t need many; I’ll only be staying the one night. Aunt Izzy will have most of the things I need.
I suppose I’ll be staying in the guest room again, the one that’s so much colder than the rest of the house. The one with the old fireplace that whistles when the wind runs through it. I never have liked that room.
Mum’s face has hardly moved from the kitchen window. Her long black hair, as unruly as my own, is even more tousled than usual, and the circles under her eyes give her a slightly unhinged look. Seeing me leave for Izzy’s, even for a night, is painful for her. She wrings the tea towel in her hands and looks away every time I glance in her direction. Each time a weight pulls down on my heart, but I lack the means to comfort her. We’ve never been good at comforting each other.
In frustration at our mutual stubbornness, and the same between Mum and Izzy, I slam the boot of the car harder than I intended. That has Mum rushing out from the kitchen.
“Do you have the maps Dad bought from the service station?” she asks. She is barefoot, and the bottoms of her jeans are torn. It’s odd to see Mum like this. She’s usually so pristine.
“And the sandwiches, and my mobile is charged, and I have that baseball bat hidden under the seat, although I still think it’s ridiculous to take it,” I reply.
“People these days,” she says between tight, straight lips. “They’ll kill for a packet of crisps.” She pauses to look at me and her eyes become glassy. “I keep forgetting how tall you are. Look, you’re as tall as me now.”
I fold my arms and try to give her a reassuring smile. “I’m going to be fine, Mum. It’s only a couple of hours and I’ve been on the motorway with Dad tons of times.”
“You have packed your pills, haven’t you?” she asks.
It takes willpower to stop myself rolling my eyes. “Of course.”
“What are you going there to do, anyway?”
“We’re going to watch the comet,” I reply. “There should be clear skies over Scarborough tonight. It’ll be lovely.”
“You could watch it here,” Mum says. Her eyes are so wide and pleading that those weights pull down on my heart again.
“No, Mum, you know why I’m going.”
She drops her gaze and I think I hear her sniff, but I’m not sure. “Well, all right. You should get going to miss the traffic.”
“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Say hi to Dad when he gets back. Tell him I said bye.”
“I will,” she says.
I turn around to open the car door, and Mum catches my arm. “Mary, you are still taking your pills, aren’t you?”
I swallow, preparing myself to answer. “Yes, of course I am.”
Her eyes narrow just a fraction as she tries to suss me out. All her seventeen years of knowledge about me seem to be at work in that one glance. For a second I feel like we both know I’m lying, and we both know the other one knows it. But then I catch her off guard with a hug.
She sque
ezes me tight, and this time I do hear her sniff loudly. “Take care, sweetheart. Drive safe. Don’t go over the speed limit.”
“I won’t,” I say.
She lets me go and she backs away as I open the car door. The engine starts smoothly. It’s a good little car, reliable and unfussy. What my dad calls a “good starter”.
We wave to each other one more time as I put the vehicle in first gear. The pressure builds to not stall the car, and as I find the biting point with the clutch, there’s a moment where I think I might. But I overcome it, and release the handbrake.
Mum stands and waves as I pull out of the driveway and onto the road, most likely watching the green L plates disappear into the distance. When I’m out of sight of the house, I let out a long sigh of relief. In some ways, saying goodbye to Mum is the hardest part of the journey. In other ways, what comes next will be much, much harder.
* * *
Lila was the first to learn to drive, but then, she was the first to do most things.
We were fourteen and I had gone to Aunt Izzy’s for the night. My aunt is a nurse, and sometimes she’s called away for an emergency night shift. When this happens, Lila almost always has a number of friends on call to make the most of the lack of parental supervision. During our mid-teens she was the master of sneaking out of windows and keeping boyfriends a secret from my aunt.
That night we were picked up by Lila’s then boyfriend and his older brother. The older brother wore a baseball cap and drove with one hand on the wheel, changing gears with loud revs of the engine.
“Wheredjer wannago?” he asked us. His slurred speech and the way his eyes lingered on me gave me the creeps.
Lila sipped on a bottle of beer and looped an arm around her boyfriend. “To the stars!”
“’Ow much as she ’ad?”
“Can I drive?” Lila asked, leaning forward and pressing her cheek against the driver’s seat.
