by Lucy Banks
His father waved an impatient hand in his face. “Ah, just because I am old, you think I am not fit.” He leant across and poked Kester’s stomach. “I can out-walk you any day of the month, yes?”
Kester sighed. Obviously I haven’t lost as much weight as I’d hoped, he thought and cast a dark look at his belly.
“It’s a steep old climb, isn’t it?” Pamela shouted from the back. Her face was sweaty and purple, despite the cold. She craned her neck, examined the steep rock-face, then patted it contemplatively. “If I have a heart attack, will someone scoop me off the ground and run me to the nearest hospital?”
“You’re not the one wearing stilettoes,” Serena said, tottering along the muddy path like a new-born foal. She pointed at her feet and groaned. “Seriously, I’m never wearing heels again. My feet look like someone’s attacked them with a cheese grater.”
“Do you want a piggy-back?” Mike offered, who was annoyingly unfazed by the climb. He strode ahead, arms swinging in a jovial rhythm.
“Not from you, I bloody don’t.”
“Ooh look, we can see the others from up here,” Pamela said and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Coo-ee! Jennifer! Luke! Dimitri! Up here!”
“Pamela, you do realise that’s probably the most deafening noise Lyme Regis has experienced all season?” Mike said. He reached behind and yanked her unceremoniously onwards. “This is retirement central. Don’t go waking all the pensioners.”
Finally, they made it to the top. Kester bent over, clutching his knees and struggling to get his breath back. This had better be worth it, he thought, a stitch burning in his belly. Distant waves tumbled around the harbour walls, grey and forbidding in the wintery light, and the wind whipped furiously around their heads.
“So this is where you found the grave of that Scottish warrior guy, yes?” Ribero stood beside Kester, and they both gazed out across the ocean below.
Kester shook his head. “No, we’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us, I’m afraid.” He studied his father, who looked worryingly pallid. Ribero noticed Kester’s scrutinising expression and frowned, lifting his chin towards the wind like a lion surveying the savannah.
“I am perfectly capable of walking, and don’t forget it, Kester. I am not dead yet.”
Kester patted him on the back. “I know, I know. Let’s get moving then. If Grace is up here, we need to get to her as soon as possible.”
A shrill noise startled them both. Kester quickly looked to his right, trying to identify the source. As far as he could see, the area was deserted.
“What the hell was that?” Serena strode over to them, eyes flicking across the landscape.
“I don’t know.” Kester scratched his head. “I thought it was a person crying, but perhaps it was just a bird or something.”
“Yeah, it’s just another gull,” Mike said. He was struggling to support Pamela, who was leaning heavily against him, still trying to get her breath back. “Shall we go?”
The noise came again. A cry. Kester was sure of it. He looked at the others, eyes widening.
“Did you hear that?” Serena whispered. Kester hushed her and gestured to the distance.
“Shh, listen,” he hissed, pushing his glasses up his nose. There was a quieter noise. It was difficult to tell what it was. The wind tugged at the sound, distorting and muffling it, but Kester could have sworn it was a sob.
“That’s no seagull,” Ribero muttered.
“Shall we go and look?” Mike suggested.
“I’m worried if we all march over, it’ll scare off whoever’s there,” Kester said, still scanning the direction of the noise in an attempt to catch a glimpse of its source. It sounded as though it was coming from further along the headland, somewhere past the scattering of trees that clung close to the edge of the cliff.
Ribero rubbed his hands together anxiously. “What if there is someone needing our help, eh?”
“Let me scout over there, see what I can see, then I’ll shout back to you,” Kester suggested.
“You?” Serena shook her head and summoned up the most incredulous look she could muster. “Since when have you been some sort of superhero?”
Kester sighed. “Okay, let’s save the usual insults for later, shall we? I suggested myself because I’m quiet. Unlike you. The last thing we need is your stilettoes accidentally tripping you right off the cliff.”
Without another word, he started to walk towards the source of the sound, which had now gone eerily silent. The closer he got to the cliff, the more the wind whipped around him, whisking his jacket around and flinging his fringe into his eyes. He looked over the edge, then wished he hadn’t. It was a long way down, and rocks poked out of the sea foam like talons.
As he slipped through the trees, he thought he heard another noise, quieter this time, but more unmistakably like a sob. It was difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from, but it sounded as though it was more to his left than his right, which meant it was nearer the cliff than the wood. He looked back. The others were now out of sight, concealed by the foliage and the natural rise of the headland. A lone crow cawed on a branch above and fixed a beady eye in his direction. He felt uncomfortably alone.
He crept out of the trees, into the open. The vast expanse of the Dorset coast lay before him, rust-red cliffs piled haphazardly on endless lengths of mud-brown beaches. It was spectacular, yet haunting: a wild, untamed panorama that clearly hadn’t changed much in thousands of years. Our friend the Celtic warrior probably looked out over this, he realised with a shiver. I wonder if he felt as scared as I do now.
There was a dark shape on the cliff edge in front of him, which he swiftly noted, with growing horror, was a person. It was difficult to make out the details from this distance, but the long wind-tossed hair and small, hunched shoulders suggested it was female. Not Grace though, he realised. The hair was the wrong colour. This person looked younger.
He approached with caution, again glancing back, hopeful that the others might have decided to follow him. They hadn’t. He was most definitely on his own here, and he wasn’t sure what to do.
“Hello?” he called out. His voice sounded reedy and uncertain and was lost quickly in the low moan of the breeze. The woman didn’t turn. He swallowed hard, edging closer.
Is she even awake? he wondered. He studied her more intently. The woman’s head was slumped against her left shoulder, pitching her forward, dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. He saw, with shock, that her legs were hanging over the edge.
“Excuse me? Are you okay?” What a stupid question, he reprimanded himself. Of course she’s not!
To his relief, the woman raised her head slowly, as though moving her neck caused her pain. He waited behind her, not daring to come any closer. Her hands were wrapped protectively over her stomach, which made him suddenly realise who she was. Grace’s daughter.
“Helen?” he whispered, remembering, with horribly inappropriate sense of timing, that he hadn’t yet returned her umbrella.
She turned. Her eyes were raw and her cheeks streaked with dirt and tears. “Don’t come any closer,” she whispered and pressed a hand in his direction, as though warding off a demon.
“Why not?” Kester replied, though he already knew what her answer would be.
“I’ll jump.”
Chapter 19: Cliffside Encounters
I wonder if now is a good time to call the others? Kester watched the pregnant woman, terrified that she would jump at any moment and smash herself on the rocks below.
“Please,” he began and edged closer, hands held out to calm her.
She hissed, turning away. “Don’t. If you take another step forward, I swear I’ll throw myself off this cliff.”
Kester took a deep breath, then gently kneeled to a crouch. “Okay,” he said slowly. “I won’t come any closer. I promise. Is it okay if I just sit here
?”
Helen didn’t answer. She turned her attention back to the endless grey of the ocean, resuming her protective hold over her belly. Time lengthened and silence took over. Kester took her lack of response as an affirmative and eased himself into a cross-legged position.
“Can I ask you why you’re sitting on the cliff?”
“No.”
He looked out over the coastline. The sea rolled restlessly below them, dark and forbidding, and his eyes watered from the cold. “Can I guess?”
She laughed, a bitter chuckle laced with desolation. “I very much doubt it.”
Okay, here goes, he thought. He leaned forward to ensure she could hear him clearly. “Is it to do with your mother?” he ventured. “And the spirit that’s been following her around?”
Helen’s reaction was immediate. She swung around, right thigh hanging precariously over the edge. “How did you know about it?”
Kester winced. “Helen, be careful.” He wondered if he could pull her back to safety, but didn’t think he could; she was hanging too far over. “You’re too close,” he continued, starting to feel desperate. “You’re going to fall.”
She laughed again, then sniffed, wiping her nose against her sleeve. “How did you know about the spirit?” she asked again, ignoring his concern.
Kester took a deep breath. “I told you both the other day. I work with a supernatural agency. We’ve been investigating the case for a while now. It was only a matter of time before we linked the spirit to your mother.”
Helen gasped—a wrenching noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You’re too late,” she muttered. “If you’d have come sooner, perhaps you could have helped. But there’s nothing you can do now.”
“I know. We can’t save all her friends, but we can stop this spirit from—”
“Don’t be so stupid. I’m not talking about the fools from the Ancient History Club. It was them that got us into this mess in the first place, they had it coming to them!”
Whoa, Kester thought, instinctively retreating from the woman’s fury. I wasn’t expecting that. He looked over his shoulder and wondered again if it was the right time to call for the others. The unhinged look in her eye was making him very nervous, but he was terrified that calling for help would cause her to jump.
“Okay,” he said gently. Taking a chance, he shifted towards her. “Helen, do you think you could move away from the cliff, so we can talk properly?”
She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. A tear rolled down her cheek. “You don’t know what it’s been like,” she whispered, vulnerable as a little child. “It’s been a living hell.”
“Can you tell me about it?” he asked, creeping tentatively forward again. He was now uncomfortably close to the cliff’s edge himself, but he sensed he wasn’t going to be able to persuade her to move back. At least if I’m close to her, he thought, I can try to grab her if she jumps. But please, please don’t let it come to that. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to hold the weight of a pregnant woman.
“I don’t know what you know already,” she said and rubbed her eyes.
“Presume not much,” he replied with a wry nod. Which is probably true, he added silently.
“You know about the Celtic graves, though?”
He nodded, then, with a deep breath, eased his own legs over the edge of the cliff. What am I doing? he thought, scarcely daring to take his eyes off the horizon. His feet dangled into nothingness, and the ground was disconcertingly spongy beneath his backside, not solid like he’d hoped. God, this cliff could crumble at any moment, he realised, fighting hard to maintain his composure. This is insanity.
“Why are you sitting next to me?” She glanced at him, then at his legs, which were currently stuck out rigidly in mid-air, mainly through sheer terror.
He smiled, trying to hide his fear. “Thought you looked like you could do with the company. Do you come here often?”
She chuckled briefly, a dry, humourless noise, then her expression hardened.
“It was Deirdre Baxter who wouldn’t let it drop,” she said quietly. “Her and Xena Sunningdale.”
“What, the tarot-card lady?”
Helen nodded, grimacing. “They were always obsessed with the occult. It used to drive Mum mad. Every project the history group worked on, those two had to start making it about the supernatural.” She sighed and looked down, past her protruding bump, over the edge. Kester felt sick watching her.
“Peter Hopper said it was Xena Sunningdale that found the site?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Helen looked at him, her expression full of torment. “Xena said that she’d made contact with a spirit when she was doing a reading, who’d told her about the graves. She got her husband to get the Ancient History Club involved.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did they believe her?”
She shrugged. “Most of them didn’t. Deirdre did, though. Like I said, those two were thick as thieves in the beginning, laughing and having fun like it was all one big joke. You know what people are like about supernatural stuff.”
“I suppose so.” Kester himself had never been one for ghosts and things; in fact, prior to joining the agency, he would have rather walked around naked all day long than meet a spirit. However, he realised that some people were excited by the supernatural, for reasons best known to themselves. “So what happened when they got up there?” he continued.
“Nothing at first.” Helen plucked at a blade of grass and wound it around her finger until it dug into her flesh, turning it white. “They found the Celtic stones, got excited about it, dug up the grave, discovered a skeleton and a load of other stuff, freaked out, and buried it all again. Xena started telling everyone they’d disturbed a spirit; she got Deirdre in a right state. Mum was sceptical, of course. But then she started behaving strangely.” She gulped and closed her eyes again.
Kester thought back to his meeting with Grace McCready. She’d struck him as the sort of person who’d probably been strange for quite a few years, but perhaps her daughter simply meant she’d got worse.
“Strange? In what way?”
Helen bit her lip. “Nightmares. She started screaming in the night, waking me up at all hours. Using weird words, not English ones. And her eyes. It was like she was awake but somewhere else, if you know what I mean?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“I heard her say other things too,” Helen continued. “Muttering to herself that she was being called, that she had to go. Then, when I pressed her to tell me what was going on, she’d just go silent. It was like she wasn’t even my mother anymore.”
Kester rested his hand on her arm. “It must have been terrible,” he said gently.
The woman let out a low whimper. “I told her not to keep going back up there. It was a bad place; you could feel it. I even forcibly held her back one day; I locked the door so she couldn’t get out. But she told me she couldn’t help it. She was pulled back up there by something she couldn’t see or understand.”
Kester looked over his shoulder. He’d thought he’d heard a noise, somewhere in the direction he’d come from, but the wind muted it to an echoing moan. I wish one of the others would hurry up and come over here, he thought, anxiously looking over at Helen again. She was tugging at the tufts of grass by the edge, and he worried that she’d pull out a root that was holding the crumbling cliff-top in place, sending them tumbling to the sharp rocks below.
“Go on,” he said and slid his bottom as far back from the edge as he could without pulling his legs back onto solid land. “I’m listening.”
“One day, I came in from work, and she wasn’t home. I knew where she’d gone, I could just feel it. I waited for her to come back down, which was a terrible mistake. I should have gone to find her as soon as I could.” She took a deep breath, as though steeling herself. “When it got dark, I headed out w
ith a torch. As I was going up, Deirdre and Peter ran into me. They were running, I tell you. Running faster than I’d ever seen them move before.”
“Running from what?”
“They wouldn’t stop to talk to me. Peter just shouted over his shoulder that my mum was up there, but they didn’t dare stay.” She stopped, massaging her head as though the memory hurt her.
“Did you carry on?”
“Of course I did! I had to, my mum was there, all alone in the dark.”
“What did you find?”
Helen raised her head to the sky, then shook it slowly. She clasped herself more closely, enclosing her stomach in shell-like safety. “Mum,” she replied heavily. “Deep in the grave. They’d dug it up again, you see. She was shouting in the weird language I’d heard her use before.” Helen cringed at the memory and gazed out once again to the sea.
“Go on,” Kester pressed.
“She looked at me, and it was like she’d never seen me before in her life. Then she started laughing. She . . .” Helen faltered and another tear rolled down her cheek. “She laughed so hard that she choked, then she looked up again, and I could see that she was crying. Like her heart would break. And she told me to run.”
Kester shivered. As she spoke, he could imagine the scene only too well. “And did you?”
Helen groaned, then threw her head into her hands. He had to reach out to steady her, his heart hammering in his chest. Don’t you dare lean forward on this cliff, he thought, desperately trying to ease her back. I’m not sure I can catch you if you lose your balance.
“I’m ashamed to say that I did run,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Not because of Mum, though that was horrible enough. But because of what was coming out of the soil behind her.”
He studied her intently. “What was it?”
She looked at him with an expression that was alive with fear. “It was the most awful thing I’ve ever seen. It was transparent but solid at the same time. And its eyes . . . its eyes were burning. It leaned over Mum, and she leaned back towards it, then it started to . . .”
