The Case of the Deadly Doppelgänger

by Lucy Banks

  Kester waited. “Yes?” he said gently.

  Helen started to cry in earnest, sobbing so hard that her back shook with the effort. “It went into her,” she whispered. “Actually inside her, like water going into a sponge. And she looked at me and said one thing.”

  “What?”

  The woman covered her mouth, horrified by the memory. Her eyes widened. “She said ‘I’m free at last.’ But it wasn’t her voice. Do you see? It wasn’t her saying it.”

  Kester reached over and placed a tentative hand across the woman’s shoulders. She wept even harder, folding herself over her belly, hair hanging over her face.

  “We need to get you away from this cliff,” he said as firmly as he could and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “It’s not safe.”

  “I don’t want to move.” Her voice was muffled, like someone talking from deep within a well.

  He dared to drop his gaze. It was a horribly long way down. The waves threw themselves against the rocks as though punishing them. He could only imagine what they’d do to his and Helen’s bodies. “You must,” he said with a bit more force. “If not for you, then for your baby. You don’t want to put its life in danger, do you?”

  Helen’s head jerked up, nearly knocking him off balance. To his horror, she started to laugh—a high-pitched chuckle with more than a hint of hysteria to it. “Don’t you get it?” she asked, bloodshot eyes gleaming. “Don’t you see?”

  Kester looked over his shoulder again. “See what? What should I be seeing?” Because at the moment, he added silently, all I can see is a terrifyingly long drop down and an almost certain death.

  “It won’t stop with Mum,” she said, then to his surprise, reached over and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. With the other hand, she took his hand and placed it over her stomach, pressing his fingers against the taut, full flesh of her bump. “And it won’t stop with me, either.”

  Kester pulled his hand away, instinctively flicking his legs up onto the cliff-top. Enough is enough, he thought. I’ve got to take control of the situation. “Come away from the cliff now, Helen.” He stood up, breathing hard. “Nothing is as bad as it seems. I know you’ve had a horrible time of it, but we can help. But I need you to stand up slowly and move away from the—”

  Another noise caught his attention. He whipped his head back in the direction of the others. That was a scream, he realised, his heart racing. Oh no.

  “Did you hear that?” He looked back at Helen, scanning her face for answers.

  She nodded, then looked back over the headland. “Who else is up here with you?”

  “Some of my colleagues.”

  She leant back, licking her lips, considering the options. Then she nodded. “You need to get back to them. Quickly.”

  He studied her for a moment, then understood. Grace is with them, he realised, panic pressing into him like a ten-tonne weight. And that means so is the spirit.

  “Will you come with me?” he said, scrambling to his feet. “I might need your help.”

  Helen shrugged, then resumed staring out to sea.

  I can’t wait for her to make up her mind, Kester thought. “Please, don’t jump!” he said as he started to run. “Whatever you do, just don’t do it, okay? We can sort this out!”

  Without waiting for an answer, Kester pounded back towards the trees. Dashing alongside the cliffs, he pushed past stray branches and jumped over jutting rocks, his breath pluming out in front of him in misty bursts—lungs struggling for air as they battled against the icy breeze.

  Please don’t let anything bad have happened, please don’t let anything bad have happened, he thought over and over, then finally emerged into the open. In the distance, he could see the others, gathered in a group. He squinted. It was difficult to focus whilst running, especially as his glasses had started to fog up in the cold.

  “Are you okay?” he shouted as loudly as he could, but breathlessness had stripped his voice of most of its power. “Hey! Are you alright there?”

  Why aren’t they answering? He was still too far away to see what was going on, but could just about make out Mike’s broad back. He looked like he was clutching someone. Is that Serena? Surely not, Serena wouldn’t let Mike touch her, much less hold her tightly, he thought, confused. To his horror, he realised that Grace was standing with them, her white hair strewn behind her like a decaying veil. Pamela was there too, beside Mike. Where’s Dad? he wondered, straining his eyes to see better. Why can’t I see him?

  As he ran closer, he noticed a shape on the ground. At first he thought, inexplicably, that it was a pile of clothes with a pair of shoes at the bottom. Then he realised that he wasn’t looking at a heap of clothes at all, but a body. His father’s body, to be precise—limbs outstretched as though he’d been thrown down, head twisted against the earth. Kester groaned and pulled to a halt, staring with horror at the scene before him.

  “What have you done?” His accusation tore above the wind as he sunk to his knees beside his father’s unconscious body. “Grace, what have you done to him?”

  The old woman laughed. Although she was small, she seemed far taller—a prophetess from a bygone era—hair whipping out towards the sea and blouse billowing like a cape. Her veiny hands clasped at her throat, scraping the skin. Kester stared at her in horror, and her face fell. Without warning, she dropped to her knees.

  “I’m truly sorry,” she whispered, still holding onto her throat. Kester could see that her nails had gouged the thin skin, leaving livid red marks. “It’s not my fault, you have to understand that.”

  “Kester, be careful,” Mike warned. He was still clutching hold of Serena, arm wrapped around her like a padlock. “She just came out of nowhere, and then the spirit leapt out of her and attacked your dad.”

  “Where’s the spirit now?” Kester pressed a finger against his father’s neck. He felt a pulse and could see his chest rising and falling in shallow, halting movements. Thank god, he thought as he pushed his fringe from his eyes. For a moment, I thought I’d lost him.

  “It’s gone back inside her,” Pamela said, scrutinising Grace warily. “I can feel it there, deep within her body.” She sighed, then extended a hand in the woman’s direction. “What a burden to bear, I can’t imagine how you’ve managed to stand it for this long.”

  Grace let out a sob. It echoed in the cold air, feral and completely devoid of hope. “You have no idea,” she croaked.

  “Why did the spirit attack my father?” Kester asked, still studying Ribero’s unconscious face. Minus his usual bluster, he looked suddenly much younger, like a child about to wake up from a bad dream. Gravity eased out his lines, and Kester could see the man that he’d once been: high-cheekboned, chiselled, and handsome.

  “We have no idea,” Mike said, eyes still glued to the old woman. “Serena immediately got to work trying to extinguish it, but we couldn’t get the water bottle out in time. By then, the spirit was trying to attack her, but Pamela stepped in, so it disappeared back into Grace.”

  Kester breathed deeply. He looked at Grace, then edged closer to her. “You’ve got the spirit inside you right now, and we need to get it out,” he said gently and reached out to touch her arm. She flinched.

  “You won’t be able to,” she said heavily. “It’s waited too long to find someone else to carry it. Do you know what it is?”

  Kester looked up at the others. “We believe it’s a fetch,” he said. “We think it came from the Angus region in Scotland, and that’s why it’s latched on to you, because you’re from the same place.”

  The old woman looked amazed. “How did you find out? None of the others knew, they couldn’t have told you.”

  “Your oil painting gave it away,” Kester said. “Do you remember, you told me it was where you originally came from?”

  Pamela nodded. “Solving mysteries like this is our job, Grace.
Though you would have made our lives a lot easier if you’d have told us sooner.”

  Grace shook her head. Her hair fell about her face, witch-like, concealing all but one clear blue eye. “I couldn’t tell anyone. Surely you can understand why?”

  “Not really, no,” Serena said flatly. “You could have stopped a lot of people from being killed. Instead, you allowed this spirit to do horrendous things.”

  “Why don’t we let Grace tell us what happened?” Kester suggested. He looked back over the headland and hoped that Helen hadn’t done anything silly. He knew he’d never forgive himself if anything happened.

  Grace placed a hand on the ground to steady herself, then laughed again before wincing in pain.

  “Yes, it’s a fetch,” she confirmed, grimacing at the word. “And it wanted revenge. It had laid in that grave for hundreds of years, just waiting for the right person to carry it. And that’s where I came in handy.” She laughed bitterly. “Because the fetch and I share a home, back in Scotland.”

  “Why did it kill the people from the Ancient History Club?” Kester asked.

  Grace flinched, as though she’d been slapped. “I had to offer it someone, don’t you see? I had no choice.”

  “What sort of person sacrifices their friends?” Serena spat, eyes flashing. Kester shot her a warning look. Grace said nothing, only fixed her gaze on the ground.

  “Do you know why the fetch was trapped in the first place?” Kester pressed, tiptoeing closer to the old woman. We have to try to understand its motivation, he realised, if we’re going to stand any chance of stopping it. Plus, if I keep her distracted, we might buy ourselves some more time.

  Grace bent over, wrapping an arm around her stomach. “I know some of it, from the garbled messages it spits in my head. It travelled down here with the Celtic army thousands of years ago. They welcomed its presence and lured it away from the land it loved, promising it the lives of countless Roman soldiers to fetch to their deaths.”

  “Sounds bloodthirsty,” Mike commented.

  “But then the Celts were captured,” Grace continued, as though Mike hadn’t spoken. “The warriors refused to give it any more lives. They were imprisoned—broken and damaged—and they were done with revenge.” She looked up, meeting Kester’s eye. “And if they were anything like me, they were probably terrified when they realised what it was capable of.”

  “So the Celtic warrior trapped it in the poppet?” Kester studied the woman intently. She’d started to scrape at the ground with her nails, and the desperate rhythm of her scratching unsettled him deeply. It’s like an animal, pacing in a small cage, he realised. I have to remember, she might look like a frail old lady, but she’s got a murderous spirit within her.

  She laughed at the word, not taking her eyes off the ground. “A vessel designed to trap it, yes. Anything will do, if you know how to do it. You know that already, given that you tried to capture it with a water bottle.”

  “Yeah, we’re on a budget,” Mike muttered.

  “And then the warrior killed himself,” Kester said, remembering the knife through the skeleton’s chest. “Perhaps he couldn’t live with the knowledge of what he’d done.”

  “I know the feeling,” Grace said heavily.

  “Why murder your friends, though?” Serena asked, expression filled with distaste. “What had they done to deserve it?”

  Grace’s scratching became more earnest. The sound of brittle nails against hard soil set Kester’s teeth on edge.

  “The fetch needed victims. It demanded them. I couldn’t stop it. You can’t imagine what it’s like, living with that voice in your head, day and night.” She looked up, her expression filled with hostility. “And it was those idiots who found the fetch in the first place. They were the ones who dug it up because they couldn’t stop themselves from prying into matters that should never have been explored. Who else should I have chosen, eh?”

  “Why didn’t you just take it back to Scotland, where it wants to be?” Kester asked. “Surely that’s a logical solution?”

  Grace gave a mirthless chuckle. “It wouldn’t have stopped fetching, believe me. Especially as it had been trapped in the ground for so long, it was out for revenge. It just would have been different people, that’s all. Even if I’d have let it fetch me, it wouldn’t have stopped.”

  “But I presume I’m right in thinking,” Kester said slowly, trying to figure out a way to calm Grace, who was becoming more agitated by the second, “that you want to get rid of this fetch?” He glanced at the others, trying to communicate silently to them to run at the first sign of the spirit emerging, which he had no doubt would happen sooner or later. The cliff-side was uncomfortably close, and he especially didn’t like Serena and Mike’s proximity to it. One slip of the foot, he thought, looking at Serena’s mud-stained stilettoes, and she could be over the edge before any of us could get to her. He gestured to her to move away from the edge, but she just frowned, not understanding.

  Grace chuckled. It sounded more like a snarl. “What do you think? Can you imagine living like this, with a spirit in your head twenty-four hours a day?”

  “Why didn’t you just tell someone?” Serena muttered. “That’s what our job is, to help people like you.”

  Grace’s back rose and fell like an earthquake, thrusting her spine into the air. Kester couldn’t tell whether she was laughing, crying, or having an asthma attack. He looked at the others, who looked as worried as he was.

  “I couldn’t,” the old woman wheezed as she leaned closer to the ground. “Don’t you see?”

  Kester studied her anxiously, then remembered something else Grace’s daughter had said. He gasped. “It won’t stop with you,” he said, eyes widening. “That’s what Helen meant earlier. If the fetch kills you, it’ll come for your daughter next! You didn’t want to get help because you were worried that it would harm your family. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Grace clutched her face and fell to the ground. “Yes,” she groaned. “And the next generation. And the next. It won’t stop. It’ll stay with our family forever.” She started to cry, wrenching sobs that made her thin body convulse. Then she shuddered, looking up at them all pleadingly. “You need to go,” she whispered. Her eyes rolled back in her head until only the whites remained, staring at them sightlessly.

  Before Kester could react, the old woman’s mouth opened. He thought she was going to be sick and moved backward instinctively. Beside him, Ribero groaned, as though aware, on some subconscious level, that something terrible was about to happen.

  “Serena, get the water bottle,” Pamela said in a low voice, gaze fixed intently on the old woman. Serena nodded, scrabbling in Mike’s oversized shoulder bag with increasing urgency. Kester watched with shock as a curling, foamy mist started to seep from Grace’s mouth. It stank of mildew, rot, and cloying, revolting sweetness.

  “Oh god, here we go again,” Mike groaned. He chucked his bag down and stood firm. “You know the drill everyone. Be ready. We’ll only get one shot at this.”

  “What if I can’t get it into the bottle?” Serena whispered, her eyes travelling up to the floating form, which was now towering ten feet above their heads.

  “Now isn’t the time for self-doubt!” Mike retorted. He surveyed the pinnacle of the towering mist, then gulped. “Come on, where’s the usual arrogant Serena when we need her, eh? You can do this. I know you can.”

  Serena’s expression softened. “Haven’t you got any inventions in your bag to help me?”

  Mike grimaced. “Yeah, I meant to say something about that. I didn’t really bring anything suitable with me. Didn’t know we’d be staying in Lyme Regis, did I?”

  Serena groaned and shut her eyes. “You idiot.”

  Kester’s mouth hung open. He stared upwards with horrified fascination. A pair of eyes had appeared in the midst of the spectral mist: two balls of furious
fire which were now aimed entirely in his direction. A ragged, gaping hole appeared below—a black mouth, stretched wide with menace. The stench thickened, turning his stomach, and he watched, helpless, as Grace fell to the ground, tiny as a mouse underneath the looming mass of the fetch.

  Serena moved forward, bottle held aloft before her. Kester noticed her hands were shaking.

  “Serena, be careful,” he said and wished he’d asked her to remove her shoes. He was terrified that she’d lose her balance, and a glance backwards told him Mike was thinking exactly the same thing.

  “I’m not sure I can do this on my own,” Serena whispered. “Where’s the others when you need them, eh?”

  Kester stood as slowly as possible, not taking his eyes off the fetch, which was now swirling from side to side, hissing with rage. “Yes, another extinguisher would have been very useful right now,” he said, thinking of Luke—completely oblivious to their situation, probably still strolling along the promenade below.

  The fetch suddenly reared into the air and threw itself forward with terrifying speed. Kester flew backwards, eyes stinging from the heat of the spirit’s breath.

  It started to chant words that Kester didn’t recognise in a guttural, throbbing voice that boomed deep within his ears, making his internal organs ache. Serena stepped forward and started to mutter words of her own, focusing all her energy on driving the spirit into the bottle.

  The fetch began to shimmer. Parts of its body gleamed like minerals in a rock-face. She’s got it! Kester thought, daring to hope. I think she’s extinguishing it! He watched, hypnotised, as the spirit started to vibrate. It shifted, growing smaller, and he nodded at the others, who looked as excited as him. Gosh, he thought, this is much easier than we thought! Imagine what Larry will say when he realises we’ve done it?

  He looked at Serena. She was biting her lip and stepping away. Why is she looking so frightened? he wondered. She should be looking pleased!

  “It’s turning into me,” she whispered and edged backwards. Her heel snagged on a rock and she tripped, with a sickening lurch towards the cliff’s edge.