Out of the Depths

by Cathy MacPhail

  ‘Hey, yours is the last name I would spell out.’

  ‘Put your finger back, Tyler,’ Jazz said. And I did. She drew in a deep breath. ‘Have you a message for Tyler?’

  The glass immediately slid to YES.

  ‘What is your message?’ Jazz was really into it now. Her words almost came out like a chant.

  The tumbler moved again. First to the letter H, then around the circle to E and then L. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. I saw Mac’s finger flying off it moved so fast, yet still it flew around the table. And Adam’s finger slipped off too. They weren’t pushing it. And neither was I. What was happening? P … to M … to E …

  ‘Help me,’ Jazz said. ‘It’s asking you to “help me”.’

  The glass was still moving faster and faster round the table, spelling out its message again. And then again.

  HELP ME, TYLER.

  I remembered the words I had heard in my head, surely only in my head, the night the clock stopped – the night he had visited me in my room. Help me, Tyler, he had whispered.

  ‘But who are you?’ I shouted as if it could hear me. And I knew the answer even before the glass began to move again. I knew the name it would spell out. B … E … N.

  ‘Ben Kincaid.’ Jazz’s voice seemed to come from far away. I couldn’t take my eyes off that glass. Faster and faster it raced round the table, touching the K, then the I, flying to the square marked N. Then round the table and almost sending the square marked C fluttering to the floor. Jazz’s finger fell from the tumbler, then Mac’s, until the only finger on it was my own. Then even I couldn’t hold it. It flew over the edge and smashed to the ground on Jazz’s tiled dining-room floor.

  HELP ME, TYLER.

  A plea from Ben Kincaid from beyond the grave.

  But how could I possibly help him? He was dead!

  21

  Mac still thought I’d pushed it. ‘Funny your finger was the only one left on the glass,’ he said afterwards.

  ‘I didn’t push it!’ I yelled it at him, wishing he could understand how scared I was. Jazz understood. She seemed to be revelling in the whole thing.

  ‘Why would she push it?’ Jazz asked him.

  ‘Maybe she wants to be famous for five minutes. Or in her case a little longer. She did the same in her last school. Telling people she saw a dead teacher. Making things up.’ He spat the words out as if they disgusted him.

  ‘That’s why I think Tyler is a psychic,’ Jazz insisted. ‘This has happened to her before.’

  Mac turned away in disgust. ‘Aw come on, Jazz.’

  Jazz pulled him round to face her again. ‘You know she didn’t push that tumbler, Mac. You saw her face … look at her face now.’

  Mac did, stared at me, and then looked away quickly. ‘She’s a good actress.’

  I’d had enough of him. ‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here. I didn’t push that glass. I don’t understand what’s happening either.’

  But I’d never convince Mac.

  Jazz pushed him and Adam into the kitchen for more cheesecake. Then she sat me down on the sofa and said very seriously, ‘I think I’ve figured out how Ben Kincaid wants you to help him.’ She spoke as if she was an expert in the paranormal. ‘He needs you to help him get to the other side.’

  I heard a spluttered giggle from the kitchen. The boys at the kitchen door, mouths full of cheesecake, obviously listening.

  ‘The other side of what?’ I asked her.

  ‘He’s trapped here, in this world. He can’t move on. Something’s keeping him here and he needs you to help him.’

  ‘So what’s keeping him here … and why does it have to be me?’

  Jazz shrugged. ‘Because you’re psychic. You came to the school and you’re psychic. He’s never been able to get through to anyone before, but he can get through to you. And he’ll let you know how to help him.’

  But I didn’t want him to let me know. The thought of it freaked me out. Yet, in a way, she was right. Ben Kincaid wasn’t going to let me go.

  Dad picked me up bang on ten o’clock. ‘Have a nice time?’ he asked.

  I nodded. But I hadn’t had a nice time. I was scared. How was I supposed to help a dead boy get to the other side?

  ‘I’m so glad I wasn’t there,’ Aisha said next morning. She was waiting for me at the school gate. I was glad of her company, didn’t fancy walking up the long drive past the lake on my own this morning. ‘Jazz phoned me. Told me all about it.’

  ‘I don’t believe any of it,’ I said, wanting it to be true.

  ‘Neither do I. One of the boys was pushing it, don’t worry about it.’ She squeezed my arm. ‘Jazz loves things like this, she’ll just wind you up. That’s why I didn’t want her to do it.’

  It made me feel better, for a while anyway.

  The bell rang, and I began to hurry towards the classroom. Aisha was held back by Callum, but I moved on ahead of the others, none of them in any hurry to get to our class. Mac was holding forth about something. I nudged past him. I was first into the classroom … or I thought I was. I stepped in, and there, sitting in the seat at the back where I had always seen him, was the boy with the pale face, the dark eyes.

  Ben Kincaid.

  I leapt back out, stumbling into Mac, and Callum and Adam. ‘He’s there,’ I said, breathless. I clutched at Callum’s jacket. ‘Ben Kincaid. He’s sitting at the back.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Mac said, pushing me aside. Jazz was right with him.

  ‘It’s him,’ I said.

  They stepped into the classroom. Please let them see him, I prayed. Please let them say they see him.

  Mac turned back to me. He took a deep breath. ‘She’s right. He’s there,’ he said.

  At last, I thought, someone else sees what I can see. And I was so glad that someone was Mac. Then his hand encircled my arm and he pulled me gently towards him, into the classroom. I didn’t want to look again, but I had to.

  ‘There you go,’ Mac said. ‘Ben Kincaid. Large as life.’

  I could hardly bear to open my eyes. I only peered through my lashes. I saw the dark hair, the same pale face, the boy sitting at the back of the class watching me.

  ‘It’s him,’ I mumbled. And I turned away again.

  They all crowded into the doorway behind me. There was a cold silence. I felt Jazz touch my arm gently. ‘Tyler … look again.’

  I dared another look. My eyes wide this time. The boy sitting at the back of the class stared back. He called out. ‘What are you lot staring at?’ His voice was cheeky. I saw then (how could I not have noticed it before?) his hair was not so dark, his face was not so pale. It was Sam Petrie.

  He definitely wasn’t Ben Kincaid.

  ‘But I thought … I was sure …’ How could I have made such a stupid mistake?

  Mac smirked. ‘Told you it would work,’ he said to no one in particular.

  And I realised then he’d been responsible. He’d held the others back deliberately. He’d made sure Sam Petrie was sitting in that seat, made sure that I would be the first into the class. He wanted to trick me … and it had worked.

  I hated him.

  22

  I’d blown it. I knew that as soon as I realised that the boy wasn’t Ben Kincaid. I had mistaken Sam Petrie for him. Now they thought I’d been mistaken all along. Or lying. Mac’s eyes told me that was exactly what he believed. I had made the whole thing up. He had proved it. ‘How could you be so rotten?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged. ‘Isn’t it better to know you were wrong … or would you rather it had been a ghost?’

  ‘It’s an easy mistake to make.’ Aisha tried to make me feel better. ‘Sam does look a bit like that photo of Ben Kincaid outside Mr Hyslop’s office.’

  ‘Sam Petrie doesn’t look a bit like that.’ Mac spat the words out, and though I hated to say it, he was right. Sam Petrie didn’t look at all like Ben Kincaid. But just for a second, when I had first peeked into the classroom, there had been a mome
ntary resemblance.

  ‘I know what’s happened,’ Callum said. And we all listened, as if he really was the cleverest boy in the school. ‘Tyler, when you were outside the Rector’s office that first day … did you look at the photographs on the wall?’

  I tried to remember exactly what I’d seen that day. I had stood up and turned to the wall … and, yes, there had been the photograph where no one was smiling. 1979. The one with Father Michael in it and … of course Ben Kincaid must have been there too, though I hadn’t noticed him then. At least, I thought I hadn’t. I nodded.

  ‘Well, that’s it. You’ve seen the photo of Ben Kincaid. You come into the class and see wee Sam there. There’s a passing resemblance. Your subconscious gets the two of them mixed up. Genuine mistake.’

  Adam grinned. ‘Hey, listen to Clement Freud here.’

  Callum corrected him. ‘It’s Sigmund Freud actually. He was the famous psychiatrist.’

  Mac looked disgusted. ‘Seems Tyler makes a lot of genuine mistakes. A dead teacher in a supermarket queue, a dead boy sitting in the class. Come on!’

  I was angry, but I had no answer to that. Jazz was the only one who seemed to believe me. She wanted desperately for it to be true because she loved ghost stories. Jazz spoke up for me. ‘I think she did see Ben Kincaid. He appeared to her in class. He came through to her at our seance. He needs her to help him.’ She put her arm round my shoulder. ‘And we’re going to find out how.’

  She was so enjoying the idea of some strange haunting going on. Why couldn’t it all be happening to Jazz? I bet she wouldn’t be afraid.

  But the dreary days passed and nothing else happened. I moved in a dream – a nightmare. I felt sick to my stomach. I walked home every day down the long drive, past the misty lake, past the shops with the newspaper headlines that were all about the missing girl.

  COME BACK DEBBIE

  And I wondered if anyone at school would want me back if I went missing.

  It was our Steven who cheered me up. He passed his driving test, first attempt (we’d never hear the end of that) and he insisted on taking the whole family out for a drive in the car.

  ‘I tell you what,’ Dad said, ‘you can take us to that little country pub we like. I’ll treat us all to a meal, and I can have a beer for a change.’

  ‘And for once, it won’t be Mum’s taxi service. When me and Dad or Tyler go out, Steven can pick us all up,’ Mum said.

  Steven didn’t look too happy about that, but he was desperate to show off his driving skills. Skills might be a bit of an exaggeration. Almost running us into a ditch. Crashing the gears as he went up a hill. And swerving so hard to avoid some daft pheasant standing in the middle of the road he almost had us wrapped round a tree.

  ‘How did you ever manage to pass?’ I asked him after he’d stalled the car for the third time.

  ‘He must have put a spell on the examiner,’ Dad said.

  But that night out was just what I needed to take my mind off things. Lift me out of that sombre mood. Mum noticed it too.

  ‘You’ve been so withdrawn lately. I’ve been worried about you,’ she said, as we waited for our meal at the pub, and Dad and Steven had a game of snooker. ‘It’s so good to see you smile again.’

  That night I convinced myself it had been Sam Petrie I had seen all along. A boy who looked like Ben Kincaid. The statues in the school hadn’t moved at all – that had been a trick of the light … And the message from the tumbler (I mean, a message from a tumbler! How could I ever take that seriously?) Adam or Mac had been pushing it, of course. And that night in my bedroom? I hadn’t seen anything, had I? It had all been imagination or a dream.

  Everything had a logical explanation.

  And treating it like that seemed to work.

  Next day at school, Jazz and Aisha and I had a great time playing netball, and when I told them all about Steven’s erratic driving even Mac managed a smile.

  I wanted it to stay like this.

  It would stay like this. I promised myself it would.

  But there are some promises you can’t keep. Some things you can’t stop. And some things you cannot foresee.

  23

  It was Friday. I was so looking forward to the weekend. Jazz and I were going to the movies tonight. And then we were having a sleepover, my first sleepover with Jazz, at her house. Aisha said she had other plans.

  ‘Something’s going on there,’ Jazz insisted. ‘Aisha miss a sleepover? I think she’s got a date with Mac.’

  ‘Mac? Who would go out with that miserable so-and-so?’

  Aisha was far too nice for him, that’s what I was thinking as I hurried to the toilets. Mr O’Hara had excused me, told me to hurry back. The toilets were practically across the corridor from the classroom. I would only be gone for a few minutes.

  It was a dark, dismal Friday. The clouds hung low outside the high windows. But I didn’t feel dismal, not that day. All that was on my mind was the weekend ahead.

  If I hadn’t needed to go to the toilet, if I’d stayed in the classroom, it wouldn’t have happened … would it?

  Or are there things that are meant to be – going to happen no matter what you do?

  I was coming out of the girls’ toilets when I heard it. A soft, low chanting, rhythmic, almost peaceful. It seemed to weave its way down the gloomy passageways towards me.

  I stopped and listened. At first, I thought it was the school choir practising. Not quite singing, and yet more musical than anything I’d ever heard before.

  It was a prayer, some ancient, Latin prayer, winding its way towards me from somewhere in the distance. I couldn’t move, though I knew I should hurry back to class. I was only steps from the classroom door, could hear Mr O’Hara’s voice. Better to ignore that chant, I told myself. But I couldn’t stop listening. The chant was so beautiful, so soothing and hypnotic.

  I couldn’t stop myself. Instead of heading back to my class, so close that I could almost reach out and touch the door handle, I turned and followed the sound.

  I wasn’t afraid. What was there to be afraid of from anything so beautiful?

  The school was so silent. I heard a teacher shout angrily from one of the classrooms, heard my feet tapping on the tiled floor. But otherwise there was no other sound. Just that chanting prayer. So musical, and yet not quite music.

  This was no school choir, no choir of young voices either. I could imagine row upon row of black-clad monks, their hoods covering their faces, their hands locked in prayer, murmuring that beautiful prayer.

  There was a statue against the wall. I looked up, and his face was turned towards the sound of the chanting too. Surely, he had always had his head bent in prayer?

  Still I couldn’t stop following the sound.

  I turned a corner and could hear the words more clearly. I still couldn’t understand them. Depra… something. It wasn’t English, that much I did know.

  Depra… a language I didn’t understand – foondis… Latin probably. The only words I could make out – Depra foondis – they were repeated like a litany, but I still couldn’t understand them.

  Another corner, and here was another statue, looking towards the sound, as if his alabaster ears could hear it as clearly as mine. I was in a part of the school I had never been to before. Facing me, at the end of the corridor, was the heavy wooden door of the old chapel. The chanting was coming from behind that door. The place where Ben Kincaid was murdered. It was never used now. Not since that dreadful night. So who was in there? Who was praying in there?

  I halted at the richly carved oak door. I placed my hand around the ornate brass door handle so cold to my touch, and I knew I shouldn’t enter now. It would be locked. It should be locked. Ben Kincaid had died here. This was the last place I should want to go into. I should, instead, run back to my classroom. Clamp my hands over my ears to blot out that sound. It was luring me in, like a siren song, hypnotising me, and I was powerless to ignore it.

  It was too late for me to run.<
br />
  Slowly, I turned the handle of the door.

  24

  The chanting ceased as soon as the door was opened. As if the sound had suddenly been switched off. Yet, still I stepped inside. The air was chill, but I told myself it was a stone chapel, stone walls, stone floors, always cold as death. I could see my breath form like mist in the icy air.

  There was no choir of monks. The chapel was empty, and dark. No candles sat in the candle-holders. And a single statue dominated the room. St Anthony. I wondered why he hadn’t been moved. Patron saint of the college. It struck me then that there was no statue of him anywhere in the school. I would have thought he deserved a special place, a more public place. Not here. Alone.

  But he had been witness to a murder.

  What horrors must he have seen that night? I shivered. It was as if I had stepped into a refrigerator. Freezing cold. Did that mean something? That there was some presence here?

  Ben Kincaid?

  My heart began to pound. I wanted to turn and run, but I couldn’t move.

  The chapel is empty – I kept telling myself that over and over. My eyes scanned every dark alcove, every shadowy corner. The chapel is empty.

  And behind me the door slammed shut.

  I swivelled round. The door was tight shut. I pulled at the handle, and pulled. It wouldn’t turn, as if it hadn’t been turned for years. Stiff with age. I began to panic. The chapel was so dark. Shadows everywhere.

  And then there was a movement. One of those shadows seemed to come alive. A shadow, dressed in black, kneeling in prayer at one of the small altars in the chapel. In one long movement he got to his feet. My teeth were chattering. I was desperate to run, why couldn’t I move?

  The figure turned. I saw his face. His long, solemn face, and his eyes, so blue they seemed to illuminate the room.