The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

  “Stop it,” she whispered.

  She hesitated at the doors, questioning why she had come here. Why did she want to see Mary, this woman she didn’t know at all, had only met for a few frightening moments the day before? Something had happened in the hallway of the house as Mary screamed and Sara cowered against the wall. A change, a shift, not so much an awakening as a return. Yes, that was it. Sara had the sense of returning to herself having been absent all those months. And it was Mary who had summoned her back. And she needed to know why.

  Sara stepped through the doors. Inside, the entrance hall had been turned into a reception area. The desk hosted stacks of brochures, a guestbook and a large bowl of fresh fruit with a sign inviting passers-by to help themselves. It reminded Sara of a hotel she had once stayed in, a place in the Scottish Highlands, where snow still dusted the ground in April and cold draughts haunted the corridors.

  A woman got up from her seat behind the desk and leaned over, smiling. “Can I help you?” she chirped.

  Sara approached the desk, feeling a pulse of uncertainty. What if they turned her away? Why would they let her in? What business did she have bothering one of their residents?

  “I was hoping to see Mary Jackson?”

  She hadn’t intended it to be a question, but it was birthed from her mouth as such nonetheless. The receptionist’s face switched from open to closed, her eyes studying harder. Sara searched her memory for the name of the woman she had spoken to the morning before when she had phoned this place.

  “Are you a relative?” the receptionist asked.

  Sara looked at the name tag on her breast. It said: margaret spence. She remembered.

  “Margaret,” she said. “I spoke with you on the phone yesterday morning. My name’s Sara Keane. Mary came to my house and my husband brought her back here.”

  Margaret’s face went slack, then brightened, then darkened, all within the space of a second. Finally, she gave a smile that ached with effort, her hands spreading on the desk as if thrown down in supplication.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I must apologise again for the upset.”

  “It’s fine, honestly,” Sara said. “But I’d like to see Mary, if that’s all right? I just want to see if she’s okay, see if she needs anything.”

  Margaret stared for a moment before her smile brightened again, and she called to another staff member to take over the desk. She came around to Sara and signalled her to follow. They climbed the grand flight of stairs up to the first floor before taking a left along a series of corridors.

  “The nurse dressed the cut on Mary’s foot, and the doctor came out to see her yesterday afternoon. He said she’s fine, just a bit worn out from the walking. She’s been resting since then. We brought her meals to her room, just so she could recover in peace.”

  Most of the passing doors stood open, each room much the same as the next, plain functional furnishing, few personal touches. Odours laced together, triggering memories in Sara’s mind. Schoolrooms, dentists’ chairs, libraries, hospitals. She remembered her grandmother’s withering years, one stroke after another until there was nothing left of her.

  Margaret came to a halt before the second door from the end. Sara couldn’t see inside from here. The receptionist fidgeted on the spot for a few agonising seconds before she spoke.

  “Like I said yesterday, we take the utmost care over the security of our residents. We’re still trying to figure out how Mary managed to find her way out of the grounds, and I can promise you, this will never—”

  “I just want to see her,” Sara said.

  Margaret squeezed her two fists together to form a ball at her stomach. She hummed with worry.

  “I don’t want to pry,” Margaret said, “but have you spoken to anyone else about what happened? I mean, I must be clear, if you want to talk to someone at the health trust about this incident, we won’t stand in your way, absolutely not, but if there was any way we could—”

  “I haven’t spoken to anyone,” Sara said. “I don’t plan to. I’d really just like to see Mary. Is that all right?”

  Margaret’s hands unclenched as she exhaled through thinned lips.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. But I do need to check it’s okay with Mary. Just wait here a wee second.”

  Alone in the corridor, Sara felt a wave of uncertainty, strong enough to make her hand rest against the wood-panelled wall to steady her. An urge to turn, flee from the home, and back to the house that wasn’t hers. She resisted it.

  “Come on,” Margaret said, her head appearing from the doorway, as if suspended there, unattached to her body.

  Sara approached the open door, saw the room beyond, bright with sunlight. Mary sat in a chair in the corner, her feet resting on a padded stool. One wrapped in a bandage, gauze wadded on her sole.

  “Mary, this is Mrs. Keane,” Margaret said, moving aside.

  As Sara stepped inside, Mary looked away from the window and examined her. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward in the chair.

  “I know you,” she said.

  Sara went to the chair at the far corner of the room. “Do you mind if I sit?”

  Mary shook her head, still staring. Sara brought the chair close and sat down.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Margaret said before disappearing.

  She left the door open. The sound of birds and wind in trees bustled in through the sash window. Net curtains billowed in the breeze that whispered against Sara’s ankles and wrists, cool and gentle.

  “I know you,” Mary said again, her eyes hard like flint.

  “You came to my house yesterday,” Sara said.

  “No,” Mary said. “No.”

  “Yes, it was early in the morning.”

  Mary’s eyes widened and her hand came to her mouth. She let out a high, breathy laugh.

  “Esther?” she said.

  Sara felt an uncertain smile on her lips. “No. My name’s Sara. Sara Keane.”

  Mary’s smile faded. “You said you’d take me to the seaside. You promised. You telt me, when we got out, you’d take me to the beach. I’ve still never been to the sea. You said you’d take me.”

  Sara shifted forward in her seat, leaned in closer. “Mary, I’m not Esther. My name’s Sara. I live in the house you used to own.”

  Mary’s hand dropped from her mouth into her lap. She stared hard at Sara, letting her gaze travel from her face down to her stomach, then she reached out, placed her hand on Sara’s belly. It rested there for a moment, a small hand like a child’s, then Mary looked back up into her eyes.

  “No,” Mary said, withdrawing her hand. “It’s not you.”

  “Who’s Esther?” Sara asked.

  “My sister,” Mary said, her eyes growing distant, staring at some long-ago memory.

  “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  “Aye, I did.” Mary nodded once, her eyes glistening. “I had a sister.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Mary turned her gaze back to the window. “She’s lost. I tried to reach her but I couldn’t. That’s why I should be at home, not here. So she can find her way back to me. But they say I can’t go back home.”

  “Because of the fire,” Sara said.

  “Aye. They say I started it. They say I can’t take care of my own self. But I lived there by my own self for sixty years, and I did all right. And I’ll tell you this, I didn’t start that fire. Some bad hoor did it in the middle of the night.”

  “You think someone else started it?”

  Mary leaned forward, the forefinger of her small hand jabbing each word home. “I don’t think it. I know it. It was the glass breaking that woke me. I mind lying there, listening. I thought one of the cats had maybe cowped something over and broke it. Then there was this thump, I felt it more than I heard it, and then there was a car
engine started up and I heard it drive away. Then the cats screaming.”

  Mary’s quivering hand went to her mouth, her eyes brimming.

  “I opened my bedroom door and the heat knocked me off my feet. I mind looking up at the ceiling, and it was black, like there was a sea up there made out of night. One of the cats, I don’t know which one it was, it came running in and it was on fire and I could do nothing for it. I couldn’t get down the stairs, so I crawled to the window and I opened it. I mind falling, but that’s all. They tell me I was lucky I wasn’t killed. The police wouldn’t listen to me. Nobody would. But I telt them, and I’ll tell you, I didn’t start that fire.”

  Sara thought of what Mr. Buchanan, the grocer, had said about her father-in-law.

  “Did someone want to buy your house?” she asked.

  “Aye,” Mary said. “There was a man came round the house one day, hoking about the place. I telt him to get away wi’that, I wasn’t for selling no matter how much he wanted to give me for it.”

  “How much did he offer?”

  “Och, I don’t know. Maybe a hundred pounds.”

  Sara couldn’t help but smile. “I think it might have been more than that.”

  “Well, whatever it was, I’d no use for it, so I telt him to get away on back to wherever he’d come from and not to come near my house again.”

  “How did he take that?”

  “He was annoyed, I think. But men are like that. They think everything’s theirs and nothing’s ours except what they give us. This man was the same. I don’t say bad words, but I near said some to him.”

  Mary tilted her head and examined Sara. Sara knew then that she was present, here with her now. She might not have been when Sara first entered the room, but at this moment, Mary was here, fierce and alive. She glanced at the rings on Sara’s finger.

  “You’re married,” she said.

  “Yes. It was my husband who brought you back here yesterday morning.”

  “Oh, aye,” Mary nodded, remembering. “He was awful cross at me, so he was.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t say sorry for him. You didn’t do anything. Anyway, I’m the one who should be sorry. And I am. Barging in on you like that. Sometimes I’m not at myself.”

  “It’s all right. Are you—”

  “Is he good to you?” Mary asked, cutting off Sara’s question.

  Sara searched for an answer. She felt this woman would know a lie when it was uttered.

  “He’s not,” Mary said, answering for her.

  “We have good days and bad days,” Sara said, a small and resentful anger building in her. “Like all couples do.”

  She felt Mary’s gaze on her, piercing her skin, drilling into the heart of her. Like Amanda’s had done all those months ago, in that other place, that other life.

  “Really,” Sara said, her tongue driven by the need to defend herself. To defend Damien, to lie for him. “We’re happy. We had a rough spell earlier this year, that’s why we moved here, but we’re over all that now. Honestly.”

  It was her job, Damien had said, too much pressure. No wonder she’d taken those pills. Best thing was to hand in her notice, move away. He said it so many times that she accepted it as truth, like she did with so many things. There was little room for doubt in her mind and she dared not let it in.

  “I can see it on you,” Mary said.

  “See what?”

  Mary glanced down, and Sara became conscious of the tails of the red nail tracks above her right wrist, barely visible beyond the ends of her sleeve. She tugged at her cuffs, pulled them down.

  “The fear of him,” Mary said.

  Sara shook her head. “No, I’m not—”

  “You’re afeart of him, I know. But you’ve no call to be. Men like that, they’re weak. That’s why they’re always thran, always angry. Because they’ve nothing in them but the hate they have for their own selves.”

  “It’s . . . I’m not . . .”

  “Why did you come here to me?” Mary asked, her features wide open, nothing hidden.

  Sara stumbled over her words before she told the truth. “I don’t know. I just wanted to see if you were all right.”

  “You came looking for something.” Mary reached out and took Sara’s hand. “I can’t give it to you if I don’t know what it is.”

  Sara’s tongue deserted her. Only Mary’s words could fill the space between them.

  “You’ve been close to death, haven’t you? I can see it. It always leaves a mark. I have it too. Can you see it on me?”

  Sara looked up from their joined hands and into her eyes.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice no more than a breath.

  “They’ll come for you.”

  “Who?”

  “The children. They’ll find you.”

  “What children?” Sara asked. “There aren’t any children at the house.”

  Mary’s eyes sparked and flamed. “Aye, there are. They’re hiding. Waiting for me. Waiting for you.”

  “Where?” Sara asked.

  “In the walls where you can’t see them. In the corners and in the floors.”

  Sara pictured dark red stains on stone, a fleeting movement in a doorway, a girl with ribbons in her hands. She pulled her hand away from Mary’s, wrapped her arms around herself. “But the fire,” she said. “The house was a shell when we—”

  “The house doesn’t matter,” Mary said. “It never mattered. It’s the land. Those children, they’re like the trees all around and the grass in the fields. Those men planted the children there, like seeds. They’re in the ground and they’ll always be there. They’ve always been there. Like me. Always.”

  23: Esther

  Esther’s shoulder ached from dragging the girl behind her, but still she giggled like it was a game of chase, like they weren’t running for their lives, like Tam wasn’t coming for them. The sun hung low over the fields on the other side of the river, burning the water with orange fire. She glimpsed it through the gaps in the hedgerow, a steep bank running down to the shallow edge. Warm on her skin as she ran, her ill-fitting boots hammering on the lane’s rough surface, Mary skipping along, her soles barely touching the ground.

  “Run,” Esther said between snatches of air. “Run.”

  She knew the main road lay in this direction, perhaps half a mile, maybe more. If they could reach that, they might be safe. They might flag down a car, find another house. Glancing back, she saw they had made it not quite a hundred yards from the driveway. Up ahead, there was a bend in the lane. She focused on that, as if getting out of sight of the house could save them.

  An engine barked into life somewhere back there. Esther looked back once more and saw the police car swing out of the driveway, accelerate towards them.

  “No,” she said.

  The river, she thought. Tam can’t drive through the river.

  Up ahead, the hedgerow thinned. She pulled Mary towards the edge of the lane, hearing the car’s engine roar behind them. Branches and thorns pulled at her clothes as she dived through, scratched at her face and hands. Mary cried out as Esther dragged her through behind her. The car’s brakes shrieked as its tyres grabbed at the lane’s coarse surface.

  Esther’s feet seemed to disappear from beneath her, and for a moment, she was free of the earth, flying. Then the ground rose up to slam into her chest, knocking the breath from her lungs, and her legs were up above her head, and the sky beyond them, and then her hip hit the bank. She landed on the muddy shore of the river, her shoulder jarred against the stones and wet earth.

  Somewhere above, Mary called her name, and Esther struggled to her knees, then her feet. She reached up and took hold of Mary’s hand, pulled her down over the grass and weeds and stones and to the river’s edge. The sound of a car door opening up above.

 
“Come on,” she said, her feet splashing into the shallows.

  Mary resisted, pulling back, her eyes wide and staring at the moving water.

  “We have to go,” Esther said. “You’ll die if we don’t go now. We’ll both die.”

  “I can’t swim,” Mary said.

  “You don’t have to,” Esther said. “I’ll keep hold of you, I promise.”

  The girl turned her terrified eyes to Esther’s. “What about Mummy Joy? Mummy Noreen?”

  Esther grabbed Mary’s shoulders. “We’ll come back for them. I promise, I’ll get us away from here, I’ll keep you safe, then we’ll come back for them. And we’ll take them to the seaside, I swear on my soul, we’ll all go to the beach together, I promise. Mary, I swear on my life, we’ll come back. Now come on.”

  Mary allowed herself to be pulled to the river’s edge. Esther waded into the water, felt the cold of it climb her calves and her thighs as it deepened, felt the current pull her away from the house. She fought to stay upright. A cry escaped her as the water reached her groin, the cold reaching into the very core of her, deep into her gut, into her bones. She cried out again. Looking back, Mary clung to her hand, the water up past her belly, creeping up to her chest. Her eyes and mouth wide with the shock of it, and Esther knew how it felt as her body threatened to rebel against the cold.

  Movement at the top of the bank. She looked up, saw Tam pushing his way through the hedge, the rifle in one hand. He knelt on the grass, raised the gun, the butt against his shoulder, sighted along its length.

  “No,” she said, “no, no.”

  Esther turned to the far bank, saw only that, felt only Mary’s hand in hers. Nothing else. Nothing else in the whole wide world. No cold, no current trying to drag her feet from under her. Only the other side. Nothing—

  She heard thunder, and something punched her hard in the middle of her back. The bullet tore along the surface of the water in front of her. He missed, she thought. The bullet missed and hit the water. Thank the Lord Jesus, he missed.