The Apparition Phase

by Will Maclean

  Graham frowned at this, as if it were a supremely unreasonable request.

  ‘Well now, Seb, I understand that she’s distressed, but I would prefer it if we were all present this afternoon—’

  ‘No dice, old man,’ said Seb, with a brisk, cold smile. He suddenly looked very grown-up. ‘Maybe tomorrow, but for the time being, let’s just leave her alone, hmm?’

  And then the discussion was over, save for the frustrated click of Graham’s teeth on the stem of his pipe.

  We spent our unexpected afternoon off reading, or simply doing nothing. At some point, I decided that the incessant fug of cigarette smoke inside the house was too choking, too unpleasant, and too reminiscent of Mum to tolerate, and went for a walk. At the rear of the house was a brick pathway that wound through an overgrown herb garden, bordered by a sparse yew hedge. I slumped down on a low wall that was barely keeping back a huge crowd of purple sage. It was another hot day. The bricks drank up the sunlight hungrily and were warm to the touch.

  I looked up to see a face. A smiling face, poking through the hedge.

  ‘Hello, Polly.’

  ‘I’m not Polly!’ she said, in a funny, nasal voice. ‘I’m Jack-in-the-Green!’

  ‘Right.’ I smiled. ‘Are you just here to act like a loony, or did you want something?’

  ‘A bit of both, I think.’ She stood up and walked round the hedge to where I was. ‘And what are you doing, Tim?’

  ‘Thinking,’ I said.

  ‘Hmm. Is that what that looks like? Are you thinking about Sally, are you, Tim? Sally, free and easy?’

  ‘That seems unpleasant.’.

  ‘I was referring to the song – oh, never mind. Look, whilst you’re here, and the others aren’t, I wanted to ask you something.’

  I shrugged. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Timothy, do you think this house is haunted?’

  ‘I think we’ve seen evidence of that, certainly.’

  ‘Did it ever cross your mind that haunted houses aren’t haunted unless there are people in them?’

  ‘You think it’s all fake?’

  ‘No.’ Her earlier frivolousness fell away and she looked sad and serious. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  ‘Then – what?’

  ‘I have a suspicion, Tim. But I need to see more before I can say anything for certain.’

  That evening, I called Dad.

  The phone rang for a long while before he picked it up; I presumed he was disentangling himself from some very involved DIY project.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Dad.’

  ‘Tim,’ he said warily.

  ‘Dad, I just needed to—’

  ‘Is this about all that stuff in the papers?’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘They’ve been trying to connect Abi’s disappearance to a couple of similar cases around the same time in Cambridgeshire. That’s where you are, isn’t it?’

  I felt the anger coming. Why did he never pay attention? ‘No, Dad. I’m in Suffolk, remember? One county along.’

  ‘Oh.’ He seemed disappointed. ‘Anyway, it struck me as a load of noise about nothing.’

  ‘How’s Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘No change,’ said Dad. ‘I’ll call you if there is. When there is.’

  There was a long pause. I realised he wasn’t going to bring our fight up, and if I didn’t mention it now, it would be lost to history, never talked of again.

  ‘Dad,’ I began. ‘I’m sorry. About yesterday. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sounded distracted, as if recalling something of no consequence, from many years ago. I persisted.

  ‘I shouldn’t have – done what I did. But you had no right to do – what you did.’ I was aware that I wasn’t using specifics of any kind. I took a deep breath. ‘Destroying Abi’s room, I mean.’

  ‘I can’t talk about this now,’ said Dad.

  ‘If we don’t talk about it now, we’ll never talk about it, Dad.’ I need you, I wanted to say. I need help. Guidance. Sympathy. Anything. Help me. Please.

  ‘Well, look, Tim, I have to go. I have to clamp some woodwork I’ve just glued.’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘Goodbye, Tim. I’ll see you when you get home.’

  40

  The next day, Graham decided enough was enough, and even if Juliet was not feeling up to it, Seb and Neil had a duty to participate. They had, after all, agreed to come to Yarlings for one purpose only. The experiment, Graham informed us crisply over breakfast, would resume. And so, at midday, we trooped into Tobias’s Room, and took our now-familiar places around the table, leaving Juliet’s chair empty.

  Graham lit the candles, turned off the light, and closed the curtains, almost defiantly, as if to say that any suspicions of trickery anyone might still be entertaining were by this point surely unfounded. ‘Tuesday, the eleventh of June, 1974,’ said Graham, ‘12:01 p.m. Present are myself, Graham Shaw, Sally, Polly, Tim, Sebastian and Neil.’

  ‘And Juliet,’ said a voice from the door.

  ‘Jules!’ said Polly. Juliet smiled a slightly bruised smile. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale.

  ‘Juliet, are you sure you’re OK to be back with us today?’

  She nodded. Graham raised his eyebrows and pointed to his mouth, indicating that she should voice this consent for the tape recorder.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, defiantly, staring into the red light of the tape recorder as if it were a sceptical observer. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ said Graham. ‘But are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘I feel I’ll be better able to control the experience, if the experience is happening to me,’ Juliet said carefully. ‘Rather than running away from it.’ I sensed that this was something she’d given a lot of thought to over the last day or so.

  ‘Very well,’ said Graham. ‘If you’re certain.’

  Seb touched her arm as she sat down. ‘Jules – you really don’t have to—’

  Gently but firmly, she pushed his hand away. ‘Shh. I want to.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Graham, in a voice that suggested he wanted to get things underway before she changed her mind. ‘I state for the record that also present today is Juliet Fields-Ray, which gives us a full complement of participants. Time is currently 12:04. Hands to the pump, everyone.’

  The pencil stood in the middle of the blank sheet of paper, a single point in a white void of potential. Juliet was last to place her fingertip on the pointer.

  ‘I will be operator today,’ Graham said solemnly. ‘I don’t imagine I’ll exactly be trampled in the rush for volunteers.’

  ‘Oh no. I’ll do it,’ said Polly briskly.

  Graham’s brow furrowed. ‘Are you absolutely certain?’

  Polly smiled. ‘What? Given the way two of the previous ones have ended? With whoever conducts it bursting into tears? I’d be mad not to.’ Seb snorted at this, but Graham simply nodded.

  ‘Very well. Today’s operator will be Polly Rook.’

  ‘OK.’ Polly took a deep breath. ‘Are you there?’ she said, without hesitation.

  Immediately, the pencil quivered.

  ‘Mr Salt,’ Polly said. ‘Is that you?’

  YES

  ‘Er – hello?’ Polly said cheerfully, as if this were a blind date.

  The pencil trembled but didn’t move.

  ‘Is there anything you particularly wish to tell us? Perhaps you want us to say prayers for your soul, so that you might leave this house?’

  At this suggestion the pencil slashed violently across the page. Words began to appear under our hands, in stark block capitals.

  NO PRAYR

  Polly looked puzzled. ‘And why not?’

  WHAT GOOD

  ‘It might help you to move on?’ said Polly. ‘Prevent your soul from being bound to this house—’

  Again, a series of jagged, angry scratches filled the paper. ‘Slow down,’ murmured Polly, her eyes d
arting back and forth. ‘Too fast.’ Sally removed the sheet of paper from under the pencil and replaced it with a fresh one.

  ‘Unless, of course, that’s not why you’re here?’ said Polly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Polly,’ said Graham. ‘Where is this going?’

  Polly shook the hair away from her face as she addressed Graham directly. ‘I just thought it would be helpful if we asked Mr Salt a few more direct questions, rather than just make assumptions. I’m sure we can all see the value in that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham uncomfortably. ‘But—’

  ‘Mr Salt?’ said Polly. ‘What are you?’

  The planchette juddered, as if stunned. And then began to write, calmly and distinctly, across the page

  I AM NOT THE

  HOUSE

  ‘Well, we know that—’ Seb began.

  GRAETER

  GRATAER THAN THE TRIANGLES

  GREATER THAN THE WOUNDED BOY

  GREATER THAN THE ENTWINED LIARS

  GREATER THAN THE UNLUCKY ONE

  Polly glanced around her in consternation. ‘What are you talking about, Mr Salt? We don’t understand.’

  ALL OF YOU

  ‘Us? What about us?’

  I WILL

  ALL OF YOU

  RUIN

  A tangible crackle of fear ran through our circle.

  ‘What – what do you mean by that?’

  ALWAYS WAITING

  IN THE PAST

  IN THE NOT

  WAITING

  TWO HALVES

  SILT STREAM

  THER

  BARE

  AS A WINTER TREE

  ‘We don’t understand, Mr Salt,’ said Graham. ‘Tell us more.’

  THER LIES

  TIME

  IT IS TIME

  ‘Time for what? What are you telling us?’

  RED BLUE

  ALMOST DOEN

  CANOT LIVE

  CANOT DIE

  I gasped. Abi’s poem, her invocation, the one she had written to summon up our chalk ghost, to animate it. Hadn’t she written something like that?

  SO COLLD

  SO WET

  AMONG THE WEEDS

  CANT HIDE FROM HIM

  FUNNY FACE

  ‘Jesus!’ said Polly.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

  ‘How can he know that?’ Polly wondered aloud, her voice barely a whisper.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  I KNO

  ALL OF YOU

  I KNOW

  ‘What are you telling us?’ Graham asked insistently.

  THE END

  OF WH

  ‘Of who?’

  WHO YOU WERE

  Then, incised very firmly and definitely into the paper:

  T S P N J

  ‘Gibberish,’ said Seb, shaking his head.

  TSPNJ

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Look. They’re – initials. It’s us. Well, some of us.’

  I thought again of Sally’s theory that Mr Salt was a gestalt, a creature composed of all of us. Our distilled essence. If this were the case, might this be its way of telling us so? Part of me accepted this as plausible; another part was amazed and horrified by the things I was now willing to consider after a week at Yarlings. I glanced at Sally but she did not look up from the trembling planchette.

  ‘Us? What about us?’ urged Graham. ‘Tell us!’

  ITS HERE

  ‘What’s here?’

  BEGIN THE END

  IT IS

  TIM

  My blood ran cold. ‘Me?’

  TIME

  IT IS TIME

  ‘Time for what?’ Graham said urgently.

  ANS

  ANSW

  ‘Answer,’ said Graham. ‘Answer what?’

  ANSER THE

  ‘Answer what?’

  ANSWER THE

  CALL

  ‘What call?’ said Graham.

  From its hook in the distant hallway, the telephone began to ring; crisp, clear and indifferent.

  We listened to it ring for a full minute, before Graham stood, inhaled deeply and left the room.

  Lit by the candles, our faces were masks of worry and concern, suspended in space. Everyone’s eyes glittered with apprehension, pupils large. I could hear Juliet’s breathing, shallow and quick.

  ‘That,’ said Seb, ever the pragmatist, ‘was freaky.’

  ‘It certainly was,’ Polly said quietly. I thought I glimpsed a tear on her cheek, but she rubbed her face with her sleeve before I could be sure.

  ‘He likes the old phone, doesn’t he?’ said Seb.

  ‘Graham did tell us Mr Salt’s manifestations are supposed to be associated with the ringing of bells,’ Polly said acidly. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter which bells.’

  ‘How are you, Juliet?’ Neil asked. He reached out to touch her arm. ‘Are you OK?’

  Juliet nodded slowly. ‘It’s intense when it happens and it’s intense when it stops happening, isn’t it? Good God, listen to me.’ She laughed a little. ‘Who do you think the phone was for?’

  ‘Graham,’ I said. ‘It must be. He wouldn’t be gone this long otherwise.’

  ‘Are we still recording?’ said Neil. ‘Shall I turn it off?’ Sally nodded, and Neil got up and pressed STOP.

  Graham returned.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ said Graham. ‘It was the Institute, that’s all. They were calling to remind me that I’m due to give a presentation to them tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘So it was something you already knew?’ said Polly. ‘Thank God. We all expected the worst, after – after that.’ She gestured towards the page of scrawl.

  ‘You’re going away tomorrow?’ Neil asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Graham. ‘I’m sorry I forgot to tell everyone, but it seemed so minor. I’ll be back before you know it.’

  ‘What’s the presentation about?’ I asked.

  ‘My work here, of course. Methods. Results. A broad outline of what I’ve been up to, basically. I mean, thank goodness I now have something to show them.’

  ‘You’re not worried they’re going to cut your funding, or shut the whole thing down?’ said Polly.

  ‘What?’ Graham looked genuinely shocked. ‘Why ever would they?’

  ‘Begin the end.’ Polly tapped the sheet of paper in front of us. ‘That’s what Mr Salt said, shortly before he told us to answer the phone.’

  ‘Ah,’ Graham smiled. ‘I see what you mean. Well, given that Mr Salt’s communications are themselves a tangible result, I can’t say I’m too worried about it. I hardly think they’re likely to shut this down when they see the kind of results we’ve been getting.’

  Graham smiled down at the planchette. ‘Sorry, Tobias, old chap! Nice try. Looks like we’ll be bothering you for a little while longer!’

  41

  The next day was hot and sticky. Even before ten, the house had become stuffy and the atmosphere oppressive; by eleven-fifteen, we had all separately converged on the front lawn and were lounging on the dry grass, reading, or simply basking in the sunshine. Graham did not join us; presumably he was either packing or preparing his notes.

  ‘It’s supposed to rain later,’ said Polly, staring up at the cloudless sky. ‘Has Graham gone yet?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Neil. ‘He’s still fussing over his files and things.’

  ‘Well now.’ Seb was shirtless again, lying on his back with his sunglasses on, smoking. ‘If Graybags is off until late evening, shall we make hay while the sun shines? By which I mean – pool our cash and buy some booze?’

  ‘From the village?’

  ‘Where else? You don’t mind going, do you, Timbo? You said they sold wine in the shop. Failing that, you could try and bribe the yokels in the pub?’

  It seemed a daring plan, but a not unfeasible one. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘But Graham’s not out all night. He’ll be back by ten at the latest, he said so himself.’ />
  ‘Well, we’ll have to start early, then, won’t we? And be in bed by the time he comes back. Who’s in?’

  Juliet shrugged. ‘It’s been a long week, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Marvellous. Who else?’

  ‘I’m in,’ said Neil immediately. ‘I could do with a drink.’

  ‘Really? Well now. There may be hope for you yet, Awful.’

  ‘Don’t call me—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Who else? Polly?’

  She nodded. ‘We need this, don’t we? It’d be a waste not to.’

  ‘Smashing.’

  A shadow fell across my face, and I looked up to see Sally.

  ‘What’s smashing?’ she said.

  Everyone was silent.

  ‘What’s smashing?’ she repeated, sitting down.

  ‘The results of yesterday’s session,’ said Seb, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘We were all … really impressed by them.’

  I sighed. There was, to me, no point in doing this if we excluded Sally. ‘As Graham’s going away, we’re going to pool our money and buy some wine.’

  ‘Smith!’ barked Seb. ‘You … traitor!’

  ‘And then,’ I continued, ‘we’re going to get pleasantly intoxicated, and shortly before Graham gets back, we’re all retreating to our respective rooms so he won’t know. And, unless we’re in a really terrible state tomorrow morning, he never will know.’

  I looked directly at her, into her blue-green eyes, her red hair haloed with sunlight. ‘Would you like to join us?’

  For a second, the day held its breath as Sally looked at me, her expression unchanging. And then, her freckled face broke out into a wide smile.

  ‘What a fantastic idea!’

  At roughly midday, we all lined up at the front of the house to see Graham off, as if he were an Elizabethan explorer undertaking a voyage by galleon to the Americas, rather than a man about to drive to Central London, and scheduled to return later the same day.

  ‘Goodbye, Sal,’ Graham said, hugging Sally. ‘Look after these reprobates, will you? I’ll be back before you know it!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sally. ‘We’ll be fine!’

  ‘Better than fine,’ said Seb, cheerily. ‘Drive safely!’

  ‘I will,’ said Graham. ‘Be good.’ His ancient Vauxhall crunched down the gravel driveway. At the gates, he wound down his window and gave us a small wave, before dropping out of sight. The engine puttered through the avenue of trees where the B-road ran.