by Will Maclean
‘Super. And where would that be?’
‘In my wardrobe,’ I said. ‘Under my rucksack.’
‘Marvellous. As recent events have sobered me right up, I’m going to spend the rest of the night getting as drunk as circumstances will allow. I’ll settle up for the grog tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you want to wait for Graham?’ said Neil. Seb demonstrated what he thought of this suggestion by ignoring it completely. He patted me on the shoulder as he left.
‘Thanks a million, old man. Right. I’ll see you lot tomorrow.’
He clattered up the stairs.
‘Wait for me!’ said Juliet. ‘I’m not going up there alone. Not after all that. Night, all!’ Her footsteps, too, rang out on the main stairwell and subsided into silence.
‘Much as I hate to admit it, I think Seb has the right idea,’ said Neil. ‘Not much to be gained by sitting here in the dark. It makes more sense to talk about all of this in the morning, when Graham’s calmed down.’
‘Goodnight, Neil,’ said Polly. As soon as Neil’s footsteps faded, she turned to me. ‘Right. You and I need to talk.’
‘We do,’ I said. ‘I think—’
‘Shh,’ she said, putting a finger to her lips. ‘Not here. Come on. We’ll go to my room.’
We padded up the stairs. When Polly glanced back to make sure I was following, I saw a glimmer of thoughtful worry in her eyes. The noise of the rain outside was much louder in Polly’s room, and I could hear distant thunder.
There was a mirror propped up on a chair, along with some make-up, and Polly cleared this away and gestured for me to sit. As well as the candles we’d brought up, she lit two more candles, which stood in saucers on the mantelpiece. She then closed the door behind us. The ticking of the grandfather clock was a measured, calming pulse over the chaos of the rain outside. Polly sat cross-legged on her bed and looked at me with intense concentration.
‘OK. First things first. Do you think Sally and Graham faked all that?’
I shook my head.
‘Me neither. That leaves us with two possibilities. One – Sally’s bonkers and doesn’t know it, and that stuff at the séance was as much of a surprise to her as it was to us, or—’
‘There is something here,’ I whispered.
‘There is something here,’ she said gravely.
We both sat, deep in thought.
‘Let’s look at it a different way,’ said Polly at last.
‘How?’
‘Well, if Tobias Salt never existed, what are we dealing with here?’ She continued before I could answer. ‘Let’s say it’s a mass of data, waiting for a correct interpretation. Let’s consider this thing as if it’s real. Not a con trick or down to subconscious effect or any other bloody thing. Let’s say it’s real. What do we know about it? Based on what we’ve seen?’
‘It’s … I don’t know. It’s intelligent?’
‘Yes. It’s clever. Good. And what kind of intelligence would you say it was? Based solely on the messages we’ve received?’
The answer was depressingly plain. ‘A malevolent one. Possibly even a violent one, considering what it did to Graham’s study.’
Polly blinked, looked up at me. ‘You really think that was our ghost?’
‘You don’t?’
She shrugged. ‘We all left the room whilst we were drinking at some point, to smoke or go to the loo or whatnot. Any one of us could have slipped away to the other end of the house for five minutes.’
I considered this. Polly saw my doubtful expression and shook her head. ‘Never mind. What else do we know?’
I couldn’t think of anything.
‘I’ll tell you,’ Polly said angrily. ‘He knows things.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘During the last sessions, it wrote the words SWEET FUNNY FACE, remember? That was … that was for me. Never mind how, but it relates to something personal to me, something unpleasant. I think it did the same thing to Juliet too, and that’s why she was so upset.’
Polly’s eyes were wide. ‘And it did it to you too, didn’t it, Tim? You said a name in there, Abi, was it?’
I felt a slow, cold fear congeal over my skin. A terrible half-formed possibility, becoming more tangible in my mind.
‘The question is, how did it know those things?’
‘Mind-reading?’ I said, but it sounded desperate, even to me. Somewhere, I heard Abi’s voice talk of Ockham’s Razor.
She exhaled. ‘You know that quote from Haldane? “My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose”?’
I smiled. ‘Yes, I’ve heard that.’
‘Well, if this is an intelligent force, maybe it’s entirely different to us, more different than we can ever know. Maybe it’s unknowably different.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Maybe our poltergeist knows more than we do. About ourselves. Maybe, to him, our lives are laid out like pages in a book. We have to experience the story page by page, in order, but he’d be able to skip to any place he pleased. Imagine the nasty tricks he’d be able to play on us then!’
I found myself thinking about chess pieces – pawns, which must move one plodding space forward at a time; and knights, which can swoop in backwards, forwards and sideways to check other pieces, or remove them from the game altogether. ‘All right, if we’re getting into the realms of wild speculation—’
‘That’s what we’re here for, Tim.’
‘How do you think it found us? Why choose us to make contact with?’
She smiled. ‘We’re the only ones looking for it.’
‘What do you mean?’
She shrugged again. ‘Just a half-formed suspicion. But maybe human consciousness is part of it. Maybe it can’t exist here without someone bringing it into being in some way.’
‘We’re … imagining it into existence? We’ve invented it, so it exists?’
‘Or we allowed it in.’ Polly smiled. ‘Wild speculation, Tim.’
‘The phrases it used, the ones you say were calculated to upset us – couldn’t it all just be a coincidence?’ I said.
Again, Polly shrugged. ‘And where do coincidences happen, Tim?’
‘I don’t follow.’
She touched a fingertip to my forehead. ‘The same place you feel sorrow, and pain, and rage. And fear. The only place that’s real, to you. Maybe we’ve been giving reality to it. To something that shouldn’t exist.’
And in my mind I saw very clearly, then, the illustration of ‘Mister S’ that had accompanied every single report of Abi’s disappearance, eyes burning out of a featureless face. Had something made that face, or chosen it? And then, I heard Janice’s voice, telling of the broken house, with the broken people in it. I was suddenly very afraid.
‘Tim,’ said Polly. ‘What is it?’
I wanted to tell her everything. About Abi. About our ghost, and Janice Tupp. About Abi’s disappearance, and Janice’s death. About Mister S, and first hearing the words ‘Mr Salt’, and my horror now at that small and terrible coincidence.
And the thought that I alone could attach that meaning to those words, a horrible, pointed, taunting meaning, taking the name of my sister’s uncaught killer, utilising it. And how my mind was the only place in the universe such a connection could possibly be made.
I imagined something cruel and callous, in ways no human could be. Something that delighted in misery, in connecting things in our lives that invite madness. Tormenting us, like a child holding a magnifying glass over an ant’s nest – not to see what we do, but simply because it can, because such things amuse it. To twist events and influence lives to bring pain and distress, because pain and distress are joyful to it.
I heard my own breathing. It seemed very loud, even louder than the rain. Polly looked up at me, her eyes bright with concern.
‘Nothing,’ I said eventually. ‘It’s nothing.’
From the corridor outside, we heard shouts.
44
Neil was, at first, barely recognisable. Even by the dim candlelight, I could see that his nose was bleeding freely and his forehead was cut; one of his eyes was bloodshot and already starting to close. Yet even these things were incidental. The change in him was a more fundamental one. The detached, wry observer had fled, and been replaced by a creature of anger and fear, both of equal strength.
‘Get off me!’ he sobbed, but his teeth were bared in a snarl.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ said Polly. ‘Seb, stop it!’
Neil thudded into the gallery wall and slid along it in retreat, but Seb was on him, punching him again and again, all expert blows, all to the head and face. Neil whined, and Seb grabbed him by the throat.
‘Jesus, Seb!’ I said. ‘Let go of him! What’s got into you?’
‘Ask him!’ roared Seb. ‘He knows what he’s done!’
‘I’ve done NOTHING!’ howled Neil. ‘Get off me!’
‘Really, Audle? Nothing?’ Seb held up two crumpled sheets of paper, covered in neat, precise handwriting. ‘You did nothing, did you?’
‘Please!’ begged Neil ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Really, seriously,’ said Polly. ‘Get off him, Seb. You’re hurting him.’
Seb growled in frustration and smoothed out the pages with one hand whilst pinning Neil to the wall by his collar with the other. He read from the pages, with barely contained fury. ‘Neil told me of his connection to Juliet, and that they had been friends for years, long before she met Sebastian. He said they shared everything, including many secrets that Sebastian was unaware of.’
‘So?’ said Neil. ‘That can’t be a surprise! Jules is my friend.’
‘Don’t say her name,’ Seb said murderously. ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’
I saw Polly flinch, as I’m sure I did. That word had power, back then. It was seldom used. If it was heard on television, even late at night, there would be complaints. If you saw it in a book, you’d stare at the word for a while, unable to believe it had been typeset and printed somewhere. Back then, that word could silence a room, or draw a sharp intake of breath, as if one had been punched. It indicated, very clearly, that a situation was not normal.
‘What is that?’ I asked, looking at the crumpled sheets of foolscap in Seb’s hand. ‘Is that from Graham’s study? How did you get hold of it?’
‘Someone shoved it under my door,’ said Seb. ‘Nothing else, just these two pages from Neil’s file. I knew she’d gone away with someone that weekend, Audle. I bloody knew. I just would never in a million years have guessed it would be with you.’
‘It wasn’t what you think,’ said Neil. ‘It wasn’t anything!’
Seb read from the pages again. ‘Sebastian is entirely unaware that Neil and Juliet spent a weekend together, nor why, although if he were forced to think about it, the answer would be obvious.’
‘Wait,’ said Polly. ‘You say somebody shoved these pages under your door?’ She shot me a concerned look.
‘It’s not—’ Neil began.
Seb punched him in the stomach, hard. Neil issued an awful gasp of shock and pain and crumpled to the floor. Polly grabbed Seb’s arm and pulled at him; this simple action made me remember that I also was not just a spectator, but could act. I grabbed Seb’s other arm as he wrestled with Polly.
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Come on. We can talk about this.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it!’ said Seb.
‘It – was – not—’ wheezed Neil from the floor.
Seb kicked Neil in the stomach.
‘You – don’t – know,’ gasped Neil. Seb kicked him again.
‘For God’s sake!’ said Polly, wrenching Seb’s face around so that he was looking directly at her. ‘Stop hurting him!’
‘What is the meaning of this?’ said Graham, from the stairwell. Behind him, Sally stared open-mouthed in horror.
‘Seb’s lost his mind,’ said Polly. ‘He attacked Neil, and—’
‘Stay out of it,’ Seb hissed. ‘It’s none of your business.’ He pushed against me and I almost fell over.
‘Are those … my notes?’ said Graham, as if that were the most pressing thing to notice about this situation.
‘What’s got into him?’ shouted Sally. ‘Neil, are you all right?’
‘I’ve – done – nothing wrong!’ said Neil, scraping himself up into a sitting position. He seemed to have regained control of himself. His face had lost the furious, animalistic cast it had assumed earlier.
‘Shut up, Audle. Just shut up.’
‘Those are my notes,’ said Graham quietly. ‘How did he get hold of my notes?’
Neil looked up at Seb with defiance, meeting his gaze head on. Sometime later, I would wonder at just how brave and extraordinary this small gesture was.
‘You’re an idiot, Seb. A clumsy, loud-mouthed idiot, who damages everything around him, without even noticing.’
Under my hands, I felt every muscle in Seb’s enormous frame tense. I was familiar with this kind of explosive anger, and I knew what was coming. Seb inhaled slowly and carefully, making a series of noises that were not words.
I believe he might even have killed Neil then, either accidentally or on purpose, or simply without thought of any kind. Behind him, however, a door opened.
‘Christ!’ Juliet looked pale and sick. She had clearly been asleep. ‘Seb, leave Neil alone.’
Seb lurched and swayed, wracked by indecision.
‘Seb!’ barked Juliet. At the sound of her voice, I felt all resolve leave him.
‘Explain to me,’ she said crisply, ‘why you’re hurting Neil?’
‘You tell me,’ said Seb, although there was doubt in his voice now. ‘You’re the one who spent a dirty weekend with him, behind my back.’
Juliet sighed wearily.
‘Was it worth it, Jules? Was he worth it? Bloody Neil, of all people?’
‘Oh, shut up, Seb,’ said Juliet. ‘Stop being an idiot. As if anything like that would happen between us. Neil is my friend. You’ve never quite got that, have you? He’s my friend.’
‘Then why did you sneak off with him, without telling me?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Of course it matters.’
Juliet’s face became taut.
‘Come here,’ she said. ‘The rest of you, please give us some peace.’
Seb lumbered dumbly over to Juliet and she took his hand, leading him into their room. She paused for a second to address us.
‘Please look after Neil.’ She slammed the door.
Slowly, carefully, Polly and I picked Neil up from the floor and slung his arms over our shoulders. Down the stairs we went, with Graham and Sally in tow, Neil between us, sagging and stumbling on legs made useless with shock and sour adrenalin.
Down we went, each one of us noticing, and reading, the words freshly scrawled on the wall, but not one of us acknowledging them or passing comment. Words which danced merrily in the flickering candlelight as we went by:
HAHAH AHAAH HAHAHA
45
Time was running out, and the walls of Yarlings seemed closer, the corridors narrower and smaller than they ever had before. Our time here was up, although we couldn’t know it, and these were to be the last hours we spent there. Polly and I led Neil down the long corridor to the kitchen, with Graham and Sally following.
‘Can’t we try and get the lights on?’ Polly asked.
‘The fuse box is completely smashed,’ said Graham. ‘Whoever destroyed it was very thorough.’ Again, he glanced at me.
‘I don’t think my nose is broken,’ said Neil, in a detached way, as if this information didn’t have any direct bearing on him.
‘I have to check something,’ Graham said thoughtfully. ‘Sally, could you come with me?’ She nodded, and they disappeared in the direction of Graham’s study.
‘I don’t think my nose is broken,’ Neil said again, as we steered him down the
corridor. He lurched as if the house were an ocean liner in rough seas. ‘It’s just bleeding a lot.’
We sat him down at the kitchen table. Polly brought him a glass of water, and he took it with trembling hands.
‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said. He touched his nose experimentally. ‘Ow!’
‘Just leave it,’ I said.
‘I don’t think it’s broken or anything,’ he said again. ‘It’s just bleeding a lot.’
‘You just said that.’
‘He’s in shock,’ said Polly. ‘I mean, I think we all are, a bit. Drink your water, Neil darling.’
‘I did nothing wrong,’ said Neil. ‘Excuse me.’
He got up, walked over to the sink and casually vomited into it.
‘Oh Lord,’ said Polly.
‘God, it’s purple,’ said Neil, peering into the sink. ‘Oh yes. We drank wine, didn’t we?’ He sat down and prodded his nose again.
‘I did nothing wrong, you know.’
Polly smiled. ‘We know that, Neil.’
‘Actually,’ he said, raising an index finger, ‘I did do something wrong. I keyed Seb’s stupid car, that time. But only because I was angry with him. Wanted to see how he’d like it if something he really cared about got damaged, thoughtlessly.’ He stared intently into the grain of the wooden table as if trying to see his fate in the pattern.
‘He didn’t understand. I was the only one who could help her. The only one she could talk to. Do you understand?’
‘We don’t, Neil. I’m sorry.’
‘Ah well.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘Doesn’t matter. That weekend, I was the only one who could help. The only one she could turn to. Everyone else would have blamed her.’
‘Neil, we don’t—’
‘And she couldn’t have told Seb because he wouldn’t have let her.’
He exhaled heavily. I wondered if he had forgotten we were there.
‘So she came to me. She always comes to me.’
He prodded his finger on the tabletop, as if establishing a fixed point in a world of shifting variables. ‘She will always come to me.’
I was heading back upstairs when I heard the sob. Just one, but agonised. I stood in the darkened stairwell, unmoving, trying to detect the source of the sound. As the shadows of numerous candles flickered, it felt as if the noise were coming from all directions, as if the house itself were weeping. And then there came a pause, and the gasps of someone trying to keep the noise under control, and then the unmistakeable click and fizz of a Zippo lighter, and I knew who it was. At the half-open door of Seb and Juliet’s room, I paused, in an agony of indecision about whether to knock or simply to go in, but he must have seen or sensed me anyway.
