The Shadow Friend

by Alex North

  None of which got me any closer to what I needed to know.

  It’s in the house.

  I walked out on to the landing and rubbed my forehead. Perhaps there should have been a sense of relief that I hadn’t found anything but, having committed to the enterprise, I felt frustrated. Absence of evidence was not evidence of absence. The fact I hadn’t found anything didn’t mean there was nothing to find, only that I would never be sure.

  The silence was still humming.

  Come on, house, I thought. I’m trying here. Meet me halfway.

  But, of course, the house said nothing.

  The window on the landing faced out on to the back garden and the face of the Shadows. I stared out for a time, looking at the trees that stretched upwards, forming a wall of fractured foliage that seemed to go halfway to the sky.

  And then I looked up a little further. Directly above me, I saw the thin outline of a hatch in the ceiling.

  The attic.

  The humming in the house intensified a little.

  In my mother’s present condition, there was obviously no way she could have got up there, but I had no idea when her physical health had started to fail, or how quickly it had deteriorated. And while I didn’t relish the prospect, the attic was the one area of the house I hadn’t searched.

  So I reached up and pressed the edge of the hatch.

  It lifted a little. There was a faint click, and when I moved my hand down, the hatch came with it. I expected to be showered with dust and cobwebs, but there was nothing. The space above was pitch black, but I could hear a faint rush of air.

  The ladder was built into the edge. I reached up again and rolled it out over the gap, then unfolded it down with a clatter, wedging its feet into the carpet. I’d been up in the attic a few times as a child, but as I climbed now, the metal seemed flimsy and far more insubstantial than I remembered. As I moved up into the darkness by increments, each rung bent precariously beneath my weight.

  The air in the attic was musty and cool – full of the smell of old clothes and luggage and damp. I put my hands on the rough wood of the first beam, then levered myself up. Once I was standing, I stepped forward, teetering slightly, suddenly conscious of height and distance. The hatch behind me looked tiny, and the sunlight falling down on the landing beneath seemed to be miles below rather than metres. It felt like I was in a different world from the rest of the house.

  I reached out to the right and found the cord for the light.

  Click.

  ‘Shit.’

  I was surrounded by a flock of bright red birds.

  The sight was so overwhelming that I took a step back, my heart leaping, and I almost fell through the hatch. But then the vision around me resolved into what it really was. Not birds at all. Instead, the eaves of the attic were covered with crimson handprints. There were hundreds of them, pressed on to the wood at angles, the red paint overlapping in places, the splayed thumbs and fingers giving an approximation of wings.

  They were all the same size. All small enough to be my mother’s. I pictured her coming up here, back when she was still able, flitting across the beams like a ghost, pressing her dripping palms against the eaves. And I noticed a different smell to the air up here, and a different feeling too.

  It was like I was standing inside madness.

  With my heart beating too rapidly, I looked away from the handprints, towards the far end of the attic. When I saw what was there, the world seemed to freeze.

  It’s in the house, Paul.

  Because I thought I’d found it.

  9

  Before

  A week after the experiment with dream diaries began, I remember heading down the stairs to Room C5b with James following behind me. He was dragging his heels a little, and I could tell he was nervous.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  It was obvious he wasn’t. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, I could guess the most likely reason why. That lunchtime, we were supposed to be going over our efforts with the dream diaries, and it was clear from James’s anxious manner that he was worried about disappointing Charlie. The realization brought a pang of irritation. It shouldn’t have mattered to him so much.

  ‘The whole thing’s fucking stupid,’ I said.

  ‘Did it work for you?’

  ‘Who cares?’

  The thing was, it had worked for me – at least to an extent. Each morning that week, I’d had increasing success recalling my dreams from the night before, and last night I’d had a dream I recognized. I hadn’t been in the dark market, but somewhere roughly equivalent: a cramped, maze-like place where I was lost, unable to find my way out, with the sensation of being hunted by something.

  The fear from the dream had lingered upon waking. But there had also been a thrill of recognition. It felt as though I’d been given a strange kind of insight into myself: a glance at the cogs turning below the surface of my mind.

  Charlie had been right.

  Not that I would admit it to him, of course.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘None of this matters.’

  When we walked into the room, Charlie was in his usual seat at the far end. Billy was sitting in one of the comfier chairs nearby, holding an old year planner, presumably repurposed for the experiment. When James got his diary out, I saw it was just a bunch of A4 sheets of paper, folded in half and stapled at the crease. Charlie’s dream diary was on the table in front of him. It was a black notebook, exactly the same as the ones I used for my stories, and the one I had started to use to record my own dreams. For some reason, it made it feel as though there was some kind of unspoken battle going on between the two of us.

  ‘Okay,’ Charlie said. ‘Who wants to start? James?’

  James shuffled awkwardly in his seat.

  Jesus, I thought. Pull yourself together, mate. I didn’t know whether I wanted to reassure him or shake him. But it turned out I didn’t need to worry about doing either, because there was no way Billy was going to let James steal his rightful position as Charlie’s second in command.

  ‘I had a lucid dream.’ Billy smiled, pleased with himself. ‘It really worked – it was just like you said. One night, I dreamed I was in my dad’s workshop, and then I dreamed the same thing the night after. And that time, it was like a switch flicked or something. I totally woke up in my dream. It was amazing. I used the nose trick, and everything.’

  ‘What’s the nose trick?’ I said.

  ‘We’ll come to that.’ Charlie didn’t look at me. ‘Billy, I’m so pleased.’

  Billy beamed quietly.

  ‘How long did you dream lucidly for?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Not long. I woke up almost straight away. It was the shock of it.’

  ‘So you didn’t use the environment technique?’

  ‘No, I didn’t remember.’

  Charlie looked disappointed, and Billy stopped smiling, looking sheepish now instead. For my own part, I was just trying to keep up. Glancing to one side, I could tell that James was feeling as bewildered as I was. The way Charlie was talking, it was like we’d been set a test without being given the lessons to prepare for it.

  ‘What the fuck is the environment technique?’ I said.

  ‘I said I’d explain.’ Charlie turned to me. ‘What about you, Paul? How did you do?’

  I hadn’t actually decided for certain whether I was going to talk about the success I’d had, but I didn’t like the way Charlie phrased that right then. How did you do? As though I had to prove myself to him.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ I said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Maybe if I’d have known about the nose trick …’

  Charlie ignored the jibe and simply nodded, as though it was what he’d been expecting. With me, there was none of the disappointment there had been with Billy. He moved on.

  ‘What about you, James?’

  James pressed the stapled papers down on to his lap and looked awkward.


  For fuck’s sake, I wanted to tell him.

  It doesn’t matter.

  ‘Nothing,’ James said miserably. ‘Just like Paul.’

  The words stung a little, but it was the tone of his voice that hurt the most. He made it sound as though being like me was such a failure.

  ‘You didn’t notice any patterns?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Nothing at all. It was all just a random jumble.’

  ‘That’s fine. It just takes practice and experience. Give it another week or so, and you’ll get there. You’ve done well just for trying.’

  James gave Charlie a nervous smile.

  Billy looked at him.

  ‘So what did you dream?’

  James glanced down at what passed for his notebook.

  ‘Nothing interesting.’

  ‘No, go on.’ Billy leaned forward and made to take the dream diary away from James. ‘Maybe we can find some patterns there even if you can’t.’

  James leaned away from him.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Just tell us then.’

  ‘Well … last night, I dreamed about the woods.’ James glanced at me. ‘The ones behind our village. The Shadows.’

  He looked slightly guilty. Perhaps that was because, after all of the weekend expeditions the four of us had done, the village and the woods no longer felt like ours any more. It might have been where James and I had grown up, but it was Charlie who had started taking us into the woods and making up stories about ghosts.

  ‘Go on,’ Charlie said.

  ‘It was dark in the dream. I was standing in my garden, at the edge of the trees, looking out into the woods.’

  ‘Was anyone else there?’

  ‘There were a lot of people in the garden behind me – like there was a party going on. I think some of them had hoods and masks on. But it wasn’t scary. It was more like some kind of gathering I hadn’t been invited to.’

  Charlie leaned forward, intrigued now.

  ‘But what about the woods?’

  James fell silent for a moment.

  ‘Yeah, there was … someone in the woods, I think.’

  ‘One person?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell. It was more like a presence. But it felt like whoever was there could see me. Like they were staring right at me. Because it was all lit up in the garden behind me, right? But they were out in the trees – in the darkness – so I couldn’t see them.’

  ‘Did that scare you?’ Charlie spoke more quietly now. ‘Did the people in the woods frighten you?’

  James hesitated.

  ‘A little.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Charlie settled back. ‘There was no need to be scared, but you didn’t know that at the time. Did you think they might have been about to call out to you? Or come towards you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So what did happen?’

  ‘The dream shifted. I just went somewhere else.’

  Even after only a week, I was familiar with that sensation by now – the way dreams melted seamlessly into one another – but the way James phrased it still made me feel uneasy. I just went somewhere else. He made it sound as though the dream was real somehow. And Charlie was staring at him with fascination now, as though something important had happened and he couldn’t quite believe it.

  ‘You saw him,’ Charlie said, his voice full of wonder.

  A beat of silence in the room.

  ‘Saw who?’ I said.

  ‘He didn’t see him.’ Billy sounded sullen. ‘He never said he saw him.’

  ‘Felt him, then.’ Charlie gave Billy the briefest of glances before his attention returned to James. ‘Do you know what I dreamed last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I dreamed I was in the same place as you. I was in the woods with him, and I could see you, looking back at us. It was very dark where we were standing, so I wasn’t sure if you could see us. But you did.’ He smiled proudly. ‘It happened much sooner than I was expecting.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said.

  Charlie looked at me.

  ‘James and I were in the same dream last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘James and I shared a dream.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous.’

  The words came out without me thinking, and the atmosphere in the room changed with them. While I might have rolled my eyes in the past, I’d never challenged Charlie as directly or aggressively as that before now. His smile vanished and his eyes emptied, and I knew I’d overstepped a line.

  But I pressed ahead anyway.

  ‘That’s not possible, Charlie.’

  ‘I understand, Paul,’ he said. ‘You haven’t tried as hard as the rest of us. You haven’t achieved anything. But believe me. It really did happen.’

  ‘Yeah, well. It really didn’t.’

  Charlie opened his dream diary and held it out over the desk to James.

  ‘James, can you read this for me, please?’

  James hesitated. The sudden edge to the conversation had made him nervous. But I could tell he was also intrigued, and after a second, he stepped across and took Charlie’s diary, then stood there, reading the page that was open in front of him.

  His eyes widened.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  But James didn’t reply. When he was done reading, he lowered the book, and looked at Charlie with something like awe on his face.

  ‘This is … this can’t be right.’

  ‘But it is.’ Charlie nodded in my direction. ‘Show Paul.’

  James handed me the dream diary. Even though he was obviously spooked, I still thought this whole thing was absurd. People couldn’t share dreams. I looked down at the book. Charlie’s most recent entry started on the left-hand page, and his small, spidery handwriting filled both. The date at the top was that morning.

  I started reading.

  I am sitting with him in the woods.

  It is very dark here, but I can tell he is wearing that old army jacket, the one with the weathered fabric on the shoulders that looks like feathers, like an angel that’s had his wings clipped down to stumps. There’s a bit of moonlight. His hair is black and tangled, wild like the undergrowth around us, and his face is a black hole, just like always. But he is sitting cross-legged with his hands resting on his thighs, and for some reason I can see his hands clearly. They are bright red.

  The man stands up, and towers over me, as big as a mountain. He shambles away into the forest, and the trees part for him, and I understand that I am to follow. There is something he wants to show me, something he needs me to see.

  I trail after him through the wood. He’s like a bear, a monster, blotting out the view ahead. I struggle to keep up, but I don’t want to get lost and let him down. The forest closes up behind me as quickly as it opens up for him ahead, and I’m amazed by the control he has here.

  He stops suddenly and holds one red hand out, with the fingers splayed. I stop and move to his side. He rests his huge red hand on my shoulder, and my skin tingles where he touches me. This close, he smells of earth and meat, and I can feel his enormous chest expanding slowly beside me, and his breath rattles in his throat as he breathes. I want to lean into the weight and strength and protection of him. I want to see his face, but I know I’m not worthy yet.

  The woods go on a short distance in front of us. Then there is what looks like a garden, and it’s far more brightly illuminated than the place where we are standing. Someone is there. He won’t be able to see us because of the darkness, but I can see him.

  It’s James.

  My heart starts beating harder then, because I know it’s finally working. What he’s taught me and told me is coming true. One by one, I will lead us to him.

  I am about to call out to James when I wake up.

  After I finished reading, I checked the date again. And then scanned through the entry for a second time, giving myself time to think. The room had gone silent, and I was aware of th
e others staring at me, waiting for my reaction – wondering whether it was going to be me or Charlie who won this particular exchange. Everything felt balanced on a knife-edge.

  I glanced up at Charlie. He was watching me curiously, and I could hold his gaze for only a second before looking back down at the book again.

  Because I had no idea what to say.

  What I had just read – what was still in front of me right now – was impossible. Two people could not share a dream. And yet I was equally sure there had been no collusion between James and Charlie. The shock I’d seen on James’s face had been genuine.

  I felt the seconds ticking by, and with each one the frustration built up inside me. Try as I might, I couldn’t work out how to unravel the magic Charlie had performed here. But I had to say something, and my stubborn desire to stand up to him was stronger than ever. There was something wrong here, I knew. Something dangerous, even. What I didn’t know was how to deal with it.

  I closed the diary and dropped it casually on the desk in front of Charlie, and then tried to sound as dismissive as I could.

  ‘So who’s Mister Red Hands, then?’

  10

  Now

  ‘Michael practically lived down here.’

  Mary Price spoke softly, as though the air in the front room was delicate and she was worried her voice might bruise it.

  Amanda looked around. It was true that remnants of Michael Price’s life were still casually scattered about. There was a glass table over by the window with what looked like the boy’s homework laid out on the surface; a pile of hoodies was slumped awkwardly over the back of one of the wooden chairs. A set of black headphones was stretched over the arm of the settee, and by the television Amanda saw game cases spread across the floor beside a PlayStation. The room looked as though Michael had been here only moments earlier and would be back again shortly.

  But when Amanda’s gaze moved back to the boy’s parents, it was immediately obvious he would not. Mary Price looked pale and shocked. Her husband, Dean, was sitting beside her on the settee, his face blank, with one hand tightly clenching his knee. Talking to relatives of victims was the part of the job Amanda found the most difficult. Especially recently, she found it hard not to take on their pain as her own, to imagine them standing beside her at the crime scene, and to absorb the impact of their grief. The feeling of loss and absence in the room right now was almost unbearable for her.