by Jack Lewis
It was too late now. Once you let sickness take hold in plants, their death was already foretold. Even if Emory knew how to coax them back to life, his lungs would never permit him the hard work needed to do it. The garden was dead or dying, and all he could do was watch it happen.
Just crossing their garden he felt daggers of pain all over his chest, and his breath was like sandpaper in his throat, but he eventually reached the shed. The lock groaned as he turned the key, even though he’d only oiled in weeks ago. It seemed that no matter how much care he took of it, the damn thing always complained.
It looked like a regular old shed on the outside. The kind that might house a lawnmower, wheelbarrow, bags of compost. But inside Emory’s shed there was just a hatch on the ground, and the hatch led to a series of steps that spiraled around and around, going deeper and deeper underground.
He followed them now, cursing his father for never installing a handrail. His heart felt like it was going to explode every time his aching legs and burning chest made him miss a step, and twice he almost plummeted down them, only managing to steady himself by slamming his palms against the walls on either side.
Oh, to be born with a normal body. In a place far away, with a family that didn’t have a generations-old duty.
Making it to the bottom without breaking any bones, he lit torches on the wall, illuminating a stone-walled room that smelled of dust and blood, and that was as cold and uninviting as you’d expect from a place deep beneath the ground. There was a decorator’s table in the center, one made for spreading out sheets of wallpaper to be covered in paste. It would be put to an entirely different task under Emory’s watch.
“Righto,” he said to himself. “I need-”
And then he paused.
Did he just hear a voice? It sure sounded like it.
Was Mother shouting for him? She’d been sleeping when he left, but maybe she was awake now. He didn’t want to leave her alone and yelling for him, but his whole body was wracked with pain, what with the escapade in the forest and then having to go down the spiral stairs. He couldn’t face going all the way back up the stairs and then coming back again today, and he couldn’t afford to delay things.
No, the ritual had to be done now.
“Sorry, Mother. I won’t be long.”
He began to whistle to himself as he undressed.
*
“This is it?” said Jay, walking around the room. “Really?”
There wasn’t a light switch or bulb to be found in the space beyond The Door. Nor were there chairs, furniture, or anything else. Loe had brought her torch, and she cast the sickly beam all the way around, lighting up every inch of the place in turn.
“Another larder?” asked Mag.
She looked at Altair as if he was their sole source of knowledge about Harrow Hall. Although there was no way Altair could have really known what was beyond the vine doors, he didn’t seem to want to relinquish his role as a know-it-all.
“It appears to be,” he said. “Yes, it must be. Another larder. Our great-great-great-grandparents would probably have stored meats, vegetables, preserves…”
Loe turned him out and swept the torchlight across the room, looking for anything that might make this place worthy of such an impressive door and lock.
And then she stopped, unable to believe what she was seeing.
A voice whispered in her head. This place isn’t safe for you.
“I don’t think this was a larder,” she said.
“I think you’ll find, Loe, that…”
I have to get out of here.
Her heart pounding, Loe crossed the room and headed back to the doors. She hunted around for something to prop it open with, finally finding a block of stone near the basement wall.
“Loe?” said Mag.
She rested this against the door so that there was no way it could shut behind them. Only then did she feel safe going back into the room.
She pointed the torchlight in their direction, finding the three of them standing together, staring at her like jackals.
Altair put his hands to his face, Jay blinked, and Mag stepped aside.
“Loe! Jesus, are you trying to fry my eyes?” said Jay.
“Sorry,” she said. She cast the torch beam onto the right-most wall. “Look.”
A black metal bracket was fixed to the wall. There was a chain attached to it, which stretched all the way to the floor and had a few feet of length to spare. At the end of the chain, was…
“Handcuffs?” said Jay, his voice soft.
Loe turned the beam to the opposite wall. “Another on this side,” she said.
“The girl,” said Mag. “The poor girl in chains in the painting. Remember?”
“So it was true…” said Jay. “not just a painting. Our family…wow. God damn sickos.”
“Screw this,” said Mag. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
She darted toward the door. Just as she reached it, it started to shut on its own. Leaping forward, she crashed into it just before it fully clicked into place.
Joining her at the doorway, Loe didn’t see anyone in the basement tunnels, and there was no sign of the stone she’d placed against the door to stop it closing.
“Must have been the wind,” said Altair.
Jay scoffed. “A pretty localized wind, eh? Confined to our bloody house.”
“I’m sick to my arse of basements,” said Mag, leaving them. She was already half-way down the corridor when she turned around. “Anyone else coming?”
“I need a drink,” said Jay, following her.
Loe looked at Altair. “So there was no secret down here. Nothing Stanway left beyond. It was locked because…”
“Because when this place was built, they didn’t treat mental illness with therapy and medicine,” he said, pacing while rubbing his temples and leaving red marks on his skin. “Think of her down here, pool girl. Alone. Standing where we are but with no one to speak to. Chained up in the darkness. God, I feel sick.”
He hobbled past her then, his crutch tapping on the stone floor and echoing out. He paused at the vine door, holding it open.
“Loe?”
She took a last look around. Something felt wrong to her. Not just the idea that centuries ago, a young girl had stood in this very spot, with metal clasped around her wrists.
No, there was something else. Something she was missing…
*
There really was a terrible draft down here, and Emory was shivering his arse off. He would have to bring a portable heater or something next time. Then again, where would he plug it in? And why did the rituals all involve nudity, anyway? Symbolism, he supposed, but it still seemed unnecessary.
He laid everything out on the counter. The book. The herbs. Five candles.
“Let’s see, what else…Ah. Horn of goat, nose of bull. Tooth of rat, beak of crow. Yes, that’s everything.”
With nothing else left to prepare, he performed The Ritual. By the end, his chest was smeared with blood, his fingertips were stained red, and his nails were encrusted with dried flakes of it. His nose stung from breathing in so much burning thyme and turmeric that he would never be able to stomach the stuff again. No more chicken casseroles for him. Well, unless he substituted thyme with Rosemary. Would that work? Maybe if he…
Forget the casseroles, damn it!
His throat hurt from speaking incantation after incantation. No wonder that Father was a man of few words, if this was what his caretaker duties involved. Emory was glad to be done with it, and he just hoped it had worked and that he wouldn’t have to try again.
Now, he wanted nothing more than a glass of merlot and a hot bath.
Rather than dress fully and stain a perfectly good shirt, he wrapped a robe around himself to cover his nakedness. He had completely lost track of time as he battled his way out of the cellar and back up the spiraled stairs, fighting through his personal hell at each step, gritting his teeth through the pain until he thought h
e might grind them to dust. He repeated mantra after mantra so he could force his mind to let him carry on and resist the temptation to just flop down in the middle of the staircase and rest there until dawn.
By the time he emerged out of the stairs and back into the garden, he felt like he wanted to die.
The nighttime air was fresh, and pale light seeped from the moon above. The garden smelled of wet leaves and mulch. Why did people love the outdoors so much?
“Josiah?” cried a voice. The sound came from an upstairs bedroom in the house, all the way across the garden. Mother’s bedroom. “Emory?”
“Coming, mother,” he shouted back. “I was just watering father’s plants.”
“Mr. Gale?” said a deep voice.
This gave him pause. It was a male voice, one he’d never heard before.
A gate opened and then clanked shut, and a figure stepped into the garden.
“Mr. Gale? Is that you?”
It was a policeman. Tall, as they all invariably were, and with a carefully groomed beard and mustache. A radio on his breast squawked out a few crackly words.
“I’m here now,” the policeman said into the receiver. “28 Cartmell Cresent.”
Another squawked answer, and then radio silence.
Emory pulled his robe tight and tugged on the rope that fastened it together. Remembering the dried blood around his fingernails, he put his hands in the robe pockets.
I need to get rid of him.
“Can I help you?” he snapped. “You’re trespassing.”
“The owner of the property gave me permission to look around, sir.”
“I’m the owner.”
“Mrs. Gale let me in.”
Damn it, mother!
“What are you doing here?”
“Mrs. Gale called us, actually. Said her son had gone missing. That he’d been gone for five hours.”
Five hours? I must really have lost track of time.
“Well, you can see that I’m here now.”
“Can I ask what you have been doing?” the policeman asked, with a rather malicious look on his face.
Emory felt his cheeks burn. Even his pain seemed momentarily banished, such was his anger. Why did these people think they had the right to go where they wanted, say what they wanted, do what they wanted?
“On the boundaries of my own property? You can ask as much as you want, but you won’t get an answer.”
“Really, sir, there’s no need to be like that.”
“My mother has dementia if you must know, dimwit. I was simply taking a walk in my own garden, enjoying a spell of fresh air and calm in between waiting on her hand and foot. Now, PC…”
The policeman said nothing.
“The pause implies I need to know your name.”
He said nothing.
“Didn’t get a name, did we? That’s fine, your parents must not have thought you interesting enough to deserve one.” He stopped for a millisecond then, worried he’d gone too far.
Then again, the worst thing he could do now was to backpedal and show weakness. Emory remembered a saying he’d heard about acting as if you belong. You could say anything you wanted and as long as you were confident enough, people wouldn’t question it.
“Forget your name, it doesn’t matter. In more ways than one. Instead, you can take your hand away from your badge and let me see the number on it. Five-Six-Two. Alright, officer Fix-Six-Two. Get your miserable arse out of my garden, and I’ll decide whether I need to make a call to your sergeant at the station in the morning.”
He held his breath then, his stomach churning with a mixture of excitement and dread. That felt good.
It also felt stupid. Confidence be damned!
If Five-Six-Two asked to see the shed, if he saw the hatch and then went down and discovered the book and the blood and the bits of animal…
Five-Six-Two glanced at Emory. At his robes. Then at the shed.
Emory dug his nails into his palm.
Just go…
“Looks like everything is in order here, Mr. Gale,” said Five-Six-Two. Emory had to admire him for rising above provocation. “Thank you for your time.”
The officer left, and Emory took a second to stop holding his breath and breathe deeply, even though it burned his chest.
The officer was gone, and the Ritual was complete. He would be here soon, and it would take the pressure off Emory. Perhaps Emory could even rest for a while.
Yes, it was down to Him to keep the Harrows where they ought to be. That was the whole point in summoning Him, after all.
He glanced up at his house and saw a shadowy face staring down at him from the windows.
“Emory? Josiah?”
“Coming, Mother,” he said.
*
“Loe?” said Altair. He glanced at the tunnel behind him, but Mag and Jay were gone.
“Just a second, Alt.”
“I think we ought to leave.”
“I just need a second. There’s something here.”
“Loe…”
She didn’t blame him for the edge of fear in her voice. Standing there, in the gloomy room with chains either side of her, gave her an ominous feeling. She imagined the girl trapped here, alone, standing in this very space centuries ago. The image made her want to bolt down the tunnels, slam the basement door shut and never come down here again.
But there was more to this place, she could feel it.
“Loe…”
“Just one minute, Alt. Please.”
He sighed, and she took that as assent that he wouldn’t abandon her down here. Not that she needed him, exactly. But a dark basement, in an old house, in a labyrinthine forest…
Casting the torchlight in an arc around her, she checked every brick of every wall. When the light illuminated the black manacles, an image flashed in her mind of the girl. Alone, chained up. Her black hair, dirty and stringy and flowing down her back. Somehow, the painting was all the worse for the fact the artist had chosen not to draw her front-on. As if her face, or maybe the expression worn into it, was too terrible to show.
“Anything?” said Altair, glancing at her and then at the door that led back to Harrow Hall, way across the tunnel.
“Nothing. We better…wait, what’s this?”
“Loe?”
“One second.”
She stepped closer to one part of the wall, where the brickwork looked different.
A chain rattled, and her heart stopped for a moment. Flashing the torchlight down, she saw that she’d stepped on a chain.
Keep it together…
The cement around two of the bricks flaked away with the merest of scratches. Loe took out her keyring and used her car key to dig at it until she’d removed two inches of cement from around both bricks.
She pulled out one brick and then the other, revealing a recess hidden inside the wall. There, dusty and cobweb-strewn, was a book.
“Altair,” she said, beckoning him over. “Look.”
He took two steps into the cell, as though that was as far as he dared go.
“Hold this a sec, please,” she said, passing him the torch.
She blew on the book. Big mistake. A plume of dust stung her eyes, and she rubbed at them with her sleeve until the pain went away, leaving them watery.
Blinking, she read the title of the book.
“Of Blame and Curses,” she read. “By Altair Harrow.” She couldn’t believe it. “Alt?”
He said nothing for a minute. When she turned to look at him, she got a full blast of torchlight, the dazzle adding to her already sore eyes.
“Watch it!”
“Sorry,” he said, lowering the torch. “Can I see that?” He took the book from her, running his finger over the words written on the front. “Altair was my great-great-great-grandfather. I was named after him. He killed himself with a pitchfork. You can imagine the determination it would take to do that to yourself, eh?”
The words made Loe feel cold inside, deep in
the pit of her stomach. What the hell was wrong with this family?
“I’ve been looking for this,” he said, gripping the book. “I never expected to find it here. Thank you, Loe.”
“Uh…don’t mention it. Let’s get out of here, and work out what the hell this means.”
“Oh, I already know what this means,” said Alt, leering at her while gripping the book.
“Alt?”
He clicked the torch off, leaving them both in darkness. Though she couldn’t see his face, she could sense the change in it. She senses that he was looking at her, staring at her, but those eyes weren’t his anymore. This wasn’t the Altair she had already met, this was someone else.
Caught between trying to rush by him or backing further into the cell, she decided to take her chances. She aimed a punch at his stomach but missed, her fist hitting nothing but darkness.
He smashed his crutch on the top of her head, spreading a blinding pain through her skull, making her stomach turner to water with the agony of it.
He hit her again and again, until she was on the floor, until she couldn’t fight back, couldn’t move, and finally, couldn’t see anything at all.
Chapter Twelve
Altair slammed the vine doors shut and heard the locks click back into place. He kicked it and made the metal rattle, and though it hurt his already-injured leg, he was satisfied that it was shut tight.
He crossed the basement tunnel, pausing at the steps beneath the door that led back into Harrow Hall. He clicked on the torch, checking his shirt, his jacket, his trousers. All clean. But when he looked at his hands and his crutch, he saw that they were covered in her blood.
Sorry, Loe.
Even thinking an apology was enough to open a door in his mind, and through that door spilled guilt and remorse. With those feelings came sounds. The sickening crack of his crutch on her skull. Her startled whimper. Another crack, then another.
Mercifully, it had been too dark to see more than her vague outline but even so, he knew the memory of this would stay with him, and would only grow stronger. But it had to be done. Now, he had to make sure it wasn’t for nothing.
