The House of Secrets

by Sophie Draper

  It was almost completely camouflaged, its coat and antlers blending into the bark of the tree. Movement separated it from the background, together with the weight of its head lowering to the ground. It hadn’t cast its antlers, but it wouldn’t be long. From the size of them, the beast was young, no longer a fawn but not yet a full-grown adult. The creature’s eyes stared, its nostrils wide and soft. Its warm breath misted in the air and one foot lifted after another, stepping forwards and then back, as if it were uncertain of its way.

  Duncan didn’t move, his breath held trapped in his throat. Beside the deer, a few newly fledged leaves quivered on the ends of their twigs. He watched the creature’s body turn to one side. Then he understood. On its left haunch was a gaping wound.

  The deer tossed its head, eyes flaring black. For a second, Duncan was reminded of that day. Joe’s eyes wide and dark. Confusion and disbelief. Terror. Flies already crawled across the thick flaps of the animal’s ragged skin. The blood flowed afresh and red stained the animal’s hindquarters, dripping to the ground below. Its hooves paced the forest floor as if to run and yet it stayed, trapped by its own fear and confusion.

  It wasn’t fear that Duncan saw in the deer’s body language, it was pain. He knew that look. Raw, piercing, unadulterated pain. Duncan’s eyelids lowered briefly and his jaw moved slowly, chewing on the gum. That small movement was enough.

  With a backwards trot, the creature turned.

  It gave a single toss of its wretched, reproachful head, and fled.

  CHAPTER 58

  CLAIRE – AFTER

  Someone is knocking on the front door. Hammering with their fist. My mind is groggy with sleep and I think I hear Arthur barking in the kitchen, scrabbling at the door to get out.

  Pain shoots up my body as cramp sears through my legs. The arches of my feet are twisted like water being squeezed from a rope. I roll from the bed onto my heels, hobbling across the room as if my bones are all in the wrong place. I rip open the curtains, peering down at the front path in an attempt to see who it is.

  Something moves just out of sight beneath the guttering.

  I grasp the edge of the window sill, dragging myself upright as I push down on the soles of my feet. The pain ricochets across my limbs until the muscles snap into place and I feel the bliss of relief. I stand properly and look more keenly from the window.

  It feels like I’ve hardly slept. The mist is back again and I screw my eyes up tight, frustration and despair clouding my sight. There’s that hammering again, sharp and loud and demanding.

  I can’t see anyone on the doorstep. And Arthur has gone quiet.

  I check the second window, the one that faces out the back. A moment later, I catch a movement by the hedge. I track along the perimeter of the garden, first left and then right. There he is, a shape taller than the hedge, motionless beneath the trees. My pulse surges. Is that …? My hands splay, I press my face cold against the window pane and I cry out.

  ‘Joe!’

  My voice blooms against the glass. He can’t hear me. Not from here.

  I run from the room, bursting open the front door. It swings against the wall with a flutter of old plaster. I take a hasty step backwards from the stone porch. I must be going mad. He’s not there by the hedge, he’s here, right in front of me.

  Not Joe. But the man I met in the village.

  He wears the same jacket as before, riding boots and equestrian breeches. He’s standing with his legs apart and one hand behind his back. He looks like something out of a Victorian melodrama, dated, rigid and intimidating. On the lane, tethered to the gate and pulling on the reins, is a handsome thoroughbred horse.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Henderson,’ says the man.

  I hear Arthur whining from behind the kitchen door. The man casts a glance into the cottage behind me, frowning as if he can see into my decrepit kitchen with its sink full of dirty crockery and the old range piled up with saucepans from yesterday’s tea. I think of the witch markings on the beam above the fireplace. Aren’t they meant to protect me from strangers?

  ‘I … I …’ My hand lifts to my throat.

  ‘Your hanging basket has fallen in the wind.’

  His other hand is holding what’s left of my basket. I flash a look at his face; he must have been in the garden round the back. The plants are withered and black, the wickerwork unravelling from its frame. I catch sight of something briefly slithering between his fingers, like a worm pushing back into the soil where it belongs.

  I don’t want to take the basket from him. Instead, I nod and gesture to the pathway. He puts it down reluctantly, as if disappointed he couldn’t tempt me with it.

  ‘I was thinking about that poster you gave me,’ he says.

  He produces one, fresh and flat and white, like it’s only just been printed – but I saw him crush the one I gave him, didn’t I? My eyes dart to his face. Has it been him taking down my posters?

  ‘Didn’t you say that this was your son, Joe?’

  ‘I … yes.’ I’m all breathy and stupid and feminine. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘I found this,’ he says.

  With his free hand, he reaches for a pocket inside his jacket and pulls out a phone.

  It’s Joe’s phone! The cover is unmistakable, black with a white Chinese dragon sprawled across the casing. I snatch it from him, still hugging my doorstep.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  I’m appalled and amazed at the same time.

  ‘Ah, well, found it in the village, on the lane. Thought you’d be pleased to see it.’

  I stare at it – I am pleased, it’s something tangible that is Joe’s. And evidence he’s not been far, all this time. I’m so happy. But then my brain kicks into gear. His phone should be with him, so he can use it to ring me. Or answer my call. Is this why he hasn’t picked up? How long has the phone been there on the lane? My emotions plunge. I won’t be able to talk to him now, wherever he is. And what does it mean, that he’s lost his phone?

  I grip it between my fingers. It feels wet. I look down and there’s water dripping from between the tiny gaps in the casing.

  ‘I found this too.’

  He produces something else, smaller, pressing it into my other hand. It burns into my flesh. I open my fingers, staring at it. It’s a coin. The coin that Joe found. The puppetrider.

  I pull my eyes up to his face. The man’s expression is quizzical, as if he’s expecting me to know what to do.

  ‘You can ring him,’ he says.

  I look uncertainly at him, full of doubt and hope and scepticism at the same time.

  ‘How … how can I ring him?’ I say.

  ‘With the phone, of course.’

  He gestures to Joe’s phone, sitting in my hand, as if his statement is perfectly logical. He makes me feel like Duncan used to make me feel, like an ignorant child.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  My grip tightens on the phone. He looks at me as if deciding what he needs to say to convince me.

  ‘I saw him only yesterday,’ he says. ‘I know he wants to speak to you.’

  ‘You saw him? When? Where? Is he okay?’

  My head is roaring. I look at the man as if he’s something from outer space.

  ‘You can ask him yourself.’

  My gaze returns to the phone. The man scowls as if I’m so stupid, I don’t know how to operate it. He takes it from me impatiently, our fingers touching briefly. It’s like an electric shock. I watch him punch in the numbers – what numbers? He presses Dial and passes the phone back to me, nodding encouragingly.

  The tone rings out in my ear. Then stops. There’s a crackling, buzzing, a fizzing like it was with the TV.

  ‘Hello?’ I say, disbelief making my voice tremble.

  The static gets louder. I give the phone a shake, looking back at the man on my doorstep. How is this possible? After so much worrying, suddenly it’s as easy as that – one phone call?

  I give a moan. This isn’t real. I’
m still in my bed and it’s another of those nightmares, my brain trying to unravel the truth. My hands reach up to my head, but they are shaking violently. The pain isn’t just in my legs and feet, it’s everywhere, ricocheting from one side of my body to the other. I fold my knees into my chest, hugging myself as if that will stop the shaking.

  The phone is back in my hand. I can feel the coin in the other, too. I think I hear something over the sound of the fizzing. I’m vaguely aware that it must be my fault, all that noise and disturbance, because I can’t stop my hands from shaking.

  ‘Hello?’ I say again. ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Hello?’

  A voice comes back at me, distant and tinny through all that noise.

  ‘Who is this?’ I say. ‘I can’t hear you properly.’ I speak louder. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello?’ comes the reply.

  The line pops and crackles some more.

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  Dear God, I think. I know that voice! Surely … it can’t be … can it?

  ‘Joe? Is that you?’

  CHAPTER 59

  CLAIRE – AFTER

  I’m not dreaming, am I? This is real, it feels like it’s real. That man is playing with me. Or I must be going mad. It’s all gone wrong. Since coming to the cottage, I can’t tell truth from fantasy. I open my hand and the puppetrider coin is clutched between my fingers. It’s real, that coin is real.

  But my mind is still a blur. I can see the fingers of my other hand curled around the phone and the fingernails are growing, like long strands of Virginia creeper winding about the phone. I feel sick. I am mad, but they keep on growing, one strand overlapping the next with five-pronged dark green leaves sprouting into life. They grow and wither and grow and wither, until the leaves are almost as big as my hand. They’re not five-pronged anymore but three, then two. I’ve seen this before – where have I seen this before?

  My eyes move to my other hand and the coin. Then I know. They are puppetrider hands – the thick, claw-like fist of the rider, opening and closing, opening and closing …

  It’s coming back to me, something on the edge of my mind. Joe, what happened to Joe … And the tunnels beneath the dam. I don’t care any longer if I am still dreaming or this is real. I want it to be real. My hands shake even more, but I hold the phone back up to my ear.

  ‘Hello? Mum?’ The voice gets louder in my head. ‘It’s me! I’m here! I’ve found something! Do you want to know what?’

  The line goes dead.

  CHAPTER 60

  CLAIRE – AFTER

  I slip through the trees, moving like the night mist that glides at my feet. The vegetation is damp with dew, water touching my hands, my clothes – I am only partially aware of the pain in my body, my arms and legs, the muscles exhausted from running. It feels like I am floating. Like one of those nightmares where anything is possible despite all physical limitations. I won’t stop until I get to the dam.

  I have already passed through the village, the houses and their outbuildings skulking like black demons in the dark. I couldn’t bear to look at them, wondering who lives inside each one. They must have been still asleep, for no lights shone from the windows. As my eyes gravitated to the sky, only then did it occur to me that amongst all those trees there were no streetlamps, no telephone poles, no pylons, or overhead wires. Not even a stray satellite dish. The whole village is devoid of any contact with the outside world. It’s always been like that, the place ruled by the eccentricities of an old family seeking to defy time.

  Since the first day I got here, the whole valley has felt like that, cut off from the rest of the world, left behind like an island in a flood. Inhabited, it seems, only by those who don’t care anymore, or too set in their ways to bother with the real world to catch up with the rest of us. I almost smile but don’t, for hasn’t the same been happening to me? There’s been a distancing from reality ever since I got here, stuck in the valley where I’ve been seduced by its beauty, the self-imposed isolation, close to but hidden from my old life. From Duncan, Becky … even, I can acknowledge it now, Joe. From everything that’s caused my pain.

  I pass through the woodlands by the shore, along the path that leads to the dam. Finally, I step onto it, a slender bridge of concrete only three metres wide but almost a hundred metres long. It’s the one place I have been avoiding, even more than the Barn. The highest point of the route around the reservoir.

  On one side is the flat glacial lake. On the other, a solid wall plunges down to a maelstrom of foaming yellow water. I stand beside the rails, catching my breath. My chest is heaving up and down, aching. Not too close, I think, my head spinning as I peer down to the churning depths below.

  With my right hand, I twist the length of my ring finger. The pale band of skin where once my wedding ring belonged feels naked and exposed. I’ve never liked rings. We argued about it, Duncan and I. He said he wouldn’t wear one and I said that if I had to, then he should too. To me, a wedding ring is a mark of ownership and control, like the rings that track wild birds or tie animals to their stalls. I picture it with gladness, dropping from my finger as my withered flesh shrinks, swaying slowly into the murk below.

  I reach into my pocket, for the coin that Joe found. The puppetrider.

  Five for silver, six for gold.

  Precious metals. In themselves they mean so little, just another lump of rock, but honed and crafted into a thing of beauty and given as a token of love, they mean so much.

  This sense of loss that haunts me isn’t about Duncan. Nor even Joe. It’s something else, steeped in tears. Something I’ve been hiding from myself for far too long. Now that I’m here, I’m afraid. The past cannot be undone. If I could do it all again, it would, could be no different.

  I walk to the centre of the dam. From here, you can see the whole expanse of the reservoir. It pans out before my eyes, a smooth plane of water that skates along the foot of the valley, gouged out by ancient glacial forces. Dawn is inching over the hills. This early in the morning, as always, the water is obscured by fog. Behind the banks, small shallow pools of water lie hidden under a thin layer of pollen and white petals fallen from the hawthorn trees above. My eyes sting. The night chill and my running has turned my cheeks pink. My breath floats in the air and my chest aches with each staggered lungful.

  Beneath me, in the concrete wall, is a row of circular openings, each one covered with a thick iron grille. More water spews from within, brown and muddy. The constant flow holds me, line upon line of gushing water, sweeping down to join the turmoil below. It’s coming back – the whole rhyme this time – all of it rushing to my head:

  One for sorrow, two for joy,

  Three for a girl, four for a boy,

  Five for silver, six for gold,

  Seven for a secret, never to be told.

  CHAPTER 61

  DUNCAN – 22 YEARS BEFORE

  The tunnels of the old workings that led to the reservoir dam hadn’t been in use for many years. Duncan had known they had to plan it carefully. Flooded for most of the time, he’d had to track the timings and work out when it was safe to enter the tunnels and how long they had before they had to get out.

  He and Claire had watched from the dam, waiting for the water gushing from the channels in the wall to ebb away. The heat of summer had lowered the water levels and that had worked in their favour. There was a sough, an opening cut into a bank in the grounds of the Hall, near a collection of crumbling utility buildings. Duncan had known about it from his time exploring the grounds as a student and it had been his suggestion to access the tunnels from there. Some of the passages went right under the Hall, ventilation shafts popping up within the building, cooling the pantries and storage rooms of the kitchens above. The Hall, the old works, the reservoir itself, they were all connected.

  Claire and he had driven from the dam to the sough, parking at the end of a track by what was left of the buildings. Moonlight and darkness defined the woods around them like a pen-
and-ink drawing, all black-and-white lines, trees reaching for the night sky or tilted over, still growing where the storms had left them.

  Duncan cut the engine. The lights and noise were gone. An old tractor stood inside the broken walls, its tyres slashed and deflated. Its rusted metal arms branched out from either side to throw shadows like some supersized alien spider. They both got out of the car. A shallow mist clung to the ground, glowing milky white in the moonlight. Their combined breath floated out in the cold air and something stirred beneath a tree. Claire had turned her head, scanning the undergrowth. A pair of eyes blinked and was gone.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ she’d said.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Duncan replied.

  He zipped his jacket up to his cheek and reached into the boot.

  The opening had been blocked by a mesh grille, but time had long since worked it loose. They’d pulled it free, Claire and Duncan, the two of them working together, armed with a single torch. Duncan had carried Evangeline’s body through the dark guided only by the small dancing circle of light held in Claire’s shaking hands. Duncan knew the way; he’d found the schematics online and already done a recce, leaving what was needed there.

  They’d followed the twists and turns, wading through water that rose up to their knees, until they reached a short passageway that lifted clear of the highest water level and ended with a metal door.

  ‘Here,’ Duncan had said.

  Claire had agreed.

  He dug out the hole, carefully setting aside each brick until a ledge big enough had been opened up in the wall. Together, they laid Evangeline’s body on the flat, rough surface and gazed at her awhile. Then Duncan bricked her up. The wet cement gleamed dully in the darkness and Claire was crying by then. She gave him the coin. She had this idea that it was a mark of respect. They might have killed her, sought to hide her where she would never be found, but it was important to Claire to lay Evangeline to rest with dignity.