Thin Air

by Storm Constantine

  Dex rubbed his face. ‘I don’t know,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked at her. ‘After the forest, I could think about it.’

  ‘OK,’ Jay said. She rubbed his arm. ‘That would be a start. So, let’s think about practicalities. How do we get there?’

  Dex grinned sheepishly and dangled some keys in front of her. ‘More bounty,’ he said. ‘I suspect these are keys to the poncy little four-wheel job outside.’

  Jay took them from him. ‘They are.’ She frowned. ‘It’s stealing, of course. Gus will report it. Then what?’

  ‘By then, it won’t matter,’ Dex replied.

  Chapter Nine

  It was an hour or so before dawn when Dex turned the vehicle into a winding lane, very similar to the one where Jay had left her own car perhaps months before. He swerved off the road and crashed through a five-bar gate into the forest. Tall, skeletal trees hemmed the track, dripping moisture. It was an eerie place, like the land of the dead: no greenery and nothing moved.

  Jay had been dozing. She woke up and murmured, ‘This is it, isn’t it.’

  ‘Yup,’ Dex said, crashing the gears. The vehicle, clearly four-wheel drive in a cosmetic sense only, bounced uncomfortably along the rut-scored track. Jay felt sure the car would roll at any moment.

  Grey light was seeping through the black branches as Dex brought the vehicle to a halt. Jay looked in the glove compartment for a flash-light, and was relieved to see Gus still kept one there. She handed this without words to Dex. Then, they both got out.

  Jay stood shivering in the misty pre-dawn air. ‘It’s a haunted place,’ she said.

  ‘Are you up to this?’ Dex asked. His face was shockingly white.

  She nodded. ‘Lead the way.’

  They plodded along a narrow track hemmed by the drooping spars of dead bracken. Unlike the woods near Julie’s home, there was no evidence of human visitation around; no Coke cans or wrinkled crisp packets. This was pristine forest, heavy with ancient presence. Jay felt light-headed, although weirdly detached about what she soon might see. It was almost too grotesque to accept as reality. She knew that when she saw the remains, she wouldn’t be able to think of them as human. The corpse would look vile, terrible, but her senses wouldn’t react. She felt driven, concerned only with evidence. If the body existed, it gave credence to Dex’s story. She wanted to believe him.

  Dex halted and pointed ahead. ‘There,’ he said softly, as if they had come upon some gingerbread house, or a rare animal; something wondrous.

  The first red stain of the dawn made silhouettes of the naked trees, and now birds were singing. Jay felt her heart lift. It was unaccountable, but perhaps a human instinct to be heartened by the dawn, symbolic of renewal. She saw the ruins; the lower storey appeared to be mostly intact, but there was no roof, and the walls had crumbled down to reveal the first floor rooms. Rubble was strewn around the entrance, and the floor inside. Stepping over the threshold, Jay looked up and saw there was no ceiling now. A flight of stairs led up to nothing. The place reminded her of the ghost of Lorrance’s house at Lestholme, only this was dark, dank and decayed, where the white house was flawless and light.

  Dex turned on the flash-light and swept its beam around the room. He seemed reluctant to proceed.

  ‘Let’s get it over with,’ Jay said. ‘Where’s the cellar?’

  Dex directed the light at the stairs. Beneath them was a door, wedged open with lumps of broken plaster. He moved towards it. Neither of them spoke as they made the difficult decent of the ancient stone steps, which were slippery and wet beneath their feet. Jay tentatively sniffed the air. She smelled mildew and damp earth, but no particular reek of decaying flesh. Perhaps it was too late for that now. She kept her balance by pressing her hand against the slimy wall. It seemed to writhe beneath her touch. This must be done, she told herself. Her jaw was clenched tight.

  At the bottom of the steps, Dex paused while Jay caught up with him. The cellar was low-ceilinged and littered with piles of bricks and what appeared to be broken wooden boxes. Dex slowly cast the beam of the flash-light over the rubbish. Jay came to stand beside him and took his arm, watching the probing eye of radiance. What would they see first: a skeletal white hand against the earth, a skull? She swallowed painfully. This must be done.

  After a few moments, Dex expelled a wordless question, and broke away from Jay’s hold. He climbed over some bricks, casting the light around quickly, this way and that. The beam swayed drunkenly.

  ‘What is it?’ Jay asked.

  Dex didn’t answer, but hunkered down in the rubble. He began casting bricks about, pieces of damp wood, rags of rotten sacking. Jay approached him. She knew already what he would say next.

  ‘It’s not here. There’s no body.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re not looking in the right place.’

  Dex glanced up at her, his face spectral in the beam. ‘Jay, believe me, it’s something I’ll never forget. I know where I put it, and it’s not here.’

  ‘Perhaps animals...’

  ‘Lorrance must’ve come back and moved it. Fuck!’

  ‘Somebody else might have found it.’

  ‘Who? Grave-robbers, Satanists, skull collectors? Don’t you think it might otherwise have been reported?’

  ‘Perhaps it was. I don’t read the papers every single day or watch the news, and you’ve been hiding from the world.’

  Dex shook his head. ‘No. I just know it hasn’t been found. I just know.’ He stood up. ‘Lorrance couldn’t have trusted me that much. He probably came back some time afterwards and buried the boy. The body could be anywhere. This was a stupid place to put it in the first place. Too open.’

  ‘Then we have no evidence.’

  ‘No, we don’t.’ Dex sighed.

  Jay stepped forward and took his arm again. ‘Dex... I have to ask this. Are you absolutely sure about what happened that night? You said yourself you were off your face. Could it have been a dream or a hallucination? You know how reality and dreams can get very mixed up when your mind’s in an altered state. What exactly had you taken that night?’

  Dex stared at her angrily. His mouth twitched, but he did not speak.

  ‘I’m not judging you,’ Jay said gently. ‘We have to look at every angle.’

  Dex released his breath in a hopeless gasp. ‘God, I don’t know. I haven’t lived in reality since I walked out of it.’ He shook his head. ‘No. It did happen. I couldn’t have imagined it. The screams, the way the poor kid was lying on the floor, the blood, the heaviness of the body as we dragged it from the house. It still had a smell, Jay, like a living thing. Those images will stay with me for the rest of my life.’

  Jay squeezed his arm. ‘We need to talk about what we’re going to do,’ she said. ‘We need a breathing space. Can you take us back to Lestholme for a while?’

  He smiled weakly, ran his fingers through his hair. ‘OK.’

  They walked back to the car, and now the forest was transformed by day-light. It had seemed so dead on the way there, but now Jay could see ivy crawling around the wizened tree trunks, many of which were stained with lichen and moss, and in places where the bracken hadn’t spread, the ground was vividly green with short, wiry grass. Holly bushes bore bright red berries, and the leaves beneath their feet were a palette of autumnal colours; yellow, duns, oranges.

  There is more colour in the season of death than we remember, Jay thought. Perhaps we colour it in our minds with the hues of our own grey lives. When we live in winter, we forget that spring inevitably must follow.

  Before they resumed their journey, Jay took Dex in her arms. They neither spoke, nor made any move to change the embrace with a kiss.

  All the decisions I’ve made in my life, thought Jay, have brought me to this moment. We stand in the wood in the dawn. What makes sense and what doesn’t?

  ‘Remember the story you told me,’ she said.

  Dex pulled away from her slightly, looked down into her face.

  ‘You sai
d that when you first brought the body here, you heard a voice in the cellar.’ She fixed his eyes with her gaze, wouldn’t let him look away. ‘What really happened to Little Peter, Dex? Do you know?’

  ‘He was the biggest influence on my life,’ Dex said.

  Jay did not interrupt, just stroked his arm.

  ‘Nobody knows what really happened. Did Julie tell you about it?’

  Jay nodded.

  Dex sighed. ‘Pete had a difficult life. His dad was fond of using his fists, his mother was a drained wreck. Pete strained at the leash of life. He had a great sense of hope. I envied him that. Nothing would get him down. On that day, when my brother, Gary, tried to kick the shit out of us, it was like something got into Pete. He was wild, ecstatic, as we ran away. On the heath, he jumped and twisted in the air, like a mad stoat. “Watch me, Chris,” he said, “just watch me.” I couldn’t keep up. There was a strange feeling all around me, like things weren’t normal any more. I followed him into the trees, and I could hear him laughing - it was a low, cackling sound. Then everything was quiet, like someone had turned off the sound to the world. Too silent. I called his name, and looked for him, but there was no sign. I thought something had taken him, I didn’t know what. I walked around for a long time, and the place no longer looked familiar. I had a feeling I could follow Pete if I tried hard enough. Maybe I had to surrender to that strange feeling, jump up in the air, twist around and... vanish.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’ Jay asked. ‘Did he choose to disappear like the people in Lestholme.’

  ‘Yes, I think he did,’ Dex said. ‘I’ve only realised that recently. Back then, I was convinced something sinister had happened; a human monster, or a forest monster, or a deep hole in the ground. I felt responsible, because it was my brother who’d chased us off, and me who’d started the argument with Gary. I knew no-one would ever find Pete. He was as surely gone as if the fairies had taken him. At the time, I believed that to be a feasible possibility.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Now, I know different, because of what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Why should you hear Peter’s voice in the cellar, though? Why then? Haven’t you ever wondered about it?’

  Dex gazed off through the trees. ‘I was doing something that marked a major fork in my life. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have run from Lorrance before I ever met that creature who pulls his strings. Maybe Pete wanted to speak to me, warn me...’ he glanced back at her, ‘like I tried to warn you.’

  ‘Could he be somewhere in Lestholme? I noticed a few strange men who don’t come into the village much. They appear to live in the forest.’

  Dex shook his head. ‘I don’t feel that, Jay. He’s somewhere, and sometimes I can swear he’s close, but he’s not part of Lestholme. I’ve a feeling the village couldn’t contain him. It’s too static.’

  Jay opened her mouth to speak, but Dex interrupted her,

  ‘Please don’t ask me to explain that. I can’t. They’re feelings.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Jay said. ‘Thanks for telling me. I’m trying to understand all this too, Dex. I need as much information as I can get.’

  He took her arm and began to lead her to the car. ‘I love your clarity, Jay. You’re like a beam of light sweeping round the darkness.’

  I could always have been that for you. She didn’t speak the words.

  Jay got into the car and buckled her seat belt. ‘Can we just drive into Lestholme? Can it be that easy?’

  Dex turned on the ignition. ‘I’ve been in and out several times. Lestholme knows me. It’ll let us back in.’

  After driving around the countryside for half an hour or so, without any sign of the village, Dex was not so confident. ‘Perhaps it’s because you’ve been back to London, Jay. Perhaps you can no longer enter the village. I’ve a feeling it won’t let us find it.’

  ‘It will,’ Jay soothed, hoping she was right. ‘We have to believe it.’

  ‘I’m not sure. Perhaps we should be on foot.’

  ‘Just keep driving,’ Jay said. ‘We must will it to happen.’

  Jay closed her eyes, and visualised Lestholme as strongly as she could; the church, the narrow streets, the peculiar, damaged villagers. It was just around the corner, very close. They could just step into that world, because it was there next to them all the time. They had carried it inside them to London, and now they must externalise it again.

  They drove beneath an old viaduct that turned a corner. For a while, they were in darkness. Dex turned on the headlights, and then, on the other side, they found summer. Strangely, it was night-time, like the moment they had left the village, but it was a night of balmy warmth. Jay opened the window on her side, and a perfume of mown hay filled the vehicle. She breathed it in deeply, relaxing back against the head-rest. It was like coming home.

  Dex parked in the pub car park. ‘Well, this is one stolen vehicle that will never be found,’ he said, turning off the ignition.

  Jay laughed, and climbed out of the car. She stretched her body. ‘This is weird, but it feels good to be back. Lestholme is all the gilded memories of childhood. It spooked me at first, but after what happened last night, that awful party, Gus and Gina, it feels like heaven. I think it’s my ideal holiday resort.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Would it ever let itself be that for me, do you think?’

  Dex did not answer. ‘Looks like someone’s been waiting for us,’ he said.

  Jay turned round and saw that Jem was sitting on the low wall next to the road. ‘Hi!’ she called.

  Jem climbed down. She smiled widely, then made a clear attempt to appear more composed. ‘Welcome back. Despite what I said, I did wonder if you’d return.’

  Jay mussed the girl’s hair. ‘It was a possibility I wouldn’t, but here I am. Was I gone long?’

  Jem shook her head. ‘No. Someone’s been walking up and down beside the pool back there. They’ve been waiting for you.’

  Jay frowned. ‘Who?’

  Dex had joined them. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘A woman,’ Jem said. ‘She won’t speak. She’s a white lady, walking up and down.’

  Jay and Dex exchanged a glance. Who could it be? Jay looked back at Jem. ‘Are you sure she’s waiting for us?’

  ‘Yes. It’s very clear. I can see her link with you, like a light around her.’

  ‘Could it be Julie?’ Jay asked.

  ‘Let’s go and see.’ Dex marched off ahead of them, towards the garden at the back of the pub.

  Jay took Jem’s hand. ‘Is she a ghost, do you think?’ The question was only half light-hearted.

  Jem wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, that’s very difficult to tell, isn’t it?’

  When Jay caught sight of the pale figure, which seemed to hover at the water’s edge, she felt more apprehensive than when she’d stepped into the cellar looking for a decomposing body. There was something alien and otherworldly about the figure; it seemed to shine with its own light.

  ‘Dex,’ Jay said in warning. She didn’t want him to get too close to the woman. ‘Stay back.’

  Dex turned to look at her. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I know her. It’s Lacey Lorrance.’

  Chapter Ten

  Lacey’s long, white summer dress and pale hair were spectral in the star-light, yet close to, she was no unearthly creature but a woman of flesh and blood. Her dress was ragged, and her features were set in a determined expression. She clearly had something to say.

  ‘You’ve always been here, haven’t you,’ Dex said softly. He stood with arms folded some distance away from the girl. ‘Part of your father, yet not part of him.’

  Lacey shook her head. ‘I am not of this place,’ she said, her voice low and husky. ‘But I knew you were here. You didn’t listen to me all those years ago, did you, Dex?’

  Jay stepped towards the girl. ‘Do you know who I am, Lacey?’

  Lacey narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you know I was here, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lacey replied.
‘You are part of what is happening. Dex involved you the moment he caught your eye.’ She glanced at Dex. ‘You didn’t mean to, but it was inevitable.’

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ Jay asked. ‘Have you been watching us? Did your father tell you?’

  Lacey shook her head. ‘I knew for sure when you came to the house.’ She came closer. ‘That place is a nexus point of many realities. I can’t cross into Lestholme, but because of your presence at the house, I became aware of you.’

  ‘You’re here now,’ Jay said.

  ‘You enabled me to come. None of the villagers dare approach the house of their god, but you did. I could follow in your footsteps. I know it must be hard for you to understand, but you left me a kind of trail.’

  Jay rubbed her chin briefly. ‘Right, so here you are, and here we are. Let’s forget about the technicalities of that for a minute. What is your part in what’s happening, Lacey? Why do you want to speak to us? What can you tell us?’

  Lacey glanced at Dex. ‘We both want to know the same thing,’ he said. ‘How much did you know of what was going on with your father and me? Why didn’t you speak more plainly when I came to the house that night?’

  Lacey sat down on the grass, and beckoned for the others to do likewise. Jay noticed that all her fingernails, and the skin around them, were gnawed raw. She couldn’t be as assured as she appeared.

  ‘First of all,’ Lacey said, ‘I was wary of speaking with you, Dex, because I wasn’t sure of you. You seemed unhappy with what you’d become involved in, but as my father said that night, an initial state of uncertainty was part of the process. He wanted to make you one of his people, utterly and completely. You were balking, but how strongly? I couldn’t be sure.’

  ‘You knew about Charney?’ Dex asked. ‘And his cabal?’

  Lacey nodded. ‘Yes. I couldn’t help but know, because I am my father’s heir. You must have realised he wanted me as part of his group too, has always wanted me. I was conceived to have a role in what he did, but like you, I rejected it.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Dex said. ‘He never mentioned it.’