Awake in the Night, page 11
From somewhere outside came a crackling sound: the crunch of gravel under a wheel. The room darkened, and her eyes darted to the little rectangular window above her. She took another breath and held it; watched as the white-rimmed wheels of the black Jaguar rolled past the window and drew to a stop.
She got up off the ground and grabbed for the key. With it, she poked the clump of bloody hair and its stomach-churning catch back down into the darkness of the drain – one hand over her mouth as the mass slipped away, its horrors with it. She thought she heard the car’s doors shut – then, a moment later, voices echoing through the entrance hall.
Think, she told herself. You have to think, if you want to get out of here.
In the dim light of the overhead bulb, she rushed towards the stairs, slowing her ascent as she felt the floorboards creak under her feet. The voices were getting louder now; Dr Baker and Sister Angela might have been directly outside the basement door.
Grace edged closer to the top of the stairs and clicked off the light switch – carefully, so carefully. The stairs and the basement were plunged again into darkness.
“Bring Olivia in from the garden,” she heard the Doctor say. “We must begin today’s treatment. I’ll prep the room – just knock on the door when she’s ready to come down.”
Grace felt beads of cold sweat break the skin on the back of her neck. Any second, the locked door would open, leaving her with no option but to explain herself to a man she now believed – for what other conclusion could she draw, from the hair and blood and fingernails in the drain? – to be not only utterly deranged, but dangerous.
Out of the corner of her eye she spied the mop bucket, its upturned mop resting against the wall, and an idea struck her. She shimmied past it and pressed her back up against the wall, making herself as flat as possible and hiding her face behind the mop. She felt like her heart might beat out of her chest: the Doctor would be walking right past her at any moment, just inches away.
She closed her eyes – then opened them again at the sound of his key in the lock and the slight gust of air that followed as he yanked the door open. His hand reached towards her face, as if about to grab her; she could feel it, smell the rubbing alcohol on his fingers. But then, at the last minute, it changed course, and he flicked on the light. He was holding a letter, she saw, and appeared engrossed in it – walking right past her and down the stairs, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Only when she heard him begin to move the surgical table at the bottom of the stairs was she able to breathe again.
Yet, relieved though she was that she hadn’t been discovered, she was, she realised, in much the same position as she’d been: trapped. She knew Olivia was on her way down, and that the door would open again; she just needed to be ready to run when it did. It would be her only chance of getting away, her only opportunity to escape.
She looked around at her feet, trying to find something – anything – she could use to jam the door open. It would need to be thin; thin enough that the door wouldn’t look obviously ajar.
She could hear more footsteps in the hall; the doctor readying the room below. She’d have to act fast. In the deepest recesses of the alcove, she saw a cardboard box, containing what looked like four bottles of bleach. Pushing away thoughts of why there might be bleach there, and what it might have washed away, she bent down and gently tore one of the smaller side flaps from the box – then drew herself up to her full height again and waited for the basement door to open, the sliver of card shaking in her hand. She’d only have the briefest window to slip the piece of cardboard between the door and frame to stop it from closing.
Finally, the door opened and Olivia, unaccompanied, passed through it, pausing at the top of the stairs. The door began to close but Olivia seemed reluctant to move, to descend the stairs.
Please, Grace willed her, just go.
The door was still closing as Olivia at last took her first step down to the basement. With barely a second to go, Grace leaned forward and placed the card between the bolt and its strike plate in the wooden frame. Relief flooded her when it stuck; when the door stayed open. But the joy was short-lived.
There were other voices in the hall, other people out there. She couldn’t leave, not yet – would have to bide her time before she could slip outside and make her excuses to Sister Angela, before she could confect some story or other about where she’d been. And what would happen to Olivia in that basement, once she left? What was happening to her now?
Grace had to know.
She hunkered down low and crept out to the top of the stairs; looked down, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
Olivia was on the table. Grace could see only the upper half of her body, but it was clear Olivia’s wrists were strapped, secured to the metal. There was something in her mouth, too: something black, plastic or rubber. She was… biting down on it, clamping it between her teeth.
Grace shifted position in hope of a better view – but in doing so, caught Olivia’s attention. The girl looked right at her, her eyes widening in shock, and then turning to plead with her. The girls stared at one another for a moment, both of them trapped. The sense of connection was shattered, though, when Olivia’s eyes snapped closed and her body jerked abruptly, her shoulders rising from the table. She went rigid; seemed to hover briefly in the air before the full weight of her slapped back down onto the table. Her eyes flew open and fixed again on Grace – but were filled this time with frightened tears. She bit down on the black mouthpiece, white foam exuding from her mouth. Her body jerked a second time, and it was then Grace realised what she was seeing: an electric current, passing through Olivia’s fragile body. She gasped; stifled the reaction with her hand.
She couldn’t help. Couldn’t speak out.
There was nothing to do but make her escape.
“What do you think happened down there?” Ellen asked.
They were in their bedroom, Ellen on her bed with her back against the wall and Grace beside her.
“I don’t know,” Grace said. “But there were different hair colours, a lot of them – which means more than one person. Who even knows how many girls have come through this house before we got here? They were renovating before I came, but we don’t know how long the church owned this place before that. All we do know is that someone had their fingernail ripped out and it wasn’t any of us.” She let out a long, slow breath.
Ellen reached out a hand and placed it on Grace’s. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
“For now, you mean.” Grace stood up and began to pace the floor. “You didn’t see her face, El— her eyes, the pain.”
Ellen untangled herself from the bed and pulled Grace close.
“It’ll be alright. We’ll get to the bottom of this. And when we do, we’ll expose Baker for the fraud he is. I promise”
A loud crashing sound from somewhere outside interrupted their embrace. They pulled apart, holding each other at arm’s length; listening for a follow-up noise that might explain the first. A soft thud came, and then… nothing.
Grace opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, Ellen following after her. Grace looked left, towards the bathroom: saw both light and steam escaping from under the door. The vapour rose, invading the landing like fog seeping over hills on a misty morning. She tiptoed towards the bathroom; the other bedroom door was slightly open, she noticed. She turned the handle of the bathroom door, afraid of what she’d find inside; paused, then pushed open the door, ever so slightly.
“Hello? Is everything okay in there?”
There was no response, though she hadn’t expect there would be. She opened the door a little more, and was greeted on the other side by the sight of a broken mirror, its splintered reflections paving the floor onto which it had crashed. She stopped for a moment; studied a piece of the mirror, one that had landed in such a way as to cause it to stand upright, propped up against the wall – reflecting the inside of the bathroom.
She closed her eyes and steadied herself against the door.
Ellen, still behind her, was growing frustrated. “What? What is it? What can you see?”
“Go and get Dr Baker.” Grace could hear it – the hopelessness in her own voice. The sad, sick knowledge that no amount of urgency would change what lay inside the room.
“No,” Ellen said, standing firm. “I’m not going to that crazy man. What is it – what can you see? Show me.” She nudged Grace aside, or tried to. But Grace wouldn’t move. Didn’t want her to see.
“Please,” she told Ellen. “Just trust me – go and get the Doctor.”
Ellen stopped pushing. “Okay,” she conceded. “Okay. I’ll get him.” She spun around; headed back along the landing to wake Baker.
Grace couldn’t bring herself to open the door any wider, much less to walk inside. She stared instead at the propped-up mirror, a portal to the horror within.
Olivia’s eyes were reflected there, open wide but murky in death. Her neck had been slashed open; blood still seeped from the wound, beginning to congeal between the broken fragments of mirror on the floor. The shard she’d used to rip into her own flesh lay between her splayed fingers, sharp as a blade.
Two things stuck Grace, as she stared into Olivia’s dead eyes.
The first was that Olivia would have watched herself die, would have seen it happen. She couldn’t have planned it, of course; the position of the fallen mirror was random, a quirk of fate. But nevertheless, there it was – Olivia’s blank stare trapped within its surface.
The second thing, Grace thought – flashing back to the basement, to Olivia strapped down on that table as her body convulsed—was that Olivia, too, had found a way to escape, in the end.
Chapter 17
2018
The bleat of the alarm brought Nicole, blinking and stirring, into the day. She reached out to her bedside locker and silenced it. She hadn’t woken in the night, it seemed – which was in itself a bit of a novelty, of late.
She looked across the bed and saw Jess was still lying there: still fast asleep, her short dark hair sticking out at odd angles, her chest gently rising and falling. Nicole looked at her and smiled. She loved these quiet moment; moments of contentment, before the demands of the day encroached on their solitude. She could live in a world with Jess, and only Jess, and be completely happy; that was how she’d known she wanted to marry her, to spend the rest of her life with her.
She leaned over and kissed Jess’s forehead – then, careful not to wake her, swung her legs out of the bed and rose, heading out onto the landing. She was halfway down the stairs, en route to a much-needed coffee, when she heard the doorbell ring.
Who the hell…? Susan; it has to be Susan.
She quickened her pace, making for the front door, and was confused upon opening it to be greeted with the sight of a stranger on her doorstep: a strapping, six-foot gentleman with a mop of red hair.
“Good morning,” he told her, more cheerily than she might have expected. “You must be Nicole. I’m Michael, Susan’s son, but you can call me Mick. Welcome to Montpellier Street.”
He extended a shovel-like hand, and Nicole shook it, noting both the roughness of his skin and the gentleness of the handshake.
“Nice to meet you, Mick. You’re up bright and early.”
“Well, my mother said you needed your garden doing, and, sure, you know what she's like, all go, go, go. I hope I didn’t wake you – I won’t actually need to disturb you at all, it’s a petrol mower.” He gestured down to the lawnmower at the bottom of the steps. “I’ll get going, so. And just to let you know, my mother will be ‘round herself in half an hour. She was gathering cleaning supplies like a woman possessed, so consider yourself warned.”
“Good to know. Thanks, Mick.” She smiled at him, she hoped kindly. “Will you have a cup of coffee before you start?”
“I’m grand, thanks. I might pop up when I’m finished.”
He turned and headed away from the house, down the steps, towards the garden and the lawnmower. He walked with a limp, she noticed; quite a pronounced one.
She closed the door and stepped back inside, her mind returning to coffee and toast. Less than 15 minutes later, Susan made her promised appearance.
“Good morning, good morning,” she said, breezing into the kitchen with a black bag of cleaning products. “You’re up, anyways – that’s a start.”
“You don’t want a cuppa first?” Nicole was already reaching for the kettle.
“I had breakfast over at the house. Now up you get, love. We’re squaring this house today, by hook or by crook.”
When Nicole was suitably dressed for cleaning, the two of them started in the sitting room. There were boxes of books for Nicole to shelve; Susan, meanwhile, got to work dusting the surfaces.
“Any visitors in the night?” she asked.
“No, actually.” Nicole picked up an illustrated hardback – one of Jess’s Discworld books. “It was a pretty restful night again. You think they got bored of us?”
Susan didn’t laugh; didn’t so much as crack a smile. “And Jess? Has she been okay, seen anything…unusual?”
“She’s been fine. She was fast asleep when I was getting up. She works late a good bit – has clients in the States, so there’s a time difference.”
“Right.”
“Actually, though, I was thinking about something last night. When Belle said they need help – what do you think she meant? And if she wanted something from me, why didn’t she just ask me directly?”
Susan pondered this for a moment. “Well,” she said, “they do say ghosts that died in a… let’s call it a traumatic way might not be exactly capable of communicating in the way you and I understand it. More like they’re… trapped in a loop. Reliving their trauma, over and over again.”
“Jesus, that’s grim.”
“It’s as if they’re echoes, love. Reproductions of the souls of people who need to be released so they can rest.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts?”
Now Susan smiled. “Just because people don’t believe in something, it doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist.”
“Profound,” Nicole said, deadpan.
“You know,” Susan replied, returning to her dusting, “if you cleaned as much as you talk, this place might be in better shape.”
Nicole opted for a change of topic.
“Your son Michael,” she said. “It’s lovely of him to cut the lawn. I really appreciate how you’re both helping me, helping us.”
Susan softened. “Of course, love. It’s what neighbours do. I hope you know that, that we’re here for you. You’re going through a difficult time – moving to a new house, and an unusual house at that. It’s okay to…lean on people a bit.”
It was surprising, Nicole thought: Susan’s show of emotion, the dropping of her stoic guard. Though it didn’t last long.
“Did you tell that son of mine to come in here and look at your wiring when he’s finished with the lawn?” the older woman added.
“I did not.”
“I’ll remind him, then; we don’t want this place going up in smoke, or ghosts will be the least of your problems.”
“Did he hurt his leg?”
“What’s that, love?”
“Michael. He was limping earlier – did he hurt his leg?’”
“You could say that.” There was a long, considered pause – again, Nicole thought, quite unusual for Susan. “He was in a car accident, a few years ago now. Black ice, it was. The car skidded and lost control, rolled over a few times; he had to be cut out of it. Lucky to be alive, so he is.”
“That's awful.”
“He was in a bad way for a long time after. It wasn’t just the rehabilitation – the nightmares were terrible, too.”
“Poor guy.” Nicole watched Michael through the window as he cut the lawn.
“He’s doing well now, that’s the main thing. It’s strange, though – how the body breaks and heals, but the mind...”
“What do you mean?” Nicole asked, when it was clear Susan wouldn’t be finishing the thought without some prompting.
“Well, with the mind… you never really know if it’s mended. It’s like a cut with a scab on it – the slightest pressure and the wound opens, then before you know it, it’s bleeding again. Anyway, dear,” she said – signalling, it seemed to Nicole, that no further meditations on the delicacy of the human psyche would be forthcoming, “these floors are a disgrace. Normally I’d offer to take my shoes off in a neighbour’s house for fear of making them dirty, but with these I’d say it’s the other way around.”
“I have a mop out the back in the utility room,” Nicole offered.
“Grand, so. Stay where you are, I’ll get it. I think it’s safe to say you don’t know how it works.”
Nicole went out front to chat to Michael and get some air, away from the smell of wood polish. He had finished with the lawn and taken it on himself to trim the hedges.
“Oh, hi.” Seeing her, Michael put down the shears and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “You startled me there. How are things going inside?”
“Well, they’re going. Your mother’s certainly a force to be reckoned with.”
“Don’t I know it,” he laughed. “She likes to stay busy.” He shifted his weight from one side to the other, awkwardly.
Nicole nodded to Michael’s leg. “Do you want to come in and sit down?”
“Oh, it’s grand. I was in an accident a while back, that’s all. It plays up now and then.”
She couldn’t have explained what, but something compelled her to ask Michael about his accident. “What was it?” she said. “What happened exactly?”
Susan passed through the kitchen on her way to the utility room, intent on unearthing a mop and bucket.
The smell hit her right away – so strong and so foul, there was nothing to do but cover her mouth and nose.
