by I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so alone in my life. The silence was so profound, I might have been the only person on the planet, never mind in the room. The darkness was absolute, save for a faint glimmer of pale, sickly light here and there, showing me where to go. I felt frozen to the marrow of my bones, shivering as I stepped forward.
I was hoping my esteemed colleagues might follow my example and take the bull by the horns, so to speak.
Failing that, I was hoping they might choose to come with me. You know, to back me up.
But nothing broke that terrible, depthless silence, and I knew I was alone. Not even Jay had followed me.
I wasted a moment in pointless self-pity as I pictured my companions piling out of the hole Jay would shortly open in the front door, leaving me behind. Following which, they would go back to their bright, sunny lives, full of purpose and potential and loved ones, and forget me entirely.
Jay would marry the girl he’d been dating and wouldn’t talk about, and produce the next generation of impossibly talented, slightly Ylanfallen children. Indira would become the head of the Hidden University by the age of twenty-five, after which she would take over the planet and rule (benignly) as Empress of Everything. Emellana would embark upon a fresh slew of exciting adventures, adding to the already living legend that she was, and Zareen… Zareen would kick George Mercer out of her life once and for all (if she hadn’t already), become a stable, healthy human being, and go on to exorcise many another irate spirit or enraged poltergeist.
I, meanwhile, would be stuck in here forever, alone and unregretted, which was probably what I deserved…
A tear slid down my cheek. I’d stopped walking at some point and stood with my arms hanging down and head lowered, helpless and hopeless.
Which really isn’t like me.
My chin came up. ‘Okay,’ I whispered. ‘You’re okay, Ves. You may not be married with kids or the Empress of Everything, but you live a life full of meaning and your hair is truly excellent. And your friends love you and would never leave you behind.’ I thought for a second. That about covered everything.
The feelings of bleak hopelessness faded a little.
‘Okay!’ I said louder. ‘Nice try, but it didn’t work.’
A soft sigh of wind gusted past me, a hollow sound, which, by way of courtesy, brought a freezing chill with it. I began to shiver, but at least the terrible weight of my own black self-pity disappeared.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘While we’re talking, perhaps somebody would like to explain to me what you’ve done with Jay.’
A mote of light appeared before me, and spread, rippling like water. A vision shimmered there: Jay as I’d last seen him, cross-legged on the floor in the echoing hall and enjoying a custard cream. But as I watched, something changed, and I realised this wasn’t quite my Jay. He was looking at me with an expression of such utter exasperation, one might even term it… contempt. I could practically see the thoughts passing behind his dark eyes: What a fatuous idiot. Serving biscuits and chatting when there’s a severe threat to deal with. I can’t wait to leave this fool behind and move on to better things.
I might have flinched a little.
I’m fairly sure Jay didn’t take me very seriously when we first met. I was colourful and jaunty and fabulously dressed and I don’t think Jay associated any of those things with competence or skill.
But that didn’t last long.
‘Still doesn’t work,’ I said, raising my voice. ‘Where is he?’
The vision rippled, and changed. Jay was striding down a shadowy corridor, its walls painted white and streaked with something dark. A light flickered oddly ahead of him, bobbed and danced, emanating a shimmery, shivery ghost-light: some kind of will-o’-wisp. He was following in its train, eyes fixed upon it, and as I watched, a nothingness opened in the floor before him, fathomlessly black.
He walked straight into it, and disappeared.
I heard him scream.
‘I doubt it,’ I said, as stoutly as I could manage. The vision was more persuasive than I liked.
I was shown an alternative. Jay found a door leading outside, but when it opened, he was several floors up. He didn’t seem to notice, but stepped over the threshold — and fell, screaming. I watched as he hit the hard, frosted ground and the scream abruptly cut off.
Another alternative. Jay exploring some kind of ballroom, a big, echoey chamber with a begrimed, tiled floor and a dark-painted balcony for a long-vanished orchestra. As he stepped forward, the balcony wobbled and fell, crushing him underneath.
Another. Jay had found the house’s kitchens, and was poking industriously into cobweb-ridden cupboards streaked with soot. A hellish wight appeared behind him, soundless; Jay didn’t notice, so he didn’t move. A shimmering cord wound around his neck, and strangled him to death.
I watched several more possible scenarios, involving an abrupt and vicious stabbing, an imbibing of poisoned beverages, and a burning alive (the latter including a particularly creative use of sound; Jay’s agonised screams echoed through my ears in three-part disharmony). I neither moved nor spoke, and I didn’t flinch again.
Eventually, the visions stopped.
‘The torment doesn’t seem to be working,’ I said to the empty air. ‘So you might as well skip it.’
I waited, but nothing and no one answered. Neither did the horror show start up again, though, so I considered it progress.
‘Perhaps you’d like to save everybody a lot of time and energy and just tell me what you’re upset about,’ I continued.
Nothing. My tormentors were either unable to communicate clearly, or they were having too much fun messing with my mind to bother doing so.
I heaved a sigh.
Focus, Ves. If the glaistigs don’t want to play nicely, ignore them.
My mind cleared a little as I formed the thought.
It really was terribly dark. Why hadn’t I done something about that already?
I summoned a tiny ball of light, bright as a miniature star, and stood blinking in the sudden white glare.
I’d made it halfway down a short passage. I had immediate cause to regret my light show, for the place was in a skin-crawling state of disrepair. The walls and ceiling were probably whitewashed, once, but a thick, black mould now covered every inch. Giddy gods, what hideous spores was I imbibing with every breath?
The floor was spongy underfoot, and a short way ahead of me the wooden boards had rotted through. A dark hole yawned, ready to swallow me whole if I’d taken another step or two, so the light had been a good move after all.
I averted my eyes from the mould, and pressed on, skirting carefully around the gap in the floor.
Where was I even trying to go? Good question. I’d been lured this way, but perhaps that had only been for the sake of the torturous cinematics.
Still, the situation had to be resolved, and if mass exorcism wasn’t an option, then I’d have to come up with something else.
That probably meant tracking down the ethereal inhabitants, righting their wrongs, ministering to their woes, and sending everyone away happy. Ideally.
Tricky when they won’t talk.
‘I’d really like to help,’ I tried, marching at a smart pace towards a closed door at the end of the passage.
The door swung open, hard. It hit the wall with a sharp crack, and shattered, falling in splintered chunks to the floor.
Hm.
‘I see that you’re angry,’ I observed, stepping over the mess. ‘And it was probably rude of us to visit without an invitation, for which I apologise. If you’d prefer for us to leave, we will.’ It cost me something to say this, for leaving without accomplishing our goals was a prospect to please nobody. Manners, though. Manners maketh man. And woman.
Nobody answered, except that the door ahead of me remained open, and the door behind me remained closed.
I took that for a polite rejection of my offer, and proceeded with some alacrity.
I was herded, by a series of unsubtle signs, around a corner, up a flight of stairs, along another passageway, up another flight of stairs, and finally into some kind of turret room right at the top of the house. Which was interesting, since I didn’t remember seeing any turrets or towers on the house as we’d approached.
‘Secret tower-top torture chamber,’ I enthused as I stepped inside. ‘Ladies, you have style.’
I was less impressed when I noticed a bone-chilling wind howling through the room, emanating from a leaded window that hung ominously open.
I peeked out. The ground was rather a long way below.
‘If anybody’s got any bright ideas about my leaving the building in some short, interesting fashion, think again,’ I said, stepping well back. The vision I’d seen of Jay, opening a door in the side of the house and plummeting to his death, sailed through my mind, and again I heard him scream.
Nothing happened. I wasn’t herded to the window by ghostly hands, nor shoved out upon a gust of wind, so I counted my blessings.
Instead, a door opened. Not the one I’d come through. I hadn’t even seen it, for it was thick with strange, silvery mould and indistinguishable from the walls.
Jay stood on the threshold.
‘Ves,’ he said, in some relief, and rushed forward.
I tried to stop him, but it was too late; the door slammed behind him, and a key turned in the lock.
‘As rescue efforts go, this one has suffered a setback,’ I observed.
Jay was too busy checking me for injury, apparently, for he had me in some kind of a death-grip and seemed unwilling to let go.
In fact, he seemed a little upset.
‘Oh,’ I said, as realisation dawned. ‘Let me guess. You’ve recently been treated to a montage of eighty-ways-to-kill-your-friendly-local-Ves.’
‘Not quite that many,’ he said into my shoulder, somewhat muffled. ‘Twenty though. Easily twenty.’
Come to think of it, I was feeling a little rattled myself. I realised this because I was in no more of a hurry to let go of Jay than he was to release me, so we stayed that way a while.
I emerged some minutes later, very thoroughly hugged, and a little eased at heart.
‘It was the screams that did it,’ I sighed. ‘Very realistic.’
Jay visibly shuddered. ‘Right,’ he said, squaring his shoulders. ‘Where have we ended up?’
‘A tower that shouldn’t exist, though at least I arrived in a sensible fashion, that being: I climbed some stairs. How did you get here?’
‘I went through a door from the dining room, which I’m pretty sure was on the ground floor. I certainly didn’t climb any stairs.’ He shuddered again. ‘Total Miss Havisham situation down there. I don’t recommend it.’
‘Table laden with a maggot-ridden feast, covered in cobwebs?’
‘I may need a complete decontamination when we get home.’
It was my turn to shudder. ‘I was expecting to find something helpful up here, but I seem to be out of luck.’ The turret room was empty, even of furniture, and nobody had manifested or tried to talk to me.
That being so, I wasn’t planning to stick around.
I went to the door through which Jay had emerged, and — cringing a bit, on account of the mould — I grabbed the ancient iron key, and turned it.
Slightly to my surprise, it turned easily, and I yanked the door open. We emerged onto a narrow, winding staircase, and ventured down.
I was braced for an eyeful of rotten food and dust-ridden furniture, but the chamber at the bottom of the stairs wasn’t the dining room.
‘I think we’ve found the ballroom,’ I said, stepping through a stone archway.
Jay followed me. Our footsteps rang loudly on the smooth tiled floor, echoing off the mould-silvered walls. I noticed the balcony that had, in my vision, tumbled down and squashed Jay beneath it. It looked capable of such a feat, for it sagged ominously, its encircling railings missing several spiralling wooden posts.
‘Don’t walk under that,’ I warned Jay.
He shook his head emphatically. We trailed into the centre of the dance floor, and stopped.
A door opened in the far wall.
‘Oh,’ said Zareen, and came through it. ‘You’re still alive.’
‘I haven’t fallen out of a window,’ I agreed. ‘Or been stabbed to death, or choked, or burned alive, or poisoned, or smashed to bits beneath a falling balcony.’
Zareen grimaced. ‘Or eaten by spiders.’
My eyes went very wide.
‘Have you seen Indira?’ Jay asked, either of me or Zareen, or perhaps both.
I shook my head. So did Zar.
‘But if we aren’t dead,’ said Zar, ‘then neither is she.’
‘So I figure,’ Jay agreed. ‘But I’d like to be sure.’
‘I haven’t seen Em either,’ I said, frowning. I was less worried about Ms Rogan than I was about Indira, though. There’s little that can daunt the likes of Emellana and less that could do her any harm.
‘Speak of the devil,’ answered Jay, and he sounded awed, which was odd — until I turned around.
Emellana, eschewing such mundane apparatus as doors, was entering the ballroom by way of the wall. In much the same way as might a patch of mould, or a puddle of water. She oozed.
