Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
‘It’s gripping,’ said Antoinette when Pixie had finished. ‘It could be anyone, really, couldn’t it? The obvious culprit is one of the miners. Olivia and I went to the local library and found out that the boy killed in the mining accident was called Billy Tonkin. According to the librarian, who just happens to be a very keen local historian, it was the boy’s father who sought revenge on Ivan Pengower and hid the child’s body in the mine. No one bothered to look there, or to question the men, apparently.’
‘He might be right,’ said Pixie.
‘I suspect he was murdered,’ Antoinette added, before taking a long drag. Something in Pixie’s heart snagged. The very idea of that innocent child being killed was unbearable. To Antoinette, Olivia and Ulysses, Felix was simply a name, but to Pixie he was a sweet child, a sweet living-and-breathing child who, when she’d last seen him only hours before, had been very much alive.
‘Could it be someone in the house, do you think?’ Olivia asked.
‘It could be,’ Pixie replied, but she wasn’t convinced. ‘I did find out that there’s a secret passage leading from a hidden door in the library to a shed by the stables. A priest hole. This house is full of them. So, if all the doors and windows were locked the night he was taken, he could only have been spirited away through that passageway. But I don’t believe that anyone in the house has – had – a motive to hurt Felix.’
Olivia’s mouth opened in amazement. ‘There’s a secret passageway in the library?’ she gasped.
‘No way!’ exclaimed Ulysses. ‘The plot thickens!’
‘Really,’ said Pixie. ‘There’s one in the dining room too. Come, I’ll show you.’
The four of them gathered in the library. Pixie pulled the lever and the door clicked open, revealing the staircase behind it. Olivia stared at it, dumbfounded. She had been in this room many times and not noticed it. ‘This is incredible,’ she said.
‘Astonishing,’ Antoinette added. She looked at Pixie with admiration. ‘You really do slide back in time, don’t you? I wasn’t sure, to be honest. I don’t think either of us were. But now I know. How else would you have found this?’
‘I agree,’ said Olivia, feeling a wonderful sense of justification. This would prove to Bruce that timesliding wasn’t a fantasy.
Pixie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Whoever takes Felix very likely comes and goes from the house through this tunnel.’ She folded her arms as her skin prickled. It was horrendous to think of Felix being carried down this hole and never coming back.
Just then Zach and Tabitha appeared in the doorway. Both children looked sheepish.
‘Well?’ said Olivia, putting her hands on her hips. ‘What have you got to say for yourselves? I hope you’re sorry.’
‘We are,’ said Zach quickly. ‘I mean, I am. I’m sorry, Pixie.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Pixie. ‘You couldn’t have known.’
‘I thought—’ he began.
‘It doesn’t matter what you thought,’ Tabitha cut in sharply. ‘Look what we’ve found.’ She held out the tin.
‘What’s that?’ Antoinette asked.
‘A tin,’ said Ulysses.
‘It’s what’s inside the tin that’s interesting,’ said Tabitha with a grin. She opened it and lifted out the letter. She handed it to Pixie.
The room fell silent as Pixie read it out loud. When she finished, she folded it up and gave it back to Tabitha. ‘It’s from Gwen, the nursemaid,’ she said. ‘It’s sad to read. Women like Gwen didn’t fare well in those days. I don’t imagine her story is written up in any history book. We’ll never know what became of her or her child.’
‘We will if you manage to slide back,’ said Ulysses.
Pixie sighed. ‘I will think of a way,’ she said. ‘I’m not leaving without settling Cordelia’s soul.’
Olivia called the children over to the bookcase. ‘Look what Pixie’s found,’ she said. Zach and Tabitha stared into the priest hole in wonder.
‘Wow!’ said Zach. ‘This is really cool!’
‘Can I go down it?’ asked Tabitha.
‘Go and find your father and see what he says,’ Olivia suggested.
‘You said there was another one in the dining room?’ Antoinette reminded Pixie.
‘There is. I’ll show you. And apparently there’s one in an upstairs bedroom that has a secret staircase going down to the kitchen,’ she added, remembering Mr Pengower mentioning it.
‘How exciting!’ Olivia gushed, clapping her hands. ‘Let’s go and see if we can find it.’
While the children went in search of Bruce, and Olivia, Antoinette and Ulysses went upstairs to look for the secret staircase, Pixie returned to Felix’s bedroom in the hope of persuading Cordelia to move on. Maybe Pixie could suggest that one of the miners had taken him. Cordelia might accept that and agree to leave. After all, if Felix was in spirit, Cordelia only had to move into the light to be reunited with him. What did it matter what happened to him in the past, if he was here in the present?
Pixie wasn’t confident that her idea would work and was concerned that Cordelia would sense that she hadn’t really found out the truth, but she decided to give it a go anyway. She sat on the chair and closed her eyes. She quietened her breathing, focused on the gentle rise and fall of her chest, and slowly sank into trance. Then she reached out to Cordelia.
She waited, but she sensed only the empty room and the stillness. Cordelia she said in her mind, but Cordelia didn’t appear. Cordelia, I have found out what happened to your son. Nothing. Perhaps Cordelia intuited that she was lying. Frustrated, Pixie remained on the chair for another half an hour. She could feel the heavy, desolate energy and the damp cold that the spirit carried with her, but, however much she called out, Cordelia herself did not appear.
Finally, she had no choice but to give up. Cordelia didn’t show herself because she didn’t want to. It was obvious that she was determined to stay where she was. She didn’t want to be helped. But why?
There was nothing for it. Pixie had to think of a way to get back to her in the past. She had to finish the job she had set out to do. What happened on that fateful night of the 29th of June? Unless Pixie found the answer to that question, Cordelia would remain for ever here .
When Pixie came downstairs, Antoinette, Olivia and Ulysses were back in the library with the children and Bruce. Elsa and Tom were there too, discussing the priest hole. Tom was making his way up the stairs with a torch. ‘I’d say it’s safe,’ he announced, brushing the dust off his shoulder.
‘Ah, Pixie,’ said Bruce. ‘I don’t know how you discovered this, but it’s a genuine, Elizabethan priest hole. Extraordinary!’
Elsa scratched her head. ‘In all the years I’ve worked here, I’ve never seen this one. I don’t even think Mrs Delaware knew it was here. She never once mentioned it.’
‘We knew about the one in the dining room,’ Tom added, climbing out. ‘And the one upstairs, but this one has blown my socks off.’ He grinned. ‘It takes quite a lot to blow my socks off!’
Antoinette laughed. ‘Good to know you have an escape route, should you need one,’ she said to Bruce.
Tom handed the torch to Zach. ‘You want to go down?’ he asked.
Olivia was quick to intervene. ‘I don’t think the children should go in there,’ she said. ‘Don’t you agree, Bruce? It might be dangerous.’ Zach pulled a face.
‘Yes, you wouldn’t want to get stuck. We might never find you!’ Bruce chuckled.
‘Oh, Daddy!’ Tabitha exclaimed.
‘Don’t “Oh, Daddy” me! Ground rules. No going down holes, do you understand?’
Both Zach and Tabitha nodded.
‘I’m not sure I believe in all this mumbo-jumbo,’ Bruce said to Pixie. ‘But you clearly have a gift of sorts. If you find secret treasure hidden beneath the floorboards, let me know. We’ll go halves.’
That night, Pixie couldn’t sleep. Her heart pined for Cavill, while her mind ached with the effort of trying to think of a way to get back to him, and to Cordelia. The next twenty-four hours were crucial, and she had missed them. She had to slide back. But this was uncharted territory, and she didn’t want to get it wrong. How could she guarantee that her desire would take her back to the moment she’d left? It just didn’t seem possible. She could hold the locket and put out the desire, she could even picture the very scene, but how could she be sure that that would work? It was too much of a gamble.
Antoinette noticed Pixie’s pallor in the morning when she walked into the dining room at breakfast, but she was too polite to say anything. She buttered her piece of toast and told Daphne to go and lie down. ‘Not everyone wants you drooling over their breakfast,’ she added, giving the dog a gentle push. But Daphne had her eye on the toast and wasn’t going anywhere.
Bruce, who had already been out milking the cows with Tom, was reading the newspapers on his iPad while Olivia was busy scrolling through her emails on her phone. She didn’t want to let on how worried she was, how much it mattered to her that Pixie got rid of the spirit. Both said good morning and then returned to their business. Elsa came in with a fresh pot of tea and toast, and offered to make Pixie and Ulysses a full English breakfast. They both declined. Ulysses never understood how the British could eat so much food in the morning. He typically drank just a strong cup of coffee and mushed avocado on toast.
Tabitha, who had already eaten, went and sat beside Pixie. She put the letter on the table beside her. ‘I think you should keep this,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Tabitha,’ Pixie replied. ‘You’re clever to have found it. You’ll make a good detective one day.’
‘I want to be like you,’ said Tabitha quietly.
Pixie laughed. ‘If you knew what I was really like, you wouldn’t say that.’
‘Did you go down the priest hole?’ she whispered.
‘I did.’
‘Was it dangerous?’
‘Not at all. But that was over a hundred years ago.’
‘Will you come and look at it with me after breakfast?’ Tabitha glanced at her parents, but they were too busy engrossed in their devices to hear her.
‘Let’s go now,’ Pixie replied. ‘I’m not hungry.’
Pixie left the room with her young friend. Bruce didn’t take his eyes off his iPad, but Olivia watched them leave, a frown furrowing her brow. She silently prayed that Pixie would send the spirit on its way, and make the house feel nice. If she couldn’t do it, Tabitha wouldn’t be the only one to be disappointed. She took a sip of tea and shivered. She really couldn’t last much longer in a house this cold.
Antoinette noticed that Daphne was drooling again and accused Zach of teaching her bad habits. Ulysses had received a text from Jean-Michel and was too busy writing back to notice Pixie heading off without him.
In the library, Tabitha found the secret lever in the bookcase and pulled it. ‘Can we go down the stairs, just to the bottom.’
‘Well, your parents don’t want you going down it. It might be dangerous.’
‘Tom said it was fine,’ Tabitha argued.
‘I’m sure he’s right. When I went down it, it was very well made.’
‘Then let’s have a little look.’ Tabitha grinned mischievously. ‘Just a little look,’ she added.
‘All right. But let’s be quick.’ Pixie didn’t want to be found breaking Bruce and Olivia’s house rule.
By the light of her mobile phone, Pixie led the way down the steps. It was cold and damp underground and smelt, not unpleasantly, of earth and mould. It had smelt like that in 1895, she recalled. ‘Wow, it’s amazing!’ Tabitha exclaimed. She put a hand to the wall. It was wet.
Pixie thought of Cordelia stealing out in the night, and of Felix who was very likely spirited away down this tunnel, and her stomach twisted with anguish.
‘Can you feel anything spooky?’ Tabitha asked hopefully. She was glad she wasn’t down here on her own.
Pixie narrowed her eyes. ‘A place like this is never going to have good energy. It’s underground for a start, and it’s abandoned. For a place to feel good, it has to be loved. There’s no love down here.’
‘Is that what it takes to make a place feel good?’
‘Yes, everything always comes back to love.’ As Pixie said those words she was struck suddenly by a flash of inspiration. She heard the words of the old gypsy woman echoing through time: Love will always bring you back . Pixie gasped as the truth of that phrase illuminated her mind with a dazzling light. How come she hadn’t thought of that before? It was so simple, like Alexander the Great and the Gordian Knot. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed excitedly. ‘I know what to do.’
Tabitha frowned. ‘About what?’ she asked.
‘I know how to sort this out,’ said Pixie, hope flaring in her chest. ‘Come on, let’s go back to the house. I know what needs to be done.’
By the law of attraction, love would take her back to Cavill.
Ulysses made himself comfortable on the old iron bed in Felix’s bedroom while Pixie settled into the chair. He had a strong cup of coffee to keep him focused, and another Ingrid Bergman movie on his iPad to entertain him. This time he chose Gaslight . Before he pressed play, he watched Pixie close her eyes and settle herself. ‘Good luck, Pix,’ he said. ‘I hope your love is strong enough to take you back.’
‘So do I,’ she replied, but something told her that it would be. It just felt right.
With the door locked and the children safely at the other end of the house, Pixie pressed the locket between her hands and closed her eyes. She concentrated on her heart and thought of Cavill. As his face materialised in her mind, she felt her chest flood with love. The more she envisaged him at the moment they’d been separated, the more intense the feeling grew. Like a sun it was, burning behind her ribcage, expanding, bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter until she felt herself surrounded by a white light. A light so powerful it seemed to dissolve her body until she herself was made of light too.
With a sigh of relief, she was lifted out of her body. As she floated a moment above it, she made up a mantra in her mind that she hoped would carry her back to Cavill: Love is eternal. Love is beyond time and space. Love connects us to those we believe we have lost. Love ensures that we never lose anyone, not really, not ever.
Then the walls of the room began to fade.
As easily as a swirl of smoke curling through gauze, Pixie slid through the veil.