Chapter 14
The text message, when it arrived, took my breath away.
Mia
Really sorry if I upset you the other day. What I said about it being a game was unfair. Clearly your sister has a genuine gift. Hope we can still be friends? It was good to see you this morning, even if we didn’t get the chance to talk xx
I wanted to reply to her, to tell her it was okay and of course she was forgiven.
But guilt stopped me in my tracks. Between us, Melissa and I had convinced Mia, along with Callie and Brodie, that my sister could see spirits.
It was a lie and I felt terrible about it.
What could I say to Mia, that being the case?
Anything I did say would be compounding the lie.
Feeling miserable, I shoved my phone back in my pocket, message unanswered.
I spent the entire afternoon walking around Rowan Vale searching for ghosts. What a waste of time! If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said they were hiding from me.
Tomorrow was Halloween and it was obvious that Melissa was getting desperate because she’d offered to have Honey while I went into the village.
She’d even promised to take our dog for a walk around the grounds of The Quicken Tree Inn, which was a big deal for her.
Melissa didn’t really do walking, and she certainly didn’t do walking with dogs.
Okay, so where should I concentrate my search on?
I realised that yesterday I’d made the mistake of gravitating towards the Swinging Sixties Street and the Victorian shops on the green, but they’d yielded nothing, and when I thought about it, I realised there was no real reason they should.
At least, not any more than anywhere else in this village.
Some of these cottages were hundreds of years old, so just because those two particular areas were dressed up to represent two specific eras in fairly recent history didn’t mean they’d be any more likely to be haunted.
I sat on a bench and gazed out over the river, thinking about Harmony Hill and hoping – though not with any real expectation – that she’d wander along the bank and introduce herself to me.
Ha! How likely was that? In this village, the chances of a ghost – any ghost – just walking up to me for a chat was—
‘Hiya! Please say you can see and hear me.’
I realised my mouth had dropped open as I gazed into the heavily made-up eyes of a very pretty young woman.
Actually, she was probably younger than she first appeared, as beneath the smoky eyeshadow, heavy eyeliner and thick black eyelashes was someone who looked no more than sixteen or seventeen.
Her blonde bob was heavily backcombed and she was wearing a short black and white dress with knee-high white boots.
She was the epitome of the swinging sixties.
She was also dead. Well, unalive, to be more polite.
‘I can,’ I said, rather dazedly.
Her face lit up. ‘Brilliant! We weren’t sure, you see… Can I have a chat with you?’
‘Er, of course. Take a seat.’
I patted the space next to me on the bench, but she shook her head, gazing anxiously around her.
‘Not here. He might see us.’
‘Who might see us?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Quintus Severus,’ she said. ‘Will you come with me?’
‘Er…’ Was this some sort of trap? But I knew there might never be another opportunity to talk to any of the ghosts on this estate, so I was already on my feet.
The young girl immediately hurried away, and I followed her as she fairly ran along the lane, her head turning left and right as she scanned the surrounding area for this Quintus Severus person – the Roman? – and headed out of the main village centre beyond the old mill and into open countryside.
My mysterious ghostly companion then walked straight into a field and called, ‘Come on! Hurry!’
‘Well, that’s easier said than done,’ I called back.
She’d just walked straight through a low fence and a thick hedge.
I wasn’t quite sure how I’d manage to join her in the field, or even why I’d want to.
What was with the cloak and dagger stuff?
And if Quintus Severus was the Roman soldier we’d heard about, why was she so afraid of him?
If there was a gate I couldn’t see it. I looked around but there was no one about, so I clambered over the fence and began rummaging around in the hedgerow, trying to find a way into the field.
Eventually I found a small gap and crawled through, though not without difficulty.
My ponytail caught on the branches and my glasses fell off, which made me panic a bit.
I didn’t have my spare pair with me, and I’d struggle without them.
Luckily, I managed to find them and replace them, although they’d need a good clean when I emerged from this hedge.
‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered as I finally got to my feet and brushed grass, mud and leaves from my jeans, ‘this had better be worth it.’
I went to wipe my glasses on my jumper and noticed a spider had settled on one of the sleeves. I flicked it away with a shudder.
‘You took ages,’ the girl complained as I cleaned my lenses and replaced my glasses so I could see her properly. She was standing with her hands on her hips looking extremely impatient. ‘Come on!’
‘You mean we’re not there yet?’
‘Nearly. Hurry up. He’s waiting for us.’
‘Who’s waiting for us?’ I demanded, but she’d already run ahead so I had no choice but to follow her, hoping as I went that I wasn’t about to bump into a violent Roman soldier and discover this had all been an elaborate plan to trick me.
There was a dilapidated barn in the field.
Its stone walls looked reasonably solid, but the roof was sagging and had holes in it and the window was broken.
The girl ran inside through the stone wall and I sighed, hoping there was an unlocked door as I didn’t fancy trying to get through that window with all the jagged glass.
Luckily, the barn doors weren’t locked. In fact, they were hanging off their hinges and didn’t even shut properly, so the inside of the barn was dark, damp and the least welcoming place I’d ever seen.
The young girl smiled. ‘You made it!’
A voice from the shadows said, ‘Are you sure you weren’t followed, Mill?’
‘I don’t think I was,’ she said nervously. ‘You can never tell with him, though, can you?’
‘Who are you?’ I asked, ‘and who are you so afraid of?’
A young man stepped into the light. He was wearing the uniform of a soldier in the Great War and had fair hair and a very young face. I suspected he wasn’t much older than the girl, bless him.
‘This is my boyfriend, Bill,’ the girl said happily, as she hooked her arm through his.
The soldier gave her a look of amazement. ‘Am I?’
She gave him a playful slap on the chest. ‘You’d better be, Bill Fairfax. I don’t let just anyone kiss me, you know!’
I stared at them both. ‘You…’ No, I didn’t want to know. ‘Who are you?’ I repeated.
The girl tutted. ‘I never gave you my name, did I? Sorry. I’m Millie.’
‘Millie and Billy,’ the soldier said with a chortle. ‘Mill and Bill.’
‘Yeah, all right, Bill,’ Millie said.
‘So why all the subterfuge?’ I asked. ‘Who is this Quintus Severus? Why are we hiding from him?’
‘You haven’t seen him then,’ Bill said flatly. ‘Hulking great brute, he is. Roman centurion. Came from North Africa, he did. Used to guard ’Adrian’s Wall, so he says. Built like a brick—’
‘That’s enough of that, Bill,’ Millie said. She gave me an apologetic look. ‘I think she’s got the picture, haven’t you? Thing is we had a vote, you see, and it was agreed that none of us would talk to you.’
‘You-you had a vote?’
‘Yeah. It’s a very democratic society we live in,’ Bill said, rolling his eyes.
‘Unless you’re on the losing side like us, of course.
See, I said we should talk to you. I don’t see why not.
Why shouldn’t our stories be told? Why shouldn’t people know what this place is really like?
But we were outvoted, weren’t we, Mill?’
‘We were. But we don’t think it’s fair, so we decided to talk to you anyway. They’re our stories, so why shouldn’t we have the right to tell them?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. I looked around, noticing a large bucket lying on its side.
It had a hole in the bottom but that didn’t matter.
I turned it upside down and sat on it. Millie and Bill sat on the floor, their backs against the wall, their legs crossed at the ankles.
Bill put his arm around Millie’s shoulders and she beamed at him.
Even ghosts had a better love life than I did, apparently.
At the thought, an image of Mia flashed through my mind, and I wondered how she’d feel about me talking to these two spirits.
‘So, who made you take a vote?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ Bill said, ‘I suppose it was Callie really, although she had plenty of backing. But she’s the owner of this estate after all, and what she says goes.
Don’t know how I feel about that to be honest,’ he admitted.
‘Never had a woman owner of the Harling Estate before. Always been blokes, as long as I’ve been here.
As long as anyone’s been here. It doesn’t sit right sometimes, her telling us what to do. ’
‘Oh, give over,’ Millie said, nudging him in the ribs. ‘Callie’s all right. She’s done a lot for this village, remember? We’ve a lot more going on than we had in Lawrie’s day. She has regular dances for us, up at the Hall. In the ballroom, like. And we’ve formed a band, haven’t we, Bill?’
‘A band?’
Bill nodded. ‘Yeah. High Spirits. It was supposed to be for a one-off performance to celebrate Callie and Brodie’s engagement, but we enjoyed it so much we carried it on. We have weekly singing sessions now. It’s fun.’
‘And there’s a fortnightly book club for us in the library,’ Bill said awkwardly. ‘Audiobooks and that, on account of us not being able to turn the pages. Not that I’m bothered about books,’ he added hastily.
Millie rolled her eyes. ‘And we can go to the cinema, too. Robyn and Curtis run The Magic Lantern, and they put on special showings for us. The living locals don’t mind.’