Chapter 34
ALEX
As night fell on the house again, Alex could already feel the presences growing. She was more sensitive to them now. Blaise, her ancestors, all those lost souls who had died in the house.
That brought her head up as the realisation struck her.
Theo hadn’t died in here, had he?
Her brother and her father had both been found in the woods, in the stone circle or nearby.
But she had heard Theo. Clearly.
She and Nick had both heard him.
What did that mean?
What happened to someone who died not in the house but in the woods? And why then was Theo coming back? To help her? Then why Theo and not Dad?
She opened the diary again, this time towards the end.
He has but one purpose, one drive, one true desire. He will set them all against all that they have loved, and make them his, body and soul. Omnes contra omnes. They will pour out libations over his head, offerings so sweet and so profane. They will give up all they are to him.
Her grandfather’s words sounded like the ravings of a madman. And yet, they were echoes of other things. Things she had heard in this house. The words on Blaise Chambers’ portrait. Things Blaise had said to her.
If it really was Blaise Chambers.
Living and dead are all trapped here. All our line are forfeit.
Those who bound him, and those who guard him still.
That is the price they promised and the price that must be paid.
We must atone and they must pay their debts.
Unto the very last, the two bloodlines combined.
And when that last thread is seized or cut, Crom will be free.
Crom? Her eyes lingered on the word. The voice had mentioned Crom, hadn’t it? She couldn’t remember. It slipped through her memories like an eel and her mind shuddered at its touch. And yet they went hand in hand, somehow. Chambers. And Crom.
And she was the last thread of the de Wildes. Grandfather meant her. When he wasn’t raving about bloodlines anyway. He had to mean her.
He has his eye on the girl. Even now. Especially now she’s of age.
I begged Edward not to bring her back but he has never believed.
She carries Kilfayne in her as much as de Wilde.
Chambers will use her, and tear the barriers down.
He will manipulate her desires and her dreams, make her think that his wishes are her wishes. And heaven help her if that happens.
Alex sighed and closed her eyes, wishing she had never come here.
She could still leave. She ought to leave.
It was the sensible thing to do. Anyone would tell her so.
Her online stalkers knew she was here and they’d soon be bombarding her again.
And Nick still wanted his wife. The house was manipulating them both or the sex last night wouldn’t have happened.
But she would be leaving all those ghosts trapped here.
Theo. She’d be leaving Theo. Trapped or not, something was drawing him back here.
She’d be leaving Nick trapped here too. In a living hell. Forever trying to hold the line against a force that had grown too strong, a reality that was tearing him apart.
And he said Sally had called him. That he didn’t know why he’d come here in the first place and clearly Sally wouldn’t let him go.
Nick didn’t talk about his past, about where he came from. Nothing before he met Sally. Like he barely remembered it.
‘Damn it, Sally Neary,’ Alex hissed under her breath. ‘Why did you have to embroil him in all this? Why did it have to be him?’
A thud came from upstairs. Of course it did. Who wanted her attention now?
Nick still hadn’t come back, not to Alex’s knowledge anyway. There was no one else here.
And she had just invoked the spirit of the last of the wise women of Kilfayne. Sally Walker who still had her claws so deeply in her widower that he called out her name during sex with someone else.
‘Right,’ she said and pushed herself up from her seat, the diary forgotten. ‘Right, enough. You want to have it out with me, Sally, let’s have it out. Because I have some things to say to you.’
Another thump. Like a dare.
Alex stormed up the stairs, only pausing to grab one of the recorders which she thumbed on as she followed the increasing noises from a room at the far end of the main corridor.
She didn’t know this part of the house but it didn’t matter.
It was hers. All of it. Just like Nick had said and she had had enough.
She threw open the door to reveal a narrow corridor with a slanted ceiling. It must have been servants’ quarters once upon a time but now it was heavy with dust and dimly lit by light coming through a dirty window at the far end.
Bells hung on metal coils along the wall to her left.
Another thud, this time from behind another door, further down the narrow corridor. There was something in there. Someone.
No. Something.
‘Who is it?’ she called out, her voice sounding much louder than she would have thought. ‘Who’s there?’
There was another noise, a guttural cackle, and then a shush, followed by a giggle. Then a scuffling and something else fell, a great clatter of noise.
Alex grabbed the door and flung it open.
The room beyond was filled with boxes and cases, and a jumble of lifetimes. Books turned almost white with dust spread across the floor, in between half a dozen chairs.
And in the middle of it all sat Maeve Walker, a battered tin tea set straight out of the 1960s laid out in front of her – three cups, three saucers – as if she had been playing with friends.
Perhaps she had.
Alex stared at her and Maeve stared back, open-mouthed, as if she had not expected any interruption, and certainly not from Alex.
‘Maeve? What are you doing here?’
Maeve looked one way and then the other, and again, Alex got the distinct impression she was making eye contact with people Alex couldn’t see.
‘I didn’t go into your office. Daddy said not to disturb you. So, I just came up here.’
‘But how did you get here? To the house, I mean. Why aren’t you with your grandmother?’
Maeve scrunched up her face. ‘I was with her. I was with her all morning and it was boring. We just went to people’s houses and I had to sit quiet and behave. I wanted to see Daisy and Rose.’
Daisy and Rose… Alex narrowed her eyes. The dust swirled softly around the girl, and in the half-light of the room Alex might almost be convinced that it formed two clusters, not much bigger than Maeve herself. Almost.
‘Are they here now?’ she asked dubiously.
Maeve frowned. ‘Yes…’ She sounded wary now, as if afraid that she was in trouble. And when Nick found out about this she probably would be.
‘Maeve, did you come up here all by yourself?’
‘I walked. I was very careful. I didn’t use the roads.’
Oh, sweet Jesus, Alex thought. Anything could have happened to her. She could have got lost in the woods. She could be dead in a ditch. She was only six, for God’s sake. Patricia had to be losing her mind about now.
‘Downstairs,’ Alex said. ‘Now, while I ring your grandmother.’
Maeve looked horrified. ‘But she’ll be cross.’
‘Oh, you bet she will.’ Alex was already pulling up the number on her phone.
Maeve began to cry, loudly, miserably, a long wail of a small child who didn’t know how to get out of whatever trouble she had just landed herself in.
Patricia answered the phone on the first ring, her voice pained and panicked. ‘Alex?’
‘She’s here at the Hall. I just found—’
A cardboard box flew off the top of one of the piles, just as if someone had hurled it right at Alex with all the strength in them. She turned just in time, and the box hit her shoulder, spinning her around, sending the papers inside flying around her like giant demented butterflies.
‘Daisy, no!’ Maeve wailed, dismayed and horrified. ‘Stop!’
‘Enough,’ Alex snapped, a voice of authority she wasn’t even aware she could produce.
Not at Maeve, but at the air beside her, and a figure shimmered into view.
Just for a second. A little girl, like Maeve.
And then she was gone again. Another pile of boxes started to shake threateningly. ‘Daisy, Rose, just stop it. Now.’
Patricia’s voice sounded tinny on the phone still in her hand. Damn, she was still there and now she sounded pissed off. Really pissed off.
Alex winced and put the phone back to her ear. She couldn’t afford to get into an argument right now. Better to be short and sweet. ‘Dr Neary? Sorry, something fell. She’s fine. She’s here with me. We’ll wait for you. I’ll call Nick. Let him know what’s happened.’
She hung up, aware of the ominous presences behind her even as she brought up Nick’s number and pressed the screen. ‘Maeve, let’s go downstairs,’ she said, carefully gentling her voice. The malice fizzled in the air around them. This wasn’t good. None of it.
Nick sounded out of breath when he answered, but he didn’t hide the concern in his voice at her calling him. The tone, however, said that he didn’t know. Not yet. Damn. ‘Alex? What’s wrong?’
‘Maeve’s here at the house. She just showed up on her own. We’re in the attic. I phoned Patricia but I think—’
‘What? I-I’m on my way.’
That was all he said. The line cut off and Alex wasn’t sure if he’d hung up or the signal had just died. In this house, anything was possible.
Maeve was sobbing loudly, thoroughly miserable now. She leaned against the wall, her hands over her face.
Alex felt terrible but all she could do now was damage control. ‘Look, let’s go down to the kitchen and find out if your dad left any biscuits around.’
‘He m-makes the best b-biscuits,’ Maeve agreed, hiccoughing through the sentence.
She held out her hand for Alex to take. But as Alex reached for her, she snatched it away.
No, not snatched. It was more like someone hit it aside.
Maeve gave a little gasp of pain and alarm.
‘No, Rose! That’s nasty. She’s my friend too. ’