Chapter 35
NICK
It wasn’t the first time Maeve had taken off. It wouldn’t be the last either, Nick was sure.
‘She’s a runner, that one,’ Patricia had said as soon as the child could walk.
Maeve ran every opportunity she got and she never looked back.
Nick had never been sure if it was because she knew someone would come after her or if it didn’t occur to her that she might actually get lost. Not at three, not at five, not now at six.
She knew the woods, and the house, she knew the village like the back of her hand and all the paths in between, across the fields and through the woods.
Her little feet always led her back here, to Wildewood Hall.
And once they lost Sally, Maeve had wanted to be nowhere else.
‘With her da,’ the villagers had said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
And it ought to have been. She had lost her mother so she wanted to be with her father.
As if she was afraid of losing him too. But Nick feared it was something else.
She didn’t want to be with him so much as here, in the Hall.
Where the spirit of her lost mother still lingered. Where she had friends.
And he had to be here too. Because who else was going to guard the place, to keep the spirits from doing untold harm? Patricia might think that everything Sally believed was arrant nonsense but that didn’t change anything.
And now Patricia was blaming Alex? No. No, that wasn’t fair. If all this was anyone’s fault, it was his.
He should have been firmer with Maeve. He should have abandoned the Hall and the woods like Patricia said, or found some way to juggle this better.
If there was such a way.
But it was far too late now.
‘Enough, Patricia,’ he said, his voice far darker in tone, the voice he used for the woods, not for his mother-in-law, intentionally drawing her fire on him. ‘This isn’t Alex’s fault. I know you’re angry. I know you’re scared. But Maeve’s here. She’s fine.’
Patricia snorted. She definitely was not herself today. Nick shot her a glare but she ignored him. ‘I can’t watch her all the time. I’ve got a practice to run, and there’s no one else to do it.’
‘I told you I’d pay for a childminder,’ Nick began. It was an old argument, one he really didn’t want to rehash again, especially not now.
‘And who is that going to be? Some idiot like one of the Murphy girls? Faces never out of their phones. Our Maeve would run rings around them and you know it.’
It was not the time to point out that Maeve was already running rings around Patricia or they wouldn’t be here.
‘Why don’t you get Patricia a cup of tea?’ Alex tried to intervene. She didn’t have to, especially given what had been said. He was never so grateful to hear another voice. ‘She’s had an awful shock, you know that. I’ll stay with Maeve. We’ll go to the study and wait, is that okay?’
Nick looked at his daughter, her pale little face, half-ghost herself. Her arms were wrapped around Alex’s leg like she was clinging to a rock in a storm.
He’d seen the photo of Maeve with the two ghostly figures. The gleam in their eyes. The look on their faces. And he had a really bad feeling about it. He didn’t want to consider what it might mean.
He just wanted his daughter to be safe. He didn’t want to leave her right now.
But Alex was right. Patricia was beside herself and he needed to calm her down first if any of them were going to get anywhere.
‘I won’t let her out of my sight, Nick,’ she said. ‘I promise.’
And he believed her. Alex would look after Maeve, keep her occupied somehow. At least until he could get Patricia calmed down. She would keep her safe.
Patricia drank the tea with a grim determination but finally a wave of exhaustion passed over her and she looked old. Far older than her years.
‘I apologise,’ she said at last, oddly formal with embarrassment now, her eyes the same steely grey as her hair. ‘I-I shouldn’t have said any of that. I don’t know what came over me.’
Nick wanted to say Wildewood Hall but he didn’t dare.
She’d have opinions on that and it wasn’t the time.
Besides, she’d only just set foot inside the house so that wasn’t an excuse.
Not that she needed one, not really. Patricia adored Maeve.
She must have been beside herself with fear when she realised her granddaughter was missing.
And maybe the spirits here just latched onto that, ratcheting it up, revelling in her distress. The bastards.
‘No need to apologise. You had a fright, that’s all. And I know she’s a handful.’
‘She’s a joy,’ his mother-in-law said softly. ‘But she’s too like Sally sometimes. Too like my mother as well. Wild. Too full of fancies. It scares me, Nick, the situations she could put herself in. Has put herself in. It’s not right.’
Nick chewed on his lower lip, not sure how to respond to that. ‘She’s just a little girl with an active imagination, Patricia. And yes, Sally and your mother filled her head with stories, but they’re just stories…’
Patricia made a disgruntled ‘pah’ noise.
‘We both know that’s not true. I’ll apologise to Alex. She didn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve any of this, even if she is a de Wilde.’
‘Don’t—’ he began, but she waved him to silence.
‘Well, she is. And I can see the effect she has on you. And on this place as well. Right from the first I could see it. I’m from Kilfayne, boy.
I may not practise what our foremothers taught, nor set any great stock by it, but I’m not without my own skills.
Be careful, Nick. That family… they bring nothing but ruin to us.
Even if they don’t mean it. They can’t help themselves.
Look at Sally and Theo. Look what they did. ’
Nick suppressed a groan. He really didn’t want to bring this up. Especially not with his mother-in-law. ‘They fell in love.’
‘While she was married to you.’
Nick shrugged awkwardly. He would have thought Patricia would have taken Sally’s side. He’d never dared to bring it up just in case she did. Because Patricia was the closest thing to family he had besides Maeve and he didn’t want to lose her too.
‘It wasn’t their fault,’ he whispered at last. ‘It was this place. This house. It changes people.’
‘Not you.’
He tried to smile. It didn’t work. ‘Me most of all, I think.’
Patricia shook her head, got to her feet and ran a hand over his hair.
It was an unexpectedly maternal gesture and Nick didn’t know what to do with it.
He just stared at her. ‘I don’t know everything that our Sally did to you, pet, but she didn’t deserve you.
Other men would be raging still. But you defend her.
Now, I should take her wayward child back home with me.
Like you said, this house changes people and I don’t want it changing our girl.
She’s too precious for that.’ She paused, thoughtful.
‘Or changing me, for that matter. That wasn’t like me at all.
I don’t know what to say. The sooner I’m away the better.
Besides, there’s a storm coming in tonight. ’
Nick forced himself to grin. She was from Kilfayne after all. ‘Did you smell that on the wind?’
Might as well try to make a joke of it. But Patricia wasn’t laughing. Neither was he.
‘I heard it on the weather report. Like a normal person, thank you very much. Nasty one, I believe, a red warning. Storm Ferdia or some such. Why do they keep giving them names now?’
Nick shrugged again. To make them feel more real, he thought.
More of a threat so people would take them seriously.
Like the ghosts who lingered here, it was supposed to be easier if they had names rather than left them as faceless, terrifying entities.
‘I should make sure the estate’s secure then. ’
‘Always comes first, doesn’t it?’ Patricia muttered. He didn’t know what to say to that. He felt a bit like he’d just been told off.
‘But,’ she went on grimly, ‘before I go, I need to say I’m sorry to Alex. You –you really do like her, don’t you?’
The question caught him off guard. It sounded light and carefree, but there was weight to it he couldn’t define. He felt his face heat and winced. How on earth was he supposed to tell his late wife’s mother how he felt about another woman, let alone how he felt about a woman like Alex?
Apparently, he didn’t need to.
‘Well, that answers that,’ the older woman said with half a laugh. ‘All right then. Well, I’ll make peace and get out of your way.’
‘All right?’ he asked cautiously. ‘Just like that?’
For a moment he thought she might say something else but then Patricia just sighed.
‘You deserve something good in your life, Nick Walker. Something more than just little Maeve. You deserve a life and someone you love who truly loves you. And if you truly think she can give it to you I won’t argue. ’
‘It’s a bit early to talk about love, Patricia. I hardly know her.’
She rolled her eyes dismissively. ‘You know your mind and you know your heart. But please, dear God, boy, be careful. I wouldn’t see you hurt again.’
Nick didn’t stick around to hear Patricia’s apology.
He didn’t want it to look like he had demanded it, and it didn’t seem his place to eavesdrop either.
Maeve came out of the study to let them talk, her shoulders still tense, her head low.
So, Nick swept her up in his arms and held her close.
She smelled of the forest, all fresh leaves and flowers and sap, his little girl, winding her arms around his neck like ivy, and squeezing tight.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered in that tone she always used when she wanted to be forgiven. ‘Is Granny very angry?’
He let out a gruff laugh. ‘You frightened her. People sometimes get angry when they’re frightened. You need to tell her you’re sorry.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘And don’t do it again.’