Chapter 37
ALEX
The stairs led inexorably downwards, longer than the ones to the cellar which Alex had only glimpsed.
If Nick had been keen to keep her out of there, he’d be losing his mind at the thought of his daughter down here alone.
Alex edged her way down the treacherous steps.
They were steep and uneven in height, the stone old and worn smooth.
The candlelight flickered around her, sending shadows dancing wildly.
Oh, what she would have given for one of the high-powered torches with her equipment upstairs, or even her bloody phone.
But there wasn’t time to fetch anything now.
She’d wasted enough time finding the candle and the salt. It would have to do.
The sense of a presence at her back, the touch of phantom fingers on her shoulders pushing her forward told her that Sally was there too. And Sally was terrified. Maeve was down here, and in danger.
Finally, Alex reached the bottom. The ground underfoot was compacted earth and a huge empty space stretched out ahead of her, a circular undercroft, lined with old, uneven brickwork.
She knew this place, she realised. She’d seen it in the notebook, a floorplan.
So her grandfather had known about the door and what was hidden under his study.
It was vast, running from the front of the house to what must be almost as far as the kitchen to the back. Open, empty, and dark…
And in the middle, a very small figure, bathed in an eerie light, stood as still as any statue.
‘Maeve?’ Alex whispered, and her voice echoed around them, bouncing back to her far too loud, the single word multiplying into a cacophony that couldn’t be natural.
She could hear laughter behind it, terrible mocking laughter.
It didn’t sound like Chambers either. Nor was it like the birdsong laughter in the woods.
This was something else, unnatural and ancient.
Alex grabbed the salt cellar, brandishing it like a weapon.
‘Maeve, love, come here. Let’s get out of this place.’
But Maeve didn’t move. Not even a shudder.
She was staring fixedly at the floor and, as Alex reached her, she saw there was a pool of something dark and unpleasant collected there, in a hollow in the floor.
Like tar, or old blood, or… Alex didn’t want to consider what else it might be. The first two were bad enough.
And it glowed. The light, watery and sickly as it was, came from it. Bioluminescence, she tried to tell herself, or some kind of mineral or….
Ectoplasm, a voice in the back of her mind supplied. Possibly a memory of Daphne. But tainted. Because Daphne didn’t sound like that.
In that hospital in Texas they’d seen it running down the walls.
And she’d said that it could be creosote and rainwater, but the samples they collected showed nothing at all.
Gabe still had a jar of that somewhere in the apartment, old and dried out and flaking like paint. He liked to bring it out at parties.
The smell was the worst. It clawed at her nose – rot and putrescence, like something had died down here. A lot of things probably. She didn’t want to think about what they might be. And Maeve was standing right over it, staring into its depths. Transfixed.
Alex moved closer, wary not to startle the child, or fall on the uneven ground.
The candle was flickering again, in danger of going out, which was the last thing she wanted.
And the sense of Sally was still there, a wall of ice behind her pushing her forward.
But even Sally was growing weaker now, down here, any strength she had gathered draining out of her into that hole in the ground.
Exhaustion swept over Alex in a wave, followed by despair. Her limbs suddenly felt leaden and heavy, but she pushed onwards. This wasn’t normal. None of this was normal.
Whatever lurked down here was drawing strength from her now. From her and from Maeve.
‘Maeve, love,’ she tried again. ‘Maeve, you have to come back with me now.’
‘I can’t.’ Maeve’s voice sounded very calm, very still. ‘He’ll hurt you.’
The girl was holding another of her little charms, her hand a fist at its edge. The leaves and flowers trembled, her own tension translating to them. Her arm stretched out over the pool, but she didn’t let it go. Tears streaked her face.
‘There’s no one here, love,’ Alex told her. That was a lie, but she needed to make Maeve move. ‘No one to hurt me. How did you even get down here?’
She hadn’t come through the study. Alex would have seen her. Last she’d known, Maeve had been with Nick.
‘Through the cellar. There’s a hole at the back. I didn’t mean to come in, Alex, but Daisy said I had to. And I had this. I thought I could stop it hurting you. But now… now…’
A great sob welled up inside her and she shook as it escaped, the noise deafening in this eerie place. Her misery washed through the air and Alex almost took a step back.
‘Maeve,’ Sally murmured, another wave of despair.
Maeve’s panic went up a notch.
‘Mummy! You can’t be here. It isn’t safe. It wants you here. It owns the dead, Mummy. If it touches you…’ Maeve sniffed, as if steeling herself, and before Alex could stop her, she slid her hand through the charm, like a bracelet, dropped to her knees and plunged her hands into the hole.
Sally screamed and the house above them shook. Dust cascaded from the roof overhead.
Alex hurriedly shoved the salt cellar into her pocket so as not to lose it and grabbed Maeve’s shoulder, pulling her back from the hollow full of God knew what.
Something else came too, dragged up out of the depths in Maeve’s hands.
A glint caught Alex’s eye, a flash of candlelight on… was that gold?
The thing tumbled free of Maeve’s grip, rolling like a misshapen ball across the earthen floor away from them both with a terrible thumping sound. Maeve sobbed in shock and alarm and Alex pulled the girl to her.
There wasn’t time to look closer and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It all felt like a trap. Maeve stared at her blankly, almost as if she was dazed, her charm hanging around her wrist like a bangle. But something foul and black soaked it, dripped from it.
Perhaps it was all that was protecting her. Her hands and lower arms were covered in the same vile stuff.
This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
‘Hold out your hands, Maeve,’ Alex told her firmly and when the girl obeyed without question, she fumbled to get the salt cellar from her pocket.
The metal was uncomfortably cold, almost burning on her fingers, but she held onto it and tipped salt into Maeve’s hands.
‘I want you to hold onto this and think of being safe. Think of your dad, and your granny and whatever else keeps you safe, understand?’
‘I want Mummy.’
Could Maeve not see her anymore?
‘She is here, love,’ Alex said and the candle flame grew even brighter. So did a glow on the far side of the chamber where the thing Maeve had pulled out of the hole lay discarded. Alex tried not to notice that. ‘She’s here.’
Prayer, Gabe had said. Alex wasn’t even sure what she believed in but she knew that prayer worked, if only to calm the human mind.
From the darkness, two other figures were emerging now, small like Maeve but possessed of a malevolence Alex hadn’t expected. The two girls, she realised. And yet somehow not.
Rose opened her mouth, smiling to reveal glistening teeth, and Daisy’s eyes were as black and empty as the pit before them.
Beneath their skin was a tracery of fine black lines.
They weren’t the sweet and innocent child ghosts they had appeared to be.
Perhaps they had not been for a very long time. Malice came off them in waves.
Maeve began to cry again, soft shuddering sobs, and Alex wrapped the arm holding the candle around her, pulling her in close. ‘Don’t look, love. It’s okay. I’m here.’
‘That’s what they want, Alex. They tricked me. They said it would help but it… they lied to me! They want you here too.’
Did they? Well, they would regret that, she thought with a rush of vindictiveness. Ghosts or not, no one liked a bully.
Alex drew back her free hand and flung salt at them. ‘By the power of light and hope and all things sacred, I banish you. Leave this place and go to the other side.’