Chapter 38
ALEX
It was not the most beautiful prayer in the world but it didn’t have to be.
It just had to state an intention. Daphne had always said the simpler the better.
But then Daphne always spoke about following the light, and of loved ones waiting on the other side.
Gentle, cajoling words, offering peace and forgiveness.
It didn’t have to be about God, it was all about the intent, the desire behind it and the nature of that desire.
And all Alex wanted was those ghosts gone from here and far away from Maeve.
They had too much hold over her already.
But as the spirits of the two girls recoiled and vanished Alex could already feel something else rising.
This came from the darkness underneath, from the shadows, from the earth itself, bubbling up like whatever tar-like substance filled the hollow in front of them, oozing across the dirt floor now.
Alex skidded back as it moved, the surface breaking for a moment and the foul water, or whatever it was, sloshing towards her boot.
Maeve screamed in fear, and this time, Alex wrenched her back behind her, shielding the girl with her own body.
‘Maeve!’
It was Nick’s voice. There was a crash and the sound of something crunching on the far side of the undercroft. It sounded like he was tearing his way through the wall from the cellar.
‘Nick, there’s a door in the study!’ Alex yelled. ‘There’s another way down. Bring a torch!’
She didn’t even know if he heard her until the racket stopped.
And then the laughter began.
It came from the ground, from the ceiling, from all around the two of them.
Maeve’s arms locked around Alex’s leg. Alex could feel the wet goo seeping in to her jeans, like acid against her skin underneath, and she couldn’t have run even if she had been able to find the strength.
All she could feel was the ground shaking like they were in the middle of an earthquake.
The fetid liquid sloshed out of the pit, that eerie glow illuminating the chamber.
In the far corner, where whatever Maeve had pulled from the pit had rolled, Alex caught a flash of dull gold.
It looked like a misshapen figure, its mouth open and hungry. What was it?
Blaise Chambers rose up before her, coalescing in that light over the pit into his handsome, devilish form, his predatory smile fixed on Alex. He offered her his hand and when she recoiled, he laughed.
‘He’s Crom,’ Blaise murmured. ‘You know him. You know him most of all. You were here before, Alexandra. You were to have released him, but you were too young, and your father interfered. It takes a woman with de Wilde blood. Not this child. But you can still serve your part now. You will free us all. It was meant to be you.’
No. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t happening.
Memories, tangled and worn at the edges, flooded back with terrifying clarity.
She had been sixteen years old. Her father had told her to run. And she had run. She had run so far and so fast that she thought she would break apart. She had never stopped running.
Dad had found her here in the darkness. Her father had come to find her.
She had run and he had never left.
They hadn’t been in the forest. Not at first. She remembered now. They’d been in the darkness. Down here. And that face, that same open-mouthed hungry face, had come alive and grinned at her.
Alex’s hand trembled, the one holding the candle, a tremor that ran up her arm.
Blaise took another step towards her. She just had to drop the candlestick and supplicate herself before him, reach out for him, beg him… She could already feel her fingers loosening, her knees bending, her mouth opening. It would only take a moment. Drop the candle, let the darkness take her and …
Sally Walker swept over her and through her, as cold as a winter’s night, her voice twisted into an incoherent scream. Alex threw herself and Maeve back with a cry of alarm and watched in horror as whatever remained of Sally’s spirit threw itself at Blaise.
And he caught her with hands like eldritch claws, holding her tight.
Sally jerked like an old rag caught on a thorn bush.
Her eyes opened wide, her mouth wider, huge and stretched beyond bearing, a scream that was both wrenched out of her and made up of the core of her.
But the sound came from Maeve, still clinging to Alex’s leg, her fingers like nails driving in through the material of Alex’s jeans.
‘Oh Sally, sweet Sally,’ Blaise purred. ‘So impetuous. You always thought you knew best. And you were wrong. I destroyed you in life. Now let me do the same in death.’
Dark lines threaded Sally’s pale skin, moving like living things now, like black worms under her incorporeal flesh. Blaise Chambers was claiming the spirit of Sally Walker now, corrupting all that was left of her, making her his own.
No, Alex’s mind screamed at her. This had to stop. It needed to stop.
She still had Maeve’s charm around her own wrist and it hadn’t lost its power. Not yet. This was Sally’s symbol, her creation, even if her daughter’s hands had made it. This meant something to her.
‘Sally,’ Alex shouted and her voice didn’t even sound like her own.
It was strong and powerful, a voice that would not be argued with.
Somehow she found the words Daphne would have used.
‘Sally Walker! Depart this place in peace and in light. You are no longer needed here. Open your heart to the light waiting for you, Sally. Look for it. There are people waiting for you. They’ve been waiting so long.
It’s time to go, do you hear me? Now, before the darkness devours you. ’
There had to be a way to stop this, to save her. To drive Blaise away and break his hold on the spirits of the house, before he took Sally as well. Blaise laughed, his fingers digging into Sally’s incorporeal flesh. Sally flung back her head and screamed, her mouth distended in agony.
‘You think you have power here, Alexandra de Wilde? You think this is your land? You have denied it for twenty years. And with her gone, the guardian can be yours and yours alone. Even if you could help her, why would you?’
Because it was the right thing to do. Because she couldn’t let him take Sally. He would just keep coming, for her, and eventually for Maeve.
At that thought Alex locked eyes with Sally, her frantic hollow gaze.
Maeve was her daughter, her child, the one good thing she had ever done in her life, she seemed to say. She needed to protect her. That was all she had ever wanted. That was why she was still holding on.
‘Maeve is protected,’ Alex told her. ‘Nick loves her. He’ll do anything for her.’
‘Not enough,’ said Blaise. ‘And when she comes of age she’ll be mine as well. Mine forever, all of you. You will give her to me.’
No. Alex’s hand tightened into a fist around the salt cellar. It was all she had but most of the salt was gone now. She’d driven off the girls and poured it into Maeve’s hands to protect her. And Chambers was so powerful.
What would Daphne do? She’d ask for help, call on her guardian spirits and reach for the light, as she always did.
Because Daphne had hope. ‘Your little psychic friend?’ Chambers taunted.
‘I poured myself into her and almost ripped her mind apart. And what a delight it was. She couldn’t fight me.
What makes you think you could? You’re nothing, Alexandra. ’
Daphne saw the best in people. She always had. Whereas Alex…
She faltered, took a step back, and Sally gasped in pain as the darkness devoured more of her. Maeve cried out and tried to pull away, to run to her mother, but Alex couldn’t let her do that. She might just be a child but if Chambers got his claws into her who knew what he’d do.
This is your land… It might have been Sally’s voice. It was an echo, an agonised sigh, a prayer. I know it by the blood we share, the blood of Kilfayne. Claim it, as you claimed it with Nick. Call it. Give yourself to it and let it take me. It’s the only way. Call the wild…
Alex froze, the charm in her hand, and the tainted earth beneath her… But beneath that… in the rocks and foundations of the world… this was her land. All of it. Wildewood was hers. She had said so herself when Nick found her in the woods.
This is my land.
Alex reached out desperately. She didn’t even know what for, not really. But she remembered… long ago… calling for help like this… desperate to escape. And her dad…
‘Run, Alex! You have to run! NOW!’
But she couldn’t run. She couldn’t leave Maeve. She couldn’t leave Sally. So she reached out, blindly, desperately, just like she had all those years ago… just like before, something responded, something old and powerful. Something far beyond her.
The scent of the forest erupted around her, the smell of trees and freshly unfurling leaves, of the undergrowth and the mulch beneath it, the green of growing living things.
And it wound through Alex’s body, making her gasp in alarm.
The charm she held in her clenched fingers sprouted new leaves, and flowers unfurled.
The forest filled the air around her, the wild wood and the charm which had brought it, vibrant and strong.
‘I’m with you, Lex,’ Theo’s soft voice murmured. ‘Let’s finish this.’ Her brother. The other half of her. She could feel his hands on her shoulder, the warmth of his body. She could feel Theo all around her. Living, vibrant, real…
‘Theo?’
The sense of his smile was all she had by way of a reply, and the leaves wound themselves around her, the taste of them in her mouth, their rough touch brushing her skin. She shuddered with recognition.
She remembered. The forest, the way it had enveloped her, protecting her. The way it had taken her into its heart and …
Blaise snarled something and pushed Sally to her knees before him, hands tightening around her throat.
‘Get the fuck off her, you bastard!’ Alex hurled what was left of the salt at Chambers, the salt cellar arching like a line of light through the shadows, and with it came the force of the woods in a storm.
He fell back, flailing as the granules fell like scattershot on his ghostly flesh, punching tiny holes in the apparition.
Sally tumbled to the ground at his feet, but he wasn’t paying attention to her now.
The light from the silver spread through him, like fire eating through tissue paper.
He writhed, trying to escape it. All around them, from every corner of the undercroft, voices screamed and Alex wrapped herself around Maeve, trying to hold her close and protect her.
There was an explosion of light, so bright Alex had to close her eyes.
But in the afterimage burned onto her eyelids, she saw something else.
Theo’s figure, filled with green and gold light, pulling Sally up, taking her in his arms and holding her close.
The remaining leaves from the charm turned to motes of light and flew towards them.
Theo grinned at Alex. That stupid reckless trademark Theo grin.
And then her brother and Sally Walker were gone.
The candle fell, the flame snuffing out on the muddy ground and the undercroft was plunged into a darkness so complete that Alex wouldn’t have been able to see her hand in front of her face, even if she wasn’t half blind from what had just happened.
It had just happened, hadn’t it? That had really happened.
Breathing hard, she sank to the ground and gathered a sobbing Maeve to her. Maeve… the little girl shivered in her arms. It wasn’t her fault. Just like it hadn’t been Alex’s either.
‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ she murmured, running her hand over Maeve’s hair. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you. He’s gone.’
And so was Maeve’s mother. And Theo…
Alex’s throat tightened. Somewhere in the shadows she heard a laugh, soft and sibilant. Not Chambers’ laugh, not this time. It came from the far corner where Maeve had thrown whatever she had pulled out of the ground.
Not gone… Free…
The darkness seemed more solid there, like a living thing, boiling and rising, thick as that horrible tar-like substance, rank and creeping towards them. Alex shuffled back blindly.
Another sound filled the chamber, like thunder, but this time it was more localised, coming not from all around them and beneath them, not from the shaking earth and the walls of the house, but from behind them, where the stairs descended from the study.
A beam of light swept back and forth over the undercroft like a lighthouse on speed.
‘Maeve! Alex!’
Nick skidded to his knees beside them, his face white and drawn with horror.
Alex released the girl to him but laid a hand on his arm to still him, trying to ignore the way she was shaking.
She moved his torch around to shine on the pool of black sludge and felt him freeze as he saw it, all his muscles going rigid with alarm.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
She lifted the torch up a little and it picked out the grinning face of the golden idol. It sat upright in the corner, as if it had been carefully placed there, surveying the whole undercroft. Staring at them.
‘And what the fuck is that?’ Nick exclaimed.
She didn’t know the answer to that. She couldn’t seem to find words.
‘Alex? What happened?’ Nick asked, trying desperately to gentle his own voice and barely managing it.
Alex opened her mouth to answer but she was suddenly exhausted, her head pounding with a headache. All that she had in her had gone into freeing Sally from whatever that thing was. And she wouldn’t have managed without Theo.
He’d come to help her, to save Sally. She had called him when she called the wild wood and now… now he was gone again. The pang of loss shot through her again, that emptiness. He was gone. And so was Sally.
And how did she begin to explain any of that? Especially to Nick.
I exorcised your wife. She’s gone forever. You’ll never see her again. She went with my brother, the man who stole her from you in life as well…
No. No, she couldn’t say that.
‘She saved Mummy,’ Maeve piped up, unexpectedly, her voice still racked with sobs.
‘The bad man had Mummy and Alex saved her and set her free. Alex and the man made of the light from the forest. And they saved me. From the dark man.’ She sobbed again, rubbing her hands furiously on her clothes in desperation.
‘Daddy, there’s icky stuff all over me. I can’t get it off. ’