He’d left Uncle Mike as soon as he was old enough to look after himself, gone to University to study journalism, blotting out his fractured childhood, fabricating new memories to smother the ones that didn’t exist anyway. He’d been successful, until now. Harry Rose’s notebook had opened up a crack in his mind, allowing images to seep out: a bare room with a crib, an uncarpeted floor, two dirty-faced young children, a man with a beak for a face… and there was nothing more, just the grubby taste of fear at the back of his throat.
“It’s me,” he said, confirming the fact, trying to make it stick. “I’m the baby… I was there, in the flat. I was haunted.” And in many ways, he still was: haunted by the past that he could not remember, and by the screams of the siblings he had never known. Little Jack and Daisy-like-a-flower; the twin sibling who had never lived: he detected a trace memory of fondness for his brother and sister — much in the same way that he loved the characters in all the best books he’d read as a child.
Of his parents, if indeed that’s what they had been, there was no clue.
Then, as the cracks opened slightly wider, he had a glimpse of something else: a man and a woman, dressed in dark robes, kneeling beside a television set draped with a black cloth. Lying on the cloth was what looked like a hen or a chicken, but it was covered in blood. The man and the woman were chanting, rocking back and forth, and the shadows around them looked alive, not like shadows at all…
There was nothing more, just that single snapshot, like an isolated scene from a film.
The thought was like a knife through his heart. It could not be denied. It came with the image; a nice little package, all wrapped up in despair. He knew it was true — he felt it. His parents had tried to sacrifice him, as part of a deal to protect the twins. But something had gone wrong. Instead of him being taken, and the man and the woman rewarded with whatever it was they sought, the entire deal had fallen through. The ghost had left them… but it had taken with it something vital that he and the twins were unable to live without. Their souls, their life- force… whatever it was that made them who they were.
He didn’t think he’d ever find out what had soured the sacrifice, but none of that mattered now. His book would never be written, because he was a vital component in the plot. There was no way that he could write a story that was still happening, with no real ending in sight. He was a reporter, not a novelist; he dealt in cold, hard facts, not blood-hot fiction.
There was a section of hoarding that had either blown down in a wind or been vandalised. Marc made his way over to the area, keeping an eye out to make sure that he wasn’t seen. He had no idea who might be hanging around out here, but he didn’t want to be disturbed.
The fallen section was easy to climb over. He grabbed hold of a timber upright, hauled himself on top of the fence-like structure, and leapt nimbly over to the other side. As he did so, a strange sensation passed through him: it was like a cold breeze stirring up his insides, creating a chill at the pit of his stomach.
The double doors were open. He was expected. He paused outside, wondering if this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Who the hell had opened up the place, and why had they done so? Was this some kind of trap, or were there perhaps villains waiting inside, ready to mug him and give him a beating? Perhaps there was nothing at all supernatural about this situation, and he was simply walking into an empty building where a group of drugged-up maniacs would hurt him.
Why had he been so quick to believe that there was more to this situation than reality? He’d never believed in ghosts. He even questioned the motivation behind his quest for the truth about the Northumberland Poltergeist… a quest that, if he was honest, he’d never taken too seriously. For instance, this was the first time he’d been to see the building where it all happened. He’d had no idea about the baby—
(
—until the spirit of Harry Rose had been forced to stick the notebook in front of his eyes.
He was an idiot; he had no clue what he was doing. He never had done.
But still he pushed wide the doors and stepped inside, crossing over the threshold from one story to another; one reality to the next. His skin seemed to quiver on the bone. His head was filled with the sound of humming.
The foyer was filled with hummingbirds, but the sound was inside his skull, not out here in the real world. The birds were motionless. There were hundreds of them, hovering silently in the air, perched on windowsills and standing on the floor. They all watched him with their tiny beady eyes. They were like windup toys; there was a strange, innocent beauty to them that both scared him and calmed his nerves.
“I’m coming in,” he whispered. The birds gave no response. They didn’t move.
Carefully, he made his way across the foyer, watching where he placed his feet in case he stood on one of the small birds. He thought about that old Hitchcock film: the final scene, with Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren making their way through a crowd of similarly silent and watchful avian antagonists. It was eerie. There was a sense of calm, but beneath that there was the suggestion of frantic movement, almost panic.
He moved slowly towards the stairwell and out of the foyer. At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and took a moment to catch his breath. He’d not been breathing that entire time as he crossed the foyer, walking among the hummingbirds. His mouth was dry; his throat ached.
After a short while, he continued up the staircase, holding on to the handrail as he climbed. The steps were filthy; the stairwell smelled of old piss mingled with the coppery hint of blood. He didn’t want to be here but he was unable to turn around and leave. He had to follow wherever the story —
The flat was on the top floor. He remembered, even though he had no memories of ever having been there. He climbed slowly, reluctantly, but with a sense of purpose. It didn’t take him long to get there, but during the short climb it seemed that the seasons had changed; the world had turned, everything had altered subtly. When he stood on the top floor, bathed in sweat, it was as if he’d stepped into another place, perhaps a country whose borders messily intersected his own version of reality.
“I’m here. I’m home.”
The building was silent. The rooms were empty. There was nobody else here, just him… him and the birds.
Every door but one on the top floor was shut. The only one that was open belonged to the flat where the haunting had taken place. Again, he knew this instinctively, as if there was hidden knowledge stored inside him and only his emotions could read it. He listened for sounds of movement, but none came. He truly was alone here, inside his own lost past. There was no one else to help him, to hold his hand. His brother and sister were dead and he had no idea what might have happened to his real parents.
He was alone, and that made him happy.
He stepped softly across the landing, towards the open door. There was no light in there; it was pitch-dark, like the entrance to a cave. Sunlight lay across the walls and the floor out here, on the landing, but inside the room was only darkness. It was fitting somehow; he would not have expected anything else.
He stopped immediately outside the door, his breath coming in short, sharp jags. Sweat poured down over his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, but still his vision began to blur.
“Home.”
He took a step forward, and then another, and entered the place where it had all started.
Darkness swallowed him. Then it receded, and he finally saw what had happened all those years ago. The final chapter of his story — which was also the prologue — unfurled before his eyes.
