Nothing stirred, no sound came from the unseen space beyond the opening. Indeed, Brenden’s senses seemed to give him nothing, until, that was, the stale air of the tunnel reached him. His immediate reaction was to take a few steps back, but he forced himself to press on. As he moved closer to the opening, the strange form of a figure, which stood just on the other side, was revealed to him. At first, Brenden thought he was misreading what his eyes were telling him as it appeared that the figure was over six and a half feet tall and covered from head to toe with sown-together linen rags. However, as Brenden drew closer, the figure did not transform into something else, but only became more real.
“I can hear you breathing,” croaked whatever it was.
Some memory of life told Brenden to run, but all the boy’s fear managed to do was to bind Brenden’s feet to the concrete beneath him. A fabric covered hand fumbled its way around the edge of the opening, then the figure stepped out, revealing the uneven pattern of lines that formed the seams which criss-crossed its body as well as the absence of even holes for eyes to break the fabric’s surface. With surprising speed, the figure covered the distance that separated itself from Brenden. A linen covered spider of a hand stretched out, found one of Brenden’s shoulders and slowly gathered together to form an iron grip.
“Come in,” it uttered.
***
Out somewhere in the darkness before her, Amanda knew the two teachers were sitting in the minivan waiting for the deputy. Following the disappearance of Brenden and the deputy into the farmhouse, Amanda, Adam and Ms Halford discovered that they had very little say to one another. Ms Halford had become particularly quiet after watching the boy go and Amanda subsequently began to feel that the ghost wanted nothing more than to leave but remained out of a sense that wandering off would be inappropriate. Though Amanda was similarly concerned about the propriety of the situation – especially as she happened to be with a couple of rather ancient individuals who possibly held such things to be of considerable importance – she eventually felt that having to suffer the tension created by the silence within the little group to be worse than whatever might result from breaking a few rules of social etiquette. She laid out an apology that it was time for her to leave and tried to sound as convincing as she could when she lied about having to return to some files of a case she had waiting for her in her car. The relief which resulted from Amanda’s little lie enabled the three to part with fond farewells and promises that they would have to keep in touch.
That farewell had passed more than a quarter of an hour before, and there Amanda continued to sit only several feet away from the two teachers. At first, Amanda made an effort to rifle through a few papers she had from a case, but soon enough she gave up the pretence and turned her attention to a game on her phone to pass the time. She did not wish to linger near the house: not only because of the discomfort she felt from having to wait so near the teachers from whom she had departed only to sit about in her car but also as the whole place weighed heavily with regret, failure and guilt. However, she had no intention of leaving before trying to see the deputy. After what Adam had told her about Packard and the man’s position as a blood supplier to the school, she felt again the need to press the man to let her investigate further, to tell her more about why he was avoiding her.
She was still not entirely sure why she was so compelled to continue on with the case. Perhaps there was a measure of guilt within her that she had been granted the chance to remain in the world above through the destruction of a life Mary and Peter had fought to maintain over decades. However, whenever this opinion raised itself, Amanda always quickly contradicted it by reminding herself of what Peter and Mary had done. Finally, she came to believe that though it may also have been true that a part of her was just curious to know - and that she had a desire to see if there was something underhand which had been protected through getting rid of the residents at the end of Balfour Lane - her prime motive was possibly even more selfish. Though she had to admit she had benefited from solving Brenden’s case, she was still angry at having been used. While she may have done a little work to help move the case along, the solving of it had almost been forced upon her, meaning that whoever was behind the assistance she had been given had no real faith in her ability to discover Peter on her own. Indeed, there was a good chance this person, who she firmly believed to be Packard, had hardly given her much consideration at all when he determined that it was
