There was only candlelight this time, which they’d stood on any surface they could find. Teardrop flames and little tea lights danced. Joyce had even bundled in one of those expensive Yankee Candles from the garden centre. ‘Sycamore Dreams’ it was called. It made the cold air in here sickly sweet.
If she was in another person’s life – like, a normal person who worked at Jessops selling cameras – who came home at night to grumpy kids and miserable husbands. If that was her right now, she might launch her own personal investigation into why candlelight and shadows put a person on edge. Was there something inherently wrong when the shadow of somebody’s nose sways and grows and leaps up to cover the eyes? Perhaps there was some sort of science behind why certain physical properties made you feel fear.
But right now she was just sitting here, terrified of the way the flames moved, close to tears.
They’ll put that on your gravestone, Rach.
Rachel Wasson, sound designer, daughter and very bad sister. Who was always and consistently, for her entire lonely life … close to tears.
She swallowed just as Joyce started to speak. ‘I can feel her coming through.’
Rachel started to close her eyes and stared down at the white flowery top, lying on the floor. It looked tiny and impossibly childish. Like it was for a baby and not a nine-year-old. Already Rachel’s lips were moving and hot frequent whispers were warming up her icy-cold mouth. The words I’m sorry, I’m so sorry tumbled from her psyche like lava.
And it was cold. Incredibly cold. Enough for her to be shivering under the cardigan they’d let her wear over the top of her late-90s T-shirt. By now, though, she knew it was impossible to tell what was cold and what was terror. She had passed the point of differentiation on such topics.
Bob reached over and tapped a button on one of his gizmos. In his hand he held up an EMF meter. He waved it about, like it was a mobile phone trying to get a signal. Not that many signals worked down here.
The candles lit up a quivering oval of dirty bricks arching above them, but they didn’t reach all the way to the other end of this particular vault.
This was the special vault, of course. Holly’s special vault. The one they left her in on a cruel, drink-fuelled lark.
We’ll have the seance here, Joyce had said. In calm, soothing tones. We’ll be closer to Holly and that moment. We’ll be away from the negativity of the police. She thought of all that quick bundling up of equipment into Bob’s car, so they could be gone from Barley Street before the police arrived. At one point the two old fogeys even giggled, like this was an adventure. A mischievous romantic romp for them both. Until they actually got down here and their faces turned pale. Rachel figured their washed-out skin was just a classic pensioner reaction to climbing a ladder. But now she could tell it was something deeper. They looked scared.
And Rachel had said yes, of course. Because it all made a sad and perfect sense to be here. And not only that, just as she couldn’t tell the difference between cold and terror any more, she’d equally lost understanding of madness and sanity. There was little awareness of such demarcations any more. Frameworks had vanished. A few days ago she’d have never, ever allowed herself to be in this position, but that was her false self. The projection of who she thought she was. The new self she was trying to concoct was just an avatar. A computer game character. Who she really was, deep inside herself, was right here, finally facing the danger and not running from it. Wearing old, ill-fitting jeans. Was she brave, stupid, gullible or wise? She hadn’t the first clue how to answer that question. Rachel looked over Joyce’s shoulder into the vast ink of blackness. Like the three of them were floating in starless space. Satellites built and designed to constantly revolve around ‘Holly’s heartache’… as Joyce so frequently liked to put it. At one point Rachel considered that these weren’t shadows around them at all. They were swarms of unnameable insects, scuttling as easily as the rabbit danced … closer and closer on the command of her sister.
‘She’s calling out to you, Rachel,’ Joyce said. ‘She’s started.’
Rachel could feel her heart literally vibrating in her chest. She thought of her only girlfriend, Debbie, stroking her thumb against her wrist. The soft, gliding caress that always calmed her down.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said it out loud this time. ‘I’m so sorry, Holly. For making you do what you did …’
‘Say it again. Open your heart.’
‘Holly …’ Rachel sniffed. ‘It was the worst thing I have ever done in my life. And if it helps … it’s ruined me. It’s coiled me up. I’m a bitch and I’m sorry.’
‘Shhh,’ Joyce put her hand up.
Bob frowned, and Joyce was frowning too, her eyes were so tightly shut her face looked like it was cracking.
‘Something isn’t right,’ Joyce said. The thin mounds of her chest rose up and down in quick, worrying movements.
Rachel looked at Bob. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Quiet.’ He moved closer to Joyce. Leant in and whispered, ‘Talk to me, love.’
Joyce opened her eyes, candlelight flickering in the old pupils. She locked her gaze on Rachel. ‘She doesn’t want an apology.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t say sorry … that’s not …’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘She isn’t angry she’s … she’s scared for you …’
‘What?’
‘It’s not anger … God no … it’s fear … Something’s not right.’
Rachel looked down at Holly’s white dress, because now it was quivering and moving. Her heart, which was already pounding, felt like it might crank so fast it could reach the fluttering rate of a baby’s she once recorded for a client, during
