‘I don’t get you.’
‘Spirits who get into contact with me from the Otherland mostly don’t smell of nothing at all. Usually they’re too faint and distant and all I can hear is their voices, right inside the back of my brain. Now and then, though, they’re closer than that, especially the ones who have only just passed over. I can see their outlines sometimes, shimmering, and I can smell embalming fluid, or smoke. Rotten flesh, sometimes. That’s what I mean by dead smells.’
‘But these aren’t dead smells?’
Ada closed her eyes again and breathed in. ‘No. And that’s what makes it so strange. There are definitely presences in this room… multiple presences. But I wouldn’t call them spirits.’
‘What are they then?’ asked Vicky. ‘Ghosts?’
‘No, they’re not ghosts neither. Ghosts are supposed to be the souls of dead people who come back to haunt us because they still had unfinished business when they died, or because they want to get their own back on folks who have done them wrong. But there’s no such thing as ghosts like that.’
‘So what are these – presences?’ Rob asked her. ‘We’ve heard people whispering at night, outside our bedroom door. Could that have been them?’
‘I don’t know, shag, to be honest with you. I’ll have to do some reading about this, and then come back and do a few tests. I have some suspicions, but I don’t want to start meddling until I know for certain what it is I’m up against. If there’s a presence here that has the strength to push you over, even though you can’t see it, then – well, I think we need to be wary.’
Rob said, ‘Just a minute, Ada. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying that these presences aren’t dead people? They’re not spirits and they’re not ghosts. So does that mean they’re alive? How can they be alive and we can’t see them?’
‘That’s why I need to do some looking into it,’ said Ada. ‘There’s a wizard I know in Monkscross, Francis Coade. He doesn’t call himself a wizard the same like I don’t call myself a witch. A gleaner, that’s how he describes himself, because most of his time he picks up the spiritual bits and pieces that people have left behind them when they cross over unexpected. You know, just like farmers used to let poor folks pick up the bits and pieces in the fields after a harvest was over. He knows more about this kind of thing than I do – folks appearing to be dead but not dead. Gone but not gone, if you follow me.’
‘I can’t say that I do. But, please, by all means get in touch with this wizard – this “gleaner”. Because Vicky thinks she heard a child crying, as well as whispers, and if there’s any chance that was Timmy—’
‘Of course,’ said Ada, tilting her head sympathetically and giving him a little smile. ‘I’ll try to get over to see Francis in the morning. Once I’ve talked to him, and set up one or two experiments, I promise I’ll be back to you dreckly.’
*
After John and Ada had left, Rob and Vicky went into the drawing room. There was still a faint smell of weed but the logs in the fire were blazing strongly and had carried most of it up the chimney. Rob could hardly complain: he had smoked joints regularly when he was at Worthing art school and at one time he and his friends had solemnly lowered more than thirty deckchairs into the boating pool, chanting all the while, in the belief that they were carrying out a solemn religious ceremony.
‘That was a rather gorgeous-looking witch,’ said Portia.
‘She calls herself a charmer, rather than a witch,’ Rob told her.
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Portia. ‘She is a charmer.’
Grace gave her arm a petulant slap, but Portia blew her a kiss. ‘Don’t worry, Gracey,’ she said, and sang, ‘Nothing compares to you!’
‘What did she say, anyway?’ asked Grace. ‘Did she think that priest’s hole is haunted?’
‘Not exactly haunted, but she said that she can feel something there. Presences, that’s what she called them. She doesn’t think they’re ghosts, or spirits, or anything like that. She’s not at all sure what they are. She’s going to do some research and talk to some fellow she knows in Monkscross who’s a wizard.’
‘Oh my God. This gets more unbelievable by the minute.’
There was a knock at the door and Vicky went to answer it. It was a woman member of the search and rescue team. Apart from her crimson anorak she was wearing a bulbous grey bobble hat and huge grey knitted gloves that looked like characters from Sesame Street.
Rob came into the hallway to join them.
‘There’s still no sign of your Timmy, I’m afraid,’ the woman told them. ‘We’ve had over a hundred and fifty volunteers out this afternoon, plus three dogs. The dogs are usually brilliant at picking up trails, even in bad weather, but there’s nary a trace. We’ll still be searching tonight, and again tomorrow, but we have to be realistic. Wherever he is, we don’t think he’s out on the moor.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rob. ‘I can’t tell you how much we appreciate everything that you’ve been doing. You’ve been extraordinary.’
The woman lifted one of her gloves and looked at it as if it were a faceless puppet. ‘We always say that God created the moor for its beauty and its wildlife, but He also created it to test how much we care for our fellow human beings.’
17
That night, the wind began to rise again, until it was whistling and shrieking through every gap in the window frames and moaning down the chimneys like a choir at a funeral.
Rob and Vicky were both worn out, so they went to bed at ten-thirty and Vicky took a Unisom to see
