She padded her way cautiously down to the far end of the room until she was facing the corner where she had seen the figures in her scrying mirror. She stood there for over half a minute, her back turned, not moving, not speaking. Eventually she looked over her shoulder for reassurance from Francis.
‘Go on, love, you can do it,’ he urged her. ‘We’re here. We’ll protect you.’
‘I don’t know. I was much more confident about this before I actually saw them. I mean, I’ve seen spirits before – but these didn’t look the same as spirits.’
‘It’s up to you, Ada. But Rob and Vicky here, they’re counting on you. People like us who have the gift of communicating with the spirit world – we have a duty to share that gift, don’t you think so, no matter how much of a risk it might be? You wouldn’t refuse to help a blind man across the road, now would you, just because you were scared you might get run over by a truck?’
From the look on Ada’s face, it was plain that she wasn’t entirely sure what Francis was talking about, but all the same she turned back and faced the corner again. She held out her left hand and carefully tipped the green glass bottle until her palm was heaped up with pale grey powder.
In a high, piercing voice, she sang out, ‘Poudre, poudre, envole-toi, montre-moi les visages que je cherche aujourd’hui!’
She sang that three times, and then she bent her head forward and carefully puffed on the powder in her hand until it flew up and filled the air above her in a fine cloud.
Nothing happened at first. But as the powder slowly began to sink down from the ceiling, it appeared to be settling on something the shape of a man’s head – and after that another, and another, and yet another. Then it settled on their shoulders, and their backs, and on their arms, and they could gradually discern that there were four men standing in the corner, even though they were nothing more than shadowy outlines formed of dust.
‘Christ almighty,’ said Francis, under his breath. ‘I’ve seen some weird things, I can tell you, but this—’
‘Ada – do they know that we can see them?’ Rob called out.
‘I can’t tell. Their faces aren’t clear enough.’
‘Do you think they might be able to hear us? Can you ask them questions?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Can you ask them if they know where Timmy is?’
Vicky was clinging on to the sleeve of his jacket. ‘Rob – they won’t know his name, will they? Just ask them if they’ve seen a small boy. Oh God, I’ve never been so frightened in my life. Supposing they do know where he is? What then?’
The four men were still only dimly visible, despite all the fine grey powder that had drifted down onto their heads and their shoulders. All the same, Rob could see that at least two of them looked broad-shouldered and bulky. One of them had his hair brushed up in a point, while another had curls. The other two looked as if they were bald or at least shaven-headed.
‘Can you hear me?’ Ada called out to them. ‘Turn around and look at me if you can hear me.’
Three of the four men slowly turned to face her. Rob could make out their foreheads and their cheekbones and the tips of their noses, where the dust had fallen, but that was all. Their eyes were empty. He could see the wall behind them through their eye sockets.
‘We haven’t come to disturb you,’ said Ada, her voice rising up a pitch. ‘We’re looking for a lost boy, that’s all. Five years old. We think he may be somewhere hidden in this house, but we can’t think where.’
The men looked at each other, although with every move they made more of the powder fell off them onto the horsehair matting, and it was increasingly difficult to see them distinctly. They started to whisper – the same conspiratorial whispering that Rob and Vicky had heard in the corridor outside their bedroom. It sounded almost like a chant.
‘What are they saying, Ada? Do they have any idea where Timmy is?’
‘I can’t hear, Rob. I’m just hoping they’ll – aah! Let go! I said, let go of me!’
‘Ada? What are they doing?’
‘They’re pulling my arms! I said, stop it! Let go of me! Let go!’
Both Rob and Francis immediately hurried towards her. Even though the four men had all but vanished, Ada was jerking and kicking and thrashing her arms, and it was clear that they were dragging her further down the room towards the end wall. They were kicking up the horsehair matting all around her, and Rob could hear them grunting and swearing to each other in tense, hissing whispers.
He reached Ada and seized her shoulders. He couldn’t believe how violently she was flinging herself around, as if she were dancing to some frantic disco music. He tried to wrench her towards him, but then he was punched, hard, on the side of his head, an inch above his left ear. He had never been hit so hard in his life, and he pitched backwards, stunned, his brain singing, and collapsed onto his back on the floor.
He managed to sit up, even though he was so disorientated and his vision was blurry. Almost at once, with a loud thud, Francis dropped onto his hands and knees close beside him, shaking his head like a dog that had been swimming in a lake.
Ada screamed, and her scream was so high-pitched that it was almost beyond the range of human hearing. Rob blinked and tried to focus on her. He could see that she was kicking and frantically flailing her arms, but she wasn’t strong enough to resist the four men who were pulling her away. By now they had shaken off all the battlefield powder, and so they were invisible again, but he could
