‘But how can I? I can’t get out of here, can I?’
‘Your energy can, love, the same like we did before, when we went out for a quick breather from them two girls. All you have to do is close your eyes like you do when you’re having a weary, leave your body behind and walk through that wall. Once you go up to that window and stand in the moonlight and get yourself unlocked, your body won’t be here in this room any more. That’s because you won’t be stuck in the day before yesterday any more, you’ll be right where you are now.’
He inched himself closer, and caressed her hair with his knuckles, and again she shifted herself away. The smell of Old Spice was making her feel nauseous.
‘You’ll be able to walk around the house the same as your friends. Go downstairs and help yourself to a glass of plonk, watch some telly, do whatever you want. Me – I’m going to do it. I always do, every full moon. I’ll be doing it tonight, if you do.’
‘But my friends are going to hear us, aren’t they, and come out to see what’s going on?’
‘They won’t, love. Usually, there’s nobody here in the house when there’s a fulness. But before I go and stand in front of the window, I’m going to go sneaking around to your mates’ bedrooms, lock their doors, and take out the keys.’
‘Supposing they break the doors down?’
‘Come on, you’ve seen those doors. Solid oak. You’d need a fucking tank to break those down. We could even put on some music and have a dance. As soon as the moon goes down I’ll put the keys back, but if they come to look for us, we’ll be gone, back in here, and they’ll be none the wiser.’
Ada was silent for a long time. She could see from the small stained-glass windows in the witching room that the moon was shining brightly outside. It made Jaws look as if he were wearing a multicoloured Pierrot costume. Even his face was triangulated in red and green and yellow.
At last, she said, ‘All right. But if the moonlight can set me free, what’s to stop me walking out of the house and never coming back?’
‘Sorry, darling. You can’t. I don’t know what’s holding us all here, but you simply fucking can’t. I tell you something, it’s more secure than Dartmoor. I’ve tried it more than once, and some of other blokes have tried it. Oh yes, you can open the door, but you can’t walk through it. I’ve stood right there with the door wide open and I’ve seen outside. I’ve heard the birds twittering and I’ve felt the rain on me mush. But it was like I was paralysed. Couldn’t move a muscle. Three times I’ve tried it, at least, and it’s always the same.’
‘Perhaps it’ll be different for me.’
Jaws pulled a face. ‘Might be, might not. You won’t know unless you give it a whirl, will you?’
‘If it gives me any chance of getting out of this room, then I’ll do it. But what about all the other men here? How many did you say? Seventeen of them? Don’t all of them want to be free for a while, even if they can’t escape from the house? Even if it’s only till the moon goes down?’
‘A few of them do. Maybe five or six. The rest of them – nah. All it does is piss them off even more than they are already, so they don’t want to do it any more. You think of Father Thomas. Nearly four hundred years he’s been here in this room. And Bartram, he’s been here more than two hundred and eighty. They don’t want to be reminded of what they used to be like, when they was able to do something different every day apart from sitting here feeling sorry for themselves – when they was able to grow up, and grow older, and then snuff it, the same as the pilgrims, as Father Thomas calls them. We can’t even commit suicide. Bartram tried it once, during a fulness. He took a carving knife out of the kitchen, fetched it up here and cut his throat. He’s still got the cut and that’s why he whistles when he talks. He’s had to accept the fact that we’re all going to be here forever, until the end of the world, and even beyond.’
‘Still – I’ll try it,’ said Ada. ‘When do you want to do it? Now?’
‘There’s five other blokes unlocking along with us. I’ll go and tell them to make themselves ready, and then I’ll be back. All you have to do is close your eyes, relax, and get yourself into a weary.’
He stood up and padded silently on the horsehair carpeting back down to the other end of the witching room, where seven or eight men were gathered, whispering to each other. She saw him talking to them, and occasionally looking over at her.
It could be that he was right. Maybe she would never be able to return to the life that she had been leading before she had been chanted. As a charmer, though, she knew at least half a dozen incantations for breaking spells and reversing conjurations. She had been reciting them over and over under her breath since she had been trapped here in this room, without any success. But perhaps they had failed to work because she was trapped in the moment when she had been dragged through the wall. If she were unlocked and living normally again, if only for the few hours while the moon was up in the sky, she might be able to undo the chant that had trapped her here
