The Woman in Black (11 page)

‘Sorry …’

‘You’ve no need to be sorry,’ said Harry, concern in his eyes. ‘What happened wasn’t your fault.’

She nodded absently, as if agreeing to something she hadn’t heard correctly. They walked on in silence again. Eventually, Eve spoke.

‘We brought them here to get away from all that.’

‘All what?’ he asked.

‘The war, fighting, death …’ She turned her head away from him, spoke into the wind. ‘Safer in the country?’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know, perhaps I didn’t lock it after all. I could have been distracted, I …’ She sighed. ‘Maybe I forgot.’

‘Don’t blame yourself. He could have unlocked the door himself.’

‘But I had the key.’

Harry held up a finger. ‘
A
key. I doubt there’ll just be one, house of that size. He could have, I don’t know, found one of them lying round in another room, perhaps.’

‘Or someone gave it to him.’

‘There you go,’ said Harry. ‘Could have been one of the other children.’

‘No,’ said Eve firmly, ‘not one of the children.’

Harry frowned. ‘Who, then?’

Eve looked away, her eyes on the water but not seeing it. Instead she saw a white face with staring, rage-filled eyes.

‘I think … I think there’s someone else on this island.’

‘What, you mean living here?’

Eve nodded. ‘I heard someone in the cellar the night we arrived. I went down to investigate, but they had gone. Then this morning there was … I saw someone by the graveyard.’

‘Did you talk to them?’

‘I tried, but she … she disappeared.’

‘Disappeared,’ said Harry.

‘Yes. Anyway, perhaps this … this woman unlocked the door last night.’

Harry nodded but didn’t reply. Eve felt foolish for having told him about the woman. She realised how unconvincing her words must sound to him. So unconvincing that she now didn’t dare tell him about the face under the floorboards.

Harry stopped walking, and placed his hands on Eve’s shoulders. She stared up at him, expecting to
be told that she was imagining things, that it was all in her head. Well-meaning but patronising words.

‘Maybe we should take a look around,’ Harry said, ‘ask if anyone else has seen her.’

Eve blinked, wide-eyed. ‘You mean, you believe me? You believe what I’ve just told you?’

Harry gave a puzzled smile. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

Eve returned his smile, honest and unforced. Despite everything that had happened, this was the most positive she had felt since she had arrived at the house.

Harry had faith in her. She could have cried once more.

The first person they needed to talk to, Eve decided, was Edward. The boy hadn’t been the same since he had emerged from the locked room. Eve sensed that he had seen something – or someone – that could help them, or at least validate what Eve had experienced.

Edward sat at the bottom of the staircase, notebook in hand, Eve and Harry kneeling down beside him.

Eve smiled at him. ‘Look, Edward,’ she said, ‘you’re not in trouble. I just need to talk to you, that’s all. Is that all right?’

Edward gave a wary nod.

Eve smiled all the brighter. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Right, Edward. We need to know what happened when the boys locked you in that room. Can you tell us what happened?’

Edward looked away, shook his head.

Eve and Harry exchanged a glance. Eve found encouragement in Harry’s eyes. She continued. ‘Did you see something?’

Edward’s eyes darted left and right like a trapped animal looking for an escape route.

Eve carried on, calm but insistent. ‘Did you? Did you see something?’

Eventually Edward nodded.

Eve smiled once more. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘What did you see?’

Edward gave no response, just clutched tightly to the creepy old Mr Punch puppet. Eve noticed the paint had started to peel off the wood, giving its face a dissolute and corrupted aspect. Edward’s hand was trembling.

‘You can write it down,’ she said.

Edward thought for a moment, took out his pencil, then passed the notebook to Eve.

She told me not to tell.

Eve felt her heart skip slightly at the words. She wasn’t imagining things. She leaned forward.

‘Who? Who told you not to?’

Edward shook his head, brow furrowed.

‘Please, Edward, it’s very important that you tell us …’

He shook his head once more, more firmly this time. Eve took his hands in hers. They were frozen.

‘You mustn’t listen to her,’ Eve said. ‘Do you hear me? Whatever she says. You mustn’t listen to her.’

Edward pulled his hands away from her, his head dropping.

‘Please, Edward,’ said Eve, desperation and hurt in her voice now. ‘I thought we were friends …’

Edward looked up and what Eve saw in his eyes almost broke her heart. Tears were forming and welling, his face creased with pain.

Eve sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Edward. You can … go. Just … go now.’

He ran away from her as fast as he could, back to the dormitory, clutching the puppet tightly to him.

She turned to Harry. ‘I’ve lost him,’ she said. ‘I thought I was so close to him, but …’ She shook her head. ‘Now what do we do?’

Eve stared at the dropped notebook, the one sentence staring up at her.

She told me not to tell.

‘It wasn’t as bad as this before …’

The whole of the cellar floor was submerged in water. Eve could feel it seeping into her shoes, and the stench of rot was even worse.

‘Must be a leak somewhere,’ said Harry, looking around. ‘But it doesn’t seem as if anybody’s living down here …’

Eve felt something nudge her ankle, and gasped in shock. Harry was right there at her side.

‘What is it?’ she said, eyes closed, not daring to look.

Harry straightened up, held out something long, grey and slithery in his hand. ‘An eel,’ he said, ‘a dead one. Don’t know how that got in …’

‘Get rid of it,’ she said, head averted. ‘Please. I
can’t stand those things. And it stinks. But then this whole place does …’

Harry threw the eel away in the corner, wiping his hands on the stone wall. ‘Thought you’d like those things,’ he said, smiling. ‘You know, being a Londoner and that. Jellied, isn’t it?’

Eve grimaced. ‘Please.’

They began to search the cellar, going through box after rotten box, pulling out papers and letters, all damp and mildewed, age-faded and decayed. Some crumbled and disintegrated when touched. They soon realised there was nothing that could help them with the present; only fragments of the past.

While Harry was absorbed with one box, taking out papers, studying them, shaking his head and replacing them, Eve watched him.

‘Was that you,’ she said, ‘last night?’

He turned to her, frowning.

‘Flying over the sea. A squadron of Halifaxes?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘right.’ He shook his head. She couldn’t see his eyes when he answered. ‘No. Not my turn, I’m afraid.’

She was about to ask him further questions, but he had spotted the phonograph. ‘Hey,’ he said, smiling, ‘haven’t seen one of those since I was a boy …’

‘It doesn’t work,’ said Eve. ‘I’ve tried it.’

He picked it up off the shelf and began running his fingers over it, examining it. ‘You leave that to me.’

Seeing he was engrossed in it, Eve went back to scouring the box nearest to her. She found something solid inside. Bringing it out, she held it up to the weak light, examined it. A key, and written on the side were two initials: HJ.

She scanned the cellar, looking for a suitable lock to try it on but couldn’t find anything. As she did so, a bell rang upstairs.

‘That’s the bell for the end of break. I’d better …’

Harry nodded, looked back at the phonograph. ‘Off you go, then. I’ll see if I can fix this.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

And ran up the stairs.

‘Right, children,’ she said once she had reached the makeshift classroom, ‘this afternoon, I want you all to write a story about’ – her eyes roved round the room, looking for inspiration – ‘this house. Yes. This house. Whatever comes to mind.’

The children were all looking at her quizzically. She knew they were wondering why her feet were wet, but none of them had dared to ask her and she hadn’t volunteered the information.

Eve tried not to look at Edward, to see what his reaction was. The exercise was for his benefit. She wanted to see what he would come up with.

Joyce put her hand up.

‘Yes, Joyce.’

‘Isn’t it our times tables now?’

‘Well, normally, yes, it would be. But not today.’ She stood up, walked to the door, gripping the newly discovered key firmly. ‘We’ll do those later. I just have to pop out. I’ll be back soon.’

‘But you can’t leave us,’ said Joyce, voice indignant.

Eve stopped at the door, thought.

‘Joyce,’ she said, ‘I’m leaving you in charge while I’m gone. It’s a big responsibility, so make sure everyone gets on with their work.’

Joyce, as Eve had expected, couldn’t have looked more proud.

While they were busy working, Eve went through the house, key in hand. She tried doors, cabinets, drawers, anything with a keyhole, no matter how big or small. Eventually she had exhausted all the locks she could think of, but hadn’t found a single one that it fitted.

She went to see how Harry was getting on.

Harry had carried the phonograph out of the cellar, laying it on the kitchen table. This room was easier to work in, and drier, plus – and he didn’t normally hold with all that supernatural nonsense – something about that cellar unnerved him. More than just the smell, it was … he didn’t know. He couldn’t explain. His was a practical vocabulary not given to flights of fancy, but there was definitely something not right about the place.

The repair was proving trickier than he had expected. Harry was normally good with his hands, but bringing life back to this old, rusted, decayed piece of equipment seemed to be beyond him. He realigned the cylinder shaft one last time and gave the hand crank another turn.

‘Right,’ he said, wiping the dirt and rust off his fingers. ‘Come on, you little …’

The machine whirred into life.

‘Got you …’ Harry couldn’t keep the delight from his voice. He plugged in the rope-cord headphones and placed them over his ears. The sound he could hear was warped, scratched. Indistinct and distorted. A woman’s voice came through in snatches and crackles. Distant and hesitant. A ghost from the past.

‘… Alice Drablow …’ The next sentence was lost. ‘… Marsh House my whole life …’

Got that, thought Harry, mentally filling in the missing words. He waited, but there was nothing more. He moved the needle forward along the cylinder. Through the hiss of static the voice emerged again.

‘Nathaniel’s drowned and she blames me …’ More static. ‘… a better mother than she could ever have …’

He moved the needle around, placing it on different sections of the cylinder, trying to get Alice Drablow’s voice back, but to no avail. That segment had completely deteriorated. With a sigh of exasperation, Harry moved on to a point where the static was low. But all he could hear was ambient silence. He was about to give up when a new voice came through, faint and distant.

‘Never forgive. Never forget.’

Then silence. Harry leaned forward, listening hard, willing the voice to speak again. It returned, louder this time, closer. Like the speaker was right beside him, whispering in his ear. He could almost feel the breath on his neck.

‘Never forgive. Never forget.’

Harry shivered.

Behind him, through the open door leading down to the cellar, a shadow appeared on the wall, swelling and looming as it came up the stairs. Harry, his concentration entirely taken with the phonograph, began to feel uneasy as Alice’s voice returned.

‘Jennet, I’m …’ The crackling took over. ‘… sister …’

Even in the bad state the recording was in, there was no mistaking the fear in Alice Drablow’s voice. Her voice shook as she spoke.

Behind Harry, the shadow on the wall became elongated as the figure reached the entrance at the top of the cellar stairs. Harry felt a tightening in his chest, his breathing becoming laboured.
No
, he thought,
not now, not here …

Alice’s voice continued.

‘Get …’ More hissing. ‘… from me. You’re not …’ The recording skipped forward. Harry couldn’t bring it back. ‘… imagining you. You’re …’ More
static … guilty conscience …’ Crackling. ‘… I said, get away from me!’

The last sentence was screamed out, then nothing more. Just the whir and wheeze of the ancient machine, the sound of Alice Drablow’s strenuous breathing from years before.

The shadow stretched right round the room, reaching out along the wall and over the ceiling, down towards Harry. He felt the pain in his chest increase and a black, watery darkness engulf him. Other voices came to him then, ones not on the recording.

‘
Help me … help me, Captain
 …’

He closed his eyes. Suddenly there came an awful, distorted shriek. He cried out, the sound assaulting his eardrums. He threw off the headphones, shot back from the table and stared at the phonograph.

‘Are you all right?’

He jumped, his hand clutched to his chest, breathing ragged. The voice was in the room with him. Eve was standing in the kitchen doorway.

The shadow disappeared.

Eve looked at him. Are you all right?’

He didn’t reply.

She nodded towards the phonograph. ‘Any joy?’

‘No,’ said Harry, ‘far from it.’

Eve stood by the window in the hallway, looking out at the causeway; that long stretch of half-submerged road stretching back to civilisation. When she thought of the house and everything that had been going on in it, civilisation seemed even further away.

Harry caught her up. He had told her about his experiences with the phonograph, letting her listen for herself. After doing so she had walked out of the kitchen, deep in thought.

She turned to him now. ‘Could that have been who I saw?’ she said. ‘Jennet? I saw her gravestone.’

Harry frowned. ‘The way Alice spoke, it didn’t sound as if Jennet was real. The recording was very poor but it sounded like Alice was blaming her own guilty conscience. Imagining things.’