Read Secret of the Shadows Online
Authors: Cathy MacPhail
And what if I wasn’t meant to save Eleanor at all?
Maybe I was meant to help Paul?
Or my aunt Belle?
How was I ever going to bring Sister Kelly to justice? Who was going to believe a stroppy teenager with a history of telling tall tales?
I was useless. Useless.
The person I really wanted to save was my gran. Aunt Belle had said I shouldn’t change the past of those who had died natural deaths. Like Gran. How could I stop her having a heart attack?
Impossible.
I sat up in the chair. Looked across at Valerie. She was busy reading her magazine.
Impossible . . . unless . . .
My mind was racing. The doctor’s words came back to me.
If she hadn’t had that fall, she probably wouldn’t have had the heart attack
.
She fell in the cellar.
Why did she go down there? One answer came to me. Sister Kelly.
And what made her fall? Again only one answer. Sister Kelly.
Gran
was
one of the ‘unlawfully dead’.
And in that instant I knew what I had to do – and how to do it.
If I could stop my gran from falling in the cellar, she wouldn’t have the heart attack. She’d still be alive. Her house wouldn’t have been rented out. I’d never have met the Forbes. Paul wouldn’t be in a coma and Aunt Belle wouldn’t be in this hospital.
I could change everything, and then Gran and I could expose the truth about who Sister Kelly really was.
I would have my gran back.
My gran, alive again. The thought of it made my heart leap.
All I had to do was get out of this hospital. And go down into that cellar again.
I got to my feet and Valerie looked up from her magazine. ‘Can I go to the toilet?’ I asked.
She couldn’t stop me, I knew that. After all, I wasn’t under arrest and she was only there to watch me when I was with Aunt Belle. After a moment, she nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’
To my horror she stood up as if she was ready to come with me. ‘I can go on my own!’ Did I say it too quickly? Luckily she took it as genuine teenage embarrassment.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going with you.’
What she did was almost as bad. She stood at the door of Aunt Belle’s room and watched me as I walked to the female toilet at the end of the corridor. I was convinced she planned to stay there till I came out. But I had to get out of this hospital.
There wasn’t even a window I could open in the toilet, even if I did have the nerve to leap from the second floor to the ground. I stood for a moment, thinking. I looked around. What there was, hanging on a hook on the wall, was a blue hospital gown, and a Zimmer frame in the corner. A disguise. But could I carry it off?
I had no choice. The gown almost came to my ankles, and I pulled my hair back and bent my shoulders like a sick patient. I took a deep breath and, pushing the Zimmer in front of me, I hobbled out of the toilet.
I didn’t glance back. I imagined Valerie standing there, seeing the blue-gowned patient edging her way down the corridor.
My breath came in short gasps. I was waiting for her to shout after me, call my name. I expected at any second to hear her footsteps running behind me. I kept shuffling forward, trying not to rush. Sick people can’t rush. Step by step I was getting closer to the door.
And still she didn’t come.
I turned the corner at last. Out of her sight, I shoved the Zimmer aside, pulled off the gown and began to run. I took the stairs, and on the ground floor, made sure no one was about before I began walking to the automatic doors. I didn’t start running again until I was outside, heading for the taxi rank. To my relief, one taxi was there. I was in the back seat in a second.
‘You sound as if you should be in the hospital, not leaving it,’ the taxi driver said when he heard my heavy breathing.
I told him where I wanted to go and then I sat back and watched the night settle over the shore.
I had to get to the house before Valerie realised I wouldn’t be coming back and raised the alarm. I pictured her checking her watch, beginning to wonder what was keeping me. Going down to the toilet, pushing open the door, calling my name.
And then what?
I mean, I wasn’t a hardened criminal – there wouldn’t be a full-scale alert out for me. Perhaps just a call on her mobile to alert Sergeant Ross.
Yet when I heard a police siren coming behind us, I stiffened. Afraid it was me they were after.
The taxi driver pulled into the side of the road to let them pass. He laughed. ‘Late for their tea break probably.’
I tried to laugh too, but it sounded more like hysteria.
‘Visiting somebody at the hospital then?’ he asked me. ‘My aunt,’ I said. ‘But she’s going to be fine. Now,’ I added softly. And when I changed the past . . . she would never have been sick at all.
I was afraid. More afraid than I’d ever been in my life. But I was excited too.
Me. Tyler Lawless. I could change the past.
And bring back my gran.
That thought alone made any danger, any terror worthwhile.
We turned off the road and up the track to the house. It lay in darkness. Waiting. Waiting for me. The moon glinted silver on the river.
‘Beautiful setting,’ the driver said as I paid him. ‘It must be a pleasure living here.’
‘It will be,’ I said, and I could see his puzzled frown.
I took a deep breath as I put the key in the door. I opened it wide and stepped inside.
The house was silent. I stood for a moment listening. Then I shouted.
‘I’m back, Sister Kelly!’
I stood in the dark hallway with the moonlight streaming in through the window above the front door. The stained glass turned the silver light into a myriad of colours that played across the walls. I walked from room to room. What was I looking for? For a moment my courage failed me. I wanted to run back to the hospital, face any repercussions there might be. Almost at the same time a voice spoke silently in my mind, and it was my gran’s.
‘Help me, Tyler.’
There could be no other answer. ‘I will.’ I said it aloud, pushing every doubt I had from my mind.
I stood in her room, felt her comforting presence giving me the strength I needed to make me go on. She would show me. She would help me. I could almost hear her speak. ‘You have to do this, Tyler. Be brave.’
I stepped back into the hall and my heart leapt with fear.
The hatch to the cellar was open.
The chest of drawers was once more back against the wall. I stepped towards the opening.
The cold air of a tomb gusted up towards me. I looked down. The stairs disappeared into blackness. My hand was shaking as I took a step down. I reached for the switch and flooded the cellar with light. Was I really going down there? How could I be so sure my gran would protect me?
And yet in that same instant close behind me, I heard her words again, so close, so real. ‘Help me, Tyler.’
The words made my heart almost burst. She was here, urging me on. Only I could save her from that fall.
I took another step down. The cellar was bright, and empty. No shadows here. Yet with each step I expected to see that dark shadow, the shadow that had sat in the corner of my room, and the spiders that heralded her presence.
But there was nothing here. Just an empty white space, and again doubt rose in me. I reached the bottom. There was nothing here. I turned in a circle, looking from bare wall to bare wall. No shadows, no menacing presence, nothing.
And then, something changed. The floor seemed to sway under my feet. The light went out and the cellar was plunged into darkness. And someone stepped down from the hall above.
I looked up.
Can your heart really break? Break into tiny pieces like a crushed eggshell? Because I was sure mine did at that moment.
I was looking at my gran.
Alive. Warm. She was wearing the green sweater I had given her one Christmas. I wanted to call out to her, but my voice was frozen in my throat. I couldn’t move, though I so wanted to reach out and touch her.
She couldn’t see me. Once again, I was like a ghost from the future, watching. She took another step down, swinging her torch around, its light cutting into the dark. She swung the beam from here to there, searching for something.
There was a sound. I heard it, and so did she. We both gasped and listened. Whispered words. Pleading, ‘Help me. Help me.’ It was Eleanor’s voice. I was sure of it.
‘How can I can help you?’ We both asked it at the same time. Gran in her time. Me in mine. ‘How?’
Something stirred in the cellar. The walls seemed to come alive. They seemed to shimmer and move and something began to emerge from behind those walls. A shape not quite substance, shade and shadow.
A figure like smoke. It became form. An old woman stepped out from behind the walls. It was Eleanor.
My gran let out a cry. ‘Oh my God, she kept you down here.’ There was a sob of pure horror in her voice.
And in that second the truth of it hit me. This was what Gran had discovered and hadn’t been able to tell anyone. She had discovered Eleanor walled up down here. Proof at last of Sister Kelly’s evil.
And then I heard Eleanor’s whispered voice. ‘I knew you would help me, Tyler. I knew.’
And that was the moment my gran realised I was there with her. Her time and mine fusing into one.
‘Tyler?’
‘Gran?’ I called her name and she turned, and I knew she saw me. Perhaps a wraith, perhaps like smoke, but I knew she saw me. ‘Gran!!!’ I shouted it, but my voice was like some distant echo.
Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh, Tyler . . .’ Her hand reached out to me.
Then there was another sound like the rumble of thunder, an ominous sound, and in the same instant Eleanor’s ghostly figure began to shuffle, terrified, back into her walled tomb. In death, just as scared as she had been in life. She held out her hand to me, her face barely discernible. ‘Help me, Tyler.’ Not even a whisper of a voice. Wanting her body found, wanting Sister Kelly brought to justice.
The thunder became a roar and the shadow of evil filled the cellar. It was heading for Gran. This was the moment when she would fall, stumbling, tumbling down those steps. That shadow loomed over her and I knew I had to stop it. This was the moment I could change everything!
‘Gran! Run! Get away now!’
And she heard me. I knew she heard me, though the sight of me was lost to her now. ‘Tyler?’
I saw the shadow speed towards her – it would be upon her any second, and I couldn’t let that happen. Gran had to get out of this cellar, tell her story. She had to.
I yelled again, ‘Run!’ and I threw myself between her and the dark terrifying shape that was there.
Gran hesitated for only the split of a second, then she was up those stairs. I called after her. ‘Tell them, Gran. Tell them everything.’
Did she hear me? I don’t know, but she ran up those steps and out of the cellar. She didn’t fall. I had stopped that.
The roar grew, and the shadow turned and came for me. I would not look at the face. Sure looking at that face would bring more terror than I could handle. I flung my arms across my eyes and felt ice envelop me, dragging me down. I struggled against it. ‘No!’
I was caught in a whirlwind, sure I was about to fly away. My ears stung. My heart raced. I turned and I twisted. I had no power over my body.
And then, I was the one who fell.
The cellar swirled around me. My eyes stayed tight shut until I was sure everything was still again. Only then did I open them. I was in the same cellar, but now it looked so different. Bricks had been taken out of the walls, leaving dark open gaps. The floor had been dug up too.
I knew then that, once again, I had changed time. People had been digging here. Eleanor’s body had been found. And most importantly, there was no presence here now. The cellar was clear of her. I looked at my arm. There was no bandage there. I had no stitches. Nor was there a plaster on my other arm.
Everything was changed.
My heart was ready to burst. I stood up, unsteady on my feet. I couldn’t wait to get out of here, find out what else had changed. Afraid to believe I had done it once again. I took the steps two at a time, and threw up the hatch. Light and air streamed in. I took a deep breath and stepped up into the hall.
There were boxes piled up everywhere. The kitchen door was open, the doors to the garden lay wide. I could smell the wonderful scent of the sea. In the kitchen the cupboard doors were all open, and the shelves were bare. More boxes sat on the worktops.
Handle with Care
marked clearly on each of them. This house was being emptied. Someone was moving out. But which someone? My aunt Belle, or my gran?
Then I heard singing somewhere in the house.