Secret of the Shadows (5 page)

He strutted about the living room. ‘Och well, me and the boys just got it booked at the last minute. You don’t mind, do you?’

Aunt Belle shook her head. ‘Of course not. You go and have a good time, Steven.’

He came into the kitchen later to help me with the dishes. ‘Do you think Aunt Belle’s OK? She looks a bit pale.’

‘She’s fine. She’s just a bit tired.’

Steven shrugged. ‘It’s just you’re so cut off from everybody down here. And Mum and Dad are away, and all your friends, and now I’m going. Will you be OK? What if Aunt Belle’s sick. She’s the one who drives.’

‘Yes, and she took lessons at the same driving school as you!’

‘Are you complaining about my driving?’ It was Aunt Belle at the kitchen door, wearing her lilac silk dressing gown and matching slippers. Now that I really looked at her, she did look pale. But then, she wasn’t wearing her wig, and her own hair was sparse and thin, and she had no make-up on and Aunt Belle always wore make-up. Perhaps that was why her face seemed drawn and waxen white.

‘Don’t listen to her, Aunt Belle,’ Steven said. ‘She’s just jealous ’cause she can’t drive.’

I walked him out to his car when he was leaving. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right down here?’ he said.

‘We’ll be fine. We’re going to have a great time,’ I told him.

‘I’m probably just being stupid. Trying to be a real big brother for once in my life,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I’m worried.’

But he was right to be worried.

Chapter 12

The fifth day

I didn’t sleep in the room that night, at least, not while it was dark. I went into Aunt Belle’s room and curled up in her armchair and we watched an old Hitchcock film on television. I was asleep before the end and when I woke up it was dawn. Slices of early morning light cut through the clouds. Aunt Belle must have fallen asleep reading. Her book had slipped to the floor and I picked it up and smiled at the title.
Angels of Death
. Trust Aunt Belle, other old ladies are reading nice romantic novels, and my aunt is getting stuck into a murder mystery!

I switched off the TV, went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. And by the time I went back into my room the sun was streaming in through the window. The shadows were all gone. I lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

Aunt Belle was up before me. Aching to get back to normal. She looked better, showered and dressed in a smart blue dress and jacket, with her make-up and her wig on. ‘We’re going for a run in the car, honey,’ she announced. ‘Let’s go out for lunch. Is there anywhere round here I can get a decent hamburger?’

We drove to one of the hotels further down the coast and sat on the terrace overlooking the water. From there we could see the island of Arran cloaked in mist.

‘You must be fed up with your old auntie, Tyler,’ she said over her hamburger (made fresh, chargrilled medium rare, just the way she liked it. I opted for chicken Caesar salad).

‘I could never be fed up with you, Aunt Belle,’ I assured her.

‘I think I’ll arrange for that realtor to come tomorrow, to take a look at the house.’

‘Realtor?’

‘What do you call them here? Estate agents?’

It was late afternoon by the time we got home, and while Aunt Belle called the ‘realtor’ and arranged for someone to come the next day I tried to text my friends. None of them got through. Their mobiles had either been left at home, or they were in a place where there was no reception. I did miss not being able to talk to them every day. Later, Aunt Belle and I walked along the beach and sat on some rocks to watch the sun sink lower in the sky. It was that beautiful time between dark and light, when the sky is ablaze with colours, orange and purple and topaz. The gloaming, we call it here in Scotland. Such a lovely word.

It had been a perfect day. Aunt Belle seemed almost back to her normal self and there had been no shadows frightening me. While Aunt Belle got ready for bed, I went into the kitchen to make her some hot chocolate. As I waited for the kettle to boil, I stood at the window looking out at the waves crashing up on to the beach. There was something bold and dramatic about this landscape. I would miss this house too when it was sold.

I filled her cup and picked it up, ready to take it into her when I heard a sound in the hall, and a murmured voice. I called out, ‘Aunt Belle, is that you?’ There was no answer.

I stepped to the kitchen door and gasped. There was an old lady in the hallway. Her white hair was wound in a bun at the top of her head and she was wearing an old-fashioned black coat and carrying a small case.

‘Why, my dear, this is lovely,’ she said softly. But not to me.

‘Excuse me, who are you?’ I asked her. She ignored me. She couldn’t see me, yet she was as real as I was. I took a step back and when I looked around, the hall was different. There was floral wallpaper, old-fashioned fittings, a claw-footed table of dark wood against the wall. It wasn’t our hall at all . . . yet, it
was
our hall.

‘I’m so glad you like it, Eleanor,’ a kind voice said, a gentle voice. But I couldn’t see who that voice belonged to. There was no one else there. No one, but this old lady, Eleanor.

I reached out to touch her, that’s how close she was, but my fingers sank into nothing.

Eleanor rubbed at the arm I had tried to touch, and she shivered. ‘I suddenly felt cold there,’ she said.

The unseen voice said kindly, ‘I think there must be a draught somewhere. I’ll get it fixed.’

‘Oh, no need,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re being too kind as it is.’

And I knew then I was in the past, watching a scene from another time, just as I had been before when I helped Ben Kincaid. And I knew something else too and the thought chilled me. I knew I was the ghost, not Eleanor, not the unseen voice I could hear. It was me who was the ghost.

But why was I seeing these things? There had to be a reason.

‘And this is your room,’ the kind voice said. ‘I hope you like it.’

The door of my bedroom opened. Someone was there, opening the door. Someone I couldn’t see. And now it was no longer my bedroom. There were no green curtains, no tall mirror, no old chest at the bottom of the bed. Everything was white, clean and crisp like snow. Eleanor walked inside and I followed her.

‘I just love it,’ she said as she laid her case down on the bed. Sister Kelly, you’re an angel.’

Eleanor turned and looked straight at me, straight through me. I swung round to see who it was she was talking to. There was no one there. Then, in the blink of an eye, the room was no longer hospital white. It was green and it was mine again, and there was no Eleanor. No invisible Sister Kelly.

And the door slammed shut.

And a shadow shifted in the chair.

Chapter 13

The sixth day

The cup slipped from my fingers and hot chocolate splashed everywhere. It seemed as if I was moving in slow motion. I wanted to pull at the door, but my hands would not obey me. I could not move. My fingers curled tightly into my palms. Something was sitting there, in that armchair in the corner. Something that meant me harm. And if I stood there long enough, it would come alive, stand up, come towards me.

The door was flung open. Light spilled in from the hallway and Aunt Belle stood there in her lilac dressing gown.

‘I’ll dehydrate waiting for that hot chocolate.’ Then she saw the cup on the floor, her hot chocolate spilled on the carpet. She looked back and saw my face. ‘Are you all right, Tyler? What are you doing standing here in the dark?’

I longed to tell her what I had just seen. But even Aunt Belle, with her rich imagination, so like mine, might find it hard to believe. I hardly believed it myself. I managed a smile. ‘I only came in for a book, and the door slammed shut again. It scared me to death.’

She slipped her arm in mine. ‘Well, let’s head out to the light and make some more hot chocolate.’

She led me back into the kitchen, and I glanced back for a second and in the shadow of my room something stirred. I was sure it did.

I spent the rest of the night curled up in the armchair in Aunt Belle’s room. She didn’t know. Aunt Belle was in a sound sleep well before midnight. When the sun was up, I went back to my own room and fell into an exhausted sleep. I slept soundly too, until Aunt Belle came bustling in with a late morning cup of tea for me. ‘The realtor’s coming at two,’ she said. She felt my brow. ‘Are you sure you’re not coming down with what I have?’

She always made me smile. ‘You think I might have jet lag too?’

‘I think I more likely have a virus of some kind . . . I was sick this morning. Maybe that hamburger was off.’

She waved away my worry about that. ‘Oh, I’m fine now. I’m never ill. Not for long. I just don’t want to pass anything on to you,’ she said.

I swung my legs out of bed. ‘Don’t worry about me, Aunt Belle. I’m just lazy.’

The ‘realtor’ was a young woman in a black business suit, wearing heels that were too high and carrying a leather briefcase. Power dressing, I think they call it. We went into the living room and she opened her briefcase and took out her sheaf of papers and I saw how her hands trembled. She was nervous, I thought, probably new to the job.

‘Call me Susan,’ she insisted as she sat asking questions about the bungalow. Eventually, she stood up. ‘I’ll just have a look around now, if that’s OK?’ She began to walk around the room, informing us of all its features as if we didn’t know them already. ‘A lovely front room, with a bay window. Being on this promontory you’re surrounded by the sea. So every room has a sea view. A great selling point. I love the bay windows.’ She smiled and opened a cupboard beside the fireplace. ‘Ample storage space.’ As she spoke she was listing all the house’s selling points on the pages on her clipboard. She began walking round from one room to another. Aunt Belle and I followed in her wake. She admired the dining room. ‘Could, of course, be a third bedroom.’ She was growing more confident as she walked. Her step became a stride. She came to my bedroom and pushed open the door. ‘Green,’ she said, ‘such a relaxing colour.’

If only she knew, I thought. Relaxing was the last thing I would call this room. But I couldn’t help but notice how she shivered as we left the room.

From there we moved to Aunt Belle’s room. I almost tripped over Aunt Belle’s book lying again on the floor. But Susan didn’t notice that. She was too busy gushing about the view from the window. Did she too sense the warmth in here? Feel the difference between the two bedrooms?

‘And of course, having the en suite in this room is a big plus,’ she said.

We ended up in the kitchen. ‘Put the kettle on, Tyler. Let’s have a cup of tea,’ Aunt Belle said.

Susan gushed about the kitchen too, as I suspected she would. It was bright and modern and with doors leading out to a little patio.

It was as we sat having tea that Susan, checking her housing schedule, realised something she had almost missed. ‘Oh, wait a minute . . . there’s a cellar in this house.’

‘Do you know, I forgot all about that,’ Aunt Belle said. She stood up. ‘It’s in the hall, Tyler. Almost below your room. No wonder it’s cold. The draught is probably coming up from there. Fancy me forgetting we had a cellar.’

We all went into the hall. ‘It’s supposed to be just here,’ Susan said. ‘May I?’ She moved aside a rug on the floor just outside my room.

No one would have known there was a hatch there. The handle folded in flush against the floor. It took a few pulls to lift it free.

A gust of cold air hit us. I stepped back.

There were steps that descended into darkness. Susan went down first. ‘Have you got a flashlight?’

‘Oh, there’s electricity. There’s a switch somewhere.’ And, with that, Aunt Belle was off down the stairs. I stood at the top, didn’t fancy going down into that dark place.

‘I remember we were so excited when we found this,’ Aunt Belle went on. ‘Thought it could be a wine cellar, or we could store food in it.’

Aunt Belle found the switch and the cellar lit up. I had expected the cellar to be damp and dirty, but it wasn’t. It was a bright, white square room.

‘It is a good size,’ Susan said. ‘Yes, a great feature. It could be used as a games room or a den.’

She continued talking but her voice began to fade. And it seemed then that I was in another place, another time. Aunt Belle and Susan seemed to be moving in slow motion. It was as if there was a veil between them and me. The cellar was no longer bright and white and clean. It was the way it once must have been – dark and damp and full of shadows. Moving shadows.

My heart pounded at my chest. I had to get out of here. I took a step back and turned.

And I was looking right into watery blue eyes and an old wrinkled face, skin like a withered apple, close to my own. Too close. It was the old lady, it was Eleanor’s face, but changed so much I hardly recognised her. Her white hair was wild and loose about her shoulders and her eyes looked terrified. She was so close. Her hand touched my shoulder, turned it to ice. Her breath was grave cold against my ear.

‘Help me, Tyler,’ she whispered.