The Secrets of Ghosts (34 page)

Barton shrugged. He was trying to pull off his usual, confident pose, but his foot was tapping on the floor, giving him away. ‘Magda says there’s nothing to be frightened of. Spirits can’t hurt us. You should know that.’

‘Magda’s wrong. Which, given that she’s a figment of your imagination, is not a surprise.’ She put her face near to Barton’s. ‘I don’t like you, but I don’t want you dead. At least, I don’t want your death on my conscience. Alexander James is desperate. He’ll use anybody he thinks has the least little bit of psychic power. If you don’t tell him you don’t have any, that you were lying about communicating with the other side, about having a spirit guide called Magda, then he’s going to try to use you as a doorway and I don’t know what that’ll do to you. I don’t know if you’d survive.’

‘Oh, God,’ Barton moaned. ‘Help me.’

‘Help yourself,’ Katie said. ‘Can’t you feel how cold it is in here?’ She reached out and felt the echoes of the hundreds of people who had passed through the space, those who’d lived and died. Like turning up the gas on an antique lamp, she pushed out a little bit of her power, until the echoes got louder and there were voices clamouring, faces appearing out of the walls and the glass and the air. The room was instantly freezing.

‘Please,’ Barton said, his eyes wide.

Katie looked over his shoulder, as if she could see a ghostly figure rising up ready to smite Barton. His eyes rolled in his head and for moment Katie thought he was just going to faint. ‘I’d hurry up if I were you,’ she added.

‘I was lying. I don’t have a spirit guide. I chose the name Magda from a book. I never got a message. Not any kind of message. I can’t talk to the other side. I can’t see ghosts.’

Katie stepped forward, ready to stop him, but Barton was in full flow. His eyes were wide and terrified, not seeing Katie or Max or Zofia. ‘I thought I did, once,’ he said, ‘when I was a child. It scared me silly but then all the grown ups liked hearing about it. Mother made me tell the story at her dinner parties and everyone would look at me like I was important and I just started embellishing.’ His eyes skimmed Katie’s face and then seemed to refocus. ‘Please. I never meant for it to go this far. Please help me.’

‘It’s okay. He’s gone.’ Katie reached out and patted Barton on the arm. ‘You’re quite safe.’ She pulled the light back, tucked it away. The voices quieted, the faces disappeared and the temperature went back up to normal.

‘Oh, thank God.’ Barton sank into the nearest armchair. He put his head in his hands and they were shaking.

‘Shall I get you a drink?’ Zofia said, kindly. ‘Scotch?’

Barton lifted his head and, blinking back tears, said, ‘Single malt if you’ve got it. I can’t stomach a blend.’

Max shook his head. ‘I think he’s recovering.’

‘What was that?’ Gwen touched Katie’s arm. ‘What did you do? What were all those voices?’

Katie hugged her tight. She hadn’t thought about Gwen. Of course she’d be able to hear them. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered into Gwen’s ear. ‘Just a party trick. Nothing to worry about.’

‘A ghost tried to kill you? Alexander? Is he still here?’

Katie held up the witch’s ball and tilted it, so that Gwen could see. ‘Oh, my God.’

Katie looked at the image in the reflection of the burnished surface of the ball. Rather than reflecting the hallway and the main staircase, with its ornately carved finials, it was showing the oak panelling of the library. And, standing by the fireplace, his unlit pipe in one hand and a scowl of defeat on his face, was Alexander James. His lips were moving but she couldn’t hear a thing. It was brilliant.

‘So,’ Zofia said, peering over Katie’s shoulder. ‘He was in there the whole time. When you were scaring Mr Barton.’

‘He wasn’t in any danger,’ Katie said. ‘And neither are you. He’s going to stay trapped in here and I’ll keep it far away from the hotel.’

‘How did he get in there?’ Gwen said. She looked at Katie, fear in her eyes. ‘How did you—?’

‘His soul was linked to a brooch we found.’ Katie nodded to Max. ‘The bronze one. When Violet threw it into the pond, Alexander had to follow it and that’s what pulled him out from my body. Once he wasn’t linked to me, Zofia uncovered the witch’s ball and that trapped him.’ She turned to Zofia. ‘I don’t know how to thank you for that.’

Patrick came through the staff door, his arms full of torches and candles. He stopped when he saw the group, blinked at Gwen and Cam and said, ‘What did I miss?’

Chapter 31

Katie walked down the driveway with Gwen. Max had volunteered to finish his shift at The Grange before coming back to the house as Anna and Zofia were run off their feet with restless MOPs. Katie couldn’t believe that she’d thought he was egotistical. When push came to shove, Max always tried to do the right thing. For an ex-con-man, he was strangely moral. Which was a peculiarly old-fashioned thing to think. Maybe she’d been spending too much time in the nineteen thirties.

‘Hannah will be worried,’ Gwen said, keeping a brisk pace. ‘She came to warn you. About your energy spilling out.’

Katie wasn’t sure if she was imagining it, but Gwen didn’t seem to be able to look her in the eye.

‘It’s okay, you know,’ she said. ‘I know how to control it now.’

Gwen nodded, but she still looked slightly dazed.

Hannah Ash wasn’t in the kitchen of End House, but there was a lime-green Post-it note attached to the fridge. It said: ‘Glad you’re not dead. Hannah.’

‘Bloody wise women,’ Katie said. She went to the freezer and got out an ice-cube tray. ‘Drink?’

‘Please,’ Gwen said.

Katie stood in front of the fridge. ‘What’s Pimm’s like? That’s a summer drink, isn’t it?’

‘Why are you so calm?’ Gwen said. ‘You’re bringing ghosts to life.’

‘I was,’ Katie said. ‘I’m not any more. Not unless I want to.’

Gwen looked worried. ‘I was thinking about Lily. She died a violent death. She might have hung around.’

‘And she was psychotic,’ Katie said. ‘Don’t forget that. Perfect ghost material.’

‘That’s not good,’ Gwen said, sitting down.

‘I told you. Not going to happen. I can feel the energy now. I’m not going to let it leak out. I’m not going to bring Lily or anybody else back. Not by accident, at any rate.’

‘You’re scaring me a little right now,’ Gwen said.

‘You just need a drink.’ Katie stopped mixing and passed the glass to Gwen, who grabbed it like a drowning woman and took a long sip.

Katie tried some as well. It was nice. Refreshing. Sweet without being sickly. She took a longer drink.

‘Hannah said it wasn’t like a tap, though, that you could run out. You must be careful—’

‘I know. I’m giving away chunks of my own life. You can’t make energy. That’s basic physics.’

Gwen shook her head. ‘I think it might be best if we don’t tell Ruby and David.’

Katie laughed. ‘You think?’ She drank some more of her Pimm’s, picturing her mum and dad lying on matching sun loungers on the deck of a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. ‘I’m so glad they missed this.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ Gwen said and they clinked glasses. Gwen was still worrying; Katie could see the line between her eyebrows getting deeper and deeper.

‘I promise I’ll be careful. You know me.’

Gwen yawned and covered her mouth quickly. ‘Sorry.’

‘You’re exhausted,’ Cam said from the doorway. ‘Come on.’ He led Gwen into the living room and made her lie on the sofa. He took her drink and passed it to Katie to hold. ‘We’ll be right next door.’

In the kitchen he dumped Gwen’s glass on the side and said, ‘She’s been so worried and we didn’t get much sleep last night—’

‘Ew, too much information,’ Katie said. She was only joking but Cam blushed deep red and Katie wished she hadn’t said anything. Instead she downed her drink and enjoyed the warm glow it spread through her. Finally, she could see the appeal of alcohol. She leaned against the counter, looking around Gwen’s kitchen and feeling so relaxed and sleepy that her eyes slipped out of focus. In that instant, it was like seeing a slightly different scene. Or, the same scene but with an overlay. She could see a spark of yellow light inside Cam and a grey mass of past life moving gently through the air around them. It was like doing a magic eye picture when it suddenly flipped from a two-dimensional pattern to a three-dimensional image. She blinked and her vision returned to normal. She went to the living room to check on Gwen.

Gwen was still asleep on the sofa and Katie pulled the crochet blanket from the back and draped it over her. Gwen didn’t so much as flutter an eyelid. She really must be exhausted.

Katie waited for the stab of guilt, but it didn’t come. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t fucked up. Things might not have gone perfectly but she hadn’t been a silly kid; she hadn’t been a victim.

Cam was in the doorway. ‘Tea?’ he whispered, making a tipping gesture with his hand, as if drinking from a mug.

Katie nodded. ‘Just a sec.’ She pulled the blanket, straightening it over Gwen’s legs. She checked that Cam had gone, listened for sounds of him in the kitchen. She put her hand lightly on the blanket, approximately in the middle of Gwen’s sleeping form, and closed her eyes.

She could feel it. Now that she’d done it once, she could sense it there, curled up inside. She liked to picture it as a ball of light, something positive, but in truth it didn’t feel positive or negative. It just was. A raw, primeval thing. The thing that people meant when they talked about ‘life force’ or ‘will to live’ or ‘grit’. The thing that kept the elderly breathing long after they’d prefer to call it a day. The thing that made babies, so tiny they could fit into the palm of your hand, swallow a droplet of milk.

Katie pictured a piece of light breaking away from that glowing sphere, pictured it as a tiny spark of light that travelled down her arm, into her hand and out through her fingers into Gwen. She pictured it nesting somewhere inside Gwen, somewhere it could take root.

Katie opened her eyes. Gwen was still breathing deeply. Still fast asleep. There was no way to know whether it had worked, or how many years of her own life Katie had just given up, but Katie knew it didn’t matter. Either way, it was worth it. Besides, she was a Harper. She had to help if she could.

The next day, Katie met Max at the hotel. The day was grey and cool, the grass wet and muddy from the storm.

They walked through the winding paths of the lower garden, along the beech-tree-lined ‘lady’s walk’ and into the maze-like layout of thick hedges and rambling flower beds. Every so often, the hedges opened up to reveal a little circle of lawn with crumbling statuary or a broken fountain. Max was telling her about Laura. They’d been together for five months and things had been going badly for four of those.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ Katie said. ‘It’s in the past.’

‘I want to,’ Max said. ‘I don’t want you to think it was some great love story or anything. I just felt so guilty. I walked away from that accident with barely a scratch. It wasn’t fair.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘She was screaming in my ear. It was dark. The road was slippery,’ Max said, his voice flat. ‘They’re just excuses. She still died.’

‘You know Barton was lying, though, right?’

‘I know he didn’t get a message.’ Max squeezed Katie’s hand. ‘And I’m glad I got the new perspective on conning. I mean, it was what I was brought up to do. I was running scams in primary school, but I always thought I was a good guy. That if I stuck to the rules, I wasn’t truly bad, but getting caught by Barton…’ He trailed off and shrugged. ‘It didn’t feel good.’

‘I know.’ Katie reached out and hugged him close. After a moment, they broke apart and carried on walking.

‘How are you doing now? About Laura?’ Katie was wondering whether she should offer to try a séance or a spell or whether a real message from Laura might make Max feel worse, not better.

‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ Max said. ‘I’m always all right.’

‘You are such a liar,’ Katie said, smiling to soften the words.

Max shrugged. ‘I thought I’d feel better. Relieved or something, but I don’t.’

‘Give it time.’

‘I’m going to feel guilty for a while longer, I think.’ Max put his hands on Katie’s waist and pulled her closer. He was smiling now, looking like his old self. ‘You could always distract me. You know, if you wanted to help.’

‘I think a bit of guilt won’t do you any harm at all.’

‘Harsh,’ Max said, and kissed her.

*

By the weekend, everything had calmed down. Anna had stopped asking Katie whether there were any ghosts in the room and Gwen had stopped looking at her as if she were about to sprout horns.

Cam and Max had even been out for a bonding drink at The Red Lion and Cam had pronounced Max ‘suitable-ish’.

Katie took Max to meet Fred Byres and on the way back they called into End House.

‘How was he?’ Gwen said.

‘Gardening. He says his roses have never looked better.’ Katie didn’t mention that Fred was no longer even using his bifocals; Gwen would only worry.

‘Did you see the Haunted Hotels website?’

‘What did Patrick do?’

‘Got The Grange listed. The town council is going nuts.’ Gwen nudged Cam. ‘I’ve never seen Elaine so angry and that’s saying something.’

‘I know,’ Cam said. ‘I give Patrick a week before he takes it down.’

‘Still,’ Gwen said, ‘it might be a good time to take a little time off.’

‘I could do with a holiday,’ Katie said. That picture of her parents lying in the sun had stayed with her. She could fancy some of that. And maybe a drink with one of those paper umbrellas.

‘You deserve one,’ Gwen said.

‘Shall we show her?’ Cam said. ‘Come outside.’

‘Ta-da!’ Gwen spread her arms wide with a flourish. ‘Bob gave her a complete overhaul.’

‘Bob the barman?’ Katie said. ‘At The Red Lion?’

‘Bob the camper-van-obsessed barman, yes,’ Gwen said. ‘The man’s a genius with engines. Nanette has never sounded so good.’

‘Nanette?’ Max said, looking nonplussed.

‘You’re going to let me drive Nanette?’ Katie felt tears threaten.

‘She’s all yours, honeybunch,’ Gwen said. ‘I don’t use her any more and she’s getting all bored and lonely.’