‘Someone turn the lights up,’ an anxious voice demanded. ‘I can’t see what’s happening there.’
But the lights remained dim. The only pool of brightness was that in which the black-clothed woman sat. And now, it was noticed by some, she was staring frozenly into the horseshoe of figures. Staring at one person in particular, even though that person was indistinct in the gloom.
Her mouth slowly dropped open. Her eyes hardened into a gawp of unease.
Others in the room became aware of the sudden hush.
It was almost a wail, nearly a lamentation. ‘Nooooo . . .’ said the woman in black. Everyone heard the low-moaned cry, and everyone became silent.
Hands still grasped Ash, but they were slack, powerless.
Ash recognized the next voice, even though he could barely see Edith Phipps among the sitters, the mobile spotlight now extinguished.
‘Leave us in peace,’ Edith said in a harsh whisper that somehow carried around the room as if the words had been shouted.
Ash shook himself free of the man holding him, meeting no resistance at all. No one moved. The voice from the shadows had an uncanny quality, as if the message had been whispered by someone standing close to every individual in the room. Yet still they were aware it belonged to someone among the ‘guests’, someone seated on one of the benches.
Someone who was breathing in terrible dry gasps.
The voice again: ‘We’re nothing to you, leave us alone.’ A woman’s voice . . . that somehow wasn’t.
One of the sitters screamed, a short, piercing sound; she felt as if something terribly gelid had brushed by her, then passed on its way.
‘We don’t want to be here, not with you.’ A subtle change in the voice, although it remained intrinsically the same, was still the unseen woman’s. ‘You can’t use us this way, it torments us, it draws us back.’
‘Edith?’ said Ash, stunned. He could see her shape, could make out the rise and fall of her plump shoulders; her face was shaded though, her features obscure.
She spoke again, although it was hardly her voice at all this time, the gruff tones masculine and raised in anger. ‘Let them remember us as we were. It’s wrong of you, don’t . . .’
‘. . . don’t you understand? It’s so wrong of you!’
Heads turned as one towards the dark-clothed ‘medium’ under the spotlight, for it was she who was now talking, the voice that of the man who had spoken through Edith Phipps. Her eyes were moving without coordination, like a blind person’s; her tongue flicked over rouged lips, wetting them, making them glisten.
‘You’re interfering with things you don’t understand,’ the voice continued. Her mouth formed shapes, but they bore little relation to the sounds that emerged.
Ash turned back to Edith to find she had slumped on the bench, the person beside her holding on, preventing her from slipping to the floor.
‘You must stop, you . . . I can’t see you, Mummy . . .’ The voice had changed mid-sentence, had belonged to a child, girl or boy, it was impossible to tell. Brotski rocked in her chair. ‘Come and fetch me, Mummy, don’t leave me here . . .’
Someone in the crowd sobbed, a wretched, racked sound. ‘It’s my baby . . .’
‘She’s trying to fool you,’ Ash said loudly, pointing accusingly at the dark woman.
Another voice followed on from that of the child: ‘We’re happy, we’re happy . . .’
The child’s again: ‘I want to come home to my own room . . .’
Now an older person, a female’s voice, cackling like a crone: ‘I can see you, I can see you all . . .’
And then the discarnate utterances intermingling, so many now, rushing against each other as though some incorporeal sluice-gate had been loosened, the voices flowing, tumbling through, some raised, anxious to be heard, others quiet, mannered, the sounds becoming a clamour, indistinct from each other, the whole moulding together like some sound engineer’s experiment with a tape-deck, a cacophony of meaningless noise, a dissonant roar that made no sense at all . . .
‘. . . without me your brother sends christmas no hurting any more I can’t see you what if tell martha no why are please stop this if you look under the stair carpet what year mummy come and fetch me don’t listen to her we never forget you over on this side I was glad no more sorrow here when will I david so many things to I can see you all that person will do you harm mummy please I’ll wait I’ll wait you there is grandad is whatever can it there is god don’t grieve any be happy help one day stop this stop this stop this . . .!’
The last words were screamed.
Edith’s body jerked, her eyes snapped open. She raised her head, looked over at the bright beam of downward light. She felt – she actually felt – the sensation of blood draining from her face.
The bogus medium was struggling to rise from her chair. But it seemed some unseen force held her there. Her back was arched, her hands were pushing against the wooden edges, knuckles strained in jagged, white-topped ridges. The whites of her eyes had become dominant around her pupils, as though invisible fingers were pulling back the lids, and her mouth yawned wide, the lips that had been lush suddenly thin and stretched; her cheeks had hollowed so that even under the glare of the spotlight there were faint shadows.
A fine mist had begun to drift from her mouth, a vapour that suggested that the air around her had frozen; but Edith had witnessed the emergence of ectoplasm, that physical representation of astral bodies, from the orifices of mediums on other, though rare, occasions. She was certain that this was the beginning of such, the stream as yet too tenuous, too weak, to create a definite shape.
The babbled words still came, although they had faded, were no longer loud, had levelled to a weary entreaty. And they were delivered while the woman’s mouth remained locked open, carried by the vapour, neither her tongue nor her lips forming the sounds.
‘Stop this stop this stop . . .’
The gentle expellation of mist faded, wisped away, but still there was a passing of shadows over her face, a curious shifting of light that subtly altered her features, changing her appearance yet never settling, an emphasis of cheekbone, perhaps a strengthening of the jaw, a furrowing of her brow; transient shapings, hints of different personalities, but nevertheless only a crawling of shadows beneath a still light.
The people around her, those guests who had held her in awe, could no longer control their panic. There were shouts of alarm, a furore of voices that overwhelmed the murmurings exhaled (it seemed) from her taut mouth.
The young woman who thought she had heard her dead child calling to her fought to get through to the seated ‘medium’, but others in the room had no further desire to stay and she was pushed, sent stumbling over a bench.
Two other women, both whimpering like frightened children, rushed past Ash, knocking him sideways in their desperation to leave. Others followed them in a mêlée of jostling bodies, all hurrying to reach the door, and although the bogus medium had become a distressing sight, Ash could not understand the acuteness of their terror. Surely they realized she was victim of some peculiar kind of fit? Then he realized that this woman (and now he acknowledged she was psychic, although his deep-rooted scepticism rejected any notion that she was clairvoyant) was somehow mentally projecting her own fear, the atmosphere itself charged with it. It spread like a rapid disease, touching, infecting everyone present, including himself. If he hadn’t understood the absurd logic of it all, he too, would be heading for the exit. My God, he thought, no wonder they were in awe of her.
He flinched as a hand touched his arm.
‘David, she’s in terrible danger,’ said Edith urgently.
He was relieved that Edith Phipps had recovered from her faint and relieved, too, that she showed no signs of panic. ‘It’s self-induced,’ he said to her. ‘I’ve seen this kind of hysteria before.’
She looked at him as though he were mad. ‘No, it isn’t that. We have to help her before it’s too late. We have to bring her ou
t of her trance.’
The crowd around them had thinned, most of the people now bunched around the door, jostling to get through. Edith and Ash had a clear view of the woman in the chair.
‘Dear God,’ breathed Edith.
Not everyone had rushed away. A few, just a few, including the Brotski aides, stood as if mesmerized by the sight before them. Somebody moaned. There was the crash of someone else collapsing to the floor.
For Elsa Brotski’s face could hardly be called her own any more.
Its flesh heaved, rippled. The skin wrinkled into lines and whorls and just as abruptly there were smoothly clear patches, areas so fine they were nearly translucent. These transformations could no longer be mistaken for the shifting of shadows across her face, for the fleshy contortions were plainly evident. It was as if other countenances – many other countenances – existed beneath the surface, and each one was striving to announce itself, pushing from within, expanding the covering skin to its limit. It was an incredible and quite horrific spectacle; and it was nauseatingly fascinating.
It seemed that Elsa Brotski’s face must surely burst.
Shocked, almost beguiled, Ash waited for the rapid transfigurations to run their course, cold-bloodedly, and even perversely, curious to see how far the phenomenon could progress, how it would end. There was little pity in him for the woman, and he could not help but despise himself for that.
He sensed Edith leaving his side and raised a hand to stop her, knowing where she was going. Her silhouette blocked the bizarre sight from his view, then she, too, was under the light, centre-stage in the nightmare.
She reached down for the tormented woman, laying her hands on the undulating face. She began to speak softly to her.
Ash made his way towards them, easing past those who had remained to watch with weird dread in their eyes. The helper whom Ash had pushed away earlier turned at the investigator’s approach, but made no attempt to stand in his way. Instead, he backed off himself, hastily joining the throng around the exit. His colleague seemed struck rigid, unable or unwilling to go near the helpless woman. The third aide, the one who had operated the movable spotlight that had singled out individual sitters, clutched the tripod as if for support, his head shaking in disbelief.
Edith staggered as Brotski suddenly lifted herself, her body arching outwards as if sprung, her hands still clenched around the edges of the chair, fastened there. She stretched herself in a perfect bow shape, her stomach enormously rounded as though in the final stages of pregnancy, her back hollowed. Yet her head was upright, resting on the shiny black material covering her breasts, giving the illusion that it had been disconnected from her neck and placed there. Worst of all were her eyes, for the pupils had rolled back inside their sockets so that only the whites showed, oddly swollen and lacklustre, like those of a grilled fish.
She presented an awful and terrifying vision, her features still not having settled, continuing to move in gargoylean patterns.
And the voices persisted, an unearthly gabbling that spilled from unmoving lips, a low outpouring of inanities – and anger . . .
‘. . . can’t if mind the cat you I it’s different still remember that time won’t long long tunnel ever bright light at mummy please mummy flowers here lots stop this leave tell everybody you the end death can’t alone all pain ends don’t forget under the stairs when you stop come over we don’t wish this we want to I can see be left . . .’
Blood began to trickle from Brotski’s nose; then from the corners of her eyes.
Ash stepped before her, made afraid by the sheer force of this woman’s convulsions. Not knowing what else to do, he stooped and took her head in his hands as Edith had done, fighting the repulsiveness of that swelling, agitated flesh against his palms.
Her stomach and pelvis brushed against him in lascivious parody of seduction. The red-veined, leaking eyes glowered sightlessly at him. Her breath was foul, as though the words carried their own stinking effluence.
The fitful spasms seemed to concentrate themselves into a trembling, a shaking of her whole body that threatened to loosen Ash’s grip on her face. Her spine curved even more, to the point it would surely snap, so that her belly quivered against his chest. Her head sat between her breasts like some grotesque palpitating effigy.
A one-word litany could now be heard above the others . . .
‘. . . stop . . . stop . . . stop . . .’
It was as though the violent quivering had reached its zenith, for Elsa Brotski suddenly solidified.
Or at least, that was how it felt to Ash. He might well have been holding on to a marble statue, so hard and frozen did the woman feel.
The voices had ceased. But a high-pitched keening had replaced them, the sound distant, coming from deep inside the woman.
It grew, became piercing, erupting from the gaping hole that was her mouth as a deafeningly shrill shriek.
And then one more word. A name. Before Elsa Brotski fell unconscious into a loose, fluid heap.
Leaving Edith Phipps to wonder why David’s name had been called, once among the babble of other voices and now as a single last cry.
24
Ash stirred in the bed, one hand sliding across his forehead to soothe away the pressure inside. He swallowed to ease his parched throat. His eyes opened grudgingly. He drew in a long draught of air as though breathing were not the most natural thing.
He moved again, pushing himself up in the bed, that movement sluggish, almost drugged. Muted daylight shone through the window to render shadows, those which at night had been an intense and secretive umbra, no more than an insubstantial shading. Ash murmured something, perhaps a protest against his own lack of vitality.
With considerable effort he raised his wrist to study his watch. Surprise played its part in overcoming the lethargy. It was late afternoon; Ash had slept through most of the day.
He leaned back against the headboard, wiping his hands across his face to dispel the grogginess, then down across his chest. His body felt grimed, staled, and he remembered how soaked it had been when he’d woken during the dark hours. Ash tugged the sheets away, unmindful of the room’s low temperature. His skin was dry now, pale in the daylight. The bedclothes beside him were tangled, any indication of anyone else having lain there since erased by his own troubled sleep. But there were semen stains on the sheet.
He rose from the bed, slow in action, a dullish pain loitering behind his eyes, and went to the window. Hands resting against the frame, he looked out at the gardens.
Everything was still. There was no breeze, no drifting of clouds (for the sky was blanket grey once more, sombre in its fullness), no sounds to be heard.
Even the house, even Edbrook, seemed strangely quiescent.
Ash was aware of all this, though his thoughts were directed inwards and were of the night before. He saw Christina, pure and beautifully white in her nakedness, dark hair loose around her face, her shoulders, the longest strands falling against the rise of her breasts. He touched her again in his mind and remembered her sensual response; again he felt her moistness, sensed her pleasured shudder.
Ash turned from the window and sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, his face pressed into his hands. Where had she gone? Why had Christina left him in the middle of the night?
He dressed slowly, without washing first – somehow the thought of cleansing himself never even entered his head. At the door he paused, hand resting on the handle. He waited there and wondered why he was reluctant to go out into the corridor. Ash realized that the very stillness of the house was unnerving him, for it seemed to hold a brooding quality, as though the timbers, the mortar, the house’s essence, were waiting . . . For what? He was annoyed at himself. David Ash, the ultimate pragmatist, was now indulging in fantasy, and a foolish one at that. Edbrook was just a house. No more than that. With a tragic history, to be sure, and one so strong that possibly it could still project its image long after the event. But that had little to do with haunting in t
he truest sense. There were no ghosts here, no spectres, nor spirits, to bother the living. Perhaps Edbrook entertained trickery though.
With that thought in mind, the investigator pulled open the door.
The corridor was empty, and he hadn’t expected it to be otherwise. That was the eerie thing – the house itself felt empty. Empty of life. Yet still . . . pensive.
Ash went along the dim corridor, passing the galleried stairway, glancing over into the well of the hallway as he did so. The very air inside Edbrook seemed heavy, aged. Perhaps the atmosphere had more to do with his own condition than actuality, for the previous night’s trauma – and that of the first night – had left him weary and depressed. Even though he had slept most of the day away, there was a lassitude to his step and a muzziness inside his head that was difficult to dismiss.
He reached Christina’s room and tapped lightly on the door. There was no reply. Ash didn’t bother to knock again: he entered.
He stood at the doorway, mouth open slightly, his gaze roving.
There was nothing unusual about Christina’s bedroom. The bed, with its brass head and foot rail, was neatly made, its feather quilt barely ruffled. Ornaments on old furniture were arranged tidily. Patterned curtains were tied back with splendid bows, decorative net diffusing the window light.
Nothing unusual about the room, except . . .
. . . Except that everything was too orderly – no magazines or books, no clothing, night attire or otherwise, lay scattered or draped over chairs – and everything was dulled, faded. As if the room and its contents were tempered by dust.
There was no vibrancy here, no indication of occupancy. Christina’s bedroom had all the vitality of an unattended museum.
Resting on a bureau beneath an oval mirror were two silver-framed photographs and Ash moved closer to examine them. He picked up one and wiped dust from its glass: he recognized the sepia-toned couple from the portrait he had come upon the night before. Christina’s parents, in formal pose, smiled frozenly and somewhat bleakly for the camera. The group in the second photograph, which had obviously been taken in more recent times, was the Mariell offspring. He was about to pick it up when he caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror, a light screen of dirt weakening the image; even so, he could discern the puffiness beneath his eyes, the darkness of his stubbled chin. Disconcerted, Ash moved away, brushing fingers through his tousled hair in token gesture of grooming.