Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

  Chapter 34

  What Did You Expect?

  Still feeling sick and wobbly I watched Lizzie reach the house and stand in front of the heavy front door. There Lizzie nervously reached up for a knocker stuck in the middle of the wood of the door, knocking it twice. Then she stepped back and waited.

  No-one answered.

  She glanced back in my direction and was just moving forward to try again when the door swung open. In front of her stood a woman in a long, black dress and shoes with heels. She was tall and slim and blonde hair was tied up into a tight bun. Although I couldn’t see the detail because of the distance, her sharp features were beautiful and the glint of expensive jewellery showed glamour.

  In front of her Lizzie suddenly looked very small.

  A few seconds and words were exchanged. Although I shouldn’t have been I was surprised when Lizzie pointed in my direction. The woman in black followed her gesture and looked straight towards me. Instinct made me duck down out of sight but then I quickly realised what I should be doing. I looked over the wall again and Lizzie was still pointing and talking but black dress woman was unsure. She was still stood holding the door.

  So I got up and did my best ghost impression.

  First of all I walked to the edge of the wall and carefully onto the uneven grounds of the house. I walked in a kind of slow motion so as not to stumble. A ghost that lost its footing just wouldn’t have cut it. So I walked forwards, waving my arms about, even giving off a few groans for good measure. I saw the woman cower slightly, using the door as protection. Then I heard her shout back into the house and two suited men appeared. They looked just as Lizzie had described. Now everybody was pointing at me and talking and I saw Lizzie disappear between the jumble of people at the door. It was then that I changed direction, going back the way I had come, but a little quicker this time. As soon as I was out of sight I dropped behind the wall and peeked through the gnarled branches of a bush that grew on the other side.

  It hadn’t worked. The trio were still talking and pointing but hadn’t moved. Soon they began to argue loudly. I could just catch little pockets of what they said but didn’t understand a word of it. Like Lizzie had said, it was in German.

  Moments passed and they grew calmer and I recognised that they had lost the bait. They were doubting what they’d seen but they still weren’t sure enough to go back inside.

  I had to do something. I stood up again, making sure they could see my head above the wall, and moaned loudly. This set them pointing and talking again so I carried on.

  And it worked.

  The two suited men moved away from the house and began to walk carefully towards me. I kept the lid on the impulse to run. I needed to get this just right, so I kept moaning until the two men had got halfway to me and then I slowly disappeared, ducking and running to hide in a gap left by an open back gate in a house I’d seen earlier.

  I watched and waited. Panting. My heart smashing blood to my ears so loudly that’s all I could hear.

  But no-one appeared.

  I knelt and peeked around the rotten wooden backdoor frame for what seemed like minutes.

  Nope. No-one.

  Then I heard loose stones beside me and I was grabbed roughly and a hand was clamped tightly over my mouth and I was fighting for air. I struggled hard but whoever held me was strong and wouldn’t let go. I was terrified. My eyes were wide like frightened dinner plates. Then a face appeared in front of mine and I smelt expensive aftershave.

  “Vell, vell, vell,” said the face slowly and in a heavy German accent. “I sink, Hanz, zat ve av captured this…giest.”

  The face staring at me was brown, had a square jaw and was centred around two blue eyes that were clear even in the darkness. They looked directly at me. Unblinking and cruel.

  “Vat shall ve do vith zis gespenster, Hanz?” said the face as whoever Hanz was held me tightly from behind. So tightly that I couldn’t move and almost couldn’t breathe.

  The face in front of me answered for Hanz.

  “I zink ve should lock him up, ya?”

  Hanz mumbled something in reply and in German.

  The face moved even closer and I smelt garlic.

  “You vill come quietly, ya? If no…” and the face drew a line across his throat with his index finger.

  His message was clear. Hanz was big and strong and still had a hand clamped over my mouth. He picked me completely off of the floor and, after The Face had made sure the coast was clear, carried me after him and back into the grounds of the old house. The nearer I got to the house the worse I felt. I was terrified. I felt too ill to try and fight to escape. I watched as the house drew nearer and nearer. The Face kept a subtle eye out for somebody who might see us and give the game away.

  Sooner than I expected we were up the front steps and inside the cool house. The Face quietly shut and bolted the door after us. Hanz still held me and the face moved close again.

  “Remember our talk, ya?” and he drew the line again, imitating throat and knife.

  I nodded. Anything to get away from Hanz.

  The Face nodded sharply to Hanz and I was dropped onto a cold stone floor where I lay for a moment. I leaned my back against one of the walls and drew my legs up to my chest for protection. The Face said something to Hanz and Hanz motioned for me to get up.

  “Hier oben,” Hanz ordered and I guess he meant follow me or something as he beckoned to me with his finger.

  So I followed Hanz through one of the hallways of the big house. Everything was old and full of decoration I didn’t recognise. Probably put up decades before I was born. What was I thinking of? Probably even before Gran and Granddad were born! Most of it was limp and faded, the wallpaper damp and hanging down in a hundred places, and the furniture was old, antique and dusty. Not used. Just there. Old and thick electric cables fed bare bulbs that showed all of this in a gloopy yellow light.

  I followed the stocky shape of Hanz to a door where he stopped. He turned a key in its old lock and he put a sinister finger to his thick lips in an order to be quiet.

  “SSShhhh,” he growled at me. “Ruhe!”

  Again I nodded. Then Hanz opened the door further and, with one hand, shoved me in.

  It only took a second for me to hit the far wall and I held myself there listening to the key turning in a door already closed.

  Wherever I was it was dark but there was some light from a lamp on one wall. And the smell! Like…like…cat pee.

  Then I realised where I was. I’d been here before.

  “Jay! Thank goodness!”

  And a small figure wrapped her thin arms around me in relief.

  It was Lizzie.

  In the gloom Lizzie grabbed my face with both hands and examined me for injury. “What did they do? Did they hurt you,Jay? Oh, you’ve a nasty bruise”

  “Have I?” I replied shakily. “It’ll be OK. I’m fine. Thanks.”

  I was reluctant to sit down because of the smell and there wasn’t much room, but I had too. I was still feeling terrible and I was shaking with fright. As I sunk onto the carpet Lizzie knelt with me.

  “Jay,” she said softly, “there’s someone you should meet.”

  I knew who it was instantly.

  “Rosie!” I stuttered.

  Rosie was as I remembered her during the séance – face buried behind dirty hands and trying to put as much space between her and what she assumed to be a ghost.

  Lizzie was doing her best to keep her calm. “It’s fine, Rosie. He’s not a ghost. I promise.”

  “But,” stammered the girl, “I’ve seen him before. He’s been here before!”

  So I was right after all. Rosie did exist. And her prison. I was shocked at how odd and accurate I had been. It took me a good while to come around. Lizzie was trying to convince her that we were friends but Rosie still buried her face in her hands and wouldn’t come out.

  I was surprised when Lizzie tried a firmer tactic. “C’mon, Rosie,” she said impatiently, ?
??we’re all scared. So chin up, there’s a good girl.”

  I was even more surprised to see it work. Rosie slowly removed her dirty hands to reveal the same grime-soaked face I’d recognised during the séance. I squinted at her. I couldn’t help it. I was sure I’d seen her before. Way before the night of the séance.

  “I…w…want so much to…to go home,” Rosie managed to blurt out. Then she shook with silent sobs and Lizzie surprised me yet again by holding her, allowing Rosie to bury her head in her shoulder, smoothing her matted hair.

  “Sssshhh,” she cooed, “it’s fine now. We’re here to help you. You’re safe.”

  Lizzie looked over Rosie’s shoulder at me. She gave me the kind of look that said ‘we are going to be OK. Aren’t we?”

  The doubt and fear I felt must have been as clear as an aeroplane dragging big letters behind it across the sky.

  It didn’t take long for us all to gather our wits and start to talk. We both told similar stories.

  “They seemed to know who I was,” Lizzie said. “As soon as I snuck in a big Jerry grabbed me and put me in here. They even knew my name!”

  Rosie’s story was different. When she finally began to trust us she told us how she had been collecting for the local St John’s Ambulance Service.

  “I didn’t think anybody lived in this house,” she explained in a weak voice that was cracked by weeks of little food or water, “and the front door was open. So I sneaked in. We always thought the house was haunted because the lights used to go on and off during the night time. But we never saw anybody.” For a long time Rosie had avoided my eyes. Now she looked at me and she was so familiar I just stared right back. “But there was somebody here, wasn’t there?” she said. “There were Germans here. They grabbed me and locked me up. They’re just like Dad said they were – big and rough and nasty. They keep teasing me, telling me they’re coming to get me and that they’re going to feed me to their big dogs.”

  I remembered hearing something like that in my visions and dreams.

  “How long,” I asked her gently, “how long do you think you’ve been here Rosie?”

  “Don’t know,” she shrugged. “Might be weeks. Could be months.” Then she started crying again. “I want to go home…”

  So the brave and brilliant Lizzie held and soothed the prisoner and I thought about what had gone wrong. When I asked Lizzie she shook her head like someone way beyond her years.

  “I’m ten and you’re just about a teenager. What did you expect?”

  She was right.