White Crow (15 page)

It’s some kind of pantry, or storeroom. The window they climbed through never had glass in it but a wooden louvre, now long rotted and mostly gone.

It’s cold. There’s thick dust under their feet, and some pungent smell, but with an acrid edge, like vinegar.

The light from the phone goes out.

‘Push it again,’ Ferelith says, but Rebecca already has.

‘I don’t have much battery,’ she says.

‘That’s okay,’ Ferelith says. ‘We won’t need it for long. And anyway, you’re not planning on making any calls, are you?’

It goes out, and as Rebecca turns it on again, Ferelith snatches it.

‘Hey!’

‘I’m just going to change the settings. You can change how long the backlight stays on for, can’t you?’

She stabs a few buttons and seems satisfied.

‘There we are.’

‘Can I have it back?’ Rebecca asks.

‘Better if I have it for now,’ Ferelith says. ‘I’m going to lead the way and it’s pretty dangerous in here. You have to watch for the floorboards. Some of them aren’t there any more.’

‘You’ve been here before?’ Rebecca asks, even though she knows the answer.

‘Yes. Of course I have. Watch your step and put your feet where mine go.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Inside.’

‘We are inside.’

‘Really inside.’

Ferelith nudges the door to the little room open with her foot and heads out.

They’re in kitchens, Rebecca can see that, even though there are no modern appliances, no cookers or fridges. She sees a large sink almost the size of a bath, long wooden work surfaces, sharp meat hooks hanging from rails along the walls.

Rebecca wonders when a meal was last cooked in these kitchens. How many people came to dinner. What they ate, and whether they liked it, and whether it was a happy evening.

It’s so dead here, the sense of loss, of decay, of long years of nothingness, that Rebecca thinks she might scream, but fortunately Ferelith doesn’t stop to sightsee, and crosses the floor by the most direct route to a door on the far side.

They leave the kitchens behind.

Ferelith seems to know where she’s going, but she’s not in a rush to get to wherever that might be.

‘So,’ Rebecca says, but her voice dries up and she has to start again. ‘So, where are we going? Is it far?’

She tries to inject a lightness that she doesn’t feel into her voice.

‘Not far,’ says Ferelith. ‘There’s some cool stuff to see too, but mostly the place was emptied when it was shut down.’

‘When was that?’

‘The fifties, I think.’

‘The nineteen fifties?’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘Because it feels like no one’s been here in centuries. Why did they shut it up?’

‘Someone died.’

‘Shut up. Don’t try to scare me.’

‘No. I just mean someone who owned it died and there was no one who wanted to take it on. It might look like it’s worth a fortune, but like I said, it’s not worth a thing because when the sea comes, that’s it.’

Ferelith slips down a corridor, holding Rebecca’s phone in front of her, casting an eerie glow on the desolation that waits for them.

‘It would cost you more to repair the place than you’d ever get back from it. That’s all I meant. Though having said that,’ she says, ‘there have always been stories about this place. Aside from the one about the doctor. It’s been empty on and off. Before the last owner died, it was used as a hospital for wounded American airmen. In the Second World War. There were loads of airbases around here, and they took over places like this to be hospitals. They turned all the big rooms into wards.’

‘That’s weird. Didn’t the owners mind?’

‘They didn’t have any choice. And anyway, everyone had to suffer in the war, didn’t they? Even the rich.’

She turns a corner and Rebecca hurries after the firefly light.

Coming around the corner she can see they’re in a bigger space but the light of the phone isn’t strong enough to show her how big.

There are other clues though. The air sounds wider around them, not as claustrophobic, and it’s cooler again too. Rebecca’s eyes search the space and she realises that her phone isn’t the only light.

‘Let it go out,’ she says, and Ferelith hides the phone in her pocket.

There actually is some other light.

They’re in the entrance hall, and sunbeams in which the dust dances like tiny moths spear through tiny chinks in the boards. There’s a different smell here, different from the kitchens and the pantry. This smell is really unpleasant, as if there are rats decaying under the floorboards. And worse.

‘Isn’t that pretty?’ Ferelith says, watching the narrow rods of sunlight stabbing down, the bright hot sun outside reduced to this backdrop of stars.

‘That’s how our sun would look from another galaxy,’ she adds. ‘Nothing more than one tiny star among millions. A pin prick.’

Rebecca shudders. It’s cold in the Hall, and she’s only wearing a vest top, because it’s been another beast of a sunny day. Only now does she wonder why Ferelith is wearing a hoodie. She must have been baking outside.

‘Can we get on with this?’ Rebecca asks, still wondering what it is that she will have to do. She thinks about her father for some reason that she can’t place. She doesn’t feel angry with him, she doesn’t feel sad. What she feels is nothing.

‘Yeah,’ says Ferelith. ‘Sorry. This way, I think.’

She turns and flicks the phone back on, heading into the bowels of the building and away from the weak light.

They walk down a long corridor and make a couple of turns. Now the silence is complete but for their breathing and the creak of the boards under their feet, and the darkness is total but for the light from the phone.

‘Come on,’ Ferelith says. ‘This way. We’re nearly there.’

‘Where?’

‘The Candle Room.’

We came down the hallway and though I knew my way in the dark by then, I made a bit of a show of having to stop and think, and remembering the right way, and so on.

I think I managed to make it look like an accident that we came to the Candle Room. I pulled aside the boards that I’d replaced after my previous visit, remembering the day I made, in my opinion, the greatest archaeological discovery since they found that Viking boat burial down the road in the thirties.

I found the door handle and gave it a sharp tug. It’s stiff and needs a bit of force, but then I barged the door open and we were inside.

I sniffed the air, and as usual, it stank of decay. Truth is, the inside of the Hall is such a riot of different horrible smells that one more terrible smell was neither here nor there.

‘Is this it?’

I told her it was.

‘So what do I have to do then?’ she asked.

I was about to tell her, when the phone’s light went out.

‘God!’ I said.

‘What?’ she asked, and I could hear the panic in her voice.

‘Phone’s dead. Damn. Listen, don’t worry. It’s only darkness. We can get out of here. It’ll be easy if we’re careful.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. I don’t like this. I want the light back on. Give me my phone.’

‘I told you,’ I said. ‘It’s dead. No point.’

‘I don’t care. I want my phone back. Give it to me.’

I heard her move and thought I should tell her to be careful.

‘There’s things on the floor in here,’ I explained. ‘You ought to watch your step.’

She stopped, and swore.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let me sort it. Stay where you are, I’ll come and find you. And don’t panic.’

‘Hurry,’ she said, and I knew she was spooked.

I stretched my fingers out ahead of me, stroking the air till I touched her.

‘There. Look, there’s something behind you.’

I felt around in the dark with my foot and found the chair.

‘Sit down here,’ I said.

I was calm, but firm, just how you should talk to people who are panicking.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because then you’ll be safe and won’t hurt yourself on anything while I find some light.’

I gave her a gentle push, just to encourage her, and sure enough, she sat down.

Then it only took a moment to do it.

I found her wrists and flicked the bracelets over them before she even knew what I was doing.

‘Hey!’ she cried. ‘Ferelith!’

She yelled at me then, because she immediately knew something was wrong, but I was already fixing the hoops round her ankles, and as she felt them tighten, she really started to lose it.

‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘Hey! Rebecca! Hey!’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ she yelled in the darkness.

But then it wasn’t dark any more, because I pulled her phone back out of my pocket, and flicked the light on once more.

‘You said that was dead!’ she said, as if the fact that I’d lied was the worst thing I could have done.

And maybe it was.

Then.

‘What are you doing?’ she screamed. ‘Let me go.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s time for your forfeit. It’s time to find out if you’ve been a good girl, or a bad girl. I wonder who’s coming for you. The Angel or the Devil?’