Frost Hollow Hall (16 page)

‘Thought you was for the chop,’ said Cook. ‘I in’t never seen Mrs Jessop so angry!’

‘This is my last chance . And I should probably keep my gob shut more often, too.’

Cook chuckled at this. She gave us each a candle for the back stairs and wished us good night. We went quickly and though nothing followed us, Gracie still held my hand all the way up and got into bed beside me, even before I’d asked her.

‘So did you tell her Ladyship about the spirit?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘And did she believe you?’

‘I should say so.’

‘You in’t half brave! I in’t got the guts to even talk to her.’

I didn’t feel brave in the slightest. And I didn’t feel like mentioning the séance neither, which I knew would stir her up; it could wait until morning. We lay side by side without speaking, and after a bit, Gracie turned over. I listened to her breathing change. Soon she was sound asleep.

I stared up at the ceiling for a good while longer. My head buzzed with all it was holding in. Her Ladyship, I reckoned, wasn’t quite what she seemed. She was charming and lovely but artful with it, like someone used to getting her own way. And it unsettled me still how she grieved for Kit like he’d died only yesterday, as if she didn’t quite believe he was gone.

But then I couldn’t blame her. I knew what it felt like to miss someone, even when you were angry with them, even when you wanted to shout at them hard. You hoped it might be just a nasty dream, that when you woke up they’d be there again and everything would be back to normal. Except it didn’t work like that. Each morning I woke to another day without my pa. And he’d only been missing five days, not ten whole years.

Though God help us if this séance went wrong. It really didn’t bear thinking about.

Dreaming: 5

Above our heads, the cracks appear. Daylight seeps in, turning the water smoky grey. Kit looks up. The light is on his face. I still can’t believe he’s not an angel.

A sudden light startles us. Trees and blue sky loom above us. The ice has splintered, the sun pours in. I start laughing out loud. I can’t help it. I’m brimming over with joy.

I start to swim upwards. But something isn’t right. Kit’s not beside me. I look round and see him bewildered, some feet below. He can’t move. He reaches out for my hand, starts shaking his head. This is as far as he can go.

I take his outstretched fingers. They feel colder than ever. I start to shake. Ever so slowly, we sink back down to the darker water. The chill of it hits my feet, my legs, my waist. I don’t understand what’s happening. I thought we were nearly free of this place. But as he turns to me, his eyes are full of something I can’t quite read.

24

The Emptiness

I woke with a start. It was the middle of the night still, the moon shining in through the window. Gracie was asleep beside me. Nothing looked amiss. Yet dread grew in the pit of my stomach. I pulled the covers right up to my chin.

Someone else was here in the room.

‘Kit?’ I whispered. ‘Is that you?’

No one answered.

And yet the bedroom door began to open. My heart gave a painful thud. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and wondering if this was still a dream. From the landing came the sound of footsteps. They were light and quick; I knew them at once. The spirit was back.

Hands shaking, I reached for our candle. Once it was lit, I felt braver but still hadn’t the guts to get out of bed. The footsteps got louder. Gracie groaned like she was about to wake. Then, right close by, I heard whispering and with it, that dreadful smell of honey. Terrified, I leapt straight out of bed.

The footsteps on the landing stopped.

I crept to the door and looked back to check Gracie – she slept on. My heart beat hard as I went out onto the landing. It was empty. Then, deep within the stairwell, something moved. A shuffling noise echoed off the walls.

‘Who’s there?’ I whispered.

The spirit had come for me. I sensed it, all right. And though I was sick with fear, I needed to know what it wanted.

I took the stairs slowly. Halfway down, the shuffling stopped. I hesitated. What the flip was I doing, wandering about in the middle of the night? If Mrs Jessop caught me, I’d be for it.

Something brushed against my face. My hands flew up.

‘Who’s there? What do you want?’

Silence.

All around was pitch black. I almost glad, so fearful was I of what I might see. Close to my right ear, someone drew breath. I froze. Then the speaking started, quick, hissing, rambling words that meant nothing to me but turned my blood cold. In horror, I realised the spirit had hold of my wrist. I tried desperately to pull free. The fingers gripped tighter, dragging me forwards. Before I knew it, I’d reached the bottom of the stairs.

There, the fingers let go. Now the footsteps started up again, this time heading off down the passage towards the green baize door. I wanted so badly just to turn and run back to bed. Yet a queer feeling seized me that I
had
to follow, that the spirit was demanding it. And it wouldn’t let me rest until I did.

The door swung open before I’d reached it. I stepped out into the empty hall. Moonlight poured in through the windows so the paintings, the furniture, the carpets all seemed touched with silver. The house was still as the grave. I knew where the spirit was taking me. It set me shivering all over. Yet my feet moved as if by themselves, taking the stairs two at a time, going up and up into the shadows.

It was dark inside Kit’s bedchamber. My eyes took a moment to get used to it. Someone had pulled the drapes tight shut, though the fire still glowed in the grate.

‘Kit? Are you here?’

Nothing moved.

‘Answer me, will you?’

My ears strained for the slightest sound. There was none. But something had shifted in me, too. The fear had gone and now I felt quite irked.

‘You got me out of bed, so what do you want?’ I whispered, hearing the rising frustration in my voice. ‘If it in’t you doing all this, Kit, then who is?’

Nothing replied. I was very definitely alone.

I turned for the door. This was pointless. There was nothing here. The spirit had gone. And I’d be in more trouble than ever if I got caught here now. But I couldn’t leave, not yet. Not until I knew why I’d been brought here.

My candle was fading fast so I parted the curtains to let the moonlight in and looked around me. Nothing had changed since this morning.

Why would it? It hadn’t changed for ten whole years.

At the sight of Kit’s things, my heart jolted. I’d never get used to them, not if I had to clean this room every day for ever. And there were so many books here, all about fancy things I didn’t understand like poetry and history. This was the Kit I didn’t know, and it made me sad in a different way. So much of him was still a stranger to me. Once upon a time he’d been a living, breathing boy, who’d rumpled his bed sheets and muddied his boots. It was proper hard to imagine. The Kit I knew was the boy in the lake. A boy as fine as the stars.

One book lay open. Its pages seemed to glow in the moonlight, and before I could stop myself, I’d picked it up off the table.

It was a sketchbook, filled with little pencil drawings of wings: wings in flight, wings folded, wings outstretched like an angel’s. The very final page was all fancy letters in lots of different styles; curly ones, bold ones, like he was practising writing something out: ‘To my . . .’, then ‘dear . . .’ and even a ‘dearest . . .’ It made my heart stir. For I supposed, writing those words, he’d been thinking of his mother, and that there had been a time when the two of them had been proper close. I could so easily imagine Kit sat right here, making something so beautiful.
This
was the boy I knew.

As I put the book back in its place, a shiver passed through me. For Kit wasn’t here, was he? The room was empty.

Dead.

Even the spirit hadn’t followed me inside. It struck me then there was a reason for it. That I was
meant
to feel this emptiness. Meant to know that Kit’s ghost wasn’t here. For it certainly had settled lead-heavy inside me. The fire burned on, the books lay open and the bed was turned back ready, and yet all of it was mocking me, saying
this won’t bring him back. Nothing will. He’s gone for ever
.

And this was the terrible truth that Lady Barrington just couldn’t see. Nothing would ever bring Kit back; I doubted even a séance could manage it. Lady Barrington would have to live with her loss. And here I was, with my own father gone and my sister too, beginning to know what that felt like.

25

How to Summon
a Spirit

Once Lord Barrington had left for his London train the next morning, we got to work like mad things. Dorcas was responsible for Kit’s room, since it was here that the séance would take place. She was under strict orders not to touch his things of course, but the room itself needed preparing. For this, Lady Barrington’s instructions were endless–
put this chair here, drape this curtain there
–but neither me nor Gracie were trusted to help. So we did the donkey’s work of bringing in coals and beating carpets, and placing huge vases of lilies in the hallway.

Gracie was glad not to set foot upstairs; part of me was too. For an uneasy feeling hung over me that Lady Barrington was hoping for too much tonight. Her absolute faith in the séance unnerved me. But I was excited too, and glad to be here to be part of it.

Later that morning, I needed linen from the cupboard and went to ask Dorcas for the key. I hovered in Kit’s doorway, taking in the scene. Though the drapes were drawn shut, the lamps all blazed, making the room unnaturally light. Dorcas was on her knees banking up the fire, even though the room felt too warm already. The mantel mirror was covered with black cloth and a space had been cleared in the middle of the room, where a circle of chairs now stood. The sight of it made me shudder.

‘What is it?’ said Dorcas, seeing me. She was flushed with heat from the fire.

Before I could answer, a service bell rang somewhere down the hallway. Dorcas tutted irritably and got to her feet.

‘Why isn’t Mrs Jessop answering it? Have you seen her?’

I hadn’t. No one had seen her since breakfast.

Dorcas headed past me for the door. ‘What was it you wanted, anyway?’

‘The linen cupboard key,’ I said.

She shot me a look like she didn’t quite believe me. As we stepped out into the corridor, I saw she locked Kit’s door behind her.

After I’d got my clean tablecloths, I stopped off in the kitchen for a cup of water. What with the rest of us busy upstairs, Cook was by herself and working flat out by the looks of things.

‘Just the girl,’ she said, passing me a bucket. ‘Her Ladyship wants ice cream tonight. God knows why in this weather.’

‘I’m doing the dining room. I can’t stop.’

‘They won’t miss you if you’re quick. Just follow the path out of the yard and up to the lake and then . . .’

The lake!

In a flash I said, ‘’Course I’ll do it,’ and grabbed the bucket from her.

‘Hang on! I in’t finished telling you yet!’

Cook said something about trees and doors that were a bit stiff but I was only half listening. I’d been so fixated with Kit’s room, I’d forgotten all about the blinking lake, the one place where I knew Kit’s ghost would be. My heart beat faster as I headed for the door.

‘And put this on or you’ll freeze to death out there,’ said Cook, handing me an old greatcoat from its peg by the back porch.

*

The lake was set back behind the house, beyond the great yew hedges of the graveyard, and surrounded by copses of birch trees. I turned right out of the courtyard and headed up the path. It looked familiar enough. I’d come this way on Tuesday, when Will and me had been frogmarched to the house. But now I was heading up the path, not down it, and the snow was deeper too, making walking quite hard work. Everything was white, the hedges black and stark against it. And the air was so sharp, it made me cough when I breathed. I was mighty glad of Cook’s old coat, though it was ten sizes too big and made me look like a scarecrow. Not that I cared. There wasn’t a living soul out here to see me.

Up some steps and the path began to twist and turn through the bushes. Then, quite suddenly, the dark green of the yew trees loomed up ahead like a wall. I didn’t think to stop and peer through for a glimpse of Kit’s grave. In truth, I didn’t have time.

Once I’d passed the yews, the snow thinned a little and the path took me into a copse of bare birches. Not far to the lake now; I could almost see it through the trees.

Kit would’ve come this way.

I turned up my collar and quickened my pace.

He’d have walked this same path, looked up at these same trees. Was he whistling to himself? Was he thrilled to be out here in the fresh air?

In my head, I could almost see him, head down, striding along with his skates slung over his shoulder. An ache built up in my throat.

He didn’t know what he was hurrying towards, that moments later he’d be dead.

I shuddered. It was too awful to bear.

Someone should’ve stopped him, warned him that it wasn’t safe. If only he’d gone riding instead, or got sick and stayed in bed. If only . . .

By now I’d reached the edge of the trees. I passed through the little gate, and caught my breath. The lake spread out before me. Everything looked flat and bleak and strangely silent. This was Kit’s last view of the world.

What a place!

Putting the bucket down, I hugged the greatcoat tight against me. A fresh fall of snow covered the ice so it looked smooth and blank like paper. There were no skating tracks, no big black holes, no sign that we’d ever been out here. Five days had passed since then, just five days, and the lake had already forgotten us. Yet Kit was a boy
ten years dead
. No one had forgotten him.