Nyctophobia (21 page)

I sat back on my haunches and thought about Hyperion. He was supposedly the first god to understand the movement of the sun and the moon, and their relation to the other stars, which made him a perfect symbol for the house, and explained his presence on the sundial in the garden. But was it a sundial? The drawing on the plan read;
compass
. I checked the position of the clocks again and looked around for a black felt-tip marker.

Carefully, I drew a line between the seven largest clocks and found myself looking at the constellation of Ursa Major. One of its key components was Mizar, the double star twinned with Alcor.

Francesco, you trickster,
I thought.
What were you up to?

A telescope that wasn’t a telescope.

The brass brackets around the edge of the atrium.

Clocks that reflected the constellations.

And then I knew.

He hadn’t built a telescope at all, but a
camera obscura
. They looked very similar, but the camera obscura was much lighter and projected the constellations onto an octagonal table, so that the stars could be easily plotted and traced. It was an ancient instrument; the first had been built four hundred years before Christ. That was why Condemaine had needed to build his house here; the equipment required light to operate, and this had probably been the brightest spot for stargazing within a thousand miles.

Headingout into the garden, I looked up into the darkening sky and followed the constellation’s faint tracery through the indigo hemisphere. Beneath it stood the bronze boy-god.

It’s not just a sundial,
I thought,
it’s a compass.

I made my way to the statue that stood in the centre of the lawn. I studied the disc in the boy’s hands; perhaps the two halves represented night and day. At first it was hard to see any other correlation, but as I ran my hands over the statue’s base I felt the fine grooves cut into its foundation.

There it was, the same pattern of Ursa Major, transcribed from the rotating heavens and set in stone to form the pedestal for a god. The disc which Hyperion held in his hands trembled a little, and I realized that it was not fixed in place but balanced perfectly, an engineering grace-note that was admirable but seemed to serve no real purpose.

And yet when I touched it, it tilted imperceptibly away from the house.

I wondered if this, together with the pattern of stars, might be some kind of marker. The constellation’s tail pointed to the rear of the garden, the untamed area ruled by Jerardo. I knew I should wait for the return of daylight, but the house was empty and my impatience overcame my fear. Walking back from the statue in the indicated direction, I reached a thicket of dark bushes, and pushed between them into the wilder grass and rocks.

Even though the light was low, it was hard to imagine what I might find here. At first I’d thought that because Francesco Condemaine had built his baroque home in a spot where few would ever see it, he could afford to have a little fun with the design. Architects often included design gestures to amuse themselves. But the
camera obscura
gave him an accurate reading of the universe, and he used the stars to plan the house. Why? The trees were probably planted later – what else was back here?

Dry bracken covered the area that the watering system could not reach. Past rainstorms had cut gullies through the rock, washing the topsoil out into the barren land beyond the property, making the ground hard to negotiate. I was about to turn back when I saw them, the faint outlines of regular stones, set in a familiar pattern.

The constellation of the Great Bear. It seemed Francesco had not only planned for this life but the next.

I had found the Condemaines’ burial ground. Here were small weathered stones roughly conforming to the pattern of the stars, seven of them, all with markings cut into their faces, all rendered unreadable by the elements, their engravings etched away by diurnal bouts of wind, rain and scorching sun.

I felt vaguely disappointed by the discovery, as if I had uncovered a treasure chest only to find it empty. A family graveyard, most likely a cremation site given the resistance of the ground – it was hardly a surprise. After all, unless Francesco Condemaine’s body had been shipped home from the battleground at Passchendaele, his children would have been the next to be interred, then his wife, and given the disturbing circumstances of their deaths it was hardly likely that they would have been granted Catholic burials.

Beneath the dry branches and dead leaves I found one of the stones marked by a thin bronze plaque, free of any verdigris. I was still carrying Bobbie’s pencil and paper, and knelt down to make a rubbing of the lettering, to translate later. There was also a small white ceramic pot with holes in the top for mourning flowers, badly cracked, its pattern erased long ago. Carefully digging it out from the dirt, I pulled it free and turned it in my hands. As I did so it sifted dust from its fissures and fell apart, and something metal fell out.

When I bent down to retrieve it, I saw that it was a tiny brass key. I felt sure I had seen something similar before somewhere, but where?

Back at the house I took out the tintype of Elena Condemaine that I had taken from the hospital file.

I was right. The key had been attached to a chain to form a pendant. Elena had worn it around her neck in life, and it had been set beside her in death. I wondered if it fitted something in the house, something on the dark side that I had yet to discover.

My heart thumping in my chest, I ran upstairs to try and find what it might open, feeling as if I was about to commit a terrible act of treason.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Family

W
HEN
I
REACHED
the connecting door on the landing, I baulked at the thought of opening it again.
What the hell are you doing?
I asked myself.
Why would you put yourself through another fright? You’ve wasted too much time chasing around after phantoms. Too much imagination, that’s what Anne always says. You need to put all of this behind you.

And then I heard Bobbie running in excitedly, followed by the deep bass tones of my laughing husband, and my secrets were tucked away as normal life returned. I slipped the key into my pocket and tried very hard to forget about it.

That evening we were completely at peace with one another. I committed every tiny detail to memory, because it was one of the last times we were all happy together. We played an old-fashioned board game Bobbie had found in one of the bedrooms, a silly thing involving animals and their noises, but it made us all laugh, and Rosita returned to bake a rich, soft
Bica Gallega
, and we ate the whole thing with gallons of buttery cream. Mateo fetched a bottle of Amontillado from his wine rack and we celebrated, and I got a little tipsy. In my London days I’d been able to slam back a bottle of vodka without discernible effect. Now I was drinking like a maiden aunt and loving it.

As we readied ourselves for bed, I made the suggestion that had been rattling in my brain for days, ‘Why don’t we open up the remaining rooms, Mateo? It seems such a shame to leave them stuffy and closed just because the house keeps them in darkness.’

‘You know why,’ said Mateo, struggling to undo his shirt buttons. ‘I don’t want you becoming frightened of the shadows.’

‘I’m learning to deal with it, honestly I am. Today I –’ I had been about to say
Today I found the Condemaine’s family cemetery,
but I realised how that would sound in the wrong context.

‘What if you had a panic attack and I was miles away? Worse still, out of the country?’

‘I would have to handle it,’ I said defiantly. ‘I would be fine.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of Bobbie.’

‘Bobbie will be going to boarding school soon. Anyway, we have Mrs Delgadillo with us.’

‘She’s old, Callie. Have you noticed how slow she’s getting on the stairs lately? I couldn’t take the risk.’ He got into bed and turned out all the lights except the little nightlight I kept on my side of the bed, and held me lightly until I fell asleep.

The weather was changing. I checked the forecast and found nothing but storms ahead. ‘That’s the summer over,’ said Rosita with grim finality, passing me on the landing, her ruddy arms loaded with soap-fresh laundry.

Mateo had already left for five days in Madrid. Bobbie was fractious and fidgety. If Julieta had been here, she would have known how to calm the girl with lessons that looked like games, but I was at a loss.

The damp heat rose throughout the morning, making me nervous and uncomfortable. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and I spoke sharply to Bobbie, who was aimlessly running about in the hall. Nothing seemed to be in its rightful place.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked Bobbie. ‘Can’t you just play quietly somewhere? Those are your best white socks.’

‘There’s no-one to play with, unless you count
them
,’ said the girl, sliding off along the freshly polished hall and colliding with a grandfather clock so that it chimed dully in its case.

‘Count who?’ I asked, following. ‘Stop doing that.’

‘The people who live in the back rooms,’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ve seen them.’ Bobbie concentrated on her sliding. ‘I didn’t before, I thought you were imagining things. But I see them now. I see more of them every day.’

‘Wait, where do you see them?’ I asked. ‘The doors are locked.’

‘Outside of course. Through the windows of the closed parts, if you look hard enough. You can see them too, I know you can. You told me you could. They hate us.’

‘Even if there were such people,’ I said carefully, ‘why would they hate us?’

‘Because we’re living, and we’re happy. They want us to be like them. Sad and dead.’

‘How do you know this? Who are they, Bobbie?’

‘Don’t you know?’ She slid back and forth, teasing me, getting on my nerves.

‘I just wondered who you think they are. Stand still for a minute. What do they look like?’

‘There’s an old, old woman who’s gone mad. And there’s her child who’s rotting to bits. And there’s a man who looks like he’s been blown up, and another one that looks like –’

‘Stop it,’ I said. ‘There’s no-one there and you know it. You’re just being naughty because you’re bored today –’

Bobbie finally stopped sliding. ‘I’ll show you if you like. If you really can’t see them for yourself. But I know you can. And Rosita can see them too. And Jerardo.’

I knelt and held her shoulders. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I don’t for sure because she never talks about them, but I’ve seen Rosita looking toward the dark parts. I follow her when she winds the clocks. She’s frightened of the other people. She stays away from the doors.’ Thunder rumbled distantly. ‘And Jerardo won’t come inside the house. He’s frightened too.’

‘Now you’re frightening me,’ I said. ‘Let’s just stop all this nonsense.’

‘Don’t you want to see them?’ Bobbie teased. ‘Are you really scared?’

‘I can’t see them because there’s no-one there.’

‘Isn’t there? Then you must come with me.’ Bobbie grabbed her hand and pulled me toward the front door, yanking it open. Outside the first fat drops of rain had begun to fall from the blackening sky.

‘Bobbie, let go,’ I said, trying to free my hand, worrying that I might hurt the girl if I tugged too hard.

‘It’s alright, they can’t get you so long as you stay on this side of the house.’ She ran along the sandy path in her socks as it began to turn to mud, and I was forced to follow.

Finally Bobbie stopped in the lee of the cliff wall. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘We have to go down the back of the house.’ And she ran into the narrow corridor between cliff and brick, forcing me to follow. ‘They won’t be able to see you because the sky is dark, so you won’t stand out. It’s the best time to see them.’ She stopped before the window at the rear. ‘Look through the crack in the shutters and stay very still,’ she instructed.

Slowly, I brought my face to the glass and waited for my eyes to adjust. I saw the familiar wing-backed chairs, the pine dresser, the framed photographs on the sideboard, the brown rugs and brown paintings.

And then I saw her, forming very gradually from the thickening darkness. That pitiful creature with the white china mask and a body that had seen no sunlight for so long, and the straggly unclean hair that she pulled at in misery, tearing it out one strand at a time. The back of her head and her bare shoulders were covered in livid dry patches and sores. The dusty black material of her dress had worn through and was barely hanging on her thin frame. Even though no sound came through the wood and the glass, I could imagine her ulcerated mouth opening and closing in a series of pitiful sobs. Every now and again she pulled feebly at the frayed leather straps of the mask.

Another creature scampered past, something filthy and feral that ran on all fours, circling around her, shoving at her. It twitched and twisted like a trapped animal, then darted behind the dresser.

‘Come on,’ said Bobbie excitedly. ‘There are others. The worst one is in the room next door.’ As the rain began to torrent into the chasm she pulled me along to the adjoining window. ‘Get close,’ she said excitedly. ‘The shutters are tighter in this room. You can’t see so much.’

I felt unable to think for myself, and could only do as I was instructed. ‘Do you see?’ Bobbie kept saying. ‘Do you see it now?’

I peered through the narrow crack but could just make out the dim shape of the fireplace and one of the armchairs. There was nothing else. The room was empty. ‘There’s nothing here,’ I said uncertainly.

‘You have to be patient,’ warned Bobbie. ‘He’s trying to trick you but he’s there all right, he’s always there.’

‘No, there’s nobody…’

And then he was there. A terrible staring eye occupied the gap between the shutters, first one then the other, bobbing back and forth. An occluded eye blotched with some terrible sickness. It pulled back sharply, the better to judge me. This creature was different from the others, angrier and more aware of its cage, twitchy and furious in its desire to get free.