Sker House (19 page)

Lucy watched the bird swoop down into a field of long, swaying grass a short distance away, and noticed for the first time an almost perceptible line cut clean across the countryside. On one side, the vegetation grew freely as you would expect in an area like this. But on the other, the Sker House side, there were only scattered patches of withered greenery strewn over coarse brown earth. She put the effect down to the actions of an over-zealous farmer armed with weed killer, but felt compelled to investigate further. She didn't have anything better to do.

What did Machen say about a secret garden?

She looked around again. If there was a secret garden it was pretty damn well hidden. She had virtually unobstructed views for miles around and there was no sign of any garden. The wind was picking up now, and the sky darkening. She was torn between curtailing her walk and heading back to the sanctuary of Sker House, and allowing herself to be lured away by the prospect of capturing a bird of prey on the hunt. After the briefest moment of consideration, she hopped over the steel-mesh fence and set off across the open field. She had an idea she might be trespassing, but didn't see anyone in the immediate vicinity who may object.

Chapter 19:

Skeletons

Once he got used to the fact he was having a conversation with himself in an otherwise empty room, Dale threw himself into the task of trying to interact with the ghost, if there was one. The first few questions were hesitant, his voice sounding strange and detached, but he persevered and kept the recorder rolling. Soon he was firing off questions on a whim, sometimes repeating the same one several times in different tones in an effort to provoke a response, mimicking the ghost hunters he saw on TV.

Alone with his thoughts, he couldn't help but be dragged back to the past, where the real ghosts were. He had started frequenting the local pubs when still in the last year of comprehensive school. Some of the landlords used to let him and his two best friends, Simon and Barry, play pool in the afternoons, even if they were wearing school uniforms. As long as one of you bought a glass of coke to share, there was never any problem. There they would talk about girls and sport, catching the balls before they went down the pockets to make their lunch money stretch further.

Having grown up within three streets of each other, the three boys were bound together most of their lives, but couldn't be more different. Simon was the studious one and destined for a life on the council, a feat he duly achieved around the same time Dale started work in a local factory the summer they left school. Barry, on the other hand, was always a bit 'dodgy,' as Dale's parents put it. And they weren't wrong. It wasn't that he lacked intelligence. Far from it. Barry was smart enough to turn his back on the rat race early-doors and explore alternative ways of making a living. He had his plump little fingers in all sorts of pies. It didn't make him a bad person, he just chose a different path. Unfortunately, it was a path that frequently landed him in trouble with the police.

Dale's mind was wrenched back to the present when, after precisely nine minutes, the Dictaphone's red RECORD light abruptly winked out.

No battery. Shit.

Like any good pro, Dale always carried a supply. There was a new pack in his rucksack, and he was almost positive there were one or two loose ones kicking around, too. As he crossed the room to retrieve them, he suddenly became aware of how cold it was getting.

Damn skinflint landlord, turn the heating on!

But he was surprised to find that the heating already
was
on. The large wall-mounted radiator was almost too hot to touch. Temperature must be dropping outside, he thought, glancing out of the window at the rapidly deteriorating weather. Just then he noticed something lying on the floor beneath the radiator and stooped to pick it up. It was a long-barrelled iron key. The rust and level of discolouration told him it was very old. Puzzled, he looked around the room. It didn't seem to fit any of the locks, and how could it have found its way underneath the radiator? Just another mini-mystery to add to the rest he thought, laying it down on the bedside table.

After replacing the batteries in the Dictaphone, he hit the RECORD button again. The machine's red light lit up, and the timer obediently started ticking over again.

Each brush with the law had been another kick in the teeth for Barry, and another black mark on his record. He was still living at home and arguing with his parents a lot. One morning just before his eighteenth birthday, he got up and told his mother he was going for a walk. He seemed normal, she said. If anything he seemed a little happier than usual. It was giro day, she remembered. Barry always got up early on giro day to get to the post office before they closed for lunch. However, this time, instead of going to the post office, he went into the woods and hung himself from a tree. An old man out walking his dog found him a few hours later. It was a 'teen tragedy,' the local newspaper said.

Looking back from this distance, it almost seemed like another life. For the first few months after it happened it was all Dale could think about, and it was all anyone wanted to talk about around the village until the next catastrophe came along and brightened up their existence. The worst part about it was he hadn't spoken to Barry for a couple of weeks before he died, and the last time they did talk they had a mini-falling out over something so trivial Dale couldn't even remember what it was. He'd wanted to text Barry to sort things out. But always thought
tomorrow
.

Tomorrow, tomorrow.

In his darkest moments, he wondered how much he was to blame. Could he have changed anything? What was going through Barry's mind when he tied that knot and slipped the rope around his neck?

Dale had a dream once. In the dream, he saw Barry walking out to the woods in the rain. The light was failing, so it was either dusk or dawn. He was carrying a length of rope. Dale watched as his friend sat under an oak tree with the rope in his lap, caressing it with his fingers. He called out, but his friend didn't hear. When he awoke, he was left with the unwavering knowledge that the dream was a depiction of a journey Barry made many times. Always to the same spot, always alone. Every time he found a reason to walk back.

Except that morning.

Fuck!

The least Dale could have done was pay more attention. If his friend was in pain, he should have realized and done something about it. That's what friends are supposed to do. But people get too caught up in their own lives to notice what's going on in other people's.

Coulda, shoulda.

Didn't.

What Dale felt was shame. Pure and simple. He felt like a coward. After the initial shock came the bitterness and anger, which had largely dissipated, but the shame and remorse remained. He shook his head, hoping to dislodge the bad memories that lingered there. He thought the crushing guilt that chastised him for not doing more to prevent the death of his friend would never fade. But over time it did, to an extent. But there were still days like today when, for some reason, Barry imposed himself at the forefront of his mind and refused to move. Almost as if he was trying to convey a message from the Great Beyond.

The little red light blinked out again.

Huh?

He gave the machine a little shake, then hit the RECORD button again. Nothing. The Dictaphone was lifeless.

He took the 'new' batteries back out and examined them. They looked fine, but unless visibly corroded, a battery just looked like a battery. With a shrug he threw the faulty batteries in the waste paper basket and replaced them with the last two in the pack. Then he paused with his finger over the RECORD button. It certainly had gotten colder in the room. He could almost see his breath, and his fingers trembled. For a few long moments he couldn't find it within himself to depress the button. He glanced around nervously. He was still alone. Or at least appeared to be. All this supernatural mumbo jumbo must be getting to him, fraying his nerves.

Summoning every ounce of willpower, he finally hit the button again. He was so anxious that for a few seconds he forgot what he was doing before resuming the one-sided verbal exchange. But this time, his heart wasn't in it. Whereas before the activity had a kind of surreal excitement, now he just felt ridiculous. He actually breathed a sigh of relief when the timer indicated the fifteen minutes allocated time was up. He stopped the machine and held it for a while. It looked just like any other Dictaphone. But now, for a while at least, it was imbued with power, the power to change his whole way of thinking.

This was some heavy shit.

Needing something else to think about, he made himself a cup of instant coffee using the kettle and complimentary sachets in the room and peered out of the window again. Dark storm clouds were gathering, seemingly being drawn from all four corners of the globe simultaneously, as they often did along the Welsh coast. Violent storms could erupt and disperse without leaving so much as a trace.

Lucy should be back soon.

The thought was quickly followed by a hot pang of guilt. How could he be so stupid? Letting let her go walking out there alone, in a strange area, after what happened last night? What if she had another... blackout? Or worse, a fit or some kind of seizure?

Shit.

Setting his coffee cup down Dale picked up his mobile, scrolled through the numbers until he found Lucy's, and pressed CALL.

Chapter 20:

Secret Garden

Lucy's feet sank into the boggy earth as she made her way across the field. She hadn't seen the bird of prey, or anything else worth photographing, for a while now.

At least I'm not lost
, she thought defiantly.

How could she be lost? Sker House, the only visible landmark for miles, may be getting steadily smaller but it was still there, silhouetted against the greying sky behind her.

However, something wasn't right. She would walk for a while, then turn to get her bearings only to find that Sker House, all those hundreds or thousands of tons of limestone, concrete, and timber, had moved slightly. Logic told her that it was simply a result of her not walking in a straight line, but more than once the whole thing seemed to disappear altogether. Just for a split second, there was nothing but open sky. Once, she even saw it shimmer if it were a mirage. Then it took form and solidified before her very eyes. When that happened, she was suddenly torn between getting as far away from the place as she could and being drawn back there, where some indefinable part of her felt she belonged. The whole weird episode was accompanied by a swoony dizziness. At one point, it crossed her mind that she may have somehow inadvertently ingested some of those magic mushrooms that grew wild here, and the thought made her giggle.

Her pace slowed until eventually, she stopped walking altogether. She was in a field, both Sker House and the ocean somewhere behind her. She checked to make sure the house was still there. This time, thankfully, it was. The field was bordered with a spindly-looking hedge that was more brown than green, and the yellowing grass was completely absent in places exposing the raw, uncultivated earth beneath. She kicked at the soil. It was of a light brown, sandy consistency, and came up easily. No doubt all the sand and salt blowing in from the beach made farming this particular patch of land particularly difficult. Judging by the state of the place, it had been a long time since anyone had even tried.

She didn't see a gate.

Then how did you get in?

Must've have climbed a sty, she thought, though she had no recollection of doing so. Climbing a sty in the country was one of those banal things you do without even thinking about, like crossing a road in the city. Moments like that were easily lost. Shrugging, she decided to head back to Sker to see how Dale was getting on with his assignment. If she could find that sty again. As she began to retrace her steps, her eyes were drawn to an unkempt corner of the field in the shadow of a large oak tree with withered, twisted limbs. There was something behind the tree, partially hidden by its great gnarled trunk.

As she neared it, she noticed that the hedge in that corner had been allowed to grow taller than anywhere else in the field, and what she had spied from afar was some kind of gate. It wasn't until she was within touching distance that she realized there was no hedge. What she had mistaken for a privet was actually creeper vines attached to, and covering, a stone wall, the kind painstakingly erected by carefully slotting bricks together without the aid of cement or adhesive like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The vines twisted and turned all over the uneven surface, tangled up and growing into in each other.

What the hell? Did she really just walk past all this?

It wouldn't be impossible. The creeper vines camouflaged the wall against the background, and unless you were at just the right angle, you would never even know it was there. She reached out and ran her fingers along the cold stones. It was probably just a boundary mark or something. Stepping back to take a look at the gate, she realized it was actually more of a doorway cut out of the stone wall. The door itself was a sturdy-looking wooden affair, built at chest height and reinforced with what looked like iron or steel cladding. In one corner was a heavy rusted padlock.

Lucy stared at the door, willing it to magically open. It didn't, so she stepped back and put her hands on her hips. The stone wall she had mistaken for a hedge was so tall she couldn't see over the top of it, even if she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck. She looked around for something to stand on, but the field was devoid of anything helpful.

Unless...

Lucy tentatively regarded the oak tree. Could it support her weight? At first glance she thought not, but it's spindly arms were held out almost invitingly. She gave the trunk a little knock. It sounded hollow, which probably wasn't a good thing, and tiny flecks of bark flew off in all directions. She'd never climbed a tree before. She'd never needed to, or wanted to, for that matter. But how hard could it be? She had a fleeting vision of falling off, shattering her leg in a dozen places, and being forced to endure the agony of dragging herself back to Sker House across all that rough terrain inch by agonising inch.