Submersion (42 page)

He came to me in the night.

I awoke to find him sat on my bed.

‘Shush,’ he whispered, when I woke with a start.

My mind was foggy, unsettled. Augustus had stayed with me till very late, reluctant to leave, but as much as I feared solitude, feared the darkness on my own, I needed some space. To grieve, to make up a happy ending, to plan what I did next? All and none of these.

When I woke to find him sat on the covers, for a moment I saw a young Augustus and it confused me further. But then he spoke and I saw it was Reuben.

Reuben who
I
was supposed to conjure, to call. My imaginary Reuben who had somehow taken control, somehow had a life and will of his own.

‘I came to say goodbye.’

He had something in his hands, something he was fiddling with, twisting with the little finger on his left hand. The tape.

‘I’ve deceived you. I didn’t come back for you. I came back for her. I’m sorry.’

My confusion kept me silent. What he was saying – it didn’t make sense. It didn’t add up. Neither did his having the tape, his taking it; he was in my head, so it just wasn’t possible.

I listened on, hoping it would all come together. Hoping that my subconscious would reveal all and I’d understand.

‘I heard she was missing. I wasn’t far, you see. All this time, I’ve been nearby, listening out, watching from a distance. It was always too dangerous to come too close, but when she went missing, I had to do something. I had to come out of the dark. I just had to do it a certain way.’

At that moment, I swear he blinked. A very quick closing and re-opening of his eyes. Even through the dark, I saw the motion and suddenly Reuben was gone. Vanished. And he was there instead. I heard myself gasp, but I couldn’t manage anything else.

I had moved from one impossibility to another.

‘I had to find her, had to bring her back,’ he continued, talking as if nothing had happened. As if no magic trick had been played at all. ‘But someone got there before me, before you. Got to Ronan, good and proper, by the looks of it. But I’ll keep looking, I promise you. I’ll find her and bring her back.’

Stunned as I was, something played out in my head, made its way to the front of my brain – a section of the tape. A part I’d recalled before.

‘They could get into your mind. Work their way inside your head and make you think something was happening, when it wasn’t. When it couldn’t possibly.’

Is that what he’d done? Used his trickery, his sinister ability, used what he knew about me and taken the guise of my most treasured ghost?

Despite all that had happened, this cruelty was still enough to devastate me further.

What else had Tristan told my daughter? What else had been on that recording?

‘It started with the eyes – eyes that burrowed deep into your mind. The good ones, the experts, they could do it with one glance. Just a quick look in your direction and your memory was extracted or altered.’

He’d blinked. Just like that. And Reuben had gone. Is that how
he
had conjured him in the first place, when I’d opened my door to him that morning? In the blink of an eye. In an instance. It seemed impossible.

‘They invented a serum, which was injected into the core of the pupil…. A hypnotic stare into the wrong eyes and long held secrets were yours in seconds.’

Utterly impossible, and yet there he was, perched on my bed, talking to me, as if the last twelve years had never happened.

‘Whoever took her, I’ll find them, I won’t give up, not till we have her back,’ he continued, the voice and face so clearly his I simply couldn’t understand how I hadn’t realised it was him all along.

Despite all I’d heard from Tristan on that tape, how could I not have known it was
him?
How hadn’t my instincts kicked in, overriding every trick, every scientific sleight of hand?

‘And you mustn’t believe everything they say about me. I’m a good man, Agnes. I’ve done good things for people. And you must watch out for him. Tristan. He mustn’t know I’ve been here, Agnes. He mustn’t know. He’s not everything he says he is. He came here looking for me. He wants to harm me, Agnes, so you mustn’t tell him. He’s not to be trusted.’

‘Xavier,’ I said, trying to interrupt, but then something happened. Another blink, another trick? I’ve no idea, but suddenly he wasn’t there at all.

It was absurd enough for me to question my own sanity.

I know what I heard below, though - footsteps and a boat being rowed away.

He mustn’t know I’ve been here, Agnes. He mustn’t know.

I stayed where I was, more numb than ever. I imagined that I’d never tell anyone, not a soul, let alone Tristan. No one could ever possibly believe it.

Awake, surrounded by the coming and going of ghosts in my head and in the room, I listened as the rain began to fall heavily outside, slapping the sides of my house with translucent palms, an unstoppable downpour smacking hard, punishing the walls. It didn’t serve to clear my head, like a light summer rain might have done years in the past. Instead, it served to submerge things deeper, to muddy things, as it stirred up the river bed, unsettling debris, clouding everything in sight.

The onslaught of water was relentless. Light and dark came and went, over and over, it seemed, and in between my body reluctantly slipped into light and dark itself. But my exhaustion, like the downpour, was ruthlessly persistent.

I didn’t leave my room until it ceased. When it finally did, I ascended to the first floor and noticed the damage with my feet first.

The wet.

The river had risen; the flood had taken itself up another level.

And something else.

Splashing footsteps towards the now immersed staircase to the ground floor, I moved towards underwater moment.

Something was swimming.

Something was coming to the surface.

Coming to the surface for me.

Epilogue.

When I got in the boat with him, I had no idea I would be in danger.

The school speedboat had left me behind; the driver going without me.

Jenna Nestle and her two cronies, Marcia Collins and Fiona Baxter, had been at the front, blocking my way onto the boat, their backs hiding my presence from the driver. They had been there when Tristan left me. I knew there would be trouble, and Tristan had offered to wait with me, but I couldn’t lose face like that. So, I let him go. And, when the trio of bullies stopped me boarding and boat sped on, I waited for the next one that came along.

And it was his.

Hop in, I’ll take you,
he said and I had no reason to disbelieve him.

Even when he started rowing the wrong way, telling me he just had something to pick up from the flat, promising me he’d still get me there on time.

But when he asked if I’d been at Papa Harold’s the week before, if I’d been listening to their conversation, I felt a change in his tone. And a niggling sensation that something wasn’t quite right.

I told him
yes, I’d been there,
but that I hadn’t heard a thing. He seemed to believe me, but I feared that alarm was beginning to show on my face.

We’ll just pop in for a minute, I can’t leave you out here on your own,
he said, as we reached the flat he’d shared with my grandmother. And, despite the creep of anxiety, I did as I was told, an obedient granddaughter.

Reaching the door to the flat, I pulled off my protective mask and felt something else cover my face, fabric, obscuring my face; within seconds, my mind too.

When I came to, my mind was foggy and for the whole time he kept me in the flat, it stayed that way. For the most, he kept me in that spare room, the one where I had vague memories of staying as a younger girl, when Grandmother was still alive. But this was a different experience. He kept me strapped to that bed, stopping any attempt to escape. At other times, he let me roam around the flat, but he increased the dose of whatever he was drugging me with on those occasions, so I stumbled around in a disorientating haze. Often, I would take myself back to the bed, where the world was steadier.

Whenever I cried out, he would come to me, shush me, and put more liquid to my lips, lulling my fury, suppressing my voice. He kept apologising, saying he was
sorry,
promising that
no harm will come to you,
but I still feared what he would do. I did believe him when he said he wouldn’t hurt me – he loved me, after all, he was my grandfather – but I knew he couldn’t just keep me there forever. Whilst I couldn’t recall the last time we had visited the flat, if I was missing, surely someone might call round, if only to inquire if he’d seen me. Then I remembered that Mother couldn’t bear to return there - to her own mother’s place of death. Aunt Esther did her very best to have as little to do with him, too. So, it was possible no one would come.

But I won’t hurt you, I promise. I just can’t have you out and about. Not now you know.

But I wasn’t exactly sure what it was that I knew. I’d overheard him talking to Papa H, but I hadn’t truly understood what they had been discussing. He’d done something wrong, something bad – I knew that much. But neither had said anything exact. I had my suspicions. Mother had spoken about the past, about what had happened to children.
The taking
, she called it. And she feared it would happen again, that it had already started.

If they take you, just keep your head down,
she had warned me one evening and I’d worried she might be mad, that she was becoming ill.
Keep your head down, like I did and they’ll let you go. They’ll send you back. You remember that?

I think that’s what he’d been involved in. Something Papa Harold said about families suffering, about children not making it home, made me think this. But I’d never have told anyone. He had nothing to fear, and if he’d only stopped giving me whatever it was that addled my brain, if only I’d been allowed to speak properly, I’d have told him.

I’d only recorded the conversation for myself. Like all the others, it was just a bit of fun. It wasn’t for anyone else to find. I just wanted to tape them when they didn’t know I was doing it, curious to see what they might say. I hadn’t intended to start sneaking around, recording private conversations. It just happened.

I’d left this recording and the listening machine Old Man Merlin had given me at the dump. It wasn’t very good – it wasn’t very clear when you played it back. Not after I’d dropped it in the water three or four times.

But this was one thing that kept me going.

One small possibility that someone might stumble across it.

If no one naturally came to his flat, if no one stumbled across me that way, maybe someone would find that tape. It was a long shot, an unlikely outcome. But I kept wondering if anyone had found it, got it working. If they had found the clues on it.

I never truly expected to be rescued. Was never sure what might happen, what he might do, but it felt as if this numb, repetitive, trapped existence of mine would continue forever…

When
he
eventually came, I have no idea how long Grandad Ronan had been holding me. Sometimes it felt just like one long day, but my hair had grown considerably, so I was certain it was months.

Like my stay at the flat, my departure was hazy.

Through the unnatural mist that distorted my senses, I’d heard the animal-like scream.

The crashing around that sounded like a wild beast on the attack.

Though a veil blurred my perception, I was still alert enough to feel the immediate fear. Still sharp enough to guess the most obvious source of such an assault.

They
were back.

Tristan’s terror stories had come to life.

I wasn’t sure if it was just one or a pack, but I heard what it did and feared any second it would sniff me out. It would come looking for me and finish what Grandad Ronan could not.

Eventually, the noise ceased.

The flat became quiet.

Then there was the noise at the door. A knock; a little polite knock. Not from an animal – no, one of those legendary beasts would have scratched at the door, frantically clawing at their prey, their victim on the other side, frustratingly out of reach.

No, this was human. It
had
to be.

The handle twisted; I panicked, nausea rising from my stomach at the same time.

Please be human, please be human,
I prayed.

I knew it wasn’t locked. Whatever, whoever it was would be through in a second.

Please, please be human.

What happened next, happened very quickly, like someone had sped time up, giving me little chance to record the details. Leaving me with just the basics in my memory.

The door opened and someone came forward, picked me up and carried me out, like a prize he had won.

He, it was a he, a human – my prayers answered.

He put me in a boat and sailed me away, I know that much. But many questions remained unanswered. Who was this person? Where had they come from? Were they taking me home? And had we left Grandad Ronan alive? As much as he’d held me captive, he hadn’t hurt me, hadn’t touched me, not in a bad way. If he had been attacked by a dog – surely it hadn’t been this man? – he would need treating. Was help on its way? But I didn’t have the energy or the voice to say any of this.

Exhausted and still in a dull lull from whatever Grandad Ronan had been giving me all this time, I eventually fell into a ragged, yet heavy sleep.

When I finally woke up and found myself in a strange, unknown place, I realised I was anywhere but home. But I was still with my rescuer.

‘Hello,’ he said, smiling, friendly, but a little too friendly. Like he wasn’t quite right.
Not all there,
that’s what Great-Aunt Penny would have said. There was something else, too, something concerning – his clothes were covered in blood.

‘Who are you?’ I asked, terrified, feeling as if I might have escaped one horror for another. But the fog had lifted a little and I had my voice back.

‘My name is Ethan,’ he said.