The Vanishment (23 page)

She was in the room with us. I felt her before I saw her. Her presence in that dark room was like thick, raw fear. It lay in my throat like poison, choking me. My mind felt horribly confused. It was a magic room, or so it seemed then. In it nothing else and nowhere else mattered. The whole world had gone.

When I looked at Rachel again, she seemed to have shifted, to have changed, and I knew that the child on the bed was no longer Rachel but my own daughter, Catherine, Catherine whom I had killed all those years ago. She looked at me with fear in her eyes. I could feel the ax in my hand, heavy and light at the same time. I took a step toward the bed.

Catherine screamed, and suddenly it was no longer my daughter but another child, a little girl crouching naked and defenseless with her back to the wall. And when I looked again, it was Rachel, and I was lifting the ax in my hand.

Out of nowhere a figure appeared in front of me. I recognized her. It was Sarah, dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing on the night of her vanishment. She held her hands out toward me, and suddenly it was no longer Sarah but Susannah Trevorrow, pleading with me not to kill her child. I could feel the ax in my hand like a fever, burning me.

I shook my head. But at that moment there was a crashing sound. On the bed, Rachel was having convulsions. Her whole body was being flung up and down with the most terrible violence. The bed was crashing, harder, harder, harder. The room had started to fill with flying objects: pictures and ornaments and fragments of broken wood from the door. Cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion. All the glass in all the windows of the house had shattered simultaneously. The house itself started to shake again, not momentarily this time, but in steady, rhythmic shudders.

Susannah Trevorrow was beside me, mouthing her entreaties. Tears were streaming down her face. Then it was Sarah's face, looking up at me as she had looked at me that night she found our daughter dead. Her mouth opened and closed, but I could hear nothing, not a sound.

The cold air streaming into the room seemed to clear my brain. I knew I had to do something to stop what was happening, to stop the cycle from repeating. I looked around desperately. Agnes Trevorrow was standing near the door, as though orchestrating everything. Her eyes were filled with a look of utter malice, malice so implacable I thought she would destroy the world to wreak the evil she so much wanted.

As I tore my eyes away I caught sight of something on the wall opposite the fireplace. A large patch of damp. The sight of it stirred a memory in me. I remembered the paintings Sarah had left behind, the hand in them, pressed against the wallpaper.

Without pausing, I stepped to the wall and lifted the ax. There was a howl of anger behind me. But I did not falter. I brought the ax down hard in the center of the damp patch. Plaster cracked and fell away. I raised the ax and brought it down again. She was there, her mouth working, her eyes wide with fear and anger, but I ignored her, smashing the ax into the wall for a third time. Something came tumbling out of the hole I had made. I looked down. It was a doll. A china doll dressed in a sailor suit. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, but it was still recognizable as the doll Rachel called Mr. Belkins.

I struck the wall harder. With every blow, more plaster came away. And then, all at once, a section gave completely and something else came falling from the cavity behind. I shuddered as I looked down. It was a bundle of bones, and a tiny skull with long hair matted to it.

I scarcely know what happened next. There was a terrible cry. Agnes Trevorrow began to fade before my eyes. I dropped the ax. I watched her clutch the air. All around her, mist was weaving patterns, working its way into the room through the smashed window. Moments later she was gone.

When I looked down, Rachel was lying on the floor, perfectly still. Near her, Susannah Trevorrow stood watching me. She was smiling. I have never seen anyone so lovely or so radiant. Seconds after, she had disappeared and in her place I saw Sarah standing surrounded by mist. She stepped across to me and, just for an instant, I could feel her lips against mine. Then she, too, was gone.

I closed my eyes and sank down onto the floor. I must have remained like that for half a minute or more. When I opened my eyes again, the room had filled more than ever with mist. We would have to leave, get downstairs and into the car. I looked across to where Susannah was sitting, facing me.

Her eyes were fixed on mine. I smiled, but she did not return my smile.

"It's over," I said. "She's gone."

At that moment Rachel opened her eyes and pulled herself upright. I smiled across at her. She too did not smile back.

"It's all right now, love. We're going to be leaving soon. Back to London."

She looked at me, and I could see that she was still frightened. And then my heart stood still, for I could tell that she was frightened of something in the room.

"She's still here," Rachel said. "She hasn't gone."

I have never felt so cold. I looked around at the broken door, but Agnes was not there. And then I caught Susannah's eyes again, and I understood. The look of malice, of absolute, all-consuming hatred was as strong in them as it had ever been. And it was then that I noticed that Susannah was holding something very bright and very sharp. I recognized it as a carving knife, one of a set that had been kept in the kitchen drawer.

Quick as a cat, she leapt to her feet and turned toward Rachel.

I did not think. I just moved. I picked up the ax, staggering to my feet as I did so, and in a single motion swept the blade in an arc whose center was Susannah's neck. It was not a perfect cut, but it did not have to be perfect.

I had two more things to do that night. The first was to go downstairs and break open the old cupboard that Agnes had boarded up, the one between the kitchen and the study. What I found there I wrapped in sheets the next morning, after the mist had cleared. I took the bundles down to the cliff and threw them into the sea. It was better no one knew. Tredannack and its inhabitants would not rest any easier for being told.

During the night, I took the bones of Catherine Trevorrow and put them in a small wooden box. Rachel came with me. We drove to St. Ives and found Susannah's grave again. This time I had brought my own spade. I uncovered the coffin for the second time and, opening it, lifted the bones from the box and laid them among Susannah's. They are there now, and I pray they rest undisturbed until the sea eats the shore away at last.

Rachel and I drove back to London the following morning. I can still remember the look of astonishment on the policeman's face when I came into the station to hand her over.

There was no point trying to explain anything. Whoever or whatever Susannah Adderstone had been, it was a secret I would carry to my grave. I think perhaps her father guessed, but they would have believed him as little as me. Chief Inspector Raleigh was the only person who would have made sense of my story, but even he would have been powerless to stop the majestic process of the law. And he, of course, was dead.

I wonder if Rachel ever thinks of me. She is fourteen years old now, and I have heard that she lives with Tim's parents. They must be growing old. Soon, she will have no one again. Even when I come out of here, they are sure to stop me finding her. Unless she remembers, unless she comes to me of her own accord..

Richard Adderstone and I corresponded many times in the months before his death. There was one final surprise that he had been saving to the end. In one letter, I expressed bewilderment about one thing: that Sarah had been Susannah Trevorrow's double. His daughter had been directly related to Agnes, whom she resembled; that made a certain kind of sense. But Sarah, she had had no connection with any of them.

I fear you are wrong about your wife's unconnectedness
, he wrote back.
As a matter of fact, her family are cousins of ours, if rather distant. They changed their name from Trevorrow to Trevor some time ago. Their branch of the family moved to the north of England around 1900. In time, they lost contact with their relatives. So it is not surprising that your wife had not the least suspicion of her Cornish origins. I have known about them for some time, of course. Family history is my hobby.

He died six months later in his bed, cared for by a nurse. We never met face-to-face again. Some weeks later a letter arrived at the prison from Mr. Pentreath of Pentreath, Single, and Nesbitt. I was named a beneficiary in Richard Adderstone's will. By some legal contrivance, he had left Petherick House to me, as the next of kin surviving Sarah. It was not strictly within the terms of the entail, but under the circumstances no one quibbled. They weren't going to sell the house, after all.

It is quiet here. I think I am content. I do not understand what happened to my life, and I no longer want to understand. I have lived as intelligently and as gently as it has been possible for me to do. In the evenings I watch the shadows thicken beyond the bars on my window. My ghosts have all been laid to rest. In a few years I shall be a free man again. My flat has gone, every last penny eaten up by legal costs. My publishers tell me there is no hope of a second bite at the literary cherry. I shall be homeless and penniless. I have no choice, not really. The keys to Petherick House are waiting for me in a safe-deposit box in a bank in St. Ives. It will not seem a long journey this time.

Jonathan Aycllffe is a pseudonym for Daniel Easterman, the best-selling author of BROTHERHOOD OF THE TOMB, THE NINTH BUDDHA, and other thrillers. He was born in lreland in 1949 and studied English, Persian, and Arabic at the Universities of Dublin, Edinburgh, and Cambridge. For several years he was a professor at Newcastle University. He currently lives in England with his wife.

SOME THINGS NEVER DIE-THEY JUST VANISH

It promises to be an idyllic vacation—a lovely old house on the Cornish coast where Peter Clare can finish writing a collection of short stories and where his wife Sarah can paint—a place where they can try to rebuild what is left of their troubled marriage. The spectacular cliff overlooking the sea, the wild gardens and woodlands—everything is perfect, or is it?

From the moment they enter Petherick House, Sarah feels the dark menace surround them and knows they should leave at once. But Peter thinks it’s just nerves and dismisses Sarah’s fears—until she disappears without a trace. Suddenly Peter can see the shadowy figures in the night and hear a child’s desperate weeping, but the nightmare has only begun.

With its chilling undertones of mounting fear and raging vengeance,
The Vanishment
is a classic tale of terror that reaches into the dark recesses of the imagination.