Michael started greeting Will in his slow, drone-like voice and I smiled politely, pulling on Will’s sleeve at the same time.
“Sorry, Mike, we were just on our way…”
“Oh, no problem. Will, I just wanted to ask you a quick question about your working hours next week.”
I groaned, not very subtly at all, and mumbled a quick “Excuse me” before running off towards the gardens. I wasn’t going to let the annoying Mr Cushion stop me from finding Veronica.
Passing through the lit up archway, I kept walking until I found myself in a labyrinth of neatly cut shrubs and wonderfully carved stone statues. I could still hear the excited bubble of voices coming from the main Mansion area, but it was more muted from here and I soon forgot about the crowds.
I’d always found these gardens breathtaking. No matter what the weather, what mood I was in, or who I was with, these few acres always made me feel peaceful. I had come here once as a teenager when my boyfriend of five months had broken up with me to go out with a tall, skinny blonde, and even though I’d been in a terrible state, just being in the gardens had soothed me.
It was having the same effect now, despite the dark and the cold.
Spotlights were dotted here and there, nestled in the foliage and in front of statues, casting brilliant streaks of light through the darkness.
It was so quiet among the shrubbery that it came as a shock to hear raised voices cutting through the serene atmosphere, and I tried to figure out where they were coming from. I walked along the gravel path, hearing the small stones crunch under my flat ballet pumps, and tried to focus on what the people were saying.
I couldn’t make out any words but the conversation sounded frantic and panicked. Quickening my pace, I lifted the layers of my skirt so I wouldn’t trip over. I was getting further and further away from the main house and I wondered vaguely if Will was still stuck talking about work.
I finally reached the end of the little path and entered the part of the gardens that were my favourite. There was an intricate maze made of hedges and statues that frustrated most people, but if you looked hard enough and walked for long enough, you would come across the most beautiful courtyard in the centre featuring a cute little pond and a set of benches, which in the summer were surrounded by a colourful array of flowers.
At this time of year there would just be empty trellises, but it was still a great place to sit and think.
Or normally it would be. From the sounds of things, a raging argument was about to break, kicking and screaming, through the tranquillity. I heard what sounded like glass smashing and I started running towards the row, worried that Norman might have somehow caught up with Veronica. Having been in the maze many times before, I navigated my way around the hedges and decorative sculptures with ease, the voices getting louder and more alarming as I got closer to the courtyard.
I ran round the corner and into the open space, just stopping myself in time to avoid running into a newly added statue of a woman and a baby.
The courtyard was ablaze with hundreds of pumpkins, each one meticulously carved, radiating warm orange light over the centre of the maze. The spotlights dotted here and there added to the light source in the area, making it blindingly clear that I was alone.
There was no one there. There were no voices, no smashed glass, nothing.
I stood and stared for a few minutes, the realisation that I was about to faint slowly filtering through my dazed mind; I only just made it to a nearby bench before I collapsed. I was feeling dizzy and disoriented, and a familiar sick feeling was lurking in my stomach.
My mind flashed to the woman in the Renfield pub and to my experience at Hill Top Farm. Not to mention Emma and the man in the road. Not to mention Edinburgh. Before I let my mind wander anymore, I fumbled for my phone in my bag and sighed in relief when I saw it still had signal. I called Will and immediately heard a phone ringing from not too far away.
“Beth? Where are you?”
“Near you, I just heard your phone. I’m at the centre of the maze.”
“Oh, brilliant.”
“Look, I’m not feeling great, can you come here?”
“Are you OK? Sure, only… I’m not great at mazes. And that’s when it’s daylight.”
I sighed. “Right, hang up. Then call me. I’ll let my phone ring, just… follow the noise.”
He didn’t sound convinced, but he did as he was told, and after a few minutes and a few attempts at calling (my stupid phone didn’t ring for long before reverting to answer phone), Will found me on the bench.
“Beth, are you alright? You look really pale.”
I nodded as he sat down next to me. “I’m OK now, I just went a bit… odd.”
“Odd? More than usual?”
I let that slide. “I came running through the maze because I could hear really loud voices and glass smashing. I thought maybe V might be in trouble. But when I got to the courtyard, there was no one here, absolutely no sign of any life.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “Yep, definitely more odd than usual.”
I groaned. “I’m serious.” I was starting to feel faint again and I took a few deep breaths.
Will seemed to realise that I wasn’t messing around and brought me in for a hug. “Sorry… I don’t have an explanation for that.”
I hugged him then pulled back, noticing my mouth had suddenly become very dry.
“I think I do.”
***
Will was waiting for me to explain, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I could tell him; my previous attempts at broaching the subject with him hadn’t exactly gone down well.
After a few moments of silence, I took a deep breath and hoped that what I was about to say wasn’t going to come out in one long, unintelligible jumble of words.
“I need to tell you something, and I’m hoping it will go some way to explaining why I’ve been a bit… preoccupied lately. I didn’t want to bring all this up but after what’s been happening, I can’t ignore it. And without V to talk to about it…”
I trailed off and Will sat closer to me on the bench. “You can tell me, Beth.”
I took another deep breath. “OK. Well it starts with a trip that V and I took to Edinburgh a few years ago.”
Will smiled, not sure where I was going with this. “Oh, I’ve heard of that trip, didn’t you get really drunk and end up sitting on a street corner in a puddle for three hours?”
I mentally cursed Veronica and her big mouth. “That’s not the point…”
Will smiled again, wider this time. “I knew it was true.”
I sighed, frustrated. “Can you just listen, please? This isn’t easy for me.”
His smile faded as he nodded. “Sure, sorry.”
I’d never told this story to anyone; the only other person who knew was V and that was only because she’d been there when it happened.
I took a deep breath and went into story-telling mode.
“Well, we went on one of the ghost tours that went round the city and then to this famous cemetery where a poltergeist was supposed to live. We’d deliberately avoided the ‘comedy’ ghost tours where people in costumes came up and grabbed you from behind, that kind of thing. We wanted the authentic thing. You know, the facts and figures. A historical tour.”
Will nodded uncertainly; he clearly had no idea why I was telling him this. Not that I could blame him.
“Anyway, they took us to this cemetery and into the part of the graveyard that had served as a prison in the past. Then they took the whole group into this supposedly haunted mausoleum and locked everyone in.” I paused, taking another deep breath.
“It was pitch black and we were packed in really tightly. There was hardly any air in there, and despite the laughing and joking we’d had on the tour, everyone was deadly quiet. We were all just too scared to talk or move.
“I remember thinking how stupid it was - twenty or so tourists stuck in a cold, dark mausoleum. Actually paying to do it. And then I fe
lt something.”
Will was looking dubious but he kept his comments to himself. “Felt what?”
“I felt a pain on my back. A real pain. My first thought was that one of the rest of the group had got scared and had grabbed me, but then logic kicked in. I’d been the first to go into the mausoleum, and I was standing at the back with nothing but the muddy wall behind me. I could feel the pain start to intensify, almost to the point of excruciation, and then it stopped as soon as everyone in the tomb started screaming.”
“Screaming?” Will was raising his eyebrows as he stared at me, as though he was sure I was making this whole thing up for my own amusement.
I smiled bitterly, nodding. “And then laughing.”
“OK…” He trailed off, waiting for me to go on.
“I was too far back from the entrance to see, but someone in a sheet had jumped in front of the bars, shouting at everyone. Hence the scream, and then the relieved laughter when they’d realised it was just the tour guide in a crappy ghost costume. It turned out that there were no totally serious ghost tours in the city.
“Anyway, he unlocked the bars and let everyone out, but as I was right at the back it was a while before I could get moving. And that’s when I started feeling… unusual. I’d been fine when we’d first gone in, and while we were waiting in silence, but since the mysterious pain I’d felt on edge, and I began to feel sick and claustrophobic. Everyone was just being so slow. Veronica noticed and asked me what was wrong, but I didn’t want to say in front of everyone. Well, we eventually got out and we went straight back to the hostel.”
Will waited for me to carry on, and when I didn’t, he seemed to get frustrated. “And the pain?”
I thought again about whether I should tell him or not. We’d become close over the past couple of months and I didn’t want to lose his friendship now over this.
I decided to just come out with it. “Well, I told Veronica about what I felt when we were back at the hostel, and this other girl who was in our dorm overheard me. She was clearly some kind of ghost nut and had been on the tour loads of times. She was rambling about how poltergeists are meant to be able to physically harm people without them seeing, and often they’d leave a mark on the victim’s skin.
“V got angry at her and told her to mind her own business; she could tell it was freaking me out. Of course, the girl could tell this too, and she started asking me all kinds of questions: what was the pain like, where on my body had I felt it, had I looked at the skin there yet… I said no, I hadn’t. And that’s when she went crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“She literally started pulling at my shirt, trying to get it off me.”
Will leaned in closer. “Seriously?”
“Yes. V started yelling at her and she tried to pull her off but this girl was strong. There were two other girls in our room, French I think, and they’d been sleeping until that point. All the yelling had woken them up. I can only guess what it must have looked like to them; I don’t think they spoke English very well.
“Anyway, the next thing I know, the buttons on the front of my shirt were pinging off as this girl was tearing into my clothes.
“Eventually, Veronica managed to hit this girl round the face…”
Will opened his mouth and let out a brief laugh. “She hit her?”
“I know, it sounds bad, but it really was getting out of hand. Anyway, the girl fell backwards and she took my shirt with her. She gasped as she hit the floor, and I looked over to see if she was OK. She was pointing at me, her face eerily blank, and she told me to look in the mirror.
“With the fight and everything, I’d almost forgotten why it had started in the first place, but the look on her face brought it all back to me. I walked over to the mirror, almost too scared to look, and heard Veronica and the two French girls gasp from behind me as I did. I hesitated, then I turned round with my back to the mirror and looked over my shoulder.”
I stopped talking and again Will looked frustrated, but also scared out of his wits. While I didn’t want to frighten him, I was glad he seemed to be taking my story seriously.
“What I saw was a scratch mark.”
“There was an actual mark on you?”
“Yes, although ‘scratch mark’ doesn’t quite cover it. It was from my right shoulder down to pretty much my lower back. There were five long lines, bright red even though there hadn’t been any bleeding. A giant scratch covering most of my back from what looked like a human hand.”
I paused, remembering how I’d felt when I saw it for the first time. “But the weird thing is, my bra hadn’t been touched at all. The scratches were deep but the bra hadn’t been ripped or torn or anything. And of course, my shirt had been intact until the crazy girl ripped it off me. It was like something had the ability to get under my clothes and go straight to my skin.”
Will opened his mouth in horror and then closed it again, studying my face. “Are you having me on?”
I shook my head, wishing I was.
“Did you take any photos?”
“Oh, yeah. The crazy girl in the dorm took about ten just for herself. For all I know they’ve been published in some dodgy ghost book. But in the end, there wasn’t any need for photographic evidence.”
“What do you mean?”
I looked around, making sure we were still alone, then turned away from Will. “Undo my corset.”
I heard a nervous laugh. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t reach; you’ll have to undo the ribbon for me.”
There was a second of silence and then I felt Will scrambling at the thick ribbon. “How did you get it on?”
I shrugged. “The woman in the shop helped me while you were getting into your suit. She didn’t see it, though, it only shows up in certain light. You’ll probably be able to see it with all these spot lights.”
“See what?”
Will could be incredibly slow sometimes. It was one of the things that always drove Veronica mad and I could understand her annoyance now. “The scar. Why did you think I was asking you to undo my corset?”
“Oh, right.” There was another pause and then he started fumbling at the back of my dress again.
“Just loosen the ribbons so I can do it up again easily.” I could feel the dress getting slacker and I held onto the front to stop any form of indecent exposure occurring. I also hoped no one would walk into the courtyard while I was half undressed; it wouldn’t give off a very good impression.
I could feel Will getting to the end of the ribbon and he paused as he registered what he was seeing.
The same mark I’d described, only much fainter now than it had been a few years ago. I’d always wondered if Will had noticed it, but apparently he’d been oblivious.
“Jesus, Beth. How did I not know about this?”
I turned back to face Will, whose face had by now gone completely white.
“Only Veronica knows how I got it. I told my parents that I got attacked by a dog near Edinburgh Castle.”
Will raised his eyebrows at me. “They bought that?”
“They seemed to, they bought it more than they would have the real reason, anyway. Can you do me up again please?”
Will nodded, looking scared but wary.
I waited for him to tighten the corset back up, not wanting to say any more until I could see his face and gauge his reaction.
“OK, I think that’s done.”
I turned round and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“So…”
I wasn’t quite sure how to go on. “So, the whole experience terrified me, and I had nightmares for months. I got better once the scar started to fade and I realised it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but obviously I can’t ever forget about it. Or how I got it…
“When it first happened I went into mad research mode, reading up on poltergeists, ghosts, that kind of thing. Then, when nothing else happened, I just kind of pushed it to the back of the mind. I got kind of good at doing that.
r /> “After ages of talking the subject to death with Veronica, I made her promise me she’d never bring it up again. But you know V…”
Will nodded. “I’m guessing that was easier said than done?”
“Understatement. Every time we saw a horror film with a poltergeist in or someone mentioned a weird occurrence, she’d give me one of her looks.”
“I can imagine.”
I smiled. “It was a few years ago now so she’d stopped doing it so much recently, but still… actually, these past couple of months without V would have been a welcome break from her reminding me of it. Well, if it wasn’t for…” I hesitated again. “For everything that’s been happening.”
Will was waiting for me to go on. “Everything?”
“Yeah… like Emma, and the man in the road who I thought we’d hit, and the voices I just heard.” And Hill Top. Couldn’t forget Hill Top.
He nodded slowly, infuriatingly saying nothing.
“Will, do you have any idea what I’m saying?”
He hesitated, and my stomach lurched. I knew I shouldn’t have said anything; any moment now he was going to run off into the maze and leave me completely on my own, in more ways than one.
“I understand what you’re saying.”
There was silence again. “And? What do you think?”
He paused yet again, and I had a fleeting urge to slap him.
“I believe that you believe what you’re saying.”
Now I was the one who was silent.
Will obviously saw my face drop and tried to back track. “I mean, I believe you.”
“No you don’t; you just said so.” I heard the fear in my voice and felt like running away, away from the maze, away from Will, away from this whole situation.
He squirmed on the bench. “I’m sorry, it’s just… how did you expect me to respond? What you’re saying is impossible, there must be logical explanations for all of it.”
“Right, like I was too drunk to know who it was outside The Pit.”
Will was looking decidedly uncomfortable now. “That’s one theory…”
I sat up straight, getting angry now. “And what are your other theories? Please tell me, I’m dying to know.”
“Beth…”
“No, really, I’d like to hear. The man we didn’t run over?”
“Had you had a drink then?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “One Poison Punch.”