Sister Mary Eunice suddenly floated up to the front of my mind. Whoever she’d been possessed by had asked me to help his son… surely, it couldn’t be…
I couldn’t ignore what was happening to me for much longer, whether people believed it or not.
“Why all the questions about me dad?”
I shook my head, unable to answer.
“Beth?”
Everything that had just happened on Main Street - as well as everything that had occurred in the past couple of months - chose that moment to come crashing down on me, as if part of the derelict roof of the castle had finally given up the ghost (I know, I know, bad choice of words) and come rushing down onto my head.
I couldn’t think of anything to say, and to Connor’s obvious amazement, I stood up and ran towards the hole in the wall with absolutely no explanation, crawling through the small space and out into the night.
***
I ran away from the castle and into the woods without really thinking which direction I was running in, as long as it was away from Connor. If my brain had been switched on at all, I would have run round to the front of the castle and down the lit pathway. As it was, I was now running blindly into the cloaked darkness of the forest.
I knew my sudden outburst must have confused the hell out of Connor, but that wasn’t my main concern right now. I’d spent weeks trying to unravel the twisted and tangled web of lies and deceit concerning Norman and Connor, and Veronica and my parents, and now I genuinely wished that I didn’t know any of it.
Ignorance was definitely bliss.
I carried on running, and seeing my breath in front of me, I realised just how cold it had become over the past couple of hours. Apart from a few sunny spots here and there, this autumn had been the coldest, darkest, and most dismal I’d ever experienced, in more ways than one.
I looked down at Connor’s leather coat so I could do it up, but my hands were shaking badly and I couldn’t get a good grip on any of the fastenings. With my lack of concentration on where I was going, I managed to stumble over a fallen tree branch and hit my kneecap on a large rock, forcing me down onto the wet, muddy ground. I gave out a little yelp into the dense silence and looked down at my legs, groaning at the state of my dirt-covered jeans.
I wished - not for the first time - that I could be ever so slightly less clumsy.
Picking myself up, I carried on running, worried that Connor might be following me. I didn’t want to have to explain my actions to him; I wasn’t even sure what I was doing anymore. I went a few more steps before I decided to try the coat again; looking down, I attempted to use my almost-numb fingers to button it up.
A blinding pain shot through my head. I staggered back, confused and disorientated, my vision rapidly doubling. I half laughed at my own stupidity when I saw the tree I’d just run into face-first, then had to steady myself against the rough bark. I was not having a good night. Not at all.
If I’d known then just how much worse that night was going to get, I would have gladly turned round and gone running back to the castle right there and then.
I looked down, blinking, trying to clear my eyesight, and realised the tree I was holding onto was hollow. Instinctively, I looked into the hole, absurd thoughts of the Woman in the Tree coming to mind.
At first I couldn’t make out what I was seeing, and I thought it might be the brown fur of some kind of creature. The moon had appeared again but the light was weak and I couldn’t distinguish what animal it was; I could tell, however, that the fur was wet and matted, and probably didn’t belong to anything that was still alive.
I bent down more closely and fumbled to get my phone out my pocket. Holding it over the opening to the hollow, I leaned in some more, a morbid curiosity suddenly coming over me.
What I saw drove all the curiosity out of me in an instant.
Sticking out under the fur was a sizeable scrap of black and red chequered material, the colours dull in the feeble light.
The sight of the fabric triggered a memory. The memory of Connor in the Doctor’s Surgery pub; it was the same material I’d seen poking out from beneath John’s jacket. I looked again at the matted brown fur, feeling bile rise up in my throat as I realised it wasn’t fur, but human hair.
John’s hair.
I didn’t stay to see the rest of him.
I had to get out of the woods, quickly.
***
I’d only made it a few feet when I lost my footing on the damp leaves and the ground quickly and abruptly whirled towards me. I yelled out in surprise as I fell through the grass and rain-slicked bracken, realising too late that I was falling down a hidden opening in the forest floor. I felt my legs and arms getting scraped against jagged edges but barely registered any pain in my shock.
A second, maybe two, had passed since I’d been upright in the woods, and I now found myself wedged in a hole barely big enough for me to fit in. If it had been any smaller, I may have just got one leg trapped in the hole, but as it was, my whole body was well and truly stuck. This realisation took a second to sink in, and when it did, the panic attack started suddenly and without warning. I tried to take in deep breaths as I madly flailed against the rough walls of the tiny hole. It was no use.
In my shock, it took a couple of seconds before I became aware of a tightening feeling around my neck, and to my horror I remembered the rope I’d tied around myself; the rope that was supposed to be Marie Mason’s death instrument.
Thinking of the scrapes I’d felt on my way down, I realised there must be something jutting out of the earth - something I’d caught the rope on, turning it into a much more realistic noose than I’d ever intended.
This did not help my panic attack.
I struggled to breathe in; there didn’t seem to be any air down in my vertical grave, and what little there was tasted dirty and earthy to my suddenly parched tongue. At least I still had that sense intact; my others seemed to be deserting me. The only thing I could hear was my own stunted breathing, and it was far too dark to see anything around me.
I tried to raise my head as much as I could to alleviate the pain, but the rope seemed to get tighter the more I moved.
I forced myself to stop struggling and breathed in as much air as I could.
Closing my eyes, I tried to calm myself. I tried not to think about John, about Connor’s dad, about a certain Edinburgh mausoleum…
I was about to shout for help (even Connor appearing would be a relief), but stopped myself when I remembered what he’d said about Norman constantly hanging out in the woods. After the discovery of the Man in the Tree, I was more willing to believe Connor’s accusations, as unlikely as they seemed. I thought of my phone which I’d managed to jam into my pocket again after seeing John’s remains, but there was no way I could reach it in this position.
After some deep breaths and a few investigatory movements, I found I could move both of my arms slightly in each direction, and after I realised I wasn’t completely jammed, I began to breathe steadily again. I even started registering sounds coming from above: the wind fluttering through the surrounding leaves, the occasional cry of a bird in the night air.
Slowly, I reached each hand up in turn, and running them along the length of the rope, found an angular shape on which it was snagged. Ignoring the pain in my neck, I put all my strength into pulling the rope free. After a second or so of tugging, I felt the coarse material relax from around my throat as the end dropped down from above me.
At least that was one problem solved.
Reaching up again, I felt around the limited space to try and get hold of the rock that the rope had been caught on, and I squirmed as the cold dirt oozed under my fingernails.
My heart leapt when my right hand finally closed around the rock; if I could get enough of a hold on it, I might be able to heave myself out. Of course, that depended on how far down I was, something I couldn’t quite discern in the darkness.
I vaguely wished I’d started going to the
gym like I was going to for my new year’s resolution, but quickly batted the thought away. I hoped that adrenaline would somehow give me the strength I needed to pull myself out, otherwise I didn’t know how I was going to do it.
Taking a deep breath, I tried with all my might to pull the rest of my body up using my right arm. It started to work and I managed to lift myself by a few inches but then the rock in my hand came loose from the soil. I swore to myself and tried to push it back in.
At that moment, a dim light came over my earthy prison, and I looked up to see the moon directly overhead. Evidently, it had been hiding behind the clouds during my moment of panic, and I wasn’t sure how long the light would last before it got swallowed by another batch of dark clouds. I looked back at the rock I was pushing into the soil and stopped, squinting.
It wasn’t a rock at all.
It was a skull.
***
I stared at the horrific object for the best part of a minute before I finally convinced myself of what I was seeing, at which point I dropped it, screaming at the top of my lungs.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t any space in the tight hole to drop it very far, and the skull just rolled down the soil before stopping next to my chest, gazing towards the top of the hole. In a black comedy it would have been funny. As it was, it made me want to be violently sick.
With the moon still semi-illuminating the hole, I could now see that all of the ‘rocks’ that had scraped me on the way down were actually bones as well. Far too many bones.
I thought I could see some kind of fabric sticking out of the soil, reminding me of John’s sleeve in the hollow tree. What if Connor had been right? What if this was some kind of trap set up by Norman? I tried to block the thought out.
I could also see a part of another skull jutting out from just above my head and decided not to look at it. Closing my eyes, I tried to focus; I was starting to get the weird swirly feeling I usually got when I thought I was going to faint.
Taking a few deep breaths, I opened my eyes again, immediately feeling sick at the sight of the many smooth, white bones. I peered up towards the opening of the hole in an attempt to avoid looking at them, and froze.
There was someone on the surface. Someone looking down at me.
***
I could feel hysteria bubbling up inside me. The someone was a woman, but she was unlike any woman I’d ever seen before.
She had long, dark hair that fell lankly around her extremely pale face, and her mouth was contorted into an unnatural, silent scream. Her eyes were pitch black (the usually logical part of my brain had deserted me, and I didn’t think for one second that in this light, anyone’s eyes would look like that), and far too large. I didn’t dare move a muscle, not that I could move much anyway. I wanted to yell out for her to help, but something stopped me.
Other than her twisted face, there was something deeply, deeply wrong with this woman. I hadn’t heard her approach and her expression didn’t change the whole time I was staring at her. After a few more seconds I began wondering how much longer I could stare into that ghastly face without actually going crazy.
I gasped as I noticed some movement, but couldn’t tell what it was until the moon came out from behind another cloud, lighting up the figure, who was now reaching her arm out to me.
Was she trying to help me?
The thought broke whatever spell she’d cast on me and I began to wriggle again, trying to lift my arm up towards the woman.
I stopped when I saw something glinting in her hand.
***
As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about the woman’s intentions for much longer, because she stopped reaching down and sat up straight as I heard twigs breaking and leaves rustling above me.
The woman looked off to the right, and now that her face wasn’t visible enough to distract me, I noticed how strange her clothes were. From what I could tell they were very basic and were all the same dull brown colour. I heard the noises get closer and the woman - if that’s what she was - disappeared from view in an instant.
I held my breath, praying Norman wouldn’t find me.
If he did, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
A few seconds later I heard Connor’s voice shout my name and an immense relief flooded through my body. I yelled back as much as my hoarse voice would allow and he appeared at the top of the hole with his torch, face crazy with worry, or perhaps fear.
I decided it was a mixture of both.
I tried to think what I must have looked like - filthy, shaking, and wedged in a hole - and it reminded me of a story on a television show I’d seen as a kid. A child had gone walking in their local forest, had slipped down a hole and had got stuck there. I remembered thinking at the time that I couldn’t imagine what that would have been like.
Well, now I knew. Plus I had the added element of a whole load of bones for company.
With an obviously great deal of effort, Connor reached down towards me and grabbed one of my hands. From what I could tell, he must have been lying down, perhaps digging his feet into the wet ground for stability. I helped by grabbing onto the jutting bones on the way up, trying to ignore what they were for the time being. After a lot of pulling and pushing, and after I’d gained a lot more cuts and bruises, I got to the top and collapsed next to Connor, almost crying in relief.
“Connor, thank you.” I decided not to mention the woman; this wasn’t the time to get into that conversation again.
I really didn’t want to tell Connor about the hole but I knew I had to. When I thought of all the bones down there, I actually did start crying, and I collapsed against him, muttering, “I’m so sorry,” into his chest. When I eventually looked up at him, I saw that his face was completely drained of colour. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” I looked over at the hole and he followed my gaze.
After a few seconds he asked in a monotone voice, “Is there a body down there?”
I looked up at him, wishing I could give him any other answer than the one I was about to give him, and whispered, “bodies.”
Connor stopped staring at the hole and looked at me, eyes wide.
“I’m so sorry, Connor. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you - about Emma, about John…” I trailed off, quite certain that I was going to be sick.
“Was John down there too?”
I took a deep breath, holding it until I was certain I had my stomach under control. “Not exactly…”
“What does that mean?”
I gestured behind me. “In the tree.”
He looked over at the hollow. “Seriously?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Didn’t I tell you people liked stuffing bodies in trees around here?” I could feel myself getting hysterical and I lowered my head, taking long, deep breaths.
There was silence for a few seconds and I jumped when Connor suddenly moved to get his phone out of his pocket. “At least now I know. I’d better call the police.”
And that’s when we heard his voice, low and raspy and filled with hatred.
He was standing directly behind us.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
***
I sat frozen to the spot as Connor turned round, slowly and cautiously.
After a couple of seconds I looked over my shoulder to see Norman, his face twisted up and a whole new level of madness in his eyes. He was standing over us, a torch in one hand and the hunting rifle from his kitchen in the other. The gun was pointed at us, only a few feet away from our faces.
I’d never actually looked down the barrel of a gun before, and if I’d ever wondered how I would react in such a situation, I knew now. I became a complete gibbering mess.
My brain failed me and I started emitting a high pitched squeaky noise that I didn’t realise was actually me until Norman pointed the gun solely at my face and told me to shut up.
At this, Connor stood up and pulled me up with him. I could barely stand and had to lean against him so I didn’t f
all over.
Connor’s torch was left abandoned on the ground, pointing towards the hole, illuminating the now-obvious opening in the forest floor.
Norman gestured to Connor’s hand and ordered, “Lose the phone.”
To my horror Connor replied with a shaky, “No.” Didn’t he see the man had a gun? “Not until you tell me the truth. Is me dad down there?” He flickered his eyes to the hole.
I thought I saw a glimmer of sympathy cross Norman’s face but it passed so quickly, I couldn’t be sure.
“Yes. I think so.”
Connor nodded, defeated, then looked up at Norman again, suspicion in his eyes. “What do you mean, you think so?”
Norman sighed and looked at the hole again. “You don’t think I killed them, do you?”
Connor stared at me in disbelief, and I just about managed to shrug my shoulders. I was starting to feel a little ray of hope that maybe Norman wasn’t planning on actually shooting us.
Connor turned back to him. “Well someone feckin’ did!”
Norman lowered the rifle slightly and my heart leapt in relief. Unfortunately, what he did next stopped it in its tracks.
He was looking to his right, smiling sadly. “I know, I know. But don’t worry, dear; they won’t tell anyone. I’ll make sure of that.”
From the corner of my eye I could tell that Connor was looking in my direction, but I was completely focused on Norman. On that spot next to him. I’d seen someone looking into the air like that before…
“What’s he doin’?” Connor whispered the question so low it was almost inaudible.
Without warning, Norman’s neck twisted round to face us again, much like he’d done with my mum in the pub. “What are you two whispering about?”
I stared at him, too scared to say anything.
He leaned over to his right side, still looking at us. “Yes, you always could hear like a bat.”
I thought back to Hill Top Farm and the record player. I decided to try something, anything to distract Norman from using his gun.