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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
Dunvegan School for Girls has been closed for many years. Converted into a family home, the teachers and students are long gone. But they left something behind... Sophie arrives at the old schoolhouse to spend the summer with her cousins. Brooding Cameron with his scarred hand, strange Lillias with a fear of bones and Piper, who seems just a bit too good to be true. And then there's her other cousin. The girl with a room full of antique dolls. The girl that shouldn't be there. The girl that died.
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Seitenzahl: 351
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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For my most gorgeous cousin, Georgiana Maunder-Willrich – friend, room-mate, cinema buddy, roller coaster pal and honorary sister.
Contents
Isle of Skye – 1910
The girls were playing with the Frozen Charlotte dolls again.
The schoolmistress had given them some scraps of fabric and ribbon from the sewing room to take out to the garden. They were to practise their embroidery skills by making little dresses and bonnets for the naked porcelain dolls. “They’ll catch their death of cold otherwise,” the teacher had said.
But there was one girl who wasn’t playing with the others. The schoolmistress sighed when she saw her, sat alone, fiddling with her blindfold. The girl complained it was uncomfortable but the doctor had said it was necessary to keep her wound clean. And, besides, the sight of her ruined eyes frightened the other girls.
The schoolmistress got up and went over to her, just as she succeeded in untying the knot.
“Now, Martha,” she said, deftly tying it back up again. “Remember what the doctor said.”
The girl hung her head and said nothing. She hadn’t spoken much since the accident. Not since the doctor had come and Martha had made those ridiculous accusations.
“Why don’t you go and join the girls in their game?” the schoolmistress said.
The blind girl shook her head and spoke so quietly that the teacher had to strain to hear. “It’s a bad game.”
“Nonsense. Come along now and play with the others. I’m sure they can help you if you ask.”
She took Martha’s hand and tugged her, stumbling along, to where the girls were playing in the sunshine. But when she got there she found that they weren’t making dresses for the dolls after all. They were making shrouds. And they’d covered the dolls up with them as if they were corpses. Some of the girls were even making little crosses out of twigs.
“What are you doing?” the schoolmistress said.
The girls looked up at her. “We’re holding a funeral for the Frozen Charlottes, Miss Grayson.”
“Well, stop it at once,” the teacher replied. “I never heard of anything so ghoulish.”
“But, miss,” one of the girls said, “they like being dead. They told us.”
Chapter One
Now Charlotte lived on the mountainside,
In a bleak and dreary spot.
There was no house for miles around,
Except her father’s cot.
When Jay said he’d downloaded a Ouija-board app on to his phone, I wasn’t surprised. It sounded like the kind of daft thing he’d do. It was Thursday night and we were sitting in our favourite greasy spoon café, eating baskets of curly fries, like always.
“Do we have to do this?” I asked.
“Yes. Don’t be a spoilsport,” Jay said.
He put his phone on the table and loaded the app. A Ouija board filled the screen. The words YES and NO were written in flowing script in the top two corners, and beneath them were the letters of the alphabet in that same curling text, in two arches. Beneath that was a straight row of numbers from zero to nine, and underneath was printed GOODBYE.
“Isn’t there some kind of law against Ouija boards or something? I thought they were supposed to be dangerous.”
“Dangerous how? It’s only a board with some letters and numbers written on it.”
“I heard they were banned in England.”
“Couldn’t be, or they wouldn’t have made the app. You’re not scared, are you? It’s only a bit of fun.”
“I am definitely not scared,” I said.
“Hold your hand over the screen then.”
So I held out my hand, and Jay did the same, our fingertips just touching.
“The planchette thing is supposed to spell out the answers to our questions,” Jay said, indicating the little pointed disc hovering at one corner of the screen.
“Without us even touching it?”
“The ghost will move it,” he declared.
“A ghost that understands mobile phones? And doesn’t mind crowds?” I glanced around the packed café. “I thought you were supposed to play with Ouija boards in haunted houses and abandoned train stations.”
“That would be pretty awesome, Sophie, but since we don’t have any boarded-up lunatic asylums or whatever around here, we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got. Who shall we try to contact?” Jay asked. “Jack the Ripper? Mad King George? The Birdman of Alcatraz?”
“Rebecca Craig,” I said. The name came out without my really meaning it to.
“Never heard of her. Who did she kill?”
“No one. She’s my dead cousin.”
Jay raised an eyebrow. “Your what?”
“My uncle who lives in Scotland, he used to have another daughter, but she died when she was seven.”
“How?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. No one really talks about it. It was some kind of accident.”
“How well did you know her?”
“Not that well. I only met her once. It must have been right before she died. But I always wondered how it happened. And I guess I’ve just been thinking about them again, now that I’m going to stay in the holidays.”
“OK, let’s ask her how she died. Rebecca Craig,” Jay said. “We invite you to speak with us.”
Nothing happened.
“Rebecca Craig,” Jay said again. “Are you there?”
“It’s not going to work,” I said. “I told you we should have gone to a haunted house.”
“Why don’t you try calling her?” Jay said. “Perhaps she’ll respond to you better. You’re family, after all.”
I looked down at the Ouija board and the motionless planchette. “Rebecca Craig—”
I didn’t even finish the sentence before the disc started to move. It glided smoothly once around the board before coming back to hover where it had been before.
“Is that how spirits say hello, or just the app having a glitch-flip?” I asked.
“Shh! You’re going to upset the board with your negativity. Rebecca Craig,” Jay said again. “Is that you? Your cousin would like to speak with you.”
“We’re not technically—” I began, but the planchette was already moving. Slowly it slid over to YES, and then quickly returned to the corner of the board.
“It’s obviously got voice-activation software,” I said. With my free hand I reached across the table to pinch one of Jay’s fries.
He tutted at me, then said, “Spirit, how did you die?”
The planchette hovered a little longer this time before sliding over towards the letters and spelling out: B-L-A-C-K
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It’s not finished,” Jay replied.
The planchette went on to spell: S-A-N-D
“Black sand?” I said. “That’s a new one. Maybe she meant to say quicksand? Do they have quicksand in Scotland?”
“Spirit,” Jay began, but the planchette was already moving again. One by one, it spelled out seven words:
D-A-D-D-Y
S-A-Y-S
N-E-V-E-R
E-V-E-R
O-P-E-N
T-H-E
G-A-T-E
“It’s like a Magic Eight ball,” I said. “It just comes out with something random each time.”
“Shh! It’s not random, we’re speaking with the dead,” Jay said, somehow managing to keep a straight face, even when I stuck my tongue out at him. “Is that why you died, spirit?” he asked. “Because you opened the gate?”
The planchette started to move again, gliding smoothly around the lighted screen:
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
I-S
C-O-L-D
“Charlotte?” I said. “I thought we were speaking to Rebecca?”
“Is your name Charlotte?” Jay asked.
The planchette moved straight to NO.
“Are you Rebecca Craig?” I asked.
The planchette did a little jump before whizzing over to YES. And then:
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
I-S
C-O-L-D
C-O-L-D
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
I-S
C-O-L-D
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
I-S
C-O-L-D
“This ghost has a pretty one-track mind,” I said with a yawn. “I hope you didn’t pay a lot of money for this rubbish? Aren’t you supposed to be saving up for a new bike?”
“Yes, but I hate saving money – it’s so boring. Maybe I’ll get a unicycle instead. Do you think that would make me more popular at school?”
I laughed. “Only if you went to clown school. You’d fit right in there. Probably make Head Boy.”
“Head Boy, wouldn’t that be something? My mum would die of pride.” Jay looked down at the board and said, “You know, some people think that spirits can see into the future. Let’s give it a little test. Rebecca, am I ever going to grow another couple of inches taller?”
I giggled as the planchette whizzed around, apparently at random.
N-E-V-E-R
E-V-E-R
O-P-E-N
T-H-E
G-A-T-E
D-A-D-D-Y
S-A-Y-S
D-A-D-D-Y
S-A-Y-S
T-H-E
G-A-T-E
N-E-V-E-R
E-V-E-R
“Do you think I should take that as a ‘no’?” Jay asked me.
“Absolutely. Titch for life.”
Jay pretended to recoil. “Geez, you don’t have to be vicious about it.” He looked back down at the board. “Spirit, am I going to pass that maths quiz tomorrow?”
B-L-A-C-K
S-A-N-D
F-R-O-Z-E-N
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
F-R-O-Z-E-N
S-A-N-D
B-L-A-C-K
C-H-A-R-L-O-T-T-E
C-O-L-D
H-E-R-E
D-A-D-D-Y
Jay and I were both giggling now, like little kids, but his next, and final, question made the laugh stick in my throat. “When will I die?”
This time the planchette gave a different answer. It whizzed around the board aimlessly once again before clearly spelling out seven letters:
T-O-N-I-G-H-T
“I don’t think this ghost likes me very much,” Jay said, lifting his eyes to mine. “What do you think?”
But before I could respond, we both jumped as a tinkly, music-box style tune started to play from Jay’s phone.
“Is that your new ringtone?” I asked.
“I’ve never heard it before,” Jay replied.
“Now you’re just messing with me.”
He shook his head and gave me his best innocent look. “It must be part of the app. To make it more spooky.”
A girl’s voice started to sing – plaintive and childish, high-pitched and wobbly. It was a simple, lilting melody full of melancholy, a song made for quiet campfires, lonely hills and cold nights:
Now Charlotte lived on the mountainside,
In a bleak and dreary spot.
There was no house for miles around,
Except her father’s cot.
“You are such a wind-up,” I said, smiling and giving Jay’s arm a shove. The sing-song voice was starting to get us dirty looks from the other customers in the café. “You put that on there yourself!”
“I swear I didn’t,” Jay replied. “It’s just a really cool app.”
“Such a dreadful night I never saw,
The reins I scarce can hold.”
Fair Charlotte shivering faintly said,
“I am exceedingly cold.”
Jay tapped the screen to turn it off but, though the voice stopped singing, the Ouija-board screen wouldn’t close. The planchette started spinning around the board manically.
“Dude, I think that app has broken your phone,” I said.
It was only a joke. I didn’t really think there was anything wrong with the phone that turning it off and on again wouldn’t fix, but then the screen light started to flicker, and all the lights in the café flickered with it.
Jay and I looked at each other and I saw the first glimmer of uncertainty pass over his face.
And then every light in the café went out, leaving us in total darkness.
There were grumblings and mutterings from the other customers around us and, somewhere in the room, a small child started to cry. We heard the loud crash of something being dropped in the kitchen.
The only light in the room came from the glow of Jay’s mobile phone, still on the table between us. I looked at it and saw the planchette fly over to number nine and then start counting down through the numbers. When it got to zero, someone in the café screamed, a high, piercing screech that went on and on.
Cold clammy fingers curled around mine as Jay took my hand in the darkness and squeezed it tight. I could hear chairs scraping on the floor as people stood up, demanding to know what was happening. More children started to cry, and I could hear glasses and things breaking as people tried to move around in the dark and ended up bumping into tables. And above it all was the piercing sound of a woman crying hysterically, as if something really awful was happening to her.
I let go of Jay’s hand and twisted round in my seat, straining my eyes into the darkness, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening. Now that my eyes had adjusted, I could just make out the silhouettes of some of the other people in the café with us – plain black shapes, like shadow puppets dancing on a wall.
But one of them was taller than all the others, impossibly tall, and I realized that whoever it was must be standing on one of the tables. They weren’t moving, not at all. Everyone else in the café was moving, even if only turning their heads this way and that, but this person stood completely stock-still. I couldn’t even tell if I was looking at their back or their front – they were just staring straight ahead, arms by their sides.
“Do you see that?” I said, but my voice got lost amongst all the others. I stood up and took half a step forwards, staring through the shadows. I could just make out the outline of long hair and a skirt. It was a girl standing on the table in the middle of all this chaos. No one else seemed to have noticed her.
“Jay—” I began, turning back towards him at the exact moment his mobile phone died. The screen light flickered and then went off. At the same time, the café lights came back on. I spun back round to look at the table where the girl had been standing, but there was no one there. The table was empty.
“Did you see her?” I asked Jay.
“See who?”
I stared around for the girl in a skirt, but there was no sign of her.
Anyone would think there’d been an earthquake or something. There was broken china and glass all over the floor of the café, many of the chairs had fallen over and a couple of tables had overturned.
“Who was that screaming?” people were saying.
“What’s happened?”
“Is someone hurt?”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Oh my God, someone’s been burnt!”
Bill, the owner, had led one of the waitresses out from the kitchen. She must have been the one who’d screamed in the dark. She was still sobbing and it was obvious why – all the way up her right side she was covered in burns. Her hand, arm, shoulder and the right side of her face were completely covered in a mess of red and black bleeding flesh, so charred that it was hard to believe it had once been normal skin. Her hair was still smoking and the smell made me want to gag.
I heard someone on their phone calling an ambulance as other people moved forward, asking what had happened.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. He’d gone completely white. “I don’t know how it happened. When the lights went out, she must have tripped or something. I think… I think she must have fallen against the deep-fat fryer…”
I could feel the blood pounding in my ears and turned back round to Jay. Wordlessly, he held up his mobile phone for me to see. From the top of the screen to the bottom there was a huge crack running all the way down the glass.
“Did you… Did you drop it?” I asked.
But Jay just shook his head.
The ambulance arrived soon after that and took the weeping girl away.
“In all the years this place has been open we’ve never had an accident like this,” I heard Bill say. “Never.”
Bill went to the hospital with the girl and the café closed early. Everyone filed away, going out to their cars and driving off. Soon, Jay and I were the only ones left. Normally, he would have cycled home and I would have waited by myself for my mum to pick me up but, today, Jay said he would wait with me, and I was grateful to him for that.
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for holding my hand when the lights went out.”
He gave me a sharp look. “I didn’t hold your hand.”
A prickly feeling started to creep over my skin. “Yes, you did.”
“Sophie, I didn’t. You must have… You must have imagined it. It was pretty crazy in there.”
I thought of those cold fingers curling around mine and shook my head. “Someone was definitely holding my hand when it went dark,” I said. “And if it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“Well, it wasn’t me. Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer.”
“Did you see that girl standing on the table? I thought I saw her outline there in the dark.”
Jay stared at me. “Are you actually trying to scare me right now? Because it’s not going to work, you know. I’m not that gullible.”
I glanced back through the windows of the café. There’d been no time to tidy up before the ambulance arrived and the place had been shut up as it was, with tables and chairs and broken crockery everywhere. A couple of the tables looked fairly normal, with plates of untouched food still on them, which was almost weirder.
I shivered and turned away, not wanting to look too closely in case I saw the girl among the empty tables.
“Look,” Jay said. “It all got a bit mad when the lights went out because of the waitress who hurt herself and started screaming. If it hadn’t been for that, none of this would be any big deal. It was just a freak accident, that’s all.”
My mum pulled into the car park then, waving at me through the window.
“We could give you a lift,” I said.
Jay’s house wasn’t very far away and he always cycled home, but I couldn’t stop thinking of that final question he had asked the Ouija board: When will I die?
“No thanks,” Jay said. “I’ll cycle back.”
I hesitated. “Jay…”
“You’re not still worrying about that app, are you? Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said. Then he grinned. “But just promise me one thing. If I do come to some appalling, grisly end tonight, I hope I can rely on you to tell the world it was a ghost that did me in.”
For once I didn’t smile. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t joke about it.”
Jay laughed and put his arm around my shoulders in a friendly squeeze. “I think you really would miss me,” he said.
Behind us, Mum honked her car horn to tell me to hurry up. Jay gave her a wave and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
“All right. See you tomorrow.”
I turned and started to walk across the car park but had only gone a few steps when I stopped and turned back. “Hey, Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you do me a favour?”
“What is it?”
“Would you take the towpath tonight? Please?”
Jay usually cycled back home using the shortest route, which meant several busy roads. He did it all the time and nothing ever happened to him. I knew I was being silly. But if he went the other way, via the towpath, it would mean he’d miss all the major traffic and would only add five minutes to his journey.
I was afraid that he’d refuse, or make a joke of it, or tease me again. But instead he just nodded.
“All right, Sophie. I’ll take the towpath.” Then he grinned, blew me a mock kiss and said, “Anything for you.”
I got into the front seat of Mum’s car and waved at Jay as we drove past, keeping my eyes on him until the car turned the corner and I lost him from sight.
I didn’t really want to talk to Mum about what had happened at the café so when we got home I went straight upstairs and had a bath. Before going to bed I sent Jay a text to say goodnight. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but I just wanted to reassure myself that he’d got home OK. He sent me a one-word answer: Goodbye.
I guessed he’d meant to say goodnight but that his autocorrect had changed it and he hadn’t noticed. He’d replied, though, so at least I knew he was home. I got into bed and went to sleep.
I didn’t remember until the next day that when Jay had shown me his phone at the café, it had been broken.
My dreams were filled with Ouija boards and burning hair and little girls holding my hand in the dark. And Jay inside a coffin. I tossed and turned all night. It was so bad that it was a relief to wake up, and I got out of bed in the morning without Mum having to drag me for a change.
With the sun shining in through the windows, the events of the night before started to seem less terrible. So the lights had gone out and someone had hurt themselves. It was horrible for that poor waitress but it had just been an accident, plain and simple. In the light of day, there didn’t seem to be anything that strange about it.
I dressed quickly, for once actually looking forward to school. Jay would be outside soon and we’d walk there together, like we always did.
As I got ready I was vaguely aware of the phone ringing downstairs and the sound of Mum’s voice as she answered it, but I didn’t really pay it too much attention. By the time I went downstairs for breakfast, Mum was just hanging up.
“Who was that?” I asked.
She didn’t answer straight away, and when I looked at her and saw her face I knew instantly that something was very wrong.
“What is it?” I said. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Sophie,” Mum said, her voice all strained and weird-sounding. “I don’t… I don’t know how to tell you this… Sweetheart, you need to brace yourself—”
“Mum, what? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Jay. That was his dad on the phone. Something’s happened. He… He never made it home last night.”
“Yes, he did,” I said at once. “He texted me.”
But at that very second I remembered that Jay’s phone was broken. I pulled my mobile out of my pocket and started scrolling through, looking for his text, but it wasn’t there.
“I don’t understand. He sent me a text last night. I saw it.”
“Sophie, he didn’t send you a text. Oh, sweetheart, I’m so, so sorry, but… On the way home he had an accident. They think… They think that perhaps the brakes on his bike failed. He went into the canal. By the time they pulled him out it was too late.”
“What do you mean too late?” I said, clenching my hands so tight that I felt my nails tear the skin of my palms. “Jay’s a strong swimmer. He won almost all the swimming contests at school last year. If he’d fallen into the canal, he would have just swum to the side and climbed out.”
But Mum was shaking her head. “They think he must have hit his head when he fell in. Sophie, he drowned.”
It could not possibly be true. And yet, it was.
Jay was gone.
Chapter Two
And yet on many a wintry night,
Young swains were gathered there.
For her father kept a social board,
And she was very fair.
I spent the next few days curled up in a ball under the covers of my bed, trying not to move, or breathe, or think, or fall asleep and dream about what had happened.
They think that perhaps the brakes on his bike failed…
I knew that Jay’s old bike had been falling apart. That was why he’d been saving up for a new one. I tried to remember whether he’d said anything specifically about the brakes not working, but everything was a jumbled-up mess inside my head and I couldn’t think straight. I just kept coming back to Jay standing there with his bike in the car park…
All right, Sophie. I’ll take the towpath…
I didn’t sleep that first night. I couldn’t stop thinking about the Ouija board, or the girl I thought I’d seen in the café, or the cold fingers that had curled into my hand when it all went dark. Or Jay, lying on some undertaker’s slab somewhere, all by himself.
The next day, in a kind of daze, I started reading about Ouija boards online, going through pages and pages of sites, squinting at the screen with raw and bloodshot eyes, and the more I read, the worse I felt. When I looked up the app itself, it was only to find that it had been taken off sale. There was a one-sentence explanation from the manufacturers stating that the app had been withdrawn due to complaints received from customers.
There were so many warnings about Ouija boards – people had been hurt using them, and others had died. One girl called Beth had posted a message on a forum saying: Never, ever, ever use one of these things. They’re not safe, and they’re definitely not fun, and I just want to warn everyone so that no one else loses their best friend like I did.
I shivered, wishing I had read her warning before Jay had downloaded that stupid app.
One of the sites said that if the planchette did a figure of eight, it meant that an evil spirit was in control of the board. I thought back and tried to remember whether it had done that or not, but it was hard to remember properly.
But there were two things I found out that disturbed me more than the rest. The first was the discovery that there were three questions you must never ask a Ouija board:
Never ask about God.Never ask where the gold is buried.Never ask when you’re going to die.And the second discovery – the one that made me feel worst of all – was a warning printed in bold text that said you must never, ever allow a planchette to count down through the numbers because a spirit could get out of the board that way.
But our planchette had counted down through the numbers. When it had got to zero, that was when the waitress in the kitchen had started screaming…
I tried to tell myself it was just a coincidence, that what had happened to Jay was nothing to do with Ouija boards or spirits or anything like that, but it didn’t help because even if Jay’s death had been an accident caused by his failing brakes, it was stillmy fault. I’d asked him to take the towpath. I had asked him to do that.
Anything for you…
The week passed in a blur of misery. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Whenever I’d been unhappy before, it had always been Jay who would cheer me up. I kept expecting him to text me again, or walk through the door. And whenever I was upstairs, alone by myself, I couldn’t shake the sensation that there was someone there in the room with me, someone I couldn’t see.
It was like there were hidden eyes staring and staring at me until my skin itched and my neck burned. I tried going downstairs, hoping that the feeling might go away if Mum was nearby, but it didn’t make any difference.
One day I was sitting in front of the TV, still wearing my pyjamas because getting dressed seemed like too much effort, when I could’ve sworn I felt icy-cold fingers brush against my face. I leaped to my feet, spilling the bowl of popcorn Mum had just brought me.
“Rebecca?” I said, staring around the room. “Are you there?”
But the room was empty.
Mum came in a moment later to see what all the fuss was about. “What’s going on in here?” she asked.
“Mum.” I swallowed hard and tried to sound normal. “Did you ever mess about with a Ouija board when you were younger?”
“What a strange question,” Mum replied, bending down to gather up the popcorn. “Not that I can remember. Why?”
“It’s just that … Jay and I were playing with one the night that … the night that he died.”
“But where did you find one?” Mum asked, looking up at me.
“It wasn’t an actual board – it was an app Jay downloaded on to his phone.”
“Oh, one of those phone game things?”
“It wasn’t a game, Mum, it… It said that Jay was going to die that night.”
Mum stood up and came towards me. “Oh, Sophie, you’re not going to let that upset you, are you? An app can’t tell you when you’re going to die.”
“But it wasn’t just an app, Mum, it was a Ouija board. I’ve read that they’re supposed to be dangerous, that sometimes an evil spirit can—”
“Darling, what happened to Jay has got nothing to do with anything either one of you did that night.” She hesitated a moment, then said, “Listen, why don’t I call the school and see if you could go and have a talk with the counsellor there? It might make you feel better to speak to a professional about it.”
I was shaking my head before she’d even finished the sentence. “That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“All right,” Mum said, holding up her hands and backing off. “It was just a suggestion.”
I knew that nothing I said was going to convince her, and yet my cheek still felt cold, as if icy fingers really had stroked my skin. I’d felt weirdly different ever since that night, but the feeling wasn’t something I could explain, to Mum or to anyone.
I tried to tell myself it was just grief and guilt making me think strange things. After all, even if we had made contact with Rebecca, and even if she had escaped from the board, why would she have hurt Jay? He’d never done anything to her, he’d never even met her. But when I started to read about ghosts online I kept coming across the theory that if someone died under suspicious circumstances then they would become a vengeful spirit who wouldn’t care who they hurt, and would just go on hurting people until they got justice. And I still didn’t know how Rebecca had died.
I tried asking Mum later that day, but she just muttered something about an accident, and wouldn’t say any more.
Promise me one thing, Jay had said. If anything happens to me, you’ll tell the world it was a ghost … you’ll tell the world…
Of course, he’d been joking, he hadn’t meant any of it, and yet … somehow, the crazy thought lodged itself in my brain that I owed it to Jay to at least find out whether a spirit had had anything to do with his death. And if Rebecca had been involved, well … I couldn’t let her get away with it, I had to do something.
So when Dad came and told me that he and Mum were going to cancel their anniversary trip and stay at home with me instead, I said I didn’t want them to, I still wanted to go and visit my uncle and cousins in Skye. Mum and Dad had been saving like mad for their trip to San Francisco and I knew they would lose the money if they cancelled their flights. I told them everything they wanted to hear. “Being here will just remind me of what happened,” I said. “I’ll feel better somewhere else.”
That wasn’t true – all I wanted to do was cry in my room – but I must have been a better actress than I’d thought because, a week later, I was standing in the airport with my suitcase, waving goodbye to Mum and Dad.
First there was the flight to Glasgow, then I had to catch a train to Mallaig and then, finally, get the ferry to Skye. It was an insane place to get to, which was why I’d only met my cousins, Cameron, Piper and Rebecca, once, when they came to stay seven years ago. Cameron was some kind of musical prodigy, and they’d come down especially so that he could play the piano for an important music teacher in London. And I’d never even met my cousin Lilias – Aunt Laura had been pregnant with her when I’d last seen the family.
I felt a bit nervous about seeing Cameron, Piper and Lilias. It was too late to turn back now, though.
It had taken all day to get to Skye, and it was raining by the time I caught the ferry at Mallaig. It had been stiflingly hot the last couple of weeks so the rain was almost a relief, a fine summer drizzle that misted the air and clung to the ferry windows in big fat droplets, making it hard to see the island. I got my camera out of my bag, thinking that I might snap a photo as we approached, but really I think I just wanted to hold it and feel its familiar weight in my hands. It was my most prized possession.
The island emerged all of a sudden, huddled there in the water, starkly defined against the grey sky by jagged mountains that looked like they’d slice your hands open if you tried to climb them. What was I thinking, coming here like this? I could imagine what Jay would say.
“What’s this?” he’d gasp in an exaggerated tone of mock surprise. “Ghost hunting? You know you won’t last five minutes, right?”
It was probably true. I must have been mad to come here. What did I think I was going to be able to do? Track down Rebecca’s vengeful spirit and somehow banish it to the other side?
“You ought to be flattered,” I said to Jay inside my head. “You die and I go crazy. What a compliment.”
I didn’t know whether it was thinking about Jay, or the choppiness of the sea, but I suddenly felt queasy, and I was glad when we pulled into the harbour at 6pm. It was pouring down outside and the ferry speakers crackled into life as one of the staff made an announcement in a broad Scottish accent.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Skye is living up to its Gaelic name today, the Island of Mist, so could the foot passengers please mind their step on the gangplank as it can get quite slippery out there. Welcome to the Sleat Peninsula, everyone, and enjoy your time on the island.”
The gangplank led on to a sloped metal walkway that rose up out of the sea on stilts. The moment I stepped on to it, the wind whipped my hair on to my face, and I could taste salt on my lips. By the time I reached the car park I was thoroughly soaked.
I stared around, wondering where Uncle James would be. I couldn’t see him anywhere and, for a horrible moment, I was afraid he hadn’t come. Maybe he’d forgotten or got the times mixed up. I felt a twist of panic and dumped my case on the wet tarmac so I could take my phone from my pocket.
The hand that clapped down on my shoulder from behind made me jump and I whirled round to see my uncle standing there with an umbrella. Tall and dark-haired, he looked nothing like Mum, but then they were stepsiblings rather than blood ones.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I wasn’t sure it was you to begin with. You’ve grown up since I saw you last.”
“It’s… It’s been a long time,” I said, not sure what else to say.
“Yes, it has,” Uncle James replied. “A long time. A very long time.” He was looking at me, but his expression was distant and I wondered if he was remembering the last time we’d met, when Rebecca had still been alive. Then he shook his head and seemed to see me again. “You’re soaked,” he said. “Let’s get you into the car.”
I got into the front seat and shivered, wishing we were already at the house so that I could change into some dry clothes.
“I hope you had a good journey, anyway?” Uncle James said, as he got in. “It’s a long way to come on your own and this weather doesn’t help. We don’t have the best summers in Skye, I’m afraid.”
“Is it always this foggy?” I asked. The fog seemed to be coming in off the sea in waves.
“Pretty much. The west coast is littered with shipwrecks because of captains who thought the fog was thin and that they’d be able to see the island in time. Entire crews have drowned as a result.”
The mention of drowning made me think of Jay again, but not the way I wanted to think of him, not the living, breathing, laughing best friend I’d always known, but a body sprawled by the side of the canal, soaking wet and stone cold and gone forever.
I felt suddenly tired. It was an hour and a half’s drive to the house and I leaned my head against the window, meaning to close my eyes for just a second, but I fell asleep straight away and woke up some time later to Uncle James tapping my shoulder. The rain clouds and the fog made it seem very dark outside.
“We’re here, Sophie,” he said.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked up, expecting to see a house. But instead I saw gates looming up before us in the harsh glare of the headlights. They were huge – two metres at least, set in a brick wall that was just as tall. A heavy-looking chain bound them together, and I watched as Uncle James got out and unlocked them before getting back into the car.
“I’ll give you the code for the combination lock, but you must never leave the gates open,” he said.
Daddy says never ever open the gate…
I sat up in my seat, suddenly wide awake. I was sure the Ouija-board app had said something just like that.
“Why?” My voice came out as a dry croak.
I saw Uncle James’s mouth tighten. “It’s not safe,” he said. “In the morning you’ll see – the house is on a clifftop. It’s not safe in bad weather. Or after dark.”
We drove through and he got out and locked the gates behind us. A long, stone building huddled in the gleam of the headlights. I thought I saw a twitch of movement from one of the upstairs windows, as if a curtain had been pulled back and then quickly dropped. A strange little turret rose up from the centre of the slate roof in the middle.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it.
“The old bell tower,” Uncle James replied. “This used to be the schoolhouse. There’s no bell there any more, though. It’s too windy here for that. It rang all the time and I couldn’t concentrate on my paintings. Well, your cousins will certainly be keen to see you – Piper has talked of nothing else for days.”
Now that I had finally arrived, I almost wished I was back on the ferry. I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping that it hadn’t dried in too much of a mess. Uncle James parked the car and we got out, our feet crunching on the gravel drive. The sea breeze was cool against my skin and I could hear the distant crashing of waves somewhere out in the fog.
“What’s that burning smell?” I asked, suddenly becoming aware of it – a smell of smoke and hot ash.
“I can’t smell anything,” Uncle James said and, weirdly, neither could I. The smell had disappeared all of a sudden, snatched away on the salty sea wind.
Uncle James took my case from the boot and I followed him into the house. We walked into a deserted entrance hall with a tiled floor and a steep staircase leading up to the first floor. I didn’t like the look of that staircase. Something about it made my neck prickle. It was too tall and too steep. An accident waiting to happen. A staircase to break your neck on. And it was too warm inside the house, a stifling sort of airlessness that made sweat trickle down my back.
“That’s funny,” Uncle James said. “I thought they’d all be here to greet us.”
At that moment a door opened to the left and a girl came out. She was my own age so I knew this must be Piper. I remembered her being pretty, but the girl that rushed forward to greet me wasn’t just pretty, she was incredibly beautiful. She wore jeans and a simple pink sleeveless top with a high neckline. Her gorgeous strawberry-blonde hair was pulled up into a thick ponytail and her eyes were a deep sea-green colour that made me think of mermaids.
I felt plain in comparison, and a little awkward, but Piper came straight up and threw her arms around me as if we were long lost sisters.
“Hello, Sophie,” she said, hugging me tight. “I’m so pleased that you’ve come to stay with us!”
“I’m glad too,” I said, wishing I didn’t sound so stiff and formal, and that my hair wasn’t such a total mess.
“Where’s Cameron?” Uncle James asked.
I saw Piper hesitate for a moment, as if she knew her dad wouldn’t like the answer. Then she said, “I… I’m not sure. He might have gone to his room. I’m sure he wanted to be here to greet Sophie but I think maybe he wasn’t feeling very well…”
“Don’t try to cover up for him, Piper!” Uncle James said sharply. “He seemed perfectly well when I left and I made it quite clear that he was to be here to greet his cousin when we arrived.”
I felt awkward about Cameron getting into trouble on my account and thought I ought to say something. “That’s all right—” I began.
