Chapter 4 (Testing the Waters)
I’d allowed what the Doctor had said to sink in for a few moments and then guided him back downstairs. My mind was racing. A haunting? No, that couldn’t be true. As miserable and cold as this house was it wasn’t haunted. We would have seen something by now.
Now first let me tell you this – I am well and truly a believer of these things. I always have been. When I was a little girl I saw a man in Victorian clothes stood in my best friend, Emma’s, shed at the bottom of the garden. Turns out the housing estate was built on an old cemetery. So, yeah, I believe it those things.
But in my house? No, it just couldn’t be.
“Are we talking about a ghost haunting here?” asked Eve, once the Doctor had filled her in on the revelation.
“What other haunting is there?” asked the Doctor.
“Wait a minute,” said Holly, frowning at him, “you don’t believe in ghosts.”
“It depends on what type of ghost it is,” said the Doctor, “and I’m always willing to open my mind. I’ve seen ghosts created by psychic aliens and ghosts that weren’t ghosts but a family trapped in a dimensional pocket of space and time. Then there are data ghost, shadow ghosts, space ghosts and mind ghosts.”
“So which one is this?” asked Holly.
“Hang on,” I said, holding my hands up yet again, “Aliens? Dimensional what’s?”
“Let’s just put that in the “WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW” box and concentrate on your particular mystery,” said the Doctor.
“So what type of ghost is it?” asked Holly.
“I don’t know,” said the Doctor. “Without it doing more I have no idea. And you definitely haven’t experienced anything else in this house?”
“No,” I replied, trying to think back. “I mean, like I said, it’s always been cold and gloomy, dark and miserable, but nothing else.”
“Looking into the history of the house though,” said the Doctor, “previous tenants haven’t stayed long. It was rented out by the council for many years until it was rented out to you and your husband, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling sad at the thought of him. I wondered what he’d be thinking to all of this.
“So, I can deduce that – potentially – the council wanted this rented out because they couldn’t get people to stay.”
“Look, times were – are hard. We were desperate for somewhere to live. We didn’t have time to look into the history of it all.”
“And nothing has happened at all?” pondered the Doctor, tapping his chin.
“Are we safe?” I asked, suddenly feeling very afraid.
“Do you want the truth or a lie?” he asked.
“The truth, obviously.”
“No, you’re not safe,” he said.
I felt my blood run cold. “I’d have preferred a lie.”
“Don’t be silly, mum,” said Eve. She shuffled to the edge of the chair and looked closely at the Doctor. “Do you think we should move out for a while?”
There was a snap, the sound of something sliding down the wall behind us and then the clatter and shatter of glass on the floor.
I jumped, my heart in my mouth, and Eve leapt up, moving over to me quickly.
Holly got to her feet and walked over to the wall. A framed picture of Julian was lying on the floor, the black and white photo of his smiling face slipping out of the broken frame, the glass broken in two.
“How the hell did that happened?” I asked.
Holly’s hand went to the small hole in the wall where the picture hook had been. “It’s been worn away. The whole hook’s come out.” She pressed her finger against the hole and a trickle of dust came away. “Damp,” she said, looking at the Doctor.
“We have to remain calm and level-headed,” said the Doctor. “Not everything that happens is going to be our potential ghost.”
He was right, I thought, nodding and taking Eve’s hand. Still it didn’t make me feel any more comfortable. I got to my feet as Holly went into the kitchen to get a plastic bag to the put the broken glass into.
I took the slightly creased picture of Julian and smiled down sadly at it. I lightly touched his lips and then put it on the dresser beside the window.
The Doctor had left Eve and I alone with Holly, and strangely that made me feel more fearful. I didn’t know who he was, but he seemed to know a little more about these things than your average person. I know what people must be thinking – he could be a crackpot. He could be a lunatic trying to make me believe that there’s a ghost, but I just didn’t get that from him. He seemed genuine. A little odd, but warm and kind hearted.
The girl was the same. While I made us another round of tea, Holly sat with Eve whilst they flicked through one of her teenager magazines.
Holly occasionally smiled and nodded saying odd things like, “I remember them,” or “wow, didn’t he look young.”
I frowned at them whilst I waited for the kettle. I couldn’t help but smile. Holly almost seemed to be not a part of this world. She reminded me of a lifeboat cast adrift in the ocean, floating around and not really going anywhere.
I brought the teas back in and sat down on the armchair as they carried on looking through the magazine.
“I used to fancy him,” said Holly, pointing towards a white-teethed, smiling blonde lad in a white shirt and tight denim jeans.
“Used to?” laughed Eve, looking embarrassed.
“Yeah,” said Holly, scratching her head, “I guess my tastes have changed a bit.”
“Do you have any family here, Holly?” I asked. I was intrigued to know a little more about these two strangers.
“Not around here, no,” she said. “They live in another part of the country. Up north. A town called Huxley.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard of it,” I said. Only in passing though. Just one of those names you hear on the news occasionally or when Julian used to watch the football results come in.
“I hope it was for something good,” said Holly, smiling.
I smiled. “So you where just travelling through when you...well, when you detected my ghost?”
Holly nodded. “I was heading back to my friend, actually. The Doctor was taking me to be with her.”
I raised my eyebrows. She was being cryptic. She was friendly, but people being cryptic put me on the defensive.
I think Holly must have seen this because she smiled. “I met someone. A girl, actually.”
“Oh,” said Eve, grinning, “you said your tastes had changed.”
Holly nodded and smiled again. “I’ve never met anyone quite like her.” She seemed to go distant as if talking to herself rather than us. “It’s funny because when we first met I don’t think she could stand me. She was the grumpiest, moodiest cow you’ve ever met.” She laughed at the memory. “And then something just...well, clicked between us.”
I smiled sadly. I knew exactly what she met. I felt it the day I met Julian. I used to work behind the ticket counter at the cinema before it closed on Freeman Street. He came in one night with his friends and bought some tickets and, a little confidently, asked me out on a date. I said no at first, but he insisted and, well, he eventually broke me down.
And he became my world.
“Why isn’t she with you?” asked Eve. For a moment I thought she was talking about Julian and then my focus was back on Holly.
“She had to stay behind in her...city. She needed to reconnect with her mum and dad. It broke my heart.” Holly sighed and leaned back on the sofa. “But I’m going to see her again.”
Eve smiled sweetly at Holly and then her eyes transfixed on something on the wall behind me. The place where the picture frame had been. There was a beat. Just a single moment. And then Eve screamed, her hands to her mouth.
I spun around in my chair and almost toppled off it. The picture frame was back where it had been before and the glass was perfectly intact.
But as if that wasn’t terrifying enough – the picture of Julian had had its eyes gauged out.
It was twenty minutes later when the Doctor returned carrying all sorts of bizarre scientific equipment that looked like it had come straight out of some 1950’s sci-fi movie. We had moved to the front room, away from the back room. It wasn’t necessarily safer here, but the thing with the frame had terrified us all.
Holly had called the Doctor and he had come back almost straight away.
He dumped the equipment in the hallway and we followed him into the living room. He crossed over to the picture frame and touched it, pulling his hand away quickly.
“What is it?” I asked, almost too scared to listen to the answer.
“It’s cold. It’s ice cold,” he said. He rubbed at his wrist and then looked at Eve. “Eve, would you mind taking my equipment into the front room, please?”
“No of course not,” said Eve, glancing nervously at the picture and then moving away.
The Doctor pulled myself and Holly into a huddle and looked at each of us, his voice a hushed whisper. “Listen, I didn’t want Eve to hear this, but something strange happened when I touched the picture frame.”
“You said it was cold,” said Holly.
“It wasn’t just that,” said the Doctor. He exhaled and looked at me. I couldn’t work his eyes out. I felt almost lost in their bright blueness. Then I felt stupid for thinking about anything else other than the picture.
“Well don’t keep us in suspense, Doctor,” hissed Holly.
The Doctor nodded. “When I touched the picture frame, I felt something brush against my wrist. It was only very, very lightly, but it felt like ice-cold finger tips.”
And then my blood ran ice-cold. And the picture fell from the wall again.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment