The Shadow House(91)

‘Should’ve told her he was here.’

‘Gabe was here? When?’

‘Should’ve said something. It’s wrong to wander off. You might hurt yourself.’

Renee edged forward. ‘Do you know something, Bess? Did you see something the night he went missing?’

Bess’s crepe-paper eyelids fluttered. ‘It was the bones,’ she said. ‘The bones came first. A gift, but nothing wanted. Next, a doll: a likeness, a promise. And the blood marks the choice. It finds a face, and then you know.’

Renee stifled a screech of frustration. Not this again. ‘Bess? Bess, look at me.’ She walked right up to the old woman and stared into her pearly eyes. ‘The drawings on the wall, the ones on the stairs. Why do you have them? Did Gabriel give them to you?’

‘Help,’ said Bess. ‘I need help. That’s what he said, I remember it clearly.’

‘Who said that?’

‘I remember voices in the night …’

Under Renee’s breastbone there was a feeling of both expansion and restriction, like her organs were being replaced by a steadily inflating balloon. ‘When? When was this?’

‘… and footsteps, soft and slow on a carpet of green, on the grassy path that goes up to the blue sky and the diamond moon and the place where the birds fly north. That’s where it happened.’ Bess winced as if she’d been hit. ‘A noise. No, two noises, one after the other. First quiet, then loud. Oh, there was so much blood.’

Renee felt as if her heart had stopped. Bess knew. She knew. Something had happened … But Bess’s eyes were vacant, she was barely even there. The panic began to swell and Renee’s throat became tight. ‘Stop this, Bess. Please, stop and think.’

Bess became agitated. ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ she said, shaking her hands as if trying to free herself of something. ‘I didn’t know how to help.’

‘You have to remember.’ Renee was yelling now, barely able to restrain herself from grabbing the old woman and shaking her hard. ‘Remember, Bess.’

‘I remember all of it – only then I forget. The rules, though; I won’t forget those. Bones, doll, blood. Listen to me carefully, repeat after me: bones, doll, blood. That’s how it goes. Things arrive, and then … a magic trick. Here one minute, gone the next. No one knows where he went.’

‘You know, Bess. I know you do.’

‘No one knows.’

‘Just fucking tell me!’ Renee’s fury spilled over. Wild with frustration, she raised her arm and drew back her hand.

‘No one except the birds.’ Bess pointed at something behind Renee. ‘They know. They saw everything.’

Renee stopped. Lowered her hand. Slowly, she turned back to the picture frames. And then she saw it.

The stairs.

They were an olive colour. A literal carpet of green.

Renee’s eyes travelled up, following the line of birds to the top of the staircase. Hanging from a ceiling painted a pastel shade of blue was a delicate cut-glass light shade, a glittering orb. A grassy path. A diamond moon. And a blue sky.

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ whispered Bess. ‘It couldn’t be stopped. Things arrive, and then they take you.’

Somehow managing to put one foot in front of the other, Renee moved towards the staircase as if she was being pulled.

Behind her, a soft click. The front door opened.

‘Excuse me,’ said a voice. ‘Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?’

Renee turned. Dom Hassop was standing in the doorway.

‘It wasn’t his fault,’ Bess repeated faintly.

Dom’s eyes widened. ‘Renee Kellerman?’ he breathed. ‘Is that you?’

‘What did you do?’ The words spilled from Renee’s mouth before the thought had even formed.

Dom’s face went white. ‘What?’

‘Where is he?’ Renee had never experienced anything like it. Feelings she never knew existed coursed through her body, undoing every joint and crushing every bone until she was sure she would crumble like dust. ‘What did you do to him?’ Blood. There was so much blood. ‘I know you did something.’

Dom’s mouth hung open but no words came out.

Reaching for the banister, Renee put one foot on the first step.

‘Stop. Renee, please.’

Another step. Another. Higher and higher.

‘It was an accident.’

His words were like four bullets in her back. They ripped through her skin, freezing her in place.

‘He just appeared in the middle of the night. I don’t even know how; I woke up and he was just there.’ Dom’s frantic, trembling voice was on the move, coming closer, climbing the stairs behind her. ‘He was standing at the foot of the bed, just this tall whispering shadow. I thought … I was half-asleep and I thought I was being attacked.’

Renee dug deep. With renewed ferocity, she continued to climb, her eyes on the sky. When she reached the first floor, she scrutinised the walls, the floor.

‘I hadn’t been sleeping well,’ Dom said. ‘I was taking pills. I wasn’t thinking, wasn’t in my right mind. I saw him and I … reacted. With everything that was going on with Rachel and the kids – and then all that stuff at your place, the intruders and vandalism, and Mum banging on about the Devil all the time – I was rattled. Paranoid. I kept a cricket bat under the bed, and when he came in, I …’