Under a Watchful Eye(87)

‘You mustn’t say that. You mustn’t say things like that here.’ Joyce’s eyes widened and she struggled to resist them straying once more to the white door at the end of the corridor. And then she looked at Seb and mouthed the word, please.

Seb stepped closer to her. Her entire body was trembling. When he gripped the outside of her arms, she dipped her head and collapsed against him as if she hadn’t been held in a long time. When she looked up at him, her face stricken with fear, she sniffed back her tears and whispered, ‘Please, help us. We need you. We can’t fail. We can’t fail him or he’ll never let us go . . .’

‘We can leave. I have a car. I’ll take you with me. Today.’

‘Would you?’ she said, and then sobbed.

‘Yes.’

And then the woman seemed to remember something crucial and she regained control of herself. She began to smile like an imbecile. ‘We’ve forgone temptation and earthly comforts for a reason, Seb. Our purpose here is greater. We’re wedded to that and that alone. You must try to understand. You and I, we couldn’t be together. Not in that way.’

‘What?’ Seb released her shoulders. ‘I never suggested anything of the sort.’

‘Please. Don’t be embarrassed. The earthly conditions are full of temptations and distractions, and so much pain. There is only pain and misery when we are earthbound, and we can never truly know ourselves. You know that. We’ve read your books. Some of them. Well, bits of them. Bits of one of them, at least. But we’ve read enough to know that you understand this better than anyone. It’s in your vision, the pain. We’re all earthbound prisoners and it’s not possible to ever find our true potential. But there are other places, and it is to those that we must reach into. Like he said, “Into wonder we must walk.”’

‘Jesus. How did you become . . . this . . . ?’

Joyce frowned at Seb, as if he had asked her a stupid question. ‘I was called and I came.’ She said this with an air of self-importance and her eyes shone with something approaching awe. ‘Oh, I was much younger back then. A child really. Nineteen, or eighteen, I don’t much remember. And the society had seen better days when we arrived, but the commitment lasts much longer than what we call life, Sebastian.’

Seb stared at her with abject revulsion. ‘You murdered Ewan. You killed a man. You and Veronica and . . .’ Seb looked at the white door . . . ‘that thing, up there, and whatever else is still coming out of here. You all did it.’

Joyce recoiled from him and clasped her hands together, squeezing her eyes shut at the recall of something so unpleasant. ‘Ewan . . . He stole from us. He was trusted . . .’

‘Did he deserve that?’

‘He came here with an agenda. That wasn’t right. That has never been permitted. Ego, self-interest . . . No, no, no. And he was warned . . . He was warned about what . . .’

‘Joyce. You killed a man. How many others have you murdered?’

‘He said he was a poet. A poet? But he wasn’t capable . . . It wasn’t satisfactory. We were all very disappointed in his . . . ability. And the drinking!’

Joyce returned her attention to the white door in the passageway, the door that led to the next floor of the dark house. She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘When he enquired about Ewan, he was not pleased. You can’t imagine . . . And it was with great regret that he called upon one who is forever lost . . . but he only did it to protect us. Don’t you see? No one has ventured as far as him, or discovered so much in the light, and in the darkness too.’ For the last two words she uttered, her whispered voice became so faint as to be almost undetectable, but Seb heard her.

‘That thing that came to my home,’ he whispered. ‘How do I . . . get rid of it. You have to tell me.’

‘It is not permitted.’

Seb grabbed her arms again. They felt especially thin and unpleasant as he squeezed the near-rotten wool that hung from her old bones. ‘That thing, in the hood. Tell me how to get rid of it!’

‘Ewan. It was sent for Ewan.’

‘Is it here? Thin Len?’

Joyce’s eyes grew wide. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Now?’

She shook her head as her eyes filled with horror. And yet her mouth displayed a horrible grin, the visible teeth both yellow and grey in the torch’s light. ‘Thin Len. They hanged him. A long time ago. A thief who was once dismissed by the lady of this house. He worked here. While her husband was away the lady sent him packing . . . But Len came back. Crept back inside this house and he throttled all of the little children in the nursery. The maid, she helped him. She loved him. They were both hanged in Plymouth. Then Len came back again, and he crept inside here like an old dog. He never left that second time . . .’ Joyce’s eyes moved to the white door. ‘He showed us the story while we slept.’ She winced. ‘Oh, and so many times, you can’t imagine.’

Thin Len. The face in the trees. The whining dog in your home. The crawling of it outside your window.

Seb felt giddy at what had been recounted: a preposterous folk tale to anyone not suffering his predicament. He barely found the strength to speak. ‘And Hazzard . . . He has some control of it? Can direct . . .’

Joyce’s grin grew wider, as if she were proud of her peripheral association with such a vile pact. ‘But with you it can be different, Sebastian. Don’t you see? Now that you are here you do not need to be sought. Ewan brought us together for a reason. We know that now. We’re all confident that you’re far better equipped to assist his legacy. A great literary legacy. We couldn’t be more excited.’