(1992) Prophecy (25 page)

Five years ago she had scrambled, whimpering, up those steps. Chased by the bogeyman. She had been looking for the entrance to a secret passage that was supposed to lead down to the Thames and that had been bricked in centuries ago. Then a shadow had moved behind her, and with it had come a sharp scrape. As she had turned her torch towards it, the bulb had failed.

It might have been her imagination, she knew. Or a tramp or a wino. The cellars interconnected. You could crawl under the arches, working your way beneath half the City of London. This part of London was riddled with secret passages dating back to the Middle Ages and which were used by prisoners escaping from the Tower, by Royalists during the Civil War, by smugglers.

For five years she had wanted to go back down to that cellar and prove to herself that the shadow had been nothing, just a trick of light. Each time she had plucked up courage she had chickened out because there had been no one else to accompany her. But tonight in the downstairs room of the pizzeria they had been fooling around, joking, a little drunk, telling ghost stories and trying to scare each other. So when Seb Holland had suggested a Ouija board session, or maybe it had been Meredith Minns, and Susie Verbeeten had said it needed total darkness, Frannie told them she knew the ideal place.

‘Seb, do you have a torch in your van?’ she said, remembering now that there was no light in the cellar.

‘Yes, I’ll get it.’

Meredith Minns wandered over and stood beside her, staring down. ‘Yeeech! God, what’s down there?’

‘Nothing,’ Frannie said. ‘Empty boxes and stuff.’

‘Perfect,’ Susie said, peering over her shoulder.

‘Looks horrible,’ Max said. ‘Why don’t we do it up here?’

‘Because you need somewhere where there isn’t anyone else around, and total darkness,’ Susie said.

‘Why total darkness?’ Meredith asked.

‘Because, daaahlink,’ Seb said, his voice turning Slavic, and running his fingers up her back, ‘ve are going to summon up ze Prince of Darkness. Yee ha hahhh!’

Meredith shivered and grinned. ‘Stopppit!’

Seb unlocked the front door and went to get his torch. Susie cut twenty-eight squares of paper, wrote in capitals a single letter of the alphabet on each one in turn and on the final two the single word
Yes
and the single word
No
.

‘We need a glass,’ Susie said, ‘and a flat surface, and a candle.’

‘There’s probably a crate down there that’s suitable, otherwise we can bring down a table,’ Frannie said, resting the trapdoor back against its hinges.

Max stared around the café. ‘Should think this place is a gold-mine – right in the middle of the City – perfect.’

‘The rent’s very high,’ Frannie said, and thought for a moment about her parents: up at five every morning making the sandwiches; always struggling to pay the bills, struggling to gain a few more years on the lease the landlords wanted to terminate for redevelopment;
always dreaming of returning to Naples laden with riches. But the reality was that they would never return, not now. Their family and friends had died, or moved or changed; the past they had left behind them in Italy was as threadbare as the future that lay before them in England. In a couple of years the lease ran out, this time for good, and the whole building would be coming down. Her parents would have to move on, start again elsewhere; tired, ageing people, their hope beaten flat like old metal.

Frannie found a box of candles in the cupboard beside the kitchen sink, took one out, picked up the matches off the gas ring and waited for Seb. He came back in the front door, locked it behind him and gave her a large rubber torch.

She switched it on, flashed the powerful beam down into the darkness and saw the blob of white light slide across the floor. Then, tucking the candle and matches into the back pockets of her jeans, she climbed slowly down the wooden steps, holding the torch with one hand and each step, in turn, tightly with the other.

As she reached the bottom she felt an uncomfortable sense of isolation. Susie Verbeeten’s face seemed a long way above her. The cold air bit through her clothes, blew on her skin. She shone the torch out into the bitumen blackness that surrounded her, tried to dispel her unease. Shadows jumped. A steady, echoing ping … ping … ping rang out as rainwater leaked through from somewhere above.

Columns stretched out into the distance either side of her and behind her: squat stone columns and ribbed arches that had been built to shore up the cellars after the spreading waters of the Thames had eaten away some of the foundations centuries ago. Far thicker than they probably needed to be, they dated from a
time long before engineering stresses and tolerances had been understood. The walls were brick, damp and crumbling, and it was rumoured that victims of the Plague were cemented in behind them.

She played the beam around, but could see nothing she didn’t recognize. Several empty cardboard boxes listed badly, their bases eaten by the damp that came up through the floor. Then she swung the beam away with a shudder as she realized it was shining on a decomposing rat.

‘OK?’ Susie called down, and her voice echoed.
Ok-ayyy?

‘Yup, fine!’ she called back.
Yup-ine-ine-ine
, her voice echoed; then she guided each of them down the steps with the torch.

‘Spoooooky!’ Seb said, shoving his hands into his pockets and looking around.

‘Perfect,’ Susie said, then looked dubiously upwards. ‘I think we ought to shut the trapdoor. We don’t want any light at all.’

Seb climbed up and reached for the handle. The trapdoor fell with a heavy thud that gave Frannie a sudden claustrophobic feeling.

She guided him back down, then swept the torch over each of her friends’ faces in turn for reassurance. They nearly all looked uncomfortable. Even Seb seemed to have lost some of his bravado. Only Susie seemed unconcerned as she selected a wide plywood packing-case with a flat base, placed the glass upturned in the middle, then laid the letters randomly in a surrounding circle, with the words
Yes
and
No
among them. ‘Make a circle round the packing-case with things to sit on,’ she said.

‘Yeek!’ Meredith screamed, clutching Jonathan Mountjoy. ‘I saw something move.’

Frannie swung the torch and saw a rat or a large mouse disappear behind the arches at the far end.

‘Have you got the candle, Frannie?’ Susie asked.

Frannie pulled the candle out of her pocket and struck a match. The acrid smell of the sulphur was comforting against the dank mustiness. Susie took the candle, let a few drops of molten wax fall on the packing-case and stood the candle firmly in it, cursing as a drop of hot wax fell on her finger. A barrel scraped across the floor as Jonathan Mountjoy moved it. Frannie turned her head, startled by the sound, the memory of the shadow and the scrape returning. Then everyone sat down.

‘Torch off, please, Frannie,’ Susie said.

Frannie switched it off. The darkness seemed to jump in towards them, the weak, oval, yellow glow of candlelight barely keeping it at bay. A small pool of shadow rocked around the base of the candle as the flame guttered. A cold draught blew like a breath across Frannie’s neck. She could smell the hot wax and the fainter smell of the spent match. The drip of rainwater out in the darkness still pinged steadily. The flame guttered again, more so, and Frannie felt the downy, invisible hairs on her arms stiffen. Her cotton ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ T-shirt clung to her like a wet towel.

Three sharp raps rang out, startling her. Then a ghostly voice boomed: ‘Is anyone there?’

Meredith giggled.

Three raps again.

‘Seb,’ Susie said sharply.

‘Yeeh-hahh-hahhh!’ he replied, his voice low and resonating.

Fingers crawled up Frannie’s neck and she jumped. ‘Seb – for God’s sake!’ Then she grinned, momentarily
relieved of the oppressive tension she felt. Maybe this was the best thing, just joke, fool around, don’t get too serious.

‘I can feel the spirits,’ Seb said. ‘I can feel them all over me.’ He wriggled.

‘Seb,’ Max said quietly, ‘I think we should all calm down now and be serious.’

Meredith Minns was smiling uncertainly. In the weak light, the pasty whiteness of her skin against her brilliant red lipstick and her gelled black hair presented a ghostly appearance. Susie Verbeeten stared imperiously around.

‘Hey, darlings, I’m just wondering whether I should really stay,’ Meredith said, tossing her head theatrically. ‘I have to get some reading done – I have another exam on Monday.’

‘You can’t possibly leave now!’ Susie said. ‘We need at least six to create enough energy to summon the spirit. And someone to control it.’

Meredith chewed the inside of her cheek.

‘Right,’ Susie said, ‘everyone put one finger on the glass. Very lightly, don’t push. It’s really important you don’t push.’

Frannie could read the name ‘Helix’ stamped in the base of the glass as she reached out tentatively, touching other hands that were jostling for space, then rested her index finger on the glass. It was vibrating, jerking in different directions.

‘Stop pushing it,’ Susie said. ‘You’re all pushing it!’

The glass became still.

‘Now close your eyes, everyone.’

Frannie stared out into the darkness beyond the glow of the candle, then down at the fingers on the glass. She closed her eyes.

They sat in silence for some moments. Frannie could feel the pressure on the glass.

‘Is there a spirit here?’ Susie said, quietly. ‘If there is a spirit who has joined us will you answer us by moving the glass.’

There was a low rumbling in the distance. It grew louder. Louder still. Frannie could feel the glass twitching. The rumbling increased, echoing around the cellar, rising to a crescendo din.

‘Jesus!’ Jonathan said.

‘Tube,’ Frannie said, her eyes shut. ‘Just a tube train – Central Line.’

‘Bloody good, Susie,’ Seb said. ‘You’ve managed to call up the spirit of a tube train.’

Meredith giggled. The rumble faded.

‘Could you get us a cross-Channel ferry next?’ Seb said.

Meredith giggled again.

‘How about a Boeing 747,’ Max said.

‘Quiet,’ Susie hissed angrily. ‘Concentrate!’

The glass jigged.

‘There
is
something here. Something is in here with us. I can feel it.’ Susie raised her voice. ‘Is there a spirit with us? Is there a spirit here who wants to talk to us?’

Frannie swallowed; the silence of the cellar magnified every sound. She could hear the boomf-boomf-boomf of her heart, the blood coursing through her veins like the roar of distant traffic, the gurgling as she swallowed again. The cellar became sharply colder, as if the door to a freezer had been opened. She stiffened. She could sense the change, as if there was something or someone else in here with them now. It was standing behind her, passing a magnet or a sheet of cellophane a few inches over her skin, drawing up the hairs, its icy breath blowing through her bones as if she were transparent. She kept her eyes tightly shut, clenched the lids together, too frightened to see.

‘A spirit has joined us,’ Susie Verbeeten announced.

Icy claws raked Frannie’s skin. She wanted to stop now, she was too afraid to go on any more.

‘We have a spirit with us,’ Susie said, louder. ‘Do you want to talk to us?’

The glass jerked sharply with a loud scrape, several inches to the right, and then stopped.

‘
Yes
,’ Susie said, her voice rising in pitch with excitement. ‘It says
yes
!’ Her voice regained its imperiousness. ‘Who are you? Please tell us your name.’

Frannie felt the glass move again. It skidded across the surface of the packing-case and stopped abruptly.

‘The letter N,’ Susie said.

The glass moved again. ‘Don’t push it, just let it move, let the spirit move it. O,’ she said, her voice tight with concentration.

It moved again.

‘N.’

‘
Non
,’ Jonathan Mountjoy said. ‘French for
no
.’

The glass moved again. ‘O – M – N – I – S,’ Susie spelled out.

‘
Omnis
,’ Max Gabriel said.

‘It’s Latin,’ Seb said. ‘You’ve got hold of a Roman centurion. Hi there, Polonius!’

Meredith giggled.

The glass moved again, startling them all. ‘M – O – R – I – A – R,’ Susie spelt. ‘
Non omnis moriar
.’

‘
Non omnis moriar
,’ Max Gabriel echoed.

‘Who can remember their Latin?’ Susie said.

‘Me – I can,’ Frannie croaked. Her throat was now so dry that she was barely able to speak.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It’s a quote from Horace,’ she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

‘
Doris
did you say?’ said Seb.

Meredith giggled again, a forced, nervous sound this time.

‘Horace,’ Frannie repeated quietly. Her arm was trembling. ‘
Non omnis moriar
. It means: I shall not altogether die.’

September 1991

The tube doors opened and Frannie looked up with a start, snapping out of her thoughts. Clapham South. She scrambled to her feet and just made it out of the doors before they closed again, then stood on the platform, remembering.

Oliver’s family motto.
Non omnis moriar
.

Tension coiled through her. Another coincidence. Unless her memory was wrong. The train slid out of the station behind her, accelerating with a fierce whine. A gust of grimy underground wind curled around her, then followed the tail of the train into the tunnel.

Altering the past to make it fit. The mind did that; the mind played tricks constantly. She thought back hard as the escalator carried her upwards. Three years ago – longer – three and a half years ago; it had been near the end of the spring term in her last year at university and they had been out celebrating someone’s birthday in the basement of the cheap pizzeria they used to frequent.

It was Susie Verbeeten who had suggested the Ouija session. Susie Verbeeten who had run it. Bossy Susie, far bossier than Phoebe. Susie had claimed her mother was a white witch, and that was how she knew about doing the Ouija properly.