Aftersight (26 page)

"We're back!" Sara said triumphantly, loping and then skipping ahead. "It's this way. It won't be long now."

I grinned at Nicole, thoroughly relieved. I turned to offer Cali a similar smile, as if to say, "No hard feelings," but what I saw froze me where I stood.

This was the first time I'd seen Cali in the moonlight. In the half-darkness, Cali's pink sweatshirt appeared grey. And with her hood hiked up over her head like that, it gave the black tufts of hair on either side of her face a sinister look. But it was Cali's eyes that terrified me most, because in the dark, with her thick, black mascara, they looked shadowy and vacant, as if her insides had rotted away.

From the moment we'd met, I thought Cali looked familiar, but only now did I realize from where. I was sure now that our first encounter hadn't been at Waltham but on the foggy stretch of road on the way home from Gwen's house.

Cali
had been the hooded girl that I'd driven past in Brewster, New York; the very same girl who, a half-hour later, had appeared in my parents' driveway in Danbury, Connecticut, standing beside the family car.

Tyson

London's East End

April 26

I followed Tommy up three flights of stairs to his place overlooking a dilapidated warehouse. The nearby red brick building was outlined in rust: rusty barbed wire and rusty window frames with panes of glass either jagged and broken or fogged-over with greasy dust. The view wasn't pretty, but it was quiet and that's just what we needed.

Brooks, who had been reading the paper, called out, "They're back!" and the rest of Tommy's team, who was gathered around a TV watching a soccer match, snapped off the set and gathered around the table. There was Archie, Tommy's tech man, with fuzzy sideburns and crooked front teeth; Leland, the team's field engineer, busily prodding a gizmo with a screwdriver; and Paul, their research specialist, a graduate student with a receding hairline and chunky glasses that made it look as if a little man was peering out from inside his head.

"We've got it," Tommy announced, holding up my digital recorder and passing it to Archie. "Lord Humphreys wouldn't let us take notes, so I want to get started straight away, before we forget anything."

Archie connected the recorder to his notebook computer and began downloading the file.

"We held the interview in Emily's bedroom," Tommy said, taking the seat at the head of the table. "I'd asked if we could talk in the room where the disturbances first took place and that was one request Lord Humphreys
did
grant. He wasn't at home during the interview but Emily's mum was. Emily asked that her mother not be present when we conducted the interview — you'll understand why soon enough — and after some initial resistance, her mum relented."

"While we was there, we got a chance to check out the layout of the place," I added, hanging my hat on the wall and pulling up a chair. "It's not huge, but there's a lotta space to cover if it's just gonna be me and Tommy."

"Downstairs there's a foyer, kitchen, family room, dining room, and study," Tommy said, reading from a notepad. "There's a cellar used for storage, to keep a washer, a dryer, and cleaning supplies. Upstairs there're two bathrooms, the parents' bedroom, Emily's room, a sort of library, and two guest rooms. There's a large attic space with six dormer windows, three either side. Right now it's mostly empty. There's just a few boxes and old pieces of furniture that the Humphreys haven't found a place for in the house. We didn't get a chance to get a baseline EMF reading, but judging from the wiring I saw when I took a look at their electric box, they're still running off the old stuff."

"Emily's room's upstairs," I cut in. "Her parents tried movin' her to each of the guest rooms, hopin' for a quick fix. The disturbances would quiet for a spell then start up again in a night or two. Now she's back in her old room."

"Her bedroom is large enough to hold a single bed, nightstand, bookcase, desk, wardrobe, and chest of drawers. During the interview, Emily sat on her bed, Tyson sat in her desk chair, and I was on a folding chair her mother provided. Conveniently, her mother thought to serve tea on a portable table that sat between Emily and us."

I pulled out my lighter and box of cigarillos from the inside pocket of my black leather jacket, flicked the lighter on and off three times before setting them down. "I put these on the table between us. The recorder was hidden in the box of tobacca. I can control it remotely from a switch in my pocket."

Brooks picked up the cigarillo box and took a look. "Brilliant."

"Recordin' conditions were excellent," I added. "Neighborhood's quiet and her room's near soundproof."

"Tell us about the girl," Paul, the research specialist, requested. "What's she like?"

"She's twelve," Tommy answered. "Brown hair, slight build. She's pretty without being beautiful. It's an awkward age, isn't it?

"She keeps her room tidy," he went on, "but there were just enough things out of place to tell that she didn't clean up on our account. She had a herd of stuffed animals on her bed, like it was the ark waiting for the second flood. Posters on her wall were all kittens and rainbows; no rock stars or anything like that. I'd say she may be a little immature for her age. She didn't have much on her bookshelves — said whatever she put up there had the habit of getting knocked on the floor — but I did see a few books stacked under her nightstand that looked like they were recently read. There was Beatrix Potter and
Winnie the Pooh
and the like. I'm thinking maybe she's regressed a bit under the strain."

"Paul, what did ya find out about the house?" I asked.

Paul pointed at me, his face expressionless. "I was hoping you'd ask. The neighborhood and the surrounding region were the site of the Battle of Barnet, a key fight in the Wars of the Roses, 1455 to 1485, between the house of York and the house of Lancaster that concluded with the ascension of King Henry VII to the throne. At the time there wasn't anything in the area but woods. Peaceful little community, didn't you think? Would you be surprised to learn that it was one of the most active paranormal spots in London?

"It's got a high water table and a fair concentration of limestone. Go figure. A great many spectral sightings take place in Oak Hill Park, not far from the Humphreys' residence. The local newspaper, the
Barnet Press
, dubbed the area 'The Ghosts' Promenade.' Sightings there include the ghost of a medieval knight riding a horse and phantoms floating through the trees. Also — get this — headless dogs."

"The growling they've been hearin' in the girl's room?" I suggested.

"Hmm, maybe," Paul replied.

"How do headless dogs bark?" Archie asked.

"There's a small stream that runs through Oak Hill Park, a tributary of which passes only a few yards from the Humphreys' back garden. A connection?"

"Maybe." I shrugged. Paranormal activity often took place at conjunctions of waterways and underground streams. "What about the house itself?"

"No history of deaths there. Not recently, anyway. Constables paid the place a little visit a few years back to check up on a domestic violence dispute involving the previous owners, but I couldn't dig up much more than that without asking around and calling attention to myself."

Tommy gestured to Archie, who started up the recording. The boys opened their notebooks and began writing. The interview started with small talk. Emily's mother had just served tea and she was still hanging out in the doorway, asking if we needed anything, when Emily shooed her away.

Emily: "She means well, I know, but I do like to get a bit of privacy once in a while."

"Ah, I can see a little teenager coming on," Paul observed from his notetaking.

Tommy: "Emily, why don't you start from the beginning, when the disturbances first began."

Emily: "They began shortly after we moved in last summer."

Tommy: "Your father told us they began last February, during an overnight sleepover."

Emily: "Yes, that's when all the trouble started, but that's not when the disturbances really began. I haven't exactly told my parents ever
y
thing."

Tommy: "Why not?"

Emily: "Mr. Banks, when your dad is an MP and always making a big fuss and getting written up in the press, you have to be very careful about what gets out. After a while, you learn to keep yourself to yourself, if you get me. If I'd started telling my mum and dad what I'd been se
e
ing, why, they'd want to get my head examined straight away."

Tyson: "Why not tell 'em now, after they know somethin's up?"

There was a pause. "You can't see it," Tommy explained, "but she just shrugged."

Tommy: "Why don't you tell us when this started and what you exper
i
enced."

Emily: "It was last August. We had only just returned from holiday in Austria, and our things had just arrived from our old house. I was standing in the kitchen, drinking some juice, when I saw what I thought at the time was my dad walk past and go down into the cellar. I didn't look at him directly; only saw him out of the corner of my eye. I had been looking for a box of my old books that had been thrown in with some of my dad's ledgers, and I'd called to him to see if he'd seen anything of them. When he didn't answer me, I'd gone down looking for him, but no one was down there."

Tyson: "There another way in or out of that cellar?"

Emily: "There is, but the door locks with a padlock from the inside. It was locked when I found it, meaning if someone had left from that way, there was no way he could have locked it again once he was on the other side of the door. Besides, I'd checked a few minutes later with Mum. She said that Dad had gone out for the afternoon and wouldn't be home for dinner."

Tyson: "And you didn't tell her what you saw?"

Emily: "I wasn't altogether sure I saw anything."

Tommy: "All right, why don't you tell us what happened next."

Emily: "It's difficult to say for sure what happened next. It's not like there's an easy order to these things. A lot of times I wasn't sure if things were really happe
n
ing or if it was just my imaginings."

Tommy: "Can you give us an example?"

Emily: "Well, this here, for example."

"Please pause the recording," Tommy cut in. "She's pointing to a little carpet that sits on the floor beside her bed. It can't be much larger than a meter square. It's a child's carpet with a little frog design on one side and a sticky sort of rubber coating on the other. It sits on the bare wood floor next to her bed. I did some testing after the interview and it doesn't slide around very easily.

"Okay, resume the recording."

Emily: "I keep that there so in the morning, when I get up, I have something soft and warm to put my feet on when I'm putting on my slippers. Not long after we moved into the house, I'd wake up in the morning and it would be moved. At first it was just turned a little bit and I didn't think much of it. Then a time or two I found it under my bed or I'd find it rolled up in the corner or pushed up against my bureau. I started ta
k
ing note where it was before I went to sleep and it would often be moved when I awoke."

Tommy: "Anything else?"

Emily: "I'd hear a rapping noise, like someone was knocking at the door, but on the wall near my bed. And always at the same time, just as I'd be drifting off to sleep. That I did tell my dad about."

Tyson: "What did he tell ya?"

Emily: "He said it was probably hot water pipes. Said they sometimes made a banging noise in the wall when they were warming up."

Tommy: "Did you ever investigate this theory further? Try to start the hot water under the same conditions?"

Emily: "Well, that's just it, isn't it? No one was using the water at the times this happened. My dad would usually be in his study and Mum would be watching the te
l
ly downstairs."

Tyson: "How often did this happen?"

Emily: "Two, maybe three times a week."

Tommy: "What else?"

Emily: "Hmm. This happened in October, I think. I was home alone one afte
r
noon doing schoolwork and I heard footsteps in the room I was in, but nobody was there. They seemed to walk right up to where I was sitting. Then they just stopped."

Tyson: "Were ya scared?"

Emily: "A little. But I tried to explain it away as my imagination. I don't like b
e
ing home alone and I thought I was just scaring myself. It actually happened on a few more occasions. Each time it happened it was raining and I was hoping it had som
e
thing to do with the rain."

Tommy: "Anything else?"

Emily: "The music box. There's a music box that sits on the piano. Sometimes it plays by itself. The first few times it happened, I was pla
y
ing the piano at the time and I thought that something about the vibrations of the piano triggered the music box to turn on. But then one day it happened whilst I was doing my schoolwork on the other side of the room. I've since played with the switch that turns the music box on. It's hard to move, on or off, and I can't see how it could have turned on by itself."

Tyson: "Was the switch moved when the music box turned on or did it just play on its own?"

Emily: "I checked each time. The switch was always moved to the on position after it started playing. Oh, and then there was that afternoon in December. I almost forgot, and this is probably the spookiest of the things that happened before the spirit board incident. I was home alone one afternoon — all of these things seem to happen when I'm alone — and I was playing in my bedroom. I heard the back door open and our housekeeper, Sonia May, walk in. I know it was her because when she's happy, which is most of the time, she likes to whistle and it's always the same song. I could hear her banging the cupboards open and closed and I'd just assumed she was putting away groceries as she always does on Thursday afternoons. Then it got really quiet, so I went out to say hello. No one was there. I found out later that Sonia May had the afte
r
noon off that day. That really scared me, but I didn't want to tell Mum. I was worried Sonia May might get in trouble. She won't, will she? You won't tell, will you?"