Glimpse (15 page)

‘Good God, Elizabeth, tell me, have you seen her?’

‘No!’

He sank back onto the grass as if all his muscles had given way.

My mind whirred. Could ‘The Highwayman’ poem be real?

‘Zachary, was Bess your girlfriend?’

He gave me a pained look and nodded.

‘How did you die?’

‘I was shot.’

‘You were a highwayman?’

‘Yes!’ His voice rose. ‘Elizabeth, what do you know?’

I leapt to my feet, fuelled by adrenaline. My mouth half grimace, half grin. ‘Oh my God.’ I paced a small circle, my dress damp and cold through my tights.

I wished Susie was here. I wished anyone was here. I couldn’t handle this on my own, but I couldn’t tell anyone, either. It was just me and Zachary.

‘Elizabeth!’ Zachary’s voice was tortured. He twisted and turned around me, trying to see my face.

I forced myself to stop still and face him. ‘You’re the highwayman, aren’t you? From the poem.’

‘Please. I am begging you. Tell me what you know.’ His voice was shaky, but firm. ‘Have you seen her?’

The pain in his voice focused me. I pursed my lips and shook my head. ‘No. I don’t think so. I’m sorry.’

He pressed his hands to his face, and breathed out through his fingers, part exhale, part groan.

I ran my locket back and forth repeatedly on its chain, watching him. When he dropped his hands, his face in the moonlight was both pale and dark, both ghost-like and corporeal: it was like I was seeing him – really seeing him – for the first time. I tried to fit his image with the highwayman of the poem I’d read in school.

‘When did you die, Zachary?’ Zip, zip, zip, went my locket on its chain.

‘Seventeen hundred and eighty-nine.’

1789. The year
Haunted Hulbourn
claimed the ghost-highwayman had first been seen at my inn. I nodded. ‘Yet you seem so young,’ I said.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair and sighed, apparently still recovering from the shock I’d inflicted. ‘I’m nineteen, or over two hundred years, depending on how you count it. I exist in the same world as you, Elizabeth. I’m not trapped in a time bubble. Now explain to me how you know so much about Bess.’

‘There is a poem about you and her,’ I said. ‘About Bess and her highwayman. It was written over a hundred years ago, right here at the inn. The inn’s famous for it. When you told me you’re looking for a girl called Bess . . . I am sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. I just can’t believe . . . It’s just a lot to take in.’

‘I have heard a poem talked about at the inn,’ he said. ‘So many people saw Bess and me over the years, and I understood a text had been written about us. But I wasn’t aware that it’s well known.’

‘You’re famous.’

He raised an eyebrow, but I couldn’t tell in the darkness whether it was with excitement or disbelief.

I thought of the poem, of the tragic love of Bess and the highwayman that lasted beyond the grave. The whole point of the poem was that the lovers were together forever.

It hit me for the first time what he was saying.

‘But why isn’t Bess with you?’

He exhaled and rolled his eyes up to the stars. ‘I wish I knew. She disappeared years ago. I’ve been searching for her since. Every night, I visit the inn, looking for her. I no longer expect her to be there, yet I still hope. That’s how I saw you. Your room used to be hers. The night I first saw you there—’ he smiled, but not happily ‘—for a moment, I thought you were her.’ He looked at me again, his face sad and solemn and shadowed as stone.

The poem’s story was true.

Bess was gone.

And the last of my hysteria died.

‘This is terrible,’ I said. ‘Of course I’ll help you search for her. Just tell me where to look.’

‘Thank you.’ His voice was rich with gratitude. ‘I mean that, Elizabeth, from the depths of my soul.’

Some warm feeling blossomed inside me. I gave him a small smile. ‘So what’s her full name?’

He exhaled, his shoulders relaxing. ‘Bess Richards.’

‘I have glimpsed one girl at the inn,’ I said. ‘She’s petite, and has brown hair in ringlets. But she seems too . . . angry to be Bess.’

Zachary grimaced. ‘Ann Barton. Keep your distance from her.’

Car headlights appeared down the road, jolting my thoughts away from snarling Glimpse-faces and tapping feet in the night.

‘Oh, shit,’ I whispered, suddenly remembering Dad. How long had I been gone? I pulled my phone from my pocket to check the time, but when I pressed the button, the screen stayed blank. ‘Oh, this is so bad.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘My phone’s dead, er, I mean, the battery . . . I have to go back to the inn, right now. But you have to come with me. I’ve got so much to ask you.’

The car’s headlights grew brighter, its engine whirring closer. I squinted and stepped back from the verge, waiting for it to pass so I could dash across the road and back through the hedge.

But instead of passing, the car began to slow. It pulled up to the verge next to me. I tensed. I was in the countryside, in darkest night, with a broken phone and an invisible companion. This was bad.

The driver’s door opened. I had the too-late urge to run and I scrambled for footing, but a voice I recognized shouted my name. I froze, and turned to see Crowley step out of the car, stretch his bulky arms, crick his neck and saunter over to me.

‘Do you have any idea,’ he said, ‘how long your father has had me driving around looking for you?’

Dad. I was in serious trouble.

Zachary sidestepped as Crowley nearly walked into him.

‘I was just on my way back. My phone broke, I was going to ring him.’

‘Save your explanations for your dad.’ In the darkness, Crowley’s eyes were shadowed pits. He jerked his thumb at the car. ‘Get in.’

I cast a glance at Zachary. I hoped he could see how sorry I was.

Crowley spun round to see what I was looking at and I held my breath as he looked directly at Zachary. But he turned back, frowned at me, and reached for the driver’s door.

As we pulled away, I imagined Zachary behind us, still standing in the road, watching as we disappeared into the distance.

I’d been gone for almost two hours. It was past eight.

I knew I was going to be in trouble – a lot of trouble – when I got home, but I felt numb to the panic. The evening had left me feeling strangely detached from reality.

I chewed my lip and glanced at Crowley. His stomach pressed grotesquely against the bottom of the steering wheel. His face was rigid with annoyance that was a mere preview of the anger I knew was coming my way.

Too soon, the car’s headlights cut across the tree in the inn’s driveway, illuminating the open front door.

Crowley pulled up next to the outbuildings. ‘You’re in for it now, sweetheart,’ he muttered.

Dad met me halfway across the gravel. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ His words shot like bullets, jolting me suddenly alert.

Behind me, I heard Scott ask Crowley: ‘Where was she?’

I hung my head and walked towards the inn. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. Let’s talk inside.’

He stormed alongside me. The moment the front door shut, he let rip. ‘Where were you? Tell me!’

I wanted to sink into the floor. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. I just went for a walk—’

‘A two-hour walk? In the dark? Without telling me?’

I walked towards the kitchen. I couldn’t handle this now.

Dad raced after me. ‘I looked for you everywhere. We searched the whole inn. I had Scott looking for you in the woods, Crowley combing the streets. You left no note. You didn’t even answer your phone. I was worried sick!’

I sat down at the kitchen table and pulled my phone from my pocket. ‘I did take my phone, but it must have broken. I only just realized when Crowley found me. I’m sorry.’

Dad paced around the table. He puffed like a volcano about to erupt. ‘You went for a walk.’ He stopped pacing and scrutinized me. ‘Look at you. You’re freezing. You’re almost blue.’

It was true. But compared to everything else that had been happening, it was so insignificant. I’d barely noticed how cold I was till now.

Dad pulled out a chair, scraping its legs violently on the tiles, and sat down at the table opposite me. His eyes were red, and his hair stood up in a hundred different directions.

Guilt twisted inside me. I leaned across the table towards him. ‘Dad, I am so sorry,’ I said, as solemnly as I could. ‘I really am. I should have told you I was going, but I didn’t think I’d take so long, and I did take my phone. I lost track of time. It won’t happen again.’

‘It had better not.’ Dad swept a hand across his mouth. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘God, Liz,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve got to understand that you are all I’ve got left. You can’t scare me like that. If I lost you, it would destroy me.’

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘But I’m almost eighteen. I’m not some little kid any more. You’re not going to just lose me.’

‘I didn’t think I was going to lose your mum, either. But I did. We did. And living here—’ his gaze took in the kitchen ‘—in her old house, just metres down the road from where . . . it’s impossible to forget.’

I stared at my hands and sighed.

‘It’s not been easy for me, you know. Moving here. But I’ve done it – for you. Because you wanted this, because you wanted to have your new start.’

‘I know.’ I was trying to be sympathetic, but I just felt impatient. I didn’t want to listen to it any more, not with everything else I was trying to deal with.

‘Do you, Liz?’

‘Yes.’ My voice was flinty. There was a new tightness in my throat. ‘But things haven’t been easy for me either, Dad. You have no idea some of the things I go through, and I have no one to talk about them with, because I don’t want to upset you.’

He frowned. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

‘You!’ I gestured at him. ‘You’re so caught up in feeling guilty and being depressed. Sometimes I think you only want me to get better so you can feel better. You’re my dad, you’re meant to set an example. I came much worse out of that car accident than you, but I have tried so much harder. There are all these old photos of you playing piano, of being happy, but you might as well be a different person now. All you do is watch TV. You’ve never even tried to get your career back.’ I glared at him, my eyes wet with sudden tears.

Dad looked taken aback. ‘You’ve never said any of this before.’

I rolled my eyes at the floor. ‘I have, Dad,’ I said. ‘Maybe not so directly as that, but if you’d been paying attention – I have.’

He said nothing.

‘I am sorry, though, for tonight. I really am. I shouldn’t have done it. I was inconsiderate and dumb and I am sorry for worrying you.’

Dad nodded. He didn’t look at me. Then he exhaled, long and low. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Liz.’ His eyes glittered wetly. ‘And maybe you have a point. I will try harder. For you. I’ll start job hunting properly on Monday.’

I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. I’d half expected him to yell back at me.

‘I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me. If there’s anything you want to tell me about, I hope you’ll feel you can.’

I thought of Zachary, of everything I’d learnt tonight. I pressed my lips together, and nodded.

‘And if you feel like going for a “walk” again . . .’ He made quotation marks in the air around the word ‘walk’.

‘I’ll tell you,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

‘Good.’

We looked at each other for a long, solemn moment. Then Dad sighed and stood up. ‘I think we both need a cup of tea.’

I stood up too. I caught him round the middle as he passed, and gave him a sideways hug – for reacting so well to my outburst when he had every right to still be mad with me; for just existing when Zachary was so alone.

‘Love you, Dad.’

After a stunned moment, Dad said, ‘Love you too.’ Then he hugged me back, and went to put on the kettle.

I gazed blearily at the computer screen as Susie clicked on yet another illustrated image of a ghostly Bess.

‘None of these are real,’ I said. ‘Just imagined, after the poem. Go back to the search screen?’

Miss Webb had booked us research time in the computer suite today. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, but determined to put our session to good use. I had so much I wanted to find out.

‘What did you say her name was again?’ Susie asked.

I told her. Susie carefully Googled ‘Bess Richards’, along with ‘The Highwayman Inn’ and ‘1789’. She squinted at the search results. ‘Well, it looks like she definitely lived at your inn. Good job on tracking down her name. It seems pretty clear she’d be the same Bess as in the poem.’

I blushed. I had told Susie I’d found another book on the inn in Granddad’s library. It was the only excuse I could think up to explain why I suddenly knew the names of three of its former residents. Susie had been disappointed when I told her I’d ‘forgotten’ to bring in the actual book.

‘What were the other names you got?’ she asked.

I consulted my notepad. ‘Ann Barton and Zachary Wilson.’

Susie typed slowly.

It took almost all of the lesson and a lot of clicking to dig up any information, and even then it wasn’t much. Ann Barton was named in a long list of people associated with Hulbourn, and there was a note that her grave was in the local churchyard.

There was nothing on Zachary.

‘Save your work and log off,’ Miss Webb called, as the end-of-lesson bell rang.

I sighed, and shoved my notepad into my satchel. I’d hoped to find out more, especially about Bess. As far as Zachary’s girlfriend was concerned, the internet was a dead end.

But the mention of Ann’s grave had given me an idea. If Zachary was buried at the crossroads and he didn’t stray far from his grave, maybe Bess’s ghost did the same.

‘Fancy going to the graveyard after school?’ I asked Susie. ‘We could get a photo of Ann Barton’s grave for the project, and Bess’s too if we can find it.’

She gave me an amused, sideways glance. ‘You’re getting well into this ghost thing. Let’s do it.’

The hours until the end of school were just as nerve-wracking as the hours before we’d gone to Meg’s house.