Nyctophobia (19 page)

T
HE TREES WERE
rattling in the swirling winds, the leaves spinning on their stems. Rain sluiced across the garden in a spectacular torrent, flooding sand from the paths and washing away the topsoil. At the cusp of the mountain ridge, lights flickered like poorly connected neon, but at this distance no thunder could be heard.

I pressed my hand against the glass and found it still warm – the sun had been on it until just a few minutes ago. Uncomfortable and overheated, I went to the drawing room and opened my laptop, trying the number again. This time it connected. Mateo appeared on the Skype screen, the airport shops at his back.

‘Wow, looks like the storm has already hit there,’ he said after a flash lit up the room. ‘My flight just got pushed back, so go ahead and eat without me.’

‘What’s the problem? Did they say?’

‘I guess the bad weather’s having a knock-on effect, although it hasn’t hit here yet.’ He twisted the screen around to show me the view. The Madrid runways were still dry, but the sky was dark. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Okay, I guess. I was going to have some of the Gaucia ladies over for drinks but they already warned me about the rain. Actually I think they didn’t want to come to the house. How late do you think you’ll be?’

‘I won’t know until we get an announcement. The board says more information at six thirty. How’s Bobbie?’

‘She’s with Rosita, learning how to make
empanadas
.’

‘Maybe you should sit in with them and pick up some tips.’ I knew he was gently chiding me for not being able to cook, but I had been too busy to start learning.

‘I have a better idea. We nominate your daughter as the new house chef. Hurry home.’

‘I’ll be the first to board, don’t worry.’ He blew me a kiss and disconnected. I folded the laptop shut and tidied away my notes.

‘Callie?’

I looked up to find Bobbie wiping flour from her hands onto the yellow flowered shift Rosita made her wear in the kitchen. ‘What is it, sweetie? You all finished?’

‘They’re in the oven now,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the storm.’

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just electricity moving about in the air. Do you want to come and sit with me?’

‘The door.’ She pointed across the drawing room, behind my head. The connecting door was ajar, revealing a sliver of darkness inside.

How did that happen?
I thought, rising. I was sure I had locked it.

The storm clouds had dimmed all the rooms, but the lights weren’t due on for a while yet; Rosita still had a specific routine she insisted on following. I decided that Mateo had probably gone into the other side for some wine and had forgotten to re-use the key on his way out. The door tended to pop open unless it was pushed shut hard and locked.

‘Wait here.’ I patted Bobbie on the head, then stepped inside and took a look around, feeling the familiar sense of tension rising in my chest.
You can control this. Whatever is here is inside you, not the house.

‘Are you all right?’ Bobbie called.

‘Fine, just stay where you are, honey.’

I took a further tentative step inside, past the sideboard lined with photographs, the overstuffed ottoman, the tasselled lampstand. Now that I was within the room, I had to stop and wait for my eyes to adjust to the shadowy gloom. Creeping forward, step by step, I was aware of every foot I moved further in, away from light and safety, but I was drawn by the need to understand.

The high-backed armchair ahead of me had been turned to face the wall and the dead fireplace. I assumed Mateo must have moved it, because it had always been facing the door. The floorboards creaked beneath my sneakers. I could hear the rain cascading onto the roof far above.

Beneath it was a faint but terrible sound, coming from somewhere close at hand.

A snuffling moan, so desperate and bitter that I could only imagine the person making it had sunk into the depths of despair.

As I drew closer, I saw that there was someone seated, or rather slumped, in the chair. I could see the top of a head, hair in tufted strands, matted and filthy. A thin arm rose and fell, hanging loose inside a dirty ragged shawl. There was the distinctive smell again, hard to place – not decay exactly, but neglect. The smell of dead flowers, unwashed skin, someone old who had been left alone for too long. This was surely a real person.

I moved closer. A sighing now, a sob forced from an old, dry throat. Slowly, as I crept forward, the being in the chair revealed itself. The skin was mottled blue and grey, a translucence revealing the aching arteries within.

The china mask turned to me, its pale ceramic features those of a young girl, but inside the eye-holes were filmy pupils rolling up at me in torment. The brown leather straps that held the mask in place appeared to be cutting into the poor creature’s skin. The mask’s carved lips were curled in happiness, but the effect was not joyful but horrific. Its hand reached out feebly, as if begging me to make contact and remove it.

Knowing that there were no lights on this side of the house I stood trapped amid the crowded Victoriana, trying to see the thing that was a part of the dark, its atoms coalescing from the very absence of light, and I knew that its fingers longed to dig into my wrist and draw me closer. I felt no fear now, just pity and revulsion.

But then, behind it, rising very slowly from behind the chair, came the malevolent creature I had first seen through the window. It rose with its chin on its chest, its hair forward over its features, and for the first time I knew who these terrible ruined beings were…

Bobbie’s cry shattered the spell. I stumbled back toward the door, away from the chair. I could no longer see the older one at all. The air around the chair was thickening and growing dark, swarming over their forms and blurring them, as if a horde of flying insects had come to bear them away.

I ran back, catching my ankle on the dresser, bursting out of the door and slamming it to find Bobbie eyeing me in amazement.

‘You
are
scared!’ she said with a triumphant air.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Joke

I
WATCHED AS
Mateo devoured the cold plate left out by Rosita, forking rolls of
jamon
into his mouth. ‘You should have seen her, screaming and whining about not being able to get on the flight, threatening to sue the counter staff. Man, there’s nothing worse than a Bostonian with a sense of entitlement. It was as if she couldn’t
imagine
that anyone else might want to catch the same plane, utterly incredible.’ He stopped chewing and looked at her. ‘Sorry, this is boring for you.’

‘No, it’s wonderful,’ I said, relishing normality, the coffee cup pressed between my hands. ‘Just keep talking.’

‘So, after twenty minutes of being abused by this mad stick-insect of a woman, the counter girl beckons me on in her place, which only sets her off again, and worse this time, “Don’t you know who I am” and all this shit, and I say “How do you stand it?” and the counter girl turns to me and says confidentially, “How do I stand it? I know that this bitch isn’t getting on any flight while I’m on my shift, and that just about makes my day,” and she waves me through with a cheery smile.’

‘She was flirting with you,’ I said distractedly, studying the spot where the dark hair of his wrists met the sharp white of his shirt cuffs. ‘I bet they all do.’

He rounded up some salted
padron pimientos
on his fork. ‘So how was your day? How’s the book coming along? How many pages have you finished?’

‘Mateo, do you believe in ghosts?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Trapped spirits. Do you think a house can hold the soul of a dead person?’

He looked thrown by the sudden change in conversation. ‘I don’t know. No, I guess not. You’re talking about – here?’

‘I went into the other side today. The dark side.’

‘
The dark side?
What is that?’

‘The servants’ quarters.’

‘You don’t like the dark. Why would you do that?’

‘We live in part of a house, Mateo. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘The whole idea of living in an old observatory is odd, especially one with rooms for servants at the back, but you know why he did it, to study the sky and to spare his wife.’

‘Don’t you think there comes a time when fears have to be faced?’

‘Well, it’s an admirable idea, but if we’re talking about you, perhaps you want to wait for a time when I can be here more and I’ll help you. Once we’re over the Christmas pre-orders –’

‘This household has been invaded, Mateo. She’s trying to get in. She wants the light. And I think there’s more than one. I’ve counted two or maybe three so far.’

‘Two or three what, ghosts?’ He set down his wineglass and stared at me. ‘You’re saying you’ve seen
spirits
?’

‘I don’t know, not spirits, but not real people either, and they live in the dark rooms.’

‘Have you told Bobbie about this –’

‘No, I’m the only one who sees them. They’ve chosen me. I know how this sounds, God knows –’

‘Why would they pick you?’

‘Perhaps they need something, they’re in pain and I don’t think they realise it but they’re going to cause terrible harm –’

‘Oh,
man
.’ Mateo passed a hand over his forehead. ‘Is this why you’re behaving so –’

‘So what?’

‘I don’t know. You don’t seem like yourself. Maybe you’re tired.’

‘I just want to know what she wants.’

‘Who are we talking about, Callie? Who is “she”?’

‘Elena Condemaine. She’s just on the other side of that wall, biding her time. Her husband is with her, and maybe her children for all I know.’

‘Wait, the architect and his wife are living with us? And maybe their kids too? You do realise he’s been dead for almost a century?’

‘I know that.’

‘Why would she pick you? Why now? Are you going to tell me she’s buried under the floorboards next? That her husband murdered her and she’s chosen you to tell the world?’

‘No, but her presence is tied to this house and those rooms.’

‘If you’re telling me that that our household has been invaded by the vengeful ghost of a woman who died nearly a century ago, I’d have to say she waited a long time to make her move. This is a joke, right? “You moved the cemetery but you left the bodies, didn’t you?” Sorry, that was
Poltergeist
. “Go toward the light, Carol-Ann.” Or was it stay away from the light? It’s been years since I saw that movie.’

Something within me broke. I released the tension in my neck and gave in. He was never going to believe me. Who in their right mind would? ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s a joke. Or maybe just a dream, a bad dream. I’m sorry, I’m really tired. I don’t sleep well when you’re not here.’

‘Maybe you should try a glass of hot milk with a small brandy in it. It always works for me. I go out like a light.’

‘Dear Mateo.’ I wanted to stroke his face and feel the stubble on his chin. ‘It’s always so simple for you.’

‘Really, you look kind of exhausted.’ He smiled. ‘Why don’t you go and run yourself a hot bath, and I’ll look in on Bobbie.’

I went and lay in the steamed-up bathroom, with the overhead lights ablaze.
It’s me,
I decided.
For some reason Elena Condemaine has targeted me. No-one else can see her or be touched by her because no-one else can help her. If I can find out why it’s happening I can put a stop to it, and everything will return to normal.

My first thought was that I should just tear down the shutters in the other rooms, clear out the furniture and paint everything white in a sort of exorcism rite. But the servants’ quarters were buried deep in the shadow of the cliff where darkness naturally reigned, and I felt sure that something as simple as redecorating wouldn’t solve the problem. If anything, it might drive her out into the house and make everything worse for us.

I needed to have all the facts at hand, I had to find out where Elena Condemaine had been incarcerated and how she had ended her life. Maybe Mateo’s idea that she’d been buried in the room next door wasn’t so crazy. In 1922 there was only one asylum within fifty miles of the house, on a private estate just outside of Marbella. It was now a state-owned hospital, and I was sure it wouldn’t be hard to track down.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The Asylum

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Julieta handed in her notice. She told me she wanted to stay, but her mother had just undergone a hip replacement and was coming to live with her, as her own house had too many stairs. She insisted she would try to come back after the old lady had returned to her own home. It meant that I would have to pick up Bobbie’s home-schooling until we could get her into the Christmas mid-term in Marbella. Bobbie was upset, but it couldn’t be helped. I began to draw up a schedule for her, based on her curriculum requirements.

Meanwhile, I searched for the address of the Santa Isabel State Mental Hospital, the one that Elena’s husband had originally been hired to redesign. It was easy to find, and I discovered I was able to fill in an online form requesting an interview with their head of records.

I arranged the appointment for Friday morning and booked out a taxi for half the day, extracting a discount from the driver on the condition that I took no longer than two hours before he brought me back to Hyperion House.

The building was set in sculpted parklands that must once have been beautiful. Now the watering systems had been removed in an economy drive, and the lawns had been scoured down to cracked earth. An avenue of brown, sickly trees had been partially replaced with a car park, the stumps left in place as a cruel reminder of more gracious times. The building’s narrow perpendicular windows, chimneys and steep gabled roof looked out of place in the bare heat of late summer. There were cardboard boxes everywhere, evidence that the homeless had been granted a nightly refuge outside the centre.

I found Augusto Fernandez, a young intern who had inherited the additional post of being in charge of records, in the hospital’s bright air-conditioned basement. Like so many other buildings that belonged to the state, the place seemed virtually derelict. ‘I’m sorry about the walk,’ he said, rising to shake my hand. ‘The corridors were designed to be long so that they would exercise the patients. Are you writing a thesis?’