Nyctophobia (22 page)

Five members of the same family. Francesco, Elena, Augustin and Farriol and Maria.

An entire history of lives tragically diverted from light into darkness. First Francesco had been killed, then the children’s lives were stolen away by someone or something, and the distraught Elena lost her wits, finally taking her own life. Death, murder, madness. Wrongs unrighted, harms unhealed.

Elena had been promised a life of light and happiness. Instead she had lost everything. No wonder the Condemaines wanted to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. But how could they do it, when they were unable to leave the sunless rooms of the house? All they could do was make themselves known to us and what – try to drive us out?

I was filled with a terrible feeling of sadness for the unfinished lives of those left behind in old houses. The Condemaines had not meant to hurt with their clutching and scratching but had been trying to reach us. I knew that we had to do something that would reach out to them.

‘You see?’ said Bobbie with an air of triumph. ‘We can both see them now. Something else is going to happen. We must run away with Daddy and never come back.’

‘This is our home,’ I cried. ‘We can’t –’

Bobbie’s shriek cut me off. As the rain sluiced down in the chasm between the house and the cliff, there was the sound of a window being pushed open. Raising my eyes, I saw to my horror that he had shoved the window up on its sash and was climbing out like some monstrous spider, his arms angled sharply, his head low, pulling himself through the space toward us.

I grabbed Bobbie’s hand and we ran as fast as we dared, the brickwork and the wet wall of the cliff catching at our clothes. I didn’t dare to see how close he was behind us.

And then we were back out and sliding, slipping across the lawn to the entrance with its open door, still in the downpour but out of the shadows, running toward the safety of the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The Confrontation

I
T WAS MY
fault, I knew.

The one phobia that could be transmitted to others was my fear of the dark, and now I was sure I had infected Bobbie. Elena Condemaine had revived it in me and I had passed it on to Mateo’s daughter like a virus. Wracked with guilt and shame, I dragged the girl back into the bright rooms and took her upstairs to run a bath for her, forcing her to wash even though she complained in confused defiance.

It was my fault that Bobbie had been unwittingly placed in danger. The phobia had become a contagion. Why else did the girl believe she could see things that couldn’t possibly be there?

Even though the situation seemed absurd, I tried to think it through with some sense of logic. If the house was haunted by the ghosts of that tragedy of nearly a century ago, were those poor creatures doomed to stay in the shadows until something could liberate them? What if I tore down the shutters and tried to get some light in there, no matter how faint, would it despatch them to another place or merely draw them into our world? Would we have to die first, so that they could take our places?

I didn’t understand why the events of the distant past should continue to afflict those living in the present. The ghosts of the Condemaine family only stayed in the darkened areas. Were they somehow connected to the construction of the
camera obscura
? Maria had been right about one thing: our housekeeper had to know more than she was letting on.

In the back of my mind was one abiding thought; that Mateo must know nothing of this. If he knew, all of my mother’s predictions would come to pass. Anne had been a force of disruption and damage before, and might become so again. That could not be allowed to happen. I had finally made a happy life for myself and them. We were happy as a family, and nothing could be allowed to jeopardise that state.

I had to solve the problem alone, and the first step toward doing that was by making some assumptions. The fact that the Condemaine family had allowed themselves to appear to the living was an indication that something was still terribly wrong and needed to be put right. I
knew
this stuff, I knew how hauntings worked.

The key held the answer. Elena Condemaine had worn it around her neck while she was alive, and had been buried with it. But it was too small to fit any of the connecting doors. It had to belong to something inside one of the shadow-rooms. There was something in Elena’s mirror-bedroom which she alone could access.

I went to the summer house and found a hammer and chisel. ‘What are you doing?’ Bobbie called from the bathroom.

‘Nothing. Dry yourself and stay there. I have to make some noise but it’s nothing.’

Heading for the upper hallway, I approached the connecting door at the end and unlocked it, crossing swiftly inside to the bedroom. I had brought the torch with me. Flicking it on, I moved the beam around the dusty still air, highlighting a bed similar to our own, but much smaller and lower, covered with an ancient floral spread. The dressing table mirror had clouded with age. It was just another room, another minor reflection of our own, trapped in the period of its creation, with ugly old furniture and depressing half-tiled, half-papered walls. But if it truly matched, there would be a small room beyond it, the equivalent of my dressing room, little more than a cupboard. I’d known it was there but had never considered it important.

It was there, and it was locked. The key didn’t fit, either.

The noise of the hammerhead hitting the chisel could be heard throughout the house, but it couldn’t be helped. I punched at the brass ferrule on the dressing room door again and again until I could feel it tearing loose. The wood started to splinter, covering the floor with slivers of brown paintwork. With one final blow the lock broke away from the door. I threw the chisel aside and pulled it open.

All I could see was blackness.

Barely able to control my panicked breathing, I prepared to cross the threshold. It was silent and dead inside. I took a careful step forward, feeling a familiar terror rising in my heart.

I edged further in and listened. Nothing. A few clothes still hung in an open-fronted cupboard. Everything was so small. People had been shorter and thinner then. The plain black-buttoned dresses smelled of mothballs and rot. I reached in and touched a yellowed gown, only to find that the material crumbled beneath my touch, sifting to the floor.

I was out of ideas. The only other room was the bathroom, its gangrenous copper boiler dead and decayed, the bath stained brown. Remembering the leeches stretching their grey bodies out of the standing water toward a source of fresh blood, I hastily moved away. Behind me, some dresses slid from their hangers and fell in a powdery heap, making me start.

On the other side of the bedroom, the door through which I had entered quietly closed.

I turned slowly, sensing a presence. The torch beam wandered across peeling wallpaper, some fallen plaster. I stepped out of the bathroom, back into the dressing room, and felt a breath of air passing me. More dark clothes had drifted down from their hangers.

This is my fear made real,
I thought.
If I fail now, everything comes apart.

The dressing room was still and silent. No clocks could be heard ticking in the rest of the house. My torch picked up nothing but motes of dust in the necrophile atmosphere. I stepped over the fallen clothes and back into the bedroom.

She was here again, and had moved to the dressing table.

I could see her masked face clearly in the mottled mirror, her neck bony and green-tinged. Her matted hair had a shimmering surface that appeared to move back and forth in the penumbral gloom, as if she was covered in a fine web of spiders. There was nothing threatening about her, just a sense of bitter distress, as though she had been creeping back and forth here all through the years, wondering what she had done to deserve her fate.

She tugged a blackened silver brush at her tangled locks, tearing out the knots as if deliberately trying to hurt herself. The feral child-creature crept out from beneath the dressing table, scuttling on all fours. It watched me from behind its mother’s frayed black dress. I needed to speak to her, but did not want the husband to hear and find me – I knew that he was the dangerous one.

‘Senora Condemaine,’ I began. ‘What can I do? What do I need to do to set you free?’

The brush fell to the floor with a clatter. The poor creature turned and its eyes widened inside the mask as it stared past me. She raised her hand to her china smile as I turned.

I could smell his musky stink and felt sure that here was someone to be truly feared. I stepped back and stumbled, regained my footing but found I was cornered beside the windowless bathroom where I would end up being imprisoned if I didn’t make my move.

The buzzing of hornets filled my ears as a black and yellow cloud dropped down from the corner of the ceiling behind us. The noise seemed to cause him intense pain, and as he bellowed I ran for the door, dropping the torch, slamming into the furniture, shifting chairs, rucking the carpets, knocking the photographs from their place on the sideboard.

Throwing open the door and slamming it behind me, I passed through to the other side and into the safety of the light.

I knew then that this was a war between two families – one living, and one dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Confession

T
HE CEILING FAN.

I could hear it cutting through the air above me. I was in my bedroom, lying on my own bed looking up at the ceiling, and there was someone sitting with me.

‘You’re awake,’ said Bobbie. ‘I tried to wake you up but I couldn’t do it.’ She gave a tentative smile.

I tried to speak but my mouth was too dry. I fumbled for the decanter of water on the bedside table, and spilled some into my mouth. ‘What happened?’

‘You got out.’ Bobbie pointed back out to the hallway. ‘It was lighting up time. Getting dark. I knew they’d be awake. I heard the clocks strike.’

‘Is Rosita back?’

Bobbie nodded. ‘She saw the open door. She’s gone down to the kitchen now. I think she’s scared.’

I pushed myself up onto one arm and found it ringed with a yellowish bruise. ‘I bet she’s not as scared as I was.’ I tried to make light of it.

‘We have to tell Daddy,’ said Bobbie.

‘We can’t,’ I replied. ‘He’ll blame me. He’ll think I’ve got you to believe my crazy stories.’

‘You should rest.’ She could be very grown-up and serious. I knew one day she would be loved very deeply by her partner.

‘I’ve done enough resting.’ I climbed off the bed but the room swam. Getting out into the corridor was like crossing an ocean deck, but I made it to the landing and swayed down the staircase.

Senora Delgadillo was in the kitchen, taking a tray of cooked pork from the oven. The smell made me feel sick. ‘Rosita, I want you to come with me,’ I instructed.

‘I am preparing supper,’ she said.

‘Just leave it.’

‘But it will be spoiled –’

‘Now!’ I pointed toward the stairs. ‘I want you to see this and explain it to me.’ Rosita followed me in silence. She had seen the opened connecting door and knew exactly where I was taking her.

We reached the upper hallway. Bobbie had run off, not wishing to witness what would follow. I pushed open the door and placed my hand firmly on her back. ‘I want you to look in there and tell me what you see.’

She stalled. ‘I can’t.’

‘You can do it.’

‘I mean I can’t see. There’s no light.’

I searched the floor for the torch I had dropped and found it, switching it on, running the beam around the walls. Everything was as it had been. There was not a piece of furniture out of place. They had put it all back.

‘What do you expect me to see?’ Rosita asked.

‘You know the Condemaines are here with us. You know they live on in this side of the house.’

‘The family has gone, Senora Torres. They are no longer here.’

‘They are here,’ I said doggedly. ‘Their bodies are buried in our garden, and their spirits are here. They want to take over our lives. This is a terrible, dangerous place and you know all about it – you’ve always known about it. Francesco’s wife always had to look happy for him – why? What was wrong with her? Why is there so much sadness on this side?’

‘This is
not
an unhappy house!’ cried the housekeeper, affronted but plainly upset. ‘I have never suffered any bad experiences here.’

‘You’re lying.’

Rosita twisted free. ‘I think perhaps you are unwell, Senora. You should allow me to call your husband.‘

I knew she was trying to hide the truth from me. ‘All I want you to do,’ I said, trying to stay calm, ‘is to admit what you can see. What the rest of us can now see.’

‘But I don’t see anything. I don’t know why you’re behaving like this.’

‘How could you have been here for so long and
not
notice? All those years, sometimes entirely alone? You didn’t hear or see anything at all? I don’t believe you.’

I no longer cared what Rosita thought of me, or whether I had to bully the truth out of her. The first step to ending the situation was to make her admit that it was real. ‘Maybe you see something different when you look at them,’ I said, ‘but you know they’re there. What do you see?’

‘I see only happiness in this house,’ Rosita replied stubbornly, ‘so long as we all stay in the light.’

‘Why? What if we don’t? What happens in the darkness?’

‘You can see for yourself. You know what happens. Don’t ask any more of me – I can tell you nothing more.’ It was tantamount to a confession, but of what? That she knew something she could never speak of?

I didn’t understand. Releasing the housekeeper’s hand, I sent her from the room as the strain broke over me and I fought back tears. Was that it? Did the Condemaines need me to be unhappy before they could take over my life, take my husband and his child, steal back the lives that had been cruelly snatched from them?