Out of the Depths (10 page)

Still I couldn't stop following the sound.

I turned a corner and could hear the words more clearly. I still couldn't understand them.
Depra
… something. It wasn't English, that much I did know.

Depra
… a language I didn't understand –
foondis
… Latin probably. The only words I could make out –
Depra foondis
– they were repeated like a litany, but I still couldn't understand them.

Another corner, and here was another statue, looking towards the sound, as if his alabaster ears could hear it as clearly as mine. I was in a part of the school I had never been to before. Facing me, at the end of the corridor, was the heavy wooden door of the old chapel. The
chanting was coming from behind that door. The place where Ben Kincaid was murdered. It was never used now. Not since that dreadful night. So who was in there? Who was praying in there?

I halted at the richly carved oak door. I placed my hand around the ornate brass door handle so cold to my touch, and I knew I shouldn't enter now. It would be locked. It should be locked. Ben Kincaid had died here. This was the last place I should want to go into. I should, instead, run back to my classroom. Clamp my hands over my ears to blot out that sound. It was luring me in, like a siren song, hypnotising me, and I was powerless to ignore it.

It was too late for me to run.

Slowly, I turned the handle of the door.

The chanting ceased as soon as the door was opened. As if the sound had suddenly been switched off. Yet, still I stepped inside. The air was chill, but I told myself it was a stone chapel, stone walls, stone floors, always cold as death. I could see my breath form like mist in the icy air.

There was no choir of monks. The chapel was empty, and dark. No candles sat in the candle-holders. And a single statue dominated the room. St Anthony. I wondered why he hadn't been moved. Patron saint of the college. It struck me then that there was no statue of him anywhere in the school. I would have thought he deserved a special place, a more public place. Not here. Alone.

But he had been witness to a murder.

What horrors must he have seen that night? I shivered. It was as if I had stepped into a refrigerator. Freezing cold. Did that mean something? That
there was some presence here?

Ben Kincaid?

My heart began to pound. I wanted to turn and run, but I couldn't move.

The chapel is empty
– I kept telling myself that over and over. My eyes scanned every dark alcove, every shadowy corner.
The chapel is empty.

And behind me the door slammed shut.

I swivelled round. The door was tight shut. I pulled at the handle, and pulled. It wouldn't turn, as if it hadn't been turned for years. Stiff with age. I began to panic. The chapel was so dark. Shadows everywhere.

And then there was a movement. One of those shadows seemed to come alive. A shadow, dressed in black, kneeling in prayer at one of the small altars in the chapel. In one long movement he got to his feet. My teeth were chattering. I was desperate to run, why couldn't I move?

The figure turned. I saw his face. His long, solemn face, and his eyes, so blue they seemed to illuminate the room.

Those eyes homed in on me. I had seen them before. In a photograph, on a wall, on a computer screen.

Father Michael.

The murderer.

I was looking into the eyes of a murderer.

And then he stretched out his hand and took a step towards me.

Did I scream? I don't know if I did. I could hear a scream, but whether it was in my head or outside my head I couldn't tell. I had to get away – that was my only thought.

I pulled at the door, and still it would not open. I looked behind me, and there he was, moving closer. This time I screamed. I was certain I screamed.

And now at last the door flew open. I almost fell back, but I managed to keep my feet. I was through it in an instant. I ran from the chapel, tripped and tumbled to the ground. I rolled, looked back, saw a shadow closing in, and I screamed again.

Still no one came running out of classrooms, and I couldn't understand why. Was I still only screaming inside? I staggered to my feet and began running again. Expecting that at any second I would feel his cold hand on me, that he was floating behind me, above me, closer and closer. I dared not stop.

Help me, Tyler.

The words whispered themselves again in my ear as I
ran. From somewhere beside me. As if someone was there at my shoulder. As if Ben Kincaid was running with me. Running from his killer.

But how was I supposed to help? Ben Kincaid was dead, beyond help.

And now Father Michael had come back.

That was the really scary thing. Why had he come back?

Had the seance brought him here? Had he come back to stop me from helping Ben?

Fingers touched my shoulder. I slammed against the wall. If I could have found my voice, I would have screamed then.

‘Shouldn't you be in class, Tyler?'

I jumped in fright. It was the Rector. I glanced behind him, all around the corridor. It was empty. Just him and I. He followed my gaze. ‘Is something wrong?'

He already thought I was trouble. Telling him what I had just seen and heard would only sink me deeper.

I stared at him. It was the Rector who spoke to me. ‘What were you doing near the chapel, Tyler?'

I felt a rush of fear. ‘I … I thought I heard something, sir.'

He cocked his head, reminding me of a bird. ‘Heard something, from the chapel? It's been closed up since …' He couldn't bring himself to say the words ‘since the murder'. ‘For years, Tyler. You could have heard nothing from the chapel.'

‘I heard chanting, sir … I thought it was coming from in there, but …'

He broke in, wouldn't let me say more. ‘Is this another of your – fictional! – ghost stories, Tyler?' I could almost see the capital F. He made Fictional sound like a swear word.

‘I thought … I thought …' I didn't know what to say.

‘I warned you I didn't want to hear any more of your stories.' His eyes, his tone, let me know he thought I was lying. I must have looked mad, staring at him, saying nothing. But what could I say? What was happening to me?

He reached out his hand and touched my arm. His voice was more gentle. ‘I'm worried about you, Tyler. I can't keep putting aside the reports from your last school …'

I blurted out, ‘That was all a mistake.'

‘I will try to believe that. I'm prepared to give you another chance.' He hesitated. ‘We do have a school
counsellor, Tyler. Perhaps you should have a talk with her.'

The idea of that petrified me. She would think I was crazy and the horrible part was that I was beginning to think it too. Had I really heard that hypnotic chanting? Had I actually seen Father Michael?

I spoke and tried to make my voice sound normal. ‘I probably heard someone playing music in one of the classrooms … That's what I heard. And I got lost, sir.' I laughed. Did my laugh border on the hysterical? ‘Still can't find my way round this school. I should get back to my class.'

I could feel his eyes on me as I hurried back to my class. I had a feeling he was going to be watching me from now on.

It was midnight before I told Jazz what had happened, and we were tucked up in her pink and black bedroom (only Jazz would have a black bedroom) and Jazz was desperate to tell ghost stories. ‘The midnight hour,' she said. ‘The perfect time for ghost stories.' Well, I had one of my own, didn't I? A real-life ghost story.

I was glad at least she'd stopped talking about Aisha. She'd spent most of the evening wondering exactly where she could be.

‘Missing a sleepover?' she kept saying. ‘It has to be a boy.'

But which boy? That was what was bothering Jazz. We'd almost been thrown out of the cinema she'd talked so much about it. Halfway through the movie she took out her mobile phone and called Mac. ‘Bet he's with her,' she said.

I tried to stop her, but Jazz is like a ten ton truck with the brakes not working when she gets started. Mac didn't answer and that seemed to reinforce her opinion that the two of them were together. Everyone around us started complaining, and one of the ushers stormed over and ordered her to switch the phone off or we would be asked to leave the premises. He didn't put it quite as politely as that, however. In fact, I suggested he was the one who should be asked to leave the premises, using the kind of language he had. Jazz had giggled about it all the way back to her house. I couldn't giggle. Just wasn't in the mood for it. And Jazz knew it. If she asked me once, she asked a hundred times … ‘What's wrong with you? Something else has happened, hasn't it?' She drew up her legs and hugged her knees. She was all ears. ‘I knew when you came back to class today something had happened. You were chalk white and shaking. And you've been so quiet all night. What happened, Tyler?'

And I burst into tears. Didn't want to. I was scared, that was my only excuse.

Jazz leapt from her bed and rushed to my side. She put her arms round me. And that only made me cry some more. ‘Come on, what happened today?'

And in a faltering voice, stumbling over the words, I
began to tell her. Tell her about standing outside the classroom and hearing that haunting sound winding towards me.

‘It was beautiful, Jazz, but I couldn't understand what they were chanting, some kind of hymn I think.'

‘What hymn … maybe I know it. Maybe it's the key to something.'

I shook my head. ‘I didn't understand it. It wasn't in English. Maybe it was Latin?'

‘Well, I'm a Catholic. I might know the Latin. So what was it? Could you make out anything?'

I tried to remember. Those moments when I stopped and listened, how that sound had drawn me step by step closer to the chapel. ‘
Depra
… something …
foondis
…
depra
…
foondis
?' I shook my head again. ‘I don't know, Jazz.'

‘
Depra foondis
? It's at times like this I wish I wasn't a lapsed Catholic,' she muttered. ‘But I'll ask my mum … or my gran, yeah, Gran. She goes to Mass every day, to make up for me I think … She's bound to know what it means.'

She moved in closer, eager for more. ‘Go on,' she said.

So I told her. About the moment I opened the chapel
door, and how the singing suddenly stopped. ‘There was no one there,' I said. ‘The chapel was empty, at least, I thought it was and then, there in the shadows, I saw him. Father Michael.'

Jazz fell off my bed when I said that. It took her a moment to recover. ‘You saw Father Michael? Wow! This is way better than any made-up ghost story.'

‘Don't laugh about it, Jazz,' I said as she climbed back on the bed beside me. ‘I'm so frightened and mixed up. I ran from there, I was screaming, I'm sure I was, I can't understand why the whole school didn't hear me … and then I felt a hand on my shoulder.'

Jazz almost fell off the bed again. ‘Father Michael.'

‘No. The Rector, and he seemed to be so angry with me. I didn't tell him anything about Father Michael, of course. He already thinks I'm making up ghost stories. And he knows all about what happened at my old school. Now he really does think I'm a troublemaker … or just crazy. He gave me a real telling off and he suggested I see the school counsellor.' I began to cry again. ‘What's happening to me, Jazz? You don't think I'm crazy, do you? You believe me.'

It took her only a second to answer me, but a long second too long.

‘Of course I do.'

Now it was my turn to ask. ‘What's wrong?'

She seemed to be making up her mind what to tell me. It seemed an age, before she spoke. ‘You went to the chapel … ?'

‘I told you I did.'

‘You followed the chanting … you walked to the chapel? You went inside?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘Tyler, you were only out of the classroom for a few minutes. You couldn't have done all that. The chapel is at the other end of the school.'

I couldn't explain to Jazz how that had happened. So I couldn't prove to her I was really at the chapel. I wished I could tell her to ask Mr Hyslop, but he was one person I could never expect to back me up. And I knew Jazz wasn't lying. I'd been gone from the classroom for only a few minutes … and yet I had been on a journey that should have taken much, much longer. I knew she wanted to believe me, that she was looking for reasons for it happening. Where had the time gone? And I remembered the clock in my room, freezing at 12.01. Time had stood still.

Time, time, time … it was all to do with time. I was sure of it. If only I understood what it all meant.

At home next day, it was all I could think about.

Dad was sitting in the living room, watching the afternoon racing, when I walked in. I said nothing, just sat on the sofa across from him.

‘Something wrong, Tyler?'

‘Yes, something's wrong,' I wanted to say, but how could I explain all this to him?

He took his eyes off the television screen. ‘Did something happen last night at Jasmine's house?'

‘No, Dad,' I said. ‘Jazz is great.'

‘So … what is it?'

I shrugged. ‘I wish I didn't have to go back to that school, Dad.' Best say it right out, I thought. ‘I'm not happy there.'

He closed his eyes, despair written all over his face. ‘Oh, Tyler, not again.'

I could get my dad to do anything for me … but not this.

‘Dad, please listen …'

But he didn't let me finish. ‘You've made friends there, Tyler, and the first few weeks at a new school are always difficult. You've just got to give these things time.' He touched my face. ‘You've not said you've seen any …' He didn't want to say the words … dead teachers. And I didn't want him to think it. So I shook my head quickly.