Out of the Depths (12 page)

And I didn't care. Why should I? ‘I've seen them
move from the beginning! From that very first day! The statues move. And Ben Kincaid
was
there.'

‘Maybe Mac's right. Maybe you are making all this up, like you did in your last school,' Aisha said.

‘But maybe you can't help it. It's not your fault. Maybe you do need help, Tyler.' This was Jazz, and I so didn't want Jazz to stop believing me.

‘No … don't say that.'

‘But we've been here all the time, and nothing's happened.' Jazz was trying to understand it, I could see that. ‘We were watching you. We were right behind you, Tyler. There was no one there. You didn't talk to anyone. We would have seen you. Nothing happened. You just tripped.'

‘So, you decided to make something happen.' Aisha's voice was cold.

‘You just want to agree with your boyfriend!' What made me say that? I was losing the only friends I had here. I looked at Jazz. ‘I don't understand how it happened. Ben Kincaid was there and the statue moved! He said, “Help me, Tyler.” That's all he ever says. Help me, Tyler.'

Everyone was muttering about me, sniggering about me. All looking at me, all with that same look on their
faces. The look that said I was weird, the crazy girl. I couldn't take it. I pushed them out of my way, so roughly they began to get annoyed at me.

‘Hey, watch what you're doing!' someone shouted.

‘No wonder you were chucked out of your last school.'

What was the use of having friends anyway? Even if they stayed by my side every instant. No matter what I did, I couldn't stop what was happening. I couldn't change it. Ben Kincaid could still get through. Still reach out to me through the mists of time.

I was so afraid. Afraid to be in the school, and afraid to leave it.

I don't know how I got through the rest of the afternoon. I had never felt so miserable. Jazz and Aisha didn't even try to talk to me. And when the bell rang at the end of the day, I hurried out of school and down the long drive, lined with elms. I could hear the other pupils whispering all around me, giggling as they went past me. I didn't want to see them or be near them. I turned away from them and headed for the lake. I would stay there, I thought, till they had all gone home. Then at least I would avoid all their snide comments.

I made my way to the little arched bridge. Darkness was already falling. I stood and gazed down into the murky depths of the water, and tried to make sense of all that was happening.

Help me, Tyler
… It was all he ever asked of me, but how could I help him? And help him to do what? Pass to
the other side? That was what Jazz thought. He needed help to pass on. I had tried prayer and that hadn't worked. He was still here. He still needed me to help him. But how was I supposed to do that?

The trees around the lake were hung with a mist that settled around the branches like dark grey cotton wool. It seemed to muffle the sound of the world. I could hear nothing, see nothing beyond the trees, and no one could see me.

Except Ben Kincaid. Was he watching me now? From the long windows in the school, perhaps? Or from somewhere in his dark past.

‘I don't know how to help you,' I said aloud. It was a plea.

For how could I possibly help a long dead boy? A boy whose body had never been found …

Whose body had never been found …

Help me, Tyler.

Did it bother him so much that his body was lost somewhere, that he had had no proper burial?

And was that what was holding his spirit here on earth?

Was that possible?

A few weeks ago I would have dismissed it as
nonsense, but now, after everything that had happened …

But how could I find his body when all those years ago the police, the professionals, had been unable to find a trace of it?

They'd even dragged this lake.

I looked again down into those murky waters. They had dragged this lake, and found … nothing. Divers had been sent down into the depths and they had found … nothing.

The depths.

Out of the depths …

Out of the depths I have cried to Thee, O Lord,

Lord, hear my voice.

Ben Kincaid's prayer?

It had to mean something. And if that lake hadn't already been dragged, I would have been sure I had found the answer.

Ben Kincaid's body would be down there.

But the lake
had
already been dragged.

My thoughts were racing in my head, so fast I couldn't keep up with them.

Because, I was thinking, wouldn't the lake be a perfect place to hide a body after … after it had been dragged?

Who would look for a body in a place that had already been searched?

And it seemed to me in that moment I knew the answer to everything.

He wanted me to find his body. He wanted to have a burial, so that his spirit could leave the earth.

I remembered his plea that dark night in my bedroom.
Help me, Tyler.

The tumbler marking out the same words, again and again.
Help me, Tyler.

Why had it taken me so long to figure it out?

De Profundis.
The monks' ghostly prayer, another clue for me to follow. Out of the depths. They had been telling me to look here, in the lake, for Ben's body. To have it lifted … out of the depths.

Trying to help me, to help Ben, to make up for the terrible sin one of their brothers had committed.

Everything that had happened had been leading me here. To this lake. Ben Kincaid's body was down there in the depths of that murky water.

The only thing I didn't know was … how on earth was I going to get the police to drag this lake again?

I thought perhaps Jazz or Aisha might phone me that night. But no one did. And why should they? They had done their best to help me, and yet I still claimed something had happened, right in front of their eyes. Something they hadn't witnessed, something impossible. No wonder they really couldn't believe what I was telling them.

I hardly talked to anyone when I came home, and when Mum came up to tell me dinner was ready I almost asked if I could have it in my room.

‘Something's happening at school, isn't it?' she said, sitting down beside me. ‘Don't you think I don't know you're unhappy there. You look so pale, you're never smiling any more. Now tell me what's wrong.'

‘I don't want to worry you, Mum.'

‘I'm your mother. It's my job to worry.' She put her
arm round my shoulder. ‘If you're really that unhappy at the school, I don't want you to stay there. I told your dad that.' Her eyes had filled up with tears. I didn't want to make my mum cry.

‘Tell me what it is that bothers you. I really want to know.'

I shook my head. She'd have me in therapy if I told her. I was sure of it.

She sniffed back a tear. ‘You thought you saw someone who was dead at your last school … is it something like that again?'

I remembered how she would walk out of the room whenever I mentioned it. How could I tell her it was happening again?

Yet, I didn't have to answer her. She saw the answer on my face.

‘I thought it might be something like that.' She pulled me closer. ‘I know I wasn't much of a help to you that time … But you have such an imagination, Tyler. Perhaps what is happening to you is just your imagination again?'

I pulled myself away from her. ‘I knew you'd say that. It's what everybody says. Always the same thing. Well, if this is my imagination, I must be mad.'

She clutched at my hand. ‘Tell me then. Tell me everything.'

‘I thought I must be seeing things at first. But I'm not. Too much has happened, is still happening. A boy died in my school, long ago, and I keep seeing him. He was murdered. He keeps asking me to help him, and I don't know how.' I buried my face in her shoulder. ‘I know, this sounds crazy. I'm sorry.'

I heard her sigh. She was going to tell me I was going mad, I just knew it. Why should she believe all this? But now that I had told her this much, I realised I might as well tell her the rest.

‘And the statues … Mum, the statues in the school keep changing. One minute their eyes are closed then they're open, watching me. One minute their hands are locked in prayer, and the next … they seem to be pointing … reaching out to me.' I buried my face in my hands. I really was going crazy. Saying it aloud, it sounded absurd.

At first I thought she sighed again. But this time it wasn't a sigh. It was more of a shocked gasp. I looked up at her. Mum was staring at me. ‘Tell me about the statues,' she said.

‘They're everywhere in the school. And they watch
me, they look at me, then they look away. Their fingers point at me, then when I look again, those same fingers are pointing somewhere else. But no one else sees it, only me. Am I going mad? Tell me if you think I'm going mad.'

She was quiet for a long time. ‘There is another explanation …' She spoke slowly and softly. ‘Perhaps you have a gift. Some people do … maybe you're one of them.'

I could hardly believe what she was saying. Was Mum going crazy too?

‘What kind of gift?'

Mum closed her eyes, took a moment to answer me. ‘A gift for contacting the dead.'

Now it was me who gasped. Mum didn't believe in things like that. She had always dismissed ghosts and witches and the occult as the daftest things she'd ever heard of. And I'd always thought she dismissed them because they scared her too. Now, here she was suggesting that I could contact the dead? Jazz saying it, I would have expected. But not my practical, sensible mum!

‘What would make you think I have this gift, Mum?' Now I was the one who sounded as if I didn't believe
her
.

‘The statues,' she said. ‘You talking about the statues
… it's made me remember something. Something that happened a long time ago, to my mother. I think she had a gift and didn't realise it. Or was scared to talk about it. I think perhaps you might have the same gift, Tyler.'

‘My gran … had the gift … ?' My gran had been like Mum, down-to-earth, not given to wild fancies. She was dead now. I still missed her.

‘I'm going to tell you a story, a true story, about your gran,' Mum went on. ‘And it's because Gran was such a down-to-earth person, I know you're going to believe it. It's the reason I believe it.'

‘You remember I had a brother?' Mum asked me. She was fingering her chain as if she was nervous.

I nodded. ‘He died, didn't he? He was only weeks old?'

She never talked about this brother, Joseph, who had been born ten years before her. ‘He was the first boy born into the family. Everyone loved him. It was all girls in our family till he came along. The golden boy, they all called him.'

She paused for a moment. I said nothing.

‘Your gran was living with your grandad's mother when he came along. And your great-grandmother was a really holy woman. She was Catholic. She had statues all round the house … and holy pictures. On every wall. One of them was above the bed where your gran and grandad slept. A picture of Jesus.'

I felt the room grow cold.

Mum spoke as if she was in a dream. ‘Your gran said she'd never really looked closely at the picture before, not until after little Joseph was born. She would be lying in bed, with the baby in the crib by her side, and she'd look up at that picture … and He'd be looking down on her, very gently, and holding out His hands to her. And she'd shiver and turn away from Him, because it looked to her as if He was saying, “You can only have him for a little while. But I want him back.”'

‘She should have told my great-granny to take the picture out of the room,' I said.

‘She couldn't do that. Your gran was only a young girl then. She didn't want to offend her mother-in-law. She thought she'd hurt her feelings. And anyway, you know your gran, she was sure she was just being silly. When you've just had a baby, you are terrified something's going to happen to them. You get up in the middle of the night, just to make sure your baby's still breathing. I think all new mothers do that.' She smiled. ‘So … she decided it was her imagination. She'd just had a baby, her emotions were all over the place.'

‘But in the end, her baby did die,' I said softly. And though I had never seen my great-grandmother's old house, I could picture it. I was back there in that room, where my
gran had slept. I could see the bed, the lamp, the crib, the picture above the bed, everything. I could feel the fear she must have felt too.

‘Joseph was rushed to hospital one night, and … after a few days … he died. The family were devastated. Your gran was so heartbroken. Then, one night after the funeral she was lying in bed and she looked up at the picture again … and Jesus wasn't looking down at her any more. His eyes were turned to heaven, and His hands were held up, as if He was offering up something very precious. That's the way your gran described it to me. As if He was offering up something very precious.'

Mum squeezed my hand. ‘I've seen that picture, and that is exactly what it's like. Yet, Gran swore those nights when she lay in bed with her baby that's not what she saw. The picture changed.'

‘Didn't she ask? Did she tell anyone?'

‘She told your grandad, but he said the picture had always looked like that. It was only her imagination. And she couldn't bear to tell anyone else. Maybe I was the only other person she told, years later. It was only a few weeks before she died. I think other things were happening to her then and she thought she was going crazy too. I saw the expression on her face, whenever I would go and visit her,
and it was just like yours, Tyler. She kept going on about that picture, and I think now she was trying to talk to me about those other things … And I didn't listen to her … I couldn't listen to her, the way I couldn't listen to you. It always terrified me. Now I think perhaps your gran had some kind of gift, and she's passed that gift on to you.'