The Grey Girl (8 page)

The next day I felt ready to write again. After breakfast I took myself into the garden with my notepad and pen. I didn't fancy being alone in the boathouse, so I stayed close to the house. I ran my hands over the pentagram scar on the side of the weeping willow tree as I sat down next to the flowing brook. I leant my back against the tree and wrote away for a couple of hours.

As I dotted the end of a sentence a huge black bird swooped down and landed on the ground a few short paces away from me. A raven. I'd seen them before when I visited the Tower of London on a school trip. Legend said that if the ravens ever left the Tower then England would fall. Whatever that meant. I idly worried if the bird in front of me had flown all the way from London, and if England was due to fall because of him. I watched as he pecked at the ground and jerked his head about. He fluttered his wings and launched himself into the air. I followed his flight as he swooped up towards the house, towards an open window on the top floor of the building. The last window on the right at the very top of the house. The room that was locked. The room that I so desperately wanted to see inside.

I absently got to my feet and walked towards the house, all the time not taking my eyes from the window I'd seen the raven disappear into. I came closer to the house and shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up. The window to the locked room was wide open. It was large enough to climb through if you could get up there.

If I wanted to get into the room then that was my way. I had to follow the path of the raven. He was showing me the way. My eyes traced a route down from the window onto the ground below. There was an old drainpipe running down the side of the house. The drainpipe looked new; it must have been put in there when they renovated the roof. It would hold my weight, I was certain of it.

Before I could convince myself it was a bad idea I threw my pen and notepad to the ground, walked over to the drainpipe and prepared to climb.

The drainpipe was as sturdy as it looked and firmly fixed to the side of the house. I placed one Converse trainer on the drainpipe's bottom support and propelled myself up. There was another support at head height, I grabbed onto that and placed my other foot onto the ground-floor window ledge. The window looked into the lounge, which I knew would be empty at that time of the week without party guests to sit in it. Anyone who caught a glimpse of a red-haired teenager shimmying up a drainpipe would have done something to stop me. But as I reached for the next support on the drainpipe and pulled myself higher, using the top of the ground-floor window as my next foothold, there was no one there to force me back down. Once I'd cleared the first storey I knew nothing would stop me from reaching the top. I was already a good two metres from the ground – there was no turning back now.

I couldn't let myself look down as I continued to scale higher up the side of the house. The drainpipe ruts and windowsills provided me with sure and steady footholds and I took my time with each move. All the tree-climbing practice I'd had as a tomboy child had put me in good stead. Like a pawn in a game of chess I moved myself up the side of the house with careful precision. Soon I was level with the first-floor windows. I was halfway to the roof and halfway to the open attic window. My arms were starting to ache with the tension of heaving up my body weight. The tips of my fingers were numb from gripping the smooth edges of the drainpipe, and the inside of my thighs were beginning to fatigue from clenching the pipe tightly between them as I climbed.

I took a moment to rest as I cleared the first floor window. Just a few more moves and I'd be over the gargoyles and onto the roof. I pressed my weight into the drainpipe, gripped the pipe between my aching thighs and relaxed my hands for the briefest of moments. My heart was pounding, and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to try to steady my nerves. As I opened my eyes, a movement in the corner of my vision nearly swept me off the side of the house. A black raven swooped down from the roof. The motion of the bird made my stomach drop like a lurching elevator. I felt the urge to vomit and suddenly all I wanted was to feel my feet flat on the ground. I was aware that my hands were shaking, and my thighs wobbled where they gripped the pipe. I needed to keep moving or I'd fall to my death.

I looked up and saw my next handhold, a drainpipe support just a foot above my head. Shakily, I stretched out my left hand and reached for it. I looked for the next foothold – a small air vent cut into the house. Before I allowed myself to think I pushed onwards, higher. Next step was another drainpipe support. Before I knew it I was reaching for the face of a stone gargoyle and shakily heaving myself up onto the gently sloping roof. The roof tiles were new and firm, not a scrap of slippery moss in sight. The window to the attic room was now within reaching distance.

Not thinking about what I might find inside the room, I launched myself up. I scrambled over the roof tiles, running up the sloping roof like I was a child scrambling up a sandbank. Just as I felt gravity try to pull me down, I reached for the crumbling window ledge. I grasped it between my numb fingers and somehow pulled myself towards it. Next thing I knew I had both hands on the window ledge, then my right foot was pushing at the rusted edging of the window pane. I can't remember how I got myself in through the window, all I remember was lying flat on my back on the attic room floor. Panting for breath and shaking from head to toe like someone who'd just escaped the gallows. I was in, I'd done it.

I pulled myself up so I sat below the window I'd just climbed through, my back pressed against the attic room wall. My eyes scanned the room I'd spent the last few days obsessing over. I was finally inside.

It wasn't like the other rooms in the attic. This room was crammed full of things. There was a small bed pressed up against the exterior wall. There was no mattress on the bed, and the rusted springs and metal headboard looked ancient. At the foot of the bed was a rotten wooden wardrobe, the door hanging off the hinges. On the other side of the room was a large piece of furniture covered by an old dust sheet. Beside that was an old wooden trunk, the lid secured in place by a padlock. This must have been one of the schoolgirls' bedrooms. It looked as though nothing had been touched for a long, long time. Decades, maybe longer. I slowly stood up and walked towards the small table next to the bed. It was scattered with dust-covered cut-out shapes stuck on to sticks. I picked one up. It was a black figure of a woman, parts of her dress and face cut out. As I held it up to look closer I noticed the shadow it cast on the far wall – an elegant maiden. A long, medieval dress and flowing thick hair. ‘A shadow puppet,' I whispered.

The sound of something rustling in the wardrobe made me jump. My fingers closed tightly around the shadow puppet's stick as I turned around to face the old wardrobe. Something was inside it, inside and moving about. Nervously, I stepped towards the wardrobe doors. The rustling sound intensified and I reached forward, ready to pull the rotten door wide open and see what was inside. At that moment a black bird burst out of the wardrobe, nearly crashing into me as it flew past and out of the window into the fading daylight.

I turned away and tried to catch my breath, feeling so stupid for letting myself be scared. I'd known the ravens were nesting in the room before I'd come up here – they'd led me here. There was nothing to be afraid of. Resolute, I walked over to whatever was covered by the dust sheet in the corner of the room. With the shadow puppet still in one hand, I reached for the edge of the dust sheet with the other. I tugged it hard and pulled the sheet clean away. Beneath was a child's dressing table and small stool. Propped up on the table top, lying against the wall was a shattered mirror. It looked as though someone had struck it in the centre – all the cracks began at a central point and bled out to the edges. The room behind me reflected in the mirror shards, and I could see a dozen red-haired girls looking gormlessly back at me.

The mirror was framed with dark wood, and there were words scratched into the bottom of the frame. I moved towards it, my reflections getting bigger as I tried to read the words someone had scratched into the wood.

I am half sick of shadows

No sooner had I finished reading the words than there was another sound behind me. This time it wasn't coming from the wardrobe. It didn't sound like the rustling of a bird. It sounded like the quiet crying of a child. Slowly, I turned away from the shattered mirror and looked around the cluttered room. There was no one there. I was all alone. The sound of crying came again, louder this time. I could hear it behind me, as if it were coming from the mirror. I spun around and froze in horror as I saw the reflection of a small grey girl in the shards of mirror. She was crouched on the floor and scratching manically at the floorboard beneath her feet as she sobbed. I could hear the sound of her nails tearing at the wood. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, just like a doctor had once told me to do if I should find myself having a delusion.

I opened my eyes, hoping the grey girl would have vanished. But she was still there, reflected in the shards of the broken mirror. Only now she wasn't crouched on the ground scratching at the floor, she was standing and staring straight at me. Her face was stained with tears, her hands outstretched towards me. Reaching for me. In the mirrors' reflections she was standing behind me, at my shoulder. I turned around again and for the briefest of moments I saw her in front of me. Her face a mask of desperate horror, her lips parted, and in between her sobs she cried, ‘Help me. Help me.'

The next thing I heard was the sound of my own screams.

The girl vanished and I was alone in the room.

I bolted for the door, desperate to get out.

I rattled the handle violently. The door wouldn't open. There was no key in the lock, no bolt to pull aside. I screamed and screamed. ‘HELP!' I yelled at the closed door. ‘SOMEONE HELP ME!' I desperately shook the door handle as I shouted and cried. I turned towards the window, half expecting to see the girl again as I ran towards it. I screamed into the garden. ‘HELP ME!' The walls felt as though they were closing in on me. Every piece of furniture in that room loomed in like some kind of nightmare. I ran at the door with all my strength, screaming, screaming. But it wouldn't budge.

I banged against the door again and again.

Soon I was blind with panic, my whole body frantically convulsing with a primal fear that consumed every part of me. I pounded and pounded against the door until it felt as though my bones were breaking. When that didn't work I began to scratch at it, as if I could somehow claw my way out. As though the door was a coffin and I had been buried alive.

Once again I reached for the impotent handle and gripped it hard. The door handle began to shake beneath my hand and I stepped back in horror as it rattled without me touching it. Just as I thought I would pass out from fear, the door swung open.

‘Drink this.' Aunt Meredith pushed a cold glass of cloudy, fizzing water into my hand. ‘It'll help with the headache.'

‘I don't have a headache,' I lied. ‘And I don't need to see a doctor.'

‘Richard didn't manage to catch you in time,' she said with worry, perched on the end of my bed. I was sitting upright with pillows propped behind me. My head was pounding. ‘He said as soon as he managed to get the door open you fainted. Smacked your head on the old dresser as you fell. The doctor will be here any minute, Suzy. Nell's going to bring him up as soon as he arrives.' I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples. I had no memory of how I got from the attic room into my bed. ‘You were screaming the house down. What happened?' my aunt asked softly.

‘I don't remember.' Another lie. I remembered exactly what had happened once I was inside the room. I remembered stupidly climbing up the side of the house to get into the attic room. I remembered the raven in the wardrobe, the shadow puppet and the cracked mirror with writing etched into the frame. And I remembered her. The grey girl. Scratching the floorboards. Standing at my shoulder. Her hands outstretched towards me, reaching for me. Pleading. ‘I don't remember anything. One minute Richard was knocking down the door, next minute I'm here in my bed.'

‘How did you get into the room?' she asked, her face telling me she knew the answer before I gave it. ‘You climbed up?'

I stayed silent and looked down at my hands. They were red, sore and grazed from where I'd tried to claw my way out of the locked room. I looked away from my hands in horror as something on my bedside table caught my eye. It was the shadow puppet from the attic room. I couldn't remember bringing it downstairs with me; maybe I'd been clutching it as they dragged me unconscious from the room. Some kind of sick reminder that I hadn't imagined the whole thing. I picked it up and began to twirl it around between my fingers nervously.

‘Oh, Suzy.' Aunt Meredith leant forwards on the bed and reached for one of my bloodied hands. ‘You promised you'd behave if you came here. And I promised your mum I'd look after you.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said quietly, trying not to cry. ‘I don't know why I did it. I just wanted to see what was inside the room. And when I saw the window open I thought I could climb up. And it was perfectly safe, I didn't …'

‘Climbing up a four-storey building is never safe, Suzy. What is wrong with you?' The last sentence stung, and hung in the air as if it echoed off the stark white walls. What was wrong with me? Had I imagined the whole horrid scene in the room?

There was the sound of footsteps coming towards my bedroom door. A short succession of knocks and then the door swung open. Nell came in, wearing a green headscarf wrapped around her grey head of hair and a long, beaded dress. Behind her was a tall, slim man in a smart suit. ‘This is Dr Carter,' Nell said softly, leading the doctor into the room.

‘I've just been speaking to your husband,' the doctor said to Aunt Meredith. ‘He told me he found your niece in a locked attic room. She'd been screaming hysterically before collapsing.'

‘You could ask me what happened,' I said, annoyed. ‘I'm right here.'

‘Where is he?' Aunt Meredith asked the doctor. ‘My husband, is he downstairs?'

The doctor nodded as he made his way to my bedside. ‘He's with your son. Toby was quite … disturbed … by the girl's screams. I believe your husband is trying to calm him down.' I hated the way he spoke about me as if I wasn't there. Suddenly it was like being back in Warren House all over again. It felt like I was some kind of animal in a cage that everyone spoke about but never to. The doctor put his box of tricks on my bedside table and clicked it open. As he rummaged around for a stethoscope Aunt Meredith mumbled something about needing to call my mother and then left the room. Nell took her place, perched at the foot of my bed.

Nell looked around my room nervously. I suddenly realised that this might have been the first time she'd ever come up the stairs. She sat on the end of my bed and watched silently as I lied to the doctor. Just as I'd told my aunt, I swore I remembered nothing from my time in the room. ‘I think I was just scared I was locked in.' I tried to shrug. ‘I have a history of panic attacks. I don't like confined spaces.'

‘Well, your heart rate's normal,' he said. ‘So is your blood pressure and temperature. Your uncle tells me you have a history of mental health problems.'

‘He's not my uncle,' I said quickly, trying to change the subject. I felt embarrassed that Nell should have to listen to this. I wasn't sure how much she knew about my mental health history – as little as possible, I hoped. ‘He's my aunt's husband.'

The doctor ignored my attempt at diversion and ploughed on with his questions. ‘I understand you recently spent some weeks in a rehabilitation facility as a result of paranoid delusions.' I looked down at the bed. I couldn't bear to look him in the eye. I gave him the tiniest of nods. ‘I'd like you to make an appointment to come and see me in my surgery. For the time being I'm prescribing you something for the anxiety, and something to help you sleep. I'd like you to come back to me in about a week and have a chat. Do you think you could do that?' God, I hated the way doctors spoke to me like I was stupid.

‘Yes, I think that I can do that,' I said petulantly.

‘I'll see myself out,' he muttered to Nell.

The doctor left the room, leaving Nell and me alone.

‘Suzy, what were you thinking? Climbing up the building like that?'

‘I know, I'm stupid. You don't need to remind me.'

‘You're not stupid. Far from it. I can see that.'

‘Then you think I'm crazy?' I looked down at the bed, dreading her answer. I felt warm ribbons trickle down my face and I hurriedly brushed away the tears that I couldn't stop from falling.

Nell shook her head and spoke in a whisper, ‘No. I don't think you're crazy, Suzy.' I looked up and saw the fear in her eyes. And at that moment I understood perfectly. I understood why Nell never went upstairs at Dudley Hall. I could tell by the look on Nell's face that she knew what I'd seen in that room. ‘I don't need a deck of tarot cards and a crystal ball to see that something about this house has deeply affected you,' Nell said quietly. ‘And that's what drove you to climb that drainpipe. You needed to see the inside of that room, didn't you?'

I felt my hot tears slide down my face as I nodded.

‘Why, Suzy?' Her eyes filled with concern.

‘You know why,' I whispered.

‘Don't listen to stories and gossip, Suzy.'

My hands flew out in exasperation. ‘What stories? What gossip? No one's told me anything about this house and what really goes on here. I know something's not right. Just tell me the truth, Nell, please! I know I'm not crazy, even though everyone thinks I am.'

‘It doesn't matter what other people think,' she said softly. ‘What do you believe?'

‘I believe in ghosts.'

She stared at me thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘So do I,' she said quietly. ‘But I also believe that you should let the dead stay sleeping. And don't go looking for trouble. The ghosts you chase you never catch, remember that. Don't go meddling in things that you have no way to control.'

‘What if I don't meddle with the dead, what if they meddle with me?' I said, trying so hard not to sob. ‘Maybe I just see things that other people can't?'

Nell smiled at me – the very smile that I had found so irritating when I first met her. ‘I like you a lot, Suzy. I want you to think of me as a friend. You can trust me, talk to me. Okay? Look,' she said, leaning forwards. ‘Richard's back for a few days. Try and pull yourself together for your aunt's sake. Once he's gone then maybe we can talk some more. But if anything else is bothering you, I want you to come to me first, do you understand? Don't go climbing up the side of a building next time. Just come to me and we'll kick the door down together, okay?'

I nodded and a small smile touched my lips before I could stop it. ‘Please don't tell anyone what I told you. Don't tell them about ghosts and seeing things that aren't there. Please don't tell Nate.' I couldn't bear the thought of Nate finding out what had happened to me. I'd started to like the idea of getting to know him better.

‘Try and get some rest.' Nell nodded, rising from the bed. ‘We'll talk again properly soon, I promise.' She handed me the glass of sparkling water that Aunt Meredith had put by my bed, and one of the sleeping pills the doctor had given me. I quickly swallowed down the tablet, wanting nothing more than to drift off into oblivion and not remember a thing about that day. Nell got up from the bed and began to walk towards the window. ‘I'll close your curtains.'

‘No!' I said loudly. She turned around, alarmed by my tone. ‘No,' I said again, trying to sound calmer. ‘I don't want them closed.' Nell looked again at the open curtains, and then back to me and nodded. She closed the door behind her and I was alone.

I put the shadow puppet on the pillow next to me and twirled it between my fingers. The last rays of the day's sunbeams were streaming through the window. The puppet caught the fading light between its cut-out shapes and patterns, and a shadow of a beautiful maiden cast itself on my bedroom wall. I wished I could be a shadow. Untouchable. Unbreakable.

My eyelids began to flutter closed as I let the doctor's sleeping pill take hold of me.

Words echoed in my head as I drifted into sleep. Words I'd seen in the attic room.

I am half sick of shadows

I knew those words. I'd read them before – long before I'd stepped foot in Dudley Hall.

Those words weren't new to me. Their rhythm, their flow – I'd read them, spoken them before. As I drifted off to sleep those words hung in the air like beams of fading sunlight.

‘I am half sick of shadows,' said

The Lady of Shalott.