Thin Air (37 page)

The heath reminded Jay of
Ladyhorse Common, which she’d visited with Julie. But here, there
seemed no limit to the landscape. Purple heather stretched for
miles, interspersed with swathes of sweet vernal grass and clumps
of sheep’s bit. The ground was mazed by earthy tracks, sometimes
curling around spinneys of birch and oak. An eerie wind blew over
the land; its moan was a thousand soft complaints.

Jay’s skin prickled. She walked
more quickly to catch up with Lacey, leaving Dex and Jem a few
yards behind. ‘Tell me about the layers,’ she said. ‘I don’t
understand what you mean by them, or how people can move between
them.’

‘Through our five senses, we
live in one world,’ Lacey said, in a matter of fact voice that
perhaps challenged Jay to ridicule her words. ‘We live in one
aspect of reality. We believe that what we perceive is all there is
to it. We forget that we’re limited by our senses, and in our
arrogance cannot think that anything might exist beyond what our
eyes can see, our ears hear. But reality is not as simple as that.
Our senses filter it for us, so that we can exist within it as the
primitive beings we are. We’re unaware of all the different layers
of existence that are around us all the time.’ She gestured
carelessly with one hand. ‘Once we’re free of this delusion, we can
begin to sense those other realities – see them, smell them. We can
explore this new faculty through concentrated meditation, or
sometimes we might be flung without our realising it into a
reality, or layer, beyond the one we know. That’s what happened to
me.’

Lacey’s ideas might seem
outrageous, but they still plucked an unexpected chord within Jay.
It was true that the only tools people had to interpret the world,
or the universe, were their five fragile senses. She had to agree
it was arrogance to suppose those tools were perfect, the best of
the range. ‘If what you say is correct,’ she said, ‘it’s like we’re
trapped within our bodies, using faulty equipment to look
outside.’

Lacey nodded earnestly. ‘Yes,
the equipment might pick up fuzzy pictures and incoherent sounds,
but because it’s all we know, we assume it’s the full picture.’

Jay shook her head, laughing
softly. ‘I can’t believe I’m even considering accepting this and
yet it does provide an explanation.’

‘It isn’t magic or
make-believe,’ Lacey said, ‘it’s an aspect of nature or science
that has yet to be fully explored. Philosophers have known about it
for millennia, but who outside of academia wants even to think
about it?’

‘Mystics,’ Jay said, ‘people who
are looking for answers. They wrap the ideas up in woolly,
spiritual terms. I hate that sort of thing. I can’t help it. I’m a
burrower, a ferreter for facts.’

‘Mmm,’ Lacey said. ‘A lot of
people feel that way, which leads to the ideas themselves being
discredited. Quite convenient for people like my father, who don’t
want others to see the truth.’

Jay rubbed her face. ‘My
instinct is to question, yet here I am, walking these other
realities, accomplishing something that serious mystics only dream
about. Why has it happened to me?’

Lacey inclined her head to one
side. ‘On the one hand, you’re a journalist, concerned with truth,
but the other side of that is your curiosity, a willingness to
venture into unknown territory to obtain that truth. Perhaps that’s
the answer you seek.’

Jay nodded. ‘It’s feasible, I
suppose.’ She paused. ‘So what did happen to you? Do you mind
telling me?’

‘No, I can talk about it. I’d
grown up accepting what my father said to me as truth. When I told
him I wanted to study psychology and philosophy at university, he
probably thought it could only enhance my usefulness. What he
didn’t bargain for was that my studies woke me up. I began to
question his actions. He knew so much, yet used it for selfish
ends, gathering material wealth and power. He had the knowledge,
but not the wisdom. Eventually, things came to a head. He had
embarked upon a very dark path, where human life other than his own
meant nothing.’ Lacey’s face became closed-in, hard, her posture
tense. ‘I knew what he got up to at his weekend parties, even if
his own wife forced herself to remain ignorant. I knew about the
accident, and for a while just kept my distance. I thought it was
the only way to keep sane. It seemed so hopeless. The world was
contaminated by these men of power and knowledge. They were
invincible. Then someone contacted me, and I realised that my
father and his kind weren’t without their adversaries.’

‘These must be the shadowy
enemies Dex told me about.’

Lacey’s shoulders relaxed a
little. ‘Yes. I’m not saying they’re wholly good - because who is?
- but they at least put a curb on the activities of Charney’s
cabal, make things difficult for them.’

‘You joined them,’ Jay said,
‘didn’t you?’

Lacey drew in her breath. ‘Not
at first. Stupidly, I confronted my father. I suppose I wanted to
give him a chance to redeem himself. Needless to say, that was
pointless. He made a great show of ‘casting me out’, as if that
would scare me. I tried to speak to Samantha, but she was deaf to
me. So, like you, I got into my car and drove.’

‘Like me?’ Jay put her hand on
Lacey’s arm. ‘How do you know so much about me?’

‘We have points of empathy,’
Lacey said, ‘I’ve been trained by people who know how to recognise
such things. I perceive certain things within you, and they
resonate with things inside me.’

‘Are you telling me you can read
my mind?’

‘No,’ Lacey said impatiently.
‘I’m just in tune with some parts of you.’ She dismissed the
subject with a brief gesture. ‘As I was saying, like you, I drove
off into the night, except I was blinded by tears of frustration
rather than full of alcohol. I drove around for a while, then
headed back home, not even sure what I wanted to accomplish. I
think mainly I wanted to show my father he didn’t have the power to
banish me. He’d done that because he wanted to bring me to heel,
make me sweat for a while. I wanted to make him see he couldn’t do
that. But the home I arrived at wasn’t the one I’d left.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jay
asked.

‘You’ll see very shortly,’ Lacey
answered. ‘We’re almost there. Look around. Absorb this place. You
might learn something.’

At one time, Jay would have felt
slightly affronted by such a patronising remark, but Lacey’s even
tone soothed the sting of the words.

Jay dropped back a few paces to
walk beside Jem. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

Jem took her hand. It was clear
she hadn’t been speaking much to Dex. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Find out anything interesting?’
Dex asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Jay answered. ‘I’ll
tell you later. For now, I just want to experience this place.’

Dex raised his eyebrows, but Jay
had the feeling her comment had pleased him.

They walked along in silence,
following Lacey over the undulating landscape. A nightjar lifted
from the heather to utter its haunting, chirring cry high above.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jay sensed movement, but when she
turned her head, there was nothing there. The stillness of the
night had become condensed and hard. Jay felt she could sense the
overlapping layers of reality all around, just beyond her
perception. But how could she see them? She felt it might be
similar to the way the eyes could focus on a computer generated
‘magic image’, and perceive a shape in a chaotic pattern. If she
concentrated hard enough, she was sure an image would suddenly loom
before her, clear and definite.

Jem squeezed her hand. ‘Jay, I
think there are other people here, lots of others.’

‘I sense something,’ Jay
answered. An indistinct shape flickered past her. Experimenting,
she focused her eyes beyond it. As she’d suspected, it helped her
to see what was hidden; sheer will did the rest. Shadows surrounded
her, human in shape, becoming more substantial with every moment’s
study. She no longer had to concentrate on perceiving them, they
were just there, although she couldn’t see precise details of their
features or bodies. The shadows did not appear to be aware of Jay
and her companions. They were wrapped in their own dramas. Some
walked with leaden steps, their shoulders hunched. A few of them
were wringing their hands, or pulling at their hair. Others flitted
about as if seeking something. They made no sound.

‘Where the hell are we?’ Jay
murmured. ‘Can you see them, Dex?’

He took her arm. ‘Yes. And I
don’t know where we are.’

Lacey stopped to wait for them.
‘Don’t be afraid of the shadows,’ she said. ‘They’re just thought
forms or memories. If they distress you, don’t look at them.
Dismiss them from your perception.’

Now that she’d trained herself
to see the forms, Jay didn’t think she’d be able to reverse the
process. The images were too strong. ‘Where are we?’ she asked,
trying to keep her voice even.

‘A node,’ Lacey said. ‘A between
place. I know that won’t mean much yet, but just bear with me.’

They had come to the crest of a
rise. Wind hissed through the grass around them. Below, down a
gentle slope, was the house. Unlike the one Jay had seen near the
river at Lestholme, there was evidence of activity within it. Dim
lights glowed at the windows, in odd colours of murky green and
purple. All around it, indistinct shadow figures wandered with
shambling steps. It seemed to Jay as if the house somehow kept them
in its orbit.

‘This is the home I came back to
that night,’ Lacey murmured. ‘It’s the ghost that forever hangs
around Emmertame.’

Jay remembered Dex’s story, when
he’d told he he’d once looked at Lorrance’s house from the outside
and seen it as evil. Jay could empathise with his feelings now. The
house was white, its architecture graceful, yet an invisible and
oppressive miasma hung around it, reeking of despair and soulless
joy. Her instincts balked at approaching the place. She wanted to
turn round and run away, fast. Her inner self feared
contamination.

Lacey took Jay’s hand. ‘You will
come to no harm,’ she said. ‘If there was any risk of that, I
wouldn’t have brought you here.’

Jay found it difficult to
swallow. Her heart was beating so fast, she feared it might stop
completely at any moment. ‘You know we want answers,’ she said in a
weak voice. ‘Show us what we came here for.’ She glanced at Dex.
‘Are you OK with this?’

His face was unnaturally pale.
He managed a brief nod.

Jem reached out and took Dex’s
hand. Linked together, the four of them walked slowly down the
slope.

The house was full of people,
yet noise was strangely muted. A party was in progress, but the
music was only a dull, rhythmic thump and voices a listless tide of
sound. The deep glow of red and indigo light turned human figures
to blurred shadows. Jay felt she must be moving more quickly than
them, or else much slower. They were vaporous ghosts, leaving
trails of ether in their wake. Jay glanced at Dex. His face looked
livid in the odd light and his eyes were wide, the whites glowing
unnaturally.

‘This is the soul of my father’s
house,’ Lacey said, ‘what he has made it.’

‘It’s that night all over
again,’ Dex said hoarsely.

Lacey shook her head. ‘No. We
are not in the past, Dex. This place exists in no time. It’s just a
representation of all that happens at Emmertame, the soul of the
place. That night is part of it. You’ll see for yourself.’ She
turned away from them slowly and gazed up the sweeping stairs that
disappeared into a purplish darkness.

Jay’s skin was still crawling,
and she took deep breaths to maintain control over her screaming
urge to flee. Her eyes were drawn against her will to the top of
the stairs. It was too dark up there to make out any details, but
she sensed movement, violent movement.

The body fell in slow motion. It
seemed to pour itself over the shadowy banisters above, like smoke.
Jay saw its limbs flapping like empty sleeves. When it hit the
floor, quite near to their feet, it bounced a little, bonelessly.
Jay stared down at it in a kind of fascinated horror.
This isn’t
real
, she told herself, but another voice whispered cruelly
inside her:
but it happened once. You’re looking at
death.

Jay put a hand to her mouth,
which had filled with nauseous saliva. It wasn’t a young man lying
on the floor in front of them, but a school-age boy. This was like
a nightmare, when the most bizarre and frightening things can
happen, and the dream self just experiences it without judgement.
Jay felt entirely in the present moment; she had no past and no
future. She was pure experiencer.

At her side, Dex expelled a
tight whine, as if his jaws were clamped involuntarily together.
Jay heard Jem utter a soothing sound, but was incapable of turning
round herself. She was compelled to look away from the body, up the
stairs. A tall pillar of darkness hovered on the landing. It had
blue lights for eyes and exuded an almost palpable smell of
malevolence.

‘That is my father,’ Lacey said.
‘The true form of his soul.’

Jay was immediately concerned
this apparition might come down to them, threaten or attack them in
some way, but before she could ask Lacey for reassurance on that
point, Dex uttered a choked groan behind her. Jay turned and saw
he’d flung both forearms before his eyes. Jem was reaching up to
him, murmuring, ‘It’s OK.’

‘No, it isn’t!’ he cried, and
pointed a shaking finger at the body on the floor. ‘It’s him!’ he
said. ‘
Him
!’

Jay frowned. ‘Who? Dex, this
isn’t real, none of it. You must see...’

‘Little Peter,’ said Dex. He
swallowed, his throat convulsing visibly.

Jay looked back at the body. The
shock of Dex’s words made it seem more real to her. Had Dex brought
his own demons with him to this place? The body moved feebly
against the tiles, its fingers scratching the polished surface. Jay
did not want to see it lift its head. She wanted to turn away, deny
what she was seeing, but was powerless to move. Lacey’s voice was a
wordless murmur at her side.