Thorn (15 page)

It was nearly ten o'clock when she finally admitted that she was not thinking about her chicken dish at all, and that what she was really thinking about was what Quincy had overheard. She sat up in bed and switched on the light, because if you faced something nasty with the light on, it was nearly always less frightening than in the dark.

This was not. This, faced head on in the light, was as dreadful as it had been in the dark. It was so comprehensively dreadful that Imogen knew that even with the cotton-wool thing, it was not going to let her go to sleep again tonight. It would claw meanly at her mind and burrow under her skin until it got her full attention.

Eloise was buried and the funeral had been yesterday afternoon. More than twenty-four hours. It was not logical or intelligent to wonder if she was still alive; this was not the eighteenth or nineteenth century where medical science was so inexact – and medical researchers so avid for raw material – that people were buried alive. And it was such a truly bizarre thought that Imogen wondered if whatever Dr Shilling and Matron had been dosing her with had warped her judgement. And then she wondered how far Quincy's judgement could be trusted. Supposing none of it was true outside of Quincy's strange world?

What she really needed was reassurance, but nobody in here was going to give her that. She considered the idea of phoning Aunt Rosa, or Flora, or Juliette, or even of approaching the hard-faced Matron. What would she say? ‘You'll think I'm a bit mad, but Quincy overheard something in the graveyard and because of it I've got this wild idea that my mother's been buried alive.' They would think she was a bit mad – they thought she was half mad as it was. If she came out with something like that, they would think she was a hundred and fifty per cent mad, and there was always the chance that they might be right.

It's down to me, thought Imogen in panic. I'll have to do something, I really will. I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again until I know there's nothing wrong. What time is it now? Ten o'clock. Quite a good time to slip out, really. No one's likely to be about; the others all go to bed at nine thirty and the staff went home ages ago. I could go out to the cemetery and look at the grave and be back here without anyone knowing.

She crossed the room and opened the small wardrobe, reaching for dark trousers and a thick sweater. What else? Well, a torch would be a good idea, only I haven't got one – yes, I have, there's a pencil torch in my night case.

Five minutes later she was stealing down the stairs. Nothing stirred, and the only sound was her own heart thumping as if it might burst out of her chest with pent-up fear. There was the scent of mass cooking lying faintly on the air, underlain with a thin, sick odour. Institution scents. Horrid, thought Imogen. But I suppose it's when I no longer notice them that I need to worry.

There was a faint scrape of sound as she drew back the latches on the huge front doors, and she froze, expecting to be challenged. But nothing moved and no one came, and she slipped out into the night.

As she went stealthily down the drive, keeping on the grassy edges because of crunching the gravel, she thought that the compulsion that was driving her was not coming from within but from without. Her mother telepathically calling for help? Oh, don't be ridiculous! But the sense of urgency was mounting, and the need for haste was thrumming against her mind. Like huge scaly wings beating on the night sky. Like hands flailing uselessly against the underside of a coffin lid . . . Stop it!

With reasonable luck she could be back in Briar House within an hour, and without anyone knowing she had been out. And then she could sleep – she could sleep for about a hundred years with the relief of it.

The night air smelt fresh and good as she walked towards the road where the church was. It seeped into her mind, making it feel cleaner and sharper than it had for some time. I could simply keep walking, thought Imogen suddenly. I could just walk on and on, and maybe at some stage I'd get a lift, and I could be anywhere in the country or anywhere in the world this time tomorrow. She tucked this idea into a corner of her mind to be examined later on.

The cemetery gates were locked, but Imogen had expected this and she thought she could climb over. She looked about her, scanning the darkness. The nearest houses were some way off, and the cemetery was not overlooked. But anyone might drive along the road at any minute, and she would certainly be seen in car headlights. But perhaps if she was very quick . . .

She took a deep breath and swarmed over the gates, using the iron spikes at the top as handholds, and dropped down on the other side quite easily. So far so good.

It was very eerie indeed in the cemetery. Huge old trees rose up at the far end, sharply outlined against the night sky, and behind them was the cold outline of the new moon. I'm grave-robbing by moonlight, thought Imogen in sudden panic. But I won't think too deeply about it; I'll get in and look at the graves and then out again – bam! – and it'll all only brush the topmost layer of my mind.

Edmund's grave was ahead of her. There was the plain cross that Quincy had described, which would mark the grave until the ground had settled sufficiently for a headstone. Aunt Thalia would have something huge and marbly, and order it to be engraved with something mawkish. Had Thalia really sat out here, talking to the dead Edmund in the darkening afternoon? Imogen wondered if Edmund's head had been put back, and instantly wished she had not thought this. In and out – bam! – remember?

A small night wind had whipped up from nowhere. It was whispering to itself in the trees, and ruffling the grass around the edges of the graves. As Imogen approached her parents' grave, there was a scuttering on the ground and something small and clawed darted into the shadows. Rats? If I start imagining rats I'll be lost. I'll think it was a squirrel, except that squirrels aren't nocturnal – or are they? It was probably a mouse. A vole. More frightened of me than I am of it. I'm not frightened of mice, anyway. I'm frightened of headless corpses and I'm very frightened indeed of living people being buried by mistake. Concentrate, Imogen. That's the grave there, I can see the chrysanthemums Quincy said she bought. And I think – oh God, I think there's something following me! No, there isn't, it's the scuttling creature again. Or it's an owl in the trees. Yes, there it goes. Imogen stood for a moment watching the owl soar out of the tree and swoop its way across the night sky. Lovely. In another minute I'll have to look at the graves. All right, deep breath, Imogen, and then aim the torch. On and then straight off again. Here I go.

She flicked on the torch and heard her own indrawn gasp of horror. Ice-water seemed to fill her veins.

The two-second viewing showed Imogen something she had not bargained for. She had thought it would be easy to make sure that there was no disturbance. But she had forgotten, or perhaps had never known, that graves are never left open overnight.

Her mother's grave had been filled in and to see the coffin she would have to dig.

Leo had kept in the shadows well behind Imogen as she padded through the night. He thought she was so intent on whatever she was doing and wherever she was going that she was not aware of his presence.

When he realised she was making for the cemetery he felt a prickle of deep-seated fear. Quench that at once, man of science! The trouble was that however much you thought you had stripped away the primitive beliefs and the ancient superstitions, something always remained to betray you. It was betraying him now, watching Imogen climb over the gates of the cemetery. He waited until the shadows had swallowed her up, and then went after her, feeling muscles and tendons protest as he pulled himself over the portals and dropped down on the other side. The black comedy of the situation struck him forcibly; he thought wryly that he had always been able to beat a hasty exit from a lady's bedroom if her official partner turned up unexpectedly, but that diving out through back doors or conservatories, or even climbing out of windows, had hardly equipped him for breaking into a locked cemetery. As he scanned the shadows, he was uneasily aware that he was following a girl who was probably severely mentally disturbed, and that he was entirely alone with her. Serve you right if she attacks you in a psychotic rage!

He lost her for a while in the thick darkness inside the churchyard, and had to prowl stealthily up and down the grass verges, peering into the shadows and listening. And then he caught a soft scrabbling sound over to his right, and turned sharply. Imogen? Yes, he could see the white triangle of her face and the black hair melting into the night.

For several crowded minutes he could not identify what she was doing, and then he suddenly understood, and his skin crawled. She's digging up a grave. She's trying to get at her parents!

For several seconds the sheer horror of it froze him into immobility, and then he went forward, grabbing Imogen by the arms and pulling her clear of the oblong of newly-turned earth. She struggled and fought him, beating against his chest with clenched fists and drawing breath to scream. There was a moment when she was pressed hard against him, and he felt her heart pounding wildly with terror. He grabbed her hands, and said, ‘Imogen, you're safe. I'm a friend! Leo Sterne. Don't you remember me? From Briar House. For pity's sake don't scream!'

His use of her name jerked her out of some of the fear, and she twisted round in his arms, staring at him. Her eyes were huge and fearful, the pupils so wildly dilated that they looked completely black. Drugs? Or just fear? But when Imogen spoke, although her voice was breathless, it was perfectly sensible. ‘Dr Sterne . . .'

He said, ‘Yes. It's all right, Imogen.'

Imogen made an impatient movement, and Leo tightened his grip in case she tried to attack him. ‘It isn't all right,' she said in a low, urgent voice. ‘That's the whole point. My mother—'

‘She's dead, yes, I know about that. Is this her grave? Listen, Imogen, it's a dreadful tragedy, but you'll come out on the other side, I promise you will. I'll help you.'

Imogen jerked free of his hands angrily. ‘No! You don't understand. You
don't
!' she cried, and Leo heard her voice spiral into panic again.

‘Listen now, we'll talk about it together.' He took a step towards her. ‘Imogen, we can talk about it all night if you want and no one will mind.' He could feel her mind accelerating, not into hysteria but into panic, and he braced himself. Impossible to call up any kind of hypnotic tricks under these conditions and he had no idea what drugs she might have been given, but he had already automatically made a start with the old, proven method of repeating her name as often as possible to create a bridge from his mind to hers.

Imogen shook her head as if to dislodge something that was obscuring her vision. ‘No, listen, Dr Sterne, you really
don't
understand! I don't think my mother's dead. There's a – I think there's a chance she's been buried alive! That's why I had to come here.' She stopped, and then said, ‘Only I didn't know – I forgot that they'd have filled the grave in straight after the service.'

The forlorn, macabre logic of this scraped painfully against Leo's mind, but he said at once, ‘Imogen, it isn't likely. It isn't even possible. Listen, Imogen, listen to me.' Almost without having to think, he scooped up his mental strength as if it was a glittering sphere and projected it forward with such force that he saw her blink. She flinched as if she had been struck, and then he felt her mind leap forward to meet his, and there was a moment of fusion so complete and so dazzling that for a few seconds Leo lost all awareness of his surroundings. Something strong and sweet and light-filled shivered on the air between them, and Leo stared at Imogen and saw that she was staring back at him.

And then awareness returned, and Leo recovered himself and reviewed the situation swiftly. He had no way yet of telling whether Imogen was delusional or whether she was in the grip of a phobia – something connected with dying, with premature burial? Although she was certainly in a state of immense tension, she did not seem actually out of touch with reality. Probably a phobia, then. His mind flew ahead, planning: get her back to Briar House, assess the situation properly. The dilation of her pupils might be from drugs conventionally prescribed, or they might be unconventional and self-administered. Or it might be purely a manifestation of fear; being alone in the middle of a graveyard in the pitch dark was enough to rock the most imperturbable of imaginations. And, of course, said his mind treacherously, it might even be from that remarkable bolt of energy that sizzled between you just now. But you'd better not delve too deeply into your own reactions to
that,
Dr Sterne!

Imogen said in a desperate, despairing whisper, ‘Dr Sterne, I'm not mad, I'm truly not. I know I'm supposed to have – done something weird, but this is different. Please, please, will you help me.' She reached out and took his arm, and Leo felt the prickle of electricity again as her hand closed over his coat sleeve. He felt her panic slice into his own mind, but he felt as well the conviction that drove it. Just for a moment, he thought: supposing this isn't a phobia at all? Supposing it's something deeper? Something akin to that strange, ancient instinct that once warned primeval man when danger approached, and that still lingered in the mind's dark corners today, so that you suddenly found yourself turning your head unprompted because you knew absolutely and completely and inexplicably that someone was watching you?
Supposing she's right?
he thought, appalled.

He shook the thought off at once, but lying treacherously beneath it was another. She doesn't just suspect that her mother isn't dead. She
knows.
She knows something she isn't telling me.

He flung his mind forward again, this time with authority, and said, ‘There's something you aren't telling me, isn't there, Imogen?
Isn't there?
'