The Retreat Read online

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’

  She allowed me to lead her over to the bed, where she sat, grabbing the quilt and pulling it over her. She hugged herself, her breathing harsh and ragged. I nodded at Julia and Suzi, indicating that I needed them to give us space, and they moved over towards the window.

  ‘She was in there,’ Karen said, barely audible.

  ‘In the wardrobe?’

  She grabbed hold of my arm. Her pupils were dilated, wide and black, big enough to drown in. Her fingernails dug into my forearm.

  ‘Or the ceiling. Or maybe she’s under the bed.’ She jerked forward but I held her back.

  ‘Would you like me to check?’ I asked.

  She nodded and I got down on my hands and knees, making a great show of peering beneath the bed.

  ‘There’s no one there.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  I sat up and rubbed my bare arms. I couldn’t see anything sinister in the room, but I could feel it. Something. A presence, lurking out of sight. The sensation of being watched. Just like in my dream, I had the sense that the house was alive, breathing. Waiting.

  ‘I’m just going to have a chat with Julia, okay?’ I said to Karen, who stared at me as if I’d spoken a foreign language.

  I gestured for Julia to follow me out of the room. Suzi came too. We stood in the hallway, talking in whispers.

  ‘It’s like she’s having a bad trip,’ I said.

  ‘From cannabis? Is that possible?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve heard about people lacing cannabis with all sorts of stuff,’ I said. ‘LSD, maybe. It’s not really my area of expertise.’

  ‘It could be a panic attack,’ Julia said.

  ‘She looks utterly terrified,’ said Suzi. ‘Like the other night, when she heard that voice.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Julia asked. ‘What voice?’

  ‘Maybe we should call an ambulance,’ I said, ignoring Julia’s exasperated look.

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Suzi went into her room to find her phone.

  Karen made a groaning noise and Julia hurried in, leaving me on my own for a moment until Max came out of Suzi’s room, wearing a dressing gown. ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Is Karen demonstrating why you shouldn’t do drugs again?’

  ‘Why do you have to be such a twat?’

  ‘Whatever. I’m going back to bed.’

  ‘Your own?’

  ‘We were working. Not that it’s any of your business.’

  He was right. It wasn’t. But I was sick of the sight of Max, and was pleased when he wandered away, yawning and scratching his scalp.

  ‘Lucas. Can you come back in here?’ It was Julia.

  In the bedroom, Karen was horizontal, pulling the quilt half over her face and peeking out. The terror seemed to have subsided a little but there was an emptiness to her gaze now, as if part of her mind had been torn away.

  ‘She’s been talking,’ Julia said in a quiet voice. ‘But none of it makes any sense.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She’s now saying she thinks there was someone in the ceiling. And they were whispering to her.’

  ‘In or on the ceiling?’ The latter, I thought, was a fairly common drug-induced hallucination. At least it was in the films I’d seen.

  ‘She definitely said in.’

  I moved closer to Karen. ‘What did they say to you, Karen?’ I asked gently.

  She pulled the quilt an inch higher, so it was level with the bridge of her nose. ‘You’re not welcome here.’

  ‘The same as last time.’

  ‘Last time?’ said Julia.

  ‘It happened before,’ I explained, ‘a couple of days ago.’

  ‘It was a girl,’ Karen whispered.

  ‘A girl?’ Julia had gone pale.

  ‘Did she say anything else?’ I was reluctant to quiz Karen too much in case it prompted another episode. How long would it be before the ambulance got here? There was no hospital in town so it was going to have come from – I guessed – Wrexham.

  Karen shook her head, her wide eyes fixed on me.

  ‘Just you’re not welcome here?’

  Karen nodded and I thought she was about to close her eyes. They flickered, and she said, ‘And she was singing.’

  Julia leaned in closer. ‘Singing? Singing what?’

  Now Karen did close her eyes. The room was silent for a minute, so quiet I thought I could hear all three of our hearts beating, Karen’s loudest of all.

  ‘I couldn’t understand it,’ Karen whispered.

  ‘Because it was in another language?’ I asked.

  Julia spun round to stare at me. And then we heard a noise from above.

  Bang. Bang.

  Karen pulled the quilt fully over her head and Julia looked as if she were about to faint. We both stared at the ceiling.

  The noise came again.

  ‘What’s up there?’ I asked.

  Julia didn’t take her eyes off the ceiling. The plaster was cracked in places and cobwebs clung to the corners.

  ‘The attic,’ Julia said.

  ‘Has it been converted? Is there a room up there?’

  ‘No. There are a few boards down, but it’s just used to store junk.’

  I went out into the hallway. There was a chair near the top of the stairs. I fetched it and stood beneath the hatch to the attic.

  Julia came out of Karen’s room. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I want to set everyone’s mind at rest. Prove there’s no one up there.’

  I tugged at the hatch and, with a sudden jerk and a blast of dust that filled my eyes, it came free.

  There was a metal ladder, also furry with dust, and stiff and reluctant to shift. But I managed to pull it down.

  ‘Is there a light up here?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Hang on.’ She fetched her phone from her room, switched on the flashlight and handed it to me. ‘Use this.’

  I climbed the ladder and stuck my head through the gap. Holding Julia’s phone up, I could make out the shapes of boxes, some pots of paint, a water tank.

  ‘Can you see anything?’ Julia asked from below. I glanced down and saw that Suzi had come out of her room now and was beside Julia, looking up at me.

  ‘No. Just a load of old boxes. Hang on.’

  I heaved myself up into the attic and shone the flashlight around. It was cavernous, much bigger than I’d expected. I knelt on the boards and peered into the gloom. There was a strange smell in the room, like sweat, but I couldn’t tell if it was my own. I could feel a draft too, chilly air touching my face. Perhaps there was a small hole in the roof.

  I crawled further into the attic.

  ‘Oh shit!’ I shouted.

  From below, Julia gasped. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Sorry. Sorry, I put my hand on something disgusting.’ I shone the light at it and almost vomited. It was a mouse trap, the corpse of a long-dead rat rotting beneath the metal bar. I was worried there might be untriggered traps lying around, so was more careful where I put my hands.

  I moved further into the attic until I was, I estimated, directly above Karen’s bed, the place where we’d heard the creak. Just beyond was a water tank, and more piles of boxes. The draft was stronger here. I looked around, trying to locate its source, guessing a tile must have fallen off the roof.

  I lifted my head towards the cold stream of air.

  Something touched my face – a flutter, the brush of something dry and leathery. I shouted out and threw myself across the space, away from whatever it was that had touched me. I put my head down, curled into a ball, convinced something was about to grab me, something I didn’t believe in, something that couldn’t exist. A ghost. A monster, hunched in the corner. ‘Sweeeetmeeeeat!’ it whispered, and the shadows in the corner of the loft stirred and shifted, and the creature lifted its face towards me.

  Priya’s bloody face.

  Priya’s s
ightless eyes.

  I put my head down and repeated to myself, ‘It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real.’

  ‘Lucas? What’s going on?’ Julia called up from below.

  I lifted my head and raised my phone so the beam of light illuminated the corner. There was nothing there.

  Of course there was nothing there.

  I angled the beam of light towards the roof. At the same time, Julia climbed the ladder and her head appeared through the hatch. ‘What’s going on? What happened?’

  I laughed, aware that there was a hint of hysteria, a top note of madness in my laughter. But as Julia watched, eyes wide and fearful, I got up onto my knees and raised the flashlight higher.

  A shadow flitted above us.

  ‘You’ve got bats,’ I said.

  Julia and I sat at the kitchen table, two mugs of tea between us. The ambulance had been and gone, leaving Karen upstairs. She had calmed down and fallen asleep, and the paramedics thought she would be better off staying where she was, rather than being taken to hospital.

  ‘Maybe she just needs to go home, see her doctor,’ said one of the paramedics. ‘Don’t let her smoke anything.’

  Now, Julia said, ‘She asked me to move her to a different room but I didn’t get round to it.’

  ‘I don’t think it would have made any difference. Perhaps she wouldn’t have heard the bats if she was in a different room, but . . .’ I shrugged.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so. Like the paramedic said, she probably just needs to find some other way to manage her arthritis. She should probably get that cannabis analysed, see if it has been laced with something. Though it might just be really strong skunk. I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard the stuff that’s around now is much more potent than when I was a student and smoking joints.’

  It was black beyond the kitchen window. Julia hugged herself. She had tied back her hair and pulled on a black sweater with sleeves that came over her hands. It was warm in the kitchen, thanks to the Aga. Chesney sat beneath the table, purring loudly.

  ‘So you think she heard the bats, got scared, and then the weed kicked in, made her start imagining things?’ Julia said.

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘But the things she heard . . .’

  ‘You’re not welcome here? Maybe that’s how she feels. It could be to do with her status as a writer. Authors like Max look down on self-published writers. He’s said a lot of horrible, snobbish things about Karen’s books. She seems really confident in daylight, but every author I know is a mess of self-doubt and insecurities.’

  ‘And what about the singing?’ she asked. She looked at me suspiciously. ‘You seemed to know something about it.’

  I paused. I had assumed it had been Julia singing in Lily’s room. But now . . .

  ‘I’ve heard someone singing here too.’

  ‘What? Where?’

  ‘It was coming from the room next to mine. I assume it used to be Lily’s, didn’t it?’

  ‘It is Lily’s.’

  ‘Oh . . . Of course. Sorry.’ I took a sip of tea. It was almost cold. ‘I heard singing a couple of times. I thought it was you.’

  She stared at me. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen Julia go pale. But now she had gone an even whiter shade.

  ‘I haven’t been in Lily’s room since you got here,’ she said. ‘I certainly haven’t been in there, singing.’

  She got up from the table and crossed to the warmth of the Aga. ‘What was the song?’ she asked. ‘You said something about it being in a foreign language.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was Welsh. I only recognised the first few words. Un, dau, tri.’

  ‘What about the tune? Do you remember it?’

  I did. The melody, simple as it was, had burrowed into my brain the second time I’d heard it. Overcoming my embarrassment, I hummed it now.

  Julia’s eyes grew wide with recognition. When I’d finished, which took less than a minute, she opened her mouth and sang. Her voice was clear and tuneful.

  Un, dau, tri

  Mn yn dal y pry

  Pry wedi marw

  Mam yn crio’n arw.

  ‘It’s a traditional Welsh song,’ she said. ‘Lily learned it at school after we moved here. She used to sing it all the time. She brought home the translation too.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  She pressed herself closer to the Aga. ‘One two three, Mum caught a fly, the fly has died, Mum cries terribly . . . It’s about a woman losing a child.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Though, specifically, it’s about having a miscarriage. Mum caught a fly is a way of saying she’s pregnant. But, Lucas, the meaning of the song isn’t what’s important here. Both you and Karen heard it.’ Julia stared into the space between us, at the dancing motes of dust. She lifted a trembling hand to brush hair from her eyes. ‘Does that mean Lily’s dead? That you heard her spirit?’

  I got up from the table. ‘No. There has to be a rational explanation.’

  ‘Because Lily’s not dead.’

  ‘And because ghosts aren’t real.’

  I stood close to her, so close I could see the pink threads in her eyes, the dry spots on her lips. She was tired, run-down. Still beautiful – but in pain, caught between a need to grieve and a refusal to do so. Trapped in a desperate limbo.

  The rational explanation had to be that I’d been right all along. It had been Julia singing, but she either didn’t remember or refused to admit it. Probably the former. I wasn’t going to accuse her of that, though.

  ‘Let me think,’ I said, stalling for time. ‘Maybe . . . maybe it’s me. I went to school here. I probably learned that song too, so it would be buried deep in my subconscious.’

  She made a sceptical noise.

  ‘No, it’s true.’ I remembered the conversation with my mum, but didn’t want to go into the details right now. ‘I’ve been sleeping badly, having weird dreams. Maybe the song was part of a dream. And I’ve been singing it to myself ever since, like in the shower. Karen could have overheard me, and when her bad trip kicked off she imagined herself hearing the song.’

  ‘You mean like a group hallucination?’

  ‘More like a chain.’

  She thought about it. ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘It makes more sense than it being a ghost,’ I said. ‘Julia, there’s always a rational explanation. This makes sense.’

  I waited to see if she would buy it. I really didn’t want to tell her I thought it was her. Eventually, she nodded.

  ‘I’ll talk to Karen about it in the morning,’ she said.

  Chapter 16

  LILY – 2014

  Megan’s house was small but cosy. She had a black Labrador called Barney who was lovely, though he kept letting out rancid farts that made Lily and Megan squeal with horror.

  ‘I’m going to take him to the vet if he doesn’t stop,’ said Megan’s mum, who was really pretty and trendy. She was fun, too. She knew all about YouTube and had the radio playing in the kitchen, singing along when Little Mix came on. She poured glasses of ice-cold Coke for Lily and Megan and carried the drinks into the front room, where they were playing a video game on Megan’s Xbox.

  As soon as Megan’s mum left the room, Megan said, ‘Danny lent me this new game. Do you want to play it?’

  Danny was a boy in their class. Danny was always going on about playing Call of Duty and watching gross stuff online with his older brother. ‘What kind of game?’

  Megan whispered, ‘It’s a scary game. I’m not supposed to play it, so if you hear Mum coming, yell.’

  Lily shifted uncomfortably on the carpet as Megan located the game. Over by the fireplace, the dog made a groaning noise and Lily braced herself for the stink.

  It was the start of the school summer holidays, the best six weeks of the year, and Lily and Megan were on what the grown-ups referred to as a playdate. Dad had dropped Lily off earlier, te
lling her to be good. ‘Don’t go off on your own,’ he’d said.

  ‘I know, I know. And don’t talk to Strangers.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Marsh,’ Megan had said. ‘We’re just going to play in the garden. I’ve got a pack of water balloons.’

  But after soaking each other with the balloons and drying off in the hot sun, they’d come inside and now they were doing what Mum said Lily was always doing, like it was the worst thing in the world: staring at a screen. It was massively unfair because Mum and Dad were constantly looking at their phones, even when they were supposed to be talking to each other.

  Megan put on a horror-movie voice and said, ‘Are you prepared to be scared ?’

  Lily found herself looking at a big house surrounded by winter trees. The graphics were pretty basic but effective.

  ‘It looks like your house, doesn’t it?’ Megan said. ‘Out there in the woods.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  Spooky music played and Lily realised she was holding her breath as their character entered the house.

  ‘What’s in there?’ she asked.

  Megan’s voice was hushed. ‘Bloody Mary.’

  ‘Oh God. I’m freaking out.’

  Megan laughed. ‘You’re such a baby.’

  ‘Shut up! No I’m not.’

  On-screen, they crept through a series of empty corridors, into dark rooms filled with blocky furniture. Megan said, ‘If Mary catches you she takes you into her world.’

  Lily swallowed. ‘What’s in her world?’

  Megan smiled at her. ‘Freaky stuff. Time moves backwards. There are people with zips for mouths and black holes where their eyes should be. And you’ll never see your mum and dad again.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Lily said.

  ‘You really are a wimp.’

  Megan concentrated on the game for a while, eyes stretched wide, and then suddenly a dark figure jumped out at them. Bloody Mary. Megan and Lily both screamed.

  Footsteps came towards the room. Megan lunged for the Xbox, turning it off before the door opened.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Megan’s mum asked.

  ‘Nothing, Mum. Just Barney. He did the grossest fart ever.’

  The dog rolled an eye towards them, as if he knew he was being blamed for something he hadn’t done.