She hadn’t come through the study. Alex would have seen her. Last she’d known, Maeve had been with Nick.
‘Through the cellar. There’s a hole at the back. I didn’t mean to come in, Alex, but Daisy said I had to. And I had this. I thought I could stop it hurting you. But now…now…’
A great sob welled up inside her and she shook as it escaped, the noise deafening in this eerie place. Her misery washed through the air and Alex almost took a step back.
‘Maeve,’Sally murmured, another wave of despair.
Maeve’s panic went up a notch.
‘Mummy! You can’t be here. It isn’t safe. It wants you here. It owns the dead, Mummy. If it touches you…’ Maeve sniffed, as if steeling herself, and before Alex could stop her, she slid her hand through the charm, like a bracelet, dropped to her knees and plunged her hands into the hole.
Sally screamed and the house above them shook. Dust cascaded from the roof overhead.
Alex hurriedly shoved the salt cellar into her pocket so as not to lose it and grabbed Maeve’s shoulder, pulling her back from the hollow full of God knew what. Something else came too, dragged up out of the depths in Maeve’s hands. A glint caught Alex’s eye, a flash of candlelight on…was that gold?
The thing tumbled free of Maeve’s grip, rolling like a misshapen ball across the earthen floor away from them both with a terrible thumping sound. Maeve sobbed in shock and alarm and Alex pulled the girl to her.
There wasn’t time to look closer and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It all felt like a trap. Maeve stared at her blankly, almost as if she was dazed, her charm hanging around her wrist like a bangle. But something foul and black soaked it, dripped from it.
Perhaps it was all that was protecting her. Her hands and lower arms were covered in the same vile stuff.
This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
‘Hold out your hands, Maeve,’ Alex told her firmly and when the girl obeyed without question, she fumbled to get the salt cellar from her pocket. The metal was uncomfortably cold, almost burning on her fingers, but she held onto it and tipped salt into Maeve’s hands. ‘I want you to hold onto this and think of being safe. Think of your dad, and your granny and whatever else keeps you safe, understand?’
‘I want Mummy.’
Could Maeve not see her anymore?
‘Sheishere, love,’ Alex said and the candle flame grew even brighter. So did a glow on the far side of the chamber where the thing Maeve had pulled out of the hole lay discarded. Alex tried not to notice that. ‘She’s here.’
Prayer, Gabe had said. Alex wasn’t even sure what she believed in but she knew that prayer worked, if only to calm the human mind.
From the darkness, two other figures were emerging now, small like Maeve but possessed of a malevolence Alex hadn’t expected. The two girls, she realised. And yet somehow not.
Rose opened her mouth, smiling to reveal glistening teeth, and Daisy’s eyes were as black and empty as the pit before them. Beneath their skin was a tracery of fine black lines. They weren’t the sweet and innocent child ghosts they had appeared to be. Perhaps they had not been for a very long time. Malice came off them in waves.
Maeve began to cry again, soft shuddering sobs, and Alex wrapped the arm holding the candle around her, pulling her in close. ‘Don’t look, love. It’s okay. I’m here.’
‘That’s what they want, Alex. They tricked me. They said it would help but it…they lied to me! They want you here too.’
Did they? Well, they would regret that, she thought with a rush of vindictiveness. Ghosts or not, no one liked a bully.
Alex drew back her free hand and flung salt at them. ‘By the power of light and hope and all things sacred, I banish you. Leave this place and go to the other side.’
CHAPTER 38
ALEX
It was not the most beautiful prayer in the world but it didn’t have to be. It just had to state an intention. Daphne had always said the simpler the better. But then Daphne always spoke about following the light, and of loved ones waiting on the other side. Gentle, cajoling words, offering peace and forgiveness. It didn’t have to be about God, it was all about the intent, the desire behind it and the nature of that desire. And all Alex wanted was those ghosts gone from here and far away from Maeve. They had too much hold over her already.
But as the spirits of the two girls recoiled and vanished Alex could already feel something else rising. This came from the darkness underneath, from the shadows, from the earth itself, bubbling up like whatever tar-like substance filled the hollow in front of them, oozing across the dirt floor now. Alex skidded back as it moved, the surface breaking for a moment and the foul water, or whatever it was, sloshing towards her boot.
Maeve screamed in fear, and this time, Alex wrenched her back behind her, shielding the girl with her own body.
‘Maeve!’
It was Nick’s voice. There was a crash and the sound of something crunching on the far side of the undercroft. Itsounded like he was tearing his way through the wall from the cellar.
