Maggie rubbed her arms as she slid out of bed. It wasn’t the cold which had awoken her, nor the rattle of the pipes in the walls. It was instinct. She grabbed her cardigan off the corner of the metal bedstead. If fear had a smell, she would reek of it right now. Standing at her bedroom door, she tried to muster up enough courage to leave her room. Her fingers tightened around the cold metal door-knob, and she willed herself to turn it. But it was the memory which bloomed that held her prisoner, still as fresh and painful as when it happened three years ago. Her four-year-old son, Elliott, pale in the moonlight, his eyes full dark.
‘I don’t like Auntie Emily’s plait,’ he’d said, sitting bolt upright in bed. His voice had been so flat and emotionless that it had taken precious seconds to process his words.
‘Sorry, love? What was that?’ she’d said, fetching an extra blanket as a chill descended in the room. She must have misheard. Her sister’s hair was long, but she always wore it loose.
‘The plait,’ he’d said again. ‘I don’t like it. It makes her face all funny.’
Back then, Maggie was yet to familiarise herself with the night terrors that would take hold. Elliott’s eyes slipped shut, before rolling open again. Only this time, his gaze was focused on her. An uncomfortable creeping sensation raised goosebumps on her skin.
‘You’re dreaming,’ she’d said, guiding him back to his pillow. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘Make her take it off,’ Elliott had insisted, placing his hands around his neck. His words were raspy, as if he were being choked.
‘It’s just a dream,’ Maggie whispered, her smile frozen. But her words felt like the most dreadful lie. ‘Go back to sleep.’ She could barely remember tucking Elliott in before leaving his room. But when the door clicked closed, she’d sprinted down the hall to grab her phone. Her hands shaking, she muttered beneath her breath as she dialled her sister’s number. ‘It’s ridiculous. It’s just a nightmare. It’s …’
Maggie blinked away a tear as she recalled the day her sister took her own life. It took her an hour to drive to her house, to find the police outside her door. But they wouldn’t allow her inside. Why? Because they’d had to wait for the inspector before they could cut her body free from the noose. The ‘plait’ Elliott had referred to had been a thick brown rope. As they took her sister away in a body bag, Maggie had turned away from the scene. And now, she was creeping down the corridor to her son’s room, scared of what she might find.
Oh, Elliott.Her spirits sank as she saw him at his bedroom window, his face pressed so close against it that his breath was fogging the pane. She opened her mouth to speak, her hand hovering mid-air. She should tell him that he was dreaming, but she was rooted to the floor. Because when the night terrors came, the words which left Elliott’s mouth were not those of a seven-year-old child.
Maybe he’s sleepwalking,she thought, taking another slow step towards her son.
Despite the floorboard creaking, he didn’t move an inch. Rigid and unblinking, he was lost in the night world. Fear tempered Maggie’s movements as she forced herself to approach. She could barely describe the sense that woke her when Elliott was like this. An invisible thread, powerful enough to pull her from sleep. Not that she welcomed it. That was a hard fact to admit. She checked her watch. It was just gone half one. Taking a deep breath, she approached him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder.
‘Elliott?’ she said. ‘It’s Mummy …’ But her words were cut short as his scream tore through the air.
‘Get off me!’ he raged, kicking, scratching, tearing at her skin. Her jaw set tight, Maggie locked her arms around him in a bear hug, squeezing her eyes shut as she took the blows. Elliott may have been small for his age, but he was getting strong. Too strong for her to do this without getting hurt. She wished her husband was here. He would know what to do. Being an army wife brought its own set of challenges, but since Lewis was admitted to hospital last year, she’d felt totally isolated and alone.
‘Baby, it’s Mummy,’ she said, crying out as he sank his teeth into her arm. She repeated the words. Mummy was here. He was dreaming. He was safe. Slowly, he came back to her. His limbs relaxed. His breathing slowed. She released her grip. He batted his long black lashes, a string of drool hanging lazily from the corner of his mouth. Staring at her in confusion, he emerged as if from a trance, the moon casting his skin in a blue hue.
‘Mummy?’ His breath shuddered from exertion.
‘It’s OK,’ she smiled, wiping his chin with the corner of her cardigan before guiding him back to bed. ‘You’re sleepwalking, that’s all.’ It was the most reassuring way of describing what he was going through.
She hugged him tightly, feeling warmth from the damp patch in his pyjamas where he had wet himself. She would bathe him in the morning, but right now, she needed to get him back to sleep. Offering quiet reassurance, she changed him into clean, dry pyjamas before tucking him into bed. A glint of silver caught her eye and she picked up the object from the floor. Elliott couldn’t sleep without his medal. His father had been awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for fearlessly running towards a helicopter crash and saving many lives. Perhaps Elliott hoped his daddy’s bravery would rub off on him. Slipping it beneath the pillow, she smoothed over Elliott’s hair, just as she did when he was a baby. A soft trickle of blood oozed from the bitemark on her forearm as she waited for the sound of his gentle snores. She shuddered as a draught caressed her skin.
He had never been this bad before. She could have asked him what he was dreaming about while it was fresh in his mind. Like the time he foresaw that awful train crash in Bristol, or when a school bus in Romford had lost control in the snow and three people had died.
She recalled the grim-faced police officer asking how she knew her sister had taken her own life. ‘Instinct,’ she’d replied. Because instinct, people could deal with. Premonitions they could not. Tonight, her son had seen something truly terrifying, and to her shame, she didn’t want to know.
4
The sun broke in ribbons between the trees, casting Blackhall Manor in a sepia tone. Standing on the hill I gazed at the building, my mind a blackish flies’ nest of thoughts.
Dawn was approaching and my life had taken a surreal turn. Bracing myself against the biting wind, I replayed last night’s events. The build-up, the anticipation. The careful attention to detail. A part of me couldn’t believe that I had gone through with it. Then again, this had been no random murder. There had been months of preparation, and the house guests were willing participants in my game. But when it came to Angelica’s final moments, I was rash and impetuous. The knife had cut through her flesh like butter. I had underestimated my own strength.
I sucked cold air between my teeth as I relived each moment: the smell of the woodlands, her chest hitching, wrists taut against rope. Then the sudden spray of blood. Spitting at the taste of warm iron. I’d watched the true crime dramas, where presenters talked about the ‘mind of a killer’. I was no psychopath, but when it came to Angelica’s last moments, all I felt was numb. There was much more to this than ridding the world of some silly little teenager who was out to impress her friends. She would have hated to know it, but Angelica was nothing but a pawn.
I craned my neck upwards, taking in every facet of the gothic ruin. I’d heard the rumours about how Blackhall Manor was a cursed house in an equally cursed town. Had it spoken in a whisper that only Mr Middleton could hear? In the end, the man had lost his mind and turned his gun on himself. But not me. It was my turn and I would play the game to completion.
I took the scrub path towards the dilapidated house, despite every instinct urging me to leave. Soon the place would be infested with police, but I was in its magnetic pull. I was not the only one drawn here; the place was teeming with life, from the rooks perching on the guttering to the insects burrowing in the wood.
The air felt heavier in the hall, thick with the stench of bat droppings. The devil’s songbirds, my mother called them. They hung from the rotting rafters, seeking shelter in the shadows from the unforgiving chill of the November winds. I lifted my sleeve to check my watch. I shouldn’t be here. But so what, if the police came? I knew the crawlspaces; the network of veins running through Blackhall’s fractured skeleton. Slowly, over the course of my visits, the Manor had revealed itself to me. Then it gave me the gift of the Midnight Game, and the schoolgirls who were gullible enough to accept my invitation. And so, I stepped into the shoes of the Midnight Man.
I approached the grand entrance and rested my hand on the banister. Dragging my feet up the stairs, I passed through the veils of time as I retraced Middleton’s steps. Had he planned the attack? Or was he lost to the force of Blackhall, turned inward like a cowering child? Newspapers reported that he spent time in his study that night, methodically cleaning his gun. Given his years in the army, he was a good shot.
Taking a left on the grand landing, I approached the old study door, loose on its hinges. In my mind’s eye I caught a glimpse of a long-buried past. Middleton’s daughter standing in a witch’s costume. Her father telling her to go to bed. The hairs stood sentry on the back of my neck each time I was greeted with this vision. Was it an echo of the past – a residue of violence, or simply my imagination? I didn’t know. But as I stepped through the door, I saw him sitting at the decaying mahogany bureau.
The house was a museum, every piece of its story left where it should be. Upstairs, the air was sweet from patches of mould which patterned the walls. I turned back down the hall, to where Middleton took his first shot. The door to Robin’s room groaned in defiance as I pushed it aside. The frame of Robin’s small single bed was still in the middle of the room. I stood in quiet solemnity. I could see Mrs Middleton, her eyes bulging in horror. I’d replayed this in my mind so many times. Middleton’s father was found slumped downstairs, one arm through his bloodied dressing gown. His mother had been shot between the eyes while she phoned for help. As I turned towards the master bedroom, the door slammed shut in my face.
