Adam treads quiet through the house. He goes to the north-west corner of the long gallery. He drops to his hands and knees, runs his fingers over the smooth boards, searching for a seam. He finds the release and opens the hatch down into the foundations of the house. He slips in, and pulls the trap door down behind him. This is the second secret that the blueprints told him.
Adam goes through the struts and supports and boulders that shore up Nowhere House. The floorboards creak overhead and Adam freezes. It could be the natural conversation of wood at night. It could be Leaf walking through the long gallery.
The earth rises on a gentle slant and the space between thefoundations and the ground grows narrower and narrower. Adam puts the flashlight in his mouth. He bends then crawls. The house feels like it’s pressing down on his back. He is flat on his stomach now, edging ahead on his elbows and knees. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe there is nothing down here but dark.
Adam catches a scent which seems impossible. It’s October, not the right season. But it’s unmistakable, filling the air with its delicate perfume. Lilac. Adam gasps and sinks his fingers into the earth, pulling himself forward. Suddenly the beams and foundations above his head are gone. He rolls out into an open place.
This is the deepest part of the house. It is made of old stone, rock walls which glisten with mica. A young lilac tree clings to one side. Before the tree, five round stones are circled like some kind of magic. Adam breathes. He doesn’t like them, those five stone-like things. And who would plant a lilac tree underground? How does it stay alive down here?
He shines the torch through the heavy blossom and sees it – a glimpse of dark through a lilac. An opening yawns in the rock wall. Adam takes a deep breath and goes into the night-scented flowers. He pushes his way through into the dark. The scent tickles his nostrils, fills the back of his throat. His flashlight dances on the tunnel walls; they glitter, a million tiny points like stars. Who made this? Adam touches the tunnel wall with a marvelling hand. This was already here, as far as he can tell, in the seventeenth-century plans. He goes through the gleaming passage – the tunnel of stars. It makes him think of the water reflecting back the sky when he and Leaf swam in the lake that night. Then it makes Adam think of the beast beneath the lake. He can’t breathe, suddenly. He stops and bends, hands on his knees. Adam wonders what Christie has named or will name their child. He wonders whether, if he lives, she will ever speak to him again. Thinking of his life before Nowhere is like raising a wrecked ship from the deep. Is it too late to travelback, between the worlds? Adam doesn’t know. He is not sure who he has become.
Leaf’s approach is soft-footed, silent; Adam doesn’t hear a thing. The first he knows about it is the knife in his throat, so fast that he doesn’t even feel pain. He does feel the blood coursing hot down his chest, though. Leaf holds Adam close, as if with love.
‘I can’t let you go this time,’ Leaf says sadly. ‘You’re a liar.’ Leaf’s mouth is on Adam’s neck; he kisses near the edge of the wound that stretches across Adam’s throat. Adam thinks through the pain and shock,is he drinking my— But that’s not important.
Adam breathes and slides his hand very slowly into his pocket.Fingers, Adam commands.Move.They don’t, probably because of shock. Adam puts everything he has into it, to force his hands into purpose. He nearly shouts when his fingers twitch. They graze the corduroy of his pants pocket. Adam feels with gentle touch. His pocket seems empty; maybe he didn’t take it from the top of the dresser this morning, maybe he left it in the shorts he wore yesterday. Leaf is still kissing his neck, lips gentle. He presses his face against Adam’s nape. His eyes are wet, he must be crying. His mouth is also wet but Adam can’t think about that. Leaf’s arms hold him like bands of iron. Adam is almost crying too. He left it on the table this morning, he must have done, and he is going to die.
Adam’s thumb brushes the smooth cylinder of the ballpoint pen. He feels the violent shock of hope. Adam’s fingers fold about the pen in a gradually tightening grasp. His body is trying – it wants to help. All or nothing.
Adam whips the pen from his pocket – backwards, upwards, point first. He’s working blind but his aim is true. He drives the pen into the cavity of Leaf’s ear. Adam feels it puncture the eardrum. The sound is worse, like a boot torn from sucking mud. Leaf’s arms loosen and release. Adam twists out of Leaf’s grasp.
Adam pulls himself upright on the rough stone walls of the tunneland makes his way clumsily down into the dark, feeling the wall with one hand, clutching his throat with the other, blood trickling hot over his fingers. His legs and hands seem to be floating away from his body. Blood from his throat spatters in his wake. He sinks to the ground. There’s no way to tell how much time passes. When he comes to, he feels how badly he is hurt. The slash in his neck is terrible.
Adam groans and drags himself a little way along the rough stone floor. He wants to live, he realises, to see his child. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it but life is rarely about getting what you deserve. He forces himself to his feet and half hops, half limps along the rocky floor. Slowly, with gritted teeth, step by step.
There’s a hint of fresh forest in the air ahead and Adam tries to hurry. He laughs, which is a mistake: it really hurts. He might just live. He might make it home to see his baby.
The tunnel ends in a narrow hole, a steep incline which turns from stone to earth. Above Adam hears leaves rustle, he hears open air and stars – can you hear stars? He thinks in this moment he can. They pulse overhead.
Behind him something stirs in the long dark. Adam turns and stares down the tunnel, his breath caught like a ball in his throat. He listens, every nerve straining, but now there is only silence. The sound of nothing, of the tunnel. Adam makes a rasping sound. Enough with looking behind. Forward now. He reaches and pulls himself up towards the open air and the night.
He crawls out of the earth. Another lilac shields the mouth of the tunnel and he pushes his way through, spitting leaves, breathing its mineral scent. The forest is cool; a nightjar calls nearby. Adam crawls on, hands clutching at the forest floor, moving on foot by agonising foot. He doesn’t know how much time passes. But he knows when he won’t make it any further. His body is stopping again.
He finds a friendly tree and props himself up, gasping, against its trunk. He can’t control the noises he’s making. Pain is undignified.The tang of smoke is in the forest air. There’s a glow on the horizon. Adam thinks,good. Burn.
He is not safe, not at all. Adam knows who (what) follows him. He tries to move again, to get further from this place. Leaf will be coming.
The world cants to one side, black bursts and flowers over everything.
When Adam opens his eyes a man is looking back at him. It is not Leaf. It’s a young firefighter with a kind face. ‘He’s coming down the tunnel,’ Adam tries to tell the man. He can’t speak, has no wind. Maybe Leaf got his trachea; his breath seems to be coming from his open throat. ‘Have to go. Coming. Murderer.’
20Riley
When Riley opens her eyes she is alone. The long room is quiet. It’s day, late afternoon, she thinks.
Riley starts, her senses singing. The sound could anything – it could be trees speaking in the forest or rain falling or distant deer hooves drumming the earth – but in this moment it sounds like small feet running somewhere in the depths of the burnt-out house.No, she tells herself.Ignore it.The drug must be wearing off; the cuts in her arms throb with pain.
There is a movement, a shift of air at the end of the hall. Riley stills.
The deer with the broken antler walks delicately out of the corridor, into the light. He looks at her, every muscle poised for flight. Riley tries to be a stone. She doesn’t even breathe. The deer advances a step, just one, foreleg poised. Riley clears her mind, so the deer won’t even hear her thoughts. She becomes nothing.
The stag walks towards her, gathering confidence. It breaks into a trot. Riley is lightheaded from holding her breath as it comes close. The deer pauses on the edge of the sunken place, then leaps downinto the garden. It approaches the lilac tree and then it is gone, into its depths. It does not come back.
The five skulls are there, planted in a circle before the lilac. Riley tries not to look at them; it won’t help.
Riley bends to the leather cuff at her wrist. She tears at it, feeling her teeth move in the gums with the force of it. If Riley doesn’t get free she will lose everything she loves. And same if she does.
When she feels the gnawed ends of leather fall away she can’t actually move for a moment. Hot tears fill her dry eyes. She lifts her wrist from the arm of the chair. She unbuckles her other hand and the straps about her ankles. She rubs her hands and feet, letting the circulation return.
