Riley looks up at the shattered sky. She turns, pulling him into the depths of the house.
Riley and Marc run through the dark halls. Memory rears up strong. Marc is suddenly seven again, he is Oliver and he’s scared of Leaf Winham whose ghost roams here.
As he runs he sees a bright unicorn blanket thrown over a rotting couch. A Barbie with no head on the mantlepiece, a basketball in a dark corner, plastered with leaves. He feels the sick punch of sadness.
They come to the long gallery. Marc looks at the broken floor, the sunken place. ‘It’s down there, isn’t it?’ Memory and time are sliding together.
Riley puts her arms around his neck. ‘I can’t go with you,’ she says into his ear. ‘I can’t leave them alone.’
Marc takes her bony shoulders in his hands. ‘You have to.’
She shakes her head. ‘They need me.’
‘They’re not here, Riley,’ Marc says, desperate. ‘They would all be adults by now. They’re not real.’
‘They’re here,’ Riley says, confident.
‘Where?’ Marc can’t stop his voice rising.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ Riley says. ‘But trust me.’
‘No.’ Marc shakes his head. He takes her face in his hands. ‘Have you ever heard five children be this quiet? There is no one else in this house.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Riley says, smiling.
Marc takes a long breath. ‘Don’t make me say it.’ He can hear the pleading in his voice.
‘Say what?’ Riley asks
‘Those children died in the fire you set,’ Marc says, ‘along with all the others. Did you think I didn’t understand, even back then? I saw you do it.’ His throat catches when he thinks of it – walking away from the flame and the screaming. He feels a stab of anger – imagine if someone tried to do that to his Silvie. ‘No one survived.’
‘The children didn’t die,’ Riley says. ‘They were already gone. They lived here a long time ago, they were killed by their father.’
‘You’re talking about the apple farm,’ Marc says slowly. ‘That woman confessed on her death bed that they had covered up the deaths of five children. So you think that’s who they are? Hallie, Rufus, Whitey, Peach and Una? Ghosts of the children from the apple farm?’
‘They live here,’ Riley says. ‘It’s their place.’
‘No.’ Marc’s voice trembles. ‘Those were real kids, who I knew. I played with them. I touched them. They were not ghosts.’
‘You could only touch them because of this.’ Riley fingers the leather thong at her throat. A glimpse of bone against her clavicle. ‘It’s their bones. That lets them know you.’
‘I thought I could do this,’ Marc says. ‘Speak to you. But maybeI can’t.’ He covers his eyes with his palm. ‘The night we ran, Noon put the kids to bed. She locked them in the stall to stop Peach wandering. I saw her do it. Then I woke up and you were there. You set the stables on fire. No one got out. They died, Riley.’ He takes a deep breath.
‘The five children at the apple farm,’ Riley says, patient, ‘are—’
‘They are nothing to do with this.’ Marc almost wants to hurt her now. ‘Angela Smith talked about taking the children’s names off the chest of drawers at the apple farm. Those children were called Harriet, Elijah, Sarah, Anne and Charlotte. No Peach, no Whitey …’
‘I know,’ Riley says. ‘They don’t use their given names. They call themselves by new ones they made up themselves.’
‘When do you see them, the children?’ Marc asks. ‘Why can’t you see them now?’
‘You wouldn’t understand—’
‘Do you only see them when you’ve eaten those?’ Marc points at a dirty bowl which sits against the wall. ‘This whole house stinks of mushrooms.’
‘The mushrooms are just a doorway,’ Riley says. ‘The children showed me that.’
There is a rumbling from below. ‘We have to go,’ Marc says. ‘Both of us, now.’ It might already be too late.
