“Yeah, tomorrow.” It’s almost painful to watch him disappear back into the lucky crowds of tourists who get to swallow him up and carry him away. I wait until he’s out of sight and then turn to Jess, who’s still staring after him.
“Earth to Jess!” I tease. “What the hell was that back there? You stared at him like he was an alien or something.”
“Sorry.” She is frowning. “I just. . . I dunno. I feel like I recognize him from somewhere.”
I feel like she’s not telling me the full story, but with perfect timing my stomach audibly growls.
“Hungry?”
“Always. Come on, you weirdo.” I link an arm through hers and we walk towards the restaurant. “Let’s go and celebrate this horrible few weeks finally being over – and the fact I’m about to pull an all-nighter to win this flaming scholarship.”
I’m back in the streets behind Southbank again, the graveyard looming out of the low fog in front of me. Weird, I’ve only ever seen fog like this on the fields at home, never here in the city. I try to walk away but something irresistible pulls me forwards, a tug that my feet can’t deny.
Huge, wrought-iron gates rise up out of the ground in front of me. They’re open, parted just enough for me to slip through, so I do, walking a path I didn’t realize I knew. Crooked headstones erupt out of the impenetrable, cotton fog and a stone angel, its carved eyes hollow and blank, peers at me through the gloom. I’m strangely calm as I walk deeper into the cemetery, until I pause in front of a small building, my feet now soldered to the ground.
It’s a mausoleum.
I can’t remember ever seeing one of these before, but I know instantly what it is. I seem to float around to the front, where an arched stone entryway is blocked by a heavy, studded door. I watch, detached, as my own hand reaches towards the handle, feeling no connection to it whatsoever. My gaze follows it up and I see a mirror has appeared on the door, reflecting my own face back at me.
No. It’s not a mirror.
It’s a window.
Beyond the glass, my mirror image begins to shrink and fade, skin pulling back from bones and teeth, eyes hollowing in front of my own. The skeletal mouth wraps itself around a series of words, a rasp that fogs the glass, forming letters that I’m too scared to read. There are so many, all bleeding together, I can’t tell what they say. Some of them are still there, seared into my eyelids when I wake up screaming, a horrible echo of what was spelled out on the Ouija board last week.
“N-I-A-M-H, R-U-N.”
I wake to pale sunshine and my alarm going off, my head fuzzy from more bad dreams. What did I eat last night? Was it all that baked feta?
It takes a second to realize that the noise isn’t my alarm; it’s my phone ringing. I roll over, bleary eyed, to see Jess’s tongue poking out at me from the screen.
Then I see the time.
Oh, nonono. I was meant to meet her fifteen minutes ago. I scrabble to pick it up.
“Hey, I’m just on my way,” I lie, grabbing a pair of jeans off the floor, inching them up with one hand. “Sorry, alarm didn’t go off—”
“Niamh?
“Ruth?” I sink back down to the bed, one leg still bare. “Is everything OK?”
“It’s Jess.” Her voice is thick and my stomach tightens. I grip the phone so hard it hurts.
“What about her?” My voice is hoarse. “Has something happened?”
“She’s in the hospital. She’s been attacked.”
I land at the doors of St. Mary’s less than an hour later. I don’t have to ask where I’m going this time, though; I’ve been to the ICU before.
I sprint to the bank of lifts and press the button impatiently. The wait feels like eternity. The doors eventually ping open.
“Sorry, lovie.” A hunched old man in a hospital uniform is standing behind the bed of an even smaller, more hunched over man. “Not much room in here. Might be best waiting for the next one.”
I don’t have time for this but I remember my manners and try my best to smile.
The doors slide shut and rather than press the button again I glance around. There is a small blue sign down the corridor, showing a stepped line and a little person. A stairwell. I don’t hesitate; it’s got to be faster than waiting.
My flip flops slap and echo on the concrete steps. Despite my panic, I feel the loneliness of this place. I turn the corner that marks the halfway point of the first floor and see the door at the top of the next flight of steps slowly creaking closed, a dark-haired figure and familiar swish of fabric disappearing behind it.
