Harvest (8 page)

Rachel turned on her heels as
she heard the welcome interruption of rattling crockery. Claire
entered with a tray of tea and biscuits, shooting her husband a
disapproving look.

“
Please, Rachel, take a
seat.” Claire’s tone berated Brian for not offering
earlier.

Rachel sat in the armchair
opposite the sofa.

Claire settled next to Brian
and served the drinks. Rachel took the cup and saucer and stirred
the drink before resting the spoon gently at the side.

Brian was the first to speak.
“This was Claire’s idea, not mine. To be quite frank I don’t
believe in mumbo-jumbo.”

Claire shot him a killing
look.

Rachel ignored him
momentarily and took a sip of her tea. “I am glad you don’t believe
in mumbo-jumbo. Nor do I. I’m not a witch – although I can have a
temper on me.” She smiled. “I do believe in spirits and that there
is an after-life if you want to call it that. It is just a view
that
physical
death isn’t the
end, that sometimes, for whatever reason or science behind it an
aspect of us remains after the body dies, and some of us are
fortunate enough to be able to communicate with these essences,
these spirits. And we use that ability to help those left behind.
So, I won’t be chanting and lighting incense and you will be quite
pleased that I left my broomstick at home.” She finished her
matter-of-fact statement with a nod to Claire. “Lovely
tea.”

“
I didn’t mean to be
rude, it’s just that it’s been a hard time for us.” Brian took
Claire’s hand in his. “I don’t want anything that is going to make
life harder for us.”

Rachel rested her cup on
its saucer. “I understand entirely. It’s very good of you to
support your wife in something that you don’t really believe in,
especially at a time as painful as this. I’m not a charlatan
though, Brian. I don’t ask for any money for what I do. All I ask
is for you to suspend any criticism and preconceptions for just a
while and believe for just a moment.”
Rachel watched
Brian nod and smile and his frame sank slightly as he disarmed
himself. She knew now was the time to lay her cards on the table.
She settled her cup on its saucer and held it still on her lap as
she approached a difficult subject. “I have to say one thing. I am
here to help you find some kind of lead for the ongoing
investigation. However, I would appreciate it if you didn’t ask me
to try and contact Emily.” Rachel smiled weakly. Death sat
uncomfortably on her shoulder as she prepared to elaborate. “If I
disclosed that I could contact her, I imagine non-believers would
judge me as being cruel in taking away your hope of her being
alive. I also suspect that any scepticism you have about my
abilities would be reinforced by your need to believe that she is
alive, and you would doubt what I say until there was tangible
earth-bound evidence. If I found that I couldn’t contact her, you
might take what could simply be a limitation of my ability as
reinforcement of your hope of her being alive. Disclosure either
way would ultimately offer you little comfort.” She watched them
both wilt guiltily, as if uncovered in some crime.

After the weight of the
expectations had lifted, the three chatted for a quarter of an hour
about Rachel’s beliefs, the twins, life in the flats and did a
complete circle back to how they still had no leads towards finding
little Emily, and how the Chambers’ prayed that she was alive. The
conversation ran out as the emotions took hold of Claire and Brian.
To escape the awkwardness, Rachel asked where Emily was last known
to be before she went missing. Claire stood up and led the way to
the bedroom while Brian remained on the sofa, his head in his
hands.

Rachel stood with Claire before
the children’s bedroom door. With no window to provide natural
light, it was dark at that end of the hall. Claire put her hand on
the door handle, but turned hesitantly to Rachel and chewed at her
bottom lip.

“
There’s something I
haven’t told anyone. Only Brian, and he says it’s silly. Some funny
things have happened lately. We used to have fish in our tank in
the lounge. The night Emily went missing they all went crazy,
flitting erratically, flinging themselves around the tank. I could
hear the fish hitting the glass. The fluorescent light was
flickering too. That’s the moment I heard one of the girls scream
and I found Emily had gone. Afterwards, when the police had gone
and we were alone again, that was when I noticed… The fish. They
were all dead, floating on the surface.”

Rachel then listened to Claire
explain how Amy had been stuck in her room. Claire nudged the door
to the bedroom and it drifted off its catch and opened effortlessly
without the need for the handle to be turned. “It was as if Amy had
been holding it shut; but she wouldn’t have been able to stop me
opening it. I’m sure there was light in here – not from the light
bulb. It was green. I got Amy out and she was terrified. What
should she be terrified of?

“
There is something else
we hadn’t told the police,” she whispered
conspiratorially.

“
Go on,” Rachel urged as
the hairs on her neck tingled.

“
The night Emily went
missing, me and Brian had settled for the evening...”

“
Don’t, Claire,” Brian
interrupted pleadingly, announcing his presence in the
hall.

“
The
front door was locked.” Claire looked at Rachel for a reaction. “We
are
nine
floors
up.”

Rachel looked from Claire to
Brian who couldn’t hold her gaze, then to the children’s room
before returning to Claire, giving herself time to absorb this new
information. Claire was putting voice to something she had only
dared to share with her husband, and it was clear that even in that
limited audience it created conflict. Brian was obviously uneasy
that Claire had told Rachel, knowing how outlandish it sounded.
“You believe Emily just vanished: into thin air?”

Brian withdrew to the lounge
and she heard him drop heavily on to the sofa in resignation.
Claire shied away from Rachel’s searching gaze.

“
I don’t know what to
believe any more,” Claire said, not really giving the definite
answer Rachel wanted.

“
I’m
hardly going to criticise what you believe, Claire: I’m
the one that talks with those that have passed on.” She
half-laughed trying to lighten the situation but stepping round the
dreaded catchphrase
“I see dead
people”.
The Sixth Sense
film
had a lot to answer for.
“Some
of what you have described could be related to poltergeist
activity. I’m sure you know about those, thanks to the movies. You
have young children, and poltergeist activity tends to centre on
them. They are hypothesised to be manifestations of psychic energy,
or mischievous spirits drawn to a child, depends on your beliefs as
it’s hardly a science that can be empirically tested either way.
What doesn’t fit is what you haven’t said, but only hinted at and I
have never heard of that outside of books and films. However, your
daughter is missing and I’m not here to dispute the facts. I’m here
to give some insight if I can.” She draped a comforting arm around
Claire, which she hoped went some way in softening the impact of
her non-commitment towards Claire’s belief.

“
Why don’t you show me
where Emily used to sleep,” Rachel said, hoping to escape the
obstacle before them. “That’s the last place you saw her, yes?
Tucked up in bed?”

Claire nodded and pointed to
the bare mattress. “The police took the sheets and covers. I can’t
bring myself to remake it.”

Rachel glanced around the
pink room scattered with dolls and fluffy toys. She looked back to
the bed. The little girl who had slept there should have still been
there, sleeping her dreams, playing with her toys. She should be
with her family,
not missing,
not away
from the family and the mother who loves her and misses her and
wants her. Not taken from her bed. The empathy welled within her
and she coughed gently to clear her throat.

Rachel looked up from the bed
into the eyes of an old woman in a purple polyester housecoat
sitting on the edge of the opposite bed. She was in her late
sixties, with tightly curled grey hair and large glasses. She held
a bunch of white roses out before her. She looked at Rachel and
then pointed to a spot in the middle of the floor with grim
concern. As Rachel looked back to the woman she found she had
gone.

“
Brian’s mother is still
with you, isn’t she..? I mean she is still alive.” Rachel barely
waited for Claire to agree. “You named Emily after your mother,
didn’t you? She died before the twins were born.” Claire nodded,
perplexed and speechless. Brian appeared in the doorway, his eyes
red and raw from his crying, listening stoically to Rachel’s words.
“Your mother is looking after the family, you know that, Claire?
She loves you both and she has brought you some white roses. She
said you like them.” Tears ran down Claire’s face and she nodded in
acceptance of what had been said. “For some reason she indicated
that point on the floor.”

Claire struggled to
concentrate on the present, and focussed on the carpet. She coughed
to clear her throat. “Amy was pointing to that spot when I found
Emily had gone.
I don’t know why – or what she
saw.
”

Rachel got up and surveyed her
surroundings. Even without the guidance of a spirit there was a
sense of loss in the room. The emotion hung in the atmosphere like
mist. Her ability did not bring her total recall of events from the
past, but she had found she could sense empathic feelings from
things. She could glimpse the past from sensing the strong emotions
and thoughts that anchored a moment or an event in space. Things
that could help identify what had happened in this room, and who it
was that might have been involved.

“
Did Emily have a
favourite toy?”

Claire picked up a large doll
from a chair by the door. “Miss Daisy. They both played with
it.”

Rachel was glad to be back on
track in her involvement but her mood plummeted at the thought of
sensing if Emily actually had passed. She hated the thought of
being burdened with that knowledge. She reached out for the doll
and took hold of it.

An overwhelming sensation of
nothingness swept through Rachel’s senses, as if her mind’s eye had
suddenly rushed through a maze into a dead end. She turned away
from Claire, uncomfortable with her desperately searching stare.
The doll had a past connection with Emily, she could sense how it
was valued and cherished by the girls, but the connection felt
cold.

It signalled an ending.

Curiosity suddenly rushed into
her, but it felt displaced, not her own emotion: as if she could
observe the sensation outside of experiencing it. The feeling was
quickly replaced with terror and this time Rachel did experience
the emotion. The feelings weren’t coming from the doll. She looked
down to her feet and found she had wandered into the middle of the
room where the apparition had pointed to and she instantly
understood the feeling: Emily had been on this spot and she had
seen something that night – something that had caught her interest
then terrified her.

It took all of Rachel’s
control not to scream, not at the feeling she experienced, but at
what was there with her – somehow within the residue of emotions
from that night something was looking back into
her
mind.

It dragged
its presence through her head like glass raking her flesh as it
reached into her.

The attack tore viciously at
her psyche sending her reeling, staggering to one side. The instant
she left the space that had been indicated by Claire’s mum and Amy,
the emotions and the presence were gone.

Emily had been on this
spot, moments before she had disappeared. Someone else had been
there too. Yet Rachel thought that to call it a person wasn't
right; it wasn’t a “someone”, but a “some
thing”
’. Whatever
“It”
was, and whatever had happened, Amy had
seen it all.

In her lifetime, Rachel had
sensed more spirits than she could count or recall, even those
spirits whose humanity had been whittled away by their torment and
anger, but she had never experienced anything like the “thing” she
had just encountered. Whatever it was, it was powerful, like a
thundering avalanche of raw undeveloped emotion. There was also no
language to the thoughts. It had been animal-like. Purely
primal.

It had felt
malevolent...
Evil.

“
You
got something didn’t you!” Claire leaned close and looked about her
as if she too would see something, some new clue that had been
imperceptible until Rachel had unlocked it. “What did you
see?
Is she...”

Claire’s words trailed off.
Rachel knew what Claire couldn’t ask but longed to know. Rachel was
glad to have set her boundaries, for the detachment she had felt
from the doll told her that Emily’s connection to this world had
ended. She couldn’t find her words or gather herself from her
experience and was relieved at the stupor she found herself in.
Claire’s face sharpened into concern at Rachel’s bloodless
appearance. Rachel’s focus widened as the numbness of the shock
subsided and she became aware of a cold clammy veil on her body,
and her arms and her legs became rooting weights. She allowed
Claire to support her arm and guide her stumbling feet down the
hall into the lounge.