Out of the Depths (15 page)

I turned to Ben. He was still crouched behind the statues, watching me too. Tears of relief streamed down his face. ‘I knew you would help me. I knew it … Thank you, Tyler, thank you …'

I was mixed up and afraid, and couldn't understand anything. I wanted to ask him what was happening, but he was on his feet, and running past me. Out of the chapel. I tried to grab him, wanted some kind of explanation, but once again, my hands touched only air. I wanted to scream out. Wanted someone to explain what was happening to me. But Ben was gone. Escaping while he could, afraid perhaps that the Rector would, even
now, leap to his feet, snatch up the knife. Come after him again.

But there was no real fear of that happening. Not now. The Rector lay at the feet of St Anthony, whimpering. His whole body was shaking. He still looked at me, yet through me, terror never leaving his eyes. And in that second I realised the truth. That to him, I was the ghost.

I was the ghost.

He held out his hands towards me, spreading his fingers wide, as if he was shielding himself from me. As if I was some evil spirit he was desperate to ward off. ‘Who are you?' he said again.

I could only stand and watch while he lay there, terrified, his eyes never leaving me. Was it seconds later or minutes? Time was nothing now. Another figure burst into the chapel.

And this time it
was
Father Michael.

He hurried across to the Rector, bent to him, took his hands in his own. His words were soft. ‘What has happened here?'

The Rector's answer came in a sob. ‘Father Michael … I almost killed him. I wanted to kill him. He had broken into the school. I found him stealing. You should
have heard the way he taunted me. The way he always taunts me. I couldn't take it any more. I lost my mind. I wanted to kill him.'

‘But you didn't kill him,' Father Michael said. ‘In that final moment, you couldn't do it. You're not a killer, Robert.'

The Rector looked up once again at me. He raised a wavering hand. ‘She stopped me, Father. I
would
have killed him, if it hadn't been for her. She saved both of us.'

Father Michael looked up then. How could I ever have thought his blue eyes were sinister? They were full of kindness and concern. But his gaze looked beyond me, or through me. And to him I was invisible.

‘Who?' he asked.

‘She's there, I tell you. Right in front of you …' The Rector's voice grew hysterical. His fingers clutched at Father Michael's robes. ‘You must see her!'

Yet, when the Rector looked back I saw that I was gone for him now too. No longer there.

‘Maybe,' Father Michael said softly, ‘she was your guardian angel.'

He helped Mr Hyslop to his feet. ‘No harm's been done here. I'll help you. You need to get away from this
school for a while. We'll help Ben too.'

I stood unseen, watching them. Father Michael picked up the knife, slipped it into his pocket. Was that what had happened before? It seemed clear to me now. The Rector had killed Ben, hidden his body. The Rector was strong enough to do that. He'd been a mountain climber, an athlete. And when Father Michael arrived, the Rector had confessed to him, I bet he had. Mr Hyslop had confessed his crime, and so Father Michael had no choice but never to tell, to carry that confession to his own grave. And perhaps on that night long ago, he had also picked up the bloodstained knife, putting his own fingerprints all over it.

But what had happened here now? Had I really changed anything?

I watched as the Rector and Father Michael seemed to dissolve like smoke into the shadows of the chapel.

I was alone.

I was terrified to leave the chapel. Afraid of what I'd find out there. I looked up through the windows. The clouds seemed to be standing still, as if time itself had stopped. And then the sky changed, the moon disappeared, it grew light again, then dark. The clouds began to spin across the sky. The world was spinning out of control. It was as if I was on a rollercoaster. I stumbled against one of the pews, clutched at it to steady myself, and still the world spun. Faster and faster, I dared not look. I tried to move my hands to cover my eyes. I ordered them to move but they would not obey me. I was sure any second the sky would fall, the moon, the sun would come crashing down on me.

At last my hands moved. I folded my arms across my eyes and with nothing to hold on to I fell back against a pew and cracked my head. Did I black out? For a second
I thought I had, and then I heard the chapel door bang open. I screamed. I wasn't alone any more.

‘Tyler, what on earth are you doing in here?'

It was Jazz. Could it really be Jazz? I peered over my elbow. ‘Is that you?'

She stepped towards me nonchalantly. It was Jazz. Flesh and blood and pierced eyebrow and all.

‘Are you OK?' She rubbed at my head. ‘Did you trip up?'

I jumped to my feet. ‘Oh, Jazz, something terrible happened in here.'

‘Something's happened all right. We are going to get into so much bother. We're late for the next lesson.'

And Aisha was there too, holding open the door. She was trying hard not to smile. ‘We've been hunting for you. What are you doing in here?'

I was dying to tell someone, to tell
them
. ‘I stopped the murder. I don't know what it means, but I stopped the murder. I saw it all happening again in here, just moments ago.' Or … had it been thirty years ago? I was so confused.

Jazz glanced back at Aisha, then at me. What she said next stunned me.

‘What murder?' she asked me.

I was puzzled. ‘You know what murder. Ben Kincaid's murder. And it wasn't Father Michael who did it at all. It was the Rector, Mr Hyslop.'

Jazz stopped in her tracks. Pulled at me. ‘What are you talking about, Tyler? Ben Kincaid got murdered? Am I missing something here?'

Aisha pulled us on. ‘It's one of Tyler's stories. Tell us on our way to class.'

‘It's not one of my stories.' I had to make them understand. ‘It really happened. What are you two talking about?'

‘If you're writing a murder story,' Aisha said. ‘You'll have to have a more convincing killer than Father Michael. Everybody loves him. He had a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, retirement party last year, didn't he, Jazz?'

Jazz nodded. Still eager for us to move on. We were running now, turning corners, hurrying down corridors.

‘Father Michael died in prison.'

Aisha laughed. ‘So that's the story. Well, if you're going to set a murder story in this school, you'd better change the names.'

Jazz laughed. ‘Yeah, ‘cause Mr Kincaid might be a bit
annoyed if you kill him off. He's getting married next year.'

My head was still spinning. ‘Mr Kincaid.' I stopped dead.

‘The teacher. Honestly, Tyler. Sometimes I think you've got a head full of cotton wool. Especially when you're writing a story.'

‘And talking of Mr Kincaid, here he comes,' Aisha said. ‘And he's going to kill us for not being in class. And there's a murder for you!'

I looked down the corridor, and there he was, striding towards me. I still recognised the boy in him, though he was a man now. The same mane of dark hair, but tinged with grey, the same dark eyes. Mr O'Hara was by his side; they were laughing. Still friends.

Ben Kincaid had lost that haunted look I had seen in him so often. His eyes were bright. He hadn't seen me yet.

It was Mr O'Hara who noticed us first. ‘Right, you girls. I might have known it would be you three! What are you doing wandering about the corridors? Get to class. Right now!'

Aisha hurried on to the class. But Jazz pulled me towards her. ‘It was Tyler, sir. She didn't feel well. Look,
she's still dead pale.'

Mr O'Hara smiled. ‘You three have always got an excuse.'

But I was sure I
was
pale as death. I couldn't take my eyes from Ben Kincaid, now a man. Only moments ago I had seen him as a terrified boy. He stopped in front of me. ‘Are you feeling OK now, Tyler?'

Hearing his voice again, I felt like fainting, black spots dancing in front of my eyes. So close, so real. A grown man … when only minutes ago … I stumbled against him, and the books he was carrying tumbled to the ground.

‘You look as though you've seen a ghost,' he said.

I have
, I wanted to tell him,
and the ghost was you
. Or was it me? Was I the ghost?

But I didn't need to tell him, because I was sure I saw in his eyes that he knew, knew everything. Remembered me.

I bent to help him pick up the books. Handed them to him. ‘Thank you, Tyler,' he said. His voice so soft the others couldn't hear him. Only me. ‘Thank you.'

Then he moved off with Mr O'Hara. I watched him. A man with a future and a past … Was that all thanks to me?

Jazz grabbed me again. ‘Come on, you! I have something fantastic to tell you.'

If only she knew what I could tell her. ‘What?' I asked.

‘I know who it is Aisha fancies.'

‘I thought we said it was Mac?'

Jazz looked at me as if I was mad. ‘Mac … ? We would have to prize his eyes away from you first.'

Now I was completely mixed up. Mac? Liked me?

‘It's Callum,' she said.

‘Callum … ?' Why hadn't we even considered Callum? Yet, so often when Aisha couldn't come somewhere, neither could Callum! ‘Of course,' I said. ‘The night of the seance … neither of them could make it.'

Jazz let out a big sigh. ‘Seance? What seance?'

The seance had never happened. Had never needed to happen. What else had changed?

We ran to our class, and as I ran I knew I was relieved it was Callum Aisha liked, because I had never wanted it to be Mac. We walked into the classroom and Mac looked up then, and he didn't glare at me, or look annoyed at me. Instead, he smiled with his warm … oh so warm brown eyes, and he winked.

And I laughed. I'd never felt so happy in my life,
because in that moment I realised I had changed everything. I wasn't on my last warning at the school. The Procurator Fiscal wasn't going to charge me with wasting police time. I hadn't done any of the crazy things that had made Mac hate me. I had never seen the statues move. Never had the lake dragged. Because, thanks to me, Ben Kincaid hadn't died …

And Mac liked me.

I learned more over the next few days. Got used to the fact I had changed everything. Ben Kincaid had indeed been a wild child, always in trouble, the bane of his poor, harassed mother. A boy everyone agreed was heading for a life in prison. Even the kindly but firm Father Michael's patience was stretched by his behaviour. He was the one everyone expected to snap. Yet, it was Mr Hyslop who had the nervous breakdown. A strong, athletic young man, he had always seemed able to handle Ben Kincaid's bad behaviour. But he had only been holding in a terrible anger, an anger that had burst to the surface the night Ben Kincaid broke into the school. No one actually knew what had happened that night. Mr Hyslop had been admitted to hospital, and a shaking Ben Kincaid had been questioned by the police but never charged. Father Michael had taken him in hand
after that. It seemed that had been the making of Ben Kincaid. He had changed. If not into an ideal pupil, that was too much to hope for, at least into your typical teenage boy. Made up with his friend Gerry O'Hara, and been involved in all the high spirits and stupid pranks that most teenage boys get up to, but never after that did he cause any real trouble.

And so Father Michael had a long and happy career at St Anthony's College … and Ben's mother didn't die of a broken heart … and I didn't have the lake dragged, because I had never seen any ghosts or any moving statues.

And Debbie Lawson came home. She had seen her parents on television, heard about the police digging up waste ground, dragging rivers looking for her body, and her guilt had brought her home.

I did try to tell Jazz and Aisha all that had happened, and Jazz, crazy Jazz, had an explanation.

‘Remember the day you arrived at the school, you took a tumble outside the Rector's office?'

And of course I remembered.

‘You were unconscious. You were knocked out. You dreamed it all. You saw the statues in the school, the photos on the wall, and your imagination did the rest.
It's a great story … but, it isn't real, Tyler.'

And I wondered … was she right? Did I dream the whole thing? Or … is there another explanation?

My grandmother had the gift. Have I some kind of gift too?

And, what if it was true? And I really did change the past? It was such a strange experience. I'll never be able to explain it or understand why it happened.

But you know, all of it has made me think.

I changed the future by changing the past. And I began to remember …

‘I saw my teacher in the queue at the supermarket last Christmas …' I can picture her now. Looking over everyone's heads as if she wanted me to see her, her eyes searching just for me.

But she was dead. She'd died in a tragic accident. An accident that should never have happened.

That should never have happened.

What if … What if I could change that too? What if that was what I was meant to do? What if that was why she'd come to me in the first place?

Do you think I'm silly thinking like this?

Or, do you think … I should try changing things again?

Loved
Out of The Depths
?

Then turn the page to find out about Cathy MacPhail and her inspiration for this gripping story

I love where ideas come from – it's magic! I've taken ideas for books from almost everywhere, even from a sign on a wall, but this is the first time I've written a book based on just the first line.