Resurrectionists (51 page)

“Go on.”

“The last time was with a girl named Vanessa.”

A fitting name for a superior being, Maisie thought. She had been stuck with a grandma’s name, and other girls went around with names like Vanessa. She wondered if this was the girlfriend with the taste for Baudelaire. French poetry seemed like the kind of thing a girl named Vanessa would be interested in.

“It didn’t work out?”

“No. She wanted to get married and I didn’t, so she ditched me for some guy that did. I think they’re still very happy together. I probably made a mistake.”

“Do you still miss her?” A tug in her heart. Not sympathy, just plain jealousy.

“Not really. Sometimes.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. She wasn’t like me, really. She wanted different things, and perhaps if we’d stayed together we would have been miserable.” He turned to look at her. “Why do you ask?”

“You asked about Adrian. I suppose I was curious.”

His eyebrows drew almost imperceptibly closer, as though he was thinking, keeping her in his gaze.

“Maisie . . .” he started.

“Yes?” For some reason her heart sped a little. He seemed so intense.

Then the intensity was gone. He shook his head.

“No. It’s nothing.”

“Go on, what were you going to say?” She now knew the meaning of the phrase, dying to know.

“Nothing, honestly. Just me being stupid. Come on, let’s head home.”

He helped her up and they began the hike back to Solgreve. What had he been about to say? Something inconsequential? It drove her mad . . .

The air outside was positively crackling with cold by now, and tiny snowflakes started spinning out of the sky as they were walking up the front path of the house.

“Snow!” Maisie cried. “I’m still so excited by it.”

“Well, if we get a good layer, we’ll make a snowman tomorrow.”

She unlocked the house. It smelled warm and inviting. “That sounds like fun.”

He closed the door behind them and took off his coat. “If your phone bill can stand it, Maisie, can I make a few calls and see if I can track my mother down? I think we need her help. She might know if Sybill had ever found more than three pieces of the diary. She might know loads of helpful stuff.”

“Sure,” she said, waving him in the direction of the phone. “I’ll start dinner.”

She busied herself in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and trying to keep an ear on what Sacha was doing. She could hear his voice, but not really what he was saying. In a few minutes he had joined her.

“I found her. She’s on her way up.”

“Up to Whitby?” Maisie asked, filling a pan with water and putting it on the stove.

“She’ll probably come here. Is that okay?”

“Of course? They were really close, weren’t they?

Sybill and your mother?”

“Yes. Ma first met Sybill when she was only a teenager. They told fortunes together in Scarborough for a few years before Ma went wandering again and Sybill came up here. They even shared a flat while I was away at school.”

“I’m dying to meet her. I hope she won’t mind if I ask a million questions. When will she be here?”

“Hopefully by the weekend. I’ll come back here after work on Friday to wait for her.”

“Where will you both sleep?”

“Hey, we’re gypsies,” he joked, “we can sleep anywhere.”

The snow falling on the roof was not audible while Maisie was awake. But as soon as she slept, she could easily hear its soft whisper in the dark. She listened to it for a while, enjoying a feeling of peace, then realised she was dreaming. She was outside on the street, looking down at Sacha’s van and the cottage in darkness. The fire glowed somewhere deep inside the house.

“Why am I out here?”

She turned and looked around her. The snow fell in big flakes, the wind blowing it diagonally against her. Each delicate white spur seemed to bite into her hands and face with cold. Whatever she had to do in this dream, she wanted to get it over with quickly, before she froze. She moved along the street, past Elsa Smith’s house – all the lights were out there – and past the cemetery on the left. She stopped in front of the abbey. The snow appeared to glitter as it descended on the ruins. The wind and weather of centuries had worn the stone into gargoyles. Maisie’s eye followed the curves of the remaining arches and tried to imagine what the building had looked like when whole.

Almost as soon as she formed the question in her mind, her dream shifted and changed. In crisp daylight, the sun shone on the buttresses and darkly gleaming stone of a thirteenth-century cathedral. She stood at the huge, arched doors. One of them creaked open and she peered inside, caught a glimpse of a large figure dressed in cardinal’s robes, then found herself back outside the ruin of the abbey. Night-time. Wondering what she was supposed to do here.

“I want to go home.” Her voice echoed dully around her skull. It was no use. She was stuck in this dream. She advanced to the corner of the abbey, remembering Georgette’s diary, and moved like vapour through an iron door in the spire. Below her, a trapdoor in the ground.

All right, I’ll go down there.
Soon she was descending dark stairs, moving along the tunnel and up to the two sealed doors. Sealed doors could not stop her; she breezed through the one on the right easily and found herself in a dark chamber. No, not dark. Here at the back of the room, a wall of glass bricks gleamed dimly phosphorescent.

Around her, rather than an empty room, was a fully stocked scientist’s studio. But not a modern scientist –

in fact, the room was exactly as Georgette had described it, strange glass jars and old books and halffinished experiments cluttering the benches. As though it had not been disturbed in all these years. She approached the phosphorescent wall and looked at it closely. Something about the sick, pale glow caused a nauseous dread to churn in her stomach.

“I want to go home. I want to go back to bed.”

Here she awoke. Still dark outside. She kicked off her covers and went to the window, watched the snow fall. She couldn’t see the abbey from here, but she could imagine its ghostly lines and arches. Had she really gone below ground? Or had she just dreamed what Georgette had described? She supposed it was possible that Flood’s things might still be down there. If nobody knew about them, nobody would ever have cleared them out.

She anxiously scanned the front garden. She had woken up panicky, and that made her concerned that the Wraiths were out there somewhere. She opened the bedroom door and tiptoed into the hallway. Sacha, like Cathy, had chosen to drag the mattress out by the fire to sleep. Maisie saw Tabby curled up behind Sacha’s knees, sleeping peacefully. She went to the laundry window and checked the back garden. Nothing. Thank god.

As she was moving quietly back up the hall, Sacha called out sleepily, “Maisie? Everything okay?”

“Yes,” she said, standing in the doorway to the lounge room, “I had a weird dream is all.”

He sat up, pulling Tabby into his lap. His skin was golden in the firelight, his drowsy face miraculously unpuffy. “What about?”

“I dreamed I went below the abbey and Flood’s room was still there, just the way Georgette described it.”

He yawned. “Maybe it is.”

“Well, we can’t know for sure unless we go down there, and I think that would be even less popular than looking in the cemetery, so don’t suggest it.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest it.”

Maisie watched Tabby sleeping contentedly in his arms. “She never sleeps on me,” she said.

“You might move around too much.”

“I’m going back to bed.” She didn’t want to go back to bed. She wanted to curl up there next to Sacha, near the fireplace.

“Goodnight,” he said, wriggling back under the covers again. “Snowman tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

The air-conditioning in the supermarket was a welcome relief from the sweltering heat outside. Adrian took a basket from near the entrance and headed in. It was his first day back in Brisbane and his fridge was almost empty. Sappy piped music accompanied him as he headed for the frozen food section. He was leaning into one of the freezers, grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables when he heard someone say his name.

“Adrian?”

He stood up and looked around. Sarah Ellis, Cathy’s sister, stood there, leaning on an overloaded shopping trolley.

“Sarah, hi!” he said, placing his basket on the ground. “How have you been?”

“Good. And you?”

“Not too bad.”

“I was sorry to hear about you and Maisie.”

Adrian tipped his head to one side. “Me and Maisie? What about us?”

“You know, how she’s run off with that other guy.”

“Maisie hasn’t run off with another guy.”

“Oh,” said Sarah, clearly embarrassed. She put her head down so her hair covered her face. “I’m sorry. I must have –”

“Has Cathy said something?”

“No, no.”

Adrian found himself suddenly awash with

suspicion. He wanted to clutch her sleeve, ask her desperately, What have you heard? Instead he said, feigning a normal tone, “Did Cathy say something about the gardener?”

“Um . . . yeah. The gypsy guy.”

Gypsy? “Sacha?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s his name. I thought Cathy said that Maisie had . . . you know, run off with him or something. But I must be mistaken.”

“You are. You are mistaken. You are very mistaken.”

“Sorry.” She laughed self-consciously. “God, what an idiot. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” He picked up his basket and nodded goodbye. “Nice to see you.” It hadn’t been, not at all.

“Yeah, see you round.”

He was about ten metres away when she came

running up. “Adrian, I’ve got to tell you. You deserve to know.”

He turned around, annoyed but curious. “Know what?”

“Cathy told me that Maisie is totally in love with this Sacha guy and that she talks about you like she’s bored with you.” She put her hands up, palms first.

“There, now I’ve told you. Do what you want with that information.”

“It’s not true, Sarah.”

“Whatever. I just wanted to tell you what Cathy told me.” She was already backing away, rejoining her shopping trolley halfway up the aisle. “But you might want to ask yourself why Maisie didn’t come home early like she said she would.”

“She had a fight with her mother. And she hasn’t finished cleaning out her grandmother’s place.”

“Okay, then there’s nothing to worry about.” She turned with her trolley, didn’t look back. He stood watching her a few beats, then left his half-full basket in the aisle and headed for the car park. It was six in the morning over there, not too early to call. And even if it was too early, he didn’t care.

Dawn was still a half hour from the Reverend’s bedroom when he heard the faint tapping on his window. He sat up blearily, blinking against wakefulness. Had somebody knocked?

Again the tapping at the glass. He reluctantly climbed out of bed and reached for his robe. Padded on cold feet to the window, his heart speeding a little. He cautiously drew the curtain a crack and peeped out.

As he had expected, one of the Wraiths stood in the shadows outside. He opened the curtains fully and knocked on the window so the creature would know he was there. It lifted an arm, curled a bony finger in a beckoning gesture, then glided away in the last of the darkness, leaving the Reverend quaking in his bare feet on the thin carpet.

He had been summoned. He was hardly ever

summoned. His meetings with the doctor were usually scheduled. Sometimes the Reverend went below ground to ask favours. But being summoned was very, very rare.

The Reverend hurriedly dressed himself, washed his face and put his teeth in. He despised those dark creatures, whatever they were. The doctor had told him once, about how many centuries they had been his faithful servants, but he hadn’t really listened. It was best not to listen too carefully when the doctor began to tell stories. One might hear something one couldn’t live with. And for occasions when he did hear too much, a faulty memory came in handy.

He wrapped himself up tightly in overcoat and scarf, jammed a woollen hat over his head. He knew he looked ridiculous in it, but his scalp got so cold if he didn’t wear it and besides, he was well past needing to care about his appearance. With trembling hands, he let himself out of the house and headed for the abbey.

Once down the stairs and along the dark hallway, he could see the glow of a light under Dr Flood’s door. He knocked and was answered almost immediately.

“Reverend,” Flood said, guiding him inside. “You see, I have lit the lantern in your honour.”

The Reverend often complained – quietly, of course

– about how difficult it was to see anything in the chamber. Flood worked solely by the light of the phosphorescent wall, a creature who had become adapted to the dark.

“Thank you,” the Reverend murmured. “Why do you need me?”

“I do not
need
you,” Flood replied, settling himself in his chair. “I am merely curious.”

“About what?”

“Somebody has been in my chamber.”

“When?”

“Early this morning – a few hours ago. I was in the other chamber working on an experiment, and when I returned I could sense that I had been visited.”

“That’s not possible. I have the only key and I was fast asleep.”

Flood bowed his head a little way, giving the Reverend a chance to examine him in the dim light. In the nearly seven decades the Reverend had known Flood, the doctor’s appearance had not changed. As though his body had aged as much as a body could without the flesh actually falling from the bones. His scalp was crisscrossed with deep grooves, his face a sea of lines and sagging flesh. But when Flood looked up again, his eyes were as alert and shrewd as a teenager’s. “And yet, someone has been here.”

“It’s simply not possible.” The Reverend’s mind was racing. Could Tony have made another set of keys on the sly? Could somebody have broken in?

More importantly, was
he
going to be blamed for it?

“Perhaps someone in spirit, and not in body,”

Flood said cryptically. Then, “Tell me about the girl.”