The Grey Girl (11 page)

But there was nothing. I looked around me in desperation as I walked and saw nothing but the dark night and the lonely grounds of Dudley Hall. There was no trace of the girl and no trace of the boat she had been fleeing in. I looked around desperately, wishing her to appear. I wanted to shout out for her, I wanted to summon her back from whatever dark realm she was hiding in.

My body began to shake with the cold night air and the feeling of defeat that crashed down upon my shoulders like a boulder. Suddenly all I wanted was to lie down and sob. I felt so ready to face her, I didn't think I'd ever feel that brave again. I didn't have the strength inside me. The next time she appeared I would want to run. I'd hide in shadows, withdraw from the world. I'd lose myself.

Nell was right. The ghosts you chase you never catch.

Shaken, I turned and made my way back into the house. I locked the door behind me and tried not to cry as I walked back towards the staircase on numb feet.

The first footprint was on the bottom step.

Moonlight flooding through the glass roof and bounced off the wet little puddle. The next footprint was on the step above, and then one above that.

Shaking, I followed the footprints as they led me up the stairs. They wound around the first-floor landing and up the second flight of stairs. My throat tightened painfully as I followed them along the second-floor corridor. The footprints came to a stop outside my room. Slowly, every fibre of my body shaking with fear, I raised my hands and pushed my bedroom door open.

I knew what I'd find inside my room. This was how the dead worked. How they communicated. They came for you in ways you couldn't predict or understand. I didn't know what she wanted, but I knew one thing for certain. She was coming for me.

My teeth chattered violently, and my legs vibrated beneath me as I stood in the doorway.

The small, wet footprints trailed all the way to my bed.

Quivering and cold, I followed the footprints into the bedroom and up to my bed. There was a rectangle of old brown leather propped up neatly on my pillow. It was a book.

I spent that night on my bathroom floor. I left the wet footprints – I couldn't bring myself to mop them up. And I left the book. I didn't even get close enough to touch it. I didn't want to know what was printed on its pages. I didn't want to think about what it might mean and who might have put it there and why. There may have been a fleeting moment the night before when I'd felt brave, when I felt that I could face her. But that had disappeared as soon as I realised I could never have the upper hand. She controlled this, whatever
this
was, not me. I hated myself for being so weak, for being so terrified. If Frankie had been there she would have picked up the book and read it cover to cover, she would have done anything to make this stop. And what had I done? I'd cowered away in the bathroom behind a locked door. I may as well have been a child hiding under the bed from nightmares. Except I couldn't even bring myself to go anywhere near my bed. I had edged around the room and locked myself in the bathroom like I was trying to avoid a wild animal.

I curled up in a corner of the bathroom on the cold tiles and hugged myself for comfort. I stared into space. My mind yo-yoed from being as blank as an empty page to as busy as a speeding highway. There were moments when I tried to convince myself that this wasn't happening. I was imagining the whole thing. But in my heart I knew the truth. Dudley Hall was haunted by the ghost of a small girl, ‘the grey girl', as Fiona had called her.

It was only when bright daylight streamed in through the bathroom window that I realised the whole night had passed and I hadn't moved from my spot on the cold tiled floor. The only time I'd moved throughout the night was to scratch at my hands. They were red-raw from where I had picked and clawed at them anxiously as I sat catatonic on the bathroom floor. Summoning all the strength I had inside me, I pulled myself to my feet and took my aching body over to the sink. I gently scrubbed the blood from my hands and then patted them dry with a towel. I found some lotion to rub into the wounds, which only made them sting worse than they did already.

Slowly, exhaustion consuming every cell in my body, I made my way towards the bathroom door and unlocked it. For a brief moment I wished that I was mad. I wished that I'd open the bathroom door and find an empty room with no sign that someone other than me had been there the night before. I wished it was all in my head, that the book and the footprints had never been there at all.

I opened the bathroom door with a violent jolt of my hand. I stood in the open doorway and studied my bedroom. The footprints had vanished – evaporated in the morning sun. But there on my pillow, just as it had been last night, was the old book
.

In a series of swift movements I crossed the room, picked up the book and threw it at the far wall. Its pages splayed wide as it fell to the floor with a gentle thud. I stared at the crumpled heap for a moment before running from the room.

I bolted along the landing, down the stairs, through the great hall and along the back corridor.

No one was sitting in the kitchen as I marched through it. From the pale, fresh light outside I knew it was early, far too early for anyone to be up and eating breakfast. I had no idea what I aimed to achieve by running through the kitchen back door, into the garden and heading for the river. I knew there was nothing to see there. There had been nothing to see the night before when I ran down to search for her. She was gone with the passing night, evaporated like the footprints on my bedroom floor.

My bare feet took me along the river bank towards the boathouse. I pushed open the rusty hinges and embraced the smell of rotting wood and stale river water that wafted up my nose as I entered.

In the old boathouse lay the remains of the ancient boat I'd sat and written beside a dozen times. The shape of the hull was exactly the same as the boat I'd seen the girl with on the river. Staring down at the rotting wood, I knew it was the same boat I'd seen the girl desperately clamber onto in the dead of night, the boat that was to be her escape. This was the relic of a story that I so desperately wanted to know.

The Lady of Shalott
.

And then I remembered.

The line I'd seen scratched into the mirror in the attic:
I am half sick of shadows.
The line had been taken from the poem of the same name. My eyes widened and I backed out of the boathouse and onto the muddy ground at the sickening reminder of what was haunting Dudley Hall. I turned around and started to run. I needed to get away.

My legs took me back through the garden, inside the house and up to my room again.

The book I'd thrown from my bed minutes before sat crumpled on the floor where I had left it. The golden embossed lettering on the book's cover glistened at me in the morning light.

The Complete Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

My heart jolted inside me. I knew what I'd find within the pages of the book before I opened it. Whoever – whatever – had put the book on my bed wanted me to look inside. There was one poem they wanted me to read.

I bent down and picked up the ancient book with quivering fingers. The book's well-worn spine fell open on the poem I knew I was meant to read:
The Lady of Shalott.

Still shaking, I perched on the edge of my bed and began to read: ‘
On either side the river lie, Long fields of barley and of rye …'
I read the poem until the end, and then went back to the beginning and read again. The poem told the tale of a beautiful maiden who was cursed to live her life in a tower. The curse forbade her to look out the window, instead she could only look at reflections of the world outside in a mirror. I read and re-read the poem countless times, never moving from the bed. My fingers flicked the thin and delicate pages back and forth with care as I read the lines again and again.

As my eyes moved over the words of the poem I searched them desperately for meaning. There must be something hidden in between those lyrical lines that would provide the clue I needed. The clue that would lead me to discover why the grey girl wouldn't rest, and how I might help her to move on. When staring at the book felt fruitless, I moved over to my desk, booted up my laptop and searched the internet for answers. I typed all manner of words into the search engine:
Lady of Shalott – meaning. Who was the Lady of Shalott? Dudley Hall – Ghost. Lady of Shalott – Ghost.
I read each new page as it popped up with fascination. As the minutes slipped into hours I felt myself being dragged deeper and deeper into my new obsession. I hadn't eaten, I hadn't washed, I hadn't slept. All I could think about was the link between the poem and the house, and what it had to do with the girl who must have died there. My mind drew blanks at every new internet page that popped up. I knew that the grey girl had scratched words from the poem into the mirror upstairs, I knew an ancient boat at Dudley Hall was named after the poem, but beyond that I couldn't see a link.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

‘The curse is come upon me,' cried

As I read through the poem I was vaguely aware of the doorbell chiming. It chimed and chimed until I heard my aunt run through the house to answer it.

The sound of muffled voices grew louder as I read the poem for the umpteenth time. The voices became even louder. My aunt was leading whoever it was up the stairs. She was taking them through the house, towards my room.

‘She's just in here,' I heard my aunt say. ‘Suzy!'

The door pushed open and I turned around to see Frankie standing in my doorway.

My best friend stood in my bedroom doorway looking like a lost orphan. Her hair had grown longer since I last saw her and it hung loose around her shoulders, framing her delicate face. She wore black trousers and a tight black vest top. Frankie always wore black, and I always liked the way it made her look like the tortured artist she was.

‘What are you doing here?' I blurted out.

‘Suzy!' Aunt Meredith gasped. She was standing behind Frankie in the hallway, her flannel dressing gown tied at the waist and her hair a mess. ‘That's no way to speak to your friend.'

‘Does your mum know you're here?' I asked Frankie. ‘Does Seb know?'

She nodded her head slightly. Frankie has always been a bad liar, it's one of the reasons I always liked her. I can always rely on her to tell the truth. I lifted my eyebrow sceptically. ‘Really?'

Frankie jerked her head, no.

‘Sweetheart.' My aunt put her hand on Frankie's shoulder and Frankie turned around to look up at her, her large brown eyes pleading with a woman she didn't know. ‘You need to tell your mum where you are. I'll get the phone, you need to call her.'

Aunt Meredith left us and hurried away to retrieve the phone.

‘I tried to call you,' Frankie said timidly, coming further into my room. ‘And you never replied to any of my emails or Facebook messages.'

‘I …' I didn't want to apologise. I still didn't think I'd done anything wrong. ‘I just needed space, Frankie.'

‘And I just needed to get away from home,' she said. She walked up to my bed and paused by my bedside table. Her eyes went straight to the Victorian shadow puppet resting on the nightstand. She picked it up and twiddled it between her fingers thoughtfully. Trust Frankie to gravitate towards the one thing in the room I didn't want to speak about. She was always way too perceptive for her own good. ‘Please, Suzy.' She turned to look at me, her eyes wide and afraid. I hated seeing Frankie look that way. She was meant to be the strong one. ‘I really need a friend right now.'

‘Frankie!' my aunt called from downstairs.

‘You need to call your mum,' I said, standing up and walking towards Frankie. ‘Do that and then we'll talk, I promise.' Frankie nodded in resignation.

Before I led Frankie out of my room I quickly grabbed my notebook and the pages I'd written
The Ghost of Dudley Hall
on. With my notebook in hand I led Frankie down the stairs and into the kitchen. Aunt Meredith was standing by the oven with the telephone in her hand.

‘How did she know my mum's number?' Frankie whispered to me.

‘You gave it to her, remember? When you wanted me to call you back.'

Aunt Meredith passed Frankie the phone and I heard Frankie's mum start to shout down the other end of the line. ‘Suzy, come with me.' Aunt Meredith pulled me into the back garden. She closed the kitchen door so that Frankie could have some privacy, and I found myself standing outside for the second time that morning. ‘Leave her to speak to her mum for a moment. I've told her Frankie can stay the night. She's going to pick her up tomorrow.' Aunt Meredith watched as I took a long deep breath and tried to contain my frustration. ‘It'll be good for you to have a friend stay for the evening. Here.' She opened up her purse, which I hadn't realised she'd been holding, and handed me a wodge of notes. ‘For you. Think of it as payment for all the brilliant murder victims you've played. Go into the village today with Frankie and have some fun.'

‘I'm not sure they take twenties at the duck pond,' I said dryly. I suddenly felt ashamed for being ungrateful, so as I took the money from my aunt I tried to give her an appreciative smile and say gratefully, ‘Thank you. Aunt Meredith,' I added tentatively, ‘you said if I worked on
The Ghost of Dudley Hall
then you'd look at it.' She gave me a warm smile and nodded. I pressed my notebook into her hands, feeling suddenly nervous at the thought of her reading my story. ‘Here it is. I've written up the story as though it was a murder mystery, and written descriptions of all the main characters. Maybe you could use it at some point?'

‘I'll use it this weekend,' she said, without even glancing at the pages. ‘It'll be perfect. I'll give the party your characters when they arrive and we'll use the story you've written. I'll take a look at it today and type it up so we can use it this weekend.'

‘I'm going to stay here tonight,' came Frankie's voice from the kitchen door. ‘Mum's picking me up tomorrow.' Aunt Meredith smiled at me and walked back into the house,
The Ghost of Dudley Hall
in her hands.

‘My aunt's going to use a story I wrote for the murder mystery party this weekend,' I told Frankie. She smiled at me, and I noticed that her eyes were full of tears. I felt horrible for not noticing before – Frankie must have thought I only ever cared about myself. ‘Is everything okay?' I added.

She shook her head. ‘No, not really. Mum's so mad at me for running away. But I couldn't stay there a minute longer. I had to see you.'

I nodded. ‘Come on, I need to get dressed then we can walk into the village. I'll buy you lunch.' I flashed the money my aunt had just given me at her and winked playfully.

‘I've missed you.' She lunged at me and threw her skinny arms around my neck. Before I could stop myself I hugged her back, squeezing her bony ribs and burying my face into her hair. In that moment I never wanted to let her go. Every tiny emotion I'd bottled up inside me threatened to crash out into the world like a tidal wave, destroying everything in its path.

‘I've missed you too,' I whispered back. She pulled away from me and smiled brilliantly. She gently brushed away the tears rolling down my face. ‘How did you even get here?' I asked, feeling stupid that I was crying.

‘Got the train from London and then walked from the nearest station. It took me nearly two hours with nothing but Google maps on my iPhone to find my way. And the reception is terrible around here. But then I guess you wouldn't know that, seeing as you don't have a phone …'

I smiled bashfully. Now that Frankie was standing in front of me, I felt stupid for not wanting to speak to her for so long. She was the best friend I'd ever had, the only person who wanted to see the world in the same way I did. And she was the one I'd shared that terrible time with at school, the only one who could possibly understand. ‘Come on, let's go …'

I quickly showered and threw on some clothes. I had an old shirt of my dad's that I'd made into a dress a couple of years ago. It still fitted me, and I teamed it with my DM boots and a quick fluff of my hair and a lick of eyeliner. Frankie smiled in approval as I pulled myself together and grabbed her hand to lead her downstairs and out of the house. We followed the gravel path away from the house and into the small village of Dudley-on-Water. We caught up as we walked. She didn't ask me any questions about Warren House, thank God. I skipped over the whole period I spent there and instead told her about the few weeks I'd spent so far at Dudley Hall. I told her about my new-found passion for writing and how I dressed up and played the murder victims at my aunt's parties. Frankie listened to every word I said as if it were the most interesting thing she'd ever heard. I secretly adored the way that Frankie always seemed so fascinated by me.

After I'd finished speaking Frankie told me about her mum's marriage breaking down after she left school. ‘Now Mum's got a new boyfriend,' she explained. The new boyfriend was Scottish and her mum wanted to move Frankie to Edinburgh. ‘I can't bear the thought of moving again. I've begged her to send me back to boarding school. Mum said she'd think about it,' she said hopefully.

‘Sebastian rang me,' I admitted, as we walked into the village. I steered Frankie towards a small tea shop. The bell chimed as we entered. I ordered us two cream teas and found a seat in the corner where we could talk without being listened to. ‘He's worried about you,' I said, as we sat down.

Frankie stared out of the window for a long moment. She smiled to herself as if remembering something. ‘Do you remember that time at school when you tried to convince me to run away with you?' I nodded. ‘You said we could go to London and find our fortunes. Start new lives where no one would know who we'd been before. Part of me wishes I'd just said yes. I wish we'd run away together. I'd run away now if I could. Properly, not just to your aunt's house. I asked Seb to run away with me.'

I stared at Frankie blankly. Something was definitely wrong with her. Of course I remembered asking her to run away with me. I was so desperate and unhinged at the time I would have done anything to get away from that school. But Frankie persuaded me to stay. She was always the sensible one, the one who thought about tomorrow and not just today. ‘Why would you want to run away?'

She shrugged. I noticed her eyes well up with tears and she looked away, embarrassed, as the waitress came and put our tea down in front of us. ‘I don't know what I want, Suzy. I just know I want to stop feeling like this.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like it's not over. Like any minute now I'm going to be dragged back into this dark, dark place where the ghosts of the dead swirl around me like smoke and choke me. And no one, no one believes me. Not even Seb. He doesn't believe what happened to us, that we saw … ghosts … that they led us to the truth. He thinks I'm crazy. And I don't want to lose him. But I'm worried I'm going to if I don't just accept that maybe he's right. That's why I've wanted to speak to you so badly. Because you saw it too. You know ghosts are real, that they come back and haunt you.'

‘No, they're not,' I said, my voice breaking as I spoke. ‘They're not real.'

‘I don't believe you,' she said with conviction. ‘I can see it in your eyes, you're lying to me. You know that what happened to us was real. No amount of counselling or drugs or brainwashing can take it away. You can try to forget it, Suzy, but you can't deny it ever happened.'

‘It doesn't matter what happened, Frankie,' I said, almost pleadingly. ‘We just need to let it fall behind into our past and try to move on.'

‘You haven't moved on,' she said. ‘I can see it in your eyes. You carry it around with you like a cross. Don't do that to yourself, Suzy. You're not mad. I'm not mad. Ghosts are real. They can't be ignored.'

I moved forward to the edge of my seat and looked my best friend deep in the eyes. I wanted to trust her, more than anything. She and I had lived through unimaginable pain together. We had weathered the storm once before, we were survivors. If anyone would listen to me and really understand then it was her. All this time I'd been avoiding Frankie when she was the only one I could really talk to.

Neither of us even looked at the waitress as she came and put our scones and cream on the table. We studied each other carefully, and I was sure that Frankie knew without me saying anything that I had some dark secret to tell her. I felt the words swell up inside me, ready to burst out into the world. The threat of the release felt so good. I wanted to say them. I wanted her to know. Frankie would believe me. She would believe me and I wouldn't be alone.

‘Suzy,' she whispered, leaning towards me. ‘Tell me what you're thinking.'

‘It's happening again.'