The Splendour Falls (37 page)

There was a dancer with the touring company who refused to move into a new dressing room until he'd cleansed it by burning sage leaves. On the sly, of course, because of the fire hazard.

The leaves and twigs in the bundle I'd found in the summerhouse were bound tightly, and so dry that they crumbled off in my hand. Rubbing the flakes in my palm, I thought I smelled chicory, and there was something that looked like a kernel of wheat.

What the hell were they doing in the summerhouse? And what, if anything, did they have to do with the echoes of the past manifesting at Bluestone Hill?

I worked in the garden until it was too late for anyone to pester me about going to the graduation party. By then I was exhausted, and all I wanted was to get clean. The bathroom, just down the hall from me, was a shabby Victorian palace. The wallpaper was a faded rose, and the slipper chair in the corner, where Gigi liked to curl up while I bathed, was covered in worn gold jacquard. But the godsend after spending all day weeding was the enormous antique claw-foot tub.

I ran the water as hot as I could stand it, then sank in up to my earlobes and soaked until it was almost cool. When I was done, I let Gigi paddle a lap around the tub. I had no idea a Chihuahua could love to swim, but this one did. Her little legs churned underwater while her fluffy head glided along on top – there was a metaphor there for my current situation. Something about deep water, and trying to keep my head above the surface.

After putting on fresh pyjamas – my last pair – and wrapping my hair in a towel, I dried Gigi, too. Then I checked the hall for lurking cousins and carried my dog to my room.

Music drifted faintly through the slightly open window. It startled me at first, but I doubted that any of my ghosts had listened to much electric guitar in their day.
I guessed – and a peek out the window confirmed it – that the graduation party had, as Shawn predicted, moved to the Hill.

I closed the window and put on my earphones, hoping to repeat last night's uninterrupted sleep.

Gigi woke me with a soft bark. She stood on my chest, tail stiff behind her, a ridge of fur standing up on her back. When she growled, it wasn't her playful, electricmotor noise. It was as deep and throaty a warning as I'd ever heard from her.

‘Quiet, Gigi.'

She stopped growling, but her body stayed rigid with purpose. Then I heard what had set her off. The high, thin wail was so quiet, it wouldn't have woken me – if not for the dog.

Setting Gigi on the bed, I struggled out from the covers and went to the window. I had to lean awkwardly over the desk to open it. It stuck a little in the humidity, but I managed. Without the glass in the way, the keen seemed to swell and build, mournful and wretched.

I knew what to look for next: a moving shadow where there should be none. It took me a moment to find her from this angle; I'd never seen her from my – our – room. But there she was, a female figure hurrying through the trees.

A fierce compulsion seized me. I
had
to follow her. I had to see her up close, like I had the Colonel, and
eliminate the possibility it was a trick. It seemed too convenient on the heels of the party in the summerhouse. In my head, I heard Addie and Shawn, confusing me by twisting my words, my conversations. Just because I believed in echoes of the past didn't mean there wasn't something here in the present working against me.

Forgetting my resolve not to budge from my room, I thrust my feet into my sneakers and grabbed my hoodie, throwing it on over my pj's. I told Gigi to stay on the bed, and she wasn't happy about it. Flinging open the door, I took just a few steps down the hall and felt the cold reaching out to stop me.

It was worse than before. Like the pitiful wail outside, the cold flooded over me, a cruel and icy surge. I told myself it was just an echo, that nothing could hurt me, but there was such a
presence,
I couldn't push past the wall of my own fear. I fell back into my room and closed the door, knowing no one could fake that.

But I wasn't done yet. With Gigi bouncing at my heels, I climbed up on the desk, confirming with a glance that my window was above the balcony, though not with easy access. A good thing I was still limber.

I went out feetfirst, sliding in a backbend while I held onto the frame for support. My feet touched the balcony without a sound, and I hurried to the spiral staircase. For just an instant I hesitated, my phobia rising up and tangling with the anxiety of what I was doing: racing into the night after a ghost. Then I grabbed the rail and went down backwards, with quick but trembling steps.

Cutting through the corner of the back garden, I slipped through the hedges and made for the woods in a halting run. I'd lost track of the figure as I'd been coming out of the house, and the trees were a maze. The thick cover of pine needles hid any kind of path, or any footprints.

Sudden, disorienting panic gripped me. It was like being turned upside down underwater. I could barely tell which way was up, let alone which way I'd been going or which way to the house. The hanging moss curtained the stars, and my heart pounded too hard with fear for me to hear the river.

Come on, Sylvie. You
never
get lost.

I reined in my instinct to run in a random direction like a spooked animal. I was smarter than that. I just needed to catch my breath, settle down and get my bearings.

My calming breath brought the faint, startling scent of lilac. I turned in a slow circle, but couldn't catch the direction. My searching gaze, though, fastened on a pale, cold glow through the trees.

The glow wrapped around the girl like a halo. My panic had faded, but my heart still drummed against my ribs as I stood frozen, fear mixing with fascination. I was so close, I could see the detail of her calico dress. The neck, high and wide, was framed in crisp white, as were the cuffs of her long sleeves. Her skirt had a hooped petticoat underneath that swayed like a bell as it caught on the trees and brush.

Her hair was soft brown, like mine, and her skin was pale, almost luminous. I stood unmoving, my
hand pressed to my chest, awed by the anguish on her otherworldly face. The depths of despair in her hollow eyes chilled my racing heart, and I shivered in sorrow and unease.

I shook myself again when I realized she was moving away from me, and quickly. I broke into a run after her, or as near to one as I could manage on the uneven ground. There was no path at all, and I didn't see how she could move so smoothly, while I had to weave between trees, the roots catching at my feet and the branches tearing at my hair. It was all I could do to keep her in sight.

Then she vanished. And so did the ground.

I'd stepped out into open air, nothing beneath me but the swollen river, rushing twenty-five feet below.

T
he momentum of my headlong dash carried me forward, even as I registered what was happening. I'd reached the embankment and stepped off the edge. My arms windmilled, searching for a handhold, as my one foot still on the ground slipped in the crumbling mud. I flailed, grabbed a fist of Spanish moss and kept falling.

My fingers scraped against rough bark and I clutched desperately at the trunk of a fir tree, leaving a layer of skin behind.

I was going to die. My life didn't flash before my eyes, but I
did
think I heard Gigi barking.

Then a hand closed on my wrist. The jerking stop wrenched my arm and slammed me against the tangled tree roots jutting from the riverbank. It jolted a howl of pain out of me, but no complaint.

‘Hold on,' said Rhys from above me. ‘I've got you.' Twisting my neck, I could just glimpse the hand that grasped the tree while the other clutched my wrist. I was facing out, deadweight, hanging like a fish on a line, and the mechanics were against him.

‘Can you turn round?'

Strain drew his voice taut. My own was thin with terror. ‘I'll fall.'

The way my wrist was turned, I couldn't even grasp his arm. From here, the slide down the embankment would slow my descent, but I'd probably break more than just my leg. And that was before I even hit the river.

The familiar phobia rose up, clawed its way through my chest to squeeze my heart, making it impossible to breathe. I relived the endless moment of The Accident, feeling my toe come down and my leg snap, the grind of the bone against the stage as I collapsed, the glare of the lights and the panicked murmur of the crowd, babbling like the water rushing below.

‘Sylvie.' Rhys's voice was calm and deep with certainty. It called me out of my panic and anchored me to
this
moment. ‘Turn round and look at me. I won't let you fall.'

Forcing myself to breathe, I did as he said, twisting so that I faced the embankment. My wrist slipped in his fingers, and a terrified whimper slipped out before I could clench my teeth on it.

‘I've got you.' He tightened his grip. Now I could close my own hand around his arm, strengthening the hold. ‘Up you go.'

He pulled, using the tree as leverage. I hadn't realized how far he'd had to lean out to grab me. He inched backwards, drawing me with him, and I scrabbled at the dirt for a toehold. Finally he could let go of the tree and hold out his other hand. ‘Grab on, Sylvie. Almost there, love.'

I reached out to clasp his hand, and with a grunt of effort he dragged me onto solid ground. The pine needles were thick and soft, and I lay in them gratefully, the scent of wet earth filling my head.

And then there was a tiny dog tongue licking my face. Gigi. I hadn't imagined her barking. I was relieved to know that not all the whining had come from me.

Rhys nudged the dog out of the way and leaned over me, feeling my shoulder, my arm, making sure everything was in the right place. ‘Are you all right? Did I break you?'

‘I'm bent,' I said, still dazed, not least by his rather proprietory touch. ‘But not broken.'

He rubbed his face with his hands, leaving it streaked with dirt. ‘What were you
thinking
?'

‘I wasn't.' I moved Gigi from my chest to my lap, and struggled to sit up. ‘God, that was stupid.'

Only then did I notice how hard he was breathing, the sheen of sweat on his face. He must have run like the devil.

‘Where did you come from?' I asked.

‘From the house, after I heard your dog barking to wake the dead—' At my stricken look, he broke off. ‘What?'

‘Did you see her?' My fingers tightened on Gigi's fur and she licked my hand in reassurance.

After an almost imperceptible pause, he said, ‘I didn't see anything, but I was intent on keeping Vicious in sight.'

I began to shiver in the warm night air. It wasn't a ghostly cold; it came from the deepest, most elemental part of me. ‘I'm not going crazy. I'm
not.
' But no matter how desperately I said it, I couldn't force it to be true. ‘Oh my God. They're going to send me off to Happy Acres Funny Farm.'

‘Sylvie.' Rhys gripped my shoulders, speaking in the same voice that he'd used to reach through my terror when I'd been hanging over the river. When I glanced up, his face was very close, and as the wind rustled the trees, enough starlight trickled through that I could see his eyes. ‘You're not crazy.'

‘How do you know?' I asked, more plaintive than accusing. ‘Why should I trust you?'

He smiled, slightly. ‘Saving your neck isn't enough?'

Well, I'd asked for a reason. It was convincing, but not satisfactory. ‘I'm serious, Rhys. You've been secretive.
Sneaky,
even. And don't think I haven't noticed you
call me names when you're trying to distract me. And how could you think I couldn't see through Shaw—'

He stopped me, a finger to my lips, and my breath caught at the presumptuous gesture. ‘Don't invoke trouble,' he warned, as if saying Shawn's name would conjure him.

But I couldn't say anything – the startling familiarity of his touch held me transfixed. Wide-eyed, I watched his dawning realization of the intimacy of the moment stretching between us. His bemused gaze dropped to my mouth, and almost absently, he traced the curve of my lip, then brushed my hair from my cheek. My pulse jumped and skittered, and there was no reasoning with it.