Thin Air (36 page)

He smiled weakly, ran his
fingers through his hair. ‘OK.’

They walked back to the car, and
now the forest was transformed by day-light. It had seemed so dead
on the way there, but now Jay could see ivy crawling around the
wizened tree trunks, many of which were stained with lichen and
moss, and in places where the bracken hadn’t spread, the ground was
vividly green with short, wiry grass. Holly bushes bore bright red
berries, and the leaves beneath their feet were a palette of
autumnal colours; yellow, duns, oranges.

There is more colour in the
season of death than we remember, Jay thought. Perhaps we colour it
in our minds with the hues of our own grey lives. When we live in
winter, we forget that spring inevitably must follow.

Before they resumed their
journey, Jay took Dex in her arms. They neither spoke, nor made any
move to change the embrace with a kiss.

All the decisions I’ve made in
my life, thought Jay, have brought me to this moment. We stand in
the wood in the dawn. What makes sense and what doesn’t?

‘Remember the story you told
me,’ she said.

Dex pulled away from her
slightly, looked down into her face.

‘You said that when you first
brought the body here, you heard a voice in the cellar.’ She fixed
his eyes with her gaze, wouldn’t let him look away. ‘What really
happened to Little Peter, Dex? Do you know?’

‘He was the biggest influence on
my life,’ Dex said.

Jay did not interrupt, just
stroked his arm.

‘Nobody knows what really
happened. Did Julie tell you about it?’

Jay nodded.

Dex sighed. ‘Pete had a
difficult life. His dad was fond of using his fists, his mother was
a drained wreck. Pete strained at the leash of life. He had a great
sense of hope. I envied him that. Nothing would get him down. On
that day, when my brother, Gary, tried to kick the shit out of us,
it was like something got into Pete. He was wild, ecstatic, as we
ran away. On the heath, he jumped and twisted in the air, like a
mad stoat. “Watch me, Chris,” he said, “just watch me.” I couldn’t
keep up. There was a strange feeling all around me, like things
weren’t normal any more. I followed him into the trees, and I could
hear him laughing - it was a low, cackling sound. Then everything
was quiet, like someone had turned off the sound to the world. Too
silent. I called his name, and looked for him, but there was no
sign. I thought something had taken him, I didn’t know what. I
walked around for a long time, and the place no longer looked
familiar. I had a feeling I could follow Pete if I tried hard
enough. Maybe I had to surrender to that strange feeling, jump up
in the air, twist around and... vanish.’

‘What do you think happened?’
Jay asked. ‘Did he choose to disappear like the people in
Lestholme.’

‘Yes, I think he did,’ Dex said.
‘I’ve only realised that recently. Back then, I was convinced
something sinister had happened; a human monster, or a forest
monster, or a deep hole in the ground. I felt responsible, because
it was my brother who’d chased us off, and me who’d started the
argument with Gary. I knew no-one would ever find Pete. He was as
surely gone as if the fairies had taken him. At the time, I
believed that to be a feasible possibility.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Now,
I know different, because of what’s happened to me.’

‘Why should you hear Peter’s
voice in the cellar, though? Why then? Haven’t you ever wondered
about it?’

Dex gazed off through the trees.
‘I was doing something that marked a major fork in my life. I
shouldn’t have done it. I should have run from Lorrance before I
ever met that creature who pulls his strings. Maybe Pete wanted to
speak to me, warn me...’ he glanced back at her, ‘like I tried to
warn you.’

‘Could he be somewhere in
Lestholme? I noticed a few strange men who don’t come into the
village much. They appear to live in the forest.’

Dex shook his head. ‘I don’t
feel that, Jay. He’s somewhere, and sometimes I can swear he’s
close, but he’s not part of Lestholme. I’ve a feeling the village
couldn’t contain him. It’s too static.’

Jay opened her mouth to speak,
but Dex interrupted her,

‘Please don’t ask me to explain
that. I can’t. They’re feelings.’

‘It’s OK,’ Jay said. ‘Thanks for
telling me. I’m trying to understand all this too, Dex. I need as
much information as I can get.’

He took her arm and began to
lead her to the car. ‘I love your clarity, Jay. You’re like a beam
of light sweeping round the darkness.’

I could always have been that
for you. She didn’t speak the words.

Jay got into the car and buckled
her seat belt. ‘Can we just drive into Lestholme? Can it be that
easy?’

Dex turned on the ignition.
‘I’ve been in and out several times. Lestholme knows me. It’ll let
us back in.’

After driving around the
countryside for half an hour or so, without any sign of the
village, Dex was not so confident. ‘Perhaps it’s because you’ve
been back to London, Jay. Perhaps you can no longer enter the
village. I’ve a feeling it won’t let us find it.’

‘It will,’ Jay soothed, hoping
she was right. ‘We have to believe it.’

‘I’m not sure. Perhaps we should
be on foot.’

‘Just keep driving,’ Jay said.
‘We must
will
it to happen.’

Jay closed her eyes, and
visualised Lestholme as strongly as she could; the church, the
narrow streets, the peculiar, damaged villagers. It was just around
the corner, very close. They could just step into that world,
because it was there next to them all the time. They had carried it
inside them to London, and now they must externalise it again.

They drove beneath an old
viaduct that turned a corner. For a while, they were in darkness.
Dex turned on the headlights, and then, on the other side, they
found summer. Strangely, it was night-time, like the moment they
had left the village, but it was a night of balmy warmth. Jay
opened the window on her side, and a perfume of mown hay filled the
vehicle. She breathed it in deeply, relaxing back against the
head-rest. It was like coming home.

Dex parked in the pub car park.
‘Well, this is one stolen vehicle that will never be found,’ he
said, turning off the ignition.

Jay laughed, and climbed out of
the car. She stretched her body. ‘This is weird, but it feels good
to be back. Lestholme is all the gilded memories of childhood. It
spooked me at first, but after what happened last night, that awful
party, Gus and Gina, it feels like heaven. I think it’s my ideal
holiday resort.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Would it ever let itself be
that for me, do you think?’

Dex did not answer. ‘Looks like
someone’s been waiting for us,’ he said.

Jay turned round and saw that
Jem was sitting on the low wall next to the road. ‘Hi!’ she
called.

Jem climbed down. She smiled
widely, then made a clear attempt to appear more composed. ‘Welcome
back. Despite what I said, I did wonder if you’d return.’

Jay mussed the girl’s hair. ‘It
was a possibility I wouldn’t, but here I am. Was I gone long?’

Jem shook her head. ‘No.
Someone’s been walking up and down beside the pool back there.
They’ve been waiting for you.’

Jay frowned. ‘Who?’

Dex had joined them. ‘What’s
this?’

‘A woman,’ Jem said. ‘She won’t
speak. She’s a white lady, walking up and down.’

Jay and Dex exchanged a glance.
Who could it be? Jay looked back at Jem. ‘Are you sure she’s
waiting for us?’

‘Yes. It’s very clear. I can see
her link with you, like a light around her.’

‘Could it be Julie?’ Jay
asked.

‘Let’s go and see.’ Dex marched
off ahead of them, towards the garden at the back of the pub.

Jay took Jem’s hand. ‘Is she a
ghost, do you think?’ The question was only half light-hearted.

Jem wrinkled her nose. ‘Well,
that’s very difficult to tell, isn’t it?’

When Jay caught sight of the
pale figure, which seemed to hover at the water’s edge, she felt
more apprehensive than when she’d stepped into the cellar looking
for a decomposing body. There was something alien and otherworldly
about the figure; it seemed to shine with its own light.

‘Dex,’ Jay said in warning. She
didn’t want him to get too close to the woman. ‘Stay back.’

Dex turned to look at her. ‘It’s
OK,’ he said. ‘I know her. It’s Lacey Lorrance.’

Lacey’s
long, white summer dress and pale hair were spectral in the
star-light, yet close to, she was no unearthly creature but a woman
of flesh and blood. Her dress was ragged, and her features were set
in a determined expression. She clearly had something to say.

‘You’ve always been here,
haven’t you,’ Dex said softly. He stood with arms folded some
distance away from the girl. ‘Part of your father, yet not part of
him.’

Lacey shook her head. ‘I am not
of this place,’ she said, her voice low and husky. ‘But I knew you
were here. You didn’t listen to me all those years ago, did you,
Dex?’

Jay stepped towards the girl.
‘Do you know who I am, Lacey?’

Lacey narrowed her eyes
slightly. ‘Of course.’

‘Did you know I was here,
too?’

‘Yes,’ Lacey replied. ‘You are
part of what is happening. Dex involved you the moment he caught
your eye.’ She glanced at Dex. ‘You didn’t mean to, but it was
inevitable.’

‘How did you know we were here?’
Jay asked. ‘Have you been watching us? Did your father tell
you?’

Lacey shook her head. ‘I knew
for sure when you came to the house.’ She came closer. ‘That place
is a nexus point of many realities. I can’t cross into Lestholme,
but because of your presence at the house, I became aware of
you.’

‘You’re here now,’ Jay said.

‘You enabled me to come. None of
the villagers dare approach the house of their god, but you did. I
could follow in your footsteps. I know it must be hard for you to
understand, but you left me a kind of trail.’

Jay rubbed her chin briefly.
‘Right, so here you are, and here we are. Let’s forget about the
technicalities of that for a minute. What is your part in what’s
happening, Lacey? Why do you want to speak to us? What can you tell
us?’

Lacey glanced at Dex. ‘We both
want to know the same thing,’ he said. ‘How much did you know of
what was going on with your father and me? Why didn’t you speak
more plainly when I came to the house that night?’

Lacey sat down on the grass, and
beckoned for the others to do likewise. Jay noticed that all her
fingernails, and the skin around them, were gnawed raw. She
couldn’t be as assured as she appeared.

‘First of all,’ Lacey said, ‘I
was wary of speaking with you, Dex, because I wasn’t sure of you.
You seemed unhappy with what you’d become involved in, but as my
father said that night, an initial state of uncertainty was part of
the process. He wanted to make you one of his people, utterly and
completely. You were balking, but how strongly? I couldn’t be
sure.’

‘You knew about Charney?’ Dex
asked. ‘And his cabal?’

Lacey nodded. ‘Yes. I couldn’t
help but know, because I am my father’s heir. You must have
realised he wanted me as part of his group too, has always wanted
me. I was conceived to have a role in what he did, but like you, I
rejected it.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Dex said.
‘He never mentioned it.’

‘He wouldn’t.’ Lacey raised a
hand to her mouth, nibbled the corner of a fingernail. ‘I’m not
totally innocent. As a young teenager, I did as he asked, acted as
a channel for the powers he appealed to.’ She examined her fingers,
then glanced up at Jay defensively. ‘From your face, I can see what
you think of that.’ She leaned forward. ‘Yes. My father deals in
the occult.’ The words were delivered in a defensive tone.

‘Lacey,’ Jay said, shaking her
head. ‘I find it very hard to accept alternate realities, never
mind this. It’s going too far.’

Lacey shrugged. ‘Whether you
believe in it or not is irrelevant. The important thing is that my
father believes in it, and so do the men he bows down to. They
believe it gives them the power to rule others, and their belief
makes it so.’

Jay nodded slowly, her mouth
pursed. ‘That I can accept. It makes sense.’

‘What happened to you, Lacey?’
Dex asked. ‘Did you disappear voluntarily?’

Lacey smiled grimly. ‘Partly. I
wasn’t spirited away by my father, but what I knew and what I saw
pushed me through to the shadowlands.’

‘The shadowlands,’ said Jay.
‘What are they?’

‘I’ll show you,’ Lacey said.
‘That’s why you’ve returned.’ She touched Dex’s arm. ‘You could
never have found the body.’

‘What happened to it?’ Dex
asked.

‘It walked,’ Lacey replied.

Jay and Dex exchanged a glance.
‘Then the boy wasn’t dead,’ Jay said.

Lacey got to her feet, and
brushed down her dress. ‘Now is a changing time,’ she said. ‘In the
shadowlands, they are moving, they are restless. I want you to come
with me there. You have nothing to fear. It’s quite safe.’

Jay stood up. ‘Will we get all
the answers there, Lacey?’

‘I don’t know what all your
questions are. I can only show you what is. That may be
enough.’

‘Do you want to come?’ Jay asked
Jem.

The girl stood up and took Jay’s
hand. ‘I’m scared, but I know I’d regret not seeing what she wants
to show you. I’ll come.’

Lacey led the group through the
trees, along a well-trodden ancient trail. The night was silent,
but for the occasional plaintive mew of a little owl. After a few
minutes, the trees thinned out and the path led onto a stretch of
heath-land.

‘I’ve never seen this place
before,’ Jem said. ‘It was never here.’

Lacey looked back. ‘I’m your key
into this layer of reality,’ she said. ‘Ordinarily, people from the
village wouldn’t be able to walk this path.’