Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I ’d taken the stairs two at a time. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I just knew I had to get out, as fast as I could. Nikesh ran after me, carrying the shiny red lantern, making our shadows dance.

He slapped the rail with his free hand and chattered on and on. I darted outside to the garden and rested my arms on the wall. My breathing had gotten faster and all those stairs hadn’t helped. Between the lighthouse and the steps from the car park, I knew my thighs would be killing me tomorrow.

Away from the kitchen, away from the atmosphere of it, my mind tried to build a more plausible explanation for what had happened. A reflex, a defence mechanism, whatever it’s called. My brain furiously scrambled for something — anything — that could explain away what the billowing shape really was and allow me to go on living my life as I always had.

Footsteps echoed behind us as a very pale Michael shoved past Nikesh and ran outside. He stopped on the gravel and doubled over, trying to catch his breath in the chilly evening air.

“Alright, Michael?” Nikesh slapped his shoulder.

Michael flinched and stood upright. “No, I’m not alright. How can I be alright? Did you see that thing up there?”

“Well, no.” Nikesh beamed his best smile. “But I bloody well felt it, didn’t I? How brilliant was that?”

Michael shook his head so violently I thought his glasses would come flying off. “It wasn’t brilliant. It wasn’t brilliant at all. It was horrible. Just horrible .”

“What’s the matter?” I asked him. “I thought you were a believer?”

He gnashed his teeth at me. “I only said that to get into Rhys’ good books. Last night, over dinner, he kept talking and talking about ghosts, and poltergeists, and curses. I thought he was just being a bit eccentric, but I played along. It was a relief when you found that speaker because I thought it meant he wasn’t insane, he was just playing a part. But that… thing. That cloud…” His hands dropped to his side. “It was real. Rhys was right. And he does this sort of thing for fun.” He rubbed his face. “Well, you can have him.”

And there it was. The notion I’d been shying away from all evening. “What makes you think I want him? Wait, is that why you’ve been shirty with me all evening? Because you want him for yourself?”

Michael tutted and rolled his eyes as he took out his phone and tapped on the torch function. “If I really wanted him, I’d already have him. Anyway, he’s not worth all this.” He buttoned his overcoat and trotted off down the path, towards the bridge, the light of his torch bobbing on the grass and gravel.

“Good riddance.” I wondered if he’d spoken to Rhys before he left. He better not have said anything to upset him.

Nikesh bounced up onto the wall and sat on it, kicking his legs against it. “God, my whole body is still tingling. It’s like I’ve got ants under my skin.” He positively beamed. His bright white teeth gave the beacon high above our heads a run for its money.

“How can you be so excited?”

“Because this is it! This is what I came to see. What I came to prove. There’s more. There’s more.”

“And that thought doesn’t terrify you?” I rested my forehead on my hands and breathed the cold, foggy air. “The thought that life doesn’t end? That it stretches on and on, possibly forever? That everyone you ever lost is still… out there… somewhere, out of sight and out of reach?”

He kicked his legs again, letting his heels slam against the wall. “Nah, I think it’s brilliant. It gives me hope. I haven’t lost anyone. Not yet, anyway. My grandparents are still alive. My parents. My aunties and uncles. But if something awful does happen, I know they’ll still be around and I might even see them again someday.” He swayed from side to side as he talked.

It was on the tip of my tongue to point out there was, apparently, at least some chance that after death we’re forced to hang around old buildings for hundreds of years scaring the crap out of innocent people. Instead of resting in peace, we turn into foul-smelling clouds that waft around in cellars. Maybe he’d come to that conclusion himself. I didn’t want to be the one to rob him of his innocence.

“You should have asked Rhys to come down here with you,” he said. “A nice stroll around the gardens?”

I waved to the area behind the wall. “A stroll around an overgrown dumping ground, in the fog? Who wouldn't love it? And why do you think I'd want a romantic walk with Rhys?”

He shook his head. “No, yeah, no reason.” He kicked his legs again. “I’m an estate agent, you know? Did I tell you? Yeah, I show people around houses. I put people in their perfect homes, help them to get started in their new lives. A few of the houses I’ve sold were supposed to have been haunted but I never saw anything in them. Never felt anything.

“Maybe I haven’t been properly, you know, open or whatever. Receptive. I should try being more like Dawn. Maybe I will be, now that I’ve seen a real ghost. Maybe the seal is broken. I’ve popped my supernatural cherry.” He laughed like a horse then. “I might start seeing ghosts everywhere now. And I’ve got Rhys to thank for that.” His legs started kicking again. “He’s a nice fella, don’t you think? Clever. Well-mannered. Good-looking. For a bloke, I mean. He doesn’t do anything for me, but, ah, does he do it for you? Would you say?”

I stood up straight and looked him dead in the eye. “And why would you ask that?”

He grimaced and shook his head. “No, no reason, no. Just making conversation. You feeling better now?”

I turned and leaned against the wall. “I always feel better when I’m outside.”

“Music does the same thing for me,” he said. “If I’m ever feeling down, I put on some Chip, some Stormzy, some proper Grime, you know, and I’m back to my old self in no time.”

“That’s not my favourite genre,” I said.

“What do you like? What’s the last concert you went to?”

“Taylor Swift in Manchester. Chuffin’ fantastic night, that was.”

He sucked on his vape. “Seriously?”

“She understands the human heart, Nikesh.”

His eyes went wide. “Fair enough, to each his own. I take it this was your first ghost too, was it?”

It took me a moment or two to answer him. “It was.” I had to admit it. I had to. There was no getting around it, no matter how hard my mind worked to smooth over the facts and alter my feelings about the topic. I’d seen what I’d seen, and I’d felt what I’d felt.

“It hasn’t made you happy, though, has it?” Nikesh hopped off the wall and leaned beside me. “You’re not scared but you’re not pleased either.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “A whole lot.”

He pointed out the fulmars and kittiwakes squawking past, seeking their nest for the night. “My dad’s a twitcher,” he said. “A birdwatcher. He always took me out with him when I was young. It’s a very peaceful hobby. Boring, though. A bit. Just sitting there, quietly, watching, and waiting. But then you’ll see something rare like a pied flycatcher or a goshawk and you think, yeah, that was good . A bit like ghost hunting, I suppose. You wait in the dark for ages and ages, then you see something that makes it all worthwhile.” He took out his vape and puffed on it. The sickly sweet tang of rhubarb and custard sweets filled the air.

“You’re lucky,” I said. “My dad never took me birdwatching. Or fishing. Or camping. If it didn’t happen within spitting distance of a bookie’s counter, he wasn’t interested. Mum was too busy trying to look after him, the house, and us kids to do it either. I had to figure it all out myself. I’d spend days at a time out in the woods near our flat, living in shelters I’d make from branches and twigs. Or in tents that other people had thrown away.

“Nobody at home noticed that I wasn’t there. Well, Jeanie did, I suppose. My sister. She’d bend my ear about leaving her alone with Mum and Dad but then she started hanging out with her friends more and more so it didn’t matter so much what I did.”

All around us, the sea bashed against the island, somewhat deadened by the ever-thickening fog.

Nikesh finished with his gurgling vape. “I suppose we’d better go back up. Dawn will have Rhys’ head pickled with questions.”

“You honestly didn’t know she was a medium?”

“No idea.” He pushed open the door into the glass corridor. “I knew her family was a bit weird, always talking about horoscopes and that. I’m in a Whatsapp group with her and all her sisters, and they’re always sharing stuff about ghosts, and witches, and love spells. I thought they were all just a bit… well, funny .”

I stopped dead. “I’ll believe in ghosts if I absolutely have to, I’ll even entertain the notion of witchcraft, but I draw the line at bloody horoscopes.”

Nikesh bounded up the steps and into the lighthouse. “I bet Rhys believes in them so be careful what you say about them.”

I asked him why.

“Well…” He stood on the first step of the staircase. “You don’t want to upset him, do you? You don’t want to put him off?”

“Put him off what?”

His beaming grin shone brighter. “You know. Put him off you.”

“And what makes you think that would matter? Why does everyone think I’m desperate for Rhys to like me?” And more to the point — how did they all chuffin’ well know? I thought I was doing a better job of hiding it.

The grin faltered. “Well. You know. Dawn said you two might be… you know.”

“Oh, I get it. Dawn’s playing matchmaker, is she? Let me tell you—” I stopped when something clanged on the stairs above us. “Duck!”

In the acid green glow of the emergency lights, a dark shape flung itself down the stairs and over our heads. It hit the wall with a reverberating crack and thumped onto the floor, where it lay motionless.

Slowly, I took my hands from my head and paced over to where the missile had landed.

“What is it?” Nikesh was by my side like a shot. He held the lantern up to get a better view of the object. Not quite as long as my forearm, made of bare wood with a rusty metal wedge on top.

I picked it up. “It’s a hammer. A wet hammer.” Soaking wet and smelling faintly of salt water, I turned it over in my hands. “An old, wet hammer came flying out of the dark.”

Nikesh held the lantern closer. “Look.” Inside, the candle flame flickered, dancing wildly. “It’s just like Rhys said! It’s a spirit breeze!”

“It’s just a draught,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

The flame stopped dancing and burned upright.

“Oh yeah, then why can’t I feel it? Can you?”

I shook water from the hammer and tucked it into the inside pocket of my jacket, then pointed to the stairs. “After you.”