Thieving Fear

TWENTY-TWO

As the smell of breakfast drifted through the house, Ellen tramped out of the bathroom. 'None for me.'

'It's only toast,' Charlotte called up the stairs. 'That's all there is.'

'I know that. I said none, thanks.'

'You ought to have something,' Hugh protested before turning back to the grill more hastily than Charlotte understood.

'I did last night.'

'You didn't have much,' Charlotte said.

'I had all I wanted. Don't start another argument or I won't be going to the hospital.'

'You wouldn't not see Rory,' Hugh cried, twisting around as if she'd unbalanced him.

'Then don't either of you make me. I'll stay up here until it's time to leave,' Ellen declared and shut herself in her room.

Charlotte would have expected her to spend longer in the bathroom. In a moment Hugh voiced her own feelings, if barely audibly. 'What's wrong with her?'

She might have asked the same about him. This morning he'd stayed in his room until Charlotte headed for the bathroom, and on emerging she'd discovered him outside. Had she sensed him lurking out there? Certainly her impression that someone unseen was uncomfortably near had rendered the confined space yet more claustrophobic. She could only assume that Hugh didn't want to be left alone with his anxiety, for Ellen now as well as for his brother. 'I expect it's like you were saying yesterday,' she murmured. 'She's under a lot of stress.'

How much of it was Charlotte's doing? She might blame Glen and the new regime at the publishers, but this hardly absolved her of responsibility. She didn't need Hugh to remind her by pleading 'What can we do?'

'Leave her alone for a while if that's what she wants. Maybe seeing Rory will help.'

How thoughtless was that? Hugh seemed less than persuaded. He was silent while he brought four piebald slices of toast on a cracked plate to the bare stained table, and produced a battered carton of Frugerine from the battered refrigerator, and lifted the plump ragged cover from the clay teapot to fill two mugs, after which the kitchen grew oppressive with his and Charlotte's painfully polite crunching. Last night's Indian meal, which Hugh had arranged to have delivered even though the takeaway was only in the next street, had soon turned wordless too, and afterwards the cousins had applied themselves to trying to enjoy a string of comedy shows on television. Charlotte had kept wondering if she alone could hear an unpleasant snicker as dry as an insect's stridulation amid the mirth of the various studio audiences. The sound had followed her to bed, inside her skull at any rate, along with a sense of so much left unspoken that it had felt more like a presence in the dark. Whenever she'd managed to doze she had wakened either afraid to learn where she might be or convinced that the pent-up darkness was more crowded than she'd left it. Once if not more often she'd heard a model aeroplane suspended on threads stir as if fingers – no less flimsy and jerry-built, she'd thought for some reason – were toying with it in preparation for doing so to her. The prospect of mentioning this made the kitchen seem smaller and darker, as if she were in danger of reviving the night. She finished her toast as fast as she civilly could in order to call 'I think we're ready, Ellen.'

The narrow hall flattened her voice, reminding her of the size of the house – the lack of it, rather. 'I'll be down,' Ellen responded but wasn't while Hugh picked up the plates and looked uncertain where to put them. Was he really so incapable or just taking advantage now that there were women in the house? Charlotte seized the plates and bore them together with the synthetically buttery knife to the sink, which at least gave her a view of the meagre back yard and its outgrown swings. Once she'd washed up she made for the hall with Hugh at her heels. Ellen was descending the stairs, pausing if not resting on each step. She was wearing the same clothes again or still – unnecessarily capacious trousers and a nightdress, if not a blouse that resembled one too much for anybody else's comfort. 'Aren't you going to get changed?' Charlotte had to ask for fear that Hugh would say worse.

'I don't think Rory's going to mind, do you?'

'I hope he might, if you see what I mean. Maybe you should –'

'I've nothing to change into.'

Charlotte could only wonder what Ellen's case was full of – perfume bottles, to judge by the scents of her, which were close to suffocating in the narrow hall. 'Would you like something of mine?'

'You're kind, but it wouldn't be any good.' As Charlotte parted her lips Ellen said 'I've told you I won't have an argument. If you want me with you at the hospital, let's be on our way.'

She was almost at the front door when Hugh said 'Hang on, I'll phone a taxi.'

As Ellen hesitated the gloomy perfumed hall seemed to shrink. Charlotte pushed past her to drag the front door open. 'Good heavens, we can walk that little distance,' she said. 'It'll do us good.'

Ellen frowned as if she suspected some kind of gibe, then held up her hands. Presumably they signalled resignation before she glanced askance at them and jerked them away from her face. 'I expect it won't make any difference,' she said. 'Lead the way then, Hugh.'

'You two go out. I've got to lock up.'

This simply meant pulling the door shut with one hand through the letterbox. He kept hold of it as though it or something beyond it had seized his fingers, a notion so unwelcome that it drove Ellen to a feeble joke. 'The house won't fall down without you, Hugh.'

As the women left the narrow path he dashed after them. Ellen was staring about as if, all too understandably, she hoped not to be seen. Perhaps someone was observing the cousins from one of the houses; certainly Charlotte felt spied upon. Nobody was skulking behind the trees at the junction, although as she hurried past without sparing them a glance she heard an unseen magpie utter its sniggering call. Of course the bird was the shape, pale as bone where it wasn't black as earth, that she thought she glimpsed among the tree-trunks.

Hugh stayed just behind his cousins as they turned along the road towards the station, although the pavement was broad enough for the three to walk abreast. Perhaps he was leaving room well in advance for an approaching Muslim woman, veiled and so thoroughly robed in black that only her eyes and hands were visible. Ellen watched her pass and turned her head to keep the woman in sight until Hugh muttered 'What's wrong?'

'That should be me.'

'You mustn't say that. You've nothing to be ashamed of. You're the same, same person you've always been.'

Charlotte thought this was increasingly less accurate, but wasn't it also the case with her and Hugh? She might have suggested as much if Ellen hadn't said 'I'm sorry, now I'm starting arguments. Forget I spoke.'

Charlotte doubted he could do this any more than she was able to. Perhaps his attempts kept him silent as far as the bridge over the ring road. As they stepped onto it he raised his voice. 'Watch out for the troll.'

'Why are you saying that?' Ellen presumably wanted to know.

'Our dad used to,' he said so awkwardly that Charlotte didn't need to look back to know his face had turned red.

As the polluted uproar from below closed around them, Charlotte found little to enjoy in the notion of a presence waiting under the bridge to snatch her and her cousins into blackness. Of course it couldn't be so dark above the ring road, and she wasn't going to imagine that descending the hill brought the party closer to any such presence. The interior of the station wasn't dark, even if a huge voice that sounded blurred by dirt seemed to bring the walls and the roof of the booking hall inwards. As Charlotte made for the nearest ticket window Ellen said 'Buy mine and I'll pay you.'

'I will as well,' Hugh said at once.

Charlotte felt like the solitary adult in charge of an outing, at least until she led her cousins past the unstaffed barrier onto the train. Hugh seemed uncertain where to sit in the deserted carriage, and ready to move yet again once the women were seated. Ellen looked uncomfortable wherever she rested her gaze, on her cousins or her lap or the empty aisle, and Charlotte was oppressed by her behaviour and Hugh's, not to mention Ellen's overpowering perfumes. There was worse to come, she remembered as the train cruised forwards: there was the tunnel. Every shadow that flooded the carriage was a reminder, every bridge felt capable of growing longer than its dark should last. She rummaged in her mind for a topic of conversation, the more neutral the better. 'Will you have to take a holiday, Hugh?'

'Where?' His own question seemed to confuse him. 'When?' he tried instead.

'Now, I was thinking.'

'I wouldn't call this much of a holiday.'

The left side of his mouth betrayed that he was straining at a joke. Ellen took it seriously enough to shake her head in agreement, then raised her hands just short of holding it still. 'I meant time off from work,' Charlotte said.

'For Rory,' Ellen appeared to think he needed to be told.

'I know what for.' Hugh stared out at a small station that was dragging the train to a halt. He might have been waiting until the door alarm cued his next line. 'They sent me home,' he said.

'Because of Rory? That was kind of them, wasn't it, Charlotte? It's good to know there are still some employers who –'

'Because of me.'

As fields carried off the small town Charlotte felt trapped between the unwashed windows, and Hugh seemed to see nothing on either side to encourage him. 'You'd have been upset, would you?' Ellen offered him. 'I'm sure they understood. We all were, but he's your brother.'

'He wasn't hurt then. I was no use, that's all.'

'Of course you are. You're all sorts of use. Who said you weren't?'

'Me. Didn't you hear me?'

'If it's only you that thinks it,' Charlotte said, 'we certainly don't, and I'll bet –'

'There are plenty, and one's all it takes.'

Charlotte had a sense of buried glee, but how could it be Hugh's or anybody's there? The blackened underside of a bridge filled the window beyond him, giving way to a dazzle of sunlight that rendered the glass more opaque. 'You shouldn't let people . . .' Ellen said and seemed to regret having spoken.

'It's not just people.'

Charlotte felt as if Ellen were leaving her to put a question neither of them wanted to ask. 'What, then?'

'It's Frugo. I can't find my way round now it's bigger, and it's affected me. You know it has.'

It was certainly blotching his face. 'Don't let it get on top of you,' she said. 'Go back as soon as you can and do . . . what do you think, Ellen?'

'See if you can find your way and if you can't there must be people who can help.'

'They aren't like you. Not many people care like you do.' His gaze dodged back and forth, perhaps in search of a way for him not to admit 'I've been suspended. I had a row with my supervisor and someone else as well.'

'They haven't fired you yet, though,' Charlotte said.

'They will, for misconduct. No point arguing. You know how that goes, Ellen.'

'Even if she does you should at least –'

Charlotte couldn't help starting as her mobile went off. She silenced it, wishing that she hadn't used the We Go Frugo jingle as her new ringtone for a joke, only for the displayed number to aggravate her tension. 'Yes, Glen.'

'Is this a bad time?'

'I've had better.'

'Gee, I'm sorry. Should I leave this till you want to call me back?'

'If we need to talk it may as well be now.'

'We aren't likely to be cut off, are we? You sound shut in.'

She yearned to deny it as another bridge engulfed the carriage and was swept away by sunlight that emphasised the thickness of the muddy window. 'Say what you have to say, Glen,' she urged.

'How's your cousin?'

'Not conscious yet, the last we heard. We're on our way to see him.'

'Ellen's with you, right? The reason I'm calling is mainly for her. Maybe I should speak to her in person.'

As Charlotte held out the phone Ellen said 'Doesn't it work so we can both hear?'

'Do you want me to go away?' Hugh said, though he seemed to be pleading for the reverse.

'I meant you as well,' Ellen said without taking the mobile. 'You're involved too.'

Charlotte looked away from his colourful reaction and poked the hands-free button. 'Glen? Can you hear me?'

'Pretty well,' he said a little fuzzily but loud enough to be comprehensible above the muffled thunder of the wheels. 'Are we in a meeting?'

'Ellen would prefer it if you don't mind.'

'Whatever's best for our author. Good to speak to you at last, Ellen. Let's hope we'll have a reason to get together and celebrate soon.'

She seemed not to know where to put her hands – nowhere near her face and not in her lap. Splaying her fingers on the upholstery on either side of her, she leaned forwards. 'You weren't calling to say we have.'

'Working on it. How's the new book coming?'

'I'm a bit distracted at the moment,' Ellen said, and her lips worked as if searching for a shape.

'I figured you might be. That's why I thought I'd help. I had some spare time, so I looked into the place you came up with. Thurstaston.'

Ellen pressed her lips fat and then sucked them inwards, so that Charlotte might have felt compelled to speak if Hugh hadn't. 'What did you find?'

Glen's voice grew louder but less clear. 'Who's that?'

'Only Hugh,' Hugh said. 'Their cousin.'

'Hi, Hugh. Sorry, I thought I heard someone else. I guess they were up on the street. Couldn't have been down here.'

Charlotte didn't care to be reminded that his apartment was below street level. 'So you said you looked where again?'

'The net. That's my Saturday night, a man and his computer.' Was he listening for her reaction? He paused before adding 'I found a bunch of stuff about a guy who lived there that maybe you could work up somehow, Ellen. Thurstaston Mound, he lived at. Well, more than lived.'

The carriage shook. The train was braking for a station, but the shudder or Glen's last remark was enough to send Ellen's hands towards her face. Perhaps they were intended to suppress a question. Charlotte wasn't eager to ask it, however much their muteness felt like an unacknowledged presence. She could have imagined this was why Hugh blurted 'You mean Pendemon.'

Darkness engulfed the carriage. It was the shadow of the station, and the door alarm began to shrill. Nobody visible was boarding – nobody at all – but Glen said 'What did somebody set off?'

'It's just the doors,' Charlotte told him.

'You're getting out of what is it, a train?'

'Not getting out,' she had to say.

The beeping addressed her a second time, and then the train crept forwards. As sunlight and a ghost of mud coated the window afresh Glen said 'Sounds like you know about him.'

'I looked him up,' Ellen said. 'I didn't read it all.'

'What did you read?'

'Wouldn't it be easier to email her the link?' Charlotte said as Ellen failed to speak.

'I could do that, except when's it going to reach her?'

'Not till I get home. I don't know when that'll be.'

'I'm the same,' said Charlotte. 'I mean, I've got no access here.'

'Hey, don't sound so pleased about it. How about the guy who isn't speaking?'

Hugh's gaze darted about as if he wondered where the person referred to might be, and then he worked on producing a laugh. 'I haven't even got a computer.'

'You must like living in the past. Maybe I should read some of this in case you want to think about it, Ellen.'

'That couldn't have been his real name, could it?'

'Pendemon? I'd say not. The guy who runs this site has some fun with that, well, with the whole thing. Seems like he doesn't believe in any kind of magic.'

Charlotte sensed that Ellen had been seeking some kind of reassurance, but Hugh had a question for Glen. 'Do you?'

'If it pays you bet I do.'

'Is he Mumbo someone,' Ellen said, 'your man with no beliefs?'

'Jumbjoe, that's his byline. Maybe he's not the sceptic he wants us all to think or he wouldn't write so much about it. You're right, he figures Pendemon's a fake name. Nothing to do with penning demons either.'

Did Glen mean to lighten the mood? He seemed to have achieved the opposite. The air trapped by the unopenable windows felt heavy with resentment thick as earth, stale as old breath. 'I thought it was trying to sound like Pendragon,' Hugh said.

'Pen means head, doesn't it?' said Ellen.

'Head demon, huh? I don't think he got that job. Let's see what you don't know.'

Charlotte had a thought she was far from relishing. 'We'll be coming to a tunnel soon.'

'I'd better make this fast, then. Did you see he got into a fight with another magician, Ellen?'

'Something Grace, wasn't it?'

'Amazing,' Hugh said and looked painfully out of place.

'You got it, Ellen. Peter Grace. I don't believe in that name either.'

Charlotte thought the rush of the train had grown hollow ahead, but the tunnel didn't appear. Perhaps the sound suggestive of the gaping of a pit had been on the loudspeaker, although it didn't affect Glen's voice when he asked 'Did you see what your guy tried to send Grace?'

'I don't know. I didn't get that far.'

Ellen's hands began to writhe on either side of her face as if to ward the information off. Charlotte leaned across the phone on the seat to stroke her cousin's arm, but Ellen snatched it out of reach as Charlotte said 'Glen, I think you'd better –'

'He collected nightmares.'

Charlotte felt as if a pit were indeed yawning beneath her, even if it had yet to swallow Glen's voice. She straightened up hastily, only to fear that Ellen might think she'd recoiled from her. By this time Hugh seemed to feel nervously driven to ask 'How?'

'This isn't a site that'll give you his method. It does quote things he's meant to have said.'

'I saw some of those,' Ellen intervened.

Charlotte thought she might be trying to hush Glen, but he retorted 'At the core of all men is darkness and terror?'

'Something like that.'

'These are what he's supposed to have told his followers, not that he ever had too many of those. They all ran off when he tried to use them,' Glen said. 'The essence of each man is the infant he once was, at the mercy of the dark?'

'No,' Ellen said forcefully enough to be denying the idea.

'The hidden child shall serve the adept, and its terror shall become its weapon?'

'No.'

'The husk shall return to the world and carry on its mundane mummery, having yielded up its substance to the sorcerer?'

Ellen's lips were opening yet again, plumply audible before she spoke, when Hugh demanded 'What's all that meant to mean?'

'Like I said, he collected people's nightmares. I'm not saying I believe it any more than this site does. You don't have to either, Ellen. Just use it if you can.'

She'd closed her mouth by now, though her lips were continuing to shift. 'What's kind of interesting,' Glen said, 'is he's supposed to have made a couple of mistakes.'

'What?' Hugh said with an urgency Charlotte found disconcerting.

'That last quote I gave you sounds as if he thought he took the nightmares out of people, doesn't it? Or maybe he didn't care. The people he's supposed to have lured to his house, they went away with nightmares some of them didn't even know they had. Of course that could just have been they were scared of the place because they knew his reputation.'

Hugh's gaze was dodging about so wildly it looked helpless, and Ellen seemed equally uncertain where to rest her wriggling fingers. As for Charlotte, she'd grown too breathless to speak, and so Hugh asked the question. 'What was the other mistake?'

'I guess he thought nobody could get at his own nightmares. You could say he did it to himself by being so obsessed with other people's, or maybe it makes for a better story if Grace turns Pendemon's own nightmare on him after one of his followers joined up with Grace and told him what it was. Or it could just have been a coincidence, but that's not the kind of book your cousin's writing.'

Again it was Hugh's question that broke the stale constricted breathless silence. 'What was?'

'He was scared of being buried alive,' Glen said before a rush of blackness engulfed his voice. The train had entered the tunnel at last. For an instant Charlotte was glad that it had quieted him, and then she seemed to taste the dark that clogged her mouth and stole her breath.