Lee sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head. He hadn’t fallen far—not as deep as Ray Tregear’s pit of a house had pulled him down, but he’d still landed hard. Once more he was in a cellar of some kind. And, inexplicably, sitting on a packing crate a few feet away was Bill Prowse.
“You know,” Lee said, when he’d coughed his throat free of enough dust, “it’s a bloody funny thing, but in all my time with Gideon, whenever anything weird’s been going on, somewhere in the background there’s been Darren. Or you.”
“Don’t you talk to me about that little shit,” Bill said gloomily. “Gone off and left me, he has.”
Lee grabbed a packing crate of his own. There were three of them, set out in a rough semicircle as if for conversation, a nice cosy get-together down in this dank and miserable hole. Cautiously he sat down and looked around him. Ruddy light was coming from somewhere, though he couldn’t identify the source. The effect was like being inside a photographer’s development room. He could see no trace of the hole or door through which he must have fallen. When Lee had time to worry about that, he would worry very sharply indeed.
Bill looked worse than usual in this light. His vast bulk was slumped disconsolately on the crate, enough of it hanging off the edges that he seemed to be melting. “You didn’t give Darren much reason to stay,” Lee said, pity touching him in spite of all the dirt, drug-dealing and bigotry Bill had brought to the village over the years. “I’m sorry, though. You must’ve been lonely.”
“Ah, well. Screw him.”
“What was all that business about joining up with Kernow Glan, though? Those were kids they were trying to murder over in Falmouth that day.”
“Screw Kernow Glan. Bloody Tregear, leaving my name on his damn phone like that! Got me in trouble, he did.”
“Not much. Gideon and the police went easy on you, because of your age and your...” Uneasily Lee surveyed him. His face was mottled grey in the red light, his eyes hollow. “Your health.”
“Screw the police. Screw Tregear, and Gideon too, and you as well, while I’m at it.”
“That’s all very well, Bill, but here we are in this cellar. You’re here for a reason, and I’m guessing you’ve dragged me down with you for a reason too. It’s Halloween, and I want to get home to my kid. What’s going on?”
“I didn’t drag you.”
“Oh, all right. Pull me, trap me, whatever you want to call it.”
“I didn’t bring you at all. And it’s not a bloody cellar.”
Of course not. Underhill had been built on the site of a church. Lee swallowed down his fear of what being buried in a crypt with Bill Prowse might mean. “If you didn’t bring me, who did?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who brought me. I fell asleep in my armchair at home, and... I woke up here.”
“Come off it. Are you and your mates up to some kind of Halloween wind-up?”
Something rustled in the shadows overhead. Bill gave a kind of squawk and threw his arms up to shield his face. But all that fluttered down from the ceiling was a single sheet of paper.
It landed at Lee’s feet. He picked it up. He’d already seen the first side. Now the back of it bore two lines of typescript too, ferociously imprinted into the page. Overwhelmed by his guilt, the fat old idler resolved to tell Tyack the terrible truth about this presence here!
Lee pursed his lips. Wordlessly he held the sheet out to Bill.
“Oh, Christ! She’s here!” To Lee’s astonishment, Bill leapt off his packing crate and lumbered across the flagstones towards him. He seized Lee’s shoulder and did his best to squeeze himself to invisibility behind him. “Keep her away from me!”
“Keep who away?”
“Her! That... that woman!”
“There’s nobody else down here. I know you don’t think much of me and my so-called gifts, but I’d be aware if there was any presence—”
“Oh, right! You would, would you? What about that one, then?”
He poked a finger over the top of Lee’s head. Lee blinked. On the third packing crate, a small white-haired woman was perched. Her feet were clad in sheepskin slipper-boots. A woollen dressing gown was buttoned up to her chin, and striped pyjama trousers encased her skinny legs. A less threatening apparition Lee had never seen.
Appearances could be monstrously, mortally deceiving. “Good evening,” he said, reaching inside himself for his shields. Each one had Gideon’s stamp on them in some way—had been forged by him, or strengthened, or lovingly fastened into place. “Are you the lady who left the note for me upstairs?”
She ignored him. Her attention was fixed on a midair point at waist height in front of her. As Lee watched, she extended one little finger and lowered it. The index finger of her other hand drifted thoughtfully to the right. Then both hands leapt into a blur of motion.
Someone who’d learned keyboarding the hard way. Her knuckles were swollen with years of working a manual board. Her hands flew. Then she made the unmistakable gesture of returning the carriage, ready to start a new line. “This is great,” she declared. “Like having my old Remington back, only as if it was one of those fancy new iPads as well. I can’t see it, of course, but I don’t need to see to type. And when I’m ready, I just...”
“Hang on a second,” Lee interrupted. He was still holding the sheet of A4. “I’m not sure about the alliteration in this part—tell Tyack the terrible truth, I mean.”
She huffed, took a pencil from behind her ear and made a mark in the air. “Alliteration’s an ancient and respected poetic device,” she said musingly, as if to herself. “You can’t get much more respectable than bloody Beowulf.”
“Agreed, but does it work as well in a direct modern narrative? And I notice you’re equating Bill’s body size with his character. That’s outdated at best, and at worst it’s noxious. I’m fairly sure Bill would have been just as mean, corrupt and lazy if he’d been built like Cristiano Ronaldo.”
“Too bloody right, I would!” Bill had crept a little way out of cover and was at Lee’s side, nodding vigorously. He paused for a long second. “Hoi!”
The little woman sat motionless. Then, at last, she turned to look at Lee. “I’ve been hearing this kind of shit all my life.”
Lee blinked in surprise. She was astoundingly real. She registered upon his senses—even his painful, unpredictable sixth—as an ordinary human being. “Okay,” he said gently, because sometimes when they were as three-dimensional as this, they simply didn’t know. “What do you tell people, then? When they say that kind of shit to you?”
“I tell them that they can take their snobby bollocks about literary form and shove it where the Spectator doesn’t shine. Not everyone has to be Hilary bloody Mantel, you know. I have a small, loyal readership, and they’re just fine with my alliteration and my exclamation marks. I make a living.”
“You’re a writer, then?”
“No, a bloody brain surgeon,” she returned, not unkindly. “You might’ve had a point about helplessly, though, back upstairs. And—all right, about the body-shaming, too. It’s a failing of mine. My father was overweight, you see, and he was very cruel to me. I suppose I’ve been taking revenge.”
“That’s understandable. But—”
“Oh, I know it’s wrong. I’ll try not to do it again.” Her focus shifted. “Hold on, young man. Standing beside you there... isn’t that...”
“What kind of writing do you do?” Lee asked hastily. “Adventure stories? Porn?”
“Porn?” She burst out laughing. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you? And I’m disappointed in you, as well—you seemed so insightful. Though you hardly get credit for that, considering your trade.”
“How did I disappoint you?”
“Everyone asks that question—what kind of writing I do. Followed closely by, will I have read any of your books, and I’d write books too, if I had the time. I could give you some ideas.”
“That must be frustrating. Often people don’t know how to act when they’re confronted with an artist, though. And asking you what kind of writing you do—well, that just means they’re interested. I am, too. I’d really like to know.”
She smiled. “Oh, get on with you, with your silver eyes and your subtly manipulative charm! I write about people like you, if you really want to know, and the things you claim to see.”
“Is that why you came to Underhill?”
“Yes! Fabulous history. I rented the house on a cheap winter let. I settled in to do some research and write up the kind of story my readers like—lots of dash and action, a good splash of gore but not too much. You might have heard of me, actually—Ruth Cadwallader? One Hundred Most Hideous Hauntings?”
“Um... yes, I think that does ring a bell.”
She grinned. “Bloody little liar. And I’d just got started, when...” She shook her head, gave her invisible Remington a little push. “It’s no good, young man. That big oaf quivering there at your side is William Poirot Prowse.”
On instinct, Lee got to his feet. He couldn’t imagine what this tiny creature could do to the oaf, but just in case... “Stay back, Bill, okay?” He frowned and did a small double-take. “Er... Poirot?”
“My mother was an admirer of Agatha Christie,” Bill said with dignity. His imagination was clearly better than Lee’s: he was trying to sidle away, deeper into the shadows. “Keep her away from me.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What could she possibly—”
Ruth Cadwallader sprang upright. She darted in Bill’s direction. Bill gave a howl, jolted backward, and tumbled over a lump of fallen masonry. He clawed and lurched his way to his feet and staggered off, the author in hot pursuit.
There was nowhere for them to run. All Bill could do was flee for his life around the perimeter of the crypt, which could never have been a big one, just room enough for a coffin and a handful of night-watching mourners. All the enraged woman could do was follow in his tracks. Her sheepskin boots slapped on the flagstones. Bill let out a shriek that would have done his missus proud, on the many nights when their domestic battles had rung out across the otherwise peaceful streets of Dark, forcing Gideon to fling on a jacket, leave his own warm hearthside and go stamping and grumbling off to intervene. Lee gripped the edge of his packing crate in the hope of controlling his reactions: then gave it up, doubled over and started to laugh.
On the fourth lap, Ruth eased off her pace. She came to a breathless halt. Bill, lost in his terror, almost caught up with her before he noticed that she’d stopped. He made for his refuge behind Lee once more. “I told you! Told you to keep her away from me!”
“Yes, and I...” Lee sat up, wiping away tears. “I’m sorry that I didn’t. Honestly, though, Bill—I can’t see why you’re so scared of her.”
“This is no good,” Ruth managed. She’d had to prop her hands on her knees. “I’m much too old for this kind of thing. Hold on a minute.”
When she was able to, she straightened up. She raised her hands to the waist-high position that would have looked so perfectly normal if a Remington keyboard had been waiting there for her touch. For her commands, Lee suddenly understood, and put out an arm to shield Bill. “Wait,” he tried, but it was too late. The hardworking fingers were once more a blur in the air.
This time the paper popped into existence an inch from his nose, a tang of ink and ozone following. He grabbed it before it could fall. Weary of her mortal frame, the vigorous typescript read, the fearless author cast aside the restraints of nature! From her ageing flesh sprang a creature no earthly pen could describe—six foot tall, covered from head to foot in glimmering silver pelt, claws like the blades of a combine harvester!
“So much for no earthly pen. You have to be kidding, Mrs Cadwallader.”
She didn’t respond. She was too busy typing. Something had changed in the air, a connection forming between the fearless author and the gifted young clairvoyant, whether he liked it or not. Words began to appear on the sheet as he held it, sharp small jolts shaking the paper under the barrage of keystrokes. Fully formed and ravenous, the creature leapt off in pursuit of Prowse, the podgy Cornish bastard who’d taken her life.
Lee made a last attempt. “I thought you were gonna ease off on the body-shaming thing,” he said weakly, not daring to look up.
Podgy’s not so bad, is it? Read my words, Locryn Tyack. Read them.
“Oh, Christ, Bill. What have you done?”