Blue gave up her phone.
Milton kept his seat by the fire, and Mr Park steered Blue, Jago and Sabina through the passageway that led to the kitchen, where he opened a small door to reveal a safe built into the brick wall.
‘At least it looks secure,’ said Blue.
‘Fort bloody Knox,’ Sabina said.
‘We’ll hand them back on the last day,’ said Mr Park.
‘And if there’s some disaster?’ Sabina asked.
‘There’ll not be,’ he said.
‘But if there is?’
Amusement lit his grey eyes. ‘There’s this old-fashioned device called a landline in the hall, and a laptop and Wi-Fi in our apartment, through there.’ He nodded at a green varnished door at the far side of the kitchen.
Mrs Park startled, and added, ‘Strictly for emergencies – they’re our private living quarters, after all,’ as though embarrassed by her own need for boundaries.
‘Any chance I could connect to the Wi-Fi first?’ Jago said. His tan looked jaundiced in the low kitchen light, his face made of sharp contours and shadows. Beneath the taut muscle, the styled hair, he looked unwell. ‘I have this automated app, it loads updates and—’
‘Phones need to be turned off,’ Mr Park said, not unkindly, and held his palm out for the mobile.
‘You’ll be fine without it,’ Mrs Park said. A red chequered apron covered her tunic. ‘Plenty to keep you occupied this week. You’ll feel so well looked after that you’ll hardly miss your phone. Most guests enjoy the break.’
Jago nodded and said, ‘Yeah, I can imagine that, yeah,’ but his shoulders became hunched, his hands sequestered in his pockets.
The kitchen was large and low-ceilinged, done up in the cottage style – wooden work surfaces, a butler’s sink, pine table with chairs and the heat-shedding Aga.
An uncanny change had occurred in Mrs Park; she’d sloughed the therapist’s persona like snakeskin. With the flour-smeared apron on, she looked the picture of a farmer’s wife, her chin-length hair held back in an Alice band cut from the same red cloth. The colour was reflected in her cheeks, so they looked rosy, plump, unnaturally wholesome. A rich scent of roasted meat filled the room.
‘Dinner smells wonderful,’ Sabina said. ‘A casserole?’
‘Beef and ale.’ Mrs Park looked bashful. The dinner, she said, wouldn’t be ready for another hour, leaving time for a tour of the retreat. Mr Park made his excuses and left via the dark green door. Blue looked wistfully at the fresh bread on the tabletop, thought of the plate of biscuits she’d not touched in the lounge. Hunger hit her and hard. It would, she decided, be easier to be out of the kitchen whilst the food cooked than trapped inside it, tormented by the smell in the air.
‘I take it Milton won’t be joining the tour?’ Sabina said.
‘I will,’ he wheezed from the passageway door. No one had heard him arrive, his approach muted by the soft soles of his shoes and the rubber feet of his walking frame. The brimmed navy hat was on his head.
‘You look like Rick Grimes,’ Blue said, ‘from The Walking—’
‘Don’t know who that is,’ he said, then turned and walked out, the door left open for them to follow.
The passageway divided the house: the kitchen on the right, two spacious rooms to the left, and at the end, a door with a disabled logo.
‘This is where the holistic activities take place,’ Mrs Park said as they entered the first of the two rooms. It was as bare and clean as a surgical theatre. The far wall, a canvas of glass, showed the rain-clogged fields and the small wood beyond.
‘Beautiful view,’ said Sabina.
The river flowed along the edge of the land, crossed by an ornate stone bridge whose path disappeared into the close-grown bosk.
‘We’ll do yoga, art classes …’ said Mrs Park.
The trees leant over the river, over the field, stretched stout branches towards the house and beckoned to the people inside it.
‘… therapeutic dance and crystal healing …’
Their twigs, like fingers, picked out Blue.
And the room was too big, too light, too much a contrast to the world outside. For months, all Blue had wanted to do was get here, get the week over with and go. It would help her move on and become a normal person and have normal friends and a normal job and live a normal life, but she hadn’t stopped to think about the intricacies. She couldn’t do yoga, for Christ’s sake, couldn’t dance, wouldn’t touch another crystal for as long as she lived, and definitely couldn’t sleep in a house where trees and water pressed in from all angles when all she’d ever known was the town.
And the dogs – she’d forgotten to ask how many they had, if they’d be allowed near her, how big they were, and her skin prickled; she could hear them pant in her ear, could feel the slick of their drool on her leg—
‘A heron! Look, by the bridge.’ Sabina ran to the window, pointed to the grey bird by the water. It balanced rock-still on tall yellow legs; its feathers blended into the stone and shade of the bridge.
Jago joined her at the glass. ‘Oh wow,’ he said, ‘she’s right, look, over on the bank.’
Crows circled, ready to roost. The setting sun stretched the shadows of the trees into long, sharp limbs that pointed across the field and straight at the house. In there, they said, let us in there.
‘Ever so many birds live here. In winter, the starlings come down on their way to the heath. Have you ever seen the murmuration?’ said Mrs Park, and Sabina said she had always wanted to, Jago said he’d seen them all the time growing up and Blue wanted to disappear.
‘You catch them around Blackpool pier, sometimes.’ Blue tried to distract herself and join in, but the words were sawdust.
Milton stood next to her, inscrutable, and whispered, ‘You don’t have to do any of it if it’s not your thing. I tell her to bugger off at the mere mention of therapeutic sodding dance.’
Panic loosened and she exhaled, embarrassed that her fear had been so obvious. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered back, and Milton hawed a response.
‘There’s a buzzard, look, on the telegraph pole.’ Mrs Park pointed – tawny feathers near matched the wood. Sabina stared in wonder; Mrs Park looked from her delighted guest to the bird and back.
‘If you’d rather, you can sit with me by the fire when they do all that bollocks,’ Milton said and coughed into his elbow. ‘Only if you’d rather.’
She tried to whisper another thank you but found there was a lump in her throat. The small kindness reminded her so much of her stepfather that she couldn’t finish. Such memories rarely surfaced, and she found that she had to bundle them up and shut them away before they had the chance to overwhelm.
‘I’ll show you the therapy room next,’ Mrs Park said.
The room was like the last, but with tinted windows, so outside was less of a distraction. Eight armchairs sat in a circle.
‘We hold a mixture of group therapy and one-on-one sessions,’ Mrs Park said, and though a yellow-crested bird alighted near the window, Sabina didn’t look.
‘I’d rather the dancing,’ she said.
Sabina excused herself before dinner; she wanted to wash her face and change her clothes. Blue suspected it was the prospect of therapy she wanted to wash off, the fear of honesty among strangers.
Due to the small party, Mrs Park decided that they’d all cosy up in the kitchen to eat; it was the warmest room in the house.
‘On account of the Aga,’ Mrs Park explained, as Blue peeled off her jumper and draped it on the back of her chair. A glass jug of water sat in the centre of the round table, alongside the fresh-baked loaf that permeated the air with its subtle, sweet yeast.
Milton shuffled across the flagstone floor, rested his walking frame against the wall and sat in the nearest chair. Cross-stitch mottos hung from the picture rail: a friend is for a reason, a season or for life and weep freely; not all tears are evil. On the windowsill were framed photographs; two were of young black Labradors, and nerves vice-gripped her stomach. At least they weren’t Alsatians. Mother feared Alsatians.
‘So,’ Blue said, ‘these are your dogs?’ She looked around for water bowls, food bowls, leads, and felt a little calmer when she didn’t find any. Perhaps they weren’t allowed in the kitchen. Maybe, she thought, they keep them away from the guests.
‘Black Labs,’ Jago said with boyish delight. ‘I love black Labs. We always had Labradors when I was a kid.’
‘Milo and Jupiter,’ Mrs Park said with poignant fondness. ‘Yes, we had two pups.’ She bent to the Aga, lifted out the casserole and took off the lid.
The smell made Blue’s mouth water, the meat and the ale and the dumplings. The dogs looked out from the photo as if they, too, were desperate for food. Their dense, dark fur made their teeth all the whiter, and their tongues lolled blood red, their eyes unnaturally bright as though ready to pounce from the frame, lunge at Blue, fight her for every scrap of promised food, and Blue had to look away.
‘They passed, sadly,’ Mrs Park said. ‘Years ago now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Blue said and felt a pang of guilt at the rush of relief. ‘I thought I’d heard … never mind.’
‘Losing a dog is the worst,’ Jago said.
‘There are worse things to lose,’ said Milton. ‘Far worse.’
‘What do you think you heard?’ Mrs Park, motionless at the Aga, waited for Blue to answer.
‘A dog, earlier. I thought it was—’
‘– It must have come from outside. Someone going for a walk nearby; sound carries out here on the flats. So it must have been someone else’s dog.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Blue said. ‘I’m sorry that they … you know.’
Mrs Park removed her oven gloves, held them to her belly, leant back on the worktop, and sighed. ‘These things happen,’ she said and looked towards the window. At first, Blue thought she would look at the dogs’ photographs, but Mrs Park’s gaze moved beyond them; out the window, across the wet field to the woods’ boundary. A small grey slab rose from the ground. Blue wondered if the dogs were buried there.
‘Did they bite someone?’ she said.
Milton choked out a laugh. Mrs Park’s cheeks lost their rose; she looked at Blue as though she’d stepped out of line, and Blue reran the question in her head, wondered if it had been inappropriate, too familiar. Before she could apologise – did she need to apologise? Had the question crossed a line? – Sabina came in.
‘Has anyone been into my room?’ Sabina said, and it was so unexpected that no one answered. They looked at each other, bewildered, and Sabina said, ‘Upstairs? Have you? To change towels or sheets or something?’
‘We’ve been down here; you’ve only been gone a few minutes.’ Blue poured Sabina a glass of water from the jug. ‘Sit down a minute; you’re shaken.’
‘What’s wrong?’ said Mrs Park, but she didn’t step forward, and the oven gloves stayed clutched to her belly.
Sabina shook her head. ‘The strangest thing; my bedroom door was open.’
‘Open? Didn’t I give you the key to lock it?’ said Mrs Park.
‘Yes, I locked it, but it was—’
‘Wide open or just unlocked?’ Jago asked.
‘Wide open.’
‘It might have been the wind; a draught pulled it. It could have happened when Joshua came home.’ Mrs Park adopted a no-nonsense manner to keep her guests calm, no doubt, but the colour in her cheeks didn’t return.
‘Was anything taken?’ Blue asked.
Mrs Park said, ‘There’s been no one here to take anything; we’ve all been downstairs.’ She sounded hurt.
‘Could Mr Park have opened it?’ Blue said.
‘It must have blown open,’ said Mrs Park.
‘You definitely locked it?’ Jago said.
Only the old man stayed silent.
Sabina looked to Blue, said, ‘I thought so, but maybe … I can’t remember; did I lock it when we came downstairs?’
Blue could remember the shock of seeing her, the smell of vanilla, the way the light caught her cheekbones, but she couldn’t remember what she had done, what she’d said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Blue said, ‘I can’t—’
And Mrs Park said, ‘It must have been the draught.’
Sabina shrugged and sat opposite Blue at the table. ‘Maybe it was a ghost,’ she laughed. ‘One that opens doors, like in The Haunting of Hill House.’
‘That ghost closed doors,’ Blue said, pleased they had some common ground.
‘You’ve read it, too?’
‘Saw it on Netflix,’ she said.
‘Hope Marsh is many things but haunted isn’t one of them.’ Mrs Park sat the casserole dish on a trivet beside the fresh bread. She hung the apron on a hook and slipped the Alice band into a drawer. Her bobbed hair fell back around her face, and she looked once more like a therapist in her white cotton smock. ‘You’ve never seen anything, have you?’ she said to Milton.
‘Not yet,’ he said.
‘Ever had complaints about doors with a life of their own?’ Sabina said and shot Blue a sidelong look.
Mrs Park caught the tease, tossed it back. ‘Only when there’s a draught,’ she said.
The bowls were filled with casserole, their noses with the steam and the rich hoppy smell of it, and just as Mrs Park lifted the knife to break through the crust of the bread, Mr Park joined them.
‘No butter?’ he said.
‘Here.’ Mrs Park slid a blue paisley butter dish to her husband. ‘Did you go upstairs? Sabina found her door standing open.’
His mouth was full, so he shook his head and frowned at each person in turn.
‘Blue thinks it’s a ghost,’ said Sabina and nudged Blue’s foot under the table and laughed at the shock on her face.
‘I never—’
‘A joke,’ said Sabina. ‘But something must have opened it; I left it closed.’
‘Well, it’s a very old house,’ Mr Park said. ‘Who knows what’s lurking in the—’
‘Joshua!’ said Mrs Park. ‘Ignore him; he’s provocative.’
‘Problem with old houses is the insulation.’ Mr Park pointed at the ceiling with his fork. ‘No matter how well insulated the roof or wall cavities or windows, the wind always gets through. More cunning than a mouse, that draught.’
On cue, a flurry of wind beat the house, and rain rushed at the windows, upsetting a frame that leant on the glass. The black dog trapped inside looked unimpressed.
‘Weather’s picking up,’ Milton said, more to his casserole spoon than anyone else. ‘It’s only going to get colder.’
‘If you do feel chilly tonight, you’ll find extra blankets in the drawers of the divan,’ said Mrs Park.
‘Don’t mother them,’ Mr Park said, though he had meat in his mouth and could have said smother.
‘And if we see ghosts in the night?’ Sabina said with a grin.
Blue said, ‘You won’t see ghosts.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They don’t exist.’
‘That’s what I like to hear,’ Mrs Park said. ‘A woman with a bit of reason.’
‘Millions of people claim to have seen them; do you think them all mad?’ said Sabina and crossed her cutlery over her plate.
‘No, not mad,’ said Blue, ‘their brains are very efficient.’ She paused and double-checked her audience, made sure she hadn’t upset them; people got a bit funny when it came to the supernatural. ‘Your brain translates your surroundings into things you can understand. For example, light bounces from an object into your eye; the optic nerves transfer that information to your brain, which translates it into an image. It does this quickly, but not always perfectly.’
‘You’re saying that sometimes the translation’s imperfect, and we see things that aren’t there?’ Jago said. He ate twice as quickly as anyone else and had already finished his plate. Mrs Park served him seconds.
‘Aye, kind of,’ Blue said. ‘You see a shadow in the corner of your eye, but you’re not facing it full-on; you just get a slice of it. Your brain forms that hazy image into something you can understand. The most easily understood image, and the most comforting, is the human form, so your brain is more likely to mistranslate the shadow as a face or a person. It’s not until you turn to it fully that you realise it’s something else, or that it was never there in the first place.’ She stopped, self-conscious and painfully aware of what Mother would have thought.
‘I agree,’ said Mrs Park as she stacked the bowls in the middle of the table. ‘The brain is remarkable but causes mischief. Take trauma, for instance: your mind struggles to place a traumatic event in your long-term memory. So, it tries to lodge it elsewhere – usually, the short-term memory. The downside is that the traumatic event comes to the surface at the slightest trigger, and you relive your initial reaction to the trauma. The only way out of the loop is to train your brain to address the event, process it and store it appropriately.’
Blue thought of the difficult memories locked inside her head, those that were hers and those she had inadvertently inherited from others.
‘Until that happens,’ Mrs Park continued, ‘it can cause flashbacks, both visual and sensory and, in awful cases, it can fool you into thinking that something or someone is there when they’re not.’
The sky darkened, and the rain on the window looked black.
‘Blue, are you all right?’ She put a hand on Blue’s shoulder. ‘You’re pale.’