THE NEXT MORNING, the light coming in through Ashley’s bedroom window was dreary and strained; a thick layer of dark clouds stretched across the sky while the odd squall of rain dashed against the glass. It was difficult to get out of bed, which she suspected was the fault of Aidan’s little blue tablets. Her first instinct was to delve down under the duvet and sleep until the afternoon, but instead she slipped out of bed as quietly as she could, pausing to look at her journal, which she had left open on her bedside table.
Another shit show. Am I having a bad run at the moment or what? Bloody journalists causing havoc. Dad is over the moon about the ‘free publicity’, but if we have this much scrutiny every time we put on a show, it’ ll go tits up sooner or later. No psychic needs someone looking too closely at their methods.
Ashley grimaced and put the journal away in her drawer. She crept into the bathroom, and when she was dressed, locked her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs. The whole house was quiet aside from the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the clock in the hallway. She fingered the car keys in her pocket with some triumph; all she had to do was get out of the front door and she’d be free. Her father’s griping could wait until the evening.
When she opened the front door, though, a cold feeling of dread filled her throat. The Parma Violet was not there. She jogged down the path and onto the gravel, wondering if she had left it parked round the corner of their drive perhaps, hidden by bushes, but she already knew the truth. It wasn’t behind the bushes. It wasn’t anywhere to be seen. When she turned back to go inside the house, her father was there, leaning against the doorframe with a big grin on his face. One of his skills left over from the bad old days was an ability to move very quietly when he needed to.
‘Going somewhere, Ash?’
‘Where’s my fucking car?’ To her horror, she already felt close to crying. Her one fragile piece of freedom had been taken from her, and all at once, it was like she was being suffocated. She took out her keys and shook them at him. ‘What did you do with it?’
He laughed.
‘You know I don’t need keys to get into a car, Ash. Now, come on inside and we can talk about what happened last night. I’m very interested to hear your explanation.’
For a second, she teetered on the brink of running down their drive to the main road. It would serve him right if his daughter got splashed all over the tarmac. But in the end, she walked, stiff-legged, into the house. Her mother was standing in the kitchen in her pink silk dressing gown, pouring hot water into their green-and-yellow-striped teapot that had come with them from the flat in London. Looking at it hurt Ashley’s heart. The old flat might have been tiny and damp, but she had had so much more freedom then, even as a child.
‘Did you sleep well, dear?’ Her mum smiled at her in her vacant way. ‘I thought I heard you in the night, calling out.’
‘No, Mum. I slept fine.’
‘So, what about it?’ Her father, who stood by the door, said, ‘What was up with you yesterday? Absolute bloody pandemonium, Helen. She started talking to something that wasn’t there, and then she started behaving like bloody Shelley Duvall in The Shining, all wide-eyed and terrified. It’s fine, Ash, if you want to change things up a bit. I get it. Maybe the show is starting to get boring for you after all these years and you want to add a bit of drama. But you have to discuss it with us first. I need to know what you’ve got planned. As it is, I’ve ended up giving out a load of cheap tickets for your next performance, which’ll eat into our margins.’
‘Wow, Dad, I’m so sorry about your margins.’ She bit her lip. Despite everything, they were her parents, and she wanted to confide in them. Perhaps then they could help her. ‘Has it occurred to you that what happened to me – finding that little boy – has messed me up?’
Her father snorted. ‘You want therapy again? Is that what you’re saying? Because that went so well last time. I know you’re tougher than that, Ashley.’
She closed her eyes. This was useless.
‘I won’t have any nonsense,’ her father was saying. ‘This is a delicate time for the business, with the potential for us to make a lot of cash. Right? The last thing I need is you going off the rails.’
Ashley’s phone buzzed briefly inside her jeans pocket. She took it out and saw a message from Aidan:
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, SIS?
‘Who’s that?’
‘It’s just Aidan. You know, the one who is actually concerned about my well-being.’ Her mother made some stricken noises about that, but the text had given Ashley an idea. Rather than texting Aidan back, she opened a new chat and sent a message to Freddie instead.
CAN YOU COME AND PICK ME UP? MY CAR IS OUT OF ACTION. JUST PULL UP AND KEEP THE ENGINE RUNNING AND I’LL COME OUT. BEEP FOR ME.
She added her address and pressed send before looking up to meet her father’s eyes.
‘I just told him you’re keeping me prisoner.’
‘Very funny,’ said Logan. ‘Your brother won’t take any notice. He’s always been the sensible one. Now what were you playing at last night?’
Ashley put her phone back into her pocket and shoved past him into the hallway. From there, she went into the living room and sat on the far side of the room. After a moment, her father followed her in, tailed by her mum, who was murmuring with her eyes downcast.
‘It’s the angels, Logan, you know how they exhaust her. They take so much. She is a vessel of their grace.’
‘Helen, why don’t you make yourself useful? Elsewhere.’
Her mother skittered back towards the door, her hands fluttering up to her mouth.
‘I’ll start pouring the teas.’
When she was gone, Logan settled himself in the armchair nearest the television, his thick arms on top of the armrests. Inside her pocket, Ashley felt her phone vibrate again.
‘While your mother’s out of the room, we can talk sensibly, can’t we, love?’ He smiled encourageingly at her, but Ashley was familiar with her dad’s smiles. They had more in common with the flash of tooth an antelope sees just before the tiger bites than any expression of happiness. ‘What was that all about, aye?’
Ashley took a long, slow breath. There was no room for the truth in this household. ‘I don’t know. I thought I should capitalize on all the publicity. Give people something more interesting for their money. It just occurred to me in the moment, you know? I saw this video of an American medium on YouTube, this woman with huge hair. She fell onto her knees in the middle of the act and started talking in tongues. It went down a storm.’
Her father shook his head, but he did look slightly mollified. ‘Well. I never thought you had it in you, Ash. But you have to be careful with that showy stuff. British people, they don’t go in for that spouting gibberish or possession or whatever. Puts them off their tea. That’s why you have to talk about it with me first.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ As casually as possible, Ashley stood and moved to the coffee table where there was a bowl of fruit. She picked out a banana and began to peel it. Her father watched her from his chair. ‘I’m sorry. I was just caught up in the moment.’ She thought of the Heedful Ones rising from their seats and took a bite of the banana to distract herself. ‘What do you think though? I expect it got us a few more lines in the local rag. Maybe even not so local ones.’
‘Well.’ Her father leaned forward, his broad hands hanging between his knees. ‘Maybe you’re right. We can work in some smaller moments, perhaps. We’ve always said we don’t want to scare people, but a little scare could make the night memorable. The best way would be to introduce these things slower, in small amounts. You could, I don’t know, get a faraway look in your eye in the middle of a reading. Perhaps something startles you that the audience can’t see.’ He shifted in his chair, warming to the subject. ‘I would like to be there, to begin with, so I can observe the reactions of the audience. We don’t want to put them off with your histrionics. What if …’
A car horn beeped outside, three times in quick succession. Ashley jumped, already on her feet, and ran out the living room door.
‘ASHLEY!’
In a handful of seconds, she was down the hallway and out the front door. She could hear her father running after her, but he wasn’t fast enough. When she crashed out onto the gravel drive, she saw Freddie’s shiny red car, his window down and his face creased with puzzlement. Ashley grinned at the sight and ran towards the car even as her father started bellowing. Impulsively, she threw the half-eaten banana behind her and yanked the back door of the car open before throwing herself across the seats.
‘GO!’ she yelled as she reached over and slammed the door shut. To her enormous gratitude, Freddie didn’t need telling twice. With a deafening crunch of gravel, he spun the car almost in a doughnut, and then they were facing the drive down the main road. Ashley whipped around, eager to see the look on her father’s face. He had gone beet red, and the slimy remains of a banana skin were slapped across the top of one boot.
‘Who the fuck is that?’ he bellowed.
But it was too late. Freddie’s car sped down the drive onto the road, and Ashley whooped with delight from the back seat.
‘All right.’ Freddie laughed nervously. ‘Um. What is going on, exactly?’
‘You helped me escape!’ Ashley leaned forward through the front seats and kissed Freddie on the cheek. ‘Sorry.’ She sat back and laughed again. ‘Sorry, but that was hilarious. He’s going to be furious.’
‘Uh. Am I going to wake up in the morning with a horse’s head in my bed, or whatever the British equivalent is?’
‘Nah, it’ll be me he’s annoyed with.’
‘Yeah, I’ll be honest, that worries me too.’
Ashley took a breath. There would be consequences for this particular piece of disobedience, but that was for later.
‘Pull up over here so I can get in the front seat, will you?’ Ashley grinned, feeling mildly dizzy. ‘My knight in shining armour.’