FOLLOWING THE TRIAL of Dean Underwood, the story of the Red Rigg House fire and its one miraculous survivor was all over every tabloid newspaper in the UK – all thanks to Logan Whitelam. While her mother retreated further and further into herself, not quite able to accept that her daughter had returned from the dead, Ashley was pushed further and further out into the world. Her memories of the year 2005 were not so much about processing trauma as monetizing it. There were interviews in newspapers, accompanied by photos of Ashley looking pale and solemn by the school gates, or in her tiny shared bedroom. There were even television appearances, little snippets on the news, and then appearances on ‘light entertainment’ shows where men and women with shiny, unmoving hairstyles asked her and her parents lots of questions – about her time at Red Rigg, about her vision and the famous phone call to her mother, about any other psychic talents she might have. Aidan was often left at home on these outings – he wasn’t a part of the story, Logan would point out, and having an older brother made Ashley seem too normal. He wanted her to be eerie, unsettling, a mystery people would want to solve.
The family made a lot of money during this period. When the phone calls from TV producers began to wane, Logan decided he was moving the whole family to Green Beck. Years later, Ashley would look back on this decision and marvel at it, but the reality was that her mother was no longer in her right mind and in no fit state to argue with Logan, and she and Aidan naturally had no say. When Aidan tried – when he pointed out that his school was in Lewisham and his football clubs all in London – Logan brushed him aside like he was nothing, pointing out that they had the money now to live wherever they pleased, and nothing about Lewisham pleased anyone.
Privately, Ashley believed there were other, quieter reasons for the move. Technically, she knew nothing about her father’s nighttime business, but it wasn’t hard to pick up on small details and a change of atmosphere in their tiny flat. Unmarked cardboard boxes came and went, men appeared at all hours of the night, with serious grey faces. A heavy ornamental brass from the living room had been moved to one side of the front door, as though someone thought they might need access to a blunt instrument at short notice. London had become curiously untenable to her father.
When they moved to Green Beck in the spring of 2006, other reasons suddenly became more apparent too. Around a fortnight after bringing all their belongings up from London in a van, newspapers and television crews descended once more upon Ashley and her family. This time, the story was about Ashley’s return to the area where she had nearly died, about her family bravely facing what had happened to them. They interviewed her in the garden of the cottage, or out on the wild landscape of Cumbria itself, or on the village lanes of Green Beck. At this time, Red Rigg House was still undergoing reconstruction, and Ashley point-blank refused to go anywhere near it, but when the articles appeared in the newspapers she saw it again: photos of the great house, one side of it a blackened skeleton encased in scaffolding. By this time, Ashley was sixteen, a teenager who was still small for her age, and her mother began dressing her in white, letting her pale hair grow long. It made for a good picture. The first request for a private reading came in: people believed she had a connection to the dead. Ashley finished her compulsory years of school and never went back.
* * *
When they had been there about a month, Ashley opened the door to find Malory Lyndon-Smith on her doorstep. She hadn’t seen Malory since the day of the fire, and for a hazy second, it was like she was back there, sitting in Malory’s bedroom with a lacy white dress in her hands. The older girl looked much as she had then, only with a slight gauntness to her cheeks that made her look attractively haunted. She beamed at Ashley and held up a newspaper.
‘Ashie! I’m so thrilled to see you! I can’t believe you came back to the arse end of nowhere.’
Ashley blinked and stepped out onto the doorstep. After a moment, she smiled.
‘Hi, Malory.’
The newspaper headline was one of the recent ones. They had taken her up to the foothills of Red Rigg and photographed her with the mountain looming in the background. The photo picked up her mismatched eyes, and her hair – nearly white in the spring light – was pulled to one side by the wind. She looked like a ghost. The headline beneath read:
RED RIGG FIRE SURVIVOR SAYS SHE STILL HAS NO MEMORY OF MISSING THREE DAYS
To her surprise, Malory put her arms around her and squeezed her, crumpling the newspaper into her side. After a moment, Ashley hugged her back, and when they broke apart Malory’s eyes were very bright, as though she was seconds away from crying.
‘It’s so good to see you. I couldn’t believe it when Richard said your whole family had moved to Green Beck, but then he showed me all the newspapers. We’ll be able to see each other all the time. Isn’t that wonderful? Do you want to come for a drive?’
For the first time, Ashley noticed a sleek-looking car parked in their driveway. It was a dark, almost oily blue. It looked brand new.
‘You can drive?’
‘Ashie, darling, you can’t get anywhere in this place without a bloody car. Can’t you drive? You must be old enough.’
‘Dad won’t let me.’ Ashley let herself be pulled across the gravel towards the car. ‘He says I can just get lifts with him.’
‘Balls to that. I will teach you.’
* * *
They drove out into the brightening day, Malory talking a mile a minute about everything: the restoration of the house; Ashley’s newfound celebrity; the things to do around Green Beck – and the lack of them; her brother Richard’s comings and goings. At first, Ashley had a hard knot of dread in the pit of her stomach, convinced that Malory was driving them to Red Rigg House. But as the chatter washed over her, it became clear that Malory had no particular destination in mind. She was just driving for the sake of driving.
Eventually, they came to a quiet spot dotted with picnic tables. They parked the car and got out, walking across grass still wet with dew. Below them was a great sweep of dark forest, the trees moving in a gentle rush in time with the wind. There was no one else around, so they sat on the tables, their boots resting on the benches. Malory pulled a silver flask from her jacket and took a long drink from it before passing it to Ashley.
‘What is it?’
‘Mum’s whisky. She’s got loads of old bottles in the drawing room. She never notices when I nick some.’
Ashley paused with the bottle an inch away from her mouth. The last time she had tasted Biddy Lyndon-Smith’s whisky, it had been just before …
‘Come on, drink up.’ Malory grinned at her. ‘I brought it special.’
Ashley took a sip and swallowed it quickly even as her throat tried to close up against it. The alcohol burned all the way down to her stomach. ‘Has it been hard for you?’ she asked quietly. ‘Since it … you know, since it happened?’
Malory grimaced. ‘It’s been hell. We’re lucky that only half the building burned down, of course, but it feels like a bomb went off in the middle of our lives. All our plans have been put on hold. Journalists on the doorstep every few days.’ She gave Ashley a sardonic look. ‘We’re not as popular with the press as you are, Ashie. They seem convinced the fire was our fault in some way.’
‘But the trial …’
‘The press don’t care about the truth. Speaking of which.’ Malory picked up the newspaper she’d brought with her from the car, unfolding it to reveal its headline again. ‘Is it really true you don’t remember what happened that night? Where you went? You can tell me.’
‘I really don’t know.’ The words came automatically, familiar from the endless rounds of interviews, but as she looked down at the photograph of her dwarfed by Red Rigg Fell, she wondered. ‘I remember being put back to bed by Miss Lyonnes and your mother. And then I’m in the woods somehow. I was so cold. And hungry.’
Despite the warm sunshine on her shoulders, she shivered. Sometimes, when she was lying in her bed at night, on the verge of drifting off to sleep, she would think about that odd, blank time, and it was as though a memory danced just out of sight. She had the sense of a small hand in hers, the fingers painfully thin, and a feeling of being pulled into the dark. Had there been someone there with her that night? Not a Heedful One, but a real person who led her away from the fire before it happened? But who? There was no one it could have been.
‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘I guess I’ll probably never know what happened.’
‘There must have been a guardian angel looking out for you.’
Ashley swallowed. Her mother had started talking about angels since she’d come back from Red Rigg, and it made her deeply uneasy. Whatever the Heedful Ones had been, they couldn’t have been angels. Next to her, Malory took another gulp of whisky.
‘I thought …’ Ashley took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to see me. Doesn’t it bring it all back for you? That night?’
‘Of course not, Ashie. It all worked out for the best.’ She slung an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders and squeezed her again. Ashley could smell the sharp scent of whisky on her breath. ‘You’re here now, and I’ll look after you.’