‘Elliot, go on back to bed. Heaven knows why you two are down here when you should have been asleep. It’s not safe to wander around in the dark, especially in the middle of the night.’ She would have scorned them both, but the look on Elliot’s face deflated her.
Oliver lay on the floor, curled into a ball as he always was. Elliot sat beside him with one hand on his brother’s forehead, the other clutching something close to his chest.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. We’re both sorry.’ There were lots of tears. Elliot’s face was wet, his eyes swollen red. ‘I couldn’t wake him. Is it like Dad?’
‘No, of course not. That was different.’
‘I thought he—’ Elliot wiped his cuff across his runny nose. ‘It frightened me. It’s like when Dad—’
‘It’s okay. Everything is all right. I’ll get him back to bed, don’t worry. But I need you to go straight back up now. I don’t want anyone catching us up at this hour. Be quick.’
‘We won’t lose him like… Dad?’
‘Don’t even think about it. It’s just…’ She didn’t know what it was. Was it this house? ‘Oliver will be fine, now go to bed.’
Elliot eyed her with a strange hesitation. He felt the words she held back; she didn’t need to speak them. Instead, he squeezed an arm around her waist and kissed her bare shoulder. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ she answered. ‘Why are you down here, anyway?’ He wore that serious look she’d seen a lot lately. ‘No matter. Just as well that I was. Now, to bed.’
He scampered off with the speed of a rodent rushing under the skirting. His hurried footsteps above her head halted on the turn of the staircase, his soft footfall on the landing. She held her breath, knew where he stood, felt where his eyes were scanning, then heard the faint click of the torch switch and his feet scurry up the next flight of stairs. She exhaled, rolling her shoulders.
Nancy lifted her youngest off the floor, limp and heavy. Was Oliver different to Andrew? The similarity hadn’t escaped her, but now the awful comparison hit her like a ton of bricks. What had they been doing, wandering these halls in the middle of the night? This was no place for games. She had to make her boys understand that there were rules. It was the only way to keep them safe. It wasn’t a childhood she had envisioned, but it was what Andrew had left them.
‘I had no choice, Nance.’
‘Go away,’ she cursed; clenching her eyes, she was in no mood for such fancies.
‘You must know that I had no choice. You must listen to me.’
‘I said go away.’
Not tonight. Not here. This place would only amplify those emotions. Nancy hugged Oliver a little tighter; she wouldn’t allow the same for him.
‘You shouldn’t have brought them here.’
‘You saw to that though, didn’t you?
‘Sorry, Nance.’
‘What for? Leaving me? Bringing us here?’
With a wistful sigh, she felt the cold breath on her neck. An arm eased her into an embrace. She held her son closer, cradling him and desperate to block out the longing that took her every night—the longing to be no longer alone.
‘He always was such a little thing. Unlike his brother.’ His tone changed. She opened her eyes, expecting nothing but air, only to find his silhouette. ‘Always so beautiful.’ He reached for her face, teasing a strand of hair away from her eyes.
‘Don’t be so cruel. Go away. You’re not here.’
He released her and paced a silent step back into the room. There was a realness to him that stirred all those memories that mocked her.
‘You’re not here, Andrew,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve had enough of your pitying whispers. Get out of my head.’
Nancy stumbled away from the window and fell onto the chair. She remained there a while, coaxing free the sweaty hair that stuck to Oliver’s forehead. The familiar tang of guilt gripped her gullet. Oliver was slight, it was true—not in size, but in his nature. His skin was clammy, pale in the soft morning light that edged over the horizon.
There had always been a delicateness, a sensitivity, to their second-born that had seized her breath more times than she could remember. He had a sight beyond natural vision. He felt others pain, was open to emotions and anguish like an angel resided in this child of winter. The night they were born, a wild snowstorm had cut them off, leaving her and Andrew to bring two tiny creations into the world alone. A light, brighter than any she had seen before, had blinded her when Oliver arrived. A serene silence had fallen on her as he slipped from her body. A gentle calm had washed the room and swept away the deep howls of the storm winds that had filled the house for hours.
And then they’d been there—two tiny mites.
No mother should compare her children but love them the same. She tried, God knew she did, yet her boys were a breed apart. A shadow inhabited Elliot—a knowing like his brother’s, but it held darkness she feared. Many times, she had watched from the corner of her eye, caught glimpses of his stare, and almost heard his thoughts. Pain struck her heart with the guilt. It was wrong that she was afraid of her own child. What horror could a boy of seven possibly cause? The shame of it had lain heavy on her shoulders for all these years. Being at the Priory now, she would know once and for all if what she feared the most was well-founded.
Oliver stirred in her arms; she clutched his hand a little too hard. She hushed, rocking him as she had when he was a baby. She ached for those days, for those simple, almost carefree moments in the early hours when she’d held her newborn. Tiny, innocent, and vulnerable. She had been needed then. Maybe Nancy needed him more than he needed her. Oliver had slept soundly until 3am, the same every night, had held each other until the sun came up, two kindred souls.
Elliot, on the other hand, had repelled her touch. He had needed little attention beyond feeding and changing. She had caught Andrew standing in the nursery, his hands hovering over the cot, and fear had rampaged through her at the possibility that he might hurt a child she’d carried for nine months. Every night as Andrew had turned from the room and wandered back to their bed, she had ached with grief of a different kind. She’d seen that look in his eyes, blank and glazed. It was that look that had taken him that last day. Maybe his end had always been mapped. There was no way she would allow the same for her boys.
A bright sunbeam touched her face. Closing her eyes for just a minute, she could see Andrew standing before the window. You should be sorry for leaving us. But her thoughts fell into the bottomless pit of her despair. Andrew cared no more now than he had done that last day.
Oliver stirred again. She carried him to bed after he had fallen asleep. Estelle had eyed her questionably, but Nancy had offered no reply. He wasn’t like his father. He wouldn’t suffer that fate. Not ready to share her fears with anyone, she locked them away in her box of denial with so much of her life. She would live a lifetime in hell before she confided in that old woman.
Their relationship hadn’t started on the right foot if it had begun at all. The two had been at a stalemate from the moment Nancy had arrived at the door. Now she was a mother herself, a sliver of her soul understood, even if she loathed herself for it. Andrew had been Estelle’s only child. The Hardacre dynasty suffered more than its share of woe. Children didn’t fare well within these walls—a desperate reality Nancy was beginning to feel for herself. Why had she come here? No wonder Andrew had longed to leave despite the Priory being his legacy, his responsibility. So, too, was the curse that soddened its very foundations. Nancy had swanned in, flaunting her beauty like a red flag, opening the door wide for escape. She’d never forget that word: escape, from what she hadn’t known at the time or even cared. She’d fallen in love, and that was that.
Nancy pulled Oliver closer and shifted him over her shoulder, padded through the grand hallway and up the staircase. Eyes bored into her skin. Her foot left the last tread of the first flight and came to rest on the thick carpet of the gallery landing.
It was swift. A flash of movement quickly explained away if she’d been so inclined. Except, this was the Priory, and all who knew it knew better than to underplay the games that were commonplace within these walls.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she asserted through gritted teeth, her son gripped tighter to her chest.
It slipped into the shadow of the old carved chair; age darkened the engraved back and arms. It nestled along the wall between her bedroom door and the next flight of stairs. Her legs were shaking as she stared into the darkness. Oliver stirred in her arms as she clung to him too fiercely. The chair joints creaked as if it sat down. It said nothing, of course, but she felt its intentions. It made them so brutally clear.
‘You will not have him too. He is mine.’
The Priory heard. It knew her heart. It pummelled the air onto her skin with a mirroring beat.
Nancy slid her foot forwards, edging closer to the gallery bannisters as far from the chair as possible. A wisp caressed her leg and gently wound a tendril around her ankle, pulling her towards it. She stumbled. One hand left Oliver’s back to steady herself, the other struck the chair, and her shoulder whacked it hard. Pain shot through her arm like a hot poker as she grappled to keep hold of her son.
‘Damn it,’ she whimpered.
‘Mum?’
‘It’s fine, Oli darling. Let’s get you to bed.’
Her chest screamed as she tried to move, every muscle burning, Nancy’s body gave way, and she sank to the floor at the foot of the chair.
It was still close. Breathing on her. Watching her. Her eyes searched for any movement as it loomed overhead. Its coils lingered about her shoulders, travelled down to her hands as she gripped her son. It teased at her fingers, prized them away one by one from his warm flesh. Nancy thrashed at the air with her free arm, swiping in the darkness. But it had no form. It couldn’t be attacked or escaped.
She got to her feet, made it to the stairs, all the while staring into the pitch black. It stared back; felt it right up in her face, looking through her eyes deep into her soul.
You have two. What is one for the sake of the other?
Nancy’s bare feet pounded up the last staircase. Reaching the bedroom door, she threw herself in and flung her foot to bang the door closed behind them. Her fingers frantically searched for the bedside lamp. With eyes the size of saucers, Oliver jolted in her arms, fear and alarm fresh on his face. Nancy hushed and checked his twin was sleeping. Elliot didn’t move. He faced the wall, though she felt the air shift when he opened his eyes. She let him be. For the next few moments, Nancy hurried around the room, checking the window latch, under the beds and inside the wardrobe. She knew the absurdity of it—what inhabited this house didn’t hide beneath beds.
Oliver shuffled under his covers with a confused look when he laid his head on his pillow. ‘Did you put me to bed earlier?’
Nancy wondered if she should tell him. ‘Of course, love. You fell asleep on the settee; I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘Okay.’ He rubbed his eyes and yawned away any other questions he might have had.
‘Settle back down. You need some sleep.’ She left other words unsaid. Instead, she tucked him in, the crisp sheet smooth under his chin.
‘Too tight.’
‘Sorry, darling,’ she lulled. The quiver of her lip was fleeting, but he’d seen and returned it. ‘I love you.’
‘Mum?’
‘It’s all okay. You need to get some sleep now.’
‘Mummy, I don’t think it’s safe here.’
‘Safe?’
‘The house, it doesn’t want us here.’
Such a sad look on her dear boy’s face. How she wanted to wipe away all the pain, bundle it up and throw it into that deep hole with his father.
‘It’s just a house, love. Don’t think any more on it now.’ She soothed her palm to his cheek, coaxing all the bad dreams from his thoughts.
‘She’s Dad’s mother, isn’t she? That old lady.’
‘Your nan? Yes, she is.’
‘She knows what happened—So does this house.’
‘No more. You mustn’t worry about any of it.’ She pressed her finger to her lips, her eyes lingering on the door.
Nancy closed the door behind her, letting it come to a natural rest with a small gap. She stood there waiting, listening before summoning the nerve to head back down.
It was waiting for her.