“She killed Mrs Fortescue?” Simon echoed, disbelievingly. Bloody hell. He’d been right. He’d only driven up on impulse. Thank God he had…he’d walked in on a real rumpus. But there was no doubt he was right…this was some sort of supernatural creature, not Miss Royce. Or not just Miss Royce, anyway.
“I did not kill her!” the woman exclaimed. Her voice was switching between her usual tones and a peculiar, flatter one that coincided with her eyes doing…that thing.
“She killed Mrs Fortescue,” Walter repeated, ignoring her. “Or the thing with her did. It chased her until she tripped and banged her head and then it put her in the pond.”
Walter glared at the woman as he spoke. “Which are you?” he asked her, ungrammatically. “Are you Miss Royce? Or her passenger?”
Simon gave him the once over. There was blood still seeping down his arm through his shirt, which had a very obvious four-inch slash in it. And his eyes were dazed.
“Did you hit your head?” Simon asked him.
Walter shot him a glance. “Bumped it when I went over,” he said. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me.” He turned back to Miss Royce. “Miss Royce? Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me, you stupid little man!” she replied in more normal tones. “Who else would it be?”
“Do you remember how you got here?” Walter continued. “Do you remember what just happened?”
“I remember you both attacked me!” she said haughtily. “I insist you let me go at once! This is unconscionable!”
She wasn’t scared, Simon realised, watching her carefully. She was angry. But not frightened. That was a bit odd.
“So you don’t remember getting here?” he probed. “Why are you here, Miss Royce? Why did you come over to Courtfield House?”
“I came because…” Her voice trailed off. “I came to see…” She bit her lip and looked away. “I can’t remember.”
There was a little silence.
“Miss Royce…” Simon started to say, but his voice clashed with Walter saying the same.
“Miss Royce…do you feel quite yourself? Can you let me talk to the thing that’s in there with you?” he said.
“The thing that’s in there with me?” She looked at him haughtily. “I don’t think you understand how mediumship works my good man! We don’t carry our beloved dead with us! We are simply their mouthpieces when the veil is drawn temporarily aside. We give them voice. We help amplify them. We don’t manifest them inside ourselves!”
She glared at him triumphantly, as if she’d refuted a particularly incoherent point from a slow student.
“That’s my point, Miss,” Walter said carefully. “I don’t think whoever you spoke to the other night, the night Mrs Fortescue died, was to do with her husband. I think whoever or whatever you were speaking to was something else. Whatever it was that scared Miss Lucy so badly she refused to continue.”
He blinked a few times, swaying slightly. He was definitely a bit sub-par. Simon moved unobtrusively closer, not wanting to be shouted at but concerned about the blood still seeping down Walter’s arm.
Miss Royce stared at Walter for a moment. “Not…” She trailed off, clearly thinking. “And you think…you think I killed dear Lottie?”
Ah, the sound of the penny finally dropping.
“No, Miss Royce! No! I think that whatever pretended to be Colonel Fortescue killed her. And I think there are periods of time this past week that you can’t remember. Significant gaps in your memory. Places you’ve arrived at and not known how you got there. That kind of thing.”
He spoke very gently for a man who’d just been attacked with a scalpel, Simon thought. Fair play to him.
She stared at him. “You mean…you mean you think I’m possessed!” Her voice shot up. “By a demon?” She looked at him incredulously. “I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous in my entire life!”
Simon sighed. “Look. It doesn’t really matter, does it? What the cause is. But can you honestly say that’s not what’s been happening?”
“Of course I can remember! We concluded the séance. We had a nightcap. Maria and I went up to bed. I went to sleep immediately. Maria was the one who heard Miss Hall-Bridges come back and speak to Lottie. And why you’ve released her I have no idea! But I was asleep in bed all night, not gallivanting all over this silly little village killing Lottie!”
She began to cry.
Simon withdrew a handkerchief and went to offer it to her, remembered her hands were bound and stepped closer to wipe her face himself.
At the same time Walter barked, “Careful!” Miss Royce opened her eyes, this time coloured that marbled-blue colour, smiled a terrifying pointed smile like a cat would smile at a mouse, leaned forward, and bit into the meat of his hand.
It wasn’t a passing bite. She clamped her jaws shut and held on with all her considerable strength. Simon yelled with a combination of surprise and pain. He shoved at her with his other hand, trying to prise her off and Walter came up to his side and helped. He simply couldn’t get her jaws open. She lurched to her feet, holding eye contact with him the whole time, dragging his hand and arm up with her.
Fuck! Was she drinking his blood? He looked at Walter, aghast. It hurt like blazes.
A strange rattling sound began behind him. The windows shaking in their old wooden frames, he realised. And the medical instruments in the metal tray on the side by the sink. And the pens in the jar on the desk. There was a smell of burning hair. Miss Royce’s, he realised.
You will let the woman go! Or I will kill her! A sibilant hissing surrounded them, with no obvious point of origin. He shot a look at Walter. What the hell was happening?
Walter looked back at him, said, very firmly, “Not on your nellie, matey!” and hit Miss Royce very smartly on the side of the head with his fist.
She went down like a sack of flour, but her teeth didn’t unlock from around Simon’s palm. Instead he was dragged forward onto the floor with her. He put out an arm to save himself and landed in a confused tangle of limbs, skirts, and burning hair.
“Shit! She’s on fire!” Walter was saying in his ear. He was aware of Walter beating at the smouldering flames around Miss Royce’s head with his hands. Simon tried again to push her jaws apart and get her away from him.
“Get her off me!” he panted.
“Trying!” Walter replied grimly. “Hang on!”
The flames were getting worse.
“I will kill her!” that sibilant hiss came again.
Simon finally managed to get his hand free and fell back onto his backside, kicking away from her. She was unconscious. Walter was still beating at the smouldering flames that crowned her. Simon got to his feet, yanked off his jacket, and started to beat at them too, ignoring the blood streaming from his palm and the pain in his thumb.
Finally, it was out. Walter knelt by her shoulder, fingers on her neck, taking her pulse. He glanced up at Simon. “She’s gone,” he said. “She’s cold! Shit! Was she dead this whole time? She’s not just gone, she’s freezing. Feel her!”
Her hair was singed and her eyes were open, blank, human, and glassy. Her arms were thrown out to the side and her legs were splayed askew in a very undignified fashion. Simon’s blood was all around her mouth and down her chin and neck. Simon stepped forward, about to do as he was bid, and Walter dropped his eyes from Simon back to the woman in time for Simon to see her eyes briefly flicker that unpleasant blue-white colour and then return to normal. The window frames gave one last huge clattering bang and there was silence.
They both shuddered. Simon sank to his knees beside Walter and reached a hand out to feel her forehead. It was cold. Their shoulders touched. Walter leaned against him very briefly and then reached out and closed the woman’s eyes.