‘Drink this.’ Aunt Meredith pushed a cold glass of cloudy, fizzing water into my hand. ‘It’ll help with the headache.’
‘I don’t have a headache,’ I lied. ‘And I don’t need to see a doctor.’
‘Richard didn’t manage to catch you in time,’ she said with worry, perched on the end of my bed. I was sitting upright with pillows propped behind me. My head was pounding. ‘He said as soon as he managed to get the door open you fainted. Smacked your head on the old dresser as you fell. The doctor will be here any minute, Suzy. Nell’s going to bring him up as soon as he arrives.’ I closed my eyes and rubbed at my temples. I had no memory of how I got from the attic room into my bed. ‘You were screaming the house down. What happened?’ my aunt asked softly.
‘I don’t remember.’ Another lie. I remembered exactly what had happened once I was inside the room. I remembered stupidly climbing up the side of the house to get into the attic room. I remembered the raven in the wardrobe, the shadow puppet and the cracked mirror with writing etched into the frame. And I remembered her. The grey girl. Scratching the floorboards. Standing at my shoulder. Her hands outstretched towards me, reaching for me. Pleading. ‘I don’t remember anything. One minute Richard was knocking down the door, next minute I’m here in my bed.’
‘How did you get into the room?’ she asked, her face telling me she knew the answer before I gave it. ‘You climbed up?’
I stayed silent and looked down at my hands. They were red, sore and grazed from where I’d tried to claw my way out of the locked room. I looked away from my hands in horror as something on my bedside table caught my eye. It was the shadow puppet from the attic room. I couldn’t remember bringing it downstairs with me; maybe I’d been clutching it as they dragged me unconscious from the room. Some kind of sick reminder that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. I picked it up and began to twirl it around between my fingers nervously.
‘Oh, Suzy.’ Aunt Meredith leant forwards on the bed and reached for one of my bloodied hands. ‘You promised you’d behave if you came here. And I promised your mum I’d look after you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly, trying not to cry. ‘I don’t know why I did it. I just wanted to see what was inside the room. And when I saw the window open I thought I could climb up. And it was perfectly safe, I didn’t …’
‘Climbing up a four-storey building is never safe, Suzy. What is wrong with you?’ The last sentence stung, and hung in the air as if it echoed off the stark white walls. What was wrong with me? Had I imagined the whole horrid scene in the room?
There was the sound of footsteps coming towards my bedroom door. A short succession of knocks and then the door swung open. Nell came in, wearing a green headscarf wrapped around her grey head of hair and a long, beaded dress. Behind her was a tall, slim man in a smart suit. ‘This is Dr Carter,’ Nell said softly, leading the doctor into the room.
‘I’ve just been speaking to your husband,’ the doctor said to Aunt Meredith. ‘He told me he found your niece in a locked attic room. She’d been screaming hysterically before collapsing.’
‘You could ask me what happened,’ I said, annoyed. ‘I’m right here.’
‘Where is he?’ Aunt Meredith asked the doctor. ‘My husband, is he downstairs?’
The doctor nodded as he made his way to my bedside. ‘He’s with your son. Toby was quite … disturbed … by the girl’s screams. I believe your husband is trying to calm him down.’ I hated the way he spoke about me as if I wasn’t there. Suddenly it was like being back in Warren House all over again. It felt like I was some kind of animal in a cage that everyone spoke about but never to. The doctor put his box of tricks on my bedside table and clicked it open. As he rummaged around for a stethoscope Aunt Meredith mumbled something about needing to call my mother and then left the room. Nell took her place, perched at the foot of my bed.
Nell looked around my room nervously. I suddenly realised that this might have been the first time she’d ever come up the stairs. She sat on the end of my bed and watched silently as I lied to the doctor. Just as I’d told my aunt, I swore I remembered nothing from my time in the room. ‘I think I was just scared I was locked in.’ I tried to shrug. ‘I have a history of panic attacks. I don’t like confined spaces.’
‘Well, your heart rate’s normal,’ he said. ‘So is your blood pressure and temperature. Your uncle tells me you have a history of mental health problems.’
‘He’s not my uncle,’ I said quickly, trying to change the subject. I felt embarrassed that Nell should have to listen to this. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about my mental health history – as little as possible, I hoped. ‘He’s my aunt’s husband.’
The doctor ignored my attempt at diversion and ploughed on with his questions. ‘I understand you recently spent some weeks in a rehabilitation facility as a result of paranoid delusions.’ I looked down at the bed. I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. I gave him the tiniest of nods. ‘I’d like you to make an appointment to come and see me in my surgery. For the time being I’m prescribing you something for the anxiety, and something to help you sleep. I’d like you to come back to me in about a week and have a chat. Do you think you could do that?’ God, I hated the way doctors spoke to me like I was stupid.
‘Yes, I think that I can do that,’ I said petulantly.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ he muttered to Nell.
The doctor left the room, leaving Nell and me alone.
‘Suzy, what were you thinking? Climbing up the building like that?’
‘I know, I’m stupid. You don’t need to remind me.’
‘You’re not stupid. Far from it. I can see that.’
‘Then you think I’m crazy?’ I looked down at the bed, dreading her answer. I felt warm ribbons trickle down my face and I hurriedly brushed away the tears that I couldn’t stop from falling.
Nell shook her head and spoke in a whisper, ‘No. I don’t think you’re crazy, Suzy.’ I looked up and saw the fear in her eyes. And at that moment I understood perfectly. I understood why Nell never went upstairs at Dudley Hall. I could tell by the look on Nell’s face that she knew what I’d seen in that room. ‘I don’t need a deck of tarot cards and a crystal ball to see that something about this house has deeply affected you,’ Nell said quietly. ‘And that’s what drove you to climb that drainpipe. You needed to see the inside of that room, didn’t you?’
I felt my hot tears slide down my face as I nodded.
‘Why, Suzy?’ Her eyes filled with concern.
‘You know why,’ I whispered.
‘Don’t listen to stories and gossip, Suzy.’
My hands flew out in exasperation. ‘What stories? What gossip? No one’s told me anything about this house and what really goes on here. I know something’s not right. Just tell me the truth, Nell, please! I know I’m not crazy, even though everyone thinks I am.’
‘It doesn’t matter what other people think,’ she said softly. ‘What do you believe?’
‘I believe in ghosts.’
She stared at me thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘So do I,’ she said quietly. ‘But I also believe that you should let the dead stay sleeping. And don’t go looking for trouble. The ghosts you chase you never catch, remember that. Don’t go meddling in things that you have no way to control.’
‘What if I don’t meddle with the dead, what if they meddle with me?’ I said, trying so hard not to sob. ‘Maybe I just see things that other people can’t?’
Nell smiled at me – the very smile that I had found so irritating when I first met her. ‘I like you a lot, Suzy. I want you to think of me as a friend. You can trust me, talk to me. Okay? Look,’ she said, leaning forwards. ‘Richard’s back for a few days. Try and pull yourself together for your aunt’s sake. Once he’s gone then maybe we can talk some more. But if anything else is bothering you, I want you to come to me first, do you understand? Don’t go climbing up the side of a building next time. Just come to me and we’ll kick the door down together, okay?’
I nodded and a small smile touched my lips before I could stop it. ‘Please don’t tell anyone what I told you. Don’t tell them about ghosts and seeing things that aren’t there. Please don’t tell Nate.’ I couldn’t bear the thought of Nate finding out what had happened to me. I’d started to like the idea of getting to know him better.
‘Try and get some rest.’ Nell nodded, rising from the bed. ‘We’ll talk again properly soon, I promise.’ She handed me the glass of sparkling water that Aunt Meredith had put by my bed, and one of the sleeping pills the doctor had given me. I quickly swallowed down the tablet, wanting nothing more than to drift off into oblivion and not remember a thing about that day. Nell got up from the bed and began to walk towards the window. ‘I’ll close your curtains.’
‘No!’ I said loudly. She turned around, alarmed by my tone. ‘No,’ I said again, trying to sound calmer. ‘I don’t want them closed.’ Nell looked again at the open curtains, and then back to me and nodded. She closed the door behind her and I was alone.
I put the shadow puppet on the pillow next to me and twirled it between my fingers. The last rays of the day’s sunbeams were streaming through the window. The puppet caught the fading light between its cut-out shapes and patterns, and a shadow of a beautiful maiden cast itself on my bedroom wall. I wished I could be a shadow. Untouchable. Unbreakable.
My eyelids began to flutter closed as I let the doctor’s sleeping pill take hold of me.
Words echoed in my head as I drifted into sleep. Words I’d seen in the attic room.
I am half sick of shadows
I knew those words. I’d read them before – long before I’d stepped foot in Dudley Hall.
Those words weren’t new to me. Their rhythm, their flow – I’d read them, spoken them before. As I drifted off to sleep those words hung in the air like beams of fading sunlight.
‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
The Lady of Shalott.