I saw Aunt Meredith as soon as I stepped onto the ward. She was deep in conversation with one of the doctors. She clutched a styrofoam cup to her chest and hung on every word the doctor was saying to her. I walked up slowly, waving at her first so she could see me coming.
‘Suzy.’ She said my name with surprise, clearly startled to see me there, as if she almost didn’t recognise me out of context.
‘Nate dropped me off,’ I said. ‘How’s Toby doing?’
‘I’ll come and check on him again within the hour,’ the doctor said to Aunt Meredith, walking away.
‘The doctors still aren’t completely sure what’s wrong with him.’ She looked exhausted; she clearly hadn’t slept since Toby had been brought in. ‘They’ve ruled out meningitis, or flu. But they think it’s shock. He’s gone into shock, Suzy. Why? I just don’t understand. It’s almost as if his body is just shutting down for no reason. And I’m afraid that if they don’t figure out what’s wrong …’
I awkwardly put my hand on her arm to calm her. Aunt Meredith caught herself and stopped herself from saying whatever was coming next. Instead she took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s good to see you, Suzy, thank you for coming. Knowing you’re here would make Toby so happy.’
I bit down on my lip, hoping to suppress the tears that were threatening to spill. How was I ever going to make up for what had happened to my small cousin? ‘The murder mystery’s going well,’ I said, hoping to distract her. We walked over to two plastic chairs propped next to the corridor wall and sat down on them.
‘Of course it is,’ Aunt Meredith smiled. ‘Your story is brilliant, Suzy. You’ll be a fabulous writer one day.’
‘I promise I won’t forget you when I’m rich and famous,’ I joked.
‘Oh, Suzy.’ Tears began to trickle down her pale cheeks. ‘You’ve always wanted to be famous, ever since you were a little girl.’
‘I guess I just don’t want to be forgotten,’ I said before I could stop myself.
Her eyes softened and she reached forwards and brushed a rogue strand of fading red hair behind my ear. ‘How could anyone forget you? You’re so special, Suzy, everyone can see that.’
‘Can they?’ I asked, my voice wobbling. I’d come to the hospital to see Toby, not hold a mirror up to my self-esteem. ‘I’m easy to forget,’ I added sadly. ‘It was so easy for my parents to ship me off to boarding school and forget about me there. And they didn’t want me to come home after I left Warren House, even after everything I’ve been through. You were right when you told me before that if it wasn’t for you and Richard I’d have nowhere else to go.’
A storm cloud seemed to pass through Aunt Meredith’s eyes. ‘Look, Suzy, we need to talk.’
‘Talk?’ I echoed, startled. ‘About what?’
‘About you living at Dudley Hall.’
‘I have nowhere else to go,’ I reminded her. ‘I know I’ve been difficult, and I’m sorry. And I know Toby’s ill, but I promise to help out however I can. I’ll help with the parties and –’
‘I spoke to your mum last night,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘We both wondered if the time is right for you to go back to school. You can’t stay at Dudley Hall for ever, and –’
‘You can’t send me back to school,’ I said loudly. A nurse looked up from the clipboard in her hands and gave me a stern frown. ‘Please don’t send me back to that school. Please let me stay with you, just for a while longer.’
‘Suzy.’ Aunt Meredith closed her eyes and tears streamed down her face. ‘Something terrible happened to Toby in that house. I don’t know what. But I’ve heard the stories, I’m not stupid. Village gossip about the ghost of a girl who haunts the house.’ I stared at her in disbelief. She knew about the grey girl – all this time, she knew. ‘I wouldn’t have let you come to stay if I had thought for one moment that the stories were true,’ she said pleadingly. ‘All I wanted was to care for you when your mum couldn’t. I just wanted to help you. I didn’t believe in ghosts. But after everything that’s happened – to you, to Toby – I can’t ignore it any more. I can’t let you stay there any more.’
‘I’m going to find a way to make her leave,’ I said urgently. ‘I promise you, Aunt Meredith.’
Aunt Meredith closed her eyes again, a sigh of pure exhaustion escaping her. ‘We’ll talk about it again when Toby’s better.’ She sniffed. She pointed to a single room off to the right of where we were sitting. ‘Toby’s in there. I’m going to get another coffee. Do you want one?’
‘Yes please,’ I nodded.
Slowly, I made my way towards the room that Toby was being kept in. The lights were dim and as I opened the door I could hear the beep, beep, beeping of the monitor he was strapped up to. He looked so tiny. I walked over to his bed with a sick feeling in my throat. Just like the day before, he was staring off into space. His eyes were wide open in shock and his little chest rose and fell in rapid movements. My feet wanted to turn around and run as far away as I could from him; he just looked too sick and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. But I owed it to my little cousin, the boy who had followed me around and made me play spy games with him. Who had shown me his books and talked to me with trust and affection. Seeing him lying in a hospital bed, looking so tiny and helpless, I felt the hatred for the grey girl well up inside me and threaten to spill out and flood the room in angry waves. She had done this to him. This was her fault. In that moment, if I could have found some way to send her restless spirit to eternal Hell then I would have done it.
‘Hey, mate,’ I said meekly as I came near to Toby’s bed.
All I had in response was the beeping of the machines.
‘I’m so, so sorry, Toby,’ I whispered. ‘I should have warned you about her. Maybe then you wouldn’t have come up into the attic after us. This should never have happened. You should never have been dragged into this.’
Something on Toby’s bedside table caught my eye. My stomach lurched as I recognised the book – it was the book of Tennyson’s poetry, the book that I’d found on my pillow back at Dudley Hall. The book that she had put there. I’d last seen the book back in my bedroom. I had no idea how or why it had come to be at the hospital. Toby was too young to read or understand poetry like that, and if Aunt Meredith was going to sit by his bed and read, surely she’d be reading spy stories to him.
Feeling like the ground was shaking beneath me, I slowly reached for the book. As if in slow motion, I held the book in front of me and let it fall open. I knew what I’d see before I looked down.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me,’ cried
The Lady of Shalott.
I snapped the book shut and nearly knocked into Aunt Meredith as I turned around quickly. ‘What’s this doing here?’ I asked, holding the book up in front of me.
‘It was in Toby’s room,’ she replied, alarmed at my tone. ‘I thought I would read –’
‘What do you mean? Where did he get it from?’
‘I don’t know where he got it from. I would have thought he was too young for Tennyson, but I found it by his bed so he must have been interested in it. I thought he might want to read it when he woke up so I brought it here.’
I stepped backwards, away from her.
‘Suzy, what’s wrong?’
‘This shouldn’t be here. Toby shouldn’t touch it,’ I said, edging for the door.
Aunt Meredith looked at me with wide-eyed shock as I ran from the room, the book still in my hand.
I pushed my way past nurses, doctors and porters as I ran through the hospital and out into the warm afternoon air. I still had money in my purse left over from when Aunt Meredith had given me a wodge of notes to go out for lunch with Frankie. I’d have enough for a taxi to take me away from the hospital and back to Dudley-on-Water.
I climbed into a waiting cab at the taxi rank, my eyes wild with fear.
‘Where to, love?’
‘Dudley-on-Water,’ I said quickly. ‘The Old Rectory.’
The car sped off and my blood rushed through my veins with exhilaration. I knew what I had to do. This was it. I was turning the pages of the last chapter of this story; my drama was moving into the final act.
One way or another, it would all soon be over.