I stood with Nate at the bottom of the grand staircase, next to the suit of armour. His motorbike helmet rested under one arm, and he ran his free hand through his short blonde hair. I’d never seen the expression on his face before – he seemed somehow lost. ‘Suzy, that message you left me …’
‘I’ll meet you upstairs,’ Frankie said quickly, walking up ahead of us.
‘You don’t have anything to be sorry for,’ Nate finished.
‘I stole your grandmother’s shoe box of pictures,’ I admitted. ‘The box that your mum kept the shadow puppet in.’
He frowned at me. ‘Why?’
‘She was a schoolgirl here,’ I told him. ‘The grey girl. Your grandmother knew her – they were friends.’
‘Do you …’ He put his helmet down on the bottom step and leant against the banister as he spoke. ‘Do you think my grandmother had something to do with her death?’
‘Maybe,’ I nodded. ‘We’ll find out tonight. We’re going to summon the grey girl’s spirit. One way or another, this ends tonight.’
‘Good,’ he said seriously, staring me deep in the eyes. He reached out to take my hands in his. ‘All these years I thought my mum was insane for believing what she does. But after last night, after what we saw … I’ve been thinking about it all day. I can’t think about anything else.’ Nate looked down at my hands in his. ‘All my life, all I’ve wanted is to find a way to lift the weight that’s hanging around my mother’s neck. The same weight my grandmother carried. It’s this house and what’s in it – it does something terrible to people that they can’t come back from. Maybe it’s too late for my mother, but it’s not too late for you, Suzy. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’ll do anything. What do you need me to do?’
Before I could answer I heard footsteps coming towards us from the kitchen. I looked up to see Nell walking towards us. ‘It’s time,’ she said.
Nell stepped past us onto the stairs and began to walk up. Nate and I followed her wordlessly up the staircase, leaving his motorbike helmet behind on the bottom step. The sound of the murder mystery guests’ laughter gradually fell away as we climbed higher. Every step I took felt like a mountain, as if my ankles were weighed down by an invisible force. I had no idea what to expect once we reached the attic room, and no idea what the outcome would be. But I knew that no matter what, we’d see the girl again that night. I could feel her all around me. I could almost feel her cold breath on my cheek, her cold tiny hands squeezing at my heart. My trembling hand traced the carvings on the banister as we climbed onto the first-floor landing, and then on to the next set of stairs. Not one of us spoke as we passed the second floor and continued to walk upwards, towards the attic. With each step my sense of dread grew, and the heaviness weighing me down felt more unbearable.
Nell stalled at the top of the stairs on the attic landing.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked, gently resting my hand on her arm.
‘I haven’t been up here since that day so long ago,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve revisited it so many times in my head. These steps, the landing, the long corridor. It’s just as I remember it.’
‘Come on.’ I brushed past her, trying to stay calm, and turned right, walking down the corridor that led to the grey girl’s room. I could hear Nate and Nell’s footsteps as they followed me. The light outside had faded almost entirely now, and the only light in the corridor was coming from a dull glow in the grey girl’s attic room.
Frankie and Katie were standing in the room as I entered. They had positioned candles all about the place. On the floor, on the old mantelpiece and on the windowsill. Candlelight flickered and glowed softly, illuminating them as they stood in the centre of the room, unsure of what to expect next.
Nate and Nell came in behind me and I turned around, waiting for Nell to tell us what to do next. Nate stood in the corner of the room, his eyes nervously casting about the place and taking in every detail. He nodded a hello to Frankie and Katie and they nodded back in acknowledgement.
‘Suzy, you have the chalk?’ Nell asked.
I knew what to do without being told. I took the white chalk out of my pocket and crouched down towards the floor. Slowly, I drew a large five-starred pentagram on the attic floorboards. I swept the chalk across the wooden boards, then down, then up again, drawing the pattern that I’d seen carved into the weeping willow by the brook. The shape that the blonde girl in the picture had worn around her neck. The chalk scratched at the floor and left a white trail of dust in its wake. As I brought the chalk to a stop, joining up the two last lines and completing the shape, there was a sudden gust of wind that crashed into the attic room window.
Frankie flinched forwards and then froze, her eyes wide with fear. We exchanged a panicked look – both knowing that what we were about to do, what we were about to unleash could go so horribly wrong.
‘The candles,’ whispered Katie, her voice trembling. I lifted my eyes from the floor and looked around the room. Every candle seemed to be burning brighter. The flames had risen into the air as though someone had poured oxygen onto them.
‘The pentagram is a very powerful symbol,’ Nell said, walking towards one of the five points of the star. ‘It is a very ancient symbol. It is said to harness the power of the natural world. It is used to evoke the Goddess of nature, and it is used in many magical and satanic rituals. We use it here tonight to harness the power of the spirit world, so that we may contact the restless spirit that haunts this house.’
Once again another heavy gust of wind crashed into the window. Once again the five of us jumped at the sound and force of it.
‘What do you need us to do?’ Nate asked, looking over at Nell in the candlelight.
Nell looked around at us. ‘Everyone is to stand at a corner of the pentagram. Everyone is to hold a candle.’
The four of us quickly moved to the nearest flickering candles and each picked one up between our shaking hands. I stood at the point at the top of the star, the point that sat nearest to the window. Nell and Nate stood at the points either side of me, the arms of the pentagram, and Frankie and Katie stood at the two points at the bottom.
The five of us stood there silently, candles in our hands, and looked around at each other. I could feel the crackle of anticipation in the air. Not one of us questioned what we were doing, or whether it would work or if it was stupid. Every single one of us had been touched by a ghost at some point of our lives. Every single one of us knew that this moment was important, and that we were on the verge of something both brilliant and terrible.
‘To all above.’ Nell lifted her candle above her head and looked up at the ceiling. ‘And all below.’ She lowered the candle towards the floor and looked down at the chalk markings. ‘To the spirits of the afterlife, and to the Goddess of the earth. We come here to speak to you, and to seek your help. Spirits, come to us.’
‘Spirits, come to us,’ I echoed. As I said it again Frankie joined in. ‘Spirits, come to us.’ Next all five of us spoke in perfect unison, repeating the phrase I had promised myself I would never utter again. ‘Spirits, come to us, Spirits, come to us, Spirits, come to us.’
A pounding silence fell across the room. No one dared speak or even breathe.
Then every candle in the room was snuffed out in a single heartbeat. In the next beat they all lit up again, burning brighter and more powerfully than before. My candle became too hot to hold and I nearly let it fall to the floor. I heard Katie curse at the heat in her hands, and Nate quickly passed his from hand to hand to avoid being burnt.
The sound of breaking glass and distant screaming filled the air. The screaming sounded as though it was coming from downstairs – the guests. ‘The light bulb,’ Frankie pointed above her. ‘It exploded.’
‘The guests are screaming downstairs,’ Katie said, her face pale and clammy. ‘All the bulbs in the house must have blown.’
‘She can hear us,’ I whispered.
Nell lowered her candle to the floor and put it down by her feet and the four of us did the same.
‘She’s near,’ Nell said. ‘Join hands.’
The five of us held hands on Nell’s command, forming a circle around the pentagram. ‘Keep chanting,’ she instructed.
‘Spirits, come to us, Spirits, come to us,’ we said in unison, again and again. I felt my eyes closing as we continued to chant. The distant sound of the guests’ shouts downstairs began to fade away, and all I could hear were the words of the chant. In my head I saw dancing flames lick and the room begin to spin around me. We chanted and chanted and I began to feel sick from the sound and the feeling that the room was spinning uncontrollably.
I heard the sound of someone gasping – Frankie.
I opened my eyes and looked at her. Her eyes were wide open and locked on the centre of the circle, the centre of the pentagram. There, between us all, stood the grey girl.
The air was sucked out of my lungs and I felt a horrible crushing sensation in my chest. My instinct was to pull my arms away from Nell and Nate – to break the circle, break the spell and send her back from whatever hellish dimension we had summoned her from. But I forced myself to watch her, and I forced myself to keep the circle unbroken.
Katie, Nate and Nell continued to chant with their eyes closed as Frankie and I watched the grey girl in the centre of our circle with horror. The girl turned, very slowly, until she was staring straight at me. Her hollow grey gaze burnt into me and filled my veins with ice. One by one, the other three stopped chanting and opened their eyes.
Everyone saw her.
Still looking at me, the grey girl sank to her knees and began to claw at the floor beneath her. The flickering candles snuffed out and re-lit themselves again and again, like strobe lighting in the small attic room. The air in the room grew colder and soon I could see the warm puffs of breath hover in front of my face as I laboured for air.
The image of the grey girl clawing at the floor continued to waver in and out of existence as the candlelight flickered from light to dark.
I felt Nate’s hand begin to pull away from me. ‘Don’t let go,’ I shouted at him. ‘Don’t break the circle.’
‘What does she want?’ Katie shouted into the room. Her face was wide with terror, her blue eyes alight with the flickering flames that engulfed the room.
‘What do you want?’ Nell shouted at the grey girl, who continued to claw at the floor.
The girl looked up at Nell and for a moment her hands were still. She opened her mouth and the sound that came out was more like the croak of death than a small girl speaking. ‘I want peace.’
‘We want you to have peace,’ I said, my voice wobbling as much as the light in the room.
‘Who are you?’ Nell shouted at the girl.
‘Tilly,’ the girl croaked back.
‘How did you die?’ Frankie shouted.
The grey girl didn’t answer, she looked back down at the floor and began to claw at it again. Soon her fingers began to tear and blood started to pour from open wounds.
Once again I felt Nate pull at my hand. ‘Don’t break the circle,’ I shouted at him. ‘We need to keep her there.’
‘Suzy, let go!’ he screamed at me, his hand pulling and pulling to be released from mine.
I tried in vain to hold onto his hand. I knew that once the circle had broken then she would disappear. This was our chance to speak to her, our chance to find out how we could finally put her spirit to rest. If we broke the circle and she vanished, we might never have that chance again.
‘This is it, Nate,’ I shouted at him. ‘This is our chance to finally put an end to it all. For your mother, your grandmother, for Toby, for Tilly. For me. Please, Nate, keep the circle for me.’ He tugged at my hand again, desperate to be released from my grasp. ‘Nate, please!’ I begged.
‘Let go, Suzy,’ he shouted at me, his hazel eyes aflame with determination.
My palm was sweaty and slippery, and Nate was so much stronger. As if in slow motion I felt his hand slide from my grasp. His fingers slipped through mine and the circle was broken.
Every candle in the room went out and we were suddenly plunged into darkness.
‘You broke the circle,’ Frankie screamed at Nate. ‘She’s gone.’
Nate sank to his knees in the darkness.
‘Quick, re-light the candles,’ Nell instructed.
Katie pulled a box of matches from her pocket and re-lit the candle by her feet, then she lit the candle by Frankie’s and then Nell’s feet. Soon the five candles at the five points of the pentagram were re-lit. Nell, Katie, Frankie and I stood at our points of the star, but Nate was crouched down in the middle of the pentagram. His fingers were moving frantically over the floorboards. He traced the edge of a board with his fingertips and then began to pick at the rusted nails that bound the floorboard to the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ I shouted, afraid that the vision of the grey girl had sent Nate mad. Seeing him paw at the floor in that way reminded me of the grey girl – Tilly – and how she had repeatedly scratched at it until her fingers bled.
‘She was trying to show us something,’ Nate muttered, his fingers running over the board obsessively. ‘I need a knife, anything … we need to lift this floorboard up.’
Suddenly understanding what he wanted, I sank to my knees and joined Nate on the floor. I began to pick at the rusty nails in the floorboards, desperately trying to lift them out.
The tips of my fingers began to bleed as I picked and picked at the nearest nail. Nate’s hands were bleeding too, but he was managing to lift the nail out of its small hole. Soon I’d lifted the nail nearest me out. Nate and I ran our fingers over the edge of the floorboard, trying to find a point to lift it. The other three crouched down and did the same, and with some kind of miraculous strength, the five of us managed to lift the old floorboard out of the floor and throw it to the other side of the room.
There was something beneath it. A square of leather, bound by string.
With shaking hands, I reached into the floor and picked it up. It was a book of some kind.
My bloody hands picked at the string until it fell away from the book.
The first page fell open.
It was a diary.
It’s been a whole week since Tilly died. I haven’t been able to write in my diary these last seven days. I’m haunted by what we did. But now I feel as though the time has come for me to document our evil, evil deeds.
Last Friday night we waited until the school had fallen silent and the moon was high in the night sky. Lavinia, Margot, Sybil and I put on our heavy winter cloaks and carried the candles, matches and chalk up the stairs to the attic floor. Moonlight flooded in through the skylight and we tried our best to hide in the shadows as we climbed the stairs. We tiptoed along the narrow attic corridor like mice, afraid that we would wake one of the prefects and find ourselves expelled. We made it to Tilly’s room – the room at the end of the hall – without being caught. Looking back on it now, I wish we had been caught. I’d rather be expelled a hundred times over than have to live with what I did next.
Tilly let us into her room. Her face was etched with excitement and she was wearing her winter cloak, as we’d told her to do. She had pushed her bed and chest of drawers to the side of the room so there was enough space on the floor to draw the pentagram.
Margot was the one to draw it. She dragged the chalk along the floorboards, marking out the five-pointed star. Sybil lit the candles and placed them on the five points.
The five of us held hands, the pentagram and the candles in the centre of us. Tilly joined in as we chanted in unison, ‘Goddess, we serve you, Goddess, hear our prayers.’
We released each other’s hands.
‘Is that it?’ Tilly asked. ‘Am I initiated?’
‘No,’ I said to her. ‘Come here.’
Tilly walked towards me, still unafraid and excited for what was to come. Lavinia passed me her pentagram necklace and I took it with shaking fingers. I knelt down and held it over the flickering flame of the candle. ‘Pull up your right sleeve,’ I instructed, staring into the flame. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Tilly. I couldn’t bear to see the excitement in her face. Tilly paused for a moment before doing as I said.
I rose to my feet and pressed down the scalding hot necklace into her flesh. ‘Goddess of the moon, we are your children.’ Tilly whimpered and tried to pull away but Lavinia moved in and held her still.
‘We all have one,’ she whispered in Tilly’s ear.
As Tilly stepped back and fought back the tears, the four of us rolled up our sleeves to prove that we did all have the mark upon us. Binding us to one another, to the Goddess, to the Rituals.
‘Is that it?’ Tilly sobbed.
I shook my head. ‘Now I need to give you the Kiss of Death.’
That was the moment that Tilly’s eyes widened and she realised that this was more than just a game. ‘We stop your heart and then bring you back,’ Lavinia said wickedly.
‘But I have a weak heart,’ Tilly protested. ‘If you stop it, it won’t start again.’
I wish we had listened to her.
‘Hold her down,’ Lavinia whispered.
Margot took one arm and Sybil took the other, Lavinia chanted to the Goddess as I put one hand over Tilly’s heart and my other hand over that. Tilly tried to scream but Lavinia quickly dived forwards and put her hand over Tilly’s mouth. ‘Do it!’ Lavinia hissed at me. So I pressed against Tilly’s heart, my arms straightened and my weight bearing down into her. I felt the air wheeze out of her chest and watched as her eyes bulged wide. Tilly tried in vain to struggle. ‘Hold her down!’ commanded Lavinia. The others held her down as I continued to press, press, press down upon her small, weakened heart. Soon Tilly stopped struggling and fell limp. I moved my lips towards hers. ‘The Kiss of Death,’ I whispered.
I’ve seen the Kiss of Death done three times before. I did it to Lavinia, and Margot and Sybil did it to one another. Before, the effect was always the same – after the briefest of blackouts you gasp back to life. But Tilly didn’t gasp, she didn’t come back to life. She lay on the ground, wheezing her last breaths. We panicked. ‘Blow out the candles, scrub the chalk off the floor.’
We tried to revive her but it wouldn’t work. It was me who had the idea of carrying her downstairs and outside. She was light and weighed next to nothing. No one stirred as we took her frail little body out into the moonlight, towards the river. The Lady of Shalott was tied up at the bank, like always. We arranged her body in the boat and untied it from the bank, and pushed the boat out onto the river. As the boat floated away we ran back into the house. I lay in bed that night imagining a different scene. I imagined Tilly escaping, running away from us in the night. Escaping on the boat and floating away down the river.
They found her body the next morning. The doctor said that Tilly died in the boat. She was still alive when we carried her down there and watched her float away. We could have saved her, maybe. When she was found her lips were blue, her blood frozen, just like the poem. ‘Till her blood was frozen slowly, And her eyes were darken’d wholly.’
They assumed she had put herself in the boat and simply lay down and died. Everyone knew she was obsessed with the poem and had no hope of ever living a normal life.
This is the last diary entry I shall ever write. It is my confession. I shall never do the Rituals again. I don’t deserve the blessings of the Goddess, none of us do. I’m going to hide this diary somewhere no one will ever find it, and if they do find it I hope that it is after I am gone. I hope to take this secret to the grave.
I’m sorry I wasn’t a friend to you, Tilly. I’m sorry I didn’t save you. And I’m sorry that I will never be brave enough to tell the truth about how you died. I hope your soul finds a peace in death that you never had in life. The grey girl, a beautiful Moonchild who was always cursed to live a half life.
‘God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott.’
I will never write again,
Annabel