My legs and arms felt slow and heavy. It was like someone had taken all the energy out of me. But I wanted to get up. I needed to get up. I forced myself to walk slowly and carefully through the doorway of my room and out onto the landing, making sure to remain silent and out of sight of the conversation happening in the hallway. I heard a shuffle, as if someone had just come through from the lounge.
‘She’s completely out of it. But we should start soon. Immediately, I’d say.’
That was Amanda. Was she talking about me, I wondered? But I wasn’t ‘out of it’, I was there, awake and trying to work out what was going on. I thought about asking them, then I remembered that I had fallen asleep on the sofa, not in my bed. And I hadn’t been alone. I’d been with Adah. Had she gone home? Had I missed her leaving?
And then, with a really horrible feeling, I realised what they were talking about. They weren’t talking about me. They were talking about Adah. She was still there. In the lounge.
‘Where’s Marjory?’ Father Tobias asked.
‘In the kitchen,’ Amanda said. ‘Nathan thought it best for her to remain separate from the girl before we start. She’s not talking or moving. She’s been refusing to eat today, too. But she’s said it again a few times. Muttering about needing a “creature of innocence”. Maybe she’s gone quiet now because she knows she’s getting what she wants.’
I heard a heavy sigh from Father Tobias. ‘I’m grateful for the effort you’ve put in to this. I really think this could be a breakthrough.’
Amanda sniffed a bit, and didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she said, ‘Let’s … let’s just get started. I don’t want her waking up in the middle of something terrifying.’
I leaned forwards a tiny fraction over the banisters and saw them both disappear through the lounge door. It was open very slightly, allowing a beam of light to give a yellow glow to the dark hallway. I was worried that my heavy, sleepy legs would make the stairs creak too much as I walked down, one step after the other, but I managed to make it, and paused for a moment once I had reached the bottom, listening. It sounded like there was furniture being moved in the lounge. I thought about the way they had it set up before – the night I stayed in and watched from under the coffee table. If they were moving the furniture, to make a space, and Adah was there, what did that mean?
The thought of what might happen to her made me feel instantly unwell, as if I had caught flu just by standing there and already had a temperature. I put my arms out and slid against the wall, dragging myself along until I was right by the lounge door. And through the small crack that had been left open, I could see inside.
She was there. Adah. And she was no longer on the sofa. She was on one of the chairs from the kitchen. Like how Mum had been on that horrible night. She was tied up, her head drooping forwards. Completely out of it, as Amanda had said earlier.
That strange smell was spreading out from under the door again, and then I saw Father Tobias walk into sight, wafting a stick around in the air, smoke rising up from it. ‘Turn off the lights,’ he said, and someone tapped the switch. Everything went darker, and the only light remaining was the flicker of the fire. ‘Close the door,’ he said again.
My view into the lounge vanished as the door was closed shut, but then it appeared again, thinner than before, but still there. The metal latch hadn’t stuck in place, making the door bounce back a little. I could still see in. Just.
Then there was a scream. And I knew straight away that it was Mum. ‘THE CHILD. THE CHILD.’
I felt my breathing quicken, and then the doorway on the other side of the lounge, leading to the kitchen, opened up. In walked Mum. Dad was behind, half pushing her, half supporting her, and she was shrieking, her head thrown back, her hair, now straggly and a little bit grey, spread across her face. I really wanted someone to pull it back for her, brush it away, make it nice like it used to be – back when she was the old Mum.
She started to scream words that didn’t make sense now. Then Father Tobias began his weird half-song, half-speech in another language that I didn’t understand. And Mum stopped screaming and allowed herself to be seated in a chair right behind Adah’s. Dad came into view, holding ropes similar to the ones Adah was tied with, and began wrapping them around Mum so she, too, was tied to the chair. I kept thinking she was going to stop them, scream something awful at them, but she didn’t. She had gone quiet by this point. But that smile was back – a wide smile, with her head tilted down, and her teeth showing. It was like she was hungry.
Then she spoke. And her voice, low and horrible, gave me goosebumps.
‘The child. A perfect body. A creature of innocence.’
I saw the hand of Father Tobias point quickly. Dad stepped in and slowly turned Adah’s chair so that she was facing Mum.
Father Tobias carried on speaking his strange words, and Mum started to scream again, wrestling against the ropes, trying to reach out. Trying to get to Adah. The scream was a mixture of words, but there were three I could properly make out. Three that were said clearly enough to be separate from the rest. ‘SHE IS MINE.’
And then something very strange happened. As quickly as she had begun, Mum stopped suddenly. She went limp, like a ragdoll, her hair falling back over her face, her eyes closed. Then someone else started to scream. It wasn’t Father Tobias, or Dad, or Amanda. It was Adah. She was screaming and screaming and rocking back and forth in her chair, her head going up and down, her shoulders trying to wriggle from the ropes, as if desperate to break herself free. I saw Amanda rush over to her, but Father Tobias cried out, ‘Wait!’
‘We can’t – she needs to get out of here! Now!’ Amanda shouted at him. Adah had begun to shake very fast, her body trembling and juddering. I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined her teeth were clenched and her eyes screwed up, just like her fists. And then, as quickly as she had begun, she stopped. The silence almost made me jump. Her body went limp, her head went heavy, just like Mum’s had, and Amanda was lifting her from the chair, with Dad helping. She wasn’t making a sound.
‘I … I don’t think she’s breathing,’ Amanda said in a trembling voice. ‘Quick, she’s not breathing.’
‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ Dad said. ‘She must have just fainted or … I don’t know, had a seizure maybe?’
‘She’s not breathing!’ Amanda repeated again, this time with an even louder shriek.
‘Stop getting hysterical,’ Dad said, but his voice too had become loud and shaky. He bent down over Adah, putting his fingers to her neck and then tapping her face. ‘Can you wake up for me?’ he asked her. ‘Come on, I need you to wake up now.’ She didn’t respond. She didn’t even move.
Amanda had started to pace, saying ‘Oh my god. Oh my god’ over and over, her hands holding the sides of her head. ‘Please, Nathan. She needs to go to hospital. Now.’
Dad took Adah out of the chair and laid her down on the floor. Amanda hurried to his side. He started pushing her chest up and down with two hands. I couldn’t properly see, with Amanda and Dad crouched around her and Father Tobias standing in the way of the firelight. It felt like they were there for ages, and some of their mutters I didn’t catch, but when Dad said, ‘Call an ambulance,’ I heard the words clear and strong.
‘No,’ Father Tobias said in a harsh, loud voice.
They carried on, fussing around Adah’s little body. Because it was just a little body, now. I didn’t know how I knew that she wasn’t properly there any more. No longer inside her small frame. But I did know. I could feel that Adah wasn’t in that room. I could tell the panic in their voices was real, and that something terrible had happened.
I left the hallway. Went back up to my room. Fell under the duvet. I didn’t know what came first, the dreams or the sleep. But it felt like the dreams started before I’d properly drifted off. Dreams of people screaming and crying, pleading and whimpering, with terrible things happening in the corners of hundreds of rooms I couldn’t quite see. And in the distance, a creature, with long black claws, leading Adah by the hand away from me, into the centre of a maze.