On the outskirts of Shadows Fall stood two houses, a respectable distance apart. One empty, the other occupied, both haunted by remnants of a past that would not be forgotten or dismissed. The house on the right was a small and modest place, a little neglected and run down perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be put right with a little care and effort. It wasn’t far out of town, but no one visited the house who didn’t have to. Three women and a young girl took it in turns to stare out of windows on the first floor, but only one woman lived there. Her name was Polly Cousins, and something awful happened to her when she was a child. She couldn’t remember what, but the house had not forgotten. Polly lived on the ground floor, but sometimes she would go up to the first floor and walk from room to room, looking out of the windows, sometimes pursuing a memory and sometimes trying to hide from one. In the room without a window, something breathed slowly and steadily.
Polly stood in the Spring room, looking out of the window at the first signs of leaves on a nearby oak tree. The air was bright and sharp and full of promise of the year to come. Polly, eight years old, had to stand on tiptoe to see out of the window. She was a pleasant enough child, with a blunt, handsome face and long blonde hair carefully brushed back and plaited into two long pigtails. She was wearing her best dress, which was also her favourite dress. She was eight years old, and something horrible had come into her life. She looked out of the window, but no one came up the road from the town, no matter how long she watched and waited.
She was alone in the house. (Only that wasn’t true, not really.) The view from the Spring room was the most promising, but it was also the most boring after a while, and eight-year-olds have a very low boredom threshold. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that she could open the window, and find her way out into the Spring scene before her. But she never did. There was something (in the house) that held her back. Polly Cousins, eight years old, sighed and kicked the wall briefly with a smart but sensible shoe, then turned her back on Spring and left the room.
As she walked out of the door she grew suddenly in size, shooting up to adult height with dizzying speed. She put out a hand to steady herself against the passage wall, finding a kind of comfort in its firm, unchanging nature. The change was quickly over, and she breathed deeply as the rush of new blood through new flesh briefly intoxicated her. She was eighteen years old again, back from relatives to live with her mother in her old house. There was something else in the house, but she didn’t know what, then. She was tall, five foot ten and proud of it, with long blonde hair hanging limply round a square, pleasant face. She wasn’t pretty and never would be, but she could have been good-looking if it wasn’t for her eyes. They were a pale, washed-out blue, very cold and always wary. The eyes of someone who thought a lot but said little. She walked down the passage, opened the next door, and entered the Summer room.
Bright sunshine blazed from a sky so blue it was almost painful to look at. The sunlight splashed across the lawn below like liquid honey, and birds soared on the brilliant sky like drifting specks. Polly looked out into the world of Summer, and it was everything she ever dreamed of, but the house (or something in it) wouldn’t let her go. She turned away from the window. She couldn’t bear to look at the Summer for long. It brought back memories of the last time she’d known anything like happiness. When she’d come back to the house, not knowing what was waiting. She turned her back on Summer and walked out of the room.
Out in the passage, her shoulders slumped slightly as four years passed in an instant, and she was twenty-two again. Her eyes were lost and confused, and her hair had been cropped institutionally short. They did that at the hospital, the officially bright and cheerful place they took her to after she had her breakdown. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything then, except getting away from the house. She’d lived there alone after her mother died, and it was too much for her. After they told her she was cured, she went back to the house anyway, because there was nowhere else to go. She belonged there. She pulled back her shoulders, walked into the room opposite, and looked out of the window into Autumn.
Tatters of gold and bronze still clung to the oak tree, but most of the leaves were gone, and the branches stood revealed like bones. She liked the Autumn best. It was restful. It demanded less of her. This was the way it had looked when she’d needed the world not to bother her with its presence. At the same time, the passing nature of Autumn had given her confidence that the world could change, without her having to be strong. She stared out into the Autumn and then looked reluctantly away. She never stayed long, for fear it might grow stale and lose its comfort. She walked out of the room and into the passage, and thirteen years fell upon her, bringing her back to her real age, and there was only one window left.
She walked back up the passage and into the next room, empty as all the others were, and looked out of the window into Winter. It was cold and sharp, under a dark and threatening sky. Frost had patterned the lawn, and glistened on the sidewalk. She liked this scene the least, because this was now, the present, and the world went on without her, with no care for her needs. Winter became Spring became Summer became Autumn, on and on, world without end. She could walk downstairs and out of the house into Winter any time she chose. Except she couldn’t. The house (and what was in it) wouldn’t let her. She shopped by phone and paid by mail and never went outside.
Polly Cousins, thirty-five years old, looking ten years older. Painfully thin, almost gaunt, carrying a burden too heavy to put down. Not at all what the eight-year-old had expected to grow up to be.
Movement caught her eye, and she looked with mild surprise at a man walking up the street towards the house. She thought at first he must be lost. No one came this way unless they had to. There was nothing to see but the two houses, and anyone who knew about them knew better than to risk disturbing them. But the man kept coming, not hurrying, but showing no sign of fear or awe. He looked pleasant enough, even handsome in a dark and brooding way. He finally stopped outside the house opposite, and looked at it for a long time. The Hart house.
Polly felt a brief stab of regret that he hadn’t come to see her after all, and then frowned as she realized the man’s face was vaguely familiar. She scowled at his turned back, trying to grasp the elusive thought, but it evaded her, as so many of her thoughts did. She let it go. It would come back to her if it was important. The man suddenly strode forward, mounted the steps, and unlocked the front door. Polly blinked, taken aback. No one had been in the Hart house for twenty-five years, to her knowledge. Curiosity tugged at her like an unfamiliar friend, and she turned and left the Winter room. She strode down the passage towards the stairs, not letting herself hurry. It meant she had to pass the last room, the one with no window, but the door was securely shut and she passed it by with her head held high. She could hear something breathing, harsh and slow, but she didn’t look into the room. There was nothing in there. Nothing at all. She listened to it breathing all the way down the stairs.
Downstairs, all the windows showed the same scene and the same Season. The ground floor showed the world as it was, and nothing more. Polly lived on the ground floor, and had made one of the rooms over into a bedroom. She spent as little time as possible upstairs. It held too many memories. But sometimes it called her, and then she had to go up, whether she wanted to or not.
She went to the front window and stared out at the Hart house opposite. As she did, the strange man looked out of the window opposite, and she saw his face again. She was sure she knew it from somewhere. Or somewhen. Her breathing quickened. Perhaps he was part of her past, from the years that were lost to her. From the time she’d chosen not to remember. The man turned away from the window and disappeared back into the house, but his face remained, dancing almost tauntingly before her mind’s eye. She’d seen it before, when she was very young. It was the face of Jonathon Hart, who used to live with his family in the house opposite, when she was eight years old.
Do places dream of people till they return?
James Hart stood in the hall of the house he’d grown up in, and didn’t recognize it at all. He felt disappointed and let down, even though he’d told himself not to expect too much too soon. As far as his memories were concerned he’d never been in this house before, but he hoped actually being here might stir up something. Unless what had happened here had been so awful that some part of him was determined not to remember. He still didn’t know why his family had left in such a hurry. From what Old Father Time had said, the prophecy had been disturbing enough to throw a scare into anyone, but what had made his parents decide to just leave everything and run? Had someone threatened them; someone convinced that the Harts were a threat to the Forever Door and Shadows Fall itself? Or had his parents believed that, and left the town in order to protect it? He shrugged mentally, and moved over to try the first door on his left. It opened easily, without even a creak.
The room was bright and airy with pleasant, unremarkable furniture and rather bland-looking prints on the walls. A clock ticked slowly, steadily, on a cluttered mantelpiece. Hart frowned. He’d never liked slow-ticking clocks. He’d always thought that was because the dentist he’d been taken to had a slow-ticking clock in his waiting room, but perhaps that had just been the echo of an earlier fear . . . The room looked peaceful and undisturbed, as though the occupiers had stepped out just a little while before, and might be back at any moment. The thought disturbed him vaguely, and he looked over his shoulder, half expecting someone, some ghost, to be there watching him. There was no one there. He left the room and closed the door carefully behind him.
He made his way through the house, room by room, and none of it looked in the least familiar. Everywhere looked neat and tidy, as though a cleaning lady had just been through. And yet according to Old Father Time, no one had been in the Hart house since his family left it, though Time had been puzzlingly vague as to why that should be. There wasn’t even any dust . . . nothing to suggest that anything had changed here in twenty-five years. He stood at the top of the stairs, and wondered what to do next. He’d looked in every room, picked things up and put them down, and still not a trace of memory had come back to him. It might have been a stranger’s house for all it did for him. But he had spent the first ten years of his life here; he must have left some mark somewhere. He stood scowling for a long moment, tapping his fist angrily against his hip. There was nowhere else to look . . . and then a sudden inspiration hit him, and he looked up to see the attic trapdoor in the ceiling right above him.
It didn’t take him long to figure out how to open it and pull down the folding ladder, and he scrambled quickly up into the attic. It was dark and cramped and smelled decidedly musty, but something in the place called to him. He could feel it. He reached out and turned on the single bare light bulb, and it was only after he’d done it that he realized he’d known where the light switch was without having to look for it. He took his time looking around him. The narrow space under the eaves was filled with old packing crates and dozens of paper parcels tied up with string. He bent over the nearest crate and pulled away the single layer of cloth that protected what lay beneath. It turned out to be more papers, bundled together and packed into paper bags with dates on. Hart pulled out a handful of papers and riffled quickly through them. Tax returns, financial records, hoarded receipts. Hart put them back. They meant nothing to him. He moved over to the next crate and jerked the cloth away. It was full to the brim with toys.
Hart stayed where he was, half crouching by the crate. All the toys you ever had and lost end up in Shadows Fall. The ones you broke and the ones your mother threw away, the stuffed toy that was loved till it fell apart, and the trike you outgrew. Nothing is ever really lost. It all ends up in Shadows Fall, sooner or later. It’s that kind of place. Hart knelt down beside the crate, not taking his eyes off the toys for a moment, as though afraid they might vanish if he looked away. He reached into the crate and brought out the first thing his fingers found. It was a clockwork Batman figure, square and ugly and functional in garish heavy-duty plastic. He turned the over-sized key in its side, and the flat feet stomped up and down. Hart smiled slowly. He remembered it. He remembered sitting in front of the television, watching the old Batman show, with Adam West and Burt Ward. Same Bat time, same Bat channel. (Don’t sit so close, Jimmy. It’s bad for your eyes.) The memories were short and sharp, like stills taken from a film. He put the figure down on the attic floor and it stomped officiously off, whirring loudly and rocking from side to side. Hart wondered briefly if the Batman himself lived in Shadows Fall, but he thought not. The Batman was still popular. People still believed in him.
The next thing to come out of the crate was an old hardback Daleks annual. A spin-off from the Doctor Who series, back in the black and white days, when it was still scary. Hart leafed slowly through the book, and as he did memories surfaced in sudden little rushes; of sitting up in bed far too early on Christmas morning, reading his new annual when he should have been sleeping. The stories seemed instantly familiar as he discovered them, but the memories were complete in themselves. They didn’t tell him anything of the boy who’d read them.
Thunderbirds vehicles. James Bond’s Aston Martin, with the ejector seat. The Batmobile that fired rockets and had a chainsaw concealed in the bonnet. A box full of assorted model soldiers, all of them looking as though they’d led long and active lives. A gun shaped like a jet plane that fired sucker-tipped darts. Farm and zoo animals mixed carelessly together. Model trains, still in their boxes. Aurora monster kits.
Memories came and went, bringing back vague but strengthening images of a small boy, short for his age, shy and retiring, who played with his toys because there were few children his own age he could play with. And because, even then, there had been something odd about him . . . Hart sat beside the crate, letting Lego bricks trickle through his fingers like sands in an hourglass. Memories were surfacing slowly, brief and disjointed, giving him a vague feeling of the child he’d once been. It wasn’t a comfortable image. The young James Hart had been cared for and loved, but spent much of his time on his own. He couldn’t remember why, but he had a cold feeling he wouldn’t like the answer when he found it. There had been something strange about his childhood. Something strange about him.
Something too strange, even for Shadows Fall.
A sudden shudder went through him, as though something had stirred briefly deep within him. He held his breath, waiting to see if it would return and take a more definite shape, but there was nothing more. He sifted indifferently through the layers of toys, but no other memories surfaced. He looked at the toys scattered around him on the attic floor, and all he could think was that there were collectors in the outside world who’d pay a small fortune for junk like this. Some of the Aurora monster kits weren’t even assembled, still complete in their boxes. He studied the garish art on the box covers, the familiar images of Frankenstein and Dracula and the Wolfman, and smiled suddenly as it occurred to him that the original counterparts might well be at large somewhere in Shadows Fall, living in comfortable retirement. Maybe he could get them to autograph a few boxes . . .
He picked up the toys and put them carefully away again. He glanced at the other crates and packages, but felt no inclination to check them. Some inner voice told him they held nothing useful for him. The toys had brought him up to the attic, and he’d got all he was going to get from them. He clambered down the loft ladder, went back up again to switch off the light, descended again, and put the folding ladder back. He walked down the stairs, and then paused at the bottom. He had a strong feeling he wasn’t finished here yet. There was still something waiting for him, something important. He looked around him and the hall looked back, open-faced and innocent. He moved slowly forward, drawn to a mirror hanging on the wall. His own face looked back at him, frowning and puzzled. And then, as he watched, the face changed in subtle ways, and his father was looking out of the mirror at him. His father, looking younger and more intense, and perhaps just a little scared.
‘Hello, Jimmy,’ said his father. ‘I’m sorry I have to rush this, but time isn’t on our side. You understand. I’m leaving this message for you just before we leave, programmed to respond only to your presence. There are so many things I want to say to you. If you’re back here, it means your mother and I are probably dead. I hope we had a good life together, wherever we end up. You’re still a little boy to me, but I suppose you’re a man now. Whatever happens, always remember that your mother and I loved you very much.
‘We’re leaving here because of the prophecy. I hope you’ll never have to come back, and this message will never be activated, but your grandfather, my father, is very insistent that you have the option to come back, if you choose. So, the prophecy; it’s very vague. Basically, it just says that your fate is linked to that of the Forever Door, and that you are destined at some future time to bring Shadows Fall to an end. That will scare a lot of people, and people get violent while they’re frightened. News of the prophecy hasn’t had time to travel far yet, so we’re leaving now, before someone decides to try and stop us. I don’t know what kind of welcome you’ll get if you do choose to return, but whatever happens, your grandfather will still be here to protect you.’ Jonathon Hart stopped, glanced back over his shoulder, and then looked back at his son. ‘Jimmy; we have to go now. Be happy.’
The face in the mirror was suddenly his own again. He looked pale and shocked. He’d never known his father as a young man; there were no photos or reminders from that period, and now Hart knew why. Tears stung his eyes as he turned away from the mirror. He never got a chance to say goodbye to his father and his mother. They drove off in the car like any other day, and the first he knew anything was wrong was when the police came to tell him they’d both been killed in a car crash. He wouldn’t believe them at first; kept saying his father was too good a driver to have had an accident. He kept on saying that right up until he had to identify the bodies at the morgue. After that he didn’t say much about anything for a long time.
‘Goodbye, Dad. Goodbye.’
He sniffed hard, and blinked his eyes rapidly. He didn’t have time for this. It wouldn’t be long before the same people who ran his family out of Shadows Fall would learn of his return, and then all hell would break loose. He had to find out the truth about his family and the prophecy, and that meant looking for his grandfather. His father’s father; the one who’d left him the map and instructions that had brought him back to Shadows Fall. The message in the mirror had seemed to imply that not only was his grandfather still living here, in the town, but he was actually powerful enough in his own right to be able to protect his grandson. Hart frowned. His parents had never talked much about family matters. He’d grown up without grandparents, uncles or aunts, brothers or sisters, and never thought it strange until his schoolfriends pointed it out. He’d asked questions then, but got no answers. His parents simply wouldn’t talk about it. He had all kinds of fantasies after that. He dreamed he was adopted, or kidnapped, or that his father had been witness to a crime and put some big Mob boss behind bars, and had to stay hidden to keep safe. Finally he decided he’d been watching too much television, and let the matter drop. He always supposed that some day his parents would get around to telling him. And then they were gone.
A thought struck him. If his grandfather was still here, perhaps others of his family were too. Cousins, maybe, remote enough to have been overlooked by his enemies. That word stopped him short. Enemies. People who would hurt or even kill him, because of what he might some day do. He supposed he ought to feel threatened, even scared, but it was all too new, too strange. He couldn’t take it seriously. Just as well, or he’d end up jumping at shadows.
Shadows. The word resonated within him like the tolling of a great iron bell, and glimpses of memories suddenly flickered through his mind, like the shuffling of a pack of cards. He tried to grasp them, but they slipped away, unformed and unfinished, until one memory hit him with the clarity of inspiration. He’d been lonely as a child, so he’d made up an imaginary friend. Called, with a child’s logic and lack of sophistication, simply Friend. He talked to it and confided in it, and his shadow Friend protected him from all the monsters that frightened him at night. The memory surprised and charmed him. He’d never thought of himself as particularly imaginative. Pity his Friend wasn’t around now; he could use some protection.
On an impulse, he raised his hands and made a shadow shape on the wall before him. He hadn’t done that since he was a small child, but old skills quickly returned, as though that was only yesterday. A rabbit took shape, with twitching ears, and a bird with beating wings, a donkey and a duck. The shadows leapt and danced on the wall before him, rich with meaning. Hart smiled, and lowered his hands. And the shadows stayed where they were.
Hart fell back a step, his breath caught in his throat. His hands were at his sides but the shadows still clung to the wall, though there was nothing left to cast them. The shadows moved again, repeating the shapes with fluid ease, and then ran slowly down the wall to form another shape; his own shadow. He jerked his feet back rather than make contact with it, and it reared back, a human shape standing as tall as he did, but with folded arms.
Part of Hart wanted to turn and run, but after some of the things he’d seen in Shadows Fall, a shadow with a mind of its own wasn’t really all that scary. And there was something almost . . . familiar about it. He’d seen this before, as a child. He remembered this. His Friend.
‘And where the hell have you been?’ said an acid voice. ‘I turn my back for five minutes, and you disappear for twenty-five years! You might at least have left a note. Is this the thanks I get for looking after you all those years? When your father was at work and your mother was too busy? I was always there for you, and what was my reward? Twenty-five years in an empty house. No one to talk to, never any company; if I hadn’t had the house to clean and tidy I’d have lost my mind. No one comes to call, the only neighbour is that crazy woman across the way, poor child, and the only television channel I can get shows nothing but soaps. Plus, not once but on three separate occasions, Father Callahan has tried to exorcise me. He should be so lucky. I’m a shadow, not a ghost, which by all accounts lead far more interesting lives. Well? Have you nothing to say to me?’
‘I was waiting for a chance to get a word in edgeways,’ said Hart.
‘Well pardon me for breathing, which I don’t, as it happens. If you’d spent twenty-five years home alone you’d talk to yourself too.’
‘Friend,’ said Hart, ‘I’ve missed you. Even when I couldn’t remember you, there was still a part of me that missed you. How could I have forgotten you?’
‘I wouldn’t touch a straight line like that for all the tea in China. Well, don’t just stand there. Where have you been, what have you been doing; tell me everything.’
‘There was a prophecy. We had to leave in a hurry, or people would have hurt us. I would have taken you with me if I could, but even then I knew you couldn’t survive outside Shadows Fall. I forgot everything when I left, but still, sometimes, I dreamed of you.’
‘They took you away,’ said Friend quietly. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have just gone off and left me. Oh Jimmy; I’ve missed you so!’
The shadow threw itself forward and wrapped itself around him like a living cloak of darkness. He could feel the weight of it in his arms, the heart beating rapidly against his own. It should have been scary, or at least disturbing, but it wasn’t. It was rather like having an armful of warm puppy; all bright eyes and affection. Friend finally calmed down a bit, and drew back to drape itself down the wall again.
‘It’s good to have you back, Jimmy. Are you going to be staying here?’
‘I suppose so. The house belongs to me now. My mother and my father are dead.’
‘Oh Jimmy, I am sorry. Really. Look, obviously a lot’s happened and I want to hear all about it, but there’s no hurry, is there? You sit yourself down in the main room and take it easy, and I’ll make you a nice cup of coffee.’
Hart raised an eyebrow. ‘How are you going to do that when you don’t have a body?’
‘I’ll improvise,’ said Friend dryly. ‘I’ve got as much body as I need to get things done. How do you think I kept the house clean and tidy all these years? Wishful thinking? Now do as you’re told, and you can have some chocolate chip cookies to go with your coffee. You always liked chocolate chip cookies.’
‘Aren’t they going to be rather dry after twenty-five years in the kitchen?’
‘You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days. The cookies are fine, like everything else in this house. Everything here is exactly as you left it. I knew you’d be back, some day.’
The shadow slipped away across the wall like rain sliding down a window, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Hart blinked a few times, and then walked back down the hall and into the main room. Never a dull moment in Shadows Fall . . . He sank down into what had once been his chair, twenty-five years earlier. It seemed a lot smaller than he remembered, but then it would, wouldn’t it? The room and its furniture seemed smart but dated, like the setting for a sixties sit-com. The television set in particular was large and blocky and looked like something from the Stone Age. He stared at it thoughtfully, hoping it would stir some memory of the programmes he used to watch as a child, and the child who watched them. The television stared blankly back, but slowly something stirred within him. TV shows came back to him that he hadn’t thought about since he was ten years old, or younger.
Champion the Wonder Horse. Circus Boy. Wagon Train. Bonanza . . .
They flickered through his mind in swift succession, bright and cheerful and larger than life (Lassie and The Lone Ranger), but nothing came to him of what it had been like to watch those programmes, all those years ago. They were black and white snapshots, complete in themselves. Hart sighed, and leaned back in his chair. Perhaps the shadow Friend would be the key he needed to unlock his past. It seemed to know all kinds of things. It might even know who his grandfather was. The shadow . . . shadows had frightened him as a small child. He didn’t like the sudden way they moved when you did, or sneaked around behind you. They watched him all the time, but he couldn’t see their eyes. How could he have forgotten something that had so shaped his early life? There were shadows everywhere once the sun went down, watching silently. Waiting. Some nights he hadn’t been able to sleep, even though his bedroom light was still on, because he was scared the shadows might jump him if he took his eyes off them. He could get rid of the shadows by turning off the light, but sometimes it seemed to him the dark was just one big shadow. So he made up a shadow Friend, to protect him from the other shadows. Only this being Shadows Fall, he ended up with a real imaginary Friend.
He looked up, startled, as he heard footsteps out in the hall. It couldn’t be Friend; the shadow moved silently. Someone else was in the house with him. He got up and moved quietly over to the door, and then just stood there, his hand dropping away from the door handle. If Friend was real, perhaps the threatening shadows were too . . . A quick shudder went through him, but he pushed it firmly away. He wasn’t a child any more. He had real enemies these days, and there was always a chance they’d kept a watch on the Hart house, just in case he was stupid enough to come here alone and unarmed . . . He pushed that thought aside too. It was just as likely his neighbour from across the road, come round to borrow a cup of sugar and scope out her new neighbour.
That crazy woman across the way. Poor child . . .
Hart shook his head. He’d better take a look in the hall while he still could. Any more of this and he’d scare himself into running for his life through the nearest window. He opened the door and stepped quickly out into the hall. There was no one there. He grinned shamefacedly, and didn’t know whether to feel relieved or stupid. It was an old house, it was bound to make creaking, settling sounds from time to time. And then he looked down the hall, and saw that the front door was standing just a few inches ajar. He tried to remember whether he’d left it open, and couldn’t make up his mind one way or the other. He moved cautiously down the hall to the door, opened it and looked out. All quiet. No sign of anyone anywhere. He looked across at the other house, but there was no sign of his neighbour at any of the windows. Hart shrugged uneasily, closed the front door firmly and turned round just in time to see the knife heading for his throat.
He threw himself to one side with speed and reflexes he didn’t know he had, and the knife just missed him. His attacker stumbled forward, caught off balance by the force of her own blow, and Hart drew back his fist. And then he hesitated as he realized his attacker was a thin, gaunt woman who looked almost as scared as he felt. Light gleamed off the knife blade as she prepared for another thrust, and the panicky determination in her face snapped Hart out of his paralysis. He had no doubt she meant to kill him, even though he’d never seen her before in his life.
The knife shot forward again. Hart dodged, and the blade buried itself in the wood of the door behind him. His attacker tugged at the knife, but it was stuck fast. Hart stepped quickly forward and seized her in a bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides. She struggled fiercely, but he was stronger than her, if only just. She subsided, and they panted in each other’s faces for a moment. He saw the uprising knee in her eyes even as she planned it, and thrust her away from him. She lashed out at him with both fists, trying to force him away from the door so that she could get to the knife again. Hart warded off the blows easily enough, but even so they were strong enough to jolt his arms painfully. And then Friend came sweeping down the hall like a jet black tidal wave and dropped over the woman like an enveloping cloak. She struggled desperately to break free, but Friend was too strong for her, smothering her moves easily. She stopped struggling, and something came from inside the darkness that might have been sobs.
‘Remember the crazy woman from across the road I told you about?’ said Friend conversationally. ‘Well, this is her. Polly Cousins. Spends a lot of time at the window, watching the world go by. Doesn’t get out much, but you can probably tell that. A few guppies short of an aquarium, if you ask me. What do you want me to do with her?’
‘For the moment, hang on to her like grim death,’ said Hart, getting his breath back. ‘Apart from that, I’m open to suggestions. Is the phone working? If it is, I suppose I should call the Sheriff.’
‘No! Please don’t do that.’ Polly’s voice was very small, like a child’s. ‘I’ll be good, I promise.’
She looked so pathetic and helpless that Hart began to feel rather like a bully. A glance at the long knife still embedded in the front door was enough to dismiss that thought.
‘Take her into the main room, Friend, but don’t let go of her for a moment. There’s a few questions I need answered before I decide what to do next.’
‘It’s your funeral,’ said Friend cheerfully. ‘My advice is to hand her over to the Sheriff, lock her up somewhere especially secure and then swallow the key, but what do I know? I’m just an imaginary friend.’
The shadow flounced back down the hall, dragging Polly with it. She didn’t put up any resistance, but Hart followed them at a respectful distance, just in case. Back in the main room, Friend dropped Polly into a chair and settled across her lap like a throw rug, holding her firmly in place. Hart pulled up a chair and sat down opposite them.
‘Talk to me, Polly Cousins,’ he said evenly. ‘Tell me why you tried to kill me, when to the best of my knowledge I’ve never set eyes on you before in my life. And while you’re at it, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just hand you over to the authorities as a dangerous lunatic?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Polly, her voice little more than a murmur. ‘I panicked. I was looking out of my window, and I recognized you. You’re very like your father, and I remember him well. When I realized who you were, who you had to be, all I could think of was the prophecy. The one that says you’ll destroy the Forever Door and bring Shadows Fall to an end. I was scared. I need the Forever Door, and the influence it has on the town; it’s all that makes my life bearable. It’s all that keeps me sane. I am sane; more or less.’ She smiled briefly, sadly. ‘Though I can understand you might find that hard to believe. You see, I’m . . . not always myself, and you caught me at a bad moment. I’m back in control now. If you release me, I promise I’ll behave.’
Hart sat back in his chair. She seemed sane enough, for the moment. Her knife was safely out of reach, and Friend was right there, ready to pounce on her again at a moment’s notice . . .
‘I have a strong feeling I’m going to regret this, but . . . all right, Friend; let her go. But stand ready, just in case.’
‘Strikes me you’re as crazy as she is, but you’re in charge. Just don’t blame me if she produces another knife from somewhere. She looks the type. But of course no one listens to me. I’m just a shadow, what do I know?’
‘Friend; get on with it.’
It sniffed audibly (Hart couldn’t help wondering what with), slipped away from Polly, and flowed up the wall behind her, adopting a human shape again. Polly stretched cautiously.
‘Interesting friend you have there, Jimmy. I remember you telling me about it as a child, and I was never sure whether to believe you or not. You were always telling stories, then.’
‘I prefer James, these days,’ said Hart. ‘You remember me as a child? What was I like? I can’t remember anything from those days.’
‘We went to school together, and we played together sometimes when our parents needed somewhere handy to dump us. Suzanne Dubois told me you were back in Shadows Fall. She saw it in her Cards. I knew you’d come back to the house, sooner or later, but it was still a shock, seeing you again. Rumours and stories have made you something of a bogeyman in your absence; a terrible sword hanging over all of us and everything we care for. I didn’t realize how frightened of you part of me was, until I found myself walking across the road to your front door with a kitchen knife in my hand. But I’m back in control now. There’s . . . more than one of me, more than one person inside me. One of them is very young, and frightens easily.’
‘You mean you’re a multiple personality?’ said Hart interestedly. ‘I’ve heard of them.’
‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Polly hesitantly. ‘It’s the house, you see. My house; Four Seasons. Time has broken down there, and who I am and what age I am depends on where in the house I am.’
Hart looked across at Friend. ‘Are you following any of this?’
‘Oh sure, this is much more interesting than the soaps on television, and not nearly as complicated. I think we ought to go across the road and take a look at her house.’
‘Can you leave here? I thought you were stuck in this place.’
‘I was, till you came back, but now I can go anywhere you can. I’m your shadow. Do let’s go, Jimmy, I mean James. I haven’t been out of this house in twenty-five years, and Polly’s place sounds absolutely fascinating.’
‘Not five minutes ago, you were all for locking her up and forgetting where they put her. But you’re right; it does sound fascinating. Lead the way, Polly. But if you even look like you’re going for another knife, I’ll have Friend drop on you like a ton of bricks. Is that clear?’
‘Of course, James. I appreciate your need for caution. Please understand; this isn’t easy for me. I haven’t had a stranger in my house for more years than I care to remember. I’m going to have to talk about things I don’t even discuss with myself. But I think it’s time I talked to someone. And if you’re as powerful as you’re supposed to be, maybe you can find a way out of the hell I’ve made for myself.’
‘I’m not powerful,’ said Hart. ‘I’m not anybody special. I’m just me.’
‘I hope you’re wrong,’ said Polly. ‘For both our sakes.’
She rose hesitantly to her feet, as though expecting him to change his mind at any moment, and led the way out into the hall. Hart stayed right behind her, ready to grab her or jump out of reach, as need be. She seemed sane enough now, but her knife had made a strong impression on him. People with knives were something he took very seriously. Polly stopped at his front door, glanced at the knife sticking out of the wood, and then pulled open the door and stepped out into the street. Hart went out after her, Friend bobbing along at his heels like any other shadow. He carefully locked the door behind him, and then the three of them crossed the road to Polly’s house. It looked ordinary enough to Hart, but he’d been in Shadows Fall long enough to know that didn’t mean a damn thing. Time has broken down there . . . Polly opened her front door and went inside. Hart and Friend followed her in, hanging back just a little.
There was something definitely wrong about the house called Four Seasons. Hart could feel it on the air; an unending tension, a sense of pressure, of purpose. Of someone or something waiting. He stepped into the hallway, brightly lit by the afternoon sun, and had to fight an impulse to keep looking back over his shoulder. How could Polly live in a place like this? He’d only just arrived, and already he wanted to turn around and walk right out again. Polly looked back to say something, and he quickly made sure there was nothing in his face to betray his unease. For the first time he thought he understood the tension within her, that kept her always strained and agitated, like a guitar string pulled too taut too long. She blushed lightly as he stared at her, and put a hand to her dishevelled hair, as though realizing for the first time how she must look to him.
‘I’m sorry; the place looks a mess, and so do I. If I’d known I was having company, I’d have made an effort. But only a few people ever come here, and mostly I like it that way. People think I’m crazy. Sometimes I think so too.’ She looked around her, as though trying to decide where best to take him. ‘You must understand, James; this place is dangerous. Time moves differently here. Something happened in this house, long ago, when I was just a little girl. Something awful. But I can’t remember what. Suzanne told me you’d lost the memories of your childhood. I wasn’t so lucky. I’ve still got mine. They haunt me, and this house. Upstairs, there are four different rooms, and in them I am four different people. Four different versions of myself. Down here, things are more stable. I’m allowed to be just me. Come on through to the kitchen. We’ll be safe there, and it’s far enough away from the rest of the house that it might not hear us talking.’
She led the way down the hall and into the kitchen, chattering nervously all the while. Hart couldn’t follow half of what she was saying, but he listened carefully anyway, searching for clues as to what had happened long ago, to Polly and her house. The kitchen was a mess, but a comfortable mess; the kind of place where you know where things are without having to look. Every surface was buried under accumulated clutter, but there was no dirt or grime, and the floor was spotlessly clean. Polly cleared an old sweater off a chair, dropped it casually on the draining board, and gestured for Hart to sit down. He did so, checking unobtrusively that Friend was still with him, and watched Polly bustle round the kitchen as she made coffee for them. She kept up her chatter, perhaps because she was afraid of what might come to fill the silence if she didn’t.
‘Something bad happened to me when I was eight years old, and it’s still happening, in a room upstairs. The room with no window. I haven’t been in that room since it happened, but something’s there, waiting for me.’ Polly sounded strangely calm now, as though relieved at having someone she could talk to about it. ‘I have tried to face it, in the past. I tried when I was eight, when I was twenty-two, and just recently, last year. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough, and each time I failed, a room took a part of me and held it, like a fly trapped in amber. Now, when I go upstairs, the house makes me those people again. Not as a punishment. It took me a long time to understand that. The house is trying to cure me; to make me overcome what happened here by facing it. But I can’t.’
She paused, and Hart chose his words very carefully. ‘What actually happened to you, when you were eight years old? Can you remember any of it?’
‘No. My mother was out, and I was alone in the house with my father. Something awful happened between us, something so bad I can’t bear to remember it; something so terrible it still haunts this house and me.’
Oh my God, thought Hart. She’s talking about sexual abuse. Her father must have . . . no wonder she doesn’t want to remember.
‘Why don’t you leave?’ he said finally, when he could be sure of his voice. ‘Just pack up and go, and leave it all behind you?’
‘I can’t. The house won’t let me. As long as it has those parts of me upstairs, I’m not whole. Part of the house wants to cure me; part of it feeds off me. So I keep trying to face my fear, and every time I fail there’s another fragment of me haunting the house. Soon you won’t be able to move here for different versions of me, cluttering up the place.’
She tried to smile at her own joke, but it wasn’t very successful. She bit her lip and turned away abruptly so that Hart wouldn’t see the tears burning in her eyes. He sat there awkwardly, wanting to help, not knowing what to say or do for the best. Friend suddenly flowed up and over the kitchen table and wrapped itself around Polly’s trembling shoulders like a shawl.
‘Now, now, don’t take on so, petal. It’s all right, you’re not alone any more. Your trouble is, you’ve been trying to face this thing alone for too long. Hasn’t anyone ever tried to see this thing through with you before?’
‘No. I never let anyone in here, not even Suzanne, who’s my best friend. The only person who might have helped was my mother, but she wouldn’t have understood. And she might have said it was all my fault. She died when I was eighteen. Just before I tried to face the room the first time, and failed. And that part of me watched her funeral procession from its own window, after a child watched from another. Ever since then, there’s only been me here, getting more and more alone as bits of me flake off and are held. No one comes here; they can feel the power building in Four Seasons. It’s a jealous power, and it doesn’t want anyone here who might try to break me free. I’m surprised you were able to come in. You must be very strong. Even when I was trying to kill you, part of me knew you were someone special.’
‘I knew that, even when he was a child,’ said Friend. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. James and I will see you through this. We’ll start back with the earliest you, at eight, and work our way through the other yous until we finally get to what originally scared you. And then we’ll kick its ass.’
‘Excuse me just a moment,’ said Hart, ‘But do you think I could have a private word with you, Friend? Out in the hall?’
‘Of course, James, but can’t it wait?’
‘No, I don’t think it can.’
‘Oh, very well then. Excuse us, dear, we won’t be a minute. Will you be all right on your own?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘I’ve had lots of practice being on my own.’
Hart got up and went out into the hallway, Friend sliding along the walls after him. Hart carefully closed the kitchen door behind him, moved a cautious distance down the hall, and then glared at his shadow.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? This woman needs competent psychiatric help! It’s obvious she was sexually abused by her father as a child, and through fear and shame and guilt she’s chosen to suppress the memory rather than face it. These other fragments could be nothing more than manifestations of a multiple personality. She needs professional help. There’s no telling how much damage a couple of well-meaning amateurs could do!’
‘If a shrink could have helped, she’d have found one by now,’ said Friend calmly. ‘She’s been coping with this all her life, so you can be sure she’s already tried all the obvious things. We can help her, Jimmy. We’re special. You, because you’ve lost your childhood too, and me, because I’m not entirely real. Nothing can harm me, or frighten me, but I can protect Polly from pretty much anything. I learned how to do a whole lot of things while I was waiting for you to come back. And she’s right, Jimmy. You do have power in you. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it, like the hum of underground machinery, just waiting for someone to throw the right switch. We have to do this, Jimmy. Polly needs us.’
Hart took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I’ve got a really bad feeling about this, Friend. There’s something else in this house, apart from Polly. I can feel it, watching and waiting. And if there’s any kind of power in me, it’s news to me. But you’re right; we can’t just turn our back on Polly. If only because she might decide to stick a knife in it. If I’m going to have a neighbour, I’d rather it wasn’t a looney tune with a knife.’
‘You’ve grown very cynical, Jimmy. I’m not sure I approve.’
‘The word is practical, and I thought we’d agreed on James, not Jimmy. Look, I said we’d help, didn’t I? I just think we’ll all be a lot safer going into this with our eyes open. All right; let’s get this show on the road, before I suffer an attack of good sense.’
He smiled and Friend shook its head, and they went back into the kitchen. Polly was standing with her back to them, looking out of the window. She was hugging herself tightly, as though suddenly cold, or perhaps just to stop herself shaking. She didn’t look round as they came in.
‘I was always afraid, before you came,’ she said slowly. ‘Afraid of what might have happened in the past, afraid of whatever’s in the room with no window, and afraid that at any moment it would call to me again and I’d have to go to it. But I didn’t know what fear really was, until you came and offered me hope. I want so much to be free of all my pasts, but the thought of trying and failing scares me so much I can hardly breathe.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Hart. ‘Whatever happens, I won’t leave you here alone. If I can’t find a way out of this for you, you’re welcome to come and stay in my house, across the road. You’ll be safe there.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Polly. She turned round to face him at last, and there was no hope in her cold gaze. ‘I can’t leave. The house won’t let me. Whatever it is that’s in this house with me, I helped to make it; I gave it power over me. And I know, beyond any doubt, that it would rather kill me and you than let me go.’
Hart wanted to step forward and hold her in his arms, and comfort her, but the pain in her face was a barrier he couldn’t cross. ‘All right,’ he said briskly. ‘This is what we’re going to do. We’re going upstairs and into the room where you’re eight years old, and then we’ll go from room to room, collecting all your other selves and reintegrating them into one you again. We’ll make you whole again, and then we’ll see what’s in the last room, and deal with it.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I’m trying hard to sound confident, like I know what I’m doing, but really it’s up to you. Trust me, Polly. I can’t think of a single good reason why you should, but try. We were friends once, even if I can’t remember it, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to help. Friend will too. You failed before because you were on your own, but we’re here now. We won’t let you down. We won’t let you fail. Are you ready?’
‘No,’ said Polly. ‘But let’s do it anyway.’ She unfolded her arms and came to stand before him. ‘You were a scruffy little kid. Your clothes were always dirty and your hair was a mess. And I was always so clean, so spick and span. But there was no one I’d rather have been with, and I told you things I wouldn’t have dreamed of telling anyone else. When you left, I thought it was the end of the world, and I hated you for going and leaving me behind. Leaving me with the awful thing that had happened. I think that’s partly why I tried to kill you earlier, if we’re being really honest with each other. But now you’re back, and I’ve started to hope again. The house feels different since you came into it. Maybe you were meant to come back here, to help me. Shadows Fall is like that, sometimes. But James . . . there might be a power in you, but there’s definitely a power here, built by years of guilt and suffering. It’s real, as real as I am, and it doesn’t want me to come together again. I don’t know what it’ll do once it decides you’re an enemy. You don’t have to do this, James.’
‘Yes I do,’ said Hart. ‘We’re friends. Even if I don’t remember it. Lead the way, Polly.’
She smiled, put a finger to her lips and then pressed it to his. She walked out into the hall, not looking back, and Hart and Friend followed close behind. Polly’s back was very straight and she held her head high, and only the tension in her shoulders showed the forces and emotions warring within her. The hall seemed somehow darker, more claustrophobic, and Hart felt a rising need to reach out a hand to the walls to assure himself they weren’t closing in. He didn’t do it, though. He didn’t want to do anything that might distract Polly now that she’d screwed up her courage to the sticking point. He only had a vague idea of how much courage Polly had, to face a fear she’d been living with most of her life, but it was more than enough to impress the hell out of him. He wasn’t sure why, especially after the episode with the knife, but he liked Polly, and he was determined to do whatever it took to free her from her past. Whatever it took. Polly stopped suddenly before a closed door, and Hart almost bumped into her.
‘This is where it all began,’ she said softly. ‘I was eight years old. Playing on my own while my mother was out. Daddy was upstairs. He called to me, and I went upstairs. And then it happened, whatever happened, and my life was never the same again.’
She took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped unflinchingly into the room beyond. She stepped to one side just inside the door, so that Hart could join her. He did so, his hands clenched into fists, though he couldn’t have said why. The room was almost offensively ordinary, with nice comfortable furniture in a tasteful setting. The afternoon sun shone brightly through the window, and pooled on the carpet like golden wine. Polly stepped forward and sank to one knee before the empty fireplace.
‘Here I was, a podgy little thing with immaculate pigtails, working on a jigsaw puzzle, not particularly successfully. It was too old for me really, but I wouldn’t admit it. I took challenges personally, then. Part of me’s still here, picking up the pieces and putting them down, waiting for my Daddy to call.’
‘Polly! Come up here. I need you.’
The voice was hoarse and strained. A man’s voice. It seemed to echo on and on in the room, an echo from the past still resonating in the present. Polly got to her feet and walked out of the door. Hart hurried after her. Polly walked unhurriedly down the hall and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Without looking round, she held out a hand to Hart. He took it, and together they walked up the stairs, and into the past. It seemed darker, as though the sun had gone in. There were shadows everywhere, and Friend clung to their heels like a guard dog. Hart could feel the tension growing in Polly like a bowstring pulled to its fullest extent, but there was control there too, and if it was the control of desperation rather than courage, it still did what was necessary. Hart gripped her hand tightly, trying to pass some of his own steadiness on to her.
If you’re there, Polly’s father, I’m coming for you. If you’re still alive in some way I’ll kill you, and if you’re dead I’ll dig you up so I can spit on you. I don’t remember you at all, but I hate you for what you’ve done to Polly. I’ll do whatever it takes to break her free of you. Whatever it takes.
They reached the top of the stairs, and Polly squeezed Hart’s hand painfully tight. She strode forward without waiting for any response, and pushed open the door before her. She hesitated in the doorway as the door swung open, and Hart tensed, expecting something to happen, but nothing did.
‘I was eight years old, all alone, and I heard my Daddy call me. I came in here first, because I was trying to put off going in to him. I can’t remember why, only how scared I was. I’m scared now.’
‘You’re not alone this time,’ said Hart. ‘Friend and I are right here with you.’
‘I’m still scared. It just isn’t enough to stop me, this time.’
She walked into the room, and bent over sharply, as though caught by a sudden stomach cramp. She shrivelled and shrank, falling in upon herself like a fold-up toy. Her dwindling hand slipped out of his, and she stood there before him, a child again, in a child’s bright and cheerful dress. She looked up at him briefly with an adult’s eyes, and then turned away to look out of the window. Hart moved in beside her, and looked out at the Spring.
‘I’ve been here so many times,’ said the little girl. ‘The voice would call and I’d come, because if I didn’t, it’d just keep calling me until I did. It’s a strange feeling, knowing that whatever happens, I’ll never have to come here as a child again. I’ve never known what it’s like to put away your childhood for ever, never to experience it again. Part of me will miss it, but it’ll be worth it, to be free at last.’
She put up her tiny hand for him to hold again, and he took it carefully in his own. It looked very small and very fragile, and anger flared up in him again, pushing out the fear and uncertainty. She turned and left the Spring room, and walked out into the passage. She looked briefly at the room opposite, and then looked away and went on down the passage, to the next door. Hart looked back at the closed door of the room with no window. He could hear something breathing heavily behind the door. It didn’t sound entirely human. Hart could feel the mixture of fear and attraction that door had for Polly, even though she wouldn’t look at it.
Polly led him to the next room, pushed open the door and walked straight in. Her height shot up, her hand crawling in his as it grew, and in a moment she was a teenager again. He could see in her the beginnings of the woman she’d be, with her steady gaze and determined chin. Outside the window it was Summer, and the room was flooded with light. Tension trembled on the air like the crash of a slammed door. Polly looked out of the window at a long ago Summer with a face older than her years, and when she spoke her voice was quiet but perfectly steady.
‘This was the first time I tried to answer the call, to face my fear and conquer it. I’d heard him call on and off down the years, but I never got past that first room. I was always too scared. I felt so ashamed, even though it wasn’t any ordinary fear. It was more like a silent scream that went on and on and on. But my mother was dead and I was eighteen, a woman, and I thought I should be beyond childhood fears. So I walked up the stairs and into the first room and out again, quickly so I couldn’t change my mind, and then I stood staring at the closed door opposite. Something moved inside, waiting. And finally I turned away, and came in here instead. I think it was then I realized I was never going to be free of the fear. I stood and looked out of the window at the Summer, and finally, I turned and went back down the stairs again.’
She turned and left the Summer room and walked out into the passage again. Her hand was trembling now, and her shoulders were slumped as though carrying a weight too heavy to put down, but her back was still straight and the determination in her face was so cold and fierce it was almost inhuman. She pushed open the door to the Autumn room and stepped inside, and years piled on her again. She looked suddenly very tired and her hair was brutally short.
‘I had a nervous breakdown when I was twenty-two. I started to remember, you see, and I wasn’t strong enough to deal with it. So I fell apart at the seams, quite suddenly one afternoon. Nothing too dramatic. I just started crying and couldn’t stop. So they put me away somewhere nice and restful, until I was able to forget again. I came home after a while, and the voice called to me, and I was so numb I thought I could face it. I was wrong, and a part of me is always in this room now, lost and confused and just a little weaker than before.’
She turned and left without looking out of the window, and Hart had to hurry to keep up with her. She strode determinedly down the passage, pushed open the next door and walked into the Winter room. Thirteen years passed in a moment, and her hair grew out again in a sudden rush, spilling down to her shoulders. The tension in the room was almost unbearable, the pressure so strong Hart could feel it throughout his body. It was like facing into a howling wind, or struggling against the rising tide that bears you remorselessly back out to sea no matter how hard you swim.
‘I almost made it, this last time. I didn’t care any more. I thought nothing could be worse than living like this. I was wrong, again. I stood in this room all through the morning and late into the afternoon, and couldn’t bring myself to do the one thing that might have freed me. Such a simple thing, just to go into the next room . . . I hated myself because I was so weak, so scared, but hate wasn’t enough. In the end I went back downstairs again, leaving another part of me behind. This is as far as I ever got. I can’t do any more, not on my own. Help me, Jimmy. Please.’
Her hand was limp in his, as though all the strength had gone out of her. Her shoulders were slumped and her head was bowed, like the horse at the end of a race it’s just lost.
‘Polly! Come here. I need you.’
The voice was louder now, right there in the next room. Hart tried to read some kind of meaning or context in the voice, if not the words, but it remained stubbornly ambiguous. Polly stood before him, calm and relaxed and completely still, come finally to a state where anger couldn’t move her and fear couldn’t touch her. Whatever happened next, it was up to him.
I don’t want this kind of responsibility! I don’t know what to do!
‘She’s gone as far as she can,’ said Friend quietly, pooled around his feet. ‘You have to decide, James. Do we go on, or do we go back?’
‘I don’t know! I thought I did, but . . . look at her. If just the thought of the next room can do this to her, what effect will the room itself have? She’s already had one breakdown; I don’t want to be responsible for another.’
‘She came this far because she believed you when you said you’d stand by her. Are you going to let her down now?’
Hart shook his head, almost angrily. ‘What the hell is in that next room, that it can do this to her? What did her father do to her?’
‘I wondered that,’ said Polly, in a slow, sleepy voice. ‘I spent years wondering what there could be in that room that could be so frightening. For a long time I wondered if it might have been some kind of sexual abuse. You hear a lot about that, these days. But I can’t believe that of my father. I loved him and he loved me. So why does just the thought of seeing him again scare me so much I can scarcely breathe?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ said Hart. ‘Let’s do it.’
He took a firm hold on her hand and headed for the door, Polly going with him like a small child. Out in the passage, night had fallen. The only light shone from under the door to the fifth room. The steady breathing sounded louder, harsher, as though roused by anticipation. Hart walked slowly forward, Polly at his side. The passage stretched away before them, impossibly long. Hart didn’t know what to think any more. He’d been so sure sexual abuse had been at the root of everything, but Polly had already thought of that and dismissed it. So what was in that room, breathing so loudly? They walked on through the darkness, and the door drew nearer very slowly, as though something was drawing the moment out to savour it. But finally they stood before the door, and Hart hesitated, unsure what to do for the best. Polly reached out a steady hand, turned the handle and pushed the door open, and she and Hart went into the room together to face what was there. The door slammed shut behind them.
The room was brightly lit, and smelt of sickness and medicines. A man lay in the bed, gaunt and withered from the strain of long suffering. His eyes were closed, his breathing laboured, as though every inhalation was an effort. Polly looked at him silently. Hart looked around him, baffled. There was nothing else in the room, just one extremely sick man who didn’t even know they were there.
‘I remember,’ said Polly. ‘My father had cancer. There was nothing the doctors could do, back then, so they sent him home to die. He took a long time dying. I was scared of him. Scared of losing him, of him going away for ever. Death is hard enough to understand when you’re only eight years old, but when it’s your father . . . For a long time I couldn’t believe it would actually happen, and then I wouldn’t believe it. But finally he took to his bed and stayed there, and I realized he wasn’t ever going to leave it again. Then I believed.
‘I prayed for a miracle. Prayer after prayer, promising God I’d do anything, anything he wanted. I even said I’d be a nun if he would just save my Daddy. And all the time the cancer ate away at my father, leaving less and less of him in the bed. I couldn’t look at his hands on the covers without seeing the bones, couldn’t see his face without seeing the skull. It was as though he was becoming death. And I stopped going in to see him, because it scared me so much. Even when he asked for me, I wouldn’t go.
‘And then one day my mother had to go out, and I was left alone in the house. Alone with my father. I lost myself in my jigsaw. That at least was a puzzle I could solve, if I just tried hard enough. It was just after midday when he called out to me. I wouldn’t go. I was scared. He called again and again and finally I got up and went out into the hall. I stood at the bottom of the stairs for a long time, and then I went up, very slowly, step by step. I hid in the room opposite, and he called to me again. I stood outside his door, listening to him fight for every breath. And then the breathing stopped.
‘I went in, and he was dead. He didn’t look like my father at all, not the way I remembered him. It was as though this dead cancer thing had come and taken my father’s place. And all I could think was, if I’d gone to him when he called, he might still be alive. Maybe I could have done something, said something, and he wouldn’t have died. But I hadn’t . . .
‘So I ran out of the room and told myself I’d never been in there. Kept saying it over and over, till I believed it. But the guilt wouldn’t let me forget, not completely. Not all that long afterwards, I started hearing him call me again. My guilt and fear had built something in this room and given it power over me. To punish me as I should be punished. That isn’t my father there. It’s something else, something awful. I think once it might have been a part of me, but that isn’t true any more. It belongs to itself now. And it hates me.’
Hart looked at the dying man on the bed, and then back at Polly. The expression on her face worried him. Her words had the sound and power of an incantation, as though she was calling up something. And then the man in the bed sat up. Polly fell back a step, and grabbed at Hart’s arm. The man on the bed smiled at them both, and there was something horribly hungry in his gaze. Cancers suddenly bulged out of his skin like bunches of black grapes, boiling up out of his flesh as though driven by some internal pressure that couldn’t be denied. His face grew swollen and misshapen as blood-engorged tissues turned his features into a demon’s mask. He was still smiling.
‘Hello, Polly,’ he whispered. ‘You finally came to see me. Come and kiss your Daddy, and I’ll share what I’ve got with you. You know you deserve it. And then you and I can stay here together in the dark, growing strange and different, and we’ll never die. Never die . . .’
Polly looked at him silently, tears spilling down her cheeks. The cancer figure giggled.
‘Come to me, Polly. You look so good I could just eat you up.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ said Friend, and threw itself at the cancer figure. He fell back, startled, and Friend billowed out into a vast black shape, with massive fangs and claws. It dropped on its victim, and the cancer figure disappeared in the darkness. For a moment there was silence, and then Friend screamed. It burst apart, shrieking horribly at the cancer man as he effortlessly tore the shadowstuff apart. Friend spilled down the sides of the bed like dirty water, and fled across the floor to gather at Hart’s feet again, whimpering like a hurt child.
‘Sweet,’ said the cancer figure, ‘but a little light and frothy for my taste. Polly’s the one I want. I’ve waited for this for so long, my dear. The house tried to protect you, by giving you chances to escape, but you never took them, so you’re mine now, body and soul. Especially body. I’ll enjoy your flesh in so many ways, and when I’m done with you, you won’t know yourself.’
‘Go to hell,’ said Hart, and stepped forward to put himself between Polly and the cancer man. He looked at Hart thoughtfully, light glistening wetly on his bulging skin. The air was thick with the stench of rotting meat.
‘You have no place here,’ said the cancer man. ‘You don’t belong here. She made me and she belongs to me. This is what she wants, even if she won’t admit it. Leave now, or I’ll kill you. And you don’t want to know what I’ll do to your poor defenceless body afterwards.’
‘She was only a child,’ said Hart. ‘She didn’t understand. She was afraid.’
‘It’s too late now for pleas and excuses. I’m going to take this woman and stir my sticky fingers in her flesh, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’
The figure swept aside the bedclothes with a swollen hand and swung his elephantine legs over the side of the bed. He swayed to his feet, the cancers bulging in his flesh like diseased fruit. He started forward, a malignant nightmare given shape and form, and Hart raised a hand to stop him. Something stirred within him then that he had no name for. It was a power, or a potential, like nothing else he’d ever known, and it answered him when he called on it. Not for his own sake, but for Polly, who’d been hurt too much already. He beckoned brusquely to the cancer figure, and his voice was short and sharp.
‘You. Come out. Come out of him now.’
Black streams of living cancers burst out of Polly’s father, to fall in coils around his feet. Dark shapes split the skin and running foulness seeped out of every pore as his body convulsed, helpless in the grip of a greater power. And finally Polly’s father stood before them, pale and trembling but unmarked, and on the floor around him the cancer lay steaming and twitching, like something newborn in the darkest part of the night. As Hart and Polly watched, the cancer slowly grew still and lifeless, and the last of the life Polly had given it went out of it for ever. She turned and looked at her father, started to move forward, and then stopped herself.
‘Daddy?’
‘Hello, Princess. Look at my lovely little girl, grown up so fine and tall. It’s been a long time, honey, but I’m back now. I’m back.’
Polly threw herself into his arms, and they hugged each other tightly like they’d never let go. There were tears on both their faces, and neither of them gave a damn. Hart turned away to give them some privacy, and looked at the shapeless darkness around his feet.
‘Are you all right, Friend?’
‘I’ve felt better. Ask me again when I’ve had a chance to recover, in a year or two. How the hell did you do that? I didn’t know you could do that.’
‘Neither did I,’ said Hart.
He looked at Polly and her father. They’d finally released their hold on each other, but they were still standing as close as it was possible for two people to get. Polly sniffed away the last of her tears.
‘Daddy; this is Jimmy Hart. He saved you. He brought me here and believed in me, even when I wasn’t sure myself.’
‘Jimmy Hart?’ The man looked at him strangely. ‘You look at lot like your father, Jimmy. Thank you, for what you did for my daughter.’
‘Oh Daddy, I’m so sorry. I know I should have come to you long before this, but I was so scared . . .’
‘Hush, Princess, I know. I understand. You were just a kid.’
‘And you don’t blame me for . . .’
‘I don’t blame you for anything.’ He looked at Hart again. ‘Eventually, I hope someone is going to explain exactly what happened, but for the moment I’m just glad to be here and happy to be alive. Part of me’s been here for years, held by that . . . thing, but I don’t remember much of it. It was more like a fever dream, a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.’
‘It’s all over now,’ said Polly. ‘You’re alive, and everything’s going to be fine.’ Her face fell suddenly. ‘Oh Daddy, you don’t know. Mother’s dead.’
‘I know. I felt her go, a long time back, but there was nothing I could do, then. It’s all right, Polly. If she were here, I’m sure she’d be just as proud of you as I am.’
‘But I treated her so badly . . .’
‘She understands,’ said her father. ‘Wherever she is, I’m sure she understands.’
Polly smiled at Hart. ‘Thank you, James. Thank you for . . . everything. I never dreamed . . . I had no idea you had such power.’
‘Neither did I,’ said Hart. ‘It seems there are a lot of things about myself I don’t know. I’m going to have to do something about that.’