Thea had her own angel and devil, except they weren’t sitting on her shoulders but walking beside her.
‘I’d chew my own arm off for that kind of money!’ Rosie panted up the hill, still dressed in her gym gear from earlier, the wind fluffing her crazy hair into even crazier shapes. ‘Let them know that, yeah – if they have some more money lying round? Totally up for chewing my own arm off in the name of science!’
‘It’s danger money,’ Ethan called back to them, waiting a little further up the path.
They hadn’t been able to get hold of Rory, but, as Harriet had handed her the trainers with a look of puzzlement on her face, Thea had spotted Ethan hovering nearby trying to act as if he wasn’t listening in. It had been easy enough to get another pair of trainers for him.
‘It’s a shame you couldn’t get through to your mum, though.’
They’d tried. But mid-afternoon was peak plotting time for the women at HQ – and by “plotting” they often meant “napping”. There was no answer.
Thea continued to plod, staring at her newly issued trainers, the same as Rosie and Ethan’s. They had springy soles and she felt like she could walk for hours, at least twice around the small island. The cult clothes had been replaced by fleece-lined leggings and a puffy jacket that kept her warm despite the chill air.
‘My mother would probably suspect this is all a patriarchal conspiracy of some sort,’ Thea said.
Rosie nodded seriously. ‘Well, most things are,’ she said.
Thea wasn’t sure if Rosie actually knew what a patriarchal conspiracy was.
‘You could talk about it to Harriet,’ Rosie said.
‘Yeah, you could.’ Ethan cracked his knuckles together. ‘But you wouldn’t get a straight answer.’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad.’ Rosie stopped as if to admire the view stretching out below them, but really trying to catch her breath. ‘Fierce shoes! Gave me a lipstick a few days ago, just cos I complimented her on the colour. Bet she’s got a great Insta page.’
‘It’s a science experiment, that’s all,’ Thea pondered. ‘It’s what scientists do, isn’t it? Try to push things a bit further?’
‘Yeah!’ Rosie grinned. ‘Like Frankenstein, right? Make a new human being.’
Thea stopped and there was a pause as Rosie’s brain caught up with what she’d just said, ‘’Cept of course it was a monster, wasn’t it? Not that you’ll—’ Rosie’s eyes went wide in dismay, slow-loris-style.
‘Turn into a monster?’
‘You might.’ Ethan laughed, just briefly, but it was an actual laugh. He looked as surprised at it as they did.
‘Why do they want to do it, though?’ Rosie frowned. ‘I thought they were helping us to get more sleep, not less. I don’t understand.’
Ethan called over his shoulder as he marched on ahead of them, ‘Bet the MOD have been trying to do something like this for years. A soldier who doesn’t sleep? An army that doesn’t sleep?’
‘Or a doctor,’ Thea added, both women walking quicker to keep up with him. ‘Think of all the lives that could be saved if there were no sleep-deprived doctors.’
‘Or the lives that could be taken by those wide-awake soldiers.’
Rosie’s eyes became bigger still. ‘What? People who never sleep? But that’s just … unnatural.’
The monastery was close now, and though Thea had been thinking of sleepless soldiers and twenty thousand pounds, she had also been thinking of this place. They were standing at the side of it, between them and its walls a stretch of spiky weeds. Clouds had started to roll in while they had been walking: fat and heavy and grey, squatting in the sky like miserable buddhas. The walls of the monastery blended in, towering above them, the bell tower still wounded and bleeding rust.
‘Grim place,’ Ethan said softly.
‘Is this where you were?’ Rosie asked. ‘Y’know when you saw it?’
‘Saw what?’ Ethan asked, fixing her with a glare.
Thea blushed. ‘I don’t know. Something. I couldn’t tell what it was.’
A bird. A piece of plastic. A face.
‘Ooh, I bet there are some juicy ghosts up there.’ Rosie rubbed her hands together. ‘I love a good ghost story. Don’t believe them, but love watching all of that real ghost hunters’ stuff; the psychics pretending like they’re talking to the dead. It’s hilarious!’
Ethan cracked his knuckles and sighed and Thea could tell by his expression that he thought they were a pair of impressionable idiots.
‘Helllloooo!’ Rosie threw her arms wide and twirled around. ‘Heeelllllooooo, ghosties! Here we are! Come talk to us, ghosties!’
‘Cut it out, Rosie.’ Thea grabbed her arm, uncomfortable suddenly, as if they were prodding a sleeping predator that they really, really shouldn’t wake. There had been abuse here, sadness, fear; there was a menace in those walls, porous walls that had sucked up every scream and drop of torment over the years.
‘Come on, ghosties! Helllllloooooooooooooo!’
Rosie shrugged Thea off and picked her way through some of the shallower bracken that formed a thick barricade around the monastery itself. Ethan sighed.
‘I’m carrying on to the lighthouse,’ he said to Thea. ‘You deal with your weird friend.’
They both heard a sharp yelp and the sound of rustling.
‘Rosie!’ Thea yelled.
But Rosie had disappeared.
‘Rosie!’
A patch of bracken moved in response.
‘I’m okay!’ a faint voice called back. ‘I twisted my ankle … The ground’s a bit uneven … I’m fine …’
A pause.
‘Okay, maybe I’m not fine. I can’t seem to put much weight on this ankle …’
Ethan muttered something under his breath, pushed past Thea and stomped into the undergrowth. A few moments later he came back out, supporting a limping Rosie, who looked quite ashen-faced but probably didn’t need to cling to him as tightly as she was.
Thea raised an eyebrow.
‘It was the ghosts!’ Rosie defended herself. ‘They got me. Don’t mess with the supernatural, kids!’
She sank down onto the path and hauled herself over to lean against the nearest tree. Thea and Ethan continued to look unimpressed.
‘Look, sorry for being an idiot, okay? You guys go on to the lighthouse without me. I don’t want to go back yet – our time’s not up. I’ll just stay here, enjoy the view and wait for you to return.’ She prodded her ankle gently and winced as she tried to move it.
Thea gazed at the monastery. It was just a ruin, another rotting place full of woodworm, mould and broken glass. Each window was a black hole with nothing in it. No flicker. No face. She had been wrong.
She hugged her jacket tighter to her.
Ethan hadn’t even looked back but was already climbing further on up the path. Thea lingered near Rosie, unwilling to leave her on her own, but Rosie shooed her away, shouting after them, ‘If you see a ghost, give me a yell!’