Caleb throws the journal down. There are no answers in there, no guidance. Or perhaps these really are the answers, and he doesn’t like them one little bit. In fact he hates them.
He doesn’t want to read any more.
He wants to finish it all now.
He hates it. He hates the journal. He hates Gramps for having it. He hates that reading it is the only thing he can think of to do.
What he hates most is how he’s just lied to himself. He can think of other things to do. He just doesn’t want to do them. He’s too scared. Every single time he’s gone out there everything has gone wrong.
And that’s not all of it, is it? There’s something worse. The things he’s done, every action, every last one, has been pointless. Taking measurements. Talking to that girl. Watching people. Being chased. Arguing. Reading this journal. All of it has achieved nothing. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He doesn’t know if it can be stopped. He doesn’t know how to change anything.
He doesn’t know one single thing.
And he hates that.
And he hates this stupid room that isn’t his. Can’t stand being within these walls. Wants to scream until they crack and split and the window blows out. He jumps off the bed and strides out.
He comes back for the journal.
There’s busy noise coming from the kitchen. Gramps is on hands and knees, rooting through the bottom food cupboard. He’s pulled out dozens of jars and tins and packets, stuff that’s probably been in there for years and dropped far out of date. The way he mutters sounds to Caleb like the old man’s annoyed by someone at the back of the cupboard. ‘I need to ask you something, Gramps.’ He tries to say it softly, but there’s still the thump of a surprised head. The old man pushes himself out with a collection of creaks.
‘Ah, Caleb, you haven’t had it, have you?’
‘Had what, Gramps?’ he asks, already sinking.
‘The tomato soup.’
Caleb looks around the stacks and collections on the lino. ‘There’s a tin there. And two there.’
‘No, it’s not that one or those.’ Gramps sticks his head back in the cupboard. ‘It must be here somewhere, I saw it the other day.’
‘Aren’t they all the same?’
‘Not at all! Where is it, your grandmother would know…’
‘Can’t you just have one of the other ones this time?’
With difficulty Gramps retreats once again, has to use the worktop and Caleb to stand. It looks so painful that it make Caleb angrier. What use is this frail old thing? ‘Maybe someone put it in this cupboard instead.’ He pushes things from one side to the other, one side to the other.
‘Gramps, forget about the stupid bloody tomato soup will you? You’ve got loads of tins here, loads! It all tastes the same! I need you to answer something.’
The cupboards are closed, and Gramps turns. ‘What if I don’t want to answer?’
‘What?’
‘You heard what I said. It’s about the journal, isn’t it?’ His eyes have hardened to granite. ‘There’s a reason why I gave it to you. There’s a reason why I wanted you to read it. If I wanted to tell… If I could have told you it myself, I would have. So before you start snapping at me again, you little pup, ask yourself why I might have shut the covers on these books and locked them in a case and stowed them in the corner of the attic.’
At last, Caleb asks the first of the questions he’s wanted to all along. ‘Why did you bring it out then? Why didn’t you just leave it?’
‘How could I? You weren’t going to leave it, were you? Back and forth to that bloody graveyard day in, day out, and didn’t matter what anybody said to stop you.’
‘I wanted to see my mum, that’s my right…’
‘What is there to see? A gravestone? How many things are there to say to someone who never answers back?’ Thoughts of his father hunched over a laptop flash through Caleb’s mind, and with them come spears of guilt. ‘Weren’t you told it was unhealthy? Weren’t you told to leave the graveyard behind and try to live?’
Hot tears come. ‘Why are you being so horrible?’ He could take this venom from Father (dear dead Father, dead, dead, dead), but Gramps?
‘We gave you every chance, Caleb, every urging to stay away before you saw something. And that’s all it took, wasn’t it? One curiosity, one off-kilter presence to catch the curiosity of the child.’
He screams now. ‘And giving me this stupid journal was meant to stop me?’
Caleb has never seen Gramps this fierce. ‘No, because there is no stopping! There is no going back, ever!’ He sinks back against the oven, fury faded. ‘You stupid, stupid children, why can’t we ever teach you? Why aren’t our words enough?’
‘You said, “We gave you every chance”. We. So Dad knew as well. He knew whatever it is you know.’
‘Not all of it, but he put together enough.’
Here, then, was the second of the questions that have burned in Caleb every minute of the day. ‘Dad is dead, isn’t he? Something got in the house and killed him and now he isn’t Dad anymore.’ The words clunk hollow through the clay shell he’s become.
Now the old man reaches out to him. Now Gramps is the figure he’s always seemed, caring, gentle. Caleb steps away, kicking over tin stacks. He waves the journal. He’s gripping it so hard that his fingernails bite into the cover. ‘Why did you give me this?’
‘Because there are things that can’t be said aloud. Because words can be heard and diagrams have weight and the air is tangible…’
‘Gramps, you’re rambling, please focus…’
‘I’m trying to explain to you! There are traps, Caleb! They can be anywhere, they can be woven from the air itself, and traps have triggers… Oh God!’ He kicks out with a slippered foot, connects with a can of corned beef, thumps a dent in the cupboard under the sink. ‘If I talk more, I forget more. That is my trap. I’ll forget everything. Everyone. It’s like needle picking at the stitches holding my mind together. The memories will go. The feelings will fade away. I’ll come apart.’
It’s cold in this room, like it’s never known heat. Gramps has had problems for years – forgetfulness, confusion, obsessive behaviours, sudden mood swings – problems that Dad (dear dead Dad) said were getting worse, and Caleb’s suddenly wondering where they started and how. ‘So you couldn’t…’
‘Of course I couldn’t. If I ever found someone I wanted to tell about all of that up there, of Evelyn and everything that’s come after, how could I expect them to believe me? And I’d find it harder and harder to remember what I wanted to say, and I would become this tiny minded simpleton, and that would be the end of that.’ He takes the journal from Caleb, runs a crumpled hand over it as if to smooth out the dents. ‘At least some of my memories are in here. When my mind finally fails, this will be here. A piece of me, a piece of her. You know what’s ironic? I can’t even read this to fill in the blanks, because it just makes those blanks bigger. A grand trick indeed.’
‘There must have been someone you could tell…’
‘The police?’ His bitter smile is no joke. ‘Some government authority? The neighbours? It needs someone to see first to believe.’
‘So tell me. I’ve seen, I believe. Now’s the time, Gramps.’
He looks like a man the years have run away from. ‘The more I say, the less there will be of me.’
And now Caleb sees how scared his grandfather is, and understands what he’s asking of this frightened soul, truly understands. He cries, and goes to the man, and hugs him like he may never get to again. He can’t ask Gramps. There’s only one option left. He needs that eight-ball.