Eglantine Read online

  ‘It’s a good one,’ I said.

  But Sylvia would have none of it. ‘I’ll take the book,’ she declared. ‘I’ll take it out of the house, and we’ll see if that makes any difference. I don’t think it ought to be destroyed just yet. Not when it contains this sample of Eglantine’s handwriting. Incidentally,’ she added, ‘we might have this handwriting dated, if possible. By an expert.’

  ‘But it was written in 1906,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s already dated.’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘The question is – are we sure it’s the correct date?’

  After a lot of thought, I finally realised what she was getting at. She was saying that Mum, or Ray – or someone else – might have forged Eglantine’s name, to match the writing that they also might have put on the walls. (Human intervention, in other words.) But before I could point out, once again, that we didn’t want any writing on the walls, Sylvia was shepherding Richard up to Bethan’s bedroom.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, as she walked in. ‘Oh, no, this is no good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mum asked.

  ‘There’s so much writing. There are no blank spaces.’

  ‘No,’ Mum said patiently. ‘That’s what I was telling you. It’s been getting worse and worse.’

  ‘But there’s too much. It will be impossible to monitor.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Richard explained that they had been intending to make a record of any paranormal activity in Bethan’s bedroom using infra-red video cameras and time-lapse photography. They had been hoping to film at least one line of script appearing on a stretch of white wall.

  ‘If we take a wide shot of this,’ he said, gesturing, ‘it will be difficult to see any new writing against the old. If it was clean, we wouldn’t have any trouble.’

  ‘We’ll have to paint over it,’ Sylvia declared. As everyone looked at her, she continued, ‘Tomorrow, Richard. We’ll get a can of white paint and you can paint over the walls. Not the ceiling – just the walls. Then we can start from scratch.’

  ‘But we’ll have to photograph everything first,’ Richard insisted.

  ‘Oh, of course. That goes without saying.’

  ‘Uh – excuse me.’ Mum sort of put up her hand, like a kid at school. ‘You’re going to paint the room, again?’

  ‘If that’s okay with you, Judy.’

  ‘Well . . . I guess so.’

  ‘Richard will do it, won’t you, Richard?’ Sylvia went on. ‘I can’t, tomorrow – I’m booked up until the evening. And that’s when we’ll be wanting to come back.’

  ‘Will the paint be dry, by then?’ Mum inquired doubtfully.

  ‘Oh, I think so.’

  ‘Unless you need two coats,’ said Ray. ‘You probably will.’

  ‘We’ll see what happens,’ Sylvia remarked. Then she picked up her tape-recorder, and her infra-red camera, and her electromagnetic field detector, and went home.

  Richard went too, though not before photographing every square centimetre of Bethan’s bedroom. He spent about two hours doing that, and left at nine forty-five. The next day he returned at eight-thirty in the morning, with two cans of white paint, a drop-sheet, a camera, a paint-roller and a pair of overalls. He was very enthusiastic when he discovered that the walls were messier than ever.

  ‘So it didn’t work – taking the book away,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I replied. I hadn’t bothered trying to copy out the new lines of text. They were impossible to read, you see.

  Bethan and I watched Richard for a while as he took another roll of photographs. Then Bethan wandered away, and I started to help with the painting. It quickly became obvious that Richard needed a lot of help – more help than I could offer. He didn’t seem to know much about painting.

  ‘I borrowed all this equipment from my dad,’ he admitted, after realising that he had forgotten to bring a tray for the paint-roller. Fortunately, Ray had one of those. He also had a ladder, and a bottle of mineral turpentine, and some paint-spattered old trousers.

  By ten o’clock, Ray was working beside Richard while Mum went off to do the shopping. I helped clean the brushes and listened to Richard’s stories. One was about a haunted post office, which somebody had turned into a guesthouse. Several visitors had reported going to bed, switching off the light, and feeling the weight of a person sitting beside them. When the light was switched on, however, there was no one else in the room.

  Another story was about a house where the doors kept slamming, where ghostly footsteps were always being heard, and where the crockery in the kitchen kept rearranging itself. Close investigation revealed that draughts, rats and a naughty grandchild were responsible for these ‘paranormal activities’.

  ‘You have to keep an open mind,’ Richard revealed. ‘It’s no good coming in with your own ideas about something. You have to set aside your beliefs before you walk through the door.’

  ‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ I asked, and he laughed a little.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘honestly. I’d like to believe in them. I haven’t seen anything so far that’s really convinced me – but on the other hand, I’ve heard some pretty amazing stories from people I trust, level-headed people who don’t lie about things like that.’

  ‘How did you get involved in PRISM?’ Ray wanted to know.

  Richard told him that, about a year before, he had stumbled onto PRISM’s website and had decided to join. This was only his second investigation. The first had been a case of faulty electrical wiring.

  ‘Your case looks much more interesting,’ he said. ‘Especially if we can get something on film.’

  ‘Can kids join PRISM?’ Bethan inquired from the door. To my horror, I saw that he was with his friends Matthew and Jonah. So that’s what he’s been doing since he left, I thought: rounding up the neighbourhood!

  Richard knitted his brows. ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know of any kids who are members. But that’s not to say it’s against the rules.’

  ‘Do you get paid?’ asked Matthew, and Richard laughed again.

  ‘No. It’s a non-profit organisation.’

  ‘If I was a ghost-buster, I’d ask them to pay me,’ Matthew declared, squinting down the barrel of his plastic gun. Then he roared off, taking the other two boys with him.

  They came back, however, several times. They seemed fascinated by Richard Boyer – though not by the ghostly writing. If it had been up to them, our ghost would have been performing more impressive tricks. Walking around headless, maybe, or making the walls bleed. They were a bit bored by endless lines of small, neat script.

  Even so, they brought some of their friends to have a look. By the end of the day, we’d had seven kids through the house, wanting to see the ‘haunted room’ with their own eyes. Matthew and Jonah brought their friends Thomas and Gabriel. Michelle brought her cousin Dommy. And a little kid named Jostein from across the street knocked on the door after lunch to ask if he could please meet ‘Caspar the friendly ghost’. Don’t ask me how he heard about Eglantine. Obviously the news was spreading like wildfire.

  No wonder our local newspaper got hold of the story.

  CHAPTER # seven

  Actually, we didn’t hear from the local paper until Wednesday – and several things happened before that.

  First of all, Richard Boyer spent Saturday night in Bethan’s room. Sylvia tried to do the same thing, but was driven out very quickly by the paint fumes, which gave her a headache. Though Ray had left the window open after finishing the second coat, the fumes were still pretty bad; Richard looked pale and sick the next morning. I found him in the kitchen, drinking coffee, when I came down to breakfast.

  Mum was already wide awake, eating her homemade muesli.

  ‘So how did it go?’ I asked, and Richard blinked at me. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘Oh – ah – pretty good,’ he said.

  ‘Is there any new writing?’

  Sud
denly he perked up. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Yes, there is. I counted ten new lines.’

  ‘Great!’ I opened the fridge. ‘Did you see who wrote it?’

  ‘No.’ Richard sounded crestfallen. ‘I mean, I probably got it on film – certainly the talcum powder wasn’t disturbed . . .’

  ‘He fell asleep,’ Mum supplied.

  ‘Even if I’d been awake, I probably wouldn’t have seen anything,’ said Richard, a little defensively. ‘It was too dark. That’s why we had the infra-red set up.’

  ‘Then why did you have to stay in there at all?’

  I wanted to know, dumping the milk on the table.

  ‘Oh, I had to do that. I had to.’ Richard straightened, and his voice became more breathless than ever. ‘I dreamed that dream, for one thing. I dreamed that I was choking.’

  Mum and I exchanged glances.

  ‘It was incredible,’ Richard continued, furiously scratching his scalp with both hands. ‘Exactly like Bethan said. Not asthma – nothing like asthma. Not a pressure on the windpipe, either. It was as if something was being forced down my throat.’

  ‘What?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I don’t know. It was all dark. Of course,’ he added ruefully, ‘dreams don’t mean much, in the circumstances. I was already thinking about Bethan’s dream. My mind was probably responding to the power of suggestion.’ Suddenly Richard leapt to his feet, and scurried out of the room. He seemed to have the jitters, and looked quite awful, all red-rimmed eyes and drawn, white face.

  But he still seemed very enthusiastic about the possible results of his investigation. Before he packed up his equipment and left, he thanked Mum again and again for her hospitality. And he assured her that he would ring us as soon as he had anything at all to report.

  As it happened, however, I was the first one with something to report. Because after Richard had gone, and I went up to Bethan’s room, I discovered that Count Osric was begging Princess Emilie to run away with him. Lady, he said, hast ever a trusty page in thy train? When Emilie replied that she did have a trusty page, he urged her to disguise herself as her page’s brother, and go forth at night from the palace’s northern gate. Once through the gate, she was supposed to traverse the city’s great street until a forest was at her left hand; then she was to enter a path that would appear, and follow it until her dear foot should press a cliff above the sea.

  ‘I don’t think those PRISM people are paying enough attention to the story,’ I remarked to Mum, after informing her of these latest developments in Eglantine’s fairytale. ‘That Richard guy didn’t say anything about it. But it must have some meaning, don’t you think?’

  Mum grunted. I soon learned that she was losing faith in PRISM’s ability to help her, because that afternoon Trish came over and spent two hours discussing Bethan’s bedroom with Mum. They decided that its chi must be all wrong. Mum wondered if she should hang a crystal over the window, or place a light in the ‘seventh house’ to counteract all the thunder energy. Trish began to talk about the Predecessor Law.

  ‘I’d forgotten about it,’ she said, ‘until I read my books again. Basically, the overall vibration that remains in a space from those who lived there before you controls much of what’s happening now. That’s the Predecessor Law. And it’s beyond anyone’s ability to change the Predecessor Law by installing cures or studying the bagua.’

  ‘Then what am I supposed to do?’ Mum demanded. ‘For heaven’s sake, Trish -’

  ‘It’s all right. Calm down. There is a solution.’ No doubt Trish began to describe what the solution was, but at that point I wandered away to look at a nature program on the television. So I missed what she said, and as a result I was very surprised when I came home, on Monday afternoon, to find Mum and Trish in Bethan’s room, performing a purification ceremony.

  They were both dressed in white. Trish wore a long, fluttery white dress. Mum had dug up a pair of old tennis shorts, a white T-shirt and a pair of white socks. They were sitting on the floor, cross-legged, with their eyes closed, making a long, low, breathy noise that sounded a bit like ‘suuuuu’.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, and Mum frowned without opening her eyes.

  ‘Go away, Allie,’ she said.

  ‘But what -’

  ‘It’s all right, Allie,’ Trish murmured. ‘You can watch from the door, as long as you’re very, very quiet.’

  At first I thought they must be meditating. Mum does that, every so often, though usually not in white clothes. But then Trish began to speak. Not to chant – to speak. Her voice was low and soothing.

  ‘Thank you very much for your life,’ she said. ‘Whoever you are, whenever you lived in this house, I’m sure you left it more beautiful than it was when you arrived. Wherever you are now, we hope that you can be happy and at peace, and we’ll try to help you. Don’t worry about this house. We love it, and we’ll care for it, so you don’t have to stay here any longer. We wish you well. Don’t worry about us, either, because we will seek to be happy and healthy without your presence . . .’

  She went on and on, for about ten minutes. Then she chanted one of her sutras, and Mum chanted one of her sutras, and when they finished, they clapped their hands sharply three times, in unison.

  Only at that point did they open their eyes, and struggle to their feet with a great cracking of knee-joints.

  ‘Do you think Eglantine is really worried about the house?’ I began, but Mum shushed me again. She took a handful of sea-salt from a little silver dish beside her and began to scatter it over the floor.

  ‘We’ll leave that there for a day,’ Trish announced.

  ‘Then we’ll sweep it up and scatter some fresh flowers, instead. Perhaps light a few candles.’

  ‘What’s the salt for?’ I inquired.

  ‘Salt is the densest ingredient that we use in everyday cooking,’ Trish replied solemnly. ‘It’s one of the most important elements of life, and therefore stands in direct opposition to the spirit world. We want to encourage the life force in this room.’

  ‘It’s worth trying,’ Mum added. ‘If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to bring in a Feng Shui master, and that’s going to cost money.’

  She left the room, then, and Trish went with her; they were going to refresh themselves with some jasmine tea. I stayed. I looked around at the bright, empty room, and wondered if Eglantine was going to take any notice of a Chinese purification ritual. I worried that she wouldn’t, because she hadn’t been Chinese.

  ‘Eglantine,’ I said aloud, ‘I’m really, really sorry about what happened to you.’ I was, too. I was beginning to feel as if I knew her better, and the fact that she might have choked to death . . . well, I was finding it harder and harder to think about anything so awful. ‘The thing is, though,’ I went on, ‘there’s nothing we can do about it. Can’t you see that? Can’t you please go away and leave us alone? I bet you wouldn’t have liked sharing a room with your little brother.’

  A deep, dense silence answered my request. Dust-motes drifted through a shaft of sunlight.

  If Eglantine had heard me, she wasn’t the least bit interested.

  I went and got my journal, so that I could copy down the twenty-eight new lines that had appeared on the walls the previous night. Count Osric was still relating to Princess Emilie his plan for her escape. I will anchor my ship against the cliff, he said. A red light shall float at the masthead. I will come with a boat and bear thee away. Then, with the strong ship we will go to another land – a summer-land, where we shall be forever happy. Oh, fly with me, lady, or I die! Fly with me, I pray thee by our love. I bid thee from all pains. I proffer thee all delights!

  But Emilie was doubtful. When he implored her, she begged him to command her, rather - for without his command, she would not have the strength. So he commanded her, and she obeyed.

  Then night fell upon the kingdom of the white-bearded king, bleak and dark and cold. The shrubs were heavy with raindrops which lurked in the hollows of the blossoms and the
leaves. A cold wind blew. Emilie arrayed herself like a page, and went forth to meet her lover. She left the palace gate. She traversed the crowded streets. She trembled but did not faint. She had just passed the sentries at the city gate, when the story stopped.

  By this time, I have to admit, I was becoming obsessed. I wanted to know what was going to happen. So I wasn’t as pleased as you might expect when, the next morning, I found only one line written on the walls. It said, A wood was at her left.

  ‘Wow,’ said Bethan. ‘Just one line.’

  ‘That’s pretty good,’ said Ray. ‘That’s better than we’ve had since the very beginning.’

  ‘Maybe the purification ceremony was the right thing to do,’ said Mum, sounding a little dazed. We were all standing around in Bethan’s bedroom, staring at the lonely new line. A wood was at her left.

  I thought, Emilie and her page must be about to reach the edge of the sea-cliff.

  ‘Maybe I should perform the ceremony again,’ Mum continued. ‘One more time for luck, do you think?’

  ‘What about the flowers?’ I inquired. ‘Weren’t you supposed to wait for a day, and then scatter flowers and light candles?’

  ‘I’ll ask Trish,’ said Mum. She did – that afternoon – and Trish told her on no account to disrupt the order of proceedings. First the salt had to be swept away, she instructed. Then the flowers had to be scattered and candles placed about the room, particularly in the seventh house. After two days, the room could be cleared. ‘And if you’re still getting the odd line of text,’ Trish added, ‘then you can go through the ritual once more. Just to reassure the spirit, and give it release. But I doubt you’ll have any more trouble,’ she concluded confidently.

  She was wrong. On Wednesday morning, I found ten new lines.

  This was after Mum had spent thirty-six dollars on flowers from the florist, and burned through a whole packet of kitchen candles.

  She was very cross.

  ‘All right,’ she growled, glaring around Bethan’s bedroom. ‘If that’s how you want to play it, Miss Higgins, we’ll do it the hard way!’