Stranger Still Read online

  “I didn’t, I had no idea about this at all. That’s not why I’m here.”

  David was wearing his Englishman in Paris look. “Words please, can you all use your words.” He said.

  Rachael nodded, “Stella, I’m assuming, as David is here with you, he knows everything?”

  “Of course,” I said, then in the interests of honesty added, “more or less,” and he raised an eyebrow I chose not to see.

  “And is there anything we will speak about today; you wouldn’t want him to hear?” she continued; I shook my head. “Then,” she turned to David, “we’ll talk, should we forget to talk, as we sometimes do, feel free to remind us.”

  “I need to know more about this.” I nodded towards the book, now lying open in a corner of the room.

  “First things first.” Said Rachael.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You said you were worried about Ruth?” Rachael said, “but as you can see,” she’s perfectly well – probably better than she’s been for a long time, nothing to worry about at all.”

  Ruth was indeed looking far better than the last time I saw her, mind you, as that was when she’d arrived with the others in the middle of a somewhat violent kerfuffle, my powers of observation might not have been up to much. But I also knew what had terrified me - the clear and vivid image of her in the mind of a dying psychopath she’d never seen before. When Jamie had done his level best to murder me and several others, not only was he as far from being in his right mind as it was possible to be, but there was another, far stronger mind, pulling his strings. It was that which had fed and flourished, nurturing, growing and relishing in Jamie’s insanity and it was in the midst of Jamie’s mess of a mind that I’d seen Ruth.

  “I know exactly what you’re thinking,” she said to me now and smiled at David’s involuntary start, “no, not that way my dear, we said, did we not, we were going to stick to talking?” and indeed, the Peacocks were both shuttered tight, as was I now, well at least as tight as I could manage.

  Ruth continued ruefully, “There is really no need to worry Stella, we saw off that particular unpleasantness as soon as you made us aware. No, what brought me low was simply glandular fever; ridiculous I know at my age, but it must have been brewing for a while and that accounted for how rotten I felt for so long afterwards. It’s notorious for knocking youngsters out for weeks and I’m a youngster no longer. I’m afraid I wasn’t much use to anyone for a while but as you see,” she patted her not insubstantial yellow and black striped middle, “back to normal now.”

  “No after-effects?” I asked, but already I was relaxing a little.

  Ruth shrugged, “It took a lot out of me and I still get days when all I want to do is sleep – post viral fatigue they call it, it’s not uncommon but on the whole, all is well.”

  “Then what is it I’ve felt, am still feeling?” my hand hovered at my stomach.

  “But you’ve already put a name to it, haven’t you?” said Rachael, “you think it’s some kind of precognition?”

  “I know that’s not possible. Anyway, that’s never been...”

  She interrupted briskly, “Well, maybe it is now. Things are as they are; you are as you are; you really should learn to keep a more open mind.” Ruth moved in, as so often before, pouring oil on potentially stormy waters.

  “What my sister’s trying to say, Stella dear – in her inimitable fashion – is that it’s really nothing at all to worry about.”

  “You think not? Seeing the future? I reckon that could be a bit of a life changer.”

  “Always with the drama,” sighed Rachael, “you’re not seeing the future, you’re probably reacting to something, the way animals and birds anticipate a storm or an earthquake days before it occurs. They’re picking up something that’s there, it’s a reality, just a reality we can’t see or sense but they can. Not mysterious, not magical and certainly not always accurate. We don’t know how or why. In time we will. It’s science, not science fiction. These feelings you’re worried about could be due to anything, maybe not even to do with Ruth. I’m afraid this may have been a wasted journey.”

  David was nodding in agreement and relief at her pragmatism. Work experience when he was younger had him shadowing an old-school investigative reporter, known for sticking a cynical, whisky-reddened nose into places it was neither wanted nor welcomed, but it had opened David’s eyes and mind to all sorts of unbelievable. His mentor was on the trail of money thrown - not just by our own government but those of China, Russia and the US - at research and experimentation into all sorts of extra sensory abilities. Roger’s career-crowning scoop was going to blow the whole thing open to ridicule and condemnation; until some of the stuff he came across, not only turned his hardened stomach, but also changed his mind.

  Now David leaned forward, “Why the book?” he nodded over to where it had landed.

  Rachael looked at him over the top of her glasses. “I was interested to see if there was more she could do, things she may not even have realised.”

  “More?” he queried.

  I sat forward crossly, “Hey, I can talk for myself. More?” I asked Rachael.

  “I presume,” she said, “you’ll continue working with Ruth, listening?”

  “Well, you presume wrong. I agreed to help when Ruth was out of action, but that didn’t turn out too well, did it?”

  “Listening was all we asked of you. Why instead of just reporting back, you felt compelled to hurl yourself headlong into a dangerous situation, is a question only you can answer.”

  Ruth chipped in “True, we did only ask you to pass on anything untoward; no more, no less.”

  “Naturally,” said Rachael with a nod in David’s direction, “we understand your circumstances have changed and of course, if your husband doesn’t want you to...”

  “I make my own decisions,” I said sharply, “if I decide to do it, I’ll do it.”

  “Excellent,” she said, “knew we could rely on you.” She rose from the sofa, while I was still cursing myself, “So, not a wasted trip then. As you see Ruth is stronger every day, although,” she added belatedly, “it has been lovely to see you Stella and erm...”

  “David,” he supplied.

  “Indeed, forgive me - my memory.” I frowned at her and she had the grace not to meet my eye. Rachael stroppy was nothing new, but I wasn’t about to let her get away with fake confusion. “Right,” she continued, “we must get on, things to do and I’m sure you want to head off now you have an easier mind, Devon wasn’t it?” she was already holding the door, ushering us out when I turned back.

  “My book.”

  “Don’t be daft,” David said, “you don’t want it.”

  “I do. If this really is something that’s developed, I have to deal with it, learn to switch it on or off. If I don’t, I’m going to be having funny turns left right and centre.”

  Rachael nodded, “Sensible.” Rare approval.

  On the wide, sun-lit landing, Ruth held out her arms. I hugged her tightly for a good half minute more than was necessary, revelling in the purple deepness, lavender-scented Ruthness of her which almost from the time we’d met had provided a secure harbour. I drew back smiling still holding her, sliding my arms down hers to the familiar, plumply beringed hands and then, just for a fraction of a shocking second I was overwhelmed by a rancidness that smothered me; the unmistakeable offensiveness of something sourly rotting, then it was gone. She returned my smile as we moved apart and turned to say goodbye to David.

  Shaken to my core, I did the only thing I could, I hugged Rachael too. Taller than Ruth and not your natural huggy type, she was rigid in my arms as I pulled her close, but I couldn’t risk a thought Ruth might hear.

  “It’s still there,” I hissed, “It’s in her.”

  “I know.”

  “She said it was gone.”

  “She did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s not aware of it anymore.”

  “Don�
�t understand?”

  “It’s become part of her.”

  “No, can’t be true, she’d know it was still there, she’d read it from you?”

  “Can’t afford to let her. Think Stella! If she knows, It will know too. We don’t know how to kill it without harming her. Until we do, we can’t risk her knowing.

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “But…”

  “Listen for once will you please. Stay out of it. I hoped you wouldn’t be here long enough to find out, we can’t trust your shielding.”

  In the stress of the moment I let that pass, “You can’t just leave it like this.”

  Anguish, frustration and fear was in the clenched hand, momentarily painful on my shoulder,

  “This ‘thing’ has learnt from its experience with Jamie. It’s not now draining her as it did him - worse, it’s feeding from her. Be assured though we will not ‘just leave it’.” And she put me from her decisively as David moved forward and she pre-empted further physical stuff by putting her hand out to shake his, and I aimed for a normal casual conversational tone.

  “Glory’s here?” It wasn’t really a question, I’d felt her.

  Rachael nodded, “Ed too.” As she spoke, she was already shepherding us down the stairs, just as Mrs Millsop bustled out of a door further down the wide entrance hall. She was towing a reluctant small girl with plaits and a pained expression who was insisting she was going to be sick.

  “Not here, you’re not.” Mrs Millsop was firm and amazingly swift, whipping open a door and inserting the child into what I presumed was a bathroom. “There you go,” she said, “want me to stay? No? Well then, come and fetch me when you’re done,” she pulled the door to and looked at us, “off now are you?”

  There seemed little to add to the obvious and by the time I’d opened my mouth to say something polite, she’d opened the front door. As I passed, I went briefly into her mind. At the forefront were the events of a busy day; the tasks done and dusted, chores to do next, others needing doing as soon as anyone let her have a flipping minute to herself, then there were the few well-chosen words she planned to have with the man from the laundry service on expectations not met. Below the everyday, was acknowledgement of some odd goings on around here that she not only couldn’t explain, but didn’t even want to think about, and being a strong-minded woman most of the time, didn’t. However, sitting comfortably alongside that, was faith in herself. She prided herself on being a good judge of character and rarely got it wrong, (Mr Millsop, the bastard, being the exception to the rule!) and she completely trusted the Peacocks.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Right then,” David had the car door open for me – lovely manners, my mother commented approvingly every time she saw him do that – “if we get going now, we’ll be there in time for a late lunch.”

  “No.”

  “Well, we can eat on the way if you want.”

  “I mean no, I just need a few minutes, d’you mind?” I was already turning, towards the lemon sherbert fizzing in my head and following the path as it rounded the corner of the house to where Glory was seated at one end of a garden bench, face upturned to Autumn sun. As always and wherever she was, at first glance she was somehow as startling as when I’d first seen her, descending the stairs at Newcombe, white stick tap-testing each step. She was only 19 then and now, nearly thirty, didn’t look any older. Dark braids, thick and high, glint of gold hooped earring against milk-chocolate skin and one of her silky, vividly coloured kaftans over wide trousers, she looked as if she’d suddenly dropped in from somewhere far more exotic.

  I sat next to her, “What are you doing?”

  “Grabbing some last-minute warmth.”

  “About Ruth I mean!”

  “Hello there,” she said, and I remembered with a guilty start, my new husband, who’d followed me round the corner. I felt Glory’s amusement as she continued, “Our paths have crossed before, but I don’t think we were properly introduced.” They had indeed met previously; having arrived separately on a rescue mission, but as there was a fair amount going on, formalities had gone out the same window David had come in by.

  “Well, I’m delighted to meet you properly now,” he said. At the same time, he raised an eyebrow at me and tapped his watch.

  Glory laughed, “David, you won’t get Stella moving until she’s good and ready, you should know that by now.” I grinned too, however many times it happened, I always enjoyed the fright Glory gave people who knew she was completely blind and thought they knew what to expect.

  “She’s looking through my eyes,” I said.

  “Ah. Sorry!” David put the wrist with the watch behind his back, as he took on board that the woman with no eyesight was seeing just fine. I turned back to her,

  “Well?” I said. She was, like Ruth and Rachael tightly shielded; I was getting nothing unless she chose to let me.

  “You first,” she said, “You came because of Ruth, because you’re worried?”

  “Yes, didn’t Rachael tell you?”

  “No,” she said slowly, “only knew you were here, when you were here.”

  “And I’m right, there’s something very wrong…” she tutted impatiently and shot out one of those strong, deceptively slim-boned hands to take mine. She didn’t need to; it was just swifter and stronger that way so in a split second she knew as much as I did. I pulled my hand back, honestly this was a woman who’d been traipsing in and out of my mind for years, you’d have thought I’d have got used to it. I hadn’t. I always thought the next time I saw her she’d find I’d strengthened my barriers and she’d just bounce off. Again and again she proved me wrong. David, hands in jean pockets was leaning casually against an ivy-spilling stone urn. I knew the more relaxed he looked; the more intently he was watching. He straightened up and started to say something; Glory raised a finger and shook her head.

  “Hang on a minute, I’m thinking, I didn’t know about this new stuff Stella’s got going on, the touch thing – psychometry,”

  “Me neither.” I said bitterly.

  “Yes, well it’s a bit of a nuisance.”

  “A nuisance?”

  “It complicates things, makes you more vulnerable.”

  “To what and anyway don’t we need to be talking about Ruth, not me? I shivered involuntarily as memory of rancidness flowed over me. “Sam?” I said suddenly, “Why isn’t Sam here?” Sam, whose ability to diagnose and deal had grown year on year from the time we first met, him a terrified six-year-old, me an equally panicked sixteen. “Sam could get that thing out of her.”

  “He can’t.”

  “Has he tried?”

  “Of course he’s tried,” she snapped; never strong on patience, our Glory, “but you’re not getting it, are you?” David was following the bits of conversation he could, and it suddenly occurred to me, he wouldn’t really know what we were talking about, I hadn’t had time to fill him in on what I’d felt from Ruth nor what Rachael had said. Glory huffed – she couldn’t be bothered wasting words when other things worked so much more quickly, she reached for my hand again and almost instantly, I knew as much as she did – and wished I didn’t.

  “Oh God,” I closed my eyes briefly, assimilating. Glory had spent more time than I had with Ruth, of course she had, so she’d learnt a lot more about the entity that had possessed and driven Jamie to death, exploiting what was already there. It had taken the lust to hurt, hate and violate; magnified and endorsed it, wringing out and relishing every ounce of their shared experience. It was this that was now embedded in Ruth, and as Rachael had said, it had learnt and learnt well, Ruth wasn’t to be a short-term option, it was living in her, living off her; a deep malignancy.”

  “Well that’s crazy,” I said aloud, “we, all of us together could get rid of it, kill it.” I knew this for a fact.

  Glory nodded, “Stone dead, no problem, but we’d also kill Ruth, she couldn’t survive a concentrated onslaught.” I was silent as
that sank in and made horrible sense.

  “Stella,” she said, I’ve always been honest with you, you trust me, right?” I nodded, there were many things about Glory with which I’d take issue, but honesty wasn’t one of them. She went on, “So, trust me when I say we’ve been exploring all angles and we’re not giving up, we’ll find a way but it’s better and safer if you stay out of it. Right out of it.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed, “Stella, will you just for once, take my word?”

  “I want to know why?”

  “Because,” she said sharply, “you’ve had more contact with whatever this thing is, more than any of us at a time when you didn’t know what you were dealing with. It knows you. You’re vulnerable and we can’t afford vulnerable, this is too serious.” She paused, she’d been speaking aloud because she wanted David to know and understand.

  “Look, head off on honeymoon, carry on as normal. I know you agreed to continue listening and you’ll let Boris know if there’s anything to report. But that’s it. Don’t, and I mean this Stella, don’t come here again. We’ve got this.

  I stood up; I was ridiculously hurt at the shutting out, but at the same time, absolutely did not want to become involved again in what might turn out to be life-threatening events, after all I had other loyalties and priorities now. Glory, as might have been expected, paid no attention to my attempted shut down of contact and followed my train of thought. She stood and briefly put her hands on my forearms, smiling a little at my surprise, Glory’s general approach to physical contact made Rachael’s look positively effusive.

  “Off you go,” she said and pushed me gently away. David moved from the stone urn. She nodded at him and he, understanding her boundaries, smiled at her. He took my arm, swinging me round to head back towards the car. I didn’t look back at Glory, I felt that what had just happened was much more of a goodbye than a see you soon.

  * * * *

  When we turned out of the drive and picked up speed, the surrounding noise hit me and I realised just how precious had been the artificial silence generated at the school. David was concentrating on the road ahead, allowing me some space and time.