The twelve-year-old stifled her sobs once more as she stared at her own body. Slowly she turned to her mother, and then to Gabe.
'No,' she said. 'It doesn't hurt at all any more. I'm not even sore.'
She broke down and Eve took her back into her arms.
35: WEDNESDAY
They left the house just before 7.30 a.m. the next morning, Loren protesting, insisting she was all right now, she didn't need to see a doctor. The sun was shining, but leaves were heavy with raindrops that had fallen in the night. The family crossed the bridge and climbed into the Range Rover.
Gabe had phoned one of his new work colleagues who lived in the area, apologizing for the early-morning call before asking him the whereabouts and the phone number of the closest GP's surgery or clinic. Then Gabe rang the latter, which was a health centre, but only got a taped message advising that the centre opened at 8 a.m.; it also gave the number of an emergency doctor if required.
The night before, Gabe had wanted to rush Loren to the A and E department of the nearest hospital, but she had pleaded with him, she was okay, she didn't want doctors and nurses poking her and asking questions. Surprisingly, Eve had agreed with her daughter. There were no marks or weals on Loren's body, no signs at all that she had been beaten with a stick. Wait 'til morning, she had suggested, see how Loren felt then. Their daughter certainly wasn't suffering any pain now.
Gabe had argued that there had to be something wrong. Loren's screams were not just because she was frightened, but because she was being hurt too. Even if it was only a terrible nightmare, there had to be something not right because dreams couldn't cause genuine pain. If she'd imagined the whole thing, that also meant something was wrong with her. Dreamt or imagined, it had been real to Loren. She needed to be medically examined in case there really was something physically wrong inside her body, even if it was only severe night cramps.
In the end, they had agreed on a compromise: Loren would see a doctor first thing in the morning. They had left for the health centre early so that they would arrive before the first scheduled patients, giving Loren a better chance to be seen right away.
Gabe was angry and frustrated, a father who had no answers for his distraught daughter. Loren maintained that there had been a man in the bedroom, a man holding a stick. Like the stick—the cane—he had found hidden away behind the false wall in the closet? he wondered. She hadn't been able to describe the intruder because he was in shadow, the light coming from behind. It must have been imagined! Or dreamt! It was this goddamn house. There was something peculiar going on inside Crickley Hall, something that caused hallucinations. Some houses had personalities, didn't they? That's what some people believed and maybe they were right. A house that fucked with the mind. Eve had been affected by it, become a little weird, wanting to stay whereas before she couldn't wait to get out of there. Now Loren had been touched by it. And Cally. Could they have been sunspots he'd seen floating round her yesterday? Or something else, something unreal?
They had to leave, find a different place to rent. It would take a day or two to arrange—no, it would take at least a week, probably more—to organize. But he'd get on with it. They were moving out.
Gabe switched on ignition, shifted into gear, and three-point-turned the Range Rover so that it was pointing uphill. They headed for Merrybridge.
36: INTRUDERS
The sister and brother with the impossibly ambitious names tramped along the road. Although the sun shone brightly enough, the air was damp and their anoraks, one blue, the other red, were zipped up to their chins.
A green van passed them heading uphill, as were they, the driver giving a short blast of the horn as he went by. Neither the girl nor the boy bothered to wave back.
'You sure?' Seraphina asked of Quentin.
Her swollen nose was a different colour to the rest of her podgy face: red and sore-looking, its yellowish bridge merging with the purple-yellow at the inner corners of her deepset eyes.
Quentin, tall and stocky, looked back at her—his sister had a hard job keeping up with him on the steep road. 'Course I'm sure. I saw them driving off when I was doing my egg round.'
His hardworking mother, besides cleaning other people's homes for a living, kept a chicken hutch in their backyard. It was her son's job to collect eggs in the morning before school (from which he was temporarily suspended) and deliver them to various customers in the area. Fresh eggs for breakfast brought a good price and Trisha Blaney needed the extra money. Cleaning did not pay particularly well, despite all the hours she put in with her friend and neighbour Megan, and since Trisha's husband Roy had walked out on her and the kids six years ago, any money she did earn was already spent. Not that her estranged husband had ever done much to bring home the bread when he was around. Idle and dim-witted he was—their son Quentin was of the same mould, had to be pushed into doing anything—and if truth be told, she had been glad to see the back of him.
Seraphina, not being one for climbing, nor even for walking far, puffed and wheezed as she straggled behind.
'Yeah, but you sure they won't come back?' she said to her brother.
Quentin slowed his pace to let her catch up. He was used to the hill road because of his morning rounds. 'Won't take a minute to leave it on the doorstep.' He held up the plastic bin-liner he carried, something heavy bulging at the bottom of it, and waggled it in the air. 'Be a nice surprise for 'em.' Noice sorproise for 'em.
Seraphina drew level with him. 'No,' she said breathlessly. 'I don't wanta leave this one outside like the pigeon. This present is going inside the house. Right into her bed.'
'Don't be daft, you can't do that. What if they catch us?'
'Look, I got the key from Mum's drawer so we could do it. I'm not gonna waste the chance.'
'She'll go demented if she finds out.'
'Mum only cleans the place once a month. She don't need the key for a coupla weeks yet. She won't notice it's gone.'
'I dunno, Seph. It's dodgy.'
'Don't be such a minger. We'll be in and out, no problem.'
'You don't know where her bedroom is.'
'We'll easy find it. She'll have Barbie Dolls and things, little girly stuff.'
'You only wanta get your own back, just 'cause she punched your lights out.'
'Shut up, Quenty. You weren't there, you don't know what happened. I wasn't looking and I fell over.'
'She decked you, you mean. Anyway, it got you a few days off school.'
'I weren't going in and letting everybody see what she done.'
'You're lucky Mum's so soft on you. She'da packed me off to school all right if I come home with a busted snout'
'It ain't busted.'
'Good as.'
'No it's not. It's just swelled up a bit.'
'And red. Like one of them baboon's bottoms.'
'Shut up or I'll make you go into the house on your own.'
Quentin stayed silent. His younger sister could bully him because she was a lot smarter. And she knew things about him that she could tell. Mum wouldn't like him stealing. Or smoking. Or throwing stones through windows when no one else was around. A lot of the time, Sephy put him up to it—she was always winding him up—but Mum wouldn't believe that Sephy could be cruel; much better to do what she said and keep her sweet.
'Let me have another look at it,' his sister called out as she lagged behind again.
'What for?'
''Cause I like looking at it. She won't, though. She'll throw a hissy fit. She'll go to bed tonight, all nice and innocent like, and she'll pull back the blankets and she'll see a bloody great rat lying there. Wish I could be around to see it!'