She hadn't answered Eve's question. Eve asked it again.
Lili's blonde hair was turned reddish gold by the setting sun. It also gave her face more colour than Eve recalled, but she knew the psychic's skin was pale, almost washed-out looking. Her green eyes were serious.
'I'm willing to try, Mrs Caleigh,' she said at last. 'I'll help you if I can.'
Eve was curious. 'What made you change your mind?'
'You told me you'd seen the spirits of children. There must be a reason for that. When we spoke yesterday, I could feel something was wrong, not just about you and your own suffering, but wrong with whatever it is that surrounds you. It has to come from this house.'
'Sorry, I don't understand.'
'There has to be a reason why the children who died here haven't passed over, why they're still attached to this place. They need to go on; they shouldn't be lingering here. I felt their misery in your own aura and I want to help them. Psychics, clairvoyants, spiritualists have a duty towards the dead.'
Eve was confused. 'And my own child?'
'I don't know. Once, when I was very young, I communicated with a boy who'd been in a coma for three months. They thought he was going to die and, if they'd turned off the life-support machines, he would have.'
There was a deep sadness in the psychic's manner that touched Eve. Perhaps she'd got Lili Peel all wrong; perhaps the psychic cared too much. Rejecting Eve was her way of protecting herself. It was a sudden insight that Eve intuitively knew was correct, and it made her warm to this young woman who had been so cold towards her yesterday. Standing outside under the darkening sky, Lili looked small and vulnerable; frail even. Completely different to how she had appeared before.
'Please, come in,' Eve invited.
But the moment Lili Peel stepped over the threshold and entered the great hall something seemed to happen to her. She went deathly white and swayed on her feet as if about to faint. She reached out to Eve for support and Eve quickly took the psychic's arm and allowed her to lean against her.
'Are you all right?' Eve was perplexed. 'What's wrong?'
'I… I don't… the presence is so strong. Can't you feel them here?'
'I don't know what you mean.'
'Their spirits—all around, everywhere.'
'The children?'
'Yes. But there's something terribly wrong. There's something else here… something, someone, wicked. Dark. Evil.'
She swooned and Eve held her tight.
'I must… must sit down. They're draining me. So strong, so strong. But they don't have enough power yet. They're waiting…'
'Let me take you into the sitting room,' Eve urged. 'You can rest there.'
She began to lead the psychic across the stone floor, supporting her as much as she could, but as they neared the cellar door, Lili drew back, horror on her face.
Eve had gone out of her way to close and lock the cellar door, but now it was half open again. The darkness inside seemed almost solid, a physical thing. Lili backed away and Eve clung to her, moved with her.
'That's where the children were found,' the psychic murmured almost to herself. She began to take sharp, rapid breaths as though hyperventilating and Eve, concerned for her, led her in a semicircular route towards the sitting room. For such a petite person, Lili was surprisingly heavy; it was as if something more than her own body was weighing her down.
At last Eve got her to the couch in the sitting room and gently lowered her on to it.
'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' Lili said between short breaths. Eve sat next to her and watched the psychic's drawn features anxiously, not knowing quite what she could do to help. But gradually Lili's breathing calmed and a smidgeon of colour returned to her pale face. She closed her eyes and rested her head back against the couch.
Eve fretted. 'Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, something stronger?'
The faintest, drained smile appeared on the psychic's face and she opened her eyes again. She turned her head to look at Eve. 'No, thank you,' she said. 'I think I'm okay now. It was just the… the oppression inside this house. It's overwhelming. I think I can deal with it now. I hope so.'
For want of anything better to say, Eve ventured: 'Before you spoke of a boy who was in a coma; you said you were able to communicate with him. Will you tell me what happened?'
Lili took in a long, deep breath, perhaps to chase away the smaller breaths, and it seemed to work. Her green eyes studied Eve's for a few moments, searching for some kind of empathy. Many people thought psychics were a little mad, but there was no suspicion, no challenge and no distrust in Eve's expression; only hope.
There was a fire blazing in the room's hearth, but Lili felt chilled; she often did when there was a strong sense of spirit. Incorporeal energies tended to sap warmth from the atmosphere. Nevertheless, she asked Eve if she could take off her coat.
When Eve nodded and said, 'Of course,' Lili stood and removed her brown suede jacket. Underneath, she wore a tight, beige, long-sleeved sweater that emphasized her small breasts, and a loose wine-coloured skirt that ended just below the top of her knee-length burgundy boots. A pretty pink coral necklace adorned her neck and Eve noticed she still wore the wide wristbands from yesterday.
Lili folded her arms but it seemed more like a defensive gesture than a 'don't mess with me' one, because her hands clutched her upper arms. Today she did not wear the thin leather headband; her hair fell over her forehead in a natural fringe. Her light green eyes checked Eve's before she began.
'The parents of the boy who was in a coma didn't know me personally—I was seventeen at the time—but they had heard of my ability through a neighbour of ours.'
Now she unfolded her arms and leaned forward on the couch, wrists resting on her knees, her hands clasped together.
'The boy—Howard was his name—was only eleven years old and he'd been knocked down by a car that failed to stop. It was found later, abandoned; police thought kids had stolen it for a joyride.'
She was gazing at the fire, tiny flames reflected in her eyes.
'Howard was on life-support and the doctors didn't think he'd pull through. They thought his brain might have been too severely damaged, although they detected some signs of activity through their machines. They advised his parents it would be more merciful to turn off the systems keeping him alive so that he could go without more suffering. That's when Howard's parents contacted me on the chance I could reach him telepathically. They weren't true believers, but they'd heard about my psychic gift and they were desperate. They came to my house and asked me—no, they begged me—to try and make contact with their son. They weren't convinced Howard was all but brain-dead.'
She paused and looked away from the fire as if the flames were burning her pupils.
'Please go on,' Eve urged quietly.
'I agreed willingly. I have this thing about children even though I've never been a parent myself.' Lili did not relate the story of the first ghost she had ever seen, Agnes, whom she'd befriended and helped to move on; how that early experience had encouraged Lili to develop her extrasensory powers.
'I went to the hospital with the parents and was allowed into the intensive care unit. As soon as I saw Howard I felt he was far from death. Our minds made contact almost immediately. Inside his body was a lively, mischievous little boy, who missed his mother and father and wondered where they were and why they hadn't come to take him home.
'The mother broke down when I told her I was talking to her son, but the father, quite naturally, wanted to test me. He asked me questions that only Howard and his parents could know the answer to, and I put the questions to Howard. He thought it was a brilliant game because he was bored lying in the same place day after day with no one to talk or play with. He gave me all the answers, which I passed on to the parents. They were shocked, amazed. And so happy that even the father broke down in tears. They wouldn't allow the hospital to stop the life-support and eventually they were proved to be right. I visited Howard every few days and talked with him telepathically. It took another two months for Howard to regain consciousness.'