While Isidor kept himself busy with his stake-making, I decided to explore what was once my home. For years Mrs. Payne had stopped me from going into the West Wing of the manor, and as I placed my foot on the bottom stair and looked up into the darkness, I could hear her voice again as if being blended into my constant soundtrack by an invisible DJ.
“It is the forbidden wing, young lady,” her voice seemed to whisper in my ear. “You are not to go up there — not now — notever!” That last word of warning seemed to stretch out forever inside my head as if the DJ were playing the track at the wrong speed.
But Mrs. Payne wasn’t here now — not ever — I smiled to myself and lit the candle that I held before me. Potter had promised to fix the lighting but still hadn’t gotten around to it. He’d spent loads of time on his own, shut away in that creepy Gate House. Why he wanted to shut himself away in there was way beyond me. And when he did come out, he just scowled at everyone and looked pissed off. I’d asked him to lend me the money so I could buy a new iPod. But he just flipped his middle finger, told me to fuck-off and lit another cigarette. He could be a real freak at times.
Forgetting that arsehole, I began to climb the stairs. Although it was still light outside, this part of the manor had always seemed gloomier than the rest. There weren’t any windows leading from the staircase, for starters, and the rooms on either side of the hallway, as far as I could remember, had always been shut. With nothing else to do, maybe now was as good a time as any to find out what was hidden inside them.
With the light from the candle stretching my shadow up the walls like smudged lines of mascara, I made my way down the hallway, set between the row of doors. The candlelight was weak, and I couldn’t see what lay ahead of me. I was kinda grateful for that, because I knew what lay at the end of the hallway — that rickety old staircase that led up to the attic and the hospital. That was the place where the half-breeds had been nursed by my father and Doctor Ravenwood. I had never been allowed up there, but Isidor had told me enough. He had described what he, Potter, and Kiera had discovered up there. The bodies of all those poor children, murdered by Sparky and…
Still unable to even think of his name, let alone say it, I came to the first door set into the wall on my right. The patterned wallpaper hung in torn strips and it smelt weird. The wall peered out from behind the paper, which looked scarred with black mildew and damp. Then I remembered how my father had insisted that the walls be coated with queets, the stuff that killed vampires.
The manor was very much how I had remembered it to be. I pushed against the door which swung open and then I changed my mind.
“Where has that statue come from?” I whispered. I couldn’t ever remember there being any statues in the manor — not in the grounds and definitely not inside. But then again, I couldn’t actually recall ever being in this room, so perhaps it had been here all the while. With the flame flickering before me, I cupped my hand around it, fearing that it might go out and leave me in total darkness. I could just make out that the windows had been boarded over with planks of wood so no one could see in and no one could see out. But that’s what made the statue so odd. It was kneeling down. At first I thought that it had been made to look as if it was in prayer, but as I stepped through the darkness, I could see that the figure had been shaped to look as if it were peering through a gap in the boards that covered the window. It looked as if the statue were trying to see outside.
I held the candle to the figure and could see that whoever had made it had failed to give the statue, eyes, ears, nose, and a mouth. Even so, I could tell that the figure was a young man. It had short hair and its body was carved with muscle. Not like one of those freaky bodybuilders you see on T.V., but just nice, like a well-toned guy. His upper body was naked and his lower half had been sculpted to look as if he was wearing a set of baggy jeans. As I peered through the orange glow of my light, I was mesmerised by the web of cracks and breaks that covered it. There were so many, I feared that should I touch it, it would fall apart before me in a pile of grey ash.
Apart from the statue, the room was empty. There wasn’t a bed, wardrobe, not one stitch of furniture, just the statue, which looked as if it were secretly trying to look out of the window. Then from behind me, the door suddenly slammed shut, snuffing out my light. The room went black and I screamed. With my free hand, I fumbled in my pockets for the book of matches I had found in the kitchen drawers. Placing the candle on the ground, I struck one of the matches, and a brilliant glow of orange light flared up before me and I screamed again. In my panic, I dropped the match and it went out. But in that split second of light, I had seen that statue again. He had no longer been looking out of the boarded-up window, but had now been standing before me, its blank, featureless face just inches from mine.
I stumbled back into the darkness, desperately trying to free another match from the book. But my hands were trembling so much, that it seemed impossible. Drawing a deep breath and backing away towards the closed door, I managed to free a match and strike it. At once there was a flare of orange light. With the flame jerking to and fro between my shaking fingers, I could see the statue knelt before the window.
“Get a grip, Kayla Hunt,” I spoke aloud, and even though it was my own voice in the darkness it gave me some comfort. I picked up the candle from the rough wooden floor and lit it. Snuffing out the match before it burnt my fingers, I reached out behind me and fumbled for the door handle. Unable to take my eyes from the statue, I could see that it was in exactly the same place and position it had been before the door had slammed shut and blown out my candle.
The statue hadn’t moved — it couldn’t have. I would have heard it, right? Feeling kinda dumb for spooking myself, I yanked open the door and stepped back into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I looked into the direction of the rickety staircase and, convincing myself that I had probably done enough exploring for the day, I headed back down the stairs and left the forbidden wing behind me. Maybe that old cow Ms. Payne had done me a favour by forbidding me to go up there.
I reached the bottom landing and once back in daylight, I blew out the candle. How had I been so easily spooked after everything I had seen and been through in the last year? After all, I was the dead one around here. I was the ghost stalking the stairwells and passageways. What did I have to be scared of? So, feeling embarrassed at myself, I decided not to tell the others what I had found up in the forbidden wing — especially not Potter — he really would take the piss and he didn’t need too much encouragement to do that.
So pushing the thoughts of that dumb statue from my head, I went in search of Kiera’s iPod. I needed to drown out my soundtrack — I needed to drown everything out.