The Haunting of Emily Stone (11 page)

“That's just the point, I
can't
help. I'd just be helping to perpetuate this bullshit. It needs to end.”

“Sounds easy.”

“Yep.”

“And very convenient for you.”

“That too.”

“And there's not a part of you that finds this interesting?” She waited for a reply. “That part of you can't have died completely, Rob. I know it's scrunched up in your soul somewhere.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“It
can't
have died,” she continued. “I know you got burned twenty-four years ago, and I know you made a conscious effort to change course, but you're still the same man you were back then. Older, crustier, with a little more of a gut, but you haven't changed
that
much, I know it. At least, that's the hope I've been clinging onto all these years.” She paused again, hoping that he'd start to come around to her way of seeing things. “Don't you remember what it was like to be young and curious? To think that there might be things out there that we don't understand? To want to help people?”

“And then to get shat upon by liars and hoaxers?”

“You used to believe in possibilities. I miss that version of you.”

He opened his mouth to tell her not to be so sentimental, but after a moment he saw that there was a hint of pain in her eyes. It was almost as if she longer for the days when, in their twenties, they used to sit around talking about the possibility of ghosts being real.

“Why would you say something like that?” he asked, forcing a smile, hoping to make a joke of it all. “I wouldn't have told you about the email and the detective's visit if I thought you were going to make it into a
thing
.” As he finished rolling the cigarette, he realized she was simply staring at him, as if something was on her mind. “What?” he asked. “You're creeping me out.”

“Forget it,” she said finally, getting to her feet and hauling her backpack onto her shoulder. “Do what you think is right.”

“Do what's
right
? I'll tell you what's right. Abandoning all that stupid research all those years ago, after it became clear that the field was dominated by hoaxers, that was right. Accepting that I was on the wrong path,
that
was right.”

“And you never replaced that work with anything else,” she pointed out. “Your curiosity, your passion... You let those things wither and die.”

“Thanks for the lecture.”

“You never got upgraded to an office with windows.”

“Windows wouldn't suit my personality.”

“Ouch.”

He laughed. “What?”

“Nothing, just... If you'd asked me all that time ago how I thought you'd end up, I would never have guessed it'd be like this.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

A sad smile crossed her face.

“It's none of my business,” he added. “Emily Stone is in the past. I don't believe in any of that crap, not anymore.”

“Let's assume you're right,” she continued. “Let's assume there's no such thing as ghosts, never has been, never will be. Let's assume the whole idea is just a figment of humanity's collective imagination, something we use to scare ourselves. If that's true, then what's really going on here?”

“With Emily and her daughter?” He paused. “Emily is obviously mentally unbalanced, probably as a result of the lies her mother made her tell when she was a child. Now that she's an adult herself, she's perpetuating those lies and trying to use her own daughter to have another shot at the whole thing, most likely because that's how she was brought up, because it's how she was taught to see the world. It's possible she's doing it cynically, because she thinks she can make money, but this time I think the more likely explanation is that she really believes it's true. It's very sad, really. Nothing to do with me, I hasten to add, but sad all the same.”

“So you think she gave the bruises to her daughter?”

“Maybe she doesn't even remember doing it, but... Yes, that's the most rational explanation.”

“They were on the girl's face, right?”

He nodded.

“So you're saying that she beat her daughter's face? She sat there and pummeled her own daughter's face, and now she's forgotten doing it? Instead, she thinks a ghost did it all?”

Lighting the cigarette, he took a drag and then blew smoke out. “I'm saying that.”

“Kind of extreme, don't you think?” she asked.

“People are extreme sometimes.”

“And that doesn't interest you?”

“Of course, but -”

“Remember the book you were going to write when you thought Joyce and Emily were telling the truth all those years ago?”

He smiled. Twenty-four years ago, the idea had been so fresh and vibrant; now it just seemed like the kind of youthful over-exuberance that older men were glad to have slipped.

“I'm serious,” she continued, nudging his arm. “You had notes for it, remember? You'd even started to write parts of the damn thing.”

“That was when I thought Emily and her mother weren't full of shit.”

“I used to sit on the bed in your flat,” she added, “wearing one of your old shirts, proof-reading the early chapters.”

“You always took that stuff too seriously.”

“That was good work, Rob,” she continued, with just a hint of frustration in her voice. “I used to wake up in the middle of the night and find that you'd got up to go through and start scribbling some more.”

“I didn't want to wake you.”

“You had passion back then. You were driven.”

“Passion's overrated. It's juvenile.” He took another drag on his cigarette. “Passions blinds us.”

She stared at him with a hint of sadness in her eyes, before looking away, as if she didn't like what she was seeing.

“Let's not talk about it anymore,” he said after a moment.

She forced a smile, before hearing a beeping sound in her pocket. Taking out her phone, she saw she had a missed call.

“It's Tom,” she said, taking a deep breath. “You're right, this is dumb. I should go and -”

“It was going to be a bestseller,” he said suddenly, hoping to keep her from walking away. “I was really full of myself back then, I thought I'd discovered the mother-lode. I had all these ambitions. A book tour, lectures... Do you remember how we once planned to combine the whole thing with our honeymoon and -” He paused, suddenly realizing that this was the first time in many, many years that he'd mentioned their broken engagement. “Well, you know what I mean.”

“Youthful over-exuberance?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

“I
do
remember,” she told him, “and a lot has changed, but you can still write that book. If it's not about ghosts, then it can be about a woman who grew up and was unable to throw off the shackles of her childhood, and about how her mother screwed with her mind. And it can be about a man who believed her and had his faith broken. Whatever you choose to focus on, there's still a book to be written about Emily Stone's story. And yours.” She paused for a moment. “Besides, the Robert Slocombe I know, the Robert Slocombe I spent a lot of time with back in the day, would never just leave a little girl to suffer if he thought he could help.”

“I
can't
help. Plus, Emily's not a little girl anymore. I can't go back and -”

“I don't mean Emily. I mean her daughter. You could at least drive up there and meet the girl, hear what she has to say, find out what's really happening. Maybe you couldn't do anything for her, but maybe, just maybe, you
could
. Either way, you've got a unique insight into the situation. It'd be a shame if you didn't do anything with that insight, but... Just make your own decision. Do what you think is right.”

“Don't say that,” he replied. “You always tell me to do what I think is right. It's your way of tricking me into agreeing with you!”

“I have to go and call my husband back.”

“What am I supposed to do, then?” he asked as she turned and walked away. “Jenna? I won't let you guilt-trip me into doing this! There's no way I'm heading off up the country to talk to some little girl whose mother has lost her mind! It'd be completely pointless!” He waited for her to look back at him, to stop and say something, but she just kept on walking. “Jenna! This isn't going to work! If you think for one moment that you can manipulate me like this, you're wrong!”

He waited, but she was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Twenty-four years ago

“Emily! Get your lazy arse out of bed!”

With the curtains still closed, the room was mostly dark despite the sunlight outside. After a moment, footsteps could be heard thumping up the stairs, and finally the door was flung open as Joyce Stone burst in. She immediately headed over to the window and pulled the curtains open, letting sunlight stream through as she breathed out more smoke from her cigarette.

“Come on, you,” she continued, turning to look over at the bed, “that's enough laziness for one morning. Up.”

She waited half a second.

“Are you deaf?” she shouted, grabbing the bottom of the duvet and pulling it away, to reveal Emily on her side, curled up in a ball as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. “Downstairs! Now!”

She waited, with her cigarette still in her mouth, but Emily didn't even turn to look at her.

“Alright,” Joyce continued, stomping over to her, “listen, I've had enough of your -”

Stopping suddenly, she sniffed the air, before taking a closer look at the sheets.

“What the hell's going on in here?” she barked. “Have you pissed yourself?”

***

“Bloody hell,” Joyce muttered a short while later, as they sat at the kitchen table with the washing machine running nearby. “What a lovely way to start the day. Pulling wet sheets off a bed.”

“I'm sorry,” Emily whispered, staring down at the bowl of cereal she still hadn't touched. There were tears in her eyes, but she knew she shouldn't cry.

“What's wrong with you today?” Joyce asked. “You look all pale.” She grabbed the remote control and used it to turn up the volume on the TV in the corner. Switching the cigarette to her right hand, she reached over with the left and felt the girl's forehead. “You're a bit clammy too. Are you sick?”

Emily stared at her, but didn't say anything.

“I can't be doing with this today,” Joyce continued, putting her cigarette back in her mouth. “Of all the days for you to start fucking about, girl, why'd you have to choose today? You know I've got a date tonight, and I've gotta sign on before I pick up something from the shop. There's no way you can stay home from school, not even if you've got bloody dengue fever, so you'll just have to pull your britches up and get on with it. You're gonna be on your own tonight, so -”

“No!” Emily said suddenly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You can't go out!”

“What's wrong?” Joyce asked, with a faint smile. “Scared?”

“No, but -”

Looking up at the ceiling, Emily paused for a moment, with fear in her eyes.

“You're not half acting queer this morning,” Joyce continued, “it's putting me right off my breakfast. You know that, yeah? Are you doing it on purpose? Did you decide when you woke up that today was gonna be the day you'd just start pissing me off? Bloody hell, if your dad was still around, God bless his soul, I don't know what he'd make of you.”

“I don't want to be by myself tonight,” she replied, still looking up at the ceiling. “Not here.”

“What's wrong with
here
?”

“Haven't you -” Turning to her mother, Emily paused again. “Don't you ever hear it?”

“Hear what? The sound of your whining voice?”

“It's...” Another pause. “Mum, do you think...”

“Do I think what? That you're a pain in the arse? Sometimes, yeah.” She laughed at her own joke, before glancing over at the TV.

“Do you ever think there's a ghost here?”

Joyce let out another laugh, before taking the cigarette out of her mouth so she could eat a spoonful of cereal. “Pull the other one,” she muttered, with her mouth full. “It's got bells on.”

“I'm not lying,” Emily continued. “I've been hearing weird noises for a while, and then last night...” Her voice trailed off as she realized that her mother thought she was an idiot. Frowning, she tried to work out how she could get anyone to believe her.

“Last night what? Did you see a sheet hovering over your bed?”

“No, I -”

“Did it have piss stains on it? 'Cause then we know it's one of yours.” She laughed again.

“I mean it,” Emily said firmly, still struggling to keep from crying. “It's like... I saw something in my room last night, something moving. At first it was standing in front of the window, and then...” She paused as she remembered the moment the figure had climbed onto the bed. “Then it got on the bed with me,” she whispered, “and it started crawling up, and I couldn't stop it, and it got all the way up and it started whispering in my ear. It was a woman.”

“There was a strange woman on your bed?” Joyce replied skeptically.

Emily nodded.

“Maybe you really
have
got a fever, kid,” Joyce continued, checking her temperature again. “Hallucinating, are you?”

Emily shook her head.

“Then what's all this guff about?”

“She told me about the place she was from,” Emily replied, “and she told me she wanted to get out. She called it the dead place, and...” She paused yet again, as a shiver passed through her body. “She told me she wanted to get out
through
me, like I'm some kind of door, but I didn't really understand what she meant. She said she'd be back, and she said that time didn't pass the same way for her as it does for me, but that she was going to find a way to break through. She told me she'd climbed up to reach the inside of my soul and that she'd been watching me for a long time, waiting for the right moment...”

She sat in silence for a moment, trembling as tears ran down her face, desperate for her mother to believe her.

“So when did you piss yourself?” Joyce asked finally, with a grin. “Before she got on the bed with you or after?”

“Mum -”

“Pull the other one,” she continued, “for God's sake. Bloody hell, kid, you've got quite an imagination, I'll give you that. Must be all those stupid cartoons you watch, they've warped your mind and made you a bit simple. I'll tell you something right now, my girl, and you'd do well to remember it, there ain't no such thing as ghosts. Ghosts are just stories people tell to scare each other.”

“I saw her,” Emily whimpered.

“You
saw
her? Like, what, a gray lady? In
this
house? Place was only built in the 70s, there hasn't been time for anyone to start haunting it.”

“I saw her,” Emily said again, although she could tell there was no point.

“Yeah, well...” Joyce sighed. “Bollocks,” she muttered under her breath. “The only people who actually believe in ghosts are bloody idiots,” she continued. “You see 'em in the paper sometimes, selling their stories, or trying to. Always with these ropey photos and talking about sheets flying through the air. It's never exactly believable, but people lap it up.” She tapped the end of her cigarette on the ashtray, before turning back to Emily and seeing the look of terror on her daughter's face. “You're more convincing that most of 'em,” she added, “but -”

She paused suddenly, and finally a faint frown crossed her brow.

“Do you really believe some spooky old cow was on your bed?” she asked finally, grabbing the remote again and using it to mute the TV.

“I saw her,” Emily replied, her voice tense with fear. “I heard her talking to me.”

“Yeah, but...” Joyce paused again, watching Emily's expression with a growing sense of interest. Glancing at the silent TV, she saw that Eamonn Holmes was interviewing a woman, and the caption on the bottom of the screen said the story was about someone being bullied at school. “People get a lot of money for stuff happening to 'em,” she muttered after a moment, before turning back to Emily. “Real life experiences, that kinda thing. You know, you'd look good on the front page of a paper. You've got that slightly gormless but very cute thing going on. People'd believe you.”

“
You
don't believe me,” Emily whispered.

“I don't have to, sweetie-pie, it's more about...” She took another drag on her cigarette and glanced at the TV again, before looking over at a pile of old
Take a Break
magazines by the phone. “There's money in that kind of story, you know. Aunt Pat got fifty quid for a story about her Barry eating a hamster, and I bet you they pay more for stuff about ghosts. Barry didn't even eat the bloody hamster, he just bit it, so we're already one up on him. We'd have to pad things out a bit, of course, maybe get some proof, but there might be a market for a story about ghosts.”

Emily frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... Do you think you could tell that same story to someone else? Maybe to lots of people?”

“Why?”

“Because they'd be interested.”

“Do you think they'd be able to help?” Emily asked. “I just want the woman to go away.”

“That's good,” Joyce replied. “Just like that.”

“Just like what?”

“People love ghost stories, don't they? Dunno why, I've never been a big fan myself, but the big London papers'd definitely pay out a few hundred quid, maybe more.” Getting up, she dragged her chair around the table and set it next to Emily, before sitting down again and putting an arm around her daughter. “Come on, it'll be fun. We'll just mess around a little with the whole thing and give people a nice fright. You just have to tell 'em what you told me, make it all spooky like, and we might even make enough for a holiday this year. You've always wanted to go to Majorca, haven't you?”

“Where's -”

“Do it for me,” Joyce continued. “You love your old mum, don't you? I wouldn't get you to do something if it was wrong.”

“What about...” Emily paused for a moment. “She told me about the dead place where -”

“Keep it simple,” Joyce added. “You don't wanna go complicating it too much, let's just get some blurry photos, add some detail, and then I'll ring round the local papers. You'd like to be famous, wouldn't you?” She leaned over and kissed the side of Emily's head. “We can even buy you a new dress, just for the occasion. Wouldn't that be nice, eh? Come on, Em, don't be so stiff about the whole thing.”

Emily opened her mouth to reply, but she was starting to feel uncomfortable. She wanted her mother to help her, to make the woman in her bedroom go away. Instead, she felt as if she was going to be paraded in front of people.

“I need to get hold of a camera,” Joyce said finally. “We're gonna need photos if we wanna pull this off. Don't worry, Em, it'll just be a bit of fun. It's not like anything can go wrong”