Page 19 of We Live Here Now

“I’m not going to lie,” I say, “I didn’t know where to look when I saw his models. And Sally’s so chill with it. They’re very nice though.”

“They are.” He looks down at the grave. “Ah, you found an old resident then?”

“I recognized his name from a newspaper article. I’m surprised his wife’s not buried here too.”

“I’d be more surprised if she was,” Paul says. “She’s in her nineties but she’s still alive. She’s in Willow Lane House—a retirement home—about ten or fifteen miles from here. I think she moved in not long after Gerald died. I obviously didn’t know them when they had the Lodge, and then they lived in London for a long time. Didn’t come back here until Gerald was sick. I’d only just taken upmy post and she would come and sit in the church occasionally, but we weren’t friendly as such. She just found the church comforting.”

I look back down at the stone. “All these graves. So many stories.”

“And every one a unique blessing.”

Clouds are forming overhead and an icy wind suddenly blasts, unexpected, through the barren branches of the trees around us. My leg throbs and I pull my coat tighter around me before leaning heavily on my stick, the pain immediately exhausting me. It comes like that, in waves, and I feel as if I’m made of lead.

“You should get home.” Paul takes my arm and helps me toward the gate on the slightly uneven path. “Get warm. As for the parish records, there are some online but nothing that goes back too far. Most were lost in a fire. Electrical one around 2005. We had to get half the interior rebuilt. But at least it’s not so cold in there now.”

I’m just starting the car engine when he trots over and knocks on the window. “Oh, and I meant to say. The Lodge is a big house, and if you need someone to help with the cleaning I can send Mrs. Tucker along. She does mine twice a week. She’s very reliable. And the vicarage is just at the next turn on the lane from you. On the corner. You can probably see it from your house. She could come after she does mine.”

“Great. I’d love that.” It is great. Freddie’s rubbish at staying on top of stuff and there’s no way I can do much more than wipe down the sides and do the laundry. Plus, however much I try to rationalize away the strangeness in the house, I’ll be glad of the company.

25

Emily

I’m feeling calm and rational and determined to stay that way even though the afternoon is turning dark as I pull into the drive where Larkin Lodge waits, unwelcoming in the gloom. Behind me the moors are already being swallowed up by cold mist. I wish we’d moved in spring. Everything is better in the spring. Spring is all about the joy of life. Winter is death, and right now, in this freezing January, we’re caught tight in its grip.

Inside, I turn all the lights on, and after eating a leftovers sandwich I swallow some painkillers and go up to bed, needing to take the weight off and lie still for a while. The book of Poe short stories is on the table and I read the first, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a dark little story of murder and guilt, before opting for my Kindle and something cheerier as day descends into dusk outside.

After a couple of hours, the pills are thankfully taking the edge off the pain. I stand to stretch and then go to the window to look out, hoping to maybe see lights on at the vicarage, beacons of life to ease my silent isolation, but all I can see is the claustrophobic mist spilling over the wall from the moor and making its way up to the house.

I’m going downstairs to get something else to eat before calling it a night when a noise stops me in my slow tracks. It’s quiet at first, and I listen for several seconds before it comes again. A creaking sound.It’s an old house, I tell myself again like a mantra.Old houses make noises.

But these noises are coming from the third floor.

Reluctant but unable to ignore it, I peer up to the darkness of thenext landing. The sounds come again. A click followed by a pause and then a long creak. Another pause, then a creak and a click again.

Click. Creeeeak.

Pause.

Creeeeak. Click.

When I swallow, my throat makes a quiet click of its own. There’s a moment of silence and then it comes again.

Click. Creeeeak.

Pause.

Creeeeak. Click.

My body chills, my breath caught in my chest as I listen. I know what it is, I realize as it comes again—Click. Creeeeak.Pause.Creeeeak. Click.

It’s a door slowly opening and then closing. Over and over.

I don’t want to go up there—I don’t want to go up thereat all—but I need to see for myself. I turn on the landing light and take the stairs slowly to a point where, if I stretch, my eyes can just see above the floor of the upstairs landing through the balustrades.

In the gloom, the round door handle of the primary suite twists slowly—click—and then the door opens a few inches—creeeeak—giving me a glimpse of an ominous darkness beyond, and then after a moment’s pause creaks and clicks shut again. I stare, not trusting my own eyes. How can the handle be turning itself?

I watch as it repeats, my palms gripping the wood until they’re slick with sweat, and then it repeats again.

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