Page 24 of Curse of the Stag's Eye
And there it was. The notion I’d been shying away from all evening. “What makes you think I want him? Wait, is that why you’ve been shirty with me all evening? Because you want him for yourself?”
Michael tutted and rolled his eyes as he took out his phone and tapped on the torch function. “If I really wanted him, I’d already have him. Anyway, he’s not worth all this.” He buttoned his overcoat and trotted off down the path, towards the bridge, the light of his torch bobbing on the grass and gravel.
“Good riddance.” I wondered if he’d spoken to Rhys before he left. He better not have said anything to upset him.
Nikesh bounced up onto the wall and sat on it, kicking his legs against it. “God, my whole body is still tingling. It’s like I’ve got ants under my skin.” He positively beamed. His bright white teeth gave the beacon high above our heads a run for its money.
“How can you be so excited?”
“Because this is it! This is what I came to see. What I came to prove. There’s more. There’s more.”
“And that thought doesn’t terrify you?” I rested my forehead on my hands and breathed the cold, foggy air. “The thought that life doesn’t end? That it stretches on and on, possibly forever? That everyone you ever lost is still… out there… somewhere, out of sight and out of reach?”
He kicked his legs again, letting his heels slam against the wall. “Nah, I think it’s brilliant. It gives me hope. I haven’t lost anyone. Not yet, anyway. My grandparents are still alive. My parents. My aunties and uncles. But if something awful does happen, I know they’ll still be around and I might even see them again someday.” He swayed from side to side as he talked.
It was on the tip of my tongue to point out there was, apparently, at least some chance that after death we’re forced to hang around old buildings for hundreds of years scaring the crap out of innocent people. Instead of resting in peace, we turn into foul-smelling clouds that waft around in cellars. Maybe he’d come to that conclusion himself. I didn’t want to be the one to rob him of his innocence.
“You should have asked Rhys to come down here with you,” he said. “A nice stroll around the gardens?”
I waved to the area behind the wall. “A stroll around an overgrown dumping ground, in the fog? Who wouldn't love it? And why do you think I'd want a romantic walk with Rhys?”
He shook his head. “No, yeah, no reason.” He kicked his legs again. “I’m an estate agent, you know? Did I tell you? Yeah, I show people around houses. I put people in their perfect homes, help them to get started in their new lives. A few of the houses I’ve sold were supposed to have been haunted but I never saw anything in them. Never felt anything.
“Maybe I haven’t been properly, you know, open or whatever. Receptive. I should try being more like Dawn. Maybe I will be, now that I’ve seen a real ghost. Maybe the seal is broken. I’ve popped my supernatural cherry.” He laughed like a horse then. “I might start seeing ghosts everywhere now. And I’ve got Rhys to thank for that.” His legs started kicking again. “He’s a nice fella, don’t you think? Clever. Well-mannered. Good-looking. For a bloke, I mean. He doesn’t do anything for me, but, ah, does he do it for you? Would you say?”
I stood up straight and looked him dead in the eye. “And why would you ask that?”
He grimaced and shook his head. “No, no reason, no. Just making conversation. You feeling better now?”
I turned and leaned against the wall. “I always feel better when I’m outside.”
“Music does the same thing for me,” he said. “If I’m ever feeling down, I put on some Chip, some Stormzy, some proper Grime, you know, and I’m back to my old self in no time.”
“That’s not my favourite genre,” I said.
“What do you like? What’s the last concert you went to?”
“Taylor Swift in Manchester. Chuffin’ fantastic night, that was.”
He sucked on his vape. “Seriously?”
“She understands the human heart, Nikesh.”
His eyes went wide. “Fair enough, to each his own. I take it this was your first ghost too, was it?”
It took me a moment or two to answer him. “It was.” I had to admit it. I had to. There was no getting around it, no matter how hard my mind worked to smooth over the facts and alter my feelings about the topic. I’d seen what I’d seen, and I’d felt what I’d felt.
“It hasn’t made you happy, though, has it?” Nikesh hopped off the wall and leaned beside me. “You’re not scared but you’re not pleased either.”
“It’s a lot to take in,” I said. “A whole lot.”
He pointed out the fulmars and kittiwakes squawking past, seeking their nest for the night. “My dad’s a twitcher,” he said. “A birdwatcher. He always took me out with him when I was young. It’s a very peaceful hobby. Boring, though. A bit. Just sitting there, quietly, watching, and waiting. But then you’ll see something rare like a pied flycatcher or a goshawk and you think,yeah, that was good. A bit like ghost hunting, I suppose. You wait in the dark for ages and ages, then you see something that makes it all worthwhile.” He took out his vape and puffed on it. The sickly sweet tang of rhubarb and custard sweets filled the air.
“You’re lucky,” I said. “My dad never took me birdwatching. Or fishing. Or camping. If it didn’t happen within spitting distance of a bookie’s counter, he wasn’t interested. Mum was too busy trying to look after him, the house, and us kids to do it either. I had to figure it all out myself. I’d spend days at a time out in the woods near our flat, living in shelters I’d make from branches and twigs. Or in tents that other people had thrown away.
“Nobody at home noticed that I wasn’t there. Well, Jeanie did, I suppose. My sister. She’d bend my ear about leaving her alone with Mum and Dad but then she started hanging out with her friends more and more so it didn’t matter so much what I did.”
All around us, the sea bashed against the island, somewhat deadened by the ever-thickening fog.
