Laura were slamming their hands against the door, screaming for help. Murph pushed in behind them and hammered at the door with the side of his fist.
They heard a shout from outside, ‘Hello? Hello?’ It was a boy’s voice.
They all screamed. ‘In here! In here! We’re trapped!’ They banged on the door again.
‘Hold on!’ he said. ‘I have a key. Hold on! Stop banging!’
‘It won’t work!’ shouted Murph. ‘The lock’s fucked. Who’s that? Is that Patrick?’
‘Yes!’
‘Help!’ Edie started screaming. ‘It’s Edie! Help!’
‘Thanks be to fuck, Patrick!’ said Murph. ‘Thanks be to fuck!’
‘OK – wait! Wait!’ he said. ‘I’ll get something.’
‘Hurry up!’ said Edie.
‘Hurry the fuck up!’ said Laura.
They could hear him rattling around outside. ‘OK, OK. Stand back a bit.’
‘Jesus, I don’t know if we want to do that,’ said Murph.
‘You’ve not much choice,’ Patrick said. They could hear the sound of metal in between the door and the door frame. ‘Get back!’
They all held hands, and took a small step back. They heard the bang of a hammer against the metal, and the ping as it slid off.
‘Come on t’fuck!’ said Murph. ‘Jesus Christ! Hurry the fuck up!’
‘Shhh!’ said Helen, elbowing him. ‘You’re doing a great job, Patrick!’ she shouted. ‘Keep going. Keep going! Keep your eyes on it, your hand out of the way, and go.’
Patrick tried again and the door burst open. They all ran. When they were clear, Murph stood, bent over, his hands on his knees. ‘Jesus, sorry, lads. I’m so sorry. Fair play to you, Patrick. Fuck’s sake.’ He looked at the others. ‘Lads, – we need to get the fuck out of—’
‘Where’s Jessie?’ said Clare.
Everyone looked around.
‘What?’ said Patrick. ‘Was Jessie here?’
‘Yes!’ screamed Helen. ‘Yes! Oh my God!’
Patrick turned and ran back.
‘Edie – go!’ said Helen. ‘You’re the fastest. Go!’
Edie ran, quickly catching up with Patrick.
Murph looked at Laura. ‘Was she not hanging out of the back of you – Jessie?’
‘What are you on about?’ said Laura.
‘I told her hang on to your jacket,’ said Murph, ‘because it was white and she’d see it!’
‘I didn’t hear you!’ said Laura. ‘I didn’t hear anything about a jacket. I just thought she was coming out behind me!’
Edie and Patrick skidded to a stop at the side door to the dormitory as the wind tore a swathe from the black smoke billowing towards them. They froze. In the clearing, they saw Jessie standing, staring ahead, arms by her side. She was motionless, two steps from the exit, flames encroaching, high and loud and crackling. They screamed her name. She didn’t blink. They screamed again. Jessie closed her eyes, and they watched as she let the flames engulf her.
Edie grabbed for Patrick’s arm, clawing at it with desperate hands, her fingers digging into his flesh. They turned to each other, wild-eyed, mouths open, chests heaving. In the fractional moment their eyes met, they made an unspoken pact: they would never mention what they had seen to another soul.
Or maybe it was a shared granting of permission – to lose the memory to a confusion of smoke or shock.
Edie parked at the bottom of the steps to the inn. She glanced down at the folder on the passenger seat – research she had gathered on the history of Pilgrim Point. She wanted to be able to talk to the guests about it, or include interesting details on the website or in printed cards she would leave in the bedrooms. When she bumped into Murph the previous summer, she told him her plans, and the following day, when he was meeting Johnny in town, he transferred four boxes of his late father’s research into the boot of Johnny’s car.
Edie opened the folder and saw two pages, titled In a Manor of Silence. In all she had read about Pilgrim Point, the words of Henry Rathbrook were the ones that resonated the most – even when she learned that they were not an extract from the handwritten manuscript of a published book, but were among the scattered remains of patient files discovered in an abandoned asylum.
Edie pulled up the hood of her rain coat, tucked her hair inside, and made the short dash up the steps. She pushed through the front door, and let it close gently behind her. Look where my rich imagination got me, she thought. The hall was exactly how she had pictured it on the day of the viewing. But how it looked and how it felt were on two different frequencies. Did it matter that each beautiful choice she had made could light up the eyes of their guests if the pilot light in their heart had blown as soon as they walked through the door? She would watch their gaze as it moved across the floors and walls, up the stone staircase, along the ornate carvings of the cast iron balustrade, and higher again to the decorative cornices of the ceiling, the elaborate ceiling rose, and the sparkling Murano glass chandelier that hung from it. Then she would graciously accept the praise that always followed, pretending not to notice the small spark of panic in their eyes or the tremor in their smile.
It was as if a signal was being fired off inside them: no, we don’t smile at things like this, not in places like this, because something is not right. Something is wrong.
She would see some beautiful, eager young girl arriving with her young boyfriend who had spent a month’s wages on one weekend, and he would beam as her eyes lit up, but Edie would see the rest. She knew it wasn’t because this girl felt out of place – everyone was made to feel welcome at the inn because everyone was welcome. But sometimes Edie felt that the reason everyone was welcome was not because that was her job, not because the vast extravagance of the refurbishment had plunged them into an alarming amount of debt, not because a family has living expenses, and Dylan has to be put through college, but because she hoped that one day, someone would walk in and they would light up and it would be pure, there would be no strange aftertaste, and the spell would be broken.
Edie shook off her jacket and hung it on the carved oak hallstand. She paused as she heard the sound of a door slamming, and heavy footsteps echoing towards her.
‘Dad won’t let me go to Mally’s tonight!’ said Dylan, stomping half way across the hall. He stood with his hands on his hips, his face red, his chest heaving.
‘Dylan!’ said Edie. ‘Calm down, please.’
Johnny appeared behind Dylan.
‘And why does it even matter,’ said Dylan,
