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  The dog whined, turned back towards the trees. When it saw that Tolley wasn’t following, it started to bark again.

  Tolley called Gerald Beaumont’s name again, and heard, faint and far off, a harsh squealing, metal on metal. Every hair on the back of his neck rose as a kind of tide of coldness swept up his body. A black figure stood on top of the embankment, small but distinct against the advancing light of dawn. It was still for a moment, then seemed to swoop down the steep slope, moving as swiftly as a gliding bird across the meadow towards the gate, cutting off Tolley’s line of retreat.

  He turned and ran towards the trees, the dog following at his heels for a few moments, then breaking away. Tolley ran on, breathing hard and hardly daring to look back, nothing in his head but the thudding of his pulse and the blind imperative to flee, flee before the thing was upon him.

  He ran straight through the clump of trees, blundered through the church gate. Gravel scattered under his flying feet; he slammed against the heavy wooden door, wrenched at the handle.

  It gave. Tolley stumbled through the door and slammed it shut, found the iron bolt and pushed it home just as something crashed into the door on the other side.

  A great wind got up around the church. Something fell with a clatter, and a thick stench of burning began to fill the black air. Tolley found the book of matches he’d taken from the hotel bar, lit one and held it up, saw that the little square of hardboard that had patched the broken window had fallen in, and then a gust of foul air whirled around him and blew out the match. He lit another at once, cupping it in his hand. To be alone in the dark was intolerable.

  Whatever was on the other side of the door began to turn the handle back and forth. Tolley retreated, and something struck the back of his knees before toppling to the stone flags. The match stung his fingers and he dropped it and lit another. He’d knocked over a bench. A pile of books that had been stacked on one end lay at his feet. Prayer books. He picked one up; its limp cover fanned like the wings of a dead bird. He knew then what he had to do.

  First, he had to have light.

  He took one of the thick candles from the altar and used several matches to get it alight. All the while, the wind howled and keened, and the hammering at the door never let up. Tolley scrabbled through the thin pages of the prayer book until he came to the Service for the Burial of the Dead, and began.

  The wind did not die as he read the first psalm, but the banging of the door became staccato and uncertain, and ceased entirely when he reached the middle of the lesson.

  As he read on, the howl of the wind dropped away to a mumbling moan that seemed at times to break into words. Danger, danger. And as he read, it seemed that he was no longer alone in the church, that a dark shadow occupied the middle of the front pew. He didn’t dare to lift his eyes from the page as he read, but the shadow tugged at the corner of his vision, undefined, insubstantial, but definitely there.

  And then, his throat dry, Tolley came to the end of the lesson, and realized that he would have to read the last part at the grave. When he hesitated, the wind rose again and the candle flame guttered flat and almost went out. There was nothing for it: the forms had to be gone through.

  The shadow melted from the pew as, holding the candle before him, Tolley walked down the aisle and fumbled with the heavy bolt that fastened the door. It slid back. He turned the handle, jerked the door open.

  Wind blew in his face, blew the candle flame sideways.

  As he walked through the overgrown graveyard to the isolated pair of gravestones beneath the yew, Tolley felt a kind of pressure at his back, but steeled himself not to look around. He faced the two graves and by the light of the candle began to read the final part of the service.

  “Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take unto Himself the soul of Orlando Richards, here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground …”

  As he read, the words became more than words: every one a weight that had to be lifted and laid, each a single stone in the solemn edifice he was constructing. He came to the final prayer and, despite his aching throat, read it loudly, triumphantly. After the final amen, he heard, far off in the winter dawn—for it was dawn now, although still so dark that he could distinguish no colors—a cock crowing, the traditional end to a night of magic.

  Tolley blew out the candle and, with the blunt edge of his car key, inscribed the name of Orlando Richards on the headstone.

  *

  It’s over, he thought, as he walked away from the church. I’ve done my duty, atoned for what my great-grandfather did.

  As he went through the narrow belt of trees, skirting past the ruined chimney of the manor house, the collie came bounding towards him, barking frantically, dancing around Tolley and running back towards the ruins, turning and barking. Tolley followed it.

  “What is it, boy? Quiet now. Where’s your master?”

  And then he saw Gerald Beaumont.

  The man’s body was slumped in a tangle of rose-briars at the base of the tall chimney stack. His face was a mess of blood and bone, but Tolley recognized the Norfolk jacket, and the flat cap that lay in stiff weeds beside him.

  Tolley turned aside and threw up. As he straightened, wind blew around him out of nowhere, rattling the bare branches of the surrounding trees. Tolley pulled off his signet ring and flung it away and screamed, “Leave me alone!” but the wind gathered itself into a scream and whirled a toppling tower of dead leaves around him.

  He started to run, the collie chasing at his heels. Wind winnowed frosty tufts of grass, whirled leaves into the shape of a human figure before collapsing and blowing on, always in front of Tolley, who remembered now what Marjorie Beaumont had said about the ghosts of women, that they were stronger than those of men.

  And their hate was stronger, too, strong enough to last a century even after the object of her hate had fled its first malignant flowering, strong enough to destroy Beaumont, poor bastard, who had only been at the edge of things.

  The ghost of Orlando Richards had not been the danger after all. He had died in the burning train wreck, and nothing Tolley’s great-grandfather had or hadn’t done would have saved him.

  Perhaps he had been trying to warn Tolley and the Beaumonts; perhaps he had somehow restrained the ghost of the woman who had died in the same accident. And now Tolley had laid him to rest.

  Panting, Tolley pushed through the gate, saw with dull shock the figure waiting beside his car. For a moment he thought that his heart would stop; then the dog bounded ahead, and he realized that it was Marjorie Beaumont, and he wondered how he could tell her about her husband.

  But then she spoke, her voice halting and heavy. It was her voice, but Tolley knew at once that she was not using it.

  “Here’s your inheritance.”

  The bloody head of the walking stick caught the first light of the sun when she swung it at him.

  <>

  *

  Grandmother’s Slippers

  SARAH PINBOROUGH

  SARAH PINBOROUGH is a horror, thriller, and young-adult fiction author who has published ten novels. Her latest releases are The Shadow of the Soul, the second of the Dog-Faced Gods trilogy, and The Traitor’s Gate (under the pen name Sarah Silverwood), which is the second installment in the Nowhere Chronicles. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies, and she has a horror screenplay currently in development.

  Pinborough was the 2009 winner of the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, and has three times been short-listed for Best Novel. She has also been short-listed for a World Fantasy Award. Her novella The Language of Dying (from PS Publishing) was short-listed for the Shirley Jackson Award and won the 2010 British Fantasy Award for Best Novella.

  “I was recently house-sitting for a friend who was spending her time going to and fro from Scotland during her mother’s final weeks,” reveals the author. “When her mum passed on, my friend was stuck at the airport waiting for a flight to be t
here in time to say goodbye.

  “Her flight was delayed (the man next to her in the checking-in queue declared that he was going to blow himself up, and the whole terminal was evacuated), and she missed that last goodbye.

  “Obviously, she was very upset by that, but it got me thinking about all the things that are wrapped up in those last words and how important it is that we get the chance to say them.”

  IT WAS A WEEK AFTER THE FUNERAL that Jason first saw the slippers. It hadn’t been a good week, truth be told. Once his mother had got back from Scotland he’d hoped that some semblance of normality would be restored. Gran had, after all, been dying for a very long time, but while the rest of the funeral guests had muttered somewhere beneath the brims of their black hats that it was probably a relief for her to just let go, his mother had greeted every such suggestion with a stony glare. As it was, when she’d finally flown home two days later, she’d poured a large glass of wine, lit a cigarette, and declared that it was “All just too bloody final” before disappearing into the garden to smoke in peace.

  Jason hadn’t been entirely sure how to deal with that. Nor the snippy comments she made that implied somehow that he wasn’t grieving enough. If he was honest, he wasn’t grieving at all. He had loved his grandmother in that abstract way generations divided by too many years and too many miles did, but he was thirty-seven and going through a marriage breakup, and when Great-Aunt Edna had called the previous year with the cancer diagnosis, he’d done a mental that’s that, then, and put Gran out of his head and got back to arguing with Emily.

  He’d half-expected his mother to be secretly relieved that it was all over—Gran had been eighty-nine years old, and as her body had failed her marbles had quickly followed—but it would appear that his mother wasn’t quite as pragmatic about these things as he was. The morbid atmosphere that had hung over their house like the proverbial pall during Gran’s last months refused to be dispelled now that the body had been laid to rest and the world could move on. His mother just wouldn’t allow it.

  *

  She was out walking the dog when he first saw the slippers. It was Saturday morning and he was looking for tools to put up a couple of extra shelves. He’d tried the shed, beneath the sink, and the garage, before remembering the cupboard under the stairs. The junk cupboard. It had been dad’s stash, before he’d moved out. Where he dumped all those things that he felt were vitally necessary to buy but which then lay untouched for years, gathering cobwebs. When he’d left, Mum had made him take all the drills and planers and saws with him. The new wife could find somewhere for them. Old habits died hard, though, and Jason was sure that if his mother had since bought herself some DIY tools, the cupboard under the stairs would be the place she put them.

  Instead of a toolbox, however, he saw the slippers. They sat neatly side-by-side and facing outwards.

  What took you so long?

  There was mud on the edges of their worn blue padding. He stared for almost two full minutes before fully accepting that they were there. He knew they were Gran’s slippers, even before he picked them up and nervously took a sniff of the man-made fibers. No one wore slippers like that any more—thick sole, highly flammable nylon or polyester, somewhat quilted. The material had small pale blue flowers against the darker blue. He wondered where she’d got them. The Co-op probably. Back in the days when they sold buttons and zips and cheap school shirts rather than food. These slippers came from a time of Co-op stamps and savings, rather than credit card debts and pound stores.

  Alone in the hallway, he sniffed in their scent. Beyond the fibers was something else… the smell of her house. He was surprised at the flood of memories that came with it. A coolness where the heating was never on quite long enough. The softness of the sheepskin rug beside the spare bed. Edinburgh morning rolls. Robinson’s marmalade. The click of the gas fire. The smack of her lips when she sipped her tea. Her reading glasses. The set of her curls, done once a week by Jeannie down the road.

  He looked down at the slippers again. Therein lay the problem. These were not his Gran’s most recent slippers. These were slippers from thirty years ago at least. Probably forty. His Gran had never been the sort to throw things away, and these slippers had been made to last. These were the slippers he remembered her wearing when she still had her council flat in Leith when he was a small boy. When she’d always given him ten pence for sweets from the shop, and she and Mum had laughed over coffees in the British Home Stores café on Princes Street. What the hell were they doing here, in the cupboard under the stairs?

  Waiting.

  The answer came in an instant and he shivered slightly. That was ridiculous. Maybe his mother had brought them back with her. She said that they’d given all Gran’s clothes to charity shops (No local ones. The last thing Aunt Edna, no spring chicken herself, would need was seeing a stranger walking down the road in her sister’s Sunday coat. That might bring on a second funeral rather too quickly for anyone’s liking), but perhaps she’d kept these as some kind of memento.

  And put them under the stairs? In a forgotten place? The voice sneered.

  He ignored it. He placed the slippers very carefully back in the cupboard—facing into the stairs this time—and closed the door. After a moment, he flicked the small bolt across.

  *

  After all the to-ing and fro-ing and weeks here and there, his mother hadn’t been at the home when his Gran had decided it was time to die. She’d been on her way, but not actually there. His pre-grief-stricken mother would have probably commented that “That was bloody typical” of his grandmother. “Another way to make me feel guilty for something.” Instead, his mother had simply cried at Luton Airport until her flight was called and then delayed and then called again.

  By the time she reached the hospital, Gran’s skin had slackened and she was cold to the touch. He imagined that what lay in the bed by the time his mother got there wasn’t very much like Gran at all. When he’d arrived in Scotland a few days later for the funeral, he hadn’t gone to the mortuary. He was sure he saw a tinge of envy on his mother’s face from behind her cigarette smoke that he’d avoided that sight. But then it was very hard to tell exactly what she was thinking or feeling. “I should have been here,” was all she would say. “I should have said goodbye, you know, while she was breathing. She might have heard me.” Then she would cry some more and Great-Aunt Edna and the ladies from the church and the bowling club would comfort her.

  *

  When his mother got back from her walk, and the dog was drying in the conservatory, Jason made them both a cup of tea and idly chatted about this and that before bringing up the slippers. He didn’t mention them in an outright way, but instead alluded to reminiscing about his Gran and the slippers had fixed in his head. His mother frowned. “What the hell are you on about?” she said, sipping her tea while eyeing the wine on the rack even though it was barely lunchtime. “Gran’s slippers,” he muttered lamely. “Her old blue ones. Just wondered if she’d still had them.”

  His mother looked at him as if he was mad, which perhaps he was. His face flushed, and then hers clouded over slightly with memory. “God, I’d forgotten all about those.” Irritation crept in at the corners of her mouth and she frowned. “Why would she have kept those? Who keeps old slippers?”

  Jason just shrugged lamely and felt about fifteen-years old. He didn’t mention the slippers again. He was learning that irritation and grief seemed to go hand-in hand.

  He went back to the cupboard the next time his mother was out. His mouth dried when he saw the slippers. Side by side and facing outwards. Somehow they’d turned around.

  Not a nice trick to play, that one.

  He grabbed the pair, holding them at arm’s length as if they might infect him with something, and then shoved them in a carrier bag, before walking swiftly to the end of the road and dumping them in the bin. He smiled when he saw the council worker wheeling the dumpster barely a hundred yards away. Soon the slippers would be long
gone. That was that, then, he thought, and headed back home.

  *

  But it wasn’t. He woke up three nights later to a dull thumping sound coming from downstairs. Somewhere in the heart of the building. It was past 2:00 a.m. and the house was dark. Thump. Thud. Thump. A long pause. Thump. Thud. Thump. He tried to ignore it. (If it was a burglar, then they could just jolly well get on and burgle the house. He had no intention of tackling them—after all, that was what insurance was for, wasn’t it?) But it refused to fade. A steady dull thud every few seconds. He pushed the duvet down from his face and listened. The noise was too even and regular for it to be an intruder. What was it? His curiosity getting the better of him now that the sense of imminent danger had passed, he climbed out of bed.

  He crept down the stairs in his dressing gown and paused in the hallway. The thudding was coming from the cupboard under the stairs. He stared at it through the gloom. The wood actually shook slightly with each thump, as if whatever was on the other side was getting impatient and irritable. Could it be a cat? he thought. Or maybe a rat? Of course it could, he decided, even though he opened the door with trembling hands.

  The toes of the slippers nudged out across the threshold of the darkness within.

  About bloody time.

  Jason’s stomach turned to water, and he felt his guts tighten in a way that normally accompanied a bad and uncontrollable bout of something unpleasant. He couldn’t wait until the morning to throw them away again. He ran out into the street in his dressing gown and dumped the slippers for a second time. Further away from the house this time, and each slipper in a different bin. He didn’t care if anyone saw him. The good people of Turnham Green would be far too polite to ever mention it.

  He checked the cupboard when he got back, and it was empty. After a moment he locked it anyway, before spending the rest of a restless night waiting to hear that steady thump return. It didn’t, and throughout the next day at work he was exhausted. On the way home, he bought earplugs. His mother’s spirits did not improve as the days went past. Jason found this surprising, primarily because he couldn’t remember a time when his mother had actually liked his Gran. She’d got irritable as she’d got older, and developed something of a martyr complex that used to drive his mother insane. Before she’d become too infirm, when he and Emily weren’t even married yet, she’d come down on the train to visit. A tension would creep into the house along with her suitcase and bags of Murray mints, a tension that fixed itself between mother and daughter.