I must find her, Makepeace told herself, even as the thought made her sick. I must talk to her. I must save her.
Nobody from Makepeace’s church frequented the Angel, except Old William during his lapses. Whenever he had reeled home drunk, the minister made an example of him in the sermon, and asked everyone to strengthen him and pray for him. Taking the rutted lane to the inn, Makepeace felt self-conscious, and wondered whether she would be accused of drunkenness the following Sunday.
The Angel’s stone buildings were crooked like an arm, cradling its little stable yard. A heavy-jawed woman in a stained cotton cap was sweeping the step, but looked up as Makepeace approached.
‘Hello, poppet!’ she called. ‘Have you come to bring your father home? Which one is he?’
‘No, I . . . I want to hear about the ghost.’
The woman did not seem surprised, and gave a curt, business-like nod.
‘You’ll buy a cup of something if you want a look.’
Makepeace followed her into the darkened inn, and with a pang of guilt spent a coin of Aunt’s shopping money on a cup of small beer. Then she was led out through the rear door.
Behind the inn lay a sawdust-covered stretch of bare ground. Makepeace guessed that this was where the inn’s entertainments took place when there were enough crowds to merit it — shaven-headed pugilists fighting each other bare-knuckle, cockfights and badger baiting, or less bloody games of quoits, skittles or bowls. Here and there it was blotted dark by old spillages of ale or blood. Beyond this space lay a low wall with a stile in it, and then miles of marshes, the wind-stirred reed-forest shimmering softly in the late afternoon light.
‘Come — look at this.’ The woman seemed to take a professional pride in showing Makepeace the damage. The back door’s bar was shattered, and one of its panels splintered. A window was broken, the leading bent, several of the little panes frost-white with fractures. A cloth sign had been ripped to tatters, only shreds of the image still visible — a pipe, some drums, a dark bestial shape of some sort. A table had capsized, and two chairs had broken backs.
As she listened, Makepeace’s heart began to sink. It occurred to her belatedly that none of the ghosts she had ever encountered had left real damage one could see. They had attacked her mind, but never broken so much as a cup.
Perhaps it was just an ordinary brawl, thought Makepeace. She cast a furtive glance at the landlady’s worn, canny face. Perhaps she made the best of the damage, and pretended a ghost caused it, so inquisitive folk would come here and buy drinks.
The landlady led Makepeace over to two men who were grimly sipping from their tankards in the late afternoon air. Both were lanky and leathery from the sun. They were not locals, and Makepeace guessed from the packs at their feet that they were the travelling sort.
‘Come to hear about the ghost,’ said the woman, jerking her head towards Makepeace. ‘You can tell her about that, can’t you?’
The two men glanced at each other, and scowled. Evidently this was not a story that put them in good humour.
‘Is she buying us a drink?’ asked the taller of the two.
The landlady looked at Makepeace with her eyebrows raised. Feeling sick, and even more sure that she was being conned, Makepeace parted with another coin, and the landlady hurried off to fetch more ale.
‘It came at us out of the dark. You see this?’ The taller man held up his hand, around which was tied a grubby handkerchief dark with spots of blood. ‘Ripped my friend’s coat — nearly knocked my brains out against the wall — smashed our fiddle too!’ The fiddle he brandished looked as if someone had stamped on it. ‘Mistress Bell calls it a ghost, but I say devil. Invisible devil.’
His anger seemed genuine enough, but Makepeace still did not know whether to believe him. Everything’s invisible if you’re blind drunk, she thought.
‘Did it say anything?’ Makepeace could not help shivering when she remembered the molten voice from her maybe-dream.
‘Not to us,’ said the shorter of the two. He held out his tankard as the landlady returned with a jug, and let her top it up. ‘After it was done pounding us like a pestle, it left that way.’ He pointed out towards the marshes. ‘Knocked over a post as it went.’
Makepeace finished her drink, and rallied her courage.
‘Watch your step out there, poppet!’ shouted the landlady as she saw Makepeace climbing over the stile that led to the marshes. ‘Some of those paths look fair enough, but slip under your feet. We don’t want your ghost coming back here too!’
The rustle and crunch of Makepeace’s steps sounded loud as she set off across the marshes, and she realized that she could hear no birdsong. The only other sounds were the dry music of the reeds rasping stem on stem, and the papery ripple of occasional young poplars whose leaves flickered grey-green and silver in the breeze. The quiet seeped into her bones, and with it the fear that, once again, she was making a terrible mistake.
She glanced back nervously, and was chilled to see that the inn was already a fair distance behind her. It was as if she were a little unanchored boat that had drifted unwittingly from the shore.
And as she stood there, Makepeace was unexpectedly struck and overwhelmed by an invisible wave.
A feeling. No, a smell. A reek like blood, autumn woodlands and old damp wool. It was a hot smell. It itched and rasped against her mind like breath. It filled Makepeace’s senses, fogging her vision and making her feel sick.
Ghost, was her one helpless thought. A ghost.
But this was nothing like the cold, creeping attacks of the ghosts she remembered. This was not trying to claw its way inside her — it did not know she was there. It blundered against her, hot, terrible and oblivious.
The world swam, and then she barely knew where she was, who she was. She was swallowed by a memory that was not her own.
The sun stung. The reek of the sawdust choked her. There was a terrible pain in her lip, and she could not shape words. Her ears filled with a buzzing drone and a cruel, rhythmic thud. With each thud, something yanked painfully at her mouth. When she tried to flinch away, a red-hot slice of pain cut across her shoulders. She burned with a rage born of agony.
The wave passed, and Makepeace doubled over. Around her, the world still burned with sunlight, beating drums in her head and making her feel sick. Half blind, she took a clumsy step to steady herself, but instead felt her foot slide from beneath her on the moist, uneven ground. She slithered off the path and landed sprawling among the reeds, hardly feeling them scratch her arms and face. Then she leaned over and threw up, retching over and over.
Her head gradually cleared. The strange agony faded. But she could still smell something, she realized, mixed with a choking smell of rot. And she could still hear buzzing.
It was a different sound now, however. Before, it had been a queasy, heart-grating music. Now it settled into a insectile whirr. The buzz of dozens of tiny wings.
Rising unsteadily to her feet, and pushing the reeds aside, Makepeace advanced further down the slope from the path. With each step the ground grew softer and claggier. She was not the only creature to have come this way, she realized. There were broken stems, gouges in the mud . . .
And beyond them, something sprawled in an overgrown ditch, half hidden by the reeds. Something dark. Something about the size of a man.