Out of the Depths Read online

Those eyes homed in on me. I had seen them before. In a photograph, on a wall, on a computer screen.

  Father Michael.

  The murderer.

  I was looking into the eyes of a murderer.

  And then he stretched out his hand and took a step towards me.

  Did I scream? I don’t know if I did. I could hear a scream, but whether it was in my head or outside my head I couldn’t tell. I had to get away – that was my only thought.

  I pulled at the door, and still it would not open. I looked behind me, and there he was, moving closer. This time I screamed. I was certain I screamed.

  And now at last the door flew open. I almost fell back, but I managed to keep my feet. I was through it in an instant. I ran from the chapel, tripped and tumbled to the ground. I rolled, looked back, saw a shadow closing in, and I screamed again.

  Still no one came running out of classrooms, and I couldn’t understand why. Was I still only screaming inside? I staggered to my feet and began running again. Expecting that at any second I would feel his cold hand on me, that he was floating behind me, above me, closer and closer. I dared not stop.

  Help me, Tyler.

  The words whispered themselves again in my ear as I ran. From somewhere beside me. As if someone was there at my shoulder. As if Ben Kincaid was running with me. Running from his killer.

  But how was I supposed to help? Ben Kincaid was dead, beyond help.

  And now Father Michael had come back.

  That was the really scary thing. Why had he come back?

  Had the seance brought him here? Had he come back to stop me from helping Ben?

  Fingers touched my shoulder. I slammed against the wall. If I could have found my voice, I would have screamed then.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in class, Tyler?’

  I jumped in fright. It was the Rector. I glanced behind him, all around the corridor. It was empty. Just him and I. He followed my gaze. ‘Is something wrong?’

  He already thought I was trouble. Telling him what I had just seen and heard would only sink me deeper.

  I stared at him. It was the Rector who spoke to me. ‘What were you doing near the chapel, Tyler?’

  I felt a rush of fear. ‘I … I thought I heard something, sir.’

  He cocked his head, reminding me of a bird. ‘Heard something, from the chapel? It’s been closed up since …’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘since the murder’. ‘For years, Tyler. You could have heard nothing from the chapel.’

  ‘I heard chanting, sir … I thought it was coming from in there, but …’

  He broke in, wouldn’t let me say more. ‘Is this another of your – fictional! – ghost stories, Tyler?’ I could almost see the capital F. He made Fictional sound like a swear word.

  ‘I thought … I thought …’ I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I warned you I didn’t want to hear any more of your stories.’ His eyes, his tone, let me know he thought I was lying. I must have looked mad, staring at him, saying nothing. But what could I say? What was happening to me?

  He reached out his hand and touched my arm. His voice was more gentle. ‘I’m worried about you, Tyler. I can’t keep putting aside the reports from your last school …’

  I blurted out, ‘That was all a mistake.’

  ‘I will try to believe that. I’m prepared to give you another chance.’ He hesitated. ‘We do have a school counsellor, Tyler. Perhaps you should have a talk with her.’

  The idea of that petrified me. She would think I was crazy and the horrible part was that I was beginning to think it too. Had I really heard that hypnotic chanting? Had I actually seen Father Michael?

  I spoke and tried to make my voice sound normal. ‘I probably heard someone playing music in one of the classrooms … That’s what I heard. And I got lost, sir.’ I laughed. Did my laugh border on the hysterical? ‘Still can’t find my way round this school. I should get back to my class.’

  I could feel his eyes on me as I hurried back to my class. I had a feeling he was going to be watching me from now on.

  25

  It was midnight before I told Jazz what had happened, and we were tucked up in her pink and black bedroom (only Jazz would have a black bedroom) and Jazz was desperate to tell ghost stories. ‘The midnight hour,’ she said. ‘The perfect time for ghost stories.’ Well, I had one of my own, didn’t I? A real-life ghost story.

  I was glad at least she’d stopped talking about Aisha. She’d spent most of the evening wondering exactly where she could be.

  ‘Missing a sleepover?’ she kept saying. ‘It has to be a boy.’

  But which boy? That was what was bothering Jazz. We’d almost been thrown out of the cinema she’d talked so much about it. Halfway through the movie she took out her mobile phone and called Mac. ‘Bet he’s with her,’ she said.

  I tried to stop her, but Jazz is like a ten ton truck with the brakes not working when she gets started. Mac didn’t answer and that seemed to reinforce her opinion that the two of them were together. Everyone around us started complaining, and one of the ushers stormed over and ordered her to switch the phone off or we would be asked to leave the premises. He didn’t put it quite as politely as that, however. In fact, I suggested he was the one who should be asked to leave the premises, using the kind of language he had. Jazz had giggled about it all the way back to her house. I couldn’t giggle. Just wasn’t in the mood for it. And Jazz knew it. If she asked me once, she asked a hundred times … ‘What’s wrong with you? Something else has happened, hasn’t it?’ She drew up her legs and hugged her knees. She was all ears. ‘I knew when you came back to class today something had happened. You were chalk white and shaking. And you’ve been so quiet all night. What happened, Tyler?’

  And I burst into tears. Didn’t want to. I was scared, that was my only excuse.

  Jazz leapt from her bed and rushed to my side. She put her arms round me. And that only made me cry some more. ‘Come on, what happened today?’

  And in a faltering voice, stumbling over the words, I began to tell her. Tell her about standing outside the classroom and hearing that haunting sound winding towards me.

  ‘It was beautiful, Jazz, but I couldn’t understand what they were chanting, some kind of hymn I think.’

  ‘What hymn … maybe I know it. Maybe it’s the key to something.’

  I shook my head. ‘I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t in English. Maybe it was Latin?’

  ‘Well, I’m a Catholic. I might know the Latin. So what was it? Could you make out anything?’

  I tried to remember. Those moments when I stopped and listened, how that sound had drawn me step by step closer to the chapel. ‘Depra… something … foondis… depra… foondis?’ I shook my head again. ‘I don’t know, Jazz.’

  ‘Depra foondis? It’s at times like this I wish I wasn’t a lapsed Catholic,’ she muttered. ‘But I’ll ask my mum … or my gran, yeah, Gran. She goes to Mass every day, to make up for me I think … She’s bound to know what it means.’

  She moved in closer, eager for more. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  So I told her. About the moment I opened the chapel door, and how the singing suddenly stopped. ‘There was no one there,’ I said. ‘The chapel was empty, at least, I thought it was and then, there in the shadows, I saw him. Father Michael.’

  Jazz fell off my bed when I said that. It took her a moment to recover. ‘You saw Father Michael? Wow! This is way better than any made-up ghost story.’

  ‘Don’t laugh about it, Jazz,’ I said as she climbed back on the bed beside me. ‘I’m so frightened and mixed up. I ran from there, I was screaming, I’m sure I was, I can’t understand why the whole school didn’t hear me … and then I felt a hand on my shoulder.’

  Jazz almost fell off the bed again. ‘Father Michael.’

  ‘No. The Rector, and he seemed to be so angry with me. I didn’t tell him anything about Father Michael, of course. He already thinks I’m making up ghost stories. And he knows al
l about what happened at my old school. Now he really does think I’m a troublemaker … or just crazy. He gave me a real telling off and he suggested I see the school counsellor.’ I began to cry again. ‘What’s happening to me, Jazz? You don’t think I’m crazy, do you? You believe me.’

  It took her only a second to answer me, but a long second too long.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Now it was my turn to ask. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She seemed to be making up her mind what to tell me. It seemed an age, before she spoke. ‘You went to the chapel … ?’

  ‘I told you I did.’

  ‘You followed the chanting … you walked to the chapel? You went inside?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Tyler, you were only out of the classroom for a few minutes. You couldn’t have done all that. The chapel is at the other end of the school.’

  26

  I couldn’t explain to Jazz how that had happened. So I couldn’t prove to her I was really at the chapel. I wished I could tell her to ask Mr Hyslop, but he was one person I could never expect to back me up. And I knew Jazz wasn’t lying. I’d been gone from the classroom for only a few minutes … and yet I had been on a journey that should have taken much, much longer. I knew she wanted to believe me, that she was looking for reasons for it happening. Where had the time gone? And I remembered the clock in my room, freezing at 12.01. Time had stood still.

  Time, time, time … it was all to do with time. I was sure of it. If only I understood what it all meant.

  At home next day, it was all I could think about.

  Dad was sitting in the living room, watching the afternoon racing, when I walked in. I said nothing, just sat on the sofa across from him.

  ‘Something wrong, Tyler?’

  ‘Yes, something’s wrong,’ I wanted to say, but how could I explain all this to him?

  He took his eyes off the television screen. ‘Did something happen last night at Jasmine’s house?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ I said. ‘Jazz is great.’

  ‘So … what is it?’

  I shrugged. ‘I wish I didn’t have to go back to that school, Dad.’ Best say it right out, I thought. ‘I’m not happy there.’

  He closed his eyes, despair written all over his face. ‘Oh, Tyler, not again.’

  I could get my dad to do anything for me … but not this.

  ‘Dad, please listen …’

  But he didn’t let me finish. ‘You’ve made friends there, Tyler, and the first few weeks at a new school are always difficult. You’ve just got to give these things time.’ He touched my face. ‘You’ve not said you’ve seen any …’ He didn’t want to say the words … dead teachers. And I didn’t want him to think it. So I shook my head quickly.

  ‘Nothing like that, Dad. I’m just not happy there,’ I said.

  ‘Give it time, please.’ He tried to keep the smile on his face, but it was a strain. ‘You don’t want to get a reputation for jumping from one school to another, eh?’

  And I knew then I would never speak of it again. I nodded and left him to his racing, and went and sat in the kitchen.

  He was right, of course. I had made friends there. And maybe it would make no difference if I left St Anthony’s. Ben Kincaid would never let me go. He’d follow me home, he’d haunt my dreams, sleeping and awake, I’d never get away from him. He could reach me anywhere, travel through time and space and solid walls, and there was nowhere I could hide from him.

  I dreaded going into the school on Monday, because I knew it wasn’t over. I had come to the conclusion … the realisation … the acceptance, that I couldn’t stop what was happening to me, and Jazz and Aisha were only still my friends because that’s what friends did, stick by you through good times and bad.

  They were waiting for me at the entrance door when I got to school, and they had a plan.

  ‘We are not going to leave your side,’ Aisha said. ‘Jazz told me what happened.’

  ‘If you even have to go to the girls’ toilets, one of us goes with you. No matter where you go in this school, one of us goes with you. Then nothing can happen to you … if we’re there.’

  ‘And if it does,’ Aisha assured me, ‘then we’ll be your witnesses.’

  I was touched by their concern. And I was glad. Because I never wanted to be alone here anyway.

  For a day or two things settled down. I became used to the boy at the back of the class. Gerry Mulgrew. He did seem to fancy me. He was always grinning at me and winking.

  And to cheeky little Sam Petrie with his mop of dark hair. He didn’t look a bit like Ben Kincaid. Not now that I saw him every day. His face was not so pale, his eyes not so striking. He’d stopped sleeping on the desk, and now he was always smiling.

  And true to their word. Jazz and Aisha never left my side.

  And when they were with me, statues never moved. There was no sign of Father Michael or Ben Kincaid. I was safe – and after those first days I began to relax. I even began to believe maybe it was all over. That I had been wrong. Maybe in some unknown way I had already helped Ben Kincaid … he had already passed to the other side.

  And then Jazz suggested we go back to the chapel.

  27

  I thought Jazz was mad for suggesting it, but she had a reason.

  ‘You say you were lured there, by that chanting. Well, maybe Ben Kincaid lured you there for a reason. He was murdered there, Tyler. Maybe that’s where he’s trapped. We’ll be there with you. We won’t leave you. I mean, I’m scared even thinking about it, but I think we should go.’

  Aisha agreed. ‘You’ll see it’s just an ordinary place. Just a drab old room. It doesn’t even feel holy any more.’

  I was puzzled. ‘You’ve been in there? But it’s locked. Mr Hyslop says it’s always locked.’

  Jazz grinned. ‘You remember talking to Mrs Sorenson? She let us go in there once.’

  The cleaner who worked on that floor. Yes, I remembered Mrs Sorenson.

  ‘She just happens to be a real good friend of my mum, and she’s got a key to the chapel. She’s the one who goes in and cleans it up now and again.’

  ‘And she’ll give you the key?’

  ‘Let’s just say she’ll lend it to me … but she won’t know she has.’

  Aisha rolled her eyes. ‘You mean you’re going to pinch it.’

  ‘Borrow it, Aisha,’ Jazz said. ‘There’s a difference.’

  We went during lunchbreak the next day. It took us ages to walk there. Jazz was right, I couldn’t have made it there and back in just a few minutes. We seemed to turn corner after corner, past statues in alcoves, statues set against walls. Aisha noticed me watching them as we walked. ‘Do they give you the creeps?’

  She wasn’t Catholic; maybe she would understand. ‘A bit,’ I said.

  Aisha smiled. ‘I like them. They’re nothing to be scared of, Tyler. They’re only plaster and paint.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, as if I believed her.

  At last we reached the chapel. I felt my mouth dry up.

  I stared at the carved oak door. ‘I don’t think I want to go in there.’

  ‘You don’t think Father Michael will be there, do you?’ Aisha asked.

  ‘Or a choir of monks, still chanting?’ Jazz nudged me and winked. She put the key into the lock and turned it.

  I reached out my hand. The brass handle was cold to the touch, ice cold. The door was heavy, it took all three of us to push it open … yet it had slipped open easily for me.

  What would I find in here? My heart was hammering in my chest and I was biting my lip, almost too afraid to look.

  And there was nothing.

  No atmosphere, no feeling of menace, the rows of the choir were empty. The pews bare. The statue of St Anthony still silently dominated the chapel. I looked at the altar where I could have sworn I had seen Father Michael kneeling in prayer.

  Jazz squeezed my shoulder. ‘Well?’

  I didn’t answer for a moment. I had been here
before, I wanted to tell them, but I decided against it.

  I shook my head. ‘There’s nothing. It’s just an old chapel.’

  Saying that made me feel better. It was just an old chapel. So why had I been drawn here? Because Ben Kincaid had died here … ? Because he needed my help?

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Jazz said. ‘Maybe Ben Kincaid needs you to pray for him here. This is where he died. Maybe that’s why you saw Father Michael here too. He can’t move on either, because of the terrible thing he did.’

  Jazz, it seemed, had it all worked out.

  ‘St Anthony’s the patron saint of lost things, did you know that?’ Jazz asked.

  I didn’t know that. She went on. ‘Ben Kincaid’s lost, lost between this life and the next. Maybe that’s why you were brought here. To the statue of St Anthony. So he can find Ben and help him move on.’

  Maybe that was true, I thought, there had to be a reason why I’d been brought here. ‘I’d like to light a candle.’ I seemed to be whispering it to myself.

  Jazz smiled. Pulled a candle from her pocket. ‘See, I already thought of that.’

  The only candlestand was at the foot of the statue of St Anthony. I dared a look at the kindly plaster face. He was watching me. Had he always been watching over me, I wondered.

  ‘How are we going to light it?’ Aisha asked.

  ‘I brought a box of matches.’ Jazz produced it from her pocket.

  She pushed the box at me.

  My hand was shaking as I lit the candle, and Jazz and Aisha stepped back as if this was my moment, only mine. ‘What do I say?’ I asked Jazz.

  She shrugged her shoulders, ‘Say a prayer for Ben Kincaid. Maybe that’s all he needs.’

  I held the candle in both hands, and looked up again at the face of St Anthony. The flickering light seemed to make his eyes come alive, gave his face the warmth of life. Please give Ben Kincaid peace, I said silently. If he’s trapped here, help him move on. I didn’t add, at least not consciously, that I wanted nothing more to do with it. I too wanted peace.

  I felt better as we pulled the door of the chapel closed and Jazz locked it again. I had left it in St Anthony’s hands. Maybe now Ben Kincaid would have someone more powerful than me to help him.