The first thing I see is a folder, secured with an elastic band. Scribbled on the front – ‘Sussex Martyrs’. I lift it out. It’s bulky, paper bulging out of the sides. There’s another folder underneath. This one is lighter. Scribbled on the front: ‘Merry and Joy’. Reverend Fletcher really had been interested in the village’s history. This looks like a lot of research.
I look back inside the box. There’s something else at the bottom. Something small, rectangular and black. I reach in and take it out.
It’s an old portable tape recorder, with a cassette still inside. I stare at it, feeling sick. Written on the label in neat, precise handwriting:
‘Exorcism of Merry Joanne Lane.’
NINETEEN
Wrigley is already there, skinny frame wedged into the tyre swing, rocking back and forth. He raises a hand as Flo approaches, arm jittering from side to side. She fights her way through the tangled grass towards him.
‘Hey.’
‘You came.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Thought you might have changed your mind about meeting the village’s resident weirdo.’
‘Don’t give yourself so much credit. You’ve not met my mum.’
He hops off the swing. ‘How weird can she be? She’s a vicar, right?’
‘Exactly.’
They fall into pace alongside each other. A track has been worn into the field, leading towards a small copse of trees.
‘What about your mum?’ Flo asks.
A shrug. ‘What about her?’
‘Just asking.’
‘She’s all right, but she can be a bit intense.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I had a pretty shit time at my last school. It’s why we moved. Mum is kind of overprotective.’
‘I guess that’s her job.’
‘It’s embarrassing.’
‘That’s mums for you.’
‘Right.’
They reach an overgrown stile. Despite his weird twitches, Wrigley jumps over it easily. Flo struggles a little, not being used to stiles and with the heavy camera around her neck. Wrigley proffers a trembling hand and, reluctantly, she takes it. She hops off the other side, quickly retracting her hand.
‘So, you ever get any crap about your mum being a vicar?’
Flo thinks about the graffiti on their old house. The smashed windows at the church. The messages on social media.
Bitch. Cunt. Child killer.
‘Not really. Most people didn’t care.’
‘Yeah, well, watch out here.’
‘Why?’
‘Small village. In some parts of the world, they’re yelling, “Revolution, revolution!” Here, they’re yelling “Evolution, evolution! We want our thumbs!”’
Flo looks at him, surprised. ‘Bill Hicks?’
He turns and grins. ‘You know it.’
‘Mum’s a fan. She got me into a load of eighties and nineties stuff.’
‘Cool. Favourite film?’
‘Well, The Lost Boys is a classic. What about you?’
‘The Usual Suspects.’
‘Keyser Söze?’
‘“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is pretending he didn’t exist.”’
They smile at each other. Then both quickly look down again.
‘Anyway,’ he says. ‘Just warning you. A lot of the kids are, like, totally inbred.’
‘Harsh.’
‘But true.’
‘Yeah, well, I can look after myself.’
He shrugs again, and his whole body convulses.
‘Just giving you a heads up.’
They wander along an uneven track through the trees, so narrow they have to slip into single file. Flo finds herself watching Wrigley’s jerky progress, thinking that it reminds her of something. And then she has it – Edward Scissorhands. He has the same kind of awkward clockwork motion. There’s something weirdly appealing about it.
Stop it. No odd crushes. You don’t really know anything about him.
Which probably means that following him through dark woods to an abandoned house isn’t necessarily the smartest idea.
‘Just over here,’ Wrigley says. ‘There’s a bridge over a stream.’
They cross the bridge; the path rises up and the small copse ends at another stile. Wrigley hops over. Flo manages to clamber over it with a little more dignity this time. She jumps down.
‘Whoah!’
Ahead of them, she can see the shell of an old building. It stands stark and aloof, bricks blackened, windows hollowed out. If someone wanted to find the perfect creepy house for a horror movie, then the location scout would wet themselves at this.
‘Cool, isn’t it?’ Wrigley says, moving beside her.
‘Yeah.’
Flo raises her camera and starts snapping. There is something really ominous about the building, even through a lens. If the chapel possesses a kind of Gothic melancholy, this place exudes …
Evil.
The word slips, like a sliver of ice, down her neck. Stupid. Crazy. She doesn’t even believe in evil. No such thing. Just fucked-up people doing fucked-up things.
‘Is this the only way to get to it?’ she asks, feeling a bit discomfited.
‘There’s a track from the road that way.’ He waves past the fields. ‘But it’s, like, totally grown over. Plus, someone put a gate up – to stop kids getting in.’ He grins.
‘Right.’
‘C’mon. Just wait till you see inside.’
‘Inside?’
He is already loping awkwardly ahead. ‘The whole place still has furniture and all sorts of shit in there. Like the people just upped and left.’
He leaps over a crumbling stone wall into the garden. It’s just a building, she tells herself. An empty, creepy building. She scrambles to catch up, hops over the wall and looks around.
The grass is knee high and choked with weeds and brambles. In one corner, a rusted swing is half collapsed. A child’s ancient trike is all but submerged in stinging nettles. Children lived here once. A family. It’s hard to imagine. She looks up at the desolate building, trying to picture it with windows, a brightly painted front door, maybe purple flowers crawling up the walls.
She raises the camera again. She can’t quite get the right angle. She takes a couple of steps backwards. And then a couple more. Wrigley suddenly grabs her arm, yanking her to the side so hard she stumbles and almost falls.
‘Jesus! What the fuck are you doing?’ She pulls her arm away and glares at him, heart hammering.
‘The well!’
‘What?’
‘You almost fell down the fucking well.’
He points to the spot where she was just standing. And now she sees it: a raised circle of uneven stones, almost entirely camouflaged by the grass and weeds. She moves forward and peers cautiously over the lip. A long drop into darkness. Another step and she could have toppled straight down. She looks back at Wrigley, feeling stupid.
‘I’m sorry. You just scared me …’
‘Why? What did you think I was going to do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Attack you? Murder you?’
‘Of course not.’