XII
No sense in dawdling. Nothing beyond this door can hurt me physically. Of that I am sure. I worry, instead, that I’ll see something so awful I’ll never scrub it from my memory.
Putting my hand on the last bolt, I draw it back.
Pause.
Listen.
No sound breaks the silence. No whisper of a breeze.
I grip the handle, turn it clockwise and pull. The rubber squeals as the door releases from its frame. I step back, blinking into the revealed darkness.
The smell that wafts out is the same one I caught upstairs, but far stronger, so sharp it makes my eyes water. I recognize it, too: household bleach. Not the citrusy kind you sometimes get but the regular stuff, the sort that gets in your nose and feels like it’s stripping away the hairs.
The chamber didn’t smell like this before. I fear that during my time away something monstrous has happened. When I step inside and shine my torch around, I know it has.
XIII
Just like the rest of the cellar, the floor here is covered with nubs of sharp rock. They press through my trainers and hurt my feet. Three walls of rough-cut stone form part of the cottage’s foundations. The fourth, now behind me, is made of the same thick fibreboard I saw on the way in.
A great deal of care has been put into its construction. The open doorway reveals that the false wall is a foot thick, the cavity packed with PVC bags filled with soundproofing. Someone, at some point, has tried to damage the door from the inside. Deep scratches mark the wood.
I can hardly breathe, but somehow I manage to speak: ‘Gretel?’
The name rebounds off the walls. In here my voice sounds deeper, more throaty, as if the cellar has aged me fifty years.
‘Gretel,’ I repeat, and now my voice sounds more twisted than ever. The torch blinks furiously. I try to steady it, pointing the beam at the very centre of the chamber.
Through the bedrock, a U-shaped bolt has been sunk, trapping an iron ring. Previously, Gretel’s chain was attached to that ring. Now, both the chain and the girl are gone.
The bleach fumes are thick in my throat. My tummy flops and I gag. Aiming my torch around the chamber, I see that the pillow, the wash bucket and the makeshift toilet have also disappeared. The floor looks like it’s been scrubbed. I don’t want to think about what’s been scoured away, or the meaning of that antiseptic smell.
This is my fault. All of it.
It’s too much. My torch clatters to the floor and winks out. Blackness floods in. I lose all sense of myself, of what is real and what is not. I hear choked cries and can’t believe they’re mine, convinced, suddenly, that I share this space with something hostile, something with claws and teeth. I turn, run blindly for the door, misjudge its location and shoulder-slam the jamb, knocking myself to the floor. A sharp edge of rock cuts my knee. The pain is a bolt of electricity that races up my leg and explodes inside my skull. Crab-like, I scuttle from the chamber and keep going until my arms knock against the cellar’s bottom step. Blackness becomes grey. Shadow becomes light. I see an ivy-clad ceiling, a fungus-blotched wall. Then I’m on my knees again, outside this time, back in the Memory Wood and panting great lungfuls of air. Trees swarm around me like wolves gathered to a kill. There’s a shrieking in my ears. The magpies have returned: three on a nearby branch, four on the sagging cottage roof. I remember the old nursery rhyme and it chills my bones: Seven for a secret, never to be told.
I don’t know what to think.
I don’t know what to do.
Gretel has gone. And it’s all because of me.
Elissa
Day 1
I
It’s Saturday, which means it’s a chess day, although in reality every day’s a chess day because that’s all she ever thinks about. Still, this one’s particularly special. Exceptional, in fact. Because this is an English Youth Grand Prix event for which she has been practising, it feels, her whole life.
The £100 prize for the overall winner is small, but money has never interested her. She already owns a set of Staunton chess pieces hand-carved in Brazilian rosewood, the only thing her dad ever gave her worth keeping. They’re triple-weighted, gliding about on bases of soft leather. Apart from the Stauntons, all she needs is a board, and she has one of those too: a slab of solid hardwood inlaid with maple and anegre. Her mum bought it from an online shop soon after her dad stopped calling, eating tinned beans for a fortnight to afford it. The one thing Elissa wants in the world that she doesn’t have is a date with Ethan Bandercroft from her class, and that’s never going to happen, even if she wins the prize money.
No, she’s excited about the Grand Prix – so excited that each breath threatens to lift her from the ground and carry her clean away – because the winner will be invited on to the English national team to compete at either the World Youth Championship or the World Cadets. To land a place would be the culmination of years of hard work.
‘Lissy? Lovely? You OK up there? It’s time to go!’
‘I’m fine, Mum!’ she yells. ‘Just coming!’
She grabs the green velvet bag that holds her Stauntons. She won’t need them today – at the event they’ll use tournament boards and pieces – but she wants them, regardless. They go into her rucksack, along with the other items she’s packed. There are two chess books, the first by Jeremy Silman and the second – Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport – by Jennifer Shahade. Along with the books is a lunchbox containing a bottle of Evian, a cling-film-wrapped tuna sandwich, two satsumas, a packet of pineapple Yoyo Bears and a Marks and Spencer chocolate brownie. There’s also a roll-up chess mat, a notepad to record her moves and three gel-filled pens secured with an elastic band. Nestled on top is a knitted monkey wearing a tiny white T-shirt. He’s a freebie from a PG Tips box, along to masquerade as her mascot. At previous tournaments she’s seen similar totems: Lego figures, Pokémon toys, rabbits’ feet. It all seems a bit pointless, but she has no wish to distance herself from the other kids she might meet on the tour. As a result, Monkey’s been pressed into service.
‘But if you throw me off,’ she whispers, fixing him with what she hopes is a baleful stare, ‘if you do anything to bring disgrace on my family’s good name, when we get home I will take you outside to the garden, strap you to the barbecue, and then I will burn you.’
She stares into Monkey’s glossy black eyes. If he’s fazed by her warning, he doesn’t show it. Perhaps, like her, he suspects her words are empty threats. Zipping him into the rucksack, she throws one arm through a strap. On her way to the door she catches herself in the mirror and pulls up.
Her mum bought the dress. It’s bottle green, the colour of the ocean on a summer day. It’s not something Elissa would have chosen but she sort of likes it, despite how girly it makes her look. She could have worn her normal outfit – jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt – but today she hadn’t wanted to be distracted by clothing choices, so she’d asked her mother to intervene.
The dress is sleeveless. Although she’s wearing a cotton vest underneath, her arms are still cold. Going to the wardrobe, she stares at the cardigans hanging up. There are various colours. To help her decide, she restricts her choices to black or white.