He’d seen so much more depravity and murder in Europe, but none of it touched him as badly as Grayland Castle.

  Jack had been the one to suggest they return to his home. Take on his family castle, work hard at making it habitable, then as soon as possible they would open one room, then two, then more as lodgings or a hotel. Tall Stennington was a lovely little town, and the castle itself had features that would make it attractive to all manner of visitors. The courtyard could host weddings and festivals, even concerts, and if they made enough of a success of it they could even pay to have the derelict south tower refurbished and rebuilt.

  Once they started talking about it, small plans became grand, and Jack found himself swept along with Lucy’s natural enthusiasm. She really was the angel who had saved him.

  “Shall we go in?” she asked.

  Jack hefted the set of keys he’d collected from the small solicitor’s office in Tall Stennington. There were at least a dozen keys on the ring, and he had no idea which doors or gates they served.

  Returning after so long, he wanted to go through the front gates.

  “Come on,” he said. “George, shall we go inside the big castle?”

  “Inside?” George asked, and his eyes glimmered with a deep terror. Jack gasped. Then George started bouncing up and down on Lucy’s lap, waving his hands in the air. “Yay! Yay! Inside the castle!” The fear Jack had imagined in his son’s eyes was a child’s unbridled excitement. It must have been a trick of the light.

  It took him a few minutes, but eventually he found the key that served the smaller door set into the huge, oaken front gates. The gates themselves were bolted and braced from the inside. He remembered climbing them with his sister, Mary. She was three years older than him, and they used to race each other, climbing a gate each until they could slap one hand against the stone archway above. She’d beaten him until he was twelve years old, then he’d learned to loosen his fear and scamper up as if nothing in the world would make him fall. He’d beaten her, and she had never reached the top before him again. Like the good sister she’d been, she had still raced him whenever he asked, and sometimes even suggested it herself. It took only a handful of seconds, but those friendly competitions were solid, heavy moments from his childhood.

  “Memories coming back?” Lucy asked cautiously.

  “Only good ones,” Jack said, and the lock turned with a creak and groan. He pushed the small door open and entered first. Ducking down, passing beneath the heavy stone arch and the wide deep wall of his family home, Jack breathed in deeply and sent out the thought: This will be a good happy place. He sent the thought back towards his family as well, hoping they would pick up on it. Then he walked through the gate enclosure and out into the sunlight bathing the large circular courtyard.

  “Oh, how pretty!” Lucy said behind him, and for a few seconds he wasn’t sure what she was looking at. There was so much to choose from. The early afternoon sunlight caught the inside of the northern and eastern walls and set them aflame, glimmering from glass in the north tower’s deep-set inner windows and bringing out the vibrant colours of a thousand rose blooms in the banks of bushes growing against the walls. The courtyard was also heavily overgrown, the neat grass lawn now given way to wild plant growth. The old oak that had marked the courtyard’s centre for almost a thousand years still carried many leaves, even though half of its trunk and limbs had hung dark and dead for as long as he could remember. Mary had told him the tree was struck by lightning the year she was born. Creeping plants had made some of this ancient sentinel their home, and fist-sized clumps of flowers bloomed throughout the branches. Bees, butterflies, and birds hummed through the air, birdsong lessening only slightly when Jack and his family emerged into the shadow cast by the west wall.

  “It is something, isn’t it?” he said.

  A rush of memories came to him, and they were all good—Mary and her friends letting him play with them as they set up a dolls’ tea party on the lawn; climbing the oak while their family dog Buster barked and scrabbled at the tree’s split trunk; his mother sitting in a lounger with a glass of wine in her hand, his father standing beside her, friends from the village gathered around as one of them played guitar.

  Nothing from then, he thought, and he was glad. Good memories were a pleasing omen. Over time, he’d come to realise that though they had turned bad, his family had also given him a solid foundation in life. This castle was only part of it.

  “Lots of work needs doing in the courtyard,” Jack said.

  “You can drive the car through the gates, at least,” Lucy said. “We can make a start on it soon. Cut it back, set a bonfire.”

  “There’s a store over there with plenty of tools,” he said, indicating the wall close to the north tower. “Or at least there used to be.”

  It was quite overwhelming. It was such a large place, and everywhere he looked brought memories. Yet each sight also made him realise how much time had moved on. This place had become such a dark blot in his memory ever since he’d left, and returning to see that it was only a building gave him a burst of enthusiasm he vowed to keep a hold on.

  It was his family who’d caused the darkness, not the place itself.

  It started with parties. They quickly turned more depraved, with drinking, drug taking, and orgies. Jack had seen his parents and sister taking part, sights that no young man should ever carry with him. They remained as much a burden on his mind as things he had seen during the war. Later, the cutting and the invocations, the arcane ceremonies taking place in the wide basement rooms beneath the north tower. The drinking of blood. The invoking of demons and spirits.

  We’re going to live forever, his mother had told him. We only need to find the way, and seek those spirits who will guide us through.

  All of it total fucking bullshit. He’d argued with his family during the cold light of day, when hangovers darkened their eyes and blood stained their lips. His parents had pleaded with him to stay and help them. His sister had laughed at him.

  Leaving had been easy. Hearing what happened soon after—the final party, ending with dismembered bodies in the basement rooms and his family vanishing forever—had not.

  “Let’s go to the tower,” Jack said. “I’m a bit worried about the state it’ll be in after so long, but—”

  “But we have to stay there this evening, surely?” Lucy asked. “After coming so far?” They’d driven halfway from London the day before, staying in a cheap guesthouse in Bristol. Another four hours on the road that morning and Jack was exhausted, even though Lucy had driven part of the way.

  “Of course,” he said.

  He hadn’t considered any other possibility. Their belongings were following on in a couple of days, but he’d ensured they had enough blankets and pillows in the car to make a nest for the three of them to sleep in, should they find the castle unfurnished. In truth, he had no idea what to expect.

  With George walking between them they made their way across the overgrown courtyard towards the north tower. They had to trample through brambles in places, and George started crying when nettles stung his bare legs. Jack carried him the rest of the way.

  As they approached the set of five wide stone steps up to the tower’s main door, it was Lucy who saw the thing nailed to the door’s lintel.

  “Is that some sort of charm?” she asked.

  Jack had never seen it before. Made from pale carved wood, the object resembled the fine skeletal remains of an unknown creature. Jack had the feeling it was carved rather than natural. Its finely tendrilled limbs, thinner than his fingers and evenly spaced and sized, gave the impression of artificiality.

  “Jack?”

  “Don’t know,” he said. “Probably.”

  “There’s one up there too.” Lucy pointed above the door at the first floor window. A similar object was fixed there, a different shape and smaller, but still finely wrought.

  He looked around at the other windows and saw more, even above the second storey windows. Whoever had fixed those must have reached down from the roof terrace.

  “Odd,” Lucy said.

  “My family were.” He went through the same process of trying keys until he found the one that worked, then twisted the heavy handle and pushed the door open. A breath of air flowed out around them, musty and heavy with the scents of age and desertion. Dust danced in the sunlight, and Jack jumped when several shapes skittered around his feet. They were only balls of fluff and dust.

  He had been expecting the smell of death, but it was only an empty home.

  “Look!” George said.

  He pointed and dashed inside, and Jack felt an instant of panic as he snatched at the back of his son’s jacket and missed. The boy hurried inside into the vestibule, and skidded to a stop and looked up.

  I wonder if it’s still there, Jack thought as he followed.

  “What is it?” Lucy asked.

  “Rainbow!” George said, pointing and looking up.

  “Oh wow,” Lucy said. “You never told me about this.”

  “There’s lots about this place I haven’t told you about,” Jack said, and looking up at the stained-glass atrium window three floors above, colours splashing down backed by the heat of the afternoon sun, he was filled with an unexpected sense of excitement about exploring his old home once again. It was because Lucy and George were with him, but also because it would be like rediscovering his childhood. He was the only family member left now, and if he could sift through the bad stuff and absorb only the good, then his new life here would be a success.

  Maybe coming home would even make those bad dreams wither and die once and for all.

  A heavy timber spiral staircase climbed the circular wall of the tall vestibule, stopping at a landing on each floor and then continuing up to the next. It looked in good repair. The place was dusty and festooned with spider webs in the corners, and here and there he saw piles of unidentifiable material which might have been mouse or rat nests. Four doors led off from the large lower hallway, all of them closed. An upright piano sat against one wall between two doors, its lid raised and half of the keys missing. The last time he’d heard that played it had been one of his parents’ friends from the village, months or more before the depraved partying began. Later, he’d seen the same man screwing his mother bent over a bench in the garden while his father watched.

  Jack blinked slowly and willed the bad memory away.

  “So where do we start?” Lucy asked, and she sounded so excited that when Jack opened his eyes again all he saw was light and colour, not the dilapidated piano with the echoes of its sad keys.

  “Kitchens,” Jack said, nodding at one of the doors.

  “I hope the chefs have been busy,” Lucy said. “I’m starving!”

  They spent the next hour on a quick tour of the north tower and its dozen rooms. On the ground floor they visited kitchen and dining room, larder, the washroom with its deep well, and the shelved storage rooms where his family had kept all manner of things. Many of them were still there, boxed up and packaged as if ready to be taken or sent away. Jack wasn’t sure he would ever get around to opening those packages back up, and perhaps the door would simply be closed and locked forever.

  The stairs creaked as they climbed to the first floor, and George ran on ahead of them, excitement taking over. They told him that he was allowed to choose his bedroom from the three on offer on this floor, and he pushed open the first door he reached on the landing and ran inside, shouting, “My room! My room!”

  It had been Jack’s room years ago. He thought that was a good sign. It was bare of furniture, and Lucy swept back the heavy curtains covering the window, wiping at the dusty glass and looking down on the courtyard and encircling castle walls.

  He and Lucy would sleep in the next room. It had been his parents’, and he was unsettled to discover that their large double bed remained. The mattress was long gone, as was most of the other furniture, but the heavy wood-framed bed commanded the room, its thick corner posts coated with dust and webs that hid most of the intricate carving.

  “We’ll get a new bed,” Jack said.

  “Of course,” Lucy said. “For now we can all sleep in with George.”

  “In my room?” George asked, eyes wide, and Jack could almost see the child’s cogs turning in his head.

  “Well, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Just for a couple of days. We’ve got to wait until your bed arrives, and Mummy and Daddy will get a new bed for our room when we get a chance.”

  “And just in case we get frightened,” Lucy said. “You’ll look after us, won’t you?”

  George smiled and nodded.

  They climbed to the third floor. There were three rooms here: sitting room, library, and a second room that he and his sister had once used as their playroom, and which when they grew older had become a more informal living area for them to entertain friends. These rooms were still furnished, items of furniture covered with heavy white sheets that had greyed and grown fragile over time. Lucy touched one sheet in the living room and it split as she pulled it back, revealing a large armchair in which some small creature had made a nest long ago. The material of the cushion was chewed through and threadbare, and the wooden arms were scratched into rough, splintered limbs.

  In the casual living room, Jack went straight to the window. The curtains were drawn, and he paused for a moment before pulling them back. The rings made a pained squeal on the metal curtain rod, and then sunlight flooded in, blinding him where it glared through the dusty windows.

  He was aware of Lucy and George behind him, admiring the room and chatting as they opened more curtains. But he also felt a distance from them. It was the first time he’d experienced that since stopping their car outside the castle walls, and he recognised it as the present drawing back to allow in the past.

  He wished it away, but the past was not so passive. It waited for him as he knew it would, and where he knew it would, and he had to confront it head-on if it were to ever lay to rest.

  Looking down from the window, he saw the small hidden garden nestled between the outer wall of the north tower and the castle’s main outer wall. It was only visible from here, its door hidden out behind the back of the kitchens, and anyone who didn’t know it existed would likely not see or find it.

  Jack let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. The hidden garden was overgrown, the large round sundial stone at its centre only visible in a couple of places. Even early in the afternoon the shadow of the north tower already shaded two thirds of this hidden area.

  He didn’t know what he’d expected to see down there, but it was just like the rest of the castle—old, untended, long forgotten until now.

  “We’ll make this a happy place,” he said.

  “A lady!” George said from behind him, and Jack spun around. His son and wife were at a window in the far corner of the room, looking out and down into the castle’s main courtyard (another name for wide open space in castle’s centre), and George was tapping the window as he pointed. “Look, Daddy. A lady!”

  Jack crossed the room as Lucy glanced back and said, “Someone from the village brought us a cake, perhaps?” She smiled, but for the first time he saw that she was unsettled.

  “Maybe. I left the gate open,” he said as he reached the window and looked out.

  The old woman stood a few steps inside the gate, just where sunlight and shadow met. She was staring up at the north tower.

  “What’s she holding?” Lucy asked.

  Jack squinted, wiped the window, looked closer.

  “It’s one of those things,” Lucy said.

  “Those what?”

  “Those charms from above the doors and windows. She’s carrying one just like them.”

  Now that she said it, Jack could make out that she was right. The woman was not moving, just staring, and that sent a chill down his spine. She held the object in both hands across her chest. Her face was screwed up as if in pain. Or maybe she was just old and wrinkled.

  “I’ll ask her to leave,” he said.

  “Oh, please be polite.”

  “Of course I will!” Jack said, and he hadn’t meant to snap. George stared up at him and Lucy’s eyes went wider. He smiled and kissed her cheek. “Of course I will. But if she or others have been coming into the castle, for whatever reason, they have to realise they can’t do that anymore.” Even though the gate has been locked until today, he thought.

  “Okay,” Lucy said.

  “You’ll stay here?”

  “Me and George will look around.”

  “Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll look after Mummy.”

  Jack smiled at his son’s comment, ruffled his hair, and left the room. But as he descended to the ground floor and exited into the sunlit courtyard, he thought, Protect her against what?

  The old woman was gone. He walked the courtyard perimeter, looked into some of the ruined structures against the walls and the dilapidated south tower, then approached the door in the main gate. It stood open just as he’d left it, and he stepped outside and looked around. Far down the approach road, he saw the figure of the woman walking away. She did not appear to be in a rush. She did not look back.

  As he turned to enter the castle once again he saw that she had hung the antler-like charm above the door. Three of its sharp tips were red with fresh blood.

  Despite the strange visitation from the old woman, by the end of an afternoon spent exploring the castle with his family, Jack was more at peace than he had felt in some time. He had always been afraid to return home, but since meeting Lucy the month he returned from the war, those fears had receded, becoming childish things that haunted him at night when he had no control over his thoughts. Set against the horrors of war, the strange predilections of his parents and sister were merely ridiculous. He felt a deep sadness at the depths they had descended to, and the fact that they were gone—and after so long he presumed them dead, swallowed into whatever foolish story they had been creating for themselves—made him even sadder. He wished he’d had the chance to confront them and talk them aside from their strange journeys. When he’d left he had felt unable, but the war had aged him, and with age came wisdom. He thought that now he would have the maturity to face them.