They burned to death.

  He touched the lid.

  There was a bonfire, charred bones.

  He prised his fingers beneath the lid, tensed, felt it shift as he lifted.

  They set fire to themselves in some sick ritual, attempting to live forever and killing themselves in the process.

  Breath held, he lifted a little more and then shoved the lid aside. He paused for a second before shining the torch inside.

  The coffin contained only dust and a chaos of spider webs holding the dried husks of long-dead flies, beetles, and arachnids.

  Jack felt a chill as if the whole room exhaled in sympathy with him, and he wondered if Lucy was now awake and wondering where he was. He suddenly wanted George close to him, the boy’s unending energy and inquisitiveness, his boundless joy and need to explore. His innocence. This was one place George would never find, because Jack would ensure it was locked away forever. Whatever this stuff was, its use was now far in the past.

  Turning to leave, he saw one final object that brought him up short. It was beside the narrow passageway through which he’d entered, pressed into the corner beside a sloping dark tunnel. The tunnel was maybe a yard square, and it sloped steeply upwards, lined with tracks that he could climb but didn’t want to. The object next to it was a pulley system supported on a heavy metal frame, with ropes and cables hanging loose from two separate coils. There were handles and several large batteries, all of them designed to drive the winch.

  The things in the room were intended to be hauled up and down. He only wondered where the sloping duct reached the surface.

  It was something else he would have to find and fill in forever. For now, it was time to return to his family. Locking this place up, sealing it from the outside world, was something he would do another time.

  Leaving, he thought he heard the room behind him release its held breath.

  As he approached their bedroom in the north tower, he heard Lucy’s scream.

  Jack ran. It was dawn, and he no longer needed the torch to provide light, but he hefted it in his right hand ready to use as a weapon.

  “Jack! Jack!” Maybe she’d simply awoken and found him gone, but it did not sound like a sleepy shout. It was a cry filled with terror.

  He burst through the door and slammed it against the wall, not knowing what to expect or what he would see.

  “Rats!” Lucy said, and she shivered in her nightgown. George was beside her, holding her hand.

  “Scratchy!” he said. “They were scratchy in the walls, Daddy!”

  “I woke up and you were gone, and I wasn’t worried because I saw your note and knew you’d be looking around the castle. George was still asleep so I lay there for a while. It was quiet and peaceful, but then the noises began. They woke him up.”

  “They were right by my bed!” George said, pointing to where he’d slept on a mound of blankets and pillows. Jack had not pushed them tight against the wall, afraid that the material might suck up any dampness from the old stones.

  “We’ll have to get the rat catcher in,” Lucy said. “We can’t have that. Not rats.”

  Not rats, Jack thought, but of course it had been rats. What else could it have been?

  “I’ll go into the village to find someone today,” he said. “Peggy will know who to talk to.”

  Lucy shivered again and grimaced, then she came close and held him tight. George clasped her hand, giggling.

  “So what did you find on your adventures?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” The lie came so easily, spoken into her sleep-messed hair. “Just wandering around, thinking about what we can do with the place once we start making some money.”

  “Nothing?” she asked. She pulled back and held him at arm’s length. Maybe she’d heard something in his voice.

  He sighed. “Some old hollows and holes I need to fill in. In a couple of rooms in the courtyard walls. We’ll keep George in sight until then. I know he’s a boy and he wants to explore, but a castle’s a dangerous place. I’ll need to make it less dangerous.”

  They washed and dressed, then Lucy surprised him with her next request.

  “I’d really like to see the secret garden.”

  “A secret garden?” George asked, eyes wide with wonder.

  “Not so secret,” Jack said. “I know about it.”

  “And so does Mummy, but I don’t, and that’s not fair.”

  “It looked so interesting from the windows,” Lucy said. “Maybe we can make use of it when we start having guests to stay.” She was way ahead of herself—it would take time and effort for them to even be close to opening their castle to the public—but her enthusiasm and optimism were some of the reasons Jack loved her so much.

  “Let’s eat first,” he said. “We’ll fire up the Parkray in the kitchen and cook some porridge. What do you think, George?”

  “Porridge. Yeuch.”

  “We have honey to spread on it,” Lucy said.

  “Honey! Yay!” George jumped up and down, and Jack led the way down to the kitchen.

  His heart was beating faster. His last memories of the secret garden were not good ones, but that trauma was part of the stain on his past that he was determined to confront. It was part of the reason he’d brought his family to this place—to confront the past, and put bad memories to rest.

  After breakfast, he led them through the back of the large walk-in pantry to the low door that led into the secret garden. There were two other entrances that he knew of—one down a small set of steps and through a wooden door from the main courtyard; the other from the north tower’s first floor, through a large window and down a set of steep, very narrow steps set into the tower’s wall. The small garden was far from secret, but it was shielded from the rest of the castle, a quiet retreat where, hidden from sunlight for much of the day, only hardy plants and weeds would grow.

  The area was maybe thirty steps across, a tangle of brambles and wild rose bushes. A few items of concrete garden furniture were visible here and there, and at its centre lay the large sundial, raised to hip height.

  Why put a sundial in a garden with no sun? It was a jarring thought, and Jack snorted laughter because he’d never even considered it before. As a kid, this was just another part of the castle. Later, it was where he’d seen his mother rutting with a stranger while his father looked on, and others did the same.

  “What a strange place,” Lucy said. “It’s quite beautiful.” She stepped over and around the undergrowth, heading towards the sundial and looking around her as she went. Thorns clasped onto her clothing and she tugged herself free, unconcerned. George went with her and she swept him up into her arms, hardly breaking pace.

  “Needs work,” Jack said. He blinked back dark memories like Lucy pulling herself away from the grasping thorns, and with a few more steps he was in morning sunlight slanting across the high walls.

  “Everything’s so much better in daylight,” Lucy said, and then she paused, looking down at the sundial, which had yet to be touched by the sun.

  “Smells funny in here,” George said. “Can we go? I want to go, Mummy.”

  Jack drew level with them and saw what they saw.

  “Jack?” Lucy said softly.

  The sundial was four feet across and raised three feet from the ground, and it was clear and clean of undergrowth. Around its edges, the plants had been trodden down, and it was obvious where countless stems and branches had been snipped, shrivelled brown leaves scattered where they had dropped. The brass dial in the centre was tarnished and pale, but the tracks, patterns and numbers carved into the stone surface were as plain as they’d been when he had last seen them over a decade before.

  “Abertha,” Jack said.

  “The woman leaving those things above the windows?”

  “I suppose so. I asked Peggy to tell her to stay away. She will from now on.” Maybe, he thought. Or maybe she won’t. I don’t even know who she is, and—

  “Let’s go,” Lucy said. “We’ll call the gardeners in, and this can be the first place they clear. Better still, let’s get some tools and do it ourselves.”

  Lucy and George headed back towards the small door, but Jack stayed behind for a moment, bending to look closer at the sundial. The grooves in its surface were filled with ochre mud, rusty brown trails that brought the patterns out of the stone. He ran his fingers along one groove, tracing the number nine because that was almost the time. When he drew his hand away the mud was stuck to his fingertips, sticky and red.

  Too red.

  He wiped his hand on his trousers, backing away and looking around the garden again, feeling eyes upon him, a dreadful focus. There was no one there other than him and his family.

  “Fuck off,” he whispered, and he was aware of Lucy standing by the doorway with George in her left arm and resting on her hip. He thought those words again, directing them at anything here that might mean them harm. But the only things that could harm them were his memories, fractured, toxic things haunting his present, only dangerous if he allowed them to do be. Fuck off, he thought one more time, and then he turned and they left as a family.

  Passing through the doorway he heard a breeze back in the garden. It lifted dead leaves and undergrowth, a whispered curse drifting towards the door and breaking upon its wooden face as he slammed it shut behind him.

  “Rats in the walls,” he said to Peggy. “And I need to employ a gardener. Preferably more than one.”

  “The rats will be easy enough,” Peggy said. “Poison. You can put that down yourself. Gardeners, I’m not so sure.”

  “Why?”

  She squinted at him in the midday sun. Her own little garden was small but immaculate, and he imagined she spent hours tending it each day.

  “You need to ask?”

  “The castle,” he said, shaking his head. “If I’m happy and safe returning, what has anyone else got to fear?”

  “Are you, though?” she asked, without stipulating which state she referred to.

  Jack didn’t answer. He handed her back a mug of half-finished tea and turned to walk away.

  “Got poison in the shed,” she said. “Hang on and I’ll fetch it for you.”

  She hobbled back to her house, leaving the two mugs on the front porch before heading around the side to the wooden shed. Jack watched her with a mixture of frustration and anger. Not at her, but at the people she’d mentioned, the superstitious, frightened villagers who blamed past crimes on a place, not the people who had lived there. Maybe they’d come around to his way of thinking, maybe not. Right now all he wanted was some help. He and Lucy could do all the work themselves, but it would take them years.

  Part of his confidence in coming here had been in the belief that local people would be eager to see Grayland Castle come alive again, and keen to help that happen.

  “Watch your little one with this,” Peggy said, returning and handing him a bottle of rat poison.

  “Of course,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” She seemed ready to say something else, and they stood there in silence for a few long, awkward seconds. Jack smiled, nodded, and turned towards the garden gate. It was only when he was outside her garden that she gave her parting shot.

  “You found it.”

  Jack considered ignoring her and moving on. Maybe he’d pretend he hadn’t heard.

  “The downside,” she said.

  He paused, then turned back to face her. “It’s just a place. I’ll block it off, fill it in. It won’t cause any problems.”

  “It’s the cause of all your problems.”

  “Just leave me to make that place my own!” he said, pointing at her with the poison bottle. If it looked threatening he hadn’t meant it that way, and Peggy seemed unfazed.

  “I’m just worried,” she said, and her old eyes wrinkled almost shut.

  “And I appreciate it, Peggy. But you don’t have to worry. I’ve been in much worse places and come out the other side.”

  Peggy pressed her lips together as if to say, I doubt that. But she knew his story, his history, and she was not one to offer doubt. She could see the pain of the war in his eyes. He saw it himself sometimes, and he knew he wasn’t very good at hiding it. That Lucy lived with that pain day after day, drawing as much of it from him as she could, spoke of what an angel she was.

  “I’m always here if you need me,” Peggy said. “Always have been.”

  “Thank you, Grandma” He smiled and left, and he tried to maintain the smile as he walked out of the village and back up towards the castle.

  It was midday, and sunlight bathed the tall grey walls.

  They worked in the north tower all day. Jack did as much as he could to make the kitchen workable and habitable, while Lucy and George checked all the furniture for stability and rot. The few items they found which were dangerously decayed were hauled downstairs and dumped outside, and later that afternoon they dragged them to the centre of the main courtyard and piled them together. There were chairs, a small table, a bedframe, and other items of furniture, all of them suffering from woodworm or the results of years of damp or water ingress. When the time came, they’d have a bonfire, cleansing flames to purge the castle of old things and welcome in the new.

  By early evening they were tired and sweaty, and Lucy went about filling the cast iron bath ready for them to bathe. She and George went first, while Jack prepared them supper in the kitchen. He placed the food and drink on a tray and carried it up to the bathroom.

  George was already yawning as Lucy dried him and dressed him in his pyjamas. He moved slowly as he ate, spilling crumbs of bread and cake, and after finishing he then held up his hands.

  Jack plucked up his son and carried him upstairs to bed. Lucy followed close behind, wrapped in her dressing gown and bringing the bottle of wine and glasses he’d carried up from the kitchen. They always liked saving the wine for after George was in bed and asleep. It gave them time together. Even though they were sleeping in the same room, it was important to have some husband and wife time, rather than simply father and mother.

  “Sleep tight,” Jack said as he tucked blankets around his son’s shoulders. The boy was already asleep when they both kissed him on the forehead.

  “I’ll go and take a nice cool bath,” he said to Lucy. “Want to jump in with me?”

  “Too cold!” she said, hugging herself. “But I’ll be in bed when you come up. I’ve put the curtain up between George and the rest of the room.”

  “You’ll have to be quiet,” Jack said.

  “Me? You’re the noisy one.”

  “Don’t fall asleep.”

  “If I do, wake me.” She kissed him on the cheek, then the lips, and Jack’s hands moved to her hips, pulling her in close.

  “Bath,” she said. “I love you, but quite frankly dear, you smell.”

  Jack smiled and went downstairs to the bathroom. The bath was still comfortably warm, and he sank in and washed quickly. Tipping water over his head, he heard something other than the dripping around his ears. He paused and wiped his ears clear, head tilted to one side, mouth open so that he could hear better.

  The scratching at the walls stopped only moments after he heard it properly. He listened for a while longer, then started washing again. Whenever he splashed water the noises started, and when he stopped they ceased. He wasn’t sure if he was really hearing them, or whether it was the echo of water splashing against the cast iron, clicking in his ears, dropping from his body.

  He finished and hurried back upstairs. He paused outside the open bedroom door and listened, but he heard only George’s gentle snoring, and Lucy’s even breathing. He closed the door behind him, keeping in the warmth, and slipped into the makeshift bed, still wet but eager to get warm.

  Lucy’s eyes were closed, but she smiled as he reached for her.

  Later, with Lucy sleeping nestled against his back, Jack lay with his eyes wide open and his head lifted slightly from the pillows. In the still darkness he now had no doubt that the noises he heard were birthed in the shadows.

  Some came from within the walls. Scratching, scrabbling, they could have been rats very close by, or larger creatures moving surreptitiously further away. There were other sounds too. Further away, more nebulous, and yet possessed of a more troubling, deliberate nature. It was the soundtrack of things not wishing to be heard.

  At least, Jack convinced himself of all this as he lay in the darkness, his wife warm at his back, the exertions of quiet lovemaking a recent memory. He relished her touch. Her presence often warded off the worst of his nightmares, and those times when dreams of the war still broke through, she was always there to nurse him back into the world. She had been doing that since they had met, and sometimes he feared it would be her burden for as long as he was alive. She always hushed him with a finger to his lips when he spoke of this fear. It was almost as if she had been made for him.

  Another noise from far away. It was a low, gentle grumble, like a drawn-out snore, but such a sound could not come from his beautiful son. It was difficult to discern what type of noise it was—stone against stone, wood turning somewhere deep, heavy metal clanking in some vague distance. He shifted position, moving away from Lucy and lying flat on his back so that both ears were unhindered. Sitting up made no real difference, but when he stood from the bed and pressed his feet to the timber floor, the sound became more than just a sound.

  He felt the subtlest of vibrations through the bottom of his feet. He put one hand to his chest in case it was his galloping heart, but his beat was steady and normal. The vibration was a deep thing, something almost too slight to detect, yet too present to deny.

  Jack walked to the window. The curtains were drawn against the moon, and he pulled one aside by a few inches to look out and down into the main castle enclosure. Moonlight silvered the buildings and their overgrown courtyard. Nothing moved, and being closer to the window did not increase the sound level, nor the subtle vibration.

  Lucy moaned and turned over in her sleep. Jack held his breath and let the curtain drop. Wide awake now, he grabbed up his clothing and stepped from the room into the cold hallway beyond.