Twelve Days Read online

  ‘No. I think it’s more sinister,’ said Glen. ‘He wants to bring things out into the open.’

  ‘What things?’ I said.

  I saw fear in Emily’s eyes. ‘No,’ she said to Glen. ‘Not that. He wouldn’t dare.’ Her face went red.

  ‘Something going on that I don’t know about?’

  Glen ignored me. ‘Seriously, Emily–’

  Emily stood. Something had upset her. ‘I’m getting really tired all of a sudden. Rafe, please walk me to my room.’

  ‘Sorry, Em,’ said Glen. ‘I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean to bring that up.’

  ‘No, just need to go now.’

  ‘I’ll let you out. Oh, please listen to me, guys, just one thing I need to tell you…’

  And that one thing he said would niggle me for the whole twelve days to come.

  ‘Please, guys, lock your doors. It’s not safe.’ Glen did not just look worried – he looked terrified. His eyes were wide, and he fiddled with the ring on his finger, moving it up and down, turning it, as if he couldn’t get it off.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Emily.

  He ushered us to the doorway, held the door open for us to pass through. ‘Just beware, things are not what they seem.’

  ‘Glen!’

  But Glen had already closed and locked his door.

  Emily took my arm and we walked back along the corridor. We had accessed the tower room via the men’s wing, but I saw that the tower room could be accessed from both wings, so we followed the right passage down to the women’s side.

  ‘He’s acting a little paranoid,’ I said. ‘What’s spooking him? Reverend James?’

  But Emily said nothing all the way to her room. Outside her doorway, she turned. ‘Rafe, sorry.’

  ‘Please tell me what’s going on.’

  The darkness crept into the castle from the outside. The air grew colder, if that was possible. Sleet slid down the windows like ghostly fingers. Angry wind rattled the shutters.

  ‘It all went so sour,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Some bad things went down after you left The Twelve.’

  ‘Between you and Glen?’

  ‘I don’t want to say anything now. Maybe tomorrow. Okay?’ She reached up and gave me a peck on the cheek, then after a second’s hesitation, a hug. My face was buried in her hair.

  ‘I missed you, Rafe.’

  ‘You’re freezing,’ I said. She was trembling, but not just from the cold. She held me tight for a long few minutes and then pulled away. ‘We were so much bigger then than now,’ she said. ‘We had such big ideals. Such hope. And now look at us. Adults. Shrunken hopes, fitting into a compromised world.’

  ‘You don’t look too bad.’

  She stared into my eyes. She had clear green eyes that, even in the dark, seemed to sparkle. ‘You’re still in love with her. You should just bloody get over it. She’s an empty vessel – let it go, dude, finally and forever, please!’

  ‘It’s not–’

  ‘All of you. Really. It’s sickening.’

  ‘I don’t… Not anymore.’

  ‘C’mon, you can’t argue with me on that one. Anyway, it’s late. More later. Goodnight.’ With elegance, she closed the door in my face then locked it.

  I stared at the closed door. For the first time, I realised how it may have felt for her all those years ago, to play second fiddle, to be the girl next door, the sister, not the queen; to listen to our love-sick lamentations over Suzanne. How annoying that must have been!

  I found my way back to my room, and though I didn’t want to be paranoid, I turned the key in the lock. It’s not safe. Whatever did he mean? I buried myself in my sleeping shroud, curled into a foetal position (the sheets were so cold they felt wet) and puzzled over Emily’s reaction to Glen’s comment. Something had soured after I left. I tried to figure out what she meant, but I was so tired, I quickly fell into a dreamless sleep.

  2

  Two turtle doves

  I woke around midnight. Sat up, stared at shadows, switched on the light. Nothing. I checked under the bed, behind the drapes. Perhaps it was just the rickety floorboards. The wind howled outside. An angry god pelted snow at the windows. Trees scratched at the glass to get in. Back in bed, I buried myself in the heavy duvet again and pinched my eyes shut. This was some storm.

  Wait. I was sure I could hear something outside the door. Perplexed, I flung aside the duvet again, then wrapped myself in it as a dressing gown – damn, it was cold – unlocked my door and peered into the darkness. I could swear I saw shadows, heard voices. I crept along the hallway, then pulled back at the steps leading up to the tower. I could see two figures pressed against the wall outside Glen’s room. One was tall – had to be Glen – the other a smaller figure, a woman.

  I flattened myself against the wall and listened, but could hear nothing intelligible.

  Glen’s door creaked open and the two entered. I heard the click of the door being locked from the inside. Nothing more. I listened to my own heart pounding.

  It couldn’t be who I thought it was. And even if it was, I shouldn’t care anyway.

  An old inadequacy hit me in the gut. I was sixteen years old again. I thought of Suzanne’s ring on Glen’s pinkie, how he had insisted on showing it off to everyone, as if it was a trophy; that he had something of hers, something of her. Possession. Ownership. Jealousy. I thought I had left that behind years ago.

  I waited. But my teeth chattered and my feet were ice. No sense prowling the corridor. I felt my way back to my room, locked the door with freezing fingers, and lay down again. My trembling came from more than the cold.

  I must have fallen into a deep sleep soon after, for when I woke to a pounding on the door, I was disoriented and my head throbbed. Outside the window the night was still black. I untangled myself from the duvet and unbolted the door. The passage was unusually cold, wind tunnelling at me as I peered at two distraught faces outside. Stephen and Reverend James, in pyjamas and dressing gowns and slippers.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘We’re looking for Glen.’ Reverend James peered past me.

  ‘Why?’

  I saw the answer on their ashen faces.

  ‘Rafe, Glen is missing.’

  I threw my coat on over my pyjamas, pulled on my sneakers (without socks, which I regretted soon enough) and followed them to the end of the passage that led up to the tower room. The door was open (I swore I remembered him locking it from the inside). Danny and Mike were poking around in the entrance, picking up clothes. The first thing I noticed as I entered was that the doors to the balcony were wide open, pinned back by the wind. Flurries of snow blasted in from the outside. ‘What the…?’

  The balcony railing was missing. A duvet hung caught on the rotten wood that remained. I gripped the door frame and leaned out over the precipice. Snow and frozen rain stung my face.

  ‘It’s a blizzard out there,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Keep back, Rafe,’ said Reverend James. ‘The whole balcony isn’t safe.’

  ‘Where’s Glen?’ I grabbed the duvet and pulled it back inside. The room was a mess. The wind had played havoc here, and snowdrifts had already collected inside the door frame. It looked as if someone had violently tossed everything upside down. Glen’s suitcase was on the floor, clothes scattered. A pillow lay sodden near the open window. An empty basket lay on its side near the window – I recognised it as the one in which we had all deposited our cell phones. And I detected a whiff of some sweet scent in the air.

  ‘That’s what we want to know,’ said Danny.

  ‘Stephen got here first,’ said Reverend James. ‘His room is closest to the tower.’

  ‘I heard Glen’s door banging open and closed,’ said Stephen.

  Danny nodded. ‘I thought it was the st-storm. Thunder.’

  ‘Here’s the key!’ Mike held up the slim new key he had found on the dresser.

  Stephen took it from him, pocketed it. ‘I fo
und the door open, so I went in. Glen was nowhere in the room, and the balcony doors were flapping like this. The duvet and pillows…’

  ‘Maybe he’s in the toilet,’ I said, ‘or somewhere in the rest of the castle.’ If he was with a lover, maybe they had sneaked back to her room. ‘Maybe the women’s rooms. The tower passage leads to their wing too.’

  Reverend James shook his head. ‘We don’t want to disturb them yet…’

  I hit my fist against the door frame. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Please, God,’ said Mike. ‘Let’s pray he was nowhere near the balcony when the railing collapsed.’

  ‘Lord Jesus, have mercy,’ said Reverend James.

  I peered over the edge again. The snow had covered everything, but I could make out a few patches of colour, an oblong shape that could be a suitcase. ‘I can’t understand why all his things are out there.’

  Stephen shrugged. ‘The wind maybe.’

  And then I saw what I had been looking for. My blood froze. ‘Look!’

  About twenty metres below the sheer cliff edge, on a rock that jutted out, I saw the shape of two splayed legs, arms, and a head, haloed with red. The snow had covered, blown over and drifted, but I was sure of what I saw.

  ‘He’s there. Look!’

  ‘Glen!’ called Danny. It was a stupid thing to do – shout out into the wind, into the void, the dead snow. Reverend James grasped my arm.

  ‘We have to get to him.’

  ‘Do you think he could be… alive?’ said Danny.

  The snow stung my face. ‘My God. His head looks bashed in.’

  ‘We have to get help,’ said Mike.

  I pulled out of the Reverend’s grip. ‘Call the police. We need a phone.’

  ‘Hey, guys, what’s going on?’

  I turned. Suzanne, Alison, Linda and Emily crowded into the room. Suzanne wore a pink dressing gown that looked like a marshmallow, Emily was in a baggy tracksuit, and Linda and Alison had wrapped themselves tightly in blankets that trailed on the floor.

  ‘Who let the girls in here?’ said Reverend James.

  ‘Sorry, Jay,’ said Linda, staring around the room, terror in her eyes. ‘Emily insisted.’

  Emily pushed past. ‘What the hell is going on?’ She peered through the balcony doors. Turned. ‘Where’s Glen?’

  ‘Something t-t-terrible,’ said Danny. ‘Horrible.’

  I reached out, took Emily’s arm and guided her away. ‘There’s been an accident.’

  ‘Looks like the balcony railing collapsed,’ said Mike. ‘Glen’s body is down there on the rocks.’

  ‘No!’ Suzanne put her hand to her mouth. I looked back at her, thinking about the small shadow I had seen in the middle of the night. Something about her manner made me look again. Our eyes met. I saw fear in her eyes – maybe more than fear: guilt.

  Emily held on to my arm. ‘Rafe, we have to rescue him.’

  I leaned over the edge again, as far as I dared, and stared down the rocky precipice. Glen’s body was now half-buried in the snow, but suddenly a clump of snow tumbled away to reveal a head of dark hair – and a blue hand. I made a note of landmarks so that if the body was completely covered, the police would know where to search. I peered down the mountainside and saw at once that this was the most inaccessible part of the valley. A sheer rock face. ‘Mike, could anyone climb down there? What’s your view?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘We’d need ropes, climbing gear, and a winch.’

  ‘People, I think we need to get out of here,’ said Reverend James. ‘The whole tower room feels unstable.’ He herded the women away from the open balcony doors and back into the passageway. We followed. Stephen shut the door behind him, as if to block out the horror.

  ‘Let’s go to the living room,’ Reverend James called out.

  We clustered by the fire, which was still smouldering. Danny added some twigs and soon it was roaring bright. Reverend James took charge. ‘Is everyone here and accounted for?’

  I counted nine people. ‘Everyone except Glen, yes.’

  ‘Where’s the concierge?’ said Mike. ‘Where does he sleep? We need to find him right now.’

  Stephen shook his head. ‘He left last night, after supper, remember?’

  ‘He left in that b-blizzard?’ said Danny.

  I turned to Reverend James. ‘Where the hell are the phones?’

  He looked like death itself: pale, clammy skin, lips trembling. Using the word ‘hell’ bothered him more than the accusation itself. ‘A retreat, Rafe. This was supposed to be a retreat. I didn’t know this would happen.’

  I had spied the landline, an old-fashioned black telephone with a large receiver, in the foyer. I walked over to it and picked up the handset. No dial tone. I clicked the button up and down. Stephen walked over and placed the phone down. His hand was trembling and his eyes were full of white terror. ‘It’s no use, anyway, Rafe, there’s no connectivity,’ he managed to say. ‘We saw that yesterday.’

  I pushed him aside to get back to the Reverend, who was huddling by the fire. ‘But surely there must be an emergency channel. We need those phones.’

  Reverend James glanced at Stephen and I saw what looked like collusion. As if they knew something I didn’t and were trying to hide it from me. ‘Glen took them all into the tower. He was in charge of them. I looked for them in the room. Gone!’

  ‘You sure?’

  Reverend James again flicked that conspiratorial glance at Stephen. ‘We– we thought the tower would be the best place. Glen said he would lock them away.’

  Stephen nodded. ‘I gave him the basket.’

  ‘That’s what w-we were s-searching for.’

  ‘The thing is, to remain calm,’ said Reverend James, ‘especially in front of the women. We don’t want to frighten them.’

  He looked so smugly self-enclosed that I wanted to hit him. ‘I don’t believe it! You’re responsible for our safety here, and you don’t even have a phone.’

  Reverend James turned his back to me, crouched by the fire. He threw a heavy log onto the flames and worried the embers with a long fire poker. The fire burned angrily. I could feel that he wished it was me he was poking in that fire. In the mirror, a second blaze threw parallel flames on the side of the room. Nine mirror images of stunned old Twelve members huddled together in their nightclothes against the warmth.

  ‘Poor Glen,’ said Alison. ‘He must have been out on the balcony, leaned on the rotten wood railing, and…’

  I met Emily’s eyes. Hell, we were out there with him last night.

  ‘A freak accident,’ said Stephen, more to himself than to anyone else. ‘I was supposed to have that room. But Glen said he was fine with it.’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself,’ said Reverend James.

  ‘I can’t bear to think of what happened,’ Emily said. ‘Poor Glen.’

  Reverend James stood, the poker in his hand. ‘Girls,’ he said, ‘let’s have some coffee.’

  I had forgotten how submissive the women in the Church had to be. Still it was a shock to see Linda meekly stand and obey. ‘Sure.’

  Alison joined her, and Suzanne and Emily followed, begrudgingly. Reverend James waited for them to disappear into the kitchen before speaking again, sotto voce. ‘Let’s all calm down. We mustn’t scare the girls.’

  Danny: ‘C-could he be alive still?’

  Mike shook his head. ‘No one could survive that fall. Straight onto those rocks. I know. I’ve seen some tragic accidents like this on Mount Everest.’

  Reverend James concurred. ‘He was dead when he hit the ground. He didn’t suffer.’

  I stared at him. ‘How can you say that?’

  Reverend James returned the stare. ‘I can say that. I know that.’

  ‘We have to go and get him,’ said Danny. ‘What are we waiting for? Mike’s a mountaineer.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘It would be suicide in this weather. And it’s still too dark to see anything.’

  ‘Emergency services should be
able to get here,’ I said. ‘That’s what they’re trained to do.’

  Reverend James brandished the poker at the fire. ‘What we need to do is pray. Panic, fear and doubt are not the way of the Lord. The God who made the universe has counted the very hairs of our heads. We have to stay strong.’

  I took the poker from him and stirred the fire, making sparks shoot up. I could not believe what I was hearing.

  ‘We must stay put,’ said Reverend James. ‘It’s a time for faith. We’re being tested. We need to pray.’ He held out his hands to Danny and Mike. Danny reached for my hand but I pulled back. Stephen gazed up at the ceiling, while Mike opened his palms and closed his eyes. Reverend James screwed his eyes tightly shut. I kept mine open.

  ‘Lord, keep us safe. In your wisdom, you have kept us safe. Guide us, Lord, into what we should do here. ‘We pray for Glen’s soul, that he is in Thy peace. Amen.’

  ‘Amen.’

  The women arrived with coffee (caffeine somehow escaped the net of those things forbidden) and we sipped scalding over-sweetened drinks, grateful to stop the chattering teeth, the cold numbness inside. Wide eyes, steam, hands cupping mugs. I observed these people in the mirror. Something was not right here. Reverend James and Stephen kept exchanging sly glances. Linda chewed her nails and glanced nervously at her husband, but as soon as he looked back, she averted her eyes. This was not a normal reaction to a close friend’s death. This looked like… guilt.

  Suzanne smiled a Hollywood smile as she placed a mug of coffee in my hands. But her hands were shaking. She too looked guilty.

  ‘Girls,’ said Reverend James, ‘we have put it all in the hands of God. Trust Him.’

  I let the coffee burn down my throat. ‘Nothing more we need to do? What about Glen’s body?’

  ‘We can do nothing now,’ said Stephen. ‘Let’s go and shower and we’ll meet in half an hour for breakfast.’

  I tried to contain the burning rage in my chest. I was shaking, more with cold than with anger, so discarded my sodden clothes and pulled on long thermal underwear, jeans, T-shirt, shirt, sweater, coat and thick socks. The smugness of these people! Even when death was present, they cocooned themselves in platitudes. I was on my own here, I could see.