The House We Haunted and Other Stories Read online

  "This way," the guard says, grabbing my arm and leading me in the other direction, before opening the door to his compartment and guiding me inside. "You're gonna sit in here," he says firmly, despite a faint tremble in his voice, "until we get to the next station, and then some police officers are gonna come and escort you off the train. Do you understand?"

  "The thing is," I reply, trying to sound calm as I sit on the little round stool, "I actually think I'm okay, so if I could just -"

  "You are not getting off this train like nothing happened," he replies, interrupting me. "Are you aware that it's an offense to trespass on railway property? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to go wandering around on the lines? Hell, did you even stop to think about the trauma for the driver and the guard of a train that hit you, or about any injuries that could have been sustained when he had to slam the brakes on? What about your family and -" He pauses. "Never mind. You can tell it all to the police."

  "I'm sorry," I continue, forcing a smile even though I feel like crying, "but it really won't happen again. It was all a terrible mistake and I think there's no need to get anyone involved." Getting to my feet, I try to slip through the door, but he puts himself firmly in the way. "Please, can I leave?"

  "At the next station," he replies, pushing me back down onto the stool. "I have the power to detain you, and if you ask me, I think you need help."

  "I really don't," I reply.

  "Then why were you wandering around on the train tracks?" he asks. "Eh? You're lucky you were on a straight section, gave the driver time to see you and stop. If you'd been a couple of hundred meters further on, you've have been on the bend, and you'd have had no chance. By now, there'd be nothing left of you apart from..." He pauses. "If that's what you were trying to do, anyway."

  I look down at my hands.

  "You're staying in here 'til we get to the next station," he adds. "I've already contacted the police and they're gonna meet the train. They'll know the best thing to do with you. We should be there in about seven minutes."

  "But if I could just -"

  "Do you know what would've happened if we'd hit you?" he shouts, seeming to momentarily lose his temper. "Who do you think would've had to climb down and verify the impact, eh? I'd have had to go looking for your fucking -" He catches himself just in time.

  "I'm sorry," I say quietly, with tears in my eyes.

  "Just wait in here," he continues, "and don't give me any more trouble, okay?"

  I continue to stare at my hands as he slides the door shut. A few seconds later, the train starts moving again, taking a while to get back up to speed after having had to slam on the brakes earlier. I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm, but after a moment I realize that my right leg is trembling involuntarily. I try to stop it, but I can't; all this nervous energy seems to be filling me up, and I don't know how to get rid of it.

  Reaching into my bag, I fumble around with trembling hands for a moment before realizing that I must have dropped my phone by the side of the tracks.

  Chapter Five

  Kate

  "Ellen Maynard," I say as soon as I get to the little window in the reception area. "I'm her sister. I was told she was here."

  The bored-looking woman behind the glass screen looks down at her paperwork for a moment, as if she has all the time in the world.

  "Where is she?" I ask, trying to keep my temper, even though I feel as if I'm about to explode. The phone call from the police was annoyingly vague; they simply told me that my sister had been found alive, that she was physically unharmed, and that she'd been escorted from the train by two police officers who had brought her to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation. Apart from that, I know pretty much nothing about her condition.

  "Take a seat," the woman replies with a long, drawn-out drawl, "and someone will be out to talk to you in a minute."

  "I'm not waiting!" I say firmly. "I want to see my sister!"

  "M'am, please -"

  "She tried to kill herself!" I hiss, trying to lower my voice so that the other people in the waiting room won't be able to hear me. "Do you understand? She tried to commit suicide this afternoon, and I got a call to come here, and I need to see her right now! No-one's telling me anything!"

  "Someone will be out to talk to you in a minute," the woman says flatly. "Can I remind you to take a look at the sign to your right?"

  Glancing to the right, I see a piece of A4 paper taped to the wall, with the words 'No shouting' printed out in big, bold letters.

  "I wasn't shouting," I say, turning to her. "I was just -"

  "You were shouting with your tone of voice," she replies imperiously, "and with the look in your eyes. It's not just about volume. Tone is also important, and I felt that you had a shouty tone. Now, I won't warn you again -"

  "You won't warn me again?" I reply, feeling as if I'm just about ready to smash this window and throttle her. "How about I promise not to threaten you?"

  "Someone will be out to talk to you about your sister in a few minutes," the woman continues. "However, if you continue to shout or make a scene, I will have to ask you to leave." She places her hand next to a small red button on her desk. "All I have to do is press that," she adds. "I'll do it, too, if you give me cause."

  Sighing, I look along the corridor just as one of the far doors opens. A man in a white uniform emerges from one of the rooms, and seconds later I spot a sloping, shuffling figure following him, with her head bowed and her hands clutching a familiar brown handbag that I bought for her last birthday.

  "Ellen!" I shout, running along the corridor.

  Ellen looks over at me with tears in her eyes, and I can immediately see that she's been crying. She's also got that expression on her face that I remember from childhood: a look of absolute sadness, but it's even worse this time, as if something has finally broken in her mind.

  "Are you okay?" I ask, running over to her and throwing my arms around her. She doesn't reciprocate the hug; instead, she just stands and waits, as if it's something I'm doing to her. "I was so worried," I continue, as tears finally flow down my cheeks. "I had to call so many people, and none of them could tell me where you were, and all the while I kept thinking..." I pause, trying to work out what I should and shouldn't say to her at a time like this; the last thing I want is to say something that sets her off or makes her feel even worse. Finally, while keeping my arms around her, I lean back a little and take a look at her face. With her eyes staring down at my chest and her bottom lip trembling, she looks worse than ever.

  "We just need to get a few more tests done," the nurse says calmly. "If you wouldn't mind waiting out here -"

  "Can't I come in with her?" I ask. "I don't want to leave her. Please, just let me stay with her."

  "It's okay, Kate," she mutters, her voice sounding weak and drained. "I'll be fine."

  "You're not fine," I reply, although I immediately realize that my voice is perhaps sounding a little too harsh. I try to think of something to say that might help, something that could help to snap her out of this daze, but finally I realize that whatever's wrong with her, it's clearly too serious to be smoothed over by a sisterly chat. She needs proper medical help, and I guess the best thing would be for me to just step back and let things happen.

  "We'll only be half an hour or so," the nurse says, clearly keen to get on. "The doctor wants to get a few more test results before he decides what to do next, and it's very important that we're not disturbed." He pauses, as if he's waiting for me to admit defeat. "Please," he continues. "You'll be able to talk to her properly soon, but right now these tests can't be conducted with family members around. It has to be a neutral setting."

  Letting go of Ellen, I take a step back and watch as she's led into the next room. My heart aches for her and I want to keep her company, but I know I should be careful not to crowd her. I've spent my whole life trying to hold back the tide of her madness, and now it's clear that I was fighting a losing battle. In fact, I'm starting to
wonder if I might have done more harm than good.

  "I'll be right here!" I call out as the door is pushed shut, and then I'm left standing alone in the corridor. For a moment, I feel as if my brain has just vanished completely, as if my head is absolutely empty. And then, finally, thoughts come rushing back in and all I can do is stand and wait, and think about the house.

  This moment, this disaster with Ellen, has been coming for years.

  Chapter Six

  Ellen

  I watch as he types something into a computer.

  Something about me.

  Glancing over at the door, I consider my options. The last thing I want is to sit around here, being poked and prodded for hours, but at the same time, I don't want to draw attention to myself.

  I just want to be left alone.

  "Do you drink, Ellen?" he asks after a moment.

  "No."

  "Do you take any kind of medication?"

  "No."

  "Any drugs at all? Even recreational?"

  "No."

  "Nothing stronger than coffee, huh?"

  "I don't drink coffee. Or tea."

  He smiles faintly as he types something else into the computer, but it's clear that he thinks I'm weird. Of course, he hasn't asked me any useful questions, but I don't blame him: there's no way he could know about the house, or about any of the things that have happened to me over the years.

  Only two people know. Or maybe three, depending on how you look at things.

  Chapter Seven

  Kate

  "What the hell are you talking about?" I shout, standing in the middle of the restaurant bathroom. "She's your sister, for fuck's sake! How can you be so cold?"

  "There's nothing I can do!" he replies, his voice sounding a little fuzzy over the phone. "She needs to see a doctor!"

  "You're a doctor!" I point out.

  "I'm not a psychiatrist," he replies, "and even if I was, I couldn't treat my own sister. You have to be reasonable, Kate. She's in good hands, and it won't do any good for her to have people crowding around. I'll come in a few weeks, like I was already planning. It wouldn't help if I was there." He pauses. "Kate, you need to calm down," he adds. "If you get all worked up, you're only going to encourage her to keep acting up. You don't calm someone down by joining in with their drama."

  "I can't believe you're even saying things like that," I reply quietly.

  "If I dropped everything and flew down there," he continues, "it'd just reinforce her sense of the dramatic. There's nothing either of us can do to help. She needs proper medical treatment, not an arm on her shoulder and some soothing words."

  "You could still come to support her!" I shout, struggling to resist the urge to smash something. "We both need you! It's not like Mum and Dad are going to be any use, is it?"

  "Have you told them?" he asks.

  "Not yet," I reply with a sigh. "I don't even know how..." I pause as I try to imagine how Mum would react. Unfortunately, Ellen's in no fit state to talk to her and John clearly isn't going to be any help, which means that it's going to be left to me. Sometimes, I feel as if everyone in this family has managed to come up with a great reason why they shouldn't have to lift a finger. I guess, at the end of the day, they all know that I'll pick up the slack and make sure that nothing awful happens.

  "I can't just drop everything," John continues, with an infuriatingly calm tone to his voice. Hell, you'd think he was discussing a minor hiccup in his calendar rather than his sister's attempted suicide. "I'll come in a week or two, to show my support, but it wouldn't do any good for me to rush down there in a panic. It'd just unsettle her. She needs to see that the world isn't ending -"

  "So you can't be bothered," I reply, not even trying to hide the fact that I'm disgusted by his attitude. "One of your sisters almost kills herself, the other is having to deal with it alone because the fucking hospital decided she wasn't an immediate danger to herself, and you're just going to sit there in your fucking office at the other end of the country and not come to help because you don't want to act like anything's wrong?"

  "I can't talk to you when you're like this," he mutters. "You're irrational."

  "You're just scared," I continue. "Scared of her, scared of me, and scared of the house."

  Silence.

  "Go fuck yourself, then," I add. "If that's really your attitude, John, then you go fuck yourself. But I promise you one thing. If she ends up killing herself, you won't ever forgive yourself for not coming to help, and neither will I."

  Chapter Eight

  Ellen

  "One soda," the waitress says with a smile as she sets my drink down, "and one beer."

  As she walks away, I stare first at the soda I ordered, and then at the beer that's waiting for Kate. We're in a small Mexican restaurant near the train station. Neither of us likes Mexican food very much, but it's raining outside and Kate doesn't seem to think she can just go home and leave me alone. I keep telling her that I'm fine, and that I just want to go back to my apartment and get some sleep, but she's fussing and insisting on coming with me, and now she's in the bathroom, except I think she's actually gone to call someone, and...

  I sigh.

  This is all so complicated. I can't help but imagine that some kind of secret network has sprung into action in the background, with everyone furiously trying to work out what's 'wrong' with me. The whole thing is completely embarrassing; worse, it's pointless, since no-one really knows what happened to me when I was younger.

  "I just spoke to John," Kate says, suddenly coming back to the table and taking a seat opposite me. "He's going to call later, but he wanted to know that you're okay."

  "Is he coming?" I ask.

  "He might come next week," she replies, with a slightly strained look in her eyes. "He... You know how it is. He can't just get time off work at the drop of a hat, and then he has to book a flight, and..." Her voice trails off, and it's clear that she doesn't believe the excuses our brother parroted to her over the phone.

  "It's not like he could really do anything," I point out.

  She smiles politely, although she seems a little annoyed about something.

  "Was he surprised?" I ask, picking up my glass of soda but not taking a sip.

  "He was shocked."

  "But was he surprised?"

  "I think he's just worried about you," she continues, taking a sip of her beer. "We all are."

  "Who else have you told?" I ask.

  "I tried to get hold of Mum and Dad, but neither of them picked up. Dad's probably at work, and God knows what Mum's up to."

  "You don't have to tell them," I reply.

  "Of course I have to tell them."

  "Why?"

  She sighs. "You think they're not going to realize that something's wrong?"

  "They never did before."

  "This is a bit different."

  "Does Luke know?"

  "Of course," she replies. "He was there when I was frantically trying to get hold of you. He even went down to the train bridge, just to see if he could spot you."

  "I wasn't at that bit," I mutter. "I was further away from the station. I wanted to be on the part where it picked up speed."

  "I know," she says, before pausing for a moment. "They said you were wandering along the tracks like you were in a daze," she continues eventually, lowering her voice a little so that people at the other tables can't hear us. "What were you thinking, Ellen? Were you thinking that you wanted to die? I mean, what thoughts were going through your head?"

  I swallow hard, but I don't say anything.

  "You should have called me," she adds.

  I look down at my soda. Why does she insist on asking all these questions? None of it matters, anyway. I just want to get through this awkward conversation and then go home by myself. Kate can't do anything to help me. I have to deal with this alone.

  "We'll talk about it later," she adds with a faint smile, before taking another sip of her beer. "At least there'll be no
charges, so that's one positive to take out of the whole thing. Now we just have to focus on getting you the right treatment. It's not going to be easy, and there might be some days when you struggle to feel motivated, but I'm going to be with you every step of the way, and I know you're going to get better." She pauses for a moment, as if she's waiting for me to agree with her. "I can't believe that doctor let you walk out of there," she adds. "I don't know what the hell he was thinking."

  "I'm not an immediate danger to myself or to others," I reply, repeating the phrase the doctor used earlier.

  "I want to get a second opinion."

  I shake my head.

  "I'm taking you to the emergency room," she says firmly. "We'll find a doctor who's actually competent and who knows what he's doing, and then once we've got you in somewhere, I'll lodge a formal complaint about that first idiot. He can't just let someone go when they've done something like this."

  "You can't make me," I tell her.

  "I'll get you committed by force if I have to!" she continues. "You almost..." She pauses, having caught herself at the last moment before she said anything too direct. "You need help," she adds. "You've needed help for years, and someone should have done something about it much sooner, but you're damn well gonna get help now, do you understand?" She puts her beer down and reaches across the table, taking my hands in hers. "If you think I'm gonna let you walk out of here without a proper recovery plan in place, you're out of your mind."

  "I'm fine," I whisper.

  "You're so not fine," she replies. "You're really not, but you will be, and I'm not going to leave your side until we've got you some proper treatment. You need therapy, and anti-depressants -"

  "Pills don't fix everything," I point out.

  "They fix a lot," she continues, "and they'll help you, and the therapy will help to find out what's at the root of -"