“I can stay with her,” Elly whispers. “I don’t mind.”
Haina crosses the parlour towards them. She stands behind the sofa so that she can reach down and cup one hand around Lakshmi’s chin. She addresses Elly without looking at her. “Go to bed.”
Something feels different in the room now; there is a heaviness, a tightness. Elly does as she’s told, knees aching as she gets to her feet. Before she leaves the parlour, she turns to look back at Haina and Lakshmi. Haina is still standing over the sofa, peering down. Her eyes are dark. Lakshmi looks up at her, smiling softly, a child ready to submit to the comforting arms of a mother.
NOW
After leaving Owen’s office, Siobhan makes her way to the library. Without really knowing why, she’s brought her laptop with her, and her bag feels heavy as she walks. She feels the laptop’s thrumming presence at her back. It’s already 1:30, and she’s late to meet Zara, a fact evidenced by the three missed calls on her phone. Still, she can’t make herself hurry as she enters the library’s revolving doors.
The library feels larger and fuller than she remembers it, the bottom floor crammed with people studying and chatting in groups. At the barriers she remembers that she doesn’t have a card and can’t get in. It makes her feel prickly, like a fraud. She asks at reception for the guest pass Zara has left for her, then makes her way up to the first floor. It’s quieter up here, only a few headphoned students plugged into laptops, surrounded by empty coffee cups and crisp packets. Off the main floor with its stacks and shelves is a slim corridor, home to a number of individual study rooms.
Zara jumps up when Siobhan walks in, then quicklysits again, as if trying not to let her relief show. Today, her bright hair is curled and loose around her face. The room is cosy and plain, windowless. There are various pieces of equipment set up already on the table: a laptop, a couple of mic packs, a small camera on a tripod.
“Hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look like hell,” Zara says as Siobhan takes a seat.
“You’re the one who brought the vodka,” Siobhan says. She can still feel her hangover clinging to the edges of her senses. Staring into the camera lens, her skin begins to itch. She shuffles and looks away – she’d rather Zara think she was bored than nervous. She is used to being the one doing the recording, she realises now. It doesn’t feel right to be on the other side.
“Like I said last night,” Zara is saying, “we’ll just chat. There’s no pressure.”
Haina is dead, Siobhan reminds herself as she nods.Haina is dead.
Zara turns her attention to the camera. There’s a beeping sound, then Zara gives her a thumbs up. “Maybe we could start right at the beginning,” she says. “What did you know about Hex House, before you were offered the commission?”
“Not much,” Siobhan says. Her voice sounds dry and gravelly, so she clears her throat. “Just rumours and silly stories. Kids at school used to talk about it like it was the Bermuda Triangle or something. A place to go missing. Some people said it was where women went to learn black magic and curses. I had a friend who was convinced girls turned into monsters there, monsters who hunted you if you told lies. I never believed in any of it. Not even as a kid.”
“Until?”
“Until that letter. Haina…” She stops, not quite able to believe that she’s just said Haina’s name out loud. She digs her fingernails into her palms. “Haina told me she wanted someone to tell the house’s story. Somehow, she knew about the film I made as part of my degree. She said I would under stand what the house was, what it was trying to do. She didn’t mention bringing Theo, but I wouldn’t have gone without him.”
“I’ve seen your film, about the women’s shelter,” Zara says, “it’s very powerful. Very raw.” Siobhan feels a bristling under her skin, something she takes a while to recognise as a stirring of old pride. “Am I right in thinking that it’s a personal topic for you?”
Siobhan swallows. She hadn’t expected to talk about this, about Nora, about her dad. “I lived there for a year after my mum left my dad.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.” A beat of silence. “Drunk driving.”
Zara takes a sharp intake of breath. One hand rests softly on her chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not.”
“Are you happy to continue?”
“Sure.”
“Do you know why Haina wanted to make the documentary, at that point in time? It seems strange. A house, hidden away for decades, some even say centuries, cloistered in a forest where no one can find it. Then suddenly, Haina decides it should be all over Netflix. Did that strike you as odd?”
“She wanted to help more people,” Siobhan murmurs. “At least, that’s what she said.”
Something flickers in Zara’s eyes: a suspicion, a journalistic instinct. But for whatever reason, she moves on. Her voice is tentative, tiptoeing. “According to Willow, the woman who was at the centre of your documentary was the same one who went missing in the Borders on her wedding night. Elly Carmichael. She was all over the news a few years ago. Is that right?”
Siobhan nods, staring into the lens.
“Willow says that something happened to Elly while you were at the house. She says…” Zara trails off.
Siobhan closes her eyes, and Elly is waiting for her there in the blackness. Elly’s fragile voice and spun-silk hair. Elly, gentle as a lamb, baby in her belly. Elly, who she has betrayed every day of her life since she left that house. What does it mean, to speak her name into her air now? What will it call into being? Siobhan’s skin creeps to think of it, but that’s why she’s here. She’s here to finally look Elly’s ghost in the eye. “Yes,” is all she can manage to say, her voice barely more than a croak.
“Can we talk about that now?”
