Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1) by N.B. Roberts

Speaking of looking good,’ she said,
cringing back slightly. ‘I think you could try harder.’
    ‘Thanks, Stace! Has someone put you up to this?’
    ‘I just mean that you’re a makeup disaster! You
don’t wear anything on your eyes, and you could look so much better. Here –
I’ve got this mascara you can have. I picked up a brown one by accident and I
can only wear black.’
    ‘Thanks, but I’m not really into the stuff.’
    ‘You’ve probably never even tried it, Alex.’
    ‘Of course I have, I just don’t–’
    ‘Take it please! I’ll only throw it away
otherwise. Just keep it in case you fancy making your eyes stand out a bit.’
She cast a squinted look over me. ‘Not all the time, but today they look like
pinholes.’
    I rolled my pinholes at her and put the
mascara into my jacket pocket.
    ‘How old do you think he is?’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘The ghost, silly!’
    ‘I don’t know, Stace – ask him. Somewhere in his
twenties, probably. Come on, we’d better get back.’
    After lunch I returned to the front desk where, for
several minutes, my mind revolved on the subject of Stacey and her sudden
interest in Thom. Rather than believing her to pay genuine notice to him, I
much rather thought that something had been said to make her ask questions. I
had no doubt who that someone was. Whenever there was gossip, Stacey went to
Mrs Evans like a drunk goes to the bottle.
    It started raining and the Cray filled with
shelter-seeking visitors. They kept me busy with questions, but not too
distracted from what I’d seen, or rather hadn’t seen, earlier today. I had only
looked for a moment, I told myself repeatedly. But with so many people around
surely someone else would have noticed. Or would they? How many times do you
look at a man’s shadow?

 
    Eight
     

PETER PAN’S SHADOW
     
     
    ‘He moves like no other, just as the moon – and like
that symbolic sphere of lunacy he hides a dark side he’ll betray to no one.’
     
     
    Some nights later a storm
woke me in the early hours. Thunder growled outside in beats and claps, while
rain pelted my bedroom windows. I wouldn’t be able to sleep through it, nor did
I want to miss a good storm. I got up and went to the window, opening it a
fraction. The smell of the sodden air awakened me. I grabbed my book
(Frankenstein, of all things) and sat there to read. Lightning struck under the
clouds in various quarters of the bruised sky, illumining every raindrop as
they fell long and vertical like millions of needles.
    I soon found myself imagining what it was like at
the Cray with this beast of a storm raging through the deserted gardens. The
river would be running wild and black. I could almost hear the footsteps of the
ghost lady in the empty turret. Every chimney would let the wildness of it in.
How strange it must be to live there. Perhaps it suited Thom, or Thom suited
it.
    Once back in bed I dreamt of Stacey trapped in the
Cray. Terrified, she screamed blue murder before suddenly becoming me, and the
sound of my own screams woke me in the form of my alarm clock.
    The day was very fresh, as is usual after a storm.
That afternoon I found Mrs Evans had me down for the front desk. The Cray was
quiet. I could hear the hum of the central heating struggling to keep the place
warm. Since Mrs Evans regularly had the radio on here, I ran the risk of
listening to my MP3 with just one headphone in. I was miming lyrics to a
favourite song while drawing in my sketchpad. I didn’t see him standing in
front of me. I started. Thom slowly folded his arms across the desk and leant a
little over it, as if to snoop around. Instead, his black eyes just burrowed
into mine.
    ‘They do say that the first sign of madness is
talking to one’s self,’ was his opening line.
    ‘I was miming song lyrics.’ I pointed to my
plugged ear.
    ‘Always on the defensive! What more proof do I
need? Since they say that the second sign is denial,’ he added with relish.
    If I weren’t