Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne Page A

cuts. There were three lanterns, set on the floor, and in their light she could see the mound of old bricks in one corner—masses and masses of bricks, all lying higgledy-piggledy. There was a tub of something grey and sloshily wet nearby, and a little clutter of gardening things: a trowel and a small spade. The person who was so scarily unlike her grandfather but who still had his face was moving about. He was lit from below by the storm-lanterns—perhaps it was just the light that was making him look so strange. Shona hoped so.
    He bent down and lifted something that had been lying in a corner. Shona saw it was a woman of about twenty-five with long brown hair. Her face was a mottled blue-grey and Shona had a feeling she ought to know who she was, but although she looked very hard, she did not recognize her at all. Whoever she was, she was so still Shona thought she must be dead. It was how dead people looked in comics—she had seen them at school. This was very bad indeed. Shona would not have picked up a horrid dead body in her arms, but her grandfather did not seem to care. He did not look scary now, he looked as if he might be trying not to cry and he stood quite still for a moment, holding the woman in his arms. Shona felt a sudden surge of loathing for the brown-haired woman because her grandfather and mother were both looking down at the horrid dead face with such immense love. They had never looked at Shona like that, not ever! She thought nobody had ever looked at her like that in her whole life. Her mother always had lots of things to do in the house and garden, and her grandfather was only ever disapproving, telling her to be quiet, or to do her homework, and wanting to know why she could not occupy her time with boring old embroidery and pressing wildflowers. Remembering that, Shona found herself hating the brown-haired woman who made Grandfather’s face go all soft and silly, and Mother’s eyes fill with tears.
    Grandfather put the woman in a little recess at the back of the cellar. It was the tiniest space imaginable and there was not room to lay her down on the ground so he propped her against the wall and the black pipes immediately behind it. Twice she flopped forward, falling onto his chest, and Shona saw her mother shudder. But at the third attempt the woman stayed upright, wedged between the thick pipes, her head lolling forward. Grandfather glanced at Shona’s mother, then leaned forward and cupped the dead face in his hands, and kissed the forehead. After a moment, her mother stepped forward and did the same. This was disgusting. Shona felt sick to see them kissing this woman, sick with jealousy.
    Grandfather squared his shoulders as if he had to take on an immensely heavy burden, and began to build up the bricks to hide the woman. His face had the scary expression again, as if the wolf might be about to throw off the disguise and leap forward.
    Her mother did not seem to see this. She helped him lay the bricks and put on the wet cement. Once Grandfather said, half to himself, ‘Such wickedness, Margaret,’ and Mother let out a half sob, and then said, ‘The wickedness was never meant, Father. You do know that.’
    â€˜Of course I know.’ His hands, a bit twisted with arthritis, reached out to hers and enclosed them for a moment.
    â€˜I can hardly believe you’re doing this for me.’
    â€˜I look to my own,’ he said gruffly.
    â€˜But the risk. If it’s ever discovered—’
    â€˜It won’t be discovered,’ he said. ‘We’ll do what has to be done, and then it’ll never be spoken of. The wall will look like part of the cellar. No one else need ever know.’
    â€˜No one must ever know,’ said Mother. ‘Never.’
    Neither of them said anything after this, and for a long time the only sound was the wet slapping of the cement and the scraping of the bricks, and the laboured breathing as Shona’s