The Grieving Stones by Gary McMahon Page A

came out of the kitchen, clutching a glass of water.
    “Huh… sorry?” His eyes were swollen, his skin pale, and his lips had a slightly bluish tinge.
    “Nothing… Are you okay?”
    He leaned in the doorway, one hand rubbing at his flat belly. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on last night – she assumed he’d slept in them. “No. To be honest, I’m not feeling well at all. I’m dizzy, I feel nauseous. I think I’m coming down with something. I wish Steve would hurry up and get back with the van.”
    She approached him and took him by the arm, leading him to the sofa. “Lie down. Steve will be back soon. He’s due back this afternoon. Why don’t you take a nap? You might feel better then.”
    He nodded. “Where’s Jake?”
    “He went out for a walk. I think he overheard us slagging him off last night. He seemed pissed off.”
    “This is going really well, isn’t it? This weekend of therapy. One person is in hospital, another wants to go home, a third is wandering around the countryside in a fucking huff…” He winced, bit his lip. “Ouch. Stomach cramp.”
    “I’m getting something out of all this. I’m glad I came.”
    He stared at her, his tired eyes filled with disbelief. “You’re kidding me?”
    “No. Everything seems a lot clearer to me out here. I’m not sure what it is about this place, but I like it here. Especially now that the house has been cleaned up and it looks all shiny and new.”
    Clive looked around, his pale face serious. “Are you taking the piss? This dump? We were supposed to be cleaning it up, getting rid of a lot of this trash. I feel guilty that we’ve barely even touched it.”
    Alice shook her head. Could he not see what she saw? “You must be in a bad way. Here, drink your water.”
    He took small sips from the glass. “Thanks.”
    “There’s something I have to tell you.”
    “What?” His voice was dreamy, drifting.
    “I found the pamphlet. The one you wrote.”
    “What?”
    “The pamphlet. You told me you didn’t know much about the local legends, but you wrote a pamphlet about the Staple sisters and the Grief Stones… the Backwards Girl. All of it. There was no need to lie to me, you know… no need at all.”
    “No… not me. I don’t know what you mean.” His eyelids flickered; he was going down into the darkness.
    Alice smiled took the glass and put it on a small table near the head of the sofa. “You just curl up and rest. Shout if you need me. I’ll let you know when Steve gets back.”
    “Yes…” His eyes were closing; he was drifting already. “I feel weird… a little sleep would be good.”
    Alice picked up the glass and sniffed it. She couldn’t smell a thing. She turned her head and glanced over at the kitchen doorway, to see a small, dark figure vanishing back into the other room.
    She sniffed the glass again. “What did you give him? Was it one of your potions?”
    A small sound from the kitchen: half laughter, half coughing.
    “Don’t hurt him… he hasn’t done anything wrong. Just told a few little white lies…”
    That sound again, but this time it was trying to form into a word: “Hed…Hedleeeee… ”
    “Hedley? Hedley Mills?” She remembered the name form the pamphlet, of course, and last night’s dream. That had been the landowner who’d instigated the hanging of the sisters. He’d obviously murdered them because they were inconvenient, a nuisance, and to get his hands on the power she could feel here even now, thrumming like a machine in the background.
    “Clive… Clive is Hedley Mills? No. You’re wrong.”
    Silence.
    She turned and looked at Clive. He was sleeping. Could it be true? Was he in thrall with the spirit of Hedley Mills? It made a kind of sense. The ghost of the old aspiring occultist was controlling him, and had made him bring her here so that he could use her to tap into the energy within the house, and perhaps even help him defeat the sisters.
    She remembered what he’d said about