Sara Foster - Beneath the Shadows

She left the traffic behind as she indicated right and turned onto the empty road that cut through the moors, dismayed by the heavy grey sky. Five miles to Roseby, the sign said. As she tried to speed up, the snow became millions of tiny white specks shooting towards her windscreen from the gloom. It was mesmerising, and Grace had to focus hard to keep her eyes on the tarmac.

The minutes ticked by, and the way in front of her swiftly became a blank white nothingness. Soon she could no longer see where the roadside ended and the moors began – the only things to help her were the tall slim markers spaced every fifty metres or so, their reflective red tips lighting the way.

She was moving slower and slower, and her low spirits sank even further. She couldn’t risk bringing Millie out in this. Herself, yes, but not her daughter. They were going to have to spend another night in the cottage. She wasn’t sure she could get through it without going mad. She could sleep with the light on, but she didn’t know if she was more terrified of the shadows that crept along the walls or the obliterating dark.

Fear bred upon fear, as the storm of white outside grew stronger. The car was forced to a crawl. Grace had lost all points of reference, even the markers. She was frantic now, blinded by whiteness, desperate to reach the cottage, all thoughts of getting out again forgotten. It felt like she’d been on the moors forever – surely she should have been back by now? Perhaps she had unwittingly taken a wrong turn.

She was on the point of hysteria when a tall stone marker came into view. She stared at it, sure she had never seen it on this route before, but it looked familiar. Then she recognised it with a shock: it was the picture on the front of Connie’s book of ghosts: a stone marker with a simple cross – like a gravestone.

It loomed closer, the headlights’ illumination giving it a spectral sheen. She would be familiar with it, surely, if she were on the right road. Where the hell was she?

Transfixed, she neglected to steer, and the tyres came off the tarmac, immediately floundering as they struggled for traction on the sodden moorland. She whipped the steering wheel hard round, but the car skidded and juddered, and she had to brake sharply.

She peered through the windscreen, her fingers still clutching the wheel. Daylight had faded to nothing; night was in ascendance. She had no idea where the road was any more. She leaned against the steering wheel for a moment to stop herself from hyperventilating. When she looked up, snow pelted the car in frozen fury. Blackness surrounded her. She couldn’t even see the stone marker now.

She tentatively pressed her accelerator. The engine roared, the tyres spun, but she didn’t move.

She kept the engine running and fumbled in her pocket for her phone, willing it to have reception out here. She almost wept when the little screen lit up and showed a good signal. She had two missed calls from Ben. She hadn’t even heard it ring, but now she pressed redial rapidly, her hands shaking.

‘Grace?’ He answered immediately, sounding agitated. ‘I’ve been really worried, where are you?’

‘Ben, is Millie all right?’

‘Yes, of course, she’s fine – she’s playing. Now, where the hell are you?’

‘I’m stuck on the moor top.’ She tried and failed to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘I’ve driven off the road, but I must be close to the village – I’ve been travelling long enough. I’ve just passed a stone marker with a cross on it. What should I do? Shall I try to walk back?’

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t leave the car, Grace. I told you, the snow can cause all sorts of trouble. Listen… I’ll come and get you. Wait there.’

He hung up, leaving her so relieved that she put her head down and finally let the dam of her emotions loose. She sobbed loudly into her hands, releasing all her pain, her frustration, her anger, and her sorrow, gulping in air until she felt spent. When she looked up again, she was resigned and ready for the long night ahead.

Now that the car had stopped moving, the snow wasn’t as fierce, but it still fell relentlessly, and it was hard to make out much else. If there really were ghosts on the moors, it would be the perfect time for them to take a walk. Her eyes flickered from side to side, searching for unexpected movement. Her ears strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. She looked in her rear-view mirror, but the stone marker had been annihilated by darkness. It had been tall enough for a man to hide behind. What if there was somebody there, just out of sight?

She put her head in her hands. What was she doing? Why was she insisting on terrorising herself?

Too afraid to look out again, she kept her eyes down, trying to hold herself together. She ran through everything that had happened since she had arrived – right through from her first memories with Adam… the night he had disappeared… coming back, and the lonely weeks since, as she had tried to figure everything out. All of which had led her to this point – lost within the fall of night, snow suffocating the world.

She felt for the newspaper article in her pocket, and switched on the overhead light. She stared at the photo of Jonny, wondering how much he knew of Adam, and if this amiable-looking man had ever tried to make contact with his son.

Something told her that she was close to uncovering the truth. Everything she had discovered had proved that her suspicions were well founded. So if Jonny didn’t hold the answer, who did?

Finally, she saw the glow of headlights on the horizon, gradually becoming brighter. She kept concentrating on the newspaper article, and her memories and discoveries of the past few weeks spun and whirled. As Ben’s Land Rover drew nearer, an idea flitted across her mind, so rapidly that it was almost gone before she caught it and reeled it in. It danced in front of her so vividly that for a moment she was spellbound. At first it seemed absurd, but as she twisted this strange notion over in her mind, it began to make perfect, awful sense.

By the time Ben got close enough to see her, she had jumped out of her car and was racing across to him. She flung open the passenger door, breathless and agitated.

Ben stared at her. ‘Grace, are you okay? I’m sorry but you’re going to have to spend another night here – there’s no point in attempting to get your car out until morning. It’s too treacherous to drive in the dark anyway.’

Bess was there, trying to scramble across Ben to greet her, but Grace wasn’t paying attention to either of them. Instead she was looking frantically through all the windows. ‘Where’s Millie?’ Panic filled her throat.

‘Claire’s got her, at the schoolhouse – I didn’t dare drive up the hill in this weather without her strapped into a car seat. We’ll pick her up on the way back.’

‘Oh god, Ben,’ Grace screamed at him. ‘What have you done? We need to go and get her NOW.’

‘Grace, I don’t understand.’ Ben was frowning, while the snow sprayed up against either side of the Land Rover as it ploughed down the hill. Bess leaned between the seats, her nose pressed onto Ben’s shoulder. ‘Why are you so upset? What’s going on?’

Grace gripped the front dashboard, steadying herself while willing him to go faster. ‘Do you remember Adam having a fling with Jenny while he lived here? Back when you were teenagers?’

Ben shook his head. ‘No, I don’t – he was always with Claire, if anyone.’

Grace could see the lights of the schoolhouse getting closer. She concentrated on them, collecting all her energy together so she could use it to spring out of the Land Rover and run as fast as she could to get Millie.