14 – INSANITY

I'm still no closer to an answer later that night as I get ready for bed. Spock jumps onto the covers as I put my hot chocolate on the bedside table and I lean down to stroke his head.

'Spock, am I really insane?'

Spock tries to lick my hand as I'm stroking him. Overexcited, he catches sight of himself in the mirror and springboards off the bed to bark at his reflection. Great, I wouldn't get a rational answer out of him anyway.

I switch off the lamp and Spock quietens. In the darkness I go to the window and let the breeze blow on my face. The thunderstorms of earlier have passed, but there is still moisture in the air. I close my eyes tight and clench my fists.

Nothing happens.

I open my eyes with a sigh and look around. I can't do it in here. I hoist myself onto the window ledge and swings my legs around so they're dangling over the edge. I push myself off and drop down onto the bench below my window then onto the ground.

The grass tickles the soles of my feet as I step into the middle of our tiny garden, the moisture seeping between my toes. I stop and raise my arms out wide, fists clenched. I close my eyes and tilt my head up to the heavens.

'Come on,' I whisper. 'Come back to me. Let me know you're really there.'

My body turns, whirls around of its own accord. I can feel the wind rushing its greedy fingers through my pyjamas, hear it swooping around the corners of the garden. The hairs on my neck prickle as the temperature drops.

'Come on, Holly,' I whisper through gritted teeth. 'Come back. Let me help you. Help me help you.'

The hedge rustles and my eyes snap open. I stop spinning and the world banks to the right.

'Holly?' I say, trying to stave off the dizziness.

Max appears, unhooking the sleeve of his gypsy shirt from the sharp leaves of the hedge then dusting down his shoulders. 'No, it's only me. Why would you think it was Holly?'

I deflate. 'Doesn't matter.'

I head back for the window and hoist myself back up again.

'Hey, where are you going?' Max's voice is concerned. 'What are you doing out here anyway?'

I sit there on the ledge, feet dangling. I can't look him in the eye. 'Trying to convince myself that I'm not mad… or that I am, I'm still not sure.'

Max walks over to me, thumbs looped through the top of his breeches. 'Why would you think that?'

'Because of what Genie Ackroyd said – hang on,' I say, stopping myself short. 'Where did you disappear off to earlier? You just took off.'

Max raises a finger. 'Ah, yes…' He taps his nose and makes himself comfortable on the bench like he's on a therapy couch. He links his fingers behind his head and looks up at me. 'I was following Jonathan,' he says, sounding rather proud of such rebelliousness.

'What? Where did he go to?'

'Well, perhaps it's more accurate to say I tried to follow him. I can only travel so far away from you in the mortal world. It's kind of like you losing signal on your phone the further you go away from a signal tower, I suppose. The wisers aren't best pleased with me for taking such liberties – I'm not supposed to stray from you when I transpirit back here – but I thought in for a penny, in for a pound.'

'Oh dear,' I reply. I honestly don't want Max to get in trouble and even less so when it's because of me. 'But the wisers could see you were kind of helping me by following Jonathan, right? How far did you get?'

'Well, the 32 apparently goes to Impington, Oakington, Cottenham and back to Cambridge. I couldn't stay on any longer than Impington, and he didn't get off there, which means he got off at one of the other two stops.'

I sigh and lean against the cold window frame. 'I guess it doesn't matter anymore.'

'What do you mean?' Bless him, Max looks genuinely concerned and I hesitate. I don't want to offend him in any way – actually, if I am what I suspect I am then just thinking that shows how screwed up in the head I am.

'Max,' I say uncertainly, 'are you real? I mean, are you really lying there on that wet bench talking to me, or are you just something I made up in my head like some figment of my imagination?'

He looks unoffended, just a small frown settling beneath the curls on his forehead as he gives my question some thought. 'I'm as real as any spirit is, I suppose,' he says at length. 'Real is a relative term, of course. When you are mortal you only consider things that exist in your mortal world to be 'real', when that is obviously most inaccurate.'

'Hmm.' I don't know. I'm glad I haven't hurt his feelings, but at the same time his answer doesn't lend me much reassurance.

'What's on your mind?' he asks.

I shrug. I feel stupid even telling it to Max. It's like asking insanity if I'm insane. 'I bumped into Genie at the bus stop. You remember her – Freda Ackroyd's daughter? She told me the message I'd delivered to her was wrong.'

Max sits up straight, looking affronted. 'But how can that be?'

'I don't know. She wouldn't elaborate, she was too busy telling me I was either a mean and nasty person or that I was mentally deranged.'

Max's indignant expression intensifies. 'But you're neither!'

I smile appreciatively at him. I guess if you're going to see imaginary things, it helps if they have your back. 'Thanks, you're sweet.'

'I didn't say it to make you feel better, I said it because it's a fact.'

I stretch my feet out, my toes are getting a bit cold being wet and outside. 'She has a point though, doesn't she? I mean, how many people get to sit on their window ledge and have a full blown conversation with a nineteenth century ghost stretched out on their garden bench wearing horse riding breeches and boots?'

Max blinks as if it's the most normal thing in the world. 'Then I think the simple fact that you're questioning your sanity is proof enough that you're sane. Mad people don't question their sanity.'

I give him a doubtful look. 'Really?'

'Absolutely,' he replies with a resolute nod. 'My uncle Archibald was mad as a box of frogs, everyone knew it, but he took himself deadly serious, so serious in fact that he despaired of anyone ever understanding him. Took his own life in the end, poor chap.'

Well, there's a way to make me feel better, I think, then chastise myself for being so selfish. I mightn't have known Uncle Archibald but Max did. 'I'm sorry.'

Max shrugs. 'It was a long time ago now.'

'Did he go to that Limbus place you were telling me about?'

He nods and gets up from the bench. I notice that the pools of raindrops that had accumulated on the wooden slats remain undisturbed by his lying on top of them.

'Did he ever make it out?' I ask and he shrugs.

'I presume so. I've not come across him, but it would be an awful long time to be there if he hadn't.'

I lapse into silence. Was Max's Uncle Archibald really that much different from me? People don't understand me either, don't understand that I can talk to spirts. If Genie Ackroyd is right and the message wasn't correct then who was to say the message hadn't just been plucked from my deluded subconscious? Receiving Max's reassurance that I'm sane is like being told it's safe to cross the stormy sea by the ferryman taking the fares.

What about Holly's visit? What if that too was made up? What if Holly is still alive, is indeed a runaway, and that I've simply concocted this whole theory over her murder from the misguided workings of my imagination?

I broke into someone's house today, for goodness' sake!

And what of this whole business about suicide? Of Holly, of Uncle Archibald, of my mother? Did I dream up the concept of this Limbus dimension – a place for lost souls? It doesn't sound at all nice. I'd rather believe I'm insane than believe Mum might be stuck in Limbus.

'This whole thing's a load of crap anyway,' I mumble and swing back into my bedroom.

I wipe down my feet on the rug and climb into bed. Spock rearranges himself at the foot of the covers, his head resting on his paws, his eyes gliterring like onyx stones as he looks at me with concerned dark eyes. I sip my hot chocolate and wait for my 'imaginary friend' to argue his existence.

Sure enough, the next moment Max has appeared in my bedroom, arms planted on his hips like a diva. 'What's wrong with you today?'

'Go away, Max. I just want to sleep.'

'No, I won't go away. I don't like this – this defeatist attitude I'm seeing here,' he says with a curt gesture towards me. 'You're doubting yourself, I see that. And really, if I was just a figment of your imagination, wouldn't you have made me a lot more handsome?'

'I –' I stop myself from instinctively telling him how handsome I think he is already. I'm glad it's dark so he can't see my blushes.

'Tell me to do something, ask me something,' Max continues. 'Let me prove to you I'm not a figment of your imagination.'

I give him a heavy-lidded look and sip again from my hot chocolate. There isn't much either of us can do to prove Max's existence and he knows it. We both do. But then an idea strikes me.

'I know.' I put down my mug and pick up my phone. I aim it at Max. Max gives me a wild look, like I'm about to zap him with a cattle prod.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm taking a photo of you. My phone won't lie, will it?'

Max looks mildly irritated. 'Yes, but I don't know if that –'

He's interrupted by a flash and a fake shutter sound. I examine the image, not wholly surprised by what I see. I hold it out to Max.

'See?' Not even my phone thinks you're there.'

'I'm not sure you should take the word of your phone,' he replies haughtily. 'It was made in the mortal world, after all.'

I zoom in on the dark screen for a closer look, but there's absolutely no trace of Max. 'But there's nothing at all, not even a glow or an outline.'

Max steps closer for a better look and I zoom in and out again to show him. In my conviction I swipe to the last photo taken by mistake. It's the Celtic knot photo from Dad's corkboard. I'd totally forgotten about it.

'What's that?' Max asks.

'Oh, just a picture from Dad's new case. You know the arson attack at Farmer Ackerman's? I thought at the time it looked familiar, but I've no idea why. Hell, now that I'm doubting my own sanity I don't know what –'

Max sits down on the bed beside me to get a better look. 'Well, of course you thought it looked familiar.' He looks around, a sudden urgency to his movements. 'Where are the photos of Holly that you had?'

I frown at him. 'I've only got copies now, and they're not even that good.'

'Get them out! Let me show you!'

The part of my brain that wants to be sane tells me to ignore him, it'll just make me look madder if I do what he asks, but there is such desperation in his expression that I have to obey.

I switch on the lamp and hang over the side of my bed to pull out the folder from beneath it. I plonk it down on my rumpled sheets and open it.

I pick up the first photo, the Sharp Shooters group photo. Max looks critically at it for a moment then shakes his head.

Humouring him, I pick up the next photo, the one of Holly and Emilie at the German market. Then I see it. I don't even need Max to point it out.

'She's got the same design on her necklace!' I cry.

I clamp my mouth shut and stare at the door, waiting for Dad to ask whom I'm talking to. I lower my voice. 'It is the same design, isn't it?

Max is urgently comparing the phone image to the copied photo. 'Not just the same design. It is the same necklace. The black string she's got tied around her neck has obviously been burnt away, but there's a little hook there where it would have gone through.' He points his little finger to the image on the phone and sure enough I see the tiny metal loop.

Max and I stare at each other.

'Could Holly have died in the fire?' I say in horror. 'Burned alive?' My eyes widen at the thought of such a gruesome death then reason prevails. I shake my head, answering my own question. 'No, she can't have. I overheard Dad talking to the Winslows' new PI. He said no remains had been found in the debris.'

Max deflates slightly at this potential hurdle. 'But this must surely implicate Farmer Ackerman now.'

'Def–' I'm about to agree, but then I stop myself as I remember something else. 'Or maybe not. Do you remember I played pool with Jonathan? Did you notice the burns on his hands and arms?'

Max nods. 'Are you thinking what I'm thinking?'

I pause to ponder, running it through in my head before voicing it. Yup, it sounds right. 'That Eyra kidnapped Holly, hid her in a derelict barn and kept her there long enough for Jonathan to establish an alibi. Then he killed Holly and burnt down the barn to destroy any evidence of the crime?'

Max nods again. 'Sounds more than speculative, doesn't it? This necklace is the key!'

Euphoria at solving Holly's murder threatens to overcome reason, but I make myself think rationally. 'How do we prove it though?'

'Maybe find out if Eyra's alibi holds up?' suggests Max. 'She says she was home in her room during that time. She had to be doing something during that time, surely?'

'Right, okay, let's think…' I frown at my lumpy duvet. 'Okay, she said she was on her computer, chatting. She must have an internet history or cache we can look at.'

'A what?'

'Sorry, sometimes I forget you're from the nineteenth century. An internet history would show us what she's been doing on her computer and when.'

'So, how do we get access to that information?'

I frown again. This bit's harder. 'Yeah, I have to think about that one.'

'Well, you sleep on it and I'll see you tomorrow,' says Max. He winks at me and gives me a serene smile. 'Goodnight.'

Copyright © H.R. Aidan, 2016