A Nest of Nightmares

Revealed without the disfiguring, concealing outer skin, Xipe was a dark young man with a pure, handsome face. Not a Mexican, Nora thought, but an Indian, of noble and ancient blood. He smiled at her. Nora smiled back, realising now that there had never been any reason to fear him.

He offered her the knife. So easy, his dark eyes promised her. No fear, no question in their brown depths. Shed the old skin, the old life, as I have done, and be reborn.

When she hesitated, he reached out with his empty hand and traced a line along her skin. The touch of his hand seared like ice. Her skin was too tight. Xipe, smooth, clean and new, watched her, offering the ritual blade.

At last she took the knife and made the first incision.

THE NEST

We found the house on the third day of hunting. It was in the country outside Cheltenham, half-a-mile from a small village: a tall, solid house standing on its own in an expanse of flat, weedy lawn surrounded by hedge.

I switched off the engine and we went on sitting in the car, staring up at the house, caught. The roof looked dilapidated, and the house had obviously stood empty for some time, but the yellow stone it was built of seemed to glow softly in the sunlight.

‘Imagine living here,’ Sylvia said softly.

‘We could,’ I said.

‘Remember how we used to play we were the Brontë sisters? In a lonely old house on the moor.’

‘You could go for long walks,’ I said. ‘I’d have tea waiting for you by the fire when you came in.’

She laughed, a brief, rich sound of uncomplicated pleasure.

‘Let’s go in,’ I said, and we got out and followed the broken paving stones to the door.

‘How old do you suppose it is?’ Sylvia asked.

I shrugged. It was a simple, solid, stone box with a tile roof. For all I knew of architecture, it could have been twenty years old, or two hundred.

‘I hope it’s really old,’ Sylvia said. ‘There’s something about an old house . . .’

The key turned stiffly in the lock, and we stepped into a narrow, rather dark entrance hall. Rooms opened to the left and right and a steep staircase rose directly ahead. My skin prickled. Sylvia touched my hand. ‘It feels . . .’ she said, very softly.

I nodded, knowing what she meant. It felt inhabited, or only very recently vacated – not like a house which had long stood empty. That made me cautious, and I left the door open behind us as we entered on our tour.

It was shockingly dirty. The two front rooms, large kitchen and tiny lavatory at the back; three bedrooms, and a bathroom upstairs were all filthy with litter. There were newspapers, empty cans, bottles, cigarette butts, contraceptives, food wrappers, indistinguishable scraps of clothing, dead leaves and twigs, and chunks of charred wood lying everywhere. But none of the windows were open or broken, there was no graffiti scrawled on the dirty walls, and no signs of a squatter’s rough habitation. It was all just rubbish dumped or abandoned there for some unknown reason. And yet I couldn’t lose the feeling that someone was living – or had been, until our arrival – amid all the mess.

We were together at first, touring the house, but somewhere along the way I lost Sylvia. I retraced my steps but could not find her. Outside, clouds had moved across the sun and the rooms were full of shadows. Once I froze at the sound of paper rustling in a corner. My skin crawled at the idea of the vermin that might be lurking there. I called Sylvia’s name but there was no reply.

I went outside, but she wasn’t waiting for me there; the garden was empty. A loud cawing drew my attention to the tall beech trees which stood close beside the house. Half a dozen rooks were perched low in one tree, but at my look they all flapped heavily away.

‘We’d have to get the roof fixed,’ Sylvia said from behind me.

I started and turned and saw her standing in the doorway. ‘Where were you?’

‘There’s a big hole in it. Somebody covered it with plastic, but it’s all shredded now – from the wind, I guess. Rain or anything could get in. The attic floor is all covered with – ’

‘I didn’t know there was an attic.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘I didn’t see any stairs.’

She walked down the path to join me. ‘There aren’t any stairs. The loft door is in the ceiling of my bedroom.’ She giggled shyly. ‘Well, what could be my bedroom. There was a box there, so I used that to climb up on, and then hauled myself up. Old monkey Sylvia.’ She flexed her arms.

I could imagine Sylvia doing just that: seeing a trapdoor and pulling herself up through it without a thought for the consequences, without a fear. Headfirst into the unknown. It made me shiver, just to think of being in that dark, dank space beneath the roof.

‘I suppose it would cost a lot to fix a roof,’ Sylvia said, staring up at the rapidly scudding clouds.

‘That’s probably why the price of the house is so low,’ I said.

‘Is it?’

I nodded. ‘It’s the cheapest of all the ones we’ve looked at.’

‘And the best.’

‘You know what it is,’ I said. ‘It’s the house we always dreamed of, as kids. The big, old house in the English countryside.’