Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 49

                He smiles, genuinely for the first time. He looks relieved.

                ‘Thank you, Easton,’ he says. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try. You look tired.’

                As he says it, I fully realise the extent of how tired I’ve become. I feel fatigued, like I’ve been moving around all day.

                ‘Let me put you up for the night,’ he offers. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

                ‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.

                ‘Well I wouldn’t be a good recipient of a gift if I didn’t spend some time with it.’ He looks at the manuscript of The Alchemist, still lying on the kitchen counter. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take it back before morning. We’ll be all over the papers you and me, well what we did will be. I have to say, that makes me feel rather good. And fitting with the text I think.’ He chuckles.

                I smile, tiredness overwhelming me. It’s the sort of tiredness where keeping silent is a lot easier than anything else.

                ‘Up the stairs, and first door on the left,’ he says. ‘The spare bedroom’s not been used in about ten years.’ He pauses. ‘Easton, can I ask you a favour? I know it’s a horrible thing to ask of you, just, I’ve never been able to do it myself.’ He scratches his neck absent mindedly. ‘After that, I’ll let you go to bed.’

                ‘Anything, Yates,’ I say. ‘I feel like I owe you a bit after our journey down memory lane.’

                He laughs. ‘I just wanted you to go to the last room on the right upstairs, and take down the…the thing that’s in there.’

                I nod, I think I know what he means. ‘Apart from that, the house rules are unlimited tea at all hours and if we do get any visitors with blood in their veins, then rattle things around until they’re too scared to stay anymore. It’s how I’ve kept the place for so long, it’s the most haunted building in the area.’

                I say my goodnights and start up the rickety old stairs in the hall. I realise how easy a place this would be to haunt. A knocked over tower of books here, a creak on the stair with no body on it. I’d be running for the hills in an instant.

                The carpet is old and threadbare, and the landing has that quaint slant to it that all old English cottages tend to. I pause in front of the door at the end, clasp the latch and step inside.