Above the Vaulted Sky - Page 50

                The room is small and sparsely decorated. A modest collection of books sit on a small bookcase. I notice that these are the only books I’ve seen on the upper floor despite ample space on the landing. I wonder, does Yates even come up here?

                The bed is single, and the rug is kicked up in the middle. A stool lies on its side in the middle of the room, and there, hanging from a beam across the old ceiling, is what Yates is asking me to take down.

                I think it must haunt the house in its own way, to a far greater effect than Yates or I ever could. I imagine I’m an intruder; a wanderer in these hayfields looking for the source of the never-ending light coming from the cottage windows. They’d enter through the door, pass stacks of mysterious books, and find the house deserted. I imagine the tricks Yates would pull on them, maybe to take some sort of revenge on people who wronged him in his life by taking it out on others.

                Stacks would fall down, lights flicker, lampshades rattle. Maybe even the rug would be pulled from under their feet. The brave would turn and venture up the stairs. They’d find it deserted just like me and then come to this end room. They’d open the door and find it.

                A noose, sitting dead still, like it has always been there and has fossilised from lack of use and the slow pass of time. I’m almost scared to touch it, like it will shock my fingers on contact.

                I touch it and it does move. It swings slowly and still silently, dust falling from it. Yates’s killer intimidates me like the worst bully. All tiredness is forgotten for a second. I seize the stool and climb onto it, reaching up for the ceiling. I can just reach it with my fingertips.

Slowly, after a few tries, I slip the noose from its knot and ease the deadly rope down. I had it defeated in my hands. I imagine what Yates must have felt like, scarcely being able to visit the room, but always having the dread of the thing hanging there, just a few rooms away. It would have been like living under the rule of a fearsome lord of the manor. No more though.

I take the noose with me, promising to dispose of it elsewhere tomorrow, wherever I go. The spare room is decorated in a chintzy style, with an old, ironwork double bed and a flowery duvet. There are doilies all over the place and even the lampshade is shaped like a tulip.

Not sparing a second thought for the décor, I slip between the sheets and fall asleep. The memory of sleep it may be, but whatever my body had become needed it, and I greet it like an old friend.