Beneath the Shadows

‘It does look old.’ A

Grace followed A

‘No idea,’ Grace said. It was the first time she’d paid proper attention to the motifs. There was a small figure on the bridge, looking over the side into unseen water, the face indiscernible. She didn’t know why the presence of the clock u

After breakfast, they settled Millie into her high chair on the landing from where she could safely view proceedings. Then, as A

Another dark space. She shone her torch around, a little wary of what might be revealed. However, as her eyes followed the hazy cylinder of light, her anxiety turned to weary realisation. More boxes. She gave up counting at a dozen, directing the torch beam into each corner, dust motes dancing wildly as she breathed in the stale musty air.

She climbed back down. ‘I think I’ll have to get up there properly.’ She quickly tied her hair back.

‘I’ll hold the ladder steady,’ A

When Grace reached the top, she put her hands on the bare boards, pushed hard, and managed to pull herself into the space. A

‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ Grace muttered.

Now she could see the space better, she was pleased to realise that there were fewer boxes than she had feared. More than a dozen, sure, but less than twenty. She crawled over the rough wooden beams to the first one. Sure enough, as she tugged at it, a long-legged creature scuttled away into a murky corner. She gritted her teeth, and hefted the box over to the manhole.

‘Ready?’ she called down.

There was no answer.

‘A

Silence.

‘A

‘For God’s sake,’ she grumbled, half irritated, half worried. She turned and let her legs dangle down the hole, and was about to put her weight back on the ladder when she felt two hands go tight around her ankles. She let out a cry and clung on to the rim of the manhole.

‘Stop kicking!’ A

‘Where the hell did you go?’ Grace demanded, heaving herself back into the attic space.

‘There was a strange noise coming from your bedroom. I was having a look, but it stopped.’

‘What kind of noise?’

‘Sounded like scratching.’

‘Bloody hell, don’t tell me I’ve got a mouse to deal with on top of everything else.’ Grace poked her head out of the attic, upside down. ‘Is Millie all right?’

Millie was munching on a biscuit, but stopped, astonished at the sight of her mother’s disembodied face. ‘Boo!’ Grace said, and her heart soared at Millie’s smile, so she did it again, and again, while A

‘You’re such an idiot,’ A

Grace frowned at her. ‘You don’t get off that lightly. I’ve got boxes to pass to you.’

A

Grace pushed the box to the hole in the ceiling, and had trouble fitting it through the gap.

‘I can’t manage that!’ A

Grace tried to keep the exasperation from her voice. ‘Yes you can. Just step onto the ladder and balance it on the steps as you pull it down.’

A moment later she heard A

‘How many of these are there?’ she heard A

‘Just a few,’ Grace lied, but then A

Grace crossed her fingers and hoped her sister wasn’t about to bail on her. A

Grace smiled and grabbed the box closest to her. The cardboard that formed the lid had been cut into corners and folded down. As she pulled on it by one of the top flaps, it came open and she found herself looking at a handful of loose photos.

She took them out and shone the torch on them, leafing through, stopping at one of a child sitting alone on a lounge-room floor – in the seventies, judging by the garish décor in the background. It was a young boy, his body almost side on to the camera, but his face looking directly at the lens with a surprised smile, as though someone had called his name. He was only about three or four, but there was no mistaking who it was, and Grace felt a painful stab in her chest.

She put the photo to the back of the group she held, and looked at the next one. It was Adam again, in front of a terraced house, his arms around his mother. She wore a long dress and a headscarf, and you could see from the bony sticks of her wrists and the cavernous spaces of her collarbones that she was frail. The cancer must have been advanced by then, Grace thought. Adam would have been around seventeen. His face and frame were thi

Her arms felt heavy as she flicked through the rest of the pictures, before she looked back at the photo of Adam and his mother. Rachel had both arms around her son, while Adam had one arm draped casually across his mother’s shoulders, his body towards the camera. What had they been feeling back then? It was impossible to tell from one photo. Or was it? For despite Rachel’s smile, she held Adam tightly, as though he were a ballast in the middle of a raging storm, and if she gripped on long enough she might secure him to her. She appeared to be a woman who knew exactly what the future held. Whereas Adam looked like an uncertain young teenager posing for a picture.

‘Grace, are you still alive up there?’

She snapped out of her daydream and returned the photos to the box. She would set the personal memorabilia to one side, and sort through it all at once. She didn’t want to spend too many days sifting through painful reminders of things that were irrevocably gone.

Grace’s fingers were stiff with cold as she steered Millie’s pushchair down the hill, with A