Page 11 of The Haunting of William Thorn

Tears welled in William’s eyes, blinding him completely. He could barely see the object, but he clutched it tight in his hands, feeling it, and that was enough to shatter him.

It was a simple red coat. Archie’s simple red coat.

He’d found it at the bottom of his suitcase, folded neatly beneath piles of clothes. It wasn’t exactly a surprise since he packed it, but seeing it still stole his breath away.

William almost didn’t bring it with him.

His own coat was hung up downstairs, but this was something else.

A reminder. A painful memory in physical form.

But he knew he could never leave it behind.

He couldn’t sleep without the coat laid out in the bed next to him.

Almost three hundred and sixty-five days, and there hadn’t been a night where that coat hadn’t been beside him.

William lowered himself onto Robert Thomas’s bed, drawing the coat to his lips. Pinching his eyes closed, he replayed the single memory that taunted him, tortured him… haunted him.

Last night had been the first time he’d slept without it, and realising that was a painful truth.

It had rained heavy the day Archie passed.

It wasn’t much different from tonight. William had stood on their third-floor balcony, overlooking London through sheets of rain as the love of his life left him.

It was only meant to be for a night – time William needed to make sense of the day’s revelations.

He’d cried that day too, tears streaking paths down his face as he watched Archie mount his commuting bike, the hood of his red coat lifting over his head.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to call Archie back, to retract his shouts and screams and beg him to come back inside. But William was stubborn and heartbroken. So, he watched as Archie rode off, fighting against storm as he peddled onto the main road.

William saw the car coming. Archie didn’t.

William sunk his teeth into his lower lip, hoping the pain would stifle the memory. Blood slipped over his tongue, and still his mind wouldn’t shift from the scene of Archie’s murder. He clutched that same red coat, the last thing that ever touched Archie’s body, and closed his eyes.

William didn’t mean to fall asleep. Knowing someone else was in his house, he wouldn’t have been comfortable enough to relax, regardless of whether that person was barricaded in a room beneath him. But sleep came anyway, the deep rest that followed with the exhaustion of grief.

What he found was a dream so real he was no longer in control.

“William!”

His eyes snapped open to find Edward standing inches before him. Panic followed the confusion as sleep withdrew its sharp claws from William. He wasn’t in Robert’s bed clutching Archie’s coat. No, he was outside, beneath the harsh reality of a very real storm.

Cold winds slapped his face, raindrops like pinpricks as they cut into his skin repeatedly. William was soaked through, shivering to the bone. A breathless scream tore out of his throat.

“Calm down,” Edward shouted over the thunder. “I’ve got you…”

That didn’t exactly make things better.

“What’s… happened?” William gasped, taking in the gardens of his new home. He broke out of Edward’s strong grasp, turning rapidly. He spun to find Hanbury Manor looming behind him, darkened windows like ominous eyes, the open door gaping like the mouth of a monster.

At first, he didn’t remember the dream, but slowly, the dregs of it came back to him.

A man had been in his room. William remembered following him out, down the stairs and straight out of the front door. Except it was more of a feeling than a knowing. It had been Archie. Finally, he’d come home, only to leave William again. So he had followed Archie until…

“You were just walking outside,” Edward explained. His brown eyes seemed to glow amongst the ominous lightning of dusk. Strands of damp hair had stuck to his forehead, dripping rivers down the planes of his face. “I saw you out the window. I tried to call for you, but you didn’t listen.”

William shook his head, bare feet squelching in muddied puddles across the gravel. He was so cold, so very cold that his teeth chattered, and his bones ached. As if it would make sense to what happened, William lifted his hands before him to find the tips of his fingers almost blue.

“You’re freezing,” Edward shouted over a rumble of thunder. He wrapped a very-wet blanket around William’s shoulders, as if that would help. “Let’s get you back inside.”

William found himself without words to reply.

Nothing made sense. He’d fallen asleep on Robert’s bed and found himself outside, exposed to the elements.

Perhaps he should’ve shrugged the blanket off and demanded Edward tell him how he was outside too, instead of barricaded in the room.

But that detail didn’t seem important in the grand scheme of things.

Edward ushered William back into Hanbury Manor, dripping muddied puddles across the wooden floor. He closed the door behind them, silencing the roaring winds. And yet the chill set over William’s skin didn’t dissipate.

“I was sleeping,” William said, numb to the core. He couldn’t make sense of anything but how painful his cold skin felt. Every step made his feet feel like he stepped on a bed of needles.

“In that case, I’d say you were sleepwalking,” Edward corrected, guiding William up the hallway.

As they passed the room Edward had been shut into, William saw just how Edward had got free.

The cabinet blocking the door was knocked onto its side, and part of the wood shattered. “Oh, yes. I owe you a new cabinet.”

William wanted to tell him it didn’t matter. He tried to say something, anything, but the words died on his trembling lips.

“Is sleepwalking a common occurrence for you?” Edward asked as they reached the stairs.

“I wasn’t–” Wasn’t what? How else could William explain what had happened?

“You should really get out of your clothes and into something dry before you catch your death,” Edward said, dropping his hands from William’s arms and leaving him to stand before the bottom step.

Although he no longer touched William, his stare didn’t stop fussing over him.

“First priority is warming you up, then we can discuss your strange sleeping habits.”

William blanched at his words, looking back to the now-shut front door. He didn’t know what to expect an answer as to what the fuck had happened.

Edward took William’s silence as hesitation, instead of the deep-rooted fear that it actually was.

“If you would feel more comfortable, I can pretend to lock myself away again until you come back downstairs?” Edward offered, clearly expecting William’s hesitation to move on his presence and not that he’d just woken up outside.

“N – no,” William said, grasping the banister for support. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

It was a lie of course, but William felt more at ease saying one aloud in that moment.

For all William knew, this oddity had occurred because of Edward. Regardless, a blush crept over his cheek, staining his skin red. “I’m just embarrassed this happened.”

Edward waved him off. “Don’t be silly.”

“You’re wet as well,” William said, noticing how Edward’s hands trembled against William’s arms. “I’ll get… get you a spare set of clothes.”

Before Edward could refuse, William turned on his heel and ascended the stairs two at a time, his brain feeling as though it bounced between his skull.

By the time he reached Robert’s bedroom, he was breathless. He stood in the precipice of the room, searching the shadows for answers. Nothing looked amiss. The bed was the same, sheets knotted from where he’d been laid on it. Clothes still strewn over the floor.

William changed quickly, discarding the wet clothes in a pile and opting for a green-and-brown chequered pyjama set, putting on his novelty slippers and a dressing gown that smelled like old coffee.

He had the urge to get out of the bedroom as quickly as he could.

In fact, he was in such a rush that he didn’t even notice that something was missing until later inspection.

Archie’s red coat was nowhere to be seen.