Free Secret of the Shadows by Cathy MacPhail Page B

she was angry at herself. As if her body was doing this deliberately to annoy her. I would have suggested the doctor again, but I saw that she was afraid. Afraid that something really was wrong with her.
    I made her tea and toasted pancakes and we sat looking out at the view down the river. My hand trembled as I lifted the cup to my lips. I was scared.
    ‘Your gran and I used to joke that we would sit out here in our wheelchairs when the time came.’
    ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out like that, Aunt Belle.’
    She waved that away. ‘That’s life, Tyler. You just have to accept it. When it’s someone’s time to die, it’s their time.’
    ‘Do you think that’s true? I mean, that people have their time to die? Or do you think it might be possible to go back into the past and stop someone dying?’
    She smiled. ‘That’s why you were on the laptop, wasn’t it? You’re working on a story?’
    I smiled back and nodded, glad of the excuse to talk to her about it. ‘I’m thinking of a story about someone who can change the past. Go back in time and prevent someone’s death. Do you think that’s believable?’
    ‘Well, Einstein said all time was happening simultaneously. And he was a genius. So, if that’s true, then, yes, why can’t you move in and out of other times. I like the idea of that story, Tyler. But I think you’d have to be careful. You should only save the people who are unlawfully dead.’
    ‘Unlawfully dead?’ I said.
    ‘I think with some people it is their time to die, you know, if they die of natural causes. I don’t think you should change that. But with the unlawfully dead – people who should not have died, because it wasn’t their time, it was an accident, or murder, maybe even suicide – yes, I think you could change that. It would make a great story.’
    The unlawfully dead. I liked the idea of that too.
    Was Eleanor one of the unlawfully dead? Could I save her, so she could go on and expose Sister Kelly as the ‘missing murderess’? I was sure that was what my gran wanted me to do. To make sure Sister Kelly’s evil was exposed. Gran hadn’t had time to find out the whole truth. But now I had the time and the opportunity. And a sudden realisation hit me. It wasn’t Eleanor who had been keeping me here at all. It was Gran.
    I had found out what my gran had already discovered. That Sister Kelly and Dorothy Blake and all of the others were one and the same. She had disappeared to this small town on the wild west coast of Scotland, but she hadn’t stopped killing. The frail old Eleanor had been her next victim. Sister Kelly had still wanted to be seen as some kind of a saint. Looking after the old lady as if she was her own mother, yet, in reality, keeping her prisoner. A hero complex, they called it. She thrived on the excitement of seeming like a heroine, but she was no heroine, she was a villain.
    And no one had ever guessed.
    But now I knew.
    Aunt Belle was shaking my arm. ‘You were off in a dream there, Tyler. You know, if I did that they would say it was my age.’
    She was ready to lie down again. I could see the weariness in her. I so wanted her to go back to being my lovely, funny, Aunt Belle. If only I could get her out of here. But she was afraid that if the doctor was called she would end up in hospital, and to tell the truth so was I.
    Because where would I go if she went into hospital? I could not stay here on my own.
    ‘I’ll be on my feet tomorrow, you wait and see,’ she said.
    The house won’t let you, I felt like saying. Sister Kelly won’t allow it. I would have to do something to help her. And do it soon. I had to expose Sister Kelly, save Eleanor.
    But what proof did I really have? An old photograph with a passing resemblance to a murderess. I need more evidence, Gran , I thought. There has to be more .
    ‘You’re off in a dream again, Tyler,’ Aunt Belle said, as I helped her back into her room. You need a good night’s sleep. So you have to