Matilda Wren

by When Ravens Fall

  Feeling her shake and jerk against him literately tore him up. He didn’t get it one bit.

  At times it was like he had married two different people.

  One was loving and tactile. The girl he first fell for in the pub; the sassy and witty redhead that had spun his world around. The girl that, for around eighty-five percent of the time, was still there, until intimacy was involved and the other girl took over. This one was quieter, subdued; almost a reverted childlike version.

  All he wanted was to be able to make love to his wife, instead of feeling like every time he touched her he was raping her. Even now he could feel her discomfort, at having her naked body pressed against his half dressed self. She turned her head away from him, fixing her gaze on the far side of the room. Waiting for him to move, to let her know it was over. That he had finished playing with her. James mentally shook his head in disturbance.

  “This isn’t right.” He said as he pulled himself up from the floor. Grabbing his trousers from round his ankles, he yanked them back on. Looking down on Jane he watched her curl herself up into a foetal shape ball “It’s not normal…

  This is not normal!”

  The tears fell out of her eyes at an alarming rate. There were no sobs or staggered breathing; just titanic saline droplets. She knew more than anyone that she wasn’t normal. She felt it every day.

  * * *

  Maisy finished the last sentence of the letter she waswriting. Signing her name, she folded it carefully and slipped it inside of the envelope. She addressed it and put it inside the back pocket of her jeans as she walked out of her bedroom and down the stairs. Her mother was hovering in the hallway. Maisy ignored her when she called out to her and walked out of the house.

  It wasn’t an act of rudeness, it was just that her mind was so focused on what she was doing that nobody else was filtering through to her. Ever since she had first thought about it she hadn’t been able to let the idea go. It took hold of her entirely and the day had finally arrived for her plan to take shape. Once she had posted the letter, a feeling of reprieve took over her.

  The post box was at the end of the road, Maureen watched her daughter walk all the way there and all the way back.

  She nearly had to sit down, at the shock of Maisy smiling at her as she returned. There was something different about her daughter lately. She seemed a little more together; almost sane sometimes. She had begun to talk more; conversation that made sense instead of paranoid ramblings. She even took an interest in Katie.

  Maureen had begun to leave her to look after her every now and then; pleased that mother and daughter were finally bonding. Katie had taken to her immediately, grateful and thrilled at her mother’s attention. Revelling in the time spent together. It was almost as if the small girl knew who she was and that she didn’t want her.

  It had broken Maureen’s heart to watch Maisy reject her granddaughter. Katie was such a beautiful little thing, that Maureen could not help but despair, at the time Maisy was losing out on with her. As much as she adored her granddaughter, it didn’t alter the fact that she should be bought up by her mother.

  It was the natural order of things. Her husband kept his own counsel; never one to cause friction in his home. He ignored most of the daily dramas that occurred; preferring to leave it up to his wife to sort out, wanting to enjoy his retirement in peace.

  Watching her daughter now, almost skip around the kitchen making a sandwich, marvelled her. It was like somebody else had possessed her.

  Maisy saw her watching. “You ok mum?”

  Maureen smiled at her daughter; not wanting to upset her in any way. She always felt cautious when talking to her.“Yes love. You still feel alright to look after the baby tonight?”

  Maisy nodded and continued with making her sandwich; concentrating on spreading the butter to the very edges of the bread.

  Maureen continued chatting.

  “I won’t be long, I shouldn’t think. I wouldn’t go but ya dads quite insistent on it tonight. Says we aint been down the club together in a long time now; and what with you feeling so much better…”

  “Mum, it is fine. It’s no problem.” Maisy interrupted her.

  It was short and impatient. Maureen knew that was enough and that it wasn’t to be pressed any longer. Not wanting her to change her mind, she dropped the subject willingly. She really was looking forward to going out. It was not something that happened often anymore, now she had Katie to look after.

  There was a time she would have been at every social function going, but not anymore. So tonight she intended to really enjoy herself. It had been a long time coming and, without wanting to be selfish, she believed she was owed this one night of liberation; it was just she couldn’t quite get rid of a feeling that something bad was about to happen; that an event beyond her control was about to take place.

  She tried to ignore it and pushed it to the back of her mind. She busied herself with preparing dinner and getting Katie fed, bathed and settled in bed. She wanted everything organised, so Maisy didn’t really have to do anything, apart from listen out for her.

  She had showered herself and was now just applying a slight touch of blusher, to make her cheeks glow. Mick Fergus stood in the doorway, watching as she brushed her hair. It was a dark grey mass of curly locks, although there was a day when that dark grey was as jet black as the sky.

  She still did it for him, his old woman. He had strayed over the years, sought out alternative companionships, but not one of them was a patch on his Maureen.

  It was only sex, he justified himself, not love. Normally when she had been pregnant and not wanting to fulfil his needs; which was all they were, basic instinctual drives.

  There was nothing for her to worry about; he would never have left her. He loved her far too much. He had just liked a bit of different over the years.

  That was all a long time ago. Mick didn’t have it in him anymore to chase skirt. He was more than content with a few cans and an early night with his girl.

  “Are you not ready yet woman?” His voice made Maureen jump.

  She smiled at him with her reflection in the mirror.

  “Yes, stop nagging.”

  It was said light-heartedly and taken that way too. It showed a lifetime of understandings and perception. She followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs.

  Maisy came out to the hallway from the living room.

  “Have a good time.”

  Maureen smiled at her daughter. Although she was pleased to be going out, she still couldn’t shake off that bad feeling. She didn’t know what it was. It felt like she should be panicking, but she didn’t know what she should be panicking about. Mick was hustling her out of the front door.

  She let him do so; sighing inwardly, she decided to not fret about what she didn’t know, not tonight anyway.

  Tonight she was going to forget all their troubles and let her hair down. She giggled as she snuggled into her husband’s arm. She felt like she was courting again.

  Maisy closed the door and stood in the hallway for a few moments. She just wanted to take it all in for a while. The silence and emptiness of the house enthralled her. Her heart was beating so soundly. She felt so calm, so tranquil.

  She went into the kitchen and put a small saucepan of milk on the top stove. Waiting for it to simmer, she pulled out a small medicine pot from her cardigan pocket filled with a mixture of sleeping pills, pain killers and anti-depressants; all prescribed by Sean. She had been storing them up for months.

  Dispensing them out onto the work surface, she set about crushing them into a powder with the back of a large metal mixing spoon. She then transferred the powder into the steaming milk and poured it out, into a mug and Katie’s beaker. Turning off the oven, she went upstairs.

  Her daughter was sitting in her bed, holding her favourite bear in her lap. She was looking at a book that showed a picture of a fairytale castle. It reminded her of the stories her mother used to tell her when she was littl
e; before everything had changed.

  Maisy separated her life into two parts. There was the first part; where she was a normal little girl that had the devotion and attention of everybody around her, just like Katie did and then there was the part after that where her brother took away that simplistic life and replaced it with a distorted corrupt version.

  He was going to do the same again, to a different little girl, she was absolutely certain of it. He had come to her one night, a few months ago and told her that they had the chance of a new life. That both of them could start again.

  It was the closest he had ever come, to saying out loud that what he did to her was wrong, that how he had manipulated her all for all those years was wicked. Not that he had actually said that. What he had in fact said, was that he had the chance to start again and have the life he deserved. That he didn’t need her screwing it up by her obsessive and tedious tangents.

  He told her he would leave her alone, if she stopped making her mother so concerned about her. Be normal he had instructed; like she knew how to be. How come he got to start again? How come he got to walk away? She couldn’t.

  She was trapped with a constant reminder of what he did to her.

  The mind games he played; the physical harm he induced. Then there was the other stuff. The stuff her mind had blocked; the stuff no brother should make a sister do.

  He mustn’t get to walk away from that. She wouldn’t allow it. The more he had stayed away, the stronger she had felt herself become.

  She had planned this night, in detail, repeatedly in her head. The taking an interest in Katie, presenting herself in a positive light, talking to her incessant mother, leaving the house, albeit for a short time only; putting every element in place.

  Her family thought she was crazy. They didn’t know the half of it, she thought. At this very moment in time she had never felt saner.

  “What are you looking at?” She asked Katie. She walked over to her bed and sat down on the edge. The little girl turned the book around to show her mother.

  “What’s it about?”

  Katie shook her head. “I like the pictures.”

  Maisy looked at her daughter. She was the spitting image of herself at that age. It is a strange feeling looking into the eyes of a child and seeing you. The innocence and purity that Katie held was overpowering. She didn’t love the child. She was incapable of loving anything. Sean had seen to that.

  She felt responsible towards her however. Maisy understood that Katie hadn’t asked to be born out of a sadistic act between siblings. It wasn’t something she was a willing participant in either. It was something that had happened beyond mother or daughters control. But there was something that Maisy could do about it now.

  She could protect herself and her daughter from the hands of him. She could make sure that he could never hurt either of them again and in doing so she could bring him down; expose him for what he was; a vile revolting predator.

  “I made you some milk. Why don’t you drink it up and I’ll read some of your book to you while you fall asleep?”

  She handed the beaker of warm milk to the little girl, who snatched it up eagerly and jumped into bed; settling herself under her duvet and sucking at her cup, she waited for her mother to begin reading. Maisy gulped at hers.

  It tasted normal. It was the sugar that masked the vast amount of sleeping pills that were dissolving away. She put her legs up and rested against the headboard of Katie’s bed.

  She started to read the story, stopping intermittently to drink.

  As the time wore on, the words begun to jump around the page; dissolving into one another. Rubbing her eyes didn’t help. They felt so heavy and her vision was getting increasingly blurry. She tried to turn her head to look at Katie but she couldn’t make it move. It wasn’t just her eyes and head that felt heavy, it was her whole body.

  It felt like a tonne weight was on top of her. She wasn’t sure if she was still breathing. She couldn’t hear it or feel her chest move. Her eyes were forcing themselves shut. She didn’t fight it; she didn’t want to. When the delirium came, she welcomed it, greeting the hallucinations with a relish, knowing the reality she had been forced to bear was slipping away.

  She saw herself as a child, playing on the swings in the garden with her sister; the image so real she tried to reach out and touch her younger self. As her fingers touched her own small hand, the image blurred into a vacuum of swirled colours eventually settling on two figures huddled in the corner of the room. The elation turned to a vehement fright, when it registered in her mind that the two figures were her and Sean.

  Again she was a child, older than the girl on the swing, but still a child. She remembered the scene the delirium was creating; being huddled in the corner, her knees pressed so tight against her chest, her head buried on top. He was bent over her, his hands poring at her legs and over her back; his words telling her it wouldn’t hurt as much next time.

  Maisy felt her body vault, mentally withdrawing from the recollection of what she was desperately trying to escape.

  The walls of the bedroom rushed past her, turning into a ferocious sea of surplus illustrations; painting the pictures of her hopeless existence. Redundant memories, of laughter and smiles, mixed with uninvited depictions of degradation.

  Katie’s angelic face a prominent and recurring image.

  The small child standing in a blackness, screaming out in terror at her own hallucinations, until she felt the strong arms of her daddy picking her up. Even in her death, Maisy was subjected to his persistent presence.

  Sounds of ice-cream vans and excited thrills, merged with his sinister tone of her name. He called it out every so often, reminding her he was there; that he would be to the end. The fused clatter rose with each wave of new and old images; swirling and flashing, grabbing out at her as they passed each one franticly trying to pull her into their world.

  The delight she felt, as she let the darkness surround her, finally finding the peace and stillness that she wanted so badly. They were safe now; his toxicity no longer binding their existence.

  Maureen found her daughter and granddaughter the next morning, lying side by side, static and motionless; their bodies cold and rigid. To look at, they were sleeping silently.

  She heard the screaming but didn’t know it was coming from her. When her husband had come running into the room, she collapsed in his arms.

  Mick Fergus lost his wife, his family and his world that day. The massive coronary she suffered, at the scene before her, took her away from the long exertion of her life. Her heart could take no more. For Mick, the rest of his days would be spent in a psychiatric clinic, staring out of a window, rocking too and forth, mumbling incoherent nothings.

  Chapter 15

  October 2006

  Rachel had buried four people in a matter of weeks and one of them was a baby; she still couldn’t get over that. Katie was such a delight. How did they not see how deranged Maisy had become? The girl should have been seen by some kind of medical professional by now, she didn’t understand why not.

  Maybe Maureen hadn’t seen it; being left to practically raise the child herself and getting on in years. It must have been hard for her. Rachel knew Sean had popped over when he could; he would come home telling her what his raving loony sister would be doing. She had laughed with him, at his stories of her sitting in the garden in the pouring rain in just her underwear, or when she had locked herself in the cupboard under the stairs and refused to come out; how Sean had to sit there for hours negotiating with her.

  She knew he had done his best for her but he was a man and didn’t realise the severity of her situation anymore than anybody else did. They had to accept that nobody was aware of how ill Maisy was and that they all played a role in Katie’s death. As grim and ghastly as it was, the sooner they all admitted that to themselves the better.

  Rachel felt apprehensive and troubled. Life wasn’t working out the way she thought it would. She thought her wor
ld would be complete when she met Sean again, but their idyllic life wasn’t turning out quite so idyllic. Were they being punished for trying to be happy? So many people had died, in such a short space of time. Were they cursed?

  Maureen’s heart attack and Mick’s breakdown were just the latest. What was next? Rachel wondered. Having to bury Greg was bad enough. She didn’t realise she had so many tears. That day had gone by in a daze. She didn’t really remember much of the funeral. When the police had come to the bistro to tell her he was dead, she thought they were talking about someone else.

  She didn’t know he had taken on an extra job. It made sense; he now had to pay for rent on his own and had still given her money each week for Adam. The police told her it was a burglary that had gone wrong. They assumed Greg had tried to stop a robbery and ended up being targeted by the gang.

  The fire had destroyed all the CCTV equipment; there was no chance of ever having his killers brought to justice. It was all just so senseless. She couldn’t identify his body; there was nothing left to recognize, apart from a few personal possessions that hadn’t perished in the fire.

  Just two solitary items to tell the world who he was; a signet ring that had hers and Adam’s date of births inscribed on the back and a watch that she had bought him as a Christmas present one year.

  She had gone alone to Greg’s funeral, not thinking it was right to arrive with Sean. He had stayed away at her request and took Adam out for the day. Greg’s parents were pleased to see her and his father, Jimmy, held her hand all the way through the service. His family had all kindly paid her their respects, treating her like the grieving widow.

  Rachel felt guilty at this. It was not a role she felt comfortable taking. As much as she grieved and hurt, she felt she didn’t deserve to be made as much a part of the family as she was.

  She made her escape into the garden once they had all gone back to Greg’s parent’s house after the funeral. It had been raining and Pauline’s tiny, perfectly attended patio glistened in the sun that was determined to out shine the misery of the day. The small patch of green lawn shimmered, as each blade seemed to stand to attention underneath the warmth of the late summer sun.