by Leena Maria
She nodded, mutely, tears springing into her eyes again.
"Who was it, my girl?" He looked angry, "Who did this to you?"
"I can't tell you," she whispered, trying to wipe the tears that refused to stop running.
The boy stood there quietly for a while, and then nodded his head.
"Good thing the old girl is blind. Just you carry on for another day or two, and my sis will fix things up with the old lady. You try to keep your secret a bit longer, and you'll be out of here in a couple of days, if they'll let you go."
In two days she resigned and moved into the little house of the blind old lady. They made an agreement that she did not need to pay rent for her tiny bedroom, if she ran the household for her landlady.
The old lady had been quarreling with her neighbors for so long that there was no danger of any of them popping in for a visit and seeing that the new maid was pregnant.
So there she stayed, working hard so the landlady would not throw her out. She hid her growing belly in a long thick winter coat whenever she went out, trying to find clues to where he had gone, visiting all the other places where they had met, hoping for a note, a message. The only place she did not go to was the house he had been living in. He would never have left her voluntarily, not with the feeling of deep belonging that they shared, so something must have happened to him. Had he died in the hands of those he feared so much?
She did not find any trace of him, and when her pregnancy became too obvious, she stopped going out. They blocked the windows with cardboard at night and she stayed indoors, hiding in the darkness of the blackout.
Shortly before she was due, there was a knock on the front door late one evening. She tried to keep her huge belly hidden behind the door when she opened it. There was the grocery boy's sister, carrying a big professional-looking bag. The woman smiled up at her.
"Step outside, duck, so the landlady won't hear," she said in a barely audible voice, "She has the ears of a bat, that one."
She reached for her winter coat hanging by the door, leaving the door slightly open. An ARP warden came round the corner, spotted the chink of light and yelled "Oy! Put that bleedin' light out!" Quickly wrapping her coat around her like a cloak, she stepped outside closing the door behind her. The grocery boy's sister opened the coat enough to take a look of her bulging form, measuring it with a pair of knowing eyes.
"Hmph. Yes, not long now. I'm Molly, as I think me brother told you? I've come to stay with you until the baby arrives and I'll help you with the labour. Some swine got you into trouble, eh, dear? "
At that she stepped inside and proceeded to greet the landlady with the pretext of having to stay in the city for a few days and asked if she could stop over for a few nights. The landlady agreed, perhaps convinced by some eggs brought as a gift.
Her labour started two days later, early in the morning. Soon, she was clutching her belly as the spasms began. She needed to get out of the landlady's house as soon as possible, so they hurried off, with Molly calling out that they needed to "get some bits and pieces of shopping." Molly walked with her to an empty house, supporting her when the pain made her lose balance. It was a smart house whose owners had gone to the country for the duration, and Molly had the key to it because her brother delivered goods here when the owners were at home, and she cleaned for them.
There, in the kitchen she gave birth to her daughter, helped by her unofficial midwife, who seemed to know exactly what she was doing.
"Our ma was a midwife and I've helped her plenty of times," Molly explained, "as well as her having seven of her own. And you are doing just fine, despite the pain. Hold my hand tight when you want, sweetheart, and don't you try to hold back - that includes screaming if you need to!"
The baby came out surprisingly fast into Molly's capable hands, though it felt as though she was being torn in two. She tried not to cry out because of the neighbours, but could not stay completely quiet. Luckily no one came knocking on the door.
The grocery boy's sister cleaned the tiny baby and wrapped her in a shawl she had with her, and when the afterbirth had come away, helped the new mother to her feet.
"Here are some pads for you to hide the bleeding. I'm sorry that you can't stay here. I'll help you back to the landlady's house, but you'll have to take it from there."
She looked down at her new daughter, and then at Molly.
"Do you really think she'll believe us, the landlady?"
"Dunno, sweetheart, but we have to try. Do you think you can walk now? That's a good girl. And little 'un's fine. Just fine. So pretty. One of the prettiest I've ever seen. Are you sure you don't want to see if we can find a new home for her, a good one?"
"No! I can't give her up, I can't!" The anguish she felt at the idea was beyond belief.
They carried the baby girl to the old lady's house, pretending they had found her on the street with a note on her saying the mother could not keep the baby.
"What? Someone abandoned a newborn on the street? I can't believe the morals of people in wartime!" the old lady said, clearly cross. "A foundling! What on earth do you intend doing with it?"
"Her," said Molly, "it's a girl. The baby is far too tiny to be taken anywhere else. That's my opinion. She might not make it anyway. Might as well make her few days on this earth happy and comfortable - better than taking her to an orphanage, they're nasty places, them! She'd likely die there. She'll need constant attention, though. I've plenty of sisters and aunties, so I get lots of advice on how to take care of newborns. I'll see if they can help. Perhaps my brother could bring some bottle milk, if needs be?"
"It won't survive without mother's milk!" the old woman shook her head, "But I suppose we can't do much else. I'll give her a few days."
"Not a word though," said Molly. "You know how people talk."
Luckily the new mother had plenty of milk, and despite her tiny size, the baby hung onto life, sucking at her breast hungrily as she fed her in the privacy of her room.
"Well, well, well," marvelled the old lady, "I'd never have thought it possible that a newborn could thrive on anything other than mother's milk. Never thought to be learning something new at my age!"
Once it was clear the child would live, the landlady surprised them all by falling in love with the little baby. If the old lady suspected the truth, she was kind enough not to voice her suspicions. After the grocery boy's sister left, they were allowed to stay. Strange though her circumstances were, she found herself almost content with her baby and the old woman, who was now almost a substitute grandmother.
The connection between the new mother and her baby was so strong that she spent all her free time sitting by the cot, admiring her perfection. That anything so beautiful could have come from their love made her mute with gratitude. Looking at the sleeping baby she either felt such love her heart would surely burst or she fell to the pits of deepest despair, missing him so much that it hurt her, fearing what might have happened to him.
"I will protect her, I promise you," she whispered to the empty room one night when she could not sleep and was sitting guarding their baby. She gently stroked the unbelievably soft skin on her daughter's cheek. The baby did not wake up but a tiny hand wrapped around her finger. She could not take her finger away and sat there with hot tears running down her cheek, mumbling words of protection and love.
And then she began to see the shadows. At first she thought it was some problem with her vision. They seemed to follow her, slipping just out of sight when she turned to look at a movement she thought she had seen from the corner of her eye. Then, one day, the sudden noise of something clattering to the ground behind her in the street made her jump, and when she turned around quickly, she was certain she could see a shadowy figure behind the fallen dustbin, just for a few seconds.
Now she was certain they were real creatures. What her lost love had told her about the ones that were after him made her very scared, but why exactly these shadows should be following her, she did not kn
ow. Were they trying to find him through her? Why had they not shown up earlier, if that was the case? How had they found her? What were they looking for?
She had her answer the day one of the shadows materialised inside the old lady's house. She returned from the kitchen with a tea tray for the old lady, and saw her sitting in her armchair, tenderly holding the baby. She was crooning an old nursery rhyme to the child.
"Bye Baby Bunting, Daddy's gone a hunting, to get a little rabbit skin to keep a Baby Bunting in..." The absurd words rang in her brain and would not go away.
It's a trick of the light, she told herself. A trick of the eyes. A trick of - the brain. But that - she did not want to think about that, the possibility that it was only in her mind. It was standing right next to the old lady, who had no idea of the presence of the nightmarish creature, and kept on cooing at the child. The mist - entity - reached out human-like arms towards her baby.
Her rage flared in an instant, and her body responded. She slashed the shadow down and killed it with the fury of a lioness protecting her young. Quickly, without hesitation.
The shadow silently crumbled into a heap of dust. The landlady seemed not to hear the sounds the killing made, and thankfully could not see how the shadow had been destroyed, or her deepest secret would have been out. But that also meant there were no witnesses to the existence of the shadows. Only she had seen them.
She was now horrified. He had told her that there were things in this world people had no idea about, and she had nurtured the thought that he was talking in metaphors. She had not quite believed all he had to say about her heritage, because it had been too strange for her rational mind. Now, after what had just happened, there was no way of denying that he had meant it literally.
She served the old lady her tea with unsteady hands, avoiding the heap of dust on the carpet, and then cleaned the floor. The dust looked just like ordinary dust, and there was much less of it than she had expected.
"It's time for her bottle. I'll take her for her feed." With her hands still shaking she reached for her baby, careful to avoid the spot where she had killed the darkness. She fed her daughter in her room, rocking her body back and forth, mumbling prayers under her breath, calling on heavenly forces to protect her and her child. Looking down at her daughter, she came to a sudden decision.
"I need to go out and try to find something to eat. I heard of a place that has some meat and we've still got coupons." She tried to sound calm. "I'll take the baby with me."
"Be careful she doesn't catch a cold. That can be a serious thing for a baby! Wrap up warm." The old lady seemed to be reluctant to let them go.
She had no clear plan of what to do next, but she couldn't get the hideous image out of her head. If one of her nightmares could make it into the house, surely more of its kind would follow later. For now, she did the only thing that came into her mind - she ran away.
Then the air raid siren started its wailing scream, and she took shelter with the baby until the bombing was over. When she returned, in the place where the old lady's house stood there was nothing but a blackened, smoking ruin. The stench of burning filled her nostrils as she watched the hopeless task of the wardens and the fire services as they picked their way carefully over the debris. She knew that they would find no survivors. She turned away, with a catch in her throat, holding her baby even closer to her, kissing her head. But mingled amongst her sadness for the grumpy old woman who had turned out to be so kind, there was relief. Surely the shadows now thought she and the baby were dead too?
She sought shelter in an old church with her child, but did not dare to sleep for fear of the shadows returning. She sat there, with dark rings around her eyes, holding her baby, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible in the midst of others who had lost their homes. They were avoiding her - or was that her imagination? In the corners of the room, she seemed to see shadows, but they were real shadows - the shadows of people who had lost their homes, and sometimes their loved ones. Only, her eyes darted from one figure to the next, seeking reassurance that they were normal people, and not shades.
And now the air raid siren had started to wail again. She ran towards a shelter, through the darkening streets, holding the baby tightly. Her heart was beating so loudly she couldn't even hear the sirens anymore. The shadows on the streets condensed around her, moving at the same speed as she was running. She sobbed silently, scared out of her wits.
They were waiting for her under the notice with the underground sign and text that read "This way to the air raid shelter". People ran right by them, not paying any attention to the shadowy mist that was darkening and swirling by the gaping entrance to the Underground. It was as though they did not see the creatures at all.
The shadows were not alone. In the midst of them stood a tall, dark man. He was leaning against the wall, with his face half-hidden by the brim of his hat, and and the swirling mass of shade responded to his slight movements as he inhaled his cigarette and then exhaled the smoke, slowly.
On the other side of the street was another man, without a hat, whose skin seemed to glow strangely in the gloom. This man had piercing dark eyes and his stillness made her wonder for the moment if he was a mannequin. His whole attention was directed on her and her baby, and his eyes did not blink.
The tall dark man with the hat turned his head in her direction and she saw him clearly for the first time as he looked pleasantly back at her. It was the look of someone who was absolutely certain of his power. There was something about him that did not fit in - he did not seem British, somehow.
She knew what he was the second she saw the golden, piercing eyes measuring the baby in her arms. Her lost love had explained all about the yellow eyes to her. And he had warned her of this man especially, if he was whom she suspected him to be. He was just as he had been described to her.
"Give the baby to me," said the man, from the midst of the shadows. His voice was barely audible, but for some reason she heard him loudly and clearly. She did not recognise his accent.
"No." She was holding her daughter so closely to her that she heard the baby give a little squeak of protest.
The planes were right above them now, the last of the running people had vanished through the underground's entrance. The air raid sirens were still wailing and the shadowy mist seemed to swirl around the dark man to the rhythm of the sound. She thought she saw monstrous forms within the misty darkness, half animal, half human. The screeching of the bombs as they fell and the crump of the first explosions came from not too far away. The ground was shaking under her feet.
"Then we shall take her, if you will not give her up willingly," said the man in a bored manner and with a slight movement of his hand gestured to the shadows to move forward. They began to glide towards her.
"Why?" She squeezed her baby even tighter, feeling the rage rise again up her spine as the shadows formed a dark circle around her. The mist licked around her feet and she looked down to see human-like hands grabbing at her legs.
"She is of our kind. She belongs to us. She should have been born to the wife we chose for him, but he chose you. Still, the blood is pure in you, so the child might fulfill our expectations. She will grow and help our race in our journey back to glory."
She knew now for certain he was the one her lover had warned her about. Still, she had no idea what the glory might be that the man was referring to. He sounded like a religious zealot. One thing she knew for certain, however. She would not give her baby up without a fight. Not to him. Not to anyone.
The world blew apart just as the shadows reached out for the baby. The blast blew the darkness away like smoke in a storm. She flew– up, up, away from the demolished street. She landed on the debris of a building shattered by a previous raid and gasped for air. Blood ran into her eyes, but she felt no pain. She only knew she had managed to hold the baby safe, and was lying on her side like a broken bird, crouched around the tiny creature.
The air in front of her seemed to tea
r apart like paper. She knew she must be hallucinating, because she had hit her head so hard. What she was seeing could not be real - yet it seemed impossibly clear to her. A woman in strange clothes stepped out of the air towards her. She was wearing trousers like a man, made of some worn-out blue fabric, and a bright red, short leather jacket. She had some kind of sports shoes, with odd thick soles, on her feet. And her hair was very short, like a man's... maybe she had been ill and they had been forced to cut her hair...maybe it was some new uniform... maybe...
"Here, let me take your baby to safety."
She looked into the eyes of the woman with short hair. They were ordinary, kind, concerned human eyes. She trusted her.
The woman took the baby from her arms and tucked her safely in the crook of her left arm. Then she just stood there, looking at her with a curious expression on her face.
She fought through the mist in her mind for the word. Concern. That was the word. That was the look on the short-haired woman's face.
"Come, sweetheart. It is your time to go."
She rose with amazing lightness. She couldn't have hurt herself badly, after all, if moving was this easy. They went through the opening in the air, and the woman, holding the baby safely, turned and raised her hand. The woman made a slashing movement and the opening closed quickly. But not quickly enough. She had seen her own body, in an odd, twisted position, in the midst of the bricks and broken glass.
She understood.
"Your time has come, sweetheart," the woman repeated, "You can go in peace – your baby will be safe with us, and will do our best to hide her from the shadows and their masters."
The young woman had one last look at her beautiful baby. She tried to touch her child's face, but she couldn't feel her fingers. The words came out in a whisper. "Goodbye, my darling." She smiled, and felt great love flow towards her in return.
"Thank you!" she said and her voice sounded oddly clear to her now, and somehow like a gentle wind blowing.
Then she turned and began her journey into a beautiful landscape, heading towards the light that had come to greet her, leaving her old life behind.
