by Amy Cross
"Yes," I say, a feeling of dread creeping through my body. I think I know where this conversation is headed.
"Very good," he says, keeping his eyes fixed on me.
"I shall be in the kitchen," I say as I withdraw from the room. I spend the next few minutes scrubbing the plates from dinner, before realizing that Dr. Collings has come to the door and seems to be watching me as I work. It is his house, of course, and he is perfectly entitled to watch me; however, I feel that he has an interest in me that goes beyond the purely professional.
"I hope I'm not doing anything wrong," I say.
"Not at all," he replies, sipping from his whiskey glass. In his other hand, he has the bottle, ready to top himself up. "Please continue," he adds.
I wait for him to walk away, but he remains in the doorway. Realizing that he intends to watch me as I work, I turn back to the dishes and start scrubbing. Although I'm somewhat disconcerted by the knowledge that his eyes are focused on me, I manage to get on with my tasks, even though I occasionally hear him adding a little more whiskey to his glass. I'm starting to believe that perhaps Dr. Collings is a heavy drinker, in which case I must be careful around him. I know from experience that men can act very strangely when they have been imbibing alcohol, and I should not like to fall victim to yet another drunken 'gentleman' and his wandering hands. As I contemplate this unfortunate turn of events, I accidentally nudge a glass from the side of the work-bench; it falls to the floor and smashes.
"I'm so sorry," I say, quickly getting down on my hands and knees so that I can gather up the pieces.
"Why?" he asks. "Why are you sorry?"
"I shall arrange for my uncle to reimburse you for the cost of the glass," I stammer, depositing the pieces of glass in the trash. "Please accept my apologies, and rest assured that I'm not usually so clumsy."
Dr. Collings stares at me.
"It was a mistake," I say, uncertain as to what I should do next.
"I'm sure it was," he replies after a moment. He sighs, before looking over at the clock. "Tell me. Where did you and your uncle live before you came to Devil's Briar?"
I take a deep breath, trying not to panic. "In truth, we have moved so often, I do not think I recall the name of the place," I say.
"What of your parents?" he asks.
"They died," I reply. "In a fire."
"Where?"
I swallow hard. "New York," I say, trying to be as vague as possible.
"And when did this tragedy occur?"
"A few years ago," I say, hoping that nothing I tell him will contradict my uncle's claims.
"I see," he mutters. "And since then, you have been traveling with your uncle?"
"Yes," I say. "I am very lucky that he was able and willing to take me on."
"You and he are extremely close," Dr. Collings continues, clearly trying to get some more information out of me.
"He is my only family," I reply.
"And he is a good man," he says. "I could tell that from the moment he arrived in Devil's Briar."
"He is a wonderful man," I reply.
"Indeed," he says, before pausing. "I suppose the end of your day is fast approaching. Will you be heading off to see your uncle?"
"If there is nothing else for me to do here," I say, hoping desperately that I can get out of here.
He sniffs. "I suppose you might as well go," he says, adding yet more whiskey to his glass. "You've done a good job today, Victoria. You have seemed a little nervous, but that is only to be expected and it is an indication that you take your responsibilities seriously. From what I have seen, you are a very competent worker."
"Thank you," I say, walking to the door. Since Dr. Collings makes no effort to move out of my way, I have to squeeze past him.
"There's just one more thing," he says, breathing his whiskey-stained breath all over my face.
My heart sinks. "Of course," I reply. "How can I be of service?"
"This ring," he continues, pulling a small silver ring from his pocket and thrusting it into my hands. "My late wife left this ring after she died, and Catherine always loved it so much. I would be grateful if you could place it on her finger."
I stare at the ring, and then I look over at the door to the pantry. "On her finger?" I say, filled with dread.
"Just a small courtesy," he says, placing the ring in my hand, "so that she can be buried with something of her mother's. I'm sure she would appreciate it."
"Of course," I say, turning and walking through to the pantry.
"You shall have to remove the lid first," he says, following me.
"Yes," I say. "I understand." I take hold of the coffin's lid and carefully pull it away. It's heavy, but finally I manage to get it propped against the wall. I stare down at Catherine's poor dead body. She looks so beautiful, and so healthy; if I hadn't known of her death, I would be certain that she was merely sleeping, even though perhaps her skin is a little pale.
"Just place it on her index finger," Dr. Collings says.
I step toward the coffin, expecting to hear Catherine's voice in my head at any moment.
"What's wrong?" Dr. Collings asks. "Are you scared?"
"No," I say. "Not at all."
"Have you never seen a dead body before?"
"I have," I say. "Many times." Reaching down, I gently lift Catherine's hand. Her skin is icy to the touch, and her body exhibits the stiffness that is common to the dead. I extend one of her fingers and slip the ring in place, before putting her hands together on her chest. She looks so peaceful and calm.
"Have you done it?" Dr. Collings asks. I hear the clink of his bottle as he refills his glass yet again. The man must have drunk a significant amount of whiskey by now. In my experience, men who drink alone have a tendency to turn either violent or amorous - or both - at the slightest provocation.
"Yes," I say. "She looks absolutely beautiful."
"Close the lid," he says. "You can go home for the night, but I think I shall speak to your uncle about changing our arrangement. It would be more convenient for me if you could become a live-in housekeeper."
"I see," I reply. The thought of working for Dr. Collings is bad enough, but the thought of living with him is intolerable. There is something about the way he looks at me that has begun to put me ill at ease. Still, I am quite certain that my uncle would never agree to such an idea.
"You wouldn't mind living with me, would you Victoria?" Dr. Collings asks, swaying a little.
"I'm sure this is something you should discuss with my uncle," I say, hurrying to the door. "The decision would not be up to me."
"Quite right," he says, stumbling over to join me as I pull the door open and step out into the street. Immediately, I feel a little safer out here, as if Dr. Collings can no longer behave so badly when there is a risk that others can see us.
"Good evening," I say, turning to him and forcing a smile.
"Good evening, Victoria," he replies, narrowing his eyes a little as he grins. I can't help but feel that he's undressing me with his eyes.
Turning, I hurry along the street, desperate to get back to the relative safety of the hotel. I glance over my shoulder and see that the doctor is still in his doorway, watching me as I leave. There is clearly something extremely troubling in his soul, something that perhaps only truly emerges once he has been drinking; whatever the truth, I feel I must speak to my uncle and try to find some way out of this situation. I'm quite certain that I shall not be safe if I'm forced to remain in the doctor's employ. How keenly I wish that I could go back to working for Mayor Caster, but such salvation is simply impossible. All I can do is hope and pray that my uncle heeds my concerns and accepts that I must be removed from the current situation.
Chapter Four
Today
"Paula!" I call out, walking through to the hotel lobby. "This isn't funny!"
I wait for a reply, but there's nothing. Smiling, I realize she must be determined to trick me. Having failed to persuade me that ghosts might be real, she obviou
sly thinks she can pull off a few dumb stunts in order to make me change my mind. Damn it, I should have guessed that she'd do something like this. When she drove out of here the other day, it all seemed far too easy. I just assumed she'd go through with her plan to leave Devil's Briar and return to Boston, but now I realize that she had another plan in mind. She obviously parked up a couple of miles away and then walked back here, with the aim of hiding out and trying to scare me. Not a bad plan, but the stunt with the cans was a step too far. She should have taken her time and been more subtle.
Dumb, Paula. Really fucking dumb.
"This is stupid!" I shout, figuring she's probably still somewhere in the hotel. I guess she's hiding behind a door, laughing at her own feeble prank.
"Fine," I say, getting sick of being the butt of her joke. "I've got work to do," I say, turning and walking out of the hotel. As soon as I'm in the town square, I see the little girl again; she's still standing over by the cross, and she watches me as I walk toward the small building over on the far side. Normally I wouldn't have any difficulty ignoring her, but this time - thanks to Paula's stupidity - I'm kind of on edge. I glance at the girl, and we make eye contact for a moment; for the first time, I see that her eyes are a pale yellow color, and her skin looks to be slightly red and sore. So this is the kind of fevered vision my imagination comes up with, huh? Good to know, I guess. She looks like a ghost from some tacky horror movie.
When I reach the small building on the corner, I force the door open and step inside. I've decided to go around the square systematically, checking each building, and this is the first stop. I'm still kind of expecting to find dead bodies; after all, unless there was some kind of mass exodus all those years ago, the dead of Devil's Briar have to be somewhere. I've already done a circuit of the perimeter and found no sign of a cemetery, so I figure there must have been some kind of disaster that caused the dead to be left where they fell. Either that, or everyone left and never mentioned the town again.
Glancing back across the square, I see that the girl has vanished. There's no sign of Paula, either, but I'm quite certain she's around. All I want is some peace and quiet to explore this place, and I was kind of happy when Paula left; now I find that she's skulking about in the shadows, setting up dumb little pranks in a vain attempt to make me believe in ghosts. To be honest, I always thought she was a little more mature, but I guess I'm seeing a new side of her. Maybe I don't even want to be married to her anymore, not if she's going to pull stunts like this. Why couldn't she have just done what she said she was going to do? If she's still here, it means there'll be an even longer wait for any help with the exploration of Devil's Briar. This whole situation is rapidly deteriorating into a complete mess.
It takes me just a few minutes to search the building and realize there's nothing here. It seems to have been a shoe repair business, but there are no papers and no remains of any of the occupants. It's strange, but it feels as if someone deliberately removed anything that might help identify the details of life in this town. Finally, I walk out of the house and emerge in the town square again. I glance at the hotel and imagine Paula hiding in there somewhere, probably watching me. I don't particularly feel like being observed, so I turn and walk down one of the side-streets. I don't have a plan right now, but eventually I stop outside a small, dark house that has a large sign hanging over the doorway:
Dr. Marshall Collings
Licensed physician
I've come across that name once before while I was looking around Devil's Briar, and it occurs to me that maybe it'd be useful to take a look around a doctor's house and surgery. After all, it's totally possible that he might have some kind of record of his patients, in which case I might get some more information about the locals. I've already discovered the small operating theater that Dr. Collings used, over on the other side of the town, but this building seems to have been his private residence and perhaps his consulting office. Forcing the door open, I step into a dark and dusty room with a low-hanging ceiling. Next to me, there's a coat-rack with a large, black coat hanging from one of the hooks. Stepping forward, I try not to breathe too deep, since the air is thick with dust.
I walk through to the kitchen, where I find an old stove. Of more interest, however, is the mold-covered food on the work-bench. The cold, dry atmosphere in this place must have helped preserve some of the items, but it looks as if the house might have been abandoned in a hurry. There's a pot on the stove, with a burned base, and I wouldn't mind betting that it was left bubbling away when the residents of this place left. If that's the case, it means the people of Devil's Briar had to get out of here in a hurry. Walking through to the next room, I come to a sudden halt as I realize that there's a coffin resting on the table. I feel my chest tighten a little as I stare at the sombre, slightly macabre scene. Why the hell would someone leave a coffin behind in their house?
I step toward the table and look down at the lid of the coffin. Was this one of the doctor's patients, or was it a member of his family? Seeing that the lid doesn't appear to be nailed down, I decide I should try to open the top and see if there's anyone inside. Pausing for a moment, I start to pry the lid away, and I find that it comes off fairly easily. As I move it to one side, I see that there's a body in the coffin. Thanks to the atmospheric conditions, the body still has most of its skin and hair, although the corpse has dried out and seems to have become mummified. It appears from first glances to be the body of a female, but it's hard to judge how old she would have been. Her skin is wrinkled and gray, and has dehydrated so much that it clings to her bones. Her eyes have collapsed, and her mouth is hanging open. As I rest the coffin lid against the wall, I feel a sense of great awe as I stare down at the corpse. This was once a living, breathing member of the community here in Devil's Briar, and she's as close as I've come so far to staring directly into the face of one of the citizens. Leaning a little closer, I see that the skin across one of her cheeks has been disturbed; a closer examination suggests that she suffered some kind of deep gash to her face. I look at her hands and see that, on one of her fingers, there's a small silver ring.
"Who needs ghosts?" I mutter, reasoning that this dried-out body is far more unsettling than any spook. Deciding that it would be better to keep the body as well-preserved as possible, I replace the coffin lid. I'm not a religious man, but I find myself standing in silence for a moment, as if I feel the need to pay my respects to this poor dead woman. Still, from a purely scientific point of view, it'll be good to start analyzing her body. The only problem is that by opening the coffin, I've already damaged the delicate balance that has kept the flesh preserved, so it's important to get her to a proper facility as soon as possible.
I wander through to the next room, which appears to be some kind of study. The walls are lined with bookshelves, and I find myself looking at a huge range of old medical textbooks. Glancing around, I realize that the rest of the room is rather bare, and a quick check of the desk drawers reveals nothing of interest. Sighing, I decide that someone did a damn good job of clearing this whole town of anything useful. Were the people of Devil's Briar really so keen to ensure that no information was left behind about their plight? I head back outside and try to decide where to go next. No matter what I do, I can't shake the nagging feeling that Paula is following me; it's almost as if I can feel her watching my every move. The last thing I want to do is play her stupid game, so I head into the building next to the doctor's house.
This time, I find myself in a fairly nondescript house that seems to have been a simple home. I spend half an hour going through the rooms, but I don't find anything interesting. Giving up, I head back outside, and I'm about to return to the town square when I happen to glance at the sign outside the doctor's house. To my surprise, I see that something has changed: whereas before the lettering was easy to read, now there are a series of deep scratches cutting across the doctor's name. It's as if someone has come along and tried to scratch the name until it's no longer legible. Sighi
ng, I realize that Paula's stubborn determination to cause me problems is unlikely to be easily quashed. I'm going to have to catch her in the act before she admits that she's here.
"Do you think this is funny?" I call out, stepping back into the doctor's house. I'm certain I closed the door when I left, but now it's hanging open so I figure Paula must be hiding in here somewhere. "Can we talk?" I say. "I get the message, but you're starting to damage the site. You have to stop." I glance into the pantry, and see that the coffin lid has been removed again. Damn it, Paula has no idea how sensitive this type of thing can be. Hurrying over, I'm about to replace the lid when I glance into the coffin and realize that something's different. It takes me a moment to work out what's wrong, but finally I look down at the dead girl's hands. Whereas before they were clasped together, holding the silver ring, now they're by her sides and the ring has dropped to one side. I guess it's possible that they simply slipped, but when I look closer I see that there's something under her fingernails. It looks almost as if there are little splinters of wood embedded in the ends of her fingers.
Smiling, I realize that Paula wants me to believe that this corpse climbed out of the coffin and scratched the wooden sign outside the front door. Pathetic. Does she really think I'm so easily duped? I grab the coffin lid and put it back in place. It's time to teach Paula a lesson and show her what's really going on in this town.
Chapter Five
1925
"It's out of the question," my uncle says as we sit in the hotel's dining room later that evening. "Dr. Collings is an important member of the local community, and I need him on my side. While I agree that it would be a little hasty for you to move in to his home, there can be no doubt that you will remain as his house-keeper for the foreseeable future. No doubt at all."
I sigh. "But if he -"
"The discussion is over," my uncle says firmly. "Please, let us not argue."
I smile weakly, glad that I am to be spared the horror of living with the doctor, but worried about the fact that I shall have to return to his home in the morning.
