The Woman in the Woods

by Lisa Hall

  Rav comes to stand in front of me, still not content to let things go. ‘You could have just called a chimney sweep, instead of waking the whole house up.’ His tone is brusque, his impatience impossible to hide. ‘Allie, you’re going to make yourself ill if you don’t start sleeping.’

  ‘I am sleeping. I’m sleeping in the day, when Mina is at school and the baby naps,’ I lie, reaching for the olive oil.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Rav grabs me by the wrist, shocking me into stillness. I look down at his fingers, tanned and strong, wrapped around my pale wrist and he drops it, looking away.

  ‘I’m making you dosa.’ I splash oil into the pan. ‘Your mum left you spiced potatoes, she said I was to make you dosa for breakfast.’

  ‘I don’t want dosa.’ Rav grabs my hand again, more gently this time, and pulls me close to him, his arms wrapping around my waist. I lean against him, suddenly tired, breathing in the faint scent of the remains of yesterday’s deodorant and something vague and sleepy on his skin. ‘I want you to sleep, Al. I want you to rest, and I want you to stop freaking out about witches and spirits, OK? It’s a load of old nonsense, rumours, that’s all. The whole village plays on it.’

  The village you brought us to, I think, but I nod my head against his chest. ‘OK,’ I say, ‘I’m sorry. I … I got carried away.’

  ‘Go up to bed, go on.’ Rav moves to the sink, fills the kettle. ‘You go up and get some sleep. I have to be up in an hour anyway, there’s no point in me going back to bed.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I say it quietly and wait until his back is turned before I slip my hand inside the bin and pick up the witch’s ladder, wrapping it in the blanket as I pass by the sitting room. Alone, in the bedroom, the baby snuffling in his cot, I slip the witch’s ladder into the drawer, alongside the bones and pearls, my lip curling involuntarily with distaste, before I fold the blanket and tuck it on top. Now the items are hidden from view, I feel safer. Climbing into bed, I toss things over in my mind: Tara, the blanket, Naomi, the bundle of tied hair and what it could all mean, but before I can make sense of any of it, a blackness descends, and I tumble down into sleep.

  I am in the room this time, my feet on the bare floorboards of the bedroom. No longer on the worn carpet of the landing. The wood beneath my feet is warmer than I expected, and I feel a prickle of heat spark through my body. Too hot now, the faded grey linen I wear feels too tight around my neck, a noose poised and ready to tighten. I run a finger around the collar, pull my sleeves up. Sweat beads on my forehead and I have that overwhelming sensation again that I might be sick. I stop, wait, breathing steadily until it passes. I can’t throw up. That wouldn’t do, not now. Ahead of me, she lies huddled in the duvet, a dark head stark against the white pillowcase. A figure I know so well. A cup of water lies on the floor beside the bed, empty, on its side. A few drops of water have collected in a tiny puddle beneath the lip of the cup and my tongue flickers out and runs along my top lip, collecting the salt that collects above it. Thirsty, my throat is dry and scratchy, air burning as I draw it deep into my lungs. She shifts in the bed, emitting a small sigh, dislodging the blue, frayed blanket that lies across the end of the bed and I pause, afraid to move a muscle. Settling, her tiny frame is still again, the room silent once more. I am steady now, my mouth dry but my head clear. I am ready. Moonlight is the only light in the room, a small, cold puddle that leaks in from the landing. It’s not enough to see by properly, and I raise a hand as if about to grope for the light switch before I let it drop. I don’t need light. It’s better in the darkness. It will be easier in the dark. In the dark, they won’t see me coming.

  A cloud scuds across the moon, briefly leaving the room in thick, inky darkness and for that one moment I am relieved, before the sharp pincers of fear grasp me tightly. I don’t want to see clearly but the dark, this thick, velvet cover of obscurity is disorientating, and my heart beats a frantic tattoo of alarm against my ribcage. I don’t want to do this, I’ve changed my mind, are the panic-driven words that flutter across my mind before I push them away. I tried to find an alternative, I tell myself, but there isn’t one. There is only this. A tangy taste lies in the back of my throat, something filled with iron filings, sharp and metallic. Fear, maybe, if fear had a taste. I strain my ears, listening hard, the fight or flight urge keeping me on the balls of my feet, as that persistent thud batters against my temples, a drum being beaten in the back of my skull. It’s not too late, a voice whispers in the back of my mind. Oh, but it is, I reply silently. I have no choice. The only way to be safe is to finish this. As if he knows, the baby lets out a squawk, a shrill, brief shout.

  A door slams somewhere far away and my heart rate accelerates, my breath sticking in my throat as that cold, chilled feeling sweeps over me again, leaving me covered in a clammy sweat. There is no more time. This is it. Quickly, quickly before it is too late.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wake briefly as a door slams somewhere distant, but the lure of the deep, embracing slumber I have fallen into pulls me back in and when I finally awaken properly the sun is streaming in through a gap in the curtains, the room hot and stuffy.

  Silence. I sit up, peering into the cot only to find it empty. The first stirrings of panic flicker in my gut but my phone screen lights up with the buzz of an incoming message from Rav.

  You were exhausted, so I took Mina to school and dropped Leo off at Mum’s. We need to talk tonight.

  I sink back against the pillow, the final sentence in the message lodging like a stone in my stomach. Things never go well when someone says, we need to talk. I lie still for a moment, the events of a few hours ago heavy on my mind, and I think I smell rosemary in the air again. I feel rested physically, but my mind still feels drained. I had the dream, the vision, whatever it is again, after a few nights’ respite. It’s as if the moment I let myself sleep I am back there, creeping along the hallway to that darkened room, the thick scent of fear and something else, something darker in the air. Me, but not me. I shiver, despite the stuffy heat that fills the room, sliding out of bed to throw open the window. I lean out, the sun warm on my cheeks as I breathe in deep lungfuls of fresh, country air. Something splashes in the pond, ripples casting out across the water and the trees at the bottom of the garden shake their branches. I can hear the whispering rustle of the leaves, thick and glossy green, and I tense as the faint cry of a child carries on the slight breeze. Feeling on edge, I pull my head and shoulders back inside, scrubbing my hands over the tops of my arms. I pull on a thin T-shirt and a summer skirt with an elasticated waist from before I had the baby and move downstairs, snatching up my phone from the bedside table as I go. My mouth is dry, my tongue feeling too big, and I head to the kitchen, downing a cold glass of water. My breasts ache and I stuff a pad into each cup of my bra. I didn’t feed the baby, didn’t even wake when he cried, and when I check the fridge the last of the pumped milk is gone. The baby. I have to call Avó, make sure he is OK.

  She answers on the first ring, as if she has been waiting for my call. ‘Avó, it’s me. Allie. I just wanted … is everything …’ I can’t get the words out. My thirst is gone, but I don’t know what explanation Rav has given her for dropping the baby with her.

  ‘It’s fine, fine, all fine,’ she singsongs down the line. I think I can hear the baby gurgling when she says, ‘He’s sleeping. Such a good boy. So like Ravi. He is just like his daddy, that thick, dark hair. So handsome. No one would ever guess from looking that you are his mother.’

  I tell myself that it’s just because the baby has Rav’s dark hair and olive skin, that’s all. She doesn’t mean anything by it. I picture a dark-haired woman, rocking in a nursery chair the same as ours, an opposite to me. Her arms are empty, her baby gone. ‘Yes, just like Rav,’ I breathe, blinking the image away. ‘Did Rav bring the milk? Should I come and get him?’

  ‘No. I don’t need you to come.’ Avó is as blunt as ever, and I picture her standing in her tiny hallway, arms folded across her ches
t as she talks into the landline. She’s the only person I know who still uses one. ‘No, you rest, Allie. I can take care of my own grandchild.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ It’s such a tightrope with Avó, she can take offence at the slightest thing. ‘Would it be OK to leave him with you until I pick Mina up? Did Rav bring enough milk?’ At the thought of the baby’s little mouth working at the bottle teat, I feel a tingle and dampness seeps into the pads in my bra. I’ll have to pump, whatever Avó says.

  ‘Yes, yes, I told you already he brought it. He brought too much, probably. I’ll see you then.’ And she hangs up.

  I pump, transferring the milk to the fridge and then pull out the laptop from the cupboard. If I have some time to myself for a few hours, there is no way I am going to waste it sleeping. Moving into the sitting room I falter for a moment, sure that I will see the grit and dust, the tiny bones from the chimney scattered all over the floor, but it seems that Rav has been busy this morning. There is no trace of the filth that covered the hearth last night. I type Agnes Gowdie into the search bar on the computer, but it doesn’t bring up anything new. I try different variations, using her name, the village, Pluckley legends, but there is nothing that I haven’t seen before. Thinking for a moment, my fingers hover over the keyboard before I type in, ‘Elsie Sparks, Gowdie Cottage, Pluckley, witch.’ The usual sites come up, and I scan down them quickly bypassing all the links marked in purple that I have already clicked on. On the third page, I find a link I haven’t seen before. It’s to a small, badly made website that hasn’t been updated for a long time by the looks of things. There is a picture of the house, my house, in black and white. The roses around the door aren’t as tangled and thick as they are now, the roof not quite so covered in moss, and I realize I am looking at the house as it was years ago, when Elsie was a child. The article accompanying it is brief, and there is no author name attached, but I hold my breath as I read the scant article. It says that in 1949, a young family by the name of Sparks was one of the last to live in the cottage before it was abandoned.

  Despite claims made by Elsie, the Sparks’s eldest child, that the house was haunted by an entity known as ‘the Pluckley Witch’ there was never any evidence of this. Following the death of baby Christopher, Lillian Sparks, the child’s mother, was removed and committed to a psychiatric hospital, after local police arrested her for the death by smothering of her youngest child.

  Pressing a hand to my mouth I sit back, my limbs suddenly feeling heavy and numb. A child died in our house – not just a rumour, it really happened. I think of Elsie, how she had been watching Mina as she told me about the charm. How she had warned me about replacing it to keep the children safe. She doesn’t believe her mother did this, she believes Agnes is responsible.

  I re-read the article, realizing that the implication is that Lillian Sparks was suffering some sort of postnatal depression. Tara’s confession springs to mind and I shake my head. I don’t feel like that, I can cope fine with everything. My house is clean and tidy, my children are well cared for, I get out of bed in the mornings no matter how tired I am. Something flutters in my belly when I think of Naomi’s message to Rav, the way she told him something ‘just isn’t quite right’. There is something dangerous in my house, but it is not me.

  I don’t want to read the article again, the words leaving a nasty taste in my mouth. Instead, I search for Tara on Facebook, clicking on her completely open profile. She has hidden nothing, her page filled with photos of herself with the boys and Karl. She tags herself everywhere she goes, giving the entire world a run-down of her day.

  My phone pings on the table next to me, startling me, and I switch it on to silent, not wanting to be disturbed. Glancing down I see Tara’s name on the screen, her unread text waiting, and I feel a hot prickle of guilt before I squash it down, telling myself I have nothing to feel guilty for, everybody snoops on Facebook. I carry on looking through Tara’s photos, stopping as I reach one with Miranda and a couple of the other women from the baby group. The caption is, ‘BIRTHDAY DRINKS AT MINE WITH THE GIRLS’. They are all sitting cross-legged on the floor, a drink in their hands, smiling at the camera. All except Miranda, who looks mildly terrified. One of the women has moved at the time of the picture being taken, her face a blur, although there is something familiar about the way she is sitting. But it isn’t the women who have caused me to pause. In the background, there is a blue-grey spiral of smoke coming from the table behind them. My first thought is cigarette smoke, or maybe incense, but the plume is too thick. Frowning at the screen, I enlarge the photo, zooming in on the smoke. It’s not a cigarette, it’s a bunch of sage. A cleansing stick. Why would Tara have a cleansing stick burning, if she doesn’t believe in witchcraft? I check her profile page, just in case her birthday is on Halloween, a perfect excuse for one of the women to burn sage at her birthday for a joke. But Tara’s birthday is in July.

  Maybe it’s nothing, I tell myself, sitting back in the chair. Maybe one of the others brought it to the house and Tara burnt it to be polite. Or maybe, I think, she lied to you and she does believe in witchcraft. A shiver runs down my spine and I think of the witch’s ladder shoved up into the chimney, before raising my eyes to the ceiling, to the bedroom above, where the book, An Introduction to Witchcraft, lies hidden beneath the mattress. Shoving the laptop to one side, I run up the stairs and pull out the book, carrying it carefully back to the sitting room.

  The pages fall open naturally, as if the book has been thumbed through before, and when I look down my blood chills. The book has fallen open to a page entitled The Witch’s Ladder – an introduction. The accompanying photo shows a braided cord, similar to the one I found last night. Taking a deep breath, I let my eyes drift to the text, suddenly afraid of what I will discover.

  The Witch’s Ladder usually constitutes a spell, each step on the ladder counting towards an incantation. I pause, absorbing the words, my hands feeling clammy and shaky, before reading on. The Witch’s Ladder may have many uses, but it is believed that witches of old used this method to cast a death spell, by tying knots and then hiding the cord where it was unlikely to be discovered.

  I slam the book closed, my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I can barely breathe. What the fuck? Questions flash through my mind. Who left the ladder in the chimney? Why? And what do I do about it? I throw the book onto the table, as if it will scald me, inadvertently nudging the laptop screen back into life. Tara’s photo of the smiling women appears, with the grey smudge of smoke in the background.

  Sage. Sage is a healing plant, a cleanser. I reach for the book, flicking through until I find the correct pages and start reading about how to cleanse my home using sage, ignoring my mobile as it buzzes on the table. I find a section about how many rituals involve beginning by sitting in a circle and something registers in the back of my mind. I click back onto the photograph of Tara’s drinks and pay attention to how the women are sitting. They are all cross-legged on the floor, in a circle.

  I stop, scrubbing my hands over my face. Did Tara lie to me? The positioning of the circle of women, the sage, all say yes, but I don’t know why she would. Her friends list is long when I click back on to it, over 1,200 people have access to her account. How does she even know 1,200 people? Scrolling through the names, I’m hoping that I will recognize the women from the photo – I can’t remember any of their names apart from Miranda – and maybe if I click on their profiles something will become clear. I scroll, clicking on some, scrolling fruitlessly through other people’s life events, all to no avail, until I reach a name that I do recognize. A name that I wasn’t expecting to see, alongside a familiar profile picture. Naomi Byrne. Naomi and Tara know each other.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My phone buzzes again and tearing my eyes from the screen I see I have four missed calls. The screen lights up again, Rav’s name appearing overlaid on his photo. Frowning, I press the green icon to accept the call. Rav never calls during the day.

 
‘Hello?’ My eyes wander to the screen again as I click on Naomi’s name to go through onto her profile picture. The blurred face of the woman in Tara’s picture, I think it could be Naomi.

  ‘Allie? Where the hell are you?’ Rav’s voice is loud in my ear. ‘Have you only just woken up?’

  ‘No, I’ve been awake for a while. I called Avó.’ I pull my phone away from my ear to glance at the time on the screen. 1.45 p.m. Shit. ‘God, Rav, I have to go, I’m late for Mina.’

  ‘I know, that’s why I’m calling you. Why didn’t you answer your phone? The preschool has been trying to get hold of you for over half an hour.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I just …’ I slam the lid of the laptop down and run into the hallway, grabbing my keys and shoving my feet into my trainers. ‘I’m going there now, can you call and tell them I’m on my way?’

  Rav agrees and cuts the call before I have time to apologize again. I slam the front door closed behind me and start walking as briskly as I can on my aching ankle towards the edge of the village, towards the school. As I half march, half limp along, my breath coming hard in my chest and making my lungs burn, I toss over everything I have learned this morning in my mind, which doesn’t seem to amount to much.

  Something terrible happened in my house – has been happening for years if the stories are true. There is something in my house, something that is always just out of my eyeline. Something or someone that is dangerous to me and my children.

  The blanket. Tara is in possession of the blue blanket – something I thought was a coincidence originally, until I saw the same unravelled piece of satin. How does she have the exact blanket I have been dreaming about? And why did she leave it at my house? I still don’t know if that was an accident, a simple case of the blanket sliding off the changing table and she had forgotten it in the rush to get Rufus home, or something else. She brought up the topic of post-partum depression, practically asked me if I thought I had it. She possibly lied to me about believing in witchcraft. Whoever left those bones tied to the tree, whoever pushed the witch’s ladder into the chimney believes in that kind of thing. And she knows Naomi, who also thinks that something is wrong with me.