Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  All she knew now was that she couldn’t, she mustn’t give in to whatever was trying to weaken her. But her body was becoming so numb that she couldn’t move. Even her brain didn’t want to work. Dear God, what was happening to her?

  With a desperate effort Jessica tried to get her legs moving before her brain wound down and refused to issue the necessary instruction. Stumbling, she half turned around, and fell into a man’s arms.

  ‘Jessica!’

  Marcus Hunter’s calm, sensible voice brought her out of the void she was pitching into, and so she clung to him as if he were a life preserver.

  ‘What’s the matter? Are you ill? What’s happened?’ Marcus studied her pinched face, the pale skin, the expression in her eyes, the fear, the symptomatic panicked breathing. His arms tightened about her, and he stroked her head for maybe half a minute, crooning softly. ‘It’s all right, Jessica, you’re safe now.’

  Slowly she felt his warmth invigorate her body, and with it came a return to mental strength. What had happened? Had she simply had a panic attack? If so, what had brought it on? She couldn’t remember any catalyst. And, had she really heard someone calling her name or had she imagined it? She groaned internally. So many questions and not one answer!

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Marcus offered as he loosened his hold on her, though he was loathe to do so. To hold her in his arms was delightful, and it had been many months since he’d held a woman in such a way. He restrained himself and let her go.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I…came over all funny. Cold, clammy, as if I were going to pass out. And I thought I could hear someone…’

  ‘I see,’ his mouth twisted thoughtfully. ‘Were they calling your name?’

  ‘Why yes.’ Her eyes opened wide. ‘Was it you?’

  He shook his head negatively and ran a hand through his curly hair, pushing it back off his forehead. He looked around the cemetery, noted that they were in the oldest part, where many First Settlement convicts were buried. Over the years he’d heard stories and had dismissed them, but maybe…

  ‘I think you’ve just experienced what some Norfolkers call a visitation.’

  ‘What’s a visitation?’

  ‘Jessica, do you believe in ghosts, spirits?’

  Her eyebrows lifted in confusion. ‘What?’ She thought for a moment. ‘No, of course not.’ Her tone scoffed at the idea. What modern, educated person would admit to believing in that kind of mumbo jumbo? It made one sound as odd as the spirits were purported to be.

  ‘Well, be that as it may,’ he paused, ‘and I’ve never had the dubious pleasure or otherwise, but there have been stories. Visitors to the island, and in particular the cemetery, have had strange things happen to them.’ He saw the sceptical light in her eyes and pointed out, ‘Such as you’ve just experienced. Voices, coldness, almost fainting. We’ve had clairvoyants come here and say they can feel so much spiritual energy it scares the pants off them, and they’re used to that sort of thing.’

  Her expression didn’t change. ‘You’re kidding me, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘whether you believe in them or not, it’s possible that a spirit has visited you here. I’ve heard that usually they wait till dawn or dusk, but sometimes if they’re very strong, they can have an effect any time of the day.’

  Jessica glanced around the cemetery, at the lush grass, the tall pines, all bathed in sunshine. The idea of ghosts, spirits or whatever, was preposterous. ‘Marcus, you don’t expect me to believe you, do you?’

  He shrugged his shoulders and moved his gaze away from her. ‘I don’t have a more logical explanation for what happened to you. I have spoken to other people who’ve had similar experiences, and most had the same symptoms and reacted just as you did.’

  Jessica laughed, and then covered her mouth with her hand. The look in her eyes was apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t take what you’re saying seriously.’

  ‘Okay, forget about it then.’ He could see he was trying to convince a sceptic, and perhaps it was better for her mental state to disregard what he knew to be based on reasonable fact. Smiling, he said, ‘Then blame it on our changeable Norfolk weather. Now, tell me, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, the light was too poor to paint, so I thought I’d play tourist.’

  ‘I see. Are you hungry? Do you want some lunch?’

  As soon as he mentioned the word lunch, Jessica found that she was ravenous. Must be all the fresh island air and the walking she’d done. ‘I’d love some. My treat though.’ Her cheek dimpled in a smile. ‘By way of thanks for saving me from Caspar the Friendly Ghost.’

  His left eyebrow rose in acceptance of the dig. ‘There’s a kiosk down by the museum. Come on, a brisk walk is what you need. We’ll take a short cut through the golf course.’

  By mutual consent they began to walk across the deserted greens until they saw the still-standing walls of the Second Settlement’s prison and beyond, to where a cluster of cream-painted buildings stood.

  ‘Marcus,’ she rested her hand on his arm for a few seconds, then removed it. ‘As a favour, please don’t mention to Simon that I’ve been here. He said it wouldn’t be good for me to visit the cemetery.’ Then, as an afterthought she added, ‘Perhaps he was right.’

  ‘Of course. It’ll be our secret.’ It pleased him to share a secret with her. He hoped it would be the first of many, but as a realist he doubted it. Just as he knew that no good, and no permanent happiness could come from his growing fascination with Jessica Pearce.

  Two days after Jessica visited Kingston, the nightmares started.

  The dream would begin peacefully enough. A scene of the settlement, the street called Quality Row, people, soldiers, gangs of convicts, their leg chains clinking as they marched towards their allotted work for the day, a woman with a basket going about her business and a few children playing in the street.

  Then a man’s face, strapped by some horrible device that made each breath he took whistle through his mouth, took shape in her dream.

  Jessica recognised the device, she’d read about the bridle gag, a form of punishment an officer could decree on any miscreant he chose to, and sometimes for the flimsiest of reasons. For humming or singing a song, for speaking the words, ‘Oh, my God,’ while working on the chain gang, for not walking fast enough. The reasons, by today’s standards, were too trivial for belief.

  Whoever had invented the bridle gag knew how to torture the human spirit. The bridle was made with a head band, a throat lash and a bit made from a fourinch wooden tube which completely stuffed the man’s mouth. A small hole in the tube allowed the man to breathe, barely, and caused him to emit a whining kind of whistle.

  In her dream, the man who wore the bridle gag, wretchedly dressed in little more than grey rags, choked as mucous clogged the thin breathing pipe. His eyes contorted with fear and he dropped to his knees, bringing the work gang to a halt. Coughing, gagging, gasping for air, he clawed at his face, trying to dislodge the mask, and couldn’t. His nails broke through the skin, deep red slashes streaked his cheeks and his forehead.

  A soldier approached, rifle in one hand, stout whip in the other. ‘Get up, you lazy bastard. There’ll be no malingering for you, my lad.’

  A boot landed in the man’s ribs, winding him. The convict’s face changed colour: white, then pink, then bluish.

  The soldier kicked the convict again, yelling, ‘Get up or you’ll get worse!’

  The convict’s refusal to rise seemed to infuriate the soldier. He began to lay in the whip in tempo with his kicking. Across the shoulders, the legs, the torso. The convict moaned as blows rained down on him. Soon he was unable to rise, unable to evade his captor’s fury.

  The figures in the dream changed.

  Jessica saw the lack of expression on the faces of the other convicts as they mutely watched the beating. They’d seen such scenes before, so often that they’d become inured to the cruelty of one human
being treating another human being like an animal. No, worse than an animal.

  ‘Let him be. Can’t you see he’s dying, man?’ shouted a voice from the convict throng.

  The soldier, the blood lust full upon him in his fury at the man’s disobedience, either didn’t want to or chose not to see the truth of what was happening. He continued to lay into the poor wretch until the man became a bloodied, lifeless lump.

  Upon the faces of several of the convicts close to the fallen man suddenly came a different look. Sly, knowing, a kind of silent agreement to a pact previously made between them. They nodded to each other as the soldier, breathing heavily, rested from his grim endeavour. His red coat and his white breeches were spattered with the convict’s blood. His face had turned ruddy from his exertions, and rivulets of sweat poured down onto his braided collar.

  The clink of chains alerted the soldier to movement, but it was too late. Several convicts close enough to reach him wrested his rifle off him, and also the lash. Knowing they only had half a minute at best, and using his weapons as bludgeons, they beat him to a bloody pulp, just as he had done to their comrade. Two convicts fell as musket fire found their mark, the other three were knocked senseless, then removed from the chain gang and placed in cells.

  Three bodies twisting in the breeze on a gibbet, their faces purplish red, swollen tongues stuck out, eyes bulging…

  Jessica jerked to wakefulness, in a cold sweat.

  Sleepily, Simon raised himself on an elbow to look at her. ‘What’s wrong, love? Bad dream?’ He yawned. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  She shook her head. If she told him about her dream, he’d know she’d been to Kingston, and she didn’t want him to, for she didn’t care to be scolded by him. She pulled back the covers and eased her legs over the side of the bed. ‘I’ll make a cup of warm milk. That’ll settle me. Go back to sleep.’

  That was the first of many dreams which degenerated into harrowing nightmares. They centred around the history of the island and what had happened to convicts during the Second Settlement. The nightmares became regular fare—scenes from convicts in stocks to several receiving the lash with red-coated soldiers and officers looking on, enjoying the men’s pain, the blood and the gore.

  The worst nightmare was a garish re-enactment of the day a notorious convict named ‘Jacky-Jacky’ had run amok. Armed with a club, he stormed the cookhouse and bludgeoned an overseer, then a watchman and a constable who tried to reason with him, the last man being literally cut to pieces by a creature rendered mad from constant abuse and mistreatment.

  One morning, as Jessica regarded her reflection in the bathroom mirror and saw the smudges under her eyes, she knew she couldn’t keep her secret any longer. The nightmares were getting worse, becoming more frightening. They were wearing her out emotionally.

  ‘You look a touch under the weather, Jess. Not coming down with the flu, are you?’ Simon, ever the alert doctor, noticed the circles under her eyes, her lethargy as she prepared a light breakfast for them.

  ‘I’ve a confession to make. Don’t be angry, please,’ she began. ‘Last week, you remember the day it rained heavily in the morning? I couldn’t paint, so when the rain eased I went down to that historical place, Kingston. I spent several hours wandering around looking at the various houses, the museum.’ She flashed him a quick glance. ‘I even went to the cemetery.’

  ‘Jess, I…’

  ‘I know you suggested I stay away from the place, but I didn’t think it would do any harm.’

  ‘Harm. What do you mean?’

  She tried to make light of it. ‘I had a funny experience. I almost passed out. Marcus was there and he, he saved me.’

  ‘Saved you?’ All attention now, Simon’s gaze narrowed. ‘Were you thinking about Damian?’ God, she had been doing so well, what with the medication and the painting. He’d hoped the worst was behind her, that the bad days were gone forever. It was—her situation—becoming quite trying. He swallowed the frustrated sigh and waited for her to go on.

  ‘No. Really. It was strange, Simon. I came over all cold. I couldn’t move. It was like I was frozen to the ground.’

  His nod was non-commital. ‘What did Marcus say?’ Thank goodness he’d been there when she needed someone. He must remember to call him and thank him. Marcus was an okay guy. Everyone he spoke to about him liked and respected the man, his work, in fact, the whole family.

  She tried to laugh it off, but the sound came out half-strangled. ‘He said I might have been visited by a ghost. Bloody ridiculous, I thought.’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘Well, since then I’ve had these weird dreams. They’re more than dreams, they turn into the most awful nightmares.’ She stared at him appealingly. ‘I don’t understand why, but for the last four nights I haven’t had a decent night’s rest. My sleep’s being constantly invaded by convicts and cruelty and murders. It doesn’t make any sense to me.’

  He studied her thoughtfully for maybe half a minute, thinking through what she had said. He reached out to stroke her hand. ‘Me neither. Guess, in some strange way, that what you saw and read about has tapped into your subconscious and it’s surfacing in dreams. One school of thought is that dreams allow the brain to get rid of material it doesn’t want to keep or can’t store.’ He grinned at her. ‘Not a very scientific explanation. I’m sure Nikko could do better, but that’s how it seems to me.’

  ‘But I can’t sleep, I feel drained.’ Her gaze moved to the verandah and settled on the easel with its half-finished painting of a scene near Anson Bay. ‘If I take a nap in the day, the nightmares start, too.’

  ‘I could prescribe a mild sedative. That might work.’

  ‘You know I don’t like taking drugs. It…it seems the weak way out,’ she protested, running a hand through her chestnut hair, which was growing nicely and now touched her shoulders.

  ‘But you need to get a decent night’s sleep, too,’ Simon pointed out. ‘Why not try the tablets for a week and see if they help?’

  Grudgingly, Jessica gave in. It sounded the sensible thing to do. ‘All right. Just for a week though.’

  Watching Nan Duncan mould the clay into the shape of a vase with the ease of years of practice impressed Jessica as she sat on a stool beside her.

  They’d spent a wonderful morning together. Starting early Nan had, over several hours, instructed Jessica on the basics of pottery-making, even letting Jessica experiment at the wheel.

  As the base wheel began to revolve, Jessica dipped her fingers in the water-filled basin near the stool. A certain liquidity had to be maintained or the clay, which was damp, and made more so by the revolution of the wheel, would be impossible to mould. Tentatively she put her hands on the clay, trying to emulate Nan’s instructions. She likened it to a more sophisticated, adult way of playing with mud, as she and Alison had done as children, making mud pies in the backyard and pretending to eat them.

  She tried to work the clay upwards, keeping her index and forefingers on both sides of the clay, in unison with each other. She soon found out that she had to concentrate wholly on what she was doing or else the shape faltered and then collapsed.

  ‘You’re doing fine, for your first time,’ Nan encouraged.

  ‘It’s harder than I thought,’ Jessica admitted with a grimace.

  ‘Keep the pressure up, but gently.’

  With the occasional physical help of Nan and her words of advice, the semblance of a coffee mug began to form.

  ‘Don’t make the rim too thin. It’ll split or crumble when it’s fired.’

  After half an hour’s work and two starts, the mug, Nan pronounced, looked a reasonable shape.

  ‘Marcus told me you were down at Kingston last week,’ Nan said conversationally, as she showed Jessica how to make the handle for the mug and attach it to the clay.

  ‘Yes, it’s an interesting place,’ Jessica responded somewhat distractedly, her attention focused on the mug. ‘Did he tell you what happened at the cemetery?’


  ‘He mentioned it in passing. It’s not that unusual. Others have had similar experiences.’

  Jessica flashed her a droll look, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead and leaving a smudge of clay in its place. ‘Damn. And I thought such an occurrence rare,’ she murmured, tongue in cheek. She’d already discovered that it was easy to share confidences with Nan who, in some ways, reminded her of Alison. Both had the same commonsense approach to things and life in general. Both would too, she was sure, have pooh-poohed visits from ghosts, friendly or otherwise.

  ‘I’ve been having nightmares about the place—Kingston and the convict settlement, you know. Can’t seem to get it out of my head or my subconscious.’

  Nan gave her a sharp look. ‘Have you now? That’s odd. I’ll mention it to Marcus.’

  ‘Simon’s fixed me up,’ Jessica assured Nan. ‘He’s put me on a mild sleeping tablet. That’s cured me. No nightmares for the last three nights.’

  ‘Well, good.’

  Nan used a piece of wire to cut the bottom of the cup free from the rest of the clay, and put the mug on a piece of board. ‘It needs to dry for a while before it goes in the kiln.’ She looked at the work critically and pronounced, ‘You’d make a good potter, you know.’

  Jessica was busy cleaning her hands, trying to get the clay out from under her fingernails. ‘Oh, yes, and how long did it take you to become a capable potter?’

  ‘Nine years or so, I guess.’ Nan’s eyes twinkled with amusement, ‘And how long did it take you to learn to paint well?’

  Jessica looked at her and smiled. ‘Touché.’

  ‘Come on, let’s have some lunch.’

  Over lunch, a salmon salad served on the deck out the back, where they’d had the Christmas party, both women shared confidences. The rapport between the two was amazing, and Jessica began to realise its importance. It was beneficial to her to have someone, another woman, to confide in. Sometimes, there were things she didn’t want to tell Simon, didn’t think he’d be interested in, but she felt Nan would always lend a sympathetic ear.