Whispers Through the Pines

by Lynne Wilding

  Above Jessica the whispering pines seemed to accentuate the words inside her head, and she knew, as she had after the first time, that Sarah was capable of mental telepathy. But how could she…? And why?

  She took a faltering step forward, then stopped. No. This was too weird! A hand came up distractedly, swiping across her eyes in an attempt to obliterate what she’d seen, because no sensible, sane person could be seeing what she was seeing.

  ‘What do you want of me, Sarah?’

  Dear God, had she really said that out loud? To a patch of mist that, suddenly, almost looked human. Perhaps her eyes were playing tricks on her and she was imagining the shape, the form, to be that of Sarah. She closed her eyes tight and willed it to go away.

  ‘Lass, come close so I can tell you. I want ta show you somethin’.’

  The lilting entreaty made Jessica open her eyes again. The figure in the mist was becoming more defined, as was the light radiating from it. She tried not to be afraid. She really tried. Deep down she knew that whatever it was, Sarah or perhaps a demented part of her mind, the figure meant her no harm. But, even so, her earlier fascination became, second by second, a numbing fear that stretched back to a childhood liberally sprinkled with ghost and scary stories. She wanted to be able to accept that she was seeing something supernatural, but the educated part of her brain rejected such a possibility and was, most likely, for all its intellect and knowledge, fearful of the entity that hovered at the base of a majestic Norfolk pine.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You must, my dear.’

  Tiny beads of perspiration surfaced on Jessica’s forehead. The palms of her hands became so clammy that she rubbed them against her jeans. Her head was beginning to spin from the mental turmoil inside her. Curiosity to get close to the manifestation of Sarah warred with a natural fear of doing so, a belief that she might place herself in in some kind of danger if she did. In the end, fear of the unknown prevailed, and blind, unreasoning panic took over.

  She turned away and, unaware that Marcus was coming up the slope towards her, began to stumble down as quickly as her legs would carry her. He caught her as she tripped over a tree root.

  ‘Don’t go, Jessica…’

  She looked up at him, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Did you hear that, what she said?’

  Marcus frowned and looked up through the pines. He could see no one, hear no one other than Jessica. ‘There’s no one here, except us.’

  ‘She was here,’ Jessica half sobbed against his chest as she clung to him. ‘Oh, God, Marcus, I…I saw her, Sarah, up there.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘N-near the big pine.’ She pointed as she glanced back up the slope. ‘She’s gone now.’

  Marcus held her close and stroked her hair. That was as much as he dared do, lest he betray his feelings for her. Thank God she had no idea how she affected him or she would be scared off, permanently. ‘It’s all right, Jessica, you’re safe now.’ His gaze scanned the area she had pointed to. He could see nothing unusual.

  ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ he assured her. Internally he was in a quandary. He wanted to hold on to her and console her until she calmed down, but the psychologist in him saw the advantage in asking a barrage of questions while the experience was still fresh in her mind.

  ‘She, she talked to me again. I heard the words in my head. It felt so strange, as if she’s tapped into my brain.’

  ‘What did she say?’ he asked, his expression thoughtful.

  Jessica frowned, trying to remember exactly. She bit her lip in contemplation. ‘That I wasn’t to be afraid, and that she had something to show me. Then, when I got scared, she said not to go.’ She looked up at him, blue eyes expressing her desperation. ‘You didn’t hear anything, see anything?’

  He shook his head. ‘Will you be all right if I go up to the big pine and look around?’

  Jessica went still in his arms, as if she’d suddenly realised where she was and that she shouldn’t be there. ‘Of course.’

  She let her arms fall to her sides and stepped back. Thankfully, the control was coming back. For several minutes, she’d lost it and had been running on pure, instinctive responses. And another thing, she wasn’t going to analyse how it felt being in his arms because…she didn’t have to, she knew it had felt too damned good. As Marcus walked away, she wrapped her arms around herself, and for a moment or two was able to keep the warmth of his body close to her.

  Wearily, from bushes beyond the tall pine, Sarah watched Jessica and the man called Marcus. She observed their embrace, his investigatory walk around the big pine and then him leading her by the hand back down the slope and out of sight. She had become very much attuned to Jessica’s responses and sensed her unwilling attraction towards the brown-haired man and that it was returned tenfold by him. An emotional storm was coming Jessica’s way, but she was not overly concerned about that. She had confidence that, when the time came, Jessica would make the right decision. Besides, other matters pressed her more sorely.

  She was cross with herself for having misjudged Jessica’s willpower and her ability to react. The woman was not weak and therefore would not do as she wanted simply because she wanted it. She had thought her ready for visual contact, and manifesting herself physically had temporarily drained her. She was now close to exhaustion and had achieved too little.

  Her head cocked to one side. Or had she?

  She had watched fear overcome Jessica’s curiosity, felt her retreat, even before the woman had turned and run away. But the man believed in the possibility of her existence, and she sensed he was not afraid of what she represented: a life, of sorts, beyond life as he knew it. He held some influence over Jessica, too, that was plain to see, which might be of use to her in the future.

  How tired she was! She needed to rest and to replenish herself for the next encounter. More faces had to be revealed on the painting, and soon she would tell Jessica what those churlish, cowardly men had done…and how she had exacted a fitting justice upon them. Elijah Waugh, made in the image of the devil, the ringleader, the cause of all her woes, had been first. He had been the first one on whom she had tested her newly discovered powers…

  From the thick scrub near the water’s edge, Sarah bided her time, for she had an eternity of the commodity. For hours she had watched the soldiers and convicts in their endeavours, unloading cargo from the ship’s lighter. It was an unseasonably hot November day, and she could see sweat staining their clothes and trickling in small rivers down their faces as they moved barrel after barrel, and many crates, from the ship to the shore. The muffled curses echoed across the water, especially from the soldiers, for it was backbreaking work, and she saw that the soulless overseer was almost as harsh towards the base rank soldiers as he was on the fettered convicts, the main difference being that the soldiers did not feel the wrath of his lash as did the convicts.

  She directed her concentration at one soldier in particular, Elijah Waugh. His short, swarthy figure was commonplace among men of similar stature, but his bullish strength made him stand out. She noted that the overseer did not berate him for any perceived tardiness. The man seemed to respect Waugh, because he was noticeably tougher than the other soldiers and even the convicts, many of whom were considered to be wild animals.

  For many days she watched Elijah, plotting her revenge. Waiting.

  Because of him she now resided in this strange netherworld, apart from those who lived yet separated from those partaking in a sanctified, eternal rest. She had observed in herself the development of special powers: how she could, with bursts of energy, physically move objects. She could get into people’s heads, too, and plant thoughts. But it was hatred and the desire for retribution which drove her, and kept her spiritual energy at a high level.

  Sarah had four deeds to accomplish and, if it took an eternity to do them, so be it, for what she had been consigned to was an eternity of time and space and emptiness.


  As the lighter moved away from the pier towards the anchored ship, she saw Elijah position himself at the prow of the boat to yell at those at the oars to pull harder. Arrogantly self-confident, he balanced with legs astride the narrowest part of the boat, his arms folded aggressively across his chest, as if nothing on God’s earth could touch him.

  Sarah glided over the surface of the water towards the lighter, all the while studying Elijah, watching how he moved his legs to keep his balance. When she came beside the wooden craft, she spied a length of rope dangling in the water. After a quick glance to be sure that the crew was occupied with the rowing, she used her special energy to loop the rope around the boot of his right foot without him noticing, and then she waited.

  The lighter was halfway to the ship when her chance came. The coral reef created a trough of calmness near the shore, but every once in a while, a wave passed through, unbroken. She observed a particular broad wave gather force and height, over two feet, and when it struck the boat, Sarah pulled mightily on the rope, forcing Elijah’s boot over the edge of the prow. Without a handhold, he lost his balance and tumbled into the sea. He came up spluttering, his arms wildly flailing about. Momentum carried the lighter forward a full boat-length before the oars were shipped, and the boatswain pulled on the tiller to turn it to face the shore.

  ‘We’re a-comin’, private,’ the boatswain yelled.

  ‘Can’t swim, lads. Lend a hand, quickly now,’ Elijah screamed as he swallowed mouthfuls of seawater. Christ Almighty, how had this happened? One moment he was cock o’ the walk, the next, spluttering and flapping about like a soaked rooster. He’d always had an abnormal fear of water, of drowning. He shook his head to swing strands of hair off his forehead and, blinking the water out of his eyes, saw the lighter beginning to come about. It’d be all right, the lads would get to him in time, even though he could feel the weight of his body and his saturated uniform pulling him under.

  He cried out in fear, ‘Hurry up, yer laggards, or I’ll make garters out of yer guts.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Malevolence tightened Sarah’s watery smile. Now beneath the water, unfeeling of its coldness, unmindful of its darkness, she pulled hard on the back of Elijah’s tunic, sending him beneath the surface. Deeper and deeper she dragged him while he struggled ineffectually against her spiritually superior strength and against the weight of his clothes, his belts and his boots. Wet, they weighed twice as much as dry, and she knew they would aid her in her silent quest.

  Once, twice he almost wrenched himself free but, for Sarah, this was a struggle she had to win, and was not right on her side? In a short time his threshing lessened, as his lungs began to fill with salty water. She released his tunic and moved around to face him. Elijah had to know she was there. He had to know that she was responsible for doing this to him. Only then would her need for revenge be assauged.

  She observed bubbles of air escaping from his nostrils, saw his mouth open, desperately seeking life-giving air, only to swallow more of the ocean. His arms were now at right angles to his shoulders but not moving, yet she could sense a life force remaining within him.

  Revenge will be mine unto eternity. She projected the curse she had pronounced on him weeks ago into his head and saw his eyes snap open.

  What the…! As Elijah recognised Sarah’s ghostly visage so close to his face, his features contorted with a terror that was absolute. How could she be here? He had done her in with his own hands, and her remains lay safely hidden beneath Norfolk’s earth. So how…? And what was she trying to do? He tried to move away and upwards, but his body was too heavy, his lungs more than half full of sea water, his clothing a dead weight pulling him down, down.

  His mouth opened in a silent scream of horror as she smiled vengefully at him, but that only released more precious life-giving bubbles. What was that about revenge? His brain was almost too sluggish to comprehend what she’d implied to him, but from somewhere, in the remaining part of his consciousness, the message registered. She, his nemesis, had done this to him. She, he admitted seconds before a smothering blackness descended upon him, had won the final battle. In life and death—his own—she was besting him. Again.

  Sarah watched until the last bubbles of air rose from him. She waited for his horror-stricken eyes to glaze and for him to become perfectly still.

  For three days Jessica knew peace at Cassell’s Cottage after Simon’s return from Sydney. The break away from each other had done them good, and he seemed not as critical or short-tempered. Until the fourth morning…

  Jessica, about to serve breakfast, ducked onto the back verandah to get a clean tea towel from the pile of washing she’d done yesterday.

  To her amazement, the painting she had been working on, the view from Simon’s Waters, had been taken off the easel and, in its place, stood the painting with the faces. A third face had been coloured, the features established, the expression fully fleshed out. And, as previously, she had no memory of having done it. Somehow, she managed to calm the anxiety attack that threatened to erupt within her. You did not do this, she told herself. This was Sarah’s work, she was sure of it now.

  She studied the face closely for several minutes, trying to see if she could remember him from her dreams. She couldn’t. His was a narrow, angular face. His hair was jet black and long, curling about his shoulders, and his thick, overly long moustache drooped down on either side of his mouth. His eyes were also dark, almost black, and from the overall set of his features came the impression that he held a cynical view of the world. As with the other faces, he wore the same type of red tunic with a white leather strap and yellow epaulettes.

  ‘Oh, Christ, not another one!’ Simon’s disgruntled voice sounded close behind her. ‘He’s just as ugly as the first face.’ He paused and then said, ‘Can you tell me this feller’s name?’

  ‘No,’ she replied quietly.

  ‘Jessica, this is becoming seriously disturbing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to do?’

  She noted, sadly, that he hadn’t said we, which implied that she was on her own with regard to this problem. She emitted a drawn-out sigh before she spoke. ‘I don’t know. Phone Marcus and get him to have a look, I suppose. Maybe he’ll suggest something.’

  ‘I can suggest something, here and now. Let’s get the hell out of this place, say goodbye to Norfolk forever. We’ll go back to Perth. You can start seeing Nikko again, and I’ll be free to build that geriatrics complex. You know how keen I am to. It’ll make us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams. And Jess, if Nikko finds out that you’re suffering from some neurosis or even a mild form of schizophrenia I’m sure there’s treatment for it.’

  She turned around to look at him, her gaze narrowing as the thought popped into her head. That would suit Simon. He could have her locked away, no longer a nuisance to him, having treatment while he concentrated on his grand plan to get filthy rich. It suddenly struck her that he was exhibiting symptoms similar to her fathers.

  ‘What about your job here? You’ve been at the hospital less than two months.’

  ‘To hell with it,’ he said, with a flourish of one arm. ‘If they want to sue me, let them.’

  Her expression was thoughtful again as she studied him, but then her gaze returned to the painting, almost as if it had some kind of mesmerising power. ‘Yes, the smart move would be to leave.’ The breath caught in her throat and she coughed. ‘Leave Norfolk forever, as you say,’ and leave Marcus too. The pain around the region of her heart didn’t bear thinking about. And the island. Over their time here, brief as it was, she had come to love the place, the peacefulness and the kindness of the people who lived here. ‘I can’t do it.’

  He made a growling sound in his throat. ‘Be honest, Jess. It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you won’t.’ He reached forward and tapped the edge of the painting. ‘This damn painting. I believe you’re obsessed by it. I wonder how a psychiatrist would interpret your obsessio
n with the painting and your morbid fascination with Sarah.’ He thrust his hands angrily into his trouser pockets. ‘Jesus, you’ve even got me talking about her as if she’s bloody real.’

  ‘She may not be real now, Simon, but she was once. I’m sure that Sarah O’Riley lived and breathed and laughed and cried once, just as we do now.’

  ‘Did she? Christ, have you thought, Jess, that Sarah may be nothing more than a figment of a distorted imagination?’

  ‘Once I thought that, but not any more. Not since I saw her.’

  He stared at her as if she had instantaneously grown another head. ‘You saw her! What, in God’s name, are you talking about?’

  Oh, dear. Jessica pulled her lips together, too late realising her faux pas. She hadn’t meant to tell him. Marcus had said it might be better not to. But his words, his derision, had goaded her into it, so now she had no choice but to fill him in.

  ‘Marcus and I were at Slaughter Bay, having afternoon tea. I wandered off and she…Sarah appeared to me. First she was like a mist, then I could see her face, her body. She said…’

  ‘She actually talked to you?’

  Her smile was tinged with wonder. ‘Yes. But then I became afraid, though I knew she had no intention of hurting me, and I ran away.’

  ‘That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard you do in weeks.’ His comment was followed by a grim laugh. Split personality. Oh, yes, he knew there was a good deal of scepticism about such a possibility, but he was getting desperate and couldn’t discount anything. So, could she be dividing herself between the personality of Jessica Pearce and that of this damned Sarah. And her black spot, the memory loss, it just might account for when the other personality occurred. He was sure he had read, many years ago, several well documented cases of a person, at a particular crossroad in his or her life, exhibiting multiple personalities caused by past or early life traumas. Damn, he wished he knew more about it. He’d have to call Nikko. Again.