Call to Witness

by Coleman, Spencer;

  Just then, a man, familiar to her, came out from the same spot and glanced in her direction. A shaft of bright light obscured his identity, but it made her heart race. Then he vanished. Michael, is that…could that possibly be you?

  Kara opened her mouth to scream his name, but held counsel, dismissing such notion. It was improbable of course, although she always held a belief in the truth of angels on this earth.

  Turning carefully, the shadow still remained defiantly under her feet. What surprised her was the sudden nerveless energy she felt. It empowered her, knowing that Michael was also close by: her protector.

  Such false hope: In an instant, the strength of her resolve evaporated. Her eyes met those of another, and the blood in her veins turned to ice. Sheer terror crept up and rendered her defenceless. She felt totally disengaged from reality, gripped by paralysis.

  It wasn’t meant to be like this. It wasn’t how she imagined it. Confronting the future was as cruel as facing the past. No angel here, for sure. The glinting blade came down upon her throat with lightning speed. This vision was death itself, and crushed everything she held dear to her heart. Kara wobbled, and felt her legs buckle as her life slowly ebbed away…

  She gasped. Everything happened so fast. It was her call to witness, dashing all hope of recovery.

  Kara Scott awoke with an almighty jolt, compounded by a headache from hell that seemed destined to tear her head from her shoulders. Christ. The shock of the dream made her feel nauseous and dizzy with fright. This was the third successive night that the nightmare had returned to haunt her. Three fucking nights… she was exhausted by the awful repetition of it all. And to make matters worse her sudden awakening coincided always at the pivotal sequence, that dreadful moment when her life was abruptly terminated, when her very existence ended, in such savage fashion, by the downward thrust of the knife puncturing her throat. Not once, but again and again the blade fell, until consciousness failed her, and blood misted over her eyes. Then there was nothing; just a silent compressed void, like being trapped in a coffin. Like death itself.

  From somewhere though, a rasping sound somehow penetrated the stifling air and Kara knew it was her own voice – her own scream – that saved her in the dream. On each occasion, she had sat bolt upright in bed and clawed at the darkness of the room with her outstretched hands, her breath caught dry, trying desperately to fend off her unworldly assailant. Bad things always came in the dead of the night. Now, in the hour before dawn, she was safe once more from the wilful invaders of her mind. Damn, how she wished for an escape from such torment. Shaking her head, she imagined being alone with her irrational fears, but then her thoughts turned to untroubled Marcus…who slept serenely beside her. Dear Marcus. Then she cursed silently, knowing he was somewhere else, at peace with the world. How she envied his ability to switch off from all that was rotten at the edge of reason: for her reasoning, at least. All that remained for her was the clammy, weird feeling of her enormously stretched skin, which was a stark reminder of her maternal responsibilities. Oh, Christ. In the darkened room her hand rested upon a protruding belly which, surprisingly enough, she discovered was her own. She simply couldn’t get used to being pregnant. Impending motherhood: not so much a surprise, more a realisation of utter shock. And like the bump she touched, the shock never diminished. It just grew and grew.

  The bedroom was stiflingly hot, like the Sahara desert scorched by the midday sun. The air had been sucked from the room. Reaching out in the dark, Kara knocked over the bedside glass of water with her fumbling hand. Shit! The sound of the glass thumping the wooden floor forced Marcus to swear under his breath and turn over, away from her. Kara remained motionless, overcome by the heat. Perspiration trickled down her neck. The recurring nightmare terrified her, but she needed to keep quiet about it in the knowledge that Marcus was near breaking point with her constant worrying about what it all meant. It was eroding their close emotional bond, and lurking in the back of her brain was the nagging suspicion that her attacker was out there and ready to do harm. And this attacker was very real. It all centred on the absurd sisters of doom (as Michael, her former boss, always referred to them), and the terrible destruction they had caused…and Maggie was still hovering somewhere. This dream was a foretaste of what was to come, she was convinced of it.

  Slowly, Kara lifted herself from the sodden bed and shuffled to the bathroom, had a pee and gulped water from the sink tap. The headache still raged. This dream was strange to the point of surreal. Kara reluctantly re-enacted in her mind what happened. The attacker who confronted her with the sharpened blade was framed by a rainbow, their face hidden behind a Venetian mask, a grotesque shiny white mask with ruby encrusted decoration and slit-eyed perforations to see through. The wearer of the mask was unknown to Kara, which further intimidated her and caused confusion and panic. Was it Maggie? Then there was the downward thrust of the dagger, blood profusion, the last gasp of breath. What person, or demon, wanted to harm her? Was it..? Who possessed such a sheer evil intent to destroy life? She knew of course, but it was as difficult to say the name as imagine the face behind the mask.

  It was all too much. With the bathroom spinning insanely, Kara threw up.

  ***

  The dawn light crept through the window slats, bathing her face in a soft glow. Kara awoke slowly, finding herself propped against the side of the roll-top Victorian bath. Her spine ached, and cramp besieged her left leg which was twisted awkwardly beneath her right. She yelled out, stretching her limbs and massaging furiously with her hands until the pain subsided. She managed to stand and wobble to the sink, splashing cold water onto her face. Searching her reflection in the mirror, Kara winced at the ghastly image that stared back. She hardly recognised herself. Beneath her, on the floor, a sticky mess squashed under her foot. God, how did it come to this? The smell of sick turned her stomach. Grabbing a tissue, she wiped between her toes, tossed a towel over the offending mess, and retreated from the bathroom.

  Whatever was happening to her life – right now – Kara resolved to get help before the remnants of her sanity was overwhelmed by these terrifying demons that infiltrated her subconscious world. Marcus, dear Marcus, knew of her fears, but he was so strong and able to compartmentalise his own horrors, if they existed at all. She was envious of his calmness. Damn him, the conceit of his confidence. But then she regretted her verdict and realised that this morbid outlook on all things that threatened their happiness was really wrapped up in the child she was carrying. This precious baby, this beating heart…if Kara couldn’t handle the reality of the past, and the bloody consequence of how she survived that past, then how the hell was she going to face the future and all the uncertainty that it entailed? She had to get a grip on reality, and fast. This should be a great time, she reminded herself, to no avail.

  Motherhood freaked her out, if the truth was told. She just wasn’t ready for it, physically or spiritually. Christ, she could hardly clean her teeth in the morning, such was her feeble resolve. Before the fire at the barn, Kara had the strength of a lioness and the capability to tackle whatever life threw in her direction. But now…Now? Even the tiniest problems in her life became insurmountable. For example, just yesterday she despaired at the difficulty of unscrewing the lid from a jar of pickle, which refused to budge. What happened? She saw fit to throw the offending item into the sink, smashing it, rather than do the simple thing and ask Marcus to open it. Although he laughed at the incident, she knew she was out of control. Everything was an issue, a big deal; one that her brain could not fathom out. Kara was aware that Marcus was beside himself with worry, but he always had the capacity to hide his anger and frustration at her bizarre behaviour. This infuriated her. Deep down, she asked herself a thousand times how he managed to cope with her tantrums. But still she challenged him, pushing him constantly to the limits of his endurance. It was as if she wanted to break him…punish him for infecting her with this embryonic seed of life. This was his child. She was not ready, not pr
epared, her mind and body recoiling from the rejoicing of new birth, a blessed cycle of nature that for her was a form of cancer. The latter thought slammed home. How could she think such a thing? Was she going mad?

  For the second time, Kara imagined her responsibility to motherhood, and in that same moment, she saw that she did not possess the inner strength to see it through. This intrusion…it invaded her body and threatened what was truly important in her life right now. The brittle truth dawned: how was she able to protect her child when she was not able to protect herself? What kind of mother would that make her?

  Staring at the sleeping figure of Marcus, half-submerged beneath the sheets, Kara somehow managed to draw strength from envisaging him being an angel of light: someone who held pure love for them – mother and baby – to lean upon. And this child she carried would prevail, and help uplift her beyond negativity and finally banish this nastiness to another dimension: one that could not harm them.

  God, she had to believe this. In order to survive, as any mother would testify.

  ***

  Earlier, Marcus Heath had stirred, turned over and reached out for Kara, only to discover that he was alone in bed…again. He cleared his head, and knew precisely where he would find her. He stepped onto the wooden floor, trod a strange dampness and retrieved an empty glass from underfoot. In the darkness, with the curtains drawn, the only light came as a thin blade from under the bathroom door. He sighed, knowing that this is where he would find her, huddled on the floor, her back propped against the bath, her eyes red raw. He felt inadequate, powerless to break into her hidden world of imaginary demons. However much he tried to sympathise, he felt he was a spectator, unable to reach out and truly help. Here was the rub. As long as Kara continued to keep him at arm’s length he felt defenceless to protect her from harm’s way. And there was a monster out there, a very real monster. Inside, Marcus was as scared as his girlfriend of the power and destruction that Maggie – he could hardly breathe when her name was mentioned – possessed.

  Marcus padded into the kitchen and made tea, scalding his fingers on the boiling kettle as he tried to handle things as calmly as possible. It was going to be a long day. Silently, he entered the bathroom again and nestled beside her. She smiled thinly and sipped from the welcome cup that he handed to her. Through the slats of the window blind, the majestic outline of Tower Bridge stood silhouetted against the crimson sky. A new day beckoned. He felt useless in the circumstances of her suffering, but she hugged him anyway, and he in turn was silently grateful, the hug bringing comfort to them both. In this strange vacuum, Marcus reflected on their lives and knew he had a more practical sense of what was happening. He offered words, he offered explanation, but she was not ready for this. Kara needed nursing, it was that simple. She was in denial, and the impending birth of their baby was simply too soon. They had been thrust together just months earlier, in adversity and unexpected intensity, finding a path of sorts to real love, and as a consequence of this collision they had no fortitude, no grasp, of how they were going to bring this little bundle into the world and care for it. They had no reserves of energy. Trauma was debilitating, and neither of them had the capability to restore their dormant batteries.

  Parenthood was terrifying. Slowly, he ran this over in his head once more. Then he cast the thought from his brain, changed the subject (for the hundredth time), and offered other words, kinder words as far from the truth as he dared, to a lost soul. He knew that practicality, from a man’s point of view, would not do the trick. Eventually, he went back to bed, insisting she join him. She nodded, but stayed alone for a while longer, gathering her thoughts for the day ahead and what it might bring.

  ***

  It was a Sunday. Marcus made a late breakfast, knowing he didn’t need to open the gallery until 11.30 am. Owning his own proper gallery still bewildered him, and brought a rare smile to his face. He was a grown-up now, an entrepreneur…no longer the pompous artist. Who would have believed it? He was a player of sorts, mixing with the adults in the real world! Like a bad actor though, he had his insecurities and feared being found out: that he couldn’t actually hack it. And then what? There was no going back. He liked the new-found status of pretending to be a businessman…and, in spite of his shortcomings and inexperience, he was making a decent fist of it. The label of businessman fitted, much to his astonishment. So much had happened since the fire at Laburnum Farm. He took a moment to reflect on what a weird transformation had taken place. For him, defying death prompted a new direction in his professional life. He’d quickly taken stock of the situation and, to his utter astonishment, abandoned art – in the sense of making a precarious living from actually painting pictures. His heart went out of it. The light switched off. He preferred instead to open a sculpture and glass gallery with his girlfriend on Butler’s Wharf in the east end of London, just a few minutes’ walk from where they now lived. It was a real turn-up for the books which surprised family and friends.

  He vowed to no longer starve for a living, preferring a steady 9 to 5 job to bring in a respectable income. Fed up with being the eternal struggler with little or no cash, he conformed, begrudgingly, to a different work ethic and planned to make his fortune this way instead. This abrupt change of direction was somewhat forced upon him by two unpalatable truths. Firstly, his pissed-off acceptance that his own work was not of the standard required to make the necessary inroads on the glittering path to stardom and, secondly, his desire to guide Kara back to a normality of existence once again. She had nearly lost her life in the fire. She had lost her job at the gallery, and the status it brought. She had lost her income. She had lost her close friendship with her boss, Michael Strange. He felt he owed her, and a commitment to work was a good starting point.

  Kara needed closure. Marcus knew this and in his heart he felt the unspoken trust had eroded between them. Both survived the inferno: but at what cost to their sanity? So he fumbled on, in the background, just being there, showing that he cared. This was all that mattered. Marcus reckoned that she despised herself for being so helpless and devoid of emotional longing. Before the fire, she was feisty. But now? She was a broken woman. He had a word for it: It was called inadequacy.

  ***

  Staring at him over breakfast, Kara read his thoughts and wanted to weep. She longed to get back on track in her relationship with not just Marcus but everyone else: Michael, especially. It was hugely unfair on all of them, but she felt incapable to contribute toward, well, social interaction: a basic need to communicate. She was devoid of intimacy and emotion, on any level.

  Maggie, this dangerous fugitive, consumed her every thought. While she was still free, this woman stood between her happiness with Marcus and also diminished her lust for life. Day and night, Maggie loomed over them like a spectre, hiding in the shadows, ready to re-enter their lives.

  There was another cause of tension too; an unspeakable shocking pact made between her and Marcus, never to be broken for fear of recrimination. It was this: Marcus had started the fire that killed Lauren O’Neill. This horrendous fact gnawed away at them every waking hour. No one had to die that fateful day. Both she and Marcus were complicit in withholding this information from the police, and as a result they were now bound to secrecy forever. The thread of their relationship was stretched to the limit and Maggie would play on this weakness and seek revenge for the death of her sister. Kara was sure of that.

  Kara reflected on the long, difficult months after the funeral of Lauren O’Neill, when police suspicions were at their most intense. Rumours persisted as to which sister actually died that day. Who could be sure that it was Lauren who perished, the body in the barn having been burnt to a cinder? As far as Kara understood it, DNA from the corpse (taken from the hip bone, which was all that remained) was not conclusive until a comparison could be made with a family connection: hence the need to find the errant sister. The police only had Michael’s eyewitness report that he saw Lauren fall, but he, according to the pathologist, w
as undoubtedly confused at the time, near to death himself. Nothing would be resolved until Maggie (whom they all assumed was the one to escape) was apprehended. Then the doubts could be put to bed. Until then, however far-fetched it seemed, Kara had to ask the question: Suppose it was Lauren who escaped and was on the run?

  In the meantime, the three survivors tried desperately to live with the guilt of what happened at the farm, and how each of them conspired to hide the cause of the fire from the police. This was the fucking problem. They were struggling to keep the secret. The burden was becoming too great.

  Yes, Marcus took steps to protect Kara from this dreadful scenario as best he knew how. They grieved for what might have been: a safe and loving world in which to live. This was Michael’s promise, snatched away in a heartbeat. Her pregnancy then came unexpectedly, but it was a joy to behold in the beginning. A blessing. Their lives turned topsy-turvy and they initially basked in the wonder of it all. However, looking back, they were too young to cope with the impending responsibility of parenthood.

  Kara was too young to cope with most things, if the truth be known. To escape the press attention, the police investigation, to recover from her wounds, she first sold her flat in central London and moved, with Marcus, to the east end at Tower Hamlets, north of the Thames. Home was now an old warehouse conversion, with extra light and space in which to stretch and breathe and ultimately for the both of them to recover in, physically and spiritually. Additional funds from the move to a cheaper area in the city gave them choices as well. The gallery idea was a joint decision, allowing them both to find structure and focus and a steady income, especially as she wasn’t working. The months of recuperation meant she had to rest during the pregnancy, doctor’s orders. This period of time brightened their lives: For a while, at least.