The Girl at the Window

by Rowan Coleman

  The bulb casts its false light mercilessly into every corner – and there is nothing. I walk around the room, seeing the other self, outside in the dark, mirroring my every move, afraid to look too hard in case I catch my reflection out.

  Returning to the hallway, I flick on my torch and consider all the other shut doors, the rooms and spaces I haven’t been in yet. Everything to the left of my old room was built much later than this part of the house. It was here when Emily used to visit, but not when Agnes lived here, and it is possible that Emily hid whatever she discovered in the more recent part of the house. Cautiously, I open the door to the largest room with the high windows either side. This was probably where looms were once kept and cloth made on the premises. Now it’s only full of night, and Ma’s junk. Impossible to really search this room until I’ve cleared it, but anyway, it doesn’t feel like this is the place that I’m meant to be looking in. For a room so full, it feels remarkably empty.

  The room Ma once slept in feels the same way, and the two adjacent. Each time I open a door, it is like opening up a portal into my childhood; memories caught up in smells, remnants of peeling wallpaper and ragged curtains, spring vividly to life. The blue peacock paper that was once Ma’s pride and joy, and the tiny roses on the curtains in the small bedroom that matched the quilt cover and was my nine-year-old self’s idea of the epitome of interior design. It is like a badly curated museum of my own life, full of moments, but not of intent. Yes, that’s what I’m searching out, and, even as I think it, I wonder if perhaps I’m falling into some kind of madness, running away from grief and into a ghost story where the people you love might be waiting to take your hand.

  Returned to the hallway, I stand in the darkness, switch off my torch and lean into the night, closing my eyes, searching for some trace of Abe here; just a breath of him that might allow me to believe that I will see him. He is not here, but as I stand there, all fear and apprehension draining away through the soles of my feet, I know where I have to look. Of course, it’s obvious: the place that Emily came here to visit … the library.

  My room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  As soon as I close the door behind me I know where to look.

  In the very same place that I used to hide all of my secrets: the bookcases. They aren’t as old as other parts of the house – they were installed in the eighteenth century – but they were here when Emily visited and she was familiar with every inch of them. What’s more, this might have been one of the very few rooms where she was left alone for any length of time.

  And only someone who had spent her childhood searching this room high and low for a cubbyhole to hold all her secrets would know that there were places at the ends of the shelves where you could remove the panelling to reveal the spaces behind – and the rough stone wall, full of gaps and hiding places, that lay beyond that.

  Now the shelves are packed with unloved paperbacks gathering dust, and Ma’s dolls, neatly laid out as if for their own funeral, porcelain hands folded over their chests. When I was little I hid all sorts of things down in there, posting into the dark the scented erasers I stole from the newsagents, or little notes I wrote to myself, without concerning myself with how difficult it would be to retrieve them. It was enough to know that they were somewhere safe.

  Grabbing books by the armful, I throw them onto the bed, puffs of dust rising from the stripped mattress with every impact. Other than the noise of descending books, the house seems very quiet, now; it feels at rest.

  No sound comes from downstairs, no creaks bend in the hallway, even the wind outside has dropped for once. I pause to listen and all I can hear is the ringing in my ears.

  As I throw the last book on the bed, I have the unexpected impression of seeing myself from very far away, up amongst the dark clouds. A lone figure, framed in a little rectangle of yellow light in a very old house, isolated in the midst of the vast mass of the moor. Such a very small and fragile life, in such a great and powerful landscape.

  How vulnerable it is possible to feel out here. How powerless a human being can become when faced with the full fury of nature, of heaven and Hell and nowhere to turn for help or shelter. It’s such a strange and melancholy thought, unfurling in the mind as if someone else has thought it. And as I feel that sense of helplessness, I’m overcome with the certainty that this must be how Abe felt, if he was still alive after the plane came down. He must have been so badly hurt, and so afraid. And he would have known that, for hundreds of miles in every direction, there was nothing but thick rainforest, and no hope of being seen, no hope of being found and nothing to do but die.

  A surge of terror sucks the breath out of my lungs and knocks me backwards onto the bed and the books. Now is not the time to let these thoughts, that fear, in, to think of him lost and alone and waiting for me, hoping for me as I got back on the plane home. Not now. I looked. I looked as much as I could; I stayed there for weeks, I did everything possible, everyone said so, and yet … and yet … and yet …

  Finally, the shelves are laid bare before me. The first thing I do is wiggle free the panel I discovered as a girl, pushing my fingers into the dark expanse as far as they will go, searching the rough stone. I find a little coil of paper, and when I bring it out, my fingers coated in webs, I remember what it is as soon as I see it: a red thumbprint, made from the blood of my thumb after I’d stuck a pin in it, thick at the top, fading away to nothing at the bottom. I’d drawn a face on it and underneath had written BLOOD SISTERS. Funny thing is, I don’t remember who I was supposed to be blood sisters with – what friends I did have were far too squeamish for that.

  I tuck it into my pocket and search again. More notes, a single sock, a plastic ring that must have meant a lot to me once, but nothing any more. Feeling along the panelling at the back I find another loose slat on the top shelf, longer this time, spanning the height of two shelves. Painstakingly, I rock it back and forth, pushing at it, and, when I have enough purchase, I gently tug until it finally comes loose, falling down into the darkness beyond with a rattling clatter.

  When I shine my torch into it I am at the wrong angle to see much, but to remove any more of the shelving would mean blunt force, and I can’t bring myself to do more damage than I already have. Testing my weight on the bottom shelf, I gingerly climb onto it, mentally apologising as I climb on the next shelf, feeling as though I might slip at any moment. Balancing the torch in my hand, I pull myself forward and peer into the gap. Sheened with spider webs, I see the same rough stonework that makes up the rest of this part of the house, filled with dark and countless places, perfect for hiding something special.

  Stretching, I work the torch as high up as I can and then down, and just below my eye level I see it, a hole in the stone. A hole that that has been dug into the mortar, a hole that’s just wide enough to fit a hand in. It’s just a few inches below the gap; if I can get an arm in …

  My hand snakes its way through the gap and bends awkwardly downwards as I press my body further into the shelves, feeling them bite into my breasts and stomach as I try to lever every millimetre I can out of my fingertips. Feeling my way down the cool stone, inch by inch, I finally reach the ragged opening around the hole, but only with my fingertips. Try as I might, I can’t reach inside. It’s impossible to search further.

  And then.

  My hand is caught, trapped as if in the grip of icy fingers as thin as bone. And as hard as I try to be free and pull away to be free and, it feels like skeletal fingers are gripping mine with crushing strength, dragging me deeper into the hole.

  There’s no oxygen.

  I cannot breathe, pain sears into my lungs and every muscle. No thoughts will form, just panic, as I struggle to free myself. Feet are lifted away from the shelf, my shoulder socket is screaming with pain and I can hear my wrist crack as it twists, feel it begin to bruise and swell, something sharp and ragged biting into my flesh.

  Then I am released.

  Tumbling backwards onto the fl
oor, I hear the dull clunk of bone on wood as my head hits the bed frame and feel the pain of circulation returning to my tightly clenched fist.

  Mouth gaping, sucking in air, I stare up at the gap in the shelf.

  An unblinking eye, wide and feverish, stares back at me.

  And then it’s gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Stumbling into the living room, I collapse into the armchair by the fire, snatching at each rapid, shallow breath until they gradually lengthen and steady.

  My fists will not unclench. If I close my eyes I feel again the grasp of icy fingers burning my skin, see that eye staring back at me.

  I rationalise. I was panicking, stuck, dragging my arm out of splintered wood, that’s what happened. The eye: I hit my head pretty hard, the room swam for a moment, and now my head is pounding. I was scared, it was my mind playing tricks on me. I was so, so scared.

  I still am.

  With some effort I tune in to the steady sound of Will’s breathing. He is sleeping, Ma is sleeping. Mab is curled up on her feet. Whatever happened it was a combination of adrenalin and imagination, that has to be it. Except, as my fingers loosen I become aware of an object in my damaged right hand. My fingers tremble as I force them open to see what is resting in my palm.

  Another leather-bound package, exactly like the last.

  Turning my face away from it, I look at the window, waiting for the dawn. And outside I hear the wind, the rain … and intermingled, a howling that is so like the crying of an abandoned child it brings tears to my eyes.

  It’s going to be a very long night.

  PART FOUR

  Vain are the thousand creeds

  That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;

  Worthless as wither’d weeds,

  Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

  To waken doubt in one

  Holding so fast by Thine infinity;

  So surely anchor’d on

  The steadfast rock of immortality.

  Emily Brontë

  Tru and Abe and Will

  Abe had held the door open for me as I’d carried Will in, taking him to the window of the flat to show him the street below.

  ‘You were born in London,’ I’d told him, showing him the red bus as it trundled down our street. ‘But really, you’re a Yorkshireman; it’s in your blood. One day, I’ll take you home to the most beautiful countryside in the world.’

  From the moment I’d held him, and he’d regarded me with his dark eyes, I was anchored, like I’d known him not only all of his life, but all of mine. And there was the curve of his cheek, the shell of his ear that I’d see in his sister. Which might have made me sad, but instead had given me great joy to know that, whenever I looked at my little boy and saw how he had grown, I’d be catching a glimpse of her, too.

  Abe had fallen so hard for our son the moment that he’d held him in his arms, tears on his face, an expression full of wonder, a smile such as I’d never seen before, so full of love – and something more that I can’t quite describe, apart from a kind of promise.

  ‘Look at how handsome he is,’ he’d said, showing me the screwed-up, swollen face of our beautiful new son.

  ‘He is handsome,’ I’d agreed, brushing my finger over his dark curls.

  ‘And intelligent; you can tell by his expression,’ Abe had said. ‘That’s the frown of a thinker. Maybe even a genius.’

  ‘And precisely two hours old,’ I’d reminded him, as he gently laid our little boy back my arms, and put his arms around both of us.

  And then we were home, standing side by side, looking at the world outside the window with new eyes, as parents who needed to make it a better place.

  ‘We’re building a new world,’ Abe had said, ‘you and I.’

  ‘A world just for us,’ I’d smiled up at him. ‘And sometimes your mother, who is on her way over right now.’ Abe had half laughed and half frowned, and I’d known what he was going to say next.

  ‘Now we are married, now that little William is here, don’t you think it might be worth talking to your mother again, Tru? Give her another chance? You both said things that I’m sure you didn’t mean …’

  I’d shaken my head. ‘Our life is so good, right now. And he is so perfect. No, I’m not ready yet, Abe. I’ll write to her and tell her about him, send a photo. But for now, you and me and Will … it’s everything. Just us three, and sometimes your mother. Let’s have this time, just you and me and our baby, and the new world we are making for him.’

  ‘I am going to make this a better world for you,’ Abe had whispered to the top of Will’s head. ‘I promise. I’m going to make this a fairer, kinder, more equal world, in every way I can. So that you grow up knowing that what makes a man worthwhile isn’t money or power or the colour of his skin, it’s how he treats his fellow human beings, no matter who they are. That’s the world you are going to grow up in, son; me and your mummy are going to make sure of that.’

  After that golden moment there were times of struggle, of course there were; every life is one of peaks and troughs. Months of exhaustion, of barely making ends meet, snatching precious hours together in between passing our baby back and forth, trying to keep down two jobs.

  When I think back on those early years, I think of them as the days when our family sailed on a stormy sea, with dangerous swells and unpredictable winds. But no matter how hard it became, we kept on course, we kept together – and we never stopped believing in the world we were making.

  So when Will had turned two, when Abe had settled into the first year of his residency, and I’d taken up my degree again, when the sea had calmed and our family was still there, stronger than we had been before, more in love than we’d ever been, more experienced, more mature, ready for whatever came next.

  I wonder, sometimes, how we did it all then, when we were so young, so overwhelmed and unprepared. And then, in the very middle of the night, in the darkest hour, I wonder if it was because, somehow, Abe and I knew the unknowable. We knew, somehow, that our time together wouldn’t be nearly long enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Closing the door on Cathy’s room I sit in the centre of the floor, laying my tools out around me. Here there is order and logic, reason and rationale. My wrist still stings and throbs, pocked with crescent-shaped cuts, and on the back of my head there is a sizeable lump. The further away I am from the incident, the more dreamlike it seems, the more unreal. And yet, those crescent-shaped cuts on the back of my hand, the bruises that mirror the shape of narrow fingers, the packet appearing in my hand … I didn’t tell Ma about it; I didn’t say anything. I have no idea how to explain what happened without sounding mad, so I return to the academic in me, the archivist. I do what I know while, outside, the workmen Marcus has sent put a tarpaulin over the leaking roof.

  This package is a little bigger than the last one. A palm-sized rectangular shape, wrapped in leather and secured in the same way as the first.

  Huddling on the floor, the cold still courses through me, even though I stayed up the whole night, stoking the fire, warming my hands at it, leaning into its heat. It’s as if whatever it was that happened to me last night flooded my body with pure ice, that flowed into me, crystallising my blood, permeating every organ.

  This morning, when I came back in here, I stopped outside my bedroom door, which was firmly closed. It took all my courage for me to push it open, revealing the water-blue morning that was filtering in around the thin curtains. The books lay on the bed, the bookcase door was open, and there was the gap at the back of the shelf. Swiftly, I pulled on two sweaters and wound a scarf around my neck, stuffing everything that belonged to Will and me into a suitcase and dragging it outside the room.

  I still feel so cold …

  After the shock, the heart-exploding terror and the pain ebbs away, I am left with the cold – and a feeling of such hopelessness and desolation that I don’t recognise as mine. Even though I have felt it, lived the pain and anguis
h of loss, even though I know it, recognise it, I also understand that I received this along with the package.

  Painstakingly, I pick apart the knot, minutes slipping by as I work at it, teasing the brittle leather. Once it is done I use my spatula to gently open the leather, a little of which tears along the fold as it is unfurled. Within, there are four sheets. Two types of papers, two hands. Both of which I know: Emily and Agnes, two women separated by two hundred years, their words bound together and hidden for almost two hundred more. It’s almost impossible to imagine, to appreciate how incredible this find is.

  In a moment I will have to decide what to do next. But for now, there are only these words.

  With great precision and care I set about unfolding the papers, setting the sheets in Agnes’s hand to one side and positioning Emily’s scrawled hand under my light. The first thing I see is a doodle sketch of that face again, half in shadow, an indication of a firm-set mouth, and then her words:

  October 1848

  I searched every one of the older books and found these pages only. Half the story at most. Where the rest is, or what it is, I cannot guess. It may be that it was never written, that Agnes Heaton never saw Robert again and that she died, young and poor, as so many do, as my dear brother did, as I yet may. When first I set my pen to paper in Wuthering Heights, I believed that I imagined all the cruelty in the world, conjured it onto the page, and set it there. I wrote all that I had seen, all that I had heard at Tabby’s knee and here, from Robert and his family. All the dark tales of what the evil man will do to his fellow man. I sought to tell it all, to show the fury that lies in man’s heart when he is betrayed. And yet, all that I could dream was as nothing to what is real. What has been done, and is done. I won’t speak of this to another, but as I read these papers once again, I felt her standing with me, beside me and within me, and there was such a terrible cold all about me, a cold that is still with me, even as I sit before the fire. Such a cold and such a fury that I have never known. And such a fear of death … a fear that is mine own.