by Amy Cross
She looks up at me. "He put it inside you," she says. "He slit open your skin with his own finger, and he took a stone out of his mouth, and... it was covered in some kind of liquid, and he put it in you. He closed the wound, and then he left, and I sat here and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to wake you, or to call for help, or to -"
"You just sat there?" I ask, finding it hard to believe that she lacked the intelligence to go and fetch my husband. Then again, perhaps she knows deep down that the whole thing was a hallucination, and she would rather not appear deranged.
"Where?" I ask. "Where in my body did he put this stone?"
Margaret stands up and comes over to the bed. She reaches around and puts her hand on my back. I put a finger where she has indicated, and I immediately feel that there is something hard under the skin, something that I am certain was not there before.
"Was it exactly like the others?" I ask her. "Small and black?"
She nods.
"And you say this man was the Devil himself?" I ask.
She nods again.
"No," I say. "No. I am quite sure you're wrong. Whatever or whoever it was, it was not the Devil. Tell me, did he have a forked tail? Did he have horns? Was he laughing?"
"No, Madame," Margaret says, returning to her seat. "None of that."
"It is well-known that the Devil laughs at his victims," I say, trying to reassure myself as much as Margaret. "He taunts them. He takes pleasure in their misery. If this creature, or whatever it is that you saw, was not reveling in my misfortune, then most certainly it was not the Devil but something else entirely. And for that we can only be grateful."
"Yes, Madame," says Margaret, once again making the sign of the cross on her chest.
"You must not speak of this to anyone," I say. "Not to my husband or anyone else, do you understand?"
"Yes, Madame," she says again.
"This is for your own benefit. If you tell this story to anyone else, you risk being taken to a house for lunatics." I pause. "Have you spoken of it to anyone already?" I add.
She shakes her head.
"Good," I say. "We must simply ensure that we leave this place soon. If we start talking about demons and other creatures, we shall be laughed at, as if we are foolish little women. We must simply say that my health requires an urgent move to see a doctor. Can you relay that news to my husband?"
Margaret nods, but she seems paralyzed with fear, as if she can't do anything other than sob.
"Margaret," I say tersely, becoming tired of her failure to act, "do you understand me? We cannot simply sit here and let our fears overtake us, do you understand?"
She stares at me. "I tell you, Madame," she says, her voice slow and heavy. "It was the Devil himself -"
"Nonsense!" I shout at her. "Absolute nonsense!"
"He looked straight at me!" she says, ignoring my protestations. "Right in the eyes. He looked at me. What else could it be, Madame? It was the Devil!"
"Go to your room!" I shout at her. "Go to your room and stay there until you are told that it is time for us to leave this place. When we get back to London, you will leave my service at once, and if you speak of the Devil one more time, I shall refuse to grant you a letter of reference." I stare at her. "Without a letter of reference, no-one else will ever employ you. You'll end up in the workhouses, or on the streets. Do you understand me? I'm sorry to be so harsh. I have found you to be a very capable employee for many years, but this superstitious nonsense has become far too much. Not another word. Now go to your room. I will get myself up for dinner."
Margaret stands up and shuffles over to the door, but she turns back, tears still in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Madame," she says. "Perhaps you can find it in your heart to reconsider. I would not like to leave your service."
"You must," I say firmly. "This nonsense about the Devil is too extreme. But as I have told you, if you comport yourself well until we get back to London, I shall at least give you a letter of reference with which you might be able to secure another post. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Madame," she says, hurrying out of the room.
I sit alone for a moment. "There is no Devil here," I say out loud. "Just the imaginings of a crazy woman." And that's all Margaret is, really: a crazy woman. Years and years of service have obviously dulled her senses. She is of a lower class than myself, and as such she has always been somewhat challenged in terms of intelligence. Perhaps she came to believe herself to be something greater than she was born to be; perhaps she began to fancy herself capable of seeing things that others could not see. I have heard of common servants getting such ideas before, but I never believed it could happen to Margaret.
Getting dressed without Margaret's help is somewhat difficult, especially since I am still feeling so weak. I simply am not used to the procedure of manhandling my dress so that it fits my body, and I simply must engage another woman as soon as we get back to London. Eventually, however, I get the dress on and I check myself in the mirror before leaving the room and walking along the corridor toward the stairs. I can hear voices in the distance, so it is clear that Edward and Lively have returned from the forest. It will be good to have some civilized conversation for once, rather than having to listen to Margaret's drivel about the Devil. And then I can -
I stop dead in my tracks as I reach the top of the stairs. There is a piece of rope tied around the bannister overlooking the stairwell, and this sight instantly fills me with dread. Rushing forward, I look down and see the shocking sight of Margaret's dead body hanging from a noose. Her face is contorted into the most grotesque expression, and her eyes are bulging almost out of their sockets as her body hangs and gently swings.
All I can do is scream.
Chapter Six
"She was weak," I say, turning to Edward. "She was from common stock, and she had a weak mind. That's the only possible explanation."
Several hours after Margaret's unfortunate suicide, I am sitting in the drawing room with my husband. All around us, candles flicker in the darkness. Outside, night blankets the countryside and thick clouds cover the moon. With Margaret's body having been carefully stored away in the pantry, it has been decided that - finally - we shall all leave the house first thing in the morning. Edward's uncle Dunstable is still absent, so we shall quickly lock the house up and leave it as we found it. A report will be made to the relevant authorities regarding Margaret's death, but I do not anticipate any problems in that area.
I glance over at the wall and spot half a dozen spiders crawling across the surface. Those infernal things are becoming such a nuisance.
We shall have to return to this place at some point, of course. This house is central to Edward's family, and it is inevitable that he and I shall live here eventually. For now, however, it seems that Edward has come to understand that the situation here is becoming untenable. He seems convinced that my health problems are due to my being pregnant; I am sure that there is no child inside my belly, but I am willing to let him persist in this belief if it means that we can leave Gabriel Hall first thing in the morning. I simply cannot stay in this place any longer, and I believe that my health is already suffering from the strain. Within these walls, I even fear sleep itself.
Before we leave, however, we must spend one final night here.
"Still," Edward says, "I didn't take Margaret for the kind to allow her superstitions to overpower her to such an extreme." He pauses. "The minds of some people are a mystery to others. I hope you don't blame yourself in any way, my darling Evangeline. You were absolutely correct to terminate her employment."
"I know," I say. "She overstepped the mark. I had no idea she was so attached to our family, but it is sometimes necessary to cut loose a servant who has become too unstable." I pause, remembering that last tearful conversation with Margaret; I never thought I would feel so sorry about losing that comfortable, familiar woman. "Should I have retained her, despite her inadequacies?"
"What did she say again"? Edward asks.
"You told me that she made some inappropriate remarks, but you didn't mention the precise nature of those remarks."
I shake my head, fully aware that I can't possibly tell Edward the truth about the things that Margaret said to me. "Just nonsense," I say. "Petty common nonsense about the Devil. She really did have a most inferior mind. I'm not saying that we are better off without her, but..."
"The Devil?" Edward asks incredulously. "Here?" He laughs. "Well, the woman really was out of her mind, wasn't she?" He puts a hand on my belly. "To think that her hysteria could have added stress to you, my dear Evangeline, at a time when you might very well be in the early stages of carrying our first child."
"Perhaps," I say, carefully pushing his hand away. "Let us not get too ahead of ourselves."
We both look up as Lively enters the room. He bows before speaking. "I have secured all the doors, Sir," he says, "and I have arranged with the footman that he and I shall take turns keeping watch, just in case that poacher decides to return. I feel it would be wise to have someone remain up and alert all night, in case he decides to try to get into the house."
"Very good," says Edward. "Tell me, Lively, did you ever suspect that Margaret would take her own life?"
"No, Sir," Lively replies.
"She never struck you as the emotional, superstitious type?"
"No, Sir," he says again. "I didn't spend much time with her, as you can imagine. We had little, if anything, in common with one another. I found her to be somewhat quiet and introverted, and not particularly interesting."
Edward laughs. "It's funny, isn't it?" he says, turning to me. "When someone dies, we're all supposed to be very polite and only remember their good qualities, but sometimes the dead simply had no good qualities. Margaret was a passable lady for your purposes, my dear, but she can be easily replaced. This country has no shortage of competent, dull little women."
"Perhaps it was our fault a little," I say, suddenly overcome with a feeling that even if I didn't cause Margaret's demise, I could perhaps have recognized her torment earlier and stepped in to help.
"Nonsense," Edward replies. "What makes you say that?"
"Perhaps I encouraged her to get too comfortable with me," I reply. "She began to feel that I liked her. Then, when I terminated her employment, she took it so terribly badly."
"Of course not," Edward says. "I can scarcely believe that you could consider such a possibility. The woman was doomed by her own idiocy. She's just lucky that we tolerated her around here for as long as we did."
I nod, but it seems as if there is nothing more to say. No words can wipe that final image from my mind, as Margaret dangled from the rope. I dare say it will take some time before I am able to sleep without seeing her bulging eyes, but to be honest I would happily dream of Margaret if this meant that my nightmares about Patrick and Sophie would go away. It would be so convenient if one could choose the ghosts by which one is haunted.
"If it's okay, Sir," Lively says, "I shall go and rest before taking my turn on watch tonight."
"Very good," Edward says, and Lively retires from the room. "He's a good man," Edward adds, standing up and leading me toward the door. "Servants like Margaret are ten a penny, but Lively's a catch. I certainly don't expect to ever have to terminate his employment with us. The man has a good head on his shoulders. I can rely on him, and that's a boon to us all."
We retire to bed, and once again Edward insists upon making love. I hitch my nightdress up so that my chest is exposed, and I open my legs so that he can mount me. It's a brief ritual, and I am glad that he gains some pleasure from poking about inside me, although part of me feels that it's desperately inappropriate tonight. In fact, as he huffs and puffs on top of me, I can't help but think about Margaret. I know she was only a servant, but I suppose she had feelings. The sight of her hanging from a rope was shocking, and I am not sure I shall ever forget the horrific look on her face. As Edward completes his ritual and hits the peak of his passion, I force a smile while he rolls back over to his side of the bed and prepares to go to sleep.
"What time shall we leave tomorrow?" I ask, pulling my nightdress back over my chest.
"Early," Edward says. He never wishes to speak much after we have made love; he prefers to just go straight to sleep, and I suppose I can understand that. After all, he puts a lot of effort into the endeavor and he deserves a good rest.
Suddenly there's a scream somewhere off in another part of the house.
Edward and I both sit up in bed.
"What on earth was that?" Edward asks, quickly rising and getting dressed. "Stay here," he says as he hurries out of the room, but as soon as he's gone, I get out of bed and quickly get dressed again. If there's to be some kind of incident, I must see it for myself; I must know what happens, so that I can see if any of it has come from my dream. I take a deep breath and run to the door, but as I open it I'm confronted by a towering figure.
A man.
Or something that used to be a man.
Tall, hideous and covered in bloody, blackened boils, a nightmarish creature stares down at me and grins.
Chapter Seven
I step back into the bedroom, unable to take my eyes off the hideous beast before me. It has the vague shape of an old man, but with hundreds - if not thousands - of small black lumps protruding from its skin, some of them buried under the surface and some partially poking out through fleshy holes; it takes me a moment to realize that each of these lumps is a pebble, just like the ones I've been finding around the house. From beneath those pebbles, almost hidden on the face of this monster, there are two human eyes staring out at me.
"Keep away from me," I say, my heart racing.
The creature takes a step toward me and, as it does so, all the pebbles clatter against each other, making the most cacophonous sound, which I can only describe as being something like the sound of hundreds of pebbles rattling against one another in a bag. Yet these pebbles are not in a bag: they are in the body of the creature itself.
"Whatever you want, you can take it," I say, "but you must leave. My husband will be back soon and he'll kill you, do you understand?" I wait for the creature to respond. "He'll kill you!" I shout.
The creature stares at me. "You must be Evangeline," he says eventually, his voice old but clear. He sounds human. "I heard that poor Edward had found himself a wife," he continues, "but I never imagined he would be able to secure a lady of such boundless beauty." He pauses. "You have the most intelligent eyes."
He takes another step toward me, and the pebbles in his skin rattle once again.
"No!" I shout. "Not another inch!" I stare at him, unable to comprehend the vision before me. "What are you?" I ask. "Are you sent by the Devil? Was Margaret right? Is he here? Have you been sent to drag me down to the fires of Hell?"
The creature laughs. "Not the Devil, no," he says. "I'm terribly sorry, but we haven't been properly introduced, have we?" He reaches out a pebble-covered hand, which rattles like the rest of his body. "My name is Dunstable."
I stare at the hand. There is absolutely no way I'm going to touch it, not with all that sticky blood smeared everywhere. "Dunstable?" I say, my mind racing, trying to work out what's going on.
"I'm Edward's uncle," he continues. "He might have mentioned me. I've been living here for many years, although - as you can doubtless see - things have become a little uncomfortable."
"You?" I ask, stunned. "You're my husband's uncle?"
"I'm terribly sorry I couldn't greet you properly when you arrived," he says, "but I was rather anxious to keep out of sight, for reasons that I imagine you can understand." His mouth, which I can barely see beneath all the stones and pebbles on his body, breaks into a slightly sad smile. "I haven't seen anyone else for a very long time. I'm afraid I've been rattling around the old house for many years, all on my own."
I shake my head. "I don't understand any of this. My husband's uncle might be many things, but a monster he is not!"
"A monster?" th
e creature says, sounding sad. "Oh..." He pauses. "I confess, I have long thought of myself as a monster, but it feels very different to have the word used by someone else. I can assure you, just a few years ago I was no monster. I was just a foolish old man, minding my own business before I fell victim to my tormentor."
"You look like no old man that I have ever seen," I say, carefully glancing around the room in the hope of finding some kind of weapon.
"That's because the creature got to me," he replies. "I've researched its history; I believe it is called a Tenderling. Night after night, it sits on my body while I sleep, and it puts little black stones under my skin. At first it was just one or two, hardly noticeable, but over many years my body filled with these stones until they started to overflow, and still the damnable creature continues to haunt me." He takes another step toward me, and one of the pebbles falls from his body and lands on the floor. "They're so heavy. But I believe he has turned his attentions to you now, hasn't he? He left me alone last night, for the first time in many years. He came to you instead."
"Me?" I ask.
"Have you not found pebbles beneath your own skin?" he replies. "I've read a great deal about these creatures. They're not mentioned in any conventional books, of course, but there are people who have encountered them and left records. It seems that they feed off the negative emotions of their victims, and for some reason they need to implant these stones in our bodies so that they can access those emotions."
"This Tenderling," I say. "What does he look like?"
"Small and red, like a goblin," Dunstable replies. "With yellow eyes and a grin that could turn a lesser man's heart to ash."
"Like a small devil?" I ask.
He laughs again. "I suppose one could say that, if one were a superstitious type."
"Poor Margaret," I say quietly.
"I have been at its mercy for so long," Dunstable says, his voice sounding weary. "The servants all fled and I was left alone, night after night, until I reached this wretched state. Look at me!"
