Holly felt a burning desire to rush into Tom’s arms and demand that he make everything right. Then she remembered the way he had looked right through her and fear kept her rooted to the spot.
“You know where we are if you need anything,” Diane was telling Tom.
“I know, Mum. We’ll be fine.”
“I know we’ve all agreed that now is the right time to let you fend for yourself, but if you need me …”
“I know,” insisted Tom. “I know where you are.”
“Will you leave the boy alone, Di,” Jack said. An arm appeared around Diane’s waist as he tried to pull his wife away.
“She’s such a fragile little baby. Now if you’re ever unsure about what to do, I’ve written everything down in the notepad on the table. And I’m always at the end of the phone. If you need anything, ring me.”
“I will, but you know everything’s organized. It’s not like Holly didn’t have everything planned right down to the last nappy for Libby’s arrival. You’d think she knew she was never coming home from hospital.” Tom’s voice cracked with emotion and there was a pause as he gulped back a sob. “I know I can’t replace her, Mum, but I promise you, I’ll look after our baby. She came at such a high price.”
“Poor Holly. It’s just so wrong. She would have made such a good mum. Why did she have to …” Diane couldn’t finish her sentence, she simply let the tears roll down her cheeks.
“You can say the word, Mum. It’s not like I could forget,” Tom told her. “She died. Holly died.”
Holly gripped the door handle. Whether it was fear or determination, her sense of touch seemed to be recovering slightly and the handle felt firm in her grasp, unlike her sanity. Holly could barely gasp in shock because the wind had been knocked out of her body and she felt utterly weak. She wanted to run but couldn’t draw her eyes away from the horror that was being played out in front of her like a car crash in slow motion.
“No more of this,” Jack was insisting. “We said we would go home today. We agreed it was for the best.”
“But it’s been less than a month. Tom’s world’s been turned upside-down,” argued Diane.
“Dad’s right,” Tom said, straightening his back in firm resolve. “If we don’t do this now, then it’s just going to get harder and harder.”
“And if you keep on blubbing, you’re not going to be able to see your way down the path to the car,” warned Jack.
“At least let me help you with your case,” insisted Tom, taking a step over the threshold.
“What about Libby?” Diane sobbed.
“She’s safe enough in the living room and I’ll put the snip on the door.”
No sooner had the figures retreated from view than a sound came from the living room. It was a sound so alien to the house that Holly released the door handle as if, like the moondial, it too had been charged with electricity.
She wanted to turn and run but something about the sound of a baby crying caught her around the chest. Never before had Holly felt a reaction like that to a baby’s cries. Instead of moving away, she stepped into the hallway and entered the living room.
The baby was in a bassinet in the corner of the room. Her eyes were open wide and alert. They were bright green, a mirror image of Tom’s. When the baby saw Holly, she didn’t just stop crying; her whole body relaxed and she stilled herself. She was the most beautiful thing Holly had ever seen. She had wisps of blond hair and a handful of tiny curls licked her forehead. Her cheeks were perfectly round and her pink lips the cutest Cupid’s bow. Holly couldn’t resist and she gently stroked the side of her angelic face. The baby responded by moving toward her hand, her little mouth searching for nourishment.
“So what’s a tiny wonder like you doing in a nightmare like this?” whispered Holly.
The baby wriggled and gurgled and Holly instinctively reached for her. She paused only briefly as the urge to hold the baby consumed her. She had never in her life had any desire to hold a baby and she couldn’t recall a time when she actually had held one. She slipped her hands beneath the baby’s body, her fingers sweeping over the soft, warm folds of the blanket she was wrapped in. Her fumbling fingers met no resistance and Holly could feel no weight against her hands as she tried to lift the baby out of the bassinet. Holly frowned in frustration as the need to hold the baby overwhelmed her. But no matter how hard she tried, the baby remained firmly in the bassinet, and sensing Holly’s frustration she began to cry, much louder than before.
“I’m coming,” called Tom’s voice and Holly heard him rush down the hallway and into the kitchen.
Holly stepped away from the bassinet and looked around the room with rising panic. The stack of sympathy cards lined up across the mantelpiece didn’t escape her notice but she was more intent on finding a hiding place. She scurried over to the large patio windows that led into the conservatory and slipped into the shadows just as Tom appeared with a baby bottle in his hand.
He picked the baby up and sat down on the nearest of the two sofas to feed her. He was practically facing Holly and although she knew she wasn’t completely hidden, there was still no sign that Tom sensed she was there.
“Alone at last,” Tom sighed as the baby guzzled her milk urgently.
The room fell silent other than the sound of the baby’s gulps and Holly’s ragged breathing. She thought her breathing must be so loud that Tom would surely hear her, but still he didn’t acknowledge her. She could feel herself withdrawing into the relative comfort of a shock-induced numbness. Her brain had all but stopped trying to make sense of what was happening to her. She chose instead to concentrate on the regular gulps of satisfaction she could hear coming from Libby, and it soothed her.
“I know you’re there, Holly,” Tom said.
Goosebumps coursed up Holly’s arms and down her spine. As if in a trance, Holly stepped out of the shadows and into the living room.
“I’m here, Tom,” she said.
Tom was looking toward the patio window, just to the left of Holly, but he had that distant look in his eyes again. Wherever he was looking, it was someplace far from the confines of the room. “I hope you can see me, sweetheart. I hope you can hear me, because I don’t think I could go on if I thought you’d completely left me.” Tom’s voice was a crackled whisper and he closed his eyes tightly, suppressing the tears that had sprung to his eyes.
Holly rushed forward and knelt in front of him, grabbing his arms and willing him to open his eyes and see her. “I’m here, Tom! Please, please look at me!” she sobbed.
Tom opened his eyes and Holly shuddered as once again his gaze passed right through her, cutting her like a knife. Holly recoiled from Tom for the very first time in their life together.
“It hurts, Holly; it hurts so much. Every time I wake up, I remember I’m never going to see you again and my stomach lurches. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. You were fine. You were fit and you were healthy—pregnant, yes, but healthy. You were there one minute and then you just weren’t. Every bone in my body aches for you and it hurts so much.”
Tom paused, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Mum keeps saying I should let go, let myself cry, but I can’t. I’m so scared, Holly, because I swear if I did cry, I don’t think I’d be able to stop.” Tom kept gulping for air, drowning himself in unshed tears.
Libby started to wriggle in his arms so Tom pulled the half-finished bottle from her mouth. His face softened slightly as he looked at his daughter and he smiled at her before lifting her onto his shoulder and patting her back. The painted smile disappeared and a look of pain returned to his eyes. “I’m not ready for you to leave me, Hol. I’m not ready to accept that you’re never going to walk back into the room. All your things are exactly as you left them; everything is there, ready for you to come home. Come home, Holly, please just come home.”
A sob escaped and Tom bit his lip to hold himself together. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore; it hurts too much. If it wasn’t
for Libby, I don’t think I could go on without you,” he said. Libby gave a huge burp in reply, and Tom forced a smile. He cradled her again in his arms and started feeding her once more.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Libby,” he whispered, and the love for his daughter warmed Holly’s heart and thawed the numbness that had engulfed her. “I love you so much and your mummy loves you and she’s watching over you.”
Holly couldn’t resist stroking the top of Libby’s head and as she leaned forward she could feel Tom’s warm breath on her face. Her whole body tingled and she knew that this was more real than any dream she had ever had.
“Promise me you’ll never leave me,” Tom whispered.
“I promise,” Holly answered, willing Tom to hear her, but he made no response.
Holly rested her head on Tom’s lap in submission and closed her eyes. “This isn’t real, Tom; this isn’t happening. It’s going to be all right.”
Silence filled the room and time ticked by. Holly stayed where she was until the baby finished her bottle and then she reluctantly withdrew as Tom made a move to stand up. She stood up, too, facing him as he perched Libby on his shoulder and then picked up the bassinet.
“Bedtime for us, I think,” Tom said with false bravado.
As he turned and headed for the door, Holly put her hand on his shoulder, not wanting him to leave. “Stay with me,” she pleaded as the sense of panic returned.
Tom paused. “Stay with me,” he whispered, but then he left the room.
Holly felt close to a breaking point and she was paralyzed by fear. Her breathing was getting faster and deeper and she started to feel woozy. She was on the verge of hyperventilating. She heard Tom’s footsteps going up the stairs and then the creaking of floorboards overhead. For the second time that night, the sound of the baby crying sent her whole body into spasm.
The combination of the need for fresh air and the overwhelming desire to run away was enough to give Holly the strength to leave the house. She stumbled through to the kitchen, fumbling with the door handle before eventually letting herself out of the house and across the garden. It was still cold, much too cold for late April, and the wind whipped around her.
Holly’s eyes darted from one side of the garden to the other, and she wondered what demons lurked in the shadows to strip away the last shreds of her sanity. In answer to her challenge, Holly’s attention was drawn toward the orchard. The trees that should have been on the verge of blossom were now forlornly hanging on to withered leaves, fragments of a summer long gone. Holly stumbled on until she reached the moondial.
“I’m not dead. I’m not dead!” she cried out. She sank to her knees and curled up into a ball. “I’m here, Tom. Why can’t you see me?” she pleaded.
Holly wasn’t sure how long she remained curled up beneath the moondial. Exhausted and cold, terrified and confused, she didn’t know what to do next.
It was only when the kitchen light was switched off and the garden was etched in gray once more that Holly lifted her head and looked toward the house.
A few seconds later, a light appeared from her bedroom window. It was the soft glow of a bedside lamp. The bedroom blind was open. Holly tried to remember if she had left the blind open or closed. She sighed deeply. What did it matter? Everything had changed and Holly felt trapped in a world she no longer belonged in. But Tom was in there. If she didn’t belong with him, then where did she belong?
Holly rose to her feet and, beneath the watchful gaze of the full moon, felt an urge to go back into the house and run to Tom. She was about to take a step forward when the unmistakable silhouette of her husband appeared at the bedroom window. He was rocking from side to side and although Holly was raging against the impossibility of it all, she knew he had the baby in his arms. The slow rocking motion of his body suddenly froze. Holly couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was looking at her.
It felt as if the world were closing in around her when she fell under Tom’s gaze. There was a crushing weight pushing against her chest as the rhythmic sound of a ticking clock grew closer and then stopped with a thud. Whether it was the wind that whipped around her or just sheer exhaustion, Holly stumbled and reached out to the moondial to steady herself. The moment she touched the dial, a host of dancing moonbeams scampered around her. The garden became a blur and the air became heavier and a few degrees warmer.
Holly needed to keep both hands on the dial to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes in an effort to stem the waves of dizziness that ebbed and flowed through her. One of her hands touched something on the dial. Holly blinked to chase away the shadows left by the light of the moonbeams. It took a while before she could safely pick up what she had touched. She held it in her hands and a sense of relief washed away the terror. It was the wooden box. The dial mechanism and the orb had all reappeared, too. The orb trembled benignly in the loosened grasp of the brass claws. Everything was as it should be.
The wind had eased and as Holly looked toward the orchard, the telltale white buds of spring sparkled against the night. Below her feet, the long grass was just as overgrown as it ever had been. Holly’s head snapped toward the house. Her bedroom window was in darkness, as was the whole house, minus one conservatory. The bedroom blind was rolled up but no figure looked down on her.
Holly snatched the orb from the dial and threw it urgently into the box as if holding it would burn her fingers. Taking the box with her, she ran through the grass, not stopping until she was back in the kitchen where she quickly turned the light on. A quick check confirmed that there was no baby equipment, no notepad on the table.
The tentacles of Holly’s living nightmare were slowly releasing their grip on her heart and her mind. Stepping more tentatively into the hallway, Holly checked both reception rooms before heading upstairs. Her bedroom was empty, her bed a writhing mess of bed linen just as she’d left it. The digital display on the clock read 3:21 AM.
Holly stripped out of her clothes, her jog pants still sodden from the wet grass. She crawled into the comfort of her bed and wrapped herself in her duvet. Unable to even begin to make sense of the last hour, Holly closed her eyes and closed down her mind. The sleep that previously evaded her came swiftly and mercifully.
3
The ominous glow of the full moon had surrendered to the harsh spring sunlight by the time Holly was shocked into consciousness by someone banging on the front door. Jumping from her bed, she ignored the discarded clothes on the floor and grabbed her dressing gown. Her body ached all over as she made her way downstairs.
“Sorry, Billy, I must have slept in,” she apologized as she rubbed the last remnants of sleep from her eyes.
“Now, now, Mrs. Corrigan,” tutted Billy. “You can’t go answering the door in your slinky nightie when there are builders around. You’ll have my lads dropping hammers on their toes.”
“It’s an old dressing gown, Billy, and I think I’m more likely to frighten them off than anything else,” retorted Holly. She knew she must look a state but was silently grateful for Billy’s gallantry as she tried to scrape back her hair into some kind of order.
Billy’s mischievous smile dropped and his playful tone was replaced by one of concern. “Hey, what happened to your face?” he asked.
Holly leaned back and took a look at herself in the hallway mirror. The right side of her cheek was bruised and grazed. “It’s nothing,” Holly said in a robotic tone as the memory of her moonlit walkabout replayed in her mind for the first time since waking.
“If that man of yours has been knocking you about then we’ll be having serious words when he gets back,” Billy growled.
“Don’t be daft,” Holly said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m just a weak and feeble woman who can’t be trusted on her own. I tripped in the garden, that’s all.”
“Well, it sounds like it was a good idea of mine to send Jocelyn around. I knew you’d need looking after.”
Holly
was in no mood for Billy’s usual banter, but if she didn’t appear her usual self, who knew who else he would be sending around to check on her.
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but yes, it was a very good idea. She’s a lovely lady,” replied Holly with a smile that was more genuine this time.
“You need to get out more, visit people.”
“Now if I promise I will, could you stop nagging and get on with your work?”
Billy saluted. “I aim to please. We should have the internal work finished by the end of the week, so if you want to start thinking about those bells and whistles you wanted to add, now would be a good time. After that, if there’s anything else you need, you only have to ask.”
“Is that a proposition, Billy?” gasped Holly with a half-smile.
Billy actually blushed. “Erm, well, I was actually thinking, well, what I meant was, erm, the garden could do with a proper makeover. We don’t want any more accidents, do we?” he stammered.
Holly shivered as she recalled the sensation of kneeling on the soft lawn. “Thanks, Billy, but I’m not sure I want to let Tom off the hook with that particular job just yet.”
She brought her chat with Billy to a swift end, promising to make him and his lads a nice cup of tea. With Billy dispatched to the studio, Holly took another look at her reflection in the mirror. She wanted desperately to believe that the events of the previous night had just been a weird and not-so-wonderful nightmare, but the physical evidence was difficult to dismiss.
As she went through the motions of getting showered and dressed, her mind remained focused on finding a rational explanation for what had happened the night before. There was absolutely no doubt that she’d left the house during the night. The open kitchen door and the wet jog pants proved that she had gone into the garden. The wooden box left abandoned on the kitchen table confirmed that she had been playing with the moondial. But at what point did reality end and her imagination take over?
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