by Kim Wilkins
I decided to stop thinking. Thinking was hurting. I focussed instead on the primal drives within me. Get out. Return to the old woman. They were in there right along with eat, sleep, smoke. My mind was made up.
In the end, I waited until the very early morning. This was not by design, but because I dozed through the middle of the night which was when I had originally planned to escape. I had only candlelight. The electricity had not been restored and Marcus (not Neal, not Chloe) had brought me some candles with my dinner that evening. I wished for a nice, safe electric light because candlelight reminded me of all those teenage seances back in boarding school, where creepy stories and sleep deprivation made shadows alive in the walls.
I woke with a start, as one does when one didn’t expect to be asleep, and sat up. The candle had burned down to a waxy well. The clock on the wall was still stopped, but I estimated it was around two or three o’clock. The house was completely silent. I pulled the demon key out of my pocket and eyed it warily.
“You’re going to change everything,” I whispered to it, but it didn’t respond. I stood and walked to the door, held the key out in front of me and repeated the words which Deborah had said. “Paratax, I call upon you with this key as your commander. Open this door.”
Three distinct and undeniable things happened at once, though I’m not sure in which order. Reflecting upon it now, they are still all muddled up together, one big breath of shock pushed into my lungs simultaneously. But I think it must have gone like this:
First, music; a collection of notes which I’ve since pinned down as rising from F#, A#, C#, down to C and up to G. But it’s no use trying to play them to get the same feeling, because it was more than the melody; it was the sweetness of the sounds, the aching clarity with which they echoed down through my synapses and seemed to touch my spirit, both beautiful and yet somehow sinister.
Second, the door opened; the lock clunked and the door swung in an inch, letting in a quick breeze of cool air.
Third, I lost my mind. Momentarily, that is. All the strange events which I had been holding at arm’s length rushed into the crack, and suddenly I knew I was under a curse; I knew the old woman was a Wanderer who had a magic power over words; I knew that Deirdre could read minds and that the Lodge of the Seven Stars had a limited power to affect the world; I knew that John Milton had a fallen angel in his attic and that his youngest daughter had a key to command elemental spirits. At that moment I would have believed in the Bermuda Triangle, alien abductions, the second coming and little green men.
And consequently, I finally realised that I was in grave danger if I returned to the old woman to hear the rest of her story. But still I was determined to see her. I cannot explain why any more than I can explain why I still smoke even though I cough like a steam train every morning and two of my grandparents died of lung cancer. I was compelled. I was being pulled along on a chain which had enmeshed me so inexorably that there was no hope of escape.
I took a deep breath and attempted to pull myself together. Think about it later, think about it later. I picked up my bag and walked out the door, found my way down the staircase to the front entrance and, without hesitating, left.
Of course I had no idea where I was, but I followed the curving driveway in the weak moonlight out onto a narrow road. I looked from right to left, wondering in which direction I would find London. All I could see was the road winding into the darkness, past more country homes no doubt, leading me no closer to the city. I stopped and listened in the dark. Very faintly, a long way off, I could hear cars. The motorway. I crossed the road and headed into a brambly field, following my ears towards the traffic. The world felt emptied and soft.
Mist lay low over the field, filling the ditches I stumbled in and out of on my way. I peered ahead into the darkness and could see the shadows of trees in front of me. Ordinarily I might have found the scene eerie or forbidding, but I had far greater pressures acting upon me and I pressed forward, one foot in front of the other, until I reached the wood.
I saw myself, almost as if I were outside myself, picking over uneven ground, over fallen logs, around glistening spider webs, listening through the intense morning silence for traffic on the motorway, and I had a profound sense of how this may be the last silent peaceful moment in my life so I tried to relish it. I took deep breaths of clear dewy air, felt myself soothed by the damp leaves which caressed my face as I passed, and revelled in the almost perfect tranquillity of the wood.
But I drew closer and closer to the motorway, and the roar of a lorry shook a spider web in front of me, sending drops of dew plummeting towards the ground.
I broke out from between the trees and found myself standing on the edge of the road. Once again, I had no way to tell in which direction London lay, but while I was deliberating a car sped past then pulled up two hundred yards in front of me, its indicator flashing. It was a beat-up white utility, with crates tied in the back. I hurried down and leaned in the window. A skinny, greasy-haired man who could have been twenty or fifty peered back at me.
“Are you going to London?” I asked.
“Yes. Want a lift?”
“That’s the idea.”
He shrugged. “Get in.”
I got in and soon we were pulling out. “Do you have a cigarette?” I asked.
He handed me a mashed packet from his dash and pressed the lighter in. “So what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
I indicated the dawn creeping across the horizon. “Morning,” I corrected him, lighting my cigarette. I took a drag and released the smoke, coughed once and tried not to count how many cigarettes I had smoked in the last two days. “I’m under a curse.”
“A curse?” He smiled.
“I didn’t believe it either. But now I’m fairly certain.”
“Whatever you say, love. Where do you want me to drop you?”
“As close to City Road as you can.”
“I’m delivering to Shoreditch.”
“That’ll do nicely.”
I didn’t even stop to think whether or not it was too early for me to arrive on the old woman’s doorstep. It hardly seemed important given the momentous change in perspective which had just overtaken my life. The house was dark — indeed, it was barely light outside — as I thundered up the stairs calling for her.
“Hey, there. It’s Sophie. Are you awake?”
Her voice, those addictive inflections. “I’m ready, Sophie, if you’re sure you are.”
I arrived at the doorway. She sat where she always sat. I had assumed that she went into one of the adjoining rooms to sleep, but now I started to suspect that she didn’t move from her place under the window. And that made perfect sense, for a Wanderer, a woman under a curse, probably had little use for mundane things such as beds and toilets.
“I’m afraid,” I said to her.
“It’s probably too late.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“I’m sorry it had to be you. I quite like you. But I’m selfish, you see. It’s been a very long time.”
“Can you explain what will happen to me?”
“The story will lead us there.”
I sat on the floor in front of her. “Go on.”
She began to speak and I listened. God help me, I listened.
21
The Hollow Deep of Hell
Betty returned to a city razed nearly to the ground and a household in chaos.
She had raced home at first news of the fire. By Thursday morning, when she had taken John in her arms in surprised realisation of how deeply she had grown to care for him, the fire had been brought under control. But the stories of the extent of devastation were almost impossible to be credited. Most of the old city was gone, the wall had failed to contain the fire which burned west past Newgate, Ludgate and Bridewell, jumped the canal at Fleet Ditch and burned all the way down Fleet Street, nearly to Temple Bar. The field at the bottom of the Walk was filled with people and whiche
ver possessions they had managed to gather. They turned their eyes anxiously heavenwards as the gusty winds of summer gave way at last to grey skies.
But John’s first words at her anxious inquiries into his well-being were, “It appears my eldest daughter has lost her mind.”
Betty took a step back and looked at John’s face. “Lost her mind?”
“She sleeps in your bed. Liza returned yesterday morning, after Anne had paced the kitchen and raved half the night while Mary tried to calm her. They tried to move her upstairs, but Anne grew violent, shouting that she could not look upon that room again. She refuses to eat, though Liza has made her drink.”
“What is the nature of her raving?”
“It has to do with Deborah. Anne has said a number of times that she killed Deborah, yet Deborah is alive and well.”
“And Deborah has visited Anne?”
John lifted his shoulders. “It is not a Father’s role to negotiate such disputes.” As if on cue, a mad groan echoed down the stairs from the first floor. “I believe a woman’s intervention is more appropriate, and you are their stepmother.”
Betty anxiously glanced over her shoulder. John did not know what the girls were capable of. The tightness around John’s jaw told her how uncomfortable a raving daughter had made him. “I shall go to her forthwith,” Betty said.
“She will not go to Bedlam, Betty. Not a child of mine.”
Not fatherly love, she knew. Simple pride. “No, John. It may be that the raving passes, that she has a fever of the brain. Perhaps we should call a physician.”
He shook his head. “We cannot afford it. We have lost Bread Street.”
Betty did not comprehend for a moment, then realisation seized her. John’s house on Bread Street; the rent had supported them. “Burned?”
“Yes, to the ground. We are near destitute, Betty. Anne and Mary will have to find employment or return to their grandmother, we will have to sell what we can of books and possessions, perhaps let Liza go, and then live more frugally on the tiny pension I have remaining from my father.”
Betty felt her stomach sink with self-pity. She could have married better. There had been that civil servant at Shoreditch; a drunken fool though wealthy … But John stood before her, proud in his ruin, and she took his hand and squeezed it. “We shall manage, John.”
“Let us deal with one problem at a time. Look in on Anne.”
She dropped his hand and he felt his way back to his chair and lowered himself into it, his head cocked to one side in his characteristic way, as though listening for some far off music. She went through to the hallway where her trunk still sat by the door, and up the stairs. Liza sat in a chair in the withdrawing room, dozing into her chest.
“Liza,” Betty said sternly, jarring her awake.
“Ma’am,” Liza said, shaking her head to rouse herself. “I’m glad you are returned.”
A long, mournful groan from the other side of the curtains drew her attention. “What has happened?” She removed her gloves and unfastened her bonnet.
“Mistress Anne is mad, ma’am. She says over and over that she has killed her sister, and will not listen to a word of reassurance. Mary tries to sit with her but Anne spits at her and says it was she started the fire, it was she burned Deborah to death.”
“And Deborah? Does Anne respond to her presence?”
Liza dropped her gaze. “Deborah won’t come, ma’am.”
“What? ’Tis no wonder Anne believes her dead if we all say she is alive and she does not appear. You should have forced her to come.”
“I …” Liza hesitated, then seemed to form her resolve and proceeded. “I’m frightened of Mistress Deborah, ma’am. I went to tell her she should look in on her sister and she glared at me as though … as though she would turn my soul to stone, ma’am.”
The old rolling, tumbling fear returned. Maybe this malady of Anne’s was a product of witchcraft, and here was the girl sleeping in Betty’s own bed! An extremely bad omen. One that would take more than salt water and a name said backwards to overcome. She braced herself and pulled back the curtain.
Anne saw her, sat up and howled. Betty put her hands to her ears, as the howl stretched out for long moments. Her eldest stepdaughter was a raving mess of wild hair and bruise-black eyes, her thin face pale and drawn, her bottom lip red and scabrous from having been bitten to pieces.
“Hush now, child, hush,” Betty said, trying to sound soothing despite her wariness. To call Anne a child did not seem ridiculous even though she was a scant half-dozen years younger than Betty, for the girl had only the capacity of a babe in this state. Betty pushed her gently down onto the bed and adjusted the covers.
An icy hand shot out and grasped Betty by the wrist. Despite herself, she jumped.
“I killed my sister, Betty,” Anne said, in a voice so matter-of-fact she could have been reciting the alphabet.
“Hush, child, no you didn’t. Deborah is alive and well.”
“No, I burned her. Mary and I burned her to death. We burned everyone to death.”
“’Tis not true, Annie. Deborah is well. I heard that only six people had been killed by the fire, and Deborah is not one of them.”
“Six?” Anne said mournfully. “Six?” Then she released Betty’s wrist and held up her hand to count them off. “One, two, three, four, five …” She made a fist with her fingers then raised her pinky again. “… six. Dear little Deborah. She was such a pretty child.”
“Deborah is well.”
“I do not believe you, for I burned her myself. I saw her on fire and calling to me to save her, but Mary had bound my hands and I could not save her.” She began to thrash her head back and forth, a violent shaking. “No, no, no. I could not save her.” She descended once more into the howling, and Betty reached forward and clamped a hand over her mouth.
“If you saw Deborah, if she stood right here in front of you, would you believe me?”
Anne bit her hand and Betty released her.
“She is dead, Betty,” Anne said, her voice becoming shrill and loud. “Dead, you hear? Dead. I killed her!” She flipped herself over and exploded into sobs, guttural grunting sobs, and Betty found herself wondering about demon possession and how it might show itself. She could not risk Father Bailey’s return, however.
“Ma’am, what are we to do?” Liza asked.
Betty turned on her angrily. “I’m going to fetch Deborah.”
“She will not come, ma’am. We’ve all asked her, even her father, but she refuses. Mr Milton shouted at her like he’d bring down the house, and she said no, she would not go to Anne.”
Betty was surprised. “John admonished her?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And she wouldn’t come?”
“No, ma’am.”
Then what hope did Betty have? Still, Deborah had proved her ally once before, and if nothing else, Betty needed to know whether this madness had anything to do with witchcraft. “I shall speak with her,” Betty muttered.
“Best of luck, ma’am,” Liza said sarcastically, then when Betty turned on her, she added, “Pardon me for saying.”
“’Tis well for you that I am too busy to box your ears.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Watch her closely. I shall return anon.”
With trepidation, Betty advanced up the stairs. They seemed to lead up into the dark, and she knew why Liza found Deborah frightening. All of the girls scared her if she were honest, for they seemed to belong to part of a shadowy, sinister world which Betty had spent her whole life avoiding. Steeling herself, she knocked on the door and pushed it open. Mary was nowhere in sight. The door to Deborah’s closet was ajar.
“Deborah?”
“I’m in here.”
Betty approached, leaned around the threshold. Deborah sat on the bed with her writing tray in front of her, surrounded on all sides by papers. She didn’t look up.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a se
cond copy of Father’s poem.”
“To what purpose?”
“’Tis not for you to know.”
Betty felt a surge of irritation. This girl — not long out of her childhood — spoke as though Betty were her inferior. “I am your stepmother.”
Deborah placed her pen aside and released a weary breath. She fixed Betty with a gaze through her glasses. “You, of all people, know that common customs do not apply in this household.”
“Why do you not go to Anne?”
“Because I do not care a speck for her and I wish her to suffer.”
Betty was so surprised that she actually had to steady herself on the doorframe. “I cannot believe I hear correctly what you are saying! Your sister raves —”
“She says she killed me, does she not?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps I wish her to believe that she did.”
“Why would you wish that?”
Deborah shrugged. “Caprice? Does that answer satisfy you?”
“No, it could not. You know it could not.”
“There is little purpose in your coming here, Betty. I assure you, if Father cannot make me visit my sister, then nobody can.”
Betty hesitated, then advanced into the room and sat on the end of the bed. “Then, for the sake of my peace of mind, Deborah, tell me if she is bewitched.”
Deborah smiled, then snickered, then laughed out loud.
“Do not laugh at me!” Betty exclaimed, indignant.
Deborah’s laugh faded. “I merely laugh because I am tired of crying,” she said, her voice thick with venom. “Anne is not bewitched. Anne suffers under the burden of a terrible guilt and deservedly so.”
Betty shook her head slowly, the pieces falling into place in her mind. “You are not saying … Anne surely did not attempt to …”
“’Tis better for you to know nothing, Betty. You and Father both. All I can say for a certainty is that it appears my sisters and I are now enemies, and should I have the chance to go back in time and change one thing, it would be my reluctance to see them off to Surrey as apprentices. For a great deal of affliction may have been avoided by such a circumstance.”
