Agent of Equilibrium

by N. J. Mercer

  **

  Rachel didn’t have to read any more of that journal entry; she remembered very well the conversation with her mother that day. She had been confused and could not understand why a child had to suffer something so terrible. Louise had explained the tragedy as best as she could. Rachel had found the talk with her mother reassuring, even though it didn’t make things much clearer. Ultimately, it seemed to her that bad stuff happened, and there was no real reason for it. Death, illness and even hopeless people like her father just seemed to happen.

  Rachel sat back in her bed and reflected on this rather depressing, disenfranchised view of life she had reached. It was a conclusion confirmed by the premature death of her mother. And try as she might, she couldn’t yet bring herself to have a more positive outlook on existence. She wondered what the oblique references to Elizabeth’s husband were all about; they were worrying.

  Rachel looked at her bedside clock, it was five a.m. The excitement of reading the diary was being gradually replaced by tiredness. She felt awake enough to read on a little longer, to another time that she remembered, a period in her mother’s life she needed to know more about … the days preceding her death.

  For a few weeks before she died, Louise had been suffering from a run of bad dreams. Rachel remembered, all those years ago, how she would be woken up by the noise of her mother tossing and turning in her bed. To investigate the disturbance she would walk, frightened, to the doorway of her own bedroom and look into the room across the corridor where the troubled sleeper lay, writhing as if possessed, her appearance feverish with nightclothes soaked in sweat. She would watch for a while, too afraid to awaken her or even enter the room and then go back to her own bed once again, trying to ignore the creaking bed and moans so that she could fall asleep.

  It was a strange, worrying time. In the days that led to her death, Louise had seemed distant and anxious. Something had been bothering her, and to this day Rachel was desperate to know what. She grabbed more pages and turned them over. These latter entries made chilling reading.

  **

  18th November

  There’s something I haven’t mentioned yet that I really feel I should. I have been dreaming about a strange man. When the dreams first started he was barely noticeable, he just used to lurk in the background, and I didn’t pay much attention to him. As time went on though, his presence in my dreams became ever more prominent. He doesn’t lurk in the distance any more; he is very much in the forefront now. I could be asleep, dreaming normally about pleasant things, like meeting a friend or playing with Rachel; before long, he appears. Last week I dreamed about driving with my mother and Rachel through some crazy city I didn’t recognise; it was a pleasant dream that turned into a nightmare. There in the back seat, sitting next to Rachel, visible through the rear-view mirror as I drove, was the man, dressed in black from head to toe. He wore a big hat beneath which I could only see his chin and lips, gnarly and pale they were as if he was sick. I screamed at him. My passengers couldn’t see him and thought I had gone mad. I turned around, and sure enough he was still there sitting in the back seat. I screamed at him again. Taking my eyes off the road caused the car to crash, waking me up with a startle. Just like that, he haunts my dreams, turning up when I least expect it. I am filled with dread when he’s there.

  He has become ever more present in my dreams and I cannot get away from him in them. Last night I woke up in a panic, sweaty and shivering. In that nightmare I was in some sort of bleak desert, alone until he turned up and started to move towards me. He was only walking but his approach was impossibly quick, as if he were running. I started to stumble. He was getting closer, and the closer he got the greater my sense of terror. I couldn’t move fast enough to get away. I tripped and fell; he was only a few yards from me. I screamed; the fear became so intense that I awoke. The bed was damp with my sweat. I have never been much of a dreamer and have not experienced nightmares since childhood. I am at a complete loss to explain what is going on. They say the dream reflects the subconscious; in that case, from what deeply rooted fears and anxieties do my nightmares stem? Of course, I will talk about it with Martin. He is no psychologist, but who else is there to discuss this with? Certainly not Rachel, she would be terrified. My nightmares are becoming progressively more intense and awful, I hope they stop soon. I’m getting tired now, sleep is becoming very difficult.

  **

  Rachel continued to read painfully through further diary entries, and learning the details of her mother’s suffering hurt her deeply. The accounts mostly described normal days and nights; however, there was always a sentence or two included somewhere within the text that mentioned the nightmares. Under 23rd November for example, a couple of lines read: ‘It happened again. Last night the man in black was there, he was closer and I woke up. It was four a.m. I couldn’t get back to sleep.’ At the end of another entry, Louise had simply written ‘the nightmare was there again, worse than ever’.

  It was only in her mother’s last diary entry that Rachel read another extended reference to the nightmares.

  **

  2nd December

  I didn’t feel well today and it’s all because of the nightmares. They have been bad recently. Last night was the worst. I am still shaking as I think about what happened. I was in the desert again; it stretched for miles around me. It was empty, there was nobody around, the skies above were bleak and grey like the sand, and a cold wind chilled me to the bone. In the distance I saw a speck on the horizon, a dark speck. I immediately knew what it was and started to run. Just like before, the more I ran the closer the man in black got to me. He was wearing his hat again and as usual I couldn’t see his face, just that terrible mouth. This time he was quicker than ever before. The wind picked up and the clouds zoomed across the grey sky, the cold bitter wind whipped my clothes as I ran and still the man in black got closer. I fell, exhausted, onto the sand and turned to see where he was, only to find him standing over me, the brim of his hat still covering his face. I started crawling backwards away from him. It was useless; he had already caught up with me. For the first time I saw the face of this man that had been haunting my dreams for so long and it was horrible. It was grey and wrinkled with deep sunken sockets; there were no eyes in those sockets, just gaping black cavities. I screamed out as I lay there on the ground, unable to stop myself from staring back at that terrible face. Realising it was a nightmare I tried to wake myself – it didn’t work, and I remained asleep. Before my very eyes he changed; his whole body melted into the shape of a fierce black dog, salivating and growling. I crawled backwards to get away from him; it was hopeless, the beast was upon me. The dog started mauling my face until my own blood obscured my vision. I screamed; the pain felt so real. Eventually, mercifully, I awoke. I had obviously been thrashing around as I slept; my sheets and duvet had been thrown off the bed. I cried out as I saw blood stains on the mattress. I ran to the bathroom and in the mirror saw that I had a nosebleed. I tried to turn on the tap, my hands were trembling. I managed to get the cold water running and splashed it over my face. The water was a relief, it calmed me. I went to check on Rachel, praying that she had slept through my ordeal; I would have hated her to see me as I was. She was lying in her bedroom, asleep.

  I have spoken to Martin before about the dreams. I spared him all the terrible details. After this last dream I will do as he recommended and speak to my doctor. I must get medical help; I can’t go on like this.

  **

  Rachel finished reading her mother’s final and most disturbing journal entry. She sat in her bed, devastated, with tears in her eyes. Reading about the suffering of somebody she loved so much was deeply upsetting. Louise had mentioned her nightmares to Rachel only on a handful of occasions, usually after her daughter had commented on how tired she was looking. She had never divulged the true depth and terror of these experiences to her, not even to Martin. Rachel wished Louise had shared her fear with her when she was alive – maybe she could have hel
ped, she wasn’t sure how – she would have done something though. She closed the diary and shuddered. Her mother’s final nightmares had been almost prophetic, and the images she described were very close to how she finally met her end. Like Martin had said, something was definitely going on. Louise died on the day following this dream, and after the terrible event, Rachel had undergone seemingly endless counselling. It was only after a year that she was judged by psychologists to be dealing adequately with her loss. An important factor in why she did not fall apart entirely was her new life as a foster child. Being in a house surrounded by people who welcomed her in with open arms and were determined to help her was a huge aid to the recovery process. With their support and professional counselling, the withdrawn, disturbed Rachel had managed to push some of the events of her mother’s death deep into the far recesses of her mind – now it was all coming back to haunt her. For the first time in twelve months Rachel allowed herself to recollect the day her mother had died.

  **

  She was twelve years old and sitting in an English lesson at school. She remembered catching glimpses of strangers through the narrow glass window in the classroom door; they were walking back and forth along the corridor with her headmaster, Mr Abraham. Other children noticed them too; Mr Evans, the teacher taking the class, chided them for becoming distracted so easily.

  Usually Rachel would have ignored such a disturbance; although, on this occasion, she was certain that the important-looking adults outside had been watching her. After a while the activity in the corridor died down, and she continued with her English lesson albeit feeling a little uneasy; why should they have been looking at her?

  After English was French, the last lesson of the day. As she entered the room with the rest of her class she was sure that her teacher, Mrs Martel, was looking at her a little differently, just holding her gaze ever so slightly longer than normal. It was enough to make her feel uneasy again and wonder what on earth was going on. The lesson ended uneventfully; the class started to file out of the room. Rachel packed her schoolbag and was about to leave with the rest when Mrs Martel asked her to stay behind. A little confused, she waited as the room emptied. She went through the events of the day in her mind wondering what she could possibly have done to warrant this individual attention. She wasn’t the type of student who was generally kept behind in class for anything; she never excelled in her work enough to be singled out for special praise and neither did she misbehave or cause trouble. Overall, she was a pretty average, or dare she say it, boring, student. Soon, it was only herself and Mrs Martel left in the room. It felt eerie to her, a classroom so often full of activity now empty of all its students, just her and the teacher alone.

  “Don’t worry, dear, you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re not here to be told off,” said Mrs Martel, seeing the look on the girl’s face. “Mr Abraham wants to see you about something.” Rachel noticed a kindness in her voice as she spoke. It wasn’t a tone or manner that she used with the rest of the class; she seemed so much nicer this way. “Oh, here he is now; I’ll leave you with him.”

  Mr Abraham, the headmaster, walked into the room. He gave Mrs Martel a nod as she left; there was a lady with him, someone Rachel didn’t recognise. Rachel sat quietly, not sure what to make of everything that was going on. Mr Abraham and the new lady sat near to her on the classroom chairs, and Rachel couldn’t help thinking that they looked too big for them. The lady sat very close.

  Rachel looked up at them both, Mr Abraham first with his shock of thinning white hair, his round face and droopy brown eyes, a face that could switch from benign kindness to a mask of rage in a second, a useful trick for disciplining his more wayward pupils. The lady looked like a nice person decided Rachel. She was dressed casually and her dark brown hair was tied up. She wasn’t young but dressed like a younger person which suited her. Rachel sat quietly, confused.

  “How are you, Rachel?” Mr Abraham asked in a soft voice. Rachel, unsure what to say, just nodded gently. “Good,” smiled the headmaster. “You’re probably wondering what we all are doing here. This, by the way, is Stephanie, she’s a police lady.”

  “Hello, Rachel,” said the child liaison officer.

  Again, Rachel just nodded, unsure where all this was going. Mr Abraham’s face seemed more serious now. “Rachel,” he started, “there has been an accident involving your mother.”

  Rachel felt a hollowness in her stomach suddenly and stared back at her headmaster. Mr Abraham had paused to carefully gauge this quiet child’s response to the unfortunate news; it was difficult with Rachel to know exactly what she was thinking.

  “What happened? Is Mum all right?” she asked finally, her voice quiet and wavering, they were the first words she had spoken in this meeting.

  Mr Abraham looked to WPC Stephanie Locke. “Hi, Rachel, before I tell you any more about what happened I just want to wait until your dad gets here,” she said.

  “My dad?” asked Rachel, perplexed. “I haven’t seen him for two years, why is he coming?”

  WPC Locke spoke again. “We thought you should have a relative here, Rachel. I know your dad hasn’t seen you much. He did tell us that he cares for you a lot. Is there anybody else you would like to be here?”

  “Just my mum … or Martin,” she said.

  WPC Locke pursed her lips as she looked at Rachel; her green eyes were wide with genuine concern about the child’s well-being. Mr Abraham’s gaze lowered slightly.

  “Who’s Martin?” asked PC Locke.

  Rachel briefly described the relationship between Martin and her mother, explaining that he was in Germany, on a business trip. Stephanie Locke carefully noted all these details down. The policewoman promised to speak to him. The shrill ring of her mobile phone made everybody start.

  “Hi, there … yeah … okay … we’re in the school now … Is he with you then? Okay, fine… yeah, see you in a minute.” She hung up. “That was my colleague, PC Andrews, Rachel. He’s brought your dad along.” Rachel managed a small smile at the news; it did little to mask the anxiety all over her tiny face.

  Stephanie Locke turned to Mr Abrahams. “They must be at the front of the school now,” she said to him. He nodded and left the room, giving Rachel a gentle, reassuring squeeze of the shoulder first. Rachel waited for her estranged father with Stephanie Locke, who continued to keep a close eye on her. “How do you get on with your father, Rachel?” she asked. Rachel took a few moments to think about the relationship.

  Her mother had probably only ever said two good words about her father; Rachel couldn’t recollect them. She had also said uncountable bad words: lazy, clueless and idiot sprang to mind. Even though Rachel hadn’t seen her father for two years, he did call her periodically. Her mother had seemed happy for Rachel to keep in touch with him despite her personal feelings about the man. He would ring about once every two weeks and would do most of the talking while Rachel just listened. Conversations often began with his usual greeting: “Hello, how are you doing, babe?” The body of the conversation would be something like: “I’ve got a new job …” or, “I saw so and so today,” in reference to somebody who was completely unknown to Rachel.

  She had lost track of her father’s ‘jobs’; he seemed incapable of any real stability in his life. The lasting impression in Rachel’s mind was of a man who never quite got it right. Despite these shortcomings, she couldn’t help feeling a degree of affection for the rambling voice at the end of the phone line and had always wanted to know more about him.

  “He’s all right,” replied Rachel to WPC Locke. “I don’t really know him that well any more.”

  “Is there anybody else, Rachel, relatives or friends who we can get in touch with besides your father and Martin?”

  “Meredith and Lisa.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Friends, good friends.”

  “Are they young girls like you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I see,” said Stephanie Locke, making a re
cord of the names in her notebook.

  As she was writing, Rachel spoke again. “Meredith and Lisa they had a sister you know, she was called Chloe; she was my friend – she died.”

  PC Locke frowned. “How did she die?” she asked. Before Rachel could respond the door to the room opened abruptly.

  A tall, thin man with short, dark, almost black hair, very pale skin and a bad complexion resulting from years of drug and alcohol abuse entered behind Mr Abrahams. Even though it had been two years since she had last seen him in person, her father still looked the same. Rachel remembered how hay fever made his eyes red and puffy every summer; he looked just like that now. Since hearing the news about his ex-wife, Steven Croft had been distraught; he felt the loss more for his daughter than himself. Once in the classroom he quickly overtook Mr Abrahams with his long stride and walked over to where Rachel and WPC Locke were sitting; he crouched down opposite to his daughter.

  “Rachel, babe,” he said before giving her a hug. She hugged him back, tiny against his lanky frame. “Honey, it’s so good to see you again,” sniffed Steven holding both her hands in his. “Babe, there has been some bad news,” he started, he had mentally rehearsed what he was about to say on his journey to the school. Mr Abrahams watched solemnly from the front of the class. WPC Locke sat quietly. “It’s about Louise – I mean, Mum …” he faltered. “There was an accident in the park, babe. Mum died in it.”

  Rachel sat frozen on the chair opposite her father; he continued to hold her hands. She stared back into his face, the magnitude of what he had said beyond her grasp. Her eyes filled slowly with tears, she continued to stare; the eyes overflowed and the tears gently rolled down her cheeks. Her father pulled her to him and wrapped his arms tightly around her. Her body was limp; she wanted to hug him back, to do something, anything.

  “You’re coming with me for tonight, honey. Then Stephanie here will look after you, okay?” said Steven. Rachel, still in her father’s embrace, nodded.