Where the Dead Live

by Marissa Farrar

  But now we had the much feared vermin and there was no way we could call an exterminator out without the neighbours being up-in-arms.

  Maggie folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at the traps. Suddenly, she kicked out at one of them in frustration. It snapped shut, crushing the piece of apple that had been sitting on it.

  “Shit!” she exclaimed, jumping backwards.

  I had to hide a smile and I stepped towards her, wrapping my arms around her slim waist, my palm resting on the flat of her stomach. I nuzzled into her neck.

  “You can catch me if you like,” I said against her skin.

  “James...” she said in protest. She put her hand over mine and squeezed it before pulling out of my hold.

  The action hurt. I knew she wasn’t deliberately trying to reject me, but ever since the doctor told us our infertility wasn’t just ‘unexplained’ anymore, that there was a good, solid reason we had not managed to get pregnant after four years of trying, it was like she could not bear the idea of me touching her. The project of the chickens had been a good distraction for her, but I knew the specialist´s diagnosis played on her mind constantly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but you’ll never get pregnant naturally. Neither of your fallopian tubes are attached to your ovaries. Pregnancy without medical intervention would be impossible.’

  Impossible. Such a terrible, final sounding word. I wondered if this was the word that echoed over and over in Maggie’s mind, as it did in my own. If I tried to talk to her about it she just clammed up or walked away. I knew that deep down she blamed herself. Our much longed for child didn’t exist because something was wrong with her. In her eyes, how could that not be her fault?

  We had already decided to try IVF. It was not even a discussion really; we would do whatever we had to. We had taken a ‘home improvement’ loan out with the bank, but even paying to go privately, it was still going to be another six weeks before we had our first appointment.

  I watched Maggie’s back as she walked back to the house. For the millionth time, I prayed that the IVF would work. I was scared, scared that if we didn’t get our baby, I would also lose my wife.

  I opened the front door and immediately became aware that the house was empty. Normally, when I got home from work, the house would be full of the smell of Maggie’s cooking and she would have her music on—something modern that I wouldn’t recognise. But today the house was ominously quiet and my empty stomach grumbled in protest.

  “Mags?” I called out. There was nothing.

  I walked into the dining room and threw my wallet and keys on the table. That was when I noticed the back door was open. I walked out into the back garden to see Maggie on her hands and knees in front of the greenhouse, the glass door slid open in front of her. I frowned and was about to call out to her again when I realised she was speaking.

  “It’s okay little guy,” she said gently. “I won’t hurt you. You can come out now.”

  I grinned. “I don’t think coaxing it out will work.”

  She jumped at the sound of my voice and then turned to me, one hand on her chest, an angry frown on her face.

  “Shut up! You’re scaring him.”

  The frown mirrored on my face. “Scaring who? Not the rat?”

  Her whole expression changed, the anger suddenly replaced with a delight. “Oh, James, it’s not a rat at all. It’s something else entirely.”

  I was baffled. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly, but it’s definitely not a rat.”

  “Honey, we’ve turned that place upside down, what else could be in there?”

  It was true. Other than the permanent benches holding all of Maggie’s seedlings, we had emptied out the greenhouse of all of the plant pots and bags of soil, but had still come up with nothing. If it wasn’t for the appearance every morning of fresh burrows and the termite mounds which seemed to get bigger and more elaborate, we would have decided whatever it was had left. Even when I went in there and knocked all of the mounds down with my foot and even dug under them just to make sure nothing was hiding beneath, the next day they were back, bigger and better than before.

  Even I had to admit this was probably not typical rat behaviour, but I just didn’t know what else to think.

  “Maggie, what makes you think it’s not a rat? What did you see?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes shining. “It’s not what I saw; it’s what I heard! It spoke to me!”

  Alarm bells rang in my head and I couldn’t help the disbelief that tainted my voice. “It spoke to you?”

  “I don’t think it’s English, but it’s definitely some kind of language.”

  “Honey,” I said again. “Think about what you’re saying, are you sure you didn’t mistake it for the wind in the trees or next door´s radio.”

  She shot me a look. “Don’t patronise me. I know what I heard.”

  I crouched down next to her, my feet sinking into the thick grass, and took hold of her upper arm, helping her to her feet. I didn’t want to fight with her, but what she was saying scared me. I wasn’t certain that whatever was ploughing up our greenhouse every night was a rat, but I was definitely certain that whatever it was, it wasn’t speaking to my wife in English or any other language.

  I woke to find the bed empty, a cold spot in the place normally filled by the warm body of my wife. I sneaked my foot over to her side of the bed and the coolness of the sheets told me that where ever she was, she hadn’t been in bed for some time.

  I sat up, a frown on my face. The red LED alarm clock flicked to show it was twenty-past two in the morning. We had gone to bed together just after eleven and it wasn’t like her to get up again, even if she couldn’t sleep. I pulled the duvet back and the cold air puckered my skin. It was a cold night, despite being late spring, and I hoped whatever Maggie was doing, she had the sense to wrap up warm.

  About to head down stairs, expecting to find Maggie sitting in the kitchen nursing a cup of hot chocolate or warm milk, I noticed the curtains had been opened, not fully, but about a foot or so, enough to allow a view onto our back garden. It was nothing, maybe I hadn’t closed them properly before we went to bed, but it stopped me. I reached out, intending to pull them together, when I saw movement in the back garden.

  I peered out into the darkness, my hand cupped against the side of my face, my nose pressed against the cold glass of the window pane. The moon wasn’t quite full, but it was a clear night and dusty moonlight painted everything.

  Again there was a movement! Someone was in our back yard!

  Something white was down there, something seeming to glide across the grass like a ghost.

  For a moment, I completely forgot Maggie was missing from our bed and my stomach clenched in fear; my first thoughts immediately jumping to the conclusion that it was an intruder (and a tiny part of me even thought ‘ghost,’ though I would never have admitted it). Then I realised the person was too small to be a man and the white cloak hung around their body, catching in the moonlight, was Maggie’s dressing gown.

  “Maggie,” I said her name quietly, but it sounded loud in the still of the night.

  I pulled on my jeans and threw a jumper over my head and followed her outside. She stood in the doorway of the greenhouse, motionless.

  “Hey?” I said gently. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Can’t you hear it?” she said, not even looking up, her voice full of wonder. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Hear what?”

  “The singing. Can’t you hear it singing?”

  I listened carefully, but even the chickens were silent in their coop and there wasn’t even the steady drone of traffic that we could hear most of the time. Somewhere in the distance, a fox yelped, but there was definitely nothing that sounded like singing.

  I was worried. Was she sleepwalking? Still dreaming?

  “It’s cold out here, sweetheart. Why don’t we go back to bed?”

  “I can�
�t leave it. It wanted me to come out here. It called me.”

  So far, she had said nothing more of the rat-that-wasn’t-a-rat speaking to her, but I was suddenly sure we were back to that again.

  I reached out my hand to touch her, but paused midway. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered it was supposed to be dangerous to wake someone when they were sleepwalking and the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt her. But deep down, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to talk her back to the house, so I allowed my hand to continue on its pathway and touched her wrist. Her skin felt smooth and waxy, and horribly cool beneath my fingertips. I almost snatched my hand away again, that idea of her being a ghost precariously close to the surface, but I managed to stop myself.

  “Come on, Maggie,” I said, my fingers slipping around her slender wrist. “Let’s go inside.”

  “No!” She snatched her hand away and looked around, her eyes glaring in the pale moonlight. “I told you, it needs me here.”

  “Maggie, please,” I was practically begging now. “You’re not making any sense and you’re scaring me. Can’t we go inside and talk about this in the morning?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Her voice was so soft I could barely hear it, but the sadness within those few words was enough to bring tears to my eyes. “I need to be here now,” she said.

  I stood there feeling utterly helpless. Should I just grab her and manhandle her back to the house? I had never laid a finger on my wife in the seven years we had been married and I didn’t want to start now, but I couldn’t just leave her out here all night. It was freezing.

  “Maggie,” I said in my sternest voice, the one I imagined I would use with our potential children when they were naughty. “I want you to go in the house right now!”

  She turned and blinked at me for a second, as if recognising where she was, and then promptly burst into tears.

  Oh shit.

  I was terrible when a woman cried. I never knew what to do and turned into a fumbling idiot in the presence of any feminine tears; my wife’s were no different.

  “Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry,” I said, unsure even of what I was apologising for. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  But some part of me was relieved. She must have been sleepwalking, my stern voice waking her too suddenly. She sobbed against my shoulder and I half-guided her, half-supported her, back to the house.

  As we crossed over the lawn, I glanced back at the greenhouse. It´s door was still wide open. I wasn’t going to shut it again, I decided, let whatever the hell was in there get out if it wanted.

  Back in our bedroom, Maggie still in tears, I gently unwrapped her from her dressing gown and let it fall to the floor. I noticed the bottom of it was dark with dirt and her feet were also a mess.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly, you were sleepwalking, you’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you a baby.”

  “You don’t know that yet, we still have the IVF to try. And anyway, it’s you I love.”

  She wiped tears away with the back of her hand, “You love me even though I’m deformed?”

  “My little toe is longer on one foot than the other.”

  She thumped me on the chest. “That’s not the same and you know it. Don’t belittle this”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.

  “I can’t give you the children we want. It’s like I’m not a proper woman.”

  “Oh sweetie, you’re more woman than I could ever need.”

  She looked up at me, her face wet with tears. “Really?”

  I bent down and kissed her wet face. “Really.”

  She returned the kiss and wrapped her foot around my calf muscle, pulling me closer against her, fitting me into the curves of her body. Her heat was an aphrodisiac and I felt myself respond to her. When she began to pull away, I pulled her back and crushed her mouth against my own. Every muscle in her body relaxed and it felt like we had years ago, when we first met. I allowed myself to be lost in her and to return to a time when all we needed was each other.

  The next day was a Saturday and neither of us mentioned Maggie’s impromptu visit to the garden or our even more impromptu lovemaking afterwards. I was waiting for her to bring it up. I was too much of a coward to start the conversation myself, but she just pottered around the house, doing whatever chores had built up during the week.

  I watched her carefully and felt myself tense whenever she went near the greenhouse, but she seemed completely, well, normal, and after a while I started to relax.

  Just after lunch, she announced she was going to lie down (her nocturnal adventures obviously taking their toll on her) and I took the opportunity to turn on the computer and do some research on sleepwalking. I was reassured by what I found. All of the sites said stress was a number one precursor to a sudden onset of sleepwalking. Alcohol was also a big factor, but I was fairly certain Maggie hadn’t turned into a sudden binge drinker; after all, our trying for a baby meant she had to limit the amount she could drink.

  I felt better about Maggie, but I still hadn’t worked out what was living in our greenhouse.

  Pushing my chair back, I stood up and made my way out to the garden. The door of the greenhouse was shut again, but the weird termite mounds were back. I counted seven of them in all. Two were quite small—not much more than molehills really—but one was huge, almost reaching the top of my thigh. They were made up of rings of dirt, the one below bigger than the one on top, like a child’s game. The mounds ended in an almost perfect point.

  I crouched down beside the biggest one and reached out and touched the top. The grains of dirt shifted beneath my fingers and started a mini-landslide down the side.

  I shook my head in wonder. What the hell could have done this? I wondered if I should call someone, report them to someone, but then I wondered who? The council?

  My garden spade was propped up in the corner and I made a decision.

  With a sudden burst of energy, I started throwing things out of the door; empty pots, watering cans, garden equipment. I dragged the seed benches out onto the lawn and then grabbed the spade. I plunged the spade deep into the closest mound and threw the dirt out onto the paving. I dug and dug, sweat pouring down my face and back, dirt gritty on my skin.

  My back screamed out in protest and the muscles in my arms stood out like cords. I couldn’t feel the skin on my hands chafing away and was unaware of the blisters swelling beneath the skin. Shovel after shovel heaped on the ground and the whole time I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of movement or life. I would find whatever was causing this if it killed me. I would do whatever it—

  “Stop!” Maggie’s scream jolted me from my manic digging. “Oh my God, stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

  She ran up to me and snatched the spade from my hands. Then she reached out and slapped me across the face.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she screamed at me, tears in her eyes, hysterical. “You’re going to hurt it!”

  I was shocked by her violence, shocked by her sudden appearance, shocked by the mess I had caused. I was almost down a foot and had hit the thicker, red soil that made up our countryside. Outside, the lawn was covered in mud, but there was no sign of any critters.

  “Why are you doing this?” She crumpled to her knees, her face buried in her hands, “It’s here to help us and you’re trying to destroy it.”

  I stared around, still stunned she had slapped me. “There is nothing in there, Maggie. Look around you. I’ve emptied it out and there is nothing in there.”

  She was sobbing uncontrollably now. “You’re lying!” she wailed. “You’ve killed it, I know you have.”

  Suddenly furious, I reached down and dragged her roughly to her feet. “Look at it,” I demanded. “I haven’t killed anything. The place is empty!”

  Then a thought came to my head—a flashback of kinds—and in my mind´s eye I saw the state of Maggie’s feet th
e night before and how her dressing gown had been covered in dirt. Was it possible that she had been doing this herself? That my darling wife was so far gone she had been sneaking down here in the middle of the night and creating the strange mounds herself?

  A strange, strangled noise came out of my throat and I wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or a cry I was holding back. How could I not have noticed? I had thought she had been coping with everything, but clearly she had not, and I had been so wrapped up in myself, in not getting enough affection, that I hadn’t even noticed my poor wife was going mad.

  “I’m taking you to the doctor,” I said, trying to ignore the tremor that was so obvious in my voice. “You’re not well; you need to see the doctor.”

  I didn’t even bother calling, I just took her straight down to the after-hours doctors and demanded that someone see her. Maggie had stopped sobbing, but was crying silently now, leaking almost, her face pale and her eyes horribly distant. The doctor prescribed a mild sedative and cautiously suggested that I might be better spending our IVF money on finding Maggie someone to talk to.

  I could barely believe what was happening. In a matter of days, my beautiful wife was no longer herself and our future together, with or without children, seemed unstable.

  We got back home and I put Maggie straight to bed, giving her a couple of the sedatives. She washed them back with a glass of water and thanked me, then rolled over and pulled the duvet up around her shoulders. I hesitated for a moment, feeling the need to say something to her, but I was unsure what it was. Her breathing slowed, becoming deeper, and I realised she was already asleep. All the emotion must have taken the last of her strength from her.