Isobel

by Sheila Tibbs

  He took them in his mouth in turn, sucking, kissing, and caressing them with his tongue. He lifted her onto the table, and there he took her, as forcefully as the moment required. Sarah began to move her hips in rhythm with David’s. She could hear his breathing change as his passions grew. Her heart was beating so loud and fast in her chest that she was sure David could hear it.

  Any fears she first had about Isobel walking in on them had now diminished. All she wanted, all she cared about, was David and the moment at hand. Together they shuddered as they both reached their climax and David slumped breathlessly on top of her. She kissed his hair.

  When they both felt their breath had returned enough to move, they covered themselves with their nightclothes, and, kissing Sarah softly, David said, “I’ll just go and jump in the shower, be back in a minute.”

  Sarah smiled. She was definitely the happiest woman alive at this moment, and hoped the moment would last forever.

  •

  After getting David off to work and dropping Isobel at school, Sarah returned home to make her phone call.

  Making herself a coffee, she settled at the kitchen phone and dialled the number.

  After a few rings, a cheerful sounding woman answered the phone.

  “Good morning, Essex Fostering Services, how may I help you?”

  “Good morning, my name is Mrs. Sarah Thompson. Can I speak with Mrs. Glover please?” Sarah, still feeling happy, almost sung the words down the line to the cheerful woman at the other end.

  “Sorry, but we don’t have a Mrs. Glover working here. Are you sure you have the right number ... this is Essex Fostering Services?” Came the bewildered reply.

  “Oh,” Sarah said, “then can I speak with Mrs. Leadbetter, I suppose she is still in employment with you.”

  She found it hard to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  'Stupid woman,' she thought, 'she might have left but she still should have known the name.'

  “Just putting you through Mrs ...?”

  “Thompson, Mrs. Sarah Thompson,” Sarah replied, with a frustrated tone.

  “Hello. Mrs. Leadbetter speaking. Good morning, Mrs, Thompson, and how are you?”

  “Very well, thank you,” Sarah replied, but before she was able to continue, Mrs. Leadbetter cut in.

  “We haven’t forgotten you, Mrs. Thompson, we have carried out our police checks and all has come back clear. They took a bit longer than normal but, through no fault of ours, or yours come to that, unfortunately these things do take time. But now they have returned, we will be looking for a suitable charge for you and your husband, and hope to contact you both very soon.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Leadbetter, I don’t understand. We already have a charge from you,” Sarah frowned.

  “I can assure you, young lady, you have not. I have your file here in front of me as we speak. Who is this child that you have in your care and who authorised you to take charge of her?”

  Mrs. Leadbetter’s voice was rising in temper and Sarah could feel her own anger rising inside. Did this woman think her stupid? Or maybe even a liar? How dare she talk to me like that?

  “I can assure you, Mrs. Leadbetter, I do have a child in my care, brought to me in August. If I remember rightly, the day after we visited you, and she has been here ever since!” Sarah spat back down the line.

  “And who is this child and who brought her to you?

  Because she definitely didn’t come from my office. There is no conceivable way we would have placed a child in your care without carrying out the appropriate searches on you and your husband. These children are placed in our care, Mrs Thompson, their safety and security must come first, and to have placed a child with you, the day after your application, would be not only irresponsible but highly impractical.” she spat back. “So, once again, I ask you who is this child and who bought her to you?”

  “Isobel, her name is Isobel and she was brought to us by

  Mrs. Glover,” Sarah answered, feeling both baffled and confused.

  “Well, we have no Mrs. Glover working from these offices and never have had, and there is no child called Isobel on our records. I know each and every child by name that comes into my care and placements. I will, of course, need to make some phone calls to see how this placement took place, maybe from another area, and deal with this as and when. I will be in contact with you within the next few days of course and then we will meet with the child, and Social Services, to decide what action shall be taken. This is most disturbing, I will be in touch.”

  The line went dead.

  Sarah stood, the receiver humming in her ear. Shakily, she replaced the handset and, after grabbing the car keys, left the house, slamming the door behind her.

  •

  She drove straight to Father Mather and caught him just as he was leaving home, to go to the Church. She jumped out of the car, leaving the engine still running, and called after him.

  Father Mather turned and saw the worried expression on Sarah’s face. He walked back quickly to meet her as she ran towards him.

  “Father Mather,” she called breathlessly, “I made the phone call you asked ... and you’re never going to believe this.”

  Holding her chest, she bent slightly forward, to catch her breath.

  “Come inside, child,” he beckoned.

  Inside, Sarah sat on the small country sofa and sighed heavily.

  “Well, what did they say?” Father Mather questioned.

  “They said they had never heard of Isobel, or of Mrs. Glover, the social worker that brought Isobel to us. Also, they said they had only just got our police checks back and there is no way they would have given us a foster child before now.”

  “Mmm, just as I feared,” he uttered, hardly audible to anyone.

  “Father Mather, what’s going on? I know you have thoughts on this, just by the little mutterings that you do, please tell me?”

  He looked into her eyes and saw the pleading and the desperation that they carried. Sighing heavily, he sat down and, after a few minutes, he began to speak.

  “You are going to think me a silly old fool, Sarah, possibly even laugh at me, but I feel Isobel to be evil. Don’t ask me why or how, it is just a feeling, a very strong feeling. There is something unnatural about that child. That is why I needed you to try and gather as much information as you possibly could, so I could research her background, visit her Mother, prove my suspicions wrong.”

  He averted his gaze from hers and waited for her to laugh at him, but the laughter never came.

  Slowly, he raised his head and looked at Sarah, who was sat staring back at him. All he had just said seemed to dawn on her and she began to cry.

  “Sarah, I may be wrong. I hope I am. The Church would probably laugh at my accusation. I have no proof, just a feeling. Please, forget I said anything.”

  “No, Father, I believe you. I have thought the same over the last few months. I don’t even like being alone with her. She isn’t a normal little girl. What I mean by normal is she doesn’t make friends and has no intention of doing so. She spends all her spare time in her room, playing her music box and sitting in front of her mirror…”

  Father Mather looked up. “Sitting in front of a mirror you say?” he interrupted. “Have you ever seen her sitting there?”

  “Yes, once.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “And what?”

  “They say the mirror sees your true self. Sees your soul. So, what did you see when you saw Isobel sitting at her mirror, did you see her reflection?” The urgency now returned to his voice.

  Sarah sat and thought for a moment. Trying to remember the day she saw Isobel sitting there. But she thought she had imagined what she had seen. Would Father Mather now laugh at her for being silly? Looking up at him, she laughed a nervous little laugh.

  “Now I think it’s your turn to laugh at me. I saw Isobel sitting at her mirror talking to her reflection.” She looked down at her hands that were twitching nervously in he
r lap. “But I didn’t think it was Isobel looking back. Isobel turned to face me, she was really angry at me and accused me of spying on her, but I was sure her reflection didn’t turn around.”

  She looked up at Father Mather. “It should have shown the back of her head when she turned to face me but I was sure her reflection was still facing me.”

  It was now Sarah’s turn to wait for the laughter, but Father Mather just reached over and squeezed her hands and smiled.

  “I think it’s time to phone all the psychiatric establishments ... to try and trace her mother, don’t you?” He smiled a comforting smile. Sarah nodded.

  “Don’t tell anyone of our conversation today, Sarah, not even David, or of your telephone conversation to the fostering agency. And don’t let on to Isobel that anything is different than from when you left her at school this morning. It is very important that Isobel doesn’t suspect anything, do you understand me, Sarah? Should my suspicions be correct, then you could be in danger!”

  Sarah nodded, drinking in all of his words. How was she going to do as he had asked?

  Isobel already knew Sarah was afraid of her, she was sure of it. How was she going to control the fear she felt rising in the pit of her stomach.

  •

  At school, Isobel sat staring out of the window. She knew that Sarah and Father Mather were conversing, and she knew it was about her, but what was actually being said, she couldn’t hear, because of the noise surrounding her. Unable to control her temper, the fish tank that sat neatly on the teacher’s desk, at the front of the class, exploded, sending fish, water, and broken glass, through the air and onto the floor.

  The tank exploded with such force that one little goldfish was found, desperately fighting for its life, two rows from the back of the class.

  Back at the Manor, Isobel's music box played.

  Chapter eighteen.

  After arranging to meet the following Monday, when Isobel was going on a school trip to the Christmas pantomime, being held at The Cliffs Pavilion in Southend, Sarah left Father Mather's cottage.

  Father Mather went into his office and made a note of all Sarah had said to him. Part of him felt more confused than before but part of him felt even more convinced that Isobel was an unnatural being. Reading through all that he’d written, he frowned. There seemed to be a lot of gaps, bits missing that he thought would have been there, but weren’t.

  “Why?” he said aloud. It didn’t all make sense.

  Reading through accounts of encounters where the Church had battled against evil, and won, this didn’t follow suit. Perhaps it was all a figment of his imagination, fuelled by Sarah’s eagerness to believe his story and her willingness to tell her story.

  Was she fabricating it to humour him? He doubted it, but perhaps his own theory fuelled Sarah into thinking she had witnessed what she thought she had, and, in fact, it was her own sanity at stake here.

  Perhaps she was the one suffering from a mental illness, like depression, and he had just spent the last few hours convincing her that some evil force, in the disguise of Isobel, was the cause of all her pain and anxiety; when, maybe, it was that her marriage was showing a few cracks. He no longer knew the answers.

  With laboured fingers, he picked up the phone book and started searching for Mental Health institutions in the local areas.

  There were three that he found. The first in Rochford, called The Henry Hayes Centre, situated on the site of the old Rochford hospital, which had closed its doors for the last time about eight years previously. On the site now was an estate of new properties, but the mental health unit had remained on the rear of the grounds, segregated from the general public by means of fencing and walls.

  The doctor he spoke to was unaware of any patient going by Father Mather's description, but agreed to see him the following day.

  Father Mather agreed to take along a photograph of the woman in question, although the photo was a few years old. He then phoned Runwell Hospital, on the boarders of Wickford. Again a rambling old building that he was convinced dated back to pre - Victorian times. Again, they agreed to see him the following day, and offered their assistance in any way they could, providing it didn’t infringe with patient confidentiality.

  Lastly, he phoned Moorlands, in Chelmsford and, once again, he found the staff most helpful and an appointment was made for the following day, at four in the afternoon. He had remembered to tell the latter two that, should he find the lady in question in another establishment, prior to his appointment with them, he would of course telephone them and cancel his meeting.

  Next, he phoned Sarah.

  “Will it be possible for you to get me the photograph of

  Isobel’s mother?” he asked.

  “I don’t think I will be able to get the photo, but what I might be able to do is scan it on my computer and then print it off,” she said. “The print-out may or may not be as clear as the photo though, but if Isobel noticed the picture was missing…”

  She trailed off, not wanting to think about what Isobel may or may not do if she found her mother's photo had gone.

  “That will have to do then,” Father Mather replied, “and, Sarah, I know what you mean,” he said as an afterthought.

  Sarah replaced the receiver and looked at the time. She had just over an hour to go until she had to collect Isobel from school, so slowly she mounted the stairs. Her heart beat a tattoo in her chest because she didn’t want to go into Isobel’s room. Something inside was telling her to stay out, stay away.

  With shaking hands she turned the handle and slowly pushed the door open. She held her breath as to silence her heart that was beating loudly in her ears, for fear of whoever or whatever maybe in the room, and heard her heart pounding.

  Silently, she stepped into the room and looked around. Nothing.

  Laughing to herself for her stupidity and over active imagination, she walked over to the dressing table, picked up the photo album, turned quickly and then left the room.

  Back downstairs in her office-come-studio, Sarah scanned the photo of Isobel’s mother on to her computer and then quickly replaced the picture in the album and closed it.

  Sarah didn’t like to look at Isobel’s mother, her eyes seemed scared, frightened, and they made Sarah shudder.

  Taking the album back upstairs, Sarah stopped outside

  Isobel’s room. 'That’s funny,' she thought, 'I don’t remember closing the door?'

  Fear swelled within her. What if there was someone, or something, in there? What if she had angered it by taking Isobel’s belongings?

  Her cold and clammy hands reached for the handle and she slowly opened the door. The room was still empty.

  Quickly, Sarah ran to the dressing table to replace the album from where she had got it ... the door slammed behind her.

  Sarah stopped, frozen with fear.

  She could hear someone breathing behind her, and she spun round. No one.

  Sarah threw the album down and ran for the door but it wouldn’t open. She pulled and banged, nothing.

  Crying, she slid to the floor. Suddenly, the door flew open.

  Sarah scrambled to her feet and ran down the stairs. Behind her, someone began to laugh - a laugh that froze the blood within her veins.

  Sarah ran out of the front door, frightened to return for the picture she was to print off for Father Mather to see.

  In Sarah's studio, the picture of Isobel’s mother stared out into an empty room. A lonely tear seemed to trickle from her eyeand run down her cheek. The computer screen went blank.

  Upstairs, the music box played.

  Chapter nineteen.

  Sarah arrived at Father Mather’s, very out of breath, having run all the way from the Manor.

  She had left the house so quickly, she had forgotten her coat, but with the fear that had mounted inside her, she hadn’t felt the cold chill that was evident in the winter sunshine, and only now did she start to shudder.

  Breathlessly, she told Father M
ather what had happened while carrying out his request for the picture of Isobel’s mother.

  Father Mather said nothing. He ushered poor Sarah into the lounge, to warm by the fire, then went and fetched a thick jumper that was obviously to big for her but she accepted it with thanks.

  She was still shivering; the cold seemed to penetrate her bones.

  When she had warmed, Father Mather spoke. “I will take you back to the Manor, we will go in together, and I will leave with the picture,” he smiled.

  “But what if that thing is still there?” Sarah said, the panic rising in her voice.

  “There is nothing there, Sarah. Isobel is at school. She was probably aware of something. How, I don’t yet know, but nothing can hurt you if she is not there. Trust me,” he said and smiled a warm smile.

  They drove to the Manor in silence. Each silently praying.

  Father Mather had come prepared, unsure if he believed his own words, but Sarah needed to hear them. In his bag he had packed his Crucifix, Holy Bible and a vial of

  Holy water, blessed by the Bishop.

  The lane looked bare, most of the leaves having fallen, their naked branches were shivering in the chilled air.

  'How different the lane looks in winter,' Sarah thought.

  It was almost like she had never noticed it before. It looked almost menacing.

  At the foot of the driveway, Father Mather stopped. The Manor loomed before them, like a large beast, threatening, groaning. Sarah felt her heartbeat quicken, she turned to Father Mather.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Father. What if you're wrong? What if it’s still there, waiting for me to come back?”

  Have faith, child. God is on our side and you are not alone,

  I am with you.”

  Putting the car in gear, he slowly approached the house.

  When he had again stopped, this time directly outside the big double front doors, they both sat, staring up at the building.