by Sarah Dalton
My eyelids are drooping as soon as my head touches the pillow. I turn onto my side and lift up my knees, finding my perfect spot on the mattress. Then I’m falling, softly, slowly, into his arms…
*
Light as a feather, I skip over the green grass. The lawn stretches for as far as I can see. Now I have a playground of swings, a beautiful rose garden, a lake, and comfortable sun loungers. The air is scented with flowers and pine. The only mar is the dark forest on the edge of the field. I frown when I look at it. No matter what I do, I always end up glancing across at the woods. It’s stupid though. I should just ignore them and get on with enjoying my garden.
“I made you something.”
I turn away from the woods to see him sitting on the grass. He’s as beautiful as always. Lit up by the sun. Bright smile of white teeth. Hair that I want to run my fingers through. Lips I want to kiss. I bend down onto my knees and fold myself onto his chest.
“What did you make me?”
He lifts his hands up and over my head. Between his fingers is a loop of woven flowers. A daisy chain. He places it atop my head so I can be a child again, without worries, without fears, with only happiness in my heart.
“I love it.”
“I knew you would,” he purrs. He nestles his nose into my neck and the feel of his breath on my skin makes my knees wobbly. Then his fingers trail up and down my arms and I let out a gasp. “I know everything that you like. I know everything about you, Mary. I know what you’re afraid of, and what you desire the most. I know your deepest, darkest secrets.”
As his fingers move up to my shoulders I hear a buzzing noise, like a bee or a wasp. The sound is an odd one, not belonging in my dream garden. It distracts me from the enjoyment of his hands on my skin. I search for the bee, but there’s only a fruit platter of delicious plums and apples, and a tray of sandwiches. Which is… moving. The food is moving. I look closer and scream. The food is completely writhing with maggots and worms. Why didn’t I notice before? It’s rancid. The stench catches the back of my throat and I leap away from him, and away from the rotting food.
“What is it, love?” he asks.
“The… the food.”
With a frown, the glances towards where my finger is pointing and lifts the silver tray towards me.
“Don’t, don’t!” I say, lifting my arms in front of my face to shield me from the disgusting sight. But I soon realise that the moulding scent is gone. I remove my arms from my face and take a step forward.
“See? Everything is fine. My sweet, Mary. You’re imagining things.”
The plums look as delicious as always. The sandwiches are made from soft, fluffy bread.
“Go on, take one,” he says.
I shake my head. I can’t get the thought out of my head. I saw the worms. I smelled the rot.
“Take one,” he insists.
Slowly, I extend an arm, and lower my fingers towards one of the sandwiches. It feels okay. It’s not stale or soggy. It’s a perfect sandwich. I lift and examine it. I can’t see anything awry. I smell it, nothing but tangy tuna.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Mary,” he says. “Eat the sandwich. It’s your favourite.”
Even still, the nausea claws at my stomach. Despite everything, something still feels wrong. But his eyes are on mine, pleading me, testing me. I need to show him that I am committed. What if I lose this place? What if he really did love Katie Hodge too? No, I will show him that I love this perfect world he has created for me. I’ll show him.
I bite into the sandwich. I close my eyes and I chew and chew until it has all gone. The weirdest thing is that it doesn’t taste of anything. It’s not bad or good, it’s just… bland. I expected something different, I suppose.
“That’s better.” He claps his hands together. “I knew you could do it.”
“It was lovely,” I say. “Thank you.”
He smiles. “The flowers look beautiful on you. Why don’t we take a walk around the garden? I’ll show you the new roses.” He’s on his feet in one smooth motion, and then his hand is holding mine.
I love the feel of his skin on mine. It’s like electricity coursing through my veins. But there is no warmth from his touch. Only ever a spark of energy. Never warmth.
“Here, let me pick one for you.”
The new roses are a deep, blood red. The petals are curled and perfect. The stems are long and green. He plucks one from the bush, without any clippers, which strikes me as impossible everywhere except here in my dream. When he passes it to me, his smile is expectant, waiting. He knows that the rose is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. He knows that when I draw in its scent, it will be the most spectacular perfume I’ve ever smelled. And it is. I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose, relishing the bouquet.
But when I open my eyes, the rose is dried up and dead. I blink, and the rose is perfect again. What is going on? Why am I seeing these things?
“Is something the matter, Mary?” he asks. He reaches out and places an errant hair behind my ear.
“Nothing,” I reply. “I’m fine.”
“Good.” He kisses my cheek, and the electricity sparks through my skin.
When he pulls away, I move the rose from one hand to the other, catching my finger on the thorns.
“Ouch.”
“You must be careful,” he chastises. “Only a fool lets a thorn cut her.”
His words are like a slap to my face. A fool? “I… I’m sorry.”
He takes his hand in his, and places my cut finger to his mouth. His eyes look up to mine as my finger moves to his lips, which are surprisingly dry.
“There. All better.”
I let out a long breath, only now aware that I was holding it. He takes my hand in his and leads me away from the rose garden. For once, I’m oddly tense. The light, childlike feeling has been replaced by a sense of apprehension. Could it be Katie Hodge messing with my head? Is that what’s happening here? I should never have gone to the funeral. It’s all Willa’s fault. Why does she have to attract trouble like that all the time? First with the foxes and now with Katie. I shake my head. No, I won’t think of any of it while I’m here. I’m letting the real world seep in and that’s why I’m seeing these things.
“Mary, look.” He pulls on my arm, tugging me forward. “Look what you’ve done.” His voice is angry and hard, not soft and susurrating like usual. “The woods are creeping into our world. You’ve done this. You’ve let them in.” He pulls on my arm until I cry out in pain.
“I didn’t mean to,” I cry. “I’m sorry.”
I turn to face him and let out a scream. Instead of the beautiful, dark haired boy, there stands a zombie with rotting skin and maggots filling his mouth. I scream again, and close my eyes, beating my head to make it stop. Not him. Not him. Never him.
“Stop it, Mary. Look at me. No. Look at me.” He pulls my hands away from my eyes. There he is. The beautiful boy, with dark hair, straight teeth, skin warmed from the sun. “What did you see?”
*
I wake with a start and sit bolt upright in bed. The sheets are damp beneath my skin. My forehead is slicked with sweat. The first thought I have is that I’m not alone.
“Lacey?” I whisper. My breath is ragged. My chest rises and falls as though I’ve been exercising. But I haven’t. I’ve been asleep, and I should have been content in my dreamworld, but I let the real world seep in until I watched it rot away.
There’s no answer from the dark. Why would Lacey be here when she has Willa? No. There’s no one. I should go back to sleep and make it right. I need to patch it up, that’s all, make everything okay again.
“It’ll never be okay.” The voice chills me to the bone. I would recognise it amidst a thousand voices. The malice and evil drips from it like molasses from a spoon. She walks forward and my eyes fill with tears.
“Not again,” I whisper.
“What’s the matter, daughter? Didn’t you miss me?”
Seeing Mu
m with those black eyes and that grey, blotchy skin, makes bile rise to my throat. I can’t stand the sight of her.
“When did you come back?” I say.
But she doesn’t answer me. Instead she shrinks and shrivels down. With horror, I watch as the possessed version of my mother morphs into little Amy. There she is in her white dress stained with blood, her hair draping over her face.
“What about Seth?” she says. “You left him in Nettleby. Don’t you ever think about him?”
“Of course I do,” I say. “I think about him all the time.” But is that true? Haven’t I been too busy, too caught up in my own life to remember my holiday romance with Seth?
“Liar.” Amy’s tongue snakes out of her mouth and hisses the word.
I pull the duvet tight, wishing it all away. I close my eyes for a moment and long for sleep. I don’t care about the worms in the plums. I want to be away from this.
When I open them, Igor is sat at the end of my bed. He’s wearing his ghostwalk outfit, with a top hat and tails; dressed up like Dracula.
“You’ve fucked up,” he says, in that matter-of-fact Yorkshire voice. “You’ve lost the plot, love. I gave you that Athamé to be used. Well, why aren’t you using it?”
“I’ve… I’ve had other things…”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“There was Tasha, and Judith.”
“Oh aye, I know. But what about since then? Why aren’t you helping people? And why is that ghost still hanging around you?”
“Lacey?” I ask. “But she helps. She’s supposed to be here.”
But Igor fades away before he says anymore.
I’m alone.
Or am I?
One more shadowy figure walks out from the dark. He’s dressed in a doctor’s smock, his face covered by a surgeon’s mask, and his hands coated in rubber gloves.
“No,” I whisper.
But the doctor continues walking towards me. I scuttle up my bed, pulling my feet underneath my body.
“No! Get away. Get away from me!”
Even under the mask I can tell he’s grinning. I see the corners of his eyes crinkle. Those mad, mad eyes. I remember how they shone through the flames at Magdelena. I remember how he screamed when the ghosts ripped into his flesh. I remember it all, and I can’t stop screaming.
Chapter Eleven
MARY
As Emmaline hefts the old book down from her shelf, a cloud of dust explodes into the air. She plonks it down on top of her old velveteen sofa, and even more dust sends me into a coughing fit. A ghostly figure stands with his back to us, his face pressed into the corner of the room.
“Your brother is here again,” I say. “He seems subdued.”
“What do you want now, you old bastard?” she asks.
The man turns slowly around, grinning and muttering through clenched teeth. It makes me shudder. His eyes are those of a madman’s.
“She’ll never get rid of me,” he says. “Never, never, never, never…” His final word is a whisper as he disappears into thin air.
“He said that you’ll never get rid of him. You should let me dagger him.”
Emmaline shakes her head. “He’s right. No matter what he’s done, he’s still my family.”
I shrug my shoulders. I guess that makes sense. Sort of, anyway. “So what’s in the book.”
“A cleansing ritual,” she replies. “What you described to me sounds like a ghost invading your dreams—”
“He can’t be a ghost,” I snap.
Emmaline tilts her head to one side and purses her lips. Her old eyes assess me with cool calculation. “Oh yes he can. I’m sorry, dear, but it’s the most logical reason for everything.”
I’m starting to regret telling Emmaline about the dreams and the voice. In my head, the dream world was my haven, a place away from ghosts. Now Emmaline is saying that this whole mess is all connected. That the man in my dreams is yet another ghost come to haunt me. I just can’t accept that. He’s not a ghost. He can’t be. Or maybe I just don’t want him to be.
Still, maybe this cleansing ritual will get rid of the other ghosts haunting me, like Igor and Amy and the spirit that possessed Mum. Maybe then I’ll be able to go to school without having panic attacks or hallucinations about corpses hanging from the ceiling.
As she opens the book she says, “Your new friend hasn’t been to see me yet.”
“Willa? Well, I’ve told her too.”
“But you haven’t brought her, have you?” she remarks. “Have you been spending much time with your friends? You know, outside school?”
I shake my head. “I’ve been busy with homework.”
Emmaline raises her eyebrows. There’s no fooling her. She knows exactly when I’m lying.
“No man is an island, Mary,” she says. “You need your friends probably more than you need me or your parents right now. You need people of your own age to relate to. Without them, you let yourself get lonely. Take it from an old woman living by herself in the woods.”
The woods. The words make me shiver. “But you have me, Mum, and your weird séance people.”
She smiles. “What a lovely way with words you have.” She rolls her eyes. “Now come on. I must find this ritual. It has something to do with burning lavender, I’m sure of it.”
I wander around Emmaline’s living room as she flicks through the book. The place is dusty but tidy. Her old dog, Murphy, sniffs at my ankles as he walks, wagging his tail and bumping against the furniture. I bend down to scratch his ears and he lets out a little bark. Despite the cool temperature, Emmaline has her window open, and the breeze lifts the hairs on the back of my neck. I should be at school today, but I told Jack and Willa that I was ill, then snuck out of Ravenswood to find Emmaline.
Mum was fine with it. When she found me screaming until my throat was raw at 3am, she knew that Emmaline was our best hope for getting whatever the hell is wrong with me to go away. When Mum was holding me and letting me cry on her shoulder, something held me back from telling her what’s going on. Maybe it’s the same thing that has held be back from telling Lacey or Jack. Or Willa.
And then I need to figure out why I’ve been keeping Willa at arm’s length. Emmaline is right, I should have brought her here. We should be reading Emmaline’s books together and observing the séances. I should be teaching her how to use the Athamé and which symbols to carve to keep a spirit contained. I should be practicing them myself but I haven’t. I’ve drifted away from it all.
Keep out of the woods.
Why? Because this is where Emmaline lives? Because she can stop the dreams?
Do I even want the dreams to stop? They make me happy. Being with him makes me happy and whole and light.
“Mary?”
I turn around. Murphy is growling. The room is darker and colder. Emmaline sits with her back ramrod straight, and her eyes narrowed.
“I called you twice and you didn’t hear me.”
“Sorry,” I say. I’m not sure whether I really mean it.
“I’ve found the ritual. You’re going to have to borrow a veil.”
“Really?” The thought of wearing one of Emmaline’s Victorian style veils creeps me out a bit. They’re too reminiscent of old-fashioned horror films where little girl voices come out of old people. I shudder.
“This book is very old,” she says. “But I don’t want to take any chances. I think we should follow it to the letter.” Her knees click as she gets up from her seat. Murphy has finally stopped barking, but is now sniffing the carpet like a bloodhound searching for a fox.
The thought of foxes only makes me think about Willa and the strange attack. Katie Hodge I can account for, but the thought of those foxes chills my blood.
Emmaline shuffles out of the room still talking, “And I’ll need to make a smudge stick. You need to sit on a chair in the middle of the room and I’ll light some candles too. Fire is a cleansing element in most magicks.”
“What is this ritual? W
iccan?” I ask.
“Well, no, not really.” She comes back into the room carrying the dreaded veil, along with some large pillar candles and a tray of herbs. She places everything down on a coffee table and gestures for me to sit on a chair. “As you know séances were very popular among the Victorians. It’s from around that time.”
“Weren’t they all charlatans?” I ask.
“Yes, many of them were.” She places the white, lace veil over my head. The colour has yellowed over the years. It’s cool against my skin, and the scent is musty, like it’s been stuck in a damp place for many years. “But you’re not a charlatan are you? So it would make sense that there were genuine people with psychic powers back then. Like I said, Mary, comparable energy attracts. I trust anything drawn to you to be on the right track.”
“The book was drawn to me?” I ask.
Emmaline is a blur through the veil. “I believe so, yes. It was the first title that popped into my head when you came into the house. And it just so happens to have the perfect ritual spell inside it.”
“Hmm,” I reply. It does feel like Emmaline is clutching at straws. My father would have a field day with all these erroneous connections being formed. Causality, Mary. Causality. Still she does have a point about energy. That I do believe. I think spirits are some sort of electrical energy left over from our physical presence. How they think and feel is probably a lot more complicated. I still need to figure that out.
Emmaline is happily humming away as she lights the candles and gathers the herbs for her smudge stick. Underneath the veil my breath makes the space between my mouth and the cloth hot and suffocating. I hope this ritual doesn’t last for too long.
“It’s in Latin,” she says.
“Okay.” Something to make this process even more unsettling.
She intones the words like a priest saying mass. The unfamiliar language is like a song, and I keep waiting for the Amen, like in old films. But it goes on and on. Her voice rises, yet the gravel in her throat deepens. I clench my fists in fear. My heart thrashes against my rib cage. Beneath my veil, Emmaline is a mere shadow, swaying from side to side as she performs the ritual.
