The Waters of Life

by Michael H. Kelly

  The room smelt damp and mouldy and when he looked carefully, he could see that the veneer at the base of the wardrobe was cracking and peeling away, speckled with white spots of fungus. He gingerly pulled the bed an inch away from the wall, shuddering at how cold and damp the wall felt. Sure enough, the wallpaper down behind the bed was ripe with creeping black stains.

  Eric sat wearily on the edge of the bed. There was nothing to be done about it, he would just have to make the best of it. It was a good job he didn't plan to spend much time in the room. There wasn't even a television in the room and he shuddered at the thought of sitting in the smelly living room with Mr and Mrs Stoop while they watched the box.

  He began gingerly storing his spare clothes in the wardrobe and drawers, keeping only his torch, a bottle of water and the notes Sandra had sent him in his bag, just the things that he would need for his first day's investigations.

  He was just finishing when he heard a slow, shuffling gait in the corridor outside, followed by a sharp rap on his door. He stood up, edged alongside the bed and opened it, finding the frail figure of Harry Stoop standing outside.

  Harry was holding a tatty old exercise book in his gnarled hands, his ever present pipe gripped between his teeth. He thrust the book and a pencil towards Eric, coughed to clear his phlegmy throat, and said, “Missus says sign.”

  Eric took the book, noting Harry's habit of cutting any speech back to its bare minimum of words. He opened the book to the latest part filled page, nodding in sad resignation as he saw that he was the only guest the Stoops had entertained so far this year. The few who had stayed here previously had obviously been wise enough never to come back. He signed the makeshift guest book and passed it and the pencil back into Harry's fumbling grasp.

  “Thirty quid!” blurted Harry. “Missus needs it up front.”

  Eric raised an eyebrow, but reached for his wallet. He didn't want an argument, he just wanted to get the hell out of this dump and clear his nostrils with some fresh air. He pulled out three tenners and gave them to Harry, who made a great show of being able to carry them in the same hand as the pencil at the same time. Then, without a word of thanks, he painfully turned away and shuffled back towards the stairs.

  Eric returned to the room, gave Harry enough time to get downstairs, then prepared to leave. He produced his mobile phone and went to call Sandra, but to his dismay the call failed as a 'Low Battery' warning flashed up on the screen.

  “Oh, give me strength!” he muttered. He flung the thing on the bed in disgust and opened one of the drawers where he had just stored his gear, pulling out the charger cord. He hunted around the bedroom until he finally found a socket hidden right down the back of the bed. He pulled it a couple more inches from the wall, knelt on it and reached awkwardly down, his cheek pressed distastefully against the damp, clammy wallpaper. He fumbled about for a minute until he heard the satisfying clunk as the plug slotted into the wall. He could have sworn he'd remembered to charge the phone up the previous day, but what the hell? He left it on charge and left the room, going downstairs.

  He eyed the phone on the side table in the hall, then sighed and bowed to the inevitable. He tapped lightly on the sitting room door and poked his head around it, trying not to inhale the fumes that were now belching from Harry's pipe. They obviously weren't doing his wife much good either, as she was sucking wetly on an inhaler as she blasted its contents into her struggling lungs.

  “Excuse me, Mrs Stoop,” he called. “Would you mind if I use your telephone for just a minute?”

  “Aye, love, that's not a problem,” she gasped, looking at him with a watery gaze. He was just turning away after thanking her when she added, “You'll find a list of rates in the table drawer. Just leave the money in there with the list.”

  He looked back at her and smiled through gritted teeth. On an impulse, he said, “I dare say you'll be pleased about the two local people who've been miraculously healed recently?”

  “Oh aye,” she said. “Nowt unusual about that, the Lord sometimes sees fit to heal someone. The last one was that girl's eyes. These things happen. Wish the Almighty would stretch out his hand to sort my asthma and hip for me, though. Why's that girl so special, when some of us have suffered for years? Haven't we, Harry?”

  Her husband grunted in reply.

  “So this is a regular, known thing?” prompted Eric excitedly. “How does it happen? I've heard tell of a sacred well or spring, can you tell me any more about that?”

  “How should I know?” shrugged Mrs Stoop. “It happens, that's all. None of my business, is it?” She kept her watery eyes fixed on the television screen, which was now tuned to some awful talent show.

  Eric closed the door with a quiet click, moved to the phone and dialled the number of the Otherworld office. Sandra Cullen picked up after two rings. “Otherworld magazine. How can I help you?” she purred.

  “It's me, Eric,” he said. “I'm just calling to let you know I've arrived in Scratchbury, though I appear to have rented a room in the Black Hole of Calcutta. God, it's dismal! Anyway, people round here seem to know about the cures, they accept them completely matter-of-factly. But when I ask them about the well, they just shrug.”

  “Do you think they're covering something up, or genuinely don't know?” asked Sandra shrewdly.

  “No idea,” said Eric. “Perhaps the two who were actually healed will be able to tell me more. I'm just heading out to try to call on them now.”

  “Before you go, Eric, there's one more thing,” interrupted Sandra. “I've been looking into that film company a bit more. You should watch your step, it's owned by Terry Gaunt.”

  “The Manchester gangster?” asked Eric, who had heard that name linked with some brutal events, instances of mob rivalry where 'lessons' needed to be taught to interlopers.

  “The very same,” said Sandra. “I don't know whether he's trying to go legit or whether this is a cover for something, but don't tread on his toes.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” groaned Eric. “This job just gets sweeter by the minute, doesn't it! Speak to you later.”

  He hung the phone up, tossed a few coins in the drawer, and left the house.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAKING A KILLING

  Scratchbury was only a village, so Eric decided to travel on foot rather than struggle trying to find places to park his car. Nowhere in the village was further than fifteen minutes' walk away. He pulled out the two printouts relating to the latest healings, which Sandra had prepared for him. Heather Williams was a fifteen year old schoolgirl whose twisted spine had been cured, and Sadie Wilmot was a woman in her thirties who had gone blind as a side effect of diabetes but had now recovered her sight. Sadie was the most recent cure, and Eric reasoned that Heather was likely to be at school at this time of day, so he decided to make Sadie his first call. He checked her address, which was in the new rows of bland houses down by the lake, and he set off.

  The cul de sacs were every bit as depressing up close as they had appeared when Eric had driven through the village half an hour earlier. Drab white walls, tarmac and dull green lawns. Here and there someone would have tried to introduce a splash of colour with a border of flowers, but nearly all of these were dead and brown. It was as if the summer couldn't be bothered getting out of bed in this village.

  He found number 29, which was Sadie's address according to Sandra's information. There was no gate at the end of the garden path, so he walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. Or at least, he pressed the doorbell, though he heard no tone sounding within. He waited a minute and when there was no response, he pressed it again, his ear close to the door. No, there was definitely no sound.

  “Does nothing work properly in this godforsaken town?” he complained as he knocked instead.

  After a few seconds, the door opened, revealing a small, wiry woman with thick glasses, a shock of grey hair and a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She looked as though she was in her sixties or seventies
.

  “Ah, hello,” said Eric. “I'm looking for Sadie Wilmot?”

  “What for?” asked the woman, bluntly.

  “I'm a journalist,” said Eric. “I'm preparing an article for Otherworld magazine about miraculous healings. I understood that Miss Wilmot lived at this address and that she recently recovered her sight after being blind.”

  “She did,” said the woman defensively, “no matter what anyone says against it. She was blind and now she can see. I'm her mother, she's in the sitting room watching telly. You want to write about her for a magazine?”

  “That's right,” said Eric. “If I could just speak to her, a little interview? Our readers will be fascinated by her story, I'm sure.”

  “Will there be photos and everything?” asked Sadie's mother.

  Eric paused for a moment to try to decide which way the woman's mind was working and whether photographs would be considered a good or a bad thing by her. Hoping he'd gauged it correctly, he said, “Yes, I'll take a couple of pictures. She'll be quite famous then and can show the article to her friends when it's published.”

  “Will she get paid for this interview?”

  Eric bit his lip in frustration. What a money-grubbing, conniving old cow, he thought to himself. But outwardly, he smiled apologetically and said, “I'm afraid there isn't really a budget to pay interviewees.”

  “Must be worth a tenner at least, I'd've thought,” said Mrs Wilmot, folding her arms and pursing her lips.

  Eric sighed, but knew he was getting off lightly. Fortunately, the woman was a cheapskate who hadn't the wit to demand a king's ransom. Seeing the way the wind was blowing, he reached into his wallet, slowly withdrew a ten pound note and extended it toward the old woman. “Well, maybe we can just manage to stretch to ten pounds,” he said. “I'll just leave it in your capable hands, shall I?”

  “You'd better come in, then,” crowed Sadie's mother. “I'll put the kettle on.” She led Eric down the hall and into a sitting room where a sofa was drawn up in front of a roaring fire. The heat was stifling. Sitting on this sofa and almost filling it was an obese middle-aged woman wearing a floral print dress and an old brown woollen cardigan. Her face was puffy and she was mechanically taking chocolates from a box on her lap and eating them while she stared at the television.

  “Sadie!” shouted her mother, to jolt her out of her trance-like state. “This gentleman is here to ask you some questions about not bein' blind any more. You tell him what he wants to know, my girl!”

  Sadie looked at Eric through eyes that were swollen and bloodshot. They seemed to be watering badly, as if they were itching or irritated by an allergy. “So what d'you want to know?” she asked in a sing-song, little girl voice. Eric wondered if he was dealing with a simpleton.

  He gingerly sat down in an armchair and said, “Is it true that you were blind?”

  “Yeah,” sniffed Sadie. “I went blind four years ago. The doctor said it was because I was diabetic.”

  Eric gazed in horrified wonder at this overweight woman sitting before him, eating chocolates as if there was no tomorrow when she was diabetic. Was it any wonder she had gone blind, if she was so heedless about her diabetes?

  “Do you not need to restrict your sugar intake?...” began Eric, pointing at the chocolates, but Sadie slammed her hand down hard on the arm of the sofa and shrieked, “Fuck off, all right! I'll stick to their diet sheets when they put something on them that I like eating! It's not my fault if they expect me to eat shit! I won't do it!”

  Eric leaned back. He fully expected that Miss Sadie Wilmot would be dead soon due to complications with her illness, and he had no doubt that her doctor had heard exactly the same kind of tirade. Did her mother have no control over her? Still, it wasn't his concern, he had tried to point out the obvious. Sometimes as a journalist, you just had to close your eyes to the misery around you and concentrate on getting the particulars of the story.

  “So what happened, Sadie?” he asked gently, after she had calmed down and popped another chocolate in her mouth. “Tell me how you recovered your sight.”

  Sadie's mother entered the room at that moment, carrying a tray with three teas on it. She put these down on the coffee table and Sadie picked up a mug and slurped at it after shovelling five sugars into it.

  “You asked her about the chocs, didn't you?” cackled Mrs Wilmot as she added milk and sugar to her own tea. “I heard her shouting. Ha, told you to fuck off, didn't she? She won't listen to me none either, fat cow. I've warned her, she won't get healed again if she loses her sight a second time.”

  Eric helped himself to milk and a single sugar once he realised that carrying the tray in was the full extent of Mrs Wilmot's service. As he stirred his tea, he said, “I was just asking Sadie how she recovered her sight after being blind for almost four years.”

  “Tell the man, Sadie,” said Mrs Wilmot, slurping her tea.

  “Everyone knows about the healing spring,” mumbled Sadie through a mouthful of chocolate. “Mum took me there one night. We brought a mug with us and filled it from the stream. I drank the water and mum said I fainted. She had to come running back and get one of the neighbours to help her carry me home. Anyway, when I woke up the next morning, I could see again. That's about it, really.” She shrugged and turned her attention back to the television, as if her story was the most reasonable thing in the world.

  “A spring?” asked Eric. “I was under the impression that the healing waters were in a well: St Wulfred's Well.”

  “That's what folks call it,” said Mrs Wilmot, “but it's no more than a little trickle of water really. It's down in an old vault, where St Wulfred's buried right enough, but it's just a tiny thing, can't even call it a stream, bubbling up through the floor and then disappearing down another crack.”

  “A burial vault?” Eric murmured to himself. “No wonder I couldn't locate anything on a map! I was looking for a well.” Gathering his wits, he said, “I still don't understand. If people around here know all about this healing water, why did you wait nearly four years before trying it?”

  “All kinds of reasons,” sneered Mrs Wilmot, lighting a cigarette as she jerked a thumb towards Sadie. “She couldn't be bothered to shift her lazy fat arse out of the house for one, blubbering with self-pity.”

  “That's not fair, mum!” whined Sadie. She looked desperately at Eric. “I didn't want to be blind, mister, but no one round here goes near that place an' no one speaks of it. It's haunted. An' if you listen to the stories, no one who gets healed has a happy ending. Somethin' horrible always happens to them. I'm scared, mister. I know you think I shouldn't be just sittin' here like this, stuffin' my face with chocolates, but I'm scared. I'm really, really scared an' I wish now that we hadn't done it.”

  “There are stories about people who have been healed before?” prompted Eric.

  “Pay her no mind,” insisted Mrs Wilmot. “She's an ungrateful cow, that's all, after me takin' her all that way in the dark and getting' her healed, then we even had to drag her back home again because she was out cold. Some people would be glad of the chance she's had.”

  Eric took a sip of his tea and shuddered as his palate reacted to the unmistakable tang of milk that had gone off. He managed to retain his composure and refrain from retching, carefully replacing the mug with a trembling hand and deciding to 'accidentally' let it go cold so he needn't finish it.

  “Why did you take her to the waters at night?” he asked Mrs Wilmot. “I know that Sadie couldn't see anyway, but it must have been more awkward for you to go there when it was dark.”

  “Because the tomb's on private property and the owner doesn't like people trespassing,” she replied. “So we had to sneak onto his land under cover of darkness. He's chased a lot of people off before now. The tomb is in the grounds of what used to be the old monastery. That's in ruins now, but Mr Stoker has a cottage in the old gardens and he's got a fierce temper on him. Quite a few people have risked it over the years, though, if they've be
en really ill. You can sneak in down by the lake if you don't mind getting your feet a bit wet. Some of the trees there are really easy to climb – even for Sadie when she couldn't see, and with her bein' so fat an' all – an' once you're over the wall, the drop's much lower on the other side, only four feet or so.”

  “So other local people have been healed recently too?” asked Eric.

  “Oh yes, there've been people with cancer, asthma, all sorts of illnesses. You won't get many of them to talk about it, though, they don't want to risk old Stoker's wrath.”

  “So why did you let your story go public?”

  “We didn't, but it's hard to keep it secret when you were blind and can suddenly see again. The doctor was amazed. Someone at the surgery must have blabbed, next thing you know the papers were sniffin' round. You're the first decent one, though. None of the others gave us a tenner, so we didn't tell 'em how Sadie got cured.”

  “Have you heard of a girl called Heather Williams?” asked Eric.

  “Oh yes,” nodded Mrs Wilmot. “She was another recent one. Poor girl, her back had been all hunched and twisted. Of course, everyone at school noticed when she started standing up straight, so she wasn't able to keep fully quiet about it either. Didn't mention the healing waters, though, Stoker would have been down on her – and us – like a ton of bricks if the reporters had started sniffing round his property.”

  “It's not just that, mum!” snivelled Sadie. “You know it's not as simple as that! People round here don't talk about that well for a reason, mister! We should never have gone there. It's got a really bad reputation. Mum's only interested in me seeing again, but I can feel it mister, I can feel it gnawin' in my guts: the wrongness.”