The Hidden People

by Allison Littlewood

  Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted

  For my sake the fruit forbidden?

  Must your light like mine be hidden,

  Your young life like mine be wasted,

  Undone in mine undoing,

  And ruined in my ruin,

  Thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?

  I was horrified. I drew back, not knowing what I should do. Should I shake her, or snap my fingers before her eyes? Should I call her name until she returned to me? When she had spread our food upon the table for us to eat together I had at least had a glimmer of hope, but it had been snatched away. I wondered if that had been the intention all along: to show me a ray of light that only made the darkness darker. This could not be my wife. This thing possessed her form, but everything she had once been was absent. I knew then, as certainly as I knew myself, that this was not the woman I had married.

  I turned and walked—though I should rather call it drifted, my limbs felt so weightless, my mind floating—from the room and down the stairs. I went along the passage and into the parlour and out again, into the kitchen, and from thence into the little space at the back of the house which served as a store cupboard.

  There were all the cleaning accoutrements, the brushes and buckets and rags for blacking and scrubbing and dusting, each task with its own tool, just as it should be. I started to go through them, laying each item aside as I inwardly catalogued and discarded it, hardly knowing what I did. And his words came back to me, and I understood what it was I was searching for.

  I knew it were a changeling in ’er stead, on account o’ right when she came, I noticed t’ mop-stick were missin’.

  I let out an odd, dry sound. It was only after it left my lips that I recognised it as a sort of laughter.

  They take a stock o’ wood, see? An’ they spell it to look like t’ one they stole.

  I threw down the last of the sundry items and stayed as I was, staring at the wall, focused upon nothing. I thought of Helena in her room, somewhere over my head. Had she tired of her song or did she sing it still? Had she eaten anything? Was she asleep—did she sleep, now? I knew none of the answers, for all I thought I had discovered so much, but in truth, I had discovered nothing at all; nothing that could even matter to me. I think I gave in to a kind of despair. I had uncovered something of the past, but lost my own wife. She had passed beyond my reach; and I had not the first idea of how to get her back again.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  That night I dreamed I walked in the churchyard under a yellow moon. I had no lamp to see by, but I needed none. All was limned in silver, though the shadows were a deeper black than I had ever seen them. When I looked behind me, I saw that my steps had left ink-dark impressions upon the grass. The night was entirely silent and I was alone and I was not afraid.

  In the way of dreams, it was only then that I realised I was carrying the spade from the garden over my shoulder.

  I walked to the rear of the graveyard, where the newest additions were situated, and I discovered a mound that had no stone; it was too recent for any stone to have yet been cut. There was no marker of the days and months and years which had signalled the beginning and end of her time upon this earth.

  I swung the spade from my shoulder and let its impetus make the first cut into the sward. The ground yielded at once, as if capitulating to my actions. I stepped upon it, driving it deeper. The earth was almost black by moonlight and things moved within it, things with slender, skittering legs or tubular, slimy bodies, writhing together and fleeing the silver blade as it bit down. I discarded the infill. I went on, my movements regular, almost mechanical, the bite—step—dig—throw of it taking on its own rhythm. Soon I was standing in a dark pit and then I stopped, because this time when I stepped on the spade, I heard instead of the scraping of earth the dull knock of wood.

  I fell to my knees, not caring how filthy they were, and brushed the dirt from the surface until I uncovered a shining plaque, and then the coffin nails that held everything within: her blackened skin, her singed hair; the green dress I had chosen for her—the answers, perhaps, to the questions that had taken possession of my soul.

  I knew not how I freed the nails or how I loosened the lid, but a moment later I was raising it and allowing the silver light to fall upon what lay within. And my breath filled my lungs until they ached. I cried out, though I know not what I said; because Lizzie was within, and she was no stock of wood.

  Nor was she a blackened ruin.

  Lizzie was fresh and healthful as ever. She was waiting there for me, and she opened her eyes and smiled as if she were glad to see me. She held out her arms and they did not crack or splinter or crumble into ashes. Her fingers sought my own and twined around them, and hers were warm. She sat, shaking back her hair, which was golden and curling, save where one lock was cut a little shorter than the rest.

  I smiled back at her and loosed my hand from hers; I slipped it into my pocket and found there the hair I had taken, and I held it up to her own. We laughed together, and for a moment my forehead leaned against hers, and we stayed like that for a while, just looking at the hair, as if it were a sign; as if it were a key.

  She was not made of wood. She never had been. She was flesh and blood, and she was beautiful. I wrapped my hands about her arms and helped her to stand. I realised we had not spoken; we had no need of words. I could still hear her lovely voice inside my mind; too sweet to release it into the sullied air for anyone else to hear.

  And yet she was there. Her hands were in mine once more, and they fitted. They fitted.

  The smile faded from her lips.

  I frowned as her eyes darkened and I opened my mouth to ask what troubled her, but no sound emerged; not because my voice was too fine for this world, but because I could not speak. Shadows were growing all around and I felt eyes watching us, but I did not turn to see them because my gaze was fixed upon her face. There was nowhere else I wanted to look, nothing else I needed to see. And yet something was happening to her.

  As I watched, her cheeks began to change. The skin thinned before my eyes, her cheeks sinking, growing hollow, while her eyes shrank into their sockets, and her hair—it was not gold, not any longer; it was silver—

  I shook my head, forming the word no, but I could not prevent it as lines began to mar her lovely features, carving new fissures through her skin as it coarsened, growing age-spotted; but it did not stop there, for older still she grew, and yet older, until I could not bear it. I clutched at her, pulling her close to my heart, feeling her form withering in my arms.

  I do not know how long I stood there, or when I first realised that I was holding nothing but dust.

  I awoke, opening my eyes to see the dark canopy over my head, just as it had always been, and I opened my mouth and no sound emerged. What should I say? There was nothing, nothing to say, nothing to be done, and I stared up, my eyes unfocused, not troubling to wipe away the tears that were spilling onto my cheeks.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next morning I rose to the sound of a lark, the very embodiment of a fresh summer’s day, and yet my head was clouded and my whole being weighed down by care. It was a wearisome matter to rise, bring water, wash and dress, and I felt no more awake when I had accomplished these small but necessary matters.

  I wished for no more than to open my cousin’s journal again, to uncover the secrets of her existence, but there was something I had to do first. I could not continue in this vein, wondering and vexing myself over the most impossible questions. It was as Jem Higgs had said: I was living in a half-dream and something must be done to rouse me from it. I was no longer sure I could claim to be a rational creature. I felt I was closer to Lizzie than any other person; my cousin was looking over my shoulder every moment, following everything that I did; willing me onward.

  I went downstairs and found the things I sought. I had glimpsed them in the farthest corner of the storeroom and they were there still: a pair of iron scissors, which I opened into a cross;
and some old shears, also of iron, ridden with rust.

  I placed the shears on the little ledge over the cottage’s front door. The scissors I placed upon the parlour table.

  Then I went to prepare something for a hasty meal. I did not wish for us to linger in the house, not today. There were things I needed to see before I could resume my study of my cousin’s book. Shortly afterward, I knocked softly upon Helena’s door. She opened it immediately, conveying the impression that she had been standing silently on the other side, and I started back, examining her white complexion before speaking. “Helena, my dear, I thought we could take a little air. It would refresh us both wonderfully, I am certain.”

  She did not speak, but it was of no consequence. She followed me down the stairs. I indicated the table in the parlour, set out with our simple breakfast, the scissors in their place beside the crockery, and she shook her head and stepped away from it. I nodded. It was what I had expected. And then I offered her my arm and prepared to leave the cottage. At once, I felt a drag upon my arm as she stopped quite suddenly.

  “What is it, Helena?”

  “Nothing, Albie. I merely feel a little faint.”

  I glanced up at the iron shears, gleaming in the shadowy passage, quite sure my wife—quite sure that she had not noticed them.

  She pulled on my arm once more, as if she wanted only to go back inside. Her forehead was clammy; her breathing had quickened.

  “A little air would be most cleansing,” I said, and attempted to draw her forward once more, all the while unsure if I was willing her onward or eager for her to reveal herself. She did neither; just stood there, as if whatever animating spirit enlivened her body had entirely vanished.

  “Shall we take a little turn about the garden?” I indicated the way along the passage to the back door of the cottage, which I had earlier unlocked. She nodded a little too eagerly and started towards it, drawing herself taller as we went, and she pulled open the door herself and stepped out, without hesitation, into the sunlight.

  We did not perambulate about the garden. We walked straight around the cinder path and towards the gate, as if by mutual consent, and a little later we stood in the lane. I had not thought where to go; I had only wished to see her step over the threshold and had considered nothing beyond it. Now I brooded on her refusal. She had entered the inn, of course, passing beneath the iron wards nailed above its doors, but that seemed so long ago as to be immaterial.

  Now Helena tugged on my arm; she had made the decision; she led us upwards. We did not speak or pause until we were standing before the oaken grove, the fairy ring ahead of us.

  She looked up and smiled.

  “How do you do, my dear?” I asked.

  “I feel a little better.”

  “How so?”

  “Why, it is as you said, Albie. The air has revived me wonderfully. Is this not a lovely place?”

  “And yet you are so anxious to leave it.”

  Her lips twitched with mirth or dismissal, I was not certain which. “It is a good thing to come home, is it not?”

  I was unable to interpret her expression and I did not know how to answer her. I had the same creeping sense I had felt so often of late, that I had taken the hand of a stranger. I wished I could peer into her thoughts; I wished I could read what lay beneath the surface.

  “And where is your home, my dear?”

  “Why, with my husband.” The words fell carelessly from her lips and she swung away from me as she spoke, wandering into the centre of the fairy ring, and there she stood. I was mindful of another sight I had so recently discovered in this place, and the cry that had rung in my ears: Papa, Papa!

  I wanted to ask who her husband truly was, and I opened my mouth to speak, but the words surprised me; I had not planned to speak them aloud. “Where are they? Where is Lizzie? My wife—the baby?”

  She turned, her forehead creasing, her mouth falling open, and she flattened her palm against her belly. She saw me looking and let it fall. Then her expression closed entirely, her lips snapping shut, her eyes growing dark, and she stalked past me and began to hurry away down the hill once more.

  There was nothing for me to do but follow. My hand went to my pocket, feeling into the corners, but whatever it was I sought was no longer to be found.

  Below me, Helena had reached the gate. She thrust it wide and strode through it before marching straight in at the front door and I stumbled to a halt and stared at it. She had not hesitated—this time she had walked straight through it, despite its iron guardian, and the words I had read in Lizzie’s journal returned to me: I laughed at him all the while and told him he was being ignorant.

  My heart fluttered within my chest; a terrible lightness pierced me as the world all around me paled and retreated. I put a hand to my head. I was ill, then; that was all this was; and then the moment passed and everything returned, just as it had been before. I took several deep breaths, reminding myself that I needed to eat, that if I did not I too would wither away just as if I was an unnatural child, and I went on, my steps more sure than before.

  Helena stood in the parlour, her back straight as a larch, staring steadfastly into the fire. She whirled when she heard my step. “How dare you?” she said. “How dare you question me and torment me so!”

  A sudden fury seized hold of me. “Is it torment to be who you are, Helena? Is it torment being required to be what you purport to be—my wife?”

  Her face crumpled into ugliness, she curled her hands into fists and tears sprang from her eyes. She let out a cry, a little like a shriek, and I half expected her to burst into flame where she stood. She looked like an elf or a goblin. I took a step back from her, not knowing if I was afraid or disgusted, but she followed me, drawn in my wake.

  “Helena”—I forced myself to speak calmly, even coolly—“is it so difficult for you to show that you are indeed who you are? To say, in God’s name, that you are the dear, sweet lady I call my own?”

  Her mouth fell open in incredulity.

  “Will you not say it, Helena? I know it may be seen as an odd thing to ask—and perhaps it is—but it is a simple matter, too, is it not? So small a thing.”

  “Where is my book?” she suddenly snapped.

  “Your book? What does that matter now?”

  “My book! You took it from me. I want it, Albie—I need it!” She actually stamped her foot.

  “Need it?” I could only stare.

  “It is mine—my own! And you took it from me. It is quite necessary, I assure you. If I have no means to escape this place, if I cannot even dream, I shall—I shall go quite mad!”

  I said, “You wish for that book—that wild, superstitious, mad book—in order for it to make you sensible once more? What, do you require some manual to unlock the secrets of the fairies and elementals and all manner of unnatural things—is that what you need, Helena, at this moment?”

  “More than you!”

  I did not know if she meant she needed the book more than I did, or if she needed it more than she required my company, but the end of it was the same. “You shall not have it,” I said. “And he who wrote it—”

  “He!” Her eyes blazed. “You think a man wrote it? It was not!” Her voice took on a note of triumph. “It is exquisite; and it was written by a lady.”

  I was shocked into silence. I could not conceive that such wild matter, full of such tumult and such passion, peopled by creations that fairly deserved the appellation of savages, could possibly have sprung from the gentle pen of the milder sex. Helena saw the doubt in my eyes. She leaned back and laughed at it; she laughed into my face.

  I turned and snatched up the scissors from the table and thrust them towards her. She jerked aside, holding out her hands so that the cold metal could not touch her.

  “Hold them,” I commanded, “only that!” and she stared at me before slowly stretching out her hand. She snatched at them and cast them into the fireplace. They were dashed against the wall; the clatter of it s
till rung in my ears as she rushed headlong from the room. I tried to see her hand as she went by, to see if the touch of iron had burned her, but her fingers were curled tightly into fists and I saw nothing that was conclusive, nothing that could help.

  I felt a rush of lightness and turned to lean upon the table, the food blurring before me, and I realised I had eaten nothing. I grabbed at the bread, tearing pieces from the loaf and cramming them into my mouth. I did not know how things had come to this. I did not know what to think or feel or what to do that would be for the best. All around me was in ruin, and I knew not how to restore it.

  After a while, the things about me steadied and the strange lightness began to pass. I sat, feeling a little better as the shadows began their slow progress, tracking across the room, marking out the passing of time.

  Before long I forced myself to stand and examine the ledge over the front door frame. I half expected the shears to have vanished into the air, but they had not; they lay there still. My wife had passed the test, though it be the test of a madman.

  But she was coming in, a little voice spoke in my mind. She could not go out that way. If you had wished to prevent her ingress, the shears should have been outside the door.

  I shook my head. It was nonsense, and I would not think of it, not now, not any longer. I made my way up the stairs and listened a moment. There was no sound, none at all; it was a house of silence. And I walked into my chamber and found Helena standing there, her hair loose as if she had been tearing at it, and I saw that she held my cousin’s journal in her hand. She turned when she saw me. Her hand shook. She had bent back the spine; the cover was twisted, as if she had been wringing it like a rag. “Is this what kept you away from me, my husband?”

  I held out my hand for it, but she clutched it tighter. “Oh, my dear, all your fondest hopes must have been cast so low. I am sorry for you—quite!”