The Clockwork House

by Wendy Saunders

  Opening it on the first page she flicked through pages and pages of her untidy handwriting. Notes of everything that everyone she’d met had told her about the house. Tucked neatly into the pages was the photograph, of the woman, the man and the blond-haired boy. She turned the photo over and there was a sudden jolt in her chest as her belly clenched.

  There, in neat block letters, was a message.

  ‘SHE’S COMING FOR YOU AND SHE WON’T LET YOU GO.’

  That hadn’t been there before. She could only imagine that whoever had been responsible for trashing the RV had left this message too. It didn’t make sense though. Why trash the RV, why graffiti it with such angry messages, and then calmly write on the back of the photo and tuck it back in the book, leaving it hidden on the floor, where she may or may not have found it. Ava sank slowly down onto the bed as she stared at the book and the photo.

  There was so much more to the house and to the Lynch story, Ava was certain of it. It seemed her grandmother had known, and Ava would have bet money that her mother had known too. Why else had she run and never stopped to look back?

  Ava leaned over onto one hip as she retrieved the tatty envelope from her back pocket, clenching it in her hand. If she wanted to stay on the island, if she truly wanted to make it her home, then it was time she knew the truth.

  She climbed up on the freshly made bed and tucked her legs under her, propping herself up on the pillows as she set the photo and notebook beside her. Turning the envelope over she found herself involuntarily drawing in a slow breath. Hooking her fingers under the paper she tore along the seam and reached in, but as she withdrew the letter a small photograph dropped in her lap.

  It was slightly crushed and a little bit creased from where it had sat in the envelope for the last few years and then where she’d spent the last several days carrying it around in her back pocket. Smoothing out the photo she found herself staring at a woman who looked a lot like her mother, only slightly older and with less love beads. She was holding a tiny baby wrapped in a white blanket and gazing down at her with such love.

  Ava flipped the photo over and read the handwriting on the back.

  ‘Hari and Ava… San Francisco…’

  Ava read the date below and realized the picture was taken only a few days after she was born. The baby in the picture was her and she was being held by her maternal grandmother Harriet Wallace. She had obviously come to see her in San Francisco where Ava had spent the first five years of her life.

  It was clear from the picture Hari was enchanted with her granddaughter and she had bothered to travel all the way from Midnight to the West Coast to see her. So why hadn’t Ava known her grandmother? Had she never visited again? And why hadn’t Serenity ever mentioned her mother?

  Tucking the photo carefully inside the notebook, Ava unfolded the letter from her dead grandmother and slowly began to read, struggling slightly with the slanted handwriting.

  Dearest Ava,

  You may never get to read this letter, and to be honest I’m not sure if I’m happy about that or not. If you are reading it then it means you have found your way to Midnight and that you have met my dearest friend Bunty McCarthy. She has promised to keep this letter and the secrets of our family. If you find your way to us, they will pass to you and for that I am so very sorry. If not, then Bunty will take them to the grave with her.

  I have so much to tell you, to say to you, sweet girl. My only wish is that I could have been there in person to speak with you, to get to know you, to guide you, but now I fear you must navigate your own path and I’m sorry to say your mother will be of no use to you on that score.

  First, I feel I must apologize, for not being there for you while you grew up. For missing the chance to be a part of your life, but your mother asked me to make an impossible choice. I chose, not to do what I wanted, but to do what was right. Your mother never understood the grave responsibility that was placed upon our family when the Wallaces first came to Midnight Island and how closely we are tied to the Lynches. Their fate became our curse.

  I am giving you a choice Ava; one I should have given your mother, but one she made for herself regardless. Do what I could not, burn the house to the ground it stands on, with all of its secrets, and leave. Never look back and be happy.

  If you stay, the burden you will have to carry is great. You will be bound to the house. I imagine even now you can feel it, calling to you, calling to your blood. The very walls are filled with secrets of dark deeds and deeper pain. It left a scar, a darkness in that house and gave birth to a terrible evil.

  She walks its deserted corridors, her eyes filled with pain and madness. She was born of violence, the lady in white. I have seen her.

  You must think me crazy. I know this sounds like madness, but it is not, I assure you and the longer you stay the more you will come to understand. She won’t let them go.

  I wish things could have been different. I came to San Francisco when you were just a baby. I held you in my arms and I loved you, the same way I loved your mother, the way I still love her. I’ve missed her every day since she left. She doesn’t understand my choices, she wants me to leave to live with you by the Bay and I was so tempted. I had never wanted anything as much in that moment, but Midnight is my home and the house is my responsibility.

  I’m sorry Ava, I’m sorry this curse has passed to you and I am sorry for the secrets you will have to carry, for I know only too well the weight of them.

  Be at peace my love, whatever your choice.

  Your loving grandmother, Hari x

  What the hell was this woman smoking? Ava sat back with a frown of confusion. The lady in white? She’d expected the letter to give her some answers but all it did was highlight the rather questionable state of mind of a dying old lady. This was ridiculous, innuendos, half-truths and superstitions, that’s all it boiled down to. Grabbing the letter, she stuffed it back into the envelope and placed it in the notebook, before climbing purposefully off the bed.

  She was going to pay a visit to Mrs McCarthy and this time she was not leaving until she had tangible answers. No gossip, no mysterious legends, just cold hard facts and proof. She wanted to know just what the hell went on in that house and this time, she was not stopping until she knew the truth.

  17

  The Lynch House, Midnight Island.

  May 1892.

  It was strange being in the house she thought to herself, as she walked along the corridor the gas lamp in her hand guiding her way through the darkness, her bare feet padding along the cool wooden floor as she pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders.

  She’d never spent any real time in the house before. After the wedding they had left the island immediately and headed for New York where her husband had been offered a very prestigious job with Jennings & Co. It was to be their fresh start, a new life filled with exciting possibilities and the fast pace of the city.

  All that had ended the moment an automobile had struck her husband and dragged him under its wheels. Now they were back on Midnight Island, where they started, a full circle. Only this time, she was forced to live off the largesse of her wealthy father in law while she watched the slow painful decline of her beloved husband.

  There would be no children for them now. The home she’d dreamt of, filled with family and love and laughter, was fading before her eyes.

  Her father in law was a cold, enigmatic man. His black eyes seemed to bore holes in her whenever he looked her way, sending shivers down her spine. Her husband had not said as much but instinctively she knew he was not a man to be crossed.

  Since they’d arrived at the house she’d tried to stay out of his way as much as possible, spending her time at her husband’s side, reading to him, trying to engage him. But he had fallen into a deep melancholia since their departure from New York and try as she might she could not lift his spirits. Even his boyhood home and the bracing sea air could not revive his mood.

  She entered her richly decorated room,
closing the door and setting her shawl on the nearby chaise. Crossing the room to climb up into the luxurious bed she sunk into the soft mattress as she set her lamp on the table and pulled the blankets over her.

  Her father in law had flatly decreed the night of their arrival that she would not share her husband’s room in order to aid his recovery. She wasn’t pleased but she’d obeyed just the same. After all, without him they would have nowhere to go.

  Each night she’d kissed her husband goodnight and retired to her richly furnished room alone. It was lonely, her only solace was that as she was once again on her home island, she could see her sister. Once a week they met for tea and she had come to look forward to their visits as the only spark of brightness in her dark days.

  Feeling the beginning of her own despair tickling the edges of her mind, she turned down the lamp and settled back against the soft down filled pillows and closed her eyes, hoping for the escape of pleasant dreams.

  She drifted off; she couldn’t have said how long she’d slept for when she suddenly came awake. At first, she wasn’t quite sure what had awoken her, until she realized the room was flooded with light. She knew she’d turned the lamp down and as she turned to look, a startled gasp escaped her lips.

  Her father in law stood beside her bed, his broad frame towering over her and casting most of her slim willowy frame into shadow. The white wings of his hair seemed to glow incandescently in the lamp light and his eyes burned coal black as he watched her silently.

  She pulled the blankets up to her chin, pressing them against her chest. Although, thanks to the modest style of her nightgown with its long sleeves and lace collar buttoned all the way to her neck, she was not showing any more flesh than that of her hands and face, but still it was highly improper for him to be in her room with her wearing only her night attire.

  She cleared her throat, hoping to sound firmer than she felt.

  ‘Is something wrong Father?’ she tried but her voice shook. ‘Is there something wrong with my husband?’

  She tried to emphasize the word husband, in an attempt to remind her father in law of the impropriety of his presence in her room but he continued to stare at her with those cold obsidian eyes and just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, his deep voice echoed through the room.

  ‘The only thing wrong with him was that he married you.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ she whispered, ‘I cannot collect your meaning. You had no objection to our marriage when the banns were read, nor at the service.’

  ‘If he hadn’t married you, he wouldn’t have left the island,’ he continued slowly and deliberately, sensing her unease. ‘He wouldn’t have been injured and I wouldn’t have been forced to the inconvenience and expense of bringing the both of you home. You must understand that a debt is now owed.’

  ‘A debt?’ she frowned, ‘but he’s your son, your only child. Surely you would wish to help him from the goodness of your heart?’

  ‘A debt is a debt, regardless of blood.’

  She suppressed a shiver of fear, her mouth dry as she attempted to straighten her spine, forcing a strength into her voice she did not feel.

  ‘Then I shall repay it,’ she replied coolly. ‘I have a fair hand with needlepoint, I shall find work as a seamstress. If you would be so kind as to draw up a bill, I shall see that you are reimbursed all expenses for our transport to the island.’

  ‘You think I would allow my daughter in law to work as a common seamstress?’ his voice dropped deadly low.

  ‘I do not understand,’ this time she did shudder at the darkness in his eyes. ‘How am I to repay the debt if you will not allow me to work?’

  ‘Oh, you will repay the debt,’ he replied slowly, ‘but not with money.’

  ‘I don’t…’

  Her protest was cut short as he grasped the blankets and ripped them away revealing her modest nightgown.

  ‘No!’ she gasped in horror, ‘what are you doing?’

  He roughly shoved her back onto the bed and climbed on top of her, his legs astride her narrow hips. Reaching up he grabbed the collar of her nightgown and tore it open, the tiny little pearl buttons scattering, as the material gaped down to her ribcage, exposing her pink tipped breasts.

  ‘NO! PLEASE!’ She slapped at his hands as they kneaded her flesh, painfully squeezing her breasts viciously, his fingers digging into her soft skin leaving dark painful bruises.

  ‘NO!’ She cried out again, struggling to shove him away, to wriggle out from underneath his heavy body.

  This time he raised his hand and cracked her across the cheek. Her head snapped to the side sharply, filling the soft palette of her mouth with the metallic tang of blood. Not giving her time to recover he hit her again, harder. This time she felt her eye begin to swell and throb. It was a horrible shock; she’d never been struck before. Even as her mind struggled to comprehend the pain, she felt him moving down her body, grabbing her nightgown and shoving it up her body so roughly it grazed her skin, leaving her body bare to his terrifying black-eyed gaze.

  He rose up on his knees, not enough for her to escape but enough for her to see what was coming. Her eyes widened in terror as he slowly and deliberately opened his trousers, exposing his engorged, angry penis, wet at the tip and eager for her pain and humiliation.

  ‘NO!!’ She fought him then, like a wild, feral cat, she scratched and bit and clawed. She wriggled and bucked but it was no use, he was too strong.

  He forced her legs apart, then grabbing a handful of her nightgown he shoved it in her mouth to muffle her screams. Nothing could have prepared her, as she felt the hot tip of him between her legs, for the vicious thrust and the white-hot pain as he penetrated her. She cried out, her eyes wet with tears, her sobs muffled as he continued to beat himself between her spread thighs.

  He leaned forward; her arms were pinned beneath his chest as he pressed her into the bed. She felt like she was suffocating, she couldn’t breathe through the weight of him and the nightgown shoved in her mouth. She felt him grab her hair and twist her head, so his hot breath gusted against her ear.

  ‘Do you like it Daughter?’ he taunted, his voice low and breathy as he continued to ram himself inside her. ‘Shall I give you what my useless cripple son can’t?’

  She felt him bite her neck savagely, but it was nothing compared to the pain of the vicious assault she was enduring between her thighs.

  ‘Shall I spill my seed inside you?’ he whispered hotly against her ear as his fingers dug into her bruised breast and twisted her nipple sharply. ‘Shall I plant a babe in your womb? Would you like that? To feel me growing inside you?’

  The horror of the thought was too much to bear. She struggled uselessly, but he didn’t even break his rhythm as he pounded sharply inside her.

  ‘You will learn your place Daughter,’ he growled. ‘Under this roof, you belong to me. Just like every stick of furniture. You’re mine to do with as I please. I will come to your bed when the mood takes me, I will ride between your thighs until you’re hurting and then I will leave you wet with my seed.’

  She screamed again, but he simply laughed and yanked her hair harder, snapping her neck back into an unbearable position as he forced himself inside her repeatedly, harder and harder for what felt like an eternity, until he hissed loudly with satisfaction and she felt a warmth gush inside her.

  The fight left her body as he pulled out of her wetly, breathing hard, his softening penis trailing against her thigh leaving a string of semen.

  ‘There Daughter,’ he climbed off the bed, leaving himself exposed and blood stained so she could see what he’d done to her. He leaned forward and removed the wad of nightgown from her lax mouth. ‘I gave you a child tonight, a beautiful gift that my son could not…’ he whispered coldly. ‘Say thank you.’

  She stared at him numbly, through eyelashes spiky with tears.

  His huge fist wrapped around her throat, squeezing until she thought she was going to pass out.

  ‘Say…
’ he whispered harshly against her ear, ‘thank you…’

  ‘Thank you,’ she croaked brokenly.

  Satisfied he straightened up and tucked himself back into his trousers before turning and leaving the room as if nothing had happened.

  For a moment she just lay there, her body still exposed, her nightgown shoved up to her chest. Her mind couldn’t seem to process what had happened. She would have thought it a nightmare if it were not for the agony between her legs. Slowly she pushed herself off the bed, her legs collapsing underneath her as she dropped to the richly embroidered rug.

  Sucking in a sharp breath she pushed herself to her feet, using the bed to steady herself. She limped over to the washstand feeling the wetness between her legs, and cringing. She lifted the jug of water, but her hands were trembling so badly it clanged loudly against the bowl as she filled it.

  She pulled the soiled nightgown over her head and threw it to the ground in disgust. Her neck and breasts were covered with ugly bruises and vicious teeth marks. She dipped a muslin cloth into the cold water and scrubbed her body until it was raw. Wetting the cloth again she hissed as she washed between her legs, her eyes filled with tears as she choked back a sob. She scrubbed and scrubbed through the pain, trying to rid her body of his semen, praying she didn’t conceive and equally terrified that if she didn’t, he would return to hurt her again.

  Finally, when she could bear no more, she threw the blood and semen stained cloth on the floor next to her nightgown. Pulling her thin shawl from the chair she wrapped it around her body, shaking violently as she collapsed against the wall and slid down it slowly, folding herself into a small ball in the corner where she sobbed quietly until dawn.