The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  The bridge is icy, the creek a narrowing channel — the ice, like jagged, broken pieces of frosted glass, creeping from the edges little by little into the sluggish water.

  I’m feeling nervous.

  The windows of Guerdon Hall are blank and unwelcoming, diamond-shaped mirrors of the cold, bleak sky. The newly painted white walls on one side look grubby under the snowy roof.

  “I’m all for history,” Dad mutters as we turn the corner at the end of the front wall, “but this is a wretched place.”

  Mr. Jotman and Roger stand awkwardly in the hall, their white breath clouds mixing with ours — the house is so unbearably cold — while Ange pulls a second jumper over the one Mimi is already wearing. For a girl who doesn’t normally seek company, Mimi is surprisingly biddable. Maybe she thinks Pam is too young to pry, won’t ask the uncomfortable questions other girls might ask when they are on the edge of friendship.

  “Breathe in,” says Ange, buttoned up to her neck in a thick woollen cardigan, “or I won’t be able to do your coat up.”

  “Perishing, isn’t it,” says Mr. Jotman. Weather’s the best bet when you’ve nothing in common. “Wonder if that’s the last of it — the snow.”

  “Odd to have so much in November,” says Dad.

  “Never seen the like,” says Mr. Jotman.

  Then Mr. Jotman gets on to DIY, the other fail-safe.

  “I’d have a look at your boiler for you,” he says. “Could be something to do with the pressure, or a leak. That’d be a nuisance, having to lift floorboards. I’d hate to make a mess of it. You’d do better to get somebody in. There’s this good chap in Daneflete would fix it, I’m sure. Jim’s his name. I’ll let you have his phone number.”

  “Thank you, I’d appreciate that,” says Dad, knowing he’s going to take the boiler to bits himself, shouting at all the parts as they come out.

  I steal a glance at Roger, searching for the boy he once was in this tall, angular person he’s become. I can’t get used to it. I notice him gazing at the scratch marks on the wooden panelling where the priest hole used to be. He looks across. I lower my eyes, but the connection is made, the memories colliding in the seven feet of space between us.

  “We might have a couple of paraffin stoves we could lend you for the time being,” Mr. Jotman continues. “Mr. Aylott at the shop does paraffin, but I’ve probably got a spare can in the shed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll get them down to you when I bring Mimi back.”

  “Actually, I’m hoping to uncover the fireplaces in a couple of the rooms this morning and see if I can get them going. Maybe”— he sizes up Roger — “maybe your lad here could give us a hand.”

  “Of course. You don’t mind, do you, Roger?” says Mr. Jotman.

  Roger shifts on his feet. “That’s all right,” he says quietly.

  When Mr. Jotman and Mimi leave for their trek up to the car, Roger helps Dad take the plasterboard off the fireplace in the sitting room with a crowbar. It was put up so badly, it pops off in no time, revealing the familiar bricked space, blackened by soot, under the heavy stone mantel. Even the fire basket is still there, propped up against the back wall.

  “Tell you what,” says Dad. “I’ll tackle the fireplace in the dining room, and you two can start bringing some logs from the barn. They’re the old trees from the garden that Blezzard chopped up.”

  “I’ll put the kettle on for some tea,” Ange calls from the kitchen, “and break open these digestives. Thank goodness the pipes aren’t frozen.”

  I put on my coat and boots while Roger leans against the cold wall of the stone passage, rubbing his arms and blowing on his fingers through his gloves.

  “Who’s that woman?” he says.

  “Woman? Oh, that’s Ange. She came last night, with Dad.”

  “Is there …? Um, are they …? You know —”

  “Ssh, she might hear. No, not like with Auntie Kath — you know, the one who went back to London. Dad’s got her in to look after us. He goes away a lot.”

  I pull down my woolly hat, uncomfortable with all this — Auntie Kath living with us, and her and Dad not married, not to mention Mum being in the hospital — always keeping quiet and separate so nobody gets a chance to find out about these things, telling Mimi not to say a word to anyone at school, just in case it gets around.

  “Don’t know anything about Ange, really,” I say, “except she worked in some transport caff in Hilsea.”

  “Come on,” Roger says gently, moving away from the wall. “Better get the logs. It’s freezing in here.”

  The huge barn door is leaning off its remaining hinge but standing open enough for us to get through, though we have to climb over a heap of snow that’s blown in across the entrance.

  Among the rubbish in the straw — the paint tins, gripper rods, and broken plasterboard — is the long sheet of wallpaper with all the pieces of pottery still laid out where I left them.

  Roger stoops to pick up one of the curved pieces. “What on earth’s this?” he says.

  “Don’t know. I found all these funny old bottles. Look at this sludgy stuff — smells horrible, doesn’t it? And this one’s got bent iron nails in it — they’re all rusty — and look at that, it’s like hair, and … and I found an old fingernail clipping, all hard and yellow, but dropped it in the straw.”

  “Ugh.” He screws up his nose. “What are they? And where have they come from?”

  “I think the builders must have found them when they were doing up the house and chucked them out with the rest of the rubbish. They were stopped up at the top with wax and a bit of string. Look — like this.”

  I show him the broken top. He turns it over in his hand.

  “This old bloke, Mr. Wragge, who’s been helping out the builder, Mr. Blezzard, he knows what they are,” I say, “but he won’t flippin’ well tell me. Come on, better get the wood.”

  The logs are piled in an untidy heap against the far wall.

  When we come out of the barn, dragging the sack of wood between us through the snow, the sky has darkened to a deep iron-grey and a few flakes begin to speckle our shoulders.

  “Cavalry’s arrived,” calls Ange as we clatter in at the back door, stamping the snow off our feet. “Kettle’s on.”

  Dad helps Roger carry the sack into the sitting room, where he stacks the logs to one side of the wide stone fireplace.

  I twist some sheets of newspaper into kindling and lay them in the fire basket, while Dad and Roger break little side twigs off the logs to mix with the paper, though some are too bendy to snap.

  “I’ll get the saw,” says Dad, leaving the room.

  “I hope it lights,” Roger says. “Some of this wood’s really green and damp. We might end up with a house full of smoke.” He peels off a piece of bark and tosses it onto the kindling. “When we lit our first fire after the summer, we all nearly choked to death till Mum opened the windows. It wasn’t the wood, ’cause we have coal, but this bird had built its nest in the top of the chimney pot, stupid thing.”

  “It’s most probably all right,” I say, leaning across the fire basket and peering up the black dark chimney. My shoulder brushes the soot clinging to the small herringbone bricks at the back. Some of it dislodges and falls into the hearth.

  “Give us that.” I point to the rusty old poker leaning behind the log stack.

  Roger puts it into my outstretched hand. I push it up the chimney and wiggle it about. More soot falls, and dust and cobwebs, small stones and bits of rubble. I shut my eyes, feel the dirt on my face, in my hair, taste the soot. My hand and the sleeve of my coat are black.

  “Just a minute,” I mutter. “There’s something here.”

  Reaching up, I run the poker along the crusted edge of a ledge at the back of the fireplace, a foot or so above the opening. I scrape it along one way, then the other. It bumps over something lying on the ledge. I stretch out, try to dislodge the thing and pull it towards the shaft. At first it won’t mov
e out of its bed of hardened soot. I scrape at it again and again.

  “Flippin’ hell!” Roger coughs. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to get it out. It’s coming… . Hang on.”

  Forcing the point of the poker underneath, I manage to flip the thing up, then with two hands slide the poker backwards and forwards along its length. At last the object comes loose. In a shower of soot it falls down onto the filthy twigs and newspaper in the fire basket — a flattened, blackened, rectangular piece of thick dry leather, about four inches by five.

  Snap! The last silken strand is cut. The cloak of enchantment has fallen to pieces. The house stands open.

  “What on earth’s that?” Roger says.

  I pick it up and run my fingers over its grimy surface.

  Soft footsteps, muffled in sheepskin boots, come down the hall carpet. Teacups rattle on a tray.

  Quickly I push the object deep down behind the pile of logs.

  “Why are you hiding it?”

  “Don’t say nothing — all right?”

  “How many sugars, Roger?” Ange backs into the room and sets the tray down on the small table behind the settee. “Goodness, Cora, look at the state of you! What on earth have you been up to? And how are you going to get a bath if the hot water’s off?”

  Dad comes in with more logs and the saw. “Thought you’d have lit the fire by now.”

  “I was just checking the chimney was clear, and some soot fell down.”

  “That was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?” says Dad. “Here, Roger — you saw off some more kindling and I’ll try and get this started.”

  Dad strikes a match and touches it to the ends of the newspaper, then another match, and another. He throws on more small twigs as Roger saws them off. They crackle into life, but thick dark smoke rolls into the room.

  Ange fans her face with one hand, coughing till her eyes water, as she tries to pour the tea with the other. “Crikey, it’s like the bloody Black Hole of Calcutta in here.”

  “It isn’t going to work, Dad,” I splutter. “We’re all going to suffocate.”

  He throws on one of the larger logs.

  “I’m getting a bucket of water to put it out,” says Ange breathlessly, heading towards the door.

  “No, wait,” says Dad, his eyes streaming. “This fire hasn’t been lit for years, and in this sort of weather you can get this little cushion of cold air stuck halfway up the chimney. If we wait a bit, the smoke might start going up. I’ll stick another log on.”

  Eventually the air clears a little, but the acrid smell remains. Even so, as the fire begins to draw, the warmth is welcome, despite each fresh, damp log sending up a stream of hissing new smoke. When it’s properly ablaze, we sit in our coats in front of the hearth, drinking our tea, feet stretched out so the rubber soles of our boots feel as if they might be melting, the front of our bodies burning hot, our backs frozen.

  Just as it’s getting dark, Mr. Jotman passes by the sitting-room window with Mimi.

  When Roger and I go to the back door, Mr. Jotman sets a small stove down onto the flagstones, and Mimi almost drops a can of paraffin.

  “Carried it all the way down the hill,” she says, clawing and unclawing her hands. “Nearly slipped twice.”

  “Did you have fun?”

  “Built this huge snowman,” she says, spreading out her arms, “and made some fairy cakes with sprinkles on.”

  Mr. Jotman pulls a brown paper bag out of his pocket and looks inside. “Sorry,” he says. “Fairy crumbs.”

  “You can still eat them,” Mimi says.

  “Cup of tea before you go?” Ange asks.

  “Ooh, no, but thank you, must get back,” Mr. Jotman says.

  Roger takes his gloves out of his coat pocket, flicks up his eyes. “See you, then,” he says.

  “See you,” I say.

  He sets off with his dad along the snowy path, two dark shapes disappearing into the twilight.

  Later, Dad, Ange, Mimi, and I eat egg on toast off our laps in the sitting room.

  Dad says, “Better let the girls have the paraffin stove tonight.”

  “No, tell you what,” Ange says. “Why don’t they sleep here in the sitting room? Shame to waste the fire. It’ll be like camping, a bit of fun. What do you think?” Dad shrugs his shoulders. “Go and get your blankets,” she adds.

  “You’d better have the stove, then, Ange,” says Dad. “I’ll be all right. I’ve known worse, under canvas in a blizzard, training with the army in Yorkshire.”

  I let Mimi have the settee and make up a bed for myself on the carpet.

  When we settle down to sleep, the fire is burning steadily, lively, brilliantly red.

  In a dream a bell tolls.

  I find myself drowsily awake, stiff with cold, my hip and shoulder bones aching from the pressure on the hard floor, and the clock in the hall is striking three.

  The fire is almost out. In the darkness the ash-grey logs settle in a shower of sparks.

  I hear gentle breathing from Mimi, curled up on the settee under her mound of blankets, and Ange’s distant coughing from upstairs.

  What has woken me? Is it the sound of the wind in the chimney — a low, whirling rush as if the air is moving round and round inside the stack?

  Something light falls into the hearth, too dark to see — perhaps another shower of old soot, blackening the remains of the embers.

  Then a strange sensation passes over me, like a draught of icy air that steals slowly across my face, numbing my hands as they clutch the edge of the eiderdown. I pull it tight around me, but the bitter cold creeps around my shoulders, down my back and legs to my feet, chilling my toes through their socks. My teeth chatter. I am rigid with cold and cannot seem to shiver off a sudden and crushing sense of dread.

  I hear Mimi take a gasp of air, pulling her blankets closer in her sleep.

  After a few seconds the freezing draught seems to subside and I can see once again the small glow of red in the fireplace.

  Bent with discomfort, trembling, I throw off the eiderdown, reach for the poker, and prod the embers till chunks of charred wood and ash fall through the fire basket. I lean over for another piece of wood and throw it on the dying fire, but for a few minutes it just lies there, as if too tired to take a flame. I poke again, until at last a small blue tongue licks up and over the curved coat of bark, and it begins to sizzle and crack.

  When at last the fire flickers up golden and red with a little heat to warm my deadened face, I get up, reach behind the log pile, and drag out the strange piece of dried-up leather I found on the ledge in the chimney.

  I brush off some soot and blow out the dust gathered deep in the cracks, then realize it is folded tightly over in the middle. Holding it over the little flames in the grate, I try to rub off more of the hard soot.

  Leaning farther in, I bring the hard leather close to my eye, and notice nail heads, evenly spaced, running all around the edge. Along the front and back of the smooth, folded-over side are scratched, blackened lines, difficult to make out in the half-light, but rather like letters — an S, an E … maybe a B — or is it an R? My eyes ache. Towards the bend of the fold, another R, perhaps a P — hard to say. I lick my finger and trace it over the marks.

  SEHSURARHPA

  Is it some ancient language — from Africa? Egypt? India?

  A code? A message? A puzzle?

  A name?

  My sooty finger runs forwards, backwards, forwards once more. All at once I realize what the letters are — a name, scratched backwards.

  APHRARUSHES

  Aphra Rushes.

  The witch.

  A bristling sensation creeps along my arms.

  I glance across to the settee and see two eyes peeping out over the blankets.

  “How long you been awake?” I ask.

  “Only a minute,” Mimi says. “What’s that there?”

  “It was hidden up the chimney. I found it when Roger was here.”

&nbs
p; Mimi stares, frowning, at the thing in my hand.

  I think I hear a creak from the staircase. Mimi’s eyes flicker towards the door.

  “Put that thing back, Cora,” she breathes.

  “What?”

  “Up the chimney. Put it back again.”

  “I can’t now, can I? There’s a fire going. I’ll put it back in the morning.”

  “First thing?”

  “It’s only a bit of old leather, Mimi.”

  She is listening for something. I strain my ears but hear only the rustle of the flames in the wood.

  “Promise you’ll put it back first thing,” she whispers again.

  “All right. Promise.”

  “Cross your heart.”

  “Cross my heart. You warm enough with all them blankets?”

  “Like a piece of toast.”

  “Can I have one, then? I’m so blinkin’ cold I can’t sleep.”

  Mimi jiggles to dislodge the top blanket. I begin to reach over when there is a cough from the hall.

  My heart skips. Mimi jumps.

  The door creaks open.

  Ange is standing there, dressed only in her winceyette nightdress, the firelight flickering on her bony forehead and hollow cheeks.

  Behind her the hall is black, unlit. She has come down the stairs in the dark.

  “Ange?” I gulp. “You all right?”

  She looks at us — first at me, then at Mimi — but it is as if she doesn’t actually see us. Her eyes are gleaming with a strange glassy sheen.

  She says nothing, coughs again, moves backwards into the darkness, and pulls the door shut. Mimi and I hold our breath and stare at each other as we hear her bare feet moving back towards the stairs.

  I swallow. “Must be sleepwalking,” I whisper, my heart fluttering.

  I need no rushlight or candle. I have nothing to fear in this darkness.

  She struggled against me a little but was full of sleep, and weak. The fight went out of her after a while, and I felt once again the frame and set of hard bone, the coursing of bile and blood, and the slow, steady surge of breath.

  I flex her fingers, stretch them, and run her hand along the panelling, touch the wood I touched then, feel the scratches made by Cain Lankin’s nails. For a moment I brush those marks with her fingers and rest her cheek upon them, lingering for a while, fancying I can sense some remnant of him there. I move back down the dark passage towards the staircase and climb the selfsame stairs I trod taking the child to his snow-pale mother for their last embrace.