The Mark of Cain

by Lindsey Barraclough

  The lamp reflects eerily in the diamond panes of the dark, rain-drizzled windows.

  We round the corner into a gale that almost knocks us backwards. It takes a moment to steady our feet in the slopping water.

  At the side of the house a reddish light glows out of the sitting room. While Roger and Mimi shelter against the wall, I cautiously peer in. Inside, the fire is burning low, a heap of glowing embers under a powder of grey ash. There is no sign of Ange.

  We struggle along the path towards the back of the house, turn the corner, and are almost blown into the wall by the ferocity of the wind as it hurtles the heavy rain against the building, hammering the windows, lifting and whirling the slates, and needling our cheeks. The poor maimed shrubs and stunted trees are lashed this way and that. Water sweeps across the garden, ripples across the path in shallow waves, then slaps noisily against the bottom of the wall.

  The thunderous, ragged black clouds roll apart here and there to reveal little silvery points of stars and a hazy, sickly half of yellow moon. Under its pale, washed-out light, the world seems to be nothing but water — rising, rising still, in a black, spreading swell across the marshes.

  We stumble onto the slippery cobbled yard, with the wind at our backs forcing us on towards the rain-spattered back door. With my split, throbbing hand, still wrapped clumsily in the handkerchief, I fumble in my pocket and under the stoneware bottle for my key and battle to unlock the door. At last we spill into the cold, greenish light of the passage.

  Roger pushes back hard against the door to shut out the wind and the water, but even the ancient wood cannot prevent a trickle fingering its way across the flagstones.

  Slowly we move up the passage and turn left. Cold, damp draughts crisscross the hall, sucking any remaining warmth out of our wet clothes. Somewhere from the floor above comes a dripping sound.

  “Last time Ange was sewing,” I breathe, “it was in her bedroom. But she must have come downstairs since, if the fire’s lit.”

  We creep down the hall towards the sitting room. The curtains at the bend of the stairs waft away from the window, and the small glass panes rattle in their leaded diamonds, while the rain seeps in at the bottom edge and runs down the plaster in a long dark line.

  Roger moves slowly towards the open doorway. “Stay there for a minute,” he whispers.

  Holding up the lamp, he peers round the frame, inches forward, looks round the back of the door. Dark as a shadow against the flicker of firelight and lamplight, he edges farther and farther in, cautiously puts the lamp down on the small table, looks all about him.

  “There’s no one here.” He beckons us in.

  “Can you see the poppets?” I hiss, taking a step forward.

  “Her sewing things are here on the settee,” he breathes.

  We rifle through her box, scattering the cotton reels, the scissors, the cards of hooks and eyes. I tip up the cockleshell straw bag, and scraps of material and trimmings slip out onto the settee or waft to the floor — among them little bits of Aggie, the green offcut from Ange’s skirt that made the rag doll’s dress, the reddish wool that made her hair.

  “Look, you keep searching in here,” I whisper to Roger. “Don’t miss one cushion or one drawer. Mimi, we’ll go and look in the kitchen.”

  Roger twists up the wick on the hurricane lamp. “You’d better take this. I’ll stick another log on the fire.”

  I pick up the lamp, and Mimi and I steal down the hall to the dark kitchen, with a wary look up the stairs as we go by.

  The tap is dripping noisily into the sink, and like a host of spirit voices, the wind moans behind the dresser where the old chimney rises up behind the false wall. The rain beats against the window, and on either side of it, the orange curtains lift and flap.

  I set the lamp down on the table next to a couple of discarded packets of Capstan and an overflowing ashtray. A half-empty cup of scummy tea rests askew on its saucer, which is filled with squashed cigarette butts rimmed with lipstick.

  Mimi slips out of my hand, reaches with a gloved finger, and touches the waxy, crimson ring on one of the stubs.

  The tap drips on.

  Ange’s quilted maroon dressing gown is draped untidily across the back of one of the chairs. I hold it up, reach into one pocket, then the other — nothing inside but balled-up handkerchiefs.

  I run my hands through each drawer, open the cupboard doors, but in truth know searching here is useless. Ange will surely have the poppets close to her.

  A deafening gust of wind hurls heavy raindrops against the window like a fistful of pebbles.

  Would Ange have gone back upstairs to her bed? If she is asleep, there is a chance …

  “Come on, sis,” I whisper, pulling Mimi gently by the arm.

  We move out of the kitchen into the hall, and I stop at the staircase and look up.

  Alarmingly, water is dripping down from one tread to the next, pooling at the bottom and soaking the carpet.

  I step up one stair, lifting the lamp and craning my neck to peer round the bend in the staircase. Through the large window, the black clouds are rolling and pitching, their edges ragged with rain, as they sweep over the crest of the upper field.

  “You going up?” Mimi breathes.

  “I’ve got to. You stay down here with Roger; go on.”

  She edges towards the sitting room, and I take the stairs one at a time, slowly, slowly, my heart pounding.

  As I step up to the landing, the ceiling above me creaks with a long, loud groaning. Holding up the light, I am alarmed to see a gaping black hole. To one side, the ragged ends of splintered beams, laced with clinging wet cobwebs, are poking through the gap. I move towards Ange’s room, stumbling over rubble and broken wood, and the pieces of timber chafe together. Fearfully I glance up again, unnerved by the worrying bulge on one side of the hole.

  I creep farther along the landing and put my ear to Ange’s door.

  No sound. No light underneath.

  I breathe in, put my thumb on the latch, hissing through my teeth at the click, willing it to be quiet as it lifts.

  I wait a moment, then push the door open.

  The light sweeps across the unmade, empty bed, the tangle of rumpled sheets and blankets. Strewn across the floor is a disorder of clothes, dirty teacups, plates with stale remains of barely picked-at food, cigarette packets, magazines splayed open, everything speckled with small curled feathers.

  Leaving the door ajar, I snake my way across the floor, put down the lamp, and rifle through blankets and under pillows. Lifting the corner of the drooping bedspread, I see nestled in the jumble of shoes on the floor two little snippets of pink cotton and a shred of my blue blouse. Sick with fear, I turn to the rest of the room.

  With my fingers poised to pull open the top drawer of the chest where I found the little cloth man, I hear a door closing back along the landing.

  I know the familiar thud. It is the door to our bedroom.

  Has Mimi come upstairs?

  I told her to stay with Roger.

  I take the lamp, pick my way across the mess and out onto the landing. I can’t pass under the yawning hole in the ceiling without a glance upwards. Little by little the huge pieces of blackened wood are edging their way out; small beads of water in loosely connected streams drip onto the floorboards, glistening in the light like strings of pearls.

  I inch my way over the pieces of fallen plaster until I reach our bedroom.

  Raising my hand to the latch, I lose my nerve and let it fall, then raise it again and press down the thumb piece.

  “Mimi …?” I whisper, pushing the door.

  It creaks forward, and the lamplight passes over drawn curtains, over the fireplace, the red chair, and the end of my bed, slowly gleaming up the floral eiderdown towards the headboard.

  My breath rushes out.

  Tucked under my blanket, its head resting on my pillow, is a poppet, locks of my own hair sewn to its scalp, little dark eyes fixed on me, mean mouth gr
inning.

  Trembling, I lift the quavering lamp towards Mimi’s bed.

  And there is the other — small stuffed arms over the fold of the sheet, its face turned towards me, framed by wisps of Mimi’s hair, the red running-stitched lips turned up at the ends in a spiteful smile.

  A swish on the lino.

  Out of the shadows near the fireplace comes Ange.

  Ange — or Aphra?

  Who is it looking out from those dark-ringed eyes?

  Whose lips are they, stretched back in a sneer?

  I don’t know. I don’t know.

  She moves towards me effortlessly, as if gliding across the floor.

  I can’t reach the dolls. Don’t want to touch them.

  Can’t think.

  I turn on my heel, bolt back through the door, and launch myself down the slippery stairs. The water splashes under my wellingtons, the lamp swings crazily on its handle as I stumble down, squelching into the sodden carpet at the bottom.

  Mimi is waiting for me, her face bloodless.

  In the sitting room a drawer slams shut.

  Keep quiet, Roger. What will Ange do to you if she knows you are there?

  I look behind me.

  She is on the stairs.

  Mimi glances up, her eyes glazed with fright. She grabs my arm, pulls me, breathless, down the hall to Auntie Ida’s old kitchen, stoops and lifts a corner of the wet carpet, picks up the key, drops it, fumbles for it again. Her hand shaking, she pushes it into the lock and puts her shoulder to the old door. Grating on the flagstones, it opens inwards.

  Mimi snatches my sleeve and pulls me in, grabs the key out of the lock, then frantically pushes the door shut and locks it with trembling fingers.

  We stand there, panting, watching the lamplight spill across the grimy floor, picking out glinting pinpoints of eyes as mice scurry into the shadowy corners, dart into cracks, drop into holes. I lift it higher, and the flare outlines the legs of the chairs, the edges of the cupboards, the pitted rim of the stone sink.

  Setting it down on the table, I catch a movement at the window. Terrified for a moment, Mimi and I look across to see our two blurred faces gazing back at us behind the panes, the rainwater on the juddering glass running down our pale reflected cheeks like long, dark tears.

  For a few seconds the wind drops, and in that small pause there comes a soft noise from the hall.

  Mimi turns her head, tendrils of fair, wavy hair gleaming softly. “Ange …” she breathes.

  The strip of light at the bottom of the door is broken by two shadows. Someone is on the other side. The shadows shift slightly, the weight passing from one foot to the other as they sway shakily on the soaking floor.

  Mimi and I stand frozen.

  The latch rattles, and the door moves slightly, as if Ange is pushing against it. Then, utterly unexpectedly, we hear the low rasp of her voice, close to the wood.

  “Cora …”

  Mimi’s fingers twist my sleeve.

  “Cora … are you there? Cora … Mimi?” comes the voice again. “It won’t open… . Help me… .”

  Mimi’s grip tightens on my arm. I take a fleeting look at her. Her hand moves to her coat pocket and she pulls out Aggie. For a moment she stares at the red wool hair, the green dress, the round rusty-brown marks of Ange’s blood on the little cheeks. A tear slides out of her eye. She pushes the doll into the front of her coat, where the legs stick out of the space between two buttons.

  Seconds pass.

  “Cora … please …” breathes the voice. “There’s something wrong with me… . Help me… .”

  The creak comes again, louder. Ange is leaning against the door.

  “Mimi … it’s me… . It’s Ange… . Please …”

  There is a loud slithering sound, a thump, a little moan. The line of light is almost completely blocked out.

  “She’s fallen down,” Mimi whispers. “What shall we do? What shall we do?”

  We wait, trembling, as the wind rises once more and howls around the old chimney.

  Then Ange speaks again, weakly, breathlessly, her lips against the gap at the bottom of the door. “I don’t know what’s happening… . Please help me… .”

  My thoughts seem to snag together. Aphra Rushes could hurt us with the poppets whether she could see us or not. Aphra doesn’t need us to open the door.

  So it must be Ange… . It must be… .

  Ange’s back glows in the firelight flickering down the hall from the sitting room. She is quivering along the whole length of her body as she lies on her side across the wet floor, her long cardigan sopping underneath her, her straggling, uncombed hair trailing in the ribbons of glistening water flowing down the stone passage from under the back door.

  Moving stealthily, keeping to the shadows, I creep forward as far as the staircase. The wind roars behind the storm-battered window at the bend, and the curtain blows out and flaps back against the plaster. Shiny drops flick off the banisters from the landing above, and a thin stream of water glints down the stairs, tread by tread.

  The click of a lock.

  A scraping noise.

  The old kitchen door is opening, inch by inch. Gloved fingers drag the edge backwards. Part of Cora’s face appears, ghostly and guarded. Nervously she looks down at Ange.

  The gap widens. Mimi peers round the frame, frowning under her hat. “What shall we do?” she breathes.

  Ange doesn’t move.

  “I’ll try and lift her up,” I hear Cora say. “Move back, Mimi.”

  Just as Cora takes a step forward, the house is rocked by a massive cracking sound from upstairs, echoed and magnified by the wooden panelling. Then comes a mighty thud and a huge shudder I can feel under my feet, as if the whole building has shifted, and a sudden, icy draught sweeps down from the landing across the back of my neck.

  Alarmed, I look up the stairs. The trickle of water begins to grow and gurgle, bringing scraps of wood down with it. I step away, turn back to Ange, and gasp in horror.

  She is on her feet, her profile horribly animated, her eyes gleaming bright.

  Something soft, a small rag doll in an oddment of blue, strands of dark hair drooping from its head, dangles in her fingers.

  Cora, her face a grimace, lunges at it.

  Ange whips it up and, with enormous force, slaps it against the wall.

  Instantly, without even a cry, Cora jerks, cracks her head on the edge of the door frame, and drops with a thud to the floor.

  “Cora!” Mimi’s hands fly to her mouth. She falls to her knees, lifts Cora’s head. A stream of dark blood flows from under Cora’s hat and into the water.

  Sick with terror, my heart beating up into my throat, I try to clear my head, think what to do, struggle in the half-darkness to find some movement in Cora’s face.

  “Cora …” Mimi murmurs, leans over to touch her sister’s face. “Cora …”

  Ange thrusts the poppet into the pocket of the long, soaking cardigan, then, in a rapid sweep, takes something out of the other. I catch a glimpse of another small cloth figure, fairish hair, pink.

  Eyes glinting, half narrowed, Ange tightens one hand around the doll, squeezing, compressing.

  Mimi drops Cora’s limp head on the floor and begins to cough. She pulls off her hat and clutches at her throat with her hands.

  The woman’s knuckles bulge white. She grits her teeth, squeezes still more, closes her other hand around the doll’s neck, and, with tendons straining under the raised veins, begins to twist her fingers in opposite directions.

  “Ange …” Mimi’s voice is a gasp, a feeble croak. Pearls of sweat glisten on her forehead. She coughs again. Her face darkens.

  I stop thinking and leap forward.

  Ange spins round, sees me, spits out a sound.

  I pitch myself headlong towards her and grasp the doll with both hands.

  She tries to pull it back, bares her teeth, snarls with effort, tightens her fingers.

  “Ange …?” comes Mimi’s fadin
g voice again.

  Ange twists her head and looks at Mimi, then turns back to me. Something changes, just for a moment — something in her eyes, like a shutter lifting, then falling back — and at the same moment I feel her focus shift, her strength slacken. Her fingers appear now to be nothing more than thin, bluish skin wrapped loosely around scrawny bones.

  “Ange?” I breathe.

  She looks into my eyes. For a second there is no malice in her expression, just a kind of desperation.

  With a grunt I wrench the poppet from her.

  Instantly her vigour returns. She snarls, lunges at my arm.

  Unbalanced, I lurch over Cora, just miss Mimi, and land unsteadily in the old kitchen, grabbing the edge of the table, jolting the lamp. Immediately I turn.

  Mimi, still on her knees, slumps forward, a hand falling on Cora’s cheek.

  On the other side the woman glares at me, her features glowing yellow in the trembling flame from the hurricane lamp.

  She stretches out her hand for the poppet, palm upward, the skinny fingers curving claw-like, drops of water dripping from her sleeve. “Give it to me,” she hisses in a low, rasping voice. “Give it to me.”

  I swallow. My heart thumps. But I don’t move.

  “Give it to me,” she says again, moving a step nearer, baring her teeth.

  Now the light falls even more fully on her face. Just for a moment I think I see something in the glinting eyes, in the deep, catlike heart of them — a flicker of hesitation. She is still glaring at me with a burning intensity, but on the margins, her eyes are taking in the barrier of the door frame, and the threshold where Cora lies in the spreading bloodstained water.

  Her eyes narrow.

  Her hand reaches down and she brings out the Cora doll again, holds it up. The head, with its tangle of long dark hair, falls slightly forward into shadow.

  My heart begins to thud.

  Her other hand creeps up to the cheap-looking brooch just below the left shoulder of her cardigan — three green stones on a bar of black beads. She fumbles to unclip it, twists it out of the wool. The point of the long, crooked pin gleams in her fingers as she folds it outwards. She lifts the poppet in one hand, the pin in the other, and begins to draw them together, the pin inching its way closer and closer to the little blue dress.