by Raven Taylor
Then I saw it, a black shadow standing at the foot of an old elm about 100 yards from where we stood.
“Come on, we’re leaving.” I didn’t like that lurking figure at all.
I turned to Lilly just in time to see her collapse onto the ground and when I glanced back at the tree there was no sign of the figure.
I picked Lilly’s limp body up off the grass and holding her close to my chest I began to run in the direction of Candlemaker Row with the intention of getting help. I was afraid, I did not know why she had collapsed so suddenly. However, before I could reach the gates of the Kirk she began to stir and come around. I stopped on the driveway that led up to the looming stone building and looked down on her face as she groaned and slowly opened her eyes. A momentary look of confusion flitted across her face before her expression cleared and she stared wearily up at me and gave me a smile. I was still worried.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m ok,” she said and her arms went around my neck so she could pull her face level with my own, “Really. It’s nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I think maybe I was just a bit freaked out by that shadow. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” I set her down on her feet, “It scared me too.”
I glanced back over my shoulder to the shadowy cemetery. I was thinking about what the psychic had said about the shadowy presence she saw around me and I was recalling the voice that had spoke to me in the covenanters jail. I was still lost in thought and a little shaken when she kissed me. She had to stand on her toes so that she could brush her lips across my cheek. When I looked back at her she was standing with her hands behind her back smiling shyly, quite pleased with her stolen kiss. She watched me to see my reaction. When I did not speak she looked a little embarrassed.
“Was that a bad move?” she asked hanging her head.
I was speechless. No, it hadn’t been a bad move. But rather than tell her that I took a step forward and returned the gesture. I lifted her pretty head and kissed her briefly on the lips. Now she looked stunned but not displeased. She made a small incoherent sound somewhere in the back of her throat and I silenced her with another kiss which she returned eagerly. It felt like the most natural thing I had ever done, as if for my whole life this was all I had ever wanted. It seemed certain to me now that she was not a stranger to me, that I knew her almost intimately, that I had yearned for so long to have her in my arms. Yet as we kissed a sense of unease still threatened to devour my happiness, I felt something was wrong but I did not know what.
When at last we pulled apart I was breathless and she was smiling.
“I don’t quite know what happened there.” she said uncertainly.
“No, I wasn’t expecting that, but I like you. I liked kissing you.”
“Who are you?” she wondered distantly, gazing up at the clear sky, speaking more to herself than to me, “A mysterious stranger with no past who walked into my life and bewitched me. There’s so much we don’t know.”
“So much I’ve still to discover about myself.” I pulled at the sleeve of my jacket and looked down at the angry red marks on my arm that I had inflicted upon myself in that care home only a matter of days ago. It seemed like eternities had passed since that night.
“Since then ‘tis centuries, and yet
Feels shorter than a day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.” I whispered to myself.
“What?” she asked.
“Emily Dickinson ,” I said quickly, shaking my head, “Listen Lilly, there’s a reason I came here and it has something to do with you.”
“Winter…”
“I kept having this vision of you, you’re in an alley way, a man is trying to hurt you, you’re struggling, I feel helpless, I can’t stop him, it’s as though I’m observing it on a television screen, but the plant pot, there’s a terracotta pot on a window ledge…”
“Stop it Winter!” she shouted, “It’s getting late, I think I should go,”
“Should I walk you home?”
“No. I can get home myself, I’ve done it often enough before.”
A little taken aback at her sudden abrupt tone I nodded and watched as she turned to go.
“I’ll call you tomorrow?” I said questioningly.
“No, I‘m busy tomorrow.” she called back.
I watched her jam her hands in her pockets and stride away. I was left feeling quite confused by what had just happened between us. What was it that the dark image meant? A glimpse of something that was going to happen or something that already had? What was she not telling me?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was startled from a dream in which the figure in the top hat yelled at me for being weak and pathetic when the phone in the small flat rang at 2am. As I heard your footsteps trudging across the floor something unnamed tugged at my heart and made me distinctly uneasy.
I sat up in bed, drowsy with sleep, the usual tatters of dreams fluttering around my head, and listened to the disturbance. I could make out nothing of what was being said but the exchange was brief before I heard your footfalls coming back across the hall. Then there was a soft knock on my door.
“Winter, there’s a phone call for you, it’s Lilly, she sounds upset.”
Batting away the irritating remnants of the dark plague of dreams I jumped out of bed and not even bothering to put on a shirt I went to the door in my underwear. There you were, standing in your dressing gown looking slightly concerned. I didn’t say anything, just hurried across the hall to the living room.
In the shadowy darkness I grabbed the receiver to be greeted by Lilly’s worried voice.
“Someone was in my flat," despite the obvious fear and worry in her tone there was something else lingering below the surface, what was that? It sounded almost accusing, "I don't know how they got in but they were here."
“Slow down and tell me what happened.”
There was a pause on the line.
“I heard a sound,” she cried, “perhaps it was the figure from the cemetery, I don't know, Winter, this type of thing never happened to me until I met you."
“Look, have you called the police? I’ll come over but if someone’s there you should call the police.”
“But nobody is here,” she protested, “Something’ s happening to me and it’s something to do with you, I know it is, I need answers from you Winter.”
“All right, all right, I’m leaving right now, I can be there in 20 minutes, just hang on, you’ll be ok.”
I was more than a little shaken when I hung up the phone. The tone of her voice had given me the shivers and I was trembling as I hurried back to my room and hastily pulled on some clothes. I
I was out of the door in minutes and I ran for the nearest main road where I stopped a taxi to take me to Lilly.
I knew where her address was but I had never been inside her flat. It was strange how I recognised the stairs in the close and her front door as I banged loudly on it, and the hall beyond when she answered was so familiar. How was it possible that I had been here before without her knowing? Yet I had. She looked afraid as she let me in and then closed the door behind us but she seemed less hysterical and just a little angry.
“I…Well…I don’t even know where to begin…” she moaned and rubbed her temples.
She was stood in the hall fully clothed, hair still neat as if she hadn’t even been to bed yet.
“Why don’t we go and sit down, have a drink or something?”
“A drink? That's a laugh."
"What?"
"I'll show you."
I followed her through to the living room and she pointed at the table.
"There," she said.
I didn't understand. It seemed to me that nothing was amiss. There was no overturned furniture, nothing visibly disturbed that might suggest she had had an intruder. It was just a coffee table with a bottle of Jack Daniels bourbon s
tanding on it.
"Lilly what is it?"
"This is absurd," she admitted, "But that bottle wasn't there before. I don't even like Jack Daniels. Someone brought this bottle into my flat while I was asleep."
I stared at it with mounting horror. I knew what this meant. I had drank from that bottle so many times with him while he lectured me...he was rarely seen without one attached to his gloved hand...
"It's his calling card," I gasped, I didn't want to believe it but there it was, staring me in the face, "Cane was here."
"So how the hell did he get in? The door is locked and he's not here now."
"I don't know Lilly, but I really could use a drink."
I made my way to the adjoining kitchen. She didn’t even have to tell me where to find things, I went straight to the cupboard with the glasses and then straight to where she kept the liquor. Vodka. I knew that was her favourite too. I opted for vodka also, somehow I did not feel at all like Jack Daniels. The thought of even touching the bottle revolted me.
As I fixed the drinks she stared at me from the living room.
“Winter, how did you know where to find everything? You didn’t even have to look.” her eyes were narrow with suspicion as she observed me reaching without hesitation for the cupboard with the glasses.
“I know, I know,” I groaned, I was now the one who was beginning to feel stressed and uneasy, "Everything here seems so familiar."
I took the glasses of straight vodka and set them down on the coffee table. Lilly reached out and downed hers.
“Something is very wrong with this whole situation and I want you to start telling me the truth.” anger had begun to steal into her voice again.
“If I knew the truth, I would tell you, believe me, but I’m in the dark too.” I protested.
“You appear in my life out of nowhere claiming you know me yet I’ve never set eyes on you before. Then I start seeing things, feeling things; like someone is following me. What game is this you are playing Winter?"
"Lilly, if you what the truth, here it is as I know it but believe me this is all I know and it makes very little sense," I inhaled deeply and swallowed the remaining vodka form my glass, "I know you Lilly. Don't ask me how but you are not a stranger to me. You are the reason I came to Edinburgh, I came looking for you. I know this flat, I've been here before."
"Enough of the games!" she shouted this time and slammed her fist in her thigh, "This has to stop, you're lying, or deluded, I have never seen you before in my life. Of all the people I had to meet it had to be a mad man. I'm short on time as it is, I can't waste any more on you."
"My head is filled with images of you, they are stronger than anything else I remember, what about the dark alley? You wrestling with the stranger, your red shoe lying on the cobbles, the terracotta plant pot. You know what that means don't you?"
"Winter, you can't possibly know unless you were there..." she had started to cry now, painfully reliving whatever it was that had happened on that night whose image haunted me almost every time I closed my eyes.
"Wait!" I cried suddenly, remembering something, "What about this?"
I had almost forgotten the pendant, the silver angel who had been hung around my neck when they found me. I unfastened it and held it up. The tiny figure swung on the chain and as she looked at it her tears stopped and a look of rage fell across her face.
"How the hell did you get this?" she snatched it from my hand.
"You recognise it then?"
"It was my dead Mother's," she yelled at me, "It was all I had of her. I never, ever took it off then one day it was gone. I was sure I had it on when I went to sleep but by morning it wasn't there anymore."
"It was round my neck when they found me."
"You fucking weirdo," she stormed, "It all makes sense now doesn't it? There is no Cane! It's been you who has been following me, sneaking around. Is that how you know me so well but I don't know you? You were a stalker! You watched me didn't you? You stole into my house and took this while I was asleep. Get the fuck out!"
She was standing up now and her rage was frightening.
"Lilly, no, this isn't true."
"And you were there that night when I was attacked, you watched it happen and you did nothing, how else could you know these things, the terracotta plant pot, the red shoes, I never told anybody about that night, never."
"It wasn't like that..." I could see it all again like I was watching from afar, I had wanted to help, had been desperate to help but somthing had stopped me...
Suddenly I was angry myself. I may not have had much of a memory but I knew I was not dangerous or perverted. She was right, something about this whole thing was very, very wrong. I had loved her, I would never have done anything to hurt or frighten her.
"I've been such an idiot," it struck me suddenly, what had been there all along, the glaringly obvious, "It's you isn't it? You're behind all of this! You're both in on it together. He tried to get rid of me somehow by dumping me out there and now I've come back and between you you are trying to drive me over the edge. You do know me Lilly, you're just pretending you don't, it's all part of his plan isn't it? Who was it who suggested we go the The Witchery in the first place? That was your idea."
I watched her face for any kind of change but the mask of anger stayed perfectly in place, almost too perfectly.
"You're good, I'll give you that, a few tricks you picked up from your time on the stage? What was it you said 'it's not stripping, it's more theatrical'? But I can see it now and I won't be a part of it anymore. I'm leaving."
"I'll call the police," a bluff, it had to be, she was part of their operation, part of whatever Cane had done to me, she would never call the police.
"Where do you think I'm going?" I said, matching her bluff, "Why don't you come with me? We'll go together."
"Get out!" she shouted again, "You've already wasted too much of my time."
I took one last look at her. She was beautiful, there was no denying it, even in her enraged passion she was an exquisite sight.
"Don't leave her," the voice in my head was urgent and demanding, "Look at her, see it."
"No," I told the voice, "You aren't real, it's just my imagination."
"Look at her," there was a low hissing menace to it now.
"Get out of my head." I covered my ears and screwed up my eyes, as if this might somehow silence the clamour that had risen in my head.
"You're a complete nutcase aren't you?" she said accusingly for she could of course, not hear what I was hearing.
She was across the room now and was physically pushing me, edging me towards the hall and the door with amazing strength.
"I'm warning you, get out right now!"
"Stay!" the voice commanded.
"It surprises me Lilly," I said, ignoring the voice, shaking her off and making my own way to the door, "That you haven't already reached for the phone instead of wrestling with me here. Why is that? Because you're guilty? You don't want the police involved do you?"
I reached for the door handle and the voice inside yelled that I was making a mistake. It raged inside of me like a pent up beast, trying desperately to be heard but unable to break from the prison that held it back. It told me I was useless, worthless, a fool, but I was used to this, I had heard it all before.
"Get out now," her voice had lost all of its strength and this sudden change in tone made me turn just in time to see her fall to the ground in a faint. Her body crumpled and she slid back down the wall before landing on the carpet like a broken doll. For a moment I simply stared at her, not quite sure what to do. Her face was grey and pasty all of a sudden, her right hand twitched and as I watched a small stream of blood ran from her nostril and slowly coursed its way down her cheek.
I couldn't leave her like this. I had no idea what had caused her sudden faint but no matter how much I hated her in that moment, despite her being among those responsible for my torture, I still loved her, I knew I shouldn't, but under
all the anger my heart still yearned for her like nothing on earth. I crossed the room and shook her gently.
"Lilly, come on, wake up so I can get away from here and we can put an end to this."
She did not move. The blood from her nose was beginning to congeal on the cream carpet.
"Lilly, come on," I was afraid now, her sudden collapse was terrifying and for some un-explained reason I felt responsible.
I left her where she was and went to the phone in the hall.
"Hello, I need an ambulance," I told the operator who answered and when I had hung up the phone I returned to her side. Her hand was still twitching but the blood seemed to have stopped now. I picked her up and held her in my arms, stroking her hair and telling her it would be ok. The fight we had just had seemed to pale into insignificance compared to the pain I felt at seeing her like that. Then I dropped her. What was that on her chest, just below her collar bone poking above the neck of her dress? With trembling fingers I pulled back the fabric to confirm that what I feared was indeed true: There was a date tattooed on her fine white skin.
"Now you see," said the voice in my head and with that I fled.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
