Phantoms

by Marie O'Regan

  At four years old, having never met her maternal grandparents, Camilla was not in a position to grieve for Lady Strange. But she could understand that Mummy was sad and dressed in black now. Perhaps it was that knowledge which caused her to pull up a few feet from the car, watching them shyly under her fringe. Unsure of her welcome.

  “Darling!” Parking, Stephen threw the car door open and advanced on her with arms outstretched. There could be no doubt now. She leapt into his embrace and squealed.

  What a bonny thing she was, with Gwen’s light hair and fair skin: a living doll, he often thought. But she was a good deal stronger and heavier than a doll these days. It cost an effort to haul her up into his arms, her mourning dress rucking around her knees and revealing black woollen stockings. “Did you miss us?”

  “Yes. You were gone a long time,” she chided.

  “It’s a fair drive to Stonevale Hall.”

  “You could have taken me with you, Daddy.”

  “No… It was all lawyers and legal papers. You would be bored senseless.”

  Only then did he hear Gwen’s passenger door thud shut. Balancing Camilla on his hip, he turned to see his wife dawdling towards them. She held the closed jewellery box with both hands.

  “Mummy, what’s that?”’

  Gwen gazed up as if from a dream. A wan smile played on her mouth. “Hello, Camilla.”

  “What have you got?” the child demanded, reaching. Gwen took a step back, clutched the box protectively to her chest.

  “Don’t pester Mummy today, darling. She’s had a stressful time of it. Why don’t you run along and play with Nanny? It will be dinner time soon.”

  Camilla pouted as he stood her back on her feet.

  “Actually, I’ll just take tea tonight,” Gwen said. The poor thing was done in, pale-faced with black smudges beneath her eyes.

  “But you must keep your strength up,” he protested. “Eat something. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

  “I’ve no appetite. Early to bed, I think.”

  “What’s in the box, Mummy?”

  Ruffling Camilla’s hair, Gwen did not answer but traipsed wearily away from them, towards the house.

  * * *

  Stephen raised a slice of toast to his mouth, eyes focused on the opposite end of the dining table. It had been four days since their trip of penance to Stonevale Hall and still Gwen picked at her food, uninterested. She looked like a maiden under an enchantment. A face of wax and the blue eyes sparkling, dangerously bright.

  Perhaps it was the black dress heightening her pallor, and that inevitable cameo clasped at her chest. He didn’t like to see it, suspended there. Day by day, the lady in the brooch appeared more lifelike than Gwen.

  It was beastly of him, but he resented her grief. Good people had fallen into unmarked graves across Europe without even a tear shed for them, yet here was Gwen, pining like a dog for the loss of a cantankerous old woman.

  “I don’t want you to go away again,” Camilla whined, swinging her legs over the edge of her chair.

  Gwen didn’t answer, as she usually would. How distracted she was. Worse than when she’d first heard of Lady Strange’s death. Rather than settling her mind, the bequest seemed to have raked everything up again, rekindled the guilt. No doubt that was just what the old crone had wanted.

  “We have to go, darling,” Stephen said at last. “Your grandmother is to be buried tomorrow.”

  “Why can’t I come and watch?”

  “You’re too young. It would upset you.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. I didn’t even know Grandma.”

  Gwen blinked, a radio signal fading back in. “Suppose she did come, Stephen? It wouldn’t hurt her to meet my family. She has never had the chance before.”

  He bit into the toast, hard. Was she mad? The image of sweet Camilla inside that tomb of a house, sneered upon by the reptilian relatives! It was like seeing her in a winding sheet; it made him feel sick, and angry beyond reason.

  “They don’t view us as family, Gwendoline, as well you know.”

  Her fingers fiddled with the brooch. They looked pale, bloodless. “But they might, if we—”

  “I want to go!” Camilla shouted.

  A sudden gasp. Gwen had twitched the brooch too hard. The clasp gave way and it clattered upon the table, falling to the floor.

  She might have dropped a grenade for all the commotion it caused.

  Camilla was off her chair, groping under the table. “I’ll get it, Mummy.”

  Ordinarily, Gwen would upbraid her for unladylike behaviour, but now she was frantic, grasping the edge of the table. “Oh hell, don’t let it be broken. Don’t say I’ve broken the last gift she ever gave me.”

  As if the damn thing wasn’t old and falling apart from the beginning! That was the only reason Lady Strange had let Gwen have it in the first place.

  Camilla’s blonde head emerged from beneath the tablecloth, triumphant. “Don’t worry, Mummy. I’ve got it!”

  Gwen did not wait for her to advance. Greedily, she snatched the unfastened brooch from the child’s hands.

  “Ouch!” Camilla whimpered.

  “What is it, darling?”

  Camilla held up her index finger, her face scrunched and threatening tears. Even from across the table he could see the trickle of blood running to the palm of her tiny hand. “Mummy scratched me! She scratched me with the pin.”

  Gwen did not apologise, did not even notice. She was fixing the brooch back onto her dress with quaking fingers, feverish in her activity.

  “Poor old thing!” Tossing his napkin aside, Stephen went over to Camilla and kissed her. “When you were being so brave and helpful to Mummy as well! Go and see Nanny. She can wash your cut and put a bandage on it. Tell her I said you could have a sugar lump, too.”

  With baleful eyes upon her mother, Camilla sloped off. Gwen was oblivious, settling the folds of her collar around her brooch, as heartless as her uncle the General surveying his fallen soldiers.

  “It isn’t broken,” she exhaled. “The brooch is safe.”

  “Well that’s all right then, isn’t it?” he snapped. “Never mind that the damned rusty pin will probably give her the tetanus.”

  She blinked up at him, blue eyes very pale in the morning light.

  “Who, Stephen?”

  * * *

  That was the night that he saw it.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have if the cold hadn’t awoken him. A cold so deep it pierced the bones. The weather had sharpened over the past weeks, honing the edges of its fangs, but nothing like this. His limbs trembled beneath the sheets. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he knew that in a moment his teeth would start to chatter.

  What time was it? He opened his eyes, flung out a hand for his pocket watch. And then he realised.

  It was not quite dark. Wisps of something – fog? – floated against a black backdrop. Just like gun smoke, gliding through the air, forlorn after the battle has ended. He exhaled, watched his breath steam and join the billowing clouds. How was this possible?

  All the windows were closed; he’d locked them himself. There was no way mist from outside could flow down the chimneys and seep through cracks in the window frames. Was there?

  With difficulty, he climbed out of bed. The vapour had a texture to it, damp.

  It only took a moment to grab his dressing gown and fling it about his shoulders. That was better, but hardly warm – the flannel seemed moist. Gwen’s silky little creation hung from a hook. He should drape it over her, prevent her from taking a chill. Heaven only knew how she had managed to stay asleep.

  As he turned around, dressing gown in hand, a sense of oppression seized him, a feeling he could not explain. His wife’s side of the bed was shrouded in vapour. He couldn’t see her, only hear her cavernous breathing. Surely that wasn’t right?

  He edged forward a few steps. Shapes with wispy edges appeared, but they were ill-defined, lacking substance. There – was that a movement? Impossible to t
ell. More of that cold mist spilled in from under the curtains, obliterating his view.

  “Gwen?” he whispered.

  Another step forward. Another. By turns, the mist seemed to take form, resolve itself into a face.

  No. A figure.

  Vague, but certainly there. A woman made of clouds. She wore a gown with a high, tight waist. Her hair was piled on her head. Her skin seemed to smoke, its fumes blending with the mist.

  Stephen dropped the dressing gown. It must be a dream. Nothing but a bad dream, like he’d suffered after the war.

  Indeed, it was with a nightmare slowness that the woman of mist bent over the bed. Her eyes, two blank pearls, peered down at the sleeping form of Gwen. She opened her mouth, revealing a great void. Gwen’s lips parted.

  It was the most horrific thing he had ever seen. What was that substance, feathery and luminescent, that flowed from one to the other? Gwen’s back arched, and he realised: the lady was drinking. Sucking the life from her.

  “No! Gwendoline!”

  He lurched blindly into the mist. Something hard whacked against his shin. The bedframe, it must be. Pain burnt up to his knee, and before he could help it, the leg crumpled. He went down. Hard.

  Dust from the carpet filled his mouth. Somehow, he had expected the mud of the trenches. Light flashed; instinctively he raised his hands to cover his head.

  “Stephen? What are you doing? Are you all right?”

  Her voice fetched him back to the present. Of course, it was a lamp, not a shell that had made the flash. What a simpleton he was – and yet, the feeling had been the same. The visceral fear of battle, the real awareness of danger. Gingerly, he lifted his head.

  The mist had gone. The woman had gone. Gwen was awake, leaning over the end of the bed to stare at him.

  Alive. Unharmed. Or was she?

  She didn’t look well. She looked like the ephemeral woman who had stood by her side, feeding.

  The woman in the brooch.

  “Did you have another bad dream?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, love. A bad dream. That’s all it was.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t a dream. He could sense it as he sped down the roads towards Stonevale church, the unease that made him irritable, forced him to take the corners too wide. He’d never driven wildly like this, but you wouldn’t know it from the fossil of a wife that sat beside him. No flinches, no reaction as she lolled against the seat. Just a white face with all the essence bled out.

  “Daddy, you’re going too fast.”

  Camilla had won her way, as she always did. She looked sorry for it now, in his rear-view mirror, clinging to the door for dear life. Somehow, her pleas did not encourage him to slow down. He wanted to go even faster. Get his family away, somewhere safe.

  They all wore black, naturally. It was only fitting, yet it increased his sense of doom. Funeral clothes emphasised his wife’s wasted condition, the distinct lack of Gwen. And of course, she’d pinned that brooch in pride of place on her dark overcoat. It winked in the light. Mocking him.

  Was it his imagination, or did the woman in the cameo appear fuller? The strokes bolder, her profile less colourless? As if she truly had drained something from Gwen, that night.

  “Daddy, I’m scared. Stop it.”

  Camilla was right. Any of his friends would tell him to get a hold of himself, say that Gwen was naturally distraught and ill following the death of her mother. But Stephen knew that brooch was evil. As wicked as the woman who had willed it to Gwen in the first place. He couldn’t explain it, nor should he have to. He’d been in the trenches, he’d seen men shot, men drowned in mud. He knew something dark and wrong when he saw it.

  Wind rushed past his ears, numbing them. Over the county border and right on cue, a pearly fog began to haze the road and the low-lying fields. He thought of the mist in the bedroom, and that cloud of hair powder wafting from Lady Strange.

  I will take her back.

  Not if Stephen had anything to do with it.

  As the great spire of the church pierced the horizon, he cursed. Speed hadn’t carried them to safety, rather the opposite. They were here early, and now he’d have to spend even longer with the hateful family. He glanced in the mirror at Camilla’s bright innocence. It didn’t seem possible that she had a blood connection to these people, this place.

  They parked and climbed out. A bell tolled, muffled by the fog. It was rolling in thicker now, moving restlessly amongst the graves.

  “Camilla, give me your hand. It’s hard to see the ground. You’ll trip.”

  She obeyed, but a pout remained on her lips.

  He hadn’t the energy to apologise for speeding and frightening her. Neither could he summon the will to console Gwen. He seized her arm and dragged her after him. She made no resistance.

  It was lucky he’d been there before and remembered the way. A stranger could become lost in this mist. Stonevale church had never carried the same stifling atmosphere as the hall, but it was dreary in its own right, damp and chill. Exactly the place blasted Lady Strange belonged.

  Of course she’d chosen the best plot, on the east side, as close to the church as possible. The family bunched around it, the way he’d seen crows gather to feast on a body. Their faces were expressionless – as if they were corpses themselves. Gwen fitted right in.

  There were no coloured flowers, nothing bright or pretty, simply cold, stately lilies. Their honeyed scent bloomed, its power diluted by the fog.

  The floral tributes set the tone for the service: emotionless. No tears were shed. Even the vicar’s prayer lacked fervency. Not that Lady Strange deserved their sorrow, but still it felt uncomfortable, embarrassing, even, that this should be Camilla’s first view of death: a process without grief.

  The girl was as good as gold, looking on with silent wonder as the coffin descended into the earth. All the same, he wished her a thousand miles away.

  Gwen stood apart as one hypnotised. Mist teased at her edges, seemed to breathe with her. Like a sleepwalker, she edged nearer to the pit. Closer to Mamma.

  And then he saw her again.

  Not the entire woman, but her arms. Tendrils stealing up from out of the grave. Misty hands with long, thin fingers. Caressing Gwen’s shoes, her ankles. Reaching.

  “Enough!” he cried.

  Everyone stared. It was bad form, but to hell with it. He’d got Gwen free of that woman once; he’d be damned if she took her again. Releasing Camilla’s hand, he rushed forward, grabbed his wife by the shoulders and dragged her away.

  “Stephen! What on earth are you doing?”

  Maybe the mourners were tittering. He didn’t hear them over the blood thundering in his ears like mortar fire.

  “I’m saving you.”

  Across the grass, past the cedars, into the graveyard. Gwen whimpered, propelled helplessly on.

  There was no clear path, only mist, mist, everywhere he turned. Uneven ground made him stumble, but he couldn’t slow his pace. He had to get Gwen away from those hands, her mother’s hands, which yearned to drag her into the grave…

  “Stop it! You’re traipsing all over the tombstones. Have you no respect?”

  As if that mattered. With every step the mist was building, closing in. He couldn’t keep her safe. Unless…

  He pulled up suddenly, taking Gwen by surprise. She fell against him and in that instant he ripped the cameo from her coat and flung it to the frosted earth.

  “Stephen, no!”

  He stamped his heel down. Crack. The brooch yielded satisfyingly beneath his shoe. He ground it into the dirt, again and again, without mercy. “She won’t take you from me!”

  Gwen began to sob.

  Panting, he looked down at his handiwork. The white woman lay shattered. Pale again, without that weird, lifelike quality. A jagged crack ran across her brow, stretching down the cheek.

  “Have you lost your mind? How could you? On the day of her funeral! You brute!”

  Weeping, Gwen
pummelled him with her hands. He let her do it. She’d never forgive him for this, but he’d done the right thing. Her anger, the colour flooding back into her cheeks proved it. The spell was broken. Lady Strange would not get her daughter back.

  A scream ripped through the graveyard, high-pitched, clear as cut glass.

  Their heads jerked up. Gwen’s pounding fists fell still.

  “Camilla,” she gasped. “Where’s Camilla?”

  Dear God.

  Together, they plunged back the way they had come. A sea of fog, and they were swimming against the tide with shaking limbs. Camilla must have followed them into the mist, trotting at speed, unable to see… Why had he let go of her hand? How could he have been so stupid?

  This was worse than the fear he’d felt for Gwen, even worse than the war. A blinding terror that seized control of every fibre. They should never have brought Camilla with them. Hadn’t he said that? He should have forbidden it, made her stay at home, but all he’d been able to think about was that damned brooch…

  Gwen branched off towards the sound of bells, and all at once, the fog drew back like a curtain.

  “No!” She plunged to her knees.

  Lady Strange had taken someone else.

  It was a tree root that had tripped her. One tiny, orphaned shoe remained wedged beneath its arch. And there she was, his darling daughter, sprawled on her side. Offering a face in profile.

  Blonde hair piled up around her head. One delicate cheek lay smashed against a flat tombstone. A crack splintered across her forehead. Identical. The same pattern, blood dripping down to the chin.

  Shattered.

  Just like the lady in the brooch.

  LULA-BELLE

  Catriona Ward

  Lula’s last words to Irene were, “You stupid old woman.” That was on Friday when she could still speak. “Always looking at me with those cow eyes. No wonder I’m ill.”

  “I hope you get better soon, Lula,” said Irene and took her sister’s hand.

  “Don’t touch me. I’ll catch stupid from you.”