Peter and Izzy waited in the kitchen. Peter offered a seat.
“So this madness was all true, Izzy? Wainwright killed his daughter?” Peter asked.
“Not killed, no. Sacrificed. Exchanged her for a creature from the moors. A changeling. As long as her body lay undiscovered, the changeling had power. It needed a man every now and then to keep it fed. That was you, of course, not Jason. We could never find her. You followed the clues, Peter. The pram, of course, belonged to the real Emily. She was doing her best to let you know where to look. You were smart enough to put your doubts aside,” Izzy replied, gazing at the bottle of wine on the kitchen counter.
“Oh good grief Izzy, I do apologise. Can I offer you a drink? We do have sherry,” Peter said smiling.
“Well, as you’re offering, lad. As you’re offering,” Izzy snickered.
Mary came back downstairs with a sleepy and confused Jason in her arms.
“He has no idea and just wants back to bed he said,” Mary chuckled.
“And bed is where a young fellow his age should be. And old women my age I think. Soon as I finish this sherry,” Izzy laughed as she sipped the glass.
“Is it done, though? Can it ever come back?” Peter asked, sitting opposite Izzy at the table. Mary waited with Jason in her arms for the answer.
“As long as folk go messing in things they don’t understand; it can always come back. Is why we don’t go messing, right? Leave that stuff where it belongs. In fairy tales. Now fill me this glass, young man, and I too shall be off to my bed,” Izzy said, waving the glass at Peter.
Peter refilled the proffered glass and Mary made her way upstairs with Jason.
Out on the moor, by the standing stone, a small fire began to glow. A group of dark, hooded people began to form around it. They were chanting.
The End
BONUS
Thank you for supporting this book. To extend your reading pleasure, here is a selection of books that I think you may enjoy.
Still Birth
Horror
About the Book
In the hills of western North Carolina in the late 1970s a secret was born that would spread its terror through the lives of many. For friends Anne, Joan, and Meg that secret would mean a life locked away in a haze, death, and questions that would go unanswered. As the women, all on the verge of giving birth, wonder what the future holds for their children the machinations of others will prove more powerful than even a mother’s love.
In the present day the secrets of the past can have consequences and Inga Parr is soon going to find that out. As she digs for the truth about who her parents are and how she came to be adopted Inga uncovers long buried secrets and tales of insanity. And the victims of the past aren’t all dead and gone. Inga races to find out the truth about her own past and about the women who have been disappearing from Louisa Falls for years. Can she uncover the truth before it’s too late or will she fall victim herself to a decades old secret?
Prologue
Present Day, Louisa Falls, North Carolina
A cold, howling wind blows across the lonely mountain cemetery and a newly dug grave waits to be filled. Two workers, middle-aged men of nondescript demeanors stood over the grave talking quietly with each other. One, obviously not as mentally capable as the other, looked incredibly sad as he stood over the empty grave, the casket waiting to be put into position and lowered into the ground.
“I heard she lost her mind after her baby was born dead and she was never the same. She ran off all of her friends and family with her crazy talk and searching for some woman that disappeared at the same time.” The smartest of the pair said.
“Oh, Momma told me the woman was some lady that disappeared years ago, another one that lost her mind after her baby was born dead.” The dimmer man spoke.
“Lord have mercy, Ed, you’ll believe anything won’t you? I’ve heard others saying she was just an old drug addict, smacked out of her mind on dope. Anyway, she’s here alone today, and I’ve heard tale that hospital’s been haunted ever since she died in it. Patients keep getting bothered by some women screaming and wailing for her baby. People don’t even want to go there in emergencies now and it’s the only hospital for 30 miles!” The other one said.
“You ain’t got to be so mean, Henry! Besides, you’re not so smart yourself, are you?” Ed said, his feelings obviously hurt as he took his hat off and bowed his head before they started the rest of their work. “That hospital’s been closed for ages now so how would anyone be haunting the patients? See, I’m not stupid, just slow.”
“You’re right, Ed, sorry buddy. Let’s get this over with, I’m spooked today and want to get back to the fire in the office. I can’t take much more of this outdoor work in cold weather…” Henry’s words trailed off as they began to lower the coffin into the ground, not even a priest coming out to say a few words over the grave.
Some distance away a young woman stood behind a tree, watching the proceedings, before walking away as the men lowered the coffin into the grave. She’d find no answers here today.
Chapter One
April 1977, Charlotte, North Carolina
Anne Rasnake looked around the sparsely furnished office and wondered just what she’d managed to get herself into this time. She knew, of course, her body told her exactly what she’d got herself into each morning as she rushed for the bathroom and through the absence of a very necessary part of a woman’s life. Anne held out hope, however, that these signs were somehow wrong and she was only being a silly, naïve girl.
She’d chosen the doctor’s office for a reason; it was far from Charlotte, where people knew her, and even further from her mountain home. Nobody could tell on her from here. Her nerves tensed as she heard the doctor speaking with the nurse outside. Panic set in that perhaps her secret had been discovered and she jerked out of her seat to run out of the office before the doctor could confront her. Anne knew what the doctor was going to tell her but didn’t want to hear the news. Because the father of the child was a secret she had to keep hidden, even from the doctor.
Anne turned to leave the room, her hand reaching for the door just as it opened. Her eyes widened as her pulse raced and she stared open-mouthed at the doctor as he walked in the door. Her hand over her heart in a futile attempt to calm the racing organ, Anne looked at the doctor guiltily. He’d found out somehow, she just knew it.
Doctor Rogers looked at Anne, confused as to why she looked so terrified, and guided her back to the chair in front of his desk. His gentle hand encircled her wrist for a moment and Anne knew he could feel her pulse racing and see her fear. How do you explain that to a man who thought you were happily married and joyful at the news he might bring?
“Well, Mrs. Rasnake, it would appear your suspicions were correct, you are expecting a little bundle of joy. Your blood tests confirmed that. Now, as this is your first time visiting us we need a little bit of information from you so we can get an idea of your medical background and what we should keep an eye out for during your pregnancy. Mrs. Rasnake? Are you alright, ma’am?” Doctor Rogers had finally noticed her crestfallen look and the shattered nerves that were causing her to tremble as she clutched at her handbag, trying to find her handkerchief.
“I’m just fine, Doctor Rogers, we’ve just been waiting for so long now.” Anne lied, not able to meet the doctor’s gaze as she spoke the words. She hoped the words placated the doctor’s curiosity but in her mind her world was crumbling around her. The husband she’d named was mythical, she’d never even been to a wedding much less had one herself.
Oh no, Anne was in a lot of trouble here and she knew it was only going to get worse when she broke the news to Jim Monroe, the baby’s father. The doctor pulled her attention away from her private thoughts and Anne answered his questions politely but without much thought. She didn’t really plan to ever see him again, after all.
Driving away from the office in her old second-hand Pontiac Anne wondered how to tell Jim. Though s
he hadn’t actually planned the pregnancy, should have never even have allowed him to get close enough to get her pregnant she secretly hoped this would change his mind and maybe, just maybe, he might leave his wife now, as he’d been promising. Their affair had begun a year ago and Jim was still making excuses about why he wouldn’t leave. His wife was ill, their two boys needed him, and it would be bad for business.
At twenty-six years old Anne knew she was being naïve but hoped this pregnancy would change things. She’d been such a young, impressionable girl when she’d first gone into that office, fresh out of the business college that she’d scrimped and saved to attend, determined to get out of her mountain home in rural North Carolina, determined to prove her Momma wrong about what the world was like. Jim had been there, handsome, charming Jim and he’d promised her the world the moment she walked into his office. She’d believed every word of it, and believed him now to be too kind, too soft-hearted to harm his wife or children but she knew, deep down she knew, Jim really wanted to be with her.
Anne really hadn’t meant to have an affair, and though she felt guilt for loving another woman’s husband Anne knew that Jim’s wife was horrible to him, even if she was ill. Over long nights in the office Jim had spoken with tears in his voice about the way Sharon, Jim’s wife, withheld affection from him, constantly berating him and telling him he wasn’t good enough. Anne would comfort Jim, praising his looks and his work. Her heart ached at the cruelties Jim described and felt pity for him, knowing herself what it was like to live with someone that only criticized and never gave love in return.
Anne played out a fantasy in her mind as she drove back to Charlotte, far away from the doctor she’d been to. Anne pictured going into the office to Jim, late but smiling knowingly over her secret knowledge and with pleasure at Jim. He’d take her in his arms and declare his love for her, his sudden recognition of her pregnancy glow making him fall even more in love with her, as she revealed the news she had to give him. They’d run away to some faraway place she’d only ever seen in pictures or movies, maybe even Paris, and live happily ever after. He’d divorce his wife now and devote himself to her, only to her after they were married.
Anne sighed happily, pushing away the memory of words her mother once spoke to her about Anne’s inadequacies. The words that the woman had spoken before Anne left her in their falling down cabin up in the woods, so far back in the forest that you could barely get a car up the track.
“They’ll make a fool of your little country self, down there in Charlotte, Anne,” her mother had said.
“They’ll use you and throw you away. You’re nothing but mountain trash, the same as me. You need to stay up here, find you a good godly man to marry, and settle down to your lot in life.” Sophia Rasnake had claimed with fear, anger, and self-righteousness in her eyes.
Anne had looked at her mother calmly, kissed her goodbye, and left, never looking back. She hadn’t even been back to visit yet, putting her mother off with claims of being busy at work or ill. The life her mother wanted her to have was not the life she wanted at all. She hadn’t planned on having an affair, of being so sinful, but Jim had charmed her with his passionately whispered declarations about how beautiful she was with her pale white skin, her auburn hair, and grey eyes. He’d given her the comfort her mother never had with his arms around her as he told her he loved her, could never live without her. Anne felt loved when she was in Jim’s arms and that was something she’d never felt before.
Anne had tried to resist temptation but the soulful brown eyes of her employer, his claims of loneliness, and his attention to her eventually wore down Anne’s defenses and she’d given in to his advances late one night in his office. The affair had been going on for months now and Anne had never once thought about birth control. Now she was pregnant with his child. Surely that meant something to him? Matters had to change now, didn’t they?
“Out! Get out and don’t come back! You can’t trap me with this baby; you can’t prove it’s mine! I’m not letting some little gutter snipe from the backwoods ruin me. Get out and don’t come back!”
Instead of declarations of love and undying fidelity, Anne’s revelation, spoken with a gentle but pleased smile, had caused Jim to explode from his desk violently as he threw his coffee cup at her, screaming at her to leave at once. Anne’s illusions had shattered at once, her attempts to calm herself with illusion and fantasy crushed under the heel of Jim’s rage.
Anne had begged him to help her, to love her and their baby, but he’d refused to hear any more about it. The panic and rage on Jim’s face had frightened Anne and her pleas stopped as he’d raged at her. Jim had grabbed her arm, her coat, and her handbag before he marched Anne out of the back office door, throwing $400 at her and telling her to get lost and to never come back before slamming the door closed and locking it.
In a fog of shock and numbness Anne automatically picked up the money from the ground beside of her where she’d fallen, brushed her skirt down, and walked to her car on trembling legs. Anne knew now that all of her fantasies about Jim, all of the things he’d whispered to her in the dark of the office, had been lies. She was just as her mother had said, a stupid naïve girl, too dumb to realize she was being played for a fool.
Knowing she wasn’t likely to get another job in her current condition, as well without a good reference from Jim, she drove back to her tiny apartment, waited until night fell, packed up her meagre belongings, and started to drive. She only had one destination in mind because it was the only place she had left to go to. She was heading home to Louisa Falls. To her mother. Lord help her, she was going back to Hell.
Anne drove for three hours, finally seeing the turn off for her mother’s house at 9 pm. She pulled in but stopped before driving up. Anne listened to the song on the radio, a song about a male singer who’d left the woman who loved him. The artist was one of Anne’s favorite singers, her country voice coming through even in a pop song. Going up that track was going to be one of the hardest things Anne had ever had to do and she knew what was coming.
Her mother was a cruel, vindictive woman that seemed to hate the daughter she purported to love. A loving mother didn’t drag a six year old child’s puppy out of the sleeping girl’s arm and throw it out in the middle of a blizzard to freeze to death because “it was the devil’s plaything” and distracted the child from her chores. A loving mother would never cut the girl’s hair off to the scalp when the girl was sixteen to keep the boys away from her, hair that had never been cut before and was the girl’s crowning glory. A loving mother didn’t punish her daughter for forgetting to bring sheets in before it rained by making her kneel on corn meal sprinkled on a bare wood floor reciting entire books of the Bible for hours on end from memory, caning the back of the girl’s legs if she misspoke or couldn’t remember the verses.
Anne’s childhood and early adult years had been far from easy and she dreaded going home now, her mother had been right after all. How could she fight back against that? She knew she’d be punished, in some shape or form and considered driving back to the nearest tall bridge and jumping off of it rather than face her mother. Anne closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She wasn’t on her own now, her body wasn’t solely her own now, she had to think about her child.
Anne resigned herself to living with her mother until the baby was born and she could go back to work. Then she’d find a way to take her baby back to Charlotte and start over there. She could deal with her mother for a few months, if it meant she’d have a warm place to sleep until the child was born at least.
Anne finally drove up the track, got out of the car, and knocked on her mother’s door. The light was still on in the living room so she knew the woman was still up. Anne could hear grumbling and a loud radio program playing, a preacher by the sound of it, before the door was thrown open.
“Oh. It’s you. Hmph. Well, let me look at you.” The woman said coldly, hands on her hips, a grey shawl wrapped around her thin s
houlders but no warmth or affection shown from her eyes for her daughter. “I guess you’re knocked up then? Come dragging back to Momma even though I told you so. Too big for your britches, you always were too big for your britches. Well, bring your sorry self in then. But don’t expect me to help you bring anything in, my bursitis is acting up and I’m in my night robe. Hurry up, it is cold outside.”
Anne carried her things from the car into her old room, Sophia moaning about Anne bringing shame to the family and how she’d never be able to show her face in town again. Anne held her tongue, quietly unloading the car and taking her belongings straight into her bedroom. Anne hoped she could soon escape to the quiet of the room, away from her mother’s sharp tongue.
“You’re going to have to make up some kind of story, Anne; we can’t be having no unwed mothers in this family. Tell them your husband was in the Army and he died on a mission somewhere. Too bad you didn’t do this last year, when the war was still going on.” Sophie harped at Anne as she carried in the last suitcase she had.
Anne stopped, looking at her mother aghast. Would Sophia really want her to stoop that low, to claim paternity for her child from an honorable but dead soldier? Staring at the woman, seeing the mean look in her eye, Anne knew her mother meant just that.
Sophia claimed to be a godly woman; a church-goer every time the church doors opened, a nightly reader of the Bible, but sometimes she was so far from being Christ-like Anne doubted her. Anne would never say that out loud but she felt it in her heart that Christ didn’t want people to be so sour, so rude and unkind to each other the way Sophia was.
Rather than saying anything Anne just continued on to her room, listening but not replying. It was better that way; she’d save herself a busted lip for being uppity with her mother if she made no response at all. Anne could have fought back, she was taller and bigger than her mother now, a little plump but not fat and tall at ten inches over five feet, but the thought of fighting back still hadn’t occurred to her. Old habits die hard, after all.
Thriller: Emily Page 10
