by Amy Cross
I wait, as the whisper continues.
“Now get out of my sight,” Mother says finally, gesturing for me to go to the door. “The sight of you makes me feel uneasy. Have a glass of wine brought up to me, and tell your father that I am not to be disturbed for the rest of the day. Tell him I am having one of my bad spells and I must be alone so that I can recuperate. And make sure he understands that it's all your fault.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Feeling immensely relieved to be let out of her company, I get to my feet and hurry toward the door.
“Oh, and Mary?”
Opening the door, I turn back to her.
“Never disobey me again,” she continues, “and never neglect to tell me anything of importance. If you ever lie to me again, my dear, I shall see fit to punish you. As your mother, it is my unfortunate duty to do whatever is necessary in order to beat you straight. And finally, you are never to go to that forest again, is that understood? Not in the day and not at night. Never. Ever.”
I hesitate, before nodding.
“Now go,” she continues. “I am quite sick of the sight of you for today.”
Stepping out of the room, I pull the door shut and then take a step back. Looking down at my hands, I see that they are trembling. In fact, I am trembling all over. And then a moment later I realize I can still hear a whispering voice on the other side of the door, and I can hear Mother mumbling to herself. Stepping back toward the door, I set my ear against the wood, hoping to hear a little better, but in the process I accidentally step on a loose board.
“Go!” Mother screams, and I immediately turn and run away.
Mary
As the nighttime rain continues to come crashing down, I stand in the open kitchen door and stare out at the dark lawn. I have been standing here for fully ten minutes now, long after everybody else went to bed, and I know that I am directly breaking Mother's rules. At the same time, I have spent the evening thinking about her warnings, and I have come to the conclusion that I cannot simply shrink back and accept her word on every matter. Perhaps this is a flaw in my character, but I feel compelled to do what she tells me I must not, no matter the punishment I shall receive if I am found out.
Besides, I can hear the silent scream once more.
Stepping outside, I am already drenched by the time I have pulled the door shut. The weather of late has been atrocious, with more rain having fallen in the past few weeks than we have seen for many years. Fortunately, I know that Mother has taken something to help her sleep, and I also know that the sound of the rain will surely make it far less likely that Father will hear me coming outside. It is under this cover, therefore, that I turn and step out across the lawn, squelching through the puddles of mud and heading toward the treeline. Rain is pouring down all around me, hissing as it batters every surface, making this night louder than any place I have ever been before. Even the town, with its vehicles and shouting men, is quieter than this violent night.
The horses sound restless in the stable, but they are securely tied.
By the time I get to the edge of the lawn and find myself staring into the dark forest, I have begun to feel my soaking wet clothes clinging to my cold flesh. I am shivering slightly, but I know deep down that I should not allow myself to show any weakness, in case I am being watched. And as I pick my way between the trees and set out through the forest, I feel as if I am being watched. Of course, in this maelstrom I would hardly have much chance of hearing anyone, even if they were standing right behind me and shouting my name.
Although I suppose I would hear if they whispered directly into my ear.
Suddenly my right foot squelches and sinks into the mud, stopping only once my entire ankle has been submerged. I let out a faint gasp, and for a moment I struggle to pull my foot clear, but I set off again soon enough, wading more than walking as I use the trees to support myself. The sound of rain is now a din, as if the natural world has conspired to replicate the immense scream that I have been hearing for days in silence. And now I think I can hear the scream more clearly, ringing out above the sound of the storm, as if someone is screaming in an attempt to attract my attention.
It is coming from ahead.
Straight ahead.
I do not know how I know this, but I know it.
Stumbling slightly, I nevertheless manage to steady myself against a tree. After a few more steps, however, I see to my shock that a mud-bank has given way, with rivers of mud having sloughed down into one of the ditches, leaving several of the trees standing rather precariously with their roots exposed. The sight is quite shocking, as if the forest itself has opened its mouth, and I suppose that this is what Father meant when he warned that the terrain out here might not be entirely safe. I suppose it would be sensible to turn back this instant, but I cannot bear to be such a coward, so I wade forward until my footing becomes precarious and I have no choice but to lean against another tree.
Even now, fresh mud is cascading down the slope as the storm continues to reshape the land. Fresh muddy rivers are finding paths, sometimes joining and sometimes separating.
And then I see the face staring at me.
Washed partially clean by the rain, a human skull is poking out from the mud. I can see eye sockets and a cheekbone, and part of a jaw too. Dribbles of mud are flowing over its surface, and rain water appears to have pooled in the sockets and is now overflowing. I want to believe that this is an illusion, that there cannot possibly be human remains out here in the forest, yet I see the skull as clearly as I have ever seen anything my whole life. And without even stopping to worry about whether I am being sensible, I set out to traverse the river of mud, hanging onto exposed tree roots as I struggle to reach the skull.
In the distance, one of the horses whinnies.
As soon as I am close enough, I reach out and take hold of the skull, lifting it gently from the mud. The jawbone comes loose and is washed away, but I raise the skull and take a closer look. Whoever this poor soul was when they were alive, they seem to have been buried out here in the middle of our forest, and I cannot fathom how such a thing could have come to be. Looking back down at the mud, I spot a couple more bones poking out into the rain, but I suppose there is no need to reach for those. They must, I assume, be the rest of this unfortunate person's body. Balancing carefully, I use the exposed roots to haul myself back up to safety, and then I stumble a little further from the mud until I'm on slightly more stable ground.
Now that I can see the skull properly, I realize that it's quite beautiful. Perhaps it's wrong of me to think such things, but I can't help noticing as I turn the skull in my hands that it has a certain grace and nobility. I run a finger against one side of its face, trying to imagine what it looked like with flesh, but I have no idea. I do not even know whether it belonged to a man or a woman, but the empty eye sockets seem to be staring straight back at me and after a moment I spot something dark stuck to the edge of the socket on the left. Using my finger to dislodge the patch, I realize after a few seconds that it appears to be a small scrap of flesh left clinging to the bone.
“Who were you?” I whisper against the sound of crashing rain, as I stare at the skull. “How did you end up here in our garden?”
I hesitate for a moment, as another question comes to my mind.
“Were you screaming so that I might find you?”
***
As I make my way back across my bedroom, still drying my hair after my trip out into the rain, I stop for a moment and look at the skull on my writing desk. I know I must find a safe place to hide it, so that Mother and Father never know that it's here, but for now – in the dead of night – I cannot help but marvel at its features as candlelight flickers against its bony face.
I have so many questions, and I wish I were older so that I could begin to answer some of them.
“Marguerite?” I whisper.
I wait, almost expecting an answer.
“Is that your name?” I continue.
; Silence.
“Are you Marguerite Alesi?” I ask. “Is that who you were?”
Again, I hesitate for a moment, but the skull simply stares back at me. I no longer hear a scream. It is as if the skull was calling to me, and I have now done what it wanted.
“My name is Mary,” I reply, even though I feel rather foolish. “I am twelve years old. Almost thirteen. I live here at Wetherley House with my -”
The words catch in my throat. Suddenly the word parents feels wrong, and I take a step closer to the skull.
“I live here with Eve and Gordon Carmichael,” I continue. “Did you know them? Do those names mean anything to you?”
I hesitate, before reaching out and placing a hand on the side of the skull.
“My name,” I add, “is Mary, and -”
Suddenly hearing a creak out on the landing, I feel a rush of panic at the thought that Father or especially Mother might discover me. Quickly setting the skull out of sight behind my desk, I blow out the candle and hurry to my bed, scrambling under the covers and pulling them over me. I turn and face away from the door, and a few seconds later I hear the tell-tale sound of the handle turning. As the door creaks open a little, I don't dare turn to look, although after a moment I hear a very faint clicking sound, as if Mother is standing outside and watching me.
She must know that I have been awake.
She must have seen the candlelight flickering beneath my door.
Still, that doesn't mean she knows I was outside, and she surely knows nothing of the discovery I made in the forest.
Sure enough, after a few more seconds, the door gently bumps shut again and I allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief. Turning over in the bed, I push the covers aside and sit up.
And then I see her.
Letting out a gasp, I realize that Mother in fact entered the room and is now standing next to my bed, staring down at me with the door shut behind her.
“Mother?” I stammer, pulling back as panic grips my chest. “What are you doing?”
I wait, but she does not respond. Instead she simply watches me. I'm sure she was a tall woman once, before her injuries, but her badly bowed legs bring her down by at least a foot, perhaps more, and I can hear her low breaths.
“I got up to go to the bathroom,” I explain, my mind racing as I try to think of an excuse that she might believe. “Then I changed my mind, so I blew the candle back out and I decided to come back to bed. I didn't think I'd made enough noise to wake you, Mother, but I'm very sorry if...”
My voice trails off.
After a moment, I spot the skull next to the desk. It's hidden well enough, but part of its face is just about visible in the moonlight if one looks in the right direction. So far, Mother has kept her back to the desk, and I can only pray that she does not turn and notice what I have brought inside.
Suddenly she turns and limps back toward the door, pulling it open and stepping out onto the landing. Finally she closes the door again, having left the room without uttering a single word, but I do not dare relax, not yet. Instead, I remain frozen in place on the bed, terrified that she has gone to fetch a birch stick or something else she means to use against me. It is only when I hear her bedroom door bump shut that I finally realize she seems to have believed my story, or that at least she did not disbelieve it sufficiently to punish me.
Either that, or she is saving the punishment for morning.
Once I am absolutely sure that she is gone, I climb out of bed and retrieve the skull from its hiding place, and then I look around for some safer spot where I can keep it well out of sight. Finally realizing that there's only one option, I pull a chair next to the wardrobe and climb up, before carefully placing the skull where it cannot possibly be seen. I feel bad treating human remains in such a way, but I suppose it wasn't in hallowed ground anyway, so the top of a wardrobe isn't that much more disrespectful than a muddy grave in a patch of woodland.
“Good night,” I tell the skull, before climbing back down and putting the chair in its usual place next to the desk. With that done, I head to bed and settle back under the covers, although my mind is rushing and it takes several hours before I'm finally able to sleep. Already, the first rays of morning sun are beginning to lighten the sky outside my window.
And then suddenly I am woken by the most dreadful scream.
Mary
“I saw her!” Mother screams, struggling to pull away from Father's arms and then tripping, falling to the ground and letting out a gasp of pain. “I saw her face!”
Startled as I stand in the doorway, I watch as Mother starts dragging herself across the floor of the master bedroom. Father is clearly just as shocked and confused, and he barely seems to know what to do with himself as he hurries around Mother and finally tries hauling her up. His efforts are in vain, though he tries several times.
“Get off me!” she shouts finally, pushing him away. “I felt her cold hands on my arm! I felt her, Gordon! I felt her, she was touching me and -”
Stopping suddenly, she spots me for the first time, staring straight at me with reddened, teary eyes. For a moment she seems utterly mesmerized by the sight of me, but then she turns away as if something about me has sent a shudder through her soul. She tilts her head, and for a few seconds I think I once again hear a faint, whispered voice.
“You must pull yourself together, my dear,” Father says as he helps her onto the edge of the bed, where she collapses on her side. “This is no way to behave, Eve.” He hesitates for a moment, before turning to me. “Mary, your mother is not well this morning. She's going to need rest, and I must attend to her. Please, go downstairs and inform Mr. Carsdale that you'll be the only one requiring breakfast. Ask him to set something aside for me to eat later.”
“But Father -”
“Go, girl!”
Realizing that I cannot argue, I take a step back and pull the door shut, but then I pause as I hear Father trying desperately to console Mother. I can hear the whisper, too, although Father is apparently oblivious.
“I had the most terrible dream,” I hear Mother sobbing finally. “No, a nightmare. In this nightmare, I got up in the middle of the night and went to Mary's room. She'd been awake, she claimed she'd risen to attend to a need, but that she'd then changed her mind and returned to bed. I wanted to ask her what she'd really been doing, but I sensed another presence in the room.”
“Eve, really, there's no -”
“I sensed it!” she hisses. “It was her, Gordon!”
“Who?”
“Don't act like an idiot. You know perfectly well who I mean. It was Marguerite! I felt her presence in the child's bedroom!”
Father sighs. “And how could it be her? She is long gone, my dear, to a place from which nobody can possibly return.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I saw her at the bottom of the grave myself. God help my soul, but I did. I saw her down there, and I myself helped fill that cursed pit with frozen soil. There was no way out.”
“But after that...”
“After that there was nothing more of her. She suffocated in the dirt.”
“And after that?”
“After that there was nothing,” he continues, sounding tired now as I continue to listen from out on the landing. “My dear Eve, you spent all day yesterday talking about how the girl reminds you of her... I mean, how she reminds you of someone from the past. It's hardly surprising that you seem to have worked yourself up into a hysterical state. As a woman, you are far more prone to these distractions and indiscretions, but you must at least try to be logical. A feeling in a dream is hardly proof of anything. Are you, perhaps, entering your monthly cycle again?”
“And then I saw her this morning!” she stammers.
Again, he sighs.
“I did, Gordon! Just for a moment, I saw her standing at the foot of our bed!”
“You mean Mary?”
“I mean Marguerite! I swear, Gordon, that wretched woman was -”
Suddenly I hear a loud slap, and I instinctively take a step back from the closed door.
“Perhaps that will calm your nerves,” Father says firmly. “You must push these fears well away, my dear, or they will surely take root and you'll become as insensible and pathetic as your own mother. Is that what you want? To become one of those women who are pitied by all?” The bed creaks as he gets to his feet, and I sneak to the top of the stairs so that I'll be able to more quickly retreat once the door opens. “I'll leave you alone for a few minutes, Eve, to pull yourself together. And then I want to hear no more talk of Marguerite Alesi or figures from the past, and no more questions about matters that are settled. Do you understand?”
“Do you hear that, Gordon?” she asks.
“Hear what?”
“Just listen for a moment.”
For a few seconds, the only sound from the room is the faint, continued whisper.
“I hear nothing,” Father says finally. “You are to get yourself under control, and you are not to emerge from this room until you are ready to comport yourself properly. I shall ask you again, Eve. Do you understand what I am telling you?”
I wait, but Mother does not answer.
A moment later the door handle turns, and I take that as my cue to scamper quietly down the stairs. By the time I reach the kitchen, however, I hear Mother cry out again, and Father runs back to the room. I am starting to think that perhaps Mother is finally losing her mind.
***
“Take some vegetables, Mary,” Mother says calmly as we sit at the dinner table. “They're very important for your well-being.”
Although the potatoes seem soggy to the point of having been overcooked, I set some on my plate anyway.
“Mr. Carsdale must have been very distracted in the kitchen today,” I suggest, trying to make light of things.
“Mr. Carsdale is gone,” Father replies.
I look over at him.
“Why?” I ask.
