by Cat Knight
But that doesn’t explain the girl in my room, the girl at the pond and the girl in the dining room mirror. A little drop of fear tingled in her nose.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It was 5:07 a.m. the last time Joanne looked at her clock. Right now, her eyes were fixed on the ceiling.
The dawn was breaking and she was glad of it, having spent an almost sleepless night. True, she had crashed into a deep sleep as soon as she laid her head on the pillow, but a few hours into it and she had woken up feeling the undeniable sensation that she was not alone.
Lying there waiting for the minutes to tick by she worried that a ghostly apparition would appear. Every single ‘old house’ noise played on her mind. The rustling of leaves, the creaking of floorboard, the long sigh that occasionally sounded near the head of her bed.
It was that, that scared her the most. The first time she heard it, she leapt out of bed whirling around to see where the ghost was. But the ghost girl had not revealed herself and no wet footprints gave her away. Even for a tough girl it was hard to battle with a ghost you could see, much less one you couldn’t.
The uncanny feeling that she was being watched every second unnerved her. Finally, Joanne gave up waiting for the apparition to show itself and closed her eyes, hoping to forget for a while.
But each time she did, if it wasn’t the ghost girls face then the partly eaten image of the boy came back.
In the end, it was easier to stay awake to wait and watch. By the time the sun was fully up, Joanne was sitting on the deep ledge of her window with her legs stretched out before her, twirling the Sunday school pin between her fingers thoughtfully watching the pond.
Chapter Eight
The clock by her bed ticked off the minutes past eight o’clock, she had purposely silenced it. Joanne feigned illness at breakfast time, unable to suffer another round of Weaver’s watchfulness and conversational subtext. By 9 a.m. it was safe to venture from her room. Weaver was a man of routine, and he left the house each day at eight thirty-five to go to his job at the local bank. Punctuality and fastidiousness were traits that made him predictable. Joanne was pleased she had at least figured that out.
Her stomach was growling and she stopped by the kitchen before heading to the garden. Martha didn’t follow Weaver’s rules as closely as he might have wanted her to. Kids needed food at any and all times of the day as far as Martha was concerned.
So, when Joanne appeared in the kitchen doorway, she handed her a breakfast sandwich made from the remains of the morning meal.
“Thanks,” Joanne mumbled through a full mouth as she headed towards the back door.
Martha gave her quick wink and raised a finger to her lips. It was their secret, for all Joanne knew, Martha might be sacked for a little action like this.
The last morsel disappeared into Joanne's mouth and she made for the back door.
Martha’s face, was bound up in what looked to be a difficult thought that was struggling to be voiced. Joanne stopped and waited for her to speak.
“What’s up Martha? Spit it out. I know you had to tell Mr. Weaver. It’s OK.”
Martha’s small blue eyes flickered a hint of fear. “Be a good girl and keep away from the pond won’t you dear? It’s best we forget the entire thing ever happened, don’t you agree?”
“It wasn’t my fault. Evette was the one that wound up in there first. I was only saving her life.”
“Yes. You’re a good girl for rescuing her. Heaven knows how she ended up in there in the first place. But now that you’ve been in there it’s just best that you keep right away from it.
Alright dear? Mr. Weaver is most particular that the pond remains undisturbed.”
“Sure Martha, thanks for the sandwich.” That was weird.
Joanne rounded the corner of the big house and made her way to the garden. Dan was digging a hole for a new hydrangea that he was adding to the tree line beside the chapel. Grabbing a pair of gloves from his utility cart, she seized a spare shovel and joined him in his work.
“How’d you get in trouble again to earn garden detail?” Dan asked as he paused in his work and leaned on the handle of the shovel.
“No trouble,” Joanne shrugged and looked away. “It’s too nice to be inside.”
“Hmm,” Dan looked over the expansive grounds and spotted Jasmine and Evette gossiping under an oak tree. “You could be over there with your new friends.”
Joanne followed his gaze, then turned back to him while nervously rubbing her neck. “Ha, they aren’t my friends. For some reason, I’m in the shit more than ever. Oh, sorry, I just meant to say…”
“I know what you meant, girl. And don’t worry. I’ve heard worse.”
Joanne put the shovel into motion and lifted a load of dirt from the hole and dumped it into the wheelbarrow. Hanging out with Dan beat having strange conversations with Martha or hostile interactions with Jasmine and Evette.
“I can be a help to you, Dan. I promise I won’t be in your way.”
“Go on kid, grab your tools. I’m not one to knock back free help.”
They worked through the morning sun and well past noon planting three hydrangeas and trimming the boxwood hedge.
Dan pulled off his work gloves and lifted a small cooler from his van. He set it in the shade and motioned to Joanne.
“Cheese and marmite, or corned beef?” he asked pulling a bag full of sandwiches from the cooler along with a couple of fizzies.
“I’m so hungry, I’ll take anything.” She dropped down next to him and unwrapped her lunch. After her second sandwich was gone, she leaned against a tree and picked at the label of her soda bottle.
“How long have you worked for the Weaver's?”
Dan gathered up his rubbish and threw it back in the cooler. “I was about fifteen when I started working in the gardens during my summers off. That was fifty odd years ago. Why’re you asking?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just wondered what it was like when this place was a family home. If it was ever a happy place.” Dan shot her a sideways glance.
“I don’t rightly know about that. This place was an orphanage by the time I started working here.”
“Orphanage? But I thought Mr. Weaver grew up here with his family before . . . you know…” Her voice trailed off. To say before he went mad and killed all his family wouldn’t roll off the tongue easily.
“He did,”
Dan stood up and brushed the bread crumbs from his mouth and clothes walking back over to the new bed he was digging. “
When old Mr. Weaver came back from the war, he had a new bride and a baby on the way. But times were hard, there weren’t much work to speak of, so he applied to the state to take in kids. The money was probably needed badly to keep this
big old place going. What with upkeep on the house and garden and mouths to feed an all.”
Joanne’s face crinkled like someone farted. “So, foster care has always been about the money? That figures.” She plucked a blade of grass viciously and shredded it into ragged fibres.
“I suppose.” Dan nodded his head slightly. His voice trailed off for a moment and he concentrated on creating a new spot for the next plant. “Here girl, bring over that next hydrangea and knock it out of the container the way I showed you.”
Joanne gave it a good watering then turned it up and banged hard on the base. The plant slid out easily and she placed it in the newly dug hole and watered it some more.
“There you go.”
“Anyway”, Dan continued, “The baby was our current Mr. Weaver’s sister, Sharon. But he lived, and she didn’t.” A surge of electricity seemed to jolt through Joanne, her teeth grated together and before she could stop herself she blurted out.
“Tell me what you know about Sharon.”
Dan’s mouth dropped slightly open. A fierce frown made the hairs on his eyebrows collide.
“Sharon? Why do you want to know about her?”
Joanne avoided his eyes. An unfamiliar nervousn
ess had taken over her senses, and she didn’t want to be blurting out insane things. A knowing entered Dan’s voice.
“She was about twelve. He drowned her in the baptismal font. Why? Have you seen her?”
Chapter Nine
Joanne’s eyes bulged but she shook her head in an emphatic NO at the same time swallowing the words that were brimming on the tip of her lips. How could she explain to a sixty-something-year-old man what had been going on? If she said a dead boy tried to drown her the pond and she’d had a ghost girl hanging around her in the house, he’d think she was an emotional teenager, or he’d want to know what had happened. The way it would sound she’d still seem like a foolish imaginative girl. But on the other hand, he had asked. Joanne decided to hedge her bets. “I might have.”
He looked at her with an open face. “You wouldn’t be the first. Others have. I never ‘ave. But a word from the wise – don’t let Weaver know.” He waited for her to speak for a moment but Joanne was silent.
“If you say anything, you’ll be outta ‘ere before you know it on some trumped-up charge. So, unless you want to be movin' on, keep mum on it.” Joanne nodded her understanding. Dan asked her “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not right now.”
“Alright, but, I’ll keep your secret safe.”
“Why is Weaver so hostile?”
Joanne quickly sought to change the conversation back to a safer topic.
“Well, it’s probably on account of everything that happened, and all the rumours about his father.
Can’t be easy to live with all that. The missus, our Mr. Weaver's mother- well, she was alright. But old Adam Weaver, he was a different story. He’d always been devout but the war changed him.” He leaned on his spade and nodded over toward the crumbling old church. “He had that chapel built especially for family worship. But when he came back after the war ended, to all outward appearances he got…” Dan hesitated a moment, searching for a word… “fanatical - and that’s the best way to describe it.”
Joanne waxed philosophical, “I guess lots of people either lose God or find him in war – maybe it made him feel better to confess what he’d done, or….” Dan cut her off.
“Nah... He was eager to hide his sins, if the stories are true.” Dan stopped abruptly and scratched his head in bewilderment. “Ah, sometimes I get lost in time and I get to rambling. This is gossip from more than fifty years ago. Come on, grab your tools, we’ll move beds now.” Joanne picked up her spade, gathered the empty pot and moved with him.
“Tell us the rest Dan. Be a sport, don’t stop now.”
“Mud sticks and who’s to say what’s true or what’s not. The main thing is that people living today can still get hurt from things that happened long ago. It’s best I mind my words.”
“OH, COME ON. You know you can’t tell just half a story. That’s not fair. I have to know. I won’t sleep all night wondering about it. It’s terrible when people just tell you enough to tease you. And it hasn’t been an easy start at this house so far.” A wheedling had crept into her voice.
Joanne turned her face full to his and opened her blue eyes as wide as she could, looking every bit as innocent as a new morning. Dan fixed her with an old timer’s stare.
“Who said life was meant to be easy?” Then he capitulated. “But I guess you know all about that, or you wouldn’t be ‘ere would ya? As I said, it’s just gossip. But seein’ as you took the brunt of the blame for what happened yesterday - even though it wasn’t your fault. And because ya did a fine job saving that girls life – and since I know you can keep a secret, I’ll tell ya.” Joanne nodded emphatically.
“I’ll keep it to myself.”
“All I know is that by the time I started working around ‘ere the family home had been turned into an orphanage, and there were kids everywhere.”
“So, what’s so secretive about that? Do you think he did something terrible and the was orphanage his penance?”
“Not a chance. Nope, that wasn’t it. Like I said, when he came back from the war Sharon was on the way, and then they had our Mr. Weaver, David. They were the only two kids that he ever claimed at any rate. But there was talk, about his extra marital doings. And once he opened up the orphanage there were a couple of kids sent ‘ere who had the look of a Weaver about ‘em.”
Dan nodded knowingly and took another gulp of his fizz. Joanne started laughing and doubled up giggling.
“Really? Oh, my GOD. UN-BE-LIEVABLE!”
Calming down, an incredulous breath fell from her mouth and she shook her head in disbelief. “Wow. That is so wrong. Getting the state to pay for your own kids. But....not as wrong as killing them. I guess the ones that weren’t legit were the lucky ones, or they might have been dragged into that chapel and all.”
Dan’s head shook in empathy as he thought on it.
“Yeah. I don’t know how David made it out alive.”
“Anyway, I always knew the old bloke was a hypocrite, and it wasn’t hard to believe the gossip, given how he was and all. In my experience, its them that have got summin’ to hide that often hide behind the Good Lord. Cos his missus wouldn’t hear a word against him. I always wondered if she were scared of him.”
Joanne wished she was more scandalized by this information than she was but it she had to agree with Dan. Those who thumped their bibles the hardest had a habit of thumping in other ways too. Sometimes it was with a rod, or a belt. Or worse. She gritted her teeth and shook her head vigorously banishing the memories as they started to surface.
“What do you think? Did he do all that stuff?”
“I don’t really know. But there was a kid around ‘ere that was the spitting image of our Mr. David Weaver. You can’t tell me his missus didn’t know. But if anyone mentioned it she would just say – ‘there are only so many faces in the world, and some of us look the same. I dare say YOU’VE got a twin somewhere.’”
Dan smiled at the memory. “And then she’d walk away. People liked her, she was good to all the kids. No one held nothing against her. What was that kids name? Paul, Peter? No. Parker. That was it. Parker Adams.”
He rubbed his stubbled chin.
Joanne’s did a double take. “Adams? Like the old man’s first name. Adam? God how obvious is that. What ever happened to him, did he figure out that he was a Weaver?”
“I never saw him after the night the old man did the family in. Cos all the kids in the orphanage were re-homed, but he and a couple of others went missing. I don’t blame him for running off. Be mighty hard to put your trust in someone after that happened.”
“Didn’t they ever find him?”
“Oh, it wasn’t like it is today. Fifty years ago, a runaway with no family asking questions was allowed to run.” Dan stood up and stretched, cracking his joints.
“That’s enough gossip for me.” He scratched his sides absentmindedly. “I have a delivery of manure I have to spread around this afternoon. Is that a job that’s too smelly for the likes of a city slicker like you?”
“I think I can handle it. I’ve handled the smell of you for two days.” She worried that she had crossed the line because he just stared at her for a moment. Then the open air roared with his deep belly laugh.
“Good enough, let’s get to work.”
Chapter Ten
Joanne filled the bath tub and then locked the bathroom door, dropping her filthy clothes on the floor. The water was just on the edge of ‘too hot.’ She slipped down into the water, railing a bit at the sting on her flesh, but knowing it would work into her aches and pains soothing them away. Once the water level hit just below her chin, she turned off the tap and rested her head against the porcelain rim.
It was peaceful enough to drift off. Except for that plunk, plunk, plunk. Its relentlessness forced her to make the decision to turn the tap off harder. She opened her eyes expecting to find a slow leak, but the water was already shut off tightly. The plunking sound continued. That’s odd. Everything within her
told her not to look.
The noise continued. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Taking a deep breath, she turned her head ever so slightly towards the sink, already knowing that she had not touched the tap since entering the bathroom, and it didn’t seem to be dripping before. But there it was, a slow, steady drip falling into a full sink, and spilling the water to the floor.
Swallowing fear, Joanne sat bolt upright and pulled the stopper from the bottom of the tub.
Goosebumps formed on her from the neck down and she realised she was holding her breath. Grabbing her towel from the rack beside her she stood and forced even breathing on herself.
As the bath emptied, she watched the drip, not daring to move, but knowing she must. The run on the drip was increasing and the plunk sound had developed to a quick plinkity-plink as it spilled ever faster to the ground.
Joanne stepped from the tub and forced her feet to move towards the sink, absurdly avoiding the little puddle that was forming. The plug to the basin was hanging from a chain, dangling down toward the ground swinging slowly. The room seemed cold. Joanne over-rode the thoughts that were forming in her head. Instead she forced normality on herself.
It always seems cold when you step out of the bath. Maybe there’s a breeze in here.
Glancing over at the window Joanne looked to see that it was shut. It was. Hugging the towel tighter around her she moved as close as she dare to the sink, precariously tilting over to see what was obstructing the water drainage. That was when she felt it. Cold hands grabbed her neck and forced her head down into the water. The horrendous shriek that came out of her mouth was lost as her head was forced under, her cries just garbled bubbles. Pushing against the porcelain sink with all her might she tried to leverage herself, but the force that was holding her was too great.
Water started filling her nose and she fought against the urge to breathe. Her mind flew back to the pond where her lungs screamed for air. Panic railed at her, something was trying to kill her.
