by Blake Croft
“Let me sleep in peace.”
“You have to wake up, Steven. You have to see; the flowers are in bloom.”
Drifting through the haze of sleep, Steven didn’t understand what flowers Diana was talking about. Yet his sleep-addled mind pinched him enough to trudge out of bed, grumbling under his breath about shrewish wives. Diana didn’t seem to care. She kept telling him to come faster.
The cold wind bustled about Steven’s legs, and got under his nightclothes. He was shivering and squinting in the dawn light. Diana was walking ahead of him, her bare calves wet with dew. Steven followed, suddenly wide awake.
“Look.”
Steven stepped forward, and his breath caught in his throat.
The patch of garden that lay fallow from fall through winter was bathed in a riot of color; wildflowers in pinks, yellows, blues, reds, and white. It was like a rainbow had been spread in a corner of the back garden.
“Remember the ruined custard I told you about? I emptied the slops in that patch. That’s why it took so long for the wish to come true. But it did, Steven. It did!”
Steven was still baffled by the sight of flowers in the beginning of winter, too baffled to understand the implications right away. He stepped forward and plucked a flower, rubbing the petals under thumb and forefinger, just to make sure they were real. Could this be the answer to their problem?
“This is the answer to our problems.” Diana echoed his thoughts. “And it won’t be a loan neither, so we won’t have to pay anyone back. It will cost us nothing.”
Cost…
“You…” Steven cleared his throat. “You said there’d be a cost.”
“Och, nothing too big, I suppose. There wasn’t one last time.”
“But what about now?”
Diana frowned, as if she hadn’t understood what Steven meant. Then realization dawned, and she began to look about the garden. Steven joined her, looking for any sign of loss that could be chalked up to the cost for the wildflowers.
“I can’t see anything.” Steven said. The sun had poked its head over the horizon, and soft sunlight filtered down on the garden. It brought Steven no warmth, though.
“Me either. Maybe there is no cost, and that nasty woman lied to me.”
Steven didn’t trust that to be true. What kind of wish only gave and took nothing away? He hadn’t trusted a free gift in his entire life, and he wasn’t going to start now.
“Come, let’s have some breakfast.” Diana clapped her hands in delight. “I’ll scramble some eggs, and then you can wish for the money. I’d advise you to ask for more than we need just to be comfortable in case more expenses come along.”
Steven had stopped listening to his wife. The miracle in front of him was too fantastic to believe, yet he was holding the flower in his hand, could smell the perfume, and see the scatter of pollen on his thumb. Yet there was unease in his bones, a deep distrust.
“Steven?”
“Coming.”
Steven let the wildflower fall from his hand. He rubbed his hand against his nightgown, feeling soiled by the touch of the flowers. Turning his back on the riot of color, he went back inside his home.
***
Tim Baird ran through the fields, pretending to be a soldier in the thick of war. He bent low, and rolled in the dirt, dodging imaginary Viet Cong bullets. Streaked in dirt he toted along a small sack in the early dawn light till he came within a few feet of the McCullough cottage and saw Mr. and Mrs. McCullough standing in the back garden.
“Shite!” Tim cursed and squatted down behind a bush. He scratched his legs and waited till the McCulloughs went back inside before creeping through the grass towards the vegetable patch.
He had been hankering for some pumpkins since he’d seen them in Mrs. McCullough’s yard yesterday, and he had hoped the present of the grapes would prompt Mrs. McCullough to give him one of her prized pumpkins as a gift, but Diana McCullough was nothing less than a miserly witch.
Tim still wasn’t sure where the grapes had come from. They had just been there in the middle of the road when Tim had been coming back from St. Vigeans with his Da. They had supposed the crate must have fallen off of a delivery truck, and since finders were keepers, they’d brought it home for the family.
Tim spied Mrs. McCullough in the kitchen window, so he waited for her to leave before coming forward. The pumpkins were planted on the far side of the garden, directly under the window. Tim had one eye on the window and the other on watching his step.
Once under the window apron, he was safe. Squatting down again, he opened up his sack noiselessly and picked the nearest pumpkin. He felt something crawling along his hand. He dropped the pumpkin so fast it broke open, spreading a vile stench in the air. Its insides were rotted and green. Maggots and squash bugs writhed in it, feasting on its insides.
Tim gagged. He swatted the bugs crawling on his hand and calves, and backed away hastily, lest the bugs crawl up his legs and into his pants. Bugs were crawling all over the pumpkin patch, their many legs scuttling along the vines, coming closer to Tim as if they sensed a disturbance in their domain. Tim screamed. The patch of wildflowers passed as a blur of color as Tim ran back home, shaking his arms and legs, spitting constantly to stop the bile from coming up his throat.
***
“I still think calling Peter for an advance is the wisest thing to do.” Steven pushed his eggs around the plate, hardly eating.
“But what good will that do?” Diana buttered a slice of toast, a slight glazed look in her eyes. “We’ll be borrowing on future earnings, which we might need eventually. What will we do then? Borrow more money? We can’t go on living from one loan to the next, Steven.”
He had to admit that what Diana said made sense. But he was disturbed by the wishing box, and lack of cost. Might it be that the next wish would cost them considerably more? His heart was against the idea, even though his head could see the logic of using the box again.
“Are you going to make the wish, or shall I?” Diana asked, getting up and picking up the box from where she’d left it on the kitchen shelf. Her fingers caressed the top absently. “Because I see no sense in worrying Peter about loans we took.”
“I won’t do it.” Steven sighed, placing his fork down. “And I suggest you don’t do it either. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.”
Diana sneered. She opened the box, the smell of almonds wafting up from the lining. Her nostrils flared, and her eyes grew brighter. “I wish for a thousand pounds.”
Nothing happened, same as the night before, but the unease settled deeper in his spine.
Diana shut the lid closed and tossed it across the table where it clattered against the wall and snapped back open, a yawning red maw waiting for unsuspecting prey.
“And now we wait.” Diana settled back in her chair with her mug of strong, sweet tea.
A bloodcurdling scream from the back garden startled them so badly, Steven bit his tongue and Diana spilled hot tea on herself. They rushed out to the back to see Tim Baird dancing on the spot, his arms shaking and slapping his legs, before he bolted out the back garden, spitting and screaming for the world to hear.
“What’s possessed him?” Diana asked, hand resting on her throat.
“Why was he here at this time of day?” Steven stood arms akimbo. His heart was still hammering in his chest. He saw the small sack in the garden path that wasn’t there before. “I think he came poaching.” Steven pointed the sack out.
“But what frightened him so?” Diana asked, sidestepping him and gazing at her garden. A strangled cry escaped her lips at the sight of the ruined pumpkin crop. Hundreds of bugs and worms writhed over the stalks and vines till they were a uniform moving blanket of filth.
Steven felt bile rise in his throat. His skin crawled. He felt like he was covered with bugs, instead of the pumpkins. He could feel their many legs scrapping along his skin, their little pincers piercing his flesh, depositing unknown poisons in his blood.
“This is the cost, isn’t it?” Steven asked, backing away to the cottage.
Diana was speechless, her eyes as big as saucers in her head.
“Is it, Diana?”
Diana stood as if frozen, yet her eyes darted up and down her pumpkin patch, the wheels in her mind slowly grinding to a realization.
“The custard…” she whispered, then shook her head emphatically. “But that can’t be.”
“What is it? What have you thought of?”
“After I made the wish for grapes, my custard burnt. The one I told you I’d thrown in the wildflower patch. But that can’t possibly be the cost because it happened before Tim came with the grapes.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Steven shook his head. “I think that was the cost and the more impossible the wish, the bigger the cost. What have you done, Diana?”
An urgent knock on the front door reverberated through the small cottage. Somewhere in the fields beyond the cottage, a dog began a mournful cry. Steven went pale. Diana rushed inside the house, and Steven was thankful to leave the bug infested back garden behind.
Was it really the cost for the flowers and grapes? Or had the crop just failed this year? Unsure of what he believed, Steven followed in Diana’s wake, and watched as she swung the front door open. A stranger stood in front of them in a crumpled suit, hat in one hand, an envelope in the other.
“Who’re you?” Diana asked, stepping back a little.
The man cleared his throat. He looked like he had dressed in a hurry because he had buttoned his shirt wrong.
“I’m Baldrick, ma’am, Baldrick Kelly. I’m the recruitment manager in Arbroath for BP.”
“Eh? And what do you want?”
Steven felt a sudden surge of hope. This man must have brought the money to help end Steven’s anxiety. Peter must have thought about Diana’s silly wish and sent money through the recruiter at Arbroath. The thought of bugs, and costs for wishes completely vanished from his mind.
“I’m… I’m sorry but we tried to call, only you don’t have a phone.”
“Well spit it out.” Diana crossed her arms on her chest.
“Is it Peter?” Steven asked. “Did he send you?”
Baldrick shuffled his feet and cleared his throat again.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?” Diana asked, stepping closer to the nervous young man. “Did you lose the money?”
Baldrick looked confused. He shook his head slowly.
“There was an accident at the rig last night.” Baldrick took a step back. “A fire. Peter… he was very brave. Saved a lot of men. If he hadn’t put the fire out, the whole rig would have gone up.”
“Nae,” Diana murmured. She took a step forward, her hands reaching out to grab the door frame, but she stumbled on knees that wouldn’t support her.
Steven couldn’t move to help her stand. He had turned to stone.
“He died. We’re sorry.”
Diana shook her head from side to side, a low moan rising to a full-throated scream. She slapped her chest, her hands digging into her hair, the flesh on her face, her sobs punctuated with wounded cries.
“My son! My only boy!”
Steven hadn’t moved. The unease that had coiled like a sleeping snake in his backbone unfurled and slithered up his spine and into his heart, piercing it with poisonous fangs, till he was bleeding misery and woe.
Baldrick had gone very pale. He sidestepped Diana and entered the house.
“We are very sorry. The oil rig is a dangerous place to work, and the workers understand that. This,” he handed Steven the small envelope he held, “is the compensation for your son’s bravery. BP is very proud to have had an employee like Peter McCullough, and you should be proud of your son.”
Steven looked down at the brown paper envelope with the emblem of BP.
“How much is it?”
Baldrick stopped in the doorframe and turned slightly to look at Steven.
“Excuse me?”
“The compensation? How much is it?” Steven asked again, still looking down at the envelope.
“Oh, a thousand pounds, sir. It’s cash so there should be nae problem.” Baldrick put his hat back on, and he left down the path to his car.
Steven fell to his knees.
Chapter Four
Diana sat, moaning in one corner of the kitchen, and rubbing her chest vigorously. Her cheeks were flushed, but the rest of her was as pale as milk. Steven stood at the kitchen door, feeling stooped and weighed down. Within seconds, they had lost everything they had dedicated their whole lives to. Steven saw the box, sitting pretty in a shaft of sunlight. Anger boiled inside him.
“This is all your fault!” he screamed. Diana flinched and backed away into the wall.
“It’s that evil gypsy woman’s fault. She envied me, I know she did. She cursed our happiness, and she killed my boy.” Her sob became a wail.
“Your greed killed our boy.” Steven turned on her, fire blazing in his kind eyes.
Diana shook her head desperately. “This evil thing killed our boy.”
Steven snatched the box off the table and marched to the stove. He lit a hob and tossed the box on the flames.
“Nae!” Diana scrambled to her feet, slipping on the cold tiles. She thrust her hands into the flames to retrieve the singed box that had begun smoking profusely, her fingers red from where they had been exposed to the searing heat. “Dinnae you see? This is the only way to get him back.”
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Steven was perplexed by her sudden attachment to the box. How could she possibly trust the box to give her back their son, when it had so maliciously taken him away?
Steven was a God-fearing man; he didn’t believe any inanimate object had the divine powers of the Lord, but he also believed in demons and was convinced that a malevolent spirit resided in the box. Had it killed his son, Peter, who according to Baldrick had died the previous evening, long before Diana had made the wish? Did it have the powers of such foresight? Steven didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“I know I can bring him back. I can…” Diana stammered.
“Donnae you dare, Diana!” Steven took a threatening step forward, but Diana was too desperate to have her son back.
“I wish for the return of my son,” she cried to the open box on her palm.
Steven slapped it away, and it went clattering into the living room.
“I just want my son back. Take back your filthy money. Just give me my son back,” Diana howled.
Steven took hold of Diana’s shoulders, and shook her violently.
“What have you done?”
“I don’t want a fine house, nor a life of leisure. I just want my son back. I want my boy back.”
Steven felt his anger deflate. He sunk into a chair, his arms between his knees. Diana crumpled to the floor, her head on her knee soaking the fabric with her tears. Peter wasn’t coming back, nothing had the power to bring the dead back to life.
A bang thundered through the house. Someone had knocked on the back door. And then again.
Thud!
Thud!
Steven sat frozen. Diana’s mouth dropped open. They both stared at each other, a kaleidoscope of emotions running on their faces.
Thud!
“Ma!”
No, it cannae be! Steven’s mind whirled at the impossibility.
A cry of joy wrung out of Diana’s constricted throat. Steven held her tight in his grasp, and she clawed at his face in a vain effort to get free.
“Ma!”
“Let me go! My son is hurt. Can’t you hear the pain in his voice?”
“Diana, nae!”
But Diana bit Steven’s hand, and bolted the minute his grip slackened. Steven ran the opposite way. He didn’t know what was standing at their back door, but he knew it couldn’t be their son Peter.
He snatched the cedar box up to banish the thing on their garden porch, but he was too late.
“Peter!” Diana opened the door wide.
Weak winter sunlight streamed inside the open cavity, a tall figure stood just inside the door frame.
“Och, Peter!” Diana stepped forward, paused, and screamed.
The monstrosity was a thing of gristle and bone, the muscles a running mass of oozing meat. The scalp was a black, charred dome, and the eyes were a running river of white that had melted with the face; sloughed off the jaw which was yellow with puss and cracked teeth.
“Ma… I’m in pain, Ma! Make it go away, Ma!” the thing pleaded. Feet dragging across the stone floor, the creature staggered forward, its charred arms reaching out; fingers bloody and split at the pads.
Diana’s head twitched, as if her neck wanted to turn her gaze away from the horror, but her eyes would not follow. She staggered back on feet that no longer supported her, her hand clutching at her chest. Her lips were slack at one corner, a strange low hum like the low whistle of a kettle nearly come to boil escaped her mouth.
“Pe… P… Peter,” she stuttered. Her body began to shake as if she were a leaf in the middle of a storm. “M… m… my b… boy!”
“Send him back!” Steven moaned to the box. “Let him rest in peace, God damn you. Let my son rest in peace!”
Diana spun violently, as if the hold the monstrous being had on her finally broke. She reeled inside the kitchen, one hand clutching her chest, the other stretched behind her to ward off the creature dragging its bloody feet inside the house. She reached the middle of the kitchen, a gurgling scream choking her. Her legs gave way and she fell, head striking the stone floor, bouncing once then lay still, a horrible grimace frozen on her face, lifeless eyes still staring ahead in acute terror.
Steven crawled closer to Diana, his eyes still transfixed by the burnt corpse that dragged forward, closer, and closer, the agonized moans unbearable. “Paaaaa, help me Pa!”
“Lord! Help us!” Steven sobbed. “Help my son!”
The creature pitched forward, a burnt-black hand landing on Diana’s varicose-blue calves. The monster’s head lifted, and Steven imagined the thing looked him straight in the eye. An inhuman scream. “Pa!”
