Whisper: The untold stories

by Bray, Michael

  Just one step. Start with that.

  It seemed simple, especially coming from the disembodied inner psyche version of herself who had no reason to be afraid. The real world Vanessa wasn’t quite as willing to dismiss it. She scanned the room again.

  Dresser

  Bed

  Dresser

  Bed.

  Window.

  Why the window?

  Then bed, then down at her own feet, which were planted firmly on the threshold of the room and showing no sign of moving. Someone was coming upstairs. She could hear the floorboards creaking. In the way most family members were able, she knew by the walking style who it was before they appeared. It was her mother. She couldn’t still be standing here when she arrived. There would be questions that she wouldn’t want to answer, then her father would get involved and another argument would start. She didn’t want to be responsible for that. She stepped into the room and closed the door just seconds before her mother appeared. Once the commitment was made, it was much easier. She walked to the bed and looked at the note. She didn’t want to touch it and didn’t have to. She could read it perfectly well from where she was. The penmanship was ugly, the writing tall and spiky. She studied it, the simplicity and wording raising another rash of goosebumps.

  Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

  She recognised the quote. It was Shakespeare. They had studied it in school. She searched for the source, from the work it came from and it arrived without warning. The Tempest. Ariel to Prospero.

  She looked at the note again.

  Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

  She glanced out of the window, unsure why she would even do that. The gnarled branches were still waving their gnarled fingers. She didn’t like that and so looked at the note again. Somebody had gone to the trouble of not only writing it but hiding it between the floorboards. She had no idea why anyone would do such a thing or what it meant. It was too much to take in.

  “This is stupid,” she muttered to herself, then crumpled up the note and tossed it into the wastebasket by the door. She hoped that would make her feel better, or at least less uncomfortable, but nothing changed. She still felt that lingering sense of dread and discomfort. She looked down at the note crumpled up in the waste basket, the words implanted into her brain, then she opened the door and went downstairs, reasoning that even the toxic atmosphere down there was preferable to staying there any longer.

  FOUR

  There was a man. He had blood in his mouth but she knew it wasn’t his. He flashed a crimson smile and showed his dagger teeth. He held the severed head of Vanessa’s mother in his fist, holding it up for her to see by the hair. Her eyes had rolled back to the whites, her mouth agape, her cheek ravaged where the man had taken a bite, blood dripping down in a symphony of beats to the ground.

  This was how it went when he came, this man, he was always bloody, always looking at her and smiling his claret smile. He spoke, but she didn’t understand the language. Just one word which he repeated every time she dreamed of him.

  Gogoku.

  She didn’t know what it was or what it meant. He said it again as blood dripped from his chin onto his chest.

  Gogoku.

  There was a shift, a change of scenery, the entire dream melting from what it was into something new. Now she was in her bedroom looking out of the window to the gnarled trees below. Brown leaves skittered in the wind, swirling in violent circles around their car. The man was there, looking up at her. She couldn’t hear him but she could see his mouth moving and knew he was saying that word.

  Gogoku.

  As they stared at each other, he reared back and threw her mother’s severed head. She flinched as it hit the window, the impact sound drowned out by her screams.

  The window exploded, wind howling around the room and sending the papers and posters she had yet to put up on her walls swirling around the room. Somehow he was on her, strong hands on her upper arms, shaking her.

  This is no dream.

  She repeated it to herself, unable to comprehend that this was actually happening to her. It was too real. She could feel the sting of the wind on her cheeks, the uncomfortable bump in her lower back from her mattress that she had asked to be replaced but there was still no money for yet. She opened her eyes and could see his hulking form as he shook her. She screamed louder, not knowing what else to do as her bladder let go, staining the mattress.

  The mattress that shouldn’t be there. She had been standing by the window, there was no reason she should be in bed. She opened her eyes, bridging the gap between dream and reality. It wasn’t the man from her dream shaking her. It was her mother, her makeup free face ghastly and covered in old acne scars.

  “Wake up, stop screaming the house down,” her mother shouted at her, stale cigarette breath making her feel sick.

  Vanessa was confused. She was awake, she knew that, but the wind was still tearing around her room. It was only when her mother turned on the light that she realised what the source of her confusion was. The window was open and slid all the way to the top of its frame, letting the elements in. Vanessa’s father hurried across the room, pulling his robe around him as he slid it back down into place.

  With the wind shut out, she became calm, looking from parent to parent as she sat on the bed in her own mess.

  “I’ll grab some fresh sheets for you,” her mother said, getting off the bed and leaving the room, her feet echoing down the narrow hall.

  Vanessa looked at her father. “I’m sorry dad, I just…. I don’t know what happened.”

  “Window catch is loose. Probably why it blew open,” he said, flicking the catch back and forth in its housing. “I guess that’s why they nailed it shut.”

  She looked at him then at the window. True enough, the latch was broken, but the wood was old and swollen in its frame and only opened with some effort. There was no way it could have blown open vertically. She considered telling her father this when her mother returned with the sheets.

  She tossed them on the bed and stood, hands planted on hips. “Get yourself cleaned up and go back to sleep,” she said, then walked away, feet echoing down the hall followed by the slamming of the bedroom door.

  “Are you going to be alright?” her father asked as he too crossed to the door.

  “I’ll be fine. Just embarrassed. It was a bad dream, dad.”

  He smiled at her. “It’s over now. You get some rest. Do you want me to help you flip the mattress over?”

  “No,” she said, looking at the wet patch on the sheet. “I’ll do it. Thanks, dad.”

  “You get some sleep. It’s late.”

  “I will. Night, dad.”

  “Night,” he replied, then closed the door. She sat there alone in the silence until she heard the muffled sounds of her parents arguing in the bedroom, then looked at the window and the papers and leaves scattered on her bedroom floor. She thought she knew now why the previous occupants of this room had nailed the windows shut, and the reason wasn’t the wind.

  FIVE

  Breakfast was eaten in silence. Vanessa pushed soggy cereal around her bowl. Her father was making good progress through his bacon and eggs, and her mother was smoking and drinking cheap coffee. The tension was palpable, the atmosphere heavy and oppressive. Vanessa hated the fact that other than the sun room, everywhere else in the house felt dark and gloomy.

  “You can wash those sheets yourself.”

  Vanessa looked at her mother, spoon poised over bowl.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she added, blowing smoke out into the air. “You’re too old to be wetting the bed. That’s what babies do.”

  “Pam, leave her alone.”

  “No, Bill. She screams the house down in the middle of the night and then wets the bed too. It’s not good enough. She’s thirteen, not some kind of infant.”

  “She had a bad dream,” Bill added, setting his cutlery down on the plate of half eaten food.

 
; “Don’t you stand up for her. You always do that. We’re supposed to be the unit, you and me,” Pam said, inhaling on her cigarette and glaring at Vanessa.

  “This isn’t about sides, Pam. It’s about what’s right.”

  “Like hell. It’s always about sides. You and her, like two peas in a pod. What about me? When does my time start?”

  “It's fine, dad. I don’t mind washing my own sheets,” Vanessa said, hoping to avoid another argument.

  “It's fine dad, I don’t mind washing my own sheets,” her mother repeated, mocking her daughter. “That’s a good thing, Vanessa, as that’s exactly what you’re doing. I stopped washing your pissy sheets when you were a baby.”

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, staring at the milky mess in the bowl.

  “Just because you don’t like it here and crave attention you expect us to give it to you. Well, I don’t like it here either. I didn’t want to move to this old run down place either, but sacrifices had to be made. You don’t see me wetting the bed do you?”

  Vanessa didn’t answer. She looked at her father, wondering if he was going to defend her and mention the reasons they had to move away in the first place. Weak as ever, he said nothing. Staring at the food remains on his plate.

  Pam looked at them both, smug grin on her face. “Exactly. Nobody has anything to say now, do they? Because they know I’m right. Both of you need to realise that I’m not as stupid as you might think. I know more than either of you realise.”

  Vanessa stood, chair legs scraping on the kitchen lino as she pushed it back.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Pam said, exhaling more smoke into the hazy atmosphere.

  “Out.”

  “Out where?”

  “For a walk.”

  “Good. It’s about time you stopped festering around this place,” Pam said.

  Vanessa ignored her. She went into the hall, sitting on the step and putting on her shoes.

  “And another thing,” Pam called after her. “Don’t think I’ll be washing those sheets for you because I won’t. If you choose to leave them stinking in your room then that’s up to you. Do you hear me?”

  Vanessa heard well enough but chose not to answer. There had already been too many arguments, too much tension and upset. She pulled on her coat and put her hat on.

  “Just wait until you have to get a job and have some real responsibilities. Then you’ll see. You’ll see that it’s not all fun and games. Mark my words, Vanessa. Mark my words.”

  Vanessa didn’t mark her words. She had already tuned her out, turning her volume down in her mind down in her mind to a distant hum. She walked down the dingy hall and opened the door, stepping out into the bright outside world way from life in the house. It was the best she had felt in weeks.

  The act alone of putting distance between herself and the house was enough to make her feel better. The shift in mood was immediate. Inside, the house was dark and tense, always feeling as if it were on the verge of explosion. Her parents were partly to blame. It was clear, even to her, that their relationship was done. It was broken beyond repair and only a matter of time before they realised it too. She expected that they would divorce, and then she would have to go and live with one of them. Probably her father if the choice were up to her. She didn’t think she could handle living with her mother without a go between or peacekeeper.

  Vanessa walked away from the house, kicking her feet through the carpet of leaves on the ground. It was a chilly day, even with blue skies and the sun shining. She walked to the side of her house and looked up at her bedroom window, trying to imagine if there was any possible way the wind could have blown open the window the previous night. She knew there wasn’t of course. It was impossible, but she looked anyway, hands in pockets, neck craned as she stared up at the window. It was then that she realised she was standing in the same place and adopting the same pose as the man she had seen in her dream. The shudder that came next wasn’t from the cold. She could almost imagine seeing herself at the window, looking down in a bizarre mix of reality and dream. She looked away, wanting no part of it. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about. She continued around the house to the back and the sloping garden. Her father hadn’t cut it back yet, and the grass was long and swayed in the wind. At the bottom of the sloping garden, she could see the river flowing from right to left, appearing like a vein from the forest before winding under the short bridge then back into the trees. She made her way closer to it, the grass leaving wet dew smears on her shoes. She walked to the bridge, sitting on it and letting her feet hang over the short drop to the water, which gurgled past. She liked the water. The sound was soothing, and for the first time since they moved into the house, there was a true sense of peace. As she stared into the water at the moss covered rocks and stones, she knew it was deeper than it looked. Clear water like this, she knew, was both cold and deep. The last thing she wanted to do was to fall in. She looked back towards the house, an ugly exclamation point that she thought ruined the beautiful scenery. It was dark and ugly, the windows hiding whatever secrets lived within its walls. She turned to the other direction, to the deeper woods and the mysteries they held.

  Like that clearing you saw.

  The voice in her head that said it didn’t sound like the usual one she relied on to get her through the day. It was different, alien somehow. Vanessa stared into the trees, the tangle of branches, much like the windows of the house, betraying none of their secrets. She stood on the bridge, torn between returning to the house and exploring. She had a rough idea where to look if she were intending to find the clearing, even if she wasn’t entirely sure it was something she wanted to find. Even so, it was enough to make her curious enough to cross the rest of the bridge and go deeper into the forest.

  There was a natural path, a rut of dirt which curved its way up the gentle rise and deeper into the trees, which took away some of her fears about getting lost. With a trail to follow, she walked with confidence, stepping over roots and navigating hard ground. She had already decided that she would follow it at least a little of the way to see where it went. Her father said there was nothing out here for miles, and she was hoping to maybe see some deer or other wildlife. Even though it was darker under the cover of the tree canopy, it also felt more alive. Chorus upon chorus of birds sang. Bees went about their business ready for the coming of summer. The ambience brought her peace, and she allowed her mind to wander back to the idea of her parents divorcing, an idea that didn’t entirely repulse her. If it came down to it and she had to choose, it was an obvious option. It would be her father. He at least was fair and tolerant and seemed to actually care about her opinion, which couldn’t be said about her mother, who was stubborn, bitter and self-obsessed. Vanessa tried to remember the last time she was truly happy, but the memory, if it existed, wasn’t there. It was gone, lost like everything else from her old life when they had moved to the house in the middle of nowhere. Ahead of her, the ground evened off, and the light was better. She walked up the gentle rise, making sure to be careful she stayed on the track. As she reached the top, she froze, realising where she was.

  The clearing was a perfect circle. Vanessa stood on its edge, letting her eyes follow the circumference and understanding what nature’s intent had been. In theory, the surrounding trees should be reaching into this space and stretching for the unobstructed light, and yet they had a different reaction. They curved back on themselves, preferring instead to fight for dominance within the rest of the forest than encroach on this space. The ground in front of her was bare earth, yet immediately to her left and right on the outside of the circumference of the clearing, thick grasses and brambles thrived. She watched as a bee buzzed in front of her face, drifting from side to side at the threshold of the clearing then changing direction and going back into the forest the way she had come. She wasn’t surprised. This place, she knew, had nothing to do with nature, and so followed none of its rules. Fear and curiosity battled for dominance,
each giving a thousand reasons for and against going further. In the end, curiosity won, and she stepped into the clearing and left the forest behind.

  Silence.

  Not a gradual decrease in volume, but a sudden thing as if the volume of the forest and its inhabitants had been turned all the way down. Only the sound of her own breathing punctuated the stillness. She was warm, cheeks flushing. It was hard to breathe; the air seemed heavy, too thick. Her eyes traced the edges of the clearing again, her mind imagining she could see movement in the darkness, stealthy black things changing position on the very edge of visibility. Her palms were stinging, and when she glanced at her hands she saw she was clenching her fists. She relaxed, watching the little white crescents where her fingernails had been, fill up with blood. Even the pain felt distant. She looked again into the trees, trying to focus on what it was that was out there watching her. The voice in her head, the one that any only child will know is their best friend, was for once silent. Instead, there was another voice spewing poison words that left a dirty trail behind. They spoke to her silently, and she was powerless not to listen. They told her to wait and listen to what they had to say. She would give them a few minutes, just long enough to see what was hiding in the trees. As she looked for it, they began to speak.

  ***

  Vanessa didn’t remember leaving the clearing. She walked back through the trees, exhausted and with a headache raging in her temples. Her stomach cramped with hunger and her throat was dry. She needed rest, food and drink and absently considered that she may be coming down with some kind of illness. She had never been so tired, never known such absolute exhaustion. The river was close, and soon enough she was back at the bridge, the house looming ahead of her, just as ugly as ever. For once, Vanessa didn’t care. She needed to sleep, just to lie in her uncomfortable bed and rest. She shuffled across the bridge, every step a herculean effort. By the time she had reached the side of the house, she was sweating and woozy. She reached the front of the house and stopped. There was a police car parked in the driveway. She wondered if one of their arguments had gone too far and things had become violent. It wouldn’t surprise her, even if she didn’t expect to see it so soon. Vanessa opened the door and went inside, staring at her parents who were sitting hand in hand on the sofa, the police officer in the chair opposite, notebook flipped open. Vanessa knew her mother had been crying. Her eyes were red and her makeup was streaked down her cheeks. There was a second of silence as all three adults stared at her, then an explosion of noise and activity as her mother and father rushed at her, hugging her, kissing her on the head and asking question after question in a hopeless blur of noise she could never possibly hope to answer.