In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

by Catherine Cavendish

  “What did she say?”

  “That’s the thing. She said, ‘You’re next.’”

  Paul inhaled sharply. “And you want to stay here?”

  “I’ve got no choice, have I? Maryam is dead against discharging me and I’m scared to go it alone yet. What if she’s right and it is the Oramorph?”

  “But you’re not taking it anymore, are you?”

  “I don’t know how long it lingers in your system. It could be a few days before I’m totally clear. And that’s before we consider this bloody HCG business.”

  Paul looked around the room. “What if I stayed here? I could sleep in this chair. It’s comfortable enough.”

  “No, it’s out of the question, Paul. You’ve got work. I won’t hear about it. I shall be fine.”

  “I need to speak to Maryam.”

  The door opened before I could respond. Margie breezed in. “Do you mind if I do your room now? Only I’m on my own again today and I can’t be too late leaving tonight.”

  Paul stood. “I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Oh no, don’t do that,” Margie said. “I can work around you.”

  “Actually,” Paul said, “can I ask you something, Margie?”

  “Fire away.”

  “Paul—”

  He raised his hand and I closed my mouth.

  “You know something about the strange things that go on around here, don’t you?”

  Margie threw a quick glance at me. I cast my eyes down. “If you mean the ghost stories then, yes, I’ve heard some good ones down the years.”

  “Do you think this place is haunted?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I do. Definitely, and I think Nessa should get out of here as soon as she can.”

  “Thanks, Margie. That’s what I think too. You think she’s in danger from whatever exists in these walls, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I know it.” She lowered her voice and came closer. “Look, I know they told you that Carol Shaughnessy discharged herself, but she didn’t, and neither did Susan Jackson. They’re still missing and no one has a clue where they went.”

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Because I overheard them talking. All the bigwigs on the top floor. One of the advantages of being a cleaner is that no one really notices you. Especially the higher up in the pecking order they are. I carried on mopping the floor outside the meeting room and there they were with the door wide open. Jabbering away.” She shook her head. “Anyway, they’re worried sick it’s going to leak out. They’ve had every inch of this place searched from top to bottom and then all over again. No sign of them.”

  “In which case, I may know exactly where they are,” I said. “The only problem is I can’t get to them either.”

  Paul’s phone rang and he answered it. His expression clouded as he stood up and left the room.

  “I’m sorry you’ve got caught up in all this,” Margie said.

  “If I only knew why and how to stop it.”

  The door flew open and Paul dashed back in. “That was the school. I have to go back in. Some parents have been kicking off. It’s the new teacher we hired to take over from Kristin while she’s on maternity leave. He doesn’t seem to be coping, and now a posse of them are demanding to see me. Are you going to be all right, Ness? I’ll be back tomorrow, but call me if anything happens. Promise?”

  “I will. Now, go on before they lynch you.” I shooed him away, doing my best to sound lighthearted. I don’t think he was too convinced but he left anyway.

  Margie finished cleaning and pretty soon I was alone again with my gremlins.

  Sleep wouldn’t come that night, no matter how hard I tried. I gave up, switched on the light, read until my eyes dropped, switched the lamp off and immediately my brain kicked in with all sorts of random and frightening thoughts. Then the knocking began, and I knew things were about to get a whole lot worse.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It started in the corner of the room. A movement. Like a breath of smoke at first, then slowly taking form as I watched, horrified but unable to tear my gaze away. A pulsating shadow of charcoal mist, writhing, twisting in on itself, gradually developing definition.

  Spectral arms, legs, a head. I scrambled out of bed and watched the figure emerge from its cocoon of smoke. It – no, she – dressed in charcoal gray from head to foot. A Victorian woman, her eyes fixed on me, and it seemed I shouldn’t be able to see her at all in the murkiness of the room, but a strange half-light illuminated the shadows all around her and gave them life. Behind her, the wall faded into the room that was no longer a room, but a familiar corridor. The woman looked straight at me and drew me into the deep pools of her eyes. Lydia Warren Carmody. I took a step to the side and she mimicked me. I raised my hand and so did she. Her dress had changed and she wore the same nightgown as me. On her feet, my slippers. I was staring into a mirror. I put my hand out and met hers, only it wasn’t flesh I touched but a cold, hard surface. Glass. The whole wall in front of me was made of it. One gigantic mirror reflecting me and the swirling shadows behind and around me.

  In darkness, shadows breathe.

  They breathed and my own breath mimicked them. In…out…in…out….

  Another figure emerged from the darkness behind me and I saw her reflected in the mirror. I spun round to face her.

  “Carol!”

  “So sorry…Nessa. So sorry.”

  I looked at her, confused, but then realization dawned.

  Carol came closer and lightly touched my face, her touch cool, soothing. But there was something badly wrong with her. Her head was roughly bandaged and the whole of her left side seemed damaged, paralyzed. She dragged her foot as she stumbled away from me.

  “What have they done to you?” I called to her.

  She hesitated and spoke with difficulty. Every word fought for. “They…have…shown…me…who…I…am….”

  She moved away, appearing to slip through an invisible wall so that I could no longer see her.

  I turned back to the mirror. My reflection spoke, but I didn’t. The shadows echoed the words with pulsating spasms. “You are ours now. You belong to all of us.”

  Fear and anger coursed through my veins. I looked down at myself. I was dressed in the workhouse uniform with no recollection of how that had happened.

  Lydia Warren Carmody stretched her arms wide and suddenly I was back. In her body. In her time, and I was standing over the body of a man I knew was her…my…husband. In my hand, a letter opener dripped blood. His blood.

  I killed him.

  I threw the weapon on the floor and recoiled from it.

  Footsteps. Fast. Echoing down the corridor outside the over-stuffed parlor I found myself in.

  The door flew open and a uniformed policeman dashed in, truncheon raised. A stranger in civilian clothes accompanied him. “Lydia Warren Carmody, I am arresting you for the murder of Roger Carmody….”

  The policeman clapped a pair of handcuffs onto me. They cut into my wrists. I cried out, protested my innocence, but the part of me that had become Lydia Carmody knew I was guilty…she was guilty. As for me, I no longer knew who I was anymore. Time flashed forward. I was pregnant. No, I had been pregnant. I had given birth. They had taken it straight off me. I never even saw its face. Never knew if I had a son or a daughter….

  A mist descended and I stood in the prisoner’s dock. A judge placed a black cloth on top of his wig.

  “The sentence of this court is that you will be taken from here to the place from whence you came and there be kept in close confinement until a date to be determined for your execution, and upon that day that you be taken to the place of execution and there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may God have mercy upon your soul.”

  “No!” I…Lydia…had been judged a murderer and, as another veil lifted in my
mind, I knew why she had come to this.

  The beatings, his drunken rages. Women flaunted in front of me. More beatings. Black eyes, bruises and always lies. I had tripped, fallen down stairs, knocked myself out. The catalog of untruths spilled so easily from his lips as, over the years, he glibly explained away my more obvious injuries to anyone who saw them. And I – the Lydia part of me – said nothing. The anger built inside me until one day, my fury exploded and he paid the ultimate price. The problem was, so did I.

  * * *

  Time passed. It meant nothing. I lay in the confines of a damp cell as night became day, became night and then dawn.

  The sixth day. The day I would be put to death. They came for me at dawn.

  A priest followed me, almost chanting with familiar words of the 23rd Psalm.

  They put a bag over my head. It smelled fusty, old. I could hear my breath, shallow, too quick. My heart beat too fast. Soon I would breathe no longer. Soon my heart would stop.

  A coarse rope cut into my neck….

  * * *

  “Nessa. Nessa. Wake up.” Paul’s voice.

  I opened my eyes, saw his concerned face looking down on me.

  I burst into floods of uncontrollable tears.

  “We’re leaving. Now.”

  I couldn’t protest. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t even speak. It had seemed all too real. I knew one thing for certain. If I stayed, it would become real.

  Joyce dashed into the room. Through my sobs, I could hear the argument. She protested I wasn’t well enough. Paul insisted I would never get well if I stayed there.

  Maryam came in and my hysteria reached fever pitch. I clung to Paul as he promised to bring me back to the outpatient clinic, the next day if need be, but he would not let me stay.

  Eventually they brought me a form to sign. Paul wouldn’t back down and I somehow managed to sign something vaguely resembling my name. More argument. I had signed the wrong name.

  “That’s the problem,” Paul said. “That’s why she can’t stay here.”

  “Lydia Warren Carmody….” Maryam read out loud.

  I had signed the form with her name. It didn’t even look like my handwriting. Her signature, her handwriting.

  “I have to get out of here,” I said, forming the first lucid words I had managed since I woke up.

  Paul clasped me to him, held me tightly. “Don’t worry. They’ll bring you another form. But you must sign your own name. Vanessa Tremaine, remember?”

  I nodded, my whole body shaking with the effort of trying to stave off another wave of hysterics.

  “…Psychiatric assessment….”

  “…Danger to herself…. Sectioned….”

  Words I never thought I would ever hear applied to myself, now being spoken in serious terms by Maryam and Joyce. Paul protesting that all I needed was to get out of there.

  “Please,” I said, “listen to him. Why won’t you listen to him?”

  Exhaustion took over. I blacked out. When I came round, I was still in bed, Paul at my side holding my hand. I gripped his fingers so tightly he winced. “I’ve got to get out of here. She’s coming for me. Lydia. Something evil took possession of her and it’s trying to get inside my body. The spirit that haunted…possessed the real Lydia Warren Carmody. It’s called the One and the Many and now it wants me.”

  “It’s going to be okay. I’m taking you home. Now you’ve woken up, we can go. I’ll help you up.”

  “It’s all sorted out now?”

  Paul nodded. “Eventually they agreed with me. You can’t stay here. I can tell you something else too. I believe Maryam and Joyce both know more than they’re letting on. They caved in remarkably quickly when I filled in the details of what you had experienced. And I’ve been doing a little digging of my own. The flakes of paint you brought back are consistent with the type used in the nineteenth century and not found anywhere in the modern hospital. It’s true they built this place using reclaimed material from the old workhouse, asylum and hospital, especially the bricks. Joanna has been doing some research of her own and she’s found some old plans hidden away in the university archives. When construction got underway, they were digging the foundations and came across a mass grave. A couple of thousand bodies, all thrown in together. Then workmen started seeing things. People dressed in old-style workhouse uniforms, walking through walls. Unexplained accidents started happening. They closed the site down for a month while the Health and Safety people undertook a thorough inspection. Modifications were made and the work resumed but, until building was finally completed, accidents kept on happening. Ladders collapsed when they had been firmly secured. Scaffolding fell down when every precaution had been taken. Most of the injuries were relatively minor – cuts, sprains and bruises mainly. But the turnover of labor was incredible. The men wouldn’t stay. The average length a bricklayer spent on this site sank to as low as two weeks. Then, as soon as the place opened, more things started happening.”

  “He’s right, I’m afraid.” Joyce was framed in the doorway. I had no idea how long she had been there. She came closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, but you can appreciate, no one wants a panic. None of us is supposed to say anything about what we’ve seen, but I had only been here a month when a patient told me of her experience, walking through a wall and going back in time. Then Maryam was approached by someone in Victorian dress who disappeared as soon as she spoke to her. There are so many stories, but yours is a bit different. Whatever it is has targeted you for a special purpose. Maryam confided in me that she’s sure that’s why the HCG is showing up in your blood.”

  “But if that’s the case, why didn’t she encourage me to leave here instead of putting obstacles in my way?”

  Joyce sighed. “Because she doesn’t believe that will save you and she wants you to be where she can keep an eye on you and be on hand should you need urgent medical help. I hope she’s wrong. I truly do. I hope that when you come back to Clinic and we take more bloods we’ll find the HCG has disappeared. But, in all conscience, I can’t guarantee it.”

  “Thank you for your honesty, Joyce,” I said. She gave me a half-smile and left.

  Paul helped me dress in a long skirt and sweater, wrapped me in my coat and handed me a large pharmacy bag, stuffed with small boxes of drugs.

  Joyce greeted me at the nurses’ station, her normal demeanor and air of efficiency restored. “Plenty of rest, light exercise. No housework and definitely no lifting. Maryam will see you in Clinic next Wednesday.”

  Other nurses waved and smiled. Margie blew me a kiss and mouthed, “Good luck.”

  Normality. The hysteria of a short while earlier seemed forgotten. As if it had never happened. This was the way they dealt with the impossible at the Royal and Waverley – the hospital they shouldn’t have built here.

  I said little in the car. My thoughts were so jumbled I couldn’t be sure what I was remembering and what I had dreamed.

  * * *

  When I got home again, Paul settled me into a comfy chair where I could look out over the sea. Gulls soared over the gray waters into the sky, itself heavily overcast with a blanket of clouds.

  He brought me a cup of strong tea and sat with me.

  “Thank God they let me go.”

  “You can start putting all that behind you. You’re safe now.”

  I looked at Paul. He truly meant every word. “I wish I could be as certain as you are,” I said and sipped my tea. Outside, the clouds turned gunmetal and a wave of heavy rain swept in from the sea. I watched it lash against the windows and thought of Carol. What was the truth for her?

  * * *

  My first visit to Maryam went well. My body was healing nicely and she had some good news.

  “We still don’t know what caused the anomaly but everything is back to normal again. There is no trace of HCG in your blood.�
��

  “So I’m definitely not pregnant then?” It was a mark of how much I had recovered that I could even joke about it. Maryam saw the funny side and laughed too. We would simply have to put that one down as ‘one of those things’. I felt a massive weight had been lifted and the strange, pulsating feeling had vanished from my brain. The sheer fact that something so bizarre could exist inside me had worried me more than I realized.

  The rest of the appointment progressed well. Maryam prodded and poked in my groin. “Everything seems fine there but I still don’t think it’s worth taking any chances. We’ll start radiotherapy in a few weeks just to be sure. Are you happy with that?”

  I nodded. It wasn’t a prospect I relished. Having my already beleaguered body pumped through with radiation was hardly a lifestyle choice, and I knew I would be in for some serious discomfort from irradiated skin, which would blister in the course of treatment and for a while after.

  “They will give you moisture cream to soothe it and they’ll monitor you carefully so you have no need to worry.”

  I did my best to smile and focus on the good news I had received.

  When I came out, Paul was waiting for me.

  “How did it go?”

  “Well. You can stop knitting baby booties. We won’t be hearing the patter of tiny feet after all.”

  He clapped his hand to his forehead. “It’s gone?”

  “Every last trace. As if it had never been there apparently.”

  “Weird.”

  “As is so much of all this. But it’s gone, that’s the main thing. Radiotherapy in a few weeks’ time and then regular monitoring for around four years. I can get on with my life at last.”

  Paul cuddled me close. “We’ll get a bottle of champagne on the way home. It’s time to celebrate.”