A Haunting of Words

by Brian Paone et al.

  He felt eyes on him and immediately twisted toward the source, a corner of his room steeped in black shadow. The shrill song of the blackbirds finally stopped.

  “I know what you’ve done …” Her whisper held the notes of a song that tickled the edge of his memory.

  He shook his head as a twisted smile spread across his face. “Do you?”

  She stepped out of the darkness, then—white skin, white hair, and white dress. As she stepped out, all thirty-three of his victims appeared, hollow-eyed, mouths agape, their bodies checkered with the wounds he’d inflicted on them. Their weeping howls ricocheted about the small room, seemed to assault him from every side.

  His breathing came in short gasps. His eyes darted from one victim to the next. A worm poked its head out of the nostril of one girl and inched over to the other. He placed his hands over his ears.

  This can’t be real, he thought. They can’t be here.

  She stepped back into the shadows and the girls disappeared.

  “How … How did you do that?” His voice shook and cracked.

  He placed his hands in his lap, unsure of what else to do with them, and found that he was drenched.

  “I am the Rhiannon … the Ghost Queen …”

  He stared at her, not quite sure what to make of her. “What do you want?”

  “What they want.”

  “What do they want?”

  “Justice …”

  Abruptly, she appeared before him. Her mouth opened impossibly wide as she took a deep breath. He felt his body weakening as a black essence was pulled from his eyes. He heard a terrible, inhuman scream. The essence from his eyes formed into a black butterfly that flew into her mouth. Life left his eyes, and his dead body collapsed on the floor.

  She swallowed his soul, then walked over to the window. She stood in the moonlight and stared up at the moon.

  Eventually, moonlight faded and night drew back her velvet quilt to reveal a periwinkle morning.

  Dr. Romanstein walked into the dayroom, humming and sipping coffee. He stopped to take in the scene. The congealed blood on the dayroom wall, Phaedra’s catatonic body, Claude’s tearful rocking.

  “She got her, huh?”

  Claude nodded. His eyes were bright as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Faye?”

  He nodded again.

  “She get the new guy too?”

  He nodded a third time.

  The doctor sighed deeply, then went about his day.

  A bright, sunny morning in the village of Wrestlingworth had darkened to night as quickly as any other day. The trees, great willows in the countryside, rustled amid the howls of nearby dogs. The local park, alive with the chatter of parents and the play of small children while the sun had blessed its grass, swings, and other objects of fun, was now dark. The grass had become black and formless, seeming deep and endless, like the ancient Styx. The trees twisted and curled into faces and figures made to haunt the nightmares of unlucky children. Only teenagers—those stuck in the awkward stage between playful and curious, in the way country children are, and cynical and bored in the way country adults tend to be—dared to inhabit the park, whether it be to talk, drink, or explore each other’s bodies in a curious yet cocksure way … enough to cause onlookers to either giggle with amusement or squirm with awkwardness.

  The church around the corner from the park sat opposite the primary school where children ran and played with their friends every morning, oblivious to the world. It had only recently been reopened; roll after roll of police tape had eventually been removed after the investigation. In the dark the church seemed to tower threateningly over the school, its holy aura looking almost as though it were furrowing an angry brow in judgement. As the village became more and more residential, it became more and more stuck in time. Eventually it became one of those rare English villages where, despite the occasional car sounds at daybreak mixing with the opening off-licences and cafés, it retained its identity as a charming place, mixing modernity with the traditional quaintness of milk runs and windmill-made bread.

  It was this small wooden windmill—slightly removed from the rest of the village by its large grounds—that offered a spectacle for locals, who would admire the beauty and upkeep of such a building that still functioned enough to offer daily bread to them all. However, recent tragedy in the family of the owners had ended its production whilst they grieved their losses. It was this building that, at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, was the only one to have lights on, albeit candles lit by the dozen, resembling an altar in a cathedral. The holy glow it offered to the inside of the mill displayed a warmness that matched and finally overtook the local church.

  Inside, however, despite the hot flames of the candles, the air was icy cold as Sarah Berkley breathed out. Her breath fogged her vision for a moment before settling heavily downwards in such a strange fashion that, every time, it caused her to catch her breath before releasing it, allowing it to join the already heavy mist settling onto the ground. She looked across at her husband, Andrew, who shivered, despite wearing his dark brown winter jacket.

  There were only three others in this icy-cold candlelit room. They didn’t seem to be affected by the cold at all. The priest was busily working, setting up the highest room in the mill. Large sacks of flour had been moved against the dark walls, leaving a large open space in the centre. Occasionally Sarah would see the priest move behind these sacks and seemingly disappear for a moment before re-emerging and continuing to work. He was a large man, short yet wide; his chins wobbled as he worked.

  Andrew offered to help with preparations, but the priest simply shushed him and continued to work in silence. He wore the typical priest’s gown in a striking black, though he had no band around his neck to display his title. He wore wooden sandals that appeared ancient and biblical in an unnatural way.

  The next person was the body of their ten-year-old daughter. Lucy had been freshly dug from her cold grave only a couple of hours ago, and the six months she’d spent buried showed. Her chest and face were deformed from the impact that had killed her, as well as rotting from the early stages of decomposition, leaving dark spots of mould all over her body that, not yet clean, still reeked of dirt and death. But to Sarah and Andrew, their daughter was just as beautiful as the day she’d walked alone to school.

  Lying next to their child, as though a neighbour, was the body of the man who had killed her, butchered only a few hours earlier and laid out in a fashion specifically requested by the priest. Lucy was still wearing the pale white dress she had been buried in, though it was muddy and torn. The man next to her, however, was dressed in a black suit and a white shirt, fresh from the commute home before he was snatched away from that life. He was now lying on the misty ground next to the young schoolgirl he’d murdered six months before. He looked peaceful, as though asleep, his dark skin betraying no signs of death. The only sign that he wasn’t alive was the thin line of dried blood across his neck where a knife had been drawn with a surgeon’s precision.

  Sarah was shaken from staring at the bodies by the voice of the priest, who was fully composed, despite the service he was about to perform.

  “Okay, everything is in order now. Thank you both for completing the tasks I requested, and, naturally, you are both aware that no one can know of the events that take place in this room.” The priest spoke in a kind voice, the same way he’d speak to choir children—lyrical and soft as though ready to tell a story. His tone seemed entirely inappropriate for the event about to take place in this shadowy, misty room.

  Sarah and Andrew nodded stiffly in response to the priest, both looking down at the body of Lucy. Their mouths twitched up to form shaky smiles.

  “Yes, we know the deal and are ready to begin.” Andrew, though his voice shook with emotion, spoke assertively, placing a cold hand on Sarah’s shoulder and gripping it tight.

  She didn’t feel her body shake any less; instead, she felt more nervous from the supposed comfortin
g touch. The two of them should have been full of joy and hope, and yet foreboding and fear seemed to settle on the room like a thick, dark cloud.

  The priest nodded before explaining to them slowly, yet again, what was about to happen. “Now that I have the body of the girl and the body of her killer, I can work on establishing a connection. Due to the link between them, their souls should be far more easily located in the afterlife, bringing both of their ghosts back to their bodies and allowing them to live again. Though I feel it is fair to warn you that people are not the same when their ghosts are returned.” He smiled at this final statement as though resigned before looking at both Sarah and Andrew in turn. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “We have given you all our money and everything else you’ve asked for; there’s even a dead body in front of you because of us!” Sarah suddenly blurted this out at the priest, with tears streaming down her face.

  Andrew looked at her angrily, causing her mouth to close. The priest retained his smile and slowly nodded. As soon as silence again returned to the room, the mist darkened and became heavy. The priest closed his eyes and, losing his smile, began to mutter unintelligible words at too fast a speed for Sarah and Andrew to follow. The room dropped to a new temperature, and Sarah felt herself become even colder, grabbing hold of Andrew’s dark, tense arm and hugging it.

  A breeze hit her lightly. She closed her eyes as it built up to an icy wind against her skin. She clutched tighter and slowly opened her eyes to see nothing but the arm she held; the room had become completely black, as though everything but Sarah and Andrew’s arm had been painted out of existence. She listened intently and could still hear the shouts of the priest amid the darkness. She closed her eyes and prayed she could weather the storm, knowing—despite her freezing skin, pained, sore face, and the fear crawling through her body like a parasite—she had to finish this ceremony for the chance to be a mother again.

  Sarah and Andrew had been working on bringing their child back since a month after she’d died. At first, they had tried for another child, but the two of them gave up, knowing no one could ever replace Lucy. Ultimately, they settled for silent grieving. The mill closed, stopped producing any bread and, for months, the two of them idly wasted away their days searching for alternatives to their pain. Andrew found whiskey to replace the hole his daughter left behind whilst Sarah searched for a way to get Lucy back.

  After a while she stumbled onto darker areas, areas that were too fantastic to exist and were too dark to earn the right to. She finally received an email from a man known only as The Priest, promising he could return any person back to the world of the living; in return he demanded £250,000 for the service. Sarah organised a meeting, and, in no time, she and Andrew were standing before him in the centre of London, feeling like two people conspiring against the world, conspiring against God.

  The priest bowed and smiled; at that, they introduced themselves before heading toward a local apartment. The walk had felt so dreamlike and surreal to Sarah, she didn’t even notice when the three of them were sitting on hard wooden chairs in a cold, unfurnished and run-down apartment. Teenagers shouting and cursing could be heard in the nearby flats, but the priest took no notice, only allowing his dark eyes to rest on the parents, narrowing and searching them each in turn.

  Eventually he sat down, and a knowing smile rose on his face. “So, the two of you want me to return Lucy to you?” observed the priest, looking down at them and smiling.

  Andrew leapt to his feet as Sarah’s eyes widened in shock at the sudden statement.

  Andrew looked at her questioningly. “Did you tell him about Lucy?” he demanded, pointing at her with rage in his eyes.

  She quickly shook her head; in their last few months of grief, Sarah had learnt that staying quiet was safest with Andrew when talking about their daughter. The gentle man she’d married had been warped by grief, changed to a man that knew only how to face his loss with a bottle and his fists. The bruises underneath Sarah’s blouse displayed that much. She wore foundation matching her creamy skin to cover a bruise on her cheek.

  “I didn’t email him. He emailed me out of the blue and told me to meet him here with you. I don’t even know his name!” She quickly spluttered these words out, recoiling from Andrew, who continued to stare threateningly at her, as though searching for a lie.

  Satisfied he couldn’t find one, he resolved to sitting down and shifting his stare across the table to the priest, who sat there silently, smiling with the same unnerving warmth. After Andrew stared for a time, finally satisfied he was on a level term with the priest, he sat back and rolled his shoulders back—broad, though no longer toned as they were in his youth. He looked like an intimidating man. More intimidating than would be expected of someone trained as a lawyer.

  Finally, the priest broke the silence. “It’s okay. Shock is to be expected. I will make this brief, so as to waste as little of your time as possible. I can bring Lucy back to you, but for a price, of course.”

  Andrew could only stare for a moment at the priest, trying hard to control his anger. “You’re telling me that you expect us to pay you because you claim you can bring our daughter back to life?” His face was red, and his eyes seemed to shine, as though challenging the priest sitting in front of him.

  After a moment, the priest chuckled at the raging bull in front of him.

  “How dare you! Is that supposed to be some kind of trick? Some scam?” Andrew continued to shout these tirades as the priest watched with calm blue eyes.

  Blue, not like sapphires but rather dark blue like an ocean; calm, though in a moment capable of drowning anyone who dares to swim there. Sarah saw the danger in his eyes, so instead, under some urge in her body she didn’t understand, she didn’t move out of her seat or even react to the priest’s impossible claims. Her mouth felt forced shut whilst her body felt heavy as a rock, incapable of moving.

  “For a man who claims to be a lawyer, you seem to have a serious issue with keeping your calm, Andrew. Though it is understandable, all things considered in the past few months.” The priest spoke and Andrew was silent, his mouth open as he listened.

  The priest’s eyes became darker; there was a dark blue storm at sea, and the small shine in his eyes made it clear, even to the raging Andrew, that if he didn’t step in line, he would simply be sucked in and swallowed under.

  At that moment, as though possessed, Andrew lost the rage in his face; his shoulders slumped and relaxed, as though the wind was suddenly knocked out of him. He fell weakly back into his chair, his eyes shining with trapped tears. When he settled down, looking at the table like a scolded schoolboy, Sarah rested her hand limply on his open palm, offering her support in something so small as a hand. Andrew didn’t seem to notice the contact at first, but as soon as he did, he pulled away from her and sat up again, rigid, head craned to listen to the priest.

  “I want to be clear on my terms. Most were included in my email when I contacted you. I will be expecting full payment for my services in advance and—”

  At the priest’s calm words, Andrew started again in shock, his body tensing back to what it was only moments earlier. He looked at Sarah, with still shining eyes, and simply asked, “Payment?” Though it wasn’t a question, it was a challenge.

  Sarah knew that, as a lawyer, Andrew always questioned her and Lucy in the same way he would question a suspect or a witness— with patience and understanding. He was an expert in keeping his usually rich voice plain and under control. However, since the loss of Lucy, his voice had gained an edge to it. It was hidden well, except from those who knew him. Sarah knew him well enough to notice this edge, and its constant changes were starting to become easier for Sarah to identify. Andrew’s anger and frustration were building itself up to a point that could only hit one person, and it wasn’t the priest sitting opposite them with a patronising smile.

  Sarah looked at her hands as she spoke, watching them tremble uncontrollably. Her eyes wer
e stinging with a mixture of tears and fear, and her voice had become nothing more than a pathetic murmur, no longer that of the woman fighting to bring back her daughter.

  “Two hundred, fifty thousand pounds. I’m sorry. You wouldn’t have let us go to London if you found out …” Her voice trailed off.

  She didn’t look Andrew in the eye for fear of him retaliating. She heard him breathe deeply, as though trying to bring himself under control.

  “That’s all the money we have. We’ve been saving it our whole lives …” His voice trailed off, and Sarah caught her breath, terrified of the repercussions of him not being told.

  Her eyes fell to the small suitcase underneath her chair. She felt herself wondering if it was truly the right move bringing a briefcase containing all their money to a man who they knew only as The Priest. She hadn’t questioned the compulsion. She simply had to bring the money to this man, who’d only sent them an email claiming he could help with their deceased daughter. The same compulsion had struck her in this apartment a few minutes earlier, when she couldn’t even stand to soothe her husband’s anger. She looked at the priest’s smile with fear, seeing something else in it now, the self-assured smile of a man who had more control than one should have.

  Andrew looked as though he were dreaming. “… okay. For Lucy.”

  Sarah looked up at him, eyes wide, as his face returned to the same placid, pale, faraway look he’d had. Sarah realised he too wasn’t in total control of his actions. She felt her lips twitch upwards, though she didn’t truly feel like smiling. She looked at the priest.

  “Well then, let’s continue with my terms. It goes without saying that you cannot tell anyone what has happened, or of the service I have offered to you, whether you accept it or not. Additionally, there are objects and materials I will need for the act of bringing your daughter back, which I will reveal in due time. My final term is that I will be taking residence in your home whilst we set to work preparing the day for me to revive young Lucy.”