“Thank you,” he said and headed upstairs. Jennie saw him go to his bedroom and knock on the door. Poor man, he’s completely emasculated by his wife, Jennie thought as she took a bottle of red wine and a carton of orange juice.
“May I come in?” she heard him ask from behind the door.
And then she saw a most humiliating sight. She wasn’t certain who was most demeaned: Martin, lifting his wife into his arms to descended the stairs; or Mary, too weak to carry herself but insistent on having the top room; or herself, intruding unwittingly on a most intimate and familial scene?
The table had four seats. Jennie sat beside Abigail. It made sense to her because she wanted to get to know the child so that she might better help her around the house. Learning her eating style and helping her at meals was only one form of assistance she had in mind. The Walkers were paying her well, better than any internship might. She assumed they desperately needed her help, to be paying such a considerable sum. But that was not what she was paid to think. She was being paid to take care of the house, and she very much intended to do so. Besides, Mary looked too weak to tend to Abigail and Martin appeared downright tired after what Jennie assumed was a hectic day. He bore Mary in his arms, it could not look any less romantic, and seated her with apprehensive respect on the leftmost chair, seating himself farthest from her.
“How are you liking the house, Jennifer?” Mary asked. Why was she using Jennie’s formal name, and what did it imply? Jennie did not know. But it felt formal and metallic, imperious rather than respectful.
“It’s very beautiful. I’m having a good time with Abigail and cannot wait to get to know her better and help with everything, really, thank you,” Jennie blurted out in one go. She felt embarrassed right away. But Mary was not concerned with her apparently.
She was casting sly glances at Martin as she said, “Well, that’s for the better. Seeing as how I am not able to take care of the needs and wants of my only daughter anymore. It made sense that my husband hire a stranger to do so. We’re very glad that you are here.” The last sentence dripped sarcasm. It conveyed the exact opposite of what Mary had said.
Jennie nodded and then focused, with all the uncomfortable aura in the house, on her dinner. The spaghetti bolognaise was very good, masterfully made. She had a notion that Martin had been the cook around the house for quite some time, there was no other explanation for his adeptness.
“So, Jennie, tell us about yourself,” Martin tried to defuse the tension, to no avail. Jennie immediately saw Mary’s look of disdain for her husband for asking this question. This was some seriously thin ice she was skating on, so she replied with an appropriately generic answer, that barely served the purpose.
Dinner passed in uncomfortable silence. Jennie focused on Abigail and helped her with the food. The child was extremely well behaved for her age. That or perhaps spaghetti was her favourite food. She was devouring it with an urgency that suggested that she was very hungry. Too hungry to throw a tantrum or to put forward unreasonable requests, as children might. Jennie felt a stab of empathy for the kid. Whatever shit was going on around the house with this fairly odd couple, Abigail was bearing the brunt of it. She was either very hungry or feeling very ignored. Sitting on that chair, beside the kid, Jennie swore that for the rest of her times here, she would take care of Abigail with as all the maternal instinct she could muster.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT
Ring of Roses
Maybe it was the passive aggressive environment in the house, maybe it was the fact that it was Jennie’s first night away from her actual home, and maybe she regretted her decision to skip school and travel across England, but that was Jennie’s worst night yet. She felt hopeless and as miserable as she possibly could, but she could not pinpoint the exact cause of her utter misery.
It was nine o clock at night and Mary and Martin had retired to their room, where much shouting escaped from behind the door. Abigail was plopped up amongst her many pillows and plush toys, in her room watching a rerun of Moana on her television set. The cheesy animations and dialogues were making Jennie queasy. She missed home. She missed her own bed. Her bed in the new room was very comfortable, but it had an alien feel to it; like a transplanted organ undergoing rejection. Jennie being the organ in this scenario. She tried to sleep and doze off but to no avail. The two glasses of wine at dinner had made her a little tipsy, invoking furtive glances from both Martin and Mary. She did not care by the end of the dinner. The constant passive bickering between the husband and wife was so vexing that Jennie made it known to them that there was no way she was going to get through this sober.
“Will you sleep with me tonight?” Abigail asked her, saving her from her thoughts.
“Oh, no Honey, we’re gonna sleep separately. It’s for the better. You know, I kick in bed!” Jennie tried to make light of the situation. Abigail laughed.
“I kick too!” she said and then giggled some more.
Jennie made sure that the child was comfortably in bed and the lights were out before going into her room. The creepy silence of the house and its enveloping darkness were rather fear inducing.
She tried in vain to shake off the asthmatic feeling clawing at her throat. Her experience was largely intangible. The house creaked, it moaned, it shuddered in an arcane way. Shadows seemed to lurk in corners and where light dared not fall. Whispers caught one’s ears off guard. Everything about the Bleak House suggested that it was a living entity. Jennie lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. The couple had gone quiet now. Abigail was sleeping. Her snores were coming in from the next room. Snoring was the one thing Jennie hated above all else. Her parents were loud snorers. She could not sleep on the same floor as them. Every night was a struggle where she moved her pillow and blankets down to the living room to sleep on the sofa, tossing and turning. So, she got up from her bed and went to the door. Martin had said not to close it so that she might hear Abigail’s voice if she woke up in the middle of the night, but at this sleepless hour, Martin be-damned. She closed the heavy wooden door and sighed with relief as silence took over.
She fell on her bed, still dressed in the same clothes she had worn from Leeds, and immediately fell asleep with her head swivelling with light drunkenness, fear and suffocation.
The dreams that followed were petrifying. She was standing with a lantern in her hand in what appeared to be a room with no windows. Everything was dark. She looked down at herself and noticed that she was a man. There was a mirror in the room. She moved towards it, holding the lantern ahead as she walked. The reflection from the mirror was of a middle-aged man, stern in his looks. He looked scared. Unexpectedly, leathery hands clamped on him from behind and cackling noises of the highest pitch erupted in the room. The floor became fiery red and the groping arms pulled at the man. Deeper. He screamed. She screamed. The screams were piercing her head.
She woke up. Panting. Her whole body was drenched in sweat. She immediately burst into tears. Whatever she had dreamt about just now was totally beyond her. Maybe it was the asphyxiation manifesting itself. Maybe it was some strand of a subconscious struggle that got stuck in her mind as she slept. Maybe it was just the darkness messing with her.
She went to the kitchen, tip toeing, and poured herself a glass of water. All the lights in the house were frugally off. Other than the smartphone in her hand, there was no source of luminescence. She put the glass down and tip toed back to her room.
On her way to her room, she heard sounds from Abigail’s room. Oddly, the door was closed. Martin had specifically told Jennie that Abigail was used to sleeping with the door open. Why the hell was it closed?
She crept towards the door, not knowing what to expect. Who was making the noise inside the room? Jennie had shut off the TV herself, and hid the remote where Martin had told her to. Abigail had offered no resistance to this. She was a good kid who understood her boundaries.
Jennie waited before going inside. The sound coming from the room became audible a
s she stood on the other side of the door.
Cows in the meadows
Eating buttercups
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all jump up
The voice was very distinct and different from Abigail’s. Jennie pressed her head against the door to make sure of what she was actually hearing, and not hallucinating as a result of post-traumatic stress from her nightmare.
Ring-a-ring o' roses,
A pocket full of posies,
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down
There was no denying that someone was singing the nursery rhyme in the room. Jennie opened the door, thinking she’d have to be tough with Abigail and sternly, yet lovingly, explain that she was not allowed to stay up late.
But when she went in the room, Abigail was sleeping soundly in her bed, all tuckered up, with her blanket pulled all the way to her chin and her numerous pillows forming a fort around her. There were no teddy bears or lush toys on the bed with her.
Jennie turned on the light and saw them all arranged in a perfect circle on the floor. She would not have thought it possible for Abigail to arrange such a perfect circle. Even weirder and most unnerving was that they were all knocked down such that they were lying on the floor on their backs.
She stared wild-eyed around the room, looking for the source of the singing. There was no source.
Holy shit I am bleeding hallucinating, she thought and giggled. The sound of her muffled laughter stirred Abigail in her bed. Jennie, not knowing what to make of all this, went back to her room. She noticed that she was still wearing her t-shirt and her jeans. She undressed and climbed in to bed, pulling the sheets over her. This was how she slept at her house and she foresaw no problem doing likewise here.
She fell asleep and did not notice her door, which she had closed tight, open wide. A larger than life, dark bloodlike red figure stood in the doorway, exuding a dark emanation. The figure had the face of a bird, with a large beak and glassy eyes like those of a pigeon. It stood watching her, enshrouding everything in its phantasmal aura. Had Jennie been awake to see this, she would have frozen in fear at the sight of the birdman. Such is our oblivion of fear and dread when we’re asleep. We notice nothing.
The dreadful ghoul lingered in the doorway for a while, lifelessly looking at Jennie sleeping and then it disappeared altogether. Somewhere far in the distance a wolf howled, a craven hyena yelped and a raven cawed. The fields slithered to life with the motion of the silent wind that blew. The moon came out from behind the clouds, red and unflinching, just like the birdman. Or should we refer to him by his actual name: the plague doctor?
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE
Blood Red
“Might I offer you some breakfast?” Jennie was standing at the door of Mary’s room. Mary was still in bed, holding her iPad and, much to Jennie’s bewilderment, smoking a cigarette. She took a deep drag, threw the ash in the makeshift tray by her bed, and nodded her head briefly. It was eleven o’ clock on a Sunday afternoon. Jennie had woken five hours ago, with a faint memory of what had transpired the night before. She still thought that she had imagined the nursery rhymes. She had not the slightest notion of the ghost in her doorway. When she woke up, the first thing she did was check on Abigail. The door, as she had left it in the middle of the night, was wide open. What confused her about the reality of last night was that there were no toys scattered on the floor. They were all huddled up in bed with Abigail. She woke the kid up, took her to the bathroom, made her brush her teeth, changed her into decent Sunday attire, and took her to the kitchen to feed her breakfast. Assorted cereals and crunches were stocked in the cabinet, so she asked her what she wanted. To her surprise, Abigail said she wanted pancakes with maple syrup.
How Canadian of you, Jennie thought dryly as she prepped the pancakes while Abigail sat on the kitchen counter drinking mango juice. They had run out of orange juice last night during dinner. Abigail was cute. Her prettiness made Jennie want to hug her, kiss her and pull at her hair all at once. Her hair was fizzled in zigzag curls and a fine natural shower of freckles adorned her face. She looked at Jennie with curiosity, questioning her method of pancake preparation.
“Don’t worry Abbey, that’s how my mom taught me to make them,” she said.
She fed Abbey and sorted herself out with breakfast before leaving the kid to watch Nickelodeon’s morning fare. Martin was nowhere to be found. Later, when he arrived home, he’d tell her that he was at the farmer’s market, buying the weeks’ organic vegetables and meat since they could not eat the other stuff because of Mary’s sickness. He seemed to be gone a little too long for a simple trip to the farmer’s market but Jennie did not pursue this. She was sure he had his reasons. And if Mary did not bother with it, she certainly did not have to.
At eleven she heard sounds coming from above, which was her cue to check on Mary. She found Mary propped up against the pillow, smoking and reading the digital version of the news. That’s when she asked her about breakfast.
“I don’t do breakfast at eleven in the morning. Next time remember that. Check up on me at seven every morning. Seven sharp. Not one minute before, not one after. And I like my eggs devilled and my toast burnt to a crisp. I take tea with no sugar and no milk. Dark,” she said sternly, not looking up from her screen.
Jeez, what stick’s up her butt? Jennie thought.
“Should I get you anything now? Juice? Wine?” she asked with the slightest tinge of sarcasm. But Mary caught that whiff.
“Don’t you take that tone with me. I’m not your friend or your peer. I’m your employer, and unless you’re looking to be fired on your first day, I suggest you check your tone. And yes, bring me the whiskey from the kitchen,” she said.
Weird bitch, Jennie thought and left. This was not her first time facing uncalled for rudeness. Hell, her mother was the award-winner in being rude. Everyone else seemed like tame kittens next to her. Mary was coming close to her mother, Jennie thought as she poured whiskey in a glass. She looked around, having made sure that no one was watching, she spat in the glass. She giggled and took the drink to Mary. Mary took it without looking twice, glugged it in one go and demanded another.
Jennie fetched another glass, but did not spit in it. Mary was trying to get out of bed when she got to the room. “Help me with it,” she said to Jennie while pointing at the wheelchair.
Jennie brought the wheelchair close enough for Mary to climb into. Mary hopped in it, took the glass from Jennie and rolled her way to the study next door. Jennie followed her.
“So, I hear you’re studying to be a journalist,” Mary said.
“Yes. Well I was. I’m on break right now-” Jennie began but Mary cut her short.
“First and only rule of journalism. KISS. Keep it short stupid! No one wants to read a long piece punctuated with your opinions and personal version of a backstory. Give hard facts. Period. That’s priceless advice right there, kiddo. Now off with you. Take Abigail to the park behind the house,” she said and closed the door of the study in Jennie’s face.
Jennie went downstairs, brooding on what Mary had just said. She was right. She was rude, but she was right. All the best pieces she had ever read in her life subliminally implored the same thing: Short, concise writing with an impactful manner. That’s what she should do. That’s the one thing that they don’t teach you at school. The school is always concerned with the semantics, the rules, the keeping your toes in line. There’s a lot to learn from school, yes, but only if you intend to learn about the stuff, not the stuff itself. The stuff that you learn in the field, with brutal repercussions, that’s the real meat of journalism. And Mary, despite her miscreant attitude, had given her the very first lesson in journalism. The lesson that she would use in real life.
She went into Abigail’s room and looked for her. Abigail was under the bed playing ‘fort’ with her dolls.
“Come on Abbey, it is time to go to the park,” she said.
“What park?” Abig
ail asked quizzically. Jennie thought the kid was being funny. She took her out from under the bed, put on her joggers and took her phone with her. She intended to listen to her playlist while Abigail played outside.
“What park?” she asked again.
“You know, the one your mom told me about. The one behind your house,” she replied.
Once they were out the backdoor, instead of the expected lovely smell of the raw fields and the flowers that paved the way to them, Jennie smelt a stench of death. The smell you find in morgues. Dead people, dead matter and decaying flesh. She put her hands to her nose abruptly, letting go of Abigail’s hand and cried, “What the hell is this smell?”
“That’s always here. Mom told me so. I cannot even smell it anymore,” Abigail said with amusement.
Regardless, Jennie found the stench unbearable. She searched under the porch and around the house for dead rodents, an overrun possum or any explanation for that smell, but there was nothing. Scarily, it seemed to come from the house itself, or more precisely, from underneath it.
Maybe that’s just the wood corroding after the rain and the wind, she thought and put the idea of this smell out of her mind. Besides the smell, the afternoon seemed sublime. The sun was out over their heads, shining brightly while the clouds played ‘catch me if you can’ with each other. White, light clouds that flew with the breeze that blew. Despite the cheery morning, Abigail did not look to be in the mood for this outing. Jennie saw that there was indeed a park in the distance. It seemed to be the only establishment in that direction. The rest was just fields and more fields meeting with the woods far yonder. River Thames, the very one from her childhood tales, was in a different part of London. Bummer. She looked forward to going there. Perhaps she will ask Martin someday to take all of them, provided Mary did not object to it.
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