Did she think that her mother wanted to give her a ‘warning’, like ghosts traditionally were known to do? Almost immediately, her practical childhood mind rejected the idea. She was more comfortable thinking that there could be no explanation or reason for the presence of a dead woman in her anteroom, and perhaps the best strategy was not to adopt any strategy, not to look for explanations, omens. Accepting this was simple.
But she had started crying, still in bed. She remembered that. Shocked by the vision, she had not ‘used’ the chance offered to be with her mother. She should not have turned round, she should not have moved a single muscle, she should not have dismissed the portent and gone back to her sleepy bed. Eliza had the intuitive sense that she had made her mother disappear. And so, she would reflect years later, a knowledge, deep within her: the dead could not be summoned to perform parlour games on any given evening between nine and ten o’clock. They could not materialise, de-materialise, show themselves, sing, do tricks, do anything at our earthly command. The only means of communication was as Eliza experienced it then, that childhood morning, in a house in Lincoln. Then and there with no reason, no intention, no plan. Then and there, uninvited.
She was a strange child, for the next thing she did was to check that she was not feverish—she knew how to do that from very early on—and she knew that she did not feel bad, so there was no possible excuse, no physical reason that might explain this encounter, and if there were then it would be inside herself. Perhaps something was wrong with her brain. An error in the blood, hereditary and endemic. Chronic and incurable.
The rest of the day Eliza spent numb and unresponsive. She started to be aware little by little of the unnaturalness of the occurrence itself, of doubting her place in this plane of existence, a place to truly call her own in that darkened mirror, the real, grim world that she was condemned to inhabit without her mother. By dusk she had worked herself into a fever and she was anxious and terrified to go to bed— pure terror it was. The coldness of the many rooms that were closed to her at her guardian’s home; the absence of her infamous father; her mother under the earth. She felt terribly alone. As people did when they knew a secret and there was no one to share it with. The most lonely she had ever felt.
Eliza did not tell anyone; would never tell anyone. What instincts she had: to act ‘normal’, even when feeling that she had failed and kept failing at doing so. What an instinct she had to survive!
The memory was still as fresh as a summer breeze. It had probably been that late summer storm, gathering electric currents around everything, making her see visions…
She did remember one thing, quite clearly, an image that had not abandoned her all these long years: how much the ghost of her mother had shivered. She must have been very cold.
* * *
The new morning brought a red sky laced with dark foreboding: wreck to the sailor, trouble to the land-dweller. The crimson would have been more welcome once the dusk had settled, with its nightly promise of shepherd’s delight. At this early hour, however, it didn’t foretell anything good. As soon as she set out for her pre-breakfast stroll, she had noticed it: a change in the weather. The east wind crashed against her face, and the light carried an unexpected winter gloom, just when the birds were already thinking about spring.
Walking on an ancient marsh causeway, carved here in the time of the Saxons, was a favourite pastime, the wet soil and unkempt reeds thriving with little winged creatures. It was reached through a holloway, a path settled into the earth long before the Saxons came, proof that rural folk had always been attracted to this bit of marshy land, even before it was safe to cross. At low tide the path was more felt than visible, all the way to Wicken Far End, the little island where the stones of the old church lay scattered. Further away was the fortress, a disused factory where steam engines had been manufactured decades back, a futile and doomed attempt to bring the region into the industrial age.
The wind had frightened away the mist. But still, that particular stretch of coast seemed always to possess a foggy quality. She never failed to notice how the light changed here, conferring gravity to everything. It felt more oppressive than usual today, and the expected birds all looked alien: the harriers, the snipe, the redshank. But where, she thought, where was the tern hiding?
The causeway seemed to be connecting her to something more than mere land: life itself, perhaps, for its existence afforded safe crossing.
A goshawk passed above her head. She remembered how hawks were granted free movement between this world and the next, and wondered which message the bird was taking to the beyond.
Then she saw it ahead of her: a formless shadow.
No, there was nothing. It had come and gone in a flash, and it seemed for a second that it had a human shape; but there was no one there, and she resumed her walking.
But someone had moved right ahead, she was sure now. Eliza advanced slowly, hardly making any noise. Yes, someone was moving capriciously among the reeds, stumbling in and out of her vision. The rustling of a skirt on the overgrown reeds.
Had a stranger fallen in the reed bed, perhaps? She ought to go and see.
The reverend had recently given a sermon about Guthlac, the Saxon saint who travelled deep into this land to found Crowland Abbey, and all the demons he had encountered in that expansive wilderness.
He had gone but a very little way when he saw a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him.
Eliza shivered. So many fanciful notions recently, she scolded herself. Better to keep her curiosity on this side of reality, forget her second notebook once and for all.
It was impossible. Her mother had found her. She always did. Could it be…?
The tide would turn soon enough, and all those faded greens and hard browns and marshy, reedy patches would get completely covered by the eerie, unmoving laden sea. Wicken Far End would be the only thing visible in the distance, surrounded by this deadly pool.
To tell the truth she was not even sure what she had seen, if the peculiar shape had been a trick of the light. She froze for a second. It could be, for it was definitely a woman. And she was trying to cross over. She thought she was looking in her direction, even if the vagueness of the light and the hour had made it difficult to know if she was seeing a face or a nape. Coming here, then, not going there.
She had to get to her, or she would drown. The thought snapped Eliza into action.
She stumbled over the reeds, crashing through the peaceful nature she had been seeking, and advanced in the general direction of where she thought she had seen her.
At last she got to the girl, for it was no more than a girl, much younger than her, fifteen or sixteen years old, lying face down on the ground, with flaxen hair and good enough clothes but no shoes, dirty and wet with mud and bits of weeds, as if she had come swimming all the way from Holland.
‘And how am I supposed to get you home now?’ Eliza asked, as much to herself as to the sleeping girl. She turned her over with an effort, and then saw that her eyes were open, although she was indeed unconscious. Or partially unconscious, as she responded at last, but slowly, hardly there, to Eliza’s worried imprecations. It took some time, too much time, to sit her up, but then she swung her round somehow and the girl helped a little as she pushed her to her feet. The girl, in spite of her catatonic state, was capable of moving one foot after the other as she clung to her saviour.
Eliza’s dress was filthy now, and creased. She wondered about the Hobbses, what they would say. But she couldn’t have left the girl there, for she would surely have perished.
It was exhausting work, stumbling rather than walking with her fortuitous cargo. When they reached the shore, the tide was gaining force, and lapping oily water already covered the place where the girl had been lying. They continued towards the little carstone cottage, and so worried was Eliza that she failed to see the peculiar greenish light that glowed heavily from the old church stones lying scattered in Wicken Far End, heaving like a beating
heart.
AUTOMATIC WRITING DEMONSTRATION
LONDON, FEBRUARY 1901
MEDIUM: WILLIMINA LAWRENCE
Brief initial statement: Willimina Lawrence has arrived as Madame Florence’s protégée from America. She is a young woman of singular talents. She offered this demonstration under the supervision of impartial witnesses. She claims that the spirit she was in contact with was that of the celebrated traveller Mrs Charlotte Waltraud. Mrs Waltraud disappeared under unexplained circumstances, while accompanying her husband Mr Tobias Waltraud on an expedition. This account contains details which Miss Lawrence could not in all conscience have known, and it has offered further clues as to the possible true nature of this most mysterious case.
His new bride will come in now, and will realise that the silence of the house is a false silence, now that her eyes are accustomed to the dust and the dark, to the rounded shadows, the nooks and corners, and can make out the abandoned spider webs, can see the stains on the dark wine carpet—chosen precisely for its ability to hide them.
I know about her uncontrollable emotions, the terror that flows and ebbs, as if her heart were skipping beats. I do not know how I know it. It is the same kind of certainty that I have about everything these days.
I know what he will do to her first. And what he will do to her eventually.
If she had made it this far, she would have seen the shadows, those uneven corners of blood and suffering. They are tainted, each and every one of them. It is a shame that she cannot feel them. Or perhaps, perhaps… What if she can see, feel? Then maybe she will leave. Before she makes it as far as this alcove. There is no escape from here. I have seen them all, coming in here tentatively, their hands, aged by housework, by suffering, uncertainly running over the wallpaper, some of them with their eyes shut, listening to the irregular beats of their unruly hearts. Here, it’s already too late. Here is where death lives. Their deaths, my deaths.
They miss him; they don’t feel him coming upon them, his eyes bulging and bloodshot, the poker held miraculously high over his head in those arms which will one day suffer from arthritis, the sweat and the saliva that he spits out with the effort mingling with that liquid which is brownish in this light instead of red, and which marks the end of the act and the curtain falling.
Run away, disappear! Don’t become another heap of turned earth in our garden.
What are they doing now? Darkness in the library, the champagne pinching your tongue, the dull smell of the sempervivum.
Life.
They are living.
How can I see it? Why can I see it?
We were sitting in the kitchen, it seemed yesterday. Or like yesterday. Perhaps it was a decade back. Perhaps, perhaps… it was sometime in the future. No, Eliza was there, she was little. But I, I see it clearly as if it were yesterday. Married, and Eliza in my arms. In front of me, in front of her, this man from my new life, this man I don’t really know smiles at me, at her, slightly lifting the corners of his mouth.
For the first time I understand what it is that annoys me about this house: I have never before lived among oil paintings, dark and gloomy, transmitting their lack of light to everything that surrounds them. I was not born for this, whereas he moves through his existence with the certainty of a snake charmer.
He was, or is, or will be, writing a book about our voyages. The Book. Capital ‘t’, capital ‘b’. Our future depends on it. When he finishes It—or has it happened already?—everything will be sorted out.
But what if it is not like that? What if nothing happens that we are expecting to happen? Maybe we will have to stay trapped here forever, between these walls, walking down the same corridors, climbing the same staircases covered in hairs, up and down, up and down, meeting your desiccated relatives in all the corners, in all the darkened oil paintings. What will we do then? What will you…? What will I…?
Everything will turn into ashes, is turning into ashes…
I can see how I am in your way. I can see how women get in the way.
The stench of the flowers, the champagne in the library.
I thought there were ghosts that followed me, and there were none.
I was destined to become the only shadow here.
I would like oh so much to talk to you, about the anger that follows me, and the books, those inanimate objects, that steal your affection from me.
Perhaps this is not a memory, but something that happened—to me? To her?
This is my gift. I have touched with the tips of my fingers the impossible veil; I am trapped here. I cannot move, I cannot talk, but I know, I see these things, things that have happened and that are happening and that will come to pass.
He calls me my love.
I move more frantically. Something pricking in my arm, something to calm me.
I want her to understand it all, I want her to come no further. Because this chamber is the end of the road. And I am kept here by the ogre.
I ought to do something about it, I know that. I should protect Eliza.
I ought to stop it all.
Stop the eternal cycle of fathers, uncles, guardians, brothers, stepfathers, priests, doctors, all selling their daughters and nieces and wards in marriages most advantageous to demons in the disguise of gentlemen.
Where am I now?
Where is he?
Darkness in the library, the champagne pinching my tongue, the dull smell of the flowers. Those are not my memories. I am gone.
But she, Eliza, lives.
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning Sam woke to a hangover, and general upheaval. The police had made some surprise night raids on a few palmists and Charles was at sixes and sevens, organising an urgent meeting of the League to tackle the issue, and despatching a large number of telegrams. The name of Count Bévcar resonated in all the little cliques of incensed Spiritualists: his was the kind of leadership that their movement needed. Standing in the doorway, Sam made his excuses: it was the appointed day for a palm reading he wasn’t planning on missing.
Miss Helena Walton lived in a retired suburb where city and country could almost touch. The neighbourhood in question proved to be much further than Sam had anticipated, and he was a little bit late. From the outside her building looked like all the other ones around it: a redbrick detached house that could have belonged to a successful businessman or to someone in trade, each of the dwellings surrounded by the same expansive private garden, with a view of the distant city at the back and the river floating behind them.
Sam rang the bell, and the door opened to a modern vestibule full of winter light. The maid showed him into a back parlour overlooking an extensive garden, which he expected to be decorated with gypsy shawls, aspidistras and tasteful reproductions of Venus, Aphrodite, Galatea.
Instead he found himself in a room lined from floor to ceiling with groaning bookcases. His uncle’s library was well equipped with the classics and some poetry, though most of Charles’s books were dedicated to Spiritualist matters. This was different: what Sam had in front of him was a substantial collection gathered with patience and love over many years. A cursory glance showed him that Miss Walton possessed an eclectic taste. Most of the leading Spiritualist journals were present, but also police reports and many newspapers, which Miss Walton seemed to receive from every corner of the country. A headline shouted at him from the chaise longue: one such paper had been recently abandoned there.
STRANGE OCCURRENCES IN BOLTON’S ASYLUM FOR WOMEN.
MASS FEMALE HYSTERIA AND CONTAGIOUS SLEEP-DEATH!
Between two of the book-covered walls sat a huge writing desk, and to one side stood an odd dark cabinet, similar to the one that had been used in Madame Florence’s performance, but more severe-looking. It was painted black, and its only decoration was the drawing of a funeral wreath on each side of its double doors. It was scratched and ridged, and some of the paint on the bottom had lost its lustre. But the most impressive piece of decoration by far was the library’s nor
thern wall, covered in its entirety by the biggest map of London he had ever seen, the river twisting around the city like a snake.
‘Mr Moncrieff. I have kept you waiting, and I ought to apologise.’
‘Not at all.’
Miss Walton closed the door behind her. She was wearing a long kimono-style yellow dress that hung loosely around her, and her dark brown hair was pinned with two tortoise-shell combs. She wasn’t exactly a pretty woman, but she had deep, beautiful eyes, and a curious mouth that could change swiftly from smirk to smile. Her expression metamorphosed very quickly, as sometimes happened with trained actors.
‘I’m afraid I got lost on the way here,’ Sam started. ‘You have chosen to shun civilisation, if I may say so.’
‘It has its advantages. People like your friends from the Society for Psychical Research do not think it worth their while to come all the way out here to expose me.’
Did she mean Mr Woodbury? He was hardly a ‘friend’, Sam thought.
Miss Walton moved briskly around the room. At a little side table under a window she lit a cigarette, the sun sending orange reflections around her.
‘The idea of the SPR coming here frightens you?’ Sam offered.
‘On the contrary, Mr Moncrieff. I’m only afraid they would be very disappointed indeed. They’d find the trek here a waste of time.’
‘Trek. The word is apt.’
‘As I said, I value my privacy,’ she gave another brief smile.
‘Quite an impressive book collection,’ he said, turning round admiringly. He had thought she would be pleased with his comment, but to his surprise she rolled her eyes in that way he knew well by now.
‘What is it that you want, Mr Moncrieff?’
‘I’ve come to have my palm read, of course.’
She ignored his attempt at a smile.
‘Very well. Sit at that round table. There’s tea coming up.’
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