The woman was kneeling in front of a wall at the end, a wall with a particularly worrying mouldy patch, on which a kind of green energy, or light, seemed to be vibrating. She wasn’t alone. Next to her sat Eliza Waltraud. The younger woman was unmistakable, with her unruly mat of blonde curls. What in God’s name were they doing? They had some objects around them, the most prominent a large green rock.
‘Miss Waltraud!’ The younger woman did not seem to hear him either. By now the reverend was feeling rather impatient. He wanted to leave that place, but the feeling of dread also meant that he felt he had a moral duty to take these absurd women back with him. He advanced in their direction, raising his voice: ‘My dear, this will not do! I insist! You—’ but the reverend did not finish his sentence. He was now behind the women, very close to them, and his hand had moved towards Eliza’s shoulders; and, to his utter amazement it had passed right through them, as if she was a ghost.
With a cry, the reverend fell backwards, and hit his head. And everything went as black as a well, a canal, a destructive flood.
* * *
He got up to the woodpigeon cooing, and to darkness. He didn’t know how long he had been gone. There was a stale taste in his mouth, and he knew that he had been breathing the mould and the rubble and the dirt.
Eliza seemed to be breathing, he could see that; she also looked more solid, felt more solid, thank goodness, when he rushed to her. There was, however, something odd about her.
‘Miss Waltraud! Please!’
Eliza was hanging in the air in a strange posture, as if someone or something invisible was grabbing her by the shoulders. Presently, she fell flat on the floor, and started whining softly. She opened her eyes. She was conscious.
What there was no sign of was the other lady, and he could not remember her name.
Miss Waltraud looked at him; she gave the appearance of not being able to walk very far, and he didn’t think he could carry her back. He thought it better to go for help; he hated the idea of leaving the young woman alone there, but could not think of anything else to do. Before he left her he saw she had a pendant hanging from her neck, another green rock. He had an idea; he took out a cross from his pocket, and put it also around her neck. Asking her to stay calm, reassuring her that he would be back soon, he left the Tudor ruins and ran for help.
He didn’t get very far. As he left the copse the reverend saw two girls playing. Who could they possibly be? They were dressed in a fashion long gone, even in that backward place. Their hair was twisted into precious curls.
‘Flora!’ called one of them to the other. The smallest child turned back just as she was about to leave the meadow, walked over to the other child and took her hand. And they both advanced towards the reverend.
‘Please, sir, we are tired, and hungry.’
‘My dear, what is your name?’
‘Alice Matthews.’
Matthews? It had to be a distant relative of Lady Matthews, visiting perhaps. How odd he had not known this. They looked past him over his shoulder, and he turned towards the house. Eliza Waltraud was coming out, walking by herself.
‘Well, I need to go and get help. Could you children please stay with Miss Waltraud here?’
The children smiled and nodded, and started walking in the direction of the house.
‘Don’t go inside!’ the reverend shouted without thinking. ‘Please, stay out here…’ He stopped. Something was not right. What was it? The reverend realised it then, the smell: a huge fire. With incredible effort he ran, coming out of a meadow into a field opposite Lady Matthews’s estate, to see the abbey engulfed by the flames.
* * *
By the coast, on the sand, the water slowly receding from their feet, were two other bodies, lying next to each other and holding hands.
Samuel Moncrieff woke up to a grey indeterminate mass that he understood slowly to be the sky. Instinctively he looked to his hand, holding another. Next to him on the sand Helena Walton slept. How long had he been away? The woman lying next to him looked like Helena, but at least twenty years after he had met her, in her mid-forties.
Sam got up and heaved this new old woman into his arms, and thus carrying her, he started to walk out of that solitary stretch of the beach, back to the normal world.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has existed in many forms and iterations. It first entered the world as a short story in my Clarion workshop: I am thankful to all my Clarion classmates from 2014 and in particular to our teacher Catherynne Valente, who saw its potential and encouraged me to carry on working with it. As it grew into a novel it became a part of my master’s portfolio in the Cambridge University Creative Writing MSt. I am thankful to my classmates from my cohort (2014-2016) for indulging me and teasing me in equal measure during the two years of the course for being the only person in the class writing genre fiction, gothic fiction. As the facts show, I ended up not being the only person writing gothic fiction: I felt very proud to have inspired someone to come over to the dark side. Of my teachers, special thanks are due to Sarah Burton and Jem Poster, who were always accepting, of my writing but also of me. Michael Womack drove me around the fens whenever I asked him to, and James Womack introduced me to the work of George MacDonald. All these experiences have enriched the book, but special thanks need to be extended to my editor at Titan, Sophie Robinson, who transformed an inchoate story into something with meaning and purpose. Thanks also to my agent, Alexander Cochran at C&W Agency for excellent advice at a crucial time: here’s to the next book.
Many books and archive collections, talks and chats, in England and in Spain, have inspired this story, from an article in the Times Literary Supplement about reissued female detective novels, to my experience working at Cambridge University Library, which holds the magnificent SPR archive and collection. I am grateful to Cambridge University librarians for their support and time. Anything that makes sense in this book is down to the people listed here, and anything that doesn’t make sense is entirely the result of my own intransigence.
PS. The reader will forgive me for having taken one historical license. The Petit Trianon affair is mentioned in the spring of 1901, when it actually took place in the summer of that year and wasn’t reported until several years later, when an account was published. I have taken the decision to keep it like this, a decision which should become clear if there are further installments of Helena’s story: reader, this will depend on you.
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
What themes stood out to you?
What is the link between the faerie tale The Golden Key by George MacDonald and this novel?
Share a favourite quote. Why did this quote stand out?
Why do you think Lady Matthews waited so long to investigate her stepdaughters’ disappearance?
How are Helena and Eliza usual women for their era?
How did Helena and Sam change through the novel? How did your opinion of them change?
At the end of the novel, Helena and Eliza attempt to reach Sam through the portal. Would you have done the same?
Who could you imagine playing the main characters in a screen adaptation?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marian Womack was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFS award. Marian teaches literary genre fiction at the Oxford University Creative Writing Master’s degree. She lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their son and two aging Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working in libraries, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.
marianwomack.com
@beekeepermadrid
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