by P J Reed
‘What’s the matter?’ Judith asked, glancing over her shoulder for signs of Mary.
‘I’m stuck,’ Ashley groaned. ‘My skin seems to be stuck to the wall. You gotta help me!’
Judith pulled again, harder this time. Ashley screamed but still did not move. Judith ripped open her bedside cabinet, the drawer flew from its runners as she emptied the contents over the floor.
Her craft scissors had to be in there.
A sudden coldness shot through her body. Judith looked down to see a grey arm plunging through her chest. The grey hand pushed Ashley into the wall. Ashley gasped. Her eyes caught Judith’s for a second and she vanished. Her existence marked only by a grey shadow on the wall.
Judith screamed and tried to push the arm from her stomach. Her hands found nothing.
The arm was retracted, leaving a black hole in her abdomen. Judith felt her head begin to swim and become disjointed from the figure below her, who was kneeling on the floor in a blood drenched school uniform.
‘Please Bloody Mary, I didn’t want to call you. They made me do it. They were going to post a video of me changing for P.E. all over the web. I had to call you,’ she whispered.
The grey hand reappeared and grabbed her throat. Twisted her around and slammed her into the wall, smudging Ashley’s silhouette. ‘Ah kind, you didn’t have to do anything. My nephew died standing up to the Nazi’s in Berlin, when the cowards came in the night to destroy his synagogue. I died defending the farm when the Russian troops came to evict us. You know nothing of suffering, child.’
Judith’s grabbed at the hand around her throat. Her hands feeling only the cold presence of a shtimung.
‘You’re not Bloody Mary, are you?’ she croaked. ‘Who are you? Name yourself demon.’
A grey face appeared, inches from hers.
‘Don’t you recognise your own kind. Where are my manners? Mama would be mortified! I am Judith…the real Judith Ginzburg. You are just my shadow. I have been watching you, ever since you read from the Bukh fun di Toyt, and very kindly released me from my unblessed grave.’
‘But I didn’t summon you at all. I was just reading in the library,’ Judith whispered as the pressure on her neck increased. A solitary tear rolled down her face.
Disembodied laughter rang around the destroyed room.
‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you? Reading is a highly dangerous occupation?’ Judith Ginzburg replied.
She plunged her hand into Judith’s chest and ripped out her beating heart. Her great-great-granddaughter collapsed forward onto the once cream carpet, blood pooling around her empty body. Judith looked at the pulsing, bloody object for a moment and then thrust it into her chest. She felt the fresh, living blood pump through her veins. Judith licked the blood from her fingertips and walked over to her new closet. At the back of the closet was a velvet black mini-dress which she poured over her body. It felt like oil against skin more used to the rough feel of woollen clothes. Then she sighed and went downstairs to get several bin bags, a shovel, a cleaning cloth, and some bleach.
Three hours later, Mrs Ginzburg wandered up the garden path, narrowly avoiding falling from the red Venetian garden tile into the white pansy borders. She managed to get the key to contact the keyhole on the second attempt and fell into the hallway, the Marks and Spencer shopping bags spewing their contents across the wooden floor. The house smelt of lemon polish, which was odd because the cleaner was not due to polish the wood and floors until Monday.
‘Darling, I’m home. Wear something nice for our guests,’ Mrs Ginzburg called up the stairs as she picked up the bags and staggered to the kitchen, a blaze of white and silver, which looked more like an operating theatre than the cosy nook she had requested. Either way it didn’t really matter; Leon never ate at home anymore and Judith was always in her room. Hannah opened the store cupboard and threw her shopping in. She poured herself a large cup of black coffee and checked her reflection in the American style fridge-freezer. Two hours in the beauty parlour had worked its magic. She opened the fridge and took out the trays of ornate, miniature canapés, the housekeeper had made that morning and swayed into the immaculate living room. She placed the trays on the coffee table and fell into a white leather armchair.
A loud knock at the door, resonated through the silent house and Hannah Ginzburg sat bolt upright, almost spilling her coffee.
‘I’ll get it!’ Judith yelled.
Hannah gasped as her daughter opened the front door and called out, ‘My darling you look so beautiful today!’
Judith turned around and smiled, ‘Well, we always want to look good for our guests, Mama.’
She opened the door. Father Ignatius stumbled in, still moaning to Reverend Anderson as he walked through the pristine hallway into the living room.
‘I hate bloody kids. They’re all little shits. One of them even stole my rosary from out of the rectory. The bastards. Next Sunday the sermon’s going to be twice as long and mostly in Latin. That’ll teach the little bastards… Ah food!’ Father Ignatius charged into the living room, helped himself to a plateful of Peach and Prosciutto canapes as he sat down in the centre of the leather sofa which squeaked suspiciously.
Reverend Anderson looked curiously at Judith. ‘It’s good to see you looking so vibrant, my dear.’ He held her hand for a moment too long and stared intently into her rouged face.
Judith pulled her hand away.
Rabbi Lerner puffed up behind the vicar, padding down his suit pockets searching for his inhaler. He took two deep puffs of the blue inhaler and gasped, ‘Sorry I’m late. I’ve been serving dinners in the homeless shelter and I got cornered by old Mrs Buckitt. She is convinced that demons are walking amongst us. Apparently, Ashdurton possesses a hellpit or something.’
‘It’s a shitpit for sure!’ the canape muffled voice of the Father called out.
Judith laughed and walked into the living room. The Reverend followed her. A photograph teetering on the edge of the imposing bookcase fell. Reverend Anderson caught it in one hand.
‘Well caught!’ Father Ignatius cheered, spraying pieces of peach across Hannah, who seemed oblivious to the onslaught.
‘Does anyone want some tea?’ Hannah rose and headed to the kitchen.
‘I’ll have a large whiskey with mine, Mrs Ginzburg,’ the Father called out.
Hannah smiled and a slim pale hand motioned towards the walnut drinks cabinet, ‘Please help yourself Father. I’m afraid we are running low on gin.’
Reverend Anderson replaced the photograph back on the shelf and looked thoughtfully at the picture. It was the one of Rabbi Schonfeld and his congregation just before the start of World War 2. He took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped the grey fingerprints from the glass frame. Then he frowned. Two of the frightened looking girls standing to the far right of the synagogue, wearing large stars on their coats, seemed familiar.
He shook his head.
It had been a long day. His mind was obviously playing tricks on him. Mrs Anderson always chastised him for working too hard. He smiled at the thought of her and gently replaced the photograph next to the equally steely looking one of Judith Ginzburg. The Reverend picked up the photograph. He knew some of her history from the gin-fuelled ramblings of Hannah.
Judith was a celebrated heroine of the Ginzburg family who had disappeared in the pogrom anti-Jewish purges of nineteenth century Russia. Her body had never been recovered. Anderson frowned. The photograph was covered in a series of tiny scratches, which he had never noticed before. He ran his hand over the glass. It was smooth to touch. The scratches were on the inside of the glass.
The face in the photograph moved. Her mouth opened and her right arm raised, pointing to something behind him. Quickly, Anderson replaced the photograph and hurried over to the sofa, draining the remains of Father Ignatius’ whiskey, while the good Father had left to use the bathroom.
Mrs Anderson was right. The stress of ministering was affecting his mind, he needed to find an outlet f
or the tension before it killed him. The china teapot lid clinked in the kitchen and his gaze followed the sound, his eyes falling on the contour of Hannah’s bottom, which was barely contained by a flimsy silk dress and instantly felt better.
‘Welcome to the monthly South-West Interfaith teenage steering group,’ Father Ignatius declared as he strode back into the room.
He fished a crumpled piece of paper from somewhere inside his cassock and cleared his throat. ‘Now let’s open this bloody meeting and get it over and done with. I’ve got an accumulator bet to check on for Love Island. First point of business – putting a stop to this sinful Bloody Mary crap that’s going around Ashdurton. It will cause all sorts of trouble. You mark my words.’