by Graham West
“This is as much God’s creature as the lion,” he told me. I knew that. I saw the beauty in those glorious colours. I cried because I could not understand why God bestowed such a tiny creature with such glory and left me, his child, destitute. My father enquired as to what had caused my distress, and when I told him he took me by my shoulders and told me that he loved me and to be loved was more important than physical beauty.
Later on, in the woodland, he had picked up a small frog. “Look,” he said, “a creature, devoid of beauty, but wonderful in the eyes of its creator.” I laughed. Its eyes were like mine. I made a croaking sound. If I were green, I might be mistaken for a frog. Sarah read me a passage out of the Bible afterwards. Jesus healed the leper. Sarah said that Jesus could still heal and she prayed for me.
I should count my blessings. My father loves me and so does Sarah. I don’t think that Mr. Stanwick loves my mother. She has the whole house, and I have only this room, yet I have love.
I felt her reaching out through the page and heard her voice. I was there, in that garden.
It is raining today, and Mr. Stanwick is returning at the end of the week. My heart feels heavy with the news of his arrival, for I know that I shall be confined to my room throughout the duration of his stay. My occasional adventures within the grounds will be forbidden, and my father will find work elsewhere until he goes. Today is as joyless as the darkest night.
I hated Stanwick—a cruel man whose bitterness had ensured Amelia’s continued existence away from the public eye, yet she had managed to find comfort in the presence of her father and her governess.
The master of the house arrived midday and sent Sarah home. Sarah had been crying, I could tell, although she tried hard to be brave. I won’t see Sarah until Monday, so I am alone for two days. I have several books, and my food will be left outside the door, as my mother is not allowed any contact with me while he is at home. The sun is shining and I long to see my father. Where is he?
I closed my eyes. Why hadn’t her father come to his daughter’s rescue? Fear? Poverty? Shame? I read on.
I read my Bible today. I found comfort in the 23rd Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd.
Somewhere in those diaries, I would read of the moment Allington took Amelia, ripping at her clothes and forcing himself upon her. My heart ached for this young girl, and an anger rose within me. My father had risen every Sunday morning with a song on his lips and in his heart. He would take his place in the church pew, not out of duty, but out of love for his God and his joy was infectious.
I saw a radiance in my father’s face as he drew me to him. As a child, I felt I knew God through my father. When I went to heaven, I believed that The Almighty would look and behave just like Dad—I had never had imagined a greater being. Now I was reading an account of a man—a wolf dressed as a sheep or worse—a wolf dressed as a shepherd. A man who had preached the word of God with evil in his heart. I felt my father’s rage like a fire within.
I couldn’t sleep that night. The vast expanse of water that formed Tabwell’s only lake stretched before me, a dark lonely grave that refused to surrender its secret. Find the body. Release Jenny.
It was a hopeless task. The lake was deep, murky and extremely cold. No authority would commission a team of divers to look for a body on the word of a girl with mental health issues. But I had to find her—somehow, some way.
I called Sebastian the following day. He had just purchased a coffee machine and seemed anxious to try his bag of fresh rich roast Brazilian beans out on someone. I walked into a house that smelled like a high street coffee shop, complete with hissing and gurgling sounds filtering through from the kitchen.
Sebastian arrived with a cup of something that looked suspiciously like the contents of Tabwell’s lake.
“I’m not sure how that will taste—you don’t have to drink it,” he said, unable to disguise his pride at having mastered a piece of modern technology.
I sipped the liquid, finding it a little too mild but surprisingly acceptable. I nodded approvingly.
Sebastian grinned. “So, what’s been happening?”
I told the old man about the lake, feeling that he was my only hope. If he told me that the pursuit of Amelia’s body was a hopeless quest then it really was.
Sebastian shook his head. “You know, Robert? I can’t help feeling that we are missing something, here.” He saw the look of puzzlement on my face. “Forget about the lake—that’s my gut feeling. We can’t go diving, and no one else will entertain the idea.”
“But if she’s there?”
Sebastian smiled. “That’s just it—I don’t believe she is.”
We talked some more, but they were the last words I really remembered. It had been easy to forget how Sebastian had come into our lives. It was a feeling—a gut instinct. A sixth sense. Was that sixth sense now steering us away from the lake? I prayed it was.
I found myself driving to Tabwell once more, stopping off at the library. The woman at the desk smiled warmly when she saw me approaching. “Did you find the lake?” she asked.
I nodded. “It’s a nice spot but not what I was looking for.”
The woman frowned, and before I’d had time to consider the wisdom of confiding in a complete stranger, I was relating the full story of Amelia Root and her demise, throwing in a few white lies to cover myself. As far as the librarian was concerned, Amelia had suggested in her diary that she was going to drown herself—it was easier that way. The librarian listened attentively as her computer’s screen saver flashed up.
“So that’s why I’m here,” I concluded. “Looking for her body.”
The woman grimaced. “Well, it’s a fascinating tale,” she said, tapping her keyboard. “But I’m afraid I can’t be of much help if you’re looking for a natural expanse of water.” She paused. “And you don’t actually know if she succeeded in…you know…drowning herself?”
I did, of course. But I could not bring myself to reveal how. “Pretty sure,” I replied.
I was standing with my arms hanging by my sides, feeling totally helpless, as the clock ticked on. The librarian smiled sympathetically. She had work to do, and it didn’t involve looking for skeletons. I thanked her and wandered over to the local history section. Maybe something would grab my attention—something I’d missed before.
In all the dramas I’d watched, this would be the point where the protagonist would find that vital piece of information that he or she required. Me? No such luck. There were plenty of books written by local historians. Tabwell’s Soldiers. Local Walkers’ Guide and Tabwell’s Artists.
I drove home feeling defeated and called Sebastian the moment I walked through the front door. I thought I’d call in and unburden myself on the way to the hospital. On the way to his house, I fiddled with the buttons on the car radio until I found a song I liked; I think it was The Eagles. I can’t remember the song, but it hardly matters because the station switched suddenly. Neil Diamond was on the second verse of his classic ‘I Am, I Said’.
I tried to switch back but the radio seemed to have locked. It stayed on that channel for one line and then it switched again, and The Eagles were back on. I would have thought nothing of it if the temperature in the car had not dropped to what was pretty damn close to freezing. The heating was on three, which should have been—and up to that point had been—comfortable. I turned up the dial and blasted hot air through the car for a good five minutes. Now the car was warm, but the chill I felt was in my veins. Amelia had meddled like this before.
***
Sebastian smiled. “She’s determined, I’ll give her that.”
Maybe there was something in the line—about frogs dreaming of being kings—but was it about frogs, kings or dreams? The old man thought but couldn’t come up with an answer, and on my way to the hospital, I found myself praying to a dead woman. Maybe this was how it all started—the gradual slide into insanity.
If you have a teenager whom you think isn’t listening to you, try
talking to one in a coma. It’s hard on every level, but I managed to find something to tell her about my visit to Tabwell and the library with the nice lady behind the desk. I imagined what my daughter might say: Was she pretty? Did you fancy her? I hated holding the power. I could say anything with no fear of a reply. I could call her mother names—I could tell her how wonderful Melissa was. Jenny would not even flinch.
I listened to some New Orleans jazz on the way home, waiting for Amelia to start fiddling with the controls again. She didn’t. Why? Why can’t you just tell me where you are? What’s with all the cryptic shit?
I headed straight for the kitchen to check out the fridge magnet alphabet, but they were all lined up neatly in the correct order. I put a Tony Bennett CD on the hi-fi and poured myself a rum and ginger. I’d forgotten to eat anything, and the alcohol began to fog my brain before I’d drained the glass. I poured myself a second. I needed sleep but I feared the bed.
I had not made a conscious decision to drink myself into a stupor, but I fell asleep in the early hours, propped up on the couch with a half-empty glass in my hand, praying that my dreams would take me to Amelia.
They didn’t. Instead, I found myself wandering through a meadow, breathing in the sweet smell of wildflowers. I listened to the birdsong and the crickets as I settled under a tree. In my dream, everything was right with the world although I sensed that I could not remain there for long. I was there for a reason, led by a spiritual force, and I waited, listening intently to the world around me.
I heard a croak, faint but unmistakable. I looked down at the tiny frog that sat on the bark, watching me with interest. “Hello, young fella,” I said, reaching down to pick him up. The frog was lost in the palm of my hand. “You need to get back to your pond.”
I woke with a start—almost as if I’d been hit with a thunderbolt. The frog had leapt into the long grass, his mission accomplished. The answer had been there all along and I’d missed it.
I found Amelia’s diary on the kitchen table and thumbed through it wildly, my heart racing, until I came to the page and read the line over and over again.
Later on, in the woodland, he had picked up a small frog. “Look,” he said. “A creature devoid of beauty but wonderful in the eyes of its creator.”
A frog. Of course. A frog, out of water…but water that could not have been that far away. The woodland I had visited in my dream was the place Amelia had walked with her father in the grounds of the Stanwicks’ home. Somewhere in those woods, there was water—a lake or a marsh big enough to invite a frog, and hopefully big enough to swallow a young girl.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Farriday sounded alarmed by my early morning call. It was only eight, but I could not wait any longer. The internet had not thrown up any information. I sidestepped the formal greetings, getting straight to the reason for my call. “Is there any woodland in your grounds?” I asked.
“There is some woodland,” Farriday said, “but it’s quite overgrown.”
“Is there a lake or a pond there?”
“There is. We sure get the frogs—loads of them!” He paused. “Why do you ask?”
I could hardly contain my excitement. “That’s where Amelia’s body lies—at the bottom of a pond in that woodland.”
I cut across the stunned silence. “I need the pond dredged—I need to find Amelia’s remains.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Adams. The woodland is kind of in our grounds, but the council bought it several years ago with a view to making it into a nature reserve with walks and a picnic area, which would be open to our residents as well as the public.”
“So why is it overgrown?” I asked, my heart sinking slowly into my stomach.
“They decided there wasn’t enough money in the pot to develop it. I think they’ve kind of scrapped the whole idea.”
After twenty minutes of trawling everything to do with Tabwell on the web, I managed to find a contact number for the local council and finally ended up talking to a Gerald Davey, who was something to do with the environment. Davey knew the woodland. It was known locally as Mosswood.
When I asked Davey if there was any water there, he laughed.
“There is,” he said brightly, “hence the name Mosswood. It’s not quite a lake but not a pond, either. We’ve had to fence it off in case any kids get into the area. It’s quite dangerous.”
I sagged despondently. What next?
Davey continued, “It’s too expensive to develop and it’s not on our to-do list, I’m afraid.”
“So it’s just going to be left?”
“Unless someone buys it…”
“Is that a possibility?”
“I’m afraid I can’t divulge that information,” he replied politely. “Why do you ask?”
I really didn’t want to go into the whole story again, and I doubted Davey would have been impressed even if he hadn’t come to the conclusion I was some kind of spiritualist crackpot.
“Just interested. Thank you for your time, Mr. Davey,” I replied courteously.
I hung up. Another dead end. I sank back into the chair, exhausted and weary. My head ached and my heart felt like lead in my chest. I slept only to escape the pain.
***
Jenny lay silently as I told her about the events of the day, trying to sound upbeat but feeling as if I were walking through an endless tunnel. My body was tired but my mind was as active as a kid on a trampoline, so Josie and I ended up at the diner, drinking coffee and eyeing the cheesecake. It was a minute past midnight and Kerry, a woman in her mid-thirties who would still require ID to buy alcohol, brought us a fresh jug of water.
Josie smiled. We should have been the only people in there but I’d counted ten in total. “Thank God for insomniacs, eh?” she said to Kerry, who laughed politely.
“It’s a haven for troubled souls,” she said. “I’m not sure if we should be serving them caffeine!” Kerry spun on her heels and I found myself watching the rear of the year through a tight black dress.
Josie tutted and shook her head. “Men! Honestly!”
I opened my mouth, about to defend myself with a lie, but Josie grinned. “It’s okay, you’re a man. It’s a condition—an untreatable one!” The smile faded as she reached over and placed her hand over mine. “You’ll get through this, hun.”
I’d told her about Councillor Davey and water in the woodland. I’d told her about the car radio, the song and the dream, the passage in the diary and my fading hopes. “ I’ve got the insurance money. I could use that to get the pond dredged. If it runs out, I’d just go back to work.”
Josie looked serious, as if she were going to say something she’d thought long and hard about.
“What is it?”
Josie shrugged. “Look, I know that you’re doing all this for Jenny, I really do…”
“But?”
“You’re pinning all your hopes on recovering a skeleton.”
I didn’t answer.
“Listen, Rob, I know that you really believe all this stuff, and maybe you’re right. But Jenny’s coma is a medical thing. Maybe you should be placing more of that faith in the doctors.”
“They can’t find anything wrong. They don’t know why…”
Josie was still holding my hand. We looked like a couple having an affair, miles from our respective partners. “Look, I’m delighted that Amelia exists, but it doesn’t mean that Jenny is possessed by her. Okay, I can’t explain it—I don’t know what’s going on—but she needs you there, by her side, not running around body hunting.”
I glared at her, pulling my hand away. “That’s what you think? I’m a bad father?”
“I didn’t say that! You’re a good dad—a brilliant dad, in fact—I just don’t want to see you chasing shadows.”
“Sebastian is no fool, Josie. He is convinced that Jenny’s condition is related to Amelia.”
Josie shook her head. “I’m not suggesting he’s a fool, but he’s a convert.”
“Meaning
?”
“You told me yourself, Sebastian was a tub-thumping atheist. Then he encounters a ghost and sees the light, just like St. Paul on the Damascus road! He’s committed, Robert. Whether it’s atheism or spiritualism, he immerses himself in his beliefs.”
“It doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
“No, but it stops him looking at things logically.”
“You don’t know him. He isn’t like that.”
Josie shrugged. “Well okay, let’s look at your prospects. Who do you think is going to dredge that pond?”
I shrugged. I had no idea
“Jenny will come out of this coma, and when she does, she will need you more than ever.”
I felt my heart—my spirit—in the vice-like grip of that steel claw, closing, crushing.
Josie sat in silence beside me as I drove her back to The Keys, but when we arrived, she kissed me gently on the cheek and said goodbye. I didn’t respond. Even her love failed to lift my spirits.
The rum bottle was empty. I’d returned it to the cabinet rather than putting it in the bin. I didn’t want it staring up at me in the recycling crate, reminding me that I was drinking too much. I poured myself an orange juice and took myself off to bed.
Bob Dylan’s autobiography lay gathering dust on my bedside table. I opened it at the page with the corner folded over and began to read, without bothering to undress, and woke six hours later, relieved to see daylight.
Josie had put a doubt in my mind. Was I really being irrational? Was Jenny’s coma nothing more than a medical condition that had confused the doctors? I called Sebastian.
“Robert, slow down,” he said as I emptied my muddled mind, rattling off a jumble of words with the speed of a machine gun. “You’re not being irrational. I’ve studied the paranormal in conjunction with the science that I had placed all my faith in for so many years, and I still believe there are things that cannot be explained.”