One morning, about a week later, I found a woman wandering about in our driveway. She had evidently been down to the cottage and was returning from it, somewhat indecisively. Her car was parked across the road. When she saw me she flinched slightly, but seemed reassured when I smiled and asked if I could help.
“I’m Leonie,” she said with a downward emphasis on the second syllable. “I’m the deputy head of Springfields. In charge of pupil welfare.”
She was in her late thirties, a shapeless woman dressed mostly in handwoven garments of sage green. She had a long, sagging face and wore a necklace of hand-beaten copper disks. Rather naïvely, perhaps, I thought she looked somewhat careworn for an employee at a supposedly “free” school.
“I rang up yesterday to make an appointment to see Mrs. Naga this morning, but she doesn’t seem to be there.”
“Her car isn’t in the drive. She must have gone out,” I said.
“I’m sorry. You are … ?”
“I’m John Weston. Her landlord. I live here at the main house.”
“I see,” said Leonie. There was a faint note of disapproval in her voice. “Do you know when she will be back?”
“I’m afraid I have no idea. Mrs. Naga is a law unto herself.”
“Yeah,” said Leonie. My last words seemed to have struck a chord. “Look, I think I should wait here a little in case she does turn up. Is that all right?”
“Of course,” I said, and invited her into our house for a coffee. Leonie seemed very awkward at first, but when she met Danielle in her wheelchair she relaxed a little. While I made coffee, Leonie began talking earnestly to my wife. Danielle still liked company in small doses, but became easily tired, especially when she had to address herself to strangers. Every now and then Leonie would go to the window to see if Yuki’s car was back in the carport beside the cottage.
When we were finally settled with our coffee, Leonie said: “Look, Mrs. Weston—Danielle, if I may—can I be frank with you?”
“Please do,” said Danielle, throwing me a quizzical glance. She was beginning to tire.
“It’s about Lee, Mrs. Naga’s son.”
“Oh, yes. Sweet boy.” My wife’s bland words troubled Leonie.
“Yeah, well … He can be difficult. I mean, it’s not his fault or anything. We don’t play the blame game at Springfields, but there must be some sort of trauma there. Perhaps abuse by the father. This is why I made an appointment to see Mrs. Naga. Lee is a bright boy, but he is being quite a disruptive influence. I have to think of all the kids, not just one. As you know, Springfields has a very nonauthoritarian ethos. There are no rules as such, but there are, well, like, lines in the sand. You know? Lee can behave very inappropriately, especially around the girls.”
“But he’s barely nine!”
“I know! I know! But that’s not all. There are other things. Worse. I can’t say, obviously. And he has this thing about fire. Twice he’s tried to burn down the tree house in the grounds. When there were kids in it too! And he put dead frogs in our vegetarian food—at least they were dead when we found them. The fact is, in all the eighty or so years of Springfields we have never had to ask anyone to leave. It looks as if we may have to. I’m sorry to burden you with all this, Danielle.” Leonie’s hand was trembling as she put down her coffee cup.
“That’s quite all right, Leonie,” Danielle said, with obvious weariness.
“The fact is, I don’t want to be judgmental, but the boy is a fucking little devil—oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Weston! I shouldn’t have said that—”
In her embarrassment Leonie got up and went to the window. Yuki had still not come home. When Leonie turned back from the window she saw that my wife had suddenly dropped off to sleep in her wheelchair, as she sometimes did toward the end.
“I’m sorry,” said Leonie, and fled from the house. Soon after she drove away.
Yuki did not come back until after six o’clock. I heard her car enter the carport by her cottage as I was preparing the supper. I thought it was necessary for me to tell her of Leonie’s visit, so when we had had our meal and Danielle was settled in front of the television, I went down to the cottage and knocked on Yuki’s door. The curtains were drawn and the lights were on, so she was obviously in, but there was no response. Perhaps she had not heard. I knocked louder, but there was still no reply. Then I walked around the cottage and rapped on one of the sitting room windows. Almost immediately the curtains were drawn and Yuki’s face was looking at me, her eyes black with fury. Then I saw a look of recognition in them and she indicated to me that she would go to open the front door.
The Yuki who met me there was smiling demurely, though I could not dispel the impression that this was only a mask that concealed other thoughts. She wore a peach-colored silk kimono that trailed round her feet and over it hung her lustrous black hair. Gone was the Western chic of her designer clothes; she had reverted to a more ancient archetype.
“What is it you must say, please?”
I gave her a brief résumé of what Leonie had told us that afternoon. Yuki listened impassively, the mask-like smile still on her lips, then she said:
“It does not matter. I am taking Lee away from Springfields in any case. It is a stupid school and he hates it. We will go back to Japan, I think.”
“When?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
I reminded her that, as her landlord, I needed at least a month’s notice of her departure.
“That will be no trouble,” she said carelessly. Her indifference was infuriating. I wanted somehow to smash the mask.
“And what about Justin?” I asked. “Have you told him you’re going?”
For a brief moment I saw surprise on her face. I have broken the mask, I thought. Then she began to laugh, that high-pitched bat-screech of a laugh that was barely a laugh at all. Her mouth opened enough for me to see her perfect little sharp teeth and the bright red interior of her head. The laughter went on until I could not bear it, so I got up and left.
Outside the cottage it was dark and a full moon hung in a clear night sky. Yuki had stopped laughing and I could hear nothing but a faint squeaking that came from the guttering of the cottage. There, almost on the corner of the building, an object like a black leather bag was suspended. I stared at it for some time, not daring to approach, let alone touch it.
A slight quiver told me that it was alive and then the lower part of it began to raise itself. Soon I would see its head. It was a bat, of that I was now sure. We had had them roosting in our roof and I was well-disposed toward the creatures, but this was so much larger than the pipistrelles to which we were accustomed. Soon I would see its deep brown Pekinese face and bulging black eyes. I wanted to move, but could not. Then I saw its face. It was not black at all, but white, almost like a mask, almost human, but through it the black eyes gleamed with senseless, feral hatred.
Up at the house, when I reached it, Danielle was calling to be taken to the bedroom. The tasks of a carer helped to wipe away some of the confused horror of that night. I began even to believe consolingly that I had been the victim of an illusion or a practical joke.
The following morning I rang Karen at the estate agent’s and asked her to deal with Yuki’s departure from the cottage. I wanted as far as possible to distance myself from her and the whole business. It was a relief to me that during the next few days I saw neither Yuki nor Lee nor Justin.
I live in a quiet lane of a quiet village in a quiet part of Suffolk. Apart from the occasional hooting of owls or the shriek of a vixen, the nights are virtually noiseless. That night, five days after my last interview with Yuki, was still and quiet. The sky was clear and the moon only just past its fullness. Danielle and I had retired early. Since her illness we had had separate bedrooms: it was easier, we were both agreed on that. Her room was at the front of the house, mine at the back, closer to Yuki’s cottage.
At about three o’clock I was woken by what my confused brain first told me was thunder. Yet I h
eard no rain to accompany it. The sound was rhythmical, almost like the banging of a drum. That was even more absurd. But the noise persisted: it was real.
I rose and put on a dressing gown and slippers. In the sitting room Laura was running about fearfully and clawing at the carpet. I looked out of the window and down to the cottage. I could just make out a dark figure at the door, banging at it. A faint light glowed from behind the drawn curtains; the figure went on banging. This was intolerable.
I picked up a flashlight and ran out of the house, down to the cottage. My flashlight shined onto the face of Justin. It was he who was standing at the door and banging on it with his fists. His face was ruined. Dark circles surrounded his eyes; his mouth was set in a rictus of pain. He looked like a soul in torment.
He did not stop when he saw me. He gave me one fleeting, agonized look, then returned to his drumming on the door, as if he were compelled to continue his work, regardless.
I shouted at him: “For God’s sake, stop that!”
“Go away!”
“Stop that at once.”
“Leave me alone!”
“No, I will not! This is my property. We can’t get to sleep with that racket.”
“All right, I’ll stop.” He stopped. “Now go away.”
After getting an assurance that there would be no more noise, I did. There was nothing I could do for him. The man was in Hell.
For the next hour or so I lay in bed waiting for the drumming to return, but it did not. I heard nothing more that night except, when my mind was just on the edge of sleep, a shrill, thin cry—like a beast in agony. That may have been an illusion.
I woke early. My mind was still unrested and I took my time with the simple pleasure of feeding Laura. When I looked out onto the garden, mist was coming up in strange spirals from the lake and I saw something dark floating on its surface.
I think instinct told me what I would find before I did. I unlocked the French windows and ran down the grass slope to the lake. The body of a man was lying face-downward on the still water. I waded in and pulled the thing out. Of course it was Justin. Of course he was dead. His mouth gaped madly.
I ran back to get to a telephone in the house, passing as I did so the little pond beside Yuki’s cottage. There I saw on its bank another body, again facedown, dressed in a kimono of peach-colored silk. The silk was torn and sprayed with blood. The body was battered and bruised, but when I turned her over I saw that the head was undamaged.
This was odd, but not so odd nor so horrible as the fact that her face, framed by the familiar shiny flat black hair with its lightning streak of white, was not only without a wound but completely featureless. Across the oval space where her eyes, nose, mouth and chin should have been was a flat expanse of bare magnolia-colored flesh with not a mark on it. The skin appeared to be stretched tightly, like that on a drum.
REGGIE OLIVER has been a professional playwright, actor, and theater director since 1975. Besides plays, his publications include the authorized biography of Stella Gibbons, Out of the Woodshed, published by Bloomsbury in 1998, and five collections of stories of supernatural terror, of which the latest, Mrs. Midnight, won the Children of the Night Award for Best Work of Supernatural Fiction in 2011. Forthcoming is a new collection, entitled Flowers of the Sea. Tartarus Press has reissued his first and second collections, The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and The Complete Symphonies of Adolf Hitler, with new illustrations by the author; his novel The Dracula Papers I—The Scholar’s Tale is the first of a projected four, and an omnibus edition of the author’s stories, entitled Dramas from the Depths, is published by Centipede as part of the Masters of the Weird Tale series.
The Robber Bridegroom
There was once upon a time a miller, who had a beautiful daughter, and as she was grown-up, he wished that she was provided for, and well married. He thought, If any good suitor comes and asks for her, I will give her to him.
Not long afterward, a suitor came, who appeared to be very rich, and as the miller had no fault to find with him, he promised his daughter to him. The maiden, however, did not like him quite so much as a girl should like the man to whom she is engaged, and had no confidence in him. Whenever she saw, or thought of him, she felt a secret horror.
Once he said to her, “You are my betrothed, and yet you have never once paid me a visit.”
The maiden replied, “I know not where your house is.”
Then said the bridegroom, “My house is out there in the dark forest.”
She tried to excuse herself and said she could not find the way there.
The bridegroom said, “Next Sunday you must come out there to me. I have already invited the guests, and I will strew ashes in order that you may find your way through the forest.”
When Sunday came, and the maiden had to set out on her way, she became very uneasy. She herself knew not exactly why, and to mark her way she filled both her pockets full of peas and lentils.
Ashes were strewn at the entrance of the forest, and these she followed, but at every step she threw a couple of peas on the ground. She walked almost the whole day until she reached the middle of the forest, where it was the darkest, and there stood a solitary house, which she did not like—for it looked so dark and dismal. She went inside it, but no one was within, and the most absolute stillness reigned.
Suddenly a voice cried, “Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear, ’tis a murderer’s house you enter here!”
The maiden looked up, and saw that the voice came from a bird, which was hanging in a cage on the wall. Again it cried, “Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear, ’tis a murderer’s house you enter here!”
Then the young maiden went on farther from one room to another, and walked through the whole house, but it was entirely empty and not one human being was to be found. At last she came to the cellar, and there sat an extremely aged woman, whose head shook constantly.
“Can you not tell me,” said the maiden, “if my betrothed lives here?”
“Alas, poor child,” replied the old woman, “whither have you come? You are in a murderer’s den. You think you are a bride soon to be married, but you will keep your wedding with Death. Look, I have been forced to put a great kettle on there, with water in it, and when they have you in their power, they will cut you into pieces without mercy, will cook you, and eat you, for they are eaters of human flesh. If I do not have compassion on you, and save you, you are lost.”
Thereupon the old woman led her behind a great hogshead, where she could not be seen. “Be still as a mouse,” said she, “do not make a sound, or move, or all will be over with you. At night, when the robbers are asleep, we will escape. I have long waited for an opportunity.”
Hardly was this done than the godless crew came home. They dragged with them another young girl. They were drunk, and paid no heed to her screams and lamentations.
They gave her wine to drink, three glasses full, one glass of white wine, one glass of red, and a glass of yellow, and with this her heart burst in twain. Thereupon they tore off her delicate raiment, laid her on a table, cut her beautiful body into pieces and strewed salt thereon.
The poor bride behind the cask trembled and shook, for she saw right well what fate the robbers had destined for her.
One of them noticed a gold ring on the finger of the murdered girl and, as it would not come off at once, he took an ax and cut the finger off. But it sprang up in the air, away over the cask, and fell straight into the bride’s bosom.
The robber took a candle and wanted to look for it, but could not find it. Then another of them said, “Have you looked behind the great hogshead?”
But the old woman cried, “Come get something to eat, and leave off looking till the morning. The finger won’t run away from you.”
Then the robbers said, “The old woman is right,” and gave up their search, and sat down to eat. And the old woman poured a sleeping-draft in their wine, so that they soon lay down in the cellar, and slept and snored.
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When the bride heard that, she came out from behind the hogshead, and had to step over the sleepers, for they lay in rows on the ground, and great was her terror lest she should waken one of them. But God helped her, and she got safely over.
The old woman went up with her, opened the doors, and they hurried out of the murderer’s den with all the speed in their power.
The wind had blown away the strewn ashes, but the peas and lentils had sprouted and grown up, and showed them the way in the moonlight. They walked the whole night, until in the morning they arrived at the mill, and then the maiden told her father everything exactly as it had happened.
When the day came for the wedding to be celebrated, the bridegroom appeared, and the miller had invited all his relations and friends. As they sat at table, each was bidden to relate something. The bride sat still, and said nothing.
Then said the bridegroom to the bride, “Come, my darling, do you know nothing? Relate something to us like the rest.”
She replied, “Then I will relate a dream. I was walking alone through a wood, and at last I came to a house, in which no living soul was, but on the wall there was a bird in a cage which cried, ‘Turn back, turn back, young maiden dear, ’tis a murderer’s house you enter here.’ And this it cried once more. My darling, I only dreamt this.
“Then I went through all the rooms, and they were all empty, and there was something so horrible about them. At last I went down into the cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, whose head shook. I asked her, ‘Does my bridegroom live in this house?’ She answered, ‘Alas poor child, you have got into a murderer’s den, your bridegroom does live here, but he will hew you in pieces, and kill you, and then he will cook you, and eat you.’ My darling I only dreamt this.
“But the old woman hid me behind a great hogshead, and scarcely was I hidden, when the robbers came home, dragging a maiden with them, to whom they gave three kinds of wine to drink—white, red, and yellow—with which her heart broke in twain. My darling, I only dreamt this.
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