The Woman in the Woods

by Lisa Hall

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘If you pump, I’ll give Leo his late feed too. That way you can enjoy some wine and relax for a couple of hours.’

  I want to believe that he’ll do this, but bitter experience tells me he won’t. Something will come up at work, and he’ll text to say he’s going to be late – that’s what usually happens. I wonder if it is guilt that is making him unusually patient and attentive this morning. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask him to tell me where he really was yesterday, to tell him that I saw his car parked outside The Black Horse last night when he says he was over forty miles away in Bromley. That I know he was with Naomi, not Gareth. But there is a part of me that thinks – hopes – that it wasn’t what I imagined, and a part of me that doesn’t want to know if it was. ‘You should get going,’ I say instead, letting him kiss my forehead and watching as he walks towards the door. ‘See you tonight.’

  Mina wakes not long after Rav leaves, followed by the baby, his shrill cries making my hairs stand on end as I remember the noises coming from the woods in the dead of night, the noises that sounded like a crying child. Agnes’s crying child. I feed him urgently, shoving my breast in his face in order to stop the crying, then feeling guilty as he snuffles and wrenches his head away.

  ‘Sorry, baby.’ I kiss him on his soft, downy hair, closing my eyes and inhaling his scent, feeling the sharp pinch as he finally latches on and begins to feed. Mina comes to sit close by me, her colour back to normal now and as I press my hand to her forehead, it feels cooler.

  ‘No nursery today,’ I tell her, as she presses herself against me, her weight a small, suffocating cushion as her sharp elbows dig into my ribs. ‘We’re going to see a lady.’

  I had texted Miranda after my mother had left, asking her about visiting Mrs Sparks. It had been less than an hour later when she had replied, telling me that Mrs Sparks would see me this morning. I feel apprehensive now, as the baby finishes feeding and I tuck him in the pram, before helping Mina with her trainers, and I am glad when a knock on the door signals the arrival of my mother. Stepping out onto the path to the pavement, I pause for a moment wondering whether I should turn back and pick up the keys from where Rav threw them onto the dresser.

  ‘Allie? Are you ready? We don’t want to be late.’ My mother stands waiting for me under the small amount of shade cast by the yew tree in the front garden.

  ‘I’m ready.’ I help Mina onto the buggy board, making sure her hands are holding tightly to the handle of the pram and start walking. ‘You shouldn’t stand near that tree, it’s poisonous you know.’

  ‘Tree of Death.’ Mum rolls her eyes. ‘I didn’t touch it, don’t worry so much.’ She falls into step beside me and we walk in silence towards the outskirts of the village. I don’t have much to say, anxiety squeezing my stomach as I wonder what Mrs Sparks will tell me about the house, if anything at all. It’s only a short walk to her house and when we reach it, I realize I have walked past many times on the way to take Mina to the park.

  ‘Here,’ I say. ‘This is it.’ We stop, and I take a moment to catch my breath. ‘OK. Let’s knock on the door and see what she has to say.’ I lift the knocker and drop it twice, the thud sounding abruptly loud in the quiet of the street. A few moments later the door swings open, and a woman with a lanyard around her neck appears.

  ‘Allie Harper? Mrs Sparks is expecting you.’ She stands to one side and I manoeuvre the pram awkwardly into the dimly lit hallway. ‘I’m Mrs Sparks’s carer. Follow me, I’ll introduce you to her.’ Mina steps off the buggy board and slides her hand into mine. The baby is sleeping, so I pull his blanket a little lower – the air is stifling – and leave him in the pram. I shoot an anxious look at my mother, but she nods and makes a shooing motion for me to follow the nurse. We step through a doorway into a cluttered sitting room. Ornaments cover every inch of available surface, as thin sunshine battles its way through yellowing nets and Phil and Holly talk soundlessly on the television. An elderly lady sits in a high-backed armchair, a hand-knitted shawl over her legs. She looks frail and fragile, other-worldly almost.

  ‘Elsie?’ The nurse crouches in front of her. ‘This is the lady Miranda was telling you about. This is Allie Harper. She’s come to talk to you about the old house.’ She flashes me a reassuring smile and makes a discreet exit.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Sparks, thank you for agreeing to talk to me.’ I perch on the edge of the sofa opposite, Mina sliding to stand between my knees. ‘This is my mother, Sophie.’

  ‘It is nice to meet you, Mrs Sparks.’ My mother steps forward into a thin shaft of sunlight that forces its way through a gap in the net curtains.

  The elderly lady’s gaze drifts towards my mother, and then back down to me, her blue eyes clear and bright. ‘Elsie. Call me Elsie.’ Her voice is quiet, and I lean in to hear her. ‘So, you live in the cottage? At Gowdie Cottage?’

  ‘I do, yes. We moved in a few months ago.’

  ‘How are you finding it?’ Her eyes fix on mine.

  ‘Oh, we like it. I mean, the cottage is beautiful … the garden … the garden needs some work, but luckily I’m a florist.’ My mouth feels dry, and I raise my gaze to where my mother has retreated to the doorway, giving the old lady some space. ‘Tell her,’ she mouths. I nod and turn back to Elsie.

  ‘Is it quiet?’ Elsie asks.

  ‘Quiet?’

  ‘At night. Is it quiet? Or are you woken?’

  I think of the child’s cries that have woken me almost every night this week. ‘Sometimes.’

  My mother shifts impatiently in the doorway and I take a breath. ‘Listen, Elsie, I found something in the cottage, and I wanted to ask you about it. It was a set of two iron keys, tied together with feathers and a stone with a hole through the middle.’

  ‘The hag stone,’ Elsie says quietly. ‘You found it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I found it under the floorboards in the attic. There was a mirror, and when I moved the mirror I saw the feather. You don’t know anything about it, do you? I told Miranda and she said you used to live there, that you might have some more information about the house.’

  ‘Agnes Gowdie’s house,’ Elsie says. ‘She’s still there, they say. What did you do with the keys?’

  ‘They’re in my bedroom. I’ve hung the mirror on the wall in the hall, it’s like it was supposed to be there.’ I smile at the thought of it. ‘So, you do know about the keys?’

  ‘I put them there,’ Elsie says, her face growing serious. ‘I hid them under the floorboards. They’re a charm, you see. To protect the house.’ She looks at Mina. ‘Things quietened down after I hid the charm, but by then it was too late.’

  Ice water trickles through my veins and I shiver as if someone has just walked over my grave. ‘Quietened down? What do you mean?’

  ‘My mother had the gift,’ Elsie says. ‘She said I had it too, and I’ve always wondered if that’s the reason why it all happened.’

  ‘The gift?’ My mother steps back into the beam of sunlight next to Elsie’s chair, one hand outstretched to rest on Elsie’s arm. ‘What do you mean, gift?’

  ‘The house was always … active,’ Elsie says, ‘but it got worse after my little brother was born. I would hear crying in the night, but he would be sleeping. We would feel as if someone was in the room with us, but there was no one there. Things moved of their own accord. I saw her, you know. Agnes. After the baby was born. That’s why I had to make the charm.’ She waggles her fingers at Mina, but her face is dark. ‘Do you just have this little one?’

  ‘No,’ I say. My throat feels thick, closing over as fear tickles at the base of my spine. ‘I have a little boy. Leo. He’s four weeks old.’

  Elsie looks up at me sharply. ‘You have to put it back,’ she says, a quiver in her voice. ‘The charm, you have to put it back under the floorboards. It’s there to keep you safe. Promise me you’ll put it back.’ Her voice rises and the nurse bustles her way into the room.

  ‘You’re upsetting her. I’m g
oing to have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I …’ I get up, squeezing Mina’s hand tightly. ‘I’ll put it back, OK? Just please, tell me what happened in the house. Tell me what Agnes did.’

  ‘Put it back,’ Elsie says. Her eyes move down to where my mother’s hand still rests lightly on her forearm. ‘You’ve disturbed things. It’s there to keep the children safe.’

  ‘Allie, what the hell are you doing?’ Rav walks into the bedroom as the light is fading.

  ‘Looking for the keys,’ I say, pulling out T-shirts and vests from the chest of drawers. I had hurried home from Mrs Sparks’s house, dread lodged like a stone in my stomach. My mother had wanted to come in and talk over what Elsie had said, but she had had to leave, late for a meeting at the university, and I had rushed upstairs only to find the charm missing from where Rav had left it on the dresser. Now, Mina and Leo are in bed, and I am tearing the bedroom apart looking for it, Mrs Sparks’s words reverberating in my mind.

  ‘What keys? Your keys are in the front door, I just found them there.’ Rav holds up a hand, my house keys swinging from the end of his forefinger. ‘Do you want us to get burgled or something?’

  ‘Not those keys.’ I stop, my hands on my hips, scanning the room for anywhere else the charm could be. ‘The ones I found in the attic, with the feathers and the stone.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rav watches me as he lays my keys in the spot on the dresser where the charm was. ‘I threw them out. They were rubbish, Al.’

  ‘You threw them out? When?’ Already I am pushing past him, down the stairs to the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know … last night? The night before?’ Rav follows me, his feet heavy on the stairs. ‘Allie, fucking hell. What are you doing?’

  I pull the lid off the bin and yank out the half-full bin bag. Grimacing, I reach in and start to rummage in among the food scraps and tea bags. ‘I need to find it, Rav. You shouldn’t have thrown it away, not without talking to me first.’

  ‘Allie, stop. Jesus Christ.’ Rav pulls the black sack from my hands. ‘They’re not in there. The bag was full, so I took it to the outside bin and the bin men came this morning. The keys are long gone.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I slump back against the kitchen sink, suddenly aware of the tea leaves and tomato sauce staining my hands. ‘Rav, you don’t know what you’ve done.’

  ‘I’ve thrown out rubbish, Al, that’s what I’ve done!’ Rav briskly ties the top of the bin bag in a knot. ‘What the hell is all this about? Has that woman been filling your head with more crap about witches?’

  ‘No …’ I say, but Rav carries on, his voice raised.

  ‘Because if she has, I’m having words with her. I don’t need to come home to you rifling through the bin because some mad woman has told you some crazy story. I’ve got enough shit on my plate at work without this as well.’

  Tears spring to my eyes and Rav’s face softens. ‘Al, what’s really going on here?’

  ‘It wasn’t Miranda. It was the old lady who lived here before, years ago. She … she said that it was a charm, to keep the children safe. I just wanted to put it back, that’s why I was looking for it.’

  ‘We don’t need a charm to keep the children safe, Allie.’ Rav pulls me towards him, seemingly not caring about the filth on my hands as he wraps me in a hug. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  But you’re never here. I think the words, but don’t say them out loud. We stand that way for a few moments, Rav’s arms around me as I cross my wrists behind his back, careful not to get dirt on him. As he pulls back to drop a kiss on my forehead, the shadows in the hallway move, as if a figure has pulled back just out of sight.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘He threw them away,’ I say, as my mother slips into the chair opposite mine. We are meeting at the village café, the morning after we met with Mrs Sparks. ‘Rav threw the charm away, Mum. He said they were rubbish, that we don’t need them.’

  ‘How do you feel about this?’ My mother toys with the sugar packet in her hands, turning it over and over, the thin paper wrapper crumpling.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. The waitress appears beside me and I pause to order. ‘A peppermint tea for me please, and …’ I look towards where my mother sits across from me. ‘… a black coffee?’

  Mum nods and the waitress scribbles on her pad and whisks away with a smile.

  ‘A pot of cream,’ my mother calls after her. ‘Bring a small pot of cream too, please.’

  ‘I feel like it should be rubbish, that Rav is probably right and it’s all just superstitious nonsense,’ I say, keeping my voice low, even though the waitress is out of earshot. ‘But then there is part of me that thinks about what Mrs Sparks said, that it was there to keep us safe, to keep the children safe.’ Active, that was the word she used. She said the house was active before she hid the charm. ‘I feel … unsettled, I suppose. I wish Rav hadn’t thrown them away.’

  My mother suppresses a smile. ‘Allie, it probably is just superstition. Perhaps. What do you feel in your gut?’

  I am silent, slightly hurt by the ghost of a smile that still sits on her lips. Everyone, my mother, Rav, they all seem to find this a little ridiculous, funny, something to laugh about. ‘My gut tells me she is right, that the charm was protecting the house,’ I say finally. ‘Things have been … odd in the house since I found it.’ Hands on me while I sleep, that unnerving feeling that someone is watching me, movement in the glass of the mirror.

  The waitress appears, placing the peppermint tea in front of me, hesitating a moment before setting the coffee down in front of my mother. ‘Enjoy,’ she says, slipping a small silver plate onto the table with the bill attached.

  ‘She forgot the cream,’ my mother mutters under her breath, flapping a hand at me when I look after the waitress and raise my hand to flag her down. ‘Leave it. It’s better for me to not have the cream. Perhaps it is for the best that Rav throws away the keys, the charm, whatever it is. You said yourself he doesn’t believe in any of these things. So maybe, it can be a fresh start for you both.’

  ‘Perhaps. Although I just wish he would listen to me, instead of brushing everything aside like it’s nothing. I mean …’

  ‘Listen, Allie. I think you must just focus on the children, and yourself. You told me before you are not sleeping properly, and you have to take care of yourself, so you can take good care of the children. Tell me, how is everything with Rav?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say darkly, ‘apart from he’s coming home late. Every night. We barely see him at the moment although …’

  ‘Although?’

  Reluctantly, I let the words come. ‘He found time to meet Naomi for a drink.’ Mum says nothing but waits expectantly. ‘And she texted him to say she needs to talk to him about something. She never mentioned it to me, though.’

  ‘You think something is going on?’ Mum leans forward, lowering her voice. I bet she would love that, if Rav were cheating on me. ‘Surely not.’

  ‘No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know. They looked … close.’ I push my mug away from me, feeling slightly sick. ‘It might be nothing, I don’t know. Honestly, Mum, I don’t think I can even think about it at the moment.’

  ‘All the more reason to look after yourself. You know I had to take care of you alone after your father left us. It’s difficult, Allie, you know that, but you also know that you can come to the apartment in Paris anytime.’

  ‘Yes, Mum, I know how hard it was for you.’ Not just for you, either. ‘And I told you, I’m not coming to Paris. It might be nothing. She might have financial problems or something that she doesn’t want to worry me with, I don’t know.’ Wishing I hadn’t mentioned it to her, I get to my feet, sliding the strap of the changing bag onto my shoulder. ‘Look, I have to go, I need to go and get Mina from school. I’ll see you later?’ I throw a five-pound note and some small change into the dish on the table and leave my mother sitting in front of her slowly cooling coffee.

  ‘You stay there, poppet.�
� After lunch, snuggled together on the sofa, I slide out from under Mina’s bony elbows and take the baby upstairs to the cot, swapping his tiny body for the plastic heft of the baby monitor. I step lightly down the stairs, ignoring the chill that permeates the landing, a basket of laundry under my arm, a sense of normality descending. As I shove the clothes into the machine, I wonder if I have been overthinking things. I didn’t sleep last night, but I also didn’t have the dream. I am tired, but what new mother wouldn’t be? The health visitor didn’t seem to see any problems with me, or the baby, so maybe that’s all it is, a dream. Maybe my mother is right – I should forget about all of it and start over with Rav. The washing machine begins to turn slowly, the dull whirring a comfortable, normal sound. I spritz over the kitchen counters, change the bin, bleach the sink, inhaling the chlorine-y scent that hangs in the air reminding me of the pool, of hours spent in my teenage years doing lengths until my arms hurt and my breath felt raw in my throat. Mrs Sparks’s words don’t mean anything, I tell myself as I scrub, and wipe, and mop. It’s just superstition, a story made up to draw in the tourists like all the other ghost stories. She never actually said what happened in the house, just that it was active, which realistically could mean anything. Maybe her parents didn’t get along and that was the crying she heard at night when her baby brother was sleeping. How could anything awful happen in a house that smells so fresh, that houses a happy family? I blot out the image of the tied rosemary hanging over the kitchen doorway, ignore the thought of the rusty iron keys that had lain jumbled in a tangled heap in the piles of junk of the top of the dresser, as I scour and clean, my positivity fading, and I jump as the doorbell rings.

  ‘Shit.’ I wipe my hands on the tea towel that hangs on the Aga, the skin feeling cracked and raw from the cleaning products, and open the door to the postman. ‘Thanks.’ I take the mail from him, scanning through the envelopes as I push the door closed with my shoulder. ‘Oh … wait!’ There is an envelope marked with an address in the next road over, that has slipped in between two of ours. Opening the door, I call out, hurrying along the path to the road, hoping to catch the postman before he gets back in his van. Too late. He is already driving away as I reach the pavement. I shrug and make my way back up the path towards the front door, past the huge yew tree in the front garden. At first, I don’t notice them, it’s only as I get closer that I do a double take, registering that there is something in the tree that doesn’t look right. Moving closer, I frown, the envelopes in my hand forgotten as I step towards the pile of leaves and squashed berries, my hair tangling in the low hanging branches as I almost walk into them. Raising my hand to my mouth, I stifle the shriek that bubbles up in my throat, before I snatch a tissue from my pocket and wrap it around my hand. Bones. Tiny, fragile bones tied together with what looks like garden twine and hanging carefully at eye level in the branches of the tree.