Lighthouses

by Trost, Cameron

  Ethan said nothing and so Laura kept on.

  ‘You went inside. You found the staircase that led to the top of the tower and you climbed. You were such a curious little boy. That’s all you did wrong...’

  She kissed his closed eyes.

  ‘But there was someone living up there, in the loft. The police said that must’ve been why the stone slid away so easy. He’d removed it before you. He’d gotten up there and was living up there. There was no monster, Ethan.’

  Even in the heat, Ethan was shivering with cold.

  ‘There was, Laura. You didn’t see him.’

  ‘That’s all deception, Ethan. Remember what Dr Braider said. It’s deception. You couldn’t handle what he really did. You didn’t even know what had happened, not really, and so your brain made up this story about a monster living in the tower...’

  She kissed him again.

  ‘Ethan, baby, I’m sorry. You went into that tower, into the loft, and he attacked you... he raped you, Ethan.’

  Ethan’s teeth strained on his fleshy, bruised lips. Laura held his face, forcing him to relax.

  ‘Open your eyes. Come on, Ethan. Open your eyes and look at it.’

  She turned his face, and almost out of reflex, he opened his eyes.

  The tower was the first thing he saw. Grey and straight and sharp as a stab wound in the clean blue sky.

  Somewhere off in the river, a wood duck was screeching.

  #

  They sat in the car for a few hours after that, saying very little. Ethan was staring downhill to the farm and the riverbank and the tower he’d avoided since he’d been a kid. Laura was sitting in silence and letting him think.

  In the end, it was Ethan who spoke first.

  ‘I dreamed about the tower before that night,’ he said. ‘Remember I told you the folk around here thought it was a lighthouse?’

  Laura nodded.

  ‘I used to imagine that.’ Ethan was smiling. ‘The old barques, like the ones the French travelled in, in King Louis’ time, pushing full-sail upriver, and that tower... shining... there’d be nothing in the sky, see... not back then... no lights in the skyline... just that one... shining... calling them in. And I sometimes dreamed that I saw the tower and the top was burning and there was a sound coming, like chanting, and I knew I had to go.’

  She touched his shoulder.

  ‘You never told me about that.’

  ‘I never told anyone.’ He looked at her sincerely. ‘You’re the first.’

  She smiled, and he smiled. Then he looked back, almost energetically, toward the tower.

  ‘I want to go down.’

  His tone was so assertive Laura was hard pressed to believe it was her boyfriend speaking. Ethan had never said an assertive sentence to her in all the years they’d dated. She’d always been the strong one.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  He was already opening the car door.

  ‘I want to see it closer,’ he said, pulling himself out into the open air and leaving Laura no choice but to follow.

  #

  The sky around the tower was bruising purple, and though the night was stifling warm, the growing dark seemed cold enough for Laura to pull her coat shut over her chest.

  ‘We should go,’ she called to him.

  He’d just come into view again, having circled the tower for the hundredth time, his hand never leaving its warm stones as he orbited the structure like a moon around a dead planet. He was smiling the whole time.

  He ran into the field and grabbed Laura playfully by the wrists.

  ‘Aw, baby, just twenty more minutes, please!’ He smiled at her, then he kissed her hard with his bloody lips.

  She tried hard not to seem like she was pushing him away.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, taking back her hands, ‘twenty minutes. Then we’ve got to start heading back. We can come again tomorrow if you need to.’

  Ethan laughed.

  ‘Aw, baby. I never need to come again! Damn, I feel so goddamn free!’

  His eyes sparkled and he looked up at the top room above their heads; the place where, twenty years before, a lurking paedophile had held his slim body against the chalky stones; forcing his stained fingers into his throat; forcing him to do the most atrocious things.

  Ethan howled with laughter and swayed on his heels, looking upward like a ritual inebriant paying wild homage to the divine stars.

  ‘Ethan.’ Laura tried to touch him, to calm him.

  He swung out of her reach. Then his eyes caught on hers.

  ‘Life’s gonna be so much better now, Laura.’ He smiled. ‘Hey, baby, go up to the car. Please. Find my mobile. It should be in the dash.’

  ‘Why?’ Laura was getting more puzzled by the moment.

  ‘I want to call Dr Braider,’ he said excitedly.

  ‘It’s outside office hours,’ Laura objected.

  Ethan shook off her complaint.

  ‘He told me this weekend to call anytime. He knows how big a deal this is for me. Please, baby. Just get the phone.’

  ‘Okay,’ Laura looked at him sternly, ‘but after you’ve called we need to get right back in the car and head for Alexandria.’

  Ethan raised three fingers on his right hand.

  ‘Scouts honour,’ he promised.

  #

  She found Ethan’s cell exactly where he’d said. It was in the dash with the SatNav they never used. She retrieved it and pulled herself out of the car, looking down the now dark decline toward the tomato fields with their dancing boneset and one overbearing building.

  She couldn’t see Ethan down there anymore and guessed he was doing another crazed circuit of his now strangely beloved tower. She didn’t mind. It was for the best that he was out of sight. She wanted to call Dr Braider herself before she passed him the phone. To discuss his strange reaction to seeing the place that had caused him such indescribable torment.

  She stole another look. There was still no Ethan, and so she fired up his phone, found contacts, and started scrolling through; only stopping when she came to DOC BRAIDER.

  She clicked down and placed the receiver to her ear. There was only a ring or two before the call was picked up.

  ‘Mike Braider,’ the doctor answered.

  ‘Doctor,’ Laura said, ‘I’m sorry for calling so late.’

  ‘Sorry, who’s speaking?’ Braider asked.

  ‘It’s Laura McCarthy, Doctor Braider,’ she replied. ‘I’m calling about Ethan Dwight. I’m sorry for the hour.’

  ‘Ah, Laura, yes, that’s fine. I’d asked Ethan to give me a call. Technically, he’s no longer my patient, but I’m in favour of post-care. Can I speak with him?’

  ‘Sure, doctor,’ she said. ‘We’re there now... at... you know... at the place... only...’

  ‘Only what, Laura?’

  ‘Only, doctor, his reaction to seeing the place...’

  ‘I wouldn’t read too much into that.’ Braider was smiling.

  ‘What?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Into his reaction, Laura. His visible reaction at least.’

  Laura frowned.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Just think, Laura,’ Braider said. ‘Ethan came to Bangor when he was sixteen years old. On his first three job applications, he claimed to have been brought up at 124 Cedar Street. According to his friends, he went to middle school at James F. Doughty and high school at John the Baptist Memorial. But not one person knew him from those days. He even learned, albeit subconsciously, to speak with a Bangor accent. Laura. His entire life has been an exercise in avoidance and self-deceit. What makes you think he’s being honest about his feelings now?’

  Laura couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Braider had never shown nerve like this when he was getting a paycheque. He was practically calling Ethan a liar.

  ‘Ethan has problems admitting the truth to himself, doctor,’ she insisted. ‘He’s never purposely lied to me.’

  Braider was making a sound over the line.

/>   Laura frowned and listened harder. Was he laughing?

  ‘Oh, Laura,’ he said. ‘In order to lie to ourselves, we’ve got to lie to one another.’

  Laura pulled the phone away from her ear like it was something venomous and killed the call in disgust. It took her a full few moments to come around from the short conversation.

  It’s a form of self-deception, Laura. He’s deceiving himself. He’s deceiving you.

  She tucked the phone into her coat pocket and stared again down the riverine rise. Still, after all this time, Ethan was nowhere to be seen.

  #

  When she got back to the tower, Laura was horrified at what she saw.

  ‘Ethan! What have you done!?’

  She dropped to her knees, landing in the soot and soil left by a collection of four large stones that had been yanked out from one of the walled up entrances, leaving a hole there just big enough for an average sized man to wriggle through. Ethan’s childhood Swiss army knife was lying open by the extricated blocks and Laura’s skin crawled at the thought that he must have carried it in his pocket all the way from Alex.

  She pulled herself to her feet and threw her hands palms down on the now cooling stone.

  ‘Ethan!? Baby!? Where are you!? You’re scaring me!’

  She listened to the soft hiss behind the rocks.

  Nothing.

  ‘Ethan!’

  She listened again. This time for longer. At last, after long seconds, she began to make out the sound of a man lightly laughing in the cavity beyond.

  She pressed her face to the tower.

  ‘Ethan?’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s okay, baby,’ he whispered back. ‘I’m in here.’

  ‘But why?’ Her voice shook.

  ‘I wanted a closer look, Laura.’ There was something so strange about his voice. ‘I wanted to be in here again; where I first met him.’

  ‘Ethan, please.’ Laura was crying. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Aw,’ Ethan whined. ‘Don’t be scared, beautiful. I’m happy. And I’m just about to get happier.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Ethan laughed behind the wall.

  ‘I’m going up there, Laura. I’m going up to the loft.’

  ‘No! Ethan, please. Come out! Come out!’

  ‘I can’t now, beautiful,’ he was smiling in there, ‘it’s like a light. It’s drawing me in.’

  Her throat began to spasm with fear and she couldn’t find voice enough to protest, even when she heard his feet turning on the dusty ground inside as they began determinedly to climb the spiral stairs to the room above.

  #

  The space was just large enough to admit her, and Laura remembered thinking how determined Ethan must have been to have squirmed through that tight crevice into the space beyond; the multiple horrific contortions he must have performed with his body.

  She clawed at the earthen ground on the inside of the tower, tugging the last of her length through the gap in the wall and surfacing on the other side. She stood. She was filthy from head to foot, her skin ticklish with cobwebs, and she could smell much better from here the almost sweet aroma that Ethan had described to her a hundred times — the dirty, rotten-flesh smell of his nightmares.

  She looked up the spiral staircase and shouted.

  ‘Ethan!’

  Then she noticed it. Cutting down from above, the only reason the entire upward passageway wasn’t lost in abysmal darkness, a light was shining.

  A torch, Laura thought. If he’d brought his knife maybe he’d brought a torch too. So he could see in the dark.

  Her skin crawled again.

  He’s been planning this.

  She looked up again.

  ‘Ethan! Ethan! Ethan!’

  There was no answer from above and so Laura steeled herself and started the long climb upward.

  #

  She was about halfway to the top when Laura realised it wasn’t just light drifting down from the higher quarters of the tower. Sound too rang discordantly over the acoustically jarring rocks.

  I sometimes dreamed that I saw the tower and the top was burning and there was a sound coming — like chanting.

  Chanting.

  As Laura reached the final steps, she realised that was exactly what it was, a man’s voice, not Ethan’s, but a man’s, reciting some mantra in a language other than English.

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  Her eyes were so wide they hurt; trying to pull in as much light as possible as she stepped into the highest room.

  Ethan was there and her heart leaped with relief to see him. He was kneeling in the centre of the room.

  ‘Ethan!’ She moved toward him.

  But then she stopped dead. Watching the man she loved was like watching a nightmare, as he moved liquidly to his feet and turned to face her.

  His bloody, bitten lips were moving in constant obeisance.

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  ‘Ethan! What are you doing!?’

  He stopped chanting and cocked his head. In the painfully lit room, his eyes were almost black.

  ‘Nothin’ important, honey,’ he said.

  Her stomach turned. In that moment, she realised what had been so strange about his voice. He was speaking in his old Louisiana drawl; the one he’d dropped when he was sixteen.

  ‘Why are you speaking like that?’

  She was heart-broken and terrified at the same time.

  ‘Why, honey,’ Ethan smiled, ‘A’ always talk like this; when you ain’t around.’

  Laura made a break for the stairs but Ethan moved twice as quickly and caught her hard around the waist.

  ‘Get off me, you bastard!’

  She started putting all her strength into striking him around the face and head.

  ‘Get off!’

  ‘Wooo, honey,’ he laughed, ‘that there’s the energy we need. That there’s the energy he took from me all those years ago!’

  ‘You fucking maniac!’ She landed a good hit.

  Ethan’s nose cracked at the bridge. A flow of hot blood streamed out of his nostrils; streaking down his already tarnished shirt. He turned, unfazed, to face Laura; licking the blood and mucous off his face with his long tongue.

  ‘There is no him you lunatic!’ She couldn’t hold back anymore. ‘Some guy fucked you up here! Can’t you get that through your thick skull! Some pervert put his dick in you! Get it, moron!?’

  She was trying to bait him, to humiliate some sense into him.

  Ethan laughed, pushing the last of the blood into his mouth with his soiled fingers.

  ‘Is that what you think, honey?’ He smiled.

  ‘That’s what I know.’ Laura clenched her teeth.

  ‘Then why didn’t the po-lice find this mystery man?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘He moved town,’ Laura reasoned. ‘He got away.’

  ‘And why did a’ dream of this place? Why did it draw me in like a moth to a flame?’

  ‘Maybe you are insane!’ Laura cried.

  ‘May-be,’ Ethan grinned in the shifting shadows, ‘but, if that’s so, tell me this, honey: what the hell is it that’s lighting this place?’

  Laura’s throat seized up. Her saliva dried out and her heart became erratic. They were standing in a three-hundred-year-old room and Laura couldn’t answer why it was illuminated as though by electricity. And she didn’t know why the light and shadow had never stayed still for a moment since she had arrived either.

  ‘Laura, honey,’ Ethan whispered. ‘Don’t turn around.’

  Her eyes wouldn’t blink. Her neck wouldn’t turn. The shadow in front of her, her own shadow, told her that the source of the light was behind her.

  Ethan started chanting again:

  Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

>   Mehlekh. Mehlekh. Bin Shedim a’bra Rish.

  Laura felt the thing behind her burning her backbone like a wreath of fire; and, in there, among all that rustle of protean light, there was a sound too.

  The low and keening sound of an insect readying to be fed.

  WILL O’ THE WISP

  Deborah Sheldon

  I murdered my child, but not the way you might think.

  My child, Adam, was born in early November. Our village had just completed the last ploughing of the year. The crops hadn’t suffered any frosts, which meant, for once, we’d harvested more than enough food. Everyone felt in high spirits. The village midwife, Cecily, had divined that our bounteous crop was an omen, especially for me; that this time, I would deliver a live child, and not have my heart broken by yet another stillborn.

  On the day of Adam’s birth, the men, including my husband, Gilbert, repaired fences and tools, and the women did their typical chores. I hauled water and chopped wood. Then, I took two of our buckets and headed into the woodland to collect acorns for the pigs. While Lord Ralf owns the estate and all its beasts, he has no use for acorns, and allows us to gather them freely.

  The woodland is broadleaved, growing mainly oak and ash, and spans as far as you can see in both directions. You must approach it by crossing a meadow. At first, the trees are sparse, dotted occasionally in the lush grass. Squirrels dart and skip about. This first sight of the woodland is pleasant, welcoming. As you advance, however, the trees grow closer and thicker. Their branches gnarl, twist and knot, gradually snuffing out the light, so the further you gaze into the woodland, the blacker it becomes. No one in the village knows what lies on the other side. To explore would be too dangerous. Bears and wolves prowl within. Cecily says that at the woodland’s dark heart lies a deep, tarry marsh that so resembles solid ground you’d think nothing of taking a step into it and disappearing forever.

  I went to the edge of the woodland. As soon as the dappling of sunshine through the canopy began to falter and turn to shadow, I put down the buckets, took off my shoes, and kneeled. Acorns lay thick on the ground. Heavy with child, puffed, I waited to catch my breath. Overhead, the autumn clouds spun together into bunches, heralding a rainstorm. I wished I’d worn my sheepskin cloak. Then I contemplated my filthy, calloused hands and wished for so many other things.