by G. R. Thomas
Between the vagueness of sleep and consciousness, Eliza sat bolt upright, heart thrashing for an already forgotten nightmare. She reached for her water, gulped it quickly and patted around the bed, looking for her sleeping cap. She plucked it up from the floor and tucked it under her pillow, too tired to put it back on. She flopped onto her side, pulled the covers up, yawned and stared towards her door, always sure to keep her back facing the wall.
A glimmer of hallway light flickered beneath the locked door as though someone was passing by. She pulled her covers tighter and watched for the turn of the doorknob. Her fingers found the rough patch on her wrist. She picked until she felt the slipperiness of blood. The sting was a relief, the scarring a reminder that she had control over just one thing. She sniffed the air, no hint of brandy, her nails released her skin. The shadow disappeared, the rigidity in her limbs relaxed.
Moonlight cleaved the floor of her small room almost all the way to the door. Her eyes dared to leave the entrance and followed the lustrous glimmer back towards the window. The moon’s silvery disc shimmered between the lace curtains. She rubbed her eyes and pressed down on her bloody wrist with the sleeve of her shift until the bleeding stopped. One of the older wounds had scabbed darker than usual. Her thumb grazed over it, and it flicked away. She raised her fingers as though to trace the moon's shadows, only to notice her milky skin had a bruise-like patch of skin in lieu of the scab. She frowned, rubbed the painless discolouration, now focused on the welts across her palms. They pained little from the half-hearted punishment dealt by Mrs Embrey but more so, from clinging for her life in the well.
Mrs Embrey had questioned Eliza a dozen times that morning as to how she came to be soaked to the bone.
“Why do you let those girls treat you so?” Mrs Embrey had asked whilst kneading the life out of bread dough. Eliza shrugged, her attention on the floor powdered with flour. The kettle boiled. Mrs Embrey dusted her hands on her apron and busied herself making a pot of tea. Eliza had stood numb with cold and fear by the warmth of the kitchen hearth, listening to a bubbling pot and crackle of flames.
“Lass, are you listening to me?” Eliza jerked her attention from a curl of smoke that seemed to take its time to wind up the chimney. She nodded quickly and curtsied in reply. Mrs Embrey pursed her lips and huffed. “I didn’t save you from your Ma selling you to the local bordello just to have you abused by those spoiled brats,” She waddled over and passed Eliza a steaming brew. Mrs Embrey blew a weary sigh in Eliza’s direction and dabbed sweat from her brow. “You give an old woman no choice when you refuse to speak the truth about what you’ve been up to, or speak at all, for that matter. If you tell me what happened and where my tartlets are, I’ll spare you the switch.” Mrs Embrey’s wide eyes had implored Eliza; she’d given her every opportunity to speak of the well incident. Yet, despite the truth sitting in her throat like a barb, Eliza’s words remained unspoken. She looked away from Mrs Embrey and twisted her fingers together. A short silence followed, broken only by the boiling and bubbling of pots, and the crunch of horse hooves and carriage wheels outside.
Mrs Embrey then slapped her tea towel down on the workbench. “Lord preserve me, Eliza!” She rustled for something under the bench. “Drink up that tea for your strength now,” Mrs Embrey’s voice was muffled as she had to kneel to look for what she was seeking. She groaned as she rose back up, cracking her spine back into place with a quick twist.
“You’ve got a voice, my love, you should use it as God intended.” Her cheeks flushed with exertion as she placed a bundle of sticks bound with string upon the bench. Eliza felt shame as her beloved protector clutched the edge of the bench and breathed in and out slowly through pursed lips. A new sheen of sweat coated Mrs Embrey’s brow. Her chins wobbled as she shook her head again and pointed the switch at Eliza.
“One day, mark my words, my dear, you’ll speak up for yourself and by the blessings of the Lord or the Devil himself,” She performed a breathless sign of the cross, “You’ll need to if you want to see your next birthday. Those sisters will be the death of you! Now, hold out your hands.”
With a tear in her eye, and her lips a firm, thin line, Mrs Embrey struck Eliza’s hands just hard enough to satisfy the Lord and Lady that justice had been served.
Eliza felt no ill will for the punishment. She loved Mrs Embrey, or felt something warm inside her that she assumed must be love. It was a feeling that didn’t hurt, didn’t want to make her pick at her scars. Eliza stared at the moon, lost in chaotic thoughts until its light drenched the end of her bed. She shifted her feet under the quilt where the house cat, Agnes, curled like a foot warmer. She watched the rise and fall of her black fur with every purr-filled breath. Eliza was her favourite, as she gave Agnes leftovers whenever she could, and despite what Mrs Embrey would have anyone believe, she too was known to throw a little this and that out the kitchen door whenever Agnes mewed for a treat.
Eliza smiled sleepily, supposing that perhaps this creature was her friend. Agnes never harmed or threatened her, and was a comfort she could count on each night. As though knowing she was being admired, Agnes opened one eye and peered at Eliza through a small, green slit. She yawned, stretched out luxuriously, one paw extended, inviting Eliza in for a pat. Eliza smiled wider, and she sat up to reach for the cat. Just as her fingers ran across the soft fur, Agnes sat up, pupils dilated. Her body statue-still, the cat stared beyond Eliza’s shoulder, her whiskers twitched. Her tail swished left and right, just as she did when on the hunt for prey.
Eliza followed the cat’s gaze over her shoulder. Perhaps it was a horrid spider Agnes would make a midnight snack of. Eliza shivered as she peered with trepidation over her shoulder and sighed with relief; only the old wooden crucifix broke the bareness of the wall above her bedhead. Eliza’s attention snapped back as Agnes leapt from the bed. Her claws snagged the quilt and dragged it to the floor. She circled at the door, growling and hissing, not her usual sweet mews to be let out. The cat bared her teeth towards the window and spun faster at the door. The curtains shifted slightly even though the window was shut.
Eliza reached to light her candle; unease chilled her skin. It was not where she left it, which was odd as the last thing she did before sleep was to snuff it out. She bit her lip, scanning the floor to see if it had somehow fallen from her bedside table. It was nowhere to be found. Her eyes roamed back to the door. The key was as she had left it, locked to the right so no one could have come in to take it. Eliza scratched her wrist as she watched Agnes paw at the crack of light under the door, hissing into the shadows to the right. Nerves fluttered in her belly. Eliza pressed on the dark patch of skin that had begun to burn. She chewed on her thumbnail until it formed a sharp edge, then sawed it across her skin until a new wound opened, a more comforting distraction. She squinted at the corner, had something moved? She pulled her knees up to her chest. Agnes began to howl; her hackles were up.
Not wanting the other servants to complain in the morning, Eliza slid her feet to the floor, eyes repeatedly flicking to the corner. Her toes curled back at the unseasonal cold of the boards. A shiver shook through her upper body, and she hugged warmth into herself. She reached for her shawl at the head of her bed; it too was not where she left it, but draped over the mirror above her washbasin. She was certain she hadn’t left it there, but she quickly snatched it up, avoiding the oval reflection and let the cat out. She turned the key quickly to the right again.
Eliza shuddered against the door, her back pressed hard against it as she stared at the blackened fire grate that should still hold embers of warmth. She felt foolishly scared as she wished for the cat’s return just to have another living body in her room, a room which suddenly felt strange and uninviting. She clutched the collar of her nightdress with one hand, her shawl with the other as though it would somehow protect her from whatever was getting under her skin.
Cold grasped her ankles. The hem of her nightdress fluttered. She peered down to see a wisp of w
hite curl under the door and around her feet. It hung like a winter’s frost, then evaporated. The floor outside creaked. The tick of the clock upstairs chimed three times. Eliza pressed her lips tight; a surge of anger prickled through her hair. The bruise on her wrist tingled more fiercely. She felt certain this was the sisters trying to frighten her. They’d done it before, leaving a frog in her bed just last month, on her birthday.
Her shawl slipped silently to the floor as her fists balled. Eliza rubbed the sting in her wrist against her side, but it didn’t settle, merely smeared fresh redness onto the fabric. She glanced to her left again. The shadows seemed darker, thicker. Their reach seemed closer to her feet.
Eliza’s teeth squeaked as she ground her jaw. Anger flushed her face whilst fear coiled in her belly. Master of neither feeling, Eliza turned towards the door, rested her forehead against it for a moment, then pressed her ear against its flaking paint. Another creak in the hallway. She thought she heard vague whispers, footsteps upstairs; yet the harder she listened, the quiet of her room became a more ominous companion. Her fingernails dug into her palms. She wished she had the bravery to stand up to the sisters. She immediately surmised they must have picked the lock, snuck into her room, and stolen her candlestick to leave her in the dark. Her skin crawled at the thought of them watching her in the vulnerability of sleep.
Ever so quietly, Eliza twisted the lock open and cracked her door ajar. She winced as it squeaked and held her breath before she peered through the gap down the hall. To the right, a dark recess bathed in the quivering light of a dying lantern. No one to be seen. Braver, she slipped her head around the door frame to the left and found no sign of anyone, just another long corridor with the servants’ staircase at the end. The house was quiet.
Yet, despite shaking her head to clear it and wiggling her fingers in her ears, those distant whispers remained. With one last check for any sign of the sisters, Eliza quickly re-locked the door. She clutched her forehead; it was foggy with sleeplessness. The beginnings of an ache clawed behind her ears. She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not to find herself alone. She took another deep breath and concluded she must just be exhausted.
Eliza pushed away from the door, intent on re-lighting the fire, but stopped in the middle of the room. The bed linen was folded orderly upon her bed, her sleeping cap puffed up neatly, ready to wear on her pillow. Eliza’s entire body jolted. She clutched for her shawl that was no longer around her shoulders. Her mouth dropped open, her thoughts ran wild, rewinding, trying to recall when she had done this? Was she dreaming? She pinched the back of her hand; it stung; she bit her lip, a trickle of blood spilled into her mouth; she was definitely awake. After a few moments of being glued to the spot, Eliza rationalised she must have picked it all up as she left the bed to let out Agnes; she did like to keep her room tidy.
Still, a shiver rattled through her as she rushed to the hearth, eager to get warmth and light back into the room. She plucked up a large lump of coal from a basket next to the hearth. It was cool and smooth. It stained her hand as dark as the strange new bruise inside her wrist. She struck her second-last match into a handful of kindling before dropping the coal into the ash, encouraging the birth of new embers. She stoked it into a satisfying flame. Her body relaxed as the gentle crackling interrupted the deafening quiet of the hour and the persistent mutterings she was trying to ignore. As she warmed her hands, telling herself she was clearly over-tired, the fire hissed and snuffed out as though doused with water. A curl of black smoke coiled anti-clockwise up the chimney. Eliza froze in place, just like the cat had, hands immobile, spread-eagled in front of the lifeless hearth.
A breath of cold rushed from the chimney; its bitterness doused any remaining bravado she had. An icy pain stabbed through her back; it enveloped her like a cloak. She was powdered in coal dust. Eliza coughed into her hand, her throat sore and dry as though a lump of coal was wedged in it. Wiping her mouth and face clean with the hem of her shift, she sniffed her nose clear, noticing her skin smelled like a Sunday roast; she grimaced and coughed again.
Eliza signed the cross over her chest twice, just to be safe, terrified of whatever ghost must certainly be hovering behind her. She fumbled for the small crucifix around her neck and pressed it to her lips. She stood, eyes shut and unsteady with the torrent of fear that invaded her. She turned around, ready with a prayer and an eye for the door to escape the entity that had most assuredly invaded her room.
There was nothing there. A bed, a chair and four corners of shadows. She quickly snatched her shawl from the floor and pulled it tight about her shoulders. A quivering sigh escaped her throat, her breath a white mist.
The window rattled. She tiptoed towards it, immediately confident the sash was open just a crack and the quite reasonable cause of the chill and ill-feeling. She couldn’t refrain from a quick glance at the orderly bedclothes as she passed; however, the cause of that much more inexplicable.
Eliza’s hands shook as she tugged the window latches looking for the source that snuffed her hearth and fluttered the curtains. The window was shut tight. Its handles were bitter with the frost of mid-winter when it was a balmy late spring. She sighed, tired and confused, hugged herself for comfort, and peered outside.
The moon was lower in the sky, morning neared, and a long workday loomed after such a poor night of sleeplessness. Eliza pressed her palm to the pane and wondered what the moon knew of the goings-on of the night. Was it an all-seeing queen of the dark, of creatures and things best left in children’s fairy tales? The glass felt like ice. Eliza yanked her hand away from its burn, alarmed by the frosted handprint left behind. She jerked back further when the window shuddered again. Black feathers stuck on the glass as a bird slid to the ground. Her hand pressed against the cold glass again, the feathers flickered in the night’s breeze. Her heavy eyes drew past a splatter of blood, out towards the shadows at the back of the garden. Questions about why a bird should be out at such an hour were pushed away as her attention was drawn across the perfect lawn, over the neat gravel path, up towards the hedgerow; a lovingly manicured evergreen hedge that defined the wilds of the Galdrewold forest from the civility of Norlane Hall.
Something moved, and with haste. A dark blur darted here and there across the lawn. Eyes narrowed, Eliza sighed with relief to see it was Agnes pouncing across the vast greenness, leaping over the gardener’s rake and under his barrow. The sleek cat disappeared under the hedgerow into the forest beyond the here and the there. Eliza bit her lip, worried momentarily about Agnes, but then rationalised the cat was after a rat or some other plump snack.
The moon’s ambience did not seem to reach into the shades of the Galdrewold. It was as though an artist could only see fit to define the forest’s entirety as a black smudge behind the colour and vibrancy of Norlane Hall. The forbidden forest lay hidden along with its mysteries beyond the hedgerow, dark and ominous like the stories told about it to scare little children.
A new and vague whisper erupted in the back of Eliza’s mind, a husky sound, a beckoning that didn’t so much scare her as it urged her to reach for the window latch again. An aching cold deepened under her skin, but a strange, comforting heat blossomed in her cheeks. A push and pull sensation, a need to both run towards and away from something all at once. Her heart raced a little faster, loud in her ears, heavy in her chest.
Mesmerised by the mystery of the world beyond the hedgerow, Eliza’s eyes glazed over. She rested her hand once more on the arctic glass, eyes coming back into focus as her skin tingled and the tiny hairs on the back of her hand stood erect. She pulled her hand, but it seemed stuck. Her breaths quickened as she tried to ease her hand away, one finger at a time. The window frosted around the edges. Ice crystals spread towards her hand, delicate snowflake patterns of beauty that beheld terror in their mystery. Shadows crept closer from the corners, reached down from the ceiling, unencumbered by the moonlight. She signed the cross with her free hand, the other stuck fast.
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br /> Eliza grunted and wished a more powerful prayer, but no words came to mind in her panic. Something banged to her right. The crucifix had slipped from the wall and careened under her bed. She squealed. The air felt heavy on her shoulders, her mouth a barren desert. She licked her quivering lips, but moisture would not wet her tongue. Stuck and terrified as she was, she tried to calm herself. She drew a more controlled breath in and breathed out slowly. Eliza chastised herself, convinced she was dreaming again. Eyes squeezed tight, she wished herself awake. But the cold pain in her hand was real, and if she was taught anything, it was that you didn’t feel pain in a dream.
Panic overcame sense and bravado. Eliza pulled her hand harder; the window rattled on the sashes. Her hand remained frozen to the glass. Her fingers burned until they became numb. She stretched out her right foot, hoping to hook the bedside table with her toes and drag it and its glass of water closer. She planned to pour it over her hand to release her skin. She wobbled on her left foot until she could just about reach the table leg. The table scraped a mere inch before she had to drop her leg back down as she nearly lost her footing. Eliza fell against the window ledge, a bruise sure to be deep on her elbow by morning.
After one more failed attempt at peeling her palm from the glass, she drew as much saliva as she could into her mouth, which was hard when parched with fear. Ready to lick her hand free, she stopped, spittle ready on the tip of her tongue. A sound vibrated the window pane. She watched, mouth agape, heart thudding heavily as the frosted shape of another hand materialised on the window, a twin to her own.