Child of Fear and Fire

by G. R. Thomas

  Eliza’s insides burned hot, then twisted with cold. Her mind blurred as though afflicted by fever. The icy fingers elongated across the pane, growing before her eyes. They were not at all like her own small hand.

  Long, thin digits, out of proportion to the palm, made their icy course until they looked like the claws of a bird. Sweat stung Eliza’s eyes. She wiped them against her sleeve to clear her vision, the smell of terror pungent on her. She blinked the sting away, hoping the apparition would be gone. Yet there it remained, a strange, cloudy film, mere inches from her own hand. Eliza’s hair fluttered forwards over her shoulder as though someone blew into her ear. The shadows verged onto the window frame. She gasped and squeezed her eyes closed; her entire body trembled. She didn’t want to look behind, in front, anywhere. If she were to die, she’d rather it be quick and not see the devil that surely was haunting her. She gulped for breath; tears streamed hot down her cheeks as she waited to be killed where she stood. No death blow arrived.

  The fluttering ceased, and her body calmed. Whilst her hand remained stuck, the cold stilled its grasp of her, her chin stopped quivering. She listened intently to her surroundings. All was still and silent. For a moment, she wondered again if the sisters were somehow responsible for her predicament. The thought of their perfectly happy faces crowned by perfectly curled hair dried Eliza’s tears. The noxious terror ever-present in her belly curled into an altogether different feeling — rage. The heat of anger cloaked her. It fanned the strange whispers that serenaded her broken soul.

  Eliza opened her eyes. The shadows had receded, and she stared at the strange handprint anew. Her loneliness dulled a little by the strange chorus in her head. Her wrist burned more intensely; she twisted it up as far as she could. Another scab had turned black. A thin black vein connected the dark, scaly patches. She touched the new spot, it was hard like bark, and the skin around it flaked away as more narrow black tributaries erupted up the course of her arm, like the lines of a map. Her brows met, intrigue overwhelmed fear. Her other wrist tingled anew; she turned it over to find it too besieged by this strange skin malady. Its burn wasn’t uncomfortable; it was — comforting.

  Eliza returned her attention to the ghostly hand. Its impression was smooth and lacking prints. She felt compelled to place her other hand upon it. Why? She could not say. She reached slowly; the cooing in her mind intensified as her palm moved closer. Her bloodied sleeve slipped down to her elbow, exposing the strange lines journeying up her arm.

  The crispness of the air no longer penetrated to her core; it was now refreshing the heat that pulsed under her skin. She reached for the strange handprint, and the instant her skin touched its freezing silhouette, her other hand released, and she fell backwards onto the floor. Eliza scrambled backwards, grabbed her freed hand, her mouth dropped to find the lines, scabs, and callouses no longer present, just smooth, clear skin. A tingle settled in the palm, it circled her left wrist, and there it stayed.

  Eliza shuffled to her knees; eyes fixed upon the window. A whooshing sound disturbed the intense silence. She crawled on hands and knees around the end of the bed to find the hearth re-ignited of its own volition into a full and hearty fire. Warmth filled the room, the smell of the charcoal comforting, yet she scuttled away as wisps of white smoke coiled from the flames towards her. Eliza staggered to her feet. Fear rose again, a bitter burn in her throat. She glanced outside as a means to escape, but she was struck still by the shadow beyond the hedgerow. The twists of smoke slithered up the wall, eked out through the tiny gaps around the window frame. They glistened like silver snakes as they twisted and turned across the lawn, all the way to the hedgerow, where they disappeared within it, just like Agnes. Something was out there, and it wanted Eliza’s attention.

  The latch wouldn’t budge at first, but the whispers were insistent. The voices called a little louder when she thought again of hiding under the bed. They were a veritable opera when thoughts of the spiteful sisters crossed Eliza’s mind again. Exhausted and frustrated, she grabbed the fire stoker, warmed by the crackling flames, and banged the latch three times until it opened with a squeak. She stopped, gripped the iron in her fist and turned her ear to the door, listening to hear if she’d awoken Mrs Embrey just two rooms down the hall.

  Quiet reigned, other than the voices, soft once more, that sung between her ears. If she’d had a mother who was motherly, Eliza would have thought the voices warm and loving, but loving was not something she was familiar with. Mrs Embrey and Agnes bestowed upon her the most affection she had ever had. Yet, Eliza wasn’t sure she could recognise real love, not until now, not until the choir in her mind that night.

  She knotted her shawl in front of her chest and gave the hedgerow another glance, telling herself again she was probably just vividly dreaming, but her legs were straddled over the windowsill before she realised it, and within moments her feet ran through fresh cool grass, bare and free.

  Eliza pulled up at the ancient wooden gate that led into the Galdrewold and leaned her hands onto her thighs, puffing hard. Peering over her shoulder, the expanse of lawn that led back to the house was filled with quiet and shadows. Nothing, human or otherwise was chasing her. Eliza sighed with relief and stepped onto the path that ran alongside the hedgerow. The softness of the grass had given way to a more uncomfortable prickle underfoot and she immediately wished she had shoes on. Besieged by intrigue, she ignored the discomfort of her feet and stepped closer to the hedgerow. The perfectly curated rose gardens mingled with a denser aroma of old leaves and earth. She swallowed a little harder, her eyes so wide they pained. Her body warmed a little more as her belly writhed with nervous excitement.

  Eliza pulled on the circular handle. The gate jiggled, the wood creaked, the hinges groaned, but it was locked tight. Her brows furrowed. There was a large slot for a key she did not possess. She looked back to Norlane Hall; a grand home encrusted with a hundred-year-old vine that hid the gloom within. It was dark and silent, just one window aglow on the second story with the light of someone moving about. If she was seen out here, what would happen? But that fear, that dreadful, every-day curl in her stomach was at that moment, overpowered by an enticement to go beyond the borders of servitude.

  She took a step backwards, the stones still bit underfoot, but thrill dulled the sting. The hedgerow was vast in height. Eliza had heard the Norlane gardeners talk of its folklore age whilst they tended its precise square edges. It was a perfect evergreen beard around a perfect never-changing home. It was a line not to be crossed. A barrier that kept the civilised safe from the wilds outside, from things that weren’t pretty and perfect, from that which needed to be buried and hidden away.

  The hazy whispers notched louder. Eliza cocked her ear to the right; almost certain it uttered her name. Eliza twisted around to find no one behind her, only a milky moth fluttering towards the mesmerising glow of the moon. Her gaze followed its path until it disappeared beyond the hedgerow. Alone, the world around her silent, she only had the chorus in her mind to keep her company.

  Eliza bit the back of her hand and picked a new wound into her wrist; the pain grounded her, put her in control of something. The deeper she scratched, the more insistent the murmurs. She listened to it, and her scratching ceased. The voices’ gentle cadence took her pains away, folded up fear and extinguished it. She yielded to its gentleness, closed her eyes and drank deep of its calm. Eliza wondered if this was madness and the serenity of it felt a safer place to inhabit. The sweet lulling tempered everything with its intoxicating melody, absorbing her worries away.

  Eliza opened her eyes and undid the knot of her shawl; its soft wool slid from her arms, letting the gentle night air taste her skin. Her toes clawed as she stepped gingerly across the gravel. She trailed her fingers through the leaves of the hedgerow. They were small, with a satisfying, glossy feel. She pushed her hand deeper into the loveliness, then yelped and yanked her hand quickly out. An unseen something pricked her middle finger. She sucked
the blood away and searched for the culprit. A sting sung up the length of her finger and settled as an ache in her palm. She rubbed the tiny assault, trying to press the unwelcome pain away.

  Less trusting of the voices that had wooed her outside, Eliza took a step back again. Instead, she studied the way the moonlight glittered across the top of the hedgerow. She could almost feel its weight, a power in its ambience. The mutterings were more excitable as blood trickled anew from her finger. She licked it away again, pressed on it with her thumb, intrigued to find the cause of the wound.

  Eyes narrowed, she stooped, peering into the foliage. Something glinted within its depths. Eliza gently peeled a clutch of leaves apart, a twig snapped, and a cluster of leaves fell into her hand. The hedgerow rustled as though a shiver had run through it. She withdrew her hand, fingers curled around the leaves.

  I’m sorry, she thought. Eliza placed the leaves gently on the ground, tucking them just under the hem of the hedgerow. Its shadow moved. She fell back onto her hip and scrambled away. A sickle-shaped darkness oozed across the sandstone crush. The shadow crooked around the leaves and withdrew, its spectral form pulled the plucked leaves back within the depths of the hedgerow.

  Eliza pulled herself to her feet, ready to flee, but something held her there. Fear, intrigue, evil possession; utter madness? She bit her nails, looked in every direction. She dropped her hangnail to her wrist and picked a new wound. It oozed slowly. Fine black lines webbed out from it, just like before. Fear rose like a Phoenix and whipped her heart into a blistering pace. Eliza ran her fingers across newly blackened skin. Blood oozed from her pricked finger. She sucked it away, coppery and strangely satisfying as it coated her tongue. The feeling, all these strange feelings, shuddered through her until her head swirled. The greenery, the moonlight all smudged together.

  The hedgerow bristled, pulling her from a near faint. The silent calm of the night held a new energy. It coated her skin, drew the hairs erect, pushed itself into her lungs. The smells beyond permeated through, heavy with rot and damp. Eliza stumbled back a step, but the voices weren’t pleased, and they chorused at her. Their overture reverberated through her mind, louder again when she wobbled back another step.

  The leaves quivered, garnering a sliver of her attention from the opera in her head. Wide-eyed, Eliza witnessed a hole yawn open in the thick of the leaves, just to the right of the gate. A dark recess where she had pricked her finger. Her hand pulsed more painfully, she rubbed it again, a groan deep in her chest with no relief to the ache. The dark river of lines inked towards her elbow, her milky skin now coarse and flaky. She pulled her sleeves to her wrist and retrieved her shawl, knotting it tight around her shoulders.

  Something glinted in the moonlight from within the void of the hedgerow. Serenaded by the madness, Eliza obeyed the urgency of the voices. Her toes curled back as though something within her rebelled, but she traversed the path back towards the barrier between the known and unknown.

  Eliza winced with each gravelly prick to her soles, yet hopeful the sensation might offer an anchor to reality. With each movement, normality felt further away, the cruelty of the sisters a mere dream. With the final step, the ensemble calmed into a repetitive melody as though pleased with her actions.

  A rooster crowed; Eliza twitched out of her trance. It crowed again, and she twisted to see dawns’ glow beyond the slate capping of Norlane Hall. She shivered, warmth tingled down her arms, leaving a fiery heat in her fingertips. Servants would soon rouse. She scanned for signs of movement in the house. Only the smoke from dying hearths curled away from the rooftop. All else was still.

  Eliza returned her attention to the hedgerow, she picked again for comfort at her wrist. What lay beyond the ancient gate drew her thoughts immediately back to the strange happenings in her room. Eliza needed to know what was haunting her night, what was creeping under her skin. It would be impossible to exist in a world where both day and night were a terror.

  Eliza stepped forwards until the leaves were a breath away. The hedgerow shivered again as though inviting her in. She never felt welcome, so she lay her palms against the soft leaves and gently pushed the greenery aside where the gap had opened.

  Deep within the fabric of the foliage, a thorn as long as her thumb glistened with a drop of her blood. Eliza leaned in closer to the needle-sharp point. It twitched. She shuddered and clutched her pained hand over her heart. A smudge of red stained the buttons of her nightdress. Her pulse rushed in her temples and crashed against her palm. An itch coursed under her skin, up into her shoulder. She hesitantly peered in again.

  The barb trembled. Leaves rustled around it. The air was still, yet the gate to her left rattled, its circular handle banged like a door knocker. Eliza was rigid with indecision. Held by the decadent harmony within her mind and the intrigue of the unknown, Eliza stared at the thorn whilst fear courted her as it so often did.

  The dusk within the hedgerow leeched out as fingers of shadow drew the leaves further apart in invitation. Eliza’s hand breached the fringe of greenery. The tip of the thorn quivered again as her hand closed in. A gush of wind whipped through the hedge. The thorn tip popped open; its tip curled back and sprayed something in Eliza’s face. She jerked back, slapped at her cheeks, her hands slippery with a fine ash. She spat a fetid taste from her mouth, wiped her lips with the edge of her shawl. Her fingernails were back between her teeth. They clicked along the nail stubs, and she coughed some more.

  Breathless, tremoring from within, she couldn’t help but edge closer again, hand over her mouth and nose to silence words forever suppressed. Eliza dropped her hand to her side, her mouth agape with surprise. A flower had blossomed from the point of the thorn. She wrung her hands together, held them close to her chest. Her skin buzzed hot and cold.

  The voices rose to a vibrato, filling her head with their rapturous excitement. Emboldened, Eliza leaned closer, leaves brushed against her cheeks. The damp of the forest beyond strong, the gentle whisper of a breeze not felt, rustled through its branches. In the darkness of night, in a hedge that never blossomed, were perfect layers of white petals. They yawned wider before her eyes until a full flower was formed. The stigma in its centre dark and shiny. With an unsteady hand, she gently tilted the blossom closer and sniffed.

  Eliza coughed and wretched, letting the flower go. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, glaring less admiringly at the strange bloom, feeling wronged by its rotten odour. Swallowing the sting from her throat, she noticed the stigma dripped fluid from its centre. A slit of dawn light struck the petals. The flower’s tear was crimson. It streamed down the petals to drip into the shadows.

  Touch it. The words were not so much formed in her mind as they were a feeling, as though her subconscious was telling her what to do. Eliza reached out despite herself; her fingertip dabbed the redness from the petals. She rubbed its slickness between thumb and finger. It tingled. The breach of her pricked skin invited it in, and the blood of the hedgerow flower seeped within her. Fire raged up her arm; it exploded through her body with the very next beat of her heart.

  Breath was punched from her lungs. Eliza leaned forwards, desperately gasping to suck air back in. She grabbed her throat, the skin dry and crusty like her arm. Blood rushed to her face, her cheeks burned, the skin stung as it split, blood ran down her chin. Her pulse pounded in her temples, clouded her vision. Her face felt ready to explode. Rigidity struck through her limbs, and she fell back like a plank. Crickets stopped chirping; a veil of cloud cocooned the base of the waning moon, and there she lay, immovable, vulnerable, terrified.

  Eliza’s lungs eased, by a small measure, and she panted for breath, her rapid gasps loud in her ears. They obliterated the gentle whispers and left fear in its place. Her vision slowly cleared as air seeped back into her chest, yet her body remained paralysed. Assured this was death, Eliza relented to it and set her gaze upon the velvety sky, pinpricked with a million fading stars as they melted in dawn’s light.
Their attention weighed heavily upon her as she watched in a vacuous, frozen silence. She couldn’t pull a prayer to mind; even her thoughts were muted. Instead, she felt pain. The ache in her hand burned stronger; it slithered deep inside.

  Fire struck with each heartbeat, every inch of her alight. Each pulse a jolt, igniting her insides, whilst the cool soft grass cocooned her frozen form. She waited for death, but death too ignored her. For how long she lay there, she was unsure. Her breaths slowed, the burning waned, but haunted her like a second skin within, reminding her of its presence. One of her fingers twitched, the smell of smoke invaded her senses, the crackle of flames and screams raged in her head. Two fingers moved, then a toe. The voices returned, mewing at her, fanning the flame of resentment, a quiet resident of her thoughts. The purr of the voices became louder. Eliza’s muscles released when something furry rubbed against her cheek.

  She blinked, and feeling ebbed back into her body. Eliza drew large, relieving gulps of air. Agnes rubbed her wet nose against Eliza’s cheek, her whiskers tickled reality back into Eliza’s delirium. The cat licked her nose with her rough tongue. Strength returned to Eliza’s legs.

  Eliza’s feet pounded through the cool morning dew. The cat bounded ahead, a guide out of this waking nightmare. Eliza scrambled into her room, slammed the window down, latched it tight and fell to the floor. She heaved for breath, scuttled away from dawn’s glow into the shadows by her armoire. Every inch of her shivered.

  So loud were her laboured breaths, Eliza did not hear the crackle at first, but the smell of roasting meat whipped her pulse impossibly faster. Eliza blinked the haze of sweat from her vision, let her shawl fall from her back. A new spring of sweat dampened her nightgown. Her nostrils flared as she sucked in the alarming smell. The hearth glowed as it should, but the air was insufferably hot. It burned down her throat, she could feel its heat deep in her chest. Eliza covered her mouth, it quieted her breaths, and that’s when her eyes were drawn up towards the snap and crackle of fire.