I'm whirling, trapped in a tunnel of noise and pain. I stare into eyes a much prettier shade of green than my own. Flat, dead eyes. Mum…I'm dangling upside down. I feel the scream building and building…
I'm somewhere else. No. Some -when else. My attic room? But the walls aren't bulging and the roof doesn't sag…I feel the part of me that is Emily Lynnette drift. I try to claw a hold of myself without success…I'm Emily…I'm…
…I'm stood by the window, looking out at the apple trees. John were a fool. They'll never grow here. Not properly with the wind blowing off the moor. A faint moon is shining through gauzy clouds, a silver coin in the sky. He's out there. Watching. Waiting. He always knows where she is. And when He finds out: when she's gone beyond his grasp? I shudder to think of the violence He will do.
"Helen?" Her voice is a mere thread of sound.
I glance towards the plain wooden bed. She’s so frail. I have little enough love for her but I was always helpless against her will. Her vitality. . Who would not admire her spirit and beauty? Now she is a more ghastly shade than the crisp white sheets. Except her cheeks, which flush with fever.
She raises a skeletally thin hand in poor imitation of her imperious manner. "Helen?"
I go and sit beside her. Take her hand. It is like holding a bundle of winter twigs. "Yes, Miss?"
"I've told you and told you to call me Kate. Besides I'm not a Miss anything anymore." There is a trace of her old asperity in her voice. I like her the better for it. For not becoming good and meek in her last hours for surely they are her last.
"Has he come yet, Helen?" I know she doesn't mean her husband. That poor spooney! I shake my head. "He will Helen. He will. We'll be together, even in death. Nothing can part us."
"Except you!" I snap. Curse the girl! Can she not see the damage she's wrought even now? I want to bite my sharp tongue then, for one should speak only comfort to the dying. I expect her to snatch her hand away but she's either too weak or too far gone for that. She smiles humourlessly. Stoic that I am, I still recoil from that ghastly expression. All teeth and fever bright eyes. Her skull peering indecorously through the flesh of her face. The consumption has much wasted her. She has a grimmer visage now than He ever had. I shudder again.
"Don't fear, Helen. We've always said what we liked to one another, you and I, haven't we?" Her lips whiten further as her smile widens. A crack on her dry lip opens and weeps.
"Because I'd have none of your nonsense, then?" How I wished that were so.
"Yes. Well I never really prayed, you know. Not when Papa made me go to church. Not when Mama died. Not when John would tan us with his belt for my speaking wicked impudence or force us to hours of kneeling and reading scripture. Nothing could make me pray. Until last night. I did then."
"Well there's some hope for you after all, Miss Kate! Shall I fetch your father? Or his curate?" Not meek perhaps but could she be good at her last hour? Could she be proper as she always should have been? She might even be sorry for all the grief she has caused me… Her next words undeceive me.
"Nay, stay still Helen. You shall fetch whomever you like in a minute. I prayed, while you dozed on that window seat. You do know you'll never see him coming don't you, Helen dear? Anyhow it seemed to me that heaven must be a dreary place indeed, and I shuddered at the thought of hell, though I am still not sure I believe in the latter. Do you know, Helen, I believe we make our own hells and we live them on earth before we die, and when we die if we cannot see where we went wrong, then we are doomed to live them for eternity…." She trailed off.
Her words make my skin creep. She raves, she knows not what she says. Yet, secret and deep, I think my mistress is more lucid than she has ever been before.
"You said you prayed…?" Oh, why ask? Did I wish to hear more of this lunacy?
"Yes. I am determined not to go to heaven, Helen. The only hell I believe in is an existence without him. So I prayed that I should never go to heaven. That I should never leave this place. Even if I were to wander the moors forevermore searching for him, that I should stay."
I wrench my hand away. "Oh Miss! How can you speak such wickedness! Even now, at this hour!" I feel I could cry. She has vexed me much, and tormented me when it suited her as we grew from children to be mistress and maid. But never have I felt such fury for her as now.
"Do you fear for my soul, Helen, or your own?" She smiles with wickedness, just as she did when we were children. "Don't put such stock in the rubbish John brays." She looks away, towards the window. Towards the moor. "I should never have married Clayton. That is the only mistake I ever made. He will come for me though. I know he will. Before the end."
Again, it’s not her husband she wants. It's Him. The dark shape on the moor. The watcher… I can't breathe… it's cold… so cold… and…
…I'm Helen…
…I don't know who Helen is!
I'm Emily! Emily Lynette!
Like fabric tearing, I wrenched the dream apart, waking frozen and gasping in my bed.
The window was wide open. Moonlight streamed in. I didn't need to look to know that the book was open on my desk again. I flicked on the bedside light. Shivering, I slapped the book shut and slammed it onto the shelf. A hint of scent—rosemary and violets—blew across my face, familiar and painful. I didn't know why returning things to normal was so important. It just was. I had to regain control.
The window.
No way was I putting my hand out there again. The plaintive wailing of the cold girl drifted in.
I know I was going to help you but…I can't. I really can't.
The thought of that wintry touch had me gagging with revulsion. Not tonight. I grabbed a coat hanger and reached carefully through the window, snagging the latch to bring it close enough for a wild grab. My frozen fingers missed. One of my nails snapped off close to the quick but I was too cold to feel it yet. My heartbeat had taken over my whole body. Another swipe at the latch. Got it. Triumph, as I thumped the window shut. I dropped the latch and let out my held breath in a rush.
Slap. Slap.
I gave a strangled cry and jumped away from the window. A pair of small, pale hands were pressed against the glass. White starfish. Fingers crawling, clawing. Searching for a way in…
The room see-sawed around me. Breathing too fast. With no idea what I was about to do, I screwed up my will power and shoved it outwards.
Go away!
With a wail the hands disappeared into the night. I sank, shaking onto my bed. Pieces of a puzzle. It was all linked somehow. How many ghosts could one place have? They must be linked. Helen and the other girl—the dying one—Kate, as well. This wasn't a run-of-the-mill haunting. And I was being drawn in whether I wanted it or not.
I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1) Page 11