Evelyn balked at the patronizing tone of the sales assistant. “Perfectly well, thank you,” she lied. “I was merely consulting my sister on whether this hat would go well with my navy blue coat. She didn’t appear to think so.”
It had happened again. The same as the time in that fancy store in Bradford. A look, composed partly of pity and partly of confusion. But they were doing nothing out of the ordinary. Claire and Evelyn, two identical sisters out on a shopping spree. If you could call buying three books and a possible hat a spree. And now, Claire had thrown a tantrum…again.
Evelyn turned her back on the interfering shop assistant, hoping she would take the obvious hint and move away to someone who might appreciate her condescension.
But this woman was made of sterner stuff. “I am sure this hat would complement navy, black or gray. It is such a lovely shade of gray, don’t you think?”
Without a word, Evelyn slammed the hat back on its display stand and strode out of the store, her head held high, not catching the eye of any of the startled assistants and customers who had witnessed her less than careful handling of the expensive piece of millinery.
Once out among the anonymous crowds of the busy street, Evelyn spotted Claire peering into a bookshop window. She caught up with her. “Why did you do that, Claire? Everything had been going perfectly well. We were having a pleasant day out.”
“I told you. I hate clothes shopping. And I don’t like the way everyone stares at us. I feel like a performer in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.”
Evelyn’s temper had cooled. She hated to see Claire upset. “It’s because we look so alike. People don’t see too many identical twins, especially not of our age. Normally we would not be seen out together. We would be out with our own children, or husbands, and no one would guess either of us harbored a mirror image of ourselves.”
“But do you think we look so alike? We dress differently, wear our hair…differently.”
Evelyn smiled. “You could always use a few more hairclips.”
“I know,” Claire said. “You always look so well turned out. I don’t know how you do it.”
“A hot flat iron,” Evelyn said and winked at her sister. “I’m tired of the city now. We have what we came for. Let’s go home and read our new books.”
Claire’s eyes lit up. “A fine suggestion. Let’s do that.”
They spoke little on the train ride home, enjoying the solace of having the compartment all to themselves. Evelyn gazed out of the window at the countryside rushing by. Even though the windows were closed, she sensed the change in the air from smoky and gritty to fresh, clean and pure. Except for the steam and soot from the engine, of course.
Back home, the sisters eased off tight city boots. “Why do we do it, Claire? I, for one, would be so much more comfortable in my walking shoes.”
“Convention, Ev. Mama always taught us to dress up to go into the city. ‘You never know who you might meet,’ she used to say. Do you remember?”
“I do. Mama said quite a lot of things I have thought better of in recent years.”
“Such as?” Claire asked.
“Marry well, was one. She so wanted us to marry doctors or barristers. Someone in a profession. Never in trade.”
“Oh goodness me, no. The shame of it. Do you remember how scathing she was of poor Caroline Illingworth, who married that grocer from Bingley?”
“Oh, yes. Poor Caroline. And Mama wasn’t the worst of them. The biddies had a field day with her. They decided there had to be a reason she had married beneath her station.”
“How disappointed they were when it took a year for Caroline to show signs of having consummated her relationship with Harry Sutcliffe.”
They laughed. It felt good to have their closeness restored. Evelyn wiggled her toes, feeling the life throb back into them as her circulation returned. Her sister did the same.
“Right,” Evelyn said at last. “Time for a cup of tea and then settle down with our books. I’m going to start with one of Mr. Conan Doyle’s most recent – The Firm of Girdlestone.”
“Are there any murders in it?”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure there will be.”
“Mama would not have approved.”
“No. I don’t suppose she would. Good job she’ll never know, isn’t it?”
Claire’s laugh followed her into the kitchen.
As Evelyn made the tea, she reflected. Mama certainly would not have approved of her latest book, but she would have been horrified if she had seen what Claire was no doubt tucking into right now. Thomas Hardy’s racy Tess of the D’Urbervilles had drawn raised eyebrows from the bookseller. Evelyn had felt sure he had wanted to say something – to protest this was not a suitable novel for a lady – but as that would have meant losing a sale, along with possible future custom, he had wisely kept his mouth shut, rung up the amount and accepted her sister’s cash before wrapping the novel carefully in all-concealing brown paper.
Evelyn returned with a tray covered in tea things to find Claire engrossed. Without a word, she poured out the fragrant Ceylon brand they preferred and passed a cup to Claire, who accepted it without a word.
Evelyn settled herself comfortably and picked up her book, but had read no more than a few pages before her eyes grew heavy and she finally gave up the struggle to stay awake.
Claire’s screaming woke her.
Evelyn jumped to her feet and raced up the stairs to the source of the commotion. In her room, Claire was tugging at something that had entangled itself around her wrists.
“Get it off me, please, Ev. Get it off me!”
For a second, Evelyn couldn’t move. The sight of the blackened vine-like tendril, squeezing tighter and tighter around Claire’s wrists, mesmerized her.
Another scream from Claire brought her to her senses. She grabbed hold of the squirming, rubberlike vine and tugged at it. The harder she pulled, the tighter it gripped. Claire’s hands were white, numb-looking – the blood supply cut off.
“This is no good,” Evelyn said. “I need scissors. A knife.”
“Hurry, please, Ev! It hurts so much.”
Evelyn dashed into her own room and rummaged in a small sewing workbasket. She found the little pair of silver scissors that had been her mother’s. Rushing back, she grabbed the vine, now cutting into her sister’s skin. Tiny rivulets of blood dripped from the wounds it inflicted.
The little scissors hacked away. Evelyn feared they were too blunt for such a job. The plant squealed. It’s in actual pain. It can feel.
The vine gave, and Evelyn had cut through. Its screams died away as she hacked at it, flinging tendrils and leaves, which quickly withered and died on the floor.
When the last of the evil thing had been reduced to nothing more than dried leaves, Evelyn wrapped her sobbing sister in her arms. Her own body heaved with the exertion and fear. When they finally calmed down, Evelyn let Claire go. “Let me bandage those wrists for you. They look so raw.”
Claire let Evelyn lead her into the bathroom, where she bathed the red and angry-looking wounds.
“I thought that dreadful toy had disappeared. Did it come back?”
Claire shook her head. “I forgot. I found a small piece. So tiny, it was. I never gave it another thought. I put it in my trinket box, and, when you were asleep, I felt so tired I thought I would take a short nap. I had just dropped off when I felt something tighten around my wrist. My trinket box had somehow fallen and upended on the floor and…you know the rest.”
Evelyn poured a few drops of iodine onto a lint dressing. Its pungent aroma filled the small bathroom. “I’m afraid this is going to sting rather a lot.”
She gritted her teeth and gently patted first one wrist and then, using a clean dressing, the other. Claire flinched at each initial contact and bit her lip, screwing up her eyes. A tear appeared at the corner of e
ach one, but she didn’t cry out.
Evelyn finished tying the bandages gently around Claire’s wrists. “That should help ease them and stop any infection from that horrible thing.”
Claire lowered her arms. “Why is it doing this? What can it possibly want from us?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t, but we must burn whatever’s left of the vine. Now.”
The withered leaves lay where they had left them. Evelyn hesitated. How were they going to scoop that thing up without touching it and risking a repeat of what had just happened to Claire? The plant looked dead enough now, but what if it was merely lying dormant? Maybe it could regenerate at the slightest contact with human flesh?
Evelyn recoiled as wild ideas crashed backward and forward through her brain. She must stop it or what little self-control she had left would evaporate. She shook herself. “I’m going down to the kitchen to fetch a shovel and an old bag. Keep an eye on it, but don’t get any closer. Call me if it moves. Even an inch.”
Claire nodded.
In the kitchen, Evelyn stoked up the fire in the range and extricated the smaller of the two coal shovels. She selected a sizeable paper grocery bag. It would be plenty big enough to hold the remains and ensure she didn’t have to get her hands anywhere near them.
Back upstairs, she found Claire staring at the debris on her floor. “I’m as sure as I can be it’s dead,” she said.
“All the same, we can’t be too careful. Matthew said destroy it, which is what we shall do. Now, Claire, please hold the bag open. Wider. Good. I’m going to shovel that thing in there.”
Claire’s hands trembled, and the bag shook.
“Keep it steady, please, Claire. I don’t want to drop it and have to start again.”
Claire tightened her grip, and the trembling stopped. She held the bag wide open and steady.
Taking care not to spill any, Evelyn edged the shovel under the vine and maneuvered the bits onto it. A smell of putrefaction rose up from the carpet, and Evelyn wrinkled her nose. Claire recoiled, almost losing her grip on the bag.
“Claire. Be careful. Don’t drop it.”
“Sorry, Ev. I hadn’t expected such an awful stench.”
“Neither had I. It seems our friend here may be dead, but it still has at least one more trick up its sleeve.” In another context Evelyn would have laughed at the inappropriateness of this remark, but right now, laughter was the furthest thing from her mind.
“Got it.” She shook the shovel gently to secure the contents as she slowly transferred them to the bag.
With a rustle, the debris slid off and into the bag. “Screw it up tightly,” Evelyn said, but Claire was already doing so.
“It won’t get out of there in a hurry,” she said and followed Evelyn down the stairs.
Using a sturdy cloth to protect her hands from burning, Evelyn threw open the door of the kitchen range and stepped back. The fire raged within. Claire did not hesitate. She got as close as she dared, then threw the bag and its unearthly contents into the consuming flames.
“Did you hear that?” Claire asked.
Evelyn nodded, unable to comprehend. “It screamed. It wasn’t dead.”
The flames burned high in the range. The cries of the dying plant sounded like a tortured child.
“Look.” Claire pointed a shaking finger at the smoke seeping out of the doors. “It can’t do that. Ev, it can’t, can it?”
Evelyn shook her head and watched. The smoke coiled upward, then dissipated, falling into nothing as the screams died down and finally stopped.
“Is it over?” Claire whispered.
“I hope so. I truly hope so.” But as Evelyn tentatively opened the doors of the range and peered in, she realized. Only ashes remained of the evil plant, but it had taken all the fire’s energy to kill it. The flames were extinguished. Somehow she knew this was only the beginning. But of what?
* * *
“Is there no way we can discover the nature of this plant, or whatever it is?” Evelyn asked Matthew as they sat on the crags the following afternoon.
“Believe me. I have tried. I have been in every library from here to York and back. I have written to the Museums of Natural History in the major capital cities of the world. I have described the different plants and trees in the garden – especially the one you and I both encountered. I’ve even drawn a fair representation of the thing. All the ones that bothered to reply have said the same thing. It is unknown to them. They have no record of any such strain of plant. One particularly unhelpful museum director suggested maybe I would be advised to consult with a doctor specializing in diseases of the mind.”
“How dreadful.”
“Would you have believed it if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes? Did you truly believe me when I first told you about that toy and what it did? None of these people had met me, and all they had to go on was a fantastic story plus a drawing that I could easily have made up, with a little imagination and some incredible claims.”
“I suppose I would have found it difficult. But when you first told me about your experiences, I did believe you, Matthew. I could tell you weren’t lying.”
“You could see me. They couldn’t.”
* * *
Claire had become quiet and withdrawn, and, after two days of constant rain and howling gales, Evelyn felt as if the walls of the cottage were closing in on her. She hated being confined like this, and Claire’s almost total silence only served to make the atmosphere more claustrophobic. Nothing more had happened. No manifestations of the deadly toy or smells of putrefaction. The place was quiet, save for the ticking of the clock, which seemed to grow louder until Evelyn wanted to shut it off altogether.
Finally she could stand it no longer.
“I’m going out, Claire.”
Her sister raised shocked eyes from the book she was reading. “But the weather’s terrible, Ev. You’ll catch your death.”
“It’s only rain. I’m not a hothouse flower.”
Claire shrugged and went back to her reading. Evelyn pulled on her boots and buttoned up her coat. She secured her hat with an extra hatpin and decided against the umbrella. In this wind it would only blow itself inside out and offer her no protection from the elements. No, she would simply have to brave it. Her ankle-length waterproof would keep most of the rain off.
Evelyn opened the door and stepped out at the same time that a rushing gust of wind nearly knocked her off her feet. The lane was empty. Most sensible people were staying put, but she pushed on, the wind in her face, rain lashing her cheeks and threatening to tear her hat off.
The muddy pathway up to the crags meant Evelyn had to take care not to slip. The rain got into her eyes, half blinding her, and she told herself she must be mad to venture out in this, but the thought of turning around and going back to Heather Cottage gave her the determination to keep on. Besides, up by the crags was an overhanging rock where she could shelter for a few minutes.
She scrambled up to the crags and found it. Under the rock, the earth seemed dry and the instant relief from the biting wind brought her some respite. Here she could pause a while and clear her mind.
A rain-filled mist hung low over the moor, creating poor visibility. The wind whistled and howled. Evelyn had an overwhelming urge to let her voice mingle with it, to scream out her frustration and fears. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath and yelled as hard as her lungs would allow. The wind whipped away her scream, which became one with it. It felt good to let her emotions go. She repeated her cry as the mist swirled.
A large bird – a buzzard by the looks of it – swooped low, a few feet ahead of her, and for one second she locked eyes with it before it flapped its wings and flew off. How wonderful to be able to go wherever you wanted, to soar off into the sky, free, no fears because you were the predator; no one would hunt you down. Her heart soare
d with it, and, without warning, Evelyn burst into tears.
Stupid, she told herself, but the worry over Claire and that awful toy had taken its toll.
Evelyn wiped her eyes and her tear-tracked cheeks. She took a deep, ragged breath and replaced her now sodden handkerchief in her pocket.
The rain eased off, and, as the minutes ticked by, the mist began to lift. In the sky, a pale sun seemed to be trying hard to break through the still-gray clouds.
She could now see further, and, some yards away, a figure moved, taking her by surprise. Her position, under the rock, gave her camouflage. Whoever it was would be unaware of being observed. As she continued to stare, she became aware that the figure was a man. One with a slight limp. He seemed to have no stick, but she recognized him straightaway. What was Matthew doing up here in this weather? The same as her?
The more she watched him, the more curious Evelyn became. He seemed to be searching…no, hiding something. He picked something up. A small spade. Now he was digging, having difficulty in the rocky soil.
She toyed with the idea of surprising him but decided against it. Much better to observe for now.
Matthew laid his spade against a rock and bent down. He seemed to be scrabbling in the dirt. Most odd. He straightened, picked up the spade and set it down. More scrabbling. He was hiding it, burying the spade. Why would he need to do that?
With one final look at his handiwork, he moved away from the rock, and Evelyn realized he was headed in her direction. He would be bound to see her. He would have to pass her on the way back down the hill. In an instant, she made up her mind. Bending low, she emerged from her shelter and half ran around to the back of the rock. She stood as straight as she could in the still-powerful wind and began to approach him as if she had simply been on her normal walk.
As Matthew caught her eye, she could see her presence had startled him, but his recovery was almost instantaneous. Almost.
She held on to her hat as a sudden gust of wind threatened to rip it off her head. “Matthew. It seems you and I are the only ones brave or foolhardy enough to come up here in this weather.”
The Garden of Bewitchment Page 7