by A. J. Elwood
I fear I am to go somewhere not of earth or of heaven or of hell, but somewhere that is different from them all. It is a terrible choice, and I pray you never have to make one like it. For I do not think I will ever see my son or my wife again, even in the next world, as has been the dearest hope of my life. A course lies ahead that is entirely new and strange and different to me. But I know my son would tell me, unhesitatingly, to go – to protect his daughter. And I will, for she is alone, and a child, and lost, and I can do no other thing.
I will try to follow where she has gone. I will take a Bible, and, I believe, the iron scissors. And if I find the false child first – then I can only trust that I shall know what to do.
Here before me is the price of my fascination. Sir Arthur has felt a little of it too, I think. His was the world’s censure; mine – ah, but who knows what mine shall be? I do not know if I will be blinded or stolen away, or worse – for what could they want with an old man?
What could be more terrible than what they have already done?
How strange it is that I find you are the only one I can tell. I have almost finished my letter – all that stands between me and them – and when I set out I shall leave it on the table. Perchance someone will find it and post it to you. Perhaps that someone might even be me. Perhaps their hands, their face, will only look like mine. Who can say?
Nothing remains but to sign myself, now and I hope ever, your friend,
Lawrence
14
For a moment, I am lost. What did Lawrence Fenton do? Had he put the changeling to the iron scissors and received his own child back again? I think of Mrs Favell’s daughter, Harriet, clutching a lovely baby girl in her arms. Is she the same Harriet as in the letters? But then she can’t be human, or she would have died years and years ago.
I blink and look up. I think I see the truth in Mrs Favell’s eyes, but perhaps that is also an illusion, for in the next moment there is only scorn, then that too is gone. She looks tired and a little old.
‘It was very hard for him, don’t you think, Rose?’ she says.
Tears brim at her eyes and something in me twists. I don’t know what is happening. Of course, I think. Of course it was.
‘He went into the wood,’ she says. ‘He was limping, though he wouldn’t have felt it. He would have held onto those iron scissors all the time, don’t you think? His Bible too, for what protection that would give him.’
I am silent.
‘Then he saw something brighter than the leaves, the long grass, the flowing water. It was her hair, shining amidst the branches as she stumbled towards him: Harriet, the little girl he wanted so badly to protect. What could he do? He longed to go to her, to take her in his arms and bear her home – but how could he know? This child, who had done the folk such harm – could she really have ventured into their domain without being changed?
‘And so he did not go to her. Instead he waited for her: to call out for her grandpapa, to hold out her arms to him, perhaps to cry. She did none of those things. She only stared, her eyes full of fear, and said nothing. And what did he say, do you think?’
I shake my head. What would anybody say?
‘He asked her if she recognised her grandpapa. And still the child did not answer. Perhaps there was only a little clicking, a sound made in the back of her throat, as children will when they swallow their sobs.
‘He returned bathed in her blood, Rose. I wept for pity.’
I can only stare. For pity? Somehow that’s the one thing I can’t believe.
She turns towards the window again. I feel that she is seeing beyond the treetops, down through the branches, into the shadows and the deeps. Perhaps she sees little figures walking there, discovering who knew what; perhaps she sees only the past.
‘She did look so very, very like her,’ Mrs Favell murmurs. Her neck twists towards me as she adds, ‘At least you know what your child looks like, don’t you, Rose?’
Her tone, her expression, everything has changed. She’s brighter. She walks towards me rapidly and with purpose and I flinch as if she’s about to attack me, but she only holds out her hand. It takes a second to realise I’m still holding her letters and when I hand them over she grasps them in claw-like fingers. Then she takes another step and I retreat before her, out through the door, into the hall.
She says, ‘If you want the end of the story, Rose, there is one last place you need to look.’
The door closes behind me. I am cast out.
15
It’s a good thing my shift’s nearly over because I don’t think I can keep my emotions inside while I go through all the ordinary routines. I don’t think anyone notices – Jimmy gives me odd looks when I’m helping in the lounge, but the other carers don’t even glance my way, which is fine with me. Eventually, the clock says I can go.
I grab my bag from my locker and leave almost at a run, jump into the car, grind the gears as I drive home. I go through the motions there too, hugging Paul, telling him that yes, it’s great to be home again. I plant a kiss on Alexander’s head. Paul nods, goes upstairs and I’m alone with the baby.
If you want the end of the story, Rose, there is one last place you need to look.
I put my face up close to his. Various people have commented that he looks like Paul or me, his nose, my chin, but I never know how they can tell. I try to see either one of us in the curve of his cheek. I hold my hands next to his short little fingers. He gazes at me steadily. I tell myself that all babies look as if they have old knowledge in their eyes, but I’m not sure I believe that’s true.
When I first came home from the hospital, I read online that infants born with teeth in their heads were once put to death as demons. Back then, people didn’t know any better. They’re only teeth, as the nurse had said, and it’s unusual but not that strange, even for them to be discoloured or jagged like Alexander’s. Natal teeth can be caused by anything from trauma to malnutrition to the mother’s exposure to toxins while the baby grows, so if anything, it’s my fault.
I place him on the sofa next to me and undo the poppers down the front of his sleepsuit. I slip it from his shoulders as he jerks and kicks. I remember him doing that in my belly: the swipe of a hand or a heel rippling under my skin, the lumpy strangeness moving inside me.
The magic of it.
I ease the garment from his legs and peel the tape from his nappy, pulling that away too, and I stare at my baby.
He’s perfect in his smooth, pale, marbled skin. There isn’t a mark on him, but there wouldn’t be, would there? It’s me who’s marked, those little footprints girdling my belly, like something claimed.
At least you know what your child looks like, don’t you, Rose?
But how can I? He changes so fast. The layers of fat have thickened about his limbs, coating his bones, pushing out his tummy, covering the webbing of veins beneath the skin. His hair is thicker too, though it’s still that indeterminate colour, almost transparent. He’s different to the last time I really looked at him. Tomorrow he might be different again.
‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ Paul stands in the doorway. He’s been watching me watching Alexander and he’s grinning at the sight. ‘I sometimes just look at him like that. You know, you two should spend a bit of time together this weekend.’
I nod, though what I think of is Robyn. I’ve only ever caught glimpses of her. I’ve seen her sweet little face softened in sleep. I haven’t really looked into her eyes. Isn’t that what people say – that they looked into the eyes of their baby and they knew? But perhaps I always knew. My body had responded to her cries as it never has with Alexander.
Perhaps Harriet will bring her to visit Mrs Favell soon. That means I can see her again.
‘… can meet Marcus there,’ Paul goes on, and I realise he’s making plans for us, ones I haven’t heard.
He funnels his hands around his mouth, speaks in a squeaky voice. ‘Earth to Rose,’ he says, and I proffer the expected smile.
‘Sorry. I was a bit distracted.’
‘Understandable. I’m distracted by him too. I was saying, I haven’t wet Alex’s – Alexander’s – head yet. I’m off to the Hart tomorrow aft, if that’s all right with you. I’ll see Marcus there, and it’ll give you two a chance to bond.’
I realise several things. The first is that he’s talking about bonding to make it sound like a favour to me that he’s going out, but I don’t care about that, nor the fact that it’s a bit late for wetting the baby’s head. The other is that tomorrow is a Saturday. That thought fills me with something like horror. Saturday: surely that is the day Harriet will visit. Sunnyside is always busiest at the weekends. It wouldn’t normally matter – I work whatever days I’m needed – but this week is different because my days off coincide with the weekend.
I have to see her.
I tell myself it’s fine and smile back at Paul, hiding the way my heart is hammering. ‘Of course you should go,’ I say. ‘It’ll be a good break for you.’
He plants another kiss on my cheek, one that feels real, a little like the ones we used to have. I think quickly and say, ‘There’s an errand I need to run in the morning though, something I said I’d do for work. You don’t mind, do you?’
He’s already stepping away, into the kitchen, though I catch his brief nod. He doesn’t think anything of it, and I tell myself again it will be fine; that everything will.
16
I reach Sunnyside as the sun drags itself interminably upward in the sky. I was awake before six but forced myself to wait until now. Official visiting hours begin at ten thirty and at weekends people often come later. I couldn’t risk arriving too soon and having no excuse to wait.
I’m not wearing my uniform. The receptionist – I’ve learned that her name is Lise, as in Lisa – also assists with admin and she’ll know who’s supposed to be working and who’s not. So will the other girls. If they ask, I’m going to say I was just passing, that Mrs Favell has a slight cough and I wanted to check on her. Or someone else, perhaps; I doubt Mrs Favell has been ill a day in her life.
She told me there is one last place left to look and I know now that it must be here, where everything began. I don’t know what or where, but she intended for me to reach the end; she must have.
Lise raises her eyebrows at the sight of me but I grin and wave and she nods. She gestures towards the sign-in book – it’s part of the fire regulations to have a record of anyone in the building – but when I walk past her she doesn’t bother to call me back. I go straight into the lounge. The residents are there. Jimmy’s jowls wobble as he chats to his son; Maryam smiles at the friend who’s come to see her; Reenie stares at nothing, the light catching in her hair like a blessing. Alf bends over his jigsaw, his eyes mere inches from the scattered pieces. Fondness washes over me. I feel as if I’m never going to see any of them again, that they’re behind me already, and sorrow clogs my throat.
Of course I’ll see them again. Why shouldn’t I? I’ll find the end of the story and then, maybe, everything will go back to normal.
I check the room again in case I failed to notice Mrs Favell among the rest, but I know I haven’t. After all, she isn’t one of them; she never has been. I go to the French windows and look out over the garden, although the day is grey, the lawn covered with leaves blown in from the wood. Everything is drab and colourless, the world turning towards winter. Perhaps that’s why everything inside me is shrinking too, but I won’t let that stop me from doing what I need to do.
Mrs Favell isn’t here and nor is Harriet. I know where they’ll be and I turn towards the stairs. Will anyone think it odd if I head up there in my jeans and crumpled shirt? No one’s looking at me. Still feeling strange, as if I’m learning to walk on unfamiliar limbs, I go up.
The corridor is the same as it has always been, and silent. I listen, unable to make out a word of conversation or the exclamation of a child, the clatter of tea things or the tuneless whistling of a deaf old man, not even the endless burbling of the television.
Room ten is in front of me. Feeling as if I’ve gone back in time I raise my hand to knock then let it fall again. Do I detect a trace of lilies in the air?
I open the door. I go in and for a second I see her, standing where she always does. She’s looking out across the trees, the edges of her silver hair turned to gold in the autumn light.
I blink and she’s gone.
The bed is stripped bare. Housekeeping must have been, but they’ve neglected to put on fresh sheets. Then I see that the bureau is missing. There’s no gleaming wood, no books, no pens, no envelopes, no stamps; no letters. For a moment I think I’ve walked into the wrong room – it might be anyone’s now, so plain without her in it – yet the imprints left by the bureau are still pressed into the carpet.
The mirror has disappeared from its place on the chest of drawers too and I can’t even see my own reflection as I pull open the drawers one by one. There’s nothing inside but pieces of curling drawer liner, each adorned with a faded pattern of flowers and smelling of nothing at all.
The wardrobe too is bare. All of her blouses, soft and pliant as dead rose petals, are missing. The hangers rattle under my hands, as empty as bones.
Mrs Favell has gone. Dead?
The word won’t connect with anything else. She can’t have died. There would have been a fuss. Someone would have told me. I’d have seen it on the receptionist’s face, on the faces of the residents, even the visitors. Death does not visit quietly. It does not leave everything so neat. The window of Mrs Favell’s room is closed.
But she is gone. She made her one last mocking statement, making me believe she would show me everything, before vanishing into the air. Did she fly, shrieking, up the chimney? Did she walk barefoot through leaf-strewn grass and enter the woods at last?
When I close my eyes I see her face, the brightness of her eyes, her smile. I hate her more than I’ve ever hated anyone. I think of Alexander – of Robyn – and imagine tearing into her face with my nails.
It’s difficult to think. I haven’t slept and everything has gone from me and I don’t know what to do. Is there some way I can follow her? Like Lawrence Fenton, should I take up my Bible and iron knife and enter the woods?
I go to the window. The massy crowns of trees form a barrier, opaque and impenetrable. The remaining leaves are softened to grey under the sunless sky, untouched by any breeze, motionless, waiting. What might be hiding beneath? Magic perhaps, in the dark and secret places? Or other stories, stories that would make everything clear instead of only more confused?
I squeeze the bridge of my nose between my fingers. Mrs Favell doesn’t need the woods. She never did. I think of her neatness, her pearls, her cultivated smile. Could she resist leaving some final message for me?
I examine the room again. And I see what must have snagged at my thoughts, in plain view all the time I stood here: her pictures, the black-and-white faces in their silver frames, are still there. I suppose I hadn’t noticed them until now because they were as I expected to find them; it was everything else that was wrong.
I can’t think why she’s left them behind. Residents don’t put up their own pictures – the caretaker does that, on an allocated section of wall which can be painted over when they leave, ready for a new occupant. Did she forget to ask him to take these down? Are they being sent on to her? It surely can’t have been so very difficult to have them removed, certainly not in comparison with the bureau. Perhaps they were only dressing after all and she didn’t care enough to keep them. Or did she leave them here on purpose – even, perhaps, for me?
I examine them more minutely, realising I have never done so before. I had neglected my duty in that. Patricia had told me to chat to the residents about the past, to go over old albums with them, to listen. I didn’t do so with Mrs Favell. Instead I’d turned away, but I look at them now, a string of faces, long forgotten and surely irrelevant. The only one I’d ever really noticed was the smiling young gi
rl and she’s smiling still, though it’s fixed and frozen, transformed by the camera into something lifeless. With a start, I think I recognise a younger Mrs Favell.
Then I see Alexander.
Suddenly I can’t breathe. This frame is ornate like the others, and old, surrounded by a gleaming wreath of silver leaves, but I’m almost sure it’s him. He’s wearing an old-fashioned white dress, a Christening gown, and lying in an ancient pram – one with a huge arched hood, the fittings made of shining metal. I tell myself it could be any child, but it’s not. He stares into my eyes. His expression is sly, his demeanour musing, as if he knew when that picture was taken that one day I would be standing in front of it.
I close my eyes. I should have trusted my instincts. I had known it, felt it when Harriet put her hands on me, draining my womb, stealing my baby from inside me. I had known myself to be empty.
And I know they’ve done this before, probably many times. They must have. Alexander might be ancient; he could have been given to who knows how many families before me, growing up, wearing out, only to become something that looks like a child once more. How old are Harriet and Charlotte, truly? How long have they lived? How many children have they borne, ones they didn’t bother with, never troubled over, because they were put as changelings into someone else’s belly?
And the real babies, the ones they stole – what happens to them? I think of Robyn sleeping so peacefully in Harriet’s arms. Was she under some spell to quiet her? Did she know her true mother was near? My body had known the truth. Why hadn’t I acted? I could have saved her.
I turn and grab the door, yank it open, but force myself to stop. Something is telling me to wait.
If you want the end of the story, Rose, there is one last place you need to look.