by Jack Lewis
“I’ve always thought the sky around here was ugly,” said Magda. “When we get the rare caller at the manor, they always tell me how lucky I am to live here. I thought that too, once. When I married your dad and he brought me here, I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world. I explored every inch of this place, Tammy.
“But over the years I’ve come to realise how ugly it is. They say city pollution is a bad thing, but sometimes I just want something to blot out the night sky. The stars are supposed to shine and twinkle and people say it’s magical, but all I see are fading lights from fires that died millions of years ago.”
She turned her head and looked at Tamara. Tamara couldn’t help but think how old her mother had gotten. She wondered why people had to decay with old age. She felt sometimes that it should be the reverse; that rather than getting sagging skin and a crooked back, you should be rewarded for reaching an old age, and that you should only get more beautiful as time passed. The fact was that Magda was looking as old and worn as the manor itself.
“Do you remember how you begged us for a telescope?” said Magda. “You wrote a Christmas list when you were ten, and there was nothing on it but the word ‘telescope’, repeated over and over. By the end your fingers must have gotten tired, because I could hardly read it.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“And then when we got you one, you used it once. For five minutes. I remember you walking sheepishly back into the house and telling us it was too cold to be outside. After that it sat beside a wall in your bedroom and I don’t think you ever took it out of the box again. Your father was cross.”
“Come on, mum. Not now.”
It wasn’t until she saw Magda smile at her that she realised the mistake. She’d called her mum. She decided that rather than correct herself, she’d just pretend it never happened.
“He had a temper, your father. He tried to hide it from you, but it was there. That’s the thing about the Towneley men, you see. There’s something wrong with them. There’s a saying in the village, you know. ‘A Towneley is born either devious or ill-tempered,’ they say.”
“And which one am I?” asked Tamara.
Before Magda could answer, Butch perked his head up off the ground. He stared ahead of him at the woods, and before Tamara could even think about walking over with his lead, he bolted across the grass. His feet carried him so quickly that he soon became a blot in the darkness, and Tamara could only watch as he ran into the woods and melded with the shadows of the trees.
“You better get him,” said Magda. “If you don’t get him now, he’ll be gone all night.”
Tamara walked away from the manor and onto the grass. It was sodden, and it squeaked beneath her feet as she trampled across it. She heard Magda whistle behind her, and Rupert sprinted back to his owner. Tamara fixed her gaze on the woods. She couldn’t see Butch, but she hoped he hadn’t gone far.
She reached the edge of the trees. She gripped the lead in her hand, and she scanned the darkness in front of her. The forest floor was littered with dead leaves, the last the trees had shed as winter approached. Some of the branches were so thin that when they mixed together in the sky they looked like spider webs. Shapes formed in the shadows in front of her, and she couldn’t tell whether they were trees or something else.
Footsteps crunched on the ground. Somewhere ahead, Butch pranced over the forest floor. She knew that she couldn’t just leave him, so she took a deep breath and stepped across the threshold.
As soon as she was in the woods, the air turned to ice. Wind moaned along the tree limbs and made them sway, and birds called out to her in the night. She remembered the deer staring at her from the side of the road, and she wondered if it was the same one that had died in the dining room, and whether there were more like it in the woods. She imagined black eyes waiting in the darkness, watching her as she stepped deeper and deeper into their lair.
A few minutes into the woods and already the manor felt like a memory left behind her. She turned around and she could dimly see the front of the house, where a lonely torch flickered in a room on the ground floor. A few more steps forward and the view was lost to her. The woods drowned out all noise until the silence settled heavily in the air, amplifying her steps and her quickening breaths. She wanted to call out to Butch, but she was scared of the noise her voice would make, and what it might awaken.
Twigs cracked to her right. She turned just in time to see Butch in the distance, scurrying along the muddy forest floor and walking deeper into it. She turned direction and followed him, stepping over vines as they snagged on her feet and shuddering every time a bird disturbed the silence with a shrill cry.
Then she stopped. An overwhelming feeling of dread crawled inside her and filled her chest. Her legs felt weak.
She sensed something ahead of her in the darkness. It was still a while away but there all the same, lurking amongst the trees with the dead branches, waiting silently in the pitch black for her to walk toward it.
She knew the orangery was ahead. A voice in her head cried out at her and begged her to turn back. She heard Butch cracking twigs on the forest floor ahead, and knew that unless she raced forward to catch him he’d be gone all night. There was even the chance that he could find the edge of the woods and then run onto the main road, and after that he could be lost forever.
She willed herself to take a step, but an unseen force pushed her back. It wouldn’t let her take a step closer because beyond her was the orangery, and she knew she wasn’t supposed to go near the building with its moss-covered bricks and windowless walls.
She couldn’t do it. It was pathetic, but she couldn’t do it. Her body filled with foreboding, and she almost felt like she could just cry. Shame filled her as she turned around, and as she walked back she saw the glow from the lamp in the manor window, and soon she was back outside it.
Billy stood at the front door. His shirt was covered in soot, and he had a scratch across his face.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“Butch ran away.”
“And you can’t find him?”
She pictured the woods behind her, and shuddered.
“He went into the woods, but it’s too dark.”
“I’m gonna go look for him,” said Billy.
“It’s pitch black.”
“We can’t just leave him.”
Before she could continue their discussion, Billy walked past her and toward the grass, and a few minutes later he was just another shape walking in the distance and disappearing into the line of trees.
She found Magda in her bedroom with Rupert sat on her lap. She was in the chair by the dresser, and she stared out of the window whilst stroking the dog’s nose. The cracked mirror reflected back her wrinkled skin, and the glow of the lamp beside her illuminated the look of worry on her face.
“Billy’s looking for him,” said Tamara.
Magda turned. Tamara saw such a look of sorrow on her face, that it shocked her.
“He won’t find him,” she said.
Tamara looked at the wall and saw a painting hanging above Magda’s bed. It was taken on the grounds of Towneley Manor with the woods lurking in the background. It showed an old man, a younger man, a teenager and a boy. All of them stood the same way, as if it was a pose all of them had naturally adopted. There was a sinister look on their faces, and Tamara realised that they all looked the same. This was a photograph of four generations of Towneley men, and she could just tell that all of them had been born with the devious side of the Towneley coin.
Billy returned thirty minutes later, hair soaked in rain and cheeks red from cold. He held a lead in his hand, and it stretched limply at his side and dragged across the floor.
“I’m sorry, “he said. “I’ll find him in the morning.”
“No, you won’t,” said Magda. “If he’s to come back, then he’ll come back alone.”
The two of them walked upstairs to bed. Tamara paused outside her doorway. Bil
ly had his hand in his pocket, and she saw the outline of something in it.
“Do you want to stay in my room tonight?” she said.
“No. You get your sleep.”
“It feels like we haven’t talked in ages. I could use the company.”
He stared at her for a few seconds, and then shook his head.
“The bed’s too small,” he said, and turned around.
As he walked along the narrow hallway to his room, she saw the outline of the object in his pocket again. It was a square shape, and the edge pressed against his jeans. He walked into his room and shut the door, and Tamara heard the click of the latch.
She couldn’t understand why he’d turned her down. After spending a few nights apart, she thought he’d jump at the chance to stay in her room. She felt like there was a distance between them, a gulf that was as empty as the corridors of the manor. There was something all too suspicious about it.
She took off her shoes and placed them next to her door. She walked down the hallway in her socks, taking care not to make a sound. She worried that she might bump into the armchair in the darkness and find someone sitting in it, but the hall was empty.
She stopped outside Billy’s door. She kneeled down and pressed her eye against the keyhole. It felt wrong to spy on him, but there was something strange that she just couldn’t place; a feeling that something was wrong.
Billy’s room was lit by the orange flame of a candle. She watched as he took off his shirt and his jeans. He fished in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the object. It was a small book the size of his palm. As the light of the candle lit the cover, Tamara saw that an eye was printed on the front of the book.
Suddenly an eyeball stared back at her through the keyhole. It gazed at her, white around the edges with a small black pupil. Then it blinked.
She fell back and hit her head on the wall behind her. There were thudding sounds on the floor of Billy’s room, and then a click as the latch was pulled back. He opened the door and stood in the frame. Tamara scrambled to her feet.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said, rubbing his eyes. “You okay?”
She knew the eye watching her through the keyhole couldn’t have been his, because she’d heard him cross the room when she fell back. What was happening? Had someone been in his room with him?
“I’m fine,” she lied. “I was going to the bathroom and I stumbled. It’s too bloody dark in here.”
Billy grabbed her hand and dragged her off the floor. He pulled her into a weak embrace, and then smiled.
“Night, hon,” he said, and walked back into his room, shutting the door behind him.
Tamara stood in the cold, empty hallway and felt the gloom of Towneley Manor cover her.
Chapter Seven
The floorboards of the lobby seemed to hold onto the cold, and Tamara felt it sting her feet the following morning as she crossed the room in her socks. The day before, Billy had inspected the chimneys in the house and found each of them blocked. Tamara knew they would be, of course, but her husband had a habit of never believing something until he had tested it himself, whether it was batteries in the TV remote being empty or that the bathroom light bulb had gone again.
She had watched him as he ignored her and stuck his head inside the cavities one by one. Some were so bunged with soot that dislodging them was like poking a stick at a snowy mountain and starting an avalanche. Even when the soot was cleared, all that remained were bricks that blotted out the light.
He examined the central heating system and tried to bleed the radiators, but the metal refused to heat up. As winter slowly crept toward them, Tamara wondered if the house would ever get warm. Towneley’s heating system was even older than the woods that surrounded the manor, and it would have been easier to chop down the trees and burn them for heat rather than getting the old boiler working.
It was another reason why Magda couldn’t stay here alone. Or if she did, she’d need to fix the heating system, and she would probably have to rip the whole thing out and replace it. On top of that, she was in debt to the power company to a sum that made Tamara’s eyes water when Magda told her.
She crept through the lobby while the rest of the house slept. As soon as she’d woken up that morning she had decided to ring the caregiver service in town. If selling the house was going to be difficult, then at least she could get a caregiver to drive here. That way, Tamara and Billy could leave.
Standing next to the grandfather clock, she reached in her hoodie pocket for her mobile phone. Patting along the cotton, she felt nothing but her stomach. She looked back at the forty-six steps to her room and felt a weariness seep through her. Rather than walk up there to get her mobile, she’d just use Magda’s telephone.
She walked over to the small table and picked up the handset. Holding it to her ear, she remembered what Magda said about her imaginary conversations with a man called Harold. Even though she couldn’t quite picture herself speaking to the man, she still felt nervous when she held the phone.
The number for the caregiver service was on her mobile, but she could just ring the operator and ask to be put through. She put her finger in the first hole and rotated it. The phone clicked across, and after dialling all the numbers, she waited.
Nothing happened. There was no ringtone and no busy tone, nothing to mark that she’d even dialled the numbers. She replaced the handset and then picked it up and tried again, but nothing happened.
“Magda?” she called out.
She heard her mother’s footsteps on the floor above her. A minute later, Magda appeared at the landing and looked down.
“Your phone’s not working,” said Tamara.
Magda shrugged. She rubbed the top of her ear, and leaned uneasily against the bannister.
“I can’t think why,” she said.
Another thing to add to the list, thought Tamara. She walked out of the lobby and along the hall until she came to the kitchen. The smudge on the window was gone now, and the bleak grounds of the manor waited outside of the glass.
She saw the stack of unopened letters on the kitchen counter. She picked them up and began sorting through them. Some had the logos of various companies from catalogue stores to power suppliers. She stopped when she saw an envelope with a marking on it.
This one was from a company called ‘North West Telephony.’ She teared open the envelope and unfolded the letter. It was dated over a month earlier. She scanned across it, and as she read its contents she felt irritation start to run through her, getting hotter and hotter until it became anger.
Dear Mrs. Towneley,
We regret to inform you that despite numerous phone calls and letters, we have still not received a response concerning outstanding debt on your account.
Due to the lack of communication, we have unfortunately taken the decision to cease service to your property. In thirty days from receipt of this letter, your telephony service will be discontinued.
She threw the letter down on the floor. Just two days earlier she had come downstairs to find her mother talking on the phone, apparently being told by Larry Tremblane that he was too ill to care for her. Was that just bullshit, then? Had she been playacting? Was it just a ploy to get Tamara to stay?
Anger rushed through her, growing hotter as it flowed through her veins but not enough to ward away the chill around her head. She wanted to reach for strips of wall paper on the wall and tear them down. She wanted to take a sledgehammer to the crumbling brickwork of the manor and speed along its decay; anything to empty the furious energy inside her.
She reached the doorway of the kitchen, and then paused. A thought struck her, cooling her skin. It was the kind of realisation heavy enough to stop her and stick her in place, numbing her legs.
The phone had rung the other day, she remembered. She’d heard its shrill tone fill the lobby, and she’d answered it.
She’d heard a heavy breathing on the line.
Someone had listened to her. Waited for h
er to speak.
No. That can’t have happened. It must have been a problem with the phone. Circuits or something.
But the breathing had been all too real. It had been there, a person on the line who refused to speak but knew that she was in the cold lobby with the phone to her ear.
She stormed through the lobby and up the stairs, making light work of the forty-six steps, fuelled by the energy that only fury can give. She found Magda in her room sat at the dresser and powdering her face. Magda glanced into the cracked mirror, and it looked like her face had been broken into pieces. She gave a grin that seemed crooked along the smashed glass.