Wake Wood

by K. A. John

  Sixteen

  PATRICK LEANED OVER Alice in an attempt to shield her from Martin O’Shea’s sight. But the expression on Martin’s face suggested that he’d already seen all he wanted to. Martin parried Patrick’s steady gaze before accelerating hard and driving off down the road.

  Patrick waited until the road was clear before lifting Alice gently from the verge and carrying her to the back of the estate car. He laid her down on the bench seat in the back and climbed in beside her, cradling her head on his lap. In less than a minute most of the wounds and blemishes on Alice’s body had faded, leaving her skin clear and perfect.

  ‘What happened?’ Louise knew her question was superfluous as soon as she’d asked it. Given Arthur’s warning that Alice would still be ‘deceased’, as he’d put it, coupled with his insistence that they keep Alice within the confines of Wake Wood, she knew exactly why Alice’s injuries had returned. Alice had walked past the town’s boundaries and her body had begun to disintegrate; just as it had begun to recover as soon as Patrick had carried her back within the limits of Wake Wood.

  Alice was in thrall to Wake Wood and could never leave the place. Not if she wanted to stay alive and breathing. But it wasn’t only Alice who was bound to the town. Louise and Patrick were. Because there was no way that they could abandon their daughter … and when they gave Alice up … what then?

  Arthur had extracted a promise from Patrick that they’d stay in the town and Patrick would continue to work there as a vet. In view of that, could she and Patrick ever leave Wake Wood? Would they be able to, should they want to flee the place and the people?

  Patrick cut in on her thoughts. ‘You drive, Louise. Reverse the car here and go back.’ Patrick shut the car door, closing himself and Alice in.

  Louise sat in the driver’s seat and turned to him. ‘Go back where, Patrick?’ she asked in confusion.

  ‘Where else but the cottage?’ Patrick answered despondently. ‘There’s nowhere else that we can go.’

  Louise turned the car around and drove quickly back into the town. Occasionally she raised her eyes to the rear-view mirror and glanced at the back seat. Alice was curled like a kitten on Patrick’s lap, her eyes open, the skin on her face and neck now totally blemish-free.

  She was making shapes with her fingers and, holding them up, partially covering her eyes. The small, achingly familiar childish gesture brought a lump to Louise’s throat. How could she have forgotten how much Alice had enjoyed forming shadow animals on the wall? Even making up stories about the strange beasts she’d created.

  She looked at Patrick absently stroking Alice’s forehead with his free hand. She could see from his expression that he was stricken with remorse and guilt for trying to take Alice outside the town limits and subjecting her to so much agonising pain.

  ‘Dad,’ Alice said suddenly. ‘Do you remember that big fierce dog that bit me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Patrick was so choked by emotion he could barely get out the single word.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Patrick tried to answer her but no words came. When he failed, Alice answered for him.

  ‘You put him down, didn’t you, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then you killed him?’ If there was condemnation in her voice, neither Louise nor Patrick picked up on it.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Patrick confessed.

  ‘That’s all right then.’ Alice settled back on his lap.

  Louise continued to drive towards the cottage, but every time she looked at Patrick and Alice in the back of the car she was conscious of time ticking inexorably on. It was nearly the end of their second precious day with Alice. Only one more to go and she knew … just knew … that when the moment came – as it must – she would no more be able to give Alice up than she would be able to stop breathing.

  After a supper of scrambled eggs and ham on toast, Alice went into the garden to play with Howie, who was limping, just as Patrick had prophesied, but up on his feet. Patrick busied himself clearing the table and stacking the dishes in the dishwasher but, unwilling to allow Alice out of her sight, Louise remained in front of the window in the living room, watching her daughter coax the dog around the garden. When Howie tired of walking and lay down on the grass, Alice played ‘tug’ with him; putting a stick in his mouth, she pulled the other end. Louise couldn’t decide who was enjoying the game more, Alice or the dog.

  The clatter from the kitchen ceased. Patrick stole up behind her and kissed the back of her neck.

  ‘We’re trapped here in Wake Wood, aren’t we?’ she murmured.

  When he didn’t answer her she turned her head and looked up at him. ‘We’re here for ever, we can never escape.’

  Her only answer was his continued silence.

  ‘How will we bear it?’ She didn’t have to explain what.

  ‘We’ll bear it, Louise, because we have to,’ he said. ‘What other choice do we have?’

  When twilight fell and the shadows lengthened beneath the trees, Louise left the window and went into the garden with Patrick to call Alice and bring her inside.

  ‘It’s getting cold and dark – time for bed, sweetie.’

  Alice came without argument. She gave Howie one last pat before Patrick herded him into the outbuilding next to his surgery where he housed the pens and beds for the sick animals he treated.

  Louise chased Alice upstairs, but underlying the fun, familiar ritual of bedtime was the ever-present thought of just how short a time was left to them. When Patrick came in from outside, she allowed him to take over because she was almost blinded by tears.

  They both put Alice to bed. Louise told Alice a story until her eyes closed. She lay beside her for ten more minutes, then, believing her daughter to be asleep, Louise tucked the duvet around her, straightened her pillow and stroked her hair. Alice turned sleepily and opened one eye.

  ‘This is our house now, isn’t it, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, sweetie,’ Louise whispered.

  ‘Then we live here all the time?’

  ‘We do,’ Patrick confirmed.

  Alice closed her eyes again and giggled.

  ‘Is something funny, sweetie?’ Louise asked.

  ‘I was thinking of Howie. Animals are funny, aren’t they?’

  ‘They certainly can be, honey,’ Patrick agreed.

  Alice’s giggles became high-pitched. Louise turned back at the door to see her in the throes of convulsions, just like the ones she’d witnessed Deirdre having in the pharmacy. She rushed back to Alice’s bedside but by the time she reached her, they’d passed. Once more Alice appeared sound asleep and quiet.

  Patrick was still in the doorway and she saw the pain that was crippling her mirrored in his eyes. He opened his arms and she went to him, clinging to him as if she were a shipwreck victim embracing a spar of driftwood.

  Unwilling to abandon Alice alone upstairs, Patrick and Louise left the door of her room ajar and went into their bedroom. By tacit agreement they also left their door open so they could hear Alice’s shallow breathing. Patrick sat on the end of the bed and leaned forward, head in hands, sunk deep in thought.

  Louise sat in a chair she’d pulled up to the window. The curtains were closed and she tried to empty her mind of painful thoughts and remember only the happy times with Alice. But no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on the past, she couldn’t block out the thought that tomorrow would be their last day with Alice. Not just for now but for ever.

  Every time she recalled a happy time, the bleak, transient nature of the present intruded – bleak because she couldn’t forget for an instant that the situation would last only a few more hours. Alice couldn’t stay with them beyond the allotted time – and, as for the future, she simply couldn’t bring herself to dwell on the prospect of a life without her daughter.

  After experiencing it, just the thought of returning to that despairing time of grief and depression after Alice’s death was untenable. She’d rather return with
Alice to wherever her child was going. Could death really be that dreadful? Even more so than the living nightmare she’d experienced before Arthur had returned Alice to them?

  Louise moved restlessly on the chair. Sleep was out of the question. Her mind was awash with images of Alice: Alice asleep … Alice awake … Alice racing around … Alice sitting, reading by firelight … Alice quiet and thoughtful. But the pictures that dominated her mind were those of her daughter’s dying, broken and bleeding body after the dog had attacked her, and her decomposing corpse in her coffin.

  She closed her eyes tightly and tried to banish the tragic scenes. But then the question of the mechanics of the ‘return to the woods’ that Arthur had spoken of raised its ugly head. When Mary Brogan had talked about Deirdre she’d said ‘they’ – meaning Deirdre and others like her – ‘returned willingly’. Had Mary meant to the earth in the woods?

  Did Arthur seriously expect her to dig a grave and lay Alice in the ground a second time, the only difference being that this time Alice would be aware and awake and alive?

  And after she’d laid Alice down in the earth – would Arthur actually expect her to cover her own child’s body with dirt?

  Losing track of time, she sat and pondered, imagining the event without coming to any clear conclusions. The shadows thickened, the room dimmed then darkened as night fell outside the closed curtains. And still she and Patrick continued to sit in despairing silence, seeking answers to imponderable questions while trying to face up to the second loss of their only child.

  When it was too dark to see across the room Louise heard a strange noise. It appeared to be coming from downstairs. Instantly alert, she strained her ears and thought she could hear the muffled sound of movement. She looked out on to the landing. She could see the reassuring shape of the pine bannister, a streak of light in the blackness, the square frames of the flower prints on the wall, a beam of moonlight lightening the carpet below the skylight.

  All appeared still and quiet apart from Alice’s soft regular breathing. Then she heard another noise, different this time. Metal scraping against metal. Could it be a key turning in a lock?

  ‘Did you hear something?’ she asked Patrick urgently.

  Patrick, who’d been as still as a bronze statue since he’d sat on the bed, lifted his head and looked at her. ‘No. Did you hear a noise?’ he asked blankly.

  ‘I think so. I’ll check on Alice.’ Louise tiptoed to Alice’s room and pushed the door a fraction wider. Alice was lying exactly as she’d been when Louise had left. Her head sunk into her pillow, the duvet pulled to her chin, her eyes closed, her mouth relaxed in a sleepy smile.

  Louise retreated. When she reached the landing she heard the noise again, the unmistakeable sound of a key being turned in a lock.

  She looked into their room and hissed, ‘Patrick!’

  He picked up on the panic in her voice and rose to his feet. Padding softly out of their bedroom, he joined her at the top of the stairs. They stood side by side, glancing into one another’s eyes, listening hard as they looked down into the hall.

  Detecting movement in the shadows below them, Patrick lifted his finger to his lips and began to descend slowly and silently in sock-clad feet. Louise followed. They both hung back at the foot of the stairs.

  The door to the living room was wide open. The fire had burned low and the room was in darkness. Then, as their eyes adjusted to the low level of light, black silhouettes gradually began to take on human dimensions in the gloom. They saw them moving in the dim glow emanating from the ashes that still smouldered in the hearth. The first things Louise could make out were the ragged outlines of the clusters of black feathers that they all wore on their lapels or shoulders.

  Then she recognised the intruders as their neighbours. The farm hands Tommy and Ben were there, as were Peggy and Martin O’Shea and Mary Brogan. And, standing in the centre of the throng like a godfather surrounded by his henchmen, Arthur.

  Without warning they began to make the same unmelodious, primitive sound that they had when they’d marched down the main street in procession with Deirdre. Rattling wooden sticks in bamboo and hitting the sticks together.

  Arthur waved his upturned hand at Louise and Patrick. They returned his stare.

  Peggy stepped forward and faced Louise and Patrick. ‘Put Alice back in the ground where she belongs. Now!’ she hissed above the racket that her neighbours were making. ‘There’s no time to lose. You have to do it now!’

  Patrick shrank back from the vehemence in her voice. Louise touched his shoulder. The gesture gave him the courage he needed to face down their neighbours’ demand.

  ‘Alice is upstairs in bed and she’s staying there.’ He spoke quietly but firmly, conscious that the racket they were making had probably woken his daughter.

  ‘My mother’s right. You have to do it now!’ Martin added his plea to Peggy’s.

  ‘Three days,’ Patrick said. ‘We were promised three days with Alice. We’ve only had two. We have one whole day left to spend with our daughter. And we’re not giving up a single second of that precious time. Not for any one of you.’

  ‘Something’s not right with Alice. You dare not delay another hour, let alone twenty-four,’ Peggy warned.

  ‘Arthur,’ Patrick addressed his partner. ‘You promised us three days. Why have you all come here now, in the middle of the night like this?’

  Arthur stepped up alongside Peggy and raised his hand. The people around him stopped hitting, drumming and rattling their sticks and bamboo. ‘We’re here, Patrick, because we had to talk to you urgently about Alice,’ he explained.

  ‘Why couldn’t you have waited until morning?’ Patrick demanded. ‘We still have the whole of our last day with Alice.’

  ‘You tried to take Alice out of Wake Wood,’ Arthur challenged.

  ‘Wait a minute. We had no choice but to try. She …’ Patrick pointed accusingly at Peggy. ‘She frightened Alice. Absolutely terrified her. Tried to get Alice away from us. It was very cruel of her.’

  ‘It was necessary. I knew something was wrong. I sensed it and I had to find out exactly what it was.’ Peggy robustly defended her actions.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you, Patrick. You too, Louise,’ Arthur admonished. ‘I’ve protected you. Spoken up for you when no one else would, because of the contribution you’ve made to the town. But you have to obey the rules of Wake Wood. I thought I’d made that absolutely clear to both of you when I first explained the ceremony of the return.’

  ‘Take Alice to the woods. Put her in the earth. Do it now, straight away,’ Ben boomed in his deep voice.

  Sensing a presence behind her, Louise turned and saw a flash of white. Alice, in white pyjamas, was standing at the head of the stairs above them, listening to every word that was being said.

  ‘You have to put Alice back in the ground now so we can all be safe,’ Tommy shouted.

  ‘Forgo your last day.’ Peggy stepped forward alongside Arthur. ‘Forgo the time you have left and return Alice to the woods.’

  ‘You’re wrong. All of you …’ Louise’s voice rose hysterically. She turned, charged back up the stairs and, ignoring the impassive, blank expression on her daughter’s face, scooped her into her arms and hugged her. Alice didn’t respond to her embrace but Louise was too distraught to notice.

  ‘Louise,’ Arthur interrupted. ‘Much as I like both of you and am grateful to Patrick for what he’s done for Wake Wood and myself, taking over the veterinary business, you’d better bring Alice down to us now. We’re all here. Every one of us who was at the return ceremony, and we’re ready and prepared to do what’s necessary. We can start the feather walk right now, from here.’

  Louise tightened her grip on Alice and turned her back on them. ‘You’re not taking Alice from this house. Not now. Not yet. I won’t allow you to.’

  ‘We’re here because we want you to do this, Louise,’ Arthur persisted. ‘We’re asking you. Not telling you, but you should listen to u
s.’

  ‘You’re not taking my baby!’ Louise’s emotion was raw, agonising to witness.

  Alice spoke for the first time, her voice faint, heavy with sleep. ‘Mum …’

  Louise retreated to the landing and headed for the safety of her and Patrick’s bedroom.

  ‘Why are they all here, Mum?’ Alice murmured.

  Louise carried Alice inside and slammed the door behind them.

  Patrick backed up the stairs, still facing the visitors, preparing to do whatever was necessary to protect his family.

  Arthur walked up to Patrick and confronted him. Patrick held out his arms. He gripped the bannister tightly with one hand and laid the flat of his hand against the wall on the other, blocking Arthur’s path.

  ‘Three days, Arthur,’ Patrick reiterated. ‘You’re not taking our daughter one minute before we’ve had the full three days you promised us.’

  ‘Please, Patrick, see reason,’ Arthur pleaded.

  ‘I’ll fight you. Every one of you, if I have to,’ Patrick threatened. ‘Do you understand?’ He squared up to Arthur.

  Arthur stood his ground. ‘We came here to talk, Patrick, to reason with you and ask you to take action, not to fight. There are people here who believe something serious is amiss with Alice … something’s not gone according to the plan. Have you seen any signs of that in Alice?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’ Patrick continued to stare tight-lipped at Arthur.

  ‘All right,’ Arthur conceded. ‘But you have to tell me if you observe anything unexpected or beyond what we’ve discussed. Do you understand? Anything that seems in the slightest out of the ordinary.’

  ‘“Out of the ordinary”,’ Patrick mocked. ‘As if this entire situation isn’t out of the ordinary, Arthur. It’s so out of the ordinary I refused to believe a word you said when you told me what you could do. Even though Louise did.’

  ‘You know what I mean, Patrick. No one knows Alice better than you and Louise. I mean odd, out of the ordinary for your daughter—’