by K. A. John
‘Alice is fine,’ Patrick broke in defiantly. ‘She’s our little girl and she’s fine. Just as she was.’
‘Yes, she’s fine for the moment,’ Arthur agreed. ‘And she’s here for one more day. But tread carefully until you return her to the woods, Patrick. I mean it.’ Arthur signalled to his neighbours.
The first of the uninvited visitors left the living room, crossed the hall and opened the front door. One by one the townsfolk left, melting into the darkness outside as quietly as they’d arrived.
The only sound that signalled their leaving was the harsh click of the lock on the front door when the last of them shut it behind him after they’d all passed through.
Afraid his legs were about to give way, Patrick sank down abruptly on the stairs. Above him he could hear Louise singing softly to Alice.
One more day. Arthur’s words cut through him like a knife. Only one more day and then …
Seventeen
AFTER THEIR NEIGHBOURS left the cottage Patrick felt drained. Barely capable of thought. He was beset by a sense of foreboding. A premonition that something catastrophic was about to happen. He felt the need to check every downstairs room. Leaving the stairs, he went into the kitchen and bolted and locked the back door. He took the key from the lock and hung it in the key cabinet in the hall.
After securing the front door and fastening the chain, he made sure every window was firmly fastened. Then he began to check all the appliances, the boiler, the stove, the electrical sockets.
Was he making something out of nothing? Was his feeling of unease simply attributable to his neighbours’ nocturnal and undeniably threatening visit, coupled with his anger and impotence in the face of Alice’s impending ‘return’?
For the first time he questioned the decision that he and Louise had made. Would it have been better if they’d turned down Arthur’s offer? Seeing Alice again had been a marvellous, wonderful miracle; so much so, he didn’t even want to imagine letting her go a second time.
Would it have been easier for him – and especially for Louise – to have come to terms with the loss of Alice if they’d never allowed Arthur to summon her back?
He couldn’t decide. Especially as Alice was sleeping upstairs. She was here, in this house with him, and he wanted to protect her. But he couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to care for her after tomorrow night! It was a father’s duty to protect his child and he’d failed. Failed dismally! He’d failed her when the dog had killed her and he was about to fail her again by giving in to Arthur and their neighbours’ demands that he put her back in the ground.
He returned to the hall, intending to go upstairs, but stopped in his tracks when he caught a glimpse of a figure in the hall mirror.
Had someone stayed behind?
Someone dressed in white? He shrank back against the wall. He couldn’t recall any of his neighbours wearing that colour.
He stared into the mirror until his eyes burned. There was someone standing in the middle of the living room. He was sure of it. A young girl with dark shoulder-length hair. Her back was turned to him.
Summoning his courage, he stepped closer. The figure turned. He felt the blood drain from his face. It was Alice in her white pyjamas.
Steeling himself, he walked into the living room and switched on the light.
The lamps illuminated an empty room. There was no one there.
He turned around twice, checked behind every piece of furniture until there was no doubt. The only person in the room was him.
He searched every downstairs room again before climbing the stairs and opening the door to his bedroom. Louise was sitting, propped up by pillows on the bed beside Alice, who was sleeping soundly.
‘I thought she’d be safer in with us after what happened,’ Louise whispered, raising her finger to her lips after she’d spoken.
He nodded to show he’d understood, went to the window and pulled aside one of the curtains. Their visitors hadn’t left the garden. They were standing grouped around Arthur on the lawn. Every one of them was looking up at him and he sensed they’d been holding a silent vigil while watching him move around the house.
He left the curtains slightly open and pulled up a chair. Terrified for Alice and Louise, conscious that he could do little against so many, he sat and stared at his neighbours. If they weren’t going to sleep that night neither would he.
The rays of the rising sun woke Patrick at daybreak. The trees around the house stood black, skeletal and windblown, etched like woodcuts against the dawn light. He left his chair and stood in front of the window. The lawn was bereft of people and silvered by frost. It glittered hard and cold. He presumed his neighbours had ended their watch some time during the night while he’d slept.
He left the chair and went to the bed. Alice and Louise were lying side by side, entwined and curled together like kittens in a basket. An oddly peaceful scene after the trauma of the night. He looked around, wondering if his ears were deceiving him. He went to the door and returned to the bed.
There was no doubt in his mind – the closer he drew to Alice, the more audible the voices became. The sound of singing – children singing, very softly and quietly – singing out Alice’s name, ‘Alice … Alice … Alice …’
He gazed at his daughter, but his loving glance was tempered with horror when he noticed the congealed blood on her hands and the dirt beneath her fingernails.
He didn’t want to think how her hands had got into such a state. He stared at her face, tracing every line, imprinting it on his memory. She was his daughter and he loved her. Nothing else mattered. How could it?
The voices persisted, softly whispering and singing. He ignored them and lay on the bed beside Alice, wrapping his arm around both her and Louise. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the sound of their breathing. It was a lullaby he never wanted to end.
When Patrick next woke, the light was stronger and the sun higher in the sky. He reached out and touched Louise, then realised Alice was no longer lying between them. Panic-stricken, he sat up and looked around. When he saw that their daughter wasn’t in the room with them he left and checked her bedroom. It too was empty. He ran downstairs and grabbed the back-door key from the cabinet in the hall.
To his relief he found Alice in the kitchen. She’d already showered and dressed, her damp hair was neatly brushed back away from her face and she smelled of soap and toothpaste. She was rummaging around in the freezer, searching through the drawers.
‘Hi, Dad,’ she greeted him brightly. ‘I’m thinking of cooking sausages for all of us for breakfast.’
He smiled. ‘Great idea, but make sure you ask Mum to help you.’
She frowned at him.
‘You know how Mum worries about hot stoves.’ When she didn’t say anything, he continued, ‘Thanks, honey. We’ll all enjoy eating them.’ He hesitated when he saw a black feather on the kitchen counter. He picked it up, unlocked the outside door and scanned the immediate area. There was no sign of anyone or any more feathers. He threw the black feather into a bush in disgust and headed for his surgery. He hadn’t reached the door when he heard a frantic knocking. He looked back at the house. Louise was banging the window of the dining room.
Her cry was muffled by the double glazing but the look of horror on her face was obvious. ‘Patrick!’
He turned to see what she was pointing at and reeled back as though he’d been punched. Fixed to the door of the garden shed by half a dozen nails was the bloodied furry pelt of Howie. There was no mistaking the distinctive markings on what had been the dog’s coat. Something was lying on the flower bed beneath it. He stepped closer. It was the dog’s lifeless corpse; a lump of freshly skinned, raw, bloodied flesh, with huge eyes that appeared abnormally round and staring without their lids.
He turned and looked back at the house. Alice was walking out of the kitchen door. Louise had left by the front door and was shouting at her as she came around the house.
‘Alice, stay in the house, swe
etie. Whatever you do, don’t come out into the garden. Stay indoors. Just for a little while.’
‘What, Mum?’ Alice turned to Louise as if she hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
‘Please, baby. Stay inside,’ Louise pleaded. ‘Promise me that you’ll stay inside and don’t look out of the window. Don’t argue with me, sweetie. Just do it.’
‘All right, if you want me to, Mum.’ Alice returned to the kitchen.
Louise waited until Alice was back in the house, then closed the door on her before running across the garden towards Patrick. She took one look at the dog’s skinned carcass, clapped her hand over her mouth and began to retch.
Too angry and devastated to offer Louise either help or comfort, Patrick swung the door on the shed wide so he wouldn’t have to touch the pelt, took a spade and a pair of gardening gloves from inside and began to dig a hole next to the animal’s body.
‘I don’t understand,’ Louise whispered hoarsely when she could finally speak again. ‘Why would Arthur and the others do this to a defenceless animal?’ She fought back tears as she watched Patrick enlarge the hole until it was big enough to take the dog.
His eyes darkened as he stopped digging and looked at her. ‘Can we be sure that it was Arthur and the others?’
Louise stared at him in disbelief as the importance of his words sank in. ‘What are you saying?’
Patrick’s only answer was to resume digging, fast and furiously. He drew in quick shallow breaths of air but didn’t slacken his pace for an instant. It was as though he were trying to erase the horrific scene by sheer physical exertion.
When the hole was large and deep enough, he wrapped the skinned dog’s carcass in a tarpaulin and lowered the bundle into the bottom. Only then did he remove the torn and bloodied pelt from the shed door and drop it on top of the dog. He pulled off his gloves, now soaked and steeped in the dog’s blood, and tossed them dank and dripping into the hole, before picking up the spade and piling earth back into the grave. He continued to work quickly, perspiration running down his brow on to his cheeks.
Louise watched in silence. She expected him to say something, but when he didn’t she couldn’t find the courage to prompt him. When Patrick had shovelled the last of the earth into the hole, he returned the spade to the shed. Avoiding meeting her eye, he left her and started walking towards the house.
‘Patrick?’ She followed him. ‘Please, tell me, what are you suggesting? If you don’t think Arthur and the others killed Howie, you must suspect someone else of doing it. Patrick, please, talk to me …’
Patrick went into the kitchen. Alice was standing by the cooker staring blankly into space. She didn’t turn around or look at Patrick and Louise but murmured, ‘I’m daydreaming.’
Patrick went to her. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Show me your hands, Alice.’
Louise moved close to them and took his arm. ‘Patrick, what are you doing? You can’t be suggesting … you can’t …’ She leaned against the worktop for support.
‘Why do you want to see my hands, Dad? Is it a game?’ Alice asked.
‘Yes, honey, it’s a game,’ Patrick answered.
Alice closed her eyes and held out her hands; then suddenly changed her mind before Patrick had a chance to look at them. She thrust them behind her back.
‘Alice, let me see your hands,’ Patrick reiterated irritably.
‘Dad, what exactly is this for?’ she demanded.
Patrick softened his voice. ‘Just do as I ask, honey.’ He continued to watch her.
The expression on Alice’s face became impassive, her eyes cold, but after only a moment’s hesitation she held out her hands to him and turned them over so her palms were uppermost.
Both Louise and Patrick had to brace themselves to look at them. They needn’t have concerned themselves. Alice’s hands were pink, shiny and spotlessly clean.
Alice cooked the sausages she’d taken from the freezer. Patrick made and buttered toast, Louise sliced tomatoes and laid the table. She wasn’t hungry and, after burying the dog, she doubted that Patrick would be, but they sat at the table alongside Alice and forced themselves to eat.
Alice piled sausages, toast and tomatoes on to her plate, reached for the bottle of ketchup, upended it and squeezed a blob next to the sausages. She cut up her toast, dipped it into the sauce, set down her knife and fork and announced, ‘I don’t want to eat now. I was hungry when I got up but I’m not any more.’
‘Try and eat something please, sweetie,’ Louise coaxed. It was one of the phrases she’d used before Alice had died: ‘Try and eat something, please’; ‘You have to keep up your strength’; ‘You need nourishment’; ‘You’re a growing girl’.
She saw Patrick looking at her and realised there was no earthly reason why Alice should eat. She had no need to keep up her strength and she wasn’t a growing girl. Not any more, nor would she be ever again.
‘You piled all that food on your plate, Alice,’ Patrick admonished. ‘The least you can do is eat one sausage.’
Alice sat back in her chair and looked at him from under her eyelids. ‘I don’t want to.’
Not wanting to witness an argument between father and daughter, Louise was glad when they were interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘I’ll go.’ She walked through the hall and opened the front door. Mary Brogan was standing on the doorstep.
Louise’s first thought was for Alice. Panic-stricken, she found herself dumbstruck.
‘It’s all right, Louise,’ Mary said softly. ‘I’m here to help, not take Alice,’ she added as though she’d read Louise’s thoughts.
‘Where are my manners? Please, come in, Mary.’ Louise stepped back to make room for Mary to enter. The last thing she wanted was to sit and talk to Mary or invite her into the strained atmosphere in the dining room. But she did want to avoid a visit like the one they’d had the night before. And she felt she had no choice but to be polite.
Patrick saw Mary through the open door to the dining room and rose to his feet. His first thought, like Louise’s, was to protect Alice. He decided the best way to do that would be to get her out of sight. ‘As you’re not hungry you can go and play in your room, Alice, while we talk to Mrs Brogan.’
‘Do I have to?’ Alice whined.
‘Yes, you do,’ Patrick answered firmly. ‘Go on. We won’t be long, and then we’ll go out for a walk or do whatever you want.’
‘Play football and hide-and-seek like we did the other day?’ Alice suggested.
‘If that’s what you really want, honey, then that’s what we’ll do,’ Patrick acquiesced.
Louise led Mary into the dining room. When Alice passed them in the hall, Mary smiled and greeted her.
‘Hello, Alice. I’m Mary Brogan.’
‘Hi,’ Alice replied unenthusiastically.
‘Nice to meet you. Are you excited about going back?’
Patrick answered for Alice. ‘Yes, I think she is.’
Alice looked confused for a moment, then climbed the stairs. When she reached the top she called down, ‘Have you seen Howie anywhere, Dad? I couldn’t find him this morning.’
Patrick fought to keep control of his emotions. ‘No, I haven’t seen him,’ he answered in a tense voice.
‘See you later, Alice,’ Mary called out.
The sound of Alice’s bedroom door slamming shut resounded down the stairs.
Mary took the chair Patrick offered her, sat down and looked at Louise. ‘I’m here for a reason.’
‘Like last night?’ Patrick couldn’t resist the gibe but Mary managed to ignore it.
‘As you know, this is Alice’s last day. Tonight there’ll be a procession, a “feather walk” as we call it, but just a short one because Alice is so young. You’ve already seen one, Louise,’ she reminded her. ‘You were in the street when Deirdre’s feather walk went through the town.’
‘You saw a procession?’ Patrick asked Louise in surprise. ‘You knew about these “feather walks”?
’
‘Yes,’ Louise murmured.
‘You never said anything to me about them,’ he protested.
‘Only because I wasn’t sure what I’d seen at the time,’ she explained. ‘I didn’t understand the significance of the walk or the black feathers until I saw people wearing them again last night.’
‘On today’s walk you’ll both have to be strong for Alice,’ Mary said emphatically. ‘But she’ll want to go back herself. You won’t have to persuade her.’ She opened her bag and removed three sticks joined by woven roots. It was an identical contraption to the one she’d placed around Deirdre’s neck when Deirdre had succumbed to a fit in the pharmacy. ‘This is something for Alice to wear around her neck. We call it a clutch. If she becomes agitated, put it around her neck like a necklace and slip her wrists into these loops. You’ll find that it comforts her.’ She placed it on the table.
‘Thank you,’ Louise said politely.
‘You can fasten the loops about her wrists, in front or behind her back, it doesn’t matter which way you do it.’ Mary demonstrated how the sticks could be twisted into a crude form of handcuffs.
Louise took a deep breath and steeled herself. ‘Mary, if you don’t mind, I need to have a word with Patrick about all this. In private,’ she added.
‘Of course,’ Mary said. ‘I quite understand. This is not an easy time for either of you.’
‘Please, stay here, help yourself to coffee,’ Louise offered politely. ‘We won’t be long.’
Louise went into the hall. Patrick followed and closed the door behind him.
As soon as they were alone, Louise grabbed his hand. ‘Patrick, I’m not ready to give up Alice,’ she pleaded urgently. ‘Please, don’t ask me to because I can’t …’
Patrick wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
She thought rapidly. ‘We can run … we can go away … we can take your car … we have to …’
‘So Alice can scream in pain and collapse like she did yesterday when all her wounds opened up the moment she left the confines of the town?’ Patrick reminded her.
‘Maybe it will be different today,’ Louise gabbled. ‘Maybe that was just something that happened yesterday. Maybe it will work today …’ If willpower alone could get them out of Wake Wood, Louise felt she could summon enough for all three of them.