by K. A. John
She continued to hold Alice for a few minutes after she’d quietened. Remembering all the other times when she’d comforted Alice, after all her childhood illnesses; her coughs and colds and sore throats; her temperatures, rashes and toddler temper tantrums.
She was catapulted harshly back to the present when Alice struggled to escape her arms. Releasing her daughter, Louise rose clumsily to her feet.
She tripped on something hard that was lying on the rug and reached out to the wall to steady herself. She looked down and saw an abacus-type instrument similar to the one Arthur had used the night he’d come to supper – the night he’d told her and Patrick that he could bring Alice back from the dead.
Louise couldn’t help feeling that she’d seen the identical instrument somewhere before. And not that long ago. Then she recalled Peggy O’Shea holding one just like it when she’d been walking away from Alice in the O’Sheas’ farmyard.
‘You’re not telling the truth when you say that you and Dad love me, Mum,’ Alice admonished, seeing Louise looking at the object on the floor.
‘Yes, I am, sweetie. And now it’s your turn to tell the truth, Alice.’ Louise picked up the instrument and held it up. ‘Where did you get this?’
Alice turned aside, gathered her doll from the floor and waved it in front of Louise’s eyes. ‘It’s always been mine.’
‘Not your doll, this … thing.’ Louise pushed the abacus towards Alice so there could be no mistake. When Alice didn’t answer her, Louise said, ‘You took it from Mrs O’Shea, didn’t you?’
Alice snatched the instrument from Louise’s hand. ‘And I think I’ll take it back to Mrs O’Shea.’ Her voice was low, growling, strangely threatening.
‘Alice …’ Louise looked around the landing, through the open bedroom door, and what she could see of the stairs and hall, in bewilderment. There was nowhere Alice could have gone. Yet she’d vanished. There was no sign of her.
‘Alice!’ she rotated in a circle. ‘Alice, where are you!’ Frantic, Louise screamed.
She ran into the other bedroom and the bathroom, before charging down the stairs, shouting Alice’s name.
Halfway down the staircase she caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the centre of the lawn. She stopped and stared. It was Alice. Even as she watched, Alice seemed to flicker in and out like a faded electronic recording on a broken disc. Then, before Louise’s eyes, she literally disappeared.
Nineteen
LOUISE WAS TERROR-STRICKEN but fear for her daughter proved stronger than concern for herself. She ran out of the house and into the garden to the exact spot where she’d last seen Alice. She could make out imprints of Alice’s shoes in the lawn but there was no trail of footsteps to follow. It was as though Alice had been spirited away upwards to the sky by a giant bird … or ghostly spirit.
She looked up. A flock of enormous black crows were cawing and circling round the trees.
Again the phrase sprang to mind just as it had done when she and Patrick had driven into Wake Wood on the day they’d moved into the town.
‘A murder of crows.’
Sick with apprehension, Louise turned a full circle, crying out, ‘Alice, where are you? Please, answer me, Alice!’ as loudly as she could.
The only reply she received was the cry of the birds and the whisper of a winter breeze that carried with it the slightest hint of warmth and promise of spring.
‘Alice … Alice, where are you? … Alice, please don’t do this, sweetie … Baby, where are you?’ Louise begged, still more afraid for her daughter than for herself.
The sun began to sink low, travelling through the sky at an accelerated rate, fading faster than usual. Darkness was falling, although the afternoon had barely begun. It was as though the earth’s cycle had gone into overdrive, breaking every known law of physics.
Louise sank down on the cold grass and studied Alice’s footprints. No matter what, she had to think calmly and coherently for Alice’s sake. She had to begin a slow, methodical search for her daughter. That was it! If she looked everywhere in the garden and house she would find Alice. She simply had to!
Children didn’t just disappear into thin air. It wasn’t possible. It was true that some were abducted, but as no one else had been either in the house or garden except her and Alice, Alice had to be still here.
She walked to the kitchen door and, starting from that point, moved slowly and deliberately out in ever-increasing circles, searching every inch of the garden as she went.
On her third circuit she saw something strange that didn’t belong in the ground. A patch of an unnaturally bright blue colour for the time of year, lying motionless, sticking out proud from the mound of earth on the grave that Patrick had dug for Howie. Had it really only been that morning?
Louise approached the splash of blue slowly and warily. When she reached it, she bent down and retrieved the piece of cloth. It was attached to Alice’s doll. The one Alice had thrown at her on the landing. She picked up the doll. It was dirty, its limbs torn, hanging loosely from its body, its blue dress ragged and shredded. She looked down again. Beneath it lay Peggy O’Shea’s abacus. She picked that up also, brushed the dirt from the bone beads and wooden rods and shook uncontrollably as something akin to an electric shock charged through her body. The beads were bone – but from what: animal or human? She forced herself to concentrate on searching for Alice.
When she was certain Alice was nowhere in the garden, Louise returned to the house and checked every room again, closing the doors and windows after she’d searched them. Eventually she was forced to accept that her daughter wasn’t anywhere in the cottage or the grounds.
She grabbed her coat and picked up the keys to their other car from the key box. Patrick had bought it for her not long after they’d moved to Wake Wood, saying she’d need it now she was running a business.
Recalling what Alice had said about returning to the O’Sheas’, she locked the front and back doors, opened the car and tossed the abacus and doll on to the passenger seat. Would Alice have gone to the O’Shea farm without the abacus when her intention had been to return it?
Since it was her only clue as to Alice’s whereabouts, Louise decided to act on it and if Alice hadn’t gone to the O’Sheas’ there was always the chance that she’d pass her at some point on the road.
She headed down the drive, out of the gate and turned on to the main road. The O’Shea farm was the other side of Wake Wood. She drove slowly towards the town, looking behind every tree and into the hedgerows as she passed, reducing her speed every time she saw a ditch or the entrance to a field. She stopped the car more than once and left it to lean on gates and look into the fields, although logic insisted that there was no way Alice could have travelled as far on foot as she’d driven in such a short space of time.
The twilight was gathering rapidly; soon night would fall. And when it did there would be little point in continuing her search for Alice – she wouldn’t be able to see her. Alice was wearing dark clothes, and dark clothes in shadow would make it impossible for her to spot her daughter.
Louise stopped the car at the crossroads just before the outskirts of Wake Wood. A mile ahead of her was the main street. Behind her, the road she’d travelled. To the left a track that led to one of the farms she’d visited once with Patrick when he’d ministered to a litter of piglets. To the right, a narrow country lane that wound the long way around the town, eventually meeting up with the road on the other side. From that point it was only a short distance to the O’Shea farm.
Louise left the car and looked down each road in turn, crying out Alice’s name as loudly as she could. But there was no human reply.
Only the distant sound of the wind turbines grating in the wind, and the cry of night birds circling and congregating overhead. At midnight it would be time for Alice’s return to the woods. What would happen if they couldn’t find Alice for the feather walk?
Would Alice then be allowed to remain in Wake Wood? Tied to the
place for ever, unable to take a step outside the town limits without suffering again from the old wounds that had killed her?
What had she and Patrick precipitated when they’d lied to Arthur?
What had they done?
‘Alice!’ Her cry echoed high into the sky. Loud, plaintive. ‘Alice, please answer me, sweetie, where are you?’
Alice walked through the woods. Although scant light shone down through the trees from the moon, and virtually none from the stars, she walked as quickly and surely as if it were bright sunlight and she could see exactly where she was going. Way ahead of her in the distance she could make out a light burning in the O’Shea farmhouse kitchen and she aimed straight for it.
The discordant childish singing that had haunted her daydreams and nightmares for the past two days intensified as she drew closer to the lane that led to the farmhouse. She passed a tractor. Its large black wheels towered above her and she rested against one of them for a moment, covering her ears in an attempt to block out the sound, but it was no use.
The noise grew louder and louder, intensifying until she felt she could stand it no longer. Finally she snapped and screamed … and screamed … and screamed … but still the voices persisted … deafening … shrill … cacophonous.
When no one came out of the farmhouse she wondered if her screams, like the singing, only existed in her own head.
She looked around and then back at the house before straightening her back and walking towards it.
Peggy O’Shea had almost finished the chores she’d set herself for that day. Beds changed, washing and cleaning finished; now she lowered her Kitchen Maid – the clothes horse that hung on pulleys from her kitchen ceiling. On the table beneath it was a stack of sheets and towels. She picked up the first of the sheets, folded it neatly and hung it on one of the slats.
When all the sheets were neatly arranged, she started on the towels. The rack was fully loaded when she pulled the cord and hoisted the Kitchen Maid back up to the ceiling. She tied the cord securely to its hook and hesitated. There was a strange noise in the yard. A scratching … a scraping … rats or … She trembled, preferring not to think of Alice Daley and the alternatives.
She went to the window, pushed aside the curtain and looked out. The light was still on in the cattle shed and the vet’s estate car parked outside it. She hoped that the vet would be able to do something for the bull. The animal had cost so much money. More than she and Mick could really afford at the time or now. They were still paying off the bank loan and would be for a few more years by her reckoning.
The yard yawned back at her, empty and deserted. The stables were shuttered. The doors locked. The pig pens closed up for the night. She listened hard. The dogs were quiet. Whatever she’d heard was obviously insignificant or they would have started barking.
She went to the range, opened one of the ring covers on the top and slid the kettle on to it. The water started to bubble the moment it was placed on direct heat. She smiled. As she kept telling her neighbours who favoured more modern electric stoves, the best thing about a kitchen range was that soups and stews stayed warm and required very little heating, and water was never far from the boil when you needed a good strong cup of tea.
She lifted a casserole dish from a covered ring, crouched down and opened one of the low oven doors. As an afterthought, she opened the door above it to check the heat. Satisfied there was sufficient coal and wood to keep the fire burning long enough to heat the dish through, she pushed the casserole on to a rack in the small oven.
The moment she closed the oven doors the kitchen lights dimmed and flickered.
‘Not again,’ she muttered. One of the downsides of living in heavily wooded countryside was an erratic electricity supply. High winds meant lines became caught up in branches. Or, even worse, falling trees brought down poles, which meant they could be off-supply for days, which gave her another reason to be grateful for her kitchen range. She was used to the inconvenience. But she hoped that the light would last long enough for her to fetch candles and matches from her store cupboard. She reached out and gripped the back of a chair to steady herself while she rose from her knees.
‘Thank you for letting me ride your pony.’
The child’s voice was robotic, high-pitched. Terrified, Peggy whirled around to see Alice Daley behind her.
‘Alice, I didn’t hear you come in.’ Peggy forced a cough in an ineffectual attempt to conceal her fear and the quivering in her voice.
‘I know you didn’t,’ Alice chanted triumphantly.
‘Your parents will be looking for you.’ Peggy failed to smile at the child. ‘They have to take you back soon.’
‘Will they?’ Alice questioned in a sceptical tone that said they wouldn’t. She held up the dandy brush and curry comb Peggy had shown her how to use when grooming the pony. Both were heavily matted with bloodstained hairs. She dropped them on to the flagstone floor. They fell with a loud, jarring clatter.
Peggy stared at them in horror. ‘My pony! What have you done?’
Alice jumped on the elderly lady’s back and laughed. Kicking her heels viciously into Peggy’s sides, she shouted, ‘Come on, horsey. Giddy-up … giddy-up, horsey. Come on …’
It took all of Peggy’s strength to remain crouched upright. Gasping for air, breathing heavily, she crawled a few steps on her hands and knees and backed away from the range. She halted close to a chair. She tried to reach out to it but Alice kicked her hard in the ribs again and she fell forward, wincing in pain.
Still coughing violently, Peggy struggled valiantly to her feet.
‘You’re not supposed to rear up, horsey,’ Alice shouted, digging her heels into Peggy’s ribcage again and again and grabbing at the old woman’s hair.
Peggy lurched across the room, aiming to reach a clutch resembling the one Mary had used on Deirdre and given to Louise. It was hanging from the corner of the dresser. Twice, she almost managed to grab it. But Alice kicked her hard and she fell back. The third time she almost touched it, then Alice yanked at her hair again and pulled her away.
The fourth time she managed to grip one of the strands of rope between her thumb and forefinger but she sensed Alice was toying with her and had allowed her to reach it. Fighting Alice’s weight and the pain the child was inflicting on her, she turned.
To Peggy’s amazement, Alice slid from her back. She allowed Peggy to place the clutch over her head.
‘There now, Alice,’ Peggy rasped hoarsely, arranging the clutch neatly around the young girl’s neck. ‘Doesn’t that feel a lot better?’
Alice blinked slowly, then looked down at the clutch. ‘That’s very pretty,’ she commented brightly.
‘Yes,’ Peggy agreed, straightening her aching back. She desperately tried to be positive. ‘It is pretty, isn’t it? Doesn’t it feel good around your neck?’
The kettle began to boil on the range, activating the whistle. The noise seemed to irritate Alice. She lifted the clutch from around her neck and threw it to the floor. ‘You keep it, old woman. It doesn’t work for me.’
Peggy stared at her incredulously, then lifted her hands to her own throat. She gasped, struggling for breath as her fingers dug deeper and deeper into her own neck. She tried to wrench them away but they refused to obey the signals she sent from her brain.
She was lost, helpless, powerless – in thrall to Alice’s will. The child was killing her without physically having to lift a finger against her. Peggy fought her own hands wildly. Black spots wavered before her eyes. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung over the mantelpiece. Blood was flowing – pouring from her ears and nose.
The whistle from the kettle grew louder and louder, more and more painful to hear. The Kitchen Maid clattered down from the ceiling and hung suspended alongside the table.
Peggy struggled and fought her way towards it. She was breathless, on the point of blacking out. Hoping she hadn’t miscalculated and the rack would support her and break her fal
l, she threw herself across the bars. Her hands still refused to move from her throat. Every time she tried to loosen her grip her fingers tightened, cutting off the supply of blood as well as air to her head.
She looked down. Alice was on the floor in front of her, watching her. Peggy could still see herself in a corner of the mirror. Her face was darkening by the second from red to black.
‘Don’t forget to say “hi” to your husband from me when you see him.’ Alice ducked under the sheets that hung from the clothes rack and looked up at Peggy’s face. It was pressed close to the bars of the Kitchen Maid, only inches away from her own.
Alice thrust her hands up through the bars and grabbed Peggy’s head by the ears. She pulled it down hard towards her, pressing it as tightly as she could against the wooden slats – the only barrier that separated her face from Peggy’s.
She continued to grip Peggy’s head, practically swinging her whole weight on it, all the while staring deep into Peggy’s eyes.
Not only Peggy’s ears and nose but also her eyes began to bleed. Slight at first, then gradually the flow grew thicker and thicker, the blood changing colour from bright to dark red.
The old woman opened and shut her mouth but no sound emanated from her lips. Alice watched and smiled and waited.
She only released Peggy when she was sure that the old woman was dead. She left her body lying across the Kitchen Maid, swinging gently back and forth, back and forth, across the room.
‘Bye, old woman,’ she whispered as she went to the door and opened it.
Twenty
LOUISE DROVE SLOWLY down Main Street. Lights shone from shop windows, doorways and houses but nothing moved. No people, no animals. The town was deserted and everything was quiet. She wondered if people were eating their dinners and preparing for the feather walk behind their curtains.
She had no idea of the time – she’d left her watch behind in the cottage. Was Mary Brogan already making her way to the cottage to fetch Louise, Alice and Patrick? Mary had promised to go with them. Would she forget?