Blackwater

by Paul McParland

  “Emma...” The voice seemed to come from somewhere deep within Dubois. She said it without moving her lips

  Emma?! Karen thought. She had expected it to be the name of one of the poor wives murdered in the house. She had not read about any one by the name of Emma.

  “Did you live here, Emma?” Karen asked, more confident.

  “No...” the voice replied.

  “Did you die here?” The words sounded cold to her.

  “Yes...” Karen felt fingers on her spine. There were more victims in this house; God knows how many?

  “Who killed you, Emma?”

  The voice didn't reply this time.

  “Emma?” Karen leaned in closer to the entranced Dubois, mouth open, eyes fluttering. She made no sound, then as quickly as she had entered it, Dubois left her seizure and was looking back at Karen.

  Karen was stunned and wide-eyed.

  “Did you get your answers?” Alison asked lightly.

  “I got a name...” Karen said distracted. “Emma...”

  “Mean anything to you?”

  Karen shook her head slowly before looking back at Dubois, “She said she died here but she's not one of the wives or children of the Clark men...”

  “Another victim?” Alison suggested, her interest raised.

  “Seems that way...but there wasn’t any mention of her in my research!”

  “Maybe she wasn’t local....a runaway?” Alison offered.

  Karen pouted and nodded slowly.

  “I have to find out more. Can we try again?” Karen clutched at the medium.

  The woman pulled away. She stood up from the table and moved to the windows.

  “No. Not today. I've done too much. I'm tired now...” she flung the drapes apart, the room burned with sunlight.

  Karen shielded her eyes.

  Dubois blew out the candle and gathered herself.

  Karen sat dumbfounded. Deflated from the short, unsatisfying session.

  “That’s it?!” She feared that she sounded rude.

  “I can only do so much. I am always tired after a communication. That was a particularly intense one...I need to rest!” The medium placed a hand to her temple. She looked faint. “I will go. We can try again tomorrow!”

  “Oh...okay.” Karen rose to show her the door.

  “No. I will be fine.” Dubois put a hand out, flat palm facing the housewife.

  “Do I not need to pay you?” Karen said trying to rise again.

  “Not until we have concluded our business.” The woman said, not looking back to Karen.

  “Okay...” Karen’s voice was barely a sound as she resumed her seat.

  The door opened and closed a few seconds later. Karen heard an engine kick into life and the steady chug faded to nothing. She stroked her top lip, following its curve, contemplating what had just happened.

  Karen made a decision and sprung from the chair and grabbed her coat and car keys by the door.

  51

  Karen sprinted up the steps of Blackwater library and through the grand double doors. Old Ms. Christie greeted her with a Dentafix-sponsored grin.

  “Hello Dearie!”

  Skipping the pleasantries, Karen launched into her mission, “I need to find out if a local girl or young drifter called Emma went missing at some point!”

  Ms. Christie began a tentative laugh at the forward young woman.

  “Another mystery piece, dear?”

  “I think one of the Clark men murdered her!”

  The smile and easy nature of the librarian melted away.

  “I see...” she said less assuredly.

  “Is there any record of missing persons?” Karen’s voice was strong and determined.

  “Well the police would be best...but when was this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you hear about this girl?”

  Karen realized that she couldn’t tell her that her daughter was speaking to a spirit whom Karen had just contacted in Blackwater House.

  “I have...sources...who claim they have incriminating evidence that a woman by the name of Emma died in Blackwater House. None of the wives or daughters were called that, right?”

  Ms. Christie stood.

  “There were a few rumors. Gossip around the town that Henry Clark kept several mistresses...”

  “You think this Emma might have been one of them?” Karen was intrigued.

  “There was never any confirmation of who the girls were...a lot of strangers came to town for business with the mine...a daughter of a business magnate, maybe?”

  “Surely that would have meant an investigation?! Rich man’s child goes missing...not exactly subtle...”

  “You could be right then...a runaway from out of town...”

  “How do we find out, then? It’s nigh-on impossible to find anything after this long!”

  “We have employee numbers in the archive. They are considered ‘historically important’...”

  The librarian yielded a knowing smile.

  “You're quite the investigative reporter yourself, aren’t you?” Karen nudged the old woman playfully.

  “Some life in these ol’ bones yet, my dear!” she wryly winked. “Follow me!” she said turning and exiting her booth. She walked up a staircase behind her. It spiraled upwards. Karen felt light headed as she neared the top.

  “The stacks on the right, here, are all the company records. After the mine closed, they were all moved here.” The elderly librarian said, letting her hand run along the spines of the various folders and binders.

  “Sales...stock figures...ah! Employee records!” Ms. Christie pilled a binder out. “This binder runs from the company’s inception in 1870 ‘til 1880. They then run in five year groupings...where do you want to start?”

  Karen’s face tightened. This was going to be a long night.

  “We can’t go through every binder since the beginning; there must be thousands of names!” Karen passed a hand across her forehead. “Let’s start in the years Clark was married.”

  “So...Ms. Christie...Emma...you think this girl was an employee?”

  “Notary, maybe? Typist? Anything!”

  “What if Clark just found her on the street?!”

  “We’ll come to that later – hopeful thoughts, Ms. Christie...”

  52

  Over the next two hours, Karen and the librarian poured over page after page of names and titles. No ‘Emma’ yet.

  Karen sat up from her crouched position. She moved her head back, feeling her neck creak. She pushed her fists into the small of her back and leant backwards. The muscles protested and she let out a groan.

  Hopeless, she thought.

  The librarian had been continuing to oversee her clientele throughout the evening. She returned momentarily.

  “Any luck?” she asked.

  “Nope!” Karen sighed hard.

  “You can take these home if you want...?”

  “Oh that would be so helpful!” Karen pleaded.

  “Of course, dear! Take a few folders and you can work your way through them over the next few days?”

  “Thank you!” Karen called over her shoulder as she scooped the folders into her arms and hurried down the spiral staircase.

  Karen had been so caught up in the investigation of Emma, she had forgotten the time. It was now seven in the evening. James would be home and the kids wouldn’t be able to tell him where she was.

  Oh god, the kids!

  Karen had forgotten to pick them up from school! Poor Sophie!

  Karen sprinted back to the car. She felt sick with guilt.

  She rehearsed her story for when she got back.

  “I'm so sorry babe, I lost track of time---” James greeted Karen with a hug and a kiss. He seemed unfazed by his wife’s absence.

  “Hello, darling! How was the library?”

  “It---how did you know?” Karen assumed he must have seen the car.

  “Sophie said you asked Marcus to look aft
er her for a few hours.”

  Karen was on the back-foot. She recovered well. “Oh yeah, yeah...I felt Marcus was old enough and mature enough to handle the responsibility...” She smiled and slipped casually out of sight up the stairs.

  Once safe from view, she sprinted up the last steps and rounded the corner sharply into Sophie’s room.

  The child was sat on the floor, plastic tea cup in hand, pretending to sip make-believe tea at a make-believe tea party.

  “Hey, honey...oh what a lovely tea party...emm...sweetie...how did you know Mommy was at the library?” Karen knelt down next to her daughter.

  “Emma told me,” her lilting voice replied.

  “Uh-huh...you know, I spoke to Emma today...?”

  “I know. She told me. She said you are helping her! I knew you would be friends!” She smiled at her mother.

  “Did she tell you anything more?”

  “She said you would help her get home.”

  Karen nodded slowly, rising to her feet.

  “Are you hungry?” she finally asked.

  “Daddy took us to Ike’s. I got a burger!” Sophie’s face was bright.

  “Oh that's good...” Karen felt awkward. She felt she was missing something.

  Unable to shake this uneasy feeling, Karen staggered to the bathroom. She felt for the switch. The blinding overhead light burned into her retina. Karen blinked heavily. She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes bugged. Dark rings had formed in the last week or so.

  “Mom?”

  Karen jumped, clutching at the sink edge as she almost slipped. Marcus stood in the doorway. She looked back into the mirror. She saw Marcus’ reflection. Karen looked back at her son. How had she not seen him in the mirror?

  “Hi, honey, you okay?” she moved towards him, embracing him. She pressed his head to her neck. He had grown so big recently. Her little boy was almost gone.

  “Where were you?” He said as he pushed away from her.

  It was aggressive but he wanted to look in her eyes as she answered. He knew she was hiding something.

  “At the library. I was looking up stuff for a friend. Did Sophie not tell you?” Karen attempted to maintain a lightness in her tone she did not feel.

  “I'm not a baby! You can tell me if you were with another man. I won’t say anything. Dad did cheat on you...”

  Karen snorted. Her son’s blunt statement stunned her. It impressed, but none-the-less shocked, her.

  “Aha! Thank you for your support...but I was at the library...researching...” she added before he could insinuate again. She smiled.

  Marcus returned in kind. He was slowly becoming a man before her eyes. His world view may have been a bit skewed, especially regards relationships, but he was definitely maturing.

  Marcus gave a slight wave and turned. Karen heard his footfalls on the stairs to the attic.

  Karen turned back.

  A girl with long blonde hair was in the mirror. Karen was too scared to react. It was the same girl she had seen in the basement. She looked alive now. No maggots, no carved, bloodied chest. She was pretty.

  “Emma?” Karen moved towards the girl but as she did so a hand appeared from behind the girl. It enclosed her round face. Karen reached for her but it was too late; it pulled her out of sight.

  Karen touched the mirror, making sure in was in fact one sided. She reached up, feeling the edges. She opened the cabinet and examined its contents. Karen felt inside the door, the back of its mirrored side.

  She closed it.

  Karen exited the bathroom, but just before pushing the light switch, she stared back at the mirror, not breaking contact as she pulled the switch. Still nothing.

  She needed a drink.

  Karen entered the kitchen, thinking about eggs and toast, to find a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine on the island counter. James was standing beside it with a pleasant smile.

  “Figured you’d be hungry?” he said.

  “Oh, you read my mind!” Karen grabbed the wine immediately and downed it.

  James laughed, raising his eyebrows. “Well, I guess you’ll need another glass, then?”

  Karen avoided telling James the truth about why she was at the library. She said ‘womanly problems’ required research and the questioning stopped. He sat and talked while she ate. He was talking about the issues with the Bluths and the Lonergan divorce but she wasn’t listening. Karen pondered the séance and the folders hidden in the boot of her car.

  53

  Karen lay in bed motionless but awake. She couldn’t find peace in the dark. Names and addresses churned around in her mind. A brief grunt issued from the man beside her. James sometimes snored. She figured it resulted from stress. He had snored often in Boston.

  Soon, the small town problems would seem as insignificant as they were; give it some time, she thought.

  She closed her eyes. Something frightened her. She opened them quickly again. She sat up. Karen sighed and looked around the now familiar room.

  The window showed only a dark, star-speckled sky. The house and its surroundings were soundless. The world was asleep but Karen Dawson still pondered the universe. She turned her attention back to the room, and as she did so, met a gory figure.

  Stood by the door, a bloodied woman leered at Karen. Her white nightgown was stained red. A coagulating slit in her throat bubbled and oozed while her eyeless face scattered maggots over the hardwood floor.

  Karen knew what she was seeing was a hallucination. She had become accustomed to the waking nightmares. In the past, she would have feared insanity was taking her. She knew better now. She was being spied upon, suborned to right the wrongs of the past.

  The morning came early. A faint haze of the winter dew settled on the windows and a sleepless Karen didn't even bother trying to disguise her state. She got out of bed and headed down the stairs. The rest of the house still had a few hours rest, but Karen Dawson had work to do.

  She snuck out to her car and retrieved the files. She wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her and boiled a kettle on the stove. A warming tea would help stave off the shivers that were only partially due to the cold.

  Karen placed herself at the kitchen table with her first binder. Taking the cup in her hands, she let the steam drift upwards to her face. It felt good.

  She opened the file and continued reading. Names blurred into each other and the company was only twenty years into its historic run. Henry Clark was still running the now hugely profitable and world-famous business. He had built the town and Blackwater House. He was king of the town and still only 50 years old.

  Karen rubbed at her eyes and looked out into the dawn. Before looking back, she spotted something amiss. The fridge; it looked different. She got up from the table and walked over to it.

  There were colorful magnets attached to its facade. Sophie had wanted them. She often left messages; simple, childish things like ‘HI’ and ‘LUV U’. The letters were large and only a handful could fit on the fridge at any one time.

  MATHWS

  Karen observed the lettering. She tried to figure out what Sophie was trying to say. Maybe it was a reminder for Marcus.

  Did he have a Mathematics test today?

  MathWithSophie?

  No.

  This was Emma. She was trying to tell Karen something. Karen glanced back at the table and the open binder, then back at the letters.

  Mathis? Matthews?

  She sat at the table and looked back and forth. She had a start. Karen moved with more speed now. She scanned down the pages looking for a name she could derive from the lettering.

  She reached the end of the file and closed it with no luck.

  Karen questioned if she had in fact passed it in the several folders she had already read and set aside. The thought depressed her.

  Shoving this idea away, she reached for the ‘1896-1901’ folder. Upon opening this file, she realized the answer lay inside. Large scrawled, scratched lettering snaked across
the opening page.

  SECRETS

  LIES

  MURDER

  If this file didn't produce answers, Karen didn't know where else she would find them.

  Karen ran her finger down the names. The paper had faded in sections and she had to strain to read the letters sometimes.

  Karen’s finger and mind stopped.

  Mathis.

  She ran her finger across to the next column, praying it indicated a certain Emma was part of this family. Emmet. Close but no Emma.

  Karen continued to skim page after page, willing the book to tell her what she needed.

  1898 started halfway through the binder and only continued for a page or two. She wondered what caused this year to have a small roll take. Another sign?

  Matthews, Emma stuck out from the page clear and in violent red, as if highlighted for the reader.

  It took longer than expected but Karen had found what she wanted; the identity of their mystery guest.

  54

  Emma Matthews had worked as the personal secretary to Cornelius Clark; the eldest son of Henry. No records existed detailing her address or next of kin.

  Every other employee had these details recorded. Why did no such records exist for the personal secretary to the future head of the company? Karen thought.

  Karen figured this confirmed Emma was, in fact, on her own in Blackwater.

  She would need an address though, Karen thought, confused.

  At that moment, she heard running water.

  James was up.

  She closed the folder over, marking her place with a wooden spatula at hand. She shoved the binders in a cupboard that had an overflow of dishes inside.

  No one would look in there.

  She skipped back up the stairs and into the bathroom. She snuck inside, making sure James didn't see or hear her. He was in the shower. She pushed the handle of the toilet down. There was a flush and then a scream from behind the shower curtain.

  “Jesus!”

  Karen giggled.

  “What the hell are you playing at, Kay?”