They helped her into the front passenger seat and his father retreated wordlessly into the back of the vehicle. Ridiculously, Christian buckled his mother’s seatbelt with care.
She attempted to speak. ‘You’ve . . . gotten . . . old.’ Her voice was like crackling leaves at the height of autumn.
He glanced at her head. Two narrow slits had opened in the scales of black crust to expose the whites of her eyes, but her iris and pupils had partially adhered to the underside of her lids so she couldn’t look directly at him. He focused on the road ahead. ‘I thought you would see me as younger, the way I was when you were alive.’
‘I’m your mother. I see you as you are.’
‘M – mama. Was it bad, my bringing you b-back?’
He heard her teeth clack together and didn’t know if it was involuntary or some version of mirth. ‘I’m glad I . . . can see you again.’
As they drove on the sky was no longer completely dark and the last faint stars disappeared. Christian felt fatigue unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and wondered if he might be dying. His passengers had little to say, although his mother and Cheryl did exchange pleasantries about the brief time they’d once known each other.
Christian had given everything possible to give, and if the guilt had not been thoroughly exorcised it never would be. Like so many days in his life which he had anticipated with either excitement or trepidation, this one had devolved into yet another day he just had to get through.
Someone stepped in front of the car. She was tall and gangly, with little flesh on her frame. Her nursing uniform swallowed her. She carried a small bundle. He stopped. Beside him his mother clacked her teeth.
The skeletal nurse stood wobbly, one hand reached for the hood for stability as she fixed him with an angry glare.
‘Ba-by,’ his mother croaked. ‘She has a ba-by.’
Then Christian recognized who she used to be. ‘No, this is not something I need to do. He wasn’t a child yet, more like our hopes for a child.’
The parts man was then so close Christian could feel the tongue’s moist touch on his earlobe, and the soft scrape of those well-sharpened teeth. ‘Can you say you felt no guilt when they took him away? Which did you regret more, looking at him, or not looking at him long enough?’
He and Grace had been trying to have a child for a long time, had almost given up when Grace became pregnant. She was wearing one of those oversized T-shirts that said ‘Baby On Board’ – she joked about how odd it looked on someone her age – when her water broke months too early. Her voice was broken when she called for him from the bathroom. He remembered looking at her as she stood awkwardly with her feet apart on the wet floor, her eyes tightly closed. He didn’t know what to say, and that became his mode for the rest of the evening.
In the car on the way to the hospital she kept saying it was far too early and they were going to lose the baby. He kept repeating that she wasn’t a doctor and she didn’t know that. But at the hospital the doctor said the baby was dead or dying and for her sake recommended that they remove it rather than wait. Dead or dying? He would always wonder if he’d heard that correctly, and if there was significance in the difference they should have paid more attention to. Grace would later say she could remember nothing about that conversation.
From that point on – even as they took her into the delivery room and allowed him to sit beside her – he held her hand and kept whispering ‘we’ll get through this day.’ He could hear the sounds of babies being born in nearby rooms, the mothers’ cries of both joy and pain.
The tall nurse with the piercing eyes stood at the end of the bed and stared at him with what he thought was disapproval, but it was a very bad time – probably her stares meant nothing. She narrated the procedure in an oddly matter-of-fact way. As they removed the small body there was a moment of silence, then she said ‘a boy, perfectly formed, approximately . . .’ and Grace cried out ‘please, I don’t want to hear this,’ and the nurse replied ‘it’s just for the record’ and Christian wanted to call her a liar, and realized they were in a Catholic hospital and wondered if that made any difference.
Before they took him away, Christian stood up clumsily and stretched so that he could see his son. It was only a momentary glimpse, but he thought the skin was a dark red, almost purple, and the closed eyes looked molded on, doll-like and unreal. He sat down feeling like an awkward teenager. He thought he’d done something wrong – either he shouldn’t have gotten up, or he should have taken a longer look.
As they wheeled Grace into another room he’d kissed her, and the lethargic way she looked at him, the stillness of her body, convinced him he would one day lose her, but at least not that night.
Now the skeletal nurse was handing him the bundle through the window, and unwilling to hold him Christian passed the child into his mother’s charbroiled arms, who carried him into the back to share with the others, and although they all exclaimed at the delicacy of his fingers as he held on to theirs, at the beauty of his eyes and of his smile, the baby made not a sound. Christian got out and walked around struggling for breath. The nurse had disappeared.
‘It is time for my payment, Christian.’
Christian stared at the parts man, who huddled in his great coat as if cold, only his sad eyes and part of his twisted nose showing above the tall collar. ‘I didn’t need to see him again! Haven’t I paid you enough?’
‘I do not make the rules.’
Christian sat down in the road, his arms hugging his knees. ‘Then who does?’ Getting no answer, he stretched out on the pavement and looked up. Color had flowed back into the sky. He was seeing the dim edges of different clouds, and he struggled to find resemblances.
‘This will be the last time I charge you.’ The parts man loomed over him. ‘After this we will return you to your home.’ Then the parts man hunkered down, and serious exchanges were made, essential and irretrievable items were taken, and secret locations within Christian’s body made empty. He knew he would never be the same. The pain was . . . clarifying, and although Christian cried he did not scream. The worst of it was glancing over and seeing that all his passengers were watching from the car.
They pulled up to his house in the drowsy light of morning. It was difficult climbing out of the car. Whatever adrenalin had driven him through this journey had dissipated, and all he had left was this constant mental haze of deterioration enlivened occasionally by an ambush of pain. He wondered how much of his future had been amputated, but of course there was no sensible math for such things.
He didn’t say goodbye to any of them. He wondered if they recognized the kind of bargain he had made.
They’d bought this small house almost ten years ago. They’d gotten rid of much of their belongings, keeping only a few pieces in remembrance of their best of times. This place required little maintenance. Grace had fallen in love with the tree-shaded porch, and they’d spent many evenings there during her final few years. He’d liked the well-lit corner where he could read his much reduced collection of books.
He’d left the house tidy when he went away with the parts man; he always liked to leave rooms picked up and put away. Now the surfaces were cluttered with tissues and pill bottles and a variety of medical debris. The air smelled of strong disinfectant, but not so strong as to hide the basic sourness underneath. A wheelchair sat in one corner of the living room, a walker and a potty chair in another – everything he’d thrown away the week after Grace died.
The woman sitting in the green wing-backed chair was not the Grace of her last few days – thin and suddenly older and breathing explosively – but the Grace from a few weeks before, smiling and teary-eyed and still able to speak her mind.
With some effort he got down on his knees in front of her and cupped her trembling hands inside his own. They stilled immediately and she smiled at him. ‘Christian, where were you? I’ve been waiting.’
‘I had . . . errands.’ He struggled not to cry and it made him
almost laugh. ‘But I’m here now. We never said . . . our proper goodbyes. I wanted to tell you how grateful I was, for all those years. And how, now I ache for you every day.’ And then he rose awkwardly and embraced her, kissed her desperately on her eyelids, her lips, and when she failed to respond he sagged onto the floor.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘You didn’t speak your last few days,’ he said, ‘and you could hardly tolerate my voice. I assumed it was because, in a way, you had gone on to another . . . life, and were done with this one. Is that the case? This . . . place, it means nothing to you now?’
She was silent for a very long time. Then the words came slowly, but at least they came. ‘I remember, going away, to college. I saw no one from home for three years. Not my parents, not the boyfriend I left behind. Then I came back for a week. I still, loved my parents. They were the same. But I was different. I cared not a bit for my hometown, my old friends, even my old boyfriend. They meant nothing because I was now in another place. It wasn’t as if I’d fallen out of love, out of anything. They’d just become . . . irrelevant.’
She’d angered him. ‘You’re saying I’m like some high school flame? Our marriage was, what? Trivial?’
‘You’re upset. No, it is not the same. But I’m just trying, to find some words you might understand. Take my memory of going away to college. Multiply it by a thousand. Times ten thousand. Imagine that. It’s not that I don’t want to care. It’s that I cannot. Want, or care. Now.’
He took this in, and found he wasn’t surprised. He didn’t know what else to say to her. But then he thought about what he really wanted to know. ‘So tell me this. You’re the only one I can ask. We weren’t believers, either of us. So is it like heaven? Is it like hell? Something else? What is it? What is it like?’
She stared at him blankly, and then there was a slight tremor in her mouth. She looked as if she were in pain. ‘Don’t ask me that. That is something you cannot ask. What good . . .’ She stopped, glancing around as if she’d forgotten where she was. ‘What good would it do you? There’s nothing I can do to save you from it. Just, live your life, Christian. Live your life as long as you can.’
He sat there without speaking. Occasionally he would glance at her, expecting her to be gone, but she still sat there with no expression, occupying the chair. He struggled to his feet and went to the front window. To his surprise the car was still out there, the parts man standing beside it, watching the house. Christian opened the door and limped down to the street. ‘You’re still here,’ he said.
‘I wanted to see how your visit went,’ the parts man said.
‘Is that humor? Is that the way you see us?’
The parts man grinned a toothy grin. ‘That is life – make of it what you will. Enjoy the rest of your journey. Now that our arrangement has completed it is time that I ended theirs.’
The parts man spread his great coat making it appear as if he’d increased his size. He re-entered the car, but instead of getting into the driver’s seat he climbed in through one of the back doors and joined the full complement of passengers. Christian couldn’t tell what was happening inside the car – the interior was too dark and the windows were too small – but there was a great deal of movement and a great number of teeth and when the car glided away it appeared to be empty.
Helen Mathers
THE FACE IN THE MIRROR
Helen Mathers was the pen name of Ellen Buckingham Mathews (1853-1920), an extremely popular and prolific author of the late Victorian period. Her first novel, a romance entitled Comin’ Thro’ the Rye (1875), was extraordinarily successful, remaining in print for decades and going through at least 160 editions as well as being adapted for a 1923 film. But Mathers also had an interest in the weird and supernatural, as evidenced by ‘The Face in the Mirror’, the title story of a 1903 collection, and two novels published in 1896: The Sin of Hagar and The Juggler and the Soul, both stories of mad scientists and occult experiments; the latter involving transference of living souls into dead bodies. She was also one of the authors of The Fate of Fenella (1892), an experimental ‘round robin’ novel republished by Valancourt, each of its twenty-four chapters penned by a different popular novelist of the day, a lineup that also included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker. The present story, which as far as we can tell has not previously been reprinted, features the classic trappings of the Victorian ghost story, including a spectre, a haunted chamber, ghostly images in a mirror and messages from beyond the grave.
The letter was gone. In vain I shook out my satin gown, and blamed the folly that had made me take this, the only love letter that had ever been dear to me, downstairs to dinner in that vast house, where even human beings were liable to get lost, how much more so, then, a scrap of paper!
My thoughts threw back – it was safe at dinner, for occasionally I touched it in my pocket, and thus bore with a dull neighbour gladly; and afterwards I had not moved from a deep ottoman where different persons had come and talked to me till bedtime. If I drew my treasure out with my handkerchief, it might still be there perhaps, crushed out of sight – or if visible, the men probably found it when turning out the lights, and it was furnishing rich food for merriment in the servants’ quarters at that very moment!
But there was a bare chance that I had left it in the drawing-room – that they had overlooked it – and I was resolved that as soon as the house was perfectly quiet, I would steal down, and make a search.
It was not yet twelve – but the women kept early hours, and the men would be in Lord William’s smoking-room, an immense distance away, and the servants’ wing was yet farther – so I thought I was pretty safe, and at five minutes to twelve I took my candle, and stole softly down the corridors and staircase, crossed the wide hall, and, turning the handle of the drawing-room door, went in.
How ghostly it looked – how strange! At night, familiar things wear unfamiliar faces – the very colours of the flowers are different, and one has a feeling of intrusion, as if inanimate things had also their hours of rest, and resented disturbance from outside humans. At a distance, the deep orange-pink brocade of the ottoman I sought looked almost black, but what was my joy, on reaching it, to behold, sticking up between the cushion and the padded side, a tiny gleam of white, that proved to be the corner of my letter!
I pounced upon, and pressed it to my lips. All thought of fear, of isolation in the vast sleeping place forgotten, I almost danced to the door, the pictured faces on the wall seeming to advance upon me, as in passing, the light in my hand struck them, though they looked, I thought, as if they, too, were angry at my unseasonable visit. As I closed the door behind me, something stole on my ear, and ravished it; so enthrallingly sweet was it, so enticing, that with eager ear bent towards it, and neck outstretched, I instantly followed that exquisite music – not knowing whence it came, not knowing whither it would lead me – just because it drew my feet, my spirit, and would have drawn me over a precipice, I truly believe, had it passed beyond it, so little control had I over my own body at that moment.
Swiftly I went, scarce heeding through what doors I passed, which way I turned – only presently I became aware that I was in the deserted corridors of a disused portion of the house, and still, now far, now near, that haunting melody drew me on, such melody as surely human hands never drew out of earthly instrument, yet, such melody as while thrilling me with the most exquisite pleasure, also brought tears to my eyes, for anguish there was in it, and love, and deep despair!
On every side were closed doors that looked as if they had never been opened; on the ground was dust – dust that might have lain there a century – damp and chill was the air, but I felt neither cold nor fear, as, dying away in a lingering cadence of mournful beauty, the music crossed the threshold of an open door beyond me, and I stood alone with thumping heart in the midst of an apartment hung with mouldering velvet draperies that in colour, methought, had once been green.
The candle light in my
hand but made the gloom, the desuetude of the room, deeper; the charm, the power that had irresistibly brought my feet hither, had ceased with the music; I was no longer a creature subjugated through my ears, entranced into ecstacy by sweet sounds that realised my dreams of heaven – I was just a lonely, shivering girl, lost in a remote part of a castle the size of a village, and almost certainly unable to find the way back by which I came.
Have you ever known what it is to feel murder in the air – to feel it all about you – to know that by stretching out your hand you can actually touch the murderer; has no telepathic message ever passed to you from some mere stranger, warning you that he has committed, or will commit, an awful crime? Such a feeling came overpoweringly upon me when, looking down, I saw on the dusty boards at my feet a great discoloured splash, as if a ewer of blood had been spilt violently, and no one had washed the pool away . . . Suddenly an unreasoning terror laid hold of me, ungovernable, as when in panic men strike women down – and I turned to escape headlong. But even in turning, my body froze – my eyes were drawn to a mirror (the only one the room contained) on my right, and across which there passed slowly the face of a girl no older than I . . . lovely indeed was it, with a loveliness haunting and penetrating as the melody that had drawn me hither, but what horror, what agony were there – and on it the look that few have seen, and none in all its intensity save the murderer . . . for this girl was in the act of being murdered, and was looking at me as if I – I were actually committing the crime! This was her spirit – so she may have looked in the flesh when her blood gushed out, and left that stain showing dim at my feet . . . all the hatred of death, the passion for life, summed up in the flashing moment that seemed an eternity to murdered and murderer alike, aye, and to me as the mirror showed clear – and the only thing that moved in that accursed room was I!
The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories Page 7