by Sheila Tibbs
“Yes, I have,” Father Mather replied and handed the picture to the outstretched hand in front of him. “I fully understand that, if this woman is here in your care, you cannot discuss her case with me and I don’t intend to embarrass you or myself in asking you to do so, but any information you can give me ... it would be greatly appreciated,” Father Mather said as he sighed, heavily.
Handing the picture back, Ben said, “I can do better than that Father. Yes, this woman is one of my patients, but rather than me tell you what I can, I will take you to see her and she can tell you what she wants you to know. How’s that?” Ben smiled.
Father Mather looked at him for the first time properly.
Smiling back he said, “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. But, tell me first, what’s your interest in Daisy?”
“Daisy, is that her name?” Father Mather asked.
“Yes, Daisy Palmer.” Ben laughed. “All her sisters were named after flowers too.”
“And what do her sisters think of her being here?”
“They all protest her innocence, Father. A close, very religious family.”
“But you don’t believe her innocent, Doctor?” Father Mather enquired, raising his eyebrow.
“Call me, Ben, please. What I believe is not of concern here, Father. But I have a lot of patients, both here and those that are now back in the community. I have seen and heard things that would make you, a man of the cloth, doubt your own faith and, sometimes, your sanity. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Daisy tries to tell you that her daughter killed her twin sister. Now whether Daisy did or didn’t kill the child, they were less than a year old when the death happened. Do you believe a child of that age would be capable of murder, Father? Because I don’t.” Ben could feel his emotions rise, and thought, not for the first time, that he was too old for this line of work now. He needed to release their problems from his shoulders and lift the weight that he had carried for so long. It had now begun to drag him down.
Father Mather sat silently for a few moments staring at the man in front of him. He reached across the table and smiled weakly up at Ben, grabbing his hand in his own, he said, “Many things have made me test my own sanity, Ben. Even now, sitting here with you, is a test of my own sanity. But I have never doubted my faith. God is with us all, always, you just have to know where to look for him. Seek, Ben, and you will find.”
“Thank you, Father,” Ben said, and he meant it.
Together they sat for a few minutes, neither talking nor feeling the need to. They were just lost in their own thoughts.
•
Isobel looked out of the classroom window. She knew the priest was closing in on her mother. Her face changed momentarily, before she began to laugh.
Back at the Manor, Sarah could hear the music box start to play.
Chapter twenty-one.
Ben knocked on the door before entering. There, kneeling at the side of her bed, was a young woman, who, unlike her photo, was painfully thin and pale. Her hands were clasped together so tightly, her knuckles had turned white, and she was muttering.
“Daisy, I have someone who wishes to meet you, will you see him?” Ben asked.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked up. She saw Father Mather standing behind her doctor, and smiled.
“Yes, I will see him. God has answered my prayers. Father, please come in.”
Father Mather stepped into the room and was taken aback by the deep dark shadows that lay beneath her eyes.
“She doesn’t sleep, Father, just prays from dawn till dusk, day in, day out. We have to sedate her most evenings to make her rest, but that doesn’t always work,” Ben said to the priest.
Slowly, Father Mather nodded and walked over to Daisy, who was now standing.
“I’ll leave you two to get to know each other. Just call when you’re ready to leave, Father,” Ben said and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Father Mather watched him leave and noticed the inside of the door didn’t have a handle. He was shut in with no means of escape. He suddenly felt vulnerable.
Sensing his anxiety, Daisy said, “Don’t worry, Father, you're safe here with me, nothing evil can penetrate this room.” Father Mather looked at the young woman, and seeing her belief in what she had just said, he smiled a warm smile, and she smiled back.
The room was sparsely furnished, containing only a small table, a bed and wardrobe, two small chairs and a chest of drawers. All of which were fixed to the floor and couldn’t be moved. The walls were painted a pale shade of pink, with drapes at the barred window to match. It was clean, cosy, in a vacant sort of way, and warm. On one wall, fixed, was a radio, Daisy refused to have a television set, for she believed that evil could reach her through it.
“How old are you, Daisy?” Father Mather asked.
“Twenty-eight, no, twenty-nine, or at least I think I am. What is the date today, Father?” Confusion etched the troubled expression she was already wearing.
“Today is December 10th”
Smiling she said, “In that case then, I am definitely twenty nine. My birthday is in August you know, August 15th.”
Father Mather smiled back. “Tell me about yourself, Daisy?”
“Nothing much to tell really,” she said and looked away.
Father Mather saw her wringing her hands, and felt she was as nervous of their meeting as he himself felt.
“Then tell me about your childhood, your parents, siblings, have you any siblings?”
“Oh yes, Father, I have five sisters. I’m the second to youngest. We had a great childhood. My father worked hard to feed and clothe us all, although I can’t remember what he did to earn his money now, silly isn’t it.” Her mind had again wandered.
“No, Daisy, it isn’t silly. Why I can’t remember what my father worked as either,” he lied.
Daisy smiled.
“Did your mother work, or was she busy looking after all you girls,” he laughed.
“No, mummy took in needlework. She was a seamstress.
And every night she would sit by the fire sewing, while father read to us from the Holy Bible before bedtime.”
She looked up at Father Mather and stared into his eyes for the first time.
“We are a very worshipping family, Father. Our faith in God Almighty has seen us through some very dark times. Very dark times indeed.”
Again her mind had wandered. Her eyes now appeared vacant.
Clearing his throat, Father Mather continued. “I believe you have twin girls, Daisy. Would you like to tell me about them?”
“No, father, you're mistaken, I only have one daughter, Isobel.”
“But Isobel was a twin, an identical twin. Is that correct?” Daisy continued to stare out of the window.
“Daisy is that correct, that Isobel was one of identical twin girls?”
Turning slowly to face the priest, Daisy nodded. Then scanned the room as if to check they were alone, she leaned forward and whispered, “Yes, she was one of twins. Can I tell you a secret, Father?”
“Yes, child, you can tell me anything you wish.”
She rushed over to the bed and lifted the mattress. There she hid her Holy Bible.
Again she scanned the room before removing the Bible from its hiding place, then she beckoned Father Mather to join her on sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I didn’t kill my baby,” she uttered in a voice so small it was hardly audible. Father Mather sat looking at her for a few seconds before asking, “Then who did?”
“Isobel,” she said, “Isobel killed her twin sister.”
“But Isobel was just a baby herself, how could she have done?”
Daisy looked up into Father Mather’s eyes. He could see her searching, looking deep into his soul. He wanted to look away, move from her burning gaze but his eyes were transfixed to hers.
“The girls were six months old. They had just started to crawl. I was bringing them up in the n
ame of God ... I swear it,
Father. I would read them passages from the Bible every night instead of the usual bedtime stories some mothers seem fit to read to their offspring.”
Daisy sat there, staring at the Bible in her hands. She took deep breaths to try to steady her voice. When she had accomplished this, she continued. “Isobel would lay there listening, and gurgling, to the passages, but not her sister. Oh no,” she paused. “Do you know, Father, that if you have identical twins, the good and bad that is in all of us is split between them.
One is good and godly, almost an angel, the other is pure evil, straight from the loins of Satan himself.”
“Do you really believe that, Daisy?” he asked. His flesh crawled at the thought of what she had just said.
“Yes, Father, I do. I thought that Isobel was good, I swear. She has the face of an angel, don’t you agree?”
Father Mather nodded and smiled.
“On the other hand, her sister had been a difficult baby, always crying, never keeping her food down. Do you know once she had been fed, you got out of her way, her vomit would hit the wall on the other side of the room,” she laughed.
“Ahh, projectile.” Father Mather laughed with her.
“She would cry through the passages of the Bible, she would cry at anything. Yes, Father I thought she was the evil one.”
Father Mather looked at her and nodded his understanding.
“So what happened to her, Daisy, did you harm her, maybe unintentionally, trying perhaps to cleanse her soul?”
Daisy stared at him.
“No, I did her no harm. Kindness and love would have changed her in time, or so I believed.”
“And now, what do you believe now, Daisy?” he asked.
“I believe now that Satan is a great magician, Father. He can disguise himself and make you believe what he wants you to believe.”
“In what way? Has Satan tried to fool you? Is that what you mean?”
“Oh, yes, but he didn’t try, he succeeded. He disguised himself all right. In the form of Isobel.”
Father Mather looked out of the window. A small robin had perched itself on the windowsill and was eagerly looking for food. The sky had turned a dark shade of snowy grey and the naked trees that adorned the garden seemed to wither against the cold. He shuddered.
Daisy, having watched Father Mather intently, said, “It looks like snow again.”
Father Mather smiled and nodded. Taking her hand he said, “Please continue.”
“It was little things I noticed at first. The girls shared a cot and, on more than one occasion, she would wake up with scratches and marks on her. I thought they were scratching each other in their sleep ... so I started to put them down with mittens on to help prevent it. But never once did Isobel wake with a mark.” Daisy walked to the window. “Then I realised that she cried more when she was with Isobel. At first I thought I was being silly, but as they got older, I realised I wasn’t.”
“Where was their father through all this?” he asked.
“They never knew their father. He wasn’t a real person you see. He used to visit me at night. Oh, he was handsome, a charmer, and I am ashamed to say a good lover. We never married, I never saw him by day ... only at night, when I was asleep. He would talk to me about this big Manor House in a little village somewhere in Essex, called Canewdon. He would say that we would bring our children up there, and live a happy life. I once asked him, 'Why Canewdon?' He said that this Manor house had been taken from his mother and was rightfully his. He would get it back for us to live in. I believed him. But, when I fell pregnant, I never saw him again.”
Father Mather sat there, stunned.
“But Isobel has shown her foster parents a photo of him. And Canewdon is where I live ... and her foster parents own the Manor house there. That is where Isobel is right now!” he said.
Daisy laughed. “So he was right then. Isobel is home where she belongs. And no, Father she hasn’t got a photo of him, I never had one and she has never met him. Or has she? Perhaps he has visited Isobel in her sleep also? No, he wouldn’t.” She paused to think. “My father, when it was discovered I was pregnant, accused me of sleeping with Satan ... and he disowned me. My sisters still keep in touch, but if my father found out, he would stop it.”
“Why would your father accuse you of that?”
“Because I had no name just that the man visited me at night. My father said he was an Incubus. A demon sent from Satan to seduce me and I ... I allowed it to happen. Not only had I bought shame on the family, but I had invited evil into his home. I had to go and take the evil with me, never to cross his doorway again. I would burn in Hell unless I repented my sins.”
“But what of this photograph?” he persisted.
“Isobel is the spawn of this Incubus, Father. She is evil in its purest form and can make you see what she wants you to see, make anything happen that she wants to happen. Do you know how my baby actually died, Father?” she almost demanded. He shook his head.
“She was thrown out of an upstairs window. Her tiny frail body lay crumpled on the pavement below. Oh, I know what you're thinking, how could a six month old baby be responsible for that? Isobel had shown her true colours long before her sibling’s death. I had caught that hateful child laying on my baby’s face, holding her down, biting her.”
“But they are all things that can be expected from young twins, surely? Don’t all teething youngsters bite? They lay and roll about together, lying on top of one another. That, I would presume, is just normal behaviour?” he interrupted.
Daisy spun round to face him. “Is making another child levitate normal behaviour too?”
“You saw Isobel make her levitate? Are you sure?” His voice trembled.
“More than once, Father. That is when I realised that I had understood the girls all wrong. It was Isobel that was evil. On the day my baby died ,I had put the girls down for their afternoon nap. After a while, I heard this strange voice coming from upstairs and she started to cry. I thought someone had broken into my house to try and steal my little girls. I raced upstairs to see her in the air ... and the strange voice was coming from Isobel, only it wasn’t Isobel, her face was contorted and her eyes were shining a sickly shade of yellow. I screamed. Isobel stared at me and smiled, and then she made my baby, my beautiful baby, fly through the air and straight out of the window to the concrete below. Then she laughed. A laugh I will never forget until I die, and even then ... even then my soul will remember it! It still makes my blood run cold.”
“Then what happened, Daisy?” Father Mather asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
“The police came, didn’t believe my story, had me sectioned under the mental health act ... and here I am.”
“And what of Isobel?”
“Some woman, I think she said she was from social services ... she turned up just as the police did and took Isobel away. To be honest, Father, I was glad to see her go.”
“Who called social services, do you know?”
“No. The police officer said it was probably someone at the station that called them.”
“But you never found out? Why?”
“Because I didn’t care, still don’t. I would never be able to love her after what she had done. I knew by then also that I would never be able to control the evil inside her. It scared me. My father was right. I have been repenting my sins everyday for the last seven years. I hope now that the good Lord can find a place in his heart to forgive me.”
“I am sure he will, Daisy,” Father Mather whispered.
He stood to go.
“Tell me, Father, do you believe me or think I’m insane?”
He turned to her. “No, Daisy, I don’t think you’re insane, and having met your daughter, yes, I believe you.”
“Then you must find a way to destroy her, I’m begging you!” she said.
Father Mather knocked on the door. When it opened, he bade his farewell and closed the door behind
him.
In his car, he sat there for a long time, just staring out of the window. Then he cried. He cried for Daisy, he cried for Sarah but, most of all, he cried for himself. Was he too old for this battle, which he now knew, would have to take place? Was his faith strong enough to win?
•
Sarah sat at home, constantly glancing at the clock on the wall. Where was Father Mather? Why hadn’t he called yet? She hated the waiting. She hated not knowing.
Isobel sat in her room. Her reflection scowled.
“Didn’t I tell you that your mother would interfere?” it spat.
“Don’t worry, leave it to me,” she said.
On the side, her music box played.
Chapter twenty-two.
Father Mather drove home slowly. It had started to snow and the snowflakes danced and swung before him, illuminated by the headlights of his car. The snow fell heavier and heavier until it became like a cloud in front of him. He slowed down to almost a snail's pace and bent forward. He wiped the windscreen with the back of his hand to remove the mist that had formed from his hot breath. Daisy’s face sprung before him, the joy she'd showed when she knew he had believed her made him smile inwardly. Then he saw Isobel, her sweet angelic face and beautiful, long, raven black hair, shining brightly, her eyes, so blue, so deep. How could this child really be so evil?
Then she began to change. Her eyes, they seemed to glow a sickly yellow, her face contorted, her tongue slithered from between her lips and protruded as no human tongue possibly could. Father Mather blinked hard, trying to dispel the image that had formed before him.
As he opened his eyes, he heard her laugh and his blood ran cold in his veins. He had never before heard anything so hideous, so disgusting, and so frightening. His heart was beating so fast that he felt it was going to leave its safe haven in his chest and expel itself. He was too old for this, he knew. He would not be able to complete the task before him. He now knew the evil in Isobel knew his every move, his every thought, and, his every word spoken. He physically shuddered at the thought.