‘Father?’
‘Step inside, Renata.’
The girl places the key in her father’s outstretched, quivering hand, then glimpses the walk-in larder door lying ajar behind him. It’s never left ajar. She lowers her gaze as he steps to the window and looks out at Samson curled on the grass.
‘Couldn’t do it, could you?’ he says. ‘I had your punishment all ready, too.’ He glances through the open kitchen door to the bookcase in the lounge.
Not the Bible, please. Not again.
‘I’m going back to the hospital. Your mother’s due any day now.’
‘Can I come, Father?’
Thomas Wakefield’s eyes deepen, his face reddening as if his daughter has spoken some terrible insult. She takes a step back as his fists tighten and his chest rises. Suddenly he lashes like a cobra, grabbing her by the wrist – that agonising grip – and drags her to the larder. He swings the door open and flings the girl inside, where she trips and lands in a heap before him.
‘Trust me, child,’ he growls down at her, ‘this is a mercy.’
He pulls her up then drives her into a wooden chair in the middle of the larder. Her eyes dart around at the towers of tinned foods, mountains of branded packets, and walls of Tupperware, indifferent and uncaring. She realises in a panic that the chair is fixed, unmoving. Looking below she sees it’s bolted to the floor.
Help me Mother I’m not like you I don’t have any flood in me I’m not strong I can’t do it I can’t I—
‘I’ve tried so hard with you,’ he says, straightening out four lengths of rope in his hands. The girl grips the arms of the chair, face white with terror. ‘No matter what I teach you, no matter how many hours I make you study the holy book, you just don’t learn, do you?’
She stands up then is pushed back down so hard that all the air is knocked from her lungs. Through her choking for air, she feels those clamp-like hands on one of her wrists, followed by the tightening of rope. Her other hand, frantically wiping away the tears obscuring her vision, is wrenched down and also tied in place. She thrashes her legs as her father drops to his knees, ignoring the kicking, and ties her ankles into position. The man takes a step back as she lashes and writhes against the ropes.
‘I HATE YOU,’ the girl screams, face red with fury. ‘I’LL KILL YOU.’
Father and daughter turn to stone, he in the doorway, she bound in the chair. They stare into one another’s eyes for a moment that transcends fear or anger, instead infused with some kind of tension, a promise of possibility. Something unfolds inside both of their minds – part revelation, part reminder – that in this world anything is possible.
Thomas Wakefield breaks from his daughter’s stare and, in a moment the girl will never forget, drops his eyes to the floor. He steps out of the larder and slams the door.
In the pitch-darkness of this cell she will sit, alone. She will never know how long; days, of this she is sure. The blackness will pull her into an eternity of night wherein time and space twist and flatten into a never-ending expanse of madness. She will lose the ability to tell whether her eyes are open or closed, whether she’s asleep or awake, dead or alive. Smells of which she’d never have imagined her body capable will rise from the places her muscles surrender their dignity, the darkness presenting to her a world in which all bodily functions occur as they do for the cows she’s seen in the fields. Yes, blackness and the stench, hunger and the thirst. These will be the new laws of her existence during her time in the larder.
After a day or two, or week, or year in this perpetual black, the memory of screaming at her father will inject some unexpected strength into her. She’ll remember the sensation of freedom and liberation at roaring threats in the face of this ultimate force of violence and suffering. At this, the endless dark will offer up the realisation that she has a way out.
The stories.
For some months, she’d found solace in the pages of the diary her mother had given her, the open ears of her only friend. She’d ignored the dates heading each page, preferring instead to continue the previous entry’s scribbled thoughts – the words running on and on and on. The fear of her father reading the diary was too great to allow the detailing of what actually went on in the house, so she’d search her mind instead for anything else in her life, or in her head, worth committing to the page. She felt like a cave diver exploring a pitch-black underwater lagoon, arms outstretched, hunting for anything of interest.
A pitch-black underwater lagoon. Maybe that’s where she is now. The girl closes her eyes and sinks into the lagoon.
Come on, there’s got to be something down here.
She imagines the ropes around her wrists falling away, allowing her outstretched hands to search in the darkness. The cave diver gropes in amongst the soil and stones that make up the bed of the lagoon, knowing there’s something there for her, something to carry her through this hell.
Someone reaches back.
It’s a woman. She has brown hair – no, blonde hair. Her cheeks are sprinkled with freckles. She’s wearing a flowing pink dress – no, buttoned blue blouse. Her lips part. She’s about to tell the girl her name. (What was the name of that city in Australia where she’d sent those letters for that pen pal project at school?)
The larder door opens.
The light is unbearable. Silhouetted against the glare a figure approaches her, kneels down, and unties the rope fastenings. Gradually, her father’s expressionless face falls into focus. He steps towards the open door then stops, looking back at her.
She understands.
The girl struggles to her feet, bracing herself against a shelf as her legs try to remember how to support her weight. A towel is thrown in her direction, falling to the floor by her feet. With it she wipes the worst of her mess from under her skirt, runs it over the soiled seat of the chair, sets it sheepishly on the ground, then slowly follows her father out of the larder and up the stairs into the bathroom.
Not a word is exchanged as the girl undresses. Thomas takes her clothes and returns downstairs as she slips into the pre-run bath. He reappears with a plate of dry bread, then tips the toothbrushes from their cup into the sink and fills the glass with water, setting it by the bread on the lowered toilet seat.
‘Thank you, Father,’ the girl croaks as he’s leaving the bathroom.
He stops and, without turning back, says, ‘You stayed at a friend’s.’ Then, just before he closes the door behind him, he looks back into the shivering girl’s eyes. ‘You have a brother.’
Soon, once he’s returned the larder to its previous state, she’ll hear her father’s car struggle to life as he leaves for the hospital to collect her mother and her new baby brother. She’ll see the way he looks at the boy, while a new mutual affection opens up between her parents. She’ll see her mother, her father, and this newcomer huddle together, a tighter unit than the family has ever been. She’ll see friends and visitors come especially to meet the baby – an adorable baby, you simply have to meet him; oh, his little face and hands, and that beautiful red hair – and she’ll see the future, the way it’s going to be. Mercifully, Samson will die within weeks, Thomas replacing him with yet another new Samson.
A new Samson for a new beginning.
Tonight, the girl, just turned ten, will give birth to a woman with blonde hair and a blue blouse named Adelaide Addington. She’ll deliver through the pencil her first creation: a person, an actual human, a character. And she’ll be real, more real than that drooling thing in the other room – the baby you have to meet him he’s got a face and hands and a nose and even an ear or two and you simply have to meet him.
Oh, Adelaide will be real. But first she has to meet her newly born baby brother.
‘Rennie,’ her mother will whisper, the smile on her face finally real, ‘meet Noah.’
8
The broken springs of the mattress prodded into Renata’s back as she listened to her father’s snores. Occasionally they would mangle into fitful choke
s, at one point leading to a silence she thought may have marked an end to her enduring of this place, these people, these responsibilities. She thought the choking may have signalled the dying throes of her father, the silence his expiration.
The snoring returned. She felt like she should hate herself for this moment of longing, the undeniable hope that the eternal flame of her father had finally extinguished, but she didn’t.
The details of Hector’s investigation swam before her. Both her mother’s murder and the explosion were connected, of this the detective – yes, still a detective – was sure. As for Quentin, why were words from his novel left at the crime scene? Midnight, midnight; it’s your turn. Clock strikes twelve; burn, burn, burn.
Was someone trying to set him up, or were they just inspired by his book?
She shouldn’t care about any of it, least of all her long-lost family. They weren’t her problem, just as she eventually hadn’t been theirs. The teenaged Renata, following the accident, had swapped this hellhole of a home for a hospital, one that became more of a home than this house ever could have been. How reluctant she’d been to leave those white corridors. Fifteen years in care and not once had her family visited. Her mother likely had no say in this, so she didn’t hold it against her. Besides, despite Renata’s amnesia robbing so much from her, she did remember her relief at the lack of visitation. But it was true. She’d never stopped loving Sylvia Wakefield, the woman who’d endured so much to keep her family together.
Promise you’ll be there for him if anything happens to me.
Yes, she’d stick around long enough to ensure her mother’s husband was cared for before checking out, that one-way ticket all knotted and tied and ready to go. Help the monster responsible for Mother’s bruises and black eyes, then snap goes the noose. Simple.
The twisted logic of her intentions knocked around her head until she could take no more. She pressed her hands over closed eyes, but the darkness behind her eyelids couldn’t erase the image of what lay behind that door at the end of the hall, beyond those cheery cartoon animals still spelling his name.
NOAH
The implications of a child’s bedroom kept so clinically intact all these years hadn’t escaped her, and the possibility of her brother not even being an option was too much to bear. She couldn’t afford to put Thomas in a home. End herself now and rely on state care? That’s not what she’d promised her mother. Besides, Sylvia Wakefield’s killer was still out there. Part of her felt compelled to hang around long enough to look the sweet old woman’s murderer in the eyes.
She needed peace to think. She leapt from the child-sized bed.
Her father’s snoring continued as she stuffed candlesticks, matches, and a packet of wet wipes into her satchel. She gave her hands a quick rinse under the kitchen tap, made a note to replace the thinning soap bar, and slipped into her duffle coat. A pile of hair clips sat on the sideboard. She fastened these in her hair for good measure, tied a woollen scarf around her neck, and eased open the front door.
The bitter night air embraced her. Then she heard the weeping. A sobbing figure sat on the curb by the blackened crater, head in hands. Quentin looked up.
‘Ren,’ he said, wiping the sleeve of his blazer over reddened eyes. ‘I thought you’d be asleep.’
‘I was,’ she replied, curling her toes in her shoes until they hurt. ‘I just woke up and realised I hadn’t locked the house.’
He looked at her boots, coat, and satchel. ‘Which house, and what mountain’s it up?’
They were interrupted by the clock tower, its midnight tolls filling the vacuum of the night. They looked in its direction.
‘You’re going there, aren’t you?’ he asked, his Maine cadence still alien to Renata. ‘The tower. I saw the way you looked at it during the service.’
‘I…’ She fished for the words. ‘Sorry, yes. I am. I used to go there as a child. There was a room at the top I liked.’ She paused. ‘I need to get my head together.’
‘That’s twice you’ve seen me cry like a baby,’ said Quentin, picking his glasses up from the curb. ‘I’d be embarrassed but I’m too torn up about those guys. Third-degree burns. Had to have their seatbelts surgically removed.’ The tears renewed behind his lenses. ‘They have kids, Ren. They could have died and they have kids.’ The bell ceased, leaving only the man’s sobbing to fill the night.
‘I’m not…the person to speak to about this, Quentin,’ Renata stammered. ‘Sorry, I’m just not good with people.’ She hesitated, words yet to be said balancing on her tongue. Was she really going to do this? ‘The clock tower…I mean, it’s kind of falling apart, but if that doesn’t bother you, well…’
The horn-rimmed glasses looked up at her. His gaze was intense, but unusually calming; still no knives. Scalding water on flesh, that’s what the gaze of another usually felt like. But not these eyes.
‘Come with me,’ she heard herself say. ‘The view’s impressive, if nothing else. Not that you’ll see much in this fog.’
Quentin removed his glasses again and rubbed his eyes. He cleared his throat. ‘Gotta be better than this. That’s real kind of you, Ren. I mean, after everything I’ve done…you sure?’
‘These people are criminalising you over a book, your production company’s being sabotaged, and people are getting hurt. It’s taking its toll on you. No shame in that.’ She held out a hand. ‘To me, you’re the victim.’
He took her hand and squeezed—
always at the right times
—then got to his feet.
‘Thank you, Ren.’
Stones crunched underfoot as they made their way along the gravel track. The path ran beside the road to the church, eventually straying through a knee-high stone wall that looked as ready to collapse as the church. A jumbled army of gravestones populated the cemetery grounds, marking generations of Millbury Peak’s deceased.
They were trudging towards the clock tower when Renata stopped by the stone of Sylvia Wakefield. Her grave, accompanied by a wreath already beginning to wither, was meagre compared to those littering the churchyard.
Quentin knelt to pick something from the grass. ‘From what I’ve been told,’ he said, ‘it sounds like she deserved a tad more than this. Maybe something more along these lines?’ He nodded to a looming stone angel, then stood. ‘Hey, at least she did better than this guy,’ he said, gesturing to a tiny, nameless stone.
They pressed on, edging carefully around the sleeping graves. Renata could feel the man following silently behind her. The police tape covering the church’s entrance had been replaced with freshly cut two-by-fours. The clock tower stood at the north end of the church, stretching into the mist and looking out towards the slumbering town. The door at its base had also been boarded over, but with planks as weathered as the headstones.
Quentin stood by her side, one hand behind his back. ‘Boarded up,’ he said. ‘I’ll need a crowbar or something.’
He watched Renata disappear around the back of the tower, then followed. He found her standing by a waist-high panel, a tight hole piercing its rotting wood where a handle had long since broken off. She picked a thin branch from the ground and fed it through the hole, pressing the stick at an angle so as to create a lever by which the panel could be prised. It opened, a sharp gust whistling from the darkness and fogging Quentin’s glasses. Renata glanced at his look of apprehension.
‘Too much for you, Quentin?’ she smiled timidly. ‘You’re the horror writer. Maybe you’ll get some inspiration.’
He rubbed his glasses on his corduroys. ‘You’re the romance writer,’ he said, replacing his glasses then pulling from behind his back an improvised bouquet assembled from scraps of lichens, dandelions, and daisies. ‘Maybe you’ll get some inspiration.’
Her eyes dropped. He stepped forward and lifted her hand in his own, then placed in her fingers the bouquet.
‘Right,’ he said, turning to the open hatch, ‘let’s see this room of yours.’
She reac
hed the top first.
In the same way Millbury Peak’s emergence through the mist had reignited forgotten synaptic connections within her, so did each step spiralling up the clock tower. She remembered as a child the mental roadmap leading her safely down the creakiest steps of the house’s staircase. The roadmap leading up the tower tonight, however, was a highway, ascending to the only place in Millbury Peak she’d ever found peace.
She was relieved to find the door at the top, barred vertically in bolted iron strips, not only unsealed but wide open. Decades’ worth of leaves and dust had blown through the tall, narrow opening in the stone that constituted the room’s only window. She ducked under the low doorframe and stepped into her past.
Moonlight poured in. The room was cold, but she was warmed by the glow of nostalgia from the ancient walls. She crossed the unassuming circular space towards the pointed, narrow lancet window, which rose glassless and open from the top of a few steps. Two rotting wooden crates sat overturned at the base of these steps, one significantly larger than the other, red lettering stencilled upside down on each. These crates had once served as the writing desk and chair for a little girl, an aspiring writer of romantic fiction. She placed her bouquet on the larger of the two crates.
She peered into a grimy pile of rubble against the wall and spotted a small, crooked shape poking from the mess, like a miniature version of one of the gravestones in the yard outside. It was a book, mouldy and waterlogged, and she immediately knew which. She shivered, not from the chill, but from a distant memory of the text within those sodden pages.
Pain flashed.
She backed away from the book. Stepping to the narrow window, she looked into the night as she rubbed the sides of her head. The mist beckoned. The ground below called.
It would be so easy.
‘Christ, okay,’ panted Quentin, fumbling for his Marlboros. ‘You beat me.’
She turned as the match in his fingers snapped in two. He struck another but allowed the flame to sit, the unlit cigarette hanging limply from his mouth as he gawked above them at the iron bell dozing in its rusted cage.
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