For Rye

by Gavin Gardiner

  ‘Is that what this is about? I’ve been trying to bring Sylvia’s killer to…’ His muscles tightened further. Beads of sweat crawled down his face. ‘…to justice. I’m not the villain.’

  ‘There are no villains,’ she said, pulling back a strand of hair as she reset a hair grip. She ran her fingers over her bun. ‘Just monsters inside us all.’ He looked her up and down. ‘Precisely, I’m your proof.’ Then, lowering her mouth to the side of his head, ‘Tell me you see, Detective.’

  ‘But what do you hope to achieve with all this? Revenge, is that it? Miss Wakefield, you have to let…let me help you, you have to—’

  ‘I shouldn’t have had so much faith in your skills, Detective. I really believed you’d find my mother’s killer, that you’d bring justice to her before I left, but I was just as blind as you. I should have opened my eyes so much sooner. Once they were open, you see – once I’d began my work – your sickening sense of protective duty for me still kept you from seeing what was right in front of you. But none of that matters now.’ She picked up the empty glass. ‘All that matters is the book.’ She stared vacantly into the Dexlatine’s syrupy residue. ‘It’s all about the book.’

  ‘What book? I don’t know what—’

  ‘SILENCE,’ she blasted, flinging the tumbler against the wall. Broken glass tinkled against the sideboard. ‘Enough of the lies. You say you don’t believe I’m capable of criminality, but you know I am.’ His face whitened. ‘Yes, Detective,’ she snarled. ‘I remember everything. I killed that little boy in cold blood. I was carted off to that institution, abandoned, forgotten. With your help, my father tried to have me deleted, erased. Well, he failed. You all failed.’ She leant over Hector, pressing the closed blades of the scissors against his throat.

  ‘Wha-what are you…talking about?’

  ‘NOAH, GODDAMN IT,’ she screamed.

  His head slumped. ‘Blame me,’ said Hector. ‘Not Quentin. Not his daughter.’

  Renata laughed. ‘You’re as blind as my father.’

  ‘Thomas…where is he? What have you done?’ She opened the scissors and pressed the tip of a single blade into his neck. Blood crawled from the steel. ‘Renata, please. This isn’t you.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she whispered. ‘Finally, it is.’

  ‘I’m begging you, think about this.’

  She pressed harder.

  ‘I’m sorry it had to be this way, Detective.’

  ‘Don’t do this…please.’

  She raised her elbow and prepared to thrust.

  ‘Rennie, no!’

  She paused. ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Rennie, forgive me, forgive your mother. We never wanted to lie to you. I’m so sorry. Please, Rennie, just—’

  ‘DON’T CALL ME THAT,’ she thundered.

  Tears ran down Hector’s cheeks. ‘I loved her, Rennie. I loved her more than anything. I just wanted to protect her.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Her grip on the scissors tightened.

  ‘Your mother, Rennie. Thomas, he blamed her. When she wouldn’t fall pregnant, he blamed her. My sweet Sylvia…I loved her, but she chose that bastard. I couldn’t stand by and let him…let him hurt her.’ The tears glistened in his eyes. His frozen body quivered under its paralysis. ‘She loved me, too. She was torn. She came to me once he started hurting her. He got his son eventually, Noah could only have been his, but before that…I just wanted to stop the bruises, Rennie. I just wanted to—’

  ‘What are you trying to say?!’

  ‘We spent time together, Sylvia and I,’ he said through tears and sweat. ‘She fell pregnant…we fell pregnant. I begged her to come away with me, away from him, but she was scared. She thought he’d come after us. Besides, marriage meant more in those days. She was torn with guilt and did what she thought she had to. We did what we—’

  ‘LIES. More damned LIES.’

  ‘Rennie, please! You’re my little girl!’

  ‘NO.’ She flung the coffee table over. ‘NO MORE LIES.’

  ‘Yes, Rennie. No more lies.’ He stopped struggling against his paralysis. ‘I tried so hard to protect you. I even convinced Chief Inspector Blyth to let me take your statement when Sandie went missing to save you the trauma of police visits. He helped your father, too. He understood why I’d want to save you the stress. I did it for you, Rennie. I did everything for—’

  ‘SHUT UP.’ She lunged, returning the scissors to his throat. His jaundiced eyes fell deliberately to the pocket watch on the arm of the chair. She followed his gaze, looked back at him, then hesitantly reached for the timepiece.

  Its silver had corroded to a sickly yellow, not unlike the whites of its owner’s eyes. She turned it around in her hands to inspect the crude racing car etched into its rear, then back around to the Superior Motor Timekeeper – Swiss Made branding on the front of its cover. Hector’s paralysed, tear-soaked face nodded as best it could, coaxing along her inspection. She snatched the toothpick from his waistcoat pocket and, as she’d seen him do so many times before, jabbed it into where the broken spring release button should have been. The cover swung open. Under the glass, placed on top of hands frozen with time, was a faded sepia photograph of two young lovers, their smiling embrace framed by a Ferris wheel in the background. Hector O’Connell and Sylvia Wakefield gazed through lost decades at their daughter.

  ‘We failed you,’ he sobbed. ‘Your mother and I both failed you. I’m so sorry.’ She stared at the photograph. Every cell of her being contracted with shock and confusion and anger at yet another lie revealed to her. She dropped the pocket watch and, trembling with rage, rose the blades above her head. ‘I love you, Rennie,’ he whispered, then closed his eyes. ‘We’ll both always love you.’

  She threw the blades across the room. They struck the lifeless grandfather clock, coaxing from it a solitary tick. ‘You want to know the truth, old man?’ She brought her leaking eye within inches of his face. ‘Rye did murder my mother.’

  Hector’s eyes opened.

  ‘He killed her to get me back here. It was just the first part of his plan to push me back into madness, all so he could sit and take notes. Inspiration for a damned book, that’s all it was for. Nothing more.’

  The man’s face turned red. ‘That…can’t be.’

  She grabbed his head between her hands, his eyes reaching for her – for the truth. ‘Your beloved Sylvia,’ she whispered, ‘Rye killed her.’

  He roared.

  She stepped behind the armchair and pushed Hector into the kitchen on the chair’s casters. He wrestled against the unseen bonds of the Dexlatine as she opened the larder and shoved the chair inside. His howling died with the sealing of the pantry.

  Renata slid down the locked door, dropping her face into her hands.

  I see it now, that’s all there is to say. She tore me apart then put me back together. Now I see everything.

  Even if I made it out of here, I’m damaged beyond repair. I’d be worthless to anyone that once loved me – or they’d be worthless to me. She’s opened my eyes, and what I’ve seen can’t be unseen.

  The world is evil. How couldn’t it be when places and people like this exist? God was never listening. She was right. We’re all monsters.

  My life is a lie. I’m no more real than the characters Daddy made for me. I will end in this place.

  For that I am glad.

  32

  The long grass rippled like waves around Renata’s feet in the moonlight. Cloaked in darkness, she waded through the swampy grassland, her outstretched fingers running through dead wheat. Tonight she would cross these fields for the final time. She thought of the bathroom mirror

  into which she stares, knowing the fields await her – knowing Rye awaits her. She scrubs her gloved hands under the scolding water, steam ascending from the drenched leather to rise over a face both pale and of a permanent darkness. The blackened eye socket gazes back. Wrinkles have sunk like canyons around her features. She fastens the final clip
into her night-black hair, carefully checking for rogue strands. Everything is in its rightful place. For the first time in her life, everything is in place.

  No disorder, no disaster.

  She pulls the scarf over her head and opens the front door, stepping into the

  night, through which she trudged as the heavens opened for one final deluge. She ignored the screaming of her untreated, festering thigh and peered through the lifeless crops towards the clock tower. The world was deteriorating into little more than a blur through her remaining eye. No matter, the end was fast approaching and

  so she prepares. Around and around the girl’s chair she wraps it like a vast python. There’s more than she anticipated, and, to her delight, finds there’s enough not only to encircle the chair, but also cover much of the surrounding floor.

  The girl awakens. ‘Is it…time?’

  ‘Soon,’ says the woman, producing a pink mobile phone. She cycles through the stored numbers, an endless list of boys’ names, until she reaches ‘Daddy’. She hits the call button and listens for

  voices through the rain. There were none. The cemetery was empty, save for the crooked stones leering from every direction. Rain fired from an obsidian sky as the tower loomed, its clock face springing to life as lightning flashed, then falling back into darkness.

  She fiddled with a clip in her hair as she strode past Noah’s grave, the pit now refilled in an attempt to suggest the resumption of normality. There was nothing normal about this place, or this night.

  Through the storm she spotted a shape leaning against the tower’s stonework: Rye’s motorcycle, upon which two helmets sat. Good boy.

  ‘Sandie, is that you?!’

  ‘Guess again.’

  Silence.

  ‘If you want to see her again, be at the clock tower at midnight.’ The line goes quiet, then, ‘Bring your woman. And don’t bother tracing the call; the girl’s still out of your reach, unless you do as I say.’

  ‘Leave Eleanor out of this,’ says Rye.

  ‘Do as I ask, my love.’ Another silence. ‘Midnight, midnight, it’s your turn…’

  33

  Candlelight flickered through the open door at the top of the spiral staircase. Rye stood in the centre of the room with Eleanor sat white-faced on the steps by the glassless lancet window, fingering the cross around her neck, a blanket draped over her shoulders. They watched Renata shuffle into the cylindrical chamber and slink around the stone walls. They stared in horror as she stepped from the shadows and pulled back her scarf.

  ‘Eleanor knows everything, Renata,’ Rye said, looking her up and down, taking in the details of her physical ruin. ‘Everything I did to push you to the edge: convincing you I loved you, making you remember what you did to your brother. I’ve even told her what I did to—’ He cleared his throat. ‘—to your mother. Everything, Renata. I’ve told her everything. And all she wants, all we want, is Sandie home safe.’ He struck a match then produced his precious notebook, holding the flame to its pages. It dropped to the floor between them, burning. ‘I put too much on the line for my work, took things too far just to find inspiration for a novel. I’ve wronged you beyond forgiveness, but I beg you, let the suffering end.’ He took a step towards her. ‘For God’s sake, Renata. Let Sandie go.’

  The glimmer remained in his eyes, that spark she’d so foolishly mistaken for creative energy. Too late it had revealed itself as the spark of evil, that same spark she now knew lay behind everyone’s eyes – even hers.

  Especially hers.

  The spark remained in his words, too. Yes, they were as hollow as ever. Renata now had a sense for deception; like fireflies, his insincerities shimmered in the candlelight. All she had to do was reach out and swat them.

  ‘Do as I say and you’ll see her again,’ she said, removing her leather gloves and stretching her wrists.

  Lightning sprayed the room.

  ‘Anything, Renata,’ he said, eyeing her ruined hands. He took another step. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  ‘Choose.’

  He stopped. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said, picking the scabs on her palms. ‘I can see it in your eyes. The woman or the girl, you can’t have both.’

  ‘Renata, be reasonable.’ He edged closer. ‘Let’s talk about this like—’

  ‘Push her from that window and you’ll see Sandie again.’ Eleanor’s eyes widened. Her pawing of the cross ceased. ‘The woman or the girl, one or the other. Push her, my love, and look upon your beloved daughter again.’ Renata’s mangled eye gleamed in the candlelight. ‘Choose.’

  The bell awoke, shaking the room as it bellowed into the night. Renata peered through the wire mesh above as a streak of lightning lit the stirring mechanism, century-old gears grinding into life to mark the terrible hour. She looked back to find Rye flying towards her, hands outstretched, his roar vying to be heard over the bell.

  His fist slammed into her face. They tumbled to the ground and rolled through a pile of rubble, limbs lashing. Her nails slashed across his cheek. He wrestled on top of her and battered her against the stone floor as more lightning crashed, illuminating her deranged grin like a carved pumpkin. Milk bottle chews sprayed from Rye’s blazer pocket like confetti as black wept from the crater of Renata’s eye socket. She cackled along wildly with the iron cacophony.

  The bell ceased.

  ‘Tell her I love her.’

  Renata and Rye both froze at the sudden, softly spoken words, before turning round to the source of the voice. Their eyes fell upon Eleanor just as she stepped out of the narrow window into the storm.

  Rye leapt to his feet and scrambled to the opening. Hands anchored on either side of the lancet window, he leaned out into the gale and stared down. Through the swirling rain he saw the blanket below dancing upon the lifeless shape of Eleanor. He turned to the crouched figure in the darkness, blood trickling from his slashed cheek. ‘You’re…a monster.’

  ‘Yes,’ she hissed, ‘your monster; and you, my Victor. Like him, you wanted the work to end all works, except you wanted to see the breakdown of a human being, all so you could take notes while you watched me like a specimen in a petri dish. You drove me to hell, you killed my MOTHER, all for a BOOK.’ She paused, massaging the sides of her head as she caught her breath. ‘Well, this is your result. Here I am, my love.’ Her lips peeled into a sneer. ‘Tell me you see.’

  The candles began to die. Even in the fading glow she saw his spark extinguish as he dropped to the floor, head in hands. Renata stepped from the shadows. ‘Your wife was of faith, was she not?’ She picked at the toggles of her duffle coat. ‘Know that her final moments were filled with the knowledge of eternal damnation. That, and never seeing the girl again.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Midnight, my love,’ she said, slipping her fingers back into the leather gloves. She tore out a loose strand of hair, then locked eyes with him. ‘Always midnight. Once I’ve left, remove your wife from the grass below. Lay her to rest in this tower. Then, tomorrow, come to the house. Enter when you hear the midnight bell. No earlier, no later. Do this and I swear you’ll look into your daughter’s eyes again.’

  Renata disappeared down the stone staircase as the final candle died, dropping Rye into darkness.

  34

  Knives.

  Everywhere, knives.

  Knives all through her life, carving every last scrap of humanity from her until all that was left was this: an accursed wraith, desolate and obsessed.

  Vengeful.

  The culmination of her efforts, the climax of her revenge, is finally within reach. Renata Wakefield will descend to the basement one last time, where this endgame will draw to a close. But before her final descent, before her return to the stage on which their concluding scene will play out, she’ll stand before the painting. How she’d love to set light to that canvas and watch the waves turn to fire, but she resists. The book is all that matters.

 
; She gazes up at the flood, listening to the silence the storm has left in its wake. Content in the knowledge retribution is ready to be served, she feels the stillness and serenity of the house around her, its walls finally at peace. Harmony is restored.

  She sees now that everything comes back to the ocean of darkness above, and to the town of an even deeper dark below. It comes back to the vanquished mist and the storm now spent, to the fallacy of fact and the fickleness of fiction. It comes back to love, hate, light, and shade; to violence and insanity, the alpha and the omega; to the dusk and the dawn, to the truth – and to you.

  It all comes back to you.

  Even as I write these final pages, I feel you. I imagine the whisperings of the wind are yours as you lurk in the shadows, awaiting the midnight bell.

  Everything comes back to you.

  My dearest Quentin, I can write no more. Thank you for giving me reason to exist, but that reason has now run its course. This account of our time together, these thirty-four chapters penned by my own ruined hands, finally draw to a close, and so I address you directly, for you deserve nothing less than the truth.

  As you can see, I’ve taken your advice, my love. I’ve written a horror. Committed to these very pages, written in a cellar to the screams of your child, are terrors beyond anything you could have conceived, for they concern that which you love most: your precious wife and daughter. You pulled me back from the brink, made me believe love had finally found me, only to snatch it away. You forced upon me memories that should have stayed buried, parts of myself that belonged only in the past.

  You got your tale, and here it is. This story, our story, is horror born in truth. Just like you always wanted.

  This book, finally in your hands, documents the details of your deceit and, more importantly, my reply. It chronicles the seeds of my aberration through childhood, my return to Millbury Peak decades later, our time together, and, finally, your imminent witnessing of Sandie’s demise. Your suffering – the finest thing I’ve authored – hasn’t been about revenge, but at long last the granting of that elusive truth-infused story you so craved. I’ve spared you the formulaic pulp you loathe so; in this book I’ve so lovingly crafted for you, you’ll find no one with which to sympathise, no relief from the artifice of human nature. For we are all beasts, wild and feral, scurrying for the upper hand at every expense. Scrambling for our lives.