The Vanishment

by Jonathan Aycliffe

  With Sarah dead, I changed everything. I gave her clothes to the Salvation Army, her jewelry to various friends. There were photographs of her everywhere: I put them in drawers and shut them away in the darkness. She was often in my thoughts, but I found it increasingly hard to see her face in my mind's eye. And if I ever did, it was not Sarah that I saw, but a sepia image of Susannah Trevorrow.

  My writing went well, all things considered. I had embarked on another novel, my first in over three years. I wrote in the mornings and spent most afternoons in the library, reading, or pretending to read. From time to time I would look up if an attractive woman passed. The confusion I felt between occasional sexual desire and grief left me depressed and weary.

  Once or twice I thought I caught a glimpse of a woman in a black dress, but when I looked more sharply, it was always someone else. Once I mistook an elderly priest in his black suit and hat for her. I began to reason that it had all been a terrible fantasy, brought on by stress when Sarah went missing. Then I thought of Richard Adderstone and the things he had told me. He had not told me everything. I was certain he had been holding something back. But he had said enough to convince anyone that none of what had happened had been a fantasy. And I knew that this was simply the calm before a coming storm.'

  In early November, a letter reached me from Raleigh. It had been posted from a hospital in Truro. His illness had progressed too far to admit of any possibility of cure, even had a powerful enough drug been available.

  I lie here [he wrote] with scarcely the will to move. Writing is an intolerable burden. My children do not visit me. My ex-wife stays away. I am dying of loneliness.

  In the mornings and late evenings I cough heavily, sputum and blood alike. There are fevers which leave me shaken and shivering in my bed. The nurses come and go, cheerful and efficient, but all of them know I am dying. Your wife is here most of the time now. They let her sit and watch by my bedside.

  Before coming here, I discovered something I know you will find strange. The police officer in charge of the search for Susannah Trevorrow was a St. Ives man called Inspector Burrows. I wanted to know more of him. Perhaps he had left comments on the case. I tracked him down at last in a file in police archives. John Burrows died on the seventh of December 1887, only a few months after the Trevorrow inquest. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis, as I am about to die of it.

  I had inquiries made in Tredannack, to see if anyone there might have sent the ring and doll to you. We found no suspects, but we did uncover something of interest. Your wife's was not the first disappearance in the region. You know about Adderstone's wife, of course. But for about thirty years, on and off, a number of women and children have vanished in and around Tredannack. The locals have a word for these disappearances. They call them vanishments. But they will not speak freely of them, or give details. The children are always girls aged four or thereabouts. And the women are always your wife's age or younger. The people of Tredannack live in a state of fear. They watch their wives and children constantly. Even the vicar is frightened and will not talk.

  She was here last night, in the ward. It was after midnight, I think, though I have lost track of time in here. She sat in a chair facing the bed, watching me. Not your wife, I do not mean her. The other one. Agnes.

  Did I tell you that someone dug up Susannah Trevorrow's grave? It was the night before the inquest. Like you, I have begun to wonder whose body it was we found on Zawn Quoits. Perhaps your wife knows. If it is your wife who visits me here.

  That was all he wrote. I wrote back telling him what he knew already, that I had opened Susannah Trevorrow's grave. He did not reply. A couple of weeks later I had a letter from the hospital. He had asked them to let me know when he died. A funeral had been arranged for the following week. It was winter, and the trees outside my study window were already bare.

  I went to Raleigh's funeral. His ex-wife and children were there, and colleagues from the force. At least they did not bury him alone. I was the last to leave the churchyard. What did I hope to see? My dead wife come to sit by his grave? Susannah Trevorrow with her child, floating like spindrift across the headstones?

  It must have been about a week afterward that Rachel had her first fit. I only learned of it a few days after it had happened, when I called on Tim and Susan late one evening on my way home from the pub. I had been drinking alone as usual. Somehow, I seemed to have been doing a lot of that since the inquest. Relations between Tim, Susan, and myself had recovered, though they were far from what they had once been. Susan still distrusted me and thought it dangerous to have me around her daughter. I had only seen Rachel twice in as many months.

  When I asked about her, Susan glanced at Tim anxiously, as though she was unsure what I should be told.

  "She had a fit a couple of days ago," said Tim.

  "I don't understand. Do you mean epilepsy?"

  He shook his head.

  "They don't know. She had one of those screaming attacks during the night. When Susan went in, she found her in convulsions. She managed to calm her down eventually while I called the doctor. He had her taken straight into hospital for tests. Everything came back negative. We've no idea whether it will happen again, or when."

  It did happen again, the following day. And two days after that. Each time a team of doctors ran tests on her, each time they came back empty-handed. She was given Carbamazepine, a common antiepileptic, which her doctor recommended taking several times per day. Two days after that, she had her worst seizure, in the course of which she bit her tongue badly, requiring stitches. Tim rang me the following morning.

  "Susan doesn't know this," he said. "I was the first to go in while Susie was getting the medicine. Rachel was on the bed, writhing up and down. She was being flung all over the place like a rag doll. The lamp on the bedside table was knocked to the floor." He paused. "Rachel didn't touch it. I saw for myself. The lamp was picked up and hurled to the ground. There was something in that room besides Rachel."

  "Can I see her?"

  "Susan doesn't want you here. She thinks you're responsible for all this."

  "You know that isn't true."

  "No, Peter, I don't know that. You may have intended none of this to happen, but it is happening nonetheless. We're at our wits' end. It just can't go on like this."

  "I'll think of something," I said. "I promise."

  Two nights later I had a call from him.

  "Peter, can you stay the night?"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Susie had to go off at short notice. The Sunday Times needs her to interview this German fascist leader the Home Office wants to deport. She didn't want to leave Rachel, but I insisted. Frankly, I thought it would do her good to get away. She's worn-out, Peter; she needs a break."

  "And you want me over there?"

  "I need someone to help. Jennifer said she'd come over, but she rang five minutes ago to say she can't make it after all."

  "What if something happens?"

  "It's already happening. I don't think your presence will make the slightest difference. And I'd like you to see it for yourself anyway. The attacks are getting worse."

  "Shouldn't she be in hospital?"

  "That's being considered. But for the moment we want her at home. Apart from the fits, she's perfectly all right."

  I was there in twenty minutes. It was still early, and I spent over an hour playing with Rachel. As Tim had said, she seemed fine, except for some bruises, which he said she had received in the course of the fits. When she had been put to bed, Tim switched off the television and made us both drinks.

  "She looks better than I feared," I said.

  "Yes, she's bearing up well. But the attacks are having their effect. She gets less sleep than is good for her. Susan makes sure she has a nap in the day, but it's not the same."

  "Don't the fits happen then?"

  Tim shook his head.

  "Just at night. She goes to sleep, wakes screaming, and then it starts. The medicatio
n only makes her drowsy the next day, otherwise it does nothing. It's starting to wear her out. If we don't find an answer soon . . ."

  "Aren't the doctors doing anything?"

  "She was given a brain scan last week. Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

  "Have you thought of trying something else? A homeopath, a cranial osteopath— I don't know."

  "We've talked about it. Yes, if the hospital doesn't get anywhere. But these attacks are so violent."

  We drank and talked for a long time. It was like old times. Except for an unfamiliar tension between us. No, not quite unfamiliar, but stale, dredged up from a past we had both put behind us. Every so often Tim would glance at the ceiling, as though bracing himself for what might be about to come. But nothing happened. The house remained still. I looked at the clock. It was well after midnight.

  "I think she's going to have a quiet night," said Tim. "Let's go to bed."

  I slept in my old room. Tim had made hot water bottles for us both, and I luxuriated in the unaccustomed warmth of my bed. I soon fell asleep. I do not recall now if I dreamed or not. But at some point—it must have been about 3:00 a.m.—I remember struggling out of sleep to strange noises. Muffled screams were coming from Rachel's bedroom. A moment later they stopped, to be replaced almost at once by a quick, frenzied banging, then a sound of smashing glass.

  I leapt out of bed and dashed into the corridor. Tim was already there, at the door of Rachel’s room. He flung the door open and rushed in, switching on the light as he did so. I hurried after him.

  The bedclothes had been torn back and hurled to the ground. Rachel lay on crumpled sheets, her back arched, her arms thrown out stiffly at her sides. The room was freezing cold. As I came through the door a row of books in the shelf to the left of the bed came flying out one by one, landing in a heap at the foot of the wall opposite. The light that hung from the center of the ceiling was spinning around and around like a flail.

  Tim was at Rachel's side, trying to quiet her. The next moment she seemed to take off. Her body stiffened and jerked away from Tim. I looked on in horror as she was lifted, thrown onto the mattress, and lifted again, as though someone had her by the ankles and was shaking her. There was a loud explosion as the window burst into fragments, showering the curtains with glass. Toys were hurled with terrible force in all directions, sometimes striking Tim or myself. There was a ripping sound as the carpet pulled away from the tacks holding it to the floor. On the bed, Rachel was in convulsions, her entire body rippling as though an electrical current was being passed through it.

  I rushed to the bedside to help Tim hold her down. The moment I touched her she went limp and fell to the bed. All the objects that had been flying through the air of the room fell to the ground. There was an intense silence. Rachel lay as though unconscious.

  Suddenly, from nowhere in particular, we both heard a voice. It was a woman's voice, the same voice I had heard months earlier in Petherick House. "Catherine. Wait for me, Catherine."

  The next moment Rachel opened her eyes. "Mummy," she cried. "Where are you, Mummy?" And then she looked at Tim and myself, realized where she was, and burst into tears.

  Chapter 21

  Rachel slept late while Tim and I both sat with her. When she finally awoke toward noon, she had forgotten everything about the night before. Tim had not called the doctor. After what he had seen, he no longer saw any point in fooling himself that medicine could be of the slightest help.

  "How long is it going to continue?" he asked, again and again. I had no answer for him. But I thought I could begin to see my way toward one, however imperfectly. When Susannah Trevorrow finds her daughter again was what I thought, though I said nothing to Tim.

  I went back home that afternoon. Susan would be returning before long, and Tim did not want her to find me there. A small package was waiting for me. It bore a Helmsley postmark. Inside I found a letter and a small clothbound book.

  The letter was signed Susannah Adderstone. I read it quickly.

  Dear Mr. Clare,

  I hope you will forgive my writing like this. Father is very ill. The doctor says he may not have much longer to live. He does not say so, but it is since your visit that he has gone into this decline. I do not say this to blame you. But I thought you should know.

  He wants me to send you the enclosed book. It's a sort of journal kept by my great-aunt, Agnes Trevorrow. He has asked me not to read it, and I have not done so. He says you will understand what is in it, and hopes it will be of some help to you.

  He has told me about your tragedy. I confess that I do not understand in what way it concerns my family, other than through the coincidence of your having been living at Petherick House when your wife disappeared. But I am not stupid. I know Father has kept a great deal back from me. Perhaps when he is dead, someone will let me into his great secret. I think you know a lot about it.

  There is something I must tell you, though I do not find it easy. After you left, I reread those of your novels I had in the house. I also ordered copies of the early stories from the little bookshop here. I have read them all now. Shall I tell Father what is in them, or shall you? You know what I mean, of course. I wonder how you live with yourself, knowing the things you have written.

  There is another thing you should know. Since you were here, I have been plagued by dreams. They are all variants of the same dream. There is a young woman and a child and, somewhere out of sight, another person. The young woman is Susannah Trevorrow, I recognize her from the photograph I carry. She seems to want something from me. I cannot tell Father, it would upset him. Is there anything you know, anything you can tell me? It is terrible waking in the middle of winter with those sounds in my ears. You cannot guess the silence here and how terrible it is when broken.

  Yours faithfully, Susannah Adderstone

  I knew what she meant about my early novels. Anyone who has read them will understand. It was cruel of her to remind me like that.

  I was loath to touch the journal, knowing whose hand had written it. I left it on my desk all the rest of that day. At times, I was tempted to do with it what I had done to the doll she had sent to Rachel. But I needed to know all I could about her. What had been in her mind, what hopes, dreams, and fears she had had, what she had known about herself.

  The following morning it was still lying there, as though waiting for me. I tried not to look at it, but it seemed to call me to itself, and in the end I succumbed. I began to read.

  There were no dates, neither days of the week nor numbers of the years. Just thoughts set down at random over time. How long? I could not guess. A year, perhaps. And maybe much longer. Over sixty years.

  Every night now, and some days without cease. It is worse when the wind is up. It seems to drive her to the house. Sometimes I hear her laughing; that is the worst of all. God forgive me, I could kill her again then.

  Three nights in a row, then silence. There are times I think the silence is worse than anything. I sit waiting for it to change. And when it does, when she comes again, I wish it would return. But I will not give her what she wants, however much she sits and stares, however plaintively the child cries.

  I was at the cliff last night. In the dark you can pretend there is no distance between yourself and the water. A step would set me free. Or imprison me here forever.

  Sometimes I go from room to room in search of her; but she is never there, and I go out, slamming the doors behind me. And then I come here to bed and lie awake, going from room to room in my mind. And in my mind I go through the house again, slamming more doors.

  Woken at 3:00 a.m. last night by her screaming. I will not go up. That is what she wants, but I will not go.

  The Reverend Sowerby died yesterday. He leaves his wife and four children. The funeral takes place on Friday, but I am not expected. I spent yesterday in tears. She did not leave me once all night.

  My week in Truro was quiet, but I could not stay. At Petherick, I can hate her, I can almost justify what I d
id. But in Truro, I am alone with my conscience, and it will not give me rest. In its way, it is the greater torment. She has Petherick House for her playground, but my conscience has the world.

  I heard the child passing my room last night several times. Why can she not keep still?

  I have thought of burying the child with her mother, but I do not think I have the strength. And it would give her what she wants, it would give her peace. She does not deserve peace, for I have had none, and all on her account. If I hold out long enough, I shall have beaten her, I shall have beaten all of them.

  The sea was high last night. I could hear the waves pounding the cliff wall. She sat in her room and screamed, but I pretended I could not hear her. Will winter never end?

  By the end I almost pitied her. Trapped with her ghosts in a house she could not sell, her already small income diminishing visibly each year, the thought of those long winter nights constantly in her mind. She had not been welcome in the village, no locals would come to work for her, the only help she had was a woman from St. Ives who came once a fortnight to do a little cleaning. Her solicitors told her she could sell the house in Truro for a reasonable sum, but she refused to sell, regarding it as her only bolt hole, cherishing the dream that one day she might after all break free of her past and go there to live.

  I was about to put the packaging in which the journal had come into the bin when I noticed that there was another enclosure. Fishing inside, I drew out a small brown envelope, the sort sometimes used to hold cash for the bank. It contained three keys and a short note.