The Spiral

by Charlotte E Hart

  I can’t answer. I’m not ready to answer.

  I’m walking away before she has chance to say another word, crunching the ground beneath me to get me to the woods. I’ll go and see the treehouse. She talked about that earlier. A walk in the woods, she said. I can sit there for a while, see if this bitch dares to turn up again and give me some answers to use.

  “Jack? Jack?”

  I hurry on faster. Away. I need to get away from all this, as does she. She’s right. None of this is real. It’s a fucking ghost story, one I’m accepting out of desperation. She needs to go and leave me with my dogs. Let me be alone with them so I can keep funnelling these beleaguered thoughts onto something concrete. Serve vengeance.

  “Go home, Madeline,” I call back, as I get to the field and start trudging through to the dirt paths. If she wasn’t here I’d get those damn dogs out, beat them. I’d walk for hours just to alleviate the ache in my chest. “Why are you doing this?” I mutter, pushing a branch out of the way and ducking towards the brook. “Why. Why not leave me to rot?” The mud begins to clog my boots, rendering the ground beneath me the wrong damn direction. I don’t even know where I’m heading anymore. I’m just going away from Madeline, leaving her so she can make the right choice. Fuck, I should give her Selma’s fucking Porsche. She drove it well enough. Then she could go rebuild her new life, not have me holding her here in my madness.

  “Jack.”

  I stumble as her voice sounds, twisting myself back to find her in the sunlight and damn near tripping over a log. She’s not there. It’s devoid of Selma. No halos or bright blinding lights. No fog. Not even the darkness I’d prefer rather than the nothingness she leaves me with. It’s just a dull, mundane spring day. Empty.

  “Jack?”

  My eyes snap in the direction of the sound, watching as Madeline lifts the heels from her feet and heads towards me.

  “I told you to go home, Madeline.” She wrangles her way through the undergrowth, finally finding decent footing to bring her within two feet of me. “Take the Porsche and go.” Her eyes widen, but quickly soften again.

  “I can’t,” she whispers, glancing around fretfully and tugging at the fur wrapped around her. “I’ve got no home to go to. You know that.”

  I stare at her, unable to answer her questions and seemingly unable to make her leave either. I don’t even want her to leave, especially not while she’s wearing Selma’s clothes. The vision makes me smile again as I glance over her frame, finally landing my eyes on her mud covered feet.

  “Grubby,” I murmur.

  “Mildly,” she replies.

  My fingers fiddle with the ring in my pocket again, wondering what the hell to do for the best. She should go. I’m right in that thought. But this ring in my pocket, the air that continues around us, and Selma’s whispered words make it so difficult to enforce.

  “Can you walk like that?” I ask, drawing my eyes back up to hers. She nods, using no other words to tell me if I’m doing the right thing or not. Just a nod. An acceptance. “Then we’ll walk until I can find the answers you want. Maybe if you talk to me it’ll help me find them for you.”

  Chapter 16

  Madeline

  W e seem to walk for ages, silently travelling alongside each other with what seems like no destination. Not that I mind too much. It’s beautiful here. Everywhere is full of sun and spring weather coming from the skies above. Part of me might be waiting for that darkness to descend again, willing it even, but it’s nice to take in the view without whatever normally happens around that house clouding my views on sanity. Strangely, though, those odd happenings seem to clarify thoughts inside me. They seem to come with a sense of certainty, something my life has been lacking for a long time. There’s an underlying feeling of warmth within that frigid air, one that speaks to me of love and protection, regardless of the fear associated with them happening in the first place. And I’ve seen her now anyway. There’s nothing to fear.

  Even if she is a ghost.

  She’s so like me. There’s barely any difference other than my lighter skin colour and hair. My initial response was absolute horror, an odd foreboding coming over me as I gazed at the small photo in an old paper, but then a peace followed that I’ve never felt before. It flooded me with memories that aren’t mine, filling me with the same sense of tranquillity that came when we made love. Everything made sense for a few minutes. I knew the house, the clothes I’m still wearing. His smile. His anger, the same anger that delivered the shout that had me knocking the side table over, the drawers opening instantly and delivering my first real clue about what is happening here. Everything felt like I knew it all already. Like I’d been here before. Lived here. And perhaps that’s why when this man beside me made love to me, all the time making love to this other woman, it felt so right.

  I shake my head as we wander on, barely acknowledging the ludicrous thoughts as healthy, but knowing every footfall that carries on like it’s imprinted in time before me. We’re both discussing ghosts without really discussing them. It’s as ridiculous as it is necessary, throwing all form of coherent thought on the matter into disarray, but either way, ludicrous or not, the feel of that paper in my hand made me experience something comforting eventually, not horrifying.

  Perhaps I should be alarmed by all this. I suppose most people would be, but with little else to go back to, and nothing but a crumpled house and death to deal with, I’m not in any mood to rush away from something that feels contented, even if it is marginally so and ill understood at present.

  I sigh and look up again, drifting my eyes across the sky in search of that darkness that will come again soon. I know it will. She’ll come now and show me something more, something to make these moments she delivers clearer in my mind.

  “How long?” Jack says, as he leads us over to a small glade out of the bluebell filled landscape.

  “How long what?” I reply, swinging my eyes to his. “Until the fog comes?” He looks solemn instantly, the harmony of his face disappearing to the frown I’m so used to now.

  “No, how long had he been beating you?”

  I’m instantly deflated from our quiet and peaceful meander, relegating myself back to the hours, weeks, months and years of abuse. It seems such a harsh word for what happened. Beating. Abuse. But they’re the honest words for what I dealt with from Lewis, no matter how long I tried to deny the terms.

  “Too long,” I mumble, pointing over to a small fallen tree trunk in the corner. He shakes his head at me and pulls on my arm, sending us in a new direction across another path. “I could do with resting,” I continue, wondering how far this walk is going to go on before I get some answers.

  “Not yet. There’s something I think you should see.” I nod at that and follow him, trying to avoid the lumps and bumps beneath my bare feet as we push though some trees out into another clearing, and then through that into another one. “Why did it take you so long to leave him?”

  I sigh and glance at his chest, trying to find a sensible answer to that. There isn’t one, only that love makes people do strange things in hope.

  “I don’t know. I guess when I was in it I hoped it would stop. Love does that.” He snarls, that scowl of his descending. “I’ve left him now, though. It doesn’t matter anymore what happened before. I just have to find a way of killing him.”

  “You’re no killer, Madeline.” My own brow furrows. He might be right. Whether I’ve actually got the nerve to kill Lewis is as questionable as whatever is occurring around us.

  He mutters something after that, which I don’t hear, and reaches back to guide me through another small path of twigs and thorns, lifting me over the last of it. “Not bitch enough.”

  “What does that mean?” He doesn’t respond, just pushes out into a clearing and then stops about five or ten feet into it. “Oh, wow. Cute.”

  There, stood in the middle of the small area, is a treehouse wrapped around what looks like an ancient oak. The wooden structure looks
fairy like, bits of it haphazardly attached on, creating a magical feeling. I smile at it and wander over, for some reason wanting to run my hands over it and touch its aged appearance. A small wooden slide hits my fingers first, the run of smooth wood sliding under my fingers as I run my hand up to the main section. It feels like a thousand children have played on it, testing its structure with their buoyancy and bounding around for hours on end.

  “It’s lovely,” I whisper, mesmerised by the look of it.

  It really is. It screams of fun and children, muddy boots and sticks. Hours will have been spent here by children over the years, all of them finding their own escape in its limbs and trunks.

  “It was my son’s.” My head whips around, shocked by the words, and I find him gazing at me, touching the structure. “Her son, too.” He frowns and walks over to me, his own hands slowly running the length of the slide to reach for mine. “She was my wife.” I’d like to say I didn’t know that, but somewhere deep down inside I do. Just like I know this space I’m standing in now. “You can feel her, can’t you?”

  “You told me you weren’t married, Jack. You lied,” I say, smiling a little and remembering the fall in the bog.

  “Hardly a lie. She’s dead. I’m widowed,” he replies, pressure baring down on my hand as he tries to link our fingers. “Not married.”

  I don’t know how the information makes me feel as I slip my hand from under his and walk off towards the other side of the clearing. Dead seems such a rash word for what his wife is. She’s here, all around us somehow. She’s far from dead in my opinion, no matter how strange the fundamentals of that argument might be.

  I sit on an old log, letting myself rest, and stare at him as he wanders around the treehouse, presumably chasing memories in his mind. He’s beautiful. Truly. The sort of man women swoon for. And I’m sure if I was any other woman, in any other situation, I’d find a reason to walk to him and comfort away that sadness that’s settling onto his face, but for some reason I suddenly feel as morose as he looks, exhausted even.

  “He’s dead, too, isn’t he?” I ask, not really needing the answer. “Your son.” I know he is. I don’t know how I do but this miserable sensation inside me tells me it’s true. Sad as that might be.

  He doesn’t answer me at all. Maybe he knows he doesn’t need to. Maybe he’s always known. It certainly explains a lot now. From the first time we met he’s seemed odd when he looks at me, and when he touched me the first time, when he held my hand in his, well, now I know why he didn’t want to let go. He thinks I am her. That I am Selma, the mother of his child. I’m not.

  “You think she knows what she’s doing?” I call out, watching him come from the back of the structure and creep through the undergrowth growing up the frame.

  “I think she’s trying to come home, through you.”

  “I’m not her, Jack. You know that.”

  “Aren’t you?” he replies, as he arrives in front of me, a wry smile creeping up his jaw.

  “No. I’m Madeline, Jack. I’ve never been her, nor will I ever be her. One life of a lie is plenty enough for me.” He chuckles slightly at that then turns away, back towards the treehouse.

  “And yet you’re still here, Madeline. Why is that?”

  “Because I can’t leave.” He looks over his shoulder at me, showing me that frown again.

  “You can,” he says, pointing over towards the left of us. “The road is just there. All you have to do is walk through those trees and you’ll eventually reach the road you came in on.”

  I smile at him, knowing full well that if I really wanted to that’s exactly what I could do. I could walk further, eventually find a signal I’m sure, and then call recovery to come get my car. It’s a simple solution. One that doesn’t involve any of these bizarre happenings, and one that would have me back to the world of rebuilding my dream before I know it. Simple. He knows it as well as I do, but I haven’t gone yet, have I? He’s right.

  Why am I still here?

  I smooth over the long satin negligee, smirking at the notion of it in this scenario. It’s as ridiculous as the thought of ghosts, but I’m not denying it anymore. Something is alive here, something that’s not quite right. Us, the ring I found, the visions of Selma and the frigid air that follows her everywhere. And I know things inside me. I do. I understand something I can’t quite place my finger on yet. I feel like I’ve lived here before, loved here and run these fields without a care in the world.

  We both know that without any discussion on the matter.

  “What’s in that room, Jack?”

  “Death,” he says, no hesitation in the delivery.

  “Why can’t I see it?”

  “Selma can. Madeline can’t. It’s none of her business.” I scowl at him, displeased with the answer but unable to find a sensible comeback to force him to tell me anything. “Come here. Let’s see if we can make her come to us. Get her inside you again. ”

  My feet lift without any real protest, some errant call inside me making me unsure if it’s me or Selma responding to his order. Either way, the walk to him feels as calming as it usually does, the strange pull coercing a closeness we shouldn’t have.

  “Can you climb in that?” I look down at the negligee, not knowing if it will stop me climbing or that fact that I haven’t climbed a thing in years.

  “Where?” He nods up the rickety steps into the treehouse, his tongue rolling over his lips as he does.

  Shivers ride my skin the moment his hand braces my back, forging me towards them without bothering to wait for my answer, and I gasp as my foot hits what feels like ice on the first step. I shoot away from it, fear lacing the next step forward. “Keep going, baby,” he says, pushing against me until he’s behind me and forging me upwards again. Baby? I turn to look at him, unused to the term as it comes softly from his lips. He just nods again, pushing on my coat to get momentum out of my feet.

  “Jack, I don’t think this is sensi—”

  “You’re right. It’s not, but I want to fuck again, and I want to do it up there.”

  My feet immediately stop, my head whipping round to look at him with shock written all over my face. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the crudeness of the statement in the middle of this glade. He smirks, apparently not a care in the world as he nods onwards again. “I like fucking you.” For the life of me I can’t stop my responding smile as I watch his eyes harden a touch, nor can I stop my own eyes looking over his frame again. “Always have done, baby.”

  I turn again and keep climbing, confused about the last of his words but unable to stop my need to climb with him. It’s like something inside me is taking over again, showing me a path I’m unable to veer from. And each footfall becomes colder, my toes scrunching beneath me to try to alleviate the sensation.

  “Cold,” I stutter out, as I reach the top and gaze around, pulling my coat closer in to shield myself.

  “Take it off,” he says, holding out his hand. “That’s how we get her here. The cold.”

  Part of me recoils at the idea, and yet another part welcomes the thought. I wish I understood that more clearly as I part the fur and let it dangle down my sides again, the collar falling to my shoulders.

  “You always were so fucking beautiful.”

  A tear wells in my eyes as I watch him slowly peel the side of the coat away from me, some part of me wanting the feelings he has to take hold and claim this moment. He believes all this so much, doesn’t he? Needs it even. I can tell by the reverence in his gaze, the near worship of his movements as he backs off to look me over.

  “Jack, I…”

  “Sshhh.” He discards the coat and moves back in front of me. “No more questions now. We’ll do what we did best. Here. With Lenon.”

  Freezing air blasts into the space around us, causing my teeth to chatter instantly as I search the area for fog. There isn’t any, but that darkness is coming even if I can’t see it. I know that because I know her now. I can feel her inside me with ever
y next gaze he makes. She’s channelling in me. My blood boils regardless of this air around us, almost hurting as I watch him watch me.

  “You ready for me?” he asks, taking one step towards me.

  “I...”

  Nothing comes out of my mouth as he moves in and slips his arms around my waist, tugging me into his chest.

  “We’ll fuck here. On top of our son. Remember him.”

  His lips come at me quicker than I expect, forcing me backwards towards a tree trunk. They’re harsh and unyielding as his tongue drives in, moulding us together with little effort from me. It’s all I can do to hang on to him rather than be swept off my feet and thrown to the floor. And I can feel that coming for me. I don’t know why but I know this isn’t the Jack who made love to me on the floor. This is the harsher version of him. The one who’ll fuck with little care for my comfort or stability in the middle of this madness.

  Hold onto him, Maddy.

  My head rips away, desperate for air from his assault and her voice. Hands are everywhere on me, grabbing and sliding, pinching in to hoist my leg up onto him and around his back. He pushes again, shoving me harder onto the trunk behind me and making me yelp at the pain.

  “You’ll fuck like we did before,” he growls, a harsh bite into my chest causing me to squirm in his hold and attempt clambering away. “Remember us like you should.”

  Fear etches into me from somewhere, reminding me of Lewis and his power over me. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the memories and focus on Jack’s voice, but it’s all too similar. His hands, the biting sensation, the hard touch of male all over me, consuming me.

  “Jack, I can’t do this,” I stutter out, trying again to push away from him.

  His hold becomes fiercer than ever, his face coming up to mine to stop me from talking at all before I get a chance to think. Lips mould again, instantly warming me regardless of his handling staying as rough as it’s become. Something about his mouth reminds me that it’s him, though. It changes everything, all thoughts of Lewis evaporating the second our tongues collide again. I grip on again, aroused immediately because of the connection, and barely able to think of anything but him. And then memories come from somewhere. They lash around in my mind, telling me of things I’ve never known. A white dress. Dancing. The ring on my finger and the sound of applause.