Although it is still early a crowd has already gathered, some seated at the tables that stand in the yard, others laughing and talking. To one side a group of the younger men are gathered around the barrels, drinking; as she enters she glimpses her brother and Young John Bradley, and for a moment she and Will’s eyes meet, before Will looks back to John and raises his mug. In the trees lanterns have been hung, giving the place the feel of a fairy kingdom.
Now she is here she is not certain she should be. Once these people were her friends: now she is a stranger amongst them. For a while she lingers by the oak tree, looking out over the crowd. By the barn Tunny Brown and the others are tuning their instruments, in front of them some of the children are chasing each other, darting back and forth across the area that has been set aside for dancing. From somewhere in the distance thunder rumbles; without thinking she tightens her hand about her shawl.
And then, just as she is deciding to slip away, to go back and spend the evening in the Widow’s kitchen, she feels somebody beside her, and turning, sees Mr Middleton, the sight of him causing her to step back in surprise. He smiles.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t.”
“Are you sure?” he asks, and for a moment she hesitates, then laughs.
“Maybe a little.”
“Perhaps I could fetch you a drink to make up for my rudeness?”
At first Hannah does not know what to say, then she nods, quickly, as if this moment might end. “Yes,” she says. “I would like that”.
He extends his arm, and together they walk toward the tree where the barrels stand. As they approach several of the men glance at the two of them and turn away but if Mr Middleton notices he does not show it.
“That man with Young John Bradley, he is your brother?” he asks as they wander back toward the tree.
Surprised Hannah glances over her shoulder. “Yes,” she says. “How . . . ?”
Mr Middleton smiles and gives a little shrug. “I heard some of the men talking.”
“And what else did they say?” she says, the flash of anger in her voice surprising her.
If Mr Middleton is surprised by her anger he does not show it. “That you were married to one of the stablemen but he died. That you have a child who is touched.”
Hannah stares at him, searching for some sign of mockery. “And if it is true?”
Mr Middleton looks at her, his green eyes clear. “All villages are full of gossip,” he says, “In my experience it is best not to pay it too much heed.”
Still Hannah does not move.
“Although I am sorry you have suffered such grief.”
His voice is so calm, so kind that Hannah cannot speak, and so for a long moment they stand in silence. Then over by the barn Tunny Brown and the others strike up a tune. With a smile Mr Middleton extends a hand. “Perhaps we should dance?”
If Mr Middleton is used to more elevated pleasures it does not show, for he is light and quick on his feet, bowing to the women in a playful way that makes them laugh. But it is Hannah he returns to whenever he can, holding her hand and watching her. And when, after half an hour the two of them stumble off again, to lean against a tree, he bows to her with a flourish, provoking her to laughter one more time.
“You dance well,” she says, and he laughs.
“And so I should. My father is a dancing master.”
Hannah looks at him. “No,” she says. “I do not believe you.”
Mr Middleton laughs again. “Most assuredly. A good one as well.”
“Then how did you become an engineer?”
Mr Middleton shrugs. “It seemed a good profession.”
“The men say the machine will put them out of work.”
Mr Middleton pauses. When he continues his voice is less careless. “They are right. But it will be for the best.”
“How can it be for the best if they are without work?”
“There will be other work in the towns or the cities. But it’s not about them, it’s about the future. We have the chance to change people’s lives, to bring them ease and opportunity. We cannot not take it.”
Hannah does not reply, and after a moment he continues.
“This village, your village, it is a good place, but its ways are of the past. People here talk of witchcraft and fairies and ghosts. This machine and others like it are the beginning of the end for those old ways.”
Hannah glances at him, looking for some sign he has divined her fears, that he is speaking to her of more than just the village and its ways.
“I am sorry if I have offended you,” he says.
She shakes her head. “You have not offended me. Yet I think you underestimate the difficulty of the task you describe. People here do not think their ways are old-fashioned, they think they are right. The idea of changing frightens them.”
As she speaks a cry goes up from some of the men, and glancing over she sees the harvest princess has appeared.
“And you?” Mr Middleton asks.
Hannah hesitates. “I do not know. Now come, we must throw flowers with the rest of them”.
There are more dances and songs and drinking, so it is after midnight when the storm arrives, the cool air sweeping in over the trees and sending plates and glasses tumbling. Taking Hannah’s arm Mr Middleton draws her away, and with his coat over her head the two of them run back toward the Widow Thirlwell’s cottage. By the stile at her gate they pause, the rain clattering down around them.
“Thank you,” he says.
“For what?” Hannah asks.
“For tonight.” To her surprise Hannah laughs, and reaching up kisses his cheek. “You are a fine dancer.”
He laughs. “As are you.”
She can feel his eyes on her as she runs down the path toward the Widow’s door, the possibility of his presence making her step light. But before she is halfway there she hears Connor scream and her belly clenches. On the doorstep she pauses, eyes closed and listening, willing this moment to continue even as she steels herself for the moment when she opens the door and it begins again.
He lies on a blanket, his body rigid and face contorted, his head beating rhythmically on the floor. The air stinks of shit. The Widow is slumped in a chair on the other side of the room, her face pale and drawn.
Crossing to him Hannah kneels, but he jerks his body away from her, redoubling his screaming.
“He’s been like this since you left,” the Widow says. Hannah does not answer, just nods, and reaching down she gathers him up, pressing his rigid body to her.
“I am sorry,” she says but the Widow only shakes her head.
“It’s not your fault.”
Hannah doesn’t answer, just turns toward the door.
“You can’t go out, not when it’s like this” the Widow says, standing, but Hannah only shakes her head.
“Thank you,” she says again, and pressing Connor’s stinking form to her chest she hurries out into the rain.
* * *
She was cooking when they found Brendan. She heard the cry, and running out she saw them gathering around the stables.
He might have been asleep, save for the trickle of blood that ran down his forehead, and the way his body lay slackly. As she approached they stepped aside to let her pass, but some impulse made her stop before she reached him, stand looking at him lying there.
Looking up she heard a horse whinny. “It was the bay,” she said. “Wasn’t it?”
Old Bill Tompkins hesitated. His face was stricken. Then he nodded.
“Aye.”
Behind him she could see the horse’s face, its eyes calm, unconcerned, as if its actions had barely ruffled its consciousness. Sometimes, in the weeks that followed she would see the horse standing in the yard or grazing in the field. Each time she watched it, waiting for some sign it understood what it had done, yet all she saw was its impassive gaze, the glint of madness that had always been there. Sometimes,
when she was alone, she tried to imagine what it must be like to be a horse, a bird, to move like that through the world.
If she had thought Brendan’s death would heal the rift between her and her parents she was wrong. On those occasions she saw her mother or her father in the village they would turn away from her, as if ashamed. Her brother did not turn away, instead he stared at her, smiling, as if she had proven him right in some way.
And so when Connor came she was alone, left to fight her way through the labour without help or guidance, his tiny body wrenched into the world in the soft dark of the summer evening, the floor around her thick with blood and fluid, the taste of her own flesh sharp in her mouth as she tore the cord, and afterward, his small, angry life pressed against her as they slept.
It was two days before she was well enough to walk to the village. Her body weak, still thick with pregnancy yet loose and shattered as well. As she entered people stared at her, at the way she bore Connor against herself, and she saw the way she was no longer one of them.
* * *
She is drawing water when Mr Middleton appears, wandering along the path beside the stream in the half-light of dusk. Setting the bucket down she straightens, pleased to see the way he smiles when he sees her.
“Miss O’Rourke,” he says, “I had not thought to find you here.”
She nods toward the hut. “I live here,” she says.
Glancing up at the cottage he nods.
“So far away. Does it not get lonely out here on your own?” As he speaks he smiles, and Hannah blushes, afraid he is teasing her.
“I’ like it. Why are you here?”
He glances back the way he came. “I thought to see where the stream led.
Perhaps she looks disappointed because he smiles again. “And you? Are they not working in the high fields today?”
“I’m not shirking,” she says, and he laughs.
“I did not think you were.” As he speaks she stoops to lift the bucket and he steps forward.
“Let me take that,” he says. As he speaks his hand closes on hers, and she looks up, sees his face close to hers. For a second or two they do not move, then he pulls gently on the bucket, and she releases it.
She directs him to place the bucket by the door to the cottage, then turns and looks back down the slope toward the stream.
“This is a fine aspect. A man might do well to look at it in the evening.”
Hannah looks at him, sees he is grinning. “I thought you a man of the town.”
He nods. “Indeed I miss the town when I am away. But the country has its compensations.”
As he speaks he smiles, and she feels herself blush.
“It would be nice to be able to compare them,” she says.
He laughs. “Perhaps you could visit me one day.”
She stares at him, trying to tell whether he is teasing.
“What?”
“I think you are teasing me”
Again he laughs. “And if I were?”
“That would be most unkind.”
For a long moment he stands, looking at her. Then he looks down.
“I am sorry it is only now we are having this conversation,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because we shall not have a chance to continue it. I leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
He nods. “I have been called back unexpectedly.”
“But you will be back, will you not?”
He looks at her for a long moment. “I cannot see when.”
For a few seconds neither speaks. Then he steps back. “I am sorry,” he says, “I have taken up enough of your time already”.
“No,” she says, surprising herself with her boldness. “Please, stay.” But he doesn’t answer, just lifts a hand and touches her face with his fingers.
“I am sorry, would that I had come this way sooner. If you are in the town you should look for me though.” For a moment she thinks he will lean forward, kiss her, the touch of his fingers on her cheek almost painful. But then he steps back, moving away into the fading light.
For a long time she does not move, just stands, staring down at the stream and the space where he stood. All her life she has wanted a reason to leave, to go to the town, and here, now, one has slipped away from her. Perhaps it might have been different if she were a wanton, if she had convinced him to stay, but somehow she thinks not.
Bending down she places her hand on the bucket, meaning to lift it, but even as she does she feels herself falter, and releasing it leans back against the doorframe. How did she come to be here, she thinks, alone out in the woods, without a husband or a family or anyone for conversation? How is it that she does not live in the town, have fine clothes, live by the light of candles?
It could have been different, perhaps, if she had not married Brendan, if she had simply left, sought a place in one of the great houses or service somewhere, for then she might have met another man, one who might have lifted her out of here, away from here, a man like Mr Middleton perhaps, kind and good and full of life. What a life that might have been. And then the thought comes to her: might that not still happen? After all, he had asked her to call on him; perhaps she might leave too, follow him to the town. There is something between them, she is sure of that, something good and true, and he would make a fine husband.
And then from behind her she hears Connor begin to cry, his high-pitched wail piercing the quiet of the evening, and as he does she knows this is just idle fancy, no matter how fine he is no man would take a woman with a changeling for a child, no man would want that screaming lump of wood if he did not have to. For a moment she imagines just standing up, beginning to walk, the way her steps might carry her down, away from the cottage to the bank of the stream, then on, along, through the forest to the road, and on, to Bath. She could, she thinks, nobody would know, nobody would miss her, she would just be gone, the thought so liberating she actually gasps. Yet as she gets to her feet it is not the quiet she hears but Connor, screaming, on and on, the sound crowding her mind, filling it, and despite herself she turns, goes in to him. When will it stop, she thinks as she reaches out to lift him, when will it ever get better? As she lifts him to her shoulder she hears his breathing change as he gathers himself for another round of screaming, the sound of his cries filling the cottage until she puts him down again, and turning, walks back out into the gathering dark. Yet as she does she remembers Maggie’s words, her description of the ways the spell might be broken, the thought stopping her in her tracks, making her turn, walk back in to where Connor lies, his tiny face screwed up in fury. For a long moment she hesitates, not sure what to do, then all at once she reaches down, gathers him up, and half-walking, half-running, stumbles out the door, down the slope to the stream, the shock of the water cold as she hits it and splashes out into the flow, insects skittering before her. In her arms Connor’s cries falter in surprise before he begins to scream again, louder this time, but as he does she grasps him by the shoulders with both hands and pushes him down, into the water, his eyes opening in shock as the water covers his face, his mouth opening and closing as he thrashes and pulls, his distress so plain she has to fight to resist relenting, letting him go. It is strange she thinks, the way time has grown elastic, the way she is in the moment and without it, as if she has stepped out of this world and into another. Beneath the water Connor is still struggling, his face contorted and screaming. Any moment now he will change, she thinks, any moment.
Now.
Yard
Claire McKenna
All it took was a broken street-light two doors down, and in the murk of just-dark she mistook the shadow of the two-door coupe for Noel’s sedan, him home early from work, their relationship having taken a turn for the better since the money started coming in.
Had she identified the car correctly she might not have walked in the front door with such a huge smile, only to feel it frost-over and die at the shock of seeing DeDe Barker and the friend
she had brought with her instead.
The friend slouched in Noel’s favourite armchair, a skinny man with sunken eyes, an oddly-shaped head that a phrenologist might have read for criminality and weak morals, a recessed chin of the type that, were it carved upon a mountain, the vertical from the clavicle to his scraggly underlip goatee wouldn’t represent a degree of difficulty more than a high 4 on the Yosemite scale. Plenty of acne-scarred placements on the pitch. Free climbing possible.
A sharp pain shot through the back of Miranda’s left eye. The plate tectonics of premonition and common sense ground against each other. Well, she thought. Well, shit.
Her hand instinctively went to her pocket. Loose change and tissue-grommets, but no phone. Her lifeline to rescue sat on the kitchen bench, less than ten paces away. It might have been Timbuktu for all the distance she’d need to cover. Between her and the phone, DeDe stood like an unlikely Cerberus in clingy rayon and underarm stains. A cigarette drooped from her fingers, dotting the carpet with ashes.
Unusually, DeDe remained silent. It was the friend that spoke.
“Hello Miranda.”
Affronted that the strange man should even know her name, Miranda glared at DeDe. Noel’s no-good sister remained as impassive as a background extra in a television movie.
The man kept talking. “Find much on your walks?” he asked. “Y’know, buried treasure and stuff?”
“I don’t have time for this.”
She made a sharp turn towards her bedroom, only to have DeDe’s friend leap at her, snarl her ponytail in his fist and yank her to the floor. A punch in the face was deflected enough so that his knuckles caught her cheekbone instead, but the flash of white light in her left eye put all the fight out of her.
The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5) Page 19