by Chris Ward
Matt shivered again, remembering.
Bethany had been mute.
Even now Matt had to remind himself how that statement wasn’t manifestly true. She could have talked – there was nothing wrong with her vocal chords according to doctors – she just didn’t. Wouldn’t. Not a sound. As though she had never really been there at all, just the soul of a girl trapped between two different worlds.
She had been wraithlike, insubstantial; flesh and bone and yet so vacant at the same time, as though behind those haunting eyes lay nothing, just a blank, desolate wasteland where her mind should have been.
For years she had sat alone in her room, doing, saying nothing.
Which only made Matt wonder even more why she had killed herself. As though the components of her scattered mind had united at last for one final moment of catastrophe. It didn’t make sense.
‘Follow me,’ his father said, standing up.
9
‘You look like you haven’t slept for weeks, Rachel.’
‘You think?’ She rubbed her eyes, concerned by her own appearance. Maybe her mother was right. She could hear the children playing in the lounge with their grandfather, a game of cat and mouse around the sofas. She didn’t think she had seen them this happy in months.
Her mother sipped her coffee. ‘Rachel, dear, if you don’t mind me saying so . . . you look –’
‘Yes, Mum . . .’
‘– like death warmed up.’
‘I know . . .’
‘I expect they must be a handful at their age.’
‘Mum –’
‘But that’s not everything is it?’
Rachel stared hard at her mother. The wizened old lady, her once lustrous hair now ash grey and straw-textured, face lined like crumpled paper, knew her better than anyone. Had known her longest, after all.
‘It’s Matthew, isn’t it?’
‘Mum, we . . . argue. A lot. I don’t know, it’s just . . . it seems like we just can’t speak anymore without –’
‘Will it pass? All marriages go through rough patches. It’s a fact of life.’
‘I know, Mum. I don’t know –’
‘Do you still love him?’ The older woman’s eyes seemed to penetrate her.
‘Yes, of course –’
‘There’s your answer then.’
‘Sure.’ It’s not always that simple. There are the children to think about. Hitting me is one thing –
‘And does he love you?’
‘I – I think so.’
Her mother huffed. ‘Well, have you asked him?’
Rachel shook her head, resigned. ‘I can’t . . . he’s been difficult to talk to recently.’
Her mother leaned across and put a hand over her daughter’s. Rachel suddenly felt a terrible urge to weep, as though the loss she had felt at watching Matt leave wanted to come pouring out in a flood.
‘I worry about you Rachel. I worry about you so, so much. You’re my only daughter. I don’t want to see you getting hurt like this.’
Tears formed in Rachel’s eyes. ‘I don’t know what to do, Mum.’
Her mother smiled. ‘You have to do what you think is best. Follow your heart, honey. Your brain doesn’t know a damn thing.’
Rachel chuckled through her tears. ‘I’ll try, Mum. I’ll try.’
###
Bethany’s Diary, December 10th, 1984
I heard Daddy crying in his sleep last night so I got up and went into his bedroom. I wanted to calm him but he tossed and turned in the covers like something dying. I got afraid, and wanted to cry, but didn’t. He was shouting out Mummy’s name. He looked so sad. I whispered, ‘Don’t cry, Daddy, it’ll be okay,’ but I don’t think he could hear me.
I think he knows why Mummy left, and it makes him so sad.
10
Matt was upstairs. The rain had stopped. All Matt could hear was the clacking of autumn branches outside, the gentle rustling of the last autumn leaves. The wind soughed quietly like the tired yawning of a gospel choir. Moonlight streamed in through the window, and as he clicked on a light near the door, the bed on which Bethany lay suddenly lit up in a complex patchwork of white and yellow shades, a duel between the lamp and the moon, a crisscrossing of light shards that made it difficult at first to determine her features.
His father was waiting outside in the corridor. The door stood ajar behind him. Matt stepped forward, into the pool of light, and gazed down on the sleeping form of his sister for the first time in fourteen years.
Dead form. Dead form, damn you.
‘Oh, good God . . .’
Tears began to form and trickle down his cheeks. He saw a window had been left open, retaining the room’s chill, and it froze him, bit at his skin like tiny insects, invisible.
Bethany wore what Matt could only describe as a ball gown, blood red and crafted, as best as he could tell, from velvet. It hung to her ankles; only her bare feet protruded below the hem. The neck was cut high, hiding her bosom, while the arms ended just below the shoulder, revealing the familiar sun–shy, porcelain skin.
She lay on her side, one hand cupping her face, the other at her waist. Her eyes were closed, and her hair, shoulder-length, looked recently brushed.
He knelt down beside her.
She had to be sleeping. His little sister could not surely be dead. He stared hard at her face, almost willing frosty breath to rise from her lips like a tender, dying smoke signal. Bethany, his little sister.
Except she wasn’t little anymore.
He had to remind himself who she was. She looked like a fairytale princess, hauled from the stories of his infancy to be displayed before him. If he kissed her would she wake?
‘Sleeping beauty,’ he muttered, the words falling from him lips before he could stop himself.
Mrs. Carter had not exaggerated. Fourteen years ago this had been Bethany, his little sister; his mute, reclusive, introverted sister. A girl whose very presence in the same room had terrified him, even as a teenager.
The Bethany that lay before him was a grown woman, and a truly beautiful one.
She couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible.
Matt knelt down beside her and gazed into her face. Tentatively, he reached out a hand towards her, his fingers shaking as they closed over hers, as cold as china.
‘Bethany?’ he whispered.
Her eyes opened. Coal black and deadly, they bored into his own.
Matt screamed and let go of her hand even as her fingers reached out for his, clawing. He fell backwards, his body striking the wooden floor and his head catching the edge of a bedside cabinet. He felt consciousness slipping away. Through stunned, starry eyes he saw Bethany start to rise, mouth opening as she inched towards him to form twisted words for the first time. He screamed as much as he were able, a hollow, croaking sound that scraped along the sides of his throat like a wire cloth.
And then his father came bursting through the door, racing across the room to strike her with something heavy, something blunt (something that made a sound like a rolling pin hitting dough), once, twice, over and over . . .
(oh God not that hammer not that hammer oh God oh God)
Matt woke sweating, sitting bolt upright in bed. Somewhere beyond his room he could hear movement along the corridor, and then the sound of knocking, muffled, distant.
Mugginess cleared as Mrs. Carter’s shouts came from beyond the door, and breathless, he called back, yes, he was fine, just a nightmare. A couple more reassurances, and he heard her stomp back to bed, grumbling something about an early start tomorrow.
He felt the dampness of the sheets beneath him. Had he really cried out in his sleep?
He switched on the bedside light and squinted as the sudden brightness pierced right through his eyes and into the depths of his whiskey hangover. The clock read 4:30am.
He rolled out of bed, stumbled across the room to a sink in the corner. He vomited up a thick yellow paste, and turned the tap on full to wash away the remains of last night’s
whiskey. Then, with the tap still roaring, he leaned over, took the head of the faucet into his mouth like the barrel of a gun, and gulped down the icy water until it choked him.
Afterwards, he felt a little better. The half full bottle next to his bed had begun to whisper his name, as it always did now, no matter how he felt, but he ignored it, going instead to the window and ripping back the curtains to expose the night.
Outside, a light rain fell steadily on the village green and the churchyard. The lane beyond was dark, empty; no lights from his father’s house were visible through the trees. Up and down the high street in both directions, shops, houses, the pub, all were dark, silent.
He needed a walk to clear his head. Mrs. Carter got nervous easily, she had told him, and so locked up at around eleven. In order that they could come and go as they pleased, she issued all her guests with a copy of the front door key, and a gentle reminder that they please lock the door behind them.
Matt went downstairs and let himself out into the dark, closing the door silently behind him. The rain had eased to a light drizzle. Although the night made him jittery, especially in Tamerton, he preferred it to the lingering dream memories that clung to the walls of his bedroom. He could still see Bethany’s face, rising up towards him with those hideous devil eyes. He shuddered, and pulled the thin wind cheater he wore tighter around him.
Going upstairs in the house, seeing his sister as a grown woman in her old bedroom, seeing her wearing the blood red ball gown, it had never happened. He had dreamt it. His nervousness and his father’s whiskey had combined to create that monster. Just his imagination, and in his line of work he knew as much about that as anyone.
But what had happened? The line that separated reality and nightmare had blurred, and each had encroached upon the other, like two coloured liquids merging through a porous membrane. Everything became difficult to define.
He had seen Bethany, and she had been beautiful. Sleeping.
Hadn’t he?
‘Damn it,’ he muttered, shaking his head. He couldn’t remember clearly because he had been too drunk.
He did remember his father asking if he wanted to see his sister, as an adult. Perhaps he had seen her. The image had been as clear as the church that rose before him, and he knew it was her. He could tell from the shape of her face. She had aged, for sure. But she hadn’t changed much, the only difference was that the dark seed of beauty she had possessed had now bloomed into a violently colourful flower.
He had seen her body; that was it. It had to be. It had been resting upstairs ready for burial, allowed to be at home for one final night. Spooky, but then everything about that place was, always had been. Memories and drink had brought her back in his dreams, even when his consciousness remembered nothing.
Nightmares.
Damn it, why do I have to drink so much?
A sudden movement caught his eye, in the darkness across the village green. Someone moving in the dark, no: scurrying. Clutching something to their (her?) chest. He paused at the gate, watching. Then, before his mind could catch up with the decision, he began to follow.
The drizzle had stopped, and as Matt pursued the figure up the gently inclining street towards the cattle grate that marked the entrance to the moor some half a mile distant, it was replaced by thick fog. Matt found it difficult to keep the figure in sight. He did his best, getting as close as he could without being seen, whether it meant crouching behind parked cars or backing into the damp, dewy hedge, becoming more and more certain with each step that something wasn’t right. He couldn’t quite place it, but until he could, he would follow silently, trusting his whim.
The wind had died and the air smelt of wet foliage, a thick, juicy smell like damp linen. Cold wrapped itself around him, caressing his face and hands with its chill, as the last houses of the village gave way to a gradually ascending country lane, hemmed in on both sides by tall, wild hedgerows. As the figure hurried off into the darkness ahead, the writer’s inquisitiveness that had carried Matt this far suddenly died, replaced by a nagging fear. He stumbled to a halt, unsure whether to continue.
Then he heard the sound.
Shattering the silence like a hammer through glass: a baby’s piercing cry.
Matt froze, but only for a second. He now understood what the figure was carrying. He started to follow again, increasing his step to catch up.
The hedgerows on both sides of the road began to drop in height, until finally they fell away completely where the road was split by the old cattle grate. He had always seen this as the true boundary of Tamerton, for Dartmoor stretched away beyond. From the top of the hill you could see the moorland rolling away impressively into the distance on a clear day, though now of course it was shrouded in dark and fog. Dartmoor as a concept had always enthralled and daunted him in equal measures, its vastness, its rugged beauty, and the tales that came associated with it. As a boy he had always wanted to set a novel here, but after things had happened he had dropped the idea. Now, as he thought of the endless miles of open moorland, he felt a fresh surge of creativity unlike any he had felt in months. Maybe a novel about Dartmoor could revive his fortunes.
Up ahead, he heard the figure clattering across the grate, and he hastened to follow, breaking into a run along the last stretch of road. But as the cattle grate appeared out of the fog in front of him he felt a sudden lethargy, and he pulled up short, breathing hard, feeling lightheaded. The grate lay just feet away, a barrier between himself and what lay further, out there in the darkness.
And memories began to float back, manifest themselves out of the fog.
Oh, heavens, not more ghosts.
Fear gnawed at him like a dog’s teeth on a bone, breaking his resolve, taking the first involuntary steps back and away from that place on his behalf. How many years had it been since he had thought of them?
Out there, maybe a mile distant, where the moorland curved down into a natural hollow, a scraggy tree-lined ravine with a shallow, meandering stream at its bottom, stood a cottage. Two floors; an old farmhouse, perhaps, and the scourge of every schoolboy in his year and countless years either side.
Meredith.
Elaina and Liana Meredith. Sisters.
Exotically elusive, they had lived in quiet solitude in that cottage out across the moor for as long as Matt or anyone he knew could remember. Over the years their lives had gradually become part of local folklore, the two weird sisters, regarded by many to be witches, believed apparently ageless. Stories grew fat quickly in the pubs and living rooms of small communities like Tamerton, but no one Matt had ever spoken to knew them well enough to either confirm or refute any of the spectacular theories he had heard. The skeptical side of him imagined their lives were insipidly inane; two forty–something spinster sisters working as HR managers in a cold office block somewhere in Plymouth. But his whimsical side, the side that had once spawned the ideas for more books than he could ever hope to write, still remembered the tales that abounded in the playground at lunchtimes, of sacrifices and black magic, of two beautiful sirens whose lilting song drew unknowing men up on to the lonely moors to their deaths.
There had been a hundred stories passed back and forth while he grew up from primary and middle school into secondary, but by his early teens there was only one thing that preoccupied the minds of himself and the other boys his age about the two mysterious Meredith sisters.
What they did at night.
At school, on Friday afternoons in the winter, they used to draw lots. The shortest straw had to take the challenge. Go up there that night, camera in hand, and get a photo of some action.
Few made it past the cattle grate. Even fewer got as far as the cottage, got to photograph anything. Some did, though, their blurred, poorly lit treasures displaying a corner of wall, a door, an amorphous shape as likely a sheep as a woman. Boys returned with fanciful tales of their bravery and what they had seen, but the lack of any hard evidence only added to the mystery, making the challenge more appealing
. During his school years everyone with any guts eventually got landed with the dare, and although most returned with little to tell, they all returned somehow fulfilled, as though by taking the challenge of the Meredith sisters each schoolboy had somehow crossed a threshold into manhood.
Matt remembered the night it had been his turn only too well.
I don’t want to be here anymore.
A burning sense of shame and humiliation swamped his senses. He started back down the road, at first walking backwards, then turning to bolt, arms pumping as he fled back in the direction of the village. It was too late at night, too dark, to go chasing ghosts. Some things really were best left alone.
#
He hadn’t seen the woman standing at the foot of a scrawny, wind-battered tree, just to the left of the cattle grate, shrouded by the mists. He hadn’t seen her standing there, clutching a bundle in her arms, a bundle that occasionally squirmed irritably. He hadn’t seen the smile on her ageless face.
He hadn’t seen her.
But Liana Meredith had seen him.
11
Rachel lay awake, one hand cupping her face, listening to the tick of the clock as the minutes and then hours slipped past. Her eyes and cheeks were red, sore from her tears. They had come all of a sudden in a torrent and she had been unable to hold them back.
She thought of the kids, tucked up in bed, asleep down the corridor, and listened to her own steady breathing as she waited in vain for sleep.
Her fingers lifted to brush her face, touch the fading mark of the bruise. She felt a small numbing pain, so small as to be barely noticeable, and yet at the same time it meant so much.
To her, and for the children.
###
Bethany’s Diary, December 21st, 1984
Helped Daddy put up the tree in the lounge today. Daddy and Uncle Red got it from out in the woods, chopped it down themselves – chop chop!! – and carried it in from the garden. It towers over all of us, and I spent ages covering it with tinsel and jingly balls and little angels and fairies, including one big one for the very top which Uncle Red had to fetch a ladder for. It looks beautiful. I wish Mummy could have been here to see it, all sparkly and glittery, but Mummy is staying out in the cold this year. I wanted to ask Daddy why, but he just looked so sad as he stared up at the tree.