by Alex Bell
Redwing waved a hand. “Your mother expressed the same concern. But a man’s mind is far stronger than a female one and I am in control at all times.” He leaned forwards slightly and picked up the pen, tapping it lightly against the paper. “Now,” he said. “I know you didn’t come down here past midnight to discuss the practice of automatic writing with me.
What’s troubling you?”
He sounded so calm and reasonable that it was hard to believe he could do the things I was about to accuse him of, but I had seen the bruises and the cigarette burns with my own eyes.
I felt physically sick with nerves but there was no putting it off any longer. I swallowed hard and unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth. My heart was beating so fast that it made me short of breath and, when I spoke, the words came out in a sort of strangled gasp that was far from the cool, authoritative tone I’d been aiming for. “Mr Redwing, I have come to … ask you … to p-please s-stop … abusing … my mother.”
There was absolute silence as Redwing gazed at me, an unreadable expression in his eyes.
Blood rang in my ears.
My breathing sounded too loud in the room.
The air was too warm.
The hawk’s eyes were too red.
Redwing put down the pen again. “Abusing her?” he finally said. It seemed to me that there was a small gleam of surprised pleasure deep in his eyes, as if this conversation was not one that he had expected but yet somehow relished.
“It cannot go on, sir,” I said desperately. “It simply cannot. She will become ill.”
“Jemima,” he said, “I am not obliged to discuss my marriage with you, or anyone, for that matter, but I will try to be as patient as I can with this wild accusation. Have I not provided both you and your mother with a beautiful home? Is there not food on the table? Books to read, chocolates to eat, dresses to wear? Pray tell me in which area you feel me to be amiss?”
I gripped the arms of my chair. “I have seen the bruises on my mother’s arms,” I said. “They appear there regularly. And today I saw a cigarette burn as well.” Anger finally gave me the power to free my tongue. “I don’t know whether these are the result of mistreatment in the bedroom, or something obscene that goes on when the two of you are locked away here for hours on end. I don’t know and I don’t care. I am simply telling you it must stop.”
Redwing’s lips thinned into a straight line. “That is quite enough,” he said in a low voice. “How dare you speak to me of matters of the bedroom? You are too young to understand such things, and no decent girl or woman would ever broach such a topic with a gentleman.”
I could feel the blood flooding my face in a deep flush. Fear pulsed through me but I recalled that earlier occasion, after they had returned from their honeymoon, when I had bowed to his strength. I thought of the bruises I’d seen on Mother’s wrists and arms, the dull, hopeless look in her eyes, and it seemed to me that I must not make the same mistake again and let myself be cowed into silence by a bully. I must stand up to this man. I must be strong for my mother as well as myself.
“No decent gentleman would treat his wife as you do, sir,” I said, my voice remaining steady for the first time. “A real gentleman would never stoop to—”
But that was as far as I got before Redwing erupted from his chair so fast that it fell backwards. I shrank away but he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to my feet. I cried out in shock as much as in pain – no one had ever laid a hand on me before. Instinctively I clutched at his arm with both hands, trying to loosen his hold, but his grip might as well have been an iron vice for all the power I had to break it. He was larger and taller and stronger than me, and was easily able to stride across the room, pulling me with him, my feet scrabbling along the wooden floorboards.
I thought he was heading towards the door at first and imagined that perhaps he meant to throw me out of his house altogether. A cold fear touched my heart at the thought, for I had nowhere else to go and I couldn’t possibly leave Mother here. But instead Redwing stopped before the opposite wall, yanking my hair back in order to raise my head.
I found myself staring up at a skull. The entire wall was covered in hunting trophies, but this one wasn’t a deer, or a rabbit, or a pheasant. It was a horse. With a single bullet hole right in the centre of its forehead.
“This devilish beast took my daughter from me,” Redwing said quietly in my ear, his breath warm against my neck. “And ever since that day I’ve regretted shooting it in the head.”
“I-I’m sure Vanessa would have understood that you w-were overwrought,” I stammered, but Redwing cut me off with a cold laugh.
“No, my dear, you misunderstand me,” he said. “My regret does not stem from guilt. It is simply that an execution was more than that horse deserved. I ought to have flayed the skin from it strip by strip. I should have gouged out its eyes, sawn off its tongue, ripped out its teeth, hammered its hooves into jelly. No punishment would have been terrible enough for what that animal took from me, and if I could go back in time and prolong its suffering, I would.”
He finally let go of my hair and gripped me by the shoulders, his fingers digging into my flesh as he turned me round to face him. I could smell his breath, sour on my face, as he said, “I will speak to Vanessa again, do you understand? If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will speak to my daughter. And I don’t mean a couple of knocks on a table – I mean actually speak to her and have her speak back.”
“But … but how?” I gasped. “How do you possibly expect to do that?”
“Trance mediumship,” he said. “The medium goes into a trance and then welcomes spirits to communicate through them. Your mother is one of the most renowned mediums in London and I have mastered no small amount of skill as a mesmerist, and yet so far we have not made contact with a single spirit. But if we carry on for long enough then we must break through eventually. We must.” He took a deep breath. “You made me lose my temper, damn you, which is something that very rarely happens. But if you get in my way, Jemima, you will regret it, I promise.”
Redwing leaned even closer. We were almost nose to nose and for a sickening moment I thought he was going to kiss me. But then he moved his lips to my ear and said, in a hushed voice, “Do. You. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good.” Redwing let go of me abruptly and returned to his desk.
A thought came to me then and I hated the idea of it, but I saw that it was the only way to help my mother.
“I understand,” I said again. “And I think you should use me instead.”
“You?” Redwing sat back down in his chair. “You’re just a girl. You lack your mother’s experience.”
“Experience isn’t the most important thing when it comes to being a medium,” I said. “Mother has told me many times that adolescent girls are more susceptible to psychic phenomena and more sensitive to the spirit world. It’s the age when ghosts are most drawn to us and our abilities are strongest. After that, they get gradually weaker and weaker.”
Redwing drew his silver cigarette case from his pocket and extracted one of the slim cigarettes. “Do you mind?” he asked, indicating with it.
After what had just taken place, I couldn’t tell whether or not he was mocking me with the nicety, so I just shook my head.
Redwing lit the cigarette and a plume of smoke drifted slowly towards me.
“Why would you offer to do this?” he finally asked. “Why do you care about contacting Vanessa?”
“I don’t,” I told him. “I just want to spare my mother.”
“Well,” Redwing said, leaning back in his chair. “I have heard other members of the Ghost Club suggest that adolescent girls make for more powerful mediums. Given the lack of progress with your mother, it does not hurt to try, I suppose.”
“When would you like to begin?” I asked, despising him.
“Right now, if you’re agreeable,” he said. He pointe
d at an armchair beside the fire. “You will sit there,” he said. “You will hold this doll.” He picked a Frozen Charlotte out of the box on the desk. “And you will do exactly as I say.”
I took the cold little doll from him and sat on the armchair he had indicated. Redwing picked up his cane and pulled up another chair, positioning it so close that our knees almost touched. He leaned forwards slightly, placing the cane between his knees with a solid thump on the floor.
I had no expectation that this would work but I intended to do as I was instructed and give it my very best effort. It was quite clear that putting on a show wasn’t enough. My grandmother had firmly believed it was possible to speak to the dead and perhaps she had been right. Perhaps my age really did increase my chances of success. If I could help Redwing make contact with his daughter then maybe this awful madness that had clearly taken hold of him since her death might abate and he would return to some sort of sanity.
“Look at the hawk’s ruby eyes,” Redwing instructed. “Concentrate all your focus on them. And follow the sound of my voice. You will empty your mind of all conscious thought. You will be a blank slate, ready and willing to be written upon. You will relinquish control and give yourself up to any spirits who may be nearby, inviting them in, welcoming them to settle into your skin and use your tongue as if it were their own…”
Chapter Fourteen
Isle of Skye – January 1910
I tried several times throughout the rest of that day to talk to Estella about Whiskers but she had obviously made up her mind to say nothing more on the subject.
“I already told you what happened,” she said. “And you don’t believe me. So what’s the point?” She looked perfectly wretched as she turned away from me.
For the first time, I wondered whether she might actually believe the lies she told. Perhaps seeing her brother drown like that had made her a little deranged. I knew well enough that the mind was a delicate thing that could be broken apart if sufficient pressure was applied to it.
When I returned to my bedroom after dinner that evening, I was startled by the sight of a Frozen Charlotte doll on my pillow. I recalled the white blur at my window I thought I’d seen with Estella but pushed the thought away. One of the girls must have left her here. I would have to start locking my door.
I picked up the Frozen Charlotte and went along the corridor to the toy room. I hadn’t been back there since I’d discovered Whiskers earlier and now I walked in with slight trepidation.
Henry had done a good job of clearing up. When I switched on the gaslight, I couldn’t see any blood on the floorboards or the walls. The toy chest, too, was completely clean. Strangely, though, he hadn’t put the dolls back in the chest, as I’d expected, but had lined them up on the windowsill. They were all pressed against the glass with their curly heads facing away from me, china fingers resting on the frosted window as if they were gazing out at something in the grounds.
I placed the doll from my room in the toy chest and then wandered over to the window, glanced out and found myself staring straight into the eyes of a hawk – a ferocious beast of a bird with gleaming red eyes. I jerked back, seeing that cane of Redwing’s, but then I looked again at the window, just as the bird spread its magnificent two-metre wingspan and took off into the night, leaving the Frozen Charlottes staring silently after it.
I told myself it was simply a sea eagle and nothing to do with Redwing. Then I scooped up the Frozen Charlottes and placed them in the toy chest before snapping the lid closed. The front of the dolls’ house had been left open so I closed that, too, before locking the door securely behind me and returning to my bedroom.
My sleep that night was disturbed by visions of red-eyed hawks flying at me with talons outstretched, determined to pluck my eyeballs right out of my skull. I woke sweating and shivering, just in time to hear a faint tap, tap, tap through the wall on the far side of my bedroom. It was, without doubt, coming from the toy room.
Still half tangled up in the terrible hawk dream, I scrambled out of bed, wincing at the cold, shoved my feet into my slippers and lit a candle. The tapping started up again and I couldn’t understand it. I had locked the room myself only hours ago. Could there be another key that one of the girls had managed to get hold of?
I hurried from my room and pushed down on the handle of the toy-room door but, to my surprise, it was still firmly locked. Perhaps one of the girls had been hiding in there earlier and I had locked her in?
Fumbling with the key, I unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal a room in darkness except for one bright spot of light. It was coming from the dolls’ house and I immediately knew which light had been turned on. It was, of course, the light to Edward Redwing’s study.
I switched on the gas lamp and glanced quickly around the room, but there was nothing amiss. The toy chest remained closed and, when I opened it, the Frozen Charlotte dolls were exactly as I had left them. Clearly there were no girls in here. Perhaps I had still been half asleep and dreaming when I thought I heard those taps through the wall. Or perhaps it had simply been mice in the walls. Now that poor Whiskers was gone, the school’s mouse problem was likely to get worse.
And yet I did not remember there being a light switched on in the dolls’ house. I walked over to it and pulled open the front but all the rooms looked just as they should have.
I switched off the light and closed the house. The light must have been on before. I hadn’t noticed it, that was all. I straightened back up, walked out and locked the toy-room door behind me.
Chapter Fifteen
Whiteladies – Six months earlier
Redwing snapped his fingers and I blinked and tried to speak, only for blood to dribble out between my lips, running over my chin and dripping on to the Frozen Charlotte doll cupped in my hand. Confused, I wiped my mouth with my fingers, swallowing blood without meaning to. My mouth tasted of metal, my tongue throbbed, my throat was dry. My head was pounding and my thoughts were all tangled up in some dark fog. It was hard to think, hard to remember where I was or what was happening.
It felt like we had only just begun the trance session and yet, to my surprise, sunlight streamed in through the windows. Could it actually have worked?
“You did well, Jemima,” Redwing said from the other side of the room. I looked up and saw that he was standing before the window with his back to me, gazing out towards the grounds.
“Why … why is my tongue bleeding?” I asked, my mouth still slick and hot with blood.
Redwing did not turn round. “You bit it during the trance. That can happen.”
“Did it work?” I asked, setting the Frozen Charlotte down on the nearby table. “Did you speak to Vanessa?”
From what I could recall, I had given it my best effort, had not resisted Redwing in any way.
“You did well,” Redwing said again, finally turning to face me. He looked tired but there was some light burning in his eyes. A sort of triumph that I hadn’t seen before. “I suggest you get some sleep,” he said pleasantly. “We will resume our session again tonight.”
Still in a haze I tried to stand up, only for the room to swim around me and the floor to tilt beneath my feet. I reached out to steady myself on the back of Redwing’s armchair and that was when I noticed my sleeves had been pushed back and there were cigarette burns, three of them, on my right arm.
“What are these?” I asked.
“It is how I establish if you really are in a deep trance state,” Redwing said, moving over to his desk. “When one is deep in trance, one becomes impervious to pain.”
“Surely just one burn would have been enough to establish that?” I asked.
Redwing lifted the corner of his mouth in an ugly smirk. “It pays to be thorough,” he said. “And I take mesmerism very seriously, my dear.”
In that moment I saw that he enjoyed inflicting pain, that he relished having the opportunity to punish me.
With an effort, I gathered my wits and walked towards the doo
r without saying another word. Out in the hall the grandfather clock seemed to tick too loudly as I walked past it and the stairs stretched on forever. It felt like an eternity before I reached my bedroom, where I could finally close and lock the door.
With my back to the wall I slid down to the floor. My breathing was fast and shallow in my chest, and I had to concentrate hard on slowing it down. Had Redwing told the truth when he said I’d bitten my own tongue? What had really happened in his study during those long hours I could not remember?
I put my head in my hands. When I’d offered to take my mother’s place, I hadn’t really thought the trance was likely to work, let alone that I would be able to remember nothing afterwards.
My head throbbed with the most appalling headache and I felt exhausted, so I drew the curtains across the windows and reeled to bed, where I immediately fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Isle of Skye – January 1910
I returned to bed only to be woken an hour later by the loud, relentless ringing of a bell from somewhere downstairs. It was the one Miss Grayson used to mark the start of class – the large brass bell that sat on her desk at the front of the room.
On and on and on it went.
Someone was down there in the middle of the night, ringing the bell loudly enough to wake the dead. I scrambled out of bed, thrust my feet into my slippers and snatched up my dressing gown. My eye fell on my bedside table and I noticed that the key to the toy room was missing. I was sure I had put it there before. Throwing on my dressing gown to cover up my scarred arms, I hurried out on to the landing, just as the doors to the dormitory opened and the girls peered out, looking alarmed.
“What’s happening, miss?” Olivia asked. “Who’s ringing the bell?”