‘By leaving?’ Sadie said, only half joking.
Jack held up his hands as if to say, I tried to stop her. Sadie sliced the lemons, imagining they were his throat.
‘Why were you worried, Dad?’ Betty asked, giving Sadie a pleading look.
‘He thinks the place is haunted,’ Jackie said. ‘Could I have some more toast, please? I don’t suppose you have any gluten-free bread?’
Sadie refrained from looking at Jack as she boiled an egg and buttered some toast. She had never known Jack to be afraid; and certainly not of ghosts. Was it genuine? Had he really seen something at Poet’s Cottage? Or was it just a crafty scheme to encourage Sadie to return to Sydney? Well, she wasn’t going to let him have his own way! Sadie dreaded the showdown she sensed was looming. Was Betty really prepared to abandon the new life Sadie had made for them both? Could Sadie contemplate life in Tasmania without her daughter? She wished she’d been able to talk to Betty last night. Now Jack and Jackie’s presence at breakfast was blocking any proper conversation with her daughter.
Compounding matters, Jack offered to run Betty to school. No doubt so she could have a good whine about her mother’s treatment of her, Sadie thought. Betty guiltily avoided her mother’s eyes as she gathered her books together.
‘Won’t be long,’ Jack said. ‘Jackie, try not to go too overboard on the hocus-pocus stuff. Remember, Sadie’s not a believer. By the way, Sadie, your hair looks a bit better this morning. Like a cute little . . .’ He paused, groping for the right word.
‘Rat?’ Sadie volunteered, throwing a tea towel at him. Everybody laughed, relieved, and the tension simmering between them slightly abated.
Sadie watched Jackie warily after Jack and Betty departed. The younger woman had got up and was shaking a gold bell in the corners of the room. ‘Just carry on as if I’m not here,’ she said happily to Sadie. At Sadie’s withering look she said, beaming, ‘Maybe I’ll start upstairs in the bedrooms and let you get on with it. You have another coffee and I’ll clear the astral debris and make the space pristine for you.’
There was a time, thought Sadie, listening to the tinkling bells, clapping hands and chanting from upstairs, when she would never have envisaged Jack with a girl like Jackie. Flaky, impractical and off with the pixies, she was the sort of person he had previously despised. Yes, Jackie was young, with glowing skin, blue eyes and silver-blonde hair to her waist – but Jack involved in a relationship with a woman who celebrated her menstrual flow? A woman who lived life by the moon cycles? How little she had really known her ex-husband! If this was some midlife crisis, it had certainly come with a dramatic personality change. Jack, who had always been obsessed with property development and material possessions, falling in love with a boho silver mermaid who quoted Peter Singer and The Prophet in the same breath? If it hadn’t been so painful, it would be hysterically funny.
The cleansing continued upstairs. Jackie was taking her time. As much as she fought against it, Sadie couldn’t help feeling a sliver of affection towards her. There was something appealing about the way Jackie wholeheartedly believed in the New Age therapies she lived by.
Glancing up at the calendar on the kitchen wall reminded Sadie of her looming deadline for a Sydney travel magazine. It was difficult to focus on work with everything that was happening around her, but she had to force herself. She was attempting a succinct, informative piece on redbacks, funnelwebs, slugs and cockroaches in inner-city backyards. She spent the next couple of hours typing on her laptop in her bedroom; although Jackie had assured her that she had now ‘cleared’ the room and thus her work would be more productive, Sadie didn’t notice any difference at all. Jackie also told her she had moved the bed slightly to attract more passion into Sadie’s life. Most considerate, Sadie thought – and ironic, considering it was Jackie who had run off with Sadie’s husband.
While Sadie worked, Jackie continued to move throughout the house. She noticed that some rooms were easier to clear than others, but psychic debris lay draped everywhere like strands of seaweed. It was Jackie’s responsibility to clear those strands. She firmly believed that she was karmically entangled with Sadie and Betty. Her mission was to repay the grief she had caused them by falling in love with Big Bear, her name for Jack.
Space clearing was something Jackie prided herself on. She was highly psychic and could smell clutter, chaos and negative energy as soon as she walked into a room. She had studied in Singapore with one of the world’s leading space-clearing experts. Admittedly, she didn’t have a lot of practice – Light Vibrations, the business she had started with a girlfriend in Sydney, had folded when the girlfriend ripped her off. Poet’s Cottage was an enormous challenge – the house was obviously haunted – but she owed it to Sadie to try. All this she had explained earnestly to Jack that morning but he had only grunted in the manner that had earned him the nickname Big Bear (along with his large brown eyes, cuddly nature, round stomach and love of honey).
Jackie had to admit (as much as she hated to have a single negative thought, because what sort of reality was that creating?) that Big Bear hadn’t been himself since they had come to Pencubitt. Jackie sensed he still harboured feelings for his ex-wife. It was understandable: for her age, Sadie was a beautiful woman, and naturally stylish, even with that cropped hair. In comparison, Jackie often felt awkward and gauche.
Suddenly catching sight of her own reflection in the dining-room mirror, Jackie jumped. For a minute she had thought it was a spirit, she looked so blonde and wan in the dim light.
‘How’s it going?’ Jack wandered in, returned from dropping off Betty – and probably stopping to read the business news in a café.
She signalled for him to be silent and resumed her bell ringing and hand clapping. Yes, in the corner was a grotty, stale energy, mouldering, hugging the walls like a petrified child. She clapped over it briskly and the dark green field receded into itself as if shrinking away. Don’t hurt me! Mummy, stop hitting me! Stop, please Mummy! The words in Jackie’s mind could have been her own thoughts, but she knew that they came from a person lost to time. She sprinkled a blend of aromatherapy oils over the spot and began ringing her Tibetan bells where the pathetic, tiny shape writhed in terror.
Finally, Jackie entered the kitchen. All along she had known what was waiting for her: the small cellar, the mouth, belly and heart of all that was vile in Poet’s Cottage. She soon realised she had miscalculated – she should have begun her energetic work here while she was fresher. There were tendrils of energy snaking over the kitchen and she felt darkness close around her as if the lights had dimmed. She began to ring her bells, but a part of her knew it was futile. She lacked the experience to clear such a room. A signed diploma from a smiling woman in white in Singapore meant little against this powerful energy.
The cellar steps beckoned. The site where Sadie’s grandmother had been stabbed to death must be cleared. Reminding herself that where light walked, darkness retreated, Jackie summoned her courage and took her first step downwards.
Barely able to make out the wooden stairs, she inched her way down into the darkness. Where was the light switch? The walls felt damp, and over the pervasive smell of mould was a pungent stench, almost overpowering – a dead rat according to Jack. A few seconds later Jackie’s eyes adjusted and she saw the dangling switch. She reached for the cord and turned on the light, then froze in terror as she saw a cloaked figure standing against the far wall. Screaming, she turned to run back up the stairs, her panic amplified when the lights suddenly went out, leaving her in darkness.
‘Jackie? Where are you?’ Jack shouted from the kitchen.
‘Help me!’ Jackie called loudly, frantically trying to climb the stairs. She was halfway up when her foot slipped, and something twisted and snapped. Shit, shit, shit! The pain was intense but she had to get away from the figure – the apparition, or whatever it was. She pulled herself upright, her heart pounding ferociously, and then Jack was dragging her up the steps.
Sadie
had heard Jack’s car return, followed by the front door slamming. It was raining, which made working more pleasant. At intervals she could still hear chants and clapping from downstairs. Sadie was editing the final draft when an ear-piercing scream rang through the house. She ran down to the kitchen where Jack was holding Jackie, staring at the cellar door. His face looked strangely younger. If it had been anybody else, Sadie might have thought he looked afraid.
‘She saw a woman down there,’ he said, turning to look at Sadie. ‘I’ll have to check it out. Would anyone be lurking in the cellar?’
‘Of course not!’ Sadie said dismissively.
‘Well, she saw something down there so I’d better have a look. She’s hurt her foot.’
Genuinely shocked, Sadie assisted Jackie to a chair as Jack descended the steps. ‘Could you have imagined that you saw someone?’ she asked Jackie gently, noting the tears on her face. ‘Maybe you got too worked up doing the clearing. It’s so dark and gloomy down there.’
They could hear Jack moving about in the cellar. ‘Anybody here? Hello?’ His voice sounded faint.
Jackie shook her head. ‘I saw her, Sadie. She had on a long cloak. She was as real as you or me.’
Sadie felt as if the ground had shifted beneath her feet. She thought back to the grim figure she had seen in the graveyard the day before and felt a strong sense of dread. She crossed the kitchen and peered into the cellar. A pungent smell of decay drifted up to her. It did smell as if something had died. Light suddenly flooded the darkness of the underground room. Jack had found the switch. She heard him moving items around, then a muffled ‘Jesus Christ!’
‘Jack, are you alright?’ she called.
Jack came quickly up the stairs, holding his nose. ‘Just a couple of dead rats. I’ll get some gloves and take them out. No sign of any woman.’
Sadie could tell from Jack’s tone that there was something he wasn’t telling her. She ignored his order for her to stay in the kitchen, and went down to the cellar. What didn’t he want her to see?
The smell was worse in the small space. Then she saw them, two dead rats dressed in baby clothes lying on a piece of cardboard. Sadie read the words written on the cardboard in block letters: MAY SHE ROT IN HELL LIKE THIS PAIR. DEATH TO ALL WHORES AND RATS.
Jack came up behind her, snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘You should go to the police,’ he said. ‘It looks as though you’ve got an enemy around here. Some kind of weirdo.’
‘How could I have an enemy in Pencubitt? Nobody knows me! This is crazy. And the rats definitely weren’t down here the other day. How did they get here?’ Despite herself, Sadie’s voice shook. ‘Did you do it, Jack? Is this some scheme you’ve cooked up with Jackie to drive us out of here?’
He threw her a hostile look. ‘Don’t you know me better than that, Sadie?’
Sadie suddenly noticed how very cold it was in the cellar. Her arms were covered in goosebumps. ‘I don’t feel I know you at all!’ Sadie hissed. ‘I never would have dreamed you’d be with some flake like Jackie or believe in spirits!’
‘Jackie swears she saw a cloaked woman. I know she’s a bit left of centre and New Age but she doesn’t make up stuff like that.’ Plainly disgusted, Jack held the cardboard out in front of him, rats balancing precariously on it. ‘Maggots! Maggots and baby clothes don’t mix well in my book. Yuck! There’s a maggot on my trousers!’ He indicated the handwriting on the cardboard. ‘You should take this to the local police. They might be up to forensic techniques here. I’m sure they’ve heard of fingerprints at least.’
Sadie had been on the verge of confiding in him about the cloaked woman in the graveyard but his patronising comment made her hold her tongue. She still remembered his pitying scorn when she had told him about seeing Marguerite shortly after her death. If she told him about the graveyard woman he would only use it to mock her. Or, worse, as further proof of her mental imbalance and additional leverage in their fight for Betty.
‘Jackie and I should move in here with you for a while,’ Jack was saying. ‘You don’t know what you could be dealing with. There’s safety in numbers.’
‘When will you ever learn to keep out of my affairs?’ Sadie found her voice again. ‘The moment you decided to sleep with Jackie, you forfeited any right to comment on my life. I can handle whatever is happening here. I don’t need you and Jackie to rush to my rescue. I didn’t ask the pair of you to come and “space clear” my house.’
‘My daughter asked me to come,’ Jack pointed out. ‘I don’t like her being involved in crap like this.’ He looked at the rats. ‘You could be stirring anything up! I warned you about moving to a place like this!’
He went outside to bury the rats and Sadie phoned the hospital to make an appointment for Jackie. She knew that beneath Jack’s anger lay fear. He resented not being in control.
Jackie stared at Sadie as she assisted her into the car. ‘You know, Sadie. You’ve seen her too, haven’t you?’
Sadie shook her head sharply in denial. Jackie was the last person she wanted to confide in. Everything Sadie said to her would be repeated to Jack in pillow talk. As she turned to get into the driver’s seat, Sadie noticed Thomasina watching them from the front garden, arms folded and a smirk on her face.
‘There’s some man burying something in the backyard,’ the old woman said. ‘I wonder if you know?’
‘Thank you. He’s my ex-husband,’ Sadie said through clenched teeth.
‘I thought so. He has that look about him. It looked as if they were rat dolls dressed in fancy clothes,’ Thomasina said. She indicated the car. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘She hurt her foot. She fell in the cellar.’ As she spoke, Sadie studied her aunt’s face closely, wondering for the first time if Thomasina had a finger in this pie. The way she had suddenly popped up was unnerving. It reminded Sadie of arsonists who come to watch the fires they’ve lit. Perhaps it was the smirk.
‘She should keep out of that place!’ Thomasina hissed. The change in her was startling. ‘Some places aren’t conducive to health and sanity. Listen to me, I know! That’s where my mother kept the devil on a leash. She chained me up there once too! Nearly drove me out of my mind. What sort of mother is that? Would you ever chain your daughter in a dark cellar and tell her the devil was coming to eat her?’ She glared at Sadie, who was at a loss for words. ‘Of course you wouldn’t! But you have the bad blood inside you of one who did! The last time I went down those steps the devil was eating my mother. Ripping her insides out. That’s why I don’t go down there, and nor should you! It’s a bad, bad place!’ She stormed off down the side of the house and Sadie was left looking at an equally stunned Jackie. She felt immensely grateful that Jack hadn’t been there to witness the scene, although Jackie would no doubt fill him in later.
‘Well, that’s my aunt Thomasina who lives in the back garden,’ she said brightly. ‘We’re a right happy family.’
Jackie looked shell-shocked. ‘What a terrible thing to do to a child! The poor, poor woman. And then to witness her mother being murdered. Pearl must have been a monster to treat her children like that!’
Sadie said nothing, but as she drove to the doctor’s surgery she wondered privately how accurate Thomasina’s statements were. Marguerite had adored Pearl, hinting several times over the years that Thomasina was mentally unstable and had fabricated stories about their mother. How could Pearl be such a loving mother to one child and not to the other?
Perhaps there would be further clues in the manuscript of Webweaver, keys to help unlock the mystery of Pearl Tatlow, and perhaps lead Sadie towards identifying the woman in the black cloak. That was, of course, if Birdie’s perspective on the occupants of Poet’s Cottage could be trusted.
Whispers
Pencubitt, December 1935
I was sketching the Hellyer children’s funeral monument in the garden at Blackness House. It was a beautiful summer morning and I was happy to be surrounded by lavender bushes, sunflowers, butte
rflies, bees, jasmine and an old peacock named Oliver. A pair of honeysuckers were perched together on the stone fence and I hastily drew them. Only the noise of workmen intruded on the idyll. There always seemed to be men labouring at Blackness House, which ensured Mrs Bydrenbaugh’s continued popularity in Pencubitt at a time when so many were unemployed and struggling. Over the months I had grown accustomed to their banging and raised voices.
Violet approached me from the house. ‘I say! That’s rather good, isn’t it?’ she trilled. ‘I can’t draw for toffee. Mother said you had quite an eye.’ She settled herself next to me on the iron bench, arranging the folds of her lilac frock in an irritating, fussy manner, and I groaned inwardly. Lately, Violet had taken to coming to talk to me whenever I tried to work, inane girlish chatter about cinema stars, the King, jazz music and the occupants of Poet’s Cottage. I preferred my own company: solitude never failed to reward me with creative inspiration. Violet had no empathy for the needs of the artist. As far as she was concerned, the world existed to satisfy her every whim. In that way, she was very similar to Pearl. Like small children, they cared only for themselves. The girl’s lack of ambition, her complacent acceptance of her own dim wit irritated me. Why was money wasted on one so undeserving? I, who hungered for knowledge and worshipped at the altar of the creative arts, had such little funds to support the burning within me. Violet was pretty and sweet enough, but there was no depth to her. I knew that any friendship between the two of us would never be equal. She had the background, the money, and I only had the desire for what she took for granted. I would always resent and secretly despise her.
I sighed heavily and ignored her prattle about Clark Gable, Mae West and some other names I didn’t recognise. Mother would not have approved of such talk. She believed that modern music and the movies were works of the devil, created for a lazy spirit and decadent mind. Unfortunately, Violet wasn’t deterred by my monosyllabic replies. Her words fluttered around me like butterflies; I continued to draw but my concentration was lost.
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