The Woman in Black

by Martyn Waites

  Edward pulled his hands away from her, his head dropping.

  ‘Please, Edward,’ said Eve, desperation and hurt in her voice now. ‘I thought we were friends …’

  Edward looked up and what Eve saw in his eyes almost broke her heart. Tears were forming and welling, his face creased with pain.

  Eve sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Edward. You can … go. Just … go now.’

  He ran away from her as fast as he could, back to the dormitory, clutching the puppet tightly to him.

  She turned to Harry. ‘I’ve lost him,’ she said. ‘I thought I was so close to him, but …’ She shook her head. ‘Now what do we do?’

  Eve stared at the dropped notebook, the one sentence staring up at her.

  She told me not to tell.

  Faith and Action

  ‘It wasn’t as bad as this before …’

  The whole of the cellar floor was submerged in water. Eve could feel it seeping into her shoes, and the stench of rot was even worse.

  ‘Must be a leak somewhere,’ said Harry, looking around. ‘But it doesn’t seem as if anybody’s living down here …’

  Eve felt something nudge her ankle, and gasped in shock. Harry was right there at her side.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, eyes closed, not daring to look.

  Harry straightened up, held out something long, grey and slithery in his hand. ‘An eel,’ he said, ‘a dead one. Don’t know how that got in …’

  ‘Get rid of it,’ she said, head averted. ‘Please. I can’t stand those things. And it stinks. But then this whole place does …’

  Harry threw the eel away in the corner, wiping his hands on the stone wall. ‘Thought you’d like those things,’ he said, smiling. ‘You know, being a Londoner and that. Jellied, isn’t it?’

  Eve grimaced. ‘Please.’

  They began to search the cellar, going through box after rotten box, pulling out papers and letters, all damp and mildewed, age-faded and decayed. Some crumbled and disintegrated when touched. They soon realised there was nothing that could help them with the present; only fragments of the past.

  While Harry was absorbed with one box, taking out papers, studying them, shaking his head and replacing them, Eve watched him.

  ‘Was that you,’ she said, ‘last night?’

  He turned to her, frowning.

  ‘Flying over the sea. A squadron of Halifaxes?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘right.’ He shook his head. She couldn’t see his eyes when he answered. ‘No. Not my turn, I’m afraid.’

  She was about to ask him further questions, but he had spotted the phonograph. ‘Hey,’ he said, smiling, ‘haven’t seen one of those since I was a boy …’

  ‘It doesn’t work,’ said Eve. ‘I’ve tried it.’

  He picked it up off the shelf and began running his fingers over it, examining it. ‘You leave that to me.’

  Seeing he was engrossed in it, Eve went back to scouring the box nearest to her. She found something solid inside. Bringing it out, she held it up to the weak light, examined it. A key, and written on the side were two initials: HJ.

  She scanned the cellar, looking for a suitable lock to try it on but couldn’t find anything. As she did so, a bell rang upstairs.

  ‘That’s the bell for the end of break. I’d better …’

  Harry nodded, looked back at the phonograph. ‘Off you go, then. I’ll see if I can fix this.’

  She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  And ran up the stairs.

  ‘Right, children,’ she said once she had reached the makeshift classroom, ‘this afternoon, I want you all to write a story about’ – her eyes roved round the room, looking for inspiration – ‘this house. Yes. This house. Whatever comes to mind.’

  The children were all looking at her quizzically. She knew they were wondering why her feet were wet, but none of them had dared to ask her and she hadn’t volunteered the information.

  Eve tried not to look at Edward, to see what his reaction was. The exercise was for his benefit. She wanted to see what he would come up with.

  Joyce put her hand up.

  ‘Yes, Joyce.’

  ‘Isn’t it our times tables now?’

  ‘Well, normally, yes, it would be. But not today.’ She stood up, walked to the door, gripping the newly discovered key firmly. ‘We’ll do those later. I just have to pop out. I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘But you can’t leave us,’ said Joyce, voice indignant.

  Eve stopped at the door, thought.

  ‘Joyce,’ she said, ‘I’m leaving you in charge while I’m gone. It’s a big responsibility, so make sure everyone gets on with their work.’

  Joyce, as Eve had expected, couldn’t have looked more proud.

  While they were busy working, Eve went through the house, key in hand. She tried doors, cabinets, drawers, anything with a keyhole, no matter how big or small. Eventually she had exhausted all the locks she could think of, but hadn’t found a single one that it fitted.

  She went to see how Harry was getting on.

  Ghosts of the Past

  Harry had carried the phonograph out of the cellar, laying it on the kitchen table. This room was easier to work in, and drier, plus – and he didn’t normally hold with all that supernatural nonsense – something about that cellar unnerved him. More than just the smell, it was … he didn’t know. He couldn’t explain. His was a practical vocabulary not given to flights of fancy, but there was definitely something not right about the place.

  The repair was proving trickier than he had expected. Harry was normally good with his hands, but bringing life back to this old, rusted, decayed piece of equipment seemed to be beyond him. He realigned the cylinder shaft one last time and gave the hand crank another turn.

  ‘Right,’ he said, wiping the dirt and rust off his fingers. ‘Come on, you little …’

  The machine whirred into life.

  ‘Got you …’ Harry couldn’t keep the delight from his voice. He plugged in the rope-cord headphones and placed them over his ears. The sound he could hear was warped, scratched. Indistinct and distorted. A woman’s voice came through in snatches and crackles. Distant and hesitant. A ghost from the past.

  ‘… Alice Drablow …’ The next sentence was lost. ‘… Marsh House my whole life …’

  Got that, thought Harry, mentally filling in the missing words. He waited, but there was nothing more. He moved the needle forward along the cylinder. Through the hiss of static the voice emerged again.

  ‘Nathaniel’s drowned and she blames me …’ More static. ‘… a better mother than she could ever have …’

  He moved the needle around, placing it on different sections of the cylinder, trying to get Alice Drablow’s voice back, but to no avail. That segment had completely deteriorated. With a sigh of exasperation, Harry moved on to a point where the static was low. But all he could hear was ambient silence. He was about to give up when a new voice came through, faint and distant.

  ‘Never forgive. Never forget.’

  Then silence. Harry leaned forward, listening hard, willing the voice to speak again. It returned, louder this time, closer. Like the speaker was right beside him, whispering in his ear. He could almost feel the breath on his neck.

  ‘Never forgive. Never forget.’

  Harry shivered.

  Behind him, through the open door leading down to the cellar, a shadow appeared on the wall, swelling and looming as it came up the stairs. Harry, his concentration entirely taken with the phonograph, began to feel uneasy as Alice’s voice returned.

  ‘Jennet, I’m …’ The crackling took over. ‘… sister …’

  Even in the bad state the recording was in, there was no mistaking the fear in Alice Drablow’s voice. Her voice shook as she spoke.

  Behind Harry, the shadow on the wall became elongated as the figure reached the entrance at the top of the cellar stairs. Harry felt a tightening in his chest, his breathing becoming laboured. No, he thought, not now, not here …<
br />
  Alice’s voice continued.

  ‘Get …’ More hissing. ‘… from me. You’re not …’ The recording skipped forward. Harry couldn’t bring it back. ‘… imagining you. You’re …’ More static … guilty conscience …’ Crackling. ‘… I said, get away from me!’

  The last sentence was screamed out, then nothing more. Just the whir and wheeze of the ancient machine, the sound of Alice Drablow’s strenuous breathing from years before.

  The shadow stretched right round the room, reaching out along the wall and over the ceiling, down towards Harry. He felt the pain in his chest increase and a black, watery darkness engulf him. Other voices came to him then, ones not on the recording.

  ‘Help me … help me, Captain …’

  He closed his eyes. Suddenly there came an awful, distorted shriek. He cried out, the sound assaulting his eardrums. He threw off the headphones, shot back from the table and stared at the phonograph.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He jumped, his hand clutched to his chest, breathing ragged. The voice was in the room with him. Eve was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  The shadow disappeared.

  Eve looked at him. Are you all right?’

  He didn’t reply.

  She nodded towards the phonograph. ‘Any joy?’

  ‘No,’ said Harry, ‘far from it.’

  The Key

  Eve stood by the window in the hallway, looking out at the causeway; that long stretch of half-submerged road stretching back to civilisation. When she thought of the house and everything that had been going on in it, civilisation seemed even further away.

  Harry caught her up. He had told her about his experiences with the phonograph, letting her listen for herself. After doing so she had walked out of the kitchen, deep in thought.

  She turned to him now. ‘Could that have been who I saw?’ she said. ‘Jennet? I saw her gravestone.’

  Harry frowned. ‘The way Alice spoke, it didn’t sound as if Jennet was real. The recording was very poor but it sounded like Alice was blaming her own guilty conscience. Imagining things.’

  ‘But I saw someone. In the graveyard.’

  ‘Yes, but you said yourself that she disappeared when you tried to follow her.’ He tried to laugh, failed. ‘I mean, really, if I didn’t know better, I would say she was a …’

  ‘Ghost?’ asked Eve, eyes locked on to his. ‘Is that what you were going to say?’

  Harry shook his head in exasperation. The children were supposed to be working, but they were all staring through the open doorway at the two of them. After what had happened, neither of them could blame them for being scared and curious.

  He hoped they couldn’t hear what he and Eve were talking about. ‘What about the key?’ he asked. ‘Have you … have you had any luck?’

  ‘No,’ said Eve. ‘I’ve tried it everywhere, every lock I could find in the whole house. Even the ones I didn’t think it would fit. Nothing. Whatever it opens isn’t here.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘Then wherever it fitted wasn’t here in the first place.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Eve, frowning, trying to recall something. ‘But I’ve seen those letters somewhere before, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Someone at school? Someone in your family, perhaps?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, it’s since I’ve been here …’

  She looked back at the causeway, stretching to the village of Crythin Gifford and beyond.

  Crythin Gifford …

  She glanced at the key clutched in her hand, at the initials ‘HJ’, then back to Harry. ‘The village.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘Really? You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely. I went there the night we arrived. I … Yes. Those initials. I saw them in the village.’ She looked through the double doors at the children. They immediately pretended to be working once more. ‘I’ll tell Jean we’re going now. She can take the class.’

  A ghost of a smile appeared on Harry’s lips, accompanied by a twinkle of humour in his eye. ‘Would you like some moral support with Sergeant Battleaxe?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Eve, blushing slightly, ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, heading towards the front door. ‘Then I’ll get the Jeep started.’

  Eve walked towards the children’s dormitory to talk to Jean. Before she reached the door she turned.

  And saw someone at the end of the corridor.

  A figure, all in black.

  Eve’s heart skipped a beat. She froze to the spot. The figure didn’t move.

  ‘Jean?’ Eve asked, her voice smaller than she had intended.

  The figure remained motionless.

  Eve felt her legs and arms begin to tremble. ‘Get out …’ The words came out in a hissed whisper.

  She moved slowly along the corridor towards it.

  ‘Get out …’ She had found her voice now. She moved faster, anger overtaking fear until she stood right before the figure.

  ‘I said, get out!’

  She pulled her arm back, let go a punch at the figure.

  To find that it was a coat hanging on a peg.

  Eve stepped back, shaken.

  ‘No … no …’

  She turned round to find Jean standing in the corridor, staring at her, features impassive.

  ‘A word, please?’

  Jean walked back into the children’s dormitory. Eve, dumbfounded, followed.

  Jean shook her head vigorously as if trying to dislodge something that shouldn’t be in there, a thought that she found alien to her belief system.

  ‘No,’ she said, unwilling and unable to countenance what Eve was telling her. ‘No, no, no. Absolute poppycock.’

  ‘It’s not, Jean,’ said Eve, trying to be patient and not let the exasperation show in her voice. She faced Jean across one of the beds. There was more than just physical space between them. ‘Whoever she is, we – that’s Harry and I – think she had something to do with Tom’s death.’

  ‘Oh, Harry and I. Of course.’

  ‘Jean, please, just listen …’

  ‘No,’ said Jean, snapping at her, eyes fiery. ‘No. You listen. Listen to yourself. You should hear what you sound like.’

  Eve sighed. ‘Look, Jean, I know it must sound mad …’

  ‘Yes, it does. Sounds it and looks it.’

  Jean spoke as if that were the end of the argument. Eve pressed on.

  ‘Jean, please. She seems to be trying to talk to Edward, to communicate with him in some way.’

  Jean drew in a sharp breath, used it to hold her posture in its usual military bearing before she spoke. ‘Do you want to know what I think this is?’ Her voice was no longer angry. There was still the usual authoritarianism, but it was tempered by a kind of compassion. ‘I think you’re looking for any way not to blame yourself.’

  Eve felt tears prick behind her eyes and was determined not to let them fall. ‘That’s not true …’

  ‘Miss Parkins …’ Jean put her head to one side and spoke slowly, spelling things out for her. ‘It is my belief that you are not suited to this. And I don’t want you to blame yourself. If anything, it’s my fault for bringing you here.’

  ‘No …’ Eve shook her head. ‘No … I can’t leave them here. I won’t.’

  ‘And yet,’ said Jean, continuing in the same calm, rational voice, ‘you now want to abandon your duty of care to them and go to the village with the captain.’ She smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. ‘Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I … I … no. It’s not like that. I have to go to …’ Eve swallowed hard. ‘I’m going there now. That’s all I came to say.’

  Jean nodded, her features hard, cold. ‘Very well. But should you choose not to return, I would find that perfectly acceptable.’

  Eve had a retort planned but thought better of it.

  Instead she went to join Harry.

  Survivors

  Harry watched the road ahead. Eve watched Harry.

  Th
e RAF captain was tense, his hands gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles were rigid and white. The charming, smiling young man she had become used to had disappeared. In his place was a wild-eyed bundle of nerves. He drove the Jeep at great speed across the causeway.

  ‘Harry …’ She spoke gently, not wanting to disturb him but hoping that he would take notice of her and slow down. She was becoming frightened.

  ‘I received a message on the radio,’ he said, eyes never leaving the road ahead. ‘I’m needed back at the airfield. I’m afraid I can only drop you off and pick you up in a couple of hours. Will that be all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that should be fine.’

  Harry gave a curt nod. Eve noticed that the sweat on his forehead was beginning to run down his face.

  ‘Harry, is everything all right?’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, his voice slightly too loud and too high. He still wouldn’t look at her. ‘The tide’s coming in. We have to hurry.’

  Eve looked out of the window. The sun was high, the sky clear and the snow had started to melt. The water was calm, hardly even lapping at the edges of the causeway.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he snapped, and pushed his foot harder on the accelerator.

  Eve gripped tightly to the edges of her seat. ‘Harry, please …’

  He drove even faster, his eyes mad, staring, focused not on the road but at something far beyond it.

  ‘Please, slow down …’

  Harry took deep breaths while he drove. He was trying to keep himself calm. He hit the steering wheel hard. Once, twice, three times. It didn’t seem to work.

  Eve turned to him. ‘Harry …’

  ‘Quiet!’ He shouted the word out.

  Eve flinched, shocked by the ferocity in his voice.

  ‘Sorry, I …’ The words seemed unconvincing, even to him. ‘I need to concentrate …’

  The Jeep went even faster. Eve held on to her seat, closed her eyes.

  Eventually they reached the other side and Harry brought the Jeep to a halt. He slumped forward over the steering wheel, breathing hard as if he had just finished a marathon. He was shaking.