by Tim O'Rourke
“‘Home,’ she smiled, sliding her hand free of mine.
“‘Then let me walk you there,’ I said.
“‘No, you must never come to my home,’ she warned, and it was the first time since meeting her that I had seen her smile fade.
“‘If it is your father you fear, then let me speak with him. Let him see that I’m an honourable man with good prospects for the future,’ I told her.
“‘No, no,’ she said, shying away from me. ‘I will meet you here tomorrow night.’ Then she was gone, disappearing back along the beach with some of the other youths we had been dancing with.
“I could not get her from my mind all day, yet I didn’t even know her name. It was like she had bewitched me in some way,” Sir Edmund said. “So that night, I made up some excuse so that I could once again be parted from my traveling companions. I went to the beach, and as promised, the beautiful young woman who I had been unable to rid from my mind was waiting for me. But tonight she had come alone.
“‘Where are your friends?’ I asked her.
“‘I have snuck away so I can see you again, see you one last time,’ she said. ‘We don’t have long together, just a few hours at the most before they realise I am gone.’
“‘What do you mean I won’t see you again? Where is it you are going to?’ I asked her.
“‘My people are moving on and I have to go with them,’ she said.
“‘But there must be a way…’ I started, but before the words had left my lips, she had kissed me.
“I kissed her back with as much passion as she kissed me. I could not help myself,” Sir Edmund explained. “It was like a spell had been cast over me. Hand in hand, she led me away up the beach where I spent the happiest hours of my life. Locked in each other’s arms and knowing that I might never see her again, I beseeched her to come visit me in England. I told her where she could find me. She said that it would be impossible – that she would never be able to leave her family. I feared that perhaps in some way she was being held prisoner.
“‘I am not a prisoner,’ she assured me. ‘They are my people. We travel together. We travel as one.’
“Having to take her at her word, and hoping that perhaps we could find a way, I drifted off to sleep on the sand, holding her in my arms,” Sir Edmund told us. “But when I woke she had gone – slipped from my arms as I lay sleeping – dreaming for her. I returned to England with a heavy heart.”
“Did you not search for her?” Ms. Locke asked.
“Where should I have looked?” he said in reply. “I didn’t even know her name.”
“I’ve had a few dates like that,” Potter cut in, dropping his cigarette to the floor. He lit another almost at once.
Ignoring him, Sir Edmund, continued. “Several months later, and believing all hope had been lost in ever finding that beautiful young woman again, she arrived one morning at my door.”
“Ouch,” Potter groaned. “That’s not so good. Got her preggers, had you?”
“It was good – very good,” Sir Edmund glared at him. “And yes, she was pregnant.”
“Come looking for money, did she?” Potter smirked. “I hope you got a DNA test because…”
“Look, Mr. Potter,” Sir Edmund seethed, “I do not know from which rock you’ve crawled out from under, but please feel free to crawl back beneath it at any time.”
“I’m just fine standing right here,” Potter said, that cocky look on his face again.
“What was her name?” I asked Sir Edmund, the pain in my arm beginning to ease.
“Her name was as beautiful as she,” Sir Edmund said, as if conjuring her memory in his mind. “She was called Magdalena. And even though we had been parted, it appeared that our love for each other had not faded. I welcomed Magdalena and my unborn child into my home. But I got the feeling that however deep our love was for each other, Magdalena was not truly happy. At first I thought it was because she was finding it difficult to settle in a foreign land, or perhaps that she missed her family. Then one night, I woke to find her sobbing at the foot of the bed. Taking her in my arms, I begged her to tell me what it was that made her so unhappy. It was that night as I held her close in my arms she told me everything. She told me what she really was.”
“She was one of these Leshy that you have described?” Ms. Locke asked.
“Yes,” Sir Edmund nodded. “But you have to understand that discovering what she truly was made no difference to my feelings for her. In fact, I loved Magdalena even more from that moment onwards.”
“Even though she was a… a…” Ms. Locke struggled to find the most tactful phrase or word.
“A monster?” Sir Edmund said for her. “I loved her even when she told me that her people were a race of murderous shapeshifters who lure their victims to their deaths by imitating voices and looking like people known to their victims.”
“What did you say?” I blurted out, remembering how I’d believed I’d seen Kayla in the woods and in the passageway.
“The Leshy can undertake terrible trickery,” Sir Edmund explained further. “They like to kill their victims in the woods and forests where they dwell. To do so, they mimic the voices and shapeshift to look like one of their victim’s friends or relatives. The victim, believing that they have come across someone they know and trust, follows them – follows them to their death.”
All I could see was Kayla in the front of my mind, and I too realised that I had been tricked. It hadn’t been Kayla I had seen in the woods. It hadn’t been Kayla I had seen in the passageway, it had been a Leshy – Miss Amanda coaxing me to my death. It wasn’t that thought which brought tears to my eyes, but the sudden realisation that it wasn’t my friend Kayla I had seen. I looked at Amanda, as she now lie on her side, head rested against her father’s lap. She looked so peaceful. So unable to harm or trick anyone.
“As you probably saw, my daughter can twist her hands and feet around,” Sir Edmund said. “This is so they can walk backwards, never breaking the stare – always maintaining eye contact with their victims as they lead them deeper and deeper into the woods and forests. But there is another reason, too, that they walk backwards…”
“It makes tracking them almost impossible,” I said, remembering how easily I had been fooled and confused by the footprints I had found on the edge of the wood.
“Exactly,” Sir Edmund said. “The Leshy can be cunning if they so wish.”
“And what about Magdalena?” Potter asked. “Was she so cunning?”
“If she was, then I never saw it,” Sir Edmund said. “She seemed so unlike her people – the other Leshy – she had travelled with. That is why she wanted to break her ties with them but feared doing so. She knew that they would come after her. And however much she wanted to come looking for me after that stolen night we shared on the beach, she knew that she couldn’t.”
“But she did,” Locke reminded him.
“Magdalena tried to hide her pregnancy from her people, but it became inevitable that they would find out, and eventually they did,” he said. “They wanted to know which of the Leshy she had mixed with, but no male in the group would step forward and take responsibility. Why should they? It had been none of them – I was the father of the child that Magdalena carried. It didn’t take too long for one of the Leshy to suspect that the father of the child had been the man they had seen Magdalena dancing with on the beach some months before. When confronted over the matter by her people, Magdalena confessed and declared her love for me. The Leshy were outraged, never before had one of their kind mixed with a human nor loved one. It was agreed that as soon as the child was born, it would be killed. The Leshy said it would be a freak – an abomination to their kind.
“So Magdalena fled her people and came to England in search of me – the natural father of the child. We had no idea how the child would be, but I believed that Magdalena was so beautiful in spirit and looks that the child would be perfect,” he said. “But there was a nagging disquiet inside of me t
hat I never shared with Magdalena.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Every full moon, despite however beautiful and tender Magdalena was, the Leshy that lived deep within her would show itself. She would not always fully turn into a wolf, but I could find her wandering backwards through the woods, looking like my father or my mother, both who had died some years before leaving Bastille Hall to me. So convincing was her mimickery and disguise, that I was often drawn into the woods by her. I feared that if it wasn’t for the fact I knew what Magdalena truly was, she might have killed me too, but I wasn’t fooled by her trickery. So it was agreed between us that on each full moon, she would come out to this outhouse. It had once been used as shelter by my parents during World War II, and as you now know, there was a tunnel connecting the house with the shelter. It was somewhere safe that Magdalena could be secured without harming me or others. And it was during the night of a full moon, as Magdalena sheltered in here, that she gave birth to Amanda,” he said, brushing his daughter’s hair with his fingers.
I looked at her. Amanda had her eyes closed, resting her head against her father. Was she asleep? I wondered. The hour was late.
“I heard her cry out in the dead of night,” Sir Edmund continued. “I unlocked the hidden panel and came rushing through the tunnel. But I was too late, for as I reached this very room, my beautiful Magdalena lay dead on the bed, cradling our newborn daughter to her chest.
“Although it was April, it snowed on the day I buried Magdalena in the woods. I knew that snow was for her,” he said.
“How come?” I asked.
“Magdalena said she had never seen snow, and she hoped that now she lived in England that she might see some, but she died before she did. I’m glad it snowed that day. She would have liked that. Soon after, I employed you, Ms. Locke,” Sir Edmund said, glancing up at her. “You had no idea what had gone on before, only that Amanda’s mother had died during childbirth, and that much was true at least. But I kept a watchful eye over Amanda, looking for any kind of change in her behaviour. But there was none that I could see, and I began to wonder if perhaps the Leshy curse, for that is what I believe it to be, had somehow passed over my daughter. So as the years passed and Amanda grew older without any sign of Leshy traits, I began to relax. Venture further away from home on business. I also removed the bed and other furniture from the outhouse, covering the trapdoor in the floor with carpet. However, Amanda discovered one day that you could slide back the floor of the wardrobe. It was locked, but she came asking what was hidden beneath. Knowing that her curiosity had been aroused, I took her down into the secret passage and showed her where it led to. But I forbade her to tell anyone about it…”
“Why did you do that?” Ms. Locke cut in, and I sensed she was a little hurt that such a secret had never been confided in her.
“At the back of my mind, I still feared that one day I might need it again,” Sir Edmund explained. “It might be a place where Amanda might seek out refuge like her mother had on a full moon. She promised not to tell anyone.”
“And Miss Amanda honoured your wish,” Ms. Locke said. “She even kept it secret from me.”
Sir Edmund gently stroked his daughter’s hair again as she continued to rest against him, her chest slowly falling and rising as she slept.
“But she soon started keeping other secrets,” Sir Edmund said. “Just after her sixteenth birthday, Amanda came to me.
“‘Look what I can do, father,’ she said, holding up both hands in the air. I’m double-jointed.’
“I looked with horror as Amanda slowly made her hands turn one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees so they looked as if they had been put on backwards.
“‘How long have you been able to do that?’ I gasped.
“‘I only just noticed,’ she said. ‘I can do it with my feet too!’
“I stifled a scream as I watched her turn her feet at the ankle. Then she walked slowly backwards across the room.
“‘You must never do that again,’ I warned her.
“‘Why not, father? It doesn’t hurt,’ she told me over the sound of her bones snapping and crunching in her wrists and ankles.
“‘Because it could be very bad for you,’ I insisted. What else could I say?
“It just so happened that I had to return once again to the Bay of Biscay. The business deal I had put in place there so many years ago had started to turn sour. I had no choice but to go. If I dealt with my affairs correctly when I got there, I might not need to be away for more than twenty-four hours. I did not want to leave Amanda after what she had shown me. As it turned out, and to my luck, the problems I had abroad with my business partners were not as bad as I thought. So with a few hours free before taking my return flight back to England, I went back to the beach where I had first met Magdalena. Nothing much had changed. There was even another party taking place on the beach with dancers and conjurors performing their tricks. With that longing for Magdalena anew in my heart, I walked away from that beach and did not look back.
“I had only been back a few days when I received a letter in the post. It had been written in an unfamiliar hand, but the text was plain to read. It had been written by a Leshy. One of them had seen me on the beach on my return visit to the Bay of Biscay and recognised me as the man who had some years before mixed with one of their own. Apparently they had never stopped looking for Amanda – the child they called an abomination and an insult to their race,” Sir Edmund said, his voice dropping to a mere whisper so as not to upset Amanda should she be secretly awake and listening.
“What else did this letter say?” I asked him.
“The letter writer said that one of the Leshy had followed me back to England and had discovered where the child and I lived. The letter stated that on the next full moon, they would come for the child – for Amanda. You can only imagine the horror and fear I felt after reading the letter. I flew into a blind panic, my only concern to protect the life of my daughter from these creatures. I decided that I must get her far away from England and as soon as possible. I therefore enrolled her into the care of a private school in Switzerland, but I knew my plan was doomed before it had even started. Amanda was showing more traits of the Leshy with each passing day. There was no hope of me sending her abroad. Desperate, I took Amanda into my confidence. She was no longer six, but sixteen and turning into a woman. So I told her everything, just as I have now told you.”
“So instead of sending her away like you told me you had, she was really hiding down here all the while?” Ms. Locke asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “I didn’t mean to lie to you, Ms. Locke, but I was trying to protect you as much as I was my daughter. That is why I demanded you leave. Because I wanted you to be safely away before the Leshy came for Amanda. Therefore, I am sorry I lied to you. You have been a loyal, hardworking, and trusted employee for many years, and I realise that perhaps now I should have taken you into my confidence.”
Hearing these words, Ms. Locke began to weep beside me.
“What’s the matter with you now?” Potter groaned.
“That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she wept, sniffing back her tears.
“What, that you’re a good cleaner? Really?” Potter said. “You need to get out more, sweetheart.”
“Ms. Locke has been more than just a cleaner to me, Mr. Potter,” Sir Edmund scolded him. “She has been like a mother to Amanda, and I for one will be eternally grateful to her for that.”
Hearing this, Ms. Locke broke out in a heavier flood of tears.
“What the fu…” Potter started.
“So why keep your daughter locked away?” I quickly cut in, saying the first thing that came to mind.
“What else could I do?” Sir Edmund said. “I hadn’t taken Ms. Locke into my confidence so I couldn’t risk her seeing Amanda. I couldn’t go to the police for risk of them discovering what Amanda was turning into. We were both trapped. But with each passing day, Amanda would start to throw
violent fits. It was as if the Leshy had hold of her from the inside. But I soon came to understand that like all adolescents, she was beginning to turn from a child into an adult – except in my daughter’s case – from a child into an adult Leshy. And then one night as I sat in here with her, looking more wolf than human and tethered up so that she couldn’t break free and hurt anyone living beyond the walls of Bastille hall, I had an idea. I suspected that the Leshy were watching the house as they waited for the next full moon. So what if they caught sight of Amanda in her Leshy form? What if they saw that she wasn’t so different from them? My hope was that they wouldn’t want to kill one of their own, and therefore leave us in peace.
“So on the nights that Amanda looked more wolf than human, I put her on a leash so she couldn’t escape me, and paraded her back and forth along the edge of the wood where I believed the Leshy were waiting and watching from amongst the trees, as I knew they preferred the solitude of a wood or forest as a full moon grew nearer.
‘“Leshy! Leshy! Leshy!” I would holler, trying to draw their attention, desperate for them to see that Amanda was not so different from them. But I do not know if my plan has worked,” he confessed.
“I’m afraid I don’t think it has,” I told him.
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
“Was Amanda loose in the wood this morning?” I said.
“No,” he shook his head. “She has tried to escape, but her attempts have always been thwarted. The closest she came was last night as she managed to sneak back into the house and climb from the window. But I caught her before she had managed to escape.”
“Then it must have been a Leshy I saw in the wood this morning,” I said.
“What makes you think such a thing?” he asked.
“I thought I saw an old friend of mine,” I tried to explain without wanting to get upset again. “I love this friend very much, so when I heard her call out my name, I spun around and there she was, beckoning me deeper into the woods. I followed, believing – wanting – it to be her.”
“How can you be so sure it wasn’t her?” Sir Edmund asked.