Mythophidia

by Storm Constantine

  All the doors in the bungalow were featureless and modern, except for the door to Emma Tizard’s workroom. It was made of heavy wood, panelled, and had a huge brass handle. ‘Perhaps she was changing the style of the place,’ Cynthia said. She opened the door. All three of them had to gasp. Not because of anything unpleasant exactly, but just because of the contrast between the workroom and the rest of Emma’s home.

  The heavy door had acted like a seal. Inside there was a choking stench of stale cigarette smoke and stale alcohol, mixed with heavy incense. The curtains, thick blue velvet, were drawn across the window. Cynthia quickly went to open it, craving fresh air. She threw back the curtains. Beyond them, the window was frosted. All this time, having only viewed it from the outside, Cynthia had been under the impression that Emma used the small dressing room next to her bedroom to work in and that this was part of the bathroom.

  It was not a big room, perhaps partitioned off from the bathroom itself. There was barely space for the large, ancient desk under the window and the huge cupboard against the far wall. Bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, apart from a place opposite the door where a huge, gilt-framed mirror hung. Papers were strewn everywhere; ashtrays overflowed onto elderly coffee-mug rings; an easel stood folded in a corner draped with rags. Empty gaps in the clutter suggested items which had been taken away by the police.

  ‘Yes well, I certainly think we have a sense of Emma here,’ Mr. Tizard said dryly.

  ‘You think so?’ Cynthia Peeling was not so sure. What they had found here had little link with the girl she’d thought Emma to be. It was so sloppy, almost aggressively so. Books leaned everywhere on the shelves. Cynthia was compelled to start straightening them. The subject matter was wide, but again didn’t seem the sort of things Emma would have been interested in. Here were the ‘unusual’ belongings, to which the police had alluded and the tabloids had made such a meal of. There were books on mysticism, erotica, occultism and a pile of cheap, tawdry novels. Cynthia shook her head. She picked up a small volume that had been lying open on the desk. A chapter entitled ‘Higher Levels of Awareness’ had been heavily underlined in places. ‘Polarity disposition,’ Cynthia read, ‘Ritual dissimulation and embodiment.’ It made no sense to her but still disturbed her, made her skin prickle. Unpleasant thoughts were starting to form and, superstitiously, Cynthia had no wish to think ill of the dead.

  Mrs. Tizard was collecting up a selection of gin bottles from the floor. Her mouth had become a thin, disapproving line. Cynthia had no wish to speak to her.

  ‘Well,’ Cynthia said to Mr. Tizard, hating the brightness in her voice, ‘it would appear Emma lived mostly in this room. I told you she worked very hard. It’s not really surprising that she allowed the place to get a bit messy.’

  Mr. Tizard didn’t respond. He had picked up a sheaf of sketches and was impatiently leafing through them. ‘Do you know this man?’ he said and thrust a sketch into Cynthia’s hands.

  ‘Er... no. I don’t think so,’ she replied, feeling heat suffuse her face. The subject of the drawing was naked, sporting an undisguised erection. She dropped the paper quickly onto the desk. The drawing seemed to leer at her.

  Mr. Tizard had slumped heavily into the swivel chair in front of the desk. Cynthia empathised with what he must be feeling. She started to tidy the scattered papers into one pile. Apart from reams of illegible notes written in a careless scrawl, there must have been hundreds of sketches and watercolours, many of them depicting the same naked man. Some of his poses were so explicit, Cynthia had to keep averting her eyes while tidying them. She was also distressed to find his face becoming more and more familiar to her. Could it be Michael Homey? No, of course not, and yet she’d seen no other man with whom Emma had had any connection.

  Apart from these disturbingly erotic sketches, there were also many watercolours similar to the one Emma had given to Cynthia; strange, unearthly landscapes in flowing, muted colours; ethereal beings floating in clouds that looked like palaces. Holding them up one by one, Cynthia was tempted to keep some of these for herself. Emma Tizard had been unbelievably talented. Some of the pictures had the quality of photography, so detailed was their content. Where had Emma got the ideas for these paintings? Then she came upon a series of violent, horrifying scenes, where grinning demonic shapes inflicted torture on bodies that spouted blood, and in some cases, entrails.

  Cynthia winced. No one had spoken in the room for several minutes. Books on art, shells, native cultures were heaped on the floor. Cynthia arranged them on an empty shelf. Perhaps if the room looked tidier...? Mrs. Tizard had opened the cupboard. She uttered a dismal squeak and Cynthia turned round.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I... I don’t know. Not really.’ The door swung back and forth. A grinning human skull was the first thing to catch Cynthia’s eye. Everything else in the cupboard looked as if it belonged to a medieval apothecary. There were jars of roots and powders, an ornate, spired incense burner (that explained the smell), curly-handled knives, an abundance of other strange paraphernalia. A bizarre diagram, surrounded by what appeared to be foreign words, was scrawled in chalk on the back of the cupboard. ‘Why?’ Mrs. Tizard said, weakly. ‘Why?’

  Cynthia Peeling steeled herself. She gestured for Mr. Tizard to follow her into the kitchen. Sunlight was struggling through the cloudy sky outside, filling the room with a comforting glow. The fridge clicked on and hummed. Cynthia spoke in a forced whisper. ‘Steven, I hate to have to say this, but I must. Do you suppose what we’ve found in there did have anything to do with Emma’s death?’

  Mr. Tizard didn’t appear to take offence. ‘Well the police wondered the same thing. There’re some funny types interested in this sort of business.’ He looked very tired. ‘It’s an explanation, but not one that I’d like to be true. You never saw anyone odd with Emma, did you?’

  Cynthia shook her head. ‘No. I never even saw her have a visitor.’ She sighed. ‘It’s all so strange. Emma seemed so ordinary.’ She was now at a loss for words.

  ‘Seemed to be, yes,’ Mr. Tizard agreed, ‘but we can’t deny what we’ve seen in that room. As you know, she spent a lot of time alone. Perhaps too much so. If Emma was messing around with something, or someone, peculiar, it’s too late to do anything about it now.’

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ Cynthia announced firmly.

  Mr Tizard sighed. ‘You didn’t know Emma that well,’ he said. ‘I don’t think any of us did.’

  Cynthia was appalled to hear a parent say such a thing of their child. She found herself thinking of her own son. Did he get up to terrible things when he was away from home? She couldn’t bear to think about it.

  Mrs. Tizard came out of the workroom and announced that as soon as the police had finished with her daughter’s belongings, she wanted the lot burned. There was nothing of Emma there that she wished to keep. To lose a daughter under such awful circumstances was bad enough, but to discover she had some kind of weird alter ego was even worse. Even their memory of her couldn’t survive intact. Cynthia was now convinced that somehow, unknown to anyone, sweet, innocent Emma had become unwittingly involved with unsavoury characters, who had been instrumental in her death. An ingrained sense of decency, along with her superstitious dread, made her feel that no one but the three of them should ever know exactly what had been found in Wren’s Nest. Let it be burned and forgotten. Nobody could do anything about it now.

  Some weeks later, after the inquest had taken place, and press interest had died down, Mr Tizard came down alone to see to the disposal of Emma’s belongings. The police had come up with no further leads concerning the murder, and it seemed it would remain a mystery forever. The Tizards had put the house on the market. Probably, they would have preferred to burn it down. Obeying, or agreeing with, his wife’s desires, Mr Tizard packed everything, including Emma’s smart, expensive clothes into plastic bin liners.

  Cynthia Peeling drove him in her estate car up to the borough dump and disposed of the
lot. It was late afternoon by the time the job was finished. Cynthia was in two minds about what they were doing. She couldn’t help feeling it was wrong that all Emma’s beautiful clothes and the more expensive of her books had been destroyed, yet she must respect the parents’ wishes, and part of her could understand why they felt the need to dispose of everything so finally. However, what really went against the grain was throwing all Emma’s drawings and paintings into a skip along with other paper rubbish. Whatever the Tizards might think of the subject matter, Emma had been a superb artist. Wasn’t it the worst insult anyone could give, to destroy an artist’s work after their death? Didn’t artists want their work to be immortal? She told herself that it was for this reason she rolled up a sizeable number of Emma’s paintings and stowed them in her bedroom while Mr Tizard was occupied elsewhere. Why she also pocketed the book that had been lying open on Emma’s desk, she didn’t consciously examine.

  Cynthia was relieved when Mr. Tizard told her he was going home that evening. She quickly agreed to keep the keys for Wren’s Nest and to show prospective buyers round it. For some reason, Mrs. Tizard hadn’t wanted to leave them with an estate agent. As she drove him to the station, Cynthia took the opportunity to direct a few more questions at Mr Tizard. They had been forming in her mind all day. She didn’t like to pry in other people’s affairs normally, but felt she just couldn’t exist if her questions weren’t answered.

  ‘What was Emma like?’ she asked. ‘When she was a child, what was she really like?’

  ‘You’ve lived next door to her for two years,’ Mr. Tizard answered. ‘You’ve probably seen more of her than we have. She left home at eighteen, went away to college. We only got about two visits a year out of her after that. Sometimes she asked for money, but it was always paid back.’

  ‘But as a child...?’

  ‘She was a very private girl,’ Mr. Tizard answered. ‘Quiet, well-behaved’. There was a few moments’ silence. ‘I don’t think we ever knew her.’

  ‘What about boyfriends? She was such an attractive girl. She must have had boyfriends.’

  ‘Not that we knew of. Did you ever see her with a man?’

  Cynthia shook her head, quickly passing to the next subject, thinking of the drawings they’d seen. ‘And the girl she lived with in London, the one who disappeared, did you know about that?’

  ‘Emma came home for a couple of days after that. I think she was quite upset. She slept most of the time. Never spoke much about it though.’ Mr. Tizard suddenly looked at Cynthia very keenly. ‘I can’t help you,’ he said. ‘The police have already asked all these questions, and if they can’t work out what happened, I don’t suppose we can. Perhaps you should forget about Emma Tizard and hope that a nice young family buy Wren’s Nest now.’

  Cynthia had her suspicions, from a couple of veiled remarks that Mr. Tizard had let drop earlier while they were clearing the work-room, that he knew more than he was telling of his daughter’s strangeness, but she was wise enough to recognise ‘keep off’ signals and let the matter rest.

  That night, she lay awake in bed next to her snoring husband. Emma Tizard, who were you? her mind chanted. The house, so unused; the strange room with its uncharacteristic disarray. Cynthia had never seen Emma smoke and Emma had always politely refused any alcoholic drinks at the Peelings. Gin bottles and overflowing ashtrays? Had it really been Emma who’d lived in that room?

  Cynthia tried to sleep. Dream fragments swooped around her, all of Emma. Emma laughing, her long red hair blowing in an angry wind. Emma hunched over her worktable, frowning in concentration, one hand plunged into her hair, the other lovingly shading in an outline of male genitalia. And there was Emma, naked, arms raised to the sky, dancing herself to a frenzy beneath a full, pale moon. Now, she and Emma were walking arm in arm through a park, Emma chatting girlishly, no longer shy or withdrawn. ‘Of course, it takes so long and there are always errors,’ she was saying, ‘but it doesn’t matter, the result is always the same.’

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ Cynthia said.

  ‘Of course you don’t, you’re so fucking normal! Frigid bitch!’ And Emma was laughing at her.

  Cynthia woke up, panting. She felt that a noise must have awoken her but could hear nothing. There was a movement in the corner of the room, in the shadows, where Cynthia’s plump, decorative armchair stood; the chair behind which she had stowed Emma’s paintings. Cynthia blinked. Was someone sitting there?

  A movement, a shift of moonlight. Someone rose, snake-like, from the chair and came towards the bed. It was Emma Tizard herself! The witch Emma, the secret Emma, and undeniably, a possibly vengeful Emma.

  Cynthia could make no sound. She couldn’t see Emma’s face, but the hair was unmistakable, not bound, not plaited, but loose and glorious red in the half-light. The figure moved to the dressing table and picked up the photograph of Cynthia’s son, Richard. Cynthia saw the pale flesh, the long fingers, the perfect unvarnished nails.

  Emma looked at the photograph and chuckled. She turned to Cynthia. ‘What a white little worm. Bet he’s a lousy fuck,’ she said.

  Cynthia Peeling could not scream, but her muffled, petrified squeaks woke her husband. He turned on the bedside light. ‘Cyn, what’s the matter, love?’ He shook her. ‘Wake up! Cyn!’

  She opened her eyes, puffing and gasping as if she’d been drowning. The bottom sheet had come untucked and had wrapped itself around her hot legs.

  ‘She!’ Cynthia said emphatically.

  ‘What she?’

  Cynthia felt she shouldn’t say the name. ‘The dead girl. Her from next door. My God, Rod, she was here!’

  Rodney put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Come on, love, bad dream, that’s all.’ He made soothing noises and arranged the pillows beneath her head. ‘Get back to sleep. You’ll soon forget.’

  Cynthia felt her breathing slow down. She closed her eyes. No one could ever have called her an imaginative person. She did not believe in ghosts and thought witchcraft was an excuse for bizarre sexual practices, but if her husband had known what was going through her head at that moment, he would have thought her a stranger.

  Emma Tizard will haunt me now, Cynthia Peeling thought. Because of what I’ve seen, she will haunt me.

  Next morning, once Rodney had gone to work, Cynthia had to go into the lounge and draw the curtains on the window that overlooked Wren’s Nest. She considered calling up Lily Treen to see if she’d suffered any more nightmares about Emma, but refrained from doing so for fear of looking foolish. She thought with dread of the rolled up paintings behind her chair in the bedroom, and the little book in her dressing-table drawer. However, by lunchtime, being a strong-minded creature, she’d managed to pull herself together and examine rationally the way she was feeling. She drank a glass of milk and made herself a salad sandwich.

  It’s over now, she thought. We will never know what happened to Emma Tizard or find out any of her secrets, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to know. It’s been horrifying but the funeral’s past, the sorting out has passed and soon someone else will live in Wren’s Nest and it will be alive again.

  Having comforted herself, she went to wash her glass, plate and knife at the sink. Leaves had begun to fall from the apple trees in the garden. The season was changing and the sun looked low in the sky. Cynthia put the radio on to listen to the afternoon play and went to open the curtains in the lounge. No more of this! she thought, briskly pulling the drapes apart.

  There was a light burning in Wren’s Nest.

  Cynthia’s first thought was that the estate agents were showing someone round the place, but that was impossible because she had the only keys. Almost automatically, she slung a jacket round her shoulders and was running out of the house and over the lawn towards Wren’s Nest, before she realised what she was doing. In her heart, she knew that someone was there to whom Emma had already given a key. There was a warning that it might be dangerous to confront whoever it might be, but Cynthia c
ouldn’t stop herself. She sensed answers. Despite her attempts to convince herself otherwise, she still wanted to know the truth.

  Breathless, she rang the doorbell. Nobody came to answer it, but she felt the presence of someone pausing inside, looking up from what they were doing, waiting. She rang again. Nothing. She thought of the keys hanging up in her kitchen, the keys that had come from Emma’s handbag with the plastic tag advertising Michael Homey’s firm. Should she fetch them? Should she go back and call the police? She took a step backwards, hesitating.

  The front door to Wren’s Nest opened. A tall, pale girl stood there, long blond hair falling over her face. She wore a dark coat, hanging open. She and Cynthia stared at each other for a moment. Cynthia was unsure of what to say. ‘I’m Emma’s neighbour,’ she said at last, gesturing back towards her house.

  The girl frowned. ‘Where are her things?’ she demanded. ‘What have you done with Emma’s things?’ Her voice showed she was a person used to being obeyed, someone at home with authority.

  Cynthia felt small. ‘Well, her parents came...’ she began lamely.

  ‘They had no right!’

  ‘Well, no one else came!’ Cynthia said indignantly. ‘It’s been so long! Was there something of yours Emma had?’ She was wondering whether she ought to invite this strange person over for coffee, a natural instinct for hospitality. ‘You missed the funeral? I’m sorry. A friend of Emma’s were you?’

  The girl smiled grimly. ‘There’s nothing left here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be so late. I thought I’d be in time.’

  ‘Well...’ Cynthia shrugged awkwardly. ‘Would you like a hot drink? It must be cold in there and... the... electricity’s... turned... off.’ She tried to peer past the girl to see if the lights were on. Perhaps a candle? The girl considered for a moment, then held out her hand.

  ‘I’m Felicia Browning. Yes please, I would like a drink.’

  The name seemed to familiar to Cynthia. Where had she heard it before?