Wakenhyrst

by Michelle Paver

‘No, Clem. You really don’t.’

  ‘There’s summat I got to tell you—’

  ‘Leave me alone. Don’t ever talk to me again.’

  She ran up the steps and Steers opened the door for her. ‘When will you be wanting luncheon, Miss?’

  The ledger. She’d left it on Father’s desk.

  ‘No luncheon,’ she muttered. ‘Just a cup of tea in the library.’

  ‘Very good, Miss,’ said the butler with weary forbearance. The Master had been ill for so many months that the staff were used to sudden changes.

  Back in the study, Maud was about to replace the ledger on the bookshelf when something made her check the final entry about killing the demon: the one Father had pencilled on New Year’s Day.

  It wasn’t the final entry. After four blank pages his account began again. This time it wasn’t in that deranged pencilled scrawl but in ink, in Father’s neat, cramped hand.

  13th March

  Now that I’m well enough to sit up, I’m rather enjoying my convalescence. I am discovering the delights of idleness. It’s such bliss to do nothing except eat, sleep, and obey the commands of the excellent Lawson.

  For a woman of her class, she has an agreeable appearance. Her only fault – if fault it be – is an intense dislike of Ivy. This means I’ve had to employ cunning to avail myself of this ledger without Lawson noticing. I waited until she was taking her meal in the kitchen, then had Ivy bring it up from the study. The girl makes the perfect courier, not only because she is illiterate but because she is jealous, and delights in deceiving Lawson. I’ve told her that the ledger concerns my investments, so she treats it with enormous respect.

  The days are lengthening and the light is returning. The darkness and the horror – that’s all in the past.

  If indeed it ever existed. The Doom, the devil in the corner, my fantastic notions of a mediæval exorcism… I must have been ill for months and I never knew it. I find the sight of my scribblings embarrassing. I’ve no desire to re-read what I wrote. Perhaps I ought to rip it all out and burn it.

  Later

  Yesterday Maud took it into her head to mention Jubal Rede, of all people. The name evoked disagreeable memories from my boyhood. We were of an age, he and I; but Jubal was a great rough fellow, and I was scared of him.

  4th April

  The past fortnight has been fearfully damp. I’m finding it rather trying. And although the excellent Lawson keeps my windows securely shut, this room smells of the fen. Naturally I find that disturbing, for the fen is what made me ill.

  It appears that at some stage during my delirium, I dictated letters to Whittaker and Davies, cancelling my instructions to drain it – and Maud actually had the ill-judgement to post them. Today I wrote instructing Whittaker and Davies to recommence their preparations for the drainage with all possible haste.

  6th April

  Last night I was woken by the wind in the passage rattling the bedroom latch. Being only half-awake, I fancied that it was not the wind, but something attempting to get in. I tossed and turned for hours, and dreamed of the episode in The Life when the demon slips into Guthlaf’s hut and carries him off to Hell. Finally I rang for Lawson, who brought me a cup of beef-tea and read me a chapter from St Mark.

  Needless to say, by morning I had fully recovered. I’ve eaten a hearty breakfast, and Lawson has devised a means of silencing the offending latch with a wedge of folded paper, which she promises to employ whenever the wind is high.

  23rd April

  It has been the wettest spring I can remember. Doubtless that’s contributing to my low spirits. Also, Lawson says it’s natural for the patient to feel moody as he regains his strength.

  I blame Maud too. Confound the girl for mentioning Jubal Rede. For some reason he has become linked in my mind with my collapse on New Year’s Eve. Of course I don’t remember anything of that night, I was too ill. I don’t want to remember. I simply wish I could stop thinking about it.

  2nd May

  Maud tells me that they buried the body in the north side of the churchyard. An odd coincidence, for that’s where I saw the eye in the grass.

  Although it’s appropriate, I suppose. The north side of the graveyard is the Devil’s part.

  17th May

  That storm last night gave me the most dreadful nightmare. I dreamed that I stepped into the Doom.

  I was aware of a great cacophony and confusion all around, and I knew that St Michael and the hosts of Heaven were far away, and that I was perilously near the Jaws of Hell. My ears rang with the screams of the damned, and I breathed the biting stink of sulphur. Then in a clump of reeds I beheld the devil in the corner. I tried to run, but I felt as if I were wading through sand. The devil hooked me by the shoulder with the prongs of his glave and dragged me into Hell, and Hell was wet and cold and it reeked of the fen. The devil pushed me under. Filthy black water roaring in my head, my lungs about to burst. I was yanked to the surface. Desperately I gasped for air – only to be pushed under and drowned again. And again and again.

  I woke wheezing, drenched in sweat. It was hours before my trembling ceased. Even now, with the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky, I’m not myself.

  This was no nightmare. This was real.

  Hell is real. Hell exists.

  ‘Your father is making excellent progress,’ Dr Grayson told Maud the day after she’d read Father’s final entry. ‘Nevertheless, we would do well to regard yesterday’s fainting spell as a warning. He must not think of resuming his work for another two months at least. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Perfectly, Doctor.’

  He gave her a considering look, and tugged his nose. ‘What you must understand is that a relapse would have grave consequences. Extremely grave.’

  ‘Yes, Doctor.’

  She opened her mouth to say more, then hesitated. Now would be the perfect opportunity to show the doctor her father’s ledger. ‘Here is the evidence,’ she would say. ‘It’s all written down in Father’s own hand, and it proves everything I told you at Christmas. You must act now. You must restrain him.’

  But she knew that the doctor would either refuse to read a gentleman’s private writings – or if he did, he would dismiss them as the ravings of a delirious mind.

  And after all, Maud reflected, perhaps Dr Grayson would be right. Perhaps everything Father had written was a phantasy, because he was ill. Perhaps he didn’t kill Jubal.

  And when one thought about it, of what had he written since he’d started getting better, except a couple of bad dreams?

  From the Private Notebook of Edmund Stearne – Vol. II

  18th May

  What a brouhaha over nothing. Yesterday I fainted in the study. I was standing at the window when I fancied I saw something slip through the hedge and make its way towards the house. But it was nothing, merely the shadow of a bird! I’d had a bad night because of that wretched storm, and it disordered my nerves. I’m perfectly fine now.

  Later

  I wish my thoughts didn’t keep returning to New Year’s Eve. What troubles me most about that night is that I acted on impulse. I didn’t plan or prepare for what I did, so I had no time to marshal the correct prayers or make the other observances.

  Now I can’t help wondering whether I did in fact achieve what I thought I’d achieved. Can my adversary be destroyed simply by drowning?

  And will it stay dead?

  24th May

  Horror, horror, horror. I’m shaking so hard I can scarcely hold my pen. But it is my duty to keep this record.

  I write this on a hot summer’s dawn in the silence of the sleeping house, but the dread is still with me. It happened a couple of hours ago, around three o’clock in the morning. I woke to find that I couldn’t breathe. The air had been sucked from the room. There was a darkness over me, incorporeal, yet pressing horribly on my chest. I caught a stink of the swamp. I felt thin leathery arms squeezing me with appalling strength. Above me, almost touching my face, I saw – no
no, words cannot describe it. When my adversary takes human form it is very horrible, but this – this was its true form, and it was fluid and ever-changing, infinitely worse. This was ‘darkness visible’.

  I woke with a cry. The room was sunk in gloom, but I sensed that dawn was near. Beyond my feet I saw that the blind was up and the sash raised. The curtains were flapping. I inhaled the stink of the swamp. With a groan I rolled on to my stomach and pressed my face to my pillow. My lips touched something slimy and wet. With a cry I drew back. There on the pillow lay a long thin strand of waterweed.

  Later

  I’m calmer now. I can face the truth. This last encounter has confirmed my fears beyond doubt. What I did on New Year’s Eve didn’t work. My adversary is not dead. By drowning it, I merely sent it back to its own element. I made it stronger.

  25th May

  It is vital that I make believe that all is well. I don’t care about Maud or the servants, it’s not for them that I maintain this pretence. I must not let my adversary become aware that I know.

  I must never betray myself, not by the smallest gesture. I must watch what I say, how I look, what I do. I must show no fear. I must never, never let down my guard.

  This means that my research must be carried out sub rosa, so that my adversary suspects nothing. Perusing those volumes from Hibble’s, consulting others borrowed from Dr G.; all must appear to be in furtherance of my historical research.

  26th May

  I feel my solitude keenly. There is no one to help me. Pyett survived because her husband had the assistance of the Church and could thus commission the exorcism. Guthlaf survived because he was a saint; and because a saint came to his aid. He ‘prayed to St Bartholomew, and the accursed spirit vanished like smoke before his face’.

  St Bartholomew is the patron saint of exorcists. I have prayed to him, but to no avail. Perhaps that’s because his feast day is three months hence.

  St Michael is the Prince of Spiritual Warfare, but he hasn’t heard my prayers either. His day is even further off, at the end of September. I know now that I cannot wait that long.

  Later

  Perhaps God is with me still, for at last I know the appointed Day.

  27th May

  This morning I made my first visit to church since falling ill. I was aglow with piety, and for a while I felt that all shadows were banished. But after the service, some impulse made me ask the rector for the key to the room in the tower. Why did I need to see the Doom? I’ve no idea. I only stayed a moment, but it was enough. The devil in the corner winked at me.

  Of course it didn’t really wink, that was merely fancy. But I was shaken.

  How I wish the Day would come. This constant pretence is proving an enormous strain. But I must not let down my guard, not for an instant.

  Later

  I’ve just realised that I’ve overlooked a crucial aspect of the nature of demons. How could I have forgotten, when it is so familiar? Revelations, Milton; it’s plain for all to see.

  This is what I must remember: my adversary could be anything or anyone. It can take any form.

  28th May

  The worst has happened. Once again, it has taken human form. I have seen it. And it’s far closer than I thought.

  But I must take courage. At last I know what I have to do.

  ‘BUT my dear Miss Stearne,’ said the rector with an incredulous smile. ‘Surely you appreciate that I couldn’t possibly read a word of what your father has written? Why, I should be intruding on his private thoughts. That’s something no gentleman would ever do. I confess I am shocked, profoundly shocked, that you have seen fit to do so yourself, when you must have known that he never meant these notes to be seen by another living soul! Why, he has written as much on the first page: “Private.”’

  Shutting the ledger, he stared at her over his half-moon spectacles. He had a naturally high colour which made him appear permanently angry. Right now, the anger was real.

  ‘I only read them after a great deal of agonising,’ lied Maud. ‘But Father’s behaviour has been so very bizarre—’

  ‘Your father was delirious with fever! Surely that entitles him to sympathy and forbearance, especially from his own daughter.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, but—’

  ‘Besides, why come to me? If you genuinely believe there’s something amiss, why did you not consult Dr Grayson?’ He noticed her hesitation. ‘Ah, then you have spoken to him.’

  ‘I tried.’

  ‘May I ask when?’

  ‘Shortly before Christmas.’

  ‘From which I infer that the good doctor very properly declined to assist.’

  In the silence that followed, the rector drummed his fingertips on the ledger.

  The door opened a crack. Miss Broadstairs peeped in and asked in a hushed voice if they wanted tea.

  ‘Thank you no,’ snapped the rector.

  Miss Broadstairs withdrew, shutting the door without a sound. The clock on the chimney-piece ticked. Maud sat with her hands clenched in her lap.

  The rector heaved a sigh. ‘You come to me with some nonsense about “demonic possession”. You tell me that someone – you’ve no idea who – is in imminent peril. You say that your father – a gentleman of considerable standing in the parish, whom I myself have known and respected for decades – poses some kind of “threat”. My dear Miss Stearne, what on earth am I to make of all this?’

  He was right. It made no sense. Maud didn’t know who was in danger, or when the blow would fall. All she knew was that on some unspecified day, Father would kill again.

  ‘At last I know what I have to do,’ he had written yesterday. She had read it this morning. She hadn’t waited to tell Jessop to prepare the dog-cart. She had run the three miles to the Rectory, arriving dusty and dishevelled while Mr Broadstairs and his daughter were having breakfast.

  ‘How old are you, Maud?’ he said in a kindlier voice.

  ‘Sixteen,’ she muttered. Her birthday had been three days ago. On the same date, Father had ascertained what he called ‘the appointed Day’.

  ‘Sometimes I forget how young you are,’ said Mr Broadstairs. ‘You’ve been a great help to your father in his work, but I fancy it’s been too much for you. You’ve become confused. You’ve garbled things in your mind. No, don’t interrupt. You see, Dr Stearne himself has spoken to me on this very matter of “demons” – but as part of his research! He laughs at it as nonsense, he once told me “it’s all bosh”! My dear, his only interest is in the context of his work!’

  ‘I see that now, Rector.’ Maud rose to her feet. ‘I’ve been most frightfully foolish and I’m sorry to have taken up your time. Now if I might trouble you for Father’s—’

  ‘Oh no, my dear. I must return these to him myself.’

  She stared at him in horror. ‘But you can’t. Then he’ll know I’ve read them.’

  He stood smiling down at her. ‘Our actions have consequences, my dear. My duty couldn’t be clearer. I must hand these volumes to him in person. And obviously I shall have to tell him how they came into my possession.’

  After weeks without rain, the Common was a scorched brown wilderness of dead grass and brittle gorse. Maud walked home amid clouds of white dust. Soon Father would know that she knew everything: the Doom, the devil in the corner, Lily. Jubal.

  She reached Wake’s End around noon. Father was upstairs lying down. Maud took off her outdoor things and washed the dust off her face. Then she sat in the library and waited.

  An hour later, the rector arrived on his cob and was shown upstairs to Father’s room. Mr Broadstairs was there for ten minutes, after which he left. Maud went on waiting.

  The expected summons never came. She saw nothing of Father for the rest of the day. Lawson told her that the excessive heat had given her patient a migraine headache, and he would take his dinner on a tray.

  That night for the first time in her life, Maud locked her bedroom door. She didn’t sleep, and next morning she went downstai
rs feeling hollow with dread.

  Father was waiting for her in the breakfast-room with the rest of the household. It was the first occasion since his illness that he was taking morning prayers. He was immaculately dressed and he greeted her with every appearance of good humour. He led the prayers in the same way he always had. Maud could see no sign of anything amiss, except that while he was giving the reading, his left arm hung at his side and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger ceaselessly together.

  After prayers he ate breakfast with her – again for the first time since his illness. Maud ate nothing, but he consumed a hearty meal. He frowned and tutted at his newspaper as he’d always done, and treated her with his usual distant courtesy. Apart from asking for a second cup of tea, he spoke no word to her. That was also entirely normal.

  She was on her way out when he called her back. ‘I nearly forgot,’ he said. ‘I have a small commission for you.’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ she croaked.

  He held out a piece of folded notepaper. ‘I wonder if you would be kind enough to take this to Ely? It’s rather an urgent order and I don’t care to entrust it to the servants.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to read what it says?’

  ‘No.’

  He looked amused. ‘Then how shall you know to whom you ought to take it?’

  Shakily, Maud unfolded the paper and read the handwritten lines: ‘One ice-pick; one geological hammer, its leading edge to be sharpened in the manner of a chisel.’

  ‘The blacksmith ought to be able to provide both items,’ he told her. ‘Oh, and there’s one more matter. Yesterday I had a visit from the rector.’

  Maud’s stomach turned over.

  ‘He was kind enough to return to me certain volumes of notes.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘You see, Maud,’ he said gently. ‘There are things in this world which pass your understanding.’

  ‘I know, Father, and I’m so dreadfully sorry – and truly, I – I didn’t understand a word!’

  To her astonishment, he smiled at her with great sweetness. ‘Of course you didn’t. How could you possibly? Now run along, I want that order placed as soon as you can.’