In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

by Catherine Cavendish

  Someone rushed toward her. A tall, dark-haired man. Yelling, angry and out of control.

  “I’ll teach you your place, woman. You will obey me. Do you hear? You will obey me.”

  The heavy blow sent Carol reeling. Her jaw screamed pain. She fell to her knees.

  “You will never defy me again. Ever. You are my wife and you will do as I say. Only as I say.”

  Another blow set her ears ringing. She tasted blood, spat it out, and the world buzzed in her ears, turning everything black.

  She could only have been out for seconds. When she came to, she had somehow returned to the archway where the strangeness had all begun. She struggled to her feet, feeling her jaw. It ached a little, but surely not as it would have done if she really had been attacked as badly as she thought.

  Carol shook her head in an attempt to clear out the fuzziness and unreality. What the hell had just happened?

  She made her way back to the apartment, stopping for a while to stare over at the lights of the Royal and Waverley Hospital.

  Into her mind flashed an image. Rows of iron beds lined up against the walls, neatly spaced and each with an archaic overhead lamp. Women in Victorian nurses’ uniforms. Others dressed in drab brown, much-mended dresses, sleeves rolled up to their elbows, scrubbing the floor with brushes they dipped regularly in galvanized buckets of hot water. Carol felt the strongest urge to get down on her hands and knees and join them, almost as if she belonged there.

  The image flashed off as quickly as it had come into her mind and the familiar figures sped across her peripheral vision.

  Carol returned to her apartment and locked the door behind her.

  In the kitchen, she reached into one of the wall cupboards and took out a bottle of Scotch, which had been on special offer at the supermarket this week. She poured a large swig into a glass, topped up with ice and Coke and gulped it down, grateful for the rush it gave her.

  She poured another and took it into the living room. It wasn’t even nine o’clock but tiredness engulfed her. Lack of sleep had a lot to answer for. Maybe that’s why she had experienced that weird hallucination under the archway.

  Another scratching at the double doors. Carol stood and went over. The drapes were still drawn open. She made to pull them shut but something caught her eye. Something that shouldn’t have been there. A piece of white paper, partially snagged on a small, thorny bush outside.

  She unlocked and opened the double doors and peered down at the shrub. The sheet of paper didn’t look like a piece of rubbish. It had been neatly folded and positioned as if it had been deliberately spiked onto the small bush. Lifting it off, she took care not to tear it. In her hand, it seemed old and appeared slightly foxed. Carol went back inside and locked the doors, before returning to the settee, where she unfolded her prize.

  Lines of a poem, written in copperplate script:

  In darkness, shadows breathe

  Though the earth be still, with graves,

  The mourning yearn for solace

  And the dead shall hear their cry,

  Sending spirits on winged flight,

  To comfort and console,

  But one among them bides behind,

  Her soul of ebony and granite,

  The fires of life long since quenched,

  Replaced with voids of emptiness.

  In darkness, shadows breathe

  And death their only reward.

  (Lydia Warren Carmody, 1856-1891)

  That name. Warren. The same as the alderman who had laid the foundation stone. Coincidence? Maybe, but somehow Carol couldn’t bring herself to believe so.

  More scratching noises. Carol put the sheet of paper aside and returned to the doors.

  And screamed.

  Pressed against the glass was a young girl whose ghostly white face and huge eyes stared at her, mouth partially open, hands also pressed, palms flat, against the panes.

  Carol shook uncontrollably and backed away but couldn’t tear her gaze away from the terrifying sight. The girl wore a white, ankle-length shift. Her irises shone black and huge in the strange light. Her expression took the form of a silent scream, until her mouth gradually closed.

  Her lips moved. You’re next…. The girl stepped back into the shadows and vanished.

  Carol yanked the curtains shut and retreated to the settee. She lay, curled into a ball, fist in her mouth to keep her from screaming. She couldn’t have seen that. It must have been some trick of the light or a hallucination. Sleep deprivation could do that. But it had only been a couple of nights….

  Sleep. She must sleep. She forced her eyes shut, breathed deeply until her exhausted mind let go and she drifted off.

  * * *

  When she awoke, morning sunlight streamed through the chinks in the hastily drawn curtains. Carol rose, stiff and sore from the settee. It seemed she had barely moved an inch all night.

  In the daylight, her nocturnal experiences paled and became unimportant, a product of a befuddled brain. That’s all it was.

  She wandered into the bathroom and drew herself a deep, hot bath, lacing it with a generous amount of bubble bath. Steam coated the mirror and Carol sank into the welcoming suds.

  When she emerged ten minutes later, she wrapped herself in a big, fluffy white towel also generously provided by the owners. Luxury. She could take any amount of this. Carol felt pampered for once, not a sensation she had ever been accustomed to.

  Drying her hair with another towel, she glanced at the mirror and froze. Condensation dripped from spidery letters, written in an old-fashioned hand.

  You’re next.

  Her heart pounded. She raced out into the bedroom and quickly dressed in the same trousers and sweater she had worn yesterday. When she dared return to the bathroom, the steam had cleared. The mirror was clean. No words remained – if they had even been there in the first place.

  Carol grabbed her tablet and sat at the small bistro table in the dining area of the kitchen. She searched for ‘Royal and Waverley Hospital’ and was rewarded by a whole plethora of NHS-related sites. She must narrow it down to the history of the place and her part of it in particular.

  Searching for ‘Waverley Workhouse history’ proved a little more fruitful. Here she discovered photographs of the original workhouse, the asylum and of the old hospital itself. She even found a layout of how the massive complex had looked late in the nineteenth century.

  She was able to pinpoint fairly accurately, or so it seemed, the location of her apartment. It had most certainly been built on the site of the hospital. She altered her search to try and locate Alderman Grover Warren. Surely not a common combination of names. She found a couple of obtuse references and a newspaper report of the laying of the foundation stone. No photographs.

  Deciding on a cup of coffee, she stood and immediately bent double, clinging on to the table as an agonizing pain knifed through her belly exactly as before. She concentrated on breathing, calm, steadying breaths, as the pain gradually subsided.

  It passed and she sat down again, praying it didn’t return. There was nothing for it. If this happened again, she would have to go to the doctor. Pain like this couldn’t be normal. She had never suffered badly with menstrual cramps and in any case her period wasn’t due for another week or so. Furthermore, the pain seemed to have traveled. It had moved more to the right rather than centered and it seemed higher up her abdomen.

  The intercom buzzed.

  Carol made her way carefully out into the hall, peered at the screen and picked up the receiver. She could see no one. Maybe they were standing in the wrong place, out of shot.

  “Hello?” she called.

  The face filled the screen.

  With a yell, Carol jumped back.

  The girl from last night had returned.

  Chapter Three

 
Carol had no idea how long she stood there, cowering in her hall, not daring to move. Over and over, her mind churned. Who was that child and why was she tormenting her? Who was putting her up to it? Overriding all of her thoughts came the distinct impression she knew this girl from somewhere, or that some part of her did, which made no sense at all. But she couldn’t rid herself of the conviction. She went over everyone she knew, past and present, from every place she had ever lived. One advantage about keeping yourself to yourself was that you didn’t tend to make enemies. Especially if you never stayed more than a few months or a couple of years in the same place.

  She came up with no one.

  Finally, Carol began to get angry. For once she was living a dream, in a beautiful apartment in the right part of town. But someone wasn’t content to see her happy even for an instant. No, they had to do their level best to wreck it. But they couldn’t if she wouldn’t let them, could they?

  “Bring it on,” she said to the walls. “Do your worst. I’m ready for you.”

  One last glance at the intercom screen. Empty. From now on, she would ignore scratching at the windows or doors and she wouldn’t answer the intercom unless she was expecting someone – or a delivery. She resolved to remove the latter. She would simply buy everything she needed in the shops and not order anything online anymore.

  Taking back control. It felt such a relief. She could get on with enjoying her life here for the short time she could.

  In the living room, she glimpsed a piece of paper sticking out from under the settee. The poem. She had forgotten all about it and it must have fallen down there. She bent and retrieved it.

  The author – Lydia Warren Carmody – who was she? Carol searched for her on her tablet. No entries. But something niggled her. For some reason, she couldn’t leave it there. She had to find out more about the woman and maybe then she would understand why doing so seemed so important.

  * * *

  Days passed uneventfully and Carol allowed herself to relax a little. She established a comfortable routine and made a few trips to the library searching for information on the elusive Lydia Warren Carmody. She was more successful on Grover Warren, who had indeed been a prominent citizen in his time. She learned that he did have a daughter named Lydia, born in 1856. He had trained as a doctor and had lived and operated private consulting rooms in nearby Maupasson Street. Carol took a stroll round there one evening after work as the sun sank low in the sky. She stared up at the impressive Georgian terraced house. Elegant. This would never have been a home for anyone below middle class and fairly affluent. Today, houses like this sold for a small fortune, if they weren’t converted into apartments. Judging by the array of doorbells, such had been the fate of number seventy-three. The front door boasted a high-gloss black sheen and brightly polished brass door knocker.

  Carol imagined Grover Warren alighting from a Hansom cab and mounting the steps to his front door. A butler would have opened it for him, taken his hat and gloves, and helped him off with his cloak. All very civilized.

  In a downstairs window, a young woman peered out at her from behind a net curtain. She was frowning, clearly suspicious as to what was attracting such earnest attention from a total stranger. Carol forced a slight smile and moved away, continuing down the quiet street.

  A BMW approached from the opposite direction. It seemed too modern and out of place. There should have been horses and carriages, fashionable Georgian or Victorian people strolling up and down. Maybe an occasional child rolling a hoop with a stick, an excited puppy at his heels.

  The sun had sunk below the horizon and shadows were lengthening. Carol’s peaceful reverie had made her lose track of the time. She turned and retraced her steps back down Maupasson Street, pausing outside number seventy-three one more time and shivering as a sudden chill passed through her. Carol hugged herself and quickened her pace. Soon she reached Blenheim Road where Waverley Court was situated.

  Back home again, she made coffee and toast. Unusually for her she had eaten her main meal at lunchtime so a snack was all she fancied. Kicking her shoes off, Carol remembered the need to keep the impractically colored carpet pristine, and placed them in the hall cupboard, swapping them for slippers.

  She sauntered into her bedroom and changed into a pair of comfortable tracksuit bottoms and a sloppy T-shirt. Back in the living room, she grabbed the TV remote and switched on, putting her feet up on a leather-upholstered footstool.

  Her phone rang. She rummaged in her bag and found it. Private number. She hesitated and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  At first, silence greeted her, followed by a little crackling static. Then a voice. A raspy, female voice, sounding as if it was coming from far away.

  “You’re next….”

  The phone went dead. Carol was left staring at it in disbelief. She threw it across the settee as if it had burned her.

  No, she must have misheard. It was a wrong number. Someone had activated their phone while it lay in their pocket. The old models were like that. You could so easily set them off dialing the last number they had called. But nobody had an old phone like that anymore, did they? Even if they did, who called her anyway? Hardly anyone had her number.

  Carol tried to concentrate on the television. Anything to take her mind off what had just happened. The program didn’t help. Some inane comedy that didn’t hit any funny bone of hers. She realized she had neglected to draw the curtains and immediately rectified that. The last thing she needed was to see that awful child’s face again.

  She checked the front door. Locked, bolted and the chain on. No one would be getting in there in a hurry, and if the intercom buzzed? It could carry on buzzing. She wasn’t answering her door tonight, or any other time for that matter. She had made up her mind, hadn’t she?

  After washing up her coffee mug and plate, she tidied them away and returned to the living room.

  The comedy had finished and a film had begun. An old black and white horror. Night of the Demon. Carol recognized it from many years earlier. She settled herself down to watch, as the room gradually grew darker.

  She realized what was happening when the advertisement break came on and she glanced up at the ceiling to see a bulb pop. Looking around, she saw it was only the latest. Three more had blown. No wonder it had grown so dark in there. What were the odds of that happening all at once? Unless there was something wrong with the wiring. Nothing for it. She would have to change the bulbs.

  Carol located a box containing half a dozen of them and stood on the stepladder. Replacing them didn’t take long and, thankfully, the new bulbs worked, but she would have to replenish the dwindling supplies tomorrow.

  Back to the film. The demon pounded through the wood, emerging from a cloud of supernatural smoke. A pretty wobbly monster to be sure, but it worked better than if it had benefited from today’s CGI tinkering. Old-school horror. When she had first seen this film it had sent her scurrying under her duvet, and she still found it unnerving. Maybe that was because it was in black and white. The grainy monochrome made it altogether more sinister than color. Hitchcock had known this. That was one reason Psycho and some of his other films were not in color.

  The film ended. Bedtime and Carol’s head barely touched the pillow before she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Once again, she came to in someone else’s body, seeing what they saw, with no sense of being able to escape. She felt trapped there. Imprisoned in time and space. Her body ached from the blows the man had inflicted on her and it seemed only hours had passed since that awful beating, but in amongst the pain and fear, another emotion was growing. It built up strength with every breath she inhaled; anger, a determination to avenge herself for the treatment he had meted out to her. The same raging anger she had experienced when those images of herself murdering Jonah had come into her mind.

  She lay on the floor of that Victorian parlo
r – or maybe a drawing room? Yes, it was too big to call a parlor. All those ornaments crammed onto the mantelpiece. The woman whose body she occupied hated them too. She wanted to smash the lot. None of them were hers anyway. They all belonged to him.

  The door opened and the man she recognized from her previous encounter strode in. He stared at her in contempt. “Get up from there. You look ridiculous.”

  Carol didn’t move or flinch. She concentrated on staring at him, knowing from his expression that he could read the naked hatred in her gaze.

  “Defy me, would you?” He hauled her to her feet.

  She shook him off and he grabbed hold of her hair, dragging her across the room. The pain screamed through her scalp. At any moment he would pull her hair out by the roots. She spied a vicious and substantial-looking letter opener, shaped like a mini sword, lying on a nearby desk. If she could just twist out of his hold, maybe she could reach it. She squirmed but that merely served to anger him further. He threw her across the room, where she hit her hip hard on the piano, setting the instrument off in a cacophony of jarring bass and treble. More pain shot through her, fueling her anger.

  Her rage boiled over. He would pay for this even if she had to kill him. Never in her life had she ever felt such white-hot fury. The man momentarily had his back toward her while he calmly reached for cigarettes and a lighter. It gave her time enough. She lurched forward, grabbed the letter opener and plunged it deep into the back of his neck.

  He let out a yell and fell to his knees, scattering the cigarettes across the floor. He twisted round to look at her and she stabbed him through the eye. Blood poured through the ruined eye socket. He raised his hands but she stabbed them too. Spurred on by some irresistible force within, she took out his other eye.