Despite the horror around me, I felt strangely calm. Then I heard a scratching sound. Someone turning the key in the lock. The door creaked as it was pushed open.
Arabella Marsden strode in, her mouth twisted in a half grimace.
“What do you want with me?” My voice sounded strong. I was glad of that because I certainly didn’t feel that way.
“You will see.” She turned to her sidekick – a thin woman with a pinched face. “Bring the other one in.”
I recognized her as soon as they wheeled her in. “Carol!”
The orderly dragged her out of the wheelchair. Her nightgown was torn.
I struggled off the bed and tried to help her. The Marsden woman thrust me to one side and I scrabbled for the bed to stop me falling.
Carol collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor at my feet.
“You can’t do this. It’s inhuman,” I said.
Arabella Marsden threw back her head and laughed, a low, vile guttural sound. “I haven’t yet begun.”
I put out my hand to Carol, who struggled to her feet. I steered her as best I could to sit down beside me as I glared at our captor. Her eyes mocked me and I had never felt such abject hatred for anyone in my life. The woman spun on her heel and, with a swish of her dress, left us. A key scraped in the lock of the door.
Carol raised tear-stained cheeks and reddened eyes to mine. Her shoulder-length hair looked matted and in dire need of washing and brushing.
“I…know…you,” Carol said. “I’m sorry, I know we’ve met somewhere but I’ve forgotten your name. I can remember so little these days. I even have trouble remembering who I am.”
“I’m Nessa. What’s happening here? Do you have any idea?”
“A little. Not much. How do you know me?”
“The doctor referred to you by name when we found you on the floor outside my room, and Margie, the cleaner, told me you disappeared on the way to the general ward.”
Carol blinked a few times, clearly searching her mind for some relevant memory. “I don’t remember any of that.” The effort of trying to recall showed in her face. “A nurse was with me…and then it all changed…. Darkness…. I was lying in a heap on the floor of the corridor out there.” She nodded toward the door.
“The same thing happened to me. Not this time. Another time.”
“You’ve been here before?”
“So have you. You told me so when we first met, and you guessed I had been here too.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s all so hazy, as if it’s been happening to someone else. A long time ago. Someone else in my body. But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes more sense than you realize. When I last saw you, you said something about Arabella Marsden, Dr. Franklyn and some kind of experiment. You said they had drilled a hole in your head and they had restrained you. Your ankles were pretty messed up.”
Carol looked at me as if I had suddenly grown another head. “I don’t understand any of that. My ankles are fine. Look.”
Apart from the grubbiness of being in contact with the filthy floor, there was no trace of bruising, swelling or weals on either ankle. Her wrists no longer showed evidence of being bound either. Carol tossed her hair forward and I peered at her scalp. No trace of any lesion there but, then, I hadn’t seen one on our first encounter.
“You really don’t remember being on the floor outside the ward? That’s when I met you.”
Carol frowned and shook her head. “I know we’ve met before, but I don’t remember when or where and I do know that time has been playing strange tricks on me. I can remember less and less each day. When I try to recall where I live…or work…I can’t. It’s all a blur, like a heavy fog in my brain.”
“Time isn’t linear.”
Carol’s eyes snapped open. “What did you say?”
“Time isn’t linear. Well, it’s a theory anyway. A friend of ours kept us entertained at a dinner party once, regaling us with this idea that we humans have invented time because our brains can’t cope with the truth that there is actually no such thing. There is no past, present or future as we choose to interpret it. That woman, Arabella Marsden. She said time did not exist as we know it. It put me in mind of it.”
“It’s just I heard someone say that very same thing once. ‘Time isn’t linear.’ I can’t remember….” She tapped her forehead harder and harder until I had to pull her fingers away to stop her hurting herself. I was struck by the iciness of them.
“You’re freezing,” I said.
She looked at me vacantly as if trying to remember yet again who I was. “Am I?”
“You realize that we’re not in our own time, don’t you?” I said. “Maybe that’s how you’re here now, without the injury I saw you with a few days ago. Maybe it hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe it has, but long enough ago to give your body time to heal.” The sheer unfathomability of what I was saying hit me. I shook my head. “All I know for certain is, we’re in the same place – the Royal and Waverley – but as it used to be many years ago when this part was a workhouse.”
Carol blinked a few times. “Now you’ve said it, I can accept it, even though it seems impossible.”
“Do you know why they’ve brought us here? According to Margie, there have been other disappearances like ours over the years.”
“I do know she seems restless. Arabella Marsden. The others seem scared of her as if she has some kind of hold over them all, not that I remember having much to do with anyone else. They seem to keep me apart from any of the inmates.”
“Do you see them as real, or ghostly?” I asked.
“The inmates? Almost transparent.”
“I don’t think they see us at all most of the time. It’s as if they exist in a different dimension.”
Carol touched my hand. I felt the chill almost freeze my blood. “Are you scared? I know I am.”
“Terrified, but we mustn’t show them that. Somehow we have to get out of here.”
“But how?”
We both stared at the door. How could we get through six inches of iron or steel or whatever that thing was constructed out of?
The door rattled as its key turned. It opened and the orderly motioned us to follow him. I helped Carol up and we followed him down the corridor. Our progress was slow, irritating our escort, who kept looking back over his shoulder and frowning at us, gesturing to us to speed up.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” I said. “Can’t you see I’m in pain here? I had major surgery a couple of weeks ago.”
The man resumed his strident gait until he stopped in front of another door. A wooden one this time. The orderly knocked and a strong male voice answered. “Enter.”
The orderly turned the door handle. “In here.”
I hobbled inside, Carol at my side.
This room looked freshly whitewashed. An oil lamp burned on a polished desk behind which sat a man. A doctor by the look of him. He wore a smart, dark brown suit, high starched collar and tie. His beard was neatly trimmed and, as we entered, he removed wire-framed spectacles, which he folded and positioned neatly in front of him.
“Please sit.” He indicated the two chairs in front of his desk. “That will be all, Withers.” The door closed with a click.
“Now, ladies, I expect you want to know why you are here.”
“You have no right to kidnap us,” I said.
He gave a hollow laugh. “Kidnap? Yes, I suppose to you it seems like that. I think a more accurate term would be…repossession.”
The arrogance of the man. “Repossession?”
“Exactly. You belong here.”
“I have a husband. A life,” I said. “And it’s not here. Carol has a life—”
“Does she? Do you, Carol?”
The girl stared down at her hands, which were twisti
ng together in her lap. Why didn’t she speak up for herself?
“Carol?” I prompted.
She looked up, panic filling her eyes. “No…I don’t. I can’t remember when I had a life. That’s the problem with me. I don’t belong anywhere.”
The doctor looked at her steadily. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But you have a home?” I asked. “A job? Friends?”
Carol sighed, tears filling her eyes. “Not really. I live…somewhere. I’m not sure where at the moment. It’s lost to me somehow. As for a job. I don’t remember anything about that, and friends…. Do I have friends? Are you my friend?”
“Carol, what is this?” I glared at the doctor. “What have you done to her? This woman has a life in our time. I know she has friends because someone told me. Someone at the hospital, which is where we should be right now. My husband will be coming to see me this evening. My life is there, not here.”
“Interesting,” the doctor said. “Carol hasn’t been with us long but already she is assimilating to her environment. She knows, deep down, that she belongs here, in this time and space. Soon you will feel the same way, Vanessa.”
“I most certainly will not. I can’t speak for Carol. I only really met her today, although I’ve seen her before, in distressing circumstances thanks to something that happened here…or that is going to happen here. But, for myself, I have a husband. I was a lecturer in Modern History at the university and Paul and I live in an apartment overlooking the Irish Sea. I remember every inch of my life and none of it belongs here or in this time.”
“Nevertheless.” The doctor opened his hands expansively. “Here you are and here you are meant to stay.”
I struggled to my feet. “No,” I said, my voice firm, even though the surgical pain once again asserted itself.
“We’ll see how you feel tomorrow.”
“I don’t intend to be here tomorrow. In fact, I don’t intend to stay here one minute longer.”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
I made it to the door, gritting my teeth. “We’ll see about that.” I could get back, couldn’t I? I had done it before, more than once. Find that door, the one that led outside. Then I would emerge in the ward adjacent to mine.
The doctor made no move to stop me. Carol sat, still staring down at her hands. I couldn’t leave her there. For all she seemed to be suffering from some form of amnesia, probably brought on by the shock of all that was happening to her, she didn’t belong here any more than I did.
“Carol?”
She raised her eyes to meet mine.
“Come with me. It’s time to go back.”
Slowly she shook her head.
“But you can’t stay here.”
“Maybe it’s where I belong.”
How could she think that? “But you don’t. You don’t belong here and neither do I. If you stay here, they’ll operate on you. They’ll put you into restraints so tight they cut into your skin, and drill a hole in your head. I know. I saw you after they had done it.” At least I thought I had.
“Is that true, Doctor?” Her voice was lost, barely audible. “Why would you do that? Is there something wrong with my brain?”
The doctor ignored her question and gave a light cough. “She doesn’t know what you’re talking about, Vanessa. She won’t come with you, so you either go alone or not at all.”
I hesitated. Part of me cried out to get away. Carol was an adult. I wasn’t responsible for her. Hell, I didn’t even know her. But who knew what they had done to her in the time she had been here before our paths crossed? Whatever it was I felt certain she faced much worse to come.
“Carol, please. Don’t listen to him. Come with me.”
She shook her head.
I turned the handle, opened the door and once again stared into the face of Arabella Marsden. I took an involuntary step backward. Her eyes drilled into me. Behind her, mists swirled and darkness descended. Shadowy figures pulsated like heartbeats. Images flashed into my brain. Memories that didn’t belong there, fighting with those that did, stripping away the real and the precious, imposing stories from another age. Someone else’s stories. Someone else’s memories. I struggled to push them away. A young, vibrant girl laughed and danced in my mind, in a meadow of spring grass and early flowers, and I knew who she must be. Lydia Warren Carmody as she had been many years before, skipping through the tall grass. Innocent, free. I could almost believe….
It wasn’t me. I couldn’t be remembering this. I had never lived this life. These were her memories. Her life, before something happened to change her.
The happy girl vanished from my mind. Dark shadows swept in, pulsating, throbbing. Breathing. In the blackness…I could sense something. Another presence. Menacing. I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t want to make it out. The epitome of evil, its presence grew with every breath and it meant me harm. It had already taken Carol, but she was not enough. It wanted more. The extra pulse that had grown in my brain kicked in.
Outside my own personal anguish, the world had faded into oblivion. I was living entirely in my own head, unaware of anything around me. I heard a scream. Was it me? I had no idea, only that it was close. Too close.
The…thing…inside my head weighed me down. I was sinking; the walls of my mind closed in on me, the shadows overpowering my senses.
Another scream. Then another and another.
A child shrieked. “Nessa! Nessa!”
A face penetrated the blackness. Pale eyes scythed through the swirling mass.
The child. Agnes. The woman. Lydia. Inextricably joined and reaching for me.
“Now you begin to understand.” A voice I knew had to belong to Lydia Warren Carmody drifted toward me and each word seemed to dispel a little of the shadow. The mists parted, grew paler. My vision slowly returned until I was once more face to face with the woman I recognized as my nemesis. The woman who was hell-bent on transferring Lydia Warren Carmody’s soul – and with it the evil that had possessed her in life – into my body.
Arabella Marsden stepped to one side and the shadows I had seen so clearly in my mind filled the corridor. Fear welled up inside me as I felt a tugging at my insides. I fought to stand my ground but the force proved too strong. It drew me toward the blackness of the pulsating mass ahead. Shadows enveloped me. I couldn’t breathe as my nostrils filled with acrid smoke, as if I was somehow standing in the middle of a smoking coal fire with no flames and no heat.
Agnes appeared and spread her thin arms wide. Her eyes shone with vermilion fire. Lydia appeared by her side and took her hand. In unison they spoke and the words echoed around me:
“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.”
A scream rose up inside me and I gave it full vent as the air expelled from my lungs. I took an automatic breath and choked on the evil smog.
Then I was through it. The blackness fell away and I found myself in the workhouse. Ahead of me, at lines of long tables, women dressed identically in the same drab brown dresses and aprons I had witnessed before sat eating something out of bowls. The only sounds, the clattering of spoons and the slurp of the diners. Some sort of thin soup. Cabbage probably. The air was rank with it.
I looked down at myself and found that I too was dressed the same as the other women.
On the wall, framed homilies reminded the inmates to, ‘Avoid idleness and intemperance’, ‘Be thankful for God’s great mercies’ and a clearly strictly enforced, ‘No Talking’.
Female staff patrolled up and down. One approached me and I recognized the thin-faced woman I had seen before. She pointed a long, skinny finger at an empty seat a
nd, seeing no immediate alternative, I sat down. The woman next to me pointed at the meager slices of stale-looking bread on a plate in the center of the table. I shook my head. I couldn’t have eaten a morsel of anything, let alone something I guessed would probably taste like sawdust, and might even contain some.
As each woman finished her meal, she silently waited, head bowed. The noise of spoons clattering against cheap pottery bowls died away as more of the assembled finished their sparse meal.
I caught the eye of the thin-faced woman, who glowered at me. Evidently I should have lowered my eyes and remembered ‘my place’. Some part of me rebelled. I continued to meet her eye to eye.
She turned her head away in disgust, scanned the room and nodded to her colleagues. As one, they clapped their hands loudly and a general scraping of stools echoed around the room.
I stood as well. Not a word had been spoken.
“Back to work,” the woman called.
My former neighbor took my arm. Once we were out of the dining area, she spoke. “You’re new. I haven’t seen you before.”
She was probably less than half my age but she hadn’t a tooth in her head, her hair hung, dull and lifeless, and her hands were scrubbed red raw. “Have they given you your job yet?”
I shook my head.
“I work in the laundry. It’s not so bad. A bit hard on your skin, but there’s worse jobs. You can come with me if you like.”
“Thanks, but I shouldn’t be here. Something’s gone wrong. I’m supposed to be—”
She stared at me intently, but how could I explain I was from a different time?
“I’m supposed to be somewhere else, that’s all.” A lame finish but the best I could manage.
“You’ve got something wrong with you, haven’t you?” she said, tapping her head and then apparently changing her mind. She frowned and pointed at my stomach. “Something wasn’t right in there and they took it out, didn’t they?”
In Darkness, Shadows Breathe Page 20