In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

by Catherine Cavendish

  * * *

  Gradually, everything returned to normal. Well, my new version of it anyway.

  Three weeks later, I realized I still had the two books I had borrowed from the hospital library and asked Paul to hand them in for me when he was passing.

  “An odd thing happened when I returned them,” he said when he got back. He rummaged in his pocket. “This dropped out of one of them.”

  I reached for the scrunched-up piece of paper but he held on to it.

  “In a second. Let me tell you what happened. I saw the librarian and I asked her who had borrowed the Kate Furnivall book before you. She searched her records and, guess what? Susan Jackson returned that book the same day you took it out. The girl said she usually went through the returned books before lending them out again, checking for anything that had been left in them. She said she found all sorts of things, even paper money used as a bookmark. On the day you borrowed the book, she was in a bit of a rush and simply marked the returns off and stuck them straight back on her trolley.” He handed me the paper without opening it. I unfolded it, guessing what I was about to find. It still came as a shock. I gave an involuntary exclamation and hurriedly tossed it into the waste basket.

  Almost immediately, I retrieved it and handed it back to Paul. “Burn it, please. I don’t want that thing falling into anyone else’s hands.”

  Paul nodded. “Sorry. Stupid of me. I should have done that when the thing fell out of that book. What was I thinking of?”

  “The important thing is we get rid of it now.”

  I followed him into the kitchen and watched him grab the box of matches. Over the sink, he lit one end of the paper and the flame quickly caught.

  Paul blew out the match. “Do you think that’s how the link was made between you and Susan? Did that woman, Hester, put it there for each of you to find?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. I never spoke to Susan, but I do think the poem itself is a significant factor between us. For one thing it links us all, Carol included, to Lydia Carmody.” I pointed to the ashes in the sink. “I certainly welcome that sight.”

  Paul washed them away.

  A wave of relief swept over me. From somewhere I heard a woman sigh. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “I thought I heard…. Oh, never mind. Nothing. Probably air in the pipes.”

  Paul looked at me curiously. “What did it sound like?”

  I could see no point in lying. “Like a woman sighing. It sounded familiar.”

  “But they couldn’t get you here surely?”

  Could they? The old fears, the muddled memories, all came flooding back to me, but we weren’t in the hospital or on any of the land that had housed those old buildings that seemed reluctant to give up their dead spirits. But if I had been right about seeing Hester on the promenade…. Then I thought of our friend, Joanna. She lived in Waverley Court and Paul had promised to consult her. She had access to so much archive information at the university. “Did you speak to Joanna?”

  “Certainly did. She rang while I was at the hospital. She’s going on holiday for a couple of weeks but when she returns, she has invited us round for a meal. We were chatting and you’re not going to believe this, but she lives in the same block as Carol Shaughnessy.”

  “Really? She knows her?”

  “Not terribly well, but…okay. It’s a lot to process, so brace yourself. She told me she took Carol back to her flat from the hospital and hasn’t seen her since. But, get this. Joanna told me Carol had two stints in hospital. The first was for an appendectomy and the second was shortly afterward, following an incident at her home. That resulted in her being admitted for medical treatment and then being transferred to a Psychiatric Ward, in the same hospital. She was there for three weeks before being discharged. She never went missing and she never discharged herself. Jo knows nothing about any injuries to her ankles, so basically, the episode you remember so clearly is not something she knows anything about and she was in daily contact with the hospital. Okay, they didn’t go into detail about her because Joanna isn’t family, but there was never any question about where she was at any time, or what she was in for. The referral for psychiatric care was because she had a breakdown, which had led to the incident at her home. When she was discharged, Joanna took her home and that’s the last time she saw her. When I told Jo about your experiences, she wasn’t in the least surprised. Apparently in the short time she lived there, a lot happened in that apartment to Carol, and even the actual owner of it, who is abroad at present, had told Jo about being frightened there. Joanna believes something latched on to Carol and either she has run away to try and escape it or….”

  “It’s got her. Trapped her.”

  “It has to be a possibility, hasn’t it?”

  My head felt as if it was going to explode. “When did Jo say all this happened with Carol? Something doesn’t seem right about the sequence of events here.”

  “I picked that up too. Jo said the last time she saw Carol was over a month ago.”

  “What? But that means we were never in hospital together.”

  “I know. But Jo is adamant.”

  “But I know I saw her collapsed in the corridor. The other patients saw her…the doctor…. Margie said she and Susan had gone missing, but Joyce told me she had discharged herself.”

  “It seems you and Carol were never actually in hospital at the same time, but you were inextricably linked by that spirit, so time had to be manipulated to bring you together.”

  “‘Time isn’t linear.’”

  “That’s what Joanna said. She reckons it’s quite possible no one else but you will now remember having met Carol at that time. As for Susan Jackson…. Her family have reported her as missing. She appears to have vanished off the face of the earth.”

  I shook my head. The thought of Carol doomed to spend the rest of her life in some kind of thrall to the evil pairing of Arabella Marsden and Oliver Franklyn revolted me. But I had to face facts. There was nothing I could do for her or Susan Jackson for that matter, or any of the poor hapless women who had found themselves victims of that she-devil and her henchmen.

  * * *

  I awoke to a perfect early spring morning a mere week away from my first date with the technology that would ensure any lingering trace of cancer had been eliminated from the lymph nodes in my pelvis and groin.

  In the mail, a letter arrived, advising me that my application for early retirement on the grounds of ill health had been accepted. I felt strong, alive, and a bit of a fraud as I didn’t feel the slightest bit unwell. I did know I wouldn’t be so great in a few weeks, though, as the effects of the radiation kicked in.

  What better time to make the most of the sunshine, early blossom and fluffy white clouds? I donned a light jacket and headed out for the beach.

  I didn’t pay any attention to the woman at first. She was leaning over the rail, watching the seagulls bickering and screeching, chasing other, smaller seabirds away. I took up position a few yards from her. Within moments, I sensed her looking at me. I turned and caught her eye as she pushed her hood back off her face.

  Instant recognition. She moved toward me and I must have looked stupid, standing there, my mouth partially open in surprise and shock.

  “Carol?” I asked at last.

  She nodded. “Yes, it’s me. As you see me anyway.”

  I had no idea what that meant, but my relief at seeing her overwhelmed my need for answers at that point. “I never thought I would see you again. Thank God you escaped from them.” I would have loved to be able to tell her how well she looked but, truth was, she looked awful. Her skin had a grayish unhealthy tinge to it and looked almost granular.

  “You’re going back there, aren’t you?” she said. “To the Royal?”

  “Next week. For radiotherapy.”

 
“They’ll put you in a room on the other side of the wall from where you were. That’s where you’ll have your treatment. The corridor you and I both remember runs between the two. That’s when they’ll take you and that’s when the she-devil they serve will take over your body for the rest of your life. The One and the Many will possess you and live through you. Already a part of her is there inside you – the part of her you inherit from your forebears. It has been this way for millennia, only this time she is stronger. Lydia’s daughter absorbed some of her spirit while she lay in her mother’s womb.”

  “Lydia’s dau— ? None of this is making any sense to me, Carol. I’m sorry.”

  A sad smile flicked the corners of her lips. “When the spirit that lies within you was Lydia, your husband, Roger Carmody, raped you. Oh, they didn’t call it rape in those days because you were married to each other and the law permitted him to do whatever he wanted to his legally married wife. But you took your revenge and they called it murder. They waited for the child to be born before they hanged you by the neck until you were dead. Lydia’s body was buried in the grounds of the workhouse and still lies there, moldering away under the foundations. They never found all the bodies, you see. And those they did find…. There was no way of knowing who they were. They were all dumped together in their thousands. Criminals, the insane, or those whose only crime was to be poor. They reburied the ones they dug up, and they built their hospital, but things started to happen. The fabric of time had been disturbed. That was kept quiet, but these things have a habit of leaking out, and your admission to the Royal and Waverley stirred it all up again. The One and the Many needed a new host and reached out through time to you. Your fate was sealed the moment you were admitted to the hospital. That poem, ‘In darkness, shadows breathe’? You’ve had it in your possession, haven’t you?”

  “It was in a book I borrowed from the hospital library. But how—?”

  “It’s a link. In my case, it was brought to me. Left where I would find it.”

  “Who brought it to you?”

  “A child. The ghost of one anyway. One with whom you too are linked.”

  “Agnes, you mean. Are you saying that I’m being possessed?”

  Carol nodded. “The One and the Many transported from me to you, back in the other time, and brought the memories of all those it has possessed before and after. You will only be aware of the more recent ones. As I was.”

  “But why me?”

  “It had to be you. The One and the Many long ago chose your family and that was one reason I proved unsuitable. Dr. Franklyn and Arabella Marsden got it spectacularly wrong with me and then they made it worse by attempting to use Susan Jackson. The One and the Many rejected her, sent her screaming mad back to Victorian times and then batted her back and forth through time until there was nothing left of her. Nothing sane anyway. You saw the result. Marsden and Franklyn ultimately paid the price for their evil, but the spirit brought them back to do her bidding one more time. You are Lydia Warren Carmody’s direct descendant, through Agnes. The doctors found that pregnancy hormone inside you, didn’t they? Even though there was no possible way it could have been there. Lydia had been through pregnancy and, to ensure the transfer was perfect, you had to be pregnant too. The hormone has gone now, hasn’t it?”

  I nodded slowly. “This is insane.”

  Carol shrugged. “Insane or not, you are about to forfeit your life for it.”

  I shook my head, closing my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, she had gone. I looked all around me at the deserted walkway, and along the beach. No sign of her.

  I wandered back home. How could I tell Paul that all the horror had merely been put on hold? And how could I stop myself from being the next victim?

  Then I reminded myself. If what Carol had told me was accurate, it was too late anyway. The demon had already taken up residence, somewhere in the recesses of my brain. That extra pulse I hadn’t felt since I left the hospital started up again and I knew I was no longer alone in my body. I should tell Paul about it and my latest encounter with Carol, but what good would it do?

  I told myself radiation was a powerful weapon and even found a reference to some scientist who had successfully cleansed his home of a horde of evil spirits by bombarding it with radiation. Surely the One and the Many wouldn’t be able to live inside me after my treatment.

  It is strange how tenuous your hold on reality can become when you’re desperate. Besides, I told myself, I wouldn’t be alone for one second when I was in the radiotherapy suite. They had shown me a treatment center and walked me through the procedure. Unless an entire team of specialists was in on Carol’s theory of my abduction, it simply wouldn’t be possible for this evil spirit to get to me.

  * * *

  Paul handed me a cup of tea from the vending machine. “You’re very quiet, Ness. Are you okay?”

  “Just a bit nervous, that’s all.” I didn’t mention the bombardment of butterflies performing aerial acrobatics in my stomach.

  “Vanessa Tremaine.”

  I jumped at the sound of my name and nearly spilled my drink. I handed it to Paul.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  I followed the smiling nurse down a short corridor into the treatment suite. A chorus of greetings welcomed me and I said “hello” back to everyone. The nurse led me to a curtained-off area.

  “Just take your skirt and shoes off and pop the gown on. Come out when you’re ready.”

  She left me alone. Alone. I mustn’t be alone.

  The lights flickered so quickly as to be barely noticeable but I noticed and so did the team on the other side of the curtain. Next to me, the wall seemed to undulate. Again, only for a second. A dark shadow appeared, growing, seeming to absorb the wall behind it. I dragged my skirt down and kicked my shoes off. I was back through the curtain in under a minute, panting hard.

  The nurse looked up from what she was doing. “Hey, it’s okay. No need to rush. Take all the time you need.”

  How could I explain to her that I didn’t have time? Certainly not time to be alone even if there was only a curtain separating me from them. They could still get to me.

  And then I realized. They already had.

  It was that time-shift phenomenon. The demon’s ability to bend and shape time. To me and to the team of radiographers and specialist nurses, a minute or two had elapsed, but I knew. I had gone through that curtain as Nessa Tremaine, albeit Nessa Tremaine with a dormant evil spirit inside her. But I had emerged fully integrated with the One and the Many. She had taken hold of me and claimed me fully as her own.

  * * *

  And now, I am lying here in a room in the Radiotherapy suite. They’ve positioned me, lined me up and, in any second, I will hear the sound of the machine delivering its first destructive, yet necessary pulses.

  I close my eyes. The sound of the machine fades away until I can no longer hear it.

  In the distance I can hear voices calling me. The voices of my ancestors.

  And the voice of the spirit who controls us all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What do you mean, you can’t find her?” Paul stared in disbelief at the pale, scared-looking nurse who had been all smiles when she had escorted Nessa in for her treatment. Now she stood opposite him in a consulting room off the main waiting area.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Tremaine. I can’t explain it. Nessa had her treatment—”

  “I know. I heard the machine.”

  “She went behind the curtain to get dressed and when she didn’t come out, I went to check on her. But she wasn’t there.”

  Paul flopped down onto a chair, his head in his hands. “This can’t be happening.”

  “We’ve alerted Security and a search is being made right now.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll find her. And it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happe
ned.”

  “Sorry?”

  Paul couldn’t bring himself to even begin to try and tell a story so fantastic he could hardly believe it himself.

  He had reported Nessa missing to the police and they took a statement. A part of him still clung to the hope that she had simply panicked and run away from the treatment even though he knew that made no sense.

  “I need to know my wife is all right. I’m going out of my mind here.” Paul had meant every word as he sat in his living room opposite a man young enough to be his son.

  The police constable tucked his notebook in his pocket. “I assure you we’re doing everything we can to trace her. Maybe she simply needed a little time on her own.”

  “But she knows she can’t do that. She must compete the full course of treatment. Now she’s missed two appointments.”

  The police officer moved toward the door. “Let us know if you hear from her. Meanwhile we’ll do all we can to find her.”

  Paul let him out, locked the door behind him and sank down onto the settee.

  * * *

  An hour later, Joanna held an old brown leather book out to Paul as they sat in his living room. “I’ve bookmarked the relevant entry. It’s Lydia Warren’s diary from 1874. It makes for interesting reading and it’ll probably mean more to you, given what you’ve told me of Nessa’s experiences and now her disappearance. So much like Carol.”

  Paul opened the diary and read the entry silently to himself.

  ‘May 5th

  What strange thoughts I have been having. They are not mine. They belong to someone else. Someone in the future, speaking words that mean nothing to me. Radiotherapy. What is that? Something about a woman called Nessa and a child called Agnes. I don’t understand any of it. Who are these people? Yet I feel I should know them. That, in some way, I do know them.

  I am seated at a battered wooden desk. Dr. Franklyn is sitting on the other side of the room, writing something in a large book. I look down at my hands. I am writing too. My penmanship is quite good. It never used to be. No, that’s not right either. This is not my memory but that of another. I was taught to write neatly, as I am now.