The Watchers

by A. M. Shine

  ‘We’ll find John first thing in the morning,’ Daniel called out to her. ‘I promise.’

  He should have known better than to make promises like that. Mina suspected that if Madeline could have thrown Ciara outside and been rid of her, she would have. It was obvious that she saw her as an encumbrance. But then why didn’t she? Was the threat so immediate, so at their door, that she wouldn’t risk prising it open for a short second to let her out? What if they were right outside, in the corridor, listening to their every word, waiting for that moment of weakness?

  Madeline wasn’t concerned for Ciara. She was looking out for her own safety. And so long as Mina followed her lead, then maybe she was safe too.

  ‘How did you know?’ Mina asked her.

  ‘How did I know what?’

  ‘That those things out there brought John back,’ she said. ‘That they want us to hear him dying.’

  Madeline indulged in that little habit of hers, pursing her lips before she spoke. The woman wasn’t aware of it. Mina searched through her memories, throwing past moments from the shelves of her mind, laying bare all the occasions when Madeline had answered one of her many questions, and the times that her mouth performed those subliminal stunts. Mina understood what they meant now.

  ‘I don’t know anything, Mina,’ she replied. ‘My guess is as good as yours.’

  Though Madeline had tried to conceal it, Mina knew then that so much she had told her was a lie.

  JANUARY

  10

  Mina

  The storm lasted for two days and nights. The gale howled loudest through the living room’s bare frames, throwing nature’s wreckage into its corners, and spinning dry ash in whirlwinds across the floor. Branches split and fell. Some hung on by the flailed sinew of ivy and through tangled knots of thorns. The rain was relentless, breaking around the trees in waves, making their old wood creak like a fleet of sinking ships.

  On the third morning it moved on and the sun made a brief appearance, making all that damp glitter like cut crystal. Drops of rain still trickled from the broken, leafless gutters above, and it would be a long time before the forest was dry. The calm was unnerving. It felt deceitful. Winter’s white had melted into a gritty black. It made the simplest chore that bit more difficult as feet sank and slid, and every leaf and body of wizened bracken soaked clothes through to the skin.

  It was the thirteenth of January. A month had passed since Mina left the city. She had kept careful record of the days. Otherwise, there would have been no Christmas, no New Year’s Eve – those days still guarded by memories, fond or otherwise. In the forest they were like any other. All days were the same. Dates were insignificant numbers. Life in the forest was one of routine and struggle. No memories worth keeping were made there, and the future’s horizon was lost to the trees.

  No one left the coop during the storm. Accidents and injury were too great a risk and Madeline wouldn’t allow it. They had agreed to ration what they had and wait it out. The rain was deafening. Its bullets barraged the iron roof without ever reloading and the days were unnaturally dark. Somehow life was even more miserable, and each other’s company all the more claustrophobic. As soon as the light clicked off, Mina was out the door. Within moments everyone else had done the same.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to walk through you now, am I?’ she said to the cluster of stinging nettles. Each leaf was a flooded little boat waiting to capsize. She could still recall the childhood trauma. Every trip to the countryside, especially those summers in Menlo Village, the nettles were everywhere. No one was safe. Mina was all too fond of sashaying through the high grass, feeling their blades slide through her fingers. She was an easy target and a repeat casualty. The skin would rise up like red bubble wrap, and the itch would burn and then it would burn some more. Dock leaves were the cure, her mother had told her. But even now, as a so-called adult, Mina wouldn’t be able to pick one out of a line-up of leaves.

  She was already sodden. Her toes squelched in her boots. Mina had taken a page out of Madeline’s book of woodland fashion and now when she ventured out, she always wrapped a blanket around her body. Madeline should have the fire built and burning by the time she got home. Home – even Mina caught herself saying it occasionally. She would commit the socially unspeakable and dry her wet socks by its warmth. The heel had already frayed to nothing on the left one. The right wasn’t too far behind it. She tried not to think of all the fresh, folded clothes neglected in her apartment, and of the countless socks paired up in balls in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  She had to wade through the bushes to keep her course. Her shawl felt heavier with every bead of moisture that it absorbed, but the air was milder. She was thankful for that. Her breath no longer hung around her lips like exhaled smoke. Mina missed that habit most of all. Gone were the halcyon days of hand-rolled cigarettes. She had stretched the remains of her tobacco pouch as far as she could. But it had been nearly a week now without one, and Mina’s hands had started to fidget. She missed the yellow stains on her fingers and the cough that always warmed her throat.

  ‘There you are,’ she whispered when her eyes found the burrow.

  Mina had two bags with her that afternoon. One was her own, containing everything that was only hers. She had taken to picking at its fake, black leather out of boredom. She never let it out of her sight. Madeline had watched it like a hawk, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever she was hiding in there, not that any of it was particularly interesting. But Mina reaped some pleasure from keeping its contents secret. Madeline kept her fair share. The other was a canvas bag that she used to carry the bottle, and to store any edibles that she found along the way. Such was the life of a forager. Her sister would be proud.

  She slid her sketchbook out, careful to keep it safe from any stray droplets; those that seemed to sprout from a hundred hidden sprinklers high above. The burrow was more or less where she had expected to find it. The detour around the nettles had thrown her course off slightly, but she was confident that it lined up with the rest. The hole in the earth was unusually wide and mostly undisturbed, or else the rain had smoothed out the soil, removing any tracks. Its location was duly jotted onto the page.

  Madeline had warned them that the burrows were all over the forest, randomly dug into the earth, and so it was in their best interest to stay on the path she had made for them. But that wasn’t the case. Mina suspected that Madeline had known this all along. There was a pattern. Mina just didn’t understand it yet. Ciara and Daniel may have been content to eat up the woman’s lies, but it was Mina’s intention to spit them back.

  Every day, Mina made the trip to the spring. She had volunteered to do so. Before her arrival, Daniel and Ciara had taken turns to replenish their water supply. They both saw it as a chore. Daniel worried so much about the burrows that they genuinely upset his sleep. And Ciara made every errand seem like a burden, which coincidentally was exactly what Madeline thought of her. Any break from that environment, however short, was a gift.

  The walk was a chance to enjoy some peace and solitude, once so underappreciated. Madeline stressed to her that collecting the water shouldn’t take more than an hour. Mina made sure to draw out her time, if only to prove the woman wrong. She would sit by the spring and listen to the trickle of water whispering between the rocks. She always rinsed her hands and face, and doused fresh water through her hair, squeaking like a field mouse from the cold. Simple rituals like this were important. They kept her clean. And, more importantly, they kept her sane. The days were too bitter to strip but if she were feeling brave, she would slip off her blanket and leather jacket, and splash some water under her jumper and around her body. It was a kindness, she believed, that the sight of her naked self should remain a mystery. Mina dreaded to imagine how she looked.

  Her arms had thinned. The veins glowed beneath their pale skin, and her hands – like Madeline’s – looked larger. She couldn’t stop staring at them, horrified by how they had aged in such a s
hort time. Keeping them clean became a hobby of sorts, and another reason why she had volunteered to visit the spring each day. Her nails may have broken but they were never dirty.

  When Mina hugged her body, she could count her ribs. It was as though a layer had been shaved off her. Gone was the flesh, its welcome softness. Her bones now felt exposed, like a delicate exoskeleton that would shatter if she took a bad tumble, her limbs scattering all around her. She was all jagged lines and sharp edges – a sketch from a Gothic novel; the thing that creeps through the night with all the silence of a spider.

  Mina despised the coop’s mirrored glass, not because of what it hid, but for what it revealed. Every night during those long, lit hours she would study her own reflection. She imagined it ageing before her very eyes or fancied that it wasn’t her at all. It was some Dickensian vision – a ghostly warning to never enter the woodland. A warning that the spirit forgot to pass on, thus precluding the miracle that could have been.

  Her hair was tangled and clumped together like a helmet. The fringe had inched down to her eyes, visible only if she acknowledged it. She pinned it back with one of her rare, remaining hairpins when she went about her jobs.

  The eyes suffered the worst. The coop’s light was a constant strain. There were days when they felt like the heaviest piece of her, holding more weight than all her bones combined. They were always tired; never fully opening like a new-born puppy. Mina could feel the folds gathering on both sides. The creases would eventually break like the veins of a leaf from her eyes to her ears. She had tried to rest them, to not squint against the light, but it was impossible. It was too painful.

  The fading beauty in the mirror was forged from Mina’s fears and the squalor that was everywhere, as though it had soaked into her skin, poisoning her self-esteem. The eyes always find what they search for, and she sought out the blemishes and the ugliness. Daniel would blush beet red whenever she caught him watching her from across the room. Mina couldn’t understand what he saw.

  Ciara hadn’t forgiven them for what they had done. Not that a full pardon was ever expected. They were, each of them, responsible for her husband’s abandonment. Ciara had forgotten why they did it, recalling the act without the reason. Every grudge, if it is to stand the test of time, relies on the certainty of a selective memory. The woman had hardly spoken since that night. Though it was Madeline who had held the keys and guarded the door, it was Daniel who bore the brunt of Ciara’s resentment. His betrayal had cut her the deepest.

  He tiptoed around her, treating Ciara like a cracked china doll, desperately trying with every kind act and utterance to win back her trust, to cement over the fractures. She was having none of it. He had the saddest smile that Mina had ever seen.

  ‘Maybe he’s still alive,’ he had said to Ciara days after that night.

  Mina knew that the boy’s heart was in the right place. But that was no excuse. He just had a knack for always saying the wrong thing. There were days when he couldn’t bring himself to look anyone in the eye, and then there were those moments when he would stare at Madeline, his intentions towards her guarded and deranged.

  Madeline was unchanged. She spoke strictly of matters regarding their survival. Her face was dull as a death mask. It was unnerving. Only the eyes ever moved. It was as though she knew that Mina was studying her.

  The tensity between Madeline, Ciara, and Daniel was palpable, like a gas leak you could taste in the air. They went about their jobs and survived as best they could, together. But Madeline had been right. Daniel and Ciara were weak. There was no gauging what they were capable of should their emotions get the best of them.

  Only the bird seemed to adjust to their new lives with ease. It looked healthy enough and was tirelessly upbeat. It slept during the days, and its bright face beamed at everyone throughout the night, thrilled to always have company. The yellow one only lost its cool when Madeline stepped too close to it. Her unpopularity had, or so it seemed, spread across species.

  Mina made her way back to the coop. The clouds cracked, and faint pillars of sunlight slipped through the branches above. Wet stones waxed like mirrors, and leaves brimming with water shimmered all around. The bottle had been filled, and her foraging had added a ball of weight to the canvas bag.

  The same thoughts and theories tracked her every careful step, keeping her company, always buzzing around her head like a swarm of summer midges. Undeterred by Madeline’s restated belief that their escape was impossible, Mina knew there had to be a way. John’s attempt was ill-conceived. The man had made a run for it; simple, rash, and ultimately suicidal. He didn’t understand the lay of the land or what he was running from. And the forest was so dense. It was unlikely that he had covered much ground before nightfall.

  Would he have been so brave had he actually seen what was out there? Mina had studied the gashes around their burrows, and she had heard their screams. But she had yet to see them. That, she decided, had to change. She had to test Madeline’s version of the truth. She said that the things weren’t human, that they were leaner and longer. But if they weren’t human, then what were they? And if they didn’t build that cryptic prison deep in the forest, then who did?

  ‘You took your time,’ Madeline said when Mina stepped into the living room.

  She had cleared the storm’s debris from the floor. And was now trying to stoke some life into the fire using what little wood they had stored before the rain came, which wasn’t a lot. The deadwood outside was too damp to be of any use. Mina chose to ignore the thorny welcome. Besides, she always took her time.

  ‘I’ll leave the water and the bit of food inside,’ she said. ‘Were the traps checked?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Madeline replied. ‘The storm destroyed them. We should have taken them down.’

  If only we had watched the weather forecast, Mina thought, but knew better than to say it. At least Madeline couldn’t blame Daniel this time. However, testament to the woman’s inventiveness, she was sure to ferret out some other reason for berating the boy.

  Ciara was in the coop, shaking the blankets out, grimacing like a housewife disenchanted with it all. Mina had suggested taking one of them down to the spring each day for a wash. They could have dried them slowly by the fire over the course of a few days. Madeline vetoed the motion, saying that they should wait until winter had passed. She genuinely had no intention of ever leaving that place.

  ‘Do you want some nuts, Ciara?’ Mina asked.

  ‘I will once I’m done here, thank you,’ she replied in that monotone that was now her voice. Every response sounded almost automated.

  Daytime in the coop was surreal as the night. Mina had grown so used to her own reflection that when the glass was transparent, she almost missed that ugly other self, as though she was one half of a complete person.

  ‘I’m glad the storm has finally passed,’ she said. ‘Mind you, outside is in some state after it. You want to watch your step if you’re going out.’

  Ciara just grunted some sound that could have meant either thank you, Mina, or Mina, would you kindly shut the fuck up.

  ‘What’s everyone been up to?’ Mina asked, leaning against the wall, showing that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  ‘Madeline brought Daniel into the woods again,’ Ciara replied, but not until after she had exhaled all the air out of her lungs in frustration.

  ‘What do they do out there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ciara replied. ‘I don’t care. She’s probably showing him how to make more traps, or maybe they were collecting wood. It doesn’t matter. Madeline said we won’t have any real food for at least another day.’

  Mina noticed that Ciara’s shoes and the calves of her jeans were tarred with wet dirt. She had already been outside, and unlike Madeline’s movements there was no mystery as to where she wandered. It was a ritual of hers to search the area of the woods where she believed John had been taken. Truth was that there was no knowing where the man had died. His cries had come f
rom everywhere. Ciara had yet to find any trace of him, or if she had then she had kept it to herself. Mina knew better than to ask. Even Daniel wasn’t so blunt as to broach that question.

  ‘Where’s Danny now?’ Mina asked.

  ‘Setting the traps, I guess,’ Ciara replied, utterly disinterested.

  ‘But I thought you said that he did that earlier with Madeline?’ Mina asked.

  Ciara paused to assess what she was saying. She clearly wasn’t even paying attention to herself.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, frustrated now. ‘Either way I heard Madeline telling him to go and set them up. So, I suppose they were doing something else. Does it matter, Mina? Why don’t you just go and ask her?’

  Absolutely useless, Mina thought, looking at the girl who used to be so cheery – the kind-hearted antithesis to Madeline’s dispassion. Ciara’s hair, and around her neck and chin, looked filthy. Her hands, too. After all that had happened to her, what was a little dirt? She was just another tree in the storm, weathered and broken.

  Hygiene had become an obsession of Madeline’s after Christmas when Daniel caught a chill. That’s why the coop’s cleanliness had become a priority. Madeline wasn’t taking any chances in case his runny nose was a symptom of something worse. She wouldn’t even talk to the boy or let him take a sup from their bottle. He had to drink the water from his cupped palms, spilling most of it on the floor, only further waxing her irritation.

  The cold was the killer. If the damp soaked into you, if it chilled your bones and you let it linger, then you were inviting trouble. That’s what Madeline had told them. That was why she built a fire every day. They were tired and malnourished, but there was warmth when they needed it, and it was their fault if they got sick.