The Ghosts of Sleath (34 page)

And then it stopped, and she heard a door handle rattle.

A door opened. And she heard Sarah scream.

Ruth understood.

‘Nooooooo!’

Her own scream had finally broken free as her chair tipped over and she lunged towards the kitchen drawer. She yanked it open, pulling it too far, tipping its contents onto the floor. Falling to her knees and ignoring the barbs of pain that stung her flesh, Ruth swept her hands through the cutlery, finding the broad-bladed carving knife. She gripped its wooden handle and staggered to her feet. Her legs felt stiff, uncoordinated,
but she forced them to take her to the kitchen door. Sarah’s second scream sent Ruth stumbling through and then she was running down the passage, knife held high over her head, her own scream wilder, more fearful even than her young sister’s.

Ellen Preddle waited. And her dead son waited with her.

Simon sat in the lumpy armchair by the empty fireplace, his frail naked body as pale as alabaster, while his mother had drawn up a chair opposite him. Although directly in his line of vision, Ellen was not sure if her son really saw her, for there was no recognition in his eyes. By facing him this way she could at least pretend he was aware of her. She exhaled a small white cloud each time she breathed and now she pulled the knitted cardigan tighter across her chest to keep out the chill. No such breath-clouds came from Simon’s mouth, and even though he was unclothed, she had not seen him shiver.

Fresh tears seemed unavailable to her, although the handker-chief clasped between her fingers was sodden from those shed earlier. Perhaps she had cried them all; perhaps even grief could wear itself out. The tears would come again when the pain resurfaced.

Simon,
her
Simon, was gone. She realized that at last. The little figure that sat there was not her son, it was not his
flesh
and
blood
: it was his ghost. Simon was dead. She had finally accepted the fact. And nothing would ever bring him back. But if she could just have this - his spirit, his soul, whatever it was that sat opposite her - so that she knew there was something more, that death didn’t mean oblivion, then perhaps she could be satisfied. This was better than being without Simon entirely.

She remembered the moment a few hours ago when she had come down from her bedroom, having wept the afternoon away, and had found him there, hands in his lap, his narrow shoulders hunched forward. Simon had always huddled that way
when he was afraid, and there was only one thing he had ever truly feared, and that had been his dad. She had rushed towards him, meaning to take his naked body in her arms and soothe away the dread, but something had held her back; somehow she knew that if she touched him she would discover he was not really there, he was visible only in her mind, and that would mean she’d be alone again, and the truth forever more would demean the dream.

Other truths had come to her as she had taken her place opposite him. Thoughts had plagued her during the night, notions that worried her, tormented her, but were never fully realized. During these last few hours they had taken on more certain form.

Simon was dead, and his father had killed him.

George Preddle, himself, had died as he had lived: miserably. The wretchedness of his own life had been inflicted on those around him, so that she and Simon had suffered years of his abuse. He had hated them both, but for some reason that Ellen had never quite understood, he had hated his son more than his wife. Only on the night before George’s death did she discover why it was so, for it was then that he had taunted her about their
bastard
boy. How he had come to regard Simon as such she could not fathom, but his jibes were as relentless as they were malicious, and eventually she had understood it was the sickness of his own soul that made him believe in his own words. Probably he couldn’t understand Simon’s goodness, his innocence, his love of all things, especially his mother, and how different he was from George himself. In looks, the son favoured his mother, but Simon
was
George’s child, for she had never as much as looked at another man since their marriage. No, his insistence that Simon was not his son went much deeper than misguided belief in her infidelity: it was because of his own sexual abuse of Simon that he repudiated any blood-tie, for in his evil, twisted mind that would make his offence against the boy incestuous and that - oh, the sickness of it -
that
just wasn’t natural.

Sometimes she had suspected what was going on, but because Simon never complained, never even hinted at his father’s attention, she pushed the suspicions away, for to know for sure would have been too painful and the shame too hard to bear. She had remembered Simon’s unaccountable moods, the times he hid away in his room, withdrawn and tearful, particularly after he had been left alone with his drunken father, and now she wondered what threats from George had sealed her son’s lips. Yes, she had suspected and often - especially when Simon had regarded her with those dark, reproachful eyes of his - she had determined to do something about the situation. Indeed, at one time she had.

Ellen had gone to the vicarage and confided her fears to Reverend Lockwood. How shocked her pastor had been by the allegation and how he had assured her she must be wrong, that although George Preddle was a foolish and idle man - yes, yes, a drunkard even - he would never act in the way she suggested towards his own son. She was surely mistaken. Certainly he would talk to her husband, remind him of his duty towards his family and, if she insisted, confront him with her suspicions. Leave it to him, he would sort out old George, but mention her concerns to no one else. Remember, social workers and local authorities were only too eager these days to break up perfectly good homes at the slightest hint of child abuse, and the last thing Ellen would want was for young Simon to be taken into care. Think of what happened to all those poor families in the Orkneys.

The thought of her son being snatched away from her - it seemed that every week you read about that sort of thing in the newspapers - filled her with a worse dread than before. She only
suspected
what was going on, and Simon had never actually spoken of it. He knew how much his mother loved him, so surely he would have told her, even if he was afraid of his father. Unless, of course, he was not afraid for himself alone, but for his mother too … No, no, she couldn’t let herself think that, it would have been too horrible. Besides there were
no marks on Simon, no bruises. Reverend Lockwood had promised to speak to George, and George might bluster, he might rant and rage, but he was a craven half-wit outside the home and he would pay heed to the vicar’s words.

One evening shortly after, George had returned to the cottage even more drunk than usual and in a furious temper. He had cursed her, and shook her so badly that she had collapsed to the floor. The vicar had spoken to him all right, her husband had told her sneeringly, oh yes, the high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou Reverend Lockwood had had a few words to say to him, but there was no problem, was there? Y’see, he and the squarson saw eye-to-eye, didn’t they? The reverend understood old George. So don’t you ever forget it, you stupid fat sow.

The leer on his face had been sickening, and when he’d kicked her for good measure as she lay on the floor, he had sniggered and announced that the boy would get what was coming to him before too long and nobody would do anything about it.

Ellen had crawled up the stairs and into Simon’s tiny bedroom and she had cuddled her son while they listened to George vent the rest of his anger on the furniture downstairs. Occasionally they heard him laugh aloud and call out, his words incomprehensible, but he had not come up after her. And he had not touched the boy the next day, or any day since.

But sometimes, when Simon was in the bath and she sat on the stool by the side, telling him stories, helping him wash his hair, George would appear in the open doorway, not
always
drunk, and just watch the boy with a peculiar expression on his face. Simon would cover himself by curling up, chin against his knees, while she would push her husband from the doorway and along the landing into their bedroom. More than once on those occasions, to appease George, to keep him away from the bathroom door, Ellen had to do things with him that shamed her, dirty, bestial things that no woman should ever be forced to do by another person. If it kept Simon safe, though, if it kept
those filthy, leering eyes off her son, then what did it matter?

Unfortunately, although George did not lay a finger on his son again, somehow his menace grew worse. Sometimes he mumbled strange, incoherent things; other times he was full of dark hints and threats that would make him chuckle to himself. It affected Ellen so badly that even when she left the cottage to take Simon to the bus for school, or to do some shopping, or visit the church, she felt a dark, ominous gloom over the village itself. It was as if something nasty was pending.

Then George had died in the fire.

The release - and the relief - was overwhelming. Instead of sorrow, she and Simon had felt deliverance. And joy, such blissfully sweet joy.

When they had brought Simon home after he had witnessed the death of his father in the burning haystack, her son had not wept and he had not been in shock. He had thrown himself into her arms and when those who had brought him to the door, their own faces sombre with the bad news, had left, Simon had looked up into her face and smiled.

How happy they had been together because the threat - and her guilt - had been removed. How much they had enjoyed life, their bond so much stronger than before, and what good times they’d had in this new-found freedom. Almost a year of perfect contentment.

Until George had returned.

She hadn’t known it then, but she knew it now. For a complete understanding of her son’s death had come to her as she sat with him earlier that evening. Simon hadn’t spoken, he had not even acknowledged her presence, and images had not appeared in her mind. The understanding had simply arrived without warning, without announcement, without mental pictures.

Ellen had left Simon alone on that fateful afternoon. He was in his bath, quite happy, quite safe, but his small heart had stopped -
literally
stopped - from shock for a moment when he saw the ghost of his father standing at the open bathroom
door, watching him with that loathsome, leering expression that Simon remembered so well. Her son had collapsed in the water and, because his body had relaxed into unconsciousness, his lungs had automatically tried to draw in air. Simon had drowned within seconds. Murdered by his own father.

As she sat there Ellen wondered why, if she could not hold his thin, naked body, if she could not offer comfort, was Simon here? Why hadn’t his poor little soul gone to God? Why was he waiting in the chair?

It was not until she heard the noise from upstairs that Ellen began to have a glimmer as to why Simon had returned again and again. The sound was that of water being disturbed, as if a hand was scooping through it, testing its heat, just as she used to when it was time for Simon’s bath.

Simon continued to stare at her - or at least, at the space she occupied.

Someone called, a low gruff summons.

And Simon was rising.

Fighting her panic, she said his name quietly, but he ignored her and went to the stairs.

‘Simon!’
she screamed when he began to climb them.

Ellen ran to the stairs, pleading with him as his small, white body turned the bend. She swayed, her senses reeling, both fear and revulsion attacking her like conspiring demons, draining her strength, her legs becoming weak, unable to bear her weight. Simon was gone from view and she thought she heard a different sound from the bathroom. It was the deep-throated chuckling noise that George used to make when he forced her to do those horrible, disgusting things.

She uttered a warning, but it had no strength, no authority. She began to pull herself up the stairs, crawling on hands and knees. She screamed again when she heard the splashing of water.

Shadows wandered through the mists around the worn relics that in another age had served as Sleath’s instruments of correction and torture. A whispering could be heard -
if
there had been anyone on the common to listen - and as darkness drew in, the shapes grew firmer, became more resolved, and the discarnate murmurings became louder.

Still the blood seeped from the whipping post, gradually becoming an outpouring from every cleft and fissure, from every fine crack, spreading to the stocks where it dripped onto the earth below. Soon the ground was soaked with the deep-red effluence and a pool was formed, the pool becoming a stream that flowed further, eventually spilling into the road itself …

… Where more shadows, the ghosts of Sleath themselves, moved through the mists …

The crockery on the table began to rattle, one of the teacups dancing around its saucer as if in a bid to escape.

Rosemary Ginty clamped a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry and her husband, Tom, glanced over his shoulder at the commotion. His beefy hands still held the curtains he had just drawn against the foggy night outside, but he let them drop when he saw the dancing chinaware.

The teacup finally toppled over the saucer’s brim and continued its agitation against the tabletop. They watched in numbed silence as it jiggled its way to the table’s edge and fell to the floor. The thick rug that stretched almost to the walls of the Gintys’ upstairs parlour prevented the cup from breaking, although it bounced, then twitched a few times before coming to rest.

‘Tom!’
Rosemary finally managed to call out as if accusing him of some transgression.

If she expected a response, it was not forthcoming. Instead, the landlord of the Black Boar Inn cautiously approached the table and its rattling crockery, a hand held before him as if to
pacify a distraught household pet. For the sake of space, the table was pushed up against a wall with two chairs on either side (apart from breakfast, the Gintys rarely dined in their private quarters, preferring instead to use the inn’s small restaurant directly below), and the parlour, itself, was crammed with unmatched furniture and Rosemary’s overflowing collection of cheap curios. A television, only occasionally switched on, stood in one corner of the room, with a lamp and framed photograph on its flat top, while opposite was a low coffee table and comfortable armchair which Rosemary currently occupied. A sideboard, sofa, glass-fronted cabinet stocked with Rosemary’s ornaments and bric-a-brac, and an antiquated radiogram filled the remaining space.