Everything about him was repulsive, from the wiry black hairs poking out of his cheeks to the speckles of grease on the lens of his glasses.
“All right.”
“Your mummy’s been telling me you’ve had some nightmares?”
I closed my eyes. Maybe he would just go away?
“But there’s nothing to worry about, you know. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
What a twit! Hadn’t he just been uttering the words ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost’?
“And I can assure you that the lady who died here has gone to heaven. I knew her very well. She used to come to my church and arrange flowers. I know it’s hard to understand the concept of death, but—”
“She isn’t in heaven. She was murdered, and her blood’s on the landing floorboards. Her son did it, and she’s mad as all hell. You should dig up the grave and find all the bones he broke—”
He reeled back as if he’d been slapped. “Pardon? Oh dear, no. I think someone’s imagination is running away with her.”
“He hit her in the neck with a rolling pin, then dragged her up the stairs by the hair while she was still alive—”
“Eva, stop it!” My mother’s voice. “I’m so sorry, Father—”
Colin the Vicar’s voice was harder now, too. And louder. “You are a very disturbed little girl indeed, aren’t you? I knew the old lady who lived here, and I also knew her son. He’s a church-going man, a doctor. Well, not exactly a doctor, a radiographer, I think – but a caring, good man. His mother fell in the kitchen. Bernard lifted her upstairs and put her into bed, where she passed peacefully in her sleep. He lived here, too, and doted on her, took care of her. So you can’t say things like that, Eva. It’s wrong – very, very wrong.”
While he was full monologue, my body began to twitch and then jerk alarmingly. Flour was all over my hands, and a blinding pain shot down the side of my neck… Strong hands grabbed my hair and began to drag me along the floor. The roots were being yanked out of my head. I tried to reach up, but my skull cracked against the foot of the stairs, then, oh God, the pain… bump, bump, bump… every metal ridge of those stairs slammed into each vertebra. My leg twisted, and screams rent the air. Blood was pouring down my nose… the back of my head pounding…
“What’s she doing?” Colin stood up and began to back towards the door. “It looks like a fit!”
“Oh, bloody ’ell. Call the doctors, tell them it’s an emergency – hurry up!” My mother ran over and slapped my face repeatedly. “Eva! Eva! Can you hear me?”
I think she must have held me down until the doctor came, the same one who’d prescribed mild sedatives. He wacked up the dose and injected a syringe full of something for good measure. “Well, she’s calm enough now, but I think we might need to consider epilepsy. That could be it.”
“Epilepsy? Oh, bleedin’ Nora. What’s that when it’s at home?”
After that incident, the days grew shorter. The beech trees in the woods shone silvery in the moonlight, and fog crept in at dawn, muffling the smoky air with damp, grey mizzle. Sooty took to watching me until the light faded and the moon rose, his yellow eyes steady, purr hypnotic. Sometimes he sat on my chest, creeping in as close as he could, as if drawing fear itself from my breath.
And then one day, my mother must have felt secure, or desperate, enough to leave the house. Why not? I slept soundly all day and all night. It was just after lunch. She said she had an interview for a waitressing job in a local steakhouse. It would mean Dad wouldn’t have to do double shifts and could mend the hole in the wall. She wanted to surprise him with the good news.
“Just carry on sleeping, princess. I won’t be long.”
Her words floated on the air.
She was gone for two hours.
And when she came back, her screams ricocheted around the whole street. During that short period of time, someone had slashed through the plastic sheeting at the side of the house and burgled us. We didn’t have much, but they’d taken the television set and Dad’s whisky. Most of the glassware had gone and my mother’s pearls and engagement ring. The only room that hadn’t been touched was mine.
She bounded upstairs. “Eva! Wake up! Eva – oh, thank God.”
“What?”
“Well, didn’t you hear anything?”
“What? No, nothing apart from you screaming just now.”
“Eva, we’ve been burgled. The bloody television’s gone. My jewellery… Are you telling me you didn’t hear a thing?”
“No, I swear. I’m sorry, Mum.”
She sat on the edge of my bed then and cried, just put her head in her hands and howled. “I can’t take any more of this, I just can’t.”
I reached out through a misty haze to touch her. “I’m sorry, Mum.”
“I’m at the end of my tether, Eva.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you keep bloody saying!”
The harshness of her tone was a painful jar. My face screwed up, and tears burst out.
“Oh, don’t start, Eva. Just don’t.”
I cried harder.
Her anger was a rabid dog unleashed. Pacing the room, she stomped back and forth, the skin taut across those glass cheekbones, every sinew tight in her face. She wanted to hit someone very badly indeed. The flame red of her hair glinted like fire in the low winter sun, and then she swung around to face me.
“I’ve tried not to dwell on this Eva, I really have. But I can’t help thinking this is all down to you. Ever since the funeral, you changed. The day before, you were perfectly all right – a nice, normal child – but something happened, didn’t it? I can almost see the moment. It’s on the edge of my mind…”
I stared at her.
To you…
“We took such a bloody risk even going, but I were told she’d left us the ’ouse, and even that were a bloody lie…” Her eyes, so like mine – dark grey, slanted upwards – sparked with a sudden flash of understanding. “You didn’t take owt, did you? Remember when I told you how important it was not to take anything away? Either from the house or the coffin?”
I shook my head.
“But you took something, didn’t you? You must ’ave.”
“No.”
“It’s there on the edge of my mind, something. What am I missing?”
“I didn’t take anything, Mum. The only thing—”
“What? What only thing?”
“Well, there was something on the lane…” I so badly didn’t want her to take the poppet away. It was a good thing, not a bad thing, and had nothing to do with Baba Lenka or her coffin. I started to cry again. “It was just a toy on the lane. I found it. I didn’t take it from the house or the coffin, and it wasn’t Baba Lenka’s. It was just a doll.”
All her colour washed away. She lunged over and gripped my shoulders “What doll?”
I turned my face to one side.
She shook me. “What doll, Eva?”
Tearfully I reached inside the pillowcase for the little thing that had brought me comfort night after night, and took out the crow poppet.
“Flamin’ ’ell!” She whipped it off me. “So that’s it! I knew there were summat! Right, well, this little fucker’s gonna get burned to high hell.”
“No, please! It’s just a doll.”
“It is not just a doll, Eva, it’s a witch’s poppet, and don’t you dare tell your dad about this. It’s what’s called an alraun. And because of this, you’ve brought a curse home with you. I expressly told you not to an’ all. I said, did I not, ‘do not take anything away’? And now look – see how ill you are, and look what’s ’appened to us all! Think about it if you don’t believe me. And think hard an’ all. You either invite this stuff in or you accept it… either way, it comes through you!”