Absence_Whispers and Shadow Read online

  He decided to skirt the lake one more time before heading home and set off along a narrow trail that would have been overgrown, if not for endless loops he made of it every day. After Emilie’s accident the villagers stayed well clear of the lake. They claimed to feel a foreboding atmosphere hanging over the water and feared to set foot in her haunt. But Kye was glad of it. To him the lake had become a sanctuary - his own private land where he could visit her in peace. And now he knew every inch and twist of the trail as it snaked to avoid the marshy edges of the lake.

  He was about a quarter of the way around when he heard the scream – a sound so sharp that he dropped to one knee and slapped his hands to his ears. He knew it was Emilie because it was emanating from the very centre of his head; the place from which she always spoke to him now. Slapping his hands to his ears was just a reflex and holding them there did nothing to diminish the pain. When the scream ceased he straightened cautiously, half expecting another blast and getting one. But this time the scream turned in his head like weather vane, pointing to its origin. He aligned himself with the direction and found himself looking into the woods. He waited for a third scream and when it didn’t come he shouted her name several times. His voice echoed around the lake, but there was no reply.

  He ran into the woods, ducking under branches and weaving between trees. At first his thoughts were the obvious ones: Was she hurt? And, was she being attacked? But as he settled into his run, two follow up questions caught up with him: Was it even possible that someone could hurt her? And, why wasn’t she at the lake? She was always at the lake.

  The woods were narrow where he went in and he soon emerged onto the fields at the other side. He drew up puffing and scanned the area. Below him, on the road between North and South Agelrish, a horse and cart was rattling along. It slowed as it approached a group of children and the driver leant over the side to speak to them. Beyond the road, workers were bent over in fields of crops, weeding and cutting under a blazing afternoon sun. But there was no sign of Emilie; or any indication that anyone had heard her. He decided to go south and ran along the tree line, calling her name at intervals. It wasn’t until the farmhouses on the outskirts of South Agelrish came into view that he decided to stop and turn back - sure then that he had gone the wrong way.

  He traced the woods back until he came to a large maple that stood in its own space and slumped against it to catch his breath. The hay loft at the back of Farmer Timble’s barn was open and Jimlie, one of his old school friends, was standing on the edge looking down. A dozen feet below him was a cart laden with hay and beside it another old friend, Alio, was shouting for him to jump. A full minute passed before a hesitant Jimlie launched himself from the opening and disappeared into the cart. He emerged from the hay with a shriek of triumph, spitting bits from his mouth and swatting at his hair. Alio took time to laugh as he climbed out, then raced around the side of the barn to take his turn.

  Kye stared down at them, pulling his knees to his chest with callused hands more befitting a veteran farmhand than a fifteen-year-old boy. His shirt cuffs were frayed and as he gripped his legs his britches rode up to expose his bare ankles. He watched the boys absently, working his chin against his knees as he thought about the scream. He was starting to doubt his assumption that it had been Emilie now. Recognising someone’s voice was one thing; but recognising their scream was another. She wasn’t the only voice he had heard inside his head since the accident. There were others; but he hadn’t heard them up at the lake before.

  With his breathing back to normal, he got up just as Alio looked in his direction. His old friend had been crouched in the mouth of the hay loft, preparing to jump, but now he was straightening up to stare at him. Kye raised a hand in acknowledgement. The gesture was not reciprocated. Instead, Alio shouted something to his friend and pointed him out. Jimlie spun around and now the two of them stared at him. They looked at each other, exchanged a few words and disappeared – Jimlie around the side of the barn and Alio, seemingly stripped of his enthusiasm to jump, back inside the hay loft. It wasn’t too hard to understand. His old friends were spooked by his sudden appearance and didn’t think it a good idea to jump with the dead lake girl’s brother looking on.

  He went back to the lake and did another three loops of it, calling off his vigil only when the sun dipped behind the trees.

  Heartless Home

  His home was dead centre of a row of run down timber framed houses that were separated from the woods by only the narrow trail along which he walked. It was the shame of the row - a dilapidated hovel with missing slates, warped window frames and cracked panes. It had the look of a beaten man, propped up between several well-dressed friends. He ducked through the boundary fence and stepped into the patch of downtrodden nettles at the end of his garden. The grass was knee high in places, but not tall enough to hide the rusty old mangle and the pile of broken crockery his stepfather had dumped there. A strip of marigolds at the edge of the grass was the garden’s only redeeming feature, but they looked lost; as if they had wandered over from their neighbour’s well-tended flower beds.

  He pushed open the rotten backdoor and stepped into the dim light of the kitchen. It was in the usual state - dirty pots and plates were piled high in the sink and the table was strewn with cutlery and streaked with filth. He went straight to the iron pot on the stove and wasn’t surprised to find it empty. A thin layer of congealed food was stuck to the inside – the remains of a meal prepared so far back in time, he couldn’t remember what it was. He wrinkled his nose at the smell and went to the panty where he found a thumb sized piece of mouldy cheese and a crust of bread. He cleaned a knife on his shirt, cut the worst bits out and ate the rest. It didn’t fill him, but it was enough to loosen the knot that was tightening around his stomach. It was the eve of payday and the most he could expect. He gave his stepfather the same wages every week, but he suspected Bill was spending an ever bigger fraction on ale and cards. He had considered asking the miller for a little something to eat after work, but had thought better of it. The miller and his wife were a kind couple and he had no doubt that they would have obliged him. But he hadn’t wanted to risk them putting word around that Bill wasn’t providing for his family. Because if his stepfather ever got wind of it, he would get a severe hiding.

  He went through to the front of the house and found his mother rocking back and forth in her chair. She didn’t turn. She was staring through the window and if it hadn’t been so thick with grime he would have thought she was watching something going on outside. He took a moment just to look at her; reflecting on how much she had changed since the accident. He hardly recognised her anymore. Grief had drained her like a leech, shrinking her inside her dress and drawing the colour from her face. She looked starved and haunted - a shade of the mother she had once been.

  ‘Ma.’

  She half turned, receiving him only in the corner of her eye. ‘You seen Bill?’

  The question pricked him. His pig of a stepfather had been out all night and day and she was sat there worrying again. She never worried about him. Never took any interest in his day.

  ‘No. But I can guess where he is.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It’s not fair. What he’s doing to us. This place. And you ma, left all day in that chair while he drinks himself into a hole.’

  She snapped her head round viciously now. ‘How dare you?’

  ‘I’m only saying what’s true.’

  ‘He drinks to drown a broken heart.’

  ‘Is that right? And what about us? Aren’t we hurting too?’

  ‘At least you’re still alive.’

  ‘Is that what you call it? I was beginning to wonder. Can’t you see he’s robbing us? You of your life and me of what I sweat for all day in the mill… Taking what little I earn and blowing it on -’

  ‘- You ungrateful child! Bill took us in when we had nothing. Took you in as his own. And he keeps you under his roof after what ha
ppened.’

  The allusion to his sister’s accident and the implication of his guilt impaled him.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault Ma… You know it wasn’t. Bill’s poisoned you against me. Why don’t we just leave him and start fresh somewhere else?’

  ‘He’s all I got now, that’s why.’

  ‘What about me Ma? You still got me.’

  She turned to look back out of the window, leaving him staring at her chiselled profile over the bony tip of her shoulder. It was a view he was getting used to.

  ‘You can’t bear to look at me anymore. And the only time you do, it’s with a harsh tongue… I’ve done nothing but try to help you Ma.’

  ‘Well I don’t want your help,’ she said, shooing him away with a flick of her wrist. ‘Get along now and leave me alone.’

  With a heavy heart he left her to brood and climbed the stairs. His room was the smallest of two on the first floor, but it felt enormous now his sister was gone and Bill had emptied it of anything worth selling. Now the only furniture the bare walls had to look at was a bed with a broken headboard and a set of drawers. It was a sad room, but it reflected perfectly the emptiness he felt inside. His old teacher, Lady Demia, had once told his class that a home was a refuge for the heart. But whatever had once been here to nurture and restore his, was long gone. Since the accident their house had become a cold shell and the three of them had drifted into separate, self-absorbed lives.

  He kicked off his boots and jumped onto the bed. Then, after rubbing his aching feet, he pulled out the book he had hidden in his ripped mattress – the sole survivor of Bill’s clear outs. It was a battered school book; the sort pupils filled with their own work. He had owned two of the fancy ones with hard covers and printed words, but Bill had taken them after pulling him from school. No need to keep hold of these, his stepfather had explained when he caught him coming downstairs with them tucked under his arm, It’d be unfair to let those still in school do without. Then he had raised his eyebrows - as though an inspiration of charity had set him trawling through his bedroom and not the prospect of a pocket jingling transaction.

  He lit the candle on top of his drawers and opened the book. His reading and writing had been shaky at best and the miller had told him that if he didn’t keep practicing they would get worse. Most of the entries were just copy work from the blackboard. But there were a few pieces of free writing and several illustrations. He thumbed through the pages until he got to his drawing of The Reader. There was a picture of it in one of the fancy books at school and Lady Demia had asked them to draw it from a different angle and to include scenery. He had drawn it in left side profile with a bird sitting on one of its shoulders and sparkles of sunlight on the tips of its swords. There was a row of houses in the foreground with stick people leaning out of their windows, looking up at it. He thought he could do a better job of it now and would have tried if Bill hadn’t taken all his pencils and paper. Its proportions were all wrong and the expression on its face was a bit childish. He flicked forward to a drawing he preferred: a double page illustration of the Wall. He had populated it with a dozen sword wielding soldiers who were fighting a monster that was trying to climb over from the other side. It was holding a broken soldier in one claw and was looking at the rest with a single glaring eye. Above the Wall a full moon looked down from a heavily shaded night sky. This drawing was equally childish, but he liked it better. There was something about the moon and the monster’s hungry eye that made it creepy.

  He read some of his poems next; sounding out the more difficult words and wondering where his mind had been when he wrote some of the happier ones. His favourite poem was Dancing by the Fire and he read it three times before moving on. By the time he finished it was dark outside and he was tight up to his drawers, squinting to read in the feeble light of a candle. He hid the book inside the mattress, changed into his nightshirt and slipped under his covers.

  He laid there for a long time, thinking about his sister and stewing on their last argument. She had given him the usual lecture about getting on with his life and making new friends. But she hadn’t been able to tell him how he was supposed to do such things when all he got from the other boys was pity and suspicion. He tried to clear his mind and for a time found peace by listening to the wind outside his window. He began to imagine it as a breathy voice, boasting about the places it had been and enthusing about the places it was going to. He pictured it blowing across the countryside to Irongate, swishing around The Reader then twisting away to the mountains to ripple the cloaks of the soldiers that stood guard on the Wall. There was a whole world of wonder out there, full of people that hadn’t already judged him, and one day he would get out there and see it for himself. He turned on his side, wrapped himself up in his blanket and shut his eyes. When sleep finally took him it swooped fast, plucking him out of his bed like a giant night bird and tucking him beneath its black wing…

  …He alights in a room full of singing. There’s a roaring fire in the hearth and his mother and stepfather are dancing in its glow. Emilie is next to him, singing along. She thumps out a rhythm with her foot, her face flushing as she tries to sing higher than he is without laughing. The smell of chestnuts fills the air and a sense of belonging fills his heart. Snow sits in a layer on their window ledge and patters on the outside of the glass. He starts to dance, taking his sister by the hand and spinning her around. Then she spins him around, wrapping him up in the night bird’s wing once more. Their voices fade and he leaves them Dancing by the fire…

  …He’s in a playground now, chasing Emilie and her friends with a large spider cupped in his hands. She trips and he catches her, pushing his fingers down the neck of her dress. He stands back as her horrified, but relieved friends, come back to laugh as she swats herself in revulsion. Then he steps forward again, opening his hand to reveal the spider. Emilie freezes when she sees it running up his arm and one of her friends squeals with delight. She springs back to her feet and now she’s chasing him; laughing with the rest of them. He sprints away, but before he can make his destined collision with Lady Demia he is snatched away by another swoop of night…

  …He is released now into a cold place and finds himself running through a forest draped in snow and ice. Emilie runs ahead of him, panting and giggling as she flees the fistful of snow he holds in his cocked arm. This time he wants to stop; but his feet take him on regardless. Up ahead is a place neither of them should go. He can’t remember why this is so, but he feels it in his bones. The forest breaks and the lake is suddenly before him; its surface frozen except for a small waterhole way out in the middle. She runs onto its frosty surface without slowing. And why wouldn’t she? They have played on the ice for over a week now.

  But the weather has been warming and the ice thinning.

  He pulls up and wants to call her back, but can only watch as a bitter wind of dread blows through him and onto the lake. He is on the brink of remembering what will happen and knows it is something bad. She looks back over her shoulder; her face set in mock fear as her boots slip on the frosty surface. She slows, realising that he has stopped chasing - but her momentum carries her further out.

  All at once he has a hundred foot, bird’s eye view of Emilie as the entire lake fractures into an enormous cobweb around her, generating a noise like the snapping of a thousand thick branches.

  Now he is back at the lakeside. His sister is suspended over a gaping mouth of ice water, frozen in mid fall with her arms flung wide and her gloved fingers clawing the air. Her neck flexes, bringing her head up to face him. ‘It’s so cold down there Kye. Why don’t you ever help me?’

  She falls - breaking through the brittle plates of ice with a splash that sends a wave all the way to the edge of the lake, soaking his boots. Her gloved hand thrusts out of the water, then her hair matted face surfaces for the briefest time. She manages an icy gasp before she disappears and he can hear her disappointment.

  Released from paralysis he runs out to the swirling
water. The surface shifts under his feet, but he doesn’t care and runs on recklessly until it gives up its support. He plunges through – into a realm of inhospitable cold. He kicks for the surface, but the lake has resealed itself above him and his head bumps against solid ice. He punches repeatedly at its knobbly underside; but his unsupported feet are sinking into the dark water and he can get no force behind his blows.

  A brightness to one side catches his eye and he swims for it, his throat tugging and his stroke fast becoming a panicky flail. But the current is moving in the other direction and instead of getting closer, the light moves further away. His air finally runs out and he gasps the icy water into his lungs. He feels an odd sense of slippage and stares into the light; forgetting why it was so important. He stops swimming and lets the water take him. Something brushes against his shoulder and in one last command of his body he turns his head to look into Emilie’s bloated, lifeless face…

  Darkness...

  A feeling of being lifted from the water...

  He opens his eyes and finds himself back on the surface of the lake. The ice has been restored beneath his feet, but it now has the transparency of glass. The villagers are here and they are standing at the edge of the lake in a huge ring around him. He turns a full circle to look at them and one by one they raise an arm and extend a finger of accusation. His mother and Bill are the last ones he sees. But instead of pointing they turn away, showing him their backs. A heavy knocking on the under surface of the ice shatters the silence and lifts him off his feet. He looks down through the ice and straight into Emilie’s dead eyes…