Blackened Cottage Read online

  A hairy black centipede wiggles out of her dead mouth.

  I scream. Begin to run, run away from this terrible vision. I know not why my mind would conjure up such an image, but at least it has burned movement into my limbs.

  I limp forward, body convulsing – I must keep going, I must not give up.

  A light in the darkness. Am I imagining it? My legs quake as I drag myself through the trees. Up ahead a clearing. A building. Small, dark, lit by a lantern attached to the wall. A figure. I reach out to the figure. My heart is so slow. My legs so heavy. I fall to the ground hard but feel nothing.

  *

  Someone with dry fingers tucks a horsehair blanket under my chin.

  “There there Morna me dear, ye is goin' to be al-right. Ya mama will see to that,” she rasps. Her breath reeks of fish.

  She pronounces her 'th' like a 't' but I cannot name her accent. Welsh? Irish perhaps?

  Cow dung and log fire smoke cling to the muggy air. I hear crackling flames, feel delicious heat soothing cold, brittle nerves. Salt on cracked lips.

  Flash back to Father – Jean-Bernard - the deadly cold - terrible pain, gnawing fear. Villette – Bethan - Eddie. Mama. Eddie. Mama dead with a black centipede crawling out of her mouth.

  I open my eyes and stare at the oldest woman on earth. Her kind blue eyes are wrapped in the sallow skin of a sun-dried leaf, her scaly scalp visible through wispy patches of feathery white hair. She smiles and her teeth are black.

  “Ah Morna! Me precious little lamb, ye're awake! So long has it been! I am so, so glad to see ya! I thought ya'd ne'er return, so I did!”

  I try to sit up but she pushes me back down with surprising force.

  “No no, Morna me dear darlin'. Ye're not goin' anywhere, no Sir-ree. Not this time! No indeed. I ha' made sure o' that, so I ha'!”

  I know not who this Morna person is, but it appears that this old woman believes me to be her. What I do know is that I need to persuade her of my true identity and continue on my way.

  “Thank you. You have been most kind, but I need to go and find my brother,” I say.

  I start to get up again.

  Again she forces me back down.

  “Ye're not goin' anywhere,” she snaps. Her eyes are no longer kind. Darkness lurks there.

  My chest jumps. I jerk to my feet and move around her. My limbs are weak and I struggle to move with my usual grace.

  “I truly am grateful Ma'am, but I have to go.”

  I stride towards the makeshift door of her wooden hut and my foot connects with something soft and wet. I hesitate, glance down.

  A rat, gutted, its bowels oozing out. A bloody knife lying next to the rat.

  I gasp and instinctively step back.

  I hear the swoosh of the pan before she cracks it down on my skull.

  CHAPTER 11

  RATS

  I wake up and look around, wincing at the broiling pain in my head.

  The old woman stands in front of the fire humming a chirpy tune and turning a spit. Speared above the flames is a huge rat, an iron stake sticking out of its mouth. She shuffles over to a cooking pot and scoops some of the contents out with a wooden spoon. She blows her fish breath onto the spoon and shuffles over to me, dirty skirts swishing across the dung-pressed floor.

  “Eat,” she rasps, “it will help ya get ye memory back.”

  “Thank you, but I am not hungry. And I do not need anything to help me, because I have not lost my memory,” I say.

  She smiles darkly, “This is what ya always say in the first and then ya come around.”

  I say nothing more. There is no point belabouring a point that she will never grasp. I try to sit up but I cannot move my arms or legs.

  The old lady stretches out a gnarled finger and plucks up the blanket. I gasp. My hands and feet are tied to the bed by ribbons of velvet that she has torn off the bottom of my dress.

  “Ya see, there is no point in tryin' to move Morna. Now eat.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I say, trying to maintain a steady voice.

  Instead of answering she shoves the spoon into my mouth. I choke on the most revolting thing I have ever tasted; putrid, near-raw offal. I try to spit it out, but she seizes the top of my head and my chin, clamps my jaw shut and forces my head back.

  “Swallow it,” she barks.

  For a moment I fear the slimy entrails will not go down and I shall choke, but the moment passes and I am left with an after-taste of sour blood.

  “There's a good girl,” she smiles blackly.

  “Please,” I try, but she stuffs another spoonful into my mouth. Again she forces me to eat it. Tears river down my cheeks and I wretch and heave.

  “Now now, Morna. Ya must be a big brave girl like I showed ya when ya was little. No-one gets better withoot a bit of pain first do they now?”

  She releases my head and shuffles over to turn the spit, “Rat for supper. A special treat for my special girl. There were a few maggots down the bottom end but I plucked those out and set them aside for later...”

  As she rasps on I fight to loosen the binds on my wrists and ankles.

  The velvet ribbons are tied securely. My skin begins to burn, but I carry on regardless. The urgency to escape goes beyond my need to find Eddie; if I do not get away from this deluded old woman I shall be poisoned to death - or worse.

  She shuffles over, a plate in her hand, “Morna ya are goin' to truly love this, ya really are!” On the plate: the roasted rat, tail and all.

  I hesitate, about to challenge her, ask her why she insists on calling me Morna, but change my mind, “Thank you so much. I am eager to try it.”

  She smiles her decaying teeth grin, “Now ye're bein' a right little darlin' to be sure!”

  She perches on the bed beside me and tears the rat's head off, “Open up. Rat’s brains are sure to sort out that funny old brain ‘o yers.”

  “But first, what shall I call you? I do not know your name.”

  Her hand freezes, the fork suspended in the air two inches from my mouth. Her blue eyes narrow.

  “Ye call me Mama of course. My my Morna, ya are a foolhardy girl at times!”

  I nod. My body shakes beneath the covers. She lifts my head roughly and I cannot help eying the rat's head. Its eye is missing. Moving towards my lips. Nausea threatens. I push it back down and force a coughing fit. Coughing, coughing, coughing, wrenching my chest and throat and lungs, generating the most believable, horrific cough I can.

  Her eyes widen, “Morna? Morna dear? Whatever is the matter with ya?”

  So quietly so that she cannot quite make out my words, I whisper, “Please bring water.”

  She bends closer, leans in.

  Again I whisper with the breath of a mosquito's wings, “Please, water.”

  She leans closer, so close that I can see the black pores on her nose, the layers of grime clogging her wrinkled skin. So close that I inhale the dirty grease from her hair. Bracing myself, I push my head back then whip it forward fast and hard as I dare, smashing my own forehead into hers. The crack is great, the pain terrific, but it does the trick; she gasps and falls backwards – thwack! Out cold.

  I work at loosening the bindings on my wrists. Chaffing, burning. I twist, tug, pull, scream, cry, bite my lip against the burn. Soon my wrists are bloody, the bonds barely loosened at all.

  I glimpse movement on the floor by the bed and fear spikes in my blood, but it is not the old woman waking up. It is a large black rat.

  I watch as it scampers over to the old woman's prone body. Her chest rises and falls, her breathing low, rasping, but that is not enough to deter this rat.

  I already know what it is going to do before it does it. I do not want to see but cannot tear my eyes away.

  The rat stops at the old women's bare feet. Her toenails are rife with fungus, pus and crusted blood. It sniffs the air, head twitching, eyes darting. Lowering its head to her big toe, it sniffs, tests with a tentative lick.

  I pull an
d twist against my binds but my eyes will not stray from the terror before me.

  The rat licks and licks and then it opens it jaws wider than I thought possible and displays its teeth. So white, so fiendishly sharp.

  It snaps its teeth down on the pad of her toe. Clamps its teeth onto her skin. Pushes its teeth deep through the hardened dead skin into the soft sensitive tissue.

  Blood seeps. The old woman groans but does not wake. Blood gushes out of her skin and the rat becomes frenzied, chomping and tearing her flesh like a starved man eating his first meal in a month.

  *

  The black rat feasts upon the old woman's toe with clear relish. A wet, squelching sound accompanies the horrific sight. My stomach roils. I struggle against the velvet binds. My wrists bleed profusely now but somehow the gruesome picture before me desensitises me to the pain.

  I catch movement: another rat scampering towards the old woman's unconscious form. More movement – more rats. Five more. All scampering over, whiskers twitching, shining eyes eager.

  I cannot bear it. I hiss as loudly and threateningly as I can, but this elicits no response from them. Such is their focus – their mutual intent to gorge themselves upon the old woman's flesh as she sleeps.

  “Shoo! Get back!” I scream. But I am ignored. They are deaf to my commands.

  I glance around, desperately seeking some way of making enough noise to scare them away, but there is nothing within reach and I cannot break free. I am sealed to the bed.

  The first rat moves onto her second toe. Opens its jaw.

  The old women's eyes snap open! She screams, kicks out, sends the rat careering across the room. She shrieks, tries to get up, move backward, but her frail old body will not obey.

  The rat recovers and scuttles back over along with his comrades. I watch as she drags her feet up to her chest and struggles to sit up, ghost pale from the pain, new lines etched into her wrinkled face around her shrivelled mouth.

  She glances up at me, “Morna! My toe! I cannot stand! Help me!”

  “Free me and I shall help you!” I cry.

  She does not even hesitate. Dragging herself along the ground by her hands, she picks up the metal knife from the plate of decapitated rat and whips the blanket away exposing my bloodied right wrist.

  “Hurry!” I cry.

  The rats keep coming. Nothing will sway them from their target. They sense weakness and know she can do nothing to stop them. They have probably been waiting all their lives for this revenge. Their friend lies beheaded on a plate. The old woman who smells of rotten fish is a torturer who will taste as good as she smells.

  She moans as she saws through the velvet tie.

  “Hurry,” I urge.

  The rats are only inches from her feet. She kicks out, hits one in the face. It squeals but keeps coming.

  Then they are on her. All six of them. Crawling up her knees, onto her chest, aiming for her mouth, her nose, her eyes.

  She screams, drops the knife and tries to bat them off with her hands, but there are too many of them.

  I cannot watch. I focus on pulling my wrist free.

  I am beginning to think I will be trapped forever when the velvet breaks! For a second I am too stunned to move, then I turn and hastily untie my other wrist, my right ankle, my left.

  “Morna! Help me!” she screeches. They are clawing her cheeks. Trying to get at her eyes.

  I leap off the bed and smack the rats off her. They squeal but come running back for more. I bend down, lift her up and put her on the bed. The rats run at me. My feet are bare - their teeth are bared – they are vicious, rabid, insatiable.

  I turn, look, see the fire, a rag dangling down from the back of a chair, run, grab the rag, dip it in the yellow flames, turn, lunge at the nearest rat – which happens to be the first one, red flesh moist around its mouth – lash the flaming rag onto the rat’s black hide.

  It squeals; the sound of a squalling baby; high, shocked, angry, frightened, pained. It is enveloped in flame. The stench of flaming flesh rankles the air. The rat flies into a frenzy, chasing its tail, whirling and flailing until it abruptly drops and moves no more.

  The other rats flee, escaping the hut through invisible holes.

  I run to the fire and throw the rag on top. The flames consume it in seconds.

  I whirl around. The old woman lies on the bed panting and trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks, wisps of white hair pasted to her scaly scalp.

  “Tank you Morna, tank you,” she gasps.

  Her toe is half-gone. The blood will not stop running.

  “Is there a river nearby?” I say, fetching the cleanest rag I can find from a small wooden table.

  “Yes. Turn right, walk a while. Ya'll see it,” she whispers.

  “I will return shortly with water to bathe the wound. Try to rest,” I say.

  “Thank you,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes against the profound pain.

  My heart steadies as I pick up a wooden bowl and walk out into the freezing, starlit night. I reach the river and scoop water into my mouth, then fill the bowl. I hurry back to the hut, perch on the bed and dip the rag into the bowl. As gently as I can I cleanse the wound, then tear the lace collar off my dress and tie it securely around her toe. She moans softly but does not complain.

  “Try to sleep,” I say.

  She opens her eyes and looks at me in wonder, “Why?”

  I hesitate. Why am I being so kind to her? Why am I caring for someone who moments earlier tried to imprison me?

  I give myself over to the question and understanding unfolds in my mind.

  I take a deep breath, steady my voice, “Because it is not your fault that you are this way. You mistakenly believe me to be your long lost daughter, a young girl called Morna. But my name is Lisbeth. If you were in your right mind, you would see that I am not your Morna, much as you desire me to be. Sadly, grief has taken control of your mind. Loneliness – despair - has driven you to this, and that is something I can understand.”

  She stares at me for a long while. Says nothing. I wait, wondering if I have said too much.

  Finally she murmurs, “My name is Sorcha O'Floinn.”

  “Elisabeth Jane Cutteridge,” I say.

  She mutters something I do not catch then drifts into a frowning sleep.

  I rise from the bed, rinse the rag, hang it above the fire then tip the water onto some mud outside the hut.

  The night is caked in ice. The Arctic temperature taunts my recently frozen skin. I shiver, remembering the pain of being so cold, and hurry back inside.

  The warmth and stench of cow dung welcomes me back. I look at the old woman. She sleeps, her chest rising and falling quickly, sweat beading her furrowed brow.

  I stand at her feet watching her: Sorcha O' Floinn. Old beyond belief yet still strong, stubborn, clutching at something she can never have. Something tragic must have occurred in her past. Something too terrible to remember, so terrible that her mind has constructed a fantasy to enable her to cope. Perhaps her little girl ran away or died of some ghastly illness.

  I try to imagine living entirely alone with no company save the light of the moon when the clouds decide to let it shine. Although I know what it is to feel lonely, at least I have had the company of Eddie, Bethan and more recently Villette. Even Jean-Bernard, strange as he was, provided me some form of human company, some way to while away the time. But to spend a lifetime completely alone...it does not bear thinking about.

  I think of Mama. Is she alone? She never mentions where she is and, out of respect, I have never asked. But perhaps I should. Perhaps I should write her and find out where she is. Maybe I could even visit her, take Eddie with me...

  My heart races with excitement, only to be brought up short by another thought: Mama chose to leave us. She chose to go because she could no longer cope, I believe, with Father. She also chose not to take us with her. Therefore, if I were to pester her to let us come, maybe she would become angry, possibly so angry that s
he would decide it no longer appropriate to exchange letters with me.

  Anxiety squirms in my chest, niggles my brain. Why did Mama not take Eddie and I with her? What stopped her? Does she think us too much trouble? Is she happier without me in her life? Is there something wrong with me?

  I descend into blackness, drift to the fire and sit down. Staring into the yellow flames, I try to visualise Mama. Long black hair. White skin. Both like me. I can picture her outline, her shapes and colours, but the details of her face will not come. I end up with an image of me twenty years older, but it does not feel quite right. My heart flutters with alarm: why can I no longer picture her? Why do I doubt her love for me all of a sudden?

  Her letters! It must be because I have not been able to receive a letter from her for so long.

  I glance around the hut. I need paper and something with which to write. I need to write her. If I do not continue to write, she will fall from my mind and my life like the leaf from the autumn tree. She will float away and crumble into pieces that can never be pieced back together again. And with her my hope will fade.

  I search the hut – the wooden table, under piles of dirty rags, clothes, plates and bowls, underneath the bed. But I can find nothing, not even an old book.

  I slump over the table resting my head against the warm, dusty wood. My heart throbs. I clutch at thoughts of Bethan and Eddie – anything to banish the encroaching despair.

  Movement tugs at the periphery of my vision. The rats are back.

  Sighing exhaustedly I stand up, grab the wooden spoon and beat the little daemons back.

  *

  I am re-dressing Sorcha O'Floinn's toe when she wakes.

  “Ah Morna! Thank the Lord ye're still here,” she rasps, clutching her breast.

  “My name is Lisbeth,” I correct her immediately yet gently.

  She eyes me suspiciously and licks her lips, “Mebbes, mebbes not.”