Blackened Cottage Read online

  I tear the lace cuff off my left sleeve and wrap it around the stump of her toe. She cringes.

  “Sorry,” I murmur.

  “Ya have Morna's eyes ya know. No-one have I ever seen had the eyes of the crow. Black as can be, dark as the devil,” she rasps, staring.

  “Perhaps. But do I have her hair? Her skin? Her shape? Her hands?”

  I throw the dirty rag onto the fire then return to the bed and perch on the edge by her elbow.

  “Look,” I say, “look closely at me. Look at my hands. Are they the same as Morna's?”

  She grabs my hands and squeezes them so hard that I wince but allow her to pull them up to her face.

  “Exactly the same, nails and all,” she says and slaps them away, “ah ha! Ya are Morna! I knew it!”

  I shake my head, “No. I am not. I am Elisabeth Jane Cutteridge.”

  She chuckles darkly, “Ah go on then Morna me dear! Tell me ye made up tales if it pleases ya. Try to convince me ye're not who ye're. It will do no good, but ya can try if it means that much to ya!”

  I inhale deeply, “Okay. My name is Elisabeth. I am recently turned eighteen. I have a little brother called Edward and,” I hesitate, reluctant to mention Father, “and a little while hitherto my family moved to Blackened Cottage which is just beyond these woods.”

  “Ah ha. And why did ya come all this way out here? How did ya know where I live?”

  “I was running away and I just happened to come across this clearing.”

  “And why was ya runnin'? Did ya do sumthin' bad?”

  I shake my head, “Oh no. My Father wants to send me away and I do not wish to go. Also, I need to find my little brother.”

  Sorcha O'Floinn lowers her head and nods. My heart lifts – she believes me! Perhaps I could find a confidant in her. Perhaps she could advise me how to journey to the nearest village.

  But she jerks her head up, eyes ablaze, bloodshot. Saliva frothing at the corners of her shrivelled lips, “And leprechauns might fly! Ya nasty little liar! I know ye're Morna. I know ye're her and I knew it the minute I set eyes on ya!”

  I feel as if I have been slapped. I step away from the bed, “Please, Sorcha, please try to see sense! How long ago did Morna leave? What happened to her?”

  “Sorcha? How dare ya call me that! Ya little rascal! If ya call me that again, ya'll see the back of my hand ya will. Ya were always such a nasty little ting. 'Tis a wonder I want ya back at all, so it is! Now be gone with ya! Be gone!”

  “I am not leaving,” I argue, “not until your wound has healed and you can walk again.”

  Trembling with rage she points a withered, shaking finger at me, “Come near me and I shall kick and scream and bite and hit. I shall beat the devil out of ya again, just like before! I shall beat ya and beat ya and beat ya until...”

  She freezes, clutches her hand to her heart.

  I sense she has struck upon something, a memory, something she has buried deep until now.

  I give her a nudge, “Until what?”

  Her eyes glaze. Memories are floating in her inner eye. Heinous, hideous, dark memories. Suddenly she screams, “NOOOOOOO! MORNA, NOOOOOO!”

  She buries her head in her hands and frantically tears at her wispy hair, “How could I? How could I? How could I? How could I? How could I? How could I?”

  She repeats the phrase over and over, tearing at handfuls of white strands, rocking, trembling.

  I try to calm her, “Sorcha. Listen to me. What is done is done and cannot be undone. You must stop,” I say, approaching the bed. But she lashes out at me, spitting and snarling like a wolf.

  “GO! Leave me and never come back! Ye're here to haunt me and I will not have it! I WILL NOT HAVE IT!”

  She picks up the wooden bowl and hurls it at my head. I dart out of the way and it clatters against the wall.

  “But you need help,” I say.

  “GO!” she shrieks. “GO AND NEVER RETURN!”

  She buries her head in her hands and begins to sob. Huge, wrenching, terrible sobs.

  I want to go to her, but fear what she may do.

  Shaken and close to tears, I grab a dirty shawl off the floor and hurry out into the milky morning light.

  CHAPTER 12

  LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

  “Bless me father, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last confession.

  Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you and I detest all my sins, because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.

  Many years ago, I kidnapped a child of God and caused her to sin. Not once, but a multitude of times, over the course of many years. Then, just over one year ago, she died, and I thought my wickedness died with her, but I was wrong.

  Truly father, I thought all that was past, I honestly believed my sinful desires died when she passed, but over the last year I have sinned against God several times. I have maintained a deceitful tongue and I have inflicted pain on others. I have even killed.

  And then, just last night, I saw my heart's new desire running through the woods, and instead of heading homewards, I followed her. I followed her to that foul old witch's hut. I watched as my heart's desire cared for that grotesque hag, and the more I watched, the more covetous I became.

  You see, father, I did not resist the devil. And now, again, I desire sinful ways. And though I know God's will, I cannot do it.

  I am sorry for this and all the sins of my past life, especially for all my sins against purity.

  Forgive me, father.”

  *

  Ice crusts every surface turning the trees to stone and the ground to scratchy slabs of rock. No wind moves, no sound breaks the silence of the woods. The sky is white, motionless, oppressively still. The air carries the breath of hard, dry, tasteless ice. There are no birds or woodland creatures; nature's harshness has scared them into hiding. The wood appears abandoned, but I know beneath the surface animals breathe and struggle to survive, huddling close to their kin for warmth.

  My only warmth comes from the stolen shawl which is wrapped so tightly about my chest that I can scarcely breathe. It reeks of manure, but I care not; this shawl is my lifeline. I need it to endure the temperature long enough to reach a village or house or some kind of refuge.

  I trudge for hours through the frozen wood. To protect my feet I create shoes out of the bottom of my dress, securing the material with flexible roots I have dragged out of the soil.

  As the sun creeps up, all ice turns to water, dripping from every branch and puddling on the ground.

  Soon the sun is centred high in the sky, which itself has evolved into the prettiest of pale blues. Not a cloud exists. It is one of those deceptively pure-looking days when beauty is all around but chilling cold is ever-present to remind one that winter still commands. However, the cold is bearable – just about.

  Sick of droplets constantly plopping onto my head, I busily arrange the shawl over my hair and spy, about one hundred yards in the distance on the cusp of a small hill, a church. The first sign of human life!

  I surge up the hill, weaving in and out of the trees, enter a culled field and hurry across sloppy mud, making sure not to linger too long lest the mud sucks me in. My ankles and make-shift shoes are soon sodden and it is hard to move quickly, but the church gives me hope that I will find someone, a priest perhaps, who may guide me towards London.

  Panting, I walk around to the front of the church and observe a village made up of two small shops, black-timbered cottages and wandering chickens. A cobblestone road runs through the village. The shops appear to be closed and no-one is around. The windows of the cottages are dark. It is unnaturally quiet.

  I turn and stare up at the church, at the cobble stone pathway that leads to five steps up to the wooden church. I glance to either side taking in the grave
yard; stone upon stone upon stone of the dead. Not a flower in sight. A sea of grey slabs.

  I look back at the church. It is a simple affair composed entirely of wooden boards. Nothing about the church is flamboyant, nothing is designed to call attention to itself. It is a modest, plain building. The door frame is shaped like the tail end of a boat as are the two white-framed windows that rest either side of the door like eyes to a nose. The main part of the building is a square with a triangle for the roof, out of which stands the tip of a bell tower. Attached to the right side of the building is a downward sloping structure which I suppose is the prayer room.

  The dong of a bell makes me jump. I listen, counting the hours. One, two, three. It must be three o'clock in the afternoon. I wonder if it is Sunday. The day of rest. This would explain the village's ghostly feel.

  I walk up the wooden path. My God abandoned me long ago – I try to pinpoint when I stopped praying, asking for guidance, believing in the Lord, but the answer eludes me. I dig deeper into my memories, but all I find is a pit of despair – a terrible black hole in which dwells not one solid event but darkest emotions: grief, anger, terrible distress. I try to remember faces, locations, anything, but cannot. Nothing will come. Nothing prior to my arrival at Blackened Cottage.

  I stop at the foot of the church steps. What happened to me before we moved into the cottage? Where did I live? What did I do? Where did I go to school?

  I try to remember the last time I saw Mama before she left, but again, there is nothing. My memory is vacuous, useless, utterly frustrating. Try as I might I cannot fill the space before arriving at Blackened Cottage. I cannot recall any details beyond the bare fact that Mama left us before we moved.

  I sink down onto the bottom step staring unseeingly. I know that gravestones and cottages stand before me, but I am blind to these physical elements of the world. I hunt for traces of my past. I hunt and hunt and hunt, but all I get are feelings; intangible feelings that hint at something unscrupulous but confirm nothing.

  Tension crunches my shoulders and my head begins to pound. I focus on controlling my breathing. I cannot lose to panic right now; not when Eddie's happiness is as stake.

  Dragging myself up, I wearily climb the steps and open the door. It creaks. I freeze, terrified someone will turn and scream, “Imposter! Off with her head!” But the congregation, some fifty men, women and children dressed in their finery, sit along the pews with their heads bowed in silent prayer.

  Not a one turns to inspect me. I sneak onto the back pew, which happens to be empty, and wrap my cloak carefully so as to make it cast a shadow over my face.

  At the altar, head also bowed, stands a balding Reverend in a black cassock.

  Hundreds of candles surround the chapel making the walls dance. The room is warm enough to keep off the chill and there hovers an aura of tranquillity.

  I bow my head, try to remember the sort of things I used to think in prayer. Can recall nothing. I look up. In the pew in front sits a little girl of about Eddie's age. She wears a purple bonnet with a yellow ribbon. Golden curls fan out beneath the bonnet. I think back to when I was a little girl. Again, nothing.

  “Amen,” booms the Reverend. For a small man, he has a powerful voice.

  “Amen.”

  All heads look up. No-one speaks or even looks at each other. They are wholly committed to this man. I examine those people's eyes that I can see, and detect love, passion in their gazes. I look at the small, balding man. He must be a special preacher to elicit such a response from his congregation. Visually, he is unremarkable, indistinct. But his deep voice is a voice that could rock the heavens. It is a voice designed to deliver God's message.

  As he begins his sermon, I realise it would be difficult to ever forget such a voice.

  “And now, I shall end today with a short sermon on the second of the great commandments, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour.’

  “Dear friends, remember that man's good requires that you should be kind to your fellow creatures. The best way for you to make the world better is to be kind yourself. Are you a preacher? Preach in a surly way and in a surly tone to your church; a pretty church you will make of it before long! Are you a Sunday-school teacher? Teach your children with a frown on your face; a fine lot they will learn! Now, just wash your face of that black frown, and buy a little essence of summer somewhere, and put it on your face, and have a smile on your lip, and say, ‘I love you. I am no cant, but I love you, and as far as I can I will prove my love to you. What can I do for you? Can I help you over a stile? Can I give you any assistance, or speak a kind word to you?’

  “All these kind things would be making the world a little better. Your jails and gibbets, and all that, never made the world better yet. You may hang men as long as you like; you will never stop murder. There is no necessity for hanging any; it will never improve the world. Deal gently, deal kindly, deal lovingly, and there is not a wolf in human shape but will be melted by kindness; and there is not a tiger in woman form but will break down and sue for pardon, if God should bless the love that is brought to bear upon her by her friend. I say again, for the world's good, love your neighbours.

  “May God bless you, and be with you, for Jesus' sake!

  “Now, good friends, a somewhat weighty suggestion before I leave. Thy good Catholic Father Shepherd tells me that several women have disappeared over the last year and that there is a devil amongst you. Please, heed these words: God may only do so much to protect you and thus, you must stand together. If you unite against evil, good will triumph!

  “I shall think of you all in this dark time. Good luck and God be with you!”

  *

  A moment of silence, then the room comes alive with movement; people turning and embracing one another, exchanging heartfelt messages of good will.

  I lean forward and tap the little girl on the back, “Excuse me child. Please can you tell me the preacher's name?”

  She turns, a pretty little thing with long blonde lashes.

  “Reverend Pettigrew. He is my favourite. This happens every time he visits. Is he not splendid?”

  I nod and smile. She smiles at me and turns back to face front. I am still smiling. Reverend Pettigrew. I feel suddenly that I must catch him, speak to him. Perhaps he can offer me guidance that no-one else can.

  People start to leave. They leave in happy chatter. I watch them go; jolly faces pink with delight like tulips ripening fatly beneath the sun's celestial gaze.

  I am warmed by their happiness. I sit and wait as the Reverend shakes each and every villager's hand at the door. Often the noise is punctuated by his booming laugh.

  He bids the last person farewell. I rise and walk towards him. For some reason nerves flutter in my stomach. Reverend Pettigrew begins to shut the door. I reach out to tap his shoulder, but before I reach him someone – no, two persons – force their way inside.

  Instinctively, I dash back, crouch down behind the end pew, slip underneath the wooden bench.

  My heart bangs against my ribs for I know who has come. I know it because I can smell spice, cinnamon and burnt smoke. Jean-Bernard's rust-coloured cigars.

  “Why hello good gentlemen! How may I help you this afternoon? Please, follow me to the altar. I shall listen as I collect my things.”

  “No. We do not have much time. I am sorry Reverend,” rushes Jean-Bernard. He is panting. I can hear his panic and anger.

  “No time you say? Very well. Please then, be seated.”

  Someone sits directly above me, their foot hitting my arm. I almost cry out then I realise it is the Reverend's foot for around it hangs the black material of his cassock.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” he says, “I think there is something...”

  His upside down face appears in front of mine. His eyebrows rise a fraction. I place my finger to my lips and plead with my eyes. He nods discreetly, eyes reassuring, then disappears.

  “Now gentlemen, how may I help you?”

  “We need to fin
d someone,” says Father. His voice is a terse rumble. There is no friendliness or warmth in its tone.

  “Ah. And who may that be?”

  “A woman with long black hair. She is a law unto herself. It is not safe for her to be wandering these parts alone. We must find her and bring her home. Have you seen such a woman?”

  “What is this woman's name?”

  “She answers to the name Lisbeth,” says Jean-Bernard quickly.

  “Lisbeth....?”

  “Lisbeth Cutteridge,” Father says.

  “Well, good gentlemen, I must admit that not once have I been witness to such a woman as fits your description. To be fair, I have been so occupied in delivering my service today that I do not think I would have noticed her had she entered the church. Now I wish you good luck in your search but alas I must bid you both farewell and be on my way. My carriage waits.”

  Father and Jean-Bernard grumble their thanks. I tensely listen to their retreating footsteps.

  A hand appears before my face and Reverend Pettigrew's powerful voice breaks the silence, “They have gone my dear woman. Please come out.”

  I take hold of his hand, which is surprisingly calloused, and let him guide me out.

  “I am sorry,” I quickly say, “but I cannot let them find me. Thank you.”

  He dismisses my apology with a swipe of his hand, “My dear, no thank you is necessary. I could tell immediately that you were a person in need of kindness and that is the sort of business I deal in!” he laughs – a booming, high-spirited sound.

  But I cannot rest easy while Father and Jean-Bernard remain in such close proximity. My face must be full of strain, for Reverend Pettigrew asks nothing. Taking my hand, he sits me down upon the pew and asks if he can get anything to ease my nerves.

  “Paper and something with which to write is all I ask for,” I say.

  So overcome by tiredness that I can barely speak, I gratefully receive his ink and quill and begin to write.