Blackened (11 page)

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 she 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.”

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.

C
HAPTER 12
L
OVE
T
HY
N
EIGHBOUR

“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.