The Haunting of Maddy Clare (25 page)

Yes, it must certainly be so, for now I could hear a low shuffling in the hall. A soft sound, padded, though not furtive; she was, perhaps, taking care to be quiet. A muddied thump against a hallway wall. Perhaps she carried linens, and they had made the sound when she stumbled.

I should ask her for another blanket, for I was still cold. But I must have been more tired even than I had thought, for my body was in a heavy languor, and I was unable to move. Threads of alarm wound their way through my weary thoughts, and I wondered if there was something wrong with me. Certainly, I would never sleep. It was my last thought as I closed my eyes.

And then I dreamed.

How to describe the dream I had? Even now, when I think of it, I am filled with unnameable horror, a fear that seems primal, dredged from the depths of my brain like a long-dead body from a deep lake. It was cold, very cold. I was outside, still in my nightdress, my feet soaked in the dewy grass. I was crossing the short clearing to the edge of the woods, heading for the place where I had seen the man watching. The place I had dreamed of before, when I had dreamed of Mrs. Barry. I was drawn to that place, but all the same I did not want to go.

My feet kept moving. They were losing sensation in the chill, a sharp sting along the soles at first and then an icy numbness. I felt the soil sticking to them as the grass gave way to the dark, foggy woods.

I did not want to cross into the woods. I knew I didn’t want to
go in there, in the darkness. But I had to move because suddenly the pins of awareness between my shoulder blades told me someone was behind me.

Run,
Maddy said.
Run.

I ran. The ground here was uneven and harder to travel, and I had to dig my toes into the ground to keep balance. My breath was ragged. Branches came from nowhere and stung me, on my cheeks, my neck, my arms. Behind me, something breathed. I ran faster.

I didn’t know where I was going, or even what direction I had taken now; there was no path. I pushed myself, my knees pumping, to the gaps in the trees as I saw them, trying to avoid the obstacles that rose in the darkness. A fallen log, a malevolent spray of undergrowth. Overhead, night birds scrabbled in the trees.

There was the sound of water, a stream somewhere, and I abruptly changed course to avoid it; I wanted nothing to do with the stream, and what might be hidden there. I tracked the sound to my left and continued to run, taking care not to cross the water. The woods seemed endless. My throat burned. My follower dropped back for only the shortest moment, then found me again. Its footsteps were steady, unrelenting. I tried not to sob in panic.
Quiet, I must be quiet, to get away.

My feet hit clearer ground, and I found myself on a path of sorts, a rough-worn valley through the trees. I stepped onto it and nearly stopped, keeled over in fear. There was something on the path—something entirely different from the attacker behind me. A pure malevolence that beckoned me.
Take the path. Take the path.
I put my hands on my knees and gasped, bent over, trying not to retch. Something waited on the path, and if I turned and ran toward it now, it would grab me, and my God, it would—

The underbrush shook behind me, spurring me into motion again. I sprinted across the path—I hardly even wanted to touch it with my feet, and indeed, as I left it, I imagined icy fingers tracing my ankles—and raced on. The attacker behind me had gained precious time; I could hear it closer now, and gaining. A sob broke in my chest. Hopeless, it was hopeless. I was lost in the woods like a hunted rabbit and I would never go home again, never be safe again. I would run until it killed me and no one would ever know—

I broke through a thick stand of prickly brush and stopped. In my terror I had lost track of the water, and here it was, the short slope to the muddy bank of a river, cold and swift, before me. I was hemmed in by a high stand of rock on my left and more prickly bushes on my right; I could not go back into the arms of whatever chased me. I stood frozen for a moment, unable to bear to go forward, because the river—there was something in the river.

And in that second I knew what it was, and that nothing could be worse.

I fell to my knees. So I would die, then; I no longer cared. I could see a white shape on the riverbank, tangled in the weeds. An arm, a bloated hand, with a woman’s wedding ring. The old nightmare, coming into this one. I would never escape it. The sight pulled a sound out of me, a screaming moan, a sound of pure grief.

The thing came through the bushes behind me, and grabbed me.

I kicked; I thrashed; nothing worked. It gripped me with hot, strong hands that burned my skin like fire, pinning my arms. It threw me to the ground, wrestled its way onto my back as I lay there, talking to me in a voice that sliced terror through my body like knives. I sobbed into the mud.

The thing on my back stilled, as if something had caught its
attention. I raised my head and saw, farther down the bank, a shadow retreat into the trees. So we weren’t alone, then. The thing from the path had come as well.

Then the monster on my back leaned over me, and I felt its breath on my cheek. And I closed my eyes and knew nothing more.

W
hen my eyes opened, I no longer saw the river, the trees, the mud. I was in my bed at the inn.

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the ceiling. So it had all been a dream, then—a horrible, terrifying dream.

“You’re awake,” said a soft voice.

I turned my head. It was Alistair, standing near the foot of my bed in the blue dark, his arms crossed over his chest. He was looking at me with perfect comprehension, a twinkle of humor in his tired eyes. I stared at him in amazement, wondering if I was still dreaming.

He took a step closer. “She left for a while,” he said, as if answering my question. “It’s me.”

The world was still falling into place, after swirling apart in my nightmare. “What are you doing here?”

“We thought someone should stay with you until you woke.”

I shook my head, confused. “Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I may have made some noise. I was having a dream.”

Alistair’s expression fell into seriousness. “Sarah,” he said softly.

I saw how he looked at me, with meaning and sadness, and I did not want to contemplate what he meant. “No,” I said. “It was a dream.”

“Sarah,” he said. “Look down.”

I did not want to do it. I wanted to close my eyes, disappear into nothingness again. I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked down to see I was covered in mud, down the front of my nightdress. My bare feet were crusted in it. I touched my cheek and felt the thin film of dried mud crumble away. I thought of my dream, of the thing on my back, pressing me into the mud by the river.

A sob escaped my throat. Real. It had been real. If Maddy had left Alistair for a while, she had come to me instead. She had come to my dream.

“I was in the woods,” I said to Alistair. “Something was chasing me. Something was—”

“Hush. I know.”

I looked up at him. “How?”

“Matthew told me.” He frowned as I stared at him in incomprehension. “You didn’t see him, then?”

There came a soft creak, and the door opened, letting in a thin, pale crack of light. Matthew came into my room carrying a mug of hot tea. He stopped when he saw I was awake.

The breath left me. In one terrified sweep I took him in, the mud dried on him like it was dried on me, on his knees, on his elbows and forearms—where he had pinned me to the ground.

“You,” I breathed, pulling myself upright, remembering the thing chasing me, its burning hands on me, its breath on me. “It was you.”

He didn’t move. “Are you all right?”

I stared in horror, remembering how I had fled the thing in the woods, how I had run from it with all the strength in me. Had I been running from Matthew, or from something else?

“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” he said. “You must be cold.” He came forward and set the mug of tea on the bedside table. I couldn’t speak. My knees came up and I wrapped my arms around them. He moved away again, back to the foot of the bed, into the shadows.

“Sarah,” said Alistair, “you were sleepwalking. You were outside, heading for the woods, when Matthew saw you. He followed you and brought you back. How did you think you got back here?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t remember.” Everything had gone dark when the thing—when Matthew—had grabbed me. Had he carried me all the way back to the inn? “It’s all so confusing.”

“Was it Maddy?”

“Yes,” I said softly. She had been there. I had, in the strange way of dreams, been her. “She was telling me to run.”

“From what?”

I looked up to see Alistair leaning forward, looking at me avidly. “I don’t know,” I said. “Does she—does she talk to you?”

“Yes,” he said, and for a moment the exhaustion left him and he was the old Alistair, sparked by the pursuit of his passion. “She talks to me, but I can never remember. It always leaves me. I can’t remember it. It makes no sense. It’s almost hallucinatory.” He sagged a little in frustration. “If only I could remember.”

“You must be hungry,” I told him, remembering that we had not been able to get him to eat.

Alistair frowned. “I might have a bite in a moment or two. I just need to think for a minute.”

Behind him, Matthew moved. “She’s right,” came his low voice from the shadows. “You should eat.”

But Alistair had dropped his gaze and was looking, of all places, at my feet. “Wait,” he said. “Wait.”

I looked at my feet—bare, caked with mud—and back to him. “What is it?”

“Wait.” Alistair frowned again, rubbed his forehead. “Your feet. There’s something—something important….” He rubbed his forehead again as he trailed off.

Matthew came forward. “They look fine to me.”

“Yes.” Alistair closed his eyes, pressed them shut as if in frustration, took a breath. His features started to sag, though he fought it. “They’re fine. Her feet. They’re fine….”

“Alistair?” I said.

But Alistair stood quiet now, still rubbing his forehead slowly back and forth. His eyes were still closed. I felt tears lump in my throat.

Matthew came forward, put his hand gently on Alistair’s shoulder. “You should eat something,” he tried again.

Alistair shook his head. “The tack’s gone moldy,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t want to eat it. It’s only a short march. I’ll go without.”

I looked at Matthew. Half-hidden in the shadows, his face looked haggard with sadness. “All right,” he said after a moment, as if his throat was choked like mine. “Just a short march, then.”

The tears came down my face then, washing away the mud, as he led Alistair from the room.

I was still sitting on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest, when Matthew returned a few moments later.

There was no chair, so he sat on a side table. “We need to talk,” he said.

I looked at my dirty toes and said nothing.

“I want to clear this up.”

“There’s nothing to clear up,” I said, though my voice sounded weak in my own throat.

“Yes, there is,” he insisted, his voice familiar and yet unfamiliar. I tried not to shudder. “Because we still have to work together, and now you’re afraid of me.”

I didn’t deny it. Just his presence in the room made me remember the dream, the spurt of fear that made me run. “I can’t help it. The dream was so real.”

“Some of it was real,” he said. “Not all of it.”

I looked up at him. He was in shadow again. Part of me knew he was staying far from the bed in deference to my fear, but part of me thought perhaps he preferred not to be seen. What did I know of Matthew, after all? “How did you find me?” I asked. “Why weren’t you asleep in your room?”

“I told you. I don’t sleep.” Even in the shadows, I felt his gaze move away. “I doze, for short times, until I wake up again. I do it all night. When I sleep, I go back, so I don’t sleep. Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how.”

I ignored the pang of sympathy in my stomach. He had chased me through the woods, after all. “Your room faces the back of the building. You wouldn’t have seen the woods from your window.”