Dark Places Read online

  ‘It’s nested in here before,’ she said, ‘look, there’s the old nest.’

  Sam craned his neck. Balanced upon a beam near the apex was a muddy straw bowl. Michaela studied his face, searching for a similar enthusiasm before she eased him backward with the palms of her hands.

  ‘It’s going to have babies. Won’t that be fantastic?’

  Michaela grabbed hold of Sam’s scrawny body and squeezed him tight. She tried to bounce him up and down, but Sam resisted, keeping his feet fixed on the ground.

  ‘Aren’t you excited?’

  His lips were poised. She searched for the dimples in his cheeks.

  ‘Of course I am,’ he replied.

  Having taken a break for lunch, Michaela returned to the barn with the intention of carrying on with the clearing, but as she crossed the driveway, she was coaxed by the intensity of the sun into changing tasks. So, she retrieved her new gardening tools from the car and looked for the wheelbarrow, her plan to start working on a patch of land she had marked as a vegetable plot.

  Sam informed her he had left it a short distance from the pond, having used it to dispose of a pile of roots he had extracted from beneath cracked concrete. With the warm rays of the sun caressing her skin and optimism in her heart, she headed along a freshly trodden track, away from the house and towards tranquillity. The wheelbarrow was easily spotted, situated only a short distance from the waters edge. She went towards it and stared at the murky water.

  Suddenly, a scream echoed through her mind. Cold and anxious, Michaela placed her arms tight across her middle. She backed away, her pimples growing on her arms and her eyes widening with terror as a harrowing scene flashed. Something horrendous had happened at this very location, and it was something to do with a child.

  Her legs crumpled and her heart pounded, and she sank to the warm grass, waiting for her gasping breaths and whimpering cries to dissipate. The water was still and murky, glistening in the dappled light, and the leaves on the nearby trees rustled. There was nothing there to fear, nothing unusual.

  She told herself it must have been her imagination. Ever since she had discovered the warning daubed on the house she had struggled to shed her anxieties, and had imagined all sorts of noises, from footsteps to indecipherable whisperings. It had even occurred when Sam had been with her, yet he had heard nothing.

  Standing up, determined not to be bullied into believing the house contained a terrifying presence, she told herself it was stuff and nonsense. Everyone was out to scare her, and unless she fought harder to maintain her optimism, they would win. She would not allow that, and certainly not in her mother’s case.

  Michaela grabbed the wheelbarrow, and moving in a determined fashion, strode back to the car to collect her tools. Wanting to keep her thoughts only on the task ahead, she headed to the patch of land. The weeding was tedious, but this time, given it was of personal benefit and that it prevented the incident at the pond from rattling through her head, she relished the physical hardship she endured.

  Mechanically she turned the ground, removing the grassy carpet from the surface and flung it into the wheelbarrow. The sun warmed, perspiration coated her body, and sweat dripped from her nose. The bare soil emerged and expanded.

  The earth was heavy with moisture and probably home to countless grubs and insects, but it would have to suffice. Time was running out and she wanted to plant her potatoes, along with many other vegetables she had plans for. Section by section, she extricated the roots of the persistent grasses and weeds from the hidden brick and stone and flung them aside. Often they snapped, but Michaela was meticulous and filtered the soil with a fork.

  Wiping her brow with her forearm, she gazed across the meadow and inhaled a sweet floral odour wafting across the expanse. Attracted by the glistening water and the brilliant whiteness of the swans, she followed the course of the river until it faded into the distance. The sky, a vast spread of blue, illuminated the array of life below. Bees foraged and birds soared. It was a vision of serenity.

  Sweat trickled down her body, and her vest top clung to her skin. She wiped her brow with her forearm, craving the cool water of the river, and imagined skinny-dipping with Sam under the starlight and making love on the bank. She strode to the outdoor tap.

  A few metres away, the men worked. An old window frame had been removed and the opening had been cleaned and repaired. The brickwork was solid, the corners square, and the lintel was in good condition. The sill, though, had been shattered at one end and they had found it necessary to replace it, a time-consuming task. Now that the remedial work was completed, it was time to present the new frame. Michaela watched with interest as her burning face cooled.

  Sam strained as he held a new window frame in a precarious position, then, grimacing, he extended his arms and stretched his bony red fingers across the width of the frame. It fit with persuasion. Freed of the weight, his limbs flopped and facial muscles drooped. Michaela giggled. He caught her eye and winked.

  Refreshed by a cooling splash of water, she returned to her vegetable plot and continued digging. A Lily Allen track sounded on the radio. She turned up the volume and rocked in time to the music as memories of joyous occasions infiltrated her mind. She recalled laughter, parties, and drunken binges, but her pleasures were superseded by a twinge of regret. Those days were over.

  Determined to banish her solemn thoughts, she continued with her task, keeping a clear image of what she hoped to achieve in her mind. Sweating profusely, she teased a stubborn clump the grass out of the ground with a fork, and then progressed to another and another. Her body ached like never before. Every muscle was weak, every joint a burden. After a while, and suffering immense fatigue, Michaela dropped the clod into the wheelbarrow, fighting nausea. Urging her body to offer more energy, she straightened her back and breathed a difficult breath. The patch of land she had cleared was tiny in comparison to what was ahead. It was demoralising.

  They had been working on the house and land for weeks, yet Michaela did not feel much progress had been made. The roof had been completed, and the windows were being replaced, but the inside, the dust, damp and grit had not diminished. It seemed a never ending task, and her belief that the work would be completed in weeks rather than months or years seemed naïve. Perhaps they should have taken heed of Jim’s advice to sell, even it was not for the reasons he had intended.

  Her motivation was lost, her energy depleted. Deciding it was time to quit, she wheeled the contents of the wheelbarrow to a temporary compost heap, collected her tools and headed to the barn to offload them. The door was ajar. She carried the fork to a spot away from some remaining junk, removed her gloves, and released an exhausting breath. It had been a gruelling day.

  Taking a moment to steady herself, her gaze wandered to the heap of rubbish, and onto an exposed section of wall. Scored into the brick was a plea for help, but there was something else written just beneath, something she could not quite determine. Having created a gap through the rubbish, she leaned forward, stretched out her arm and touched the name, Catherine. A chill enveloped her. An image of a woman dressed in black mouthed her plea.

  Michaela blinked and the woman was gone. She spun around her adrenaline pumping. There was no one there. It was becoming ever more difficult to accept it was all her imagination.

  Chapter 4

  Unable to relax with sore limbs and a mind tormented by the apparition in the barn, Michaela tussled with the bedcovers and waited for sleep to favour her. She closed her eyes and ironed out the frown on her forehead. Some time later, as her eyelids flickered and sweat poured from her brow, a vision of a man in a top hat terrorised her. He was swinging a walking stick in a bitter request for her to return to his side. It was a futile attempt; she only had one aim.

  Gasping for breath, she clutched her stomach and willed away the sickness that hovered in her throat. She struggled to take in air, and looked to the rock beneath her feet and attempted to steady her quivering legs. Fighting a desper
ate yearning to slump to the ground, she glanced over her shoulder, scanning the path she had just trailed. A shadowy figure emerged from the copse next to the coastline. It was the man in the top hat.

  She tensed and a lump formed in her throat. She had to keep moving.

  Gulls circulated the skies, searching the shimmering sea for easy pickings. They tussled and squawked, and rode the gusty breeze. A bird swooped towards her. She bobbed down and lifted her arm towards her head for protection, and then, with her eyes focused only upon her footsteps, she followed the path along the coast.

  There were slabs rounded into sculptured stone plinths sloping in irregular directions, while below approaching the sea, were boulders large and small. The water crashed over them, surging through the gaps and drenched the path weaving around the headland. It was narrow and uneven as it progressed up an incline; it looked perilous.

  She glanced to her rear. The man in the top hat was trotting towards her with little care to his safety and moving with ease. Clumsy in comparison, she knew she would have to move quicker. Panicking as the waves crashed onto the rocks and water soaked the slabs, she prayed for more time.

  ‘Wait,’ the man said.

  He was metres away. Making hasty steps along the treacherous path, she reached to a clump of grass on the edge of the overhang and jumped a gap. Her steps faltered. She struggled to gain traction on the slippery rock. Falling, she released a tremulous cry.

  Cold and trembling and with droplets of perspiration moistening her skin, Michaela opened her eyes and stared at the moonlit ceiling. Her dream seemed real, and she quelled the sense something terrible had happened to her. She snuggled under the duvet, clutched it to her chin, and yearned clarity.

  It wasn’t like a normal dream; it was though she was reliving that experience and could describe the scene in fine detail, from the rush of the waves to the slippery coating on the rocks. Regrettably, anything relating to the man in the top hat was absent. He had no features and no identity, and it was disappointing. In her mind, he was all that mattered.

  No one in her life had ever scared Michaela, nor had she ever had to flee from anyone at the coast or otherwise, so she concluded that the dream and the man must signify something else. Logic told her that there was a connection to the house. Without a doubt, she was anxious, and there were times she wanted to run back to her city life; but she also felt a strange connection to the run-down property. Aside from the hope it symbolised, there was one more element stopping fear from controlling her, and that was the vision of the woman in the barn.

  After the initial shock, she felt a strange affinity to the woman she believed had to be Catherine, and wanted to know more about her plight and the cause of her distress. Michaela's empathy seemed real, imposing a sense of the woman’s desperation as though it was her own. It was bizarre. Every cell in her body told her that Catherine was the reason for everyone’s fear - Jim, her mother, Grace, and the locals all felt the same. Yet Michaela wanted to see her again.

  For why, and who was Catherine? Was she a figment of her imagination or a ghost? Had she ever lived in this property?

  Experiencing a moment of disquietude, Michaela wondered if she had imagined it. The apparition had appeared when she had been exhausted to the point of collapsing, so it was possible. Also, she knew she had the ability to dream up weird and unfortunate situations. The incident at the pond was such an example. Fighting her continuing doubts, she pushed aside thoughts relating to the note from Jim Cooper, she banished her mother’s desire for her to sell the house, and she disregarded the warning daubed on the house. It was a house like any other; there was nothing to fear.

  Seeking calmness, she glanced to her right and listened to Sam’s quiet breaths, and immersed herself in the pure and innocent vision that was her husband. He was a picture of tranquillity; his lips were loose, his facial skin slack and his nostrils rose and fell. She tried for the same.

  After tossing and turning, and flitting in and out of a restless sleep for an indeterminable amount of time, she listened to the sound of birdsong, smooth and velvety, pure and natural, emanating from a bush near the window. It was delicate tinkle, a short repetitive sound. She lifted her head from the soft pillow, peeled away the duvet, and strained her neck to look through the glass. Perched on the branch of a laburnum tree was a blackbird. Content, his small orange beak opened and closed, singing his natural song.

  Glancing back at Sam, and careful not to create much movement, Michaela eased out of bed, placed on her slippers and dressing gown, and shuffled downstairs to the kitchen. There, she switched on the hob to heat her resurrected copper kettle and opened the bread bin that rested upon the scratched grey surface. At the front were croissants and at the rear was an almost empty bag of bread. She took hold of them both and placed them onto a board on the surface, and then, whilst the croissants were baking, she ripped apart the two remaining slices of dried bread, moistened them, and carried them outside.

  Hovering on the concrete, she scanned her vicinity for the blackbird and listened to a collection of tweets and warbles. A sparrow flew by and high above in an ageing willow tree a robin rested. Resisting the urge to announce breakfast, Michaela scattered the small pieces of bread on a trampled stretch of grass and stepped back to the house. Before closing the door, she implored the hungry creatures to step towards the pile and eat.

  Back inside, she finished preparing breakfast, placed it onto a tray, and headed upstairs, where, upon her arrival, Sam stirred. Stretching every muscle in his body, from his face to his toes, his body creaked and groaned. His caramel-coloured hair was ragged and his pink face creased.

  He readjusted his pillows. Thanks, darling.’

  ‘Have you had a good sleep?’

  ‘I slept like a baby.’

  ‘I thought you did.’

  She placed the coffee by the side of his bed on a small unit, passed him the plate and climbed in beside him. Once settled, she reached for a croissant and took a bite. Dribbles of butter and strawberry jam emerged from the centre. Scrumptious and rich with flavour, the fine taste lingered on her tongue.

  ‘What plans do you have for today?’ Sam asked.

  She wiped the crumbs from her mouth. ‘Can we start on the kitchen? It’s becoming a bit of a nightmare to cook in.’

  ‘It’s going to be a big job. We’re going to have to replace the copper pipes and need to redo the wiring.’ Sam peeked at Michaela. ‘I also want to check the pipes from the well to the house to make sure they’re okay.’

  Michaela frowned. ‘So I’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Try not to get too down about it. It’ll be worth it in the end.’

  She bit back her frustrations. The mess was becoming ever more difficult to tolerate and she longed for new carpets, clean surfaces, and clean painted walls. This room was one such example of the poor state of the house. The yellow and pink floral wallpaper peeled away from the walls, exposing the plasterwork beneath. Also, scrawled onto the walls in indelible ink were scribbles, drawings, and words. There was no mention of Catherine, only her father and Jim.

  ‘I think we should find out more about this place,’ she said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I want to know more about the people that lived here.’

  ‘You could ask your mother.’

  Michaela was silent.

  ‘She can’t be that difficult to speak to.’

  ‘She isn’t. It’s just that . . . ’

  She turned her head away from the Sam’s glare.

  ‘Just talk to her,’ he said, ‘she’s always seemed approachable to me . . . and reasonable. I’m sure she’ll tell you something.’

  Her shoulders tensed and frown lines emerged. ‘She is not interested in what we’re doing. She doesn’t approve.’

  How so?’

  ‘She told me in that we were stupid moving into this house.’

  Because of what your uncle said.’

  ‘Maybe . . . I don’t know.’


  He lifted the bed covers and perched on the edge of the bed. ‘If she knows something that could affect us she should tell us. Do you want me to speak to her?’

  ‘No!’

  Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want you getting involved.’

  ‘So you’ll talk to her?’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk to her about! What we do is not her business. It is our choice, our life.’

  Regretting her memories relating to her mother’s intense disapproval, she rushed past him, freeing herself from his attempt to hold her still, and progressed to the bathroom.

  ‘Has something happened?’

  She pressed the door closed and yelled out a negative reply. Leaning against the door, she absorbed the warmth of the sun's glow, and bit by bit, her body loosened and her mind de-stressed. She thought of the blackbird and swallow, of new life and new beginnings, and she removed thoughts of her disagreeable mother from her mind.

  Sam was engrossed in business emails when Michaela arrived downstairs. He paid little attention to her quiet steps as she moved through the rooms and persisted with his work, a relaxing change from the daily toil of renovation.

  He was working in a room that they had temporarily converted to an office and stock room. Under the window was a cupboard for storing binders containing business related documents, and alongside was a small table for packaging sales. On the opposite side of the room was his computer desk; surrounded by boxes of products.

  He sifted through the recent correspondence and prioritised the work. Generally, he had a steady flow of orders and today was no exception. He made notes on his word processor, updated his stock levels on the spreadsheet, and printed off the customer details.

  The printer whirred into action. Tilting his head, Sam scanned the printout to check the quality before he leaned back into his chair and stretched his back and shoulder muscles. His sore body popped and grated, and his skin felt tight and sore. Regrettably, it was something he was going to have to learn to deal with.