Page 46 of The Spiral

Chapter 16

Madeline

We seem to walk for ages, silently travelling alongside each other with what seems like no destination. Not that I mind too much. It’s beautiful here. Everywhere is full of sun and spring weather coming from the skies above. Part of me might be waiting for that darkness to descend again, willing it even, but it’s nice to take in the view without whatever normally happens around that house clouding my views on sanity. Strangely, though, those odd happenings seem to clarify thoughts inside me. They seem to come with a sense of certainty, something my life has been lacking for a long time. There’s an underlying feeling of warmth within that frigid air, one that speaks to me of love and protection, regardless of the fear associated with them happening in the first place. And I’ve seen her now anyway. There’s nothing to fear.

Even if she is a ghost.

She’s so like me. There’s barely any difference other than my lighter skin colour and hair. My initial response was absolute horror, an odd foreboding coming over me as I gazed at the small photo in an old paper, but then a peace followed that I’ve never felt before. It flooded me with memories that aren’t mine, filling me with the same sense of tranquillity that came when we made love. Everything made sense for a few minutes. I knew the house, the clothes I’m still wearing. His smile. His anger, the same anger that delivered the shout that had me knocking the side table over, the drawers opening instantly and delivering my first real clue about what is happening here. Everything felt like I knew it all already. Like I’d been here before. Lived here. And perhaps that’s why when this man beside me made love to me, all the time making love to this other woman, it felt so right.

I shake my head as we wander on, barely acknowledging the ludicrous thoughts as healthy, but knowing every footfall that carries on like it’s imprinted in time before me. We’re both discussing ghosts without really discussing them. It’s as ridiculous as it is necessary, throwing all form of coherent thought on the matter into disarray, but either way, ludicrous or not, the feel of that paper in my hand made me experience something comforting eventually, not horrifying.

Perhaps I should be alarmed by all this. I suppose most people would be, but with little else to go back to, and nothing but a crumpled house and death to deal with, I’m not in any mood to rush away from something that feels contented, even if it is marginally so and ill understood at present.

I sigh and look up again, drifting my eyes across the sky in search of that darkness that will come again soon. I know it will. She’ll come now and show me something more, something to make these moments she delivers clearer in my mind.

“How long?” Jack says, as he leads us over to a small glade out of the bluebell filled landscape.

“How long what?” I reply, swinging my eyes to his. “Until the fog comes?” He looks solemn instantly, the harmony of his face disappearing to the frown I’m so used to now.

“No, how long had he been beating you?”

I’m instantly deflated from our quiet and peaceful meander, relegating myself back to the hours, weeks, months and years of abuse. It seems such a harsh word for what happened. Beating. Abuse. But they’re the honest words for what I dealt with from Lewis, no matter how long I tried to deny the terms.

“Too long,” I mumble, pointing over to a small fallen tree trunk in the corner. He shakes his head at me and pulls on my arm, sending us in a new direction across another path. “I could do with resting,” I continue, wondering how far this walk is going to go on before I get some answers.

“Not yet. There’s something I think you should see.” I nod at that and follow him, trying to avoid the lumps and bumps beneath my bare feet as we push though some trees out into another clearing, and then through that into another one. “Why did it take you so long to leave him?”

I sigh and glance at his chest, trying to find a sensible answer to that. There isn’t one, only that love makes people do strange things in hope.

“I don’t know. I guess when I was in it I hoped it would stop. Love does that.” He snarls, that scowl of his descending. “I’ve left him now, though. It doesn’t matter anymore what happened before. I just have to find a way of killing him.”

“You’re no killer, Madeline.” My own brow furrows. He might be right. Whether I’ve actually got the nerve to kill Lewis is as questionable as whatever is occurring around us.

He mutters something after that, which I don’t hear, and reaches back to guide me through another small path of twigs and thorns, lifting me over the last of it. “Not bitch enough.”

“What does that mean?” He doesn’t respond, just pushes out into a clearing and then stops about five or ten feet into it. “Oh, wow. Cute.”

There, stood in the middle of the small area, is a treehouse wrapped around what looks like an ancient oak. The wooden structure looks fairy like, bits of it haphazardly attached on, creating a magical feeling. I smile at it and wander over, for some reason wanting to run my hands over it and touch its aged appearance. A small wooden slide hits my fingers first, the run of smooth wood sliding under my fingers as I run my hand up to the main section. It feels like a thousand children have played on it, testing its structure with their buoyancy and bounding around for hours on end.

“It’s lovely,” I whisper, mesmerised by the look of it.

It really is. It screams of fun and children, muddy boots and sticks. Hours will have been spent here by children over the years, all of them finding their own escape in its limbs and trunks.

“It was my son’s.” My head whips around, shocked by the words, and I find him gazing at me, touching the structure. “Her son, too.” He frowns and walks over to me, his own hands slowly running the length of the slide to reach for mine. “She was my wife.” I’d like to say I didn’t know that, but somewhere deep down inside I do. Just like I know this space I’m standing in now. “You can feel her, can’t you?”

“You told me you weren’t married, Jack. You lied,” I say, smiling a little and remembering the fall in the bog.

“Hardly a lie. She’s dead. I’m widowed,” he replies, pressure baring down on my hand as he tries to link our fingers. “Not married.”

I don’t know how the information makes me feel as I slip my hand from under his and walk off towards the other side of the clearing. Dead seems such a rash word for what his wife is. She’s here, all around us somehow. She’s far from dead in my opinion, no matter how strange the fundamentals of that argument might be.

I sit on an old log, letting myself rest, and stare at him as he wanders around the treehouse, presumably chasing memories in his mind. He’s beautiful. Truly. The sort of man women swoon for. And I’m sure if I was any other woman, in any other situation, I’d find a reason to walk to him and comfort away that sadness that’s settling onto his face, but for some reason I suddenly feel as morose as he looks, exhausted even.

“He’s dead, too, isn’t he?” I ask, not really needing the answer. “Your son.” I know he is. I don’t know how I do but this miserable sensation inside me tells me it’s true. Sad as that might be.

He doesn’t answer me at all. Maybe he knows he doesn’t need to. Maybe he’s always known. It certainly explains a lot now. From the first time we met he’s seemed odd when he looks at me, and when he touched me the first time, when he held my hand in his, well, now I know why he didn’t want to let go. He thinks I am her. That I am Selma, the mother of his child. I’m not.

“You think she knows what she’s doing?” I call out, watching him come from the back of the structure and creep through the undergrowth growing up the frame.

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