Hobb's Cottage: A Short Story (2 page)

Fool! 

The memory fades and I grow weak.  The night seeps around my vision and the maiden Tilly vanishes.  The girl in the window sleeps on, but stirs and whimpers.

There is hope at last.  She feels me.  Can she set me free?

When Phoebe woke the next morning she was stiff and cramped. 
That’s what I get for spending the night in the window seat
, she thought ruefully, rubbing her neck and stretching out her limbs.  The morning sunshine threw dancing patterns across the rag rugs and the tang of salt was sharp in her lungs.  Phoebe yawned then brewed tea which she drank sitting on the doorstep. 

The dog roses nodded in the breeze.  Funny, thought Phoebe, I’m sure I dreamt about flowers last night, flowers and white linen sheets and a man with bright blue eyes.  Something shadowy perched in the corner of her vision, just out of reach and she shook her head in frustration.  Maybe she needed to get
into
bed in future?

“Morning, Phoebe,” trilled Terry the Post, sticking his head over the wall and handing her a stack of bills. “Lovely day!  Your cat’s enjoying the sun.”

Phoebe shaded her eyes against the glare. “Sorry?  My what?”

“Your cat.” Terry nodded towards the window ledge where sure enough a large black cat was basking.  Phoebe stared at the animal.  She’d never seen it before which was odd seeing as she’d been stomping up and down the hill for the past six months.

“Looks like I’ve inherited you,” Phoebe said, tickling it behind the ears. “Along with what looks like,” she leaned forward and sniffed the window box, “thyme and rosemary.  I wonder who planted those?”

* * *

“Tea?” Lucy asked, blonde head peeping out from the museum office.

Phoebe tore her attention from the skeleton. “Please!  They left that holiday cottage in a right state.  I’ve been scrubbing for hours.”

Lucy shuddered, slopping Earl Grey over the floor. “Yuk.  Cottage cleaning’s Hell on earth.”

“Hell that pays my bills,” Phoebe sighed, looking sadly at her sore hands.  It felt as though she was constantly covered in beer or dirt lately.  Then a thought occurred. “Hey Luce, have you ever seen a black cat at Hobb’s?” 

Lucy pinned her with a stare. “Are you trying to wind me up?”

“No, of course not.  It was there when I left, sunning itself on the wall.  Why?”

Lucy pointed to the desk. “There was a cat’s skull there yesterday.  And it isn’t there now.”

Phoebe followed her gaze.  Sure enough there was an empty space when once the skull of a long dead feline had languished.

“And,” added Lucy peering at the skeleton, “there’s something missing here too.  The right hand’s gone.  Weird.  Who’d nick that?”

Sure enough the pathetic collection of bones was lacking a hand and the skull seemed to be gazing intently out, dark sockets pleading, speaking, waiting for some response.  Phoebe shivered.  It was horrible to think that the pathetic collection of bones had once been a real person with their own hopes and fears and dreams.  How undignified to end up in a glass case all strung up with a blood red ribbon.

How utterly, utterly horrible.

“Who was it?” she asked.

Her friend shrugged. “Absolutely no idea.  We know it’s a woman because of the hips and skull.  Her teeth are pretty good too, at least they are for such an old skeleton, so I guess she didn’t live long enough for them to decay.”

Goosebumps sashayed over Phoebe’s arms.  

“I found it packed away in a box when I bought the museum,” Lucy continued cheerfully. “It must have been there for years.  I thought that it would be kind of fun to string the bones together for a display, have a séance, do the old
Most Haunted
thing.”

“But how did she get here?” wondered Phoebe. How did this young girl become a pile of bones in a box?  The thought made her nauseous.

“I think she originally came from Bodmin Gaol.  Possibly hanged for something and then the flesh would have been boiled from her bones and the skeleton used for anatomy.” Lucy shook her head. “Don’t look so shocked, it isn’t so unusual.  How else do you think doctors learned back then?”

Phoebe shuddered.  “It’s totally wrong.  She shouldn’t be in there.  She should be…” For a moment words failed her and she struggled to capture her whirling thoughts before finishing, “She should be free.”

Unbidden suddenly in her mind’s eye was an image of a girl white as marble floating in the dark sea, her face raised to the silvery kiss of the moon.  Then it was gone, flickering out of sight like a fish back diving beneath the water, and she shivered.  Where on earth had that come from?

Lucy was pulling a face. “To be honest I never did like the thing very much and Dan’s been obsessed with it ever since he read that book I gave you.  He thinks we ought to bury her.”

“He’s right.” Phoebe put her drink down. “She needs to be buried, whoever she is.”

Lucy nodded. “When the joker who’s pinched the rest of her puts it back, I’ll get on the case and we’ll see what the procedure is for burying unknown seventeenth century bones.  Hey!” She nudged Phoebe and grinned. “Maybe it’s your Tilly?”

But Phoebe wasn’t laughing.  She was far too busy thinking about flesh being boiled from pearly bones. 

She felt ill.

No longer Maiden now but mother.

I am not ready to be a mother!  I can’t be a mother.  Not like this, alone and friendless.  My belly swells and I loosen my stomacher hoping that the sharp- eyed villagers are fooled.  I send word to James and wait for him to come while I huddle in my cloak and count the tides, hours, days and weeks of endless shifting seas.  My belly stretches, moves with tides of its own and grows hard and pink. 

James doesn’t come.  I tend my animals, bake bread and harvest my herbs, all the time waiting for him.  Four more moons wax and wane.  I cast bones and peer at water in my silver dish.  All these things tell me what is already in my heart.  He will not come.  As I abandoned my mother to her accusers James will abandon me to mine.  A widow with a six-month belly on her.  I shall be ruined.  They will see Satan’s mark and they will hang me.  I clutch the cat for comfort and weep endless tears into his soft fur.

I try not to visit the village but I need meat, I need milk.  The babe sucks the very marrow from my bones and I feel dizzy and sick by turn.  I try to gather wood but my belly renders me cumbersome and soon I have only kindling to cook upon.  The gruel I make is thin, my limbs wither and I grow wan.  My tears are spent and I feel only relief that James doesn’t arrive.  This hollow eyed spectre with distended stomach and stick like limbs is far removed from his soft skinned love.

I don my cloak and walk down to the village.  I carry a basket filled with dried roots and herbs, perhaps I can trade these for what I require?  As I descend into the village my breath rises like incense in the sharp winter air and the damp seeps into my bones.  Slowly I walk to the harbour, hoping that a boat is in with fresh fish.  The babe needs goodness.  He has been dangerously still these last days.  I need a fisherman who requires salve for a wound or cloves for a toothache.

But as I make my way to the quay, my feet skidding in muck, the cold comes from more than the frosty air.  In doorways goodwives stop their conversations as I pass, their eyes burn into my back and their animosity is palpable.  I hear the word ‘whore’ whispered at first and then repeated, louder and louder.  I raise my chin.  My babe needs goodness.  I cannot flee.

On the quay it is no better.  In the past the fishermen would speak to me and exchange bunch of carrots or a cabbage for a mackerel.  I see one man cross himself and, knowing that their superstitious nature is deep rooted, my heart sinks like kittens flung into a well. 

“Witch!”

The word is a hiss, and it comes from a small boy helping to mend his father’s nets.  “Witch!”

My mouth dries.  I see again the terror in my mother’s eyes as they came for her.  The hands that grasped and tore at her flesh.  Hear the screams rent from her throat when they threw the rope around the tree and watched her dance.  Hear again my own shameful whimpers.  I spin round and think of home, of bolting the door.  Of safety.

“She cursed the Squire’s baby,” mutters a woman from her doorway, clutching her own babe closely. “They say that he won’t thrive.  The Squire’s Lady is sickening too, burning up with fever.”

“She bewitched the Squire and she bears Satan’s spawn,” whispers another.

I try to hurry but my body is unwieldy.  In doorways I see people cross their forefinger and thumb in the ancient sign against evil and I know then that all is lost for me and my babe.  James’ silence has damned me.

Two days later by a waning moon I brew a vicious tisane of arrowroot and hemlock, which bubbles black and vile above the few sticks of firewood that I can muster.  Dark smoke rises in plumes, as noxious as the liquid that I strain into a pewter mug.  These are dark dealings indeed and my heart is heavy.  I drag myself to the window seat and stare out at the night, the night, which is as black and empty as death.  Clouds tear in from the west and the sea spits like a tame cat turned wild.  I place my hands on my belly and stroke the flesh.  All my love, all my despair and all my terror seep into that gesture, before I tip my head back and drink.

“The cottage is great, Mum.” Phoebe tucked the mobile under her chin while attempting to pluck a jacket potato from the oven. “Ouch!”

Instantly the flesh on her hand started to shrivel and her eyes welled up. Why was she so emotional lately?

“I’m fine,” she promised hastily, dunking her hand under the tap.  If her mother started to worry she’d never hear the end of it. “I just burned myself, that’s all.” 

Phoebe tried to swat away her mother’s concerns.  Her mother didn’t need to know she missed Alex so badly that it was like emotional toothache, didn’t need to know about the almost baby, and certainly didn’t need to know that in the two weeks she’d lived Hobb’s Cottage Phoebe had scarcely slept.  Strange half dreams haunted her, shadows shimmered just out of view and sometimes she heard the high thin wail of a baby.  She’d sit up in her bed clutching the covers to her chest while her heart beat a wild tattoo. 

No, her mother didn’t need to know she was going crazy.

Ending the call, she paused for a moment. She did love it here at Hobb’s Cottage but something was out of kilter, something that floated at the back of her mind and which was more than just missing Alex.  Maybe the strain of working three jobs for the entire summer season was affecting her more than she’d realised?

Phoebe retrieved her supper, grated cheese into the potato and poured a large glass of wine.  Collapsing onto the saggy sofa she picked up Miller’s book and began a chapter on wreckers.  Tilly’s story was too full of holes and disturbing co-incidences to make comfortable reading.  Moments later she was engrossed, imagining storms and waves, terrible cries, sailors’ hands scrabbling and against the cruel rocks, their ragged nails scraping in frenetic terror.  She turned the page then froze, suddenly aware that the scratching had continued. It was transported from her imagination to the sitting room.

You’re being ridiculous, it’s the cat, Phoebe told herself sternly.  But the room was deserted; only the moon was peeking in.  There was no sign of her mysterious new feline friend. Mice then? 

She was icy cold and her breath clouded before her eyes.  The scratching was becoming faster now and although it sounded as though it was coming from the fireplace there was nothing to be seen.  Was she going mad?  Had the strain of longing for Alex finally driven her insane?

With a half sob Phoebe could bear it no longer.  Snatching her drink, she fled up the narrow stairs to the attic room where she buried herself beneath the duvet. She didn’t dare stir again until the pearly dawn stole through the windows.

When she eventually crept back down into the sitting room Phoebe was almost unsurprised to find a skeletal hand in the hearth, the fingers clawed against the stone as though they had been desperately digging into the granite.  Hanging from where the wrist should be was a piece of frayed red ribbon.  With a cry of horror she backed from the room, her hand pressed over her thumping heart.  This was far, far more than her imagination…

Crone, crone before my time!  Body misshapen, bones snapped away from flesh, scattered and desecrated!  Such darkness.  Bundled into boxes.  Hidden from the light.  Strung up and prodded, mocked, abandoned and eventually forgotten, no longer Tilly Penhalligan who laughed at the moon and threaded wildflowers through her hair but a dusty dry pile of bones in a box, nameless and shunned.  Set me free!  Let me see the stars again and feel the rain on my face.  Let the tempests come and welcome me back into the storms.  Place me with the flesh of my flesh.  But do not leave me alone and forgotten.  Oh no, not when memories are simmering and ready to boil over!

Pain.  Agonising pain.  Hours?  Days?  I knew not.  All I knew was that I howled and shrieked, little caring whether my cries carried down to the villagers.  Blood as dark as night pooled around me, secret and vile and staining the cottage floor.  Then nothing but fragile bones.  Still and dreadful he lay in my arms, eyes wide as though surprised that life had been ripped away so swiftly.  I held him close to my breast and wept.  Hot salyt tears that trickled onto his face, running in tracks through the gore.

Then I kissed his brow and placed him on the hearth.  They would come for me.  Witch and whore.  Even now they would be lighting the lamps and climbing the hill.  But they would not take my babe.

Phoebe tore down hill so fast that she tripped and grazed her knees but she didn’t notice the stinging.

 “Come on!” She raised her fists again, hammering on the salt swollen paint of the museum door. “Open up!”