Wake Wood (16 page)

Arthur rattled the tool around the aperture, enlarging it. When he’d finished, he plunged his arm inside to the elbow. He moved it around for a minute. When he finally withdrew his hand, he was holding a pulsating umbilical cord that dripped blood. He pulled it up, high in the air so everyone could see it, then, using his instrument, he cut through it. The crowd cried out.

Discarding the cord, Arthur turned his attention to the burned remains of Mick’s head and shoulder girdle. He attacked them slowly and methodically with his instrument. Every cut and thrust he made on Mick’s body shattered more pieces of the shell and released yet more glutinous, gelatinous bloodstained fluid.

Patrick and Louise continued to watch, stunned, speechless – awestruck by the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.

Arthur looked around. Anticipating his need, the men who’d helped him throughout the ceremony joined him at the trestle and assisted him in tearing pieces from the shell.

When they’d made a wide enough gap, Arthur inserted both his arms inside the cocoon to the elbows. He pulled back smoothly, drawing out the head and shoulders of a young girl.

He turned to Louise and smiled. ‘Here she comes.’

Louise’s eyes filled with tears. Through a mist she
watched
Alice slide out into Arthur’s arms. Her daughter was covered with broken pieces of charred shell, viscera and blood. Her eyes – Alice’s wonderful dark eyes that she thought she’d never see again – were wide open.

Alice looked directly at Louise and murmured, ‘Mum.’

Sobbing, Louise ran forward and enveloped her daughter in her arms. She was barely aware of the applause from the crowd.

Patrick moved alongside them. He took the towel someone handed him and wrapped Alice in it. Throwing his arms around his wife and daughter, he turned gratefully to Arthur.

‘No need for words, Patrick. One look at the three of you together says it all.’ Arthur reached out to the young girl. ‘Welcome to Wake Wood, Alice.’

PATRICK DROVE THEM
to the cottage. Louise sat in the back cradling Alice, who seemed very tired and sleepy, but wonderfully, blissfully alive.

While Patrick parked the car, Louise carried Alice upstairs into the bathroom. She stripped the bloodstained towel from her daughter and knelt beside the bath after Alice climbed in. Holding the shower head in one hand, Louise gently sponged and rinsed Alice down with the other. The residue of blood, ash and slime washed away easily, leaving Alice’s skin white, clean, smooth and blemish-free.

Patrick followed them upstairs. Scarcely daring to believe what he was seeing, he leaned against the doorpost and watched his wife bathe their daughter.

‘Just look at your hair, Alice. It’s so long.’ Louise finished soaping Alice’s hair and combed through the length with her fingers. ‘And your nails.’ She sponged Alice’s hands, paying special attention to her fingers. Every one of them was whole and unmarked, but that didn’t stop her from re-examining the little finger on her daughter’s right hand – the one Patrick had severed and taken from the grave.

Alice smiled at Louise sleepily through half-closed eyes. ‘Mum, I had the strangest dream.’

‘It’s over now, sweetie. You’re home safe and sound. Nothing can hurt you here.’ Louise continued to shower Alice until clean, unstained water spiralled down the plughole. ‘As soon as we’ve got you dry, it will be bedtime. And this time, I promise, you’ll have the sweetest, not strangest, dreams.’

‘Here.’ Patrick lifted a bath towel from the heated rail. He handed it to Louise, who enveloped Alice in its folds before carrying her through into the room she’d prepared.

Patrick stood back while Louise towelled Alice dry, dressed her in clean pyjamas and tucked her into bed. Alice fell asleep before Louise even began to tell her a story but, unwilling to leave their daughter, Louise lay beside her. She lay looking at Alice for a long while but eventually her eyelids grew heavier and heavier and then she too slept, leaving Patrick to keep watch over both of them.

Exhausted as he was, Patrick simply couldn’t stop looking at Alice, and even when he did manage to turn aside in the early hours he found it impossible to close his eyes. He simply had to keep glancing back at Alice to reassure himself that she was really there – with them in the cottage.

Dawn found him standing in front of the window of the guest bedroom watching the sun rise over the eastern horizon into a storybook illustration of a beautiful clear blue sky. The room was drenched in a marvellous golden light. Birdsong filled the air and in
the
distance he could hear cattle lowing and sheep bleating. It was a perfect pastoral scene and he wondered why he and Louise had decided to live in the city after they’d qualified. If they’d moved to Wake Wood before Alice’s birth they’d have opened their eyes every morning to views like this one. And maybe – just maybe – there would have been no dog and their lives … and Alice’s … would have been different.

He turned his head and gazed lovingly at his wife and daughter, still lying curled together, side by side, on the bed. Louise’s arm was flung high, curving around Alice’s head as though she were trying to protect their daughter, even in sleep.

He tiptoed out of the room and went into the bathroom. He showered, dressed in his own bedroom and, happier than he’d been in over a year, made his way downstairs to prepare a breakfast feast for his family.

Patrick was so busy cracking eggs and flipping pancakes that he didn’t hear Louise enter the kitchen. He remained unaware of her presence until she moved behind him and slipped her arms around his waist. He grasped her hands, revelling in the feel of her body pressed against his back.

‘Where’s Alice?’ he asked.

‘Getting dressed upstairs in her room,’ Louise answered.

The door opened behind them and Alice walked in.

‘Good morning, honey.’ Patrick turned around and beamed at her.

‘Hey, sweetie.’ Louise dropped a kiss on top of Alice’s head. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Alice thought for a moment, as though trying to decide. ‘I think so.’

Louise poured herself a cup of coffee. ‘Guess what – Dad’s made pancakes for us.’

‘Oh.’ Alice looked around at the kitchen. There was uncertainty and something else – something they couldn’t quite decipher in the expression on her face.

Patrick glanced at Louise uneasily.

‘This house seems strange, different somehow,’ Alice commented.

‘Well, it is … a little,’ Louise swiftly improvised. ‘We came here to take a break, a kind of holiday.’

‘I must have slept the whole way.’ Alice left the kitchen, went into the hall and looked around before entering the living room.

Louise turned anxiously to Patrick. ‘Do you think she’s all right?’

‘There’s one sure way to find out.’ Patrick opened the back door, disappeared and returned with two super-sized water guns. He filled them at the tap and handed both to Louise.

She smiled. ‘You’re right.’ Then she shouted, ‘Alice. War games! Us against Dad!’

Ten minutes later the three of them were racing around the garden. Louise and Alice were spraying Patrick with cold water, soaking him, his hair and his shirt, and he was laughing louder than either of them. When the guns had been emptied, Patrick rummaged in the
shed
and found a football. Alice jumped up and down with excitement when she saw it and threw herself enthusiastically into the game.

As she charged around with the ball, kicking, dribbling and blocking Louise’s moves, Patrick and Louise exchanged glances and read one another’s thoughts. How could they have thought their daughter was in any way different?

She was perfect, exactly as she had been … before …

Relieved, they joined her in fighting over and kicking the ball. It was just like old times. Alice hadn’t changed, hadn’t changed at all.

The only thing that had was their love for her. If anything, it was even stronger than they remembered.

When finally she tired of football, Alice demanded an afternoon game of hide-and-seek in the woods because she wanted to explore them. Patrick drove them all a short distance down the road to a thicket of woodland that had become one of his favourite places. He often took ten minutes out of his day to walk there between farm visits and, when his schedule allowed, he ate his lunchtime sandwiches there as well.

After he parked the car Louise volunteered to be ‘it’. She stood behind a tree, closed her eyes and started counting to a hundred. Loath to be separated from Alice for a moment of the precious time they’d been granted to spend together, Louise opened her eyes at fifty. Patrick and Alice were already out of sight. She continued to count while she walked in the direction she thought she’d heard them take. When she reached a hundred she called out, ‘Ready or not, I’m coming to find you.’

She could hear the noise of the wind turbines, loud and discordant, as she travelled deeper into the woods. The whirring felt unnaturally loud because of the stillness of the air and Louise shivered, suddenly apprehensive, as if someone were watching her. She raised her head and looked around. ‘Where are you, guys?’ she shouted at the top of her voice.

Picking up on the alarm in Louise’s voice, Patrick stuck his foot out from behind a tree. Louise saw it, sneaked around behind him and pounced.

He pretended to be surprised but he could see that he hadn’t fooled her. ‘You got me, fair and square.’ He kissed her, grabbed her hand and they walked on together.

Louise shouted, ‘Alice, I’m coming to get you. Your father’s already my prisoner and we’re going to capture you.’

They searched, splitting up after ten minutes had ticked by and they’d failed to catch a glimpse of Alice, but they took care to keep one another in sight. Gradually their shouts became more insistent and panic-stricken. Louise saw the muscles tense in Patrick’s jaw and she knew he was thinking the same as her. Had they found Alice again only to lose her?

At that moment, realisation cut into her deeply and agonisingly with all the force of a knife. They would lose Alice again anyway in two more days and nights.

‘There she is.’ Relieved, Patrick charged over winter’s dead leaves into a clearing. Alice was standing immobile, staring up at something caught in the branches of a tree high above her. When Patrick and Louise drew close
they
saw it was a dead crow strung upside down, its claws bound tightly together, wings flapping open as the wind stirred the body and ruffled its feathers.

Louise rushed to Alice’s side, reaching her just after Patrick. ‘Alice, are you all right, sweetie?’

Alice didn’t look away from the dead bird. ‘What’s it doing up there?’

‘I don’t know.’ Patrick caught Alice’s hand. ‘Maybe someone put it there to ward off other birds.’

‘Why?’

‘That I can’t answer, honey,’ he murmured.

Alice continued to stare at it.

‘Let’s go, sweetie,’ Louise prompted, pulling Alice gently towards her.

Alice tugged her hand free from Patrick’s and felt the edge of her jacket. ‘Look what I found, here in my pocket.’ She held up the silver chain Louise had given her on her birthday.

The silver chain that had been buried with her in her coffin. Louise looked at Patrick and he smiled knowingly. She realised he must have slipped it into Alice’s pocket when they’d been playing football.

‘Do you remember when you got it?’ Louise questioned.

‘You gave it to me …’ Alice frowned with the effort of trying to remember. ‘Some time. I can’t quite remember when.’

‘It’s beautiful, like its owner.’ Patrick took it from Alice’s hand and fastened it around her neck. He tenderly kissed the crown of her head. ‘Come on. I’m hungry. Time to go home.’

They turned and trekked down the path towards the road where Patrick had parked the car. In the distance, the arms of the tallest wind turbine turned slowly in the evening light, the noise it made grating and hostile.

Arthur’s words echoed unbidden through Louise’s mind.

I can bring her back. But I warn you, it will only be for three days. When that time has passed you will have to return her. Most of the people I’ve helped say that the three extra days spent with their loved ones have been worth the pain of a second separation. But, as I’ve only ever brought loved ones back for others and never for myself, I can’t help you to make that decision. You have to do it yourselves
.

She also remembered Patrick’s sceptical comment.

It’s not possible to bring people back from the dead, Arthur. When someone dies, that’s it. The end! Nothingness!

Had Patrick known how much his declaration had hurt her? How she couldn’t bear the thought of Alice dissolving into nothingness after all their daughter had meant to them and all she’d been?

And Arthur’s final warning.

No, it isn’t, Patrick. And it is possible to bring them back for a last goodbye. Ask your wife if you don’t believe me. But there’s one other thing that you have to ask yourself. Would you want to bring your daughter home, if you knew in advance that you’d have to lose her all over again?

The one thing that Louise was sure of already was that she wasn’t prepared to lose Alice again after finding her a second time. Not without putting up a fight to keep her close and with them for ever.

And if that meant disregarding Arthur and his warnings, so be it.

They all climbed into Patrick’s car. Because Alice and Patrick were silent, Louise found herself talking too much, too quickly, too brightly, saying the first things that came into her mind. Talking about what she could make for tea, about the games they could play afterwards in the garden, the stories Alice might like at bedtime.

Patrick started the car and edged off the verge on to the road. Alice leaned forward from the back seat and moved close to Louise.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, sweetie?’ Louise reached back and stroked Alice’s cheek with her forefinger.

‘Did you hear music last night?’

‘What’s that?’ Louise turned around and looked at her daughter.

‘Did you hear music last night when you were asleep?’