Mallore by M.O.Granger
Life. An interesting concept upon which we inflict meaning – then what is meaning? A mere concept, too? Who on this earth, or elsewhere, knows? But a candle is not a concept. A candle is solid, tangible, material. When a candle burns you see it. You feel it. There is no doubt.
The match is struck, the wick flickers, and the wax melts, dripping, crying, slivering away until no more. Some are fortunate enough if someone snuffs out their light before others are left to clean up the mess.
But for Mallore, in her castle of ice and stone, her candle was perpetual. It burned but the wax did not melt.
She was too old to remember what she was. A bloodsucker? A reanimated corpse? A fallen divinity, perhaps? The mirror reminded her each morning that she was beautiful. Beautiful and cold, like the sole surviving snowdrop on a frosty morning where all others had perished.
Mallore rose, draped in a scarlet gown, from her bed. She never slept, never could, but something inside told her that was what all living things did. The remnants of a time before this existence, perhaps, where she felt she used to rest while the moon was up and not the sun. But that mattered not.
The castle was empty, and she was young forever.
In her chambers, the black candle burned on the bedside table. For as long as she could remember, it had been there. Like her, it did not age, existing in a blissful limerence, caught between life and death – indecipherable concepts to Mallore.
Tap tap tap.
At first, Mallore thought it was a bird trapped in the turrets above, its panicked flutters echoing through the great halls, but…
She listened again. Tap tap tap. A desperate plea rang out. Unmistakable this time.
Who would dare climb so high in this desolate and frozen terrain? Curiosity ensnared her. A moment of excitement as she made her way to the large doors of this grand castle. For the first time in days or centuries, she opened the doors. Groaning on their hinges, they shuffled open.
It was a human. A woman. Young. She stood shivering from the cold. Her clothes were ragged and torn, modest in comparison to Mallore’s regal attire, though she was fair and bright like springtime sun. Before she could say a word, the stranger collapsed in the doorway.
Mallore did not know what possessed her to take the human in – boredom, pity – but she did it anyway. Carrying the stranger like a rag doll, she laid her down on the rug before the hearth in the great hall and kindled a blazing fire that spat and cast warm light on the woman’s face.
Freckles… Young skin… Plump lips… Dark eyelashes… Slender neck… A fine pet. But what to do with it?
Though Mallore hardly felt the fire’s heat, it certainly seemed to have an effect on the human, who stirred every few minutes, rolling sideways to face its red, flickering tongues lapping at the hearth. Eventually, her eyes fluttered open. She was from a city far away, she said. Had fled from war, the terror of what awaited survivors and had come this far out expecting a nonviolent death. But when she had sighted the peaks of a great castle, she felt she had one more chance at life.
Mallore offered her the hearth for the evening. Then the next. She brought her warmed mead. Eventually she offered her a room. It surprised her, this generosity. It was something akin to a feeling, a feeling like a stale morning touched by a sharp and delightful gust of spring wind…
Time passed. The wind howled on, and snow tumbled down upon the mountainous slopes surrounding the castle.
Mallore and the woman dined on meat and red wine, seated at opposite ends of the table in silence. The woman began to clear away the plates and offered to cook. She hunted wild hare and brought it back for a stew. Then she started asking questions. Who was she? How did she live here? Where did she come from?
Over time, Mallore’s answers shifted from Do not question me to I do not remember to I wish I knew to I wish I could tell you. In the library, they read to each other. Histories, tragedies, comedies… Mallore could barely tell the difference, but the woman explained. The outdoor terrain was bitter and unsuitable for the woman, so Mallore made warmer clothes from curtains, drapes, and clothes she herself did not wear. The castle was grand and spacious, so they strolled its corridors together admiring the artwork on the walls. Mallore had seen them a thousand times before, but they glowed like new when the woman stood next to her, gazing in awe at brushstrokes older than her ancestors. In her room, the mirror grew dusty. What beauty lay in looking inwards at oneself after all?
As every moon rose and sunk, it seemed more difficult to say goodnight, for them to go their separate ways to bed, as though an intangible thread had brought them together and pulled them closer still.
Then, one night, it happened as they sat by the fire in the room where Mallore had first laid the woman to rest after collapsing on her doorstep. The human laid down next to the fire as she had grown into the habit of doing of an evening. This time Mallore held her head in her lap. She began stroking her hair then gently kissed her head. Then her lips.
Hand in hand, they walked the winding staircase together. Without discussion, without pause, they entered the chamber that Mallore had gifted the woman all that time ago.
It was like sinking, afraid and trembling at first, then falling all at once, blissfully, into a bath. With each touch, warmth spread from the woman to Mallore, filling her body with its tendrils as her scarlet robe lay discarded on the floor. When morning came, they woke together with the rising sun, blinking away their new-found vulnerability, stroking the hair off one another’s shoulders, speaking soft words.
As the days and nights passed, Mallore quite forgot about her chambers and what she left behind in there. They spent their time as before, walking, reading, exchanging looks and words. But now it was more than that. Now when Mallore awoke it wasn’t to the same mundane existence.
Mallore felt a strange sensation in her chest, a painful but delightful ache that wanted to climb out her mouth and say something she might have said in a life before but had no recollection of during her time in the castle. To be truthful, she did not know that the three words forming in her head even were the natural thing to say but it could not have felt more…human.
And her heart. With each adoring look the woman gave her, the more it thawed.
One morning, she must have had a dazed look, for the woman giggled and asked her what was on her mind, tracing the curve of her nose playfully. She had seemed rather tired of late, but perhaps their late nights had exacerbated her appearance.
Tired? Mallore laughed away the woman’s comment at first, but it nagged at her for the rest of the day. She could not be tired.
In the evening the woman dozed. Mallore felt a pull towards her own chambers that she had neglected of late. She walked in and wiped dust off the mirror with her sleeve. She squinted her eyes to ensure they weren’t deceiving her.
What was that in her hair? She felt for the silver strand in her long, dark hair, and plucked it out, examining this parasite with confusion and anger. And that was not all. Again, the mirror showed her something else. A crease on her visage, a line on her forehead. Even the skin around her eyes appeared sunken. What was happening to her? In all her time at the castle, nothing like this had ever occurred, nothing ever changed, ever grew, ever died –
Then she noticed the candle, gleaming with a vengeful light.
It was melting. A single drop of wax had run down its side. A pool of black sat beneath the flame.
Not long after, Mallore stood over the woman’s unconscious body, a knife in one hand.
If she was sleeping, she would not feel pain. Mallore never would have seen those eyes regard her with anything but joy and pleasure. Everything would be as it was. Perfect. Undisturbed. Eternal.
What was love but a concept, after all?
The dagger plunged into the woman’s heart, so deep it penetrated through her back and into the sheets where they had loved. Blood soaked the bed, the pillows, the covers, and Mallore struck again and again and again, the sound of abused flesh and cracking bones disturbing the air, until… With ragged breaths, Mallore slowly stood up. She dopped the knife. Its clanging echoed throughout the castle.
The woman was heavier when dead. Cradled in her arms, she hung limp, childlike, innocent, dripping red in Mallore’s nightgown. She descended the staircase and out the great doors into the snow. Still, a more peaceful end than any she would have faced had she stayed in the city.
Gazing upon the icy shards of rock plummeting to lower depths of the world, Mallore raised the woman above her head as if this were a sacrificial ritual. Whispering an apology that the wind snatched away, she sent the body into the abyss where it dropped clumsily out of sight.
She followed the drops of blood on the snow that led back to her castle and her chambers, empty once more.
The candle had stopped melting. The wet stream of wax had hardened in place. It no longer stood as tall as it used to, but it had stopped.
With a sigh, Mallore looked in the mirror, raising a pale hand to her face. The imperfections she had developed remained, but never again would she bear such damage by exposing herself to weakness. They would serve as a reminder.
It was as if her heart froze all over again, she thought, smiling.
She was still beautiful. She was still young.
THE HISTORY LOVER by Jason Malvern
‘Is this some kind of joke, Simon? Tell me it isn’t?’
Simon Mason blinked like a confused bird. ‘I’m sorry, Professor, I don’t follow you.’
Professor McDonald sighed and turned her head to look out her office window at the Ancient History Museum. The grass and the trees had a calming effect. ‘The latest radiocarbon results came back this morning, Simon. Look, I enjoy a joke as much as the next woman, but really, this is too far.’
Simon shifted in his seat awkwardly. ‘I still don’t follow you.’
She tossed a reading print-out at him. ‘Look at that. It’s the results for your precious Egyptian princess... apparently. Dennis took another sample for the lab boys so we could perhaps try and understand that last result – as if you didn’t know all this already. What’s come back from the techies is very interesting. Apparently, Pnubeah is dated as being five hundred years old, which is rather impressive, given she died over four thousand years ago.’
Simon gulped. ‘Are you accusing me of something?’’
‘Yes, Simon, that’s exactly what I’m doing. You switched the samples, didn’t you?’
‘No, Professor.’
‘Look, we all know about your - how should I put it - infatuation with her, but we have a right to take the occasional skin and cloth sample for testing!’
‘I don’t disagree in principle with radiocarbon dating,’ Simon said quietly, silently annoyed that he had a reputation. ‘But Pnubeah is precious. There’s so little of her left, without Dennis going around stealing his pound of flesh.’
‘It’s a few millimetres squared, hardly a pound - Ah, so you admit it then? You switched the sample with something more modern as what, a joke? A protest?’
He considered what he’d just learned before answering. ‘The last sample dated her as being five hundred years old this time?’
Professor McDonald nodded her big head. ‘You know it did. And it was a thousand in the earlier test, which we wrote off as a mistake rather than anything sinister. I expect you were behind that as well, weren’t you? What did you swap the latest sample with, Simon? Something from one of the Tudor exhibits?’
Simon gripped the arms of the chair he was sat on. A lie might be better than the truth here, he realised. ‘Say I did do that…as a prank against Dennis… what does it matter? It’s just a silly test.’ It was the best he could come up with.
‘Oh Simon!’ McDonald exclaimed, like a disappointed mother. ‘And you were so bright and promising at one stage. A fellow History Lover – or so I thought. And now this. What has happened to you, Simon? What exactly has Pnubeah done to you?’
…
Sometime previously.
The artist’s brush stroked the canvas one final time and both Simon and the artist took a step back to admire the handiwork. ‘What do you think?’ the Artist asked. ‘Really? Have I captured her?’
Simon looked into the eyes of the artist’s reconstruction of the face of the great Pnubeah and swooned. ‘Oh yes,’ he answered finally. ‘That’s lovely. She’s just as beautiful as I imagined.’
The artist, a student called Kylie, grinned at the compliment. ‘I’m so pleased. It’s very difficult to look at the face of a corpse and decide from that what the person might have looked at in life. But with Pnubeah, it all seemed too easy. Like I could see her spirit.’
Simon raised an eyebrow, alarmed. ‘You couldn’t though? See her spirit?’
Kylie laughed. ‘No, of course not! Anyway, how about that drink you promised me?’
He frowned. He’d promised no such thing, of course, but recognized what was being offered. ‘Well, maybe some other time,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m on night shifts at the moment, so socialising is a bit difficult. We’re short staffed due to government cuts, and someone’s got to guard this place when we’re closed.’
She patted him on the shoulder. ‘Poor you. So dedicated to your work,’ she washed her brushes and started to pack up. ‘Well, if you change your mind, you’ve got my number, right?’
Simon was lost in the eyes of Pnubeah. At last – something tangible he could look at, even if it was simply a portrait. He became aware that Kylie was waiting for an answer. ‘What? Or, er, yes. Right.’
…
The museum closed at five thirty exactly as Simon had successfully shooed away the last little band of tourists at five twenty five. He then waited at the front door for the rest of the staff to leave, tapping his foot impatiently.
‘Goodnight, Simon,’ Professor McDonald waved as she hurried out. The Professor was always first to arrive at the museum in the morning, and last to leave at night.
‘Goodnight, Professor,’ he returned.
‘You’ll look after the place while I’m gone, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will.’
…
It was on nights like this, when they were alone, that Pnubeah spoke to him.
The first time, he’d thought he was going crazy. A four thousand-year-old princess, talking to him telepathically? Perhaps he’d been working too hard. He ignored the voice at first, which was a grave mistake, as Pnubeah was highly offended. As a Princess, she demanded, no, expected to be obeyed at all times. As was her right.
‘Your majesty?’ he thought towards the decaying brown shape inside the glass display cabinet. ‘Will you speak with me again?’
The blaze of colour and chorus of angles in his head heralded her return to him.
‘Simon – my love,’ she expressed such warmth in her shared thoughts. ‘One is so pleased to blend with you once more.’
His mouth twisted into a dopey grin. ‘I’ve missed you too.’
Her invisible arms embraced him, and he felt the imagined warmth of her body press against him. Then the spirit withdrew. ‘You do not long for me as much as usual, Simon,’ she stated. ‘You have been worshipping that false idol of me in my place, have you not?’
He glanced worriedly over to Kylie’s painting, which had been positioned next to the exhibit. Dennis’s idea. ‘This portrait was made in honour of you, my love,’ he mentally explained. ‘I thought you would be pleased?’
The cold silence told him otherwise. Eventually, Pnubeah responded in thought with a command. ‘You must only direct your love towards me, Simon. You know how your spark enriches me. Fill me again with your love so that I might grow stronger still, then I will live and walk again!’
He slid the glass cover away from the mummified remains and gently placed it to one side before standing over the body.
‘I will obey,’ he confirmed, and the next moments were lost in lust.
…
Another night.
‘Who was that little man who took from me?’ Pnubeah was angry. Simon hated it when she was angry. It frightened him.
‘You mean, Dennis?’ He guessed. ‘He took a sample from you earlier, for analysis. We only want to understand you, majesty.’
‘Sample? What is sample? What is analysis? He has no right to take the royal flesh. I was growing stronger until he took from me. I am now... less whole. Now you must replenish the regrowth that has been lost, Simon. Do you understand?’
He loosened his belt. ‘I am your servant, majesty.’
…
Another night.
‘I regret this must be the last time we… er see each other for a while, majesty,’ he prepared for the worst.
‘Explain.’
‘The man, Dennis, is suspicious of what happens here at night. If I get caught…’
‘He will be dealt with.’
Simon wondered what that meant exactly but kept the question away from the forefront of his mind. ‘There is another matter, majesty. The samples came back today. They show that the ravages of time on your body are being reversed.’
‘This is excellent,’ she replied. ‘Your spark renews me, as foretold.’
‘Questions will be asked, majesty.’
She screamed. ‘Questions? Questions? Who dares question Pnubeah?’
Simon cowered. ‘I am sorry, majesty. But what we’re doing may be put at risk.’ He dropped to his knees, whimpering at the psychic assault she subjected him to.
The storm of anger came to a head and died. She reached out with invisible fingers and caressed her servant. ‘You are wise, Simon. We must be cautious. My love for you grows stronger with my flesh, and I fear I am not reasoning intelligently. We must be patient.’
‘Yes, your majesty,’ he confirmed, relieved. ‘You are most wise, majesty.’
…
Another night, a week later.
Replenishment given, Simon zipped up his fly and then reached and picked up the glass cover, moving it back into place over the mummy.
‘Must you cage me so soon after our rapture?’ she asked him.
‘I apologise, majesty. It has been a while for us, has it not? Did I satisfy you?’
She let him wait for an answer. ‘You did. I grow ever stronger through your loving.’
He clapped his hands, joyfully. ‘Oh good!’ His mind turned to other worries. ‘Majesty, we spoke before of the man Dennis. Today he is quite sick, majesty. We don’t expect him back at the museum for many days…. Was this… your doing?’
It could just have been coincidence of course, but he felt that she was smiling. ‘A taste of my growing power. See that you don’t disappoint me, Simon, lest even worse happen to you.’
…
Another night, another week later.
‘My return to life is but days away, Simon. I feel my strength growing due to your worship. I am drawing ever closer to your present day.’
He nodded. ‘My only wish is to please you, majesty.’
‘One is most pleased. I should like to kiss you with my own lips, to love you physically as you do to me. It will happen soon.’
Simon shivered in anticipation. ‘I long for it, majesty. But I have some bad news…’
He waited for her nod to continue. ‘I suspect that Dennis may take more samples from you, majesty. The others at the museum are concerned about the changes happening to your… your royal body. The test results revealed that you appear to be getting… well, younger.’
‘Every part of me taken away sets back my return to life. You must not allow further ‘samples’, Simon. Do you understand?’
‘I… understand, majesty.’
…
‘Dennis should never have taken the second sample.’ Simon explained patiently, hoping he was keeping control of his fear he had failed his majesty. ‘It was quite unnecessary.’
Back in the present, Professor McDonald glanced out of the window again. The weather was changing, grey clouds were starting to creep across the sky. A lovely day about to be ruined. ‘That may be so, but we still have the matter of this ‘joke’ to deal with. Radiocarbon dating tests are expensive, you know.’
‘The person responsible could offer to pay for it out of their wages,’ he offered quickly.
McDonald shook her head. ‘It’s not just that. Your whole attitude towards the Egyptian exhibit is a cause for concern. This little ‘prank’ of yours is the straw that broke the camel’s back, I’m afraid. I’ve been under pressure from the board to lose a member of staff. This has sealed it. It has to be you, I’m afraid, Simon.’
He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing.
‘Clear your desk, please. Your last day is today.’
The idea of not being able to spend time with Pnubeah any longer pained him. No more blaze of colour, no more heavenly chorus.
‘You’ll be paid until the end of the month, of course. Are you listening, Simon?’
He imagined the anger of his Egyptian princess. Her plan to regenerate set back and her lover denied her. Perhaps she would find another source of life? Of love?
Dennis? The idea of it turned his stomach.
‘Simon? Are you listening to me?’
‘I… there’s something I need to tell you.’ The words left his mouth, he wasn’t sure exactly where they came from, but it must have been within him. ‘I didn’t tamper with the samples. Someone else did it.’
Professor McDonald cringed. ‘Oh, do come on, Simon. There’s no use denying it.’
‘I’ve been covering for someone,’ he said quickly. ‘I… I don’t want to get him in trouble.’
‘Trouble? Whatever do you mean? If it wasn’t you, who was it?’
‘Dennis. Dennis did it. He didn’t want the lab getting samples of Pnubeah, so replaced them with anything else he could get his hands on.’ His mind raced. Would this lie stand up? It had to.
McDonald was suspicious. ‘But why would Dennis do that?’ she almost wanted to believe him, wanted him to provide some evidence.
‘He’s obsessed with her,’ Simon lied. ‘Absolutely obsessed. In fact, I’ve got a strong feeling he…’
‘… he what?’ the Professor gave her full attention.
‘I think he’s been interfering with the body.’
When understanding of the inference hit her, McDonald went green in the face.
Simon delivered the coup de grace. ‘He wouldn’t want them to notice any traces of… contamination, would he?’
…
The museum closed at five thirty exactly as Simon had successfully shooed away the last little band of tourists at five twenty five. He waited at the front door for the other staff to leave, tapping his foot impatiently.
‘Goodnight, Simon,’ Professor McDonald waved as she hurried out. Always the last to leave.
‘Goodnight, Professor,’ he returned.
‘I’m sorry about that misunderstanding earlier,’ she said quietly. ‘Always had my suspicions about that Dennis. He’s a bit of a weird one. All of that stuff he was saying about you – it was him doing it, all along. I’m so sorry, Simon. I’ll find some pretext to sack him tomorrow.’
Simon just smiled.
‘Thank goodness our museum – and our Egyptian princess – are safe with you!’
He nodded, and firmly locked the door behind her.
BAD BLOOD by Jason Malvern
An old house surrounded by dark forest. The night animals keep their distance, sensing perhaps that something is very wrong about the house’s two human occupants.
The first – Clara - is a thin, serious brunette in her early twenties. She is focused on an arts and crafts project she is pursuing – sewing the words ‘home sweet home’ into white cloth with the aim of framing it on the living room wall once complete.
The tranquil scene is shattered by a desperate howl of pain and anguish, coming up from the basement. Clara does not react to it with fear, instead, her face displays something more like annoyance. She sighs, and unpicks her last, mistaken stitch.
‘I wish she’d shut up,’ Clara sighs, resuming her sewing. She glances up at an ornate clock. ‘It’s a long time until morning.’
In the basement beneath, is the other resident of the house. This is Sadie. Not much can be seen of poor Sadie, as she is locked inside a large medieval iron maiden, only a small square of her face is visible through a tiny hatched window at the front of the torture device. She is clearly in great distress. What we see of her eyes are wild, her forehead covered in sweat. The poor girl cannot move an inch, or she’ll impale herself on the rusty spikes enclosing her whole body inside the terrible structure. Sadie has a very limited view of the basement that is her prison, but she can see a small clock which has been placed on a stool in front of her. This single allowance from her captor, is also another form of torture, as time has never seemed to move so slowly.
She cries out once more. ‘Clara,’ she wails. ‘Please! You have to let me out of here!’
She sobs gently after waiting for a response that doesn’t come.
‘Clara! Clara! I know you can hear me. You have to let me out of this thing!’
She hears the stomp of footsteps and her heart leaps for joy – Finally, Clara has taken notice of her pain and is coming downstairs. Sadie sniffs up the mucus dripping from her nose and readies herself for the conversation that is about to take place when –
The heavy door to the basement opens and Clara enters, her face like thunder.
‘Thank you,’ Sadie shouts, hoping a show of gratitude will grease the wheels. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘This noise has to stop,’ Clara says without emotion. ‘Don’t make me close the hatch on you.’
‘No! No please don’t close the hatch,’ Sadie begs, the tiny square window the only thing keeping her sane. ‘Please, Clara, you have to let me out of here. I won’t be bad again, I promise!’
Clara shakes her head having heard all this before. ‘Unfortunately,’ she says eventually, ‘Your promises aren’t worth very much, are they? Especially when you’re being like this.’
She turns to leave, and Sadie panics. ‘Wait! Can’t we just talk about this? It’s so horrible being stuck in this thing. Have you any idea what it’s like? Clara? Please!’
Clara thinks it over for just a second and smiles. ‘Alright, I’m just going to go and get something, okay? I’ll be right back.’ She resists the temptation to add the words don’t go anywhere.
Sadie waits impatiently, adjusting her aching body to try to hold off the creeping cramp in every limb. Clara is gone for a minute, then two, and eventually any hope that Sadie had that Clara was about to return and let her out is drained away until….
Footsteps on the stairs again. She’s coming back!
Sadie spots that she has a portable virtual assistant with her this time. ‘What?’ Sadie does not hide her surprise and anger. ‘Why have you brought that thing down here?’
Clara grins as she plugs the device into a wall socket. ‘Thought you’d like some music,’ she answers. ‘Might make the time go by a bit faster, you know?’
‘You’re joking!’ Sadie spits at Clara through the tiny window. ‘You f**king bitch!’
Clara ignores the insult. ‘Assistant. Play Taylor Swift.’
Welcome to New York, from the 1989 album fills the air.
‘I f**king hate you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Clara mumbles as she walks away. ‘We have to go through this for your own good, remember.’
Sadie screams at her until she’s back up the stairs. As the track finishes and Blank Space begins, a thought occurs to her. She mulls it over then laughs out loud at her own audacity.
‘Assistant,’ she calls out to the device. ‘Call Tom!’.
She prays that the device is still hands-free connected to her mobile phone upstairs in her room. After a few anxious seconds, the call connects, and the dial tone echoes through the basement over the speaker.
Ring ring.
Upstairs, Clara’s ears prick up, alerted by the end of Taylor Swift’s singing and then she gulps in horror when she overhears the personal assistant connecting the. How could she have been so stupid to plug the bloody thing in down there?
Ring ring.
She throws down her sewing and bolts to the stairs. She curses herself for making that mistake. It was a moment of weakness, she decides. She won’t make that mistake again.
Ring ring.
She flies down the stone steps, almost tripping over her slippers on the way.
‘Please,’ Sadie wishes aloud, knowing she hasn’t got much time. ‘Come on, pick up.’
Clara enters the basement, skidding to a halt by the device.
‘Hello? Sadie, that you?’ Tom’s voice comes through the speaker.
‘Tom! Tom! You have to help me!’ Sadie shouts quickly. ‘You’re the only other person I can trust! Help me, please!’
Clara’s face is twisted in anger and in a violent rage, she swipes the device to the floor. The call disconnects, the device is broken.
There is an awkward silence as Sadie steels herself for Clara’s reaction.
‘Who the hell is Tom?’ she eventually speaks.
Sadie tells her about the amazing guy she’s met. The truth spills out of her. The secret dates, the stolen kisses.
Clara just stands there, arms crossed defensively. ‘When were you going to tell me, then?’
Sadie finds herself in the weird position of having to apologise to her captor. ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this, I’m sorry.’
Clara steps closer to the iron maiden, and Sadie can now see the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. ‘You don’t sound sorry.’
‘Just let me out. Please.’
Clara leans forward and places her hand on the cold metal surrounding Sadie’s enclosed face.
She’s about to give in, Sadie understands. The confession has weakened her resolve. Any minute now…
But Clara slides closed the hatch that had been granting Sadie a tiny amount of vision and breathing space. She turns quickly and leaves the basement, so she doesn’t have to face the shame of her actions. Doesn’t have to hear the muffled shouts and screams.
Back upstairs, she recovers her ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and rips it to shreds before jumping up and down on it.
Whatever is now happening inside the Iron Maiden – we have no understanding. Occasionally there is a scream, occasionally an animal snarl, but mostly a gentle sob.
At two thirty-eight am. Tom arrives at the house.
Clara hasn’t slept – no chance of that – so at once answers the door when the bell rings.
‘Yes?’ she snaps at the unwelcome visitor.
Tom looks panicked. ‘Is Sadie there? I think this is her house, right?’
‘Our house.’ Clara corrects. Another mistake, she realises later. She should have denied all knowledge, sent him packing.
‘You must be Clara, right? I need to come in,’ Tom puts his foot in the door. ‘I think Sadie’s in some kind of trouble.’
‘She’s fine. Sadie is fine,’ she states. ‘If anything, if you come in here, it’s you that’s in danger.’
Tom ignores her and pushes past. ‘Sadie?’ he calls into the grand house. ‘Sadie?’
First, he checks upstairs, followed by Clara. ‘She’s not here,’ she announces behind him. Then Tom checks the ground floor, room by room, but can’t find what he seeks.
‘You see,’ Clara huffs. ‘Not here. I told you.’
But Tom is not satisfied. ‘Basement,’ he says quietly. ‘A place like this must have a basement, right?’
Clara doesn’t stop him investigating, doesn’t stand in his way as he runs down the steps. She only follows behind, trying to think of the best course of action, given this predicament.
Tom is stunned by the sight of the iron maiden in the basement, it’s like something from Edgar Allen Poe or an old horror film. He turns to Clara, incredulous. ‘Oh God, she’s not in there, is she?’
He already knows the answer. ‘We’ve got to let her out!’
Clara shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you…’
He paws at the instrument of torture. ‘Are you in there? Sadie, are you in there?’
Frustrated, he gives up. ‘Open it,’ he commands. ‘Come on, Clara, open it. Let her out!’
‘The key is over on the side there.’ Clara covers her mouth to try and stop the words from escaping but does not try hard enough.
Tom quickly retrieves the key and takes it over to the maiden. ‘Did you put her in there, Clara?’ he accuses. ‘You must be sick!’
Clara sniggers involuntarily. He doesn’t know the half of it. ‘I’m warning you not to open that,’ she eventually says. But her eyes are keen, anticipatory.
Tom finds the lock at the side of the structure and puts the key inside. He pauses before turning it. ‘What the f**k is wrong with you?’ he hisses. ‘How could you do something like this to your own sister?’
He unlocks the maiden, and the great hinges squeal as the front half swings open. Tom has prepared himself for an unpleasant sight but couldn’t possibly have expected what happens next. An upright wolf, with shaggy brown fur, long sinewy limbs ending in sharp claws erupts from confinement and sets upon him, tearing at him angrily, scratching him furiously with both fingernails and toes. Together they knock over the little stool with the clock on it, and it explodes into its component pieces. The terrible mouth splits open and bites down firmly on his neck, ripping him to shreds, shaking his head back and forth like a broken rag doll. Within seconds, it is all over. He is dead.
The carnage is reflected in the panting werewolf’s cold black eyes. Suddenly the animal rage is gone and the creature slumps down slightly, an oddly guilty expression on her long face. She then turns her attention to Clara and growls, revealing bloodied teeth.
Clara takes a step backwards but otherwise doesn’t recoil. ‘It’s me,’ she says quietly to the werewolf. ‘It’s only me. Get control of yourself.’
The werewolf leaps at her, but by the time physical contact is made she is Sadie again. Naked and shivering. Eyes filled with guilt and pain. ‘What did you make me do?’ Sadie croaks. ‘I killed him! You just let it happen!’
Clara takes on an expression of sorrow, but it is not entirely genuine. ‘Just getting you back for doing the dirty on me,’ she explains. ‘Don’t worry about the body, I’ll clear up the mess later.’
She was always the one who cleared up the mess.
‘I hate you,’ Sadie stammers as the two sisters embrace.
‘No, you don’t,’ Clara strokes her face. ‘You love me really. You know, you really are unbearable when it’s this time of the month. Who else would put up with this but me?’
Sadie glances at the broken body leaking all over the stone floor. ‘He might have.’
‘Bullsh*t,’ is Clara’s considered response. ‘It’s just the two of us, remember?’
She reminds Sadie of their deep, unnatural connection with a long, lingering kiss. Then she pushes her lover back into the embrace of the iron maiden and swings it shut. She picks up the broken personal assistant, sadder about its loss than the dead man next to it, and tosses it back down again. ‘No more Taylor Swift for you, my love.’
