Senses

Senses.

A log spat in the fireplace on her left, the sound like a large man
approaching cautiously through woods in the dark. She jumped, shivered,
despite the uncomfortable heat, and hugged the knitted cardigan to her
thin body. Despite the man-induced shiver, her cheeks burned.
Everything burns in this house, she thought. It was love. Intense,
burning love pulling her down, holding her under, keeping her
back.

The clack of needles, always the incessant clack of wooden. hand-warmed
needles, another garment to keep the winter chill away no doubt. Amy's
mother expressed her love by clacking.

Amy pressed her cheek against the window, it was so cool, wouldn't it
be nice, she thought, if 'cool' had a scent all of its own. Like the
seasons have their own designer perfume. The house smelled hot and old,
stifling and smothering. It smelled of her mother. She could hear the
children outside. She'd never been a child. She had been imprisoned in
this gothic house, with its pretentious tower on the south wing, and
its acre of darkened woodland, since the day she was born. This
circular room held no corners. Circles, like her mother, were a
comfort.

Mother never heard the children playing, they were too far away, she
couldn't even hear the leaves sifting from the trees. But Amy could.
She felt them too, inside where it hurt, dropping one by one from their
boughs. It didn't make her sad, this feeling of life ending to make way
for new growth, better to fall gracefully than desiccate in a room
stoked against the Autumn chill.

"Do come away from that window child, there's a draft."

"Yes Mother," she said regretfully.

She moved slowly, reluctantly, towards the fire and lowered herself
into the armchair, with wings that engulfed her and held her fast,
facing the heat, facing her life. She tried to sit. She tried very hard
to sit and make talk with her mother. Small-talk they called it. There
was nothing small about her mother's talk. It was a gaoler's key and
the keyhole was love.

She had to get out. It had threatened her before, flickered at the
corner of her eye, insinuating that it could do it, while she sat, held
in position by the chair wings. But now, she knew. She knew that it was
possible to drown in heat. She was moving before she was aware of
getting up, leaving her mother gaping after her, needles stopped,
silent.

Silent.

She had never run before. Not one step in her whole life. She didn't
know she could fight the drowning heat, but here she was running,
running for her life. The steps didn't trip her up as she spiralled
round and round and down towards the exit.

She wasn't prepared for just how cold it was out here in the dark. She
gasped and the chill snagged in her throat, caught in her lungs, made
her frail hands flutter like bird-rush to her chest.

She was free.

So this is what outside felt like.

She ran to the trees, ran until she had a fearsome pain in her side,
ran until she had to bend over, hands on her knees laughing and crying
and breathing the smoke tinged air. She could taste fire, but it wasn't
fire like the smouldering log fire of home. This was outdoor fire, as
free to reach the sky as she was.

She ran in the mud, her skirts growing heavy at the hem from puddle
water. She felt mud splashing up to her knees. It was delightful. She
had never been dirty before.

But?

Why weren't the trees grabbing her? All her life Mother warned about
how the trees would reach out their arms to prevent her moving. These
trees meant her no harm, but it was still a miracle that she could run
free between them. Trees and sky and bonfire and Amy as one. She should
be face down in the mud, floored, beaten, reproached. But she was free.
The trees understood.

"Ere wa`choo laughin` at? You're `er aint you? `Er from the `ouse. They
all say you're mad. Can you see me?"

The voice came from above. The only voice she had ever heard was her
mother's. Surely the trees couldn't talk. Surely not.

She stopped laughing.

"Who is it? Who's there?" her voice trembled, terrified. For the first
time her hands came up. She felt afraid. The voice reminded her of her
limits.

"It's Enry Stables, the cook's boy. Ere, you aint gonna tell the missus
I was up in `er tree are you?" She heard a dull thump to her left and
felt the density of his body displacing the air around him, he landed
in a crouch and she felt him rise gracefully next to her, heard him
rubbing his hands together to loosen the dirt from contact with the
ground. He was short, young, with a high pre-pubescent voice.

"What were you doing up there?" she asked, "isn't it awfully
dangerous?"

"Dunno `bout that, I've been getting` conkers silly. Do you want one?
Here give me your hand."

She'd never held a horse chestnut before.

He reached for her hand and uncurled her clenched fingers. His hands
were rough and she could feel dirt ingrained in the tiny creases of his
fingerprint. He smelled of autumn and moss.

There was static, painful coarse static that blinded her nerves as his
hand touched hers. The physical contact caused a reaction. The world
opened to her like a folded tablecloth unfurling in the wind. The sun
came from behind a cloud and stung her eyes causing her to squint at
the scruffy boy. He laughed and continued to show her his world. His
life, despite being splurged with grime, was too bright for her, so she
focussed instead on just one item.

The perfect nut in her open palm.

The left side, in shadow, was dark with muted richness in its matt
coat. The other side, catching in the light, shone glossy bestowing its
name on a colour that no imitation could do justice. She could see its
hardness and felt her lashes moisten in awe of its simple but perfect
beauty.

The world began to fade, she felt herself falling, drifting down into
the moss covered shade of the glorious tree. It was too much, too soon.
She couldn't fight the black flickering in her peripheral vision. She
knew the darkness would come for her.

"Vision," she whispered as her eyelids fluttered open. The wings held
her and she felt Mother pressing salts to her nose. She felt her mother
before she became aware of the acrid repugnance of the cloying salts.
Mother was the stronger essence. A log spat in the fire.

"Henry? Where's Henry?" she asked weakly and felt her mother stiffen
beside her.

"What are you talking about child? It was only the vapours," she lied.
"You must be catching a chill." She leaned forward taking another log
from the hearth to throw on the fire.

"Henry Stables, the cook's boy." she murmured, her white eyes tracking
her mother's movements folded in the darkness.

Amy felt her mother stop mid throw, if the log had actually left her
grip, maybe it would have stopped petrified in the air too. She didn't
see the colour leave the old lady's face. There was no way she could
have known that the Stables lad fell from the chestnut tree before she
had ever been born. His mother never got over it and hung herself from
the same tree less than a year later. Amy's father left that year. Her
mother had always been highly strung and without the cook to look out
for her, she had her blind child alone, and went slowly mad.

Amy never knew what was happening before she died, but she saw such
beauty that night. Her mother called it chills, but she helped Amy
along with poison for them both and logs on the fire. They drank beef
broth that tasted of bitter almonds. The blind girl and her mother
succumbed together behind the locked door of the tower, in front of a
roaring fire.
~*~

The cocoa was good, rich and dark, but it couldn't stop the shiver as
Mum finished telling us the story. We'd seen the fire you see. Glowing
through the smashed tower window. We couldn't lose face standing beside
the gates of the old house, shivering with delicious terror and the
cold. Adrenaline tasted like pear drops in our throats as we crept up
the twisting driveway, clutching at each other's anoraks, terrified.
None of us wanted to be the first to back down. It had been Jaimie's
idea to Trick or Treat at Barton Grange, we knew it had been deserted
for years but it would be a laugh, he said. We never did get as far as
the front door. As soon as we saw the orange glow in the single tower
window we ran see? Carl said he heard a noise, like a large man
approaching cautiously through woods in the dark, and that was it, we
were off. We never stopped running `til we got back here. We'd all
heard the story of old lady Barton and her daughter, but Mum tells it
every Halloween, as we sit round the roaring fire drinking cocoa and
seeing what treats we have in our bags.

I didn't tell the others, but, when I looked back, I saw a face
pressed up against the window. Maybe it was just a shadow.