Voice in the Garden

“There it is again.”
“What?”
“Someone calling, a kid - a girl.”
“I didn’t hear anything. What would a child be doing in the garden at this time of night?”
“We don’t know this area, the local kids could play through all these gardens. She’s called three times now. She must be hurt or something, lying out there.”
“It’s probably a cat”.
“You can’t just assume it’s a cat, and leave her out in the rain. She’s hurt. I’m going to look.”
I could tell by the fear in his eyes before he stood that he meant it, was steeling himself. He took the torch from the drawer, dragged open the heavy french window and was gone into the dark. A few darts of rain blew in where he had stood, and there was a rush of water on the walls of the house.

I sat still a long time, gripping the edge of the table. I was angry. How could he assume I’d leave a child out there in the cold? It wasn’t a child anyway - a cat, or his imagination. And whose idea was it to come to this freezing great lump of a house, out on the edge of the village, walls so thick phone signal couldn’t get through, no internet? We hadn’t seen a soul in the two days we’d been here, while the rain lashed the trees and long leaves of the garden. I glared at the space where he’d stood, resenting him most for the chilly wind that poured through the open door. Heavy and double glazed, it was the house’s only concession to modernity. I pushed back the chair to slam it closed.

Then I heard. The sound stretched and slithered - heeeeee….. llooooooooo, heeeeee….. llllpp. Thorns of fear across me. A cat, a cat, a cat. A cat, a cat, a cat. But the wordness of it burrowed into me. High-pitched, lost, uncomprehending. It pulled at me, heeee… llllppp, heeee… llooooo, the agony of its isolation in the night drawing me to the door, out across the paving and into the dense leaves.

I had no torch. I would slip, end up like that poor girl - but still I reached towards the cold air, a powerful urge to get to her, lift her from the dreadful solitude that scored through her voice. I stopped myself.
The call again, raking me: this is a child, screaming.
A cat, a child?

Another thought crawled into my mind. There was a plane to that sound that was beyond a child’s voice. This was something with a mind much older. My body straightened, shuddered. I lurched to the door.
“Come back!” I yelled into the blankness. “Come back in!”
My voice fell against the wet trees and dropped short.
“Come back in! Quick!”
There he was! Outside the blotch of light on the stones, my eye caught movement. I waited for his shape to resolve itself against the reflections of light from the house.

A broken-necked child jolted toward me, eyes gone, skin white into illumination, jolted, jolted. Her mouth hung open, and from the sleeves of her dress her fingers reached. Heeeee….. lloooooo issued from all the night around me, heeee…. llllllpp. I fell against the stone of the house, slimy with the weather. I could smell her, I could see the tracks of decay in her skin, she reached for me, and I reached back, still drawn by the loss, by the age in her voice.

Her feet slapped on the stones, and I pushed myself back upright, back into the house, hauled on the door. It shifted slow, faster, socked into place. I reeled back against the table, and the child clattered against the door, her nails and teeth working the glass, grotesque in electric light.
Front door, down the lane, hammer on the first window I come to, gabble out something. A blanket, sweet tea.

They found him next morning. He’d pitched head first down a steep rockery bank. They said the torch was still on, not much more. The police asked questions but the villagers kept quiet. Only, just before the car came to take me away, one old man put his hand on my shoulder.
“His eyes were closed,” he said, as if from that I should take some shadow of comfort.