The Girl Who Never Came Back Page 2

  "You're so stupid," Ruth replied, fixing her with a vengeful stare.

  "No," Charlotte said, "you're stupid, because you've never seen the witch. She's down there, though. She stays well back, at the bottom of the cave, and she only lets you see her if she thinks you're worthy. She has very high standards, so most people have no idea she exists."

  "And I suppose you're special, are you?" Ruth replied. "You're the only one who's allowed to see the witch?"

  "Not the only one," Charlotte told her, "but one of a very small number. She likes people who understand her, and most people think she's evil. She's not, though. She's a good witch, and she does nice things for people who she thinks are on her wavelength." She paused for a moment, enjoying the look of disgust on Ruth's face. "Like me," she added eventually.

  "Whatever," Ruth muttered. "I'll tell Mummy if you -"

  "You tell Mummy everything anyway," Charlotte said. "I don't care. Do what you want." With that, she turned and started walking along the tow-path, away from her sister and toward the cave a few hundred meters further along the river's course. She knew she could easily spend the entire morning - maybe even the entire day and evening too - arguing with Ruth, and sometimes that kind of thing was fun, but right now she just wanted to be on her own. Sometimes, just sometimes, it seemed as if there was more to life than playing.

  "Come back here!" Ruth shouted. "Charlotte!"

  Instead of replying, Charlotte just kept walking, with a big grin on her face.

  "Get back here right now!" Ruth screamed, her voice filled with every ounce of indignation and anger she could muster, as if she was channeling their mother's overbearing, authoritarian personality. "Charlotte, get back here! Right now! Don't go another step!"

  Once she was around the bend, Charlotte stopped and looked over her shoulder. She half-expected Ruth to come running after her, but finally she realized that her sister had probably gone and run back to the house. Within a few minutes, her mother would undoubtedly be listening in stunned silence as Ruth recounted every one of Charlotte's transgressions. One side of Charlotte wanted to run after Ruth, wrestle her to the ground and prevent her from ratting her out; the other side of Charlotte, however, was determined to keep going and at least reach the edge of the cave, even if she didn't go all the way inside.

  It only took a few minutes for her to reach the spot where the tow-path took a long curl to the left, with the cave partially hidden to one side. Charlotte had been to this point many times in the past, of course, but she'd never dared to go further. This was the one point upon which her more adventurous side was never able to prevail; Charlotte's cautious side always won the argument and prevented them from going into the darkness, although they often loitered at the edge of the darkness, and - like today - Charlotte enjoyed the thrill she felt every time she even contemplated going all the way into the cave and perhaps meeting the witch. Ettolrahc, of course, was screaming at her to be brave, to go into the darkness and demand to see the witch face-to-face, but Charlotte felt that this was the ultimate adventure, and that as such it had to wait until she was ready.

  She couldn't see the witch right now, of course, nor could she hear her or feel her. She knew she was there, though. It was as if the most powerful presence in all the world was waiting just beyond the shadows, staring out at her.

  "One day," she whispered, hoping to calm Ettolrahc's desire to go rushing ahead. "I promise we'll go in one day."

  Today

  "Auntie Charlotte," Sophie said, shielding her eyes from the late morning sun, "why don't you have any children?"

  Charlotte opened her mouth to reply, but at the last moment she paused, before turning to check her sister's reaction. Ruth, as per usual, looked distinctly unimpressed as she refilled her glass of lemonade and focused her attention on the magazine in her hands. Recognizing an opportunity to sow discord, Charlotte turned back to Sophie and paused for a moment, trying to work out exactly what to say.

  "What makes you think I don't have any children?" she asked eventually.

  "You don't," the girl said, wrinkling her nose for a moment. For an eight-year-old, she was remarkably direct and precocious. She was holding a chocolate biscuit in one hand, but although she brought it close to her mouth a couple of times, she never quite took a bite, as if she was too distracted by her aunt's claim. "I know you don't have any children," she added uncertainly. "You just don't."

  "But how can you be sure?" Charlotte continued, deliberately teasing her niece.

  There was a pause as Sophie thought about this for a moment.

  "I've never seen any," the young girl said eventually, with utmost seriousness.

  "Maybe that's because I keep them all locked in a dungeon," Charlotte explained, just about managing to keep from smiling. "I've actually got twenty children, Sophie, but I never let them out in the daylight. I could never take that risk."

  Sophie stared back at her, her mouth open as if she was about to ask a question.

  "Do you want to know why I can never let them out in daylight?" Sophie continued eventually.

  Cautiously, hesitantly, as if she wasn't sure whether to believe her aunt or not, Sophie nodded. She was still at that age where it was possible to pull her leg and make her get reality and fantasy a little muddled together. Raising the biscuit to her mouth once more, she hesitated again, still staring at her aunt.

  "It's because they're all hideously deformed," Charlotte continued, ignoring her sister's labored sigh and managing to keep from smiling. "Hunchbacks, hooked noses, peg legs, webbed feet, you name it... Every single one of my poor darlings came out a little wrong. At first, I thought they could pass in the world, so I used to dress them up in beautiful little clothes and take them into the town when I went shopping. Even though their bodies were twisted and melted and wrong, I thought they looked so beautiful with their little bonnets and their booties and shawls. I was the only one, though. Other people would run and scream, and eventually I realized that I had no choice but to hide them away from the world. There was no other way to keep them safe. I was worried the locals would turn up with pitchforks and burning torches."

  "Oh, for God's sake," Ruth muttered under her breath.

  "Can you believe that?" Charlotte continued. "Can you believe that people could be so mean to my poor, ugly little babies? The world is a cruel, cruel place Sophie. For people who are different, at least. For people who are ugly."

  "Am I ugly?" Sophie asked tentatively.

  "No," Charlotte replied with a smile. "No, you're not. Neither's your Mummy, or your Daddy, and neither am I. My poor babies, on the other hand..." She let out a theatrical sigh.

  Sophie brought the chocolate biscuit to her mouth, but at the last moment she took it away again. "You don't have any children," she said quietly, clearly still doubting herself. "You're making it up."

  "I'm afraid I've been a very mean and cruel mother," Charlotte added, amused by the look of rapt attention on Sophie's face, "not like your Mummy at all, and I keep all twenty of my offspring chained in my basement. It's simply the only way. I didn't want to use the chains, of course, but they were always trying to get away, and besides, if I didn't secure them, they'd scratch each other's eyes out. Several of them have already been blinded, unfortunately. They hate each other, you see, even more than they hate me. I keep them in the dark, so they can't see one another's horrific forms, but they call out and moan. It's quite the most horrible place in the world." She paused. "Don't worry, though. I feed them from time to time, and I torture them to keep their minds alert -"

  "That's enough," Ruth said tersely, putting her glass down noisily on the table. "Jesus Christ, don't you have anything better to do?"

  "She asked," Charlotte said, smiling as she turned and saw her sister's discomfort.

  "You don't really have twenty children," Sophie said cautiously, "do you?"

  "Have you ever been in my basement to check?" Charlotte asked.

  Sophie shook her head.

&n
bsp; "Then how do you know?" Charlotte continued. "It's all true. Ten boys and ten girls, of various ages, and I keep them chained up because..." She paused. "Well, because I like it, I suppose. Because I want to hear their moans at night. They're very good at moaning, almost like a choir. Sometimes, I think they're actually trying to harmonize -"

  "Charlotte!" Ruth hissed. "Is this really necessary? You're going too far! You'll give her nightmares!"

  "It's not my fault," Charlotte replied with a smile, reaching out and tousling her niece's hair. "She asked! Would you rather I lie?"

  "Sophie, are you going to eat that?" Ruth asked harshly.

  Sophie looked at the chocolate biscuit, which had begun to melt in her hand.

  "Auntie Caroline doesn't have any children," Ruth continued, pouring a glass of lemonade for her daughter before grabbing a tissue and cleaning the girl's chocolate-covered fingers. "She doesn't have a basement, and even if she did, it wouldn't be full of deformed children. She just..." Pausing, she seemed hesitant for a moment, as if she wasn't quite sure how closely to stick to the truth. "She just never had any, that's all," she said eventually. "She might do one day, but for now, she has all the time in the world to focus on her favorite niece." She glanced over at Charlotte, with an expression that threatened horrific retribution if her sister didn't start to toe the line. "Isn't that right, Charlotte?"

  "Sure," Charlotte, forcing a fake smile onto her face. "Sorry, Sophie. I'm afraid I was being kinda mean there. I don't really have twenty children locked in a basement."

  "I knew you were lying," Sophie said quietly, clearly a little confused as she took a cautious bite of the biscuit.

  Once Ruth had turned her attention back to the magazine she was reading, Charlotte smiled at Sophie and winked.

  Sophie frowned, clearly not sure what to believe.

  "Do you want to know the real reason I don't have any children?" Charlotte continued, as the sound of the nearby river drifted across the lawn.

  "Why don't you go and play down by the river?" Ruth said suddenly, grabbing Sophie by the arm and forcibly turning her to face the lawn and, in the distance, the river that flowed past the house. "See if you can find any dragonflies, sweetheart. You might even find some blue ones! Wouldn't that be nice? Much nicer than sitting up here and listening to adults talk about stupid things. Anyway, I want to talk to your aunt about something." She spoke those final words with a peculiar air of menace.

  "Lucky me," Charlotte muttered.

  Sophie grinned.

  "Go and play, sweetheart," Ruth said, waving her hand dismissively toward the river. "Go on. It'll be fun."

  Sophie paused, as if she was far more interested in talking to the adults rather than obediently running down to the river. She was a slightly cautious girl, although given to occasional bursts of curiosity. In this regard, she was very much in line with the other women in her family, all of whom had in the past shown a tendency to swing between absolute conformity and occasional moments of rebellion. Sophie was still trying to find a balance between the two.

  "Go on," Charlotte said with a smile. "Someone needs to keep an eye on those dragonflies, and it might as well be you. If they bite you, just bite back harder. They're mean little things, and sometimes you have to put them in their place." She glanced at Ruth, checking for the usual expression of irritation; sure enough, her sister had a face like she was chewing on a wasp. "If you see a dragonfly named Henry," Charlotte continued, turning back to Sophie, "tell him he still owes me a rabbit."

  "You're silly," Sophie said with a faint smile.

  "All the best people are silly," Charlotte replied.

  "Go and play," Ruth said sternly.

  As Sophie ran toward the river, Charlotte took a sip of her lemonade before turning to her sister. She immediately realized that she was in trouble: Ruth looked even more pissed off than usual, as if she was ready to bring hell-fire down on the entire house. In a way, it was a miracle that things had been going so well. Charlotte had already spent a night in her sister's house without there being an argument, so conflict was overdue.

  "I suppose you think you're smart," she said eventually, with obvious disdain in her voice.

  "Not particularly," Charlotte replied.

  "Bullshit!" Ruth continued, keeping her voice low as she pretended to still be reading her magazine. "You think you can just waltz in here and upset my daughter, and then waltz out again and leave me to pick up the pieces."

  "If you say so."

  "Not if I say so," Ruth replied. "It's the plain, unvarnished truth. You've always had this smirk on your face whenever you come to my house -"

  "Whenever you invite me, you mean," Charlotte pointed out, before a flicker of sadness arced through her chest. "What do you want me to tell her? That I'm a barren fuckhead? It's not like you're the goddess of fertility. You've still only plopped out one, and I know damn well that you and Tony have been trying for more."

  "You're forgetting," Ruth muttered, still keeping her gaze firmly focused on the magazine, even going so far as to turn a page in order to further the impression that she was actually reading its contents, "I know you too well. If you only came to cause trouble, I don't know why you wanted to visit for the weekend at all."

  "Because you and Tony begged me to come and disturb your ruinous boredom?" Charlotte replied with a smile. "God forbid that you might have to actually spend some time together." She paused, before feigning a look of shock. "My God, you might actually have to sleep with your husband!"

  A flicker of indignation crossed Ruth's face, but she still didn't look up from the magazine.

  "What would you be doing this weekend if I hadn't come?" Charlotte asked. "You'd be plucking your own eyes out due to sheer boredom."

  "Don't try to play games with me," Ruth added, finally looking over at her. "I know you too well, Charlotte. You think you can sit on the edges of my family life and take pot-shots at everything. It's true, isn't it? You think you're so fucking superior to everyone else, just because..."

  Charlotte waited for her to finish. "Just because what?" she asked eventually, with a faint smile. She knew this was, more or less, another variation on the same argument that she and her sister had been having for more than a decade. She was faintly amused by the whole thing, although she felt a little bored. After all, Ruth wasn't exactly an inspiring sparring partner, and their bickering was well-scripted by now. In fact, Charlotte was amazed that Ruth still found the whole thing entertaining enough to keep picking these arguments.

  "Please don't upset my daughter," Ruth continued, keeping her voice low even though Sophie was now a couple of hundred meters away, playing by the riverside. "When you say silly things about having twenty children in your basement, she believes you. I know it might be hard for you to remember what it was like to be her age, but she's very credulous and it's important not to fill her mind with nonsense. I'd have hoped that as her aunt, you might be a little more willing to take her needs into account, but apparently you only care about keeping yourself thoroughly amused!" She turned another page in her magazine. "I suppose it's hard for you," she added, "adjusting to the fact that you're no longer the special one."

  "The special one?" Charlotte replied, raising an eyebrow. "Why? Because I once fell off a fucking great big rock and -"

  "Please don't swear," Ruth hissed, interrupting her.

  "Sophie can't hear me," Charlotte pointed out, glancing across the lawn and spotting her niece playing in the grass down by the river.

  "Tony and I have a new rule," Ruth continued, keeping her voice down. "We cut out all swearing, even when Sophie's not around, so that we don't accidentally slip and let her hear dirty words."

  "Dirty words?" Charlotte asked, amused by the very idea. "What kind of words might those be?"

  "Please don't start -"

  "Shit?"

  "You're twenty-eight years old," Ruth replied, clearly trying to take the moral high ground. "Please, stop being so immature."

&n
bsp; "Could you write a list of these dirty words for me," Charlotte continued, "so I know to avoid them? I mean, some are obvious, like cunt or bollocks, but there might be some I've missed, so if you could sit down later, take out a sheet of that lovely headed notepaper you bought for yourself, and write down all these dirty words, I could memorize them and make sure never, ever to say them within a hundred miles of your precious, delicate offspring."

  Silence fell between the two women for a moment.

  "Sorry," Charlotte added, realizing that maybe she'd gone too far. "I didn't mean to push."

  Without replying, Ruth turned another page in her magazine.

  Sighing, Charlotte turned and looked back over toward the river. She expected to spot Sophie still playing in the grass, but her niece was nowhere to be seen. For a fraction of a second, a spark of concern leaped through Charlotte's chest, before she reminded herself not to be as precious and domineering as her sister. Sophie was an intelligent young girl, and Charlotte knew that she needed to be granted a little freedom. The poor girl probably had enough trouble with her over-protective parents, without needing an over-protective aunt to make things worse. Waiting for a moment to see Sophie bob back into view, Charlotte eventually decided to force herself not to be so goddamn attentive.

  Leaning back in her lawn chair and trying to ignore the loud, screaming silence emanating from her sister, Charlotte finally realized that there was no way she could relax. With a faint sigh, she got to her feet, muttered something about going to check on lunch, and started to make her way toward the house. Arguments with Ruth could be fun, but they were also emotionally draining, and Charlotte often felt pretty dirty and moody once they were over. She knew that the best thing to do would be just to remove herself from the arena for a few minutes. As she reached the kitchen door, she glanced back at the river, hoping to spot Sophie somewhere down there. There was no sign of the girl, however. Pausing for a moment, Charlotte reminded herself not to be as panicky as her sister. Figuring that Sophie was just out of sight, probably playing on the tow-path, she headed inside.