Bottled Nightmares Vol. 1 by David Dwan - HTML preview

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All characters in this book are completely fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

DOLL

First came that discordant tinny chiming again, like a dozen tiny hand bells wheedled by approaching yet unseen nightmares.

He didn’t know much about who or what he was, but the man knew what was next.

The room shifted into soft focus for a moment, then a split second later everything around him was nothing more than a blur of light and darkness merging into a murky undulating mass, one thing indistinguishable from the next.

The chiming, which had started in low was now assaulting his senses like physical blows to his skull. He was pretty sure he was hyperventilating, but could not even hear his own ragged breaths as they escaped his lungs like cowards.

Hazy blotches of dull light, almost shapes, cutting through the gloom appeared before his all but useless eyes.

Indeed, blindness would be a blessing now, but one he would not be granted. No, for whatever his sins were, he would not be afforded such mercies.

They darted around his throbbing head like insects, sometimes tantalizingly close so that he could almost register a sharp point here, a serrated edge there. But just as quickly they merged back into the unidentifiable. And just as before he instinctively knew they were each suspended from the

ceiling on thin wires. Amorphous shapes twisting and dancing before him like hanged men.

He vaguely wondered as lunacy threatened, if they were demons come to drag him to hell for whatever half-forgotten crimes, he was guilty of. Or if this was indeed hell itself.

Giving him these moments of clarity only to have them snatched away so that he once more was set adrift in this cacophony of jarring sight and sound.

Then just like a baseball bat to the back of his head, he was out like a light.

When he came to, the man was face down on the musty smelling carpet of the room. And it took him several fitful moments to realize where he was. Just a regular, nondescript hotel room and one he barely remembered booking in to.

He pulled himself to his feet using the large dresser which stood against one wall. And steadied himself there with both hands. He looked into the dresser’s mirror and the haggard, haunted stranger looked back.

The stranger’s name was John Spenser, he knew that much, or at least that’s what the credit cards in the wallet he had found in the over coat he was wearing told him. He had spoken the words out loud to see if that would give them meaning, but it hadn’t. They still meant nothing to him.

A stranger’s name for a stranger’s face.

And despite his recent unconsciousness. John Spencer desperately needed sleep. That much he did know.

He thought back to how he had found himself here. He had booked in, there was a receipt to this effect on the dresser’s top along with the wallet, which had been the entire contents of his pockets when he had gone through them in hope of finding out more.

He had been wearing a smart enough suit, no tie, and the heavy over coat. The pockets of which only contained the wallet and nothing else. No keys, house or otherwise, just the simple black leather wallet. And that was all he had to go on.

He had picked this particular hotel because it was large and out of the way. The night clerk on the front desk didn’t even seem to care that he didn’t have any bags. He had the look of a man who had seen it all before. Lots of faceless guests coming and going, a place where one could easily blend in. John Spencer didn’t know why, but he knew that was important.

Important because of that feeling that buried somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of his subconscious, he had done

something terrible. Ever since he had come into consciousness, a lost soul wandering the city streets late at night that nagging feeling of dread was never far away.

Yes, John spencer didn’t know much alright, but what he did know was that he was a monster. He glanced down at his hands, although he had washed them half a dozen times, he could still see traces of dried blood under the fingernails.

He moved away from the dresser and over to the single bed in the corner of the room. The sheets were still in a pile at the foot of the bed, but he didn’t care. He kicked off his shoes and then spun on his heel and fell backwards onto the bare mattress.

And as he laid there waiting for sleep to overtake him, he looked up at the plain ceiling and was thankful that nothing was dangling there.

“John Spencer,” he said out loud.

It still meant nothing.

Paulo Mattei, the night manager of the ironically named Majestic Hotel slumped back down into his large comfy recliner chair in the back office and poured himself another drink.

It had been nearly two thirty in the morning when mister no bags had showed up requesting a room. And Mattei had instantly peg him as an office worker burn out type wandering the streets after blowing a gasket due to stress. That, or more amusingly to him, some poor sap who had been kicked out by his wife for being drunk and disorderly.

He sniggered at the thought and pondered, not for the first time, that the Majestic was a magnet for the lost and pathetic souls who could be found drifting through the city on any given night. Drifting, aimlessly, or so they thought.

But drifting as they inexorably were, towards the always open doors of the hotel.

He took a large swig of whiskey and instantly regretted it. He was already on that fine line between drunk and downright paralytic. So much so, he had been amazed at how efficiently he had processed mister no bags, getting the right room key and everything. Drunken muscle memory he mused, as he focused as best he could on the small TV until the room stopped spinning.

A grim-faced reporter type speaking to camera appeared on screen and Mattei had to close one eye just to keep him from spinning off into oblivion. It took him a moment to realize the sound was off, but he couldn’t be bothered to search for the remote, so the reporter would just have to open and close

his mouth like a goldfish, until the latest wave of alcohol absorbed into his system so he could look for it.

The picture of a young boy appeared in a box to the right of the reporter. The boy was smiling at the camera and playing with a toy fire engine.

The picture then cut to a grainy CCTV clip of someone walking through a shopping precinct.

Now there was a woman at what looked like a news conference, flanked by two female police officers, each with the obligatory looks of concern on their faces. The woman was pleading directly into the camera now and Mattei tried in vain to read her quivering lips.

She suddenly broke down and a million flashbulbs went off.

‘There’s your front page, boys,’ Mattei thought in grim amusement.

The bell at the front desk went off making him jump a mile. He cursed to himself and pushed himself up to his feet.

There he paused, to make sure he was steady, then when through into reception to meet the next unfortunate to grace the Majestic Hotel at this ungodly hour.

What Mattei didn’t see was the TV report cut back to the CCTV footage and slowly zoom into the pixilated face of old mister no bags.

If Spencer thought that sleep would bring a welcome respite to his malaise, he was sorely mistaken. It seemed he could not escape it whether awake or asleep.

Now that he was awake once more, he could still make out the vivid yet fragmented images when he closed his eyes for any period of time, as if they were waiting behind his lids.

For better or worse, his dreams had lent some nightmare kind of clarity to what he had seen and heard before. He had finally seen the floating blurs before his eyes for what they really were. Strangely shaped windchimes, hanging from the ceiling of some unknown room.

Although thankfully he could not hear them anymore now that he was awake, as their soft chiming awoke a quiet terror in him. In the dream their tuneless tinkling had given way to someone screaming.

As he closed his eyes again, he could see the chimes in his mind’s eye, and beyond that an open window with bright sunlight flooding through half opened billowing curtains, as if touched by a light breeze. He remembered drifting towards the window and the closer he got, the louder and harsher the screaming became.

“Christ,” he cursed softly and went through into the room’s small bathroom and splashed cold water on his face in hopes if washing the nightmare away.

When he came back into the room, he became aware of how gloomy the place was. He had no watch or phone but had figured it must be mid-morning, judging by the sunlight trying to force its way through the thin curtains covering the windows.

Sunlight, yes, that would surely help lift his mood. The last thing he needed was to be sulking around a strange room in the half light. He took a step toward the window then froze. It looked for all the world like someone was sitting on the windowsill, silhouetted behind the curtains.

Had someone snuck into his room during the night whilst he slept? One of the other residents?

“Hello?”

He waited for the interloper to speak, but they didn’t so much as move in response.

Spencer found he was striding over to the window before he realized what he was doing and flung the curtains open. He was immediately blinded by the sunlight flooding in through the window. He took a step back, shielding his eyes until they finally became accustomed to the light and his gaze fell upon the intruder.

A large doll, of all things, was propped up against the window. But this was unlike any child’s plaything Spencer had ever seen before. It reminded him of an unfinished springless puppet. But this one was tall, perhaps three feet from toe to top of the head. It was made from highly polished dark wood of some kind. Its head bowed, its eyes shut. Naked, sexless.

Although at first glance, its joints were beautifully crafted, its down turned face was all but featureless, just the vague hint of a nose and mouth. But even with its lack of detail there was something unmistakably life-like about it.

He must have stared at the thing for a full minute. Why would someone leave something so unique behind? Surely not its maker, it must have taken an age to fashion, even to this early stage. The finish on the wood was flawlessly smooth, polished and lacquered to an inch of its life. It was undoubtedly a work of art.

He gingerly placed his hands under its arm pits and picked it up and the weight of it make him gasp out loud, it was much heavier than he had anticipated. And as he held it up, so he was face to face with it, its head lolled back slightly, and the eyelids opened with an audible ‘click’.

It stared at him with cold lifeless black eyes. There was something unnerving about the way its limbs swayed as he held it there, too real, like the movement of its head. This

thing’s creator was a real craftsman, with an uncanny knack of recreating the lifelike in wood.

Spencer suddenly felt uncomfortable holding it and he hurriedly placed it back on the windowsill, where it slowly seemed to settle in place against the glass once more, its head lolled forwards and the eyes snapped shut.

It was dark when Spencer summoned up enough courage to venture outside. And he had been glad to get away from the doll, the thing had seemed to be watching him all afternoon, even when he had closed the curtains on it, he could feel its lifeless eyes following him around the room as he paced and pondered what to do next. But somehow having it hidden like that behind the curtains was worse as he could not make out what it was doing, so he had reluctantly opened them again so he could keep a better eye on the thing.

Once he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of it reflected in the dresser’s mirror and its head had been up and its eyes were open, staring at him.

Then there had been the changes. Subtle for sure, but the doll was for want of a better word, evolving, little by little throughout the hours since he had discovered it. The wood, which had been so dark at the beginning that it was almost black, was now slightly lighter. Its face, once so

minimal in its design was taking on the faint traces of human features. The nose ever so slightly longer, more defined.

The lips fuller with the hint of red.

But it was the eyes that had chilled Spencer’s blood.

When he had caught it watching him in the dresser’s mirror, he had gone over to it, sure its head was now down but he was sure it had been watching him.

Although it fair terrified him to touch the thing, he had prodded its wooden chest and it had slid down the window a little, the shift in its body weight had made its head tilt back and its eye lids had opened. And what he saw there had sent him wheeling away from the thing in a panic and he had fallen back on the bed where he pulled the pillow over his head and screamed into the mattress.

Those eyes now had a hint of blue in them.

That had been what finally drove Spencer out of the hotel. He knew he had to get out, into the fresh air, anywhere, even for a short while.

And for a time, it had worked. Away from that thing he began to let himself believe he could move it, perhaps dump it into the unused wardrobe. It had a key, and he could lock it away.

But deep down he knew that once he returned to the hotel and saw that silhouette in the window from the street. His bravado would desert him. He had even dismissed the notion of leaving the thing entirely, to escaping the hotel and find another somewhere else. Because, despite the horror he felt in its presence, he instinctively knew their fates were linked somehow.

As he wandered the streets, he absently wondered when it was that he had lost his sanity. Was it just before he had lost his memory? Had his brain overloaded as it tried to escape some forgotten atrocity?

Later, he found himself standing outside an off license looking in through the window at the rows upon rows of alcohol. Those tantalizing bottles of oblivion beckoned to him. And he reasoned that if he could not fall into a deep enough sleep to elude the dream. Passing out would be the next best option.

He had drunk the best part of a bottle of vodka by the time he found himself back outside the hotel and his head was pleasantly numb. Once he had stumbled his way back to his room, the doll was there, of course, waiting for him on the sill. But thanks to the numbing effect of the alcohol, he just didn’t care.

He struggled out of his clothes and fell back onto the bed, and just kept falling.

He had no idea just how long he had been allowed to enjoy the bliss of a dreamless sleep, but however long, its end was signaled by the all too familiar sound of wind chimes drifting towards him through the nothingness. The darkness he had welcomed upon unconsciousness now gave way to a blinding light which surrounded him. He felt himself floating upright in it, borne up by the sheer energy as it swelled around him.

All too aware now, even in this fitful sleep, Spencer looked down at his feet to see an infinity of light below them. Then the windchimes were once again buzzing around his head, suspended by unseen wires. But for the first time their half-remembered tune soothed him, and he could feel his initial anxiety at their return fading away with each passing note.

Wherever he was, he was in a safe place, a million miles away from that doll and thoughts of forgotten crimes. And that, Spencer thought gratefully, was good enough for now.

A moment later he was floating through the chimes themselves and could feel them brush gently against his face then they would spin off into that bright oblivion, only to he replaced by a dozen more.

And for the first time he could make out exactly what they were. Many were animals but warped and disfigured almost to the point of being unrecognizable, as if they were made of wax and left too close to an open flame.

A light breeze caressed his face, and he looked up ahead to see the source was that same open window from before.

Sunlight, even brighter than that which surrounded him came flooding through it, its fine lace curtains fluttered as the breeze passed through them.

But suddenly, seeing this image, the feeling of serenity he had been so enjoying gradually began to melt away as he approached it, replaced by one of absolute dread.

Spencer felt a slight tug in the center of his chest and with this began to drift faster towards the window.

Panicking, he tried to grab onto something, anything to stop himself. But there were only the wind chimes, which simply spun away at his desperate touch, their once soothing tones now abrasive and painful in his head.

And so, he drifted helplessly on towards the window and what was waiting for him there. And somehow, Spencer knew what was coming.

The screaming started in low, almost indistinguishable from the wind chimes, but within a heartbeat of hearing it, the horrific sound was shredding what was left of his frayed

nerves. He felt that pull on his chest again, this time it was so violent it knocked the wind right out of him. He had to fight for each shallow breath as something was weighing heavy on his chest.

Dark blotches appeared in the brightness as he chokeed, slowly sucking in the light around him like half a dozen black holes. The window disappeared as it was swallowed up by the darkness as did the chimes. The screaming faltered and faded to nothing but the blood pumping in his ears.

Then there was nothing.

Spencer was in darkness now, fighting for breath which would not come. He could feel the hard mattress of the bed against his back and the pillow behind his head. He managed to force his eyes open expecting to see the cracked ceiling of the hotel room.

He looked straight into the eyes of the doll as it sat on his chest, heavy beyond all reason, its half-formed hands around his throat.

Spencer screamed and jolted awake, gasping for air. He clutched at his chest, but the doll was gone. He cursed the dream and tried to sit up, but all he managed to do was knock the vodka bottle which had fallen into his lap as he slept off

the bed. His head swam as he realized he was still blind drunk, gasping in the darkness like an idiot.

He was only vaguely aware of the bottle hitting the floor and rolling away. But he definitely heard it stop suddenly as it hit something wooden close by.

Spencer tensed and rolled onto his side to see the doll standing in the middle of the room with the bottle at its feet. It had forsaken its place on the windowsill and was watching him intently.

Even in the half-light he could see the changes, which had begun earlier and now continued with a vengeance. Its facial features were now more fully realized. It had cheek bones, and its nose and mouth were now more pronounced and exquisitely sculpted.

It also now had the suggestion of hair, wispy strands growing out the top of its wooden head. And its once naked body had taken on the faintest trace of clothing. A gossamer stripped t-shirt of sorts and the outline of shorts on its rigid legs. Ethereal creations at best, almost undetectable in the gloom but undoubtedly there.

“Christ, Christ,” Spencer slurred and tried to push himself upright, but his arms gave way, and he pitched forwards and fell awkwardly off the bed and landed heavily on the floor.

Disorientated and scared witless, he tried to sit up and after some effort managed to rest his back against the bed.

But the doll was back behind the curtains once more, its shadow casting a warped silhouette on the material from the streetlight outside.

It had tried to kill him, drunk or not the thing had tried to choke the life out of him whilst he slept. The adrenalin was starting to clear the maelstrom of thoughts in his head and as he sat there watching the thing, his head began to clear, and for the first time since all this began, a moment of clarity came to John Spencer, and he knew exactly what he had to do.

“I think I’ve done something terrible.”

The young woman at the Samaritans went silent on the other end of the phone for a moment.

“I really think you need to go to the police,” she said after a few rapid breaths. “I’m sure they will be able to help you figure all this out.”

The poor kid was obviously out of her depth, she had done her best up to now, but this was the third time she had given the same response, if phrased a little differently each time.

“You shouldn’t feel you have to face this alone,” she added, which was at least new.

Even with a gun to his head, Spencer couldn’t have said why he had called in the first place. Perhaps it had been the need for some kind of human contact, but nothing too intimate.

He had seen the card for the Samaritans on the Hotel’s notice board by the pay phone and at the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

He had wondered absently as he waited for the call to connect just how many of his fellow residents had thought the same down through the years. It seemed, even to the casual observer to be a gathering place to all manner of human flotsam and jetsam, washed up here by life’s merciless tide.

“If I did something so bad,” he said. “Why is it I can’t remember?” It was a reasonable question.

“Because you are blocking it out,” the girl said with a little more confidence. “Whatever happened, whatever you did... It’s overloaded your senses.”

Arh, a psychology student, Spencer mused.

“This doll, it’s all in your head,” she added.

He felt a sudden stab of fear, had he mentioned the doll?

He thought back, he remembered rambling at the beginning of the call. Yes, his heart rate slowed, he had. He had told her about the changes it was undergoing, of that, he was sure.

“Oh, it’s real,” he assured her.

His free hand absently drifted to his neck. He could still feel the things hands around his throat, and that weight on his chest. It had tried to kill him, no doubt and no phycology degree would convince him otherwise.

“Look,” she said. “How about a name, it doesn’t have to be real, just so I can call you something other than sir.”

“My name is John, I think,” he replied, there was no reason for him to lie.

“John, good. Look, I can understand you are reluctant to go to the police. But how about a hospital? I can give to the address of one nearby?”

Spencer had to admit the thought of just giving himself up was an appealing one. Maybe if he survived the next few minutes and what he knew he had to do. Perhaps he would.

“You said you had just come back from shopping, John,”

the kid said, trying to keep him engaged. “What did you buy?”

This made Spencer smile a little too widely even he had to admit. He kicked the shopping bag at his feet and the contents clanked together with the satisfying sound of metal on metal.

He was about to reply, when the sound of floorboards creaking at his back made the smile fall from his face. He turned and looked up the stairs behind him and to the first-floor landing.

The doll was standing peeking through the banisters, like a child eavesdropping on an adult conversation. It was silhouetted by bright sunlight which streamed through a large window behind it. It had a full head of messy blond hair.

Its once ethereal clothes, like itself, were now all too real.

“I have to go.”

“No, please, John wait...”

He hung up before she could spout fresh platitudes.

He watched as the doll turned and walked away. Its gait uncertain like a toddler learning its first steps.

And Spencer knew this was it. He waited until it was long gone and then picked up the bag and ascended the stairs.

Although he knew this had to happen, he felt conflicting emotions. Equal parts fear and excited anticipation of what was to come.

Was he a man taking the steps up to the gallows, or one to the door of freedom?

When Spencer entered his room, the doll was already back behind the curtains. But this time he noted it was standing and seemed to be peeking through the narrow gap between the fabric. He made great play at ignoring it and put the

shopping bag done on the dresser. But made sure he could see the thing at his back reflected in the mirror.

“I keep dreaming about a sunny day,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m in a room, looking at a window. God it’s beautiful, but someone outside is screaming.”

He kept his attention on the bag but make sure he could just see the reflected silhouette out of the corner of his eye.

“I have blood on my hands, don’t I Pinocchio?”

His heart skipped a beat as it came out from behind the curtains and hoped down onto the floor with a soft thud. It took three tentative steps into the room.

He lifted up the bag and the half dozen knives he had just purchased clattered loudly onto the dresser and the doll stopped dead.

“I was thinking. If I did kill you before, then maybe I can do it again.”

He picked up one of the knives, a vicious looking carving knife with a serrated edge and theatrically ran his thumb down the sharp blade.

“Or were you hoping I was going to use one of these on myself?”

Spencer spun around on his heel, with the knife out, ready to lunge at the thing.

He froze instantly, seeing the doll for the first time in all its newly forged glory. The changes were now all but complete, a wooden boy, perhaps supposed to be five or six was standing before him in a stripy t-shirt, shorts and a full head of messy blond hair. Its facial features a perfect rendition but one he did not know.

Although he knew it was some demonic facsimile it was heart stoppingly life-like. So real, so alive! Seeing it out in the open like this, Spencer couldn’t move, and he felt his murderous rage just melt away until he was left numb.

“What are you?” The question barely audible even to him.

The doll looked at him with beautiful blue eyes. It tilted its head quizzically to one side at the enquiry like a puppy learning its first commands.

After a moment the doll lightly touched a deep split in the wood to the side of its forehead just under the hair line with a now perfectly formed hand, as if in way of explanation.

Spencer shook his head absently in response to the gesture.

“What did I do to you?” He asked, frustration making him angry. He raised the knife a little and the doll took a step back.

“Christ,” he felt instantly ashamed at scaring the bizarre creation and let the knife drop to his side.

“Please,” he begged softly. “Who are you?”

Then in response the doll did the strangest thing. It began to move its arms in a circular motion and rocked almost comically from side to side. And Spencer wondered if he had finally lost his mind for good.

Of all things, it was dancing. He almost laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all but could not look away from the ridiculous spectacle. Now if his senses hadn’t completely left him, the doll was now miming holding a steering wheel. It even seemed to ‘beep’ an imaginary horn as it ‘drove’. All the while still rocking gently from side to side. Then it went back to moving its arms in a circular motion again, its wooden elbows tucked tightly into its sides.

There was something about this lunatic mime that made the hairs on the back of Spencer’s neck stand on end. He could taste bile at the back of his throat but still he couldn’t look away despite his growing distress.

His lips began moving, mouthing words to a long-forgotten song.

“The... The wheels on the bus... Go round and round...”

His stomach churned and he had a sudden overwhelming desire to breakdown in tears. To release all this pent-up

anger and emotion that had been eating him alive throughout all this waking and sleeping nightmare. He could feel it building up inside him along with the oncoming nausea and feared he would explode before he could let it go.

But still he could not find that release he so desperately needed. That switch to flick and make it all come to the surface, even if it killed him, at least he would be at peace.

Then the image of the window from his nightmares flashed into his mind’s eye, clear as if he were standing before it.

But this time he saw more of the picture. He was standing in a room and as he looked on, two figures, sitting opposite each other on the floor came out of the ether.

One was Spencer himself, sitting across from a young boy.

They were both laughing and doing the actions to the nursery rhyme ‘the wheels on the bus’.

Spencer tried to shake of the scene as despite its serenity, it terrified him beyond words.

There was the doll, in front of him once more in his hotel room, still dancing. Now it was wagging its wooden finger at him, as if scolding. He was hoarsely saying the words before he realized he was speaking.

“The driver on the bus says too much noise... Too, too much noise.” His voice gave out in a strangled sob, and he

staggered back a step, suddenly lightheaded as the wind chimes faded up again.

His vision bleached out and there was the window again, but like that dreaded nightmare the child and the room were gone as the window was just suspended there.

He felt that all too familiar tug in his chest as he was pulled towards the window once again and he could almost feel the breeze coming through it on his face. The chiming gave way, as always to that heart wrenching screaming coming from beyond its billowing curtains.

Spencer covered his ears in a vain attempt to block out the hideous sound, but it was inside his head as always, but louder than ever this time building with each moment to a hideous crescendo which threatened to split his skull in half.

Then just when he feared his head would shatter from the onslaught. It was gone, replaced by his own ragged breathing.

He tentatively opened his tear-filled eyes to see that he was back in the hotel room.

The doll was still now, looking up at him with those counterfeit blue eyes. Those now all too familiar blue eyes.

Jake’s eyes.

The realization hit him like a ten-ton truck, and he gasped out loud.

“Oh, God...”

A feeling of overwhelming horror well up inside him, followed by a thousand long suppressed images and emotions.

And just like that he remembered everything in horrifying crystal clarity.

It had been just another Friday afternoon, he had finished work early so he was home by two, ready to enjoy the weekend ahead. He had fair bounded up the street and into the house like he had done a hundred times or more. Once inside he had thrown his keys and mobile on the table by the door and had gone up the stairs, two at a time, just like always.

On the landing, something made him stop, a gnawing feeling at the back of his mind buzzed there unbidden.

Something strange. He remembered shrugging off the feeling and going into one of the rooms.

In through the door, he was immediately hit in the face by half a dozen wind chimes hanging from the ceiling. They were shaped like various animals they had bought them from Winsor safari park last year. The memory made him smile, Jake loved them, and he suspected the lad had deliberately decided

to put them there to ambush him every time Spencer forgot they were there or was in a hurry.

He laughed at getting caught out yet again and felt a breath of wind caress his face. He looked across the room to see the window was open and that someone had dragged a toy box to directly underneath it, strange that.

This was when he had heard the screaming from outside and was moving towards the window before he realized it. In the dream, this was always where he had woken up just as the screaming became unbearable. But not this time, this time he remembered everything, even if it would send him over the edge and into madness.

Finally, after what seemed like an age, he reached the open window, and with his heart in his mouth he looked through the curtains and down to the garden below.

Of course, it all seemed so matter of fact now he was finally remembering everything. A boy, his boy, dressed in his favorite stripy t-shirt and shorts was sprawled awkwardly on the patio below the window. An impossible amount of blood pooling around his ruined head.

Spencer turned and ran. Down the stairs and through the kitchen and into the back garden. The images were coming thick and fast now, flooding his subconscious. He was in the garden, the screaming was all around him. It was Sarah, his

wife, crumpled on the grass hysterical a few feet from where Jake was laid.

He stood there lamely in shock, trying to speak but nothing but strangled sounds came out.

Off to one side, someone was cursing loudly, and he turned to see Frank, his neighbor over the garden fence.

Frank didn’t look well at all and was frantically dialing on his mobile. Funny time to make a call, Spencer thought numbly. Then, oh yes of course. Nine-nine-nine.

Spencer could feel the reality around him fading away as his brain went into overload and was thankful for it.

His sight had become blurred, the sounds muffled, then gone all together, at least the screaming had stopped.

Spencer looked down at Sarah, the only clear thing in his myopic vision, she was still screaming but no sound was coming out, she looked oddly comical he thought.

He staggered slightly, disorientated and despite everything, he knew he was going into shock. He felt suddenly cold despite the mid-afternoon sunshine, and he began to shiver. His thoughts clouded and the very air around him became oppressive like he was in a vacuum, and he could feel it crushing him from all sides making it hard to breath and move.

He glanced around suddenly confused, why was he in the garden again? It was Friday, he was home early so why was everyone so sad?

Jake was laid on the patio with seemingly gallons of red paint all over him. Tut! He thought mischievously, your mum is going to kill you. ‘ What have we told you about that window in your room? The child lock is bust... I’ve been meaning to fix it for weeks. Maybe I’ll get round to it this weekend.’

“Stay away from the window, Jake,” Spencer thought he had said out loud. “If you fall and break your legs, don’t come running to me!”

The old joke from his own childhood didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.

Spencer was on his knees now, although he didn’t remember falling. And someone was laughing, he could hear it, clear as day and it took him a moment to realize it was him. Laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face. He crawled over to Jake to share the joke, but he was sleeping in the paint, his blond matted hair was covered in the stuff. There’ll be tears trying to comb that out when it dries, he thought vaguely.

“Come on sleepy head, time to rise and shine.”

Spencer took his son’s head gently in his hands and his young skull shifted sickeningly in his grasp distorting his whole head in the most disturbing of ways. He recoiled in horror and before he knew it, he was on his feet again. His hands were covered in the thick sticky paint now.

That was when everything around him just faded away and he was left with a moment of absolute clarity. It was an almost physical psychological ‘snap’, like someone flicking a switch in his head. Followed by a dreamlike sense of utter relief.

Don’t worry Johnny, this simply is not happening. The last thing he remembered was quietly walking away from the scene, from his house and grieving wife and into the ignorance of blissful denial. Then nothing until the hotel and the doll.

The doll.

Spencer couldn’t breathe, his legs gave way and he collapsed to his knees in front of the doll. It was almost human in appearance now, almost his son.

“Oh, my boy...”

Spencer held out a trembling hand and lightly touched the deep split on its head.

“Oh, my beautiful boy.”

The doll suddenly staggered forwards and into his arms and hugged him tightly. Spencer held onto it and sobbed his heart out.

John Spencer walked up the street hand in hand with the doll.

It had only been an hour since he had found himself again and had his final farewell with his son. It wasn’t real, he knew that, but it felt close enough to start the process of grieving.

Almost immediately, he had started to notice subtle changes in the doll’s appearance. The vivid illusion of Jake’s clothes had begun to fade. Their cloth like visage now nothing but gossamer threads. Its wood had darkened again and was now much closer to the deep mahogany it had first been.

The eyes not quite so blue anymore.

They were three houses away from home when the doll stopped and slipped its wooden hand from his. It looked more artificial now than ever and Spencer knew it could go no further.

This had been Jake’s Street, the house up ahead his home.

The doll had no place here amongst all this reality and

Spencer knew it had no desire to stay where it did not belong.

It had never meant to be a replacement for his dead son. Just something to help point the way back from despair.

He could see the doll changing by the second now and he held its gaze until the very last trace of blue in its eyes gave way to a lifeless black.

“Thank you,” he whispered and turned and walked away. He didn’t need to look back to know it was already gone.

Spencer stopped at his gate, the relief of recognition tinged with the memory of the accident. He stood there, unable to open the gate and return to his life, to Sarah. To life without his boy.

The front door flung open and there she was, in the doorway looking at him in disbelief. She looked wrung out and her eyes were red from so many tears. Spencer suddenly felt an almost overwhelming sense of guilt. He had left her, disappeared the very moment she had needed him the most.

He'd had to deal with this on his own, in his own time, but she hadn’t had that choice. She had lost her son and her husband in the blink of an eye. He tried to speak but couldn’t find the words, after all what could he say?

Sarah rushed out and Spencer could see her sister, Kate clinging onto the door frame in tears. And a fresh-faced

female police officer who put a comforting arm around the woman. Thank God, he thought, at least she hadn’t been alone after all. She stopped just short of him.

“John?” Her voice was weak. It was as if she didn’t want to believe he was real.

“Sarah... Sarah, God I’m so sorry... I, I just couldn’t...” The rest was lost in tears.

“No, John, no, it’s alright,” she said and flung her arms around him embracing him tightly as if she was afraid he would slip away again. “I thought I’d lost you too...”

They held each other for the longest time. How could he explain what had happened? Perhaps he never could, but for now none of that mattered. All he knew was that this was a start.

At last, the grieving process could finally begin. They both knew it would be a long and painstaking task. But at least every beginning would eventually, mercifully, lead to an end.

The Carriage

Although it was only eight months in, nineteen ninety-five felt to Jill Vallance like it had already been four times that length. Each day seemed to stretch on for a week, and it was as if the year somehow didn’t want her to ever get beyond it.

A troubled year refusing to resign itself to history, instead intent on making Jill live every single second of it.

Every minute stretching beyond its intended timescale. It was the year her once well-ordered life had changed forever, eight months filled with the full gamut of human emotions.

It had started, quite aptly enough on New Year’s Day itself. Roger, her husband of twelve years had drunkenly declared at five minutes passed midnight, that he was leaving Jill and their two children, Tom and Daisy, for someone younger (weren’t they always?)

He said that he could no longer live this lie of a marriage, and his tone had been so accusatory it was as if he was blaming her for being a part of this sham of a life as he saw it.

He hadn’t come right out and said it, but it felt to Jill like he was blaming her for daring to, grow older, heavier, and for rejecting his sexual advances (not that there had been

any for months at a time.) Even though he had done all these things himself over the years.

Roger had left that same day, even before the kids, who had gone to bed as part of a family, little knowing they would awake fatherless. Had gotten up.

Christ, was all that just eight months ago? Jill thought.

Eight months of begging, cajoling and threatening the man she had sworn to grow old with, for better or worse. Only to have him betray those vows for the sake of younger, firmer and although it made her sick to picture it, more desirable flesh.

Oh, how she had tortured herself with visions of them together. Sharing the most intimate of moments, just as she and Roger had for so many years. Was she a whore in bed?

Just how he liked it, didn’t he? Lately, even her memories of the passions they had enjoyed together were merging with images of him with the other woman, replacing her in every way. Once treasured remembrances, now nothing more than carnal nightmares that would enter unbidden, sweating and writhing into her mind’s eye at the slightest trigger.

“Penny for them?”

Jill snapped out of her self-flagellation. She looked at her baby brother, Daniel for a good five seconds before she remembered where she was.

“Christ Danny,” she replied with a thin smile. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

Daniel dumped the two large suitcases he was carrying at her feet.

“I know you’re on holiday, sis. But you could at least help, after all this is your shit.”

He grimaced at the swear word and glanced over to Jill’s car parked a few yards away. He was safe, her two kids, ten-year-old Tom and his nine-year-old sister, Daisy were too busy

‘helping’ Daniel’s wife, Béatrice empty the roof rack of their remaining bags and cases.

Jill laughed and pulled her brother into a warm embrace.

“Thanks again, bro,” she whispered.

“Aucun Problème, as they say in these parts,” he said as they separated.

Not for the first time, Jill thanked God for her little brother and his young wife of two years. It had been Béatrice’s idea for them to visit the pair, who had settled in Béatrice’s hometown of Lyon, France once they were married.

Daniel and she had met as part of his job working for the French company of Richemont based in London. He was a photographer whilst Béatrice worked for the PR department.

Daniel gestured to the large, converted manor house that would be home for the week.

“No bad, eh?”

“It’ll do at a pinch,” she joked.

‘Le Manoir De Carpentier’ to give it, its official title, was an impressive eighteenth-century manor house set close to the Brittany coast, that had been converted after the first world war into a twelve-bedroom hotel set in three acres of its own immaculately tended grounds.

“Béatrice practically lived here when she was growing up,” Daniel told her. “Her family would come up here from Lyon twice a year, that’s how we got such a good deal on the rooms. I’ve tried to get her to go on holiday abroad, but she always insists we come here.”

“It’s perfect,” she said.

Its idyllic setting would be an ideal place to escape to, even for only a week. The building looked to her like something out of a three musketeers or Marie Antionette movie.

A beautiful snapshot of French history.

It would be easy to imagine a horse drawn carriage passing by, were it not for the subtle encroachments of twentieth century life. The string of electric lights framing the large double entrance doors. The inevitable TV ariel half

masked by the roof’s ornate balustrade. And of course, the several cars parked in the car park out front.

Jill couldn’t remember the last time she felt so relaxed.

Even the normally fraught journey over from England had been cathartic. And she had felt the weight of the last few months ease with each passing mile she had driven once they departed the ferry at Caen. She could tell the kids had picked up on it too and she hadn’t seen them happier since this whole nightmare began.

A large cheerful looking woman, perhaps in her early seventies appeared through the open entrance doors of the house. She was dressed in a white apron, flowing floral summer dress and had her hair tied up with a red scarf. And Jill wondered if her attire was in part for the tourists as he couldn’t have looked more like a matriarchal housekeeper if she’d tried.

“That,” Michell announced. “Is the infamous Madam Besson.”

Besson waved at them and came down the stone steps.

“Of course, it is,” Jill said and waved as the woman approached.

“Madam Besson,” Michell said as she reached them. “Is it possible you’ve grown even lovelier since this morning?”

She dismissed him with the flick of a hand then offered it to Jill.

“You must be Jill,” she said in broken but understandable English.

“Hi, yes, pleased to meet you Madam...”

“Lucy, please!” Besson insisted and took Jill’s hand in both of hers and shook it firmly.

“Hey! Why don’t I get to call you Lucy?” Daniel said in mock protest.

“Because you are a fool and no good for my Béatrice!”

She said with a look of playful distain.

“Oh, I like you,” Jill said, instantly warming to the woman.

Lucy then put her arm through Jill’s and them her over to the car where Tom and Daisy were trying to climb all over Béatrice. Seeing them approach, Tom broke off his assault and came running over, waving his arms excitedly.

“Mum! Mum!” He shouted and began laughing.

“Tom, take a breath,” Jill told him.

The ten-year-old double up and fell to his knees just in front of them, his face crimson.

“Blimey, Tom! You’ll explode,” Jill warned with a smile.

“Mum!” He gasped. “Guess what yes is in French!? aunty Béatrice just told us.”

Both Jill and Lucy looked down at the boy, they knew what was coming.

“Well, I have no idea,” Jill lied.

“Wee! Wee!” Tim just got out before collapsing in a giggling heap.

Lucy laughed out loud at his antics.

“Ah, to be young again,” she mused.

“We’ll it is to be fair,” Jill had to admit.

“I must warn you,” Lucy said as she watched Tom’s convulsions. “I intent to spoil your children terribly.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Jill replied and squeezed Lucy’s hand.

Yes, she thought, this is just what I needed.

And true to her word, over the next two days, Lucy doted on the two children as if they were her very own grandchildren.

So much so that Jill hardly saw them from breakfast until the evening meal, where they would regale her with tales of that day’s adventures.

Although it was a Vallance family holiday, (with one glaring exception.) Jill was grateful of her time away from the kids. Time she could spend with her own thoughts, but just as importantly with Daniel and Béatrice with whom she could talk freely about what she supposed would be an impending divorce.

“The guy always was a dick,” Daniel said as the three of them sat in wicker chairs on the hotel’s large patio having cocktails in the warm afternoon sun.

“You introduced us!” Jill reminded him.

“Daniel!” Béatrice lamented good naturedly. “You are such a poor judge of character.”

“I chose you, didn’t I?”

I think we all know it was the other way around.”

Jill smiled contentedly as the banter and let the sun warm her face.

“Jill, can we take you and the kids on a picnic tomorrow?” Béatrice asked. “There’s a lovely, wooded area a few miles from here. It’s perfect, has a stream.”

“Sounds great,” Jill replied and took a sip of her ice cool Gin Sling. “That’s if you can pry them away from Madam Lucy.”

“Speak of the devil,” Daniel whispered and was rewarded with a punch on the arm from his wife. “Ow!”

Jill heard Lucy and the kids before she saw them. They appeared at the edge of thick woodland on her left that bordered the massive lush green lawn which stretch out like a bowling green below the raised patio.

Tom and Daisy were each carrying armfuls of freshly cut flowers, closely followed by Lucy and a man about her age, Jill hadn’t seen before, dressed in work clothes and pushing a wheelbarrow.

“Oh, there’s Henry,” Béatrice said as the procession started across the grass and over to where they were sitting.

“Does that guy ever smile?” Daniel asked.

“You know, I don’t think he ever does,” Béatrice replied.

“My mother told me he’s been the groundskeeper here since just after the war, a permanent fixture you could say.”

Daisy and Tom ran over to the patio’s edge.

“My, you two have been busy,” Jill said sitting up.

“We’re taking flowers to the...” Tom paused and frowned.

“War memorial,” Lucy prompted as she and Henry caught up.

“War memorial,” Tom repeated.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Jill said.

She knew war memorials large and small were a common sight in France. They had seen many of them on the drive up here. The village close by had a large one in the main square she seemed to remember.

There was even a small one in the hotel’s grounds, they had come across it when Béatrice had given them a brief tour on that first day. It was an important part of recent French history. Béatrice had become unusually serious when she talked about their significance, even now, fifty years since the end of the war, most knew someone who had been affected by the German occupation.

Some of the grander memorials were for the fallen soldiers. But many, like the smaller one tucked away in the grounds, were for the thousands of normal everyway civilians caught up in the Nazi retribution killings that blighted so many French towns and villages throughout the war. And for those brave resistance fighters who never accepted the occupation and had died fighting it.

“Henry was a famous hero of the resistance,” Béatrice said.

The groundsman frowned and took his cloth cap off. He absently picked at the brims stitching.

“Oh, Je n’en sais pas,” He replied softly with a shrug of the shoulders.

Luck smiled warmly at him and squeezed his shoulder.

“Our Henry is just being modest,” she said. “We are all very proud of what he and others did during the war. Our very own mayor was one of the local leaders. They served together.”

“It couldn’t have been easy,” Jill said.

She could see the poor man was uncomfortable with the attention. It reminded her of her own father who had been wounded as a young soldier at the battle of El Alamein in Egypt during the war but wouldn’t say a word about it.

The old man shrugged and smiled clearly understanding English.

“Allez! Come on children,” Lucy ordered. “Let us get these flowers to the memorial before they dry up.”

She ushered Henry away and they set off towards the far end of the lawn where the memorial was situated in a clearing just behind the treeline.

“Wee! Wee!” Tom said with a giggle.

“Wee! Wee!” Daisy mimicked, barely getting the words out before laughing.

And they both set off after the grown-ups.

“My children, ladies and gentlemen,” Jill said with a shake of the head.

“Their French is getting better,” Daniel chimed in with a smirk.

Jill watched the quartet as they reached the trees and disappeared along a woodland path. Then she sat back and took in her idyllic surroundings.

It’s hard to believe this place was ever at war,” she said.

“Sadly so, “Béatrice replied. “I understand it was quite bad around these parts.” She gestured to the manor house.

“The manor was a gestapo headquarters.”

“Shite,” Daniel uttered.

The three of them fell silent as they each thought about past horrors in beautiful settings. Finally, Béatrice clapped her hands.

“Enough of this, we must remember but we must not dwell.

Who’s for another drink?”

Jill lifted up her glass.

“Me, I could get used to all this day drinking.”

Jill had always thought of herself as being a lenient, progressive parent. But she had to admit she had undoubtedly given the kids a new sense of freedom here in France. Perhaps it was the remoteness and size of the village. Indeed, once

you were away from the centre you would be lucky to see half a dozen cars all day, so there were no busy roads to worry about unlike back home.

Or perhaps it was Madam Lucy’s coddling of the children that had set her at ease. Either way she felt comfortable letting them roam out of her sight, much more than normal.

And it was a new side of her she liked.

Such was the case today, Béatrice had somehow managed to convince Madam Besson to let them take Tom and Daisy away for the day, although Jill secretly thought the poor woman looked a little relieved at the respite. Her sister-in-law had arranged a quite extravagant picnic in a lovely out of the way spot she had discovered as a child.

Jill laid back on the blanket and listened to the gentle babbling of the nearby stream and couldn’t remember when she had felt quite so contented. Béatrice sat next to her and watched Daniel, with his trouser legs rolled up comically to his knees as he tried in vain to teach Tom and Daisy how to catch sticklebacks with their nets in the shallow water.

The spot Béatrice had picked was almost impossibly idyllic. They had set up in a small clearing by the stream, surrounded on three sides by thick woods and a narrow track which led up to the main road where they had parked.

“I wish I could stay here forever,” Jill said as she sat up.

“I know,” Béatrice agreed. “But still, enjoy it whilst you are here.”

“Believe me, I am.”

The pair were sprayed with cold water as the trio came wading out of the water and over to them.

“Hey!” Jill shrieked as Tom shook his hair like a dog over her.

“They wear me out,” Daniel declared and flopped down next to Béatrice.

“Oh, come on!” Tom protested and started jumping up and down on the spot.

Daisy was soon imitating her brother.

“Don’t you two want to rest for a bit?” Jill asked more out of hope than expectation.

“No, no!” Daisy said.

“Mum, can we go for a wander?” Tom asked.

Jill looked at Béatrice, who nodded.

“There’s a path that runs right through the woods over there,” she said pointing to her right.

Jill could just about see the partially overgrown path at the edge of the trees.

“As long as you two don’t go far,” Béatrice continued.

“I have only ever been as far as the middle of the woods.

When I was younger, I got too scared, it can get quite dark in there, even on a day like today.”

“So, no hidden mine shafts or caves they can fall down?”

Jill asked playfully.

“Definitely not. I think there is an old railway track at the far end. That’s where they used to keep the old trains back in the sixties. All gone now though.”

“Okay.” Jill turned to the children. “Not too far, and if you come across any old buildings or anything like that.

Out of bounds, understand?”

“Not too far,” Tom said. “Come on Daisy chain,” he grabbed his sister’s hand and they set off towards the woods.

“Stick to the path!” Béatrice called over to them.

“That way you can follow it back here again.”

“And Tom, keep an eye on the time!” Jill shouted.

Tom tapped his wristwatch, and they headed into the trees.

It wasn’t long into their jungle adventure, when Tom Vallance spotted a pair of rusty railway tracks just visible through the undergrowth. He knew well enough not to venture anywhere near railways back home. There was a busy line that ran close to his school, and they’d had many lessons about the dangers.

But these were old and almost completely covered by grass and weeds. Still, as he approached, he instinctively looked both aways. To his left, the tracks only ran for a few metres before they stopped at a mound of bricks and rubble. No way a train was coming down these tracks. The tracks to his right were more promising. They ran off and around a bend and out of sight beyond the trees.

He stepped onto one of the heavy rails and held out his arms for balance and waited for Daisy to catch up. He looked past her to the path they had come down. It would be easy to double back along the track to this point once they had finished exploring. Then they just had to follow the path back to the picnic and his mother. He took no little pride in his, what did they call it? Yes, orienteering skills.

“These look old,” Daisy set as she stepped up onto the opposite rail.

“Hmm,” Tom checked his watch. They had been wandering for a good twenty minutes, but it had only felt like twenty seconds to him.

Still, he was drawn to the bend in the tracks and what might lay beyond. He had his bearings, so what could be the harm?

“Let’s see where this leads, okay?”

Daisy, as always nodded in agreement.

They would have to be quick, but Tom just couldn’t shift the feeling something interesting awaited them. He pictured an old, abandoned stream train, long forgotten and left to rust. Now that would be an adventure.

“Come on,” he urged and jumped off the rail and began to jog up the tracks. Daisy gave chase.

As they rounded the bend, that adventure started much sooner than Tom could ever have hoped for. Someway off, the track came to a stop at a bordered-up railway tunnel cut into a rocky hillside.

In front of which, half obscured by a thick tangle of bushes stood what looked like an old railway carriage. It sat on its own behind an old black and white striped barrier which stretched across the track. This had what looked like an old, smashed lantern dangling from it and a faded sign with a word Tom had never seen before painted in dirt flecked, faded red.

Verboten.

The carriage’s distressed metal work was brown with rust.

Its long windows were covered on the inside by thin wooden slatted shutters, most of the glass missing or cracked and covered in grime. The wooden body work was warped and splintered in parts and its weather worn painted surface was all but gone. It had perhaps once been blue but now only mouldy patches of faded paint.

It wasn’t the locomotive Tom had hoped for, but the carriage looked old and had an irresistible draw to a curious ten-year-old. He remembered seeing similar ones at York’s railway museum, but they had been restored to former glories.

He felt Daisy’s hand slip into his as they approached, and he slowed his walk.

“Remember what mum said,” she cautioned.

He remembered and smiled impishly. ‘Not too far,’ they weren’t. ‘And no buildings,’ this wasn’t.

“It’s alright,” he reassured her. “We’ll just take a look. Don’t you want to see inside?”

“Not really,” she replied sheepishly.

Tom moved slowly towards the carriage and despite herself, Daisy gripped his hand tighter and went with him.

They had to fight their way through the tangled limbs and thick undergrowth to get to the carriage, but as difficult as it was, this made the lure of the vehicle all the more enticing to Tom. He felt like an adventurer making his way through dark Amazonian jungle in search of a lost city.

Once through the other side, they came to the back of the carriage. Tom ran his hand along the wooden panelling which was bowed and cracked with age. Tom let go of Daisy’s hand as he moved further along, having to squeeze through here and there where the foliage had grown right up to the side of the carriage. Finally, he reached a rusted metal door.

“Tom,” Daisy was hanging back a little.

“It’s alright.”

She came over to his side, all the while glancing at the carriage as if something might leap out from inside and attack at any moment.

“Good girl,” he said.

Tom tried the door handle, but it was so rusted it didn’t budge at all.

“It’s creepy,” Daisy announced with a frown.

“I know!” Tom replied with glee.

He peered down to the other end of the long carriage and saw another door.

“Let’s try that one,” he said and set off.

He didn’t look back but could hear Daisy muttering, then the crunch of her shoes on the gravel underfoot as she followed.

Tom counted his strides as he walked in an attempt to judge just how long it actually was.

He tried to peer in through the shuttered windows as he went, but they were too high up, even when he tried tiptoes and despite the dilapidation of the thing and the smashed glass the shutters were mostly intact except the odd missing slat here and there. His frustration evaporated as he reached the next door. It was slightly ajar.

He tried the handle to opened it further, but the hinges were rusted solid. He pulled at it with all his might, but it didn’t move so much as a millimetre.

“Damn it!”

He looked back along the carriage. He had counted twenty-two strides so at a rough estimate the thing was about thirty feet long as long, if not longer than modern. He examined the door once more. There was a metal step on the bottom so he put a foot on it and using the handle he hoisted himself up so he could look inside through the gap.

He pressed his face into the space and peered inside, but due to the angle he could only see the wood panelling of

another door at the back of the carriage to his right, which if it was connected to another you would use to go between the two. He strained to see to his left and inside the carriage interior proper, but it was useless.

He stepped back down onto the gravel and weighed up his options.

“Mum’s gonna kill you,” Daisy said in a sing-song voice.

She gestured to his t-shirt which was covered in rust and mould. He brushed it off as best he could.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied tersely.

He turned back to the gap in the door. It would be tight, but he calculated he could just about squeeze through.

He thought about it for a split second then turned sideways and pushed his left shoulder into the gap and began to wriggle through.

“Tom!” Daisy protested.

“You can stay here if you want,” he grunted with effort, he was now halfway in.

Daisy clutched her hands together and her face was set in a concerned frown as he finally managed to manoeuvre himself through.

The interior of the carriage was as dim and damp as Tom had expected, as he stood there his young eyes gradually

became accustomed to the gloom. Thin strips of sunlight were visible through the gaps in the aged wooden slats covering the windows. And here and there shafts of light came filtering through narrow gaps in the roof catching moats of dust tumbling in the air like snowflakes.

“Oh,” Tom said with disappointment, as his vision finally adjusted.

The carriage was empty, except for oddly a heavy wooden table down at the far end which did not fit with any railway furniture Tom had ever seen.

There were no seats, compartments or tables, the interior had been completely stripped to its bare bones. He scanned the floor in the vain hope of finding an old discarded conductor’s hat or ticket machine he could claim as a souvenir, something, anything worth the effort of entry.

The light at the door behind him shifted and he turned to see Daisy coming through the narrow gap. She barely had to struggle at all to get inside she was so small.

“Phew!” She said pinching her nose. “It stinks in here.”

He nodded, the place smelt of rotting wood and mildew and he wondered just how long it had been since anyone had ventured inside. Béatrice hadn’t mentioned having seen

anything like this on her adventures as a child, then he remembered she had been too scared.

Daisy moved past him and began to walk down the carriage, which was most unusual for her. Then he heard her humming some tune he hadn’t heard before. He was about to ask her what it was when the simple melody sparked off something deep within him. He felt a sudden prickly sensation wash over his body, A split second of fear which dissipated almost as soon as it had come replaced by a warm, soothing feeling.

It took his young brain a moment to process the strange conflicting emotions. Then it came to him, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of calm. Like when his mum would climb into his bed during a thunderstorm and whisper in his ear.

Banishing in a few words any terror caused by the storm. The way that feeling of fear gave way to one of absolute security.

Tom closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself without realising it.

He opened his eyes again hearing Daisy giggling down the other end of the carriage. She was definitely feeling it too, as normally she would have been as quiet as a mouse in such a strange place and would be glued to his side in terror the whole time.

She was spinning like a ballerina in a shaft of bright sunlight coming from the roof above her. Her face as bright as he could remember it, since the whole mum and dad thing.

He skipped down to join her, laughing as he went. She was standing under a long metal pole which stretched across the width of the carriage. Four rotting pieces of thick rope were wrapped around it at intervals. Tom’s first thought in his euphoric state was that perhaps they used to attach a pair of child’s swings. But that fantasy, nice though it was only lasted a moment.

His foot kicked something, and he saw it was a tangle of the same type of rope which must have fallen from the pole over time. He bent down and picked it up.

Daisy had gone over to the side of the carriage and was running her little fingers along the panelling. Tom could see, where the light caught it, that there were scratch marks in the wood, like an animal, perhaps a dog had been clawing to be let out. She ran her nails delicately along them as if pretending she was clawing them herself.

Even though Daisy was gigging contently as she did this, something deep down in Tom made him shudder, he felt a stab of fear, it might have been a trick of the light, but he thought he saw blood dripping from the gouged panelling like claw marks in flesh. Then an instant later, just as before the

fear was gone replaced by that warm feeling of all enveloping safety.

He laughed as Daisy came away from the side and broke into a little dance of joy. Then he realised he had been untangling the rope all the while. It was a length of course rope ending with a wrapped knot with a loop on the end big enough to fit your head through. He held it up by the end and it swung before his eyes and the motion was familiar somehow.

Daisy had now moved off to the far end of the carriage and climbed up onto the odd table and laid down on it. Tom followed her down, as he reached her, she closed her eyes and began moving her arms up and down with her palms against the wood like she was making a snow angel.

Tom touched the wood and was shocked at how cold it felt in the clammy air of the carriage. There were rusty bolts on either side which must have attached something to the wood.

He didn’t know why, but the image of heavy leather straps came to mind. The sort used to strap someone’s wrists down. Where the image came from, he couldn’t say, perhaps he had seen it on tv or in a film.

Whatever it was, Daisy must had seen the same thing, because she stretched out her arms out from her body like Jesus on the cross. She was too small to reach where the straps would have been, but the inference was clear.

Her little face seemed to suddenly run through a dozen or so expressions in rapid succession. Tom saw fear, pain, confusion, anger, all a blur and so utterly alien to her normal sweet features. An instant later, her face melted back into one of utter peace and contentment. Then she was plain old Daisy again. It was all so fast, Tom wasn’t sure he had seen it at all.

She let out a long sigh and squinted up at a shaft of sunlight which played across her face.

“We should go,” Daisy said reluctantly as if resigned at having to leave this strange place of unexpected wonder.

Tom nodded, he felt it too, like the end of the day at a fair when the excitement dips to sudden fatigue. He was dog tired but deep down wanted to stay here all day.

“Yeah,” he finally relented and absently tucked the rope under his t-shirt.

“You two alright?” Jill asked after supper that evening.

They had been unusually quite since the picnic, at first, she had put it down to over excitement. But they had hardly touched their food and had both been somewhat subdued.

“Just tired,” Tom had replied before asking if they could go to bed.

It had been the first time on the trip that they had actually asked to go to bed without being dragged upstairs.

Jill instinctively felt Daisy’s forehead for fever as she helped her get into the bed she was sharing with Tom, who was already snuggled under the covers. But she was cool.

“Busy day huh?”

“Uhuh,” was all she got in reply as Daisy slipped under the covers, already half asleep.

She tucked them both in and kissed them goodnight.

“Remember, I’m just downstairs if you need me, okay?”

“We know,” Tom replied lazily.

“I’ll leave the light on, don’t forget to turn it off when you go to sleep.”

Neither child replied but just gave her a wave.

“Love you,” she said as she closed the door and was rewarded with two muted ‘love you’ in response.

As he trudged on through the familiar, yet ominous trees, he looked up, perhaps in the hope of divine guidance, telling him that despite his gut this was the best option for them. But instead, he was greeted with dark and twisted tree limbs meshed together over head like the spindly hands of dead men,

intertwined against a brooding sky. It was daylight, but the dense foliage blocked out much of the sunlight, so it may as well have been twilight.

Although he knew he was dreaming, Tom felt Daisy’s hand squeeze his as they followed the man leading him and his sister through the forest. As they came to the edge of the trees, he could see the train tracks up ahead, snaking off in either direction. But unlike today, these tracks were shiny and freshly travelled upon, with no hint of undergrowth that had all but swallowed them up.

He looked at the man just a few paces ahead. And it was only now he realised that, although he was a fully grown adult, both he and Daisy were almost as tall. There was something vaguely familiar about his unshaven gaunt face but try as he might Tom could not place him. Despite this he wasn’t scared, and neither was the normally timid Daisy. They both unconsciously knew him from somewhere, but more importantly that it was safe to go wherever he led.

They were walking along the train tracks now which rounded a bend up ahead. The sky darkened a little as they walked and with that came a slight stab of fear, as if it were mirroring some terror to come.

“Franz?” Daisy said and Tom turned to her as if he had been called that his entire life. Stranger still, he wanted to call her Marie.

“Now, now,” the familiar stranger said. “The rendezvous is just up ahead. You’ll be safe soon, just as we promised.

Tom knew he was speaking French but understood every word all the same.

Safe, yes that was it! The man was taking them somewhere safe. Somewhere the bad men in black uniforms couldn’t find them. Promises had been made, after all, they were heroes, Daisy... No... Marie and him.

It was increasingly hard to tell which was which.

But despite the reassuring words from their guide, he couldn’t ignore the growing trepidation he was starting to feel. Their lives were in this man’s hands. They had, in their desperation, given themselves over to him completely.

The ‘hiss’ of some massive beast, echoed around them, just around the bend in the tracks. And with it the day, such as it was, turned to night in the blink of an eye.

“Almost there,” the stranger said.

“Franz, are you sure?” Daisy asked, her voice oddly low, not that of an eight-year-old, but like aunty Béatrice.

Older, French, but still he understood.

“Don’t worry,” he replied in perfect French himself and squeezed her hand.

She was humming some tune to herself as they walked, an old song a child called Maire had learnt long ago to ward off childhood monsters. Its usual soothing melody sounded more like a funeral dirge out here in the oppressive darkness.

He glanced to their guide, but his face was in near shadow and was turned to the bend ahead. Tom instinctively reached into the back of his trousers with his free hand and found the hand grip of the pistol he knew would be there.

Again, that sharp ‘hissing’ from up ahead and Tom jolted in shock.

“Almost, there,” the man said again, and Tom caught a hint of regret in his voice.

The three of them came around the corner and the source of the un-nerving sound came into view. A small floodlit locomotive was sat idling on the track at the mouth of a tunnel cut through the hillside. It was attached to a carriage, Tom recognised it at once, only like the tracks it sat upon it was new and without a hint of damage or weather worn decay. And judging by the sharp intake of breath, Daisy recognised it too.

Two shapes, tall, uniformed, appeared from behind the carriage. They were soldiers and although Tom didn’t

recognise the insignia they wore, the shape of their helmets alone was enough to send a bolt of terror through the man called Franz.

The traitor at their side looked at Tom with tears of shame in his eyes. Now that the light from the floodlights illuminated his face, he looked so familiar to Tom, someone he had seen before, but younger here and less weighed down with guilt and age.

Tom tried to place the man, but the sheer flood of emotions and images conjured up by this all too vivid borrowed memory made it impossible for his mind to focus on one thing.

He looked from the approaching soldiers to the man who had led them here. His face was not so familiar now, not so trustworthy and he knew with a deep sinking feeling that the man had betrayed them. Daisy felt it too.

“Traitor,” Daisy hissed at his side, her voice low and almost animalistic in its hate-tinged tone.

Hate and rage, such has he had never felt before built up inside Tom also. He was vaguely aware these emotions were not his own but an echo of this man Franz’s experiences. But still it burned into his very being.

He moved to pull his pistol from the back of his trousers but was instantly set upon by three soldiers who came out of nowhere. One hit him hard with the butt of his rifle he fell

to his knees, his vision blurred, a moment later someone had him by the hair and two of them dragged him over towards the carriage.

Despite his panic, and the bells ringing in his head.

Tom thought of Daisy, no Marie! Damn it he just wasn’t sure of anything anymore. This was a nightmare, but one he could feel every blow in, feel the fear this man Franz felt for his own sister which was mirrored all too clearly in Tom’s fear addled brain for Daisy.

He wanted so desperately to cry but some revenant, fuelled by decades of hate, deep within him, wouldn’t give the bastard’s the satisfaction.

However, this inherited resolution was sorely tested when Daisy’s scream was met with ghoulish laughter from the other soldiers.

As he was dragged to the steps of the carriage, his vision cleared just long enough to see a half-silhouetted figure standing in the open doorway. It was a man in a long black trench coat. He spoke in an oddly familiar, dread inducing language Tom did not understand.

The figure stepped aside, and Tom was bundled into the growing darkness beyond. This was where the real nightmare would begin, inside the carriage of tears.

‘ Wake up! Please let me wake up! ’ He begged the custodian of these horrors.

But the dreadful visons came thick and fast in a disorientating montage of fractured images. Vivid if thankfully fleeting moments that his host and later, he was sure, his poor sister Marie, had witnessed and endured.

An oil lamp hanging from the carriage roof, its sickly glow illuminating three empty nooses hanging from a metal bar.

The body of a man in his fifties hanging from the fourth. His sightless eyes bulging fit to pop out of his skull, the skin of which was blackish purple and splattered with blood.

The table was close by, and Tom could see it was drenched in fresh blood, dripping off the edges like an abattoir.

One of the soldiers pushed him forwards and he had to turn away as he bumped into the hanging dead man. His heart broke as he could hear Daisy screaming outside. Then a stab of real guilt as he felt a flood of relief when he realised it was the older voice, the other sister, Marie. A luxury poor Franz did not have.

A figure emerged out of the darkness from behind the hanging man. Barely human, dressed in a long white coat with black and red insignia on the shoulders. Eyes as dead as his victims.

The nightmare man’s jet-black hair was plastered to his skull with sweat. He wore a cloth mask Tom recognised from hospital tv shows. But as he approached Tom could see the mask was made of flesh and not cloth, which merged with the pallid skin of his face like it had been long since grafted there.

Franz and Tom screamed as one, this hideous butcher would have been all too real to the Frenchman in his grasp, all too human, and not this child’s nightmare version, but something much, much worse.

Despite the thing covering his ghoulish face, he could see the doctor was smiling even though the expression never reached his lifeless eyes. He stepped forwards and a flash of light glinted off a thin blade in his hand. He gestured to the table with his other and Tom was hauled up onto it. He could hear Franz screaming in defiance and was at once proud and terrified.

Tom Vallance was ten years old and so had no earthly concept of what madness truly was. But as the carriage began to fade around him and the darkness crept in. Even a young boy knew this was it.

Tom jolted awake in bed, the room was still in darkness but he wasn’t afraid. The memory of what he had dreamt faded away

with every rapid breath he took. Until he was left with nothing more than the feeling that, although he couldn’t remember a thing, he was thankful for that fact.

Muffled cries drew his groggy attention to Daisy who was tossing and turning in the bed next to him. She suddenly sat bolt upright and clasped a hold of her teddy bear.

“Daisy?” He whispered to her in the gloom.

“I had a nightmare,” she whispered back.

“Can you remember what it was about?”

He could see her shake her head.

“Me neither,” he said.

He had been scared out of his wits, hadn’t he? But even the slight feeling of unease had gone, if it had ever been there at all.

They both lay back down for the longest time, trying to remember in vain what had awakened them. But there was nothing and eventually they drifted back off to a contented sleep.

They awoke in the morning with no conscious recollection of what had happened that night. But subconsciously, they both knew it was just the beginning of something.

“What are those two planning?” Daniel asked at breakfast.

He gestured to the kids who were on a nearby table by a window in the dining room, hunched over a litter of paper and crayons spread out in front of them. They had been intently drawing and whispering conspiratorially since getting up this morning.

Jill shrugged and nursed her coffee, she took a sip and not for the first time regretted just how much she had drunk the night before.

“At least they are being quiet,” she said gratefully and took another sip.

“Morning mes amours!!” Béatrice called to the children as she bounded into the dining room, bright and breezy despite Jill being sure she had drunk more than any of them last night. She kissed Tom and Daisy on the top of their heads and came and sat down next to Daniel.

“It’s not natural,” he said with a scowl.

“English light-weight,” she shot back and eyed Jill.

“You too?”

“I think there’s a bug going around,” she offered in response.

“Definitely,” Daniel agreed. “Summer flu or something.”

Béatrice laughed and pinched the half-eaten pan du chocolat off Daniel’s plate.

“Wine flu more like!” She said and took a bite of pastry.

“So, what’s the plan of attack for today?” Daniel asked.

“Nice lazy day,” Jill replied. “Let the kids play around here, maybe take a trip into the village after lunch?”

“Oh, there’s a great little craft market they have on Thursdays,” Béatrice said. “Give us a chance to pick up some interesting stuff.”

“Useless crap more like,” Daniel interjected.

“Sounds good,” Jill said, ignoring her idiot brother.

“Hey kids!” She called across to them. “Fancy a trip into the village later?”

Tom looked up from his drawing.

“Is it okay of we stay here?”

“You guys okay?”

“Maybe it’s the wine flu,” Béatrice chipped in with a smirk.

“Yeah, Tom replied. “Just a little tired from yesterday.”

“Don’t worry,” Madam Besson said from the dining room doorway. “You three enjoy yourselves. I will watch them.

Oh, and Béatrice, can you pick me up some of Madam Allard’s honey? She should have a stall there today.”

“Oh, Dieu oui!” Béatrice exclaimed and turned to Jill enthusiastically. “You have to try it, it is out of this world! Arh memories.”

Jill couldn’t help but laugh even though her disproportionate enthusiasm made her head pound.

“Okay, d,accord, d’accord!” She replied.

The small coastal village of Bais De Veuves, put words like idyllic and picturesque to shame when describing its simple yet breath-taking beauty.

It stood just a mile from the Brittany coastline and the sea could be seen here and there through gaps in the buildings and parklands.

They had to park at the very edge of the village as the whole main square and surrounding luscious greens were chock-a-block with small quaint stalls and throngs of shoppers and day trippers who had come for the weekly market. Which, Béatrice informed Jill was quite famous in these parts. It had been a regular fixture for nearly two hundred years,

interrupted only by the second of the two world wars. When like all of France, it had been occupied by the Germans.

The very centre of the square was dominated with a large, very moving war memorial which Jill had first noticed when they drove through the village when they had first arrived.

It had the stone statue of an angel with its arms raised to heaven atop a marble base.

Jill had stopped for a breather by the memorial whilst she waited for Béatrice, who was still shopping for France.

And now that she was close, she was amazed and moved at how detailed and soulful the face of the angel was. Its creator was a true artist, the angel looked genuinely distraught at the many names of the lost at its feet.

She scanned the heart-breaking number of names engraved on the marble base, so many for such a small area. And worst still the ages of many of the fallen. These weren’t just the names of soldiers in the traditional sense, young men sent off to war only never to return.

The majority it seemed were civilians, woman and younger men who should have had no place amongst the war dead.

Ordinary people caught up in the violence, those killed by the Nazis during the occupation. According to the inscriptions by their names, many were heroes of the resistance, but many more still were everyday folk murdered in reprisal killings.

The youngest she could see was eight years old.

“Christ,” she uttered seeing this.

Béatrice came to her side and stood with her for a moment.

“Eight years old,” Jill whispered.

“I know, Emil Carbone. Lucy told me years ago, he was a runner for the resistance. They shot him for passing notes from one person to another. Can you imagine?”

“Terrifying,” she agreed.

Back home, all the memorials and cenotaphs were for fallen soldiers, nothing like this. Being an island, mainland Britain had been spared occupation and the inevitable horrors that would bring.

“Come on,” Béatrice said taking her arm. “Enough, let’s enjoy the freedom we have today.”

She dragged Jill across the square, and they weaved their way in and out of the shoppers and over to a rustic looking stand with a long wooden counter and a row of barrels stacked neatly behind a woman in traditional French dress.

“Madam Meunier’s world famous homemade cider!” Béatrice said pointing at the barrels and approached the counter.

“Ca va?” The woman said cheerfully.

“Salut, deux s’il vous plaît,” Béatrice said holding up two fingers.

“Bon,” the woman turned and drew off two glasses of honey coloured cider.

“More booze!” Jill explained. “You’re a nation of alcoholics.”

“Merci,” the woman placed the two glasses on the counter and Béatrice paid her.

“Merci,” Béatrice replied and handed Jill one of the glasses. This is the first alcoholic drink I ever had.”

“A votre sante!” Jill said and held up the glass.

“Spoken like a true local,” Béatrice said and tapped her glass. “Cheers!”

Jill took a tentative sip and was surprised at just how smooth it was, just like drinking apple juice.

“Ooh, this is dangerous stuff!”

“I know! I got sooo ill the first time.”

Daniel could be heard, in turn cursing, and then apologising in terrible French and Jill turned to see him struggling towards them through the crowd carrying a crate with twelve jars rattling inside.

“I got the bloody honey,” he said as he reached them and gently placed the crate on the floor by his feet.

He eyed the stall and their drinks.

“Madam Meunier’s cider! Where’s mine?”

“Sorry my love, Béatrice told him with no little pleasure. “You are driving.”

Much to Jill and Béatrice’s amusement, Daniel grumbled the whole journey back. It had been the perfect afternoon and not for the first time, Jill thought she could quite easily move here with the kids and to hell with Roger and his bimbo.

As they pulled up outside the manor house, Jill could see Madam Besson had come outside and was lingering by the entrance, clearly waiting for them to return. Seeing them approach, she made her way down the stone steps leading down to the car park just off the front of the house.

“She looks even more sour than usual,” Daniel said and got a punch on the arm from Béatrice for it.

It was true however, she did look worried and agitated as she waited for them to park up, and Jill realised it was the first time she had seen her without a smile.

“Something’s wrong,” Jill said as they pulled up.

She got out just as the car stopped and Besson gave her a half-hearted wave.

“Jill...

Jill’s heart was in her mouth, the woman actually looked scared. She was about to ask where the kids were, fearing the worst, when she heard a yelp of delight coming from off her left.

Tom and Daisy were on the lawn just in front of the raised patio playing catch.

“Jesus Christ,” she uttered in relief. Then remembered Besson was right there. “Sorry Lucy.”

The woman didn’t register the curse.

“Everything alright, Lucy?” Jill asked.

Besson glanced at the kids.

“Jill, please, come inside,” she said and went back up the steps before Jill could reply.

Béatrice came up to Jill’s side.

“What’s wrong?

Jill shook her head. Béatrice slipped her arm through Jill’s and the two women followed Besson inside.

“What about these?” Daniel called from behind holding the crate of honey.

“Kitchen!” Béatrice shouted back not looking around.

“In here,” Lucy said as they came through into the entrance hall.

She was standing by the dining room doorway and went inside as they approached. She went over to the table the kids had been drawing on earlier. Béatrice said something to her in French and she shook her head and gestured to the piles of paper strewn all over the tabletop.

“I came in to clean up,” Lucy said as if in way of explanation. And Jill could see the woman was actually close to tears.

Béatrice came around the side of the table and took a hold of the old woman’s hand and whispered something to her and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly.

“What is it?” Jill asked suddenly cautious.

Béatrice shrugged and then looked at the papers on the table. Her face dropped and her brow furrowed in confusion.

“Jill, take a look at these.”

Logic tried to take a hold as Jill moved closer. Had the kids scrawled swearwords in crayon as some childish joke?

Yes, she reasoned. Kids being kids, after all she had given them some pretty lax bounders on this trip. Maybe they were pushing them even further.

But reason is one thing, the look on Béatrice’s face was another. She solemnly pushed one of the papers over to her as she stopped on the opposite side.

At first, Jill saw nothing but childish scribbles. A nonsense mixture of multicoloured shapes scrawled over half recognisable images. He made out what could have been a house or something longer, maybe a caravan with no roof?

Then her breath caught in her throat as she made out what could only be four nooses handing from a crude line inside the vehicle. The last of these had the unmistakable drawing of a figure hanging by the neck. And it wasn’t some impromptu game of hangman amidst the chaos.

Confused, she looked away, then back again hoping this was like some sort of Rorschach effect she was projecting onto it. But no, now she couldn’t unsee it.

“What...?” She gasped.

“Look at these others,” Béatrice prompted.

Another picture had a group of grey men, almost stick figures but more detailed on closer inspection. They looked to Jill like soldiers, wearing familiar shaped helmets she couldn’t quite place. They were standing around a large bonfire wrought in gaudy red, yellow and orange crayon, with dark twisting shapes within.

“Good God.”

As he looked closer, she could make out several twisted bodies in the flames.

“What is this?” She asked, as much to herself than anyone.

“And here...” Béatrice said and handed her another picture with a shaking hand.

A figure in a long black coat, face distorted into a horrific screaming bloody mess. Eyes burning with hate, looking directly at the viewer, so lifelike in a nightmarish way, Jill felt actual fear as if it could see into her very soul. Its black maw of a mouth was spewing a torrent of black and red swirling colours.

Jill had to look away, if only to break the intrusive contact with the figure. Her head was pounding from the shock, and she fought back tears. She glanced to Béatrice and Lucy in turn, their ashen faces mirroring she imagined her own. She tried to speak but couldn’t formulate a single word.

There must have been nearly twenty similar crudely drawn, but hauntingly vivid pictures. Bodies, soldiers, and what looked like a surgeon but with a bloody mask for a face.

“That one,” Lucy said softly and pointed to yet another picture.

At first Jill didn’t want to look. How had her babies drawn such abominations?

“Christ, Christ,” her head swooned.

And despite herself she did look at the picture. It was a skull and cross bones of sorts, but not like any pirate’s flag she had ever seen. The bones were protruding out of either side of the skull and not crossed underneath. Like the soldier’s helmets it was a vaguely familiar image.

“What is that?” She asked.

“SS Death’s head,” Lucy replied weakly.

“Nazis?” Now the helmets made some kind of lunatic sense.

Lucy put the picture of the soldiers around the fire over it. He pointed and Jill reluctantly followed her finger which was pointed at the arm of one of the crude soldiers. At first it looked like just a red and black smudge, but as she leaned in, the shape became all too clear.

It was a Swastika armband.

“Hello Mum!” Daisy’s excited voice called out.

The three women jolted as if caught in some clandestine meeting and turned to see Tom and Daisy in the dining room doorway.

Béatrice let out a sharp torrent of very harsh sounding French. And judging by her reddening face, apologetic cringe,

and Lucy’s disapproving side eye it was clearly laden with expletives.

Daisy ran across and hugged Jill’s leg. Tom skipped across to them, his smile as sweet as ever. What had she expected? Jill thought, a little ashamed.

“Hi mum,” Tom said.

“Had a good day, sweetheart?” Jill asked weakly.

“Yep.”

Jill knelt down and pulled Tom over to Daisy’s side.

“Did you two draw these?” She asked pointing towards the table.

Daisy nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah,” Tom replied a little distracted, he glanced around the room, looking for food no doubt.

“Guys, they are a bit,” she paused. A bit what?

“Strange,” was all she could come up with.

This won a shrug from Tom.

“Did you see this on TV?”

“They’re just pictures, mummy,” Daisy replied, like she was talking to an idiot.

“I know, I know,” she said reassuringly. “They’re just a bit, nasty.”

Tom gave her a look of confusion and went over to the table. He picked through the pictures and gave another shrug.

“Are they?” He clearly couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Béatrice came around the table and picked Daisy up.

“Been watching war movies, munchkin?” She asked playfully.

“What war movies?” Daisy replied wrinkling her nose.

They both seemed convinced the adults had all gone mad.

Finally, Lucy clapped her hands, breaking the tension.

“Who’s for the world’s best honey on fresh bread?” She asked lightly.

“Me! Me!” Daisy said excitedly and was transferred from Béatrice to the older woman.

Lucy gave Jill a reassuring wink.

“Should probably tidy those away though, eh, mum?”

“Yeah, and thanks,” Jill replied gratefully.

“How about you, Tommy boy?” Béatrice said.

“Sure!” Tom replied brightly and took her hand.

“I’ll be a long in a minute,” Jill said and began collecting the pictures without looking at them.

She turned to watch the kids go with a slight sinking feeling. She wondered if she had been fooling herself into believing the spilt with Roger hadn’t really affected them all that much.

As they reached the door, Tom looked up at Béatrice.

“You know, you really shouldn’t swear, aunty Béatrice.”

Béatrice threw a look of incomprehension back at Jill and then Tom dragged her out of the room after the others.

“Fuckin’ hell,” was all Jill could say in response.

“Where the hell did they come up with these?” Daniel asked with a look of distaste on his face.

He passed the pile of pictures back to Béatrice, who was sitting on his lap, and she in turn almost threw them to Jill, desperate to get rid of them. And Jill couldn’t blame her.

They were sitting by the fireplace in the hotel’s lounge.

Where they had convened after Jill had put Tom and Daisy to bed. Whilst tucking them in, she had quizzed them again about the pictures, but neither child could see what all the fuss was about.

And although she was desperate to ask Tom about what he had said to Béatrice, she let it go, perhaps fearful of what he might say.

“God only knows,” Jill finally replied. She inadvertently looked at the top picture. Nazi soldiers around a funeral pyre and shuddered.

“An old war movie?” Daniel pressed.

“Christ!” Béatrice exclaimed. “Have you seen any war movie like that?”

“No,” he relented.

“I just wonder,” Jill said as she put some of the papers in the fireplace and lit them with a match. “If maybe the separation has had more of an effect on them than I thought.”

“Have they said anything?” Béatrice asked.

“Just the usual, where’s dad, why doesn’t he live with us anymore, that kind of thing. I’ve always made sure, no matter how I feel about the bastard, to never say anything bad in front of the kids.”

“Kids process things in different ways,” Daniel said. “I bet they saw some old war movie. Lucy has the TV on all the time in here. Or maybe a documentary and they just...

Embellished what they saw.”

“Embellished?!” Béatrice asked.

“You know, made up more than they saw.”

Jill shook her head, not convinced. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t healthy. She screwed up one of the pictures and tossed it into the fire and watched it burn.

The next picture was one she hadn’t noticed before. It showed two figures, little more than stickmen really, but still haunting in their own way. One appeared to be on its knees, the other, wearing that grey uniform, was standing behind them with what looked like a gun pointing to the back of the prone figures head.

“Christ.”

She screwed it up and threw it into the fire, silently hoping that in doing so, the power of the picture and the seemingly unconscious thought behind it, would somehow disappear up the chimney with the smoke.

Henry Baudin had been the head groundskeeper at Le Manoir de Carpentier for almost forty years. In that time he had never married and for the most part he had kept to himself.

During the late forties he had tried to leave his birthplace of Bais Des Veuves, when he had joined the merchant marines. But this hiatus hadn’t in the end lasted more than a few years as he had felt the irresistible draw of the old place as if pulled back there by ghosts of the past. It was

as if his return and subsequent sedentary lifestyle had been in some kind of penance for his time during the war.

‘Hero of the resistance,’ Madam Besson had called him the other day, and it had left that familiar bitter taste in his mouth. Most days, weeks if he was lucky, Baudin could forget about the war and his part in it. But others, like today, it weighed heavy on his sloping shoulders.

Memories would come unbidden to his mind’s eye, when the spectre of the war raised its head. Sparked by a seemingly innocent remark or a face in the crowd that looked all too familiar from decades ago. Sometimes even a smell would send him into a spiral of guilt and depression.

He had never spoken to anyone about this over the years.

How could he? And had certainly never sort help, professional or otherwise. Not even from mayor Hubert who knew all too well what the pair of them and others had done during the war.

Hubert, that unapologetic, shameless narcissist. Unlike Henry, Hubert had flourished after the war. He had gone to Paris, hailed as a hero and had returned years later, a wealthy lawyer and had used his lauded past to run for mayor of Bais De Veuves and the surrounding villages, which of course, he had easily won and was now its longest serving politician, and most famous son.

Baudin and the mayor would on occasion exchange glances if their paths did happen to cross, but whilst Hubert would politely smile and even wink. Henry would turn away in self-disgust and the nightmares and bouts of heavy drinking would begin again.

“Pull yourself together!” He admonished himself sharpy and took another swig of brandy from his hip flask. He has hidden away in the potting shed which was situated at the far end of the estate and out of bounds to the guests and most of the hotel staff, so had no need to worry about being disturbed.

The shed used to be part of the stable block back in the last century and was big enough, so he had everything he needed if he wanted to disappear for a while with his thoughts. It was made up of several storerooms filled with the clutter of everyday gardening equipment, a decent sized kitchen, and a garage for repairing the various tractors and mowers needed to keep the estate’s vast gardens pristine.

There was even a small bed in one of the back rooms where he had spent the night on many times before.

There was an unwritten rule amongst the other estate workers that if Baudin was in here, everyone left him well alone. Especially, like now, he was in ‘one of his moods.’

He knew deep down madam Besson and the manor’s management only kept him around out of a sense of duty because of his supposed

war record. Still, it paid enough to keep him in cheap brandy and a place to sleep when he had drunk too much of it.

It had been the trip to the memorial with Lucy and the two English children that had triggered his melancholy again.

Besson had been full of his heroics that he had felt obliged, despite himself to accompany them to lay the flowers. It was a place Baudin hated and normally avoided, leaving any gardening duties there to one of the others. It had been a mistake, he knew that now, but it was too late, the damage had been done.

“Stupid,” he hissed to himself.

He crouched down by the large lawn mower he had been cleaning and tugged the last clump of grass stuck under the blades. He enjoyed the simple task of mowing the lawns here.

The owners had suggested they get one of those ride on mowers, but Henry liked the meditative solitude of just walking up and down. Also, the drone of the small two-stroke engine was a welcome distraction to the dark thoughts that sometimes ran around his head.

He had seen the two English children playing by the patio, and now that he had finished with the grass, they were out on the lawn, running, playing, he envied them their innocence. It would be a nice distraction, he thought to sit in the shade and watch them play, so despite being quite drunk

now, he wandered out of the shed and along the winding path which led from the grounds keeper’s compound to the lawns in front of the great house.

Baudin could see the two children up ahead through the trees sitting on the grass, he stopped, and half sat half slumped down onto a tree stump, just on the edge of the wooded area that flanked the lawn.

He didn’t know if it was the warming effects of the alcohol or the simple sight of two innocents whispering away and laughing, lost in their own little world, but Henry could feel the dark cloud which had been ever present of late fading away and he was left in a pool of welcome sunlight.

As he sat there, Baudin found himself straining to hear what the pair were talking about as both their young faces took on an oddly serious look. But he knew, that although his English wasn’t bad, he would struggle to understand much in his current inebriated state.

The girl, Daisy jumped up and began to run around as if she was scared. The boy, Tom got slowly and deliberately to his feet and adjusted his jumper in a very grown-up manner, smoothing the front, straitening the collar of his shirt underneath in an oddly fastidious way and then began to stroll calmly towards his sister.

Daisy, seemed in a world of her own and began to run around, and looked to Baudin like she was miming searching for something, glancing frantically this way and that. Oh, how he envied a child’s boundless imagination.

“Isabelle!” Tom called out.

Daisy stopped and turned as if noticing Tom for the first time. She had a look of such utter relief on her face that Henry found the hairs on his arms raise as if touched by a light breeze. He shifted uncomfortably on the stump, regretting that last drink of brandy that was now clouding his thoughts. He had to lean forward and concentrate hard on what they were doing.

The girl seemed suddenly years older in the way she moved and the almost haggard expression on her young face. It was at once mesmerising and un-nerving to watch.

“I can’t find my husband, Paul,” she called out to her brother. “I think they have him.”

“Don’t worry,” Tom called back in a reassuring tone. “I know where he is. Come with me, I will get you both to safety.”

Henry became aware of a strange gnawing feeling at the base of his skull.

Tom held out his hand and Daisy came running over to him as though her life depended on it. They embraced and the old

gardener was sure he could hear Daisy actually crying in relief.

Henry Baudin felt the alcohol in his stomach turn to acid as he watched. What kind of childish game was this? The pair walked hand in hand for a few paces and Baudin had to fight the urge to get up and leave as they were getting closer to him.

Tom stopped and Daisy walked on for a few paces more.

“Just up that way, Isabelle,” he said.

“If you’re sure,” Daisy replied tentatively.

She cocked her head, listening.

“What is that I hear, Henry?” She asked.

“Don’t worry, it’s just a train, in the siding up ahead.”

Tom called out. “It will take you to safety, just like we did with Marie and her brother before you. Paul and the others in his unit are there too.”

Baudin got unsteadily to his feet, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the surreal performance. That slight gnawing at the back of his alcohol-soaked brain was edging towards a dark terror. Something about all this had a horrible familiarity to it. Daisy began walking in a circle, miming covering a great distance. Then she turned to look back at Tom, who was now crouched down as if hiding.

“Henry?” Daisy shouted in real tangible distress.

“Where are you... Anyone there?”

“What the hell?” Baudin whispered. He could feel the fear building up inside him, he so desperately wanted to turn and run back to the compound, but he just couldn’t tear himself away.

Tom then stood up dramatically and Daisy screamed in genuine terror ‘seeing him.’ He marched over to her, his whole demeaner different somehow, his gait, the way he held himself. A completely new character. When he reached his sister, he grabbed her roughly by the arm. His face twisted in disgust as he looked at her. It was an expression that didn’t suit a ten-year old’s fresh face, it was dark, malignant and it chilled Henry to his very core.

He pulled her close.

“Did you think you could get away from us, you French bitch!?” He hissed in perfect German.

Baudin staggered back a little until his back hit a tree, he had to cling to it to avoid falling over completely. Tears of shock came to his eyes, his breath threatened to stick in his throat and choke him. His English was passable at best, and he understood enough German from his time in the war, but he now realised in sheer horror why he had been able to understand the nuances of their conversations so clearly.

It was as if he had been in a trance this whole time, watching this monstrous reconstruction, for he knew now that’s what it was. The sudden change in language had brought it crashing into his consciousness.

They had been speaking French.

Tom pushed Daisy to her knees and mimed pulling out a pistol from a hip holster. She bowed her head and Tom put his index finger to the back of it. His thumb up like the hammer of a gun. He brought it down and jerked his hand like the recoil of a gun. Daisy’s head snapped to one side, and she slumped lifelessly into the grass, where she lay motionless.

“Oh, God, God...” Baudin groaned. He could almost hear the shot.

Faces flashed before his eyes. Faces of those names carved in marble on the village’s memorial. Names and faces he knew only too well.

The scene that had just played out depicted the fate of Isabelle Fontaine. She had been just nineteen when Henry had led her into the woods, during those dark days near the end of the occupation. He had told her they would meet up with her husband Paul, who was a member of the resistance, and whom Hubert and the others were sure knew of their collaboration.

But Paul was already a victim of the railway carriage the Germans used to ‘interrogate’ their prisoners.

Henry hadn’t seen Isabelle’s execution itself, he had fled once the gestapo officer had her in his hands. He had only hoped it was quick.

Isabelle and Paul Fontaine, just two of so many he and the others had betrayed.

Henry tried to move away, but instead pitched forwards and onto his knees. He was sobbing now, tears of guilt and disbelief blinding him. He gasped in air, desperately trying not to pass out. A blur of movement out of the corner of his eye made him raise his head, to see Tom and Daisy through the tears standing no more than fifteen feet away, staring intently at him, their eyes burning with hate.

“Please...” Was all he could manage.

“Henry Baudin,” Tom said. It was an accusation more than anything, his voice was oddly low and guttural. That of a child but laced with unimaginable malice. “Hero of the resistance.”

“God...” Baudin uttered.

“Henry Baudin,” Daisy echoed with just as much hate.

“Hero of the resistance.” Her once sweet face twisted into a mask of loathing.

“Children?” It was Madam Besson calling way off from the house.

She was on the patio shielding her eyes from the mid-morning sun. Baudin could see her through the bushes, she was looking across the lawn to where Tom and Daisy were standing.

But she couldn’t see him from where she was.

Neither child moved, they just watched Henry as he awkwardly pulled himself up using a low branch.

“Children!” Besson called again. “Lemonade and cookies if you’re interested?”

When he looked back at the pair, it was as if a dark shadow had passed from both their young faces. They were smiling sweetly, their once cruel eyes now bright and clear.

“Cookies!” Daisy squealed.

“I’ll race you!” Tom said and turned and set off running across the lawn.

“Hey!” Daisy protested and set off after her brother.

Henry Baudin, hero of the resistance, watched them go in disbelief.

Somehow, Baudin had made his way back to the shed, but he had no memory of the journey. He came around, stinking of brandy, sprawled out on the hard stone floor of the old stables. As

he sat up, his head pounding, an empty bottle of brandy rolled off his lap and spun away.

He'd had many, many vivid nightmares before, but had always escaped those accusing ghost from the past upon waking.

But this was something else, the terror he had felt seemed to cling to his psyche now that he was awake, like smoke from a bonfire. He tried to gather his thoughts in hope of processing what had happened with the children, but he was still so drunk be could barely think.

Like smoke from a bonfire. Why did that metaphor sting him so?

He could see from the dim sunlight coming through the sheds grimy window that it must be close to evening. He must have passed out after finishing the rest of the bottle when he had fled back here. But he still had no recollection of anything after watching the children run across the lawn to the waiting Madam Besson, innocents once more.

The clock on the stone wall told him it was nearly six-thirty PM.

“Christ,” he slurred in shock.

He had been unconscious for hours. He dragged himself to his feet and over to the large sink by the wall. He turned on the tap and held his head under the water, gasping at the

shock of cold water. When he came up for air, Baudin had to grasp the side of the sink to stop himself toppling backwards.

“It’s not real,” he told himself. “Just another nightmare, too much damn brandy.”

Yes, he tried to convince himself. That always exacerbated his black moods, he knew he shouldn’t drink when he was so low, but sometimes it seemed like the only thing that stopped him from slashing his wrists.

Perhaps you should slash your wrists, Henry Baudin, hero of the resistance. The voice was so clear in his head that he had to look around the gloomy building half expecting to see the children there, taunting him. There were many places to hide in here. But he was alone.

“Come on man!” He shook his head to dislodge the growing paranoia.

Just another nightmare, seeing those kids playing must have triggered something in his subconscious. He had been too drunk and melancholy to think straight, they were just playing cowboys and Indians, he told himself. An innocent child’s game his guilt-stricken mind had distorted.

It was a lie he happily told himself, and one he could almost believe.

“Home, idiot!” He said out loud and made his way over to the door at the far end of the shed. He took his nap sack off

the nail it was hanging from on the back of the door and stuck his head through the long strap. He stopped at the sound of paper rustling. Someone had pinned a piece of paper to the door which had been covered by his bag. Baudin was about to reach for the paper when his blood shot eyes managed to focus on what was drawn on it.

A child’s picture, drawn in crayon of a railway carriage in the middle of a wood. Surrounded by spindly trees and with several men in grey suits or black uniforms dotted around, all standing looking at the viewer. Looking at Henry Baudin.

A slow methodical knock, knock, knocking at the door.

Baudin took a step back, then another as the heavy door handle slowly moved downwards and he heard the click as the door opened an inch. He held his breath waiting for it to open further. A beat, still nothing the anticipation hung heavy in the air.

‘ Go away.’ He silently begged.

Then the door burst open as if hit by a hurricane.

Baudin cried out in shock and staggered backwards away from the door, he caught his heel on a workbench leg and was sent sprawling onto the hard stone floor, rattling his old bones and knocking the wind right out of him.

“Jesus, God!”

“Not quite.”

Tom and Daisy came slowly inside, their steps slow, deliberate. Their young faces once again twisted into that awful expression of hate and disgust. Baudin shrieked and tried to shuffle backwards. But he knew the door was the only way out. They were just children, he thought frantically, weren’t they? But he was old, drunk and terrified.

“Stop this!” He snapped but he had no authority here.

“Henry Baudin,” Daisy said. “Hero of the resistance.”

“Stop saying that!”

She came forwards and held out another piece of paper in her hand. No doubt a fresh rendering of his past crimes.

Tom moved to his sister’s side.

“Henry Baudin...”

“Stop it!”

“... Hero of the resistance.”

“Bastards!” Baudin was suddenly filled with a real sense of anger. These were just children after all. He needed to take control of the situation, despite his age and alcohol ravaged health.

“Get out!” He ordered and lunged forwards as if threatening to get up. “You don’t scare me.”

“We should,” Daisy replied coldly.

She pushed the picture closer, but Henry refused to look at it. He needed to get the hell out of here, but any thought of escape was cut short when the boy spoke again.

“Adrien Reno, Marc Reno, Jean Hubert.”

This stopped him dead, the anger drained away as quickly as it had risen.

“What?” He was barely able to get the single word out.

Three names from the past, three people damned just as deep-down Henry knew he was damned. And as tied to that hateful trio as he had ever been. No amount of alcohol could drown their collective sins.

The betrayals, the deceit, and yes in some cases, murder.

“Adrien Reno, Marc Reno, Jean Hubert,” both children said in unison.

“Please...” Baudin sobbed. He could feel his sanity slipping with every word. How could they know? How could anyone know?

“Where are they?” Tom demanded.

Daisy shook the paper.

“Look at this!”

“No, no!”

“Where are they, Henry?” She asked sweetly, which was ten times worse than the harsh tone of her brother.

He did his best to think. They knew, somehow, they knew so there was no point in denying it. How they knew would have to wait for another day, when he was away from Bais Des Veuves and all its ghosts of the past. Ghosts that were not so hidden as he had hoped.

“Where are they!?” Tom shouted.

“The, the Reno brothers are dead.”

It was true, Marc had died not long after the war.

Officially it had been an accident, but upon learning about it when he returned to the village years later, Henry had always suspected suicide.

His car had driven off a bridge in forty-nine and had plunged thirty feet into a dry riverbed. It had been the middle of a clear day and the road conditions had been perfect.

Then there was Adrien. Henry had heard from a relative of the brothers that the older Reno had died of cancer in Italy, where he had emigrated to in the early fifties. Again, on hearing the news, Henry had been filled with the morbid certainty that the guilt had eaten him away.

Sometimes, Henry envied them.

The two children studied him for any sign of deception, then nodded, satisfied he was telling the truth. Daisy seemed genuinely disappointed at the news, which was chilling in of itself.

“And Hubert?” Tom asked.

“Jean Hubert,” Despite his distress, a bitter laugh escaped Henry’s cracked lips at the perversity of it. “Jean Hubert is the mayor of Bais Des Veuves.”

“Mayor!?” Tom exclaimed.

Henry nodded.

Daisy’s face turned sour.

“Isn’t that just like him?” She sneered.

“How did you know what we did?” Henry asked after long pause whilst the two children pondered the fate of the others.

“Hate and lust for revenge are powerful energies,” Tom said. “They linger, fester, bide their time. Growing evermore poisonous with each passing day. With each breath you take.”

“You betrayed so many,” Daisy said. “And for what, money?”

“No, never money,” Henry insisted. “I was a good soldier for the resistance, I was! But I was scared, Hubert and the other threatened me, they got caught, it was the only way for

them... And me to survive. We did a deal with the devil so to speak. I have suffered since then, if that’s any consolation?”

It wasn’t. The children gave him a look of utter disgust at this.

“Please! What can I do to make amends?” Baudin asked weakly.

Daisy took a step forward and thrust the picture into his face.

“Look at the picture, Henry.”

Henry looked. It was like seeing a photograph from another life. Impossibly well drawn considering its artists.

It was a scene he remembered all too well.

It was unmistakably a drawing of him, some fifty years ago, standing in the forest close to the railway carriage where they took the captured fighters, many of whom he had himself betrayed to save his own skin. He was holding a can of petrol in his hand next to a pile of perhaps ten bodies dumped close by.

“Oh, Oh, God, no...” Henry felt sick to his stomach.

“Look closer!” Daisy demanded.

And as he did, he felt a soft breeze play across his face, the smell of stale brandy and the dank air of the shed

gave way to pine trees and the rich perfume of woodland flowers. His surroundings shifted focus and he screwed his eyes shut.

When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the woods, out in the open air looking down at the pile of bodies, just as he had done all those years ago. He let out a desolate sob as he recognised several of the dead faces amongst the twisted corpses.

He could hear bird song overhead, high up in the trees, but also the harsh shouts in German someway off and the odd gunshot.

The can of petrol felt heavy in his hand, just as it had done that day, worse still, although he hadn’t known it then, this would not be the last time he would carry out this odious task.

“So many,” Daisy said, standing to his right.

“Friends and comrades,” Tom said to his left. “All innocents.”

Tom pointed into the pile.

“Look, there’s Gerald. You went to school together, remember?”

Henry began to move towards the pile, pulled by some unseen force. He tried to fight it but still put one foot in front of the other all the same. He began to sob.

“Did you know, Marie was still alive when you burnt them?” Daisy asked.

Her young voice was so matter of fact it made him sob all the more. But still, he stopped by the pile and unclasped the cap of the can.

“Please...” Henry begged.

He tried to turn to the children, to beg his case, but instead he doused the bodies in petrol.

“I... I didn’t know they were going to kill them,” he pleaded through the tears. “Hubert and the Germans said they were prisoners of war, they would be taken to prison, that’s all.”

“You fucking lair!” Daisy snarled with real venom. “Do you want to know what they did to Marie before they shot her?”

No, Christ no he didn’t.

The smell of petrol filled the air around him and it was all so real he could have sworn he was right back there again.

He tried to turn his head to avoid the fumes, but they filled his lungs and burnt the back of his throat.

He felt the faint tap, tap, tap of rain drops hitting him as he tossed away the empty can and took out his lighter. The petrol was stinging his eyes now, making it all but impossible to see, he wiped his face with his sleeve, but this just made it worse.

It must have been pouring down with rain because he was soaked from head to foot. Which was strange, because as he remembered it, it had been a clear evening all those years ago.

He flicked the lighter, but it didn’t spark. He shook it and tried again. The smell of petrol was now overwhelming.

He rubbed his eyes.

It took Henry Baudin a moment to realise he was back in the shed, alone and soaked in petrol, there were two empty fuel cans laid as his feet.

The children were gone, but he had Daisy’s picture clutched in one hand. He peered at it through a haze of petrol fumes. It was a simple child’s drawing, the type any eight-year-old would draw, despite the subject matter.

He took a deep breath but got nothing but petrol vapour in his aching lungs. He flicked the lighter one more time, because at the back of his deranged oxygen starved brain, it seemed the right thing to do.

And if it were not for the white-hot seeing pain, it was almost a relief.

Jill watched from the open patio doors as an ambulance weaved its way around two parked police cars and sped off towards the gardener’s compound at the other side of the estate. There was a thick column of black smoke drifting up into the evening sky, and bright orange flames were just visible through the shrubs and trees.

“Christ,” she said with a shudder and came back inside.

Béatrice was in the kitchen comforting Madam Besson and the other staff, Jill didn’t know exactly what had happened as Béatrice had rushed off when one of the kitchen staff had said something in French, but it was clear someone had been seriously hurt if not worse.

One of the buildings over there the estate gardeners were based was well and truly ablaze. She had seen two fire engines racing down the road to the compound and judging by the flames it was bad.

Tom and Daisy were sitting at one of the tables in the dining room playing ‘snap’ with Daniel was a way of distracting them from the commotion outside.

It was only now as she came back into the dining room that she realised that neither one of the kids had wanted to

go see what all the fuss was about. Back home, Tom would be sent into fits of excitement if a fire engine just drove passed with its siren on. Perhaps that was for the better she thought and sat down next to Daisy.

“Who’s winning?” She asked.

“Me!” Tom announced.

The red lights of a fire engine outside splashed across the walls of the dining room as if to entice young minds outside, but this fell flat with the two children. And they concentrated on the next game, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding outside.

Breakfast the following morning was a sombre affair. The other guests at the hotel whilst not privy to the details of last night’s fire as Jill and the others were, thanks to a tearful Béatrice last night. Were in no doubt something bad had happened yesterday evening.

The serving staff, for their part that morning, had assured everyone that it had been an electrical fire, which had been extinguished with minimal damage and no one was hurt.

And that Madam Besson’s absence was entirely unrelated.

They had acted the part admirably, which Jill knew could not have been easy, considering what had really happened.

Lucy was in bed with what Béatrice had described as shock. She had been in fits of hysterics last night after the news of the fire and its sole victim had come through.

Béatrice had been so concerned about the woman that she had called the doctor who had prescribed a powerful sedative.

Poor Henry the gardener, Béatrice had told them, had been killed in the fire. Although the investigation was just beginning there was already a rumour going around that he had been drinking and the amount of empty petrol cans and brandy bottle found amongst the smouldering debris all pointed to a tragic drunken accident.

One of the other gardeners had confided in the head chef that he had seen Baudin tinkering with a petrol mower earlier and despite his best efforts to hide it, he was clearly drunk, which as everyone knew wasn’t unusual.

“How’s Béatrice?” Jill asked her brother as he sat wearily down at the table.

He poured himself a glass of orange juice, he looked shattered.

“She’s okay, considering,” he said. “She was up all night with Lucy, she’s sleeping now.”

Jill eyed the two children at the next table, but they were too engrossed in their breakfast to be listening. She

was thankful all this drama had gone right over their heads.

If anything, they seemed extra cheery this morning.

“I can’t believe it,” she said softly.

“I know, poor so-un-so.”

“Can we go see the fire?” Tom suddenly asked leaning over the back of his chair.

“What? Certainly not!” Jill replied flustered by the sudden interest.

“Please,” Daisy said.

“No,” Jill told her firmly. “Besides, there’s nothing to see and the whole area is taped off anyway.”

Tom shrugged and bit into a slice of toast.

“Shame, thought it might me fun.”

Fun? Jill took a breath, she had to remind herself they had no idea just how serious the fire had been.

“Tell you what,” Daniel said. “Why don’t the three of us do something today? Give your old decrepit mum a rest.

“Yes!” Daisy approved.

“Can we go into the village?” Tom asked.

“Sure, I know a cake shop even aunty Béa’ doesn’t know about.”

This won a cheer from the pair.

“Okay mum?” Tom asked.

“Sure.”

The kids jumped down from the table and set off towards the door.

“Get a shower, both of you!” Jill called after them, but predictably got no response as they exited.

“They’re feral those two,” Daniel said. “I blame the parents.”

“Ha, ha,” Jill said and tried half-heartedly to stab him with a butter knife. “I’ll check in on Béatrice later.”

“Thanks.” He got to his feet.

“And Danny, keep an eye on them.”

“I’m not going to lose them!”

“That’s not what I meant! No, it’s just what with last night, and those pictures...”

“I know, don’t worry, they’re great kids,” he reassured her. “All down to the uncle, I’d say.

He just managed to dodge the bread roll she tossed at his head.

“What’s that building, Uncle Danny? Tom asked and pointed across the street to a large building just off the village square.

Daniel squinted at a plaque on the wall by the entrance door. “Mayor’s office, local town hall.”

Tom nodded his face blank.

Now that Daniel thought about it, the pair had been making odd enquiries like that all morning. About the history of the village, about how things had changed since the war.

It was like they were preparing a school report on the place or something.

It was a little odd he had to admit, but he was quite happy to put it down to childish curiosity. They were bright kids and he had even caught them practicing French to one another.

The two kids seemed particularly captivated by the town hall, they had been here for a good ten minutes already as they watched people coming and going as if waiting for someone they knew.

“Béatrice knows all about the history of the village,” he said. “Maybe come back with her another day, I’m sure she’ll give you the grand tour.”

“Nar, no need,” Tom said dismissively.

“Can we go back to the hotel now?” Daisy asked.

“Sure, getting tired?”

She nodded.

“En avoir assez,” she said absently.

“Tout sera beintot fini,” Tom added.

Daniel had no clue what that meant, but he made a mental note to ask Béatrice later.

Jill awoke with a start to a room in darkness. She pulled the covers back and sat bolt upright and frantically looked around the room until she got her bearings.

Gradually her heartbeat began to settle as she realised where she was and that it had only been a dream. Although the vividness of the nightmare was fading fast, the feeling of horror lingered a little longer.

“God’s sake!” She hissed.

She was almost in tears as she tried to push the residual images of the dream back into the ether or wherever they had come from. It was a common horror for any parent, especially when going through times of stress. And since the break-up she had dreamt something similar time and time again.

Usually, it was a variation on the kids choosing Roger and his

‘new family,’ over her out of the blue and she would never see them again.

This one, had been different, she had been wandering through the hotel, or some harsh angled impressionistic version of the building. Following two sets of children’s bloody footprints. All the time calling out to the kids. But this being a nightmare, she couldn’t for all the world remember their names. Even their faces were little more than thumb nail sketches in her mind’s eye.

So, all she could shout was, ‘children? Children?’

She had eventually found her way through the twisting shadowy corridors to their bedroom, but when she had gone inside, their beds were empty.

She had screamed blue murder, but when Danny and Béatrice had come to her aid, they had told her that the children had died, years before in a fire. Remember?

Jill got out of bed and ran a shaking hand through her sweat matted hair. Christ, she thought as her head cleared a little. That had been one hell of a nightmare. But still, half asleep and with the last tendrils of the dream clinging to her addled thoughts, Jill had the overwhelming need to go check on the kids.

So, she pulled on her dressing gown and padded across the room and over to the door. She reached for the handle but

stopped. She wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but she thought she heard footsteps moving passed and off down the hallway.

She paused, and listened, but after a moment dismissed this as all part of her nervous fatigue. After all, judging by the dark sky outside the window, it was still the dead of night.

Jill came out of her room and indeed the corridor was empty. She made her way as softly as she could to the next room and gently opened the door a little. She peered through the gap, the curtains were drawn so what moonlight there was did little to illuminate the room.

Still, she could make out the bed the kids shared, and a diminutive figure curled up in the middle. She heard Daisy sigh softly in her sleep and Jill let out a breath of relief.