Among the Darkness Stirs

“Still.”

“She hopes to win you back. She really needn’t have bothered to speak to me on the subject. She doesn’t realize there’s nothing between us.” She said the last word softly.

“Isn’t there?” he said softly.

She met his gaze. “Is there?”

The carriage slowed, and he offered to walk her to her cottage.

“It’s not necessary—”

He interrupted her before she could turn him down. “Remember? You said no once already.”

She smiled lightly. “So, I did.”

They walked quietly together side by side, but as they came closer to the cottage, she saw it was plunged in darkness. It wasn’t that late. She had heard the clock strike ten before she left the Ryland house.

“That’s odd.” She hesitated. “My mother would usually still be up waiting for me, but there are no lights burning.”

Henry frowned. “Would you like me to wait?”

Audrey hesitated and then decided it would probably be for the best. “Please.”

Audrey stepped inside the cottage, and a stillness filled the air. She was being silly. She was being overly worried. Nothing was wrong. Everyone had retired to bed. She went upstairs to check on Frances and found her sister sound asleep.

She knocked lightly on her mother’s door and entered. The bed was empty. Where was she?

She walked down the stairs and tried to think and then recalled. The man. The phantom man her mother was obsessed with. She had left to look for him on the workhouse grounds. It couldn’t be! She had told her not to do it.

“Is everything all right?” Henry asked, his face twisted with concern.

“I’m—I’m not sure,” she said when she came outside the cottage to stand in the small garden.

“What’s wrong?”

Audrey bit her lip. “My sister’s asleep, but my mother isn’t inside.”

“Isn’t inside? Where would she have gone?” He glanced around as if to see her hiding somewhere.

“I think I know where she might be,” Audrey told him, but she was suddenly embarrassed he was there. “I’ll be fine now. You can go home. I’ll find her.?

??

Henry wasn’t to be dismissed so easily. “Nonsense. I’m not leaving you alone in the dark. We’ll find her together. Where do you think she is?”

She hesitated. “We should check the orchards and thereabouts.”

Audrey walked alongside Henry as they made their way towards the orchards. At night, the trees looked skeletal and strange, and she hoped not to find her mother among them. She stumbled once along the way, and Henry helped her right herself. Her mind churned with the possibilities. Was she lying in wait among the trees for a ghost? Or had she just taken a stroll and Audrey was worried for nothing?

“I’m sorry about this. I don’t know what she’s thinking,” Audrey murmured.

Henry shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. We’ll find her. It’s not your fault. I’m happy I’m here to help you.”

As they moved along the line of trees, she could feel the cool air surrounding them, and she shivered. Her mother couldn’t be out here. As she turned down another line of trees, she saw a figure before them. The figure looked awkward, as if they were almost a part of the tree, with arms stretched out like an appendage of the tree.

She felt dizzy. Was that her mother? No. It was an inmate who had left the building and was wandering the grounds, lost. The figure was very still until suddenly, it got on its haunches almost like an animal. The figure crouched in the dirt at the bottom of the tree, looking ready to pounce.

“Henry,” she whispered, clutching at his sleeve.