Upon reaching the cottage, for all my concern, I was overcome by a strange reluctance to enter. I peered around the door to see the black emptiness of the passage. I breathed my wife’s name. The sense of abandonment hung more strongly about the place than ever. I forced myself to reach out and push the door wider, stepping quietly inside. I could dimly see that the back door was shut; I rattled the handle and found it remained locked. I raised a corner of the mat—pushing from my mind the time when I had lifted aside another oilcloth and seen what lay beneath—and I saw the key.
I was unsurprised to find the parlour devoid of any presence and the hearth cold. No one was sitting there in the dark: no one living, and no ghost. In order to be thorough before going upstairs, I quickly looked into the pantry and the storeroom, finding all as it had been. I even opened the door to the workshop and stood on the threshold a moment before turning back to the stairs. I had only been delaying the moment when I must go up them. I set my foot upon the first riser then crept, as silently as I could, up the treads. I placed a hand on Helena’s door. I could not bring myself to knock, but instead called her name, very softly, disliking the tremulous note that had stolen into my voice.
No reply came; I had expected none. I pushed open the door and, hearing no further sound, entered the room. The window was thrown open and the half-curtains festooning the bed were shifting in the night-breeze. I did not pause to close the casement, but bent and peered under the bed, for all that I could not account for why I did it; did I really imagine my wife would be hiding there, her eyes gleaming in the dark? Then I went to the door across the landing. My own room was as empty as Helena’s.
I leaned against the doorjamb and closed my eyes. Helena might as well have vanished into the air; I had not the first idea where she might have gone.
And yet I must find her. I chastised myself for my inaction and hurried down the stair once more and out of the door. I checked the keyhole, to see if she had perhaps found some other key and left it there, but it was empty; perhaps she had taken it with her, then, although I could not imagine why she had not troubled to close the door.
I set out towards the village, the moon shining down on all. I presumed that Helena could not have passed me on such a night; I wished to feel certain she could not have tended her steps up onto Pudding Pye Hill, but I knew in this I was merely consoling myself. In truth, she might have gone anywhere. I could easily have missed her in the dark, or while I stood watching the oafs from the village—or the other form I had seen. I was quite sure that the female figure had not been Helena: her hair had been golden, not my wife’s dark tresses.
I lengthened my stride. I never should have left her. If she had awakened in the night and realised she was alone, what must have been her thoughts? I must find her quickly—if she were to be seen there might be a scandal.
At least it was easy to see my way. The road shone whitely, like some mythical path, and soon I heard the babbling of the little brook, its chatter so bright and cheerful; its voice came to me as mockery through the gloaming. It almost did not belong to this night—but no, it was I who was out of place. Everything else was as it should be: the village a picture of sylvan peace, bewitching and charming. The first houses were dark and quiet and yet unlike the cottage on the hill, they appeared sleeping rather than abandoned.
I trotted across the little bridge, glancing at the darkness beneath as I stepped onto the road and at once turned my ankle in a rut and pitched headlong into the dust.
I pushed myself up, rubbing at my grazed palms and brushing dirt from my clothing, and picked my way less precipitously down the middle of the road, towards the centre of the village, accompanied by the distant fluting call of an owl. The dark expanse of the green opened ahead of me and at its centre, the blasted oak, the dead part of the tree’s trunk pale against the living wood. The inn’s face was a blank. The stained-glass windows of the church glittered. I hurried by, watching for any sign that another person was abroad, but there was no trace of any soul. Thomas Aikin and Yedder Dottrell must already have closed their doors behind them. I wished I had been able to do the same. I peered over my shoulder, no longer able to see the bridge but thinking of the stream that ran beneath it. Some years before, I had seen an exhibition at the Royal Academy, where a depiction of Ophelia, by John Everett Millais, had commanded my attention utterly. Ophelia had been lying in a stream very much like the one that flowed through Halfoak, garlanded by water-weeds and little flowers. She was supine, her white face blank and staring upward, and I had seen at a glance that all sense had departed her; I could almost hear her sad, mad singing in the final moments before she drowned. I had thought of it long after, and I thought of it now, but this time it was not some stranger’s face I saw in the stream but Helena’s. The line from Hamlet returned to me: Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up.
I had actually started back towards the stream before I banished the notion as impossible. Then came the distant tapping of wooden pails and the soft snort of a horse from the direction of the inn’s stables. I started away towards the crossroads, thinking of gibbets and hangings, when I spied a pale shape floating in the dark ahead of me.
I looked first for golden hair, thinking it a spectre conjured from my dreams, then I saw that it was not; her hair was dark—it was Helena, my own dear wife, wandering as if she were lost. I hurried towards her, seeing more each moment: her slight figure, wearing only her nightgown, her hair falling in a tumble about her shoulders. All the windows around us were dark and I heard nothing. Even the beer house was silent.
“Helena!” I whispered.
She whirled and her face, as pale and ghostly as her nightgown, broadened into a smile. “Why, it is you, Albie!”
“Of course it is I. Pray, lower your voice.”
“Why, my love? Does it matter to whom I speak?” Her expression at once became solemn and her hand shot to her mouth in mock alarm. “Oh—but I have already danced!”
“Danced? Helena, do you not know the hour? And you are out here quite alone—”
She gave a knowing smile, one that I did not like to see. “Oh, no, Albie. Never alone.”
“Has anybody seen you?” I caught hold of her arm to lead her back along the road, but she was stiff and unyielding and pulled away from me.
“Why, I told you—I have danced! Two fine young men came along the road and they said that they would dance with me—and so they did! Fine, fine . . .”
“Helena, please!”
She gave a trilling laugh. “They thought me a fairy, Albie. Is that not delicious?”
I thought rapidly. Yedder and Thomas, for I was certain it must be they, had been in their cups and disporting in their foolishness—indeed, probably they had a reputation for it; even Mrs. Gomersal had said Yedder could never be steadfast. And they had gone out at midnight to watch for fairies and their stolen changeling by the full of the moon. Now their lunacy could save us from scandal: they might truly believe they had encountered one of the folk, not on the fairy hill, but here in the village. They had never met my wife and they need never do so. And none knew she was out here, alone and unprotected, and in so fey a condition she barely seemed herself. We would return home; she would sleep and feel better. All would be well.
“We must hurry, my love,” I said. “Do you know where you are?”
“Of course, Albie. We are beneath the sky.”
“Besides that.” I could not keep the irritation from my voice. “What is it you thought you were doing, wandering as you are without even pausing to dress yourself?”
She turned her head slowly towards me. Her cheek gleamed like wax in the silver light; only her eyes and her lips were dark. “Why, I was looking for you, of course, Albie. Isn’t that what any wife would do?” Her lip curled, as much in challenge as a smile.
I caught her hand, meaning to pull her along with me, and she winced. She cradled her hand and I took it once more, gently this time, and teased open her fingers. There upon her palm was a strange red mark, double curving lines with roughly square blemishes at intervals between them. Those squares put me in mind of nail-heads and I caught my breath and forced her hand higher, closer to my eyes. Though of course it would not be, it looked as if she had pressed her hand against a heated horseshoe which had burned its impression into her skin.
“What is this?” The words burst from me and there was no sympathy in them, but it was too late for that. I could think only of the ancient iron horseshoes set above the door to the inn, ready to ward away any witch or fairy who should attempt to enter.
“Why, in my searching for you I fell, my dear,” Helena replied. “I caught my hand against the gate. Is it bruised?”
“It is not bruised—it is burned.”
“That is impossible, my dear. I have not burned it.”
“Let me look again.”
“Oh, but we must away, my dear. Must we not? It would be dreadful if someone should see us, quite dreadful.”
She was correct, of course, so I offered her my arm and we began to walk hurriedly along the road, returning to our little fairy hill. It came as a relief when we crossed the bridge and put Halfoak behind us; this time I did not pause, since there was no need now to stare into the dark below and wonder. We followed the white road—the Reeling Road—upward. We were almost home, away from prying eyes. Soon all would be well and reality would assert itself once more, over my mind and over my wife’s. More relief came as we gained the gate and passed through. The door ahead of us was still ajar—I too had neglected to close it. Helena examined it as we neared the threshold, her lovely features marred with scorn.
“Helena, for the sake of our peace, pray, give me the key you used earlier.” I did not need it now, but I thought it best to settle the matter before we entered. I did not wish to drag further discord inside with us.
“The key, my love? I have no key.”
“You must have, my dear. I locked the door earlier this night, to keep you safe. You have found another—let me have it, and I will take care of everything.”
“I said I have none.”
“But I locked the door,” I reiterated. “How then would you have me believe that you—you got out?” Escaped was the word I had thought to use, but it was a bad word and I held my tongue.
“But you see, you could not have locked it, my dear, for I did get out.”
“I am quite sure that I must have.”
“And yet the door stands open.”
I stared at her. I did not know how she could speak so, how she could be so intractable, but I did not press her further. I handed her inside, pausing only to turn my little key in the lock once more. It clicked quite distinctly, and when I tried the handle, I found it locked. I told myself that I could not have turned it properly when I left for the hillside, though I could not see how I had failed to do so.
I turned from the door and saw the hem of Helena’s nightdress trailing up the stair. Her door opened and closed and there was silence.
I sighed. I did not wish to speak to her, and I did not wish to retire just then. The strangeness of the evening, my fear at finding her gone, even the bright fizzling starlight, had heated my blood and I knew I would not sleep. I went instead into the parlour and sat there, staring into the dark grate, as images rose before my eyes: Lizzie being forced to her knees before a leaping flame, her fine skin beginning to char. What had they done then? Had they been shocked and horrified when she began to burn? Had they tried to save her?
I covered my eyes, but the images remained. I let my head fall back and stared instead at the ceiling. There was no sound from Helena’s room, not even the tapping of ewer on washstand or of her brush being set down. There was no tumultuous wind or rattling of windowpanes. All was still. The quiet folk were quiet, after all. I realised I had not heard Helena close her window, so it must still be open, admitting the night air and the heady scent of flowers. I suddenly knew exactly where she stood at this moment: by that open window, staring out into the dark with longing in her eyes, as if that were where she belonged; as if she would prefer to be out there now, wandering the moonlit paths on the hillside, all alone.