The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories

THE RETURN By G. M. Glaskin

If she moved her head no more than an inch to the left, she could see through the long lean scythes of grass right down to the river to where the punt was usually tied up. But for some reason or other the punt wasn't there. And when she came to think about it a little longer, she realised that the jetty also wasn't there. It worried her, until it occurred to her that perhaps the place where she was lying was either too far up- or down-river for her to see where the punt and the jetty should have been. But no; when she turned round to look over her shoulder, the roof of the house was exactly where she expected it, peering at her over the orchard of almond and apple trees which, despite their age, were again green and swelling with fruit this summer.

She turned back to the river again, the sun seeping luxuriously through the back of her dress. Where could the punt and jetty have got to? Had Father decided after all to build a new jetty, and while the old one was demolished the punt was up in the boat-house? That must be the explanation. And yet, if this were so, she should have heard about it. Surely her sisters, even Flora, could not have kept so important a project secret from her? When she would go back up to the house, later on in this glorious day when the sun's warmth would be gone, she'd have it out with them, mark her words that she would. They couldn't put everything over Maisie Jane Matthews, no matter how smart they all thought they were, all five of them, especially Flora, even Elsie; hateful, they were at times, like when they said in sing-song voices:

'Maisie's the baby, you can tell by her dimple,

And also because she's a teeny bit simple!'

Simple? Simple? What did they mean by it? But whatever they meant, they couldn't deny that not one of them was as happy as she herself was. Father always said so, Father was always right; so it must be so. Which meant that she in turn could be sorry for her sisters, poor miserable wretches who, no matter how good their eyesight might be, could never any of them see all the joyous things in life.

Like the river: the waters gliding and glimmering over the reflected trees plunged down deep in the river's depths, far more fascinating and mysterious than those so much more substantial trees always upright on the banks. The long grass: the best bed of all, and with stems to chew and make whistles from, and sometimes shaking seeds into her hair and down the neck of her dress to — to tickle. Insects to study: ants always so methodically busy, poor things, just like her sisters; ladybird beetles, like herself, opening their little red carapaces with the black polka-dots to spread their wings and half flutter, half totter, from one stalk of grass to another, blissfully without method or purpose at all. Birds skimming over the water and arrowing among the trees, alighting on branches, plucking at their plumage with quite shameless vanity, and pausing, stiffening now and again, to take watch around them — something they'd heard? or smelt? or just sensed without really knowing, like she herself did? Calling to each other, always so happy. Except crows, carping and cavilling their endless complaints, and black, like her sisters had been for months, in mourning when their mother had died. The old grey-white horseijjith the shaggy lock of mane hanging forlorn over his eyes and his look of mild reproach, just like their father's. Crickets itchy in the grass. O the grass, the grass! How she always loved just to lie there in its luxury. Especially today, for today was a very special day, a very special day indeed…

Today was her birthday. Seventeen years ago today she had been born in the house just over her shoulder of the mother whom she had never seen because, so sadly, so tragically, she had died shortly after she herself, Maisie Jane Matthews, had been born; and consequently she had never known a mother's love and maternal ministrations, no matter how much her five elder sisters might proclaim that they all of them were 'little mothers' to their poor baby Maisie. For Maisie, try as she might, could not look upon any one of them as a replacement for the mother she had lost, and consequently had been acutely aware all her life of a profound and sometimes insupportable feeling of 'being deprived'. Her sisters could all remember their mother; she could not. And no sense of reality could seep through to her from the one daguerrotype photograph of her which their father kept on the large walnut desk in his study.

But today was her birthday. She did not want to think any sad thoughts today. Today she was happy, and happy she would stay, even if to remind her she must occasionally wriggle her body full-length through the languorous grass till she could peer through the water's gently sliding surface (to where did it go? and why should it want to leave the peaceful loveliness of this place?) to where spears of sunlight revealed the rocks and sands beneath; until the water became too dark to see through any more, but would still occasionally gleam with sudden if minute brilliance from the bellies of minnows as they would abruptly turn in their otherwise leisurely yet mysterious errands. Would she see a tortoise? Today, of all days in the year, being her birthday, she could expect to see almost anything.

Turning on her back she gazed up at the incredibly immense blue reaches of sky with its flocks of near-luminous clouds scudding from horizon to horizon like herded sheep. She hoped they wouldn't turn malicious and mggce her birthday with rain. Perhaps if she turned on her stomach again, would they all go away? She would try it anyway; and this time when she turned, her body complained with an ache and a creak from, she told herself, lying a little too long in the grass. And she said to herself: That's how old people must get to feel, with their grey hair and wrinkled skin sometimes flecked all over with death-freckles. And as though thinking of old people had invoked a manifestation before her very eyes,there, deep down in the water, and yet not quite so deep as the rocks and sand and little clouds of underwater dust, the face of an old woman appeared suddenly in the depths to peer sinisterly up at her, the mouth leering uglily, and the eyes — the eyes — relentlessly seeking her own. She started back in fright, and wished she had stayed on her back looking up at the sky. Yet when she searched around her, there was no one to be seen, certainly no old woman with hideous face. There were only the birds and the horse across the river and no, not even the punt and the jetty. Ah, but the house was still there, craning to assure comfort.

What would that house provide for her tonight? she wondered. A birthday dinner, of course. Flora and Elsie, perhaps even Mabel, would cook it; Grace would set table. None of Annie's 'good plain cooking' tonight; her sisters would give the cook a night off. They had promised. But Bridget would still serve; her father would insist on that. And perhaps, tonight, having turned seventeen, she might be allowed a glass of wine? But no, that might be too much to expect. Fruit punch as usual, she supposed, and pulled a little moue. Girls, she opined, should be allowed to drink wine, even sherry, when they first put up their hair. Hers had been up for a year now, but the only wine she had tasted, she giggled to herself, had been drunk surreptitiously down in the dark of the cellar. Somehow, perhaps because it was forbidden, it had seemed all the more delicious.

And for dinner? Chicken, she supposed; the last of the turkeys had been eaten for Christmas. Flora's vegetable soup first, and then almost the same vegetables fresh from the garden to go with the main course. Unless, unless — unless Father remembered how she adored Brussels sprouts and brought some home from the city. Dared she hope? Dared she hope, also, that he might give her the gold watch he had given each of his daughters when they had turned eighteen — 'My daughters are all becoming little women,' he was always saying — or would he still refuse to make an exception of her and she must wait yet another year for her very own watch? O the agony of it all! She could almost guess what would come from her sisters: a scarf, handworked handkerchiefs, a pair of gloves that might or might not be of silk, a pair of stockings that certainly wouldn't be, a book on housekeeping from Flora when she just longed for a novel by Marie Corelli. O well…

But afterwards, that was the main thing. Games in the parlour? Would they ask anyone in? The Jackson girls and — O the wickedness of her! — maybe the Whittaker boys? Which would mean. and she writhed in the grass at the sheer wilfulness of her craving, sucking in her bottom lip and giving it a nip with her teeth, as though it had already been guilty of inviting a kiss. which would mean that they would have to invite — dared she mention his name? — the Whittaker boys's cousin Septimus. There, she had said it! Dancing, Mabel at the piano, Milly on the violin, Flora always frowning! But she wouldn't care, she wouldn't care! She'd dance all she wanted to on her birthday, especially, especially — dared she say it again? — especially if Septimus should be the one who would ask her.

Ah, how she could dream here, deep in the grass and with the river whispering conspiracies.

That ache again, the cramp and creak in her back. Flora was always saying that she'd give herself rheumatism, lying like that in the grass. But she didn't care, she didn't care! All that she did care about now was that, incredible as it seemed, she must have fallen asleep; for now, when she lurched up suddenly into a sitting position, she found the sky waned into golds and greys and the clouds scudding faster and thicker and the wind chill on her cheeks. Lord, what time was it! Then the blasphemy made first her hand fly to her mouth, then her offending mouth require the stifling of a titter. As if anyone could hear! But she must hurry, she must run, or else she would be late for her own birthday, and there was her new white muslin frock for her to change into.

Up through the apple and almond trees, lurching with stiffness from lying in the grass, her limbs feeling idiotically like those of an old crone until she made them work all the faster. No rheumatism for her, especially not tonight. Through the arbor of grape-vines with the carnations and gaillardias planted by Jenkins. Up the path of the vegetable garden with scarcely a glance. If she tried to squeeze out reality as she ran, a game she still loved to play with herself, she could almost see what a wilderness of weeds and horror it could all become if ever they should leave it. But that, of course, they would never do; Father wouldn't even contemplate such a thing; and why should they leave, with all this peace and beauty around them? As though her own silly day-dream — or day-mare? — would not be dispelled, she decided to dismiss it by calling Flora to let her know she was coming.

'Flora, Flora!' she shouted, still running and running, panting for her breath, laughing helplessly to herself and thinking: If she didn't reach the house soon, she'd be bound to collapse. 'Flora, Flora…!'

And then she stopped dead.

O yes, the house was still there, but what on earth could have happened to it? The door was not only open, but gone. What could have happened to it? And what was all that dirt, all that dust and dry dead leaves doing all over the verandah. and. and. how could the verandah itself have rotted and fallen in as it had? And the windows! The windows! Smashed, every one of them! Panes gaping and jagged or gone altogether. No paint on the frames; only chars as if from a fire. Even some of the frames were gone from obscenely nude brick. Above her, rafters sagged and rotted and, even more unbelievable, supported only a few remnants of roof. Great gaping holes in it exposed malevolent sky. And inside, inside — where there should have been curtains and carpets, pictures and furniture, her sisters flitting bird-busy from one room to another — there was…

Nothing! A charred-blackened wreck of a house, a mere shell, as though it had been blasted to smithereens. She shrank back, stunned, incredulous, horrified, barely stifling her sobs and possibly a scream.

until it occurred to her: Of course, she had come up to the wrong house. She had gone to some other part of the river, for wasn't it true that she could no longer remember how she had come there at all?That was why the punt and the jetty had been missing. That was why the river itself had been somehow different today. That's what she had done: she'd come back to the wrong house. Now, instead of sobs, she couldn't help laughing at herself. Flora was always saying she was a fool. Was that what they meant when they said she was 'simple'? Well, she didn't care, she didn't care, just let them see if she did. And just to defy them, she'd sing that song she had heard their Aunt Bella once sing, until their father had stopped her, saying such things were unfit for his young daughter's ears:

'Take me in your arms, love, Fan me with your fan;

Kiss me and caress me -

That's a nice young man!

But then, although she tried hard to laugh and be happy, defying also the dusk which frightened her so, she found herself sobbing again, sobbing and running she didn't know where, hadn't the faintest idea any more, because the bend of the river, the trees, the shape of the banks, all told her that from where she was running was where the houses hould have been; but something had happened, she didn't know what, except that it must have been some dreadful catastrophe, some horror that wouldn't bear thinking about. And now the house was all, all of it gone, her sisters and Father and Bridget and Jenkins and everything. All, all gone. There was only herself left, fleeing from her terror in this horror of wilderness.

From the river to the road, and then the next horror assailed her. Some sort of machine, some monstrous and inconceivable thing, all glass and metal glinting evil in the last light from the sun, had baulked her path and was threatening to devour her. She screamed; screanied all the louder when she saw the two figures — a man and a woman, she thought, in some kind of uniform, black — somehow emerging from the monstrous machine like the two demons that they were. She wanted to run from them, but couldn't. As in a nightmare, her legs failed her and she felt herself sagging, sinking to the ground, falling and flailing, and all she could do was moan her despair. When they reached her, the monsters, she hadn't the strength even to struggle against them, but could only fall limp with her weeping. The devil's advocates had sought and seized her for her wickedness, and it was too late, too late; it could never be undone.

'Flora!' she moaned. 'O Flora, Flora! Don't let them take me, and cast me into Hell. '

The devil's chariot throbbed and roared with mechanical monstrosity, and his advocates gripped and strapped her inside some kind of device so that she couldn't free or even move her arms behind her. And they leered at her so, leering and jeering:

'Now, now, Maisie Matthews. Come along quietly and we'll soon have you home again. You'll be all right, dear. We'll soon have you home. ' And the she-demon jabbed a poison-dart into her arm, and filled it with venom.

Home? Hell, they meant. They were taking her away from her home; they had even, now that they had drugged her, taken away her home itself. Nothing, nothing of it was left. She could only cringe and quiver in horror, too terrified to think of what might still be ahead of her.

Hell was a street of buildings like cliffs, all concrete and glass of incredible height and hideous taste, the street an inferno of hell-bent contraptions that hooted and hissed. Lights like molten suns glared in the night around her, making it garish as day never was. Voices boomed at unbelievable volume from what she thought must also be some kind of machines. When roof-tops could be seen, they bristled with contraptions like enormous paper-clips.

'We'll soon have you home,' the demons beside her kept saying, over and over, as though they could fool her, 'we'll soon have you home.' And they half dragged her out of the contraption that at last stopped throbbing and roaring and led her across that terrifying canyon and into one of the cliffs with stone floors and incredible slashes of colour where pictures should have been. They took no notice of her whimpering or of what she was trying to tell them, but dragged and pushed her to the fresh horror of a machine in the wall that carried them upwards, upwards, when they'd always told her that hell was below. It stopped, and they led her out, too terrified to say anything any more, and she found herself at what she supposed was a door, where the man pushed some kind of button that gave a shrill little shriek.

When the door opened, she was confronted by some apparition of an old woman — could it be the woman she had seen at the river, come to claim her at last? But no; there was, she had to admit, something familiar about this one, as though she had seen it before, or had known she would encounter it some time in the future. Yes, that was it; for the apparition was a crude, a cruel parody of her sister, or what Flora might be like when she would be seventy, perhaps even eighty years old. Its face had a scar livid as a firebrand on one of her cheeks. And as though the demons who had captured her knew what they had conjured, one of them said:

'We've found her, Miss Matthews. Yes, in the usual place.' And then, as though this wasn't torment enough, they had to go on and say: 'Come along now, Maisie. Be a good girl. Here you are home again, safe with sister Flora.'

'O Flora, Flora,' she heard herself whimpering. 'If only it could be…'

Could it be Flora? Older than Aunt Bella, older than old grandmother Matthews? This old haggard apparition, such a parody of what Flora had been? This old, old woman saying: 'You've given her her tranquilliser? Good. You may be right: perhaps we just can't cope any more…'

And then, suddenly reminded of something she must announce, she found she could at least compose herself, stiffening her body with her last shreds of dignity and, no matter what they might think of her for it, managing to say:

'You may all have the felicity of wishing me happy returns. It's my birthday, you know. My seventeenth birthday.'

But this seemed only to infuriate the apparition before her, for the Flora-phantom was almost spitting when it said: 'O you fool, Maisie! You're seventy, not seventeen! And I've told you and told you, you're not to go out alone. Never! They'll put you away if you do, and then you'll know all about it. What did you try to do, burn the house down again? And all of us with it?'

And the apparition raised a hand to the scar on her face. 'It's my birthday, Flora, she persisted; it was all that she could say. 'It's my seventeenth birthday. Don't deny me my party, Flora. Please don't deny me my party. I warn you, I'll do something you'll be sorry for if you do…

But then, some vague recollection — or was it something she had forgotten? — gave her something to laugh at.