The Woman in the Woods Read online

  Chapter Eleven

  Monday morning can’t come quick enough, and I am glad that Rav has left by the time the baby wakes me. I feel odd about the text on his phone from Naomi, not sure what they could have to discuss without me – they are friends, but not close. Not close enough to meet without me being there. Rav’s name flashes up on my phone as I strip my clothes off in the bathroom, steam from the running shower blurring my reflection in the mirror, and I let it ring out before stepping under the water, ignoring the beep that tells me he’s left a voicemail. I have decided to keep Mina home today, to let her bunk off preschool. As much as the house is unsettling, the idea of walking through the village to school, having to face Tara and Karen after the baby group on Friday is all too overwhelming, giving flight to panicky flutters in my chest like a thousand tiny butterflies. I have an indescribable itch to find out more about the house, telling myself that if I can just find out more then maybe it will put my mind at ease. There is a tiny bookshop on the other side of the village, with a whole display dedicated to local authors. If I time it right, I can get over there and see if they have any books that feature the cottage, without bumping into Tara or Karen. I shower quickly, all too aware that Mina is downstairs, albeit glued to CBeebies again, and dress in jeans and a clean T-shirt, taking a moment to brush my hair and twist it up into a clip before I snatch up my phone, listening to the voicemail Rav has left.

  ‘Hey, Al, you’re probably on the way to preschool.’ I feel a tiny pang of guilt that I squash down into nothing. ‘Just wanted to tell you that I might be late again tonight. Something has come up with the case. I won’t bore you with the details. Go on and eat without me, I’ve no idea what time I’ll make it back.’ I dither in the entrance to the living room, watching Mina as she plays with the Indian doll Rav’s mum gave her, the television chattering away to itself in the background, debating whether to call Rav back or not. He won’t answer even if I do call him; it’ll just go to voicemail. There is a clanging chime from the old-fashioned doorbell that Rav has installed, and I tuck my phone into my pocket.

  Angela, my health visitor stands on the doorstep, lanyard around her neck and a harassed look on her face. Her cheeks are flushed a bright pink and wisps of mousy hair escape from her ponytail. ‘Hi, Allie. I’m so sorry I’m late – I know we said nine o’clock, but this morning has run away with me already.’ She steps into the hall and I move to let her past into the living room.

  ‘No, not late at all.’ I had completely forgotten that she was coming, the events of the past few days driving everything else from my mind, but now she is here I’m glad I managed a shower and some clean clothes. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks, but it’ll have to be a quick one.’ After a surreptitious glance at her watch, she gives me a grateful smile, before turning her attention to the baby who slumbers on in the Moses basket.

  Stepping through into the kitchen I wait until the kettle is boiling noisily before taking in a few deep breaths. I had completely forgotten Angela was coming, and my eyes sweep over the kitchen, glad that I had cleaned up after last night’s dinner and tidied the living room of all Mina’s toys. When I walk back into the living room, a mug in each hand, Mina is lining up her dolls, demanding that Angela listen to all of their names.

  ‘Mina, not now, darling.’ I hand Angela a mug and glance towards the sleeping baby, worried that Angela will judge me for leaving the two children alone in here while I made the tea.

  ‘Let’s have a look at him.’ Angela holds out her arms and I place the baby in them gently, holding my breath as I wait for him to let out a wail, but he just stirs, his mouth pursing into little kisses. ‘Oh, what a good boy,’ Angela coos, and I watch as she removes his clothes, checks him over, and weighs him before handing him back to me to clothe again as she writes up her notes. As she finishes writing she peers over the top of her glasses at me. ‘You look very well, Allie. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’ I jiggle the baby now he is back in his sleep suit, hoping he’ll go back off to sleep for just a little while longer. He pumps his fist, his face reddening.

  ‘Sleeping OK? As well as can be expected at this stage anyway.’ Angela lets out a small laugh and she is already packing her things back into her huge bag.

  ‘Yes,’ I lie, lowering my face to the baby’s head to hide the red flush that creeps over my cheeks. ‘All fine. He’s a good baby.’

  ‘Well, you look great.’ Angela is on her feet, and I can tell by the distraction in her voice that she’s already on to the next appointment in her head, already thinking about the next mum. ‘It’s not often I get to mums this early in the morning and they’re already showered and dressed. I think we can discharge you, if you’re happy?’

  ‘Yes, I’m happy.’ I follow her to the front door, the baby starting to grizzle in my arms. ‘Thank you.’ She waves as she runs to her car, already even later than before, and I call to Mina to come and get her shoes on. We’re going to the bookshop.

  The village is quiet, and as I approach the threshold of the bookshop, I am relieved that I have made it along the High Street without bumping into anyone I know. Mina sighs impatiently as I wrangle the pram through the narrow door into the quiet calm of the store, before slipping past me and heading towards a squashy beanbag arranged in one corner.

  I glance anxiously towards the woman behind the till, an older lady with dishevelled curly hair tied up in a headscarf, big silver earrings hanging from her ears. She flaps a hand and smiles. ‘She’s fine.’ She comes out from behind the till and crouches beside Mina, pulling out a handful of picture books from the shelf behind her. I smile my thanks as she gets to her feet, Mina already engrossed in the colourful pages. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’

  ‘Ermm … I’m looking for something about local legends … maybe something on the houses in the area?’ I feel my cheeks flush a hot red as I stumble over the words.

  ‘Oh, something like this?’ The woman leads me towards the display of local books and pulls one down with a dark cover, a ghostly apparition on the front. The title is The Legend of The Black Horse.

  ‘This one is about the pub,’ she says, ‘written by a local author. All about the ghosts you can share a room with if you spend the night.’ She gives a short laugh and I take the book. ‘Have a browse, there are plenty there. There’s a sofa over in the corner, if you want to take the weight off.’ She peers into the pram with a smile. I thank her, and keeping one eye on Mina, I return to the shelf in front of me, hoping to find something about Gowdie Cottage. I browse the books, hoping to find something dedicated to the house, but although there are mentions here and there, there is nothing more than that. Flicking through a book entitled, Pluckley and its Ghostly Residents – not exactly the snappiest title – I find reference to the Pluckley Witch and my fingers still, holding the book open. It must be Agnes, I think as my eyes scan over the page, barely registering the tinkle of the bell as the door to the shop opens. Agnes must be the Pluckley Witch.

  I tuck the book under my arm and face the shelf, my eyes returning to the one title that keeps jumping out at me: An Introduction to Witchcraft. Something stirs inside me, and glancing towards the woman behind the till, I pick it up and begin tentatively flicking through the pages, not entirely sure what I am looking for.

  ‘Oh, hello. Fancy seeing you here,’ a voice says in my ear, making me jump. I shove the book hurriedly under my arm with the others, and turn to see Miranda standing beside me, the scent of sandalwood surrounding her. She wears a thick silver necklace with a moon hanging from it and her lips are painted a vivid purple. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, thank you. What about you?’ I peer around her to check on Mina.

  ‘Fine.’ Miranda nods, a small, awkward smile on her lips and I get that feeling again, of kinship. I get the sense that we both feel the same, as if we aren’t quite sure we fit in.

  ‘I was just …’ I hold up Pluckley and its Ghostly Residents.<
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  ‘Are you going to buy it?’

  I frown, my eyes going back to the sinister-looking cover. ‘I don’t know … I was hoping for a bit more information on my house and Agnes Gowdie, but there’s not much in there. And anyway, it’s all just superstition really, isn’t it? Surely no one believes all that stuff. I’m not sure if this book …’ I push away the flicker of white rushing through the trees that rises in my mind.

  ‘Only I wrote it.’

  ‘You wrote it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her cheeks flushing a startling pink, Miranda takes the book from me and points at the author’s name. ‘M. I. Richards. Miranda Isobel Richards. I wrote this book. Some people do believe in this stuff, actually.’ She puts the book back on the shelf, a tinge of hurt in her voice.

  ‘Wow. You wrote it.’ Shit. Talk about putting my foot in it. I take the book back, deciding that I will buy it, when a thought strikes me. ‘Miranda, if you wrote this, then you must be a bit of an expert on all this stuff, the stories and legends in Pluckley?’

  ‘Well, obviously. Yes. I grew up here, it’s part of my family history. I’m named for Isobel Gowdie, we’re descended from her on my grandmother’s side.’

  ‘Then I think … maybe you’re the person I need to speak to.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Miranda asks, before she says, ‘I was waiting for you to ask me, if I’m honest. I knew you would, I could feel it.’

  ‘Errm, well I suppose I wanted to ask you about what you said at the mother and baby group,’ I say, wrong-footed by her saying she could feel that I wanted to ask her. ‘You … you said I live in the witch house, and in this book, there is a mention of the Pluckley Witch. What I’m asking is …’ I break off and swallow, fear suddenly making my mouth dry, and I’m not sure I do want to know after all. ‘I guess I just want to know more about her. If she lived in my house then I almost feel as if …’

  Miranda is nodding before I even finish speaking. ‘There’s a connection between you? I absolutely understand what you’re saying. People often say they can feel a connection between themselves and the spirit, especially when there’s something unfinished about it all.’

  I wasn’t going to say that, I was going to say, I almost feel as if she is still there. Now I’m glad I didn’t. Part of me is starting to wish I hadn’t asked Miranda at all, but she carries on speaking, not picking up on my apprehension.

  ‘Agnes Gowdie – also known as the Pluckley Witch – fled Scotland when Isobel, her sister, was burnt at the stake, taking only two things with her. She arrived in Pluckley a short while later, and it wasn’t long before rumours started to fly. Her reputation for using herbs quickly became well known, and while Agnes used them as healing agents mostly, the village didn’t see it that way, especially after she delivered the landlady’s baby. Strange things started to happen, people began to fall ill, all after Agnes arrived here. People who had crossed her, called her names, accused her of things, a lot of them fell sick, and then of course, the other stuff started.’

  ‘Wow.’ A shiver runs down my spine, at the thought of Agnes standing over a stove, stirring and muttering under her breath, cursing the people living side by side with her. I think of the herbs sprouting merrily in the border of my back garden.

  ‘That’s how it was back then,’ Miranda says. ‘Of course, once they found out she was Isobel’s sister it just reinforced their idea that she must be a witch.’ I must have looked sceptical, as Miranda says, ‘They might not have had the internet back then, but news still travelled.’

  ‘What happened with the landlady’s baby? Why did that make things difficult for Agnes? Surely using herbs alone wasn’t enough to suspect her of being a witch?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Miranda says drily. ‘Agnes delivered the baby, but it was stillborn. Devastating, of course, but made worse by the fact that the landlady swore she heard the child cry as it was born. She said she saw a black shadow hovering over Agnes’s shoulder as the baby was delivered, and that he uttered a single cry before Agnes handed her a dead baby.’

  ‘Oh my gosh, that’s heartbreaking.’ I blink rapidly, seeing the flit of a shadow brush past the door the night I thought Rav was downstairs, a knot growing in my stomach. ‘You said she fled Scotland with only two things, what were they?’

  ‘A baby in her belly – Agnes was six months pregnant when she arrived.’

  ‘Oh.’ My eyes drop to the baby, sleeping soundly in the pram, his wispy hair just visible above the blanket. ‘A baby?’ A connection. I blink, imagining an invisible cord linking me to Agnes, one that feels rotten and decayed. ‘What was the other thing? You said there were two things.’

  ‘Isobel’s pearl necklace,’ Miranda says. ‘She hid it under her clothes, close to her skin the day they came to take Isobel away.’

  ‘What?’ It feels as though the floor has dropped away beneath my feet, and I lower myself gently onto the sofa, my legs suddenly like jelly. I think of the pearls that nestle in my jewellery box in my bedroom at the cottage. Both of them found in and around the house. Coincidence, surely.

  ‘A pearl necklace, and a baby,’ Miranda goes on blithely. ‘Things got worse. Several years after the birth of the stillborn baby, Agnes’s own child – a little girl – went missing. Agnes blamed the landlord, but the villagers were convinced that Agnes had done something to the child herself, especially in light of the dead baby she had delivered a few years before. Agnes spent weeks roaming the woods behind the cottage, searching for her lost child, telling everyone she knew she was in there, that she could hear her crying for her.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ My blood runs cold, the hairs on my arms rippling to attention. The shrill cries that have dragged me from sleep echo in my ears and I have to resist the urge to cover them with my hands. ‘What happened to her? What happened after her child was lost?’

  ‘The children started disappearing.’ Miranda’s voice is barely above a whisper and I can smell her shampoo as she leans in close to me. ‘One by one, the children of the village began to disappear. Some went to the market for their mothers and never returned, others went out to play and vanished. The parents tried keeping them home, and then they started disappearing from their beds. The villagers … they said Agnes took them, in revenge for the loss of her own child. More than one parent said they had seen her, hanging around watching the children before their child was taken. She was burnt at the stake as a witch less than three years after Isobel. Strange things have happened in and around Gowdie Cottage ever since – it’s believed that Agnes still haunts her old home to this day.’

  My throat feels thick, and I can feel the hot sting of tears behind my eyes. The baby stirs in the pram and I know I won’t have long before he starts to shout for a feed. ‘Did they ever find any of them? Did they ever find Agnes’s child?’

  Miranda shakes her head. ‘No, they never found the children. Locals believe that Agnes’s daughter still calls for her mother from the woods, wandering barefoot and lost, wearing a white dress with long, blonde hair. I’ve never heard or seen anything, but others have said they have. Are you all right? You look very pale.’

  I get to my feet, the book sliding from my lap, sure for a moment that I will fall as my vision blurs and I feel dizzy. I think I can hear her, the child, crying in the distance, and I see her in my mind, crouched beneath the trees, shrouded in white. It passes as quickly as it comes on and I let out a shaky breath, my hands gripping the handle of the pram tightly. ‘I’m fine. It’s just … I wasn’t expecting quite such a story.’

  Miranda is on her feet beside me, pressing her book back into my hands. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? It’s not the most well-known legend around here, The Colonel can take the credit for that, along with the Highwayman and the White Lady, for haunting Frights Corner and the church, so I’m really looking forward to working on a book about Agnes next.’

  ‘It’s … yes, interesting. Fascinating, actually.’ Although fascinating is not quite the word I would use t
o describe the feeling I had in the hallway, with the tickle of eyes on the back of my neck from an empty staircase.

  ‘You know, if you want some more information on the house, you could always ask Mrs Sparks. She’s the woman I’ve been talking to for my next book. She lived in the house as a child. She was one of the last people to live there, as a matter of fact. Until you guys showed up, anyway,’ Miranda says. ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Where can I find her?’

  ‘She lives on the outskirts of the village. Here …’ Miranda takes out her phone and taps out a text. ‘This is her address. Pop your number in and I’ll send it over.’

  I tap quickly, something like nerves fluttering in my chest. It feels like a lot to take in and I wish I had just asked Miranda before, instead of trying to find things online. ‘Thanks. Mina, we should go,’ I call, holding up the book, before slipping the one about witchcraft underneath it. ‘I should go and pay for this. The baby will need feeding soon.’