Candle in the Attic Window Part 27

Look upon us now, Mother; this is where we lie

Since you let our wicked neighbour bring us here to die.

Mary Cook is a UK-based writer and editor whose articles, short stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online. Her main writing interests are humour, horror, and the writing craft. Her collection of humourous horror poetry, Collywobblers Perverse Verse for Guys and Ghouls, is available at Inkspotter Publis.h.i.+ng: http://inkspotter.com/bookstore/index.htm.

Nine Nights.

By T. S. Bazelli.

Marianne opened her mouth, but no breath escaped. Something pressed against her chest, drove out the air so that she could not scream. She fought to raise her sweat-bathed arms, but they rested on the white sheets like lead. If anyone walked by, they would never notice anything was wrong. Marianne fought, voiceless, sucking up the darkness and choking on it like water. Scissors gleamed in the moonlight.

"My Lovely Marianne." A whisper of a voice, vaguely female, amused.

Snip.

The girl had dark eyes, dark skin, and dark hair, like her own, but the girl was too thin, too hungry, too short. Marianne knew she must still be dreaming. She fought to wake, her eyes blurring over as she sought air and screamed.

It was a hollow, faraway sound, but at once, humid air flooded into her lungs, smelling of citronella, fried fish and decay.

Marianne kicked the blankets and mosquito net away. It was just a nightmare, she breathed, slowing her heartbeat. Who would not have nightmares when there was a coffin in the living room?

She did not feel at home in her grandparents' house, in the Philippine heat. She'd grown up in Canada, beneath cool, rainy skies. Even at 14, she was too tall, too pale, too fat, compared to the tiny women in her family. She scratched at her legs, drawing blood, as the itch of a hundred mosquito bites flared up again. Marianne wanted to go home, but she couldn't. It was the dead girl's fault.

Her mouth burned and her head ached. She needed water. She stumbled downstairs in her pajamas, vaguely aware of the sound of a guitar strumming and the smell of cigarettes.

There were still three days until the funeral. Until then, there was always someone awake with the body. There was no avoiding it. Marianne had to walk past the coffin to get to the kitchen. Aunties congregated around empty plates of food, staring at her as she walked past.

Marianne kept her eyes on the table. There were only a few egg rolls, pieces of chicken, rice, bits of gla.s.sy noodles stuck to a metal serving dish, a few bits of roasted pork. In the morning, the containers would be full again, and more people would come.

Her father looked up from the couch where he sat with her grandfather. They were both dressed head-to-toe in black, despite the tropical heat. It did not seem right. Her father's eyes were red, as if he'd been crying. She'd never seen him cry. Marianne couldn't cry for the girl in the gla.s.s coffin, whom she knew nothing about. She'd come for the white sand beaches, palm trees and coconuts, not for this.

One of the older women stopped her as she pa.s.sed. She had no choice but to smile, and take the old woman's hand and press it up to her forehead respectfully for a blessing.

"k.u.musta, po," Marianne said in Tagalog. Her accent grated on her ears.

"What is your name?"

"Marianne, po." That was how you addressed your elders, she remembered.

"So pretty." The old woman patted her cheek. "You look like your cousin Carmelita."

It came back to the girl in the coffin, as always.

"She was such a smart girl. She wanted to be a doctor, but her parents couldn't afford to send her. It's so sad ...."

Marianne mumbled an excuse, slipped away, knowing she'd probably offended the woman. She walked over to the fridge and grabbed a cool bottle of water.

She stared at the water-stained ceiling as she drank. White paint flaked away in places. The shadows of moths were silhouetted in the light fixture. More fluttered about, coming in and out as people walked in and out of the house. There would be no sleep in the house until the body was laid to rest.

The family watched over the body in s.h.i.+fts. It was a blur of faces and smiles. Marianne tried to remember the names and faces of all the relatives she had never met. It seemed her family was related to everyone in the town.

A lizard skittered across the wall. The movement caught her attention. She watched it climb over into the next room and she followed.

She shut her eyes as she pa.s.sed the gla.s.s coffin, but she couldn't erase the memory of the girl's face. The girl wore a borrowed white dress, edged in lace. In her mind's eye, she saw the girl open her eyes and grin at her. Marianne felt the edge of the coffin scratch against her bare arm. She gasped and nearly knocked over a candle.

In the coffin, not the dream, Carmelita's eyes were shut, as if she were sleeping. Marianne ran out the door and into the next room.

It was a big house, bigger than any she'd lived in, back in Canada. It was an old colonial-style mansion, left over from Spanish times. The Padilla family had been important people once, but the house had not been maintained. Some of the old stonework was crumbling and blackened with pollution. But Carmelita's family was poorer yet, so her grandparents had offered to let them hold the wake in their house.

In this room, an old piano leaned against the wall, scratched with years of misuse, by cousin upon cousin. The chandelier was dull bra.s.s. She tried the light switch, but the bulb burnt out in a blast of light, leaving her in darkness. Despite the humidity, the heat, she s.h.i.+vered, as if a cold breeze filtered past her.

Someone stared at her from across the room. She froze, looking into a face so similar to her own. She could not move. She thought her heart went still.

"What are you doing here in the dark, anak?"

The elder lady, the house help, flicked on the light switch. It turned on without a fuss, in an electric hiss. Marianne let out a breath, staring at the mirror. It had just been a reflection.

"Nothing, po."

"Carmelita loved to play the piano. She would sit here for hours. Do you play?"

"No."

"Call me 'Yaya'. Your father used to call me that when he was a boy." She smiled. "Oh, what a terrible boy he was."

Yaya patted her cheek, then frowned, as she put her hand to Marianne's forehead. "You are burning up. Fever. Come, you'd better lie down."

Marianne stared at the mirror, transfixed by the reflection lit by the electric light, and the moon. Her skin seemed too pale, a shade of death. Her hair seemed uneven on one end, as if ...

She trembled, as she stumbled back past the body, and collapsed onto the floor.

Marianne rolled out of her bed, wiping the sweat off her neck with cold fingers. Her head still throbbed and she wondered how long she'd been sleeping. As she put her feet onto the wooden floor, a c.o.c.kroach swept past her toes, into the darkness under the bed. She let out a little shriek, before shaking out her slippers, and sliding her feet in only after inspecting the insides.

There was the sound of chanting, as she walked downstairs, using the worn wooden banister to steady herself. Her legs felt like jelly. Talk picked up louder, as she entered the living room, and people were dispersing, rosaries in hand. The tables were piled up with food again, but there were fewer people and the coffin was missing.

"Ate, Marianne?"

A young boy in a baseball cap and a young girl in a floral dress came up to her, hesitant. Marianne searched through her memory to recall names and faces, but she couldn't.

"Yes?" she replied, aware she was dressed in pajamas, while everyone else was in black or white.

"Can you finish the scary story you started to tell us at the libingan?" The boy searched for the word in English. "'Funeral'."

Marianne frowned. "The funeral?"

"Yesterday. I can't sleep until I find out what happened!"

Marianne's mind was blank.

"I'm sorry. I don't feel so well. I need to find my mom and dad." Marianne walked fast, trying to avoid everyone as she wound through the mourners. She heard her parents' voices out in the yard.

Marianne paused at the screen door because her mother was yelling. She could see their silhouettes, against the concrete wall, away from the florescent lights of the house. Her father tossed a cigarette onto the dirt and rubbed it into the ground with his feet. He'd given up smoking years ago.

Her mother stormed towards the house. Her cheeks were red with anger.

"You should have told me," she said, as she flung open the door, and stopped just before cras.h.i.+ng into Marianne.

"Oh, Marianne, are you feeling better, dear?" She placed a hand on Marianne's forehead, patted her back, but glanced over her shoulder at her husband's hunched form in the yard. "The fever's gone."

"Mom, how long have I been in bed?"

"You were well enough to go to the funeral. You seemed fine, yesterday."

"We already had the funeral?"

"The medication must have been too strong." Her mother frowned. "You don't remember?"

Marianne shook her head.

"Go back to bed, dear. You look so pale. Get some rest."

"When can we leave, Mom?"

"Not until the nine-day novena for the dead has finished. If you're well enough, after then, we can still go to the beach."

Nine more days of food and family. Her mother walked away.

Marianne felt a chill in her chest, as if she'd been stabbed with an icicle. Her heart stopped beating for a moment and she grasped at the walls to steady herself. She looked around the room, to call for help, to say something, but no one was looking in her direction. As abruptly as the feeling came, she felt fine again.

Marianne walked back to the children.

"What kind of story did I tell you?" she asked, but the children did not seem to hear. They ran past her after a black-winged moth.

Yaya looked straight at her, eyebrows crossed together. She was not a relative but her father's one-time nursemaid. Her brown skin was wrinkled, her hair white. A c.o.c.kroach ran over Yaya's feet, and the old woman crushed it with the heel of her slipper.

The mosquito bites stopped itching. Her head was clear for the first time in days, but outside, the sky was dark and rain drenched the house in sheets. Wind rattled the balcony door and water dripped down into a pool in the middle of the hardwood floor. She paused, trying to listen for people downstairs, but it was quiet. The window shutters slapped shut, leaving her in the dark for a moment.

She panicked, as the dream of nights before came back, but a moment later, the light returned and she let out a breath. Fever and nightmares, nothing more, she tried to remind herself.

She could see the light in the kitchen from the stairwell. She could smell garlic rice and sausages. Breakfast smells. She couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten, but neither did she feel hungry. She made her way down the steps, oddly light. The heat was bearable for the first time. It was all very odd.

She walked into the kitchen, but no one looked up from their meal. Yaya was at the sink, was.h.i.+ng out a pan. Marianne realized then that it must be a dream. She saw Carmelita seated at the table, cutting the sausages with a dull knife, spooning rice and some tomatoes into her mouth.

"I can't wait to go home, Mom." The girl at the table smiled.

"I thought you wanted to go to the beach, Marianne."

"But I can't swim," Carmelita replied.

"All those lessons and you've forgotten? You can't just forget ...."

"I mean, it's been a while." Carmelita laughed.

Marianne felt her blood freeze over. She walked up to the table and cleared her throat, but no one turned in her direction. She slammed a fist against the table. A gla.s.s of water vibrated. Nothing more. Not even a glance from her mother or father.

"Mom, Dad!" Marianne waved her hands in front of their faces.

Her father continued to flip through the channels on the TV from his chair. Yaya dropped the pan in the sink and turned away, apologizing, scrubbing frantically.

"That's not me," Marianne breathed.

"Do we really need to stay for all nine days? It's not like Carmelita was that close. She was just a cousin."

Her father set down the remote, his eyes bloodshot still. "She's still family."

Carmelita frowned, as she shoved more sausage into her mouth. Her mother winced, looked away from her father.

Marianne pushed at the chair, but though she could feel the cold metal beneath her fingers, it did not move. She swung at the pitcher of water on the table, but gla.s.s did not shatter.

"Why can't you see me?" she shouted, her eyes filling with tears.

The room began to swarm with c.o.c.kroaches and moths and lizards. They crept in through the cracks in the windowsills, up through the pipes in the sink, beneath the door to the rear of the house, filling the kitchen.

Her mother screamed and Yaya crushed a few c.o.c.kroaches with her pan. Her father jumped up onto the couch.

"What's going on?!" They began to huddle together, everyone except Marianne and the girl who wanted to steal her life.

"I think it's the storm. They're just trying to get out of the rain ...."