Supernatural | Chiller

The Power of a Mother’s Love

Harriet knew she was worried but not why, nor could she remember the reason she was out on such a cold, wild night

As she walked along the road, Harriet knew that she was worried but she could not remember why. Nor could she remember why she was out on such a cold, wild night. She was on her way home — that much was clear for she recognized the road which led to the cottage near the church where she lived with her daughter Elizabeth — but where had she come from?

The air was chill. As she walked, the knife-like wind forced her to lean forward against its pressure, slowing her progress. The skeletal branches of the leafless trees leaped and danced; their clatter was the only sound beside the wind’s sobbing that she could hear. The dark clouds were torn veils dragged across the sky allowing fitful glimpses of the moon through the rips and rents, but there was light enough to find her way beside the frost-rimmed, wiry hedge.

She trudged towards the haven of her cottage thinking longingly of the blazing fire at which she would warm her bones, aching cold from the winter’s night. She wondered if Elizabeth would have waited up for her. She would have done had it been Elizabeth who was out, but then, Harriet’s whole life had been devoted to Elizabeth, to her comfort and her happiness.

She tried again to remember why she was out of doors on such a night, but the harder she tried to pin it down, the more it eluded her.

Soon she came to the outskirts of the village. She knew it was late because the cottage windows were dark, sightless eyes. She began to climb the hill towards the church and home, her steps slowed even more by the gradient. She was walking as if she were ploughing through treacle and she felt strangely weary.

Nearing the cottage, a sense of urgency developed and her anxiety increased. She became aware that her errand had to do with Elizabeth; she had experienced a premonition that something was threatening her daughter — that was what was driving her through the night. She tried to hurry, but was unable. Her limbs moved like those of a sleeper in the grip of a terrible dream.

At last she came to the garden gate. It swung free on its hinges adding creaks to the soughing of the wind. She approached the front door which was usually left unlocked but to her exasperation she could not lift the latch; her hands seemed ineffectual, they must be numbed by the cold. No matter, she would walk round the house to the sitting-room window where she thought Elizabeth must be, for she could see a sliver of light.

She stood on the flowerbed below the window and plaintively called her daughter’s name — “Elizabeth, Elizabeth!” — but the wild wind snatched her words away as it keened round the house. She managed to get a toehold on the brick edge below the weather-boarding and, gripping the edge of the sill, she pulled herself up to look in the room through the chink in the carelessly-drawn curtains.

She saw the log blazing in the fireplace as they had in her mind’s eye. The cosy room was suffused in a warm glow from the oil lamp. An armchair was drawn up close to the fire, occupied by a young man whom she had never seen before. On a cushion at his feet sat Elizabeth, leaning against his knees. His hand rested on Elizabeth’s hair which glowed like copper in the flickering firelight.

It was a calm enough scene apparently. You might describe it as the epitome of romance, lovers sitting contentedly in the firelight’s glow. What could agitate the feelings of a mother, even one as devoted and possessive as Harriet? But to her it seemed a tableau of unspeakable horror. The man whose hand rested on her daughter’s head she recognized for what he was — evil, totally evil. She had not previously thought of herself as a clairvoyant, but tonight her perceptions seemed to be strangely heightened. She thought she could see shadowy bloodstains on his hands, a shadowy noose about his neck.

Just then, Elizabeth looked up at the man with a smile of great sweetness and trust. Harriet bit back a scream. There was no doubt in her mind that Elizabeth’s lover was, or would be, a murderer. Whether it was that he would kill her daughter or whether Elizabeth would suffer because she loved one who was destined to end upon the gallows, the anguished mother could not tell. She only knew that somehow she must warn the girl. It was for this that she had battled against the bitter night.

“Elizabeth, Elizabeth!” she cried, but as before, the wind snatched away her words.

She tried to rap on the window. The effort was intense, lifting her hand was like hefting lead; however she managed it.

The two staccato taps startled Elizabeth, who leaped to her feet, staring at the gap in the curtains. The expression on her face was one of horror and alarm and Harriet wondered why it should be so. Why was there no welcome from her daughter?

Suddenly Harriet became conscious of her outward appearance. She looked down at her hand with unbelieving horror. There was no flesh on the framework of her bones, the hand she saw was a skeleton! She heard a strangled scream and realized it was she who had cried out.

The shock caused her to loosen her grip on the sill and she felt herself falling backwards. She did not fall just the short distance from the window to the ground, it was a long slow, tumbling fall as if it were part of a dream. When the thud came that ended it, the jerk that wakes the sleeper from the dream, Harriet knew where she was. She was in the place where she belonged, her grave. She was sealed in her coffin under the ground.

For the first time that night her spirit was tranquil. She had a sense of achievement; in spite of the immense difficulties implicit in her situation, she had managed to warn Elizabeth — no mother could do more. At last she could rest and turn her thoughts from earthly concerns.

In the cottage, the man held Elizabeth in his arms.

“Dear heart, you are trembling. What is the matter — what did you see?”

She buried her head in his shoulder. “It was horrible, horrible! An apparition — I cannot even talk about it.”

He soothed her as one would a child, saying ‘hush’ and ‘there, there’. He sat down in the armchair again and took her on his lap.

“That settles it Elizabeth,” he said, “you shall put me off no longer — we must be married right away. I know you have lived here for the last two years since your dear mother passed away and you have managed very well, but enough’s enough. Poor love, you are frightened out of your wits — you need me to look after you.” And I need your money, he thought.

In the cottage Elizabeth put aside the misgivings that had made her reluctant to accept his offer, agreed weakly and snuggled up to him for comfort.

In the graveyard the bones lay quiet now. Harriet had made the supreme effort and was unaware that she had been neither understood nor heeded; nor did she know that if Elizabeth had not been frightened by seeing a ghastly apparition that night, she would not have agreed to marry the man who was eventually to kill her and swing for it.

This chilling story was written up from a plot idea of my mother’s — for reasons of anonymity I won’t share her name — but neither should I take the credit for her wordcraft. I hope you enjoyed it.

Submitted to Erotic Fiction Deluxe * Wicked Wednesday