Howl Down the Moon (Pt 2)

The sun, barely risen, has staked its claim on being another stinker of a day. She woke blurry eyed, shivering and cramped having finally fallen asleep on the bare planks of the back veranda. Rubbing her eyes to gain perspective she fell under the spell of the insect’s hum as she sorted her own memories of the night just passed. Perhaps it was imagined, and she’d had another attack of night terrors, except her hands were scratched and sore, her nightgown torn. She resolved to clean herself and dress, then investigate the orchard and see what clues the trees may give up to her.

Inside the perfect rows of apricot trees, she breathed in the cool fragrant air of ripening stone fruit. She was only several yards down the incline before she saw the boundary fence and what appeared to be a small cottage on the other side of the divide. “Well that explains that then,” she said, and headed back inside and readied herself for a walk into town.

She inquired of the woman she’d previously spoken with serving at the Cooperative Store as to who lived in the little cottage on the adjoining property. The woman baulked a little at first then whispered that a madwoman had inhabited it with her brother and a servant.

“Well they’re not very nice neighbours,” she replied testily.

The woman grabbed her by the wrist and thrust her face forward, her eyes full of terror. “But the madwoman’s been dead for twenty years, there’s been no one there ever since.”

Moving hastily along the street she let out a sudden gasp as a tall shadowy figure stepped in front of her. “Geez, you’re a bit jumpy for only one day along,” he said grinning. He pushed back his hat wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “And it’s too bloody hot to be bustling along like that, this heat will knock the stuffing out of you.”

She was curt in her salutation and silence fell between them. Knowing she’d been unnecessarily abrupt she accepted his offer of a lift back to the farmhouse more graciously. On the drive she revealed to him bits and pieces of her first night alone in the bush. He took in her account of the incident with sincerity and accepted her offer of a cup of tea. As she made the brew he headed off through the orchard, climbed the fence easily, and took a look around the old cottage. He returned to the kitchen with a hat full of plump apricots and settled at the Formica table where she laid out the china teapot, milk jug, sugar bowl, and cups and saucers.

She sat with her hands under her chin. To him she looked like a young bewildered child. He was tempted to brush away a wayward lock of hair that had fallen across her face. Instead he said, “I had a look around. The windows are boarded up, the doors locked. I knocked, called out. No one’s there.”

“What condition’s the place in?” she inquired.

“It’s pretty rotten; weeds everywhere, the garden’s gone to rack and ruin, bits of roofing iron falling off. Gutters and the tank are corroded. Doesn’t look like anybody’s been near the joint in yonks.”

She turned the teapot three times clockwise, then anticlockwise twice before pouring a rich aromatic brew. She sipped her tea thoughtfully for a moment.

“Well it’s weird. So, what about this story of the madwoman? Do you believe it?”

He didn’t answer at once. Everyone in town knew the story, but he himself had never really given the truth of it any great deal of consideration. It was just one of those stories that people love to tell and any credence had long since been lost in the telling and re-telling over the years.

“Story is she used to wander the town talking to herself. Wore a big dirty brown coat no matter what the season. Always carried a carpet bag slung over her arm and she’d pick up anything she could find. People said she’d go and hide it but it was only rubbish in the first place.

“Then no one saw her for ages, apparently she fell in and out of a coma. Her brother and a woman helper came to look after her. But every now and then she’d go off her rocker and could be heard laughing her head off, then crying and sobbing. It scared the b’jesus out of people. She died during one of her attacks. Her brother and the helper cleared off pretty much soon after. Since then no one has dared to live in the joint. Haven’t put the wind up ya have I?”

His eyes betrayed a devilish glint, try as she might to resist she gave in and smiled, a broad beaming smile.

“If you think I’m going to turn tail and scuttle back to the city you need to know I am made of much sterner stuff than your little tale of horror.”

But she stayed up all that night, made jam and kept watch. Nothing happened, not a sound. She waited until dawn and then went to bed. A month passed during which she never heard anything more.

The intolerable heat continued. Some nights she spent sleeping happily on the back porch where if there was any breeze to catch, this was the spot. One night she was fast asleep when something happened to her. It was a funny feeling as if someone had given her a little nudge to warn her. She woke suddenly. She lay there on the veranda in her makeshift bed and then in the same way as before she heard it. A long, low gurgle like someone enjoying an old joke. It came from down in the orchard and it got louder until it became a great bellow of laughter. She jumped up but her legs began to tremble. It was horrible to stand there and listen to the mad peals of laughter that echoed through the night. Then again there was the pause, after that the shriek of pain and ghastly sobbing. It didn’t sound human; it might well have been a wounded animal. Now she was scared stiff. She was rooted to the spot; even if she wanted she couldn’t move.

In time the sound stopped, not suddenly, it just died away bit by bit. Straining into the hot night air she couldn’t hear a thing, eventually she found her feet and crept inside and hid. She remembered the words of Trudy Jenkins, the serving woman from the store, that the madwoman’s outbursts came in fits and spurts. Other times she’d be quite quiet. She set to thinking about if there was a pattern to the mania and figured it’d been twenty-eight days between the two attacks.

“Of course,” she whispered to herself. “It’s the full moon that sets her off.”

Although her past would attest to her being reluctant by nature she made a resolve to get to the bottom of this. The Bank of New South Wales calendar that hung on the kitchen wall told her which day the moon would next be full. She made ready. New batteries for a long handled dented tin torch she’d found in the hall cupboard. A short sharp blade knife from the shed, probably used for cutting apricots to stack on the wooden trays ready for the sulphur boxes for drying. Come the night of the full moon she didn’t go to bed. She sat and waited, humming a familiar tune she felt remarkably calm, not scared at all. The torch she tested by turning it on and off, on and off. Seasons were changing, the long hot summer days were shortening with autumn’s approach. A cool wind gusted through the trees rustling the leaves, some began falling to ground. The moon was high and full, the gathering wisps of cloud that passed across its face could not dull its glow.

At last she heard a little sound, the sound she knew.

“I knew it,” she almost laughed. “Just as I suspected. It’s the full moon, as regular as clockwork.”

Waving the torch in front of her she ran down the veranda steps and through the orchard. The chuckling got louder and louder the closer she got; careful not to trip on fallen branches and over rotting fruit, she gripped the knife firmly in the other hand holding it away from her body. The house at the bottom of the hill beckoned, shimmering in the moonlight. She had no difficulty getting through the barbed wire fence and slowed her pace to make her way more carefully through the overgrown shrubs and garden as she approached the front door.

Putting her ear to the wooden door she listened and heard clearly the madwoman’s gales of laughing coming from somewhere deep inside the house. She banged on the door which amused the madwoman immensely who laughed more and more uproariously. She knocked again, louder and yet louder again. The more she knocked the more the laughter taunted her.

Furious she shouted, “Open the door or I’ll break it down.”

Not hesitating a second she shouldered the door. There was little resistance, years of neglect and wood rot had taken its toll and the door fell off its hinges and caved in. The house welcomed her in as if it new to expect her. She gagged; the stink that greeted her nearly laid her low. After twenty years locked up playing home to birds, wild animals and vermin the air was acrid, the floor putrid, crunched underfoot. Trying to orient herself she couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the noise was coming from, but it was enough to raise the dead. The walls reverberated with the screams and laughter. She had entered a chamber of horrors. The arc of light as she swung the torch lit upon a door to another room. It gave way to her touch and she entered a white room without a stick of furniture in it, yet here the sound was louder. She followed it into a passageway that led to the bottom of a small staircase and an upstairs room that she hadn’t noticed from outside. The laughter came from above her; she had reached the source. The madwoman was directly overhead now.

Up to now her courage had not wavered, yet here she stood on the precipice of uncovering the house’s secret and she felt she could go no further.  Something inside her memory flashed sharp and painful. Sights and smells of madness; urine, an iron bed and cold sheets binding her down, the rustle of long starched skirts, white caps or were they veils, echoing steps of rubber soled shoes on a waxed linoleum floor, furtive looks and murmuring voices discussing her within earshot yet indistinct. With effort she pushed them away as the howling penetrated and brought her back to reality.

Timidly she edged herself up the flight of stairs hoping they would hold and not crumble to dust under her footfall. She was there. All that separated her from the sound was the door. It was a simple matter of turning the doorknob and entering. A simple matter. Then the laughter was cut, cut with a knife you’d say. What followed was a hiss of pain, not something she’d heard before, it was too low to have carried up to her place. Then a gasp.

“Aggghhh,” she heard the madwoman scream. “You’re killing me. Take it away. Oh God! Help me.”

The realisation that it must be the old woman’s brother and helper torturing her was all it took. She flung the door open and burst in causing a rush of air that blew open tattered old curtains. Moonlight streamed into the room. Her head was filled with wretched groans, moaning and sobbing. Someone was at the point of death.

Suddenly she felt tightness around her throat like a hand throttling her. Wildly she slashed at the air with the knife and heard an unnatural scream. It was her voice. The knife clattered across the floor as she clutched her throat trying to pries the grip off and regain breath. A solid whack on the shoulder knocked her to her knees. Frantically she swung the torch around, the shaft of light pierced a darkened corner. Her eyes took a moment to readjust from the blow before she saw what clearly lay before her.