Recollection

Laura was terrified. She was holding William’s warm, but lifeless hand as he lay in the coma care ward of the general hospital. Terrified because she knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that the evil girls who had suspended her from the ceiling, and turned her sister into a drooling, mindless husk, were the personification of her long dead daughter, Emily.
Once she had recovered from dropping onto the bed, Laura had rushed to check on the condition of William and her sister, before calling an ambulance. The initial prognosis of the hospital doctors was that William was in a self imposed mental cocoon; and that her sister seemed to have had her entire mind wiped clean, with no indication of any thought processes, only those unconscious processes necessary to keep her alive.
Ben had arrived from the airport a couple of hours ago, and had now gone off to find them both some coffee, and something to eat. As Laura stared at the wires and tubes that snaked from William to monitoring machines, she began to think back on the events, many years ago, that had led to the terror they all now faced.
Laura had grown up in a small, “nothing ever happens” village in Devon. Her parents were devout Christians, and Laura’s life revolved around school, church, home, church and more church; with nothing in the remotest bit exciting ever happening, save for the odd sisterly squabble with Susie.
In her mid teens, and doing well in school, Laura had finally decided that there must be more to life than was being offered by Boredom–in-the-Moor, Devon, and that she had to escape before she went barmy. Her way out came in the form of her Uncle Tobias. Tobias had been a big noise in the advertising industry, and was now living the life of luxury, in early retirement in a rambling old rectory just outside Norwich.
Tobias knew the owners of a prestigious advertising agency that had recently relocated to Norwich, and by pulling a few strings had gained Laura a place in their account management department. The rectory was so large that her uncle, and his wife Agnes could easily accommodate her without cramping their lifestyle, and Laura could have the use of a family car to commute to the office once she had passed her driving test.
By eighteen, Laura had a good job, a car, and a lifestyle in Norwich that most of her friends in Devon would have given their eye teeth for. But then it had all fallen apart. After one night of drunken stupidity with someone she didn’t even know, she found herself pregnant. In a panic she kept the news to herself, not even telling her best friend. She could hardly tell her parents what had happened; they were so devout that the news would hurt them dreadfully, so for a couple of months she did nothing, hoping that somehow it would all just go away.
But of course it didn’t; and Laura soon realised that she had to do something, because before long her pregnancy would announce itself whether she liked it or not. She finally decided to confide in Tobias and Agnes, in a desperate bid to sort out the terrible mess she’d got herself into. Amazingly to Laura, they were fantastic about things. It was arranged that she would take a leave of absence from her job, have the baby at the rectory, although, because nobody, especially Laura’s family could ever know about the birth, Tobias and Agnes took the very risky step of not registering the birth. The baby would be brought up in secret at the rectory, and as Agnes was a retired teacher, she would give the child one to one tuition to ensure a first class education.
And so it happened. Laura gave birth to Emily at the rectory with Agnes acting as midwife; nothing about the birth was remarkable, it didn’t take too long, and it wasn’t at all difficult; indeed it was completely free of complications. However, something was not quite right. Emily’s eyes were open from birth, and from the first time that Laura looked into them, she felt a sickening repulsion deep inside her, tinged with an unfathomable fear and a compulsion to run as fast and as far away from those eyes as possible. Laura never did bond with Emily. Whenever she falteringly tried to breast feed her, the first look into those eyes forced her to give up the attempt and reach for the formula milk instead.
Tobias and Agnes however, took to Emily straight away; and as time progressed took a greater and greater part in the day to day dealings with the child, effectively becoming her surrogate parents. Laura had to physically steel herself to have anything but the most basic relationship with her daughter, as the feeling of wrongness grew within her.
Laura had gone back to work as soon as any physical signs of her pregnancy had subsided, and she threw herself into the business with a vengeance. After two years, Laura had so impressed the powers that be with her dedication and success that she was promoted to lead the client account division at the Manchester branch. Tobias and Agnes insisted that she took the position, clearly happy to bring up Emily themselves; and anyway, she could come back to see her at weekends. And that was how things developed, until Emily was four years old.
Laura was home for the weekend, when Emily called her from the kitchen into the lounge, “Look,” she’d beamed at Laura, “Look at the kitty.” Laura’s eyes dropped to Emily’s lap where Maxwell, the pet cat lay with Aunt Agnes’ sewing scissors protruding from a deep gash in his chest, his heart’s blood pouring out over Emily’s dress and legs and forming a growing puddle on the beige carpet.
Laura’s piercing scream had summoned Tobias and Agnes to the lounge, “What have you done?” Laura had shouted, “Emily, what have you done to poor Maxwell?”
“He said he didn’t like me, so I sent him to where dead kitty’s go.” said Emily, smiling sweetly up at the horror struck group that stood over her.
From then on Emily’s behaviour became more bizarre and frightening. She would suddenly stop whatever she was doing and cock an ear, as if listening to somebody, or something talking to her; then giggle quietly to herself. On many occasions she would suddenly look up as if somebody had entered the room, and track them with her eyes; although nobody was there. Emily would be found huddled in a corner, talking to herself in an unintelligible language which Agnes was convinced was just a childish form of speaking that she had made up, but it had totally freaked Laura out.
On one weekend visit, Laura was in the kitchen helping Agnes to make some jam, when Emily had breezed in and began fingering the handles in the knife block. She’d drawn out a large chef’s knife and began tilting the blade so that the sunlight reflected in a line on the ceiling, “This is my favourite knife.” She had declared to Agnes and Laura. “Really, darling,” said Agnes absently trying to weigh the sugar, “Why’s that?”
“Because it’s the one I’m going to use to cut Mummy’s liver out.” Emily had replied sweetly, before skipping out of the room.
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