Excerpt from book two Where the Moths Hide
Chapter 1
June 22nd, 1881
Yorkshire, England
At first the sound was a distant whisper, like a soft tickle in her ear, until it slowly became louder, and Eva could make out a melodic hum. Was someone singing? Or was she dreaming of music again? Trapped in an endless tangle of dreary sleep, she could no longer tell reality from her nightmares.
“How much laudanum did you give the poor soul?” a man said.
“Not much more than the average dose. Try and open your eyes, child,” a woman said, her voice a soft murmur in Eva’s ear.
Eva stirred.
Something tugged her right eye open, forcing her pupil to painfully contract from the brightness. Before she could make sense of what she saw, her heavy lid fell shut, and she sank back into unconsciousness.
In her hazy mind, darkness pooled. As she stood alone, a looming sense of peril snapped at her nerves, and she frantically spun in circles in search of an exit.
The flame of a candle caught her eye.
Like a moth she felt drawn to its warming light until drumming footsteps echoed in the room around her. Frozen in fear, she whimpered.
“Something is disturbing the poor girl,” the man said. “Be quick, my peach, and hand me the smelling salts.”
“Shouldn’t we let her wake naturally?” the woman responded.
“That won’t do,” the man grumbled. “Look at her hand. We need to save it from infection, but before that, she must wake so I can assess her injuries.”
As the strangers continued to speak, the stalking shadow in Eva’s mind made itself known. A devil-like creature rushed from the surrounding blackness. The faint light of the candle made its bloodied skin glimmer like a candied apple. His eyes were beads of black as he reached for her with a clawed hand.
She stepped back, but he caught her throat. As he leaned his head closer to hers, his sharpened nails dug into the tendons of her neck. His mouth snapped open to reveal a set of sharpened teeth, between which saliva bubbled. His forked tongue extended from his mouth, snaking its way to her lips, and as it did, the blackness of his eyes transformed into a glimmering sea blue.
She made to scream but the abrupt stench of ammonia silenced her.
Eva’s head shot up.
Pulled awake from her nightmare, she blinked away the haze to stare at the two strangers by her bedside.
To Eva’s right was a middle-aged black woman with large brown eyes framed in delicate wrinkles. To her left, an older white man with a head of wiry grey hair, round glasses and a gentle smile. Both leaned forward, pinning her arms to the bed.
Sobbing, Eva tried to wiggle free.
“There, there, child, all is well,” the woman said, squeezing Eva’s forearm. “My name is Phoebe, and this is my husband, Rich. He’s a doctor.”
Was that an American accent?
Tongue-tied, Eva’s gaze bounced between them. As she tried to recall why she was in a bed surrounded by strangers, her heart pounded like a drum. Mind blank, nothing came.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Rich said.
Eva opened her parched mouth. The words scraped along her throat like barbed wire. “Where … where am I?”
“At the Randall farm,” Phoebe said.
Eva cast a weary glance around the room.
She lay in a large bed beneath a ceiling of dark wooden beams where a gas lamp hung from a hook. To her right, behind Phoebe, was a square window. A tree fluttered against the panes. The low afternoon sun twinkled in flashes of yellow between the green leaves. To her left, next to Rich, was a wooden cart with various medical supplies. On the wall behind him, above a dresser painted yellow, sat a thick cross with a figure of Jesus.
The Randall farm.
“How long were you lost on the moor?” Rich said.
Eva looked at him. Confusion clouded her mind like a swarm of angry bees. It was the kind of confusion that brought on a sick feeling deep within one’s core.
“Lost?” Eva managed to say. “When was I lo—”
A blinding flash of memory came to her mind, forcing her eyes shut.
She was lying in a heap of burnt-red heather with Henry by her side. Holding hands, they stared at the starry sky. Streams of falling stars burned across the midnight darkness. The sensation of teetering on the precipice of two realities gripped her. She had felt death; she was sure of it.
Warm fingers squeezed her left hand.
“Stay awake,” Rich said.
Alive.
“I need you to stay awake for a little longer,” Rich pressed on, shaking her hand with more force. “Open your eyes, miss.”
You’re alive.
With a strained breath, she forced her eyelids open. Her gaze landed on the window. Green leaves, yellow sun and blue sky. They were the colours of new beginnings, of a healing warmth, and of a needed freedom. I’m alive. Digging her fingers into the bedsheets, she tried to sit up, but her body felt as heavy as a boulder. All she wanted was to smell the damp earth, feel the warm sun on her skin and touch the summer wind.
“Miss, you must remain calm. There isn’t a need to sit up just yet,” Rich said.
“But … but…” Eva stammered.
“Are you in any pain?” Rich asked.
“What?” Eva said.
“Do you have pain?”
“P-pain? Why would I—” She looked at her body.
Her dress and undergarments had been removed. Clothed in a thin beige nightgown, her pale and lanky limbs were exposed. Dirt marked her skin, bruises painted her ankles, large scratch-like red wounds coloured her forearms and there was brown blood caked on the bandages wrapped around her right palm.
“I’m fine,” Eva said at once.
“Miss—”
“I’m fine,” she repeated with more harshness. Maybe if she said it once more, it would give the illusion she was not injured, that she had only been having a bad dream.
“You are not fine,” Henry spoke, his voice echoing throughout the room.
The sudden sound of him stole her breath. She swung her head from side to side, but he was nowhere. She wanted to shout profanities, beat him with her fist, shove him against the wall with all her strength and hurt him, but she did not know why.
Fingers snapped before Eva’s nose.
Her gaze locked onto Rich’s grey eyes, round with concern.
“Focus on my voice, miss. It’s important for the assessment that you answer my questions,” he said. “Do you have pain anywhere else?”
Assessment? She looked back at her body. She did not feel pain but the injuries marking her skin told a different story. She was gravely injured. She should be feeling pain. Why could she not feel anything?She trembled so hard, her muscles locked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how it came to this,” Eva said.
Rich’s fluffy grey brows pulled together. “You have no recollection?”
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “I don’t … know.”
“Right,” Rich sighed. “Well, you are safe now, miss.”
Safe.
Hadn’t Henry said the same thing? Hadn’t she believed him with all her stupid heart? Look at where that had got her – beaten and disoriented in a stranger’s bed. She shut her eyes to stop the tears, but it was no use. A dizzy spell swept her up into a chaotic storm of exhaustion. Within seconds, she was crying angry, gulping tears and writhing between the sheets in a heartache she did not understand.
“Phoebe, please ready the medicine,” Rich said. “There is no use in questioning the girl. You’ve given her too much laudanum to form a cohesive thought.”
Dread gripped Eva.
“No”—Eva reached for Rich’s hand—“please, I beg you.”
“Your palm will be a quick procedure. Do not fret; all is well,” Rich said. “What is your name?”
“Eva, but—”
“Eva, what year is it?”
“Twenty eighteen.”
A tense pause stretched for what seemed an eternity.
Eva regarded Rich and then Phoebe. Their expressions told her it was the wrong answer. With a start, she remembered the events of June 17th, 1881, when Henry Asheford had got engaged to another woman and tried to get rid of her with the help of a gang of criminals.
A searing pain ignited in her chest, scorching her insides like wildfire. Fat tears streamed down her burning face.
“Make it stop … please! Make it all stop,” Eva cried out.
“The pain?”
“It hurts; everything hurts,” she said. The memories, most of all.
“Phoebe, the chloroform, please.”
Fear twisted her gut. Chloroform? “No—”
Rich took hold of a cloth from Phoebe.
“Fear not, you are in good hands, child,” Phoebe said, patting Eva’s shoulder. “My husband is a grand surgeon.”
As the cloth came closer to her face, the blood crashed hard against her ears. “No – get that away from me – I don’t want it!” Eva screamed.
She tried to sit up but was overpowered by the hands holding her down. Without the energy to fight, Eva collapsed back onto the bed.
“No”—she shook her head from side to side—“not the chloroform. Please, God, anything but that.”
Phoebe brushed Eva’s hair from her forehead. “How about a song? Went down to the river Jordon…”
The cloth was firmly placed over Eva’s nose and mouth.
Her cries were instantly muffled as her fingers clawed into the soft material of the mattress. At one last-ditch attempt to sit, she briefly caught a glimpse of Henry at the foot of the bed.
Her eyes widened and a whimpering help escaped her lips.
In his brown waistcoat and white shirt, with his dark auburn hair combed to the side, he was a picture of charm. While he played with his pocket watch in hand, his steely eyes bore into her. They were full of cold scrutiny.
“You should have listened when I told you to return to your world.” Henry turned the watch around in his palm. The shattered groove across the watch face glinted in the sun. “But you had to be stubbornly wicked, didn’t you?”
Gagged by the cloth, Eva couldn’t speak. She stared at Henry’s fading figure until all that remained was the blueness of his eyes against a darkening backdrop. Her head flopped against the pillow. The chloroform had hit its mark, sedating her nerves and slowing her breathing. Within seconds she was asleep.
Somewhere in her unconsciousness, Phoebe’s singing was a distant hum. Her soulful, husky voice was soothing, keeping the nightmare from returning. It was as if the stranger understood her pain and, for a fleeting moment, Eva no longer felt alone.