Sophie Draper - The Stranger in Our Home

But where was that noise coming from? I wondered if it was the boiler, something that had worked itself loose, or pipes contracting in the cold. Had the boiler broken down too? I pushed on my slippers and padded through to the kitchen.

I started to fill the kettle. Then I berated myself – no electricity, remember? I turned to the Aga; it was oil-fired and still warm, thank God for that – heat and something to cook by. I filled a saucepan and set it down on a hotplate.

A flurry of wind caught the side of the house, whipping the branches of a tree, clattering against the window frame. Was that the noise? By now I was too awake to sleep again. It was relatively pleasant in the kitchen and the sitting room felt uninviting. I rifled in a drawer where I thought I’d seen a hot water bottle and pulled it out. I fished out a candle too, jamming it into the empty wine bottle from the day before. I sat down on a chair to wait for the water to boil.

My thoughts turned to the man in the jeep. My rescuer, Craig. There was something about him. Maybe it was his height, or the way his hair grew, unkempt, curling at the back. Why was I even thinking about him? Just because he’d taken an interest in me. The cottage had always been empty in my childhood. I bit my lip; I hadn’t banked on a neighbour that close, I’d been looking forward to the isolation. I stood up to peer out of the hall window. I could see the cottage he lived in, further up the road, its roof snuggled close to the ground where the road climbed and fell away.

I returned to the kitchen. My phone was still on the table, where I’d left it after drawing the swan prince. Reading from my phone wasn’t quite the same as reading a physical book. I thought of all those stories where the moonlight on a particular night could make the letters of a book come alive, or reveal the secret opening of a door cut into rock, shimmering, brightening, an arc of light bursting into life as the door magically opened onto a world of princesses and fairies, goblins and monsters, promises broken and resolved.

I’d stolen a book once – why had I only just remembered that? – from the mobile library van, in the days when they still had such things. I’d loved it so much I couldn’t bring myself to return it. Thief . I rolled the word around in my head. That was me. The sense of guilt gave me a brief shiver.

I picked up the phone, swiping the screen until the file jumped into life. I looked down the list of stories in the commission:

The Foundling.

King Rat . I knew that one – wasn’t that about a boy who liked to play jokes? He got turned into a rat at the end of the story.

The Stubborn Child.

I almost laughed when I read this one – with satisfaction, not humour. A snippet of a tale in the way that some folk tales were – short and ambiguous. Perfect for me to put my own stamp on. The water was boiling, I filled my hot water bottle and made myself a cup of tea. Hugging both, I sat at the table, pulling the candle closer. Reaching for a pencil and paper, I began to draw. The old house empty around me, the wind struggling at its walls, the snow like cold fingers clawing at the windows, the clacking in the distance, it all merged within my head. And I was there, an uneven sequence of sketches sprawling across the page.

In a graveyard, a woman dressed in black stood watching. She was standing beside a mound of newly dug earth, her head bowed, her hair caught beneath a long black veil. The grave was small, a scaled-down stone at its head. In the fading light, the letters were unclear.

The ground was moving at the woman’s feet, the earth breaking, cracking. Something thrust out from beneath. A hand, a small white arm, the black soil clinging to its skin. The fist was closed tight, the whole thing stiff with rage.

The mother stepped backwards in alarm, her feet neatly booted. The child’s arm stretched out, the fingers uncurled, feeling for her legs. But the mother wasn’t having it and she kicked the hand away.

The hand reached out again, scrabbling for a hold in the dirt. This time, the mother bent, batting it down and stamping on it. She picked up a branch fallen from the trees. The child’s hand moved once more, persistent and imploring, stubborn. Now the mother lifted up her branch and brought it whipping down upon the arm.

The arm shot back into the ground, shrivelling from sight. The soil folded into place and the grave fell quiet.

What kind of story was that? These stories were intriguing, like little windows into human weakness – mothers don’t always love their children, I knew that. What made a mother anyway? An accident of birth, marriage or an inner instinct to love and care? And who knew what was behind this story? Perhaps the boy deserved his fate? Perhaps he was a fairy child, a changeling, substituted into the mother’s family to torment her? As the thoughts passed through my mind I picked up a stick of charcoal and began to draw again.

The last picture lay before me, the lines so heavily smudged that my fingers were ingrained with black. It was a grave. But this grave was ripped apart, the soil piled high on either side. A tall yew hedge stood behind, each branch, each twig bending in the same direction. Line after line, twig after twig. So close together, it seemed as dense as the earth beneath. At the bottom of the hole was a child, a boy, his eyes wide open. The hole was too deep for his escape. He was sitting, his knees pulled tight under his chin, his arms wrapped around his legs. It was a young boy, maybe nine years old? Defiance etched onto his face. Then he moved, one arm reaching out. Upwards. Towards his mother. Towards me.

I let the stick of charcoal drop to the table as if it stung. It broke in two. I had become completely immersed in my drawing, my interpretation of the story, and the image was so austere, so … disturbing … moving. Why did I think that?

Clack, clack, clack.

The noise broke into my thoughts. Where was that stupid sound coming from? I leapt to my feet. It wasn’t the Aga, or the trees outside. It was coming from somewhere else in the house – upstairs. I thought maybe one of the bedrooms on the first floor.

I turned towards the stairs. I didn’t want to go up there. I was okay down here, where the rooms were familiar, where the outside was easily accessed. But at night, upstairs was something else. Even my old room. Unexplored rooms that hadn’t been used for all those years, their memories struggling under a thick layer of dust.

There it went again, louder and more persistent. The noise. I couldn’t ignore it.

I climbed the stairs, one step at a time, one hand sliding on the banister. It was a long way down, the grand height of the building soaring over my head and beneath too. The wood was smooth beneath my touch and as I reached the first floor, the point where my stepmother had fallen, I gave a small cry and snatched my hand away. A large splinter stuck out from the fleshy part of my palm. I stared down at the banister. I hadn’t noticed before that it was scratched. I pulled the splinter out and sucked my hand. But now the bare wood jarred against the finely polished surface. Had that been something to do with Elizabeth’s accident?

My other hand reached for the wall switch, flicking it on/off, on/off … the electricity still wasn’t working. It seemed deliberate, vengeful – why would I think that?

Clack, clack. Don’t be ridiculous, I thought. It’s only a noise, a branch against a window, a pipe knocking in the wall. Suddenly, the hall flooded with light, the power back on, and I blinked. I looked down. Even from the first-floor landing, the drop to the hall below seemed dizzying. There was the front door, the table by the wall, the space on the floor where the rug had been, the ground still bearing a faint tell-tale stain of red.