Wringland: A Chilling Ghost Story by Sally Spedding

Author:Sally Spedding [Spedding, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2018-03-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

On that first Wednesday in June, the sea fret still hung over the marsh beyond Crowland Fen, trapping the Paternoster which rose from the lone figure seated some twenty yards adrift of safety.

‘Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us . . .’

Helen Quinn didn’t finish. She couldn’t. The cold silt was holding her fast, too near the mud lumps scored by sodden gulleys. Too near land solid enough to take her pursuer’s weight . . .

Her wheels were sinking, spoiling her plan to reach water in the shortest time possible. She twisted herself out of the seat and gripped the handles. She tried to push it, even to turn the thing over, get it nearer the sea, but her dead legs couldn’t find a hold. She looked round. Saw the familiar silhouette begin to work its way down, through the reed banks and the tufted islands, and as he drew closer she fancied she saw horns. Or was it merely hair protruding above each ear?

Her breath came in short harsh gasps. There was only one way to escape. She lay down and began a leaden crawl away from him, her arms dipping and heaving into the slough with each stroke, her boater finally leaving her head.

He was shouting something, the usual rage, the same obscenities as when he’d locked her up in the bat room, but her patient strokes took her further away to where the sea had thinned the mire and she could move more freely, albeit still dragging both legs behind. He wouldn’t risk it now, not with what he had left to do, and as the water lapped against her limbs, bearing her out towards the Humber, a smile formed on her lips as she finished the prayer.

Forgiveness? That was ripe: a nice solid word for those never moved to exercise it. She recalled his sermons, elaborating on that word as an oyster brings a pearl from a grain of sand. And the fools had believed him, every last one, especially his flower arranger, with her adoration, her pestering late-night phone calls.

*

The swimmer felt strangely light, no longer burdened by the twin yokes of guilt and obligation. The outgoing tide was obliging, with murmurings of half-forgotten names: those whom her life had touched, those whom her life itself had made . . .

As she slowed, anchored now by the weight of her useless appendages, Helen Quinn saw again her first-born centred in the hospital scan, swimming for his life, as she was now doing, her waters contoured like the waters of the world. Kicking up her insides – Ross Joseph. Taken before he could even cry, by a shadow unknown in medical terms, a rogue spirit from the cleric’s world of darkness. But she knew whose it was. Martha Robinson. Murderer. And for the one who came next, Rosie was the closest name to his she could find.

Rosie . . . For all my sins .

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.