The Cruelest Month

‘It would be,’ said Gilles. ‘They’re never right by the door. Never in rose gardens in the summer or living in the ice cream man’s truck.’



‘This is like a game I used to play with Peter,’ said Clara to Myrna, who really didn’t care. She was trying to figure out whether, yet again, she’d be the slowest one out of there. Maybe Hazel would be slower, Myrna thought, brightening, and the demons would get her. But she’d probably put on a burst of speed if only to save her daughter. Myrna, as a psychologist, knew that mothers found amazing resources when it came to their kids.



Fucking maternal instinct, thought Myrna, screws up my life again. She stepped onto the stairs, the carpet runner worn and moth-eaten, and as she mounted one agonizing step at a time she heard the furious beating of the wings growing louder.



‘Whenever we watch scary movies and people walk into a haunted house –’ Clara was still talking. Good, thought Myrna. The demons will zero in on her. ‘– we’d play “When would you leave?” Disembodied heads floating around, screams of pain, friends disemboweled, and still they stay.’



‘Are you finished?’



‘I am actually.’ Clara had managed to scare herself even more and wondered, if this was a movie, would Peter be screaming at the screen for her to leave.



‘In there.’



‘It would be,’ muttered Gilles.



Jeanne was standing in front of a closed door. The only one closed on the whole floor. Now there was silence.



Suddenly there was a mad flapping of wings against the door as though the thing had flung itself against it.



Jeanne reached out but Monsieur Béliveau laid his long, slender hand on her wrist, taking her hand off the knob. Then he stepped in front of her and put his own hand on the knob.



And opened the door.



They could see nothing. Stare as they might their eyes wouldn’t adjust to the darkness. But something in there found them. Not the bird, which was silent for the moment. But something else. The room produced waves of chill and riding on them was the slightest hint of perfume.



The room smelled of flowers. Fresh, spring flowers.



At the door Clara was overtaken by melancholy, a sadness that seeped from deep down into the very earth of her. She felt the sorrow of the room. The longing of the room.



Clara gasped for breath and realized she’d been holding it.



‘Come on,’ Jeanne whispered, her voice seeming in Clara’s head, ‘let’s do what we came for.’



The group watched as first Jeanne then Clara stepped into the darkness. The rest followed and their flashlights soon lit the room in patches. Heavy velvet curtains hung askew at the windows. Against one wall stood a four-poster bed, still made up in cream and lace. The pillow was indented as though a head uneasily rested there.



‘I know this room,’ said Myrna. ‘And so do you,’ she said to both Clara and Gabri.



‘Old Timmer Hadley’s bedroom,’ said Clara, amazed she hadn’t recognized it. But such was the power of fear. Clara had been in this room many times, tending to the dying old woman.



She’d hated Timmer Hadley. Hated the house. Hated the snakes she’d heard slithering in the basement. And a few years ago this house had almost killed her.



Clara felt a wave of revulsion. A desire to put a torch to this cursed place. This place that harbored all their sorrow and anger and fear, but not because it was selfless. No. The old Hadley house first bred those things, sent sorrow and terror into the world, and its progeny was simply coming home, like sons and daughters at Easter.



‘Let’s leave,’ said Clara, turning to the door.



‘We can’t,’ said Jeanne.



‘Why not?’ said Monsieur Béliveau. ‘I’m with Clara. This doesn’t feel good.’



‘Wait,’ said Gilles. The large man stood in the center of the room, his eyes closed, his bushy red beard pointing to the wall as his head tilted back. ‘This is just a house,’ he said at last in a voice both calm and insistent. ‘It needs our help.’



‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ said Hazel, trying to take Sophie’s hand though the girl kept shaking her off. ‘Is it just a house or does it need our help? It’s one or the other but not both. My house never asks for help.’



‘Maybe you aren’t listening,’ suggested Gilles.



‘I want to stay,’ said Sophie. ‘Madeleine, what about you?’



‘Can we sit down?’



‘You can lie down if you like,’ said Gabri, flicking his flashlight over the bed.