Chapter Two – Broken Wings
Come nightfall the essentials were unpacked, the rest of the boxes stored in their appropriate room according to their contents. Having not had the power connected yet, the Whitmore family ate by candle light. Daine muttered something about needing to take his daughter home to punish her for being the one responsible for her and Abi disappearing earlier before ducking out the door, probably to get some real food from the nearest takeaway store.
Abigail jabbed at the burnt lump of unrecognisable meat on her plate, wondering why Kasia insisted on cooking. Did she mean to torture her kids? Alex managed to eat his food and keep it down. Jakob threw his finely diced meal at the wall. Kasia didn’t eat – she never did.
“I’m full,” Abi lied. “Want the rest, mom?”
“Give it to your brother,” Kasia replied without looking up from the thick novel she was immersed in.
“I don’t think I could eat it all,” Alex said quickly.
Abi stared at her mother’s scary-thin arms, thinking back to photos where Kasia almost looked plump. Before Abi’s father died. “Mom, you should eat...”
“How old are you?” Kasia asked abruptly.
Abigail frowned, using her sixth sense to search the reason of Kasia asking. Unable to figure it out after a good feel of her mother’s aura, Abi answered uncertainly. “Almost seven...”
“So why do you think you can tell me what to do?” Kasia went on.
Abigail’s gut churned – from the food or being in trouble again, she didn’t know. “Mom...”
“What? Explain yourself.”
“’msrry,” Abigail mumbled.
Satisfied, Kasia turned to her youngest son. “Jake, do you want more?”
“Ehhhhhhh,” Jake said.
“More?” Kasia repeated.
“Noooooooo,” Jake wriggled in his highchair, struggling to get out. He began to cry. “Ouuuuuut!” the small boy banged on the tray in front of him, tears and snot pouring down his face. “Ehhh.”
Abi and Kasia jumped to their feet to pick him up at the same time. Abi reached her brother first, but Kasia was intent on being the one to tend to Jakob. She pushed passed Abi, knocking her into the highchair. It wobbled, and tipped. Abi’s eyes squeezed shut, and when she opened them, Jakob was sprawled across the floor screaming.
“Look at what you’ve done!” Kasia scooped Jakob off the ground and cradled him gently. “Go to bed!”
“Mom...”
“Just go!”
“Sorry,” Abi squeaked, fleeing from the kitchen.
Abigail padded up the stairs, puffs of dust rising from the carpet with each step. Upstairs had filthy magenta carpet covering the floorboards and long winding corridors stretching into nothingness. I wonder if anyone’s died in this house, Abi thought, retreating to her bedroom.
That night, lying awake in bed, Abigail’s head filled with thoughts of all the things she missed. Her father. His smell and gentle touch. She struggled to recall much about him, just fragments of special moments. Dakota, he was called. A name that meant friend to all. She remembered Dakota singing to her, he had the voice of an angel. She remembered him picking her off the ground when she grazed her knees, and kissing her all better.
She missed her mother. Not the empty shell Kasia had become, but the person who used to fill that shell, before Dakota’s death. She missed her old house, her comfortable bed, the constant reassuring glow of the nearby street light through her window at night. She missed the times she could laugh with ease, and didn’t feel like the mother of her two brothers. She missed being able to act her age.
Movement in the room distracted her reminiscing. A man-sized shadow flitted across the patch of moonlight on the stained carpet. The darkness in the corners of the room grew to become three-dimensional. Abigail recalled that her nightlight was still packed away in a box in the corner. She cowered beneath the covers. The Shadows closed in around her, whispering to each other, a babble of hisses so quiet Abi could’ve imagined it.
“Go away!” she cried. They recoiled at the sound of her voice, but then they were advancing again, drawing closer, sucking the warmth from the room. “Please!” Abigail sprung out of bed and raced from the room. Her tiny feet padded quickly down the dusty corridor, Shadows snapping at her heels.
“Mooooom!” she squealed, barging through a door. The master bedroom lay beyond, her mother’s sleeping figure so still she could’ve been a corpse. Abi slammed the door shut on the Shadows, but they came pouring beneath the crack. “Mommy!”
“What?” Kasia groaned into her pillow.
“The Shadows,” Abi panted. “They- they-”
“Abigail, go back to bed.”
“But the Shadows...” the young girl whimpered, tugging at the blanket tucked around her mother.
“Sing to them and they’ll go away. Now get out.” Kasia didn’t believe the Shadows were real. No one did. Abigail was alone.
Scanning the room, Abigail saw that the shadows were thin; most of them were waiting in the corridor for her. If they could, she knew they’d be snickering at her. Abi closed her eyes, held her breath, then sprinted for the door. In the corridor the hulking mass of darkness reared and rose above her, looming over her like a wave about to crash down on her head.
“Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,” Abi began to sing in a tiny voice. The Shadows shivered. They had never shivered before. “Merry, merry king of the bushes he...” Shivering still, the Shadows seemed to shrink, blending in with the natural darkness of the night. “Laugh kookaburra, laugh kookaburra, fun your life must be.”
Alone in the dark corridor, Abigail took a deep breath. They were gone. Small wisps of shadow tails could be seen around the edging of the walls, but that was all.
Abigail dashed back to her bedroom and jumped the distance from the door to her bed. It sagged under impact, the old springs creaking. She crawled under the moth eaten blankets, curling up tightly. For hours she tried, but she couldn’t sleep.
The old house groaned and the wind howled, getting louder and louder in a steady crescendo. Abi covered her ears with her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut, but the racket grew louder still. Then all the noises – the rats scuttling in the roof, the breathing walls - just stopped.
Music floated in from beneath the crack under Abigail’s bedroom door - the soft wavering notes of a violin. Abi rubbed her sleepy eyes and rolled out of bed. She was sure the sound was real, and beautiful. A crack of light split the darkness of the room as she edged the stiff door open. A cold draft blew through the floor boards so Abi slipped on her slippers and dressing gown before heading out to investigate the music.
She followed the sound down the corridor. Descending into the lobby, Abi tested each step carefully for creaks before allowing her whole weight on it. Being urged onwards like a snake under a charm, she was led to the locked door in the study. The room with the Shadows. At first the door knob seemed too hard to turn, but it un-jammed with another try and the door swung open.
Moon light flooded through the windows, illuminating the silhouette of a man. No features were recognisable in the dim light, all Abi could make out was the violin at his chin. The bow glided smoothly across the strings in his slender hands, emitting the loveliest of sounds that made Abigail’s soul dance.
Abi watched him, entranced by his movements, by the music, by everything about the shadowy figure. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the person wasn’t quite a man, but a boy in his late teens, clad in black from head to toe. His straight hair shone bronze in the moonlight, falling around his pointed face.
The song turned sad towards the end, like an angel falling from heaven, it finished in a long poignant note. Silence crept up on Abigail faster than she had anticipated. She wasn’t ready for the music to stop.
“Keep going,” she said, her voice quiet in the spacious room. The boy’s eyes popped open in surprise, and Abi was astonished to see how dark a blue his irises were. She came to her senses, snapping out of a trance. “Who are you?” she demanded in a tiny voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice as smooth as his movements. “For trespassing, I mean. But I like to come here, to play violin, you know? It’s a beautiful old house.”
Abi wrinkled her nose. “It smells like old people’s feet.”
“And why, may I ask, have you been sniffing old people’s feet?”
A giggle bubbled to Abigail’s lips. “I haven’t! I just meant – it’s probably just as bad.”
The boy chuckled, setting his violin down on a dusty, moth-eaten couch. “My name’s Luke. What’s yours?”
“Abigail.”
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