Witch Hunt

Chapter Twenty-Four




It won’t surprise you to learn that that night I couldn’t sleep. Again. My brain whirled. Questions turned over in my head like a bloody washing machine on spin cycle. Who would want to swap Dan’s medication? Could an old acquaintance have broken into the flat? An ex-student with a grudge? Someone from his volatile pre-Mum period?

That kind of payback was nasty. There was no knowing what state people could get themselves into without correct medication. Whoever it was, they were damn spiteful. As my fury burnt through the night I resolved to find out who the culprit was and make them pay or face charges. People shouldn’t get away with stuff like that.

Then there was the question of why he thought I was in danger. I’d never given any hint that I wasn’t capable of looking after myself. And danger from what? My thoughts spiralled into a ceaseless whirl, concluding, after hours, that during the period when he was unwittingly withdrawing from his meds, Dan’s fractured psyche had twisted concern for my mum into a jumble of irrational anxieties. And then transferred them onto me.

People did that all the time: you got told off at work, came home and took it out on your nearest and dearest. If we could do that with anger, we could just as well do that with fear and anxiety.

There was no other logical explanation. But then a lot of things that were happening at the moment were not logical.

It was all crazy. And hectic too. Everything seemed to be hurtling through time, almost as if someone had flipped a fast-forward switch on my life. Things had happened in such quick succession that I had been unable to process them internally. Though, weirdly, at the same time, I was grateful. The frenetic activity was filling up the gap between me and Mum. I knew I was grieving but I was fighting giving in to it, holding the loss at bay while I concentrated on these other new phenomena.

I was still unwilling to use the ‘ghost’ word. In fact I felt more comfortable referring to the girl, or whatever she was – the memory, the apparition – as Rebecca. It kind of took the edge off. I had no doubt that if I used the G word or its associated language – haunting; bewitching; possession – it might unleash the fear that I was keeping abated, and if that came over me, I would be useless, gibbering, no more competent than Dan. Or Mum.

Mum.

Nor was it lost on me, this notion that I was possibly ‘seeing things’ as my mother had done. I had dismissed her experiences as insanity, psychoses that merely required chemical rebalancing for her to get a grip on reality. But what if the reality that I was beginning to see now, was the reality in which she had lived for the majority of her life? If I thought about it enough I could see that there had been a pattern to her bouts of ‘lunacy’. First she would become sad, then this would be compounded and transform into a darker thing – depression, anxiety, fear – then would come the ‘apparitions’, the voices.

My episodes had only begun since I lost Mum. When I, too, had been stressed and anxious, focusing hard on pain. Maybe that focus had meant that other parts of my brain weren’t holding up properly against these external forces. Maybe that preoccupation left part of me weak, creating a gap which gave Rebecca the chance to enter in?

Or perhaps it was psychological as Maggie had said: I had lost my mother and the guilt which flowed through my veins was manifesting itself in the visions of a young girl pleading for forgiveness: ‘I’m sorry.’ A transference of my internal culpability? An outward projection of loss, grief, blame? A seizure?

The answer was that ‘yes’, it could be any one of those things. What I really should do was make an appointment at the doctor’s. But that was a no-go after last night’s run-in with Doctor Franklin. I didn’t trust him and I no longer trusted Doctor Jarvis.

No, whatever was going on in my strange brain I was going to go with it, to ride it out to its conclusion. If it threatened at any point to overwhelm me, then I would seek assistance from some source. But for now I was resolved to move forwards. I would go to Manningtree tomorrow, for the book and to call up Rebecca, whatever she was – spirit or embodiment of guilt. Then I could let her know about what I was doing with Flick. Maybe that would assuage her guilt. Maybe it would assuage mine. At least it was doing something.

It was raining and somewhere in the attic water had got in. Perhaps Dan had dislodged a tile. I got up and tried lying on the sofa, listening to the steady drip, drip, drip until I gave up and got my laptop.

The light in the room was dim. I had purposely left only one lamp on to encourage sleep.

When it first happened I thought it was because it was attracted to the brightness of the screen: a black moth alighted on the top right-hand corner of my laptop.

I knew it was the season for it but there had been a hell of a lot of them around this year. They were getting everywhere.

I’d always been a bit of a swatter in days gone by but I found I was reluctant to crush the life out of this particular insect. It wasn’t completely black. Whitish specks freckled its wings like flakes of ash.

‘What are you then?’ I asked it. It spread its wings in response, inviting me to admire its swirls and shimmers. I smiled and, for want of anything better to do, entered ‘moths’ into an image search. On the third page I scrolled through I spotted a similar pair of wings. One click brought me through to the article, which the image illustrated.

‘The Peppered Moth: UK moth transforms from black to white as pollution decreases.’ The report went on to state that although these moths started off white, during the industrial revolution they turned black to match their environment. Now it seemed they were halfway through the process of returning to their original colour. A moth expert commented, ‘It’s the iconic moth. This is the one everyone learns about in school because it perfectly illustrates natural selection.’

‘Darwin would be proud,’ I told its little wings and clicked through to a site flagged up by a banner ad – Animal Totems. The page on the screen was black. At the top was an animated banner, which read Today’s Shamanic Blessing. Underneath ran the phrase, When walking in the woods never leave tracks. I took it on board with a nod and silently promised not to. Then I came to the title Moth Totem.

The moth apparently had a similar animal symbolism to the butterfly. No shit Sherlock. But it was also a nocturnal creature. ‘Night creatures,’ it read, ‘do not stumble in the dark. The moth navigates easily, led by lunar light.’

The symbolism, in turn, connected to intuition, spiritual awareness and heightened senses. ‘The moth is a master of disguise and can blend in to the point of invisibility. He aids metamorphosis, representing birth, death and rebirth. He is also a guide helping you towards your own light or beacon, and in the direction you are meant to go.’

‘You’re a clever boy aren’t you?’ I put my elbows on the table and sat forwards. My eyes were on a level with its body. ‘I feel like I’m in the dark right now. You going to show me where to go?’

It remained still.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I could do with some help.’

It didn’t move.

‘Sod you then.’ I brushed it away. It flew up at a forty-five-degree angle, inelegant and off balance, then fell on the carpet in front of the fireplace. I must have damaged its wings, I thought and felt absurdly guilty.

Getting up from behind the computer I walked over. It took off, veered off to the left than arced up onto the map I had fixed on the chimneybreast.

‘Sorry about that,’ I told him. It was off again, circling my head once, then landed back in the same place.

I looked at the map. Not Essex. Mr Moth had settled himself thirty or so miles south-west of London.

‘You want me to go there do you?’ I asked it. ‘What’s there?’

He didn’t answer, so I slipped a sheet of white paper behind it and a glass over the top. He didn’t resist and appeared happy to fly off into the night through my window.