The Monument: a ghost story Read online

wedding day they both enounced the same phrases to each other, the central sentiment being their mutual trust. He told her that he would always be there for her, and: ‘Niamh, I know that you will always be there to come to, when I need you.’ —and then she repeated it back. His faintly hackneyed style was readily forgiven in this context, and the guests went away remarking on the romance of the line: ‘You’ll always be there to come to, when I need you.’

  Their union on that day appeared to be one of such integration, that it might be likened to a closely woven fabric, which cannot be divided in two without the threads rending angrily, and ruining the whole piece; and this refrain from their vows ran though it like the warp thread, binding all together— so it is that one person’s cliché can be another’s holy mantra. And as it happened, they were reliant on its strength sooner than they anticipated; their baby was born shortly afterwards, and very quickly died, which event left them distraught, so that their pledge to rely on each other was invoked often and needily. Niamh tried to rally for Jamie, and Jamie for Niamh, so that they might sustain themselves through their grief; and this attempted selflessness was fairly successful.

  Nevertheless, the bereaved mother could not recover altogether; she did not feel it to be possible; and after the first, intense mourning, fell into a sort of lethargy. Idle, vexing, melancholy thoughts consumed her, and no distraction that her husband could invent was capable of driving out the blue devil.

  In her pettish moments she would snap at him, and say that if he had been able to remember that irritating song in the first place, the chain of events would never have led to the loss of their child. He, of course, objected that if he had instantly named the song she had forgotten, they never would have come to know each other, or love each other, or conceive their child at all— and that really, it was the forgotten song that had bound them together in the first place. Such logic did not suit her temper in these moods, however, and she would blame the damned ditty that started all the trouble; but on reflection, she would cry, and hope that it would never be remembered, since its loss was so instrumental to their happiness.

  Now to the meat of the story. One night, Jamie started up in bed to find his wife staring at him rigidly. He blinked in confusion, and asked why she had awoken him.

  She shook her head slowly. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you pinched me,’ —he touched his mouth with a wince— ‘what’s the matter?’

  Her face was so pale and bloodless that he became concerned, and reached out, but she flinched.

  ‘Did you see her?’ she demanded abruptly.

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘The old woman— did you see her before she went?’

  The obvious questions followed: ‘What old woman? Where did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ —Niamh rubbed her eyes. ‘I saw her clearly.’

  The curtains were slightly parted, and the moonlight shone through, illuminating them both, and parts of the room; but they were alone in it.

  Niamh shuddered. ‘She was ancient— she looked a hundred, two hundred years old— but her eyes were—.’

  Here she gasped to a halt, and only after some prompting was able to describe the fact that, although her face and form were withered almost to desiccation, her eyes were keen, and fierce.

  ‘She shook me by the shoulder to wake me up,’ the trembling girl continued, ‘and I was so shocked I forgot to scream out.’

  He attempted to soothe her by saying that it was a mere nightmare.

  ‘No,’ she asserted, ‘because I tried to rouse you, but she shook her head and said she’d come to speak to me, alone. You were like a stone, asleep or dead— it was horrible— she stood— there— mocking me with a look. I was ready to bolt out of the room— she terrified me, Jamie— but I had no chance. She took the chair from the dressing table, dragged it across the rug, and sat down with her back against the door, so I couldn’t get out.’

  Jamie glanced toward the offending chair. ‘But it hasn’t moved,’ he observed.

  His spouse wasn’t listening, however; she was covering her face with her hands. ‘There was no escape,’ she uttered, fitfully. ‘I had to listen to her— to the things she said. Oh, Jamie, what she told me!’

  He consoled her distress as best as he was able, but avoided asking what the apparition had said, in case he should seem to attach more significance to the bad dream than it deserved; nevertheless, Niamh was determined to tell, and insisted. ‘You don’t understand how important it is,’ she claimed.

  He sighed. ‘Go ahead then. What did the old hag want?’

  ‘Don’t insult her— I’m afraid she can still hear us. No, don’t smile.’

  ‘Niamh, you’re wide awake, calm down! Tell me calmly; what did she want?’

  ‘It’s about what we don’t want— it’s about that song.’

  He could not altogether stifle another sigh at that, and replied irritably: ‘The song again.’

  ‘Yes, she was livid about it. She hissed at me, scolded me, saying we should never have forgotten it. We had no right to forget that song— that’s why she punished us.’

  ‘Punished us?’

  Niamh began to cry. ‘She did! She explained it— we forgot the song, so she killed the baby.’

  He was aghast at these words, and hurt to the pith; all that prevented him from growing furious and scolding her in his turn was the spectacle of her own very obvious, and very real distress. He could only murmur: ‘I don’t want you to talk like that— do you hear? You mustn’t.’

  ‘I must! I must tell you the rest.’

  ‘No. No, that’s enough.’

  ‘Jamie, I believe her, I know she did it! Our boy was healthy—’

  ‘Stop it! I won’t listen to any more!’

  ‘You’ve no choice— I had none! She gloated about it, said we deserved to suffer; and she warned me that there’s more to come, too, unless we remember.’

  Her husband was climbing out of bed to quit the room by now, sick and impatient; but she reached for him as he passed, and gripped his arm.

  ‘Jamie,’ she whispered imperatively, ‘you woke up because she walked over and pulled on your tongue with her nails— she said that if we don’t remember the song, she’ll kill you next.’

  This undid him. ‘The song! The song!’ he bellowed. ‘What does it matter? Why’s it so important to you? What’s wrong with you, Niamh?’

  She had given way to tears once more, however, and could only whimper: ‘I’m frightened.’

  He did not have the heart to remain angry when she looked so totally broken, and he began to think that these strange assertions might be some terrible depression brought on by grief, or somesuch malady, so he softened, and hid her in his arms until her sobbing ceased.

  Eventually they both fell asleep again, and in the morning, he hoped to be able to dismiss the entire episode; but this was not to be— his wife was just as overwrought, and maintained that the threats of the old woman were as dangerous as they were malicious. She made a point of explaining to him the details that he had refused to hear before, the chief of which was, that the vicious crone had offered an opportunity to atone for their forgetfulness. They must go to the top of the mountain at an assigned hour (I suppose it was midnight), where the old woman engaged to meet them at the monument. James could see no use in such an exercise, but Niamh pleaded anxiously that they should keep the appointment.

  ‘There’ll be no-one there,’ he reasoned.

  ‘Believe what you like,’ she countered. ‘If you won’t come with me, I’ll go alone.’

  Of course there was no arguing with that, and he promised to attend her, though still protesting at the absurdity of it. ‘Even if she is there, in the flesh, what difference does it make? What atonement does she expect from us?’

  Niamh did not know the answer, but even so, was determined to meet her nightmare, because a nagging, disconnected logic suggested to her that, if she could appease the old woman in any way, then
perhaps, somehow, she might relent, and undo her vengeance. It was too stinging a hope to ignore. There is something about the human mind that requires pairs; left must have right, up must have down, back, front; and it can seem necessary that what is once lost must be found, and what has gone, no matter how far, or for how long, must, at last, come home.

  So it was that with rising excitement on her part, and rising irritation on his, they waited out the day, each suppressing their opinions on the subject. At last night fell, and stretched out its hours; they began to glance at each other— she wanted him to suggest that it was time to leave, so that he would, in some measure, condone the journey; but he was stubborn, and eventually, for fear of missing the moment, she touched his hand, with a pleading expression, and he, sighing, prepared to go.

  This mountain I have mentioned was only called so because of its abrupt difference from the gentler, undulating hills around; it rose up like a sentinel against the ocean, but though steep, was no actual mountain, and any stoutish hill walker could negotiate its woody slopes in the dark with ease. Therefore the wary couple were undaunted by their climb, though the darkness, the close whispering trees, the tall and warped forms of rock looming at distances from the path, and their general apprehension, were enough to intimidate them, and hurry their hearts. Earlier in the evening a fall of rain had dampened the landscape, but now a still, clear night had succeeded, so still that the waves at the distant