Page 20 of The Spiral

“Erm, where do I go then? I don’t want to get in your way any more than I have to,” she says, her voice as light as a damn feather as I hear her feet enter the kitchen.

I don’t know. She sure as hell isn’t coming into my bed where I can pretend I’m still happily married and life is full of roses. Tangled sheets and morning breakfasts. Words of love whispered in ears. The effortless sense of closeness and harmony that Selma brought with her.

I march to the cupboard and lift out a bottle of whiskey, hoping that rationality will follow. I don’t bother with a glass or any sense of refinement. I just lift the damn thing and glug, content in the thought of getting viciously drunk and forgetting for a while.

“Jack?” Christ, I wish she didn’t sound like Selma. It’s all I can hear. That British lilt hangs around her every word and makes sense impossible. I glug some more, tipping the bottle higher for more down force. Perhaps if I drink enough she’ll fuck off and leave me alone. “Jack? Please, I don’t know…”

I stop drinking and throw the bottle at the wall, stupefied by my own absurd reaction to her. She jumps at the move, her body vaulting away from me. I watch her from the corner of my eye, hoping she’ll be too terrified to talk again and will run off into a corner so I don’t have to look at her.

“I’m sorry. Please, just… You offered help and I don’t know where to go.” She flusters, her frame quavering and nerves pouring from her. I suppose she would be if she’s been beaten by a coward. It’s something I can use to my advantage, something that’ll help alleviate this insanity from going any further until she leaves.

“Past the back of the spiral, fourth room on the right,” I grate out, turning my body back to the cupboard and grabbing another bottle. She can stay in one of the old servant’s quarters. There’s a bed in that one. “Lock the fucking door, Madeline.” Unscrewing the next lid, I turn to fully face her and lift the bottle to my lips again. She shakes a little more as she looks me over, cowering slightly, probably scared of my advancing rage as her feet still back away. “That’s it. Go hide.”

It doesn’t take long before she makes the right choice by both of us. She backs out further, her feet silently gracing the floor, and then finally leaves me standing in the kitchen alone.

My hands spread on the old wooden table, the one Selma chose, and I look out through the window into the night. The images and visions spring forth rapidly, reminding me of what is waiting for me in Madeline’s arms. Selma’s hands. Her sweet singing voice. The sight of her smiling. The smell of her. They crease and blur into each other, finally becoming muddled and distant as I keep swigging more liquor.

“Why are you still here?” I mumble, succumbing to the chair that offers itself for use. I collapse into it, allowing it to hold me steady rather than the swaying that has begun. “You should be gone by now.” Not coming back in reincarnations to taunt me. The whole fucking world could have come here today. Every one of them, and the only one who did has to be a doppelganger of my wife?

I stare out into space, searching for answers that aren’t there. “Did you make this happen? Why?” Nothing answers me. No light outside or spectral image. No help of any kind. There’s only silence and the occasional whistling wind as the trees outside creak and groan. “I miss you so much, baby.” I do. And I’m lost without her. Homeless. Heartless. Void of care or consideration. I exist for only one reason—to punish those responsible.

The dogs upstairs.

My head lolls back as I strip from my jacket and scrunch it to the floor, kicking it away as it lands on the rough stone squares in disgust. Dirty, smeared by smoke and grime as I held her in my arms. Why did I do that?

I rub my brow then look at my hand covered in more filth, streaks of blackened grunge running between my fingers. She isn’t Selma. She isn’t. She is Madeline Cavannagh. A no one. A woman of no connection other than looking like my dead wife.

My brutalized, bloodied and battered dead wife.