Page 42 of The Spiral
I feel the pressure building inside me. It’s not sadness or regret. It’s not anger or infuriation either. It’s indignance. Sheer exasperation at how pathetic my life has been, how disastrous the last years of my life have become. Cute Mads has no place in my life anymore. She’s hopeless, a waste of time and effort. What did she achieve by putting things back together? Nothing. Nothing but more hurt and pain. She grovelled in the dirt he provided and waded through life’s misery while he took the glory for the home she tried to keep making. She was right to die. Right to be put in the ground so that Madeline, the one holding this axe ready to own every part of her life, could go and regain her strength.
Screw it.
I storm at a door in a rage before I’ve thought more about it, waving the axe above my head madly and hammering it down at the handle with as much power as I can muster. It ricochets off the metal, bouncing back at me and knocking me backwards. So I swing it again, the last few years-worth of hate and hurt and torment firmly levied in my next attack. The blade lands heavy into the frame, a dull thud sounding in the air this time rather than the metal tang of the handle. I heave on the thing, sawing it back and forth to remove it.
“What’s in here, Jack? Where the hell are you?” I scream out, years of anger suddenly pouring into my voice as I search for answers. Answers for what, I don’t know. Me probably, me and my pathetic response to Lewis’ hands coming at me. “Selma? Tell me what the hell you want from me.”
The axe finally pulls free and I swing it high again, aiming better and letting it fall again with yet more power. Who the hell did he think he was treating me like that? What right did he have? How dare he abuse me with no reason? I was the perfect wife. Always. I looked after him, cared for him. Put up with his family, his temper tantrums, his moods. What the hell have I been doing all this time?
The axe lands again, jolting pain through my arm as it hacks at the wood again, splinters falling as I tug at it to get it free for my next strike. It becomes a frenzied attack at some point, my whole body raining blow after blow at the wood with no thought attached, only hatred and pain as I bash carelessly at the old solid surface. I can feel my limbs aching with the effort as I double more exertion into it, hoping to get in. I’m almost not here. Mads certainly isn’t. This is pure venom, levelled at anything that will take it. I don’t give a damn about Jack or who Selma is, or this fucking door. I don’t care about anything but smashing this thing in two. Wrecking it. Breaking something and owning that damage. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it. He does. He hurt me. Caused pain. Turned my skin into nothing but a rainbow of purples and blues, all at his own whims. He destroyed me. He took something I gave him and made me beg for it to stay in one piece as he ripped it apart daily.
“FUCK YOU!” I scream out, the bellow coming out of the depths of my hatred for him and what he did to us as I land another blow at the wood. Tears erupt, causing my vision to blur as I tug at the handle again and try to catch my breath. “Fuck you and your hands.” More tears stream as I remember the nights, the pain, and the effort of smiling through the next day, still too much in fear to actually say something or challenge him.
“Madeline, stop.” Jack’s voice barely cuts through my frantic attack, making me swing my glaring eyes towards the stairs again, axe hovering in the air above my head ready for another blow at the door. He’s stood there, one hand resting on the banister, as he watches me from the step just before the top. “Please.”
“Please what?” I snap out, ready to let this axe swing the instant he doesn’t answer me properly.
“Stop. You shouldn’t see what’s in there.”
“What do you mean? Why not?” He sighs and looks at the next step in front of him instead of at me as I grip the axe tighter, still rage filled and intent on causing more mutilation to anything that moves.
“What’s in there isn’t for you,” he says, eventually looking back up at me and tentatively raising his leg to the next level, hovering it there. “You should stop attacking the door.”
“I want to see what’s in this damn room, Jack.”
I’m not entirely sure what happens in the next few moments, but watching him, sensing the amount of composure he has somehow calms my hatred of anything that moves. I feel the tension leave my fingertips first. Then I feel the relaxation slowly migrate through the rest of me, filling me with a cooler air than the heated one I’ve created for myself. It’s like just his demeanour is reassuring now he’s stopped his raging and swearing, a bit like it was in the ballroom when he stood proud and tall above me and made me do things I didn’t understand.
“Is this what you need from me?” he says, but I don’t think it’s to me. He’s looking anywhere but at me, his eyes slowly searching the landing area as if he’s looking for someone or something. “Is it? Talk to me?”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know what?” he asks firmly, finally getting his feet onto the top of the landing and glancing at his hand still attached to the bannister. “Come here.” Does he mean me?
“Me or…” He raises a brow, slowly tipping his stare back in my direction from its ambiguous gaze around the place.
“Who else do you think I’m talking to?”
“A ghost.”
I can’t believe I said that out loud, but there are ghosts here, aren’t there? At least one anyway. There must be—either that or I’m going mad and this place is a lunatic asylum. The thoughts make me glance back at the door, seeing the splinters of wood scattered around the bottom of it, and wonder if that’s the best description of this building.
He’s smirking by the time I look back at him, his hand reaching for me as he turns to look at the door behind me. “Same thing, Madeline. You’re the same thing.”