Marrow

Dullsville, a sleepy place nestled between monotonous hills and mundane valleys. And in the midst of this unimaginative banality lived Forbes Pritchard, a man who found himself at that time in his life where events tended towards him settling down, even though he was of the mind that he was not at all ready to settle down. He chafed against the binding forces that life stealthily applied but had, nevertheless, recently acquired an old house on Crooked Lane, a peculiar place, what with its warped timbers and crooked chimney. A more ’settling down’ sort of place would be hard to imagine. Forbes could not seem to sort out in his own mind exactly what he wanted, which was probably not that surprising.

Forbes had moved to Dullsville to make a new start in life. He had intended to move on from a dreadful marriage that had ended three years before when his now ex-wife had tried to murder him in his sleep by bashing over the head with an iron skillet. She had fractured his skull and he had nearly died. He had not done anything to precipitate this attack, indeed, they had gone to bed two hours earlier in a quiet mood. But then, it had been a long tale of her abusing him physically and mentally. A long tale of her mental illness, which he had tried and failed to help her through. Forbes had not known any of this when they met, but as the months went by after their wedding the screaming and shouting grew worse and worse. Forbes could still could not understand why he hadn’t realised what she was like before he married her. He dwelt endlessly, but pointlessly on what he might have done better. He woke in the night wondering what might have been. His ex-wife had been diagnosed with serious mental illness and eventually confined to a secure prison after she attempted to stab three complete strangers one Saturday afternoon, with a screwdriver she’d stolen from Wilco’s. Forbes had tried to visit her when she was first incarcerated, but she didn’t seem to know who he was and was violent and abusive towards him and he was finally asked not to visit after she attempted to ‘shank’ one of the warders rather than speak to Forbes. It had all been a regrettable episode that he wanted to move on from. At least in Dullsville people din’t look at him weirdly in the street or cross the road when he approached.

One wet, windy and rainy afternoon, Forbes decided to explore the dusty cellar of his new home. Armed with a flashlight and a sense of curiosity, he descended the creaky stairs into the dimly lit cellar. As he gingerly traversed through cobwebs, ancient carcasses of washing machines and several rusting bicycle frames, his eyes caught sight of a tin box in the corner.

There, amidst old trunks and chipped blue flower vases, Forbes discovered a small, tattered diary. Its cover, worn and weathered, bore the name "Eloise Willowby." Forbes, always one to appreciate the peculiar, eagerly flipped through the pages, his eyes widening as he read the words and looked at the drawing recorded by a little girl with an imagination as twisted as the Crooked Lane itself.

Eloise's entries dripped with tales of grotesque creatures, nightmarish scenes of knives and claws. Of Darkness and shadows. Of fear and loathing. Her drawings were liberally spattered with what looked a lot like dried blood. Forbes was, frankly, a bit shocked. He knew that little girls often had fertile imaginations and he knew from his school days that some little girls were even downright nasty but this was beyond casual playground manipulation and torture. Twisted goblins, malevolent imps, and ominous silhouettes writhed across the pages in a chilling tableau of dread and despair. And blood. Lots of blood.

Forbes found himself very much disturbed by the diary. He couldn’t just put it back in the tin he’d found it in and he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. It wasn’t art and it’s narratives were, although ghastly, incomplete and many were incomprehensible but he felt consumed by an odd and strangely exciting compulsion to uncover the mystery that shrouded the little girl's life. He asked his friend, who happened to be the local librarian, what he thought and this led him to the town archives at the library, where he discovered that Eloise Willowby was a child who had mysteriously disappeared without a trace. It was all over the newspapers at the time. People hunting through the local countryside with sticks and dogs, the local police were, at first, ‘following several lines of enquiry,’ then ‘appealing for information,’ then, finally, and, as usual, ‘baffled.’ The local weird bloke got beaten up and a warty woman who was purported to be a witch had her cottage set fire to. But of Eloise, nothing was found.

But of course the papers were full of images of the little girl and as he studied these, not really thinking it likely that he would recognise her at all, Forbes had a surprise. He had not expected to recognise the girl in the photo’s, why should he? He’d not lived near Dullsville when he was a boy. But there, in black and white, stood Eloise and next to her, her mother. The photograph had, apparently, been taken the day before Eloise had disappeared. The girl's and the woman's eyes were what caught his attention. He knew them. He knew them intimately. But, of course, this woman, the mother, would be, at a minimum in her late sixties by now.

Forbes realised with a sinking feeling that Eloise had grown up, her fantastical tales evolving into a chilling reality. The peculiar creatures from her diary had become a part of her world, and now, somehow, a part of Forbes' reality. As he looked at the photograph, he saw a reflection of the woman in the basement staring back at him - his wife. Not Eloise Willowby when he had met her, of course, she was known by then as Clara Brough. But then, what’s in a name?

Forbes toyed with the idea of passing the diary along to the prison authorities in the hope that it might aid her recovery. He toyed also with trying to find Eloise’s mother. In the end, he burnt the diary.

Over the coming years, Forbes became a champion grower of prize-winning marrows and known throughout Dullsville horticultural circles as a steady hand. Settling down has a great deal going for it.