The Mysterious Woman

They both cast their eyes upwards towards the old house.  The red brick looked stark against the greenery surrounding it and the old clay roof tiles, a different red to the bricks, were dotted with dark moss, like greens on a pizza, with some tiles missing. A big piece of tin flapped in the wind on the side and it looked as if it could have been nailed on to the roof at one stage to probably  keep out the rain. The upstairs windows were wooden, with big strips of paint peeling off them and the exposed timber was grey underneath. Dark threadbare curtains were drawn across not allowing anyone to see inside, although it could only be the birds perched on the edge of the rusting gutter that would be able to.

The windows at ground level were also wooden and rotting from the damp. The thick curtains pulled across the dirty glass exposed part of the right hand side of the window where the material wasn’t wide enough to cover it all.

This was their second attempt at catching a glimpse of the crazy old woman – they really wanted to see what she looked like. They had heard lots of different stories - some said she was a haggard old witch and if you got caught anywhere near the old house, you would never come back. Others stories over the years told of a jilted lover who had killed her fiancé and still had his body in the house. She was mad, she was evil; she was those things and much more! Some people even claimed to have seen ‘HER’…in the upstairs window – standing, just staring out, and not moving a muscle. And once when John Malcolm was taking flying lessons he could see her sitting in a chair out the back, but he couldn’t get low enough to have a good look.

Old Mrs Linton remembered a family living there for years. There were three children, parents and a grandma. They always kept themselves to themselves. But when the family moved on it was said that someone saw the grandma around the house once or twice – speculation was that the Grandma was left behind on purpose, so maybe it’s her? Who would know?”

The house and whoever lived in it had apparently had a caretaker, although it didn’t look like any one cared very much for the house. He had moved into the house about ten years ago.  He could be seen in the supermarket buying supplies but he just went in, bought his goods and left, never talking to anyone.  People asked Mrs Winterbottom who ran the store what he bought but she said it was nobody’s business but his, and of course hers! “Although the only thing I will say” whispered Mrs Winterbottom to her bridge ladies one day, looking around the room as if they were all spies working for the CIA…”He posts  parcels… heavy ones… to an address in London”..

“Drugs?” asked one of the ladies, relishing the thought of something this interesting happening in her neighbourhood!

 The first time Leon and his friend Steven decided to sneak right up to the window and look inside, hoping to get a glimpse of the ‘mad old lady’, it wasn’t late but it was a night without a moon.  They had wiped the outside of the window with their jacket sleeves and pressed their faces right onto the glass but it was so dark inside the room that they couldn’t see anything. Although Leon said he has seen a ‘massive dog with huge fangs, sitting in a chair’ but Steven didn’t believe his friend. “This is a waste of time” he had moaned “Let’s climb up the drain and look in the top window, I bet she’s up there”.

But Leon, the more cautious of the two had decided that he wanted to go home and come back another time.

“Oh what!” exclaimed his friend in a loud whisper. “We came here to see her and you want to go home straight away. “You’re just a chicken. You’re scared”.

“I’m not scared but we won’t see her. I don’t believe anyone has ever seen her. Is she even in there?”

“Of course she’s in there. Everyone knows that, and I want to see what she looks like. She’s supposed to be really ugly….. and bald”.

“Oh I suppose we can have a quick look through the upstairs window but you go first”.

They both looked around at the same time as a noise, not very loud, twanged Leon’s already taut nerves.

“What was that” Leon asked ashen faced. “I really want to go now Steven”.

“It’s the wind Leon” answered Steven the braver of the two, “Look at the trees blowing and that blasted piece of tin’s flapping about on the roof. Give us a leg up so I can grab hold of the …..” but he didn’t get to finish the sentence because suddenly a man’s voice yelled loudly into the darkness “Oi, clear off. Get out of here”.

“Run Leon” yelled his mate and both of them bolted towards the fence, leaping over like wild horses. Leon fell over the top of the wire but scrambled to his feet in seconds. It was pitch black and when Steven reached inside his pocket for the tiny torch he had been using up at the house, he realised it must have fallen out. “Come on Leon, keep going. Is he after us?”

“I don’t know” puffed Leon fear in his voice. “I feel sick”.

They tumbled down the glen, the soft damp earth helping them to slide to the bottom even quicker. Running along the well-worn path they had to go in single file because of its narrowness and Steven went first. He kept glancing behind him to make sure his friend was still there and hadn’t been snatched up by ‘him’.

When they were on the wooden bridge that went from one side of the fast flowing river to the other they knew they could slow down because this is where the houses started. There weren’t a lot of houses but that didn’t matter because the boys knew everyone who lived in them and that they could knock on someone’s door and feel safe.

They realised that the person who belong to the voice wasn’t chasing them, so they knew they could stop running, and they started to laugh. Under the light of a street lamp they looked at each other’s faces – they were splattered with brown dirt and the front of Leon’s jacket looked like he’d had a mud bath. “My mum will kill me when she sees this” he said.

“Who was that yelling at us?” Steven asked.

“I don’t know but it was a man’s voice – must have been the caretaker”. It scared the life out of me. I never want to go back there, ever”.

“Oh we have to go back. We’ll never know who lives there.  But next time we go we’ll take a bigger torch – and one each. Why don’t we go during the day? We can come from the other side – it’s denser with the trees and bushes and they go all the way up to the house on that side. There are no windows on that side of the house so it will be alright.

So here they were again, months after they got chased, deciding when to go back – determined to see who lived in the house.

Steven had thought that the only person he could ask about the old house was his Nanna and she was happy to tell what she knew, which really hadn’t helped much; She thought it was a lady who lived with the caretaker as her friend June saw someone, at the window one day, but it was from quite a distance.

“She told me not to ever go there again! She said that you don’t know who really lives there and they could be dangerous – no one knows the truth. But to be honest I think my Nanna has sort of ‘lost it’ and doesn’t know what she saying half the time, so we’re going!”

It was all planned – on a Saturday afternoon in the relative safety of daylight; the two boys stealthily made their way through the thick trees and bushes that protected them from eyesight until they reached the boundary of the old run down house, and the secret of who the ugly old woman was who lived inside it.

“How are we actually gonna get from these bushes to the house? I thought they went right up to the outside wall but they don’t. If we make a run for it, we’ll be seen for sure. What should we do?”

“Well” answered Leon “We can crawl over there on our hands and knees – no one will see us then”.

“I know” said Steven “How about we go on our bellies? That way we’re totally flat on the ground – good idea?”

‘Ummm I guess” answered Leon reluctantly looking at the jumper that he’d only had for a few weeks and envisaging it filthy dirty and full of holes, and even worse, his mother’s reaction to seeing it.

“C’arn then, get down on the ground”.

The two boys lay down on the slightly damp ground, Steven tightening his backpack so that it didn’t move around to the front. They had a good look around before they set off, commando style towards the house. It was quite rocky and scattered with prickly weeds and a variety of twigs and small branches that had fallen from the big trees. Steven turned around to see if Leon was close behind. But Leon had stopped and was crouching; pulling prickles out of his jumper, a cross look on his face. “What are you doing?” Steven called out in a loud whisper.

“These prickles are digging into me – they hurt!”

“You’re a big baby. We’ll get caught if we don’t get to the house. Leave your stupid jumper and hurry up” he called out forgetting to whisper.

“Ok THEN’” yelled back Leon wishing he had never come back here.

The edge of the house was in reach, and Steven made a final push with his now filthy sneakers and then stood up against the old brick. “Come on Leon. Stand up now, against the wall where we can’t be seen”.

‘What now?” asked Leon, feeling apprehensive, leaning on the brick wall and looking around quickly. “Shall we just look in the downstairs windows and go?”

“We’ll start with that but I didn’t come all this way and leave without seeing her”.

“Who is it you want to see?” a deep voice asked to the right of the boys.

Leon looked as if he had seen a ghost and was somehow unable to lift his rooted feet off the ground to at least try and run.

“AAhh” was all Steven could manage. The boys looked from the tall, dark haired man to each other. Nothing was said until the man spoke.

“Are you the two who I caught here before?”

Two different answers at the one time came out of the mouths of the scared boys. “Yes”…”No”.

Leon had always been taught to tell the truth, no matter what, as it would always be better in the end. He was beginning to think that the ‘end was nigh’ but good habits die hard.

Steven was a bit smarter than Leon when it came to getting out of sticky situations but even he didn’t know what to do.

“Well?” asked the man again this time walking closer towards the scared pair.

“We just wanted to see what the old lady looked like – we didn’t mean any harm. We’ll go straight home now and never bother you again – promise” stammered a shaken Leon. Swirling through his head was the thought that he might never see his family again. All the annoyance and dislike he had for his younger brother, the dismissal of his benevolence and kindness every time he saw him, suddenly turned to love and wanting to see him at this very second.

“Do you know what trespassing means and what can happen to boys who are caught on other people’s property snooping and prying? Do you?’ he asked in a slightly raised voice.

“Look, we’re sorry” said Steven, trying to sound braver than he felt. “We won’t come anywhere near your house again if you just let us go….please”.

“I want to know which old lady you were trying to see?” he continued, looking at the boys with a quizzical expression on his face, and seemingly enjoying it.

“Is there more than one?” Leon was starting to sound petrified now and deciding if it was worth trying to outrun this lean, fit man or just take what was coming.

“We were told that a nasty old woman lived here – some people have seen her at the window, and we just wanted to see if she was as ugly as everyone thought but we don’t want to now – we just want to go home.

“I’m not into harming children. I won’t touch you believe me. I have children of my own, but not here. I just don’t like nosey parkers and you are a couple of them”.

“I write books, novels, short stories – I’m just a writer. I live here in solitude with the peace, quiet and Mother Nature. Maybe that’s who you’ve seen?” and he laughed. “There’s nothing mysterious about me and there is definitely not an old woman, ugly, disfigured or even deceased living with me…but that could be a part of my next novel. Now clear off before I call the cops and they do you for trespassing. I’m guessing that your parents don’t know you’re here and wouldn’t be any too pleased either. Go on – off you go.

The speed Steven and Leon ran at the first time was nothing compared to how fast they took off this time, but they felt that they could stop before reaching the river. By the time they had talked from the bridge to the houses about what had just happened they felt calmer, relieved even.

“I never want to go anywhere near that house” lamented Leon

“Nah me either” added Steven “But we’ll never know who the old lady was”

“If there ever was one” said Leon.

Meanwhile back at the old house, the writer picked up the dressmaker’s dummy, the same one that when he first moved into the house he found discarded, and soaked from the dripping rain - and had put outside on a chair on a sunny morning, and at the upstairs window on some sunny afternoons. He looked at her face, the mouth and eyes drawn on big, ugly and in a scary fashion obviously by children, and thought as he put her into a cupboard, ‘You’ll be in my next mystery novel for sure’.