Penny Jones knew she was a writer when she started to talk about herself in the third person (her family knew when Santa bought her a typewriter for Christmas when she was three). Penny loves reading and will read pretty much anything you put in front of her, but her favourite authors are Stephen King, Shirley Jackson and John Wyndham. In fact Penny only got into writing to buy books, when she realised that there wasn’t that much money in writing she stayed for the cake.
Penny’s debut collection Suffer Little Children by Black Shuck Books was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer, and her short story ‘Dendrochronology’ was shortlisted for the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. Her novella Matryoshka will be published by Hersham Horror in 2021.
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The ringing of the front-door bell sliced through my head. I closed my eyes against the light that managed to knife its way through the miniscule gap between the closed curtains and fall directly on to my face. I wouldn’t answer it. I’d just stay curled up on the sofa until whoever was at the door went away. It was only going to be someone selling something anyway; since we’d moved away for Mark’s work, it wasn’t as if any of my family or friends could just pop round unannounced.
The doorbell went again, whoever it was holding their finger against it, the noise drilling through my brain, incessant, demanding. Before being replaced by an echoing silence – a blessed tinnitus soon broken by the short, sharp rap of knuckles on the front door. I willed them to leave, waited, straining to hear the tell-tale creak of the front gate closing, but all I heard were voices, little more than whispers through the heavy front door.
The baby shifted inside me, straining against my taut skin as if it too was trying to hear what those whispered voices said. I wondered if I lifted my dress to reveal my stomach, whether I would see the delicate imprint of an ear pressed against that taut, uncomfortable mound.
I levered myself up, a strange, ungainly movement. I couldn’t get used to the extra weight of the pregnancy this time. My first had seemed magical, a blessing, but this one felt as if it were weighing me down both in body and in mind. Mark did as much as he could to help around his work; but that didn’t leave much time for any real practical help from him beyond ferrying Susie to nursery and back each day. Whispered platitudes and promises that this time wouldn’t be like the last, were all he could manage when he arrived home exhausted each day.
I crept across to the window, pinching the curtain between my fingers, easing it back millimetre by millimetre, hoping to catch a glimpse of the visitor without giving it away that I was at home. Craning my neck to the left I peered at the front door, but the step and path appeared empty. Something hit the window just to my right – the impact like a gunshot to the back of my head. A bird, I thought initially, but that first rap was quickly followed by a flurry of others, each one seemingly hard enough to rock the glass in its frame. I thought of the putty that had held the decaying bay window in place back at our old house in Yorkshire, glad for once for the supposed security that masqueraded as blandness in the new build that Mark had insisted we buy – his reasonable explanations of the unsuitableness of DIY with two small children underfoot, drowning out my concerns at our new house’s lack of soul. If someone had knocked that hard on our old window, the panes would have fallen in.
I couldn’t think who would be so insistent on speaking to me. Images of Susie flooded through my mind: of her being unwell; of a tiny arm broken; of her delicate frame rigid, her head floppy, the weight of it dragging her neck down until it snapped. But no. The nursery would have phoned. I crept into the hall keeping low in case anyone was peeking through the frosted glass panel at the top of the front door. I grabbed my mobile from the hallway table before plonking myself down on the stairs, glancing at the screen just in case I had missed a call. It was so easy to sleep through its ring, especially now that the only quiet time I had was when Susie was out at nursery. Her night -terrors had kept us both awake through yet another long night, her cries and screams as bad now as when she was first born.
I scrolled through my notifications, no one had phoned, or even texted since my midwife last week.
My visitors were back at the door now; I could hear them whispering behind the wood. Images of police flashed through my mind, of their faces set into facades of compassion as they spoke of accidents and crashes, of pain and loss. I worried each morning when Mark got up after another broken nights sleep. He always said that he’d slept fine, that Susie’s screams didn’t wake him, neither did the bounce of the bed as she burrowed herself down as deep as possible between us, hiding from whatever monsters stalked her through her darkened dreams. Her tense little body bunched up between us, a hot water bottle at the heart of our bed in the middle of June, all elbows and knees, feverishly hot, limbs rigid until she finally fell asleep once more. Her dreams better – but still not sweet – as whatever haunted her, found her form hidden deep down between the folds of the blankets, sweat beading her brow as her fists struck out at invisible assailants, raining down on my back, peppering my skin with tiny bruises.
“Hello?” The voice echoed round the hallway, followed by another round of knocking that sounded like someone trying to smash the door down. “Are you okay in there?” The knocking resumed, accompanied by the ringing of the bell, a hellish concerto which echoed through the house.
I had a pang of worry for a moment, wondering if I had forgotten an appointment with my nurse or the midwife. My mind fuzzy, thrown by the unexpected change to my routine. But it was Monday. The nurse always visited on a Thursday, and I wasn’t due to see the midwife for another couple of weeks. Standing I took a breath and opened the door. The woman who stood on the other side of the threshold could have been me, or almost, maybe a me from an alternate reality where I didn’t have kids. Her hair was sleek and full, unlike the fine straw that stuck up at angles from my head. Hers was sculpted and blow dried in gorgeous long waves that flowed across her shoulders, whilst I sported a mad pixie cut that really needed a trim. I remembered the days of long hair, before small hands covered in Weetabix and snot would grab and pull at it, matting it into crusty braids. The woman wore a light spaghetti-strap dress, the diaphanous material moulded against her legs in the muggy breeze that tried and failed to lift the heaviness from the air. She was braless in the heat of the day. My own body strapped up in layers of Lycra and wire, my skin hot and sweaty – a small price to pay to ease the pull on my back from the pendulous weights in front.
“Hello? Yes? Can I help you?” I held the door open only a couple of inches, hiding myself away behind it. The woman stood alone, the street behind her empty. I wondered where the others had disappeared to. The sound of the woman’s conversation still echoed in my ears.
“Do you have any sugar?”
I wondered for a moment if this was a test to see if I was a suitable neighbour to live here on this street. A suitable wife, a suitable mother. I didn’t know the right answer. Would I be tarred and feathered for allowing that white poison into my house, or if I said no, would I be vilified for neglecting my family? I opened my mouth, still unsure what words I would utter, when the woman proffered up a chipped mug.
“I’m sorry. I’m your neighbour. I wish that I was coming round to properly introduce myself. It’s just we don’t usually take sugar. My mum’s on her way over and I haven’t got time to get to the shops. I’ll drop you some back tomorrow, I promise.”
I reached out for the mug. On the side, it said Miss Always Right, looking for Mr Right; the elaborate calligraphy was faded, a hairline crack fracturing the missive like a lighting bolt. I was glad she’d only asked for sugar. I wasn’t sure this broken vessel would manage to hold any liquid. As it was, I could imagine tiny grains of sugar crawling out like insects, leaving a trail of sweetness between my house and whichever one of the other identical houses on the estate she lived in.
“No problem.” I smiled and headed towards the kitchen “I’ll be right back with some.”
Carefully I filled the mug, pouring the sugar straight from the bag. Once the mug was filled, there was hardly anything left worth keeping, but still, I folded the top of the bag over and placed it carefully back in the cupboard. I’d have to drink my tea without, if I was to have enough left for Mark and Susie’s breakfast in the morning.
I made my way back into the hall, one hand cupped under the mug to prevent any sugar leaking out onto the hallway carpet.
“Crumbs and dropped food are the first step to ants, then mice and rats will follow.”
The front door was wide open. The woman stood inside her back turned to me as she scrutinised the photos that hung along the hallway wall. In her hand, she gripped a framed photo of Mark and me on our wedding day. My laughing face covered with cake and icing after Mark had smeared it on my face rather than placing the piece delicately in my mouth. I wanted to ask her what she’d meant about vermin and parasites in my house. Did she think I was unclean? Instead, I thrust out the mug, tiny granules of sugar spilling over the rim, my other hand held out for the photo. “Your sugar.”
The woman smiled but, the front door cast her in shadow, with the sunlight streaming through behind her, the smile looked fake, just a crack in her carapace, her eyes so dark in the hollows of her face they looked almost black, insectoid. She passed me the photo, and took the mug of sugar off me. “Thanks.”
She walked away, turning right at the end of the path, her steps slow and measured as if she was dropping the sugar, grain by grain, as a trail to find her way back.
(C) Penny Jones 2021