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When Helen was five she had a friend who was just a voice. She knew that was terribly queer so she kept Sybil a secret. Then one day it was Sybil's birthday and Helen so wanted to give her a new dolly but she didn't have the money herself, of course, so she told her mother.
Mother's eyes grew wide. It was eerie and Helen's belly felt suddenly leaden. Mother's hands had shook under the black silk gloves as she told Helen to forget such foolishness. Helen remembered that always – the first time she had seen her mother frightened.
She didn't stop talking to Sybil, but made sure never to tell anyone again. Eventually her family moved – but Sybil couldn't come with them. She had to stay in Blackberry Pass 10, she said.
"You won't be alone ever, Helen," Sybil had whispered as Helen crossed the threshold for the last time. "We will know you."
She was right. They'd come and see Helen but they were strangers, not like Sybil, and Helen didn't want to talk to them. She'd tug at her mother's sleeve and ask them to hurry when they passed a certain corner, or through the cemetery. She didn't like cemeteries. She told her mother they were noisy, and saw the old look in her eyes, the same one she'd seen when she'd mentioned Sybil that one and only time.
There was an old man, one of them, in the hallway in the public school she was sent to a couple of years later. He kept hollering after her and saying all sorts of things no young lady should be hearing. She wanted so much to tell somebody, tell anybody, beg them to make him stop, but she couldn't. How could she? Who could she tell? It was a wicked, wicked thing that she heard them in the first place and she wished so hard she wouldn't anymore.
The Bible said never to heed spirits and demons, but they were in churches too. They were all over in chapels and monasteries and shrines. The only time they would go away was when she clutched her Bible hard in her hands, so tight the edges buried into her flesh, and she would pray with her eyes closed for them to please, please, please leave her be, leave her alone.
"I do not hear them, Lord, you protect me from them. I want to hear only your voice, Jesus, Saviour."
And they would go away. When she was eighteen she could no longer hear them.
Once she walked by Blackberry Pass 10, and stopped for a moment to look up at the top windows, where her room had been. There were new curtains at the window now, brown and functional and poor. And she did not see a pair of eyes between them, shadows on a pale child's face.
Helen was beautiful, so she had had a fair share of suitors since she was thirteen, despite her odd and quiet ways. They all went away eventually, driven off by her face that only smiled politely, by her low and throaty voice that never sounded unworried. If they still persisted, they would be gone by the time she spoke of abstinence and God. And so she had already resolved to stay unmarried to the end of her days when she met Alan.
It did not take much for him to melt her ice or to dispel her fear of love. The first words she had heard him speak, standing in her father's study with his back to the door and the stairway where she lingered, listening in, were these: "There is more godliness and joy in hard work than all the artistry in the world." By the time they were introduced and Helen saw the look he always carried in his eyes, so gentle, she was lost.
Alan's brother Charles did not hold Helen's love, but rather the opposite, from their first meeting. He never ceased to worry her, to frighten her – because he was frivolous. He had no more true evil in him than his brother – which was none – but he was so strong and so ignorant that Helen sensed, somehow, a danger. It made no sense, but somehow she knew a man who was so sure of himself was a hazard to them all.
Helen was frightened of so many things.
Still, at night she would wind her limbs about her Alan and his nearness would calm her. And he would make her laugh also, and smile – not politely, but with all of her soul. He would pull her into his lap in the privacy of their own porch, and sing love songs into her ear.
I met my lovely lady on the forest's edge,
I brought her home and our love we did pledge
Oh, now are days and nights both dear
Oh, now that we hold each other here.
She awoke one night standing up by her bed, arms held out in front of her. She felt a chill to her bone and a terror she could hardly contain. Alan was up in seconds with his arms around her, holding her tight.
There, my sweet. You are all right, darling, it was only a dream.
She sobbed and clung to him, oh Alan, Alan. It was hours before she would be calm again, but he slept there next to her and she listened to his heartbeat and the shadows stayed quiet.
No voices. She did not want them anymore.
"Sweet Lord Jesus, our most gracious Saviour, our Lord, our Saviour..." she babbled quietly in the darkness, repeating the Lord's names.
But the dream returned. And again, night after night.
She hadn't told Alan about the voices. But she did tell him about her fears, as if they weren't plain enough for him to see. And she told him about the dreams.
"There was a corridor," she whispered as she lay shivering in her husband's arms. "And the walls were full of screams. They were hollow, you see, and the screams were hidden there years ago. And I saw a butchered pig on the dinner table and I cried and I cried because I knew the pig... Oh Alan, it makes no sense, but somehow I knew the pig was you. And Diana was there also, saying Don't be silly, Helen.' They wouldn't believe me. They were seated around the fine table – with silver and porcelain and a lace table cloth – Charles was there too... and... and they prepared to eat. Oh, Alan, it was terrible, terrible!" And she would choke and start crying, and Alan would whisper, "Shh – don't worry, my love. It was just a dream."
It was putting a strain on their relationship. Mornings were no longer filled with smiles and gentle jibes, but with heavy silences. They both sat at the breakfast table with shadows under their eyes, and thoughts unspoken. Helen was quieter and quieter. She didn't want Alan to worry or to hate her for what she knew were precognitions.
She knew.
Then one night she woke with tears running down her cheeks, and no more screams on her lips. She couldn't remember the dream, but she knew it was the last true dream she would have.
The next day at supper Charles had come up with a brilliant new idea. "This is the best time of year to go climbing, and I have thought of just the spot!"
...In her old dream, she would be standing in a shrine-like chamber, crying, and look up a short flight of stairs. After that, there would be nothing - no memory.
Somehow, she knew that was a blessing.