Blackwood

PRAISE FOR BLACKWOOD “Haunting, bold and fearless… Blackwood is fascinating both on its surface and in its depths.” Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones “I came away feeling very uneasy… the skeleton of a brilliant horror.” Michael Hunter, The Times “Blackwood is sure to creep up and bite you when you least expect it, leaving you with a scar that you will keep coming back to nurture and study.” Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent “No bookshelf is not complete without the eerie cleverness of Fleming.” Hannah Ewart, The Guardian “Unsettling, uncompromising and brutal. How can one novel have you begging for more and reeling away at the same time?” Fiona Stevens, The White Review

BLACKWOOD

BLACKWOOD

LUCY FLEMING

PANKHURST PRESS

PANKHURST PRESS Published by Pankhurst Press Newton Saint Loe, Bath, BA2 9BN, England www.pankhurstpress.com First published in the United Kingdom by Pankhurst Press 2019 Copyright Š Lucy Fleming, 2019 All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever wihtout the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-0-000000-0 (Paperback) Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously.

Names and characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

Book cover design by Lucy Fleming

For Ana and Louisa

“When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.�

Malleus Maleficarum Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer

35˚c

23 Blackwood St, Macedon, Victoria, Australia.

6 January 2002, 35˚c Dad and I stood in silence as we took in the front view of our new home. I could feel the harsh sun burning my forehead and I wiped away a bead of sweat from my brow. The heat reflecting off the rusted tin roof rippled through the air, but the white weatherboard façade and cute picket fence looked cool and welcoming.

“This will be good,” I said, trying to convince us both. “We can get back on track.”

“I’m going to the pub,” grumbled Dad. He took a last sizzling inhale of his cigarette and threw the but on the ground in front of me. I listened as he dragged his feet down the dirt track, coughing and spluttering. Now was not the time to nag at him about the bankruptcy. I looked to see him turn onto the main road and disappear out of sight and I wondered how long it would take for him to seek out the nearest pint.

As I turned back to face the house I saw the movement of curtains in the house to the right. A moment later a woman wearing a bright yellow knee-length floral dress and a lace trimmed apron came out of the front door and waved enthusiastically.

“Hey there! You must be Lilian. I’m Johanna – or Jo.” She swished her deadstraight blonde hair behind her shoulders and began treading carefully towards me, focusing on each step as she searched for the most level part of the gravel road to place her fluffy slipper high-heels. “Far out, it’s hot out here.” She spoke with a heavy Australian accent, as if her family had lived here for generations.

“It’s nice to meet you, love. I’m your land owner.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did the estate agent not tell ya? Yeah, yeah, we live right next door.” She grinned, showing lipstick stained teeth, and held out her manicured hand to shake it.

“Oh, no they didn’t tell us.”

“That’s a bit cheeky of ‘em,” she grinned again, and I knew it had been her call not to make it known. “How’s the move going? It’s you and ya father, ain’t it? Just the two of ya?”

“Yes, just us.”

“Where’s he then?”

“Gone for a walk, a look around the neighbourhood.”

“I see.” She turned to face the house. “Blimey, you’ve moved in on the right 1

Blackwood

day. It looks great, dun it? We gave it a new paint job just the other week.”

“It’s looks very pretty, thank you.”

“No need to thank us, the thanks are in the rent bills.” She laughed obnoxiously and I forced a polite smile. “I bet it’s a bit different from the big city, eh? Ya from Melbourne right?”

“Yes. It’s quiet here.”

“Oh you’ll be fine, love. Anyway, I can’t stay and chat just now, I’m just preppin’ food for when the kids get home from school. Let me know if ya need anything, okay?”

“Thank you,” I replied.

“Okay.” She began to slowly make her way back inside.

I stood letting the heat burn my head for a moment longer and tried to ignore Johanna, who was not so subtly watching me out of her window, before heading into the house.

I edged between stacked boxes and dismantled furniture to check out each room.

Unlike most other houses I’d seen, it wasn’t clear which room was meant to be which. Any of them could be a bedroom, a lounge room, a study, a dining room.

Polished floorboards decked the entire house except for one room, which had a horrid dark red speckled carpet. This room was the biggest and it felt cooler than the hall did. There was an en suite attached that had a bit of an odd smell.

I guessed there wasn’t much ventilation. This will be Dad’s room, I thought.

I decided to take the room across the hall from that one, it was the next biggest and it had old lace curtains that, when the sun was shining through, made pretty patterned shadows on the floor and wall opposite.

Making my way down the hall, just about every floorboard creaked underfoot.

That’s going to be such a pain, I thought, when dad gets home at whatever god forsaken time in the morning.

In the kitchen, there was an old chamber gas stove tucked into what looked like a huge soot-stained fireplace, which went deep into the wall. Other than that, most things were much smaller than what I was used to. There was little surface space and few cupboards and drawers. The pantry was tight and watermarks on the roof and down the walls told me that it wasn’t suitable for keeping dry food in anyway. I wandered over to the small sink which was fitted below a window.

At least I could gaze outside while I washed dishes. At first I thought our garden was nice and big, perhaps an acre, until I noticed a flimsy fence cutting diagonally across the yard, evidently giving Johanna’s property two thirds of what must have once belonged to this house. Their garden was dry but they had a few thriving rhododendron bushes with flowers of brilliant red, and I doubted they used bore or grey water, even in this drought. I could see a chicken pen and a dog house, a trampoline next to a DIY above ground pool, a stone pizza oven, and a decent outdoor sitting area – a large rectangular wooden table with six chairs, pedestalled atop cream coloured tiles, and underneath a retractable roof. Beyond the end of the garden, there was an unkempt landscape of dispersed gum trees.

2

35Ëšc

Our patch of land wasn’t at all well-groomed. The small patches of grass were long and yellow, and the tall grey wooden fence to the left was crippled by a vicious blackberry bush growing between and over the splintering slates.

To the left of our kitchen was a door leading outside. I had a quick wander around our yard to search for any soft areas of land where I might be able to plant some vegetables but the dirt was all dry and rocky. I would have to build and fill my own vegetable patch.

3

Blackwood

13 January 2002, 36˚c The shopping bags practically slipped out of my sweaty hands as I reached the kitchen.

“Dad?” I called.

No answer. Good. I could sit and try to cool off before starting on dinner. I picked up a placemat to fan my face when I noticed the back door was ajar. I edged towards the door and could see that Dad was out there, bottle in hand, talking to one of the neighbour’s kids.

“Dad, what are you doing?” I made my way over.

He lost balance had he turned to look at me and almost fell over. He looked very unimpressed. “S’going on, Lil?” he slurred.

The neighbour’s kid, a girl of about ten, still dressed in her summer school dress, stood up. She was tightly holding a panting retriever puppy, clearly too hot to struggle.

“Amy here is just tellin’ me ‘bout the house ‘n’ all its history,” said Dad, a grim look on his face. “My room was where the dead people were kept apparently.”

He put a cigarette between his dry lips and lit it. “The morgue.”

“It’s Emmy.” She spoke softly but surely. “Mum said ya house used to be where dead people were looked at a hundred years ago. Before they were buried or burned.”

“Is that so?” I said. The girl nodded in reply.

“Yeah, Lil. Makes sense don’t ya think?” Dad nudged me and pointed back at the house with his wavering thumb. “All the weird stuff ‘n’ that.”

A stench of sour sweat, cheap beer and stale cigarettes stung my nostrils.

“Ugh, you reek. I thought you were going to sober up and start looking for a job today? Jesus, Dad.” He dismissed me with an exaggerated wave of the hand and threw his cigarette on the ground in front of me. The smoke grew thicker in the dry grass so I stamped it out before it caught flame. He wobbled his way back inside, throwing his empty bottle into the vegetable patch, shouting, “hungry!” as he did so.

Trying to ignore him for a moment longer, I turned to Emmy, who was watching him with raised eye-brows. “That’s ya dad?”

“Don’t worry about him, sweetie. Where’s your mum?”

“Salon.” The puppy made a feeble attempt at breaking free but Emmy tightened her grip.

“Huh,” I nodded. “Say, do you know anything more about the house?”

“Not much. I’ve only been in there once, when Mum first got it. Passed down 4