Listen to Robert Eccles read "Watching" by Nicole Lawler
By Nicole Lawler
The moon was bright, yet the night was dark. This was the first sign that the night was wrong. A solitary girl strolled down the dusty dirt road, her back to the woods from which she had emerged. There was something wrong with the girl. It was wrong for her to be there. It was wrong for anybody to be out that night, especially on that road.
Most stayed inside their homes, but even the most innocent creaking of wooden floors made the occupants start nervously. Perhaps it was the stillness, the soundlessness that caused them to gather their kin close around them, whispering when they spoke, lest they disturb whatever was afoot that night from its path and cause it to turn its eyeless consciousness to them and theirs. In the morning, they would dismiss it from their minds as nonsense. But that night, even those folk most removed from fancy and fear felt uneasy, no matter how thick the stone of their walls.
An old woman had seen the girl from her window. Although she could not see the girl's face, she knew there was something very wrong about a girl, out there, on the road, on a night such as this. She even contemplated walking out to the road to beckon the girl indoors. Yet, there was something strange about the girl. Something in the way she walked — lightly, gaily, almost a skip — was incongruous with the darkness that closed in around her small figure. An odd thing, the woman thought, it was blacker than black out, yet the darkness appeared to sweep near but not quite touch the girl. She scolded herself for such fanciful notions but she did not look away. Was the child not afraid, the woman wondered, unconsciously beginning to fidget with her woolen shawl. She pulled it closely about herself as she noticed there was something else about the girl's progress which unsettled her. In no hurry, the girl made weaving steps across the road, from one side to the other. It was not a jerky movement as if the girl were drunk or sick but a deliberate pattern of movement like a slow dance set to the music of a snake charmer. With a slight shudder, the woman came to admit that from this distance the rhythmic movement almost gave the illusion that the girl more floated than walked.
"Almost," the woman mouthed softly, realising that the tips of her fingers were turning scarlet from being pushed so tightly through the crocheted loops of her well-loved shawl. She watched the girl, unable to look away, despite her head filling with nagging chores which did not need doing. She lingered at the window, fighting the sudden desire for her fingers to scrub and mend and her mind to be busy elsewhere. Her eyes strained now to be sure that the girl's feet touched the ground and rose again, as the footfalls of all decent things should. After a while, she smiled, giving a tight little sigh. Yes, she felt sure that she had seen a dainty black slipper firmly placed upon solid earth. It was in the next moment that fear like hot poison snaked down her spinal cord. The slipper, which her eyes had followed so intently, was still. The girl had stopped dead. The stillness was a shocking contradiction to the previous poetic madness of her movement. The motionless girl seemed to be looking directly at her.
The woman sucked air in sharply through her teeth, as if she had just laid her hand upon a scalding stove. For a moment she simply did not breathe. The girl could not possibly see her from the road, the woman reasoned, at least not clearly enough to realise she was being watched. Nevertheless, the girl stared towards the woman's cottage beyond the trees. Her small face expressionless, she eventually turned away and continued her mad procession. Convincing herself that she had been undetected, the woman quickly moved away from the window. She sat herself by a fire that lacked heat enough to warm her chilled bones. Her hands trembled as she busied herself with her embroidery. Humming tunelessly she concentrated on the flames of the fire, seeking solace for her disturbed senses there.
They say that on that road, the Soul-merchant walks. Terrible to look at, long coat, ragged at the bottom, top hat, worn in the place where long skeletal fingers had, for an eternity, pressed the felt to raise it from his head in gentlemanly greeting. He had no bag or cart or horse, yet it was said that a strange clinking and clanging of pots and pans and coins and other wares heralded his coming. Some who tell the story say that it is the dreadful symphony of souls he carries beneath his coat, clamouring for release. Others say the noise is made by the ghosts of those whose souls were stolen, following the Soul-merchant, rattling chains, as ghosts are apt to do. But both stories agree that for every soul he collects, another star is set in the night sky as a terrible trophy. It is said that when enough souls have been collected, the Soul-merchant, who once was a peculiar type of man, born long ago, without a soul, would be awarded something that he sought. Whether this was a soul of his very own or some other evil desire, nobody claimed to know.
His face had the look of an undertaker. Sour, solemn, with long harsh cheekbones jutting out from an ashen face. His teeth were rather too long, and too straight. He was taller than a man should be. Under his coat, he wore a dateless, black funeral suit. It looked stiff and yellowed with age and so it should, for he had worn it all eternity. One could smell the deeds he had performed in that suit as if the cloth had stored the pungent memories within its very stitches. He wore an exquisite gold fob watch in his breast pocket that was incongruent in its perfectly maintained condition. The watch kept no time as could be told by men. It had no hands or markings. His shiny treasure held no time but for him. Mist alone rose from its face, whenever he had cause to open it. This he did, or so it was said, when he was called from his sleep to walk that road; and this he did, or so it was said, just before he reached into the chest of the unfortunate and the damned and ripped out their souls.
On this particular night, those in the houses nearby would have seen him walking along that road, getting ever nearer the woods, had the strange noises brought them to their windows. Had they chanced to look out, instead of huddling close around their fires, some may even have seen the girl and the Soul-merchant making their equally strange ways toward the other. They may have guessed that the girl had done something wicked in the woods. Perhaps she had paid homage to something unholy, grown intoxicated on forbidden fruits. Perhaps these deeds had tainted her soul and now the unworldly merchant had come for it. Or perhaps she was simple and wandering and had done nothing wrong at all, except to be alone on the road on that night. If any had looked from their windows they may have been afraid for the girl. Some might have confided what they had seen, in low voices to their neighbours, in the bright safety of the next day's sunshine, but none would have ventured out into that night.
The girl did not seem to see the merchant, and meandered ever towards him. He, in contrast, drew still and never took his eyes from her as she approached. The clanging noises stilled as he slowly raised his hat in greeting. The night was quiet. Finally, she came to a swooning halt before him. The air itself seemed to gasp, fascinated by the dangerous meeting. Shadows inhaled and exhaled about him. She stared at his boots, her wild dance interrupted. She gazed absently up the length of him, either too witless or too wanton to be afraid. He did not note the strangeness of his victim. Nonchalantly, he reached into his pocket for the gold vessel that guided his toils. The faceless adornment gave the answer, always the same. He fed the chain carefully back into his pocket and then wordlessly, ruthlessly, he raised a long arm towards her. Her little black eyes merely watched, as his bonelike fingers hovered at a precise point between her heart and throat.
It was then that the girl moved sharply. She reached up and ripped the immaculate gold watch through the age-old suit pocket. A great cacophony of jangling sounds filled the night. Wrenching it clear of him, she watched mildly as, bereft of this possession, the Soul-merchant smashed into a billion specks of dust upon the dirt. After a moment, the night breathed out and the shadows dispersed, yet it grew no brighter on the road.
There came a knocking upon a wooden door. The sound echoed oddly through the silent stone cottage. Having drifted into a light and fitful sleep, the old woman awoke with a start, her heart bashing like a stone against the hollow cage of her ribs. The knocking at the door was neither urgent, nor polite. The woman's hands groped awkwardly for the shawl fallen about her shoulders. As she rose, she looked longingly to the bright heatless fire in the hearth. Traitorously, her stiff limbs conveyed her across the floor and she watched her own familiar lined hands reach for the bar on the door. Without meaning to, she slid it back and pulled. The stone inside her chest shuddered and clenched. Her blood pooled in her veins. The strange young girl stood there on the threshold. She was still swaying in time to music only she could hear. Proudly pinned upon the breast of her coat shone a perfect gold watch.
Slowly, wordlessly, ruthlessly, the girl raised her arm …
