Chapter Thirty-Seven
1
Penny sat in the large, over stuffed, leather armchair by the fireplace. She was wrapped in the white bath robe that Mrs. Hughes had loaned her while her clothes were drying out. After her wet T-shirt, denim jacket and jeans the warm terrycloth felt good against her skin. She clasped the cup of piping hot cocoa between her hands, blew on it and then took a sip. The sweet, warming liquid soothed her as she looked into the smouldering embers in the fireplace and thought about Tamicka and her father caught out in the storm.
The coughing sound drew Penny's attention away from the hypnotic glow of the burning logs, over towards the sofa where Cass lay with her eyes closed. The woman looked different from the last time Penny had seen her begging in town with her mangy old cat. Cleaned up and dressed in an identical bath robe to Penny's, Cass looked much younger but just as troubled as ever.
Penny watched her as Cass tossed and turned in her sleep. What's she dreaming about, she wondered not sure that she really wanted to know. She heard Cass mumble some words that she couldn't quite make out before turning to concentrate on the flames again.
"It's not her you know!"
The clarity of Cass' words made Penny's head spin back towards her. The woman still appeared to be in a deep, fitful sleep. For a moment Penny wondered if she had actually heard the words at all as the mummers continued. She watched Cass for a while longer then slowly turned back to watch the fire.
She took another sip from her cup, before setting it down on the small table beside her, and snuggled herself up into a ball. She tried to stay focused on the flames as they licked against the charred logs on the grate but her eyelids became so heavy that it was impossible for her to keep them open. Soon the hiss, pop and crackle of the fireplace symphony grew quieter the further Penny descended into sleep.
2
In her dream, Penny was standing in the middle of the woods. The sun beamed down in tiny points of light that danced around as the wind jostled the leaf laden branches above her. Somewhere up ahead she could hear a rustling sound getting closer to the tiny clearing where she stood and there was another sound, the sound of a child singing.
"Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are."
She recognized Tamicka's voice right away. The sweet, high-pitched twang glided on the air like birdsong.
"Hello," called Penny, but the singing continued as if she had said nothing.
"Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."
"Tamicka, it's me... Penny... I'm over here."
"Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are."
By the time the rhyme started up for the second time Penny could just make out the fleeting shape of the blond headed girl dressed in white, through the gaps in the greenery. She slowly advanced towards the child who was hopping and skipping about so much that it was hard to keep track of her through the dense bushes. The singing moved further away into the woods and as it did Penny quickened her pace to catch up.
"Hey... Tamicka... wait up." Penny was not sure where she was going, she had never been any further into the woods than the lake before.
The singing had stopped. The other girl was giggling now, the sound moving away faster than Penny could walk.
"Tamicka... stop... wait for me."
The girl started to sing again, still to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
YOU ARE READING
The Dark Place (#FrightFest2016 Gold Winner)
HorrorThe twists and turns will keep your spine nicely chilled until the very end. Following the death of her mother 11-year-old Tamicka Moon and her father move from Canada to Eastlake in England, where they both struggle to come to terms with their gr...
