A Nest of Nightmares

THE OTHER MOTHER

Across the lake, on the other shore, something moved: pale-white, glimmering. Tall as a person.

Sara looked up from her work, refocusing her eyes. She realised how dark it had become. It had been too dark, in the rapidly deepening twilight, to paint for the last half-hour, but she had been reluctant to admit it, give up, and go in.

There, again. A woman in a white gown? Gone again.

Sara frowned, vexed, and concentrated on the brushy land across the narrow expanse of dark water. She waited, listening to the crickets and frogs, and she stared so intently that the growing shadows merged, reforming in strange shapes. What had she really seen? Had that pale glimmer been a trick of the fading light? Why did she feel as if there was a stranger lurking on the other shore, a woman watching her who would let herself be seen only in glimpses?

Sara realised she was tired. She arched her back and exercised her aching arms. She still watched the other shore, but casually now, hoping to lure the stranger out by seeming inattentiveness.

But she saw nothing more and at last she shrugged and began to tighten lids on tubes of paint, putting her supplies away. She deliberately avoided looking at the painting she had been working on. Already she disliked it, and was annoyed with herself for failing again.

The house was stifling after the balmy evening air, and it reeked of the pizza she had given the children for dinner. They had left chunks of it uneaten on the coffee table and were now sprawled on the floor in front of the television set, absorbed in a noisy situation comedy.

‘Hello, sweethearts,’ Sara said.

Michael gave a squirming shrug and twitched his mouth in what might have been a greeting; Melanie did not move. Her mouth hung open, and her eyes followed the tiny moving images intently.

Sara put her painting and supplies back in her bedroom and then began to clean up the leftover pizza and soft drinks, wanting to turn off the set and reclaim her children, but too aware of the tantrums that would ensue if she interrupted a program.

At the next commercial, to catch their attention, Sara said, ‘I just saw a ghost across the lake.’

Michael sat up and turned to his mother, his expression intrigued but wary. ‘Really?’

‘Well, it looked like a ghost,’ Sara said. ‘You want to come with me and see if she’s still there?’

‘Not she, ghosts aren’t girls,’ Michael said. But he scrambled to his feet. Melanie was still watching the set: a domestic squabble over coffee.

‘Why can’t ghosts be girls?’ Sara asked. ‘Come on, Melanie. We’re going outside to look for a ghost.’

‘They just can’t be,’ Michael said. ‘Come on.’

Sara took hold of Melanie’s sticky little hand and led her outside after Michael. Outdoors, Michael suddenly halted and looked around. ‘Did you really see a ghost?’

‘I saw something,’ Sara said. She felt relieved to be outside again, away from the stale, noisy house. ‘I saw a pale white figure which glided past. When I looked more closely, it was gone. Vanished, just like that.’

‘Sounds like a ghost,’ said Michael. ‘They float around, and they’re all white, and they disappear. Did it make a noise?’

‘Not that I noticed. What sort of noise does a ghost make?’

Michael began to produce a low moaning sound, gradually building in intensity and volume.

‘Mommy, make him stop!’ Melanie said suddenly.

‘That’s enough, Michael.’

They had reached the water’s edge and they were quiet as they looked across the dark water. Almost nothing could be seen now of the opposite shore.

‘Did you really see a ghost?’ Michael asked, yet again. Sara felt his hand touching her blue-jeaned hip.

She put an arm around his shoulder and hugged him close. ‘Maybe I imagined it. Maybe it was an animal of some kind. I just saw something from the corner of my eye, and I had the impression that it was, well, a woman in a long white gown, moving more quickly and quietly than any living person should. I felt she wasn’t ready to let me really see her yet. So when I tried to find her, she had disappeared.’

Sara felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle and was suddenly ashamed of herself. If she had made herself nervous, what must the children be feeling?

Melanie began to whimper for the light.

‘She can’t turn the light on here – we’re outside, stupid,’ Michael said. Sara suspected a quaver in his voice.

‘Come on, kids. There’s nothing out here. Let’s go inside and I’ll tell you a story before you go to bed.’

Michael broke into a run toward the safe harbour of the lighted house, and Melanie let go of her mother’s hand to chase him.

Sara turned to follow her children but then paused, feeling that she was being watched. She turned and looked back across the lake. But even if someone were standing on the opposite shore, it was now much too dark to see.

After the children had bathed and were in their pajamas, Sara told a story about a tricycle-riding bear, a character both the children loved, but which Michael was beginning to outgrow.

Melanie was good about going to bed, snuggling sleepily under the bedclothes and raising her round, sweet face for a good-night kiss.

‘Now a butterfly kiss,’ Melanie commanded, after exchanging several smacking kisses with her mother.

Sara, kneeling by the bed, bent her head and fluttered her eyelashes against her daughter’s downy cheek. The sound of Melanie’s sleepy giggle, her warmth, the good, clean smell of her inspired a rush of love, and Sara wanted to grab her daughter and hug her suffocatingly tight. But she only whispered, soft as a breath, ‘I love you, sweetie,’ before she drew away.

Michael was waiting for her in his room with a deck of cards. They played two games of Go Fish and one of Crazy Eights before his uncontrollable yawns gave him away. He agreed to go to bed, but insisted upon hearing a story first.

‘A short one,’ Sara said.

‘A ghost story,’ he responded, nodding impatiently.

‘Oh, Michael,’ Sara sighed, envisioning nightmares and demands for comfort later.

‘Yes. A ghost story. About that ghost you saw across the lake today.’

Had she frightened him? Sara couldn’t be sure. But this was her opportunity to make up for what she’d done, to remove the menace and the mystery of that unseen figure. She tucked him under the covers and settled herself at the end of his bed, and then, in a low voice, began to weave a comforting sort of ghost story.

The ghost was a sad but friendly figure, a mother eternally searching for her children. They had run off into the wilderness one day without telling her and had become lost, and she had been looking for them ever since. The story had the moral that children shouldn’t disobey their mothers or run and hide without telling her where they were going.

Michael was still too young to protest against stories with morals; he accepted what he was told, smiling sleepily, and gave his mother a warm hug and kiss goodnight.

But if Sara had protected Michael against nightmares, she was unable to protect herself.

That night Sara dreamed of a woman in white, gliding along the lake shore, heading toward the house. She was not a ghost; neither was she human. Her eyes were large, round, and protruding, like huge, milk-white marbles. The skin of her face was greyish, her mouth narrow, her nose almost nonexistent. She wore a long, hooded, all­-enveloping gown.

Sara saw then that Michael and Melanie were playing in the yard, unaware of the ghastly figure gliding steadily toward them.

Where is their mother? Sara wondered. Where am I? She could only watch helplessly, powerless to interfere, certain that she was about to see her children murdered before her eyes.

Dreaming, Sara sweated and twitched and finally cried out, waking herself.

She sat up in the dark, hot room, feeling her heart pounding. Only a dream. But she was still frightened. Somewhere in the darkness those dead white eyes might be staring at her.

Sara turned on the light, wishing for comfort. She wanted a lover, or even her ex-husband, some male figure whose solid, sleeping presence would comfort her.

What a baby I am, she thought, getting up and putting on her robe. To be so frightened by a dream. To have to make the rounds of the house to be sure everything is normal.

Michael was sleeping on his back, the covers kicked away, breathing through his mouth. Sara found his snores endearing and paused to pull the sheet up to his waist.

As she reached the doorway to Melanie’s room, something white flashed by the window. Sara stopped breathing, feeling cold to the bone. Then she saw the bird. It was just a white bird, resting on the window ledge. A second later it had flown away. Sara felt weak with relief and annoyed with herself for overreacting. Just a bird at the window, a white bird.

Melanie was sleeping soundly, curled into a ball, her fists beneath her chin. Sara stood beside the bed looking down at her for a long time. How infinitely precious she was.

The next morning the children were particularly obnoxious. They were up early, spilling milk and cereal on the floor, slapping each other, fighting over television programs, complaining of boredom and asking questions without pausing to hear the answers. Their high-pitched voices repeating childish demands affected Sara like a cloud of stinging insects. Her skin itched. She felt raw and old, almost worn out with the effort of keeping a lid on her anger.

Sara suggested new games and answered questions in a level voice. She cleaned up their messes and promised the children ice-cream cones at Baskin-Robbins if they were good and quiet in the car and in the grocery store. They were neither good nor quiet, but she bought them the ice cream anyway, to avert a worse outburst. She longed for Thursday, when a neighbor would take Michael into town for a birthday party, and looked toward Sunday – when the children’s father would have them both all day – as to her hope of heaven.

After lunch Melanie blessedly fell asleep, and Michael occupied himself quietly with his plastic dinosaurs. Almost holding her breath for fear the spell of peace would be broken, Sara went to get her canvas.

But at the sight of it her tentatively building spirits plunged. The painting she had spent so much time on the previous day was dreadful, laboured, flat, and uninspired. She had done better in high school. There was nothing to be done about it, Sara decided. She had done too much to it already. She would wait for it to dry and paint over it with gesso. She felt despairing of all the time she had wasted – not only yesterday, but all the years before that in which she had not found time to paint. Perhaps it was too late now; perhaps she had lost whatever talent she once had.

But she would lose this afternoon, too, if she didn’t snap out of it. Sara turned the canvas to the wall and looked around. Watercolours, perhaps. Something quick and simple, something to loosen her up. She had been too stiff, intimidated by the oils and canvas. She would have to work up to them.

‘Can we go to a movie tonight?’ Michael asked as she emerged from her room with the big, spiral-bound pad of heavy paper and her box of watercolours. He was marching a blue dinosaur across the kitchen table and through the fruit bowl.

‘We’ll see,’ Sara said absently.

‘What does that mean? Does that mean yes?’

‘It means we’ll see when the time comes.’

‘What will we see? Will we see a movie?’ He followed her outside.

‘Michael, don’t pester me.’

‘What’s that?’

There was a new tone to his voice. Sara turned to look. He was staring in the direction of the lake, astonished. ‘Is that the ghost?’

Recalling her dream, Sara felt a chill. Shading her eyes against the sun, she peered across the lake. She saw a large white animal walking on the farther shore, too oddly shaped to be a dog, too small for a cow.

‘It’s a pig,’ Sara said. She had never seen such a large, white pig before, and she wondered where it had come from. What was somebody’s prize pig doing loose?

The pig had stopped its purposeful walk and turned toward the water to face them. Now it stood still and seemed to watch them. Sara took an involuntary step backward, her arm moving down and to the side as if to shield Michael.

‘It sees us,’ he said. Sara couldn’t tell from his voice if he was frightened, pleased, or merely commenting.

‘It can’t get to us,’ Sara said. ‘There’s all that water in between.’ She spoke to comfort herself. She had never heard that pigs were dangerous, but it was a very large animal, and there was something uncanny about it, about the way it stood watching them.

Then, just as abruptly as it had come, the pig turned away from the water and began to trot away, following the shoreline until it was out of sight.

Sara was relieved to see it go.

That night, Sara painted. She got out her oils and a new canvas; she felt inspired. She was excited; she hadn’t felt like this in years. The picture had come to her, a vision she felt bound to paint. She was in no mood for sketches or exercises, or ‘loosening up’ with watercolours. This was her real work, and she needed no more training.

The main figures in the painting would be a large white pig and a shrouded human figure. Sara hoped to express some of the terror she’d felt during her nightmare, and to recapture in the painting the unease she had felt upon seeing the pig on the shore in the midday sun. She planned to keep the robed figure’s face hidden, fearful of painting something merely grotesque instead of terrifying.

She worked for hours, late into the night, until she realised that weariness was throwing off her sight and coordination. Then, pleased, exhausted, and looking forward to the next day’s work, she went to bed.

The children let her sleep no later than they ever did in the morning, but Sara didn’t mind. The hours spent painting seemed to have invigorated her, enabling her to thrive on less sleep.

When Mary Alice arrived to pick up Michael, she offered to take Melanie for the day, too, as company for her youngest. Sara gazed at her in mute gratitude, seeing her blonde, smiling friend as a beneficent goddess, the personification of good fortune. With both the children gone, she would be able to work.

‘Oh! Mary Alice, that would be wonderful! Are you sure you don’t mind having her along?’

‘What’s one more kid? Chrissie needs someone to play with. And besides,’ she patted Sara’s shoulder, ‘it will give you some time to paint. Are you working on anything right now?’

It had been Mary Alice, with her ready sympathy and praise, who had encouraged Sara to take up painting again.

Sara smiled. ‘I started something new last night. It’s different. I’ll show you what I’ve done when you get back.’

But despite her words and easy manner, Sara felt her stomach fluttering nervously when she went to bring out the uncompleted painting after the others had left. She was afraid of what she would find; afraid it would be clumsy or stiff or silly, and not at all what she remembered working on.

To her own surprise she was pleased by the sight of it. She felt a rising excitement and a deep satisfaction at the thought of having uninterrupted hours to work on it.

The pig and the shrouded woman stood on a misty shore. Nearby was a bush in which nested a large white bird.

Sara painted all day with an easy authority she had not known in years. She felt light and free and intensely alive. She didn’t have to think about what she was doing; the work had its own existence.

‘Unusual.’

Sara turned with a start to see Mary Alice. She felt as if she had been abruptly awakened. The children – her own, and Mary Alice’s three – were roaring through the house like a hurricane. She looked back at the painting and saw that it was finished.

‘Would you like some wine?’ Sara asked.

‘Please.’ Mary Alice slumped into the old armchair and continued to study the canvas. ‘I’ve never seen you do anything remotely like this. The White Goddess, right?’

In the kitchen, pouring wine, Sara frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ She brought two glasses into the family room.

‘Well, it reminds me of Welsh mythology,’ Mary Alice said, accepting her wine. ‘Thanks. You know, the pig, the bird, the hawthorn bush. The hooded figure would be Cerridwen – white goddess of death and creation.’

Sara shivered and looked around. It was as if a door had been opened and shut quickly, letting in a chill wind.

‘I don’t know about any of that,’ Sara said. ‘I never heard of . . . what’s-her-name. But I had a dream about this terrifying white figure, and then I saw this huge pig across the lake. I just . . . they fit together into a painting, somehow. The bird’s just there to balance out the composition.’

‘A dream,’ said Mary Alice. She glanced at her watch and stood up. ‘I suppose you don’t have to know what a symbol means, to pick up on it.’

Sara also stood. ‘Look, why don’t you and the kids stay for dinner? It’s just spaghetti, but there’s lots of it.’

‘Thanks, but Bill’s expecting me back. He hates having to fend for himself.’

‘Some other time, then,’ Sara said, feeling oddly bereft. She wanted adult conversation, adult companionship. It had been so long since she had eaten a leisurely meal with other adults.

Mary Alice touched Sara’s arm and said, ‘You’ll have to come over for dinner some night soon – a late meal, after the kids have been put to bed. There’s a friend of Bill’s from the university that I’ve been wanting you to meet, and I could cook something really elaborate and make a party of it.’

‘That sounds marvellous,’ Sara said. She glanced at the painting again, then away, oddly disturbed. ‘You know, I had no problems with this painting. I never had to stop and think, and I’ve never worked so fast and surely in my life. It was odd, coming right after so much discouragement. For months I haven’t been able to finish anything I liked.’

‘The muse takes her own time,’ Mary Alice said. ‘She’s the White Goddess, too, you know – at least for poets.’ She raised her voice to call her children.

Company gone, Michael and Melanie buzzed around Sara, tugging at her arms and reciting unintelligible stories about the adventures of the day. They were tired and hungry but keyed up to such a pitch by the events of the day that Sara knew she would have a hard time calming them. She put her completed but still wet painting back in her bedroom, out of reach of flailing arms and flying toys, and resigned herself to being a mother again.

On Sunday morning Sara rose even before the children. She felt as if she’d been in hibernation for the past forty-­eight hours, dozing as she tended her children, cleaned the house, and ran errands, and only now was she awake again.

In a few hours the children’s father would come for them and Sara would be free to paint and live her own life until Monday morning. She had found a few moments to sketch, and she was bursting with the urge to take up brush and paints and turn her grey preliminaries into colour.

Not even pausing for her usual cup of tea, Sara pulled on a bathing suit and rushed outside. The air was a blessing on her bare skin and smelled of honeysuckle. The grass was cool and slippery beneath her feet and there was a special taste in the air that exhilarated her. She began to run, her thoughts streaming out behind her until she knew nothing but sensation.

She plunged into the water as she had plunged into the morning and began swimming vigorously toward the other shore. She was panting so hard she felt dizzy when she arrived, but she grinned with delight.

‘Come on out, oh Pig or Ghost or whatever you are!’ she called as she walked ashore. ‘I’m not afraid of you – show yourself!’

She began to shake herself like a dog, simply to feel the droplets of water flying off her. Then, somehow, she was dancing: a wild, primitive, arm-waving dance.

Finally, tired, she dropped to the rocky beach and rested. She gazed northward to where the narrow lake began to widen. Then she looked across the short stretch of water to her own house and to the others like it which dotted the shore. This early on a Sunday all was still and quiet.

Sara drank it all in: the sun, the clean, warm air with the scent of cedar in it, the songs of the birds, the solitude. Everything was as it should be.

She was cheerful when she returned, telling the kids funny stories and making blueberry-and-banana pancakes for breakfast. It was a special morning; even the children felt it.

‘You’re our good mommy, aren’t you?’ said Melanie, hugging Sara’s bare legs.

‘Of course I am, sweetie.’ She put the butter and syrup on the table and dropped a kiss on her daughter’s head.

Feeling the promise in the air, Michael said, ‘Could we maybe rent a sailboat and go sailing today like you said maybe we could someday?’

‘That will be up to your father,’ Sara said blithely. ‘Did you forget he’s picking you up this morning? I’m going to stay home and paint.’

Michael’s face was comical as he absorbed this: the conflict between the pleasure of going out with his father and disappointment that he couldn’t make use of his mother’s good mood was clearly written there. Sara laughed and hugged him.

After breakfast had been eaten and the dishes washed, Sara began to feel impatient. Where was Bruce? He always liked to get an early start, and the children were ready to go.

The telephone rang.

‘Sara, I’m not going to be able to make it today. Something’s come up.’

‘What do you mean you’re not going to be able to make it? Sunday’s your day – you know that. We agreed.’

‘Well, I can’t make it today.’ Already, annoyance had sharpened his tone.

Sara clenched one hand into a fist, wishing she had him in front of her. ‘And why not? One day a week isn’t so much. The kids have been counting on seeing you.’

‘I haven’t missed a week yet and you know it. Be reasonable, Sara. I just can’t make it.’

‘Why? Why can’t you make it? What’s so important on a Sunday? You’ve got a date? Fine, bring her along. I don’t care. Just come and take the kids like you’re supposed to.’

‘Look, put the kids on and I’ll explain it to them.’

‘Explain it to me, damn it!’

A silence. Then he said, ‘I’m in Dallas.’

Sara was too angry to speak.

‘Tell the kids I’m sorry and I’ll try to make it up to them next week.’

‘Sorry! You knew – why’d you wait until now to call?’

‘I don’t have to explain myself to you. I’ll be by to pick up the kids next Sunday, nine a.m.’ He hung up.

Sara held on to the phone, still facing the wall. There were tears of frustration in her eyes, and her back and shoulders ached as if she’d been beaten. When she had regained some control she went to look for her children.

They were outside on the driveway, eager to catch the first glimpse of their father’s car.

‘Sweethearts,’ Sara said. Her throat hurt. ‘Your father just called. He’s . . . he’s not going to be able to come today after all.’

They stared at her. Melanie began to whine.

‘Why?’ Michael asked. ‘Why?’

‘He’s in Dallas. He couldn’t get back in time. He said you’d all do something extra-special next weekend to make up for missing this one.’

‘Oh,’ said Michael. He was silent for a moment, and Sara wondered if he would cry. But then the moment passed and he said, ‘Can we go sailing, then?’

Sara sighed. ‘Not today. But why don’t you two put on your bathing suits and we’ll go for a swim?’

To Sara’s relief they accepted the change of plans without fuss. For the next hour Michael showed off his skills in the water while Sara gave Melanie another swimming lesson. Afterward, she got them started playing a board game and went off to her room to be by herself.

She felt exhausted, the euphoria of the early morning faded into the distant past. She sat on the bed and paged through her sketchbook, wondering why she had been so excited and just what she had intended to make of these rather mediocre sketches of a woman’s face and details of tree branches. With a part of her mind she was still arguing with her ex-husband, this time scoring points with withering remarks which left him speechless.

Finally she stood up and took out her paints and the fresh canvas. As she set up the work in the bedroom, she could hear the children running in and out of the house, laughing, talking, and occasionally slamming the screen door. They seemed occupied and might not bother her until they grew hungry for lunch. After that, with luck, she might still have the afternoon to paint while Melanie napped and Michael played quietly by himself. She’d had such days before.

But it didn’t matter: Sara didn’t know what to paint. She was afraid to make a start, so sure was she that she would ruin another canvas. Her earlier certainty was gone. She stared at the blank white surface and tried without success to visualize something there.

Then, from the other room, Melanie screamed.

It wasn’t a play scream, and it didn’t end. Melanie was screaming in terror.

Sara went cold with dread and ran into the family room. She saw Melanie cowering against a wall while Michael shouted and leaped around. At first Sara could not make out what was happening. Then she heard the mad fluttering of wings and saw a pale blur in the air: a bird had somehow blundered inside and was now flying madly around the room.

Poor thing, thought Sara. It can’t find the way out again.

Her relief that the crisis was nothing more dangerous than a confused bird turned her fear into irritation with the children. Why were they being so stupid, carrying on so and making matters worse?

‘Calm down,’ she shouted. ‘Just shut up and keep out of the way. You’re scaring it.’

She gave Michael a firm push and then opened the door, keeping it open by lodging the iron, dachshund-shaped foot-scraper against it.

‘Melanie, be quiet! You’re making things worse,’ Sara said in a loud whisper.

Melanie’s screams trailed away into noisy sobs. She was still cowering in a corner, head down and hands protecting it.

The bird flew three more times around the room, finally breaking out of that maddened, fluttering pattern to soar smoothly and surely out of the open door. Sara gazed after it, smiling. Then she turned to her children.

‘Oh, Melanie, what is the matter? It was only a bird and it’s gone now.’ Annoyed but obligated, Sara crossed the room to crouch beside her younger child. ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

Gently she raised Melanie’s face away from her hands and the tangle of her hair, and saw that she was covered with blood.

‘My God! Oh, sweetheart.’ Sara hurried the little girl down the passage to the bathroom. So much blood . . . was her eye hurt? She’d never forgive herself if . . .

A wet flannel, carefully used, revealed no great damage. There were two small cuts, one just above Melanie’s left eye and the other on her left cheek. Melanie snuffled and breathed jerkily. She was obviously content to have her mother fuss over her.

Michael peeked around the doorframe as Sara was applying Band-Aids to Melanie’s face. ‘That bird tried to kill Melanie,’ he said in a tone of gleeful horror. ‘He tried to peck her eyes out!’

‘Michael, really.’ Sara sighed in exasperation. Melanie would be nervous enough about birds without his stories. ‘It was an accident,’ she said firmly. ‘Birds aren’t mean or dangerous – they don’t try to hurt people. But that bird was frightened – it was in a strange place. Unfortunately, Melanie got in the way while it was trying to get out. If you’d both been more sensible, instead of jumping around like that – ’

‘It flew right at her,’ Michael said. ‘I saw it. It tried to get me next, but I wouldn’t let it – I kept waving my hands around over my head so it couldn’t get at my face like it wanted.’ He sounded very self-important and pleased with himself, which annoyed Sara still more.

‘It was an accident. The bird felt trapped and didn’t know how to respond. It’s not something you have to worry about because it’s not likely ever to happen again. Now I don’t want to hear any more about it.’ She hugged Melanie and lifted her down from the sink ledge. ‘Feel better?’

‘Hungry,’ said Melanie.

‘Glad you mentioned it. Let’s go and eat lunch.’

On Monday morning Sara took her children to play with Mary Alice’s children. It was a beautiful day but already stiflingly hot. Sara felt lethargic and faintly sad. After Michael and Melanie had joined the other children in the safely fenced-in yard, she lingered to drink iced tea and talk with Mary Alice.

‘I hope you got a lot of work done yesterday,’ Mary Alice said, settling onto a brightly cushioned wicker couch.

Sara shook her head. ‘Bruce copped out. He called at the last minute and said he couldn’t come – he was in Dallas.’

Mary Alice’s eyes went wide. ‘That . . . creep,’ she said at last.

Sara gave a short laugh. ‘I’ve called him worse than that. But I should know by now that he’s not to be counted on. The kids are starting to learn that about him, too. The worst thing about it is what I lost – or what I felt I lost. I woke up feeling great – I was ready to conquer the world, at least to paint it. I felt so alive. I felt – I don’t know if I can explain how I felt. I think of it as my “creative” feeling, and I haven’t had such a strong one since Michael was born – or maybe even since I married Bruce. It’s a mood in which everything has meaning, everything is alive, everything is possible.’

‘There’s a girl who sits for us sometimes,’ Mary Alice said hesitantly. ‘She’s very young, but responsible, and she doesn’t charge much. You could have her over some afternoons to take care of the kids while you . . .’

Sara shook her head, discarding the suggestion impatiently. ‘They’d still be around. They’d still be – oh, calling to me, somehow. I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I feel I’m just looking for excuses not to paint, but . . . there’s just something about being both a mother and an artist. I don’t know if I can manage it, not even with all the good examples of other women, or all the babysitters in the world.

‘Art has never been a part-time thing for me. Art was all I cared about in school, and up until I met Bruce. Then the part of me that was an artist got submerged. For the past five years I’ve been a full-time mother. Now I’m trying to learn how to be a part-time artist and a part-time mother, and I don’t think I can. I know that’s very all-or-nothing of me, but it’s how I feel.’

The two women sat quietly in the bright, sunlit room. The high-pitched voices of their children, playing outside, floated up to them.

‘Maybe it’s just too early,’ Mary Alice ventured at last. ‘In the fall, Michael will be in school. You could put Melanie in a nursery, at least during the mornings. Then you could count on having a certain amount of time to yourself every day.’

‘Maybe,’ Sara said. She did not sound hopeful. ‘But even when the children aren’t around, the pull is there. I think about them, worry about them, have to plan for them. And my art makes as many demands as a child – I can’t divide myself between them. I don’t think it can ever be the same – I’ll never have all my energy and thoughts and commitment to give to my art. There are always the children pulling at me.’ She sighed and rubbed her face. ‘Sometimes . . . I wish I had it to do all over again. And I think that, much as I love them, I would never have chosen to have children. I would never have married.’

Silence fell again and Sara wondered if she had shocked Mary Alice. She was rousing herself to say something else about her love for her children, to find the words that would modify the wish she had just made, when the clamour of children filled the house, the sound of the kitchen door opening and slamming, the clatter of many feet on hardwood floors, and voices raised, calling.

Sara and Mary Alice both leaped to their feet as the children rushed in.

Melanie and Chrissie were crying; the boys were excited and talking all at once.

‘It was the same bird!’ Michael cried, tugging at Sara’s arm as she knelt to comfort Melanie. ‘It came and tried to kill us again – it tried to peck her eyes out, but we ran!’

Melanie seemed unhurt; gradually, bathed in her mother’s attention, her sobs subsided.

The children all agreed with Michael’s story: there had been a white bird which had suddenly swooped down on Melanie, pecking at her head.

‘Why does that bird want to hurt us?’ Michael asked.

‘Oh, Michael, I don’t think it does. Maybe you were near its nest; maybe it was attracted by Melanie’s hair.’ Helpless to explain and trying not to feel frightened herself, Sara hugged her daughter.

‘Me go home,’ Melanie muttered into Sara’s blouse.

Sara looked up. ‘Michael, do you want to go home now, or do you want to keep on playing here?’

‘You kids can all go and play in Barry’s room,’ Mary Alice said.

The other children ran off. Sara stood up, still holding Melanie and staggering slightly under her weight. ‘I’ll take this one home,’ she said. ‘You can send Michael by himself when he’s ready, unless . . . unless he wants me to come and get him.’

Mary Alice nodded, her face concerned and puzzled. ‘What’s this about the bird?’

Sara didn’t want to talk about it. As lightly as she could she said, ‘Oh, a bird got trapped in the house yesterday and scared the kids. I don’t know what happened outside just now, but naturally Michael and Melanie are a little spooked about birds.’ She set Melanie down. ‘Come on, sweetie, I’m not going to carry you all the way home.’

Keeping her head down as if she feared another attack, Melanie left the house with her mother and walked the half-mile home staying close by her side.

At home, Sara settled Melanie in her room with her dolls, and then, feeling depressed, went back to her own bedroom and stretched out on the bed. She closed her eyes and tried to comfort herself with thoughts of the children at school, a babysitter, a silent house, and time to work. It was wrong to blame the children, she thought. She could be painting now – it was her own fault if she didn’t.

Thinking about what she would paint next, she visualized a pale, blonde woman. Her skin was unnaturally white, suggesting sickness or the pallor of death. Her lips were as red as blood, and her long hair was like silvery corn silk.

The White Goddess, thought Sara.

The woman drew a veil over her face. Then, slowly, began to draw it back. Sara felt a quickening of dread. Although she had just seen her face, she was afraid that another, different face would now be revealed. And then the veil was removed, and she saw the grey face with dead-white, staring eyes.

Sara woke with a start. She felt as if she had dozed off for less than a minute, but she saw from the bedside clock that she had been asleep for nearly an hour. She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth was dry. She heard voices, one of them Michael’s, coming from outside.

She stood up and walked to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains, curious to see who Michael was talking to.

Michael was standing on the edge of the lawn near the driveway with a strange woman. Although there was something faintly familiar about her, Sara could not identify her as any of the neighbours. She was a brassy blonde, heavily made-up – even at this distance her lips seemed garishly red against an unnaturally pale face. Something about the way they stood together and spoke so intently made Sara want to intrude.

But by the time she got outside, Michael was alone.

‘Hi,’ he said, walking toward her.

‘Where’d she go?’ Sara asked, looking around.

‘Who?’

‘That woman you were just talking to – who was she?’

‘Who?’

‘You know who,’ Sara began, then stopped abruptly, confused. She had just realised why the woman seemed familiar to her; she’d seen her first in a dream. Perhaps she had dreamed the whole incident?

She shook her head, bent to kiss Michael, and went with him into the house.

In the middle of the night Sara started up in bed, wide awake and frightened. The children? She couldn’t pinpoint her anxiety, but her automatic reaction was to check on their safety. In the hall, on the way to their rooms, she heard the sound of a muffled giggle coming from the family room. There she saw Michael and Melanie standing before the window, curtains opened wide, gazing into the garden.

Sara walked slowly toward the window, vaguely dreading what she would see.

There was a white pig on the lawn, almost shining in the moonlight. It stood very still, looking up at them.

Sara put her hand on Melanie’s shoulders and the little girl leaped away, letting out a small scream.

‘Melanie!’ Sara said sharply.

Both children stood still and quiet, looking at her. There was a wariness in their gaze that Sara did not like. They looked as if they were expecting punishment. What had they done? Sara wondered.

‘Both of you, go to bed. You shouldn’t be up and roaming around at this hour.’

‘Look, she’s dancing,’ Michael said softly.

Sara turned and looked out of the window. The pig was romping on the lawn in what was surely an unnatural fashion, capering in circles that took it gradually away from the house and toward the lake. It wasn’t trotting or running or walking – it was, as Michael had said, dancing.

On the shore of the lake it stopped. To Sara’s eyes the figure of the pig seemed to become dim and blurred – she blinked, wondering if a cloud had passed across the moon. The whiteness that had been a pig now seemed to flow and swirl like a dense fog, finally settling in the shape of a tall, pale woman in a silver-white gown.

Sara shivered and rubbed her bare arms with her hands. She wanted to hide. She wanted to turn her gaze away but could not move.

It’s not possible, she thought. I’m dreaming.

The harsh, unmistakable sound of the bolt being drawn on the door brought her out of her daze, and she turned in time to see Michael opening the door, Melanie close behind him.

‘No!’ She rushed to pull the children away and to push the door shut again. She snapped the bolt to and stood in front of the door, blocking it from the children. She was trembling.

The children began to weep. They stood with their arms half-outstretched as if begging for an embrace from someone just out of their reach.

Sara walked past her weeping children to the window and looked out. There was nothing unusual to be seen in the moonlit garden – no white pig or ghostly woman. Nothing that should not have been there amid the shadows. Across the lake she saw a sudden pale blur, as if a white bird had risen into the air. But that might have been moonlight on the leaves.

‘Go back to bed,’ Sara said wearily. ‘She’s gone – it’s all over now.’

Watching them shuffle away, sniffing and rubbing their faces, Sara remembered the story she had told Michael on the first night she had caught a glimpse of the woman. It seemed bitterly ironic now, that story of a ghostly mother searching for her children.

‘You can’t have them,’ Sara whispered to the empty night. ‘I’ll never let you hurt them.’

Sara woke in the morning feeling as if she had been painting all night: tired, yet satisfied and hopeful. The picture was there, just behind her eyes, and she could hardly wait to get started.

The children were quiet and sullen, not talking to her and with only enough energy to stare at the television set. Sara diagnosed it as lack of sleep and thought that it was just as well – she had no time for their questions or games today. She made them breakfast but let the dishes and other housework go and hurried to set up her canvas and paints outside in the clear morning sunlight.

Another cool night-time painting, all swirling grays, blue, and cold white. A metamorphosis: pale-coloured pig transforming into a pale-faced, blue-gowned woman who shifts into a bird, flying away.

The new creation absorbed her utterly and she worked all day, with only a brief pause when the children demanded lunch. At a little before six she decided to stop for the day. She was tired, pleased with herself, and utterly ravenous.

She found the children sitting before the television, and wondered if they had been there, just like that, all day. After putting her unfinished painting safely away and cleaning her brushes, she marched decisively to the television set and turned it off.

Michael and Melanie began a deprived wailing.

‘Oh, come on!’ Sara scoffed. ‘All that fuss about the news? You’ve watched enough of that pap for one day. How would you like to go for a swim before dinner?’

Michael shrugged. Melanie hugged her knees and muttered, ‘I want to watch.’

‘If you want to swim, say so and I’ll go out with you. If you don’t, I’m going to start cooking.’

They didn’t respond, so Sara shrugged and went into the kitchen. She was feeling too good to be annoyed by their moodiness.

The children didn’t turn the television back on, and Sara heard no further sound from the family room until, the chicken cooking and a potato salad under construction, she heard the screen door open and close.

She smiled and, as she was going to check on the chicken, paused to look out of the window. What she saw froze her with terror.

The children were running toward the lake, silently, their bare arms and legs flashing in the twilight. Michael was in the lead because Melanie ran clumsily and sometimes fell.

Across the lake on the other shore stood the pale woman in white; on her shoulder, the white bird; and at her side, the pig. The woman raised her head slightly and looked past the children, directly at Sara. Her blood-red lips parted in a gleaming smile.

Sara cried out incoherently and ran for the door. Ahead of her she saw Michael leap into the lake with all his clothes on. She caught up with Melanie on the shore and grabbed her.

‘Go back to the house,’ she said, shaking the girl slightly for emphasis. ‘Go on back and stay there. You are not to go into the water, understand?’

Then, kicking off her sandals, Sara dived in and swam after her son.

She had nearly reached him when she heard a splashing behind her, and her courage failed: Melanie. But she couldn’t let herself be distracted by her worries about Melanie’s abilities as a swimmer. She caught hold of her son in a lifesaver’s neck-grip. He struggled grimly and silently against her, but he didn’t have a chance. Sara knew she could get him across to the other shore if only she didn’t have to try to save Melanie as well.

‘Michael,’ Sara gasped. ‘Honey, listen to me. It’s not safe. You must go back. Michael, please! This is very dangerous – she’ll kill you. She’s the one who sent the bird!’

Michael continued to thrash, kick, and choke. Sara wondered if he even heard her. She looked around and saw Melanie paddling slowly in their direction. And on the other shore the White Goddess stood, making no sound or motion.

‘Michael, please,’ Sara whispered close to his ear. ‘Don’t fight me. Relax, and we’ll all be safe.’ With great difficulty, Sara managed to pull him back toward the home shore.

Melanie swam with single-minded concentration and was within Sara’s grasp before she could try to avoid her. She thrashed about in Sara’s armlock, but not as wild nor as strongly as her brother.

Sara had them both, now, but how was she to swim? She was treading water, just holding her own against the children’s struggles and hoping they would soon tire when she felt a rush of air against her cheek, and Melanie shrieked.

It was the bird again. Sara caught sight of it just as it was diving for Michael’s head. The sharp beak gashed his face below one eye. Michael screamed, and the bright blood streamed down his cheek.

Trying to help him, Sara relaxed her stranglehold. At once he swam away, kicking and plunging below the water.

‘Michael, go back to the house – you’ll be safe there!’

She swallowed a mouthful of lake water as she spoke, and choked on it. Letting go of Melanie, she managed to catch hold of Michael’s flailing legs and pull him back close to her. Melanie, trying to avoid the bird which was still flapping around, screamed and cried, barely managing to keep herself afloat. Sara had no trouble catching her again.

Shouting at the bird, longing for a spare hand to strike at it, Sara pulled her children close to her, pressing their faces tightly against her breast. They struggled still to get away, but they were tiring and their struggles grew weaker. Sara knew she would win – she would save them from the bird and from the goddess; she would protect them with her own body.

Finally, the bird flew away. In the sudden calm, Sara realised that her children were much too quiet, much too still. She relaxed her tight hold, and their bodies slipped farther into the water.

She stared down at them, slow to understand. Their eyes were open, looking up through a film of water, but they did not see her. She looked up from their sweet, empty faces and across the silver water to where the white-faced figure still stood, her pale eyes staring out at death, her favourite offering.

Sara saw it all as a painting. The pale figure on the shore glowed against the deep blue twilight, and the water gave off its own shimmering light. The woman in the water, also dressed in white, was a terrible, pitiable figure with her two drowned children beside her, their hair floating out around their heads like fuzzy halos; an innocent murderess.

I was the one they were afraid of, thought Sara.

She threw back her head and howled her anguish to the empty world.