The End of Mary

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

In all the years my family had been coming here, we’d never known anyone to occupy the Old Worthy Place, not even for a summer. Ours and theirs were the only two cabins situated in this tiny North-Easterly part of New England, and that was one of the reasons we made a point to come out here whenever we needed a break from the city. On occasions when there had been more of us, we would walk in the woods or swim in the lake together (keeping close to the shoreline, after Nana warned us about wading in too deep), but since mother had died and Em had gone away to college, we found ourselves spending more and more time apart.

So needless to say, I was intrigued by the prospect that we might have neighbours.

As I sat up, gazing across the cool, still waters of the lake, the tiny pinprick of light continued to flicker and dance off the dusty glass of the cabin opposite. It was the same layout as ours: a single large room that served as the main living quarters and two bedrooms on either side, which was where the light was coming from. If I could see them, I reasoned, there was a good chance that whoever was out there could see me too.

Carefully, I slipped down from the window sill and padded across the room to a tall dresser that must have been as old as the cabin itself. After passing over several locked drawers, I eventually found a torch with batteries and returned to the window. The light hadn’t moved, so I flicked the torch on and shone it out across the lake, moving the beam slowly from side to side. A moment passed, and then with a gleeful smile I saw the candle drift back and forth across the window, copying my movements. I flashed the torch on and off in an irregular pattern, and once again the candle returned my signal. To my ten-year-old self, this was the most thrilling encounter I'd had for a long time, and part of me wanted to rush straight over and find out who was on the other end of our silent communication. But the other part of me, the more sensible part, knew that it was too dark outside to find my way, even with a torch.

I flashed the beam on and off once more, signalling goodbye. Across the lake, the tiny pinprick of light was extinguished. Whoever was there had understood. I set the torch down and lay back on my bed, listening to the muffled snores of my father and Nana coming from the room over. The next morning, I resolved, I would walk around the lake and knock on the Worthy's door, find out who that candle belonged to.

But then, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard something floating in through the open window. A soft humming, tuneful but sad. A melody I didn't recognise. Coming from the direction of the lake.

*

Mary Worthy smiles to herself as she lifts down a candle from the uppermost shelf and lights it. She's a year older, but she still feels young at heart. It's a meagre meal she's preparing for herself, but she has no need for extravagances. She toys with a small silver locket around her neck: it's the one piece of jewellery she owns, a gift from the man she loves.

As she cuts the crusts off a slice of bread, she sings quietly to herself. It’s a ditty she's picked up from a friend.

“Come dancing with me, through rock, lake and tree. And together we’ll live so happy and free.”

Mary Worthy gazes out the window across the lake's still waters. Today is her birthday. Today she is happy...

*

My father was already gone by the time I got up the next morning. He had taken to fishing recently, I guess as a way of being alone with his thoughts, and was often out before daybreak (although I can never remember him catching any fish). Nana was also awake, sitting in a chair by the fireplace, a blanket over her legs and a lost expression on her face. She struggled to recognise things these days, and though she had grown up in this very cabin, she was staring around her like she was seeing it for the first time. I wished father would take better care of her.

"Going out Nana," I called as I crossed the room to the back door. "Going to meet the neighbours." She stared at me blankly as I passed. I knew she didn't know who I was.

The back door opened onto a small yard with a wooden jetty that extended out over the lake. I could see father in his boat some distance out, his silver fishing line catching the light as he made a cast.

It was a good mile or so to the Worthy place by road, so I decided to follow the water's edge, looping around through the thick crop of trees that separated our cabin and theirs. Eventually, I arrived at the edge of the property. I had only been here once before with my sister, and I was instantly struck by how worn and rundown everything was. Their jetty was smaller than ours, covered in rotten planks and green mucus from the lake. There were no lights on inside, and the day was too bright for me to make out much through the dusty windows.

I moved over to the back door and reached for the handle.

“Feeling nosy?” said a voice behind me.

I jumped and whipped around. In front of me stood a girl of about my own age, with dirty blonde hair and a slightly pinched face. Her arms were folded in an expression of mock reproach, but she soon smiled and shattered the illusion.

"The expression on your face!" she laughed. "You look as if you've seen a ghost!" I quickly shut my mouth and tried to slow my pounding heart.

"I heard you coming a mile away," I replied defiantly. "I was just playing around."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

The girl looked me up and down, as if passing quiet judgement.

"So I guess you're Torch Boy," she eventually said. "From across the lake."

"I guess so," I replied. "So does that make you Candle Girl?"

She chuckled. "I would've rather used a torch as well, but my dad forgot to pick up any supplies when he went into town. He's always doing things like that." She shrugged. "I'm Molly, anyway."

"Justin," I said, shaking her hand. "I didn't know there was anyone else staying here. Place is completely rundown."

"Yep," agreed Molly. "Apparently we're the first people to stay in fifty years. I guess because it's haunted or something."

"What? Haunted?" I said. "I never heard that."

"Well, I don't really know if it's haunted, but people in town say things, don't they? And we're only staying here because dad wants to write this stupid book."

"What book? What about?" I was intrigued.

Molly rubbed her hands together and leaned forwards conspiratorially.

“There was a woman who used to live in this cabin,” she whispered. “Mary Worthy. People call her The Vanishing Bride. She disappeared fifty years ago, on the day of her wedding, and has never been heard from since. Father thinks he can find out what happened to her, so we’re staying in the cabin while he works.” Her eyes lit up suddenly. "D'you want to see?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, but Molly had already grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the back door of the cabin. I coughed as we entered. Many of the surfaces were thick with dust, but I could see places where Molly and her father had made themselves at home. Several black and white photos had been pinned to a corkboard, which itself was propped up against a battered kitchen table. The middle photo showed a smiling young woman, about twenty-five years of age, standing in the very room we were in that moment. She wore a simple white dress and had a small, heart-shaped locket around her neck. Her hands were clasped neatly in her lap as she sat on a wooden clothes chest, light spilling in from the open back door nearby. A mirror behind her showed the left ear of a young man, who I guess had been the one to take the photo.

Molly nodded. "That's her," she said. "That was taken in 1937, two months before she disappeared."

I examined the photo again. "She looks happy," I said, lamely.

"That's what makes it so mysterious," countered Molly. "She had no reason to leave. But when people couldn't find her, they just stopped looking." She took a breath. "I reckon she fell in the lake. Or she was kidnapped to be held to ransom, but something went wrong."

I was busy examining another photo, one Molly's dad had annotated "The day after disappearance". It showed the same room: same mirror, same back door open to the elements, but no Mary Worthy.

"My family have had a cabin here for years," I said. "Why have I never heard about her before?"

Molly shrugged again. "I dunno," she said. "But you're lucky. In town they talk about seeing her up here, in these woods. She wanders around the lake, wearing a long, flowing dress, and singing for her lost love. If you see her, she'll enchant you and take you with her, and then you'll never be seen again."

*

Mary Worthy poses for the photo as sunlight streams into the cabin from above the treeline. Her love wants a souvenir, so he's borrowed a camera and brought it round. Her fingers lightly scratch the top of the clothes chest as he lines up the shot. She feels self-conscious, but he assures her she shouldn't do.

The camera clicks once and Mary Worthy is frozen in time, captured in place for over fifty years...

*

I didn't believe Molly of course, but she was good company, and once we had exhausted conversation about Mary Worthy, we found we had a lot in common. Her dad, when he returned, was a round-faced, jocular man, easy-going and amiable, but, I sensed, a little absent-minded. When he shooed us out so that he could start going through some old town records, Molly and I spent the afternoon wandering the woods, searching for hidey-holes. On one occasion, we took off our shoes and dipped our toes in the lake, but that quickly ended when Molly said she felt a hand grip her ankle.

"It's too shallow," she said, once she had stopped laughing. "Any lake monster is going to be lurking at the very bottom." I was unamused, particularly when I saw my father's empty boat drifting across the water. As it happened, he had just forgotten to tie it up.

At dinnertime, Molly and I parted ways, but we agreed we'd try signalling to each other again that night. I returned to the cabin to find my father opening a tin of beans and Nana blankly peeling the crusts off a PB and J sandwich.

"Who's Mary Worthy?" I asked, as we sat down to an unappetising dinner. At that, my father dropped his fork and Nana gave off a little twitch.

"How did you hear about that?" my father asked.

"My friend Molly," I admitted. "Her dad's writing a book about the disappearance. They're staying across the lake."

"Huh, I had no idea."

"People say her ghost haunts these woods. That she sings to you and drags you down to a watery grave."

"Nonsense."

"Is that why Nana never liked us going too deep in the water?"

My father fixed me with a stern look. "Ghosts don't exist Justin," he said. "I think your friend has been filling your head with stories." He swallowed a mouthful of beans. "Mary Worthy ran off with another man and people turned it into something it's not. You shouldn't believe everything you hear."

*

Of course I knew not to believe everything I heard, but I had definitely seen something that day that didn't make sense. Something missing from one of the photos.

As I sat up that night, Molly and I shining our torches at each other across the lake, I tried to think what it could be, but came up blank. Once we had exhausted ourselves and turned in for the night, I lay awake for a while.

And then, just like before, I heard some low, faint humming.

I quickly scrambled out of bed and rushed to the window, but there was nothing outside. The humming continued, seeming to round the walls of the cabin, getting ever closer. And now words were starting to form:

“Come dancing with me, through rock, lake and tree. And together we’ll live so happy and free.”

Something creaked outside my room, and I scuttled over to the door and turned the key in the lock. I pressed my ear to the wood, listening hard. There was silence for a moment, and then I heard another sound. A sort of soft scraping against the door.

Something was trying to get in.

I backed away from the door and snatched up my torch, shining it at the crack under the frame. There was nothing there, and I didn't hear anything more that night, even though I sat up for a long time after.

*

"So you think it was Mary's ghost?" Molly asked, as we trudged back through the woods. It was three days later, and I'd finally mentioned the visitation of that night to her, in part worried she was going to laugh at me again.

Since our first meeting, the two of us had spent every day together, exploring the woods and reading to each other in the shade of trees. I gathered that Molly's dad was having no luck in putting the mystery together, although he and my father had now met and found they got along almost as well as Molly and I.

"What else could it be?" I asked. "If she had got in she would've enchanted me, and I'd be spirited away to God knows where."

"Yeah, that would suuuuuck," agreed Molly. "Unless you leave all your stuff to me, in which case I say knock yourself out."

I smiled. "Thanks for the support."

It was getting late now, so we decided to turn around and head back to the lake, pushing through the well-trodden paths we knew by heart by now. As we drew close to the water’s edge, we began to hear a commotion coming from somewhere up ahead: two pairs of voices shouting and the creak of wood. Soon the trees thinned out and we caught a glimpse of the source.

My father was in his boat, which had drifted close to the Worthy cabin’s jetty. I could see his fishing line seemed to have snagged on something in the water. Molly’s father stood on the shore, and both were calling instructions to each other as they ran a long line of rope between them. As we watched, the two men heaved on the ropes, slowly dragging something big and heavy from the lake. Molly nudged me, and we crept round the treeline to get a closer look. With one last effort, the two men hauled the rope in and dragged whatever it was onto the shore. We stopped at the edge of the property, craning our necks to see across the yard.

It was the clothes chest from the photo, large and wooden, and (I now realised) missing from the second photograph. The outside was faded with water damage, and the hinges I knew would be almost rusted shut, but then Molly's dad went to get some tools from the outhouse. When he returned, our fathers braced themselves and, working together, cracked the lid open. With a hefty crash, the whole cover split from its hinges and landed in the yard, and I saw my father recoil, holding a cloth over his nose and mouth.

The two men examined the contents of the chest, whispering to each other. I couldn't hear what was being said. Then Molly’s father took a sheet and draped it over the top, obscuring the inside from view. They spoke again, and this time I caught the words “Town” and “Sheriff”. Then both men turned and headed inside the cabin.

“Come on,” whispered Molly, and she stole forwards ahead of me. I followed at a distance, reluctant to be left behind, but at the same time reluctant to approach any further.

From the treeline, we crept up into the yard and approached the clothes chest. The smell hit me first; a mix of raw sewage and off meat. Molly reached out for the sheet and tugged it off. The smell grew more pronounced. We both looked down.

Inside the chest were the remains of a person. Waterlogged, rotten flesh, black and shiny. A staring skull, devoid of eyes and crushed on top, the mouth frozen in a terrified scream. Stained rags of a white dress and veil. The smell was overpowering.

I turned away from the chest and vomited onto the ground. I couldn’t help myself. I swayed on the spot, bent double, supporting myself with my hands.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!” came a bellowing voice from behind us. We both jumped as Molly's father came charging out of the cabin. His usual jocular manner was gone. “Both of you, get away from there!” He pulled Molly aside as he reached us and threw the sheet back over the chest.

“We were just looking - ” Molly started.

“I don’t want you looking,” her father snapped. “That’s not something any child should see.”

He put himself between us and the chest. “I need you both to clear out of here,” he said. “There’ll be people who’ll want to see this, and you’ll only get in the way.”

Molly huffed and took my hand, pulling me away from the site. When I looked back, I saw her father stoop to pick up the lid that had fallen from its hinges. He was examining it closely, and I knew that he had seen what I had seen, as I was bent double and voiding my stomach contents a moment before.

There were scratches on the inside of the lid. Long, deep gouges in the wood.

As if made by fingernails.

*

Mary Worthy is getting married today, and she's ever so excited. As soon as she's greeted all the well-wishers, she will be meeting the man that she loves and starting their new life together.

Everyone is saying how pretty she looks in her wedding dress. She only wishes they could be as happy as her.

Mary Worthy offers her latest visitor a cup of tea. As she turns her back, she catches a glimpse in the mirror of something shiny and metal rushing towards her...

*

Molly ate round ours that evening. The Old Worthy Place was already a swarm of activity, and her dad was needed to manage it all. When nightfall came and he still hadn’t called round, my father put us both up in my room. Later, we overheard him discussing the find with Nana. Mary Worthy had been alive when she was put in the trunk; the skull fracture (made by some sort of claw hammer) had not in fact killed her as intended. We listened at the door, and when we heard the slow step of my father approach, we scurried back to our room and locked the door.

It was an uneasy sleep that night. My mind was open to the vividest imaginings, and yet it was unmistakably real when, at around midnight, a familiar scraping sound crept in from the darkness.

“Molly, d’you hear that?” I whispered.

“Mary's ghost,” she whispered back. “We found her. We let her out of the box!”

At that moment, the door handle rattled violently, and a soft, hoarse gurgle sounded from the other side. Molly and I gasped and drew the covers up around ourselves, but the rattling quickly ceased, and soon we heard the sound of heavy, slow footsteps disappearing into the night.

We didn't get much sleep after that.

*

“We’re leaving,” Molly told me the next day. She had breakfasted with us in the morning, during which we had refrained from mentioning the incident of the previous night. Then her father had sent for her, and she had spent the rest of the morning over in the other cabin.

“What d’you mean you’re leaving?” I asked, stunned. “I thought you had another week here at least?”

“We did,” Molly admitted. “But now we have to give the cabin up to some people from the county. Apparently they need to look for more evidence.” She shrugged again. She shrugged a lot.

“Anyway, dad’s happy. He’s got a book out of it; says he can finish it from anywhere now that he’s got a direct line to the sheriff’s office.”

She looked at me with a tint of sadness in her eyes.

“You will write to me if you see or hear anything else, won’t you?”

I hugged her. “Of course I will. And you let me know if your dad uncovers anything else.”

We parted ways, and I was sad to see her go. While my family seemed to grow more distant every day, Molly had been able to keep me close. My father looked at me as we watched their car pull away down the long drive that separated the two properties.

“Are you alright Justin?” he asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Yes,” I replied. But it wasn’t true.

*

We got a visit from the Sheriff a couple of days later. His team had finished a search of the lake and found no trace of the murder weapon. Dad was told he would soon be able to get back to fishing, but I don’t think he particularly cared anymore. An amateur fisherman unearthing a corpse would probably soil some enthusiasm for the sport. In fact, one night over dinner, he announced that he was thinking of selling the cabin and buying a bigger place back home, somewhere for Nana to stay while she regained her senses. I liked the sound of that: without the light from the other cabin, the whole lake now seemed lonely and mysterious.

That night, as I sat up staring at the dark windows of the Worthy cabin, I heard scratching at my door and then soft padding footsteps away. A moment later and a silhouette appeared down by the water’s edge, a figure in a long flowing gown. It was singing.

“Come dancing with me, through rock, lake and tree. And we’ll live together all happy and free.”

I ducked down beneath the window frame and screwed my eyes up tightly. I didn't want to listen, I didn't want to see. But then I thought of Molly, and that I'd promised to write if I saw or heard something. Well, this was something.

I watched as the figure waded into the lake, walking slowly forwards until the water was past their waist.

Good, I thought. Let the lake take you back. Stay away from my family.

I stole a peek out the window. The figure was almost fully submerged. Then it was under, disappearing below the surface of the water. I breathed a sigh of relief.

But then, I heard the back door crashing open and orange light spilled into the night.

"Nana no!" my father cried, as he charged forwards, out into the yard, and started into the lake.

"Justin!" he called back. "Justin, wake up! Bring a blanket! Quickly!" He reached the spot where the figure had gone under and dived in himself. Gasping, I did as I was told, grabbing a sheet and towel from the main room and hurrying outside. I reached the edge of the lake in time to see my father wading back onto shore, Nana unconscious in his arms, her long nightshirt completely sodden.

“Don’t just stand there, help me!” he cried, and I rushed to his side. Together we helped Nana back inside and all got dry.

“She-she just walked into the lake,” I stammered as we caught our breath. “It was like she was possessed.”

“She’s not possessed,” my father snapped. “It’s called sundowning. It happens to lots of people her age.” But he didn’t look entirely convinced.

“Poor Mary,” Nana murmured. “Young girl, so young. So pretty. You know, I see her every day. She's the reason you were born."

I asked her what she meant by this, but she had trailed off. The flash of recognition I had seen in her eyes when she mentioned Mary's name was already fading.

"Nana's always been scared of the lake," my father explained sympathetically. "As long as I've been alive, she's always warned me not to swim too far out."

"She knew Mary Worthy, didn't she?" I said.

"Of course she knew her," my father replied. "Nana grew up on this lake. In fact, if Mary hadn't disappeared, she never would have married your grandfather. He was Mary's love, you see?"

I didn't. Not quite. But I knew I had a lot to put in Molly's letter.

*

Mary Worthy wakes up in a cold, black chasm. She can’t see, she can’t move, but she can feel the weight of the water pressing down around her. Her wedding dress is already soaked. The locket is missing from around her neck.

She scratches in desperation at the trunk lid, bloodying her nails, but all to no avail. With her strength fading, she utters a final curse, to live forever within the mind and soul of the one who did this to her.

Mary Worthy screams as the lake water rushes down her throat…

*

We packed up the station wagon the next morning. We couldn’t stay there, not with Nana in the state she was. I was glad to be leaving. I doubted we would be back.

As my father loaded up the car with our bags, I realised I had forgotten my torch, so I turned and headed back into the cabin. I found the torch on the kitchen table and was about to leave when I heard a scraping sound coming from the next room. I crept around the corner to look.

Nana was in my room, bending over one of the various locked drawers in that big old dresser. It stood open at her feet, I have no idea where she got the key from. There was a clearness in her eyes I hadn't seen for a long time. I saw her reach down into the drawer and lift something out, which she wrapped up in a blanket.

I ducked back as she hobbled out of the room and made a beeline for the back door. Curious, cautious, I crept after her.

Nana was standing at the end of the jetty, muttering something under her breath. As I crept closer, I could just make it out. It was exactly what I expected:

“Come dancing with me, through rock, lake and tree. And we’ll live together all happy and free.”

Nana smiled to herself and unwrapped the object from the blanket. It caught the light as she raised it and I could see it in more detail.

It was a claw hammer.

As I watched, Nana threw her arm back and, with surprising strength, launched the hammer into the lake, where it sunk out of sight. She paused, sensing something, and I bolted back into the cabin and out the front door, where I strapped myself in behind the driver's seat. A moment later, when my father went to get her and lead her to the car, she was back to her old, unfamiliar self. But I noticed as she climbed into the passenger seat a small, heart-shaped locket hanging around her neck. I had never seen her wear it, but I knew whose it was.

As we set off from the cabin and joined the highway, I could hear Nana's soft snores coming from up front. She was turned away from my father, head slumped against the window. From his perspective, she would appear to be sleeping.

But her eyes were fixed on me the whole journey home. And I didn't like the story they told.

*

When we moved house six months later, Nana moved in with us. Her room is directly opposite mine. She recognises less and less every day, but now there's one exception. I've put everything I know in a letter to Molly. I just hope it reaches her in time.

Every night I sleep with my door locked. And every night I hear her scratching at the door, trying to get in.

If she's Nana, or if she's Mary, she knows that I know. And I know that she knows that I know. She wants to get in, to get to me.

But I won't let her. Not ever.