I crept up the side steps of the Hotel’s verandah, the ones furthest from its swinging front doors, and tried to peer through the windows. I could just make out the shapes of people inside. Uncertain impressions through the huge panes of glass scrubbed over with soap stains and cloudy for it.
The Stranger was in there somewhere and what if the stories about her were true? What if she really had been Granger’s girl once and they’d taken their whips to her and more besides, till she was left bleeding and dead on the ground?
What if all that . . . and now she was back?
I could make out little through the windows. If I wanted to see anything for real, I’d have to go inside. Yet if I went in, I’d be making one hell of an entrance. Everyone would see.
The Stranger was in there somewhere and what if the stories about her were true?
Being Granger’s girl might give me a bit of power, but that would be really pushing things.
Warmth and sound seeped out from behind the swinging doors. The Hotel was brimming with activity, conversation, laughter, calls and noise. Even the pianoforte sounded for a brief span, thankfully stopping halfway through the badly played tune. I took a tentative step towards the doors, only they swung outwards as I did and I jerked backwards to hide in the shadows by the steps as two men trod out.
The Sheriff. He looked unhappy. He had one of his flunkeys with him and they muttered between themselves before the younger man headed off down the Main Street. The Sheriff walked back to his office.
I swallowed tightly at almost being seen. If I couldn’t handle that out here, how could I face walking inside?
‘They say.’
The words came out of nowhere. I twisted, trying to make out the speaker, peering into the night at the bottom of the steps below from where the voice had come. There. A shape, hunched and old. Long straggly hair more grey than not. Female.
Mother Jane.
I swallowed, my mouth tacky, not knowing if it were relief or trepidation inside me. Seemed like everyone was out this night. What was Mother Jane doing in the centre of town?
‘Did you speak, good mother?’ I asked, using my most respectful tone, if keeping it hushed.
‘They say.’ Mother Jane cocked her head up at me. ‘They say a lot of things, girl. Right now they’d say you are where you should not be.’
I wanted to say, And so are you, but that would be rude.
Mother Jane was old. Not as old as the men, but older than any other woman in town. She was also mad. An old woman who spoke in riddles and told unbelievable stories, when she bothered to speak at all. She was rarely seen in the Main Street. She kept to her rooms way out beneath one of the falling-over lookout towers that no-one used anymore cos they were too dangerous even for the bravest men to go up.
An old woman who spoke in riddles and told unbelievable stories, when she bothered to speak at all.
If the Main Street, with its proper buildings, was where the power was concentrated, the extremities of our town housed the least of us. Mother Jane lived further out than any. Sometimes, though, we would visit Mother Jane, me and the other girls of the town. It might not be talked of much, but if you were a woman in Darkwater, then there were just some things you went to Mother Jane for. She was a healer, someone who could help when you didn’t want to face the town’s doctor, who’d report everything back to Granger and the old men.
‘It’s okay, Mother Jane. I . . . I’m allowed.’
She huffed her disbelief. I wasn’t sure how to ask why she was out here. Maybe for the same reason as me. Maybe she wanted to see the travelling woman too.
‘You’ve got a curiosity they’d say is unbecoming of a girl. They’d say they have ways of belting it out of you and they’d say such would be justified.’
I gave her an awkward half-shrug to acknowledge that truth. ‘I just want to see her,’ I said, ‘the Stranger,’ and this time she inclined her head to my truth. ‘To see if she’s all they say she is.’
‘Huh. What they say,’ she said and began shuffling away. She’d almost disappeared into the night when she looked back. ‘They say she cursed them as they raped her, as they whipped her.’
My every limb tensed. Mother Jane’s voice cut through the darkness with a sharp edge.
‘What?’ I managed.
‘They say she screamed for help so loud the whole town heard. But everyone was afraid. They cowered in their beds and hid behind closed doors. All of them too afeared to stand up and say, “No, this ain’t right. This must stop.”’ The old woman’s voice was low, intense. ‘So she cursed ’em. With her own spilled blood, she cursed this town what could hear her screaming and did nothing. They say she damned this town to hell.’
Cold settled in my stomach. Mother Jane was always full of dark stories that never made no sense. I’d heard similar from her before. Only now, with a stranger in our town to give her ramblings a tangibility, this story began to feel too real.
‘Be careful, girl, to mind what they say.’
The old woman didn’t look back again as she walked away. I watched her go with my heart racing. Mother Jane always spoke rubbish. Children taunted her. Adults ignored her. Old, mad, a woman we still went to for advice when we couldn’t trust a man.
I didn’t believe in devils and curses. And if no man would stop me, no devil would either.
I wiped my palms, sticky and sweating, against my coat and walked up to those swinging doors. A breath for courage, then I pushed through them and stepped inside.
This is an extract from The Stranger by Kathryn Hore (Allen & Unwin), available now at your local independent bookseller.
