The springtime was a sweet and lovely lie.
The heavens gushed onto the streets, making creeks out of paths and people into indistinct grey smudges that wiggled like chewed taffy through the deluge. The water flowed from cloud to street, to pipe, to the river, to the sea and out and out.
Marsha kicked a puddle, phone to her ear.
‘Hey, Marsh. I know your birthday was yesterday but your father and I were at Wimbledon. Maybe you saw us on the telly? Anyway, I know that you told us not to call and I can’t imagine what your father would say, but … you know you don’t have to be alone all the time, and —well, happy birthday. Love you, pet.’
She looked up to her father’s face, smiling widely (oiled, prim and proper) as if he were being held hostage. Next to his head, it said: HUGH QUINCY—THE ONLY CHOICE. VOTE 1 FOR LABOUR.
The words seemed to dribble and waver in the rain.
Especially considering the spray-painted frog that dripped messily across the image.
***
There was something to be said for family loyalty, and it was this:
There ain’t any.
Or at least this rang true for Marsha’s family (and to say family was speaking quite broadly). Traditionally, the members of said family were one of the following: politicians, lawyers and butchers. Though, her father had once described the butcher branch as ‘the rotten part’ of the Quincy tree.
Despite not being a butcher, she had been thrown out of the house, Marsha planned to return for the last of her things. Her plans had unfortunately diverged immensely.
For one thing, she was already there—far earlier than she had expected. Outside the large iron gates, she could see the family crest, curled in delicate arabesques, plucked from the metal and made of interconnected valley-lilies around the body of a horse half-reared.
All the pomp made her a little queasy. Even the scent of purple wisteria meandering across the red bricks of their family home was void of the comfort they had provided in the summers of her youth. The smell of warm bread wafting spurred her to press the humming call button at head height.
A muttering buzzed through the speaker: ‘God, what dozy mole is calling on a Sun—Dah! Marsha? Jeez Marsh, is that you out there?’
Marsha gave a little smirk to the security camera. It was their cook Jenny whose face appeared in a grainy, grey haze, one of Marsha’s favourites on staff. Jenny worked Sundays as a general hand around the house—which apparently included answering the gate now. Lucky her.
‘Heya Jen. Did Mum tell you I was coming?’
Jenny’s cheek warbled at that, stretching back to hide whatever confusion was about to flitter across her face, only to replace it with a frown.
‘Thought you said you weren’t coming back,’ Jenny challenged, and while Marsha could only see her from the shoulder up, she imagined the other woman had her hands in fists on her hips. ‘Your ma said you’d gone to law school.’
Marsha looked down to the ragged kaftan she wore that smelt goat-adjacent. ‘Do I look like I’ve been at law school? Come on! Just let me in, and I’ll make tea. Still got the posh French Earl Grey you like?’
The roll of Jenny’s eyes spoke of victory, and the gates swung open with a creaking basso. Marsha crunched up the gravel drive past perfectly spherical hedges caught in the fragrant grasp of spring; sunny blooms speckled them with delicate pinks and ivory.
She skipped to the side entrance—a small barn door for the staff leading directly into the empty lower-level kitchen. She waited there, dropping herself onto a wooden stool and gazing around at the room. It stank of old-world-old-money with its chipped bricks and copper saucepans hanging from the ceiling in gleaming rows of disuse. A sigh wriggled free as she tapped her fingers on the bench for a minute, measuring her wait; knowing the walk from the entrance was a rather long one, she decided to make tea and started searching through the pantry. The cast iron teapot that Jenny preferred wasn’t in its familiar spot—someone had moved it.
‘Shit,’ she whispered to herself.
‘Looking for this, love?’
Marsha whipped around—narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the benchtop—to face Jenny, who was smiling fondly, holding the familiar squat teapot.
‘Yeah.’ Marsha took the teapot out of Jenny’s hands. ‘Still two?’
‘Stevia now.’
‘Huh.’ Marsha flicked the kettle on and heaped tea into the pot. ‘Posh.’
‘Hardly.’
There was a desperate pause that wriggled between them and grew plump with the whistling call of the kettle.
Marsha couldn’t bear it. ‘How are the ‘rents?’
Jenny raised a bushy eyebrow. ‘Fine. Your father’s doing quite well, taken ill but career-wise up-and-up, and your mother’s taken up—’
‘Impressionism. Yeah, I did see that in the news. Benefits and the like.’
‘Yeah,’ Jenny finished lamely. ‘What about you? Not at law school, and you’re definitely not a politician with, uh—’
‘The horns?’ Marsha said, amused. Jenny’s eyes darted up before landing back on Marsha’s face. The horns themselves were unfortunately large, like a ram’s—big enough to use like a cornucopia. Or at least, that was the joke that never went down well at parties when Marsha told it. She guessed it wasn’t particularly funny.
‘Well … I could have been a lawyer, looking like the devil and all.’
‘Don’t be saying that!’ Jenny gasped, but there was a secretive grin plastered at the corners of her mouth. Marsha had no such qualms and broke out into laughter. Her heart sang when Jenny joined her.
‘You’re the one playing coy! You know what I’ve been up to, all this law school talk. As if!’ Marsha said, pouring them both tea. The cloying scent of bergamot curled around them, settling between them as they both paused to take in the aroma.
‘Alright, yes. I’ve been reading your blog. What you’ve been doing—those are some convincing little tricks you can do,’ Jenny said with a shrug, her voice lilting with confusion.
Marsha snorted. ‘It’s just Instagram.’
‘Well, it’s been pissing off your father to no end. I have to listen to his stomping all day.’ She pointed to the ceiling that hung lowly above them, silent and disregarding her point entirely.
‘Activism is meant to do that. Piss off the ones in power, yadda, yadda. Is he here?’ Marsha asked.
‘Upstairs, in bed. Sick, remember?’
‘Right. Well, I—’
‘Why are you here?’ Jenny asked abruptly. ‘Not that I don’t like seeing you, but …’
‘I just need to pick up some things.’
Jenny looked at her in disbelief. ‘Right.’
Marsha went for a different tack, hoping that there was still some of that class resentment buried deep in her friend. ‘Look, there’s been some rumours going ‘round, and—’
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous!’ Jenny said, standing up. Her hands fluttered about her dress, patting herself down as she looked around the room. ‘We both know that there’s no merit to such nasty stuff. It’s all tabloid nonsense! ’
Marsha watched the display for a moment, the clucking of a broody mother with fear strained jerks. Jenny had once thrown her scathing comments around the kitchen about her father as she furiously made his omlettes for the third time that day, smiling when Marsh had joined in.
So, Marsha pushed: ‘Right. How’s your son going then? Transfer all good? I know that moving from public to private can be a little strenuous … and expensive.’
The effect swept both of them up—Jenny was thunderous, with a face of mottled and blooming pinks and puce, and Marsha was shocked, slapping her hand over her own mouth.
‘I know what you’re trying to imply, and Frankie is doing just fine, thank you,’ Jenny hissed.
Something spiked and burning and bright lanced through Marsha’s chest. ‘I’m sure he is. Much better. Specialists are expensive after all, but with that Quincy money, those private rooms and all those meds—’
‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
‘But you should!’ Marsha pressed. ‘Come on, at least let me check. He’s a liar and you’re covering for him! I can taste it.’
‘I think you just want to spite him.’
‘I deserve to spite him! You’ve seen what he plans to do—a registry, is that worth it for you? People are going to lose their jobs. Could you live with yourself?!’
The two women paused, facing one another, both heaving for air. Something was tugging on at Jenny’s face, pulling the corners of her mouth down her chin. The flick of her eyes to the stairs sent vindication shooting all the way through Marsha to her fingertips.
‘So, it’s true. He’s paying you off,’ Marsha breathed.
‘I never said that,’ Jenny shot back, a razor-sharp bite.
‘Don’t play daft.’ Marsha stood, uncaring as Jenny grabbed at her arms. Marsha shook her off and stomped and stormed and raged and shouted through the house.
‘Father!’ she yelled, voice alight in mania and glee. ‘Father, it’s me! Your wayward daughter back from the dead. Heard you’re feeling poorly. Heard about your policy changes as well! Got yourself registered, Daddy?’
Her journey through the house was a mad one. Jenny chased her through the manor, tearing across Persian carpets and past classical portraits and nostalgic landscapes hung from the walls, ruining the picturesque façade of old money. Moulded by inexperienced hands, one sad vase was knocked from a pedestal and smashed across the ground. The sound popped and tore at the air; the tinkling of its parts like harsh laughter in the saturated silence that was the Quincy family home.
Marsha came to a grinding halt in the library, surrounded by tomes covered in perfectly cracked hides; the gold filagree licking up the warm, earthy leathers would set off any posh hindbrain in a pleasurable purr.
Silence greeted her, caressed at her, ate at her. It was only broken by the distant sounds of Jenny’s following footsteps. Stretching, she listened, wondering where her father could have hidden in the house, driven by a rage that came from right down in her toes and filled her to the top with dire desperation.
A creak and a crrrrack drew her attention, and she was drawn like a dog at point, heel up and all. She looked up at the ceiling, not even daring to roll her eyes—his study. Of course.
She took the stairs two at a time, body moving through the air with lacquered smoothness. She was filled with a metallic buzzing that set the back of her teeth on edge, insults battering up against them.
Violence was bred into the butcher side of the family, but each Quincy had a little bit of it all to themselves. So it would be of no surprise to anyone who knew her that Marsha kicked the study door open with a strangled yell. It swung to reveal her father—as pathetic as she remembered, and just as slick. He was bent over his desk, drenched with the gleam of sweat. A grimace posing as a smile was grouted upon his lips.
‘Hi, sweetpea.’
The empty platitude was clearly meant to distract her from the thing he was trying to hide on the desk. Marsha took a step forward and her eyes landed upon a lubricous lump upon the dark mahogany. A deep ribbit reverberated through the room.
His smile slumped off his face. ‘Joyce, I’ll—I’ll call you back.’ With a click, the phone disconnected.
‘New friend?’ She asked, pulling out her phone to snap a picture of the amphibian and the drool that dripped from her father’s lips. Her own father was Rippled, and she couldn’t help but nod at the frog and ask, ‘Is he on the registry?’
‘Don’t be smart now.’
She shrugged. ‘Runs in the blood, but I don’t think it came from you.’
‘Marsh—oh!’ Jenny cut herself off as she stepped into the room, eyes moving with a waning certainty from the phone in Marsha’s hand to her boss, who had just evicted another frog from the pits of his stomach. ‘Shit.’ she muttered.
‘Shit indeed,’ Marsha said, waving the phone in her hand as she turned back to her father. ‘You know Bitsun hated making that registry. Listing us all down, for what? Every second of it, he knew it was wrong, and he came straight to me.’
‘Love, please. You c—can’t be serious, huh?’ her father pleaded, palms out to her in supplication. ‘Come on, I know we’ve had our … little tiffs and all but you can’t—think about the damage this will do!’
‘That’s exactly what I’m thinking about.’
And her shadows filled up, jumping across the room in ribbons and whirling creatures, imps and cats and bats with leathery wings.
‘Marsha!’ Jenny cried as the creatures swarmed at her ankles, pulling at her dress and up her body.
But Marsha was gone. Two glowing pits remained, hungry holes in the middle of the room, micronising and twisting without end. And Hugh Qunicy watched on in horror as the shadowed form of his own daughter moved in patches of liquid night towards the window and out into the springtime air.
Evidence in hand.
Emma-Grace Clarke is a Melbourne based creative writer and winner of the Women’s Voices 2020 competition. She’s lived up and down the east coast of Australia but dreams of moving into a hut hidden in the wilderness someday. If you ever came across her, you’d find her writing (obviously) and probably staring out a window at some birds.