The Goat's Head Read online

  Too many thoughts pulsated in her brain for her to remain calm and rational. Her whole life had been mapped out for her. Her parents didn’t care less about her. They were relieved when she boarded the plane and flew out here because their daughter had saved them. Most parents wouldn’t have dreamed of considering doing what they had done to her, Sofie thought, struggling to come to terms with all of this.

  ‘It’s my life. It’s my choice,’ she said after a long silence had fallen between them.

  ‘And what choice have you made?’

  ‘Everything that you have told me is true, right?’ Sofie knew this to be true, merely just wanted clarification.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Then I choose to have an abortion.’

  Although her facial expression hadn’t altered in the slightest, Margaret desperately wanted to leap on the young woman at that moment, seize her by the neck and drag her back into the house and lock her away in the spare bedroom. It didn’t matter what Sofie did after she’d given birth. She couldn’t care less if Sofie threw herself off the top of a building or returned to study law. However, it was paramount that she gave birth at all costs.

  ‘Listen, you can’t go walking across the pasture into the woods in your condition whatever you do. You’ll catch your death in this cold. And anyway, you satchel and study books are still in the house. You’ll need them, won’t you?’

  That’s it, Margaret, use nice, soft tones to placate her. Don’t start losing your cool. Reassure her. Bring her back inside; make her a cup of tea, et cetera. Think of the baby.

  Sofie nodded, albeit reluctantly. She still didn’t trust Margaret, although she had been taken aback by how she seemed to respect her decision, regardless of it not being what she wanted. She wouldn’t make it far in her physical condition, and if she did fall she wasn’t certain she would have the strength to get back up again. Nevertheless, she couldn’t quite believe that Margaret, her husband, Charles and Yvonne and whoever that creature/lady would acquiesce her demand to be set free and have an abortion. Perhaps if she had got pregnant the consensual way then she would have believed it possible that a woman who couldn’t have children of her own had acted out in desperation one night and then regretted what she’d done. But this wasn’t normal. Furthermore, Sofie (not that she had any previous experience) didn’t feel pregnant.

  Pocketing the wad of cash, Sofie hesitantly took Margaret’s arm and hobbled back the way she’d come into the house. She mostly let Margaret struggle with her weight, hardly making much of an effort, deflated by being thwarted in her escape due to her injuries and discomfort. Her heart beat solemnly. When they arrived at the back door and Margaret carried her over to the straight-back chair in the kitchen, Sofie sunk into it, head bowed down, chin touching the top of her chest, defeated.

  Margaret closed the back door, used the brass key to lock it, pocketed the key and then switched the kettle on. Only then did Sofie notice the out-of-date milk had been removed from where she’d placed it more than twelve hours ago.

  ‘There, I’ll do us a nice cuppa tea. Warm us up, eh?’ Margaret said, rubbing Sofie’s back prior to pulling a chair out and sat down next to her.

  ‘I should’ve known,’ Sofie mumbled, desolate.

  ‘What’s that, dear?’

  ‘I should’ve known what you were the moment my friend Janice dropped me off.’

  ‘Come now, let’s talk not what’s in the past but in the present and future,’ Margaret said, getting up again when the kettle had boiled. She took two cups out of the cupboard above the worktop, dropped a bag of tea into each one and poured steaming water from the kettle. She added sugar to each, gripped them by the handles and placed them on coasters.

  ‘My friend, Janice will be here soon to pick me up,’ Sofie said as the steam warmed her cool cheeks.

  ‘She’s already been, dear,’ Margaret said, pouring a drop of fresh milk from a one pint carton into her mug, stirring it with a small silver spoon.

  Hearing this imperative information snapped the young Swedish born law student out of her transfixed melancholy. She raised her head and glowered at Margaret who kept her gaze on her mug. ‘What d’you mean “she’s already been”? And stop calling me dear!’

  ‘Precisely what I said,’ Margaret replied, deliberately being evasive and shifty.

  ‘I heard what you said,’ Sofie said through gritted teeth. ‘That’s why you let me sleep in. You wanted me to not see Janice arriving to drive me away from this fucking house of hell!’

  ‘And what would you have told her?’

  ‘The truth,’ Sofie snapped. ‘What else?’

  Margaret nodded. ‘And do you honestly think she would have believed your story?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got the proof in blood on my stomach, don’t I? Or can’t you remember?’

  Margaret’s eyes widened. Evidently, she had forgotten all about the pagan symbol marked in blood and the wound that had only stopped leaking blood because it had been covered over with Blu-Tack and stained crimson.

  ‘That fuckin’ witch or whatever the hell she was stabbed me, and it may not be a fatal wound or anything significant. But it will be a scar. Something you can never remove. I need to go to a hospital and get it checked otherwise it could get infected. So, if you’re really concerned about my wellbeing, like you’re pretending to be then I suggest you let me go.’

  For the first time since they had met the middle-aged woman expressed deep concern; not about the young woman’s condition but of the palpable predicament she suddenly found herself in.

  ‘As I have already told you,’ Margaret said, having composed herself before responding, ‘I am a trained nurse and midwife. Once you have drunk your tea, I shall tend to your wound, myself.’

  Mentioning the blood-stained symbol and the wound had induced a momentary panic inside Margaret, but nothing more. Apparently, Margaret had an answer for everything she hurled at her, swatting it away as effortlessly as swatting a fly.

  ‘May I go and get my satchel from the library, while my tea cools down. Please?’

  ‘I think it would be best if I got the satchel you brought with from the library, don’t you think?’

  Sofie remained steadfast, persistent. ‘No. I want to get my satchel from the library,’ she said, bunching her hands into taut fists of increasing vexation.

  Margaret could see, merely gazing into the young woman’s glower that if she refused or tried to physically prevent Sofie from performing this task then it would without doubt escalate into an argument.

  ‘As you wish,’ she said, conceding. ‘But for your information, the front door is locked and bolted. Both Charles and Yvonne are in the living room.’

  ‘I thought you said you wouldn’t stop me leaving your home,’ Sofie said, matter-of-factly.

  A disturbing, uncomfortable silence descended in the kitchen filling the ambience with palpable tension. Both women were perfectly aware of this. Sofie knew that Margaret did everything in her power to not allow her to take her leave and Margaret knew that Sofie was doing her utmost to do just that.

  ‘Why do you want to leave?’ Margaret asked, breaking the unnerving quiet. ‘There’s nothing out there for you now. You’re not one of them any more. You’re one of us. Nothing you can do. Nowhere you go in the world can ever change that, dear.’

  Timid by nature didn’t make her possess the same emotions as anyone else. The boiling rage scalding her from within exactly like the hot water scalded the inside of the kettle, exploded as she bolted to her feet and screamed at the top of her voice, ‘I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME DEAR!’

  Unable to control the lion that had escaped its confines, Sofie gripped her mug of tea by its handle and threw the scalding liquid into Margaret’s unprotected face. The liquid sizzled and popped, devouring the wrinkly flesh like fi
re burns through a sheet of paper.

  Margaret fell backwards off her chair and landed with sickening thud on the tiled floor, mimicking Sofie’s painful tumble the previous night. She clawed at her face, emitting a high-pitch scream that pierced the air, as she writhed in an agony she’d inflicted upon her assailant during the satanic ritual.

  Seeing her golden opportunity to act out a deserved vengeance, Sofie cornered the dinette table, kicked Margaret in the ribs savagely. The hot flames sent a searing pain through her wounded ankle, almost knocking her to the floor on top of the creepy woman. Then Sofie grabbed Margaret’s steaming mug and spilled her drink directly onto her hands, shielding and clawing her face simultaneously.

  She whirled around at the sound of footfalls scurrying down the short hallway towards her. Nevertheless, she had been too slow to react and had no form of protection to the swinging walking stick cracking her on the side of her head above her ear. A wave of dizziness washed through, turning her muscles into water. She was already being pulled down by gravity when Charles raised the walking stick he wielded overhead and it slammed into the side of the head just below the eye.

  Sofie didn’t remember hitting the surface as she’d already lost consciousness.

  6.

  Janice sat at her desk in her dormitory, staring impassively out the window. She had just completed a three hour revision session, and the moment she’d closed her books her thoughts turned to Sofie.

  Something didn’t sit right in her conscience. First of all, her best friend hadn’t even had the decency to call her to tell her not to pick her up; that she would be getting a ride back to the campus from someone else. Furthermore, it was now twenty minutes past four and not only had Sofie not phoned her but she hadn’t returned to her residence. On top of that, Janice thought it incredibly odd that after one rap on the front door she’d got an answer; almost as if the haggard, poorly-aged woman - who looked as though she’d spent nearly all her life living out of direct sunlight - had been expecting her arrival at any time. Initially, that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Nevertheless, because of the woman’s fixed smile and the fact that what she’d said in a methodical, rehearsed manner about Sofie departed earlier that morning, Janice had stepped down off the porch, perplexed and anxious.

  All night long she kept thinking about her friend and how she was coping with the elderly people who kept a statue of a demon in their front yard. That had been the sole reason she’d awoken early (considering she didn’t have any classes and it would have been prudent to have a lie in), so she could pick her friend up as soon as possible.

  They were more like sisters than college buddies. Whenever they weren’t together, they always told the other where they were going and what time they’d be home. They were good together. They both shared the chores around the flat equally and often did them together. Most of their conversations took place while they were cooking and preparing for a meal, or while they did the dishes: one washing, the other drying. Not to mention how they quite often they helped and discussed their studies with one another. Two heads are better than one, was their axiom.

  Finally breaking her reverie, Janice rose, crossed the room to Sofie’s bedside table, opened the top drawer and riffled through her correspondence, cards and the loose sheets of paper that were scattered about, hoping to come across the flyer for the residence she’d been to earlier that day. If there was a phone number she would have called it and told the middle-aged woman she’d spoken to that her friend still hadn’t returned home and that there wasn’t anyone Janice could think of who would have given her a lift, so if she could tell her who this person had looked like or what car they’d been driving that would be a great help when she phoned the police.

  Janice was still a long way from phoning the local constabulary. However, the more time passed (although that seemed to be going at a snail’s pace, listening to the incessant ticking of her alarm clock) the more anxious she became. Who wouldn’t?

  She didn’t find any flyer in her drawer. Sofie must have taken it with her. Janice perched herself on the edge of the mattress, head in her hands, contemplating her next course of action. Her best friend didn’t have a boyfriend; neither did she have many other friends she hung out with. Sofie stayed away from the night life, focusing instead on her studies, which she took very seriously. She said she wanted to do something with her life for her sake and to make her parents proud.

  A thought popped into Janice’s mind. She checked her friend’s notepad and dialled her parents’ house number back in Stockholm then placed the receiver back in its cradle, sighing in frustration. Sofie’s parents didn’t speak a word of English. Furthermore, Janice couldn’t recall one time when Sofie’s parents had called their only child to see how her studying was going. It was always Sofie phoning them once every couple of weeks, and even then the conversation was relatively short and to the point. Of course Sofie never mentioned anything but Janice often thought that her parents didn’t seem to give a rats’ arse about Sofie. For Christmas and Birthdays she received a card with no more than twenty pound, while Sofie often bought her mother chocolates and her dad a t-shirt or a jumper. Basically, making more of an effort deciding what to purchase, wrapping it and sending it off in a secure parcel, paying the air postage that went by size and weight.

  Glancing at the alarm clock, Janice saw that it was nearly five o’clock. She’d give it another two hours and then she was going to drive out there again, get some answers and more details. If she was still none the wiser to her best friend’s whereabouts, she’d have no choice but to phone the police and inform them that Sofie was missing. The mere thought of having to drive down to the local police station and do just that, made her skin crawl. More often than not people often took their leave without telling their closest relatives or friends where they were going, only to turn up somewhere else in the country with a new man. Janice had considered that possibility, although, after getting to know Sofie every day for the last year, seeing her friend going over her assignments, reading law books until the early hours of the morning, sometimes surviving solely on cups of coffee, it didn’t seem to sit right in her conscience. Because Janice, herself, hit the books hours at a time, doing her essays as soon as she’d been assigned them so not to fall behind. Nevertheless, no one as far as she knew ever put in the hours of diligent, determination and endeavour even close to Sofie on a daily basis.

  She would not abandon her studies out of the blue because she’d met up with a guy. Janice knew that much, unequivocally, if nothing else.

  After making herself a hot chocolate, she returned to her books spread out across her desktop and managed to concentrate for the best part of an hour, until she sighed with both exhaustion and anxiety.

  Bugger this, she thought, rising from her chair, placing her cup in the sink, grabbing her coat and the keys off the worktop. She knocked the lights off then closed the door shut and headed for her Fiat in the car park. This sitting around listening to that bloody alarm clock ticking away, pondering aimlessly at her friend’s whereabouts wasn’t her idea of coping with a situation. Doing something proactive to get to the bottom of the problem was what Janice believed in doing, whether it meant her studying or life itself.

  The moment she got behind the steering wheel of her vehicle, closed the driver’s door shut and turned the ignition on a fact that had only been lying to be discovered in her subconscious announced itself at the forefront of her mind in large neon lights.

  Something very bad has happened to Sofie. There’s no way she wouldn’t have at least come to the door to tell me herself she was staying on an extra day. The only reason she didn’t is because she couldn’t.

  The next thought caused her to stall the engine.

  She couldn’t because she’s d-

  No! No, goddamn it! I just wanna see her myself to know she’s all right and that she’ll be coming home tomorrow to resume he
r studying and normal life.

  In the silence of her Fiat, Janice’s heart mimicked the sound of runaway horses...

  This time when she came to, Sofie knew where she was and what had transpired for her to be in this harrowing situation she now found herself in.

  The pounding in her head due to the concussion at the hands of Charles threatened to explode. Instead she suffered the most excruciating of headaches, never relenting the merciless, pulsating rhythm that sounded like a tap dance. Thud-thud-thud.... Thud-thud-thud... Thud-thud-thud, dud-dud, it went, reiterating the monotonous cycle increasing in speed every time, faster and faster.

  Using her arms as levers, Sofie heaved herself up into a sitting position and glimpsed the bedroom window seeing the black canvas of the night sky, offering no light for which she could see beyond her own injured shape on the double-bed. With trembling fingertips, she felt the side of her head and winced at the swollen contusion that had developed there from the two severe blows she’d received. Evidently, Charles and Yvonne were far more capable than she’d been led to believe upon arriving at their residence a day ago.

  The sound of a distant engine getting louder the nearer it approached, kick-started Sofie from lethargy to dynamism, save the injuries she was inadvertently accumulating the more time she spent with the devil worshippers. To clarify the car’s presence nearby headlights illuminated the room momentarily, dazzling Sofie as she rolled on the mattress closer to the window. She squinted through the darkness that had fallen again now that the yellow Fiat had come to a halt outside and gaped incredulously.

  A new lease of life surged through her veins pulsating her heart with an overwhelming joy she had never truly experienced until right then. That emotion almost reached its own version of a climax at the sight of the driver’s door opening and the familiar sight of the only person left in the world that Sofie could truly trust, emerged into the night, ambled around her car and climbed up the porch steps towards the front door.