Standing Water
by James Roderick Burns
“Everything happens for a reason,” said her friend, Mrs Ward. She hadn”t known her long – a year or two, at most – and was still finding her way with the older woman”s declarative certainties. She was housekeeper to the priest of the church next door, and seemed to have imbibed a sort of unwavering authority in practically every matter.
“Even this?”
“Why, yes. Though I'll grant you it”s a bit unusual. I could ask Father McKinnon, if you like.”
“No, that”s alright. I”m sure it will resolve itself, somehow.”
They spoke over a low spot in the back-fence where the hedge had succumbed to an infestation of creeper, its rather rough treatment leaving a scorched area where the hedge growth never resumed. She felt certain middle-class Englishness would bring about the desired resolution, eventually.
“Thank you, though. I'd best be getting on.”
“Of course, dear. I shall see you later.”
Mrs. Ward disappeared behind a section of healthy growth masking the back door. The woman remained for a moment, arms across her chest, thinking. She stood a few feet from where her husband had fallen and died, clawing chest and neck, and she had watched him.
***
Now and again she paused on the threshold of work, looked out… and felt the stirrings of hope, but like a lighter wicking at fumes, it soon clicked out.
There hadn’t been many bright spots since, though there should have been. Every face unslapped, every forearm untwisted, was a beacon of hope – of promise so golden-tinged and fantastical she could barely comprehend it. Now and again she paused on the threshold of work, looked out – at early winter streetlamps pushing at darkness, the first flurry of snow – and felt the stirrings of hope, but like a lighter wicking at fumes, it soon clicked out.
Instead, she found pools of water where none should have been: on the countertop, despite no taps having run; the bathroom floor, beside a dry bath; over the hardwood floor of the living room, where hours earlier she’d noticed it needing a shine. The water was dark, oily almost, but as far as she could tell ordinary water – the jay-cloths she started buying from the pound shop soaking it up quite satisfactorily. She could hardly bear to touch them afterwards, balled them up in gloved hands, threw them away.
The clerk asked if she had plumbing problems.
“With all them rags, and what have yer,” he said. This time she’d cleaned out the shelf.
When she got home, she realised a plumber might be a good idea. He arrived, reassuringly middle-aged and boilersuited, refused her offer of tea and began a methodical inspection of the areas she had found water.
He peered minutely at the counters, disappeared under the sink, lay alongside the bath, popped out the side-panel to inspect the piping. In the front room he tapped all round the planks, in the hall, passed his hands over the parquet tiles, removed a slat of metal with a curved handle from his pocket.
“You mind?” he asked, not waiting. He slotted the tool in beside the outside tile. A couple of tiles eased up like loosened teeth. “Seen it before, now and then, in these Victorians. Ran the pipes every which way, the queer buggers. Ended up with stuff spraying out where you’d least expect.”
But the base was dry – the bath, too, the counters. He scratched his head on the hardwood floor.
“Blowed if I know what’s causing it, missus,” the man said.
“That’s alright. How much do I owe you?”
“What! Nothing – no charge. Only sorry I couldn't ...”
He went muttering away down the path. The next morning she found a new pool, blacker this time, by the washer she hadn’t been able to operate.
***
The following week, she met Mrs Ward pegging out her wash. It was Monday, as always, and she’d allowed herself a rare day home from the business. Mrs Ward had corrected her, the year before, when she hung out on a Wednesday. Now the older woman bustled down the walk with a basket full of damp black clothes, a velvet peg-bag across her bosom.
“Hello, dear!” she said.
“Hello,” the woman replied. She stood well to the left of the spot, no basket in her own hands. She’d taken her washing to a fluff-and-fold place, hating herself, but unwilling to open the laundry-room door. Mrs Ward looked her over briefly, then started to peg out.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I had a word with the father, after all.”
“Oh yes?”
For a moment she rode the tail of an anger flare, before it fizzled to earth. “I had a plumber in. He found nothing at all.”
“Well. Father McKinnon said, in light of your – ah, troubles, that in his deliverance work he’s become aware of a certain type of entity that’s attracted to damaged souls, that feeds on them. A clinging spirit, he called it, and – “
But this was more than she could take on a Monday morning.
“Thank you, Mrs Ward, but I’m really not feeling well. I'll see you later.”
“Alright, dear.” She reached into the bag and swiped a peg onto the shoulder of a shirt in one fluid motion.
It was an hour before the woman stopped shaking, rigid behind the living room door, from a sickening mixture of fear and rage.
***
As she got the back door open, a gush of cold black water ran over her feet, out to the garden and the lawn, the borders, then on to who knew where.
On Tuesday she walked around the house, noting the occurrences on a crude sort of map, before showering and going to work. All day she put on her most engaging aspect, said yes to everything, but chewed away at the thing behind her professional facade with the determination of a mouse chiselling the skirting-board. At six o’clock, after she wrapped things up with her husband’s business partner, she realised each pool had formed at the site of a particular incident – devastating on its own, or through the accretion of repeat offences, sure as an ankle sheared in a pothole.
First she was terrified, then that feeling dropped abruptly – loud as a disengaging lock – and she filled with indignation, its rough edges sharpening with each breath, until she had to sit down and couldn’t think of leaving. How dare it.
How dare it!
When she got home it was dark, and for some reason the motion-sensor had not triggered. As she got the back door open, a gush of cold black water ran over her feet, out to the garden and the lawn, the borders, then on to who knew where.
***
In the morning she got through to the man she supposed was now her business partner.
“Keith. Yes, sorry for the early call. No no, everything’s fine. Listen, I thought I would be back in as normal but something’s come up. I'll need a few days. Just through the end of the week. With the house. No, I'll be in Monday. Yes, yes – see you then. Bye.”
For a moment, the silence of the place was unaccustomed. Then she heard a slow, dripping ooze; from the kitchen, she thought, the laundry-room, or perhaps patio, through glass. She felt nails sink into her palms.
“Alright, you motherfucker,” she said evenly, to the empty room. “Okay. Fine.”
She hacked the hardwood floor to pieces, pried off the bath panel and smashed out every dry, unvarnished plank.
In the bottom of the airing-cupboard she found his toolbox, kicked it open. A hammer and chisels, a pair of snub-nosed pliers, fell out. She picked up hammer and chisels, walked to the laundry-room and laid waste to the lino. Nothing rose up but dust and a few mouse-droppings. She hacked the hardwood floor to pieces, pried off the bath panel and smashed out every dry, unvarnished plank. In the entryway, lacking the plumber’s prying-tool, she bashed away a few tile pieces before the whole gave up its substance. After a couple of hours she had only splinters and sweat, a few bloodied hand-dabs, here and there, to show for her work.
She looked out to the shed, where they kept the edging tools and spades. She threw his tools against a wall, yanked the blouse out of her trousers.
***
Wednesday, cursing, raising her eyes to the house, she excavated most of the borders. Nothing came. Thursday and Friday, the lawns, Saturday the vegetable patch. The house sat blank and dry as a high beach in summer. The windows, she thought – elbowing sweat from her eyes – held a blank, defiant look, the sort of dumb insolence that drove sergeants to violence. But nothing poured forth.
Only on Sunday did she begin to dig up the spot. Mrs Ward appeared. The woman sensed, but did not see, the priest hovering anxiously behind her.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “You seem to have covered almost everything.”
“Yes.”
She realised this is where she should have started; this was where it began. A trickle of greasy black water began to wind about her boots. She redoubled her efforts. “Thank you. Do thank Father McKinnon for me, also, won’t you?”
“That I will.”
A thin smile brightened her features for a moment, then was gone.
By mid-afternoon, the hole was three feet deep, the pool washing around her thighs, clinging to her jeans like wet leather orthopaedic straps. Her legs numbed, hands blistered, but she dug on. By evening it was five feet deep, and she hauled herself onto the bank like a walrus breaking free from a slick. The water shivered once, then stilled. It lay silent and black, malevolent as oil. She panted, ached, groaned, but forced herself to look.
In the pitchy surface shone a perfect, reflected image of the church, lights delicate and massed – a faint, wavering yellow – and piled against the darkness, seemingly just within reach.
James Roderick Burns is the author of one flash fiction collection, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and five collections of short-form poetry, most recently Crows at Dusk; a collection of four novellas – The Unregulated Heart – is also forthcoming in summer 2024. His stories have twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and he serves as Staff Reader in poetry for Ploughshares. He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB, and his newsletter ‘A Bunch of Fives’ offers one free, published story a fortnight (abunchoffives.substack.com).
