I leaned forward a little in my chair. “Would you like me to read again?”

She turned her head away.

I sat back and looked down at my hands holding open the place in Lord Tennyson’s book. My fingers framed a small section of the poem, making a little picture on the page. Idly, I spread one finger, opening a wedge of another stanza, and then, finding it intriguing to see what lines flashed out from under my pink screen, I spread the finger of my other hand and read at first:

But who hath seen her

I stole a quick glance at Mother, but she had turned her face from me and appeared to have fallen back into a sleep. I lifted my fingers from off the page to uncover the rest.

But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott

I closed the book with a sharp clap, wanting to waken Mother, suddenly and inexplicably frightened by that question. Who would hear my voice and think me living in this dark house, not some shattered fragment of a dream?

“What was that just then, Nell?”

I smiled at her to reassure. “Only just the book closing.”

She started up in terror. “What book, girl?”

I held up the red book with its gold lettering twined all round it. “Lord Tennyson’s book, Mother.”

She flushed and put her hand to her hair. “Yes, of course it is.”

I slid off the chair on which I sat and knelt down by Mother’s covered knees. “Mother, what ails you?”

Her hand dropped down into her lap.

I laid my cheek against the bedside and stretched my hand along to touch hers. She did not take my hand up, but did not remove hers, either, and I grew emboldened.

“Mother, who was the child you heard crying in the woods?”

She shuddered and snatched away her hand. I stood up and leaned over her to try and calm her, but it was as if the one fit had crashed a shuddering ocean over her body, for she could not stop her shaking, and her face grew suddenly white, her teeth chattering in bloodless lips. And from her chest came a strange keening.

“Stop, Mother!” I begged, a terrible shivering beginning deep in my bones. “Stop!” But now she began to point wordlessly at a spot behind my head, and, fearful, I looked round to see where she pointed. “It is nothing, Mother.” I turned back to her in the bed. “There is nothing there.”

“Look!” She pushed away her covers as if to stand up.

“No, Mother,” I pleaded. “No, I won’t. Please, get back under your covers.”

But she pushed me away and stood up, though she still swayed and shivered, her one hand clutching the folds of her nightdress while the other pointed past me again.

“Look!”