I jumped so high I almost dropped the bottle from my grasp then I heard my brother’s voice calling me “Alex can you let me in?” Looking at the kitchen window I laughed in relief as I saw Sean standing there. “I’ve forgotten my keys, can you open the door? I think it’s stuck!” Sure enough no matter how hard Sean pulled and I pushed the back door wouldn’t open. “It’s never done this before,” Sean informed me as I passed his keys through the window. “I’ll have to get someone in to look at it. Ow!” he screamed as the falling window caught his arm, cursing Sean left to go to his rugby match I laughed as I watched him walk along the garden path nursing his injured arm.
The only pub in the village was one of those large imposing buildings that at one time may have been the local lord’s feasting hall. Sadly now any homage paid inside it’s ancient walls were to the delights of chicken in a basket and Fun Day Fudge Feasts. I found Sean sitting near the bar deep in conversation with a fellow teacher reliving that morning’s rugby match. When he finally noticed me walking across the room Sean stood up to greet me and introduced his companion as Barry, a history teacher and like so many in his profession Barry believed himself to be an expert on the local history of the village. “Barry was telling me about my house,” Barry smiled at me as my brother continued “apparently the cottage has a history attached to it.”
“It’s old!” I pointed out “of course it has a history” but unfortunately I’d said the wrong thing.
Whetting his lips with a drink of the local ale Barry smiled at me delighted to find a new audience.
“Little Willis Cottage has more history than most around here if the magistrate’s records are to be believed,” Barry began relishing telling his tale to a new audience. “Apparently there was a girl who lived at the cottage in the seventeenth century. Eliza Mae I believe her name was. This Eliza caught the eye of the Lord of the Manor’s son it seems and by all accounts the feeling was reciprocated to the extent they planned to elope knowing his father would never agree to the marriage. However his father and Lord of the Manor found out about their plans and to teach Eliza Mae a lesson and to show his son how peasants should be treated he raped her in the bedroom Sean tells me you are sleeping in.”
As Barry recounted the past I could almost hear Eliza Mae’s screams. Fighting to control my emotions I asked “what happened to the Lord?”
Even before Barry spoke I knew the answer. “That’s the interesting part of the story. A couple of months later Little Willis Cottage burnt to the ground and they never heard from the Lord of the Manor or Eliza Mae again.”
“Alex! What’s the matter?”
Hearing the concern in Sean’s voice I turned to look at him and saw a look of shock etched on his face. “Nothing! Why?”
“Your hand, look at it! Doesn’t it hurt?”
Looking down at my hand I almost fainted. Blood was dripping onto the table from the lacerations caused by the broken glass, crushed by my hand. “I’m sorry!” I laughed at Barry and Sean trying to ease their fears. Standing up I smiled at both of them, “I guess I don’t know my own strength. I better go and get myself cleaned up.” I felt relieved leaving the table and the questioning gazes behind even though as I raced to the bathroom I knew my brother and Barry were discussing what had just happened to me.
The rest of that Saturday Sean showed me around the village he now belonged to. Seeing the lazy way the villagers went about their daily business I realised my brother had been right when he complained there was nothing to do in your spare time but feed the ducks. Still I found myself falling in love with that idyllic, picture postcard village and as we walked I dreamed of what it would be like to spend the rest of my life living there. That evening as we finally made our way back to Little Willis Cottage Sean opened the door then his eyes rested on the scene within and he raced into the cottage. Although I knew from my brother's reaction something was wrong what greeted me as I stepped across the threshold was still a shock. The IKEA monstrosities my brother had been so proud of lay smashed in ruins across the floor. The plasma TV whilst still standing had it’s screen broken and little sparks of electricity fizzed as if tried in vain to cling to life. Sensing my brother’s need I crossed the room and put my arms around him but as we touched he let out a scream and jumped back clutching his arm.
“What’s the matter?”
“You gave me a shock when I touched you!” Sean laughed and then as if this had been the release he needed Sean fell into my arms and began to cry as he lsurveyed his broken home.
It was well into the evening when we finished cleaning up Little Willis Cottage but when we had I smiled as I surveyed the results of our labour. Before me was the cottage as it would’ve been before my brother’s modernisation. Little Willis Cottage I thought to myself was reclaiming it’s soul. The soul it had lost when that man had entered our life.
That night was the first time I remember her visiting me although I think she tried the first night I stayed at the cottage. It was near to the witching hour when I opened my eyes to find her astride my body smiling at me as she stroked my chest, Eliza Mae.
“Thank you,” she whispered leaning closer to kiss my lips. “I thought I would never be free”
Looking deep into her eyes my hand came up to caress her long golden hair “the bottle?” I asked but I knew the answer before she nodded her head.
I lost count of the nights we spent together and the days meant nothing to me merely hours that had to pass before the sun went down. We could have been happy Eliza Mae and me for an eternity. I know we could have been if only we had been left alone. I don’t blame Sean and Barry they were just curious about that little green bottle. What started the questions I don’t know but sometimes Sean would walk into a room when I was talking to Eliza Mae and although I begged her she wouldn’t show herself to him. Maybe that’s why they did what they did.
I heard her scream first my Eliza Mae and so I rushed to her rescue like a knight in shining armour not thinking of anything else but her. I raced into the bedroom, our room, to find Barry with the bottle in his hand and my screams joined my lover’s as he threw the lock of hair into a candle’s flame burning on my bedside table. I tried to catch it as I jumped across the bed, tried to rescue those few precious golden hairs but it was too late. Watching them slowly disappear to nothing I fell onto the beds tears streaking down my face. Consumed by the flame the hairs disappeared and I felt my love sweet Eliza Mae, slipping from my life and then I screamed. For I knew Eliza Mae was gone for good.
I can’t remember what happened next. I only know I now sit here looking out from the box room of an ugly modern day terrace. Down below I watch a young couple smile as they look at their newly built house wondering if the tales they tell in the village are true. How a young woman found one green bottle that changed her life and as I watch I wonder if someone has trapped me in a bottle. If one day someone will find me, their Eliza Mae!
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