The Cottage and the Worm

By Louise Birkett

Chloe Yates is running from her marriage, herself and, most of all, from the worm of despair thatʼs devouring her piece by piece.

But who is the worm and how did it come to exist?

To find the answer Chloe faces a cursed holiday cottage, takes a trip on a Viking longship, argues with her own inner voice and witnesses a battle between supernatural beings.

But are the answers enough?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louise Birkett
• Release date: Oct 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739113803

Louise Birkett

Louise Birkett wanted to be an author from the age of 11 so she trained as a journalist to learn to write. She later moved into internal communications and has won numerous awards for her writing and editing. She lives in Leicestershire, England, near the heart of the National Forest. And because creativity comes in more than one guise, she also designs cross stitch patterns.

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The Cottage and the Worm

Louise Birkett

Published by Billandil Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2022 Louise Birkett

Other books by this author:

The Jenny Wilson Show

Sudden Acquisitions

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Ruth Harrison. Picture by Louise Birkett

In loving memory of my parents.

Thank you for the roots, the wings, the love of history and the joy of reading.

I do not know if we will but I hope that one day we shall meet again.

Chapter One

It was not the first time I’d thought of killing myself. But this time I was surprised at how it felt. On the previous occasions when I’d wondered about it, the whole idea of it had somehow felt glamorous. I’d been a bit like Cleopatra, minus only a smidgeon of kohl, considering what the best way would be – although I wouldn’t have known what an asp was if one had slithered across and said ʻhello’. When I’d first thought about it, when I was full of teenaged angst and everyone over the age of twenty was just out to make my life hell, well, then I’d always thought I’d be angry. I’d do it and then everyone would see me lying there all tragic like and they’d be sorry for whatever it was that had made me do it.

That was then. What I hadn’t realised back then was how I would come to live a paradox: I knew how much physical pain I should be feeling and how little I was experiencing. There was a worm eating away at me, just below the base of my ribcage. I could never have imagined how that worm could burrow around so hard. It felt as if I should be writhing around in agony but I didn’t have the energy to feel the pain that I knew must be there. I know it doesn’t make sense. I look back to my teenaged self and, if I could summon up the energy, I would laugh at her. She just didn’t know, let alone understand, that this worm would sneak inside her – me – and make me so helpless that I couldn’t even summon up a cry of pain. I wanted to. I wanted to cry out, to let the people around me know I was broken but I couldn’t. That worm had gobbled up all of my energy and feeling and every little ounce of hope that had ever lived inside me. It had now turned on my thoughts and was devouring them. Where would it go next? Could it eat my organs? My spirit? It felt as if it could gulp them down in one gigantic mouthful without noticing it had consumed its host. The worm was despair and it was eating me alive – and no one could see it happening.

The station announcer’s tin-pitched voice had advised all of us on the platform to stand back as the next train wasn’t stopping. The worm had eaten my ability to step back. I could hear the high metallic roar as the train zoomed towards us. It was then I had a fleeting thought of how easy it would be to step forward into oblivion but, of course, the worm had eaten up my ability to step forward too. I must have swayed forwards because I felt someone grab my arm to steady me. I looked up into brown eyes, brown skin, full lips an ʻo’ of concern but all I could think was that it must take a superhuman amount of energy to kill yourself and I didn’t have enough energy to be human. And that was what surprised me.

My rescuer had dropped his hand; worried that his gesture might be misinterpreted I suppose. I realised I’d had the energy to formulate that thought. That was something, at least. If I couldn’t think for myself at least I could still think for others.

Are you all right?

Thank you. Just tired.

Ah, English politeness. Even when you’re being eaten alive, broken up into bite-sized morsels, it would never do to let a random stranger know; however much you might be screaming for help on the inside.

Should you be going to work?

I’m not, I’m going on holiday.

Where’s your bag then?

I looked at my feet. No case. I looked round the platform. No burgundy and black houndstooth case to be seen.

Oh my God! I’ve left it in the car! Thank you!

I summoned up the energy to scurry away. That human contact had quieted the worm as it couldn’t devour practicality, embarrassment and other people. There, that was a lesson remembered; keep busy, do practical stuff, try to embarrass yourself, don’t think and the worm might just stay in its hole. I could sense it waiting to wriggle out again, to sneer at my moment of hope, but, for now, all was quiet.

I found my car; the case had been flung on the back seat. I couldn’t remember paying for the parking. I checked the call log on my mobile. Lots of missed calls from Ben but no calls out from me; I stabbed the delete button, wishing I were stabbing him. A couple walked past the car, looked alarmed and increased their pace. I realised I was screaming ʻDie prick!’ every time I stabbed a message. For a brief second I wished I had been more inventive with my language but I couldn’t be bothered and it would take too long to think of something that contained enough vitriol to poison the bastard.

I allowed fury to flood my veins. It had been so long since I had felt this energetic. I felt the worm retreating further. Confused. Not sure what its host was doing. I didn’t think it would come back, not for a few minutes anyway. I imagined myself growing dragon wings that would black out the sky. Not my sky: my sky would remain light. His sky. Ben’s sky. I wanted his sky to be so black he would never find his way to laughter and happiness again. Did I want him dead? No. I wanted him to suffer like he’d made me suffer. I wished I could pass on the worm but I had a feeling it didn’t work that way.

Now I had the glimmer of a plan. What would make Ben suffer? First of all, not knowing where I was, not being able to tell me what to do. Second, not having money. The plan solidified. I checked my suitcase: laptop, tick; business banking paraphernalia, tick; driving licence, tick; passport, fail. Train ticket was another fail, wherever I’d been intending to go I hadn’t bought a ticket. It didn’t matter; I was functioning now, buzzing with purpose and power. Lack of passport meant I was confined to the UK. Britain probably, I liked the thought of crossing the sea but wasn’t certain I’d be able to do that with just my driving licence. I’d definitely taken my passport the last time I’d crossed the Irish Sea. Better to avoid just in case. Also better to move before the drop-off time was up and I got charged for parking. Crashing the gears as I went, I lurched the car out of the car park and turned right towards the motorway.

Before I got there, I noticed the anonymous motel with the car park that was shielded from the road by equally anonymous but somewhat overgrown shrubbery. Only the tops of the cars could be seen from the road. I wasn’t sure when we had all become so monochrome in our choice of car colour but it would be impossible to pick my ultra-dark grey car with its smidgeon of metallic gleam out from all the other silver, grey and black models parked there. Motel rooms had wifi didn’t they? That would be enough for me. I swung in and parked in a corner where a passing car would find it difficult to see my number plate.

The receptionist looked as if he should still be in school. He sounded like a clockwork toy that had run down for the day. On a better day I’d have looked for a keyhole. In happier times Ben and I might have made a joke of it but there’d be no more happy times for us. Other people might have minded the receptionist’s weariness and inability to make small talk but not me; not today. I barely registered the information he droned out for the location of the pub that would provide an evening meal or the extra charge should I want breakfast but I took careful note of the directions to my room and where to find the instructions that would tell me how to work the wifi.

The room could have done with a refurb. Somehow that made me feel better; I had no idea why it should but it did. There was a bed with regulation crisp, white sheets, and a beige bedspread that surely must be a replacement for the company’s regulation colour. How many hotel chains have beige as a brand colour? The walls were magnolia complete with scuffs and pen marks – who draws on a hotel wall? The carpet was navy with a busy pattern that hid stains but could send you light-headed if you looked at it for too long. The ensuite teamed white sanitary ware with beige tiles and too-yellow lighting. Apart from the carpet, the whole thing was styled to be as bland as possible, presumably to avoid offending anyone. The end result was that my earlier flash of anger disappeared into a sort of dull resignation.

The worm stirred. I felt it slither through me, deadening my limbs, draining me of the energy that had got me from the station car park to the motel. I tried to fight back. I picked up my mobile and rang my best friend Lys, short for Lysandra. It was switched off, went directly to voice mail. She must have just started her shift. Damn. I left a message.

Hi Lys, it’s me. Ummm. I’m sorry, you must just have started. Err, can you give me a call? I’m at the motel by the motorway. I’ve found out about Ben. Well. I’m not sure what I’ve found out but there’s a woman and three kids who call him Daddy and they’re not that old and oh God, I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. Anyway, I’ve left him. I’ve come here but oh God I feel so stupid. I’ve thrown away so much and now I don’t know what to do. I’m frightened of what I’ve got to do next and I don’t know where I’m going to go and my head’s just whirling and I can’t think straight. And I know I need help…

I realised I was crying and clicked the off button. When had I started crying? How much of that would make sense? Hopefully enough to get her here. Lys would talk me through it. Help me make sense of it.

You don’t have to do anything, the worm inside me whispered.

Yes I do, I replied. I have to do all the things you have to do when you divorce someone.

I’d never thought I’d divorce Ben. Never. When we married I really did think it would be for life. The paperwork of separation didn’t worry me. It was the where would I live, how could I stop the ticking of my biological clock long enough to start again, all of that stuff that bothered me. How could he have done this to me? I could feel tears on my cheeks. I hadn’t realised I was crying. I hadn’t the energy to howl and bawl so instead I just…leaked. I was pathetic.

You don’t have to do any of it, said the worm.

Of course I do.

No. You could just…lie here. Take a sleeping pill. You do have your sleeping pills don’t you?

I checked my bag. I had my sleeping pills. Loads of them. I hadn’t taken any for ages but had still been picking up my prescription so I had quite a stash. The worm was right. One might help. After all, Lys wouldn’t be off shift for ages and it would probably be better to talk to her after I’d slept. And there was no way I was going to sleep without help. Not today. I took the bottles out of my bag. Such tiny bottles. They only gave a week’s blister-packed supply at a time. I’d stuffed most of them in old pill bottles so I could take the empty pack back with me. I did as the worm advised and lay down. I balanced the bottles on the bedspread and then used my finger to flick them over, one by one, repeating the game again and again.

You probably deserved it, you know, said the worm. He was louder now, conversing rather than whispering.

How the hell did I deserve that? I felt him burrow further down inside me, my indignation offputting.

Maybe you weren’t enough for him? I felt the coils shift around inside me. Maybe you could have done more in the bedroom, maybe you should have been thinner, maybe you should have dressed to please him a bit more. She must have had something you didn’t.

A child.

Yessss.

The child I should have had. A child he didn’t tell me about.

And why was that do you think? What was it about you that made him not tell you?

The worm had a point. What was it about me that had prevented Ben from telling me? I changed my pill bottle game, turning them into dominoes so when I flicked one, they all fell over.

You were so desperate to have a child, murmured the worm, how could he possibly tell you the truth?

I frowned. That came later. That oldest child is clearly older than our marriage. He could have told me before we were married.

Could he? There you were, swimming along, ignoring everything apart from the build-up to that day. Maybe he tried and you didn’t notice. Maybe he thought he had done.

I thought about this. Even I could see it didn’t make sense. That doesn’t explain the other two kids does it?

No but, like I said, maybe your own failings brought that on yourself. Have you thought you’re just not worth a decent marriage, kids, all those things you took for granted?

I had. Repeatedly. Every time I’d looked at Ben and wondered what he saw in me, I’d thought those things.

You see, you know I’m right, said the worm inside me. Why don’t you just take a sleeping pill, make it all right.

Nothing’s going to make it all right, I pointed out.

True but you haven’t the energy to do anything at the moment, have you? You haven’t even got the energy to fall asleep.

That was true too. I didn’t have the energy to do anything. Had I already taken a sleeping pill? I couldn’t remember. I should be able to remember.

Why? purred the worm. Why should your memory work when nothing else about you does?

That was true too. Nothing about me worked. So what if I’d already taken a sleeping pill. It would be fine. If I had already taken one then it would only be one extra and that would just mean I would sleep better, wouldn’t it? The worm was laughing now. You’re pathetic, it told me.

It was right. I was pathetic. I needed to regain control of my life. I needed to find a way of beating it. Did I want to be sick? I wasn’t sure. I could fancy a drink though. Maybe there was a mini bar with a gin or a vodka or even a whisky. But if you couldn’t have an evening meal here what were the chances of a minibar?

Maybe you packed a bottle, suggested the worm.

It was possible. I was a member of a club that sent me stuff you couldn’t buy in the shops. In my haste I may have perceived one of those as more important than my passport. Yes. Really. I scrabbled – and came up empty handed.

See, you really are useless, sneered the worm. How did you describe that gin? Like drinking gin-flavoured clouds, wasn’t it?

Something like that, I replied.

And you can’t even manage to bring it with you. You used to stroke that gin bottle.

It’s true, I did. The bottle had a pattern on it that I would run my fingers over.

Well, at least it means you can’t persuade me to do the pills and drink thing, I said.

I felt the worm slither and coil itself around inside me. Maybe not, it conceded, it’s really very distressing to find myself working with such an amateur. You can’t even get this right, can you? A boring room, no alcohol to blot out the pain…you really are a worthless excuse of a human being.

It was true. I knew it was true. I was worthless and pathetic and all the things the worm inside me was telling me. There was absolutely no point to anything. The only thing I might do that might give me a different perspective would be talk to Lys.

But she’s at work, the worm pointed out. She’s got no time for you.

She has to earn a living, like all of us, I replied.

The worm flopped around inside me, making my guts feel as if I were on a ship in a force ten gale.

She doesn’t have time for you, it insisted. Think about it, who does? Wouldn’t it be better if you just let them all get on with their lives?

Maybe, but I want to talk to her.

Why? So you can, for a few seconds, think that you are not a pathetic waste of space?

Yes.

What’s the point of that?

Because not feeling useless and pathetic, even for a few seconds, feels like a major victory. I realise that while today’s events are burying me under a mountain of earth, I have – metaphorically – been lying in this coffin for some time. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t feel pathetic and useless. I’ve been dead for a while, now I’m just being buried. It would be so nice to feel alive again. That’s why I want to talk to Lys. For a few minutes I’ll feel alive again.

I return to knocking the pill bottles over one by one. That pill bottle was empty when I got it out of my bag, wasn’t it? I try to think but I can’t remember. Not to worry. I’d have a bit of a sleep, then Lys would ring and we’d talk it through and when Lys was talking the worm couldn’t – she had that effect on it – so that would be OK. Flick, flick, flick…And was that the same empty pill bottle or was it a different one? I really couldn’t remember. All I could hear was the worm’s voice saying ʻuseless’, ʻpathetic’, ʻwaste of space’, ʻbetter off without you’ on a never-ending loop. The voice had the muffled strike of a tolling bell.

Chapter Two

I snapped awake, ready to take on the world, the worm and my waste-of-space husband. Energy fizzed through me. I hadn’t felt this good in ages. It felt as if I’d slept for ever but it was still light outside. I looked at my phone. Just after five. I must have fiddled with the settings at some point as it didn’t say whether it was morning or evening. I’d either slept for a couple of hours or for more than fourteen. The phone showed six missed calls; all from Ben. I was sure Lys would have rung me back after that message so that meant it must be five in the evening. Time to set to work.

Throughout our marriage Ben had been a poor saver. I had thought his excuses had driven me mad. Now I knew the reason why he’d been such a poor saver and that all of his excuses had been lies I knew my estimation of my anger had been wrong. Compared to the way I was feeling now, I knew I had been suffering from nothing more than a case of mild irritation. The top and bottom was that our shared savings account mostly contained money I’d managed to save. I ignored the reality that Ben had paid the mortgage as I tapped in the passcode and emptied the account. If I were careful there was now enough money sitting in my private current account to last me a year. The reason Ben had paid the mortgage and most of the bills was that my money was supposed to go on fun things like holidays. He’d always been too busy to go. Now I knew why he’d been too busy and, contrary to what he’d told me, it had nothing to do with being needed at work. Having completed stage one of my plan, I embarked on stage two. Thanks to Ben being busy I hadn’t had a holiday in four years, so taking one seemed as good an option as any while I decided my long-term future.

Hotels would be too expensive so I searched for holiday cottages. Avoiding anywhere Ben and I had stayed was easy – we’d never been on holiday anywhere in Britain, ever. When we had been on holiday Ben had always insisted we went abroad and I’d been happy to oblige. But I also wanted to avoid childhood haunts, anywhere where he might think to look for me. We’d spent a lot of time in Scotland and on the Yorkshire coast when I was a kid and I thought we’d been to Wales a couple of times. Enough to be a problem? I wasn’t sure. Then there was the family in the New Forest, so that was definitely out. I thought about going right to the north of Scotland but decided the drive was too long. Kent was too near London. I’d talked about visiting the Jurassic coast in Dorset too often for that to be safe. I fancied being near the sea, which ruled out all of the inland counties. Given my circumstances, I wanted something in a small place, quite difficult to reach – the more single track roads the better – yet not too far from shops. I also wanted somewhere where I could lick my wounds, and feel settled. It wasn’t as if I had a home to go to any more. It was not being able to return home that made me decide a four-week stay would be perfect. Yet a four-week stay seemed unobtainable. Whatever property I clicked on had a week – or two – already booked. I burrowed my way down into the search results, looking for the cottages that might be less easy to find and so less likely to be booked up. Eventually I found something that would do and filled in my details and made the payment. The advantage of having your life destroyed on a Friday? Friday and Saturday are changeover days at holiday lets. It was available straight away.

The search had exhausted me and I lay back down. I was planning to drive through the night and arrive in Devon early. I didn’t expect to sleep: I was waiting for the worm to reappear. Why wasn’t it tormenting me? Had my sense of purpose confused it into silence? With my mind’s eye I prodded around my body, expecting to find its mass coiled up somewhere, ready to strike at the thought that gave it life but it remained quiet. I continued prodding. There! A sliver of a thing, a maggot of a worm instead of a dragon. It exuded self-doubt maybe it had been