Lullaby of the River

By Sara Klein

In the London slums, a child is born, a promise made. And Hettie isn't going to let a silly thing like death keep her from her word.

In Victorian London, life is short and cruel, so when a chain of tragedies leave her alone with a new baby, Hettie vows to protect her daughter, no matter what. 

In Upper Canada, while war wages to the south, Mary packs her bags and runs. Her only thought; returning to her beloved Mama. But back home, Mama has vanished; another woman taken her place, and Mary isn't welcome. 

In modern day Canada, Jane returns to her childhood home, but she hadn't expected the eerie lullaby that echoes in the halls, or her nights swallowed by dreams of a man, and a gun, and a name she can't escape: Mary. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sara Klein
• Release date: Apr 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215773666

Sara Klein

Sara Klein is a writer of stories for women, and anyone fascinated by the sometimes comical, always challenging condition of being human in this wonderful world of ours.  When not writing tales of friendship and family; our pasts and our present, Sara can usually be found drinking tea and asking, "who ate the last piece of cake?" Sara is too busy eating cake and drinking tea to be found on social media, but you can visit her website at sarakleinauthor.com  Sara lives in southern Ontario, Canada with her family. 

Book preview

In the London slums, a child is born, a promise made. And Hettie isn’t going to let a silly thing like death keep her from her word.

In Victorian London, life is short and cruel, so when a chain of tragedies leave her alone with a new baby, Hettie vows to protect her daughter, no matter what.

In Upper Canada, while war wages to the south, Mary packs her bags and runs. Her only thought; returning to her beloved Mama. But back home, Mama has vanished; another woman taken her place, and Mary isn’t welcome.

In modern day Canada, Jane returns to her childhood home, but she hadn’t expected the eerie lullaby that echoes in the halls, or her nights swallowed by dreams of a man, and a gun, and a name she can’t escape: Mary.

Lullaby of the River

Come, my girl, now close your eyes

And dry the tears you’ve cried

Let go the world you think you know

It’s time for your goodbyes

___

Come, my girl, breathe deep the air

As tears fall from the sky,

And sing a song for loves long gone

And dreams that slowly die.

___

Come, my girl, just take the leap

And let go all your pain

Let River wash your soul away

And start your life again.

Part One

The Trouble with Corpses

HETTIE - PRESENT DAY

Corpses were a nuisance .

Hettie supposed she wasn’t the first person to come to that conclusion. Murderers would know it for a start. She’d also seen a documentary about how the world was running out of burial space, so she supposed municipal planners understood the problem, too.

It was a fall down the stairs that did it. When Hettie closed her eyes, she could still see her old comrade teetering on the brink; mouth gaping, eyes protruding, withered hands clawing the air.

Only moments before, they’d been slumped on the sofa, engrossed in a fascinating show about a medium who performed in drag shows on the side. Well, Hettie had found it fascinating. Gloria was mostly snoring off the gin. Then just as the drag queen/psychic medium had been warbling about how he would survive as long as he knew how to love -ironic, now Hettie thought of it - Gloria had lurched to her feet and clicked the TV off.

She’d been plagued by flashbacks since it happened; Gloria’s arms and legs flailing as she bounced down the stairs, the air groaning with bumps and thumps and a muted cry. Nothing to set your nerves jangling, but enough to say, What the dickens just happened? That sort of yelp.

Unfortunately, just as Gloria’s acrobatics reached a natural end, her rather soft head had met the rather hard newel post. She puddled beside the rickety hall table and let out one final, dull yowl, then slumped to the floor.

Hettie had crouched low, studied the swell and fall of her chest as Gloria heaved onto a wobbly elbow, only to collapse again.

She looked quite bad; a mound of crepe-y skin and broken bones. The eye not pressed to the floor fluttered, but didn’t open again. Hettie gazed on, hands on hips. Well, this is a pickle, she tutted, but Gloria didn’t hear. How could she? She was still among the living.

HETTIE HAD STAYED WITH her for a good hour, quite generous, considering how tired she was and that Baby was waiting. Up we get! Come along, let’s have another try. She’d known the woman wasn’t going anywhere, but it didn’t do to say so.

Occasionally, Gloria would pucker her lips as if she wanted a drink; her visible eyelid fluttering like a moth. A groan or murmur squeaked out, always tinged with woe. Even in dying, Gloria was melodramatic.

When she gave up trying, Hettie even tried to rally her by singing. Nobody could say she hadn’t given it a solid effort. Her voice was haunting in the hush. Come, my girl. Now close your eyes and dry the tears you’ve cried. Let go the world you think you know. It’s time for your goodbyes. Not the cheeriest song for a woman on death’s threshold, but it was what came to mind.

EVENTUALLY, HETTIE went to bed -it wasn’t as if she could do anything for Gloria, anyway- but she hadn’t slept well, and woke around dawn. She hurried back to the front hall, but Gloria was already dead. Hettie checked carefully, examined the woman’s cracked lips; scouting for a breath or groan. There was nothing.

She kept a close eye on the body all that morning. Hettie didn’t like surprises. If Gloria’s soul was going to join her, she wanted to know about it. One ghost per house was quite enough. And Hettie had dibs on this house.

Ravioli in a Can

HETTIE - PRESENT DAY

Gloria was green. Not creamy lime, or grass waving emerald against a blue sky. Not even rich olive, nothing so agreeable. But she was definitely green, and she was definitely dead. Hettie sat back on her heels. It had been five days since the accident. It was certainly a pickle. Which, now Hettie thought of it, was actually the exact shade of Gloria’s skin.

While Baby slept, Hettie sat with Gloria. Her once pretty face -already twisted with age and gin- was grotesque now. A bloody puddle congealed by her temple; a vomit trail split her jaw. The woman had morphed into a laundry list of seeping horrors. It was all rather revolting, but then death was not a clean business. Fascinating, though.

Hettie found her daydreams switching from that actor, (Ryan what’s-his-name) making chocolate chip cookies, to Ryan What’s-his-name hauling buckets of steaming, sudsy water; lugging away the body; muscles rippling as he scrubbed the nasty spot on the rug.

BY DAY SIX, HETTIE was bored and nostalgic. For seventy years, Gloria had been like a daughter, albeit one who didn’t acknowledge Hettie’s presence and hogged the remote.

As a child, Gloria was a wisp of air, lollipops and ringlets and tapioca. Hettie had watched her learn to ride a bike and dance to Beatles records when she thought nobody saw. It was disconcerting to see her rotting on the area rug.

She went quickly, at leas. Not too much time to dwell on a wasted life. And Gloria had wasted her life. She’d come to regret it; being dead was hard. At first, you’re delighted that you didn’t vanish like mist on a summer’s morning; but that only lasts a half-century or so; it gets tedious after that. The days are long. Envy slinks in.

There were changing fashions for a start. Hettie hadn’t changed her clothes in over a hundred and fifty years; she felt frumpy and unkempt; and her hair! She fingered the comb embedded in the frizz, the only nice thing she owned. If you were going to die, it paid to do it wearing nice clothing. Most poor souls these days were wandering about in hospital gowns, their posteriors on display for eternity, and poor Gloria had been wearing denim. Denim!

She’d also regret that last meal; gin and a few stale crackers. There were so many options these days and no tripe or jellied eels in sight, just ice cream and cappuccinos and canned ravioli. If Hettie were given just one day of life back, she’d put on a flapper dress, or a poodle skirt, and eat ravioli from a can.

IT WAS CLEAR BY NOW that Gloria’s soul wasn’t coming, and neither, it appeared, was anybody else. Perhaps nobody would come, ever. Hettie and Baby would just go on watching out the window, Gloria melting to goo in the lobby.

Nobody in Hettie’s day would let a body lie for so long. After four days, a body should head to the grave. You wanted to make sure they were dead, but leaving a body in this condition was an indignity not to be endured. Her own mother would have been appalled. An ill wind... she’d mutter and the neighbours would nod and purse their lips, nobody wanting to admit they didn’t know what it meant.

EVEN WITH BABY FOR company, the days were lonely. So when eventually the front door clicked open, Hettie buzzed to the hall, settled in on the top stair. It had occurred to her, in one horror filled moment, that the most likely person to come was Jane, so the relief was palpable when a man entered, clutching an assortment of cleaning gear. Crap in a can. His eyes darted from grimy wall to filthy table to the revolting spot where Gloria had languished. What died in here?

Some old lady, a woman with pink rubber gloves already pulled to her elbows peeked around his shoulder, her expression sliding into a grimace, God, it stinks.

Hettie sniffed. People were so persnickety about smells these days; they’d never have survived the Victorian slums. Though being fair, a hefty number of Victorians hadn’t survived the slums, either.

Bomb the whole damn place down, if you ask me.

The man laughed. Like the three little pigs.

The three little pigs didn’t bomb anything, the woman pushed past him and plugged in a vacuum. They burned it, I think.

The house crackled with life as they set to work. Ghastly music screeched from a phone, sounding more like scrunching tin foil and squealing pigs than singing. But after the weeks of silence, Hettie wasn’t complaining.

They struggled with the blackened spot where Gloria’s body had melded into the floor, did a shoddy job on the baseboards, and didn’t even bother with the windows. Hettie would have complained if death hadn’t rendered her impotent.

For almost two hours they swept and wiped and scrubbed before fleeing back to the world of the living, leaving Hettie and Baby to themselves; waiting for whatever came next. The hush settled over the house like dust.

Touch the Body

HETTIE - LONDON, 1843

As a child, Hettie always knew when death visited. Her mother grew twitchy, tutting about the tragedy -if the deceased were family or somebody important- or blaming the departed -if they were anyone else. 

I warned her not to eat that kidney. She’d bound around the squalid flat, picking something up here and putting it down there. I told her it smelled off, but oh no, she thought she knew better. Now look at her. Abuse flowed as her eyes sparkled a touch too brightly. Sometimes it wasn’t kidneys but kippers. He should’ve known better than to buy anything from Old Mr. Jones. I only buy kippers from that fellow with the wonky elbow.

Sometimes a dog barking killed a man on his sickbed, he just had a head cold until that hound started up, or boots on the table, filthy family, I’m surprised there’s a one of them left, or even a bird down the chimney.

Some days, Hettie trembled to leave home, fearful to bring down death’s gnarled hand by walking past a funeral procession or staring a chimney sweep in the eye. Innumerable things were harbingers of imminent extinction. Staying alive in the East End was exhausting.

After the death in question, her mother occasionally brought Hettie along to the wake, where she clustered with other mourners jammed around the corpse in an airless room.

Coarse black fabric covered all the windows, so everyone had to squint in the shallow candlelight, but it needed to be done. We don’t want the soul trapped in the glass.

Hettie once swore she’d encountered her Auntie’s Cath’s soul, trapped in a mirror, screaming for release, though it may just have been the reflection of Auntie Bertha, tipsy on wine and shouting at Uncle Joss.

Touch the body. Her mother’s mouth would hover so close, Hettie felt hot breath caress her ear. You don’t want them haunting you. Hettie would hold out a trembling hand, flinching as her warm fingers brushed the dead husk.

With old women, Hettie scrunched her eyes shut and forced contact with the frigid cheeks. Old women scared her; haggard and grizzled things, decay’s scent hovering on their downy skin. Hettie didn’t want them haunting her.

She paid less attention if it was a child, just touched the nightclothes or hair, and once she’d attended the wake for a young man so exquisite she hadn’t touched his body at all. She’d waited weeks, but sadly, his ghost never came a-haunting.

Let’s have a song! A voice would call out after a time, usually an old boy with red cheeks, his words often mixing in an addled slurry. Someone would argue it wasn’t proper, but nobody would take any notice. Then another someone would start warbling and melancholy would overpower the stench of the close air.

The songs varied, their tone never did, but Hettie loved it best when they sang Lullaby of the River. Come, my girl, now close your eyes and dry the tears you’ve cried. Let go the world you think you know. It’s time for your goodbyes. It was delicious misery. The notes would pierce withered hearts, so suddenly everyone had dust in their eye, and a wizened old fellow would sniffle over his lost wife or sweetheart, or even his mother and tell the room that there never was a finer woman born.

But usually, when her mother scuttled off to the endless deathly vigils, Hettie stayed home and fed her brother and father anemic broth, tended the fire. Then, as night wrapped the city, and the dank room rumbled with her father’s snores; Hettie would wait. When finally she heard boots on bare stairs, she ran to meet her mother, and they’d huddle together by the cold stove, where her mother spilled gossip like wine. 

Sitting Out the Storm

HETTIE - PRESENT DAY

The hours swelled to days, which congealed into an enormous blob of time. Without Gloria’s TV, Hettie floated in a timeless space. When she was younger -and alive- she’d always known the date, or time, or month. What day is it, lass? The old man who lived downstairs would ask. And Hettie would respond with, why, it’s Tuesday, Mr. Wiesenthal. Assuming it was a Tuesday. Or, why, it’s Friday, Mr. Wiesenthal. if that was the case. Now she struggled to keep tabs on which decade it was. Life was much more difficult after you’d died.

Hettie wasn’t used to having the house to herself. She felt unmoored without a cough or a curse at a stubbed toe. Gloria’s family had been there since the early fifties, in one form or another. They’d bought the place from a pair of old sisters who’d spent a few decades bickering in the front room. And before that, Hettie had shared with a family of six kids. Six! She did not miss them.

Of all those people, almost none sensed her. There was an old soldier who’d stayed with the sisters; a man broken from the world, a man Hettie wanted to fold into her arms. Sometimes she’d sit by him when he hid during a thunderstorm. She’d sing as the storm washed over them. Come, my boy, just take the leap and let go all your pain.

It made her weep to see him cower as the thunder rolled, flinching with every pattering raindrop; wailing a raw, open cry when the lightning flashed. Let River wash your soul away and start your life again. She thought he deserved a new start.

One night as she sang, he turned to her, and their eyes met. Mother? He reached out a finger, placed it in the air where her lips would be. She hadn’t disabused him of the notion. Instead, she’d sat with him, singing in the wild night until he fell asleep. Someone took him away soon after.

Then there were Gloria and Jane. Both had sensed her presence. Hettie shuddered. Best not to think about Jane.

It was a lonely life, to be sure. Even living with the six kids had been lonely, though in an extremely teeth-clenching, ear shattering kind of way. Some days she almost wished she were gone from the earth. Her own soul disappeared like Gloria’s. But she could never leave. She wasn’t going anywhere until Mary came home.

WHILE BABY SLEPT, HETTIE fingered the comb in her hair. It played havoc with the nerves; a body in the lobby. Hettie gazed out the window at a world she hadn’t visited in a hundred-and-fifty years.

A man rambled past, sucking a cigarette. He didn’t even glance at the house. A boy with a pinched, rat face hurled a newspaper onto the small pile collecting on the driveway. The next day, he threw another. Surely someone would come and rescue her from the unfortunate ornament on the lobby floor. That actor fellow - Ryan Reynard? Ronalds? - would be nice, but she’d take a girl guide or, God help her, a phone company salesperson. Anyone to scrape Gloria from the rug.

Mr. Dorcas' Potatoes

HETTIE - LONDON, 1843

Hettie was seventeen when her mother died.

Until that grim night, they worked together at the matchstick factory. Trudging along broken lanes each morning, darting by women pouring the night’s excrement into sewers. Further along, they’d pick a path through children pulling drinking water from the same channels. We’re not that bad. Her mother pointed out as she pulled up her skirts and hopped over the fetid gutter. In the East End you could always find someone worse-off that yourself, if you needed cheering up.

They crossed streets cascading with prostitutes and pick-pockets, urchins and crones. Hettie’s mother hissed warnings at every turn in the road. Don’t marry a tanner, when they bustled by the tannery. Only have boys. Girls cry too much, when they scurried past a beggar, arms heaving with children.

At the matchstick factory, Hettie and her mother kept to themselves, deft fingers packing the poplar sticks into boxes as the days slipped from morning to afternoon, then slugged into evening. She tried not to look at the other workers, young women her mother warned her about, or hags with gnarled fingers and jaws rotted from the poisoned fumes.

On Fridays, they handed out pay packets. The other workers grumbled at wages docked for dirty feet or untidy workstations or talking, but Hettie wore boots, kept a tidy station and spoke to nobody.

She spent her days dreaming about sailing across a silver sea; fine clothes and meat at every dinner; imagined being wooed by gallant gentlemen. She imagined a life away from grime and misery, death and rot.

The other match-girls couldn’t help her find such a life, so she steered clear, walking out with her tiny pocket of shillings and a chin raised to the smoggy sky.

HER MOTHER TAUGHT HETTIE to survive London’s miseries by avoiding the people who miserable things happened to, but in London, misery stalked everyone. Nobody could keep London at bay, not even Mrs. Brennan. There were leaking windows and meatless stews and babies in the potter’s field, buried in crates still reeking of fish.

Hurry up! A dull sleet had settled over the city, soaking into Hettie’s thin coat and making the cobbles treacherous. Her mother pushed through the Friday night throngs. We’ll see if Mr. Dorcas has any potatoes left.

Hettie scampered behind, focusing on her mother’s bustling back. Many girls from the factory worked a second shift in the reeking alleys, and Hettie hated slinking past them. It’s their own fault. Her mother’s nose wrinkled. Fell in with the wrong crowd.

They could go to the workhouse, Hettie dodged a steaming pile of dung.

Her mother laughed. A workhouse? If the disease doesn’t kill you, the shame will. Never find yourself in a workhouse, my dear. She was walking ahead, swivelled round, and gave a rough laugh. Then a scream cut through the night.

Her mother lunged, hands slamming Hettie’s chest. As she stumbled and fell, slamming into the cobbles, Hettie caught her mother’s panicked eyes, the black circle of a mouth. Then there was only a carriage careening out of the smog. A thump. A horse and carriage in her mother’s place. Then nothing. Only damp air and sleet, where once her mother had stood. The night filled with screams as the carriage vanished, leaving only a crumpled body where Hettie’s mother once stood.

Fertilizing the Lilac Bush

HETTIE - PRESENT DAY

Finally, on day seven of Gloria’s demise, the doorbell chimed.

Hettie scurried to the front window and peered out. It was the fellow from across the street. Hettie couldn’t remember his name, but she thought it started with an L. Or maybe a Q. She wasn’t much good with men’s names. He waited politely for Gloria to answer. He’d be waiting ages.

Look in the window!

Anticipation danced in the air, much nicer than the death and despair Hettie was used to. She’d known the man (Lamar? Quincy? Quail?) from boyhood, though she supposed he was in his sixties now, his skin creased as crumpled tissue, hair pewter and slicked back in a ponytail.

For an infuriating, tantalizing moment that stretched like taffy, she gnawed her lip, wrung her hands -actually wrung them. Who did that?

Come on. Her leg jiggled. Every nerve twitched. Look in the window!

The wait was excruciating, but just as her poor nerves were ready to pop, he stepped back and turned away. Not since the missed high sticking call in ‘93 - Gloria was a hockey fan - had Hettie felt such disappointment. But as she was mid-slump, he froze. Hettie perked her head up and watched as with an Astaire-style swivel he turned and an eye appeared at the glass, and then a flurry of fists pounded the door. He had spotted Gloria.

IT TOOK TWELVE AND a half minutes for the whoop of sirens to clog the afternoon air (Hettie had counted in Mississippis.) Not a bad time. Then there came the jiggle of a handle, the strike of an axe, and the door splintered open, not as dramatic as on TV but still quite satisfying. The first unlucky souls stepped in, then immediately turned away gagging; Hettie caught sight of the neighbour fellow (Lincoln? Lowell? Quantum?) throwing up in the lilac bush. Hettie was suddenly very appreciative that she could no longer smell as the surrounding humans gagged and coughed.

Once everyone was breathing again, the lobby burst to life, people swarming in, noses and mouths buried in surgical masks. A stretcher appeared, followed by a man in a straining blazer.

The detective.

Hettie was well versed in detectives. She and Gloria had watched every episode of every version of Law & Order. That it was all playing out in front of her, in her own home, was hard to comprehend and went a long way towards making up for all the TV she’d missed since Gloria died.

The detective was a large man, with caterpillars for eyebrows and quirky John Lennon glasses that didn’t quite work with his off the rack blazer. Hettie imagined he lived alone and ate a lot of frozen food.

He planted his feet wide and folded bratwurst arms across a belly as round as a scoop of ice cream.

Hettie knew what to expect next. It was a delicate dance, tension and drama. The man coughed, Hettie leaned in. He peered down at Gloria. Hettie bit her lip, mouthing the next words he would utter, surly and authoritative. So, what do we have here?

He opened his mouth. Hettie hugged her knees... Hey Jill, weren’t you going apple picking today?

Well, that wasn’t right.

Jill crouched by Gloria’s head and shrugged. Got called in. My daughter’s gonna be pissed I missed the field trip.

The detective, if he could even be called that, took a notebook and pen from his pocket. Mr. Blackstone, he twisted, peered at -Quasimodo? Lothario?- who was cowering at the door and looked as if he might be sick again. When did you last see Ms. Beeton alive?

My mother sent me to check when she hadn’t seen her in a couple.... Lentil from across the street flung his hand to his mouth and darted back outside.

THE DETECTIVE SET TO work and Hettie oversaw it all, while he perused the pile of junk mail she was there, as he scuffed an ancient soup stain on the rug with his toe she studied