Order of the Matriarchs

Blood sprays from the man’s chest like a macabre fountain. He had taken it upon himself to remove the large chunk of jagged metal shrapnel from his right side, just under his pectoral muscle which had revealed that the metal had punctured his lung. Now, every breath out sprayed blood onto whoever was standing close enough to him. “Get me some packing!” A female doctor in blue scrubs with brunette hair pulled back into a messy bun, shouts across the resuscitation room. A nurse grabs packets of gauze from the supply shelf and rips them open as she jogs back to the hospital bed with the writhing man on it. Doctor Laura Grey nods to the nurse, a quick thanks as she snatches the packing gauze from her hands. She stuffs 3 wads of the white material into the wound. It was enough to stop the fountain, but it would not last long. He needed surgery; and he needed it now. He yelled out in agony, begging them to stop, even though they were helping him. Another doctor was working on the man’s leg that had a nasty compound fracture, the bone poking out in a near right angle to the direction of his foot. The man was not making things easy either. He would need to be intubated before surgery, but his violent wriggling was making even simple actions to help him extremely difficult and trying to talk to him loud enough to be heard over all the other screams of agony and grief, yells and machines beeping was nearly impossible. Doctor Laura Grey leaned down close to the man’s head so as he could hear her over the din. “Mr Weathers, we are going to be putting you off to sleep for a bit. But you need to try and stay still while we give you the medicine to do that. You are completely safe with us, we will take over everything for you,” Laura says in a calm, even and clear voice, speaking over the noise of machines and shouts from other doctors and nurses working on people from the same catastrophic train derailment. The man looks up at Laura with wild panicked eyes but the softness of her own seemed to instil the peace they needed to put the oxygen mask back over his mout-h and nose while the solution to put him over to sleep was pushed into his cannula. After a moment or two his body slowed then came to a stop which gave them the chance to take over his breathing and pull his foot into a more natural position. “Right get him off to surgery as soon as poss–” Laura starts to instruct but is interrupted by new voices coming from the ambulance bay entrance. “Move, move! We have a male, approximately 15 to 18 years of age. Involved in a street brawl with around two dozen others. He’s been stabbed multiple times with a bladed article of unknown length. We’ve counted, at least, 15 penetrative wounds, mostly to his stomach, left side and upper left thigh. The upper thigh is what’s given us the most trouble on the way over. We suspect that his femoral has been hit because of the sheer amount of blood pouring from it. We had to pack it, tourniquet it and dress it. He has a current GCS of 7, was an 11 when we got to him,” a paramedic reels off as they wheel the teenager into the A&E department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in the middle of Belfast. Three nurses and two doctors walk alongside the trolley as it is manoeuvred past medical staff running from bay to bay on a very chaotic Tuesday night. “Get him in resus 10!” Laura shouts as she yanks back the curtain. There was already blood on her scrubs from the man in bay 7 but there wasn’t enough time or doctors to go and get a fresh pair of scrub bottoms. She had had just enough time to rip off the thin-plastic protective apron and grab a fresh pair of gloves when she had heard the buzzer, to indicate that another ambulance had just parked up outside. “Get him blood matched please, and I want an accurate count for the number of wounds,” she moves around the busy scene with ease, taking her small torch from her breast pocket. “Do we have any ID?” Laura asks as she lifts each of the teenager’s eyelids and briefly shines the light in both eyes to check for pupil dilation. There was a slight change in pupil size, but it was a good sign that he was hanging in there. “Provisional. Name is James O’Brien, DOB is May 14th, 2007,” a nurse manages to read the rigid plastic card after wiping it clean of blood. “Not how I imagine he would’ve wanted his birthday would go,” Laura mutters to herself. “Thank you… do we have a blood match yet?” She calls out. A nurse comes running to the bay, breathless with sweat beading on her forehead. “Laura, he’s AB+,” she takes a deep breath. “We have none in stock,” “Then get him some O neg,” Laura doesn’t look away from the monitors that are quickly being hooked up to the teen. When the response is silence, Laura glances towards the nurse who, ironically, is as white as a sheet, the blood having drained from her face. “What?” Laura asks and the nurse edges her way around the bed and medical staff working on the teenager, to her side. “There is none…” the nurse whispers. “What?” Laura repeats, blinking slowly. “Because of the train accident and how many needed blood… we’ve got no stock left,” she admits quickly and quietly. It takes extra time to process the words coming from the nurse’s mouth. “We… have no blood?” Laura asks and the nurse nods. “Have we contacted The Mater and The City?” “Yes, but it’s going to be around twenty minutes before they get any to us,” Their conversation had piqued the interest of a few of the near-by medical staff, who looked at each other in brief flashes of horror. “That’s time this lad doesn’t have,” Laura’s mind races, as options spin around her brain like a hurricane. Then her eyes land on the cannula in James’ arm and the blood soaking through his dressings. “Someone get me a blood bag, and transfusion kit!” No one questions her orders and two nurses rush off to the stock room. Laura removes her bloody gloves in a much practiced move and tosses them into a medical waste bin then grabs a fresh pair and a tourniquet. She ties it around the upper part of her left arm and begins to open and close her hand. A vein immediately makes itself known, and she waits for the nurses to come sprinting back. Laura opens the packaging of the new cannula and takes a steadying breath before inserting the needle into her arm. She had done that action so many times on patients that she got the needle in the right place the first time. “What the hell are you doing?” Her colleague, Doctor Ryan Burnside, hisses across the teenager. “He’s going to die if he doesn’t get some blood into him. I’m a universal donor,” Laura says as if she were listing dinner options. “There’s normally a few steps in between…” “Do you want him to die?” Laura looks him dead in the eyes, raising a questioning eyebrow. He breathes out and gives a small eye roll. Laura nods, knowing she had won the argument. She continues to set up the transfusion kit with the help of one of the nurses who had brought it to her. Blood begins to flow from Laura up into the empty blood bag where it gathers for a minute or two before moving down a separate tube into the arm of the teenager, James. This meant that Laura was hooked up to him and unable to do much other than instruct and, even though she should be sat still, she couldn’t help cleaning away blood and stitching the smaller stab wounds but what she had done would be enough to save the young man’s life… at least until the backup blood arrived and he headed off to surgery where he would, briefly, be out of her hands and in the hands of the surgeons. It had just gone 9a.m. by the time Laura plonked herself down in the driver’s seat of her car after one of the worst night shifts that she’d ever had and one that Belfast would be feeling for a long time, having never experienced such a train related catastrophe. Nights like that made her seriously question why she had become a doctor but those thoughts were always fleeting and work was the last thing she wanted to think about before the miserable drive home. The bonus was her bed was waiting for her to drift into a dreamless sleep. Just as she was about to put her car into reverse a melodic shrill sounded from Laura’s bag. Sighing heavily, she put the handbrake back on and reached into her bag. She grabbed her phone just in time to see that the screen said private number. She often got private number calls, it came with the territory of being a doctor but if it was important they would ring back. So, she shrugged and dropped her phone onto her passenger seat thinking they might just leave a voicemail. Barely a minute later and the phone started ringing again. Laura let out a groan in frustration, slammed on the brakes and grabbed her phone. “Hello?” She asks, trying to keep the anger from her voice but didn’t quite succeed as the person on the other end hesitated. “Miss Grey?” A nervous sounding man asked. “Doctor Grey… but yes?” “Good Morning. My name is Carl Patterson, I’m a family solicitor at Tennant and Patterson’s and… I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But your Great Aunt, Martha Kerns, has passed away. I’ve been left in charge of her estate and your name features,” he paused. “Are you available on the 2nd of June at 9a.m. to attend the Will reading?” Laura sat in stunned silence, her weary eyes staring off into the distance. “Look Mr. Patterson. I’m not in the mood for whatever scam you’re pulling,” “I can assure you that this is no scam. You are listed as a recipient of this Will,” Carl sounded rather aggravated at being questioned. “Sorry. So, say again… I’m in someone’s Will?” Laura asked while squeezing the bridge of her nose. “Yes, your Great Aunt, Martha Kerns,” “I’ve never heard of Martha Kerns. Are you sure you have the right Laura Grey?” Laura could hear the solicitor inhale deeply. “Yes. I’m absolutely positive that I have the right person. So, are you able to attend?”

This caught her completely off guard. She had no idea who Great Aunt Martha was. She must have been on her fathers side of the family. A side she knew basically nothing about as he died when she was only five. “Hello? Mis– Doctor Grey, are you still there?” Carl asked, sounding frustrated. “Sorry… Yes, I can be there. What’s the address?” Laura asks and Carl gives an address of somewhere in Belfast city centre. Laura rooted around in her bag for a notepad and jotted down all the information she needed and he ended the conversation with a curt goodbye. Laura put her car in gear and drove home, all while beginning to wrack her brain for any mention of a Great Aunt Martha but came up blank. ‘Maybe they have made a mistake and he just didn’t want to admit it?’ She wondered as she repeatedly drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. She was confused as hell but very curious. Laura arrived home, kicked off her shoes at the door and went straight to the drainer, grabbed a glass and poured herself a glass of water. Martha Kerns. Martha Kerns. Martha Kerns. Her name circled in her brain until the name began to meld together like some kind of tongue twister. She plopped down on the sofa an as Laura sipped her water, her thoughts continued to swirl around in her brain. ‘Maybe mum knows her?’ Laura opened her phone, pressed the contacts app and rang her mum’s number. “Hello love! How you keepin’? Bit early for you, isn’t it?” “Hey, ah, yeah it is… but I got this weird phone call from a guy called Carl Patterson. Says he’s in charge of the Estate of someone who is apparently my Great Aunt… Martha Kerns, ever heard of her?” She asks then takes another gulp of coffee. Silence. “Mum? You there?” Laura asks and lifts the phone from her ear to check that she hadn’t accidentally hung up. “Mum?” “Yeah, yeah, still here, love,” she paused for a few seconds and Laura heard her take in a steadying breaths. “She was your fathers Aunt. Strange old bat. I don’t think she ever married, no kids. Came to our wedding dressed like she was at a funeral. Think she came to Christmas once, just after you were born but that’s about it,” her mum replies in a shaky voice. “What aren’t you telling me?” Laura asks, her leg bouncing with impatience. “It’s… it’s just an old rumour. Nothing really,” Laura sighs heavily. “Just tell me, please,” “There was a rumour… a rumour that the man she was engaged to when she was in her early 20’s, I think, died in unusual circumstances. Nothing more came of it. But she somehow got his house and money. And apparently his family was not pleased. But like I said… all rumours,” “Well, this Carl fella says my name is in her Will. I’m going to a reading at the start of June.” Laura takes another sip of water. “Think I’ll meet any strange relatives?” Laura asks with a small laugh which eases the tension. They then chatted a bit about what Carl Patterson said then general chitchat before hanging up. Laura decided to Google Carl, just to be on the safe side, and found that he had a legitimate law practice at the address he had given. ‘So at least it’s not a scam?’ The story Laura’s mum had told her about Martha bounced around her head any time she paused her work and it was getting frustrating. She looked at her calendar and counted the days. ‘19 days. Just 19 days then you’ll find out who this woman is… was. Maybe she’s left something valuable?’ Her mind wandered with all the possibilities of what Martha Kerns might have left her as she finished her paperwork. Eventually her daydreaming came to an end when she felt her body starting to protest at her still being awake. She fell into her bed and drifted off into an exhausted and dreamless sleep. Even though she had had the night shift from hell that had kept her at the hospital an extra 3 hours, it didn’t mean she had the next shift off. So, even though she let out a pillow-smothered yell of frustration when her alarm clock sounded, she forced herself up and out of the house. The day passed her by in a daze of dealing with patients from the train derailment and the street brawl, her mind still thinking about the phone call with Carl and her mum. *** Laura counted down each day, not really knowing why she was so nervous. Maybe it was because she knew nothing about her fathers family? She didn’t know if she was going to be the only one there or if she was about to meet several new family members. Her days played out in a slow blur. But the 2nd of June finally rolled around. When she was read she forced herself out the door. She caught the bus and counted the stops. Everything felt like she was watching someone else control her actions or like watching a movie of her life. Laura arrived at the solicitors office 40 minutes early and made her way to the office Carl had told her to. His receptionist smiled pleasantly and told her to take a seat, as she busied herself with some paperwork; having not long arrived into work. Laura looked around the waiting room to find that she was alone. No strange looking potential family members but she was early. Laura’s leg began to bounce with an uncontrollable mix of nerves and impatience. “Doctor Grey?” A small elderly man in a tweed suit announced from his open office door. Laura stood and pulled down her suit jacket to straighten it out before walking over to the man. “I’m Carl Patterson. Nice to meet you,” he says as she shakes his hand and he motioned for her to enter his office and to take a seat at his desk then closed the door behind them. “Am… am I the only one?” “Yes, it appears your Great Aunt was a rather solitary woman,” he explained as he sat in his office chair that engulfed him, making him look even smaller. He lifted a thick paper folder from a drawer in his desk and opened it. Carl placed a small pair of spectacles on and cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?” He asks while briefly looking up at Laura. She nodded then inhaled deeply, there was no turning back now. Carl cleared his throat and looked at the papers in his hands. “I, Martha Kerns, am writing My Last Will and Testament with sound body and mind on January 1st, 2000. As I have no heirs of my own, I leave my entire Estate to my Great Niece, Laura Grey. My funeral has been arranged and paid for.” Carl read out in a tone of voice that had an unusual air of authority to it. He looked up at her after the short reading and moved his spectacles up onto his head. “That’s it?” Laura asks in sheer disbelief. “Yes. It appears so. I have the address of the property, the financial gains and list of miscellaneous items that are included in her Estate,” Carl explained, handing over the folder he had just been reading from. The first page had an image of a decaying but grand Victorian-era mansion with the estimated sale value which made Laura choke in surprise. “Would you like some water?” Carl asks, eyebrows raising in concern. Laura shook her head and continued to read the details of the house, its contents, other goods; which included an old but well maintained classic car and the money she had also been left. “Mr Patterson. Is this a joke?” Laura asks incredulously. “Of course not! I was Mrs Kerns solicitor for many, many years. I oversaw the Will signing,” he straightened himself in his seat. Laura had clearly offended him. “I’m not trying to offend you. It’s just… this all comes to a total of around 30 million pounds,” “Correct. And my fees have already been paid. So… it’s all yours, Doctor.” Carl said plainly, sounding like he was already bored with the situation. He plucked an imaginary bit of lint from his sleeve as Laura’s heart rate increased to that of a race horse. She stared at the numbers on the page until they all blurred into one. ‘How could my family not know that we had a relative that was swimming in money and riches?’ She thought as Carl’s voice faded in and out. They discussed when she would be able to pick up the cheque and keys to the house. Once Carl had given all the information he could, Laura began to feel like she was a burden to him. So, she thanked him and they said their quick goodbyes. Her journey home seemed even longer than her journey to Carl’s office and when she finally arrived home, she sat in stunned silence for at least 2 hours, reading and rereading her copy of Martha Kerns’ Will and everything she had somehow just inherited. Things like this didn’t happen outside of the movies! She was just a NHS doctor; now turned multi-millionaire in the space of a couple of hours. The solicitor Carl Patterson, who had made her feel incredibly uncomfortable, told her that the keys to the mansion would be hers by the end of the week. Laura just hoped that no more family secrets would be waiting for her at the Grand Estate…

Laura picked up the keys from Carl Patterson’s office on her way to her newly inherited Estate. Carl had wanted to know a thousand and one things about what she intended to do with the Estate and its goods. She got the sense that he was being overly intrusive and made her exit. She placed the keys on her passenger seat and typed the address of the Estate into her GPS and began the hour long drive. When Laura arrived at her inherited Estate, she was met with a long winding driveway that had open rusting but still grand and imposing, metal framed gates. The driveway was lined with large gnarled trees that reached over the drive like crippled fingers, casting most of the drive into shade. In between the trees on her left, Laura caught sight of what would have once been the gatekeepers cottage, along with a well kept lawn that had regular circular flower beds that were brimming with summer flowers. Well maintained paths wove their ways around them leading to a pond with a small water feature at its centre. Its jet of water was certainly different to the last fountain of liquid she had seen. On the right hand side of the drive there was a large field, around the size of 2 football pitches, that had strange patches of wild flowers dotted over it which lead to a dark forest with trees even older looking than the ones lining the gravel driveway. After a minute or two the drive split to cure around an empty stone hexagonal flowerbed. But neither that or the uninterrupted few of the front lawn drew Laura’s attention. A stately Victorian Manor House stood dominant and proud, despite ivy creeping over half of the left side of the facade and several missing slate roof tiles. Laura stared at the imposing Manor as she parked beside the hexagonal flowerbed. She barely blinked as she got out of her car, trying to take in as much of the building as possible. She walked around the driveway centre piece to a knee-high wall that ended the gravel driveway, and stone steps down into the front garden. From this height she could also see a low hedge maze-like section to the right. At the top to the stone steps were copper statues of female figures draped in sweeping matching shawls which had gone green with age. After taking in as much as she could see from the top of the steps, Laura began to feel a creeping sensation of being watched. ‘You’re just freaking yourself out because the house looks creepy.’ Laura turned to face the Manor that was casting the driveway into shadow. She looked at each window, expecting to see a face peering down at her as a shiver went down her spine. As she walked over to the front door, she gave her head a shake to rid her mind of the feeling of being observed. Laura found the key that had the keychain with words – front door written on a cardboard tag that was looking rather tired. She tried to look through the little window in the door but the inside was so gloomy that she could only make out a few dark items of furniture. Laura turned the key in the stiff lock. The door creaked open and Laura was greeted with the overpowering smell of damp and dust that was so strong it made her eyes water. She took her first tentative steps inside the large entrance hall and found a light switch on the wall to her left but when she flipped the switch, only six bulbs illuminated on the grand light fixture above. ‘Bloody typical,’ she thought as she opted for using the flashlight on her phone. The light cast strange shadows onto the walls and once or twice, Laura jumped when a piece of furniture looked like a person huddled in the corner or a cobweb covered portrait loomed over her, the painting’s eyes seemingly inspecting Laura just as much as she was inspecting the house. As she began to explore the house, it became clear that Martha had been living in the back couple of rooms on the ground floor which included the 1970’s era kitchen, a living room that was also set up as a bedroom and a small bathroom. These rooms weren’t as neglected as the rest of the ground floor but just as cluttered. The other rooms had dust sheets covering most of the items of furniture, obscuring what they were. ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do with all this stuff.’ Laura didn’t know if any of the items were genuine antiques and valuable or just useless junk… and this was just the ground floor. But with the size of the building, she expected a lot more furniture and nicknacks and there were at least two more floors to explore. Laura entered the living room area and felt compelled to sit herself down on a worn leather, overstuffed armchair that had a slight indent of a small framed person in it. At the side of the armchair there was a stack of boxes, four high, that all looked to be the same identical black boxes. She peaked over the arm of the chair to find two more stacks of boxes, discolouring with age and most had damage to the lids and corners. Laura lifted the first box onto her knees and took the lid off. It was filled with ageing photographs, envelopes and folded pieces of paper. Some of the photographs had names and dates or places jotted on the back and others were blank. She quickly started to notice reoccurring faces, mostly of men and then she found some faces that she knew very well. Laura lifted out the photo that was of her parents and herself as a newborn. A sad smile tugged at her lips as she ran her thumb over the image to wipe away some age-related grime then carefully placed the photo back in the box. Martha clearly loved all these people enough to keep their photos, yet had somehow slipped into her family’s obscurity. The bottom box of the first pile was heavier than the last few. It was jam packed with photos of a face she now recognised to be Martha, in her younger years. Every handful of photos she was pictured alongside a new handsome man and it was clear all of them were infatuated with her. When Laura reached the bottom of the box, she discovered why it was heavier than the others. There was a journal style book, bound in black leather with a small brass clasp. She popped it open and flipped through the pages. At first she assumed it was an address book, as it was filled with names and other information but upon closer inspection, she realised all the names were male, there were dates and then numbers under each name that didn’t have the format of phone numbers. Some numbers were in hundreds, others in thousands. There was page after page of the same thing. Then one number jumped out at her. It had a pound sign at the beginning. ‘Mitchel Anderson, June 1975 – February 1977, £12,300’ Laura screwed her face up with confusion then a thought hit her like a steam train and she nearly dropped the book with shock. ‘It seems like Martha Kerns, my newly discovered Great Aunt, might have somehow been wrangling money out of these countless men for decades? Maybe she had just one rich, dead husband? No matter how she came about the money, she clearly knew what she was doing. No wonder she had 30 million in the bank!’ Laura had no idea what to do with any of this possible information. No doubt a lot of these men would be elderly or even dead and there were no complete addresses or phone numbers. There was probably no way for her to get in contact with them to find out how or why Martha, seemingly, had their money or if that was even the case and she was just letting her mind run wild. Laura opened her phone and started googling some of the names and just like she had guessed, a lot of Obituaries were found meaning most of them were dead. There were also a number of the men talked about in news articles, usually listed as missing or about their death being suspicious. ‘Holy shit. Were the rumours mum spoke about true… was there a chance they weren’t rumours at all? Is she money laundering? Are the men criminals and was she just a patsy?’ Laura sat back in the chair and glanced around the depressingly dreary room. This was a big house with a lot of rooms and many closets. She just hoped that she wasn’t about to find any skeletons in them. Literally or figuratively.

Laura didn’t even know where to start. There were still more boxes at the side of the armchair and if her idea was right, then that meant the rumour that her mum told her… could also be right. Laura pushed herself up from the chair and headed back out into the large entrance hall and looked up the wooden staircase with solid looking spiral carved finials. Each spindle was turned in a similar spiral pattern. The people who put the hard work, love and care into creating it, would be weeping if they saw its condition now. In fact, everywhere Laura looked, she saw decaying beauty. From the marble flooring to the delicately carved coving high above on the ceiling. Dust and cobwebs coated every stunning detail. Climbing the stairs, Laura flinched at every creak the wood made. ‘I hope this place is as solid as it looks.’ She thought as she made her way to the first landing which stretched off to the right with only three doors on the left. Most of the doors were closed except one as Laura came to the top stairs. It was only open enough to be noticed but not enough to see inside. Laura’s natural curiosity pulled her to the open door. She could feel her adrenaline spike a little as she gently pushed open the solid oak door. Laura wasn’t sure what to expect but what she found wasn’t on her list of probabilities. ‘What the…’ Light flooded the master bedroom that was clean and neat. No dust sheets covering furniture, no cobwebs stretching between pictures and light features, no clutter piled in the corners… just a perfectly tidy, slightly dated bedroom. Laura stood in the doorway for a few moments. Looking between the gloom of the landing to the bright room. It was like two different homes. The neat room made Laura feel a little more uneasy than the rest of the dilapidated Manor. She walked in, squinting slightly at the change in brightness. There was a large armoire, dressing table with a perfectly laid out beauty set that looked like silver with enamel inlay of a peacock, a large bed with a pale pink blanket that was pin-sharp, matching bedside tables, a bookcase with colourfully bound books that all looked unread and two bay windows with cushioned seating and the same pale pink drapes flowing down to the polished wooden floor. It wouldn’t be Laura’s taste but she couldn’t deny the beauty. Laura walked in, running her finger along the top of the dressing table, a satisfying squeeeak echoed slightly as she tried to take in as much detail as she could. She sat down at the dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror and felt a shiver run down her spine. ‘How many times has Martha sat here? Looking into this same mirror?’ Laura wondered as she ran a finger under one of her eyes where dark circles sat. Looking at the room reflecting in the mirror caused her to have a bit of a strange deja-vu moment. Like the perfect glamour of the room was an illusion. “I need some air,” Laura muttered, pushing up from the dressing table. She didn’t even react to the wood squealing as the feet of the stool scraped against the wood of the floor. All she knew was she needed out of this house. Laura ran down the stairs and out of the front door, only coming to a stop when she reached the stone wall overlooking the garden. She sat down on the wall after her shaking legs could hold her up no longer. This forced her to look back at the house. She held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun that had creeped over the roof of the mansion. “I’m going to wake up. Any minute now…” The sound of gravel crunching off to her right brought her hurtling back to reality and she looked towards where the sound must have come from but she only found the empty drive and crooked trees. Just as her heart was beginning to beat at a normal pace again, she heard more gravelling crunching. The unmistakable sound of someone walking towards her but the way the noise bounced around from wing to wing of the mansion in front of her made her question which way the crunching was coming from. She jumped up from the wall and whipped her head from looking at the driveway to looking at the left side of the house where the gravel continued as a path. “Who’s there?” She asked as loud as she dared. She was used to heart pounding scenarios; she lived for the adrenaline rush that her work gave her but this felt off. She was well out of her comfort zone with the undeniable feeling of being watched by someone.