You were interested, I think, in this item. An iron maiden torture cabinet, Germanic, possibly. Six feet high, and I’d wager over two hundred years old. There are signs it has been put to sinister use recently, however, and I can still smell the sweat and fear of the last poor soul to be locked inside. Rather them than me!
An old house surrounded by dark forest. The night animals keep their distance, sensing perhaps that something is very wrong about the house’s two human occupants.
The first – Clara - is a thin, serious brunette in her early twenties. She is focused on an arts and crafts project she is pursuing – sewing the words ‘home sweet home’ into white cloth with the aim of framing it on the living room wall once complete.
The tranquil scene is shattered by a desperate howl of pain and anguish, coming up from the basement. Clara does not react to it with fear, instead, her face displays something more like annoyance. She sighs, and unpicks her last, mistaken stitch.
‘I wish she’d shut up,’ Clara sighs, resuming her sewing. She glances up at an ornate clock. ‘It’s a long time until morning.’
In the basement beneath, is the other resident of the house. This is Sadie. Not much can be seen of poor Sadie, as she is locked inside a large medieval iron maiden, only a small square of her face is visible through a tiny hatched window at the front of the torture device. She is clearly in great distress. What we see of her eyes are wild, her forehead covered in sweat. The poor girl cannot move an inch, or she’ll impale herself on the rusty spikes enclosing her whole body inside the terrible structure. Sadie has a very limited view of the basement that is her prison, but she can see a small clock which has been placed on a stool in front of her. This single allowance from her captor, is also another form of torture, as time has never seemed to move so slowly.
She cries out once more. ‘Clara,’ she wails. ‘Please! You have to let me out of here!’
She sobs gently after waiting for a response that doesn’t come.
‘Clara! Clara! I know you can hear me. You have to let me out of this thing!’
She hears the stomp of footsteps and her heart leaps for joy – Finally, Clara has taken notice of her pain and is coming downstairs. Sadie sniffs up the mucus dripping from her nose and readies herself for the conversation that is about to take place when –
The heavy door to the basement opens and Clara enters, her face like thunder.
‘Thank you,’ Sadie shouts, hoping a show of gratitude will grease the wheels. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘This noise has to stop,’ Clara says without emotion. ‘Don’t make me close the hatch on you.’
‘No! No please don’t close the hatch,’ Sadie begs, the tiny square window the only thing keeping her sane. ‘Please, Clara, you have to let me out of here. I won’t be bad again, I promise!’
Clara shakes her head having heard all this before. ‘Unfortunately,’ she says eventually, ‘Your promises aren’t worth very much, are they? Especially when you’re being like this.’
She turns to leave, and Sadie panics. ‘Wait! Can’t we just talk about this? It’s so horrible being stuck in this thing. Have you any idea what it’s like? Clara? Please!’
Clara thinks it over for just a second and smiles. ‘Alright, I’m just going to go and get something, okay? I’ll be right back.’ She resists the temptation to add the words don’t go anywhere.
Sadie waits impatiently, adjusting her aching body to try to hold off the creeping cramp in every limb. Clara is gone for a minute, then two, and eventually any hope that Sadie had that Clara was about to return and let her out is drained away until….
Footsteps on the stairs again. She’s coming back!
Sadie spots that she has a portable virtual assistant with her this time. ‘What?’ Sadie does not hide her surprise and anger. ‘Why have you brought that thing down here?’
Clara grins as she plugs the device into a wall socket. ‘Thought you’d like some music,’ she answers. ‘Might make the time go by a bit faster, you know?’
‘You’re joking!’ Sadie spits at Clara through the tiny window. ‘You f**king bitch!’
Clara ignores the insult. ‘Assistant. Play Taylor Swift.’
Welcome to New York, from the 1989 album fills the air.
‘I f**king hate you.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Clara mumbles as she walks away. ‘We have to go through this for your own good, remember.’
Sadie screams at her until she’s back up the stairs. As the track finishes and Blank Space begins, a thought occurs to her. She mulls it over then laughs out loud at her own audacity.
‘Assistant,’ she calls out to the device. ‘Call Tom!’.
She prays that the device is still hands-free connected to her mobile phone upstairs in her room. After a few anxious seconds, the call connects, and the dial tone echoes through the basement over the speaker.
Ring ring.
Upstairs, Clara’s ears prick up, alerted by the end of Taylor Swift’s singing and then she gulps in horror when she overhears the personal assistant connecting the. How could she have been so stupid to plug the bloody thing in down there?
Ring ring.
She throws down her sewing and bolts to the stairs. She curses herself for making that mistake. It was a moment of weakness, she decides. She won’t make that mistake again.
Ring ring.
She flies down the stone steps, almost tripping over her slippers on the way.
‘Please,’ Sadie wishes aloud, knowing she hasn’t got much time. ‘Come on, pick up.’
Clara enters the basement, skidding to a halt by the device.
‘Hello? Sadie, that you?’ Tom’s voice comes through the speaker.
‘Tom! Tom! You have to help me!’ Sadie shouts quickly. ‘You’re the only other person I can trust! Help me, please!’
Clara’s face is twisted in anger and in a violent rage, she swipes the device to the floor. The call disconnects, the device is broken.
There is an awkward silence as Sadie steels herself for Clara’s reaction.
‘Who the hell is Tom?’ she eventually speaks.
Sadie tells her about the amazing guy she’s met. The truth spills out of her. The secret dates, the stolen kisses.
Clara just stands there, arms crossed defensively. ‘When were you going to tell me, then?’
Sadie finds herself in the weird position of having to apologise to her captor. ‘I didn’t want you to find out like this, I’m sorry.’
Clara steps closer to the iron maiden, and Sadie can now see the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. ‘You don’t sound sorry.’
‘Just let me out. Please.’
Clara leans forward and places her hand on the cold metal surrounding Sadie’s enclosed face.
She’s about to give in, Sadie understands. The confession has weakened her resolve. Any minute now…
But Clara slides closed the hatch that had been granting Sadie a tiny amount of vision and breathing space. She turns quickly and leaves the basement, so she doesn’t have to face the shame of her actions. Doesn’t have to hear the muffled shouts and screams.
Back upstairs, she recovers her ‘home sweet home’ embroidery and rips it to shreds before jumping up and down on it.
Whatever is now happening inside the Iron Maiden – we have no understanding. Occasionally there is a scream, occasionally an animal snarl, but mostly a gentle sob.
At two thirty-eight am. Tom arrives at the house.
Clara hasn’t slept – no chance of that – so at once answers the door when the bell rings.
‘Yes?’ she snaps at the unwelcome visitor.
Tom looks panicked. ‘Is Sadie there? I think this is her house, right?’
‘Our house.’ Clara corrects. Another mistake, she realises later. She should have denied all knowledge, sent him packing.
‘You must be Clara, right? I need to come in,’ Tom puts his foot in the door. ‘I think Sadie’s in some kind of trouble.’
‘She’s fine. Sadie is fine,’ she states. ‘If anything, if you come in here, it’s you that’s in danger.’
Tom ignores her and pushes past. ‘Sadie?’ he calls into the grand house. ‘Sadie?’
First, he checks upstairs, followed by Clara. ‘She’s not here,’ she announces behind him. Then Tom checks the ground floor, room by room, but can’t find what he seeks.
‘You see,’ Clara huffs. ‘Not here. I told you.’
But Tom is not satisfied. ‘Basement,’ he says quietly. ‘A place like this must have a basement, right?’
Clara doesn’t stop him investigating, doesn’t stand in his way as he runs down the steps. She only follows behind, trying to think of the best course of action, given this predicament.
Tom is stunned by the sight of the iron maiden in the basement, it’s like something from Edgar Allen Poe or an old horror film. He turns to Clara, incredulous. ‘Oh God, she’s not in there, is she?’
He already knows the answer. ‘We’ve got to let her out!’
Clara shakes her head. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you…’
He paws at the instrument of torture. ‘Are you in there? Sadie, are you in there?’
Frustrated, he gives up. ‘Open it,’ he commands. ‘Come on, Clara, open it. Let her out!’
‘The key is over on the side there.’ Clara covers her mouth to try and stop the words from escaping but does not try hard enough.
Tom quickly retrieves the key and takes it over to the maiden. ‘Did you put her in there, Clara?’ he accuses. ‘You must be sick!’
Clara sniggers involuntarily. He doesn’t know the half of it. ‘I’m warning you not to open that,’ she eventually says. But her eyes are keen, anticipatory.
Tom finds the lock at the side of the structure and puts the key inside. He pauses before turning it. ‘What the f**k is wrong with you?’ he hisses. ‘How could you do something like this to your own sister?’
He unlocks the maiden, and the great hinges squeal as the front half swings open. Tom has prepared himself for an unpleasant sight but couldn’t possibly have expected what happens next. An upright wolf, with shaggy brown fur, long sinewy limbs ending in sharp claws erupts from confinement and sets upon him, tearing at him angrily, scratching him furiously with both fingernails and toes. Together they knock over the little stool with the clock on it, and it explodes into its component pieces. The terrible mouth splits open and bites down firmly on his neck, ripping him to shreds, shaking his head back and forth like a broken rag doll. Within seconds, it is all over. He is dead.
The carnage is reflected in the panting werewolf’s cold black eyes. Suddenly the animal rage is gone and the creature slumps down slightly, an oddly guilty expression on her long face. She then turns her attention to Clara and growls, revealing bloodied teeth.
Clara takes a step backwards but otherwise doesn’t recoil. ‘It’s me,’ she says quietly to the werewolf. ‘It’s only me. Get control of yourself.’
The werewolf leaps at her, but by the time physical contact is made she is Sadie again. Naked and shivering. Eyes filled with guilt and pain. ‘What did you make me do?’ Sadie croaks. ‘I killed him! You just let it happen!’
Clara takes on an expression of sorrow, but it is not entirely genuine. ‘Just getting you back for doing the dirty on me,’ she explains. ‘Don’t worry about the body, I’ll clear up the mess later.’
She was always the one who cleared up the mess.
‘I hate you,’ Sadie stammers as the two sisters embrace.
‘No, you don’t,’ Clara strokes her face. ‘You love me really. You know, you really are unbearable when it’s this time of the month. Who else would put up with this but me?’
Sadie glances at the broken body leaking all over the stone floor. ‘He might have.’
‘Bullsh*t,’ is Clara’s considered response. ‘It’s just the two of us, remember?’
She reminds Sadie of their deep, unnatural connection with a long, lingering kiss. Then she pushes her lover back into the embrace of the iron maiden and swings it shut. She picks up the broken personal assistant, sadder about its loss than the dead man next to it, and tosses it back down again. ‘No more Taylor Swift for you, my love.’
I wonder how many lunar cycles saw the Maiden deployed in this manner – to cage a werewolf. Or to perpetuate that twisted relationship. Little wonder it’s now positively brimming with supernatural energy and so I had to spirit it away to the Scarlet Vault. As for what became of Sadie the Werewolf, well, that’s a story for another day. Perhaps I’ll introduce you to her?
Time again for you to leave me. Goodbye, my friend. Sweet dreams.
