Blakemort, Thirteen, Rosamund: Psychic Surveys Companion Novels (Books One to Three) Copyright Shani Struthers 2019
This Kindle edition published 2019
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All characters and events featured in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to any person, organisation/company, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Dedication
For Misty Struthers, no more waiting.
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CONTENTS
Dedication
BLAKEMORT
Blakemort Prologue
Blakemort Chapter One
Blakemort Chapter Two
Blakemort Chapter Three
Blakemort Chapter Four
Blakemort Chapter Five
Blakemort Chapter Six
Blakemort Chapter Seven
Blakemort Chapter Eight
Blakemort Chapter Nine
Blakemort Chapter Ten
Blakemort Chapter Eleven
Blakemort Chapter Twelve
Blakemort Chapter Thirteen
Blakemort Chapter Fourteen
Blakemort Chapter Fifteen
Blakemort Chapter Sixteen
Blakemort Chapter Seventeen
Blakemort Chapter Eighteen
Blakemort Chapter Nineteen
Blakemort Chapter Twenty
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-One
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Two
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Three
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Four
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Five
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Six
Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Seven
Blakemort Epilogue
THIRTEEN
Thirteen Prologue
Thirteen Chapter One
Thirteen Chapter Two
Thirteen Chapter Three
Thirteen Chapter Four
Thirteen Chapter Five
Thirteen Chapter Six
Thirteen Chapter Seven
Thirteen Chapter Eight
Thirteen Chapter Nine
Thirteen Chapter Ten
Thirteen Chapter Eleven
Thirteen Chapter Twelve
Thirteen Chapter Thirteen…
Thirteen Chapter Fourteen
Thirteen Chapter Fifteen
Thirteen Chapter Sixteen
Thirteen Chapter Seventeen
Thirteen Chapter Eighteen
Thirteen Chapter Nineteen
Thirteen Chapter Twenty
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-One
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-Two
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-Three
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-Four
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-Five
Thirteen Chapter Twenty-Six
ROSAMUND
Rosamund Prologue
Rosamund Chapter One
Rosamund Chapter Two
Rosamund Chapter Three
Rosamund Chapter Four
Rosamund Chapter Five
Rosamund Chapter Six
Rosamund Chapter Seven
Rosamund Chapter Eight
Rosamund Chapter Nine
Rosamund Chapter Ten
Rosamund Chapter Eleven
Rosamund Chapter Twelve
Rosamund Chapter Thirteen
Rosamund Chapter Fourteen
Rosamund Chapter Fifteen
Rosamund Chapter Sixteen
Rosamund Chapter Seventeen
Rosamund Chapter Eighteen
Rosamund Chapter Nineteen
Rosamund Chapter Twenty
Rosamund Chapter Twenty-One
Rosamund Chapter Twenty-Two
Also by the author
BLAKEMORT
A Psychic Surveys Companion Novel (Book One)
Not every house is a home
Blakemort Prologue
This is not really a story about me. It’s about the house I lived in as a child. A house that couldn’t be called a home – that should never have been a home. And yet we lived there for years, my family and I. But we weren’t the only ones. There were others that resided alongside us. Unseen but lurking; sometimes in dark corners in the dead of night, sometimes in bright daylight, just out of sight, but present nonetheless, watching, waiting. I used to wonder what they waited for. Did they want me to acknowledge them? Shout at the top of my voice that I knew they were there, that I was aware of them? I remember the first time I did. I was alone in my room, a child of seven – nearly eight, in that way that ‘nearly’ is so important to the young. I was happy; one of the few times I was in that place. The sun was streaming in through the window despite it being mid-winter and I was playing with my dolls – Barbie (of course) and her many friends (most of whom were Barbie dolls too and therefore identical), driving them around in a pink plastic jeep that I considered the very height of chic. They went under the legs of my desk, fixed grins in place, round the perimeter of my wardrobe, whizzing under the bed to emerge the other side, finally stopping outside their tall pink townhouse – part of the Malibu collection. I was engrossed in my game, a bona fide member of the Barbie gang, when I realised the atmosphere had changed. The sun wasn’t as bright anymore. The room wasn’t as warm. It was cold and growing colder. I started to shiver, pulled the cardigan I was wearing tightly around me. But it was no use. This wasn’t the kind of ‘cold’ that wool could guard against. This could penetrate fabric and skin, burying itself deep into bones and chilling the marrow. It’s the kind that lingers in the memory long after it’s gone, that once you’ve experienced it, you can never forget. It’s preternatural.
I breathed outwards, certain I’d see plumes of mist appearing in front of me. There was nothing but still I began to shake, my teeth chattering in my head, the sound hurting my brain like a woodpecker in the forest gone crazy.
“You’re here again aren’t you? I can sense you.”
At least one of them: the boy.
“I can feel you. I… I’ve always been able to do that, ever since I can remember. Who are you?”
Swallowing hard I turned my head from side to side, slowly, a fraction at a time, not wanting to frighten them as much as they were frightening me. I had no one to talk to about this ability of mine. I’d tried to talk to Mum once, to tell her what I’d just told the ghosts – that I could sense them. She hadn’t been cross with me, on the contrary. ‘Corinna, darling, what an imagination you have!” She was laughing and so I had laughed. Perhaps it was my imagination; usually your mum is right about everything. But I knew. Inside I knew. The world has many layers and there’s so much that we can’t see. That I can’t see. But once upon a time I could hear…
Corinna…
I
t was my name being called – no, not called – whispered.
Corinna…
As I stood, the dolls in my hands fell to the floor. They’d seemed so alive minutes before, but now they were dead, like whatever else was in the room.
My breathing was ragged and I tried to calm it, but I was a child, a scared and bewildered child. I didn’t yet know the techniques involved in maintaining composure when dealing with the paranormal. That house always had an atmosphere. We moved into it when I was five and, apparently, I’d cried solidly for the first week. I was inconsolable, Mum said, but gradually I grew used to the way it was. And there were moments of peace, when whatever was there retreated into the shadows and left us alone, left me alone. But this wasn’t one of them. They were the bold ones, not me. Quickly, I closed my eyes and refused to look, my hands rigid by my side. The boy – if that’s who it was – was standing in front of me, staring with fathomless eyes. Ask again what they want. That’s what I should have done. What I wished I’d done. Instead, I started screaming, primal fear taking over – fear of the unknown.
The ghost, the spirit, or whatever you want to call it, responded to that scream. Whether from fear or rage I don’t know – it could have been both. A thud forced me to open my eyes. The dolls lying at my feet had been snatched up and thrown across the room. My poor dolls, I remember thinking. My poor, poor dolls! The bed started to shake too, banging from side to side, making an almighty racket that hurt my ears, and the wardrobe door flew open as if a howling wind had got behind it. But none of it could compare to what happened next. I felt pressure around my neck and hot breath on my face. Even now I don’t know how that’s possible, how a spirit’s breath can be hot. Spectral hands began to tighten. So easily they lifted me off my feet.
Stop it! Stop it!
I couldn’t speak, but I could think.
Please stop it!
And then rather than hear its reply, I saw it scribed in my mind: I’ll never stop. Never. None of us will.
I was thrown back, hitting the wall as hard as my dolls had.
The door to my room burst open too.
“Corinna, what’s all this noise?”
Mum rushed to my side.
“What are you doing down there, sweetheart? And your dolls, one of their head’s been split open. Did you do that?” She looked so confused. “Why did you do it?”
Not me. Not me.
I wanted so much to speak, to explain, but shock had rendered me mute.
It was them… him. The boy, I’m sure of it, so full of spite.
This is his story really; his, the house’s and the other spirits that the house ‘owned’. Because it wouldn’t let him go, it wouldn’t let any of them go. As the boy retreated, still angry with me for screaming, for making such a fuss, and as the sun dared to shine again, albeit tentatively, I suspected something else: it trapped the living too.
Part One
The First Christmas
Blakemort Chapter One
There are many haunted houses in the world. I know that now. But when I was a child I thought I was the only one to experience such horror, so I kept my mouth shut. No child wants to stand out, not for something as weird as that. We took the house because the rent was cheap. It was also grand. I remember my mother saying that: my single mother. She’d split from my dad. It was just my older brother, Mum, and I who moved there.
“Wow, kids! What do you think? It’s grand isn’t it? Much more than we’re used to.”
She tossed her hair as she spoke – red like mine – and tried to look happy. I say ‘tried’ because I knew she was sad inside. I was sensitive to emotions too and the divorce between my parents had been hard on her. He’d fallen in love with another woman, or that’s what she told us. When I asked why, she shrugged and said, ‘I don’t know, it’s what people do I guess. They meet someone else and… they fall in love.’ There were tears in her eyes but she didn’t let them fall. She just kept on smiling, trying to make an effort, to shield us as much as she could. I couldn’t understand it though. How could Dad have done such a thing? Mum – Helena – was beautiful with her red hair, her green eyes, and her laughing mouth. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. We saw Dad regularly after the divorce; he’d take us out every other weekend, usually on the Saturday. My brother was closer to him than I was. He longed for his visits, used to pace up and down the floor, impatient for Dad to arrive. Me? I preferred being with Mum. The ‘escape’ from Blakemort was nice though; I couldn’t deny that, having an entire day’s break from it.
I suppose I’d better start describing the house. First of all, it was bigger than an ordinary house, much bigger. It was also very run down, decrepit even – a crumbling mess. The rent was cheap because it belonged to an artist friend of Mum’s called Carol, who’d gone to live and work abroad. They’d only recently got back in touch, talking to each other on the phone every now and again and, hearing of Mum’s predicament, she’d quickly made the offer. Mum was a graphic designer and worked from home. She earned good money but Dad contributed too, never missing a payment until I, the youngest child, turned eighteen. As Mum said, ‘Falling in love with someone else doesn’t make you a bad person.’ It didn’t. But I still hated the fact he’d hurt her. I also hated that we’d moved because of him – to house-sit effectively, to look after a property that didn’t want to be looked after. But my family was oblivious to that as we approached, they continued walking, straight into its clutches.
Everything was wrong about Blakemort. It was old. Parts of it dated back to the seventeenth century, apparently. Other parts had been added to it over the years, and not sympathetically. It was a higgledy-piggledy house; a hotchpotch – both such amusing terms. But, as I told you, I wasn’t amused that day, I was crying.
“Cry baby, cry baby!” Ethan, my brother, sang, his voice cruel rather than melodic.
“Come on, darling,” Mum intervened. “It’ll be all right.”
If only.
Located a few miles from where we’d lived in Ringmer, Sussex – although to me it might as well have been on another planet – in the village of Whitesmith, the house stood very much on its own, as if it wasn’t part of the village at all, but was shunned by it. Much of the grounds were overgrown and there were brambles with sharp thorns everywhere. The house we’d lived in previously – the house my parents’ had had to sell – was a modern house, semi-detached with light airy rooms. This house was white, but the paint was patchy, peeling off in so many places – a ‘dirty’ white you could say. It had a large chimney jutting skywards and a silvered oak door studded with wrought iron furnishings, which looked as if it would creak when you opened it. It was off centre too, that’s what struck me. The ivy that grew around it not as green as it should be, but withered looking, as if its life force was being leeched. There was no plaque with Blakemort etched on it. Nowhere did I ever see its name written in black and white. It was just what we’d been told it was called. I’ve often wondered about that, amongst a host of other things. But then again, I suppose it needed no announcement. Such arrogance suited it.
We didn’t go in straight away – a subconscious action perhaps on Mum’s part, trying to delay the inevitable. Instead, she led us round to the back of the house, down a side path where more brambles and weeds encroached, making the route difficult. Mum did her best to clear the way, stamping with her feet and creating a trail of sorts. Sullenly, I followed in her wake, my thumb jammed in my mouth to stop myself from crying – a tactic that didn’t work. If it was unwelcoming from the front, at the back it was forbidding. There was a rounded bay with three windows on the first floor, the frames of which looked rotten. On the ground floor of the bay were two windows and in-between them – again off centre – a glass-panelled door whose splintered surround was painted black. There and then I resolved never to use that door. I had an instinct it led to places as rotten as its frame. There was another set of windows to the right and then a chimneybreast. Further right of t
he chimneybreast was what I now know to be an add-on: a building that came towards me – the long part of an L. And above, in the roof, were the eaves windows – three of them. Again they seemed to be less than uniformly placed, blackened glass hiding an even blacker interior. Staring at them, I wanted so badly to turn and run, to return to the house that we’d left, to the life that had left us, but all I could do was cry.
“Oh, come on.” Mum swept me into her arms. “It could do with some fresh paint I admit, perhaps a few window frames replaced but Carol said it’s really quite comfortable inside. And it’s big, so big. When it’s raining it doesn’t matter. There’ll be plenty of room for you and Ethan to play. You can even scooter inside!”
None of which consoled me.
“Just leave her, Mum, she’s stupid.”
“Ethan! That’s enough. I’ve told you before, don’t be rude to your sister.”
“I wouldn’t if she wasn’t so stupid.”
Back then my brother was always mean to me. When we moved, he was eight to my five and he was surly, even more so than in later teenage years. Of course I now realise that it was mainly due to the separation of our parents. Unlike Mum and me he had dark hair – just like Dad’s – and similar features too. We were like clones of our parents, right down to the bickering.
I clung even tighter.
“Don’t want to go in there.”
“We have to,” Mum cajoled.
“No!”
“Come on—”
“Bad place.”
“It’s not bad, it’s just… in need of a bit of love, that’s all.”
Love? Like it would know what to do with love!
“Bad place,” I repeated. “Don’t want it!”
“Darling, we have no choice.”
Mum’s voice was sweet but sadness had crept in; a resignation. Miserable, I started sucking my thumb again. I knew we had no choice.
It began to drizzle so we returned to the front. The removal van was due to arrive soon but we’d brought some stuff in the Volvo Mum used to drive, a few small boxes containing essentials, and she suggested we start ferrying them into the house.
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