Hidden Company

by S E England

  Gradually there came the sound of murmuring.

  Someone was meditating or chanting. Soft and low.

  Unsure if this was real or another vision, she carried on walking as inconspicuously as possible, when a twig snapped under one of her feet. Wincing, she inched away from whoever might be there, one eye on the perimeter fence and the fields now in view; when a flicker of movement caught her attention. And once she’d seen it, she couldn’t look away.

  Through a tunnel of tree trunks in a circular glade of grass, a woman dressed in long black skirts and a cape, sat cross-legged with her face held up to the sky and palms outstretched.

  Isobel’s mouth dropped open.

  Branwen Morgan was deep in trance, swaying with the movement of treetops that blew one way and then the other despite the icy stillness of the forest down here in the valley. There was not a breath of air save for that within the circle.

  Hanging from a nearby branch was a pyramid of hemp and sticks; and the more she looked the more she saw…bracelets of rosehips and stones had been strewn like fairy lights…offerings of elderberries and sprigs of thyme lay presented on a small altar,,, and scenting the air was the heady aroma of burning henbane, pine and ferns. This was a very private ritual and she had to leave. It felt like prying. All the same it was a spooky sight and utterly entranced she found herself swaying to a sickly, rushing feeling, the sound of wind soughing through the bare branches.

  This girl was real. Branwen was summoning something.

  A prickle of fear gripped her and backing away she prayed another twig wouldn’t snap and break Branwen’s concentration.

  With enormous care she retreated several yards before deeming it safe to run downhill towards the fields. Anywhere this came out would do. This was the weirdest place she’d ever been to her in her life, and right now a crippling bank loan and a seventy hour week working in Asda to pay for a bedsit seemed like nirvana. Carry on like this and the risk was total insanity. Why had she come here? Why the fuck couldn’t she just be an ordinary person without this freaking scary shit jumping out at her all the time?

  Bursting out of the trees, it was to emerge precisely where the owners would not want anyone to be - behind the house. At the lake. Not far off where Lorna had marched her from just the day before.

  It was, however, a breath-taking view. Unlike the lakes on top of the heath, this one glistened with light and rippled with life. Beyond it lay the great house with its extensive lawns and ancient oaks, and to the fore, the fascinating little church and walled garden. Yes, it would have done well in this valley as a monastery, she could picture that. Those guys got all the best places. That lake though, it looked as though someone was there.

  Squinting into the white glare of the rising mist, she tried to see who it was. Someone in a long cloak…looking directly this way…lifting his or her hand…

  The sound of a soft voice from behind almost stopped her heart. “You can see him, can’t you, Isobel?” Branwen drew level. “First time I’ve seen him in a long time.”

  On the far shore of the lake stood a man in a white cowled robe, staring across the water.

  “They say when you see the druids it’s an ill omen. That danger’s coming. A warning.”

  “Druid? Warn us of what? Why?”

  “I don’t know, lovely. But I do know you’re in danger. Terrible danger.”

  She turned to look at her. “I’m sorry I disturbed you. I got lost and–”

  Branwen brushed the words away. “Listen, I had a nasty feeling about you yesterday - you know, after what happened with Rhys Payne? Really nasty. I don’t often conjure the fae unless I have to – they can be pure evil if you don’t play it right. But I’ll tell you this, they’ll show you the dark side all right… Isobel, something bad’s coming. We don’t have much time - you’ve got to let me help you.”

  ***

  Chapter Nineteen

  Flora. Lavinia House

  1893

  He motions me to sit down again, and though his stare burns into the side of my face I will not meet his eyes, forced instead to stare at the leeches - sweaty and pulsating in their glass jar. I wish he’d get it over with.

  “I think,” he says after a while. “That you are too weak and feeble to be bled tonight. That is the cure for you, Flora – to drain the illness from your blood, do you understand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Of course I do not understand. I burst to ask the fool what he thinks bleeding an emaciated, undernourished woman could possibly accomplish. But it would be an act of folly to provoke him or give any reason for further detainment. I must leave this room as soon as possible and escape this intense and most unnatural scrutiny. But where are the housemaids, the attendants, his wife even, in this oh-so-silent house? Why are we alone?

  Since this morning not a morsel, even a drop of water, has passed my lips and such sickly dizziness overwhelms me that I must grip the edges of the chair to keep from fainting.

  Yet still he says nothing, does nothing.

  On and on the metronome ticking of the clock.

  The leeches fade in and out of my dulling sight, the jar blurring with the wallpaper. From somewhere outside a waft of wood smoke filters into the darkness.

  “All right,” he says, eventually. “I will call Miss Strickland to accompany you back to the dormitory. You may be brought brandy and beef. We will try again in a week or two with the leech application.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He stands to pull the bell rope and this time it is I who become the watcher. He is of short stature with a slight, bird-like chest, the nose aquiline in profile, chin receding beneath the grey beard.

  In an instant he swings around.

  A glimpse of inner rage sparks from him – a palpable, malevolent fury of indignation. And oh, how quickly it rises from the depths, how he suffers to keep that hidden. I see that now. See it, despite staring at the floor, praying Myra Strickland will hurry up.

  She takes an age.

  And all the while the good doctor stares. What does he want from me? Why so much hatred when surely I have done him no wrong? It seems he is a man born with a violence of the soul and it begs the question why he elected to become a man of pious religion. Perhaps his vocation is a shield for the monster inside, for it is an effective one at that. Or has he become this way due to some ill-fate or perceived injustice? Yet with all that he has, how could that be so? What would a man of property and power need with such anger?

  A plume of fiery smoke gusts down the chimney once more. Indeed there is a haze to the evening. A charge in the air.

  But before he is able to challenge my inspection of him, footsteps at long last click along the hallway and the door opens.

  “Good evening, Doctor.”

  “Good evening, Myra. Take Mrs George back to the dormitory and see to it she has bread and beef, with some brandy.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  Mutely we retreat along the corridor. Shadows lurch around the tiled walls from her gas lamp, our footsteps a hollow echo. The smell in this establishment is like nothing else could ever be… the air trapped and stale with human decay. It permeates the skin and mind alike, an earthly hell.

  In a fanfare of rattling keys Myra unlocks the dormitory door and ushers me inside. “Your supper will be brought.”

  It is pointless to ask when or even by whom, and besides, by the time she has locked it again all thoughts of supper immediately evaporate. The room is thick with smoke. It billows down the chimney and chokes the air in a crackling, amber glow. Several of the women are standing at the window in their nightdresses, peering through the bars. Some are clapping, their eyes alight and excited like children at a travelling fairground. I thought so. Fire!

  From up here the view is a panoramic landscape of fields, forests and mountains. And tonight the sky is aglow with not one or even two, but dozens and dozens of bonfires dotted all over the hills in every direction. Although the grounds of the estate are gr
imly chill by comparison, the surrounding countryside is ablaze, the night sparking with flames, and carrying on the breeze are faint cries of excitement along with the low beating of a drum.

  There must be a local festival of some sort, something I now vaguely recall being referred to earlier…of course, we do not condone or participate in the unseemly revelry…Perhaps they celebrate a pagan event here and that is why he does not agree with it? Certainly it would explain Ivy and Nesta’s keenness to leave early. What is not explained however, is why I was kept in the room downstairs all day. Purely to assess my fitness to attend church tomorrow? Or because something has happened to Diane…It strikes me as odd.

  And she is not here.

  Most of the women are at the window, their backs to the darkened room. Along the far wall, bodies of the inert shift and groan beneath white sheets and it is to these I hurry, checking the occupants one by one. An occasional claw hand reaches out with surprising strength – the grip of madness – but no, she is not here, not in her bed lying disorientated and rambling…but absent. And her bed is not merely empty but stripped to the bare mattress.

  My heart bounces sickeningly, suspicions confirmed.

  “Yes, they have taken her,” says a voice, softly spoken and unknown to me.

  Standing behind me is the one who never speaks yet watches with eyes that cannot see. The one Diane said held séances. Violet. I must confess her appearance causes me great consternation. With hooded eyes misted and opaque, the skin and mouth quite shrivelled, she resembles an ancient soothsayer in storybooks. But her appearance is deceptive, her clutch cool and gentle on my arm.

  “Sit awhile.”

  It is a risk. What if Myra comes back?

  As if reading my thoughts she says, “We have little time and I will come to the point. The meanings you seek are, coelcerth, nos calan, and mochyn, are they not? Llyn? Nos?” Her voice is startling, low and urgent.

  “I beg your pardon, Madam?”

  “You wish to know what the words mean. It is Beltane, my dear. They celebrate with bonfires and another word you have heard tonight – the crogi gwr gwynt?”

  My mouth must have dropped open and I sink to the bed next to her, clasping her hands in mine. So she reads my mind. What is she? I had derisibly thought a parlour room séance holder but am quite caught off guard.

  There is a smile behind those unnerving eyes. “Don’t be afraid, dear. I watch for a long time before I speak these days.”

  “But how do you know? I mean, that I wanted to understand those particular words?”

  “If I trust you I will speak what comes to me. They mean bonfire, and Beltane or May Day; and llyn is lake, mochyn - pig.”

  “Pig? Why pig I wonder?”

  She nods, lowering her voice ever further despite the distraction at the window, clearly listening for the door too.

  “It is an ancient custom similar to All Hallow’s Eve. Twice a year the veil between the living and the dead thins, and fires are lit all over the hills and valleys, horns blown, bells rung, fiddles played and songs sung while the people play games and generally have a merry old time getting drunk. But you see, when the ashes die down around midnight and turn into a smouldering mass, they believe the black sow will make its appearance. The black sow is an embodiment of evil, which arises from out of the blackened debris to chase terrified revellers home. The churchyard is where it’s at its most dangerous. If they get past that safely all should be well, but it has been known to pursue people to their very door. If it catches one of them, legend has it they will be possessed of evil and their souls taken straight to hell.”

  “And the local people believe this?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve spent many a happy hour listening to Ivy and Nesta tell me all I need to know about what they believe. They have no idea I can understand every word.”

  “How did you learn Welsh? I’m trying desperately to–”

  She puts her fingers to my lips. “Shh, my child. All in good time. I have digressed. There are things you must know and soon. Here in this village some believe the veil thins enough to allow the fae to cross the threshold.”

  “Fae?”

  “The fae are thought to be both the most wicked and powerful of the supernatural elements. Anyone with a young child must cross their crib with iron for fear of it being exchanged for a crimbil as they call them here - a changeling. They say the village is plagued with those not really human, those who are in fact, really the fae. They’ve been seen in the forests and along the edges of the fields - smaller than us, about three feet or so, and older, wiser and infinitely more evil. A mother will be convinced the baby is no longer her own almost immediately, but no one else will see it until later when the child is around eighteen months or even two years old…by which time it is all too late. The tragedy is that no one will believe her, you see.”

  A prickly chill clings damply to my back, the old woman’s words a distant tinkling, disembodied, echoing…a mother will be convinced the baby is no longer her own… It is a huge effort to concentrate on the message she is trying to convey. “So tonight, Beltane, and again at Halloween, they make fires to keep them away? To prevent the fae from–?”

  “Not to stop them coming dear, no one can do that. No, tonight is the night they offer them sacrifices of bribery and appeasement - in order to get their children back.”

  “Oh, dear God – sacrifices? Not live animals? Cattle and such? I have heard of that in medieval times but–”

  Again she cuts me short, this time with a hiss and glance sharp towards the door. “Not animals dear - humans. The crogi gwy gwyllt or the hanging straw man would often be a village idiot or a diseased person encased in a straw cage, but here in this village it is a human baby.”

  All words fail me. Partly it is disbelief and partly a horror so great it is paralysing.

  The old lady appears spent, the light behind her eyes abruptly snuffed out, leaving once more that opaque blindness which shields her so well.

  What nonsense she has imparted. It is, of course, superstitious and ridiculous gossip overheard from Nesta and Ivy. The villagers would surely never throw a human baby onto a fire – what mother would allow it?

  Diane, Diane…Diane…they took me out of the way so I wouldn’t hear your screams, didn’t they? All day…

  The old lady nods. Squeezes my hand.

  “Go to your bed now, dear,” she whispers. “They are coming…”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  What could have happened to Diane?

  Tonight the plaintive wails sighing through the walls, mingle with cries of a most unnatural sort – it is ungodly the howling in those woods, and quite makes the hair stand on end. The twilight too is strangely surreal, being of a smoky lavender hue with clouds too white and too bright. Here and there the strain of a flute carries from far away, as if in lament for the dowsed bonfires… a pied piper departing for another year.

  Until soon there are no sounds at all.

  Nothing now but the hissing whispers of the house, and the onset of darkness. It is indeed, most unusually quiet – not even the pacing, fidgeting and mumbling of its disturbed inhabitants. No striking of the clock in the hallway far below, none from the distant church tower or the stable yard.

  Occasionally a shrill scream from the rooms above kick starts my heart. Could that be Diane? Have they taken her to the padded cell? Is she still alive? I cannot bear not knowing. I wish it was myself instead of her, I truly do. The humiliation and embarrassment with the doctor all is as nothing now. I would suffer it all again and gladly, a thousand times over, if only they would not harm Diane and her child.

  Tonight is the night they offer them sacrifices of bribery and appeasement…no, not animals dear, humans…

  No!

  My dreams are at once vivid and horrific, and I would rather stay awake. Perhaps it is the suggestion of veils thinning between worlds and spirits passing through, but terror has crept into my heart and shrouds me i
n its chill. The night now is at its darkest, with only the sliver of a crescent moon glinting on the glass. And something woke me I fear…

  There…again… “Eeeiu!” Loud enough to raise the entire house and immediately outside the window, “Eeeiu, Eeeiu!” A peacock.

  But there are no peacocks at Lavinia House.

  I must check myself for dreaming. Count the bars at the window. Touch my raw, tender scalp. I am here. This is real. And that is a peacock.

  For a Christian man, Doctor Fox-Whately does not care for animals in the least, and as such there are none. In truth, with the exception of birds fluttering in the eaves, even the wildlife chooses not to dwell here. Owls screech and hoot from within the forest and the haunting cries of vixens sound from far away, but none reside close to the house. And that peacock is outside this very window. Besides, even were the place overrun with them, it would be far, far too early…

  The others here lie oddly still, slumbering on. Even Cora is asleep, and the impish child, Beatrice. So much so I wonder if they have been sedated. And tomorrow there is church. Why tomorrow? Why church on what is a pagan celebration?

  My mind is tired now…

  The call of a peacock at dawn… is it not another ill omen…? Drifting into exhausted dreams once more, a feeling of profound grief and dread weighs down my heart. And in that slip between sleep and consciousness her face appears. And I know, just know for certain, that she is dead.

  ***

  In a sharp lance of cruelty, the morning brings forth a day bright with sunlight and the sweet scent of spring. Yet death clouds my spirit. She is gone, I feel it.

  They took her, and I will never know where to, or why, or what happened. Even to her body. There will, I am sure, be no marking of her passing, no remembrance, no funeral. Worse still, I cannot even ask.