Eden Relics (A Zac Woods novel #1): Author royalties for Cancer Research

by N Williams

  ‘Please stay close to the main party at all times. The restored sections of the castle are safe, but there are problems with the old bits, the places where the builders haven’t yet begun their work,’ she explained. ‘Some places, and large sections of the castle, are out of bounds for the ghost tour.

  Ffion did a good job of convincing the group that she believed the place was haunted. Although the expressions on the faces of the group ranged from the “clearly impressed” to the “downright disbelieving,” and the “I’m only here for the beer” crowd, Ffion said she was certain there was something strange about the place. She had heard the stories of strange things that had supposedly happened over the years, and whenever she was alone she always got the feeling that someone was watching her. Nobody went up to the upper floors anymore, one of the areas very much in need of restoration, but it was at least safe and provided the perfect backdrop for the spooky event. The wards of the old hospital were now empty of furnishings, but Ffion said she could still smell the disinfectant present nearly forty years after the hospital had closed.

  Tonight would be the standard tour. She would welcome everyone, offer the tray of tipples and introduce everyone to the resident medium - Julian - not that she thought Julian was in any way psychic.

  If Julian actually had psychic powers he’d know that she detested him – he was a creep. The rest of the evening would be easy. She’d put her feet up behind the reception desk and watch the late-night film on her portable telly. It was money for old rope.

  The first of the guests were sitting in the lounge when Ffion arrived. One was a good-looking guy, a light peppering of grey at his temples suggested he was older than he looked. He was still fit though, Ffion thought. The guy with him was a mighty big black man. Well over six feet and built like a very fit rugby forward - fit was undoubtedly the correct word, she thought. Ffion had never had the opportunity to date a black guy, but she smiled to herself as she thought she’d certainly not refuse a date with this one if it were offered. Unfortunately, there was a pretty woman with them too. She was dressed in decidedly tight-fitting black jeans and an equally tight T-shirt, which was emphasising her curves; Probably a bitch! Her red hair was neatly bobbed and Ffion had to admit that she looked good. She also noticed that all three were dressed in black or very dark clothing. They didn’t look like the usual Goths or ghost aficionados they had on the tours, she thought.

  *

  Zac gratefully accepted the small shot of brandy from the receptionist called Ffion. She smiled warmly and offered her tray of drinks to Gates.

  Sally was once again looking highly attractive. Zac thought she looked good in whatever she wore. The jeans and black top were appropriate for tonight’s event but also showed her figure off to best advantage; whilst Gates looked ridiculous holding a small glass of sherry he’d accepted from the young and attractive blonde. Sally had politely declined the offer of refreshments. ‘The only spirits I’m interested in tonight are the paranormal kind,’ she said to Ffion.

  A two-seater settee in one of the window bays offered the perfect opportunity for Zac to squeeze up to Sally, while Gates chose a high wing-back chair opposite and a made a play of sitting as if he were born to the manor.

  The room was already half full. Zac counted twenty heads, and he could hear a few more arriving in the reception. One high-pitched voice cut through the chatter of the rest.

  A short but portly middle-aged man entered the lounge. ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’

  The assistant stopped serving drinks and placed the tray on the table in front of Gates. She coughed loudly. ‘Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Could I have your attention, please? I’d like to introduce you to Julian Knight, our resident medium.’ Ffion gestured theatrically towards the portly man.

  The medium called Julian took a small bow and hushed the gentle and unenthusiastic applause. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said. ‘I’d like to welcome you to Craig-Y-Nos Castle. Before we embark upon our paranormal adventure, I’d like to tell you just a few things about the history of the castle.’ Julian paused briefly as he caught sight of Gates standing amongst the group. He shuffled over to him and held out a small clammy hand that was swallowed up in Gates’ massive mitt.

  ‘Pleased to meet you! Is this the first time you’ve been to an evening like this?’

  Gates looked a little flustered. ‘Er, yeah. First time.’

  ‘A virgin amongst us? How lovely. I’m sure you’ll be all right; a big, strong and handsome chap like you. I know whom to run to if the spirits put the willies up me,’ he whispered lecherously before turning on his heel and taking up his place at the front of the group.

  Sally’s shoulders bounced as she struggled to control herself.

  Zac’s face was a picture of mock surprise. ‘Do I sense a certain chemistry between you and Julian?’

  Gates frowned. ‘The only chemistry there’d ever be between me and Julian is the stuff they’ll need for him in casualty.’

  Julian resumed his speech with a wink at Gates. ‘The castle was built in 1840 by a Captain Rice Davies Powell. Captain Powell was a wealthy man, but it seems he wasn’t wealthy enough and eventually ran into difficulties before he could finish the project. There’s also a story of a curse affecting the Captain and his family,’ Julian said dramatically, drawing out the words as if trying to scare a small child. ‘All his family, his wife and children, seemed to have died unusual and untimely deaths. Without money and inclination to stay, the castle was sold to the world-renowned opera star Adelina Patti in 1878. No-one is quite sure how or why Madame Patti wanted to move to the Swansea Valley, or even how she knew about the place. It’s been suggested that she met Captain Powell at a social engagement and that he had mentioned his intention to sell the property.

  ‘During her time at the castle,’ Julian continued, ‘Adelina added the theatre - which we’ll visit as part of our tour. The design was based on the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane in London. It has an incredible wooden floor that can be raised to form a slope to allow guests to see the performance from anywhere in the theatre - very innovative for the time. The castle was also the first house in Wales to have electricity installed. It seems that there was nothing that Madame Patti could not afford.’

  Julian droned on for another ten minutes or so before he asked everyone to follow him into the reception.

  The group followed the guide part way down a corridor and into a room on the left. As Zac entered, the little theatre amazed him. In all the years he had visited the place, he had never been inside this part of the castle. The ceiling was high and decorated exactly as he imagined a Victorian theatre should look. The stage was raised about a metre off the floor and Zac could see removable wooden panels in the boards below the front of the stage; he assumed this was the orchestra pit. At the rear of the stage was a vast dark curtain, on which was painted a monumental image of Patti in the guise of Buddug - the Welsh name for the early female warrior known in the rest of Britain as Boudicca - riding her horse-drawn chariot.

  ‘Think Adelina had delusions of grandeur?’ whispered Gates.

  Zac sniggered. ‘Just advertising her revolutionary valley taxi service. It must have been a hell of a ride coming back from the pub on a Saturday night.’

  Sally elbowed Zac in the ribs. ‘Shh. This is actually extremely entertaining.’

  *

  Zac listened intently to the rest of Julian’s tour of the theatre, realising that there may be some snippet of information they might use to guide them in their quest for God only knew what. The medium’s voice had begun to grate on him. His high-pitched tone and dramatic delivery of his spiel was only tolerable for short periods.

  ‘You’ll notice around you, throughout the castle,’ squeaked Julian, ‘a few night-vision video cameras. These have been set up to record the events of the night. They are timed to activate automatically at eleven o’clock and will knock themselves off around the time we finish. We’ll visit six rooms in all and t
hen I’ll need volunteers to keep a vigil in each of the rooms. The rest of us will watch the events on monitors in a room on the top floor. The cameras are all wired up to the monitor so we should get a good picture of what’s happening.’

  ‘Oh great,’ sighed Gates.

  Zac didn’t seem concerned. ‘Don’t worry, could be to our advantage. All we need do is look as if we’re investigating and use the excuse to search instead.’

  The group shuffled into a narrow line and followed Julian out of the theatre and into the dining room they had eaten in earlier. After another ten minutes of historical lecture, they moved on down the long corridor to a basement room before climbing a servants’ narrow staircase to the first floor above.

  The first floor had a number of rooms converted for accommodation, but a rope barrier blocked off the end of the corridor.

  ‘You will be amongst the privileged tonight. You will go beyond the rope to view the rooms that were used as Madame Patti's private accommodation. I must add at this point, that there isn’t a lot to see at the moment, but the rooms will eventually be restored to their former glory and form a part of the attraction at the castle. But first I’ll show you the room in which we’ll monitor the night’s proceedings.’

  A large oak door opened into a large room at the rear of the building. Floor-to-ceiling windows filled the far wall with a bird’s eye view of the castle grounds and the country park below during the day. Tonight, the windows revealed a clear night sky; black and spotted with bright pinpricks of starlight.

  ‘This was used as a geriatric ward during the nineteen-sixties and early seventies.’

  Zac steadied himself against a high-back chair, suddenly feeling light-headed and awkward, a strange sensation of a creeping nausea. Sally saw Zac’s discomfort and wasn’t in the least convinced by the weak smile and dismissive gesture from him that he was okay.

  A mock sad tone had replaced Julian’s usual high-pitched squeak. ‘So many poor elderly folk would have spent their last hours of life in this room.’ He then brightened suddenly. ‘But that means we’ll stand a better chance of contacting people in the astral plane.’

  ‘Astral plane, my astral,’ said Gates a little too loudly.

  Julian had obviously heard the remark and was thrown off his speech. ‘Could I just state at this point that I understand that there will be sceptics amongst you. I cannot prove to you that the astral plane exists - that there’s life after death, but I would ask you to keep an open mind and to relax and enjoy the evening. Who knows,’ he said, looking directly at Gates, ‘perhaps even the less sensitive of us might change our minds after tonight.’

  Gates shuffled uncomfortably as the stern faces of some of the group looked directly at him.

  ‘What?’ he shrugged. ‘It’s healthy to be sceptical.’

  Julian then pushed through the group and walked down the corridor to the private rooms.

  The odd feeling began to subside. ‘That was nicely done. Couldn’t do a better job of drawing attention to us,’ chided Zac.

  Letting Gates and Sally follow the group out into the corridor after Julian, Zac held back for a moment. A noise behind him made him turn on his heel. He knew there was no one left behind. The group had moved on together. He was sure he had heard a voice, a woman’s voice. The group trudged further along the corridor, the sound of their footsteps on the old wooden floor gradually getting quieter.

  Then he heard it again. “Angel.” It was unmistakably a whispered voice. This time he was spooked. The word had a deep connection for Zac - it was a name he had been called as a child, and only one person would know it.

  “Angel.” Louder this time; Zac shivered and he felt the hair on his head begin to stand to attention. The grandmother who had died in this place nearly forty years before had called him her Angel - a reference to his real first name - Zachariel - the full version of which he had never divulged to anyone other than Sally. Zachariel - the angel of healing and watching over mortals, was the only name she had felt was suitable for him, certain her little grandson would become the finest doctor in Wales. How wrong she turned out to be, he thought. He jumped when Sally stuck her head around the door at the end of the corridor. ‘You joining us?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m coming.’

  CHAPTER 36

  The tour around the private rooms was a little disappointing; there was nothing much to see. The rooms were bare, and only the cornices, architrave, and cast iron fireplace seemed to be left from the time of the famous singer. But then it was only a ghost tour and not a museum visit.

  A large chunk of plaster had fallen from the wall at the base of the fireplace, and Zac noticed a hole in the fabric of the wall.

  At the end of the tour, Julian asked for volunteers to carry out the vigils. Zac’s hand shot up to remain in the private rooms, along with three others from the group, whilst Gates and Sally were to team up and to stay for a couple of hours in the theatre along with two other people.

  ‘Before we set off on our adventure, I’d like to get the evening off to an exciting start by invoking the spirits to join us here tonight.’

  The medium walked over to a small round table on castors in the corner of the room and wheeled it into the centre.

  Zac had seen a table like it before, as a child. As a Catholic, albeit a lapsed one, Zac still had strong feelings about meddling with the unknown.

  Stepping back from the table, an almost convincing expression of trepidation formed on Julian’s face. This guy certainly knew how to play the game, thought Zac.

  ‘Okay. So you’ve probably all seen one of these things before. It’s a version of the infamous Ouija board, and tonight we’ll use it to summon the spirits in the astral plane.’

  An audible note of excitement filled the room. The others in the group were clearly up for it.

  ‘Volunteers?’ Julian looked around the rapidly rising forest of eager hands.

  Zac cringed as Julian looked directly at him. He felt like he had in his school days, desperately not wanting to be picked to answer the teacher’s question.

  ‘How about you, sir?’ Julian smiled.

  ‘No. Sorry. I’m with my friends. I’m not into all this stuff.’ He looked at Sally. ‘How about you, Sally?’ he asked with a wicked smile. ‘You were the one who wanted to come here tonight.’

  Sally looked horrified. ‘Er, no. I don’t think so…it’s not my cup of tea, either.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Julian. ‘Come, come.’ He walked over to Sally and led her firmly by the arm to one of the seats arranged around the table, ignoring her pitiful squeaks of protest.

  ‘Right. Who’s next?’

  Four more eager participants joined the table. Julian took his place in the only remaining seat and began to run through a short list of cautions. Zac smiled wryly as he listened to the man build the tension even further.

  ‘Whatever you do don’t break the circle. We need to keep in contact with the glass at all times - to channel the force.’

  ‘Force, my arse,’ whispered Gates.

  Zac sniggered. Sally was looking decidedly uncomfortable. Indeed, Zac thought he could sense a real fear. Although he hadn’t known Sally long, this was something of a surprise. She didn’t seem to be someone likely to be spooked by all this sort of rubbish.

  She tentatively raised her hand into the air to catch Julian’s attention.

  ‘Yes?’ said the medium, clearly irritated by the unexpected interruption.

  ‘Could you… er… tell me,’ Sally stammered, ‘how does…er…all this work? How can four or five people, with fingers on a glass, actually contact dead people?’

  His expression of surprise bordered on ridicule. ‘It’s quite straightforward, really,’ he explained with a gentleness which was certainly not reflected in the expression of sarcasm. ‘We all live in a universe of constant movement. Everything we are, see, touch, smell or hear is moving - it vibrates.’

  Sally nodded her head; she knew where this was
going.

  ‘Even the cells and atoms within us are vibrating at a frequency which makes them appear solid to us, and the force or energy they emit holds us all together. If you look at this wooden table here,’ he tapped the Ouija board with his finger, ‘even this is in a state of constant movement, on a quantum level.’ Julian paused for a second, trying to think of a simple way to explain a complex concept to an idiot. ‘If it’s true that we all vibrate and are made from energy, then it makes sense to think of our souls as an extension of those vibrations. Unassigned atoms - those that do not make up an object or person - are whizzing through us all the time. They will come together with others, at some point, to make a person or a table and then after the energy that holds those atoms together - the glue - has gone, they drift apart again and continue whizzing around until they start the process all over again.’

  ‘An atomic Pritt-Stick,’ Zac whispered to Gates.

  Julian appeared to be annoyed for the briefest of moments before he realised that the rest of the group seemed to be fascinated by his explanation. ‘Well, for us humans I would suggest that the energy is our soul. I believe that the atoms, which have once been part of someone, perhaps a thousand years ago, find their way into the stem cells of a new person, and this will account for the memories of past lives… and could even account for déjà vu.’

  ‘I knew he was going to say that,’ Gates chuckled.

  Several of the group nodded enthusiastically, but Zac was less easily impressed. ‘So you think that the atoms which make us contain an imprint of the lives they were once a part of…perhaps centuries ago?’

  ‘Why not? We know that tiny silicone chips can do a similar thing in our computers, so why can’t millions of atoms act in a similar way? When we die our bodies decay, but the atoms that were once part of us are freed and are no longer visible to us. I believe it is these atoms which continue to roam around us as astral beings, carrying the memories and events of the life they once occupied.’