Haunted Happenings

by Lucrezia Black

  “Are you feeling better, darling?” He asked as he collected the dinner dishes. “Your colour is better, at least.”

  Vera gave a small smile. “Well that’s something I suppose.” She watched him frown and knew that it was best to simply reassure him that everything was fine now. “I’m feeling better, Joe. Thank you for dinner and the tea. They both really helped.”

  He nodded but didn’t inquire beyond that. That was a can of worms he didn’t feel like opening for the moment.

  They sat in the living room and read for the remainder of the evening. It was a switch from their usual wind-down which involved each of them in their respective offices working until exhaustion took over. But Joe felt it was important that they spend time together, and even if they simply sat in silence, at least they were in the same room.

  Vera enjoyed losing herself in the romance novel that she’d chosen. She didn’t get much chance to read. Life always dictated that she do something more productive. So she enjoyed the quiet evening in her husband’s presence, lost in the easy-to-read narrative.

  They retired to bed just before midnight. She hadn’t realized that it was so late. They had both been lost in their books when the clock had chimed half to midnight.

  She crawled into bed feeling much better than she had earlier that evening. She curled up next to her husband with a smile on her face and thoughts that tomorrow would be better.

  Today had simply been an oddity. She was certain of that. Whatever she had felt earlier had simply been a one-time occurrence. There was nothing bad about this house, there couldn’t be. The house was perfect, it had to be.

  She continued to smile as she drifted off to sleep. Life was good. Tomorrow would be wonderful. She’d had the chance to spend the evening with Joe and now she was able to curl up with him for the night. She’d almost put the events of the day completely behind her. She was certain that by the time she woke in the morning it would be nothing more than a distant memory.

  Sometime after three in the morning Vera woke rather suddenly. She sat straight up in bed. She didn’t know what had woken her from her deep and comfortable sleep but she was awake and fully aware of her surroundings.

  She blinked against the darkness and listened for any indication of what might have disturbed her. She felt the chill run up her spine again and the goose bumps cover her arms. Something was amiss, she was certain of that even if she didn’t know exactly what it was.

  When she sat very still and listened she could hear voices outside of the house. The sound of men yelling, the stomp of boots on the dirt. The noise drifted to her through their open window but there was no reason for it.

  They had a sizeable lot. Their neighbours were fairly far away. There was no reason for men to be in the yard. There was no reason for the noise.

  Vera glanced over at Joe who was still fast asleep, completely unaware of what was happening. She wasn’t surprised by this. The man could sleep through a thunderstorm on a good day, a little racket outside wasn’t going to disturb him.

  She got out of bed slowly. The possibility still existed that she was imagining all of this. She could still be dreaming for all she knew. She pinched her arm for good measure and cringed at the pain.

  “Nope, not dreaming,” she muttered and got out of bed.

  She walked over to the window through which the noise was emanating, gazed out into the early morning darkness and saw nothing. Not a soul was in the yard and yet the sound still drifted up to her.

  She pursed her lips in confusion and her brow creased as she considered the situation. She knew she wasn’t dreaming, that much she was certain of, but what was going on then? Where was the noise coming from?

  She tossed her robe on over the thin nightgown she was wearing and headed down the stairs. She thought about waking Joe. She thought about it for about half a second before she dismissed the notion completely. Joe wouldn’t take her seriously. He never really did and she had learned to live with that and so she would simply go by herself.

  It wouldn’t be her first time exploring at night on her own. She had lived in many homes that had caused chills up her spine and raised goose bumps on her skin. She had always been drawn to investigate the cause of those reactions. Sometimes she was rewarded with answers. As she continued down the stairs to the main floor, she hoped she would once again be rewarded with answers.

  The sound decreased as she reached the main floor, where none of the windows had been left open for the evening. She had always been rather particular about that. She would leave the bedroom window open, but she always closed all the others before going to sleep.

  Perhaps she was paranoid from living in the city for so long. She was always worried about someone breaking into the house. She always locked the doors and closed the windows. She’d never experienced an attempted break in, but she didn’t like to leave herself vulnerable to such things.

  She wandered across the main floor. She could see very little in the early morning darkness. The light over the stove was left on and offered some illumination, but it helped little to prevent her from stubbing her toe on the coffee table as she headed to the back door.

  She cursed and hopped on one foot for a moment until the pain subsided. She drew in a deep breath, steadied herself once the pain subsided, and continued towards the back door.

  When she opened it, the sound returned. The sound of men shouting and the stomping of feet filled her surroundings. She stepped slowly out onto the porch and her eyes scanned the edge of the forest.

  From her bedroom window, she hadn’t been able to see anything outside. Now that she was on the main floor, she could see the lights by the edge of the woods. It brought back to mind the feeling she had experienced yesterday. The feeling had come from the same place in the woods, but now there was something there.

  Her eyes fixed on the figures. She couldn’t see them clearly but she sensed that there were dozens, maybe hundreds of figures in the woods. She could hear them rallying, she could hear them shouting, she could hear them marching – and the sound sent chills up her spine.

  She looked from side to side. She’d never seen anything like this before. In all her years of strange encountered, this was a first. She glanced back at the house. She shouldn’t have come outside. The thought came to her and made her stomach drop. She shouldn’t have left the house.

  She retreated towards the back door as her stomach rolled with fear and her hands began to shake. She didn’t want it to come into the house. She didn’t need her pure and new sanctuary to be violated by whatever it was that lingered outside.

  She stepped back into the house and pulled the door closed. She turned the lock and leaned her forehead against the glass, breathing deeply. Her breath fogged up the glass, obscuring her view of outside for a moment. When the fog began to fade she saw nothing beyond the glass. Whatever had been out there before her retreat was gone.

  She drew a deep breath and tried to calm herself. She shouldn’t return to bed in a panicked state. She didn’t need Joe to see her like this again. Not twice in twenty-four hours.

  “What was out there?” she pondered out loud as she stared out into the darkness. There was nothing there now; nothing but trees to fill her vision. “Why are they here?”

  She shook her head and could feel the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside of her. She needed to get herself under control. She needed to get her emotions under control.

  She drew in yet another deep breath, held it for several moments and then let it out slowly. She did this several times before she felt like herself again. When her hands were no longer shaking, she poured a glass of water and headed back upstairs to bed.

  She paused in the doorway of the bedroom and looked in at her sleeping husband. She debated waking him to tell him what had happened. She debated it for several moments and then shook her head. There was no point in disturbing him. If she wanted to tell him in the morning, she always could.

  She finished her glass of water,
lingering over it as she thought over what she’d seen outside. She would find her answers when it was light out. She was certain of that.

  She crawled back into bed and cuddled up next to Joe. She found comfort in being next to him. He may not be aware of what she was going through, but he was always a comforting presence.

  She cuddled up to him and let herself drift slowly off to sleep. And just as she was passing into the darkness of her dreams, she heard the rallying recommence outside her window.

  She didn’t bother to get up and close the window. She didn’t bother to cut off the noise. She simply embraced it, happy that it was still outside of the house. She could at least take solace in that.

  Hidden History

  The next morning Vera woke up wondering if it was all a dream. She’d had such vivid dreams before. But the glass beside her bed told her that she had indeed left her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  She decided it was best not to mention anything to Joe. She didn’t want to burden him with her imagination at the moment. She’d scared him enough the day before. She didn’t need to do that again.

  She sipped her coffee in the living room and muddled over what had happened. What was haunting her new house? What had happened in this lot to leave such a presence? She had never felt something as strong as that before. She’d never been rocked so severely by a haunting. She’d never been thrown off so much by a presence.

  She sipped at her coffee and contemplated further. Nothing had come up when they had been to the lot. Nothing had come up while the house was being built.

  She paused in that train of thought and remembered all the complaints from the builders. They had all spoken of strange happenings. They had mentioned odd goings on in the house.

  She had dismissed it at the time as nothing more than the builders being lazy. Perhaps there was something more to it. Perhaps they had heard the rallying in the forest. Perhaps they had seen the men marching.

  Now that she thought about it, it seemed to make a lot more sense. Here she had been under the impression the builders were just dragging their heels. Perhaps they had really been scared. She knew that she’d definitely been frightened last night.

  She drank the rest of her coffee and considered what the best course of action would be to solve her mystery. It was 2017 after all, the logical choice was to take to the internet. She grabbed her tablet and considered what to search.

  She’d looked into the property previously but she’d been looking at survey data and property tax information. She hadn’t been looking into the history of the lot or the area. She hadn’t been looking for possible previous occurrences on the property.

  She now did just that. It took her a few moments to come up with a search phrase. She was a designer; she wasn’t a researcher. She’d never been very good at research but she wasn’t completely inept.

  She knew that she wouldn’t find anything on the property itself. It had been an empty lot, after all. But she figured that if she looked into the village she may find something relevant. As far as she was aware, the village had been around for several hundred years. And Britain of course had a rich history. She wouldn’t be surprised if something of interest had happened over the years.

  It took a few hours for her to find something. It did take plenty of fumbling and searching. She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, but she knew that she would know it when she found it. And that was the truth.

  It seemed that in 1471 the Battle of Tewkesbury had been fought in that village. It had been the most decisive encounters in the War of the Roses. Vera knew very little about that war, but she was learning very quickly.

  According to what she now read, 2000 Lancastrians died during the battle and the York casualties were undetermined. But it was clear that many had died on the ground around which now stood this village, on the ground that was now her home.

  Vera stared at her tablet screen for a moment and felt the giddiness rise up in her. It was ironic really that they had built a Tudor style home on the grounds of an epic British battle. It was ironic that this place had called to her as home in spite of its turbulent history.

  Usually she had a better sense about these things. She was surprised that she hadn’t noticed anything until a month into taking up residence in the house. With contemplation, however, and having looked at the date of the battle, a thought came to her. Perhaps May 4th had been a trigger for it all. Perhaps May would be the only month in which occurrences took place.

  She glanced out the window towards the tree line and felt the chill run up her spine. No, she wasn’t willing to wait it out. She wasn’t willing to see if June would be better than May. She needed to handle this. She was not willing to live in a house that had a reoccurring haunting. She wasn’t willing to live in a house with any sort of haunting at all.

  She looked back towards the kitchen and was surprised to see Joe still sitting at the counter drinking his coffee and reading the morning paper. It was rare for him to linger in the kitchen rather than heading to his office to start his day’s work. He usually took the paper and his coffee with him and then disappeared for the day.

  “No work today, darling?” she asked from her place on the couch.

  Joe looked up from the paper and sent her a smile. “Not a great deal of work today. Mostly I’m just a little worried about how you are doing.”

  “And why would you be worried about me?” Her brow creased in confusion. She was fairly certain that he hadn’t woken up last night. She was fairly certain that he hadn’t noticed that she had deserted him in bed. If he had, she was positive that he would have come looking for her. It wouldn’t be the first time that she’d wandered from bed during the night and he’d found her elsewhere.

  “You were pretty shaken up yesterday.” He pursed his lips and considered what else to say. “I wanted to make sure you were feeling more like yourself today.”

  She nodded. It was a perfectly normal statement coming from Joe. He managed to acknowledge her suffering without addressing the cause. He always seemed to be able to do that.

  “I’m fine, dear. Actually, a great deal better now. Want to know why?” She smiled and held up her tablet. “It’s really rather interesting.”

  Joe seemed to consider this for a moment. He wasn’t certain that he wanted to learn about what she’d discovered. He’d heard too many stories over the years, too many justifications for her episodes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear another. But there was something about the look in her eyes that made him get up and cross the room to join her. He took the tablet from her and read the writing on the screen.

  He leaned against the back of the couch and scanned through the information on the screen. He read it once through and then a second time for good measure. When he was certain he’d processed the information, he handed the tablet back to his wife.

  “So, what you’re trying to say with this is that we built the house on the site of a rather tragic and traumatic historical event.” He watched her nod. “Well damn…”

  “Yeah, who would have guessed that?” she sighed. “We’re going to have to do something about this.”

  “Well, we sure as hell aren’t moving. Not after we put all that time and money into this house.”

  Vera nodded. “I wouldn’t have even dreamed of it. I love this house. But I can’t let this continue. Not after yesterday. Not after last night.”

  Joe frowned and moved around the couch to sit beside her. “What happened last night?”

  Vera bit her bottom lip. She hadn’t meant to mention last night. She didn’t want him to worry about her, but it seemed that she’d put her foot in her mouth again.

  “I woke up last night hearing noises. When I went to see what it was, I saw figures in the trees. I could hear the footsteps and the yelling. I saw a shadow of the battle that was fought here and I have a feeling that it will only get worse as time goes on.” She sighed knowing that he would only half believe her. “I have a bad feeling about
what will happen if we don’t do something about this.”

  “And what do you suggest we do?” He raised a brow in question.

  “I’m sure there is a museum or somewhere in town that would have more information about this. I’m sure someone around these parts will be able to tell us something, point us in the direction of a solution.”

  “A solution to our ghost problem?” He tried not to smile.

  She sent him a glare. “When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous,” she murmured.

  “And how exactly should I say it, Vera?” He was trying not to get frustrated with her, but it was difficult.

  “We have a historical issue. Our land has heritage and we want to understand it better.” She shrugged. “We don’t have to mention anything about ghosts.”

  “Good, because no one is going to believe us if we start spouting off about ghosts and hauntings.” Joe sighed and took her hand.

  “I know you don’t believe me, but it means a lot that you support me anyway.” Vera gave him a kiss.

  Joe nodded. “Well if we’re going to go, we had better go now.” He got up from the couch and pulled her to her feet as well. “Let’s go looking for answers, darling.”

  Ghosts

  In town they located the historical society. It was clearly labelled and the hours were posted. Surprisingly, it was open on a Saturday and they walked in together to be greeted by an elderly man who offered a kind smile. If Vera had to guess his age, she was certain that she couldn’t. He looked to be older than time itself.

  “What can I do for you today?” He asked looking from one face to the other.

  Vera returned his kind smile. “I wanted to know a little more about the Battle of Tewkesbury. I recently learned that this village was the location of it.”

  He nodded, and his eyes lit up with excitement. “Oh yes, it is one of our defining moments in history. What would you like to know about it?”

  “Anything you can tell us.” She shrugged. “Especially any possible repercussions of the battle.”