by Morgana Best
“Aunt Beth certainly looked her age. How old are some members of the, err, secret society? You can’t seriously mean that they live longer than normal? Do they turn non-human or anything?” I remembered all those old Frankenstein movies I’d seen as a child, and then I thought of Buffy and Twilight. “You don’t really mean vampires, do you?”
I jumped up and walked over to the other side of the room. I was getting scared, despite the fact that I didn’t believe any of it. Still, the man from the Mr Boggin’s Book Emporium in Australia had all but told me he was a vampire.
Merlin suddenly ran in, startling me. She ran over to Douglas, hissed, and then circled him. He bent down to stroke her, but she scratched his hand viciously and ran out of the room. “Ouch!” Douglas said loudly, and then that word was followed by a string of muttered words that I couldn’t quite hear, which was probably just as well.
I jumped to my feet. “I’m so sorry, Douglas. I’ll get a Band-Aid.”
“That won’t be necessary.” His tone was clipped. Douglas took a handkerchief out of his pocket and neatly folded it around his hand. “As I said, Beth did not want to take the procedure. Some members don’t.”
“Okay, sure, but what about the ones that do? How old are they?”
“A few hundred years old.”
“You’ve got to be kidding! Seriously! Do you expect me to believe that?” I walked back and sat down on another floral monstrosity.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but you write about the paranormal for a living. There must be some things you’ve come across that can’t be explained away.”
I looked hard at him. “You are serious, aren’t you? Do they look old? How old would someone who was really three hundred years old look? Like an eighty year old or a thirty year old? You haven’t answered my question. Are they vampires? Do they look like Edward from Twilight, all sparkly? Can they go out in the sun? They’re golems, aren’t they, or those homunculus things? Are they still human? Or like a Time Lord? Do they regenerate and then look like someone else?” My words tumbled out one after the other.
I caught my breath. I felt I was about to cry. This was all too much.
Douglas crossed over to my chair and patted my shoulder. “Misty, I’ll answer all your questions. I do understand this is a shock.”
“Hmmpfff,” was my reply, and I sniffled into a tissue.
“Yes, they are most certainly still human. No, they don’t look like elderly people, and as for how old they look, it depends on the age they started the procedure. They generally won’t look much younger than when they started. If someone who’s been having the procedure stops for any reason, the aging will restart, but they won’t suddenly get very old and turn to dust like you see in Hollywood movies. No, they are not vampires, but at one point in history they might’ve been confused with vampires, because the procedure does require human blood.”
I gasped, and started shaking. Douglas took off his coat and put it over my shoulders, but I thrust it back at him. Douglas ignored my reaction and kept on with his explanation.
“The procedure doesn’t require human sacrifice, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s only a few drops of blood. After the first two days, the person will be overcome with bloodlust and has to be contained in a circular room covered with alchemical symbols. After the procedure’s over and the person can go back into public, they still need to keep away from any sight of human blood for a while, as the bloodlust can still be present to a lesser degree. That’s where I think the legend of the vampire arose.”
I heard myself laughing hoarsely, as if from a distance. “You don’t believe in vampires, but you believe in this?”
Douglas spoke slowly. “Misty, that’s why we need to find that page. For centuries the procedure has been carried out near West Wycombe, in an underground vault in Buckinghamshire. Earlier this year, the vault collapsed. Chalk is unstable, and even though the unsafe areas in the area were supported, they were obviously not supported well enough. The carvings of the alchemical symbols are now lost. The only known copy is Beth’s missing page. The ritual now can’t be carried out until that page is found.”
I made a strange sound in my throat. “Well, that’s nonsense! Someone could’ve just taken photos of the carvings in the cave!”
“Not that simple, Misty. Not all of them were visible. We believe some were written with some sort of vanishing or invisible substance, and it was believed unsafe to use black light or chemicals to see them, in case the symbols were destroyed. If the people in the society do not get the page, within the next few months they’ll start to age.”
I stared at him with my mouth open.
“Misty, until that page is found,” he continued, “you’re in danger. There are people from a rival group who want to shut down the society. They’ll stop at nothing to destroy that page.”
I was dumbfounded and hugely creeped out. At least I now knew why Aunt Beth had been murdered—she must have been protecting the page from the rival group. At that point a thought occurred to me. “And how do you know all this?”
Douglas crossed his arms. “I’m a member of the society too.”
Chapter 9
Douglas and I had driven back the other way to High Wycombe town itself and now we were driving up a straight road to West Wycombe.
There are straight roads everywhere in Australia, some many kilometres long, so I was surprised when Douglas told me that long, straight roads are unusual in England. I was also surprised that Douglas had spoken. There had been a lengthy and uncomfortable silence after his disclosure of yesterday.
I had shown him out of the house and then spent the night dreaming. They were not nice, sane dreams or even the nightmares to which I had grown accustomed. Instead, I dreamt that Douglas turned into a vampire. In my dream, Douglas wanted to drink my blood to rejuvenate his face rather than paying for botox as it wasn’t covered by his health insurance. Oh well, dreams can be weird. I also awoke with scratches from Merlin, who objected to me tossing and turning when she was trying to sleep on my legs.
Douglas was speaking in an ice-cold tone and was in Tour Guide mode again. “In the 1750s, Sir Francis Dashwood had the caves excavated on the site of an ancient quarry to provide farm workers with employment because the harvest failures had left them in a bad way. The chalk that was excavated was used to build this main road. Look up there.” He pointed to the Dashwood Mausoleum in the distance, perched up the top of a hill.
I’m into Feng Shui, so remarked, “In Feng Shui, straight lines are bad, but curved lines are good.”
Douglas answered in a monotone. “Generally, straight lines build up power. Some say Sir Francis used this straight road to gather power and send it to the Mausoleum.”
“Why would he do that? Mausoleums are for, well, dead people.”
Douglas just shrugged.
We drove along the A40 through West Wycombe again then turned right up a short, steep hill and turned right again into a car parking area.
The engine was still running. “Misty, I’m going to have to bail on you, I’m afraid. A business concern has come up, so I’ll drop you here and pick you up in two hours. That will give you plenty of time to see the caves and have a clotted tea, and then meet me back here in the parking area in two hours.”
Business concern, indeed. Things were uncomfortable between us for some reason, so Douglas was indeed bailing. Nevertheless, the sound of clotted tea left me aghast. “Clotted tea? What on earth’s that? It sounds like the cream has gone stale and clotted!”
Douglas almost grinned. “You would call it a Devonshire tea—scones, cream and jam, or do Aussies say ‘jelly’ like Americans? And with a nice cup of hot tea. You don’t mind about today, do you?”
“No, not at all.”
I walked up the hill, handed over five pounds for my entry at the Caves café and picked up a free pamphlet. It said stuff about Sir Francis that I already knew, such as him being the founder of the Hellfire Club.
A booklet by the recent Sir Francis Dashwood caught my eye. I handed over my English money. It was called West Wycombe Caves and had a painting of the front of the caves as the cover illustration.
I was standing in front of this façade now. The original Sir Francis had a Gothic temple façade built over the entrance to the caves. Made out of flint, there was a vaulted window, three arches at ground level, three arches at mid-level and three arches at a high level, and the structure encompassed three sides of the entrance area. It looked like a real Gothic church to me, not that I had ever seen one.
The booklet showed the cafe’s plastic chairs and tables in front of the Gothic façade which looked strangely odd, while at the same time I felt that the original Sir Francis Dashwood would have found this highly humorous and quite fitting. I was nevertheless glad that since that photo had been taken, many of the plastic chairs had been replaced by timber.
I was thinking about ordering a clotted tea when I saw Aunty June approaching. I hurried over to greet her. “Did you get my text?” Aunty June rarely answered her phone or responded to texts. I had no idea why.
She smiled and pulled her large straw hat over her face. “Of course I did. That’s precisely why I’m meeting you here. Where’s that young man?”
“Douglas? He had to leave. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here as I don’t want to go into those caves alone.” I had decided not to tell Aunty June that Douglas was a member of a secret society or about any of the anti-ageing alchemy stuff. I wanted to get my head around it first, and I was concerned that she might be in danger if she knew.
Aunty June adjusted her sunglasses. “I’ll wait out here. You run inside and have some fun.”
I was horror stricken. “But Aunty June, I don’t like caves or tunnels. They frighten me.”
“I don’t like them either,” she said with a shudder.
“You don’t like to be out in the sun,” I pointed out. “I thought you’d like dark places.”
“I’m sorry, Misty. I simply can’t go in there. Never mind, I’ll be waiting for you out here when you return.”
We both walked to the entrance of the caves. “I’ll wait for you out here,” Aunty June said again. “If you don’t find me here when you come out, I might be sitting at one of the tables having a nice cup of tea. Now look at those children going in. The caves can’t be too scary if children go in, can they?” She gave me a cheery wave.
I wasn’t so sure.
“I think you should have worn sensible walking shoes rather than your sandals though.”
I looked down at my pretty sandals. “Walking shoes would have looked funny with my skirt,” I said, “and besides, it’s all easy going underfoot according to this brochure.” I tapped my finger on the brochure.
Aunty June took the brochure from me. “Fascinating,” she said. “The caves are over four hundred yards long and reach a depth of three hundred feet.”
I studied the map. I had googled it the previous night when making preliminary notes prior to my visit. The tunnel formation was set out like the two sides of a triangle. It looked like one long tunnel opening onto rooms, more like caverns, at various points.
The booklet had a bigger map than the pamphlet, no doubt as the booklet was not free. It showed a straight entrance tunnel leading to a small cave on the right by the original name of Tool Store. I was not surprised to read that the cave was stacked with tools: picks, shovels, candles, hammers and crowbars.
The tunnel then led to a round cavern called The Circle or Paul Whitehead’s Cave. The booklet said that Paul Whitehead was the Steward of the Hellfire Club who died in 1774. He left his heart to Sir Francis along with fifty pounds for the purchase of an urn. Whitehead asked that his heart be put in the urn and placed in the Mausoleum.
I remembered this from my internet searches of the previous night. There was an Australian connection. Paul Whitehead’s heart was said to have been stolen by an Australian soldier. I even remembered the year, 1829. Why on earth an Aussie soldier would want to steal a heart was beyond me.
“You might see a ghost,” Aunty June said happily. “The booklet says that Paul Whitehead’s ghost haunts West Wycombe.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re not helping!” I turned my attention back to the brochure.
There was a long stretch of tunnel before the next cave, and halfway along were the Roman numerals for twenty two: XXII. The booklet said they were a reference to a secret passageway that was mentioned in two poems of the time. I had my notes from last night so I dug in my handbag for my notepad, on which I had copied the two poems. Both poems appeared on a sign under the XXII sign on the wall. One poem did mention the number twenty two.
Take twenty steps and rest awhile
Then take a pick and find the stile
Where once I did my love beguile
T’was twenty-two in Dashwood’s time
Perhaps to hide this cell divine
Where lay my love in peace sublime.
The other poem was a small section of Book III of the poem, The Duellist, by Charles Churchill.
Under the Temple lay a cave:
Made by some guilty, coward slave,
Whose actions fear’d rebuke,
A maze of intricate and winding ways,
Not to be found without a clue;
One passage only, known to a few,
In paths direct led to a cell,
Where Fraud in secret lov’d to dwell,
With all her tools and slaves about her,
Nor feared lest honesty should route her.
The next cave was a large one, named as both the Franklin Cave and the Children’s Cave. I skipped to read about the next caves: the Banqueting Hall, the Triangle and the Nun’s Cave, also called the Miners’ Cave or the Buttery (where wine was kept). Nothing much of note was said about them.
The next bit of the map was marked as The River Styx. My information said it originally had to be crossed by boat.
The last cavern was called The Inner Temple. Apparently the Hellfire Club occasionally held its meetings there.
I would have read more, but Aunty June took the brochure from me. “Enough reading for you! It’s time to venture inside.”
I looked around for other tourists and didn’t see too many of them. Finally a mother with a little boy entered, and I followed as close as I could. I sure wasn’t going to go in alone.
Luckily for me, the lighting was fairly good, although dim. I wanted to linger and read the information hanging on the walls just inside the entrance, but wasn’t going to let the mother and son out of my sight.
The mother did stop to look at a photo in which a baboon was featured, so I too was able to stop and read. The feature detailed a practical joke that John Wilkes had played on Lord Sandwich. The story goes that Wilkes dressed a baboon in the sort of clothes that children imagine a devil would dress in, and hid him in a large chest. He tied a cord to the spring of the lock and hid it under the carpet.
At the strategic moment, Wilkes pulled the cord. The baboon dressed as the stereotypical Devil not only jumped out but also leapt onto the shoulders of Lord Sandwich. Sandwich called out and asked the Devil to spare him.
My time spent on the net the previous night had uncovered the whole story of Lord Sandwich’s hatred for Wilkes, and also said that the account of the baboon was a lie. Some more tourists entered at that point and lingered at the photos.
The first cave I came upon had a scene set up, which made me far less scared as it seemed kind of Hollywood. The Circle, also known as Whitehead’s Cave, had a life-sized figure, which the sign identified as Paul Whitehead. He was sitting next to a skeleton in a chest and there was a low table in front of him. His was not at all a realistic figure like one from a wax museum. The sign said that the urn was the original one that held Whitehead’s heart.
I was feeling slightly braver when I walked deeper in the caves past the Children’s Cave and Benjamin Franklin’s Cave as for some reason I found the manneq
uins comforting. Plus they were behind bars.
However, a ghastly chill crept up on me as I entered the huge Banqueting Hall. The ceiling would have been about fifty feet high and the diameter looked almost as wide.
Despite my fear, I wanted to stay in there but the tourists had moved forward, so I followed them. When I came to a junction, the mother and child went left and the tourists went right, so I followed the mother and child.
To my relief, this proved to be the Triangle, and both sides met up. Just ahead of us was the Miners’ Cave and again there were bars. I picked up speed, going across the little bridge that was supposedly over an old stream, and to the end of the tunnels, the Inner Temple.
More mannequins were ahead of me, several men and some ladies, and a baboon climbing out of an urn. I recognised Sir Francis, complete with turban, from his painting in the West Wycombe Dining Hall. This room was a fraction of the size of the Banqueting Hall.
I was staring at the mannequins when the lights flickered and dimmed. I turned around to comment on this to the mother, but she was not there. She must have left while I was staring at the figures.
I didn’t want to panic and run, so walked quickly with my arms outstretched to feel for the barely visible walls, but no sooner had I gone about three or so steps than to my abject horror the electricity went out.
Okay, keep calm. Easier said than done. I edged along to where I thought the tunnel was, when I felt there was something else in there with me. I froze in terror. I could hear my heartbeat magnified, pounding in my ears.
Right behind me, in my ear, I heard distinct words spoken in a bone-chilling voice, Where is the page? The page?
I could feel breath on my cheek. It was old, musty, and stale, like Aunt Beth’s house.
“Are you Paul Whitehead?” I don’t know how I was brave enough to ask.
The air turned icy cold and suddenly I sensed the presence of intense evil. It was only there for a second, but it left me in a state of blind panic.