The Ghosts of Wonky Inn
Wonky Inn Book 2
BY
JEANNIE WYCHERLEY
Copyright © 2018 Jeannie Wycherley
Bark at the Moon Books
All rights reserved
Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect. Any resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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The Ghosts of Wonky Inn was edited by Anna Bloom @ The Indie Hub
Cover design by JC Clarke of The Graphics Shed.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Need more Wonky?
Wonky Continues
Add Some Sparkle
The Birth of Wonky
Please?
Acknowledgments
Coming Soon
Find The Author
Also by
A high-pitched scream reverberated through the night and jolted me from troubled dreams.
I hadn’t long found sleep, and dawn wasn’t far away, but the terror in the sound that had awoken me, compelled me to run in search of the cause. Wide eyed with alarm, my breathing shallow and tight in my chest, I jumped out of bed, rapidly untangling myself from the bedclothes that had wrapped around me as I tossed and turned. Running a hand through my hair, I waited, unsure exactly where the source of the scream had originated.
A million thoughts spiralled through my mind. Primary amongst these was that The Mori had returned to Whittlecombe and had broken into the inn. I had improved security tenfold over the past few weeks, with a built-in alarm system on the ground floor, and cameras at the front and back of the inn that fed information directly to a new computer in my office.
However, Whittle Inn is an old building. The original structure dates back to the late medieval period, and even the added extensions are centuries old, and not particularly well done—hence why the inn is wonky. If someone wanted to find a way in, they would probably be able to do so with consummate ease.
The knowledge that The Mori had unfinished business with me was one of the two primary causes of stress and anxiety in my life. It kept me awake at night, and on tenterhooks during the day. The second reason for my anxiety and sadness, was the way in which the man I thought I’d loved, Jed, had betrayed me. I hadn’t really understood until I’d banished him, how much he meant to me.
But it wasn’t Jed on my mind right now.
The scream came again and it chilled my blood. Terror and pain combined in one excruciatingly piercing cry.
I grabbed my dressing gown and grappled with the lock on the bedroom door—something else that had been newly installed—and shot off in pursuit of the sound. I thundered along the hall—pushing my arms through my robe as I went—and down the still uncarpeted back stairs, my bare feet slapping against the bare wooden boards.
With the kitchen to my right, I turned back on myself and crept through the back passage to the bar past The Snug and The Nook, both now shrouded in darkness and with doors ajar. Anyone could be hiding in there. I slowed down, my heart hammering hard in my chest. What was I thinking? I should have stayed in my room. Perhaps called someone in the village to come up and help me check out the inn during daylight.
But when that terrifying shriek came again, I recognised the sound of desperation, the air of finality. Nobody was after me, but someone did need my help.
Urgently.
Taking a deep breath, I crept towards the door into the bar. Through the frosted glass I could see a light. It appeared to move and dance as I watched. I grabbed the door handle and pulled it towards me, poking my head through, then entering the bar. I halted abruptly, my mind reeling at what I was seeing. I caught my breath with a small shriek of my own, before catapulting myself forward.
The dancing light was actually a human being on fire.
A woman in fact. In a long dress. The fire had fully caught her skirts and had climbed rapidly up her clothing catching at her hair and cap. She spun about, whirling like a dervish, her face contorted in agony, beating at herself and her smouldering clothes.
“Drop and roll,” I shouted at her, remembering the safety films I’d seen at school. She ignored me, or more likely, in the midst of her terrible distress, couldn’t actually hear me. “Drop and roll!” I screamed once more, looking around for something to use to help her. I spied a discarded dust sheet bundled up by the window and grabbed it.
I raced back to her, the flames blurring my vision. The distinctive stench of burning hair, and the charring of cloth filled the air. I threw the dust sheet over her, encasing her in the large swathe of material and then wrapped my arms around her, dragging her to the floor. We fell together, me intent on beating the flames out before I rang for an ambulance.
But as we dropped, she disappeared from my grasp. I landed on the floor and the dust sheet fell on top of me, and me alone. Pushing myself into a sitting position, I beat around myself in the darkness, wafting away smoke, and breathing in the acrid scent of burnt material and hair. The woman had vanished.
Shaking, my heart racing, I jumped up and ran for the wall, hitting the light switch and blinking in the sudden glare. I whirled around. There was nobody else in the room but me. The dust sheet lay flat to the floor. I kicked at it half-heartedly with my big toe, casting a nervous eye around the room, peering into the shadows.
Holding my breath, I listened hard once more. The inn made its usual night-time-come-early-morning sounds. The distant gurgling of the old boiler. The creaks and groans of some of the timbers, joists and floor boards. The juddering clunk of two of the windows upstairs loose in their frames and in need of replacing. The scurrying and scampering of tiny feet in the walls, and beneath the floor.
Exhaling through pursed lips I shook my head in disbelief. “A ghost,” I whispered and laughed weakly.
I made my way to the side door, slapping the light switch off as I went, intent on heading back to my warm and cosy bed. I’d be getting up in an hour anyway.
But as the inn plunged once more into darkness, the hair on the back on my neck prickled and a shiver stretched along the length of my spine. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees. I stood stock still.
“There’s something behind me, isn’t there?” I asked the quiet hallway ahead of me, then spun on my heel.
The dust sheet had risen into the air, and I could clearly make out the human form beneath.
A ghost.
“Not another one,” I said. “Who on earth are you?”
The name of this ghost, it transpired, was Florence.
She had
been a housemaid here at the inn in the 1880s, and had loved the work.
“John James Daemonne was the master of the inn at the time. A very distinguished gentleman, he was, Miss. It was his daughter that hired me. His wife dying young, you know, so his daughter took over running the housekeeping side of things, once she was old enough. The inn was so popular it was, back in the day. Always full of guests. I had to get up in the middle of the night, so I could attend to all the fireplaces and light the range in the kitchen. Then once breakfast was on the go, I would take tea up to the guests in their rooms and lay their fires. Always busy I was, Miss.”
“It must have been very different to how it is now,” I said, stirring the milk around in my mug of tea. I’d taken Florence through to the kitchen, always the warmest room in the house.
She watched what I was doing with a complete look of confusion.
“Do you not use the pot, Miss?”
“The tea pot?” I asked. “There’s not much point making a pot for one person, is there?” I looked at her in surprise, wondering whether I had somehow misjudged and perhaps she had wanted some too. I asked hurriedly, just in case, “You don’t drink tea, do you? In your current spirit form?”
Florence looked down at herself, at her smouldering clothes, her face pained. “No. I don’t believe so.”
She scrutinized the way I hooked the tea bag out of my mug and chucked it into the stained sink. Then with a quick look my way to make sure I didn’t disapprove, she carefully retrieved the tea bag between thumb and forefinger and inspected it. Perhaps she had never seen one before.
“Tell me what happened to you,” I said and gulped my tea. It was too hot and tasted only of burnt milk. Florence was right, I should have used the teapot after all.
“I was laying the main fire in the bar one morning. It was always the biggest blaze that one, and really important that it burned all day and half the night, usually till well past two. There was always someone around, you know? The inn was never quiet.”
“Yes,” I tried to keep a check on my impatience and hoping she’d get to the point soon.
“This day, I was wearing a new petticoat. It wasn’t starched well, and I think my skirt must have ridden up and my petticoat caught the flame and whoosh. I was alight.”
Like a human candle… I shuddered, remembering the piercing screams of pain and horror that had woken me earlier. Here in front of me she was a scary sight, her clothes constantly smouldering, hanging off her in ribbons for the most part. Fortunately, her ghostly physique seemed to be largely unblemished apart from soot on her hands and face. Her cap sat neatly on the back of her head, oddly pristine, the white cotton was a contrast to the rest of her sooty apparel.
I rubbed my forehead, the beginnings of a sleep deprived headache starting to niggle. “So why have you suddenly decided to come back to the inn?”
Florence stared at me blankly.
I decided to tread carefully, knowing from experience that finding out you’re dead from a strange source can be slightly disconcerting. “I mean, I’ve been living in the inn for three or four months now, and I’ve had numerous spirit visitors, but I haven’t heard you or seen you before.”
“Oh. I see,” Florence nodded and a single curl of smoke drifted my way, tickling my nose.
I sneezed.
“Bless you, Miss.” Florence folded her hands in front of her and peered up at me in concern, perhaps wondering if I was getting a cold. She must have been in her early twenties. I wondered if she had left a family behind, people who loved and missed her. She had such a sweet-natured way about her. “Hmm, well, I recall that after I died, I did come back and spend time at the inn, but the only lady who acknowledged my existence was Alfhild Gwynfyre. She married my lady’s son, James Daemonne.
Alfhild Gwynfyre Daemonne. My feisty great grandmother and namesake.
“Then after the big war—the second one—they bricked up the fireplace and fitted an electric fire. And I couldn’t come back even if I wanted to. I’d have got stuck in between the partitions.”
“I see,” I said. I guess that made sense. “We unblocked the fireplace a few weeks ago.” We being Jed and I. “So why have you come back now?”
Florence frowned. “I’m not sure.” She began to shake her head, but then stuck up a single finger. “Wait!” she said. “What date is it?”
“Ah, um.” I cast a glance up at a tattered calendar hanging on the wall. “It’s the second of September.”
“Well, that’s it then! It’s my anniversary.” Florence hopped with excitement.
“Of the day you died?”
“Yes!”
I rubbed my head once more and decided to dispose of my mug of tea. Perhaps I’d substitute it for a glass of water and some painkillers. Imagine being excited about the day you died? Florence’s positive attitude in light of the circumstances was at once peculiar and endearing. I hoped it would rub off on me.
“Will you be sticking around, or do you intend to disappear for the next twelve months? Can I expect you to wake me at five a.m. next September 2nd?” I asked. “And every one after that?”
“I’d love to stay. If you’re happy to have me?” The housemaid beamed.
I grinned back at her. I was liking Florence. “That’s fine. Of course I’m happy.” I gestured around the kitchen. “The more the merrier.” The inn seemed to be full of old ghosts these days, both those I had recently found I could summon, and those who suddenly appeared without warning, although this morning I couldn’t see any others.
“That’s wonderful! Thank you, Miss.”
I smiled, heading for the door and the back stairs up to my rooms. “I’m going to try and have a quick nap. I’ll catch you later.”
“I’ll have a pot of tea waiting for you when you come back down for breakfast,” Florence called after me, emphasising the word pot.
The cheeky minx! I stuck my head around the door and winked at her. “Stay out of trouble, Florence. Please.”
The wake-up alarm went off the moment I reached my bed. I could have wept with tiredness. If this insomnia kept on for much longer I’d have to consult a doctor.
I slapped the button on the radio next to me, silencing the chirpy music the local station favoured in the morning, and climbed beneath my duvet.
“Just five minutes,” I groaned, “that’s all I want.”
As I drifted off, the sound of someone crying infiltrated my brain, although not enough to wake me up.
“Don’t cry, Florence,” I said drowsily. “You’re alright now. The inn will look after you.”
Florence was as good as her word.
When I re-surfaced four hours later, feeling groggy and out of sorts, she had a pot of tea and a pile of scrambled eggs waiting for me. Her tea, made with leaves she’d unearthed in some ancient caddy somewhere in the depths of a cupboard in the pantry, was infinitely superior to my mine.
“I couldn’t find much in your larder,” she apologised, and I guiltily made a note to go into the village and collect some provisions and order others. I hadn’t been eating particularly well during the past few weeks.
In fact, I hadn’t been doing much of anything. The progression of the painting and decorating chores had ground to a halt, and now dust and grime were beginning to congeal on all the surfaces.
I’d been fine while my dad and Wizard Shadowmender and their friends had remained at the inn with me after the Battle of Speckled Wood. But they all had lives (or after-deaths in my father’s case) to attend to, and I’d soon been left alone with just my assorted ghosts for company.
And too much time spent alone? It really isn’t good for me.
“I guess I could take a walk into the village now,” I said to Florence, “and pick up some bits and bobs. I may have let things lapse a little. I need to get back on track.”
“That sounds like a good idea, Miss. The air will do you good. You look a little peaky, if I may say so.”
“Do I?” I asked.
She wasn’t wrong. Back upstairs I made a quick list of things to buy in the village and then snuck a look in my bathroom mirror as I prepared to venture out. Cheeky Florence was right. I looked more ghostly than she did. I pinched some colour into my cheeks and fluffed some volume into my hair. Right there and then, I promised I’d do better – do right by the inn and also by myself.
Within ten minutes, I was strolling down the drive clutching my re-usable shopping bags. I averted my gaze from Jed’s van. It had been left where he parked it the day before the Battle for Speckled Wood. In all these weeks since that fateful night, it had acted as a memorial to lost love and betrayal. Now it was covered in dust, streaked and grubby where the rain had smeared through the dirt.
A sharp pain twisted in my stomach.
The ghosts of wonky inn were not all of the spirit kind.
Later that evening I slipped into a steamy bubble bath under the watchful eye of my little friend, Mr Hoo. He’d been spending more and more time in my company, occasionally even venturing inside the inn, which I liked.
I often found myself chatting away to him, particularly when I was sitting at my office desk. He would perch on the window sill and watch what I did, sporadically hooing at the right moment. I felt as though we were getting to know each other quite well.
It had become a custom of mine to bathe in the evening in order to try and unwind. After all, relaxing in warm water is said to aid sleep and I needed all the help I could get in that department.
The Ghosts of Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 2 Page 1