Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law

by Natasha Duncan-Drake

  It wasn't the first time communing with the spirits had had a detrimental effect on Sil, but Lucy still felt on edge.

  "Are you sure?" she checked.

  "I must have been too open when she gathered the energy to hit the door," Sil said, nodding and then clearly regretting it. "It was my own fault. I'll be fine."

  "As long as you're sure," Karl said before Lucy could ask anymore. "You're as white as a sheet, Lucy can you make sure he gets to his room?"

  "Of course," she replied.

  "Right everyone," Karl said, "reset for Paula in the library."

  Lucy watched them all troop away and Mo offer them all a drink, but she was glad the woman didn't venture further down the corridor. The last thing Sil needed was caffeine.

  "Come on," she said, going to help Sil up, "the only thing that will help now is that cold compress I know you have in your bag."

  "You know me so well," Sil replied, trying to make light of it all. "Oh, hey, you're bleeding."

  Lucy looked down and there was, indeed, blood on her hand.

  "Oh," she said, lifting it closer.

  There was a tiny cut on the pad below her index finger she hadn't even felt. Glancing over at the door she realised there was a little blood smeared next to one of the locks.

  "I must have clipped the metal with my hand," she said.

  Fishing a tissue from her pocket she wiped the blood off her hand and then did her best to remove the evidence from the door as well. The last thing she wanted was to be told off by the housekeeper.

  "It's already stopped bleeding," she said, "so let's worry about you."

  Sil acquiesced without a fight, which indicated it really was a very bad headache.

  ~*~

  "You didn't eat much," Paula said as they walked up the stairs after dinner, "and it was delicious."

  "Wasn't hungry," Lucy replied.

  Paula lifted her eyebrows at that. Lucy might also have been famous among the crew for how much she could eat and still stay rake thin. She had what some would describe as a metabolism on speed.

  "Okay," she admitted, lowering her voice, "it's this place, it gives me the creeps."

  "Really? What the serious heebeegeebies?" Paula asked.

  Lucy nodded.

  "Then we're in for some good stuff," Paula said, much to her surprise. "Last time a place put you edge we had so much footage we couldn't fit it all in. That house in Newcastle, remember?"

  She hadn't before, but now she did and Lucy had to admit Paula had a point.

  "It's probably that room," their historian went on. "You know there was a batty relative that had herself embalmed. The family legend is true. She paid for an expert embalmer to come over all the way from America just before she died. I couldn't find many details, but her name was Luticia Franklyn ne Darling and she died of consumption at the age of thirty five. There are no records of a burial, so she could be in that room."

  "Surely they would never have allowed it," Lucy said.

  "With this family I wouldn't put anything past them," Paula said. "The owners of this house have had some very colourful characters among them. A couple have been rumoured to be witches. It was a blast researching them. Most fun I've had in ages."

  Lucy shivered. She seemed to be doing that a lot. At least Paula didn't notice.

  "Come on," Paula said, "we have another two segments to film before Karl will let us go to bed and I need as much sleep as possible before tomorrow night."

  ~*~

  It had been a long day. They had all the footage they needed in the can so far, so it was a good shoot, but Sil hadn't reappeared all evening and Lucy was so full of nervous energy she was sure she would never be able to sleep. However, when her head touched the pillow, she dropped right off.

  She had no idea how much longer it was when a noise woke her. After staying in a large number of old houses she knew they made creaks and groans, so she turned over and prepared to go back to sleep, only that was when she saw her door. The sound had been the old lock turning and the door itself was slowly opening.

  Her sleep addled brain jumped over all the possible rational explanations and went straight for ghost. Her heart jumped straight into her throat and she froze. It was like a scene from any classic horror film as the door's hinges gave a pathetic squeak. She would have laughed if she hadn't felt like crying.

  When the door opened enough to reveal the perfectly ordinary silhouette of a woman in a nightdress, Lucy almost did cry, but with relief. The moonlight from the window in the hall outside her room framed the woman nicely as she stepped inside. It was only as she glided towards the bed that Lucy realised she was pretty sure none of the crew wore old fashioned nightgowns.

  In a last ditch bid for sanity Lucy lunged for the bedside light.

  She found herself looking at a woman she had never seen before in a nightgown with lacy ruffles, with a pale face surrounded by very old fashioned looking, blonde ringlets. Someone had to be playing a joke on her and not a very good one at that. For a second the woman just blinked at her.

  "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?"

  The woman's eyes opened a little in shock, but she quickly composed herself.

  "I am Luticia Franklyn," she said simply in a refined English accent, "and I need your help."

  "Really, Luticia? Is that the best whoever came up with this can do?" Lucy demanded.

  It couldn't have been one of the crew who arranged this because they knew how important the first night's footage could be. That meant someone local and that pissed Lucy right off.

  "While I can understand your scepticism," Luticia said, "I'm afraid it happens to be true. My family is cursed and you, Miss Williams, are the first ray of hope in far too many years."

  "Look, I really don't care what game you're playing," Lucy replied, "just leave the way you came and we can forget the whole thing, but if you wreck our filming for tonight my production company will delight in pursuing you for lost ..."

  Before she could finish what she was saying, Luticia stepped forward and placed her hand over where Lucy's was still on bedside table. She gasped as ice ran up her arm. A feeling of wrongness accompanied the cold and Lucy snatched her hand back without even thinking. The fear came crashing back like a tonne of bricks.

  "I'm sorry," Luticia said, standing back once more, "I do not wish to frighten you. I beg you to help me."

  "What do you want?" Lucy asked, voice barely willing to work.

  "I am trapped," Luticia told her. "I knew I was dying and after my death I planned to confront the evil in this house, but I was ill prepared for my relatives refusing to obey my wishes. It took so much of my will to convince them that I was confined to my room before I was able to do that which I had planned for."

  "Then how are you here now?"

  Lucy knew the explanation had a logical hole.

  "Your blood crossed the boundary," Luticia said, "and your gifts call to me."

  "What gifts?"

  "You are open to the world of spirits," Luticia said.

  "I don't have a psychic bone in my body," Lucy protested.

  "But you do," her companion insisted, "for I am here. The more one is exposed to such things, the more sensitive one of your talents will become."

  Lucy didn't believe it in the slightest, but she was too on edge to say so.

  "You still haven't told me what you want," she said.

  "To open my door."

  "But I don't have the keys."

  "I know where they are. I will show you."

  "Then what?"

  "When I am free I will face the evil that has lurked in this house for centuries."

  Luticia sounded so sincere, but Lucy hesitated. Her instincts were screaming danger at her.

  "How do I know you weren't shut in there for good reason?" she asked.

  "Ask your heart," Luticia said, "and if you decide to help me, come to my door. I will show you where to find the keys from there."

  Ev
en before the ghost was finished speaking, Lucy realised she no longer looked like a solid person.

  "You know," she said as she faded, "I was almost a Lucy. My mother wanted that name, but my father wished for me to be called Leticia, so they compromised and decided that Luticia sounded a fair name."

  Then she was gone. Lucy sat staring at where she had been, a little voice at the back of her mind wondering how much of that the cameras had caught.

  ~*~

  Lucy sat in her bed staring at nothing for a long time. She knew it would be safer just to go back to sleep. If she did tomorrow they would continue their investigation and then leave. It would be easy. Luticia was trapped, so all they would get from her was maybe a little party trick or two, like in the session with Sil earlier. And, if there really was an evil presence, it hadn't shown itself yet, it was probably hiding, not interested in guests, only the family.

  It would have been sensible to lie back down and forget the whole thing.

  Of course no one had ever accused Lucy of being particularly sensible. She chased ghosts for a living after all.

  She did what Luticia had told her, she searched her heart, and it finally dawned on her that she believed the ghost. Pushing the covers back, she threw on a large jumper she always packed for cold old houses over her pyjamas, grabbed her trusty torch, and headed out the door. How she was going to explain the footage in the morning she had no idea, but there were more important things than ratings.

  As soon as she stopped in front of the locked door she felt the same cold she had done when Luticia touched her.

  "The pot on the hall table," Luticia's voice whispered in her mind.

  "Where are you?" Lucy asked, looking round for the ghost.

  "Manifesting requires a great deal of energy. I cannot afford to waste anymore, not with what is coming."

  Goosebumps rose all across Lucy's skin. The disembodied voice that seemed to come from her own head was almost worse than an actual apparition.

  "Isn't that pot rather delicate?" she asked, and she knew she was procrastinating, but she couldn't help it.

  "It can only be broken by deliberate intent," Luticia told her. "The keys are sealed inside. Lift it from the table and smash it, it is the only way."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes."

  That was it then, the last delaying tactic her mind could come up with.

  "Please," Luticia said.

  "Okay," Lucy said quietly.

  She stepped up to the table, put her torch down and picked up the porcelain vessel, pausing as she wondered what the hell she was thinking yet again.

  "Lucy, what are you doing?"

  She almost dropped it anyway at the familiar voice. Turning she saw Sil coming down the corridor.

  "Freeing Luticia," she said. "The keys are in here."

  "What? How do you know?"

  "She came to me. When I cut myself on the door it gave her a connection."

  Sil all but scowled at that.

  "Luce, this is dangerous," Sil said, walking right up to her. "There is evil in this house, I can feel it. It could be her."

  "It's not," she replied. "She's trying to fight the evil, but it trapped her in that room."

  She gestured at the door with both hand and pot.

  "If she's made a connection with you, how do you know?" Sil asked. "The wrongness permeates everything here. I've spent all night trying to get through it."

  "Not really a migraine then?"

  "Oh, definitely a migraine, but that doesn't mean I don't have to still do my job."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm a medium, Lucy. I might go on TV and feel out residual entities for entertainment, but my job is to help trapped spirits move on when I can. There is a trapped spirit here, but there is also a lot of rage and something evil. I know I always say that ghosts can't hurt you, but that's the sanitised version for TV. Some of them can, and Luticia might be the evil."

  Lucy looked at the vase and then at the door.

  "She's not," she said.

  "Can you be sure? Look, wait until we're finished here, I'll even stay on to make sure everything is done for her that it's possible to do. I'll do a full clearing if that's what it takes. Just don't do anything hasty."

  That cold feeling of dread in Lucy's stomach was growing again, but with it came a tentative instinct.

  "It has to be now," she said. "It knows, the evil knows. It knew as soon as I picked this up."

  Sil looked at her then, really looked at her.

  "So you're finally waking up," he said.

  "I am a little bit psychic then?" she asked.

  He nodded.

  "You've always picked up on things most people don't, you just never seemed to consciously realise it. I didn't want to frighten you off by mentioning anything."

  "Then can you trust my instincts now?" Lucy asked.

  She watched Sil's face carefully as he considered her request. When he nodded again part of the tight feeling in her chest released a little. Taking the pot she held it over an uncarpeted section of landing and let it go. The fragile porcelain shattered with an echoing crack the moment it hit the floor.

  Sil picked up her torch from the table and shone it down on the pieces. There, sitting amongst the shards, were three keys. They looked like new.

  Just liked Lucy knew the evil had known the moment she touched the pot, she could feel that it knew the keys had been found. The sense of urgency forced her on and she crouched down quickly, picking up the keys and stepping over to the door. Cold flowed over her from head to foot and the tightness in her chest returned, becoming painful. She gasped as it became hard to breathe.

  "Lucy?"

  "I'm alright," she said, refusing to back down.

  Working as fast as her fingers would let her, she took the first key and tried it in the bottom lock. It couldn't turn, so she went on. The second lock gave an overly loud click, the bar it was holding closed springing open as it proved to be a match. She took a huge breath as the action freed something up in her chest as well. Spurred on she quickly repeated the process with the second and third keys.

  Each time there was the overly loud click, as if more than a simple lock was releasing and the metal bars sprung back as if pulled by an invisible hand. As the last did so flame shot out of the door. Lucy was not quick enough to step back. She shied away, but the flames reached for her.

  But they didn't burn.

  They flared with blues and purples for a few seconds, leaving a black, smudged design on the door, and then went out.

  It didn't really surprise her when the door swung inwards without her having to so much as touch it.

  "Oh," she heard from behind her, "oh, I see."

  Lucy looked at Sil and for the first time she was completely sure. She didn't know what he was sensing, but she knew that expression of righteous fury that was forming on Sil's face. They didn't need to speak. When she held out her hand he gave her the torch and they walked into the room.

  The first thing that assailed her was the unpleasant smell, but given what she expected to find in the room which had been shut up for nearly a hundred and fifty years, that wasn't surprising. The torch beam revealed a bookcase, dressing table, chairs and a four poster bed, all of a well-to-do nineteenth century lady and all spotless. It was as if time had stopped the moment the room was sealed. There wasn't a cobweb or a speck of dust to be seen. Nothing in the room looked old, not until the torch reached the top of the bed.

  There, on the perfect pillows and under a perfect, embroidered cover, was what could only be described as a modern mummy. It had to be Luticia. Her skin was light brown and shiny in places, like an old leather sofa's arms that had been polished. Her cheeks were sunken over prefect bone structure, but not withered like an ancient mummy. She even still looked on the world with perfectly preserved eyes, yellowed, but not shrivelled or decayed and her face was framed by the same ringlets Lucy had seen on her ghost, only whatever had been used to preserve
her had stained them red. She was dressed in the old fashioned nightgown, but where the sheets were pristine, the gown was mildewed and stained with age.

  "Luticia," Sil whispered reverently.

  Even as they watched, a light cloud formed above the mummy. It floated for a few moments before beginning to settle like mist on water, as it was slowly absorbed.

  "Lucy, we need to leave," Sil said, placing his hand on her shoulder as she watched the scene, enrapt.

  It took an effort of will to drag her eyes away and look at him.

  "It's coming," he said, "can't you feel it?"

  Lucy had been so focused that she hadn't even noticed, but now she did. She felt dirty, contaminated, as if she needed a shower and it was coming from outside the room.

  "But Luticia..."

  "You've done your part," Sil said. "This is between them. We don't want to be here when they face each other."

  The sense of presence she had had since Luticia first spoke to her was muted now, had been since the mist disappeared into the body. Lucy did not want to abandon her new friend.

  "We can't do anything in this," Sil insisted, taking her arm. "We need to get out of here."

  He sounded so earnest and just a bit scared, which is what got Lucy moving. It was the old instinct, if it rattled Sil it was time to run. That reasoning had never pushed her in the wrong direction before, so she obeyed it now, even with her misgivings. She let Sil pull her back towards the door.

  "You shouldn't have done that."

  Fear slammed into her at the voice. If was so unassuming, so nice, and yet it shook her to the core. She could feel cold sweat on her skin as her heart thundered in her ears. Her fingers were suddenly clumsy and numb, the torch falling from her hand as she tried to raise it. For a second all she could see was blackness as the torch went out and her eyes failed in the low natural light.

  "They are mine and meddlers must be dealt with."

  The voice was cheerful, pleasant and sounded so reasonable, except for the words. Reactions long buried, long controlled by modern humans fired all through Lucy's body. The cold then burning fire of adrenalin, the primitive depths of her brain, everything was screaming at her to run.