All we had for light were the torches and, with it just being the three of us, it made the whole experience really creepy, but that was the point of the tour, wasn’t it? This was a ghost tour with tales of tragedy and terror. Neil’s beam whizzed about pointing out this and that. “This room was for women, that one for men, children were housed here,” he ran through his well-rehearsed script. “Families were broken up, allowed an hour to spend together in the evening. For the majority of the time, inmates were expected to work.”
“Inmates?” I made Neil work for our money, okay, Dan’s money, by asking tons of questions, while Dan started to freak out. He jumped at random moments, hearing voices and sounds that no one else could. His arm-link had turned into a fierce grip, turning us into a warped conjoined twin. I was getting impatient. The tour wasn’t giving me anything I could use. We got a few standard stories about inmates coming down with various diseases, starving residents fighting over scraps of food, and the usual kids getting their arms ripped off in the weaving looms stuff; none of which seemed to relate to Mary. It wasn’t until we got to the asylum part of the tour that things started to get interesting.
In this side wing, there were no big halls and open spaces. It was all long corridors with small rooms that looked more like cells. And as the structure of the building became more cramped, so did the atmosphere. It’d been chilly throughout, but once Neil had taken us past the hospital wards, there was as distinct drop in temperature. Neil looked at us with a twinkle in his eye, like this was the best bit of the tour. Dan, on the other hand, went on immediate high alert.
“This part of the complex has a slightly more sordid history than the other areas,” he began, lowering his voice to a whisper. “The Victorian era was a time of discovery, with new medicines, medical practices, and an awareness of mental illness. With the latter came the lunatic asylum,” he teased.
“I think we should go back,” Dan stopped dead in his tracks.
“Don’t worry, the tour’s nearly over,” Neil reassured, practically reveling in the fact he had a petrified punter in his midst.
“Cait, I’m serious,” he pleaded.
“C’mon Dan, this was your idea, remember,”
“A ken, but I canny,” he held his ground. “There’s somethin’”, he whispered low and looked down towards the end of the corridor. Neil looked at me, like, ‘what’s this guy on?’
“I told you not to watch ‘The Conjuring’ before we came out,” I joked, trying to make light of it in front of the guide. “Is it much further?” I asked Neil.
“This passage has a couple of juicy stories, but there’s not much on the walk back to the entrance.”
“Okay, Dan, you stay put here.”
“Ye kiddin’ me!”
“We’ve come this far; I need to hear the rest.”
“But...”
“Otherwise that Ouija boards goin’ straight in the bin when we get home,” Dan looked nervous. It made me nervous too. “We’ll stay in sight. Promise.” It was a short corridor. You could pretty much see the end of it, even in the dark. I nodded to Neil to continue.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, I’ve been giving this tour for about ten years and I’ve never had a single paranormal experience. Honestly, it’s all in the mind.” I don’t think that was much of a reassurance to Dan, but good on Neil for trying to be the voice of reason.
At the first two rooms, Neil continued to talk about the history of the asylum. The twisted practices employed by the doctors, the mistreatment of the misunderstood patients, etc. My mind kept returning to the Pit. Not the depraved version of the Pit in Hell, but the one hidden at the bottom of the Met. Had practices really changed all that much? Some of the stuff Neil was telling me wasn’t all that far off from my experience at the hands of Locke and the Church. I looked back up to Dan, backed up into the corner where we’d come in. I could tell by his flashlight that he was shaking. He was another example of the professionals getting it wrong.
“This room has had many inmates, but none more infamous than Mad Mary O’Callahan,” My ears suddenly pricked up.
“Mary who?”
“O’Callahan,” Neil repeated. This had to be it! The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in anticipation. “You’ll maybe have heard of the famous Burke and Hare from Edinburgh, but I bet my bonnet that you’ve never heard of Glasgow’s Mary O’Callahan,” he shone his torch into the bare room that looked just like the other two. “Though nothing was ever formally proven, the story goes that Mary, homeless, destitute, and in debt, became an occupant of the workhouse you’ve just walked through. She picked up work here, in the asylum ward, and by all accounts, was very good at it. But her creditors soon caught up with her, threatening the life of her and her young son if she didn’t pay up, and she turned to a sinister means of making money. Body snatching.” Neil paused for dramatic effect, but he didn’t need to, he already had me in the palm of his hand. “Back then, the demand for cadavers was high, as physicians were striving to understand how the human body worked, but getting a freshly deceased one was difficult, and Mary’s creditors, whoever they were, knew that. Mary was coerced into supplying fresh bodies, from the workhouse. Nobody was likely to miss or enquire about a vagrant or poverty-stricken pauper, were they? So Mary was able to dispose of bodies at ease and without suspicion. Body snatching could be a lucrative business, and although it’s unlikely that Mary herself was the recipient of the rewards, her creditors wanted more than she could supply, as the demand for corpses increased. Mary resorted to murder in order to satisfy them. Working in the asylum, her crimes went unnoticed for a long time. No one knows exactly how many poor souls fell victim to her, but we do know that she developed the sordid practice of retaining a victim’s tooth.”
I couldn’t believe it. This had to be her. The crazy old bat had collected the teeth of all the people she’d murdered. I thought back to her absentmindedly fingering through the revolting beads around her neck. There must’ve been, what, thirty or more of the ugly yellow teeth on that manky thread. A shudder went through me. A cold-hearted killer, so that’s how she ended up in Hell.
“Whether it was working in the asylum among the insane, or whether it was being forced to kill and dispose of the people suffering here, she slowly became unhinged. Ironically, she became a patient and had to live amongst the very people she’d been abusing,”
“What happened?”
“The straw that broke the camel’s back came when she thought that her son had been taken from her as punishment for all the murders. They lived in separate quarters, maybe being allowed an hour to spend with her son at the end of the day. One evening she visited his cot and found him gone. The claim is that she found a single tooth in his place and it drove her over the edge.”
“He’d been killed by the people she owed money too?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. He’d come down with a bad case of dysentery and had been moved to a medical wing while Mary’d been at work. Maybe it was the guilt of all the murders, but she broke mentally there and then.”
“But the kid died right? I’m pretty sure he did,” I ransacked my brain for any time that Mary might’ve mentioned her son.
“You’re familiar with the story?” Neil seemed to like that.
“Yeah. That’s actually the reason I came on the tour, “ I admitted.
“That’s great, what’s your interest in it?” he wanted to know.
“Um, I’m in the early stages of researching a book.”
“A book, eh?”
“Yeah, local legends, the truth behind the myth sort of thing, y’know,” Neil was thrilled.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. You could say I’m a bit of an expert on this particular legend myself.”
“That a fact now?” Maybe, I’d hit the jackpot after all. The more info on Mary, the better.
“You see, I’m actually a descendant of Mad old Mary. Her missing son, that was my great grandfather, Connor O’Callah
an,” he proudly announced.
“You shittin’ me? Sorry, it’s just, wow.” The name Connor blew me away. Happy coincidence or divine intervention, Dan’s Ouija board had actually worked. “You hear that Dan?” I shouted up the corridor. There was no reply. I side glanced past Neil and couldn’t see him either.
“It’s alright. It’s not exactly a great claim to fame. Truth be told, the best thing that could’ve happened to Mary’s son was her being incarcerated.”
“How so?”
“It enabled him to be adopted out. Up until that point, Mary had apparently been against the idea, but when she was no longer in the picture Connor was put up for adoption and then taken in by a well-to-do middle class family. He was one of the lucky ones of course, don’t get me wrong. It could’ve easily have ended up in disaster for the lad, but he went on to get a good education and made something of himself in the textile trade. Here, you might find this interesting,” he pulled out a silver necklace from under his shirt with a St. Christopher dangling on the end. “This was passed down to me through the family. It was given to my great grandfather by Mary herself, there’s an inscription on the back,” I shone my torch on it, blinding Neil in the process. Sure enough, there was something crudely scratched into the metal that looked like a heart with an ‘M’ inside of it. I pretended not to be able to see it in the dark.
“Sorry, my eyes are terrible in this light, any chance I could take a closer look. Maybe take a photo with my phone? For the book.” Neil was all too eager. He unfastened the chain and handed it over.
“Dan, you should come and take a look at this,” I called out, but again no reply. “Dan? You okay?” Neil shone his torch back up the corridor towards Dan, and we both finally clocked eyes on him, balled up on the ground, rocking, “What’s happened?” I said, rushing past and pocketing the St. Christopher in the process. Neil responded to my alarm as I hoped he would, and followed me.
I’d like to say that this was a planned diversion, but it wasn’t. Dan really was in a bit of a state. His hands clamped tightly over his ears, he was trying to block out the noise of a hundred voices I guessed; former inmates. Dan’s eyes were tight shut and he was mumbling a mantra I recognized from his time in Gartnavel; the names of the band members in ‘One Direction’. His psychiatrist had recommended this diversion tactic to try and root him back in reality whenever he felt out of control. I thought it was daft, but sometimes it did the trick.
“What’s wrong with him?” Neil was concerned. “I’m a registered first-aider if that helps.”
“I think he’s having a panic attack; he needs fresh air. What’s the quickest way out of here?” Neil helped me hoist Dan up and trace our steps back the way we’d come. There weren’t exactly any fire exit signs to follow, but thankfully Neil knew the place like the back of his hand. Dan made it more difficult for himself by refusing to walk at intervals, and shouting ‘no’ over and over again, like one of the patients he could hear. Neil and I ended up wrestling him into one of the old wards, so we could exit through patio doors.
“They were everywhere, Cait,” he told me on the way home. “The whole place was filled with deafening wails and screams. I couldn’t look; I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to see the creatures they were coming from.”
Neil had waited with us until a taxi arrived. I thanked him for all his help and apologized. He was a decent bloke. I wonder how long it took him to realize that his St. Christopher was gone?
Chapter Six
“Where’ve you been?” Gabe asked when we returned to Tabernacle. He was standing in the kitchen looking lost.
“On a tour of an old asylum in Barnhill,” I reminded him, yet he still looked none the wiser. “We’ve discovered Mary’s full name, Mary O’Callahan. She was a body-snatching murderess who lost her mind after thinking her son had been taken. But he hadn’t. The boy lived. And we got this,” I pulled the St. Christopher out of my pocket and threw it at Gabe for a closer look. He caught it, but the object sizzled in his hands. He dropped it on the counter. “Sorry. Didn’t know it’d do that.” I winced in sympathy with him. Annoyed, he examined it from a distance.
“And how does this help us?”
“She gave it to her son. It was passed down through the family. It could prove that he didn’t die. I think she blames herself.”
“I still don’t understand how this’ll change anything.” He was right. We might’ve gotten a bit of background info on the rotten old hag, but was any of it actually useful?
“Well, have you found anything? You’ve been going through those books for long enough.”
“Yes, of course, the books… ” He was wandering again. I gave an eye roll at Dan and stormed over to the jar of Val’s bru, sloshing some into a glass and then knocking back a gulp. Frustration had a tendency to bring on a craving and I’d lost track of when a hit was due or how long I could go without one. The bru curbed my hunger, but not the notion that we were no further forward in how to solve a problem like Bloody Mary.
“I’m gonna talk tae Alice,” Dan slinked towards the stairs. He seemed to be in a huff about something.
“Actually, Dan?” Gabe pushed his hand through his hair and gave lopsided smile “You wouldn’t be up for a little drink would you?” Dan was slightly taken aback by the proposal.
“Well, it’s late, but,” I could see him warm to the idea. Dan would go for anything decent in a pair of trousers. Gabe’s eyes glinted a soft shade of yellow.
“He means drinking your blood, love. Calm down,” I rained on Dan’s parade.
“Ewww,” Dan squirmed. “That right?” Gabe was a little flushed. His fangs had enlarged at the prospect of food and the tips were sticking out from under his top lip.
“Like you said, it’s late. I didn’t want to go trawling the streets at this time.” Maybe he was afraid he’d get lost and forget how to find his way back. Feeding on one of us was probably a good idea in that respect.
“Dan won’t want to ruin his perfect skin by having two pock marks in it.”
“That’s not true,” he protested a little too much there, I thought.
“You can have some of mine,” I insisted.
“Thank you. I can’t think when I last ate…”
“Whatever, let’s get it over with before your teeth get any bigger and fall out.”
“And the Tooth-Snatcher will get them,” Gabe joked.
“The what?”
“The Tooth-Snatcher, a local urban myth. I read about it in one of your mentor’s books.”
“Show me,” I grabbed him by the hand and dragged him upstairs. I needed to get whatever this information was out of him while he was still lucid. “Which one?” The study was littered with open books and untidy stacks. It looked like Gabe had been through the lot.
“What are ye lookin’ for?” Dan joined the hunt. Gabe was deep in thought, trying his best.
“Myths and legends… A British guide to folklore, no, the Britannica!” he snapped his fingers. “The Britannica Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends, that’s it,” We all set about reading spines and scouring shelves. A loud hiss came as Brimm toppled off the top of a book being pulled out to be examined and into Dan’s arms.
“Aw sorry Brimm! You okay?” Brimm let out a gruff murmur before letting Dan place him safely on his shoulder.
“Found it.” Gabe lifted up a large, blue, hardback book. He placed it on the desk, opening it so we could all get a better look. Gabe ran his finger down the index and swiftly flipped to the relevant page and started to skim, reading aloud. “Initially an old-wives’ tale, mothers would warn their children to behave or the Tooth-Snatcher, a ghoulish old hag cursed by magic, would come and steal their souls, leaving only a single tooth behind for their mothers to find in the morning.”
“The soul reference is good.”
“Mothers would frighten their children by rattling a stone in a tin can, pretending that was the noise the Snatcher’s necklace of teeth would make as she crept up on
them in the night. Breaking the chain would break the spell, and the old woman would return to her original form, a beautiful young woman.”
“Think Bloody Mary’s a bit beyond that. Don’t think she’s used moisturizer for a century,” I snorted.
“So this woman’s cursed? And her power’s in the chain o’ teeth that she wears round her neck? That right?” Dan was trying to put all of this together.
“Yes, I think the necklace is the key,” Gabe agreed.
“I need more than a story in a book of fairytales to go on.” While, yeah, the tale had snippets of similarities to what we knew about Mary, the magical curse stuff sounded way too far-fetched to be real.
“What more do you need?” Gabe argued. “You’ve just brought home a treasured gift to her son; a necklace that offers to protect him wherever he may venture. Is it such a big leap to think that her necklace of teeth, however warped it may be, offer her the same protection? Things manifest differently in Hell, as you’ve seen. Perhaps the necklace is a manifestation of Mary’s self-inflicted curse, the curse of guilt.” He had a point. Or at least made a weak one sound quite strong.
“So what now?” I conceded.
“Break the chain, and break the spell,” he calmly calculated. “And hope she’s vulnerable without it,” he added in a less convincing manner.
“Easier said than done,” I said.
“Sounds like yer gonna have tae face her.” Dan said out loud what everyone else was thinking. I found a chair and slumped into it. I don’t know when the last time I’d had any sleep was, but I was exhausted. I didn’t want to face up to it. I couldn’t. Wasn’t there someone else who could do this? How come it’d fallen to me to sort all of this out? I thought when the phone rang.
“It’s Neve?” I briefly flashed the screen at Dan. Was this good? Was this bad? I was monetarily stunned.
“Well answer it!” Dan snapped me out of it. I pressed the call receive button.
“Hello?”
“Cait, you were right,” Neve spoke quickly. She was panicked.
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