The Shock Box: A Gothic Romance (Templesea Tales)

by Jill Harris

  She-Who-Dwells remained mercifully absent too.

  He closed his eyes. For the first time in many months, years possibly, he considered the idea that he may have found peace at last. The idea that he might be already on the way to full health except for a minor adjustment to his false leg filled him with a light, buoyant sensation. But, if that were the case, then what should he do with Miss Winslow? He decided it would be best to dismiss her forthwith, as soon as she had eaten enough breakfast to satisfy her unladylike appetite.

  When he heard her scream, at first he thought it was a gull screeching over the sea. It came just after a clap of thunder, starting as a low melancholy mewling. Then it rose to a crescendo - held a note high enough to shatter glass - and descended into a wail.

  Branwell leapt to his feet, staggered, wincing at the sudden agony in his thigh and that's when he knew where the pain had gone.

  The demon was real enough.

  It had simply left him for a while - to go find some younger, juicier prey. It had latched onto her.

  Chapter 24

  When the nightmare came, Adeline felt certain she was dying. The weight pressing down on her chest was too much to bear, squeezing her until she couldn't take even a sip of breath as the creature's stinking wings enfolded her in a deadly embrace.

  As she struggled under the pressure her hands found its throat and her fingernails scraped down its face until at last the dreadful thing sprang off her chest with a hollow screech.

  The dark shape dissolved into the moaning wind, its wings beating the windows as if it might shatter them as it passed through. Adeline knew in that moment that whatever it was, it wanted her, and wanted to drag her down with it, down into the terrible pit from whence it came.

  Desperate, she gulped at the air, her ribs aching, throat dry as paper. When her lungs were full, she screamed.

  Terrified, her pulse pounding in her ears, she opened her eyes to find it was still night. Her arms flailed as she pushed the last remaining tendrils of the thing away. She lay there, staring up into nothing.

  Be calm, she told herself. It was only a bad dream.

  Her breath came in jagged gasps as fear clogged her throat. She pulled herself out of the darkness of the dream, the awful, hideous dream. Cold sweat trickled down her sides as she tried to make sense of it all, emerging fitfully into tangled sheets, her mind screaming with fear as she emerged from slumber to full wakefulness.

  What, in the name of all that was holy, was that?

  Adeline ran her hands down her bruised ribs, sure that something had crushed her. Her breath rasped in her throat as she recalled the heavy, lumpen weight of it pressing down until all the air had rushed from her lungs.

  Had she forgotten how to breath in her sleep? Was that all it was?

  She coughed and spluttered, recalling what the creature had looked like, seeing once again its hungry red eyes blazing in the blackness. Such malevolent eyes, looming over her, burning into her, and then there was the grotesque, gargoyle face, reminding her of an overblown insect fused with a seemingly human jawline and brow, and its vile beak, a sharp beak, protruding outward from the features to about a foot long.

  Adeline trembled. And the beak had lips.

  It spoke to her, saying words she remembered yet could not interpret with any hope of true understanding.

  "Damn your sorcery," it said in a voice like the wind rattling through skeleton branches. And its voice made her think of the saddest of sounds, like the breaking of a thousand hearts, or the withered croaking sound of death.

  Your sorcery? Adeline reminded herself that one could never expect dreams or even nightmares to make sense.

  She glanced around wildly, half-expecting to see that awful face, or some aspect of it once again. As if if the dream might become a reality, as if a pair of disembodied eyes might yet be there still, staring out of the shadows.

  And oh! the sound of it as it thrashed its beak about. Adeline put her hands over her ears as if she could still hear it. How could she have dreamed up such a horror? Those biting jaws and the horrible beating of giant wings, thudding against the wall, those wings so feathery yet dusted with the smell of rotten flesh?

  A dream. Nothing more. She reminded herself to breath.

  All was well. She was alive. Aunt Theodora, were she here, would have soothed with these words: All is well, and all manner of things are well.

  A nightmare, merely that.

  Adeline adjusted her sheets and wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand. A nightmare was nothing more than a flight of fancy, an elaborate fabrication of the mind. Although she'd never known anything like it, had never had a bad dream that was so vivid.

  It had crawled through the wall - the creature - on its squat, heavy legs, its moth-like wings buzzing the air. It scratched across the floor on its awful claws, sniffing the air with its tentacles, and she knew it was searching for her, making its way purposefully to her bed. Oh, the scratching of those huge claws and the dreadful rasping of its voice. The smell of its fetid breath, and the flapping of those massive wings. All of it made her scalp prickle at the remembrance.

  Was it truly gone? Despite herself, despite her firm belief that such things did not exist, Adeline glanced around the pitch dark room, half expecting to see the outline of its hideous form.

  Nothing moved in the darkness.

  It had never existed, she told herself, and it never would. She put her hands out in front of her, hearing her own heart thudding louder and louder in the blackness.

  The pervasive stench of the creature's rotten odour seemed real enough though, still hanging in the air like a privy which had never been emptied. Her stomach clenched. It was worse than a privy, more like the smell of decaying flesh, of suppurating wounds. Her mind recoiled as she remembered the sound of its giant beak snapping, like the sound of bones breaking.

  What had it wanted? It seemed as if it had wanted something from her. Perhaps its goal was to tear out her throat, to murder her in the rock hard bed so far away from home. The buzz of its wings still seemed to reverberate round the house, and Adeline found herself straining her ears in the darkness. Far off, a strange tapping sound flushed her veins with fear once more.

  The nightmare had been so vivid. Too vivid. The Captain had already told her the house was haunted - and although Adeline didn't believe in ghosts, her blood was icy cold with fear. At the same time, she was dripping with sweat.

  Adeline mopped her face with a sheet.

  The bed frame had creaked and tilted under the weight of the thing as it climbed onto her bed. Its red, molten eyes fixing on hers as it muttered words in an arcane language. Try as she might, she had been frozen, unable to cry out or look away.

  In the nightmare, Adeline had attempted to push it off. But she was weak. Her limbs refused to obey, leaving her prone and helpless. That was the worst of it. The more she failed to gain control, the greater the surge of panic within her.

  Then the thing had risen up onto its hind quarters, spread its dreadful wings, and leaped onto her chest. All the air squeezed out of her lungs.

  That was what had woken her.

  The leap. The pressure. The cracking of its beak as it probed the air to find her neck.

  Her hand flew to her throat, half expecting to find it soaked with blood. No, the thing could not harm her. It was a flight of fearful imagination, and she called to mind a man she knew as a child. They called him the screaming vicar. The Reverend Neil Smith, a mild enough looking man who preached at the church of her youth, the chapel of St. Jude, a plain stone building squatting hing on a windy hill overlooking the bleakest part of the moors near her home. The sermons Reverend Smith delivered would frighten elderly spinsters and less robust children than herself, to tears. He'd spend an hour each Sunday warning the tiny congregation of the sin which surrounded them always, and forever. They were all going to hell. Not a one among them was worthy of heaven.

  Even babies were damned, since birth itself
was the result of dreadfulness and fornication. He did not give them much hope for redemption, but instead he painted a vivid picture of how Satan would reach up and drag them all down to hell with his crook of flames. The long descriptions of beelzebub, the eyes of fire, the pointed ears, the talons. That must be where she got the image of the moth-demon from to furnish her nightmare, albeit an even more embellished version. It was just a twisted form of a long-forgotten memory. There was always a reasonable explanation for everything. But still. It had felt so very real.

  She sighed out a long breath.

  Thank goodness it was over. She was awake.

  She patted the bed around her to make sure it was empty apart from herself. As far as she could tell, nothing else was in the room, and she was thankfully alone in the blackness. For a brief moment she was utterly confused, knowing only that the room, the bed, the sound of waves crashing against rock were all unfamiliar.

  When she sat up, beads of sweat rolled down her face. She reminded herself that she had left London the day before, and was now residing at Raven's Nest House, perched high on a cliff over the sea.

  The nightmare was a new experience for Adeline. Ever since she could remember, she'd never been prone to bad dreams of any kind. She placed her hands over her heart, willing for it to slow its rapid beating. There must be a rational explanation as to what might have brought on the fevered state of mind which produced so awful a dream. She was usually good at dealing with even the most disquieting of occurrences. It had to be a result of indigestion. Aunt Theodora was certain that all nightmares were brought on by eating cheese or fruit last thing at night.

  Perhaps it was something Adeline had eaten. The plum pudding maybe? It had been rather on the heavy side.

  Suddenly, the tapping sound was just outside, and Adeline gasped as the door to her room flew open.

  Chapter 25

  Captain Hughes' monstrous bulk entered as fast as his limp would allow. He held a lantern aloft, and the yellow flame cast ghastly shadows on his stricken face.

  "What the blazes is the matter with you?" he shouted.

  Adeline became immediately aware that she wanted to throw herself into his arms, and it took a mighty inner struggle to overcome this urge. After all, she was wearing nothing more than a thin cotton nightgown.

  Instead, she crossed her arms over her trembling chest, attempting a reassuring smile.

  "I could ask the same of you," she said, her voice quaking. "It is not prudent to enter a lady's bedchamber late at night."

  "I heard you scream out."

  "A bad dream. I did not mean to alarm you."

  "Alarm me? It was as if the hounds of all the hells were eating you alive."

  "Please, it was nothing,' Adeline said, smoothing down her hair and affecting an expression of calm. "Really. I'm quite all right."

  He looked her up and down noting that his new nurse was surrounded by dark, spiked triangles of fear. She was lying to him about her state of mind, probably out of bravado. He was impressed at her attempts to put him off, yet also alarmed at what she might have been through. "You're shaking."

  "It's cold. I would like a proper fire in my room. There was only one log smouldering in the grate when I retired to bed."

  His eyes were wild. Branwell could smell the demon in the air, could sense his presence by the way all the hairs on the backs of his arms stood up. "He came to you didn't he?"

  "No one has been inside my chamber except you."

  "Don't lie to me," Branwell shouted. "He left me alone all night for the first time since I came home. You see what has happened don't you? He's always around me at night. Pecking at my neck. Digging into my soul. I was left to my own devices this evening, but you - you were screaming like a banshee. Tell me the truth. What did you see, Adeline?"

  Pecking into his neck? Adeline smothered a further desire to put her arms around him. This time to offer him comfort rather than take it for herself. If he suffered anything like the dread and fear she had experienced, he was in greater need than she had realised.

  The taste of blood in her mouth. She must have bitten her lip when she cried out. "I assure you, I didn't see anything, and that's the truth. Sir, whatever disturbed me tonight, it wasn't real."

  "Damn you for being so obtuse. Describe it to me? What did it look like? I know you think it was a nightmare, but I need to know. What was the thing which made you cry out as if you were dying of fright?"

  "Well," Adeline looked down at her hands. "I dreamed that a moth the size of a horse..."

  Captain Hughes' mouth thinned. She realised this was the face of true anger, and a part of her felt glad that he was feeling such an emotion on her behalf. "A moth."

  "Correct. This giant moth-like creature came and sat on me. Silly really. I'm not usually given to fits of screaming. At home, I'm often called upon to remove spiders from the - "

  "A moth," he was shouting again, scowling at the floor, the ceiling, the walls, shaking his fist at the empty air. "Curse him back to hell! He has no right to torment you."

  Adeline felt a tremor of dismay. "Are you saying others have seen the same creature?" She sat up straight, her curiosity sparked. "What is it? What is its name?"

  "Blast it woman, I don't know his name, or what he wants from me, but I know that you have seen him. He's the demon. My demon. The one who clung to me, climbed on my back and made me carry him back from the dead." His shoulders slumped. "A moth is just one of his faces. He has many."

  "I assure you, it was more than a face. I'm sorry if I caused alarm. I've never had a nightmare before, I think it was the cheese or -"

  "You should not be here," he roared. "I should have turned you away at the gate. The instant I saw you with your damn temptresses eyes, your dainty feet - I knew it was wrong to let you in. I knew he would want you, as I do. This is all my fault."

  He wanted her? That was interesting. A flush of heat coursed through her veins. He wanted her.

  And she wanted him. The idea came to her in a rush, so that she didn't have time to reflect upon it. She'd have to consider her growing attraction for her employer later, but for now she'd have to concentrate on placating his disturbed mood. "Nonsense. You can't be responsible for a phantom of my mind. For I do believe it was a result of eating a heavy meal late at night. Particularly one involving plums. Dark fruit and cheese are notorious -"

  The bed groaned as he sat down next to her. He put the lantern on a table beside it. His face showed real concern as well as something else, a kind of electrified fascination. His hair stuck out in spikes, and his face was a damp with sweat. He smelled of whiskey, and a salty ocean breeze, an intoxicating mix for a woman of Adeline's tastes. He put his hands on her shoulders.

  "Miss Winslow," he said. "Listen to me. I am desolated that this has happened to you under my roof. You don't deserve to be hounded by that which drinks from the well of my dark soul."

  Adeline searched his eyes.

  She saw at once, his compassion. His need. "Your dark soul doesn't frighten me Captain Hughes. In fact, I have reason to believe it isn't dark at all."

  His brow creased as if he was struggling to understand her words. It struck Adeline that no one in the whole of his life had seen beyond the frightful mask he showed the world, or ever acknowledged the gentle man beneath.

  Branwell shook his head. He wasn't sure he'd heard Miss Winslow correctly. It was as if she was saying that he was in fact, a good person despite all indications to the contrary. "Your screaming seemed to suggest there is something black as beelzebub's heart in this house. And here at Raven's Nest, I hasten to assure you, the worst, the cruellest, the most brutal creature you'll find - is me."

  Chapter 26

  So that was it. Adeline had found out what ailed the Captain deep down to his very bones, and the very thing which might even be the cause of all his painful physical symptoms.

  The Captain truly thought he was a terrible person.

  Well, Adeline could easily fix that. S
he glanced towards her trunk at the end of the bed. She was itching to use the shock box on him, using the electrical-magnetic current to divert his attention from her healing powers as she directed them towards the correct part of his sick and ailing soul, as well as his leg wound.

  She held his gaze. "My outburst was just a reflex of the throat. I dreamed I was being squashed. I must have become entangled in my sheets. It was nothing to do with you."

  He brushed a stray hair from out of her eyes.

  Adeline flinched. She was struck with the idea that he was definitely looking at her with distain. Perhaps he had mesmerised her into believing he was good, despite all indications to the contrary. Maybe she was falling for a charming liar once again, and the Captain was also a man eager to deceive her with false kindness, and soft words.

  She gazed at him, searching for a sign of slyness or deception in his eyes. But she found none. As far as she could tell, he truly believed that she had seen something which in some sense, existed in the world. A wave of profound sorrow on his behalf engulfed her.

  It was followed by one which was far less altruistic. A consuming flow of heat radiated through her feminine parts.

  He was so close.

  He pulled her towards him, and even though she knew it was wrong, she allowed him to, throwing all thoughts of proper behaviour to the wind because she too, was seized with an urgent need to shorten the gap between them.

  And against her better nature she leaned into him, put her head on his chest. It was so good to feel his aliveness. The warmth of him. To breathe in his masculine, salty smell. Her hand crept around his waist. She pressed the hard muscles she found there through the fabric of his shirt. Her fingers dug into him until she could feel the pulse of her heart in the tips of her fingers.