****
The police couldn’t tell Scarlet much about her Aunt’s disappearance other than she’d last been seen the night she vanished without a trace. Scarlet had visited the local station in order to find out more about the elusive Agatha Merrick, but came away frustrated and none-the-wiser.
‘A Waitrose delivery driver called at the cottage at about 8pm to drop off her weekly order and he said he thought someone had been with her. He recalled hearing what he thought were women’s voices as he rang the doorbell,’ the Detective Inspector told her. ‘After exhaustive enquiries no-one came forward as being with her, and we couldn’t find any signs of foul play; there’d been no ransom demand for her return – we’d considered kidnapping, but the old lady wasn’t a millionairess, and searches of the local area and numerous public appeals on TV and radio didn’t yield anything,’ he said, adding, ‘she’d vanished and we had to assume she’d gone of her own free will. It was odd because her car was still in the garage and there was the matter of her groceries, but people do just walk out of their homes. We were concerned that she hadn’t used her bank accounts or credit cards in all the time she’s been missing, but we’d drawn a blank. Sometimes people want to vanish and stay vanished.’ He shrugged and grimaced. And so the police filed her case away and life moved on. Her solicitors kept an eye on her affairs and waited.
Scarlet found it hard to accept her Aunt had simply walked away from her life. Why would she? From what she gathered her only relative had no reason. She was a private woman, in her late seventies with few friends and she didn’t have debts other than her utility bills which appear to have always been paid on time. Apparently she didn’t attend church or belong to any groups, but spent her time pottering in her beloved garden and, as Scarlet soon discovered when she went through her Aunt’s office, researching her family history. The old lady had dozens of hand-written notebooks full of family trees and notes she’d made about various individuals and their lives.
It was soon after she’d discovered the notebooks that Scarlet had experienced what would become a nightly event, each night increasing in intensity. Each morning she felt more drained and lethargic but she was determined to overcome the events of the night and make a go of her new home whatever it took.
She’d been in bed reading about the original owners of the cottage, in particular someone who’d been cheated out of the house and contents – in their opinion – by a distant cousin who’d come forward to contest a legacy which included the cottage, built for an Aunt who’d never lived there, she having died soon after it was completed. Scarlet discovered that the whole business had got quite nasty and threats were made when the Courts found in favour of the claimant. The disgruntled cousin – the original beneficiary – had been kicked out of the house but had broken into the cottage several times, removing items and apparently intent upon murder. Soon after this person had disappeared in mysterious circumstances – no mention again of them or what might have happened to them - but nothing had been proven against the new inhabitant of the disputed cottage, and with time the missing person had been forgotten and the cottage eventually passed down through the family to Agatha and then to Scarlet.
She’d nodded off whilst reading only to be woken by the violent shaking of her mattress. It had gone on for an eternity and at first she couldn’t focus on anything in the room, which was dark even though she slept with her curtains open so she could look at the moon and stars from her bed, but strangely she had been unable to see the stars or the moon as the bed rose and fell and shook beneath her.
She tried to call out but her voice failed to make it from her throat, she gasped and struggled for breath. Petrified. She knew she was not alone but couldn’t see or hear anyone. After a while the bed stopped shaking and she gripped the sides of her mattress, paralyzed as fear spread through her body. Her heart skipped and jumped in her chest and she began to shake uncontrollably, blood rushing to her head. Her ears popped, a whining, tinkling noise filling them. She closed her unseeing eyes but when she tried to sneak a courageous look one more, found them to be as if glued shut.
Suddenly Scarlet felt a dead weight pressing down upon her body. Someone was on top of her. She wondered if she was going to be raped or murdered but somewhere deep inside she knew she wouldn’t, yet panic filled her heart and soul.
Unable to move, the only struggle she managed was in her brain. She thought she’d kick but her legs would not move, her arms were pinned to her sides by an invisible force. She thought she’d scream but her voice failed her. Scarlet felt cold icy breath on her cheeks and an odour so repugnant she almost vomited, something she’d never smelled before. She thought she heard whispered words close to her ear, but couldn’t be sure, her heart pounded so loudly.
The weight pressed her deeper into the mattress and her pillows folded over her face. She was going to suffocate. There wouldn’t be any evidence of an attack. She’d be found dead and no-one would know why, she thought, as she screamed and screamed inside her head.
But she didn’t suffocate the first time or any other time since, and there had been regular reoccurrences of this nightmare since she’d moved in. After an eternity the weight would lift from her prone body and the odour drifted away. She could open her eyes and see the moon and stars and move her limbs once more. She always felt drained and exhausted by the ordeal and she realized it took longer and longer for her to recover from the attacks; for attack is what she knew it to be.
It would end with the sound of her mobile phone ringing as the icy snakes of fear crawling up her spine increased and she’d begin to shiver and shake as confusion set in. Was she awake, was it all just a nightmare? She would lay there too frightened to move in case it started again, but after a while she knew she was alone again, and she would be able to carry on with her day.
It was as if the cottage was rejecting her, that she wasn’t wanted. Scarlet couldn’t allow herself to be forced out of her new home. It was everything to her she realized and whatever was going on had to stop. She was determined. But how was she going to stop her night-time terrors? She wasn’t convinced she’d been awake, but then she wasn’t sure she’d been asleep either. Who could help her she wondered, who would believe her? She didn’t have any friends and the solicitor claimed to be ignorant of any strange events inside the cottage when she’d called him to ask.
The young woman tried hard to discover more about what led to her Aunt’s disappearance and that of her predecessors, searching the cottage and the grounds, half hoping and half dreading what she might find. She found nothing unusual. Questioning of the local villagers, store keepers and in fact anyone she could stop in the street to ask, drew a blank. She felt they either didn’t know or if they did, wouldn’t tell her anyway. When she approached anyone walking past her cottage and tried to glean information from them, she was met with something akin to hostility.
Why was this happening and who was responsible? Scarlet decided the answers were in the notebooks and each day she studied them carefully, making her own notes as she read. And soon she realized something.
Learning about the cottage and its former inhabitants was fascinating and very revealing too. Scarlet’s Aunt had discovered that several previous owners of the cottage had either died or disappeared in suspicious circumstances and that either the investigations into each person had been inconclusive or hadn’t happened at all. In more recent times it seemed that Aunt Agatha’s predecessor had vanished off the face of the planet too. Also an elderly maiden lady, Ethel Paget had last been seen the day of her disappearance, pottering in the garden. She’d spoken to a dog walker about tea time who’d reported nothing unusual about their conversation, but recalled Ethel had mentioned she was going inside shortly to make tea for a visitor. The visitor had never been traced and neither had Ethel. It was some seven years later following a Court hearing to have Ethel Paget declared dead, that Aunt Agatha had inherited all Ethel’s worldly goods including Secret Cottage. Scarlet loved the
name. It was so fitting.
Daily the young woman read Agatha’s notebooks and the elderly spinster’s neatly written comments, mulling over what she’d learned as she worked in the cottage, cleaning and sorting through the contents. A lot of the furnishings needed replacing and she arranged for a charity shop to collect some items, whilst she hired a ‘man with a van’ to collect those items she couldn’t possibly keep or repair, so he could take them to a local tip on the outskirts of the village. She planned to go in to town as soon as she’d confirmed a date for the collections. She didn’t want to be left without furniture.
Scarlet had never learned to drive and she determined to remedy that as soon as she could. There was a local driving instructor advertising in the local paper and she’d call to make an appointment once the cottage was refurnished and she would be able to concentrate on other matters. It seemed a great pity to leave Agatha’s car to deteriorate in the garage.
Meantime revelations about the previous owners of Secret Cottage sent chills down Scarlet’s spine, the more she learned. It seemed that Agatha had been starting to think the same thing Scarlet was now trying not to allow her mind to accept. There was something sinister about the cottage and those living there had experienced similar ‘night-time’ terrors to those she and, it was obvious, Agatha had been subjected to. Scarlet wondered if these terrors had been triggered by a previous occupant, someone who resented anyone else living there. Was the cottage haunted? But she dismissed such thoughts, she didn’t believe in ghosts, at least, she didn’t think she did.
The night-time terrors continued and sometimes it became almost intolerable and she was tempted to move out and get a Priest in to do some sort of exorcism but, her common sense kept reminding her, there were no such things as ghosts, all things have an explanation. However, being so sensible didn’t stop the terrors, or help her cope with them. Each time they grew in intensity, taking her longer to recover. As the days turned into weeks and then months Scarlet began to feel more and more drained and exhausted. She felt older somehow, the responsibility of her legacy she concluded, whenever she became aware of her lack of energy. But she was determined to stay in the cottage, her home now, and to conquer whatever it was that was trying to drive her away. For that is what Scarlet had realized, someone or something was trying to drive her away.
Scarlet jumped as her mobile’s shrill message alert sounded. She’d been dozing with one of Agatha’s notebooks clutched to her chest, dreaming about elderly ladies lined up in the graveyard, all waiting their turn to jump into dark, deep, cold, vacant graves. They were all dressed in black and wore veils over their faces and Scarlet had just joined them. They turned as one and pointed long thin translucent fingers at her as she took her place in front of a similar hole in the ground…
Scarlet’s mobile alert sounded again and she sat bolt upright in the arm chair, the notebook falling to the ground. Her heart missed several beats as she blinked and tried to work out where she was. Droplets of cold sweat trickled down her back and between her breasts and her mouth felt dry to her tongue as little images flickered behind her eyes. She shivered and screwed her eyes up, not wanting to deal with what she was being forced to recall. She coughed and tried to wet her lips unsuccessfully. Reaching for her phone she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and tried to focus on her new messages, realizing she must have been dreaming and that’s why she was feeling so peculiar. Scarlet stared at the screen, the notebook forgotten.
Her own image looked back at her. She blinked and refocused, confused. Yes, it was definitely her own image, but something was wrong. It took her a few more seconds to realise that the face she had lived with for twenty-five years, which now stared back at her, was an older face; one that had lived through at least an additional fifty years. Scarlet gasped. What? How? Who had sent the image, was it a practical joke? It was surely one of those Photo-shop apps you could get on phones these days, she reasoned. But she didn’t know anyone well enough who’d send her such a thing, joking or otherwise.
Her aged face gazed, expressionless, at her. She was transfixed; couldn’t look away. Something about the eyes held her captive. She told herself to look away, to turn her phone off, but her words never materialized, trapped inside her confused mind. She felt incapable of speech or movement as time slowly ticked by on the Westminster Chimer on the mantelpiece.
The doorbell rang.
Scarlet blinked and shook her head, trying to remove the fog which had descended upon her. She looked at the phone, but the message had gone. Before she could double check, the door-bell rang again.
Stepping into her front garden Scarlet looked around, puzzled. There wasn’t anyone there. She walked around to the back of the house but no-one was in sight. Overhead she could hear the drone of a distant aircraft, glistening silver in the afternoon sunlight, destined for exotic far off places Scarlet had only ever dreamed about. One day, she promised herself, one day I’ll take a trip, perhaps to America or the Far East. She walked through her garden gate and scrutinized the lane. Nothing. No cars or signs of life. Not even the black cat which was a constant, hunting mice in the hedgerows. Scarlet concluded she must have imagined the door-bell. She convinced herself whilst she explored that she must have imagined the SMS message on her phone; perhaps it was the remnants of a dream she’d been having before she awoke.
A dream. Was she still dreaming? Scarlet went back into her cottage and closed the door. She’d make some tea and eat something. Looking at the clock on her mantelpiece she noticed that some hours had passed since she’d last eaten and, with food in mind, she went into her kitchen.
Set out on the table, complete with crisp white cloth, cups, saucers, side plates, and cutlery, beside starched white napkins, Scarlet found an assortment of cakes, finger sandwiches and a teapot hot to the touch. There were settings for five people. Bewildered she stared, trying to recall laying the table, making the cakes or even shopping for anything remotely like the splendid fayre before her. But she knew she hadn’t. Who were the other settings for? She didn’t recall inviting anyone. How could she invite guests for tea when she didn’t know anyone to ask?
With heart hammering against her ribs and a wave of nausea threatening, she forced herself to look around the kitchen for a clue as to the creator of such a feast. Scarlet tried to reason with herself. She closed her eyes, counted to ten and opened them, expecting the afternoon tea to have vanished, but it hadn’t. Everything remained the same. Well, not quite everything, she discovered as she glanced out of the window into the garden.
‘Good afternoon my dear, do come and join us.’ An elderly lady called in a weak, quivering voice, as Scarlet peered through the open window in utter disbelief. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’ The woman, seated at the picnic table, beckoned the gaping young woman over.
Seated with her were three other obviously elderly ladies, similarly dressed in black with short veils covering their eyes. One leaned heavily upon a black walking stick with an ornate silver top, her long thin fingers poking out of black fingerless gloves, like silver twigs. Scarlet shuddered as she approached, uncertain yet unable to resist the command to join them.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you get in?’ Scarlet’s word rushed forth as adrenaline surged through her veins. ‘Who laid the table? Where did the food come from?’
‘So many questions my dear,’ the woman with the stick replied, her voice floating upwards and away on the breeze. ‘Do sit down next to me.’ Her thin hand indicated Scarlet’s place.
Another woman turned to Scarlet and stared at her which was unsettling as her eyes, like those of the others, were obscured by her veil. Scarlet felt rather than saw, the scrutiny of them all. ‘We have come to have tea with you.’
‘But I didn’t invite you, I don’t know you.’ Panic was rising in her throat. ‘You can’t just barge into someone’s home and, and, make tea…’ Sitting so close to the woman with the stick made Scarlet feel strange. She wanted to touch her,
to convince herself that she was real, but a thought was forming in her mind, and it terrified her. Was she real? Were any of them real? Was she dreaming?
‘We are not a dream, my dear,’ another of the ladies said quietly, reading Scarlet’s thoughts. ‘But we were expected.’
‘Now, let’s sit a while and chat.’ The first lady who’d spoken to Scarlet said, ‘Are you happy in our home?’ She cocked her head as if waiting for Scarlet’s reply but before the girl could answer she added, ‘but of course you cannot stay, no-one ever stays.’
‘Not unless you are…’ Another lady was about to add when the woman with the cane banged it hard upon the ground.
‘Shhh! Enough,’ she hissed. ‘Plenty of time for that. Now, where were we?’
Ghostly Writes Anthology 2016 Page 46