by Andy Morris
warmed his throat a pleasant hint of sandlewood and ginger. The aroma tingled his nose with its woody bouquet and making him long for one of the cigars he had given up at lent.
“I must insist you tell me what’s brought this on” Nigel prompted. “You know I can be the very embodiment of discretion”.
The other man was sat stiffly in his chair as if rigour-mortis had already set in. Nigel watched his companion examine his glass in the firelight, swirling the liquid around before continuing in his slow commanding yet regretful tone of voice. “Death has always terrified me” he confessed. “Ever since I was a child I remember lying in bed and worrying about what happens when we die”.
“It doesn’t take Sigmund Freud to work out why you joined the family business then, dear fellow” the vicar chuckled with a flourish of his hand. “Tell me what’s happened to prompt this sudden trip of yours?”
Guy gazed out of the window onto the churchyard next door. He seemed to stare at the tops of the headstones just visible over the low wall for several moments. His distant faraway look had returned but then quickly fell away as he continued his monologue. “I thought if I understood death more it would no longer worry me so I started exploring religion: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, but none of them gave me any real answers. I couldn’t find what I was looking for – proof of an afterlife. So, when theology didn’t give me the answers I turned to psychology; studying the works of Kastenbaum, Reenberg, and Solomon. But again, they didn’t go far enough. My need to know became an obsession that took over my life for a time. I began to travel to distant places to search for answers. In Iraq I found what I was looking for. There, a group of people shared their sacred teachings with me and I devoured everything they could show me” His eyes sparked in a rare display of emotion as a fanatical zeal electrified his face. Clearly, Nigel saw, God hadn’t intended Guy’s face to be used for smiling.
“Then when I returned to England I began to practice”. He paused to glance through the window into the churchyard again. Nigel followed turned in his seat to follow his friends gaze but saw little in the soft white vista. Guy said nothing for several moments. A lifetime of listening to parishioner’s tales had taught Nigel the value of silence in a conversation and he enjoyed the delicious sense of anticipation bubbling in his chest while he waited for the undertaker to finally reveal his secret. Nigel, indulging his darker side and certain that God would surely over-look such mild indiscretion, hoped it would be something wonderfully ghastly.
Outside the wind blew stronger shrieking frantically through some unseen gap in the window frame. Nigel was glad to be indoors on a night like this and took another sip of his drink to warm his insides.
“I…” the undertaker sighed as if struggling to find the correct words. “This may sound farfetched but I need you to listen to me carefully”. It was such a waste he wasn’t in the theatre, Nigel lamented. He had a natural flare for the dramatic.
“I learned about a person’s soul from those teachers in Iraq. They taught me how to communicate with it after a person dies”.
“You mean like a medium, a séance?” Nigel was disappointed.
“No, no” he waved the comment away. “Necromancy” the word dropped from his mouth as if he were talking about something as normal and mundane as afternoon tea.
“Goodness gracious Guy, I’m afraid you’ve lost me” Nigel uttered feeling quite baffled.
“Then allow me to be blunt” Guy said in a fabulously sinister tone. “I’ve been performing rituals to raise the dead! When someone dies their soul leaves behind an echo of their personality and their memories. When I call them back I talk with them and have complete control over them as if I were a puppeteer. But their ability to speak, like their memories, quickly fades like a battery that is nearly empty. When they first awaken I there are a precious few minutes where they can still recall their life and their death and what happened next. When they have gone I’m just left with an empty shell, which I release again before the body is prepared for burial. These practices are still used in some remote areas throughout the Middle East but it is fiercely guarded, for obvious reasons. That is why I must go away tonight. If people knew of this practice there would be uproar. In fact, in order to maintain its secrecy I have been forced to do something quite terrible”.
Nigel put his glass down on the pine coffee table with a shiver as if someone had just walked over his grave. The howling wind and snow continued their screaming beyond the walls of the vicarage, bringing with it images from the darkest fairy tales; of skeletons waking from their eternal sleep to stalk unsuspecting travellers as they pass by ancient graveyards.
“… OK” the vicar replied mentally shaking his head and carefully drawing on all his acting skills to present a look of interest while hoping it wasn’t being received as patronising. “That’s an incredible story…”
“I don’t need you to believe me; I just need you to listen, Nigel” the undertaker’s tone changed and the living room seemed to grow colder and darker, despite the fire in the hearth. “When I’m gone I want someone to know about me, to remember me. I am telling you this because I trust you with this information and no one else. Unfortunately someone else was trying to learn about my research. She’s some kind of journalist and she’s been following me for the last few weeks. I’m troubled by how much she may already know or suspect”.
“Of course, old fellow, you need to keep it all close to your chest. Quite understandable” Nigel cleared his throat. He took another large swallow of his whiskey as Guy’s preoccupation with the graveyard seemed to have returned again. Nigel cautiously peered out as well but saw nothing of concern beyond the wall.
“You don’t think she’s she outside now do you?”
“Not anymore” the undertaker replied quietly. “She was there earlier, armed with her camera and goodness knows what other kind of recording equipment. But she’s gone now”.
“What if she comes back here? What would one say to her?”
“She won’t come back here” Guy Alderman rumbled quietly. He sounded more sinister than ever now. So much so that if Nigel hadn’t had the pleasure of being acquainted with him for the last fifteen years he may have felt quite unnerved by the dreadful resonance in his voice.
Nigel began a silent prayer for his friend as he opened the front door to let the funeral director out. Many discordant thoughts, like a choir in disharmony, clamoured for attention in the vicar’s mind. As his visitor left all Nigel could manage by way of a farewell was a weak; “God be with you”.
To which Guy Alderman replied solemnly: “No, I don’t think he will be, old friend”.
Flurries of snow raced through the garden and the old churchyard, swirling in the chill air before they descended to earth to settle on the trampled snow. Nigel remained on the doorstep for a few minutes watching the snowflakes after Guy had reached the end of the path and disappeared down the road. It wouldn’t take long for the fresh snow to cover the disturbed earth and strange trampling footprints that had mysteriously appeared around a number of the gravestones next door. It was as if something or some things had been prowling around outside while they had been talking. What was strange was about them was that the footprints were well away from the path. They seemed to begin and end in mounds of snow and brown earth, at the foot of individual headstones. Whoever had made them, there was no sign of them now. The wind was fading to a low whistle and thankfully, it was no longer screaming. Still, the air felt tense. Charged by his imagination Nigel hurried back inside and as he locked and bolted the door he hoped, regretfully, that he would never see his friend again.
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Black Anne
If only I hadn’t gone up into that old rickety treehouse, I may never have lost my little brother; Harry.
For Harry and me, staying at Gran’s cottage was the highlight of every summer holiday. But now I try to forget those joyful carefree days. Those idyllic rose-tinted memories, warmed b
y the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, quickly dissolve into the horror of what happened that night in the wood.
Harry, me and our cousin Fynn, who lived near Gran, would play for hours in the wood. It was full of adventure and imaginary danger. According to Fynn; a witch named Black Anne, dwelled in the wood. She prowled around at night looking for children to snatch. A long time ago a child had actually gone missing in the wood and that’s why none of us were allowed out there after dark.
Fynn loved trying to scare Harry with his ghost stories and I have to admit it was funny. Yet as Harry’s big brother I couldn’t let it go too far. Don’t get me wrong, Harry wasn’t a scaredy-cat: When it came to climbing tree’s he was always the first to try it. In fact, he was always the one that wanted to climb that tree and explore that tumbledown treehouse at the top.
The mysterious treehouse had perched up there for years. None of the kids knew who built it and no one had ever been inside because it was just too high up to climb. The tree itself was quite spooky as well. I used to get the feeling that it was somehow watching us whenever we were near it. I didn’t like it’s twisted, crooked branches either. They made it look as if it belonged in the grounds of a haunted mansion. Fynn