Father of Lies

by Sarah England

  “I bet he’ll be the first who can telepathically throw a chair across the room, though,” said Kristy, unable to help herself. “And I bet he’ll be the first to be able to tell you every last detail about every single transgression you have ever made since childhood!”

  Isaac bundled his notes together. “If you’ll excuse me I must get back to my wife and family.” He nodded at the group. “Good night.”

  After he’d pulled the door firmly behind him, silence descended on the group.

  Amanda reached for her jacket, touched Kristy on the shoulder and said she’d be working with Ruby again tomorrow. “I’ll report back,” she said, rooting for her car keys. “See you all soon. Next Wednesday’s team meeting?”

  Becky reached for Noel’s hand as he stood up. “Noel - please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to go home. I can’t face another night of it.”

  “Another night of what?”

  She shook her head.

  “What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?”

  “Church.”

  He looked askance. “Why?”

  She looked away. “ I don’t know.”

  He sat down again, keeping his voice low as the others continued to pack up. “Becks, I’ve never seen you like this. You of all people. God knows what happened in that hypnosis session with you and Jack…but you can and will get through this, okay?”

  She looked into his eyes. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life. It’s like everything I thought existed doesn’t, and things I thought couldn’t hurt us - actually can. I’m sick, Noel. And the reason I want to go into a church is because I’ll be safe. Do you understand?”

  He shook his head and smiled softly. “Yes, okay, if that’s what you want I’ll take you - you all right on the bike?”

  Becky looked over at Callum, who was earnestly chatting to Martha. No way could he know how bad things were. Her heart swelled into tears. “Yeah, yeah - let’s go. Let’s go now.”

  He reached for his crash helmet. “Do you know what I’m thinking? If something evil really is going on in that village, like devil worship or whatever - then how the hell did a child survive if a grown man can’t?”

  “Ruby?”

  He nodded. “Yes. She might be ill but she’s not as ill as Jack!”

  “I don’t know. It’s a damn good question.”

  “It’s like, I don’t know, like evil can latch onto people…”

  Kristy walked towards them. “Sorry - I couldn’t help overhearing. That’s why we need to compare notes and keep open minds, Noel,” she said. “Because I’m not sure any of us can explain what’s happening. Look, I didn’t want to say this in front of Isaac, but when I was driving home after my horrible encounter in Woodsend, a strange thing happened as I said. But it was a lot more than a compulsion…”

  As she related her experience of the old woman appearing in her passenger seat on the drive home, and the feeling she was willing her off the road, Becky’s eyes widened and kept on widening until she interrupted, “Yes! That’s what it is - a hallucination that’s a bit too real. You know it’s real - that it’s nasty, that it’s evil personified…I’m getting it day and night. Thank God you were brave enough to share everything, Kristy, or we’d all just sit here going quietly mad, in case we got locked up and dosed with anti-psychotics, careers and family lives down the drain. Us - of all people! Of course we’d think it’s psychosis! But this is the thing - all of us psychotic? All at once?”

  Kristy squeezed Becky’s arm as Callum and Martha finished talking and joined them. “I have a feeling that something or someone does not want us to uncover what’s going on in that village,” she said. “Here’s something else - when I was driving home from Jack’s I remembered Hannah saying to watch out for stuff on the road - something that might make me swerve off. She’d obviously had it happen to her but I didn’t really believe her, I have to say. Well I was at full throttle taking a bend, when suddenly there was this child just standing there in the middle of the road. I did an emergency brake and the car spun round and reversed up the embankment, but I swear to you - there was no one there when I got out. I walked up and down that road - and you can see for miles - not a soul. Nothing.”

  Callum frowned. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dog that ran off or owt?”

  She shook her head. “No tracks on the road, which was covered in sleet. On some level I was prepared because Hannah warned me, but it was still a shock. Just be aware of the unexplainable, the unusual, the downright scary. Because we are the ones who have to be here to help those most vulnerable - the victims - Ruby and Tommy, and whoever else is still at the mercy of whatever is going on in Woodsend.”

  “I believe you,” said Callum. “I might not ’ave done if it weren’t for what I saw with me own eyes all them years ago. Holy crap. Black arts - believe it or not - us lot do come across stuff like that now and again. It’s the fear - very powerful is fear.”

  “I’m going to stay with friends for a bit,” Kristy said. “Still in Leeds - but not on my own. Not for a long time do I want to be on my own at night again.”

  “That bad?” Noel asked.

  She nodded. “Even keeping the lights on doesn’t work - someone or something keeps switching them off!”

  “Shit! Are you serious?”

  “Yes she is,” said Becky. “I didn’t dare say - but that happens to me too.”

  ***

  Chapter 22

  Cloudside Village. Present Day. December 2015

  Celeste opened the door to a small woman in a brown bobble coat leaning on a walking stick. The dyed auburn hair had been slept on wet because it stuck flat on one side, revealing Brillo-pad grey roots. She held out a paper-dry hand. “Martha Kind. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Oh yes. Come in, love.”

  The maisonette she and Gerry now had in Cloudside - an ex-mining village dotted with a Legoland of 1960’s bungalows - was compact, warm and functional. It suited her with it being on the main bus route; having the added benefit of being in the heart of a friendly community.

  The intervening years had taken their toll on them both. Gerry had type 2 diabetes and had to use an oxygen mask at night to help his chronic obstructive airways disease. He had a separate bedroom and Celeste was his official carer. Always on the plump side, she’d piled on extra weight, and her vision was not what it was. Peering over her glasses at Martha, she motioned for her to sit down in the small sitting room and flicked on a bar of the gas fire.

  “Can I get you a cup of tea, Mrs…”

  “Oh Martha - do call me Martha! That would be lovely, thank you.”

  Celeste busied herself in the kitchen with a teapot and biscuits, while she waited for the kettle to boil. Hmm, that Martha would be taking in as much information as she could from their photos and choice of reading material. Well she wasn’t going to find, ‘Witches Weekly’ if that’s what she’d hoped for!

  Why was she here, though? Why now?

  “Here we are!” she said, placing a tray on the coffee table between them, softening as Martha automatically began to do the pouring and stirring. The woman was kind actually, she thought, and possibly close to retirement if the bandaged knees were anything to go by.

  Martha caught her eye and smiled. “Arthritis. I’ve got it in my left hip too. Ooh it does give me gip.”

  Celeste nodded. “Sciatica as well?”

  Martha’s eyes widened as she took a sip of hot tea. “Ooh lovely tea. Yes - how did you know?”

  Celeste’s brown eyes twinkled. “Aha! Well there’s some as say I’m a witch!”

  The two women laughed.

  “Well if you could throw a bit of fairy dust my way I’d not be complaining,” said Martha.

  “Any time. Spiritual healing can really help. But I only work through the church and never for profit. If you’d like to come to St. Mary’s on a Sunday evening I’d be very happy to do some for you.”

  Martha nodded. “Thank you. Do you know I
think I’ll give it a go? I’ve had everything the doctor can prescribe and all I get is too drowsy to work and a sore stomach, which I then have to medicate for, and on it goes. I’d feel a lot better if something natural worked.”

  Celeste handed her a card. “You’re welcome anytime.”

  Martha took another sip of tea, then set her cup down. “It’s actually very good of you to see me and now I feel a bit awkward. I hardly know where to begin, to be honest. I’ve been a social worker since - ooh well before Eve took a bite of the apple. Actually the only time I wasn’t working as a social worker was when I took time out in the mid-nineties for a back operation. But apart from that, this area’s been my stomping ground my whole adult life. Ooh, you wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell - I ought to write a book!”

  Celeste dipped a digestive and waited.

  Ruby. A whippet-thin girl with long, greasy hair and far away blue eyes… A washing line and a woman who turns to stare… a woman with black, gypsy eyes…

  Their eyes met. “This is about Woodsend, isn’t it?” said Celeste. The very image of the place darkened her thoughts and instinctively she drew a protective shield around herself: a strong, white light.

  Martha pulled an embarrassed face. “I’m afraid it is, yes, and I have to tell you I wouldn’t be asking if we weren’t desperate - all of us…I’m part of the mental health team up at Drummersgate, do you know it?”

  Celeste nodded. A dark path winding through the woods…running hard now with footsteps pounding into the ground…moonlight glinting through the canopy of treetops…

  “To be honest I’m hoping against hope you can help us. If you can’t that’s fine, but…”

  “Go on.”

  “Okay, deep breaths, Martha - look, I can’t share any confidential information, but we have a couple of clients suffering from serious mental health issues and both came, or at least appeared to originate, from Woodsend. Now I never had any dealings there myself. But the colleague who covered for me in the late nineties when I was ill - Linda, her name was - well she did! Only she’s no longer with us.”

  “Oh?”

  “She passed away from a brain haemorrhage at quite a young age - it was all very sad - and one of the main reasons I was jolted back to work - I’d had depression for while, you see…Anyway, she left some notes but they’re very top line and don’t tell me much.”

  “Try the husband,” said Celeste. “I can see he has something…a book, maybe a diary…He’s got more - the real story.”

  Martha blinked. “Oh. Funny you should say that. I was thinking about calling him, but I felt a bit nervous, like I’d be re-awakening his grief.“

  “Go and see him. He’s waiting.”

  Martha blinked at the other woman’s surety. “Yes, I will. Thank you.” She took a sip of tea. “Anyway, you want to know why I’ve come here today and so here’s my thinking - biting the bullet here - around that time there was a story in the papers concerning your practising witchcraft in Woodsend. Apparently the locals - and indeed the church minister at the time - demanded you left your home. Now, I don’t know what happened and I’m not here to pass judgement, please don’t think I am, but here’s the thing, Celeste - we have a young lady in our care who urgently needs help. Something happened to her in that village - something that made her go back there and attempt murder, not to mention disturb her mind so badly that… well I guess you could say I’ve got to start somewhere. Digging, that is!”

  “Ah!”

  “Can you enlighten us? In any way at all? I mean - any information would be useful - anything! What was really going on in that village? Something you knew about or guessed? Because you moved out and have lived quietly ever since. Something went on, I’m sure of it…and I’m suspecting it wasn’t anything to do with you at all. You were, I’m guessing, a threat in some way - am I right?”

  Celeste nodded.

  “Hmm. You see family backgrounds are often a source of complexity in mental health cases, so social services do get involved; but as I said, Linda - who was working in Woodsend at the time - passed away suddenly and by the time I took over the reigns, all the at-risk children in the village had gone.”

  Celeste nodded, taking in Martha’s pale yellow aura. “How interesting. To be honest it’s not a place I’d care to ever go back to.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “We’d been given a house. By the council - one of the ones backing onto the woods. I practiced Tarot readings as a way of making ends meet - had done for years. My husband, Gerry, was just beginning to deteriorate health-wise, and things were a struggle financially for us, so I also ran classes in Doncaster at the spiritualist church. I’ve been a medium for many a year now, Martha. I never asked to be, and I was as frightened as anyone else who finds themselves with the gift; but once you know how to protect yourself, how to open and close it off, as it were - you can live a pretty normal life. So that’s what I did - and I tried to help other mediums develop their talent and control it too - always through the church and never making a show of it. But there were some who refused to understand that and made objections. Those in the village, that is. Particularly the local vicar - Reverend Gordon - I can still see him sitting there on my sofa telling me I was evil and it would be best if I left.”

  “So the local people were frightened by the fact you were a medium?”

  “They still came for readings, though. And once word got round I was accurate - the real thing - there were some who didn’t like it one bit. And it was them as hounded me out. Daubed red paint across my door with, ‘Evil Witch’ written on it. Got their kids to bang on my door and throw fireworks through the letter box. My husband had a heart attack with all the stress.”

  “Oh my dear - I’m so sorry. Did you call the police?”

  “Yes I did. Over and over. But after that things upped a gear: a girl from the village came to one of my classes in church and started to disrupt it, telling the others I was a charlatan, a fraud. Although that wasn’t the worst bit. The worst was her using my energy to draw up bad spirits. She came to my house with a different name - Natalie if I remember rightly - and practically told me as much: that she’d invited bad entities in using my psychic energy. After that I had horrible experiences, and a girl from one of the local farmhouses went mad, I heard. Anyway, apparently it was all my fault and I’d brought bad spirits to the village. They wanted me out.”

  “I see.”

  “I have to tell you, love, that I’m a committed Christian. And I always protect myself and my clients when I do a reading.” She fingered the cross around her neck. “I always wear this, you know? If you work with spirits you have to be careful and you have to know what you’re doing or you can be vulnerable to the worst kind of spiritual attack. Anyhow, one afternoon after a particularly unpleasant visit from Reverend Gordon, Gerry had a major heart attack and was rushed to hospital. During the months he was there I was left alone in the house, and I don’t think I can describe the horror of it - those nightly terrors and how they wore me down. It was then I knew the stress of living in Woodsend was too much. Gerry and I left that spring after Natalie visited. I couldn’t go through any more psychic attacks or one of us would end up dead. So you see - I was hounded out but not in the way you’d imagine, or in the way it was reported. I wanted to go!”

  “What was Natalie’s surname, can you remember?”

  Celeste shook her head. “No, but I can describe her as if it was yesterday - black hair and pale blue eyes. Very, very pale blue eyes. Being in the same room as her had the same effect as an ice cube running down your back on a hot day. She’d come to warn me off, of course! Tell me to stop working with spirits because she and her ilk were suspicious that I knew what they were up to. Look, I’ve no evidence for what I’m about to say, and I could never tell the police or I’d be a laughing stock, especially after I’ve been so discredited and scorned in the papers…”

  Martha said, “Go on. ”

  “Well
when Gerry and I first moved there we went for a walk round the woods at the back of the house, and it was a bit creepy. Me, being as I am - I felt an unholy presence there but you know, nothing definable. Well anyway, the light was going and so we decided to turn back. It was just after passing an overgrown cottage, and the path was petering out so we couldn’t see where we were going. Then all of a sudden there was this stone circle - shining white, iridescent, in the dusk - and I knew there’d been rites carried out there. I could feel it. See it.” Her voice tailed away slightly…. Dark hooded shapes in a circle, the sky bruised, an eerie light…

  Martha waited. Took another sip of tea.

  After a moment, Celeste seemed to flick back into the present day again. “I just wanted to get the hell away from there, but Gerry had walked on and left me. I could see dark shapes forming from the undergrowth, like faceless, hooded monks rising from the damp earth, and I started to back away, calling out for Gerry. I was already protecting myself because I knew. But the thing is, these events can be hundreds of years in the past and I have to keep telling myself that it’s not real anymore. Pagan rites happened in the past and sacrifices were made - it’s a fact. It’s just that I can still see them!”

  She shook her head as if to dispel the images physically. “Anyway, I transgress…because when Gerry re-appeared he was ashen and not just from being out of breath. He was so shocked it was a long while before he told me what he’d seen. And I‘d been so shaken I forgot to ask.”

  “What was it?”

  “An old Victorian cemetery surrounded by white railings. And on one of the graves, as he’d wandered round the periphery, there was a black wooden cross, which had been snapped in two - recently - and left there. The vestiges of satanic rites, Martha. In the present day!”