by Dean Cole
As Carrie offered a demure smile, I stared at each of the ghost hunters in turn, the flickering flames of the fire gilding the shoulders of their black shirts. I never imagined such a fascinating group of people existed. But then, until recently, I never really imagined ghosts existed. Could exist, I reminded myself. Unless Pluckley Ghost Hunters could definitively prove otherwise over the coming days, the jury was still out on that one.
‘We’re just unpacking the rest of our stuff, then we’ll run through the weekend’s schedule,’ said Giles, checking his watch. He nodded at the table where the halo-haired woman was still working her way through the food, paying no attention to us. ‘Help yourself to snacks and refreshments. We’ll be stopping for a proper meal at seven, but that’s a good few hours off and this ghost hunting business can be hungry work.’ He laughed at his own joke then resumed helping Annie, Norman and Carrie with their equipment.
I glanced to my side, expecting to see Kat there. But she was already at the table appraising the alcoholic beverages. I had no appetite and no desire to drink. The coffee I’d had when we stopped at the motorway service station, combined with my morning pill, had made me queasy. Or was that just my nerves contemplating forthcoming events? It looked like the young couple weren’t hungry either. They’d moved on to admiring a stag’s head that was surmounted over the mantelpiece. Or at least he was; she looked horrified by the hideous thing.
A born recluse, any social setting of more than four people was my worst nightmare. But I had been challenging myself recently to confront that fear. Swallowing down the urge to find a corner to hide in, I decided to introduce myself.
‘Hey,’ I said to the guy, proffering my hand.
Respectfully, he removed a pair of designer shades before shaking it. His grip was so firm it felt like he might crush my knuckles into bone dust. He looked even more ripped close up, with rugby player shoulders and veins protruding from his neck. Umber eyes glanced at the sticker on my chest. ‘Nice to meet you, Quentin. I’m Matthaios. That’s Math-a-os. Nobody can pronounce it, though, so call me Matt.’
Matthaios. Definitely Greek. So I was right.
He snaked his arm around the woman. ‘This is my girlfriend, Ash.’
Ash showed me a cosmetically enhanced smile. She was strikingly beautiful, with perfect waves in her hair and flawless skin the colour of rich coffee. You’d have thought she was attending an expensive dinner party looking at her attire, all revealing garments complemented with twinkling jewelry. ‘Say hello to Cottonball,’ she said.
The little creature looking up at me did indeed look like a ball of cotton, though a pair of black round eyes and a matching snout amidst all the fluff gave away it was very much a canine. The shape its mouth formed when the tongue was hanging out looked like a permanent smile.
‘He’s a two year old Pomeranian socialist, Gemini vegetarian, and a little bit OCD,’ Ash said. She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘But we try not to mention the last part when he’s listening. He’s a little bit sensitive about it.’
I smiled at Cottonball, about to give him an affectionate scratch behind the ears, but thought better of it.
‘It’s a good job the housekeeper is a dog lover,’ said Matt. ‘Pets are strictly not allowed, but she’s overlooking it because Cottonball’s so small.’ He bent down to look the tiny dog in the eyes. ‘This place probably has rats bigger than you, doesn’t it, buddy?’
‘And he’s as good as gold. Aren’t you, poppet?’ Ash cooed, making kissing noises with her large pouted lips. Cottonball wriggled in her arms, wagging his tail and trying to give his mummy kisses in return for the compliment.
I’ll confess I was starting to feel a little envious of the adorable pooch. Cottonball wasn’t only cuter than I’d ever be, he had a far more interesting bio — and probably more money, too, judging by that diamond encrusted collar he was wearing.
‘Is that your girlfriend?’ Ash asked.
‘Girlfriend?’ I followed her gaze and saw Kat humming to a silent song and guiding speared olives into her mouth. ‘Oh. No, that’s Kat … my business partner.’
I’m not your rainbow flag waving type of gay, eager to point out that the world consists of a mixture of sexual orientations (and opposite sex friendships) and just because a guy and girl are together it doesn’t automatically mean they’re a couple. So I didn’t bother correcting Ash’s innocent assumption. In fact, arguably the most socially awkward human being in the United Kingdom, talking about my love life with strangers felt about as comfortable as having my intimate areas waxed — not that I knew how that felt. I changed the subject swiftly to stop them probing further.
‘This your first ghost hunt?’ Then I wondered: are regular ghost hunts even a thing?
‘Yeah. A treat for Ash’s birthday,’ replied Matt. ‘She loves all this spooky stuff. Don’t you, princess?
Princess? I couldn’t help raising a brow at that little term of endearment. I noticed the watch on Matt’s wrist that must have cost a small fortune. And the flashy sports car out front had his name written all over it. Call me sceptical, but I had a feeling it wasn’t just Matt’s handsome Greek looks that Her Royal Highness Ash found so alluring.
‘Happy birthday,’ I said.
‘It’s not until next week,’ Ash cooed. ‘We’ll be in Rhodes then, visiting Matthaios’s family. This weekend’s just the appetiser. Matthaios is the sweetest. It’s been nothing but surprises for a whole month.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed her lover’s neck. Matt made no attempt to conceal how pleasurable he found this, his dark lashes fluttering with arousal.
I cleared my throat, shuffled uncomfortably in my brogues. Public displays of affection had a way of leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Were frisky lovers the ones to blame, though? Or was I just feeling the pangs of my non-existent love life?
‘Oh, I’m so excited about this weekend, though,’ enthused Ash when she’d finished stamping her DNA over Matt’s neck. ‘I wonder if we’ll be using the Ouija board? I hope my aunt Rosamie comes through. She might have a message for me about the future. A baby maybe? Marriage?’
Matt’s olive complexion turned a little paler at the mention of children and marriage, but he tried his hardest to look like he shared his girlfriend’s enthusiasm. I couldn’t say the same. Every time I thought about what the ghost hunters had in store for us I got the sensation of snakes writhing around inside my belly.
‘Ooh look, they’ve got kombucha,’ said Ash, dragging Matt by one of those impressive triceps towards the table.
I expelled a sigh of relief when they’d gone. Any longer and they might have started pulling each other’s clothes off.
Left alone, I decided to take a look at some of the photographs and paintings dotted around the flock covered walls. One of the paintings depicted Hilderley Manor in a previous era, the faded oils enhancing the creepiness inherent to such old buildings. I squinted through my specs, studying the intricate details. I scanned through the rows of windows, searching for our room. Somewhere on the right wing of the second floor, wasn’t it? Yes, there …
I swallowed, felt a sensation like icy rags being dragged across my back. What were the chances? The chances that our room happened to be the same window I’d spotted from the driveway, the same window in which the misty figure had stood, staring down at me. And there it was again, watching over the grounds of the manor in that same eerie way. Like it was waiting for someone. At least I think it was a figure. Could it be a smudge? I leaned forward for a closer look, but then spun round sensing a presence behind me.
The halo-haired woman was standing there, her shamrock-green eyes wide and twinkling. Fumes from the lacquer in her golden mane were so strong they made my eyes water. Every colour under the sun seemed to adorn her face and body, giving her a psychedelic effect. My eyes were drawn to a conspicuous teal crystal attached to a chain around her neck, its shiny surface reflecting the chandelier light above our heads.
‘Good aftern
oon, Quentin,’ she said.
Startled by her sudden appearance, it took a second to remember I was wearing a sticker with my name on it. I searched her chest for her own sticker but discovered she wasn’t wearing one. ‘You’re not a guest?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘Esther Hill, psychic medium and spiritual catalyst. I do freelance work, helping paranormal investigators like the lovely crew here with my … special abilities.’
I had no idea what a spiritual catalyst was, but my ears pricked at the word medium. Those that claim they can communicate with dead people.
‘You might have seen me online?’ she said, bumping her hair with her palm to give it more volume. The bangles on her wrist rattled like a child’s play toy. ‘My following has really taken off over the last year. I make regular videos and attend workshops all over the world. Thousands have heard the messages I’ve been blessed enough to channel from our higher source. It seems people can’t get enough of the spiritual path these days. Wouldn’t you agree, Quentin?’
The spiritual path? Our higher source? I had no idea what Esther was talking about. I was about to ask her if she could clarify what a spiritual catalyst might be when, out of nowhere and for no apparent reason, she reached out and removed my specs. She leaned closer to study my eyes and her smile broadened.
‘Ah, a seeker.’
‘Sorry?’ I said.
‘You’re a seeker. I can see it in your eyes, amid your pain. You’re searching for answers. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’
Goosebumps broke out across my limbs. I swallowed the thick lump that had lodged itself inside my throat. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong. I wasn’t seeking anything. I was here with my journalist partner to take some photographs, photographs for the article we were making. But if that was true then why was I having such a visceral reaction to a perfectly innocuous question?
‘We’re all on the path, even if most of us don’t know it,’ Esther said. ‘You can’t escape it, Source. It connects everything that is, ever was, and ever will be. Those of us that suffer the greatest tend to be called towards it the most, though.’
I shivered. Everything about Esther Hill, from her striking appearance to her dreamy voice, unsettled me. There was nothing malevolent about her, but she gave off a palpable energy that made me hazy and spoke as if she was the omniscient narrator in this fairy tale we mere mortals called life.
She cocked her head like a curious puppy as she continued to study me. Was she trying to read my thoughts? I might have known if I’d been able to see her eyes. Since she was still holding my specs, all I could make out was a fuzzy mass of hair and bright colour. I opened my mouth to speak, but whatever I was about to say fizzled on the tip of my tongue before it had chance to escape my lips.
‘You’ve lost someone you cared about deeply,’ Esther said, handing back my specs. ‘They’re never the same the eyes, after losing someone they love.’ She sighed ruefully. ‘How precious young eyes are, so unscathed, so fearless, the way they glow with wonder and expectation. Then the harshness of living in this world hits and they become dulled, always wary, always longing for what they lost, always fearing the next blow. Nothing like the death of a loved one to turn your world on its axis. Right, Quentin?’
I opened my mouth but again nothing came out. I was too stunned to speak. Could this extraordinary woman really see inside my mind?
Her eyes strayed to my shoulder. I looked down and saw a small white feather had alighted on my blazer. I glanced up at the ceiling, expecting to find an avian creature up there. But there was nothing above me other than the lounge’s sky high ceiling with its decorative molding.
Esther pinched the feather between her thumb and forefinger, held it up to the light and studied it with a dreamy fascination. ‘White feathers are a sign of angels, you know.’
I swallowed. Finally finding my voice, I replied, ‘They are?’
‘Looks like someone wants to let you know they’re watching over you.’
We were suddenly interrupted by Kat gliding up beside us, a glass flute filled with a sparkling beverage pinched between her fingers. She looked to me and then Esther for an introduction. But Esther, either still stuck in the other world in which she lived or feeling suddenly unsociable, maundered off, not bothering with goodbyes, still enthralled by the feather.
‘Who’s that?’ said Kat, when Esther was out of earshot.
‘A psychic. She’s part of the ghost hunting team.’
‘Which part? The hunters or the ghosts?’
‘I’ll admit she’s a little eccentric, but I think she really is psychic,’ I said in Esther’s defence. ‘She was telling me things. Things she couldn’t possibly have known.’
‘I’m not surprised. She’s probably picking up messages from Mars, size of that hairdo.’
The tension from my unusual encounter lifted. I giggled. Kat did, too. We were like two school friends who had found themselves the bystanders at this novelty gathering. In that moment I felt an affinity with Kat for the first time since we’d met. Regardless of her bossy demeanour, here, in Hilderley Manor, this foreign place full of strangers, she was at least someone familiar.
‘Heads up, looks like there’s another one,’ she said.
I traced her gaze and saw a dark haired man getting fitted with a sticker at the lounge’s entrance, the shoulders of his grey trench coat slick with rain. He turned to reveal a handsome face not much older than mine with a smooth brow, aquiline nose and stubble-defined jawline. A sophisticated quiff combed into his hair must have been set with plenty of hair product since it had survived the rain and the motorbike helmet in his hand. The genes were as Irish as mine were English.
He stepped inside the room, sweeping rain from his face. Which wasn’t a particularly friendly face. Not hostile as such, more … disillusioned. Those Irish eyes, blue as winter skies, assessing the room’s inhabitants as they trailed from side to side, said they’d seen it all before and were still wondering what the point was. I could read the name on his sticker from feet away: Will.
Then something awful happened. My heart fluttered. Not the way hearts do in romance novels, when a character sees someone they’re magnetically drawn to in a completely awesome and inexplicable way, something more than just physical attraction, a connection, like tuning a radio dial to the correct frequency. It was more of a flicker, a flame reigniting after having lain dormant for a while. And it was awful because I hoped that part of me had been stuffed down for good, as buried as the dead rumoured to haunt the very grounds I was standing on. No good came from that fragile part of my soul being exposed to the light. Do our shadows live on like ghosts, echoes waiting for the right moment to be heard once again?
Will’s eyes met mine before I had chance to look away and pretend I hadn’t noticed him. A smile that was difficult to interpret tugged at one side of his lips before he made a beeline for the ghost hunters, making gestures like he was apologising for being late.
‘That’s right. Five,’ said Kat.
‘Sorry?’ I replied, watching Will as he shook hands with Giles.
‘The booking was for five guests, remember? That’s you, me, Barbie and Ken over there and the new guy.’ She pulled out her notepad and, struggling to hold the flute and write at the same time, scrawled this down. ‘Five guests … the Freaky Foursome … and the crazy psychic woman. That makes ten.’
‘Right, five,’ I muttered distantly. ‘I mean ten —’
Kat tittered. I flashed her a nervous look. The smirk she was wearing told me all I needed to know. She’d seen me staring at the new arrival and her journalistic mind was busy putting two and two together.
To disguise the heat flooding my cheeks I pretended to take interest in the painting I was looking at moments ago. But something was wrong. My insides froze. The misty figure in the window — the smudge — had vanished. The blood left my cheeks as fast as it had filled them.
- CHAPTER THREE -
Twin Flames
THE FIRST HUNT commenced two hours later, following a detailed explanation of the weekend’s schedule from a nervous looking Carrie. Inhibited, with a tendency to blush at the slightest thing, the youngest member of Pluckley Ghost Hunters suited her title of Team Sensitive, whatever that was.
It was Friday night, meaning there’d be two more hunts over the weekend before we headed home Monday morning. It also happened to be the thirteenth of October, making it unlucky Friday the 13th. Never a good omen when you’re about to go hunting for the dead. I told myself that was just Western superstition, but it didn’t stop my nerves tightening like elastic bands as dusk evanesced into night.
The storm that was brewing earlier was now in full rage, howling and battering rain against the windows like a banshee wailing to be let in. We bustled out of the lounge, torches like headlights on the hallway’s stone floor. The team and Esther led the way, Matt, Ash (carrying Cottonball in her arms) and Will following close behind, while Kat and I brought up the rear. With the torches and the atmospheric weather I couldn’t help feeling like a member of the mystery solving gang from Scooby-Doo. The only difference here was if we did encounter any supernatural creatures they wouldn’t be the cartoon variety.
Kat, in her more practical ensemble of short-sleeved shirt and pencil skirt, her hair up, handbag brimming with accessories and perhaps a set of nunchucks for anyone who might defy her, appeared nonchalant about what lay ahead. Which I guess made sense, her being a self-professed sceptic and all. In fact, preparing for the evening she’d seemed more concerned with choosing an outfit that would ‘give off the right impression’ and had spent at least twenty minutes deciding if she should go for something ‘white-collar’ or ‘sportif’. It certainly wasn’t the ghosts she was trying to impress. It was incredible how many clothes she’d managed to fit inside that case of hers and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it contained a separate outfit for each of the multiple personas she took such pride in. Her lack of fear, however, did help to balance my own anxieties somewhat. If it was genuine nonchalance and not bluster.