“I went all over the house, but most of the rooms were empty. Judging by the state of the staircase, I think we should rule out the upper floors. It doesn’t look too safe up there to me.”
“Agreed. Let’s try the room on the opposite side of the hall.”
He led the way across the hall and through another broken door. Bookshelves lined the walls just as Evelyn remembered, only instead of row upon row of neatly stacked volumes, the books were scattered everywhere, as if someone had ripped them out in a fit of uncontrolled rage.
Evelyn bent down and picked one up. Gulliver’s Travels. But why would anyone rip the pages out like this? She showed Matthew the torn and shredded book.
“They’re all like it. Someone, or something, has gone wild in this room,” Matthew said.
“The Todeswurm?”
“Maybe. I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced.
Certainly the creature didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to physically rip books apart. It could have used its mouth, with its sharp fangs, but this looked like the work of someone with hands and fingers or, at the very least, claws.
A sudden noise from outside gave them both a start.
“That sounded like…” Evelyn began.
“Wolves. At least two of them, maybe more.”
“But there aren’t any wolves around here.”
“Not alive anyway. Remember the legend of Squire Monkton and his dogs.”
Evelyn shuddered. “But surely they are heard around the village. Not here.”
“Just because there’s usually no one to hear them here doesn’t mean they don’t come.”
“We’d better get out of here.”
Matthew hesitated, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
They raced out of the house and stopped on the doorstep.
“Where are the horses?” Evelyn cried.
They were nowhere to be seen.
“Mr. Skelton must have taken them when he left.”
“But I only heard the sound of one horse, not three.”
“So did I.”
“Then who—”
The sound of howling cut her off.
“They’re getting closer,” Matthew said. “Back to the house.”
Back in the drawing room, Evelyn’s heart raced. “Now what do we do? This house hardly provides any protection. The door’s wide open, and we have no way of barricading ourselves in.”
“We need to search for a room with an intact door.”
“No, wait. I’ve just remembered,” Evelyn said. She made for the far wall and started feeling along the paneling. “In the miniature house, I found an entrance. A doorway leading to a room, well, more of a wide corridor actually. It ran all around the house and came to a dead end, but at least it kept the Todeswurm at bay.”
“I’ll help you.” He joined her. “What are we looking for?”
“Found it.” She turned the little handle. “It’s so small and well camouflaged you could easily miss it.” She opened the panel. “Come on.”
The howling sounded much closer now.
“They’re practically at the door,” Matthew said and joined her, closing the door firmly behind him.
“We’ll push this box up against it. That should keep us safe.”
They did so.
“What’s in the box?” Matthew asked. “It’s heavy enough.”
“I never discovered. Claire and I needed to get out.”
“So will we at some stage. We can’t stay holed up here forever.”
“Listen.” Evelyn pushed her ear close to the wall and put her finger to her lips. Outside she heard sounds of heavy paws scuffling in the detritus. Two, maybe three animals sniffing, searching. “They’re here,” she mouthed.
Minutes ticked by. Evelyn hardly dared breathe, and her lungs ached for want of a good deep breath.
One of the beasts sniffed at the wall, the sound so close. Could it smell them, or at least sense their presence? More snuffling noises. The sounds of a tongue licking lips. Panting. Evelyn closed her eyes and prayed.
At last, the noises moved away, grew fainter. Evelyn’s knees ached from crouching in an awkward position, but the risk of making a noise and attracting attention if she shifted herself was too great.
Matthew flinched. His leg must be troubling him.
How much longer?
Evelyn could hear nothing from the room. Then they both heard a long, baleful baying, clearly some distance from the house.
Evelyn breathed and relaxed her aching limbs. Matthew did the same.
“Now let’s discover the secrets of this box,” he said.
Evelyn felt all around the lid. “I can’t find a way to open it.”
“Let’s see if sheer brute force will work.” Matthew tugged at the lid. It didn’t budge. “I need a crowbar or some such tool.”
“I don’t remember seeing one.” Evelyn looked around, noting the desk and the papers strewn across the floor as they had been when she had entered the other house. Without looking at them, she knew what they were, and this time she would hang on to them and find the bound manuscript.
“This will do.” Matthew brandished a claw hammer.
“Where did you find that?”
“Down here, amongst all this junk.” Matthew indicated a dark corner Evelyn couldn’t remember searching. He proceeded to claw at the box, and the wood splintered. He pulled nails out, and finally the lid flew off. Matthew threw the hammer down. Evelyn moved closer to see what was inside.
“Oh, Squire Monkton, whatever were you up to?” Evelyn muttered.
Matthew took out a long, black velvet cloak with a wide hood, followed by a heavy gold chalice studded with precious jewels. Thirteen brass candlesticks followed and then a massive black leather-bound book.
“It must be hundreds of years old,” he said, turning the pages. “It’s in Latin, and mine’s rusty, but from what I can gather, it contains spells and incantations. The etchings are exquisite. If bizarre.”
“Let me see.” Evelyn tried to lift the book, but its weight took her by surprise. “No wonder that box was heavy.”
“Look at this.” Matthew indicated a full-page drawing. Evelyn leaned over his shoulder. The etching depicted a room, not unlike the drawing room of this house. It showed the piano, chairs, table and the miniature replica of the house.
“It’s uncanny. So much like…” Evelyn clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, look, Matthew.” She pointed to a section of the wall in the picture. A small door stood open, and two faces peered out.
“It’s us,” Matthew said.
“But how?”
Matthew hurriedly turned some more pages. Evelyn gasped at the next drawing.
There, clearly depicted, were the two of them standing exactly where they were now, peering down at the book and at the picture of themselves.
Matthew’s eyes met Evelyn’s. “I don’t know how this can happen,” he said, “but this book has to hold the key to everything going on here.”
“But can you read it? I never studied Latin, so I am no help at all.”
“Let’s get it over to the desk. There’s a candle there. The light is fading too fast over here.”
Matthew heaved the book onto the desk and reached in his waistcoat pocket for matches. The glow from the candle lit up the copperplate writing. He studied the words in front of him. “It’s so long since I studied it, and I’m not sure I can make sense of it. This section doesn’t appear to be a spell. “Qui antea vixerunt expectant quos hodie vivunt.” Those…those who live – no – those who have lived before…await…those who live today. Qui vitam in proxima saecula cupiunt eum adsectuentur qui antea est et sempiternam regnat.” He paused, struggling with the text. “I think it’s, those who want…desire maybe…life in the next world…shall follow the one w
ho is before…or perhaps it’s the one who went before. Domini nunc sempiternamque totam fidem promittent. The master…they shall…swear – no – promise allegiance…their full allegiance…to the master now and for all time. Does that make any sense?”
“Indeed it does. I think it explains quite a lot as well. It would appear the squire had become a devil worshipper, if I’m not mistaken. He was conjuring up the devil for his own ends. Again, if I’m not mistaken, he got rather more than he bargained for. Don’t you see? He played with fire and got more than his fingers burned.”
“You think something came through?”
“Something he could neither control nor get rid of. It would explain why he left this house for good, wouldn’t it? He thought he could leave the evil behind here.”
“But instead, it latched on to that toy.”
“If I’m right, the reason all these things are happening to the three of us is because the one thing we all have in common is our contact with The Garden of Bewitchment. And we can add a fourth – poor Mr. Skelton, because he brought us here.”
“And this book is the key.” Matthew closed it. “We have to get it out of here and take it to someone who can interpret it for us.”
Evelyn looked up at the window. “We certainly can’t leave now. It’s dark.”
“At least the wolves have stopped howling.”
“I still wouldn’t risk it. I know Claire will be worried, but she would worry even more if she thought we were trying to get through those woods in the dark.”
Matthew opened the book again. Evelyn watched as he turned the heavy pages. “They’re parchment, I suppose,” she said.
“I hope so.”
“What do you mean?”
Matthew fingered the page he was on. “They could be vellum, which would be fine, but I can’t help wondering…”
“Wondering what?”
“Some of the pages are different. Darker. Like this one, see?” He indicated a light tan page. Evelyn touched it and recoiled. It had a vaguely rubbery consistency.
“What is it?”
Matthew shook his head. “I’ve heard of books being bound in it but not pages made from it. I must be wrong.”
“Tell me what you think it is.”
“Human skin. But I must be wrong.”
“I pray God you are.” But inside her, Evelyn doubted it. “What sort of a monster was he? This squire?”
She couldn’t look at the book anymore. Instead, she busied herself collecting up the sheets of paper, which lay exactly as they were in the miniature house. When she had finished, Matthew was still poring over the volume. He moved slightly to allow her to open the desk drawers. She found The Chronicles of Calladocia and, flicking through the pages, saw they were identical to the ones she had seen in that other house.
Matthew stirred. “Have a look at this.” He pointed to another illustration.
On the facing page, Evelyn made out the word ‘Calladocia’. The picture showed Lady Mandolyne gazing out into the mist. Some distance away, a tall, dark man, too shadowy to make out his features, stood with two women. One was clearly Evelyn and the other, less distinct, Claire.
“This book shouldn’t exist,” Evelyn said. “It can’t exist. It goes against all the laws of nature.”
“Only the ones we know about, and clearly it does exist. We are both looking at it, and this is the real Squire Monkton’s house.”
“And we’re trapped here.”
“Only until dawn. At first light we can get away from here. What’s that?” He indicated the bound manuscript and the loose pages.
“Something that really shouldn’t exist. At least not like this. Something my sister and I were working on but which seems to have been…taken over…by someone else. Someone she believes to be Branwell Brontë, but, as far as I am concerned, the writer’s identity remains a mystery.”
“But your sister truly believes it to be Branwell Brontë.”
“Yes. But what connection could he possibly have with that book and this house?”
Matthew shook his head. “I have no idea. Unless the spirit of Branwell is being conjured by Squire Monkton’s mischief and used as some sort of hold on Claire. She is infatuated with him, isn’t she?”
“Yes. I suppose that makes sense. In as much as anything else does here.”
“She is depicted as almost ghostly here.”
Evelyn looked again at where Matthew was pointing. “Do you suppose that has any significance?”
“I don’t know.”
But the look on his face said more. Right now, Evelyn didn’t dare ask. She looked down at the figures assembled, as if in conversation, and the picture of Claire seemed to fade with every second. Evelyn turned away. Invisible bonds clenched her throat and constricted her muscles – her feeling of loss almost too much to bear. Yet for the life of her she didn’t know why. She would give anything to bury her head in her hands and weep.
A hand on her arm brought her back to reality.
“Evelyn, what’s the matter? I mean, apart from the obvious.”
His concern brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them back. “I can’t explain it. I had this overwhelming feeling something was happening to Claire. I don’t have any idea what.”
Matthew’s eyes strayed back to the book. “You had better see this,” he said.
Evelyn looked down at where he was pointing. She saw herself, the tall man and…
“She’s gone. Claire’s not in the picture anymore. Oh, Matthew, what does it mean?”
“I don’t know. I wish I had an answer, but I don’t.”
Evelyn continued to stare at the page, willing the image of Claire to return, but it didn’t…. Everything remained the same. Lady Mandolyne continued to gaze out over the lake. The tall man appeared to be deep in conversation with Evelyn. Only the three of them were there. As if Claire had never existed.
“I can’t help feeling… No, I mustn’t say it.”
“Say what, Evelyn?”
“I feel as if I am never going to see her again.”
Matthew put his arm around her, and it felt the most natural thing in the world. For a moment.
“What was that?” Evelyn pulled away. She and Matthew listened.
“Did you hear it?” she whispered.
“A cough?” Matthew whispered back. “Yes, I heard it. A man’s cough.”
A deep voice rang out, echoing through the wall.
Evelyn gave Matthew a questioning look. She couldn’t understand a word.
“Latin,” he whispered. “He’s summoning something. I can’t make it out.”
A creak.
Evelyn pointed to the door. The handle turned. She held her breath. The door opened a fraction and then hit the box. Not as heavy now that the book had been removed. It shifted slightly.
In a flash, Matthew heaved the massive volume off the desk and, trying not to make a sound, lowered it back into its resting place. Someone continued to push at the door, but now they hit the heavy obstacle of the box.
The pushing and shoving stopped. Matthew and Evelyn stayed silent, straining to hear the slightest sound from behind the wall. Nothing.
More minutes ticked by. Evelyn had lost all track of time. She longed for sunrise. Somehow things didn’t seem as frightening in the light. Somewhere in the distance the wolves howled again. The moon cast a beam of silvery light through the window. Matthew’s face appeared ghostly. Ethereal.
He edged his way closer to her. His whispers were so quiet she could barely make out his words.
“I think we have been paid a visit by Squire Monkton,” Matthew said.
“I feared as much. What can he possibly want with us?”
“We have something he doesn’t have and presumably his infernal master wants.”
“What’s that
?”
“Our life force. It would make sense of what I read in the book. ‘Those who have lived before await those who live today.’ Why would they await them? To take their spirits.”
“We have to get out of here, and we need that book, but at the moment it’s the only thing keeping him out of here.”
“Then we’ll have to lift the desk and haul it over there to take the place of the box.”
“But that still leaves us trapped here.”
“We need to find a way of getting past the squire. I believe all the answers lie in the book, and it is doing no good at all acting as a doorstop.”
It made perfect sense, although Evelyn had no idea how they were going to manage to carry it out of here and evade the squire, not to mention the Todeswurm or Dakraska, or whatever it was properly called. But they could not afford to be overly cautious. They needed the information in that book. “All right,” she said. “I’ll help you.”
No sound came from the drawing room. “Maybe he’s gone?” Evelyn asked.
“Perhaps. We must be as quiet as possible.”
Evelyn nodded. She removed the manuscript and loose pages from the desk and stood at one side of it. Matthew took the opposite side, and together they lifted it closer to the door. It should hold him off for a bit, or at least warn them of his presence. They then shoved the box out of the way and replaced it with the desk – Evelyn, for one, relieved to rid herself of its weight. It was far more solid than it looked. She flexed her aching arms.
They listened. Still no sound.
“I think he must have gone,” Matthew said. “Even though we were being as quiet as possible, we still made a noise he could have heard if he was still there.”
“How would we know, though? It’s not as if he has a body. Surely he can materialize whenever and wherever he chooses.”
“I’m not certain that’s true. He may have boundaries. He may be doing someone else’s bidding. The book would certainly indicate that.”
“If only we knew more about it.”
“Let’s get it out and have another look. The candle’s burning a little low. We mustn’t waste it.”
The Garden of Bewitchment Page 18