At the top of the stairs, she found herself on a huge landing. She paused as her attention was abruptly drawn to a tutting noise from one of the rooms nearby. She went to check it out; after all, she told herself, she was supposed to be investigating! She approached a large door that led to the room she assumed the tutting was coming from; Rachel knocked and then pushed it cautiously open.
“Hello?” she enquired as she went into the room.
It was like a small gym area, with a treadmill in the corner, some weights on the floor and some sit-up benches. Sitting on a large bench press, by the window, was an older spirit man in Orthodox Jewish clothing, reading quietly. He looked up, saw her, then looked back down again. She guessed his age to be in the region of sixty to seventy. He wore a large beaver hat and top coat, and had a thick, grey beard; Rachel noticed that he had keen, small eyes that stared out from behind horn-rimmed glasses.
Switching to her inner voice she spoke to him. “Hello? How are you?”
He jumped up; the book fell to the floor with a bang, then it disappeared. Shuffling, he backed towards the wall, looking terrified. “You… you can see me?”
“Yes, I see dead people. The gentleman who owns the house you are in has seen you on the stairs and, apparently, by the front window. He has called in me and my colleague, to ask you to move on.”
The man pulled himself away from the wall that he had pressed himself against and stood up straight. Taking a couple of steps forwards, he brought his hands together in front of him, which briefly emitted a pearlescent light that formed into the book he had just dropped a moment ago. “Thank you, madam, but I am happy here at the present moment; I do not wish to leave.”
“You are in this gentleman’s home, and it bothers him.”
“Well, I am afraid, my dear, that isn’t my concern. He already sent a priest in last week, did he tell you, to compel me to leave this place, as if I were some kind of evil being. Why would I obey the wishes of a Catholic priest, anyway?” He looked annoyed.
Rachel sat down on a facing bench press. “My name is Rachel; the man downstairs, my friend, is called Andy. We go around, contacting spirits who cause problems for the living. What is your name?”
The man crossed back to where he had been sitting before; he still looked rather annoyed at being questioned by this persistent woman. “Rabbi Joseph Lieberman. I am not leaving, nor am I causing problems, as you say.”
She noticed straight away he didn’t, as was spirit etiquette, say how or when he had died; maybe he was trying to be rude.
Andy’s voice began to echo up the stairway. “Kum by yah… oh spirit… speak to me.”
The rabbi looked disgusted. “I am going nowhere, miss; do you understand? I am here for a reason, and neither you nor your foolish friend down there will move me…” He got up and began to stride purposefully towards the adjoining wall. He then stopped and raised a hand to his face as if in thought; suddenly, he spun around and faced her, jabbing his finger in her direction. “Feh! You… you are the one… I didn’t believe the boy.” He groaned loudly.
The old rabbi rubbed his face with his hands. “I am such a schmuck; I didn’t believe him… argh!” He grunted again. “My people know of you; we were warned you would come. The shedim… they work through you. Brothers have been gathering to pray for you to cleanse your spirit.”
Judging by Andy’s voice, he had gone into one of the bedrooms; he could be heard calling out random phrases.
“What do you mean?” The vision of the Jews outside her flat slammed into Rachel’s mind.
“You. Using forces to communicate with us, which are powers from the shedim. You are invoking and awakening things, and you have no idea how to control them. You are shameful. Our community is strong; we will… deal with this problem.” Rabbi Lieberman went to open his mouth again, his face reddening. But, instead, he turned on his heel again, his frock coat fluttering, and walked straight through the wall before him.
There was a knock at the door.
“Rachel?” Andy opened the door a crack and peered through; behind him was the inquisitive face of Victor Adeyemi. “You found the ghost? Has it gone?”
“Yes, he’s gone,” she said. How long for, Rachel didn’t know, but – if only for the moment – the rabbi had indeed left the building, so in theory she wasn’t lying.
Chapter 29
The news article appeared the following week in the Burwood Echo, entitled ‘SPOOK KICKED INTO TOUCH FOR FAMOUS FOOTBALLER’; it was on page three. The piece featured a photo of Victor, posing with his Maserati in the front garden of his home, and another with him smiling, with one arm around Rachel and the other arm around Andy. Apparently, a similar article had also been reproduced in the Flintock FC fanzine.
The story seemed to have legs, as it quickly appeared online and on various social media platforms, prompting a flurry of phone calls to the Spirit of London’s headquarters (Andy’s mobile), which he was very happy to respond to. Copious letters were also being sent to Rachel, in a variety of languages. Many of the letters, which were now streaming through her letterbox, were simply addressed to ‘Rachel Holloway, Psychic lady, Burwood Town, London’. Thanks to the diligence of the local postman, they all seemed to find their way to her.
They were an interesting read: some revealed the madness of their authors, with drawings of pyramids and eyes; some included photos and asked Rachel to reach out to dead relatives to ask them questions; and others begged for her and Andy’s help with hauntings. Some were heartbreaking, with pages full of people’s emotions at the death of babies and children, much-loved husbands or wives, and parents. The pile grew every day, so Rachel put them in a special large cabinet. Like a pop star with fan mail, she tried to read them all, but some days there were just too many, and they were too harrowing.
Some letters were horrible. They accused her of lying to make money, of fakery and taking advantage of the grieving for financial gain, and called her appalling names. She threw those away immediately, but felt somehow like they had tainted her. Some painted symbols that she didn’t recognise appeared on, and around, her gateway outside – lines and stars; she suspected they were shapes meant to help or harm her.
Unlike Rachel, who was nervous about this sudden celebrity status, Andy seemed to thrive on the attention, almost like a flower stretching its petals towards the sun, and growing stronger and more vibrant with every ray. He had even gone to the trouble of getting some free copies of the Burwood Echo and brought them round to Rachel. She had told him that it was kind to bring so many copies to her door, but he should not have gone to all the bother.
He had replied that it was no bother now, because he had bought a car, so there would be no more trips on his rusty bike.
However, Rachel was beginning to feel troubled. Not only by the ghostly rabbi at Victor Adeyemi’s house, who she was convinced would come back with a vengeance at some point in the future, but also about the wellbeing of Dr Maxwell. The last time they had parted, which was a while ago at the hospital, it was on bad terms, and she had clearly upset him, which she had never intended to do. She felt somehow that he had suffered much sorrow in his life, and she certainly did not want to cause him problems in his death. Rachel resolved to return to the hospital to see him again.
The murder investigation into the death of Kayleigh Lovall also continued. There were no tangible suspects thus far, in spite of the story being national news. The police had told her that people still visited the woods; it hadn’t scared them away. In fact, it had done the opposite, as teens were now frequenting the Shore Moat area, probably to satisfy some morbid fascination.
The police had also repeatedly asked Rachel how she had known the body was there, and, each time they did, she simply told them that the spirit of Kayleigh guided her, which wasn’t strictly true. DNA test results were inconclusive, and brought them no closer to the killer; however, the autopsy
had revealed that, although there was no evidence of sexual assault, the person who killed the girl was almost certainly a man, not only due to how violently she had been stabbed, but also because of the force of the ligature marks on her throat. Andy had joked that if the fact that a man killed Kayleigh hadn’t been proved, it might have been Rachel herself up on a murder charge.
It was only at this point that Rachel realised the importance of being careful as to whom she shared information with. If she went around finding the bodies of various murdered people, there would be a point when the police might start thinking that she had something to do with the crimes; perhaps that she was some kind of sick serial killer. She was too bloody innocent and trusting, that was her problem. Rachel had been handed a gift on the day her brain bled, but it could also be a poisoned chalice, depending on how she used it; she was definitely starting to see that now.
Rachel was in bed, thinking all of it over, with a small lamp at her side, gently illuminating the room. Around where she lay there were three spirits whom she could see. The first was an old woman, dressed in black widow’s weeds with a hood covering her hair; she was sitting and sobbing gently on a chair in the corner. All Rachel could see from her bed was a gnarled hand, clutching a handkerchief to a wrinkled, large nose that protruded out from the lacy, dark head covering. The second was a young man, dressed in a dark-green, velvet coat with a fancy, ruffled, white shirt, and on his head was a large top hat; he also carried a cane, which reflected the light from Rachel’s lamp on its shiny surface. By looking at his face, which was slim with pronounced cheekbones and not unhandsome, she would say he was about thirty. The last ghost in her room that evening was a middle-aged, slightly overweight man, wearing what looked like a white coat of the medical profession; his face was round and reddened, with small, gold-rimmed spectacles perched on his nose. He stood there silently, just staring at his watch, which was chipping away time with gentle ticks on his wrist.
Rachel looked at them all. “I don’t know what you want with me! Haven’t you somewhere to go?”
The sobbing woman did not look up, nor did the fatter man who was looking at his watch. The younger gentleman in the velvet coat cast his eyes slowly towards her, as if she was simply an annoyance, then turned them back to her window, which he had been looking keenly out of.
She didn’t like having them in her room. In a normal life, people could be kept out of your house by locking doors and barring windows. If you didn’t want anyone to come in, you could simply keep them out. Ghosts, on the other hand, could not be kept out: no wall and no door, regardless of whether it was made of steel, stone, wood or lead could keep them barred. They just walked on through it if they wanted to. One night, she had even awoken to a spirit man lying in bed next to her. His back had been turned, so she couldn’t see his face; all she could hear was the gentle rasping of his uneven breathing, and she saw his side gently rising and falling with each breath. This had unnerved her terribly; slowly, she had got out of the bed, so as not to alert her unwelcome bed guest to her leaving, and slept on the sofa. Fortunately, whoever the hell it was had left by the morning.
She had no shield against them. There was nothing she could build or draw around herself that would stop the dead invading her world; she felt so naked and powerless.
As she often did now, she got out of bed, exhausted, with her head pounding as it always did, and walked in a drugged, sleepy state to the bathroom. Closing the toilet door behind her, she lowered herself onto the cold seat and relieved herself, her eyes closing as she tried to stop the whirr of thoughts tearing through her head.
Rachel wasn’t overly frightened by the ghosts; maybe that was her problem. She should be bothered by them, but she wasn’t. She had accepted them coming into her world now, and being part of her, almost like a cross between a disability and a gift. Some of them were odd, but most were fine; they were a little upset that they were dead, but she assumed that would probably upset most people.
Slowly, she became aware of something; it wasn’t a sound, but more a feeling that she was being watched. Her head began to turn upwards to the ceiling, as if pulled by an invisible thread. There, sticking out of the top of her bathroom wall and the ceiling itself were two heads, both female, with paper-white skin, dark brown frizzy hair and rictus grins. They were just silently staring down at her. Frozen to the spot, she immediately shut her eyes and put her fingers in her ears.
But she still knew they were there, thanks to the one thing she couldn’t muffle: her own mind.
Chapter 30
The night of the Howland Hall ghost hunt had arrived, and Rachel was very nervous about it. For one thing, she hadn’t even been given the opportunity to familiarise herself with the layout of the house. First, she had been a little unwell, and then Andy had insisted that if she went to the house, he had to come with her, and he had been busy. Then they had gone there one afternoon to find it closed because of a water leak; it had been a catalogue of errors that seemed to have been designed to prevent them getting access before the night.
Andy was buoyant; he said it didn’t matter that they had not given the place a decent recce, as they would ‘play it by ear’. She hated that. Everything Andy ever did he played by ear; planning was not his strong point. Rachel had argued that she wanted to have some time alone to walk the corridors and stairs of the house, to find out what spirits it held, and decide which ones to feature for the tour, and which ones to ignore (not that all spirits took kindly to being ignored). But, no, he would not have a bar of it, and so, here they were, in his new car, drawing up outside a mere fifteen minutes before the event.
Rachel stared up at the magnificent stone building; it had been built strictly symmetrical, with a huge stairway leading up to the front of the house. The simple, white-painted windows, which interspaced the stone walls, twinkled in the floodlights that swept the whole front façade.
Behind her were crowds of people. She thought the 100 headcount limit had clearly been ignored; it looked like there must be 200 people there at least. Many carried battery powered torches, and were bundled up against the cold in thick coats and hats. She saw some people were in fancy dress, including one in a ridiculous skeleton costume and one dressed as a pirate (she had no idea why). There were also a few goths milling about.
Someone must have sold too many tickets. Who could possibly be so irresponsible? Rachel mused.
Andy bounded up. “Wow! Fab turnout, yeah? How many are here? About 130? Whoa, that’s like £1,300, yeah? We get £650… Sweet.”
“Of which I get £325…” reminded Rachel, wondering if Andy had deliberately under estimated how many people were there, or whether he had simply not seen them, being his eyesight was not the sharpest at times. Unless, of course, money was being counted out, then he appeared to have the eyesight of an eagle.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. Better get this show on the road, eh?”
They stood at the top of the entrance steps, squinting against the strong lights that burnt their eyes. Rachel listened as Andy welcomed everyone, introduced himself and then went on about health-and-safety rules. She looked out over the crowd; nervousness was creeping in, as she had never done anything this public before. What would happen if she became tongue tied or messed it up? She had made sure that her painkillers were topped up before leaving her flat, but she still felt her temple twitch slightly; she hoped it wouldn’t turn into a migraine, not this evening.
As Andy’s voice droned on about the Spirit of London Paranormal Investigations being on social media, she looked across the crowd. For every ten people, she estimated there was one spirit, standing amongst the living and watching on with equal interest. A tour for the living and the dead; that was a turn-up for the books. Why would a ghost want to join a ghost hunt? Maybe they were nosey? Ghosts were only living people who were dead, after all, and were just as varied and complicated as everyday people were.
“…
and so may I introduce Miss Rachel Holloway, renowned psychic medium and necromancer, who will be leading tonight’s tour,” concluded Andy with a flourish.
What the hell? Rachel was horrified. Renowned psychic medium? And what the hell was a ‘necromancer’? It sounded evil.
Andy had finished his spiel and was looking at her expectantly to say something.
All she could muster was, “I am delighted you have all come out here to find out more about what lives within Howland Hall.” What she had said was crap, but they were not there for her public-speaking abilities.
The tour began. A nervous-looking teenager had already introduced himself as their guide to the layout of the hall for the evening. His name was apparently ‘Bim’, although Andy called him ‘Bin’ in Rachel’s earshot a few times. He was a tall, spotty youth, aged about nineteen, wearing a dark green peaked cap with ‘Howlands’ written on the front, and a cheap looking suit in the same colour.
At Andy’s signal, the huge crowd of the living and the dead squeezed into the main entrance hall, all looking eagerly towards Rachel to speak. She noticed Andy had taken up a position to the back of the crowd, so he was going to be of limited use if something went wrong. Although the main hall lights were off (at Andy’s request), the emergency low lights that lit stairs and doorways had been activated. Andy’s original idea had been to have the walk in the pitch darkness, with people using torches, but the hall’s owners refused, in case there was an accident and someone fell and then sued the hall. So emergency lights were all they had to lead the way.
The entrance hall was stone built, like the house, but it had a magnificent wooden stairway winding off to an upper floor. Disapproving glares were cast upon all participants from the huge portraits that were hung high on the walls, presumably people of note who had lived there at some point. Rachel wondered why they all looked so angry or miserable; presumably, they had been none too keen to sit for their portrait. Memories flooded back to her of the incident at the castle, and the painting of the two brothers, she quickly looked away.
Seeing Things Page 16