“Unfortunately, I have to inform you we cannot post out those records. Due to their age, we are unable to photocopy any pieces in our archives. To preserve our records, we must be extremely diligent. They are part of the history of our country. I’m sure you understand.”
“I do. I know the records would be a couple of hundred years old. You do have the records there though?”
“We do. I checked our archives myself and they do exist. There are about five pages relating to the property you requested.”
“Are they accessible to the public at least?”
“Yes they are. If you wanted to visit our office in Sydney, then I can show you the pages. They must be treated very carefully and kept in the correct conditions. You are welcome to view them. As I mentioned before though, you will be unable to photocopy them.”
“Is your office open tomorrow?” A plan was formulating in Charlie’s mind. If the plans couldn’t come to her, then she would go to the plans.
“Yes we are, from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon. Would you like to make an appointment?”
“Yes please. Could we say one o’clock?”
“That will be fine. Do you have our address?”
“I do, it was on the application form. I will see you tomorrow.”
“We will see you then, Miss Lane.”
They hung up. She had hoped the process to get the property plans would have been much easier. Having to drive to Sydney wasn’t in her original schedule. They were meant to just arrive one day in the mail. She returned to the kitchen.
“We have to drive to Sydney tomorrow, Blair.”
“Why’s that?” He asked. He had made each of them a cup of tea and was sitting at the table.
“The plans we ordered from the development place can’t be photocopied. They are too old to handle our modern technology, apparently. We have to go there to look at them. I made an appointment with the guy for one o‘clock. Are you up for the drive?”
“Yeah, I suppose so,” he looked at Cate. “How long does it take to get to Sydney from here?”
“It’s not far. We are surprisingly close for somewhere so remote. If you get on the highway, it will take about four hours,” Cate replied.
“Four hours is do-able,” Blair decided.
“We might have to stay the night so you don’t have to drive back in the dark,” Charlie started. She directed her next question to Cate. “Will you be alright here for the night on your own?”
“I would like to say ‘yes’. However, I might stay with my friend in town for the night. I don’t want to have a repeat of what happened here the other night. I don’t think I could go through that again.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me. It was bad enough without Blair here. If it’s just you and Rahni, who knows what will happen?”
“Exactly. If there are only two of us to pick on, then they might get cocky and do something stupid.” The thought of spending the night there alone made her shudder. At the mention of Sydney, another thought came to her. “While you’re in Sydney, you should go see a friend of mine. James and I went to University with him. He now works at the Sydney University as a lecturer.”
“Why should we go see him?” Charlie asked.
“You didn’t let me finish. He used to be really into all things paranormal. He even did a thesis on it when he was doing his Masters degree. He doesn’t just believe in ghosts but UFO’s, crop circles, and even Yowies. He might be able to give us some pointers about how to deal with them. I warn you though. James and I loved the guy but he is a bit hard to handle.”
“In what way?” Blair’s interest was piqued.
“Think Mulder from the X-Files mixed with a touch of nutty professor. He was always good for a laugh. He is apparently really popular at the University. For some reason, the students love him. I’ll give him a call tonight and ask him if it’s okay you visit.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Charlie confirmed. She was looking forward to meeting him.
The rest of the evening was, thankfully, quiet. They had some dinner before watching television. When they couldn’t stay awake any longer, each one in turn went to bed for the night.
Chapter 11
The drive from Pickerton to Sydney had been eventless. They had awoken early and were on the road by seven o’clock. They left a few hours leeway just in case they got lost. They were making the trip without a map, going only on Cate’s sketchy directions. She had tried to draw them a map but it only confused them even more. Their plan was to watch out for signs along the way and follow them.
Luckily, the highway was well signposted so they made it to Sydney only half an hour over time. They had a chance for a quick lunch of sandwiches before finding the Department of Commonwealth Development. The receptionist put a call through to Justin who arrived a few minutes later.
He was just as polite in person as he was over the telephone. Charlie considered him for a moment. He was impeccably dressed in a grey suit with a tie that had anchors patterned diagonally across it. His fair hair was slicked back against his head and his smile held perfect teeth. He obviously took a lot of care and pride in his appearance. They followed him into the archive room.
He showed them to a desk where he had already laid out the plans. The light was dimmer in this room than in all the others. He handed them each a pair of gloves and declared they must wear them at all times and to only touch the paper when it was absolutely necessary. Charlie couldn’t help but like the guy. He was just so polite, even when giving them orders. He left them at the desk and exited the room, making sure they knew where to find him if needed.
They looked at the five pages in turn. Each one was an original house plan for Sage Manor with various measurements and scale noted. One of the sheets was on a much smaller scale and showed the entire estate boundaries. The other four were all very similar, they only showed plans of the actual house and none of the surrounding grounds. Blair pulled out his notebook and started copying them down, room by room. As he did, Charlie was copying down the larger plan of the estate. From the looks of it, the Sage Manor estate was much larger in the beginning. Over the years, parts of it must have been subdivided and sold off to make other farms. She thought back to the newspaper article about the policeman that had protested against the redevelopment in the area. His campaign obviously only lasted so long before the developers triumphed in the end. It was a pity.
It was painstaking work and took them hours to make hand-written copies of the plans. Justin popped his head back into the room at one stage to remind them the office was closing shortly. They tried to quicken their pace and only just made it before closing time. They gathered their notebooks and thanked Justin as he showed them out.
They drove around the city centre in peak hour traffic, trying to find a hotel to stay in for the night. There were only a few with vacancies, nearly all the ones they passed were completely full already. Eventually they stopped at a small hotel tucked into one of the back streets. They parked underneath the building and took the lift into the main lobby.
They checked in and a room was allocated on the third floor. They found it easily enough at the end of the corridor. After they had toured the room, Charlie sat on the bed and pulled out her mobile phone. She called Professor Stuart Linley to apologise for not being able to make it to see him that afternoon. He was good natured about it and rescheduled for first thing in the morning. He didn’t have any classes until lunch time so his whole morning was free for them.
Blair and Charlie left the room to have some dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was a good, home cooked, style of dining. They ordered a salmon meal each and had a glass of wine.
It was still early in the evening when they finished eating so they decided to take a walk outside. The weather was beautiful and the all the lights of the city were twinkling around them. They walked for almost an hour before returning to the room.
For the first time in weeks, they slept with the light off. Charlie
felt so relieved to be out of the house. For some reason, the atmosphere just felt different in the hotel. It was like it was much lighter than in Sage Manor where it always felt like there was a black cloud hanging around them. She wasn’t scared about having a nightmare either. She could finally close her eyes and look forward to a good nights, uninterrupted, sleep.
The next morning when she awoke, Charlie felt refreshed. She had slept like a log the entire night. From the look on Blair’s face, he felt the same relief. They took their time showering and dressing before having a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant. They loaded up their car and headed over to the university with plenty of time to spare. Parking the car was a nightmare once they arrived. There were students and cars all over the place, bustling for every empty spot. They eventually parked a few streets over and walked the rest of the way.
At the gate, they consulted a map of the campus. Stuart Linley was in the block of offices marked ‘C’. They tried to memorise their route and headed off down the path. The campus reminded Charlie of an ant’s nest. People, both young and old, were walking around with a sense of purpose on their faces. Those that were stationary, sitting on benches or the grass, were either laughing in groups or sitting solitarily with text books. Their university campus back home was nothing like this one. They only had half the number of students. It was a bit overwhelming to try and take it in all at once.
They had to ask for directions a few times before finally standing in front of Stuart Linley’s office. Blair knocked on the door. They heard a ‘Come in’ invitation shortly afterwards. He turned the doorknob and opened the door as directed.
The room was everything Charlie had imagined it would be. Bookcases lined all four walls and a large old fashioned desk stood in the centre of the room. The desk was piled high with heavy books. An old sash window with thick glass let in rays of sunlight to make the room glow. It had a fantastic cosy feel to it, even though it was a rather large room.
At first they didn’t see the Professor. He was sitting on a leather studded couch, tucked away in the far corner. He stood as soon as he realized who they were.
“You must be Blair and Charlie,” he extended his hand for them both to shake. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. James and Catey used to tell us so many stories about you Charlie.”
“All good ones I hope,” she joked. In her mind, she remembered the description Cate had given her about Stuart. From the looks of him, he didn’t appear to be the slightest bit strange. He was tall but carried his height well. He stood perfectly straight with an air of dignity that couldn’t be denied. He wore square, black glasses that framed his face and completed his look perfectly. They complimented his strong jaw line and dark hair. He was dressed in black pants and a tweed jacket. Charlie could see why he was so popular with the students.
“Catey tells me you’ve got some problems with ghosts? I couldn’t believe it when she told me over the phone. As I recall, she was always disregarding my spouting about spirits as some kind of science fiction drivel. Something very convincing must have happened to her!” He spoke with a slightly posh accent, like it was learned rather than natural.
“We’ve been experiencing some very weird things in the house. They have been undeniably paranormal. Cate took a lot of convincing, believe me. She would come up with every other explanation under the sun. Eventually, they got to her and brought her over to our side,” Charlie said as Stuart ushered them over to the lounge to sit down.
“I suspected as much. What can I do for you today?”
“We were hoping you might have a few tips on how best to deal with them? We’re having a séance in a few days that will be carried out by an experienced psychic. If that doesn’t get rid of them, we will be at a loss.”
“What kind of a haunting is it?”
“They are moving things and we hear footsteps. I’m sure they are also playing with the telephone and electricity. Our clocks stopped for two hours the other day,” Blair explained.
“Hmmm. It sounds like there is evidence of poltergeist activity. How exciting!”
Blair and Charlie looked at each other. They were starting to understand Cate’s description now.
Stuart studied their faces. “How much do you know about spirits?”
“Not much,” they replied in unison.
“Would you like me to explain a little bit about what I know?” He waited for them to nod eagerly before continuing. “I did my thesis on the paranormal and spirits played a large part of my research. The more people I spoke to, the more interesting it got. I could hardly believe some of the stuff they were saying. It sent shivers right through me! I spoke to over a hundred people before I was satisfied I had a good understanding. What I soon learned was that they were all recounting variations on the same theme. Spirits can influence certain things, providing they have the energy. They can get their strength from us. Many people feel very tired and lethargic after an encounter. This is because the spirit has used their energy to carry out the haunting.”
“What kind of things can they influence?” Charlie asked.
“Electricity is the most common medium. They usually turn lights on and off. I had one woman tell me that she would go to bed at night with all the lights out and wake up in the early hours of the morning to find them all back on. When I refer to electricity, however, I’m not just talking about lights. They can also muck with appliances like radios, computers, and televisions. Another occurrence which isn’t as common is when the spirits use electricity to make flashes around the place. You might be standing there and all of a sudden you see a bright flash, similar to a camera taking a picture. Have you experienced anything like this?”
Blair nodded. “The lights keep going off at night. One day, they did the opposite and were all turned on in the house.”
“The next most common type of activity is more poltergeist. That is where the spirits actually move objects. It could be absolutely anything. They will also physically touch a person, whether that be a light tap or a full on shove. Some spirits of this kind like to play a game where they will hide something for a moment. We refer to that an ‘enveloping’. It’s very common for the person to think they are going mad when they knew the object was there a minute ago.”
“That happened to me! Some paint brushes went missing and they were right where I’d left them. It also happened to a spoon when I was making a cup of tea one night,” Charlie interrupted.
“How do they move things? If they don’t have a physical body, how can they touch things?” Blair asked, curious about the logistics of moving something without hands.
“By using energy. Have you ever heard of Uri Geller? He’s the guy that bends spoons with his mind. It’s the same principle. You can either move something in this world with force or energy. They don’t have the force so they have to use their energy. Some people, such as Mr Geller, believe the mind has the power to do far greater things than we realise. If we open ourselves up to the possibility that mind power is truly greater than physical power, then anything is possible. There are no boundaries to what the mind can achieve if the desire is strong enough,” Stuart spoke with excitement. His hand gestures were getting faster and more elaborate the more he spoke.
“Is it possible to interact with these spirits?” Charlie asked. “We would like to find out exactly who they are and what we can do to help them.”
“You should be able to. There are three different types of spirit people. The first one is grounded to the place. That means they have a reason for being there and until that is resolved, they can’t move on. The second type are only visiting the place. They might have already crossed over but pop back for a visit every now and then. Those are easier because they don’t have loose ends to resolve first.”
“And the third type?”
“The third type is when the spirits are just residual. That is, they are merely replaying an event over and over again in a loop. They won’t interact with you and won’t vary their cours
e. From what you have mentioned already, I don’t think these are your type of people. You most likely have the first type. Tell me, do you have many children in the house?”
“Cate’s daughter Rahni is the only one. She’s seven years old,” Charlie was confused by the question, she didn’t see how children were relevant.
“Has Rahni experienced anything herself? Has she come to you with wild stories about the house?”
Charlie was now starting to understand where Stuart was going. “She speaks to an ‘imaginary friend’ named Alice. We think Alice is really a spirit and uses Rahni to communicate with us. As crazy as that sounds.”
“It’s not crazy at all, quite the contrary. Children are much more open and connected to the spirit world than adults. They don’t question it like adults do. The spirits understand this and will usually try to get their message through the children before they try with the adults. They would never try to scare the child, that is never their intention. They just need help and have no other way to get it. I once heard a story from a woman who had a young daughter, probably similar to Rahni’s age. The child would constantly be playing games and talking about this little girl that lived in the house. They were the best of friends. The mother didn’t think much of it until she discovered a young girl died in the house only a few years earlier and they shared a name with the invisible friend.”
“Why are children easier to communicate with? What makes them different from adults?” Charlie was remembering her childhood and her experiences back then. She had thought it was merely a coincidence they ceased when she became a teenager.
“Adults use reason and rationality far too much. As we get older and stop believing in things like the tooth fairy, we close our mind to all possibilities. As adults, if something paranormal happens we tend to discount it and make up a logical reason for it to happen. Children, on the other hand, just accept it at face value. They don’t question it. If a spirit talks to them, then it’s a spirit talking to them. If a spirit talks to an adult, then it must have been their mind playing tricks on them. Adults are very creative at making excuses for that which they can’t explain.”
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