by Nick Brown
“Rubbish, that’s what comes of chiselling little spivs like him moving out here and expecting life to be just the same. I’ll come with you to the Rectory and we can get this ridiculous business dealt with at one go.”
He called a brief goodbye to Debo and the three of them followed the path to the Rectory gate. Ed was far less agitated at seeing them than he would have been the previous week. He ushered them into the kitchen where Mary, who was baking cakes for the church Christmas Fayre, made a pot of tea. The homely smells of the Rectory kitchen, combined with the impeccable solidity of Davenport and the earnest features of the vicar, made the police officers visibly uncomfortable. However, after a couple of false starts the older of the two began.
“Well, it seems that Mr Carver believes that the two of you are hiring vagrants or perhaps local youths to try and frighten him away.”
“And how precisely have we been doing that, Officer, and why would we want to frighten him away?”
“Well, Reverend, he says that there’s some type of, er, ragged figure as watches the house from the trees and, er, sort of well, he sort of you know, er, moves about a bit like.”
“Sort of moves about a bit?”
“Well it’s because of like how he, you know, moves about and that, as is why Mr Carver is bothered. He thinks it must be more than one person. Then there’s the noises in the house and two of the domestics, young girls from somewhere in Eastern Europe, have seen things that shouldn’t be there.”
“Shouldn’t be there?”
“Yes, like they go into an empty room and it’s as if someone’s just been there. You know the feeling, like there’s someone in there when there isn’t. Look I know it sounds bloody daft but it’s frightened them enough to persuade them to give up their jobs. I’ve spoken to them, Sir Nigel, they are genuinely scared, believe me.”
“Would you want to work for Carver?”
“Course not but…”
“And we’re meant to be responsible for this are we? How precisely do we manage to arrange it?”
“Then there’s them birds, Sir, they’re round the house all day and at night they tap on the windows and make that bloody croaking noise, see you can still just hear them in here.”
“And we’re supposed to have trained the birds too, have we? Well you’d better arrest us and throw away the key.”
“Yes, rather like Elijah and the ravens but in reverse. I suppose that as the cleric that one would be down to me,”
Ed chipped in; the police tried not to laugh.
“I know how it sounds, gentlemen, and we wouldn’t have followed it up unless we’d been instructed, like.”
“Well it’s nonsense isn’t it? Now you’ve seen us and we’ve discussed it, if you’re not going to arrest us then you can consider you’ve done your duty, unless you would like some more of Mrs Joyce’s tea and cake.”
“No I think we’ve taken enough of your time, gentlemen.”
And with mutual thanks to Mary they left the Rectory, shown out by Ed. When he returned to the kitchen both men burst out laughing.
“There is something frightening going on over there though. Whatever’s happening here is obviously affecting him and they’re right about those birds. I’d hate to have even one of them near me. I’ve been afraid of them ever since I was a little boy, the thought of one of those black wings touching me still makes me shiver.”
Davenport had no such sensitivities.
“Well he can expect no sympathy from me. The fool, thinking we’d waste time playing tricks on that little fraudster.”
Davenport got his coat, said goodbye, and left the house thinking how glad he was he no longer had responsibility for the Hall and its legacy. At the Rectory gate he caught up with the police officers, who were watching the dense cloud of huge black corvids circling the roof of Skendleby Hall.
***
Derek Richardson had sat since early morning in the large chandelier-festooned entertaining room of the new detached home which sat swollen and opulent in a row of similar houses in this most desirable of locations. Now even more to be desired as it was also the exclusive estate chosen by a number of footballers whose gated mansions shone with bling and glitter each evening. These latest arrivals had bestowed the highest accolade the estate could have wished for: celebrity. To live here you had to be a winner. None of this, which normally gave Derek a tingle of pleasure, now seemed to matter. He’d sat in the chair despondently since before dawn and now it was dark, had long been dark and he knew what he had to do; it seemed so clear just like she’d told him it would be. He glanced at the note on his knee that he’d written in the early hours of the morning.
‘Carver, they’ve called me in, it’s over, almost a relief, we’ve brought this down on ourselves. What have we done? I don’t think you’ve got long. I hope it’ll be worse for you. You deserve it.
See you in Hell,
Richardson’
He pushed it into the addressed envelope with the festive Christmas stamp then got up and walked through the state-of-the-art exclusive kitchen, gleaming with granite, steel and minimalism, into the utility room. He ignored, and was ignored by, his wife, who was sitting drinking gin on a raised bar stool at the island in the middle of the marble floor, staring at a huge wall mounted flat screen TV, its volume turned down. He picked up a torch from the shelf and unlocked the door that led to the integral garage big enough to house a large family of cars. From a hook on the wall he took a coil of rope then, without bothering to either turn off lights or close doors, he retraced his steps. As he was leaving the kitchen something, perhaps the ghost of some lost emotion, impelled him to make some final contact,
“I’m going out, don’t bother to wait up.”
There was no answer just the clink of the neck of a gin bottle against the rim of a glass.
The Jag was on the drive, front door open, and after throwing the rope and torch onto the passenger seat he climbed in and started the ignition. The sleek purr of the engine starting almost touched him, he had always loved these cars but the moment passed.
He left the estate and drove towards the village, past the primary school he’d attended when he’d not been rich or important, past the lane of cottages where he’d been born, past the bus stop where he’d waited each day to travel as a poor, scholarship boy, the pride of his family, to the grammar school in Macclesfield. Then the journey was over, he turned into the lane at the side of the estate leading to the archaeological dig where he would leave the car, perhaps the closest thing to a friend he had. He took the flashlight and rope and walked into the woods until he could see Devil’s Mound and beyond it there was the tree, just like she’d said. He threw the coiled end of the rope over the thick low hanging bough and tied it on; for a moment he thought of the cottage he’d driven past and then he thought of his mother but it was too late.
The gnarled black raven paused from pecking at the skylight window on the Hall’s roof to watch for a moment. It heard the quiet noise stop, saw a man walk rapidly from the source of the noise leaving it open and blazing with light. Saw the man walk among the trees until he saw one he liked, saw him climb then swing, jerking at first, then still. It sensed the feast he and his brothers were offered but couldn’t take. So with a croak of anger and malice it returned to its pecking of the glass with renewed vigour
CHAPTER 30
A CURTAIN ON THE DARK
Safe inside; the dining room of St George’s Rectory was cosy and softly lit. Ed wondered if the room had ever hosted such a curious gathering. For the meal he’d heated up large quantities of the bouef bourguignon Mary had prepared earlier in the week and then frozen. Usually, when she went to visit her mother in Wales at this time of the year, Ed felt bereft, but this time he was glad. She would be safe in the valleys and by the time she returned on the 23rd, mother in tow to spend Christmas with them, this business should be finished.
Despite the macabre reasons for the gathering Ed enjoyed the meal, the company and
the sense of being part of the gang for the first time in his life. This was enhanced by the half case of St Emilion that the heavy drinking Marcus had brought, the last of which they were now finishing. They were now seven, a number he always associated with cowboys or samurai, the seventh being a gaunt man with close-cropped white hair whose age Ed felt it hard to judge. He was quite transformed from the long dark haired archaeologist who mocked him on the site when he’d offered the blessing.
Well, he was in no state to mock anyone now with his sagging skin, lined face and torn apart ear: ironic he thought that this was the man who most needed his ritual expertise. Marcus had told them that it must be Steve and Ed responsible for the ritual closing and sealing of the tomb. They had to reverse all the harm they’d caused and shut the door finally on all that was meant to stay buried. But he wasn’t sure if Steve was capable of this, he looked too damaged and broken. However, the thought there was someone weaker cheered him up.
The prelude to the meal had been less convivial. Ed made a pastoral visit to Councillor Richardson’s wife but the house was dark and empty. The police were treating the matter as suspicious and it was unlikely that Richardson’s body would be released until the New Year. The shadow of Derek Richardson hung over them as they sat in the Rectory lounge for a drink before the meal. A shadow that darkened as Giles recounted the association of the site with suicides since written records had begun with the medieval suicide of John de Balnea.
Despite the range of philosophies in the room they’d all felt enough of the site to understand it was the malign nature of the land itself that led those sensitive or unstable enough, to take their own lives. They’d arranged to eat together to plan for the next day when they would split into two groups. Claire, Gwen and Marcus would drive up into the Dark Peak to the secure sanatorium where Lisa was incarcerated. Giles, Steve and Ed would later that day re-seal the tomb and the ritual pit having first stolen the bones from the Unit’s lab. Davenport would accompany them on the site, not to perform any particular role, but because it was his legacy. He would watch. This they would do once Marcus had phoned them from the sanatorium to tell them that the time was right. It would be tomorrow because tomorrow was the day the dark was fully risen: the winter solstice.
***
Next day a small car twisted and turned through the narrow lanes that traverse the Dark Peak. The abrasive, grit stone walling on either side restricted the view but at any break in the walls the bleak moors could be seen stretching morosely away to the horizon. The day started dark grey and cold and as the car climbed the grey deepened and the cold intensified. The slate sky was heavy with snow as they turned down the narrow drive leading to the sanatorium. The wind rose and the first snowflakes were whipped horizontally across the windscreen.
High Edge sanatorium had been built by a nineteenth century mill owner turned philanthropist to house the tubercular children of the indigent poor. The idea being that the fresh hill air would revive them after the damage done to their lungs by the smoke and soot of industrial towns. Claire found herself wondering as she ran from the car to the door, lashed by the stinging snow, that maybe it had been a move better designed to reduce the surplus population, so bleak and desolate was the place. There were two doors, alarmed and electrically controlled, that visitors had to pass to gain entrance to the sanatorium. They’d been in too much of a hurry to get out of the weather to spend any time looking up at the windows set deep in the damp and blackened millstone grit walls, but had they done so they would have noticed that they had been made equally secure with iron gratings. The sanatorium no longer housed dying and malnourished children from the mill towns, unless perhaps their ghosts. It now had a small number of violently disturbed patients kept in a state of high security. The architecture of the building seemed to match its bleak and rugged surroundings; there was no sense of healing here.
Inside it was warm but utilitarian; none of them had ever been in a prison, but the building had as much prison about it as it had hospital. To their surprise, rather than a scarred and brutal looking attendant, they were greeted by a genial red haired young woman in a black business suit.
“Hello, I’m Helen Moores, I’ve already had your clearance, but I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in there. She has no rational connection with reality and won’t understand anything you tell her about her father’s death and as for the religious service you intend to conduct, I’m afraid it will be a complete waste of time.”
She led them down a long internal corridor to a sparsely furnished and rarely visited visitor’s room. Somewhere down the corridor someone was howling.
“I can arrange a cup of tea whilst they prepare her for the visit.”
No one wanted a drink. They wanted to get this done as quickly as possible. The room was very warm, a large old iron radiator against the far wall throwing out prodigious heat. Claire noticed Marcus was sweating and Gwen was talking quietly to calm him down. After what seemed an age Helen Moores returned and led them down a long funereal corridor, where the howling was louder, to a heavy door at its end. The door had a hatch with a grille like a police cell. A doctor in white medical fatigues awaited them at the door. He had a shiny scrubbed red face and was wearing small steel rimmed glasses; like Helen he also smiled and shook hands.
“This is Dr Simon Masters; he’s just checked the patient and he’ll wait outside the door.”
“Hi, you need to prepare yourself for a shock in there. The mind is a powerful thing and there are levels of disturbance that manifest themselves in a physical way. We can’t quite understand the scientific reasons but, in a sense, normal rules don’t apply here. Still, she’s sedated and secured so you won’t be in any physical danger. There’s a bell push by the door and another by the bed, when you want to come out ring and I’ll open up immediately. Believe me I don’t think you’ll enjoy it much.”
He continued to smile as he made this speech but only with his mouth, his eyes remained curiously neutral. He unlocked the door and ushered them into the room. Claire was wondering why a doctor would want to work in a place like this when the door shut behind her with the sound of the electronic locking system engaging.
The room was large and bare. Small, barred windows high up in the thick walls, a huge iron radiator by the door with two wooden chairs either side. Over by the far wall a bed, nothing else, no table, no vase, no pictures. The cold in here was intense; Claire felt the radiator and quickly moved her hand. It was burning to the touch. Suddenly the room was hot. She shouldn’t be here, she couldn’t do this.
The figure in the bed turned its head slowly towards them and smiled. It was like the smile of a ghastly deranged circus clown; the lips fatly spread and the corners of the mouth turned up towards each ear. The type of smile no normal mouth could manage. The eyes weren’t smiling though; they were tiny, old and hate filled, set in the cold white pallor of the recently dead. Marcus slumped into one of the chairs. Horror undiluted.
“O God, it’s worse than I imagined, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can cope with this, we shouldn’t be here, I was wrong; we have to go.”
He was sweating heavily and his legs were shaking.
“It’s like before, Gwen, help me out. Claire, this is a mistake, it’s too powerful, too evil, there’s nothing you can do.”
He was breathing with difficulty. Alarmed, Gwen pushed the bell and helped him up, she heard Masters’ chuckle through the intercom.
“I said you wouldn’t last long, hang on I’ll open up.”
The door opened and Gwen managed to push Marcus through when almost immediately it swung closed with a metallic crash leaving Claire on the wrong side locked in the room. She screamed with shock then tried to turn the handle shouting to Masters to let her out. But her voice couldn’t cut through the thick security door and there was no reply.
Then the truth hit her: oh God, she’d been lured here: this hadn’t been their plan, it was the entity’s. It wasn’t Lisa it wanted, it wa
s her, it needed her. In panic she pulled and scrabbled at the handle until her nails were broken and bleeding but the door wouldn’t shift. So, out of breath and on the edge of hysteria she stood with her face pressed against the grille in the door praying for it to unlock, unwilling to look over her shoulder at the ghastly thing, now gibbering, on the bed behind her. There was a scraping sound next to her.
She watched in horror as one of the chairs left its place by the radiator and, at first slowly, then gathering pace, slid across the room to the bedside coming to rest by the nightmarish head of its occupant. And then a sibilant voice bloodless and inhuman issued out of the unmoving lips of the thing lying there.
“I’ve been waiting for you little pretty one, beyond the universe and all through the ages; much longer than you could ever imagine, far outside time.”
She struggled desperately to cling to the grille of the door but, against her every instinct, felt herself begin the walk across the room to the bed. The wall by the door had become suffocatingly hot, but with each step the temperature fell. By the bed it was so cold she could see her breath streaming out before her. This side of the room was deep cold, permafrost cold, the walls flecked with frozen damp. Against her will she found herself sitting down on the chair next to the terrible thing in some awful travesty of a hospital visit.
Claire knew the thing in the bed wasn’t the girl photographer. There seemed so little of the skeletal figure beneath the heavy bedclothes for it to be a grown woman. But the head with its face turned towards her was large, disproportionately so, and everything bad in the room emanated from within it. Its eyes were now blank voids but she knew that something deep inside it watched her with malicious hunger. The thing spoke again and up close the sound was even worse grating in her head.
“It’s started already; the first one’s gone now, hanging from the tree, swinging in the wind for the crows to peck at, it can watch for us from there, poor deluded fool, doomed to dance among the branches forever.”