Something Strange in the Cellar

by George Chedzoy

  Chapter 7: AN INTERESTING REVELATION

  Mrs Owen shook so much she could barely hold her huge china teapot without spilling it.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ said Lou. She took the pot and poured out mugs of tea for everyone and handed round a plateful of Mrs Owen’s homemade scones. How different her back garden looked now, in broad daylight under the friendly warmth of the autumn sun.

  Glancing at the shrub they had hidden behind, Lou confessed to Mrs Owen that she and Jack had sneaked into her garden to look out for ghosts the previous night.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said. ‘We wanted to see what you were facing for ourselves and try and help you if you can.’

  ‘Then you know the ordeal I am living through and that I am telling the plain truth,’ said Mrs Owen. ‘I can’t take much more of it at my time of life. If my lovely home, which has served me well these last ninety-five years is now possessed by demons, I will have to leave. It’s as simple as that, my dears. My great nephew, Idwal, said as much and I’m sure you’ll say the same. An old woman like me is no match for such things.’

  ‘What did your great nephew say, exactly?’ asked Lou.

  ‘Idwal said that I should leave this place if it is possessed by the devil,’ said Mrs Owen. ‘He’s been so supportive over it all. Many folk in Mynytho think I’m being fanciful but Idwal agrees with me that there are troubled spirits which have attached themselves to this house. He says he has felt it too when he comes over, especially in the cellar. He has a bad feeling when he goes down there.’

  ‘It’s good that your great nephew is on your side and taking it seriously rather than pooh-poohing it,’ said David.

  ‘Exactly, my dear,’ said Mrs Owen. ‘He’s worried for me – wants me to move out, he does, and find somewhere safer to live. He doesn’t like this place any more – which is a pity, for it will be his one day and I hoped he would marry and raise a family here, so that cheerful young voices would ring out around the place as they once did. He doesn’t seem interested in settling down and having children, mind, he just hangs around with his mates. It’s a wayward, rootless existence he leads, to be sure. Still, he’s all I’ve got.’

  The others listened intently. Idwal was clearly the only family she had left and was important to her.

  ‘Does Idwal come round often? asked Lou. ‘Is he helpful in other ways? Does he check on you and make sure you’re ok and go shopping for you and such like?’

  ‘In truth, no, not as such,’ said Mrs Owen, hesitantly and with a trace of regret in her voice. ‘He’s round here often enough but doesn’t do much to look after me – I have a couple of friends in the village who help me with things and the local shopkeepers are very good, they will deliver meat and groceries to my door and I still have a milkman, thank goodness.’

  ‘So does Idwal at least keep you company and have a cup of tea and a chat with you, Mrs Owen like we are now?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Yes, if you can call it that, but, if I’m perfectly honest, he doesn’t call round here for the love of me or to check on my welfare. He uses my cellar to run a small horticultural business and store goods which he buys and sells on for a higher price – often over the computer or at car boot sales, that sort of thing.

  ‘I don’t really mind, we are a family which has long sought to make money from the land and if Idwal can scratch a living growing plants he’s doing what many generations of Owens have done before him, living right here in this farmhouse. By tradition, we’ve been mainly sheep farmers, although some of the fields were arable and bore crops of wheat and such like. It’s gone now, of course. When my husband died, some 15 years ago, it all came to an end. Idwal was only a boy then – he’s mid-twenties now – and we’ve got no land left save for the back garden.’

  ‘So he’s growing plants in the cellar?’ said Emily. ‘How unusual and enterprising – but surely plants need light don’t they, to grow properly?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, and he uses special light bulbs which are on night and day – it costs me a fortune in electricity. It’s an expense I could do without but I like to support him in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Couldn’t he raise crops in the back garden, rather than in the cellar?’ asked Emily.

  ‘The rabbits would have them, most likely – there are loads about these days and no-one to shoot them. In any case, Idwal insists that the cellar is the best place. Better him than me, I never go down there – it’s cold and damp most probably. That cellar makes me shiver to think about it. It’s the most haunted part of this house, mark my words. Idwal thinks so, too.’

  ‘Yet he’s clearly not so scared of it as you are, Mrs Owen, since he is running a small business down there,’ said Lou. ‘Look, I don’t blame you for being petrified about what’s been happening. Jack and I were too last night. It was the scariest thing we have ever known.’

  A tear trickled down Mrs Owen’s wrinkled cheeks. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes with it. She was in great distress and the children felt anxious to help if only they could, but how?

  Lou took a slurp of tea and bit deeply into her scone with the purposeful air she had when the cogs in her sharp mind were whirring round fast, seeking a solution.

  She took Mrs Owen’s hand in hers and looked at her earnestly. ‘I so badly want to help you, Mrs Owen. We all do. I’m trying to work out how, exactly.’

  ‘It’s kind of you, my dear,’ said Mrs Owen. ‘But what can you or any of us do against the restless spirits of the undead?’

  ‘Have you thought of asking a local vicar or chapel minister to come along and perform an exorcism?’ said Jack.

  David glanced at him scornfully, while Emily didn’t understand the word. However, the idea seemed to appeal to Mrs Owen.

  ‘An exorcism,’ said Lou to Emily, ‘is a ceremony carried out by a clergyman to expel evil spirits from a place. David, don’t look so dismissive about it unless you’ve got any better ideas.’

  ‘It’s all very well you sitting there in broad daylight, scoffing and pouring scorn but you would have believed in evil spirits well enough if you had been with Lou and me last night,’ said Jack to his brother, ‘or if you’d been alone in the house like Mrs Owen, for that matter.’

  ‘Those plants that your great nephew is growing in the cellar, Mrs Owen, what sort are they?’ asked Lou.

  The others looked at her in surprise. It seemed an odd question.

  Mrs Owen looked nonplussed. She hesitated for a moment. ‘Do you know, I have no real idea,’ she said. ‘They are leafy, frondy things, ferns which he sells to garden centres and nurseries. They would sit well on a patio or a windowsill, or a shaded part of the garden.’

  ‘Do you have any yourself dotted about,’ asked Lou, looking around.

  ‘No, everything he grows, he sells on. You can’t blame him, really. Are you interested in horticulture, my dear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lou. ‘I was wondering, Mrs Owen, whether I could go down the cellar to try and gain an insight into the ghostly activity you have been suffering.’

  ‘Oh you can’t do that,’ said Mrs Owen, looking alarmed. ‘There’s a sort of trapdoor above the steps to the cellar but it’s always kept locked and only Idwal has a key. Well, in truth, he thinks he has the only key but I do in fact have a spare. I never go down there though,’ she added, looking grave. ‘I told you, it’s damp, dark and cold and to be sure, it’s the most haunted part of the house. Why, only last night, I could hear a strange groaning, wailing noise that sounded like it came from the cellar. I wouldn’t want you to go down there.’

  ‘Mrs Owen, we are trying to help you,’ said Lou, patiently. ‘Truly, we are. I’m not saying we will succeed but we can try. Now if you believe that the ghostly activity is concentrated on the cellar, that is the place we should check. You’ve said yourself it is only at night that you are troubled by paranormal activity. We should be ok to take a look now, surely?’

  ‘Hmm, I’m not sure Idwal w
ould like it,’ said Mrs Owen. ‘He’s very protective over his property. Please make sure you don’t touch any of his things. Like I say, he doesn’t know that I have a key to the cellar any more.’

  Emily looked frightened at the prospect of entering the cellar. ‘Perhaps it would be a good idea if David and I kept Mrs Owen company?’ she said.

  ‘No, I’d like to go too,’ said David, determined not to be left out of any more ghost hunting.

  A strong gust of wind blew through the garden, sending a pile of fallen leaves scurrying round and round in a whirlwind on the patio. Then the sun had disappeared behind a stray cloud and again the place looked forlorn and unkempt.

  David shivered as he looked above the dry stone wall at the moorland rising beyond it. Suddenly the prospect of ghosts leaping about the place and wailing and groaning no longer seemed so improbable. He was glad he hadn’t been with Jack and Lou the previous night after all, even if it had made him feel a touch jealous.

  ‘I’ll help you clear everything away, Mrs Owen,’ said Emily, while the others explore the cellar.

  The children followed her through the back door into the kitchen. They all felt, Lou included, somewhat ill at ease entering a building suspected of being haunted. It was an old farmhouse, brimming with memories happy and sad and possibly a few secrets besides. Certainly, it owed little to the 21st century. It was steeped to its foundations in a bygone era of horse-drawn ploughs and a hard life lived off the land. It was undoubtedly the sort of place which could harbour a ghost or two.

  Pewter tankards hung in a row of hooks along a sturdy oak beam across the low ceiling. Mrs Owen reached and pulled one down. ‘This is the key to the trapdoor leading to the cellar,’ she said, fishing it out of the tankard.

  She pointed to a rectangle of dark wood set in the stone floor with a small inset metal handle and a keyhole. ‘Here, take the key, turn the lock and pull the trapdoor up by the handle. It will swing back on its hinges. You’ll see steps leading downwards. Go through an arch and along a small passageway and you’re into the cellar. There’s a light switch on the right-hand side but most likely Idwal will have lights left on anyway for his plants.’

  Lou crouched and turned the heavy iron key in the mortice lock until the bolt slid back. The trapdoor pulled up with a groan and there, as Mrs Owen had said, were steps leading below. She, Jack and David descended in single file, leaving Mrs Owen and Emily up above.

  ‘You go and put your feet up in the lounge while I make you another cuppa, Mrs Owen,’ said Emily, aware that the old lady needed cheering up. She had still not got over her shock at the night’s events and wasn’t looking forward to the sun setting again in a few hours’ time.