I drop the rings back in the shoebox, shuddering in revulsion. I think back to the first time I ever saw Holly, naked in the window of this very room. I distinctly remember seeing that snake tattoo on her hip. And now I have discovered she and her husband had matching snake rings? Because surely they have to belong to her and Jasper…
Are these two things – the rings and her tattoo – connected? I mean, they have to be, don’t they? What is the significance of snakes, wretched creatures that they are?
I turn my attention back to the photos at the bottom of the shoebox, scooping them up. I turn them around to look at them, not realising that I have been holding my breath until I shakily exhale.
The top photo is of someone who can only be the man himself. It can only be Jasper. The photo cuts him off at the waist and he is smiling into the camera, squinting in the sunlight, wearing a black shirt. His elbows are resting on top of the stonewall behind him. It comes up to the middle of his back, his hands dangling casually down. Behind the wall is an ocean that is far too blue to be Broadgate.
He looks like Bill, I think dazedly. Or an older version, thereof, and with shorter, darker hair, greying at the temples. He has the same, wideset, dark eyes, full, wide mouth and aggressively masculine bone structure. I can’t stop looking at his face. He looks to be in his mid-fifties in this picture, but his relatively advanced years – or advanced to me, that is – in no way diminishes how devastatingly attractive he is. Perhaps even more so than Bill.
There is a hardness to his face that Bill lacks, a certain arrogance and predatory look that is incredibly sexy. He exudes charisma and intelligence. I wouldn’t say that he especially looks like any of the actors who have played James Bond, but for some reason this photo makes me think of this character. There is a steeliness to him, an outward refinement that might hide a tough, ruthless nature. The type of man who could move effortlessly in the upper echelons of society, who would know what to say and how to act in the most refined circles, yet, in the same breath, possessing an air of brutality about him.
I tuck the photo behind the two I have yet to see, staring wide-eyed at the next one.
This one is of Jasper and Holly on what has to be their wedding day. It is a full-length photo, taken a good distance away from the couple. They look happy. Positively radiant, in fact, and very much in love. There is no one else in the picture with them, and it is taken outside, against a backdrop of a beautifully manicured garden, which gives way to trees beyond them. I wonder if it was taken in a public park somewhere, given the sheer size of the woods in the background, but I don’t think so. The garden is just too exquisite to be a public space.
Holly is wearing a white wedding dress with a knee-length, tulip shaped skirt. Her hair is a lot lighter at the roots and piled on top of her head in a smooth updo. She looks otherworldly in her beauty, like she belongs to a different era. Her classically beautiful face and her vintage clothes and hair puts me in mind of a young Brigitte Bardot.
Jasper, although clearly twenty-plus years older than her in the photo, looks right next to her. They are both tall and perfectly formed, and he is so handsome in his tux. They put me in mind of a meticulously painted couple on a vintage book cover, or perhaps a movie poster from yesteryear. His dark – albeit greying – good looks are the perfect contrast to her blonde beauty.
I study them, the way they are gazing into each other’s eyes, laughing, Jasper’s hand on her tiny waist. They are as glamorous a couple as I’ve ever seen.
She looks better next to him than she does to Mark, comes the unbidden thought.
I move onto the third and final photo… and let out a gasp that is nearer a scream.
“Oh my God,” I mutter, the room momentarily tilting around me, everything taking on a grainy, black and white quality before clearing again.
Because I am looking at a photo of Holly, Jasper, and Bill.
I feel like someone has pulled the rug out from beneath my feet and I am falling into the pits of Hell itself.
Bill said that be barely knew Holly. He said that he didn’t like her.
This photo suggests quite the contrary. This photo would suggest that he liked her very much indeed. It would also suggest that he very much liked his father, too.
My heart is pounding as I take in the details. The three of them are standing against the same, torso-height stonewall from the first photo, and Jasper is wearing the same, black shirt. I very much think that this photo was taken at the exact same time as the first one, as the light and the length of the shadows are identical. Jasper is in the middle, Bill on one side, and Holly on the other. All three of them are laughing, and the photographer of this photo had been standing further back so that their feet are in the frame.
I let out a little whimper on seeing Bill and his dad side by side like this. Bill’s hair is longer and lighter than his dad’s and tied back in his customary ponytail, but he mostly looks like a younger, scruffier, less severe version of the man next to him. Both men are in jeans, and Bill’s shirt is white to Jasper’s black.
An angel and a demon, standing together, I think, quite randomly.
Holly looks ravishing in a pink, gingham top and white capri pants. Her hair is very blonde in this picture, just as it was in the wedding photo. This time it has a centre part and falls past her ample cleavage in the square neckline of the top, shining in the sunlight.
I can’t stop staring at the picture. Why would Bill say that he hated his father and his father’s wife, when they look so happy here?
Pictures can lie, I remind myself. Maybe he did hate them. Maybe he’s telling the truth – maybe, when this photo was taken, it was the only time he saw his father with Holly.
But if this were the case, then why would Holly keep this photo? Maybe my first hunch was right. Maybe she is in love with Bill, and this is the only picture she has of her and Bill together. Okay, so there’s the small matter of her husband quite literally, coming between them, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? If this is the only photo she has of her and Bill together, then it would just have to do…
My eyes burn hot, my vision blurring. Hastily, I blink. I will not cry. Not now. I haven’t yet finished what I came here to do.
I put everything back in the shoebox, my gaze falling on those strange, snake rings for a second time. I change my mind, once again picking up the photos to look at the first photo of Jasper, where he is that much closer to the camera.
Sure enough, I see the snake ring glinting in the sunlight on the middle finger of his left hand. Another shiver runs through me as the image of Holly’s snake tattoo blares in my mind. What is the significance of this snake stuff? What does it mean? I really dislike the idea of it eating its own tail, of it consuming itself. It’s just plain creepy, there is no other word I can think to describe it.
I want to go. I want to leave the house, but I’m not done yet.
A flash of lightening beyond the window makes me spin around on the spot in the middle of the room. It is now lashing it down out there, the sky the colour of a bruise. Thunder rumbles a few seconds later and I shiver. The temperature has dropped too. Or maybe it is just my own guilt, manifesting itself as a damp shroud, clinging coldly to me.
I go over to the dark wood wardrobe, pulling open one side of the double doors. Last time that I looked in her a few months ago it was empty, save for a few items of Mark’s clothes, both hanging and neatly folded in the side row of shelves. Now they are gone, replaced by two books on the top shelf.
I frown. Mark never kept books in here, they have to be Holly’s. I scoop them up, carrying them over to the bed.
“What the hell are these?” I mutter, my skin inexplicably crawling just from touching the damn things.
They are hardbacked, leatherbound, and fat. Their surface area is larger in circumference than an average paperback, but not quite as big as a standard coffee-table tome.
Also, their titles are foreign, the language of which momentarily eluding me
. One of them – the slightly larger of the two which is bound in the darkest brown leather – is called Grimoire, the black letters almost invisible against the dark background. The word is familiar, but still I can’t place it. I’m sure, however, that it something to do with the occult, and my heart gives a painful little lurch in my chest when I think about how her father was a Satanist.
Does this mean that Holly also dabbles in the black arts? My God, what the hell have I stumbled upon here?
The second book, bound in tan leather, is smaller all round. Its title is longer, the letters embossed and gold. The title reads, Magica Mori. Underneath this is more writing, much smaller, which says, Mortuorum Augurs. Secretos Necromantiae Ars.
Neither book has an author name on the cover.
That’s because they’re not works of fiction, I think shakily. They’re some kind of religious texts for Satanism, or something – the equivalent to the Bible.
Only then does it occur to me that the language is probably Latin, which I am clueless about.
I flick through the one called Grimoire, noticing how the paper is parchment thin. I can’t make head nor tail of a single word, but the layout is certainly similar to the bible, with thousands of numbered passages. I flick back to the start, trying to make sense of the table of contents. Again, it is just gibberish.
I turn my attention back to the other book, the one with the longer title, and flick through the pages. As I do so, I notice a tassel bookmark, about halfway through. I go to it, staring at the incomprehensible text it is bookmarking. If it even is, I think, for plenty of people store bookmarks in random pages of books, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it pertains to a certain page.
The text layout of this book differs slightly from the other. Whereas the Grimoire is comprised of solid blocks of text as opposed to the more standard, indented paragraphs, this Magica Mori seems to be mostly laid out in the form of verse, as in, each short line starts with a capital letter and mostly ends with a comma.
The tassel bookmark nestles between two such pages of what looks like verse. I peer either side of this bookmarked spot, and the page before it only has a few words written on it. And these words are:
Reuscitare mortuos.
Tria Carmina.
13 Frucissiere. Et daemonium sub Duke Syrach.
Gulund, et daemonium ab sub Duke Syrach. Ut dicitur sabbatorum.
Needless to say, it means less-than-nothing to me.
Another loud clap of thunder makes me jump and I flinch on the bed. I look around the bedroom, my skin crawling like I am being watched. There is no one here, but the worst feeling curdles in my gut. Beyond the glass, the storm rages, the wind now howling around the house like an angry beast.
I want to go, and I want to go now.
A noise on the other side of the bedroom door makes me jump near clean out of my skin, and my hand flies up to my mouth to stifle the rising scream. It sounded like floorboards creaking. Heart hammering, I jump to my feet and move towards the door where I press my body against the wall and attempt to peer around the doorframe as discretely as possible. It is ludicrous, I know it is, because if there were someone in the hallway, then they would see me, clear as day.
But there isn’t anyone in the hallway.
Of course there isn’t, I tell myself sternly.
It’s just the wind and the rain, playing tricks with me.
As if on cue, another loud roll of thunder immediately follows a flash of lightening and I cringe, shakily exhaling. I’m starting to jump at my own shadow – I need to get a grip.
I move back over towards the bed, with the intention of putting the books back where I had found them and get the hell out of dodge. I’ve gone and spooked myself – I’ve lost my nerve. I can’t understand a single word in these books, and I’ve found all I’m going to find in this room. It is time to go.
Then I remember my phone in the back pocket of my jeans. Of course. I can photograph the books. And then I can take photos of the bookmarked text, and then the table of contents.
Great idea.
With shaking hands I pull out my phone, locating the camera. I am shaking so much, in fact, I’m worried that the pictures will turn out a blur. I force myself to breathe slowly, to calm down. I lay the books next to each other on the bed, photographing their covers in turn.
That done, I open the smaller book to the bookmarked place, flip backwards once, then take a picture of the page with just the few lines of writing on it. I turn the page, discard the bookmark and photograph the first page of text that looks like it is in verse, but the camera jerks in my hand in fright.
This time, there is no mistaking the sound of the floorboards creaking out in the hallway. My head swivels in the direction of the bedroom door, my heart slamming so hard against my sternum, I fear that I may drop dead of a heart attack there and then.
I can’t see anyone. Or anything. But then, I can’t see the hallway in its entirety from where I stand by the bed.
There’s no one there. Just stop it.
My skin is crawling, and I’m shaking so violently it takes a few attempts to complete the simple task of shoving the phone back into the pocket of my jeans. I shut the opened book and bundle the two tomes together, hurrying over to the wardrobe where I shove them back in where I found them.
I am beyond spooked. I am terrified out of my wits.
I make way back over towards the bedroom door, peering around it like the criminal that I am.
The hallway is empty.
I cast a final glance behind myself to make sure that the room is exactly as I found it. It isn’t – the throws on the bed are crinkled and some cushions look squashed, so I quickly smooth away the damage before I creep into the hallway.
There is no one in the house, I tell myself. You’re hearing things.
But I don’t hang around to find out. I don’t pass anyone – or pass Holly, more to the point – on my swift exit.
I hurry towards the front door, vowing to myself never to go snooping again.
THIRTY-SIX
I calm down after a little while when I get back home. At the time, I had been so sure that I wasn’t alone in the house, but I now I know that I was jumping at shadows. Spooking myself like a little kid, lying in her bed at night and seeing ghosts.
Now I’m mainly cross with myself for not photographing more of the books.
I am so stupid to let myself get scared like that. It was only the creaks and groans of an old house in a thunderstorm, it’s just crazy to me now that I would react in such a hysterical way.
And my photos are crap. The last one especially, is blurry. I think I can see most of it, though.
I am feeling much better, sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee, laptop balanced on a cushion next to me, my phone open on the photos, ready to type in the words into Google Translate.
I start off with the name of the books, as it would be nice to know what it is that I’m dealing with, here. Grimoire – that incredibly familiar word – is the first I type in. It comes up as spellbook.
Of course. I am bowled over by the obviousness of this, I knew it was that, on a subconscious level. So, does Holly being in possession of a spellbook make her a Satanist? I concede, that is quite the leap. She could just be doing research for a Sam West book, but somehow, I don’t believe that.
Next, I type in the title of the second book, Magica Mori. Mortuorum Augurs. Secretos Necromantiae Ars. This comes up as, Death magic. Diviners of the dead. The art of necromancy.
“Jesus,” I gasp to Bertie, who thumps his stringlike tail on the floorboards at my feet.
This is undeniably getting more and more damning, as far as Holly being a bone fide Satanist goes. Why in God’s name would Holly have a book about raising the dead? My knowledge on necromancy is somewhat scant, to say the least, but I’m sure that’s the gist of it.
My fingers are trembling again when I type in the few words that were written on the page heralding the start of the p
oem that I didn’t get to photograph in its entirety. This comes up as, Resuscitate the dead. An incantation. Frucissiere 13th demon under Duke Syrach. Guland, also under Duke Syrach. Called on Saturday.
I stare at the screen, my mouth sucked dry of all moisture, my head swimming. I rub my pounding heart through my chest.
What is this? A how to guide on summoning demons? Bringing the dead back to life? I hesitate for a second, torn between googling the meaning of the above, or launching straight into translating the page of verse I managed to photograph, albeit with some words rendered incomprehensible, due to my shaking hands.
I open another window for Google Translate, deciding that it is best to have all the facts in front of me before I start trying to make sense of it all.
I begin to type in the Latin text, keeping the punctuation as it is written, not reading what comes up until it is there in its entirety:
Hold us in the power of the dark,
Command the light to extinguish,
The cries come from beyond the gates
Do as thou will,
The entirety of the law,
Call furth those from the darkness to do our bidding.
Live on in flesh anew,
Carried forth in the mortal vessel.
Cast out the soul,
To the fiery pits.
Now your soul carried,
Reborn, in your abomination.
Accept our offering of flesh and blood,
The mutilation and the consumption,
The knowledge of darkness consume me…
“What the..?”
I sit there stunned, reading it over and over, trying to get my head around it. It’s utterly bloody terrifying. I mean, we’re onto human sacrifice now, with the whole, accept our offering of flesh and blood?
I simply can’t believe what I’m reading. What is this about calling forth from the darkness to do our bidding? And casting out souls, and living on in the flesh anew?
Two Doors Down: A twisted psychological thriller Page 19