The Angry Ghost and Other Stories

by Peter Spokes

  Mary shook her head, “Not invention; we existed.”

  “You keep talking in the past tense…”

  Mary paused for a moment.

  “Luther, I am trying to heal my forest and return to my beloved… which is difficult for me… as I’m dead.”

  Scene 11: I’m Dead…

  The smile playing on Luther’s lips faded; not from her words which were clearly ludicrous but because he had just noticed that though the cats were now walking behind Mary, he never lost sight of them; he continued to see each one as they passed behind her.

  Luther felt his legs become weak and so he hurriedly sat down trying to make it seem that it was his intention to do so anyway.

  Luther remembered Father Bremmer suggesting that perhaps he had been overdoing it and now he very much concurred.

  “You need to free me, Luther,” Mary continued.

  Luther remembered the angry man in the graveyard: You will not free her – I will not let you!

  Luther was silent as he tried to find logic in his current circumstance.

  Mary mistook his silence. “I have not meant to manipulate you if that is what you are thinking? You wanted this all along. I just nudged you along your path.”

  “How do you know what my path is?”

  “The path runs through the generations.”

  Luther continued to look down and then realised what she had just said – and looked up again quickly.

  “We’re related?”

  “Of course, that is why you can help me.” She looked down. “There is another’s help I need too but he doesn’t believe in me though our veins carry the same blood.”

  Luther was still digesting this and the other that disbelieves, when Mary continued.

  “I am held in subjugation in the graveyard but recently the church’s power to hold me has waned and I have been able to project this image to you as I did when you saw me in your class, but my bones and spirit are still enslaved in the churchyard.”

  Luther was still trying desperately to find some rationale to the moment but failed.

  Mary continued, “I needed you here; I thought if you were to ‘own’ the woods, the task to release me would be easier.”

  “I knew your books would be successful; as I knew you would fall in love with the woods as our line has done for generations; and now I’ve heard of the issue with the oak tree, I know my belief in you is not misplaced.”

  “Heard from whom?”

  “All living things talk. It’s just that most people don’t know how – or don’t have the time – to listen,” she said looking down.

  In answer to Luther’s puzzlement she continued, “Luther… this is not my body; that died over two and a half centuries ago.” She looked over at a gnarled oak tree with spreading upper limbs. “I was hung from just there.”

  Luther followed her gaze and stared aghast as for several moments the woods became even darker and he saw a corpse hanging from a bough. A tall, emaciated man with a beard and a white collar was spouting accusatory diatribe when suddenly he was engulfed in a raging conflagration of fire.

  Then it all melted away.

  Luther felt a moment’s unquenchable anger at those whose self-justifying reasonings felt the life of a beautiful young woman should be extinguished so barbarically.

  “Wait a minute,” Luther said shaking his head. He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked up; she still sat there.

  “I’m sorry but there is much you need to understand – and more importantly – believe,” Mary said quietly. “Have you met Father Bremmer?”

  “I have,” Luther answered.

  “I need him… we need him.”

  Luther waited for more but it didn’t come.

  “Why?”

  “He is to you what my sisters were to me.”

  “Meaning…?”

  “… I cannot tell you… as you would not believe me, but I have little doubt that with the task before you… you will discover it yourself.”

  “Task? … Discover what?”

  After a pause Mary looked up. “Luther; you are a witch.”

  “O… kay, that’s helpful,” Luther said slowly wondering how far down the rabbit hole he was being led; and once again feeling that he was losing his grip on the rationale he was trying so hard to hold on to.

  Luther rose to his feet. “I’m sorry, Mary… this is in my mind… none of this can be real… I’m going now.” And without a backward glance he walked in the direction of where he figured his house should be.

  As the light from the lamp left the clearing, three pairs of emerald eyes shone from the darkness.

  “He will help us,” Mary whispered. “He just needs some time to believe in us and discover the flame.”

  The cats’ eyes looked back at the disappearing figure.

  “Follow him and make sure he gets home safely,” Mary said yawning.

  The cats started after Luther.

  Luther reached his house without knowing quite how. He had – again – followed Jenny and Lizzie in front of him; he didn’t mean to follow them… but he did all the same. An hour later he was in bed and resting.

  He lay there fingering the crystal on the neckband still around his neck. He felt comforted by its nearness.

  He realised that perhaps he wasn’t as open to unearthly beliefs as he thought he was. When it came to it and your back was against the wall Luther found it hard to entertain the absurdity of ghosts and spirits. Perhaps he had been working too hard and the characters in his stories had become real to him. Then an epiphany struck him. Of course, that was it; to create the characters in his book he had lived and breathed them for several months.

  He had simply brought them to life in his mind and suffered some residual evidence of their existence.

  And the clergyman; in his hallucination of the image of Mary’s execution, Luther had seen the man from the graveyard earlier. That would explain why he had appeared in his mind.

  Although he felt it was now clear and explained, he could still hear a voice of doubt in his mind; it was saying ‘Free me, Luther’.

  Chapter 4

  Scene 1: The Dream

  Luther dreamed.

  In a scene of vision fluctuating in and out of clarity he saw two young women watching their sister hanging from a bough. Then they were dragged and bound to two stakes surrounded by kindling and twigs heaped at their bases. He looked between the two young girls; they were identical – their night-black hair lay down to their waists while their eyes flashed with an inner emerald fire.

  Then Luther saw the tall, thin priest; bandages covered his face and hands but melted flesh was still visible from where the wrapping had become loose. He held a blazing torch at the women’s feet. Then the image changed to a man cloaked in the shadows of the trees.

  Wrapped in a blanket in his arms an infant slept soundly.

  Without taking his eyes from the child, he smiled sadly before disappearing into the darkness.

  Two black cats that had been meandering in the clearing suddenly stopped and looked towards the flaming pyre. Then together they followed the man into the woods.

  Luther tried to follow but found he couldn’t move. His hands were tied behind his back and he could feel flames moving up his body; he closed his eyes and mouth tightly shut against the smoke that stung his eyes and then the smell of burning flesh – his flesh – rose to his nostrils… the pain became unbearable but continued.

  Luther screamed and woke up.

  He lay soaked in sweat on his bed, his bedclothes heaped on the floor.

  He felt unbearably hot; and he was crying.

  He rose, and wiped his hand across his eyes and forehead before walking towards the open window. Leaning out he breathed in the cool dawn air and tried to control his breathing.

&nbs
p; Looking down he noticed movement in the gloom. Two black cats were looking up at him. Then they turned and disappeared into the semi-darkness.

  Scene 2: Return to the Witch’s Grave

  The following day Luther rested and tried to look for an explanation to the dream and attempted to rid the feeling that he was caught in the fast-flowing rapids of someone else’s design. The dream had seemed so vivid and real but now in the daylight it was more like an echo or something half remembered and anaemic. He felt connected to something important but so intangible and spurious that the more he concentrated on it, the more it seemed to elude him.

  That evening he had come to the conclusion that his best option was to see it through – he still didn’t believe in ghosts but in the absence of a rational explanation, this seemed the best course.

  Midnight was still an hour away when Luther returned to the Witch’s Grave.

  Mary sat again atop the mound.

  “I’m so glad to see you again, Luther,” Mary said smiling. “I’ve been waiting… a while for you.”

  She looked at him closely and saw that although still troubled, there was a determination in his bearing and she smiled more so.

  “Our line has always been strong,” she said.

  His demeanour drew serious. “The man responsible for your death and that of your sisters; what did he look like?”

  “He was tall, emaciated and bearded… and very badly scarred as if from… a burning?” she said smiling.

  “His name is Kramer – Father Jacob Kramer; a puritanically evil man who murdered for personal vengeance and gain.”

  Suddenly she looked tired and seemed to fade a moment before returning again; “I’m weary; I must go now.”

  “How can you be tired if you’re… dead?” Luther said very conscious of how ridiculous the statement sounded; and then, “I want to know more about this ‘Kramer’.”

  Mary looked directly at Luther with her piercingly pale green eyes, “I have shown you where to look,” and with that she disappeared.

  Luther felt suddenly very alone but then saw two pairs of emerald eyes approach from the darkness. Luther reached down and absently stroked the black furry ears.

  Scene 3: Kramer

  A day or two later Luther was back in Father Bremmer’s sacristy; “Do you have any information about previous priests that have resided in this parish?”

  “Certainly,” Father Bremmer said in response. “I pride myself on the thoroughness of my research and meticulosity of my archives on Morthaven’s history – including the ministers.”

  “I’m particularly interested in a Father Jacob Kramer – he lived here in the mid-1750s,” Luther said making a quick mental calculation from Mary’s recent meeting.

  Luther noticed the father stop suddenly in the process of returning his coffee mug to the table and look up.

  “Are you okay, Father?” Luther asked.

  “Yes… no… It’s just that… the mid-1750s you say…” The father looked down for several moments and when he looked up again Luther saw tears in his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Luther said genuinely concerned.

  The father looked at Luther and took a deep breath. “I’ve been looking into the history of Morthaven for several years now but it has never been through idle curiosity or vocational interest. I’m descended from a man of eclectic beliefs who spent some time in Morthaven during the time you mention. Sometime between 1745 and 1765 he went missing. Foul play was suspected but no one was found responsible and his body was never found.”

  Then after a pause; “Although I have found some information about that period, I’ve found nothing about the father of this parish; not a report, an account or diary…” He paused. “It appears like he was purposely and deliberately excised from Morthaven’s history.”

  He walked over to the bookcase and withdrew a large tome with paper markers sticking out of it.

  He laid it on the desk and turned several pages.

  “Ah, here we are. This report was written in 1765 which would have been about the time a new father was assigned to the chapel. There are some extracts from the Morthaven police records and relates to the disappearance of three labourers whose bodies were never found.

  No one was ever arrested for the crime, although the father of the chapel at that time was said to have been a suspect, but his position in the community excluded him from any investigation.”

  Luther looked up. “I’m fairly certain that a Father Jacob Kramer was the occupant of this parish at that time. You think he may have something to do with your relative’s disappearance?”

  “Kramer, you say?” The father looked thoughtful. “I’ve heard… or seen that name. Yes, and if not directly, then influential in it – here, let me show you.”

  Father Bremmer moved to a bookcase beside the window. “Ah, here we are,” he said removing what appeared to be a large scrapbook from the top shelf.

  With a single chair in the room Luther found himself looking closely over the father’s shoulder and began to examine the book.

  The father carefully turned the pages from which a progression of distinguished clergymen over the years stared proudly, and perhaps a bit haughtily, at the viewer.

  Eventually the sepia-toned photographs came to an end and only a brief description was all that was revealed of the parish’s ministers.

  “You see,” the father began, “before the mid-1800s, photography didn’t exist… Ah, here are the listings and you’ll notice that the time period of 1750 to 1760 has been inked over.”

  Luther looked close. “I think Kramer’s your man.”

  “I don’t know: where on earth did you get the name from?”

  Luther thought for several moments before admitting, “I’m sorry, you wouldn’t believe me – you really need to just go with me on this… for now.”

  The father looked into Luther’s eyes and then away.

  “I’m sensing there is more to you than meets the eye,” he whispered.

  “I’m thinking,” Luther started hesitantly, “that Father Jacob Kramer was tall and thin, to the point of being emaciated with a grey beard and a hook nose. He also exhibited a severely burned face and arms.”

  “I would advocate a description like that comes from someone who has seen him but since that’s impossible…” Father Bremmer trailed off and looked up at the ceiling before, “Dear Lord,” and heading towards the door.

  Scene 4: The Picture

  Luther looked quizzically after the rapidly disappearing father and then rose to follow.

  He left the room and ascended a spiral staircase before entering a hall at the end of which stood the father fumbling for some keys. Once procured, a door was unlocked and the father hesitated, looking back at Luther.

  “You know,” he said, “I’ve not entered this room for some years.”

  The father opened the door and Luther found himself in a large, dark and dusty room. Cobwebs draped from the windows and portraits.

  Opposite the doorway was a large window and Luther walked over and looked out.

  “I can see why you don’t come up here,” he said resting his hands on the windowsill infused with mildew and mould and looking out.

  Only the disused area of the graveyard, covered in dense thorny bushes and plants lay before him; and beyond the stone wall – the woods.

  “It isn’t the dust and cobwebs that put me off…” the father said, “… but the portraits… or rather one in particular,” he said quietly looking up.

  Luther turned around and immediately saw a large painting that hung prominently above the entrance to the room and the current focus of the father’s attention.

  The portrait showed a gaunt bearded clergyman sitting in an armchair with a bony hand resting on a bible held in his lap.

  Luther was aware of a number of odd things:
firstly, that his mind no longer shied away from the impossibility that he had seen this man earlier in the graveyard. Secondly, the odd lack of repose of the man, for he wasn’t sitting back in his chair but leaning forward intently as if trying to gaze out from the portrait, his eyes keenly fixed over the shoulder of the viewer; and thirdly, the incongruously high collar he wore. Luther remembered the suppurating scars on the neck of the man he had seen in the graveyard. However, the subject of the portrait was devoid of the effects of fire.

  “I guess he didn’t want the burnt flesh included,” Luther mused.

  He noticed the father shudder. “There are several portraits of past clergymen in the chapel but I always wondered who this one was,” he said quietly.

  “Any portrait that one cares to regard always exhibits eyes that follow you around the room – but not this one. Wherever you are in the room, the eyes are fixed on the window,” the father said quietly.

  “Looks like he’s keeping an eye on the woods,” Luther said looking between the painting and the window. “Just look at the intensity of his gaze,” Luther said sounding more serious than was intended, “but then, I guess, the painting could have been put up anywhere.”

  Father Bremmer slowly turned his head to stare at Luther.

  “Actually, no it couldn’t,” he said. “Part of me tells me this is all hokum but another part thinks that maybe that’s exactly what he is doing.”

  The father continued. “I found the whole visage so unnerving when I first arrived here that I tried to take it down but its unusually thick frame has fixings that are driven deep into the wall. I had a couple of stonemasons take a look but they said that removing it was likely to weaken the wall and as it was an integral support to the tower, it was best to leave it alone.

  Numerous times I have draped a sheet over it but in the morning, the sheet lay on the ground before it. So, I gave up but then there was the trouble with… the shutters…”