A Passionate Spirit

by S. C. Skillman

  “I should have known better than to bring up such a subject with Natasha,” continued Alice. “Though as it turns out now, it was a good thing I did. She knew well how superstitious actors are – and that being an actor does lend itself to strange rituals.”

  Zoe shivered.

  “Natasha remarked that entering the soul of Lady M must be like becoming a ‘transfiguration medium’. She questioned me about the deconsecrated church we performed the play in. She noted we were playing on the sense of violation and sacrilege. It’s true that during that production the altar end was ablaze with candles and the act of betrayal was bloodily shown on the altar.

  “Natasha started speaking of churches she knows, twelfth and thirteenth century, built on former pagan sacred sites. Places, she said, where the power of the earth rises up, where our forebears felt that connection between this world and the underworld. She said she knew a church, St Oswald’s, where a raven often circled the roof. It was particularly appropriate because St Oswald is associated with ravens. She added that she had a special connection with that church and felt the spirits calling from the ground.”

  Zoe nodded, her heart thumping against her chest.

  “I got away from Natasha eventually,” said Alice. “I didn’t feel good about having had that conversation with her. I felt I shouldn’t have talked to her about the demonic powers Lady M draws upon to achieve her desires. I felt I’d made a terrible mistake. So I didn’t share it with you. Then, after James abducted me and dumped me in the mill with Poppy, remember I said I had a few visits from Natasha and James?”

  “Yes.”

  “During Natasha’s second visit, I demanded to know why she and James were keeping us there. Natasha said, ‘Just think of Duncan, Alice; bloody betrayal on the altar.’ That made my blood run cold. Then she added, ‘Remember Oswald? He’s not far from here. His raven flies in the glass.’ And she gave a name. It meant nothing to me. I just thought she was delusional. Then I forgot about it – until last night.

  “Let me backtrack. After I jumped off the roof onto that tree, I got to the ground and ran like hell. Eventually I reached a road and flagged down a motorist. He called the police. They came to pick me up. I took them to the mill then they insisted I go to hospital to be checked out, while they searched the mill. I hoped to God they’d find you safe and that it wasn’t too late. And I knew Carol had already contacted Theo to tell him I’d been found. Later, the police officer who was with me here, got the message that the mill was deserted, and they had no leads. I was petrified that Natasha had killed you both and dumped you somewhere. That was hell.

  “Then suddenly words came into my mind. Oswald… not far from here… his raven flies in the glass…bloody sacrifice on the altar. At once I thought – church. St Oswald? I remembered the word Natasha had spoken, which meant nothing to me. I shared it with the police officer. It made no sense to her either. Then I said, ‘Call Theo. He’s a priest. He’ll know.’ She called him at once.”

  Theo took over the story. “And that was it, Zoe. I recognised the word, I’d been to that village, I knew the church and I’d led some services there a few years ago. I even knew it was built on a former pagan sacred site. I gave directions to the police. But it wasn’t until half an hour ago I got the call I’d been praying for.”

  “Theo wasn’t the only one thanking God you’d been found safe”, added Alice, “and in St Oswald’s Church.”

  Zoe tried to speak, but failed. She swallowed two or three times, then took hold of Alice’s hand and held it tight.

  “Natasha’s very powerful,” she said. “I don’t know whether she’ll ever be found.”

  None of them spoke for a minute. Zoe visualised Sonya’s knife-blade, and the blood welling from James’s throat.

  Theo reached out and covered Zoe’s other hand with his.

  “Everything you told me about James and Natasha was true. I should have acted much sooner. I hardly believe either of you could forgive me.”

  Alice looked at Zoe.

  Zoe leaned across and kissed Theo on the lips.

  “Forgiveness granted. I love you and always will.”

  He held her tight.

  “And as for me,” said Alice wryly, looking at them both, “I forgive you too, Theo.”

  The other two broke apart, smiling, and drew Alice into their joint embrace.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  During the car journey back to the centre the following afternoon, Theo shared news of Jessica.

  “Right now – rather like you, Zoe, but for different reasons – she’s suffering delayed shock. But before that, she did speak to the guests, cancelled the next few weeks’ courses, and arranged to refund the full cost. And in a few hours’ time the trustees will hold another emergency meeting. They’ll have a major damage-limitation exercise on their hands to save the centre after this.”

  “Yes,” said Zoe. “And Theo – are we still leaving? Or has everything changed now?”

  “I can’t answer that question,” said Theo. “We’ll have to speak to Jessica first.”

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Theo closed The Guardian and turned to Zoe, who sat behind the desk in the first-floor study.

  “A very full account from their court reporter,” he remarked.

  “Yes,” murmured Zoe, “though I’m still reeling from the sentence. I honestly hadn’t expected them both to get life.”

  “The charges were pretty serious,” said Theo.

  Zoe nodded. “And something else has been bugging me,” she said. “I can’t stop wondering about Sonya. Despite all that happened, surely she didn’t mean to kill Poppy, or me, or James?”

  Theo drew a deep breath.

  “I’m afraid the jury decided that she did; though it does seem unbelievable when she desperately wanted the child for herself.”

  Zoe sighed. “Natasha was never going to let Sonya’s dream come true. And meanwhile, she’s disappeared. James did say she’d flown. And I think she has… literally.”

  Theo gave her a quick look, but said nothing.

  Zoe cast her eye over the news report again.

  In Gloucester Crown Court today, James Willoughby, 48, and Sonya Morrigan, 35, were jailed for life after being convicted of child abduction, child abuse, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, kidnapping and attempted murder. Willoughby and Morrigan had denied the abduction of five-year-old Poppy but the jury returned guilty verdicts against them both. Mr Justice Hardcastle said they would both serve a minimum of 20 years.

  The judge told them ‘Your lust for control and power over others was greater than your love for this child and your concern for her best interests and welfare.’

  Willoughby and Morrigan’s story that they had legally adopted Poppy was ruled to be ‘a tissue of lies’. The adoption services maintain that they knew nothing of Poppy or of any official adoption procedure. Five-year-old Poppy, the court heard, is the child of a psychiatric inpatient at Rookwood Private Psychiatric Hospital. Her mother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia made worse by her heroin addiction. Poppy’s father is her mother’s abusive former partner.

  A number of staff at the psychiatric hospital have been charged with conspiring to aid the abduction of a child through false pretences.

  In view of the severity of the offence, the judge overruled Morrigan’s plea for special mitigating circumstances to be taken into account. The court heard that Morrigan had a child of her own when she was twenty. Her mental health has long been fragile and she had suffered a nervous breakdown in her teens. But then her partner, who was a soldier, went out to serve in Afghanistan and was killed, leaving her on her own with their young child. Morrigan went into deep depression. She maintained that her little girl kept saying, ‘Where’s my daddy?’ Perhaps, if not for her mental fragility, Morrigan might have reacted differently. But, weakened by depression and grief, and to stop the little girl asking for her father, Morrigan strangled the child.

  Morrigan
was jailed for two years after the murder, and then released on grounds of diminished responsibility because of the state of her mental health at the time. Later she discovered she had become infertile; most likely, it was believed, as a result of her anti-psychotic medication. It was understood that she tried every avenue, including donor programmes and official adoption, but all failed. She had, however, refused to give up looking for a child of her own.

  The judge directed the jury not to be swayed by the undeniably tragic background that Morrigan had disclosed. The severity of her present crimes was so great that these circumstances could not mitigate the sentence, and he directed the jury to return a guilty verdict.

  After the trial, Detective Superintendent Gavin Fanshawe described the couple’s behaviour as ‘A vile and disgraceful act against a vulnerable child whose welfare they subverted for the sake of their own personal gratification’.

  On sentencing, Mr Justice Hardcastle told the couple, ‘Poppy has now been saved from you, but she is unlikely to be able to avoid the legacy of this experience. There is only one sentence that I can impose upon you and that is a sentence of imprisonment for life’.

  Zoe closed the paper. She preferred not to read the parts that referred to her and Alice, and to the Celtic Knot Centre.

  “And not a word about Natasha,” she said. “Despite all that I tried to tell them about her, it’s just as if she never existed.”

  Then she shivered; for Natasha had said ‘I eliminate memories’.

  “I’m afraid,” said Theo, “that for Sonya and James, the outcome has been exactly as Alice warned us. Such is the reward for those who give Natasha access to their souls. She’s escaped, leaving her victims to suffer the consequences.”

  “Like the end of Macbeth,” murmured Zoe. “Alice told me that Shakespeare has Queen Hecate appear, who triumphs over Macbeth, having led him by deceit to a dismal and a fatal end.”

  Theo nodded. “Unless Natasha or her disciples surface again, she’ll never be brought to justice, and we won’t know her full story. However, one thing’s clear: James brought Poppy here on the afternoon of Monday 15th September in the Cayenne. Poppy was kept in the goose house with Natasha. That was why they found it easy to keep her hidden: even, I’m ashamed to say, when I visited the goose house to see Natasha.”

  Zoe shivered.

  “However,” went on Theo, “the fact that Alice was receiving Poppy’s psychic cries for help unnerved James. That settled it for both of them. Alice had to be got rid of. And then, Zoe, there was you. I’m afraid you became a target because Natasha, for some reason, saw you as an ideal recruit for her sect. And she was using her sister Sonya, who was well placed to exploit your dreams of being a film star.”

  Zoe bit her lip and said nothing.

  “But in the end her plans failed,” said Theo.

  “Even though James supported and encouraged her all along the way.”

  “Yes,” said Theo. “He’s certainly a devoted disciple. I admit he took me in as much as anyone.”

  Zoe sighed. “But I’m glad that Poppy’s safe now,” she said, “with kind, loving foster-carers. And in time, if both sides are happy with the arrangement, they can opt to make it permanent.”

  TWO MONTHS LATER

  Theo set his half pint of Windrush Ale down on the table beside Zoe’s gin and tonic, and put his arm around her as they snuggled up together before a cheerful fire on a small sofa in the lounge bar of the Lygon Arms, in Broadway.

  Jessica had given them both a well-deserved two-week holiday before they returned once more to their former duties at the centre. They hadn’t chosen to go far. Neither had any interest in sightseeing, only in relaxing and enjoying each other’s company with no work duties to worry about.

  “You know,” said Zoe, “even though St Oswald’s has now been reconsecrated, I still feel I couldn’t step into it again without remembering what happened to me, and to little Poppy there. Natasha was very close to succeeding with me. It would have been so easy to surrender to her.”

  “Yes,” murmured Theo.

  Zoe went on. “I still don’t truly understand how Natasha did those ‘healings’. She claimed that she ‘eliminates people’s memories’ of their disease.”

  Theo spread his hands. “I can’t explain it either. But we now know why, of course.”

  Zoe squeezed his hand. “Yes. As Alice said, she gave them ‘a sweet reward’ in return for access to their souls. James, Sonya and several other disciples are now paying a heavy price for their allegiance to her, while she herself has flown. As for our former guests, it seems that Natasha – wherever she is right now – has let go of her claim on them for the time being.”

  She and Theo had made a number of phone calls, following up on the guests who’d been ‘healed’ by Natasha. One had rebooked his day surgery for cataracts which Natasha had supposedly banished; another now found his prolapsed disc was giving as much pain as before Natasha miraculously corrected it, and was shortly to see his neurosurgeon; and a third guest, who’d believed himself to have been cured of cancer by Natasha, now needed a new course of chemotherapy.

  Zoe and Theo had heard similar stories from several other former guests too. They also sadly claimed that it was impossible to contact Natasha, who ‘seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth’.

  One of them added something that chilled Zoe:

  “And yet… it’s odd, but I can’t seem to remember her distinctly at all. It feels like a bird in a room, beating its wings against the glass, desperately trying to break free. Soon she’ll fly and there’ll be no memory of her left.”

  “But as to Sonya,” went on Theo, “– well, I feel that sometimes, people who’ve had pain inflicted on them go on to inflict it on others. We humans, however solid and real, are ‘elemental’. We can turn to ice, to steam, to water. We can evaporate, or we can boil. Does that make sense to you?”

  “Yes. But if we’re all so changeable, what or who can we hang on to, and trust?”

  Theo held Zoe tight, as if he believed she’d act out his words right there and then, by evaporating.

  “For you and me,” said Theo, “the answer is to make sure we always have ‘three in our marriage’.”

  She sat up straight. “Three? What do you mean, Theo?”

  He broke into laughter. “I mean us and the one person who never changes.”

  Zoe smiled, and cuddled up to Theo on the sofa.

  “The rest of us – we change,” he continued; “sometimes liquid; sometimes ice; sometimes steam; never the same.”

  Zoe nodded.

  “And for an actor,” went on Theo, “that elemental nature is harnessed and put at the service of their gift – as in Alice’s case.”

  “Yes,” said Zoe, her eyes sparkling. “I’m so happy she got that part. I can’t wait to see her in the first episode next week.”

  “Neither can I. And remember, Zoe, she isn’t the only one with a special gift of ‘sensitivity’. What about your own vision of Poppy, before you ever met her?”

  Zoe nodded. Then she sat up. “Theo. You never told me your ghost story.”

  “No, I didn’t, did I?”

  “Tell it to me now.”

  “OK. You know where I served my curacy, in East Acton, west London,” said Theo. “One evening, not long after I’d first joined the church team, I was in a meeting in the vestry with the vicar and his secretary. The meeting finished and I opened the door. We walked out and were met by a group of ghostly monks. My companions were close behind me. We all three saw the hooded figures fade and disappear before our eyes.”

  He paused. Zoe watched him.

  “I learned there’d been several reports, extending over a period of thirty years, all coming from independent sources, which reported sightings of these monks,” said Theo. “A short while after my own experience, a sceptical investigator came to the church, to spend the night there and prove the paranormal tales wrong. He’d settled himself down in a pew on the
left-hand side of the nave. After a while he dozed. Then he found himself wide awake. And there walking towards him was a procession of six or eight ghostly monks. Heads bowed, they made their way up towards the altar. One stood apart from the rest. Then he heard a quiet voice.

  “‘Near here, five hundred years ago, stood a monastery, and we were the occupants. This is our past. This is our future.’

  “When they reached the altar the monks knelt. The spell was broken and they vanished. A few days later he returned with a professional photographer. They saw nothing. But on numerous other occasions, both before our own sighting, and after this event, ghostly monks were seen.”

  “And do you believe they’re spirits of the dead?” asked Zoe.

  “No. My guess is that energy lingers in a place where there’s been deep emotional trauma. People often pick up an atmosphere in our house. Spirits lie hidden in the timbers and in the stones, as Alice said, as actors feel about the ‘relic wall’ at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. We must acknowledge them: and live alongside them.”

  “I agree. Spirits lie hidden; which reminds me, I’ve got news for you.”

  He seized her hand. “What do you mean, Zoe?”

  “I mean, I’m pregnant, Theo! We’re going to have a baby.”

  Radiance broke out on Theo’s face. He swept Zoe into his arms. The back of her head throbbed, where the raven had attacked her. Even though the physical wounds had healed, sometimes the pain did flare up without warning, especially when Theo held her close. But when she looked into Theo’s eyes again her pain vanished, for she saw his eyes had filled with tears of joy.

  “This baby will belong to us alone,” murmured Zoe, “and never to Natasha.”

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The majority of the ghost encounters in A Passionate Spirit are based upon real stories. In particular I would like to acknowledge the following:

  Peter Ackroyd for his book The English Ghost: Spectres Through Time (Chatto & Windus, 2010).