by Cat Knight
“They hurt you,” Sarah said.
“They’re not the first and they won’t be the last.” Claire knelt in front of her friend. She took Sarah’s face in her hands and smiled through the tears she could not stop. “I’m sorry Sarah. For all of it. I never should have made you come here. I didn’t know any better, but even so. Can you forgive me?”
Sarah held Claire’s gaze for a long time.
“No Sarah,” the woman said from behind them. “No. She’s trying to take you away. She’s trying to steal you from me.” Sarah’s eyes flickered over Claire’s shoulder to Mother and then back to Claire’s face.
“Sarah,” Claire said. “Enough is enough. Enough people have suffered. Please. Let it end.”
Sarah closed her eyes. “Sarah!” the woman screamed.
Claire ignored her. She pulled Sarah into an embrace and locked her with a gaze, no longer fearing the woman or the house. Because Claire had figured it out. The woman’s power came from hate and fear; yet, it was not her own, but the power came from the hate and fear which others felt for her. The woman had simply turned it against them, driving them mad, imprisoning them and burning them away with illusions. But Claire wasn’t scared of her because Claire saw her for what she was and she pitied her.
“Sarah, the only way out is through.” Sarah nodded.
And like that, everything changed.
Chapter Ten
It took Sarah a moment to recognise where she was. And another to realise that she was looking at daylight.
The hill where the house had stood was bare, but for the few shards of a broken foundation. Beyond that there was nothing but the tangle of bushes and long dead trees. Above her the clouds had broken open, the golden sun pouring down over it all. In that glow, even the dead vegetation didn’t seem so bad.
Sarah frowned. She could not quite remember how she had gotten here. She remembered walking into the house – had a house been here? – but that felt so long ago. And then was someone she had called mother but…
Mother. Mum. Her parents.
Then she remembered them, so clearly. The last time she had seen them was before she and… what was her friend’s name? Well whoever it was, before they had headed out to do something that had seemed important at the time. Now it seemed vague and distant.
Her parents must be worried sick. She wasn’t sure how long she had been here, but she was going to be in so much trouble when she arrived back home. Well, no point in holding it off. She took a deep breath and started to walk back towards the distant village.
Over the next few days the village was abuzz with whispers and rumours. There was so much that nobody could explain – true, that had been the case for a long time in this place – but now the circumstances were stranger than ever.
How did you explain an eleven-year old girl who had gone missing fifteen years ago suddenly arriving on her parents’ doorstep, with no clear memory of where she had been and no visible signs of aging? And beyond that, there was the old house on the hill, which had vanished, leaving behind only ruins that looked like they had been crumbling for over a hundred years. And then there were the flowers; granted it was only a handful, but nobody could remember seeing a flower growing here in years.
But perhaps the strangest thing was something more intangible. An overpowering sense that something had lifted, pervaded the village.
The sun shone a little brighter, village folk regained the energy and passion they’d been missing for so long. Day by day the streets filled up again, people slowly setting out and doing their business in broad daylight for the first time in a very, very long time greeting each other with warmth and goodwill. It was like the dawn of summer after a very long winter.
Here and there, however, there were hints of sadness.
Old Mr and Mrs Anderson still kept to themselves, and when people did see them their eyes seemed to be focused on the hill where the house had once stood, the expressions on their face hopeful. One child had come back, so maybe another could as well.
And then there was Kev, whose business boomed in a way it hadn’t for years, and yet he seemed somehow diminished, often lost in thought even as the kids started coming back in.
Sometimes the door would open and he would look up, then swiftly sink back into whatever thoughts held him when the person he hoped for didn’t walk through.
On the day Sarah had come back the whole village were so focused on this strange miracle, so bewildered by what had happened, that none of them noticed the lone woman making her way to the train station, sitting on the platform in the sun with a slight smile until the train arrived and she stepped on it. She wasn’t going back to London. She didn’t know where she was going. One day soon, when the relief had faded into joy and she was certain she was truly free, she would let her parents know she was safe and well. Perhaps she would even visit, but for now, all she knew was that the only way out was through. And now she was out.
The End
THE HAUNTING OF HELLFLEET POINT LIGHTHOUSE
CAT KNIGHT
©Copyright 2017 Cat Knight
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Hellfleet Point Lighthouse
Bristol
United Kingdom
8th May 2016
For Floyd Taylor, the 8th of May was the most important day of the year. More important than Christmas or Easter Monday or New Year Eve. It was, the most significant day in Floyd’s life. Because that was the day that people stopped shooting at him. It was VE day. A day hardly remembered in contemporary England or anywhere else for that matter.As the years rolled by there were fewer and fewer memories of that day. Victory in Europe Day was the day that Floyd unpacked his old army tunic.
All that was left was his thirty-seven pattern trousers, and his moth-chewed wool beret. His original boots and puttees had been put in the rubbish decades earlier, but he was certain no one would demote him for not wearing regulation footgear—if it were ever possible that he could be demoted.
As he remembered things, he was pretty much the low man on the totem pole.
On VE Day, Floyd, straightened his ninety-year-old spine, puffed out his chest and fought to control his shaking hands as he slipped on the beret.
When he was finished, he studied himself in the mirror. Something was missing. His insignia was in place, so what could it be. His brain, as old as his spine, didn’t seem to function as well as it used to. Then, he smiled.
Floyd went to the bureau of his bedroom and opened the top drawer. There, he found the worn case he was looking for. His shaking hands managed to remove the Victoria Cross. He stared at the cross a moment before he polished it on his tunic. He attempted to fasten it to the old cloth, and when he pricked his finger, he stopped, somehow assured that a pinprick meant he had seated the medal properly. With a last look in the mirror, Floyd marched out of the bedroom.
If his gait didn’t match the cadence in his memory, he didn’t notice. Perhaps it was better to live in the past if only for one day.
As Floyd passed the kitchen table, he wondered who the tea was for. Then, he remembered it was his tea, so he tasted it. Cold, which fit the memory in his head. He couldn’t count the times he had been served cold tea during the war — more times than hot he thought. A blast of pungent odour hit Floyd, and he shuddered.
“No,” Floyd said out loud. “Not today.” He shook his fist at nothing in particular. “You will NOT pull your shenanigans today!”
He looked around the room, and everything appeared to be in place. Putting down the tea, he marched through the door that led to the breezeway that led to the tower. It was exactly fifty small steps from the cottage to the tower stairs. He looked up the stairs, took a deep breath, and started.
Halfway up the stairs, Floyd took a rest, a “fiver” as the old sergeant used to call it. He glanced at his feet and discovered he hadn’t changed out of his ratty slippers, and his ratty slippers were slick from sliding his feet along the floor.
But he wasn’t about to descend just to change shoes. He would simply be a bit more careful. He took a deep breath. Annoyance sent a fleeting pucker over his face, as the familiar odour wafted around him and filled his nostrils. The odour that had plagued him since he bought the place.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Floyd said. “NOT TODAY!” He’d fought and won against better enemies than this. Floyd had a strong mind and a stronger will. It kept him going all these years, even in the war. “You’ll get your comeuppance one day. You mark my words.” He shook his fist into the air.
Floyd didn’t know if he took a ‘fiver’ or a ‘tenner’, but when he felt stronger, he proceeded up the steps. As with the year before, Floyd asked himself why he had ever purchased Hellfleet.
The lighthouse was no longer functional, but both cottage and tower were sound, and it provided a fantastic view when he bothered to climb the steps which wasn’t often. Views were for young people, weren’t they? Old men like Floyd always seemed to look down, not out. And if Hellfleet had its peculiarities, well, that went with the territory.
Floyd scooted around the old light and opened the door to the narrow platform and looked out onto its wire mesh and metal railing.
Battered by time it creaked in places, and Floyd wasn’t certain about the steadiness of it, or his own steadiness for that matter. But the warm sunshine made him smile and he stepped carefully on to it.
Ravens circled overhead, as if he was going to feed them or something. He never did.
They were nuisance enough the way they were, always cawing at him every-time he stepped outside the door. Grabbing the railing, Floyd looked down on the waves crashing into the rocks far below. The view was spectacular but looking down caused his head to swim a little, and he grabbed the railing tighter and edged away. He wasn’t the young man he once was and he wasn’t up here for the view. It was VE Day, Floyd had a duty. Pulling himself as erect as he could, Floyd saluted the direction he believed represented London, and began to sing GOD SAVE THE QUEEN in a quavering voice barely above a whisper.
Before he could finish, that damned smell blew around him on the wind. “Can’t you leave me in peace for just this one day?” Floyd called into the developing gust. His jacket flapped about him as he gripped the railing for just a moment to steady himself. The poorly fastened Victoria Cross fell off Floyd’s tunic and rolled onto the mesh grate a few feet away.
Frowning, and cursing, Floyd stopped singing and moved two steps to retrieve the medal.
That was when the raven swooped.
Floyd knew that ravens liked shiny things, but he never guessed a raven would go after his cross.
That seemed terribly unfair. But ravens didn’t play fair, did they, at least these ones never had, and it this one was cockier than usual, probably because it was huge.
“You bloody big blighter,” he muttered at it, trying to hit it away.
The raven snatched up the cross and flapped its wings to rise. Perhaps it would have flown away if not for the wind.
A gust blew the bird right at Floyd, whose reflexes seemed a gilded present from yesteryear. He plucked the bird out of the air. His old Sarge would have been proud,
But not for long.
The bird dropped the medal and flapped for open skies. The lurch was too much for Floyd’s tottering legs. Hanging onto the raven as if it might save him, Floyd lurched back toward the railing.
A younger Floyd might have caught himself despite the slick slippers. He would have thought quickly enough to release the bird and grab the railing and he wouldn’t have tipped over the railing and plummeted like a stone.
The spring wind gusted again, and the Victoria Cross scudded across the mesh. It fell off the edge where the wind shoved it into a crevice by one of the platforms supports. It lodged there, and despite the wind’s best efforts, it stayed.
If the cross could have leaned out a bit, it would have seen what was left of Floyd on the most important day of the year.
But that’s not what happened and both Floyd and the cross were lost.
If indeed it had been a younger Floyd, then he wouldn’t have been discovered smashed on the rocks still clutching a dead raven.
Chapter One
Hellfleet Point Lighthouse
Bristol
United Kingdom
January 2018
Nora Hughes smiled at the camera over her middle screen. She knew that her image was being seen in San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Frankfurt. She knew her fellow designers were all on board because she could see their faces in the two screens flanking the one directly in front of her. They were online because NIGHT OF THE DEAD, their latest project was ninety percent finished, but even at ninety percent, it was still a week behind schedule.
The company wanted the game to beat their biggest competitor to the market, and she was doing her best to finish it.
But this was a team effort. She couldn’t do it all herself. While she was pretty and curvy and young, she couldn’t rely on looks to get her team to work. She needed commitment.
“OK, folks,” she said, knowing her English was being translated into the languages needed. “We’re a week behind, and while I can live with that, I can’t live with non-commitment.
And I include me, for the next thirty days, we need head down, bum up. No days off, no weekends off, no sleep if you can arrange it. We’re very close to publishing the best damn game since Pong—for those of you who never heard of the game. Let’s not slack off now. I guarantee that once the game is launched, you will have all the time you want, until the new offers arrive. When this game goes viral, we’ll all be able to write our own ticket. Now, a show of hands. Are you with me?”
On the screens, everyone raised their hands. Nora’s smile widened. They were all in, and they knew what she expected.
“Then, I won’t keep you. You know your assignments. Get to work.
Should any of you run into a problem, get to me immediately. While I don’t have a lot of assets in reserve, I have a few. Good luck.”
She tapped a key and the two side screens went dark. The middle screen still showed her smiling face, but that disappeared as she typed. Her left screen filled with code, and her right screen filled with graphics. The middle screen brought up her email. She had a status report to produce, and she was certain that her boss would love what she was going to write. All she needed to complete the meeting was a cup of tea.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the kitchen of the smallish flat, Nora grabbed a teabag and waited for the water to hiss. While she waited, she thought about how her life was progressing.
She and Felix, her significant other, had leased the flat because it was as close as they could get to central London where Felix worked in finance, and she met with the game company managers.
Did she love the arrangement? Hardly. The area was crowded and loud and full of people who came and went on a whim, sometimes in as little as two weeks.
And, on any given night, the street below would fill with chanters of one strain or another who would carry on long past when normal people slept. Nora was a night owl who liked working late—if it was quiet. There was no benefit in working when the street din drowned out her thoughts.
The kettle boiled, and Nora moved to fill her cup, just before the incredibly deep thump penetrated the room. For a moment, she didn’t move although her eyes turned to the direction of the next-door flat. The bass sound was unusual during the day, usually, heavy metal music always arrived at night. During the day, at least, she didn’t have to cope with this level of inconsiderate sound. But if the last couple of weeks were any indication, there was a worse problem than that.
She whirled and sprinted back to her computer room, hoping that the computers would be alright.
She was too late.
The screens were black. Her computers were dead. Her hands curled into fists, and she pounded her chair.
“No, no, no, no, NO!” She said. “I can’t work
this way!”
As sure as fog comes to London, the loud music had overtaxed the electrical system.
The breakers had tripped, and the power was out. While she was somewhat used to it at night, she couldn’t abide the interruption during the day. Worse, she knew who was responsible. His name was Mercury or Copper or something metal, and he couldn’t live if he didn’t max out his speakers.
She had talked to him ten times, and every time, he acted as if he didn’t understand. Slack jawed, tattooed, pierced like a voodoo doll, he always nodded in agreement and went right back to what he was doing. She thought that if she possessed a firearm, she would march up to him and simply end his miserable existence forever.
Knowing that it would take some minutes for the manager to reset the breakers, Nora returned to the kitchen. Luckily, she could still make tea.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“He did it again, and this time during the day,” Nora said.
Felix nodded. At the end of a long day of trades, he looked tired. Blonde, blue-eyed, Felix, on a good day, was as handsome as an actor. Nora had met him right after he had lost yet one more audition. In the pub, he looked totally overcome, which appealed to her instincts.
After several long dates, she convinced him that perhaps acting was not his forte. Since he was good with numbers, why didn’t he give finance a go?
She never knew if it was the adeptness with numbers or her entreaty that got him into the trading game, and she didn’t care.
He was a good man, and she believed him when he told her he loved her.
“We have to move,” Nora said. “I can’t work like this.”
Felix smiled and sipped his vodka on the rocks.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Nora said.
“I thought that it would be all right during the day, but Mercury kicked me offline this afternoon, and you know how long it takes to reboot everything. I can’t have it.”