Haunted Lancashire (The Haunting Of Books 1-3)

by Jack Lewis

  “Come on, Rubes. Don’t start acting out.”

  Penelope walked over and kneeled in front of Ruby. “If you don’t behave,” said the old woman, “your mother will call Marga Highgate. She’ll make you act nice.”

  “Who the hell is Marga Highgate?” said Scarlett, her control slipping by the second. “And please don’t try and discipline my child.”

  Lelana was the one to answer. “Marga was only five feet tall,” she said. Ruby stared at her, enraptured, and the old woman seemed to enjoy the attention. “From the day she turned forty, she looked ancient. Everyone said it. It was as though her skin creased overnight and just stuck that way.

  “She used to work in Gawthorpe as a nanny. Probably for your great-great-great-grandparents. Marga used to watch the children for hours. She’d sit in a wooden chair across the room and stare at them, waiting for them to do something wrong. When they did-”

  “What did she do?” said Ruby, her eyes wide. She gripped the edge of the chair.

  “The second they did, she’d leap up and she’d tear across the room. She’d scream and swear at them, and she’d hit them and call them names.”

  Scarlett took a deep breath. “That’s enough. Cut the crap, all of you. Do you think this is a suitable conversation around a kid? Maybe it’s time you left.”

  Penelope and Lelana both looked shocked, as if they’d expected to be able to say whatever they wanted without rebuke. Rita nodded and turned to leave. Scarlett was stuck with the thought that, despite her witch talk, the psychic had been the most reasonable of them all.

  As if to disprove her idea, Rita spoke. “You know, your mother and I were friends when we were younger. She told me she used to see Marga Highgate at the foot of her bed, watching her.”

  Ruby gasped. The psychic looked at Scarlett, gave her a grin, and then left the room. She bumped into Clive on her way out, who returned from his toilet trip. Scarlett had forgotten about the priest, but he’d been gone a long time.

  When he came back, his face was pale. He walked into the centre of the room and looked around for his coat. When he reached for it, he almost tripped over the sofa.

  “Are you okay?” asked Trev.

  The vicar stared at Trev, then glanced away. There was a strange expression on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Scarlett. She suddenly had a worrying feeling. Thin tendrils of anxiety coiling in her stomach.

  The vicar looked at them. “There’s something hateful in this house,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the glow of the morning light, it was easy to explain it all away. That was what Scarlett felt compelled to do – she needed a train of thought that took everything in a logical direction.

  The vicar was looking for a donation for his ailing church, and his act was for that. Nothing more. The psychic and her witch talk – well, that was fair enough. Centuries ago, people did accuse others of being witches.

  Gawthorpe was a house steeped in history. It had been there for hundreds of years, and its earlier occupants had been products of their times. The markings in the house were just relics of a less-enlightened past.

  Clive was just being dramatic when he said something hateful was in the house. Hell, it was so cliché that it was almost ridiculous. All that was missing was a well-timed flash of lightning and rumble of thunder.

  “I’ll get in touch with the estate agents this morning,” said Trev, leaning back into his chair.

  He had a plate in front of him with a slice of toast on it. Half of it was gone, with just a bite mark to show where it had been. Crumbs trailed off the plate and onto the dining room table. Ruby was still in bed. Scarlett’s stomach ached, so she nursed a cup of tea.

  It felt strange to eat breakfast in the dining room. The table was big enough to seat twenty people. She was used to the rectangular, two-seater table they’d eaten around in their flat. Back then she’d always thought it was too small, but nostalgia had transformed it in her mind, and now she could only remember how snug it was.

  Gawthorpe couldn’t have been more different. Where their flat invited feelings of warmth and intimacy, after Scarlett had painted it, anyway, everything about Gawthorpe was cold. From the walls of the dining room, framed men and women stared back at her. These were portraits of her dead ancestors. Their sharp eyes and pale faces watched her drink her tea.

  “I’ve had a look around,” said Trev. “The place is filled with stuff. I mean every room, Scar. Jonathan said the place was bare, but I don’t think he knows what the word means.”

  “Mum and Dad never wanted to throw anything away,” she said.

  “You’re telling me. There must be tens of thousands of pounds of stuff gathering dust. It makes me sick if I’m honest with you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You remember my parent’s house, don’t you? The pokey front room, the sofa that they managed to make last a decade. I still remember the day we got a new TV, it was the best day of my life. But here your family was, only a few miles away, letting stuff just sit in rooms.”

  “Do you want to go and see your dad?”

  Trev shook his head. “There’s no point. He hasn’t spoken to me since I went.”

  She knew how much her husband had sacrificed the day he left with her. She hadn’t expected him to, at the time. Sure, it had taken the two of them to get her pregnant, but she hadn’t put any obligation on him to give up his life. Being the guy he was, Trev had insisted.

  ***

  Later that day, they had an agent from the village estate office come to value the house. He was a tall man in an ill-fitting suit, and a plume of aftershave followed him everywhere he went. It was like he had a canister of the stuff hidden under his suit, and he sprayed it like crop fertiliser everywhere he went. He spent an hour walking along the dust-lined halls and poking his head into each room, before finally giving his judgement.

  “There’s a lot of work that needs doing before the house can be sold,” he told them.

  Deep down, she’d known that would be the answer. Selling a house like this was near impossible, with all the surveys, safety checks and so on. She hadn’t expected this to be quick.

  “Do you want to get the process started?” he asked.

  “Thanks, but we’ll discuss it and get back to you.”

  After the agent had left, she and Trev weighed up their options. It was clear they couldn’t stay in the house long term; the upkeep on such a large estate was too vast.

  “How are we supposed to get the place ready for sale?” said Scarlett. “We can’t even afford food once the larder’s empty.”

  “There’s a trust, remember? You dad put money aside for repairs on the house.”

  Trev spent an hour on the phone trying to get someone to come and size up all the work that needed doing. It seemed that none of the local tradespeople would come to the house. Eventually, Trev hung up.

  “I’ve found someone,” he said. “They’re not local, but they’ll come and take a look.”

  “I’m going to go find Rubes,” said Scarlett. “She’s been too quiet for my liking.”

  As she walked up the grand staircase toward the first floor of the west wing, it still felt strange. It had been so long since she’d been here that the echo of her footsteps sounded alien, as though it was an unnatural sound for such a lonely house.

  She found Ruby in her room. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Spread out in front of her were various cylinder-shaped objects; a tennis ball, a set of marbles, a football that looked close to deflating.

  “What are you up to?” said Scarlett, hovering in the doorframe.

  Ruby turned around to look at her. “It’s the planets,” she said.

  Looking closer, Scarlett realised that the balls and marbles were all lined up in a specific pattern. The football was at the end, larger than the rest, isolated from the balls across from it. She remembered how, back in the flat, Trev would explain to Ruby what he’d learned in t
he physics books he read.

  “Shouldn’t the sun be bigger, honey?” said Scarlett.

  “If I had a bigger sun I’d need a bigger Saturn, and I found nothin’. Did you really grow up here?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I wouldn’t like to live here long. I’m not going to grow up here, am I Mum?”

  Scarlett shook her head. “No, you’re not. We aren’t staying.”

  “But Glanville can come with us when we go, can’t he?”

  Scarlett hadn’t seen the puppy today. She knew that Jonathan was still loitering on the estate, carrying out his duties as though he hadn’t been given his notice. She didn’t have the energy to deal with him, and it seemed easier to let him get on with it for now.

  “You need something for Pluto,” she said, noticing that the solar system model wasn’t complete.

  “Pluto isn’t a planet anymore, Mum. It’s a dwarf planet.”

  “And you’re too smart for your own good,” said Scarlett. “But Pluto was always my favourite. It reminds me of the cartoon. Come on, let’s go find something to use as Pluto.”

  “Dad always laughs when he says Uranus.”

  “Your dad is a child,” answered Scarlett.

  She took her daughter’s hand. Together, they explored some of the west wing. Most of the rooms were unfurnished, though there were various boxes and chests filled with antiques that once would have stood proud atop fireplaces and in cabinets. She knew that little had been changed after her father’s death, so all of the stuff must have been packed away while he was alive.

  It was such a lonely place for her father to have lived. After what happened to her sister, banishing Scarlett, and then her mother’s death, her dad had found himself alone.

  If she were cold-hearted, she’d say that was what he deserved, but that was a horrible thought. More than anything, she wished things were different. She didn’t want to face her past, but if all the dark things hadn’t happened, then she wouldn’t have had to.

  “This is going to take ages! Let’s split up.”

  She shook her head. “That’s never a good idea, Rubes.”

  “I’m going to explore the east wing!”

  With that, Ruby bolted into a run. Scarlett barely had time to react before her daughter sprinted down the corridor and turned a corner. Her footsteps sounded on the staircase that led to the east wing.

  Scarlett walked down the hall, onto the staircase, and then toward the east wing. As soon as she set foot on the wing, the air changed. It became colder and darker.

  Chapter Twelve

  As she walked through the hall, she wished Ruby was with her. It was a stupid thought; her daughter was only a minute away. She’d never liked walking through the house alone, not even when she’d known her parents were around.

  Truth be told, it still chilled her now. But it was time to stop being scared of things like that. Imagine if Ruby saw her acting like this? Kids picked up more things from their parents than you could ever imagine. They were like sponges. Always listening and picking up cues on how to navigate life. Scarlett wouldn’t be the one to teach Ruby to be nervous about this kind of crap.

  She heard something move across the floor. It made a dull rolling sound like a ball pushed across the wood. Ahead of her was her old room, then her sister’s. To her right, were her mother’s sewing room and her father’s study. At the end of the corridor, watching over them all, was the metal door. None of the rooms appealed to her.

  Just as she began to collect her bearings and convince herself that she hadn’t heard anything, a marble rolled out from the sewing room. The sound of it moving was the only thing she could hear. She knew it hadn’t rolled by accident, but as if some force had set it in motion.

  Then stopped in the middle of the hall.

  Scarlett walked over and picked it up. She suddenly became aware of a feeling. It was as though somebody was watching her.

  From where, she didn’t know, because the sensation seemed to spread from the back of her neck then to her chest and down her arms.

  “Ruby?” she said.

  She felt her pulse speed up. It was stupid to have such a feeling. She was the adult, and this was just a house. There were no eyes on her. No watchers from the shadows or the doorways.

  “Come on, Ruby. I’m not playing now.”

  She checked all the rooms on the east wing except her father’s study, which was locked, and the metal door, which would never open. She couldn’t find Ruby anywhere.

  “We’re going to have words,” she said to herself, but knowing that she wouldn’t be able to get too mad at her daughter. Trev was always the disciplinarian.

  When she went downstairs, she found Trev stood by the front door. Next to him, reflecting his tall figure, was a full-length mirror.

  The glass was long-overdue a clean. It was housed in a black frame, and the metal had been fashioned so that it looked like vines twisting together and holding the mirror in place.

  Two men with overalls walked through the door. Both were splattered with paint and dirt. One carried a toolbox, while the other held a roll of tarpaulin under his arm.

  “That was quick,” said Scarlett. “I thought they were from out of town?”

  “They were on a job nearby. Said they’d come and take a look on their way back. Some panelling needs replacing in the lobby, so they’re going to get started on that today.”

  Across from her, one of the workmen laid the tarpaulin on the ground. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Trev was right; the wood on the panelled walls in the lobby was broken in places. It was as though it had started to rot. She heard something clang at the front door, and she turned to see a third workman walk in. He carried a bundle of metal pipes.

  “We’re going to have to put up some scaffolding so we can reach the roof,” he said. “Might get a bit noisy. Hope you don’t mind a racket.”

  Scarlett didn’t mind a bit. Anything to break the silence of the house. She still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling. “Go ahead,” she said.

  The workman walked away, whistling as he went. It was an upbeat song. She recognised the tune, but couldn’t place it.

  “Have you seen Rubes?” she said, looking at Trev.

  “I thought she was in her room?”

  Scarlett nodded. “She was. She was making a map of the solar system. But she ran off.”

  “She keeps getting Saturn and Jupiter mixed up. Make sure she gets it right.”

  “This place is too big. I wish we could just shut part of it out. I might get a hammer and some wood and just board off the east wing.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s all new to her, and she’s a kid. Just relax.”

  Despite a dose of Trev optimism, Scarlett couldn’t help a breathless feeling in her chest. She thought about her sister, and what had happened, and her skin started to itch. She was always so careful never to think about that day, but being back in the house made it tough.

  “Seriously, Scarface. Just relax a little.”

  “Piss off with that,” she said.

  “Scarface? It’s a classic.”

  “Scar’s a bad enough version of my name. Don’t start mixing me up with Al Pacino.”

  “You look like you need one of my world-famous massages,” said Trev.

  She had to admit that there was a knot in her neck. Her shoulders felt like they were wound tight, like a sodden rope. She needed to go for a run. Sweat it out, then collapse on her bed. She’d always been good at that. Even if she was out of training for a couple of months, she could pick it up and run ten kilometres without feeling the strain.

  Across the lobby, the whistling of the worker changed. It became a different tune. Mournful. Scarlett recognised it, somehow. There were no lyrics, but she just knew it was a song about loss.

  The sun must have dipped behind a cloud because the house took on a darker tint. It made her want to run through the rooms and pull back all the blinds.

  “I can go
make us a cup of tea if you want?” said Trev.

  She was about to answer him when she looked in the mirror behind Trev. She saw something that took the breath from her lungs. It was just a split second, but it was enough to make her sick.

  In the mirror behind Trev, she saw a reflection, but it wasn’t her husband.

  It was a man two feet shorter, with loathsome eyes and a dark beard. He looked at Scarlett. When their eyes locked, he licked his lips. A feeling of wickedness emanated from him. It seemed to drift from his skin and infect the walls around him.