by Morgana Best
A shadow loomed over me, and I, expecting my coffee, looked up while automatically saying, “Thank you.”
“Thanks for what?” It was Douglas.
I jumped in fright. “What are you doing here?”
Douglas sat down opposite me. “Couldn’t you at least pretend you’re pleased to see me?”
I scowled at him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Straight to the point, Misty, gee. I’m your only contact at The Orpheans, so I’d think you should actually be pleased to see me.”
He had a point, but before I could think it through, my coffee arrived. I was surprised when food was placed in front of Douglas.
“What’s that?”
“It’s called food, Misty.” His tone was sarcastic. “Beef and roast vegetables. This here is called a potato.” He stabbed a potato with a fork and held it up for my inspection.
“Very funny, Douglas. I was here for ages before my coffee came. Why did your meal arrive so quickly?”
“Just lucky, I guess.”
I scowled at him. It seemed fairly obvious that Douglas had been here for ages. Had he been listening to my phone conversations? I couldn’t see the counter where orders were taken from where I was sitting. In fact, I couldn’t see much at all. How close had he been the whole time? But for that matter, surely I hadn’t said anything important. Surely, it didn’t matter if he had overheard. I searched my memory banks.
Douglas was still looking at me and hadn’t yet touched his food. “Why are you so angry anyway? Is it because I’m telling you about The Orpheans and John didn’t?”
“Why would John tell me about The Orpheans?” I snapped, and then regretted my tone. I added, more evenly, “John doesn’t know anything about them.”
Douglas slowly cut up some roast vegetables and then just as slowly popped some in his mouth. After a bout of leisurely chewing, he put down his knife and fork and said, “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
Douglas held up both hands in a gesture of helplessness. “John knows all about The Orpheans, of course. SI7 and The Orpheans have worked closely for well, decades if not longer.”
“SI7 works closely with The Orpheans?” My stomach churned. It was obvious to me that I was on the verge of receiving upsetting news.
Douglas made no attempt to hide his surprise. “You’re kidding me? You don’t know? John didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head, and made a show of sipping coffee.
Douglas continued, “SI7 is a covert, British government department for investigating the paranormal and the occult. Have you heard of MI7?”
I shook my head and said, “I don’t know much about anything, it seems.” Douglas tried to pat my hand but I pulled it away.
“I suppose the simplest way to put it is that MI7 is like MI6, but investigates the paranormal and occult. Of course, the government denies that MI7 does this at all, and says that it was simply set up around a hundred years ago to deal with censorship and propaganda. The government has put out a great deal of misinformation about it to cover their tracks. The organization John works for, SI7, is similar to MI7.”
I was overwhelmed and upset by his disclosure, and it didn’t help that I was so tired. Why hadn’t John told me this? He had always kept the name of his organization from me. It wasn’t even set out on any of the forms I’d had to sign. Why was it that Douglas was the one to tell me this, while John had avoided it? My stomach clenched, and the smell of the food was suddenly making me nauseous.
It took me a moment or so to realise that Douglas was still talking. “And so you need to go out to Bakers Creek Falls,” he concluded.
I didn’t like to admit that I hadn’t heard a single word he’d said, so asked, “Say that again please, but in more detail.”
Douglas finished the last of his meal before answering. “There isn’t much more detail I can give you. It’s all quite straightforward. The Orpheans want you to go back out to Bakers Creek Falls where you found the body. I’m here to give you your assignment.”
“But...” I caught myself just in time. I had nearly said, I already have an assignment. “Douglas, did you have anything to do with that murder?”
Douglas looked affronted. He clutched at his chest. His expression was one of complete innocence. “Of course not! How could you say such a thing?”
I shrugged and motioned for him to continue.
Douglas cast a quick look around the café before speaking. “Your assignment is to find out if there’s a spirit that’s behind that murder, as well as the previous murders, you know, the massacres and all. Then you are to find out the name of that spirit and report the name to me.”
Now that was suspicious. “Lucky I’m already in town researching Hillgrove’s ghosts for my magazine,” I said dryly, carefully studying Douglas’s face for any reaction.
There was none. He sat there as cool as a cucumber. All he said was, “Yes, that’s good.”
We both sat in silence for a moment, and then he asked, “By the way, have you heard from John lately?”
Well, that threw me. “Why do you want to know?” I asked, doing my best not to sound rude.
Douglas shrugged. “Just curious. Anyway, The Orpheans want you to find out that spirit’s name as soon as possible.”
I couldn’t have been more suspicious if I tried. I had never trusted Douglas, and now I trusted him even less.
What was I to do? I figured that I might as well go to Bakers Creek Falls and see if I could pick up the presence of any evil entity. That was my assignment from SI7 anyway, and so far I had made zero progress with internet research. It was time for a bit of field research.
By the time I’d walked back to Brandon’s, fed Merlin lunch, and then headed out to Bakers Creek Falls, I felt a fuzzy headache coming on. I parked at the Lookout, downed two headache tablets, swallowed half the bottle of water that I had in the car from yesterday, took a pen and my notepad, and locked the car. There was no other human in sight.
I walked over to the viewing platform again. Although I had been here recently with Cordelia, and although the last time I was here I’d found a dead body, I was again in awe at the scenery. I knew from the guide book that it was a two thousand and seven hundred foot perpendicular drop over massive granite cliffs into the bottom of the gorge. The Bakers Creek Mine was at the bottom of the gorge. I took out a photocopy of a newspaper clipping I’d slipped into my folder, and read it again. It was dated Monday September 29, 1890, and was from the Melbourne Argus newspaper. I’d come across it after I had visited the falls with Cordelia, and had been taken by the beauty of the description.
The panorama from the head of the gorge is of the most magnificent description. On each side almost perpendicular walls of granite and slate, below the winding stream, on the banks of which are the batteries of the Baker’s Creek Company, the North Bakers Creek Company, the Sunlight Company, and perched up amongst the rocks on the eastern side, the crushing mills of the Lady Carrington and the Cosmopolitan companies. On the opposite side stand out prominently the numerous shafts and houses of the Earl of Hopetoun Company.
To the north the massive granite falls, over which the water in winter roars in torrent, and to the south, through the azure haze the rugged peak of Enmore, 30 miles away. As a subject for a picture, it has but few rivals in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales or the canyons of the “Rockies” of America. The varying lights and shades mingling with the glow of the setting sun. The roar of the stampers below, and the thunder roll of the exploding shots in the numerous tunnels on the sides of the gulch are features of a scene of awful grandeur.
‘A scene of awful grandeur,’ was a perfect description of the vista before my eyes. I was waxing lyrical.
I left my position on the viewing platform to sit on a little wooden seat which was away from the edge, but which nevertheless afforded a good view. I took a deep breath and calmed myself. I decided to do a brief grounding meditation. I
sat up straight and imagined my feet stretching into the earth, through the earth’s crust, absorbing the earth’s energy. I imagined my feet turning into branches and connecting with the earth itself.
Suddenly, I was jolted from my meditative state. I stood up in alarm and looked around, but no one was to be seen. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. The adrenaline was pumping through my veins, and my heart was racing. I couldn’t see any sign of what had startled me, but I had certainly received some sort of spiritual shock.
I looked around. The sky was still blue. A lizard ran into the undergrowth; a magpie looked at me from a tree. The world for all intents and purposes looked sunny and normal. Yet I knew that I was now not alone. I could sense the presence of a malignant, dark entity, but it remained elusive even as I stretched out my mind to try to categorise it, even in the most basic of ways.
Chapter 13
I drove back to Hillgrove. I went straight to the Hillgrove museum to see if it would supply any clues of the evil entity. I figured it was a long shot, but it was as good a place to start as any. This time, there was a car parked down at one end of the museum, so I parked my car at the other end, under a tree, after rolling down the windows as the day had turned hot. The weather in this part of the country was highly unpredictable, but for the moment it was hot and my car’s air conditioning wasn’t working.
I walked down the pathway to the old white building and, once inside the little ante room, made the gold coin donation. A gruff looking man appeared at the doorway leading into the main room of the museum. I jumped.
“Did you pay?” His voice was accusatory.
“Yes, I just put the money in that box.” I pointed to the honour box on the bench.
“Are you here to look at the museum?”
I bit back the overwhelming urge to say something sarcastic. Why else would I be there? I simply said, “Yes.”
The man scowled at me and went back into the museum. I wandered around the main room of the museum, relieved that, this time, I wasn’t aware of any ghosts of children haunting the old school house. Perhaps the gruff man had scared them away. Nevertheless, the man was keeping an eye on me. I decided on the direct approach.
“Hi, my name’s Misty Friday. Are you the curator of the museum?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, Samuel Groves. I’m the curator of the Hillgrove Rural Life and Industry Museum, which is its proper name.”
I was encouraged by the fact that his tone was less unpleasant. “Hillgrove is an old place. There must be lots of ghosts here.”
The man simply mumbled to himself.
I pressed on. “Have you heard of ghost sightings here? Or heard of bad things happening?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’m a journalist for a paranormal magazine. I’m writing a story on the ghosts here in Hillgrove and Bakers Creek Falls.” I wasn’t getting anywhere with the man so thought it wouldn’t hurt to give him that information.
“You can’t use my name,” he snapped.
I hurried to reassure him. “Oh no, of course not. Whatever you say will be completely anonymous. Do you know anything about any ghosts around here?”
He walked to look out one of the large sash windows at the back of the building and I followed. “What sort of ghosts?” he asked.
“Well, any sort really,” I said. “Is there an evil presence or anything bad around these parts?”
“Could be. Why do you want to find it?”
I bit my lip. “I don’t want to find ghosts as such. I just have to write about them.”
He simply looked at me before walking across the room and then out of the building altogether.
I stood there, in front of a group of Freemasons’ photographs, shaking my head. That didn’t go so well, I thought. What will I do next? I walked around the museum, trying to gain inspiration, but there were no clues about any entity, whether evil or otherwise.
The curator presently returned and busied himself stacking piles of pamphlets across a long bench against a side wall. I watched him from the farthest room. As I was about to leave, a younger man walked in and chatted with the curator. I walked back into the main room, and looked at an old cash register and an ancient set of scales on a bench, with packets of century-old cleaning products and foodstuffs on a big shelf behind the bench.
I was peering at an old cardboard packet labelled Watson’s Matchless Cleanser Soap, when the younger man approached me. “Hi again. Misty, isn’t it?”
I turned around. “Oh yes, Ethan the photographer. I didn’t recognise you when you were talking to the other man, sorry.”
“You found the body, didn’t you.” He said it as a statement of fact.
I nodded. “Yes. Did the police interview you too?”
Ethan looked quite put out. “Yes, and they wanted my camera. I deliberately gave them the wrong one.” Ethan’s hand flew to his mouth. “Oh, don’t tell them, will you, whatever you do. I was just so excited at the photos of that unusual snake, so I gave them my other camera. I didn’t want them deleting photos of that snake by mistake, and who knows how long they would’ve kept it! They still have the camera I gave them. Anyway, I never go anywhere near the cliffs, so I knew I didn’t have anything they wanted.”
I nodded. “They took my friend’s camera too, and she hasn’t got it back. Look, Ethan, I’m a journalist for a paranormal magazine, and I’m looking for ghosts around here.”
“Ghosts?” Ethan repeated, in a shocked tone.
“Yes,” I said. “Have you heard of any ghosts around these parts? I’m writing a story on ghosts at Hillgrove and Bakers Creek Falls, but so far I haven’t managed to find any.”
Ethan looked thoughtful. “I haven’t heard anyone say anything about ghosts.” He scratched his chin. “There have been a fair few murders here at Hillgrove, as well as out at Bakers Creek Falls, so you’d think there would be ghosts around here, I suppose, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
I nodded.
“Oh, sorry, Misty, no offence.”
I shrugged. “None taken. So, no one’s ever mentioned seeing a ghost? Or even sensing the presence of evil?”
Ethan narrowed his eyes. “You mean evil, because there were so many murders out here? You think Hillgrove must be an evil place or have evil spirits or something?”
I tried to look nonchalant. “Who knows? It’s just that my boss has sent me here to write a story on ghosts, but so far, I haven’t found a single thing. I’ll be in trouble if I can’t find something to write about. Like you said, there have been murders here over the years, and usually where there are murders, there is the presence of evil.”
“So, you want to find evil spirits?” Ethan asked.
I was little uneasy that he had hit upon the truth. “The readers like evil spirits. That sort of thing sells more magazines.” I tried to keep my tone light.
“And what will you do if you find an evil spirit?”
I thought that a strange sort of question. “Well, I’ll write about it, of course,” I lied, convincingly, or so I hoped. I looked around and found that the curator had come up behind me and was standing there, listening to the conversation.
“I’ll be right back.” With that, Ethan hurried out of the museum.
“Why do you want to find an evil spirit?” The curator stepped closer to me and I instinctively stepped back.
“For my article, as I’ve already told you,” I said in the most even tone I could muster.
“I don’t think you should go looking for trouble. If you go looking for trouble, trouble will find you.” The curator shook his finger at me and moved away.
Had I just been threatened? Or was he simply making conversation? I had no idea. At any rate, I thought it was time to move on.
I walked out to my car just as Ethan was walking back away from his car, which was parked next to mine under the big tree. “Misty,” he called, “I have the photos I took the day you found the body. I’m sure there’s nothing int
eresting about them, but come and see for yourself.”
I thanked Ethan and hurried over to his car, where he spread out the photographs on the hood.
He was right. There was nothing interesting about them, not unless you were interested in shrubs and bushes and tiny little frogs. Oh, and snakes. Ethan was particularly excited about the photos of the brownish coloured snake. “See,” he said, waving the photo under my nose. “It looks like an Inland Taipan. It can’t be, I suppose, as they’re not known to be this far east, but I’m sending these photos to a snake expert. The Inland Taipan is the most venomous snake in the world,” he added gleefully.
I could see Ethan expected some sort of reaction from me, but all I could say was, “Oh.”
Ethan showed me photos of frogs, and then a black and white banded snake, and all the while, I was trying to think up an excuse to get away. I had to find out something about the evil entity and fast, or SI7 would likely fire me soon. I had made no progress whatsoever.
Chapter 14
I left Ethan and his appalling close-up photos of snakes, and made my way once more to the small and ancient cemetery at the edge of town. While I had visited it recently with Cordelia, I knew Cordelia did not have an affinity for such places, so we hadn’t stayed long. I was excited to be able to take my time amongst the crumbling headstones, and also glad for the opportunity to use my new infrared digital thermometer I had bought second hand on eBay.
I pulled my car to the side of the dusty road, parking next to the old sign, and left the window down as I was parked in the direct sun and the day was still quite warm. I made my way to the old, worn iron gates that had fallen open. While most modern cemeteries have paved roadways that wind amongst the graves, this one was far too old to have any such luxury. I climbed out and reached behind my seat, pulling up a soft grey case with a black strap. I slid the strap over one shoulder and shut my door.
