Through all this the couple never stopped trying for their own baby. Contraceptive methods were not yet conceivable back then, and did not exist as they do now. They tried again and again, mixing various herbal remedies and trying new sexual positions in their routine copulation, but to no avail. This would make Sarah feel worse about herself. And whenever that happened, she vented her frustration on Beatrice when no one was around to see. She bullied that child, and scolded her without cause. Then, one day, the butler witnessed this. He did something that he would regret. He confronted Sarah.
“Madam, I regret to say that if you behave with Beatrice in that unreasonable manner, I will be forced to report this to Lord Darkland,” he said, in a voice stern yet quavering.
She did not say anything to him at that time. But she noted her enmity for him in her heart.
Speaking of heart, there was something going wrong with George’s. He had been experiencing painful spasms in his chest, and whenever he’d smoke, as was his lifelong habit learnt while voyaging long and far, or do anything extraneous, he would feel pulsating pain where he thought his heart was. But he habitually disregarded it, thinking that it was nothing serious.
On Beatrice’s tenth birthday, with the house full of her school mates and her friends, servants and neighbours all celebrating with her, Darkland was cutting her cake, holding the knife and Beatrice’s hand, he slipped and fell to the ground, clutching his heart. Ambulances were not yet in existence as they are now, and the closest hospital was an hour away. People watched helplessly as he grasped and groaned and writhed to his death. Gone at forty-three. A life eventful, but a life cut short.
The reigns to his estate and his wealth (which was aplenty) fell in Sarah’s hands. And when she did get over her sadness at her husband’s departing, she began to exact her vengeance on poor Beatrice and the butler, both of whom were hit hard by the loss of Darkland. Harder than Sarah was ever hit, one might add.
She did not fire the butler. Instead, she had him perform undignified acts, far beneath his station and uncalled for simply because of his long service. He stayed for the love of Beatrice. Someone had to care for her. After George’s demise, Sarah did everything in her power to make life hard for Beatrice. Her bedroom was snatched from her, and she was made to live in the basement; a dark and dank place which was bitterly cold in the winters and scorching hot in the summers. Sarah removed Beatrice from her school, and when the headmaster came visiting, inquiring after the child, for she was a scholarly prodigy, Sarah locked Beatrice in the basement and lied to the headmaster that she had run off.
With Beatrice still locked in the basement and the headmaster long since departed, a maid servant carelessly toppled the lantern in the lounge, causing a rampant fire in the house. Sarah ran for her life, together with most of the staff, but the butler knew that Beatrice was locked inside the basement. He rushed into the burning house and battled to pry the bolts, but the fire consumed the house with him and Beatrice still inside.
When the fire-brigade (a laughable term for what passed as emergency fire brigadiers back in the day) arrived and the fire was assuaged, the two charred bodies were recovered from the ashes. Everyone knew the names of these remains. No one dared say a thing.
Soon after that, the house was rebuilt and Sarah took up residence once again, but the existing staff never returned. Talk was that the house was haunted by two spectres. Sarah, of course, did not believe in this jibber jabber, and stubbornly resumed her life in the rebuilt house as if nothing had happened.
When three days later someone calling after her found her dead in her bed with a grimace of horror on her face, the talk that was previously just pub-rumours became a factual assertion; that Lady Sarah was haunted to death, and the two ghosts responsible were still prowling the walls of the house.
To this day, that house in Leeds remains uninhabited, and to this day that factual fable finds itself resurfacing in bar-rooms on Friday nights when the beer kegs have run dry and tongues catalysed by booze wag of a centuries old story: The haunting of the Darklands house.
CHAPTER NINETY-NINE
Bleeding
Dan Freeman was a prick and Bea Booth was the only person who knew it. Knew it. Felt it. Saw it. What have you. She was fourteen and he was a sodding forty-year-old, and whenever no one else was watching, he’d put his pervert pants on and harass Bea. He’d gently caress the nape of her neck when she’d walk in the door, he’d reach for her butt and try to squeeze it when her mother was not watching, and that’s not even the worst of it. The worst of it, and hold on to your horses, was that he was her step-father. As if that was not bad enough, he had Bea ditch her awesome life in London to forcibly move to this godforsaken, in-the-middle-nowhere, house in Leeds with him and her mother. Sure, it was a beautiful house, and sure it had enough rooms to accommodate an entire circus (not that circus-folk need very much room—clown cars, anyone?) but the fact remained that this much difference was just downright unhealthy for Bea.
Her school mates in London, for one, missed her like bonkers, and Skyped with her as soon as the house was equipped with an internet connection, and they all said that they missed her. She missed them more, since they had one another but she had only her mother to remind her of her old life. But Bea decided that she would get over her sau·da·de within a few months, or maybe a year, or fucking never! How can you just get over the most culturally awe-inspiring city in the world? During her daily morning commute to school, she would see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben in all its glory, and the ever-mighty London Eye with its gaze all over the district and its serene guard over Thames. How can one adjust from that to a life among sheep, goat turds, trees, and nothing within a hundred-mile radius?
Sure, Dan Green, ‘famous playwright’ and ‘upcoming bestselling young adult fiction author’ may find it a cultivating environment for his writing (if you could call tossing papers in buckets like it was the world’s lousiest one man basketball match, writing) but why on earth did he have to drag them with him?
And by them Bea meant herself and her mother. Oh, her poor deplorable mother, who had found herself in the guiles of a filthy man, and she had not a clue. A year ago she had fallen for his good looks and his subliminally underselling books (which she thought, because of her lack of a fine taste in literature, to be amazing) in the Lusty Leopard, a bar that served single ladies and old bachelors exclusively. He had been hopelessly trying to ensnare one of the many ladies in there by acting all mysterious and magnifique, all the while in the process of trying to write up the first few pages of his new book, “The Colour Shvelte.” What a retarded name for a book, right? That’s what his agent said to him a year later after he was done with the first draft. But he didn’t listen to his agent. He decided that it was time to go digital; it was time to go the self-publishing route. After having faced numerous rejections from literary agencies and editors, he uploaded the book on Amazon and planned for it to sell by the hundreds, if not by the thousands. And sell it did. However, this did not please him in the slightest since each review from the readers was a One-star accompanied by a cruel and downright true review: It’s the worst piece of shite I have read since that fifty shades crap, wrote one. Don’t bother reading it, said another, because the author clearly hasn’t a clue what he’s talking about. He’s trying to imagine a new colour unsuccessfully, and plot twist or spoiler alert or whatever: he doesn’t come up with it! Even after a fucking thousand pages!
Those reviews served as fuel for his next literary endeavour, if you could call it that. He named that book “Hurt” and it was all about a man facing negative feedback before getting back on his badly bruised feet. Weirdly enough, that book was a hit and it made him thousands of pounds in royalties.
“Out of the ashes, a phoenix is born!” he said, and then went on to do something incredibly stupid: He bought a house in Leeds and demanded that they move there.
“Those are not ashes. They’re corn-flakes. And that’s a frikking chicken!” Bea h
ad joked about it to her friends in London and they had all laughed at what a joke Dan was. Even his name was not original. His real name was Floyd Lawton. He took inspiration, albeit the wrong kind, and took Dan Brown and John Green’s names, proclaiming Dan Green to be his new legal name as well as penname.
Sometime during this messed up joke that was Dan and Bea’s mother’s relationship, they decided to get married. Jean Booth became Jean Green, and everyone laughed at her because her name rhymed. But that was not the only reason they laughed at her. After her first husband’s untimely death, Bea’s dad, Jean and Bea fell on tough times all around. She was fired from her job at the distillery, her rent became overdue, forcing her to sell heirloom pieces of jewellery to make ends meet. When she met Dan, or Floyd or whatever name he was using at that time, she needed him as much as he needed her. She was gullible and prone to sociopathic vultures, and he was in need of a muse as well as a lady friend with whom to spend the nights. Matters simply escalated from thereon, and four months later, wham, bam, thank you ma’am, they were married. And the next thing Bea knew, they were all moving to Leeds. This would all have been well and nice and bearable for her, but for the fact that he was secretly a paedophilic creep, which she was not able to put up with. She tried to tell her mother, but Jean was just too overwhelmed by the moving and menial affairs that she did not pay attention to her daughter’s adolescent rants. She’d been that age too. Everyone has. She thought she knew what Bea was going through: hormonal angst. And just like that she dismissed her daughter’s protests and reprogrammed her brain to think of Dan as an amazing human being who had been so kind to take them both in.
Whatever, Bea thought when she had given up all attempts to make her mother see sense. Dan might have won this battle but the war remained undecided. She would never accept him as a father, she decided, and thought it better to avoid him altogether. No one likes being molested, not in the least by a creep who’s posing as your step-dad. And worse: posing as a writer. She had read his works and by God, she found that writing worse than online literotica. But it sold. And God knows why.
Had Bea not been an introvert, she might have reached out to someone else—a person of authority, or even her mother in a different and more blatant manner—but her reserved attitude and her general shyness prohibited her from interacting with many people. Today was the culmination of her first week in Horsforth, Leeds and each passing day it only got worse. The air was thick with countryside stench, and there was no plaza, no arcade or shopping boulevard to visit here. She had cried five times in the last seven days, and the neighbour lady once spotted her in her window while walking her dogs. That only made it more awkward. Of the many rooms in the house, Bea had taken the one on the first floor facing the road. It was actually a long room, and she did not know what she was going to do with so much space. The window in the other corner looked out over the forest in the back, and the front gave a view of the ducky pond and the sprawling country side farther afield.
“Frick this,” she said. She was yet to use the actual F, even when she was alone she refrained from its use, because doing so would be the difference between her, a good girl, and bad girls. She had set up her study table with her laptop, her novels and her Nintendo Switch. The only game she had on it was the latest Zelda title. She hadn’t had a chance to play it yet.
So, she propped herself on her bed, turned her handheld console on, and escaped into the beautiful world of Hyrule, trying to forget the most recent hideousness Dan was responsible for: He’d tried to get into her room while she was undressing in the dressing room. He had remained in the doorway and watched while she undressed before she realized that he was peeping. She flipped the bird in his direction and vowed to keep her bedroom door locked at all times. As she played her videogame, it was still locked.
*
Jean Green was in her own bedroom, applying her makeup and looking primped in her floral dress. It was a hot day outside and one could see the sweltering heat wafting off the green fields. It was humid too. Her husband had gone to the grocery store and would not be back for almost an hour. It was a long drive to the nearest town. She did not mind this drastic relocation. As long as Dan was happy, she was happy, and she could, with a heavy heart, overlook her daughter’s angst. Kids will be kids, she thought. She’ll grow up. Eventually the place will grow on her. Jean needed to look good and she needed to make herself up because there was literally nothing else to do but that and keep Dan happy. One would be forgiven for thinking her shallow, but one would be wrong. She was tired; a woman who had faced too many relationships which had ended badly. Everyone has that one thing they can’t live without. In her case, it was a man. A partner to live her life with, and share the trifling things with. He needn’t be the wisest or the greatest. He just had to be there. After fifteen-years of marriage to Albert Green (her first and late husband) she had grown accustomed to a couple’s symbiosis. It was not a choice of her own to make. Truth was, hers was a sad existence. Albert was a good man, and she loved him. Bea loved him. Were it not for that fateful car crash that took his life, they would all have been living their perfect little life in the London suburbs, sipping martinis in the backyard on warm Sundays and drinking hot cocoas by the fireplace on cold Fridays. But that was not the life destined for them. She had to go out with a half a dozen men in hopes of finding the ‘next one’ before she settled for Dan Green. Did she not see that he was a retarded writer? Yes, she did. But he was earning, by an uncanny luck, a regular income and a good income at that. Did she not see that he treated Bea crudely? No. She’d reprogrammed herself to see no wrong with Dan, for God knew there were many. And whenever she heard Bea complain, her mind would go numb and she would do her best to ignore what her daughter was saying. Suppose she did listen to Bea. Suppose he was actually on the brink of raping her. What would she do then? Would Sarah take Bea and move back to London and be done with Dan? Not after what she had been through. It broke her whenever she saw Dan do something unspeakable from the corner of her eye, but she could not do anything about it. Dan kept his serious misdemeanours for when Sarah was not around. Because if she saw that, she would ditch her reprogrammed mindset and go maternal crazy. And when a mother goes maternal crazy, she turns feral. Having a basic understanding of human psyche, Dan kept his distance after committing these perverted acts. He also knew that shaming Bea would silence her. And he was succeeding. Sooner or later, she would implode. And when she did, that would be his chance. You have to understand that in his mind (as is the case with any sick minded person) he did not see himself as a bad guy. He liked little girls more than grown women, so what? He’d explain. And when you say it like that, it’s hard to argue.
“Sweetie?” Dan had returned from grocery shopping. She smiled at him through the dressing table mirror. He caught her reflection and gazed back at it goofily for a moment before smiling back, as if the laws of reflection and refraction baffled him. “I got the bagels, the oregano, and….”
“Honey. I said basil. Not bagels,” she said, and then noting the creases on his forehead take the shape of an angry frown, she immediately regretted the correction. Sure, he was hot as lava, but man he was just as thick when it came down to it. How the hell was she going to make homemade pizza sauce with bagels? “But bagels are fine!” she said, forcing his anger into quizzical surprise. “I was jonesing for some bagels. Thanks! I say, happy accident!” she lied.
“Oh,” he laughed goofily. “Guess what’s going in my new book?” he asked her most excitedly.
“What?”
“This incident right now, silly!” he laughed and went away. There was not enough stressing the fact that his writing was piss poor. Someone back in middle grade must have told him that his writing was good just to be kind, and he must have taken it way too seriously. His dedication was commendable, though. And he was hard working too. Perhaps that’s why he had made a mark. He had showed up. And sometimes, just the mere act of showing up makes all the difference
. Imagine a guy who lives in Bristol, and in his desk drawer is this draft of the next epic high fantasy novel. But he’s shy. He doesn’t want to publish it because he’s insecure and unsure whether the public will like it. He doesn’t show up. He dies, and his draft, together with his many unappreciated belongings, went to waste, scattered in a junk lot, its pages rotting away in bird shit and cat carcasses. An unfitting fate for a fiction fit for a King. But this goofball, Dan, went and submitted the equivalent of literary shit to an agent, and kept at it after facing numerous rejections, until someone as gullible as Dan was perverted decided to publish this book. And the next book, and the next, making Dan rich in the process.
Right now, Dan was not headed to his study. That would come later. He was going to check up on Bea, to see if she was ‘alright.’ He liked having his fun with her. It would have been perfect had she liked it too.
*
There was a knock on the door, but immersed in her latest conquest in Hyrule, Bea did not notice. Outside, Dan was furious that he was being shunned in this way. He knocked again. Again. Three more times. Bea did not hear.
“Young Lady Bea, would she like some tea?” a cold whisper echoed in her ears, muffling the soundtrack on her headphones. Shivering, she turned around wildly to see who this voice belonged to. No one was to be seen anywhere around her, but she could feel someone watching her. She paused the game and took the headphones off. The loud knocking scared her.
“Open this door right this second, Beatrice!” Dan called out from the other side in a frenzy. However, before he could knock again, a splinter projected itself from the door, directly at the spot where Dan’s fist would knock. This splinter, thin as a needle, jutted perpendicularly in his direction and, as his fist connected the door, the entire splinter, all 4 inches of it, was driven painfully into his knuckles.
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