Psychic Surveys Companion Novels

by Shani Struthers

  Yes, there were many things but I can only tell so much. In fact, some things I’ve forgotten, they only come to mind when I strain to recall. It’s amazing how blasé you become, how you adapt. But, of course, there’s stuff you can’t forget, that’s too big to forget, and I’ll focus on that. I’ve already said that the worst times in that house were around Christmas. Such a joyful time of year normally, a time when children grow so excited and we were no exception. That first Christmas, the last of the millennium, only twenty-three days from the day we moved in was one we were looking forward to, despite what had happened to us as a family. Deep down all I wanted was my old life back in the house in Ringmer with Mum and Dad, but I longed for more dolls too, more furniture for my dolls’ house, a brand new bike. Ethan wanted a skateboard; he felt he was getting too old for a scooter. He also wanted Dad to join us and asked him to do just that. He didn’t but someone else did, another ‘inhabitant’ that stepped forward from the shadows and picked on me as a conduit.

  Blakemort Chapter Four

  Before our first Christmas at Blakemort, I should mention the attic. Like two of the bedrooms, Mum said that Carol used the room on the third floor solely for storage and not to bother going up there, that it was most probably locked. Ethan being Ethan, however, was bored one afternoon and, when Mum was working – she’d set up office in the morning room – he grabbed my hand and dragged me up the stairs.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “To the attic.”

  “No, I don’t want to!” I protested, happy to take Mum’s advice.

  “You’re such a wuss.”

  “I am not!”

  “You are!”

  “No!”

  “Then come and explore with me. Don’t you ever wonder what’s above us when you lie in bed at night? Can’t you hear the noises sometimes, like footsteps running up and down, the scratching too, as if something’s trapped and wants to get out?”

  I ground to a halt on the landing, forcing him to stop. “You can hear those things too?”

  My brother’s eyes locked onto mine and, for a moment, as we gazed at each other, the four walls that enclosed us fell away. I remember it so well, how hopeful I was, and then he laughed – a sound with as much cruelty in it as the ghost laugh.

  “God, you’re gullible!”

  “Gulli… what?”

  “Stupid, you’re stupid.” When I didn’t react he rolled his eyes, grabbed my hand again and continued to drag me. “Just come on,” he said.

  There’s the main staircase in Blakemort and then there’s the staircase to the attic. It doesn’t carry on from the main one as you’d expect, there’s the long, long landing, and then it turns and goes upwards again. Not wide either, it’s much narrower. The walls either side of it are covered in a floral wallpaper that has browned with age and is peeling in some corners, as if the house doesn’t like such a cheerful pattern and wants it gone. It’s strange really because whenever I think of that staircase now, I think of it as hidden, but it wasn’t, it was just… tucked away.

  Up the second set of stairs, Ethan pushed me in front of him – blocking any attempt to turn and run. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. I repeated those words as I climbed, trying to convince myself. Certainly it didn’t feel any worse than downstairs, but even so, I didn’t want to go up there. I’d discovered enough about Blakemort.

  Close up we could see that the door wasn’t locked as Mum had suggested, that it was very slightly ajar. Ethan joined me on the step just outside it, a frown on his face.

  “Have you been up here before?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Why?”

  “’Cos it’s open, that’s why.”

  Open but not welcoming. Nothing about the house was welcoming.

  “Go on then,” he said, “go inside.”

  He pushed me again, right into the door and it gaped further. It was so dark in there, as black as the coal we used for shovelling into the fire.

  “There must be a light,” Ethan said, his hand groping the walls either side of him and finding a pull rather than a switch, which he tugged at.

  When it came on, the light was yellow, sickly somehow, failing to illuminate all areas of such a vast space. Plenty of darkness remained. Another smell accompanied the usual musty one, one I couldn’t describe at the time but now know to be decay. The room was packed. It couldn’t just be with things belonging to Carol, but perhaps Carol’s family too, or other owners – items forgotten about or not wanted and left to… rot. There were old chairs, some stacked on top of each other, their mesh frames unravelling, a long refectory table similar to the one in the dining room that we never used, just as gnarled, and a couple of prams, old-fashioned, like no prams I’d ever seen before – used for babies or dolls, I don’t know which. A clothes rail too, metal hangers swaying lightly on it, and piles of clothes to the side, as if they’d been torn off. Dark and dreary, I couldn’t imagine them being worn again, they were solely the refuge of house spiders. Against the wall, paintings half-covered by a sheet had their backs to us and boxes formed several misshapen towers.

  Ethan was agog. “It’s full of treasure!”

  Never would I have said that, not in a million years.

  Walking over to one of the towers, he started prodding. “What’s in here do you reckon?”

  Why was he asking me? How would I know?

  Struggling slightly, he took down the top-most box and placed it in front of him, immediately opening the cardboard flaps and rummaging inside. Whilst he was busy, I took the opportunity to look around – staring at what I couldn’t see. I got a sense of children again, some even younger than me, plus adults that cowered, not bold at all. I was amazed. Was it possible that ghosts hide? That they get frightened too?

  “Ugh, look!” Ethan pulled what looked like an emaciated fox from the box – my mouth fell open in horror. “How flea bitten is this?”

  “Don’t touch it!” I yelled. “It might bite you.”

  “Bite me? How can it bite me? It’s dead!” He took the ghastly item and draped it around his shoulders. I can tell you what it is now; it was one of those fur stoles that ladies used to drape across their shoulders, complete with face, legs, and tail – a fashion item of the 1930s. Shocking, absolutely shocking. I honestly think it was at that moment that I decided to become a vegetarian. Funnily enough, of all the things that happened at that house, I find that memory one of the queasiest.

  Ethan seemed to revel in my horror but even he appeared slightly disgusted when he finally took it off his shoulders and discarded it to lie forlornly on the floor. He returned his attention to the box. “What else is in here?” he asked again.

  I crept closer – curiosity not responsible for such an action, but simply the need to be close to someone living and breathing, even if it was my brother.

  He dug further, pulling out smooth oval glass weights but with insects inside them, trapped for eternity. I swallowed – again in horror. There was a rabbit foot hanging from a fob – lucky for some I guess – as well as a framed picture with row after row of butterflies pinned to cardboard, their colours remaining iridescent long after their demise. Rather than appalled, Ethan was fascinated, his dark eyes growing wider and wider. Then his face crumpled. “Oh, I thought there’d be more groovy stuff.” He picked up a handful of something. “These are just photos,” he said, unimpressed.

  The photos joined the fox fur on the floor. Whilst he made sure there wasn’t anything else macabre enough in the box to satisfy a little boy’s strange desires, I bent down and picked up one of the photos. It was black and white, very old. In fact I wondered if it would crumble to dust in my hands. When it didn’t, I examined it carefully. There was a woman dressed in a high-collared black dress sitting upright, her eyes closed, her expression solemn. Two children leant in either side of her, one in a white dress and the other in a frilly white shirt – a boy and a girl, similar ages to Ethan and me. Their eyes were closed too. Why h
ad somebody photographed them sleeping? I picked up another photo – this one of a child much younger, lying on a fur rug, her eyes closed and her hands joined together as if in prayer. Dolls surrounded her, all wearing bonnets and fancy dresses, as far removed from Barbie as you could get. The strange thing about the dolls was they also had their eyes closed. In yet another, two men were sitting, one with his arm around the other – his brother perhaps? He had his eyes open at least but the other man’s eyes were closed and he was slumped. Every photo I looked at, the scenario was similar.

  They’re dead.

  As though it had caught fire I dropped the photograph.

  “What?”

  Ethan ignored me. He’d walked over to a rocking chair and was sitting in it, swaying back and forth.

  “What did you say?”

  That box is full of the dead.

  Was it Ethan talking? I couldn’t quite make it out. I took a step or two forwards, to peer closer at him. Like the people in the photos, he had his eyes closed.

  You’re dead too.

  I began shaking, violently shaking.

  “Ethan!”

  Or at least you will be.

  “Ethan!”

  Soon.

  “ETHAN!”

  His eyes sprang open; I was so relieved to see it.

  “I want to go,” I declared, feeling sick to my stomach.

  “Go? But we’ve only just got here, there’s lots to see yet.”

  “We shouldn’t be here,” I replied. Not meaning just the attic, but the house itself.

  There was a wild fluttering above me. I was so surprised to encounter something living aside from us that I screamed and fell back, landing amongst the photos.

  Ethan howled with laughter. “You idiot, it’s a bat, or an owl. Oh, bloody hell,” he said, enjoying immensely that he was out of earshot of Mum and could therefore swear to his heart’s content. “How bloody brilliant if it was a bat!”

  He scrambled towards me and looked up too but whatever had made the noise was quiet now. His eyes spying one of the glass weights he’d handled before, he picked it up, intending to throw it, to disturb what was there.

  “DON’T!” I screamed again, and then more pitifully. “Please don’t.”

  He paused, considered my words, and then mercifully relented. “Come on,” he said, “it’s hot in here. Besides, I’m bored. You’re boring. I’m going to play in my bedroom. There’s only crap here anyway.”

  He stepped over me – literally stepped over me – made his way to the door and banged it shut behind him. No longer open, or even ajar, it confined me within – imprisoned me. What was overhead immediately started fluttering again and in dark corners I could sense writhing. Who was it that had whispered? A boy – the same age as Ethan or thereabouts and even worse than him, if such a thing were possible. My arms were on the floor behind me, supporting my weight but I sat up straight and drew them inwards, trying to curl into a ball instead, to make myself tiny, tinier still, invisible. I had to get up, get out of there, but I couldn’t move. I swallowed, my eyes darting to the left and to the right. Who are you? Who’s here?

  Something swooped – the bat, the owl, whatever creature it was, black feathers in my face and a smell so bitter it blinded me further. I screamed but worse than that I wet myself, my arms flailing in an attempt to keep the damned thing away. Even in my terror I felt shame that I couldn’t control my bladder – that urine was pouring from me – all over the photos, staining them, destroying them. I wanted them destroyed!

  “Get away! Get away! Get away!”

  Surely my screaming would alert Ethan and he’d come rushing back.

  “Get away!”

  I pushed myself upwards. If no one would save me, I had to save myself.

  The thing that was beating about my head retreated – vanished, as if it had never been. Gone. Just like that. Somehow that was even more frightening – its sudden disappearance. Looking back, I’m not even sure it was real. In fact, right now, at this moment, sitting here writing, I’d bet money it wasn’t. It was simply an illusion, some kind of magic trick. Certainly, it never appeared again. But alone as I was, or more accurately not alone, I didn’t have time to contemplate it. My chest rising and falling, sobs starting to engulf me, snot pouring from my nose, my legs hot and sticky, I could only contemplate escape – but damn my feet, they wouldn’t work!

  “Mum! Mum! Mum!” I’d call for her instead but if Ethan couldn’t hear me from one floor down, Mum wouldn’t be able to from the kitchen, or the morning room or the drawing room, or wherever it was she happened to be. I had to change tack.

  “He didn’t mean it. When he said there’s only crap in here, he didn’t mean you.”

  Was that a growl or someone sniggering?

  “I don’t think you’re crap!”

  Another noise: definitely a growl.

  “I just want to… help.”

  It was as good a word as any.

  “Honestly, that’s all I want to do, help.”

  I was completely defenceless, a little girl against so many. I braced myself, shut my eyes, prepared for something to swoop again or to come racing forwards from the shadows, to launch another attack. Instead, something took my hand – someone, with fingers not seen but felt, closing around mine. They didn’t pull, or tug, they simply held onto me. I strained to see an outline of the body attached but I couldn’t.

  That someone cajoled me and got me moving at last, towards the door. They must have opened it because I didn’t and yet it swung from its catch. Accompanying me down the narrow stairway, all the way to my bedroom, we passed Ethan’s room, the sound of kappowing coming from inside as he forced his soldiers to pit their wits against each other in a seemingly endless battle. It pushed my bedroom door open too. As I’ve mentioned, I had a desk in my room, just a small one, somewhere where I could sit and draw if I wanted to. But there was a sheet of paper on it now and a pen, not items I’d placed there. Whatever had hold of my hand, it wanted me to write.

  Blakemort Chapter Five

  I was five, nearly six, and in terms of writing I could just about manage my own name, Mum, Dad, Cat, Hat, Mat, but very little more. In fact, regarding my own name, a lot of the time I spelt it Crin – it was so much easier. I do the same thing now, sign stuff Crin, and even encourage people to call me that too. Some do, some don’t; Mum steadfastly refuses. What had hold of my hand released it and pulled the chair back, rattling it slightly as though growing impatient.

  How I wanted the comfort of my mother but in that moment there was no comfort to be had. Instead, I saw no choice but to do as it wanted. I sat, reached out, picked up the pen, and let my hand hover over the blank sheet.

  “I can’t,” was all I said, trying to explain, but it was no use.

  No longer my hand but that of the other, it started gliding over the page, haphazardly at first – I think it was as new to this as I was – making unintelligible marks, lines, zigzags, and circles even. Gradually more control was exercised and marks resembling words began to appear.

  “I can’t understand,” I repeated. What else could I say? But my hand kept writing.

  Tears filled my eyes. I wished I could read better, that I could understand what was going on.

  “Who are you?” I asked. He or she – I didn’t even know that much – seemed gentler than the others I’d encountered, less vicious. I even wondered if we might be friends. Ah, I was such an innocent! The being couldn’t answer me, not in a way I’d understand, only through writing – a way that made no sense to me at all.

  Frustration rose. “Talk to me instead!”

  Normally a shy child, reserved, I was sometimes prone to the odd tantrum. I broke the hold it had over me, stood up, and threw the pen down. I didn’t want to write anymore, what was the use of it? Growing angrier still, I leant forward with the intention of picking up the paper and of tearing it to shreds, and that’s when this benign being became less so. It shoved me hard, sending me flyi
ng back to land at the side of my bed. In an equally fighting mood I scrambled to my feet and dived forwards again, determined to destroy what it had created. But I couldn’t move! It was as if a wall had sprung up in front of me. I brought my fists up and beat at the air, yelling still.

  What a sight I must have looked, my hair wild, my clothes awry and stinking of urine! Just as I sometimes did with Ethan I continued to retaliate, remembering that memorable time I’d shut his fingers in the doorjamb. He’d been taunting me about something, calling me names again – stupid, dumb, idiot – the usual. It was in my bedroom in our old house, just before we moved. When he turned to leave, he trailed his fingers along the width of the door, into the hollow – I noticed, seized my chance, kicked out and slammed it shut, his hand in the wrong place at the wrong time. The cry he emitted was so satisfying… for about a minute. And then it burst open, Mum standing on the other side – a look of abject horror on her face.

  “What’s happened? What the hell’s happened? Oh, Ethan, are you okay, darling? What did you do?”

  “SHE did it!” Ethan continued to scream, pointing at me. “She slammed the door on my hand deliberately!”

  “Corinna?” Mum looked as if she didn’t believe a word – not her small daughter, surely? She wasn’t capable. But children are far more capable than they look.

  Ethan was making such a song and dance about it, clutching his hand to his chest, and shouting the house down. There was even a spot of blood, staining the carpet beneath his feet, the crimson a stark contrast to the oatmeal. I stood there, hoping Mum wouldn’t believe such a thing of me. But my silence was damning.

  “Corinna, was it you?” she said whilst hugging her other injured child to her.