Psychic Surveys Companion Novels

by Shani Struthers

  Mum was over in the far corner, on her hands and knees, a bucket of water by her side, water that had turned black with filth. “I’m fed up of it, I really am. This house… this bloody house… what with the heating, the electrics, and the flies. God, the flies!”

  “Why don’t we move?” I asked the question, still hoping for a favourable answer.

  “We can’t, not yet. I’ve already explained that.”

  She had but not to me, to Aunt Julia, all those months ago. I could recall their conversation word for word, how she thought she’d been pushed down the stairs, that time she’d broken her leg. But then, in the next breath she’d denied it: “Ignore me. I’m getting confused. All those painkillers are addling my brain.” And with that any hope I had of confiding in her faded – she didn’t want to believe that something malevolent might be responsible. No one does. Who can blame them?

  Mum stood up, she looked so cross I wondered if she might stamp her foot like I used to when I was younger. She didn’t. She just took the bucket of water and carried it through to the kitchen, ready to change it for fresh. Weary but determined.

  It was November, and we were on the run-up to Christmas again, our fourth Christmas and by now, instead of looking forward to it, longing for it, I was dreading it. Any childish enthusiasm successfully extinguished. Even Ethan was less bothered, not that we saw that much of Ethan anyway. After school he’d lock himself in his room, playing with yet another computer game Aunt Julia had sent him. Mum was baffled. “I can’t believe how much you’re spoiling him,” she remarked once. They were speaking on the telephone so what my aunt’s excuse was, I don’t know.

  Aunt Julia was planning on visiting again at Christmas even though she was now seeing someone. “It’s tradition,” Mum said, or at least it had become tradition since Mum had split with Dad – a show of sisterly support at a time when no one should be alone. She’d been down in the summer too, but only overnight and Mum had gone to see her on one of the rare occasions we actually stayed over at Dad’s. That was one good thing about Christmas at least, Aunt Julia being here. Despite what had happened I missed her and anyway, I’d come to the conclusion that Ethan deserved that smack. I didn’t blame her one bit.

  It was a rainy weekend, hence Mum was cleaning – “Making a start on getting the house halfway decent for Christmas,” she said. Ethan had gone out with Dad but I’d opted to stay at home with Mum, she seemed so agitated lately and again I was worried for her. It hadn’t been the best of years – Mum’s leg had mended but she’d not been well for a lot of it, as she’d had several colds and a cough that lingered. Ethan had been ill too, developing a mysterious rash on his stomach, like he’d been pricked with a thousand tiny needles. The doctor had said it was nothing to worry about but I began to wonder about those marks, and just who was responsible for them. I’d been okay, by and large, the odd sniffle, but Mum and Ethan were always poorly, and Ethan had missed quite a chunk of school.

  Not me though. I never missed school – I had too much to learn. The book I was reading was a chapter book, aimed at much older children. I was eight (going on nine) but I could read really well and write too – of an ‘excellent standard’ according to my pleased teachers. I spent so much time practising both I was advanced beyond my years. With Mum busy and Ethan absent, I decided to go upstairs to my room, to look at the stash of papers I kept hidden.

  Automatic writing – that’s what the practice is called – I know that well enough now, a psychic ability whereby either your subconscious or something supernatural takes control to produce written matter. It can happen in either a trance or a waking state – with me it was mostly in a waking state. Skeptics claim it’s only the subconscious mind in action and in many cases I think they’re right. But there was no way my mind could conjure up any of this and from such a young age too. Besides, I could feel the hand that took hold of mine; could sense their insistence, and also lately their desperation. But of what? Of being discovered? By who exactly?

  Dragging my chair over to the wardrobe, I climbed on it, ignoring how wobbly it was and the threat of it buckling beneath me. Quickly retrieving the box with the stash in it I took it over to my bed. Beforehand, I had pulled the curtains – I don’t know why I did this, it just made it more private somehow as if what was outside couldn’t peek in. Silly I know. I was on the second floor, but then again, there’s a school of thought that suggests spirits can hover. Sillier still, there were plenty in the house itself, but somehow it just seemed safer being cocooned, so I went with those feelings, as children often do. Lifting the lid of the box, I stared at the contents, which were in a bit of a jumble I have to admit and I was momentarily cross with myself for not keeping them in the order they’d been written. But then I shrugged. What the heck. A lot of the stuff repeated itself anyway. But, and this was only very recently, the writing was becoming more sophisticated. It was as though whoever was using me as a conduit was growing with me. Either that or making better use of my enhanced skills. I started sifting through. There was always much use of the word Death and Evil, as if the writer was trying to drum it home but it didn’t have to try so hard. Remembering what was above me, in the attic; in the makeshift cemetery we’d discovered; in the music room, and those that hid just out of sight, I knew well enough what was here. Bad place. That was repeated a lot too, often ‘bad’ in capital letters with an exclamation mark after it: BAD! BAD! BAD! I knew that too but what could I do about it?

  On some pieces of paper there was nonsense scrawled, letters haphazard and shaky, as if whoever possessed me was quaking with fear. I would feel fear too, great swathes of it washing over me – emotions by proxy. And on another sheet there’d just been crosses, of all shapes and sizes. This was before we’d discovered the cemetery. I now think this was the spirit’s way of telling me about it. I handled another piece of paper; one I’d read a hundred times over. Some hide. Some don’t. Who were the ones hiding and why? Only once had I asked that question out loud and my hand had replied with one simple instruction: Don’t.

  I breathed a sigh of exasperation. As I’ve said before, the writing was becoming a bit more sophisticated in that different words were at last being used, not variations of the same ones. Long ago had been employed many times but now there was the use of the word History and Key. There were other additions too – Danger. Leave. Go. But most recently was the use of the word Quick. Must be quick. Sometimes I got the impression those words referred to me, to us as a family, and sometimes to the writer itself – they had to be quick because they feared retribution.

  All this was just surmising though. I didn’t know anything for sure and, at a time when I should still be playing with Barbie dolls (I didn’t do that so much after that incident with the boy) I was trying to figure out the mystery of my surroundings instead; something I resented. Part of me wanted to take the box downstairs and throw it in the fire and whenever that thought popped up, I’d hear a voice in my head chanting Do it! Do it! Do it! And that’s why I didn’t because I attributed that voice to the boy who’d stepped forward. The spite in it was all too familiar.

  Another thought occurred. When I’d tried to destroy the first piece of paper, rip it up, something had stopped me, a force so strong I’d likened it to a wall, bending me backwards over the bed, crushing me, warning me. But was it a warning for the greater good? Don’t destroy this paper because you need it; if you want to survive you have to understand. I inhaled. Felt proud of myself for coming to that conclusion, for realising something: that there were two forces at war in Blakemort – a second one that, like me, was given to moments of boldness, who didn’t just take all the house had to throw at them, who came out of hiding sometimes and fought back.

  I also thought of Mum and Ethan – all that had happened to them, and wondered if they were easy targets. Those who don’t believe, who won’t even countenance such things, sometimes the reason for that is fear. It was hard to believe in Ethan’s case because he was always so bolshie,
but Mum only ever wanted to think about good things, so she’d bury her head in the sand when it came to the bad, and not confront such issues. Run away from them or, in Dad’s case, let them run from her. It’s not a criticism, I love my mother, but sometimes you have to meet the problems head on. Or so I reckoned – optimism returning as I began to feel braver too, like the characters I’d read about in so many books, all of whom overcame adversity by refusing to be cowed. There was a mystery surrounding me – the mystery of Blakemort – and I congratulated myself even further when I put two words together from my unseen scribe and made sudden sense of them. History is the key. I had to find out the history of the house if I was going to prove as valiant as those in fiction.

  Blakemort Chapter Fifteen

  I rushed downstairs. Mum had gone back into the living room and was still scrubbing, still muttering. I heard her say, “How did it come to this? How did it ever come to this?”

  Because you didn’t stay and fight for Dad, or send that girlfriend of his packing.

  With my newfound sense of knowledge I was sure she could have seen her off – won the fight. I hadn’t met Carrie yet but who could compare to Mum? Despite my adoration of her, rage surged as I watched her on her hands and knees. I tried to fight it. I shouldn’t be angry with her, I shouldn’t! She was suffering, but then so were we. Why couldn’t she have forgiven Dad? Was it really so difficult? Would I be as unforgiving when I grew up? Would I be the same as her, stubborn to a fault?

  The rage in me grew fiercer as my gaze was drawn towards the fireplace. There were only blackened embers in it, but to the side was an iron poker hanging from a stand. I couldn’t stop staring at it; it was as though my head was caught in a vice. All too vividly I imagined walking over to that poker and picking it up, loving the cold, hard feel of it in my hand, the sheer weight. My fingers tightened. What? It seemed I had it my hand already! I was also standing behind Mum, her back to me as she continually washed the wall, continually muttered. If she started to hum that tune… Oh, God, if she started to do that… My hand hovering for only a few moments, I hit out. There was such strength in my arm; such will. Blood spurted everywhere, like some sort of festive decoration, splattering not only walls, covering the mould, but me too – decorating me. It was on my lips and my tongue ran across them, enjoying the taste, wanting more, to gulp from the fountain that sprayed upwards, to quench a sudden, perhaps insatiable desire. Mum was on the floor, her head broken this time, not her leg; an injury she was never going to recover from.

  “Oh, there you are, darling, I was wondering where you’d got to.”

  I was confused. Mum was speaking, but how? She was dead wasn’t she? I blinked and shook my head so violently that Mum stopped what she was doing and came over to me. I hadn’t moved at all. I was in the same spot!

  “What’s wrong? Don’t do that, sweetie, you’ll addle your brain.”

  My body was shaking too. That vision had been so real! I really thought I’d committed such a vile crime – or rather that I’d been made to – that poor Mum had been battered to death! Coming from the distance of the music room I could hear laughter, such dire amusement in it and, rather than frighten me, it strengthened my resolve. I stopped shaking my head, held back the tears, refused to give those who watched that satisfaction. Instead I looked my bemused mum straight in the eye.

  “I forgot to tell you, we’re doing a history project at school. We’ve got to pick a house and learn about the history of it.” I shrugged, my manner convincingly casual, at least I hoped so. “Blakemort’s old, can you help me find out all about it?”

  * * *

  Ethan arrived home after dinner, hugging Dad goodbye in the car and rushing in. He only said a brief hello to us but he looked furtive as if he had something to hide. Mum reckoned so too because she stared after him as he took the stairs two at a time.

  “Did you enjoy your day?” she called but he didn’t reply. “Oh, well,” she continued, “let’s presume he did.”

  Dad hadn’t come in but then I’d seen him that morning anyway, so I wasn’t really fussed. I had other things on my mind.

  “Mum, when shall we make a start on my history project?”

  “Your history project?” The absent-minded nature of her reply indicated she’d forgotten I’d asked.

  “Yes, I mentioned it earlier.”

  “That’s right, hmm, yes, well… I’m not sure how we really go about it to be honest. I could email Carol to see what she knows. Other than that, I imagine we go to our local record office; there must be something about Blakemort there, some house deeds, or a registry of who’s lived here through the years. We could even try the Internet and see what we find on there. When does the project have to be in for?”

  “Soon,” I said, remembering the word quick and how many times it had been written.

  “Let’s go to my office and try the Internet first.”

  The Internet then wasn’t quite what it is today but, as Mum said, it was worth trying. Firing up her computer, Mum typed ‘Blakemort, Whitesmith’ into the search bar. At first nothing happened as the computer ‘thought’ about it, I always used to imagine little cells like whorls spinning away inside its ‘mind’ when it did that. We both waited patiently – it seemed to be taking an age – Mum occasionally shivering, as it was cold, and getting colder, the temperature plummeting.

  “Come on, come on,” she was saying. I think she was eager to return to the fire, to warm up or try, at least.

  At last the screen changed and pages upon pages of information came up but nothing to do with Blakemort. When Mum tried to click on one of the links, all it said was ‘page unavailable’.

  “Try again,” I urged, wondering if it was another game being played – the spirits somehow manipulating our search, or rather hindering it. She made a mistake though and typed in ‘Blackmort’ instead. The first few links referred to company names but there, at the bottom was a link to ‘The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever.’

  “Look, Mum,” I said, pointing. We’d been taught about the Black Death in school; that it had taken place during the Middle Ages and rats had been a main carrier of the disease. It had been both fascinating and awful to learn about, with drawings of people whose skin were covered in boils. So many people had died from it, more than I could comprehend, and I was saddened to think of children losing parents, and parents losing children, all the loved ones that had perished because they’d fallen ill. “Do you think that happened here too?”

  Mum looked at me. “Here? Do you mean in Sussex?”

  I nodded. I suppose that is what I meant. I tended to think of the Black Death as having happened mainly in London but rats got everywhere, we’d even had one in the house recently. Mum had heard a rustling in the kitchen, gone to investigate and disturbed one the ‘size of a small cat’ she’d said. She chased after it with a broom but it got away – disappeared to where it had come from. Of the spirits that lingered, some of them could easily have died from the plague. This was an old house, an ancient house, housing ancient souls perhaps.

  Mum typed in Black Death, Sussex and called up a page. ‘In the early 1330s an outbreak of the bubonic plague started in China. In October 1347, Italian merchant ships carried the plague to Italy, and then to Europe. By August 1348, the plague reached England, where it was known as the Black Death, because of black pustules forming on the skin.’ On and on she read, some of what she was saying making sense, some of it too advanced for me and which I had to reread later, as an adult, to make sense of it. ‘Also in the small towns of Rye and Winchelsea are areas known as Deadman’s Lane believed to be where the plague victims were buried. Other villages too, in and around Sussex, were badly affected.’ There was also a grid on this page with the title ‘Villages Referenced’, Mum scrolled down and sure enough Whitesmith was mentioned. There had been victims here, plenty of them. We learnt that entire Sussex villages had been either destroyed or abandoned because of the plague, villages that were mention
ed in the Domesday Book but were now no more. The narrator listed them – Upper Burnham, Old Parham, Cadlow – to name but a few. Mum read from the list and then came to an abrupt halt.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Upper Burnham sounds familiar.”

  I shrugged. “Why?”

  “I… I don’t know, it just does. Maybe it’s similar to another village I know of. Old Parham for example, there’s a village elsewhere in Sussex simply called Parham, one that’s thriving I’m glad to say. In fact, it has a beautiful house open to the public, Parham House and Gardens. We visited it once but you were tiny, you wouldn’t remember.” She paused. “The lost villages of Sussex, it sounds so sad doesn’t it?”

  The way she said it, she sounded lost too. I had another question for her.

  “Mum, what does the word ‘mort’ mean?”

  “Mort?”

  “It’s French isn’t it?” How I knew that at such a young age I’ll never know, perhaps once again it had been referred to in school.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Yes of course it is.” Again she paused. “It means death.”

  * * *

  We stopped our search soon after, Mum said that ‘morbid affairs’ were side-tracking us. There was nothing specifically about our house anyway, not on the Internet, so, after promising me a trip to the local record office, she declared it bedtime.

  “And like I said, I’ll email Carol. She might be able to tell us something more.”

  On our way upstairs, Mum peeked into Ethan’s room and was surprised to find him already asleep. Then she went to get ready for bed herself, whilst I brushed my teeth and got changed into pyjamas.

  I’d gone to my room, got into bed and was waiting for Mum to come and say goodnight to me as she always did.

  I’d pushed the door to, but it began to open, sliding against the carpet slowly, very slowly. I was puzzled. What was Mum doing? Why didn’t she just come in?