Psychic Surveys Companion Novels

by Shani Struthers

  It wasn’t long before I caught sight of the picket fence. Lucy turned to me, excitement enlivening eyes that were as brown as her hair.

  “This house,” she said, “these woods that you back onto, they’re amazing. And that, over there, is it what I think it is? A graveyard?”

  “We can’t go in,” I said. “The surnames of everyone, it’s a rude word.”

  “A rude word?”

  “A swear word.”

  “What, like fuck you mean?”

  I winced to hear it. We all swear, I know that, but somehow on the lips of a child, such words seem shocking.

  I shook my head. “No, not that word, it’s…” I swallowed. “Bastard.”

  “What?”

  “Bastard.” Repeating that word brought back the memory of Ethan standing behind me in the bathroom, staring at me, calling me Corinna Bastard.

  Lucy was initially quiet and then she broke into a grin. “Cool,” she said, darting forwards again.

  She kicked at the gate, which swung open, readily, almost greedily. In the circle, she bent down to start reading. “Joseph Bastard, Edward Bastard…” Names I’d heard already. “And these crosses, they’ve got something else on them too.”

  “What?” I called. “Dates?” That was strange, Ethan said there weren’t any.

  “No, not dates, nothing like that. They’re symbols, a circle with a sort of star in the middle. Don’t be a baby, come and see.”

  Come and see? Perhaps I should. As an adult, working as a freelance psychic consultant for Ruby Davis’ company, Psychic Surveys, we specialise in domestic spiritual clearance – we visit houses that are supposedly haunted and, if they are, we use psychic connection to try and persuade the grounded spirit to go to the light, or ‘home’ if you want to call it that; a proper home. Theo, another member of the Psychic Surveys team, whom I’m probably the closest to – she’s like a second mother to me – has a saying: ‘Knowledge is armour’. What she means is, the more you know about a situation, the better prepared you are to deal with it. At that moment, looking at my friend kneeling amongst the crosses, I knew those words to be true long before I’d heard them. I couldn’t remain ignorant.

  My feet like lead, I forced them to move, placing one in front of the other, my hand reaching out and pushing the gate open. It was bad in there, bad, bad, bad. As bad as it was in the attic, in the music room, in Mum’s room. There were so many souls, and I got the impression that, like the woman who’d stood behind Mum screaming, they were doing the same – for all eternity. It was yet another vision that repelled me. I almost turned and walked out, but Lucy was calling me again, insisting I look.

  I knelt too, in front of one of the crosses. She was right; a jagged circle was carved into each one, with some kind of a star in the middle of it. I had no idea what it was back then but somehow it seemed familiar – as if I should know.

  Lucy reached out and touched the symbol, tracing her finger around it.

  “It’s spooky isn’t it?” she said, not in a horrified manner, rather she was… entranced. “Have you noticed something else too?” she asked.

  I shook my head. Hadn’t we noticed enough?

  “The crosses are strange, they’re not like normal crosses are they?”

  I hated having to look at them but I stared harder, wondering what she meant.

  “The crisscross bit,” she elaborated, ‘it’s quite far down. It should be higher than that.” She sat back on her heels. “I don’t know… it’s as if they’re upside down.”

  Upside down? She was right! That’s exactly what they were – wrong, all wrong.

  I stood up, one hand flying to my chest in fright. “We need to get out of here.”

  Lucy looked at me, confused. “Why?”

  “We just do.”

  Without waiting for her to comment further, I started walking towards the gate and then it occurred to me: the graveyard itself was contained within a circle, and the crosses, where they’d been planted, did they form a star shape too? Outside the picket fence, I glanced back thinking I could see a rough outline of a star inside but the tall grass obscured everything, or distorted it, whichever was more apt. I returned my gaze in the direction of Blakemort. Was it possible I could see the graveyard from inside the house, from on high perhaps, the eaves windows? That would mean venturing into the attic again and I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.

  Lucy grabbed hold of my sleeve. “Let’s go back to the house, explore inside.”

  I’d never seen her like this before, so excited. She was a bright girl; in fact I envied how clever she was at times, how effortlessly she grasped facts of a mathematical nature at school, whilst I struggled with the basics. She was enthusiastic certainly, with a zest for life, yet in that moment, she looked… manic.

  As we returned to the house, I stopped her from going through the music room door again, by insisting we walk round the side instead so we could go in the front way. We had to knock loudly several times to get Mum’s attention.

  “Sorry,” she said finally answering, a distracted look in her eyes, “I didn’t hear you.” Just like she hadn’t heard Dad on the morning of his wedding. “Are you hungry?” she continued, but we weren’t, we’d already eaten a big meal. Just as well, because she wandered back into her office without waiting for us to reply.

  Fulfilling her wishes, I showed Lucy the rest of the downstairs, her eyes still wide, only once wrinkling her nose with distaste when she saw the black mould fanning outwards on the walls in the drawing room.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Damp,” I told her.

  “Nasty.”

  It was, but it was also the least of our problems.

  Climbing the stairs, her fingers trailed along the bannister. “I wish my house was like this,” she said, almost breathily.

  You don’t. Again I didn’t voice that thought.

  Upstairs, I wanted to take her straight to my bedroom, but she insisted on peeking in all of them, lingering mainly in Ethan’s, which she declared ‘cool’. We stood just in the doorway and I didn’t think it was cool at all. It was unbelievably messy, with his clothes on the floor where he’d dropped them, his bed unmade. But worst of all was the smell. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was pungent, offensive even. Not that wide-eyed Lucy seemed to notice, she was so in awe of him. Why hadn’t Mum been in to clean Ethan’s room, or at least ordered him to? Come to think of it, she hadn’t been in to tidy mine recently. I tried to think of the last time and realised I couldn’t.

  I wanted to escape Ethan’s room, the whole unsavoury feel of it. “Come on,” I urged.

  Lucy seemed happy enough to follow me and then she caught a glimpse of another stairway, the one that hid itself away.

  “What’s this?” she said, going towards it.

  As I’d done when she’d hurtled towards the music room door, I yelled, “Don’t!”

  Again she ignored me. Standing at the bottom of those narrow stairs, she stared upwards. “It’s the stairs to the attic!”

  I groaned. Why, oh why, did this house fascinate her? I’m sorry to say I began doubting myself in that moment. Believing that perhaps I was just too imaginative a child. There was nothing wrong with Blakemort, absolutely nothing. It was normal. I wasn’t. I was abnormal. And then I shook my head. The graveyard… I didn’t make that up. That was real enough.

  “Let’s go on up,” she said, her foot already on the lowest tread.

  “Let’s just go to my bedroom, we can play with Barbie—”

  She sniggered. “I don’t play with Barbie anymore. No one does, stupid.”

  Oh, that word! Ethan used it all the time and now Lucy.

  I strode forward and pushed past her. “Okay, okay, come on then, let’s go. Let’s do what you want to do and explore the attic, the boring old attic.”

  But it hadn’t been boring before. I only hoped it would be this time. And, as kids do, I searched for a positive. At the very least I might catch a g
limpse of the graveyard – to see if it really did resemble the shape on the crosses. As I’ve said, I hadn’t been up there since that first year having carefully avoided it, whereas Ethan just didn’t seem bothered by it. Mum never suggested it either, but why would she? People don’t hang about in such places. But some things do. Some prefer them.

  As it had been before, the door was slightly ajar. Pushing it open, I did as Ethan had and groped for the light pull, half expecting something to grab my hand and drag me in. I tugged and light of sorts relieved the gloom.

  “It’s packed full of stuff!” said Lucy.

  It was. Dead stuff.

  She walked over to the box that Ethan had delved into and gingerly looked inside. “Be good if we had a torch,” she said, “it’s hard to see stuff properly.”

  “Come over here,” I said steering her away from it, from any photos that lay spoiled at her feet, that I’d urinated on in terror. “There’s loads of clothes over here, just lying around.”

  Despite myself I was intrigued. Could they be dressing up clothes? They certainly looked like it. There were masks as well as cloaks, black in colour, and shifts, bundles and bundles of them. One mask in particular caught my attention, its nose was in the shape of a beak and, like everything else in that house, it smelt rank, but this time in an earthy sort of way, herbal almost, like the oregano Mum used in her bolognaise but a hundred times worse; nothing appetising about it at all. Whilst Lucy held a cloak up, I shifted over to one of the windows in an attempt to spot the graveyard.

  “What do you think?” Lucy said, having draped herself in the garment.

  “Hmm, cool,” I said, not looking.

  “I’ll put one of the masks on too,” she added.

  “Yeah, sure, it’ll be funny.”

  Where was it? Over to the left a bit, perhaps a bit more to the right, through that clump of trees that stood like sentinels. There it was! Tiny now but the picket fence gave it depth at least. I squinted, peered harder. Yes, the crosses did form some sort of shape but still the grass obscured them, it could be a star, it could well be a star. If only I could have magnified the whole thing just to be sure. Readjusting my eyesight, I blinked several times, looked to the left slightly, and that’s when I saw what was engraved on the wood of the windowsill: more of those symbols – the circle and the cross – other marks too, letters, but none that I recognised. It was an alphabet of another kind. I reached up to trace them as Lucy had traced them outside, felt the roughness of the carving, wondered if splinters might lodge in my fingertips and then I screamed as something flew at me, my hand striking out instead.

  “Lucy!” I said, hardly believing what I’d done. I hadn’t realised it was her; I thought it was the fluttering thing that had attacked me before. Certainly, all I’d seen was something black in the corner of my eye but that had been the cloak she wore, the whiteness of her face covered by something black too, a mask. I rushed towards her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s the second time you’ve hit me!”

  “I didn’t mean to, and besides, the first time I bumped into you, I didn’t hit you.”

  I was in danger of gabbling so I shut up, reached out a hand, but she slapped it away.

  “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me!”

  “Lucy, I’m sorry.” I was desperate for her to calm down. Anger in that house only incited more. “Let me help you.”

  “No!”

  She got herself up, struggling slightly, before standing right in front of me. In the black cloak and the black mask she looked almost inhuman; a shape, a shadow, or something that belonged to the shadows, that should never see the daylight.

  “You’re stupid that’s what you are, and violent. Wait ’til I tell my Mum what you’ve done, when I tell your Mum, that we were playing, that you attacked me.”

  Again I was stunned. How could she say such words to me, threaten me like that? I hadn’t hit her, not deliberately and we weren’t playing, we were exploring, something I didn’t want to do, which she made me do. Anger rose in me too.

  “Don’t you dare tell my mum,” I warned.

  “I will, and you’ll be in trouble, big trouble.”

  I took a step forwards. “You’d better not, I’m warning you.”

  “Or you’ll do what? You’re stupid, you can’t do anything.”

  “Stop calling me stupid.”

  “I won’t, because that’s what you are. Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  “Stop it!”

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She repeated it on a loop, each word a blow too.

  I was breathing so hard, my chest rising up and down as fury began to blind me. Often it’s described as a red mist and I think that’s accurate enough. Certainly it seemed to obscure my vision. In front of me all was hazy, the black of her and the black of the others blending, the excitement, the hatred in the air palpable. My hands bunched into fists as the others formed a circle around us – always a circle – as they closed us in and trapped us. Couldn’t she sense them too? Was she really oblivious? She must have been, and stupid too, despite hurling that word at me.

  Go on. Kill her!

  It was a voice in my ear. I turned my head abruptly but there was no one there.

  Kill her!

  The voice in my other ear now, but again disembodied.

  KILL HER!

  It was screaming, the sound a knife blade, as sharp, and as piercing.

  Or we’ll kill you!

  One hand rising, I drew it back. It was down to her or me. Only one of us would survive. The cloak and the mask helped, as it didn’t look like Lucy. It didn’t look like anyone. Faceless and formless, she was easier to kill… to kill… to kill…

  I gasped. What was I thinking? She was supposed to be my friend, my best friend.

  Lucy had a change of heart too. She stopped chanting, took off her mask, her expression as confused as mine I’m sure.

  “Corinna, I’m—”

  As if my fist had a will of its own, it drew back and then forwards, sending Lucy flying for the third time.

  Blakemort Chapter Twenty-Three

  Needless to say, Lucy didn’t stay that night, she ran from the attic, tripping over the black cloak on several occasions and nearly falling again, screaming for my mother. I ran after her, shaking violently, every now and then glancing at my right hand, as if it didn’t belong to me – and it hadn’t, not during the moment it came into contact with Lucy’s face. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t! Not that Lucy would believe me, or Mum, or Lucy’s Mum. She was horrified when she came racing over to pick Lucy up and Mum bore the full brunt of her anger instead of me – ordering me in the drawing room and closing the door. Left me in there to listen, to them, and to the laughter that echoed around. Had the boy, that spiteful boy, that evil boy, grabbed hold of my fist? Was he the one responsible? There were just so many of them it was impossible to tell.

  The following week there were only three days left at school before term was finally over and Mum kept me home, insisting it was the best thing to do, that the fuss over what had happened would die down if I stayed away. Ethan had been furious that he’d had to go in when I didn’t, had looked at me as if I’d choreographed the whole thing, but there was one thing he didn’t do: he didn’t call me stupid.

  We didn’t go away that year, there was no way we could afford to, and eventually summer gave way to autumn and the start of a new school year. Lucy hadn’t forgotten my supposed treatment of her and made sure several others turned their backs on me too. I spent so many playtimes on my own, and no one ever visited the house again, nor was I invited to their houses, not anymore. It was just the routine of school, home and going out with Dad on a Saturday. That’s what the house had done – it had isolated us. How I longed for Aunt Julia’s visits at least.

  “She is coming for Christmas, isn’t she?” I checked with Mum one afternoon when we were in the kitchen. Mum was attempting to make scones, but she’d already burnt
the first batch. “Mum,” I said again, having to prompt her, as she kept a strict eye on the timing of the second.

  “Hmm, yes, yes, I think so. If we’re still here that is.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. “What do you mean if we’re still here?”

  Finally she looked at me. “Well, I’m not sure I can face another winter, you know? Freezing one minute, boiling the next. And it’s too far out. I want to be closer to life.”

  Closer to life? Me too! I wanted nothing more.

  Barely able to contain my excitement, I started jumping up and down. “When can we move? When? When? When?”

  Mum laughed and as she did I was struck by how lovely it was to see a genuine smile light up her face, it had been a long time since I’d seen that, too long. Retrieving the scones from the oven, that batch only slightly better than the first, despite her diligence, Mum affectionately told me to calm down. “We can’t just move in an instant, it doesn’t work like that. I’ve got to give Carol notice. It’s only polite. Then we have to start looking. Well, I say start, but to be honest I’ve been looking already.”

  “I thought we couldn’t afford to move,” I said, worried again.

  Mum averted her gaze at this and I had to prompt her again for an answer.

  “I’ve accepted help from your dad,” she confided, before giving a defiant shrug. “I don’t see why not. I look after his children so it’s for your benefit as well as mine.” She looked around her. “I just don’t think it’s good for us being here that’s all.”

  My heart skipped a beat. She’d noticed! I wasn’t alone. My relief was incredible. It seemed to flood right through me. But don’t let the house know. Quickly the words formed in my mind. Keep your plans as secret as possible. But have you tried keeping things from the walls that surround you, the very air that you breathe? It’s impossible. That was something I didn’t want to think about. All I wanted to do was to soak up what she’d told me and to dream of a future without Blakemort in it.