Psychic Surveys Companion Novels

by Shani Struthers

  If she was there, she was giving as good as she’d got, by dishing up a bit of karma, but I wouldn’t get angry with her – those days were gone.

  “The thing is, despite all that, it’s you I miss. It’s been twelve years.”

  Still there was nothing.

  “Okay, all right,” I said, digging in my coat pocket for my car key and withdrawing it. As I did, I sighed. “Have it your way, but you can’t sulk forever. And do you know why?”

  Deliberately I paused, to let the atmosphere build, to let the mystery that would reel her in – eventually – deepen.

  She always loved to play games, so where was the harm in playing one now?

  “Because I know your name,” I said. “I finally managed to find it out.”

  The End

  ROSAMUND

  A Psychic Surveys Companion Novel (Book Three)

  Rosamund Prologue

  1889

  This is why I do it. Why I write.

  It is not comfortable where I am sitting. It is a small space, cramped. In front of me is a child’s desk, and barely any light to see by, just a pale shaft that shines through a small oval window. How valiant that light is; how it tries so hard to pierce the gloom. My hands, oh my hands! They shake as I scribe, guilty of knocking over the inkpot on several occasions. Not that it matters about the spillage. Not here, in the attic. He will not see it. He refuses to venture in here. As to why, I have no clue. Perhaps he is afraid, although it holds far less to be frightened of than what dwells in his mind. There are things to be frightened of, however… strange things…

  I do not have long. The day is beginning to wane and soon I will not be able to see to write – not anymore. My hands shaking worse than ever, I add to the quantity of paper already filled. I outline; I describe. Sometimes in fleeting detail, at other times so much more than that, even though my heart threatens to burst from my chest because of it and my head screams: ‘Try and forget. It is best to forget!’

  There will come a time to forget.

  These dark details are not being compiled for the sake of it; they are to let her know she is not alone. For she will have to bear the burden of what is to come.

  My darling girl, my angel – for that is what she is, despite being born into such hell: his land; his house; a marriage forced upon me. One child, but there will be no more. His hand will never touch me in that way again, I will make sure of it. If only I were stronger; if only I could bear this burden instead of she – but it is not to be.

  There are things one should never see, not here, not in this realm; that should never be allowed to cross the great divide. But they will cross, if you goad them, if you taunt them, if, above all you offer them sanctuary. A devout Christian is how he portrays himself, and how he fools those around him with his supposedly pious ways. Such a pillar of the community! So benevolent! But he has never fooled me. I could see the darkness in him from our very first meeting and I shrank back because of it. He saw something in me too – not a shining heart, a girl to love, not even innocence, for in so many ways this gift erodes that. What he saw was someone he thought he could mould, and so he pursued me, he hounded me – his supposed wealth and power blinding my otherwise loving parents. I was handed over as a prized animal might be handed over: to the slaughter.

  And now I am a mother…

  I look up. The door is rattling, the handle turning, first one way, and then the other; not a frenzied action, not yet, but soon it will be. It is not him, nor the maid or the housekeeper, for they will not venture into the attic either. They have no need.

  It is one of them, seeking to stop me; desperate to do so. Ignorance is such a powerful thing; it gives the idle an excuse to follow, to bend the knee, to be led. It is the ignorant who will summon those from across the gulf that exists to divide us. If only they realised more fully what they were doing; what it is that they unleash.

  I am not ignorant. I do know. And what is on the other side of the door hates that I do. These things – for I refuse to name them – are the very embodiment of hate.

  But they will not enter either. In here I have spun a light, one that has nothing to do with the sun or the moon and that will never fade. I have built a wall so high I can no longer see over the top. It protects me, but more than that, it protects what is now written. It will hide these pages should they ever manage to enter. It will block them.

  In the end it will block everything.

  Such is the price I must pay.

  Darling Rosamund, my greatest wish is that you – and only you – unearth what lies buried, and when you do, may it help you to find a way through hell.

  Do not despair. Be strong, far stronger than I have been.

  I am sorry at having borne you into this. At least I will not bear another.

  This is why I write. Not to save myself, but to save you.

  Rosamund Chapter One

  Fourteen Years Later

  “Rosamund! Rosamund! Where are you?”

  With the tiled floor cold against my stockinged feet, I flew down the length of the corridor as far from that voice as possible. The narrow walls on either side of me were covered in floral wallpaper, not bright in colour, and not cheerful either, rather it looked as if a thousand tiny flowers were caught in various stages of decay. It was only I that ever used this corridor, although it was one of many in this house, which, beside myself, only my father, a housekeeper and a maid occupied. A house set miles from towns and villages, from life, concealed deep in the countryside.

  Father was not always in residence, spending a great deal of his time in London, mixing no doubt with other eminent landowners born into riches. I was glad he was rarely home. My father and I were not close; I make this known from the outset. There was no one in the house to whom I was close. The new maid, Josie, was proving to be an elusive creature, and Miss Tiggs, the housekeeper, who seemed to have been here forever, certainly since my birth, disliked me as much as I disliked her. There did not appear to be a particular reason for our mutual dislike but for my part, I found her… peculiar, keeping to the kitchens as she did, her domain, as I have always thought of it. I once had a governess, but I had not seen her in months and no one thought this odd, least of all my father, who, when I saw fit to remark upon her absence, shut me up with a stern ‘Can you not see I’m busy? I am reading.’

  When home, when not in search of me, he usually locked himself away in his study, on which occasions I could imagine well enough the concentration on his foxlike face as he waded through the tomes that lined the shelves there. When he grew weary of the books, however, he would demand I sit with him, his whisky-soured breath potent as he asked me the same question over and over. What do you see?

  I did not wish to play such a tiresome game today; to gaze deep into his eyes, as dark as mine, as they continued to narrow and hunt for any information I might be able to impart. The moment I heard him roar, I glanced towards the clock on the mantelpiece of my bedroom. It was early; barely midday. Surely he was not imbibing already? Frightened that his summons meant something; that he was angry in some way, distressed or disturbed, I tore myself from my book – for I loved to read too – and picked up my skirts and ran, through labyrinthine corridors, past empty rooms, barely glancing at the rain-drenched Sussex landscape outside.

  I had been doing this ever since I could remember: running. Sixteen now and no longer a child, I was practically a young woman, but running seemed to have been as much an integral part of my life as the mutual dislike between myself and Miss Tiggs; a simple fact of it. Was I indeed frightened when he came for me? Sometimes. At other times I was angered by it – especially if engrossed in a particular passage in a book, or involved in the painting of a watercolour, depicting the misty grounds of the house perhaps, or its rather grand Georgian exterior. Mears House was where I resided. No one had ever explained to me why it was christened as such; whether indeed it was a Mears family that lived there originally, or if it was named for the architect th
at built it. Certainly, it seemed to have no connection to my family name, that of Howard. I sketched the house quite often: nine windows plus the grand door with a portico dominating the front elevation. I also painted the grounds in which it sits; the grass and the countless trees that form a ring of woodland around the house, in which only I ever seemed to roam. I would draw the path in front of the house, the one that meandered through the landscape, which I longed to run down, away from here and into a world I could only imagine. And, of course, I would draw the roof with only one window at the rear to punctuate the expanse of grey slate – not nearly enough to benefit such an attic. I imagined there should have been more, if only for the sake of symmetry.

  The attic was a safe place for me. I had no idea why Father would not venture there. I knew only that once he had taken the right turn at the rear of the house that led to another much narrower flight of stairs, one I always regarded as hidden, he would come to an abrupt halt. Only once had he dared to stand outside the attic door; to touch the handle, tentatively, testing it this way and that, almost pushing it open before deciding against it and retreating. The relief that I had felt!

  I held no such reservation and having reached the attic myself, I closed the door behind me, stopping at last to catch my breath from the steep climb. As I have previously noted, it is a vast room, not entirely covering the length and breadth of the house, but within the attic, it did feel so. In many ways it seemed bigger than the house. There were discarded boxes everywhere and items of furniture covered in white sheets that, in the gloom from the single distant window, were capable of casting the oddest of shapes, conjuring people with twisted limbs. According to my former governess, I had always had an overactive imagination! The attic was not overly dark as the daylight from that intrepid window filtered well enough through the cobwebs. What would it be like with no sunlight at all, however, and no moon glow either? Perhaps then there would be reason enough to be frightened.

  “Rosamund!”

  Still I could hear him. No doubt he was at the bottom of those hidden stairs, standing with fists clenched, his lips a thin white line.

  As I looked around, I tried to understand: why would he not come up here? What was it that repelled him? I would pay for being disobedient in due course, for not coming to heel as a dog might. If only I could hide in this lofty space forever, but I could not. I would have to resurface. And when I did, he would drag me to his study, push me back into that cracked and worn leather chair that stood across the desk from his, and growl at me until I succumbed; until I gave him at least some semblance of an answer. What do you see?

  Not wishing to think of my fate, I weaved around the furniture, my tread careful as I made my way to the far end of the room, to where the hazy light shone like candlelight through gossamer, so softly. There was a desk there, positioned in an alcove; a small one, the kind that may have been used in a school I tended to think, although I had never been to one, but I had certainly seen sketches of such institutions in books. Fine places they looked, with so many others just like me – children that may have become friends. How wonderful to have had a friend.

  Or a mother.

  As I took my seat at the desk; as my shoulders slumped and my head fell forwards in despair, I forced myself to take more deep breaths. I would not cry. I refused to. In my current reading matter – aptly named Bleak House by Mr Charles Dickens – was a character described as a ‘plucky little thing’. That is what I now aspired to be – plucky. But, oh, how I missed Mother. Strange, considering I had no living memory of her, that in this house there was nothing that even alluded to her. Certainly, Father never mentioned her name; would never even have her mentioned.

  I remember when I had tried.

  “Father, was Mother kind? Was she gentle? Were her eyes as dark as mine? What happened to her, Father? You have never really told me. How did she die?”

  Perhaps it had been wrong to act in such a manner, firing question after question at him. Shadows had darkened his face and his nostrils had flared. Could he really be blamed for losing his temper, for shouting at me, for screaming?

  “Stop plaguing me, child! I can stand no more of your infernal curiosity. Where is Miss Lyons? Where is she? Why am I paying her such a handsome fee?”

  Miss Lyons was the governess, missing as my mother was missing; ‘gone home to London’ apparently, ‘for she’s ’ad her fill of you too,’ that last tidbit told to me by Miss Tiggs, a cruel smile on her dough-like face as she delivered such harsh words.

  On that day my father had wanted to cast me from him, into the hands of Miss Lyons, rather than seeking me out – it was always about extremes with Father.

  And now I must hasten to correct myself. I have said that there was no trace of Mother in this house, beside myself, her progeny; but I had found something; something that he knew nothing about. And I kept it safe. I kept it here, in the attic.

  It was a photograph of her, just her and no one else. In it she wears a dark dress. It is impossible to tell the colour of it, as it simply appears black in the photograph, just as her hair appears black, coiled around her head. Her eyes are dark too, but her skin… it is as pale as milk. The dress is high-collared but around her neck there hangs a necklace, one hand resting below it, her long slim fingers artfully curled, although one, the index finger, is elongated, as though it points to the necklace. She has about her a wistful quality, and behind her is a curious, almost luminous light.

  The photograph lay inside the desk. Opening the lid, I retrieved it, moving further into the light in order to study it. It was found in the library, my favourite room in a house I could otherwise not abide. Put there by Mother herself? Did she want someone to find it, and specifically me, her daughter? As I held it in my hand that was the feeling it conveyed, as if her mouth was far from closed but whispering: Remember me. I did exist.

  The photograph had been guarded between a book by Charlotte Brontë called Jane Eyre – a book I adored about another ‘plucky’ character, Jane herself – and Songs of Innocence and Experience by the poet William Blake, that I had yet to read. Had Mother known I would love reading so much? It was not difficult to guess at, I supposed. In this house, so far removed from everything, reading and drawing constituted full-time occupations. When I chose Jane Eyre and the photograph fell to the floor, I was amazed. Setting the book down on a nearby table, I studied the picture. The feeling I mentioned earlier – that she wanted to be recognised – engulfed me. Although no name was scribed on the back – although I appeared to look more like my father than her – this was, without doubt, Mother. She had hidden it here; she had wanted me to gaze upon her.

  If Father knew what I had in my possession, what it was I could see right now… I did not care, for she was the only thing I wanted to see.

  Oh, Mother, I might look like Father, but it is you I take after in all other aspects. Say it is so. Please. I do not want to be like him. He is everything I aspire not to be.

  If only she would speak.

  A movement a few feet away captured my attention and stopped me from sliding further into melancholy. What was it? A spider? A rat? I hoped it was not the latter as I had a fear of them with their bead-like eyes and their sharp, pointed teeth. I was not so fond of spiders either, especially the big leggy ones that scurried rather than ran along the corridors of Mears House. I stood up and stamped my feet hard against the floorboards, noting a slight loosening of one as I did so, and quickly side-stepping it. If it was a rat, such actions should be enough to deter it from drawing closer.

  But still there was movement.

  Persistent movement.

  A stirring and a rustling.

  I braced myself as I continued to stare at the corner where the noise was coming from, remembering my father’s words.

  What do you see?

  Rosamund Chapter Two

  “It is madness, William! Sheer madness!”

  The voice of the friend that had come visiting, unlike Father’s qui
et, almost whispery conversational voice, was bellowing. It was his friend, of course, not mine. As I have stated, I had none. How could I, when I was confined to Mears House? Soon other friends would arrive to gather in his study. They would smoke cigars and drink whisky, venturing further into discussion as I lingered here, at the far end of the corridor, hiding behind a door that led into the drawing room – one of the three reception rooms the house boasted – trying to listen to what it was that they had to say.

  Of course they did not limit their assemblies to here, as I was sure they congregated in London too, because that is where most of them hailed from. I knew this because I had overheard them discuss their places of residence on several occasions; suburbs such as Knightsbridge and Hammersmith, Highgate and Chelsea, which I envisaged to be outrageously grand places with buildings that towered over you and a fine assortment of ladies and gentlemen parading on the streets or galloping along in carriages. I was under no illusion London was entirely grand; I understood it had its dark side too – Mr Dickens had made that clear enough. There appeared to be a dark side to everything and perhaps in turn, everyone. When I thought of Mr Dickens’ London, I imagined a thick blanket of fog enveloping it – the ‘London Particular’ as Mr Guppy in Bleak House tells Miss Summerson; a real pea souper, worse than anything we have ever had in the countryside. The city I pictured was both a den of magnificence and inequity, smog lending it an otherworldly air, and I longed to visit this mystical and terrible land; to experience it for myself rather than through the eyes of an author.