Hidden Company

by S E England

  “No, no, I must find a road.”

  “Ach…” She looks me over, shaking her head at my terrible attire. “But your dress.”

  Of course, her English is not fluent. “Mi Flora George.”

  She laughs again, a delighted giggle. “Mi Riana….” Indicating the nearby fire now burning so ferociously sparks are flying into the trees, she begins to chatter avidly in her native tongue. A few words I recognise, “coelcerth…plentyn…eglwys…”

  Nodding to show I understand, that I realise they are all busy with Halloween celebrations, I finally take her hand and follow. Pray to God she has a good heart. Pray to God she is going to help and not thrust me before some drunken mob of savages, for her humour seems high and excitable.

  The route we take is in total darkness, and Riana leads us through waist high bracken, snapping boughs and crispy leaves as swiftly as a fox. Away now from the heat of the fire, the air is cool and smoky, the ground underfoot becoming boggy. Although she flies, I stumble and trip, bump into tree trunks, all the while gasping painfully from the sharp night air hitting my lungs.

  Abruptly she stops. Turns towards me pressing a finger to her lips. Ahead a small house squats darkly at the opposite end of the field. I am not at all sure of my bearings.

  “The Gatehouse,” she whispers. “To the asylum.”

  “No, no…What if–?”

  “No, shush. They are out.” She nods towards the fire behind us.

  “At the coelcerth?”

  My eyes must be filled with horror because softly she touches my face. “Clothes, money. You must have. Can you run?”

  I feel sick, but nod. Yes, I will run because there is no choice.

  “Come then. Run fast.”

  The field is miles and miles and miles, or so it feels, the ground shattering my joints with every thump on the turf. Every breath is a knife wound. I cannot go on… cannot….

  Riana clasps me to her as I fall, strong arms around my waist, pulling me along until finally we reach an archway and the tiny stone house.

  Thrusting me into the cover of dense shrubbery, she shakes me hard by the arms. “Wait here. Be quiet. Shush.”

  A few moments later a sash window scrapes open and she flies back. “Hurry now!”

  Once inside she thunders up the stairs, clearly ransacking a bedroom while I sit on the bottom step, then thunders down with a pile of clothing. “Dress. Boots. Hat. Food now. Wait.”

  The clock on the mantelpiece in the parlour is tick-tocking far too rapidly. We must leave at once. “No!”

  Too late, she is in the kitchen opening cupboards. She is right - there will be a long journey ahead, maybe for days and I am weak, a crumpled collection of bones with barely the strength left to put on the heavy woollen dress and lace-up boots. But I confess to being more frightened than I have ever been. If they should come back suddenly and find me here, there is nothing…

  “I have to fetch my da’s horse,” she says, placing bread and cheese in my lap.

  “No, no! Don’t leave me here. What if they come back?”

  And so tenderly then, she sits next to me as once my sister did when we were girls. It is quite as if I have known her all my life. Pointing to the cupboard under the stairs, she says, “Wait in there. The roads here are not safe. We have to take Drovers Pass - The Valley of Spirits, and need the horse. Now dress, eat, prepare. They will be back at midnight.”

  Yes, yes, of course. No one will be out on All Hallows Eve after midnight. Recalling the tale of the black sow it is strangely comforting to know there will be no other human beings present in the Valley of Spirits tonight. And I would rather take my chances with the black sow than Gwilym Ash and his henchmen.

  But after she has gone the clock ticks ever more rapidly, and so much louder. It is the only sound in the house. Even here in the cramped stair cupboard, struggling to dress in oversized clothing, I can hear every second counting. Cling-cling…for the quarter hour. Cling-cling-cling-cling…for the half hour. Oh, God she has been gone too long. Say she ran to the village? Galloped back on horse-back…would not she be here by now?

  The bread and cheese lodges as a rock in my stomach.

  The leather pouch of coinage contains enough for a journey and more - maybe a stay at an inn. I wonder who the woman is whose clothes I must wear, whose money I must pilfer - the wife of a gatekeeper? Do they know? Do they realise people arrive but never leave? Are they party to this? Certainly they are well paid.

  Cling-cling!

  Another quarter of an hour has passed. It is nearly midnight. The revellers will soon run home in terrified glee, perhaps returning in ten minutes or less.

  I have waited until I can wait no more.

  Something has happened to Riana.

  Fear stabs at my heart. I dare wait no longer.

  The cupboard door creaks alarmingly on opening. A gap is all. Enough to peep into the silent, shadowy hallway. What if the two of them are staggering up the driveway at this very moment? Will the sash window open for me as it did for Riana? Pray I have the strength. I must go. I have to.

  The kitchen is pearly now with moonlight, as I stand here in the middle of the flagstone floor in these strange clothes, paralysed with indecision. Straining my ears for the slightest sound of another’s breath on the night air, the moment weighs heavily. What should I do? And which way? Over to the village following Riana? But what if, about to take her father’s horse, she was stopped and forced to explain why? And now men are on their way back here having extracted a confession? Something has happened to her I know it, and I cannot bear it. But I dare not follow. I dare not…

  I think the route to take is the one Riana suggested - through Drovers Pass, or the Valley of Spirits as she referred to it - then over the moors by foot?

  Food aplenty lies on the table for the doctor’s servants - slabs of rabbit pie, scones, bara brith, apples – and a little will not be missed. Filling the pockets of this woman’s skirts I care not for the theft. If they catch me they will lock me up for ever more and the punishment will be worse than death. So I will take my chances with the Black Mountains and stories of the Underworld. The doctor will not yet know I have gone. Oh, he will send for men with horses but they will be drunk and useless for a few hours yet.

  So then, this is my one chance.

  And I will take it.

  ***

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Isobel

  Present Day

  “Christ Almighty - the bloody house is on fire!”

  Like a match to gasoline the whoosh of flames was instantaneous. And in the seconds it took to realise what had happened, the whole place had become an inferno.

  “It’s everywhere – we’re in the middle of it. They must have torched it all the way round.”

  Heat cracked the window panes.

  Isobel screamed. “That’s petrol. We have to get out.”

  “No shit!” Branwen opened the hall door to a fireball and slammed it shut again. “We’re fucking trapped.”

  “There has to be something underneath – it’s our only chance – to get under the floorboards.”

  “You said there wasn’t a cellar? Are you sure? What about the cupboard under the stairs?”

  Smoke was rapidly filling the room, and the ominous sound of splintering wood meant only seconds to make a decision.

  “Let’s do it,” said Isobel, grabbing the tablecloth and throwing it over their heads. “There’s a breeze coming from in there. Could be a basement or cavity underneath–”

  “Hurry! Run!”

  Holding their breath they pulled back the door, shot across the hall to the cupboard, wrenched it open, crammed inside and slammed it shut behind them.

  “You okay?”

  “Think so – you?”

  With thick acrid smoke stinging their eyes they frantically began banging the floor and walls for signs of weakness.

  “There has to be a cellar,” Branwen said. “Just has to be…”


  Isobel began ripping back the carpet. “Come on, let’s get this up. Hurry.” Heat scorched their throats and burned their lungs as they tugged at the plasterboard underneath. “Oh my God, the house is collapsing.”

  “It’s coming up easily. Look it’s all new…And yes! There is one. I knew it!”

  As the first square snapped apart an icy dampness wafted into the smoke. They flew at the rest. “Come on, come on….”

  “There’s just enough room now. Quick - you first, Issy. I’ll hold onto you as long as I can. Hurry, hurry!”

  Fumbling with her feet for a ladder or a flight of steps, Isobel quickly realised there wasn’t one. And in the confusion and haste, her hand slipped from out of Branwen’s clutch like a loose glove, dropping her into the darkness below.

  This was her nightmare – all these years - falling backwards into a bottomless pit, echoing with howls of the inhuman and icy blasts from empty tunnels.

  Half expecting to find the man in black standing there waiting for her with his back to the wall, the end of his cigarette flaring in the dark, she found herself instead lying flat on her back on a wet cobbled floor. Pain seared through her spine and her throat burned.

  Beside her Branwen groaned.

  Her voice was as raspy as a forty-a-day smoker’s. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I think I’ve broken my ankle. It’s agony.”

  “Hang on a minute, there’s some fallen chipboard here.” Forcing herself into a sitting position, she tore a strip off the bottom of her skirt and fashioned a makeshift splint.

  “It’s bloody killing me.”

  “That should hold it straight and stop the bleeding. I know it hurts like hell but we’ve got to find a way out. Hold on, there’s a pile of wood here.” Scrambling in the dark on her hands and knees, still coughing and wincing with pain, she grabbed hold of a long stick. “Here, use this to lean on because you’re going to have to walk.”

  “Can you get the matches and candles out of my pocket? I can feel a strong draft – there must be another room down here.”

  “Thank God you’ve got these. It’s as black as a coal mine.”

  Branwen grimaced, managing a slight laugh. “Always. Fuck me, though. I knew there had to be a cellar.”

  Isobel struck a match and gasped. “I think you’re right about another room as well - have you seen this?”

  An elaborate archway heralded a flight of steps leading deeper underground.

  “Looks like part of the old monastery.”

  Bit by bit they took it all in.

  “I’ll bet there’s a tunnel to the house, as well,” said Branwen.

  “They all had them in the old days, didn’t they? So people could hide or escape…”

  Struggling to her feet, Isobel helped her friend up.

  “Ouch, ouch!”

  “It’s about half a mile. Do you think you can make it or do you want to stay here? If we can get out at the other end we could call the police. I hope to God one of us has got a phone.”

  “Don’t leave me here, no I’m coming. And mine’s on the kitchen table, I know because I threw it on there when I came in the back door.”

  Isobel patted her pockets. “Shit, I haven’t got mine either. Well anyway, we’ll just have to take a chance and hope we can get out.”

  “Agreed. Can I hold onto you? I can’t put any weight on this at all.”

  Together they hobbled down the narrow flights of steps, made smooth with moss and trickling water. A couple of squeals indicated rats, their pink tails scooting out of the candlelight.

  “This bit must be twenty feet under.”

  “Hold the candle up, Issy. I want to see better.”

  The flame flickered and danced, sending shadows over stone walls and a cobbled floor.

  “Can you see an exit?”

  “I think so.”

  An archway at the far end loomed out of the dark, and they made their way towards it, coughing and shivering.

  “Branwen, I feel terrible in here.”

  “Think how I feel. The pain keeps blacking me out.”

  She squeezed her arm. “Hold on. We’re alive and we’ll get you out of here. I didn’t mean physically, though.”

  The sense of sadness was overwhelming and soon they realised why. At the far end of the chamber there was an incinerator, an old fashioned sort used in old hospitals, and neither woman could bring herself to speak when they saw what lay scattered around it; the only sound that of dripping water to break the silence.

  After a while, Isobel said, “I think this is my abyss.”

  “Who the fuck do they think they are, these people?” said Branwen. “To just get rid of human beings like this - to dispose of them like broken toys? Who the fucking hell do they think they are, the self-righteous bastards?”

  “I know.”

  The ivory smoothness of tiny human skulls, femurs and vertebrae shone in the buttery light. Along with a slight but distinct warmth emanating from the incinerator.

  “He’s still doing it!” said Branwen. “That’s why there are so many still births, so many abortions…Bloody hell fire and brimstone, he’s still fucking at it!”

  “And why they won’t move out of the house…but why, why…for God’s sake why…?” Isobel’s voice faded out as an overpowering series of images shot into her mind. One after the other. Limbs being snapped off crippled cadavers and thrown onto the fire, decaying bodies heaped onto the floor…

  The stench of burning, rotting human flesh was nauseating and she clutched at thin air, the hard, shiny cobbles rearing towards her.

  Now on her knees and retching violently, the relentless onslaught of images kept on coming. Stop…stop…stop…A rough, uncouth looking man with peg teeth was kicking ragdoll, broken bodies into the furnace, an expression of malevolent glee on his face as he stripped the female corpses and cracked their bones like dry tinder.

  “Why?” Isobel wailed. “All this…all this…it’s horrible, the dread, the pain – disgusting, terrible…”

  “What are you getting?”

  “Murder. Bodies left to rot and burn. Some weren’t even dead yet. Smallpox sores, terrified eyes, faces eaten away, skeletal people still alive, wandering around in the dark trying to find a way out–”

  “Come on, let’s go, Issy. The police will find the answers now. We’ve done enough to get it opened up.”

  “I’ve got to be sick. I’m sorry–”

  “Tell it to stop. You’ve seen enough. Try and stand. Come on, you need to get out of here now more than I do.”

  “It’s freezing. I can’t stop it, can’t stand–”

  “Yes you can. Power of the mind. Switch it off. Come on, stand up, lovely. Stand up!”

  Trembling from head to foot, she pushed herself to her feet. “I can’t stop shivering.”

  “It’s a fucking hell pit, a death vault. I really hope that archway’s leading to a tunnel. I don’t want to come back through here.”

  Isobel swayed and grabbed her arm.

  “You okay now?”

  “Yes, stonking headache and really sick, but…God, that was the worst, absolutely–”

  “Sorry, Issy, just a minute but what’s that pile of stuff?”

  She squinted into the lurching shadows. “Looks like bags, books, luggage? The deceased’s possessions?”

  Limping badly, Branwen gave Isobel the candle. “Hold it up. Let’s just have a look.”

  Warily they peeled away blankets and rotted clothing. “Euw, no, this has been here a hundred years. They’re old asylum uniforms and blankets. Like someone was having such a good time burning bodies he forgot about the rest.”

  “I can’t say it would be a nice job raking through this. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Hang on, what’s that at the bottom?”

  Isobel bent down and held the candle closer. Her eyes widened. “Bran, it’s a little leather suitcase.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I bet one of the
servants cleared out a room and it’s been here all along.”

  “And they never knew!”

  ***

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  They hurried now towards the exit, Isobel clutching the case and the candle.

  “It does look as though it’s a tunnel, doesn’t it?”

  “Sounds like one too.”

  They peered blindly into the blackness, a waft of chill air whooshing past their ears. Here the dripping was louder, so too the scurry and squeak of rats.

  “What if we can’t get out at the other end?”

  “I know. I’m worried about that too.”

  “I’m frozen to the bone.”

  “Logically it can’t be too far now. We’ve got to try.”

  “Let me hold onto you, Issy. I’m on one foot here and it’s really slippery.”

  The further into the tunnel, the blacker, colder and wetter. Their breath misted on the air and the candle kept snuffing out. “You all right?”

  “Trying not to cry, to be honest,” said Branwen. “Has it occurred to you that this might take us past the house altogether…on and on to–?”

  “The lake? To where the ruins are?”

  “Or to the graveyard underneath the island? Oh God, we never thought of that”

  “No, no, it’s okay – look, Bran, I can see a door.”

  “Steady, don’t rush or you’ll slip and we’ll both go down.”

  “Hold on, I need to relight the candle.”

  The flame ignited again and a weighty iron door appeared in front. “Hell – look at it. It’s like that one in the pub - at the back.”

  “You mean the one to the cock pit?”

  “Cock pit? You mean cock fighting? Do they still do that – I thought it was illegal?”

  “Course they bloody do. Who’s going to stop them? Oh, fuck, Issy, there’s no way we’re going to get through that, it’s like a prison.”