Hidden Company

by S E England

  They climbed the steps and slumped onto the top one.

  “I could cry now as well,” Isobel said. “And you must be almost passing out with the pain.”

  “I’ve got some stuff in my pocket - I’m gonna smoke, it’ll help.”

  “What are we going to do? Go back again? Assume that once the fire’s died back they’ll think we’re dead and–”

  “Yeah right, and how do you propose we get up there? We dropped a good seven or eight feet, remember?”

  “I really don’t want to go back through that chamber either.”

  Branwen lit her smoke, inhaled and coughed until she retched. “Damn, that’s good. I know you don’t lovely, but we might have to. Anyway, if we’re going to die stuck down here we may as well take a look in the suitcase - see if it’s what we were after.”

  “We won’t die. We’re strong and we’ll find a way out. But we do need a rest. Okay, here goes.”

  The case sprang open on its hinges to reveal hundreds of beautifully scripted letters, all with wax seals still intact, along with various lockets and old photographs.

  “Incredible calligraphy.”

  “Oh my word…oh my, oh my…And look, Branwen – they’re addressed to Flora George of Lavinia House.”

  “And a lady called Amelia Lee in Derbyshire - sender, Flora George. All of these are between the two women.”

  “Lee?”

  “Yeah, that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Hmm….Mind you there are lots of people with that surname where I come from. So Flora’s letters were never actually posted then? And the ones sent to her never passed on. Do you really think Edgar was keeping the fees and not letting on the patients had either recovered or died?”

  “Oh, definitely. I always thought that.”

  “And all the while Flora thought she’d been abandoned!”

  “Bastards, they really were. Come on, let’s open the letters - we have to. She wants us to, I feel it.”

  “Okay. But then we should hand these over to the police.”

  “If we get the chance.”

  They both stared back into the tunnel.

  “You don’t think anyone will come down here after us, surely? The house will be too dangerous for a long time yet. There’s no way they can know we survived. In fact, they’re probably dancing on our graves as we speak, drinking to it at The Druid.”

  “True.”

  Isobel sliced open the first envelope.

  Dear Amelia,

  How could you leave me in such a place? An asylum! Where is my child? Is he safe? I am beside myself with distress. The conditions here are dreadful, with scant sanitation, and I must share a dormitory with wild creatures that scream in the night and soil their beds. Last night a woman hit me hard in the face with a shoe…What did I do to deserve this? I beg you write to me. The doctor is not a doctor at all, but an alienist of enormous self-importance…

  Dear Flora,

  We have not heard a word from you but are assured by Dr Fox Whately that your response to treatment is most encouraging. I implored him to allow a visit but he was adamant it would set your progress back, and I must wait for an invitation from you in your own fair hand…

  Dear Amelia,

  I implore you to help me. I have a friend, Diane, who suffers greatly from some disease of the mind, but she alone holds my hand during the darkest hours, and she alone has confided what happens within these walls. She speaks of the devil, and at first I thought her quite insane, but now I see him too – the glowing tip of his cigarette at the peep hole to our dormitory. She is with child, Amelia, for the second time. How did she get with child in this place? It is he, the attendant, Gwilym, who does the doctor’s bidding and with such rabid glee…

  Dear Flora,

  It is with such sadness I have to tell you of Samuel’s passing. He died of consumption brought on, I am sure of it, by the fatigue of working all hours. We did not want to worry you but the exorbitant fees we pay for your private quarters and personal care have depleted the estate to such a degree. He never did have resources, which was why of course he sold off much of the woodland when you married. I know that bothered you enormously. You always said there were fairies in the forest, do you remember? When we were girls…

  Dear Amelia,

  Diane has gone. I know they have taken her. I dread to think it is to those higher rooms, the ones from where I hear such mournful wailing and terrible screams in the night. Again and again I recall the story she told of having a baby pulled from out of her body, of lying on a blood soaked mattress. But what of that child, and what of this one? Where have they taken them? Oh, Amelia, please write me. I beg you not to abandon me. I have a feeling I have done something I cannot recall. I see your face. I see Samuel’s, but I cannot know what I have done?

  Isobel put down the bundle of letters and pushed them back into the case. “I’m going to read them all. Every last word and get to the bottom of this. I cannot bear it. I feel as if I am her. I feel all the fear, the not knowing, the frustration.”

  “I feel hate. Real, serious hate - more than ever before and that’s a lot. For that pig. The whole lot. All of them, but especially him, the doctor. These others might do the dirty work but it’s on his orders every single time.”

  “And Amelia’s surname was Lee. I mean…hmmm…”

  “What? I thought you said there were lots of people called, Lee?”

  “Yes, but it’s set me thinking – because when I was a girl we found this bottle tucked into the foundations of the house, a time capsule if you like, and there was a newspaper article inside about a missing woman…and it’s just her face…I could be wrong, of course…”

  “You think Amelia and her sister were related to you?”

  “It’s certainly a possibility.”

  Isobel picked up one of the lockets and clasped it to her chest, eyes closed.

  “Is that hers? Flora’s? Shall we see what she looked like? See if she is the same girl we’ve both seen on the stairs?”

  With a fluttering heart Isobel clicked open the delicate, silver clasp, suddenly afraid to see her living and breathing ghost. On each side of the locket, however, a grainy sepia photograph had been set.

  “Oh!”

  “That can’t be Flora and her husband, surely? They look really old and bald and wrinkly.”

  “And tiny.”

  The elderly couple were finely dressed. But their faces did not resemble the norm – the bones being small and delicate, noses aquiline with beaked tips, chins almost non-existent. And although perfectly formed, the heads were far too large for such narrow shoulders and totally without hair – no eyelashes or eyebrows. Miniature hands were clasped neatly on their laps, their large, protruding eyes staring into the camera flash.

  Isobel read out the inscriptions underneath, “’Leonora Fox-Whately, age eleven,’ And ‘James Fox-Whately, age twelve.’”

  “No!”

  “Oh my goodness. These are HGPS children.” She turned to stare at Branwen. “They must have been Edgar Fox-Whately’s.”

  “What’s HGPS?”

  “Premature ageing–”

  “Oh yes, I’ve read about that before. That’s what Ophelia Fox-Whately had – her baby was born with that, apparently. It was all round the village just before she vanished. There must have been a court order or something to stop the press–”

  “Did she? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, absolutely. Is it hereditary then? Seeing as they all seem to be Fox-Whately’s?”

  “No, that’s the thing. It isn’t. Part of the reason for that is they rarely live long enough to produce another child but it could explain…”

  “Oh yes…”

  Both of them continued staring at each other in horror.

  “…why they were sacrificing these girls’ babies!” Isobel said. “They resemble, or certainly from a distance they might…what did you call…crimbils!”

  “They don’t just resembl
e them. They are crimbils. And that’s why Edgar was sacrificing new-borns to the fae – to get his own children back.”

  “No, that’s preposterous - tragic. These were children with a syndrome, not changelings or crimbils or curses from the fae. And to think what those poor innocent women went through for nothing other than superstition! What they did to those new-born infants. Oh my good God! At least Ophelia’s child will be better understood and taken care of. ”

  Branwen was glaring at her.

  “Branwen, don’t you see? If anyone saw these children maybe taking a walk in the forest on the estate–”

  “People did see them.”

  “Yes, but they weren’t actually seeing crimbils. They must have seen these two – Leonora and James. It’s superstitious folklore that made them think otherwise, especially when they knew what the family had done to the forest. Word would have got out that it was the wrath of the fae or other such bullshit.”

  “So what did you see then, yesterday, Isobel? Tell me that, if the fae don’t exist!”

  “An apparition. I’d been looking at your painting and I’d had nightmares, not slept, been drinking mead laced with magic mushrooms…I was having visions and that was what my mind chose to see.”

  “I don’t bloody believe this. You were physically knocked backwards. You were shown a past that frightened you to the core. You’ve been given insight into who is at the heart of all this, shown what to do, felt the power. And how come Ophelia has a child with this when it’s not hereditary then, if not for the wrath of the fae?”

  Isobel shook her head.

  Branwen’s eyes were pools of misery. “You must feel the magick of this place? How can you just dismiss everything like that?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just saying I think there have been terrible misunderstandings and some truly evil crimes here, when there was a rational explanation all along. As for the insights and the visions, you’re right - I can’t explain them and they did show me what I couldn’t otherwise have known. Please don’t be upset with me - I do feel the magick here, and I do respect how you live and what you believe. I do.”

  They sat quietly, shivering.

  “I think we should go back. Somehow you’re going to have to climb back up the way we came in.”

  “The worst of the blaze will be over, do you think? Will anyone in the village have called the fire brigade?”

  “Yes, once it’s burned to the ground and Rhys Payne and his boys have pissed off.”

  “I hope they catch them.”

  “Well they’re thick as pig shit. They’ll have left clues even Inspector Clouseau would–”

  “I mean Mervyn and Lorna.”

  “So do I, Issy.”

  “I can’t believe we’ve got to go all the way back.”

  “Me neither.”

  Half way down the tunnel Isobel stopped. “I’m truly sorry for upsetting you, Branwen. If it means anything at all, I should tell you that in the few short days I’ve been here I’ve gone from paralysing fear to welcoming my gift. If it wasn’t for you I would have spent my whole life running from it.”

  “Thank you for that. It means a lot, actually. Will you stay here or go back to England now, do you think?”

  “Are you kidding? As long as the rat boys are caught I’m staying. It feels like home to me. I don’t ever want to go back.”

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  They linked arms. “We’ll have to hurry through that death vault, though. I can’t bear the thought of it even.”

  The smell of smoke as they exited the tunnel, however, was strong.

  “I think it’s out. Look, the place is swimming in water.”

  “Fire brigade! Thank God!”

  “Lucky we rescued the suitcase as well – look all those clothes and books are floating.”

  On nearing the wreckage they speeded up, climbing back up the steps into what was a torrent.

  “We’re down here!”

  “Help! We’re down here. You trying to drown us or what?”

  A man with a sooty face wearing a helmet peered through the hole. “Bloody hell! That’s fantastic, that is. You all right, are you?”

  “One with a broken ankle, the other with cuts and bruises, but we’re okay.”

  “Be down for you in a moment ladies, hold on there.” He turned to shout to someone for a stretcher. “Okay, lowering the ladder now….hang on a minute…what you saying, lovely?” He turned away in response to a woman’s voice then turned back. “Lady here called Nina. She was the one who called us or we’d never have known, see?”

  “No one from the village rang?” Branwen shouted up.

  “No, just this lady. Said…oh, she says are you all right, Isobel, is it?”

  Branwen’s eyes were full of tears. “They left me to die.”

  “I suspect there are a lot of people here terrified of Doctor Fox-Whately and his wife,” Isobel said softly. “Not to mention Rhys Payne.”

  “No, well yes… but what they really fear are the fae, don’t you see? That’s why they let him do it. In case it’s their child next. You’ve got to understand that, Issy. It’s very, very real.”

  “Well, we’re going to have to put a few folk straight then, aren’t we? The fae, spirits of the woods, exist I grant you that, but they do not take people’s children and replace them with their own, okay?” She grabbed hold of the ladder. “Bran, we’re going to enjoy some hours debating this, but right now I don’t know about you but I want to be taken to a hospital and knocked out for a week.”

  “Me too. But I’m going to hold you to that, Lady. We are going to thrash this out. And it’ll be your turn to bring the mead.”

  “You’re on.”

  ***

  Epilogue

  Flora George

  1st May, 1894

  Bournemouth

  I love it here. Loved it from the first moment I arrived at the station with only two farthings to my name. I think it was the seagulls, the salty breeze blowing off the sea and the tinkling bob of fishing boats. I almost kissed the ground and wept with joy, even when trawling the promenade guest houses for work as a humble chamber maid. Even then. It was life, you see, such an enormous sense of uplifting freedom. Oh, to be able to come and go as I pleased, to buy fresh fish and vinegary chips wrapped in newspaper, to walk on the sands barefoot, and lie in bed watching the moon dip over the hazy horizon. I will not return to Derbyshire. No, I can never go home now, knowing what they did to me.

  Yet all the while this child has grown inside, and the time for change is as inevitable as the tide.

  The infant lies now, over by the window in a cot, delivered safely by the midwife. But despite the brightness of the morning, it seems a gloom hovers over the cradle and the new-born screwing up its fists and kicking its feet is a most malicious one.

  This baby is not mine, you see? Quite what it is about it I cannot say, other than the creature is not human. Perhaps the blackness of its eyes? Or the large head and sharp nose? The skin too, appears wrinkled as a reptile, the little feet claw like.

  Turning my head to face the wall I find I am unable to respond to its tinny mewling, the thought of putting that rodent mouth to my breast utterly repugnant. And somewhere under the layers of memory, there is a sense of repetition. Of being back once more in the chamber.

  They are here again, you see. In the pattern of the wallpaper. Faces reside in the woodwork and the very fabric of the curtains. And how horrifically enthralling it is to see, as hours and days pass by - how they begin to take form, how their eyes glint and their whispers grow louder. And the more the baby cries and works itself into a ball of rage the more the wood sprites in the whorls and knots of the bedposts begin to amass. Until a great crowd of chattering urgency fills the room.

  Someone below thumps their ceiling. Another bangs on the walls. And the landlady raps repeatedly on the door.

  “Are you all right in there, Mrs Lee? Is the baby sick?”

  “We are both
quite well, thank you.”

  “Only it’s been a few days and she ain’t stopped bawling.”

  Picking up the infant to dissipate their concern, the creature stares back with such evil as I have never seen. “She is hungry, that is all.”

  “That’s all right then, Mrs Lee. Only I can call the doctor if you–”

  “No, there is no need. Thank you.”

  “I’ll bid you good night, then?”

  The baby, quiet now, observes me in a most unnatural way, its eyes as old as time in a face quite gnarled to walnut. And when thrown back into the cot it cackles as an ancient crone. No, no, no….this is not human. And now….now look…it has twisted into a stick figure, with a lopsided mouth and eyes set far apart, and a forehead so broad as to be of a most terrifying appearance.

  What evil is this that besieges me so, when I have begun a new life with a new name? Am I never to be free? This…this ogre…cannot be. It cannot…

  The thing thrashes and tries to bite, talons ripping into my arms. I will get it out of this room. Out! Out now!

  A scream from somewhere… And the sash window sticks. But eventually gives, as wrenching it open with the evil creature’s head upon the sill, I have to slam it down hard over and over and over…until finally its neck cracks like a nut….the little pink head dropping down-down-down…several storeys…before smashing like a water melon on the promenade below.

  A woman stops in front of it. Her hands fly to her mouth. Blood spatters her long ivory coloured dress. Men are running towards her, holding onto top hats. There are others now too…all rushing to the spot.

  “Mrs Lee! What in the devil’s name? I’m letting myself in…”

  Yes, I remember now.

  Turning to face the door as it bursts open, suddenly it all makes perfect sense. “I remember now. It was a changeling, you see? A wood sprite! We chopped down the forest so they took my child and replaced it with an evil troll. I told them – my husband, the doctor, my sister - but no one would believe me.”

  She stares aghast - at the blood smeared over my arms, chest and hands, at the torn skin and gristle on the window sill. But mostly at the headless body of an infant lying at my feet, and the frothy crimson pool rippling across the floorboards.