“Okay, you’re the expert, but you said this was a unique haunting—you’ve never seen one like it,” she pointed out.
“True,” he said, putting Ellie’s drawings down. “And I have a lovely selection of ideas about it—quite the grab bag of notions. But one thing is clear. Helen is not a malevolent ghost, but a frightened captive. If I can help free her, I have a duty to do so. And to achieve that, I have to contact her. I thought a nineteenth-century method might be most suitable—one Helen would be familiar with, in all likelihood.”
“And it involves sitting in the dark in some kind of box?” Carl asked, still puzzled. “Because if that’s all you want, there’s a broom cupboard under the stairs.”
Mortlake jumped up.
“Sounds ideal! Tara, could you find a small mirror? Nothing fancy, bigger than a compact—bathroom mirror size, that kind of thing.”
“I guess,” she said. “You gonna tell us what you’re actually planning?”
“All in good time!” Mortlake said.
Ellie looked up from her dad’s iPad.
“In stories, the good people always tell the truth, but the baddies hide the truth.”
“All right, fair point,” said Mortlake. “I’m going to create a psychomanteum. A chamber in which I can commune with the—with whatever’s in this house. Safely, I hope.”
***
“Yes, a bit shabby but basically sound,” said Mortlake, gasping a little. “That’s what we need.”
He had helped Carl clean out the broom cupboard, cluttering the hallway with mops, brooms, buckets, and containers of cleaning fluid. The two men stood in a dwindling cloud of dust as Tara reached the foot of the stairs.
“This big enough?” she asked, brandishing a mirror. “Found it in one of the unused bedrooms.”
“I think so, yes,” Mortlake said, taking the rectangular mirror and turning it over. “Carl, could you fix this in the… let me see…”
He crouched and looked inside the cupboard. It was smaller than he would have liked but it would do. The idea was simple enough, but he must be sure of the angle.
“Yes, if you fix it in the corner at an angle of about forty-five degrees.”
Carl checked out the job and shrugged.
“Easy,” he said. “But if you want to see yourself in it…”
“No,” Mortlake cut in gently. “That’s just what I don’t want to see in it. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s important that the mirror reflect only darkness.”
Tara clearly appeared puzzled while Carl was impressed but also baffled. Mortlake had been in this situation dozens of times. He was running on adrenaline, now, genuinely excited by a new challenge but also relieved to be away from Cambridge and its alarming visitations.
Of course, if Cassandra—or whatever was tormenting him—somehow followed him here, it would be a major issue. He had no idea what he would do if that happened, other than try to tough it out and not seem too crazy to the people relying on him.
Hope for the best, he thought, but prepare for the worst.
And that meant he had to have a talk with his eager assistant. While Carl was working noisily in the broom closet, Mortlake led Tara aside and, in a low voice, asked her to go over exactly what had happened to Anita.
“You were sitting right next to her?” he asked. “Touching distance?”
“Not touching, but yeah, about six inches away,” she replied. “Why? What are you implying?”
He held up a hand.
“Please, I’m just trying to establish the facts. You were close by and talking to her, and something triggered what seems to be an abortive case of spontaneous human combustion. Which has never happened here, so far as I can tell from my research. No mysterious fires.”
Mortlake hesitated. His theory about the fire was, to say the least, bold.
Or just downright crackers, he thought. But it would explain it.
“Tara,” he said. “Don’t take this personally, but I would like you to take Ellie outside, a good distance from the house, before I try to contact Helen York.”
She looked baffled then a little angry.
“Child-minder, that’s all I’m good for? What about Carl?”
Mortlake took a deep breath and raised his voice.
“I’ll have Carl standing by to drag me out of there in case something goes wrong.”
Carl’s head popped out of the door under the stairs.
“Can do, chief,” he said brightly. “You just yell, and I’ll drag you out.”
“I can help!” Tara insisted.
Mortlake led her toward the front door which still stood open. It was a balmy summer day, the sort that—in other circumstances—might make a man happy to simply be alive. He looked out at the greyhound lying on the grass, ears twitching slightly as two white butterflies fluttered overhead. The dog was blind to the insects, focused on the doorway. Focused on the menace that meant it would not enter Haslam House.
“That dog is the most sensible individual around here,” he remarked as they stepped outside and onto the driveway. “I suspect that this house lies on top of something dangerous. Something lethal, perhaps. I think Helen York killed herself, though parish records aren’t online so I can’t be sure. She did die here, though, in 1872, and was buried in the village churchyard.”
Tara shrugged impatiently.
“Okay, we know she’s a dangerous ghost, but it was Anita who was possessed. Why am I suddenly Typhoid Mary here?”
He took a deep breath and decided to appeal to her scientific mindset.
“If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
He saw puzzlement on Tara’s face, followed by dawning comprehension.
“I get it—if a haunted house is empty, does the ghost still walk or throw stuff around or whatever.”
“Exactly,” he said. “It takes a living person to activate a ghost, so to speak. A manifestation can’t manifest without somebody to perceive it. And from that, something else follows. What if a ghost can tap into that person’s paranormal abilities?”
Mortlake gestured out at the green and gold of the sunlit garden.
“Energy,” he said. “Heat, specifically. What is heat?”
Tara stared up at him.
“Molecular agitation, yes?” he went on. “Something heats up, it jiggles around, vibrates more, at the atomic level. Basic physics, you know the details better than I.”
Tara nodded, still clearly nonplussed by the tack he had taken. He tried to choose his words carefully, knowing that he might be wrong but afraid that he was right.
“I’ve seen spontaneous combustion before,” he said. “People literally burst into flames without being near any heat source. I have good reason to believe that it’s caused by some kind of psychokinetic force. Pyrokinesis is the term commonly used. The victim himself, or someone nearby, has this power, and it is directed—sometimes quite unconsciously—so that it agitates matter, causes molecules to move in such a way that heat is produced. I think that, in the case of Anita, a psychic power was tapped by something in this house so that she relived a terrible incident. In which people were burned to death.”
Realization dawned on Tara’s face.
“Psychic power, the paranormal—you mean me? You think my power was tapped into? That’s totally unfair, it’s bullshit!”
The sound of hammering from inside stopped. Mortlake and Tara turned to look inside and saw Carl’s head appear again then vanish. The hammering resumed.
“We know you have the power to move small objects,” Mortlake said quietly, looking her in the eye. “With the right—call it refinement, what we call poltergeist phenomena can work on a different scale. It can generate heat, instead of larger-scale motion.”
Tara protested. Mortlake insisted that her proximity to Anita might have given the mysterious force at Haslam House an opening. He pointed out that Anita had proved vulnerable to possession. Ellie had also had some l
atent psychic abilities triggered. Children were notoriously sensitive to hauntings so that wasn’t surprising. Why shouldn’t Tara, with her background, be even more susceptible?
“But in your case,” he said, “the power this unknown entity is exploiting is more dangerous.”
“For God’s sake, you’re saying I burned my friend!” Tara wailed. “I came here to help, and I could have killed her!”
Mortlake wished they weren’t alone in the garden. He wanted to hug her but knew he would bungle it. Instead, he reached out gingerly and touched her on the elbow. She startled him by punching him on the shoulder—not hard, but it was unexpected enough to nearly knock him off-balance.
“But, Prof, I didn’t feel anything!” she said plaintively. “I would’ve known if I was being used like that—wouldn’t I?”
Mortlake shook his head. Memories of the last time he had seen Cassandra alive surfaced, unwanted but unavoidable. He heard the screams again, smelled the choking stench of smoke, shrank from the great gouts of unnatural fire as burning men and women ran in blind panic through the tunnels…
“Wild talents,” he said quietly. “A journalist called Charles Fort once called psychic abilities ‘wild talents’, and he had a point. Some people can control them, some of the time. They can be turned against their owner, or against those they love and want to protect. I’ve seen it happen. I hoped I’d never see it again. Pyrokinesis. There’s no history of it happening here before today. I think it’s down to your presence.”
“Okay, I’m a major liability.” She pouted. “I’ll sulk out here with Ellie and the dog. We’ll have a nature ramble or a picnic or something.”
“You sure you’re okay with this?” he asked. “It’s not that I don’t value your input, I just feel this is a little too risky for a comparative—well, for a junior colleague.”
Tara took a step back, away from the house, shaded her eyes to gaze up at the blocky, unappealing structure. Then she smiled resignedly.
“Yeah, we’ll have a nice English picnic. Ellie can help me get something ready while Carl’s finishing up.”
Chapter 9
The psychomanteum was basic but satisfactory. Carl had shown initiative by getting a small fire extinguisher, a bucket of water, and a blanket and setting them by the closet door. Mortlake thanked him for taking precautions and hoped no emergency measures would be needed.
“Erm, Professor?”
Carl shuffled his feet and laughed nervously.
“There’s no chance of anything happening to me while I’m out here, is there?” He grinned lopsidedly. “I’ve only got a cheap insurance policy.”
“I very much doubt it,” Mortlake said firmly. “You have had a few odd experiences, but I don’t think you’re too susceptible. No, I think any nastiness will be focused on me. It’s what I’m here for, anyway.”
Mortlake manhandled a kitchen chair into the broom closet and sat. Then he gave an “okay” sign to Carl who shut the door. They had already checked and found that the door was a good fit. Only the tiniest hint of light leaked in around the frame. Not enough for anything to be seen, at least not yet. But his eyes would slowly adjust to the feeble colorless radiance.
“Now, we wait.” He sighed. “Get in the mood, Marcus.”
Mortlake had attempted to make contact with many discarnate entities in his time. The psychomanteum had proved effective. Much of this, he was sure, was because it allowed him to focus his mind on communicating. Mortlake used simple techniques, clearing his mind of clutter, breathing rhythmically, and being open to contact. But, as he sat in the musty closet under the stairs, he wondered if mental openness might not be entirely wise.
Get a grip, he told himself. You’ve tackled daunting challenges before. In the end, you have to find the truth and solve the problem. That’s what you do.
He breathed deeply, closed his eyes, relaxed as best he could. In the gloom, it was easier to lose all sense of time, stop feeling the urgent passage of seconds and minutes. Once he escaped the captivity of time, it was easier to contact those who stood, to some extent, outside it. After uncounted minutes, he opened his eyes to look up at the corner where the mirror hung. He could just make it out, a black rectangle against the deep dull gray of near darkness. And then it happened, the flicker of motion he had expected. A hint of bluish light appeared, moving slightly in the mirror. There was no light source in the closet that could cause that reflection.
“Helen, are you here?” he whispered.
***
“I’m hungry,” said Ellie, putting down her crayon.
Beside her, Trixie whined and inched toward the Tupperware containers.
“Okay,” said Tara, “I guess we can have something to eat now.”
They were sitting on the overgrown lawn, weeds bumping up the woolen blanket beneath them. Tara had thrown together a hasty picnic in the few minutes it took Carl to finish fixing up the mirror. Then they had gone out into the sunlit garden.
“I’ll just try your mommy again,” Tara said. “You open the sandwiches. And don’t give Trixie any. And be sure and eat some fruit!”
Her phone was working for now, and Sonia called her in response to a text message. It seemed that Anita was comfortable now that her pain was being properly managed. But there was going to be a long wait to see a specialist.
“We are going back. She insists on us being with Ellie,” Sonia added. “We’ll be setting off in a few minutes. Her burns are apparently just second-degree but they need to be checked.”
Tara felt a pang of irrational guilt as she handed the phone to Ellie. As the girl chattered to her mother, Tara went over the chain of events that had brought her, and now Mortlake, to Haslam House. Anita had wanted a break from London and so had Tara. It was that simple.
Or was it? Hadn’t the Garlands broken with their usual routine to find this isolated large house? They normally refurbished properties in urban areas which were easier to sell. What had prompted them to deviate from their usual routine? Was it just coincidence that had lured her to a haunting that Mortlake thought uniquely dangerous?
“Tara?”
Ellie was holding up her phone.
“Mummy says I’ve been very good today, and I can have a Fun Size Snickers.”
Tara grinned down at the girl as she took the phone. The call had ended, of course.
“Really? Because I very much doubt she used those precise words.”
Ellie pouted and spoke emphatically.
“She didn’t say I couldn’t have one. And Auntie Anita would definitely want me to have one.”
Tara sighed.
“Okay, we’ll both have chocolate after we eat something sensible. You have a great career ahead of you, but I suspect it’s going to be as a corporate lawyer,” Tara said.
“Or maybe as an artist,” she added, looking down at Ellie’s drawing pad which was now pretty thin. “Mind if I see?”
The girl’s latest drawing seemed quite conventional, at first. The house was there, as before, with figures clearly meant to be Ellie and Tara sitting on the lawn. The picnic was represented by sandwiches, a banana, and an oversized apple. The sun was a solid disk of yellow with rays, and birds flew overhead. Trixie lolled nearby, pink tongue and all.
“But what are these black lines?” Tara asked, pointing.
Ellie, mouth full of tomato salad sandwich, shrugged.
“Like some kind of grid,” Tara mused.
She was reminded of the last picnic she had enjoyed, with Anita in the park. She thought of the snakes and ladders board. Tara shuddered slightly, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. But there was nothing in the sky to cast any shadow.
***
The faint blue light seemed to get closer, growing until he could see a face. Mortlake resisted the temptation to look behind him. He knew there was no face to reflect. It was a pinched pale face with large dark eyes. A woman’s face, in all likelihood, but it was hard to be sure. It stared at Mortlake, and in its
gaze, he saw pain, desperation, fear. It closed its eyes, and he heard a faint fretful sound.
“Helen?”
He spoke quietly, framing his conception of the dead medium in his mind. He tried to project sympathy, understanding, a willingness to help. The reflected face opened its eyes. Mortlake spoke again, a little less softly.
“Are you Helen York?”
The thin lips barely moved.
“Yes.”
The voice was pained, the word forced out, almost a gasp.
“Let me help you, Helen,” he said. “Tell me what happened to you.”
The face shimmered, receded, then grew. Helen York’s visage was huge, now filling the mirror. Her mouth opened in a scream but no sound came. Instead, Mortlake felt himself falling into the blackness as her mouth grew wider and filled the world. A wave of intense cold washed over him. He struggled to remain open, committed to communication. He was no medium, but he knew that he had some limited psychic ability in the right conditions. Helen York had seized on this, he felt sure, and taken him into her world.
And the world of an unquiet ghost was an eternal present, a small slice of time that encapsulated the trauma that kept it imprisoned in a particular place.
He was climbing onto a rickety chair in a tiny room, one he had seen earlier that day. He was looping something around his neck, a silken scarf it felt like. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror on a dressing table and saw the pinched face, the thin lips, disorderly hair. Mortlake felt Helen York’s despair, shared her total humiliation, a more intense pang of suffering than the ice-cold wave.
But that was not the worst.
The room was full of ghosts. Ghosts whose whispers grew more intense as their murky forms grew more clearly defined. And with them came something stranger, a power that he sensed but could not locate. It seemed nebulous, unfocused, but then Mortlake realized that it was all-pervading. The whispering ghosts grew more insistent and flowed into Helen’s body. The whisperers were borne on a flood of hunger, supernatural and monstrous. It shocked Mortlake so much he almost broke the connection.
House of Whispers: Supernatural Suspense with Scary & Horrifying Monsters (Mortlake Series Book 2) Page 11
