by Dean Cole
I had to admire her tenacity. Though I can’t say I wasn’t secretly pleased I wouldn’t have to spend the weekend breathing in her toxic, second-hand cigarette smoke. A perennial hypochondriac, I like my air — and my lungs — free from pollution, thank you very much.
Done with the preamble, Mrs Brown led us deeper into the hallway. Our footsteps were muffled by a sumptuous rug covering most of the stone floor. I glanced around, taking in the large, open space around me. My imagination was right: it was as if we’d stepped back in time several decades. Aged portraits in gilded picture frames adorned the dark wood walls, their eyes appearing to follow us as we walked. An elaborate chandelier hung from the sky-high ceiling, though not a single one of its bulbs was lit, the only source of light coming from the candle-like sconces in the alcoves. A large bifurcated staircase dominated the space, its hard edges and carved spindles adding to the grandeur of it all.
‘Your room’s on the second floor,’ trilled Mrs Brown. ‘Follow me.’
She trotted up the staircase, her polished shoes rapping the ancient wood. Kat followed first, looking flustered as she struggled to extend the handle on her suitcase to carry it up the steps. As I brought up the rear, my eyes strayed to a dark corridor off to one side of the hallway. I had a disturbing feeling someone was watching me. Was the creepy bloke from outside loitering in the shadows? Seeing nothing there I shook the thought away, but I was quick to catch up with Kat and Mrs Brown after that.
After ascending another flight of stairs we were led down a long, spacious corridor. The walls up here, like downstairs, were covered with dark panelling and a well-worn runner the colour of blood lined the floor. Mrs Brown halted in front of an open doorway and gestured for us to enter.
‘I’m afraid yours is the smallest room,’ she said. ‘It used to accommodate lowly staff many moons ago, but it’s reflective of the price and with recent decoration I think you’ll find it pleasant enough. Bathroom’s along there, two doors on your right.’ She crossed her hands in front of a well fed midriff. ‘Right then, I’ll leave you to it. Come down to the lounge when you’re ready. It’s the large room on the left. If you need anything in the meantime, don’t be afraid to ask.’
Then she was walking away as swiftly as she’d brought us up here. We stood at the threshold of the room like two forsaken children as the tread of the little Scotswoman’s shoes tapered down the corridor and she became even more diminutive than she already was.
Kat stepped inside the room first and I followed. It was clean and tidy, with a fourposter bed, a coffer, a changing screen, mahogany furniture and a large paned window. Despite the size of the window, the room, like the rest of the house, was gloomily dark. Kat solved this by striding to the bed and switching on the bedside lamp. Chintz fabrics and gleaming wood lit up all around us.
A pleasant smell perfuming the air caught my attention. My nose hunted it out to a bowl of potpourri sitting atop the heavily-grained surface top of a nearby dresser. Standing next to the bowl was a clear vase filled with white lilies.
White lilies …
The room seemed to disappear as the flowers, their ivory-coloured petals, their sweet fragrance, triggered a memory …
Multiple wreaths arranged on top of the coffin. How beautiful yet tragic it looked for someone so young. White for peace. For light and love. For purity …
‘God, it’s even worse than I imagined.’
The memory ebbed away as Kat’s voice pulled me back to the room. ‘Sorry?’
‘The room. I’ve seen less depressing funeral parlours.’
‘Oh,’ I said, still distant. I took another glance at the space around me. It didn’t look depressing to me. I’ve always felt an affinity with old things. They’re out of their time, forgotten. Sort of like me.
‘Still, we’re only here for the weekend,’ said Kat. ‘And it was dirt cheap compared to prices down south.’
She dropped her handbag on the floor and fell backwards onto the mattress, her body carving a dent in the perfectly fitted linen. She remained there, spread eagle, staring dreamily up at the roof of the fourposter. In a more dignified fashion, I walked over to the coffer at the foot of the bed and pulled off my rucksack. It was only then that I noticed something wasn’t quite right.
‘Wait, why is there only one bed?’
‘Because we’re sharing.’
I felt my stomach lilt. ‘Sharing?’
‘They didn’t have any rooms with separate beds.’
Sweat prickled my hairline. Sharing a bed? With another person? A female person? Seeing the growing horror on my face, Kat rolled her eyes.
‘Hun, do you honestly think I don’t know about your preferences?’
‘My preferences?’
‘You’re gay, Quentin. Anyone can see that.’
I blinked. Looked around me as if I’d just been outed to Hilderley Manor’s ghosts.
‘There’s nothing to be ashamed about,’ said Kat, heaving herself into a sitting position. ‘Who isn’t gay today? Or at least a little bit. I did an assignment on sexual orientation. Apparently nobody’s fully straight or gay on the sexuality spectrum. Hell, I’d consider women myself if it meant I never had to meet another guy like any of my exes.’
‘I’m not ashamed,’ I said. ‘I just … didn’t think it was that obvious. And I’m fussy about sharing my space. It’s a hygiene thing.’
Kat got up and walked over to the dresser mirror. ‘In fairness, I do have exceptional intuition,’ she said, tilting her face to admire her bone structure. ‘But you made it more than obvious when we first met that you bat for the other team, or whatever that phrase is.’
‘How?’ I said, my voice shooting higher than I’d intended. I cleared my throat. ‘How?’
‘I was wearing a low cut top and your eyes didn’t once stray to these,’ she said, peeling back the lapels of her coat to reveal her cleavage bursting through a low buttoned shirt. ‘Let’s face it, what straight guy is going to resist a peek at these beauties?’
I looked at aforementioned bosom, which Kat was now plumping admiringly. They were indeed an impressive pair of appendages, like two small watermelons squeezed tightly together in a slingshot. But I was too busy trying to figure out what she’d seen in me that was so ‘gay’ to give them much attention.
Sensing any answer eluding me, I walked over to the window. The weather was growing wetter outside, drizzle scattering the window panes with tiny water globules. I stared at the well kept grounds below, at Kat’s Mini parked in the distance, and shivered. The temperature seemed to have plummeted the higher we’d ventured up the building. Or was it just this room? I touched the ancient looking radiator under the window, flinching when I discovered it was stone cold. I pulled my blazer tighter, drew in a breath, released it. The window misted opaque. The bedside lamp, reflected in the window, silhouetted my head and shoulders onto the frosty glass. It would make a great stylistic shot if this were a scene in a Gothic horror film, I couldn’t help noticing.
Kat, a true Southerner, began mimicking Mrs Brown’s Scottish accent. ‘“I’m Mrs Brown, the housekeeper. You can call me Elspeth if you like.” I had a teacher at primary school who sounded just like that, you know …’
But I wasn’t listening as I watched thunderclouds swirl in the sky, more crows seeking refuge in the canopies of leafless trees. A storm was brewing. Or was the sudden cold feeling something more worrying? My thoughts drifted back to the misty figure I’d seen standing at the window. Had I really seen it? Or was it just the creepiness of the place messing with my imagination?
‘… and she had this huge mole on her face that made her look like a witch —’
‘Think we’ll survive the weekend?’ I interrupted.
Kat snorted. ‘Don’t be a drama queen. Ghosts don’t exist. And this weekend will prove it.’
I stared at her reflection in the window, watched her walk over to the bedside table and pull open a drawer, no doubt looking for freebies or valuables she co
uld pillage.
At the same moment the elderly man reappeared down on the driveway, the shovel replaced with a tattered broom.
‘I don’t know,’ I murmured, as I watched him hobble to the edge of the lawn and start sweeping a sea of dead leaves. ‘Who knows what’s going on in this universe? Who are we to say this supernatural stuff is just a figment of people’s imaginations?’
‘Pffft, I should have known you’d be into this nonsense too,’ said Kat, sliding the drawer shut and searching the cupboard beneath. ‘But despite your award winning photography skills, some floating dust and smears on a lens isn’t proof the afterlife exists.’
I spun to face her. ‘They weren’t smears. And that dust? They’re called orbs. Look it up. In fact, I’d have thought a ‘multifaceted’ journalist like yourself would have done that already since you’re about to write an article on the subject.’
Kat’s eyes drifted up to me from the other side of the fourposter as she shut the cupboard carefully. ‘So there is fire lurking beneath that meek veneer of yours.’ She squinted her eyes, an almost proud grin curling her painted lips. ‘Calm down, Cruella, it’s called an opinion. We’re all entitled to one.’
My gaze remained steadfast. Ordinarily a pacifist, I was surprised by the tetchiness Kat and her jibes were able to draw out of me. Either that or the last few weeks’ lack of sleep was finally catching up with me. I softened my tone. ‘What were you looking at the photos for, anyway, if you’re such a sceptic?’
‘Josh showed everyone in the office. He’s obsessed with anything supernatural, especially now we’re extending our monthly print magazine to cater to a more diverse readership. He was jumping around the place like he’d won the lottery when he saw your little offerings. Can’t say I thought much of them myself, but you certainly fooled him.’
‘They’re not fake,’ I said, irritation returning to my voice.
Kat hauled her handbag onto the bed and started rummaging inside. ‘Yeah, yeah. Keep your mop on. Who cares if they’re real, anyway? You got a job at The Gazette. That’s all that matters, right?’
I felt annoyed at Kat’s lack of respect. I had been lucky to get the job at The Gazette. I was searching for jobs when I spotted the advert: Photos wanted showing evidence of ghosts or ghostly apparitions. I’d been photographing orbs and other anomalies around my apartment for months. Just days before I saw the advert I happened to capture my most intriguing shot yet. A face. Or something like a face. It was a smoky shadow the shape of a person’s head and shoulders, positioned in the corner of the bedroom as it appeared to look directly at the camera. But the editor at The Gazette, Josh Mendy, hadn’t only liked the apparition in my photo. He said I had a great eye for framing a shot and drawing the viewer’s attention to its most important features. That’s why he’d offered me a job.
And there were other things Kat didn’t know. There was more than just anomalies in my photographs making me wonder if another world running parallel to this one we couldn’t see really did exist. For months strange things had been happening to me. I’d heard voices, felt presences, seen inexplicable lights and shadows; I’d experienced precognition, picturing entire events or conversations before they happened. And then there were the dreams. No, not dreams, those scenarios created by the subconscious, your brain trying to process what you’ve been doing and thinking about during the day. These were something deeper. Memories. And they felt so real, like I was right there experiencing them all over again. Add to all this me getting the job at the local paper, which had brought me to this godforsaken place on a rainy day in mid-October, and the more everything started to feel less like coincidence and nearer to fate.
Kat finished retouching her lipstick then squirted herself with perfume. She stretched out her hands, unceremoniously cracking the bones in her fingers. The sound made me wince. ‘I’m going downstairs to bring Petunia up the drive and have a smoke,’ she announced. She waltzed to the door, bending to sniff the lilies before slipping out into the corridor. The remaining tension appeared to leave the room with her.
In her absence I felt a strengthening of my resolve. Whatever was happening to me had to be more than my imagination, whether it was the work of a supernatural force or not. Hundreds of photos taken throughout my life had never revealed such strange and mysterious things. I’d barely been able to predict the weather before, let alone the future. And the dreams. Surely it wasn’t normal — possible, even — to dream your past exactly as it had happened all those years ago?
I couldn’t ignore these things any longer. Better yet, maybe Hilderley Manor’s ghost hunting team could help me make some sort of sense of them? After all, what do you do if you suspect you’re being haunted? I couldn’t exactly call the Ghostbusters.
But ghosts, Quentin. You’re talking about ghosts, the critical voice inside my head whispered …
I pushed my doubt away and walked over to where I’d left my rucksack. I carried it around to what I was going to claim as my side of the bed. I unzipped one of the side pockets and pulled out the brown labelled bottle tucked discreetly behind my spare glasses. I stared at the small white pills inside. Pills that were supposed to calm my nerves and stop my obsessive thoughts, to sedate what my doctor had called my ‘overactive imagination.’
I debated taking my daily dosage. The pills gave me unwanted side effects: nausea, bad headaches, loss of libido — even if my sex life was as active as an extinct volcano. But they did reduce the intensity of the visions. Somewhat. I thought again about the misty figure standing at the window. A creation of my mind or something more? The lines between reality and my imagination were blurring more and more. Maybe that’s what the pills were meant to do.
I opened the bottle, poured one of the white ovals onto my palm and chucked it into the back of my throat, swallowing it dry. I wasn’t willing to discover what else this haunted place had in store for me. For the moment, at least.
Thunder rumbled outside, grabbing my attention. I returned to the window. Kat had reached the ground and was striding down the driveway, thumbing her phone and puffing on a cigarette, Petunia (her Mini) patiently awaiting her return on the other side of the gate like some oversized pet. The old man had stopped sweeping the leaves and was staring up at the window, watching me. His expression was even less inviting than it was earlier. ‘What is your problem?’ I might have shouted out. If I hadn’t been raised to have better manners when it came to strangers. If I didn’t sense something sinister lurking behind those rheumy eyes of his.
- CHAPTER TWO -
White Feathers
AFTER WE’D UNPACKED and freshened up we headed downstairs to meet the others. A young man in catering uniform standing at the entrance to the lounge fitted us with stickers that had our names written on them in black marker. Kat looked down at hers, which had been adhered to her left breast. ‘Stickers with our names on? What do they think it is? Nursery school?’
Entering the lounge, it was easy to pick out the ghost hunting team who would be escorting us around the manor over the weekend. There was four of them, each wearing a black shirt with their logo, Pluckley Ghost Hunters, emblazoned on the front. It was designed in a serif font with two neon eyes peering out of the letter O. Obvious, but effective. The foursome were assembled near a large open fire, peculiar looking equipment scattered over the antique furniture around them.
‘That’s them,’ said Kat, producing a notepad from her bosom. ‘Just as weird as I expected.’
She jotted in the notepad, presumably taking notes on what she was observing.
I assumed the other people in the room were our fellow guests. A young, attractive and well-dressed couple stood at the opposite side of the room, their hands all over each other as they admired a collection of photographs hanging in frames on the wall. She was petite and stunning, with the dark hair and eyes of Asia. He was equally beautiful — of Greek descent I deduced at a glance — and impressively muscular. The girl was holding what I thought was a fur access
ory, until a second glance made me realise it was a small fluffy dog.
Another woman was milling about a table ladened with food and beverages. I say milling; she was more like a fish feeding off a coral reef as she made her way through tureens, bowls and sandwich-filled platters. She was as colourful as a sea creature, too. A halo of wild gold hair bordered her heavily bronzed and painted face, and her large frame was draped in mounds of multicoloured fabric. Accessories of all sorts — rings, jewels, wrist bands and necklaces — hung off her like Christmas tree decorations. I had a hunch there was something different about her … something mystical.
One of the ghost hunters, a bloke with thick-rimmed glasses and a peppering of grey through his black spiky hair, stepped forward authoritatively when he noticed Kat and I had entered the room.
‘Welcome, folks,’ he said. ‘I’m Giles. And this is my wife, Annie.’ He coiled an arm around the slim woman with shoulder length hair standing beside him.
The attractive couple peeled themselves away from the photographs, shuffling up behind Kat and me as we moved closer to listen to what he had to say.
‘I’m the lead investigator of Pluckley Ghost Hunters and Annie is our location researcher,’ Giles went on. He gestured to the only other male of the foursome. ‘That’s Norman, our parapsychologist.’
Norman, a giant of a bloke who was a generation older than Giles and had not a single hair on his shiny, tanned head but made up for it with a silver beard that grew down to a beer-belly waist, gave us a curt nod then went back to fiddling with his camera, blowing dust off its lens.
Giles then gestured to the last ghost hunter, a woman who was the youngest of the group. She was full figured, with mahogany and orange highlighted hair and a cherubic face. There were at least two piercings in it. ‘And that’s Carrie, our team sensitive.’
Norman … as in Psycho’s Norman Bates? Carrie … as in Stephen King’s Carrie White? Annie … Annie Wilkes? Is it just me or was there something in that?
