Witch Haunted in Westerham

by Dionne Lister

  No more fear. Let’s do this.

  I focussed on my belly, deep inside where it was raw and tender. When I’d blown up at Mrs Soames, there’d been more heat than normal. Maybe I’d reinjured it? Although, how you injured a portal into yourself, I didn’t know. Was it even a portal? There was so much I didn’t understand. Gah. I pushed all that unimportant stuff out of the way and delved deep, searching for the golden stream.

  There it was. I hesitated before gingerly reaching for it. Warmth filled me, and I smiled as the elephant slid off my back. The weight of failure and loss had been a far heavier burden than I’d realised. It was gone, and I could breathe. Now all I needed to be my light, floaty self was for Will to come back safe and sound.

  I stepped outside and shut the door. A thin awning sheltered me from the downpour. I whispered, “Protect my camera from the rain, please.” Such a simple spell didn’t need to rhyme. I wasn’t doing this for the theatrics, and bad luck if I was breaking some witchy code that required us to be poets on top of everything else.

  I aimed my lens at the yard and snapped two shots—this was going to need massive editing later for light and colour, but I had my settings on RAW so it would take a large file size—more image to work with. I jogged to the other end of the small yard and stood with my back to the timber-paling fence. Then I took a few more photos. And I was done with not a drop of rain on the lens or camera body. Yay for magic!

  When I ran inside, Samuel met me in the living area. “I think it’s best if you send me the photos this afternoon. No one can get hold of Oliver.” His brow furrowed, and worry seeped from his gaze. Samuel was either a consummate actor or this was way out of character for Oliver. The latter was the most likely, and the whole thing felt… off. Had he run away for some reason, or had someone done something to him?

  “Are you going to call the police?”

  “His partner’s already called them. He left for work this morning but never arrived, which is unlike him, and there’s no sign of his car.” Samuel ran a hand through his short hair. “Yeah, so send me the photos. If there’s any other work for you, I’ll send it through.”

  “Okay, thanks. And I hope Oliver turns up safe and well.”

  “Thanks.”

  I let myself out and made a mad dash to the car. I chucked all my equipment in the boot, slammed it shut, and threw myself into the front seat. Rainwater streamed along the gutter, past weeping willows and rounded, chest-high hedges that formed a natural divide between street and house. England was so pretty, even when it wasn’t trying. Watching from my car was like living inside an impressionist painting, the scenery blurred by rivulets of rain sliding down my windscreen.

  The drive south to Royal Tunbridge Wells took about twenty minutes. I’d briefly visited here before, but I needed Siri’s help to find the café. I parked down the road a bit—my habit in the UK. There was always an opportunity to see the sights if I took some time to walk. With my umbrella and raincoat, I’d stay fairly dry.

  As I walked along York Road, admiring the rendered brick four-story terraces, someone yelled “Boo!” from just behind me. I jumped and let out a short scream. A woman laughed. “Gotcha!”

  I turned. Bloody Imani! “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

  “Ha, no, love. Just couldn’t resist. You knew I was around.”

  “Yes, but no.” I whispered a bubble-of-silence spell. “Whenever anyone was following me before, I could usually make them out. You’re exceptionally good at your job. I forgot you were around, and I haven’t seen you at all since this ‘following me’ thing started.”

  “Lily!” Her mouth dropped open.

  “What?” I jerked my head around, looking for the danger.

  She lowered her voice—my spell didn’t stop normal people from hearing what we were saying. “You’re using your magic! That’s wonderful. Have you got it back properly, then?”

  I smiled. “Yep. At least, I think so. I’m probably going to get tired faster than normal, and I’ve only tried small spells, but it seems like it. It doesn’t feel different to before that… incident, so I’m assuming it’s all going to be fine.”

  She threw her arms around me and squeezed before letting go. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  She linked her arm through mine. “Let’s go. Liv’ll be there soon.”

  We set off. She huddled close to me, sharing my umbrella. “You don’t even have a raincoat. What’s up with that?”

  She shrugged. “Couldn’t be bothered.”

  “You’re weird.”

  She grinned. “Yep.”

  We turned right at the main road and walked past a hulking sandstone building with three-metre-tall columns at the front. It looked like a cross between Georgian architecture and old Roman or Greek. And there were sale signs out the front. “Is that a clothes shop?”

  “Yeah. They’ve got some good stuff, but a bit expensive.”

  “That’s rather grand for retail. Looks like it should be an art gallery or town hall.” Large historical buildings were so few and far between in Sydney that we tended to reserve them for more important things than clothes shops.

  “There’s lots of grandness around here. You know it used to be where the royals and the well-to-do holidayed, back in the 1800s. It all started because of a chalybeate spring.”

  “A what?”

  She laughed. “It’s a spring, you know, water that comes out of the ground, but it has high levels of iron in it.”

  “Oh, okay. That’s one reason to start a town.” It didn’t take much to get people excited back then. Any reason to start a town. But then again, you did need water to survive, but water containing a lot of iron? Was that even safe to drink?

  “Here we are, Côte Brasserie.” Imani took a sharp right and opened a glass door. The three-storey building was on a corner. The upper two levels were brownish-coloured bricks, and the ground floor was painted a dark steely blue-grey and had striped awnings protruding over every large window. There was a courtyard at the front with chairs and tables, but no one was out there. Who wanted to eat in the freezing rain? Yeah, not me. She held the door open. I closed my umbrella and stepped inside.

  The bright, cheery interior had light-coloured timber floors. A bar section against one wall looked out over the dining area and floor-to-ceiling windows which revealed the courtyard beyond. Olivia waved from a table in the corner to our left.

  We both sat, and a waiter came to take our order. He had a sexy French accent, which made him an eight out of ten instead of a five on the attractive scale. I had no idea what made that accent sexy. Accents were strange. Who had originally decided it should be said a certain way? Did they have an agenda, like, “Let’s make this sexy, so everyone focusses on our words and wants to sleep with us.” In that case, what were they thinking when they invented the Aussie accent? “Let’s make it so people think we’re happy but rough and maybe a bit simple.” Could be good for underestimating us, but other than that, I didn’t get it. The British one was clearly contrived so people thought they were the authority on whatever they were talking about. The refined English accent definitely lent gravity to whatever was being said. I was pretty sure they’d done studies on it.

  After he took our order, Olivia turned to me. “Argh. When is stupid Mrs Soames going home?”

  “You heard her last night. She’s not going to go easily. Maybe we’ll have to move out.”

  “Is this the woman from across the road with the haunted house?” Imani asked.

  “Yes,” Liv and I answered at the same time.

  “Um, Lily?” a soft voice asked.

  I looked up. “Mrs Jennings! Fancy seeing you here.” I smiled.

  “I work across the road at the museum.” She nodded towards the main street.

  “Oh, that’s right. How’s everything going?”

  “I’m good, sort of. We’ve already sold the house. We had to agree on a price that was lower than we would have liked,
but that can’t be helped.”

  “Oh. That’s a shame, but I’m glad you sold it so quickly.” What the hell? I was only there yesterday. I tried to keep the surprise from my face.

  “Yes. Oliver called us with the offer this morning. We went back and forth a couple of times, but we finally agreed on a price.”

  “Oh, what time was that?”

  She looked at me as if to say, that’s a bit too personal. But, hey, it wasn’t really. “Around eight. Why?”

  “I was supposed to meet Oliver at a job this morning, but he didn’t turn up. No one’s heard from him, but if you spoke to him this morning, he probably just got caught up with something.” I had a feeling that meeting her here was the universe’s way of giving me an opportunity to find out more, so to keep the “I want to know too much” theme going, I asked, “Are you staying in the area?”

  “We’re not sure, to be honest. We haven’t been looking for long, but there isn’t much on the market that doesn’t get sold quickly.” She looked at her phone. “I have to get back to work, but it was lovely seeing you, and if I speak to Oliver, I’ll ask him to call the office. Bye.”

  She turned and left. Had she even eaten? Olivia frowned. “Why would you sell in a hurry but not have somewhere else to go?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. And is it just me, or did she just leave rather hastily?”

  Imani turned to look out the window. “No, love, it’s not just you.”

  The waiter returned with our drinks. When he left, Olivia said, “You’re doing work for Smith & Henderson, right?”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Okay, so I have two questions. That flyer Mrs Soames got yesterday was from them, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded, and my eyes widened. “Yes, and we didn’t get one. That’s what I was checking our mail for. Which is weird. If you were an agent looking for work, wouldn’t you put flyers in everyone’s letterbox? Do you think Mrs Jennings’s house was haunted, and that’s why they’re moving?”

  “What else would make you leave your house on short notice? It makes total sense. And our houseguest is proof.”

  “Well, yes and no. I’d never seen a ghost before that one at Mrs Soames’s place. What are the chances of having two haunted houses in the same area at the same time?”

  Imani tapped the tabletop. “Maybe there’s an infestation for some reason? We’ve just had All Souls’ Day.”

  “Not just. That was two weeks ago,” Olivia said. Huh? How come they were so up to date on days for the dead? I had no idea about any of that stuff.

  Imani pressed her lips together. “Hmm. Maybe the hauntings started then, and the ghosts just never left?”

  “You know this is a crazy conversation, right?” I asked. And so was having seen a ghost and almost being injured by it. What had my life become? “Let’s suppose you’re both right; why would someone jump straight on it and buy it even before it hits the market? Hang on.” I googled the listing on my phone, but it wasn’t there. I shook my head. “See. It’s nowhere.”

  Imani had a quick look and handed the phone to Olivia. Olivia cocked her head to the side. “Well, agents have a list of buyers who are waiting. Maybe this Oliver guy had the right buyer waiting?”

  “We’re making a lot of suppositions. You know what? I’m going to go to the museum after lunch to visit Mrs Jennings and ask her about it. What’ve I got to lose? Oliver said not to talk to the clients during work, but he didn’t say anything about me chatting to them out in the wild.”

  “In the wild?” Imani snorted.

  I grinned. “You know what I mean. But seriously, so far, this place has been anything but tame.”

  We spent an hour chatting and eating. When we were done, Olivia headed back to work, and Imani and I walked across the road to the museum. It was a two-storey brick building, which was kind of bland and had a bit of the governments about it. Not nearly as pretty as the massive sandstone structure that housed the clothing shop. They really should swap premises.

  The main entry doors led into a double-ceiling-height vestibule. If we went straight ahead, there was the library, and up the stairs was the museum-cum-art gallery. We hurried up the stairs and found Mrs Jennings manning the small reception desk in the first room at the end of the hallway. Imani hung back—we didn’t want Mrs Jennings to feel overwhelmed.

  As much as I wasn’t on the clock right now, if Oliver found out I’d spoken to her, he might never use my services again—that was, if they found where he’d gotten to. “Hi,” I said and smiled.

  “Oh, Lily. What are you doing here?”

  “Um, I’m sorry to bother you, but I needed to ask you something. I realise you may not be comfortable talking about it, but, ah, my neighbour is living with us at the moment because”—I lowered my voice and leaned towards her—“her house is haunted. I never believed in that stuff before, but I’ve seen it for myself, and it was scary. Is that what happened to you?” If her house hadn’t been haunted, she was going to think I was a total loony. Saying it out loud made me rethink what we were doing, but it was too late now.

  She stared at me, then snapped her head around, probably checking who was within hearing distance. We were the only two people in here, and Imani was in the hallway just outside. Mrs Jennings shook her head and took a deep breath. “You have to promise not to say anything. I don’t want the sale falling through.”

  I gave her my most earnest expression. “I promise. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s something bigger going on, if you know what I mean.”

  “Look, I don’t know if anyone else is going through this, but it started about four weeks ago. There are two ghosts—an angry old lady and naughty child. They manifest at night and wake us up. They’ve told us to leave. At first, we thought we’d just ride it out; then we got a priest in to bless the house. We tried smudge sticks, telling them to get out, all kinds of things, but nothing worked. For the first week, it was more annoying than anything, but we thought we’d learn to live with it. But then they started to get physical—breaking my cups and plates, levitating kitchen knives, and telling me they were going to kill us.” She hugged herself and shivered. “We just couldn’t do it anymore. Getting that flyer from Smith & Henderson was a godsend. Oliver’s done a wonderful job of finding a buyer.”

  Gee, I could see wanting to leave and needing to get your money out of it, but did they feel a little bit guilty for just passing the problem onto someone else? And why were all these ghosts so murderous? Not that I ever believed in ghosts before this, but normally the stories are about floating, see-through people who drift in and out and do no more than leave a cold draught or laughter in their wake. This was another level entirely.

  “He sure sold it quickly. That must be a record or something.” I smiled, trying to make my statement non-threatening.

  “I know, but we’re so grateful. We did have to drop the price more than we would’ve liked to make it happen, but we’re just happy to be out of there. We’ll rent for a while and keep our eye out for something.”

  “I appreciate you being so candid, Mrs Jennings, and don’t worry; I won’t say anything to anyone other than my best friend and my aunt—they’re worried about our neighbour, and we’re not sure what to do. But maybe she’ll just have to sell. We’ll see.”

  “I just want this whole thing to be over and done with. Good luck with your neighbour, Lily.” She gave me a closed-mouth, half-arsed smile—the smile you give when you’re just not feeling it.

  “Thanks. You too.” I smiled and joined Imani in the hallway. I jerked my head towards the stairs and hurried outside, my friend behind me. Once we were a safe distance from the building, I stopped and spoke in a quiet voice. “She did sell because of a violent ghost—well two, actually—and the agent had a buyer before the home went to market.”

  “That’s odd—about the buyer, not the ghosts.”

  I drew my brows down. “You don’t think the ghosts are odd? I know you said you believed in them, bu
t until the other day, you’d never seen one, and now there’re ghosts everywhere. You don’t think that’s unusual? Because I sure do.” If I hadn’t been in Mrs Soames’s home and confronting the ghost, I never would have believed it either. Since then, I’d been trying to figure out how someone could fake something so real without magic, and I’d come up with nothing.

  “You have no explanation for it either. Usually the most obvious answer is the right one.”

  “Maybe.” I still wasn’t convinced, but without any evidence, I had to concede ghosts were around. Maybe I was holding onto false hopes that the things that go bump in the night weren’t just me running into walls in the dark when I got up at 1:00 a.m. to go to the loo. I shuddered.

  “What does it matter to you anyway, Lily? You don’t have to solve everyone’s problems. Haven’t you got enough on your plate right now?”

  “I suppose, but we still have to get Mrs Soames out of our house, and she won’t leave until that ghost does. Maybe everything’s connected somehow, and if I can find an answer, we can get that ghost out of her house, and Mrs Soames can stop haunting us.” I giggled. She wasn’t murderous, but she was just as bad as a ghost in every other way, and not all ghosts were out to kill. Were they?

  Imani grinned. “Fair enough, love, but I haven’t got time to run around with you this afternoon. I have to get back to work. Is that okay? Maybe tomorrow we can meet up and figure something out.”

  “Sounds good.” I made a bubble of silence. “Have you heard anything about Will?” She probably wouldn’t be able to tell me anything, but I couldn’t help asking.