by Jack Lewis
She shivered, and then slammed the book shut. The book had been a gift to a man named Harold from her great, great, great, great grandfather Alistair Towneley, and it must have been one of the men who marked the sentences that interested them.
In another book, she found something different hidden inside. This one was a history of all the Towneley family members, written in the sloppy handwriting of a person uninterested in the aesthetics of what they wrote, and who seemed to be in a hurry to get the words on the page. As she read through it, she couldn’t help but think that the library had become darker, and that the lamps struggled against the shadows.
It described a man named Harold West. He had married into the Towneley family by stealing the affections of one of Alistair’s daughters. Tamara had no idea who had written the book, but it was clear that they had no love for Harold. The scrawled handwriting told how Harold was an evil man with a dark history, prone to foul language and outbursts of violence. He was a gambler, a cheat and a thief. Harold legally became a part of the Towneley family, and upon arriving at the manor, he added Towneley to his name, so that he became Harold West-Towneley.
She remembered talking on the phone to a raspy-voiced man. Magda said his name was Harold, though Tamara couldn’t recall her conversations, nor ever speaking his name.
She closed the book. Suddenly the library felt too lonely. It seemed like a gloom had gathered there, drained from other parts of the house and concentrated at the threshold of the door, waiting for her and wanting her to step into it. The room was cold, and she knew that she had to leave. She didn’t want to read anymore of the rituals and preparations. Whatever the older generations of her family had done, she wanted no part of it.
Holding a lamp in one hand and gathering her courage, she walked to the library door. Her hands shook, but she imagined ripping off a band aid; do it quickly, she told herself.
She twisted the handle and pulled. The hinge creaked and the wood seemed to shake. She opened it fully and prepared herself for something waiting outside.
The hallway was empty.
It was time for sleep now. Time to be in her room with a locked door, and get in bed and wait for sunrise so that she could finally leave Towneley Manor.
On the way to her room she stopped by the bathroom in the hall. Water trickled from the tap and made a steady drip as it hit the porcelain. She sat down on the toilet seat and felt it cold against her skin.
Across from her, the bathroom door slowly opened. She felt a chill slither on her skin. Where was Billy, she wondered? Where was Magda? Suddenly she felt lonely in the house, as though it was a mass of dark hallways and bare rooms put there for her, and her alone.
The door swung open, creaking as the wood rubbed on the hinges. The darkness of the hallway waited for her.
She had to get back to her room, to get inside and lock the door and then count the hours until sunrise until she could be free of the house. She stood up and took nervous steps through the bathroom and out into the hall, wondering what waited for her.
Shadows crept across the walls. Somewhere above, the house groaned as its old wood settled. There was a silence so heavy that she could almost feel it, and it amplified her quick breaths and the beating of her pulse.
Her room was only metres away. She walked toward it, slowly at first, but hurrying as a panic took hold of her. It felt like icy fingers were caressing her.
She stopped.
Something was in the hall. It was featureless, a dark mass looming in front of her, large enough to block the hall but so black that it had no face. It was an ominous presence, something that had gathered in shadows of the hall and stood blocking her way, dripping with malice.
She froze in place. She thought about turning around toward the library, but somehow, she knew that something was behind her too, drifting through the darkness until it could get close enough to touch her skin.
The mass in front of her moved toward her. It was something ugly. A gathering of malicious spirits, something that wanted her.
She felt something behind her now, close enough that its breath teased onto the back of her neck. The dark mass in front moved ever closer, and soon she was trapped by them both. She felt them watching her, faceless but with eyes that could see her, with minds that wanted her and had intentions too dark to imagine.
A third presence joined them, creeping by her side until she was trapped. They stopped inches away and waited. There was silence, but she felt malice seep out of them as real as hot breath on her face.
Names came unbidden into her mind.
Alistair.
Harold.
And then she heard a sound. At first it was fainter than the whisper of the wind, but in her utter terror she could do nothing but listen. And then she heard it again, words spoken in the emptiness of the hall.
Ra Ra, it said.
She wanted to cry out, but she was scared that if she did, the spell would be broken. The dark gatherings wouldn’t be content to just watch her, but would put their ghostly hands on her, choke her neck, pinch her skin.
She knew who the men were now. She thought of the books in the library, of the occult rituals and diaries of horrible men. Alistair and Harold had joined her in the darkness, she knew.
And not just them. A third; her father.
She wouldn’t let them hold her. Whatever they wanted, they wouldn’t have it. Summoning up every last dredge of courage, she pushed through the shape in front of her. She felt herself walk through it, and it was cold on her face as if she was walking through a winter mist.
She felt an icy hand grip her neck. She shrugged it off. Her pulse fired too quickly for her heart to keep up, and she thought she might collapse in the hallway. As she walked toward her bedroom, the dark shapes followed her silently along the hall.
She willed herself not to turn around. Forced her not to cry out. When she seized the handle of her bedroom door, she turned it so hard that a sharp pain hit her wrists. She ran into her room and slammed the door behind her. She turned the key in the lock and then sat on her bed, breaths coming shallow and quickly.
She watched the door and she waited, begging for the sun to rise outside.
Chapter Thirteen
The morning sun met her eyes. They stung through lack of sleep, and her body felt sapped of energy. She looked down at her bed. More hairs on her pillow. A nausea rising through her stomach. Thoughts of morning sickness stole into her mind but were quickly dismissed. This was something darker, an illness seeping through her body that came not from anything normal, but from the house.
She found the ground floor empty, with nothing but the pale sunlight teasing through whatever gaps it could find. She searched the rest of the house and found no sign of Billy or Magda.
There was only one thing to do, she decided. Her desire to leave the house was so overwhelming that it hung heavy in her mind like the headache from a hangover. She knew she just couldn’t walk its dark halls again, couldn’t tread over its bare floorboards or wonder what shapes were gathering amongst the gloom.
She knew she wasn’t thinking clearly, but she could only come up with one idea. She’d use her and Billy’s savings to pay for a caregiver from out of town. When that was arranged, she would walk into Glasspike, get some petrol, fill the car and then leave Towneley. If Billy wouldn’t come, then that was tough. He could stay in the manor as long as he wanted, and then make his own way home.
Her mobile phone was still lost, so she resorted to ringing the operator. After five minutes of searching, he was able to transfer her to a caregiving service fifty miles east of Glasspike.
A woman answered the phone. To Tamara’s relief she knew nothing of Towneley, and when Tamara explained the fall her mum had and how she was alone in a large house, the woman said it was something they could take care of. She needed a payment up front, so Tamara stood with her debit card in hand and read out her details. The sum took a chunk out of their savings so large that she almost winced, but sh
e knew she would pay anything to leave.
“I’ll just put the payment through,” said the lady.
There was silence on the line as they waited for the card numbers to be carried over the invisible airwaves to her bank. Tamara stared at the grandfather clock to her right, and saw that it didn’t tick.
“I’m sorry,” said the lady, breaking the silence. “But the payment hasn’t gone through. Do you want me to try again?”
“Go ahead,” said Tamara.
A few minutes passed. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Deacon. It was declined again.”
“Let me call the bank and ring you back.”
She called the operator and by pure chance was put through to the same man. He connected her to her bank. Tamara explained that her card had been declined, and the advisor checked her accounts.
“Have you made any transactions lately?” the young man asked her.
She thought about it. They never spent money on their savings account. That was their number one rule; the savings stay untouched.
“Nothing I can think of.”
“Our records show that a payment was made to Yates Properties for ten thousand pounds.”
Her heart began to thud.
“When?”
“Just yesterday. Do you know about this?”
Tamara paused, unsure what to answer.
“I can alert our fraud team, if you’d like?” asked the advisor.
“I’ll call you back,” said Tamara, and hung up the phone.
It was Billy. It had to be. She didn’t know who Yates Properties were, but she knew all too well what the ten thousand pounds had been spent on. Billy had drained their account and used the money to pay rental on the property he’d found for his bar. That had to be it.
She felt her cheeks start to burn with anger. Her chest felt tight, and she realised that she was gritting her teeth so hard that they hurt.
Without pause, she pounded up the steps and onto the first floor. Fury surged through her as she turned onto the hallway and stopped outside Billy’s room. What the hell was he playing at? How dare he do this without asking her?
She brought her fist up to the door and thumped on it. The knocks sounded hollow, and they were met with silence. She turned the handle, but the door didn’t budge.
“Billy?” she said, unable to disguise the anger in her voice.
She shook the handle. It rattled, but didn’t turn.
If he wasn’t in his room, then where was he? Out in the woods again? Or maybe he was with Magda, whispering to her and conspiring.
She stormed down to the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink. Just as she knew it would be, she found her father’s old tool kit. The case was encrusted with white paint. She opened it and took out a screwdriver.
She ran upstairs and stood outside Billy’s room again. Why had he locked his door? What was in there that she shouldn’t see?
She put the screwdriver against the metal of the door handle and turned. Screw by screw she loosened it until she could see the lock bolt. She slid it back, and then dropped the screwdriver and let it clatter on the floor. She pushed the door open and stepped into his room.
A lingering smell of deodorant hit her. Billy’s room was smaller than hers, and his bed was pushed into the corner. A curtain hung over one edge of the window and fluttered in the breeze, but the other part of the frame was empty.
She looked at the floor and saw books strewn across the ground. Some were closed but with the pages folded to mark a place, and others were open but laid on their front, with the titles staring back at her.
Dark Spirits and How to Summon Them
Awakening the World Beyond
Accessing the Forbidden: Secrets of the Occult.
She stepped further into the room, and when she saw the left-hand wall, she gasped. A symbol was painted in black on the wallpaper, large enough that it covered the wall. It was an eye surrounded by a fiery sun.
Her legs felt soft as though they were going to fold underneath her. She sat on the bed and heard it groan. Her heart raced, and the fluttering of the curtain seemed to speed up as the wind toyed with it.
It was too much for her to process. Why was Billy reading these books? Why had he drawn the symbol on the wall? She was sure she had never told him about it; she never mentioned her dreams to him, because she knew that he would just ask her question after question.
All she knew was that she had to leave the room. She stood up. A gust of wind hit the curtain and blew it toward her. The fabric danced horizontally, and it seemed as if it was stretching out toward her.
She looked out of the window, and she saw the woods staring back at her, the trees standing still, shadows creeping down their spines.
And then she saw Billy walking toward the manor. He looked up toward the bedroom window and saw her, and the expression on his face made her cold. It was a devious look. One that she had seen before.
She remembered the picture of the children in their Halloween outfits, and the man stood over them with a sneer. She pictured the men watching her from outside the conservatory.
What was happening? Was she imagining it all? The bedsheets beneath her felt real enough as she gripped them, and the sick feeling in her stomach was too nauseating to be imaginary.
When she looked back out of the window, Billy was gone.
Chapter Fourteen
The shed. Her father had kept a lawnmower in the shed, and there would be petrol in the engine. She didn’t know if it would work in Billy’s car, but somehow it didn’t matter. The only thing important now was that she did something. She had to show Towneley Manor that she wasn’t going to stay.
She dressed and walked down the staircase and toward the lobby for what she hoped would be one of the final times. When she reached the lobby, she stopped. She stared ahead of her, and shuddered.
The banner above the fireplace had been replaced. It wasn’t the family banner anymore; the deer and the wasps were gone, replaced by something new, something uglier.
It was a white sheet held in place by a nail, hanging lopsided above the fireplace. On it, someone had painted the eye. Paint dripped down from the corners of its eyelid, making it look like it was crying.
She heard the sound of metal clanging on the kitchen floor. She walked across the room and toward the kitchen. The eye stared at her from the corner of her vision, but she didn’t turn her head to look.
She found Magda in the kitchen. She bent down to the ground and picked up a pan lid. A pan sat on top of the stove with something bubbling within it, and Tamara smelled the aroma of porridge.
Magda backed away. Her face was pale. She ran her left hand along the counter. There was something sly in the way she did it, as though she didn’t want Tamara to see.
“Billy was looking for you,” Magda said, fixing Tamara a stare so intense that it was hard to look away.
She moved her hand further along the counter. She was reaching for something. A brown glass bottle the size of her thumb sat on the counter.
“What are you doing?” said Tamara.
“Making breakfast,” was Magda’s response, the quiver in her voice betraying the normal front she tried to present.
Tamara stepped forward and before Magda could react, she picked up the brown bottle. Magda tried to grab it from her but Tamara moved away. She read the label on the bottom.
Rat-Tox – Kills Rats and Mice
The lid was loose and the grooves on it were wet. Tamara threw it to the floor. The glass smashed and the clear liquid seeped along the porcelain. She stared at her mother, and she knew her own mouth was open wide but she just couldn’t stop it.
The vomiting. The tiredness. The hair loss.
The words wouldn’t come. She didn’t know what to do. She was torn between grabbing her mother by the throat and shaking her, or just turning and leaving the room.
“It isn’t what you think,” said Magda.
Tamara breathed angry gulps of air.
“No? So you’re going to explain what the hell you’re doing?”
“I just wanted you to stay,” said Magda, eyes pleading.
Her mother had been poisoning her. It was the only way to explain the sickness and the hair loss. Since Larry had been sent away, Magda had prepared most of their meals, and it would have been easy for her to mess with them. But if that was the case, why wasn’t Billy sick, too?
“You bitch,” she said.
She turned to leave, when Magda grabbed hold of her. As she held Tamara’s hoodie in her fist, she sunk to the floor in front of her. On her knees, her mother stared up. Tears welled on the brim of her eyes, and her neck seemed to shake as she breathed.
