by Jack Lewis
She turned around and looked at the room below her. She saw the black paint on the floor now, and from this height, she finally knew what it was.
A giant eye covered the floor of the room. Large enough that it could see her and everything she did, and she knew she had looked at it before, too.
Her hands started to shake. Her body felt like it was bathed in ice, and she wanted to be sick. Something turned in her mind, and images flooded back to her. There were too many, as if a dam had bust and a torrent now swept through her head. She leaned forward and put her hands on the altar to steady herself. The images still raged through her, but slow enough that she could remember.
~
She was fourteen. She had seen her father walk toward the woods, and she wanted to find out what he was doing. He’d always gone for lonely walks and she was jealous he’d never asked her to join him.
She followed him through the woods and into the orangery. She remembered that something smelled rotten inside. She heard men singing beneath her feet, and she saw the trapdoor on the floor. She lifted it and walked down the steps that led to the belly of the building.
It was lighter then. So many flames flickered that it made her sweat, and the smell of rot hung heavy enough to choke her. She saw men at the bottom of the steps. They wore hoods that cast shadows on their faces. She recognised all of them, but at the same time, knew that she’d never met them. She couldn’t see her father anywhere. She wished she was back in Towneley, back in her room. She wished Bullseye was still alive, and could be here with her.
One of the men turned to her. He smiled, but it was the kind of smile that made Tamara feel sick. She looked behind her and saw that the trapdoor was closed, and a man in a hood stood at the bottom of the stairs and blocked her way.
Across the room, a man stood on a platform above a slab of stone. He gazed across at Tamara, hood covering his face.
She wanted to scream. Where was her father? The lights cast orange glows on the faces of the hooded men around her. They stared at her with wicked eyes. She knew them. She didn’t want to, but she did. But from where?
The figure on the platform started to walk down the steps. As he took each step, the men on the floor began to chant. She didn’t know the words but guessed it was Latin, which her teacher had told her about at school. The volume of the chanting increased as he walked further and further down the stairs.
“She is yours,” said one of the hooded men beneath him.
The one near the platform stopped.
“Bring her,” he said.
His voice sent a shiver through her. There was something familiar about it, yet at the same time it was cold, and she knew she’d never heard it before. She felt freezing hands grab her shoulders. She struggled against them, and one of the hands slapped her. She cried out, and she felt her cheeks sting.
They pushed her forward. She lost her balance and fell onto the stone, and the skin on her palm tore open. Hands grabbed her under the armpits and picked her up and dragged her across the floor. She squirmed and shouted but they just dug their fingers in harder.
Finally, she was in front of the man near the platform. He held a long knife in his left hand. The gold handle shone bright when the candle light hit it, and the blade was as long as her arm and sharp enough to cut it off in one swipe.
The man stared at her through eyes made dark by the shadows. He reached to his head, held his hood and then drew it back.
She had never seen him before in her life. His nose was pointy and his cheekbones stuck against his thin face. Thin, lank hair fell from the side of his head to his shoulders, but the top of his head was bald. His skin was so grey that he almost looked to be made of concrete. A look of hate filled his face. He looked beyond her and spoke to one of the men in the hoods.
“We thank you for this gift,” he said.
She turned around. She saw one of the men in hoods nod. There was something strange about him. He wasn’t like the others. She looked around and saw that the other men seemed misty, as though they weren’t fully there. This man wasn’t like them; he was real.
The man with the lank hair grabbed her. She tried to resist but she couldn’t, and he gripped her neck so tight that she couldn’t breathe. He slung her over his shoulder and started to walk up the stairs. At the top of them, was the stone altar.
The trapdoor across the room opened. Footsteps pounded down the stairs. She heard a woman cry out.
“Not her,” she said. “I won’t let you. Not her.”
The man holding her turned to face the room, and that meant all Tamara could see was the altar. She heard voices arguing behind her.
“You have to leave, Magda. You shouldn’t be here. You know that.”
“You’ll leave her alone,” said Magda. “Or I’ll kill you myself.”
“Think about what you’re doing,” said the man.
She knew who the voice belonged to now. It was one she had heard every day, one that she loved and trusted. She knew that the hooded man, the one that had seemed realer than the rest, was her father.
“Put that down,” she heard him say.
She heard struggling behind her. The man holding her watched the scene before him, and she felt the anger and malice burn through him. Finally she heard her father scream in pain.
Tamara fell to the floor and hit her head on the steps. The man holding her had vanished, as had the other hooded figures. Only her father remained now, and he was on the stone floor with blood seeping out of a knife wound on his chest. Her mum stood above him with the knife in her hand. She looked up at Tamara.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Tamara’s head felt light. Her whole body went cold, and she felt as if she was going to pass out. She stared across the room as her vision started to cloud, and the last thing she saw was the eye painted on the concrete floor. After that, there was impenetrable darkness.
~
She stood at the altar. Her hands shook. She had to remind herself to take deep breaths, and felt as if she might pass out. She finally knew what had happened all those years ago. It was too much to process. Why had her father let it happen? What would have happened if Magda hadn’t saved her? Who was the man with the lank hair? Was it Alistair?
She had to talk to Magda. She had to tell her that she knew.
The trapdoor across the room creaked open. She saw boots thud down onto the top step, and gradually she saw a man wearing a robe walk down the stairs.
She looked around her for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing.
The man wore a brown robe with a hood covering his face. In his hand, he held a long knife with jewels encrusted into the hilt. He took slow, deliberate steps down the stairs until he reached the floor, where he stopped and looked up at her. The black-painted eye surrounded him on the floor, and he walked across the room so that he stood in the middle of it.
She knew that man. She didn’t want to believe it, but she knew him.
He put his hands to his hood.
No. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
He started to pull his hood back, revealing his pink skin to the glow of the candles. Below her, with his knife in his hand, was Billy.
“I hoped you’d come, Tamara.”
His words sounded hollow as they echoed against the stone walls. He gripped the knife in his hand. His face looked strange as if it was his, but someone else’s at the same time.
“It’s been too long,” he said.
She didn’t know what to do. There was nothing behind her but a muddy wall.
“I only saw you a few hours ago,” she said.
He shook his head.
“Longer than that, Ra Ra.”
She gulped. Billy’s face changed, and it was his again, except his features were twisted into a look of malice.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said.
He stopped.
“Haven’t you worked it out? All the years you lived here, all the thing
s you saw. All the books sitting right under your nose. You could have figured it out, Tam. He would have liked it if you did.”
“He?”
“Alistair. It’s all Alistair. Didn’t you know?”
She knew she had to keep him talking. Anything to stop him walking toward her.
“He lost all of his sons, you see,” said Billy. “One by one, something took them from him. Polio. TB. Rubella. He had so many, and they all died.”
She remembered the Halloween photograph and the children in their costumes, and the sneering man stood beside them.
“By the end, he had just one son left. A brood of eight reduced to only one. Alistair couldn’t take it. It wasn’t fair. I’m sure you agree, Tamara. So he turned to something darker. He decided to make a deal with a spirit who could bring his children back.
“So he learned about the occult. He persuaded Harold West to help him, and together, they killed Alistair’s last living son and gave him as a blood sacrifice to bring back the other seven boys. When it didn’t work, Alistair and Harold fought. Harold stabbed Alistair with this.”
He held the knife in the air.
“And Alistair’s wicked blood drained out onto the floor and through the stone, and eventually became one with the mud in the ground and the roots of the trees. It spread throughout the estate, infecting everything it touched with Alistair’s corruption, and punishing anything and everyone for the dark sacrifice that he made.”
“Sounds like you’ve done a lot of reading,” said Tamara. She wouldn’t show him that she was scared.
Billy nodded.
“I need to make amends for my mistake.”
“Your mistake?”
His face changed. His features twisted and turned until she looked not at her husband, but into the malicious face of Alistair Towneley, his expression a snarl. A shudder ran through her. She could feel the corruption emanating from him.
He held the knife at waist height and started walking through the room toward her. He reached the stairs. Tamara looked behind her. There was nowhere for her to go. As Billy took the steps one by one and fixed her a cruel smile, she knew that it was over.
The trapdoor at the end of the room opened. Both Tamara and Billy turned around. Tamara expected to see another hooded figure walk down the steps, but instead Butch the dog bounded down them. He crossed the room and then reached the stairs, where he stared at Billy and snarled.
As Billy looked at the dog, Tamara crept forward. She walked down the first two steps until she was behind him, and then she pushed him. Billy lost his balance and fell to the bottom, where he hit the floor head first. The knife clattered out of his hand and then lay still on the floor.
“Are you okay?” said a voice.
Magda sat on the top step near the trapdoor.
Tamara ignored her. She went over to her husband and kneeled beside him. He was still breathing. The look of hate had left his face now, so that he was Billy again.
Magda walked down the steps. She bent to her knees and called Butch over to her. The dog bounded over and then sat in front of her. The candles flickered and illuminated the banners on the walls, but the colours seemed to be fading now.
Tamara felt tiredness wash through her. She held Billy’s hand in hers, and then sank back against the stone. She looked around her at the eye painted on the floor. Suddenly, the shadows didn’t seem as dark.
Chapter Sixteen
“What did you say about the manor?”
Dr. Shukla sat opposite her, squirming into her chair. She had moved it closer to her desk, and as she spoke she stroked the leaf of a plant in a pot on the corner.
“Someone made an offer on the manor last week,” said Tamara. “I couldn’t believe it. It’s only been listed a fortnight.”
“And how is Billy?”
“He broke his arm. He can’t remember how it happened. When he told me he’d lost his memory, I thought to myself ‘join the club.’
Shukla gave a wry smile.
“And how are you, Tamara? Can you remember anything yet?”
She thought about it. She remembered the dark basement of the orangery, and the eye painted on the floor. She pictured the men in their hoods, and she shivered. It was all over now. There was no need to go through the past again, and she wasn’t going to pay Shukla thirty pounds an hour to relive it.
“Nope,” she lied. “Guess some things are meant to be forgotten.”
Light streamed in through the window. She’d come to have a new appreciation for daylight. She loved buildings where the walls were bright and light, and where the wallpaper didn’t crumble and curl.
Her new office was just such a place. She’d rung Drake at the publishing company and asked for a second chance. She hadn’t been feeling right, she told him, but she was good now. Ready to go. She read the book he sent her, and then gave him her editorial notes. He loved them and offered her a job, subject to a probationary period.
“How’s your mother?” asked Shukla.
“Terrorising the other residents at the care home. When she left Towneley, she wanted to come live with Billy and me. I told her there wasn’t a chance in hell. She’s settling into the care home, though.”
“Do you go and see her?”
“A couple of times a month. It’s okay, I guess.”
Despite everything, she couldn’t bring herself to hate her mother. Part of her would never forgive her for what she did, but she knew that her mum had tried to make things right. And if it hadn’t been for her, Tamara didn’t know what would have happened.
“Okay then,” said Shukla, standing up. “That’s the end of our hour. Are you sure you want this to be the last session?”
Tamara nodded. “Thanks, doctor. Thanks for making me go to the manor.”
Shukla extended a bony hand. Tamara stuck out her own, and they shook hands.
“I wish you all the luck in the world, Mrs. Deacon,” said Dr. Shukla.
“It’s Deacon-Towneley,” said Tamara.
~
That night she went back to their house. She took off her coat and hung it on the bannister. The hallway was dark and the rooms were cold, so she turned on every light in the house and switched on the central heating. Soon she felt warm air drive away the chill.
She walked upstairs. The living room was filled with bottles of whiskey. She’d told Billy that he could make a go of the bar, but that he’d run everything by her. Soon, delivery men were constantly knocking on their door and giving them parcels from all over the world. Billy opened them like a child at Christmas, and she could see in his eyes that he was tempted to try each of the whiskies that he’d ordered.
“They’re for the bar,” Tamara had told him. “Not your stomach.”
She stood on the landing upstairs. She reached above her to the ceiling and grabbed a rope. Pulling it, the attic hatch opened and a ladder slid down. She took hold of the sides and put her feet on the first rung. She climbed up into the attic. She flicked the switch and the room illuminated. It was still a novelty to her, being able to flick a switch and actually have a light come on.
Her footsteps tapped on the attic floor as she crossed it and walked to the furthest corner. A box sat on the floorboards, and in it were stacks of letters.
She didn’t need them. She wasn’t going to read them, and she didn’t know why she’d kept them in the first place. It was time to throw them away. If she ever wanted to talk about the past she could always speak to her mum, but she didn’t feel she’d ever have the inclination. It was done now.
As she bent down to pick up the box, she saw one envelope that was different from the rest. Where the other envelopes were white, this one was red, and something was written on it in gold, spiralled handwriting.
She took it out and read the writing on the back.
To Ra Ra, it said.
She held it in her hand. She felt her pulse start to quicken and looked around her, expecting the lights to go out and shadows to form. She remembere
d Shukla’s exercises, and she took deep, deliberate breaths. Her pulse slowed.
She held the letter in her hand. Part of her thought she should open it. She shook her head. No, she’d never read it. That part of her life was over now, and it was time to think about the future.
The End
Thanks for reading The Haunting of Towneley Manor!
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