Damned by the Ancients

by Catherine Cavendish

  “Your dad’s right, Heidi.”

  The little girl looked from one to the other of her parents, her breathing becoming faster and shallower by the second. She stood up suddenly and stamped her foot. “He is real, and I had a dream about him. He said he was waiting. He was trapped and waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Yvonne asked, working hard on a calm tone.

  “His queen. Cleopatra.”

  Yvonne and Ryan stared at each other.

  “Cleopatra?” Yvonne’s thoughts flew to her scant knowledge of Dr. Quintillus and his obsessions. But that was impossible.

  “Yes. He said she was coming. Any day now. Just like in the picture.” She pointed up at the ceiling.

  “Heidi,” Ryan began, “you know that’s not possible. It was just a dream.”

  “Oh, why won’t you believe me? He’s down there. In our basement. He said he let you know he was there today, Mum, but you ignored him.”

  Yvonne’s blood turned to ice. Heidi knew nothing about the rapping she had heard, so how could…?

  “Ohhh.” Heidi stamped out of the room and raced upstairs. In the distance, her bedroom door slammed with a resounding crash.

  “What do you make of that?” Yvonne asked.

  Ryan’s face had paled. His hand shook as he poured them both another glass of wine. “I think if we’re not careful we’re going to lose our perspective. Our little girl sees something she can’t explain and has a bad dream about it. She has her mother’s creative imagination and a child’s belief in magic, fairies, and superstition. That’s all there is to it.”

  “But how did she know about the rapping?”

  “She didn’t. She said this…person…had told her he tried to make contact. She didn’t specify in what way.”

  That was true. Yvonne certainly couldn’t argue with that. “You remember what Anton said about the former owner of this house? Dr. Quintillus. The one who was obsessed with Cleopatra?”

  Ryan looked at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head. “He’s been dead well over a century. It’s a coincidence. Has she been studying ancient Egyptian history at school yet?”

  “They had started on the pharaohs but I don’t think they had got to Cleopatra yet. Maybe she read ahead. She does that a lot.”

  “And you still think she’s young for her age?”

  Yvonne smiled. “Okay. I hear you. Oh, and then there’s the Horrible Histories.” She smacked her forehead. “How stupid am I? She’s reading Awesome Egyptians.” Relief flooded through her. Heidi had merely had a particularly vivid dream sparked by the combination of the image she thought she had seen in the basement and her latest book.

  “There you go, then. Mystery solved. Fancy a hot drink before bed?”

  “No, thanks,” Yvonne said. “I think I’ll stick to water when I’ve finished this wine.”

  “Well, I fancy a strong cup of tea.”

  “It’ll keep you awake.”

  Ryan yawned. “I’ll take my chances. Tonight, half a dozen pile drivers wouldn’t keep me awake.”

  Ryan drained his glass and left for the kitchen.

  Yvonne sipped her drink and thought back over Heidi’s earlier outburst. Her night vision, like every other aspect of her amazing eyesight, was rare. A consultant said he had heard of only one other—a little boy in China with bright blue eyes similar to Heidi’s. That child had been born with the condition and had never grown out of it. In Heidi’s case, she had always had blue eyes, but they seemed to grow brighter after her recovery and now, if you wanted anyone to take you down a dark tunnel without a flashlight, Heidi was your ideal tour guide.

  But, if that was the case, why had Yvonne questioned what her daughter claimed to have seen now? Because she couldn’t have seen it.

  She was musing on this when Ryan returned. To her surprise, his face had blanched and his hands shook a little.

  “I think you’d better come into the kitchen,” he said.

  She heard it as soon as she left the library. A rapping that grew louder and more insistent the closer she got to the kitchen.

  “Is that what you heard?” Ryan asked, and Yvonne wondered why he was whispering.

  She nodded and the two of them entered the kitchen together. The noise grew much louder now. Thumping against the steel door.

  Yvonne blinked hard. It couldn’t be. This was a solid steel door. Yet with every thump, a dent appeared on the surface.

  “Tell me again that it’s rats,” Yvonne said.

  “I don’t think that’s rats. Not unless they’re wearing hobnail boots.”

  “Please don’t be flippant, Ryan. Right now, I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make sense—” The noise stopped.

  Ryan and Yvonne looked at each other.

  “I have no explanation,” Ryan said. “None. Have you?”

  Yvonne shook her head. “We need to speak to Anton. Find out if anyone else has had this experience, and what we need to do to stop it.”

  “There’s only one thing I can think of.”

  “Please don’t say it.”

  “I’m going to have to. Someone is going to have to find out what’s behind that door.”

  Chapter 4

  Yvonne tapped her fingers lightly on the kitchen table, aware of Ryan following her every movement. Meanwhile, the estate agent took a sip of coffee.

  “So, Anton,” Yvonne began. “You’re saying the only explanation you can offer is that the place is haunted. Have you any idea how crazy that sounds?”

  “Yes, Frau Mortimer. I do. Before me, a colleague looked after the tenants of this house. They disappeared and so did he. No one has seen them since and no one can explain it. But I can. I know the stories of this house from when I was a child. There are many ghosts here. Interesting, no?”

  “Okay,” Ryan said, and Yvonne caught the edge in his voice even if Anton missed it. “If you knew all this, why didn’t you breathe a word of it to us until now?”

  Anton shrugged his shoulders. Infuriating!

  Ryan stepped up. “That’s not an acceptable response, Anton. Why didn’t you tell us…” He paused. “What the hell am I talking about? This place isn’t haunted. There’s no such thing. I demand you give us a rational answer.”

  Anton’s Adam’s apple wobbled as he swallowed hard. “I am serious, Herr Mortimer. There are some things about this house…but then, if you don’t believe, I cannot make you, and if you do, you would probably leave immediately.”

  “Clearly you believe this stuff,” Yvonne said. “And we certainly heard and saw something. Surely, with your convictions that there’s a supernatural…I don’t know…force at work here, you should have felt it your duty to warn us.”

  “If I had, what would you have done? This is a beautiful house. It is cheap. Anyone would want to live here, but if I had told you, would you have rented it?”

  “Maybe,” Ryan said. “Maybe not. It wasn’t your call to make.”

  “I warned another family. They walked away and told my boss why. He said if I ever did anything like that again, I would lose my job. I, too, have a young family, Frau Mortimer.”

  Yvonne couldn’t argue with that. In his position, she might well have done the same—while looking for another position.

  Anton stood. “I’ll leave you now. Maybe things will work well for you here. I wish you the best and I am sorry I couldn’t tell you before.” He nodded over at the steel door. “That has held firm. No one could get through it. You cannot even see any marks on it now.”

  Yvonne went up to it and ran her fingers down the smooth surface. Anton was right. It looked as good as new. Strange.

  * * * *

  “What do you think?” Yvonne asked as she closed the kitchen door behind Anton.

  “Not a
lot,” Ryan said. “I feel as if I’ve stepped onto the set of a Guillermo del Toro film. Any minute now, the monsters are going to start crawling out of the woodwork.” He pawed the air with clawed hands.

  “No, seriously, Ryan. Heidi was genuinely upset we didn’t believe her. She’s a truthful child and I know she’s imaginative, but I believe she’s convinced that what she saw was real.”

  “But we know it couldn’t have been.”

  “Explain the door, then.”

  They had wandered back into the kitchen and Ryan strode over to it. “I can’t see a mark on it now,” he said. “Could we have imagined it?”

  “What? The banging? The dents? I don’t think so.”

  “Then I’m lost for an explanation.”

  Yvonne took a deep breath. “We need to find out what’s behind that door. Someone has to have a set of keys. There’s no point in talking to Anton, he’ll just fob us off. I’m going to speak to the von Dürnsteins directly.”

  “Anton’s not going to like that, but I agree,” Ryan said. “Only, I should be the one to talk to them. I speak German, after all. We don’t know how good their English is.”

  “I’ll search for a phone number. Do you know where they live?”

  “In Styria somewhere. I’m not exactly sure where.”

  Ryan peered over Yvonne’s shoulder as she typed in the search criteria. A few possibilities flashed up onto the screen.

  Ryan pointed at one. “That’s got to be it. Trautenfels. I’m certain Anton mentioned it when I asked him about the von Dürnsteins.” He scribbled down the number and reached for his cell phone. Yvonne leaned back and waited.

  A few seconds later, a conversation in rapid German was in full swing. It started off well enough, but judging by Ryan’s darkening expression, it deteriorated until the call abruptly ended.

  “I’m guessing that could have gone better,” Yvonne said.

  “Put it this way. I have been told firmly never to call that number again, and if I want any information I should ask the agent. I spoke to Fräulein Liesel von Dürnstein, who told me her late great-uncle—Count Markus—believed all sorts of ‘supernatural rubbish’ as she called it. She said it pretty near killed him, and her family wants nothing to do with stories of ancient Egyptian gods and Emeryk Quintillus supposedly rising from the dead. She finished by saying there were no keys to the basement. They had been lost. The door would remain locked in accordance with her late uncle’s wishes and that was an end to it. Then she hung up on me.”

  “Whew. That’s a bit harsh.”

  “As soon as I said why I was calling, she kicked off. You’d think I’d said something exceptionally rude to her, and I was as polite as could be.”

  “I could tell by the tone of your voice. I may not understand German yet, but I can tell when someone is being rude or angry in any language.”

  “I’m glad you said that, because I was beginning to doubt myself. I’m only now getting back into speaking German every day and I wondered if I’d crossed a line somewhere by accident. But for the life of me, I can’t think why she would go off like that. The phone was practically melting.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” Yvonne racked her brains but couldn’t think of an answer.

  Ryan shrugged. “Short of burning our way through with an oxyacetylene torch, I don’t think there’s anything we can do. We’ll have to leave whatever is causing that knocking and banging to its own devices.”

  “Are you sure there’s no way Heidi could be right? No one could be alive and trapped down there?”

  “I can’t see how. Unless there’s another way in.”

  Yvonne stood. “Let’s take some flashlights and go round the outside of the house. Maybe there’s a door we’ve missed, or one of the basement windows is open.”

  * * * *

  They found Heidi reading her latest Horrible Histories book under one of the tall pines. She had become so absorbed it took her a few seconds to register that her parents had come out into the sunshine.

  She put her book down on the grass beside her and called over to them. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart, we’re just looking round the house to see if any work needs doing.”

  “Can I help? I might be able to see stuff you can’t.”

  Ryan looked at Yvonne. “She could be right.”

  Yvonne nodded. “Okay.”

  Heidi skipped over to them. “Where do you want me to look?”

  “Through the grating. Right round the house. Let’s see if there are any broken windows or cellar doors we don’t know about.”

  “All right.” Heidi crouched down and the family made slow progress around the perimeter of the house. When they reached the spot where, the previous day, Heidi had thought she had seen the man, the little girl gave a sharp intake of breath.

  “What is it, love?” Yvonne asked, crouching down beside her.

  “N…n…nothing.” She moved swiftly on.

  Five minutes later, they were back where they had started.

  “Not one broken pane of glass,” Ryan said.

  But something niggled at Yvonne. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, Heidi?”

  She didn’t like the way her daughter avoided her eyes. “Nothing. Can I go back to my book now?”

  Yvonne nodded and Heidi raced back to the tree.

  “She did see something,” Yvonne whispered to Ryan. “I’m convinced of it.”

  “Why would she lie, though?”

  “Oh, come off it, Ryan. We told her she couldn’t possibly have seen a man down there, so she doesn’t want another row. Look, let’s go inside. I’m not comfortable talking about this when she’s only a few feet away.”

  In the cool of the kitchen, Yvonne poured them glasses of ice-cold lemon tea. She downed half of hers in one go. “This is so refreshing on a hot day,” she said, placing her glass on the table in front of her.

  Ryan leaned forward in his chair. “Right, what have we got? Unexplained banging and knocking we both heard and saw, but the dents had disappeared by the time Anton arrived. The owners of this house don’t want to know and won’t budge on opening that door. And our daughter is having hallucinations.”

  “Or maybe she isn’t.”

  Ryan’s questioning look demanded an answer. Yvonne supplied it. “Just because there isn’t another way in from the outside, doesn’t mean there isn’t another way in from the inside.”

  “Another door to the basement?”

  “Why not?”

  “Secret passages? It’s a bit Nancy Drew isn’t it?”

  Yvonne smiled. “This is an old house with an interesting history. There are plenty of grand houses in Britain with secret passages and hidden rooms.”

  Ryan considered her words for a moment. “Okay, I get you. It can’t do any harm to at least look.”

  “I’ll take the ground floor.”

  They each took a section of the hallway and ran their hands along the walls, tapping to detect any hollowness. Ryan mounted the staircase to check the upper levels while Yvonne moved on to the library.

  A few minutes later, she called up from below. “Any joy?”

  “Nothing yet. How about you?”

  “It all seems pretty solid down here.” She returned to the library. Then, right by the window, her tapping produced a hollow echo. She tried again. Same result.

  She dashed into the hallway. “Ryan, I think I’ve found something.”

  He raced down the stairs to join her. Yvonne tapped again.

  “That sounds hopeful,” Ryan said. “Maybe you’re onto something.”

  “Yes, but how do we get through? There’s no door. Only paneling.”

  Ryan felt along the panels, pressing hard.

  “Looking for a secret entrance?”


  “Something like that. Sometimes these places have triggers.”

  “They do in films.”

  Ryan smiled. Then he stood back. “Nothing. Looks like it’s just a hollow panel.”

  “Or it’s been boarded up at some stage.”

  “Maybe. Either way, we won’t be finding out in a hurry.”

  Yvonne couldn’t suppress the increasingly uneasy feeling welling up from the pit of her stomach. When the knocking started, she jumped back.

  “Here we go again.” Ryan knocked back, but the response didn’t come from behind the panel.

  “It’s coming from the kitchen again.” Yvonne was already halfway across the room.

  The closer they got, the louder the banging grew. Heidi crept in, her eyes wide. She ran to the protection of her mother. “It’s the man,” she said. “The man in the basement. He’s very unhappy. He wants to get out and he can’t.”

  “You’ve seen him again, haven’t you?” Yvonne exchanged glances with Ryan. “Just now. When we were checking the house.”

  “I didn’t want you to tell me off again.” Heidi started to cry. Her mother held her close as the banging grew more urgent. With each crash, Heidi’s cries grew more hysterical.

  “Get her out of here,” Ryan said.

  Yvonne half dragged the screaming child out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  In the bedroom, she struggled to get Heidi into bed.

  “You’ve got to help him, Mum. He’s all alone down there and so cold.” Heidi’s whole body shook.

  “Heidi, please. There’s no one there.”

  “There is. He’s there. He’s lonely. You need to let him out so he can find his queen.”

  “Shh, calm down now. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Heidi glanced over Yvonne’s shoulder. In a second, she stopped sobbing and allowed her mother to put her to bed. Yvonne turned to look at whatever had commanded her daughter’s attention, but all she saw were the little girl’s dolls sitting on the shelf.