‘Ethan!’ shouted Cathy, grabbing my arm. ‘What’s happening?’ But I did not know. ‘Are they ghosts?’
‘How did he do it?’ said Montague.
‘The poison, you mean?’ said Hugh. ‘It was aconite poisoning.’
‘Aconite?’ repeated Montague, as if he were making a mental note of every detail.
‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘It is a common enough plant. Aconitum napellus. You might know it as monkshood or wolfsbane.’
‘Wolfsbane? Oh – large spikes of dark blue flowers?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Hugh. ‘The flowers are pretty enough to be sure, if a little sombre, but the leaves and roots are deadly.’
Montague shook his head. Then I pictured my father manically digging up the flowers in the garden. They were blue. I had a fleeting memory of my mother calling them wolfsbane . . . I must have unwittingly built a wall against these recollections, but it was a wall of sand and the tide was coming in . . .
‘They say that the events of that night are played out whenever there is a storm,’ said Hugh.
‘Like the one we have just had?’ said Montague, looking, I thought, at Cathy – though of course he could not see her.
‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘The father poisons his children all over again and leaves them to die while the wind howls around the house. I’m sure it’s nonsense.’
Cathy and I stared at each other. I was overcome with a strange sense of knowing these things to be true, of knowing and of forgetting.
‘Are you?’ said Montague. ‘You should try never to be sure of things.’
‘You say the strangest things, Montague,’ said Hugh with a smile. ‘Come on, let’s return to the land of the living.’
‘Very well,’ said Montague, appearing to look at me this time. ‘And remind me what happened to the father.’
‘Oh, he confessed,’ said Hugh. ‘Spent the rest of his life in a lunatic asylum. Do you know what’s really strange?’
‘He poisoned himself?’ said Montague.
‘Yes, he did,’ said Hugh. ‘How on earth would you guess a thing like that? He stole some wolfsbane from the cottage garden at the asylum. Would have thought they’d have had more sense than to grow a poisonous plant in a place like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Montague with a wry smile.
‘It’d be awful if it were true. That the poor beggars – the son and daughter he murdered – if they really did have to go through the thing over and over again.’
‘Yes, it would,’ said Montague.
‘I wonder how a spell like that might be broken?’ said Hugh.
‘By knowledge,’ said Montague. ‘Once they know the truth, they can rest in peace.’
‘Let us hope they find the truth, then,’ said Hugh.
I reached out and held Cathy’s hand and turned to see the tears in her eyes, tears that I shed likewise. But I thought of the Scrimshaw Imp and the horror of being trapped in a grinding wheel of fate. The truth was better than that.
‘I say, look at this,’ Hugh said.
Montague walked over and Cathy and I followed. Hugh was examining something on the counter and peering up at the ceiling, puzzled.
‘What is it?’ said Montague.
‘Well, look,’ said Hugh. ‘Look at these old coins here. They’re soaking wet, but there is no leak in the ceiling.’
It was the money Thackeray had left.
‘And look here.’ Hugh walked over to the settles and the table we had so recently vacated. ‘Do you see? The seat and floor here are soaking too. Look at these old books.’
Hugh picked up our copy of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket and it fell apart at his touch.
‘Leave them be,’ said Montague. ‘We have imposed ourselves on these children long enough.’
‘These children?’ said Hugh, raising an eyebrow. ‘Oh, the ghost children. I see. Jolly good. Yes, perhaps you’re right, Montague. This place gives me the creeps.’
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The men walked towards the door and opened it. The first inkling that dawn was about to rise was in the chill night air that entered. At the threshold, Montague turned and, tipping his hat, said quietly, ‘Goodbye.’ Then the door was closed and we were alone once more. Cathy was the first to speak.
‘I think we have waited for Father long enough,’ she said. She sounded older somehow.
‘Yes, Cathy,’ I answered with a sigh. ‘I think perhaps you are right.’
‘Shall we go up to sleep, then?’
‘Yes,’ I said, turning to her with a smile.
And so we walked upstairs, hand in hand, the gauze that had once covered our eyes now lifted, and we could see the stars through the holes in the roof above our heads and an owl hooted loudly from the chimney.
We stood together and looked out across the bay, and there in the distance was an inky presence, all black, like the shadow of a ship, and a light winked once from its stern.
‘Goodbye, Thackeray,’ said Cathy.
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, one and all.’
Cathy lay down on her bed.
‘Do you want one last story?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No more stories. I feel so very tired all of a sudden.’
And I felt that tiredness too; it was like the heavy-limbed weariness after a hard day’s toil. Sleep seemed like a friend to me now and I was happy to close my eyes and let myself sink into its dark, unfathomable depths.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Chris Priestley is the acclaimed author of the spine-tingling collections Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror, Tales of Terror from the Black Ship and Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth, all published by Bloomsbury. Chris is also an illustrator, painter and cartoonist. He lives with his family in Cambridge and is currently writing a novel called The Dead of Winter.
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ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
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David Roberts is an award-winning illustrator who has worked with a huge variety of authors, including Philip Ardagh and Georgia Byng. He is the creator of the Dirty Bertie series. David lives in London.
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