Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror

by Sarah England

  “Wow, you’re a medium?”

  She eyed him for a few moments before continuing. “I don’t expect it to be taken seriously – especially in a place like this… although it might help…” She looked into the middle distance, breaking off the conversation.

  “Are you alright?” said Noel.

  She jumped visibly. “Oh sorry, love. It’s just there’s a lot of unrest in this building, did you know?”

  He laughed. “Oh yes!”

  She smiled. “I daresay. Anyway, I’ve come here instead of being at home with my poorly husband for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because Ruby asked for me. That’s it. And I’m not going until I’ve helped her.”

  “Okay. Look, I’ll be back in a minute. Do you want a cup of tea, Mrs Frost?”

  “Celeste. And yes, I’d love one please.”

  When he returned he sat next to her and leaned forwards, his voice low. “Sorry about that, Celeste, but I’m sure you can imagine that with the sort of patients we have here, we have to be ultra-careful with regard to who visits. Anyway, I’ve checked with Becky and she says it’s fine and she’ll take full responsibility. She did pass on a warning, though. I don’t know how familiar you are with people who have Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

  Celeste shook her head.

  “Okay, well it used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder and it basically means a fragmented personality. It’s usually caused by trauma growing up. But here’s the thing, Celeste: Ruby can switch into alter personalities and it can be very alarming, so I’m going to get someone to sit in with you and we haven’t got many staff on. She’s a trainee mental health nurse and her name’s Emily. Is that okay?”

  Celeste sipped her tea and nodded. “Of course.”

  They sat quietly for a moment before Noel asked, “Is Ruby psychic? Only the other patients seem to think she is. So does Becky. And Claire, our doctor, so there must be something in it.”

  Celeste drained her cup and placed it down with a clatter. “Oops-a-daisy. Oh yes, definitely. She’s more than that, though. Lots of people have strong intuition and we call them clairsentient, but Ruby is most definitely clairvoyant; and she’s also mediumistic.”

  Noel frowned. “But wouldn’t that make her spectacularly vulnerable if she started trancing out? I mean, presumably being a medium involves spirit guides and contact with the dead, or at least a belief you’re in contact with the dead? You have control over your own mind, Celeste, and presumably know what you’re doing, but Ruby’s a very poorly girl. How does she know which spirits are there to help and which are there to you know…?”

  “Possess her? She doesn’t and it’s terrifying. That’s why she needs my help, Mister…” She peered at Noel’s name badge.

  “Noel. Call me Noel.”

  “You’ve seen a bit of the dark side, yourself, haven’t you, love?”

  He stared at her, the pit of his stomach plunging. How the hell did this woman know that?

  “So you’ll understand then? That I’ve to help her?”

  ***

  Celeste found Ruby sitting on the window sill, idly tracing raindrops across the glass with a badly bitten fingernail as she hummed to herself. The view of wild, windswept moorland was a bleak one at this time of year, with a mass of thunder grey cloud parked over miles of sodden turf.

  The trainee nurse, Emily, shut the door behind them both and indicated Celeste should take a seat. “There’s a friend here to see you, Ruby,” she said in a chirrupy voice. “Do you remember asking her to visit? Her name’s Celeste.”

  Ruby turned around so quickly it made Celeste’s heart skitter.

  “Hello, love. Remember me?”

  Ruby’s eyes were a startlingly pale blue, lighting up gaunt features, old before their time. Her hair, the colour of weak tea, was worn tucked behind her ears, a slight smile playing around her lips. Tap-tap-tapping her feet, which were drawn up to her chest, she stopped humming while she examined Celeste from the tips of her sensible shoes to the top of her scarlet hairdo. “Never seen you before in me life,” she said in a contemptuous voice. “Love!”

  Emily interjected. “Ruby!”

  Ruby smirked. “Sorry you’ve got me.” She turned back to the view and resumed humming the tune, ‘Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie…when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing…’

  “She means Eve,” Emily whispered to Celeste. “Eve’s the teenager who steps in to protect Ruby. She’s pretty bolshie.”

  “That’s a nice nursery rhyme,” Celeste said. “Where did you learn it? At school?”

  Ruby threw back her head and laughed. “Ida used to sing it all the bloody time.”

  “Who’s Ida?”

  “Supposed to be our dear mother, only she weren’t. Anyway, what do you want?”

  “Ruby asked me to come. She came to visit me once while she was living in a mill near Woodsend. I helped her and thought I could maybe help her again?”

  Emily interjected again. “Eve, do you think we could talk to Ruby? Celeste is a friend and she’s come a long way to see her.”

  She turned to Celeste and whispered, “She’s been doing ever so well, you know? Her alters talk to each other now. Becky and Claire have done a fantastic job – Ruby knows what’s going on and who’s speaking inside her system. It’s amazing.”

  Celeste focused on Ruby, who had turned to stare at her again. The girl’s expression was so oddly blank and her demeanour so still, she had the appearance of one who’d been lobotomised, almost like a waxwork. “Ruby?”

  After what seemed like an age, with only the sound of the overhead fluorescent lights buzzing and the wind buffeting the window, a light finally flickered in her eyes.

  “You alright, love?”

  Ruby blinked and nodded. All three sat in silence for a moment, until Ruby said, “Got a fag, Emily?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “Go get me one, eh? I’m alright, I promise.”

  Emily raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You’d better be. Okay then, but don’t move, do you hear me?”

  Ruby smiled.

  Finally, after a moment’s hesitation, Emily stood up and with just one nervous little glance over her shoulder, walked over to the door before closing it behind her.

  The second she’d gone Ruby darted over to Celeste and threw herself at her knees. “Oh God, thank you so much for coming. I can’t stand it. I don’t want them lot to know ’ow bad it is, especially that bloody Isaac – the stupid git pumps me with sedatives and they make it bloody worse – if I’m out of it you see, I can’t protect us...but he doesn’t get it and never will…”

  “Slow down, slow down,” Celeste took Ruby’s hands in hers as images began to form in her third eye. “What’s really bad?”

  Ruby nodded, searching Celeste’s face. “You know. You can see.”

  Celeste closed her eyes, still holding Ruby’s hands: a line of dirty faced, wretched looking men in the yard outside. It was gloomy and grey, a faint rain spitting on the cobbles, the beat of a drum echoing around the walls. Fear stabbed at her stomach and she tried not to gag on something tightening around her neck. “Oh dear, yes - restless spirits…” She broke off and forced the images from her mind. “You can’t switch it off, can you?”

  “No. It’s at night that it’s the worst. About three in t’ morning. I wake up to drumming noises and the whole place starts thumping. Thing is, if I tell the doctors they’ll just say I’m psychotic again and inject me with that stuff that makes me nerves tick and me legs shake, it’s horrible, knocks me out for days after and I still get the bloody visions. But it’s real, isn’t it, Celeste? You’ve seen it. You know. Thank God. I mean it’s every night. I wake up on the floor being sick and the room stinks like putrid flesh. I can’t stand it anymore. I’ll top meself, I swear. Well anyway, when Becky came in and found me on the floor again I remembered you.”

  Celeste was nodding furiously. “Spirit wants you to work by the sou
nd of it.”

  “What do you mean, work?”

  “There’s a lot of unrest in here, but you’re afraid and I’m not surprised.”

  “Please help me. Make it stop. It’s like torture all the time. What have I done to deserve this? It just goes on and on and on.”

  “Nothing – it isn’t your fault and you mustn’t think it is. Now calm down and tell me more about what you’re seeing and—”

  Emily breezed back in with a lit cigarette. “Got you one, Ruby, although I really shouldn’t have done this.”

  “Ah, fuck it,” said Ruby, snatching it from her. “We’ll not tell anyone, eh?”

  “Ruby,” said Celeste. “Tell me more about what you see and feel?”

  Ruby took a long drag on the cigarette and turned to Emily. “Don’t you dare tell them lot what I’m saying to Celeste or you’ll be sorry!”

  Emily’s face registered a flicker of fear, and she nodded.

  “I mean it.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Emily in a small voice. “I give you my word you have total confidentiality.”

  Ruby eyed her for a bit, then satisfied, moved so close to Celeste she was whispering into her hair. “Right, well, just that really! There’s this young lad drumming and he’s standing there in t’ yard all sopping wet in rags, sores on his face. I get the feeling he wants me to see him and to see what he sees.” She took a deep breath and then it all came out in a rush. “There’s a noose on a platform that the men shuffle towards and then I’m one of them and I can see this woman back home looking through a window crying, and I’m hearing the words, ‘Sorry Anna’ over and over, and I’m feeling sick to my stomach cos I’ve got to walk to that rope, and the pounding is getting worse in my head…” She bent over, crouching on the floor and Celeste stroked her hair.

  “Yes, I see what you see,” said Celeste. “It isn’t your pain though, Ruby. These poor men don’t know they’ve gone and so they keep reliving it – they’re locked in eternal torture. You can help them, though – by showing them how to pass over.” She shuddered. “There is so much madness and confusion here, disease and wrongful death sentences – the whole building is full of deep unrest. I’m not surprised you’re tormented. But peace will only come with acceptance and that’s where you come in – you must take them to the light.”

  Ruby lifted her small, pale face to hers. “I’m scared.”

  “I know. And ideally you would not be alone to do this but in the dead of night with no one to either help or believe you, the only thing I can do is offer guidance to try and ease your suffering. And because of your illness this is all particularly dangerous so you do need to take control – we have to do something! So first you must always, always, always – I can’t stress that enough – pray and ask for protection before you begin.”

  Ruby nodded miserably.

  “Okay, now do you remember how to fill yourself with light from the top down like I showed you? You will see and hear the spirits because you are very mediumistic, and you must tell them what to do. Afterwards you will be exhausted but it’s very important you close all the channels down again. If anyone bothers you from the spirit world you must tell them to go away very firmly. You wouldn’t have anyone gate-crashing your home so you mustn’t have them gate-crashing your mind! Imagine the doors to your chakras snapping shut like traps behind you when you’ve finished.” She demonstrated with her fluttery little hands from her forehead down through the rest of her body. “It will take a while but afterwards peace will come.”

  “I can’t do it, I’m too scared.”

  Celeste stroked her hair some more. “Have courage, love. It is very frightening at first but I will come back and help as often as I can if the staff will let me. You shouldn’t be doing this alone but it really is the only way because if you don’t use your power it shines like a beacon to the underworld, and it will grow and grow until you can’t control it. You have to channel it away, do you see? I know you’re scared – I used to be too, and still am sometimes; but those spirits won’t let you alone until the job’s done. It’s just the way it is.”

  Ruby was nodding with resignation. “What if he comes back, though? One of the other younger ones might let him in again.”

  “Him?”

  She clamped shut.

  “Who is he? Who do you mean?”

  Ruby turned her face away.

  “Who do you mean?” Celeste repeated.

  “This place was a prison, you know?” Emily said.

  Celeste sighed at the interruption.

  Ruby had stood up and begun to pace around the room in an agitated fashion, muttering to herself, the cigarette waving wildly around in her fingers.

  “Sit down, Ruby,” said Emily. “There’s a good girl.”

  Ruby stopped stone dead, her face a mask of shocked horror.

  Emily flushed. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that, I just forgot.” She rushed towards Ruby but couldn’t move her. “Ruby? You’re in hospital and you’re safe, now.” She put an arm around her shoulders and tried to lead her to the bed. “Ruby?”

  Celeste heaved herself up but even between them they could not move Ruby’s slight seven stone frame. The girl’s eyes had rolled back in her head and her muscles were set to stone, her body as rigid as a statue. “We need to get help,” said Emily in a shaky voice, reaching for her panic button. But just as she was about to press it, Ruby’s body crumpled into Celeste’s arms, her lips trembling and tears dripping miserably.

  “It’s okay I’m here, love,” said Celeste, leading the woman-child to the bed and lifting up her feet so she could lie down. She pulled a blanket over her. “Ruby, are you alright, love?”

  Emily stood in the middle of the room holding Ruby’s cigarette, unsure what to do next. “I’ve never been alone with her before. Perhaps I should fetch Noel?”

  “She’s thirteen and they’ll baptise her soon…it’s all black dark by the river…that’s where they do it...” Ruby whispered, focusing on Celeste. “Once she’s marked she’s gone. He knows where it is but he can’t talk – they paralysed him.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, love.”

  The blue of Ruby’s eyes was fading to colourless, the expression one of slight surprise as if she was falling backwards.

  Seconds later the blank stare was back.

  “Is she okay, do you think?” Celeste said over her shoulder to Emily.

  “Um, I think I’ll get Noel.”

  Celeste nodded. “Well it might be best…”

  “No!” Ruby was struggling to sit up. “No. I’m okay, I don’t want any more drugs.” She rubbed at her neck. “God, me neck hurts.”

  “You know the more I think about this, the more I’m sure you shouldn’t do medium work alone. If you can hang on for another night I’ll arrange to come in and we’ll work on it together.”

  Ruby started to nod. “If it’s the only way it’s going to stop.”

  “I’m afraid it is unless they move you from here, although there will always be something else until you start work as it were: it’s what you’re supposed to do – what you need to do. Are you alright now?”

  Tear stains had dried on her cheeks but she smiled weakly. “My throat hurts, and my head.”

  Emily sprang into action. “I’ll go and fetch Noel – she needs some paracetamol after switching like that.”

  After Emily had left the room again, Celeste looked hard into Ruby’s eyes. “Now I’m being shown a man – swarthy with big, brown eyes – he’s coming through you. He’s standing outside a stone building and I’ve seen him before. Who is he, Ruby?”

  Ruby frowned, rubbing her forehead over and over. “Sounds like Jes.”

  “Jes? Who is he? How did you meet him?”

  Ruby shrugged. “Gypsies used to camp on Drovers Common, so I suppose he turned up that way and kept coming back. I don’t know ’ow I met him, really. Anyway it were ’is mother who’d said you were, you know, like a real medium and not a fake. �
��

  “Were you close to his mother? Did his family live there?”

  Ruby screwed up her eyes. “Jes were just fed up of me going on about the place being ’aunted and driving him nuts. He said it were all me being a mad witch, stuff like that, cos it never ’appened when he were there. Just me on me own.”

  Her own private hell. It was always the way. And who would a woman like Ruby have turned to? Who in the sane world would have believed her? Perhaps Jes wasn’t heartless after all – he knew he couldn’t cope and found her a friend.

  “I wonder if I knew his mother? Perhaps she was one of my pupils?”

  “Doubt it. She said she’d never to set foot in Woodsend again as long as she lived.”

  ***

  Chapter Four

  Doncaster Royal Infirmary

  Sunday morning, 27th December

  Detective Sergeant Hall’s booming voice woke her at just after 6.15am. “How is he?”

  Becky jolted from a fitful doze in the chair by Callum’s bed and rubbed her stiff neck. The ward was beginning to clatter awake with the lights switched on for a new day, although outside it was still winter dark. Gently she touched Callum’s shoulder while the officer pulled up a chair beside her. “Still spark out by the look of it.”