by kindels
"Of course you are, you lovely man. But listen, if Forbes does indeed go totally bonkers while he's here, I'm sure you can do something to restrain and sedate him until we can get him to a hospital, am I right?"
I nodded.
"Good, then all we have to worry about is the possibility that he might suddenly become filled with the bloodlust of The Ripper, and as there are no prostitutes here on Skerries Rock for him to disembowel and mutilate, I think we're relatively safe from that eventuality."
I was about to reply, but she cut me off.
"Listen, David. Nothing like that will happen. Trust me. Forbes is still in control of himself, no matter what he may think. If there is a malevolent presence that's followed him here to your home, it has a lot to do yet in order to gain control of his mind; and, this time it has me to contend with, not just William Forbes and his weakened state of mind."
"I hope you're right, Kate. That's all I can say."
There was no time for more, as we'd arrived at the door of the croft. Forbes had reached home a few seconds before the two of us, and he now stood, framed in the light from the interior of my home as he held the door open for us. It was then that I saw something that sent a chill down my spine, and caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. There was no one standing in the doorway apart from William Forbes, whose shadow was cast forwards by the light behind him so that it reached out to greet us as we neared the door. Yet, I could swear that there was another figure standing just behind the man: taller, leaner, and indistinct in detail, yet undisputedly human in form. And yet, no, not human, for the thing, if it was real, seemed almost gaseous, amorphous and unreal, seeming to hover and linger around the form of William Forbes rather than standing in any fixed point. It was then I realised that the thing, whatever it was, actually appeared to emanate from within Forbes, to be a part of him, an extension that grew from his body, slowly and surely growing in size until, I felt, it would totally engulf the man, who seemed completely unaware of its presence.
Just as I thought I was imagining the vision I was being subjected to, Kate suddenly grabbed me by the arm, forcing me to stand stock-still beside her.
"You see it too?" I asked, breathlessly.
"Sshh," she urged, and, as she did so, the thing, whatever it was, began to recede back in to the body of William Forbes, until, in less than five seconds, it had withdrawn completely, and there was nothing but the standing figure of the man who waited to greet us as we entered my home once again.
"Say nothing, David, not a word," she whispered as we followed Forbes into the living room, back to the light and the welcoming warmth of the fire that continued to burn and crackle softly in the hearth.
As we divested ourselves of our outer clothing, I was filled with the desire to ask Kate what she thought we'd just witnessed, but I respected her urgings to silence and held my questions back. Perhaps, later, when Forbes fell asleep, I might find the opportunity to ask her, but, for now, she seemed determined to keep the incident from Forbes. Whatever had just happened to William Forbes, whatever that thing was, it was plain to both Kate and me that he had no inkling of it, and that was the obvious reason for Kate not wanting to scare him anymore than he was already.
That seemed all well and noble, of course, but it did little to calm my own shattered nerves and the first thing I did, after ridding myself of my outer garments, was to grab the whisky bottle and pour myself a large one.
"I say, are you alright, David? You look a little shaky," said Forbes as he watched my trembling hand pouring a large measure of the amber liquid into the glass.
"I'm fine, thank-you William," I lied. "Just a little chilled from the walk, that's all. Would you both like a drink?"
"Ah yes, just the thing to warm us all up," Kate replied cheerfully. "Gin for me and a brandy for you, eh, William?"
"Yes, lovely."
"Excellent! And then, I think, we should see about that dinner, David."
She was good at this, I had to admit to myself. How she could carry on as though nothing had happened after what we'd just witnessed, I found difficult to comprehend, but, then, Kate Goddard had always been an exceptional woman, and I was heartily glad that I'd made the decision to call her.
As we sat sipping our pre dinner drinks, and the warmth of the room banished the chill from our bodies, William Forbes, appearing much more cheerful than he had an hour previously, probably thanks to Kate's therapeutic walk, turned to me with a smile on his face.
"This is an excellent brandy, David. Mmm. That's better. Wonderfully warming. You know, you quite surprised me when you rushed in just now and grabbed that whisky bottle. If you weren't such a professional and doctor and all, and if I didn't know you better, I might have imagined you'd just seen a ghost."
I laughed: an awkward, silly schoolboy giggle more than a laugh. As Kate looked at me, fixing me with a stare that called for my continued silence, I couldn't think of a word to say.
Chapter Seventeen
The Music of the Night?
Dinner that night tuned out to be a muted affair, with little conversation passing between the three of us. I'd done my best to prepare a reasonable meal in a short space of time and the cheese omelettes, with salad and baked potatoes, went down well with both Kate and Forbes. I felt that every one of us really wanted to say something, but that something held each of us back from voicing our thoughts. In my case, it was, of course, the strange incident surrounding our return to the croft. What on earth had that thing been that seemed to appear from within the body of William Forbes? I thought that perhaps it might have been the manifestation of one of those auras that Kate had mentioned earlier. If not, what else could have caused such an event? The fact that Forbes appeared not to have possessed any knowledge of the manifestation, or what was happening in him or around him at the time, made the whole affair seem even stranger. Of course, there was nothing I could do to find out more on the subject until Kate and I could be alone. She'd made it quite obvious that I wasn't to speak of the matter in front of Forbes, so I forced myself to be patient. I had little choice in the matter.
I had the idea that Kate was also thinking about the same thing. The fact that both of us had witnessed the strange occurrence surely meant that whatever it had been, it was indeed real and not imaginary. There was no way I could conceive of Kate and myself having shared an hallucination. I felt sure, as I finished the last of my meal, that she was as anxious as was I to speak of the matter and, somehow, I felt it an issue of importance that we pack Forbes off to bed as soon as we could, without making it too obvious that we were trying to get rid of him.
Forbes, himself, ate in almost total silence, only asking Kate a couple of basic questions about her proposed call to Miles Prendergast the following day. He wanted to know just how much information Kate expected him to provide in order for Prendergast to conduct his search, and Kate asked him to sit down after dinner and write down the names, places, and dates of birth, if he knew them, of as many members of his family as he could, going back, if possible, to the late-nineteenth century. Approximations would have to do, she told him, if he was unsure of any of the information. She felt certain that Prendergast would find what he needed, as long as he had something to go on. That was when, with dinner coming to a close, Kate played her master stroke.
"I think, William, that you would concentrate far better on producing what we need for Miles if you retire to the spare room, and sit quietly, where you can think in peace. David and I will certainly not disturb you and you can take your time in trying to think of all the information we need."
"Yes, of course. Peace and quiet, the best thing by far," he agreed, and, soon after, he took himself into my spare room, armed with a notepad and a ball pen, ready to wrack his brain and provide Kate with the names and details of as many members of his family as he could think of. At last, Kate and I had the opportunity to discuss the earlier phenomenon.
Before we did, however, there was something else on
Kate's mind which she brought up the moment the door to the spare room closed behind William Forbes.
"David, have you noticed something odd about William's behaviour?"
"You mean apart from strange apparitions appearing from his body and half-scaring the living daylights out of me?"
"Actually, no, that's not what I mean."
"Then, what exactly are you talking about, Kate?"
"I mean the fact that he's hardly mentioned The Ripper at all, nor his fears and the meetings with Reid since our discussion before we went for a walk."
Kate was quite correct, of course. Since admitting to experiencing the dream, and after Kate announcing her 'possibilities theory' and her intention to contact Miles Prendergast, Forbes had fallen eerily silent on the whole subject. Bearing in mind his behaviour and demeanour over the previous twenty-four hours, it did seem odd that he'd said little on the subject from the time we'd left the croft until he'd left us to write up his family history in the spare room.
After a moment, pondering on Kate's observation, I replied with the only theory I could drum up.
"Psychologically speaking, it may be a case of 'a problem shared' and all that. Having finally found the courage to admit that he is experiencing the dream, and revealing his innermost fears to us, it could be that some of his fear and terror has subsided, at least temporarily. By sharing his problem, perhaps he feels he's now on the way to finding a solution and escaping what he believes to be some kind of supernatural 'possession', if that's the right term. That might be the explanation."
"And then again, David, it might not," Kate looked glum. "There's no doubt in my mind that William remains terribly afraid. Everything in his body language points to it, and, of course, there was the manifestation you and I saw on our return to the croft."
"Ah, at last! I wondered when you'd get round to that. At least it's good to know I wasn't imagining it, but why didn't you want to talk about it in front of Forbes? Surely he needs to know about it."
"Perhaps he does, but not yet, David. Tell me, I need to know exactly what you saw, to understand whether your vision matched mine, or whether we saw 'it' in different manifestations."
I soon confirmed to Kate that what I'd seen tallied exactly with her recollection of it.
"What was it, Kate, a ghost?"
"No David, not a ghost. I've been doing what I do for a lot of years and, believe me, I've so far failed to definitely confirm the existence of one single ghost. There are a great many things, in and around us in this world, that can't always be explained, but the existence of 'ghosts', as commonly perceived, is yet to be confirmed or denied. There is no proof, either way, I'm afraid."
"Then what is all this paranormal stuff you investigate?"
"David, let me explain something to you. When I say there are no ghosts, what I mean is that there is no proof that the individual spirit of, say, your grandfather, can return to earth and haunt you in some physical sense, you know, ghostly white floating figures on the stairs at night and all that. That's not to say that there aren't recorded instances of supernatural occurrences that can't be easily explained. When I spoke of the 'auras' surrounding Forbes, for example, they may very well be the auras of earth bound spirits, unable to find rest due to some terrible happenings during their lives, or deaths. Maybe, and this is mere conjecture, the evil that was contained within the soul of Jack the Ripper was so great that it is impossible for it to depart to wherever such souls go after death, and that, somehow, that evil has succeeded in trapping the souls of its tragic victims in some kind of limbo, a hellish world where they must forever live out a repeated scenario that always ends up in the same way, with the victims falling prey once again to their earthly murderer."
"Jack Reid's dream!" I exclaimed.
"And poor William Forbes's dream too, it would now appear," Kate added.
"Yes, of course, but what has that to do with his silence and the thing we saw."
"Let's suppose for a minute that my original hypothesis was correct, David, that there are, in fact, two separate auras surrounding William Forbes."
"Like, good and evil perhaps?" I ventured.
"Almost, but not quite. Certainly there is intense evil; but, as for the other, I see it as being calmer, less violent, but whether it is acting for good or for some other, hidden element of malevolent intent, I can't yet say. I do believe, though, that what the two of us saw was a manifestation of one of those auras. Normally such things wouldn't be visible to the naked eye, but, perhaps, just this once, the conditions, the light of the room beyond, and the intense darkness outside where we stood, contributed to make the sighting possible."
"So, you're saying we shouldn't really have seen it?"
"Under normal circumstances, no. But, we did, and the fact is inescapable. Somehow, David, you and I have seen something that so few people have ever seen. I doubt there are more than a dozen people on the planet who have witnessed such as we did tonight."
"But what the hell do we do about it? Was that Jack the Ripper, do you think?"
"I don't think so, David, no. If it had been, I think there would have been a greater 'charge' in the air, and I suspect Forbes would have been beside himself in one of his panic attacks. No, I believe that what we saw was the manifestation of the 'other' aura, the unknown one, the calmer one, and, for some reason, it has managed to make Forbes's mind withdraw slightly within itself. It's as if the thing has helped him to shut out the awful reality of the dream, the terrible consequences that may yet be visited upon him. Like I said, this other aura may or may not be acting in Forbes's best interests, but, for now, I believe it's making our task easier by keeping him placated, almost like one of your sedatives."
"Huh, I think I'd rather place my faith in one of my sedatives than in some jiggery-pokery, mumbo-jumbo aura character."
"David, my dear boy, I'm surprised at you! If I didn't know you better, I'd swear you're taking the mickey out of me and my noble profession."
"I'm sorry if it sounded like that Kate." I guess my words had wounded her professional pride, and I was contrite as I went on. "You know how much I respect and value your opinions. It's just that this whole affair is beginning to get me a little rattled. I've always known what you do, and have shown a keen interest in your work, but never quite as close-up and personal as this, that's all. A lot of what you're saying is mystifying to me, Kate, and I'm not used to being mystified, I can tell you that."
"Of course you're not, David. You're a professional, a psychologist who is used to dealing with the workings of the human mind on a human level. You're not used to seeing what can happen to the human mind when something inhuman makes an appearance, and that, believe me, is what we're faced with here."
Kate appeared mollified by my apology and I felt confident to continue.
"Alright then, Kate. You're the expert and I'm the novice in this supernatural, paranormal stuff. If I wasn't involved and you were in charge of the investigation, if Forbes had simply contacted you, for example, what would you do now?"
"What I suggest we do now, my friend, is wait until Mr. Forbes completes his task in the other room, and then we try and spend a pleasant few hours before retiring to bed. I don't think we're going to find out much more from the strangely reticent Mr. Forbes tonight, at least, not unless the current force that is keeping him quiet releases its hold on him. That's why I don't want to mention the aura to him, David. If this rather passive entity leaves him, it's highly likely that the other, probably highly violent one will replace it, and that is just what we want to avoid. I fear that each time that vile creature, whatever it may be, takes a hold on William, it lessens his resolve and his will to resist it, and if it is, in some way, a manifestation of what was once the soul or the spirit of Jack the Ripper, then we had all best watch our backs."
As Kate's words died out, the door to the spare room opened and William Forbes stepped back into the room, the firelight casting a ruddy glow to his cheeks that I suspected would be a
bsent in normal daylight. He appeared to have remained in his calmer state, and he greeted us warmly, holding out a piece of A4 paper in his hand as he drew closer to Kate.
"Well, that's about the best I can do," he said as Kate took the offered sheet of paper from his hand.
"That's fine, William, really," she said after casting a cursory glance at the handwritten document. It will give Miles something to go on, and that's all I asked of you, thank-you."
"So, what now?" he asked.
"Now, we relax. At least, we try to," she replied, taking Forbes by the arm and leading him back to my favourite fireside chair, where she soon had him comfortably seated, feet upon the footstool that she'd brought over from the side of the hearth.
No sooner had Forbes laid his head back against the upright of the chair back, than his eyes appeared to grow heavy. He yawned, and said, almost in a whisper, "I say, I'm so sorry, but I feel so very tired. Must be all that thinking and writing. I hope you won't mind if I close my eyes for a moment or two."
Forbes was asleep in seconds.
"Good," said Kate. "He needs to rest."
"Great," I said. "And how do I get him to bed if I can't wake him later? He's no small lump to drag through the house, you know."
"Oh, fiddlesticks, you're a darn sight stronger than you pretend, David Hemswell. You'll manage if you have to."
Before she could say another word, I held up my hand, stopping her in her tracks.
"What is it?" she asked, sensing instantly that I'd stopped her for a good reason.
"Did you hear that, Kate?"
"Hear what?"
"Coming from outside, I'm sure of it."
"Sure of what, David? What did you hear? There's no one else on the island."
"Oh forget it. It must have been my imagination. It was nothing, I'm sure."
"David, you're infuriating me. Please, will you tell me what you heard, or at least what you thought you heard?"
"Oh, very well," I replied, rather sheepishly. "Just for a few seconds, even as we were talking, I could have sworn I'd heard the faint tinkling of music coming from somewhere outside the house."
