“Well, I suppose you are believing me now then, aye? Got you a bit more of that fairy story nonsense happening up there, aye? Happening and now you can’t deny what your own eyes is telling you, right?” Izzy said before returning to her glass.
“Yes, Izzy. You were right. We don’t know what to do or how to stop it. We were hoping you could help, before my son or my husband get hurt or worse,” Mary replied.
“Oh aye, could be a lot worse than hurt, lovey. A lot worse. So what do you think I can do? Don’t you think I would have done it by now if I knew how?” Izzy replied.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. But now it’s there and out in the open, perhaps you could talk to it and ask it to leave us alone?” Mary said, looking Izzy straight in the eye. “If you really are a medium, then tonight would be the night to show the whole village you can do it. I know it’s a lot to ask an old woman but we have nowhere else to turn to. I’m begging you, Izzy. Please help us.”
Isadora Hamilton raised her sherry glass to her lips and emptied it. She waved the empty glass at George who came over straight away to refill it.
“I might not see tomorrow, George,” Izzy said, “So best I have me a drink before I leave you all.”
“Aye, well I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing you tomorrow night Izzy, don’t you go worrying over that. I tell you what. There’ll be a glass waiting for you when you get back. How’s that for an incentive to keep going?” George said.
“Aye, George. Well, I’ll keep you to that then, young lad. I won’t let you forget,” Izzy replied, smiling ruefully.
Back at the cottage, Peter and Jason were both dipping chocolate chip cookies into a tub of vanilla ice cream. Peter was desperate to ask Jason what was happening and just what he knew about Emily, but he kept quiet. While Mary was away, the last thing he wanted was to somehow upset Jason and kick the whole thing off again. Best to just keep them both happy and amused while they sat there and waited. The house had become calm and quiet. Was it too quiet? Peter had pondered before smiling at himself and his poor movie clichés. Just now, they had ice cream and quiet worked just fine for that.
Jason sat tucking into the cookies and ice cream as if nothing had happened at all and he was simply the beneficiary of a late night feast with Dad. He hadn’t mentioned any of the events from earlier and showed no signs of wanting to talk about it. Peter decided to leave it like that for now.
Peter kept staring at the back door, waiting in anticipation for Mary to make her return. He stared too at the cellar door, now closed, and pondered who or what could possibly have pushed him down the stairs. He reached gently for the lump on his head and winced as he touched it. “Perhaps, I just slipped and nothing pushed me at all?” He muttered to himself unconvincingly. He had felt it. He had felt the hand on his shoulder. However he tried to dance around it, he had to admit: he had been pushed down the stairs.
Down at the Yew Tree, Mary and Izzy were in deep discussion. Mary had done most of the talking. She’d told Izzy how she had seen the girl when they first arrived and thought nothing of it. How the old Victorian pram kept moving itself into the cellar and eventually, the events that had happened just an hour or so ago that had set her on her way to the pub to find Izzy. As she told the old woman about the events in Jason’s bedroom, she felt a fool. Even though Izzy had stated her belief in all this, actually explaining in detail how her son had floated above the bed, screaming like a demon and how she had been pinned off her feet to the door sounded too ridiculous to repeat to anyone. But Izzy simply nodded.
“Return home Mary. Your family will be worrying about you. I shall make my way there shortly. First I need to return home for a few things,” Izzy said, rising from her stool. “I have to be honest, making contact was the only real plan we ever had. Getting rid of it will be a whole new experience I may not be able to achieve, dear,” she admitted.
“But if you can’t help us, who can?” Mary asked, getting up from her chair also.
“I have a feeling the answer will make itself known once we get up there and meet this thing. Now get off home. I shall be there shortly,” Izzy replied, making her own way to the front door of the pub without a backward glance or a thank you to George for the drinks.
George gave a mocking wave to the departing Izzy and leaned over the bar to Mary.
“If anyone can help you, she can. You did right coming to get her whatever the hour. Take care, Mary, and have a safe trip home,” George said.
Mary reached over the bar and clasped George’s hand. She squeezed and said her thank yous for the help and the drinks. Then she too made her way out of the bar and onto the lane back to the cottage. She could feel eyes following her as she made her way through the village past the tiny houses clustered together. She moved into the open country as the lane left the village, still she could feel herself being watched. She increased her pace as she scanned around her, terrified to return to the evil she had left and desperate to see her son and husband safe.
Reaching the cottage, she could see the clouds skipping across the sky and with the moonlight shining around them they cast darting shadows across the little house. Shadows, of course, were never a threat Mary considered. Just whatever it was that might lie within them. She was shaking when she reached her hand to the door and opened it into the kitchen. Tears of relief streamed down her face as she saw Peter and Jason sat at the table waiting for her, with an empty tub of ice cream on the table between them.
“Phew! You made it back! I was getting ready to come down and get you...” Peter remarked with a broad smile on his face, “Any luck?”
“I found Isadora, yes. She’s coming,” Mary replied.
“So late? Can she fix it?” Peter asked, shifting in his chair and looking nervously at Mary.
“I have no idea, darling. Truth is, neither does she. But, she’s on her way here tonight. She needed to get something from her house. Don’t ask me what, she never said, but I got the impression she had no more idea than we do about how to fix this mess,” Mary replied, collapsing into one of the chairs at the kitchen table.
“You been drinking, girl? You smell like a brewery,” Peter smirked.
“George insisted on pouring me a whiskey. Then he kept topping it up. Would have been rude of me to say no, right?” Mary replied.
“Always rude to turn down a free drink from the landlord, dear. Always. I’m proud of you for accepting,” Peter chuckled as he reached out for her hand, “So what do we do now?”
Mary looked across at Jason who was dozing in his chair.
“Well, that little soldier doesn’t look too comfortable there, does he? I suggest we take him up to our bed and I’ll stay with him. Could you wait for Izzy? I don’t think she’ll be too much longer,” Mary said.
“Well I guess we can’t do much until she gets here, so yes. I’ll wait on Izzy to make her grand entrance. I guess she’s getting changed into her Merlin costume or something. Do you want me to carry him up?” Peter replied, getting out of the chair and reaching for Jason.
“No, I can manage. I want to hold him. I had a horrible feeling he was going to be taken from us earlier. I don’t want that again,” Mary said as she picked up the slumbering child from the chair and cradled him in her arms.
Careful not to wake him, she carried Jason upstairs and laid him on her bed. She curled up beside him with an arm over him.
Chapter Twelve
Peter sat at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers and looking at the door, waiting for Isadora Hamilton to arrive. Every few minutes he would get up from his chair and open the door to look out down the lane. He was confident she knew where the house was, but just to be sure he kept checking.
Mary had Jason wrapped tight against her on the bed. She could feel him breathing gently in his sleep as she herself slipped in and out of wakefulness. The room was quiet and calm and apart from the sound of Peter opening the front door every few minutes, Mary was feeling the peace.
As she was allo
wing her eyes to gently close and breath in time with her son, she smelled a rank odour coming from under the door. It was a smothering stench and Mary gagged. She struggled to fight against her eyes closing as she felt Jason begin to move restlessly in her arms. She gripped him tighter; desperate to call out for Peter, but afraid to open her mouth and fill it with the putrid smell.
Peter was still sitting at the kitchen table when he noticed the odour. It seemed to have come drifting up from the cellar and as he walked over to the cellar door it became almost overpowering. He snatched up a kitchen towel and held it over his face as he opened the back door to attempt to let the evil smell out. It made little difference and Peter was shocked that one of the things that seemed to bother him was whether the smell might offend Izzy when she arrived.
Then, from upstairs, he heard the scream.
Peter flew up the stairs two at a time and headed down the landing to his bedroom. The door was shut fast and as solid as the door on Jason’s bedroom had been. He hammered at it with his fists and could hear the cackling of a small child calling his name.
“Peter, I have them, Peter - they are mine now. But you. You I want to finish first. You I will destroy as your wife and child watch. You must be first Peter, you,” the voice echoed around the landing.
“Then take me, you sick bastard! Here I am! Take me! Picking on a woman and a kid. Whatever you are, a coward is all I can see,” Peter snarled.
He had taken the sledgehammer downstairs when he had sat with Jason eating supper. Now he needed it to smash down his own bedroom door, but smash it down he would. He took a step back from the door and turned to go downstairs. The stench was making him dizzy with nausea and his head began to spin as he made his way down the stairs. He staggered into the kitchen to retrieve the hammer from the side of the table. The back door was still wide open. He decided he would leave it for Izzy, if she was ever going to show up. Then he noticed the cellar door was standing wide open and the smell from it was strong. Clutching the hammer in both hands, he made his way to the top of the cellar steps and looked down. Below him, he could see a swirling mist as though a fog had descended into the cellar. The foul stench was heavier here and he could barely breathe. From below him, he could hear the snickering and giggling of a child. A sick child with a twisted mind he decided, but a child nonetheless. And the pram he thought. Down there was that stinking old pram.
Peter dropped the hammer and sprinted back upstairs. He banged on the bedroom door and shouted.
“Mary! Jason! Hang in there, I think I know how to deal with this! Please just wait for me!”
“Peter, please! It’s here! It’s in here with us! It’s going to kill us!” Mary wailed through the door.
Peter sprinted back down the stairs and snatched up the sledgehammer. If what he thought was right, he could stop this madness. He bolted down the cellar steps snapping the light on as he went.
Throwing the old Victorian pram out of his way he began to swing at the wall with the heavy hammer. This was where the pram always turned up. Where that cool draft had come from and now where the evil stench was coming from. This was where they would find the answer, Peter thought, as he swung the hammer over and over at the stone wall. Slowly, it started to surrender to the blows and sections of stone began to give way.
Peter was struggling to breathe, with the effort of hammering the wall and the choking stench beginning to take their toll. Then he heard footsteps on the cellar stairs. Short sharp steps. Someone small. Someone determined in their footing. He listened and then turned to see what was coming down into the cellar with him.
It was Isadora Hamilton.
She stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked directly at him.
“Yes Peter, I think you may be in the right place. Where is Mary and the child?” Izzy asked.
“Upstairs. Room at the end of the landing...” Peter gasped. “That thing has them and the door is shut fast. I just had a feeling that I had to take down this wall. Something behind it, see? An answer to this. Am I going insane?”
“No more insane than the rest of us, Peter. You keep working on the wall. I shall go upstairs,” Izzy replied as she turned and went back to the steps.
Peter stared in disbelief at the departing woman. She seemed totally unfazed by the fact he was tearing down this wall like a madman and didn’t seem to even register the evil smell that was choking the very air from his lungs.
Peter turned back to the wall and continued swinging the hammer.
Upstairs, Mary stood in terror by the bedroom door. Jason was sat on the edge of the bed facing her and stood beside him was a young girl. In her hand, she was holding the bread knife. Holding it over Jason’s throat and smirking.
“We await your husband, Mary. When he returns we shall begin. Would hate him to miss anything now, wouldn’t we?” The girl said.
From outside the door came a sharp voice.
“Allow me to enter, foul creature. I know who you are. I know your name,” Isadora Hamilton said.
The door swung open and she entered the bedroom.
The girl was still smiling and holding the knife to Jason’s throat as Izzy entered the room.
“Come to try your luck again have you, Hamilton? You know you were never very good at it? Nor was your mother or hers. But at least you get to see these fine people feed me for another century or so,” the girl snarled at Izzy.
Izzy smiled back at the girl.
“The father has found you out, dear. He works on your demise as we speak. Fancy telling this poor child you were Emily Wainwright. You don’t have a name, do you? Like everything else corrupt about you, you have to steal one. Isn’t that right, changeling? Stealing lives, stealing names, and all to exist in your own evil stench,” Izzy said as she took a step forward towards the girl.
“You only exist in this corrupt form of that poor girl until she is discovered. I believe that time is here.”
“You know nothing, old woman. You know nothing and that idiot man knows even less,” the girl hissed.
“He may not know who you are but he knows to look in all the right places, demon,” Izzy said, turning to Mary. “Right now, he is doing all he can to save you, Mary. Believe me. This is all coming to an end and that travesty will be no more.”
“I don’t understand, Izzy. How? And Jason? She still has Jason,” Mary gasped, almost begging Izzy for an answer.
From downstairs came a yell.
“Izzy! I found it! I knew it!”
Izzy looked at Mary, then at the girl.
“It seems our man has found you out, you filth. Shall we go and see what he’s found? Follow me, Mary,” she said.
“But Jason. She has Jason,” Mary blurted out.
“She will let him go. She never needed Jason. It was Peter’s life she needed. She was just using Jason’s young mind to get through. Trust me and turn your back on her. Follow me,” Izzy said, making her way from the bedroom and across the landing to the stairs.
Mary turned to look at Jason. He was silent as he sat with the knife to his throat. Mary gulped as she turned her back on the scene and followed Izzy down the stairs.
“Don’t turn back, Mary. Please be strong now. For your husband as well as your son. Stay strong and follow me,” Izzy said as they reached the cellar steps.
“Down there?” Mary asked as Izzy stood at the top of the cellar steps.
“Yes, dear. Down here. Follow me and let’s get this over with,” Izzy replied, making her way down into the cellar.
Mary obediently followed behind. She saw Peter, covered in sweat with a look of madness in his face. The sledgehammer still gripped in his hands. Behind him a huge hole in the wall.
“Peter!” She gasped. “What the hell have you done?”
“He thinks he’s found the answer to saving his neck, don’t you Peter?” A voice hissed from behind them.
They turned to see the girl at the back of the cellar advancing towards them. She passed between them into the
hole Peter had smashed through and turned to face them.
Sitting in a chair beside her was a mummified corpse. Even in its rotten and decomposing state, it was quite obviously the body of a young girl. Her tattered clothes were distinctly Victorian, down to her well-trimmed and pointed boots.
“He thinks he has found Emily. But I am Emily. I was sacrificed by my father and I will take Peter’s life in return,” the girl said.
Izzy took a step towards the girl and reached in her pocket. She pulled out an antique cameo brooch. She flipped it open to reveal the picture of a beautiful girl, posing in her best Sunday outfit.
“No, changeling. This is Emily. Take a good look. See how beautiful she is? A creature like you could never understand true beauty. You will always be ugly because your heart is black as night. This poor wretch here is Emily Wainwright and now she can rest in peace,” Izzy said.
The girl screamed out at Izzy, snarling and growling as she looked between the picture and the corpse.
“I am Emily!” She screamed.
Alongside the body, a shape began to form. It was almost identical to the girl, but like the cameo brooch, much more beautiful.
“I am Emily Wainwright. It is done, creature. Return to your pit. I am released from your bonds.”
Emily Wainwright slowly faded back into the shadows with a gentle smile on her face. The corpse began to slowly fall apart and the creature screamed again.
As it screamed it drew in the stench that had pervaded the house. Peter, Mary and Izzy looked on in amazement as the demon collapsed in on itself and disappeared. The smell and the creature were gone. Sat in the chair was just the skeletal remains of Emily in her best clothes.
“It is done. We can leave this place. Emily is free and at peace. Thanks to you, Peter,” Izzy said as she turned and made her way back to the stairs.
Mary and Peter followed numbly behind in silence.
Halfway up the cellar steps, Mary stopped, shocked; she yelped and sprinted upstairs.
“Jason, I’m coming darling!” She yelled.
Thriller: Emily Page 9
