‘It will be the last thing you do!’ warned Roger ominously from the sofa. ‘He will find you again if you return to that place, and he will kill you, just as before.’
‘God, I’ve had enough of this. I’m off.’ Matthew kissed his mother. ‘I’ll phone you once I get to Four Oaks,’ he added, and then indicated Roger. ‘Keep an eye on him!’
Margaret smiled. ‘We’ve been married a long time, darling. Don’t worry, he won’t harm me.’
As Matthew left the house and made his way down the steep driveway, he hoped his mother was right… and that his father was wrong.
Sunday
October 27th
Joyce awakened to the sound of rain beating down outside, and she turned over in the huge bed with a groan. She had rather hoped Sunday morning would dawn clear and bright after the awful weather of the preceding week had followed Theo and her up to Scotland, ruining their first night at Ravenscreag.
Having found the turnoff for the village easily enough, Theo had driven carefully along the uneven dirt track, its potholes already filled with rainwater, and as the car then meandered its way up the recently shingled driveway to Ravenscreag Hall itself, the heavens opened and released an unrelenting amount of rain.
Lesley was waiting in the huge arched doorway as their car approached, having seen it coming up the driveway from one of the upstairs windows. Joyce and Theo waited in the car for the torrential downpour to abate.
Ravenscreag Hall was even more oppressive up close than in the photos Joyce had seen. As she sat in the passenger seat, staring up at the nonetheless affecting edifice, she felt a twinge of anxiety begin to gnaw at her stomach, and was suddenly reacquainted with her previous fears concerning the stories she had heard.
Even Theo commented on its atmosphere as they waited for the rain to lessen.
When after several long minutes it seemed that was not about to happen anytime soon, Lesley disappeared into the house and returned carrying a large golfing umbrella.
All three were still drenched by the time they had brought the luggage into the impressively oak panelled hallway.
Oppressive atmosphere or not, Joyce and her son could not help but be struck by the splendour of its interior. Having driven all day, they were grateful for the meal Lesley had prepared, once all three had changed out of their wet clothes. Lesley’s stunningly handsome blond-haired husband joined them for the meal, before disappearing once more into his study to continue work on his latest novel.
‘How’s your own novel coming along, Aunt Lesley?’ muttered Theo with a mischievous wink.
Lesley chuckled. ‘Still on the back burner, as well you know, you cheeky sod!’
Theo tutted light-heartedly. ‘Still… after fifteen years?’
Lesley had been working with laborious slowness on her first novel for the past decade and a half, whilst Jack had himself written half a dozen. Joyce had once commented that it was a wonder Lesley had never taken so long to write newspaper and magazine articles during her time as a journalist and editor, and it had developed into a running joke within the family.
‘I might finish it one day, but you know me – I keep coming up with new things to occupy my time… like turning this house into a hotel for ghost hunters.’
They sat and talked for a while about the mysterious history of the house until Theo retired to bed. An hour later fatigue finally caught up with Joyce and she followed him. Having heard so many stories about some of the rooms in the house, she did not relish the prospect of sleeping in a room where she knew someone had died. She was therefore pleased when Lesley informed her that she and Jack occupied the suite of rooms in the east wing where Mary Turner had passed away.
When she had invited herself up to Ravenscreag, Joyce also point-blank refused to go anywhere near the infamous turret room, which Lesley had made very clear was haunted. There was no way she would approach the room in daylight and absolutely no way in hell she was sleeping up there, so it came as a delighted reassurance to find herself placed in the room next to Theo’s, adjacent to the library on the first floor at the front of the house.
There had been little chance of her falling asleep easily on the first night; even though she was exhausted from the long journey, she had thought she would be kept awake by nerves at being in the house, the merest thought of which terrified her still.
However, once under the thick comfort of the eiderdown and blankets, all thoughts of ghosts and wandering nocturnal spirits fled her mind and she felt peace and calm wash over her. She could hear her son in the adjoining room, and a little while later could hear Lesley and Jack going up to their room, but even though she was tired and less unnerved by her surroundings, sleep evaded her for much of the night due to the sound of rain hammering down outside.
It battered against the window and seemed to get heavier as the night wore on, while the wind howled eerily both outside and along the corridor.
Joyce was not certain how long she lay awake, nor what time she eventually fell asleep, but as she awakened with a start once more to the intense sound of the driving rain, she felt as though she had enjoyed less than an hour’s sleep.
Turning and fumbling for the bedside lamp, she snapped it on and squinted in the sudden bright light to look at her watch. It was seven o’clock.
Seven o’clock on a Sunday morning was far too early to be getting up, but having passed the point of being tired she was fully awake in seconds, and found she needed the toilet. She threw on her thick towelling robe, slipped her sock-clad feet into her slippers and left the bedroom, making her way along the shadowy corridor towards one of the bathrooms she knew to be on that floor.
The darkened passage gave Joyce the creeps. She could almost feel the presence of someone standing behind her, watching her every move, but she willed herself into believing it was nothing more than the shadows playing tricks on her overactive imagination. She was half expecting some benign or otherwise spirit to manifest itself before her, to demand perhaps that she leave the house at once.
As far as she was aware though, the spirits that had apparently once wandered the corridors and enjoyed the freedom of the rooms were benign in nature, and she almost wished the spirit of Gloria Schofield might appear to her so she could ask whether the fanciful tales she had heard were actually true or not.
In spite of her unease, Joyce emitted a half-hearted chuckle. Did she really believe it was possible that Gloria had travelled back in time as Lesley had said? Did she truly believe in the tales of ghosts and possession, with which Lesley had again regaled her?
She was uncertain what to believe and what to discard as fantasy, but she felt certain there must be something in much of the tales, for Lesley had never been one to believe in such flights of fancy, and she herself must believe to some degree, she reasoned, otherwise she would most certainly have visited Ravenscreag Hall years ago.
Lost in thought, it was not until she glanced around that Joyce realised she had somehow climbed the stairs to the top floor and was halfway along the corridor.
She froze in her tracks, feeling suddenly sick.
How the hell did I get up here without realising?
She could not fathom what had possessed her to come up to the top floor and walk blindly down this passageway towards the stairs that she knew led up to the turret room.
Was it her imagination, or had she heard a soft footfall from the direction of those stairs?
She tried to turn and retrace her steps, but found her trembling legs rooted to the spot.
She tried to back away, but simply could not move.
She held her breath, hardly daring to make a sound.
There it was again. A definite footstep from up ahead, now accompanied by shallow breathing.
Panic gripped her, but still Joyce could not budge.
As a figure melted away from the shadows and approached her slowly, Joyce opened her mouth to scream, but the scream remained as frozen in her throat as her feet remained frozen to the fl
oor when she recognised the figure.
‘Jack?’ she croaked as the silent figure of her brother-in-law walked slowly towards her. It took a moment for Joyce to realise Jack was naked, and even as she blushed and averted her eyes, she became aware that he did not seem to be awake.
Unable to bring herself to close her eyes, as Jack approached and passed her, she kept them averted.
‘Jack?’ she called again, a little louder this time.
He turned to face her and smiled. His eyes were open, yet curiously unfocussed, and then he spoke, startling her. ‘Good day, gentle lady. Beautiful weather for the time of year, is it not?’ He turned once more from her and continued on his way, as though he had neither seen her nor spoken. Then he rounded the end of the corridor and was gone, descending the stairs.
Joyce remained where she was, heart thumping rapidly in her chest. She forced herself to breathe calmly, but shrieked when another voice behind her told her not to worry about what she had witnessed. Though it felt altogether longer, it took Joyce only a fraction of a second to realise the new voice belonged to her sister.
Lesley placed a hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry, Joyce, I didn’t mean to startle you.’
Joyce fought the urge to burst into tears, unsure if the urge came from relief, anger or distress. ‘Lesley,’ she gasped, ‘what’s going on? What’s happened to Jack?’
‘Nothing, darling. He sleepwalks, that’s all. Surely you remember that? I guess I’ve taken to following him because I’m paranoid about him having an accident.’
Joyce clutched her hand to her chest in relief and finally burst into tears. ‘I thought he was possessed!’
Had anyone else at any other time made such a statement, Lesley would have laughed, but something in her sister’s demeanour halted the laughter before it even formed in her throat.
It was not the first time Joyce had witnessed Jack’s nocturnal activity. She had visited their London home some years earlier, not long after Theo’s father had died, and Jack had sleepwalked naked into Joyce’s room, climbed into bed with her, told her he loved her, and bade her goodnight. The incident freaked Joyce out at the time, and her screams had brought Lesley running, but had completely failed to rouse Jack.
They had laughed about it afterwards, except Jack, who was mortified, and Lesley found it inconceivable that Joyce should have forgotten.
It was clear her sister had other worries on her mind. ‘Darling, I think we should go down to the kitchen and talk. I think it’s time you told me what’s brought you up here to visit when you’ve been so adamant that nothing would get you to set foot in this house.’
‘What about Jack?’ gasped Joyce as she finally found her voice again.
They heard the sound of a door closing down on the floor below. ‘Sounds like he’s gone to the library. Since we’ve been here, when he sleepwalks, he goes up to the turret room, and down to the library. I’m not sure what’s going on in his mind when he sleepwalks, but it’s probably got something to do with the stories we heard about Gloria Schofield the writer, and what happened to her here.’
Joyce glanced over her shoulder into the shadows, beyond which the stairs for the turret room lay hidden. It was still one place in the house that she had no desire to visit.
‘Come on, Joyce,’ Lesley said in a soft voice. ‘Kitchen! You need to tell me what’s bothering you.’
A little over ten minutes later, the pair sat at the kitchen table, each nursing a steaming mug of tea, enveloped in silence, save for the incessant drumming of the rain outside. Lesley watched her sister intently. Whatever was bothering Joyce clearly was rooted deep within her psyche, and was obviously awkward or embarrassing to talk about. She waited as long as possible for her sister to break the silence, but quickly realised she was going to have to goad her sister into starting the conversation.
She gently placed a hand on Joyce’s arm. ‘Come on, darling, we used to be able to tell each other anything. Tell me what’s wrong.’
Joyce continued staring into the mug of tea on the table. ‘I don’t even know where to begin,’ she muttered. ‘I’m probably imagining things, anyway.’
Lesley chuckled. ‘One thing I do know about you, sis, is that you are not prone to flights of fancy, so I doubt you’re imagining anything.’
‘But what I am thinking is so far fetched.’
This time, Lesley roared with laughter. ‘You are saying that to someone who is opening her house as a hotel to ghost hunters?’
Joyce smiled as she glanced up at her sister. ‘How true,’ she sighed. ‘Tell me about that man whose son was supposed to marry Gloria Schofield.’
Lesley arched an eyebrow inquisitively. ‘Daniel Barncroft? What would you like to know?’
‘He wrote that novel, Into the Light, didn’t he?’
Lesley nodded. ‘And a further three supernatural thrillers after that one. But yes, Into the Light was his first, and in my opinion, his best.’
Joyce stared into Lesley’s eyes. ‘You were friends with them, weren’t you?’
Lesley nodded. ‘I went to school with Gloria, and I am still friends with Louise, Daniel’s daughter.’
Joyce took a deep breath. ‘How much of that novel was really based on fact?’
Doing her best Mister Spock impression, Lesley arched her eyebrow again. ‘The truth?’ she asked, and when Joyce solemnly nodded, she sighed. ‘All of it, actually.’
‘Including the part where the main male character is possessed by the spirit of a dead man?’
Lesley nodded. ‘All of it!’ She spoke softly and shook her sister’s arm gently. ‘Come on, Joyce, out with it. Please? How can I be of any help to you if you don’t tell me what’s bothering you? From your interest in Allan, Daniel’s son, I’d say you believe that someone you know is possessed. Is it Theo?’
Joyce looked up sharply. ‘No! Well… maybe.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I don’t know. The more I think about it all, the more illogical it all seems to me. I can’t make up my mind whether I’m imagining things or not. At first, I thought it was Matthew, Theo’s partner, who was possessed. He’s been acting oddly of late, and it all seems connected to a house he’s inherited from an old woman he didn’t even know.’
Lesley nodded thoughtfully. ‘It always starts with a house. That’s why I bought Ravenscreag from Gloria’s parents, because it’s supposedly haunted. But we’re talking about Matthew, not me. Go on with your story!’
‘Well, I had this really odd feeling that something had changed about Matthew, and I remembered you telling me once that Daniel Barncroft’s novel was based on fact, and that you knew the real people his characters were inspired by. Because of that, and your love for this supposedly haunted house, I figured you might be the best person to come to. I wondered whether you might be able to decide whether he is possessed or not.’
‘I’m not sure I am the best person to make that kind of judgement. Daniel and his wife lived through those events, as did their daughter. Perhaps if I speak to them, they might be willing to have a word with you, though I’m not sure what they could do to help.’
‘The thing is, now I’m not so certain it’s Matthew who’s possessed. Since returning from Spain, Theo’s been acting oddly too. He’s been cleaning and tidying, and all those other things I’ve always had to nag him to do… and he never did them for Matthew before, either!’
Lesley sighed. She knew of her nephew’s volatile relationship with Matthew. ‘Did they have another fight?’
Joyce nodded. ‘A bad one, by all accounts. Theo said he would do anything to make Matthew see just how much he loves him.’
‘Well, there’s your answer to one of the questions. I do believe your Theo is no more possessed than Jack is. Jack sleepwalks, whilst Theo loves Matthew enough to finally realise he has to make certain changes in his lifestyle if he is to prevent the love of his life walking out of his life for good.’
‘And what of Matthew?’
‘Ah, now that’s a different matter al
together. It seems odd to me that a woman he doesn’t know should leave him a house, and equally odd that he should be obsessed by that house. Is this house in a particularly haunted area?’
‘It’s in a village called Elendale.’
Lesley almost dropped her tea in shock. She stared at her sister incredulously. ‘Please tell me that’s some kind of sick joke, sis?’
Joyce shook her head solemnly. ‘It’s no joke, Lesley.’
‘Elendale is adjacent to Neville Hill, where Gloria used to live… where Louise still lives!’ Lesley sat back in her chair, appalled by this turn of events. ‘Well, I think that settles it then. That whole area is an intersection of many ley lines. It’s apparently a very haunted area, with a history of witchcraft… and I’m beginning to think we should have bought a house there rather than up here! One of the hills bordering the valley there is known locally as Wicca Hill, and for good reason! I think it’s highly probable that Matthew has been bewitched by the house, and yes, he might even be possessed!’
‘He’s going there to stay for a few weeks,’ said Joyce with a shiver. ‘Personally, I don’t think it’s a very good idea. I feel something bad is going to happen.’
Lesley clutched her sister’s hands tightly, and when Joyce looked into her face, she was shocked to see the anguish reflected in Lesley’s frown.
‘I fear you may be right, sis,’ Lesley said. ‘I think you and I should visit Louise and her husband, Phil. He was also once possessed. They might be able to shed some light on things!’
Monday
October 28th
Matthew sat in the saloon bar of The Green Woman Inn, staring into the murky depths of his half-pint glass.
The Master of Prophecy (The Sawyl Gwilym Chronicles Book 2) Page 9
