‘If you would only accept me, Bethany, you could share my bed.’
She glared at him and replied through lips already swelling from the blows he had delivered,
‘I would rather die than accept you as my lover!’ She exclaimed.
He scowled, all pretence at softness gone,
‘So be it, you ungrateful bitch, so be it.’
Seth hoped he would get her with child, in that way her fate would be sealed and he would have a new family to make up for the sons he had lost. She was a prisoner, his prisoner, and condemned to a life of servitude. The thought that he might make her pregnant had not escaped her either, and she shuddered at the thought of bearing this monster’s spawn.
Seth took advantage of her more and more as time went on, he was determined to get her with child and took great delight in taking off her clothes after which she was made to lie on the bed he had built in her little prison to await his pleasure. Afterwards, he retired to his room for a peaceful and contented sleep, safe in the knowledge she could not get out, secured by the chain, locked in and hampered by the scold. Seth had no illusions about her now and knew if she got the chance to harm him she would. He knew very well that Gypsies had no qualms about using a knife on their adversaries, both men and women were brought up with the skills of using a blade.
Seth noted every month when her courses became evident, and he watched her washing out the strips of cloth. He longed for the day when she missed, knowing then she would be carrying his child.
The bakery was no longer visited. Seth made it clear to all and sundry that he would deliver to whomsoever wanted to buy bread, but they were no longer welcome to attend the bakery door in the early hours as they had done before.
Bethany began to fade away quietly. She stopped eating and only survived because Seth forced food down her throat and made her swallow.
Things came to a head one morning after working most of the night. Seth was berating her for being useless and not capable of producing a child. It had been months now, and he used her every night in his effort to make her pregnant, but still, she continued to have her courses. He was ignorant to the fact that the very conditions in which he forced her to live were most likely contributing to her inability to conceive. Bethany, at her wit's end, driven by self inflicted starvation and tired of his constant unwanted attention, finally snapped. She rounded on him with a red hot poker which had been sitting in the blazing bakery fire. She struck out at him. He raised his arm to deflect the blow, crying out in pain with the force of the blow and the searing heat. She struck again and again but missed his head each time. His face became purple with rage. He ignored the hot poker walking inside the next blow to deliver a punch to the side of her head. She was felled like an ox, crashing to the floor and hitting the other side of her head on the unforgiving flagstones.
As she lay on the floor the pain of the multiple blows from the poker, together with the accompanying burns, drove Seth to distraction. He could get no relief and sat moaning. At last, he struggled to his feet then lashed out at the still body of Bethany with his booted foot. She stirred slightly then relapsed into unconsciousness.
‘I’ll teach you, you Gypsy whore.’ He was thinking aloud and trying to conjure up the most evil punishment he could imagine. It was evident this was never going to work out, she would never bend to his will, and sooner or later he would be found out and punished for crimes ranging from unlawful imprisonment to rape. She had to go, but where and how?
In the end, his devious, cruel mind settled upon an old solution. He set four rings into the rear wall of the pantry and dragged Bethany in. He used her chain to loop through all four rings, eventually hoisting her up so that she stood with her back to the wall but still unconscious. Her hands were high above her head, the weight of her body supported only by her thin wrists.
Seth brought in old bricks from behind the bakery and mixed mortar on the kitchen floor. He carefully began to construct a thick wall which soon began to hide Bethany from the world. He was only a few courses from finishing when her eyes suddenly sprung open. The pain of her wrists had penetrated her unconscious mind, and she stared out at Seth, not understanding what was going on.
Seth spoke to her for the last time as he placed the bricks in front of her face,
‘Couldn’t do it, could you? Couldn’t be a good girl to the man who loved you and looked after you. Well, this is the end for you.’
Bethany was speechless; surely he couldn’t mean to go through with this, she was to be walled up alive!
‘Please, Seth, let me go.’ She whimpered.
He didn’t appear to hear,
‘I loved you, truly loved you, and you tried to kill me. Can’t never trust you again.’ He said, but he wasn’t speaking to her, his mind had finally snapped, and he was talking to himself while he worked with the bricks and mortar.
Bethany tried one last time as the final bricks were put in place,
‘Please, Seth, I’ll be good now, I’ll be good to you, please don’t do this to me, I’m scared. Let me out, and I’ll be nice to you, please.’
Her final words were muffled as the bricks sealed the last gap in the new wall.
Seth appeared not to have heard one word she said, he was in a world of his own, oblivious to everything. He prepared more mortar and began to apply another skin of bricks in front of the first making the wall two bricks thick, after which he applied a coat of mortar render, creating a smooth finish. The coat of whitewash could wait until the following day; no one would notice that the wall was now a little thicker, the gap was just enough to contain Bethany. She was a sweet girl, he thought, I really loved her, and then she went away.
That evening, Seth was plagued by vivid dreams; he could hear someone, a young girl perhaps, screaming as if from far away. He tossed and turned in bed until the time came for him to return to the bakery, his body clock woke him every day at the same time, two o’clock in the morning, time to begin baking.
He sat at the kitchen table with a mug of hot tea, conscious of sounds drifting through the room; it could have been the person in his dreams. He shrugged his shoulders and winced at the pain. The burns were raw and hurt every time he moved. Must be more careful in future he thought as he made for the kitchen door and the bakery beyond.
Bethany, standing in the narrow space and breathing in the stale air was rapidly sinking into unconsciousness; she could hear muffled movements as he wandered into the kitchen and tried to cry out but only had enough energy to whisper,
‘Please let me out Seth; I promise I’ll be good now.’
Chapter 21
Sebastian drove towards his home with Caroline sitting beside him; they had hardly exchanged a word since the previous evening’s little incident with James. The police had finally cleared the way for their return and removed the skeleton from the pantry, saying it would be some time before they would be able to ascertain anything definite. The one thing they were certain of was the fact that it was not a recent crime, so there was little to be gained from preserving the scene. They asked if Sebastian could refrain from doing any work in the old pantry until they gave their approval, just in case they needed to revisit.
His sister was still angry over Sebastian's insistence that James was a bad sort and that she would be better staying clear of him altogether. To her, James represented her knight in shining armour galloping to the rescue of a damsel in distress. She felt alive again, and all her thoughtless brother could do was pick holes in him. Well, she just wouldn’t allow it, she had a mind of her own and nothing was going to come between her and her man.
Sebastian drew to a stop outside the kitchen door where a uniformed constable was standing with Sebastian's set of keys dangling from one hand. He handed them to Sebastian and assured him that the house was now clear of the mystery remains and it was now all his. Sebastian took the keys but couldn’t help noticing the pallor of the young policeman. He was as white as a sheet but when Sebastian asked if he were
alright he received a cursory, ‘I’m okay’. The constable remained silent as he jumped behind the wheel of his patrol car, started the engine and pulled out of the yard, a little too fast for safety thought Sebastian as the car screamed up the road towards Lincoln with the engine whining in protest.
Shrugging his shoulders in bemusement, Sebastian unlocked the kitchen door and he and his sister walked inside.
‘Cup of tea I think.’ He suggested, walking over to the kettle and shaking it to check the water level.
Caroline remained framed in the doorway, sniffing the air,
‘Can you smell tobacco?’ She asked.
Sebastian wrinkled his nose as the familiar smell began to fill the room.
‘Strange that, I’ve noticed it before, maybe the last owner smoked too much, and the walls retained the scent; I’ve heard that can happen.’
‘Retained my arse!’ Exclaimed Caroline crudely, ‘It smells like someone just lit up!’
Sebastian looked around the room and spying an unfamiliar chair went over to inspect it. It was ancient in two ways, style and age. He couldn’t remember buying anything like it and wondered who had brought it in. The wing backed chair was stained and smelled faintly of mildew. Caroline caught his mood as he stood behind the new addition to the kitchen.
‘I must say your taste hasn’t improved much, why in Hell’s name would you buy that ugly old thing, it belongs on the rubbish dump.’
Sebastian let the insult go over his head,
‘I have no idea how it got here, but I certainly know where it’s going, the rubbish dump you say, what a splendid idea.’
With that, he lifted the chair, amazed at how heavy it was and struggled with it to the door. He had difficulty in getting it through the opening and wondered how the delivery man had managed. Once outside he dragged it over to the ever increasing pile of rubbish next to the bakery, which after he had completed the renovations would go into an industrial skip and be dumped.
Back in the kitchen, his sister had watched as he struggled with the chair. She sniffed the air again as the tobacco smell became more pungent and felt uneasy as the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood erect. She felt a chill as a wave of icy coldness went down her spine. She turned quickly, fearful of what she might see but the room was empty. However, she found it difficult to breathe owing to the smell of tobacco and just for a moment thought she could actually see the blue smoke very close to her face as if someone had exhaled a cloud of smoke directly at her. She stood transfixed, unable to move.
Sebastian walked through the doorway to see his sister standing with her back to him; her body appeared to be so taut he was reluctant to say anything, fearing that it may cause her too much of a shock. He made his way around her instead until he was face to face with her.
‘What’s up, Sis?’ He asked, using the familiar expression of their youth.
‘Can’t you see it?’ She said in a small voice.
He thought that was most unusual in itself and asked her what she meant.
Without moving, she spoke again,
‘The smoke, I saw tobacco smoke, right here, in front of my face. Surely you must have noticed it?’
Sebastian looked around the room but could see nothing, smell it yes, but nothing visual.
‘You must have imagined it, Sis. Come on, sit down and I’ll make some tea, you’re feeling the strain of what happened yesterday with the skeleton; it is a bit much I must say, quite gave me the creeps too.’
She wasn’t convinced,
‘But, what about the chair, where did that come from?’
Sebastian smiled in an attempt to make light of the whole thing,
‘Maybe someone's idea of a joke, perhaps the chair was in the bakery tucked away, and one of the coppers used it to keep guard, lazy sod.’ He laughed trying to get her to join in but it was a wasted effort, she was in no mood for jokes.
He left her with a cup of tea in hand and wandered over to the pantry. It had been cleared of the remains together with the chains which had secured it to the wall, leaving only the iron rings still attached. He ran his fingers over them, noting the indentations on the rims where they had been hammered into the joints of the brick wall. He tried to wiggle them, but they were solid. He was about to let go of the last one when a strange feeling passed through his body. It was a kind of tingle, not like an electric shock, merely the faintest of feelings. It made him want to stay and not let go of the cold iron, or, was it as cold now? Surely it was warmer, not hot but warm so there was no difference between its heat and his body temperature.
Caroline interrupted his thoughts as she called out to him,
‘Seb, where are you? Please, don’t leave me here alone.’
He walked out of the pantry to see her still sitting at the table, visibly shaking. He rushed to her side and knelt down.
‘Come on old thing, there’s nothing to be afraid of, you always did have an overactive imagination.’ But she was not reassured.
Later, Sebastian prepared a meal, he cleared the plate while she hardly touched hers preferring instead to drink the best part of the bottle of wine placed between them. Sebastian had one small glass while Caroline filled her own to an unfashionable level. He frowned at her more than once as she gulped the wine down accompanied by the merest scrap of food.
The conversation was spartan, and he decided that a scotch nightcap and early to bed was the order of the day. He poured himself a good measure only to be confronted by his sister’s glare.
‘What about me, don’t I get one?’
He went to the sink and washed a glass,
‘Are you sure you want this? You’ve already had a bottle of wine.’
‘Of course, I want one, at least I’ll be able to sleep. Make it a big one, just to be on the safe side.’
He watched her sip the whisky as he sipped his own, wondering at what point he would be obliged to carry her upstairs to bed.
With a flourish, she put her empty glass on the table and announced she was going up. Seb was pleased, at least she might be able to make it upstairs under her own steam.
He heard her preparing for bed and decided another nightcap for himself would give her plenty of time. He went back into the pantry, drink in hand, to look at the wall one last time before retiring for the night. It was darker in there now, and the rear wall was merely a shadow. Feeling his way along the wall until he encountered one of the rings, he drew his fingers gently around it and immediately felt a strange sensation permeate through his body. Looking into the dimness, he thought for a moment he could see a shape, standing against the wall. Strangely, he felt no fear, a far stronger emotion was suffusing through his body. He found he didn’t want to let go of the iron ring and for some reason, tears began to trickle down his cheeks.
Then it had passed. Confused, Sebastian turned and left the pantry, sitting down once more at the table. Staring down at the amber liquid in his glass he, for some unknown reason, lifted it in a silent toast before draining it in one.
Sebastian climbed the stairs and paused at his sister’s door. From within he heard gentle snoring and smiled, at least she would get a good night’s sleep.
He settled into bed and lay thinking of his next move. Should the iron rings be left in place or be removed? They were certainly of historical interest but at the same time a little macabre. Some poor devil had been chained and possibly walled up alive, surely not something one would wish to recall to any visitors. It would make most people very uncomfortable to sit in a house still bearing the traces of such a cruel past. No, perhaps it would be best if they were removed and the wall replastered, incorporating new shelving. He thought it best to allow the story to fade as quickly as possible. He would caution Caroline in the morning against spreading the story. The fewer people who knew, the better. Of course, he hadn’t considered the consequences should the story be leaked to the media. That would prove very difficult to contain and even worse if it was leaked by someone in the police fo
rce.
In the early hours of the morning, Sebastian was woken by a series of loud screams which quickly reduced to a desperate keening. It was his sister, and he sprang out of bed, rushing to her door. He was brought up short, the door was locked from the inside. He yelled through the door for Caroline to unlock it but she seemed incapable, all he could hear was her wailing. Softer now but desperation in her voice. He tried charging it but rebounded off the timber door, a painful shoulder his only reward. He looked down at his bare feet and decided that plan was useless too. Wracking his brains with the desperate moans of his sister permeating his brain he remembered the axe in the bakery. Running down the stairs two at a time, he raced out to it cursing loudly as his bare feet seemingly encountered every sharp object known to humanity in the process. He ran through the open door, this time pleased that it was open despite the fact that every evening he made an effort to shut it tightly. The axe was lying propped against the oven, he grabbed it, turned and retraced his steps back to the house. This time he managed to stand on all the sharp objects he had managed to evade on the outward journey. Rushing up the stairs axe in hand, he arrived breathlessly at the locked bedroom. The moans were still escaping through the door as he desperately raised the axe swinging it in a wide arc towards the lock. Just before it could connect, the door began to swing open of its own accord. Sebastian couldn’t stop his action, he had put every ounce of his remaining energy behind the blow, and the axe disappeared through the open door with him still holding the handle. Connecting with nothing except air, he was propelled through the door and found himself sprawled on the floor beside the bed. He quickly jumped up and in the dim light saw his sister lying on the bed, her face hidden behind her hands. He found the light switch and suddenly the room was bathed in a soft yellow glow.
He turned to see his sister lying on the bed. The sheets had been pulled off, and she was lying almost naked with the remnants of her torn nightdress laying beside her.
The Haunting Page 14
