by Nell Dixon
Lights, Camera, Poltergeist!
by Nell Dixon
Published by Astraea Press
www.astraeapress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
LIGHTS, CAMERA, POLTERGEIST
Copyright © 2013 NELL DIXON
ISBN 978-1-62135-111-5
Cover Art Designed by For the Muse Designs
For the Coffee Crew and my fab CP Kimberly Menozzi
Chapter One
"Something feels wrong." Fae pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes shut.
The drawing room of Fingelly Manor was similar to many other great houses they had filmed in over the past few months: gloomy, shabby, and stuffed with ancient relics belonging to the family who owned the house.
"What's the matter?" John 'Flash' Flannigan, her technician, asked.
She opened her eyes and shivered in the cool, damp February air. Clearly, the family also believed in conserving heat. "I don't know. Something just doesn't feel right, that's all."
"Maybe you're just tired. We travelled a long way today," John suggested.
"Maybe." Fae snuggled deeper into the chunky knitted roll neck of her sweater and wished she could shake off the eerie sensation. She puffed out a sigh and watched her breath condense in the air before her face.
It wasn't only the room that was chilly. The relationship between her and John had taken on a distinctly frosty tinge lately too.
She strolled across the room to the huge diamond leaded window that would have filled the room with light if it hadn't been shrouded in dust and some dark red velvet drapes that had seen better days. Out in the corridor, the electricians and tech staff were hammering down loose boards and cursing the ancient electrical wiring.
The afternoon light had already started to fade, and fingers of frost were beginning to form at the corners of the window. A flicker of movement near the trees on the far side of the lawn caught her attention and she leaned forward, almost bumping her nose against the glass in her quest to see what it was.
Whatever or whomever she thought she'd seen had vanished, and she relaxed back on her heels. Working as a presenter on Ghost UK had made her jumpy. Every dark corner now held the possibility of something spooky. With the house sited in such a deserted spot, it was unlikely that anyone would be outside in the grounds, especially in this freezing weather.
"Fae, darling, there you are!"
She turned around to see her producer, Tim, sweeping towards her. She pasted a fake smile on her lips when she saw he was accompanied by the owner of the house, Giles McGinty, Laird of Fingelly. She'd already met Giles when she'd arrived, and her impressions hadn't been favourable.
"Giles has invited us all to dinner tonight before we start filming. Isn't that marvellous?" Tim raised his eyebrows at her.
"That's very kind." Fae was quick enough to pick up the signal.
Giles smiled at her, his gaze lingering just a fraction of a second too long on her bust before raising his gaze to her face. "The pleasure is all mine. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all better before the filming."
She suppressed a shudder as his dark eyes locked on her face. "John and I will look forward to it."
At the mention of her boyfriend, Giles's lips thinned before stretching into a smile that she suspected was as fake as her own. "I'll see you later, then. Seven o'clock in the dining room." He nodded at Tim and strode away.
"Ugh, I'll be glad when we finish up here. I have no idea if anything spooky will show up tonight, darling. I've trawled the records with our historian, and I can't find anything very substantial about this house except for Giles's claims of a poltergeist." Tim huffed and plucked a piece of lint from the shoulder of his jacket.
"Then why are we here? I thought we only filmed at places that had definite reported sightings?"
Tim was usually scrupulous about the choice of locations. It was his skill that had made Ghost UK one of the most watched programmes on TV.
Tim slipped his arm through hers and drew her away from where John was busy with the lighting. "Between you and me, darling, it's not my idea. I would have turned him down, but orders from higher up…" He tapped the side of his nose with one finger.
Fae frowned. "He pulled strings?"
Tim nodded. "I just hope we get something on camera tonight, or it's going to be the most boring show we've ever done."
"And the waste of a Valentine's night." Fae huffed out a breath and stamped her boot-clad feet against the wooden floor in an attempt to restore the circulation to her toes. Spending an evening hunting down a poltergeist in a lonely Scottish Manor house was not how she'd envisaged her Valentine date. She'd hoped for a romantic Italian meal for two and a big bouquet of red roses.
She stared at John. Instead she was saddled with her producer; mad Mags, her makeup lady; two technicians; and a creepy host who kept talking to her chest.
"Never mind, darling. At least you and Flash are here together. Poor Trevor is stuck at the apartment with Mr. Tibbles, our cat, and a ready meal for one." Tim's plump face drooped.
"I bet Trev will make it up to you when you get home."
"You're right." Tim gave her arm a reassuring pat. "I'm sure Flash will do something wonderful for you, too." He wandered away to check up on the camera crew.
The heels of Fae's boots clacked abnormally loudly on the wooden floorboards as she moved back toward John. "I'm going to head up to my room to try to warm up before dinner. It's freezing in here."
"Good idea. I gather His Lairdship is entertaining us this evening?" Flash muttered a curse under his breath as a wire came loose from the lamp in his hand.
"Hopefully, he'll have put the heating on by then."
"Tim says they're lighting fires in all the large rooms. Should give us some good atmosphere for later, although I'm not sure if it'll do much to warm this place up." He cast a disparaging look around the dingy room. The words had no sooner left his lips than a bent, elderly woman scuttled crab-like into the room and started to place kindling in the fireplace.
"I guess I'll see you at dinner, then." Fae shivered and wondered if she could get away with wearing yet another layer under her sweater.
"Maybe His Lairdship will have the whisky open."
She frowned at his reply.
****
John watched as she headed out of the room. Lately, it seemed he couldn't say or do the right thing, where Fae was concerned. He wasn't looking forward to the evening ahead of them any more than she was. Until Tim had sprung his hare-brained scheme for a live Valentine's show on them, John had planned a very different kind of evening with Fae.
Tonight he should have been enjoying an intimate dinner with her at their favourite restaurant, hoping he could put some romance back into their relationship. Instead they were to freeze to death in a cavernous and dingy dining room with the rest of the production team. Worse still, that lecherous creep, Giles, would be ogling Fae at every opportunity.
The room seemed to be growing colder by the minute. The elderly woman finished her ministrations by the fireplace, and a dull orange glow filled the hearth, accompanied by lots of smoke.
The tech staff had gone from the corridor as John crossed the room to stand closer to the meagre fire. No
doubt they had slipped off to the kitchen in an attempt to scrounge up more mugs of tea. He was tempted to go join them, but he really wanted to finish setting up the lighting and placing the motion sensors first.
Silence hugged him like a shroud as he concentrated on tightening the final connection. His breath formed ghostly clouds in the chill air. The fire next to him offered no more heat than a candle.
A growing sense of unease forced its way into his senses, raising goosebumps on his skin. John lifted his head, certain he was no longer alone in the room. At first he couldn't see the cause of the sensation.
A change in the shadows in the far corner of the room, next to a dusty case containing a long-dead fox, caught his gaze. A soft snicking sound followed, like a door being closed quietly. He blinked, unsure if he had imagined the momentary distortion in the oak panelling.
Silence returned to the room. John placed the sensor he had been working on down on the floor and made his way to the corner, trying to ignore the dead fox's glass-eyed stare. His trainers were quieter on the boards beneath his feet than Fae's heels had been.
The corner where he thought he'd seen the movement was the farthest from the window, and it was difficult to see if anything was out of place. Nevertheless, John was pretty certain he'd spotted something and that the strange little sound he'd heard had come from this corner of the room.
He fished in the pocket of his jeans for the tiny spotlight he carried whenever he was at work. No larger than a pencil, it was worth its weight in gold when he had an awkward spot that he needed to get a light into.
He switched it on and shone the narrow beam of light along the panelling. At first he couldn't see anything that looked as if it had been disturbed. A fine film of dust coated the surface of the oak.
He crouched down and shone the beam at a different angle. He was rewarded by a glint of something shining in a narrow crevice in the wood. Only closer inspection revealed the fishing line running along the edge of the panelling to disappear down at floor level behind the glass case containing the stuffed fox.
"Ah, so that's your game, is it, Laird Giles?" John muttered.
He stood and, with the beam of his flashlight, traced the line back up the wall until he found the spot where it vanished into the wood.
"Now, let's see what we have here." He ran his fingers along the panel, feeling for the depression he knew had to be there.
"Gotcha!" He pressed a small indentation in the panel, and a hidden door clicked open with the same soft sound that had caught his attention only a few minutes earlier.
John shone his torch into the dark space behind the door. He guessed that at some point in the history of the house, the hideaway had probably been a priest hole. There was just enough room for a man to stand upright inside. He felt the wood at the back of the space until he found a small depression that matched the one he'd used to open the secret door.
Once more there was a small click under his fingers, and a second door opened into the dining hall, where they were all to eat in a few hours' time.
"Fae is going to love this!" He smiled to himself as he noticed the fishing line extended into the dining room towards the seat at the head of the table.
He closed both doors and blew on the dusty panels to hide the fingerprints he'd made in searching for the latch. It appeared Giles had taken precautions against the poltergeist failing to show that night.
Maybe dinner would prove to be rather exciting, after all.
Chapter Two
Fae had barely finished swaddling herself in layers of knitted garments and her duvet in an attempt to get warm when a knock sounded at her bedroom door.
"Coming." She wriggled out from under her covers and went to the door.
John leaned against the doorjamb, his eyes glinting with excitement. "I think we're in for a fun evening."
"Oh?" Fae folded her arms across her chest and waited for him to elaborate.
"After you came up here, something weird happened downstairs." His grin widened as he filled her in on the hidden fishing line and the priest hole linking the main room and dining room.
"We can't let him get away with that! The show is going out live at eleven. Our reputation is based on being genuine. Does Tim know what you found?" Fae was appalled that Giles would go to such extremes.
The dimple in John's cheek deepened. "No, I came straight up here to tell you. I thought it might be more fun to expose him on air."
"Tim told me that Giles has some powerful friends. That's why we got sent here, not because there is any real history of paranormal shenanigans." The sense of unease that had been plaguing her ever since she'd arrived intensified as she considered John's plan.
"Come on, Fae," he wheedled.
"You do know we could both get sacked?"
"Not if we just find his trickery by accident as the show is live."
"Give me a minute to unwrap a few layers. I think we should do some more snooping before dinner."
John kissed the tip of her nose. "That's my girl."
He waited outside her door for her to rearrange her clothes so she could move more easily. "This house is so cold, I swear it must be warmer outside," she grumbled.
"You're probably right." He slipped his arm around her waist and gave her a quick squeeze. The contact reassured her and lifted her spirits. Lately she'd begun to wonder if John had started to go cool on her. All their time together was eaten up with work projects leaving little time for romance.
"I'll show you what I found." He steered her towards the carved oak staircase leading to the lower floor.
"Wait!" Fae clutched at his sweater as the sound of voices floated up the stairwell toward them.
John raised his eyebrows in silent enquiry but followed her lead to creep a little further down the stairs without whoever was in the hall hearing them.
Fae peeped around the bend in the staircase to see Giles talking into his mobile phone. "I need more time. I'll have the money for you in the next few weeks."
Her pulse quickened, and she flattened back against the wall when Giles cast a furtive glance around the hallway.
"No, I'm not bluffing. The show is going out live tonight. Visitor numbers should soar. I'll be able to raise some more capital then. No, you don't need to come down."
Fae looked at John. He looked as shocked as she felt by Giles's conversation.
"No, it's okay. I've fixed everything. Nothing can go wrong. Stay where you are. Trust me, I'll have the money in no time." Giles ended his call and strode away in the direction of the kitchens.
"Whew. What did you make of that, then?" Fae sagged back against the wall of the stairwell.
"Hmm, sounds as if Giles has a few financial problems."
"Yes, and he's planning on using Ghost UK to fix them." Fae's temper began to bubble.
"Then we need to fix his little red wagon, as you showbiz types say." John smiled at her, the twinkle in his eyes defusing her anger.
"You're right. Let's get busy."
He led the way to the secret hideaway he'd discovered earlier in the main room.
"How on earth did he hope to get away with this?" Fae muttered when she saw the fishing line. She snapped a few pictures on her phone to keep as a record of Giles's trickery.
"I think it's rigged to tip those books from the small table next to this case, and then, of course, the line would vanish from sight inside the priest hole."
Fae scowled. "We'd better take a good look around and see what other delights he's set up for us. Tim said we're mainly filming in here, in the dining room, and upstairs in the old nursery. Giles claims those are the hot spots."
"What do you bet the nursery is rigged? I bet he saw the programme we did at Mayfield Castle with the nursing chair that rocked by itself." John followed behind her as she set off back toward the stairs.
A shiver ran up her spine at the memory. "Now that place really was spooky."
The nursery was in a separate wing of the manor. A small stair
case branched off from the first floor landing to take them towards the old staff wing and children's area.
Fae dropped her voice to a murmur as they approached the nursery. "Do any of the staff still live in the house?"
"I think so. There's an elderly lady I've seen setting the fires in the hearths. I’ve been told her husband takes care of the odd jobs around the place and looks after the grounds. The cook and a cleaner travel in from the village."
The nursery door creaked as Fae pushed it open. She felt along the wall for the old-fashioned light switch. "Tim told me Giles was divorced a few years ago. No children. He's lived here alone ever since." She gazed around the room illuminated by the weak ceiling light and struggled to suppress a shudder.
The only sign that anyone had entered the room for years was a blue metal toolbox which had been left near the skirting board with a freshly installed extension cable, showing that the electricians had checked the circuits.
A battered grey rocking horse stood forlornly under the window, red leather bridle drooping from painted lips. Glass-eyed porcelain dolls sat in a formal arrangement in the corner, grouped around a set of dusty china teacups.
A small stack of storybooks stood on top of the bookshelf as if the young reader had been called for supper and abandoned the room before clearing away.
"This is eerie." John stepped from behind Fae and entered the room.
Fae followed him. "Why has it been left like this?" She ran her finger over the corner of the table and frowned at the smudge of dirt on her finger. "Does no one ever clean?"
John prowled around the room. "I suspect some of this is for our benefit. Add a little atmosphere." He turned the handle on the tall, white-painted wooden cupboard built into the wall at the side of the fireplace.
Fae shrieked and clutched at the back of his sweater as a large white object toppled towards them, landing on the floor with a resounding crash.
"It's okay. Somebody placed a mop in here, and it was snagged on an old dust sheet."
