by Neil Jackson
Boxes of finds, the treasured results of half a dozen excavations which, until just a few weeks before, had been carefully stacked and catalogued on shelves along one wall of the laboratory awaiting closer examination and description, were now piled in a confused and unrecorded mound in in one corner of the room. Already some of the boxes had split and sherds of Roman Mortaria and scarlet Samian ware – perhaps even the piece that had distracted Deacon on the day he first saw the spirit – lay scattered across the floor. Carefully ordered volumes of books and journals were now piled around the room, seemingly dumped anywhere when no place could immediately be found for them in Deacon’s new order. In short the whole scene was one of the utmost turmoil.
But whatever the confusion into which the laboratory had descended it was immediately clear exactly what had been the aim of this reorganisation, though that term can be applied only loosely. For Deacon’s desk, the dark chunk of Victorian furniture at which he would sit to write reports, collate data and answer his correspondence, had been dragged forth from its position under the windows. It was a position it had occupied, as best I could tell, for many decades and to which it was admirably suited given the natural light that would illuminate whatever work was being conducted there. Now it had been dragged, pushed and cajoled across the concrete floor, through scattered and crushed artefacts and torn papers, to be installed in a new position, just inside the room right in front of the door leading onto the landing and stairwell. It was a position from which the occupant of the chair, which stood behind the desk, could observe the stairs at all times and gain access to them in a moment.
It took no great feat of deduction to realise why Deacon had so disrupted his working environment though the realisation of what he had been attempting since last we met sent a chill hand stroking down my spine. Unable to uncover the secrets of the apparition that continued to haunt both the stairwell and his own tortured psyche, the archaeologist had decided on a more direct approach to the problem. His aim was simple; to intercept the ghost of the girl on the stairs and try to communicate with her directly. To a sane man it would seem a dangerous and foolhardy course but to Deacon, now sunk into an obsessive madness from which he could find no release, it was a simple plan that would provide the answer to all his questions and so release him from his burden.
The man himself was there in the room, slumped across his desk just in front of me, clearly alive – I had entertained momentary fears about that point as I climbed the stairs - but also in a deep sonorous sleep. I stood for a moment looking at him trying to form some plan as to how to approach him without causing alarm, but even as I watched he stirred, muttered something unintelligible and raised his head to regard me through half opened, black rimmed eyes.
“Wh...who’s there...who, oh...” he sat upright in the chair, rubbed his hand across his face and focused his eyes upon me more steadily. “Doctor? Doctor Trenton? What are you doing here? I thought... I thought it was her..I...” The sentence remained unfinished and a pregnant pause hovered between us.
“Good evening Matthew.” I regarded him for a moment with a mixture of disappointment and concern. “I would ask how you are but I can see from the state of your office and your person that all is not well with you.”
He mumbled something again and rose. He did at least have the good grace to look embarrassed. Stepping further into the room in response to an assumed invitation I noticed that a low cot was arranged along the wall behind the desk and concluded that it was many nights since the archaeologist had occupied his lodgings above the chemist’s shop in the corner of the market square.
He was moving into the centre of the laboratory; the only relatively clear space amongst the jetsum of his ruined work. I winced as a grinding snap marked the destruction of another piece of pottery under his uncaring boots. I had planned to approach things carefully so as to avoid any chance of the meeting degenerating once again into a confrontation but now that I saw the depths into which my friend’s life had descended I forgot my caution and launched a desperate plea for sanity.
“What has happened to you Matthew? What have you done to your laboratory, to your work? Can’t you see that you have put everything at risk with this mad obsession of yours?”
He stood amidst the wreckage of his life, eyes closed, unshaven face turned to the heavens, bearing a look of desperate resignation. When he spoke his voice was broken, reflecting his shattered spirit.
“She would not let me be. Never, not for a moment. She was always there, waiting, watching, whispering to me. Urging me on to...to find the answers. To help her. Doctor,” he looked at me directly for the first time, “I was only trying to help her, only trying to do something right, something honourable. Would you have acted in any other way if you had been the one she asked?”
I regarded him with pity for a moment, convinced that his mind had finally broken under the strain of these last, lost weeks of solitude. At what point he had begun to create the voice that he claimed had guided him in his search I could not tell. Certainly I believe it was at some time after our last meeting. But that was immaterial. It was clear now that, as he had become more desperate, he had searched within himself for reassurance and had found a cause, a mission if you like, to free the spirit from its eternal climb into oblivion. And when he had finally realised that his searching would yield no salvation for either the spirit or himself he had chosen this new course.
When I did not immediately answer his question he continued. “I see her so often now, every day, sometimes many times a day.” He laughed, a bitter cackle devoid of joy. “Ironic isn’t it? For all those years, the only person in the history of this whole benighted place who has never seen her and now? Now I can’t stop seeing her. Day and night, over and over again she opens that front door and climbs those stairs right past that door,” he pointed a shaking hand towards the entrance behind me, “ half a dozen times a day sometimes and just as many at night. And every time I hear her coming I try to get onto the landing to catch her... I try to get out of the door so I am close enough to se her face, anything that might give me a clue as to who she is. But she is always past me before I can reach her. No matter how hard I tried, how quick I was to realise that she was coming through the door, I could never get onto the landing before she was climbing the second flight of stairs. And when I tried to follow her up it was as if I were walking through tar, as if it were a dream, one of those dreams from which you think you will never awaken.” He slumped back against the wooden bench and gave a low moan of despair “perhaps it is a dream. Perhaps I am fated never to awaken.”
“It is no dream Matthew. This is your life and you need to reclaim it. If you do not then...well, I was going to say that your future employment at the museum was in jeopardy but I fear that may be the very least of our concerns.”
Deacon remained silent. The news that he might forfeit his position at the museum did not seem to give rise to any greater concern than that which he already felt and I suspect that, at this moment, he would consider it a blessing if he escaped having lost nothing more than his reputation and his position.
“In truth, it may already be too late to save your position here at the museum and I feel that, even were you able to retain your post, it might be unwise for you to remain. This place, these offices, I fear you would soon succumb once again to the madness that has led you to this sorry state. It might be for the best if you were to seek employment elsewhere away from that accursed staircase and its spirit.”
The gaze he bestowed upon me was filled with sad resignation. “You are right of course. I cannot remain here after all that has occurred.”
Drawing himself up from the bench, he had apparently decided upon his course of action, though it was clear that it was not one which he would have followed willingly. Never the less I was relieved to see this new determination in my young friend which spoke much to me of his resilience under the most difficult of circumstances.
He turned to look about his labora
tory, taking in, perhaps for the first time in many weeks, the chaos that his madness had wrought upon the place. He shook his head slightly and turned to me with a new air of resolve.
“Thank you doctor, thank you for coming to help me. You may return to the directors and inform them that I will put my affairs in order here and will then meet with them in the morning to discuss the swift resolution of this matter. You may assure them that no scandal will be associated with the museum and that I will follow their direction, and yours, in the matter of my future.”
I regarded the young man for a moment, searching for any sign of deception but saw nothing in his tired but honest features that would indicate any falsehood.
“Good. I am greatly relieved that you have come to your senses over this matter and I am sure that you are making the right decision. You will find that once you leave this place behind you the memory will quickly fade.” I smiled warmly at him. “You are a young man with a great future ahead of you. This small lapse of good sense will soon seem nothing more than a bad dream I assure you.”
I turned towards the door and, when I reached the landing, looked back at Deacon who had moved to behind his strangely placed desk. “I will of course speak on your behalf with the directors and I am sure that they will do all they can to ensure your reputation is untarnished and that a new place of employment is found for you with all possible speed. Do what you must to put the laboratory in some semblance of order but then do go back to your rooms. Do not stay here tonight. There is nothing for you here now. The nightmare is over. Tomorrow you start your life anew.”
For the first time since I had disturbed him, a genuine smile appeared on Deacon’s face. It was slight but it was there, more in his eyes than on his lips but a good sign none the less.
“Goodnight Dr Trenton, and thank you.”
“Goodnight Matthew. Sleep well. I look forward to taking tea with you tomorrow.”
“Perhaps. We can discuss that tomorrow.” He turned away from the landing, back into the room, not bothering to see me descend into the shadows of the stairs and leave the building by that strange, haunted door.
4
That was the last time I ever saw Matthew Deacon in life or in death. The following morning his laboratory was found to be returned to its former, well ordered state and there was little sign of the turmoil that had been so apparent only the evening before. All the artefacts were returned to their racks, the books to their shelves and the equipment and furniture to the positions it had occupied for so many years before Deacon’s mania. Anyone entering the office on that warm August morning would have had no suggestion that anything had been amiss. But there was one thing that was missing from this scene of scientific study. Of the archaeologist himself there was no sign.
Initially this did not give cause for concern as I had already reported to the directors on the previous evening that I had advised him to return to his lodgings for some sleep once he had finished in the laboratory. When I arrived at the museum at just before ten he had still not made an appearance but given his obvious exhaustion this was not unexpected, if a little foolish given the precariousness of his position with his superiors. By eleven I had begun to have some concerns and asked that one of the curators be dispatched to his lodgings to enquire as to his health. The man returned inside twenty minutes to report that Mr Deacon had not returned to his lodgings on the previous evening, in fact had not been seen by his landlord or neighbours for a number of weeks.
On hearing this news and with a cold fear rising within me, I accompanied the directors up to the laboratory to examine the scene in the hope of ascertaining some clue as to Deacon’s whereabouts. It did not take a great detective to find the evidence for which we were searching. Lying upon the polished top of his large Victorian desk, now returned to its rightful position in front of the tall sash windows, was an envelope, addressed to myself and within it a single sheet of paper bearing a handwritten note. In a moment of bemused detachment I noted the fine steady hand in which the letter had been written. There was no sign of mania or undue mental stress and it could so easily have been a note inviting me to tea at the café that afternoon. To my eternal regret it was no such thing.
Dear Dr Trenton
I have chosen to address this last missive to your good self as, above all men, you have shown me such kindness and tolerance in these difficult times. For that I will be forever grateful.
I know this will be hard for you to understand but your visit last night really did achieve exactly the effect you desired. It freed me from my demons and allowed me to see clearly for the first time what I must do to ensure an end to this troubling state of affairs.
It is also clear that your visit had an effect on more than just myself. After you left I began to arrange my affairs in just the manner we discussed and, as I am sure you will agree, I have returned the laboratory to a state in which my successor should have no difficulty in picking up the tasks that I have unfortunately had to leave to his good care.
Although I was already aware of what the night would bring, I was reassured when, shortly after ten, I heard the familiar sound of the door at the foot of the stairs being opened and that light footfall upon the steps leading to my landing. I approached the door and found, just as I had expected that, for the first time, the lady in question had not passed me by on her ascent into the darkness but was instead stood at the foot of the second flight of stairs waiting for me. She was waiting for me Robert. And as I approached the door she turned her face to mine and I looked at last into those wonderful deep pools of light and love that were her eyes.
She awaits me now, just outside the door for she will not enter. I am to go with her into her world and I go, you may be assured, with a fearful yet joyful heart. At last I will know the truth of who she is and what fate brought her to this place. One day, perhaps, you too will know that answer. I will be awaiting you when you decide to take that journey.
Thank you again for all your kindness and be assured that I will remain, always, your friend,
Matthew
There was no more. No sign of my young friend was ever found though the museum and the police conducted their enquiries with the utmost diligence. The idea that he had actually left this life in the company of a ghostly apparition was never seriously considered and the authorities had little choice but to leave matter as unsolved.
After Matthew’s disappearance the post of conservator was left vacant and the duties of the position were transferred to the Shire Archaeologist and the University authorities. The laboratory was converted into storage rooms and, because there was now no need for so many secretarial staff, the offices were also transferred to the main museum buildings. As a result the old Victorian stairwell was visited far less often and encounters with ‘Maud’ became less frequent.
Not that they ended entirely. There were still sightings of the girl in the summer dress climbing the stairs into oblivion but the reports that returned to me were now subtly different. In all the many years that she had been climbing those stairs, not a word had ever been reported passing the lips of the apparition. But now, more often than not, sightings were accompanied by the sound of gentle laughter or whispered speech, as one would associate with lovers on a country walk. No word could be clearly heard but the tone was warm and carefree.
And on more than one occasion, although the spirit was apparently alone on the stairs, it was reported that her words were clearly answered by another voice, equally loving, warm and carefree. The voice of a young man. The voice, I have no doubt, of my good friend Matthew Deacon.
MYTH - Ian Faulkner
‘You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others
to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.’
--A.A. Milne (1882-1956)
53° 19.44' North Latitude 131° 57.31' West Longitude
Graham Island, British Columbia
McKinney wasn’t sure just how long the two of them had been running and
fighting their way through the dense forest. But it seemed like it had been a whole lifetime.
Deep scratches from the flaying branches they had been forcing themselves through must be covering his face, he realized, if the salty burn of his sweat was anything to go by.
He held up his trembling hands in front of him as he weaved forward up a slight rise, and through a rare area of clearing. He needed to know what kind of condition they were in.
They were lacerated too, he noted; raw and bloodied; fingers and palms bleeding from his efforts of tearing a path through dense copses of trees and entangled undergrowth that had cruelly hampered their flight.
Yet, strangely, he thought, they didn’t hurt him at all.
His lungs however, were another matter. They felt like a pair of shredded fluttering balloons contained in the raw burning cavern that was his chest. His shirt now adhered to his flesh; a flourishing new hide that was comprised of filthy ripped cotton combined with rank sweat and pungent fear.
McKinney had to stop, even if it were just for a few moments.
He gratefully came to a breath shuddering halt. Putting out a hand, he tried to support himself against the nearest cedar.
