by Cat Knight
Belle was left sitting there, a choked sob escaping despite how hard she tried to hold it back. Sam came around the corner into her room, concern plastered on his chiselled features.
“Belle… Belle, are you okay…”
“Get off me!” she snapped over her shoulder as he laid a hand on her arm. He stepped back as asked, hands raised in a don’t-shoot motion.
“Hey, hey, take it easy. You just thought you saw something, that’s all. You’ve watched too many haunted house movies and not got enough sleep. Your real is getting all mixed up in your not-real. Let’s try and sit on the bed, yeah?”
“Just leave it, Sam.” Belle’s voice was a little calmer when she spoke, but still rung with despair. She shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Just… go get back to work or something, please? I really want to be alone.”
He did so, closing the door politely behind him. Belle remained on the floor where he left her until she heard the rumble of tires pulling away on gravel once his work was done.
After that, she crawled straight back into bed, clothes and all, pulling the duvet over her head. She was so tired. So very tired…
Chapter Twelve
She was between and betwixt sleep when she heard loud scraping noises. Rolling over to her side Belle saw a man dressed in what she knew to be period pants and tailcoat. He was, in some way, familiar to her. His face handsome yet hard. The man had pulled the wardrobe away from the wall revealing a small concealed door, that opened to a cavity in the wall. Whatever is he doing?
“What are you doing? What’s going on?” The words sounded in her head, though she was sure she spoke them; she’d been extra tired tonight. Was this what they called a lucid dream? He walked over and sat at the side of the bed, close enough that she could smell the alcohol on his breath and cigars on his clothes. “I’m afraid, Florabel… that we need to end our time together.”
She gave a yelp when he pulled her from the bed. Quick as a flash he rushed her against the wall. A floral scent filled the room, filling her nostrils, the one she had noticed the other day. The man’s eyes flashed with a moment of indecision, replaced quickly by deadly intent. His hands closed around her neck.
Disbelief dulled Belle’s senses for a moment, then - “What are you doing, let go of me!” Belle screamed, writhing and fighting terror coursing through her. “Let me go, let me go” Pressure pounded through her head as he squeezed, she could feel her eyes bugging. Her throat burned and she rasped “George, please don’t do it.” Belle mind was reeling, she knew her assailant, how did she know him? Oh GOD. HELP ME.
Disgust burned in his eyes. “You let her die. I want a new wife, and one with a better dowry than you came with. Gladys will make a fine match once you’re gone.”
“George, no... no.... It was the fever. I couldn’t stop it. She waits for us beyond the grave. There’s a man, his name is Thomas…” Belle’s voice came in rasps. George threw his head back and laughed. “Thomas? I suppose you wondered why Thomas didn’t come for you today. I sent him away, he’s on his way to India. A very substantial amount of coin in his pocket.” Her mind grappled with his meaning, her eyes fixed on him, staring in horror. “Poor Florabel, such an innocent after-all.”
Belles heart thumped loudly through her body, she pushed at him but he held her firm. She remembered the disdain of the butler and the whispering servants.
“Thomas is not my lover, there’s nothing between us.” George threw his head back and laughed again.
“Ah!! But neither is he a psychic, only if he’s paid. And he was paid well. By now all the servants whisper he is your lover, the whole town is talking. And by morning they’ll know you’ve run off with him.” His hands tightened around her neck. Her throat burned with the pain, a terrible parching came over her, gasping for her last breaths it seemed her lungs would explode.
Hitting and kicking, she tried to fight him off, but her energy depleted. Black spots floated in front of her eyes. From a distance, she heard him say “I’m sorry Florabel, but I have no more use for you, and you have to leave.” The next thing she knew she was looking down on herself from the other side of the wall, she realised then, that she had been killed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Belle’s eyes snapped open to darkness. The noise niggled at her ears. Her throat burned, the taste of vomit filled her mouth and she gasped for breath. Wailing and sobbing sounds moaned somewhere close by. Flinging her arms out she felt the wood around her.
The soft brush of fabric fell against her hands, her face. She let out a whimpering cry of relief. “I’m not dead, I’m not dead, I’m not dead.” But then a paralyzing fear set in.
She knew where she was, and she could guess what had occurred, but what would happen now? She had to get out. Get out of this house. Her nose was full of the floral smell sickeningly overpowering, and when her breathing quieted she realised that the wailing sobbing was coming from the other side of the wood.
Something touched Belle’s cheek, a ghost of breath on her face. She screamed. Hit out. Flailed, beat her fists against all sides of the wardrobe, but despite the fact that there was no lock on the doors inside or out she couldn’t get free. She slammed her hands against the wood, tears of horror pouring down her face.
“Let me out!” Over the sound of her own voice, she heard another, softer but somehow even more afraid, speaking with her in perfect unison “Let me out.” Suddenly the doors swung open and she tumbled free, getting to her feet as quickly as she could and looking around, wide eyed. As though out of thin air, a face appeared before hers, the same brown curls, pale skin and blue eyes of the woman in the painting.
She froze as they regarded each other with equal fear in their eyes. The apparition opened its mouth to speak.
Before Belle would give it the chance, she sped past it and out to the hallway, throwing herself down the stairs and into the living room slamming the door behind her. Leaning against it and heaving for breath, sobs wracked her body. Camille opened her eyes from her slumber and jumped up.
“Belle?!” Taking her niece by the arm she led her over to the chair.
“I saw it auntie. I saw her. Why didn’t you just tell me?” Belle could see her aunt scrutinizing her.
“She only cries when you move her things around.”
A hush fell over Belle as she looked at her auntie. “You do know!”
“I told you not to do it, asked you many times.”
“Why? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wouldn’t have believed me. And I wanted her to be left alone, so she wouldn’t cry and you know… disturb us. She wanders mostly at night, I find she’s better if someone is up with her.”
“So that’s why you’re up all night – playing computer games? So, she has company?” Belles voice had risen to a high and squeaky pitch.
Camille’s face puckered into a ball and her eyes disappeared in into small pockets.
“But Auntie, all these years? Living like – this.” She waved her hands around. Camille’s face un-crumpled and her eyes beseeched Belle’s.
“I would have moved if I’d had the money. But to have the money I had to sell, and then I worried what would happen to her. People would move her things, maybe even – you know – try to get rid of her.
The wolfhound padded over, seemingly oblivious that Camille had just dropped a bombshell. He laid himself across Belle’s lap. She ran her fingers through his thick fur and closed her eyes. What are we going to do now?
Sam hurried over the moment that she called, hearing the urgency in her tone but incapable of getting much sense out of her. Together they pushed the old heavy wardrobe away from the wall. “Oh my God, there it is!” Belle traced her fingers around a faint outline on the wall. “We’re going to need to get that off. Aunty? Do you mind?”
“No of course not Beauty, I think it’s what has to happen if she’s to find any peace.” Sam looked from one to the other, confusion and a hint of apprehension showing
on his face.
“It’s OK Sam, I can explain later. I just think there’s something in there.”
Belle’s hand flew to the necklace which seemed to burn ice hot through her clothing. “I think Florabel Ferncoombe is in there.”
Sam looked from Belle to the hidden door. Without another word, he ran to his car and returned with an armful of tools. Running a chisel around the indentation, Sam worked at it until it was free from the wall. He worked it in, prising hard at the seams and around the latch. With a squeak, it popped open. Pulling it wide, Sam knelt low and stuck his head into the dusty, dark cavernous hole.
Belle pushed in next to him, but there was only room for one. Sam shone a torch into the cavity and backed out with an unreadable expression on his face. “What is it? Let me see!” Belle grabbed the torch and ducked down into the cavity.
“Belle, don’t…” Ignoring him, Belle knelt down and leaned in, shining the torch around her. The necklace fell forward out into space as she leaned in. Instinctively, Belle grabbed at it to put it under her clothing, it burned like ice in her hand. There in the corner of a tiny hiding room, lay a bunch of old bones.
Belle gave a small cry. The bones were mostly fallen to pieces, the human skull grinning out at her. Sensing her thoughts Sam called to her, “Leave it alone Belle, let’s call the police.” Belle, Camille and Sam sat vigil until the police and forensics arrived. Sam remained in shocked silence, mostly, while Belle and Camille filled him in.
It was two weeks later that forensic archaeologists confirmed what Belle and Camille knew to be true. The unfortunate woman had died in her twenties.
She was Caucasian, right handed, and had given birth, but even more telling was that one femur bone was significantly shorter than the other, which would have caused a noticeable significant limp. And fit perfectly with the known details of Florabel Ferncoombe.
Epilogue
It was a Thursday when they buried her in a small peaceful garden planted out with lavenders and myosotis. A plaque sat atop the small grave that housed her remains, a broken rose adorned it, and the inscription read
Florabel Ferncoombe nee Chenoweth. A devoted mother. A faithful wife. Cruelly deprived of her life 1894. Together again with her beloved child Elizabeth.
All of Florabel’s dresses and jewellery had been donated to the Bodmin Historical Society. Florabel’s story was set in a total of eight plaques beneath her portrait. Her dresses, hats, jewellery, stones, ornaments and the baby bracelet were displayed behind a protected glass showcase. Even Florabel’s antique furniture was on display. The scratching in the wardrobe, drew sceptics and psychics from everywhere.
Some claimed Florabel still remained, clinging to her belongings. But it wasn’t true. The hauntings had ceased from the time Florabel’s remains were discovered.
“Belle?” A timid knock on the door had her turning around at her desk.
“Belle may I speak to you a moment?” Camille poked her head in the door, where Belle was busy working on an article her fingers flying over the keys. The sound of granite stones being banged into place to form quaint, higgledy-piggledy walls and flowerbeds drifted through the open window as well as a beam of early winter sunlight. She stopped for a moment, stretched, linking her fingers and feeling the bones in her back loosen. Bit by bit the shoulder and neck pains that had been a bane to her for years, were slowly dissipating.
Camille was laden with a tray of tea and biscuits. There were two cups, one for her, one for her aunt. That usually meant that the older woman wished to talk about something. Belle felt nervous.
“Hey Auntie. Oh, thanks so much,” she murmured, taking her cup. “Listen. I’m really sorry that I’ve been so much trouble over these past weeks. What with the…” she motioned to the freshly-plastered wall at one end of her room, and new furniture replacing all of the antiques. Camille waved a hand, nearly spilling her tea.
“No, no. I don’t want to hear that for a second. I really like having my own things out now. And the house is so much - lighter since the dust is gone. And some of those old pieces of mine – I’d forgotten I ever had them.” A brief silence fell over her and she looked around, the room and toward the ceiling. “But it was a bit of a shock to find that I grieved for her, I even miss her in a little way.”
Camille’s eyes had a glassy look about them. Belle reached over and put her hands over her aunt’s. “As weird as it is to miss a ghost, you would be less than human not to grieve for someone you sort of took care of for the last twenty years.
Hey Auntie, look at this.” she tapped on the mouse of her laptop, pulling up a tab. It was a website for an estate agent. “Just a couple more advances on my articles, and I should be good to put down the deposit to this place. It’s right in Bodmin town, so not too far… Auntie?” Camille was staring at the screen, looking a little crestfallen.
“Well… if you like it, and you want to leave, of course you must.” She fumbled with the collar of Belle’s shirt for a moment. “I just... Well, this is such a huge place and I was hoping, you know – you might stay here. In fact, I’ve been thinking. How would you like to see the entire place done up? Maybe we could renovate the other west bedroom into a kitchen… maybe with a little living area. It’d be like a house in a house. What do you think?” You know like a granny flat, but it’d be a niece's flat. You can even have a separate entrance from the back door.” Belle stared at her with wide eyes.
“You’d do that? For me? But…” A teasing glint came into her eye. “I thought it was best to leave things as they are?”
Camille gave her a gentle whack with the tea towel resting on her bony shoulder. Belle giggled and Camille gave her a pretend fierce look.
“I’m allowed to be wrong sometimes, my girl – it doesn’t happen very often though. Anyway, the offer’s there if you want it. We’ll talk more over dinner… and we’re eating out tonight. My treat.”
“Thanks Auntie.” Belle smiled, warm and genuine. Camille smiled back, taking the tray and leaving the room to ‘let her work’, but the writer at the desk had other plans.
Taking her tea in hand, she descended the stairs and walked out into the garden, where Sam sat enjoying his own. She stared at him for a moment, drinking in the sight of him sitting in the sun, his black hair almost shining blue under the rays.
He turned to notice her, and she saw, for just a moment, the way his face lit up. “Take a picture, might last longer,” he jested. Belle laughed but said nothing in response, sitting beside him as they looked out onto the garden, which was now becoming more than piles of rubble and dirt, tools and uprooted weeds. The beds were freshly raked and filled with peat, the statues scrubbed clean where they could be. Belle leaned against Sam slightly, feeling the cool breeze on her face and hearing the songs of the birds.
“You know,” she murmured, breathing a long sigh of what could only be relief, “I think, someday soon… this is really going to be something beautiful.” Sam looked down at her, but said nothing. He didn’t need to ask what she meant. The corners of his mouth tweaked up. “Me too,” he replied, as the wind picked up merrily, whipping up the last of the Autumn leaves in a sea of colour around them.
THE END
THE HAUNTING OF HIGHCLIFF HALL
CAT KNIGHT
©Copyright 2017 Cat Knight
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Highcliff Hall
Tràchd Romhra
Anglo-Scottish Border
1702
Mallory was a great beauty. Her hair was fair, nigh to a silvery moon, her eyes sparkled blue as the ocean, encircled with a light green ring. It was not a surprise that the Laird Spruce would seek to take the nubile blonde-haired beauty who held the promise of lips as sweet as cherries. His loins stirred when he heard the talk of her from the lewd tongues of his men.
Now, someone had betrayed her, perhaps in exchange for keeping their tongue from being severed from its filthy mouth.
Unannounced he rode thr
ough the village, until he found her and brought her to his keep. Mallory’s weeping could be heard for days and nights throughout the Hall. He roared with laughter when they brought her betrothed to him.
Young and strong, but no match for the men of the keep, they caught him on his mission to free young Mallory. But Instead of fleeing with her to safety, he now stood manacled to the wall of Spruce’s dungeon.
Spruce tortured him with descriptions of the lustful deflowering, holding the blood-stained garments to his face. Fury contorted young MacDougal’s body as he tore at the chains that bound him. Unable to free himself he spat at the Laird. It caught him fair in the left eye. Spruce beat MacDougal till he almost died. That night, the Laird Spruce relayed the sordid tale to Mallory. If she treated Spruce well, Spruce would let MacDougal live, but if she did not perform her duties willingly, MacDougal would rot in the manacles that bound him.
Mallory paled, whiter than her hair, for she knew, in the end, the Laird would torture Ian MacDougal to death. The next day with her head covered, disguised as a crone, she slipped from the castle after knocking out the servant girl he brought to tend her needs. Once clear of the gate, Mallory ran, her heart beating like thunder in her chest. There would be no escape, save one. When she reached the cliff-edge she didn’t stop.
When Laird Spruce learned of the loss of his fair young conquest, rage took him. Calling on his henchman, Spruce sped to the dungeon. MacDougal was beaten to his last breath, and with it he brought the curse of hell down on the Laird. Whomever was born from his loins would not survive it, but the shadow of death would follow them until the last Spruce was wiped from the earth. And even to the men that protected this spawn of evil, all would be cast to the pit of hell along with their Laird for eternity. MacDougal’s body was left to rot chained to the dungeon walls.
