Haunted Lancashire (The Haunting Of Books 1-3)

by Jack Lewis

  “Who’s watching us?”

  “Dad,” said Jane.

  Scarlett looked at the house again. “I can’t see him.”

  “At the window. In his study.”

  She looked up at the study window, but she was too far away to make out anything. The windows seemed dark. Was a figure stood there?

  “It can’t be Dad, anyway,” said Scarlett, turning away from the house. “He went into the village.”

  Jane shrugged and picked up a handful of pebbles. She flung them as hard as she could into the lake, grunting with effort. She smiled when they pierced the surface of the water. Scarlett was impressed by how far she threw them, but then, Jane was big for her age.

  Scarlett had been the same when she was eight. Despite their numerous similarities, there were plenty of differences, too. She had always wondered why Jane had blonde hair and hers was brown. Maybe when Jane was sixteen like her, it would darken. Perhaps blonde hair was something you had when you were young and innocent. As you matured and did things that only adults did, like Scarlett had, your hair lost its purity. She wanted Jane to stay as her little sister. In some ways, she wanted her to stay five-years-old forever.

  Gawthorpe was the kind of place that could trick you into thinking you could freeze time, since nothing ever changed. The gardens were an example of its timelessness.

  Near them, there was a rowboat moored up at the side of the lake. A paddle lay across it, but the wood was split and it looked like it might snap if someone used it. One end of a rope was tied to the boat, and the other end had been looped around an old tree stump. Both the boat and stump had been there for as long as she could remember.

  In the centre of the stump, something was carved into the rings. It was a symbol, a bunch of rough circles dissecting each other. Scarlett didn’t know who had done it, but it had been there ever since she was a girl. Maybe it had been done by some old member of her family, one of her Gawthorpe ancestors who were long dead.

  She’d die here too, someday. Whether through illness or old age, she’d draw her final breath in the estate, just as all her family had. Who knew, maybe it would even happen here, beside the lake.

  She shook away her morbid thoughts.

  “Watch this, Letty,” said Jane.

  She wound her arm back and then launched a scattering of stones into the lake, where they pierced the dark green water and slipped down into its depths.

  Scarlett thought she heard someone shout, but when she turned around, all she saw was the house. It would always be there. Always watching them, never making a sound, its great arched windows looking like eyes on an ageing face. She had come to realise that their family mansion was no place for a child to grow up.

  It was full of musky-smelling damp patches and crumbling walls. Its wooden doorframes had started to splinter, and most of the antique furniture was covered in dust.

  Sometimes, she used to cut a path through the dust with her finger, and then she’d check back months later and find that the house had covered it again. She was horrified to learn that dust was made of tiny bits of dead skin, which meant that the chairs and table of the house were coated in a human crust.

  As she grew up, she started to feel uneasy in the house. Gawthorpe was a place where the leaves didn’t just fall off the trees. They squirmed off the branches of their own accord, desperate to leave the limbs that bound them in place, hoping that they would be carried far away.

  The estate carried beauty and cruelty as one. It could be pleasant to look at sometimes, and Scarlett loved the ivy that crawled up the wall near the front door, even though the plants were doing their best to smother the brickwork. Every few months her father would have one of the maids trim the leaves away from the doorway. Left unchecked, they’d probably grow enough to completely block it. Sometimes she thought that the ivy was doing it to protect her, that it was spreading into the doorway to try and keep her out of the house.

  She knew what the people in the village said about their family home. People avoided the road nearby once the sun had fallen, even if it meant them taking a detour.

  They said that the air was colder near Gawthorpe and that amongst the spindly trees there was darkness thicker than anywhere else. It didn’t matter to Scarlett because Gawthorpe was her home, and she’d known no other.

  Jane wiped her hands on her dress and spread a smear of mud down it.

  “Mum’s going to kill you,” said Scarlett.

  Jane smiled. She walked over to a tree swing a few feet away from Scarlett. The trunk was old and rotten, and it had long scratches carved into it. The rope that held the swing in place had frayed so much that it was likely to snap with the slightest push.

  “Remember what I said,” Scarlett told her. “You don’t go on the tree swing until Dad fixes it.”

  “But he’s never going to do it.”

  “He said he’ll put some new rope on it next week.”

  “He always says that. I might as well do it myself.”

  Scarlett smiled. Jane was clever for her age, and she seemed to be maturing by the day. Beneath that, there was an innocence to her. As her big sister, Scarlett wanted to shield her from the world as much as possible. She wished she’d had someone do that for her because maybe she wouldn’t have been in the mess she was in now.

  “Scarlett?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How long has our house been there?”

  “Forever.”

  “And how long will it last?” asked Jane.

  “Forever.”

  “Even after Mum and Dad die?”

  Where was this coming from? Jane was a curious child, but she’d never talked about death before. Scarlett was surprised that her sister even understood the concept.

  “Yes, even after Mum and Dad leave us.”

  “Will it still be standing even after I die?”

  “Don’t talk that way.”

  It was no good trying to protect her. Everyone had to grow up sometime. It was happening to Scarlett, after all. She was only sixteen but she already had to keep a secret so terrible that she had nightmares about it.

  She put her hand on her belly and felt it, swearing that it seemed bigger than the day before. How long could she delay telling Dad?

  He’d be angry, she knew. Not just because she’d been so stupid, but because of her partner in crime. He was a boy in the village. Trev Thorne, son of Paul Thorne, a friendly man who owned a bakery. That was the part that would upset father the most, she knew. He’d tell Scarlett that she had sullied herself by being with Trev.

  Jane gave the swing another push and watched it sway. The rope twisted, and for a second looked like it might snap. Somehow, it held on. Jane faced Scarlett.

  “Can we play Catch a Thief?” she said.

  Scarlett shook her head. “That game’s better indoors.”

  “Please, Letty. I’ll tell dad you let me go on the rope swing if not.”

  “But I haven’t.”

  Jane gave a mischievous smile. “I know, but that’s what I’ll tell him.”

  She had to laugh at her sister’s ingenuity. “Fine, you cheeky bugger. One quick game, that’s all. Pass me your scarf.”

  Catch a Thief was a game that Scarlett’s cousin, Adam, invented. Adam used to visit Gawthorpe every summer and stay for a few weeks while his parents, Scarlett’s aunt and uncle, went on holiday. He and Scarlett were inseparable for those precious weeks. One summer, when they were both thirteen, Adam tried to show off for her.

  She could still remember it. Stood in front of the house, her neck aching as she stared up at its brickwork. She watched Adam, with his hands wrapped around a drainpipe, shimmy himself up the face of the house like a flea. He’d wagered her five pounds that he could climb to the roof.

  She thought he’d give up after a few feet. But there he was. Stood on the roof of Gawthorpe house, perilously close to the edge, the wind swirling up to meet him.

  That’s enough. Get down, she thought.
/>   She remembered a sick feeling in her stomach and the chill of the breeze on her face.

  She pictured him stood on the ledge with his arms spread wide as though he was the king of the world.

  ‘Told you!’ he shouted.

  And then he lurched forward.

  It happened violently as if someone had come from behind and pushed him. Her stomach turned to water as she watched him fall, his arms and legs flailing.

  She knew that for the rest of her life, she’d remember two things; the look on his face as he fell, and the horrible scream he made as the ground rushed to meet him.

  “Come on, Letty,” said Jane.

  Her sister reached up and tugged on the scarf around her neck. Scarlett felt it unravel, and then her skin was naked against the wind. She remembered that she had a mark on her neck that she needed to hide, and that was why she wore the scarf, despite how hideous it was.

  Jane stretched the scarf out with her hands. Scarlett took it from her and closed her eyes. Catch a Thief was an easy game, but Jane took an unusual amount of pleasure from it.

  The idea was simple. One person tied something around their eyes so that they couldn’t see anything. The other person would start fifty paces back, and they would have to slowly creep up on them. If the thief got close enough to the blindfolded person to touch them, they won. But if the blind person heard them, they had to shout ‘Stop, thief!’ and the game was over. If the thief won, they got to keep an object of their choosing that the blindfolded person had with them.

  She gripped the scarf between her hands and pulled, and she felt the cotton stretch out. She knew it would feel rough around her eyes, but she could never say no to Jane. It was as though her little sister had a power over her, and that Scarlett would do anything for her.

  She closed her eyes and then wrapped the scarf around her face. Once it was over her eyes, she tucked part of it in so that it stayed in place as a blindfold. The green gardens and grey house disappeared, replaced by darkness.

  “Ready?” said Jane.

  Scarlett turned toward her voice. “It’s fifty paces,” she said, aware that her sister always tried to cheat.

  “What do I get to keep?” said Jane.

  Of course, she’d forgotten. The thief, if they won the game, got a prize. Scarlett didn’t have much on her that she could give. She put her hand to her chest and felt the necklace that drooped down from her neck.

  She hated the necklace. She wouldn’t have worn it if it hadn’t been given to her by her grandmother. She remembered the old woman curled up on the bed she never left. Mute after having a stroke. Scarlett had been younger, then. Scared. Staring at a face of death but not realising it.

  Grandma had seemed to be staring behind her, at something else in the room. Her eyes widened, as though she was terrified. She unclasped the necklace and pressed it into Scarlett’s hand so hard that it hurt. She seemed to be trying to tell her something, but Scarlett didn’t know what.

  “My necklace,” she said. “That’s the prize. Now stop trying to cheat and walk fifty paces.”

  Jane sighed. “How did you know? Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Right, you little thief. Let’s play.”

  And then they both fell silent. Scarlett listened. With her sight gone, the sounds around her became amplified. She heard the wind give a shrill whistle as it rushed over the trees and tried to find any crevices where rot had set in.

  The more she listened to it the stranger it sounded, as if there wasn’t one breeze but several, all rushing at her from different directions.

  A cold snap spread across her chest. It didn’t sound like wind anymore, but like voices. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, but there was a nasty edge to their words.

  She sensed a presence. It wasn’t her little sister sneaking up on her, but something else. It felt larger and older, and her instincts told her it had a dark intent.

  She was being stupid. Why did she even play this game? It always creeped her out, but Jane loved it. And that’s why she played it, she admitted to herself. Because her sister loved it so much.

  She listened for Jane’s little feet crunching on the grass, but she couldn’t hear anything. She would be close to her now, perhaps a couple of paces away. If Scarlett didn’t hear her soon then she would lose, and Jane would keep the necklace.

  This was the worst part of the game. Standing there in the darkness and knowing that a person was creeping up on you, straining to hear them but sensing nothing but silence. Tensing your body for that moment when they would snatch at your arm.

  She listened. The wind whirled and lapped, beating at her ears in invisible waves. Her lobes began to throb, and the pain trickled inwards until her eardrums hurt too.

  She couldn’t hear anything above the whining of the gale. It drowned out everything around her, so that the lapping of the lake was gone, as were the patters of her little sister’s footsteps as she crept forward.

  Jane was getting good at this. Too good. Scarlett was going to run out of prizes to give her at this rate. As she waited for her sister’s hands to snatch at her, she realised the game was going on far too long.

  “Jane? You can put me out of my misery,” she said.

  She waited. She tensed her arms so that she wouldn’t flinch when little hands grabbed at her from the darkness.

  Nothing happened.

  “Stop toying with me,” she said.

  When no reply came back, she started to worry. “Okay, you little thief, you win. I concede.”

  Still, no reply met her. She listened harder, wondering if Jane was just prolonging her moment of victory.

  Then she heard splashing coming somewhere to her right.

  Panic filled her chest, and she instinctively sucked in a lungful of air.

  The lake.

  The splashing was coming from the lake.

  Chapter One

  The car smelled of sweat and unwashed skin. An air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, but it had been a long time since it had given off any fragrance. Scarlett sat in the passenger seat and stretched her legs. People always complimented her height, but it didn’t do her any favours when she was sleeping in a car.

  Trev was next to her in the driver’s seat. Her husband had pushed the seat back as far as he could, but it was still cramped for him. He’d covered his chest with a beige blanket that didn’t reach his legs. Behind them, stretched out on the seats at the back, was their five-year-old daughter, Ruby-Jane.

  Scarlett rubbed her eyes and felt them sting through lack of sleep. She had a bitter taste in her mouth. She’d have given her arm to use a real bathroom. White porcelain, hot water, a deep bathtub.

  God, she’d have given both arms and a leg for that. She knew they’d have to settle for the toilet of a fast-food restaurant later, but they had things to do first.

  Just get today over with, she told herself. Suck it up and be strong for Ruby.

  The car park was filled with vehicles worth thousands more than Trev’s beat-up old banger. She saw the glinting metal logos of cars that probably cost more than some houses. In the corner of her eye, she saw movement. A man in a suit walked across the car park. In one hand he carried a briefcase. The other hand was at his side, squashing a folded-up newspaper against his jacket.

  As he walked by their car, he glanced their way. Scarlett realised how dirty she must have looked, and she wanted to slide down the seat in shame. The man stopped, stared for a moment, and then hurried on toward the office in front of him. She watched him enter the glass double doors, and she looked at the sign above them. Renly & Co. Solicitor’s Practice.

  “What was that guy looking at?” said Trev.

  He sat up straight. He turned his head from side to side, stretching the muscles in his neck. He twisted the keys in the ignition so that the radio came on. The volume was low, and Scarlett hoped he wouldn’t turn it up.

  At home, back when they actually had a home, he had a habit of waking her up with morning
radio. She always forgave him for that. She’d forgive him almost anything, really, since Trev had always looked out for her.

  He had a shaved head, and his big build made people step aside when they passed him in the street. His education had stopped when he was sixteen, though he was better-read than most people with university degrees. He was the kind of guy who could quote a passage from a Dostoevsky novel, and then beat you over the head with the book if you poked fun at him.