Haunted Lancashire (The Haunting Of Books 1-3)

by Jack Lewis

  “How did you find him in a day when the police had nothing after a week?” asked Scarlett.

  Rita fixed her gaze on her. It was such an arresting stare that Scarlett couldn’t look away. “I’ve always had the gift,” she said. “But at first it was a weak flame. Some charlatans will have you believe the gift is inside you and can be accessed without thought. Pah. It takes work and practice. I’ve spent decades honing my skills, so much so that it isn’t fair to call it a gift any longer, since I earned it.”

  This seemed to quieten the introductions for a few seconds, and it left Scarlett a lot to think about. Her opinion on psychics had formed when she was in school and hadn’t changed since; they were frauds.

  But something about Rita seemed so genuine, so demanding of respect. She made a mental note to check the story of the boy at some point. It was bound to be in the village newspaper archives.

  “Come on, you two,” said Trev, and ushered in the two old women. They were dressed in thick coats, though one was purple, the other red. Both had grey hair that had been spun into curls. It was as though the village had an ‘old woman’ template, and the only way you were allowed to stray from it was with your choice of colour.

  “This is Penelope and Lelana,” said Trev.

  “I bet you’re wondering how you know us,” said Penelope.

  Scarlett was wondering a lot more besides that. Chief among her questions was ‘What are you doing here? Can’t you just leave?’ She wasn’t in the mood for an audience, and she sure as hell didn’t want to entertain.

  “These two are just busybodies,” said Trev. “They’re here for gossip.”

  Lelana, her face struggling to express itself under a weight of make-up, glared at Trev. Scarlett, despite how she felt, was ready to tell him off, when her husband smiled.

  “I’m only kidding. Take a seat, I’ll get us some drinks.”

  Scarlett noticed that Rita was staring at the ceiling. The psychic seemed to be gazing at a spot above her. This wasn’t just a passing glance, but a look of concentration. She thought better of asking her what she was looking at. She didn’t want to be treated to some kind of medium display.

  Finally, Rita looked away. “Be careful of your daughter and the fire,” she said, nodding at Ruby.

  Scarlett got up and kneeled next to her daughter. The flames of the fire warmed her cheeks, and she could smell the ash. The psychic was right. Even a few feet away, it gave off a lot of heat.

  “Time for bed, Rubes,” she said.

  Ruby’s eyes looked like they were struggling to stay open, but she shook her head. “I’m not tired.”

  “You clearly are,” said Scarlett.

  “Is this the newest little Gawthorpe?” asked Penelope, walking across the room and to a glass cabinet.

  “She’s a Thorne,” said Scarlett, hoping Trev would hurry back from the kitchen.

  “I want to stay up, Mum.”

  She sighed. “Fine. One hour, that’s it.”

  Penelope, the taller of the old women, stood in front of a cabinet on the east wall of the room. Inside it were rows of shelves, and various antiques rested on them. Without asking, Penelope grabbed a handle and opened the cabinet.

  Clive sat in the seat that Scarlett had occupied minutes before. He crossed his legs, then folded his hands on his lap. Rita took the two-seater. She looked around the room, taking in every inch of the walls and ceiling, before finally settling her gaze on Ruby. She stared at the girl for so long that Scarlett began to feel uncomfortable.

  “What brings you all here?” Scarlett said, breaking the silence.

  Penelope reached into the cabinet and pulled out a brass lion. “I used to come here for parties when I was a girl,” she said. “I was friends with your grandfather, you know.” She held up the lion, then looked at Lelana. “Do you remember, Lelana? They’d have the most fantastic soirees here.”

  Lelana nodded. “Have you ever studied your family tree?” she asked.

  Scarlett shook her head. “I’m sure there will be books on it here, somewhere. Dad became a bit of a hoarder.”

  “There’s a link between your family and mine,” said Lelana. “I’ve always been sure of it. What’s your dad’s cousin called? You know, the one with the moustache and funny walk?”

  “I can’t remember,” said Scarlett. Even when she lived here, she’d rarely seen Dad’s side of the family.

  Penelope held the lion up higher. “We used to play games at the party. Like ‘Guess the Price’. How much do you think this lion is worth?”

  Annoyance stabbed at Scarlett. Not only had these people turned up unannounced, but now one of the old women had presumed to touch her things. It was only her politeness, more British than her family name, that held her back.

  Trev came in carrying a tray. There were six china cups on it. In the centre, there was a teapot, and a single trail of steam spiralled from the spout.

  Penelope smiled as Trev entered. “I was just saying,” she said. “we used to play a game at dinner parties here. ‘Guess the Price.’ What do you think this is worth, Trevor?”

  He shrugged. “Better ask Rita that. She should know.”

  As Penelope looked at the psychic, Trev caught Scarlett’s attention. He screwed up his face as if to say, ‘What the hell is going on?’ He was taking it in better humour than Scarlett, and she knew she had to keep calm.

  This was just how things were around here. The Gawthorpe estate was so big that it dominated the landscape, and the Gawthorpe family stole the villagers’ attention along with it.

  She looked at Rita, wondering if she’d take part in Penelope’s game. The psychic didn’t say a word. Scarlett was struck again with the idea that she knew her. Rita Hildegast. The name wasn’t one you’d forget.

  Then she remembered. Of course, Ms. Hildegast! Everyone had known her; she just hadn’t been aware of her first name back then. When she was younger, Scarlett would sometimes make trips into the village with her mum. Mum would go shopping, and Scarlett would go to a house nearby, where a woman called Valerie would watch her. Valerie had three children around Scarlett’s age, and they became firm friends.

  The four of them used to play in Valerie’s garden. They’d make up stories and tell them to each other to try and raise a scare. The oldest of the group, a boy called Nathan, had told a story about Rita.

  ‘Her husband died somewhere overseas like France or Italy,’ he’d said. ‘And guess what? Rita murdered him. If you go to her house and walk up her driveway, you won’t come back.’

  That was years ago, of course, and Scarlett saw how ridiculous a claim it was. After all, if you disappeared walking up her drive, Royal Mail would catch onto it pretty quickly when there was a sudden lack of postmen.

  Yet it meant that Rita was much older than she looked, since she must have been in her thirties when Scarlett was a child. The psychic must have had a hell of a beauty regime.

  For a while, the six of them chatted about Gawthorpe and the village. Clive seemed to have taken it upon himself to give Scarlett and Trev a rundown on everything that had happened in their absence. Penelope took items from the cabinet, held them up, and tried to guess their value. Lelana ignored her friend and instead probed at Scarlett’s lineage and tried to find a common bond.

  They drank their drinks amidst talk of the Gawthorpe family tree and the value of items in the room. A clock ticked on the far wall, and the sky outside was dark. Scarlett didn’t feel a welcome committee had been necessary, and she thought they might never leave. Eventually, Clive stood up.

  He ran his hand over the back of the chair and then leaned on it. From the snug way his blazer fit him, it was clear he was a man of exercise as well as of God.

  “I could have the house blessed, you know,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  It was bad enough having near-strangers intrude on their evening, but talks of blessings made it worse. She needed to get them out of the house. She didn’t want to do it rudely. Like m
ost people, she had a bitchy side that sometimes tried to surface, but Trev was good at highlighting it for her. Tonight, she just had to get the group out of her house in the nicest – but firmest – way possible.

  In the corner of the room, Penelope pulled out a wooden statue of a small girl. “Unless this is by an artist I don’t know about, this must be the most worthless item in the room,” she said.

  Clive carried on. “It would take a few hours and a truckload of holy water, but we could cover the place. Might be worth it, Scarlett.”

  “Why on earth would she do that?” asked Rita. The psychic toyed with a bracelet on her wrist.

  “It would clear the house of any spirits with ill-intent,” said Clive. He looked at Scarlett. “I could come down one day next week and spend a morning here. All I’d ask is a donation to the church. Nothing major, just a reasonable gift.”

  Rita scoffed. “Spirits with ill-intent? Ridiculous.”

  Clive moved away from the chair and crossed his arms. It hadn’t occurred to her before now, but she realised that the vicar had a tan. In the North of England, it was rare that the sun peeked out from the grey clouds. Clive must have been on holiday recently.

  “You don’t believe in spirits?” he said. “You, the psychic?”

  “I’m not saying that,” Rita answered. “But crowing about ‘spirits with ill-intent’ is doom-mongering. It’s showmanship. It’s what plenty of other mediums practice, but I find it crass.”

  “So, there are no evil spirits?” said the vicar.

  “I could do with a spirit right now,” said Trev.

  Scarlett was getting annoyed. It was only their second night here, and their living room was filled with strangers. She wanted to get rid of them all, but she knew she had to grin and bear it. If she could weather the storm now, they’d eventually get bored and leave. If she sent them away early, they’d only come back another day. This was a battle of wills.

  Penelope pulled out another antique from the cabinet. It was a gold French clock. Scarlett knew that the winder was broken. Her parents had never found that out, though, because she’d never told them that she did it.

  “What do we think of this?” said Penelope. “Two hundred pounds? I have a similar one at home.”

  Irritation stabbed at Scarlett. “Do you think you could close the cabinet and come away from it please, Penelope?”

  “Certainly, my dear.”

  Rita stopped playing with her bracelet. She crossed her legs and leaned back in her seat. She was the sort of woman who could draw your attention with a single movement. It was like she was magnetised, and you were a needle drawn to wherever she moved.

  “I don’t believe in spirits with bad intentions as such,” she said. “But when someone dies under tragedy or injustice, the place of their death can become a lure for angry souls.”

  “So, you do believe in bad spirits?” said Clive.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t say that. Only that they can be angry.”

  Lelana, the thinner of the two old women, held her handbag close to her and gripped the handle with her bony fingers. “My great-great-grandfather married into the Gawthorpe family. I’m sure of it,” she said. “You really ought to look at your family tree sometime.”

  Over near the fire, Ruby’s head bobbed as she followed the jump of conversation from person to person. Her eyes had taken on a heavy look that usually preceded her falling asleep.

  “I better take Rubes up to bed,” said Scarlett.

  “Rubes,” said Clive. “Is that East European in origin?”

  “It’s just a nickname,” answered Trev.

  “I don’t want to go to bed,” said the girl, suddenly awake.

  Scarlett stood up. She hoped that the more unrelaxed she looked, the more likely it was that the congregation would leave.

  Penelope walked away from the cabinet and took a seat next to Lelana. Deprived of her ‘Guess the Price’ game, she seemed unsure what to do with herself. Scarlett noticed that while Lelana wore a wedding ring, her friend’s ring finger was bare.

  “My thought was,” said Clive. “it’s been a while since Gawthorpe was occupied, and it might be good for a blessing. Sort of a cleansing of its spiritual aura, if you will. And like I said, a small donation to the church, toward expanding the grounds, is all I’d need.”

  “Gawthorpe hasn’t been empty,” said Scarlett. “My dad lived here all the time.”

  “Your father was here,” said Clive, “but he wasn’t here. He became a bit of a shut-in, I’m sorry to say.”

  “We invited him to the village festival,” said Penelope. “Never got an answer.”

  Dad had never been the most sociable of people, but it would have been wrong to describe him as a shut-in. Mum was the one who always arranged social events at their estate, and Dad just sighed and went along with it.

  The events filled her Mum with dread, but she’d carried on organising them so she could beat her anxiety. She’d always told Scarlett ‘The thing that makes you want to flee, is the thing you never run from.’

  Scarlett always thought she’d inherited her dad’s personality. For her, she didn’t need lots of people around. Just Trev and Ruby were enough. After all, she’d never really had anyone else.

  “You know,” said Penelope. “people said that the light in your father’s study never went out. One lad, Billy who used to help the milkman, saw him pacing around. Looked as if he were talking to someone, but he was on his own.”

  “The loss of your mother hit him hard,” said Clive.

  Scarlett felt the annoyance build in her so much that she had to grip the edges of her seat to hold it in. She wanted to let rip at these people, at these busybodies, but knew she had to keep it back. If she exploded at them, it would be all over the village in no time.

  “Someone scratched the wall near my room last night,” said Ruby.

  “How are things in the village?” said Scarlett, gripping the wheel of conversation and trying to drive it in any other direction.

  Clive looked at her strangely. Although he didn’t speak, somehow Scarlett knew the words ‘spirits with ill-intent’ were flashing in his brain. It seemed to be his catchphrase.

  “What did they look like?” asked Rita, staring at Ruby.

  Ruby smiled at the psychic. “Like little circles all crossing into each other.”

  Rita thought about it and then nodded. “That’s nothing to worry about. Do you know what those markings were for?”

  Ruby shook her head.

  “Well,” said the psychic. “hundreds of years ago, even before someone as old as Penelope was born, there were silly men. And these silly men had ego issues-”

  “What’s ego?” said Ruby.

  The psychic carried on, ignoring her. “And these men decided that they would call some of the local women witches.”

  “Why?” asked Ruby.

  The psychic shrugged. “If a cow keeled over or a crop of spuds was ruined, they needed someone to point a finger at.”

  Scarlett stood up. It felt good to be on her feet. She thought that the longer she stood up, the more likely it was that her guests would leave. “It’s time for bed, I’m afraid. And not just for the nine-year-old, either. This twenty-six-year-old is ready to drop too.”

  Clive stood up. “Mind if I use your bathroom?” he said.

  “Sure, it’s upstairs, onto the first floor, then on your right.”

  The vicar smiled. “It’s on the left actually, Ms Thorne. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll find your way around soon.”

  She was struck with the idea that these people knew more about her family and the estate than she did. After so many years away, banished by her father, she was more of a stranger than anyone else in this room. She felt that she didn’t belong here. And not only that; the house didn’t want her here, either.

  “What are the circles, then?” asked Ruby, slipping out of Trev’s grasps.

  Rita stood up. As she did, all her bracelets sho
ok. Some of them were made of wide wooden loops, while others seemed to be small bones and gems threaded around a string.

  “The circles,” said the psychic, “were meant as protection to ward away evil.”

  “That’s enough now,” said Scarlett. The last thing she needed was her daughter having nightmares. “This was years ago when people believed stupid things.”

  “I want to hear more, mum.”

  “No, it’s bedtime.”

  “I want to hear more!”

  Ruby shouted this so loud that everyone in the room looked at her. Her face was red, and there were dark rings around her eyes. Scarlett knew straight away that she’d let her stay up too late.