Haunted Lancashire (The Haunting Of Books 1-3)

by Jack Lewis

  The words sent a shudder through her. She hadn’t heard them in years. Even in her worst nightmares, it seemed her brain protected her from them.

  “How did you know about that game?”

  Ruby shrugged. “She told me.”

  “Who?” It was hard to keep the urgency out of her voice. She felt something bubbling inside her. Irritation scratching her stomach lining. “Who told you, Ruby?”

  “Jane.”

  The name stabbed at her. She felt her cheeks begin to redden. From somewhere deep inside, her anger started to creep out, and she realised she was clenching her fists.

  “Don’t play games, Ruby,” she said. “Stop it right now.”

  “Stop what?”

  “You know I don’t like to talk about Jane.”

  “But she said you’d want to play it with me.”

  She couldn’t help it now. Deep fury was gathering in her. This was the dark spot of her soul, the one thing she never wanted to talk about. And her daughter was using it to get her way. Well, she wouldn’t have it.

  “Come on, Mum. Jane said…”

  She grabbed Ruby by the collar of her shirt. The girl gasped as Scarlett yanked at her.

  What the hell am I doing? She thought the words even as her fingertips grasped Ruby’s shirt.

  Glanville started yapping. It was an ear-piercing sound. High-pitched, headache-inducing. All Scarlett could think was ‘she’s using Jane against you. How dare she? How dare that wicked child?’

  She was lost now. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop the words.

  “Listen, you brat…”

  And then she stopped. Suddenly, she felt freezing. What was she doing? What was she becoming? She felt sick.

  Ruby squirmed away from her. Her face turned red, and she started to cry. Deep, pitiful sobs. The puppy put his head on her legs, but she ignored him. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.

  Scarlett was hit in the stomach by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Seeing Ruby like this made her want to cry herself. She’d never so much as raised her voice at her daughter before, let alone grabbed her. She had to make it right. She needed to do something.

  “I’m sorry, Rubes,” she said.

  She reached out, but Ruby moved away from her.

  “I didn’t mean to shout,” she said.

  “I hate you!”

  The words delivered another blow to her stomach.

  She had to make it up to her. She’d do anything.

  “I’m sorry, okay? Come on. We can play it. We’ll play Catch a Thief.”

  Ruby looked up. “Really?”

  “Just once. But don’t use Jane against me ever again. It’s not nice.”

  Feeling weary with every passing second, Scarlett taught Ruby the rules of the game. As she did, she couldn’t help but remember the first time she and Jane played it. She saw her sister’s eager eyes as she told her how to play. She heard Jane’s squeals of delight as she crept closer, making little effort to be stealthy.

  “So, I get a prize if I win?” said Ruby.

  Scarlett nodded. “You do. You get to choose anything you want.”

  “I want the necklace,” she said.

  There was no need to ask which one. She wanted the necklace with the red gem. The necklace that she’d promised to Jane.

  “I’ll find a blindfold,” said Ruby.

  No. No blindfolds, no scarfs. Scarlett shook her head. “I’ll just close my eyes.”

  “But you’ll peek.”

  “I won’t peek.”

  Ruby sighed. “Okay. If you cheat, I get the prize.”

  She still wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but she needed to do something to get rid of the guilt. She shouldn’t have lashed out at Ruby; she was too young to understand the scars that the past could leave. How was she to know that hearing Jane’s name sent pain ripping through her?

  As Ruby crossed over the lobby and stood by the front door, Scarlett closed her eyes. The house was silent around them. Glanville, now in his crate, sat on his haunches and watched.

  Ruby faced her from across the room. “Close your eyes, Mum.”

  She shut them. There was darkness all around her. She felt her pulse pick up. Her mind tried to wander elsewhere. It tried to drift out of the door and toward the lake, where she’d hear the water splashing. She pulled it back.

  “Okay, thief,” she said, forcing humour into her voice. “The game begins.”

  Just get it over with, she thought to herself. Maybe you can keep the Worst Mum award at bay.

  And with that, she listened. It was hard not to open her eyes, but she forced herself to keep them closed. She tried to hear her daughter’s footsteps on the cold floor, but there was nothing.

  There was something hateful about silence in Gawthorpe. A sense that something in the house craved silence, but that it was wrong to feed it.

  She began to sweat. She realised that she was clenching her fists, but she couldn’t bring herself to relax her grip. The space around her seemed to grow as if she was isolated in some giant, empty land, miles away from anyone else in the world. She almost called an end to the game.

  Then she heard them. Soft patters on the floorboards. Far away at first, but then getting closer. Ruby wasn’t practised in the game, and stealth wasn’t one of her talents.

  She decided to wait a minute. To let Ruby have her game for just a little longer, before declaring that she’d caught her.

  The footsteps got closer. She could sense Ruby drawing nearer, as though every inch of her skin felt her presence. Sweat trickled down her forehead. Made her nose twitch as a bead rolled onto the bridge of it. She could smell the age of the house. She tasted the salt as a bead of sweat met her lips.

  The air changed. Something in the room had altered. Scarlett became aware of a shadow passing over her face. Someone was near her.

  Not Ruby. Someone else. Her heart suddenly beat so violently that it hurt.

  Just as she decided to end the game, she heard a raspy voice whisper in her ear. A man’s voice.

  “I drowned the witch, but she is back. I marked her.”

  She forced herself not to shout out. She opened her eyes and looked around, but nobody was there except for Ruby, who was crouched over, mid-sneak.

  “Mum, you cheated!” she said.

  Scarlett let out a long breath. The game was over, and it would never be played again. She gave another glance around the room, her gaze crossing every corner and shadow. They were alone. Just her, Ruby and Glanville.

  “That’s enough for today,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When night-time visited Gawthorpe estate, it crept over the windows before lurching its way into the house and filling the old hallways. Snaking down the corridor, it found Scarlett, Trev and Ruby all in the same bed.

  Although Trev had moaned about it at first, Scarlett insisted that Ruby slept with them until they left Gawthorpe. It was only for a couple of nights, and it would make her feel better. Despite his protests, Trev was the first of them to fall asleep.

  Ruby was next, though she squirmed from time to time. More than once, she jolted Scarlett from her dozing with an elbow in her side. Scarlett lay with her head on her pillow and stared at the ceiling.

  A breeze blew down the hall. Scarlett heard the faint rustling of tin cans. That afternoon she had found some string in a drawer in the living room. She’d raided the larder and grabbed some cans of beans and carrots, and she’d emptied them.

  She poked a hole in the sides of the cans and ran the string through them. Then, that night, she’d nailed the cans and string along the doorway, just above the floor.

  When Trev had seen her contraption, he’d given her a strange look.

  “Something you want to say to me?” asked Scarlett.

  She could tell from his expression that he did. It wasn’t amusement or irritation, but something else. A look she’d rarely seen on his face before. He was worried.

  Let him wo
rry, thought Scarlett. Let him think what he likes for now, but she wasn’t taking any chances. If there really was something sharing this house with them, she wanted to know if it entered their room while they were sleeping. And if she heard the cans get disturbed, she’d know.

  Ruby sighed and turned over on her side. She’d always been an active sleeper, constantly shifting around in position. Trev was like a block of stone, immovable until daylight streamed through the window.

  He’d never been one to wake to the shrill tones of an alarm clock since he’d never had a nine-to-five job. When he did have work, it wasn’t the kind where you were expected to be somewhere at a certain time. It wasn’t the type that you could get taxed on, or that you could put on a CV. Scarlett had never liked some of the dodgy things he’d done when they’d needed the money.

  Despite having her daughter and husband with her, she felt alone. Right now, at this hour, she was the only person in Gawthorpe who was awake, and she didn’t like it. It would even have been of some comfort if the staff were still here. At least then the house wouldn’t feel as empty.

  Where was Jonathan, anyway? They’d given the other staff members leave to look for new employment, but the estate manager had begged for his job. He’d said he would work for free. So, where was he? Had he found somewhere else?

  As she closed her eyes and tried to summon sleep, she felt something poke into her back. She shifted position, trying to move away from the offending bedspring. Then, after squirming, she felt it again. Something protruding from the mattress and jabbing her.

  The tin cans rustled. She shot upright and looked at the doorway, but nothing was there.

  She pulled the cover over her head and closed her eyes. She heard the cans tinkle again, but she knew it was the breeze. She tried to shut everything out, to swim into the darkness in her eyes and then drift along the currents of sleep.

  The duvet was yanked away from her face. The cold air rushed to meet her, and her pulse picked up. She opened her eyes to see a face staring into hers, just inches away, eyeball to eyeball, hot breath blowing on her skin.

  It was Trev. His eyes were wide open, and his head hovered above hers, but he was asleep.

  She put her hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back down to the mattress. He grunted, turned over, and then his breathing began to slow. She watched him for a few seconds until she was sure he would stir again.

  She must have fallen asleep after a while, because the next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes again. Her senses took a while to return. When they did, she saw another face above hers.

  She gasped in shock. It wasn’t Trev this time, but Ruby. Her daughter stared at her, eyes open but vacant, her face barely centimetres away. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, thought Scarlett.

  Scarlett was going to move her when Ruby opened her mouth. She let out a piercing scream directed solely at Scarlett’s face. The noise was enough to hurt her ears.

  Trev bolted up. He shook his head as if emptying his head of sleep. He looked at Scarlett. His voice was groggy.

  “What’s going on?” he said.

  Ruby had stopped screaming now. Scarlett put her arm around her. Ruby’s eyes seemed to take a while to focus.

  “Mum?”

  “Are you okay, honey?” said Scarlett.

  “I can’t sleep in here. I don’t like it.”

  “There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “What about my room?” asked Ruby.

  Scarlett shook her head. “You’re not sleeping on your own.”

  “But I want my room!”

  Ruby’s voice had a desperate tone to it. It was halfway between anger and sadness. This was the start of another tantrum, Scarlett realised. She knew the signs all too well. Unless she did something, it was going to be a long night. With the way things were in Gawthorpe, she knew they needed as much sleep as they could get.

  “Come on,” she said. “You can stay in your room. But I’ll stay with you. We’ll let your dad get some rest.”

  She got out of bed. Ruby climbed over Trev, who grunted and then turned on his back. Scarlett held her hand out for Ruby to take it, and together they left the room.

  “Careful,” said Scarlett, nodding at the tins on the string.

  Ruby took an exaggerated step over the homemade spectral warning system. They crossed into the hall, and then to her room. Scarlett twisted the key, and then they went in.

  “One sec,” said Scarlett, as Ruby went to climb into bed. “Let me check no more marbles are laying around.”

  She felt along the wall for the light switch, then pinched it between her fingers. Ruby had dug herself under the covers now. Scarlett flicked the switch and lit the room. She looked at the wall and then stumbled back.

  “Oh, shit!”

  There were no more circles. Instead, there was something much worse. Something that made her want to flee Gawthorpe.

  On the wall, written in soot, were terrible words.

  ‘Ruby Thorne, you are mine.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Just one more day,” said Trev.

  The morning light drifted into the house. Daylight or not, she’d had enough of Gawthorpe. She had fastened back every curtain on every window to let in as much of the sun as she could. Her heart still hadn’t settled after the night before, and she felt as if she was getting palpitations.

  She’d woken Trev and showed him the words on the wall. This, it seemed, was something that he couldn’t just shrug off.

  “Oh, shit!” was his response.

  “My words exactly,” answered Scarlett.

  Something was happening in the house, and they were finally in agreement that it wasn’t carbon monoxide or Scarlett’s imagination.

  Ever resolute, he told her they couldn’t leave yet. “The pawnshop is paying me tomorrow,” he said. “So, we just have to hang in there.”

  “I’m not going to sit on my thumbs,” said Scarlett.

  He nodded. “Leave it to me.” He walked over to the phone, picked it up, and dialled a number.

  A few hours later, there was a knock on the door. Scarlett walked over to it, unsure who to expect. Would it be the police? An exorcist? Neither option seemed farfetched now. Instead, when she opened the door, she saw Rita Hildegast.

  The sun shone on the psychic’s face and highlighted the wrinkles on her skin. Where a few nights before it had been difficult to determine her age, she now looked to be in her fifties. She’d tried to plaster over the cracks of time with make-up, but the foundation on her cheeks couldn’t hide it.

  She gave a grim smile. As she walked into the house, the bracelets on her arm shook. She had a handbag around her right shoulder, and something inside it made a tinkling sound.

  Scarlett didn’t even have the energy to protest as the psychic walked by her. No sooner had she let Rita in, then Trev had come into the lobby and guided her into the dining room. As they went through, the psychic stopped in the doorway. She looked around her, staring intently at the doorframe.

  “Trev broke the door,” said Scarlett. “He’s not much of a handyman.”

  Rita shook her head. “Something else,” she said, her voice low. “Did something happen there?”

  A shudder ran through her. She thought about the feet beneath the curtain, then shook the image away.

  “Can I get you a drink?” asked Scarlett.

  Rita shook her head. “I don’t drink before conducting a reading.”

  “A reading?”

  Trev scratched his head. “Yeah. I…uh...invited Rita here to help us with the house.”

  Scarlett crossed her arms. “Unless she’s good at fixing doors, I don’t see how she can help.” She knew there was a sarcastic tone to her voice, but she was way beyond hiding it.

  Rita took a step forward into the room. She stopped and looked around. Scarlett wanted to tell her to move. She couldn’t help but think that Rita was standing in the spot where they’d seen the feet jerk up from the
floor. Where she’d heard a gurgling noise as someone gasped for air.

  “This is the room,” said Rita. “This is where we’ll begin.”

  While Rita pulled out the chairs from under the dining room table, Trev hovered in the background. He stood against a wall and crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and put his hands in his pockets. Scarlett leaned on a chair. She felt as if all her energy had left her.