Tag Archives: occult

Unknown

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Unknown

It is dark here, with only a weak glimmer of light in the distance, reflecting off water. Where am I? Why is it so cold?

I begin to walk towards the light, the sound of my footsteps echoing off narrow walls. Reaching out, I touch damp stone either side of me. Some sort of tunnel, but where, and how did I get here? More important — who am I?

A human, certainly, with two arms, two legs, shoes. But — why should I think I might be anything else? There are too many questions here, and no answers.

After some minutes of walking I find the source of the light. It is a torch lying on the floor of the tunnel. Is it mine? Did I drop it? But who even owns a torch any more when you can just use your phone?

Phone. I pat myself down, but find no phone. It must be in my bag. I had a bag, though I cannot remember what it looked like or where I might have left it, but just remembering that such a thing exists is something. A start.

Picking up the torch, I don’t recognise it. If the torch is not mine, then someone else must be down here. I feel a surge of hope and think of calling out, but a sudden fear of what might be in the dark stops me. I also stop trying to explain my situation. I don’t need explanations. I need a way out.

Shining the torch one way and then the other, all I can see are the damp walls of a dark tunnel. Should I continue to walk the way I was facing, or go back in the direction I, perhaps, came from before the moment I woke up here? I do not choose to think about what happened before that moment.

The tunnel seems to be going slightly uphill in the direction I was walking, so I carry on in that direction, not wanting to descend further underground.

To conserve batteries I turn off the torch, flicking it on now and then only to find more tunnel ahead. I have the impression that the tunnel is curved, and I hope it is not circular.

Something is coming. It squeaks as I flick on the torch. A rat. It runs right by me, running scared, but not of me.

Torch off, I listen. There is a faint gritty sliding noise, growing louder, growing closer. I want to run, like the rat, but there is nowhere to run to, no safe haven. Instead, I press myself against the tunnel wall, making myself as small and silent as I can be.

Closer, closer, bit by bit it slides. Then something hot and bulky is right there. An exhalation of sewer-smelling breath makes me gag, but fear damps my reflexes. I am as rigid as the cold wall against my back. The thing pauses as if it knows I am there and I close my eyes, as dark behind my eyelids as it is with my eyes open, but still I hang onto the comfort of an irrational hope — that if I can’t see it, it won’t see me.

Then I realise that if it lives down here in the dark, it does not need to see me. There are other senses. I open my eyes and hold my breath, ready to bolt, but it either fails to detect me or finds me uninteresting, and starts to move again, sliding away along the tunnel.

When the sound of it fades to silence I unfreeze and walk as fast as I can in the other direction. I do not dare to run in the dark, which proves to be wise.

Afraid to turn on the torch, but afraid also of what I might bump into, I continue to flick it on and off every now and then. In one flash, I see something that stops me short.

It looked like a person, but ghostly white. There is no sound. No breathing, no movement. My heart beats so hard that my whole body shakes. I do the only thing I can, and turn the torch back on.

It is a man, standing quite still. As I approach I see that he is covered in pale webs.

‘Hello?’ I whisper.

His eyes are open but he is frozen and I do not think that he can see me. He does not seem to be conscious. I hope he isn’t.

What should I do?

Far away, but not far enough, I hear the thing sliding back towards us. I try to pull on the man’s arm, to shake him awake, but I cannot move him. He might as well be a statue, and now there are webs all over my hands. I try to rub them off, and then I have to run, or I will end up a web-covered statue lost down here forever.

This time I do run, and I keep the torch on. Even so, I almost miss it. There’s a door. I go through it without thinking and close it behind me, then run up stone steps to another door, and then I am through it and standing in a mahogany-panelled hallway. I can see a front door at the end of the hall and I walk towards it, almost more confused by this house than by the dark tunnel.

‘There you are,’ someone says. ‘We really prefer our clients not to wander the house. It can be hazardous.’

The speaker is a dark-haired androgynous person in dark clothing. Their eyes are quite mesmerising, and I am afraid again, but a whisper of memory comes back to me.

‘Someone called me,’ I say.

‘Well, never mind. Madame Nina will see you now,’ they say. ‘She apologises for the delay.’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t — I have to go,’ I say as I move towards the door into the outside world.

They shrug, looking at the torch in my hand.

‘Very well, but if you choose to come again, you will remember not to stray, even if called by name.’

They pick up a bag from the hall table and hand it to me. It’s mine. I know it. I am so relieved that I clutch it to my chest, stumbling through the door and out into the street.

With my first breath of fresh air I inhale the knowledge of who I am, and simultaneously realise that I have blown an appointment it took me weeks to get.

I don’t care. The way out of my problems that I was seeking seems both cheap and dangerous now. I will just have to stand up to it all and take the consequences. Nothing will get me back into that house again. I am haunted by the web-covered face of the man in the tunnel and the sound of the unknown sliding towards us.

Hide and Seek

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Hide and Seek

A laugh like birdsong among the trees.

‘April, is that you?’

He thinks he sees her, a bright flutter of flowery fabric out of the corner of his eye, vanishing into the undergrowth. Further along the path, the scuff of a shoe in the leaf litter.

Not a human path, but a narrow fox’s path in the woods. The breeze twisting up a few dry leaves. Is that her again — a fleeting impression of golden hair — or only sunlight on wet foliage?

April lost in the woods, or is it himself lost in the woods without her, following a mirage.

Giving up, he sits down on the rotting trunk of a fallen tree. A laugh like birdsong mocks him.

Midnight under a full moon, the dust in the gutters, the crisp packets and discarded receipts flying up into the air on a hidden breeze, swirling together to give the impression of a person — a hand — two feet skimming along the pavement — the swish of long hair. April again. He does not run after her, knowing he will never catch up.

Midday under a bright sun in the High Street. He looks into a shop window and sees her reflected in the glass, standing behind him, peeping out from behind his back. When he turns to look, she is no longer there. A thin column of grit spirals into the hot air.

April, always there, never there.

He’s sleeping and she ruffles his hair, waking him. He’s cooking and she knocks all the wooden spoons into the sink, turns the cold tap on full and drenches him. He knows it’s her, making trouble as she always did.

He waits for her to pinch him, like she used to, hard and with a twist, a little torture for her other self. But she does not do that.

She has lain at St. Jude’s Hospice for almost a decade, inert but still breathing. In and out, day after day, uselessly breathing, too alive to die, not alive enough to live.

‘I didn’t let go,’ he says again. ‘You were too heavy, I was too weak. My fingers gave way.’

No-one had ever blamed him for what happened. She danced on that wall of her own accord. He tried to hold on to her when she slipped, and the fall was not so far, but she landed badly and her skull cracked.

He looks at the shrivelled woman lying on the bed and knows she is not the same person as the girl who is behind him now, making the air shiver with her presence. Not his twin sister who had been with him his whole life. He knows what she wants.

This time he uncurls his fingers deliberately and lets her go.

She exhales, a long breeze. He feels a pinch on his arm, and a twist. He waits for the automatic in-breath, but it does not come. Everything is quiet.

Alone now for the first time. He cries.

Take This Burden From My Heart

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Take This Burden From My Heart

Five minutes after the coffee shop opened, Lori was there, sipping her oatmilk cappuccino, allowing herself to relax a little after a very trying night. Only a minute later the door swung open, letting in a blast of cold air and Morris Walters. Lori tensed up again.

Morris was more hard work than anyone she knew. He was tense, inarticulate, unattractive. Here he was loudly ordering a salted caramel latte and a bacon sandwich. (How can anyone think those things go together, especially at ten past eight in the morning, Lori thought, keeping her eyes down, tearing a piece off her croissant and spreading apricot jam on it.)

The worst happened. Though she did not once make eye contact and radiated her most hostile body language, Morris came over to her table.

‘Hi, Lori, can I sit with you?’

(No!) She looked up at him, then slowly around the empty coffee shop and back at Morris. He smiled at her, lips trembling, panic in his eyes. Defeated, she made a brief gesture at the empty seat across from her and he sat down. A moment later he emptied a sachet of sugar into his already too-sweet latte.

He seemed more nervous than usual, his hands shaking as he stirred his drink. Lori always found his intense nervousness unbearable. Also, his nose was too big and his lips too thin. Lori’s better self put in an unwelcome appearance, telling her that he could not help his physiognomy or his emotional state, and that she might make him more nervous with her too-judgemental attitude.

He did have very neat ears, she thought. Perhaps if I only look at his ears, he will be more bearable.

He took a huge bite of his bacon sandwich and washed it down with a gulp of latte.

‘You look tired,’ he said, without actually looking at Lori.

‘I’ve been up all night,’ she said, ‘helping out a friend. I’ll have to go soon, so that I can get some sleep before I have to lead tonight’s Ghost Walk.”

‘Should you be drinking coffee then?’

‘It’s decaf,’ she said. Not that it’s any of your business, she thought, her better self in retreat.

‘You help out a lot of people.’

She shrugged, thinking that if she did not actually speak he might stop trying to have a conversation. No such luck.

‘Would you help me?’

Damn. She was so tired, but here was Better Self running to the fore again. She tried to keep her mouth shut by plugging it with a large piece of croissant, but mumbled through the crumbs, ‘What do you need help with?’

He flushed bright red.

‘You can tell me,’ she said, opening her right hand palm up in a gesture of friendly invitation. Morris swiftly reached forward and pierced something into the palm of her hand.

‘Ow! What?’ she cried.

Morris jumped up, drank off the last of his latte and grabbed his bacon sandwich.

‘Sorry sorry,’ he said, and ran out of the coffee shop.

The barista looked over at Lori, who was nursing her injured hand and cursing, then looked away again, bored.

In the centre of Lori’s palm was stuck a large thorn, her blood oozing out around it. She pulled it out. Not a thorn, but a small animal claw, maybe a cat’s, with what looked like tiny runes written on it in black. Dropping it on the table, she ran to the toilet to wash the wound.

Her hand bandaged in toilet paper, she grabbed her bag and turned to leave, then went back to pick up the claw, wrapping it in a paper napkin.

Back at home in her own bathroom, she anointed the injury with antiseptic cream and put a small plaster over it. It was only a little thing, after all, but it hurt like hell. What if it got infected, or worse, gangrenous?

Where had that come from? She laughed and turned to leave the bathroom, and was frozen rigid with fear. A spider was between her and the door, making its way across the bath mat on long spindly legs the thickness of a hair.

She had climbed up onto the side of the bath and was hyperventilating before she could think. And then she thought: Wait a minute, I’m not afraid of spiders. Still, it took an act of extreme will to get down, pull the bath mat and its spidery passenger out of the way, and get out of the bathroom.

Some hours later, the alarm went off in time for Lori to get up, have something to eat and change into costume for the evening’s Ghost Walk, all the while imagining spiders creeping up on her. (There were many spiders in her flat.)

As soon as she left, she felt anxiety twisting in her stomach. What if no-one liked her performance tonight, if they all thought the whole thing was ridiculous rubbish and demanded their money back?

She stopped in the street, breathed deeply, and thought about these new crushing fears. They were not hers, she knew that. Some were fears she had never had, others were things she had conquered years ago. She smashed them down hard and got on with the evening’s work.

The ghost walk went off well, the suppressed hysteria in her delivery adding to the drama. When it was over, she paid a visit to an old friend, who examined the claw and the tiny runes, confirming Lori’s conclusions, and giving her a little advice.

A few enquiries got her Morris’s address and by midnight she was banging on his door. He took a long time to answer. When he saw who it was, he tried to slam the door shut, but she shouldered it open, her anger making her strong.

She held up the claw between finger and thumb.

‘You gave me all your fears,’ she said.

Looking into his eyes, she could see that he had already changed. He could meet her angry stare, and all his nervy movements were gone. He could stand his ground. His nose was still too big, but the line of his lips was no longer pulled so thin.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

Better Self whispered in her ear.

‘No-one lives long totally without fear, Morris,’ she said, ‘so I’m going to do you a favour, and just give you one fear to live with.’

With a quick swipe she caught him across the chin with the tiny claw. He yelped and jumped backwards.

‘Be very afraid of me,’ she said. ‘If I see you again I will probably do you severe damage.’

‘I’m leaving town,’ he said. ‘I just needed the courage to go.’

‘Good’ she said, and before she gave into the urge to give him a good kicking, Lori turned away, tucking the claw into her pocket.

‘You should have asked properly,’ she muttered.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I was too afraid.’

Back at home, while her better self was looking the other way, Lori used the bit of blood on the tip of the claw to send Morris back his fear of spiders.

Brushstrokes

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Brushstrokes

The painting breathed out an air of chill misery.

I have stayed in many a B&B in my travels from auction to auction, so have seen enough bad art to last me three or four lifetimes, but this was something different. It was beautifully painted in shades of grey, the only colour being an out of place streak of red.

The subject of the painting was a house on the corner of a lane. Leafless trees stood along the left hand side of the road, gaunt in their winter sleep. On the right stood the house. It seemed to have turned away from the viewer, grey walls punctuated by four small dark grey windows, no door in sight. Between house and road stood a low stone wall with a deep dark crack in the centre of it. The road was streaked with snow and that short thin brushstroke of scarlet. Frost picked out the lines of the roof tiles.

I shivered. It was winter now, perhaps in summer the painting would be pleasingly cool, but I could not understand why anyone would hang such a painting in a bedroom, and why anyone would paint it in the first place.

For me, though, the most disturbing thing about the painting was the familiarity of the scene. I knew that I had seen that place, that house, before. I also knew that I had not.

My dreams that night were disturbing and left me feeling disoriented, even though all memory of them faded as soon as I woke.

A husband and wife ran the B&B, and at breakfast I asked Mrs Blake about the painting.

‘It’s by a local artist,’ she said. ‘Do you like it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That is, it’s very well done, but somewhat bleak. Does it show a local scene?’

‘Yes, it’s a house near the end of Catsbritch Lane. It’s still standing.’

‘Catsbritch?’

She laughed.

‘It’s a very old name. No-one knows what its origin is.’

‘And the artist?’

‘Nora Logan. She died in the ‘90s, but a lot of people have her paintings around here. I know the one in your room is very wintery, but it’s atmospheric, don’t you think?’

‘It is indeed.’

An atmosphere of deep cold and gloom.

Though I deal in paintings, Nora Logan was a name unknown to me. From the single painting I had seen it was obvious that she had considerable talent. Perhaps I might discover her for the Art market. Some research was in order.

The internet knew nothing about her either.

I went to the auction I had come to Shuckleigh for and bought a couple of nice pieces. Afterwards, as I was waiting to collect my lots, I had the opportunity to corner one of the auctioneers and ask him about Nora Logan.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘she was quite well known in the town. A lot of people have her paintings, but they never sell them. She used to give them away. One day she would turn up on your doorstep with a canvas she’d painted for you. Apparently they are very personal items, I’m not sure why. I’ve seen a few. Very good, all of them, but strange.’

The local librarian gave me a summary of Logan’s life — nothing of note; wife, mother, grandmother, the usual progress. The only thing interesting about the woman was her self-taught skill with a paintbrush.

Tired, I went back to the B&B and extended my stay for another day. While I was paying in advance for my room, I asked Mrs Blake about the painting and the artist.

‘She gave it to my grandmother. Just turned up one day without a word of explanation and handed it over. Worried my Grandparents no end because generally speaking there was always something significant in the painting for the person who got it — and it wasn’t often a good thing. But as far as I know they never did see anything in it for them. Grandma left it to me because she knew my Mum didn’t want it and you can’t just throw a thing like that away, can you?’

Mrs Blake knew of others who had Nora Logan paintings and she said she would ask if anyone wanted to sell.

That evening in my room, I contemplated the painting and the powerful feeling of recognition it gave me. I supposed that I must have been somewhere like it in the past, but I could not bring the memory into the light. Perhaps it was nothing more than the emotional effect of the painting, some magic in the harmony of the tones, the near absence of colour and a sense of sorrow in the lonely house with its cracked front wall, failing to protect it from the intrusive eye of the viewer.

The following morning Mrs Blake told me that none of the people she had contacted were willing to sell their paintings.

‘It’s as I thought,’ she said. ‘They’re not to be sold, only given as gifts, as Nora gave them herself. I think people believe it would be ill luck to take money for them.’

‘Do you believe that?’

She smiled and shrugged, so I think she does.

I am perfectly willing to be ruthless in my pursuit of profit, but in this case I sensed my dreams of introducing a new artist to the market fading rapidly. I decided to let the idea go, and left the B&B that morning.

Shuckleigh is an odd and confusing town, and I took a wrong turning on my way out, driving down a long straight lane past a small development of ugly new houses and out into the country. There was nowhere to turn on the narrow road, so I just kept going, possibly a little too fast for the frosty conditions. Though I was paying no particular attention to the uninspiring view of gaunt, leafless trees, a sudden shock of recognition hit me. A bend was approaching, and on the corner stood a grey house with a low stone wall in front of it.

Time seemed to split in two at this moment. I continued to drive along at speed, but I also took my foot off the accelerator, slowing, staring at the house. A small child darted into the road in front of me. In both of my split selves I braked and the car skidded on the icy road. The one who had recognised the house was going slowly enough to stop, the other could not. A woman ran out after the child who had stopped in front of me, eyes wide, mouth open.

There was a bump, the child was thrown into the air, the car smashed into the stone wall, my head into the side window. Or, the car fishtailed, but stopped in time, and my head thumped against the side window.

I sat behind the wheel, shivering, unable to tell which version of reality had actually happened. Then I saw the woman scoop up the shocked child, and I began to believe that things were really all right. I got out of the car, still feeling the alternative course of events in the pit of my stomach. It was hard to get my breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman. ‘Are you all right? You’ve bumped your head. He ran away, I only turned around for a second. I’m sorry.’

She kept apologising and her son began to cry.

‘I’m fine,’ I said at last. ‘Just a little delayed reaction.’

She offered to make me a cup of tea. I declined.

‘But tell me,’ I said, ‘the wall in front of your house — did it ever have a crack in it?’

‘No,’ she said, puzzled. ‘It’s older than the house and if it had ever been cracked you’d still be able to see the repair, I think.’

I walked up to the wall, remembering where the crack should have been, and found no trace of it. I wondered what else Nora Logan foretold in her paintings, and when I would ever be able to forget the alternative events she saved me from.

Things Move

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Things Move

We stared up at the spoon balanced on the top edge of the mirror frame.

‘What’s it doing up there?’said Freddy

‘It’s being a spoon,’ I said, ‘but in the wrong place. The question is, Freddy, why did you put it up there?’

‘Me? I didn’t put it up there. You must have.’

‘No, not me. Why would I do that?’

‘I don’t know. I only know that I didn’t put it there.’

‘If you didn’t and I didn’t, who did?’

‘The cat?’

We both looked at the cat, asleep on the sofa, paws in the air. We agreed that he was an unlikely suspect. Mr. Socks had never shown any interest in spoons, unless they were being used to serve him food.

I pulled a chair over in front of the mirror, climbed up and got the spoon down. I thought that would be the end of it, but then there was this other problem.

‘It isn’t even one of our spoons.’

Freddy took it from me and made a face.

‘Torquay,’ he said.

I took it back. It was a cheap souvenir spoon, with a shield at the top of the handle which had a sailing ship on a white enamel background and a banner underneath in blue enamel, reading ‘Torquay.’

‘I’ve never been there,’ I said.

‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘The English Riviera.’

‘How did it get here?’

I looked up thinking that there might be a crack in the ceiling it had fallen through, but there was no such thing. I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I’ll put it in the bag with the things for the charity shop. Unless you want to keep it.’

Freddy shook his head, and that was all we said on the matter. Freddy took the bag to the charity shop that afternoon and we forgot our little mystery.

The next day the spoon turned up in the cutlery drawer — a more reasonable place to find a spoon, but still.

‘I thought this went to the charity shop,’ I said. ‘Why did you put it in here?’

Freddy dropped the toast he was eating.

‘I didn’t,’ he said.

He came over and took it from me.
‘Are you playing tricks?’ he said.

‘I am not. Why would I do that? It’s a bloody silly trick. What’s the point of it?’

‘So who put it here?’

‘There’s you, me and the cat. It’s not me, and Mr Socks doesn’t have the energy for tricks.’

‘It isn’t me.’

‘Then who is coming into our house with strange spoons, and why?’

Neither of us had an answer to that one.

On my way to work I stopped on the bridge over the River Lost and dropped the spoon into the water, followed by a couple of pennies because I was brought up in a superstitious household, and knew that if you took a liberty with a river you had to make a payment to it, one way or another.

I should have paid more.

The river did not keep the spoon.

In the morning I was dressing when I head Freddy shriek. I ran downstairs without my trousers on and found him standing in the kitchen staring at the breakfast table. All around on the floor lay the bits and pieces we had left there the night before — some of my papers, a mug, a tulip and the vase it was sitting in, the last survivor of a bunch from a few days ago. The only thing on the table was that spoon.

Its shallow bowl was filled with water, and a scrap of water weed clung to the handle.

We stared at it for a while, then rationality took hold of Freddy at last.

‘It’s only a spoon, what are we afraid of? Just a cheap, ugly teaspoon. Fear of spoons. There’s probably a word for it.

‘Koutaliaphobia,’ I said. I had been giving all of this far too much thought.

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘What are we afraid of? A bloody stupid spoon.’

Freddy picked it up, took it outside and dropped it into the dustbin. We had a good laugh at ourselves, and I went back upstairs to put on my trousers. Freddy found me there a minute later, staring at the bed.

The spoon. On Freddy’s pillow.

He swore more in those few seconds than I have ever heard him swear before. Grabbing the spoon, he strode to the window, opened it and hurled the thing into the garden as hard as he could.

‘And stay out!’ he yelled, slamming the window shut.

He turned back into the room and took one step away, then the window shattered behind him. when we finished screaming we saw the spoon embedded an inch deep in the ceiling above Freddy’s head.

**

The glazier was just finishing the new windowpane when I brought him a mug of tea (strong, two sugars). He pointed upwards.

‘Why is there a spoon in the ceiling?’ he asked.

‘Good question.’

‘Shall I pull it out for you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s best to leave it alone.”

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s in pretty far. I suppose it might bring the ceiling down with it.’

‘Yes indeed, it might.’

Falling Out, Falling In

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Falling Out, Falling In

Lori reached out to touch the raven’s beak. Pressing it was rewarded by the sonorous tones of a bell inside the house. She knew that it was nothing more than a digital recording, but the group behind her did not, and they got quite a frisson of pleasure from the Edgar Allan Poe resonances of this somewhat over the top doorbell. A good way to start a special tour.

Arthur Enoch opened the door, applying little bit of downward pressure on the handle to ensure a loud creak from the hinges. He was dressed all in black and was quite hollow-eyed. Those hollow eyes he used to survey his visitors with a pinch of disdain.

‘Welcome,’ he said, and stood aside for them to enter.

Lori stepped through first, feeling as if she was passing through a cold waterfall. Since she had visited this house numerous times she was expecting this, and she turned to watch the group behind her. They all shivered a little but only two showed any greater reaction; Vince Smalls, a local chaos magician, and an older woman who had applied by post to come on the tour.

Vince gasped and shook himself, and the woman (Lori looked at her list, her name was Olivia Grange. The surname rang a faint bell in Lori’s mind) widened her eyes and glanced behind her. They had both been forced to leave something outside.

The door swung closed of its own accord behind the last one through. Just another bit of theatre arranged by Enoch.

‘Welcome,’ he said again, ‘to my grandfather’s house. Maxwell Enoch was definitely wickeder than Aleister Crowley, but he preferred to stay out of the newspapers.’

Arthur Enoch smiled, which had a chilling effect on all present. Lori wished he would not do it, but the sight of his very large white teeth (possibly dentures) and the twisted curve of his lips did add to the sinister atmosphere — which was what the special group had paid their large fee for.

The Enoch house was only open to visitors once or twice a year and Lori was the only guide allowed to select visitors for the privilege of the tour. Arthur Enoch had the last word on who would be allowed in from her list. She never knew what criteria he used to reject visitors. Some perfectly innocuous people applied year after year, only to be struck out by Arthur’s red pen. Why Vince Smalls had passed scrutiny, Lori could not imagine. Arthur made no secret of his contempt for Chaos Magic.

‘This is my home,’ said Arthur, ‘so I ask you to respect the rules set out in your letter of acceptance, and not to stray from the group. It would be hazardous for you to do so. Please recall that you have all signed the disclaimer and that any physical or psychic harm you suffer on these premises is your responsibility alone.’

The group nodded their heads in solemn agreement, except for Vince, who gave a short laugh. Arthur flashed him a sharp look, then smiled again, which wiped any amusement from Vince’s face. He replaced it with a tentative sneer. Old fashioned ritual magic was just a curiosity to him, he had told Lori. She looked forward to seeing how this clash of cultures would turn out, and hoped there would be no collateral damage.

Arthur led them about the ground floor of the house, which was set up as a kind of museum to his grandfather’s occult life, all the rooms kept just as they were when he was alive, down to the last book he was reading, left open and unfinished on a side table. Marginalia scribbled in green ink were visible on the open pages. Lori knew that it was a first edition of Yeats’ ‘Celtic Twilight’ and that Maxwell Enoch did not think much of it. He was a man given to despising the work of others.

Between them Arthur and Lori kept up a commentary on the rooms and the man himself. Arthur was, of course, the expert on the man, having lived in this house when Maxwell was still alive in the early 1960s, but he never gave much personal detail away. The visitors did not seem to notice, captivated as they were by the eccentric decor and the genuine relics of the master of ritual magic. There were two who were not so taken up by the experience. Vince Smalls curled his lip at the books in the library, at the stuffed chimera in the corner of the living room and at the regalia and robes in a glass display case in the hall. Olivia Grange merely looked at everything with mild interest. Lori noticed, though, how often Arthur looked at Olivia with a sharp suspicious glint in his eyes.

She noticed this too much, however, and failed to notice something else until it was too late.

They were standing before the door to the inner sanctum of Maxwell Enoch’s temple. Over the door a motto in Gothic script read ‘And The Night Shall Outlast The Day’. Arthur was describing the kind of ritual that took place behind the door — a place he refused to open up to visitors. Lori scanned the group for reactions and saw that Vince Smalls was no longer with them. She was both alarmed and furious. Arthur might never allow her to bring a group into his house again, and Vince — who knew what might happen to him?

Someone in the group asked what the meaning of the motto was and Arthur turned to look up at it. At that moment Vince appeared from a side room and joined the group, standing at the back as if he had always been there. He saw Lori glaring at him and flashed her a smile and a shrug.

‘I believe,’ Arthur was saying, ‘that it means that the time will come when the world of the imagination will rise up and conquer the dead hand of the purely rational.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Olivia Grange.

‘Oh?’ said Arthur, ‘Do you think you have a better understanding?’

Olivia smiled at him but did not answer. Arthur narrowed his eyes.

‘Come this way, everyone. There’s coffee and cakes in the conservatory,’ he said.

He led everyone away, effectively ending the tour. Lori moved to follow the group, but Olivia laid a hand on her arm to stop her.

‘We should go with them,” Lori said.

‘Wait here with me.’ Olivia insisted, with a gentle smile.

Lori felt the protective sigil on the back of her neck begin to tingle, but she did as she was asked. A minute, a long minute, later, Arthur came back. He stared at Olivia and she smiled at him. Something clicked in Lori’s mind.

‘You aren’t related to Ruthin Grange are you?’ she asked Olivia. Maxwell Enoch and Ruthin Grange had been magical collaborators until an unexplained rift made them into implacable enemies.

‘She’s his granddaughter — are you not?’ said Arthur.

‘Yes and no,’ said Olivia, still smiling her by now infuriating smile.

‘I should go and see what the group is doing —‘ said Lori.

Arthur and Olivia each grasped one of her wrists.

‘Stay with us,’ said Arthur.

‘I should see what Vince is up to,’ said Lori, hoping to get away. She had begun to worry about sacrificial victims and the like.

‘There’s no need for concern. Smalls is the entertainment,’ said Arthur, and he smiled, and it was not benign.

Arthur and Olivia dropped their grip on Lori’s wrists and she thought that if she had any sense she ought to run for it — but curiosity made her stay.

Arthur took out a key and unlocked the inner sanctum’s door. Lori felt a little spike of excitement. No-one was ever allowed in there, but now they were all stepping through into a medium-sized pentagonal room. The floor was plain white with a small drain hole at its centre, which Lori wondered about and decided not to regard as sinister.

On each of the five walls were painted symbols. Some she recognised, others were entirely new to her, and she could make no meaning out of it at all.

Olivia looked around the room with grave interest.

‘This is where the exchange happened,’ she said, and nodded as if something was clear to her now.

‘What are you talking about?’ Arthur growled.

‘They didn’t tell you? No, I suppose Maxwell would keep it a secret.’

‘I should go,’ said Lori. Her sigil was starting to burn, never a good sign.

‘No, my dear,’ said Olivia, ‘so long as there is a witness, and a magically protected one, there will be no harm done here today. Will there, Arthur?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not in this place, anyway.’

‘It was,’ said Olivia, ‘an exchange of powers and of blood, or DNA, I suppose we’d call it today.”

Arthur was still angry, but he kept quiet for now.

‘Maxwell and his wife Marie, and Ruthin and his wife Gwen met here to perform a ritual that was supposed to bind their magical abilities, which would have the effect of making them the most powerful practitioners of their day. Something went wrong, of course. Being men of their time, they had failed to account for the female elements of power. Part of the ritual involved each man having sex with the wife of the other. I am not au fait with the details of the ritual, but it was at this point it came undone.’

‘Ruthin betrayed Maxwell to gain his power,’ said Arthur.

‘No, Arthur, not at all. That was what Maxwell said to explain the rift, but what actually happened was that each man’s power was transferred to the other’s wife. Marie and Gwen were transformed, and also became pregnant.’

‘No,’ said Arthur.

‘Yes. Two sons were born, your father and mine. Neither was much good as a magician, though, in spite of the circumstances of their conception. Ruthin gave up occultism to write novels and Maxwell continued — but Marie was the actual force in the family. So you see Arthur, I am Maxwell’s grandchild and you are Ruthin’s, not I.’

‘I won’t let you claim my heritage,’ said Arthur, taking up a defensive stance.

‘I don’t want it. I came here to clear away the negative forces between our families. We should do it now, and free ourselves.’

She began to take off her clothes. Arthur was transfixed for a moment, then he too began to strip.

‘Oh no,’ said Lori,’ I should go.’

They were not listening. Off came Arthur’s trousers. Lori made for the door and tried to leave, but it would not open. The key was probably in Arthur’s trousers, but they were on the other side of the room and she was unable to bring herself to turn around and witness what was happening in between.

Instead, she spent the longest eight minutes of her life examining the carvings on the door, a twisted border that she had taken for vines, but now saw that it was a hundred or more entwined naked people. The sigil on the back of her neck burned painfully as if an electric current was passing through it and she was acting as some sort of conduit. It reached a crescendo of pain, and then it was over. After that there was a brief interlude of mumbled incantations, followed by the sound of two people getting dressed. Lori only relaxed a little when Arthur came to unlock the door.

‘My grandfather carved this door,’ he said, as if he were giving the tour still.

‘Ruthin?’ said Lori, not wanting to spare his feelings.

‘Er, no. The other one.’

Arthur pursed his lips and blushed. Olivia joined them, flushed, hair tangled, beaming a radiant smile. Lori tried her very best to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened and that she had not been used in a way that she did not want to examine too closely. The back of her neck was very sore and she wanted to get away from here as soon as possible. Striding ahead of Arthur and Olivia, she went straight to the conservatory to gather the group.

They were standing in a circle, looking down at someone writhing on the floor. Oh, it was Vince, of course. The others were very relieved to see her.

Vince appeared to be trying to fight something off — something quite invisible. He was making quiet noises filled with fear.

‘Arthur,’ Lori called.

Arthur came, and had a good laugh.

‘He went off by himself, didn’t he? I said it was dangerous.’

He leaned over the twisted form on the floor.

‘Give it to me,’ said Arthur.

Vince could hardly breathe, but he managed to indicate his left inside pocket. Arthur reached in and retrieved a small green talisman, slipping it into his own pocket before Lori could get a good look at it.

Whatever was attacking Vince lifted away and he slumped, breathing deeply. Lori helped him to his feet and started to walk him to the front door. Though he was shaky, he was as eager as she was to leave.

Lori counted her group out, anxious not to lose anyone. Olivia, though, was staying. She stood at the door holding hands with Arthur who looked both pleased and puzzled, like a man who had been taken up by a whirlwind and deposited on a strange shore.

Lori wished him luck, sure that he was going to need it.

An Inheritance

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An Inheritance

‘I’m here to chop off your head’ the bloody butcher said.

Elaine Edgeworthy did not know who the middle-aged man she allowed into her office, but she was mildly intrigued. A few minutes ago he had arrived at he entrance to the museum, which was the gift shop, of course, and said he had a donation for the museum. It was a very irregular way to donate, but his surname got him through to her office.

‘Mr Bird,’ she said, ‘do come in.’

He did so with difficulty, as he was carrying a large cardboard box, which he deposited on her desk, scattering paperwork.

‘Ms Edgeworthy,’ he said, ‘good of you to see me.’

‘Forgive me for asking,’ she said, ‘but are you related to Anthony Bird?’

‘My grandfather.’

The smile that came with his answer was not filled with pride, but was ambiguous and with a hint of pain as it faded, probably due to the family history, thought Elaine, but she regarded the box with hungry curiosity. Whatever was in there, if it was in any way connected with Anthony Bird, Shuckleigh’s only respectable famous person, a painter of international repute, then it would be of real importance.

‘You won’t survive the night,’ said the dame by candlelight.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘These are some…toys my grandfather made for my father. I want the museum to have them, but only on the condition that they stay here, and aren’t lent out anywhere.’

Though she was quivering with excitement, Elaine tried to retain an appearance of calm and grace.

‘May I?’ she said, indicating the box.

‘Of course.’

Elaine pulled away the tape holding the top flaps of the box together. Mr Bird, she noticed, took a step backwards, as if he was afraid that something might jump out at him.

‘Oh,’ she said, surprised at the jumble of things in the box. They were glove puppets with papier mache heads and fabric bodies. She reached in and took out the topmost one.

‘Be careful,’ said Mr Bird. ‘That blade is quite sharp.’

The puppet had a lumpy red face. He wore a striped apron spattered with red paint and, stitched to one hand, a cleaver cut from a piece of metal and liberally painted red along its blade.

‘Um,’ said Elaine.

‘That’s the butcher,’ said Mr Bird. ‘My grandfather didn’t believe in childish children’s toys — but you know, when you’re a boy, you do like horrors.’

Elaine laid the butcher on her desk, not sure she liked the look on his face, and finding it hard to reconcile this somewhat barbaric object with the cool, tightly controlled elegance of Anthony Bird’s abstract paintings. Something else was at work here.

The next puppet was an evil-faced woman. In her hand was a candlestick, complete with a wax candle that had a flame made from a bit of yellow foil.

Bird had taken another step back.

‘Are you sure you want to part with these?’ asked Elaine. They were a real win for the museum, but she felt uneasy. ‘They must have been an important part of your childhood, and your father’s.’

‘No, no. They’ve been in the attic for years, but then they started talking to me, and I just don’t want them around any more.’

‘Talking?’

He shook his head and laughed, a jagged sound.

‘You must think — no — memories and all that, I suppose. There was a rhyme went with them. I could hear it in my head. Memories and all that.’

He had taken another step backwards as he spoke, and avoided looking at the puppets laid on Elaine’s desk. She peered into the box and reached for the next.

‘Well, I’ll be going,’ he said. ‘Must rush, and all that.’

Elaine parted her lips to offer him coffee so that they could talk about the donation and any ideas he might have for display, but he was out of the door before she could form a single syllable.

‘Your nightmare’s come to play,’ said the devil of the day.

Bird could still hear them, even as he walked away.

Elaine reached into the box for the next puppet, and almost dropped it in surprise. The face of an angry red devil grinned at her, his face twisted and misshapen. A red heart was stitched to one of his hands — not a sweet symbol of love, but a small anatomically correct bodily organ, painted blood still dripping from its arteries.

Bird said that boys like horrors, but Elaine wondered what sort of father would supply horrors like these to his son.

There was a sheet of paper in the box, yellow with age. Elaine picked it out between finger and thumb and turned it over. On it was written the rhyme that Mr Bird had mentioned. Whose handwriting, Elaine wondered. If it was Anthony Bird’s then this was quite a valuable piece of paper. Research would have to be done. In fact, there might be a book in this — a reappraisal of the artist in the light of these disturbing pieces. Both Anthony Bird and his son had committed suicide at the age of fifty-one. A disturbing light shone on these ‘toys’.

She thought she heard a noise from within the box, a thin whimper. Imagination, surely. Inside was one remaining puppet, lying face down.

Bird drove to the east, away from the town and his obligations, with nothing in his car that was not his and his alone. He could still hear them but the further away he drove, the fainter their voices became. The family house and all its contents were sold to some crazy people who wanted to make a museum of it, the home of the great artist. The money, he wouldn’t keep it, going to a suitable charity. He wanted nothing to link him back to that place.

Elaine noticed a tremour in her hand as she reached for the last puppet. It had the face of a boy, not misshapen like the others, but almost a portrait. He was wide-eyed, his mouth open in a silent scream, and in the middle of his chest there was a painted gaping wound as if his heart had been torn out.

The demon puppet seemed to laugh and wave its bloody trophy, and then the boy really did scream and Elaine heard the final piece of the rhyme.

‘The boy will not grow old, his heart is dead and cold
And once it stops a-beating, will make for finest eating.’

The puppet twisted in her hand. She felt a black tunnel closing in on her and for the first time in her life she almost fainted. The piece of paper crumbled into a hundred pieces.

‘No, no, no,’ she murmured, dropping the puppet and scrabbling to gather the bits of paper together, to salvage a valuable document.

Crossing the border into the next county, Bird felt peace fall upon him, and knew he was free to enjoy life beyond his next birthday.

Sleep Walker

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Sleep Walker

He walked through the front door, out of the house. That he did not open the door before passing through it should have surprised him, but he thought he was dreaming, so he accepted it as normal.

It was night, and few street lights were still on. The only other person walking the streets at that hour did not even glance at him, even though he was wearing his paisley pyjamas. He paused to think. Where was he going? To her place, of course, where else?

He walked through that front door, too, and upstairs to her flat. For a minute he stood in front of the door, thinking that he should knock, but then stepped in.

It was quiet and dark and smelt of cooking, a familiar savoury odour. She must have made a curry, the lamb one he liked so much. That hurt, that she could serve up his favourite meal to someone else.

He walked to the bedroom, not wanting to go there but unable to resist the pull.

There they were, tangled up together, sleeping in quiet contentment. The red rage came down on him then and the need to do damage. Swearing at them he tried to pull the duvet off. Nothing moved and they slept on. Gathering all his anger he hurled it towards them in one roar.

She woke up then, suddenly sitting up. She saw him, she screamed. Afraid of the humiliating scene, him in their bedroom dressed only in pyjamas and fury, he turned and ran, pulled back through the streets and into his bed.

Only a dream, he told himself, but there was no more sleep that night. He was a roiling ball of emotions, misery and rage twisted up together.

Walking through the streets in the morning felt more dreamlike than the dream. Once he even checked to make sure that he was not wearing pyjamas. Nobody noticed him, but that was normal — they were all caught up in their own lives and he was nothing out of the ordinary.

Someone saw him. He felt it and looked in the direction of the feeling. It was her. She stood quite still on the other side of the road, glaring at him. Afraid that she really had seen him in her bedroom last night, that it was no dream, he turned and hurried on his way, muttering to himself ‘It was a dream. Just a dream.’

That evening he stifled all thought with hours of television, trying his best not to dwell on personal things. Even so, once asleep he got out of bed and walked into the street again. It was raining heavily but the rain did not soak him, passing right through him as he had passed through closed doors.

So there he was again, staring down at them waiting for the rage to build up and explode, but it did not come. There was nothing but a bleak, cold emptiness where the anger had been. It really was over, he was alone and there was nothing he could do about it. But inside the cold was a small, hard thing, icier and stronger than anger. Hate.

She did this to him. She would pay. He left that place and went out to walk the streets, planning how to make her pay.

‘She shouldn’t have left me,’ he muttered to himself. ‘She was mine, she betrayed me.’

‘Are you sure?’ said someone behind him, and indistinct darkness in the shape of a man.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ he yelled.

‘Did you ever tell her how much you liked that curry? Didn’t you always tell her nothing but how worthless she was?’

‘Turns out I was right, wasn’t I?’

He moved away from the questioner, walking, walking.

‘What do you want to do now?’ it asked.

He stopped, turned his head.

‘You know, I’d really like to kill her. Maybe I’ll kill you, too.’

There was a deep laugh, like a bell chiming at the bottom of the ocean.

‘You’re at a crossroads,’ said the questioner. ‘Which way will you go?’

He was at a crossroads. Straight on or to the left led to the bridges over the River Lost. To the right or back the way he came led into town, but the questioner stood in that direction. He turned and walked straight on, towards the old bridge. It was a dream, it did not matter which way he went.

That was when he noticed that the town was exactly the same as it would have been in reality, with none of the strangenesses that appeared in dreams. Except, of course, for the questioner following a few paces behind.

‘Have you ever thought of blaming yourself?’ that creature asked.

‘No I have not. This isn’t about me.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I know so.’

That sounded weak. These questions were starting to chip away at his carefully cradled hatred. He kept on walking faster, faster, down to the river, but the questioner kept pace with him.

‘Didn’t you say you loved her?’

‘Once I did, but you can’t love someone who leaves you, sneaking out while you’re away, not even facing you.’

‘And why did she leave you?’

‘Because she’s a selfish bitch.’

‘Because she was afraid of you.’

They were on the bridge now, and he could take no more of this. He swung around and lunged forward, grabbing his pursuer by the throat with both hands, choking as though it was her throat. A cloud drew away from the moon and he saw the questioner’s face. His own face.

Still he wrung and crushed until his other self grew limp and fell into a dead heap at his feet.

His anger was not sated. There was a woman on the bridge, looking right at him. She saw what he had done. Now he had to kill her, too.

She did not run away from him, nor seem afraid of him. He wanted to make her afraid.

As he took her throat in his hands, she wrapped her arms around him and fell backwards from the bridge, taking him with her, down, down, into the cold waters of the River Lost.

HIs cleaning lady found him the next day, in bed, asleep forever. Drowned, his lungs filled with river water.

Spot

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Spot

There was something slithering around my bedroom in the dark, a fragment of nothingness whispering across the walls. I sat up. There it was again — darker darkness on the periphery of my vision, sliding away. I clicked on the bedside light and it was gone.

For a couple of weeks now I had been half seeing this thing. A black spider running across a surface near my hand, a mouse shadow running into a corner, something falling from the ceiling — and always nothing there when I turned to look.

There was something wrong with my vision.

The optician said everything was fine.

So. There was something wrong with my mind.

I could have sought help, but it seemed a trivial matter, the illusion of small shadows. I chose to try to ignore it.

Sometimes I thought it might have been a real spider — one that ran very fast and hid when I looked for it. At other times perhaps it was just a misinterpretation of ordinary shadows moving as I turned my head. After all, the world as we see it only exists inside our minds. What is actually out there — well, I don’t want to think about that.

I began to manage the problem of the moving shadows quite well. When I noticed them, and you can’t not notice movement in the corner of your vision, I trained myself not to look. I hoped to train myself not to see it at all, but it wanted to be noticed, and hated to be ignored. The little black scrap started to scurry across the desk in front of me too fast for me to see what it really was, or to run over my feet and into the corner of the room.

I am not a nervous person, but this was turning me into one. I began to think I saw it even when it was not there. Any little unexpected movement would make me jump. It was like having mice, except that it didn’t eat my biscuits. The only thing for it was to get the exterminator in.

Charlie the exorcist moved around my flat as if looking for the spoor of my infestation.

‘I’m not picking anything up,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t always mean there’s nothing here, though. I’ll give the whole place a good clean out.’

He spent four hours chanting, ringing bells, thrusting smoking bundles of ritual herbs into every corner. The place seemed different when he left, calmer, emptier. I relaxed.

But he had missed a spot.

The shadow was back again that night, flitting past my feet while I was trying to watch TV. The more I ignored it the more often it appeared. This thing meant for me to pay attention to it, which suggested it had thoughts and feelings — a suggestion that I placed firmly out of sight at the back of my mind.

I refused to look at the racing black spot. Then it stopped on the floor in front of my feet. I kept my eyes on the TV screen, but my whole consciousness was focussed on the tiny patch of darkness on the carpet. Even so, when it moved it took me by surprise, darting forward onto the toe of my slipper and up my leg.

I screamed and jumped up, dusting away at my trousers to get the thing off me.

After a minute of noisy panic, I searched for it. I couldn’t see it on me, or on the floor. Running into the bedroom, I pulled off all my clothes and examined myself all over in the mirror, but found no dark marks. I threw my clothes into the bath and ran the cold water until they were drowned. Over the sink I combed my hair through and through and looked in my eyes and mouth for any sign of it. If I had swallowed it what was I to do?

Shivering, naked, my clothes soaked, I stood in the bathroom wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I have never been afraid of spiders or insects yet here I was becoming hysterical over a tiny patch of nothing.

Later that night I was made aware of my mistake. It was not in my drowned clothes or in my hair, but had made its escape into my bedroom when I threw my clothes onto the floor. Now it was running over the walls, mocking me. I slept on the sofa instead, waking every now and then to check whether it had followed me. Whatever it was, inside my head or outside, it was not going to be easy to get rid of it. I could move house, but I suspected that it would be as persistent as bedbugs, hitching a lift in my luggage. Whatever it was, it was mine.

The next evening I sat on the sofa reading a book and watching it out of the corner of my eye, scooting around the room, approaching closer and closer until it stopped by my feet again. Holding my breath and my nerve I waited. I was terrified — a little black dot and it took all my strength not to run away.

It hopped onto my slipper and rested there a moment, then began to climb my trouser leg. I gritted my teeth and did not react. It went out of sight for a second, then popped onto the right hand page of my book. I stared directly at it, a speck of dark awareness focussed on me, nothing but an absence of reflected light.

‘Hello,’ I said.

I held my hand out to it and it zipped across the page, coming to rest in the centre of my palm. There was nothing to feel, no tickle, no tingle of presence, but I swear it curled up a bit tighter and made itself at home there.

Sometimes other people see it on me for a fleeting second. They take it for a spider or other bug.

‘There’s nothing there,’ I say, but there is, always scooting across my skin. My companion. I am still afraid of it. One day it may burrow into my flesh and show its true purpose, but until then I must think of it as a friend. I call it Spot, and try to smile.

Recall, Remember, Forget

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Recall, Remember, Forget

Bones of an unusual small animal, a battered fob watch in a fine silver case and a tattered silk handkerchief with a dark stain in one corner. Eddie hated jobs like this.

As soon as he got the text telling him to come to the front door, not the basement entrance, he knew something was wrong. He contemplated not going at all, but the money was double and this was his profession.

A nice fresh corpse meant things would go smoothly. One long gone and nothing but a few personal possessions to work with meant difficulty and danger.

Lamia had let him into the Dark House, and hovered behind him now.

“Can you do it?’ they asked

He sighed.

‘Triple my fee,’ he said. ‘Where’s the question?’

Lamia nodded as if the inflated fee was only to be expected, and handed him a sheet of grubby paper with one line of writing scrawled across it.

The thing on the top floor was screaming again. Lamia looked upwards with a concerned expression, as if a baby was crying not a — whatever it was. Eddie had seen it once, by accident, and it had almost lured him in, sweet as it seemed. Only the amulets he always wore kept him from being consumed.

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

Lamia shook the paper at him.

‘That is what you’re here to find out. I brought your things up from downstairs. If you need anything else, call me.’

Pushing the paper into his hand, Lamia left him in the dimly-lit room. Overhead, the screaming continued.

Smoothing the sheet of paper, Eddie stared at the writing. Baffled, he turned the paper through 180 degrees and tried again. No. The writing was an incomprehensible line of wobbly marks whichever way he looked at it. Eddie had some grasp of quite a few obscure and ancient scripts, but this was nothing he recognised. It hardly looked like writing at all, but more like something an illiterate person might produce if forced to ‘write’ something.

Eddie left the room and went to the bottom of the stairs. (He knew better than to climb them.)

‘Hello?’ he called, several times. At last Lamia appeared to the top of the stairs, paler even than usual. Eddie waved the paper. ‘If this is the question, I can’t read it. How can I ask an unreadable question?’

‘Show it,’ said Lamia, and turned away, running back up out of sight.

Show it. The Recalled were not generally in the mood for reading, but he was being paid triple rates, so he shrugged and went back to make his preparations.

From his box of necessaries he took a human skull complete with lower jaw hinged in place with silver wire, and arranged the possessions of the one to be recalled around it, along with other items which it would not be prudent to mention here.

After an hour’s worth of incantations and deep concentration Eddie was sweating and exhausted with the effort, but the skull began to vibrate. It started to chatter its teeth together like a wind-up toy, leapt into the air and flew across the room, bouncing off a red velvet chaise longue and onto the floor.

It appeared that this Recalled One did not wish to fit itself into someone else’s skull.

Eddie considered his options. Resistance called for a more direct approach. He thought of that triple fee. He thought of taking a holiday somewhere warm. Somewhere hot.

There was a little bottle of oil in the box of necessaries, which he he seldom used. The tools of the trade were, of course, only vehicles for the trained practitioner, but this was a particularly powerful tool.

He took the handkerchief and laid the silver watch and the collection of small animal bones on it. The tiny skull was peculiar, with huge eye sockets and many pointed teeth, all black and shiny. Eddie drew up the corners of the handkerchief and tied it all into a small bundle.

Unscrewing the top of the oil bottle, he let two drops fall onto the carpet in front of him, then, with the bundle of possessions in his left hand and the unreadable question in the other, he began a long, repetitive incantation. Concentrating on the air in front of him, the objects in his hands and the sound of his own voice, he continued the rhythmic chant on and on, never pausing, never allowing his mind to drift. At last a small spot of mist appeared, widening into a circle like a dissipating smoke ring, opening a dark hole in reality. The hole grew to about the height of a man. Eddie continued to chant until he was sure it was stable, then he began his recall.

‘Come forth by night. Here are your treasures, here is a question for you. Come forth.’

There was no response. It would have been easier if he had a name for the target, but he suspected that he was calling on one with a dangerous name, or no name at all. Again and again he demanded the presence of the owner of the handkerchief and its contents, insisting on his right to call them to answer.

The eventual response was not exactly what he expected. a violent groan carried on foul air emitted from the hole. Eddie held his nerve and continued his demands. Suddenly something long, dark and flexible reached out of the hole, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him through into the darkness.

This was a new experience, but he had to hold his concentration or everything would be lost. Eddie demanded his answer, holding out the paper with the unreadable squiggles on it. Something stumbled towards him. Its breath was cold and it stank of putrefaction. For a brief moment, Eddie questioned his choice of profession. That moment was just long enough for his attacker to take the paper away from him, and almost succeed in taking the handkerchief bundle, too. Eddie managed to keep hold of that just because he had taken care to tangle his fingers around the knot.

The Recalled One was angry. It howled and treated him to another blast of icy stinking air. Eddie could hardly breathe, but he was a professional and he held his ground, and the bundle that enabled him to control the recalling. Again he demanded an answer. What he got was a ferocious blow into middle of his chest. He lost both control and consciousness. The world was black inside and out.

His neck was twisted to the right, his cheek pressed into a fuzzy surface. A skull, someone else’s, he hoped, lay close by, mouth open wide. It took a few moments for Eddie to realise where he was. He pushed himself into a sitting position and found his fingers still entangled in the knotted handkerchief, which had a few more unpleasant stains on it now, still moist.

Up near the ceiling a dusty, half-seen, feathered creature shifted.

‘Yeah,’ he said to it, ‘not quite, not this time. My lucky day, not yours,’

It shifted again, and was gone.

The screaming from upstairs continued, but at a different pitch. Lamia entered the room, flustered and distressed.

‘I heard you yell,’ they said.

‘I yelled? That’s possible.’

Eddie pushed himself to his knees, intending to get up. Something dripped onto the floor. Oh yes, his nose was bleeding. He almost used the hanky bundle to stem the flow but stopped himself in time, disentangled his fingers and set it onto the chaise longue. Then he got up and sat next to it, found a tissue in his pocket and held it to his nose.

‘I didn’t—,’ he began, but Lamia gave a cry and swooped down to pick a ball of something off the floor. Fingering it open, Lamia spread it out on the table next to Eddie’s box and smoothed it down. It was the question.

Eddie got up to look. The paper was well-chewed, damp and sticky, but under the original line of squiggles, there was another burned into the paper, as if someone had written it with a sharp smouldering stick.

‘What does it say?’ he asked

‘I have no idea.’

Lamia grasped the paper and ran from the room and Eddie heard them dashing upstairs. After a minute or two, the screaming stopped.

With a sigh he picked up the skull and put it back in the box. Then he untied the handkerchief, laid it on the table and opened it out. The battered fob watch was ticking, and the animal skeleton was covered in flesh with scales in many shades of blue. The creature opened one large eye and looked at him. Eddie took a step backwards out of caution, but it showed no inclination to do anything but lie there on its back twitching its tiny paws.

He left the room, closing the door, and waited in the hall, holding a sodden tissue to his still dripping nose. After a while, Lamia came down, smiling (though he wished they wouldn’t). They offered him a clean linen handkerchief, and he took it, feeling that losing too much blood in this house was a bad idea.

‘It seems the answer was satisfactory,’ said Lamia.

‘Good,’ said Eddie. ‘Who was it I recalled?’

‘Best not to think about it.’

Ah, not a someone then, more of a something, that had once had need of a timepiece, or — but no, best not to think about it.

‘I’m going on holiday for a month.’

‘Thank you for letting me know. Your fee has been sent direct to your bank account.’

He nodded and stepped out of the front door. Dawn was just breaking, the eastern horizon brightening to a pale lemon which to Eddie was the most beautiful colour he had ever seen.