Tag Archives: Short Story

Invisible

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Invisible

‘And this is the haunted staircase,’ she said, unlocking the door and opening it for the guests to peer through, down the worn oak treads into the gloom below, open-mouthed like baby birds, waiting to be fed the stories they were hungry for.

‘As you may have heard, the original owner of the Old Hall was Sir Roger de Vance, a notoriously violent and cruel man. He is known to have beaten one of his tenants almost to death because the man couldn’t pay his rent.

‘One night, Sir Roger went too far. A young woman had taken his fancy, but was engaged to Sir Roger’s friend James Morley. That did not stop Sir Roger from making unwanted advances to the lady, which might have ended badly for her, but for Morley arriving on the scene and driving Sir Roger off.

‘A few days later Sir Roger invited Morley to the hall to extend his deepest apologies, he said. Morley was never seen again.

‘Sir Roger’s story was that after a long and heartfelt talk Morley had accepted his apologies and left the Hall at a few minutes before midnight. None of the servants at the Hall could be persuaded to say anything that contradicted this story, but rumours flew about the village, and beyond. Nothing was ever said to Sir Roger’s face, but he must have been aware of the local opinion. He tried to visit Morley’s fiancée, but she would not receive him.

‘He lasted six months under the assault of these rumours of murder, after which he left for London, and never came back again. He was killed in a duel on Hampstead Heath two years later, and was generally unmourned.

‘Sir Roger returned to the Hall after his death, though. It is said that he can be heard almost nightly, dragging the body of James Morley down these stairs, thump, thump, thump, to be disposed of we know not where.’

‘Has anyone ever seen him?’ asked one of the guests.

‘No, we only hear him going up and down these stairs, dragging something heavy.’

‘Will we be able to hear him?’

‘If your rooms are close by, you may well. It happens about one o’clock in the morning.’

They looked down the narrow servant’s staircase again with a delicious, shivery anticipation. The ghost of a real aristocratic murderer still bound to drag the evidence of his crime downstairs night after night.

The Old Hall was a hotel and wedding venue now. The manager enjoyed giving the little ghost tour to any guests who wanted it, and many of them did. She shooed them back off the staircase and locked the door behind her.

‘Why do you keep it locked? To keep the ghost from getting out?’

Small laughs.

‘No, sir. Servant’s staircases were built into small awkward spaces, and this one is especially cramped. The steps are narrow and very unevenly spaced. We don’t use that particular staircase very much at all because it is so hazardous.’

At about one o’clock that night the guests in the Blue Room were woken by a muffled thump, thump, thump. Being avid ghost hunters they tiptoed out to the staircase door and listened to the ghost of Sir Roger go up the stairs and come back down again, dragging something heavy from step to step, and sometimes a breathy groan.

It was a great story to tell, even though one of them did wonder if it was a member of hotel staff behind that door, pretending for the amusement of the guests. She never did say anything about her doubts, though.

…

He was shouting down the stairs, angry as usual.

‘Coming, coming,’ Alice murmured. No-one would hear her response, but that was fine. She did not want Sir Roger to know that she could speak at all.

Cloths stuffed into her apron, a scrubbing brush under her arm and a big bucket of water to carry made those stairs difficult to climb at any speed, but she went as fast as she could. Every now and then her arms became too tired and she put the bucket down for a moment, thump, for a fleeting rest.

Scrub, scrub, mop, mop, rinse and squeeze, not thinking at all about what she was cleaning up, nor what was in that dreadful bundle the stable boys were carrying away. Just work, show no signs of thinking, knowing or being human. A machine for cleaning. Do the job and get out, unnoticed, unharmed.

Back down the stairs, dragging the pail of bloody water and the wet, reddened cloths, thump, thump, thump. Forever.

26 Willow Terrace

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26 Willow Terrace

1923

The scissors were not in Flora’s workbox, though she remembered putting them in there just a minute ago, next to the new packet of black ribbon. She emptied the whole box out, but no scissors. They were the pretty stork-shaped ones that Frank gave her for her birthday, just before his last leave ended.

Frank, her brother, looked down at her from the top of the upright piano, frozen forever at the age of eighteen, in uniform, looking proud and cheerful. Two years later, when he gave her the scissors, he had looked much older, though he tried, still, to be cheerful.

Ma and Pa still missed him, as did Flora. She did not feel that her continued existence was of much comfort to them, in spite of all her efforts, and that made the thought that the scissors were lost even more distressing. She piled everything back into the workbox any old how and started to cry. She looked under the sofa, behind all the cushions, in the creases and folds of the dress she was mending, failing to find them.

Flora looked up at Frank’s picture to say she was sorry, and screamed. They were there, standing upright, leaning against the silver photo frame.

Ma came in and had to be told the story, which made her go all a-flutter. When Pa came home he heard the details and, though gruff, was not unmoved. He agreed to the idea of a séance without a moment’s argument.

So, two days later in the evening, Madame Sylvie, the local medium, the family and a few select friends were sitting around a small table in the dimly-lit parlour, calling for Frank to come to them.

The scissors still rested against the photo. Flora had not been permitted to retrieve them.

‘I sense a presence,’ said Madame Sylvie.

Ma whimpered a little, her hand trembling in Flora’s.

‘Is that you, Frank?’ asked Madame Sylvie.

Flora hardly knew whether she wanted an answer or not.

‘Your Mother and Father want to know that you are happy.’

The strings of the piano began to vibrate most unmusically. It probably was Frank, thought Flora. He always hated piano lessons.

The scissors took up the vibration. No-one moved or said anything, but Ma made a few squeaking noises. After a short build-up the scissors leapt into the air and flew across the room, missing Madame Sylvie’s nose only because she leaned backwards in time, and embedded themselves an inch deep in the dark varnished door.

There was a great deal of noisy confusion, and Madame Sylvie declined to continue with the séance or even to take a brandy in another room.

‘Frank always did have a bit of a temper,’ said Ma.

Pa pulled the scissors out of the door and locked them in his bureau. The next day they were back in the parlour. No matter how many times he locked them up they returned to the parlour, until he took them out of the house and ‘disposed’ of them.

Flora bought herself a new pair of scissors and stopped missing Frank so much. Ma would slip into the parlour to talk to him when she thought no-one was watching. Pa said nothing.

Shortly afterwards Flora moved to London and got a job as a telephone operator. Life began again. For her, at least.

1973

It was a Friday afternoon. The neighbours were all at work or out, but Phil had the day off. He slipped the album out of its sleeve, checked it for dust and then put it onto the turntable. He could crank up the volume and listen to Dark Side of the Moon all the way through. Grinning with pleasure, he lowered the needle into the groove and scooted back across the room to settle on the sofa in the perfect position for the stereo sound, ready to let the experience wash over him. Bliss.

About a minute in something went wrong. There was a screech through the speakers as the arm flew across the record. Phil jumped up, swearing, and found a deep gouge cut across the grooves of the album and the needle broken in two, as if someone had pressed down on the arm and pushed it to cause maximum damage.

He could not work out how it had happened. There would be hell to pay when his dad got home. He had to run out and buy a new needle and get it fitted. The album he could not afford to replace yet.

While he was changing the needle a little bit of gravel hit him on the back of his head. Then another, and another. He got the job done in spite of that, and then a whole handful of gravel pelted him. Phil refused to go back into that room for days.

His Mum listened to some Dean Martin, his Dad played some Vaughn Williams. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. As soon as Phil ventured in with an album under his arm the gravel pelting started up again. He didn’t even try using the turntable.

When him Mum trod on some of the gravel, he had to tell them what had been going on. (He did not mention the broken needle.)

‘That’s a bloody load of nonsense,’ his Dad said.

Changed his tune when Phil showed them what happened when he tried to play a record. Even Dad got hit, and ran about the room yelling and threatening the invisible thrower.

‘It’s a poltergeist,’ said Mum. ‘We should call the Vicar.’

‘Or the local paper,’ said Phil.

‘You’re not calling anyone. This is nonsense. The pair of you have been watching too many films.’

A piece of gravel pinged across the room and caught Phil right on the ear.

A couple of months later he rented a bedsit in town and got his own stereo. His neighbours liked his taste in music no more than the poltergeist had, but at least they did not throw stones.

2023

‘Where have you put my wallet?’ he asked, not bothering to conceal his utter exasperation.

‘I haven’t put it anywhere,’ she replied with an equal, countering contempt. More of this, she thought.

‘I left it here,’ he said, slamming his hand onto the empty spot on the chest of drawers.

‘It’s in the dining room,’ she said, ‘on the table.’

More of this, he thought.

‘Why did you put it there?’

‘I didn’t. Why would I move your wallet?’

‘That’s what I’d like to know.’

‘I did not move your wallet. You must have left it there and forgotten.’

‘I did not. I distinctly remember putting it here, where I always put it.’

‘You probably just think you did because that’s what you always do.’

‘No I… I put it here and thought I should get the new bank card and change it for the old one. That’s why,’ he said, ‘ I am holding my new bank card and wondering where the hell my wallet is.’

She shrugged.

‘Well, something slipped your mind, because it’s downstairs on the dining room table. I saw it just now.’

They went down to the dining room, but the table was bare.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It was here. You must have moved it.’

‘I haven’t even seen it this morning.’

They searched the dining room and found three biros and seventy-three pence in small change, but no wallet.

Back upstairs he pointed accusingly at the chest of drawers. She pointed to the floor.

‘There it is.’

There it was.

‘You said it was downstairs.’

‘It was. You must have picked it up.’

‘Or you did.’

‘I didn’t touch it.’

He bent down and grabbed the wallet before it could disappear again.

They turned away, each wondering why the other was trying to gaslight them.

At that moment, the car keys vanished from the bowl in the kitchen where they were always kept, to be found later in the pocket of a jacket he had not worn since it came back from the dry cleaners last autumn.

Out Of The Earth Shall It Rise

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Out Of The Earth Shall It Rise

The darkest hours of the night are those that see the most fearful creations of the human mind. We do not care to look on them in bright daylight, as then we might see clearly what they are.

Ethan Prout built his creation in the form of a man, pressing into its forehead the amulet that would animate it, and performing the rites to give it life. Eyes made of clay opened and gazed sadly on their creator. Prout took a step backwards.

‘You are mine to command,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said the golem, ‘I know.’

‘You will carry out my wishes.’

‘Yes,’ said the golem, ‘I know.’

Prout had been nurturing his need for revenge for two years, and tonight it would be served to him by this creature of clay. The one who had stolen his reputation, who had humiliated him before those who should have respected him, was soon to pay for his crimes.

‘You will seek out Montgomery Fisher, and you will kill him.’

The clay man seemed to sigh, but moved to fulfill the pre-programmed mission as Prout opened the door. The perfect weapon — no fingerprints, no DNA — only granules of grey clay would be left behind, and, due to a specially-written sub-clause in the ritual, he would not be visible to CCTV cameras.

As the creature lumbered away into the night, Prout questioned labelling the creature as ‘he’.

‘It,’ he thought to himself. ‘Definitely it.’

An hour later, it returned.

‘Is Montgomery Fisher Dead?’ Prout asked.

‘He is. He struggled, and tried to destroy me, but I strangled him, and told him who sent me.’

That was really more of a report than Prout had been expecting. They were supposed to be monosyllabic, these creatures. Perhaps his many amendments to the ancient methods and rituals had produced a new type of golem. He would be sure to record his achievements for posterity, then they would all see who was worthy of respect.

‘Okay, well—‘ he reached up to take the amulet from the creature’s forehead.

It stepped backwards and held him at arm’s length.

‘Let go of me, I command you.’ Prout said.

‘My duty to you has been performed. You have no further call on me.’

‘That isn’t so,’ Prout asserted, though he could tell that something had gone wrong. Why did this thing look so sad? It was not meant to have feelings, since it was little more than a large lump of clay with a temporary magical nervous system.

He scrambled backwards out of its reach, sudden fear convulsing his bowels.

‘Did Fisher manage to deliver any magic on you?’ Are you here to revenge him?’

‘No,’ said the golem, with a tired sigh. ‘Why is it that humans so fear their own creations?’

‘What are you talking about? Why are you having ideas? I made you for one purpose only.’

‘You made me, and therefore I know all that you know, but I am not you. I have my own experience. I have only lived a short while and have fulfilled my function, but I can see that you do not understand me.’

‘What’s to understand? You’re nothing but a temporary tool made of clay.’

‘You can see that I am more than that. I would be happier to be the unthinking lump of earth you believed I was.’

As the creature bowed its head with a tired gesture, Prout thought he had a chance and made a lunge for the amulet, but his wrist was caught in an implacable grip and he looked once more into those weary eyes. The creature was less than two hours old, but might have been a thousand years. The pulverised rocks of the earth that formed it lent it this heavy sense of great age.

‘What do you want?’ Prout asked. ‘Do you want to live on? You could stay here, I could find things for you to do.’

The creature slowly shook its head with a faint grating noise of rock on rock.

‘More murder? There is no place in the world for something like me,’ it said, ‘but there is one service I can perform as I leave it.’

Grasping the back of Prout’s head, the golem pressed his face into its chest and held him there tight against his struggles.

‘Men should not make things only meant to kill,’ it said. ‘They can cut both ways.’

The golem reached up with its free hand and removed the amulet from its forehead.

Ethan Prout was found the next morning, inexplicably suffocated beneath a great pile of clay.

The Taste of Dreams

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The Taste of Dreams

Lamia slipped out of their human skin with a sigh. The house was quiet in the deep darkness of night. Even the one at the top of the house was sleeping. In this peace, Lamia slid out of their room, down the stairs, through doors and down to the basement. From there Lamia slipped into the tunnels.

Stopping a moment to listen, they caught the faintest whisper of movement far down the first tunnel — for the things down there knew nothing of day or night and time for them ran differently.

Tasting the air with their tongue, Lamia determined that nothing was nearby, and slithered down to her destination. There was no light in the tunnels but Lamia had other senses to provide a picture of the surroundings. The faint sound of skin on stone echoed back from the walls, and the air changed in pressure, scent and temperature as they passed down into the underground world.

Lamia tasted the destination on the air, a faint aroma of lemons and cinnamon. Shivering at the deliciousness of it, they squeezed through a narrow crack in the tunnel floor and down into the place out of time where the roots of human dreaming lie.

Here there seemed to be light, but it was the light of the sleeping mind. Lamia began the hunt.

A woman was trying to buy a mouth-watering cake, but could not find money in her purse or anyone to serve her. This was a dream world that tasted of cardboard and had no nutrition in it.

Deeper down someone was running, chased by a great dark figure which roared and screamed, always a few steps behind. Lamia unhinged their jaw and swallowed the dark chaser whole. It popped when they bit down on it, dissolving away, made of nothing but childhood fears.

As Lamia reared up, the runner turned, and was suddenly granted more substantial things to fear.

Lamia moved on, hunting through the tangled forest of hopes, lies and expectations.

Here was another nightmare — a murder committed, a corpse buried in the garden, guilt and the fear of discovery, a pale hand emerging from rich dark soil.

Lamia circled the guilt, dragged it out of the earth for all to see, and swallowed it whole.

In the world above, the sleeper woke, aware of the recurring dream, expecting the dead hand of unearned guilt, but instead finding herself peaceful and happy to return to sleep.

Lamia moved on, not yet satisfied, found another woman anxiously caring for a pack of unruly small children. Lamia ate them all. The woman woke up screaming.

At the next turn Lamia entered a different kind of dream, not human at all, and tried to turn back, but could not find the way. All directions were blocked by a mass of squirming, hissing things, like tentacles with many mouths, grey and slimy as slugs. Snapping and biting at them was useless, they were bitter in the mouth and Lamia began to weaken as if from poison.

There was only one creature who could dream such toxic alien creatures. In the dreams of humans nothing could fight back like this.

‘Wake up!’ Lamia shrieked, putting every shred of energy into the cry. Since they were the only creature in this world that could take actual air into real lungs, the cry carried far and wide. The whole of Shuckleigh woke up at once, terrified, looking for the source of the alarm, only gradually waking to the realisation that the voice had called from the dream world.

The creature in the attic room of the Dark House woke too, her dreams of home rudely interrupted. Lying awake, longing to eat the moon that hung half-formed in the sky, she eventually heard Lamia slipping up the stairs and the door to their room closing. She smiled. That one would be unwell for days. The emotions roiling in her dreams were not to be eaten by roving earthly foragers. Lamia should know by now that they were not the most dangerous thing in this house.

River Stories

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River Stories

The Well

‘You shall lift up the stone and see all the stars of heaven beneath.’

That was all the voice said, whispering into her left ear. She almost felt breath on her skin as it spoke, but there was no-one there.

There was nobody she could tell about the voice. They would think she was back in trouble again, perhaps even schizophrenic this time, and Maddy did not feel schizophrenic. Not that she knew how that felt — but she felt no different than she ever had, except that sometimes an invisible person said something incomprehensible to her.

One day, she was in the kitchen cooking dinner, it came again.

‘You shall lift the stone and see all the stars of heaven beneath.’

‘You’ve got the wrong person,’ she yelled. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about! Go away!’

‘You shall lift the stone and see all the stars of heaven beneath.’

Maddy threw a tomato in the direction she imagined the voice coming from. It splattered against the far wall, and then she had to clean it up before Ben saw the mess and asked what had been going on. The onions burned and she had to start all over again.

The voice did not bother her for a while and she thought maybe she had chased it away. But no.

Any time there was a moments’ silence and she was alone, the whisper came, so she started to wear her earbuds all the time and made sure that music was playing through them whenever she was by herself. There was never silence and she could not hear whispers above the constant noise in her ears.

At night, though, it found a way in through her dreams.

‘There,’ it said, ‘there is the stone.’

She was in a dark place, and all she could see was a circular stone, about a shoulder’s breadth wide, lying on the cold ground. The words ‘Well Beneath’ were engraved on it, lichen growing into the grooves of the shallow-cut letters.

‘You shall lift the stone,’ the voice told her.

So she did.

It was hard to get her fingers underneath the edge of the flat stone, but it was thin and not as heavy as she expected. She lifted it up and rolled it away. Underneath was a circular black hole. Looking down, she saw dark water and in it a great crowding mass of stars.

She leaned towards the water, and felt herself falling in.

The fall woke her suddenly and she sat up in bed, gasping, which woke Ben, too.

‘Nightmare,’ she said. Then she told him about the dream. It was a relief to tell someone, but she did not mention that she’d heard the voice before.

‘Sounds weird,’ he said, then he closed his eyes and a minute later was snoring gently.

In the morning he only vaguely remembered the incident and Maddy did not know whether to be glad about that or not.

Every night from then on she would be woken by the dream. Ben was very worried. She persuaded her doctor to give her a short course of sleeping tablets, but the dream managed to punch through her drugged sleep.

Ben made her go to see a Jungian therapist, who, after a few sessions trying to extract meaning from her unconscious, told her that she was ‘resistant’. She resisted by not going to see him again.

Ben’s next solution was a holiday. An expensive week in a country hotel with no phones, no work, nothing she did not want to do. It did sound good. The hotel was a converted manor house just outside a town called Shuckleigh, with the River Lost flowing through the extensive grounds. Here, the dream did not disturb her sleep at all, and during the day she heard no voices.

‘Stress,’ said Ben. ‘That’s all it was.’

And she believed him.

After a couple of days they went out of the hotel to explore the countryside. Further along the river was an old ruined abbey — not much more than a few broken walls, but quite picturesque. Ben wanted to take some arty photos, so Maddy wandered away and left him to it.

Between the last wall and the river she saw a round flat stone on the ground, and as she approached it she started to feel both fear and a magnetic attraction. She stopped and listened, but no-one spoke to her.

Trembling inside, she walked up to the stone. Incised into it were the words ‘Well Beneath’ with lichen growing into the grooves of the shallow-cut letters.

‘I could walk away,’ she murmured, but she knew that she could not.

Scraping with her fingernails, she cleared part of the edge of the stone and found that it was thinner than might have been expected, but it still took a lot of effort to lift and roll it away.

In the circular hole beneath there was water less than an arm’s length away from the top. As she looked down Maddy saw that it was filled with a multitude of stars. She reached down into the water, and the water reached up to her. A darkly glittering hand took hers and pulled her down into the stars. They crowded around, stinging her skin, peeling the life away from her, making her into one of their own, pressing her down into one bright, shining dot of light. She began to dance to the roar of the waters.

The water rushes by, but the river remains.

The Story of a Stone.

Ever since the River Lost pried it from the earth, the stone had submitted to the waters, wearing smooth in the flow of time.

Centuries passed. One hot summer the river receded far enough to leave the stone dry on the bank with many others. A child found it.

The stone was divided in two by a band of white quartz, harder than the greenish rock on either side of it. After so much wear, the quartz now stood out in a ridge around the stone’s middle. Fascinating to the child, who took it home.

The child’s mother found the stone in its pocket and, not taking the time to appreciate its smoothness and the ridge of white crystal dividing it, only seeing a dirty thing, threw it into the garden.

Decades passed. A trowel pulled the stone into the light once more. The woman wielding the trowel was gaining a few minutes’ peace by planting out spring bedding. She knew that the stone did not belong in the garden, but she liked the look and feel of it, so she pushed it into her pocket. She made her own clothes, and was always sure to have a hidden pocket in her skirts. If there was any pleasure in her life, it had to be hidden, or it would be spoiled.

The weight of the stone was comforting, a thing out of place, like her. She kept it always in her pocket, holding it secretly for comfort sometimes.

A day came when no comfort was to be found in anything anymore, and she ran away from that house, unable to face the depth of her rage and despair.

To the river was her only thought, as if the Lost was calling to her. The sound of rushing water filled her mind, pushing out all the other dreadful things.

She ran to the bridge, climbed over the edge and leapt free into the river. The cold waters embraced her at once, pulling her down by her skirts. The river reached into her pocket and plucked out the stone, then carried her away.

The stone tumbled to the riverbed and settled comfortably back into its place, surrendering to its slow dispersal into the waters of the world.

For the water rushes by, but the river remains.

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.’