Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror (12 page)

Cora winced at the sight of the huge, jagged scars running down the girl’s abdomen as she helped her take off the coat and try to dress. Dark purple bruises covered most of her body and fresh wounds seeped down her legs.

“No they won’t. They were on the rough end of some nasty stuff while they were here – that’s why they had to go. They searched for you for weeks and weeks but they didn’t know what they were up against and some of them got sick.”

Rosella pulled on a sweater, groaning with the pain of raising her twig thin arms, one of which had bent at an unnatural angle as if it had been broken and set badly. “But where would they be? Did you hear anything?”

“I heard they’d gone south, that’s all I know. Maybe you can guess where they’re likely to camp? I’m sorry I’ve no more money…but it should get you on your way…” She stopped mid-sentence as if she’d heard something on the wind. “You’d best get out of here now, kid – go on – go now! There’ll be a bus outside The Druids Inn about six. Keep out of sight but make damn sure you get on it.”

***

Chapter Fourteen

Cloudside, Sunday evening

Celeste waved off her brother-in-law, Trevor, having persuaded Gerry he needed a holiday. He liked watching waves crash over the sea wall from his brother’s guesthouse window in Scarborough, and the two of them enjoyed playing cards and telling jokes, making Trevor’s wife giggle. Not that he’d wanted to leave and certainly not in such a hurry, but she’d told him she didn’t feel too good: if she was going to get the flu she couldn’t look after him, and with lungs like his a flu virus could prove fatal. She wouldn’t want that on her conscience. Reluctantly he agreed, and so she packed his suitcase and helped him dress while his brother drove over.

“You’re up to something,” he said, while she kneeled to tie up his shoelaces.

Smiling – he knew her so well – she held his questioning stare. “Trust me, Gerry. It’s best you’re not here.”

His chest heaved wheezily with the effort of breathing. “Oh God, love, I thought all that business was over?”

“If it was I’d be very happy – very happy indeed – but it isn’t and I’ve a job to do. I’m sorry, love. You always knew mine wasn’t an easy road to travel.”

“Will you be alright? Have I to worry?”

“I’ll be a lot better when I know you’re well away from here, let’s put it like that. I’ll ring every day.”

He nodded, reaching for his oxygen mask again. “I wish I weren’t so bloody ill.”

Putting her arms round him, they rested foreheads together for a moment. “I love you, Gerry.”

His arms, once so iron-powerful from hewing at the coalface every day, held her gently. He kissed her hair. “I love you too, you crazy old witch.”

Two hours later his brother’s car accelerated away into the night. She stared after the vanishing tail lights, citing a prayer for his safe travel. Then, when there was no longer a sound of the engine and the close was in darkness once more, she turned and walked back up the drive towards the empty bungalow.

This day had been a long time coming and the thought was a deeply sobering one. She’d been sent to Woodsend to help innocent children and allowed herself to be hounded out of the village instead. In a desperate state, Ruby had come to her for help years later, but once again she had let her down. In fact, she had failed so utterly in her task that people were continuing to die horribly and now the situation was about to deteriorate still further. No, it wasn’t her fault, but she had the gift of seeing what was happening and must face up to what she had to do. Fear must not hold her back this time.

Right, well at least Gerry was out of the way.

Steeling herself, she stepped inside.

The house was much colder in than out; the rooms bathed in a sepia light.

‘Celeste…Celeste…Celeste’
…

She locked the door behind her, standing in the hallway as the dim lights flickered and the shadows whispered her name.

The dark entity that had followed Becky was here in this house and must be confronted. Oh she could run, for a while, but the price would fall heavily on others – possibly children and yet more innocent medical staff, or the young police officer who was about to be roped into all this – and for that she would pay. Eventually.

Fear breeds fear…

Have courage. Have faith
.

What she had to do was connect with this thing. ‘See’ what it wanted and who was at the heart of it. And in order to do that she would have to use some tricks of her own.

Setting to work, Celeste drew all the curtains and blinds, before lighting a candle and placing it on the kitchen table along with the other things she needed in order to scry. Scrying could be extremely dangerous and normally she wouldn’t meddle or try to contact spirit in this way; but if there was any hope of getting an upper hand before both herself and Becky were stopped, she would have to be shown the true picture. The dark entity, she was positive, would not be able to resist showing off by parading its power and challenging her to step up to the plate. There was no place left to run to and no one but herself to see this out. Without doubt this was her life’s task, and she braced herself for what was coming.

As was the usual practice, she recited the Lord’s Prayer before asking for spiritual protection. “Dear Lord, please protect me. I only use this method for the greater good. Dear Lord please safe guard my soul from all negative forces. Thank you and Amen.”

Then she opened her eyes, focusing intently on the flame in front of her. Silence hissed in the void, before being quickly filled by the reassuring appearance of her spirit guides – as familiar to her now as flesh and blood; lifelong friends. First there was Sage, who had been a childhood babysitter – only appearing as a guide a few years after she’d passed. Sage was a kindly, rotund lady who always brought sweets with her and a yappy little Jack Russell called Cindy. Sage’s hair was permed into lilac perfection with a double quiff at the front in a similar fashion to the present day Queen Elizabeth’s, and it had been a pleasant surprise to see her again. The other spirit guide she had was a much more ancient and powerful one, a Buddhist Monk who never gave his name or any information about himself, and appeared only as a brilliantly orange sphere. In her mind she called him Buddy, although he only communicated with imagery and appeared when there was a deeply significant problem. Normally Sage took care of tarot readings, messages to others, and warnings. But the last time she’d seen Buddy was back in Woodsend after Gerry had been taken to hospital.

He was here now.

After meditating for a while Celeste picked up the black mirror she rarely used to scry with and peered into its depths. Staring into the mirror in the candle-lit darkness should connect her with whatever or whoever was in the house and fear instinctively swelled inside her chest. Her hands shook. Any second now a face would appear either instead of, or behind, her own.

Who would come?

The black mirror reflected the vague outline of her face and a crown of backcombed hair. She continued to stare into it.

Show yourself
…

Now the black glass began to waver; very slightly at first like staring into a millpond at night. Fear stuck fast in her throat but she swallowed it down.

Something’s coming.

Stay with it.

All at once the image altered and the eyes reflected were no longer her own.

Who are you? Who’s there?

In response the half-formed face quickly vanished as if down a drain.

Show yourself, you coward
…

Someone laughed with a long low chuckle that echoed around the kitchen, but she held steady, watching and waiting. A landscape was now being shown to her: swaying silvery treetops and a twilight sky…rooks flying in and out of the canopy… The picture steadily grew as if painted by an imaginary artist, eventually zooming in on a woman hanging out washing in the dark. Rain dripped steadily from the trees and her boots were mired in mud. Zooming in further, the washing appeared to be dirty and saturated in something dark and oozing, yet still the woman’s hands worked, methodically dipping into deep pockets and pulling out more pegs. The mirror crept up like a camera lens behind the woman’s head and a pungent wave of nicotine and wood smoke wafted from the scene, along with the faint sound of ethereal humming…
‘Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie
…’ Suddenly, as if sensing an intruder the woman stopped humming. Her back stiffened and slowly, oh so slowly, she inclined her head as if to turn around.

Now she would see
…Celeste clung onto the mirror with shaking hands, sickness hotly working its way up from her stomach as the woman began to turn…
Something bad was coming
…
God give me strength… God give me strength…

Then out of nowhere a bat flew directly at her face with lightning speed, and the mirror was smashed from her grip by an invisible hand.

As the glass shattered into millions of tiny glinting shards, the candle was snuffed out and the kitchen plunged into coalface blackness. The sound of frantically fluttering wings filled her senses and a vice-like clamp of pain suddenly gripped her chest, squeezing her heart and shooting deep, throbbing pulses down her left arm and into her neck.

God protect me… please Dear Lord protect me…I’m not done yet. I have work to do… I have to do it… Please…

Clutching her chest she calmed her breathing as best she could and hobbled towards the door. In Gerry’s bedside cabinet there were some spare angina tablets. Taking it step by careful step, she felt her way along the corridor towards the back bedroom, almost tripping onto the bed where less than an hour ago she’d tied Gerry’s shoelaces. Blindly rummaging in the drawer her fingers found the box he kept them in and she took one, sitting in the darkness until it took effect. A few seconds later her face flushed hotly and her heart relaxed its spasmodic grip.

Thank you, God.

She wasn’t beaten yet. But the dark power was extremely strong and it would do its level best to kill her.

Back in the kitchen, Celeste put the kettle on and forced a plain biscuit down before cleaning up the glass on her hands and knees. The atmosphere was thick and oppressive as if someone was breathing down her neck, and more than once came the sound of little claws scurrying invisibly across the floor. As a child she would lie in bed and hear cockroaches scuttling around on the lino floor of her parents’ old cottage and that’s what it sounded like – her own very personal phobia. As she stood up, still with the dustpan and brush in hand, a door in the corridor slammed shut as if caught in a breeze, and the curtains in the lounge swished open and shut, casting a silvery arrow of moonlight on the hall carpet.

She ignored the tricks and with renewed determination summoned all her strength before once more sitting down at the kitchen table. This time she would scry using a bowl of water tinted with black ink. After lighting a candle, Celeste closed her eyes and prayed for protection. Again an orange sphere appeared in the corner of her vision – her Buddhist monk. That meant the job must be done.

The trance came quickly and she peered into the ink as it began to undulate and ripple. The scene unfolding was exactly as before, with a woman in a headscarf pegging out filthy washing in the woods. The rain was torrential and the ground a quagmire. Reeling back from the stench of smoking herbs and rotting leaves, Celeste forced her attention away from the woman, and scanned the rest of the picture for information. A tiny white dot on the perimeter was now expanding and she leaned forwards to see more clearly.
Show me
… Standing at the doorway to a stone cottage was a wiry man of middle years, with a shock of white hair and a widow’s peak. He seemed to be acknowledging her and raised his hand just as a glint of light caught her eye, causing her to glance upwards. A small pale face was looking out of an upstairs window; but the second she tried to focus the image faded and the camera panned out once more to the washerwoman. Then suddenly the lens rushed up to the back of the woman’s head.

The bowl of ink started to vibrate wildly and the infernal humming amplified to screaming pitch. Celeste’s head was pounding, sweat breaking all over her body, every arthritic joint screaming in pain. 

Still she held on, staring into the ink.

Show yourself…Come on then, show me…             

In a flash of fury the woman whirled around and glared directly at her with eyeballs that were completely white, at the same time as charging forwards with the very obvious intention of stepping right out of the picture.

Celeste reared back, tipping over the bowl of ink just as a monumental crash sounded from the front room. It sounded just as if the Welsh dresser had fallen over with all its crockery and on instinct she dashed down the corridor, fully expecting to see a mountain of broken china. Instead, the room, bathed in silvery moonlight, was calm and still, the dresser unscathed and still loaded with dinner plates. However, in the centre of the room, suspended like balloons in the air, were four or five separate balls of mist. Entranced, she stood in the doorway as each of the life-sized suspensions then began to morph into a face. Some of them appeared to be silently screaming, others twisted in pain.

She backed out immediately and slammed the door shut behind her before running blindly to the bathroom, tears streaming down her powdery cheeks. God, she was too old for all this – it took it out of you. She sat on the toilet seat, leaning forwards with her hands over her face. This was way too dangerous now, and a decision must be made before something happened to her she would not recover from. Enough had been done for tonight – she had no fight left in her and this thing was going to finish her off. An overwhelming fatigue weighed down her limbs and the urge to slump onto the floor like a rag doll was overwhelming.

Don’t or
you’ll die.

The bright orange sphere she so rarely saw was huge now, filling the room, and she smiled faintly.
Buddy
.
Thank you, dear Lord.
It was all part of the plan, part of her journey, and she must overcome this physical weakness. God, how her head was banging. She put fingers to her temples and waited for the dull thumping to abate so she could see clearly what was being shown to her. The vision was weak like through an old black and white television set with a poor signal, and came loaded with a sickly wave of migraine, but it was there. Becky. Had she got the diary from Kristy? Had she read it? This job was not finished until she saw her.
Oh God, the pain in her head…