1&2

1.

 

The countryside never rolled by on the other side of the gritty,
grimy and condensed square coach window as it did in his home country. 

The small winding road they burrowed through was enclosed by
high, bare hedges or dense forestry. The fields were a lot closer, and there
was a general set mood of an ancient land haunted by lore, and loneliness. 

Why? Because it was Wraight Radcliffe’s belief. His current
state of thought. He gazed out the window unresponsive to anything, and drank
with his glazed, lifeless eyes the cold, green hills and bogs under the murky
twilight, and saw nothing but despair whilst an unsettling feeling crept upon
him to gaze with him over his shoulder.

The afternoon had been grey, but as dusk closed in the fading
sun slid below the cloud line to stretch across the western horizon ahead,
casting a marvellous sense serenity for a brief time.

Darkness closed in, and the two men in the harsh, jerky Brougham
grew stiffer as it grew colder. The roads here were coarser, and so narrow the
hedges either side brushed the coach and even slapped it in sharp meanders or
narrower spots.

In the fading light, a mist began to fall from behind them,
adding to the gloomy serenity of rural Ireland. Serene, yet sincere. Sinister
even.

But even Radcliffe knew it was he who brought it with him. Not
the landscape, but he had plagued the
atmosphere sinisterly, and himself most of all. 

It possessed his very sight, and all he took in was through a
murky filter that triggered a sinking sensation in his stomach. 

Full dark fell, and a bump in the road stirred his rigid body.
He scowled, and when it had passed and the coach settled back into its vibrating,
gritty monotonous trundle, he leaned the corner of his head against the cold,
hollow pane wet with condensation building from the heat of the two bodies.

He closed his eyes mournfully, hoping to be saved from
conversation with the heavy-set man sat beside him on the back seat. Hoping-
praying, for some peace.

He heard a shuffling. He willingly kept his eyes shut until he
heard a match strike and then cracked his eyelids open a fraction. The man
beside him- Hugh Wraight, was lighting a small fixed lamp in his corner, and
the interior of the deathly cab was filled with light.

Radcliffe shuddered with the cold, with nothing but his own
foggy breath rebounding back into his face to keep him warm. It smelled of
cigarettes. 

He squinted his eyes back shut then. It was easy- there was
nothing more he wanted in life at that moment. When he did, he pictured himself
in a hole two feet deeper than he was tall. 

He was in a barren well, with no stone or water. His face was
dirty and his eyes glistened manically as he stared back up to the surface, his
arms clawing at the soil to scramble out.

But he had no grip, and he had no will. His thin, short-bearded
face was beaten, all mentality torn apart. 

He was desperate, but too weary to even try a proper attempt. It
was scary, how vivid this image was. It had come to him previously, and he
could conjure it with ease. As any professional writer could.

It was a curse, to picture himself in such a way. But in
reality, he lived in this hole quite realistically at present. He was in a way
no man should ever find himself, and in such a fragile mindset he was not sure
if he could live with himself anymore.

If it wasn’t for his closest, most reliable and oldest friend,
Hugh Wraight, he wouldn’t be living at all. Another curse, Radcliffe soon came
to believe.

Radcliffe prayed he did not speak to him. In a place so dark as
he was in, so cold and unforgiving everything but the silence screamed at him.

The road grew bumpier, bouncing him on the hard, leather seat.
He was tormented by the seat alone. He struggled to keep his eyes shut, but the
unexpected jerking rattled the image of him in the black hole, a patch of
moonlit grass visible around its edges.

It became so frequent after a while he could no longer hold the
image nor his serenity in suffering, and so opened his eyes with his vision
stuck on the foggy window, as to avoid all possible contact with the other man.

In the reflection of the soft glow up towards the top of the
glass where it was clearer, he saw Wraight grasp a small square of paper
between his two meaty hands, staring down upon it quietly.

The
photograph again, Radcliffe knew. He had taken the small, grey
photograph out of the inside breast pocket of his grey blazer before, the one
of his infant daughter on a wooden stool against a black backdrop. 

At this Wraight could not help but creek his head around slowly,
and see for himself the jowly man furrow his thick eyebrows, and stare
painfully through his thick, small rectangular spectacles perched on the tip of
his wide nose until he could look no more.

Each time he broke away from the little girl, a new crease lined
his face for life, and he became a little greyer in face and hair. 

His expression was worried, yet it had been ever since they had
left. It was obviously not over his daughter. Julia had been deceased for three
years now. There was no more worrying over her poor soul. 

Wraight checked the brass pocket watch he had tucked away in a
small outside pocked, whilst Radcliffe remained unaware and carelessly so of
the time, asserting himself back to the black window.

The journey was endless. Both men clenched their teeth now,
rapidly losing their nerve despite all other concerns. The road was clotted
with potholes and loose stone, if they even tread on road anymore.

Time passed anonymously in the winter darkness. They didn’t
appear to be going all that fast, which in the end wearied their tempers a
little more. 

So grinding at their patience it was, that their senses pricked
the instant they slowed down, steadier and steadier, until the felt a turn and
came to a complete halt. 

Outside there was nothing but black, and silence. The men
remained silent and waited. The coach rocked as the driver descended from his
seat. There was an eerie padding sound of him walking away from the coach.

Radcliffe briefly fantasised of him walking off and leaving them
there all alone in the middle of nowhere- vanishing as if he were a deity who
had driven them out there to die in the freezing night.

As amusing as it was to consider, it was swiftly washed away by
the shuddering scrape of a heavy iron gate being dragged back.

Wraight could not help but groan in irritation, wincing at its
piercing, unexpected sound echoing throughout the calm.

The padding of the driver in his thick boots returned and
scuffed some gravel before climbing his seat again and ushering his horse on up
a driveway with a slap.

In the faint glow of the driver’s own lamps Radcliffe could just
about catch a broad stone pillar ensnared in ivy, along with one tall, wicked
spiked iron gate as they entered the estate.

The coach struck upon harsh gravel that was oddly soothing to
Radcliffe’s ears, and glided through a large pool of water shortly after. It
sounded uninvitingly cool. Radcliffe flinched at first at the bristly branches
of conifer trees reaching out towards them in the wan light as they passed, but
quickly became accustomed to them prodding here and there like the hairy legs
of a giant spider trying to steal them from the unused drive.

The driveway was plagued with more pot holes than the road, and
was quite water-logged every few hundred yards. It seemed to go on for quite a
bit- a lot longer than the avenue of a normal estate house, not that Radcliffe
had been to many, but the ones he had heard of or sometimes researched in his
work.

Clenching the seats now, both men leaned forward with the
anticipation of reaching their climax eagerly. Stones chipped off the
steel-banded wheels and ricocheted off the cab, until they hit a smoother
surface of stone that was crushed finer. 

They must have had travelled a good mile of driveway, slowly,
until at last on this finer gravel the coach turned and came to its final halt.

The driver landed on the gravel with a crisp crunch and opened
the door on Radcliffe’s side. He briskly climbed out, wincing at his backside
and limbering out.

There was no feeling in his legs, but he dismissed it, taking in
the large four story rectangular house in front of him. He felt Hugh come up
behind him, stretching. 

The driver took their cases to the red, chipped sturdy front
door. Thick fog swirled about the grey house. It was eerie. Ivy crept up along
the corners and climbed to the higher windows, its veins shooting across to
meet in the middle just above the highest windows.

All the white shutters were closed inside the tall French
windows bar the small square ones on the fourth floor and the last one on the
second on the north side.

East-facing, the house was more a mansion than a stately home,
unexpectedly. It was perched on a hill, the short grass and outbuildings
dipping down the sides around it, waving in and out of sight as the fog
pulsated.

The whole place was silent but for the crunching of Wraight
crossing to the door, at which he paid the driver generously and told him to
come back for him in the morning.

The man simply gave a tilt of his tricorn hat and climbed back
onto the coach, leaving without pause. Radcliffe watched as he disappeared down
into the fog, the sounds of him echoing back up the hill reaching his ears from
all directions.

He felt the hill was too open- exposed. The house was obviously
derelict, but although there was no glow from any of the black, vacant windows
on the top floor, a strong, sweet smell of turf fire smoke wafted around them
with the fog.

There was only one person living here now that Radcliffe was
aware of. Glancing back into the black, unknown eastern night, there was a
moment where he half wished he could leave in the morning too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.

Wraight impatiently rapped on the old, rusty door knocker again,
louder. The raps boomed inside sinisterly, causing Wraight to take a step back,
abashed that it might appear he did so out of rudeness.

The knocker was in the shape of a boar’s head impaled by a feathered
arrow. A display of skilled metalwork. The handle itself was thick and even the
gentlest of knocks rang through the empty house with an air of doom.

And still they waited, in silence. Radcliffe just knew inside
was just as grey and cold, and yielded as little expectation as possible- easy,
in his current depression.

He knew little about the man who lived by himself in this
enormous, crumbling decay. Malcom imagined a decrepit old deaf man who was as
old as the foundations. Somehow, this
was a haven compared to where he would have ended up. 

He ground his teeth and hardened against the harsh night
fumbling so desperately with its long, thin icy fingers through his clothes so
it may still him with its numb clutch until he no longer breathed.

He dared not say anything, less he stirred conversation. 

The bolt shooting back on the other side of the door startled
them both unexpectedly. A series of clicks ensued and with a sucking sound the
heavy door stirred and finally swung open.

The figure of the stubby old man standing against a wan yellow
glow behind him wasn’t quite as Radcliffe had imagined, but perhaps he was
still deaf and decaying. 

He certainly was old. 

Wraight ushered to shake his hand, towering over him with his
beefy stature , removing his Homburg hat as he greeted the familiar and stepped
inside. Malcom followed but the grisly old being blocked his entry, eyeing him
up.

Radcliffe was instantly repulsed this close up. The man was
balding on the scalp, but his white, shagged hair wildly concealed most of the
patch- white as snow.

His face was wrinkled and dirty like a withering apple, creased
on the forehead but nowhere else. His neck reminded him of a turkey.

He looked seventy or more. But his eyes did not. They shined
like glistening pools under a scythe moon on a calm October night, drinking him
in.

Radcliffe might have swallowed on any other occasion, but he was
too weary and despondent to be fearful of this stranger’s malevolent stare, why
ever he chose to adopt it.

He smelled of wet peat, turf smoke and sweat all at once. It hit
him right between the eyes, and no wonder. His stitched, tweet jacket was musty
and damp looking, his boots were cracked and bore holes at the top, revealing
his navy, woollen socks.

They were caked in drying, black peat and filth, as were most of
his trousers. Underneath all the fresh mud were patches and layers of older,
dried mud.

He held out a thick, chiselled hand black with dirt and
centuries of grime. His fingernails were invisible, his knuckles lumpy and
callused.

Radcliffe could not help but grimace. He could not see it being
any ruder than the way this man presented himself. Not even the most senile and
secluded of old men would act like this.

He may have come across as an ordinary old man, even with his
earthy smell and heathen appearance, but his eyes were the worst part of him. 

Those pools held an unreasonable contempt to drown him, as if
they knew him, knew who he was, and were the justified means to his end.

Wraight awkwardly stepped up and introduced Radcliffe to this
man. ‘Eh, this is Malcom Radcliffe. He is to be your guest. Malcom, this is
Sean McGrath, the caretaker of the estate’.

Both Radcliffe and Sean stared at each other coldly until
finally the old man withdrew his hand slowly, never drawing his eyes away. 

The stubby man of four feet in height stood aside and allowed
Radcliffe inside his abode. It was even shabbier than he was.

In the square entrance hall, the floor tiles were chipped and
often missing entirely. An ancient pig iron candle chandelier belonging to
another age hung from the ceiling in tiers, draped in webs and cold.

Blanched, grey striped wallpaper peeled in the three precise
places it still existed in the high corners. 

Blotches of heavy damp plotted the walls like black spits on a
coal miner’s lung. Cold, grey walls layered with dust and webs, cracked in odd
forks up along the staircase. 

The quarter-turn staircase itself was lacquered darkly and well
preserved, climbing up into the darkness above and disappearing around the second
flight of steps.

It was colder inside. Their breaths became precious, denser.
Death itself lurked inside this abandoned fortress. Radcliffe felt unsettled,
even spooked. Wraight appeared to be, but tried to be as ignorant of the place
as possible. 

Lucky Wraight was on a fleeting stop over. He would soon forget
this place. How unfair life is indeed,
though Malcom.

The hall was lit by two oil stand lamps glowing steadily.
However whatever fuelled them was not oil, but something else. Something heavy
and pungent. Something that smelled harmful to breathe. 

Waxy, and foul- like a mouldy shoe sat to dry against a
fireside. The smell was frequently broken by draughts of icy air making their
passage through, thankfully.

If not for that, Wraight would surely have been unable to hold
his tongue any longer. He appeared repulsed, and pale. The small expression of
worry returned, creasing his fat face.

The caretaker shut the door and bolted it stiffly, clasping an
iron padlock through the long handle. The evils of the night were shut out.
Inside slightly worried the two friends now. 

‘Sean will look after you here, won’t you?’ Wraight announced,
his nasally voice bouncing off the walls. Radcliffe avoided the eyes of the two
men, rather observing the tall window above the door. 

There was no assurance in Hugh’s voice. Too cold and possibly
nervous to pretend. 

‘Malcom wishes no hassle upon you. We thank you graciously for
taking him into your home. I can’t say how long he will be here, you must allow
me time to figure out a solution to his particular problem.

‘I will keep in contact, however. I will write, and when the
time is fit I will come straight back for him’. Wraight was staring straight at
Radcliffe as he spoke.

‘It must blow over…eventually’.

‘He don’t say much for a man of gratitude’, Sean rasped in a
low, seethy voice. His accent was thick and hardly understandable.

It bared resentment and soured everything in the atmosphere. No
doubt that voice could wither flowers.

‘If we could speak in private?’ Wraight asked the caretaker
apologetically. Sean stared at Radcliffe a moment, and then nodded to Wraight. 

‘There’s a fire in that room behind you. Go and warm yourself,
we will be in in a minute’, he rasped at Radcliffe, his words slow and slurred
in places. 

Malcom had an urge to spit, but bit his tongue, and turned
instead, entering through a large mahogany door with no decoration and the and
dark lacquer as the stairs.

Inside was a southern sitting room, with a window at one end and
two at the side, both blocked by great white bolted shutters.

It was as tall as the entrance hall, large and square. It was
faintly warm, though a vast improvement compared with anywhere else. 

Chubby, untrimmed candles on the mantelpiece gave the room what
slim lighting it could, as well as the small turf fire in the enormous hearth,
its orange light casting flickering shadows all over the yellow walls. 

These walls were kept a lot better. The wallpaper intact, the
skirting all still ornately plastered and dusted- even so high up on near the
ceiling.

No doubt the caretaker was confined to this one room, to keep it
in such a way. He tread across the dark floorboards still tight and steady.
They creaked not as he walked, just stayed firm and echoed the clacking of his
shoes hauntingly back at him.

He extended his arms before the fire, standing before the mantel
to allow its warmth wash over him like a hundred kisses at once starting at his
toes all the way up to his neck and face.

He could still feel the draught every now and then break the
spell, without which there was only misery. It was always there however,
lurking in the background, laying waste to everything whole and good in the
world.

He could not escape. He had already escaped, and this was the
alternative. Now he must suffer, and remain in the grasp of melancholy until
his inevitable death. Or so he saw it as, staring into the warm flames.

The fire cracked and shifted, sending embers into the flume.
Above the mantel was a tall, empty bookcase polished and respected.

His ancestors had built this house, on his mother’s side. These
cold, thick walls were in his blood, as was the sweet fragrance of the turf,
and the accent of the ruthless caretaker.

He vaguely recollected from what Wraight had told him the day
before, that the last owner died over twenty years ago, when Radcliffe was
still in a steady haze, unable to move or speak. 

But he remembered it being said, or thought he did. He had died
alone without producing an air, or something.

But for certain, this side of the family were raised and
showered in wealth, politics and strong connections with powerful men, who may
or may not have whispered in the ears of influential leaders.

He turned around to warm his aching backside. Only a pair of
uncomfortable armchairs furnished the room, with a small coffee table in
between. 

Whatever had furnished it once was pushed against all the walls
and draped in white linen which gathered the dust the rest of the room lacked. 

The only item uncovered was a glass cabinet still very much in use,
standing against the wall between the two windows at the front, standing wide
and proudly facing Radcliffe.

Inside were many valuable looking crystal tumblers, glasses and
decanters- some empty, and others containing various levels of various coloured
browns and ambers. 

Another vacant chandelier hung from the ceiling, black and repainted
again and again. The caretaker was fond of this room. 

There were no paintings or flowers or any decorates, however. It
was much less a shell than he could ever imagine. It was this factor that made
it so large.

Despite his degenerating sanity and the will to stay alive, he
wasn’t quite comfortable alone in this atmosphere. He couldn’t put a finger on
it, glancing along the ceiling.

He of all people should have been aware a creaky old rural
estate mansion was bound to be spooky, and unnerving. But there was something
else, something he had quickly picked up since he had been left alone.

Something lurking… a presence. Noticeable enough to distract him
from his gloomy headspace. It worried him slightly, that such a feeling could
do that. He was hoping to live the rest of his days as numb as he had become.

Desensitised and highly suicidal. If anything would take that
away from him, he may as well have taken his chances and stayed in London.

This is no
life to live, somewhere deep in his subconscious tried to reason
with him. But the cold reality was he no longer had a life. 

Nor did he deserve or need one. If Wraight had not found him a
few days beforehand, he may have tossed himself into the Tems already. 

But he had, and had forced him onto a ship before his name
became known, and carted him to a refuge in the middle of nowhere, for an
unquestionable amount of time.

It was already endless. He released a careless sigh, and then
there was a loud knock. He fell completely still like a statue. 

He thought it had come from the ceiling- on the underside of the
ceiling. Or in the wainscot? It was sharp and heavy, as clear as day.

Thump. He
jumped. It had sounded in the wainscot, definitely. A heavy thump against the
ceiling as if a man were on his hands and knees in the crawl space pummelling
it with both fists.

His heart was beating rapidly, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. What on earth…?

The door to the room suddenly burst open and the two men
returned. They were gone for what felt like a decade. Radcliffe had startled
again, to his embarrassment, and attempted to recover by smoothing the heavy
travel coat he still wore.

Wraight advised straight away he take it off. His was already off.
The large man then laughed, and obviously stated, ‘had we startled you,
Malcom?’ 

It was more of a pretence however, as the humour swiftly faded.
Sean did glance Radcliffe’s way with a venomous sneer to himself.

The only humiliating part in all this was the fact Sean had such
leverage over him now. He berated himself inside with a cat-o-nine-tails for
letting his senses so easily disturb him.

Even though the noises were disturbing, and obviously not the
two men. The ceiling was quiet now, and Malcom was not going to go babbling
about it. 

Instead, he removed his coat and rested it on the back of an
armchair.

‘May we sit?’ Wraight asked the old wretch.

‘Aye’, he rasped in his thick accent, his breathing becoming
ragged as he kneeled to tend the fire. Wraight appeared oblivious to Sean’s
hostility.

When he rose, he told them he would fetch them supper, and left
the two men in the armchairs, the door clicking shut behind him.

A piercing silence screamed in Radcliffe’s ears. It was still
more comfortable than whatever was going on in the wainscot. 

‘It is quiet here. Too quiet’, the beefy man uttered possibly to
himself through his thick, greying moustache. Radcliffe remained defiant of
speaking with ease, falling back into his pleasurably sullen mood.

‘Sean will take care of you. I think it will work, the house is large enough for both of you. You may
not think so now, but you will soon thank me for securing this deal. When you
consider the alternative’.

Wraight began to sound vexed at Malcom’s ignorance and
ingratitude. He leant over towards him, and spoke sternly in a hushed voice,
‘Malcom, I know the thread is incredibly thin, but you’ve got to- ‘

‘You know nothing of
what I feel, of what is coursing inside me. Nothing,
of what I feel’, Radcliffe suddenly hissed towards the fire.

‘You’re not the only one who has ever suffered’, Wraight
reminded him gravely. 

‘I suffer, Wraight. I suffer a great deal more than you’ve ever
done’.

From the corner of his vision Radcliffe could see Wraight
closing his eyes and lowering his head for a minute. But he chose to overlook
the pain and grief his once friend had stabbed him with, and rose his head
again.

He was silent for a moment. This made Radcliffe look at him
properly for the first time since the incident. The pain and grief was
shockingly real. 

For a thirty year old man’s face to appear fifty, is something
most disturbing. Julia still lived in his heart, still the age she was when she
was found at the bottom of the canal behind their suburban house.

Radcliffe suspected such a harsh aging process to ruin his
appearance. The images and recollections of that god forsaken night three days
past had yet to stalk him in his dreams, or play back through his eyes as
Julia’s fate did through Hugh Wraight’s.

‘I am not aware of your particular grief, Malcom. I have never
felt such, but mine never leaves me. There is said to be a spider in the amazon
forest- huge and terrifying, and if a person were to come across its path it
follows them until it catches them and kills them.

‘Nothing can hinder it, and in a forest, it would be undetectable
to the human senses in its element. My grief for my daughter is that spider,
and it will surely be the death of me if nothing else will’.

He grew very sombre now, his eyes becoming dull and his words
duller. ‘You must grab the thread you hang by and cling for dear life, for
everyone’s sake. There has been enough tragedy on our hands.

‘I will get you out of here, I will come back’.

‘And what will you do?’ Radcliffe hushed back impatiently. ‘What
miracle will you spring to keep me from imprisonment? I’ve already lost my
career, my name, my home. I have nothing left to lose’.

‘I don’t know, but I will, Malcom. I have gotten you this far.
Here you are free, remember’.

‘Here I am a prisoner, under the guard of that man’, Radcliffe
pointed to the door. 

‘You don’t have to stay. But I have risked everything I have for
it. Take up the pen, Malcom. Do what you do best, and keep writing’.

‘Did you tell him what happened?’ Malcom asked as casually as he
could.

Wraight shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t risk it; besides, he did not
wish to know. He’s put very good faith in us’. 

Radcliffe said nothing, only stared into the flames. Time
already dragged by like the axe of the Headsman plodding to the gallows. 

The caretaker soon entered with a tray carrying two steaming
white bowls. He placed them on the coffee table. The tray was silver, and
spotted with gritty rust. The bowls were chipped but clean.

More than Radcliffe could say about their contents. A brown,
watery broth swirled within, with lumps of dark meat floating to the surface. Grease
formed a clear kaleidoscope-like net on the settling surface.

Radcliffe grimaced again, under the ever-watchful eye of the
scruffy man. His jaw looked harder than the face of a rock. Of course, what
degree of culinary skills could be expected of him?

As if the problems of the house and its loathsome occupant were
all Radcliffe’s, Wraight picked up the closest bowl and silver spoon, and began
to slurp eagerly, giving compliments to Sean.

He merely blocked the heat of the fire, with his back to it, and
stood taller than them for once observing them without stirring.

His stench was damnable in the heat. He smelled like what a worm
must smell like- damp and earthy. And faintly of death.

Radcliffe made no move for whatever broth it was. The other two
noticed, and on inspecting the manner of Sean’s icy stare down upon Malcom, who
winced at the sight of the contents, Wraight made a point to clear his throat
and say, ‘please excuse him, Sean, he means no offence.

He has barely touched a morsel the last two days’. The caretaker
continued to stare, and then said unexpectedly, ‘well he’d want to eat up or
he’ll waste away’, in that low, slurring raspy voice of his that tingled the
nape of Malcom’s neck.

‘And one day he’ll slip away down unto the carpet. And in this
house, it may be some time until he is found’. 

Wraight paused, looking uncertainly away before raising the
spoon to his mouth, as if not doing so would inflict such comments upon him.

The way he said it was as if it were some fantasy of the
octogenarian. Radcliffe only felt anger rising. His pale face expressed such,
and his mouth twitched unpredictably. 

The sour smell of onions and vinegar and meat grease wafting
from his bowl only wearied his temper quicker. 

But instead of losing his cool over such threats, he slipped a
hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a battered tin
cigarette case, and slid a stubby cigarette from it, replacing the box.

He struck a match and inhaled, staring the caretaker right back
into his heartless, chilling eyes. He snarled his upper lip in dislike of the
habit. Good. 

It was important Radcliffe stood his ground, if he was to
coinhabit with this living corpse. 

This was not mercy, he had to remember. This was exile, and in
order to see its end he must survive. He was in this man’s home, and an
unwanted guest, in grievance of any deal he had made with Wraight.

What was
the promised price, Hugh? He gritted inside his head resentfully. How generously did you sell me for?

Trying to clear the air, Wraight complimented the Caretaker’s
watery, acidic stew with a smack of his bushy lips, to which Sean actually
solemnly bowed. 

Wraight was unknowingly poisoning the creature against Radcliffe
more so. Typical Wraight. 

It was as if they were all ghosts together, sitting and standing
silently by a crackling fire with no one to haunt. The company was unbearable.
Wraight took a great sniff. He was always terribly uncomfortable in awkward
situations.

Surely, he must notice. He must notice he hates me.

Sean was in his element, standing as a human shield from the
heat source staring down at the two of them in a state of edginess, yet relaxed
edginess. It was rather hard to explain, and even harder to watch.

‘H-how old is this house, as a matter of fact?’ Wraight spoke
up.

‘Two hundred’, Sean announced loudly out straight. ‘Don’t let it
fool ye, it was always this miserable, even in its heyday. Granted, it had more
life than it does now’.

‘Who owned it last?’ 

Surely, Wraight could not be seriously interested in such a
topic. Radcliffe was banking on him suggesting they retire privately, to where
they could actually converse if needs be, and rid themselves of this vermin.

‘Lord Harry’s son, Edward. He was an officer in the army,
discharged after an injury. I was young when he left, but not so much when he
returned’.

‘He obviously bore no children?’

‘He was married, but his wife disappeared whilst he was still in
service. Whiskey?’

He slipped it in so casually and incoherently Wraight had to stop
to think twice about it.

‘Ehm, yes, we will, thank you. Yes, ehm, disappeared?’ Wraight
frowned, turning to watch the caretaker move across the empty room to the
cabinet between the windows.

‘Aye’, he confirmed grimly. ‘There were a few speculations. Some
said she left a note, found by her maid, and fled. Just up and left, sick of
the loneliness and the constant anxiety of waiting for the Earl to come home’.
There he stopped, leaving Wraight on the edge of his seat desperate to know
more.

‘And the others?’

‘Nonsense really, especially for the likes of you, if you’ll
pardon. Unless you believe in ghost stories’. He grinned wickedly at that,
revealing a mouth of jagged, crowded death fighting for space in his decaying
mouth.

Horrible to look at. They were brown and yellow and appeared to
be crusted with years of yellowed wax. 

‘People ‘round here get awful suspicious very easily. I never
saw no note, but maybe she did run away. Either way she was never head of
again.

‘Eventually the Earl did come home with his injuries to find only
a house of servants. Crippled and already beaten down by the harsh times he had
endeavoured in the army, he lost the will to even try and search for her.

‘He would never find her, bound in a leg brace with a crutch for
the rest of his life. He spent most of his days in bed after that. 

‘Just a shell of the man who had left. He died at thirty-eight.
He had become immobile, and dependant on everyone around him. It seemed his
heart had just given up naturally, from its heart break and his defeated mind.

‘Very sad… The place was left to the servants, who looted and
raided anything they could get their hands on before they left. Only I stayed.
I’ve been on my own twenty years now.

‘I’d nowhere else to go. I was born and raised here, and worked
here all my life, just as my father had and his father- all the way back two
hundred years since it was built’.

His tone was of reminiscing, his words fact. He took out a dark
half decanter of liquor that might not have actually been whiskey and poured it
into two crystal tumblers generously.

Sean paced back towards the fire, placing the tumblers on the
table beside the tray. Radcliffe picked his up and inspected it. It was the
only thing he was in the mood for.

The crystal tumbler felt heavier than the liquor no doubtedly
tasted. Without getting a whiff of its scent, he took a sip and swallowed.

He stifled a cough, inspecting the glass again. It was like no
whiskey he had ever drank. It was more like a cognac mixed with a heavy, aged
brandy in one. 

It burned inside his chest and dried his mouth. He took another
quick sip, trying to overcome the sourness attacking his tongue.

‘Twenty years’, Wraight repeated in wonder.

‘Twenty years, boy. With nothing but the wind whistling in my
ears, scattering all my thoughts. Get sick of your awful quick, you do’, he smirked
darkly and bent to tend the fire.

‘Get sick of anyone, left with them long enough’. His slow,
thick raspy words began to annoy Radcliffe already. He sipped his whiskey.

Wraight took his first sip and spluttered uncontrollably. ‘My
god!’ He laughed.

‘Finely aged’, Sean remarked, rising and blocking all the heat
again. Not that the men needed it anymore. ‘Over thirty years, I reckon that
stuff has been sitting in there. The Edward never drank it, Edward was never
here’.

‘You won’t join us?’ Wraight managed to ask without any
suspicious tone.

‘No’, he replied flatly. ‘I never got the taste for it. and
anyway, I like to have my wits about me, especially when I live alone in a big
creaky house’.

Wraight yawned and looked at his whiskey with distaste. ‘I say I
will retire shortly. The journey has been arduous and unmerciful’.

‘I have two rooms made for you. Yours is on the second floor,
and I have place Mr Radcliffe on the third floor at the north end, Lord Henry’s
chamber’. 

His eyes glittered dangerously. He seemed to draw some amusement
from what he was saying, eyeing Wraight up and down. Why? Why would he reveal such a glint so carelessly?

He was insane, Radcliffe had come to deduce. He was to live with
a madman. Of course, how could he not be mad after twenty years of solitude? It was a wonder the man knew who he was,
or how to dress himself anymore.

‘Unfortunately, the chimneys have been too cold too long and I
could not get any fires to light, but the beds are made and should provide you
with a decent rest’.

There was no tone of thought or consideration of how cold it
was, no pretence in his equally cold face and ruthless voice. He spoke in such
a way to suggest he had his own fire to retire to, wherever his lair resided.

Yet there was a twist in his tone upon the last line, as if he
was teasing them with a false wish they could wriggle themselves somewhat warm
inside the icy bed sheets.

Radcliffe was sure he was not just imagining it. He took another
half sip, then decided to knock back the mouthful left. 

He decided his chest was fiery enough he could not care less if
his room had a fire or not. He embraced the fogging effect the liquor had on
his brain with great comfort.

As long as he harnessed the power to let life glide past him for
the rest of his days, he would be a contented hermit. His adopted carelessness
had become a feeling of home. He clutched it protectively like a mother would
her child. It was all he had- his last remaining thread, so to speak.

Ignorance
is bliss. I could always slowly drink myself to death, now I know where it is
all kept, he thought with a wry smile to himself, swirling the empty
tumbler in his hand.

So many varieties to choose from, and only he to drink it. it
would last a lifetime as well, for as accustomed as he was to alcohol, and
absinth in particular, one quarter glass of this unnameable brandy was as good
as three. 

His predicament no longer seemed so endlessly doomed, as a
combination of sleep deprivation and alcohol clouded all the pain and suffering
so it lulled in the recess of his shallow mind.

‘What time are you departing in the morning, Mr Wraight?’ Sean
asked humbly. 

‘Pardon?’ Wraight appeared to have spaced out. Indeed, his face
had fallen when Sean had explained to them about the fireplaces and must have
realised what a dismal evening it had turned out to be. 

He had overlooked all other flaws, but the absence of a fire to
warm him in the unforgiving winter night was the last straw for him.

Welcome to
my world of misery, Hugh.

The caretaker repeated himself patiently in the same drone that
had evidently sucked all life out of the house.

‘First thing’, Wraight replied, looking uneasy at first, then
realising the upside that he was only spending the night and not the
foreseeable future. 

‘I must get back to London, before I’m substantially missed’.

‘I will wake you in the morning and prepare you a breakfast
before you must go’, Sean offered.

‘Thank you, but it will be very early. I wish to fetch the first
coach out of here. there is a local village nearby, is there not?’

‘Ballymahon is three miles that way’, he pointed south west
precisely. ‘I have a cart and an a*s in the stables. I will drop you into the
village at dawn’.

Wraight could not refuse the caretaker pressuring him as he
leaned towards him, repelling them both with his spine-tingling low, growl and
stench.

Wraight thanked him, somewhat uncertainly. Maybe even afraid. If
Wraight started to have doubts, with his particular stubbornness, then there
was something seriously wrong. Not that there wasn’t to begin with.

‘You’ve been to good, Sean. Without you, Mr Malcom…’

‘Don’t go saying things you don’t need to be, Mr Wraight, it’s
quite alright. I’ll keep an eye on your lad, and see you safely into towwwwn’. 

A chill ran through Radcliffe, and he had an urge to throw a
glance of warning at Wraight. But he could not display any more fright or
concern this night. 

Not until they were alone again. He wasn’t sure if Wraight was
perfectly aware and just humouring the caretaker with pleasantry so he didn’t
murder them in their sleep, or if he needed to be warned. 

He for one would make a point of staying up the entire night so
as to be prepared in case the insane man did try and throttle him.

Wraight set his whiskey down and expressed the greatest desire
to retire for the night. Sean bowed deeply again and said he would show them to
their rooms, foreboding as ever.

They grabbed their coats and left the fireside and followed him
back into the icy, dim entrance hall where the aroma of the foul oil lamps
roamed. Sean hoisted a large, black gothic lantern from a small, round table
adjacent to the front door, and opened its dirty, smouldered glass door and
instructed Radcliffe to light it with his matches.

He managed to remove his matches without fumbling or shivering
against the cold prickling his fair skin. The smell of sulphur burned his nose
as he leaned in to light the sharp, pointy wick of the fat stubby brown candle
glued inside by hardened wax.

Sean snapped the door shut sharply, staring up into Radcliffe’s
soul over the menacing, yellow flicker. He handed the heavy lantern to him, and
pointed at the stairs, gesturing he must lead the way. 

Malcom frowned and silently watched Sean turn to fetch their
bags, then turned to stare up the wide stairs into the darkness. The first
turning was invisible.

It chilled him to the very bone, peering up into such bleakness
by the light of a tallow candle. Sean followed behind with Wraight. Radcliffe put
one sure foot on the groaning step.

His dulled senses were yanked out of retirement again and forced
to face the disturbing setting by which he was immersed in. Something about the
black ahead made him feel as if he were confronting the bogeyman.  

He had never seen such black, nor had experienced the cruel
shadows cast on the barren walls by the tame flicker of a murky candle lantern
to light their way.

Everything in its nature was spooky. He couldn’t help but
succumb to his natural instincts- to fear.

When he glanced back at the two silent men, the stubby caretaker
looked especially terrifying; his grizzled face with its deep furrows and
creases, his wild, shagged hair, and his ragged, heavy breathing as he
struggled up the staircase.

He passed the first corner, and was greeted with an even deeper
darkness. He received a crazy sense of something lurking up there, something
very much like the bogeyman.

It didn’t help the staircase creaked and groaned under their
weight, and that they were all silent but for the ragged breathing. Radcliffe’s
arm even groaned under the weight of holding up the lantern.

On the second landing Sean directed Radcliffe down the narrow
hallway towards the end. He had to tread slower than Sean would’ve liked, but
he was not as accustomed to the darkness, and knew nothing of his surroundings.

From what little Radcliffe could see, there was no carpet, only
long stretches of dark floorboards with large gaps in between from either
exposure to incredibly cold winters or neglectful craftsmanship. 

The miserable walls were peeled of their wallpaper and hangings
and every chipped, brown door was closed. It smelled of must and damp. The
ceiling was cracked and yellow in places, and the hallway itself was too narrow
to walk comfortably.

The Englishmen hadn’t slept well in days. No doubt Wraight would
be out cold, but Radcliffe suspected it would be another sleepless night
staring into the darkness, void of thought.

Each gut-wrenching step further of darkness he paved through for
the men behind became more rigid and against every fibre of his being.

The only description he could have mustered to describe his own
experience would be of that close to rape. The sour, warm ragged breathing
brushing against his neck made him want to curl up into a ball and cower. 

Each passing door held a deep, dark mystery a fantasy-enthusiast
such as Radcliffe didn’t want to ever discover. The doors themselves were just
inexplicably oppressive.

At the end, Sean bid him into the last room on the right, the
door of which was already open. He entered, and saw that it was the room he had
seen from the outside with the open shutter on the second floor. 

Eyes wide open, he stood inside the door and allowed the two men
to pass him, staring about the deep, dark chamber. It was spacious and tall,
not unlike the living room.

Too large
for any comfort. Such is the Victorian way, Radcliffe thought.

Sean startled him mildly by plucking the lantern from his
white-knuckled grip with his larger, filthy hands that were shockingly cold. 

So much so, he could not help but stare after the caretaker as
he sort of hobbled across the room to the fireplace, wheezing, and used the
candle inside the lantern to light four equally brown, fat misshapen candles he
had left on the mantle.

The candles made no difference at all. A four-poster bed was
visible on the edges of darkness. The tall window gave the atmosphere of a
malevolent portal into a realm of watery black.

There was no carpet, only more gapped floorboards that groaned
with complaints. Wraight shuddered and huddled himself. Taking the lantern
around the room like a will-o-the-wisp, Sean closed the shutters and made for
the door, taking Radcliffe’s remaining case. 

The curtains on the bed looked soggy and ancient. Malcom
couldn’t help but pity his friend after all, who stared uncertainly about the
room, afraid to move.

All the furnishings were draped in white again against the
walls, like sheet-ghosts about to pounce at any given moment. The candles on
the mantle released the same warm, foul aroma as the oil lamps did below.

Like nasty bog water. The wicks were also far too straight and
pointy to be made of lace. 

Sean made a grunt. ‘See you at first light, Mr Wraight’, was all
he said plainly, and hobbled out of the room, the light flickering away down
the hallway as he did.

Radcliffe nodded to his friend, who was pale and deathly quiet.
Wraight moved his mouth, but only nodded back before Sean’s echoing rasp called
down the hallway for Radcliffe.

‘I shan’t see you before I leave…’

‘No’, Radcliffe replied.

Radcliffe turned when Wraight grabbed his arm rather harshly. ‘I
promise you, I will come back for you’. 

Radcliffe pulled away, unappreciative of the man handling and
said, ‘until next time’, and with that exited the room and caught up to the
flickering light waiting by the staircase off the hallway middle.

They climbed the next flight together. These steps whined louder
and more frequent. Sean’s hobbling seemed to be a result of carrying weight, on
top of fatigue.

He didn’t seem so dangerous having displayed such vulnerability,
and so Radcliffe felt a little less uncertain about him. But not of the house.

The house was an entity of its own. something must have happened
here to cause such an atmosphere deeper than just the darkness alone.

There was a presence he could almost come to terms with, of pain
and residual devastation. But which also his heart feared.

On the third floor, down the same dark floorboards and passing
the same closed doors southwards he followed until they reached the very last
that was open.

Inside was a very much similar chamber with its desolate, heavy
air and own story. The shutters were closed. Sean lit four candles on the
mantelpiece, and took a sweeping glance about the room. 

Malcom wanted to protest against the foul candles, but he
thought better on it lest he have no light at all. 

He had his own four-poster bed with the same drab hangings, and
no furnishings usable but for a long oval mirror on a hinged stand facing the large
fireplace opposite the bed. 

But there was a plain carpet between the bed and the fireplace, though
heavily soiled and crusty in places.

Sean’s stare was intense from the corner of Radcliffe’s eye.
‘I’ll get that fire lit tomorrow if I can’, he growled. ‘Wouldn’t want you to freeze’.

Malcom turned, about to say something, but he was already
walking towards the door. He turned back, as if he knew Radcliffe had opened
his mouth, and stared him up and down disgustedly.

The words caught in Radcliffe’s throat, and he said nothing.
Sean turned and left him, the door wide open. Malcom went to the door and
watched the lantern casting its harsh shadows off the walls and slowly
disappear down the hallway.

His boots echoed hollowly as he did, as did the wheezing. After
the initial sounds of the stairs creaking, silence started its duty for the
night.

Only then did Radcliffe shiver. Too cold and dark. He stared
into the fireplace that was more of a gaping mouth gushing more cold air into
the lord’s chamber. 

He closed the door of the room, the sight of the long hallway of
night making him on-edge. It clicked shut softly with a rattle. He was now
trapped inside a grim crypt due to his own making.

The grimy, brass door knob glinted fickly when he released it,
like the slit of a preying serpent’s eye considering its attack.

He began to wonder had Wraight lied in telling him he had
disclosed Radcliffe’s dangerous secret to the caretaker. It was too absurd for
a complete stranger to act so evilly without reason, even for a madman.

He thought about it, and there was no way of telling, because a
madman could easily live with a criminal… like a house on fire.

He bit his cheek and prayed Wraight had kept his mouth shut. But
in any case, he deserved judgement and loathing. He deserved to hang.

Maybe I
will.

One house, two twisted souls. If Radcliffe also turned mad,
there was no telling what Wraight may return to find. Whatever his plan was, he
prayed it would drag him back over the sea soon.

From a safe distance, the mirror’s surface appeared to be a
deep, still pool. It tilted stiffly on its hinges, at a steady slope so it may
contain its contents.

One foot inside at a time, and one could slowly drop into their
bleak death. He looked away. He had heard the strange, occult things
enthusiasts and unsuspecting, regular people did with mirrors these days.

In manors very much like this one. Thrill seekers, he grumbled to his own subconscious.

He sat on the end of the bed in the dead centre of the chamber.
It felt like cool, mossy stone to lay a hand upon. The quilt was not even
fresh, but slippery with damp.

God blind
me, no one better have died in it! 

Of course, the last Earl, Edward did. That sour old crotch better have changed the covers since then. I’ll
blind the b*****d if I sleep in any dead man’s soiled linen.

He imagined Wraight sleeping in all his clothes to summon any
warmth. The travel coat was not enough anymore. Too cold, dark and unfamiliar
was his prison. He craved a cigarette.

He stood and approached the window, un-latching the shutters
loudly and folded open one half of the nearest window to the fireplace sat in
the next wall to his right.

The silent tension was so unbearable, the noise from the
shutters had actually made him sweat. His heart was beating loudly. 

It’s just a
house. A spooky old house in the countryside. He had faced far worse.

He took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply. The smoke
drifted about him peacefully and overpowered the pungency of the candles.

He sat on the low, wide windowsill cracked with age, staring out
into the night but not looking at anything. Just picturing himself inside his
hole, a little deeper each time he returned. His eyes were lonely and
desperate, his face dirtier from each attempt to claw his way out.

But it was swallowing him. Had his imagination even any control
over it anymore? Would he still sink even if he imagined climbing out?

In the background, too-familiar voices began to replay, and the
sounds of the person’s actions. And his. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. No,
not yet. Just a few more days’ peace. Have mercy on me, I will not live very
long. Don’t take this away from me, not yet. I can’t face it yet!

There was no pleading to anyone. He would have to replay that
dreadful night some time or another. It was looming, tickling his senses
already with a vengeance. Her
vengeance.

The writhing. The blood. The body. The final scream before the
corpse.