I have a lot going on right now—such as writing postcards to encourage voters to vote. Entertaining four cats instead of three. It’s also almost the end of this Camp Nanowrimo—that’s a casual July version of National Novel Writing Month—with which I haven’t been sufficiently focused. So far I haven’t begun painting a picture that will be the cover art for a dark fantasy novel, but… maybe this weekend.
Chapter 1:
Chapter 41:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whimsicalwords/p/hauntings-of-claverton-castle-chapter-b22?r=5m2is&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 42
In the late afternoon, Samantha, with much anticipation, was ready to commence ghost hunting with Margot and Roland. In the tower, they gathered at the foot of the staircase.
“It is high time we do this!” Samantha crossed her arms and glanced up the stairs.
“We probably won’t have any dramatic encounters until after dark,” Margot explained.
Samantha uncrossed her arms. “That’s hardly helpful this time of day. But at least it is September, so the nights are longer. No sunrise by four in the morning anymore.”
Roland nodded. “Yes, yes, precisely.”
Margot’s eyes drifted upward, following the stairway. “For now, we shall perform a preliminary assessment.”
Samantha raised her eyebrows. “Is this for a bit of a taste of what you can expect at night?”
“When we assess the specters in daylight,” Roland said, “we typically sense their presence rather than literally see them. I detect details of specter’s lives. For instance, I might stand near one and determine that the ghost is an octogenarian woman who lived in this house between 1745 and 1781, and she died of smallpox.”
Samantha widened her eyes. “Extraordinary!”
Roland shrugged. “That was simply an example. I know of no such ghost in this house.”
Margot’s Sensitive powers were not identical to Roland’s, for Sensitive powers differed greatly in general. They were all different, much as dissimilar musicians had varying styles and levels of expertise.
Samantha whispered, “Do you do anything, a spell or such, to prepare for this process?”
Roland shook his head. “Not a spell, but a two-hour meditation calculated specifically for encounters with entities from beyond this world.”
Samantha grasped her hands together and scarcely breathed. She mentally noted to bring this practice into her life.
Margot rubbed her hands together. “Allow us to begin.”
Both twins closed their eyes and stood perfectly still; Samantha chose to do the same. She lowered her eyelids and stood with her back to the diamond-patterned tower window. She allowed her arms to hang loosely by her sides and mindfully observed her somewhat shallow breathing. It was impossible to breathe very deeply in her corset.
With her eyes closed, Samantha concentrated on sounds. She heard a distant floorboard creak and conjectured that someone was walking past in the corridor. She pictured a maid heading toward the breakfast room to tidy up. She heard a distant bird singing outside and wondered what sort of bird chirped in that high-pitched manner. The tower window faced the courtyard, which contained no trees, only the flower garden.
After perhaps twenty minutes, Samantha shifted from foot to foot before opening her eyes and looking around. The Montmorencys remained standing quite still and facing the foot of the stairs. With their eyes closed, their long lashes were more noticeable than usual.
Perplexed as to how they could stand still for so long, Samantha tiptoed away as slowly and quietly as possible… but caused a floorboard to creak. She grimaced and reached the wall facing the stairs. Turning, she sank onto the floor until she sat with her back to the wall and her legs crossed. She arranged her skirt carefully, not wishing to show her ankles, and resumed meditating.
Samantha surmised that the Montmorency twins were meditating in their customary ghost hunting method. She, however, was not trained as they were—whether they had a complex visualization connected to the house and ghosts, or whatever they did. She merely focused on her breathing in and out when she was not picturing Margot inches away from her and allowing her thoughts to drift in that direction. Though Samantha heard no sound from the twins, she fidgeted and periodically shifted position.
An eternity later, Samantha heard one of the twins take a deep breath and shift a foot, so she opened her eyes and yawned. Roland was peering up the staircase. He briefly made eye contact with Samantha before doing the same with Margot. The twins both looked at the stairs. Samantha stretched her arms, reaching for the ceiling, and yawned again.
Despite how early the hour had seemed when they met before the stairs, Samantha noted purple and pink light in the tower window. Low sunlight streamed through the same window, revealing tiny floating white spots in the sunbeams.
“Shall we?” Roland asked.
Margot nodded. Roland began ascending the staircase. Samantha pressed her palms against the wooden floor and rose. By the time she began climbing the stairs, Roland and Margot were halfway to the landing. Samantha quickened her pace, pounding the soles of her boots against the steps.
Samantha suspected that Roland discerned an entity beyond, perhaps on the next floor. He and Margot reached the landing, and only Margot hesitated long enough to glance back at Samantha, presumably to see that her friend was following. Delighted that Margot remembered her, Samantha smiled and skipped to the next step. Margot returned her attention to the stairs and charged up behind Roland. As soon as Roland reached the top of the flight, he stepped forward softly and disappeared from her sight. Margot was on his heels.
Samantha, impatient to learn about the apparitions, charged forward and, when she summited the stairs, sharply pivoted and saw the backs of the twins. They were crossing the tower threshold into the long hallway leading to numerous bedrooms. The twins stopped when they stood in the center of the hallway, and they surveyed their surroundings. Pale sunlight provided the only light, streaming through doorways of open bedroom doors.
Samantha watched as Roland loomed in the center of the hallway with his eyes closed.
Roland lifted an arm. He held out his hand toward the west wing. “A twelve-year-old girl named Mercy was … used horribly here—in the bedroom at the furthest end of this hall.”
Samantha shuddered, not exclusively in reaction to a sudden chill. She hugged herself with both arms.
Margot held up one finger. “Please do not give us any more detail than that. Well, you can describe what she is wearing, how she died, when she lived—but no details about the… abuse.”
Roland frowned. “She lived about a hundred twelvemonths ago. Desperate to escape her abusive father, she married at an early age. Her mother had some knowledge of what was happening but was in denial. Far from showing sympathy for her own child, she accused her of lying and slapped her. I do not know when Mercy died, but she seems to have grown up and spent her adulthood elsewhere.”
Samantha murmured, “Then it surprises me that she manifests as a child.”
Roland said, “Specters are a bit complicated. She might even be an adult ghost elsewhere. Here, the time in which her ghost seems trapped is October of 1711.”
Feeling the beginning of a lump in her throat, Samantha gulped.
Roland turned and stared down the corridor. “I sense a ten-year-old girl who also grew up yet has manifested as a ghost. Her name is Helah.”
Margot widened her eyes and scarcely breathed. “I think I see her standing before me. She wears a ruff, like a child from Tudor times.”
“Yes, that is she.” Roland nodded once. “She suffered the same form of abuse. It happened until she was ten years old and was sent away… somewhere. It was not in the nearest village.”
“You can already see her with your eyes, in daylight?” Samantha asked.
Roland frowned. “No, currently I can but register traits. I await the dark of night.”
“Oh.” Samantha thought of the third eye and lightly touched her forehead. How peculiar it would be to stand beside a specter and rattle off facts about the dead person. No doubt Roland was accustomed to this.
Roland stepped slowly down the hallway, almost as though he were a somnambulator; Margot and Samantha followed. Samantha clasped her hands together and suppressed an urge to skip and rush rather than keep this sluggish pace. She wished they would walk faster and approach the next ghost. She wished the next spirit to be a happy specter, not another victim. The stories Roland related so softly were the stuff of nightmares. Samantha shuddered.
Samantha felt Margot’s cool hand softly taking hold of her perspiring one. With a flutter in her chest, Samantha looked down and saw their entwined hands. Margot slipped her hand away, and Samantha drooped her shoulders in disappointment. She opened her mouth but could not bring herself to ask Margot to continue grasping her hand. Margot turned away and stepped up beside Roland. The corners of Samantha’s lips sagged into a subtle frown.
Roland and Margot abruptly stopped on the threshold of a guest bedroom. Samantha trod on Margot’s heel. “Sorry.” Margot, letting go of Samantha’s hand silently raised her own with one finger up.
Roland stood still. “This room belonged to… a girl named Berenice. No, she was named Cecilia. Her father… used her abusively for over a decade. She… conceived three children of his, and since his wife died, he married his daughter.”
“How is that possible?” Samantha blurted out.
Margot shushed her, but Roland turned around. “Please do let her speak.”
“How could he have married his own daughter without anyone knowing?” Samantha whispered. She hoped she had not broken a spell or Roland’s concentration, by speaking impulsively.
“That is an excellent question,” Roland said. “It was the sixteenth century, and customs were different, but not that different.”
Margot turned to her brother. “Perhaps when we speak with the ghosts later, after dark, we shall discover the answer.”
Samantha knit her brow. “The name Cecilia Berenice sounds familiar. I think… it was a name Mr. Prendregast said. A name out of his family tree.”
Margot raised her eyebrows.
Samantha frowned. “He was frustrated and confused over the family tree. Now I remember. And it is no wonder he was so confused, with an ancestor marrying his own daughter! I daresay he wouldn’t like an explanation, no matter how much it perplexes him now.”
Roland grimaced.
Margot frowned. “Please allow Roland to concentrate.” Samantha bit her lip and hung her head. Margot gently patted her shoulder, as though realizing she had chastised her, and Samantha’s shoulders relaxed. She and Margot waited in the dark hallway, and Roland stood perfectly still. Samantha guessed he was sinking back into the level of concentration he’d before her impetuous outburst.
Roland swiveled and traversed the corridor until he passed the tower. Margot and Samantha silently followed. At the other stretch of corridor, Roland halted and emitted a deep sigh. He stood silent. Samantha saw the back of his head and his shoulder-length locks beyond Margot, and she imagined he stood with his eyes closed while he listened.
With a rustle of cloth, Roland raised his left palm. “In the seventeenth century, a little girl by the name of Dulcie lived here, as did her brother Reginald. They were both victims of the same abuse as the others, because of their stepfather. He was a Prendregast by blood and brought them, with their mother, to this house.” Roland opened his eyes and, with a brief but convulsive grimace, turned to Margot and Samantha.
“Another Reginald,” Samantha whispered. “That should not surprise me, considering Mr. Prendregast’s obsession with his family tree.”
Margot said, “Then another ancestor might have been named Harriet.”
Roland stared in the distance down the long, darkening corridor. “Yes, a previous Prendregast girl was named Harriet.” The light, Samantha observed, was getting dimmer.
Roland took two steps forward. A floorboard creaked shrilly beneath his Hessians. He stopped moving yet continued staring down the dim hallway. “She seems to be manifesting as a nine-year-old, from the… 1580s, I believe.” He frowned thoughtfully and continued. “Yes, she and all eight of her siblings were incest victims. Their names were Meshach, Frideswid, Mahala, Hubert, Agalia, Lovell, Piers, and Bertram. The child ghost Harriet is weeping.”
Samantha trembled uncontrollably. “Oh, no. A weeping ghost.”
Roland whispered, “She is always weeping. She has been sobbing for hundreds of years. Continually.”
Samantha clasped her hands together. She could not bring her voice above a whisper. “The footman Gwydion Ewen said he heard sobbing on this floor but found no one.”
Roland whispered, “I sense the echoes of several men… not kindly individuals. Their names are Gershon, Jonathan, Averil, Blasé, and Claud. They are… oh… Let us return to them later.”
Margot sharply inhaled. “The men—they are perpetrators, are they not? The ones who did this to the children?”
Roland whispered, “Yes.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes again. “I would as lief focus on the many children. They are crowding the hallway.” He ended in a slow whisper.
Samantha whispered, “Those are probably the ghosts that form a mist together at night.” Even as she said this, she looked up and saw the hovering mist.
Harriet quietly slipped out of her bedroom. She held up a lit candelabra. Wide-eyed, Harriet gawped at them all. “May I listen in?”
“You may not like what you hear,” Roland murmured.