By Special Request Dusk was approaching when David Ryder emerged from Exmoor Forest and drove the last few miles to the outskirts of Pangbourne. The wintry heavens were gunmetal-grey; the sun a distant orange orb racing away to the western horizon, to paint the ocean – or to be more precise, the Bristol Channel – with a pale brushstroke of liquid gold. As darkness rushed in to herald night, David pulled up to the isolated cottage and cut the Range Rover’s engine. At last! He was free of the city; the noise, pollution, frantic pace of life, and the daily grind of tubes, milling people and the nine-to-five toil of a crowded workplace. He was now the owner of a small, tastefully renovated cottage, located on a cliff top that overlooked the broad, scimitar sweep of Horseshoe Bay. Climbing out of the 4x4, David approached the gate in the white picket fence, opened it and paused awhile to admire and appreciate his new acquisition. He smiled, and realised that he was gloating over his good fortune. His great aunt, Emily Thornton, had passed away twelve months ago at the more than respectable age of ninety-three, and God bless her, had seen fit to leave the property and a substantial sum of money to him. Now, at just thirty-two, he was liberated, and would take time out to enjoy his new-found freedom before starting up as a self-employed financial advisor; an endeavour that could be conducted – in the main – via the Internet. As he unlocked and opened the front door, a chilling draught cut through his clothing, causing him to stagger backwards and cry out in surprise. He experienced a fleeting foreboding, and stood transfixed for a few seconds, his mood now dampened. For just a moment he had felt something akin to menace pass by, or maybe through him. With leaden legs he stepped across the threshold, scrabbled at the wall inside the door for the light switch, and finding it, clicked it on and sighed as bright light flooded the small living room. He shrugged. He was not used to such isolated surroundings, and had allowed the atmosphere to unsettle him. In the kitchen, he found a logical cause for the unexpected through draught. A small window above the sink was slightly open. He closed it, then made coffee and switched on the TV to catch the late news before going to bed. He was exhausted. Tomorrow would be soon enough to start unloading the car and trailer of possessions he had brought from the flat in London. He had not relocated until the cottage was refurbished and ready to live in. At lunch time the next day, David drove the two miles along a winding lane into Pangbourne, where he parked next to the village green and made a beeline for the Boar’s Head Inn. “You’ll be the new owner of Moor View Cottage, then,” Samuel Cutler the landlord said as a statement. The local grapevine was extremely fast, and usually accurate. “Yes. I’m David Ryder,” David said, offering his hand, which was grasped and shaken by a hand as big as a malt shovel, which threatened to crush his fingers like dry twigs. “What will it be?” Samuel asked. David studied the brass hand pumps. He did not recognise the name of the West Country brewery advertised on them. “I’ll try a pint of your best bitter, please.” “Did you know Emily Thornton?” Samuel said as he slowly pulled a foaming pint and set it down on a cardboard beer mat in front of David. “She was my aunt,” David replied. “With all due respect, that’s not what I asked, sir. Did you know the woman?” David was taken aback by the directness of the hulking, ruddy-faced publican. “Well...No, not really,” he said, somewhat defensively. “In fact I only met her once, when I was not much more than a toddler. Why do you ask?” “Because she was a rum old bird, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so. She had the power to make things happen, good and bad.” “What do you mean? Are you implying that she was a witch or something?” “I’m saying that a few hundred years back, she would have been mistaken for one in these parts. I reckon she’d have wound up in the ducking stool and then hanged, or burnt at the stake.” “That’s a terrible thing to say.” “I can’t deny that. But it’s the truth of the matter. Ask anyone who knew her. She could cure most ills or bring them on you, with little more than a glance of those piercing black eyes.” David moved away to a corner table and sat with his back to the bar. He might not have known his late aunt, but that didn’t mean he was prepared to stand and listen to the ramblings of a yokel, who doubtless accused any ageing spinster who owned a black cat and had an herb garden of being a practitioner of the black arts. Quickly finishing his beer, David left the murky pub without further acknowledging the oaf who had dampened his spirit. Outside, he looked about him, saw the spire of the church and walked towards it with no conscious decision to. He entered the lych-gate and made his way directly to where the remains of his aunt lay, even though he had not attended the funeral or knew the location of her grave. Squatting down on his haunches, David cleared the layer of fallen leaves from the bronze plaque. Where it was situated disturbed him. For some obscure reason Emily had been buried apart from the rows of mostly aged tombstones that leant at angles, succumbing to gravity and covered in florets of lichen. A reedy voice erupted behind him. “Good day, young man. May I be of assistance?” David turned to see a thin, balding man in dog collar and black suit approaching. He looked to already have one foot in his own grave, being almost skeletal, with jaundiced skin stretched drum-tight over prominent cheekbones. He also had pronounced curvature of the spine, and had to crane his neck up to see ahead and not face the ground. “I’m just paying my respects,” David said. The vicar grimaced, and David thought his parchment skin might tear, to split apart and display bone as yellow as old ivory. “And why might you want to do that, if I may ask?” David frowned. “Emily Thornton was my aunt. Is there a reason for her being buried so far from the rest of the departed, up against the graveyard wall?” “She...your aunt, was not like her neighbours,” the vicar said. “She left specific instructions to be laid to rest apart from all others, as she had been in life. She also requested to be placed face down in her coffin for some pagan reason. Naturally, that was not something I could or would sanction.” “You sound as superstitious as the landlord at the Boar’s Head. Are you implying that she was in some way different?” David said sharply. A muscle twitched in the vicar’s left cheek, repeatedly drawing his mouth up at that side in an Elvis-style sneer. “I offer no personal observation,” he said. “But look about you, my friend. The grass will not grow around her grave. And the oak above her is now dying. Emily was much more than she appeared to be.” Later, back at the cottage, David stared in disbelief. Was it his imagination, or did the newly thatched roof look discoloured? And were the freshly whitewashed walls beginning to flake in places? That was impossible. Entering the cottage, he caught the slight smell of must and dampness, and cobwebs he had not noticed before were hanging like ships’ rigging or black bunting at the juncture of the walls and ceiling. But that could not be. The place had recently been decorated throughout. By nine pm, David was falling asleep in front of the TV, and so went up to bed, convinced that the sea air was responsible for his tiredness. Within minutes he was slumbering, and dreamed that Emily – who he only recognised from old black and white photographs – was standing at the foot of the bed, talking to him, demanding that he carry out her wishes or suffer the consequences. Sitting bolt upright, he looked about him in the grainy dawn light that filtered through a window that was now smeared with thick grime and gull droppings; a window that had been sparkling clean the day before. His heart thundered. He could not move for the shock that locked-up his muscles: for the lumpy bed he lay on was not his. Neither was the old wardrobe facing him, nor the faded prints in dull gilt frames that hung on peeling, yellowed wallpaper. Even the floorboards that had been sanded and varnished were now warped and riddled with woodworm. This was, he knew, how Moor View Cottage had looked up until his aunt’s demise. When able, after the initial stupefaction passed, David investigated, to discover that not only the bedroom but the entire property both inside and out was in the state of disrepair in which he had inherited it. There was only one explanation. What he had believed to be nothing more than a vivid dream had in fact been a real event. Emily was not at peace. She had visited him, and he knew what he must do. Under cover of darkness, David drove to the graveyard with a spade and all the tools he thought he may need in the rear of the Range Rover. He climbed over the wall, made his way through the tombs and markers in a low crouch, and stopped at the far side of the small cemetery, next to the plaque that marked the spot. He hesitated, questioning his sanity. Surely he could not be about to desecrate his aunt’s resting place. What if he was to be discovered waist-deep in the grave by the vicar or the police? He would be charged with...with what? Attempted grave-robbery? God! The media would have a field day, especially as this was the evening of October thirty-first; All Hallow’s Eve. He would be labelled a modern-day body snatcher; an unholy and deranged lunatic. No matter, it had to be done. Forcing back a sense of dire dread and gut-churning horror, he swallowed hard, placed the blade of the spade into the soil and began to dig. The transition was not immediate. The cottage slowly metamorphosed over a period of several days, renewing itself inchmeal around him, as though it were a living entity and not just so much brick, timber, straw and paint. But at last it was magically returned to the pristine state in which the builders, thatchers and decorators had rendered it prior to his occupation. His nocturnal endeavours had not been in vain. On a whim, David once more visited the country church yard. Somehow he was not surprised to see fresh grass growing around Emily’s grave, or the appearance of new shoots sprouting from the overhanging limbs of the revitalised oak tree. Emily was now truly at rest, face down in the soil beneath him. END © MICHAEL KERR 2013
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 22:32:04 +0000
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