Christmas Tales of Terror (2 page)

Stephen’s stepfather settled back in his chair.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think so. He was trying to scare me, I reckon. Did a fair job as a matter of fact, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘Scare you?’ said the vicar. ‘How so?’

‘Well,’ said Stephen’s stepfather, ‘he was always at the edge of my vision, you know. Whenever I turned to face him, he ducked out of sight.’

‘You never mentioned this to me,’ said Stephen’s mother, with an arch of her eyebrow.

‘Only remembered it now,’ said Stephen’s stepfather. ‘I thought several times of packing up and leaving, but once I start something I see it through, by George. I had my twelve-bore in the cart, so I knew I was safe enough should things get to that.

‘In any case, I felt confident he wasn’t going to physically attack me, that he was only observing. He wasn’t going to stop me, though I’m convinced he would have dearly liked to. It was as if he was almost daring me to carry on. Ha! It all sounds like poppycock now I think about it.’

‘Maybe he was trying to warn you,’ suggested Doctor Meadows.

‘Threaten you, more like,’ said Stephen’s mother. ‘It’s outrageous! Do you see why we must make a stand against this sort of thing, Reverend? I shall bring it up at the next Parish Council meeting.’

‘I really wouldn’t if I were you,’ said Doctor Meadows.

Stephen noted the tone of utter seriousness in the doctor’s voice. Stephen’s mother noted it too, and though she coloured slightly and pursed her lips, she let the matter drop.

‘Don’t want to upset the natives, eh?’ said Stephen’s stepfather, with a wink.

The doctor smiled weakly and took another sip of port. Stephen had the distinct impression that Doctor Meadows felt that the damage had already been done.

‘People can still hold the most bizarre beliefs very dear,’ the Reverend said. ‘I rather think Doctor Meadows is right. Best not to cause unnecessary offence. I remember when I was at the mission on the shores of Lake Victoria . . .’

The vicar began one of his extended anecdotes about his time in Africa, but Stephen was not listening. He was thinking how long it had been since he had last visited Freya’s Hill.

The light was fading as Stephen crossed the top meadow. It never felt like much of a climb, but away to his left he could see the village and the river winding into the misty distance. Ahead of him, across rough ground pitted with rabbit burrows and mole hills, lay Freya’s Hill.

There was a stone wall running all round the top of the hill, enclosing the trees of the wood and the circle of stones that stood among them. The wall was green with moss.

Stephen’s father said that the patch of land within the wall must have lain undisturbed like that for centuries, as each owner of the land had let it be. His father had spoken in a reverential hush, as though they had been standing in a church. Stephen had always been a little frightened of the place.

He put his foot on a stone that stood out enough from the wall to give him some purchase, and lifted himself up to see over. He came to a sudden halt as he saw a movement in the bushes.

He peered in. Nothing. No – there it was again. But no . . . Every time he turned to look, he saw nothing but the trees and the standing stones: some dark, beshadowed, others pale and frost-coated.

Movement again, out of the corner of his eye. And again. It had to be the man his stepfather was talking about. It was just as he had said. Every time Stephen looked, the man was gone.

‘I say!’ called Stephen, trying to sound as assertive as he could. ‘Who’s there?’

There was no response, but the movements did not stop. Whoever it was, they were still there. Stephen’s nerve was already going. He was sure that their presence and the animosity Stephen could sense must have something to do with the greenery his stepfather had taken.

‘I’m most terribly sorry,’ said Stephen. ‘About the ivy and so on. My stepfather meant no harm. He didn’t realise.’

Again there was no response.

Stephen took one last look at the stones and then climbed down, striding across the top meadow, suddenly eager to be back in the house. He had a horrible sensation of the trees and brambles reaching out to him across the wall.

Taking off his muddy boots by the back door and changing into his slippers, he walked through the hall and heard the click of billiard balls. He found his stepfather and Doctor Meadows deeply involved in their game, the doctor about to take a shot, his cue arm rather unsteady.

There was a bottle of brandy on the table and both men seemed more than a little intoxicated. Doctor Meadows had always enjoyed his drink, but, since retiring, this tendency had become far more noticeable.

Neither man spotted Stephen in the doorway and Stephen carried on to the drawing room, where he found his mother reading by the fire.

‘Stephen,’ she said. ‘There you are. I don’t like you walking about in the dark.’

‘It’s not dark, Mother,’ said Stephen, but looking out of the window he saw that it very nearly was.

‘Where did you go, anyway?’ she asked.

‘Oh, not far,’ said Stephen. ‘Any grub, Mama?’

She frowned.

‘You know I don’t like that sort of slang, Stephen. Cook will give you something. We’ve already had supper.’

She dropped her voice to a whisper.

‘I rather think we may be having Doctor Meadows to breakfast,’ she said. ‘I can’t send him home in his state. You would think a medical man would have more restraint.’

‘Doctor Meadows is a good man,’ said Stephen. ‘Remember how kind he was when Father was ill.’

‘Well, I didn’t say he wasn’t, Stephen,’ she said, closing her book, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I remember only too well how . . .’

Stephen leaned forward and hugged her.

‘I know you do, Mama,’ he said.

As anticipated, Doctor Meadows was in no state to go home, and Stephen’s mother made up a spare bed for him, the servants having all been given the night off.

Stephen wished the doctor goodnight as he passed his room on the way to his own, and the doctor waved by way of response as he struggled to get his shoes off.

Stephen was asleep almost immediately and fell to dreaming just as quickly. He was back on Freya’s Hill, peering over the wall again. Except this time he felt he really could see someone there in the shadows.

The figure appeared to have long hair and a beard, and seemingly tangled among both were dozens of curling fronds of ivy. And what was he wearing? It looked like a cloak of leaves and bracken. On his head there sat a crown of holly.

Dawn light was seeping through his curtains when Stephen was awoken by a scream and it was so extraordinary in nature that at first he did not recognise it as his mother at all and assumed it was part of his strange dream. It sounded more like a bird screeching. But it came again and he was hurled into wakefulness, though the scream lost none of its shock. It chilled his blood and sent him running to its source.

He found his mother in a faint at the entrance to his stepfather’s room and he knelt down to try to revive her. He spoke to her and patted her hand but she did not stir. So intent was he, in fact, on these actions that he did not immediately think to look inside the room and see the cause of his mother’s collapse. When he did look, he stared in open-mouthed horror.

Sitting in the high-backed armchair his father had always used for writing was Stephen’s stepfather. The chair was beside the bed and turned towards the door. A lamp burned overhead, illuminating the extraordinary scene.

His stepfather’s hands grasped the arms of the chair, his knees were apart, his eyes open and staring. His mouth, too, was open, and out of it streamed coils of ivy and holly. A crown of holly was wrapped about his head. Ivy wreathed his whole body and the chair, spiralling round his legs and arms, binding him in place. He looked like a statue from some ruined and deserted palace where nature had taken dominion.

Doctor Meadows was the next to arrive, just as Stephen’s mother was starting to come round. He was bleary-eyed at first, but sparked quickly into life as soon as he saw Stephen’s stepfather.

‘Good Lord! What on earth . . . ?’

The doctor rushed forward and, pulling strands of ivy free, checked for a pulse. He turned to Stephen and shook his head.

‘That man,’ said Stephen. ‘The man my stepfather saw at Freya’s Hill. He must have broken in and done this.’

‘Perhaps . . .’ said the doctor doubtfully. ‘Have you checked for signs of a break-in?’

Stephen said he had not and set off to do so. But everything was as it should be. The doors were locked and the windows were all intact. He came back to find the doctor helping his mother to her room.

‘Nothing out of place,’ said Stephen. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Really?’ said Doctor Meadows.

Stephen frowned.

‘What do you mean, sir?’ he asked.

‘Open your mind, Stephen,’ said the doctor. ‘This is not the work of an angry villager. I think you know that, deep down.’

Stephen thought back to Freya’s Hill.

‘I went to the stones on Freya’s Hill yesterday,’ he said. ‘I had the same sensation my stepfather described. That there was someone watching me, someone who was very angry. Might not it be them?’

‘Did you actually see anyone?’ said the doctor.

‘No . . .’ said Stephen, remembering his dream but not wishing to appear foolish.

‘And how could they have got in?’ asked Doctor Meadows.

‘I don’t know. We must call the police,’ said Stephen.

‘No!’ exclaimed his mother.

‘But, Mother –’

‘I won’t have him found like that,’ she said. ‘I won’t have it. We will become one of those tales that people tell after dinner. Please, Doctor. For my late husband’s sake, if not for mine. You and he were such great friends. For Stephen’s sake, if not for his.’

Stephen protested but Doctor Meadows took him aside.

‘I think your mother may be right, Stephen,’ he said. ‘What good could come of it? Do either of us believe foul play was the cause of his death? Or at least a culprit that the law could apprehend?’

After a moment Stephen closed his eyes and shook his head.

‘Very well, then,’ said Doctor Meadows returning to Mrs Levenson. ‘I will say that he died of a heart attack. It is no lie. I think that was, eventually, the cause of death. Stephen, will you help me tidy things up? Can you do that?’

Stephen nodded.

‘Good boy.’

Between them, Stephen and the doctor cleared all the foliage from the room, though Stephen left it to the doctor to pull the ivy from his stepfather’s throat. The noise alone was almost too much for him to bear.

Stephen’s mother insisted that all the remaining greenery be taken down from the hall before she would emerge from her room. The servants were going to give it all to Inman, the gardener, to burn, but Stephen insisted that it be loaded into the same cart his stepfather had used to bring it home.

It was bitterly cold on Freya’s Hill. The stones were glowing pale blue with frost among the brambles as Stephen brought the pony and cart up to the wall and, bit by bit, threw the contents into the trees beyond.

The presence that he had sensed before was there again, but Stephen felt it was closer now and, instead of looking for him, he set about his task with methodical vigour, fearing that if he looked round he might find whatever it was staring at him, face to face.

Once he had thrown every frond and leaf and berry over the wall, Stephen reached in and pulled out a small box. Carefully opening it, he poured the contents into his palm, stretched his hand over the wall and tipped the ashes out in a fine cloud that drifted in the slight breeze.

He had to try to appease whatever it was that stalked Freya’s Hill with some sort of offering. After much thought, he had decided that nothing was more valuable than his father’s ashes, and so he had taken a handful when his mother and Doctor Meadows were otherwise engaged.

When the last of the ash had left his hands, he jumped down from the wall, climbed up on to the cart, flicked the reins and drove swiftly back towards his home, never once looking over his shoulder. Again there was the horrible feeling that the ivy fronds and coils of brambles were reaching out towards him, almost touching the back of his neck.

Stephen eventually inherited Woodehouse End from his mother and lived there happily as a married man, and then as a widower, well into his eighties.

But he never again went back to Freya’s Hill.

2

The Musical Box

The attic at Knowlesworth House was a wonderful place. It was not the usual kind of dark and closed-in loft, accessed by a trapdoor and ladder, but a great row of rooms running the whole length of the house and reached by its own staircase.

The attic was huge, and filled with a mysterious collection of crates and boxes and hidden objects cloaked in dust sheets, all illuminated by a succession of dormer windows.

Georgia Gilbey had only ever been allowed up there on two previous occasions, and the mere memory of those visits made her giddy with excitement. It was an Aladdin’s cave. There were treasures to be found there; she was sure of it.