Curse of the Stag’s Eye (Haunted Hearts)

11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

8.01 p.m. Kitchen.

S ixteen minutes behind schedule! Still! Bloody hell. We’d be here all night at this rate.

We crossed over into the little kitchen. Gaz wanted to try out the kettle but I told him they’d switched the water off long ago. He briefly considered plodding back down to the museum to get his flask but thought better of it.

The kitchen was the most noticeably curved room we’d been in so far. An ugly, functional countertop ran around the wall, almost making a full circle, broken up by the door and a battered stove with a dented tin kettle on top. Some plain cabinets hung on the walls, and a tiny sink sat beneath a narrow window.

The fog was still wispy enough that I could just make out the cliff edge and the white horses of the waves. With the weight tube taking up space in the centre, we all struggled to fit.

“If you are a medium, you could try talking to him.” I leaned against the sink. “To Howard Baines.” I was trying to sound nonchalant but I couldn’t quite mask the excitement in my voice. I’d been on hunts with supposed mediums before but they never amounted to much. A bit of chanting, a bit of wailing, and a silly voice when they were possessed . But something about Dawn made me believe her.

“I don’t think I should.” Dawn lay her hands on a chair by a kidney-shaped table. “He’s already mad at me for being here, I don’t want to upset him any more.”

I nodded but didn’t give up. “Have you ever tried anything like that before?”

Dawn sighed. “There was one time when a few of us were at a friend’s house for a sleepover. She said her grandad had died in that house the night she was born. A few times she’d woken up in the middle of the night and thought she’d seen him at the end of her bed, like he was watching her sleep?”

“Sleep paralysis.” The words blurted out of Gaz, blunt and awkward. “Not uncommon. And not supernatural.”

Dawn ignored him. “He had a favourite chair, an ugly old armchair by the fireplace. There was this tatty blanket belonging to him draped over the back of it.

“Anyway, a bunch of us sat in a circle with a candle burning and we took it in turns calling out to him. Nothing happened. Until I tried it. The candle blew out almost straight away. We could still kind of see because we’d left the curtains open and it was a full moon.

“The chair — her grandad’s chair — started creaking, as if someone was getting out of it. The girl whose house it was felt a hand on her shoulder. She freaked out and ran for the door. We switched on the lights. Her grandad’s blanket was on the floor, even though none of us had been anywhere near it. We didn’t try anything like that again.”

As she talked, I scribbled notes into my little pad. “You said earlier you heard voices sometimes. Anything specific? Warnings about the future? Messages from beyond?”

Dawn rubbed her eyes. I think she was struggling to talk about this. “Only whispers, or low talking. Like people having a party in another room? I try not to pay too much attention to them.”

“Why?”

She held back tears as she spoke. “Because I might not like what they’re saying.”

My stomach clenched but I couldn’t stop myself. I pulled out a chair and sat. “Would you be up for trying it now? We’re all here with you. It’s safe.”

Dawn shook her head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Nikesh took a seat. “Come on, babes. It’ll be fine.” His bright brown eyes had been wide as saucers all evening, full of wonder and excitement, but turned calmer when talking to her then.

Gaz slid behind the table and into the bench at the wall. I told Michael to sit next to him which he did but he pretended he wasn’t happy about it. Still, he flattened the front of his shirt with the palm of his hand. He wanted to make sure he looked nice and tidy for Gaz, I suppose. It was quite sweet really.

Reluctantly, Dawn took the last chair.

I laid my pad and pencil on the table. “Everyone hold hands.”

I took Nikesh in one hand and Gaz in the other, secretly glad that he’d had to sit next to me. He smiled, very slightly. Despite myself, I smiled back. He was really making it very difficult for me to stay professional. I reminded myself not to do anything to scupper his chances with Michael.

Michael winced when Gaz grabbed his outstretched hand. I think he was squeezing it harder than he needed to. Probably from excitement. I might have a been a little disappointed that those two were hitting it off but I was prepared to stand back and not get in their way, if I had to.

“Now, I want everyone to imagine a circle of white light around us.” I closed my eyes as I spoke, taking very deep breaths. “The only things that can cross over the circle are those who do so with love.”

Nikesh was positively brimming with excitement. His shoulders wiggled and he grinned from ear to ear.

“Go on,” I said. “Call out to him.”

Dawn closed her eyes. “We want to speak to Howard Baines. Keeper of Stag’s Head Lighthouse.”

Only the faint crashing of waves broke the baneful silence.

She spoke more loudly. “Can Howard Baines hear my voice?”

“Listen.” I dropped to a whisper. “Can you hear that?”

From downstairs came the plodding of heavy footsteps, this time accompanied by a faint murmur of voices.

Gaz, facing the door, flinched but I warned him not to break the circle. “What’s that buzzing?” he asked.

I said nothing but all eyes were on me. I swallowed hard. “I don’t hear anything.”

“I hear it too,” Michael said. “Like a repetitive whirr.”

Gaz broke his grip and pointed at me. “There’s something buzzing in your pocket. It’s your phone, isn’t it?”

I sighed and let go of Nikesh’s hand. From my coat pocket, I pulled my iPhone.

“You said it was in your bag and switched off.” Gaz wrenched it from me. “You have a text message reminding you to register the warranty on your new Bluetooth speakers, I bloody knew it.” He slammed my phone down on the table.

My mouth ran dry as a bone.

“Where are they?” Gaz slid off the bench, pushed past me, and flung every cupboard door open, one by one. He checked every box on the shelves, pulled out every drawer. He stooped to open the cupboard beneath the little sink and reached in behind the pipes. He drew out a cheap speaker and threw it to me.

I caught it, glad he hadn’t thrown it at me.

“Let’s just calm down,” Michael said. “I’m sure Rhys has a good explanation.”

Nikesh grinned at everyone. “I don’t get it.”

Gaz threw his hands in the air. “He’s faked the whole thing! The footsteps, the voices, all of it!” He turned his back to me. “He’s rigged it all up. And you’re in on it too, I bet.” He held a finger at Michael.

“He doesn’t know anything about it.” Every inch of my skin clenched. “And I didn’t fake everything. Alright, yes, I rigged up a couple of things, just to, you know, get the ball rolling, to get everyone into the right frame of mind.”

“Oh, Rhys.” Dawn slumped back in her chair.

My armpits turned to swamps. “The knocking in the museum was my doing, and the footsteps we heard when we were in the first bedroom, but everything else that’s happened was real, I swear.”

“This is why you’ve been banging on about your precious schedule all night.” Gaz wasn’t really listening. “What, it’s all on a timer, is it?”

Sweat gathered behind my ears. “Some of it was, yes. But I’ve stopped it all now.”

Dawn turned to Michael. “Oi, were you the face in the window at the coal shed? And the footsteps on the gravel outside the museum, when Gaz left us?”

“All him,” Gaz said.

Michael snarled at him. “I’d be careful about throwing around accusations. Slander is a serious offence.”

“No, wait, no. That all happened before Michael arrived.”

“I came straight from the car park to the museum,” Michael said. “I wasn’t at the coal shed, you think I want to get these shoes dirty? I had them made in Milan. They cost me an arm and a leg. And I didn’t go walking around outside the museum. I’m not a part of this little deception.”

I opened my phone and brought up the app I’d used to play the sounds. “The footsteps on the stairs were my doing, but look, see, there’s nothing here about doors slamming or gravel.” I rubbed my hair. “And it’s not a deception! Not all of it! I can’t believe the things we’ve experienced tonight!”

“Funny,” Gaz said, “nor can I.”

“What about the sudden blast of cold and the rattling noise when we were downstairs?” I asked him. “And the tobacco smell in the cellar, I didn’t fake those, how could I? Bloody hell, with all we’ve seen tonight, I needn’t have bothered faking anything, butt!”

“Nah, man.” Nikesh crossed his arms and shook his head. “You’ve mugged us right off, there, Rhys. Mugged us right off, you melt.”

“You said you’d gotten here an hour before us. That’s plenty of time to rig up a fake haunting,” Gaz said. “I bloody knew it. This is a good start to your ghost-hunting business”. He stopped and glared at me. “Wait. This isn’t the start, is it? Bloody hell, you lied about that and all!”

I grabbed my hair with both hands. “Yes, look, look, I did a ghost hunt back in February at an old distillery. I got a handful of people who subscribe to my newsletter — which, by the way, none of you do — to come on a tour that I’d planned. That place has stories about various ghosts dating back hundreds of years, mun, hundreds. I thought we were sure to find something. And do you know what we saw? Nothing. Not a sausage.

“And everyone was so disappointed, they thought I’d wasted their time. Some of them thought I was a right nutcase, they did.” I switched my phone off and put it into my pocket. “I just wanted to make sure that you guys went away with a nice story, at the very least. I didn’t want you to be disappointed in your night. Or in me.”

Michael wouldn’t look at me. He just sat with his arms crossed.

Gaz shook his head. “Oh, diddums. You took advantage, just like—” He stopped as the air in the room became heavy with the faint scent of rotting vegetables and old soup. He stared as his breath misted from his mouth and the temperature plummeted. Goosebumps peppered the flesh of my arms. We were no longer alone.