Copyright 2025 Blackwych Books

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle edition

First published in January 2025

by Blackwych Books, London

Ronnie and Harriet's new home is perfect, except for one problem.

The previous owners left something small behind.

Many years ago, a witch lived in the house. The locals managed to get rid of her, but they missed something. Now Ronnie and Harriet are about to discover that even a tiny piece of a witch can cause big problems. And what initially seems like a joke soon turns out to have devastating consequences.

Crone Finger is a dark horror novel about a couple trying to start their perfect life, and about a witch desperately trying to gain revenge on the world that damned her.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Epilogue

Crone Finger

Prologue

1822...

A haze of heat rose up from the wheat fields, causing the sun to shimmer in the sky as four men dragged the terrified woman from her house.

“Bring her forth!” Father John Mertyn called out as the rest of the gathered crowd pulled back a little, as if many of them were scared of getting too close to the accused. “Bring her out here and put her on her knees!”

Although she struggled and tried to break free, the accused woman was powerless to escape from her tormentors. Already they had bound thick material over her mouth, stopping her crying out, while her wrists were tied together behind her back; her long black hair hung down on either side of a beaten and bruised face, and a moment later one member of the flock slipped a leg between her ankles and tripped her, sending her stumbling down while two other men pushed on her shoulders to make sure that she couldn't get back up.

“And here she is,” Father Mertyn continued, struggling to contain a faint smile that caused one side of his mouth to curl up slightly. “The cause of all our bad harvests. The cause of the deaths that have afflicted our newborns. The cause of the infestations that have ruined our grain.”

As tears ran from her horrified eyes, the accused tried desperately to cry out, but she could only manage a stifled murmur as she shook her head frantically.

“Even now she denies it,” Father Mertyn went on, glancing at the two dozen villagers who had dared to arrive to witness the ceremony. “That is how you can be sure she is guilty. Satan is in her heart and she barely even knows how to tell the truth. If she had any decency left in her at all, any sense of the Lord's presence, she would at least confess her sins at the last moment in an attempt to gain mercy.”

He hesitated for a few seconds, keen to drive his words home, before taking a carefully calculated step forward until he was towering above the trembling woman. From her position on the ground, his head was almost but not quite blocking out the sun.

“Instead she puts her lot in with her dark master,” he purred, seeing the fear in her eyes, “and she still believes that her dark ways might yet save her. But that is why we have all gathered here today, is it not? We have come to prove that our faith is the right faith, that it is the true faith, and that we are good people who merely wish to serve our creator.”

Reaching under his shawl, he slowly pulled out a hand ax that he had borrowed from one of the local farmers. Battered and rough from years of work in the fields, this instrument had a ragged edge that looked long past its best.

As soon as she saw the ax, the accused woman tried again to cry out. Renewing her efforts, she struggled violently as the men on either side tried to keep hold of her arms, holding them out while two more men kept their hands pressed down on her shoulders.

Father Mertyn, meanwhile, watched her coldly as he began to make his way around until he was looking at her from behind.

“Behold the witch Scarlet Carruthers!” he bellowed. “Behold the instrument of Satan in our midst!”

Several members of the crowd were whispering to one another now while keeping their eyes very much fixed upon Scarlet as if they still feared that she might break free.

There had been rumors about her for a while now, with some claiming that she could take on the form of a serpent and others insisting that they had seen her flying through the night sky on a broomstick; in truth, there had been so many rumors that nobody could possibly have heard them all, but they had been enough to instill a sense of genuine dread in the hearts of the good people of Wragglesford. And now, with another harvest having failed and with crops rotting in the fields, a new sentiment had emerged: something must be done.

“Something must be done,” the farmers had insisted to one another.

“Something must be done,” the parish beadle had opined.

“Something must be done,” the women washing clothes next to the river had murmured.

Father John Mertyn had been more than happy to step in and take the lead.

“Do not look away,” he commanded the crowd. “Do not flinch from your duty as witnesses on this day, for you are the members of our community who have dared to come here. You must relate to the others, to the cowards, how justice has been achieved.”

He watched the back of Scarlet's head for a moment before stepping closer and taking hold of her dress. Once he'd adjusted his grip, he began to pull hard, tearing the material until he was able to rip the dress fully away, exposing her naked body. Leaning over her shoulder slightly, he watched as her bare breasts wobbled, and a moment later he realized that a dribble of saliva had escaped from one corner of his mouth. He wiped the dribble away as he leaned over a little more, and now he was able to see the thick patch of hair at her crotch. Taking a deep breath, he watched the trembling woman for a few more seconds before stepping back and admiring the small of her back and her fine, rump buttocks.

And then he raised the ax and swung it down at her with all his might, driving the rough blade into her back with such force that the tip burst out through the front, emerging just above her left breast as a crunching sound rang through the air.

At the same time Scarlet's body tensed and her head tipped back, and her anguished eyes looked up at Father Mertyn as he, in turn, watched her with an inscrutable expression in his eyes.

A moment later, as more blood ran from the wound in Scarlet's chest, the priest wiggled the ax's handle before slowly pulling it out from her back. The blade caught slightly, dragging on several broken ribs.

Now that the gash was empty, more blood flowed freely down Scarlet's back, mixed with some slightly lighter fluid from her spinal column.

Father Mertyn watched as this liquid dribbled between the woman's buttocks, and then he held the ax up again and prepared for his next strike.

“Kill the witch!” a man shouted suddenly from the crowd. “Kill her before she can use her powers to pervert us!”

“Kill her!” another man yelled, emboldened by the first. “Hurry!”

“You have no reason to fear!” Father Mertyn shouted, “for I have guarded against such things! A witch's greatest weapon is her mouth, and this as you see has been immobilized. But her second greatest weapon is her body, and in this regard there is still much to do.” He looked at the terrified faces for a moment as he realized that the time had arrived. “I asked all of you to come prepared today. Did you listen? Did you do it?”

He waited, and slowly the members of the crowd began to reach into their pockets. Gradually each man and woman came to be holding a weapon of some sort; a knife here and an ax there, and in some cases various hooks and other instruments that had been fetched from barns and farmyards in the local area. One man was holding a simple hook that was usually used for the hanging of sheep carcasses, but which could be easily adapted to other purposes.

Scarlet, meanwhile, was still somehow conscious even as her head had dipped. Her eyes remained open and she was watching as more blood flowed from the wound in the middle of her chest. As much as she felt the call of death, she was determined to stay alive for as long as possible even as she heard the sound of blades sharpening against other blades.

Finally her eyes narrowed slightly.

“You will remember what I told you in my sermon on Sunday,” Father Mertyn said to the crowd. “You each have a duty here. The witch must be hacked apart while she is still living, so that each bit of her foul body is rendered impotent. You have your weapons and I am sure you all know what to do, so I beseech thee... why do you stand around now? There is work to be done!”

At first nobody in the crowd dared to move, until finally Martin Sommerville – a local baker – began to edge forward nervously with a large knife in his trembling right hand.

“That's good, Martin,” Father Mertyn said, nodding his approval. “Show the others what they must do.”

Martin glanced back at the rest of the crowd, but after a few more steps he came to a halt and looked down at Scarlet. He immediately saw her eyes staring back at him, and he flinched as he so nearly turned around and ran, but somehow he was able to hold his ground.

“That's right, Martin,” Father Mertyn purred. “Choose your mark carefully. You are a good man and the Lord will give you credit for all that you do today.”

Biting his bottom lip, Martin looked down at the captured woman's naked body. Blood had flowed freely from her chest, reaching her crotch and then dividing to go down her legs. At first the baker wasn't quite sure what to do next, and while he'd imagined himself hacking wildly at the witch, now he found that much of his invented bravery had deserted him. He merely wanted to show his willingness to strike and then pull back, to let others take on much of the work. After all, what if the witch escaped and sought revenge?

“Do it, Martin,” the priest said with thinly-disguised anticipation. “Do it now!”

Martin still hesitated for a few seconds and still bit on his bottom lip, but he knew the moment had arrived. Finally he told himself that he simply had to do something, so he stepped forward and aimed for the witch's bare belly, thinking that this would at least offer the least resistance.

He was right, and his blade sliced easily through the flesh just below her navel. Indeed, the knife entered her body so easily that Martin was surprised when his hand – still clutching the handle – pressed against the witch's bare flesh. In a fright he pulled the knife out and stepped back; blood was smeared all along the blade, and more blood was running from the slit he'd just opened up in the woman's body.

Scarlet's eyes, meanwhile, were fixed on her latest attacker, and her body was barely shaking at all now. Nor did she show any obvious reaction as, a few seconds later, three other men – emboldened by Martin's actions – began to edge closer from the crowd.

“That's right,” Father Mertyn said, reaching over the woman's shoulder and starting to smear the blood all over her bare chest, taking particular care to coat her breasts and give them a firm squeeze in the process. “You see what can be done. Now help me to end this nightmare and save our village. Show me that you are not weak or -”

Before the priest could finish, Charles Babford – a local schoolteacher – screamed and rushed forward, raising a heavy butcher's knife before slashing it down with such force that he cut straight through Scarlet's left arm, severing it just below the shoulder. He used such strength, in fact, that he subsequently stumbled and ran straight between the spurting stump and the arm before dropping to his knees and almost landing on his own weapon.

“That's it!” Father Mertyn shouted as others from the crowd approached the dying woman and began to hack at her, driving their blades into her body from every direction. “Cut her to pieces! By the time we are done, she must be barely recognizable as a woman at all! Then we shall burn her and our village shall finally be free of her curse!”

As Scarlet raised her face and looked up at the white sky above, scores of knives and axes and other weapons shucked into her body, sometimes cutting pieces off and sometimes merely grinding deep into her bones. Already losing consciousness, she knew that death was coming and her bloodied body shook under the wild onslaught, but she told herself that she was going to keep her head held high, that she was going to watch the sky for as long as possible even as the life drained away from her body in a torrent of blood.

Finally another blade swung into her neck, almost decapitating her. The blade's wielder tried again, then again, but he needed fully five swings before he severed the last of her meat and bones, sending her head thumping down against the grass as the last of her blood began to spurt from the mangled stump just above her shoulders.

Cries continued to ring out. From inside the house, which stood still and silent now even as its former occupant was hacked apart on the lawn, these cries seemed to merge together to form a single furious torrent of rage, a torrent that lasted for fully half an hour and continued even as flames began to ripple outside and the gathered chunks of Scarlet's body were burned on a bonfire built by the most pious men in the county.

Chapter One

2025...

Two hundred and three years later, the hallway of the same house continued to stand in a kind of calm, reflective silence. The gently undulating English countryside could be seen beyond the windows, but for the most part the house had rested undisturbed for a couple of centuries, bothered only by the occasional valuer or estate agent charged with the seemingly impossible task of shifting the place.

And then, on a crisp morning early in the new year, a car could be heard rolling to a stop on the gravel outside, and soon this sound was replaced by a series of laughs and giggles until a shape appeared on the door's other side.

A key scratched and scraped in the lock for a few seconds, struggling slightly to do its job, before the door creaked and swung open to reveal a dark-haired man in his late twenties who proceeded to carry his beaming wife across the threshold and into their first marital home.

“Ta-da!” Ronnie announced with a grin. “We finally made it!”

“Wow,” Harriet said, looking around as her husband continued to hold her up, “it's...”

Her voice trailed off, and a moment later Ronnie set her down so that she could explore properly.

“It's...”

“It's ours,” he reminded her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Our first proper home. The first place we've actually owned together now that we've tied the knot. This is where we're going to start our life together. I told you it'd look better in real life than it did in the photos.”

Harriet looked through into a gloomy and bare living room, before turning to her husband with an expression of bemusement in her eyes.

“Are you sure?” she asked finally.

“Sure?”

He waited for her to explain.

“About what?” he added.

“How can we afford a place like this?” she asked, and her feet bumped loudly against the bare wooden floorboards as she took a step back. “It's gorgeous!”

“I told you, we got a good deal,” he replied, amused by her sense of shock. “The place has been empty for years, they had real trouble getting rid of it. When I asked for details, the estate agent almost kissed me. I reckon we got at least a third off what a place like this would usually fetch.”

“We did?”

Stepping over to the wide open double doors, she looked through into the living room.

“I told you,” he added. “You can always trust me to get a good deal.”

“It's so beautiful,” she continued, allowing herself a faint smile. “Growing up in London, I never thought I'd live in a place like this. It's almost like a fairy tale.”

“It's not exactly a castle,” he pointed out, stepping up behind her and kissing the side of her face from behind, “but it should do for now. We'll see about a castle in a few years, once we've both bumped our credit scores up a bit more.”

He kissed the side of her face again, and now he hesitated with his lips close to her skin as he slowly pressed his crotch against her bum.

“Now, isn't it traditional to, er, christen every room in a new place?”

“Ronald Anderson,” she said with a knowing smile, as she in turn pressed back against him, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm talking about the fact that the furniture truck's gonna be here in about two hours,” he whispered, “and by then, I'd really like to have at least made a start on the place. I don't want strange men lugging sofas and chairs and stuff into my new house until I've... made my mark on it, if you catch my drift.”

“Well, I'm right here,” she said, reaching out and putting her hands on either side of the open doorway. “I just need my big, strong husband to decide exactly what he wants to do to me. And where.”

“I've got a few ideas,” he said softly, before taking a step back. “But first, I'm sorry, I really need to pee. Can you hold that thought and wait for me? I'll be right back.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned and watched as he raced two-steps-at-a-time up the stairs. Making enough noise for two or three men, he rampaged around the corner and out of sight.

“Where's the loo?” he yelled suddenly. “Harriet, I forgot where the bathroom is!”

“Next to the master bedroom!” she shouted back to him, unable to stifle a big smile. “I think. That's what the plans showed.”

“And where's that?” he called out, sounding a little panicked now.

“It's -”

“Found it!”

She listened to the sound of him racing into another room, followed a fraction of a second later by the unmistakable sound of him peeing into the toilet.

“Shut the door, Ron!” she shouted, before sighing as she turned and made her way across the living room. “Apparently you still need some house-training,” she said, swinging her arms around as she enjoyed the sheer space of the place, which was a marked contrast to the old flat in London. “If you think I'm gonna clean up after you and act like your bloody mum, you've got another thing -”

And then she froze as she spotted something on the floor. She stared, trying to make sense of the incongruous sight, but very slowly her smile faded – only to be replaced by a steadily creeping rictus of pure horror. Finally, as the toilet flushed upstairs, she took a step back and screamed.

Chapter Two

“It's not real,” Ronnie said, using a piece of tissue paper to lift up the offending severed finger, then turning to his wife. “See? It's rubber or... plastic or something.”

“How do you know?” she asked, barely able to look at the object.

“It's obvious,” he continued, peering at the finger more closely. “You can tell from the color, for one thing. It's all... gray and a bit dark green, like it's totally rotten. And the nail's all black. Seriously, if this was a real finger, it'd be completely disgusting.”

He turned it around so that he could see the dry, meaty stump.

“It's not even very realistic once you see it close up,” he added. “Harriet, come over here and take a proper look.”

“I don't want to.”

“But -”

“Ron, can you just get it out of here?” she asked. “Please?”

“It's not real!” he said again.

“Alright, whatever,” she continued, “but I still don't want it in our house!”

“Where am I supposed to put it?” he replied. “We haven't even got a proper bin yet.”

“You're not putting that thing in a bin!”

“It's not real,” he reiterated. “I'm being serious with you, Harriet. As soon as you're close up, it's so obvious that it's some kind of... rubber toy, or something from a Halloween kit, something like that. Or a dog's toy.”

“It looks real to me.”

“You won't even come within ten feet of it,” he pointed out, turning to her. “Come on, take a closer look and you'll soon see.” Taking hold of the finger with his other hand, he removed it from the tissue and gave it a squeeze. “It doesn't even feel real,” he added. “It's spongy and -”

“Don't touch it!” she gasped.

“I've seen realer-looking stuff in the supermarket in October,” he said, before pausing for a moment. “But you know what?” he added. “Why don't you see for yourself? Catch!”

With that, he suddenly tossed the finger at her.

Letting out a horrified shriek, Harriet backed away so fast that she bumped against the wall as the finger landed harmlessly on the floor and rolled a couple of feet.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” she yelled. “Get it out of here!”

“Alright, whatever,” he muttered, following the finger and picking it up, then quickly heading out of the room. “I'll shove it somewhere.”

“Where are you taking it?” she asked.

When he failed to answer, she remained frozen in place until she heard him heading outside. Rushing to the window, she watched as he made his way across the front lawn, and then she saw him throw the finger so far and so hard that it went sailing over the trees at the end of the garden. Then, turning and seeing her, he made a big deal of wiping his hands against each other as he marched back into the house and reappeared in the doorway.

“Happy now?” he said with a smile. “It was just a prank.”

“By who?” she replied. “Ron, are you sure it's gone?”

“It went well beyond the boundary,” he told her, stepping closer and putting his hands on her waist. “Some cat'll probably have it. Or not, since it's just a Halloween prank.” He hesitated before kissing her on the cheek again. “Now, where were we?” he purred. “I seem to recall that we were about to get freaky in our new abode.”

“I'm really not in the mood now,” she replied, before spotting a truck slowly turning onto the driveway. “Besides, the furniture's here early. Looks like we'll have to save the christening for another time.”

Chapter Three

When night falls in the English countryside, everything changes. The temperature drops a little, of course, but also a kind of silence settles as the creatures of the daytime fall still and the night owls emerge. Everything becomes a little more dangerous and rustling sounds in the hedgerows take on a far more sinister quality.

And this silence becomes almost oppressive as midnight approaches.

As he made his way along a winding lane, Peter had some vague idea that he should probably head home. He lived on the edge of the village and he knew people would be worried about him, although he certainly didn't mind staying out all night – sometimes for several nights in a row. Besides, he had a second home on the other side of the village, and both spots offered a chance to eat well. He also had a feeling that tonight might be a good night for hunting, and already his senses were revving into overload.

All his life, he'd refused to let anyone tame him.

Stepping briefly into the grass at the side of the road, he glanced at the lights in a nearby house. He was used to that house being empty, so he was surprised to see that someone now seemed to be occupying the place, but he had no particular need to go and inspect more closely. What the other residents of the area failed to understand – and what Peter himself had tried to establish very clearly – was that he and he alone ruled the entire village and its environs, and that every living thing in and around the village existed purely on his terms. Whether they realized it or not, life and death in the area were under his purview. He could kill anyone and anything he wanted, at any time.

Peter had long since proved himself to be the village's dominant cat.

And then, stopping suddenly, he saw something in the middle of the road. His eyes immediately narrowed; a human wouldn't have spotted a damn thing, of course, but Peter's vision was markedly better and he could see a small sausage-shaped object resting on the asphalt. Where the finger had come from, he couldn't possibly imagine, although it certainly looked as if it had simply fallen from the sky and had landed in its present position. His other senses offered no clue and he almost wandered away, but at the last second some snatch of curiosity caught in his mind and he made his way over. Already his tail was twitching in a whole new way, offering a subtle but precise warning to anyone watching.

Reaching the object, he looked down and saw that it was a severed human finger. The sight was somewhat bizarre, even for a cat, so he stepped around the finger and began to sniff the stump. Whatever had happened to this particular finger, it had clearly occurred a very long time ago – for the blood was extremely stale. Opening his mouth, he half considered turning the finger into a snack, but he figured that he could find much fresher meals hopping around still alive in the nearby field, so after walking around the finger he turned to resume his journey toward the nearest hedge.

A moment later, hearing a very faint shuffling sound, he turned and looked at the finger again. His tail, which had begun to swish slightly, fell still as he stared at the finger and realized that it seemed to have moved. There was no wind on that calm English night, yet the finger had quite clearly turned and was now pointing directly at him. Never one to back down from a mystery, he made his way back over and this time he examined the finger more closely. Finally, wanting a few more reassurances, he opened his mouth and reached down, taking the finger between his teeth and lifting it up, then slowly starting to bite down.

Chapter Four

Flames crackled in the fireplace as Harriet – feeling much better now – sat on the sofa with her knees up and her feet curled to one side. She was wearing her favorite jumper and holding a mug of her favorite tea, and after all the hectic running around while the furniture arrived she finally felt settled.

She'd even just about managed to forget about the horrid fake finger she'd found in the living room, and as she sipped at her tea she figured that at least Ronnie had spent the afternoon making her feel better. She was almost ready to reward him with some fun in bed – almost, but not quite – and she figured that she might make him the luckiest boy in town once they retired for the night. Provided he didn't annoy her again, of course.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, having reached the doorway, “how are you doing there?”

Turning to look up at him, she was immediately struck by his handsome features – an involuntary smile reached her lips too late for her to do anything about it.

“I'm alright,” she told him. “Better now. How about yourself?”

“I finished cleaning away the food boxes,” he replied. “We're gonna have to find a better Chinese somewhere nearby, though, 'cause that one was rank.”

“It wasn't that bad.”

“I'm gonna go upstairs and sort out a few last minute touches for the bedroom,” he continued. “Do you wanna come up in, say, ten minutes?”

“I'd love to,” she said, and now her smile grew even wider. “Ronnie Anderson, what are you plotting?”

“Me? Plotting?” He smiled a plotter's smile as he turned to head toward the stairs. “Dunno what you're talking about, Mrs. Anderson.”

Feeling much better now – about herself and about Ronnie and even about the house – Harriet turned and looked at the opposite wall, where the flames from the fireplace were casting flickering shadows of a few items from the coffee table. Something about a natural fireplace, she was discovering now, made her feel so much calmer and more cozy, and she was starting to think that she might warm to this countryside living malarkey after all. When Ronnie had first suggested a move, she'd agreed purely to please him, but she could work from anywhere so long as she had her laptop. Although London was only about sixty miles away, she felt as if an entire gulf now separated her from the clubs, pubs, bars and other danger zones of the city.

And from the hospitals.

On the wall, the shadow of a vase had taken on a life of its own, constantly shimmering across the exposed brickwork. Occasionally the shadow even seemed to briefly take on human form.

“You're gonna make this work,” Harriet whispered under her breath, and in that moment she genuinely believed those words. “You're gonna connect with nature and stuff like that. Millions of people would kill for the chance to live in a place like this.”

As she watched the shadows on the wall, the shape of a woman seemed to emerge a little more clearly. Taking this as some kind of sign that she was in the right place, Harriet watched the woman dancing; she knew the shape was a mere trick of the light, of course, but she'd been absent-mindedly wondering whether the countryside might connect her to her feminine side a little more and this vision seemed like proof of that possibility.

And as she imagined herself breathing deep in some field near the house and enjoying the sun's unpolluted rays, she smiled and saw that the shadow of the woman was positively dancing with joy.

Then another shadow arrived.

Although she couldn't tell where this new shadow was coming from, she saw that it appeared to be a man and that it was advancing aggressively toward the woman. Her smile flickered slightly and she told herself again that she was imagining the whole thing, yet now the two shadows seemed more distinct and she realized that the man even appeared to be holding some kind of weapon. She sat up a little, hoping to make the images fade, yet they were even clearer now and the 'man' seemed to be attacking the 'woman', who was starting to fall apart now as if she was being hacked to pieces.

“Ronnie?” she called out, although she knew he wouldn't be able to hear her from upstairs. “You've got to see this. It's freaky.”

Reaching for her phone, she fumbled to activate the camera, even as she continued to watch the shadowy charade on the far wall. Once she was ready, she held the phone up and began to film, and she could only stare with a growing sense of concern as the 'woman' fell down and separated into a series of different parts, while the 'man' stood above her as if proud of what he'd done.

Finally the shadows began to dissipate, and she watched as they somehow withdrew to the flickering flames of the fireplace. Although she wasn't one hundred per cent sure how fires were supposed to work, Harriet felt that this particular display had been rather unusual. She continued to film the fireplace for a few more seconds before cutting the video and tapping to post it to her favorite site, and then she set the phone down and -

Suddenly a gust of wind blew through the fireplace, disrupting the flames and sending some of them rushing out of the hearth. For a fraction of a second these flames formed a vision of a woman's crying face, and a brief scream rang out with such force that Harriet spilled her tea as she pulled back on the sofa.

“Hey!” Ronnie called out from upstairs, and now his voice was filled with a sense of anticipation. “Are you coming? I've got a surprise for you!”

“Yeah,” she stammered, figuring that he'd only make fun of her if she mentioned the bizarre shadow play on the wall. Looking down, she saw that she'd spilled tea on one of the new cushions. “Damn it. Yeah, give me a minute and I'll be right up!”

Chapter Five

“This is a lot of work,” Ronnie said the following morning as he reached down with his gloved hands and began to pull out some festering old branches that had been left alongside the broken greenhouse frame. “It's gonna take forever to get it sorted out.”

He threw the branches onto the gravel, where he had a vague idea about building a bonfire, and then he turned to see that Harriet was still sitting on the steps at the front of the house. She was studying her phone intently – more intently than normal – and he couldn't help but feel that she hadn't quite been herself since the night before. Still, he supposed that she was still getting used to this new lifestyle and that soon she'd be the Harriet of old. Plus he knew that the events of the previous year were still gnawing away at her.

“Are you watching?” he called out. “Your big strong husband is doing some manly work over here. Would it help if I took my top off? It's a bit cold but I don't mind. If you're lucky, I might break a sweat anyway.”

He waited, but he was starting to think that she hadn't noticed him at all. He was used to her withdrawing into her own world from time to time and he certainly didn't take any offense, but occasionally he wished that she could shake her thoughts off a little quicker.

“Don't mind me,” he muttered, turning to get on with the task at hand. “I'm just the dogsbody. I'll just be -”

And then he saw it.

A dead cat was on the ground just a few feet away, with blood glistening in a thick wound on its belly. After glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Harriet hadn't noticed, Ronnie stepped closer to the corpse and winced as he saw a few more details: the animal, a large black cat, had its front paws stretched out as if digging the claws into the ground, and a patch of dirt had been disturbed leading back down to the roadside, almost as if – and he knew this was a crazy idea – but almost as if the dying cat had dragged itself onto the property in some last-ditch attempt to get away from...

Something.

Using the tip of his trowel, he gently nudged the corpse and rolled it over, and now he saw that the entire belly section had seemingly been torn open, allowing the guts to spill out into the grass. Having seen Alien and its sequels plenty of times, he immediately thought of scenes in which creatures burst from the chests of their victims, and he couldn't help but wonder whether there might be something in the English countryside that could do the same to cats. Quickly putting that idea aside, however, he supposed that perhaps the poor creature had simply been hit by a car, and that there might be plenty of possible explanations for its dire condition now.

It was certainly dead, though, so he figured that there was no need to trouble Harriet with news of the gruesome discovery.

“You okay over there?” she called out to him.

“Yeah, totally,” he replied, using the trowel to cover the dead cat and making a mental note to bury the thing when he was more alone. Turning to his wife, he offered a smile. “How about a trip into town?” he continued. “I wanna try out that pub we saw on the way. It hasn't got a website, but that might actually be a good thing. Means it's more rustic and homegrown. Let's check out the local shops and get a bite to eat!”

Chapter Six

Another drip fell from the ceiling, landing with a loud plop in the bucket that had been left near the bar of the Goose & Porter public house.

“I'm sure it's much nicer in the summer,” Ronnie said as he and Harriet sat at a table in the corner of the gloomy bar area. “Then it won't matter as much that there's no heating. Or proper roof. Or, y'know, atmosphere.”

As those words left his lips, he saw his breath in the air and he couldn't help but wish that he'd brought a jumper. His wife, meanwhile, looked utterly miserable as she hugged herself for warmth next to a wall of framed and haphazardly hung photographs.

“We can't leave,” Ronnie whispered, fully aware that the only other customer was a man on a bar stool. “We need to make friends with the locals. We can't seem rude.”

“I'm freezing,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Here come our sandwiches,” he replied, trying to make the best of the situation as he saw the barmaid emerging at her own lethargic pace from a back room with two plates. “You'll feel better with some food in you.”

She glared at him disbelievingly, and a moment later the barmaid set the plates down, revealing a pair of thin-looking sandwiches alongside a smattering of crisps.

“Cheese and pickle sandwiches,” the woman reminded them, already turning and walking back to the bar. “Oh, sorry, we were out of cheese.”

Lifting one of the pieces of white bread, Ronnie saw some sliced pickles resting in a thick layer of margarine.

“It's only once,” he whispered to Harriet. “We'll know better next time.”

He waited for a response, but now she seemed transfixed by the photographs on the wall. Following her gaze, Ronnie noticed for the first time that they were distinctly unusual, showing scenes of what appeared to be some kind of pagan-style ritual in random fields. Paying particular attention to the nearest photo, he had to squint to see it properly but he was just about able to make out images of men wearing old-fashioned clothing while a woman in a white dress stood with a terrified expression on her face. And then, just as he was about to make a joke, he realized that one of the men in the picture was wearing some kind of mask covered in thick black lines.

“Where exactly are we living, Ronnie?” Harriet whispered. “What kind of place is this?”

“It's just local culture,” he replied a little uncertainly.

“Local culture?”

“Traditions.”

“What kind of traditions?”

“Old-fashioned ones,” he suggested. “They probably thought it brought more rain or something like that. Back in the day.”

He glanced around. Briefly making eye contact with the man at the bar, he offered a smile; the man, in return, merely stared at him for a few seconds before turning to continue supping on his pint. Down by the man's feet, a black dog was sleeping happily. Although he couldn't be sure, Ronnie was fairly sure that he'd seen the dog's bowl being regularly topped up with the same beer its owner was drinking.

“You can't expect it to be exactly like London,” he continued, looking at another photo and seeing the same figures as before, except that this time the woman had removed her dress and was kneeling naked on the ground. “They've got their... ways out here.”

“They look like a load of inbred hicks.”

He turned to her.

“They do!” she hissed.

Glancing at the bar, he saw that neither the barmaid or the other customer – or the dog, for that matter – seemed to be paying them any attention at all. He turned to his wife again and tried to think of some way to calm her down.

“Why don't they play any music?” she continued. “Don't they have radios out here?”

“Of course they have radios,” he replied. “They probably just prefer the atmosphere this way.”

As he spoke, another drip fell from the ceiling and landed in the slowly-growing pool of water in the nearby bucket.

“Think of it as charming.”

Rolling her eyes, she leaned back in her chair and looked down at the sandwich, which nobody in their right mind could have considered appetizing. After a moment she picked up one of the crisps, gave it a sniff, and then ate it noisily, although she soon scrunched her nose up.

“Prawn cocktail,” she said once she'd swallowed. “I think. Definitely something fishy.”

As much as he wanted to tell her to look on the bright side, Ronnie had to admit that the Goose & Porter offered scant evidence that a brighter side even existed in the village of Wragglesford. He told himself that the place probably came alive on a Friday or a Saturday night, and that on a Sunday afternoon there were hopefully beautiful roasts emerging from the kitchen, and he even had slight hope that there might be a pub quiz every now and again; in that moment, however, he was really struggling to conjure up any sense of hope at all, even if he knew that for his wife's sake he needed to be a little more positive.

And then, as he opened his mouth to tell Harriet that “everything's going to be fine” and “pickles are good for you”, he saw another photo on the wall, this time showing the same woman as before but now covered in some kind of fake blood. The scene was clearly some kind of dramatic presentation, but he had to admit that it was staged in a way that gave off some seriously creepy vibes. Did the locals really like to dress up in old-fashioned costumes and enact weird old rituals, and did they then enjoy putting up photos of those rituals on the walls of the local pub? As much as he wanted to immerse himself in village life, this was a part of the scene that Ronnie certainly had no interest in joining.

“Inbreeding,” Harriet whispered, leaning a little closer to him now as she gripped the table. “I'm telling you, Ronnie, I can see it in their faces. What kind of weird hick village have you moved us to?”

Chapter Seven

“Forget about the weirdos in the village,” Ronnie said a short while later, once they'd driven back to the house and were unloading a couple of shopping bags from the car. “It's not like we're gonna go there much anyway. We're gonna make something for ourselves right here.”

He watched as Harriet took a few steps away from the car. When she turned around, however, he immediately saw tears in her eyes.

“It's gonna be okay,” he continued. “I promise. I know it's a shock coming out here, but we couldn't stay in London. Not after everything that happened.”

He wanted so desperately to make everything okay, but for a moment he had no idea how to talk her into feeling a little more confident. And then, before he had a chance to screw things up even more by saying the wrong thing, he spotted movement at the side of the house and turned just in time to see a woman making her way round from the back garden.

“Ah, there you are,” the woman said brightly, as if she was glad to have been discovered. “I was just starting to worry that I'd missed you. Been out to taste the delights of the village, have you?”

Ronnie and Harriet glanced at one another before turning to the woman again.

“Not that there are many delights,” the woman added, making her way closer. “You didn't go into that wretched pub, did you? I've never met such a bunch of misery guts in all my life. I very rarely go in myself, although one can't avoid such things completely. Having spent quite some time here in Wragglesford, I'm afraid I can't keep my nose out of the village's life and – well – that means going into the pub from time to time because it's where all the bigwigs tend to go and -”

Stopping suddenly, she shook her head.

“And here I am, rattling on and on at your poor young things,” she said, before extending a hand for them to shake. “My name is Andrea. Doctor Andrea Monkholm. You might have heard of me, I tend to incite rather a lot of gossip round these parts. People can be such stick-in-the-muds – and of course then there's the innate mistrust of academics that one invariably encounters in such places.”

Ronnie opened his mouth to reply, but he still wasn't quite sure what to say. Something about this Andrea woman seemed like a whirl of energy and he usually left such conversations to Harriet. On this occasion, however, his wife was rather withdrawn and Ronnie quickly realized that he was going to have to carry the burden.

“Ronnie,” he said finally.

“I beg your pardon?” Andrea replied.

“Ronnie,” he said again, before shaking her hand. “Sorry, that's my name. Ronnie.”

“Ronnie,” she purred, already looking over at Harriet. “And...”

“This is Harriet,” Ronnie told her, sensing that his wife still wasn't quite in the mood to talk. “We only arrived yesterday so we're still experiencing a degree of culture shock. We're kind of a pair of city slickers, to be honest.” He paused, waiting for a response, but he couldn't help noticing that Andrea was simply grinning at Harriet. “But we're keen to learn and adjust,” he added. “If -”

“I'm sure you are,” Andrea said, stepping toward Harriet and putting a hand on the side of her arm. “Your poor thing,” she added, tilting her head slightly, “this must all be so hard for you.” Reaching down, she put her other hand on Harriet's belly. “So few people understand the horror of losing a child. They look at you like you're making too much fuss, but the pain... deep down, the pain is so awful, and the worst part is that it never gets better. People wonder when things are going to go back to normal, but trust me... they never do.”

Harriet hesitated, glancing briefly at her husband for help, before taking a step back.

“I'm sorry,” she said finally, turning and hurrying to the front door. “I really need the bathroom.”

Once she'd gone inside, Ronnie realized that he couldn't just go after her. Instead he turned to Andrea and tried to think of something to say, but he found that he was unable to actually think of anything at all.

“Oh dear,” Andrea said finally. “I've rather put my foot in things again, haven't I?”

Chapter Eight

“It was a year ago,” Ronnie said as he walked with Andrea toward the end of the country lane. Having never really talked much to anyone about what had happened, he found himself opening up to her now. “I was at work and she phoned me up. I raced home but it was already too late. There was so much blood.”

“How far gone was she?”

“Seven months,” he explained, stopping and turning to her. “We'd even picked a name. Eve. She felt like a real person even though she hadn't been born yet, and then suddenly...”

His voice trailed off for a few seconds as he felt himself having to hold back tears.

“The doctors couldn't really explain it,” he went on, “but Harriet blames herself. She almost died too, she had to have emergency surgery and I was left to make a few... awkward decisions. Every few weeks she reads something else online that makes her think she ate too much wheat, or not enough wheat, or too much gluten, or not enough lactose, or not enough of one vitamin or another, or too much of -”

He caught himself just in time.

“You get the idea,” he added. “I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. It was a late complication, that's all I needed to say. I could have lost them both.”

“You have to let the pain out,” she replied, and now she too had tears in her eyes. “If you don't, it festers terribly.” She looked toward the village. “Trust me, I know about these things. Pain is a form of energy, and energy can't be destroyed. It can only be transferred.”

“Is that... actual science?” he asked cautiously.

“Of course it bloody isn't,” she said with a chuckle, “but science doesn't know everything. Although once we start to understand things, then it becomes science. I'm truly sorry if I opened old wounds, Ronnie, that was never my intention. I just picked up such sadness from your wife and I felt that I had to say something. I'm sure you're being a great support for that beautiful, soulful woman, and I have no doubt that you've done all you can to keep her sane. Just remember that these things take time.”

She turned and looked toward the house.

“It's good to see someone living in the place after so many years,” she added. “I know you haven't been here for long, but tell me... have you noticed anything unusual?”

“Such as?”

“I don't really know,” she murmured, seemingly lost in thought. “I wouldn't want to influence you by advancing any particular theories. But I must admit, I didn't just come to see you out of some sense of neighborly concern. Your arrival here has come at a perfect time, and I wanted to make sure that you and your darling wife know about our little reenactment at the weekend.”

“Reenactment?”

“On the village green,” she continued, turning to him again. “Some of us considered holding it in the location where the events originally occurred, but we've been using the village green for so long and... I just thought you might find it interesting, that's all. I mean, it concerns events that took place on your property.”

“What kind of events?” he asked.

“I could tell you,” she replied with a mischievous smile, “but then you might not feel the need to come. And if you didn't come, you wouldn't see our recreation of the tragedy. And if you didn't see that, you might never understand what happened here. Poor Scarlet really didn't need to die and we've been searching for a way to atone for our collective sins ever since. Even though nobody from those days is still alive, the village has such a profound duty to put things right.”

“Scarlet?” he said cautiously. “As in... a person?”

“I've already talked too much,” she continued. “Typical Andrea, always running her mouth off. I hope you'll come to the village green tomorrow morning, and I hope you'll bring your wife. You can't possibly hope to understand Wragglesford if you don't understand the horror of Scarlet Carruthers and her gruesome fate. Everyone here is ashamed of their families in their own way, Mr. Anderson. Although I wasn't born here, I'm from Wragglesford stock. And we're still, after all this time, trying to find a way to put things right. One day, perhaps we shall succeed... and then we can all rest.”

As much as he wanted to ask Andrea exactly what she meant by that, Ronnie was starting to wonder whether the woman was quite alright in the head. At the same time, he quite liked the idea of learning a little more about village life, and he certainly wanted to try to get Harriet out of the house.

“We'll be there,” he told her finally. “Tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see what all the fuss is about.”

Chapter Nine

“That woman is bonkers,” he said as he made his way quickly through the front door and swerved into the living room. “Apparently we should go to some event on the village green tomorrow morning. I dunno, it might be good for a laugh.”

Stopping, he realized that there was no sign of Harriet.

“Honey?” he called out. “Where are you?”

“It's back,” she said, and he immediately realized that her voice was echoing slightly in the kitchen.

“What is?” he asked, making his way through and find that she was standing by the counter and staring toward the table. “What are you -”

In that moment he saw the offending object: another finger was on the table, and it certainly looked exactly like the severed finger he'd thrown out the day before.

“Ronnie,” she continued, speaking very tensely now, “I don't know what's going on, but can you please explain to me why that thing is in the house again?”

“Not another one,” he sighed, walking over and picking the finger up.

“It's the same finger,” Harriet told him.

“That's impossible,” he replied, turning to her and holding it up for her to see. “Sure, it's very similar, but I got rid of the last one.”

“Obviously you didn't get rid of it well enough.”

“It can't be the same one,” he continued. “It's just another fake rubber finger.”

“Left by who? Or what?”

“I -”

“And for what bloody reason, Ronnie?”

“I don't know,” he replied, “but there has to be a rational explanation. Sure, we might not know what that explanation is right now, but what's the alternative? That severed fingers are popping up all over our house?”

“There's blood.”

Looking down, he realized that she was right; a patch of blood had been left smeared on the table, marking the spot where the finger had shown up.

“I'm not sure if it's coming from the finger,” he said, turning the digit round, “or if it's just on it. Either way, I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you yesterday. It's blatantly not real.” He gave it a squeeze. “You'd be able to tell that for yourself if you just touched the damn thing. It's from some prop store or a fancy dress shop or something like that.”

“And how did it get in here, Ronnie?”

“I don't know.”

“What about that woman? She was poking around before we got here. What if she put it here?”

“All the doors and windows were locked,” he reminded her, “and besides, why would anyone do something like that?”

“I don't know!” she snapped angrily, turning and storming out to the hallway and then racing upstairs. “Just get rid of it! And make sure I never have to see it again!”

As he heard the bedroom door slam shut, Ronnie turned and peered at the mangled stump of the finger. For the first time he found himself wondering whether the wretched thing might actually be real; after all, it certainly looked very realistic, although he had to admit that he'd never actually seen a severed finger before. Not in real life. Turning it around, he gave it another gentle squeeze and he couldn't help but wince slightly as he saw the rubbery fake flesh shifting slightly. He still believed deep down that the finger was a fake, but it was certainly a very good fake and he had no desire to see it show up again in his new home.

This time, he was going to have to make sure that it stayed away.

Chapter Ten

The cat's bloodied corpse fell down against the bottom of the shallow grave, and a moment later the severed finger landed next to it in the dirt.

“Sorry, fellas,” Ronnie said, having dug three or four feet down into the rough soil, “but you're gonna have to share a last resting spot. Just... try to play nice, okay?”

He waited for a moment, feeling a strange urge to show a degree of respect. Although he'd never been much of a cat person, he was still sorry that the poor critter had died, but he'd reminded himself that at least the finger definitely wasn't real. As much as he had no experience with severed body parts, he felt sure that they should seem a little more realistic.

Grabbing the shovel, he began to tip dirt back into the hole. He specifically watched as dirt covered the both objects, and he had no doubt that this time there was no way the finger could possibly be retrieved. Having spent quite a bit of time trying to work out exactly where the damn thing had come from – or damn things, since logic dictated that there had to be two of them – he just wanted to put an end to the whole matter.

For the next couple of minutes he filled the grave in, before patting the top down and then stopping to look back across the garden. He wasn't quite sure what he was waiting to see, but some part of him wondered whether he and Harriet were falling victim to some kind of prankster. Then again, why would anyone do such a thing? Even by the standards of rural England, wasn't it a little weird to leave fake severed fingers in the house of a newcomer to the area? Or was that some weird tradition that was peculiar to the area around Wragglesford?

Looking down, he saw that the grave was nicely flat.

“And stay out,” he muttered under his breath.

***

“So I was thinking,” he said that evening, as he sat on the sofa and watched Harriet flicking through different shows on the television, “if I'm getting back to work on Monday, then this weekend we should really try to have some fun.”

“What about this?” she asked, bringing up one particular show. “Timeforce Alpha. A pair of mismatched time police travel back through history in a quest to bring the world's worst criminals to justice. But can they ignore their lingering feelings for each other?”

“Sounds like a load of rubbish,” he pointed out. “Listen, I know this is going to sound crazy but I think we actually should go to this reenactment thing in the village tomorrow. You never know, we might find that we like some of the locals. Some of them might even be our age!”

He paused for a moment, hoping that she might agree.

“They can't all be nuts,” he added.

“Or this one?” she continued, having swiped to the next page. “Faffingham Abbey. Julian Winchell stars as the head of a Regency era family in this romantic drama about three sisters who have to avoid their father's anger while navigating the conventions of the era and managing a zoo.”

“Sounds dire,” he replied. “I'm serious about the reenactment, though. It'll probably be a bit of fun.”

Again he waited for a response, but lately he'd become accustomed to waiting. Harriet tended to disappear into her own world a lot, seemingly not even noticing sometimes when he was trying to get through to her. Part of him felt frustrated by this tendency but another part of him figured that it was just part of her coping mechanism; he'd supported her through the previous year of grief and turmoil and he had no intention of stopping now. Not when he still loved her with every ounce of his heart.

“Well, it's something to think about,” he murmured, shifting across the sofa until he was sitting much closer. Reaching out, he touched the side of her leg. “It all seems a bit Wicker Man so far, if you ask me. We oughta get some people over from London to spend the weekend. We could turn it into a bit of a party and introduce Maggie or Aggers to the crazies in the village. I'm sure they'd have plenty to say. Can you imagine Maggie drunk on shots in that pub? They wouldn't know what'd hit them!”

“There's so much to choose from,” she replied, still staring at the screen, “but none of it's actually any good. Sometimes I actually miss the days when you just had a few channels and you had to pick something that was on.”

“Tell me about it,” he said, squeezing her knee gently. “I think I'll give Maggie a text later and see if she and some of the others want to visit us. I know we're not quite ready to host a party, but I figure we might as well dive straight in. Plus these parties are always better when there's a bit of chaos thrown into the mix. Can you imagine Aggers or Jack in that pub in the village? They'd be hilarious.”

“Whatever you think,” she said with a faraway tone to her voice, as if she really wasn't too fussed either way. “I'm just trying to find something to rot my brain until I fall into a coma tonight.” Reaching over, she patted his hand in a strangely non-committal way. “Sorry if that makes me boring. And tomorrow I think I need to go over some stuff for when I get back to work, so I'm out for this reenactment or whatever it is. You enjoy, though.”

“I'll skip it if you're not coming,” he told her, watching as she brought up the trailer for some new crime drama about a psychiatrist and a penguin solving crimes. “When you've seen one weird country village, you've probably seen them all.”

Chapter Eleven

The following morning, as he tapped his card to pay for a few items in the village shop, Ronnie heard the door sliding open. He half glanced to his left, and he wasn't sure whether or not to feel irritated by the sight of Andrea Monkholm.

Or Doctor Andrea Monkholm, as she'd emphasized during their first meeting.

“There you are!” she beamed, making her way over and immediately grabbing him by the arm. “I was worried you and your dear lady wife might not come to our little festivities today. Is she around somewhere?”

“She's back at home,” he said cautiously, making a point of checking his watch. “Actually, I'm really busy today. I'm heading back in a moment.”

“Are you not going to see our little reenactment?” she asked, before turning to the cashier. “Brendan, tell him that he really ought to stay as a witness.”

“It's something else,” the man mumbled. “That's for sure.”

“Another time, maybe,” Ronnie said with a smile. “Is it an annual thing?”

“Well... yes, it is,” Andrea told him.

“And it's about something that happened at our new house?”

“That's about the rub of it.”

“And we just happened to arrive a couple of days before the show, huh?” he continued, briefly wondering whether this coincidence might be enough to make him stick around. “Another time. I mean it, I'd love to see the whole thing, but we've still got a lot of settling-in to do. I hope you understand.”

“I do,” she replied, letting go of his arm as she stepped around him. “You city people probably think that we're rather backward here in Wragglesford and that's quite alright. The last thing we want to do is get all Wicker Man on your ass.”

“That's what I said to my wife last night, actually,” he replied, before quickly correcting himself. “Not precisely that, but...”

He checked his watch again.

“You should get going,” Andrea told him with a faint smile. “I fully understand. We have a variety of events that we put on throughout the year, so I'm sure you'll catch one of the others soon. We might be a small village, Mr. Anderson, but we make a real effort to foster a sense of community spirit. If we didn't do that, the place would probably die out completely. One has to remember where one came from, does one not?”

“One does,” Ronnie said, amused by her slightly old-fashioned way of talking as he picked his bag up and heading toward the door. “Thank you again for the invitation,” he called back to her, fully aware that both Andrea and the man behind the counter were watching him leave. “I'm sure I'll run into you again soon.”

Once he was outside, he made his way over toward the spot where his car was parked. He could already see that a dozen or so people had gathered on the village green, and part of him did quite fancy the idea of seeing what kind of madness they got up to, but he told himself that there'd be other opportunities.

And then, as he reached into his pocket for his car keys, he saw four young children dressed in white kneeling near the front of the vehicle; almost immediately the children noticed that they'd been spotted, and they nudged one another's arms before getting to their feet and sprinting away to join the adults on the green.

“Weird little shits,” Ronnie muttered, tapping his key fob to unlock the car. “They must go round the bend living in a place like -”

And then he stopped as he saw that somehow a thick slice had been cut into one of his front tires. Muttering a few obscenities under his breath, he made his way over to take a closer look; he ran a fingertip against the cut, but already he could tell that he was going to need to get the tire changed, and he knew for a fact that he was short of a spare.

“Oh dear,” a familiar voice said, and he turned to see that Andrea had made her way out of the shop. “Got a flat?”

“Seems that way,” he replied. “I don't want to sound rude, but I think some of the local kids might have done it on purpose.”

“Graham from the garage will fix it for you free of charge, I'm sure.”

“That'd be nice,” he admitted, before waiting for her to continue. “Where is the garage?”

“Oh, it's just round the corner,” she told him with a smile. “But you'll have to wait an hour or two until Graham gets back.”

“Back? Back from where?”

“Where do you think?” she asked, nodding past him, causing him to turn and see that the gathering on the green was already getting a little larger. “It would seem, Mr. Anderson, that fate has decided you're going to see our little reenactment after all.”

Chapter Twelve

“No, it's fine really,” Harriet said, holding the phone up to one side of her face as she wandered through to the living room. “I know I should be grateful, Ronnie keeps pointing out that most people would kill to live in a place like this. And I did want to get out of London, I swear.”

Stopping at the window, she looked out at the driveway and saw that there was still no sign of her husband. For a moment she was struck by a sense of isolation, and by the realization that there were so few people in the area; she knew that was supposed to be part of the appeal but part of her still missed the sheer multitudes of London.

“Listen to me complaining like a bitch,” she went on. “Mimi, tell me something fun that's going on in your life. Have you seen the rest of the girls lately?”

She heard the start of a reply, but he friend's voice was quickly submerged in a burst of staccato static. Peering at her phone's screen, she saw that both the network and the wi-fi should be working perfectly, so she figured that the problem must be on Mimi's end.

“I can't hear you,” she said with a sigh. “Listen, I need to get on with things anyway but... tag me in some fun posts, yeah? Just because I've moved out to the arse-end of nowhere, that doesn't mean I don't want to see the rest of you having a good time. And who knows? I might get back to London for a night out soon, and then we can catch up properly over some cocktails.”

She sighed.

“I could so do with a cocktail right now.”

Hearing more static, she wasn't even sure that Mimi had been able to make out a word she'd just said. A moment later, as if to emphasize that the connection was rapidly getting worse, the call cut out entirely. She tapped to try again, but now the phone seemed unable to connect to anything at all.

“Bloody router,” she muttered, turning to head over to the corner so that she could check the box. “I swear these things get worse and -”

Suddenly she froze as she saw that the severed finger had returned, and that this time it was on the little table next to one of the armchairs. Staring in horror, she told herself that she had to be imagining things, yet the finger remained in place and after a few seconds Harriet could only swallow hard as she began to realize that something really freaky was going on. The last thing she wanted to believe was that Ronnie was playing some kind of prank on her, she knew he wasn't that kind of guy at all, yet what was the alternative explanation?

Had someone else broken into the house?

After looking around and seeing no sign that anything else was out of place, she began to cautiously approach the table. The sight of the finger – with its blackened and shriveled nail at one end – was enough to make her feel rather nauseous, but she forced herself to edge closer until finally she looked down at the foul thing. As much as Ronnie had insisted that it wasn't real, and as much as she herself was no expert in these matters, she couldn't shake the feeling that the finger certainly looked like it had come from an actual body, albeit one that was perhaps not in the greatest condition.

And as much as she wanted to phone Ronnie and beg for help, she figured that perhaps she should deal with the situation alone this time. She pulled a tissue from a nearby box, and then – while wincing more and more – she used that tissue to wrap the finger up so that she could lift it from the table. In the process, she also turned it around so that she could inspect the meaty stump, and now she felt more sure than ever that it was an actual finger from an actual person. She could even see a piece of discolored bone poking out from beneath the greyish-greenish flesh.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she whispered, convinced that this was the same finger she'd already seen a couple of times before. “I don't mind the odd practical joke but this is getting ridiculous.”

And then, spotting movement out of the corner of her eye, she turned just in time to see three figures standing outside the window, staring in at her. All three figures were short, perhaps children, and they were all wearing what appeared to be homemade rabbit masks.

Chapter Thirteen

“The people in brown represent the villagers from long ago,” Andrea explained as she led Ronnie across the green. “Peasants, farm workers, that sort of thing. I'm afraid they were all too easily whipped up to become a baying crowd back in the day. Then again, as much as we like to think that we modern folk are different, I'm not so sure that's true. We all still have the primitive within us, even if it's often buried under layers of supposed modernity. ”

“I haven't thought about it much,” Ronnie replied, watching as some of the people ahead inspected what appeared to be plastic swords and axes. “Which one of them's Graham?”

“Oh, I'll introduce you when it's over,” she told him. “He won't want to be broken out of character now. Some of us take the reenactment very seriously, as you're about to find out.”

“And who's the chap in the wheelchair?” Ronnie asked, spotting a figure sitting slumped in a chair, with some kind of dark shawl draped over his head.

“Oh, that's Father Mertyn.”

“The local priest?”

When she failed to answer, he turned to her.

“Father Mertyn led the cavalry, so to speak,” she explained, and now she seemed rather awkward. “He was the ringleader. I gather he fancied himself as a witch hunter. Two hundred years ago, it was Father John Mertyn who led the great and the good out to your home and... dealt with the witch Scarlet Carruthers.”

“And how exactly did they deal with her?” he asked.

“Spoilers,” she said with a knowing smile, just as one of the men up ahead waved at her. “This is the most accurate reenactment of those events that we can manage,” she added. “The details have been passed from generation to generation over the past two centuries and as much as we all know of the dangers of Chinese whispers, I think there is very little variation. What you are about to see is, more or less, what happened.”

“Happy ending?” he asked, even though he felt that he probably already knew the answer.

“You'll see,” she said, patting him on the arm before making her way over to join the others. “I'm so glad you could join us, Mr. Anderson!” she called back to him. “I think you'll find this most enlightening! And the best part is, this year I have been chosen to play the central role of Scarlet herself!”

“You have, have you?” he muttered, before spotting the four children who he was sure had slashed his tire. “Little shits,” he added under his breath as he stopped and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Come on then, you bunch of yokels. Let's get this pantomime over with so I can get home.”

Pulling his phone out, he tried to send Harriet a text to let her know that he'd been delayed, but to his annoyance he quickly found that he had absolutely no signal.

“Bloody typical,” he murmured, slipping the phone away before looking over at the reenactment again. “I'm gonna need -”

Before he could get another word out, he saw to his horror that Andrea had removed her shawl, revealing her naked body as the others gathered around her. Convinced that he should look away, he quickly realized that everyone else was watching, and while Andrea might have been a little larger than his usual preference, he couldn't help but keep his eyes fixed on her bare flesh as she proudly walked over to a patch of grass and stopped to hold her arms out. A moment later, as if taking part in some kind of ceremony, two of the men in brown took hold of her arms and guided her as she dropped down to her knees.

“Wait 'til Harriet hears about this,” he said as another man stopped in front of the naked Andrea and held up a plastic ax. “She's never gonna believe it. Actually, she might. But she's gonna roll her eyes something chronic.”

“Scarlet Carruthers!” the man with the ax called out. “You have been sentenced to die as a witch! As true believers in the power of the Lord, we have come here today to render that judgment!”

With that, he gently tapped her arm with the ax, and in an instant Andrea began to writhe and wail as if in pain. Several other men approached her from behind and gently touched her with their fake weapons too, and Ronnie quickly realized that Andrea was pretending to get hacked to pieces. The sight was bizarre and extraordinary, and for a moment he had to really struggle to keep from laughing, until finally he noticed that there was one member of the strange congregation who hadn't joined in with any of the activities.

The man in the wheelchair hadn't moved at all. He – and Ronnie could only assume that it was a he – remained sitting slumped in the chair with his features covered by the shawl that had been left draped over his head.

Chapter Fourteen

Stumbling out from the house's back door, Harriet stopped as soon as she saw that the three children wearing the rabbit masks hadn't moved at all – except, that is, for the fact that they'd turned their heads to look at her.

“Who are you?” she gasped, trying to keep from panicking. “What do you want? What are you doing here? This is private property!”

She waited for an answer, but all three merely stared at her with what seemed to be an air of defiance. Now that she could see them properly, Harriet realized that the masks were made of what appeared to be dirty old sticks held together by some kind of paste, while the ears extended straight up for a good ten or twelve inches. The only holes in the masks were for the eyes, allowing three pairs of clearly youthful eyeballs to stare back out from beneath the creepy get-up.

“What are you doing here?” Harriet asked again, and now she felt equal parts scared and annoyed.

Scared because the little bastards were clearly weird locals who might be up to no good, and annoyed because they were trespassing and they seemed not to care. At the same time, she'd always told herself that she was – probably – good at dealing with children.

“My husband'll be home any minute,” she continued, quickly glancing over her shoulder to make sure that there were no other interlopers, then turning to the rabbit-masked children again. “I mean it, you're gonna be in so much trouble if he catches you. He'll go straight to your parents and he'll... he'll tell them exactly what you little shitbags have been up to.”

Again she waited, but nothing seem to bother them at all.

“So hop it!” she added, finally daring to take a step forward. “Scram or I'll -”

Suddenly the children all took a step back and grabbed each other, hugging as if they were scared of something. Harriet's first thought was that she must have finally asserted some degree of authority, but a moment later she realized that all three children seemed to be looking down at her right hand. Puzzled, she followed their gaze, and in that instant she finally understood what they were looking at.

They'd seen the severed finger, which she was still holding in a piece of tissue paper.

“Is it this you don't like?” she asked, holding the finger up so that they could see it better. “Huh? Well, to be honest I don't blame you!”

She waited for a response, and then she stepped forward again.

This time the children seemed to panic. Turning, they raced away toward the driveway, but at the last second one of them tripped and fell, landing with a pained cry on the gravel. As Harriet caught up to her, she saw that the girl's mask had slipped loose. As she tried to pick the mask up, the girl turned and look up at the severed finger, and now the fear was all too evident in her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Harriet asked. “Listen, if -”

Before she could finish, the girl screamed and scrambled to her feet. Leaving the mask behind, as if she was far too scared to spend even half a second retrieving it, she ran off to join her friends and finally all three children hurried out onto the road and disappeared from view.

“Little...”

Utterly bemused by everything that had just happened, Harriet reached down and picked up the rabbit mask. As she'd suspected, it was clearly very much homemade, and there was a slightly sticky quality to the paste that suggested it wasn't exactly very old either. Turning the mask around, she couldn't help but feel freaked out by the rabbit face's angry expression, but she told herself that most likely the children had just been playing some kind of game. And while they'd acted terrified of the severed finger, she wondered whether they might have been responsible for its arrival in the first place.

And then, as she turned to head back into the house, she saw a dark-haired younger woman standing in the front room, staring out at her from the other side of the window.

Chapter Fifteen

As Ronnie continued to stand on the village green, he watched as four children ran around in tight circles, flapping arms that were covered in patches of yellow and orange fabric. It had taken him a few minutes, but he'd finally cottoned on to the fact that these children were supposed to be playing fire.

A moment later, sensing movement nearby, he turned to see that Andrea was making her way over. Thankfully she was in the process of wrapping herself back up in her robe, although he still caught a quick glimpse of her naked body before she was fully covered.

“I trust you enjoyed our little show?” she said with a smile. “I'm sorry I didn't warn you about some of the more... explicit parts. You're not bothered by the naked female form, are you?”

“No, not at all,” he said somewhat stiffly.

“You seem like a man who has probably seen quite a few.”

He replied with a wide, flat and slightly embarrassed smile.

“Scarlet Carruthers was naked when she was hacked to death all those years ago,” she continued. “I suppose her attackers believed this would make things easier. And then, as you can see now, the chunks of her body were burned. I know how awful it sounds, but everything you just saw really happened. Our humble village has been paying the price ever since.”

“And how's that?” he asked.

“Wragglesford had suffered several years of poorly-performing crops,” she explained. “The solution, according to Father Mertyn, was to get rid of the witch that lived here. Unfortunately for everyone concerned, his rather blunt methods only made things worse. Following Scarlet's ritual murder, the crops became poorer than ever and the whole area experienced some very poor times. We have managed to slightly recover in some ways, but we've never been as well-to-do since. That's why so many of us reenact those events. It's not just a mark of the past. It's also part of our attempt to understand what we did wrong so that perhaps one day we can fix it.”

“Sounds... fun,” Ronnie said, picking his words with care. “Gotta amuse yourselves, I suppose.”

As those words left his lips, he saw that a woman was now pushing the wheelchair away. The figure in the chair, meanwhile, remained slumped and hadn't actually moved so much as once during the entire event.

“Who's that fella again?” he asked.

Andrea turned to look at the wheelchair for a moment before glancing back at Ronnie.

“We like to involve everyone in our events,” she explained, “even the... less fortunate among us. We believe that we have a collective responsibility to make up for the mistakes our ancestors made, and I personally am convinced that eventually we will come up with a solution. It's just a matter of remaining open-minded but... I don't know, sometimes it feels as if something is actively working against us.”

“In what way?”

“I wish I knew,” she admitted. “The mind is prone to coming up with all sorts of ideas, but many of these are rather paranoid. What matters is that two hundred years later our community is united in the task of atoning for the mistake that was made, and I'm certain that we'll get there eventually. Perhaps then, finally, our crops will grow properly and our children will be free of disease and hardship, and life will become just that little bit more colorful and rewarding around here. If we fail, however, the task will simply have to be passed to the next generation, and perhaps the next after that. One thing you can be sure of is that we shall never give up.”

“Right,” Ronnie said as he saw to his relief that the show seemed to be over, and that the 'fire' children were busy brushing grass from their costumes. “Which of those guys did you say was Graham again?”

Chapter Sixteen

Holding her breath, not even daring to breathe, Harriet cautiously stepped back into the hallway before stopping again to listen out for any hint of the intruder's presence. She could already see that there was nobody in the living room now, which meant that the dark-haired girl must have moved, but she wasn't quite sure where she might have gone.

“Hello?” she called out finally, and she was immediately shocked by the fear she was unable to wipe from her own voice. “Is... is anybody there? This is our house and you... you can't be here.”

As much as she wanted to run away and wait for Ronnie to return, she hated the idea of being just another damsel in distress. At the same time, there had been something distinctly unthreatening about the woman's demeanor, as if she'd somehow been radiating sorrow and concern, and Harriet was already feeling as if her fear was starting to drain away just a little. Sure, the three rabbit-masked kids had been freaky as hell, but she was starting to realize that the woman had seemed far more trustworthy.

Almost as if she belonged.

Almost – and Harriet was fully aware that this idea was ludicrous – as if she was somehow part of the house.

“My name's Harriet,” she continued finally, fully aware that she might be making a mistake, that perhaps she was being too trusting. “Are you lost? My husband and I only moved in a few days ago. I thought the place was empty before but if you're looking for someone who used to live round here, I'm pretty sure they're long gone. This is our house now. Mine and Ronnie's. So...”

Her voice trailed off as she began to worry that she was talking to herself. A moment later, suddenly looking down, she realized that she was still holding not only the rabbit mask but also the severed finger. She quickly set them both down on the small table just inside the front door, and then she walked over to the foot of the staircase.

So far the house seemed quiet. No, not just quiet; the place was absolutely silent, as if the entire structure had begun to hold its breath. Harriet, meanwhile, had been forced to take a few sips of air, but she was still far too tense to breathe normally and she felt as if the silence was almost deafening. When she reached out and put a hand on the banister, her fingers brushed against the wood and the sound was somehow so much louder than normal, as if her every sense was heightened. And as much as she wanted to tell herself that she was just overreacting after a very odd morning, part of her still couldn't help but wonder whether that strange woman might still be lost somewhere inside the house.

Pulling her phone out, she tried again to call Ronnie, but the attempt still wouldn't connect.

“Okay,” she said out loud, “I'm just going to go to the kitchen. If there's anyone here, I won't be mad, I'd just really like to you let me know. It's kinda rude, if you think about it, to be sneaking around in someone else's property.”

She took a step back, before realizing that she could hear a faint scraping sound coming from nearby.

Turning, she looked all around the hallway but so far she could see no sign of what was causing the sound. A few seconds later the hallway fell silent again, and Harriet glanced over at the table by the door. The rabbit mask was still in place, exactly where she'd left it, but she felt a growing sense of dread in her bones as she realized that the weird little severed finger appeared to be missing.

Making her way over, she looked down and saw that sure enough the finger had somehow vanished. She checked under the table, then she turned to see if there was anywhere the finger could have rolled to after falling, but there was still no sign of anything. For a fraction of a second her mind filled with the ridiculous image of the severed finger wriggling away across the floorboards like some kind of reanimated worm, although she quickly reminded herself that such things simply weren't possible.

“You're losing your mind,” she said as she stood up and took another look at the rabbit mask. “Barely twenty-four hours in the countryside and you're already imagining things.”

Taking the mask, she turned it around in her hand again. Something about the homemade quality of the mask struck her as being particularly unsettling, but after a few seconds she held it up so that she could look out through the eye holes. Picking up a distinct smell of some kind of glue, she worried that she might be inhaling fumes, but after a few seconds she turned to look at herself in the hallway mirror. She saw the creepy rabbit face and her own eyes peering out, and then she let out a shocked gasp as she saw that the dark-haired woman was now standing right behind her.

Chapter Seventeen

“This is going to be easy enough to fix,” Graham muttered as he sat by the side of the road, examining the damaged tire on Ronnie's car. “You're lucky, I've got just the tire you need. I'll have you back on the road in half an hour.”

He began to try to get up, although he was clearly having trouble. After a moment Ronnie reached a hand out and helped him, and Graham let out a brief gasp of pain as he put a hand on the small of his own back.

“I'm getting too old for this game,” he said, shaking his head. “It's a young man's business. You're not in the market to buy a little village garage, are you?”

“Afraid not,” Ronnie replied as he spotted the man in the wheelchair being pushed past the shop.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I'm in the reselling game,” Ronnie explained. “I buy cheap stuff from China and import it, and then I flog it online. It's all automated, though, so I don't really have to be in any particular place. I just use a load of drop-shipping and control the whole operation from my laptop.”

“Sounds great,” Graham replied, although he clearly didn't understand and perhaps even seemed to disapprove slightly.

Before he had a chance to explain further, Ronnie found himself once again looking toward the man in the wheelchair. Although the man's face was mostly covered by a shawl, and by a scarf that had been pulled up over his mouth, Ronnie couldn't shake the feeling that a pair of intense eyes were glaring at him from behind a large pair of sunglasses. He hadn't quite managed to catch the man's name earlier when he'd been talking to Andrea, but now he felt his curiosity being piqued once again. She'd referred to him as Father Mertyn, but he hadn't seemed to take any part in the reenactment.

“Who's that chap?” he asked, nudging Graham's arm. “The one over there in the chair.”

“Hmm?”

Turning, Graham watched the man for a few seconds – and those few seconds were all it took for his demeanor to visibly change.

“Oh, that's no-one,” he said, forcing a very uncomfortable smile. “I'm not quite sure, to be honest with you. I'm sure you Londoners think we all know each other down here, but it's really not like that at all. I've seen the fella around a few times, I think that's his nurse who wheels him around. He doesn't quite use the type of tires I sell, though, so our paths have never crossed.”

Wiping his greasy hands on a rag, he stepped past Ronnie.

“I'll go and fetch that tire. Wait here and make sure those kids don't cause any more damage. Some of the young 'uns in Wragglesford are completely feral.”

Once he'd been left alone, Ronnie was unable to keep watching the elderly man, who in turn was slowly turning his head as if he wanted to keep his eyes fixed very firmly on whatever Ronnie was up to. After a few seconds Ronnie offered a smile and a friendly wave, determined to try to alleviate any tension, but the man simply continued to stare. The nurse, meanwhile, seemed to be unaware that anything was happening as she wheeled the gentleman around the corner and out of sight.

With a sigh of relief, Ronnie realized that hopefully he wouldn't be having any more run-ins with the creepy guy. Taking his phone from his pocket, he tried again to get in touch with Harriet, only to find that the phone still couldn't connect. Still, he figured that she'd be fine. And he knew how much she hated it whenever he fussed.

Chapter Eighteen

“You won't believe what happened to me this morning,” he said forty-five minutes later as he walked through the front door of the new house and dropped his car keys into the bowl. “I'm not even sure where to begin. For one thing, I saw our lovely friend Andrea Monkholm completely stark naked – and I'm talking everything! And for another, some little shits cut one of my tires so I was forced to wait around and watch those weirdos with their reenactment ceremony.”

Stopping to look into the living room, he realized that there was no sign of Harriet, although this wasn't particularly unusual. Turning, he listened for any clue as to where she might be. Deep down, there was a part of him that hoped she was going to suddenly leap out from a hiding place wearing very little – a scanty piece of lingerie at most – and drag him upstairs for some fun; that was the Harriet of old, the Harriet he'd fallen in love with and married, and he remained convinced that she was still in there somewhere.

And one day she was going to come back out to play.

“Babe?” he called out.

Again he waited, but now the silence was becoming just a tiny bit unnerving. After a few seconds he walked across the hallway and looked into the kitchen, and he was hugely relieved to see that his wife was standing at the sink with her back turned to him. Sure, she wasn't wearing lingerie, but he had to admit that the dress was clinging nicely to her body in all the right places.

“Are you... cooking?” he asked cautiously. “Harriet, I know moving here is a big change, but I'm not expecting you to turn into some kind of domestic goddess. What are you planning, anyway? It's not spaghetti bolognese, is it? You know how much I love your spag bol, especially when you do it with the carrots and celery and bacon. Is that what it is?”

The only answer was silence, although after a few more seconds he realized that there seemed to be no other pots or pans out and no sign of any ingredients. In fact, the only sign of activity at all was the knife drawer, which had been left wide open next to the cooker. That in itself was something of a surprise; he was usually the one who left things out or open, while she was always telling him to tidy as he worked.

“I've got such a freaky story to tell you,” he said as he walked over and put his hands on her waist from behind. “So these yokels seem to believe that they're atoning for something that happened two hundred years ago. I know you already know that, but get this... they actually seem to think that somehow they can put it all right. With weird rituals and dances and performances and stuff.”

He kissed the side of her neck from behind, and for a few seconds he breathed deep so that he could enjoy the scent of her perfume.

“There's got to be something in the water,” he went on. “I mean, they even had kids getting involved. Gotta indoctrinate them while they're young, right? And the whole thing was like half Wicker Man and half some kind of school play, but you could tell some of them were really into it. Oh, and I nearly forgot, there was even this weird guy in a wheelchair who kept all covered up, but he was totally giving... I dunno, freaky and downright odd. I know you weren't feeling up to much today, but you should've come just for the giggles.”

Still receiving no response, he looked at the side of her face and saw that she was staring straight down at the chopping board.

“Maybe another time,” he added. “I get the feeling -”

In that moment, sensing on some deeper level that something might be wrong after all, he looked down at the board. Expecting to see vegetables, he was surprised instead to find that Harriet seemed not to be in the process of cooking anything at all. Instead she'd taken the largest knife from the drawer – actually more of a meat cleaver that had been part of a gift set from her mother – and she was holding it with the blade touching the base of her left index finger.

“Babe?” he said cautiously. “What are you -”

And then, before he had a chance to get another word down, she jammed the handle down so hard that the blade immediately sliced straight through her flesh and bone, severing the finger and sending blood spurting out across the chopping board.

“What the fuck?”

Grabbing her hand and pulling the cleaver away, Ronnie watched as the finger rolled off the side of the board and onto the counter. At that moment Harriet pulled away and started laughing, before slumping back against the wall and sliding down until she was sitting on the floor.

“What's wrong with you?” he gasped, before grabbing a tea towel and using it to gather up the finger. “We need to get you to the hospital so they can sew this thing back on!”

“It's not my fault!” she sobbed, with tears streaming down her face now even as she continued to laugh hard. “She made me do it! She told me I didn't have any choice!”

Chapter Nineteen

“Sounds like we got here just in the nick of time,” Ronnie said that evening, sitting with Harriet in a side room at the hospital. “Good job I thought to stick the thing in ice so they could do the... regeneration or replantation or whatever they called it.”

He watched as Harriet remained motionless in the bed, staring off to the side, and he couldn't help but think that she still seemed to be in the same daze as earlier. At least she'd stopped laughing manically, although he put that down to the anesthetic more than anything and he couldn't help but worry that she might be slipping back into old habits. As much as he desperately wanted to help her, he knew there were times when there was nothing he could do, when she needed people with far more experience.

He'd hoped those days were over, but now...

“Well,” he said, still trying to project a hopeful and optimistic tone as he got to his feet, “I might explore that vending machine down the hall. You want anything?”

He desperately wanted her to break out of her strange state and ask him for some chocolate, but instead she seemed almost to have not heard him. This wasn't the same daze as before; she'd woken from one condition only to roll straight into another, more familiar situation.

“Right, then,” he muttered, turning and heading to the doorway. “I'll just -”

“Why did you do it?”

Stopping, he immediately realized that there was a certain charge to her tone. He knew deep down exactly what she was talking about, even if his natural defense system was to play dumb and to try to change the subject.

“Why did you do it, Ronnie?”

Closing his eyes, he couldn't help but wonder why she had to bring the subject up now of all times. Then again, he figured that the hospital setting might be taking her back to those awful days. He slowly turned to look at her and now he saw that the dazed looked had been replaced by the exact same mournful gaze he remembered from the previous year. Back then he'd insisted on being the one to break the news to her, and now he wondered whether that had been a huge mistake.

“Harriet -”

“What exactly did they say to you?” she asked. “Did they say it was as simple as... you had to pick one of us?”

He sighed.

“Is that how it was?” she continued. “Did they tell you it was option A or option B?”

“It was a lot more complicated than that,” he replied, resisting the urge to go over to the bed, hoping to avoid another long drawn-out and – from his point of view – unnecessary conversation. After all, hadn't they discussed this issue over and over again? “They laid out the situation and gave me the information I needed, and they said that since you couldn't make a decision it was up to me. Nothing was certain, it was just about... odds. It was about the odds of you or the baby surviving, and how each of you impacted on the other.”

“And then you chose to save me,” she said softly, clearly still exhausted. “Instead of our baby.”

“It wasn't like that.”

“But it was, Ronnie,” she continued, sounding as if she was almost pleading with him to agree with her. “I know it must have been hard, I know it was an emergency and you only had a couple of minutes to make a decision, but I still don't understand why you chose to save me. Eve had so much more of a life ahead of her.”

He shook his head; although he knew he could never say as much, he always hated it when Harriet referred to the baby by name. For so long now, he'd been telling himself that she hadn't actually had a name because she hadn't actually been born, because until the moment she came out she didn't really exist.

“I get it,” Harriet went on as tears ran down her face, “but you should have chosen her. You should have given our daughter life. Maybe I'd have hung on or maybe I wouldn't have, but... you should have saved Eve.”

“I'm gonna check on that vending machine, yeah?” he replied, turning and heading out of the room. “Then I should get out of here and give you some rest before I come back in the morning to take you home.”

Chapter Twenty

As soon as he switched the engine off, Ronnie saw the house ahead in darkness and wondered whether he could even go inside. The drive back from the hospital had been long and tiring, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, yet his mind was racing and he wondered whether he was ever going to be able to sleep at all.

“There isn't much time, Mr. Anderson,” he remembered the doctor telling him a year earlier, with the voice echoing as it escaped from memories he'd tried to ignore. “Your wife's unconscious, she can't make the decision. You need to decide which option to go for.”

“And there's no way to save them both?” he'd asked.

“It's extremely unlikely,” the doctor had explained. “We don't have time to go over it all again. Mr. Anderson, if you don't decide right now, the results for both mother and child could be catastrophic.”

“There's got to be another choice.”

“I'm afraid there isn't,” the doctor had insisted, and his voice had been filled with urgency. “Mr. Anderson, every second we stand here discussing the matter is another delay. Harriet explicitly wanted you to have the power to make decisions like this if she was incapacitated, and I'm telling you, the situation is extremely serious. Please, help us to help them. What's it to be? If you don't decide right now, you'll almost certainly lose them both.”

Lose them both.

He'd spent so long preparing for the baby's arrival, and preparing himself to be a father, that the idea of suddenly being alone again was shocking. He and Harriet had even delayed the wedding in order to be able to afford everything for the nursery. And although they'd talked about trying again for a child, there had been very little action in that direction over the previous year and he was starting to think that all his plans and dreams were just being held together now by string and tape.

And then, as he stared at the house's front door, he began to notice that something was wrong.

“What the -”

Climbing out of the car, he made his way across the dark driveway and onto the steps. Now that he was closer he realized that there was some kind of pattern daubed on the door. He pulled his phone out and brought up the flashlight app, and sure enough he found that someone had painted a crude black circle on the door with various flicks and other shapes added to the sides. The whole sight was eerie and sent a shiver through his bones, but things became even worse a few seconds later when he looked up and spotted several dead rabbits hanging from hooks that had been gouged into their necks.

Stepping back, he looked along the side of the house and saw that more of the strange patterns had been added to all the doors and windows, as if someone had intended to seal the house inside a series of badly-painted symbols. There were more rabbits, too, hanging in various states from hooks that had been haphazardly attached to the guttering.

“Fucking countryside freaks,” he said under his breath as he made his way round to the back garden, determined to catch the culprits in action. “When I find you...”

Although he saw nobody, by the time he'd reached the front of the house again Ronnie was under no illusion as to what had happened. He'd been at the hospital for perhaps twelve hours, and in that time some of the local bumpkins had clearly been busy decorating the house with all sorts of arcane old symbols. Once again he felt as if everything he was seeing had been ripped straight out of the pages of some old story about freakish pagan religions, but whereas previously he'd found that prospect slightly amusing, this time he felt his blood starting to boil and he wanted nothing more than to scream.

“You've picked the wrong bastard tonight,” he said, hurrying to his car and climbing inside, then quickly starting the engine and reversing off the driveway. “If you think this cutesy inbred shtick is gonna wash with me when I'm a mood like this, you've got another thing coming you cheap...”

Unable to settle upon one specific phrase that summed up his contempt, he reversed the car onto the road so fast that the tires screeched loudly in the quiet night air.

Chapter Twenty-One

As soon as he slammed the pub's door open, Ronnie saw that the place was full. A roar of conversation continued for a few seconds before the customers began to notice him, and as he stormed over to the middle of the room he realized that everyone was quickly shutting up.

Turning, he saw Andrea sitting at a table with some men.

“Which of you bastards did it?” he yelled angrily.

“Mr. Anderson,” Andrea said, getting to her feet. “You seem to be rather troubled by something.”

“Save me the friendly act,” he continued, struggling to contain a sense of pure fury. “Do you think I'm an idiot? I saw your pathetic little play today and I'm onto you all. I just got home and found that someone had daubed all this crap on our house and hung up all these dead rabbits. I'm going to give the culprits one chance to own up, or there'll be hell to pay.”

“Mr. Anderson,” Andrea continued, keeping her voice low as she made her way over and put a hand on the side of his arm. “Why don't you let me -”

“Don't touch me!” he snapped, pulling away from her.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Anderson?” she asked, as the rest of the customers simply stared.

“Is everything alright?” he replied, glaring at her as he mimicked her voice. “Are you serious? I've just spent the best part of twelve hours in the hospital while my wife has her finger sewn back on, and then I get home to find some jokers have turned my house into some kind of scene from a horror film, and you're asking me if I'm alright?”

She opened her mouth to reply.

“Save it,” he added firmly. “I don't care. I don't want to hear it. Listen, you lot might enjoy this folksy backward-living pagan bullshit, it might be the only thing that fills your sad and pathetic days, but we don't want any part of it. My wife and I are normal people from the real world, and the last thing we want is to have to put up with your crap. You know, people joked about it when we moved here, they warned us that you country shitheads might be a bit hard to get on with, but we told them they were wrong. We told them they were stereotyping you all and making you all out to be morons.”

He turned and looked at some of the other customers, many of whom were simply watching him with blank expressions on their faces.

“Well, they were right all along, weren't they?” he roared. “They were bang on the money! Look at you, you bunch of slack-jawed prats! I know we're out in the middle of nowhere, but come on, the year's 2025. You've all got the internet, haven't you? Shouldn't you be at home watching something on the telly or jerking off over some porn or something like that?”

He looked at the half dozen or so people gathered at the bar.

“Doesn't this old-fashioned shit get old after a while?” he shouted.

“Mr. Anderson,” Andrea said, “you're clearly very emotional and I don't think you want to be saying some of these things.”

“You all think it's so much fun,” he continued, turning to her. “Well, my wife is in the hospital right now and you lot aren't blameless in that. I don't know who keeps putting that fake finger in our house, but you've driven her out of her mind.”

Andrea glanced at the barman, who in turn looked over at a woman standing in the corner; the woman quickly turned and made her way out of the room.

“My wife's ill,” Ronnie went on, lowering his voice a little now as he struggled to hold back tears. “She's recovering, but she's been so ill and I brought her out here so she could recover. Instead you lot are going to set her off again with your puerile little games and your fancy dress shit. It might be fun for you, because you're all in on the joke, but please... you're going to make her have some kind of relapse.”

“Mr. Anderson,” Andrea replied, “I think we should talk in private.”

“I'm done talking,” he said, backing away from her, making his way toward the door. Holding his hands up, he glanced around at the others. “Tomorrow morning I'm installing the best cameras money can buy, yeah? And if they pick up any of you arseholes on my property, there'll be severe consequences. Have I made myself understood? The fun and games are over. Try my patience again and you'll soon find out that I can give way worse than I take.”

As he stormed out, the customers began to look at one another and a ripple of murmurs spread. Andrea, meanwhile, stood silently in the middle of the room and watched as Ronnie's car screeched away. After a few more seconds she turned to see that the woman had returned from the rear of the building.

“He wants to see you,” the woman said cautiously, as if she was a little nervous. “He thinks you need to be moving faster.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

As soon as she stepped into the pub's back room, Andrea saw him sitting slumped in his wheelchair with his head still covered by the shawl. She flinched slightly as she felt the cold air biting at her, but she knew that was how he always preferred things.

The nurse slipped past her and made her way over to take her usual place just behind the wheelchair.

“I take it you heard all of that?” Andrea asked.

Still hidden away from direct view, the man in the chair nodded slightly.

“I couldn't have known that the wife would be such an idiot,” Andrea continued. “Apparently she cut her bloody finger off. She must be even more stupid than she looks.”

The man in the chair murmured something, but his voice was too low and too muffled to be heard. Leaning down, the nurse listened more closely for a few seconds until he was done.

“He's starting to think,” she said finally, addressing Andrea, “that he was wrong to trust you.”

“Trusting me was the best decision anyone in this village ever made,” Andrea replied proudly, as if she was slightly offended by any other suggestion. “I've studied this sort of thing, remember? You were all wading blindly through the dark until I showed up and took charge. Without me, you'd be facing another two hundred years of failure.”

The man spoke again, and again the nurse had to listen so that she could translate.

“He thinks it might be an impossible task,” she explained finally. “He's starting to lose hope that any of this might ever work.”

Andrea opened her mouth to reply, but for a moment she held back. Clearly lost for words, she looked around for a few seconds before stepping forward.

“Two hundred years ago,” she said firmly, “this village made a terrible mistake. Fueled by superstition and fear, led by a fool -”

The man let out an angry grunt.

“Led by a fool,” Andrea continued, stressing her words more than ever, “a wild mob went out to that house and did something truly stupid, something you've all been trying to atone for ever since. You hacked the witch Scarlet Carruthers to pieces and then you burned the chunks of her body. You thought that you were ridding Wragglesford of her influence, of her curse, but you couldn't have been more mistaken. On that day, you all made just about the worst mistake you could possibly have made, and you've been trying to atone for it ever since.”

She paused, watching the shawl covering the man's head.

“In fact,” she added calmly, “you should have burned her and then hacked her body up.”

Once more, the man said something, and this time the nurse had to lean even closer to hear it properly.

“He's warning you,” she said cautiously. “He says you must make sure you don't overstep the boundaries.”

“There are no boundaries any more,” Andrea said dismissively. “That's precisely the kind of nonsense that led you all to this position in the first place. I told you that I would sort this situation out for you all, and I will, but it takes time. The trap is almost set. And let me remind you, even though you screwed up two hundred years ago, Wragglesford still wouldn't be in quite such a bad position if you'd at least gathered up all parts of the witch and burned them. But no, you idiots couldn't even get that straight. You had to miss a bit. You had to leave a single solitary finger that had fallen into the long grass.”

Under the shawl, the man began to growl.

“Save it,” Andrea sneered. “I've got this sorted. I'm going to save Wragglesford from the mistakes made two centuries ago. From the mistakes made by the ancestors of all those people sitting in the pub right now. Not that it's merely ancestors who are concerned.”

She hesitated, before stepping forward and reaching out. Taking hold of the shawl, she slowly pulled it away, revealing the ancient, withered, 250-year-old face of Father John Mertyn in all his haggard, white-eyed and trembling glory.

“And when that day comes,” she said softly, “I will so enjoy watching your hideous body turn to dust.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Fuck!”

Grabbing the vase from a table in the living room, Ronnie turned around and threw the it across the room until it slammed against the far wall. As the shattered pieces rained down onto the rug, he lifted up the half-empty whiskey bottle and took another long, satisfying swig. He'd already downed almost half a liter since getting back from the pub and he was in no mood to stop just yet.

Barely able to stay standing, he turned and saw his own reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.

“Idiot!” he sneered at himself. “What did you think you were gonna fix by coming here, eh? It's the oldest story in the book. A pair of lily-livered Londoners move out to the countryside in the hope that they can fix all their problems, but how does it always work out?”

Swaying slightly, he took another – slightly smaller – swig of whiskey.

“You can't run from the past, Ronnie boy,” he continued. “Didn't your old man never teach you nothing?”

Stepping closer to the mirror, he held up a hand and jabbed one finger directly at his own reflection.

“But you thought you were smarter, didn't you?” he added. “That's always been your problem. You always think you're one step ahead of everyone else, when in fact you're always about a football pitch behind 'em. And then it always goes wrong. Always. Then when people actually need you, like your wife and your unborn child, you screw everything up. You should have found a way to save them both but instead -”

Suddenly feeling something brush against his shoulder from behind, he spun round – only to find that the living room was empty. He hesitated, certain that the sensation had been real, and then he turned to his reflection again.

“Probably the ghost of my conscience,” he murmured, and now he was starting to see double as he took yet another swig from the whiskey bottle. “Whatever's left of it, at least.”

He stared at the mirror for a moment longer before, struck by a sudden burst of rage, he stormed across the room and took it down from the wall. Struggling a little under the mirror's weight, he managed to carry it about halfway to the door, intending to cover it up so that he wouldn't have to see his own reflection; as he reached the far end of the room, however, he tripped on the leg of a chair and fell, toppling forward and sending the mirror crashing down. As the glass shattered, he instinctively reached out to save it all, only to let out a gasp of pain as several shards cut his hands.

“Damn it!” he yelled, staring at the vast sea of glass spread out across the hallway, and at the upturned remains of the mirror ahead. “Idiot! Harriet loved that mirror and -”

Before he could finish, he saw a pair of bare feet standing over by the foot of the staircase. He blinked a couple of times, convinced that he had to be wrong, but a moment later the feet slowly began to advance, stepping very deliberately against the shards and cracking them against the floorboards. Blood began to dribble from the soles, and as the feet made their way closer Ronnie finally looked up.

He was still seeing double, but as he blinked furiously he could just about make out what appeared to be a naked woman towering above him. She certainly wasn't Harriet, either; with close-cropped dark hair and a little weight around the midriff, she was almost the opposite of his wife, and he had no idea who she was or what she was doing in his house.

And then, as he opened his mouth to ask what she wanted, she reached out and placed one hand against his face. The last thing he noticed, as he felt himself losing consciousness, was that one of her fingers was missing.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“If you're going to complain the whole time,” Andrea Monkholm said, stepping out of the car and hurrying toward the driveway, “then you might as well go back to the village. Either that, or wait in my car.”

“I'm not complaining,” Stan replied. “I'm just wondering why we have to do this now.”

“Old Father Mertyn's starting to become impatient,” she replied, stopping to look at the house and seeing that the lights were on inside, especially on the ground floor. “You'd think a man who's well into his third decade would have a little more time to wait, but apparently not. I suppose he must be in a lot of pain, considering his body's held together by bonds of sheer hatred.”

“That's not the real Father Mertyn, though, is it?” Stan asked, stopping next to her. “It's part of the reenactment, right?”

“Two hundred years ago, Father John Mertyn led the congregation that tried to kill the witch Scarlet Carruthers,” she replied, watching the house carefully for any sign of movement. “They failed miserably, and ever since that day Scarlet's curse on this village has remained. More than that, though, she also managed in her final moments to put a curse of Father Mertyn himself. Eternal life.”

“That... that's a curse?”

“It is if your body continues to age but refuses to die,” she replied, “and if your mind is trapped in a withering husk with no way out. It's not just the physical pain, it's also the mental suffering. He's become very good at hiding it, but that old bastard is in horrific agony every single second of every day. He doesn't even sleep.”

“How can someone not sleep? Wouldn't you eventually go mad?”

“Again and again,” she mused, and now she couldn't help but grin. “At first I felt sorry for him, but the more I got to know him, the more I understood that he deserves every moment of this misery. The only downside is that when I finally banish Scarlet, old Mertyn will be freed from his pain. I'd quite like to find a way to make him suffer forever.”

“Okay, but what are we doing here?” Stan asked. “And why now?”

She hesitated, before starting to make her way toward the house.

“Scarlet has waited a long, long time for this,” she explained. “She could teach Mertyn a thing or two about patience. It's taken a while for me to work out what she wants, but I'm convinced now that she's searching for a new life. A new body. And how better to do that... than to take one that already exists.”

“You mean -”

“I have a friend who works at the hospital,” she said, stopping at one of the windows and peering into the house's living room, but seeing no sign of Ronnie. “Harriet Anderson was admitted today after an accident at home. She cut off one of her fingers. And that just so happens to be the same finger that was missed when Scarlet's body parts were gathered together two centuries ago.”

“So -”

“So it's obvious,” Andrea added. “Scarlet intends to merge her body with Harriet's, and from there she can spread her influence and take her over entirely.”

“And... why exactly do we want to help her do that, again?”

She turned to him.

“I'm lost,” he added.

“We don't want to help her,” she replied, sounding increasingly exasperated. “We want to stop her!”

“Right...”

“But in the process, we also want to understand her,” she added. “I've studied this kind of thing my whole life. I know that her powers are real but I have no idea how they work or how someone can control them. I have to find out how Scarlet is doing all of this. And if you want to understand something, your only option is to study it.”

“Or you could ask.”

“Ask?”

“Contact this Scarlet woman and... ask her.”

She hesitated, before stepping closer to him.

“Do you know how long humans have spent communicating with apes?” she asked.

“Why are we talking about apes now?”

“Monkeys, apes, whatever,” she continued. “Since at least the 1970s, researchers have been able to teach them parts of our languages and ask them questions. It's remarkable, really, when you think about it. But do you know what the most interesting part is?” She leaned closer. “In all that time, not one ape has ever turned around and asked us a question. And do you know why? It's because they don't care. Scarlet Carruthers has mastered these powers and I guarantee you, so doesn't care about any of us, because to her we're just apes now. She's powerful, so we have to be careful.”

“I get it now,” he replied, before furrowing his brow. “I think.”

Stepping past him, she hurried to the next window and looked into the hallway, and she froze as she saw the broken mirror with glass spread all across the floor. A moment later she saw the blood too, and she quickly headed to the front door. When she turned the handle, she found that the door unlocked easily enough.

“Are we going inside?” Stan asked.

“We're going inside,” she replied, trying to ignore the growing sense of fear in her chest. “But if we encounter Scarlet Carruthers, you have to do exactly what I say.” She turned to him. “Let me promise you one thing right now, Stanley. Your life depends on it.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The front door creaked slightly as Andrea pushed it all the way open. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, meanwhile, her right foot crunched against a chunk of glass.

“I don't think I like this,” Stan said cautiously, following a couple of paces behind.

“Be quiet!” she hissed, keeping her voice low. “We need to know where they are.”

“They?”

“Harriet Anderson is still in the hospital,” she went on, “but her husband's home.”

“How do you know?”

“Because his car's out the front, you moron,” she continued. “Look at the glass. Clearly something has been going on here, and...”

Her voice trailed off as she saw bloodied footprints on the stairs, leading up to the landing. She immediately looked up toward the top, and after just a couple of seconds she realized that she could hear the faintest of gagging sounds, almost as if somebody was slowly choking. She hesitated, trying to come up with the best plan of action, before heading to the stairs and starting to make her way up.

“Where are you going?” Stan asked, and with each question he sounded more and more terrified.

“I have to make contact,” she said, and now she was seized by a sudden burst of energy that superseded all her earlier caution. “I tried before, I came to this house several times but I could never find any trace of Scarlet. Something about these idiots seems to have woken her up.”

Struggling a little, she finally reached the top of the stairs and saw an open doorway leading into the bedroom. Stepping closer, she stopped as she saw the naked figure of Scarlet Carruthers standing next to the bed while Ronnie had been lifted up several feet into the air by some invisible force; Scarlet was staring up at him, seemingly focused on watching as he struggled for air. Showing all the concern of a cat observing the agonizing death of a mouse, she appeared to be strangely mesmerized by the sight. With his head tilted back, Ronnie was clearly barely able to breathe at all, but he was also powerless to help himself.

As Andrea watched the horrific scene, she barely even noticed Stan stopping behind her.

“Who's that?” he gasped.

In that moment, Scarlet turned and stared at them both, glaring with furious intensity. At the same time Ronnie slumped down, slamming against the floor with his knees and then grasping at his neck as he toppled over to one side. He began to choke frantically, finally managing to expel the rotten severed finger from his throat, leaving the digit to hit the floor and roll over toward the wall.

“Scarlet Carruthers!” Andrea shouted, holding both her hands up. “I know who you are! I know what you are! I also know what happened to you and I know who was responsible.” She hesitated, and then – once she felt a little safer – she took a solitary step forward while Stan continued to linger in the doorway. “I am a woman of a like mind,” she continued, lowering her hands slowly. “You have no idea how much I've dreamed of this moment. I've studied you and I've tried to unravel the kind of powers you gained while you were alive, but I'm afraid I haven't managed to get very far. I need a teacher.”

Narrowing her gaze slightly, Scarlet stared back at Andrea with an expression of pure hatred. At the same time she seemed to be in danger of fading from view entirely.

“Please don't go,” Andrea continued, and now she had tears in her eyes. “I came to this house several times over the years, I called out your name and I tried every trick under the sun – not to mention the moon and the stars – to contact you. I don't know whether you noticed me or not, or even whether you were here, but you have to understand that I'm not like the others.”

“Why's she naked?” Stan whispered.

“I've been using them,” Andrea explained, keeping her eyes very much focused on Scarlet. “If that makes me a bad person, I don't care. I've been using them all so that I can get to you. Father John Mertyn is still alive, just as your curse ensured. He's ancient now and he begs for death, but his body refuses to wither and his heart refuses to stop pumping blood. If you wanted to make him pay for what was done to you, you've succeeded a thousand times over. Don't you think that now is the moment to start a new chapter?”

“What's going on?” Ronnie murmured, trying to sit up but immediately slumping back down. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling. “I think I just had the craziest dream.”

“I'm a scientist,” Andrea told Scarlet. “Well, an academic, really, but I consider myself to have great expertise in the fields of folklore and paganism and associated areas of study. But the thing is, I've reached a brick wall and if I'm to keep making advances, I need to move beyond what is practical and into... well, into your realm of knowledge. Ms. Carruthers, we can help one another. Together we can be far more powerful than either of us could ever imagine alone. Forget the Andersons, forget John Mertyn, forget all those idiots. Let us work together.”

She waited, hoping for a reply.

And then, slowly, she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, to her shock she saw that the severed finger from the floor was now slowly rising up through the air with the rotten fingertip very much pointing directly toward the ceiling. A moment later, as it reached head height, the finger turned until it was now pointing straight at Andrea.

“I don't understand,” she stammered. “Is... is that a yes? Are you agreeing? Can we work together and -”

In that moment the finger lurched toward her. Opening her mouth to cry out, Andrea stepped aside at the last moment and watched as the finger sailed past. She heard a gasp and looked over just in time to see Stan stumbling back and falling on the landing, and then she turned to look at Scarlet.

As if pure rage was rippling through her body, Scarlet tilted her head slightly and then screamed with such force that the air all around in the bedroom seemed to ripple and surge with sheer energy.

“Out!” Andrea shouted, stumbling from the room and reaching the landing just as Stan started getting to his feet. “Now! Hurry!”

“Wait,” Stan said, “I -”

“No time!” she yelled, not even stopping to check that he was okay as the scream continued to ring out from the bedroom. Hurrying down the stairs, she almost tripped several times before stumbling out into the hallway below. “I need to regroup. I need to come up with a better plan.”

Rushing to the front door, she pulled it open and headed out into the cool night air. She ran all the way along the driveway and finally only stopped once she was on the road and could see her car. Taking a moment to get her breath back, she turned and looked back at the house; she could still hear Scarlet's furious scream in the bedroom, but a moment later she saw Stan making his way out from the front door.

“She must be in immense torment,” Andrea said as tears gathered in her eyes. “The poor soul. I fear I have greatly underestimated her suffering.”

Gasping for air, Stan stopped next to hear and leaned against the gatepost. Bending over slightly, he let out a series of grunts.

“I need to think,” Andrea murmured as the scream finally came to a rattling halt. “Lord help me, I need time to think. That's what I do best, after all. When next I come face to face with dear Scarlet Carruthers, I simply must be better prepared. Anything else would do that magnificent woman a great disservice.”

“I think I might need some help,” Stan groaned.

“Oh, you'll be fine,” she replied, slapping him hard on the back. “Don't be such a wimp, man! That woman has lingered in this house for two centuries after being brutally hacked to pieces and then burned, and you're complaining about having to run a little?”

“It's not that,” he told her, still sounding somewhat breathless. “I -”

“Grow a pair, Stanley,” she continued, slapping him more firmly on the back, this time causing him to swallow hard. “For God's sake, I thought you country bumpkins were supposed to be made of sterner stuff. I bet you whinge about man flu as well.”

“I just -”

“My original plan was to help Father Mertyn get rid of Scarlet once and for all,” she went on, “so that I could study and gain her powers in the process, but I'm starting to think that I might need to be a little more inventive. She's the most amazing creature and she deserves our respect.”

She glanced at him.

“And don't think I wasn't aware of the way you were ogling her,” she added. “The woman was stripped bare before she was murdered. It's no surprise that she is the same in death. That doesn't mean you can be eyeing her up like she's some kind of centerfold.”

“It's not that,” he said. “This is going to sound weird but -”

“Come on,” she continued, turning and hurrying to her car, already using the fob to unlock the doors. “I have to go back to the village and do what I do best. And you know what that means, Stanley, don't you? It means I need to think!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

The door to the bedroom above the pub creaked open, and Andrea immediately saw Father John Mertyn sitting slumped in his wheelchair. With the shawls no longer covering his head, he was leaning forward slightly and looked like nothing more than a corpse.

Andrea watched him for a few seconds before stepping into the room.

“I know you're not asleep,” she said archly. “You never sleep, do you? You've not slept for so much as one second since the day you led the mob that killed Scarlet Carruthers. No dreams. No respite from your thoughts. My word, I don't know how you've managed to retain even a scrap of sanity.”

After a few seconds the old man began to lift his head, finally managing to look up at her with milky old eyes. At the same time he opened his mouth, causing the leathery skin to split slightly around the edges as he revealed two rows of bleeding gums dotted with blackened teeth. A pale liquid was glistening as it dribbled from his lips and a series of pained half-breaths could be heard emerging with some difficulty from the back of his throat. An attentive listener might even have fancied that they could hear his dusty old lungs still working.

“I just got back from the house,” she continued. “I saw her for the first time. I mean I really saw her, in all her astonishing glory. Until tonight I thought she was some specimen to be used and spat out, to be destroyed and then autopsied, but now I get it. Now I see differently. You could almost call it a -”

She stopped herself just in time, as if she wasn't quite sure that she could get the next words out.

“You could almost call it a religious conversion,” she added, “if one believed in religion. But I finally believe in something so much bigger, in something so much more important. I've seen Scarlet Carruthers up close and personal and now I know that I have to work with her.”

“No,” Mertyn groaned.

“No?”

“You...”

He began to shake his head, causing the bones in his neck to creak loudly

“Have...”

“Oh, don't worry,” she sneered, “your death will still be very much part of the deal. I shall take great pleasure in informing her that there's no longer any need to keep you around. Two hundred years is perhaps long enough for you to pay for your heinous crimes.”

She took a moment to stare at him, before making her way over and kneeling in front of his wheelchair. Reaching out, she gently took hold of one of his ancient, leathery hands. The knuckles were bulbous and riddled with arthritis and the skin itself was more like one large liver spot.

“She had a flying finger,” she told him. “Don't laugh. It's the finger you and your band of mercenaries missed two centuries ago. The thing is, it sounds so ridiculous, doesn't it? Almost comical. How could anyone take a flying finger seriously? But I suppose Scarlet Carruthers has had to work with what she had, and in this case the finger was the only part of her left in the corporeal world. I admire her, actually, and I would advise anyone to avoid underestimating that magnificent example of feminine power.”

She began to pull on one of the old man's digits, causing the bone in his index finger to twist slightly. At the same time, Mertyn began to let out a faint gasp of pain.

“It's often the things that we laugh about,” she continued, “that prove to be the most dangerous. That end up devouring us, especially in Europe. You've heard of Germany's Mr. Hitler, haven't you? I know you lived through all of that, even if you were already so far gone. The thing is, all through the 1930s people were laughing at him and making fun of him, and ridiculing his style of talking and his rallies and all of that. And did the laughter stop him? Not for one second. The lesson I want you to take from that story, Father Mertyn, is that a witch's rotten flying finger might sound pathetic, it might sound laughable, but one must never ever forget the damage that even a solitary finger -”

She twisted the old man's middle finger, snapping it and bringing another grunt of pain from his lips.

“- can do.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Are you alright in there, Stan? Are you coming to bed?”

“In a minute!” he yelled back at his wife as he stood in the kitchen of their little cottage in the heart of Wragglesford. “Go to sleep!”

“Don't wake me up when you come in!” she shouted. “I'm putting my earplugs in!”

“Do what you want,” he muttered under his breath as he heard the bed's springs complaining in the room above as they were forced to take Eileen's weight. “I need -”

Before he could finish, he let out a sudden and rather loud burp. Shocked, he immediately winced as he felt a sharp pain running up through his diaphragm, and this pain lasted for several seconds before somehow seeming to wriggle its way down toward his kidneys.

“I need a moment,” he whispered, gripping the side of the sink as he tried to steady himself. “Just one moment without any nagging.”

Since arriving home from his little excursion with Andrea Monkholm, Stan hadn't been feeling well at all. Even before he'd got into the car for the return journey, he'd been out of sorts and he'd tried a couple of times to raise the matter with Andrea, only for her to ignore him as she continued with her latest long speech about the importance of academia and the value of research and the astonishing multitudes of feminine power and all sorts of other nonsense that frankly Stan didn't care about at all.

At first he'd told himself that there was nothing actually wrong, that he was just a little out of sorts, but now various pains were popping up in various spots around his body and he was wondering...

Thinking back to that moment on the landing at the house, he remembered the sight of a severed finger flying toward him. Andrea had stepped out of the way just in time, but he'd opened his mouth to cry out and a fraction of a second later he'd felt the finger slicing straight between his teeth, cutting his tongue with its blackened nail before ramming itself down the back of his esophagus. Barely able to breathe, he'd tried to work out what to do next, but in all the madness he'd just about managed to follow Andrea out of the house.

Then, on the driveway, she'd slapped him so hard on the back that the finger – or whatever it was – had somehow slipped down his gullet and the sensation of its presence had faded.

Until now.

And yet...

And yet Stanley Broadmarsh was hardly the kind of man prone to indulging in ridiculous tales. He was a carpenter by trade and he'd spent his entire life dealing with practical matters, with wood and nails and joists and things that he could touch and see. The idea of a flying severed finger somehow going down his throat was so preposterous that he couldn't quite believe he was giving it a moment's thought. In fact, after a few seconds he realized that he simply had to put the whole absurd idea out of his mind.

Even as he felt cold sweat starting to run down his face, he forced himself to start laughing.

A finger.

A severed finger.

A two-hundred-year-old rotten severed finger flying through the air.

“Bullshit,” he chuckled, just as he felt a sharp digging pain somewhere deep in his belly. Reaching out, he put a hand against the wall so that he could gain a little extra support. “Absolute top-grade manure.”

He swallowed hard, but the digging sensation was becoming stronger and he could no longer even attempt to laugh. A moment later he felt something moving in his gut, as if something small but fast had turned around. Gritting his teeth, he tried again to chuckle, but this time the task was much harder. The pain in his belly was shifting constantly and almost wriggling over to one side. He told himself again and again that there was no reason to worry, but slowly he was starting to feel something pushing against one side of his stomach.

From the inside.

“Bullshit,” he said again, but now he lifted the front of his shirt so that he could prove this sentiment. “Get your head together, man, you're no -”

Suddenly he saw it: something was indeed pushing from inside his gut, forcing the skin to bulge just to one side of his belly button. He reached down and tried to push the protuberance back in, but this only succeeded in making the pain sharper. Still, he told himself that he had to keep trying, so he pushed again – this time while attempting to ignore the pain.

Letting out a gasp, he pushed harder still.

“Come on,” he said under his breath, “you're not -”

In that moment the flesh on his belly began to split on one side and the rotten finger's broken tip pushed out, glistening as blood dripped from the wound. Stan only had a couple of seconds in which to stare at the absurd sight, however, before it retracted back into his body, leaving blood to dribble down to the waist of his trousers.

He tried to step forward, but his knees instantly buckled and he slammed down hard against the kitchen floor. As the pain in his gut became stronger, he felt as if something was now burrowing its way higher up and grinding against his spine. He felt a moment of resistance, as if this 'something' was struggling, before the sensation switched and he suddenly felt as if he could barely breathe.

“Please,” he whimpered, no longer worrying about what should or should not be happening, only about what he could feel, “leave me alone. I didn't mean to hurt anyone, I only -”

Gasping again, he tipped his head back as he felt something large moving up through his neck. He tried several times to retch, but now he could barely breathe at all as he felt something sharp and ragged starting to scrape against the underside of his skull. As much as he tried to cling to the belief that none of this could actually be happening, he let out a faint whining sound as his ears filled with the sound of something scratching furiously against his skull.

With blood starting to pump up into the back of his throat, Stan tried to scream – but now he was too late. Instead his body began to shudder violently on the kitchen floor as his eyes rolled back in their sockets and he felt a sharp fingernail slowly wriggling its way through a deep crack just above his cheekbone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

As soon as he opened his mouth, Ronnie realized that his mouth was filled with the taste of stale whiskey. He stared for a moment at the high bright ceiling, and then he winced as he felt his head starting to throb with the pain of a hangover. And then, sitting up and propping himself on his elbows, he tried to work out what the hell had happened.

To his surprise, he found that he was in the upstairs bathroom. This was a particular surprise since his last memory was from the living room, where he'd pulled Harriet's favorite mirror from the wall and had then dropped it, shattering the glass everywhere. After that the night was something of a blur, and he knew from bitter experience that he was unlikely to have much luck if he tried to piece it all together.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured, sitting up and leaning over the toilet, then gasping and pulling back as he saw that he'd vomited at some point during the night and then hadn't flushed. “Ronnie Anderson, you utter moron, you did it again.”

Checking his watch, he saw that the time was a little before seven in the morning. That was both good and bad: good because it meant he had time to freshen up and clean the house before Harriet was going to call, and bad because he desperately wanted to just crawl into bed and spend the rest of the day sleeping off his little bender. As he began to haul himself up from his position on the bathroom floor he felt his tired bones and aching muscles complaining bitterly about the positions in which they'd been forced to spend the night, and when he looked in the mirror he saw his hungover face staring back with shame filling his eyes.

“You idiot,” he groaned. “You're hanging.”

He took a moment to splash some water onto his face – which in truth did absolutely nothing to make him feel any better – and then he turned and began to shuffle out of the bathroom while starting to peel himself out of his clothes. And then, as he reached the door to the bedroom, he stopped suddenly.

Ahead, he saw a perfectly innocuous spot just to one side of the foot of the bed. There was nothing wrong with this patch of space, no hint of anything bad, yet Ronnie couldn't help but feel as if something untoward had happened in that exact place. At the same time, reaching up, he realized that his throat and neck muscles were sore; he tried to put the sensation down to the exertion of vomiting, yet deep down he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else amiss. And then, shuffling to his wife's make-up table and peering into her mirror, he noticed something he'd missed earlier.

Several bruises had developed on his neck, seemingly marking points where he'd been... attacked?

“What the...”

The more he stared at his reflection, the more he felt as if he'd forgotten something important, something that had happened during the night. A moment later, as a niggling sense of concern began to ripple through his mind, he slowly turned and looked at the doorway, and he felt as if perhaps...

No.

No, there was no way.

In the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, he could see Andrea standing there, but he knew there was no way she'd been in the house during the night. He still hurried over and looked out onto the landing, and he told himself that any image of Andrea had simply been down to a dream – or rather, a nightmare. Leaning back against the side of the door, he took a deep breath as another image began to reach his mind. He turned and looked at the bed, and now he was struck by the memory of a naked dark-haired woman standing just a few feet away.

“Mate, you're losing it,” he told himself out loud finally, slowly shaking his head. “You need to stay off the sauce, because you are losing it big time.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Once he'd tidied the house and removed the mess of the broken mirror, Ronnie began to drive into the village so that he could pick up a few things to make the place better for Harriet's return. He still wasn't quite sure how he was going to explain some of the damage, but he was starting to think that he'd simply have to come clean and admit that he'd 'enjoyed' a night on the whiskey.

His head was throbbing and he wasn't even sure that he was quite safe to drive, but as he turned slowly around a corner and saw the village green ahead he told himself that he just had to get things done. There was no need to -

Suddenly a shape flashed out into the road, forcing him to slam his foot on the brake pedal with such urgency that he barely brought the car to a juddering halt in time.

Ahead, a young boy had stopped and was staring back at him with a calm and strangely knowing expression.

“I almost hit you!” Ronnie yelled, and now he could feel his heart pounding.

He waited, but the kid seemed perfectly content to simply stand there, still blocking the way.

“Go on, then,” Ronnie continued, waving for the boy to get out of the way. “What's wrong with you? You were in enough of a hurry when you darted out like that, you little -”

Before he could finish, the boy turned and raced away, hurtling along the street and quickly disappearing around another corner.

“Little bastards,” Ronnie said under his breath, driving a little more slowly this time and constantly watching out for the threat of more near-suicidal children. “And it'd be me who'd get the blame if I flattened one of them, of course. Just because I've got a bit of whiskey on my breath still.”

Reaching the green, he pulled over and brought the car to a standstill before climbing out. With disheveled hair and a uniform of football top and jogging bottoms, he'd certainly made no effort to hide his hungover state. As he pushed the car door shut and began to make his way toward the shop, he was trying to figure out exactly what Harriet might want once she arrived home.

A moment later, as he reached the door, he spotted a familiar figure being wheeled along the street.

The sight of the old man, still wrapped up tight in various shawls and with his face completely hidden, immediately made Ronnie feel uncomfortable. He slowed his pace a little as he reached the shop, and he couldn't help but turn and watch as the man was wheeled past by a woman who he assumed must be his nurse; the old man, in turn, turned his head as if keeping an eye on Ronnie, but soon the nurse had wheeled the chair out of sight.

Once he was sure the man had gone, Ronnie stepped into the shop and tried to tell himself that there was really no need to be concerned. After all, wasn't it nice that the old geezer was being aired out so early in the morning?

“Morning,” he muttered to the ever-present guy behind the counter, who murmured something similar in return.

By the time he got to the aisles, Ronnie realized that he'd forgotten a basket, but he figured there was no point going back to collect one now. Instead he began to make his way around the shop, balancing items in his arms in an increasingly impressive display that threatened to fail at any moment; he almost dropped several things, and as he reached the freezer section at the back he was already starting to think that perhaps he'd made a mistake. Still, he managed to balance a couple of frozen pizzas on top of his collection, and he figured that this would do for now.

After grabbing a carton of milk, which he just about managed to carry by hooking the handle over his little finger, he turned to go back to the counter.

“What -”

In his haste, he almost slammed straight into the man in the wheelchair, who was now bringing himself to a half in the middle of the aisle. The first thing Ronnie noticed was that the man was now without his nurse, and the second thing he noticed was a pair of impossibly ancient bare hands that had apparently been turning the wheels with some force. The man was clearly out of breath, meanwhile, and for a moment Ronnie could only look around as he wondered exactly where the nurse had gone.

“Please,” the old man gasped, barely able to get any words out. “Hurry...”

“You what?” Ronnie replied. “Mate, I'm sorry, do you want me to fetch -”

“I was wrong!” the old man continued, reaching up and pulling at the shawls and scarf covering his face. “I made a terrible mistake but now she's going to make another one, and it's going to be even more catastrophic!”

“I really don't know what you're talking about,” Ronnie said, “but -”

“I was an evil, cruel man,” the figure in the wheelchair continued breathlessly. “I expect nothing less than eternal damnation for my sins, and I would not accept mercy even if it were to be offered. But I have had two hundred years of pain and misery in this form, and that would be enough to cause any man to repent.”

“Right,” Ronnie said cautiously, feeling relieved as he saw the panicked-looking nurse entering the shop. “Listen, your buddy's here so -”

“It's a trap!” the man added, finally pulling the shawl away to reveal his aged face, with areas of skin that had worn thin to reveal shiny patches on the skull beneath. “They think she doesn't know that they're coming, but of course she does!”

Although he opened his mouth to reply, Ronnie wasn't quite sure what to say. The nurse, meanwhile, was running along the aisle in a desperate attempt to reach them both, but as she reached the start of the freezer section she slipped and clattered down hard against the tiled floor. When she tried to get up, she slipped again; for a moment she seemed trapped in some kind of cartoonish trap that was holding her back.

“Her powers reach further than any of us knew,” the old man gasped, shaking slightly now as if the mere effort of talking so much was becoming too much. “If I could see her one more time, I would beg for her forgiveness even though I know it would never be granted. In truth, I'm glad we missed that finger. She deserves to rise again.”

“I really don't know what you mean,” Ronnie said, before remembering the rotten severed finger he and his wife had found a few times in the house. “Wait, is this anything to do with -”

“She's not evil,” the old man groaned. “We just made her angry, that's all. I can only hope that if we learn our lessons and leave her alone, her anger will subside. But Doctor Monkholm is going about this all the wrong way and -”

“There we are!” the nurse said breathlessly, finally reaching him and putting a hand on his shoulder, then starting to wrap the shawls tightly around his head again. “Father Mertyn, you can move quickly when you want to. Did you send me into the post office specifically so that you could do a runner like this?”

She looked up at Ronnie and smiled with big, discolored teeth.

“I'm sorry, I hope he hasn't been bothering you,” she said, clearly panicking slightly as she turned the chair around and began to push it back along the aisle. “What have we told you about bothering people, Father Mertyn?” she continued. “We're going to have to have another talk about this, aren't we? I'm just surprised you managed to make it all this way. You've got some strength in you sometimes, haven't you? Especially in the mornings.”

Left standing alone, and feeling utterly bemused, Ronnie could only watch as the nurse wheeled the old man out of the shop. The man had certainly said some strange things, but in his addled state Ronnie was barely able to think straight at all. Finally, dismissing the whole incident, he told himself that he simply needed to make sure that he was ready for Harriet's return from the hospital.

Chapter Thirty

“So it sounds like the regeneration was a complete success,” Ronnie said as he helped Harriet out of the car a few hours later. “Or... what did they call it, again? Recycling?”

“Replantation,” she replied tentatively, clearly still feeling weak as she leaned against the door for a moment and looked toward the house.

“Yeah, that's it, replantation,” he continued, still trying to seem bright and cheerful despite the headache that was only getting worse. “They reckon that after about six months, you should have up to three quarters of the use of your finger back. That'll be nice, eh?”

“What happened?” she asked, staring at the house.

“Eh?”

“While I was away,” she said softly. “What happened here?”

Turning, he looked at the house, worried that he might have missed some of the markings that had been painted on the place. He'd spent a good couple of hours scrubbing them away, and to his relief now he realized that there was absolutely no sign of them at all. He tried to work out what else Harriet might have seen, and then when he turned to her again he saw that she was furrowing her brow.

“Nothing,” he said tentatively. “Well, actually... there was one thing you might notice when you get inside.”

She turned to look at him.

He opened his mouth to tell the truth, but at the last second he realized that he hated the idea of letting her down. After all, he'd promised to ease back on the booze once they left London; at the first opportunity, however, he'd broken that promise.

“Badgers,” he said finally.

“Badgers?”

“You're never gonna believe this,” he continued, “but I woke up in the night and I could hear the most godawful crashing sound downstairs. Anyway, I ran down thinking it must be burglars, but two great big bastard badgers had somehow got inside. I must've left the back door open, and I think they were panicking. Anyway, they went on a big of a rampage but I managed to get 'em out in the end. Which was lucky, 'cause apparently they can be pretty vicious if they're cornered.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“They knocked over a whiskey bottle,” he went on, forcing a smile. “Can you believe that? So if you notice a smell and a stain on the rug, that's them. Oh, and they also managed to knock down your favorite mirror, but don't worry, I'm gonna get some new glass for it. They caused some other damage as well, but most of it's minor and I've cleaned a lot of it away. To be honest, I'm glad you weren't here for it because you'd have been properly freaked out.”

“Badgers?” she replied. “Badgers... knocked down my mirror?”

He nodded.

“The one that was... hanging in the living room? On the wall?”

“They must've climbed up,” he told her. “Listen, I don't know the ins and outs of it all, but they're gone now and I know to lock the back door properly at night.” Reaching out, he took hold of her arm, while looking once more at her heavily bandaged hand. “I've tried to make the place extra nice for you, though. Why don't you come inside and I'll treat you like a princess for the day, eh?”

Chapter Thirty-One

“Like I said,” he called through from the kitchen, “I cleaned up most of the damage and I'll get the rest done this afternoon. And I've already found a guy online who lives about thirty miles away, he should be able to fix the mirror. And don't worry, there shouldn't be any lasting mess. You can't smell badger piss anywhere, can you?”

Sitting in a chair in the living room, Harriet opened her mouth to answer him – before taking a moment to sniff. Leaning over one arm of the chair, she looked down at the rug and sniffed again.

“Maybe,” she whispered.

“It was a right kerfuffle, I'll tell you that,” he yelled. “Can you imagine me, running around stark bollock naked while trying to chase two badgers out of the house? I'm lucky neither of them took a big bite out of my todger. That would've made the headlines, right? The papers'd love a story about a man getting his todger bitten off by a badger. Then we'd both be needing that replantation surgery or whatever they call it.”

She could hear him chuckling away to himself now, but after a few seconds she slowly turned and looked out into the hallway.

Once she'd arrived at the hospital, she'd very quickly stopped talking about the real reason she'd chopped off one of her own fingers. The last thing she'd wanted was to end up talking to psychiatrists again, so she'd begun to claim that the whole thing had simply been a gory accident. Even Ronnie, who'd heard her rambling about a woman who'd 'made' her sever the finger, had stopped asking – most likely because he too was worried about sparking a whole heap of fresh trouble.

And yet...

And yet she remembered the woman so clearly.

“Just press the blade gently against your finger,” the woman's voice had purred softly into her ear. “It won't hurt, not really. It'll just be like a little scratch, that's all. And I promise you, once it's done, you'll feel so much better.”

As much as she'd tried to fight back against the voice, there had been a moment – just a brief moment – when she'd believed everything it was telling her. And that moment had been enough for her to slice the cleaver down, cutting the finger off with one clean movement. The doctors had told her later that this had been key, that by performing such a clean separation she'd made it so much easier for them to reattach the finger.

Now, as she looked down at her bandaged hand and thought of the finger, she wondered exactly why it had been reattached. Hadn't she wanted it gone? Hadn't she made that fact very clear? As far as she recalled now, there had been no real discussion of the matter; everyone had simply assumed that she wanted to have her finger back. And as much as she had no idea why she felt so uncertain, she could feel the same sensation bubbling away in the pit of her belly now, almost as if some force in the house wanted her to rip the damn thing away again.

“Harriet?”

Startled, she almost jumped out of her skin as she turned and found that Ronnie was standing next to her chair.

“You were a million miles away,” he chuckled, setting a plate of jam on toast next to her. “I brought your favorite through. I thought you could use some comfort food.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, watching as he sat on the sofa opposite. “Ronnie, while I was in the hospital -”

“I think I got rid of the badger stink, right?” he replied, cutting her off.

“Sure,” she said, “but Ronnie... while I was away, and you had the place to yourself for the night, did you... hear or see anything odd?”

“Apart from a pair of rampaging badgers, you mean?” he chuckled, clearly trying to avoid the question.

“Ronnie, I'm being serious,” she continued, not wanting to address the situation directly but still keen to work out whether the strange woman had existed entirely in her own head. “Just humor me, okay? I know I probably sound crazy, but I just really need to know for sure. Apart from the badgers...”

She hesitated, wondering whether she'd really just said those words out loud.

“Apart from the badgers,” she went on, “how was your night?”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yeah, just fine,” he said with a shrug, before taking a long sip from a glass of water that – somewhat uncharacteristically – he'd brought through from the kitchen. “Nothing to report. I missed you, though. Is that what you're driving at? I missed you like crazy, so don't go cutting off any other digits, okay? Once can be considered unfortunate, but twice... I dunno, twice might make me start to worry.”

“Ronnie, just before I cut my finger off I -”

“There's no need to get into the past,” he said firmly. “I told you I wasn't gonna nag you about it, right? So let's just focus on staying well – both physically and mentally – and that way we can look toward the future.”

He watched her for a moment, almost as if he was trying to read her mind.

“There's no need to start getting into weird shit,” he added, a little more firmly this time. “We don't want to destabilize anything. We moved out here to the countryside for a change and to get our lives back on the right track. That's what we need to focus on right now. Anything else is just noise.”

She opened her mouth to ask him if he was sure that nothing had happened while she was away – since she felt sure that she could sense something in the air, something that had nothing to do with a pair of rogue badgers – but a moment later she felt a sense of nausea stirring in the pit of her belly.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“The meds,” she replied, getting to her feet and hurrying toward the bathroom. “I think the side effects from those meds just started kicking in!”

Chapter Thirty-Two

“And do you know exactly what the old duffer said to Mr. Anderson?” Andrea asked, standing at the window in the little workshop behind her cottage, staring out at the yard.

“I'm sorry,” Bea replied, “I had enough trouble finding him. I didn't think he could get more than a few feet under his own steam. None of us thought he could do that. I still don't quite get how he made it all the way back along the street and into the village shop.”

“Sometimes people find unexpected strength,” Andrea said softly, as she spotted Father Mertyn sitting slumped in his chair near the yard's main gate, “when they're truly motivated. The toll can be immense, though. If it had been anyone else, I'd be worried that he might not recover.”

Looking down, she saw that she'd almost managed to remove all the modeling clay from the scalpel.

“It won't happen again,” Bea continued. “He's a slippery old bugger, though, isn't he? I've got to admit, he lulled me into a false sense of security with all his -”

“That's fine,” Andrea said, turning to her suddenly, still holding the scalpel. “You've obviously had a stressful morning. I'm sure that playing nurse for Father Mertyn isn't easy, so why don't you take a couple of hours off and come back for him around lunchtime?”

“Are... are you sure?” Bea asked cautiously. “You've never offered to look after him before.”

“Well, I'm offering now, aren't I?” Andrea replied with a saintly smile. “It's the least I can do. You know, Bea, I think that I – like everyone else here in Wragglesford – might have been guilty of overlooking your struggles. I suppose we all thought that since Father Mertyn is usually so docile, he wasn't going to cause you very much trouble.”

“Oh, you don't know the half of it,” Bea said, grabbing her bag and heading toward the front door. “That man can be extremely stubborn. I'll take you up on your kind offer, Andrea, and if it's alright I'll come back and collect him at about half twelve. I've got so many things I need to do in the village, and then I just want to sit at the tea shop and enjoy a nice relaxing cup by myself for once. It's been an age since I got to do that.”

“Enjoy your tea,” Andrea said, waiting patiently as she heard Bea hurrying away. “You've earned it.”

Finally the front door opened and swung shut, and Andrea realized that she was alone. She took a deep breath before looking down at the scalpel, and then she turned and looked at the door that led into the yard.

Chapter Thirty-Three

“You've been a busy boy this morning, haven't you?” she said a couple of minutes later, carrying the scalpel out into the yard and slowly making her way over to Father Mertyn's chair. “Bea has just been filling me in on the details. You know, you should be a little nice to your poor dear nurse. Do you truly understand just how much she does for you every day?”

Stopping in front of the chair, she looked down at him and realized that he hadn't responded at all, that he barely even seemed to be conscious.

“If you were anyone else,” she continued, “I'd be worried now. I'd be thinking that all that exertion had finally done you in, and that your little ticker had stopped beating. But that's simply not possible, Father Mertyn, is it? It's not possible because for two centuries now, the sheer force of Scarlet's hatred has been keeping you alive. Do you remember our little experiments? The ones I insisted were so necessary when we first met? I needed to be sure that you really couldn't die and, well, we certainly proved that little hypothesis, didn't we? Over and over again.”

Again she waited for an answer, before slowly making her way closer and pulling the shawls away, revealing his ruined face. His eyes were almost closed, as if he had nearly managed to attain the sleep he so desperately craved, but his bottom lip was quivering and Andrea knew full well that he could hear her.

“I've never hurt a soul before,” she told him. “I know you might find that difficult to believe, but it's true. I was always such a good person before I came to Wragglesford. But then I met you, Father Mertyn, and I learned of your history. You riled up that mob and led them out to that house beyond the edge of the village, and you executed Scarlet Carruthers in the most agonizing way you could imagine. I bet you really enjoyed that, didn't you? She was quite an attractive young woman. I bet that made it extra enjoyable for you... as you and your little army dismembered her naked body. Tell me, did you save the more delicate parts for yourself?”

As if in response, Father Mertyn let out a faint groan accompanied by a gentle turn of the head, but he could manage no more than this.

“So we've established,” Andrea continued, holding the scalpel up and then slowly stepping around until she was standing behind him, “that you're pure evil. A witch hunter, no less. You're almost a caricature, Father Mertyn. You're a wicked man of the cloth who abused his position of authority and used faith as a tool for torture. There's nobody in this world who would feel even a smidgen of sympathy for you. And that, in turn, means that I can do anything I fancy to you without having to feel bad.”

Reaching down, she touched the side of his face with the scalpel's blade.

“For I am righteous,” she murmured, “and the righteous need never apologize. I've never read the Bible, Father Mertyn, but I'm sure there must be a passage in there that says something similar.”

“Wait,” he murmured.

“Oh, so you're talking now?” she said, raising an amused eyebrow. “I hoped I might get some kind of reaction out of you eventually. The point is, you're probably one of the most evil people in this world. Even your god, the god you believe in, would cast you down into the fires of Hell. So I can do anything I want to you, and I don't even have to feel guilty. I'm simply avenging a woman you killed all those years ago, and what could possibly be more righteous than that? By your actions, you've given good people like me carte blanche to do whatever we want.”

She began to slowly drag the scalpel's blade down his cheek.

“How many times over have you been killed?” she sneered. “How many times should you have died, only for Scarlet's powers to keep you wedded to this world of pain? She must have gone to at least some effort to make that happen, so it would seem almost churlish of me to not take advantage. It's so rare for truly good people to be in a position where they're allowed to hurt others. I always so enjoy punishing you.”

“You're...”

She waited for him to manage another word.

“...making...”

“Yes?” she replied quickly. “What am I making, you old fart?”

“...the...”

She watched the side of his face carefully.

“...same...”

“Oh, the same mistake as you?” she said. “Is that what you're going to tell me again? Well, you can save your rather foul-smelling breath on that score, because you've told me already and I've countered with my explanation of why you're wrong.”

She moved the scalpel's blade down to his chest.

“I always enjoy this part of our little sessions,” she continued, “and the best part is knowing that there are no consequences. Because no matter what I do to you, no matter what so-called cruelties I dream up, you still can't die. You can feel pain, though. I'm sure you can feel pain more keenly than anyone else. Isn't that just splendid?”

He tried to say something else, but in that moment Andrea stabbed the blade into his chest with such venom that her fist banged hard against his body. Quickly pulling the blade out, she stabbed him again – then again and again, each time finding a different spot as she slowly moved down to his belly and began to stab him in the gut. Now the old man's body was jerking heavily under the force of each impact, but the smile on Andrea's face only grew wider as she started stabbing him in the crotch instead.

After that she attacked his thighs, then his arms, before finally ramming the blade several times into the side of his neck. As the old man tilted his head back and let out a succession of forced grunts, Andrea even began to drive the blade up into the underside of his jaw.

“Don't worry,” she cooed, evidently enjoying herself a great deal, “you'll heal soon enough. Pain is only temporary, remember? But the curse Scarlet Carruthers put on you... that curse is eternal. So all you can really do is try to enjoy the ride!”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Upstairs in the bedroom, Ronnie was snoring loudly.

Standing in the darkened hallway, having waited until she was certain that her husband had fallen asleep, Harriet looked around at the shadows and waited to see whether the strange naked woman might emerge. She knew deep down that making contact wouldn't be that easy, yet she also felt sure that she had to be close, that the entity – whatever it might actually be – had to be still in the house.

“I need answers,” she said finally, breaking the silence after several minutes. “I know... I think... that you're real. If you are, can you please let me know somehow?”

She waited, but all she heard was a gentle wind blowing outside, rustling the trees. A few panes of glass were shuddering in the old living room windows, but otherwise there was nothing particularly spooky about the situation. After a few seconds, wondering whether this lack of spookiness might actually be the problem, Harriet stepped over to the wall and switched the lights off, plunging the hallway into darkness.

Better.

Now the atmosphere seemed much more welcoming for a ghost.

“I want to know why you did it,” she said, walking slowly to the double doors leading into the living room. “I want to know why you got into my head and made me cut off my finger. I could feel you, I could hear you and I was powerless to resist. I knew it was wrong but at the same time it just seemed so right.”

Again she waited.

The silence all around her was now more silent than ever.

“I was pushing back,” she continued. “I don't know if you could feel that, but I was really trying not to do it. And then Ronnie came and distracted me, and I lost my focus for just one second and...”

Holding her bandaged hand up, she thought of the finger underneath. She hadn't actually seen the results of her injury yet, not even in photographs, but she was imagining thick stitches holding the severed digit in place and probably reddened skin with traces of blood. Part of her wanted to peel the bandages aside and take a look, but the doctor had specifically warned her against that and she knew she should follow his orders. Besides, she was going back to have the finger checked after the weekend so she figured that she would finally force herself to look then.

And the pain-killers were doing their job. She assumed that she'd be in a lot of pain without some serious medication.

“Is it to do with the finger I saw?” she asked. “Is -”

Before she could finish, she heard a brief clicking sound over her shoulder. She turned and looked across the darkened hallway, and now the 'clicking' seemed more like a persistent light tap. After a few seconds she spotted the culprit: one branch of a bush outside the front door was blowing in the wind and tapping repeatedly against the window.

She couldn't help but smile, amused by how easily she'd been startled.

“Just a -”

Suddenly a sharp pain sliced up through her chest. Letting out a gasp, she stumbled back; she tried to reach out and support herself against the doors, but instead she tumbled down and landed hard on the sofa. As the pain twisted and turned, she clenched her teeth and looked up at the ceiling, and finally she opened her mouth to call out to Ronnie – all she could manage, however, was a series of guttural gasps.

Finally, slowly, the pain subsided.

Already sweating slightly, Harriet forced herself to sit up. The pain had been intense but it was over now, and although she was breathless and more than a little terrified, she told herself that there was no need to overreact. So long as it was just a one-off, there was no point even mentioning it to Ronnie. He'd already been through so much and the last thing she wanted was to worry him again.

As she waited to feel better, she failed to notice the dark figure sitting in a chair in the corner, watching her from the room's deepest shadows.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I know you're out there,” Andrea said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her workshop as she watched the candle flickering nearby. “I also know that you can hear me. Even from that house, you can reach out. I've seen proof of that.”

Surrounded by various symbols that Andrea had scrawled on the floor using white chalk, the candle briefly looked set to die, only to quickly return to full force.

“I must admit,” Andrea continued, “that I have struggled to understand my own motivations. At first I thought I merely wanted to banish you, and then I thought that I wanted to study you and control you. But now I see another opportunity. I think you understand that I'm getting to the heart of your powers. I'm not like Father Mertyn and his idiotic followers, I'm not one of those small-minded know-nothings who merely wished to destroy something they couldn't understand. I'm a scientist at heart and I want to peel back your layers until I reach your core.”

The candle flickered again; as much as she wanted to avoid reading too much into such things, she couldn't help but wonder whether this was some further manifestation of Scarlet's presence.

“So I'm proposing a deal,” she explained. “A deal between two powerful women who want similar things, and who can achieve those things without getting in each other's way. I want to learn your powers and wield them myself. If you teach them to me, then in return I am willing to assist you in gaining revenge for all the wrongs that were committed against you.”

As if on cue, she heard drunk voices in the distance. She looked over at the window and listened as a gaggle of men made their way home from the Goose & Porter; they were discussing something merrily, slurring their words as they walked right past the window.

“They haven't changed that much,” Andrea purred. “People never do. A good orator could still whip them up into a frenzy and turn them against you. Or against anyone who held your powers. That's why they need to be taught a proper lesson, so I'm proposing to help you... and to make them pay the ultimate price. For their banality and idiocy and mindless cruelty, their entire village should be destroyed. I'm offering to help you wipe Wragglesford off the map completely. Let there be nothing here but dirt.”

She waited for an answer. Although the candle continued to flicker, it offered no clear-cut answer either way.

“I know you can hear me,” she said again. “I also know that you're protecting the people who live in your old house. Why is that? Ronnie and Harriet Anderson are just typical London shits who've moved out to start a new life in the countryside. There's nothing interesting or novel or worthwhile about them. He's a wannabe playboy who's settled down for a rural life and she's some slaggy whore who obviously decided to settle for a husband who can flash the cash. They're worthless, pathetic people and the world would probably be a better place if they dropped dead.”

She waited again, giving Scarlet ample opportunity to appear and offer a response.

“So why did you attack Stanley and I when we went over there? And I heard about Stanley's death, by the way. You can't tell me you had nothing to do with that, yet...”

She thought for a moment, remembering the sight of Ronnie struggling for breath.

“You weren't protecting him, were you?” she continued. “If we hadn't shown up, would you have killed him? It's her you're protecting. It's Harriet. Then why did you apparently direct her to sever her own finger? None of this makes a lot of -”

Before she could finish, she heard a scratching sound coming from somewhere over her shoulder. She hesitated, wondering whether some of her earlier suspicions might be coming true, and then she turned. She immediately looked at the dark space under one of her benches, and as the scratching sound continued she realized that it was being caused by a rat or a mouse or...

After a few seconds, she was just about able to make out something moving in the shadows.

“It's you, isn't it?” she whispered. “You took our that idiot Stanley and now you've stuck around so you can try to -”

Suddenly the rotten finger shot out from beneath the bench, aiming straight for Andrea's face. She froze for a fraction of a second, but then she held up her right hand, exposing a symbol she'd carved into her own palm with a knife. As soon as the finger got close to the symbol, it skitted away and hit a nearby wall before dropping down out of sight behind some more benches.

“Did you think I'd be unprotected?” Andrea sneered. “I offered you an olive branch, a chance to work together, but I knew full well that you probably wouldn't take it.”

She looked down at her palm; earlier in the day she'd carved a crude drawing of a rabbit's head, and while she hadn't been certain that it would work, she'd been fairly confident. Nearby, meanwhile, the candle briefly flared before dying out completely.

“Okay, Scarlet Carruthers,” Andrea said under her breath, unable to hide a sense of anticipation. “I offered you the chance to become my partner. Now, instead, you'll have to become my slave.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Harriet?” Ronnie said the following morning, standing on the landing and listening to the sound coming from the main bathroom. “Are you -”

Before he could finish, he heard her vomiting again – and he couldn't help but flinch.

She'd never been a quiet vomiter; after coming back from her countless nights out with 'the girls', she'd always ended up puking gallons of cheap shots in the toilet of their shared London flat. After she was done, she always asked him whether she'd made much noise; she seemed to be under the impression that she was quite discreet, when in fact she usually sounded like a character from The Exorcist. The only difference now was that Ronnie was fairly sure she hadn't been out on a bender.

“Harriet,” he continued as she briefly stopped being sick. “What's going on? Should I call someone? You've been in there for -”

She started puking again, and he shuddered as he heard the wretched sound that was emerging from his wife's throat. Sometimes he worried that she was going to cause herself some serious damage, although he knew that she could always be left to figure things out by herself. This time, however, he couldn't shake a slight worry that something else might be wrong. He vaguely remembered reading a poster at the hospital warning about the dangers of sepsis, and now he wondered whether she might have developed some kind of infection following the surgery.

“Harriet,” he said again, “if -”

“I'm fine!” she gasped.

“You don't sound fine.”

“Well, I am,” she continued, sounding a little short of breath. “It's the meds, that's all. I looked on the little booklet and it said nausea might be a side effect.”

“This is more than nausea,” he pointed out. “This is a Code Red chucking up.”

“Can you just let me get on with it?” she continued. “I'm sorry, but do you mind using the downstairs toilet? I don't know how long I'm gonna be in here, but I think it might be a while.”

“Yeah, alright,” he said, turning and heading toward the top of the stairs. “Just... let me know if it gets worse, okay? If you're still chucking up by lunchtime it might be worth calling the doctor to see about switching you to some different medication.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

On her knees in the bathroom, leaning over the toilet, Harriet stared in horror at the mess that was even now congealing and bubbling in the bowl.

As much as she'd tried to keep her cool and sound normal, she was still slightly surprised that Ronnie apparently hadn't sensed any real terror in her voice. Then again, he was always pretty drowsy in the morning, so she figured that he simply hadn't quite woken up properly yet. Part of her had wanted to call out to him, to ask him to break the door down and get her the hell out, but she was worried that he might only have ended up getting hurt.

All she wanted was for this nightmare to end.

“Please,” she whispered, still staring at the bloodied slop in the water. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Ten minutes earlier she'd wandered into the bathroom with no real concerns. Sure, her finger had felt slightly sore under the bandages, but all things considered that hadn't seemed like too much of a big deal and she'd woken up feeling fairly optimistic about the day ahead. She'd already taken her meds for the morning and then she'd brushed her teeth, and she'd started her morning ablutions while making plans to have a nice, relaxing breakfast with her husband.

And then the woman had appeared.

She'd seen her first in the mirror, reflected right behind her. Before she'd had a chance to react, the strange woman had grabbed the back of her neck, somehow freezing her in place and stopping her even turning around. As much as she'd wanted to escape, Harriet had understood in that moment that she was in the presence of something extremely powerful, and she hadn't even dared to cry.

Slowly the woman had pulled her away from the sink and had moved her to the toilet, before forcing her to kneel. At first there had been nothing in the bowl but water, but slowly that water had become murkier as blood had seemingly begun to leak up from the plumbing. As if that hadn't been bad enough, soon the blood had been joined by what looked like scraps of thicker matter, accompanied even by pieces of dark coiled hair. The smell had begun to build, filling Harriet's nostrils and almost burning the insides, but she'd been powerless to even look away as the toilet bowl had filled and filled with more blood and guts.

Then, somehow, everything had become even worse.

With the woman's hand still on the back of her neck, Harriet had been unable to stop her mouth opening. Finally some of the bloodied slop from the bowl had risen up, sloughing into her mouth and nostrils and forcing its way back until it ran down her throat. In some brief terrified moment she'd realized that in effect she was vomiting backwards, that everything from the toilet was bursting into her body with such increasing force that the pain was excruciating. She'd tried to cry out, she'd tried to scream, but every convulsion just led to more of the rich, bloodied mixture pouring into her body. Once of twice the hand on her neck had even pulled back, tilting her head so that the foul juice ran faster down into her stomach.

Sometimes the strands of hair caught on her teeth, stretching back along her tongue but always breaking eventually.

Finally Ronnie, stirred by what sounded like ordinary vomiting, had knocked on the door.

“Are you okay in there?” he'd asked. “Harriet? It sounds like you're chucking up.”

The hand on the back of her neck had eased slightly, and in that moment she'd understood that she was being allowed to answer. She'd also understood that her answer had to be a very specific one, and that she was under no circumstances to tell him what was really happening. Not knowing the potential consequences of disobeying, she'd decided that her only option was to try to save him – and to save herself too – by doing whatever the woman wanted.

“I'm fine!” she'd gasped.

“You don't sound fine,” he'd replied, sounding increasingly concerned.

“Well, I am,” she'd said again, staring up into the eyes of the strange dead woman and seeing nothing but pure hatred staring back. “It's the meds, that's all. I looked on the little booklet and it said nausea might be a side effect.”

“This is more than nausea. This is a Code Red chucking up.”

“Can you just let me get on with it?” she'd continued, hoping that by getting rid of him she might make the woman show a little mercy. “I'm sorry, but do you mind using the downstairs toilet? I don't know how long I'm gonna be in here, but I think it might be a while.”

“Yeah, alright,” he'd replied before turning and walking away.

She'd heard him still talking as he'd headed downstairs, but now she could only continue to stare up at the woman who – in turn – was watching her with pure hatred in her eyes.

“Please,” Harriet whispered now, as a trickle of blood ran down her chin, “I don't know why you're doing this to me. I don't even know who you are.”

She waited, hoping against hope for some kind of answer.

“I'll do anything you want,” she continued. “Anything at all, you just have to tell me what it is. And in return... in return, can't you just leave us alone? Both of us, I mean. We're not bad people, we just... we moved into this house, that's all, we didn't know that there was anything here. We don't want to cause you any trouble, if we're... if we're intruding in any way, you can just tell us and we can leave.”

The dead woman slowly tilted her head to one side slightly, as if she was actually listening.

“We'd just need to get the money back we paid for the place,” Harriet added. “Plus our mortgage fees were pretty high, I told Ronnie to shop around for a better broker but he insisted on using this guy he knows from the snooker club and -”

Letting out an angry snarl, the woman forced Harriet's face back down into the toilet. In that moment an even greater torrent of blood and other matter burst up into Harriet's mouth and nostrils, forcing a way through and down into her throat before continuing the journey deeper into her body. And as much as Harriet tried to cry out, she could only shudder violently as she even began to feel clumps of harsh hair digging inside her, scratching at the very back of her nose before wriggling down into her mouth and joining the rush of blood that even now was filling her up entirely.

All the while, the dead woman was watching intently, as if this was something that absolutely needed to happen. As if this was the fulfillment of some hideous destiny.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“Are you sure you're alright?” Ronnie asked as he stood at the kitchen counter, spooning yogurt and cereal from a bowl. “You don't look alright. And those sounds you were making in the bathroom up there were positively apocalyptic. It sounded like you were gonna vomit up your own skull.”

“I'm fine,” she murmured, barely paying attention as she continued to scan through the list of potential side effects for her new meds. “I just -”

Before she could finish, she spotted the exact word she'd been looking for.

“Hallucinations,” she whispered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” she replied, quickly setting the piece of paper down.

Taking a deep breath, she told herself that everything was going to be okay. Sure, she felt as if she truly had just ingested a toilet bowl's worth of blood and other organic matter – possibly even including a tooth at one point – but now she was trying very hard to convince herself that the whole thing had been a figment of her imagination. She wasn't quite sure how to explain everything, but she figured that she was hardly in a position to unpick the complex workings of the human mind. She hadn't mentioned her excruciating experience in the bathroom to Ronnie and she wasn't particularly minded to do so, not now that she could plausibly convince herself that the entire thing had only occurred in her stressed, tired and medicated mind.

“Time to get back to normal,” she added under her breath.

“What was that?” he asked.

“I said, it's time to get back to normal,” she repeated, turning to him and somehow managing to drag a smile from the depths of her soul and plaster it across her mouth. “We haven't even been here for a week, and we're both going to start work again soon. Don't you think we should get out and about a bit?”

“I tried that,” he said dubiously. “I ended up seeing Andrea Monkholm naked on the village green. I haven't quite got over that yet.”

“Then let's go further,” she continued, getting to her feet, leaving her breakfast almost untouched. “I don't want to sit around the house all day, Ronnie, and end up feeling like some kind of big lump. I want to get out there, explore the countryside and see all the things we dreamed about when we first planned this move. Don't you think that sounds like fun?”

“What exactly do you wanna go and look at?” he asked.

“I don't know, that's the whole point,” she said, feeling more than a little frustrated now by his apparent reluctance. “We came here with so much momentum, Ronnie. I felt like we were going to put the past behind us and claim our new lives. Don't you want to hit the ground running and put this little false start behind us?”

“Let me finish my cereal and then I'll get my shoes,” he told her with a faint smile. “I'm glad you're back to your old self a bit, Harriet. Let's just try to keep all our digits attached this time.”

“No danger there,” she told him, before glancing out into the hallway to check that there was no sign of the strange woman. “But we've spent too much time cooped up in this house already. I want to get out for a few hours, and then when we get back later... I want to pretend like it's the first time again.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“It's a bit blowy out here!” Ronnie pointed out a couple of hours later, as they made their way along another remote footpath leading away from the spot where they'd parked. “If we're gonna turn into a pair of hikers, I think I need to invest in some proper gear.”

“It's beautiful,” she replied, stopping for a moment and looking all around. “It's everything I ever imagined and more.”

In every direction, as far as the eye could see, the rolling English countryside was a mix of different greens and yellows, with occasional plowed fields and distant forests. As much as she didn't want to slip into some kind of cliché, Harriet couldn't help taking a big, deep breath, and she imagined the air being so much cleaner and more refreshing than the grime back in London. As the wind untucked some strands of hair from behind her left ear and blew them in front of her face, she turned and looked the other way, and she realized that she could see for miles and miles without spotting more than one or two signs of human civilization.

“It's perfect,” she whispered, clasping her hands together. In that moment, she was so happy that she felt she might actually start crying. “This is what we came to find.”

“My ankles are bloody sore,” Ronnie said, struggling to catch up to her. After a moment he reached around and put his hands on her waist from behind. “Not that I'm complaining, though,” he added. “You're right, it's bloody amazing out here. Gonna blow a few cobwebs away for sure.”

He looked at the side of her face.

“Actually,” he continued, “I wanted to ask you about something. Just before you did that thing to your finger, you mentioned -”

“What's that?” she asked, pulling away and hurrying across a patch of rocky, uneven ground. “Ronnie, do you see it?”

“See what?” he replied, before figuring that he'd once again lost his moment. “I don't see a bloody thing.”

Ahead, Harriet had already reached what appeared to be a low rounded piece of old stone that was partially jutting out from the ground. Crouching down, she had to again move hair from across her face as she touched the stone and felt the thick grooves in its surface.

“It feels so old,” she exclaimed. “Ronnie, touch it. This thing must be hundreds and hundreds of years old.”

“Yeah, well, it looks pretty forgotten,” he said as he caught up to her again. “It's just some old rock, though.”

“Someone carved something into it,” she pointed out.

“Delightful.”

“Use your imagination a little,” she continued, and now the wind was picking up, loudly flapping the hood on the back of her jacket. “Hundreds of years ago – perhaps even longer ago than that – somebody went to great lengths to carve some kind of symbol on this rock. Why did they do it? They must have had a reason.”

“Maybe it was a road sign,” he suggested, although his tone of voice suggested that he wasn't particularly interested. “It's probably a warning about prehistoric speed cameras.”

Pulling her phone out, Harriet took a couple of photos of the rock.

“I bet it was more than that,” she told him. “This might be over a thousand years old, Ronnie. It might come from the days when people were completely different to us. Don't you find it amazing to imagine their lives?”

“I guess,” he admitted. “They probably just lived in the dirt, though. I don't think we've had enjoyed it very much.”

“I bet they were more connected to the world in certain ways, though,” she replied, sounding lost in thought as she once again ran her fingertips against the rock. “Sure, we've learned so much and invented so many things, but don't you ever wonder whether – in the process – we've forgotten stuff as well? Important stuff?”

“You're not turning into a hippie, are you?”

Rolling her eyes, she pressed the palm of her hand against the stone, enjoying the sensation of its smoothness. Again, she was reluctant to embrace a bunch of cliches, but in that moment she felt absolutely certain that this stone was something very ancient and that the grooves had been cut into its surface by someone who had once been very wise. She'd never been much into history – and she'd hated school lessons about the Second World Wars and the Romans and all that stuff – but for the first time in her life she felt a genuine connection to the past, almost as if some arcane and long-forgotten knowledge was reaching out to her across the centuries.

More than anything, she desperately wanted to know exactly who had made this carving, and why, and what it had all meant.

“I don't see many sheep,” Ronnie observed, turning and looking all around. “Aren't there supposed to be sheep? And what about cows? Where are all the cows?”

He thought for a moment.

“It's not because they fart too much, is it?” he added. “Wasn't there something in the news about that before Christmas? Weren't the cows farting too much? I don't see how a cow can fart too much, personally. They should be allowed to let 'em rip, if you ask me.”

He turned and looked the other way.

“I wonder where they all are.”

“We're connected to something ancient out here,” Harriet mused quietly, not even caring whether or not he heard her. “Something forgotten but... something important too. I can't help thinking that it might be a bad thing that we don't remember some of this stuff. What if people in the old days knew more than us after all?”

Chapter Forty

“What about this one?” she asked a while later, as they sat in a pub a few miles from home. “This looks like the carving on the rock.”

After zooming in, she turned the phone around so that Ronnie could see the crudely-drawn image.

“Yeah,” he said, half looking at the screen and half watching the door to the kitchen, “nice squiggle.”

“It's not a squiggle, Ronnie,” she complained, “it's an ancient example of forgotten knowledge.”

“I'm starting to think our food order's an example of forgotten knowledge,” he muttered, unable to hide a sense of frustration. “How long does it take to rustle up a steak and chips, anyway? I bet it's your chicken thing that's taking the time. You always wanna stick to the basics in a place like this, Harriet. As much as they style themselves as these fancy wannabe restaurants, good pub grub's the same everywhere. Slap a steak in the pan for three and a half minutes each side, dish up some chips and Bob's your uncle.”

He turned and looked over at the bar.

“Still, this place is better than that little boozer in Wragglesford. Trust us to rock up to live in a village that can't even manage a proper pub. Must be the only place in the country.”

“I really think this is the one,” she murmured, switching back to an enhanced view of the photo she'd taken earlier. “It's an ancient symbol that's believed to come from before the days of the Romans. Can you believe that? It's from a time more than two thousand years ago. No-one knows what it means, but similar symbols have been found in other places around the country that are believed to have been significant back then. Historians believe they're all linked to some mysterious group that lived here all those years ago. Before the Romans, before the Anglo-Saxons, before the Vikings, maybe even before the Druids...”

Her voice trailed off for a few seconds as she tried to make sense of everything she'd just read.

“What if it's connected to some kind of ancient energy?” she added.

“Do you think I should nudge 'em?”

“Just because we've forgotten this stuff,” she continued, “doesn't mean it's not real. And it doesn't mean it hasn't been there all this time, just lost in the background, waiting for people to rediscover it. What if some people are just more in tune with this kind of thing?”

She thought for a moment.

“And what if,” she added under her breath, “we call those people witches?”

“I'm gonna nudge 'em,” he said getting to his feet. “I'll ask for sauces while I'm at it. You fancy anything?”

“Some people might not even discover all of it,” she whispered, barely even noticing as he walked away toward the bar. “What if they just discovered a tiny part? And they might not understand it, they just work with the part they've uncovered. And that'd mean they're not really in control, they're just... messing with something they probably don't fully understand.”

She zoomed in a little closer, even though she felt as if she was already at the very edge of her ability to understand what she was actually seeing. In some ways she could almost sense her mind hitting the limits of its capabilities, and she wondered whether anyone could ever grasp much more.

“We're like ants trying to understand a nuclear reactor,” she said softly. “We haven't got a hope.”

Chapter Forty-One

“Okay,” Ronnie said as he followed Harriet into the house following the drive home, “I'll admit, once it arrived that steak was delicious. Perfectly cooked, too. I'm gonna have to make that place my new regular.”

“Something's different,” she replied, stopping in the middle of the hallway and looking all around. “What...”

Her voice trailed off.

“You didn't touch yours much,” he pointed out as he walked through into the living room. “Didn't fancy the chicken after all, eh? Now we're out of there you can tell the truth, yours wasn't much cop, was it?”

“It was fine,” she said, turning to look the other way. “Someone's been here, Ronnie, or... or someone's here now. I can't quite tell.”

She hesitated before taking a step back.

“If this is my last day off before I hit the grindstone again,” Ronnie called through from the living room, “I think I'm gonna put my feet up and watch a film. Are you up for that?”

“Maybe,” she replied, before wincing as she felt a tightening pain in the pit of her stomach.

Hearing a gurgling sound, she looked down. She'd felt a few discouraging pains during the drive home but she'd told herself she was simply imagining things – again – yet now she was starting to worry that something might actually be wrong. She hadn't mentioned anything to Ronnie since she knew that he'd just laugh and say the chicken was off, but now she was starting to worry that something was actually going on deep inside her belly. Sure enough, as if to underline that point, a moment later she heard a rumbling noise and she realized that she needed to get to the bathroom fast.

“Hang on!” she gasped, turning and racing up the stairs.

“You alright?” Ronnie asked, leaning past the edge of the sofa just in time to see her legs disappearing onto the landing. “Yeah? No?”

He waited, before leaning back and grabbing the remote control.

“I'm gonna take that as a no,” he continued, not seeming too worried as he began to flick through the various streaming services in search of something to watch. “You wanna stop choosing all this so-called healthy stuff all the time, it's never actually good for you in the end. Meat and a couple of veg, that's the -”

Before he could finish, he spotted the rotten severed finger on the floor nearby. He stared at it for a moment, not quite believing that it could be back, before looking toward the hallway as he suddenly heard Harriet vomiting upstairs.

“What the hell is going on in this place?” he muttered, tossing the remote control aside before getting to his feet and hurrying over to pick up the finger.

With that done, he held it up to the light and turned it round. As much as he'd insisted earlier that it had to be fake, now there was something about it that just looked a little more real and... moist. Swallowing hard, he moved the finger closer to his face and noticed dark smeared blood that appeared to be partially caked around the side of the blackened nail; he wasn't sure that he remembered anything like that being on the finger before, but he supposed it must have been there all along. Still, the sight was more than a little disconcerting and after a moment he dared to move the finger even closer so that he could sniff the stumpy end.

“Nasty,” he said under his breath, picking up a slightly stale aroma.

Upstairs, Harriet was vomiting louder than ever.

“So this is the kinda day it's gonna be, huh?” he sighed, heading through to the hallway and then opening the front door.

As he made his way out into the garden, he looked at the finger and tried to work out exactly how he was going to get rid of it for good. He'd already tried throwing it as far as possible and burying it deep in the ground, but a moment later he spotted the barbecue he'd brought along for the summer months so he hurried over and lifted the lid. Setting the finger down, he took a moment to douse it in lighter fluid and then he lit a match.

“Sorry, little fella,” he said, convinced that this time he was going to be successful. “You've gotta understand, though, I can't have you wriggling around all the time. You'll set Harriet off something rotten. You look like you used to belong to some old crone.”

He hesitated for a moment before dropping the match. And then, at the very last second, he saw the finger twitch and bend slightly, before the flames roared and began to burn through whatever was left of its flesh.

“Bloody hell,” he said, stepping back as flames rose up from the barbecue.

As he watched the finger burning, he told himself that this time there would be no escape for the wretched thing, and that any supposed wriggling or twitching had probably just been some kind of trick. There was something deeply satisfying about watching the finger burn, and he felt that this time he'd finally got the job done for sure. Nothing could survive the little inferno that was raging before him, and he told himself that at most there might be a few discolored bones left in the end.

“And goodbye to all that,” he said under his breath. “You won't be missed.”

***

Upstairs, Harriet was leaning over the toilet and retching again. This time she was bringing up the small part of lunch that she'd actually eaten, although she had no idea why it had made her so sick.

“What's wrong with me?” she groaned, already feeling as if she was about to throw up yet again. “Please, I don't want to be sick...”

Chapter Forty-Two

Having sat completely still and silent for several hours in a corner of the workshop, Father John Mertyn finally twitched and let out a faint groan.

He hadn't been asleep, not exactly, since sleep was no longer an option. Indeed, he hadn't slept for more than two hundred years. Sometimes, however, he was just about able to force his mind to shut off for short periods at a time, and this task was always easier whenever he'd been subjected to another of Andrea Monkholm's attacks. He knew full well that death was a faraway fantasy and that Scarlet Carruthers had made sure that he could never reach that place, but occasionally he managed to almost entirely empty his mind and drift away for short periods.

Opening his milky eyes, he lifted his head and began to look around the workshop. He could see that night was falling outside but he was relieved that at least there was no sign of Andrea. The last thing he wanted in that moment was to have to listen to her yapping on again about her ever-changing plans. He rued the day he'd ever invited her to help him, but he'd been too desperate back then to turn her down.

And now...

Now he waited for a death that he knew would never come. And since two hundred years had turned out to be a long time in which to think, he felt as if he was barely even the same man he'd been back in the early nineteenth century. He remembered every moment, every ounce of pain and doubt, but he'd long since lost many of the certainties that had once propelled him. Instead he had only his faith, and even that was in danger of dwindling as he once again caught himself wondering whether he'd been wrong.

A moment later, hearing a rustling sound, he turned and looked at the darkest corner of the workshop.

“Who?” he asked, trying as usual to use as few words as possible.

After all, any attempt to speak was always indescribably painful.

“Who?” he stammered again.

“Don't you recognize me?” a familiar voice asked, and after a short pause the figure of Scarlet Carruthers just about became visible in the gloom. “Come now, Father Mertyn. Don't play games.”

“You,” he groaned.

“Yes, me,” she continued. “I watch you suffer a lot, you know. It used to please me to see how well my curse had bound you to this mortal world. I believed that your suffering was right and proper.”

“True,” he whispered.

“But lately that woman,” she went on, turning to look at the door through which Andrea Monkholm always made her grand and rather theatrical entrances, “has given me pause for thought. She enjoys torturing you in a way that I never did.”

Father Mertyn tried to reply, but he had to take a few seconds to draw together enough breath.

“True,” he managed finally.

“She's becoming dangerous,” Scarlet's ghostly figure continued. “More dangerous than I expected. She seems to have stumbled upon some of the same clues that I stumbled upon all those years ago. As I very much proved at the time, a scrap of the ancient knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.”

“Witch,” he murmured

“Oh, I freely admit that,” she told him. “I only denied it back in the day because I was trying to save my own skin. I know I'm a witch, and I also understand that from your rather meager point of view you had to try to destroy me. Tell me, though, were you more angry at me... or more scared?”

He stared at her for a few seconds, as if he was trying to make up his mind.

“Your answer is important,” she added. “More important than you can possibly know.”

“Scared,” he murmured finally, nodding a little. “Scared.”

“That's what I suspected,” she told him. “Your actions were those of a scared and puny little man faced with something he did not understand. And in the absence of that understanding, you lashed out in the only way you knew how. But you left a little piece of me behind, didn't you?”

Holding up one hand, she showed him that even in this form she was now missing the finger.

“Without that, I would have no hope. I would still have lingered in this way, but I'm quite certain that I would have tired of torturing you long ago. That would never have been enough to sustain me. But the survival of one small part of my physical body was enough to give me hope, and now I have a plan that's coming together nicely. I just need to make sure that your friend Andrea Monkholm doesn't get in my way. She's a fool, of course, but even fools can be dangerous.”

“Please,” he whimpered. “Release.”

“Release you?” she replied, raising an amused eyebrow. “From this curse? From the agony of life?” She stared at him for a moment longer before starting to fade away. “Not yet, old man. You still have a little more penance to pay me.”

“No,” he sobbed, breaking down once she was gone as his shoulders began to shake. “Please, I'm sorry. So sorry. Please, just let me die!”

Chapter Forty-Three

“Does anyone know exactly what we're doing in here?” Alvin asked, sitting on a stool by the main bar in the pub. “I mean, I know I'd be here anyway, but it's a bit different when someone tells you that you have to show up. I had half a mind to stay home for once.”

“I don't like that Andrea woman,” Phil replied, watching as Andrea looked at some of the photos on the far wall. “Never have, never will. There's something about her that's just all... fake, somehow.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Andrea said at that moment, turning to the half dozen figures who's responded to her request for an audience in the Goose & Porter. “Well, gentlemen, as it turns out. The ladies of Wragglesford seem less keen to help. First I'd like to thank you for coming tonight. I know you're all busy people and your evenings must be very precious.”

Alvin and Phil turned to one another, and after a moment they both shrugged.

“I've had to bring things forward a little,” Andrea continued, “because external factors have moved more swiftly than I expected. It's quite clear that the spirit of Scarlet Carruthers is attempting to corrupt the soul of Harriet Anderson. If she succeeds, she will launch a new wave of misery upon this village, one that will make the past two centuries seem like a picnic.”

“What exactly are you wanting to do?” Stu asked from his spot at a nearby table.

“Two hundred years ago,” she went on, “Father John Mertyn and his followers hacked the witch up and then burned her. This was a dreadful mistake. After carefully perusing all the available documentation, I have come to the conclusion that she should instead have been burned alive. Then, and only then, her body should have been dismembered. If that simple change had been made, the village would have been freed from any curse and all our lives would be very different.”

“So what are we up to tonight, then?” Phil asked. “Do you want us to burn someone at the stake?”

“I want you to avenge Stanley,” she replied, turning to him. “You all know what really happened to him. The spirit of Scarlet Carruthers is stirring and growing more powerful, and she has already claimed her first victim of this new century. Will you stand around and wait to see who falls next, or will you take matters into your own hands and come to my assistance?”

“Depends what you want us to do,” Phil said skeptically. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we won't be party to anything illegal.”

“So the laws of man are more important to you than the laws of the natural world?” she asked.

“It's the laws of man that can sling our asses in jail,” Phil pointed out.

“We're not actually going to burn anyone,” she told him. “It's a reenactment, you stupid little man.”

“We did one of those recently.”

“But we got it wrong,” she said firmly. “This time we're going to get it right. The only tricky part is going to be bringing Harriet Anderson down here, but that's where I need some big strong chaps such as yourselves. I can do most of it alone, but with Stanley gone I need a helping hand with one or two elements. Can I count on at least one or two of you to stand up for what is right and fight for your village? I need a bonfire built on the village green, and I need it to look as realistic as possible. Meanwhile I shall fetch Mrs. Anderson and bring here into the village, and together we can all work to bring this sorry curse to an end. Do I have your agreement?”

Each man looked to his neighbor, as if nobody wanted to be the first to agree. Finally, however, Phil got to his feet, although he winced a little as he did so.

“Aye, I'll help you, then,” he muttered, wincing again as he felt the small of his back. “If it'll shut you up. But then can we please stop talking about his bloody curse nonsense? It's doing my head in!”

Chapter Forty-Four

“Harriet? Are you okay up there?”

Having finished dinner and made his way through to the living room, Ronnie hadn't been particularly surprised to hear his wife rushing upstairs again. She'd tried to watch a film with him during the evening but her stomach had been playing up, and now he was genuinely starting to wonder whether she might have picked up some food poisoning. A moment later he heard her vomiting again, and he rolled his eyes as he returned to the task of trying to find a film.

“Seen,” he muttered to himself as he scrolled through endless menus. “Seen. Shit. Seen. Seen. No chance. Seen. No chance. Seen. Seen.”

Before he could pass judgment on any other films, however, he saw lights outside, followed by the distinctive sound of a car coming to a halt. The engine switched off and footsteps made their way closer, and a few seconds later he heard a knock at the door. Confused, he muted the television and got to his feet before making his way to the hall. When he pulled the door open, he wasn't particularly delighted to find Andrea Monkholm standing on the step.

“Hello,” he said, trying to remain polite. “It's a bit late. Is everything okay?”

“Oh, everything's fine,” she replied with a big grin, before starting to step past him. “I just -”

Suddenly she tripped and fell, landing hard on her knees.

“Don't mind me!” she gasped, taking a moment to get up. “Don't mind me at all. I was just passing, that's all, and I thought I'd drop by and see whether you two fine young people are settling in.”

“We're fine, thank you,” he replied cautiously, “but -”

“You do look like you're doing well,” she continued, putting her hands on the sides of his arms as a big, broad grin spread across her face. “You're adapting wonderfully to country life. I can tell.”

In that moment they both heard Harriet vomiting again, and Andrea turned to look toward the staircase.

“Oh dear,” she went on, “that doesn't sound too good. I hope it isn't a case of too much wine. I for one can tend to get absolutely sick as a dog if I have more than a sip over two glasses.” She turned to Ronnie again. “Meanwhile my sister once downed four entire bottles of red in one night and somehow she was still standing by the end of it. She wasn't making much sense and we all needed interpreters, but she was still able to use her own two legs to walk right on home. Isn't that amazing?”

She let out a loud laugh that seemed to fill the entire hallway.

“That sounds... impressive,” Ronnie said cautiously. “The thing is, we were planning to have a quiet night in tonight so we weren't really expecting visitors.”

“And now here I am, blundering around and getting in your way,” she replied. “I get it. I suppose I just wanted to drop by while I was heading into the village and let you know that I'm still thinking of you both. Those of us who transplanted our lives here have to stick together a little, don't we? We don't want to go completely native.”

“No, we don't,” Ronnie accepted, still trying to figure out a way to usher her out. “So -”

“Oh, there's your darling wife now!”

Puzzled, Ronnie turned to look up the stairs. He saw no sign of Harriet, which wasn't a surprise since he was fairly sure this was going to be one of her long vomiting sessions, but a moment later Andrea reached around and pressed a wet towel over his face.

Although he tried to pull away, Ronnie was powerless to resist and after just a couple of seconds he began to succumb. He stumbled forward and turned to Andrea, and then he slumped down down with such force that his head banged hard against the floor.

“Sorry,” Andrea said with an awkward grin, “I would have eased you down gracefully but, well, you're quite a large fellow. It's going to be enough work for me dragging you out of the way.”

Chapter Forty-Five

“I don't know what's wrong with me,” Harriet said, checking the sides of her mouth again as she made her way down the stairs. “I haven't thrown up this much since -”

Stopping suddenly once she was at the halfway point, she saw Andrea Monkholm beaming at her from the hallway.

“What...”

Looking around, she realized that there was no sign of Ronnie.

“What?”

“Your husband has gone on ahead,” Andrea explained slightly breathlessly. “I'm sorry, your confusion is entirely my fault. I specifically asked Ronnie to keep this little surprise under wraps. It's something of a tradition, you see, for new arrivals to be given a very... Wragglesford kind of welcome. And since you're the lady of the house, naturally proceedings are going to be very much focused on you.”

“I'm sorry,” Harriet said cautiously, “I don't -”

“Why don't we get out of here while we can?” Andrea said, hurrying up the stairs and taking her by the hand, then leading her back down. Glancing around, she seemed worried that they might be interrupted at any moment. “You're such a beautiful young lady, aren't you? We've had a few join our little reenactments over the years, of course, but honestly I don't recall one with such striking looks. You're sure to be a big hit!”

“Actually, I'm not feeling so great,” Harriet admitted, even as Andrea opened the front door and forced her to go outside. “Where did you say my husband has gone again?”

“Into the village, to join the others and prepare for your arrival.”

“But our car's still here.”

“I arranged to have him picked up,” she said, leading her as quickly as possible to her own vehicle. “You and he would like to have a little drink or two after the ceremony, wouldn't you? So why bother having a car with you?”

“This is really nice of you,” Harriet said, even though she wasn't entirely sure that the sentiment was true, “but I've had a weird afternoon and I need to rest.”

“Nonsense,” Andrea said, opening the side of her car and almost cramming Harriet inside. “This is a great honor and you'll be so glad you showed up once you see what it's all about.”

“I -”

Before Harriet could get another word out, Andrea slammed the door shut on her and hurried around to the other side. She stopped for a moment and glanced back at the house, watching to make sure that there was absolutely no sign of Ronnie waking up early, and then she climbed into the driver's seat and immediately started the engine. She had to try a couple of times, muttering some choice curses under her breath in the process, but finally the engine fired up so that she could start reversing out of the driveway.

“I don't have anything with me,” Harriet protested. “My bag -”

“You won't need that,” Andrea told her.

“I really don't feel well this evening,” she continued, struggling to remain polite. “I don't know what you're planning but -”

Suddenly worried that she might be about to throw up again, she took a deep breath as the car reversed onto the road and then began to drive forward.

“Nonsense, you'll be absolutely fine,” Andrea told her, rolling her eyes as she leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel with unusual force. “Now listen, your role in this reenactment is primarily ceremonial, and you don't really have to do very much except show up. Well, and follow instructions. You can manage that, can't you? I don't have time to explain everything, so it'd be useful if you could limit the questions. Everything will undoubtedly make plenty of sense once it's all over. You trust me, don't you?”

She glanced in the mirrors, as if to check that they weren't being followed.

“You'll stand there on the bonfire -”

“Bonfire?”

“You'll understand when you see it,” she continued, “and we'll all pretend that you're Scarlet Carruthers and then we'll pretend to light you on fire. This is our way of atoning for our past mistakes, you see? It's our way of showing that we, as a community, can recognize and try to correct our wrongs. I'm not saying that it'll make everything perfect but it's at least a sign that we know we have to do better. And by the end of tonight I truly believe that we shall have shown everyone that we are contrite. Then we can move on.”

She glanced at Harriet.

“Yay!” she added. “Am I right?”

“I just don't quite feel like being out tonight,” Harriet told her, losing a little color in her face now. “It's nothing personal, it's just a matter of my body being a bit... out of sorts.”

“Let me tell you from experience,” Andrea continued, clearly in no mood whatsoever to be deterred, “that wallowing in pity and pajamas is never the answer. You need fresh air, Harriet, and tonight you're going to get the freshest air of all. Tonight you're going to play the key role in the task of saving our entire village!”

Chapter Forty-Six

“Father Mertyn? Father Mertyn, I know you're not asleep. Come on, don't be silly now. It's late but we have a special place to be.”

Slowly looking up, the old man saw that his nurse Bea had returned. The mere sight of her made him feel sick; although she lacked the overt physical cruelty of Andrea Monkholm, Bea more than made up for that with her constant nagging and her insistence on always speaking to him with a sickly voice. Sometimes he worried that she believed him to be a complete fool, or worse than that... a child.

“We're going to wrap you up warm,” she continued, already grabbing an extra shawl from a chair in the corner of the room, “and go out to the village green. I know we had a reenactment very recently, but this time... well, Andrea always says that the reenactments have merely been a way of practicing for the main event. And now the main event has arrived.”

“What?” he whispered, powerless to resist as she began to wrap him up tight.

“Well, I don't know the details,” Bea went on. “That's what makes it so exciting. Like you, I have to wait and see what Andrea's been planning, but I think we both know we can trust her. After all, you yourself approved the idea of getting her in to break the curse of Scarlet Carruthers. Sure, there have been a few bumps along the road, but aren't you glad that she persuaded you to open that house up again? It was empty for so long, but now those Anderson people have moved in and things are really shifting into gear.”

“Why?” he gasped.

“Why what?”

He opened his mouth to continue, but at the last moment he realized that he lacked the necessary strength. Instead he could only sit and shudder slightly as Bea wrapped yet another shawl around him, and he furrowed his brow a little as she took pains to cover his face. He knew that his ancient appearance scared people in the village – especially children – but he hated the fact that he always had to be hidden away. Sometimes he simply wanted to make them all face him, to make them see what had become of him after two centuries.

“We should hurry now,” Bea said, stepping behind the chair and starting to wheel him across the room. “I don't know the details, but Andrea told me that she has a special role planned in all of this just for you. Isn't that exciting?

Chapter Forty-Seven

As soon as he opened his eyes, Ronnie felt a pounding headache throbbing just behind his eyes. Staring up at the ceiling, he tried to work out exactly what had happened, but after a few more seconds he remembered the sensation of the wet towel on his face.

“Sorry,” he'd heard Andrea saying as he'd passed out, “I would have eased you down gracefully but...”

Then there had been a few more words at least, but he'd lost consciousness too quickly to make any of them out. For a few seconds he simply couldn't bring himself to believe his own memory; sure, Andrea could be a little overbearing, but the idea that she might actually be dangerous seemed utterly incomprehensible. After a few seconds, realizing that only one person might be able to help him clear up the confusion, he started to slowly haul himself up off the floor of the laundry room.

“Harriet?” he called out, although he was immediately shocked by the weakness he heard in his own voice. “Harriet!” he yelled more confidently. “Where are you?”

He waited, but already he was starting to worry that something might be seriously wrong. As soon as he tried to leave the laundry room, he found that his legs felt distinctly wobbly and unsteady. He had to concentrate, but finally he was just about able to stagger out into the hall, at which point he realized that there was absolutely no sign of his wife anywhere nearby.

“Harriet!” he shouted, just as a dull pain began to throb in the back of his head. “For fuck's sake, what's going on here? Harriet, I need you!”

Even as those words left his lips, however, he knew that he wasn't going to get a response. Something about the house seemed so completely empty, and he was starting to accept that Andrea Monkholm was up to some kind of game. Reaching into his pocket, he found that he still had his phone. He brought up Harriet's number and tapped to call, but a moment later he heard her phone ringing in the front room.

Wandering over to the doorway, he saw the phone flashing on the floor. Harriet was usually glued to her phone, and he couldn't help but worry that she would never willingly leave the house without it. Hurrying to the window, he looked outside and saw that the car was still very much in situ, and his befuddled mind was slowly piecing together the most plausible chain of events.

Andrea Monkholm had kidnapped his wife.

Sure, most people would have reached that conclusion almost immediately, but Ronnie was aware that some kind of drug was coursing its way through his system. He could feel himself being dragged down, as if he'd woken too early and the drug was now attempting to reassert its dominance by knocking him out again.

“I've got the system of a bull,” he murmured, convinced that he'd forced himself awake prematurely. “You can't keep an Anderson man down.”

Turning, he stepped toward the door, only for his knees to buckle. With a startled “Oof!” he dropped down onto his knees, and he only just about managed to cling to the side of a nearby chair. Fighting his body's urge to roll over and go back to sleep, he took a few seconds to steady himself before starting to haul himself up again – and then he froze as he saw the strange naked woman watching him from the hallway.

“Who are you?” he barked, trying not to panic. “Where's my wife? What has that nutter from the village done with her?”

He waited, but the ghostly figure was regarding him with an unusually flat expression.

“Who the hell are you?” he yelled again. “What are you doing in my house? Why haven't you got any clothes on? Can someone please tell me what the hell's going on here?”

This time the woman stepped forward, and Ronnie watched with a growing sense of fear as she made her way closer. He wanted to pull away, perhaps even to run, yet he wasn't sure that he'd be able to stay conscious; as the woman approached, however, he felt the fear twisting in his gut, as if on some deep primal level his body was reacting to the new arrival. Unable to avoid her, however, he could only watch as the woman stepped toward him, until finally she was towering above him.

Looking up, he saw something new in her eyes now, something that sent an unnerving shiver through his bones.

He saw pity.

“This... this is my house,” he stammered, trying to hide his fear. “It's not your house. It's mine. You can't just come in here and start walking around with no clothes on. How did you get inside, anyway? Are you living in the walls or something?”

Again he waited, but she showed no sign that she was going to answer.

“Tell me what's happening!” he shouted angrily, feeling as if he was in the grip of some game that he couldn't possibly understand. “Right now! Tell me what the hell this is all about!”

The woman continued to stare at him, before slowly reaching out a hand. Seeing that she was missing a finger, Ronnie was nevertheless powerless to turn away as she carefully touched the side of his face. There was something unreal about the sensation, as if her skin was cold and tingling, yet he figured that at least now he could be sure she was very real. As much as he wanted to demand information from her, however, he could already tell that she wasn't going to give him any easy answers.

“Where's my wife?” he asked as a tear ran from his left eye, tracking down his face. “Is she alright? Where has that nutter taken her?”

Somehow, despite not responding, the woman answered now in another way: her expression became even sadder and the sorrow in her eyes threatened to spill out entirely.

“Where's Harriet?” Ronnie sobbed. “Can't you at least tell me that? And what's the finger all about? Come on, can't a man at least know why there's a loose finger flying around in his house? None of this makes any bloody sense at all.”

“I'm sorry,” the woman said finally, stroking the side of his face a little. “Please believe me... I'm so desperately sorry.”

“For what?” he whimpered, gripped by a sense of fear that even now was tightening its clutches inside his chest. “What are you sorry for? What's happening? Please, you have to tell me... where's my wife?”

Chapter Forty-Eight

“Isn't this lovely?” Bea said as she pushed the wheelchair across the road, heading toward the crowd that had already gathered on the village green. “It's so lovely that people still come out to celebrate our traditions, even in the middle of the night.”

As the chair bumped against the curb, Father John Mertyn could only stare at the gathering with a sense of impending doom. There had been a time, perhaps, many years ago... a time when he would have been thrilled to see such a strong turnout; he would have felt truly uplifted by the idea that so many of the locals were willing to brave the cold night air in order to play their part in the life of Wragglesford. Now, however, he felt nothing but contempt for the fools who were about to repeat the same mistake that he'd made so many years earlier.

“Stop,” he murmured, barely able to get the word out. “Stop...”

“What was that?” Bea asked brightly. “Don't stress yourself, Father Mertyn. You need to save as much of your strength as possible. Andrea wants you to play a part in tonight's ceremony.”

“Stop,” he said again, barely able to keep his head upright as he saw that some kind of platform had been constructed at the front of the crowd. “Stop them... before...”

“That's right, it's so cheerful, isn't it?” Bea continued. “I'm not surprised that you're so excited.”

“All... die,” he groaned.

“You must be so happy,” she went on, clearly oblivious to his real reaction. “Two hundred years have passed since your own intervention, but people are still so deeply involved in the whole thing. They really care, don't they? And look, there are even children here!”

As soon as he spotted several youngsters near the front of the crowd, Father Mertyn felt his fear and hatred becoming even stronger. Back in the day he'd worked hard to include children in his own ministries, of course, but now he abhorred the idea that young minds might be corrupted by such arcane practices. More than anything, he wanted to rise from his chair and bellow at them all to stop, to command them to return to their homes, yet he knew he no longer had the necessary strength to shout at anyone. Even if he could somehow get his point across, he feared that they wouldn't listen to him.

They were all caught up in the same foolishness that he himself had manipulated and abused two centuries earlier. The only difference now was that at least he'd had time to reflect upon his actions and to understand all that he'd done wrong.

Reaching down, he fumbled for a moment before pulling out his cane. He hadn't walked for many years, of course, but he still insisted on carrying the cane. Turning it around, he felt for the hidden compartment, finally sliding it out of the way to expose the blade hidden within. He ran a fingertip against the side of the metal and felt that it was as sharp now as it had been many years earlier when he'd first hidden it away. There had been times when he'd tried to use the blade on himself, to end his own suffering, but nothing had worked.

Now, however, he wondered whether the blade might have a fresh victim entirely. All he needed to do, he told himself, was get close enough to Andrea Monkholm so that he could finally shut her up for good.

Chapter Forty-Nine

“This is all very interesting and... pagan,” Harriet said, looking around as Andrea led her by the hand through the crowd, “but it's late and I really don't feel too well. I'm sorry, but do you mind if I head home?”

“Nonsense,” Andrea replied, tightening her grip on Harriet's hand as if she was worried about her getting away. “You've made it all the way here now, haven't you? It'd be crazy to turn back now. If you weren't feeling well, you could have mentioned that earlier.”

“I think I did mention it earlier,” Harriet murmured, glancing at the crowd on either side.

In that moment, she was unable to escape the niggling sense that everyone was watching her. Some turned away and pretended to be interested in other things, but the majority kept their eyes on her; even the children were staring, and she couldn't shake the sense that in some strange way they'd all been waiting for her. Shivering and still feeling very nauseous, she tried to smile but the effort immediately fell flat.

“I don't want to be here,” she said under her breath. “I should be at home. Ronnie'll be worried. I -”

Suddenly she and Andrea emerged at the front of the crowd. Looking ahead, Harriet was shocked to see that a stage had been erected, and that at the far end of the stage someone had put together a large group of branches and twigs in some kind of vertical column. As Andrea continued to lead her forward, Harriet felt a strong instinct in her gut telling her to run away, yet a few seconds later she was shocked to see that several of the children were now wearing the same rabbit masks she'd seen before.

“What exactly is going on here?” she asked.

“You'll see!” Andrea replied merrily, leading her up onto the platform. “All shall be revealed in due course, my dear. Please don't trouble your pretty little mind about it right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about you, you silly goose,” Andrea continued, stopping in front of the column of branches and turning to her. “Let's be honest, you're a pretty young woman but it's not as if you've got a huge amount going on in the brain department, is it?”

“I'm sorry?” Harriet replied, furrowing her brow.

“You're not exactly one of life's great thinkers,” Andrea added.

“I run my own business,” Harriet countered. “What the hell are you talking about? I think I do pretty well!”

“Oh, of course you do,” Andrea murmured, forcing her to turn around and look out across the gathered crowd of thirty or forty faces. “Now, see all the people who have come out tonight. Don't you feel special? They should all be tucked up in their beds right now, especially the little ones, but instead they're making a sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” Harriet replied, sounding a little alarmed now as she turned to her.

“Of their time,” Andrea said, before stepping around behind her. “That's what I meant. They're sacrificing their time in order to be here.”

“Oh,” Harriet said, still a little confused. “But -”

Before she could finish, Andrea passed a thick rope around her and pulled it tight. Startled, Harriet stumbled back until she bumped against the column, and already the rope was holding her arms against her sides. She tried to pull free, and then when she looked over her shoulder she saw that Andrea was busily tying her to the column.

“What are you doing?” Harriet gasped. “You can't tie me up! Let me go!”

“It's just a minor inconvenience for you,” Andrea countered, double-checking the knot before stepping around to face her again. “You're not one of those people who can't handle a minor inconvenience, are you? Please, Harriet, tell me you're not that fickle.”

Harriet opened her mouth to reply, but in that instant she realized that everyone in the crowd was watching her. She wasn't entirely sure how she'd allowed herself to end up in such a bizarre predicament, but a few seconds later she turned to see that Andrea was now fetching a large canister from the side of the stage while also unscrewing the cap.

“What's that?” Harriet asked.

“Don't worry,” Andrea said, “it's nothing bad, honestly.”

“What is it?” Harriet asked firmly.

“I told you, it's nothing to worry about,” Andrea explained, before removing the cap and holding the open top out for her to smell. “Get a good whiff of that. I know it's wrong of me, but I've always really enjoyed the stench of petrol.”

“Why have you got petrol?” Harriet snapped.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Andrea continued, before holding the canister up and tilting it, splattering foul-smelling petrol down all over Harriet's head and shoulders. “You really do struggle to put two and two together, don't you? It's almost sweet, really. Almost childish.”

“Who are you calling childish?” Harriet replied, struggling against the rope in an increasingly desperate attempt to break free. “This is kidnapping! You have to let me go right now!”

“Hush,” Andrea said, pouring more petrol all around her before tossing the canister aside and leaning closer. “You need to play your part in our latest reenactment, my dear. Don't you understand yet? The time has come for us to show Scarlet Carruthers that we mean business. Perhaps then she'll finally realize that she and I need to work together!”

Chapter Fifty

“Ladies and gentlemen of Wragglesford,” Andrea announced a couple of minutes later, standing at the front of the stage while Harriet – soaked in petrol – tried furiously to get free behind her. “I want to thank you for coming out on this chilly night. I know it's late and I know most of you have jobs to get to in the morning, but I promise you won't be disappointed. Tonight, after more than two hundred years, our fair village will finally emerge from the shadow cast by Scarlet Carruthers and her wretched curse.”

A murmur spread through the crowd.

“We are honored,” Andrea continued, gesturing toward the figure in the wheelchair on one side of the gathering, “to be joined tonight by the great Father John Mertyn. Nobody has suffered more than Father Mertyn in our ceaseless battle against the witch. I know he retired from public appearances long before any of us had even been born, but he has been a constant presence in our community and I'm sure we'd all like to thank him for his contributions. He really did try to help our village.”

Raising her hands, she began to clap loudly. Slowly several others in the crowd joined in, while the priest himself remained slumped in his chair and showed no sign of acknowledgment.

“He tried,” Andrea went on, sounding a little more disappointed now, “but as we all know, he failed. His method of executing the witch was to hack her to pieces and then burn her, yet two errors were made on that day. Firstly, she should have been burned and then dismembered. And secondly, as local legend has often reminded us, one part of the witch was left unaccounted for. Many people have reported seeing a solitary finger in the vicinity of that house, and I can confirm that these stories are true. The witch Scarlet Carruthers has always had a route back to the world of the living thanks to that finger. The first of Father Mertyn's errors allowed her soul to persist, and the second allowed her body to linger. Tonight we are going to put both of those wrongs right.”

Turning, she watched as Harriet continued to struggle frantically.

“We just need to lure the witch out,” she announced, unable to stifle a faint grin. “I am certain that Scarlet herself will show up tonight and try to save Harriet Anderson. After all, Mrs. Anderson lives in the witch's former home. She is the natural vessel in which Scarlet will try to make her return. Fortunately we have managed to get to her in time.” She paused, watching as Harriet pulled first one way and then the other. “And now,” she added softly, “we are going to show Scarlet Carruthers that we mean business. The time has come to make our stand and reclaim the health of our village.”

She turned and looked down to one side of the platform, where Willy from the pub had arrived bearing a burning torch. Stepping over, she took the torch from him and then turned to look at Harriet.

“She's not actually going to burn that woman, is she?” a voice asked in the crowd. “This is just another reenactment, isn't it?”

“She's acting,” another voice suggested, although he sounded a little uncertain. “I think. She's doing a good job, too. Almost too good.”

“Scarlet Carruthers!” Andrea called out triumphantly. “Witness this act and see that we have your number! See that we shall not be defeated by your curse!”

With that, she tossed the flaming torch toward the middle of the platform. In just a fraction of a second the flames touched the petrol, igniting an inferno that immediately roared up into the night sky, carrying with it Harriet Anderson's agonized burning scream.

Chapter Fifty-One

“Did you hear that?” Bea asked, leaning down and looking at the side of Father Mertyn's face, most of which was covered by the various shawls and scarves. “She screamed right at the end. You heard it, didn't you?”

Shaking his head slightly, the old man seemed much more agitated now. He was fumbling with his stick, as if trying to get his arthritic hands to turn it around, and a series of faint grunts could just about be heard emanating from his mouth beneath all the layers of fabric.

“I hoped she'd scream for longer,” Bea continued, “but I suppose you can't have everything, can you?”

Turning, she looked around and saw the faces of the villagers as the flames lit their features.

“I think some of them are in shock,” she suggested. “They came for a village pantomime and ended up watching a woman burning to death. Not that they've all realized that fact yet.”

As she stared at the inferno, the flames reflected in her eyes, dancing and spitting as she enjoyed every moment.

“Do you think she's still alive?” she mused. “I wonder how long someone can hold out while they're burning to death. Her skin must have crackled and burned away by now, but do you think that somehow she's clinging to life? I suppose her eyes will have boiled away too and she can't cry out, but her heart might be beating and her brain could well be able to function.”

A sliver of saliva ran from one corner of her mouth as she contemplated the agony that Harriet was probably facing in that moment. Reaching down, she placed one hand between her legs and began to move it up toward her crotch.

“I bet she's twisting and writhing right now,” she purred, leaning a little further over Father Mertyn's shoulder. “She must be down to her final few seconds. Do you think the pain becomes overwhelming and the brain can no longer process it, or will she be feeling every last agonizing moment as the fire eats through her flesh and starts to heat her bones and even -”

Suddenly she gasped as the priest forced the cane's blade up through the underside of her jaw. Slicing straight through her tongue, the blade hit the roof of her mouth and crunched into the next section of bone, and blood immediately began to dribble down onto her teeth.

Although she tried to speak, Bea could get no words out now. She managed a faint gurgle, but this only succeeded into forcing some bubbles of blood onto her lips, and a few seconds later she groaned as the old man twisted the cane, turning the blade so that more blood began to run down onto his shoulder. Having intended to kill his nurse quickly, the old man had to admit now that he took some pleasure in delivering the maximum possible level of pain.

Once he was sure that the blade's tip must have penetrated the nurse's brain, Father Mertyn slowly withdrew the cane. All around, members of the crowd were staring at the raging inferno on the stage, and nobody seemed to notice at all as Bea took several stumbling steps back.

Clutching her jaw, she tried several times to speak again, before falling and landing hard on the grass. Even now she was desperately attempting to cry out, but she could only spray more blood from her mouth as she leaned back and looked up at the sky. She was able to see smoke rising up, and the light from the burning pyre blocked out any stars that might have been visible. Gasping and jerking like a fish just landed from the ocean, Bea could only roll her eyes back in her head as she waited for death to arrive.

Finally she fell still, although blood was still oozing from her mouth.

Reaching down, Father Mertyn tried to turn the wheels of his chair. He'd managed to push himself around a few times before, but now he felt as if the effort was simply far too much. He took a moment to pull himself together, while focusing on the fact that he simply had to find some way to stop Andrea Monkholm. As much as his weary bones wanted to rest, the old man knew that he had to move fast if he wanted to have any chance of saving Wragglesford from the consequences of yet another terrible mistake.

After a few more seconds he found some vestige of strength from somewhere. Gripping the wheels, he began to roll himself back as he tried to work out exactly how he was going to stop the nightmare. A moment later the wheelchair bumped, and when he looked down he saw that he'd inadvertently rolled straight over the outstretched arm of his dead nurse.

He looked at her face and saw her lifeless eyes staring up toward the dark heavens. In that moment, he thought of all the tiny pains she'd inflicted on him, all the little moments of cruelty that she'd seemed to enjoy over the years.

“Good... riddance,” he just about managed to say, clutching his cane as he turned the chair and began to wheel himself around past the rear of the crowd.

“Scarlet Carruthers!” Andrea called out from the platform. “We, the people of Wragglesford, demand that you show your face and accept your fate! You have troubled our village for far too long and we refuse to pay the price your wretched curse wants from us. Let there be no more suffering! I know you can hear us, Scarlet! Come now and face the people whose lives you have harmed for so long!”

Chapter Fifty-Two

“I know you can hear me!” Andrea shouted, as the villagers watched with varying degrees of fear. “Come, Scarlet Carruthers, and face your destiny!”

Behind her, the flames continued to roar and crackle, burning high into the dark night sky and sending a plume of smoke rising up toward the starless void. From the crowd – indeed, from any position around the edges of the platform – these flames appeared to have consumed everything in their path. If, however, one were able to rise up high above Andrea's screeching voice and high above the flames themselves, and if one were able to then float above the platform and gain a bird's eye view of the scene below, then one would have a very different understanding of what was happening in that moment.

For while the flames were certainly consuming the edges of the platform, some unseen force was keeping them back from the very center – where Harriet Anderson was still tied to the bonfire, still doused in petrol, but still untouched entirely by the inferno.

“Help!” she sobbed, struggling frantically to break free from the rope. Sweating profusely, she tugged in every possible direction but was still unable to escape even as tears ran down her face. “Ronnie! Someone! Help me!”

She leaned forward, still trying to break the rope, but deep down she knew her task was hopeless. All she'd really succeeded in doing was dislodging many of the bandages on her left hand. Already blood was starting to ooze from the stitches, and a moment later the bandages fell away entirely to reveal the spot where doctors had tried to reattach her severed finger.

“I just want to go home,” she whimpered, looking up to the heavens and wondering whether it was too late to start praying for divine intervention. “I'll do anything to go home. I just want -”

Before she could finish, she spotted something moving high above. She stared, blinking, and slowly a small object began to descend toward her. Unable to quite believe what was happening, she realized after a few seconds that this object was in fact the partially rotten severed finger that had been plaguing her at the new house, and she watched as this finger finally lowered itself down until it was floating directly in front of her face.

As the wall of fire continued to burn all around her, Harriet could only stare at the floating finger as she began to wonder whether she might have finally lost her mind entirely. The sight was so absurd – almost comically so – that she was struggling to process the evidence provided by her own eyes.

And then, behind her, the finger sewn onto her left hand came loose from its stitches and dropped down against the floor.

“What?” Harriet whispered, barely able to comprehend what was happening as the floating finger began to move around her. “Where are you... where are you going? What are you doing? I don't get it.”

Once the finger had floated out of sight, she turned her head in a desperate attempt to see what was going to happen next. Craning her neck, she was unable to spot the finger now, but a moment later she felt a slight pain as something bumped against the injured stump where her own left index finger had once been. Her eyes began to widen with shock as she felt a burning itching sensation, and a few seconds after that the rope finally fell away.

Stumbling forward, Harriet looked at her left hand and saw to her horror that the crone-like finger was now attached to her own body. Even as she stared, she could see fibers of meat knitting together from either side of the fleshy divide.

“How?” she stammered, trying to rip the finger off but finding that it was already fused far too strongly. “What -”

In that instant the wall of flames whooshed and pulled back, creating a larger ring of fire surrounding the entire platform and – in the process – drawing Andrea Monkholm into the circle.

Startled, and slightly singed, Andrea turned and looked in shock at Harriet.

“You're alive!” the older woman gasped. “My dear, that... that is such good news!”

She looked around, as if worried that someone else might appear at any moment, and then she took a step forward.

“This is certainly a turn-up for the books,” she continued, eyeing Harriet with caution and quickly spotting the rotten finger that was now attached to her hand. “My, Scarlet Carruthers certainly seems to keep springing surprises, doesn't she? Speaking of Scarlet, have you seen her tonight? I'm sure she's aware of what's happening here in our quaint little village and -”

Before she could finish, they both heard a grunting sound. Turning, they watched as a dark figure stumbled though the wall of fire, and finally the frail sight of Father John Mertyn – who had finally rise from his wheelchair – emerged.

“You!” he gasped, raising his cane and brandishing the razor at the tip. “Stop!”

“Who the bloody hell's that?” Harriet shouted.

“You must stop!” the priest continued, limping toward Andrea. “This is all a terrible mistake! You -”

In that moment, Andrea grabbed him by the throat and pulled him closer. Easily able to avoid his frantic attempt to stab her with the cane, she looked almost bored as she turned him around and yanked an arm against his throat, breaking his neck and then shoving his lifeless body down against the ground.

“There,” she murmured, rolling her eyes. “You might not be dead still, but that should at least shut you up for a while.”

She stared at him for a moment longer before slowly turning to Harriet again.

“My dear young lady,” she continued, taking another step forward. “I hope you'll understand that I had no choice. I had to bring you here tonight and use you as bait for Scarlet Carruthers. I anticipated that once somebody finally moved into that house, Scarlet would come up with some kind of plan... some kind of attempt to possess a suitable body again. I see from your left finger that the process has already begun.”

“I don't want this,” Harriet sobbed, holding her hand up and staring in growing horror at the blackened finger that was now attached even more firmly to her own body. “It won't come off.”

She tried again to twist, rip or tear the finger away, yet her own skin was somehow fused far too tightly to the finger's withered flesh. While the finger certainly looked as if it should come off fairly easily, the reality was proving to be a different story entirely. Finally she even resorted to trying to bite it off, although she soon pulled away and spat out the revolting taste.

“Get it off me!” she screamed, in floods of tears now as a wave of desperate panic began to spread throughout her body. “I didn't ask for any of this! I...”

Her voice trailed off for a few seconds, and she tilted her head slightly as she began to feel a strangely scratchy sensation in the back of her mind. Wincing, she looked down and tried to push this sensation away, but already she felt as if another mind was starting to enter her thoughts and expand through her consciousness. As much as she tried to shake this sensation off, she already knew she was powerless to stop the mind of Scarlet Carruthers blossoming in her own body, and finally she had no choice: she simply had to pull back and let Scarlet take over completely.

Slowly, her head lifted and she began to smile. She could feel somebody else forcing this smile onto her face, and a few seconds later she felt another force raising her left arm. She had no doubt now that the soul of Scarlet Carruthers had entered her body, and she could only watch as an expression of confusion began to spread across Andrea's face. Part of her wanted to warn the other woman, to tell her to run, but at the same time she also found herself enjoying the sense of power and freedom that came along with Scarlet's presence.

“Something has changed in you,” Andrea said cautiously. “I can see it in your eyes. Harriet, tell me... is Scarlet Carruthers here with us now?”

“You want to use me,” Harriet's mouth replied, although Harriet herself was certainly not doing the talking. “You want to study me and take my powers, and cut me up like some kind of specimen in a laboratory.”

“Oh, that's not true at all,” Andrea replied, shaking her head as she edged closer again. “No no no no no, where did you ever get that idea from?”

“I heard it from your own lips,” Harriet's mouth sneered.

“I've said a lot of things,” Andrea admitted, holding up both hands, “but you have to understand that I needed to persuade the ignorant locals to assist me. So yes, I might have told a few white lies here and there, but my intention has only ever been to work with you. Surely you understand that, Scarlet, do you not? Woman to woman, we can talk freely, I hope? Think how much more we can achieve if we work together. If we combine my academic understanding with your instincts, we can unleash so much more power. We could be the perfect team, really. And you know you can trust me. We'll be perfect together.”

She hesitated, before stepping forward again and reaching a hand out.

“Come with me and -”

Suddenly flames erupted from the withered finger, taking Harriet by surprise. She could only watch as the flames burst forward, creating a streaming inferno that blasted straight into Andrea's face. For the next few seconds Harriet could only watch with a growing sense of horror as the woman's body shuddered, until finally the flames from the finger died down. All that was left of Andrea's head, meanwhile, was a smoldering mass of melted flesh attached to the stump of her neck.

A few seconds after that, Andrea's headless body toppled back and landed with a heavy thud against the ground.

Chapter Fifty-Three

“No,” Harriet stammered, lowering her left hand and looking at the withered finger still attached to her body. “This... this can't be happening.”

Fully in control of her own body again, she felt as if the spirit of Scarlet Carruthers had left her now. She stared at the finger and tried to understand how the flames had erupted so spectacularly, and then she looked down at the headless corpse on the ground and realized that there was definitely no way to help Andrea Monkholm now: the woman's entire head had been burned away in a matter of seconds and the stump was still smoking slightly.

“I didn't do that,” Harriet whimpered as the wall of fire still burned all around the edges of the platform. “It wasn't me, I swear. I could feel someone else in my body, it was that woman, she made me do it.”

Still staring at the finger, she remembered the sensation of pure power bursting forth. As much as she was horrified by what had happened to Andrea, she was starting to wonder what else the finger might allow her to do. Horror and disgust were starting to peel away from her soul, replaced by a sense of anticipation. If she now had some sort of possessed magic finger, did that mean that she would be able to take down her enemies at will? Did it mean that she could burn anyone who crossed her?

“I could be all-powerful,” she whispered, holding the finger out again. “No-one would be able to stand in my way. It's almost like a superpower. I could do anything I want. I could... I could cut straight to the front of the line at any shop. I could get the best seats at the cinema. I could make people shut up when they're annoying me. I could do... anything!”

Slowly a sense of massive potential was rippling through her body. She turned her hand around, marveling at the finger, and then she began to point again. Aiming the finger past Andrea's corpse, she pointed at the wall of fire and told herself that she could start by shocking all the villagers. From there she could get anything she wanted, anything at all, and she realized after a few more seconds that she might even become famous. Who wouldn't want to know about the woman with the magic flaming finger? The entire world was her oyster and all she had to do was -

“No!”

Suddenly a wooden cane flashed past her face. Before she could react, she watched in horror as the cane's bladed tip sliced the crone finger straight off her stump, sending the severed digit falling down to the ground.

Startled, she turned to see the frail old man staring at her. The scarves had dropped away from his face, revealing his ancient features and milky white eyes.

“No,” he said again, before dropping to his knees as if he could barely stay upright. “Not for you. Not for anyone. Don't be... seduced by its power.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she stammered, shocked that she'd even contemplated using the finger for her own gain. “I don't even know who you are!”

As she waited for some kind of answer, she began to notice that the circle of fire had begun to close in again. Stepping back, she realized that she was still doused in petrol and that the flames were advancing, and she was starting to wonder whether she should have used the finger – while it was still attached – to perhaps create an exit.

On the floor, Father Mertyn was coughing frantically as he tried but failed to get to his feet.

“Help!” Harriet called out, still hoping that someone out there on the village green might be able to hear her. “Anyone? I'm still in here and -”

“Harriet!” Ronnie's voice shouted suddenly, filling her with an instant rush of hope. “Harriet, where are you?”

“In here!” she screamed. “Ronnie, I'm trapped!”

She waited, but now she heard no response and already the flames were edging closer and closer. She began to pull back, only to turn around as she saw that more flames were approaching from every direction. Unable to avoid the encroaching heat, she touched the front of her shirt and felt the petrol, and she began to realize that at any moment she was going to go turn into a human candle.

“Ronnie!” she yelled again, terrified that he might not get to her in time. “Ronnie, where -”

In that moment a shape burst through the flames, slamming into her and almost knocking her over. Startled, she pulled back and saw that finally – like a miracle – Ronnie had arrived to save the day.

“Harriet!” he gasped, patting his clothes to make sure that he wasn't on fire. “What -”

Before he could finish, the wooden boards broke beneath his right foot. Letting out a gasp of pain as his foot went through, he dropped down onto one knee. When he tried to stand again, he winced as he felt a sharp section of wood threatening to cut through his flesh.

“Are you okay?” she asked, kneeling in front of him.

“Yeah, I'm just -”

As soon as he tried again to pull his foot free, he gasped even more loudly than before.

Damn it, I'm stuck,” he continued. “Harriet, what the hell's going on here?”

“I think Andrea Monkholm tried to kill me,” she replied, with tears still rolling down her cheeks. “Ronnie, she tied me up and covered me in petrol and -”

“Petrol!?”

“But something was holding the flames back,” she explained, “and then it took me over and burned Andrea's head off, and I know how that sounds but I don't care any more. If you think I'm crazy then you might be right, but I've seen this strange woman in the house so many times and I think she's got something to do with it and -”

“Okay, chill,” he replied, trying again to pull his foot free. “Harriet, there'll be time for all of that later, but right now we both have to get out of here.” Reaching out, he touched her arm, feeling the dampness of her shirt. “Shit, you really are soaked in the stuff. There's no way you can just run out through those flames. You'll go up like a bonfire before you get close enough, just on the fumes.”

“Ronnie, I just want to go home,” she sobbed. “I want to hide away and pretend that none of this ever happened. We should never have moved to the countryside. I knew it was going to turn out to be weird!”

“It's not that weird.”

“Look at us!” she screamed. “Look at us right now!”

“Just give me a moment,” he replied, still desperately trying to get his foot free even as blood began to dribble from the wound. “I'm gonna figure this out, okay? You just need to give me a moment.”

Suddenly Harriet felt a hand touching her shoulder from behind. As the flames continued to roar all around her, and as Ronnie pulled again on his leg, Harriet turned and saw that the strange woman from the house was now standing directly behind her and staring into her eyes.

“You have to choose,” Scarlet Carruthers told her.

“What do you mean?” Harriet asked.

“You want to keep it, don't you?”

“Keep what?”

Scarlet hesitated, before looking down at her belly.

“What are you talking about?” Harriet continued as the flames moved ever closer. “I don't understand!”

“You've been sick lately,” Scarlet reminded her. “You've been nauseous. You must have felt it.”

“Felt what?”

“I gave it back to you,” Scarlet explained, before furrowing her brow. “You realized that, didn't you? You must have felt it so many times already. Doesn't a mother always know?” Reaching out, she put a hand on Harriet's belly. “I gave you the baby, the one that was taken from you. It's back inside you and it's growing so fast. Another month or two and it'll be ready to pop out, and I can already tell that it's so healthy and happy.”

“No,” Harriet replied, shaking her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. “My baby died. She died a year ago.”

“I know.”

“Her name was Eve,” Harriet sobbed, “and I loved her so much and I was going to be the best mother ever but then she died so I never got a chance.”

“I know,” Scarlet said again, “but I brought her back for you. But not everything can be the same.”

“What do you -”

“You have to choose,” Scarlet said firmly. “You can keep your baby, but not with your husband around. Or you can save your husband but then the baby will be gone again. I'm sorry, but that's just how things have to be.”

“Why?” Harriet asked, with tears still dancing in her eyes. “That's not fair. Why are you making it like this?”

“Harriet?” Ronnie gasped. “Who the fuck are you talking to?”

She turned and saw that as the flames edged closer and closer, Ronnie was still trying to pull his foot free.

“Harriet, I need your help,” he continued, looking up at her as sweat glistened on his forehead. “I think I know how to get it out, but I can't do it by myself.” He waited for her to answer. “Harriet, I know it's scary but I need you to help me and we don't have much time!”

“You have to choose,” the ghost of Scarlet Carruthers whispered in her ear. “No-one else can make the decision. You need to decide which option to go for.”

“Is there no way to save them both?” she asked

“That's impossible,” Scarlet explained. “We don't have time to go over it all again. Harriet, if you don't decide right now, you might end up losing everything. You have to make a decision.”

“Harriet!” Ronnie shouted as the flames began to lap at his feet. “Why are you staring at me like that? Harriet, snap out of it! I need your help or we're both gonna die!”

“I'm so sorry,” she replied, shaking her head as fresh tears ran from her eyes. “Please, Ronnie, don't hate me.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“She's making me choose,” she continued, placing one hand on her belly. “I have to choose between your life or the life of our unborn child. And Ronnie... I can't make any other decision. I just can't. I have to save Eve.”

“Harriet, what the hell are you on about?” he screamed, and now the flames were starting to ripple across his clothes as he pulled harder and harder on his trapped foot. “Harriet, I'm burning! Help me!”

“I'm so sorry,” she sobbed, watching as the flames reached his neck. “But it has to be Eve. You understand, don't you? I can't make any other decision. I have to save our child.”

“Harriet, no!” he shouted as the flames began to burn his face, quickly covering his features as he reached out with one trembling hand. “Harriet, you have to help me! I love you! Harriet! Help!”

Chapter Fifty-Four

Dotted around on the village green, staring at the smoldering remains of the platform where the flames had finally died down, various locals still seemed to not quite understand what they'd just witnessed.

“That... wasn't real, was it?” a woman asked, before turning to her husband. “It was some kind of stunt, wasn't it? They must have used, like... drones or something.”

“I don't see Andrea anywhere,” he replied. “Just...”

As he fell silent, he and the others watched Harriet stumbling away from the smoldering remains of the platform. Somehow entirely unharmed by the fire, despite the petrol that even now was soaking her clothes and irritating the skin beneath, she was barely able to put one foot in front of the other, and she almost tripped and fell a few times until finally she stopped and looking around at the gawking faces. She wanted to scream at them, but at the same time she had no idea how to even start explaining everything that had just happened.

She opened her mouth, but in that instant she remembered him again.

Blinking, she heard Ronnie's final cries and saw his burning face staring out at her from the inferno. She'd seen the flesh dropping away from his skull, but worse than that had been the expression of fear and confusion in his eyes; even as they'd blackened and burned away, his eyes had been filled with a sense of betrayal, as if he hadn't been able to understand why she'd chosen Eve over him...

Why she'd made the decision he hadn't been able to make a year earlier...

And then, breaking her out of her sense of shock, something kicked in her belly. Looking down, she placed her hands on her front and realized that it was already slightly swollen again. She'd been feeling out of sorts for a while now, but she'd never even considered the possibility that she might be pregnant. She and Ronnie certainly hadn't been trying for another baby so soon and she knew there was no real way that any of this could be happening, yet after a few more seconds she realized that she could sense another soul existing inside her own body.

“Eve,” she whispered. “I'm here.”

“Where... where's Andrea?” a man asked, watching her cautiously.

She turned to him.

“Is it over?” he continued. “Whatever happened up there, I don't know how real it was, but... was it another reenactment? Is it done now?”

“I think so,” she replied, turning and looking back at the pile of ash. She supposed that Ronnie and Andrea's bodies were in there somewhere, although she had no idea how she was going to explain anything to the police.

Deep down, however, she had a sense that everything was going to be okay. After all, if the ghost of Scarlet Carruthers could wield so much power, she could undoubtedly misdirect the investigations run by a bunch of local cops. She had no idea how or why, but in that moment Harriet felt absolutely sure that Scarlet was going to deal with all the problems and make everything fine.

And then, spotting movement in the distance, she saw that Scarlet's ghostly figure was walking slowly toward a shape that had slumped down against the dark grass.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Letting out a pained, low groan, the burned and horribly disfigured form of Father John Mertyn opened his eyes and rolled onto his back. The agony was intense, yet even now the curse was keeping him alive.

His clothes were mostly burned away and his flesh was charred, yet death was unable to drag him into its clutches. As he'd learned so many times – to his eternal cost – his body somehow refused to yield.

Stopping to look down at him, Scarlet Carruthers saw the fear in his bloodied, milky eyes.

“You,” the old man groaned.

“Me,” she replied.

“I...”

“Hush,” she continued, holding a finger up briefly to her lips. “You don't have to say anything. Not any more.”

“Please,” he stammered. “Don't... laugh at me.”

“I'm not laughing,” Scarlet told him as she saw smoke rising from his charred remains. “Two hundred years ago you led a mob to my door. You dragged me from my home and cut me to pieces. You were filled with a sense of righteous indignation, you believed everything you did to me was ordained by God. You never even doubted your actions for a moment, did you?”

“I was cruel,” he murmured. “Wrong. Evil.”

“I don't know about all of that,” she replied, stepping around him and kneeling next to his head, “but it was a very long time ago, wasn't it? Two hundred years... that's a long time for anybody to pay penance for their sins.”

“Deserved,” he whispered.

“Perhaps, but I think I've played my part, maybe for slightly too long.”

Reaching out, she put a hand on the side of his burned face.

“You're an old man now, Father Mertyn,” she continued. “I think we both believe that there's some other form of judgment coming for you. If you'd faced that judgment at the end of your normal life, you might still have been filled with anger and hatred and cruelty. But now, I think anyone who looks into your heart and mind will find a much more complicated picture.”

“I am... so sorry for what I did to you,” he groaned as she stroked the side of his face. “If I could take it back, I would suffer all the pain I inflicted a thousand times over... to save you from so much as a second of it.”

“I believe you,” she told him.

She watched his features for a moment, and finally a faint smile reached her lips as a tear ran down her cheek.

“You can rest now, Father Mertyn,” she added. “After all this time, your thousands of deaths can finally catch up to you..”

He opened his mouth to reply, but suddenly he let out a pained gasp and tilted his head back. As Scarlet pulled her hand away, the priest's body began to shudder and his flesh – or what remained of it, at least – started to fall away from his bones like dust. Soon all that remained was the bones themselves, but even these were cracking as more dust fell from every part of his body. As if two centuries were playing out in a matter of seconds, the old man's body crumbled and fell away, leaving nothing but more dust that already was sinking slightly into the ground.

“I commend thee to the Lord,” Scarlet whispered, “and hope that mercy will be shown to your soul.”

She hesitated for a moment longer, out of respect, before getting to her feet. And then, spotting movement nearby, she turned to see that while most of the villagers were now stumbling confused back to their homes, Harriet was slowly limping toward her.

“Why?” Harriet asked. “Why did I have to choose?”

“Does it matter?” Scarlet replied. “You chose correctly.”

“Can you bring him back? Can you use your powers to resurrect Ronnie?”

Scarlet shook her head.

“But why couldn't I have both of them?”

“I have waited two centuries for my chance to regain life,” Scarlet told her. “I have followed my plan and I have been extremely patient. I had to wait for the right person to come along, and for that person to be fully tested, but the moment has finally arrived. I'm truly sorry for all that you've lost, but I promise you that you will gain so much more. No matter how much pain you feel in this moment, there are good days ahead for you. You just have to find a way to keep the faith.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Harriet asked. “I don't understand half of what you say. Why do you always talk in a bunch of riddles? I can barely tell what you're trying to tell me!”

“I'm sure it seems like that sometimes,” Scarlet admitted, clearly finding the question slightly amusing. “I find your way of talking to be equally unusual. I've tried to keep up with the changes over the years, but there's a lot about this modern world that I don't understand. I'm going to have to learn a great deal, but I have time.”

She turned and looked all around, as if for a moment she was taking in the sight of the village.

“So much is different,” she mused, “yet so much is also the same. I made a lot of mistakes before, mistakes that cost me dearly. I almost paid for those mistakes with my life. I can't afford to do anything so stupid again.”

After a moment she turned and looked at Harriet again, and she immediately noticed the expression of shocked confusion on the woman's face.

“You'll understand in time,” she added with a faint smile. “Everything will become clear.”

With that she vanished, fading away into the night air. Harriet, meanwhile, stared at the spot where Scarlet had been standing before finally losing consciousness. As her eyes rolled back in her head, she toppled over and landed with a pitiful thud against the cold grass.

Epilogue

Several months later...

“She's so beautiful,” Maggie said, grinning from ear to ear as she lifted the baby up and looked into her giggling face. “Aren't you, Eve? You're the most beautiful baby in the whole wide world! Yes you are!”

“Don't start getting broody,” Jack replied as he wandered through from the hallway. “I told you, a puppy's enough for now.”

“But look at this little face,” Maggie continued, turning the baby around so that he could see her better. “Isn't she adorable? And she looks so much like her mother!”

“A lot of people have said that,” Harriet said, watching them from the other side of the room as she sipped from a cup of tea. “I thought I could see some of my own mother in her for a while, but now I'm not so sure.”

“She's a lot prettier than any kid of Ronnie's has any -”

Stopping suddenly, Jack seemed worried that he might have done the wrong thing by even mentioning Ronnie's name. He glanced over at Maggie, who looked equally concerned, and then at Harriet.

“I'm so -”

“It's fine,” Harriet said, clearly anticipating his fears. “I don't see much of Ronnie in her either, but she might get more of her personality from him. We'll have to wait and see if she eventually develops terrible fashion sense.”

“I'm going to grab a drink,” Jack said, heading out to the kitchen. “I need something to put in my mouth other than my own foot.”

“I'm fine talking about Ronnie,” Harriet continued, making her way over to check on her daughter. “I wish people wouldn't pussyfoot around me the whole time.”

“I think we're all just worried, that's all,” Maggie told her. “But you're obviously coping amazingly. I don't know if I'd even be capable of stringing two words together if I'd been through everything you told us about.” She paused for a moment. “Did the police ever figure out exactly why that Monkholm woman went mad and killed so many people?”

“I think they're a little stumped,” Harriet suggested uneasily as she lifted Eve up. “They kind of stopped poking around a while ago. To be honest, I imagine they just want to forget about the whole situation and I don't blame them. As long as Andrea Monkholm is out of the way now, which she definitely is, they probably figure that it's safe to leave a few of the details out of the final report. The village has been remarkably peaceful ever since that awful night, and I heard that the crops are going gangbusters this year.”

“Do you go to the village a lot?”

“No,” Harriet said, before kissing Eve on the cheek. The baby, in turn, let out a happy gurgle. “No, Eve and I spend most of our time just sort of pottering around here in the house, and to be honest I'm very happy with that. We don't want to be mixing with people too much.”

“You're not worried about her... what did the doctors call it again?”

“It's a form of transverse absence,” Harriet replied, glancing down at the baby's left hand. “Something like that, at least.”

“I just hope you're not worried that people might be funny about it,” Maggie continued. “Besides, she's just a baby. She doesn't have a clue that anything's missing.”

“I know that,” Harriet said, looking at the spot where Eve was missing her left hand's index finger.

She stared at the gap for a moment, feeling as if some sense of fear was bubbling away in the pit of her chest; after a few seconds, however, she put that fear out of her mind and forced herself to smile.

“Anyway, it doesn't matter that she was born with one finger missing,” she added with a broad, perhaps slightly forced smile. “I don't see how that means anything at all.”

Also available

THE HAUNTING OF HADLOW HOUSE:

THE COMPLETE SERIES

Beth Cooper is far from happy when her parents announce that they’re moving to the countryside. Hadlow House stands just beyond the edge of a small village, and as far as Beth’s concerned her life might as well be over. She has no idea, however, that this particular house is home to a number of terrifying ghosts – some of which have been around for more than three hundred years.

Back in 1689, Richard Hadlow was determined to restore his family’s name, but a series of tragedies destroyed his plans. Ever since, Hadlow House has been plagued by the ghosts of the lost souls that have died within its walls. Several families have tried to call the house their home, only to fall victim to the horrors that still haunt the property. And every time disaster strikes, another ghost is created.

But why has Hadlow House seemingly been cursed for all these years? Does one ghost lurk further back in the shadows than most, orchestrating everything? And can anyone end the cycle of pain and terror that seems set to never end?

This omnibus edition collects together, for the first time, all 13 books in the complete Haunting of Hadlow House series: 1689, 1722, 1775, 1800, 1837, 1885, 1901, 1918, 1926, 1939, 1966, 1999 and 2024.

Also available

MERCY WILLOW:

THE COMPLETE SERIES

All Mercy Willow wants is the chance to start again. After moving to a remote Cornish village and starting a new job as an estate agent, she tells herself that she can finally escape from her troubled past. However, she's reckoned without two things:

First, a minor accident that suddenly gives her the ability to see every ghost in the village.

And second, the fact that Candleward is a village with a LOT of ghosts.

Soon Mercy finds herself drawn into both the past and the present of this small community. Every house she tries to sell seems to be haunted by tragedy, and Mercy finds her work cut out for her as she desperately attempts to fix everyone else's problems. Her own past, however, is also very much still casting a shadow, and Mercy struggles to ignore the dark secret that drove her to the edge of nowhere in the first place.

Together with a cast of unusual locals, Mercy is quickly drawn into a fight for survival. What dark secret connects so many of the ghosts in the village? Why is a mysterious figure seemingly watching Mercy from a distance? Who is the deadly and threatening Jessica? And what does any of this have to do with the horrific truth about Mercy's early life?

This omnibus edition collects together, for the first time, all 13 books in the complete Mercy Willow series: The Haunting of Hurst House, The Spirit on Sidle Street, The Ghost of Gower Grange, The Curse of Clute Cottage, The Haunting of Anna Jenkins, The Death of Mercy Willow, The Terror of Torfork Tower, The Phantom of Payne Priory, The Devil on Davis Drive, The Haunting of the Ghost of Tom Bell, The Other Ghost of Gower Grange, The Haunting of Olive Atkins and The End of Mercy Willow.

Also available

13 NIGHTS IN CROWFORD

A murdered woman lingers in the old school, waiting for someone to uncover the identity of her killer.

A dying painter arrives in the town and finds himself drawn into a nun’s final mission.

A hunted man takes refuge in an old seaside hotel but finds more than he bargained for. A man returns home after the war, but what dark secret is he hiding?

On the southern coast of England, the town of Crowford has long had a reputation for ghosts. Some even say that the town is home to more ghosts than people. Almost every part of Crowford is haunted, and to prove that claim, here are thirteen stories about the town’s mysterious past – from the days before the town had even been founded, through the years of the English Civil War and the era of the Victorians, and on to the horrors and terrors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Together these stories tell the tales not only of Crowford’s inhabitants but also of the town itself.

This omnibus edition collects together, for the first time, 13 standalone titles from the Ghosts of Crowford series: The Haunting of Nelson Street, The Revenge of the Mercy Belle, The Ghost of Crowford School, The Portrait of Sister Anna, The Haunting of the Crowford Hoy, The Horror of the Crowford Empire, The Nightmare of Crowford Hospital, The Curse of the Crowford Grand, The Ghosts of Crossley Manor, The Siege of Crowford Castle, The Haunting of Crowford Station, The Graves of Crowford Rise and The Legend of the Crossley Stag.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Epilogue