'If you'll excuse me, my darlings, I really think I ought to be going up the wooden hill to the land of nod about now-'
'Oh, come now, Florence, you surely can't be going to bed yet? Why, it's barely gone ten o'clock!'
'Oh, yes, Flossie darling, Ginger is quite right, you simply mustn't leave yet! It'd ruin my entire Christmas!'
'Bobbie, I'll still be here in the morning, I shan't ruin anything. I'm so awful tired, the journey down was beastly …'
'The girl is talking of retiring when we haven't even had any ghost stories yet! Whatever next, stopping Christmas day before anyone has any Brussels Sprouts? Ending the New Year's party at eleven thirty? Good god.'
'Blimey, yes, that's a bally good point there. Flossie you can't go to bed before we tell ghost stories. What would the Baby Jesus say? Hm?'
'Harold, that's blasphemy !'
'You say everything is blasphemy, Annie. You're no fun'
'I didn't say I minded , darling…'
'Oh, Flossie, please stay for some ghost stories. We'll lower the lights, and- Oh, Ginger, did you remember to bring down Mummy's old ouija board?!'
A young man with extremely red hair reached under the chair and pulled out the board with a flourish.
'Of course, sister dearest.'
'Oh… Bobbie, really, I don't think I like the sound of this…'
'Flossie do stop being such a stick-in-the-mud and sit down.'
Flossie sat down next to Bobbie, who was sat next to Ginger, who was sat next to Harold, who was sat next to Annie, who was sat next to a quiet girl named Rose, who sat next to me, and I, in turn was sat, closing the loop, next to Flossie.
These names are, for the most part, irrelevant, but it does help to have placeholders for participants, don't you think? Better than saying "Persons A, B, and C", or neglecting to mention people altogether. Then you might get the impression I was sitting entirely alone in my room and talking to myself. Which, I suppose, for the central purpose of this narrative, wouldn't be too much of a problem, but it really would put rather a tarnish on my social status. Make me sound rather an antisocial cad, don't you think? Exactly. I knew you'd agree.
It was, should you have yet to have surmised, Christmas Eve. More precisely, it was Christmas Eve in the year of Our Lord, 19XX. A middling year, as years go, mostly notable, in my diary at least, for the excellent rowing by the Blues in the regatta, and for the marvellous (in the precise sense of the word…) events of that Christmas Eve…
But here I am stalling the narrative by telling you how incredible the narrative is, when I am quite sure that you are sitting there tapping your fingernails on your glass of scotch, or red wine, or perhaps, for the tee-totalers among you (my sincerest condolences), on your tumbler of orange juice, and wondering to yourself when the bally author is going to hurry up and get to the good stuff?
Patience, my dear reader. I'm getting to it.
'Okay then,' Bobbie said, leaning forward, eyes sparkling with her usual rigorous sense of mischief and glee, 'who's first?'
'Well, I could tell the story of the Grey Nun…'
'Oh, god, Harold, not your bloody Grey Nun story again. Awfully dull, darling. Someone else? Anyone else? Save us from Harry, please…'
Rose, who, as far as I had noticed at least, had barely spoken a word all evening bar to thank the butler when he'd topped up her glass of port after dinner, raised a cautious and pale little hand.
'Rose, sweetheart, you have a ghost story?'
Rose nodded.
She reminded me a great deal of a timid little bird, or perhaps some sort of small and easily startled horse. Certainly not the type of girl one would expect to have any terribly interesting ghost stories. Or any terribly interesting stories in general. Or, honestly, any interesting anything at all. She had dull written all over her. Were I to cut her in half I shouldn't have been surprised to find the word stamped right through the core of her like a stick of Brighton Rock.
Shows what I know, eh?
As I said, Rose nodded. 'Yes. It's a true one, too. No one ever believes me, but I swear on my grandmother's grave, it's as true as anything.'
'Oh, well now I'm very intrigued, dearest,' Bobbie said pleasantly. Bobbie is a jolly pleasant girl, aside from all the troublemaking. 'Let's hear it, Rose.'
Rose stared at us all with wide eyes. 'Okay. But please don't tell me I'm making it up or anything, because I'm really truly not, and I haven't ever told anyone this before... I don't believe in making up stories. My grandfather always said that was just a step away from telling falsehoods, and I never, ever do that. So you must all promise to believe me, first?'
I caught Ginger's eye and quickly looked away again, lest I start laughing, or set him off laughing, and hurt the poor girl's feeling.
We all nodded sombrely and promised not to think she was lying, and to take every word from her mouth as God's own truth. Evidently none of our grandfathers had ever drilled into us that telling falsehoods was such a cardinal sin, as we were all lying through our back teeth. Well, I was at least, and I know for a fact that Ginger and Bobbie were, too. The others could have gone either way.
Regardless…
'Okay then,' Rose said, a slight quiver in her voice. 'I'll tell you.'
And thus her story began:
'When I was small, must have only been about four years old, my brother Jack and I were up awfully late one night. My father was a doctor, you see, and my mother often assisted him on emergency call outs, and as Jack was so much older than me - ten years older, for those of you who don't know him - they would, on occasion, when there was such an emergency, leave Jack and me alone in the house whilst they rushed off to deal with sicknesses, or a tricky childbirth, or an accident or what-have you.
This was one of those nights. I can't recall what the emergency was that called them away, but it must have been rather serious, as they were gone for several hours. I never liked to sleep without Mummy or Daddy in the house, and Jack didn't like to make me cry by insisting, and so we were both sat up in the parlour, even though it must have been awfully late. Jack was reading in Daddy's big armchair, and I was sitting by the window and staring out into the dark street.
That's when I saw the man. Or the- Well. I saw something, in any case, and he did look like a man, otherwise we never would have… But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?
I sat and watched the man through the window. He kept pacing up and down, walking a few yards in one direction, then turning around and pacing back the same way he'd come. He kept waving his arms around and shaking his head as though he were having an argument with someone, only there was no one else there.
Then, suddenly, he turned and stared at me. Straight at me, as though he knew I was watching him. It scared me something rotten, but I mustered up a smile and gave him a little wave, because Grandmother always taught me to be polite. But the man waved back, and then started walking across the street.
As he got closer, I was able to get a better look at his face and I... I still can't explain it properly to this day. I've never seen anything like it before or since, and I hope never to again. It makes my skin crawl just remembering it. Remembering him .
It was as though he simply didn't fit in this world. Like he was from somewhere else . And his teeth were sharp , like those pictures of piranha fish you see in encyclopaedia's and magazine's and the like. Horrible . And his eyes, oh good God , his eyes were completely black . Like pits. Like staring into Hell itself. Everything about him felt wrong. He felt evil .
The man, although I don't truly believe he was a man walked right up to the window, right in front of me, and tapped on the glass. I was frozen to the spot, my heart racing like a bunny rabbit facing a fox. He pointed at the front door, then he pointed at me, and then he pointed at the door again and nodded.
He wanted me to open it.
And I can't tell you why, even to this day, but I did . It was as though I couldn't say no to his request. I don't know if I was too scared, or too obedient or- But the thing had asked me to open the front door, and so, and so… And so I did .
Jack looked up from his book as I stood up, and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was going to get a glass of water. I lied to him, to my own brother. I never lie. Never. But I could feel those black eyes watching me, and I knew that if I told Jack what I was really doing he would stop me, and somehow I knew that if Jack did that then something bad would happen. That he'd get hurt or- And don't ask me how I knew it, but I did . And I believe I was right, I really do. That thing would have…
I walked into the hallway, and up to the big front door. I had to stand on my tiptoes to reach the lock.
When I opened the door, the man was already standing there. He crouched down to my level, and when he smiled it felt like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard, and he smelled like dead flowers.
He stared at me for a few moments, and then held up a match in front of my face. He struck it against the stonework and it sparked into life.
"Pretty, ain't it?" he said to me, with a voice like pebbles cracking together.
"Mummy says that matches are dangerous," I told him,
"Do you always listen to your Mummy?"
I nodded.
"Well, I was just speaking with your Mummy, and do you know what she said?"
I shook my head.
"Your Mummy said she wanted you to come with me, and use one of these little matches to set fire to a big old building that no one really wants around anymore. Do you think you can do that for your Mummy?"
"I need to tell Jack…"
"Oh no you don't," the man snapped, seizing my wrist, "you don't got to tell no one, girlie. Now, come with me. And don't even think about screaming, or I'll tell your Mummy that you were disobedient, you understand?"
The man dragged me out of the house. I tripped on the front steps and cut my knee, but he didn't seem to notice, or if he did he didn't care. I stumbled back to my feet and he pulled me all the way down the street to the church at the end of the road. It was a beautiful church.
"Right," he said. "This is it. Now you, little girl, you are going to take these matches, and you are going to go into that church, and set it on fire."
"I don't think God will like it very much if I set His church on fire, sir. He'll be awful cross…"
"Listen, either you go into that church and burn it down, or I go back to your house and kill your brother, got it?"
I shook my head. My grandmother had always taught me that God would protect me. That if you do the right thing, then God will always look out for you, and keep you safe, in this life and the next.
And then the man changed . Just for a second. Just for a second he became this… this… this monstrosity. I can't even describe it.
I screamed.
And suddenly two more men appeared beside me.
They didn't feel evil, at all. Quite the opposite, in fact...
The man with the black eyes, the one who had dragged me from my house, he panicked and tried to run away, but the man with blonde hair tripped him up, and the other man, with dark hair, he grabbed him by the collar at the same time. The evil creature buckled, and choked, and gasped, and began trying to plead with the men.
"Oh, bloody hell," the dark-haired man snapped. "Who are you? No, actually, I don't care who you are, you're clearly a nobody. So who sent you ? Not Beelzebub or Dagon. They know better. They might not be sophisticated, but they are far too clever for this . Sending some idiotic little minion up to earth? Really?"
"That's an Angel …" the creature wailed. "What're you doing with an Angel , Crowley!? Why're you attacking me, get it! "
The other man, the Angel , stepped forward. "Oh, well, it's rather a long story, but please rest assured that mine and Crowley's arrival here together was pure coincidence. I don't even know him. Well, by reputation, of course, but certainly not-"
"Shut up, angel..."
"Crowley, let me go! Get the Angel!"
"Tell me who sent you."
The creature, who was looking less and less human by the second, whined. "Hastur, Duke Hastur," it finally replied. "Wanted to… to make you look bad. Said you'd been sleeping on the job again, that they needed someone to get up here and actually do some work, I-"
The man, Crowley, growled and threw the creature to the ground and cursed. "You get back down there and you tell Duke Hastur that you are a pitiful excuse for a demon who shouldn't be trusted to cause an explosion in a dynamite factory. And that Anthony Crowley sends his thanks for the wake up call , but is quite awake, and working . Go on, get!"
He kicked the creature, and it yelped, and then scurried away into the darkness.
"That's just brilliant ," Crowley muttered. "Just what I need right now…"
"Crowley-"
"I know I may have overstepped the mark somewhat with that extended nap, but after all the work I've put in over the years, all the effort I've put in…"
"Crowley-"
"And it's not as though I'm not making up for it, now. I've been working overtime, lately. I've caught up on all of my reports, and I was over in France just last month, I swear to somebody that if Hastur doesn't think I'll be putting in a formal complaint over this then he's got another thing-"
" Crowley! "
The taller, blonde man crouched down beside me. Crowley stared at me and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Ah," he said.
"Hello, my dear," the tall man said. "Are you okay?"
I think I must have shaken my head, because I remember the tall man looking up at the Crowley man with a worried expression.
"Did that… man… hurt you, at all?"
"No. He just… He made me go away from my house. He told me to burn down the church, and that if I didn't, he'd kill my brother…"
"Oh, subtle. Classy. Brilliant", Crowley muttered.
"Oh, you poor little thing," the other man said, taking my hands in his. "You've been very brave."
"What's your name?"
"Rose. Rose Illiford."
"What happened to your knee?" Crowley said, sitting down on the floor next to me.
"I fell down."
The two men shared a look, and then the tall man waved his hand and the cut disappeared .
"All better," he said with a kind smile. "Where do you live, Rose? Is it very far away from here, my dear?"
I pointed to my house, just up the street.
"I think we should get you back home, Rose," the tall man said. "Does that sound like a good idea?"
And then they took me home.
Jack hadn't even noticed I'd gone.
They took me right up to the front door and made sure I got in safely. And before they left, Crowley took a little toy snake out of his pocket and gave it to me. I still have it. That's how I know it was real and not just a dream. Or a nightmare. Or…"
Rose wrapped her arms around herself. She had tears in her eyes, and yet she was smiling.
"Do you know what I believe?" she asked us all, and we all shook our heads, wide-eyed. "I believe that the man, the bad man, I believe he was a ghost, or an evil spirit, or, or something . And those two men, Crowley and his friend, I believe that God sent them to protect me. Because I refused to burn down the Church, God sent me Guardian Angels to look after me. Just like my grandmother always told me. God protected me from a poltergeist …!"
The room stayed silent. Mouths hung agape. Furtive glances were exchanged.
Ginger was the first to break the silence. Naturally.
"By jove, you don't honestly expect us to believe all of that, do you?"
Ginger never was the most tactful of lads. Excellent cricketer, no one could doubt that, but when it came to tact, he was, admittedly, somewhat lacking.
Rose crumpled.
"Oh, oh gosh, Rose darling, don't cry! Of course we believe you! Don't we ?" Bobbie elbowed Ginger sharply in the ribs. Having personally been the recipient of that elbow on more than one occasion, I can assure you that it is a singularly unpleasant experience.
"Ow! Bobbie! Erm, no, yes, I mean, of course we believe you. All completely believable."
"Gosh, but Rose, did that really, truly happen? All of it?"
Rose nodded sombrely and wiped away a tear.
"Let's try and talk to them," Harold said, leaning forward in his chair with a grin.
"What," I said, "are you talking about?"
"Let's use the ouija board! Talk to these Guardian Angels!"
"Oh, no!" Rose cried out. "Oh, no please let's don't. That's sacrilegious!"
"No it's not," Harold replied jovially. "You never got to thank them, right? Well, why don't you? That's not sacrilegious. That's just good manners."
"Harry, don't wind her up, it's not flattering darling," Annie chastised. Annie was Harold's fiance.
"I'm not winding her up, sweetpea, I am absolutely serious. We should try to contact them." He pulled the ouija board out from under Ginger's chair and placed it on the coffee table. "What did you say the one chap's name was? Anthony Crowley?"
Rose nodded, looking pale. Well, more pale than usual. By now she was in fact practically translucent.
And, somehow, before we knew it, we were all sitting around the ouija board with our hands on an upturned glass still containing a few drips of Bobbie's father's very expensive scotch, and trying to make contact with Rose's mysterious Crowley and his nameless Angel friend.
"How do you actually summon a specific, er, supernatural entity? " Annie asked.
"I suppose we just call out to them," I said. I'd done a few seances in my time, mostly they were complete nonsense, to be honest, but always jolly good fun.
Harold obliged.
"O spirit known by the name of Anthony Crowley, please hear our call… We implore you, answer our message, we wish to speak with you, Anthony Crowley… Anthony Crowley, are you there?"
For a handful of tense moments we all sat in silence, just waiting. Waiting…
"Oh, this is ridiculous," Ginger snapped. "Obviously nothing is-"
And then the glass began to move.
W-H-A-T
"Oh my gosh," Annie whispered.
The glass began to move more rapidly.
W-H-O-S- T-H-I-S
We looked at each other.
"Er, well, my name is Roberta," Bobbie said. "Er, there are quite a few of us here though, and-"
W-H-A-T- D-O- Y-O-U- W-A-N-T-?
"Golly, can you actually hear us, then?" Flossie said.
Y-E-S
V-.- A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G
"Um, we have Rose Ilford here… She wanted to thank you and your friend. You saved her from a ghost or something when she was little. It wanted her to burn down a Church, and you showed up and kicked it's backside and took her home. Made quite an impression on the girl," I said. This Crowley chap seemed rather irritable, even if he was an angel, and I could empathise. It was Christmas eve, after all. I'm sure angels have better things to do on Christmas eve than listen to babbling young idiots.
The glass stopped moving.
"Oh, look what you've done now you, you young cloth-head. You've made him go away."
"Well, maybe he's just busy," I replied laconically.
"Oh, this is ridiculous," Ginger said, shaking his head. "Harold, you're having us all on. You were just moving the thing around yourself."
"I am not!" Harold retorted.
"Hah! All right then. If you are actually real," Ginger said to the ouija board, "and not just Harry moving the glass around to toy with us, then prove it .
B-U-G-G-E-R-O-F-F
"Harold! Watch your language!"
"It's not me, Annabell!"
Y-O-U-C-A-L-L-E-D-M-E
"You aren't real!"
M-A-Y-B-E- Y-O-U- A-R-E-N-T- R-E-A-L
"If you are real, then tell me what the name of my first dog was?"
H-O-W-T-H-E-H-E-L-L-W-O-U-L-D-I-K-N-O-W
"You're a ghost! Or an angel, or something."
Nothing.
Then
H-A-H-A-H-A-H-A
"That's... different."
"Don't think I've ever had a ouija board laugh at me before."
O-H- T-H-I-S- I-S- O-N- A- O-U-I-J-A- B-O-A-R-D-?
"Er, yes."
Y-O-U- A-T- A- X-M-A-S- P-A-R-T-Y-?
"Yeah. We were telling ghost stories, well, Rose told us a story, about you and your friend, and we thought we'd see if we could say hello. Rose assures us that she is telling the truth. And we believe her, of course. Sorry to bother you, if you're busy." This was said by me. I was rather warming to the fellow.
B-I-T- B-U-S-Y-. W-I-T-H- M-Y- F-R-I-E-N-D.
"The other angel?"
Y-E-S- T-H-E- A-N-G-E-L
"Oh, well Merry Christmas, old sport. Have a scotch on me."
"Oh good Lord, this is a seance, not a catch up at the club, you silly rabbit. You can't talk to a supernatural entity so casually!"
"I don't see why not, Florence," I replied, somewhat put out. "He seems rather casual himself, I'm simply following his lead!"
"You sound ridiculous!"
"Yes, well, your dress is ridiculous, Flossie, but you don't hear me complaining about it!"
"Mister Crowley?" Rose said softly, interrupting mine and Flossie's argument. "If you are there, you and your friend, I just… I just want to thank you. For protecting me. I never thanked you, before. And I- I still have the little snake that you gave me. Thank you."
Nothing.
Nothing.
And then…
Y-O-U-R-E- W-E-L-C-O-M-E.
And then
A-Z-I-R-A-P-H-A-L-E- S-A-Y-S- H-I
…
H-E- W-A-S- T-H-E- O-T-H-E-R- O-N-E
…
M-Y- F-R-I-E-N-D- I- M-E-A-N-
…
S-O-R-R-Y- T-H-E- B-A-S-T-A-R-D- R-A-N- O-F-F- W-I-T-H- Y-O-U-R- D-O-L-L-
Rose gasped, at that.
"What?" I said. "You didn't say anything about a doll, Rose?"
"No, I- I- It didn't seem important, but I… the thing, the ghost, it- It snatched my doll off of me when I fell and shoved it in its pocket. When it ran away, it took my doll with it…"
"Wait," I said insightfully. "But… But none of us knew about that. The doll. How could…"
We all stared at the ouija board.
M-E-R-R-Y- C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S-
It spelled out.
GOODBYE.