This Haunted World Book One: The Venetian: A Chilling New Supernatural Thriller (25 page)

“Louise—” Piero urged.

He was right. “Come on, quickly.” Her voice was urgent too.

Passing one of the drawers, she was reminded of what she’d seen before: a scrap of paper with the letters ‘Alb’ on it. Was it Charlotte’s letter, one of many she’d written to her brother, which had never been sent, which Dr Gritti had intercepted? Where was it? Louise wanted to remove it from the island, to remove as much that belonged to Charlotte as possible. But it would take time to find it, time they didn’t have. Perhaps it didn’t matter – she was taking the most important thing of all.

As they left the building and stood on the path outside, there was relief on everyone’s faces. The rain had stopped but there was a freshness that lingered.

The boat started instantly, Piero putting it into gear and steering them away. Navigating the waters back to Venice, all kept their eyes on the island.

Kristina eventually spoke.

“What’s that?” she said, pointing. “It seems like a light has come on in the building.”

Louise scrutinised the building, now so far away.

“That’s not a light,” she answered. “That’s fire.”

“Fire?” Rob was alarmed. “We’d better inform the police when we reach the mainland.”

“No!” Both she and Piero said it at the same time but he deferred to her as she continued. “We don’t mention it to anyone. We leave it. Sometimes anger needs to burn.”

Later, much later, when Rob and Kristina had had time to absorb all that Louise and Piero had told them, they decided on a plan. It was too risky to smuggle bones back through customs to England so they’d bury the baby in Italy. Louise would have loved to transport her to Charlotte’s homeland but that might well involve the authorities and the bones being taken from her – after all who would believe their story? They could take the cloth she’d been buried in and the wedding ring – that was enough to create a shrine with, at least. Initially, Rob thought it strange about the ring, that Charlotte had enclosed it in the casket, ‘you know, considering what happened between her and Enrico.’ Louise reminded him that primarily it was a symbol of love, of hope. Besides, it was all she had to give.

Piero knew where to bury the baby – in the Tuscan countryside he grew up in, near the village of Fuchecio. “It’s a peaceful spot on my father’s land, beneath a cypress tree.”

“And we can have a marker?” Louise had asked.

“Of course, but what name should we put on the marker? You haven’t said.”

That had stumped Louise. She didn’t know the baby’s name, or if Charlotte had even bestowed one on her. After some debate, they decided to call her Charlotte too, in memory of her mother. It was also suggested her middle name should be Maria, after Little Maria – the young girl that stood on the shores of Poveglia, pointing back towards Venice. Whether she was real or not didn’t matter – it was simply a way of paying homage. Charlotte Maria Evans (the choice of surname another deliberate gesture) was laid to rest in the shade of a cypress tree on land that was fertile, where flowers grew and bees hovered. Her name was carved into a wooden cross, beside which Kristina placed a lantern.

“It’s an Italian tradition,” she explained to Louise and Rob. “We don’t leave those who have passed in the dark. When night falls, the lantern is switched on.”

“But who’ll do that?” Rob asked. “Who’ll switch it on?”

“We will,” Piero had replied, placing an arm around his wife. “We’ve decided to move out of the city, to live in the country instead. My father has plenty of land, and he’ll be glad of our company, as we will be of his. We can build our own house too, something we have both wanted to do for a long time. We don’t want to put it off any longer.”

Louise agreed. You had to live life whilst you could.

Having cancelled their flight to stay with Piero and Kristina for a week to oversee the burial of Charlotte Maria, it was time to return home, the pair of them hoping, as they walked through security that her mother would have approved of what they’d done. They might not be bringing back her bones, but they were bringing back her memory.

“Tessa, Tessa, come on!”

Whilst they waited for Tessa to return, Rob and Louise linked arms. Emulating Piero and Kristina, they too had sold their London home and now lived in the Sussex countryside, yearning not only for peace but also for grass and trees – a land that was soft rather than urban, and easy on the eye. They’d bought a barn conversion close to the village of Ditchling and had discovered lots of gorgeous country walks close by, either along the ridge of the South Downs, the air still laced with salt from the sea, or in woodland glades, like the one they were in now, the ground a mass of bluebells and wood anemones. This was their favourite spot, within walking distance of their house and quiet, so quiet – the perfect place to plant forget-me-nots close to the baby’s shrine, the seeds of which she’d also sent to Kristina so she could plant them beside her grave too.

For a long time Louise had tried to trace Albert Evans, but she’d drawn a blank. He would most likely be dead anyway, she reasoned, but she’d continued in the hope he’d had a son or a daughter she could have talked to. Rob even suggested that in the search she might find a family connection to her own: ‘That’s why she chose you, because you’re a descendant or something.’ But Louise didn’t think so. The reason she’d been chosen was because of the similarities between them, which had acted as triggers. There were so many – even a few between Rob and Enrico, which Rob had frowned at when she’d told him – but the greatest of all was anger. It was this that had truly united them. It had sprung from the same well.

In the end she’d given up her search. Perhaps any true descendants of Charlotte didn’t need to know the fate she’d met. It would only hurt them.
They
knew. That was enough.

Their walk at an end, they gazed down on the shrine. As Louise always did when they stood in this spot, she tried to make sense of her feelings.

“It’s like there’s peace in me now, as if I can rest too.”

“You can,” Rob replied. “Our lives are different.”

“They are, they’re more fulfilled.”

Reaching out, Rob put his arm around her. “We’ve got everything we could ever want.”

“I know. We’re so lucky.”

Both of them were quiet – remembering those who weren’t so fortunate.

“I’m not sure if this is the right time to bring this up,” Rob was definitely hesitant, “but the developers who’ve brought the island of Poveglia are going forward with their plans to build a luxury hotel on it. They’ve already bulldozed what remained of the asylum after it caught fire and work on the new build is due to start soon.”

At his words, Louise inclined her head. “Is it on the net, what they’re doing?”

“It is, but it was Piero who told me. Apparently he’s been asked to get involved.”

“And is he?”

“He’s thinking about it.” Again Rob faltered. “He thinks it’s definitely a good idea, that it will breathe new energy into the place, erase the past entirely.”

Louise shook her head. “You can’t erase the past entirely.”

“I know, Lou, but it’s best not to dwell.”

It’s best not to dwell?
She turned back the way they’d come, facing the winding path that led towards home. “You’re right,” she said as Rob fell into step beside her. “And Piero’s right too, the island needs to be transformed.”

Rob was clearly relieved she thought so, and that she wasn’t protesting the land remained sacrosanct. It was, after all, a graveyard. “Maybe it’ll be a happy place to visit one day. Maybe we’ll even go back, check out this luxury hotel.”

She came to a standstill. “Go back?”

“Well… I thought—”

“No, Rob, we’re not going back.”

Rob shrugged. “Okay, I was just saying…”

“There’d be no point.”

“No point. What do you mean?”

“Charlotte’s not there.”

“Charlotte? How’d you know that?”

“Because I do, I feel it. None of them are. That’s why there’d be no point.”

“Sorry, I don’t understand.” He looked thoroughly confused.

Seeing that, she broke into a grin. “Well, it’s just another luxury hotel isn’t it? And, quite frankly, you can go and stay in one of them anywhere.”

Absorbing what she’d said, he laughed too and they continued walking. “Quite right, no point in going over old ground. It’s new experiences we want.”

She snuggled into the side of him. “Or we could just stay at home.”

“That’s right, we could.”

“With Tess.”

“Yeah, with Tess.” He turned his head. “Talking of which, where is she?”

Louise looked round too. “I don’t know, the little scamp!”

Again they called out, their voices in unison, hers high, his low, breaking the silence. Worry started to nag at Louise when there was no sign of her. She moved away from Rob and continued to call. “Tessa, where are you, sweetie? Come on, we need to go home.”

Biting at her lip, she looked at Rob.

“Where can she be? She never goes far.”

“Something must have caught her attention.”

“But what?”

Rather than wait for an answer, Louise started walking briskly in the direction they’d just come from, back towards the shrine. “Tessa!” Her voice had grown stern. “Come on now.”

The only other sound was her breathing grown heavy, even the birdsong had ceased as if they too were listening for Tessa’s return and would only sing again afterwards.

“Tessa!” God, where was she? “Come on, stop playing games.”

She caught a glimpse of something, a flash of white. Her breath, having quickened, stopped altogether.
Could it be? Was it her?

With shoulders so tense they shot darts of pain upwards into her neck, she turned slowly towards what she’d seen, all the while hoping and praying.

The slightly cumbersome frame of the Old English sheepdog came bounding out from behind a clump of trees, as happy to see her owners, as they were relieved to see her.

As the dog threw herself at Louise, she hunkered down to meet it, letting it lick her face all over in greeting. “Where’d you go, Tessa? Did you see a squirrel maybe? You had us worried. We thought something had happened to you, that you’d been spirited away.”

She laughed as she said it but a part of her
had
thought exactly that, maybe even Charlotte herself, not satisfied with what they’d done after all, not seeing it as enough. And so she’d take Louise’s baby, the
only
baby she was ever likely to have.

No! She’d never do that. She’d never inflict that kind of pain
.

And if anything happened to Tess, it would be painful. It was amazing how much she and Rob loved her; how she completed them.

Rob started ruffling Tessa’s ears, fussing over her. “There you are, you big furball. Honestly you do worry us sometimes. You shouldn’t go off like that.”

Helping Louise to rise, he patted the dog again before resuming their journey home, the three of them, walking together through the woods. A family.

The End

If you enjoyed The Venetian and want to read more paranormal fiction from Shani Struthers, check out her bestselling Psychic Surveys series, published by Crooked Cat Publishing. There are three books in the series so far: The Haunting of Highdown Hall, Rise to Me and 44 Gilmore Street with the fourth, Rachel’s Cottage (working title) coming in 2017. There’s also a prequel to the series: Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story or if you prefer romance with a hint of the supernatural, check out the ghostly Jessamine. They’re all available from Amazon in e-book format and paperback.

Eve: A Christmas Ghost Story (Psychic Surveys Prequel)

What do you do when a whole town is haunted? 
 

In 1899, in the North Yorkshire market town of Thorpe Morton, a tragedy occurred; 59 people died at the market hall whilst celebrating Christmas Eve, many of them children. One hundred years on and the spirits of the deceased are restless still, ‘haunting’ the community, refusing to let them forget.

In 1999, psychic investigators Theo Lawson and Ness Patterson are called in to help, sensing immediately on arrival how weighed down the town is. Quickly they discover there’s no safe haven. The past taints everything.

Hurtling towards the anniversary as well as a new millennium, their aim is to move the spirits on, to cleanse the atmosphere so everyone – the living and the dead – can start again. But the spirits prove resistant and soon Theo and Ness are caught up in battle, fighting against something that knows their deepest fears and can twist them in the most dangerous of ways.

They’ll need all their courage to succeed and the help of a little girl too – a spirit who didn’t die at the hall, who shouldn’t even be there…

Psychic Surveys Book One: The Haunting of Highdown Hall

Good morning, Psychic Surveys. How can I help?’ 

The latest in a long line of psychically-gifted females, Ruby Davis can see through the veil that separates this world and the next, helping grounded souls to move towards the light - or 'home' as Ruby calls it. Not just a job for Ruby, it's a crusade and one she wants to bring to the High Street. Psychic Surveys is born.

Based in Lewes, East Sussex, Ruby and her team of freelance psychics have been kept busy of late. Specialising in domestic cases, their solid reputation is spreading - it's not just the dead that can rest in peace but the living too. All is threatened when Ruby receives a call from the irate new owner of Highdown Hall. Film star Cynthia Hart is still in residence, despite having died in 1958.

Winter deepens and so does the mystery surrounding Cynthia. She insists the devil is blocking her path to the light long after Psychic Surveys have 'disproved' it. Investigating her apparently unblemished background, Ruby is pulled further and further into Cynthia's world and the darkness that now inhabits it.

For the first time in her career, Ruby's deepest beliefs are challenged. Does evil truly exist? And if so, is it the most relentless force of all?

Psychic Surveys Book Two: Rise to Me

“This isn’t a ghost we’re dealing with. If only it were that simple…”

Eighteen years ago, when psychic Ruby Davis was a child, her mother – also a psychic – suffered a nervous breakdown. Ruby was never told why. “It won’t help you to know,” the only answer ever given. Fast forward to the present and Ruby is earning a living from her gift, running a high street consultancy – Psychic Surveys – specialising in domestic spiritual clearance.

Boasting a strong track record, business is booming. Dealing with spirits has become routine but there is more to the paranormal than even Ruby can imagine. Someone – something – stalks her, terrifying but also strangely familiar. Hiding in the shadows, it is fast becoming bolder and the only way to fight it is for the past to be revealed – no matter what the danger.

When you can see the light, you can see the darkness too.

And sometimes the darkness can see you.

Psychic Surveys Book Three: 44 Gilmore Street

“We all have to face our demons at some point.”

Psychic Surveys – specialists in domestic spiritual clearance – have never been busier. Although exhausted, Ruby is pleased. Her track record as well as her down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach inspires faith in the haunted, who willingly call on her high street consultancy when the supernatural takes hold.

But that’s all about to change.

Two cases prove trying: 44 Gilmore Street, home to a particularly violent spirit, and the reincarnation case of Elisha Grey. When Gilmore Street attracts press attention, matters quickly deteriorate. Dubbed the ‘New Enfield’, the ‘Ghost of Gilmore Street’ inflames public imagination, but as Ruby and the team fail repeatedly to evict the entity, faith in them wavers.

Dealing with negative press, the strangeness surrounding Elisha, and a spirit that’s becoming increasingly territorial, Ruby’s at breaking point. So much is pushing her towards the abyss, not least her own past. It seems some demons just won’t let go…

Jessamine

"The dead of night, Jess, I wish they'd leave me alone."

Jessamin Wade's husband is dead - a death she feels wholly responsible for. As a way of coping with her grief, she keeps him 'alive' in her imagination - talking to him everyday, laughing with him, remembering the good times they had together. She thinks she will 'hear' him better if she goes somewhere quieter, away from the hustle and bustle of her hometown, Brighton. Her destination is Glenelk in the Highlands of Scotland, a region her grandfather hailed from and the subject of a much-loved painting from her childhood.

Arriving in the village late at night, it is a bleak and forbidding place. However, the house she is renting - Skye Croft - is warm and welcoming. Quickly she meets the locals. Her landlord, Fionnlagh Maccaillin, is an ex-army man with obvious and not so obvious injuries. Maggie, who runs the village shop, is also an enigma, startling her with her strange 'insights'. But it is Stan she instantly connects with. Maccaillin's grandfather and a frail, old man, he is grief-stricken from the recent loss of his beloved Beth.

All four are caught in the past. All four are unable to let go. Their lives entwining in mysterious ways, can they help each other to move on or will they always belong to the ghosts that haunt them?