MAGDALENA'S GHOST: THE HAUNTING OF THE HOUSE IN GALLOWS LANE (16 page)

He began to uncover an array of other paintings which were leaning against one of the benches. They were all exceptional but for one. It was a portrait of a young girl who had no particular attributes that were obvious in the painting. Her features were dull and insignificant, and she seemed to stare sulkily at him from inside the frame. He covered it back up again, pondering on why anyone would want to paint such a morose child, yet marvelling at the ability of the artist to capture the mood in its true form.

Various tools, and unfinished workings in clay, were casually scattered around on the benches, along with manuals, journals, sketches, plans and various drawings, as if waiting for someone to return. But it was the multitude of tall shrouded figures which were lined up on the floor, in even rows, that lured him closer and he began to remove the covers one by one. He gasped in amazement as he excitedly undraped them all. Never in his life had he ever seen anything like it. Every single one was a magnificent marble sculpture, and he couldn’t peel his eyes away from any of them; he had no idea why they were in the room locked away in such a manner.  His gut feeling was that they should be in a museum, but on reflection he wondered if they could be stolen goods and had been locked away and forgotten. He tried to lift one of them, but it was too heavy, so he tipped it carefully to one side to see if he could find a marking anywhere. He spotted a signature carved into the base underneath which was hard to decipher, but he could tell that it was the same one as on the portrait. He didn’t know who Magdalena was, or whether she was dead or alive, but without doubt her talent was exceptional.

He couldn’t hazard a guess as to how long the room had been sealed up, or who the rightful owners of the sculptures could be; nor could he speculate on how long they had been there, or why. As he mulled it all over in his head, he had to admit it was an intriguing mystery, as was the house itself. But it was unlikely that he would ever get to the bottom of it. No doubt its history and the story behind its contents were destined to remain buried in the past; after all, the house had been empty for years.

He continued to explore each and every drawer, cupboard, nook and cranny; it was like Aladdin’s cave. He walked over to a glass-fronted cabinet in which he could see a violin case, along with other interesting artefacts and pieces. He opened the door and took out the case and inspected it closely. There was a name engraved on the front. It was the same one again:
Magdalena.
There was clearly no end to her talents. Inside the case was a beautiful antique violin, which he could see was a very rare and beautiful instrument. He stroked it gently, but chose not to remove such a precious item. He closed the case and put it back in the cabinet where it belonged; he stood and gazed at it for a while, his head full of mixed emotions.

He felt very saddened by what he’d seen, as there was something quite solitary about it all. In his view, it was simple to calculate that Magdalena was clearly one of the former occupants. The fact that her belongings had remained locked in the house for such a long time, led him to believe that she was likely to have been one of the women who went mad. If she had been taken away against her will, maybe in her madness she had chosen to lock away all of her valuable works of art so that the authorities couldn’t get their hands on any of it. It seemed a logical explanation to Anton, based upon the information which had been given to him by the local authority.

He stood still for a while and cast his eyes around the room, until they fell upon some fitted shelves. On the very top one he spotted a tall object covered in a piece of fabric. It was way out of reach and he had to stand on one of the benches in order to get to it. He carefully removed the cover to reveal a beautiful and very ornate clock decorated in black and gold. He had never seen anything like it in his life, and it wasn’t difficult to work out that it was a very valuable antique. He scrutinised the clock face which had two dials above it. On further inspection he realised that they were settings for a variety of classical tunes. A cord to the side of the clock, when drawn, played the selected tune and Anton drew the cord for the one which had already been set. The most beautiful piece of music he had ever heard filled the atmosphere and he was mesmerised. It was haunting and melancholy, but exquisite and soothing like a lullaby. He was unable to tear himself away as he listened spellbound.

When the music reached Lucy’s ears she recognised it immediately. It was the same as she had heard during the night. She ran up the stairs and stopped outside the door. Something was preventing her from going inside but she had no idea what it was, so she stood in the doorway and listened. She cast her mind back to the dream she had experienced where a beautiful woman had cradled her as a baby and mesmerised her with a beautiful soothing song – that same tune was now playing again.

When the music had finished, Anton covered the clock again and left it on the shelf. He turned to see Lucy watching from the doorway, but was immediately distracted by a gap in some boarding which had been inadequately screwed to the chimney breast. He edged his way towards it and gently squeezed his fingers behind the gap. He pulled slightly so that he could peer behind. He could just make out the outline of the mantle of an old fireplace, and in his excitement he’d completely forgotten about their earlier arguments.

“Hey Luce, look at this,” he called over his shoulder.

But she wasn’t for budging.

“What is it?” she called from the doorway.

“It looks like a really old fireplace that’s been blocked up. I can’t see it properly because it’s concealed by this worktop. I’ll soon have it opened up though. People used to block them up to stop the draughts coming down the chimneys when they were no longer in use.”

Lucy shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly because she just didn’t have Anton’s insight when it came to Juniper, and anyway what was so compelling about a fireplace? It couldn’t be as old as that range downstairs – that was really ancient. But there was something which did ignite her interest and that was the large amount of sculptures lined up on the floor. She just stared at them as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and it didn’t escape Anton’s notice.

“I don’t know anything about sculptures but these look pretty valuable to me, and I would suspect they’ve been here for years without anyone knowing.” Anton jumped to the ground. “Entering this room was as exciting as discovering a hidden treasure in a cave. I can’t imagine why they were locked away in here. Whoever sealed up that door wanted to hide them from the world.” He scratched his head in bewilderment.

“Maybe the owner didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on them; or maybe the owner was a hoarder or a miser even. Or maybe the owner just died. But if, as the authorities said, the last occupants went mad, maybe one of them had a reason for blocking it all out, perhaps wanting to erase the memories. Crazy people do crazy things.”

Anton turned round and stared at Lucy. It wasn’t like her to proffer such a sagacious view point.

“That door could have been sealed up for a century for all we know,” he responded.

“Well I think that’s unlikely. Let’s be honest Anton, anyone who moved here in the past would automatically want to know what was behind that door. They would have done exactly what you’ve done and opened it up.”

“Yes you’re probably right Luce. But I don’t suppose we’re ever going to know are we? I bet this house contains a few skeletons in the cupboard from past generations though, I’d love to uncover some of them.”

He rummaged inside the final cupboard and came across a large pile of old newspapers. He gathered them all together and put them on top of a bench. He skipped through them and quickly scanned the headlines and the dates, and started to get excited.

“These old newspapers go back to the nineteen-fifties and sixties Luce. I think we might have hit on something here. It looks as if something very serious happened at Juniper in the past to have hit the headlines like this.” He flicked through the pages whilst casting an eye over some of the articles to see if he could put some sense of order to it all.

“These papers are full of news concerning a family who lived here in the fifties, and there are quite a few photos too. The name Magdalena keeps cropping up…” he was trying to read and narrate at the same time. “It seems she was the sculptress, and also an artist, and a musician – of course I’d already worked that out from what I’ve already seen in here.”

He began to gather up the newspapers. “I’ll take all of these downstairs and we’ll read through them at some point. It’s fascinating stuff, and hopefully we’ll learn a little about the history of the house too. It’s really exciting.”

Lucy had been taking it all in, and she hoped against hope that there would be something in those articles to throw some light on what she’d been experiencing. Maybe they would discover something in those old articles, which would put a story behind the faces that had been haunting her since the day they moved in. She had been convinced that the truth was hidden somewhere in that room, ever since the child appeared to her and disappeared through the door. Maybe the child’s intention was to lead them to the newspapers – she certainly hoped so.

“I think that’s enough for now Luce, we’d better get some shuteye, and to-morrow we’ll see what all the news was about – I can’t wait!”

He went downstairs with the newspapers piled up in his arms and left them on the dining table. They both retreated to bed, tired but stimulated with their findings, so much so that they hoped they would manage to switch off their brains sufficiently to sleep.

They both clambered into bed and Anton turned his back on Lucy.  Undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, she crawled up to him and slid her arms around his waist and buried her face into his warm body. Within minutes Anton was snoring and Lucy wrapped her legs around his and snuggled her face still deeper into his back, clinging on tightly as she made a determined effort to nod off.

Minutes later, as she was drifting off into a slumber, she was suddenly jolted back to the world of the living by the sound of music echoing hauntingly from somewhere inside the house. She listened in silence, gripping Anton’s flesh without realising her nails were cutting into him. He awoke suddenly.

“Ouch! Luce, you’re digging your nails in.” He turned and pulled at her hands to free them from his flesh, but she was holding on firmly and didn’t want to let go. She was drawing blood.

He dragged himself up and tried to force her clenched fingers open, in an attempt to drag them off his flesh.

“What are you doing, you’re cutting me to shreds?” he snapped.

Lucy was shaking – the music was coming from the clock in
that
room.

“Listen,” she whispered. “It’s that clock it’s playing that music again.”

“There is no music playing, you’ve been dreaming! Don’t start all that nonsense again I’m not in the mood. Loosen your grip you’re hurting!” he demanded.

Lucy pulled herself up whilst still clinging onto him, but he forcibly removed her hold.

“You’re now testing my patience beyond its normal limits!” he growled, as he flung himself over to his side of the bed dragging the bedding with him.

Lucy now exposed to the elements with no bedding to protect her, grabbed hold of the duvet and forced it from Anton’s tight grip. He pulled it back again. The tug-of-war contest continued until Anton threw the whole lot on top of her and jumped out of bed.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “I’m sleeping downstairs.”

Within minutes he was noisily bounding down the stairs, across the hall, and into the sitting room, leaving Lucy to fend for herself alone in the bedroom. She was mortified.

She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her dressing gown and without hesitation ran down the stairs in search of Anton, at which point she noticed that the music had stopped.

He was just settling down in the old rocker for the night with the blanket wrapped round his legs, when Lucy burst into the room.

“I’m not sleeping up there on my own,” she gasped, the fear evident in her face.

“And I won’t be doing any sleeping at all whilst you’re around!” he grumbled.

Lucy quickly settled on the chair opposite. She pulled her knees up to her arms and folded them around her legs, in an attempt to keep warm. Anton wasn’t looking too pleased and she knew it. He was scowling at her, but clearly didn’t intend to return upstairs. She remained quiet, hardly daring to breathe in case he accused her of disturbing him. The last thing she wanted was Anton disappearing back upstairs and leaving her alone down there to face the demons. The thought of which scared the living daylights out of her.

But soon he was snoring, whilst Lucy remained wide awake. She was cold, the fire was very low in the grate and was hardly throwing out any heat; and she didn’t have a blanket like Anton did. She remained crouched in the chair, as the cold penetrated more and more. After a while she began to feel drowsy and her eyes started to droop, until she let out a piercing scream when she saw the shadowy image of a man standing behind Anton. She recognised him immediately as the one in the film which had been projected onto the screen upstairs – trim moustache, slim, debonair and wearing a striped blazer. Even in the darkness of the night the faint outline was identifiable, but it disappeared within seconds.

Anton jumped up in fright at the bloodcurdling sound, his face white with terror. He was feverishly turning his head and looking in all directions, unsure of what to expect. He saw Lucy scrunched up in the chair looking frantic, and then the anger began to take over once the aftermath of the sudden rush of adrenaline had kicked in. He was fuming so much that he looked as if he would explode. He glared at her, his eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets. Lucy didn’t know which she feared the most – the shadowy figure of the man she’d just witnessed, or the look on Anton’s face.