It was a wild night outside as he pressed the door into the jamb firmly; he heard the metallic sound of the latch click into place and turned the key. In a few short hours it would be Christmas day, he cracked the seal on his first bottle of scotch. It was his first “real” drink since last year, last Christmas eve in fact. Now that he came to recall there was no explanation for what had happened at least none that he could think of except……….

He lived on his own in an old cottage miles from anywhere, he always spent Christmas alone he liked it that way he had no family and was reluctant to encroach on the confines of anyone else’s family at that time of year. He had always thought Christmas was a time for families and as he didn’t have one he would simply “Drop out of sight” for a week until it was all over. Last year was different, so different in fact that it had frightened him into giving up his favourite weakness, a good bottle of scotch. It was his only vice, about a week before Christmas he would buy the best bottle of scotch he could afford and over Christmas he would drink it all, not all in one go but slowly over the whole week savouring every drop of the overtaxed nectar that could only have been made with the tears of an angel. This was his time and no one was permitted to disrupt it. On Christmas Eve last year he had gone all around the house making sure everything was secure, as he always did, the house was isolated and he had heard of people being attacked in their homes at this time of year so he was careful in his efforts to make sure that he would not be one of them. There was a good stack of logs near the roaring fire, the book he was determined to read awaited and a particularly good bottle of scotch had been opened and was being allowed to “breathe”. He glanced at the carriage clock on the shelf above the fire, four cards either side of it, his eye found the clock it was five minutes to midnight. He was at the end of chapter one and although some of the excellent scotch remained in the whisky glass he poured in a little more. He returned to his book, which was showing some promise of becoming interesting; he absent-mindedly took a sip from the glass as he reached the third or fourth sentence of chapter two, that was when it started. There was a noise, a knocking noise at his door he remembered thinking, “Why didn’t they use the bell?” At First he was not going to answer it bearing in mind all that he had heard about the attacks on local houses but for some reason he decided to find out who it was. He looked through the small pane of diamond shaped glass in the door but saw no one. It took no more than a few seconds to draw the two door bolts and unlock the door but when he opened it there was no one outside. He reached for the torch he kept by the hallstand; he called out, ”Hello, is anyone
there?” the night was silent and white, there was a light dusting of snow in fact he remembered thinking it will be a white Christmas we haven’t had one of those for a while. He waited for a few seconds but no one answered. He stepped outside and shone the torch around but there was no one as the turned go back inside he noticed that the only footprints in the snow near the oak door were his, he thought he must have imagined it but when he thought it over he was sure, there was a knock at his door. He came back inside and reset the door bolts before relocking the door. When he sat down by the fire to continue reading his book he was aware of coldness in the room, at first he thought it might be because he had been outside and left the door open but later he was not so sure. He tried to concentrate on his book and even though he had taken two or three gulps of whisky he was aware that he was getting colder. The fire in the grate was roaring and should have been throwing heat into the room but it was not. He decided to go to bed. He put the fireguard in place and took the glass with the remaining whisky up the stairs to the bedroom. As he closed the curtains he noted that the snow was getting heavier, by now he was shivering with cold and was convinced he was coming down with something, a bug perhaps. He put two more blankets on the bed and drained the whisky glass before turning out the light. He began to drift into that neverland between sleep and consciousness not quite making it to the safety of sleep. In his stomach he could feel a tightening grip crushing his already indistinct waistline. He did not sleep but tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. Eventually he gave up and turned on the light, there was something odd about the room, he could not put his finger upon it at first but then he realised what it was, the curtains, they were gone. He was sure he had closed them before going to bed, very sure but now they were gone and so was the rail they were hung upon. He looked around the room, it was not his bedroom, the wallpaper, there weren’t any just white washed walls, there was no carpet on the floor and the windows were broken. His first thought was that he’d been burgled but then he got a grip, burglars would not take the wallpaper. He got out of bed and put his dressing gown on whilst finding his slippers with his feet. On the floor by the window surrounded by the smashed glass were stones, big stones; it was obvious someone had smashed the windows by throwing stones at them. He decided to check the house for signs of entry every door and window was secure but the fact remained that in his bedroom things were not as they should be. He went back to his bedroom if there had been some attempt at entry then he would have to call the police and he would prefer to get dressed first. As he opened the bedroom door the pain in his stomach returned, the door swung open as he clutched at his abdomen. The curtains, they were back, they were open but they were definitely there. The stones and the glass on the floor were no longer there as he looked at the unbroken window trying to make sense of what he had seen before he noticed the wallpaper was on the wall and the carpet was back on the floor. The pain in his stomach was crippling, he could not stand up straight, he collapsed in agony onto the bed. He must have passed out because the next thing he remembered was waking up in that room again with glass and stones on the floor no carpet and whitewashed walls. He could not stand but he managed to crawl across the floor through the open door and pulled it shut behind him. The pain began to subside. He could not understand what was going on, he was ok yesterday there was no warning of any illness, what was it? He lay outside the bedroom collecting his thoughts. When he felt well enough to stand his first thought was a cup of tea, it was a risk in view of the stomach pains but he thought that maybe something to eat and drink would sort him out. He went to the kitchen and drew some water and switched the kettle on, whilst it was heating up he opened the fridge to get some milk, there was a thick green crust on the milk and the smell of rotting food filled the kitchen it was coming from the content’s of the fridge. He began to heave and wretch, he could not stay in the kitchen and was driven back into the lounge by the odour of putrefied food. He heard the kettle switch itself off as it came to the boil. He sat in the chair recovering from the attack on his sense of smell. The bottle of scotch stood on the small table next to the armchair, he looked at the bottle and thought “It’s a bit early but a drink might be medicinal after all scotch is an antiseptic” He took another glass from the cabinet and poured the “Medicine” a lot of the medicine. He sat there quietly sipping the “Medicinal scotch” and trying to make sense of what had happened. The curtains and the events in his bedroom he could not explain, he was not that sure that what he thought had happened was real or a bad dream. He turned his thoughts upon the kitchen, why was the food in the fridge bad? He had bought most of it yesterday morning from the supermarket in town it should not have gone “Off” that quickly even if there had been a power cut and the electricity had been off all night but the food was not just “Off” it was “bad”. He looked around the room at the various electronic clocks and time pieces none of them were flashing which meant the power had not failed but the curious thing was that they all displayed the same time four minutes to midnight, then he remembered, that was the time he had heard the knocking noise. He took another sip of scotch, it warmed as it trickled its way smoothly along his throat but it tasted different a few seconds ago it did not taste like that. He picked up the bottle and scented the contents, it had the smell of stagnant water and the pain in his stomach was getting worse. He felt his head spinning and then oblivion descended.

When he awoke he found himself in a strange place surrounded by machines and monitors, as he collected his thoughts he realised that he was lying in a hospital bed. A nurse appeared to check on him. She checked his pulse and switched two of the machines off then checked the liquid in the drip that was being fed into his arm. Smiling she said, ”We were beginning to think you would never wake up”.
“What happened?” he questioned. The nurse adjusted the bedclothes saying, “Doctor will be here soon he will explain everything I’m sure”. “Now, do you think you could eat something?” she said drawing the curtain from around the bed.
It was a silly question, he felt like he could eat a horse saddle and all. “How long have I been here”? He enquired. “This will be your second week,” she said. “Two weeks” he exclaimed, “What date is it today” The nurse said he should wait for the doctor but then added “It’s January 5th today” He was still trying to make sense of what the nurse had told him when “The Doctor” arrived.

The doctor introduced himself and sat down next to the bed and began by telling him how lucky he had been. As an indication of how close he came to death the doctor said, ”if you had not neglected to pay the milkman you might well have died you could have lain in that house for days and in another few hours the damage to your liver would have been fatal”. The doctor started talking about alcohol abuse and how he might be able to help. It soon became obvious that this was not a doctor in the accepted sense but a psychiatrist who was under the misapprehension that he was dealing with someone who had a drink problem. He needed to put this doctor straight but first he asked what he was being treated for because he remembered the severe stomach pains and was more than a little concerned.

The doctor reached for the chart at the end of his bed and began “You were brought in here by ambulance on the 27th December with one of the worst cases of nutritional deprivation that anyone had ever seen and although your blood alcohol was high although it was not critical”. He could not believe what the doctor was saying and asked, “What is nutritional deprivation?” The doctor replaced the chart and said, “Starvation, self-inflicted starvation” then added “It’s not uncommon with cases of alcohol abuse”.

He sat up in bed dumbfounded by the assessment of his condition. He began to speak, he told the doctor of his life living alone and his practise of consuming a good bottle of scotch over the Christmas holiday, he went on to tell him of the meal he had eaten on Christmas Eve before settling down with his book in front of the fire and that in no way did he consider that he had a drink problem. He could see that his listener thought that he was in denial so he outlined all the events he could remember up until he found himself in hospital, it made little difference his story was merely accepted with the professional acquiescence of someone who clearly thought that they knew what was best for you, even if they did not.
The doctor did however say one thing that puzzled him, when he was speaking about opening the fridge and the smell of rotten food. He said that the ambulance drivers had checked the fridge when they came to the house in case “Food poisoning became a possibility” and everything in the fridge was fresh and within its use by date. Now that was a puzzle that he could not solve and certainly not whilst he was in hospital.

In the final analysis he decided it would be better to say as little as possible so that he could get out of there quickly. It took just over a month until they were willing to discharge him and on that Friday morning he left the hospital with his outpatients card and a determination that the only way he would be back was “Feet first”!

The taxi pulled up outside the cottage just before one o’clock in the afternoon and as he paid the driver a voice from the doorway said, “It’s good to have you back”
It was the voice of his cleaning lady, she came in a couple of times a week he was never quite sure what she did but everywhere seemed clean and tidy. “I was about to make some tea” she welcomed “Would you like some?” He said that he would and together they went into the kitchen, he hesitated at the entrance to the kitchen as he scented the air, the smell had gone and there was a fresh lemon fragrance present. As she poured the tea she was careful about what she said almost guarded.
He tried to put her at ease and began to tell her of the events of the last night he had spent in that house, she listened intently to every word delicately storing each piece of new information away for future reference in her capacity as a founder member of the local women’s Mafia. He knew that the story would be recounted and that was exactly what he wanted, some one around that area must have some idea what had been going on and once he had given her the salient facts all he would have to do is wait.

It took just over two months for the bread he had cast upon the water of the locality to bear fruit but the manner in which it came surprised him. It came one Saturday morning in the shape of a local solicitor, the solicitor who had in fact acted for him during the purchase of the property. The solicitor was the senior partner in the firm of Peabody and Clark, he rang the doorbell around ten o’clock and presented his card whilst apologising for the disturbance but said he may be able to shed some light on the recent events that had taken place in his house. He had heard of the events second hand from his wife and through the intermediary of her cleaning lady. He held a briefcase which he patted as he spoke. The two men repaired to the lounge and the visitor accepted a small scotch when it was offered. Whilst the owner of the house poured out the scotch the solicitor took a file from his case that, judging by the folder it was in had been in existence for a long time and laid it open upon the low table in front of the fire. He waited for his host to settle in the armchair before beginning.
The two men took a sip of whisky and the solicitor complemented his host on his excellent taste then turning a page in the file began to speak. “As you already know the firm of Peabody and Clark handled the conveyance of this property when you purchased it nearly twenty years ago and if you remember there was no vendor as such” The owner nodded “Yes I remember it was a government office I think” The solicitor confirmed that it was indeed a government department, it was in fact the department that deals with unclaimed wills and probate. He explained a little about the department, “From time to time families die out or a beneficiary of a will is pre-deceased before a will can be executed. In such cases every effort is made to dispose of the property but in some cases it cannot be done and in those cases the property falls to the crown in the shape of this department. This property prior to your purchase was such a property and from what I have found it had been the property of the crown for nearly two hundred years. One of the conditions of the sale to you was a forfeiture of sale by act or tort of dissatisfaction; I will return to that later if I may should you feel that disposal of the property is warranted. A great deal of the information that I have discovered has come from parish records and the county archives as well as that particular government department.

The solicitor continued, “In 1759 this house was the property of Elizabeth Fewkes, it was said that she was a witch but she was never tried or convicted of the crime. She was accused of witchcraft many times but could never be brought to trial because her accusers were often struck down with violent stomach cramps or they mysteriously died before a trial could take place. It was suspected that she had somehow poisoned her accusers with mandrake root but how was never determined. By the year of 1759 the local inhabitants had taken the law into their own hands and laid siege to the house, nothing was allowed in or out for quite a long time and no further contact with Elizabeth Fewkes was permitted. As far as the people laying siege knew she was in the house alone. Matters came to a head on Christmas Eve just before midnight when Elizabeth burst from the house in a frenzy of starvation bordering on insanity and fell weak from hunger in the front garden where she was stoned to death by the people laying siege to the house although the word they used for this barbaric act was “claiping” which as far as I can determine is stoning. When they were quite sure that the witch was dead some of the besieging captors came in to the house to look for evidence of her guilt. They searched every room meticulously and found nothing until the reached the larger room upstairs, the room that I understand is now your bedroom. There they found two children both dead, starved to death. They had no idea that there were any children. Within a year all of the people that laid siege to the house were dead, most of them died in a smallpox epidemic but the curious thing is that all of the people who took part in the stoning died a horrible death that always started with violent stomach cramps.

The owner of the house thought for a moment, it nearly fitted, the violent stomach pains, the food, the broken glass and the stones but he had lived there for almost twenty years with no trouble so why now? Then he remembered how cold the house became that night after he had been outside, he must have let it in whatever it was but he hesitated to use the word “Ghost” because there are no such things as ghosts are there?

As he sipped at this very special whisky one year on remembering what had happened last year and relieved that he was neither an alcoholic or insane he looked at the clock on the mantelshelf, it was eleven forty-five, he put some more logs on the fire and waited for the knock on the oak door……………

JP.