England: Elizabeth flees London for Wiltshire but Rookfield follows...
Ireland: The excavation of the mound begins and Clonlaw prepares for his plan to come to fruition...
Additional sound:
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
England: Elizabeth flees London for Wiltshire but Rookfield follows...
Ireland: The excavation of the mound begins and Clonlaw prepares for his plan to come to fruition...
Additional sound:
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
If you like THWDY, tell people about us! It will help us grow!
THIS HOUSE WILL DEVOUR YOU Season One
A Podcast concerning love, madness, mystery, murder and dead gods in 1920's Ireland and England
THWDY Episode 1.10
'The Dig'
Kilphaun Hall
Wednesday 9th December 1925
Dearest Elizabeth,
I remain furious at those total cads and blighters of the so-called Esoteric Society. I do not understand why you have not called the police on them for detaining you like that. Do not worry about the amulet: they can have no proof that you took it and frankly they have gotten off lightly if that is the sum of their troubles. I am minded to pay a visit to the Society next time I am in London. It warms me greatly to hear one of their number is on the run from the law and absolutely confirms my worst impressions of them.
As to the amulet itself, well it would seem to have worked! Or at least for the moment it seems to have, whether indeed the amulet protects one from the gods themselves or merely is a testament to the power of mind over matter. Either way, I worry that this news will merely provide you with encouragement for your adventures. I am very much in Aunt Edith’s bad books at the moment as I was drinking coffee at the table with her when I read of madame psychic’s advice to you and spat my drink out in surprise at the notion of being skyclad in general, and in this weather in particular. Please, please do not do what I think you are going to do.
It has taken me all of the last few days to finally get George to don the amulet. I fear he needs it much more than I. I should be honest and say I think that amulet has not so much cured him as built a system of trenches around his mind to repel the invader that was overwhelming him. Now it, and whether by that I mean a god or encroaching madness I do not know, prowls around him, constantly looking for a weakness in his defences.
Fanciful possibly, but that’s how I think on things these dark days. On the one hand I think this is a madness that has infected us all. On the other I still think through the logic of it as if it were all real. George, Lily and the historian have all been marked deliberately by Crom’s knife or opportunistically by his tree, the Hawthorn. Clonlaw has kept Lily confined since her argument with him, presumably to protect her from what is coming. If indeed that scoundrel Rookfield has supplied him with the means. I hope now with the amulet that George is also protected, but this leaves Alex still in danger.
Why Foley was taken and what the haunting of the house means, I do not know. Crom still hunts me in my dreams, but I think whatever link I have to him is tenuous and mostly broken by my escape from him. The one new thing I have learned, from Murphy the house steward in fact, is that the boy who went missing had made a delivery to Kilphaun Hall a few days prior and had to be rousted from the north wing where he had gone poking around when dismissed. How does that connect though?
I have persuaded George, now that he is is his right mind for the most part, to call off the excavations. What clinched it in his mind was the eerie telephone call he had just received. The phone had rung, startlingly loud in the quiet house and George had dashed to it in the hope it was Lily. I could hear him say, “Hello, Hello, Lily? Lily is that you?” Then, “Jon, C’mon here and listen to this.”
I came over and crouched in close by George, our heads tight to either side of the telephone earpiece he held. At first it was like we were listening to a vast empty space, I don’t know how else to describe it. Then as if from a great distance away I heard a woman’s voice crying feebly, “Help me. Help me. Please help me. He’s coming.” Then there was a sound like a nearby footstep and of the phone on the other end being cradled. The call ended.
“What the devil was that?” said George, “and was that Lily? I couldn’t be sure.”
I said I wasn’t certain either. It could have been.
It is quite late in the evening now, too late really for a social call, but we are setting off shortly in the car to Clonlaw House to deliver the news in person and check up on Lily. I also want us to act now in case George regresses and I want to be there to ensure no more trickery by Clonlaw. I will update this letter with how that goes before I send it in the morning, but first let me tell you of the dig.
I have the time, as from my window I can see Murphy bent over and turning the crank on the car engine which refuses to catch. George’s car has run like a dream before today, but that it should start acting up now feels appropriate. It’s dark out as the moon is old and one of the stable hands is holding a lamp aloft for the house steward. Murphy is wreathed in steam from his exertions and his breath that condenses in clouds in the cold air.
The dig is, well, strange. I had assumed they would trench their way into the centre of the mound looking for a central hidden chamber or some such. Indeed that is how it started. They have dug down to ground level a slit about two feet wide and shored up with boards. It runs towards the centre of the mound and is far too similar to a communication trench from my days in France for me to be comfortable in.
The ‘they’ I refer to is three men from Waterford city that Clonlaw has brought in especially. They are hard men, not given to flights of imagination. Normally there would be uproar locally at workers being brought in, but in this case I think the feeling is more of relief. Murphy has had to facilitate the works and to give him his due, he is very much against them, not for any superstition but because he thinks his employer is being taken advantage of by Clonlaw. Loyalties are complicated in these parts!
So the men dig, overseen by Alex. The historian looks more and more like an old man of the woods. He has stopped grooming himself and his clothes are constantly muddy. I am not sure he is sleeping in his bed at night. A track has been cut through the scraggy woods that hide the clearing and a path of boards lain down in the boggy ground. The way to the mound that has been hidden for so long has been breached by the modern world and I do not know that that this is a good thing. Clonlaw, with his driver Padhraig, comes every day to watch. The rain which has been a constant companion until this morning has not deterred him. He looks increasingly ill and hides less how much help he needs from Padhraig to traverse the treacherous and muddy ground.
The men dig and they dig. The floor of the slit trench now dips downwards and the cut they are making has become a tunnel. I have stood in front of it and been too reminded of my dream of France and what might lie waiting within that dark maw for me, to enter so far. They dig and they dig and they go deeper still. The workmen’s eyes now have a haunted look, like men who know what is coming and cannot get out of the way. I wonder what they dream of?
While George was not in his right mind, Murphy took to running the estate himself and to broaching issues with me that would normally have been for George. I still do not know what harm Murphy and his lads intended for me the day we searched the Blackwater valley, but I’ll take this working relationship we have built up. He told me today that he thinks the men from Waterford found something this morning and Clonlaw had it wrapped and taken before anyone got more than an inkling of it. One of the farmhands swore to Murphy that he saw Padhraig putting what looked like a small dirty stone statue rolled in oil cloth into Clonlaw’s car.
The men finished early today. There is to be no more digging. It is done. Tall banks of wet cloud have been building all day and soon will have obscured the sky, blotting out even the feeble light of the moon. There is something inexorable about them that reminds me of the storm that nearly did for the ship Clonlaw and I travelled on. Something is about to happen. Something bad. It must be soon for when those clouds break I think their intent is to flood us and wash away both god and man’s evil.
Well it sounds like Murphy has gotten the engine running finally. I can’t help but notice that it has started to rain. It is time to go end this.
Elizabeth, it is close to midnight as I write these final words. George and I are at Clonlaw House and again waiting for the damn car to start. I will need to be quick. The journey over was a nightmare. The rain has come sheeting down and the countryside is pitch black with no moon or stars to light the way. Despite the hour, there were still some lights on in Clonlaw House but it seemed dark and forbidding all the same, not glittering jewel box it was on our last visit.
We ran from the car to the porch and hammered on the door. After a while a rather haughty maid opened the door and demanded our business. George was not going to deterred by her rudeness and responded in kind, demanding that ‘that rogue Clonlaw see us now, we’ve affairs to settle with him.’
The maid left us in the entrance hall dripping water all over the tiled floor. The inside of the house was immaculate but there was a faint sour smell, like a sick room. The maid returned with the housekeeper, a fierce, stout woman. Well she gave us the what for, coming here at this time of night and disturbing his lordship and him on on his sickbed and all. She practically chased us out the door and slammed it shut in our faces.
The rain was coming down heavier again as we raced to the car, where I’m writing this now trying to avoid drips from my hand or hair smudging the ink. There was a dark figure waiting for us by the car, oilskin coat and hood slick with rain. When we were close enough he raised his head and I saw it was Micheal of all people. I tensed expecting more of his mischief.
“What do you want?” I said as the rain came down on us. We had to raise our voices to be heard.
“You’re looking for his lordship I presume and” - here Micheal nodded to George - “his niece?”
“What of it?”
Micheal inclined his head towards the house with a stiff jerk. A runnel of water ran off his hood splattering between us.
“Mrs Morrison, she’s as loyal as they come to Lord Clonlaw. Been in his service all her life. What I’m saying is that she’d protect him no matter what.”
“Jesus man,” I said, “Get to the point before we all drown.”
“Lord Clonlaw’s not inside on his sick bed, if that’s what she told you.”
“Where the hell is he then?”
“On his way to Kilphaun Hall or rather I think, that bloody mound above it.”
I looked at him suspiciously.
“Why would you tell us this?”
“I don’t give a damn about you types, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit by and let his lordship do ill by Miss Lily. It’s not right, so its not. Clonlaw took her with him and she looked all drugged up, in a daze. I don’t think he means her well. He’s a nasty piece of work he is.”
So we are to race back through the rain and darkness and find Clonlaw before he does any harm to Lily. George is beside himself, which is actually a good sign that he is throwing off whatever curse was on him. How fast do we dare to go in this weather and will we be on time? Micheal has agreed to leave this letter with a more sympathetic maid to be posted in the morning. He is going to raise a few men and follow on behind us. He is obviously a bit sweet on Lily, thank god.
Right-o, got to go, the engine has finally started. Wish us luck.
Love
Jon
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'The Old Straight Tracks'
-----------------------------------------
Clatbury, Wilts.
6th December, 1925,
Dear Jon,
I hope the amulet was received intact and that it has been of service. I do fear greatly for you and George under the horrible circumstances you find yourself in. It seems George is in a worse state than you and I hope the letter I sent him exhorting him to carry the amulet if you advise it so was well received. I am going to do my damnedest to help you, psychically, from where I am. Let me explain.
You may be surprised to see I am back in Wiltshire. However, as you know, I was anxious to get away from the scene of the crime and to avoid any risk of an encounter with Dr Rookfield, or worse, Clonlaw or the heavy arm of the Law! Suddenly I recalled Madame Gregoriou’s advice to “go west, and quickly”. Well, I had failed to do that as soon as I missed the Irish mail train from Euston but it occurred to me that travelling west into Wiltshire might just do, and if I went straightaway, I might still be quick enough. So I took my leave of Celia, who muttered something about being welcome to godforsaken midwinter hills rather than the bright lights of Oxford Street, and later the same day I got myself onto an evening train from Paddington.
My mind was all a swirl with the dreadful events of the past few days and full of fears and trepidations for your own situation. I bought a book at the station bookstall, “The Old Straight Track” by Mr. Watkins. I had hoped to settle my hectic mind by reading a gentle discourse on the set-up of the modern railway system. But I had only looked at the title and not enough at the content of the publication – it is not about a railway track at all, but rather the complex system of alignments in nature, bridging hills and dales, crossing streams and rivers, even vast stretches of water, making powerful connections and exerting subtle force fields. I found it fascinating, even slightly disquieting, so I was relieved when the train pulled into Swindon and a guard looked at my ticket and reminded me I needed to change for Clatbury.
Outside on the platform, breathing the cool, crisp night air, I felt calmer than I had for a while, and it became crystal clear to me that I needed to act on this impulse and create a psychic pathway to reach you in Co. Waterford. But I required more practical advice than was indicated by the book, which is rather full of maps and observations. There were a few minutes to wait for the connection to the branch line, so I went to the stationmaster’s office and asked to put in a trunk telephone call to London. I thought it better to do this before I reached home in Clatbury, when Mother would want to fuss over me and my resolve would be compromised by domestic comforts and distractions.
Fortunately the call to the number on Madame Gregoriou’s card went through and the lady herself answered promptly. I reminded her who I was and my purpose, and did she know anything about ley lines?
“Ah,” said the clairvoyant. “You have travelled west, that is good. But you must yet act quickly. You can scribe yourself a line of power and influence but it must start from a focal point, a place of otherworldly significance, preferably ancient, and join straight with two other points, one before, one behind. These can be many miles distant. You can invoke the forces you desire by standing on your chosen site and walking anti-clockwise thrice around its perimeter before casting your spell. You will be more connected with the ancient realms if you perform this ritual skyclad.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d heard this last bit correctly, and I was about to ask her to repeat, when the three minute pips went and I realised I had no change to continue the call. I thanked her briefly and the telephone cut off. It was just as well I didn’t linger as the branch train had come huffing and puffing into the station and I had to cross the footbridge in some haste to get to the far platform in time.
Re-reading the book, I was pleased I had asked Madame Gregoriou’s advice, as she offered far more scope for invention. The only place I can think of to serve as a focal point is the old gibbet I mentioned to you a while back. From there, high on the downs, there is a good view over the escarpment and all the land to the west is visible. On a clear day you can imagine you might see all the way to Ireland! But where can the third point lie?
Of course, once I got home to Clatbury, all these plans were pushed from my mind in the excitement of getting off the train, being met by Tom from the stables, driven back to the house chatting the while. As we passed the turn-off to The Manse, Tom said, “He’s a dark horse, the one renting that place out this winter. He’s gone to London, I believe. Something came up about him in a foreign paper and the Echo got a hold of it.”
I didn’t really want to listen to gossip, so I told Tom about my dreadful encounter with the Hunger Marchers, about which he was somewhat disparaging. There is much rural poverty and unemployment about too, he said, but with no trade unions to organise the people, the Workhouse is still a real threat. I assured him Dimples would be keeping him in good pay for the foreseeable future!
Mother of course was overjoyed to see me, but immediately insisted on a hot bath and some soup and it being late enough to leave recounting all my adventures until the morning. She did say some of the letters she had received from Aunt Edith confirmed her suspicions that Father buying Kilphaun had been a great folly. She also spoke quite highly of Roland who it seems has been calling on her on a regular basis!
The next day I fully intended to rest, but also to progress my plan for making the psychic pathway to you. However, by mid-morning, I was interrupted by Mother saying, “Elizabeth, you have a visitor. A doctor. On a Saturday too.”
Well, of course it was Rookfield! I fear I am being stalked. I wanted to tell Mother to send him away, but she had assumed he was a medical specialist come to check up on me urgently, and so had ushered him into the sitting room, where I had to play hostess.
“Dr. Rookfield,” I said. “It is kind of you to make the long journey down from London. I am honoured. I suppose you have Father’s papers?” – anything to try and prevent him mentioning the amulet and the Society of Esoterica.
“Indeed I do,” he said, handing them over to me in a manila envelope.
There was a pause. The whole point of sharing them with him was for him to offer comment. But I was discomfited by the situation, knowing that he must know that it was I who had taken the amulet, I could feel myself blushing.
“Thank you– are you staying at the Manse with Mr. Osborne?” was the best I could come up with.
“No”, he said. “I’m not sure Mr. Osborne will be this way for a while. He is – ah – what do you say – helping with enquiries.”
Well! This was news. Had Rookfield made it look as though Roland had stolen the amulet? Perhaps he genuinely thought that was the case. I let out a deep breath. Maybe the topic was safe to discuss after all.
“Do Father’s papers hint at anything untoward at Kilphaun?” I asked.
“Your father seems to have been very intrigued by the – er – ornamentation both within and around the building,” said Rookfield. “The triskelion, as ye well know, is commonly seen to be a protective device, both if worn on a person, as though it were a talisman” – I could feel my blushes returning and tried to think of plainer things, such as the train timetable back to London – “or as engravings or decorations on and around a building. Kilphaun Hall seems to have been elaborately adorned with them, perhaps excessively so. In the envelope there is an additional document copied from the Society’s archives. Have a look at it at your leisure – it may help to explain the mystery, and I’ll add a little cantrip of my own for ye. Now, I must be going. I said to Osborne there’s some business of his I’d attend to. Which way is the Manse from here?”
I felt it would only be polite to invite him to stay to lunch, but was relieved when he said he’d get a bite at the Five Bells as he had a busy day of it. I thanked him for return of the documents. It was only after he’d gone that I wished I’d asked him about ley lines.
Mother of course wanted to know what his purpose was, and I must confess I let her continue in her belief that he was a medical man. I do hope she doesn’t let on to Dr. Maundrell. She is of course keen to know more about both the prognosis and the treatment. Apparently the bill for the sunray therapy was greater than expected.
Since his departure, it has been preying on my mind that the amulet was also meant for Lily, and I do hope that between you and George you can ensure she comes to no harm. Rookfield had mentioned to Clonlaw that he would try to “save” her. I have no idea how he plans to do that, but given his occult practices I am sure he is as capable as I am of sending psychic forces to overwhelm opposition. On that note, I am going to make myself scarce in the study as I have to look through Father’s papers and make head or tail of all the esoteric information it has been my fortune to receive.
I so fervently hope not only yourself, but all the good folk at Kilphaun, can escape this evil animus. Aunt Edith I am sure will rebuff anything out of the ordinary with her customary no nonsense manner!
With love and affection,
Elizabeth