The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants

The Return of the Witch

Few outsiders passed through the Mercy Hill area of Brichester at the end of the first World War, for it was notorious for crime, and routes through it led nowhere important. Those who entered that area of narrow streets and tall red-brick houses with their hostilely peering tenants might vaguely notice that the streets toward the hilltop, around the hospital, were less crowded and dirty; but that was all. Hardly any remarked the desertion of Victoria Road as a thoroughfare, and the furtiveness of the tenants in the buildings there; but, of course, they were outsiders. Nobody living on Mercy Hill would have gone down Victoria Road so nonchalantly. For everyone in the area knew that Gladys Shorrock, who lived at no. 7 in that road, was a witch.

She had come to no. 7 in the late 1910’s with her son Robert, and soon after they had settled in the dull red-brick house everybody knew what she was. Nobody noticed the lesser details at first, until later when they assumed a new importance; they overlooked the way the shutters went up at the first-floor window of no. 7 overlooking the street during the first week, and did not come down. They even tried not to notice when bushes grew in the garden of no. 7 to a height of three feet from seed inside a month, and did not heed the insistence of Mrs. Hancock next door that "it rains on’t garden at them Shorrocks, though there ain’t no wet ground anywhere else!”

It was Robert Shorrock who made the mistake. Later people said that his mother must have realized he had to work, to avert suspicion which would have arisen if they had lived without external earnings. Robert was not intelligent, and did not know enough to conceal his dabblings in witchcraft. He went to work on rebuilding a street at the foot of the Hill, and would have made a competent worker, had not the owner of a nearby house complained that her black cat had disappeared — for Robert Shorrock finally confessed that he had walled it up in imitation of an ancient street-christening ceremony. They did not demolish the wall after what he hinted of the consequences, but quickly took his job from him.

After that, many tales grew up around the tenants of no. 7, many of them probably exaggerated; but the Shorrocks’ neighbors now consisted only of scoffers at sorcery, people surely unlikely to invent wild stories. Everyone saw something amiss around the red-brick building, and all scraped the signs under their windows which had hitherto been necessary only on a few nights of the year. In 1924 Robert died, and the undertaker who came from Camside to attend to the funeral suddenly left his profession and took to drink. An expectant terror took hold of Mercy Hill.

1925 saw the climax. That year people said many things: what flapped from the roof of no. 7 were not birds; that the vines which climbed that wall swayed back and forth on windless nights; and once someone saw Gladys Shorrock leave the house, mutter something, and the gate open and close itself behind her. Toward the end of October the tales became hysterical, especially that of one man who had boldly followed her toward Severnford and fled a gigantic glowing figure which strode after him through the forest. The inhabitants of Mercy Hill felt sure that she was preparing for something, and waited trembling for the outcome.

It came when, on October 31, Gladys Shorrock died. It must have been that day, for the people opposite saw her sit down facing the window, her lips moving, and stare out, with occasional glances upward — where was the room with the shuttered window. Next morning they saw she was in the same position, and on November 2 a passer-by noticed her glazed eyes and called a doctor. She had been dead two days, but the doctor, a Brichester man, did not ask why he had not been informed sooner. He merely diagnosed heart failure — for, after all, she exhibited all the symptoms — and arranged a quick funeral.

On November 4 two men entered the Shorrock house. Braver than the rest, they had determined to see what lay inside; but they soon left hurriedly, Nothing in the front room horrified them; most of the titles in the bookcase were foreign, and the searchers did not know enough to fear the queerly shaped, highly polished objects in glass cases round the room. On the stairs something scurried into the shadows; but one said it was only a mouse, although the other had seen characteristics of something less pleasant. But they could not stand the locked door at the top of the stairs, the door which they could not bring themselves to break down, because it led into the shuttered room.

Before long terror had risen around the house again. Late home- comers would go out of their way to avoid passing down Victoria Road, and many would take another route even in the daytime. The terror centered around that shuttered window above the street, and nearly everybody passed on the other side of the road, looking away from no. 7. Those who dared to go near said that while the witch might be dead, something lived in that house; for if one listened outside the window, one could hear a hollow murmuring from behind the shutters.

So no. 7 fell into disuse. No Brichester person would take it, and the Mercy Hill area did not appeal to outsiders. Few people entered the house, even thirty years later; and its history was gradually forgotten, except that it should still be avoided.

Until, on February 1, I960, Norman Owen came to Brichester.

Owen was a novelist who had grown bored with life in Lancashire’s Southport, and sought a change. The Severn area had appealed to him, and after reading an advertisement in the Brichester Weekly News he had bought no. 7 Victoria Road outright. Unfortunately, the Southport train came in at Lower Brichester, rather than the Mercy Hill station; and bystanders seemed to be as uncertain as he how to reach his destination.

"Victoria Road, please,” he ordered one taxi-driver.

"Sorry, can’t say as I’ve heard of it,” said the driver. " — Mercy ’ill? No road called that up there as I know of.”

"Excuse me — did you say you were looking for Victoria Road?” Owen turned and saw a middle-aged man in a tweed suit, with his hand on a car door.

"Yes — I’ve bought a house there, actually, but this man doesn’t seem to know where it is.”

"Well, I’m going up Mercy Hill,” the other told him, "and I could drop you off if you want a lift.” As Owen got into the car, the driver muttered: "But there’s no empty house on Victoria Road, except—”

They drove out of the station, and Owen saw the many converging streets rising to meet at the grey hospital. He turned as the man beside him remarked:

"I’d better introduce myself — I’m Stanley Nash, a doctor at the hospital. Would I be right in thinking that you’ve bought no. 7?”

"Well, I’m Norman Owen — an author, I have to admit — and you’re right about the address. But how did you guess — do you live next door or something?”

"No,” said Nash, "I live in Gladstone Place at the bottom of the Hill. It’s just that this house you’ve bought has something of a reputation — rather infamous round here. You see, not so long ago it belonged to a witch.”

"Really! Well, I ought to write something good here!”

"I wouldn’t joke about it,” reproved the doctor. "There’s often something of truth in these stories, you know.”

"I thought you were a doctor,” Owen said.

"I think you ought to take notice of what they say about your house,” Nash told him. "It’s seldom that these stories are entirely imaginary — and there’s a widespread fear of a shuttered room overlooking the street, which I’d advise you to remember. It’s never been opened since Gladys Shorrock’s death — she was the witch — and why would anyone lock and shutter a room as soon as they bought a house?”

"That’s simple; either she was mad, or if she was cleverer than you think, perhaps she wanted to be thought a witch — nobody would bother her, after all… Oh, is this it?”

Owen found the building which he saw vaguely repellent. The dull red-brick walls, the dark vines, the thinly-painted window- frames and door, all depressed him. On the other hand, he had bought it cheaply, and it might be better inside. But although the rooms were clean and well lighted, as soon as he entered the house a shadow of depression fell across him. The rows of books and Victorian furniture must have caused it; certainly it was nothing to do with lingering influences.

"How is it there’s no dust?” Owen inquired.

"I think the estate agents get someone from the. more enlightened part of town to clean up,” said Nash. "I come in here now and then myself — well, my brother works at the agents’ and gives me the key. The books interest me, so I’ll be tactless and ask if I could drop around occasionally…

They had reached the first-floor landing. "Call round whenever you like — I don’t know anybody here yet. And this is the famous sealed room, I suppose.”

Owen stared at the brown-painted door at the top of the stairs for so long that Dr Nash said:

"Well, I’m off now. Are you getting a telephone? — yes, you’ll be able to keep in touch with your friends that way. I’ll ring you up in a few days, then.”

Owen did not notice the doctor descending the stairs. He was searching among his keys for one to fit the door, but the agents had not sent it. Some half-sensed intolerance made him kick at the lock until the door swung inward. He stepped forward and peered in; but no light entered between the shutters, and most of the room was in darkness. He felt for the light switch and turned it.

Dr Nash was opening his car door when he heard a sound. A shadow whirred over him and into the house. He saw nothing, but got the impression of an oval winged shape, with something nevertheless human about it. He slammed the door and ran up the stairs. Owen was leaning against the door-frame of the shuttered room, apparently supporting himself, but straightened when the doctor called out.

"What — I must have gone dizzy for a moment,” Owen said. "Everything went black, and I seemed to be falling.”

"I told you not to open that door.”

"I bought this house,” Owen reminded him, "and I’m not starting off with a room I can’t enter. Anyway, it’s done now — but what do you make of this?”

Dr Nash looked in. The room was still in darkness, although the switch was turned. He pulled out his cigarette lighter and entered cautiously. Light flickered on bare walls and floor, and then picked out what hung from the ceiling. It resembled a neon tube formed into a pentagram, and so surrounded by mirrors that no light escaped into the room — almost as though it radiated darkness. He had seen something like it in one of the books downstairs, but did not remember its purpose. But he saw that it was arranged so anyone entering the room would activate it by the light switch, and knew some force had just been set in motion.

"Well, what is it?” Owen asked behind him.

"I’m not sure,” said the doctor, "but I’ve a feeling you may have started something.” He looked Owen over carefully and decided that he was unharmed. "You look all right, but don’t hesitate to call me if you feel ill. Of course, you can’t phone from here — but never mind, I’ll be going down that way, and maybe I can hurry them up getting the phone put in. Here’s my card with the number.”

After Dr Nash had left, Owen closed the door on the landing and went out for a meal. Returning after dark, he was again depressed by the sight of the house, black against the almost-moonless sky. He found himself looking at the shuttered window; no sound came from it, but he had an odd conviction that the room was inhabited. There was little to do in the house; he could have read one of the earlier tenant’s books, but preferred to sleep after his journey.

He did not usually dream, but tonight was different. He dreamed of wanderings through space to dead cities on other planets, of lakes bordered by twisted trees which moved and creaked in no wind, and finally of a strange curved rim beyond which he passed into utter darkness — a darkness in which he sensed nothing living. Less clear dreams occurred, too, and he often felt a clutching terror at glimpses of the shuttered room amid bizarre landscapes, and of rotting things which scrabbled out of graves at an echoing, sourceless call.

He was glad to rise the next morning. After breakfast he tried to work on his new novel, but found it too laborious. About eleven o’clock he was interrupted by a party of workmen come to put in the telephone, and welcomed the company. They seemed a little uneasy, and he avoided referring to the house. They left around three o’clock, and Owen telephoned the doctor to thank him. During their conversation Owen mentioned that he would have liked to leave the house more, but did not like walking.

"Well, borrow my car,” suggested Dr. Nash. "I can always get one at the hospital when I need it — I only use my own at weekends. If you wait I’ll drop round about six o’clock with it.”

At 6:15 the doctor arrived. They left the car on the street, for no. 7 had no garage.

"No, I’m quite all right,” Owen answered the doctor’s question. "What do you expect to be wrong with me anyway?”

Soon after, Owen remarked that he wanted to get to bed. Dr Nash was puzzled by the other’s desire for sleep, but saw nothing ominous in it. Owen waited until the doctor had been gone a few minutes, and hurried upstairs to his bedroom. He did not fight this urge, but wondered at it, for he was not tired.

He fell asleep immediately, and began to dream. Something was stirring under the ground, was calling him imperatively, and in his dream he rose, dressed, and went downstairs to the car. Before leaving he took a spade from the back garden and placed it on the back seat. Then he drove off toward that voiceless call.

He drove downward along half-lit streets, past occasional figures walking the pavements, past other cars whose drivers glanced uninterestedly at him, and reached a street at the bottom of the Hill whose one side was bordered by a railing. He rolled the window down and looked out, saw the street was deserted, got the spade and climbed out. Pushing the spade through the railings, he clambered over and jumped down into the graveyard.

In the dream he did not question that he knew where to go. He picked his way among the leaning stones and crosses to a grave near the far end of the cemetery, overgrown with weeds and grass. He tore the vegetation off, shuddering at the small things which scuttled over his hand, and began to dig.

Some hours passed before the spade struck a solid object. He dropped into the hole the rope he had brought and tied it to the handles of the coffin, then climbed out and strained at the rope. The coffin came quite easily, almost as if it were being lifted from below, and thudded on the edge of the grave. Somehow he dragged it to the railing and got it over, then followed it. He heaved it onto the car’s back seat and drove it back to the house on Victoria Road. Few people were on the streets now, and they did not notice the back seat’s charnel contents.

Victoria Road was completely deserted, and the houses were lightless. He opened the front door, returned to drag the casket into the house, and dropped it in the living-room. He got a hammer from the kitchen and began to prise the nails out of the lid, until it was free. He lifted it and looked in.

An atrocious stench rose from the box. In the dream Owen felt no horror at the grey thing which stared up at him, but when a strange hypnosis rose from his mind, nausea started to bubble. Then he heard a movement in the coffin, and a rotting hand appeared over the edge. He screamed when the corpse rose and turned its head stiffly to look at him with yellow eyes. The peeling lips shifted, and a faint painful croaking moved the throat.

For a moment it held this position. Then the lower jaw dropped from the face with a sickening tearing of flesh, the head twisted at a greater angle and ripped from the neck to thud into the coffin. The headless object tottered for a moment, then it, too, collapsed into a black tangle already beginning to liquefy. The hypnosis was suddenly on Owen again, and he merely picked up the lid and began to nail it into place.

It did not take so long to fill in the grave, and he soon drove back to no. 7 and returned to his bedroom. At this point the dream ended, and he fell into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning Owen awoke, sleepily swung his legs over the side, and stared at them in bewilderment. He turned toward a full-length mirror — and saw that he was fully dressed, down to his shoes, which were caked with earth. He knew that he had undressed the night before, but refused to accept the explanation his mind offered. Instinctively he went down to examine the car, stopping when he saw the vaguely rectangular six-foot depression on the back seat.

There was only one thing to do, and so Owen drove along the route of last night’s dream. He tried not to think that no dream could so point routes in an area he had never frequented, but could not avoid noticing that the graveyard was where he had dreamed it. He entered through the gateway and approached along the tombstone alleys. He found the stone easily enough; and though an inscription was roughly chipped" —Gladys Shorrock — died 1924: God grant she stay dead”—no weeds grew on the grave, and the earth had been freshly dug.

Some hours later, Dr Nash arrived at no. 7 in answer to Owen’s telephone call, and listened to his story.

"I don’t quite know what you’ve done,” the doctor told him. "If I could look through these books… No, you read a paper or something. This isn’t the sort of thing you should read in your— condition.”

After a search of one nine-volume book, Dr Nash looked up. "I think I’ve got it,” he said. "But you won’t find it very pleasant — nor, perhaps, very credible.”

"Well, get it over with,” suggested Owen.

"It’s like this, then: since you entered that locked room, the— soul, spirit, life-force, whatever you like—of the witch has been co-existing in your body.”

"What?” exclaimed Owen, not quite incredulous. "But that can’t be! I–I don’t feel any different!”

"It’s the only thing that explains both these 'dreams’ and that pentacle. I think this influence is relatively dormant in the daytime, but at night it’s more potent, and seems to be using you actively. Now it must be finding you a bad host — after all, your decisions oppose it — and now it’s looking for another body. Gladys Shorrock wants to return — she tried to resurrect her own body first, but it was too far gone—”

"But how in hell can it be true? Nobody could know how to do this!”

"Gladys Shorrock was a witch, remember,” remarked Dr Nash. "She knew of a lot of things we can’t even imagine. I’ve been through these books of hers, you know, and read of some of the places she visited. She went to the lake in the woods some miles from here, and watched — from a distance — what happens at Goats-wood… There were other places, too — like the island of the white stone beyond Severnford which nobody visits; and she knew the secret of the evil clergyman at Severnford — that’s where she got the knowledge to make this — return.”

"And if this were true, what would this life-force do now?” "Well, it can’t use its own body, and doesn’t seem to find you very accommodating, so obviously it’ll have to find another body.” "But then what can we — what should we do?”

"I had thought of smashing that pentagram, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. The Revelations—that book I had there— doesn’t say what would happen, and it might harm you, as any great shock would. But it’ll probably send you out again, so I’d better take my car back — I don’t think there’s anywhere nearby that could harbor a body.”

"Oh, no, you don’t,” contradicted Owen. "I want to be able to get away from here quickly if I have to. Unless, of course, you stay with me — but you can’t do that every night.”

"I’m afraid I can’t even do it tonight,” said the doctor. "I have to go to Camside tonight — nobody else can go, and I certainly won’t get back before nine o’clock. Tell you what, though — as soon as I get back I’ll phone, and if you don’t answer I’ll come round at once. Hell, look at the time — I’ve got to go now. See you later, perhaps, and until then I’d advise you to drink as much black coffee as you can hold.”

Owen stood at the window, watching Dr Nash turn the corner, and repressing an urge to call him back. Suddenly the street lamps awoke, and he realized how near was the night.

He entered the kitchen and brewed a cup of black coffee. He returned to the living-room, sat down and reached for the cup on a nearby table. His hand slipped, the cup smashed on the floor, but he was all at once too weary to pick it up, and could only fall back in the chair, his eyes closing.

Soon he rose, started the car and drove away up the Hill. He reached a large building which he guessed was the hospital, and turned right. After that the road led him deeper into the country, through tree-colonnades and between green-white hills under a pallid half-moon. Then, instinctively, he pulled up the car between a dark wood and a hill. Taking a torch from the glove compartment, he began to climb the hill.

He reached a crudely rectangular entrance about halfway up, the interior in darkness. He glanced without revulsion at the gargoyle horror carved over the doorway, switched on the torch and started along the passage. He went along that passage for some time, noticing that the passage did not turn in its slight descent, but merely dwindled beyond his sight; and that the roughly chiseled marks on the walls pointed upward, as if carved from below.

Eventually he reached an alcove in the wall, and saw that in it lay a tightly fastened circular chest. He moved the chest, and innumerable long-legged spiders scurried out of a nest behind it, running over his hands into the darkness beyond. The chest was not three feet in diameter, but heavier than it appeared; yet he lifted it easily and soon carried it along the passage, down the hill and onto the back seat of the car, then driving back to Victoria Road.

Under the pale moon, he lifted the wooden chest and hurried with it into the living-room. He began to turn the strangely-hinged lever on the lid in a way that was somehow obvious to him; but the exertion he had undergone had taken its toll, and he let it snap back into place, exhausted.

At that moment the telephone rang, and he awoke.

So it was a dream! Then his eyes cleared, and he found himself standing in the living room near the telephone — close to a circular wooden chest.

For the moment he could only lunge for the telephone which had suddenly become his one hold on sanity, though something briefly tried to restrain him, and grab up the receiver.

"Owen? So you’re all right, after all!” said the doctor’s relieved voice.

"No, I’m not,” Owen forced out. "It happened again — brought something back — in the room now—” Unable to say more, he dropped the receiver into place.

He suddenly felt an urge toward the circular chest; to lift the lid and see what lay inside. Already one hand was twitching in its direction. Viciously he drove his fist into the edge of the table, causing such pain that the impulse subsided.

His concentration arranged itself around the throbbing hand, but was interrupted by an impatient battering at the front door. Owen staggered into the hall and with his uninjured hand let Dr Nash in.

(Look at the bastard! He tells you you’re possessed, but you know what he really means, don’t you? That you’re schizophrenic… Push him out, quick! Don’t let him come poking round your mind!)

"Quick — upstairs, for God’s sake!” Owen screamed. "Smash that pentacle, no matter what happens!”

Dr Nash hesitated a moment, staring at him, then peered closer. What he saw Owen never discovered, but the doctor pushed him away and clattered upstairs. There came a sound of glass breaking, and something seemed to pass from Owen; a shadow which fluttered against the ceiling faded away murmuring. He felt very weak, and all urge to open the chest had disappeared.

The doctor hurried anxiously into the hall. “Where is the — the thing you brought back?”

Owen led him into the livingroom, and they stood over it. "What do we do with it?”

"Burn it, I suppose,” replied Dr Nash. "And I don’t think we’d better open it, even though I don’t know what’s in it.”

"I do,” said Owen, shuddering, and began to drag it into the hall. "There was something carved over — where I found it. not quite a spider, not quite a snake, and it had a face that. Come on, for God’s sake let’s get it out.”

They carried the chest into the back garden and lit the petrol they poured over it, standing ready with pokers for anything that might struggle out. But only a long white member fell out as the lid warped, and then the contents began to bubble; but they watched until nothing remained except ashes which wheeled away on the night wind. Then they drove to Gladstone Place and fought sleep until the night had passed.

Owen left Victoria Road the next day, and now writes in a room looking out on Southport beach. He has not forgotten, however; and particularly when the sea is lashing blackly in the night he remembers a crudely-chipped gravestone, and echoes: "God grant she stay dead.”