David Sutton - The Satyr's Head - Tales of Terror

We (father, mother and myself) left Harden when I was just twelve years old, moving down to London where the Old Man had got himself a good job. I was twenty years old before I got to see my aunt again. In the intervening years I had not sent her so much as a postcard (I’ve never been much of a letter-writer) and I knew that during the same period of time my parents had neither written nor heard from her; but still that did not stop my mother warning me before I set out for Harden not to "drop in" on Aunt Hester Lang.

No doubt about it, they were frightened of her, my parents — well, if not frightened, certainly they were apprehensive.

Now to me a warning has always been something of a challenge. I had arranged to stay with a friend for a week, a school pal from the good old days, but long before the northbound train stopped at Harden my mind was made up to spend at least a fraction of my time at my aunt’s place. Why shouldn’t I? Hadn’t we always got on famously? Whatever it was she had done to my parents in the past, I could see no good reason why I should shun her.

She would be getting on in years a bit now. How old, I wondered? Older than my mother, her sister, by a couple of years — the same age (obviously) as her twin brother, George, in Australia — but of course I was also ignorant of his age. In the end, making what calculations I could, I worked it out that Aunt Hester and her distant brother must have been at least one hundred and eight summers between them. Yes, my aunt must be about fifty-four years old. It was about time someone took an interest in her.

It was a bright Friday night, the first after my arrival in Harden, when the ideal opportunity presented itself for visiting Aunt Hester. My school friend, Albert, had a date — one he did not really want to put off — and though he had tried his best during the day it had early been apparent that his luck was out regards finding, on short notice, a second girl for me. It had been left too late. But in any case, I’m not much on blind dates — and most dates are "blind" unless you really know the girl — and I go even less on doubles; the truth of the matter was that I had wanted the night for my own purposes. And so, when the time came for Albert to set out to meet his girl, I walked off in the opposite direction, across the autumn fences and fields to ancient Castle-Ilden.

I arrived at the little old village at about eight, just as dusk was making its hesitant decision whether or not to allow night’s onset, and went straight to Aunt Hester’s thatch-roofed bungalow. The place stood (just as I remembered it) at the Blackhill end of cobbled Main Street, in a neat garden framed by cherry trees with the fruit heavy in their branches. As I approached the gate the door opened and out of the house wandered the oddest quartet of strangers I could ever have wished to see.

There was a humped-up, frenetically mobile and babbling old chap, ninety if he was a day; a frumpish fat woman with many quivering chins; a skeletally thin, incredibly tall, ridiculously wrapped-up man in scarf, pencil-slim overcoat, and fur gloves; and finally, a perfectly delicate old lady with a walking-stick and ear-trumpet. They were shepherded by my Aunt Hester, no different it seemed than when I had last seen her, to the gate and out into the street. There followed a piped and grunted hubbub of thanks and general genialities before the four were gone — in the direction of the leaning village pub — leaving my aunt at the gate finally to spot me where I stood in the shadow of one of her cherry trees. She knew me almost at once, despite the interval of nearly a decade.

‘Peter?’

‘Hello, Aunt Hester.’

‘Why, Peter Norton! My favourite young man — and tall as a tree! Come in, come in!’

‘It’s bad of me to drop in on you like this,’ I answered, taking the arm she offered, ‘all unannounced and after so long away, but I—’

‘No excuses required,’ she waved an airy hand before us and smiled up at me, laughter lines showing at the corners of her eyes and in her un-pretty face. ‘And you came at just the right time — my group has just left me all alone.’

‘Your "group"?’

‘My séance group! I’ve had it for a long time now, many a year. Didn’t you know I was a bit on the psychic side? No, I suppose not; your parents wouldn’t have told you about that, now would they? That’s what started it all originally — the trouble in the family, I mean.’ We went on into the house.

‘Now I had meant to ask you about that,’ I told her. ‘You mean my parents don’t like you messing about with spiritualism? I can see that they wouldn’t, of course — not at all the Old Man’s cup of tea — but still, I don’t really see what it could have to do with them.’

‘Not your parents, Love,’ (she had always called me "Love"), ‘mine — and yours later; but especially George, your uncle in Australia. And not just spiritualism, though that has since become part of it. Did you know that my brother left home and settled in Australia because of me?’

A distant look came into her eyes. ‘No, of course you didn’t, and I don’t suppose anyone else would ever have become aware of my power if George hadn’t walked me through a window…’

‘Eh?’ I said, believing my hearing to be out of order. ‘Power? Walked you through a window?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, nodding her head, ‘he walked me through a window! Listen, I’ll tell you the story from the beginning.’

By that time we had settled ourselves down in front of the fire in Aunt Hester’s living room and I was able to scan, as she talked, the paraphernalia her "group" had left behind. There were old leather-bound tomes and treatises, tarot cards, a Ouija board shiny brown with age, oh, and several other items beloved of the spiritualist. I was fascinated, as ever I had been as a boy, by the many obscure curiosities in Aunt Hester’s cottage.

‘The first I knew of the link between George and myself,’ she began, breaking in on my thoughts, ‘as apart from the obvious link that exists between all twins, was when we were twelve years old. Your grandparents had taken us, along with your mother, down to the beach at Seaton Carew. It was July and marvellously hot. Well, to cut a long story short, your mother got into trouble in the water.

‘She was quite a long way out and the only one anything like close to her was George — who couldn’t swim! He’d waded out up to his neck, but he didn’t dare go any deeper.

‘Now, you can wade a long way out at Seaton. The bottom shelves off very slowly. George was at least fifty yards out when we heard him yelling that Sis was in trouble…

‘At first I panicked and started to run out through the shallow water, shouting to George that he should swim to Sis, which of course he couldn’t— but he did! Or at least, I did! Somehow I’d swapped places with him, do you see? Not physically but mentally. I’d left him behind me in the shallow water, in my body, and I was swimming for all I was worth for Sis in his! I got her back to the shallows with very little trouble — she was only a few inches out of her depth — and then, as soon as the danger was past, I found my consciousness floating back into my own body.

‘Well, everyone made a big fuss of George; he was the hero of the day, you see? How had he done it? — they all wanted to know; and all he was able to say was that he’d just seemed to stand there watching himself save Sis. And of course he had stood there watching it all — through my eyes!

‘I didn’t try to explain it; no one would have believed or listened to me anyway, and I didn’t really understand it myself — but George was always a bit wary of me from then on. He said nothing, mind you, but I think that even as early as that first time he had an idea…’