Paul Magrs - Mystery Lady

I hear him sigh very deeply. ‘Of course not. I… I was only play-acting, Dodie. Of course I was. I thought it would amuse you, dearest…’

She laughs again. A gay little tinkle from the chaise longue.

Oh, Dodie, I think. That heart of yours. It seems so cold sometimes.

Then I go off to the room that I’m to share with her. Suddenly I’m ever so tired.

I have the most frightening dream.

It doesn’t last very long, but it’s extremely vivid.

It concerns Helen Spedding. I seem to be following her in my mind as she returns to Yorkshire on the train.

I feel like I’m floating along on the astral plane.

The old lady is looking haunted and fearful. She sits up sleepless all night aboard the sleeper train. Her eyes dart about, as if she fears she might be attacked at any moment.

Outside there’s a blizzard raging over the endless dark moors. Snow flurries past and the train slows now and then and she starts to worry it might stop altogether. Are there even any other passengers on this train she caught at York? What if she was the only one? What if she alone was here: easy pickings for the elements and unseen assailants?

Even though she doesn’t have the manuscript with her anymore she feels no different. It’s as if the paper had a strange smell that won’t leave her shopping bag. A stink of grave mould or mildew, perhaps? It’s all over her fingers from her working on every line and writing notes everywhere…

The stories are inside my head now, she thinks, because I read them. The Horrible Book of Terror Volume 27 is inside of me…

She shudders and tries to get a grip of herself. Don’t be silly, old girl. You’re tougher than this.

And, eventually, the train pulls into her station. Ramificashun: a tiny halt before it peters off to Scarborough and the coast.

Just a couple of miles of snowy lanes to traverse and then she’ll be at the safety of her sister’s cottage.

It’s too early to call for a taxi. She can walk it, even though dawn’s not yet come over the hill.

She sets off firmly, determined not to scare herself any further with her wild imaginings.

But it’s dark and terrifying. The overhead branches try to snag her. Brambles seem to whip out from the hedgerow to snare her back. The frozen snow creaks treacherously underfoot.

And then… there’s some disturbance in the air. Something swooping down out of the dark masses of cloud. Is it… a huge bat? An owl?

Helen Spedding gives an involuntary cry. She covers her mouth to stop herself screaming. She drops her overnight bag.

She glimpses bright, faceted eyes glaring at her from the jagged branches above. She catches slights of wide, voluptuous wings. They are indigo and silken. The silent wings and furry antennae of a gigantic moth woman…

As the creature swoops softly once more towards her, the copy editor screams at the top of her voice… and the shrieks ring out over the Yorkshire Moors…

And that’s when I wake up with a jolt.

I’m in Chelsea.

It was all in my head.

But somehow I know it was absolutely real.

‘Cassie..! What on Earth’s the matter with you..?’

The poor girl was hyperventilating as she lay there on top of the duvet.

To be honest, I was worn out and short on patience. I’d only just fallen asleep, at about three a.m. after a very long day. Now here was Cassandra having one of her out-of-body experiences and my nerves were just about at breaking point.

‘She’s been attacked…! Again..! By something unnatural…!’

I switched on the bedside lamp, it took me a moment to find the button. ‘Dearest, you look shocked!’

‘It was Helen Spedding in my dream. But it was more than a dream. I think she’s in awful danger.’

‘Shall I get you a brandy?’ I jumped up and opened the swish cocktail cabinet built into the bed’s headboard.

It was when I was on my feet that I noticed the horrible weather outside. Cassie gasped. ‘It’s a blizzard… just like in my dream!’

There was no chance for me to reply because at that very moment the windows blew in. Perhaps I left one of them on the catch. I couldn’t remember. It was as if that freezing wind had caught a claw inside the window frame and gave it a great, ghostly wrench.

Then, with a primordial howl of rage, the storm itself was inside the room with us. Cassandra was screaming as the bedclothes and all the furniture flew into the air. The lamp smashed and we were pitched into darkness. Freezing snow pelted us and instantly soaked my nightgown. I gasped and could barely catch my breath.

‘Dodie..!’ shrieked Cassandra. ‘What’s happening..? How can this be happening..?’

But there wasn’t time to think about it. I was clinging to the mattress, suddenly scared that we were going to be dragged out of the window and into the dark, chaotic sky.

What kind of power could smash its way into a bedroom like this? Some kind of evil elemental force, surely…

The bedroom door flew open and suddenly Timmy was standing there. Silhouetted in his pyjamas.

The wind howled mockingly. One of the windows shattered and deadly shards of glass whizzed through the air, narrowly avoiding us. I cried out to him: ‘Get back into the corridor, Timmy!’

Suddenly there was another kind of blizzard in the room.

Pages of typescript were tumbling through the air.

The unnatural wind had got at the parcel Miss Spedding had given to me for safekeeping. It had ripped open the brown paper and dislodged that neat pile. And now every page was being thrown into the tumultuous air.

‘Catch them! Quick!’ I cried out to the others. ‘It’s the whole manuscript! It’s the Horrible Book of Terror! Volume 27!’

‘What?’ cried Timothy Bold, quite befuddled.

‘It’s something supernatural, this blizzard,’ bellowed Cassie. ‘It’s a… visitation..! ’

In that instant I just knew that she was right. Cassie has the knack for seeing the truth.

‘Some unseen hand… is trying to steal the book! Quick! Catch the pages!’

There followed a desperate scene with the three of us leaping about the room in all that confusion, snatching at the flying pages of foolscap. They whirled about us mockingly… some of them flying straight out of the smashed windows…

‘What’s happening?’ Timmy shouted. ‘What on earth is going on here?’

At that very instant the blizzard stopped.

The howling ceased. The snow stopped bursting its way into the room.

The pages fluttered down on top of the cold damp carpet and bed.

We were left standing there, clutching soggy manuscript and staring at each other.

‘There’s something bad coming after us,’ said Cassandra, with a pale and terrified expression on her face.

I knew she was right.

At once I started putting the manuscript back together. How many pages were missing? Were the ones we had rescued soggy and useless?

‘Look at this,’ Timmy said. ‘I’ve got the contents page…’He brought it to me and we all peered at the list of story titles and authors. The room was dark now, though, and cold and damp. We decamped to the much cosier sitting room.

I hurried over to Timmy’s priceless Jacobean writing desk and smoothed out the dampened contents page.

‘What are all those strange marks?’ he asked.

‘I suppose they’re corrections that Helen Spedding made…’ I mused.

But my tone lacked conviction.

Cassandra whispered in my ear: ‘I wasn’t exactly a whizz at secretarial college. But even I know those aren’t copy-editing marks. They look more like…’

‘Some strange old language,’ said Timothy. ‘Like out of a pyramid or something. I don’t like it. It looks spooky.’