the curse of the uncle

 running late today, bad night again. and the lovely sunshine has been swallowed by grey clouds. 

 

this one was written in response to a picture prompt from a friend who runs a page to help authors; I usually write poetry for her picture prompts but this one amused me enough to come up with a story.

The Curse of the Uncle

 

Visitors thought it was a novel, if gruesome lamp which Professor Lavery had on his desk, a skull as a 'lampshade' sporting a baseball cap, glasses and pipe.

They might have thought him a little cracked had they ever heard him referring to it as 'Uncle Silas' and talking to it.

 

They would, however, have freaked out when it answered him.

 

Mordecai Lavery came from what most people would call a strange family. They had been antiquarians, later known as archaeologists, since the eighteenth century. Mordecai himself was an eminent Egyptologist, like his Uncle Silas before him.

Silas, however, had disappeared on an expedition, and his nephew had gone looking for him. It had been while on this trip that he had picked up his novel lamp.

 

If investigated, one might have discovered that the lamp had no wires, nor any visible way to mount batteries.

Or a light bulb.

Nor did it ever go off.

Nor did Mordecai ever, under any circumstances, take it into his bedroom, or sleep anywhere but in his bedroom, around both doorframe and window-frame of which were carved hieroglyphs. Anyone sufficiently fluent in hieroglyphics and Ancient Egyptian would recognise them at once as protective. They formed a series of prayers to Osiris, Isis and Thoth to protect the ka, bai and khou of the protected person from evil or damage. Any Egyptologist worth their salt would have explained that the Egyptians believed that the soul had three parts, the ka or double, and also the life force which could take the form of the deceased, the bai  the soul, or uniqueness of a personality and the khou the spirit, or essence of animation. The Egyptians had legends of mighty magicians able to separate their spiritual parts from their bodies, leaving the ka guarding it, the khou hovering over it like a flame, while the bai in the form of a bird with the soul’s own head could fly off and explore elsewhere.

Anyone who was really nosy might find that the glowing skull sat in a recess carved for it, with runes inscribed to prevent flight of any kind.

 

Professor Lavery was fond of children, and permitted the village lads to play cricket on his broad lawn. However the look on his face almost frightened them all away, after small Hugh Brent hit the ball so hard that it went right into the professor’s study, and hit his unique lamp. The lamp fell out of its niche, flickered, and went out. Professor Lavery started muttering in ancient Egyptian, and then slumped, murmuring “too late ... too late.”

He cleared up the mess, managed to congratulate Hugh on his batting, and went to see his solicitor.

Life returned to normal, and Professor Lavery relaxed.

 

And then, a year later, came the news.

Hugh Brent brought it. He was learning Latin from the professor in the hopes of becoming an archaeologist himself, with hopes to specialise in Roman Britain. Professor Lavery had not been keen until Hugh had apologetically said he was not interested in Egyptology.

“And the new vicar is a very learned man who is also an Egyptologist, sir!” he declared, excitedly.  “And he’s a miracle himself!  Only think, sir, up to a year ago, he was in a coma, in a per...per....”

“Persistent vegetative state?” supplied Mordechai Lavery, who had a bad feeling about this.

“Yes, that’s it!” said Hugh, worshipfully.  “And they were about to turn off the machine, when suddenly he woke up!  They said he had a bit of a personality change, caused by being hit on the head, but he was able to complete all his exams and asked for this parish.”

“How splendid!” said Lavery, hollowly.  “I’d better go and see him.”

 

 

“Ah, my boy,” said the vicar. “As you see, I came home.”

“Hello, Uncle Silas,” said Mordechai.

 

 

the ghost of Marty Cubitt

 what better for New Year's eve than a good ghost story; I set this one in my own neck of the woods on the Blythe Estuary which you may drive past on the A12 and visit the notorious smugglers' pub and see the great church on the hill. Cubitt is a south Suffolk name rather than north, but Marty insisted he was Marty Cubitt, and I wasn't going to argue. Noyes is found between Blytheborough and Beccles and Michael Lamming is an incomer from Ipswich.

The Ghost of Marty Cubitt

 

Everyone knew the cottage was haunted. The cottage had been haunted for a long time ... well, ever since it had been used by smugglers, anyway.  It was spoken of in a matter-of-fact way since Michael Lamming had arrived, a year ago, in 1812.

Old Gaffer Noyes had tales by the dozen.

“And o’ course, there’s the ghost o’ Marty Cubitt,” he said, lowering his voice as the preventative officer came into the White Hart at Blytheborough.  “An informant he was, traitor to his own brother, they say, laying information. O’ course I don’t tell you what to think, thass beyond me, bor, t’maerke judgement, but they do say that onct Marty had laid information agin pore ow’ Matty Cubitt, wass his own twin, then them ow ghosteses hounded him to death, and Marty Cubitt walks, wringin’ his pore dead hands account o’ wass he’s done, doin’ his own brother to death like that.”

“Matthew Cubitt was never caught,” said Michael Lamming, the preventative. “Saying he was done to death is a lie, and it wasn’t ghosts who tied an anchor onto Martin Cubitt and left him at low tide mark in the estuary.”

“Ar, bor, yew du be a furriner from Ibsidge way,” said Gaffer Noyes, comfortably. “Caarn’t expect yew tu appreciate our stories. But yew’d do well to heed the warnin’s.”

“It’s notable that Matty Cubitt walks on the nights when it’s rumoured a consignment has been ‘run’,” said Michael.

“Ar! O’course he du, tryin’ for ter reach his brother, and beg his forgiveness,” said Noyes. “But then, pore Matty, he come to a bad end for his smugglin’, as a good preventative might expect, and wuz drug to Hell by Black Shuck. But pore Marty, he’s still a-tryin’ tu find Matty.”

“If only,” said Michael.

Much of the ‘trade’ was landed at high tide, directly into the cellars of the White Hart, whence it promptly disappeared up the hidden passageway to be stored, if rumour was correct, in the crypt of the great church on the hill. And let one good hint of a passage be found, and the church might be searched, but for now, the church was inviolate.

When goods came in on a half-tide, they went to the Cubitt cottage, a mile downstream, and had to then be brought overland.

“Yew wouldn’t wish the devil-dog to taerke no-one, would ye, squire?” asked Samuel Balls, suspected of being Matty Cubitt’s right hand man.

“I’ve as much faith in a devil-dog as I do in ghosts,” said Michael.  There were, to be sure, three burned scores on the church door, like the scratches of great, incandescent nails; and local myth said that the devil-hound of East Anglia had once invaded the service. But Michael was an educated young man, who had no belief in the supernatural. What he did have belief in was the love of Frances, or Fancy, Plumstead, daughter of a former rector of Holy Trinity.  The unfortunate rector had  died at the young age of fifty-four, supposedly of a heart-attack, after refusing to let the smugglers use the church. Michael had been the one to find him in the church, had sought for any signs of life, and had needed to be the one to take the disagreeable news to Fancy, a dark-haired maiden with blue eyes who looked fragile but who was stronger than she looked.

Fancy lived in a cottage at the back of the church, well above the marsh, which she had bought with what her father had left her. She taught basic literacy as a living, and read and wrote letters for the illiterate. Michael hated seeing her careworn, and did such chores around the house as would not give anyone cause to gossip.  There would soon be ill-natured gossip about an incomer who was unwelcome; and Fancy was unfortunate enough to have attracted the attention of Matty Cubitt before his disappearance.

Fancy did not believe in ghosts either, and was a more stalwart companion than the dozen preventatives Michael had at his disposal.

“If anyone is clever enough to catch them at it, it is you, Lieutenant Lamming,” said Fancy.

“I may hope so, Miss Plumstead,” said Michael. She had permitted him to hold her hand, seeing her home from church, for some weeks. “And if I do ... would you do me the honour of being my wife? I scarce like to ask it of you, on the pay of a humble preventative officer ...”

“I’m a good manager,” said Fancy. “Thank you; I would be honoured to accept.”

Daringly, Michael kissed her, and was kissed back. It had to be quick before one of the locals set sheep or goose on them for a laugh. Preventatives were not popular; the poverty of the locals was such that they saw ‘bottle fishing’ merely as sport, and some profit on the side, failing to recognise how dangerous the spies who often came in with the ‘run’ cargo.

However, much as he enjoyed dalliance with Fancy, Michael had his job to do, and a thankless task it was, hoping to catch smugglers at it. Fancy did her bit, overhearing such gossip as she might get to pass along.

 

“Word is they are at the  Cubitt cottage,” said Fancy, to Michael one evening, when he climbed the hill to see her.  “And if you ask me, it’s an exercise in trying to scare you, but perhaps you can arrest Matty.”

“I would ask you to come, for you’re a better man than any of my cowards, but of course it would be indefensible of me ...”

“I’ll come.  I will feel safer with you than worrying if it is a diversion of Matty’s to get you out of the way so he can sneak into my cottage,” said Fancy, tucking her hand into his. They went back down the hill, and Michael called out his men, a dozen villainous looking men who had taken service as preventatives more to avoid being press-ganged into the Navy than for any love of law and order. Michael had given up getting them to march or parade, so long as they took care of their muskets and practised their musketry.

 

They walked across the bleak salt marsh, Michael familiar with every bad place and inlet. The Cubitt cottage sat out on a partly constructed island, with a causeway of alderwood running out to it. There were some ghastly moans.

“Silver-paper folded over a bone comb,” said Michael. “I’ve done it myself, at school. Silver-paper being such fine paper as it is.”

A white, spectral figure rose in front of them. It did bear a resemblance to Marty Cubitt.  Which meant that it also bore a resemblance to Matty Cubitt.

“Halt; you’re under arrest!” cried Michael.

Half the men with him had fled.

The rest joined them as a hound, wreathed in blue flames, burst out of the bushes.

Michael stripped off his boat-cloak as the ghastly apparition streaked, baying, towards him; Fancy gave a little cry, but Michael threw the cloak over the dog, and tackled it to the ground.

“Poor old fellow ... there, old boy ... soon have you safe,” he was murmuring.

“Michael?” said Fancy.

“Never poured brandy on a Christmas pudding and seen it burn without burning?” said Michael.  “Poor old boy might be burned but we can treat his burns, and it shouldn’t be too bad. Those bastards, torturing a dog!”

The dog whimpered and licked his hand when he unwrapped his cloak. It had smothered the flames, but the dog still stank of best brandy.  

“It’s Marty’s dog,” said Fancy.

The spectral Marty appeared again,  and a mist crept in from the estuary.  The dog started barking again, and wagging its tail; and in the mist, a second spectral Marty appeared, with a burning black dog beside him. He looked at the dog which Michael still petted, and pointed a finger at the first spectre.

“Marty! No! No!” shrieked the first ghost, pulling off the fine muslin which had blurred the outlines of Matty Cubitt. “For the love of God ...”

“I fancy, more for the love of dog on Marty’s part,” muttered Michael, shocked.

The mist-figure seemed to pass through the screaming Matty, who fell down, and was still. The burning dog ran into the bushes, and a host of men with weapons ran out, screaming. The dog hounded them until suddenly the marsh edge gave way where most of them had run. The water surged up like white horses, plunging  down on them, and the dog ... vanished.

Michael made his way over to Matty.

On that chill, but not cold night, Matty had frozen to death and icicles hung on his tear-streaked face.

 

The other smugglers were not to be seen. There was no creek where Michael had seen the others engulfed.

“Sometimes, Black Shuck is said to aid lovers,” said Fancy. “And you have been kind to Captain here.”

 

Michael nursed Captain back to health. Then he married Fancy. The dog carried roses for the ceremony, in a basket; and he stopped and bowed his head at the three score-marks on the church door before trotting up the aisle with the happy couple.

 

The smugglers never were seen again in that district, or any other of a temperate clime.