A Spectre in the Stones

No one would ever accuse Lloyd McKenzie Lewis of being superstitious, but he felt uneasy now.

He’d heard a lot about the children’s home they were heading for, and there was no smoke without fire.

“This place,” he said.

“Yes, what about this place?” said Robin.

Robin was his social worker; lean faced with thinning wispy brown hair. He was taking him there.

He and Robin weren’t exactly best mates, but with so much going on in his head, Lloyd had to ask somebody.

“Kids have said stuff. It isn’t that good there, is it?”

“In what way?”

“People getting sick? Lee Peddar said some of them go mental.”

“That’s garbage,” said Robin. “I never had you down as a guy who’d be taken in by that sort of junk.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t just Lee Peddar was it? Other kids said stuff... about curses and that.”

Robin glanced at him as he manoeuvred down the narrowing road. “Your mates are winding you up,” he said. “And I thought you were tougher than that. I mean, not even the most intimidating of Housefathers can ruffle you, can they? So, what’s all this nonsense about curses?”

“Haven’t you heard stuff then?” said Lloyd. He looked at Robin. “I bet you have. You’d be scared blind if you was going to stay there.”

“It would take more than a few stories dreamed up by your so called mates. Sarson Hall’s just like any other kid’s home. If it wasn’t, the inspectors would have closed it down.” Robin glanced across at him again, and this time he attempted to show more understanding. “It’s nerves, that’s all. It’s always a bit of a thing going somewhere new. And don’t worry about it – being nervous. It shows you’re human. It’s a relief to know there’s a chink of weakness in you. You play the tough guy so much, it’s quite refreshing to see you’ve got a softer side.”

Lloyd didn’t say anything, and he wasn’t taken in by all that rubbish. There was something bad about this place. His mates knew it, and he knew it, and, as they got nearer he could feel it in the air. It had felt like spring when they set off – bits of green shooting on trees, and flowers in the hedges – daffodils, primroses, that sort of stuff; but the nearer they got to Sarson village, the darker the sky became, and now the trees were just leafless skeletons – a bare mesh of branches. Where there’d been clusters of flowers, there were only mud patches, and the grass looked sparse and frost-burnt. When they got into the village, the houses seemed to cower in gloomy copses and there was an eerie stillness everywhere.

They were driving past a high stone wall now, with an algae stained pavement running beside it. There was a break just ahead, with a couple of posts, topped with rounded stones, supporting a heavy iron gate.

“This is it,” Robin said, stopping the car.

Beyond the gate, trees lined the driveway, black and bare, and the driveway plunged into a tunnel of darkness. There were brackish pools of standing water, and the tree trunks were mosaicked with sun-starved moss.

“Okay. I need the gate opened,” said Robin.

Lloyd got out. It had the feeling of the Victorian workhouse about it and the gate scuffed on the drive, fighting his efforts.

His mates were right about this place. The birds weren’t even singing, and there was no wind, no flowers and no leaves.

As Robin eased the car into the driveway, splattering the puddles in the process, hints of uncertainty nagged at Lloyd. Robin had said it was nerves because this was a new place; but he’d been to half a dozen new places in the last thirteen years.

He couldn’t remember when he came to be in homes, but the social workers told him his mum had quarrelled with her parents back in Jamaica and they’d kicked her out. That was before he’d been born. She’d come over to England and she’d lived in a commune; one of the guys there was his father. But, she’d been on drugs and that had killed her. They’d put his dad in prison because it was him that had given her the drugs.

Social services had contacted his grandparents, but they didn’t want to know. They had this religious idea about the sins of the parents being visited on the children, so he’d been put in a home and from then on he’d been shunted from one kids’ home to another.

He’d never felt like this, though, not about any of the other homes. He pushed the gate shut and clambered back into the car.

“It’s real cold out there,” he said, buffing his hands. “It wasn’t like that when we left.”

He noticed Robin had put the headlights on. “It’s only March, kid,” he said. “The seasons can change from summer to winter in five minutes this time of year.”

They rounded the bend and, for the first time, he saw the house. It glowered menacingly across the grounds. The windows were dark and the stonework blackened by age. And everything was cast in the lurid purple of the sky. The door was in shadows shielded by a pillared porch. There were no shrubs on the gravel forecourt and there seemed to be an utter desolation hanging over the place.

“There you go. Nothing wrong with that.” Robin said. “Sarson Hall. It’s got history. Parts of it go back to Tudor times you know?”

“Yeah, whatever,” said Lloyd. He shrugged and got out of the car. All he wanted to do now was get in there, face what had to be faced, know the worst and deal with it. That’s the way he always handled things – front on, no messing.

Robin went to the boot and emptied out his possessions. There wasn’t much, just a battered suitcase he had picked up at some charity do, and an emerald green cabin case, bought by the sweat of his own brow. He’d saved for that by delivering papers. It was for when he went travelling around the world, because that’s what he was going to do one day. The cabin case, with its trolley wheels and retractable handle, was the first step.

“You stay here. Look after this stuff while I go and find someone,” Robin said. “And when I say stay, Lloyd, I mean stay. No wandering off.”

He went through to the inner porch and Lloyd was left alone, staring at the scowling façade. It dwarfed him.

“You the new boy?”

He started. He hadn’t noticed someone coming around the corner and he took a pace closer to his luggage.

“What if I am?” he said. “You going to make something of it?”

It was a boy about his own age, and the boy grinned. He was Asian, olive skinned, with a shock of jet-black hair.

“No,” he said. “I never take on people that might be stronger than me.”

Lloyd pulled himself up to his full height. He was taller than the Asian kid. Neither of them displayed many signs of adolescence as yet, but Lloyd was more sinewy and muscular. He was proud of his wiry strength. He relied on it. It was one of his trusted means of survival, one of the weapons he depended on to deflect whatever life might throw at him. He stared at the boy. The boy seemed okay, but Lloyd didn't smile. He wasn't in the mood for smiling.

“As long as we’ve got that sorted,” he said.

The boy offered his hand and Lloyd took it tenuously. At the homes he wasn’t used to this type of formality, not with the other kids.

“I’m Rudi,” the kid said.

“Why aren’t you at school?” said Lloyd.

Rudi shook his head. “Off sick.” And that made Lloyd’s antennae twitch. It was what Lee Peddar had said.

“Yeah? What way, sick?” he said.

Rudi shrugged. “No appetite – not sleeping, it’s…”

He tailed off and there wasn’t time for any more, because the door opened and a sour faced woman appeared at the top of the steps.

“You Lloyd Lewis?” she snapped.

Lloyd glanced around with a gesture of mock enquiry. “You Lloyd Lewis?” he said, looking at Rudi.

Rudi grinned. “No.”

“Seems like I am then.” He turned, looking back at the woman. “This guy here said it isn’t him, so it must be me. Yeah.”

Her face tightened. “Don’t get lippy with me, son.” She glanced at a card she was holding. “Lloyd McKenzie Lewis?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?” said Lloyd.

“Then you’ve got to come with me. Bring your cases. Rudi, you’d best give him a hand.”

She opened the door and the boys scrambled up the steps. Lloyd took the cabin case. No one else was getting their hands on that.

They went through to a dark hall and there was a smell that hit the back of his throat, and a stillness, drenched with portents of hidden menace.

He looked around him. The hall was clean enough; the hallstand and the oak settle, and the dresser standing against the wall, all polished, and the wood block floor was shiny. The carpet on the stairs had been brushed to near extinction, but... the smell, it was sickly sweet, mingling with the odour of disintegrating stone, and that was what got to him more than anything.

It made him want to gag.

“Down here,” snapped the woman. “You don’t want to keep Dave Trafford waiting – and don’t try getting smart with him. You’ll find you’ve taken on more than you can handle if you try it on with Dave.”

She pushed open an oak-stained door and shoved him through. Rudi sat outside with the cases.

“Don’t go touching that cabin case,” Lloyd said. “That’s special and I don’t want no-one messing with it.”

“A cabin case? A man of property,” said Dave. He was sitting by the window behind a heavy, paper-strewn desk. He was balding, but the hair that fringed his head was blond. There was no hint of grey. His face was puffy, but unlined. He couldn’t have been that old, but his eyes, behind rimless glasses, were steel blue and there was more sneering sarcasm than friendship in his tone.

“I don’t like my stuff being messed with,” Lloyd said.

There were forms to fill in, but it was all so familiar he hardly took any notice. He looked around the room with its high ceiling. There was an embossed plaster rose around the light fitting. There was no light shade, just a bare double-tubed low energy bulb. There were a couple of worn leather armchairs in the corners of the room, and a glass fronted bookshelf with hundreds of books, all boring stuff on education and psychology. And, even in here, there was the smell.

Robin did most of the form filling with Dave. Dave was the Housefather and his wife, Marion, was Housemother. Any domestic problems Lloyd was to go to her. Other stuff and he must come to him.

It all just flowed over him.

“Any questions?” Dave asked.

“Yeah. What’s the pong?”

Dave sniffed. “Can’t smell anything.”

“You’ve got to be joking. It’s everywhere, man. What do you reckon, Robin?”

Robin shook his head. “I can’t smell anything.” He looked at Dave with an expression that made Lloyd want to smack him one. “He seems to have developed a fantasy about the place. Ghouls and ghosts. In fact he’s beginning to show a fertility of imagination that I’ve never seen in him before – smells and curses and the place being possessed.”

Dave laughed. He had a neat row of tiny teeth and Lloyd wanted to smack them too. “Okay. You can go now,” he said. “And don’t go tripping over any ghoulish phantoms, and for goodness’ sake don’t tell cook about the smell. It’s probably her dinner.”

Lloyd headed for the door where Rudi was waiting. “Christine said I’ve got to show you round,” Rudi said. “But we’ll take the cases up first. You're in with me.”

“Who’s Christine?” Lloyd said, looking at him quizzically.

“The woman that brought us down here.”

“The one what’s got the face like sour milk, you mean?”

“They’re all like that,” Rudi said. He picked up the suite case and they headed down the corridor towards the hall.

At the top of the stairs, they turned left down another corridor. There was a room about halfway down. It wasn’t big, but it had four beds. There were windows on the left – sash windows, set deep in the wall. There were no windows on the other walls – just blank plasterwork, painted with cream emulsion. At the far end was a sink between two dark stained wardrobes, and it all looked as barren as midwinter.

On the farthest bed a boy was splayed. He had loose, dark curls and his eyes were closed. His head made convulsive movements in time with an iPhone. He looked up when Rudi and Lloyd came in, but there was no smile, and his eyes were dull and distant. Lloyd had noticed the same about Rudi’s eyes when they’d first met.

“This is Martin,” Rudi said.

The boy slid off the bed and removed his earpieces. He was bigger than Rudi and Lloyd. His face was strong, carved with encroaching adolescence.

“Is he coming in here?” he said.

Lloyd kicked off his trainers and threw himself onto a bed. “Seems like it, don’t it? You not in school neither?”

Martin shook his head.

“Don’t nobody go to school round here?”

“He’s got the same as me,” Rudi said.

“Only three of us in here, then?” said Lloyd.

Martin nodded. “Yeah, kids don’t stay that long.”

“How long you been here?”

“A year. That’s longer than most.”

It was all pointing in the same direction. Sick kids, no one staying for more than a year…

“Shall we unpack, or do you want to look around first?” said Rudi.

Martin lunged back onto his bed making it clear he wasn’t planning to help with any unpacking.

“Let’s have a look around first,” Lloyd said.

Rudi looked at Martin. “We got to. Christine said.” And Martin rolled over, grabbing his trainers.

They headed down the stairs, taking in the bathroom and showers. Then they went into the dining room where there was just one long table, laid for dinner.

“Everybody sits together,” said Rudi. “One big family.” And Martin gave an ironic laugh.

The television lounge was next, and that seemed okay.

Then they went out into the garden where the sky was as bleak as when Lloyd had arrived. It looked as if the garden was frozen into permafrost.

Robin’s car had gone and suddenly he glanced across at the other two and said: “My mate at the old place, Lee Peddar, he said this place was cursed.”

He saw the look Rudi gave Martin, tense and uneasy, but neither of them spoke. Martin had his hands in his jeans’ pocket and his foot scuffed at the gravel, while Rudi looked up towards Dave Trafford’s office. “Yes, we know what people say,” Rudi said. “But Dave said it’s nonsense – kids getting hysterical. He said you get noises and stuff in all old houses – but…” He tailed off, and Lloyd’s curiosity stirred.

“But what?” he said.

“Dave reckons it’s a kid that’s doing it,” said Rudi.

“A kid that’s doing what?” Lloyd persisted.

“Just stuff,” Martin said.

They were hiding something, Lloyd was certain, but just then they rounded a corner and there was another building. It was attached to the main Hall – only this one was different.

“What’s that place?” Lloyd said.

“The North Wing,” said Martin. “It’s got bedrooms in there for kids that need to be kept on their own.”

It wasn’t like the rest of the house. It seemed a lot older and there was something about it that was even more menacing than the main house. It was grey and dank – low slung –not neat and squared off like the other building. The stones seemed randomly placed, they were raw and they looked roughly cut. The windows were smaller too, with diamond shapes set in lead, and it was as if the roof was sagging under the weight of slate. Even the walls sagged. Lloyd shuddered – but he was curious.

“Can we go in there?” he said.

Rudi seemed uneasy. He glanced towards Martin. “We shouldn’t,” he said “It’s only bedrooms and locker rooms and Dave said we’ve got to be supervised if we go in there.”

“So?” Lloyd said, and he could see Martin had no qualms about Dave’s rulings. He didn’t look easy about going in though.

“Okay,” he said at last. “There isn’t no one around, not till the rest get back from school.”

There was nothing on the door to keep them out – no security locks or anything, and that seemed odd seeing as no one was supposed to go in there. Lloyd followed the others and pushed into a dark, low ceilinged passage. There were doors leading off on either side and the smell was worse here than in the main building. It seemed to bear down on him – damp with degenerating stones, and a stench of decay and must. It nearly made him choke, and he couldn’t help himself. He coughed convulsively and the others stared.

“What was all that for?” Martin said.

“The smell. It made me gag. It’s gross in here.”

“It’s nothing,” said Martin. “It’s a bit musty – that’s all.”

In the room to their left was a stairway leading to the first floor.

“You want to see some of the bedrooms?” Rudi said.

They climbed to a low ceilinged landing. There was only one small window at the far end.