Posted on by paulmichael

The Sinister Seat: Chapter 3

“You see! You see!” said Lord Arlington manically, pointing here and there in the room.

“Actually,” said Sir John, looking puzzled. “I don’t. It looks like a normal study to me.”

“Shh,” said Lord Arlington and Sir John fell quiet.

At first it seemed silent, but then Sir John noticed a scratching sound in a closed bureau. Lord Arlington made a noise between a giggle and a gibber. Sir John went over to the bureau. The noise was coming from the top section, the part which opened into a writing desk. Gently Sir John opened it and looked inside. There was a small pot with some pens and one was moving around, making the rattling sound. At the opening of the bureau a sheet of paper slid itself out and the pen hopped out of its holder. The pen began to write on the paper. Lord Arlington’s noises grew louder. 

“You see, you see!” Lord Arlington said. “What does it say?”

Sir John looked at the writing. The letters were spidery and uneven. It was a single word, repeated over and over.

“It says ‘Leave’,” said Sir John. “Hmm, this seems like some normal poltergeist activity. Let me just try the ectoplasmic goggles.”

Sir John put on a cumbersome pair of brass goggles and looked again at the scratching, dancing pen.

“How odd,” he said. “Nothing thaumaturgical at all. I wonder what’s moving it. This will prove an interesting puzzle. I’ll just go next door and get some more equipment.”

Sir John removed the goggles and turned towards the doorway. He stopped suddenly as there was no door, just a wall.

“Did… we came in there, didn’t we?” said Sir John.

“They move them,” said Lord Arlington, wild eyed and nodding enthusiastically. “They move the doors.”

Sir John walked back to the place where the door had been and pressed his hands on the surface, in case it was a disguised door. It was not, the wall felt solid behind the oak panelling. He heard a noise then from a desk in the corner of the room, and saw another pen jump from a pot and start scratching on paper. Sir John went over to look. Again the same word, “Leave” repeated over and over.

“Are you sure there’s not a switch or something to open that door?” said Sir John, clutching, he felt, at straws. Lord Arlington giggled by way of explanation.

Suddenly another pen on the bureau jumped up and started writing, then a third. A fourth pen flew across the room and joined the one on the desk. All of them wrote the same word over and over. The pages were turning into a spinning gyre of ink.

“We’d better, we’d better do what they say,” said Lord Arlington. “This way now, to the library.”

He grabbed Sir John and pulled him to a door opposite from where they had entered the room. Sir John looked perplexed at the study as he allowed himself to be pulled through to the next room.

Posted on by paulmichael

The Sinister Seat: Chapter 2

The man opened the door and let Sir John and Marie into the entrance hall of Deer Abbey in Headbourne Smithy. He was dishevelled with unkempt hair, unironed clothes and a wild manic stare from his red beady eyes.

“You, you came,” he exclaimed, tears in his eyes.  “My god, you came. It is you isn’t it, not some fiendish trick?”

“Er…yes,” said Sir John. “I’m Sir John Jennings and this is my wife Marie. Is Lord Arlington in?”

“Is he in? Is he in?” chuckled the man. “He’s always in. Always.”

“I see,” said Sir John. “May we… meet him perchance?”

At that the man’s chuckles erupted into hysterical laughter.

“Seem I that strange to you?” he said. “I must, I must. It is me, I am him. I am Lord Arlington!”

“Oh,” said Sir John. “My apologies, pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine, all mine, Sir John, Mrs Jennings,” said Lord Arlington. “Please call me Edward.”

“Enchante,” said Marie. She kept a little distance from the deranged man.

“Well this is indeed a magnificent house,” said Sir John. He cast his eyes around the hall, the wide stairs and the gallery above.

“No!” shouted Lord Arlington, making Sir John jump. “No… it is… it is… you will see. You will see. Come, come.”

Lord Arlington took Sir John’s sleeve and tried to drag him into the room to the right.

“If I may… just unpack some of my tools,” said Sir John, looking alarmed. “To help?”

“Of course, of course,” said Lord Arlington. “Forgive my haste, I just need you…need someone to see it.”

“He’s quite mad you know,” said a female voice from above.

Sir John and Marie looked up to see a woman dressed in white. She stood in the gallery, and was looking down with a wry expression on her face.

“Lady Arlington,” said the woman by way of explanation. “I fear your journey here may be in vain, if you hope to find something supernatural. I’m afraid my husband is merely… overwrought.”

“Hurry, hurry,” hissed Lord Arlington, ignoring the woman.

“You don’t think anything is amiss?” said Marie while Sir John unpacked a suitcase he had been carrying.

“Oh something is very much amiss,” said Lady Arlington. “You see, my husband was rather unlucky in some business dealings. We had to let the staff go, sell off a few things. It quite unhinged him. I’ve tried, God knows, to keep him calm. The doctor won’t let him out of the house, but that doesn’t stop him writing letters.”

“Quickly!” said Lord Arlington.

Sir John was by now wearing a hat with metallic arms protruding from it and a jacket bulging with mechanical devices.

“Perhaps I’d better…,” said Sir John to Marie  and was promptly dragged into the room next door.

“Behold the study!” said Lord Arlington from the room.

Lady Arlington sighed.

“Still, this may yet do some good,” she said. “If Sir John tells him the truth of the situation, that there is nothing even slightly unearthly to see, he may come to his senses. Or at least realise they have deserted him.”

“I had better join them,” said Marie.

“Oh really, don’t bother yourself,” said Lady Arlington. “There is nothing to see but a perfectly ordinary mansion, absent a few pieces here and there. Rather, come up here with me. We’ll have a lovely cup of tea and I can explain what’s really going on.”

Marie glanced into the study and saw her husband and Lord Arlington. The latter was pointing here and there wildly and Sir John just looked puzzled.
“Alors,” said Marie. “I shall come up and join you.”

Posted on by paulmichael

The Sinister Seat: Chapter 1

Dear Sir John,

First, I must apologise for the unsteady formation of my words on this page. In truth, my hand is ever gripped with trembles and shakes and it is a struggle to write my letters well. This is not, though, the result of some terrible disease such as those that ravage the muscles. No sir, this is the result of events that have instead ravaged my nerves.

But I get ahead of myself. Let me first make introductions. My name is Viscount Arlington and I have my seat in the small village of Headbourne Smithy in Hampshire. It is, it was, a most handsome house with fertile farmlands and a vista across the finest of England’s landscape. In truth, even now it retains these traits and yet…

Again I run too fast, too quickly. I fear you will not understand and if you do not understand you may not come to my aid. You may regard these words as the ranting of a lunatic and dismiss them. And indeed, sir, you would not be entirely wrong. There is a grain of truth in this, for whilst I am not completely insane yet, my mind is unravelling more and more as the terrible events unfold. I beseech you not to turn away at this stage, but hold fast as I explain.

If indeed, I can explain. What is there to explain? What is there I can commit to paper that would not in turn have me committed to Bedlam? Oh Lord, how hard it is. I can only hope that you, with the experience of the paranormal, the bizarre, may know what I hint at without using words. That you may understand what can happen when a man’s house and home is invaded by the uncanny.

There, I have said it, and I will not take it back. This is the truth of it. Were I less possessed of pride or a sense of history, I would simply flee the house. Indeed, every hour the thought comes to my mind. But I know that for the sake of my family and my history, I must stay and see this thing through to the end.

I have tried, Lord knows I have tried, these past two months to defend my home on my own. But every night has been worse and now, now, the most terrible change. Now the day itself is no longer sacred. Now even the sunlight is not enough to banish them. Sir John, I am so much in need of assistance in these matters from one such as yourself. One with experience, one with knowledge and one with the moral strength to see these terrible… things… down.

I have money, much money, and so on that score you need not be concerned. I beg you, beseech you to at least do the honour of coming for a visitation, so that I may explain and, maybe even show, to you what I confront in my own home.

Yours in hope,

Viscount Edward Arlington