Empire State (Part Five) - The House in the Woods

Wicca celebrations can be based on the cycles of both the moon and the Sun. The former are known as Esbats and associated with the Goddess. Black Magic often looks to spirits or maybe even the Devil himself.

It was the morning after the night before. I found myself staring at the wardrobe standing by our hotel room door, minding its own business. I wondered whether, if I opened it and rustled my way through any clothes hanging up, I would find a portal to a frozen world complete with winter forest landscapes punctured by the occasional mythical creature. Alternatively, there may be a mouse wearing a conical hat with stars on it mopping the floor in the bathroom with magic conjuring more and more mops and rising water threatening to flood the entire place.

Yesterday had seen spectral ships in a Cornish harbour, robed druids filing away to a moonlit ceremony in an ancient castle and now a mystery girl smuggled into our hotel room in the dead of night (who didn’t bring her own sleeping bag but chose to hop into Sam’s bed instead.)

Breakfast was, at first, an awkward affair. A group dynamic changes when someone new is introduced – in this case, Astral…Astral Carter. We had both watched surreptitiously as she demurely tiptoed into the bathroom wearing a bathrobe with the hotel motif on it, exchanging glances as she clicked the door shut. I had already attended to my ablutions with Sam opting for the gentlemanly choice of ladies first when it came to next up for a shower.

Sam looked across from his bed, now sitting up, apologising again, stressing that he hadn’t realised the scale of the planned gathering the previous night. It’s funny just how far our limit can be stretched when you consider someone a friend for life.

I stared intently at Sam and declared indignantly: “I am becoming the victim of your solipsism”

He looked back at me vacantly. For a few seconds there was an uncomfortable silence. My face broke in grin as we both started laughing.

“Did you swallow a dictionary while I was away? Solipsism – self-centred/selfish, eh?

“OK, maybe that’s a bit strong”

“I get it. I do.”

With that, I made my way down to the restaurant expecting the others to follow.

The restaurant was busy at this hour. Most people seemed to go for the 8am – 9am slot with holiday itineraries and work meetings to pursue. Arriving at the wooden lectern that invariably guards access to the eating halls of hotels, it was initially unmanned, A flustered, twenty-something lad was multi-tasking, eventually attending after catching up with a number of guest requests.  I duly mumbled my room number as requested and was led to a small table that could accommodate up to four people. A pony-tailed waitress with a subtle dusting of rouge on her cheeks took her notepad and pen out and checked whether I wanted coffee or tea – breakfast was a help yourself buffet. I went for coffee pending Sam and Astral joining me.

Initially, conversation was staccato probably because the dynamic duo hadn’t had much sleep. Sam was wearing an old Bob Marley tee-shirt and cargo shorts with Astral going for a white crop top with grey, lycra stretch pants. She lit the room up. We exchanged pleasantries as people do when they meet for the first time. Astral and Sam had known each other for a few years, by all accounts. While Sam made his way across to the buffet bar, slipstreamed by two offices with neatly ironed trousers and perfectly placed smiles, I asked Astral about her dad (and why did he seem to be a bit of a psycho or, at least, that’s what I wanted to know?). Apparently his bark was worse than his bite and he was a good egg really. He was totally committed to his beliefs, not suffering those fools gladly who shunned things that they didn’t understand. Astral had met Sam at the family home a few years ago. She had just recently turned 18 so there was a bit of an age gap between the two of them. Sam was someone that was considered a friend of the family, her dad had said that he liked Sam but only privately to Astral; he was protective towards his daughter stopping short of owning a shotgun to curtail unsuitable boyfriends.

With all of us close to finishing either a full English breakfast or a Continental plate for Astral (croissants and orange juice), we considered plans for the day ahead. It was Saturday so we were all spared the vagaries of work; the Tintagel world was our Oyster. I fanned out a few leaflets on the table like a clumsy magician before a cabaret. They implored visits to a toy museum, a Post Office, Merlin’s Cave and a beauty spot called Bossiney Cove. Astral wanted to join us for the day slipping in an invite to her family home a few miles away. She put both hand over her eyes, twirled her finger in the air and brought her hand down across all of the brochures.

“Let’s do them all.” She smiled mischievously.

She assured me that her dad would be pleased to meet me (more pleased than he had been up until now) and there was a bit of a shindig planned for the evening so free drinks all round. She had me at free drinks.

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It was a glorious first day of May with a bank holiday Monday waiting in the wings. The sun shone, the birds sang, Cornwall braced itself for a busy few days of tourists and tantrums. The day raced by as we clicked on a social level, enjoying each other’s company, taking in the sights and sounds of village life. I nearly called the RSPCA when Astral threw a half-eaten, Cornish pasty at a seagull. That oversized morsel could have taken the bird’s head off. As it turned out, the scavenger survived along with a sudden influx of similarly interested gulls, prompting us to leave with a small crowd of people around us smiling and scowling in equal measure. By the time it got to early evening, we had decided to call proceedings to a halt and head for Astral’s place. We had finished the day with a pub meal at The King Arthur - one of the many inns in the area.

I chose to go with Sam as a passenger in his motor declining Astral’s invite to join her in a red Porsche Boxster – pure German power and speed for those who didn’t need to worry about money. I couldn’t help pondering how much the insurance premium was for someone in their late teens driving around in a car like that. The thought went unvoiced; engines were started, roads were hit. Astral led the way, Sam tracking the red of her brake lights, doing his best to stay close at traffic lights to avoid being left behind. Astral drove fast and furiously. At one point, she ripped around an old boy chugging along in his old Citroen. We looked on as the bemused, septuagenarian wearing a flat cap did a double take; the Porsche’s exhausts bid him a disrespectful farewell on the way past. Astral, it seemed, was no fan of a fair fight.

We headed south on the B3263 towards Tregatta and on further to Treknow. Bodmin Moor was only 20 miles away with its mythical beast – The Beast of Bodmin (known in Cornish as Best Goon Brenn) – a purported wild cat that roams this part of the world, killing livestock and scaring visitors. I’d seen various newspaper reports over the years, often sensationalist stuff on the front page of the tabloids. As it turned out, the point was moot as we noticed Astral indicating to turn left down into an unmarked road, long before we got anywhere near to the moors. By now, twilight was descending, a full moon becoming more visible as the sun arced downwards to dip below the horizon beckoning another night ahead.

We followed her down a single dirt track, rutted with tire tracks for a couple of miles. Either side was dominated by dense forest, often straggling undergrowth would partially block the route, our cars avoiding scrapes and minor scratches by slowing to a crawl at times as we ploughed on. Neither driver would have been keen on suffering any kind of damage to their car albeit Sam would have been less fussed being the worldly druid that he was. Eventually the route opened out into a sturdier road that led to large, electric gates that fronted a hidden away mansion of some kind in the middle of nowhere.

The house in the woods loomed over its domain. With a large, wooden door at the end of a drive, the ground floor had large bay, windows on either side. The place looked pretty old, probably Jacobean. There were carefully manicured gardens on the right with a lake in the distance set against the backdrop of the forest. Shadows were spreading across the estate as dusk fell. The first floor was monopolised by diamond leaded windows suggesting the presence of several rooms while a further floor above that was highlighted by what looked like a circular observatory. Ivy sprawled over the front of the house, mapping its own course across brickwork and skirting windows. The whole place seemed to brood as Astral spoke into the voice panel at the side of the gate. They swung open, slowly. We both drove in and found parking spots on the gravel area that radiated out some twelve feet from the house itself and covered the entire circumference of the house. There were other cars parked including a Range Rover. I imagined that belonged to the Lord of the Manor – one Mr Carter known to others present as father.

As both sets of car doors clicked shut, the rather grand, front door with a large, circular knocker opened, hanging baskets full of flowers flanked both sides. A stuffy, decrepit looking man servant, hunched over and wincing looked out at us. He was dressed in tired looking black tie with dickie bow and a waist coat. He reminded me of a dishevelled, shorter version of Hudson from “Upstairs, Downstairs”.

“Shall I take your luggage to your rooms?” he creaked.

“That would be wonderful, Hamish.” Astral was all quiet assertiveness now she was on home territory.

We fetched our suitcases from the car boot and passed them over to the butler figure as though we’d known him all of our lives.

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Next: The Finale