Dancers in the Dark part 1

Dancers in the Dark

I could have started; it was a dark and stormy night. Or a full moon played hide and seek amongst the clouds. But it wasn’t. It was a glorious June day as a man made his way through a magnificent garden. The thought in this man’s mind echoed in my thoughts as he stopped to admire one bed of blooms and then another.

Now sitting and fanning himself in the shade of a large stone cross, George Green a simple plumber from Montreal looked over his new garden thinking

‘They said that the house has been empty thirty years, but this garden has been kept beautifully, I wonder who by? I hope I don’t have to pay them.’

He looked around once more before finding his eyes drawn to the gravel path leading towards the Manor house.

The solicitor never mentioned having someone look after the garden, and.’ His eyes coming to rest on a magnificent Georgian, manor interrupted his chain of thought.

  ‘Good god, look at that. What did the solicitor say, thirteen bedrooms and fourteen other rooms for the family. I can’t see that nine hundred thousand he left going to last very long.’

Come little man come. I await you, I need you. Yet another dancer, to join my merry band. Yes I know your thoughts, and the item’s you covet so, it will come, it will come.’

‘Look at it, when he said it was three hundred years old, I expected a rundown pile but this is like new.

Standing before the black iron studded oak door George searched the ring of large keys, asking himself

Now which one is the key? Ah here it is, just like he said, ‘the, big one on the ring is for the front door.’

I could say my little guest struggled to turn the lock, or that there was a creaking of dry hinges as the door opened, but there wasn’t. Come in my little fly, come into my web.

‘George dropped his battered suit case as he stood turning in an entrance hall larger than his flat in Montreal muttering.

‘God look at the place, like something out of a film, and. And not a…. who cleans the place? The solicitor said no one had been in since my great uncle disappeared.’

‘Welcome my little pet now let me close the door for you, after all this will be your final place of residence.

Hearing a gentle click George turned to find the door, and despite its size and weight had silently closed.

Nervously George tried the door, and was relieved to find it opened without any trouble. As he pushed the door closed again, George’s sigh of relief echoed around the hall.

“A bloke could get nervous in a place like this.” He muttered to no one in particular. Looking around his eyes found a room off to his right, and being the only door that was open, he started towards it. Room after room followed, all of them amazing George to a greater or less degree, both with the magnificence of the furnishing and decoration.

Eventually he arrived in the kitchen, where he found a larder the size of a small room stocked with things he knew and others he only suspected of being edible, and then there was a cold room like he had never believed possible, stocked to overflowing with food.

‘That’s all right my little friend; the food is all for you. The starvation and other more painful pleasures will come later.’

In his wandering around the house George had found three things absent. There was electricity, no radio, and no telephone. Luckily he thought, he had packed his own portable radio. Now settling down in a bed like a football field he turned it on. Only to discover that there was no reception on any of the bands he tried, so with no entertainment, George settled down for his first night in his new home.

Sleep when it did come was broken several times by a recurring dream. It was dark but the people in the dream could be seen, sort of burning, on fire, while dancing to a strange melody.

The following morning, a muzzy headed George, disturbed by the memory of his dream, absently stacked the breakfast things on the sink while thinking.

‘It’s not worth washing those few things; I’ll see to them later, a walk in the fresh air to the village will clear my head.

The three mile walk into the village did clear his head, but the village itself proved to be a bit of a let-down. George finding it boasted a total of fifteen houses one pub and a shop that doubled as everything, but on the plus side, there was a bus into the nearest town.

Shopping for once was a pleasure; but money being no object caused problems of its own. A year and a half ago he had been a divorced plumber living in a two room apartment off a dingy street in down town Montreal. And then there was the letter. The letter that he had refused to open for three weeks thinking it was his ex-wife again, and when he did finally open it, what a surprise.

Now he had money to spend but he didn’t know what to spend it on. A few books were all he had bought. As there was no radio in the house he felt that he would need something to read just to pass the time.

It was as he passed a solicitors office that a sudden thought brought him to a halt. Now that he owned property, valuable property, and had money to spend, a Will ought to be made. Two hours later he came away feeling quite cheerful and satisfied despite the restrictions made about selling the property,

In the garden and sitting on the low wall surrounding the cross, George studying the house found he had more questions than answers. Firstly, he had seen nobody around working on the gardens yet they were immaculate.

Then there was the house. It looked as if an army of servants worked at it day and night just to keep it clean, but again, he had neither seen nor heard anybody. And now he had to admit, a strange compulsion, curiosity was pulling him back to the house.

‘Welcome back my little one. Now I have you and there is no escape. Soon you will be mine. Mine to scream and dance. Yes dance in the dark to my tunes, and scream in the blue fires of hell.’

It had been a month and George was bored, He needed to be doing something. There was nothing to do in the house. Gardening, well never having had a garden and George knew nothing about plants. The only thing he really knew was plumbing, and as Lord of the Manor, well he was sure that wouldn’t go down well with the locals at the pub, and apart from that when he was in the house his head kept going muzzy he needed to get out.

He was getting on quite well with the locals, he had been talked into playing a game of darts, only to find he was quite adept at the game and was now in the local team. He felt rather, as the local put it chuffed about that, while the Landlord had said. “Not bad for a Yank.” That as a Canadian hadn’t gone down very well.

It had been raining, the first rain George had seen since coming to England and now he was sitting in the library having found a rather interesting book. It was a ledger of the house expenses since the day work had begun on its building by Sir Francis Dashwood, up to the time he finally finished it in 1777. 

A second book continued with details of the owners from 1891. Reading about them, he found it strange that only the date that they took up residence in the house had been given.  From 1895 there was a gap of ten years until the next owner took over in 1905 William Hall, a very distant relative of Sir Francis Dashwood.

He lived in the house until he seemed to disappear in 1909 and since then there had only been five owners all apparently distant relatives of the original builder, and not one living more than four years in the house before mysteriously disappearing.

The two books called for a more detailed search of the library looking for more on the life of Sir Francis Dashwood, what was found and in great detail were accounts of the Hell Fire Club, Devil worship, and events that would now have put them in prison for a long time. That was if it was here and now, but of his death. No just nothing about him after 1897.

‘Well that is strange. First of all, that bloke Dashwood builds the place and then disappears, leaving no direct descendant to inherit.

 It takes years to trace his nearest relative and then bring him back from India. He lives in the house four years and then disappears. No will, no body, no trace of him. But looking at all this, and with what the solicitor said, it looks as if Dashwood’s will has some very strange clauses about something like that happening, and how to deal with it. 

I think I had better see if I can find a copy of that Will

‘Search and search and search my little friend, what you seek is not to be found.’  

Well I think I’ve looked in every book in this dammed library and there’s not a trace of a will, but I have come to the conclusion that Dashwood was a rather nasty piece if work. That hellfire club had some unsavoury characters and some pretty nasty pleasures.

‘Yes my friend, and soon you will be joining in, playing my little games, screaming as you dance to my tune in the dark.’

‘l right I admit it, I’m starting to feel frightened just being in the house. When I’m in the house it’s hard to think straight, and, and there’s something about it that’s getting to me, and yet I can’t seem to stay away. If I go into town, before I know it I’m turning for home, no not home, just back to this house.

I’m sitting in this café reading a paper but my mind was back in the house. I nearly missed it, the local records office is having an open day today, deeds, wills, and certificates all open to the public. I wonder if they have a copy of the will.

Damn it I’ve walked past the damn door three times now and not turned in. I’m going to. I have to.   

I’ve almost passed it again Turn in. Turn in. I’m in, and I feel different. Something’s missing. I don’t know I just can’t put my finger on it. I know. To read the will. That’s why I’ve come in. How could I forget? I can’t remember whose will it is I want to see. Why did I come in?

I must have asked for something, the young man has just brought me all these books and papers. Make notes, where did this notebook come from, I remember I bought it from that young lady on the desk. I think. Why did I want it? Think, think. think.

It’s pleasant sitting here under the cross in the garden, I can think again sitting here. I must have been to the town as I have a note book in my hand. I can’t remember buying it but there’s a lot written in it, and in my writing.  

I don’t know why but something makes me reluctant to take this book of mine into the house. It’s horrifying. There’s this newspaper report about twenty eight men disappearing during the building. Men who arrived in the morning but never left at the days end. How did I get this book? I can’t remember.

And then there is this article about work men having to be brought from Leeds, all because the local men wouldn’t work on building of the house. They claimed that it was cursed. Then there is this about caves under the building that had been used by the hellfire people, stories of death and the Devil.

The Will forty, seven pages someone printed off for me. It’s getting dark; I can’t read it now, just look at the previous owners, and what was it I read in the papers? I’m forgetting.’ I have to hide these, but where. There’s a small door at the bottom of the cross can I open it. Put everything inside its dry, but what if I forget? I can’t think there’s a voice.

I remember the dreams now better than I remember the days, not details just dancing. People, I think, dancing continually, unable to stop. Dancing, but dancing isn’t what they are doing. I can feel pain, burning pain like in a fire.

‘Soon my little man you will know, know the pleasure of the flame. Know the pleasure of the dance. Soon very soon.’

It’s suddenly become dark, Where was I. Time seems to pass so strangely, I’m sure it was warm and sunny this morning but that’s snow outside

Oh I went to bed…. Or did I? I can’t remember. I think I’ll go for a walk in the garden it looks a nice day.

It’s so nice sitting here the sun’s warm and. That Iron door I remember something about it but I don’t know what.

‘Come back to the house, come from under that cursed thing. You are needed, you are mine and I await you, soon you will be all mine.’

‘I’m so weary all the time and the dreams, I dance. I’m one of the dancers, it’s just the flames. I have to dance. Dance out of the fire, it burns so, yet I can’t scream. None can, we just dance, silently dance, burning in the blue fire. Naked men and women lots of them dancing screaming, I know I’m one. I have to go back.

I need to sleep, but the pain.

 

‘I enjoy the pain, I feed on the pain. The pain makes me strong. Your life makes me strong, and in your death I live again, I feel again, I walk the land again. You my dances all, in your dance you give me life. In your pain. In your glorious pain I live again, walk my land. See my beautiful house. Your dance.

‘What’s happening who am I. What am I doing, why am I sitting here. I’m warm. I burned before, but this is different. I remember this, this garden. I’ve sat here before but I can’t remember when. I remember the house. I have to go back, but it’s so nice here, a little longer, just a little longer.

 ‘Return, it grows late you must return the sun goes down before the sun goes down.’

 Had I been standing? No I had been sitting in the garden eyes closed enjoying the summer’s sun unit the compulsion of the voice in his head had made him start back towards the house. It was something by his feet that brought his attention to it. It was difficult to do but he looked down to his feet.

‘Ignore it, it is of no moment.”

The thought drifted through his mind. Yet something was prodding at his awareness. Memories of a town, of shops, of a paper, yes a newspaper. Buying a newspaper. ‘Had he bought a newspaper, when?’

Lead weights weighted his eye lids while from somewhere, someone, was persuading, telling him.

 ‘It is just an old and long gone memory, let it sleep again. Come back to me.

Come back to the house, I need you.’

The iron door was open. A carrier bag, brown paper, with something in it. His eyes struggled to focus on it. A newspaper. It was an effort just to reach down, take the paper. Lift it and open it.

‘Come, come back into the house we await you. I need you’

Nothing made sense until his eye’s fixed on the date. July 4^th Independence day. He looked again, fuzzily wondering why there was no mention of the celebrations in the states. July 4^th 1953….53.

‘That can’t be right’ His head shook in disbelief as his mind swimming through mud, struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. Then slowly, what his eyes saw began to push back the fog.

He was sitting on the low wall under the cross as slowly his head began to clear, thoughts, memories struggled to surface as if through thick syrup.

‘April 48 I came to England. When did I; yes it must have been….June, I arrived here, June 1950. I can’t have been here three years.’ His foot caught the still heavy carrier bag. Blinking, and struggling to make sense of the thoughts creeping sluggishly through his mind. He reached down to look into the bag; it was almost full of paper.

‘Paper, records office….I remember, I remember an iron door. This door under the cross. I remember a woman, records something about the house. Wool, my heads stuffed with wool, think, think. Deep breaths, deep breaths, yes that’s it, get some air.’

It was getting dark; he’d finished reading the papers an hour ago and now standing looking at the house, he knew he had to leave the garden; leave the house. But no matter how he’d tried, he couldn’t. His thoughts were again becoming muddy, he was having a struggle to hold one thought against another; and the shadows. Shadows that flickered in and out that were attacking the fringes of his mind as he wove his uncertain way towards the gate

 ‘Tonight my little one you are ready, tonight is the night you must be here. Turn my little one, turn back for the pleasures tonight will bring’

A voice in his head, tempting, holding, pulling him to the house turned him. It was the screams in his head that sent him staggering back towards the gardens centre and the cross, now like a hammer blow it hit him, standing by the cross his mind cleared. It was still there lying on the ground in the carrier bag. The will, set out with so many stipulations, holding the house to just one special male descendent, himself.

‘I have you, you are mine, you cannot leave; I have your mind, you feel my hand around your heart. You are my dancer, to scream and dance for me in the dark.’

‘No!’

The cry reverberated around in the garden, or his mind.

‘I will not.’

Now he ran, carrier bag clutched to his chest, the gravel flying from his pounding feet, only to halt gasping at the closed gate. The gate that had always been open, he shook it, and again. It was not just shut, but solid, un-movable.