Chapter Seven: Nightmares

The glow of the dawn, permeating into the library from the stained glass windows, barely illuminated the hastily conferred conference of three figures around the alcove. The looking-glass itself had returned to its normal role of reflection and the evil eye at the top was as malicious as ever, but was now obviously artificial.
Jonathan Blake, irritable and hung-over was having difficulty believing what his daughter and Paul where telling him. Resting his back on the oaken panels of the wall, he scratched his head and rubbed his sleep deprived eyes, glowering at Amanda and the young guitarist in anger and bafflement. He went over to the alter table and picked up the palm frond shaped dish and held it in his hands, gazing at it as if it would offer up its secrets and then he throw it harshly back.
Distractedly stroking the cat that she had released from the cage, Amanda sat cross-legged on the floor, the feline purring in her lap. Tears streaked her cheeks, but now after she had told her incoherent tale her sobbing had finally ceased. Paul, deciding to remain behind after most of the guests had departed, reclined, his knees drawn up, his head lowered, against the opposite wall of the alcove from where Jonathan paced up and down. His face had not lost its paleness or its look of disorientation.
“This is crazy, absolutely crazy,” Jonathan said. He turned to Paul, his voice harsh but with a slight tremor. “As for you I am going to do everything in my power to get your band dropped from Darkcore records.”
Paul said nothing in his defence but stood up and stared at the ground.
“I will do as much as I can to help you find your girlfriend,” he muttered unconvincingly.
“You certainly will. I am going to call the police and you can discuss it with them.”
“Dad, the police won’t believe you, they’ll think she’s run off with Lucius or something.” Amanda, now some of the shock had worn of, was feeling the first pangs of guilt and although she was reluctant to admit it, she had to agree with her father that she had been very foolish. She was dealing with forces that were beyond anything she could possible imagine. They needed help all right but it was not the police they could turn to.
“Keep quiet Amanda, you are in serious trouble.”
Her head slumped despondently, continuing in her mechanical stroking of the cat.
“I know it all sounds incredible and I still can’t grasp it but what we witnessed actually happened,” Paul said, managing to look Jonathan in the face for the first time. “I’m sorry I didn’t inform you of Amanda’s plan, I suppose I didn’t take it seriously, but when Moonbeam found me I did agree straight off to help her.”
For all of the emotions of fear and guilt competing inside of her, Amanda still had room for annoyance at Paul’s attitude. She had made a mistake, a very big one, but it had been made with good intentions. Her error was underestimating the nature of the powers residing in Ashbury Manor, powers that were beyond the abilities of an adolescent girl to unravel.
“You were right about one thing, this place is evil,” Jonathan said, keeping up his agitated pacing. “I’m going to have to sell this house if I can and go back to America, but first I am going to call the cops. Moonbeam has probably been kidnapped with the aid of that scumbag Lucius.”
“Please, dad, listen to me. The cops can’t help us, they wouldn’t take you seriously. What we need is expert help, somebody who knows a lot about the occult, black magic…”
“I told you to shut up! I’m calling the police not some exorcist.” With that Jonathan almost ran from the library.
Amanda stood up, holding the cat in her arms and confronted Paul.
“Thanks for helping me out, you little grass,” she said.
He seemed on the point of saying something but then he shook his head, making a dismissive gesture with his right hand and strode out of the room.
Feeling completely alone and isolated, wishing she had not snapped out at Paul, tears once again began to well up. But with a final sob she forced them down and clutched the cat tightly to her breast, which began to struggle because of the pressure.

That night she slept, regardless of the horrors she had observed, but her rest was disturbed by weird dreams. Her dreaming was nightmarish, but when Amanda was in the grip of their unreal but solid intensity she had found them oddly pleasurable. It was only when she awoke in her shadowy room, a small lamp still on to keep the darkness at bay, that sensations of fear and disorientation suddenly overwhelmed her.
In her sleep she travelled confidently with Camilla, Lucius’ insect possessed husk and a sleepwalking Moonbeam, through an immense labyrinth of stone, brick and rusting iron, the dimensions of which were beyond imagining. They passed through pillared halls, convoluted corridors like elaborate sewers and rooms the size of cathedrals; there spaces infested with exotic but abhorrent vegetation and bizarre arachnid life, which feed greedily on inert human shapes encased in diseased but strangely beautiful foliage. Like sinners in a fecund hell, these people were trapped or suspended in coiling multi-coloured flora; their mouths clogged with pulsating vein like creepers, faces frozen into silent screams as malformed many-legged bugs, as colourful as the plant life, sucked the succulent juices from their bodies.
They came to chambers that had windows of colossal proportions, round like the window Amanda had seen through the looking-glass the night before. A few were massive skylights that opened out into unknown heavens, but most were set into the walls and looked upon startlingly gorgeous but ruined, apocalyptic landscapes. Amongst the variety there were a desert of undulating and kaleidoscopic crystal dunes, shimmering into the far distance, where mountains of obsidian towered over an alien city, deserted, crumbling and overtaken by the jewelled sands; and a jungle of chaotic fertile abundance soaked in dense moisture, with terrifyingly bizarre flowers and blossoms, of such intense colours they blinded you. Beasts and animals of extra dimensional shapes and sizes slithered and swarmed obscenely in this otherworldly rainforest.
Most disturbing of all was how she felt as she wandered naked in this realm of surreal nightmare. She gazed around her not with loathing and dread but fascination as if viewing a decadent but sumptuous painting. And above all she had the intoxicated feeling of power over another human being who once only a day ago held power over her. She could do what she liked with that moralizing new-age bitch, Moonbeam Dancer, who had taken the affections of her father away. She could prod and goad the zombie form of Lucius Peake like a mindless beast of burden. She spoke to Camilla almost on an equal footing, discussing forbidden knowledge and sinister secrets, that she forgot the moment she awoke.
After a repetition of awakening and then falling asleep, automatically plunging her back into her visions, she could not bare the thought of returning. The gothic paraphernalia and lurid horror posters moved from her previous bedroom seemed oppressive, ugly and in bad taste. There general nastiness crowded in on her as she lay supine on her bed, the duvet thrown off because of the warmth of this early September night.
She desperately wanted a shoulder to cry on, someone close that would actually believe her. But there was nobody. Her father was useless. After deciding to allow a couple of days to elapse before calling the police in case Moonbeam returned, he blamed her entirely for driving his love away. She had lost all semblance of control and for the first time a major confrontation in the true teenager and parent style had erupted. Screaming abuse at her dad she had fled to her room, slamming the door behind her, only leaving to get something to eat later in the evening.
As for Paul he was even more useless, fleeing Ashbury Manor with a purposefulness that seemed to say he was never coming back. If she had his phone number she might have rung him but she doubted he would have wanted to speak to her.
As well as feelings of dread, anger and loneliness, Amanda felt guilt gnaw at her insides. If it was not for her reckless act, Moonbeam and Lucius would still be around. She needed to work out a plan of action, a means of rescuing Moonbeam from the clutches of Camilla and whatever horrors lurked in the realm beyond the looking-glass. Lucius was beyond help she thought. This plan of attack would partly assuage her guilt and if she could convince her father of it, it might bring them back together.
Her dreams were not illusions but the direct experience of her other self that had split from her. The whole concept was mystifying, terrifying in its implications. Now there were two Amanda’s, each one representing a choice, or decision undertaken. The person she was had refused to go along with the initiation, but the other Amanda had entered into the bargain and joined Camilla in her journey to another world. Disturbingly she could not just run away from the situation, ignore it and go back with her father to America, even if she had wanted to, because a part of her would still exist inside Ashbury Manor.
It was all beyond her comprehension and she needed assistance from someone in the know, an expert in this sort of thing, if such a person existed. Hopefully he or she would be able to convince her father that there was a need for positive action, but she had to find this person very quickly.
Despair was slowly bur methodically creeping up on her, when with a lurch of the heart she heard a scratching sound coming from the direction of the door. She automatically felt relief when she realised the noise was being created by the cat that she had named Jones and had decided to keep as a pet. The animal had kept her company throughout her period of seclusion without any sign of restlessness; now it wished to leave the room.
Not wanting to remain in her bedroom any longer, Amanda put on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt, opened the door and followed Jones down the stairs to the kitchen.
As usual the shadows thrown by the faint lighting seemed menacing, concealing hidden monstrosities ready to pounce and the creaking of the timbers suggested the mutterings of inexplicable entities. The chorus of frogs coming from the dilapidated garden, having increased in volume over the past month, now joined by the cicada of insects, drowned these threatening sounds as she entered the kitchen, but produced heightened sensations of unease.
Ashbury Manor was like a living organism claustrophobically entrapping her in its entrails, digesting her slowly. It oozed malevolence as if in its very construction the manufacture of evil was the intention.
Opening the fridge she found some tuna fish, put it in a shallow bowl and gave it to the cat. Having made a humus sandwich for herself she sat down at the table and stared unthinkingly through the window at the darkened undergrowth of the garden, overlaid by the reflection thrown by the kitchen light. She could just make out the swirl of fireflies winking on and off, swarming around the greenhouse where the third mirror lay mouldering, The cloud of gloom surrounding her thoughts thickened.
Idly she picked up a local newspaper lying on the table and flipped at random through its pages. Coming to the personnel ads she made the rather futile attempt to cheer herself up by reading the facile messages. But then something on the opposite page caught her eye.
It was a plain advertisement for an unusual private detective agency, named ‘Dr Baldwin’s Paranormal and Occult Investigation Service,’ ‘inquiring into haunted houses, apparitions, poltergeist activity, demonic possession (exorcism not included), witchcraft and occult societies and strange phenomenon.’ There was an address and telephone number underneath the heading.
Immediately on seeing this, Amanda’s spirits leapt. Here was what she was looking for. She extracted a pair of scissors from a kitchen draw and cut out the advert, staring at it for sometime, as if it would clear up all her problems.
The door behind her stealthily creaked open and she turned violently to confront whoever it was that was entering, standing up and knocking her chair to one side. She relaxed when she saw that it was her father but only slightly. Clad in his silk Chinese dragon motif dressing gown, his long hair ruffled and stubble growing on his cheeks, he seemed as startled as his daughter.
“Hi, what are you doing up so late,” he said.
Coming over to the table he sat down opposite Amanda. Leaning his elbows on the wooden service, he clasped his hands together and stared intently at her. She lowered her head feeling awkward and rather embarrassed at his scrutiny. At last after a long period of silence her father spoke up.
“I can’t sleep…I want to apologise for upsetting you. Something terrible happened at the party and I was wrong to dismiss what you saw completely.” He shook his head in puzzlement and continued. “The place is definitely disconcerting. I have looked into corners and I have thought the darkness would go on forever, if you see what I mean. And those frogs and the fireflies in the garden, I haven’t seen anything like them in England…but what you told me yesterday is just too far out. They must have drugged you, there was certainly a few drugs going down last night. You didn’t take any yourself?”
“No I didn’t dad, honestly. If I had taken drugs why did Paul see exactly the same?”
“Maybe he is in collaboration with you”
“Dad, don’t be stupid,” she said, her frustration making her shout. But she managed to control herself and lowered her voice. “Please listen to me. The police won’t be able to help us; they won’t believe a rock star who they think is a bit weird. But here is someone who might.” She passed over the clipping from the newspaper.
“I’m not sure this Dr Baldwin will be able to help us,” her father said, frowning deeply after he had read the advert. “In fact he might make matters worse; he’s probably a crank.”
“Just give him a chance, dad; he is the only person I know at the moment who could clear all this up.” Amanda felt agitation beginning to assert itself once again and she gritted her teeth, staring with beseeching eyes at her father.
“I will ring him tomorrow,” her father replied with a resigned sigh and then looked at the clock on the wall. “Or today rather; you better get yourself off to bed. As you might have forgotten you’ve got to go to school in a couple of hours.”
Amanda had not forgotten she was starting at the Sir Giles Maurice School this morning but she had pushed it to the back of her mind, what with all the other contending fears. As she walked up the murky stairs the mundane worry of school now irritated her, but she also felt some satisfaction on finding the specialist she was looking for.

Chapter Six: Initiation

In every reference book and encyclopaedia on the shelves of her father’s library, Amanda had discovered only snippets of information concerning The Order of the Arboreal Orb. With the weighty tomes picked before hand, piled up one on top of the other on a side table, a notepad and pen beside her (she had searched on the net before hand, bringing up even less information), she had looked diligently but fruitlessly.
The name was sprinkled liberally throughout the history of Satanist cults and the black arts but no detailed facts regarding their ideas or their relation to Ashbury Manor could be found. The entries on George Browne and his peculiar sect were similarly scanty, repeating the same vague hints and surmises contained in William Barrett’s pamphlet. What did arise constantly in her research was mention of a nameless forbidden book, authored by the 16^th century occultist, containing diabolical knowledge but now lost completely or hidden from view.
After a while Amanda came to the conclusion that the only route open to her was to take up membership of the Order. She knew it was a desperate move and that it held all sorts of terrible dangers for her; maybe she would be sacrificed to their evil gods or forced to commit a dreadful act in some initiation ceremony. More prosaically it would mean getting in contact with Lucius Peake. But the urge to discover the secret was stronger then her reservations. If she was asked to do anything really bad she could always decline and she trusted herself to be level headed in dangerous situations. On the other hand she probably had nothing to worry about; The Order of the Arboreal Orb were probably posers or sad anoraks.
As Amanda stood slightly to the side of the huddle of people at her father’s house warming party, these thoughts crowded her mind. Wearing a black spider web patterned top which exposed her pierced belly button, a long nightshade coloured skirt nearly sweeping the floor but not quite hiding high laced up boots and with dark hair with purple streaks falling lose down her back, conspiring with pale white face makeup, solid mascara around the eyes and black lipstick, she did not look out of place at the party. But she felt distant from the gathering, not only because nearly all of the guests were her father’s age. She was distracted, butterflies playing in her stomach.
Amanda had arranged with Lucius to meet a woman, a member of the inner circle of The Order, who was to initiate her at this very event, in secret of course.
The dinning room had been cleared of its furniture and a small makeshift stage, which was crisscrossed with wiring and loaded with a sound system, speaker stacks, a silver and black drum kit and shining electric guitars, was erected at the back. A long fold-up table burdened with food was placed to the side next to a portable bar, which was doing brisk business. Music was just discernable above a babble of voices and the atmosphere was thick with cigarette smoke.
At the bar getting himself a drink, Amanda spotted the blonde bass guitarist from Cargo Cult. To take her mind off the meeting with the woman from the Order she decided she would approach him.
“Hi, Paul,” she said, after pushing herself through the tightly packed crowd and sidling up to him.
“Oh, hi,” he replied rather startled.
The conversation went on disjointedly as they were hardly able to hear each other over the constant jabber of voices. Both were preoccupied and nervous for different reasons and when Amanda spied Lucius with a tall bony looking woman with a stiff, superior posture, soberly dressed in a blue business suit, she made arrangements to meet Paul after his set.
The eyes of the woman fixed her with a curious but sardonic gaze as she went up to her, obviously scornful of the plump adolescent with her gothic pretensions. Amanda immediately felt intimidated and she greeted Lucius first without acknowledging the woman. Unusually he seemed ill at ease, agitatedly glancing to the left and to the right as if searching for someone. She wondered if that someone was her father.
“This is Camilla Armstrong from the Order.”
Shaking the teenager’s hand, Camilla managed to smile condescendingly. She certainly was not what Amanda had expected. Instead of billowing robes festooned in magical symbols, here was this thin bird like woman with brown hair tied in a bun, dressed as if she was attending a business conference.
“I have decided that I will initiate you in the library,” Camilla said, her smile vanishing as if it was never there, replaced with the hard flat line of her lips.
“What actually does the initiation involve?” Amanda was feeling she was plunging head first into some thing that could have grim consequences. A small voice which was getting louder by the minute, was telling her that this woman could be genuinely malevolent, not merely play acting or fantasising about evil.
“Nothing that you have to be concerned about. You will prove to me that you are worthy to join our Order, by passing a not too difficult test of your character’s capabilities”
They were interrupted by an announcement from the stage. Her father was at the microphone, dressed in a paisley shirt, his hair in a ponytail, introducing Cargo Cult, but there was only muted applause from the party guests, as many had expected Blood Moon to make an impromptu appearance. The three young men, long haired, leather and denim clad, picked up their instruments and launched themselves into a slow pulsation of guitar noise and heavy drums that built up into a wall of sound, shaking the walls and floor of the old edifice; the bass player’s gurgling, almost indecipherable vocals singing of exploding galaxies and desolate planets.
Shouting into Amanda’s ear, Camilla asked her to meet them in the library soon after the end of Cargo Cult’s set. She then disengaged herself from the audience and left the room, a look of pain on her face. Lucius folded his arms and nodded his head to the churning riffs, his features showing no expression or emotion.
The group played four ear shredding tracks from their album and then climbed down from the stage, mingling once again with the eddying party goers, the clouds of smoke thicker then ever. Paul, relieve that the performance was over revealed in his smile, made straight for Amanda, who had deliberately moved away from Lucius.
“Did you think we were good,” Paul said.
“Fantastic.”
An idea suddenly came to her. Amanda explained hesitantly her predicament and her intended solution. He stared at her as if she had gone mad, moving away from her slightly. Her heart sank as she looked at his bewildered face and she realised she had taken him by surprise with something seemingly completely irrational. The party milled around her oblivious to her embarrassment and Paul’s awkward silence.
“Sorry Paul, this sounds absolutely crazy I know,” she said at last, in an attempt to break the unbearable distance that had unexpectedly opened up between them. “But you will help me out?”
“I don’t think you should go through with it. You haven’t got any idea who these people really are. I can tell you this; anything that Lucius is involved in is dodgy. You should hear the rumours circulating.”
Irritated by his tone, she rallied herself.
“I don’t care what you say; I am going to do it. It is the only way I know of finding out the secret of the house. If you had seen what I had seen you would do the same. So as I am definitely going through with it, will you enter the library an hour after this initiation starts and get me out with some excuse?”
“I could get into serious trouble over this; you are making me into your accomplice. What I should do is tell your dad.”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
He sighed, looking at the floor. At last he stared at Amanda, a resigned grin on his face.
“I’ll help you, but I am also going to hang around outside and if I hear anything odd I am going straight in to get you.”
“Great, it’s about time I went. See you soon.”
Annoyance towards Paul’s nervous condescension fuelling her determination to go through with her plans, she strode out of the dinning room and within minutes was in the library. The soft lights were on but at first she was unable to perceive any other presence. No sound from the party penetrated the thick walls and the stillness was threatening, intruding feelers of unease into her resentment. Looking around nervously, she was startled when Lucius and Camilla entered.
They both gave her ingratiating smiles but it was the large object covered in an oriental cloth, carried by Lucius in his arms, which caught Amanda’s attention. Without saying anything they moved towards the alcove on their left containing the sinister mirror, Camilla leading the way.
The butterflies in her stomach lurching from side to side rather then fluttering, she was almost ready to turn and walk back to the safety of the dinning room. Those creepy smiles had made her think that Paul might be correct; what she was doing was insane and dangerous. She would never get into a stranger’s car if she was offered a lift. But her need to solve the riddle of Ashbury Manor was too strong, driving her on.
Steadying her nerves she followed the others.
At first she was unable to see much as it was murky within the alcove, but she did make out a low table, like an altar in the gloom, with a silver dish next to a bulky green candle, embedded in an elaborate holder. Camilla bent down, struck a match and lit the candle, exposing the threatening presence of the mirror, while wild shadows undulated ominously.
The details of the occultist paraphernalia were revealed by the guttering light and the same menacing floral artistry was predominant on there surfaces. The dish was moulded to resemble a palm frond while the candlestick’s shaft was encircled with brass tendrils as if it was being strangled. The most disturbing object of them all though, was something that Amanda had noticed only after the candle had been lit. A knife, resting next to the dish, whose sharp blade seemed to glow like a firefly in the faint illumination, threw out an undeniable aura of violence. But it was really the wooden hilt with its primitive but ornate carvings of insectile creatures, encrusted with bulging arachnid eyes and multitudes of legs, which sent a thrill of repulsion into her skin.
Like dark sentinels at a funeral, Camilla and Lucius stood as silent as the grave next to the covered object resting on the floor. Amanda did not know how to break the stifling stillness and her natural inclination was to run away, but she controlled herself, thinking that if they attacked her now she had a clear escape route out of the alcove. She could also shout or scream and Paul would be able to hear her in the next room.
Breaking the tension, Camilla spoke, calmly and without any dramatic emphasis, all the while staring intently into Amanda’s eyes.
“Let’s get this over with before anyone enters the library. What I want you to do is to prove to me that you are worthy of the Order.”
With a flourish she removed the cloth from the object, divulging a wire cage where a ginger cat slept motionlessly. She crouched, undid the catch at the top of the cage, flicked up the lid and dragged the helpless animal by the scruff of its neck from its prison. The cat was drugged because it did not struggle as it hung in Camilla’s hand over the silver dish. Douglas smirked beside her as she took hold of the dagger on the alter table, gently by the blade, and coolly handed it hilt outwards to Amanda.
“This is your initiation to verify to us your willingness to act without feeling or conscience,” she said, her features as cold as ice. “Slit this cat’s throat and you are a member of the lowest circle of the Order of the Arboreal Orb.”
Completely taken aback, Amanda stood rigid, unable and unwilling to receive the knife. For all of her wallowing in imaginary nastiness, one thing she found deeply distasteful was cruelty to animals. It was for this very reason that she had tried to become a vegetarian, slipping occasionally into meat eating but on the whole keeping to her diet. It was the only trait of hers that Moonbeam approved of, encouraging her on frequent occasions, but this actually had the opposite effect.
“Come on girl, just a slash of the knife” Lucius said sneeringly. “They’ve made it easy for you. Because it is drugged it won’t feel a thing and it won’t struggle.”
“Shut up, idiot” Camilla snapped and then offered the dagger to Amanda with more emphasis. “Take it and do the deed, otherwise you are not worthy.”
Moving a few steps back, Amanda gulped down a lump in her throat. “I’ve decided not to join you as obviously I am not evil enough,” she said with a forced smile, trying to bring some wry humour into the proceedings. “Oh well, one of those things I suppose.”
Distracted by the dilemma of the cat, she had not taken much note of the mirror, but now as she stepped further away from the alcove and her line of sight could take in the looking-glass in its entirety, she saw that the faint reflection on its surface had gone completely, replaced with nothing. The mirror as if it was a movie screen had gone dark, void of any colour.
Shaken as she was by this unexplainable phenomenon, it was the carved eye that really held her attention. It was literally alive and its white iris vibrated with a hatred that was like a lust for destruction, its pupil boring into her head and opening her mind to thoughts of malevolent passion. She saw Lucius features, for the first time, torn by real emotions; emotions of bewilderment and raw fright. He seemed to want to run but was unable to do so, caught in the blazing intensity of the eyeball’s gaze, but Camilla was watching stony faced, taking this outburst of the supernatural in her stride.
But his predicament faded from her consciousness as she was overwhelmed by sudden images of violence that buoyed her up, made her dizzy with a monstrous joy. Scenes from her favourite horror films boiled in her brain, taking motivation from the eye that stared continuously at her, scenes of bloody disembowelments, decapitations and exploding heads. She wanted now not only to cut the cat’s throat but to mutilate it, slice it up into little pieces.
But for all of these horrific sentiments, that seemed to have come from a well-spring lying not so dormant in her imagination, there was something holding her back, restraining her ferocious instincts; a voice of control. This side of her knew she was being used, manipulated by Camilla. This conflict had the strange effect of producing a feeling that there were two Amanda’s inside her brain struggling for domination and this inward fight was making her immobile. But eventually one side of her personality would win the battle and she would act; either fleeing the library or killing the cat.
There was a sound of fast moving footsteps and something within her snapped, breaking her inertia. She turned around, brutally grabbing the hilt of the knife from Camilla and stared into the deeply concerned face of Moonbeam with Paul, a look of startled disbelief on his features, not far behind.
The sight of her worst enemy allowed the grotesque distortion of her being to triumph. With a scream she flung her self at Moonbeam, the knife raised, her mind consumed in joyous loathing. But before she plunged the blade into the body of her father’s girlfriend, Paul launched him self forward, throwing Amanda aside at the bookcases, the knife falling from her hand and skittering across the floor. The impact stunned her, dislodging a couple of hardbacks, one knocking the side of her head.
A fierce pain flashed through her body and she cried out in fear as well as agony. Something was climbing from her skin, like a duplicate, a replica.
The anguish was unbearable as if she was being ripped into two pieces but it ceased as soon as it begun, vanishing in a second without leaving any traces.
Standing in front of her, Moonbeam and Paul looking on in benumbed bewilderment, was a young girl, plumb and naked, glistening with viscous glue like fluid, her head completely without hair. It was some time before Amanda recognised her and when she did she had to stifle a gasp of surprise and horror. The teenager was her in every detail except for the strong piercing eyes that bored into her soul as if this other Amanda could read her mind.
Seemingly with no embarrassment about her unclothed state this doppelganger picked up the knife and calmly walked towards the figures near the looking-glass. Camilla, having put the cat back in its cage, seemed as astonished as everyone else but it was not long before she rallied, beckoning the naked girl to her.
Amanda in the meantime had managed to get up on her shacking legs by clinging to the bookcase, more books falling loudly on the floor, and had backed slowly towards Moonbeam and Paul, her eyes transfixed by what lay ahead.
The mirror had ceased to be a blank screen but instead of a reflection of the mirror in the opposite alcove, it reflected another scene entirely. It was as if a doorway had opened into a part of the house that could not possible be contained within its meagre structure.
The hall inside the looking-glass was cyclopean, made of huge slabs of decaying stone. Malignant blotches of vegetable matter like cancerous growths clung grotesquely to the walls, taking nourishment from dripping beads of thick amber liquid that coruscated downwards from cavernous openings higher up, reached by vertiginous stairways. A pale red light from a blood coloured sun in an unknown sky, filtered down from a gargantuan round window set horizontally in the flat but heavily buttressed roof; its colossal frames constructed of iron girders, rusting and encrusted with sickly green moulds. The panes of the window were awash with the self same lichen, obscuring the strange sky but allowing the enormous space to be lit by the scarlet sunlight.
Laid out at the bottom of the sloping floor was a mosaic of a giant eye with an elongated pupil. Inside this were depicted a maze of curling and enwrapping creepers that Amanda was familiar with from the cruder carving on William Barrett’s gravestone, but on a larger scale. This representation was directly beneath the immense skylight, which bathed it in an extra effusion of the eerie red illumination like a spotlight. Beyond the gigantic eye at the far wall was a gaping archway with tree trunk sized pillars as supports, leading to impenetrable darkness.
As if this happened every day of the week, Camilla and the other Amanda stepped into the looking-glass and began to walk down the inclined floor. Lucius like a somnambulant did likewise, moving in a stiff gait behind the woman in the business suit and the adolescent. Eventually they reached the centre of the mosaic, within the pupil and they halted.
There was some kind of grate or hole beside them because something resembling a mass of fibres on a multitude of spindly legs crawled nauseatingly from the floor. Camilla seemed unconcerned but Amanda’s replica was obviously frightened and held tightly to the hand of the business woman. But it was Lucius, now awakening from his trance, the creature was aiming for, perambulating on its many legs in a swift motion like a cockroach.
He turned and ran back towards the mirror, pure terror convulsing his face, but before he reached it the thing leapt like a grasshopper on to the back of his neck. Amanda could not hear him but she knew by his open mouth that Douglas was screaming, his arms flailing blindly behind him. She also got a closer look before the insect jumped and she saw that the body of the animal was composed of a myriad of interlocking organic strands in constant movement. It did not have a visage only a blunt end with three tubular extensions that waved in the air like antennae and it had six spidery legs; the facial extensions and the legs constructed of the same filaments as the body.
Lucius hurled himself at the other side of the looking glass but came against a solid barrier. He smashed his clenched fists at the glass and looked pleadingly at Amanda but she was too traumatized to act in his defence.
The creature’s legs griped his chest tightly ripping his tee-shirt and the three fibrous extensions wavered in front of his eyes and mouth. With a fast whipping action two of the tubes covered the orbs of his eyes with their solid membranes. The other extension undulated over his gaping, yelling mouth, covering that too.
Heaving violently, Amanda fell to her knees. Her bodily frame shaking without volition, she looked back at the looking-glass.
Lucius was standing stock still, rigid as stone. The animated mass of fibres now covering the top of his head gently pulsed, creating placid waves in the organic pipes that had smoothed over his eyes and mouth. Horribly there was movement beneath the skin of his cheeks, neck and arms, like worms in a corpse.
Without warning his body lurched jerkily out of the mirror and came towards the three terrified onlookers. Amanda and Paul acted quickly, they ran without thinking, but Moonbeam was not quick enough. A blood-curdling cry of fear made Amanda turn her head as she reached the door leading into the sitting room and she had time to observe the situation.
Lucius’ body controlled by the entity nestling on his head was dragging the prone and helpless Moonbeam by the feet, through the looking-glass and back into the alien hall. Amanda gazed for a few seconds into her imploring eyes, but at the last moment her courage failed and she fled with Paul, a last despairing scream echoing in her ears.

Chapter Five: Lucius Peake

Daylight was fading imperceptible from the library, going unnoticed by Amanda. She felt pleasantly distanced from the world, forgetting for a few moments the trauma of last night, absorbed as she was in a novel, while at the same time massive headphones clamped to her head drowned her in a private sea of sound; a low throb of bass guitar, saturated by a deluge of hypnotic feedback and a screeching electric violin.

As she lounged in the soft embrace of the library armchair, protectively shut in by the towering stacks of vinyl, the music coming from the headphones lulled her, made her sleepy. Putting the paperback to one side, she closed her eyes, letting the moody drone of the band, ‘Cargo Cult,’ waft her away.

The group were doing something different and exciting with the metal genre, she thought; taking from stoner, with a touch of dark psychedelia. As an added bonus she rather liked the bass guitarist, an intelligent, softly spoken boy of sixteen with long blonde hair. She had met him a couple of times at gigs and at her dad’s parties. They had spoken, but rather awkwardly as he was in awe of her famous father.

Flinching when she felt a tap on her shoulder, she opened her eyes. Her dad was standing above her, mouthing some words. She listlessly turned down the volume using the remote.

“You’re dinner is on the table,” her father said, repeating himself. “Lucius has turned up. He will be joining us.

His face and tone of voice told the whole story. She knew her father had come to dislike Lucius Peake, one time manager of Blood Moon, now owner of DarkCore records, Cargo Cult’s record label. The reason for his growing animosity was the fascination Amanda had shown for this renegade; a character of high intellect and smooth talking articulation, but holding to a ‘Satanic’ amorality that her father now found disturbing. He did not want him having any kind of influence over her, morally, intellectually or physically, especially as he had a reputation for ‘liking’ teenage girls. He was a striking figure no doubt but Amanda found his English upper-class sliminess kind of repulsive, although she had to admit that deep down inside of her there was an attraction, and her dad could detect it.

Following her father through the sitting room, into the darkened hall and then the dinning area, she felt an odd excitement. She would love to see Lucius Peake clash with Moonbeam’s irritating piety; Amanda was convinced he would easily tear Moonbeam to shreds intellectually. The grand round table in the centre had already been set. Steaming dishes of hot food were placed randomly letting off their rich aromas, lit vaguely by wax dripping scarlet candles held in a four pronged brass candle stick. They offered the only illumination, except for the twilight trickling through an enormous bay window. The room with walls painted light red and a huge grandfather clock that chimed the hour, was expansive but somehow enclosed, due perhaps to the dim iridescence, but also to the ceiling with the cross-beams being lower then usual.

Amanda was unable to find Lucius at first, but glancing at the window, she saw his black stocky silhouette staring out at the topiary and fountains of the garden. He turned and came towards her, a ghost of a cynical smile flickering across his mouth. He was so tall that he had to lower his head slightly so as to stop his shaven scalp from hitting the ancient oaken beams. A face dominated by penetrating dark brown eyes that were usually obscured by sunglasses, was rounded but darkly handsome. His goatee beard, a single loped gold ear-ring on his left lobe, and a black tee-shirt with a white goat's head printed on to a pentagram, the word Inferno beneath, combined with his leather jacket and combat trousers, gave the impression of cool arrogance and disdain. While Jonathan could look Byronically sinister on stage and on record covers, his features on most occasions had an inner glow of child like innocence, in contrast with Lucius, who emitted a brute steely hardness.

“I am honoured to meet you once again, my lady of the Manor, Lucius Peake at your service,” he said sardonically, extending his hand towards Amanda.

“Welcome to Ashbury Manor, your lordship,” she said attempting a refined English accent but failing miserable. Her outstretched hand was held in a vice like grip for a second and then released. She stared into the dark pits of his eyes and felt a grin expand her lips. She laughed quietly and turned to the table ready to eat.

As she had expected the meal did not go smoothly. Lucius and Moonbeam clashed immediately and it was not long before Lucius got the upper hand. He reduced Moonbeam’s arguments to new-age platitudes about love and peace by throwing in word-perfect quotations from the philosopher Nietzsche and the Marquis De Sade. Her father said very little but she could tell he was getting irritated, if not angry at his gleeful baiting of his girlfriend. But Amanda began to lose any enjoyment she had felt at the humiliation of her adversary. His views certainly appealed to her anti-social rebelliousness but being honest with herself she had to admit to feeling unsettled when be begun to propound extreme acts of sadism and evil (if only in theory) and praised the ‘satanic’ integrity of the Nazis.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Jonathan eventually said looking across at Moonbeam who was now glaring at him, as if to say, ‘so this is the sort of man you like to call a friend.’

With a stern look he turned to Lucius. “You told me that you had something to show me. What is it?”

Picking up his glass of red wine, and sipping disdainfully, Lucius ignored the question for a few moments. Eventually he put his hand into the wide pocket of his combat trousers and drew out a thin, dog-eared and crumpled pamphlet which he flashed before Jonathan’s eyes. Amanda’s father stood mute before it, his arms lying limply at his sides.

“This makes interesting reading,” he said, turning the booklet around and showing its plain yellow frontage to Amanda and then Moonbeam. It was a drab self-published booklet entitled ‘The Dark History of Arnhiem Manor’ by Sir William Barrett,’ written in bold print on the cover.

“How did you get hold of it, it looks like it’s been around a bit,” Amanda said.

“I assume you know something about the history of this old pile and its former owner, but did you know that this is the most detailed description of the Manor’s early years available.” Lucius said, bypassing Amanda’s direct question.

“But how did you get hold of it,” she said.

“Oh, have you heard of ‘The Order of the Arboreal Orb’?”

“Can’t say I have,” her father said, with a note of annoyance. Moonbeam remained coldly silent. If she had heard of such a bizarre organisation, which was unlikely, she wasn’t letting on. But with Amanda, although likewise saying nothing, the name spurred a vague recollection in her mind.

“Well not many people have, but in the mid-eighties they gained a minor notoriety with their supposed connection with the serial killer Charles Marlowe. They always denied a relationship but never condemned Marlowe’s actions.”

Now that she came to think about it, she had heard of them. Marlowe held a morbid allure for her and she had taken an interest in the case, reading a true crime book and watching a documentary on TV. He was a wealthy occultist living in the Cumbrian town of Ulverston accused of the murder of seven young women and although no bodies were discovered, he confessed to the killings and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

But it was the elaborate justification for the murders that had stimulated Amanda’s imagination. He claimed he had made contact with other worlds, alternate dimensions, using a complex labyrinth, built by his obsessed grandfather, beneath a Victorian fake medieval castle, that Marlowe had inherited. To create a mystical epiphany, ‘a loop in space-time’ Marlowe had called it, he engaged in a distressing form of magic with the seven young women and the denizens of these other realms, named the ‘Exiles of Layered Space.’ Much of this insane mysticism came from the beliefs of a shadowy occultist brotherhood called the ‘Order of the Arboreal Orb,’ or so Marlowe said at his trial, but a spokesman from the organisation denied any involvement.

“You still have not answered my daughter’s question, Lucius, how did you get this pamphlet,” Jonathan said.

“I am coming to that. It was the ‘Order of the Arboreal Orb,’ or an acquaintance of mine with ties to them, who gave me the booklet. They have an interest in Ashbury Manor-as its 16^th century founder George Browne, is the inspiration behind the Order.”

“But to cut a long story short they want you to read the pamphlet and then contact them. They are offering you membership of the inner circle, Jonathan, which according to my acquaintance is a great honour. Only the most well-connected and powerful are allowed into its fold. Going by the contents of your past lyrics and interviews with the press, they think you will be sympathetic to their ideas.”

“What sort of ideas?”

“Actually, Jonathan, I don’t think they know about your recent change of heart. You have gone all Buddhist on us lately and to be honest it shows, especially in that last record of yours.”

Swearing under his breath, Jonathan clasped his fork tightly in his hand, staring out his friend, who grinned provocatively across the table.

“Look, will you please answer my question directly. What are the ideas of these lunatics you seem to be acquainted with?”

“Temper, temper,” Lucius said, taking another sip of his wine, his humourless grin expanding.

“You might label them as ecologists, environmentalists even, but none of that trite ‘tra-la-la,’ hugging tree stuff for them. They see nature for what it is, a savage amoral arena, where the strong eat the weak and the parasite consumes its host whole. The natural world is not ‘good,’ ‘just’ and ‘equitable,’ it is ‘Evil’ in the true satanic meaning of the word, unrelenting in its need to corrupt and deprave, to use and exploit the innocent and the feeble. For the Order of the Arboreal Orb, the tropical rainforest is the prime metaphor of natural Evil. Its plant life sucks the living juices out of weaker vegetation, its creatures eat others without restraint, and in the process the forest expands into a pulsating, vibrant beauty.”

“What is an Arboreal Orb exactly,” Amanda said, interrupting the flow of Lucius’s speech.

“Good question, but I am afraid I don’t know.” His cold but probing eyes fixed hers briefly.

“The Order is very secretive and as I am not a member I have no access to their teachings. There is no written material about them, except for some forbidden books that have been lost or destroyed, the work of George Browne is an example.”

“I do know that like Pagans they are nature worshipers, but their act of worship is the enactment of unfettered evil, the unleashing of a multitude of unrestrained urges. The rainforest’s fantastical loveliness is the result of an infinite collection of evil acts, the strong dominating and taking their pleasure from the weak. Evil, that is nature itself, the Universe maybe, is celebrated like great art, a form of aesthetics.”

“What a load of garbage,” said Moonbeam, raising her voice angrily. “I am sure Jonathan doesn’t want anything to do with your ‘Order of the Arboreal Orb.’ They are either total fakes, a bunch of losers, or they are for real. If they are for real, just give me some names and I am going to call the police immediately!”

She thumped the table but spilled her glass of wine over her white patterned blouse. Getting up, swearing profusely and brushing the drips of liquid off her chest, she scowled at Lucius.

“Your supposed to be Jonathan’s friend, but I don’t like you one bit. In fact you make me sick. You come here and spout your vile rubbish as if you own the place. Everyone is entitled to their views, including scumbags like you, but not when there is an impressionable teenager in the room.”

She sat down and drummed her fingers, waiting for a reply from Lucius.

He just smirked and was quite for a few moments. “I am only the messenger. I am sure Amanda has heard far worse” he eventually said.

He handed the yellow pamphlet over to Jonathan, who received it not without interest.

“Read it through, it has a few informative things to say about this place. If you want to contact the Order just let me know.”

“I can tell you this straight away; I will not be joining any Satanist cult, but thanks for this anyway.”

As an uneasy silence fell on the table, Amanda had a sudden and disturbing revelation. She now knew what the rough initials OOTAO on Sir William Barrett’s gravestone stood for: Order of the Arboreal Orb.

The connection between the sect and Ashbury Manor had to be stronger then Lucius was letting on. She would read Sir William’s pamphlet as it was possible it would make clearer the connection between the Order and the Manor or at least give some clues leading in that direction. There might be an obscure link between this and her experiences of last night.

Her thoughts were cut short by Lucius’ voice.

“Bye the way, I am going to find it difficult getting back to London. You don’t mind me crashing at your place.”

Stepping quickly up the broad stairway toward the top floor, gazing at the carved flora of the banisters, Amanda felt scared again. The calm she had achieved after returning from the cemetery had gone. Trepidation had been stealthily creeping up on her while she sat listening to Lucius and although she was sleeping in the spare room next to her father’s, her memory of the horrors of the previous night were vivid.

Tired but wondering if she would be able to sleep, she had considered spending the whole night in the library, looking through the volumes of occult encyclopaedias her dad had collected. They might be able to explain the mystery of Ashbury Manor, a mystery she was now desperate to solve. But after midnight the library would be a more frightening place then usual, if for no other reason then it contained those eerie mirrors. Tomorrow she would spend all day researching but not tonight.

Unable to help it her gaze was drawn to the door of the bedroom she had vacated. Everything seemed normal but the gloom at the end of the corridor still seemed to promise a gateway to an eternity of darkness, as if the very structure of the house was infinite. Pulling herself away she walked down the opposite corridor and turned in to her new room directly facing her father’s.

She switched on the bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, revealing an empty space, uncarpeted and without furniture, except for a plain mattress that had been manoeuvred into the room only this afternoon.

Before wrapping herself in the duvet and resting her head on the pillow, both lying untidily on the mattress, she stood in the middle of the starkly lit room, listening to her father and Moonbeam outside her door.

Moonbeam did not want Lucius in the house, but Jonathan argued he was a friend, someone he had known since the formation of Blood Moon and he was unable to throw him out. For all of Lucius talk about ‘evil’ he was quite harmless. He was a cynical mischief maker, an armchair nihilist rather then a dangerous psychopath. When it came down to it his only sins were those connected to the rock ‘n’ roll world; sex and drugs and a rather pathetic attempt at cultivating a debauched image. Amanda did not hear Moonbeam’s reply because at that point they shut the door to their bedroom.

Sighing, she undressed, having to turn the light out first as there were no curtains covering the single window, and lay beneath the duvet. The oblivion of deep sleep soon consumed her. Amanda’s fears were unable to keep her awake, but she slowly arose from slumber by a light knocking on the door.

Her heart beating she looked at the luminous dial of her wrist watch resting near her scattered clothing. She had been asleep for three hours. Putting on her dressing gown, flicking the light switch, she leaned her head close against the door.

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Lucius. Can I come in and have a chat, I can’t sleep,” was the whispered reply.

Amanda felt relief like a blessing at finding out that it was not some ghostly entity on the other side, but the feeling was soon replaced by a more mundane anxiety.

“No, go away. It’s very late.”

“If you don’t want me in your room, come downstairs. I do want to speak to you, honest, it’s about the discussion we were having around the table. Interested?”

Indeed she was, very interested. There could be no harm in going downstairs with him. If he made any advances she knew how to deal with it; she was no wilting violet. For no other reason then it would be far too easy for her to cry out, Lucius Peake would not try anything on in her father’s house. Even so her thoughts did not make her feel any more comfortable. But her curiosity was far stronger then any qualms she might have.

“Let me get dressed and then I will meet you in the kitchen,” she said after a few minutes of silence.

Lucius was sitting at the table when she finally entered the softly illuminated kitchen, eating a tuna sandwich he had purloined. She sat down as far from him as she could without seeming to be rude, though the table was not large enough to put a huge distance between them.

“This house is the most creepiest I have ever come across,” he said between mouthfuls of his sandwich. “Wherever there are shadowy corners or hidden nooks the place seems to get bigger, it expands.”

“I know, but at least you don’t have to live in it. What do you want to talk about?”

“Do you want to join the Order of the Arboreal Orb or not. I told the guy, the acquaintance of mine, that if your dad was not interested, then maybe you would be. I explained to him that you have an interest in the occult far more so then your father. I also told him your highly intelligent and very self reliant for your age. Of course if you do want to join, don’t tell your dad.”

This came as a surprise and she had to admit to herself she felt flattered. She was being offered the chance to become a member of an extremely secretive organisation allowing her to gain hidden knowledge, knowledge that could disentangle the mysteries of Ashbury Manor. But since coming to England she felt less inclined to worship at the altar of ‘unfettered evil’. After her tiny glimpse into the realties of supernatural malevolency, it did not seem so thrilling. It frightened her like nothing had frightened her before. Furthermore she was not so naive as to believe that they were interested purely in her. They were interested in the Manor and wanted to gain access to it for some obscure reason, and if her father could not provide it, she could.

“But I am a 15 year old kid, why would they be interested in me?” she said, even though she had worked out the answer for herself.

“I am as much in the dark as you. Think about it though, it’s not I that has been given this amazing opportunity, a man of high intelligence and business acumen. They don’t invite just anybody to join, only the most worthy, the most select. You are honoured.”

“But I don’t know a thing about them, except all that stuff you told us, about nature being a metaphor for evil and all that”

“To find out you will have to join them.”

She was tempted. It was not so much Lucius’ praise or an attraction to their ideas; rather it was the promise that the conundrum of Ashbury Manor would be unravelled. The Order of the Arboreal Orb held the key to understanding the fearful events of the previous night.

She made up her mind. She would join them but only if she was unable to unlock the secret herself, through the reading of her father’s occult books.

“I will definitely think about it,” she said, staring him confidently in the eye.

Amanda had registered an unusual sound coming from the unkempt garden. With the silence that now prevailed, this sound was accentuated; a soft but insistent chorus that she had only heard in nature documentaries.

Getting up from the kitchen table, she stood by the window and stared out at the reflection obscured grounds, the tall blades of uncut grass reaching as high as the sill. The light from within was suddenly cut off by Lucius, revealing what lay outside; the garden’s secrets hidden only by the limitations of a moonlit night. The dark sky was cloudless and the white orb of the moon shone like a weak lamp, bathing the thick foliage of grass, weeds and nettles in its pale ambience; the willow like a stern sentinel guarding this ethereal patch of undergrowth, its cascade of shadowed leaves like a billowing cloak.

“I have never heard that sound before in this country,” Lucius said standing close to Amanda, staring like her out of the window. “It’s the chorus of frogs you get at night time in tropical forests.”

There was something else about the scene that was odd. Amanda could see, floating like lanterns of agitated fairies around the shattered greenhouse and rusting lawn roller, tiny lights in constant motion, which flickered in and out of existence.

“Fireflies, there not indigenous to this country either,” Lucius said. He had moved gradually closer to her in this interlude and now his arm had insinuatingly encircled her waist.

“Keep your hands of me you dirty old man,” she hissed, extracting herself from his heavy arm. “You’re older then my dad.”

Briskly turning the light back on, she strode to the door without glancing back, her mind perplexed with the strange thought of foreign wildlife existing in a tiny corner of southern England as well as the unasked for advances of Lucius Peake. But she was really too tired to think about it and it was not long before she was fast asleep on her mattress in the austere spare bedroom.

Chapter Four: The Cemetary

Early morning sunlight fell through the flimsy curtains obscuring the French windows, bathing the sitting room in a golden radiance. Amanda lying full-length on the settee, still wearing her jeans but having taken-off her sweat shirt, sleepily felt its warmth gather around her.

The light was not what had awoken her from her sleep though, but the gentle clatter of someone preparing breakfast in the kitchen. There was a light knock on the door and then her father’s voice.

“Amanda are you awake, I’ve got you some breakfast.”

“Yeah, just wait a sec.”

Finding her sweatshirt, she pulled it over her head and, lacking a comb, roughly brushed her hair with her fingers. She called out that she was ready and her father entered holding a tray with a steaming cup of coffee and a bowl of cereals. With a perplexed but concerned look he put it down on the glass table in front of the settee and sat next to his daughter.

Feeling awkward for a few moments, Amanda took sips from the mug of hot liquid, her body hunched up, her head lowered, while her father gazed intently at an ash tray which he moved from side to side.

“What was going on last night Amanda,” Jonathan eventually said. “You were very upset about something.”

“Dad, do you believe in ghosts.”

“I don’t know. I suppose so”

Taking another sip from her coffee, she tried to shape in her mind what she was going to say next. She desperately wanted to talk about her fears but at the same time was wary of scepticism from her father. She too not so long ago, for all of her interest in the occult, would have been cynical.

“Well last night, I saw a ghost.”

She realised she had seen more then a ghost, had stumbled into an enactment from the past. Some experts in psychic phenomenon had postulated that terrible and emotionally charged events in a building’s past were stored in an unknown physical medium or force, hitherto unexplained by physics. This ‘energy’ was then picked up by sensitive or disturbed souls, usually adolescent girls, and experienced as a ghostly event.

Relief suddenly washed over her . She was the conduit of a potentially scientifically provable energy source, not the prey of malign forces beyond the grave.

Before her father could reply to her blunt statement, there was a knock on the door and Moonbeam asked if she could enter. A glower of annoyance briefly crossed Amanda’s face and she was about to say something but thought better of it.

“Of course, come in, I was just having a fatherly chat with Amanda.”

Entering dressed in a beautifully embroidered skirt reaching to her ankles and a tie-die cut off top, her luxurious blonde hair tied back in a long pony tail that fell down her back, she gave Amanda a smile (condescending she thought) and sat herself in the deep armchair beside the settee.

“I hope I am not interrupting anything,” she said, rubbing her hands nervously together. “Is everything alright, Amanda; you seemed a little distraught last night.”

“She’s seen a ghost and I think it’s shaken her up a bit,” Jonathan said, when Amanda remained silent, staring stonily ahead instead.

“Not surprising, this place is supposedly riddled with them,” Moonbeam said, laughing awkwardly. “But I am surprised you’re disturbed by it. I would have thought a mere ghost was tame, what with those ’video nasties’ you’re into.”

“What I saw was anything but,” Amanda replied, refusing to make eye contact with her, but then she quickly changed the subject.

“Can you get the book on haunted houses for me, dad, it’s in my suitcase upstairs.”

“Amanda, if you want that book, why don’t you get it yourself,” her father said, irritation in his voice now.

“I don’t ever want to go in that room again!”

“I’ll go and get it” Moonbeam said resignedly, getting up and walking out.

Shaking his head, Jonathan stood up.

“You know I am in love with Moonbeam don’t you, so you might as well get used to us being together.”

“I just wish she wouldn’t stick her nose into everything I do.”

“She’s only concerned about your welfare, Amanda. She’s got strong opinions about violent films and their influence on impressionable young minds. But she’s a liberal at heart; she won’t stop you watching horror films or listening to metal-just don’t fluent it in front of her.”

Yeah” Amanda said without commitment, shrugging her shoulders.

“Would you like to come for a walk with me to the old church,” Jonathan said, changing tack, his face softening. “You can tell me all about your terrifying experiences on the way.”

“That might be a good idea,” she replied in a deadpan voice, irked that her father was not taking the events of last night seriously. But maybe when he had heard the whole grisly story he would. “I can show you that mirror in the greenhouse if you want.”

“Sure, I’ll have a shower first and then we’ll head off.”

At that moment Moonbeam returned, carrying the hardback book in her hand.

“Well, I don’t know what you two are going to be doing for the rest of the day, but I am going to do some more work on my painting,” she said, passing the book to Amanda. “You know there is something strange about this house-the grounds are full of frogs. I stepped out the front door just before breakfast and they were hoping all over the driveway. I wouldn’t have thought the area was supportive of such a large amount of wildlife. ”

“Maybe it’s the mating season, they must be coming from the pond,” Jonathan said, moving towards the door leading into the main hall. “We’re going to visit the church, the graveyard is supposed to be very picturesque. I’ll meet you in the hall in about an hour's time, Amanda.”

When both her father and Moonbeam had left, she read the chapter on Ashbury Manor while spread out on the settee. By the end of her reading her blood had turned cold.

St. Mary’s with its two cemeteries was everything that Amanda expected of a typically English Medieval church.

Like Ashbury Manor it was as if a small patch of the past had survived the invading banality of modernity. Entering the church grounds via an iron arch supported by reddish brick gateposts, both arms of the arch grasping an elaborate metal lampshade, she escaped Abbey Street’s traffic-ridden confines and was enclosed within a shaded area of timeless yews, toppling tombstones and statuary, loomed over by the bulk of the church tower. One gravestone at its top was shaped into a macabre skull and crossbones. Other symbols of mortality, the hour-glass and the scythe, could be discerned on many of the variously carved stones.

Staring up at the grey higgledy-piggledy brick work of the tower and around at the grass-covered, fungus encrusted gravestones, hung over by the ubiquitous yew trees, she felt she was on the set of one of her favourite Hammer films. All that was needed to give shape to the cheesy gothic gloom was a dry-ice machine to produce floating wisps of mist, and a well-endowed actress, supplied with false fangs and attired in a low-cut, flimsy night-dress, behind one of the tombstones. Except for the sound of rooks clacking, the rustling of the wind in the trees and the not-so distant bustle of the encroaching town, stillness reigned. No one disturbed Amanda and her father in this bubble of melancholic seclusion except for one hunched up figure, an old lady, almost ready to join the dead in their graves, sitting forlornly at a bench and feeding some pigeons.

On the walk from the Manor she had described the experience of the night before. Her father was incredulous but at the same time she could tell he half-believed her. But standing in this rustling zone of age-infested stones, towered over by the stern edifice of the church, their amiable conversation had dried up. Worst of all she now doubted the comforting explanation that this ’ghost’ was merely echoes from the past.

The book about haunted houses had told a lurid tale of murder from the 1890’s. She had read that in the year 1896, a crime was committed by the unlikely figure of Dr Samuel Boswell, a resident of Ashbury Manor-the grisly killing of his eighteen year old daughter, Sarah. The trial had been one of the shocking sensations of the late 19^th Century, mainly because Dr Boswell was the physician to Queen Victoria.

The prosecution and defence version of events at his trial were basically identical. The wealthy surgeon had been driven to commit murder by the shame of his unmarried daughter’s pregnancy (the unborn baby’s father was unknown). They agreed on the method of bloody slaughter too. The esteemed Doctor had stabbed Sarah with his own surgical instrument and hid the body that was never found, but leaving the room smeared with copious amounts of blood. But they had differed in their interpretation of Samuel Boswell’s state of mind. The defence pleaded insanity on the behalf of their client, hoping to avoid the death penalty, while the prosecution claimed he was quite sane, although under the influence of drink.

Doctor Boswell had sat through the whole proceedings benumbed as if in a daze and only answered yes and no to questions. But when the verdict was read out declaring his insanity and his immediate confinement to an asylum for the criminally insane, he broke down, sobbing uncontrollable and then screamed he was innocent, pleading that death by hanging was preferable.

On the 25th of April, 1897, by court order, he underwent experimental brain surgery and was confined to a cell for the rest of his life, a mute and passive shell. His wife always stood by her husband, claiming his innocence until the day she died, visiting him once a week. But she occasionally muttered that there was still a dark sin that Doctor Boswell had to atone for, a sin too dreadful to mention. She moved away from Ashbury Manor, the day after the tragedy, to her father’s estate, becoming eventually a reclusive figure. But not before removing the looking glass from her daughter’s room and its abandonment in the greenhouse.

If this was a true account of an appalling crime and if what Amanda had seen in the ghost room was a literal flashback to the past, then why had she not seen Doctor Boswell murdering his daughter? Instead, in her vision, Sarah had been holding the knife to her breast as if to commit suicide, hypnotised by the evil mirror that seemed to have a life of its own. Dreadful though the murder was, it was preferable to a looking glass that was sickeningly alive; a mirror that had such a baleful influence that it could force a young woman to a horrendous suicide, not only of herself but her unborn child.

“The grave of William Barrett is in the New Cemetery,” her father said, breaking through her reverie. “I think it’s this way.”

Earlier in the greenhouse, while her father studied the ruinous mirror, they had decided to visit the grave of the last owner of the Manor, the eccentric recluse Sir William Barrett. Amanda had read about him as well. At the end of Sir Williams’ life he had become obsessed by the darkly magical theories of the 16^th century architect and cult leader, George Browne, the founder of Ashbury Manor. Eccentricity turning into madness, he had locked himself away in a forgotten room in the house and slowly starved to death, resorting to self-mutilation to feed himself, or so the inquest into his death reported.

Here was another spirit to add to the list of demented ghosts that supposedly spooked her new home.

Surrounded by tombstones half covered in ivy and grass, their inscriptions mostly illegible, and stone angels with limbs and heads missing, they moved through the Old Cemetery at the back of St Mary’s.

“Dad, do you think it’s a good idea to get that mirror fixed up.”

“Of course it is. It is an extremely valuable antique. It will look great with the others in the library-we’ll put it there.”

“But…” Amanda said, stopping beside a green hummock with its lichen plagued gravestone, the roots of a gnarled oak beginning to encircle it. She stared intently at her father.

For a moment he was unable to look at her, staring vacantly at the iron gate leading into the New Cemetery.

“It was merely an echo of a terrible event from the past. It can’t harm you physically. We can find you another bedroom if you want.

“But if it was an echo, why didn’t I see Dr Boswell kill his daughter and what about the face I saw in the mirror?”

“Maybe these echo’s are mixed up with hallucinations coming from your own mind. Maybe the face was just a trick of the light.”

She jumped when a rook resting on the branch of the oak directly above suddenly cawed, flapping its wings. “I hate this place, dad, I really hate it. I wish we were back in America.”

Her father put his arm protectively around her shoulder and squeezed affectionately, sighing deeply. “Just give it some time. I must admit I still don’t understand why you’re not lapping it all up. You love this stuff; you’ve got so many books on black magic and those horror films you watch…”

“It’s fine in the movies but in real life…You didn’t see what I saw last night, dad.”

Passing through the gate, they departed the sombre world of dilapidation of the Old Cemetery and entered the larger, far more ordered realm of the New. Unlike the Old Cemetery this was mostly unmarked by the ravages of nature, but the pall of melancholic ethereality hung over the gravestones, crosses, scattered table tombs and statues of angels, like a thick curtain.

As if drawn there, they walked towards a secluded corner at the back of the graveyard. Here the ground sloped up towards a rusty iron fence overgrown with holy. Below the fence in deep shade, overhung by clustered yew trees, lay a horizontal stone slab marked by years of plentiful rain fall and the green and pale yellow defacements of fungus. This was the final resting place of Sir William Barrett, plain and ordinary. His name, the dates of his birth and death (1868-1929) and Rest in Peace in chiselled writing, its only inscriptions.

The day had grown increasingly hot, too hot for the leather jacket Amanda wore. She peeled it away from her arms and slung it over her shoulder, looking down at her father, who, crouching on his haunches, was parting the grass that covered the lower half of the gravestone.

“That’s odd, take a look at this.”

Crouching down like her father, her heart skipped a beat when she saw what he had uncovered-a later edition to the carved letters. It was a crude engraving of an eye placed in the lower section of the slab, which had been obscured by the grass and weeds. If you looked closer you could see within its pupil tiny lines like organic tendrils or vines. Beneath the eye were five capital letters spelling out a nonsense word or a set of initials: OOTAO.