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.