The blood moon shines through the window, bathing my sleeper cabin with eerie red light. The newspaper on my bedside table is touched with faint red colouring which, considering the headline, makes me even less eager to open its pages.
‘Inferno at Scottish textile mill’ it reads in big bold lettering. Below is a black and white photograph of the building’s wooden skeleton, a trio of firemen dousing the remaining embers. I swear I can smell the thick burning wood through the sheets.
The train creaks as it lurches slowly to its side, the rhythmic chugging of the driving rods has long since faded into the background and the faint murmuring of other passengers echoes through my door. Ice claws at the edges of the window and every now and again a pine tree flashes into view before disappearing almost instantly leaving me to wonder if it was ever there at all.
I drag the shaggy brown blanket tight over my shoulders. The journey from London to Edinburgh has never been a particularly comfortable one, especially in winter, but it’s a monthly pilgrimage that needs doing. Truth be told, I’d never planned on leaving Edinburgh, to be so far away from the factory that’s been in my family for three generations but living there became too difficult after…a memory tries to make its way to the front of my mind, repressed by pinching the wedding band between my thumb and forefinger. Twisting it back and forth and forth creates a small hint of warmth which is the only physical connection I have with my Lucy. Shutting my eyes, I recreate her image, her thick head of hair like auburn hair, surrounding her heart-shaped face. We’re dancing together at our wedding yet the only clarity in my mind’s eye is for her and I. The faces of the crowd surrounding us are blurred, anonymous. We’re swaying back and forth, her cheek resting against my shoulder, her ear pressed to my chest listening to my heart beat wildly.
Then there’s the music – her favourite song. “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, as time goes by…”
My mind struggles to hold on to the memory because I cannot for the life of me remember the second verse and within moments, I’ve left the warm embrace of my memories and return to the cold of the sleeper cabin.
She always said it was barmy to stay up north when all our customers were in the south but change never suited me. I’ve been bred to hate it. From the moment I could make a sentence longer than three words, I knew how my future would turn out. The third generation of the Davidson family to attend Hartwood boys, the third generation to study at Edinburgh university and like clockwork the third owner of Davidson textiles. Like climbers on an icy crag, one generation would lay the beeline for the next. Lucy never cared much for tradition and saw the world as one big opportunity. Maybe that’s what I loved about her. Even during university, she’d tell me about all these international opportunities that my family could enjoy and, at that time, my father’s most distant customer was a dress suit manufacturer out of Glasgow. She said that taking the company out of Edinburgh would be my legacy. I guess she got her wish.
Habitually, I recover my pipe from my jacket pocket, stuff it with some of the tobacco I purchased at Kings Cross and once it’s alight, draw the thick smoke into my lungs.
I’m quite sure that I haven’t slept since I boarded the train, but I can’t shake this daze away. Apart from the newspaper headline, I can barely read the text below. Even outside, it’s as though a thin veil has been draped across my window. I feel heavier than usual, yet lighter at the same time. Another toke from my pipe exaggerates that feeling and fills my cabin with its rich aroma.
‘Room service?’ comes a voice from the other side of the door. I can make out his hat and blond hair, through the smoked glass.
‘No thank you,’ I reply, waving him away – forgetting that my gesture will go unseen.
‘No problem, Sir. If you change your mind, there’re reserved seating in the dining carriage.’
‘And alcohol?’
‘I expect so Sir.’
‘Thank you.’
The squeak of the trolley marks the attendant’s departure, leaving my attention to return to the newspaper’s headline. Such a tragedy. Such a shame. I’m almost compelled to read on, but focus eludes me. Perhaps I’ve suffered enough – my sympathies are employed selfishly anyway. My father always said that you’ve got to look after yourself before you try and look after someone else’ but he never suffered as I have and maybe there isn’t enough sympathy in the world to fill the hole in my heart. I squeeze my wedding ring once again, lean back and shut my eyes, letting the gentle swaying soothe me.
A knock at the door rouses me from my half-asleep state.
‘No thanks,’ I say, my eyes remaining shut.
Another knock.
‘Go away, please.’
Another set of knocks, harder now.
‘Did you hear me the first time, I said…’ I stand and instantly lose my footing.
There’s a figure standing on the other side of the glass, filling it whole. The only distinctive feature is its long auburn hair.
I stare at the figure. It stays still, fixed to the floor as though it’s waiting for me to say something.
‘W…what do you want,’ I say, short of breath.
The wheels chug in the background but the figure says nothing.
‘Answer me.’
Slowly, I stand using the wall to keep my balance. I can’t see its eyes but it’s looking at me, watching me. I take a cautious step forward, and another, and another, until I’m a foot away from the figure, the smoked glass the only thing separating us. I hold my breath, expecting to hear a breath on the other side of the glass but there’s nothing.
My shaking hand positions itself in front of the doorknob, and then in one smooth action, I grab the knob, twist it and slide the cabin door open.
There’s no one there.
I slide the cabin door shut, checking to see if the figure was just a reflection of the blood moon through a whiskey tumbler or something like that, but the figure hasn’t returned.
Then I hear a laugh. Her laugh.
‘Lucy?’
The giggling disappears down the corridor along with the dull thudding of feet, half skipping, half running.
I yank the door open and thrust my head through the door frame, but the corridor is empty, the footsteps ceasing the moment the door opened.
‘Whoever you think you are, please stop it – it’s not funny.’
I scan the corridor, inspecting each of the warming yellow lights, each windowpane and then the floor. Damp footprints begin from my door and lead to the adjacent cabin. Tentatively I follow the tracks and take a deep breath before yanking the door open.
There’s no one there, the cabin is vacant, the bed made perfectly and the only item on the table is the embossed handkerchief bearing the train company’s logo.
Using my hand against the wall to steady myself, I plod back to my cabin and retrieve my whiskey from my suitcase but the bottle’s empty.
Who made those footprints? Could some prankster have wetted their feet, created these tracks and then dried them before escaping towards the dining carriage? It’s possible but preposterous all the same. But then what else could it be?
Liquid courage seems the best solution and so I make my way through the corridor, to the dining cabin. On the side closest to me, there’re four rows of tables, one side with two seaters the other side, four. Past that are a few plush leather sofas and a small wooden bar, stocked to the gills with everything necessary to quieten my nerves.
‘Evening Sir,’ says a waiter, making his way down the galley to meet me.
‘I’m afraid the dining service is finished.’
I thought I’d closed my eyes momentarily, but perhaps I found sleep without noticing.
‘Quite alright,’ I say, half breathless, then point to the bar. ‘I’m here for one of those.’
‘Ah of course. This way please.’
The waiter leads me through the empty dining carriage and past the only occupied table. Sitting there is a young lady wearing what looks like a 17th-century wedding dress dyed ash black. As we get closer, I notice that the dress is almost antique, moth-eaten, tattered at the edges and ill-fitting. It reminds me of something Lady Macbeth would wear.
Her eyes are shut but she’s sitting too straight to be sleeping. In front of her is a candle with two gold rings wrapped around the wax stick.
The waiter catches me looking at her and rolls his eyes. Passing her, the waiter points me in the direction of the first stool in front of the bar, before proffering himself a battlefield promotion from waiter to bartender.
‘Now, Sir – what can I get you?’
‘Whiskey.’
‘Any preference?’
‘One with alcohol.’
The newly minted bartender snorts at the remark and turns to pull a bottle from the shelf.
‘I say, have you seen a lady with long auburn hair roaming about the carriage?’
‘Can’t say that I have Sir,’ he says, pouring a healthy portion into a crystal tumbler.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure Sir, this is the centre carriage. Anyone wonderin’ about, outside their rooms at this hour would most likely pass by.’
I pull the fob watch from my pocket and try and make sense of the time, but water has seemingly gotten inside the glass the condensation leaving me with nothing but a blur.
‘That’ll be a shilling,’ says the bartender placing the whiskey in front of me along with a bowl of nuts in a pleasant brass bowl.
After paying him, I close my eyes, take a sip, and spit it out immediately.
‘Something wrong, Sir?’
‘This whiskey…it tastes like ash.’
He shrugs, ‘Perhaps best stick to beer.’
As I reach into my purse for some more change, the carriage door swings open, and an older gentleman walks in. His haggard face is impressed with worry and his red cheeks suggest that he’s moving at twice the speed he usually does. Then I notice his priest’s collar, poking out of one side of his shirt collar like a loose thread.
The priest drops himself in front of the lady in black, in an attempt to gather her attention but the noise sparks no reaction in her. Her hands stay completely calm, palms down, on either side of the lit candle.
‘Agatha,’ he says, his accent is thick, gravelly, and possibly from Dublin. ‘It’s not too late to stop this.’
He moves to grab her hand, then thinks twice and clasps his hands together.
‘I know you can hear me,’ he says. ‘Agatha?’
I turn to the bartender to gauge his reaction, and he rolls his eyes again, ‘If you need anything else, I’ll be in the next carriage.’
As the bartender leaves through the door on the left of the bar, my focus returns to the odd conversation between the priest and the lady in black.
‘If you won’t talk, just listen,’ says the priest. ‘What happened to you was horrible, barbaric, despicable, all of those things. But doing this won’t bring you any happiness.’
‘I’m not looking for happiness,’ she says, her voice belongs to that of someone eighty years her senior, quiet, stern, and croaking.
‘Then why do it at all?’
I can only see her back, but judging by the priest’s sudden sadness, I imagine that her facial expression was at the very least dismissive.
‘No one on this train is complicit in what happened to you. Hell, no one in the darn world is. What you’re doing to them is worse than what she did to you.’
‘Are you quite finished?’ she says.
‘I’m begging you…please…Agatha…Agatha?’
The priest shuts his eyes and exhales before slowly standing from the table. He walks behind me, and as my head swings left to watch him leave, I catch another gentleman coming into the carriage and taking a seat next to me.
‘Hey pal,’ he says, dropping a small collection of coins onto the bar. He’s devilishly handsome and looks a little like Fred Astaire but his clothing suggests he isn’t as well endowed financially. ‘How do you get a drink around here?’
I nod towards the bell, and he rings it.
‘Are you regular?’ says the young man.
‘Pardon?’
‘Do you do this journey often?’
‘Ah…yes…yes I do. What about you?’
‘First time for me. My fiancée got a job a few weeks back, so she’s gone up there to live with a friend of hers. I’ve got a few interviews myself and the sooner I find something, the better.’
I nod and slowly turn the whiskey tumbler around while my new drinking companion takes the first sip of a beer.
‘I can’t wait to see her,’ he says. ‘This is the longest I’ve spent without her since we started seeing each other – it’s torture.’
I smile, the emotion not strong enough to part my lips.
‘Is your wife with you?’ he says, pointing at my ring.
‘No.’
‘She cope okay while you’re gone.’
I nod again.
He furrows his brow. ‘You okay?’
I look at him, my expression is enough to answer his question.
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘I…don’t know.’
‘Try me,’ he says taking another sip of his beer. ‘My fiancée tells me that I’m a good listener.’
‘I thought I saw something…someone.’
‘Who?’
‘My wife.’
‘Maybe she’s here and wants to surprise you.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Oh…I’m sorry.’ He places a hand on my shoulder.
‘You weren’t to know.’
I glance at the woman in black, who remains in exactly the same position she was the last time I looked at her, back straight, arms resting on either side of that candle.
‘She’s been like that since lunch.’
‘Do you know anything about her?’
‘Only what that priest told me.’
‘You spoke to him?’
‘I sat at the next table for lunch. The priest had a one-way conversation with her for at least ten minutes. Trying to convince her to stop what she was doing.’
‘What was she doing?’
‘Something ridiculous,’ he says, stifling the urge to laugh.
‘Such as?’
‘You won’t believe it, but the priest believes her to be invoking some sort of demon.’
‘A demon?’
I draw a sharp breath.
‘Relax,’ he says, patting my shoulder once again. ‘She’s a kook. Plenty of those in this world.’
‘I guess you’re right – just a kook… just a –’
My words are interrupted by a feminine moan. On the far end of the carriage, someone’s slumped over a table, a hood covering her head. She must’ve snuck in while we were engaged in conversation. The woman in black sits nearest to us, seemingly unfazed by this new arrival.
She moans once more, her voice cracking a little towards the end.
Gingerly, I slip off the stool and walk towards her. Another moan. This one’s long and drawn out, as though she’s having a bad dream. It’s a familiar voice.
‘Lucy?’
‘Edwin,’ says the slumped figure, the voice delicate and echoing.
My heart jumps and I freeze. The scent of stale damp engulfs me. Her back is rising and falling with each breath. Some slow and deliberate, others fast and laboured, as though she’s gripped in fever.
‘Lucy?’
‘Edw….’ The voice trails off, the breathing shorter, sharper, louder.
I approach the figure, extending out my arm.
I touch the figure’s shoulder. It’s flesh, yet ice cold.
Her next two words are whispered. ‘Help. Me.’
‘Lucy!’ I lift the figure and the head lolls back, sending me backwards to the floor. The face is blue, and half rotted away, wet strands of hair splayed across it. I inch back on the floor, the dead woman’s grotesque face burned into me. My wife, my Lucy…
Footsteps stamp louder behind me. Two hands clasp under my arms, lifting me and turning me around. ‘Are you okay?’
It’s my drinking companion. I turn back but the table’s empty. That thing just vanished.
‘Did you – did you see that?’ I say, frantically.
‘See what?’ The man looks of high concern.
‘You must’ve seen it – seen her…my wife…except she was…’
‘How much have you drunk?’
‘I’ve had one drink – in fact, not even one because it tasted foul.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘She was sitting right there,’ I say, aggravated. ‘Surely, you must have seen her.’
‘I think you were hallucinating, old love.’
‘I wasn’t! I couldn’t have been – could I?’
The woman in black hasn’t budged an inch, our conversation, my terror, hasn’t given her any slither of curiosity.
‘It’s her,’ I say. ‘It’s this demon. This – this curse. It must be.’
The gentleman places both hands on my shoulders and shakes me. ‘Snap out of it, man, don’t let your mind play tricks on you.’
I barge past him and ring the bar bell, causing the bartender to emerge. ‘Which cabin is the priest in?’
‘Through these doors, third one down.’
I throw the door open and practically sprint out of the carriage, arriving almost instantly at the priest’s cabin.
‘I need to speak with you!’ I say, hammering at the door with my fist.
‘Come in,’ a voice says through the glass door.
The priest’s room is identical to my own, except he’s travelling light with a small messenger bag tucked into the top shelf. The man himself is sitting with legs together and palms on knees as though he’s readying for a school photograph. In front of him is a bible, weighted down by a stone. He turns his head and studies me.
‘That woman in the black dress. What’s she doing here?’
‘That’s none of your concern, my child. It’s last – perhaps you should –’
‘I’ve been seeing things.’
The priest sits up, his eyes widening. ‘What kind of things?’
I look at the seat on the other side of the table. ‘May I?’
The priest nods and I sit opposite.
‘My wife.’
‘Has your wife – passed on?’
I nod.
‘I see.’
‘They’re connected aren’t they.’
‘I don’t know…maybe,’ he says.
‘What is she doing here? A gentleman that overheard your conversation said that she was invoking some sort of demon.’
The priest nods. ‘A reaver.’
The name sounds peculiarly familiar but at this time, I cannot know why. ‘And what does it have to do with my wife – with me?’
‘A reaver is a demon that attaches itself to a person who has suffered a personal tragedy. It taunts them, plays with them until it…devours them.’
‘This is a joke – surely.’
‘Agatha, the lady in the black dress, suffered tragedy also. She fell in love with a gentleman who was, at the time, involved with her best friend. We aren’t sure what happened but eventually, the gentleman fell out of love with Agatha’s best friend and in only a few months, became engaged to Agatha. Her best friend never forgave her, and decided that if she couldn’t have him, neither of them could and so she poisoned him on their wedding day.’
‘My god, that’s horrendous.’
‘As she walked down the aisle, I’m told, her beloved began to cough violently and collapsed at the altar, passing moments later. The dress she’s wearing now is the dress she wore on that fateful day, the colour changed to match her soul.’
‘But the dress, it’s positively ancient.’
‘So is Agatha.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘In exchange for being summoned, the reaver shares half of the victim’s life energy. Although Agatha looks the same as she did that day, she’s over two hundred years old.’
‘That can’t be true, surely.’
‘I’m afraid so – my ancestors and I have tried our best to stop her but alas, each of us has failed in our own way.’ The priest looks at me, his eyes filled with sadness. ‘If what you’re telling me is true, it appears the demon has marked you.’
‘Can we not deal with Agatha?’
‘Touching her during the invocation causes almost instant death. A fate suffered by one of mine.’
‘Then what can I do?’
‘I do not know.’
I take in a short, sharp breath. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’ asks the priest.
‘A laugh. A woman’s laugh, you must have heard it.’
‘The only sound I’ve heard is from our conversation.’
‘But it came from right outside your – my god!’
I spring into the corner of the room, the figure is on the other side of the glass door, its auburn hair floating as though submerged in water.
‘There father – there! Please, tell me you can see it.’
I glance at the priest and then back at the door.
‘I can’t my son.’
‘Leave me be!’ I scream and the figure vanishes once more.
‘I’ve got to find a way,’ I say. ‘Has anyone ever evaded her demon?’
‘Not that I’m aware.’
‘But there must be a way.’
I spring up from the corner and race back to the dining car, sitting opposite Agatha.
‘Agatha! Do you hear me? Speak woman.’
Her lips curl into a smile.
‘The priest told me about your tragedy. You must understand, I’ve suffered also. Agatha? You don’t have to do this. Agatha.’
That smug smile remains across her face, the rest of her body statue-like in its stillness. The bartender and my drinking companion stare at us, half scared, half confused.
‘Surely there must be something you want, some way I can help you? Maybe I could tell you my story and we can draw strength from each other. You don’t have to be alone in your suffering.’
She starts laughing, initially, it comes from her throat, stilted chuckles but it begins to change until it’s the voice of my Lucy.’
‘Stop it! You witch!’
Agatha opens her eyes and speaks with the voice of my wife. ‘Soon, my love. Soon.’
Then it comes to me, like Lucy speaking through my subconscious. I remember why the demon’s name is so familiar. It was during our last Christmas together, our families shared ghost stories over the dying embers of our fire. She’d told us the tale of a man hunted by a reaver, somehow he survived. The memories wash back, the warmth of the fire, the burn of the brandy as it went down my throat, Buster curled around my legs, my younger brother listening intently. Two things saved the man in the story. He got himself as far away from the invoker as he could and, most importantly, he ensured he wasn’t alone.
I stand, pass the table and sit on the stool opposite my drinking companion. ‘I need your help.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Keep me company, that’s all.’
‘If you buy the drinks, I shall have no qualms.’
‘Fine, but we’ve got to stay in my room, is that okay?’ I say to the bartender.
‘That’s no trouble at all,’ he says. ‘What’ll it be.’
‘A bottle of Talisker,’ says my companion.
‘I’ll send it to your room shortly,’ he says, before turning to the drinks shelf.
My companion and I leave the bar and make to my room. He dusts the seat opposite the bed and sits down, his legs crossed. ‘Are you feeling okay?’
I sit on my bed, taking a deep breath. ‘Yes – I believe so.’
‘Don’t tell me you bought into that priest’s twaddle.’
‘I’m not sure it is.’
‘Are you certain you haven’t drunk anything?’
I slam my fist on the table, ‘For the last time I’m bloody certain. I saw her – my wife. She’s been following me, although it’s not her, it’s something else. Are you listening to me? ‘
My companion’s drawn to the newspaper headline, ‘Inferno at Scottish textile mill.’
His eyes widen and his breathing increases. He swallows, then snatches the paper from the desk. ‘No. This can’t be.’
Auburn hair floats upwards from behind him. It grows taller and taller, ebbing and flowing like soft corals in the tide. Then I see her face. looking like the day I first met her. The fear leaves my body, replaced with warmth, an insatiable hunger to see her once again.
‘She must be okay, she must be, she’s smart,’ mutters my companion. ‘She would’ve run from the mill as soon as she saw a lick of flame.’
Then he looks at me and draws a sharp single breath. ‘My goodness man, you’re as white as a sheet. Your eyes. What’s happening to your eyes, they’re black – they’re all black.’
He’s getting smaller now. Or I’m getting bigger. I’m feeling happy…hungry.
My companion falls to the floor. ‘What are you…please…no…NO!’
Turbulence wakes me from my slumber. The plane is bathed in darkness. I slide open the window and notice the blood moon hanging above the end of the wing, which bathes my lap in an eerie red light. I hate flying, but it’s worth it. I cannot wait to see her and it’s either a train to Glasgow and then five hours in a car or a plane to Aberdeen and a short taxi to the textile mill.