The Dreams Beneath The Witch Tree

Written below is the last known statement of Benjamin Harper, a former parish priest serving the village of Barton, Cheshire. Mr Harper was relieved of his position by Bishop Gerald Ellison of the Chester diocese and taken here, to Byron House, a home for the mentally disturbed, shortly after suffering an acute episode of hysterical anxiety. There, he came under the direct care of one Dr George Monroe, the head psychiatrist. Mr Harper’s growing insanity is believed to have been triggered by his inability to accept the loss of his close friend and predecessor, Stephen Adams. Following the death of his mentor, Mr Harper suffered a rapid decline in both his sanity and his faith that ultimately led to his confinement.
Mr Harper’s stay in Byron House was, however, brief, as he vanished from his cell not long after this statement was recorded. Through unknown means, he is thought to have overcome the security staff, brutally murdering one of the junior physicians, Dr Howard Flemming, before making good his escape. The weeks prior to his flight marked some of the most drastic alterations in his demeanour. The house staff would often report that Mr Harper’s mood would shift dramatically and without provocation, particularly during the nighttime hours. Some of the orderlies even refused to work with him, citing a disturbing smirk that would creep across his face, most often as a precursor to his fluctuating moods. In the months that have passed since his disappearance, I have been able to directly confirm several of the less outlandish claims made in his statement. Some of the events described within however, are simply too fantastical for me to officially stake my reputation on acknowledging. Others are woefully and worryingly repugnant in their authenticity.
There is little doubt that Barton is a strange place. Stranger still is the unsettling grip that it has upon some of the village’s residents. There is a tangible miasma of superstition and fear that lurks over the village like a blanket of fog. Outsiders may very well scoff at those who put stock in old tales of witches and werewolves, but to many residents of the village, there is little distinction between reality and folklore. I cannot deny that I, despite being a man of science, find the strange history of Barton seductive and even nourishing, as it is for all those who harbour a secret and inescapable appetite for the weird. One need only walk down certain decaying streets in the south end of the village and take note of the odd symbols and signs that the common folk keep over their doors, to see that a great many in Barton refuse to let the ‘’Old Ways’’ die. During my time at Byron House, I too have seen things that I cannot fully comprehend or provide reason for. I have treated many long time Barton residents who firmly believe – with a level of conviction not seen in many conventional religions- that the devil makes his grotto in the shadowed woods that crown the edges of the village.
I have decided to share Mr Harper’s account of his growing madness in his own words, in the hopes that many in the scientific community will be able to gain an insight into how and why such episodes of insanity come to fruition and how they can be successfully treated. It is also my hope that should any of the stranger occurrences written below ring true for you, the reader, then this statement will also serve as a dire warning and lesson in meddling within the affairs of certain circles, who clearly do not take kindly to outside interference. These then, are the last known words of Benjamin Harper.

I don’t understand, what more do you want me to say? I have told my story to the police, to the doctors here, and to anyone else who will listen! You have no right to keep me locked up in this place. I have committed no crime and caused no harm to anyone. I would still have my freedom, and the village its safety, had it not been for a lone passerby spotting me in the darkness of the cemetery on that awful night and alerting the police. This whole affair would have been covered up and be done with, and you would have remained blissfully ignorant to my involvement in the matter, had those blundering bobbies not interfered.
You say I am mad, you may well be right, but if you had come to the same conclusions as I did regarding the fate of my poor friend, I am sure you too would have taken some form of desperate action. No doubt the police report will detail the simple facts of the matter. Without bothering to add the nuances that hold the whole affair together, I’m confident that the report will dryly state that in the early morning of December 5th, I, Benjamin Harper, was found in the darkest corner of Barton Parish cemetery. I was discovered, the report will say, ‘’disturbing’’ a suspected burial site. Digging up the cold winter earth below an ancient and twisted wych elm tree, beneath which once laid the remains of a wicked and vile occupant. It will also state that, in a fit of unrestrainable rage, I attacked two policemen with a shovel, rendering them unconscious so that my grim labour could be completed without interruption.
It is not my sanity that I fear for now, rather the possession of my feeble mind and the body it is currently master over. For I am now horridly aware that the mind, soul, and body are not as tightly entwined as the so-called experts of medical and spiritual matters believe them to be but are instead three separate spheres of mastery. I can only hope that the truth of my tale is fully appreciated before an all too familiar terror is forced upon my mind, for I now wonder if wickedness and insanity are truly mental conditions or some form of spiritual sickness. Can either be inherited, carried in the blood and passed on to our descendants? Can they transfuse from parents to their children? If so, what other darkness can be inherited, carried along the roots of our family history? Is it possible that sin itself can plunge endlessly in the crimson rapids of our ancestors’ veins, biding its time, patiently waiting for the chance to emerge within the next generation?
I confess to you gentlemen, that I am uncertain as to the authenticity of what I am about to tell you. The terrible truth is that, ever since I came to Byron House, I cannot recall if what happened was but a dream. Even now, I cannot say with any certainty that I am awake or simply dreaming that I am awake. The boundary between reality and hallucination is a frail shroud indeed, and who can say from which side of the curtain any of us is truly peeking? Hark gentlemen. Hearken unto me. I beseech you to take heed of my words. There is something wicked out there in the backwoods and borders of our village. Though its earthy fetters have been laid to waste, the potency of its spirit lingers. In time, it will find a new home and set its powers against us. For the sake of my soul, as well as the soul of my dear friend, I will now try to recount for you in detail that blasphemous chain of events that led me to the grave of Francis Ellis Pendle, the occupant of that hidden burial chamber, and immerse his body in acid until nothing but bubbling black sludge remained.
Stephen Adams had been a family friend for as long as I could remember. A devout man of god, he had been the local vicar since I was a young boy and was very much loved by the community he served. He never married or had much in the way of a family of his own and as such, I think he had always looked at me and my mother as his own flesh and blood. In the twilight of my teenage years, my father sadly passed away from a heart attack, and my relationship with Stephen grew stronger, forming a bond that nurtured me into manhood and shaped me into the person I am today. For this, I owe Stephen a debt of gratitude, one I hope I came close to repaying when I finally destroyed the horror that had inflicted itself upon his life on that lonely December night.
Stephen was a true paragon. Godly, honourable, and wise, he was devoid of vice and all the other flaws inherent in most of us. I never once saw him grow angry, or fearful, or dispassionate at any point, save towards the very end. Despite his almost saintly behaviour, the man was also incredibly human and very much interested in matters of science as well as faith. He had on occasion said that Darwin’s theories made a lot of sense and that he enjoyed reading books covering topics such as biology, as well as chemistry, physics, and history. He was a remarkably well-rounded and well-adjusted man. Not once did his belief in God falter, he was just able to see the sense of how the world worked and blended it into his love of his fellow man and in the All Mighty.
When I came of age, I decided to follow in his footsteps and join the church myself. I can’t say my mother was particularly pleased with my choice, but Stephen was very proud of me, and it was this approval that fuelled my desire to serve my God and community just as he did. My mother had never been warm with Stephen, despite how closely he associated with us both. I suspected that they had once harboured feelings for each other and that these had turned sour around the time of my birth. My father had never allowed this matter to interfere with their own friendship and they had been like brothers, right up until my father’s last breath. It was Stephen who had been at my father’s deathbed, who had spoken kind words into his ear as he gasped for breath, and who had given a moving eulogy as his casket was lowered into the ground. I don’t recall my mother ever mentioning my father’s death after the funeral, nor had I once seen her cry or lament his passing. She simply grew colder and more distant with the people around her, including both me and Stephen.
As such, I didn’t feel burdened by my decision to leave her and Barton behind. My heart wasn’t heavy at the thought, but rather the opposite. Stephen assisted my decision to join the ministry and as I spoke to several authorities from the Diocese of Chester and attended an interview with my bishop, my resolve to become ordained only grew stronger. By the time I had secured my place at the theological college in Worcestershire, my mother had slowly come to terms with my choice, but I never received her blessing or encouragement for treading the path I was determined to embark upon.
Worcestershire wasn’t close to Cheshire, a five-hour train journey was required whenever I wished to visit my family home. I remained in contact with Stephen weekly via letter and regularly, a handwritten note in a telltale stiff card envelope would arrive for me in the post. Our correspondence wasn’t particularly thrilling, but it was welcomed as his letters of encouragement helped to guide me through the more difficult parts of my study and fire up in me a conviction that only he could coax.
Months of gruelling study passed me by, and I am not too proud to admit that I occasionally regretted my choice. During these bouts of demoralisation, I would call my mother, who would delight in such talk and beg me to return home. A gesture I found bemusing, considering her absent feelings for me were part of the reason that I chose to leave Barton. It was Stephen’s letters however that held me back and kept me upon the path I had chosen for myself.
On rare breaks, I would return to Barton for brief stays and would check in on my friend and we would chat about the various topics we had discussed in our exchange of letters. Stephen’s main areas of interests had changed drastically in the months I had been gone, and he was now ferociously researching local Cheshire history, in particular our folklore and other esoteric matters, the details of which were lost on me. I would make a token effort of visiting mother, but the blanket of cold repression that fell across the kitchen as we sat there in silence over a pot of tea, was becoming more and more unbearable. Once or twice, I felt as if she wanted to tell me something, but she would stop herself before anything significant left her lips and she would instead enquire sarcastically as to Stephen’s wellbeing before reaffirming her objection towards my study. But as time passed, these sojourns to Barton ceased altogether as I threw myself deeper and deeper into theological pursuits, relying solely upon Stephen’s letters to keep me informed about how my mother was faring.
It had been some weeks before I noticed a gradual change to my routine that piqued my interest in matters beyond my own affairs. So engrossed had I been in my studies, that I had neglected to notice that Stephen’s letters to me had abruptly stopped. I waited a week before sending him a note of my own in hopes of a response, but nothing came. I could only assume that he had become engrossed in study himself, as he had the habit of picking up a new topic and devouring as much information on it as he could before finding a new sphere of knowledge to move on to. To be quite honest, I was focused on my own study and so welcomed the break in my weekly task of finding something interesting to fill my letters with. This absence of communication lasted just under five weeks, when eventually, one of Stephen’s letters arrived for me on a Friday morning. I was already on my way out and so opened the letter and read its contents whilst walking to the local parish I was helping to curate at. Dodging traffic and pedestrians alike, I read the note and folded it into my pocket, determined to pen my reply as soon as time permitted. As best as my memory serves me, the much-delayed letter read as follows:

Benjamin,
Firstly, let me apologise for my lack of communication with you over the past few weeks. I have, as you may have figured out for yourself, stumbled upon a fascinating area of Cheshire history that our own parish was directly involved in some two centuries ago.
Now, I understand that this is hardly an excuse for neglecting you, and I sincerely apologise if my absence has caused you any worry. Please read on, and I shall attempt to explain.
I have been investigating our parish’s history and in doing so, come across an obscure piece of information that points to a witch trial taking place within our community, well after the Witchcraft Act of 1735 had forbidden all forms of necromancy and sorcery from being punishable crimes. How scandalous! To think that our dear community of Barton was involved in some sordid affair, well after such matters had ceased to be acknowledged by the Crown. Details are sketchy, but it seems much of the affair was conducted in secret and many later records destroyed in order to prevent the facts surrounding it from ever resurfacing.
Now, here comes the really intriguing part, the individual tried and executed for practicing witchcraft is none other than a distant relative of mine on my mother’s side, one Francis Ellis Pendle. This is how I was able to unearth certain details, as they have been sat in my family’s records for over a century. The whole matter has me deeply excited, and I am currently waiting on several sources to provide me with information on various subjects, but I believe I am close to worming out the truth. I have reason to believe that this ancestor is buried right here, in the parish cemetery. Try as I might, I cannot find a grave, but from what I have read, witches were sometimes buried in unmarked plots, a curse upon their names and a final punishment for trucking with the Devil. It was also a precaution, for if any of their coven could unearth the remains, they could restore them to life – or so the folklore goes.
But here I am, getting ahead of myself again, how have you been my boy? I look forward to hearing about the past few weeks I’ve missed out on, so please furnish me with all the details. I understand you will be finishing your first year soon and once you have, I ask that you come to stay with me in Barton for a while, for there is much we must discuss about my findings.

Take care of yourself Benjamin.

Yours Truly,
Stephen.

The letter did not unnerve me in the least, it was just like him to find some new topic to obsess over, and I thought little about the matter. Stephen had always been this way, no doubt in his next letter he would be talking just as enthusiastically about a completely different topic, with witchcraft far from his mind. I wrote a meagre reply that night, nothing terribly fancy, just a passive interest in what he had mentioned and also a little update on how my own studies were progressing. I responded to his invitation to join him at Barton Parish and said that it would be a pleasure to spend some time with him.
After my first year was finished, I was able to come home for Christmas. To my delight, my mother invited Stephen to our home for lunch. Christmas itself is a busy time for the ordained, but I was grateful for the snatches of conversation we managed to have. To my surprise, Stephen had not dropped his inquiries into his ancestor and the various Cheshire witch trials, both legal and illegal, that had occurred in the county. In fact, he would speak of little else during my short stay with him. He was particularly excited because he believed he had finally located where Francis Ellis Pendle had been laid to rest. He described to me, in great detail over a brandy, that at the very back of the cemetery, close to where the Gunner’s Clough woodland starts to encroach upon the hallowed ground, there can be found a small copse of wych elm trees – so called because witches were once hanged from them. It was his belief, that Francis had been interred in the ground beneath one of these trees, a precaution levied against him, as the old folk believed that the roots of a tree would pin the witch’s body and soul in place, denying either the power to rise from their grave and avenge themselves upon the living.
The next morning, he took me out to see the copse where he suspected the final resting place of his witch ancestor lay. Even in the daytime, it was a dark and blasted place. The trees looked more dead than alive, with twisting dry branches that groaned like the creaking of a floorboard as the wind lightly danced around them. Here, somewhere beneath the dark ground, Stephen was convinced that the body of Francis lay. I cannot say with conviction that even then, I was worried about him. I had convinced myself that his interest was purely historical, he was nothing more than an enthusiastic amateur. In hindsight however, the warning signs were undoubtedly present.
I would come and visit Barton sporadically during my second and third years at the college. I think I was subconsciously outgrowing the place, but in the best possible way. I was shaping into the man I always wanted to be, and I felt renewed by my growing independence from both Stephen and my mother. It was during the last part of my ordination, my final year, that I first heard the growing rumours regarding Stephen and his radical change in behaviour. The source of such gossip came from none other than my mother. There was a certain sense of satisfaction in her tone upon informing me of the various distasteful exploits that Stephen was being accused of. He was now apparently drinking heavily and had been spotted meeting with certain ‘’unsavoury’’ types after dark. Strange visitors had been seen in the cemetery, always at night. He was, she said, keeping company with odd strangers who spoke in foreign tongues and who wore bizarre clothing. Loud, violent behaviour in the middle of the night was becoming a regular occurrence for his neighbours, as voices were heard emanating from the church house at all hours. There was even talk that several pets had gone missing in the village, in particular Mrs Zdybowicz’s tabby cat, Cleo, and old man Slater’s greyhound, Basil. The latter was known to roam freely around the village and was almost always in constant trouble, tipping over rubbish bins and chasing Jack Duncalf’s chickens. Some people assumed that the dog had either run off or been hit by a car, but a fair number attributed a more ominous reason behind the dog’s sudden vanishing. The cat, however, was rarely seen outside of the Zdybowicz home. Many assumed that the eldest son, Ian, was the culprit. The boy had always had a cruel streak and was disliked by almost everyone in the village, including his own mother. But when the decayed headless body of a cat and the severed head of a greyhound were found casually discarded in the Gunner’s Clough by some local children, the day after Walpurgis, many began to suspect that Stephen’s sinister new acquaintances were responsible.
The most disturbing revelation, however, was that Stephen’s face appeared to have taken on a rather unusual countenance, a kind of sardonic smirk that greatly unnerved those who saw it. By all rights, the expression was wholly alien to the man and when seen, it appeared to twist his face to such an extent that he looked like a stranger. The bishop of the Chester diocese had issued him with a formal warning about his behaviour, the outcome of which I would soon learn of. At the time, I found all of this impossible to believe. The evils being attributed to my friend were nothing more than village gossip, I believed, and the usual Barton superstitions, something for the old codgers to grumble over whilst deep in their cups and I refused to accept the rumours or take the matter seriously.
Soon enough however, I too became embroiled in the abnormal changes in Stephen’s life. Again, there was a period of time where I didn’t receive regular correspondence from Stephen, in fact these periods had grown more frequent. But I admit that I was beginning to grow worried, as the rumours regarding his behaviour churned over in my mind and the large gulf between his letters was growing ever wider as time passed. I hadn’t received a letter back from him for a very long time, perhaps four months, but when I finally did, it was far more disturbing than anything I had ever read from him, and it filled me with an urgent need to see my friend and assist him however I could. It arrived for me unexpected, much like the previous one I have described, and despite looking like a letter from Stephen, it was so hastily scrawled that for a few seconds, I thought it written by a stranger.

Benjamin,

I’m afraid to tell you this, but I fear I have led myself down a dark and winding path. So far have I descended into darkness, and so deeply have I gazed at the blackness, that I wonder if I will ever be able to find my way back to the Lord’s light. My meddling in the past affairs of the parish, and my own family history, have brought me nothing but misery. I am doomed.

It’s the dreams Ben, the hideous dreams. I dream constantly, so much so that I can no longer tell what is real and what is fantasy. I dream often of a cold, godless place, devoid of warmth and comfort. Above me, I see twisting black roots worming their way slowly towards me like serpents. Try as I might, I cannot move my arms and legs, for my body is confined to a casket – a buried, rotting, maggot infested casket! When I finally awake, the clock by my bedside always displays the same time – 3:00am – the witching hour.

By the time you read this, I may not be at the parish. I must leave this place, leave Barton and never return. I have some dire matters to attend to, most importantly, I must return that which I have called. He has his own black designs, and I must ensure that they never come to fruition. In my more lucid moments, I am formulating a plan, but I must be prudent, less he suspects me of acting. I must be decisive and deliberate in my actions and conceal all evidence from him before the sun sets and his time begins. He has his means, that is beyond doubt, but I also have mine. I know of certain antique formulas and signs that can ward off his spirit, potent as it may be. Once I am sure that this evil is returned to the cold ground, his remains must be destroyed. Fire is no good, it will leave too much intact. It must be something stronger, something that will obliterate him until there is nothing left. I will then take my leave. I have already spoken with the bishop, and we both agree that you are ready to take my place Ben. May you be a better guide to the people of this parish than I.

Ben, if I fail in my endeavours, I can offer you only this warning, fear that which lurks beneath the witch tree. Do not invite it in, for it will make for itself a home within you and through you work its black magic. It will invoke those who lurk at the threshold, those unnameable blasphemies from the great outside, and then my friend, we are all ruined.

God bless you.

Stephen.
To say that this letter disturbed me greatly would be a gross understatement. I had never known my friend to be so worried or panicked over anything in his life, and yet here he was, telling me that his very soul was in jeopardy. I spoke with my superiors at the college, but I did not show them the note Stephen had sent me. I feared that should anyone else read the note, they would question his sanity and that might put into motion a whole course of events regrettable to the man’s already frayed reputation. No, best I speak to him first and get to the root of the issue. A few days later, I was on a train and bound home for Barton. I disembarked at the nearby Eastwich station and caught a rickety old bus into the village, arriving around midday and hastily made my way in the direction of the parish church. Several locals recognised me, and I had to pause momentarily for a few quick exchanges before resuming my journey. I did my best not to look panicked and to keep my gait to an acceptable stride as I gave each passer-by my time, but deep inside I was overcome with a crippling dread that only increased as I neared my destination.
When at last I arrived at the church gates, I found them closed but not barred. Pushing their heavy iron frame inwards, I walked past the small stone fountain, which was bone-dry and not flowing with the gentle trickling sound that usually welcomed visitors. The surrounding benches that crowned the fountain were empty, as was the entire churchyard and cemetery. I couldn’t help but notice the serene, yet disturbing quiet of the place as I headed straight for the church doors, which were worryingly locked. I looked around puzzled. Stephen should have been inside and getting ready for the evening service. I picked up my bags and made my way around the church and towards the small residence at the back where Stephen lived. The front door, like that of the church, was locked. The curtains were open, and I peeked inside but could see no signs of life. I then did a quick tour of the perimeter, knocking and calling on every door and window before returning to the front. I assured myself that there must be a perfectly mundane excuse for him not being present at the church and mused that maybe he was out picking up provisions from Litler’s store on Townfield Lane. The relief of such a normal explanation was abruptly shattered however by the gruff and familiar voice of a man barking out to me from the direction of the cemetery.
‘’Vicar’s gone Ben, and I don’t ‘spose he’s coming back anytime soon’’.
I cocked my head in the direction of the voice and called out, my words feebly battling the expanding gusts of wind that were coalescing piles of brown autumn leaves, causing them to dance around the dry grey fountain behind me.
‘’Is that you Ted?’’. I called out, already knowing the answer to my question.
To meet my reply, the tall and wiry frame of old Ted Quilt slowly emerged from behind a large headstone. He had a small shovel in one hand and was no doubt tending to the earth around the cemetery, just as he had for as long as I could recall. Despite the autumn chill, he wiped sweat from his brow and waved at me before picking up his tools. As he made his way towards me, his long white hair and beard billowing in the wind, I could not banish thoughts of the old pagan gods from my mind. With his towering height and wizened, but friendly old face, he reminded me of Woden, the chieftain of the gods and leader of the dreaded Wild Hunt from the old Saxon legends.
‘’Sorry Ben, didn’t scare you, did I? I heard you come in, well I heard the gate clang, figured I let you look around before speaking up’’.
‘’No, it’s quite all-right Ted’’. I replied. ‘’What did you mean just now, that Stephen was gone and wouldn’t be coming back?’’.
‘’Best if you come inside boy’’. He said solemnly. ‘’The vicar left me some instructions for you and the keys to his house. Come on, I’ll make us some tea’’. He rested one of his giant hands on my shoulder. ‘’I won’t lie to you Ben, I’ve got some queer things to tell you’’.
With that he pulled the front door key from the back of his tattered trousers and unlocked the front door of Stephen’s house, causing the lock to make a heavy clunking sound as the door opened ajar. He entered and I followed behind, still confused as to what I could have missed in the time since I last heard from Stephen. Ted immediately headed for the kitchen, where true to his word, he put on a pot of tea and then sat down to roll himself a cigarette whilst waiting for the tea to brew.
‘’Hungry?’’. He turned to ask me, scraping his tongue across the cigarette’s paper skin and gesturing to some biscuits on a nearby plate.
‘’Later perhaps’’. I replied with a weak smile.
The smell of the brewing tea filled the room and offered me a little comfort, Stephen had always appreciated a strong tea. I placed my bags down and looked around the room, it was exactly how I remembered it, untouched and impeccably clean, as was Stephen’s fancy. Ted looked quite out of place in such an uncluttered arena, with his wild beard and dirt-stained clothing, he didn’t say anything to me, engrossed as he was in his cigarette rolling, which caused me to grow a little impatient with the man.
‘’Look, if something has happened to Stephen, you have to let me know quickly Ted, what is it?’’.
He proceeded to pour two cups of tea and after passing one along with a small jug of milk, he struck a match and lit his cigarette before leaning back in his chair and sighing
‘’There isn’t an easy way to say this Ben, so I’ll just come out with it, Stephen has left the parish. His…ways, shall we say, over the last few months have been unnerving many of the parishioners and the bishop felt it was in everyone’s best interest that he takes his leave, at least for a few months.’’
I nodded, not so much in agreement but simply out of shock. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the last two letters Stephen had sent me and handed them over to Ted, who placed his cup on the table and took them into his huge hands without saying a word. He stroked his snow-white beard whilst intermittingly nodding and sighing as he flitted from page to page, occasionally re-reading a section and then nodding once more. Once finished, he handed them back to me, picked up his cup and took a sip, straining the brown liquid through his beard.
‘’Do these letters mean anything to you?’’. I asked.
‘’A little’’. He said. ‘’He was talking about that bloody witchcraft business an awful lot. I knew some of what he was talking about, especially those trees out back, past the graveyard. I used to play around the Gunner’s Clough as a boy, and there was always tell about how evil that place was. You’re from Barton, you must have heard the old tales about ghosts and goblins and how old Salt Peter would get you if you lingered too long past sundown?’’.
‘’Salt Peter’’. I replied with a smile, recalling the childhood memory of how my grandfather would warn me of entering the Gunner’s Clough after dark. ‘You stay away from those woods boy’. He would say. ‘Salt Peter, Salty Pete, some call him. On three legs he goes, he’ll trick you into the woods using the voice of someone you know’.
‘’That’s just an old wives’ tale Ted’’. I finally replied. ‘’Stephen would never have taken such talk seriously, imps and witches’ familiars, it’s just childish superstition’’.
‘’Well, I can’t argue with you there Ben’’. He said, taking another sip of his tea. ‘’But it was more the weird changes in his nature that I wanted to talk to you about, not all this witchy nonsense’’. He tapped the letters on the table, as if to emphasise how little he thought of their contents.
‘’Such as?’’. I said, picking up my own cup.
‘’Well, couple of folks rumbled him good to the bishop over his nightly doings. They say he’d been calling regularly with shady types from Eastwich and that he was involved in some missing money here at the parish. Quite a sum if folk are to be believed. Then there’s the strange sounds, and stranger lights coming from the cemetery’’.
‘’My mother was telling me about this weeks ago’’. I added. ‘’I didn’t want to believe her, she’s never been too keen on Stephen’’.
‘’Not just that Ben, it was his whole manner, he just stopped giving a damn about the community. Grew slack in his duty and you know that’s not Stephen. He turned into this cruel, morose man, almost a complete stranger really. Unsettled a lot of the locals’’. He took a few more sips of his tea and finished his cigarette before continuing.
‘’So there was a village meeting and with the agreement of the diocese in Chester and the bishop, it was decided that he should leave us. Can’t say I know where he’s gone, but I reckon they’d want you to take over his duties, if you’re willing, at least until the bishop can find a replacement’’.
He stood up and opened a nearby drawer, producing a sealed letter, it bore the mark of the Chester diocese. Opening it, its contents confirmed what Ted was hinting at. I didn’t know what to say. I was supposed to start my tenure as a curate under Stephen, not become the village vicar.
‘’Why didn’t bishop Ellison speak to me directly about this?’’. I said.
Ted simply shrugged before continuing.
‘’There’s something else you should know Ben. You brace yourself, because what I have to say next is going to upset you.’’.
I stiffened my back in response and allowed him to continue.
‘’Some believe that Stephen may be dead’’. I opened my mouth to reply, but he raised his hand. ‘’Let me finish. I said some believe he may be dead, but that doesn’t make it so. None the less, no one has heard hide nor hair of him since he left. Phil Crouch heard a rumour that a man who looked just like Stephen had been spotted down by the locks a few nights ago, you know the ones on the river, down past the canal that runs through Blackcroft? He was ranting and raving, Stephen that is, almost as if he was having a quarrel with himself. Well, Phil says he came out to see what the fuss was, and he swears hands down that he saw Stephen throw himself into the locks. He told the local bobbies about what he seen, but they couldn’t find anything amiss. I thought you should know, less you hear it from someone else in less favourable terms’’.
I felt my world come crashing down around me, this was too much for me to absorb at once. Every man, be he a saint or a sinner, has his share of faults, but to hear of these developments, coupled with the last letter Stephen had sent me and the news that he may have killed himself. Not to mention the expectation that I should take his place at the parish.
‘’I’ll need time to think about this Ted’’. I said, standing up slowly.
He nodded and finished his drink before standing himself.
‘’I understand’’. He replied. ‘’Look, no one is expecting you to hold a service or anything, the whole village knows the situation and I just think they and the council are glad to have you here. You won’t have to perform any public services, not until you are good and ready at least. No doubt a replacement will be found before too long. And try not to worry too much about what Phil Crouch says, you know him, stupefied with drink half the time, I’m sure Stephen is fine. He’s probably just taking the time he needs’’.
He pointed to the keys on the table.
‘’These are yours until it’s all sorted out, look I best get back to work out there, if you need me just say so, but I hope you’ll stay’’.
Patting me on the shoulder, Ted left, leaving me sat alone in the kitchen. My mind was ablaze with confusion and doubt, just what chaos had I returned to?
It took no small amount of time for me to settle into the house. I avoided going into town at all costs and only received the minimal amount of visitors, many of which were only at my door seeking gossip. I quickly dismissed the worst of them and focused instead on the genuine well-wishers and sympathisers, of which there was depressingly few. Apart from Ted, the only person I spoke to regularly was my mother, who was less than supportive with the whole matter and only offered a few snipes about the man I had come to think of as my father. I spent the rest of my time in the church taking care of daily chores and wondering around the cemetery, where I would occasionally bump into Ted and have a short, pleasant, though sterile conversation about the weather before moving on. The days were growing colder, and I would frequently bring him hot tea and food as he worked relentlessly on maintaining the church grounds, especially those close to where the feral brambles of the Gunner’s Clough constantly encroached. He wasn’t bad company by any means, but as the days turned into weeks we found less and less to talk about. I also kept in constant contact with bishop Ellison, who offered me all the support he could in running the parish. He was confident that a replacement for Stephen would be found quickly, but was very sensitive about discussing it in detail, knowing just how close he had been to me.
It was during one of these many daily excursions around the churchyard that I decided to revisit the wych elm trees that Stephen had once shown me. I had explored most of the large open cemetery and decided to walk around the far back end which borders with the Gunner’s Clough. I cannot state with any clear conviction what had possessed me to walk along that lonesome and lonely stretch of graveyard, crammed as it was with crumbling tombstones, the names of their occupants long since worn away by the passage of time. In the shade of those large forsaken trees, there rested some of the oldest and most decrepit head stones in the whole cemetery. Many of them leaned at steep angles and some had toppled over entirely, their surfaces now home to moss and lichen. I passed each in turn, trying in vain to make out the names and dates that had been washed away by the relentless rain of northwest England, until I came across the wych elm trees once more. Nestled at the very back of the copse, deep in the shadows of a particularly diseased looking tree, I could see a patch of ground that appeared to have been freshly excavated. I made my way closer and stood in front of it, noticing that a small carved stone had been half-submerged in the recently disturbed soil. It was green and furry with moss. I bent down and I ran my hand around it and found the clumps of moss growing upon its surface easy enough to pull off. Beneath the vegetation, I could spy that there was an inscription and a date chiselled into the sandstone underneath where the moss had preserved it:

Here lies Francis Ellis Pendle
Beloved by the Devil
Unforgotten by his disciples
1751 AD
The carving was undoubtedly old and despite the protection afforded to it by the moss, it was still eroded and worn away in parts. As I pulled the stone out of the earth, I noticed a newer, fresher looking carving on the back. It was an odd shape, some kind of hieroglyph. It’s difficult to truly say just what it was, it appeared somewhat similar to a pagan pentagram, but the lines were broken resulting in a series of independent points, in the middle of which their sat what looked like a lozenge- shaped eye. In place of a pupil, there was instead a small flame-like shape. The symbol must have been heathen in origin, for I had never encountered its like in all my years of religious studies. The whole stone was perhaps only ten inches in height, hardly what one would call a tombstone, but appearing to hold the same purpose. Instinctively I dropped the stone close to where I had found it and rubbed the dirt off of my hands. I felt as if I had just come into contact with something unmistakably evil, as if my very soul had been touched by the hoary and eldritch nature of whatever darkness it had been used to commemorate. It was then that the words from Stephen’s last note crept into my mind.
‘’Fear that which lurks beneath the witch tree. Do not invite it in, for it will make for itself a home within you and through you work its black magic’’.
The hour was growing late, and the dimming sun caused the darkness of the Gunner’s Clough to wash over me, enveloping me within its black folds. I had no desire to stay in that place, and hastily made my way back to the house, determined to reach it before the sun disappeared behind those vile trees. Once inside, I breathed a sigh of relief and then set about preparing myself a supper of some toast and fresh tea. Try as I might, I could not banish the warning from Stephen’s letter. Eventually, perhaps driven by a need to see if I had remembered his words correctly, I took the bundle of Stephen’s letters from the kitchen drawer, where I kept them tucked away beneath some parish leaflets, and sifted through them until I found the one that mentioned Stephen’s talk of witchcraft.
I unfolded it and re-read it until I came to the passage with the warning. I had indeed remembered it verbatim. Unnerved, I folded up the letters and hastily placed them back into the drawer. A moment later, Ted came into the kitchen, grumbling about the cold and wiping his mud-stained boots on the doormat. He nodded and helped himself to the tea I had brewed, before sitting himself down and pulling out his tobacco to roll himself a cigarette. I waited a few minutes for him to progress halfway through his task before broaching the subject of Stephen and his strange decline.
‘’So Ted, did Stephen ever mention a grave to you, one out in the yard, close to the woods?’’.
He put his tobacco down and nodded.
‘’Aye, I saw him looking over it a bunch of times. He told me it was the grave of a witch, hung for his crimes hundreds of years ago, one of the last in England he reckoned’’.
‘’And that was what he was studying before this change of character came over him?’’.
He nodded again and lit his cigarette with a match before extinguishing it with a shake of his hand.
‘’Studied is one way of putting it. Obsession would be another. You know he converted the cellar of this house into some kind of study? A library I guess you could call it, filled it with all sorts of queer looking books. Latin, I reckon, not unusual for a vicar, I guess. But some of ‘em is written in German, and others in languages I can’t begin to understand. Not only that, but he moved all kinds of bloody chemicals and equipment into there too, can’t really say I recognised most of it. Place stinks to high heaven’’.
‘’Is it still there, in the cellar?’’. I asked.
‘’No, I reckon he took almost everything with him when the bishop told him to leave. Might be some bits and pieces down there, but you’d be lucky to find much’’.
We both then sat in silence, Ted turning his attention to a local newspaper folded on the table and myself to my thoughts.
The next day, acting largely upon a hunch, I contacted the Eastwich College and asked to speak to their head, who turned out to be a rather jovial man called Lee Humphrey, who was all too happy to answer any and all of my questions. Over the phone, he confirmed a suspicion of mine that he and Stephen had had some mild correspondence concerning lab equipment and various chemicals, compounds, and acids. He reeled off several overly long and complex names, oblivious to the fact that I was totally ignorant of what he was speaking. I thanked him and hung up the phone, a few more pieces of the puzzle slotting into place in my mind. The distance between them however was too great to form a larger, cohesive picture. Witchcraft and science. Chemistry and an obsession with a two-hundred-year-old hidden grave. How did they connect?
Determined to uncover more, I decided to visit the library Stephen had set up and then dismantled during that time we were separated. The entrance to the cellar was in the kitchen, behind a narrow door that I first presumed to have been a broom cupboard. It concealed a flight of cold stone steps that led to a distinctly dank and musty underground room. A few cramped shelves on the walls either side of the steps housed a collection of mundane objects; candles, dried out paint cans, and the like, but also luckily a working torch. I took the latter and switched it on as I descended the steps. The cellar wasn’t very far down, but the low ceiling above the steps was frighteningly claustrophobic and I was forced to cock my head to the side to avoid banging it on the wooden beams. I reached the bottom and found an open doorway to my right, which led into a very simple square room that, like the stairs, possessed an oppressively low ceiling and a strong musty scent. I entered the cellar, relying upon the feeble cone of sickly yellow light emanating from the torch to make out any firm details from the malaise of murky darkness beyond. A large rotting wooden table served as a centre piece for the room and there were rows of badly hand-made shelves lining the back wall, sagging and leaning at odd angles. The shelves were mostly barren, but there was evidence in the dust that a large collection of books had once stood here, and a bare steel skeleton of chemistry equipment and a few empty bottles sat on the desk. As I moved the light around, it reflected off several large bottles on another shelf to my right. Large thick, almost barrel like, most were full of clear yellow liquids, others were nutbrown oil in colour. A few were marked with hastily scrawled labels that read ‘’Royal Water’’. Beyond the collection of chemicals there was a door that appeared to lead out of the cellar. This confused me, for I could not recall any outside entrance that led to the cellar beneath the house. The door itself looked ancient, with its rusted bolt and handle barely holding on to the crumbling wood to which they were both crudely nailed into. As I moved closer to it, the light from my torch caught something carved into the frame above the door. It was that curious star-hieroglyph I had seen on the stone above the grave of Francis Ellis Pendle. I ran my finger along the carving, almost as if to ascertain that it was real. As my finger traced the freakish shape, I felt a chill creep over me, the same chill that had caused me to flee from the shadows of the wych elms. This time, I refused to let the fear grip me, taking the door by its rusted handle and pushing it inward. To my surprise, the door did not lead to the outside of the house but instead revealed another set of stone stairs leading further down into the earth. The oder that assaulted my senses as I took a solitary step towards those stairs was foul. It was a putrid stench, unlike anything I had ever smelt before. If I was to describe it as an ungodly mixture of some acidic compound and rotting excrement, I would be on the verge of doing justice to that malignant, invasive scent. I instinctively took a step back and raised my hand to cover my nose, as if it would somehow relieve me of the burden of breathing in that foul and fetid air. For a brief moment, I considered turning around and leaving the cellar, but out of burning curiosity, I slowly started to descend those awful stairs. What lay at the bottom is something that will haunt me until my final days. For laying beyond was a second chamber, not unlike the first. But whereas the above cellar space had been converted into some kind of perverse amalgamation of esoteric library and alchemist’s laboratory, this hidden chamber was nothing less than the devil’s workshop. Strange images were carved and painted onto the walls, many of them resembling the hieroglyph I had seen on the meagre gravestone of Francis Ellis Pendle. There was little to tie the various pictographs together, some depicted spheres or eyeballs. Others were long snake-like tendrils that curled upon themselves to create a rudimentary, alien text. As I edged further into the room, I could make out various objects nailed to the ceiling, some were rusted tools, like the kind you would find at a slaughterhouse. Others were odd assortments of twigs, held together with twine, creating shapes that had a vague human outline to them. The crowning horror, however, was the table. This long stone edifice was less a desk and more like a butcher’s slab, stained a hideous reddish brown all over. There were grooves carved into the table’s surface, all of which culminated towards a round hole, underneath which a rusted iron bucket had been attached. It was from this bucket that the stench appeared to originate, and bending down to inspect its contents, I could see the glistening, rotting hindlimb of a dog. Maggots wriggled across its surface, burrowing in and out of the putrid flesh. I felt bile rise in my throat, but I managed to keep it down and continue my investigation. Like the room above, there were shelves fitted to the walls, but these were not bare, instead being filled to the brim with various manuscripts, papers, maps, and glass jars. The whole scene had an unmistakable sense of the bygone laid over it, as if it had sat here undisturbed for centuries. Among the papers and jars, I found a small linen bag tied with a piece of string. A brown stain on the bag’s underside made me think twice about opening it, but I eventually found the courage to do so. Inside were numerous small white objects that looked like tiny stones, but upon tipping the contents out and inspecting them with the torch, I found to my horror that they were children’s teeth.
By this time, the smell was becoming unbearable, and I had no wish to linger further. Deciding to abandon my investigation, I spied a small, frayed notebook left on the righthand corner of what I now thought of as a vivisectionist’s table. For whatever reason I could not then fathom, the curious woodblock image on the front must have caught my eye, and I picked the book up and tucked it into my jacket before making my way back to the sanity of the house above.
I immediately removed my jacket and threw it on to the kitchen table, disgusted that the terrible stench from below had somehow attached itself to me like a parasite. I then methodically opened all the windows of the house, hoping that the chill air would purify the hideous oder that had made a nest for itself in my nostrils. Tired, my poor mind swirling from the revelations of that hypogean realm, I eventually collapsed onto my bed and succumbed to exhaustion.
I cannot say how long I had been slumbering when the first of those terrible dreams came to me. My sense of time had been grossly warped by my exploration in the cellar, but it must have been quite sudden, as the sun was still in the sky when I finally jolted awake, my pillow wet with sweat. It is impossible for me to tell if the dreams were brought on by Stephen’s final letters, or if that hidden chamber below the house had awoken something macabre and unwelcome in my imagination. I found myself standing within the cemetery outside, only, it was different. The land around me was sparser, with fewer tombstones jutting out of the soft, mossy ground. The Gunner’s Clough lay before me, its outline far more feral and foreboding than it had any right to be. The sky above me was a blackened abyss, punctured by thousands of twinkling stars that glittered and gleamed from the great beyond. The fat silver moon slowly crept above the treeline, casting its pale white light upon the cemetery, causing long deep shadows to detach from the headstones and crawl upon the ground towards me. I took a few steps back, but they still found me, chilling me as they swept over my feet, legs, and body. Then, out of the tangled briars he came. Hopping and gambolling out of the brambles, the awful form of Salt Peter. On three legs he danced, the sleek body of a greyhound, upon the neck of which there leaned and swayed the head of a cat. His eyes were milky orbs, faintly illuminated like phosphorus toadstools. From his feline jaws there dripped a reddish clear syrup that hissed as it hit the sanctified ground of the graveyard. He momentarily ceased his insistent frolicking to scratch himself, but I could see that it was his missing back leg that was attempting the impossible task. A raw, bloody stump that gesticulated feebly towards the source of his irritation. Then, beyond the twitching imp, I could see another figure, a man. Even at this distance, I could make out the repulsive details of his form. He was tall and thin, his long slender fingers like twigs. His lengthy nose and sunken eyes were clearly visible through the cemetery gloom. Worst of all, a sardonic and wolfish grin lay stretched across his face. There was a hunger in that smirk, a deep and terrible burning hunger. Then Salt Peter ceased his scratching, and in a hollow voice that somehow sounded like my mother’s, spoke these words.
‘’Come child. Come. We have marmalade and marzipan, and all manner of baked treats for you. We have seed cakes, and toffee apples. All that your heart desires. Come with me into the forest, and I will show you delights beyond your dreams’’.
I felt myself being pulled towards those honeyed words, all the while the tall sinister man said nothing, only grinning at me from beneath his wide brimmed hat.
‘’ I can’t’’. I stuttered. ‘’It’s dark, and my mother will want me home for supper’’.
‘’Supper’’. Replied Salt Peter, his rotting pale tongue licking across his chops. ‘’Oh, we shall have supper, won’t we master?’’. The imp then looked up towards the terrible man, who stayed silent while nodding his head in agreement.
I tried once more to turn away, but my feet were spellbound, marching me towards what I knew to be my demise.
‘’Mother!’’. I cried out. ‘’Mother please, I am scared’’.
The terrible man laughed as Salt Peter rubbed himself upon his master’s blood-stained breeches, a wheezing purr emanating from his twisted form.
‘’Mother!’’. I cried once more, the words mercifully pulling me back from the precipice of my dreaming madness. ‘’Mother’’. I whimpered, awake now and once more in my bed.
To say that the dream, the nightmare, had unnerved me would be a lie. In fact, it was all I could think of for the next few days. I did not dare to sleep again on that first day and instead plied myself with the strong Turkish coffee that Stephen had kept hidden away for special guests. When I finally did succumb to sleep the next day, my dreams were less vivid and mercifully brief. I felt the presence of Salt Peter and the terrible man on several occasions, but managed to awaken myself before they could make themselves known. I also dreamt often of the Gunner’s Clough and of the outré copse of wych elm trees that lay beyond.
The manuscript I had taken from the hidden cellar chamber lay forgotten on the kitchen table during this haunted time, until by chance a week or so later I happened to find it beneath a small pile of local newspapers that Ted had been collecting. I was once again taken aback by the grotesque, demoniacal woodblock printing on the front of the manuscript. Sitting down and inspecting it further, I could see roughly a dozen or so figures depicted in the image. Most were what I would describe as crones and hags, many of them riding upon the backs of black goats and other, less discernible creatures. Various furtive, demoniac characters were also shown, some of them dancing and copulating with the crones in disgusting detail. Around them were various smaller figures, I guess you would call them imps or familiars of varying anatomy. Many of the figures were oddly named, the text appearing next to them to be what I took for some form of early English. Queer titles such as Pyewackett, Grizzel Greedigutt, and Peeke in the Crowne. But one of the odious creatures had a name next to its image that caused my heart to jump in my chest for a moment. The image was that of a three-legged hound bearing the head of a cat. Next to the beast lay the words Salte Peter. I paused for a moment, images of that terrible nightmare playing out in my mind like a perverse pantomime. I glanced back at the yellowed manuscript. There was no title on the front, so I slowly peeled back the first page, and there, printed in bold black lay the words ‘The Sussex Manuscript: Cultus Malificarum’’. No author or date appeared anywhere in the front or back of the manuscript, but as I flicked through, it opened on a section roughly half of the way through. This particular chapter must have been referenced many times, for the manuscript almost appeared to want to open at this point. I glanced down and saw the title ‘’’Calling Upon Thy Black Imp’’. It almost looked like something out of a cookbook, a repulsive recipe that was half profane culinary instruction and half magical incantation. Odious images accompanied the next page, showing a gnarled crone gleefully chopping up the bodies of rabbits, cats, dogs, and calves with an oversized meat cleaver. I decided to put the manuscript in the kitchen drawer next to Stephen’s letters and did my best to banish its foul images from my mind.
Days, and then weeks passed by, and eventually I managed to put most of the past behind me regarding the horrid manuscript, as well as Stephen and his strange turn of personality. The dreams lingered for a while, but eventually they released me from their grip, and my sleep grew more restful. I resumed my duty as a stand-in vicar with a renewed gusto and opened the church. At first the locals were slow to return, but as word spread, my Sundays were soon busy, and I found myself welcoming faces new and old to my service. I allowed myself to forget about all this talk of black magic, and imps, and witches that had plagued my return to the village and instead focused on serving my community, with the help of a few curates appointed by the bishop to assist me. I even found the courage to descend once more into the cellar and bricked up the entrance that led to the hidden room beyond.
Thoughts of Stephen still occasionally crept into my mind of course, typically in the form of short dreams I still experienced from time to time, but these were less disruptive than my prior nightmares, being less sinister in nature. I had resigned myself to the awful truth that I may never see or hear from Stephen again and so spent more time with my mother and rekindled a few friendships in the village that had grown cold whilst I was away studying. I grew keenly aware that I was being groomed by the diocese to replace Stephen as the parish priest and struggled with my conflicting feelings on the matter.
I had managed however, to develop a firm mental robustness that permitted me to carry on with my new daily routine, growing my flock and welcoming the Lord’s light and forgiveness into the hearts and minds of my community. Sadly, this period of respite would abruptly end with an event that was singular in its horror and absurdity. It was an event that at a certain time in my life, I would have welcomed whole-heartily, but now it was one that filled me with an inescapable, cold dread. For the first time since returning to Barton, I finally received word from Stephen, a note that plunged my mind back into madness. The letter was from Stephen, but this wasn’t obvious to me immediately, as it lacked not only the hallmarks of his handwriting, but also that of any normal sane human being. The writing was a mere scribble, childish and scratchy. The cramped script appeared as if it had been fighting with itself as it spilled on to the page in a vain effort to form some kind of discernible legibility. The paper itself was also odd, it appeared to have been torn from a book, as the printed stamp ‘Property of Barton Library’ appeared on the opposite side. The paper was also slightly damp, with water stains and a strange grit-like sediment dotted around the written words. The content of the note, as best as I care to remember, was as follows.
Ben,
Don’t have long before these hands are not mine. Managed to make it back to my body. I can feel him pulling me back to his. Don’t think I can escape again. I will try. Do one last thing for me. I beg you. Beneath the tree, I am beneath the tree and in pain. His spirit is free now. It wants you. My body no longer suitable, yours is better. I beg you, dig up the earth under the tree. Take what you find beneath and burn it. Not fire, must be acid. Take the royal water and drench his remains in it. None of the essential salts can survive. Do you understand? He can return if you use fire.
Dying slowly in the ground. I cannot stand the blackness anymore. I am myself for a few moments, back here in my own rotting body to write and bring you this note. Soon I must return to the soil. My own fault, I called Him, and he answered. I’m so sorry for bringing you into this madness. Do as I ask!
Stephen.
The note must have been hand delivered, for it lacked a stamp or even an address on it, it was simply a folded-up piece of paper with ‘Ben’ scrawled on the front in the same spidery penmanship. I needed some fresh air to clear my mind after reading the baffling note and took a brisk walk through the village. The vanishing sun was pleasant enough, but it was punctured cruelly by a cutting wind that caused my skin to shrivel with goosebumps. The village was quiet, and I saw only a few locals as I walked a loop around the village, starting at Townfield Lane and then along Runcorn Road, and finally back up Lydytt Lane and towards the church. There was so much chaos flowing in my mind that upon returning home I simply collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table and lay my head down. It weighed heavily upon my heart that Stephen was out there somewhere, either a drooling mad-man or the victim of some black sorcery that I could barely bring myself to give credence to. But if God and his mighty kingdom were real, as I had been raised to believe, then surely the Devil and all the denizens of the pit must be also? This affair did not strike me as madness, there was a revolting authenticity to it, not to mention an alien element that my mind struggled to grapple with in its complexity.
As the sun sunk upon that day and gave birth to the inevitable darkness, I found myself drawn to the decanter of brandy that Stephen had kept in the lounge and indulged myself heartily of its warming contents. The fire conjured in my throat by the liquor was very much welcomed and by the time I had polished off a forth glass I was very much under the sway of Hypnos and carried myself numbly to my bed. For the first time in weeks, the dreams returned. I tossed and turned all night, unable to settle. My brain buzzed with a thousand thoughts as half-imagined fears danced in my minds-eye. There was a horrid semi-realization that my slumbering form was being watched and more than a few times I felt my spirit lift out of my body and float above my bed. From this observation point, I could see a dark figure standing in the shadowed corner of my room, his eyes glaring at my sleeping body with an alien hunger. I saw Salt Peter, that hideous abomination, leap upon my bed and paw playfully at my lips.
‘’This one will do nicely’’. The imp then spoke, once more in a voice that sounded like my mother’s. ‘’This one master, and then we are free’’.
When the morning sun blissfully shined through my bedroom curtains, I was able to banish the night’s dread back to whatever foul pit it had spawned from. But each night they returned. I held sermons for the following fortnight designed more to comfort myself than my community. I spoke with fiery conviction how Jesus had defeated both Death and the Devil, and how with his love, there was no evil on the Earth that could not be banished. This settled my nerves somewhat, but the comfort of normalcy that I craved eluded me. A few days after receiving his crude note, I learned with great dismay that Stephen’s body had been found on the Blackcroft heath. Though his bloated corpse had been discovered some distance away from both the canal and the nearby river, the coroner ruled his cause of death as drowning. The funeral shortly followed, and I decided to lead the service, despite the bishop offering to take that burden from me. The turn out was higher than I expected, which comforted me, and I even saw my mother shed a few tears for our village’s departed vicar.
Eventually, with both the terrible dreams and Stephen’s demise weighing upon me, I made the decision to step down from the parish, and to leave the church entirely. What had once been a dream was rapidly transforming into an unending nightmare. I planned to leave Barton altogether, to never again step foot within its haunted streets, I had concluded that the village was not a good place to linger and made plans to relocate to Manchester. This decision, final and resolute in my mind, did manage to bring some comfort and I allowed myself to hope that this whole affair would one day be behind me. I didn’t inform the bishop, I was concerned that he would try to convince me to stay. I gave myself no longer than two months to wrap up my affairs and then inform the diocese of my decision. As fate would have it, that decision, along with many others, was stolen from me on that awful night that was to come.
The renewed sense of peace brought on by my impending resignation and relocation might have lasted, had that crowning horror not invaded my world on that dark December night. I had retired to bed early, but the constant lashing of the rain had been relentless all day and was set to continue throughout the night. I slept fitfully and in sporadic episodes of thrashing, for I was experiencing the most vivid and horrid dream imaginable.
I dreamt of being confined, bound in the darkness. My arms worked, but my legs felt numb and lifeless. I struggled ceaselessly to remove myself from this foul bondage, but my body felt like some spindly marionette whose strings had become tangled around my fingers, cutting off the blood flow and leaving them numb and useless. After what seemed like an eternity, I somehow managed to muster what little strength I had and force my form through the cracks of my prison. I dreamt of pushing upwards, forever upwards. Past the rotting wood and the soft wet earth. Past the worms and the matted tangle of endless roots, and finally to the cold, rain lashed surface above.
I awoke suddenly with that last thought, sat upright in bed with cooling sweat pouring down my back, but it wasn’t the dream that had startled me awake. As my senses adjusted, I could hear that it was the ringing of the church bells that had mercifully returned my mind from the abyss. The clear and familiar sound of ringing bells pierced the night air, and I glanced at my clock to see it was just past 3:00am, ‘’the witching hour’’ I thought. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my dressing gown, no doubt the noise would eventually awaken the entire village, and I would be to blame. I raced down the stairs and bolted out of the kitchen door into the chill of the night. I barely noticed the cold rain pelting my face as I ran towards the church. My slippers greedily soaked up the muddy water that pooled around my footsteps and I shuddered as the cold damp muck sank in between my toes. Determined to stop the commotion, I fumbled with the keys, but the door was already ajar, and I pushed it open and made my way to the main hall and the direction of the bell chamber. By the time I reached the door, the ringing had mysteriously stopped, and I slowed down my pace. As I bent over to catch my breath, I noticed a disgusting trail of mud and slime snaking its way from the doorway and through the hall. It seemed to lead directly to where I was headed. I kneeled and swiped my fingers through the baffling sludge, it possessed a charnel stench, not unlike that foetid aroma that had sickened me in the cellar that terrible day. I immediately pulled a handkerchief from my gown pocket and wiped the horrid jelly from my fingers as best I could. I was determined to find out the cause of the ringing, but it crept over me that there was perhaps a mundane, yet still unnerving explanation. ‘’Suppose someone had broken in and was using the bells as a diversion while an accomplice robbed my home’’ I thought. Still, as much as I would have liked to accept this solution as fact, I felt compelled to investigate the muddy trail. There was little of value in the house that a thief could steal, and even if it was true, I had no desire to confront a burglar in the dead of the night. I therefore slowly entered the tenebrous chamber that housed the bell ropes beyond the main hall. There was a feeble sliver of light that gloamed through the window from the streetlamps outside, and I could just make out the basic parameter of the chamber. I was certain that no one else was in the room and I carefully walked deeper in the darkness to inspect the six ropes, all were unmoving except one, which swayed gently in the dark. Just like the floor outside, there was a smear of foul-smelling mud over the ground, as well as on the moving rope. I placed my hand upon it, and it stopped swaying, Then, just as I was considering leaving, I suddenly became aware of a shape on the ground in the far-left corner. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark of the room, but at first, I fancied it looked like a mud-stained bundle of rags and twisted sticks, but as I inspected further, a creeping horror washed over me along with a terrible recognition of what I was seeing.
What did I see? That is at once an easy and a difficult question to answer and is perhaps at the crux of this whole affair. For lying on the ground in front of me, face, or should I say skull, pressed to the stone floor, was an ancient collection of decayed bones and mummified flesh. Chunks of stinking, sodden earth and flayed tattered skin were wrapped around the grisly mound of necrosis. It was a brown, spindly thing, more bone than meat, with a whitish, cracked dome for a head. Wrapped around its spine, close to what once passed for a neck, was the rotted damp rope of the hangman’s noose. It was then that I heard a muffled and strained sound emanating from the skeletal horror that lay at my feet. It was at once a whisper and a growl. Human and bestial. Dis-embodied and echoing all around me, yet at the same time focused upon that mass of rags and fused bone. The noise ululated into a cry that shook me to the very foundation of my soul, for the voice was that of Stephen Adams. The corpse-thing before me issued forth a single sentence before growing still and silent once more.

‘Ben, for the love of God, please.’
Those who have bothered to speak to me at any length know the rest of my story. Half-mad and howling with a volatile mixture of fear and fury, I retrieved the yellow chemicals from the basement and together with the rotting bundle, threw their contents into the self-exhumed grave of Francis Ellis Pendle. At some point, two police officers accosted me, but I managed to overcome them and continue my grisly task, dissolving the whole mess into acrid sludge. I watched it bubble and froth into the black soil as the earth reluctantly absorbed the disgusting mass. Despite the obvious horror, I felt a great relief wash over me. The chaos of the past few months of my life came sharply into view, like a knot unravelling before me. Madness gave way to clarity. Though this is the end of my account, it is not the end of the matter.
For there was no doubt in my mind that beneath that lonesome wych elm, beneath the cold earth of that hidden grave, the soul of my dear friend, Stephen Adams, had lain incarcerated for months in silent torment. He had called up the wicked soul of his ancestor for whatever purpose I can now only guess at. He had not been strong enough to put down that which he had called forth and paid for it with his life and soul. A terrifying spiritual transfusion had taken place. Pendle had taken Stephen’s body, and Stephen had been forced into Pendle’s. At some point, Stephen had managed to take control of his own body long enough to hurl it into the churning waters of the river, hoping to end that evil which had made a home for itself within him. Stephen had been reduced to a mere consciousness, as Pendel’s spirit roamed freely. As the witch set about renewing his coven and conjuring up his black imps, Stephen’s sentient mind, fully aware with its senses intact, understood with abominable clarity that it now inhabited the 200-year-old corpse of Francis Ellis Pendle. He who had been hung for his crimes against God and King. He who had sought to bargain with the devils of the sky and of the earth. He who had slept restlessly beneath the dark soil of the Gunner’s Clough, his presence felt by all who dared enter. He who had dreamt of nothing but the torment and wickedness he would unleash upon the descendants of those who had delivered him to his grave. Dreams of vengeance and dark oaths. Those terrible dreams of blasphemy and madness. The dreams beneath the Witch Tree.

Credit: Nick Lowe

Instagram