The Haunting of Violet Gray Read online

  THE HAUNTING of

  VIOLET GRAY

  BY EMILY SADOVNA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Emily Grice writing

  (under the pseudo name of Emily Sadovna)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address:

  [email protected]

  First paperback edition October 2018

  Cover design by Jim Smith Design

  ISBN 978-1-5272-3001-9 Paperback

  www.emilysadovna.com

  For my wonderful family and friends.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  CHAPTER 1

  Two years ago

  Squawking crows turned my blood cold. Their cries seemed to taunt me, as though urging me to run so that the hunt could begin. Behind the crows was the chanting of the witches. Their voices echoed through the trees, dispersing the birds from their leafy refuge to the clear night sky beyond.

  The witches’ voices grew louder. They became faster and more urgent. A melody was beating time with the rhythm of their footsteps. They moved relentlessly towards me across the dry forest floor. My bare feet were sore and bleeding. My body was drained. Would my beating heart and rasping breath lead them straight to my sanctuary, the flimsy remains of a wooden hut? I crouched down, shivering, deathly cold, in my thin dress, despite the muggy night.

  The ground suddenly shook with a tremendous force of energy, filling me with terror. I crumpled to the floor. Clawing through leaves and roots, I dragged myself out of the hut like a hunted animal. The old, brittle structure ignited like kindling on the command of the approaching witches. Flames engulfed. I screamed and rolled away, colliding with a fallen tree. A severed branch tore through my scalp.

  Like the creatures darting from the undergrowth around me, scurrying through tangled roots, I had to survive. Hysteria, stimulated by the smell of my freshly spilt blood and a toxic veil of smoke, rampaged through the forest, spurring me on.

  I took one last deep breath and readied for the chase. I leapt through ferns that whipped my shins. I hurdled over branches and exposed roots. Vicious brambles clawed blood from my exposed skin. Running, running, running, I threw my body over a barbed wire fence to escape the forest. My dress caught. I tugged it free, careful not to leave evidence. I dragged myself up onto aching legs. They almost buckled with exhaustion, but I kept going.

  A yew tree at the edge of a wheat field was guarding the boundary of the estate ahead. Beyond the tree was my safe haven. I turned. The masked figures of the witches were cloaked in black. Their whispers became commands, their summoning arms spread wide. Alarmed, I turned back to the wheat field and saw it erupt into a furnace, blocking my escape.

  The flames grew quickly on this hot summer night. I had no choice but to sprint and jump through the violent blaze, which was the last obstacle between myself and freedom. Every muscle and bone in my body screamed. The witches swept closer.

  I had to go, now. As flames licked and devoured the dryness of the field, I brushed hair from my face, touched the pendant around my neck and found a last reserve of strength. I exhaled and sprinted. Fuelled by a wave of adrenaline, I dived through the furnace.

  CHAPTER 2

  Two years ago, I staggered into Snipz. Banging on the glass shop door early in the morning, exhausted, bleeding and delirious, I could barely speak, except for constantly uttering the words, “Go, go, go!” My rigid body squirmed and twisted to free itself from Dinah’s soft embrace. Her hands smoothed my mass of red hair, which was tangled and singed. My dress was dirty, and my feet bare and sore with cuts and scrapes. Where my little toe should have been, there was a gaping, bleeding stump.

  The fluffy pink arms continued to grip me until my instincts told me I was safe. Her sweet floral scent was not the acrid smell of fear. Adrenaline melted to exhaustion. I survived. I was alive.

  My mind wiped the time before I arrived at Dinah’s. My psychoanalysis told me it was normal for posttraumatic stress, ‘a self-protection mechanism in the brain to aid recovery’. None of the professional help came close to helping me understand the twist of fate that led me to Dinah. The only solid fact I could hold on to was I was lucky I knocked on her door that morning. Dinah took me in and cared for me. She called me her little stray cat. Perhaps feral cat would have been a better description. Either way, the name stuck.

  Soon, Steve and Dinah became my foster parents, and I was fast-tracked through the adoption system. Most potential parents wanted a cute little newborn baby, not an anti-social teenager suffering from some kind of brain malfunction. Social services were keen to move me on as quickly as possible.

  I continued to say very little for the first year; I stayed in my room, trying to comprehend my existence, attempting to solve my own mystery, to understand the recurring nightmares of fire and pursuit.

  Dinah worried about my introspection, or ‘moping’ as she preferred to call it. I felt lost, directionless and numb. Then after a year of paper work and courses, Dinah and Steve were officially my legal guardians. Dinah wasted no time in signing me up at the local college. She said I needed to get ‘a life’ in one of our rare arguments. I guessed she was right, so reluctantly I enrolled.

  I felt like an alien at first. A girl with a lost past is exciting to some of the more alternative or inquisitive. The novelty quickly wore off, and people began to see me as weird. I wished I understood the art of lying when I first arrived at college, inventing my own backstory and roots. Rumours quickly spread, and before I knew it, gossip had created a past for me. One week I was an illegal immigrant, the next week I was in a witness protection program, hiding from gangs of criminals. The imaginings became more warped by the day. Then as quickly as the gossip started, it evaporated along with all interest in me.

  Some people say I am aloof or rude, others shy, but the truth was that the school’s so-called social etiquette eluded me. It seemed I had not only lost my long-term memory but my understanding of how the world worked.

  Dinah worked hard to help me fit in and make friends. Much to her dismay, it didn’t pay off. I willingly became her project, and I tried my best to understand the concept of small talk and friendly facial expressions. I learnt fast, and now I stick to the rules rigidly and do my best to blend in. I have found it is easier not to say anything at all rather than stumble and blunder. I liked being alone, safe in my corner of the college library, buried in a fortress of books, watching and learning.

  College dragged. When the bell finally sounded, I ambled home past the shops. Something caught my eye. It was an advert in the window of the grocery store for a cleaner at a large house. I typed the number into my p
hone. In a moment of madness, I decided to apply for it. Why? I had no clue where the house was and I am messy. Not just a few clothes on the floor messy. I have mugs with an inch of thick mould hidden amongst junk under my bed ‘squalid’. I was unable to silence the niggling relentless voice inside my head, insisting I made the call. It was an odd feeling, like a stranger was inside me.

  I turned seventeen in June. I needed to make some money of my own. I couldn’t rely on Dinah’s charity forever. A job which didn’t require communication skills and could fit around college was perfect. Over the summer holiday, which was only weeks away, I could work more. I also had my little car to run, if you could call my yellow fifteen-year-old Citroën Saxo a car. My birthday present from Dinah and Steve was an intensive driving course, and I had passed my test the first time. I made the call.

  I arrived home, dumped my bag and kicked off my Converse boots. Dinah was talking on the phone. I hovered in the hall waiting for the right time to break my news.

  “I don’t know, Mum, Cat’s not really one for parties. She prefers her own company…I worry about her…I love her. She is a wonderful girl… I wish others could see that…It has been two years since she arrived, but she seems so unused to the world…”

  I gasped. I shouldn’t be hearing this. I moved closer.

  “It is like life hasn’t touched her yet. She has a good heart, but occasionally she is a little blank, not quite like anyone else. I am sorry, Mum. It was a lovely thought. Maybe next year? I have to go.”

  I froze. “Hi, Dinah, it’s me!” I shouted, hoping she didn’t suspect I heard every word she said. What did she mean by blank? I felt hurt. Did Dinah think I was weird too? I know I am different from other girls my age, but worry? I didn’t want her to worry about me. A job could make all the difference. I would be out of her hair, independent, if only for a few hours a week.

  “Oh, Cat, love, you are home. I was just talking to Mum. She wanted to throw you a belated birthday party with your cousins.” She beamed.

  “Oh, I don’t know I…” I grimaced. “They are not really my cousins. They don’t even like me.”

  “Don’t worry. I know how you feel about parties. I said no, but maybe next year? It would be good for you—you might even enjoy it!”

  I interrupted her. “Hey, I have some news. I applied for a job!”

  Dinah was baffled by my choice of career as a cleaner, but she was happy that I was no longer going to be moping around her marshmallow-pink salon, messing up her women’s magazines and offending her customers with my honesty. She helped me write my CV, which was full of exaggerations and lies, but she assured me it was perfectly normal to embellish experience.

  CHAPTER 3

  The twenty-minute drive from my town to the village took ages. My phone signal plummeted as soon as the houses lining the side of the road became trees and I didn’t have GPS. By chance, I spotted a sign directing me to the village of Michelhurst. I turned off the main road towards the village. My car strained to climb the steep high street which led directly to the house. I crunched the gears into first and limped through the gateway where the name of the house, Hunter’s Moon, was etched into a slate hanging on the gatepost. My yellow hunk of overworked metal wheezed apologetically in the driveway, tainting the beautiful surroundings which greeted me.

  The sky was a clear blue. The ancient oak trees were heavy with green acorns, and the hawthorns, brambles and sloe bushes weighed down with new berries. I heard a low croak of crows above me. I winced as one of the black creatures glided from its roost to the bird table near the front door. The bird twitched its head and eyed me suspiciously.

  Ahead was an austere Victorian mansion. The slick paintwork gleamed, and the walls and swirling iron fences were guarded by a regimental row of bay trees.

  Strangely, I could hear mysterious and sinister whispers escaping from the ancient walls, twirling through the trees and snaking through my senses, teasing me to move closer. Anxiously, my eyes darted from the house to the trees, to find the source of the sounds. I was rigid and my fists clenched. Before I could breathe, more whispers, more words circled me. The incomprehensible voices were unnervingly familiar. Why? I put my hands to my ears. “Stop,” I said softly at first. “Stop!” I shouted. The voices evaporated, leaving me shivering.

  The bird cries, the trees and the vivid orange brickwork stimulated a recollection of fragmented and fleeting memories—or were they dreams, even nightmares? I knew this place, but how?

  My heart raced. My palms were clammy. I turned to leave the creepy, ostentatious house. I tried to walk away but I couldn’t do it. Trembling, I turned back. The hint of secrets and memories masked by a fresh paint job beckoned me to the shining front door, urging me to enter. I obeyed, spellbound.

  I clutched the plastic wallet containing my CV so tightly my knuckles were white. I smoothed a stray strand of my red hair behind my ear. The borrowed white shirt and black trousers I wore were as uncomfortable and unnatural as the smile I forced across my face. My stone necklace was safely tucked away in the shirt. I climbed the steps towards the black front door. It was slightly ajar; this left me with the dilemma of whether to ring the bell and wait for the reply, or to push the door gently open and call out for the owner. After a few seconds, I knocked. The door swung open, and I stumbled forward, following the momentum of my raised hand. Embarrassed, I gathered myself together, cleared my throat and introduced myself in the most professional way I could.

  My stammering was greeted by a warm, open smile from a curvaceous woman with shining brunette hair in her late twenties or early thirties. “Come in, come in.” She beckoned me to follow.

  The woman ushered me to a kitchen the size of the hairdressing salon. The black marble worktops glimmered against the carved wood cupboards. There was a large farmhouse table with tea and cake laid out. “Please sit down, and I will grab you a cup.” The woman sat down opposite me and extended her manicured hand.

  “Hi. I am Annie. Thanks for coming. I thought it would be a good idea to have an informal interview.” She poured two cups of some odd-smelling herbal tea into vintage teacups and cut me a generous slice of homemade banana cake, recently baked I guessed, judging by the warm cinnamon scent that filled the room. The early evening sun drifted through the window, drenching the room with buttery light. I sipped my tea politely, fighting an urge to gag, when the pungent flavour attacked my taste buds. I quickly gobbled some of the cake to mask the revolting tea. I had to restrain a gasp of pleasure. The soft, spiced, honeyed cake was like nothing I had ever tasted.

  “The cake is amazing,” I gushed as I picked up a few stray crumbs on my plate.

  “Thanks. It is an old family recipe. Have some more tea. It will bring out the flavour.”

  Her assertive gaze commanded me to gulp down the tea. After all, I didn’t want to offend my possible future boss during our first meeting. The bitter liquid spilled down my throat.

  “It’s perhaps an acquired taste.” Annie laughed.

  “What is it?” I asked, still squirming inside.

  “Oh…it is a blend of a root which is soothing for the digestion and a few herbs. I love it.” Annie moved her cup to her immaculate lipstick-stained mouth and blew at the steam, then placed it back on the table in front of her without tasting it.

  “Well, I suppose I should explain what the job will involve, give you a little tour, then we will go through your experience, and I will try my best to answer any questions that you must be bursting to ask!” Annie laughed. I smiled in response, and Annie continued. “The house is quite large. We intend to use it as a training academy, making natural therapies, perhaps some yoga. There will be students staying with us regularly. As the business grows, there will be more work for you. We will need help to change over the bedrooms, so if you ever need to board that’s fine. We have plenty of space. Well, finish your tea, and I will take you on the grand tour.” Annie picked up my CV and her teacup and beckoned me to come with her.

 
I brushed away the banana cake crumbs and followed Annie into the hall, then to a large dark but cosy room; there was a heavy wooden desk, a leather chair and a sofa curling round the edge of the room. There were clusters of green plants and some abstract artwork on the wall. Candles decorated the fireplace, and a large mirror hung above the mantel. Old cases were heaving with timeless books, and without thinking, I ran my hand along the spines.

  “This is the library. Students can study here or just relax next to the fire. It can get dusty,” said Annie.

  The next room was a stark contrast as light spilled through the folding glass which stretched from floor to ceiling and filled the entire wall. “The biggest job will be keeping that window clean.” Annie laid my CV with her empty teacup on the huge dining table, gesticulating proudly to a huge expanse of glass.

  “The house consisted of two buildings. They are connected by this glass room. Stunning, hey?”

  We walked through the house and back to the kitchen. I jumped at the sound of another voice.

  “Annie, this is so good.” A young man turned towards us with a mouth full of cake. He sheepishly swallowed it, brushing his hands by his side. A lazy smile grew across his face, and there was a teasing glisten in eyes, which were the colour of dark chocolate.

  “Cat meet Joab. Joab is my business partner. He stays here a lot.” Annie looked scornfully at Joab then turned to introduce me. “Joab, Cat the new cleaner. I left your CV in the dining room. You two get acquainted while I grab it.”

  Joab was undeniably attractive, and by the confident way he held his shoulders and his direct stare, he knew it too. He held a gloved hand to me. They were the kind of gloves that stop at the knuckle and crumpled around his wrist. He wore a long coat, and his dark curly hair brushed the turned up collar. With a slight raise of his eyebrows, he urged me to shake his hand. “Hi.” I rubbed mine on my sides and grasped his hand. As our hands met, we each jumped as an electric shock darted up my arm.