Underneath her long black overcoat she was wearing a short grey velvet dress and shiny black leather boots. She had very large breasts, so that all her chains and pendants and magical talismans were arranged across them like a display on a jeweller’s tray. She smelled strongly of some floral perfume.
‘This is Ada,’ said John. ‘She says she can’t wait to see this priest’s hole that we’ve found.’
‘I’m Rob,’ said Rob. ‘And this is my wife, Vicky. Thanks for coming. We could do with somebody who knows about ghosts and spirits and stuff like that. This house is beginning to give us the heebie-jeebies.’
‘You’ve heard things?’ asked Ada. ‘Seen things, have you? Felt things?’
‘Yes and no. Heard things and felt things but not actually seen anything. Come on in and we’ll show you the priest’s hole and tell you all about it. Here – let me take your coat.’
Rob lifted Ada’s coat off her shoulders and as he did so Vicky raised her eyebrows as if to tell him, Just watch it, Russell, with this bosomy witch. I’ve got my eye on you.
‘John tells me you call yourself a charmer,’ said Rob, as he led them all upstairs. His ankle was still tender so he had to bite his lip and cling on to the banister rail.
‘I’m a witch, really, but most folks have totally the wrong idea about witches,’ said Ada. She had a soft Devon accent, slow and breathy. Rob almost felt as if she were breathing in his ear. ‘What I do mostly is tell fortunes and talk to hunky punks.’
‘Hunky punks?’ asked Vicky, as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘What are hunky punks when they’re at home?’
‘That’s what we call fairies, or piskies. But also the spirits of folks what’s passed over to the Otherland. Children, mostly, who went before they ever had the chance to be baptised.’
‘And you can really talk to them?’
‘Of course. Anybody can. Folks still say that their late loved ones are looking down on them from heaven, but these days hardly any of them really believe that’s true. And they’re right. Because you don’t go to heaven when you pass over – or hell, for that matter. You go to the Otherland, that’s all.’
‘And where is it, this “Otherland”?’
‘It’s here, close by. Only it’s not here. It’s like Alice, stepping through the mirror. It’s like seeing your reflection in the window, standing in your garden late at night, except that’s all you are, just a reflection, and there’s no you standing in the room looking out. Not any more.’
‘I think you’re giving me the creeps already,’ said Vicky. ‘In this end room – right here – I felt somebody pushing me. In fact, they pushed me right over so that I banged my shoulder. I felt them but I couldn’t see anybody.’
Ada had been staring at the stained-glass window of Old Dewer, but when Vicky told her that she turned and looked into the bedroom.
‘Somebody actually pushed you? But what? They was invisible?’
‘I felt somebody brushing up against me too,’ said Rob. ‘Again, there was nobody there. Nobody that I could see, anyway.’
Ada seemed puzzled. ‘That doesn’t sound like nobody from the Otherland. I’ve never known one act aggressive. Mostly they’re sad. They tell you how much they miss the folks they loved and the life they used to enjoy. When you hear them talking, it’s more like voices whispering inside your head, and if you see them, which isn’t often, they’re almost transparent. I’ve felt two or three of them touch me, but it’s not much more than stroking your hair or kissing your cheek. None of them never pushed me, nor hurt me. Nothing like that, never.’
‘Anyway, come and see this priest’s hole for yourself,’ said Rob. He led Ada into the bedroom and opened up the window seat.
‘See this crucifix? Well, watch.’
He swung up the crucifix and the panel in the dado creaked open.
‘Golly… that’s gurt amazing,’ said Ada, shaking her head.
John said, ‘I’ll tell you – I could hardly credit it when it first opened up. I’ve seen some incredible priest’s holes built by Nicholas Owen, but this one really takes the cake. Come and have a look inside.’
They all ducked down under the dado rail and then stood up inside the room. Ada slowly padded around the thick horsehair carpet, stopping now and again to close her eyes and take deep breaths.
‘There’s someone here,’ she said, after a while.
‘What do you mean? A spirit?’
‘Oh, there’s spirits everywhere around Sampford Spiney. Spirits and piskies. There’s a famous poem about it.
‘For mebbe ’tis a lonesome road
Or heather blooth, or peaty ling
Or nobbut just a rainy combe
The spell that meks ’ee tek an’ sing
An’ this I knaw, the li’l tods
Be ever callin’ silver faint
Thar be piskies up to Dartymoor
An’ tidden gude yew zay there bain’t.’
‘You’re not trying to say that there’s piskies in here.’
‘No, not piskies,’ said Ada. ‘But there’s somebody here. In fact, there could be two or three somebodies. I can feel them. Possibly more. And I can smell at least one of them.’
‘We could smell something, too,’ John told her. ‘Sort of like cinnamon, and maybe oranges. Is that what you’re getting?’
‘I think… I think it’s a toilet water,’ said Ada. She breathed in again, and held her breath for at least ten seconds. Then she breathed out again and said, ‘No… it’s an aftershave, and I think I know which one. My father used to wear it. Old Spice.’
‘Old Spice?’ asked Rob. ‘Are you serious? There’s a spirit in here and he’s wearing Old Spice?’
‘What’s so unbelievable about that?’
‘I don’t know. It’s so naff.’
‘Would you have believed it more if it had been Dolce and Gabbana? Spirits often carry their smell with them to the Otherland. And
