Lisa perched on the edge of the sofa, a faraway look in her eyes, her lips pursed. “There was an incident when we lived in Sheffield. Brittany sent a picture of herself to a boy she liked. Now, it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the stuff girls post these days, but it was private, and he shared it with his friends. I think he wanted to impress them, show them how hot Brittany was, but the whole thing turned into a social apocalypse for Brittany. The photo showed up on Facebook and Instagram, got forwarded to countless people, and then the school officials got involved because Brittany was so mortified, she refused to go to school. She was devastated, and I can’t say I blame her. She felt betrayed, especially by her friends, who made all sorts of cruel comments about her body. She was a bit heavier then,” Lisa explained. “You don’t know how vicious teenage girls can be until you’ve been fat-shamed on social media.”
“So, Brittany identifies with Alys because she was persecuted by people who had the power to hurt her and ultimately take her life?” I asked, feeling deep sympathy for the lonely girl who’d probably been traumatized for life. To Brittany, what had happened in Sheffield must have felt like a sort of death.
“Yes, I suppose so. She complained bitterly about moving out here, but I think she was secretly glad to get away and make a fresh start. But nowadays, there’s really no such thing, is there?” Lisa asked. “These things follow you around.”
I wondered how racy the picture Brittany had sent actually was but had no right to ask. It was none of my business, really. I was one of the countless people who passed through the retreat and would be expunged from Brittany’s memory as soon as I was gone. But, thanks to her ordeal, I now had a possible idea for a book, and I was grateful to her for bringing Alys to my attention.
Well, I must be getting on,” Lisa said curtly, leaving me on my own, with nothing but the warm fire and the muted glow of the lamps to insulate me against the sullen weather.
I took a sip of my cooling coffee, wondering if Alys really did haunt Lockwood Hall. I didn’t actively believe in ghosts, but I didn’t definitively discount the notion of a wandering spirit either. Nearly every world religion subscribed to some sort of afterlife, teaching that the soul lives on long after the death of the body. It wasn’t really a stretch to imagine that a soul might return to the place it had died, or possibly the place where it had been happy, unable to move on. Perhaps Lisa was right, and the phenomenon was nothing more than a shifting shadow or a reflection of billowing fabric, but it could be something more. I had certainly felt something otherworldly last night, but it could just as easily have been the result of my overwrought imagination.
I’d always been blessed with an active imagination, and even now, in my mind’s eye, I could picture the tower with its rusted bell, my inward gaze traveling down the length of the glistening, slime-covered stone to the church porch, the rotting wooden door open to reveal a watery interior. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the wooden pews lining a stone nave and the altar positioned beneath an arched stained-glass window, the frame now empty, bits of colored glass shining dully in the silt beneath. The Church would have removed anything of value before the building was flooded, but I could still envision a heavy cross standing on a snow-white altar cloth embroidered with flowers and vines by some loving hand, and gleaming plaques commemorating villagers who had died in both world wars.
And Alys. I knew nothing of the woman who had lost her life in such a barbaric way only a few feet from where I sat. She might have been young or old, beautiful or showing the ravages of poverty and age, but I knew one thing—she was probably innocent. While I could bring myself to believe in a restless spirit, I could never embrace the idea of witchcraft. What people had perceived as the dark arts had been nothing more than a knowledge of healing with herbs or an ability to see what others were too ignorant or stubborn to notice. And, of course, there had been the scapegoats. Many women had been blamed for a sudden death or a bad harvest, inclement weather or an outbreak of hostilities. The witches had been nothing more than a human sacrifice to appease whoever needed appeasing, whether a superstitious monarch or bloodthirsty populace.
Now that I had a starting point, my mind was abuzz with ideas and questions. Finishing my coffee, I went up to my room, where I sat at the desk and turned on my laptop, ready to do some research. I typed in “Alys” and “Ashcombe Village.” There were numerous hits relating to the flooding of the village, but nothing about anyone named Alys came up. Perhaps this was some obscure local tale, or maybe Brittany had just been trying to scare me, annoyed we’d interrupted her sneaky fag.
In any case, I didn’t need facts. I could make up a story of my own. I was a writer, after all, but I was used to writing nonfiction and would prefer to stick to the facts, using them as bones for the story. I didn’t think
