Where is my pewter-type drinking flask engraved with bats that I drink from only once a year on Halloween? It is in London and I am here and that is unbearably annoying. I also have a bottle of 'Chateau du Diable' bought weeks ago for the same ritual, now losing its significance. In fact I am obviously not even going to open it. One of my favourite nights of the year and I have managed to miscalculate so horribly that I am in this creepy old house all alone.

There are several reasons why this is not good. Firstly, this is an unbelievably isolated and spooky place to be at night; you can't see a single light from the windows and you can see a really long way. Secondly, the view down the valley is exactly like the start of a horror film with black branches rising out of strands of mist, lit by, tonight, a moon shaped identically to one on a witch's hat. And... ludicrously .... TWO kinds of owl are screeching around just outside. I suppose that's reassuring as any prowling zombies would have scared them off. Speaking of which - apparently the farmer who sold us the house was a werewolf. Of course, the first time we were told that we laughed, nervously, but then it came up several times and the Master of the local hunt said arranging the calendar was difficult, what with having to avoid meeting here round the full moon. I think some people do have 'moon sensitivity' to do with pressure on the brain from gravitational pull or something. The farmer probably just had major mood swings and got aggressive and forgetful (I hope) although I often imagine him making his way back here and 'roaming' at that time of the month. Or even tonight!!

Thirdly, some time ago my son and I got deeply into witchy stuff. I had been keenly interested in my youth and had piles of dusty magic textbooks, some quite rare, in a forgotten bookcase. For a year or so we celebrated the witch festivals with great attention to detail, especially food - but without the nude dancing. One Halloween, after a feast of pumpkin soup, ravioli, pie etc., several of us went out to the strange abandoned stone quarry on our land, where the deer sleep, and lit a votive fire, drank Chateau du Diable and I read from my most authentic source the incantation to invoke the Devil. Obviously I am not totally insane and also spend much time here on my own - ideally Devil-free - so I cunningly left out one line of the, rather long, spell. And it worked. Oh no, the Devil did not appear. What a let down. But afterwards I couldn't help wondering if that one line was enough. Perhaps he did appear - BUT IN ANOTHER FORM. And perhaps - HE IS STILL HERE. Especially tonight!!

Fourthly, this house is a combination of several buildings of different ages joined together. There is a low cottage where the herdsman lived, then a solid middle house for the farmer and a high-ceilinged Georgian wing, where the local grand family had dumped a rather disappointing, unmarried younger son. So hopeless and disappointing that he finally hanged himself. I have thought about this a lot and the two obvious places are the bannisters, (Oh please), or my bedroom, where there was a large solid beam and a large solid hook. Right above what is now my bed. After he died that end of the house was sealed off and allowed to rot, it was used as a grain store until we bought the farm a hundred years later. Not a cheerful thought - tonight!!

Fifthly, and lastly. As most of the house was a ruin we had to do massive building work and the site manager turned out to know the place well as his parents were friends of the werewolf farmer. In fact, when he was small he had spent many Sundays having tea here and while his mother chatted he had often played in the abandoned wing. 'Funny that I should be back here', he said, 'As I have always had a horror of this place'. 'WTF do you mean', we said. Apparently his childhood was blighted by a recurring, screaming nightmare that he was playing in the farmyard and a huge white bull had leapt from the dark upstairs window of - Yes, my now bedroom - and had trampled him to death. Right. One afternoon, as dusk was falling, he was the last man on site. The ruined wing had been stripped out and had nothing left but huge beams crossing at each floor level, joined by ladders. He was at attic height. 70 ft. above the ground and took one step out onto a beam to reach a rope. A bat flew out, right into his face and his balance wavered. Okay, he didn't fall off, but he said it was the nearest to death he had ever been and that, in a way he almost relaxed into it, because he had always thought that this is where he would die.

A year later the children had a big 'rave' party and some of the boys used what would become my bedroom as a sort of dormitory. The first people to sleep there for a hundred years. In the morning I asked if they had slept all right and they said, 'Yes'. except for one boy, who said, ' Not really, as I had this horrible nightmare. I was suffocating because I was being trampled to death by a huge white bull.'

How spooky is that? And absolutely true. I wish I hadn't remembered it, tonight!!
- posted by Iris @ 10/31/2003 10:41:00 PM comment