The Hidden Sanctuary Part 3
Drawing her casket of powered herbs from her coat Agatha stepped from the shadows of the old grey stone hospital. In the distance she heard the dull sound of the Town clock strike midnight.
It was time.
Time to dress the wounds of the deer; time to show the good doctor the consequences of what Mabel had done.
She sighed. What a shame she had to obliterate the good doctor in order to destroy Mabel. She would miss his friendship, and the white powdery contents of his leather pouch. But there was no room in their acquaintance for Mabel. Mabel was evil. She feasted on the terror that seeped from the bloodstained bricks walls of the room. It energised her. Gave her powers far beyond what the doctor could control. The room was where she had the most influence over him.
Agatha smirked. She deserved to die. It was fitting she should be wiped out in the place where she got her power.
And then there was the Game Keeper, Agatha mused. He would help her with Mabel’s demise. She’d watched him searched the thicket and dense undergrowth looking for his beloved deer. She had left him a trail of the deer’s blood that would lead him to the doctor’s sanctuary.
Agatha glanced at the moonless sky black as death. Hallow Eve. Soon the dead souls from the otherworld who had been sacrificed in the interest of advancing medicine at the old fever hospital would fill the roads and lanes leading to the Glen baying for their body parts to be returned to them.
Why had the good doctor seen fit to carry on the work of his father and grandfather?
She sighed. She must attend to the needs of the deer without delay. She may already have left it too late. Silently she entered the room through one of the secret passages. She removed the light bulb. The dead had no use of light.
Placing the deer in a prone position she circled him three times sprinkling the herbs on his ravaged headless body. Like snakes in grass the deer’s innards quivered to life on the bloodstained floor and slowly slithered back into the dismembered body.
Now for its limbs, she thought.
The small hairs on the back of her neck rose up and stiffened. She was no longer alone. She had company.
She lit a lone candle and watched its feeble flame flicker over the emerging skulls of the dead on the bare brick. The mouths were open in a scream but silent – for now. Soon, when they had all assembled, the whispering would start. Soft murmurs at first, hesitant, still afraid, remembering the agony and the pain; the slow deaths they’d suffered in that room. Then the sound would intensify until their shrieks for revenge ricocheted around the sanctuary loud enough to drive a sane man like Doctor Kelvin mad.
The night wore on. The air cooled. Agatha sensed the spirits’ chilly breath on her, urging her on. “No time wasting,” they seemed to say. “Dawn is coming and so is the doctor.”
She sprinkled a little more of the powder on the deer’s severed limbs. The dismembered legs stirred but remained lifeless on the doctor’s slab.
Agatha sighed in frustration. She should have taken less of the white powder in the doctor’s pouch and paid more attention to the potency of her herbs as she prepared them. The games keeper would have no use for a legless, headless deer. He would not help her with Mabel. She sprinkled the powder on the limbs again. Little fleshy bubbles appeared. But still they did not move.
Growing increasingly anxious Agatha searched around for the deer’s head. Holding the flickering candle high she scanned the room. Its antlers hung as if showcased on the wall above the peg that held the doctor’s white lab coat. The deer’s dead glassy eyes stared down at her.
Agatha startled. For a brief moment it looked as if the doctor’s head above the neck of the white lab coat had been replaced by the deer’s.
“Very funny, Mabel,” she said grimly.” You have had your little bit of fun, spooking the good doctor.” But you don’t spook me. I’ve walked these rooms before you entered Kelvin’s mind. And I’ll do so again after I destroy you, “she muttered snatching the deer’s head and ramming it back on to the severed neck arteries. The head wobbled precariously. Agatha sprinkled more powder and watched as the severed head firmed up.
As the first light of dawn slipped like icy fingers around the edges of the blackened out window. The deer showed signs of life. The dead flies freed from their prison of paint began to buzz around the room looking for an escape route.
Agatha felt a sense of euphoria sweep over her. At last, Doctor’s Kelvin’s sanctuary was experiencing life, not death.
Her jubilation was short lived. The growing agitation of the skulls on the wall warned her someone was coming. She stilled. Would it be Mabel or the Game Keeper? She had used the last of her concoction of roots and herbs. She hoped it was the Game keeper. Her defences against Mabel were used up. Fleetingly, she considered abandoning the task she had set herself – to get rid of Mabel.
She shook her head. The stage was set. The dead souls who shared the room with her were depending on her. Moreover, she was determined to avenge her own mother’s untimely death.
She’d stay and face Mabel.
Doctor Kelvin arrived first. The spirit faces shrank into the cracks in the walls and hid themselves from the scrutiny of his gaze.
The candle flickered and died. Agatha knew Mabel was near.
Doctor Kelvin replaced the bulb and turned around. He stared as if puzzled by the presence of the deer and then turned his attention to Agatha. “How did you get in here? I have the only key,” he muttered reaching for his lab coat hanging on the peg.
Agatha shivered. Doctor Kevlin was present. But she could see in his eyes Mabel was much nearer than anticipated.
“You are wrong, Doctor. Yours is not the only key. But I have no need of keys. I was born in this very room.” She shivered, sensing she was in imminent danger. The good doctor’s features were becoming twisted and ugly.
Mabel was emerging fast.
Agatha felt her strength begin to drain away. She hoped the Game Keeper had found her bloodied trail. Without a moon he might have missed it.
Doctor Kelvin forced Mabel back. He had given in to her demands and had agreed to help her quieten Agatha’s tongue – but not yet. Not before he found out what she knew. She was a simple creature. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get her to confide in him. He felt the pouch with its white power nestle in his pocket. Agatha, like his old grandfather was superstitious and partial to a little mood altering substance.
“You fool,” Mable hissed. “She knows everything. She is putting years of valuable research at risk. Give her to me…”
Kelvin shook his head mutinously.
Mabel modulated her voice. “Dear Kelvin, I know you’re mad at me about the deer. But I was thinking only of you; providing you with a subject. Now, you have a far superior subject. She is perfect. Let me…”
Agatha surreptitiously watched the good doctor fight the demon inside him. Mabel was winning the battle of the personalities. She had to find a way to stall her coming out before the Game Keeper got here. She needed to draw the doctor’s attention away from Mabel to her.
“Did you ever wonder what brought me to these parts,” she asked.
Doctor Kelvin shook his head. This was good. She was prepared to talk.
“I was born in this room on Hallow Eve. And just like tonight there was no moon,” Agatha said almost to herself.
Her skin prickled. Even now, all these years later, she could remember the blast of cold air on her skin as she was wrenched from her mother’s body and thrown on to the cold examining slab.
There had been a deer in the room that night too,” she mused. It had picked her up and ran through the Glen with her.
“Your father buried my mother’s butchered body,” she said.
Mabel growled deep in her throat and shrieked to be allowed to come out.
“I use the term ‘born’ advisedly,” Agatha said, playing for time.” Your father forced me into the world early to see if I would survive.” A tremor escaped her.” I did.”
The doctor blanched. “Why did you come back here? What do you want?”
“I want to find the bones of my dead mother and give her a proper burial. The deer know where she is buried.”
The doctor shivered. She had forced him to release Mabel. His eyes riveted on the glowing eyes and twitching antlers of the deer. He couldn’t allow her or the deer to find the pit of dead bodies.
Outside the window there was what sounded like a woman wailing. “The banshee,” Agatha said.
Doctor Kevlin slumped as Mabel forced her way through. When he spoke Mabel’s voice soft and syrupy came out. “Your mother was the old doctor’s research. It proved very useful. Now doctors know premature babies can live.” She smiled maliciously.” You shall be my project. But you shall not live. This room, the room you were born in will become your death room.”
Through her rising terror Agatha felt a new presence enter the room. The presence she had come back to the Glen to find. The presence of a mother she had known only briefly.
“Mother,” she breathed.
“Daughter,” her mother responded as the door to the room slammed hard against the wall and the game keeper rushed in.
Agatha cast her eye on the deer. “Now, now,” she breathed. “Save yourself and kill Mabel.”
The day was bright as Agatha pocketed the key to the room and the remains of the doctor’s pouch. Neither the good doctor nor Mabel would need it now.
A year passed. Agatha walked through the Glen picking her herbs and roots. “It’s a fine autumn day for the walking,” the Game Keeper observed as he watched his beloved deer grazing gracefully.
Agatha nodded her assent. It was a good day to be alive.
The Game Keeper fell into step beside her “Never did get my head around how my deer got into that room,” he mused as they passed the old hospital. “Or, how it charged the good doctor and killed him.” He glanced at her. “I’ve heard it said the old hospital is haunted. And on a night like this, Hallow Eve, the souls of the dead return to the old place. Some even rsay that you can hear the good doctor talking to a woman…”
Agatha smiled and withdrew the leather pouch from the folds of her long skirt. “I hope you’re right. I’ve staked my reputation on it.” She paused. “Some locals are coming for a Hallowe’en party in the good doctor’s sanctuary, later. Why don’t you join us,” she said. “It promises to be an interesting night.”
The Game Keeper took the finger of white powder she proffered and thoughtfully traced the jagged scar that runs from ear to ear on the deer’s throat.
“I think I’ll pass, “he said under his breath.
Gemma Hill 2017 ©
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