The Corpsewood

3. The Impaled Body

October 16th 1887

With the nights marshalling in so swiftly here and the frost beginning to creep up the window panes, I cannot help but feel drawn back to those Christmas Eves around the fireplace when my father would tell me and my sisters ghost stories. He reserved his best ones specifically for that night. I don't think I ever told you my favourites, but the first he called The Mufflered Man, and the second was a story passed down from his own father called The Voice. One day I will tell them to you, but for now it seems I have a third that might rival my father's own storytelling, were he still alive.

I wrote last time about my experience in Wistman's Wood and decided that pursuing the local lore might be a worthwhile idea. I woke late again – my love, do remind me to leave my pocket watch with the clocksmith when I return – and found my breakfast once again left outside my door. I still have not seen any cooks, maids, or even the owner. My only real acquaintance here so far as been Edmund, the driver, who sorted my suitcase and key.

I have not heard any other guests, either. No snoring, no chattering, no creaks in the floorboards. Not so much smelt the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke besides my own. It could be that I am the only guest. It is out of season, after all, and had the Wych Elm not been the last available inn at this time of year my next choice of lodging might have meant me encroaching on the nearest family farm. But I can't help but remark to myself now and again that this little inn on the hill is strange. Strange in its mysterious workings, its ghost staff, and how it seems time does not pass here the same way it does in London. And yet, in my total isolation, there is a presence I cannot shake. When I stood once again at my window to gaze out upon the moors, watching as the long shadows of morning revolved around those curious standing stones, I noticed an odd hue to the air. It was the tinge of gold one might associate with a snowstorm, and the surrounding atmosphere seemed lethargic with it.

For the first time since my arrival I took the opportunity to hunt down some reading material on the place. I did not find much – only an old, paperback travel brochure broadly covering the whole of the Dartmoor area – but it at least described Wistman's Wood in a mite more detail than the corner paragraph of the South-West Holidays pamphlet I had brought with me from London.

My dear, what I read in that old brochure chilled me. It was as if I was a young boy again sat before my father around the fireplace, listening to ghost stories on Christmas Eve. Even the strange gold glow did not seem so out of place as I absorbed the words on those pages. Just know that I am not the first to feel unease around those standing stones out on the moors.

Nor was Hallenbeck the first victim to be found impaled high on a tree limb.

I did not read further. Not because I couldn't stomach the tale, but because with each line I read aloud the more I sensed 'others' listening; edging closer to me in every direction as if I stood in a crowd only I could not see. I cannot say I fancied staying in the inn any longer than I must. And if nothing else, I must find somebody to speak to.

I shall continue on in time. I promised Emory I would find out who killed Hallenbeck and why. I ask myself daily: who could be so strong as to toss a full-grown man up into the boughs? What manner of supernatural force must it have taken to impale a person from stomach to spine on the blunt limbs of an ancient tree? I did not see the carnage for myself, my dear, and at first I took Emory's words as mere drunken fancy. I have seen how his hand shakes when he holds a scalpel, though he thinks me no wiser. But the more I piece together this place and feel its energy as he did, the more I understood why Hallenbeck wrote in his letters how he grew both so afraid and attracted to the place that he could neither face leaving it nor staying another night.

I must find another person out here. A maid... anybody. I must know more about the wood and the stones, and, more importantly, why curious wanderers seldom return. Might it be my own awareness that frightens me? Might it be there is no spiritual presence here after all and my own loneliness encumbers me, whispering uncertainties in my ear? I hope it is so, my dearest, but in truth it is not the kind of company I wish to acquaint myself with.

Come morning I will rise before the sun and wait for the maid who delivers my breakfast. I need to speak with her. How am I to pursue Haas' and Hallenbeck's deaths in the woods when there is a fair chance I may not return this time too?

It is going to be a long night.

Yours, with love.