The Ghostly Past

Chapter 16

She'd started to understand what everyone was referring to when they mentioned a cycle. It seemed like the same events happened over and over again in the village's history, though the timings between them made no sense. Sometimes it was fifteen years, sometimes twenty seven, other times even forty and fifty years between them.

It was always the same though. The village council would declare emergency measures for after dark. There would be one or two deaths, often cited to exposure, usually of travellers or people passing through rather than residents. Then there would be the sad news of several deaths, one of which was often a suicide. Then the curfew would lift.

Clara still didn't understand the cause, but the ghosts would come and the cycle would start. Sometimes it was only weeks from start to finish. Others it was months and in one case, she'd seen it take several years. That one was in 1864, yet it took until 1866 for the curfew to lift.

She wondered why that one was different. Then she took another long look at the names of the deceased: Thomas Vella, Leonard Carew and Amelia Woodstock. Amelia...she had killed herself.

Could it be them?

She doubted any details would be in the newsletters after a brief glimpse at their contents. So she started chasing the national newspapers, which thankfully were digitised to a degree. There was an article that caught her attention.

'Tragedy in Sleepy Village' was the unimaginative headline.

'The village of Gloomsdale has been rocked by a tragedy involving several of its children. The details are still unclear, and the residents unwilling to talk but it seems two of the sons of the town's leading families were fighting with another, one Samuel Young. Two of the boys, Thomas Vella, and Leonard Carew, now lie dead from knife wounds. A young girl, who was resident in the Vella household, Amelia Woodstock, shortly afterward took her own life. A tragic and ungodly waste of such young potential. What will be done to the perpetrators of such crimes, this writer does not know, and the residents of Gloomsdale are keeping their lips firmly closed.'

She scowled. It wasn't helpful. There were no details to help her understand what had happened and why. And where was Eve, the little girl's ghost who had touched her hand in the darkness? She must have died around the same age as Amelia and the boys but there was no mention of her in the book and in the newspaper.

She sighed, rising from her chair and stretching. The curse must be very old, Clara mused. She thought of the style of dress of the man who had been watching tennis in the memory he shared with her. She was no expert but it was centuries earlier than any of the books or newspapers she had read thus far.

Strolling around the darkened room, she paused before one of the glass cabinets. Inside were several colossal volumes, each significantly older than the last. 'Family Histories' they were marked. Locked, she noted, trying to open the door, the glass rattling.

She loaded up the computer, watching it hum to life. She noticed a load of digitised of files on it the day before, as though they were trying to steadily modernise the ancient collection. Sure enough, there were hundreds upon hundreds of image files in a folder marked Family Trees.

It was a minefield, Clara realised after looking through the first couple. The families were so intertwined, and the history stretched back so far that there were thousands of names to look through.

Groaning, she looked in disbelief at the time in the corner of the screen. It was after six. She'd spent all day searching the newspapers. It was no wonder her stomach was growling. Using a USB drive, she took a copy of the family trees and packed up her laptop.