Ghost Sisters

Alan and I knew they had never returned. The Abbey had been demolished for building materials and only a few traces remained above ground. Where the chantry chapel and table tomb had been? We didn't know.

Alan had done some research. Henry VIII's commissioners had been disappointed that the Abbey's book collection had been so poor, but they were satisfied with the gold and jewels they had taken. They assumed that the monks had not been as literate as they should have been.

Alan held up the loose page so it could be photographed, followed by each page of the index book.

"Kay? It says 'relics'. Did you see any?"

"No Alan, I had limited time with the breathing apparatus. I concentrated on the library. There are at least two other chambers with things in but I didn't go into them."

"OK, Kay, we will look later. Even the library will take months to extract and decades to analyse. George? We are going to be here for months. Is that OK with you?"

"I suppose so, if you are going to have a large hole in my hall I can always enter through the back door."

"And we will have to improve the security. The value to scholars is inestimable, but each book would have a value too if stolen and sold."

+++

Technically the library was mine. The National Lottery funded its purchase from me after academics had estimated its value at several million pounds. Anna and Emma's father had been wrong about it not having a monetary value. What I was paid was far less than the books would have fetched at a public auction but I was happy to be a multi-millionaire.

It was six months before the whole library had been removed and placed in climate controlled storage. Even the first book titled Adam's Fall was beautifully illustrated in bright colours. Alan and his team became famous, not just in archaeological circles but in the national press. I had several TV documentary crews visiting for days. My work was affected but so what? I no longer needed to work.

As each book was recovered it was digitised and available for academics around the world to study. I looked at Adam's Fall with the two ghosts peering at the screen over my shoulder. I enjoyed that. I had a solid breast resting on both shoulders. Emma, Anna, and I were disappointed that we couldn't read the contracted Latin but over the next few weeks a translation was gradually added. We found the book was incredibly boring.

About the twentieth book was a chronicle of events in England, written in very early English, previously unknown. Although many of the entries were about church affairs such as a new Bishop, there were records of historic events that provided a different account of occurrences recorded in previously known chronicles. The academics were excited about that. Anna and Emma soon became bored with the books and wanted more and more sex.

+++

While the library was being gradually removed the two ghost sisters, although disappointed that it was 'only' books, had decided that they wanted sex with George as often as I could manage. They were enjoying themselves but was I their partner or their victim?

Before I was paid for the library I was trying to work but the ghosts kept interrupting me. If I was sitting at my computer, one of them might come up behind me, lift their massive skirt and wrap the folds around me until I stopped working and turned around. Then they would lift the skirt and expect me to kiss their lower lips until they were satisfied. Once I had done that with one of them, the other would want it too, and it might be an hour before I could resume working.

They found a disturbing trick to play on me. If I was sitting at the kitchen table, either before eating or after I had finished, one of them would come behind me in near invisible mode, suddenly change to solid when standing behind me and throw their skirt, crinoline and petticoat over my head, pulling them down before pressing their hands through the layers of material to smother me inside the skirt.

As I struggled to breathe I could hear both Emma and Anna giggling at my futile attempts to lift the skirt off me. There was just too much material and I wasn't able to exert much force from a sitting position. It was worse if one of them found me kneeling on the floor. I would disappear inside a crinoline and the other would stand on the skirt's hem so I couldn't raise it.

One day when the three of us were sitting in front of an open fire I asked a question.

"Are you aware of any other ghosts in this house?"

"Yes," Emma replied, "But they are very faint presences compared with us. We think there are three, two men and a woman. They seem benevolent. They tried to stop us committing suicide and since our death they have been a vague comforting presence. Are you aware of them too?"

"I think so. They seem to talk to me but they speak Latin or a form of English I don't recognise."

"Then they probably are the same," Emma said. "We can't understand them either but they seem to be trying to comfort us."

"I wonder..."

"Wonder what, George?" Emma asked.

"The script in the index book mentioned relics. I wonder whether the relics are those of the ghosts?"

+++

It was another couple of months before the archaeologists could explore the other chambers in the cellar. They had to retrieve all the books using breathing apparatus and the time available before coming up for air was limited. Once all the books were in safe storage they pumped out the carbon monoxide and pumped in clean air.

Alan was the first one down. In the two chambers he found things covered in cloth. He took photos and video before he carefully removed one cloth. On a plinth was a reliquary, covered in precious stones. An inscription said that it was the remains of an English saint, the first abbot of the Abbey who had built the original Abbey, much extended since his time.

Alan and the team had a problem. As human remains it couldn't be sent to a museum. What should they do with it? Alan also found two other reliquaries -- one of a hermit and the other of a prioress of a nearby nunnery. All dated from before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

But, like the books, they were mine. I would have to make the decision about their eventual resting place.

I discussed the relics with Anna and Emma before we decided that the best place for them was probably a nearby Roman Catholic Cathedral

Alan and his experts agreed that the Cathedral was probably the best place for the relics to go.

I drove to the Cathedral and managed to speak to one of the senior priests. He would have to consult his Bishop, but in theory, the Cathedral would be very happy to accept them. Three days later I had an email from the Bishop. Yes, they would love to have them and they would be given a prominent place in the Cathedral but he wanted a formal acceptance on their transfer with a special mass.

That was arranged for two months' time, on the saint's day of the Abbot.

I felt very conspicuous as I pulled a four-wheel trolley with the three reliquaries up the central aisle of the Cathedral. Although I was wearing my best suit, I felt underdressed compared with the Bishop and assembled priests in their full regalia.

As I reached the choir steps, the organ sounded and the choir sang while I stood there feeling ridiculous. The Bishop formally thanked me for this magnificent gift before three columns, each headed by a priest, carefully picked up the reliquaries before carrying them in procession all around the whole cathedral and finally placing them on the High Altar.

I sat in the front row as the guest of honour with Alan and his team already in place for the solemn formal mass celebrating the transfer of saintly relics to the Cathedral's care. I was embarrassed by what the Bishop said about me as the donor, and even more embarrassed when the whole congregation said a prayer thanking me. What made it worse was the presence of several TV News teams recording everything.

Afterwards I had tea in the Bishop's palace and met all the priests and some of the prominent lay people from the congregation. They were all extremely grateful to me. Why? I just wanted the relics out of my house.

One of the lay people explained why they were so delighted with the relics. Their presence could bring a large increase in the number of pilgrims. Few English Catholic Cathedrals or churches had any saint's relics. They had been taken over by the Church of England in Henry VIII's time and most were destroyed in the Civil War. Three saints at once were amazing, even if they were minor and little known.

He was right. As a result of the TV coverage and articles in the Catholic newspapers, the number of people visiting the Cathedral increased by 300% in the following year and continued to grow year on year. It would never rival Lourdes but that Cathedral was THE place for English Catholics to visit. It was helped because three of the books in the reclaimed library had been hagiologies of the three saints. Translations were sold in the Cathedral's gift shop.

On each saint's day there was a special mass and my name was mentioned at each one. Each saint had a special attribute that pilgrims would seek help for. The abbot was for illnesses, particularly fevers; the hermit for loneliness, depression and general mental health; and the prioress for women's issues including pregnancy. She had been a princess and had several children before her prince was killed in a tribal war and she became a nun.

At last I could have the hall floor laid with new tiles. I could now afford to have tiles made for me, and they included portraits from the books of all three saints.

Anna and Emma and I felt that the three faint ghosts had gone with the relics.

But Anna and Emma's sexual demands kept me busy.

I was very happy with the sister ghosts and they were satisfied with me even if they needed sex more often than I did. Was I their victim, or their sexual partner? I never knew which was true.