Haunted by Love

The ground changes underfoot. It becomes soft, a layer of water over soft, cloying mud. Thinking it is a puddle I manage a half step, half jump forward but as my right foot lands, there is more mud... just soft, bitterly cold, liquid mud into which my leg plunges. I scream in panic and fear, desperately throwing my weight to the left, terrified of disappearing into the bog that is swallowing my leg. I land heavily with a splash but, mercifully, do not sink, not instantly anyway, although the ground is oozing beneath me, flowing sickeningly into my clothes.

I reach out, grasping and pulling at whatever I can touch, anything to stop my sinking, to help me escape. I catch hold of something, reeds I think, and haul. I realise that I've lost my phone, dropped into the mire, but I don't care just as long as I can survive. I think it's working but the reeds start to pull out. I flail out and snag something thorny and sharp. I force myself not to let go but pull harder, despite the pain as the palm of my hand is lacerated.

There are agonising eternal moments as the pull of the mud is balanced by the strength of my arm. I recall the... the thing, the shadow, and the fear of it fires my muscles. Slowly at first and then suddenly, my legs slither free. I drag myself and then crawl as the ground becomes firmer. Still panting I manage to get back on my feet. I have no idea where my car is. It is irrelevant because all that matters is the fear. Stumbling and shivering with panic and cold I blunder on. I hear whimpering, moaning sounds and it takes a few moments before I understand that the sounds are mine.

I am lost; where I am and what I am an impossible mystery. Who am I? What am I? All that I have is the terror of what I'm fleeing and an aching sense of loss for something I cannot recall. My body is numb but at least the shivers have stopped.

Something... there... some glimmer lies ahead, through the swaying, stunted trees. It might be a figure, faintly glowing as if carrying a light, a lantern or torch perhaps, moving. I have no idea who it might be out on a night like this; all that matters is that it is no terrifying shadow. I try to call out but my voice is a feeble noise in the wind and rain lashed dark. I struggle on, desperate not to lose this person.

I stumble, putting my arms out as I pitch forwards, in mortal fear that another muddy sinkhole is lurking ready to swallow me. Thankfully, the ground is solid and I hurriedly scramble to my feet once more. However, the flitting illuminated figure is gone and I give a cry of despair. I try to hurry to where I think the figure last was but exhaustion and cold sap my strength as I push through clawing, tearing branches and then stumble on.

I look up and there, a little way ahead is a faint, rectangular glow that cries out to me as shelter, as sanctuary. There is a gate... what's a gate for? It's in the way. I stumble forwards and half climb, half fall over the wide farm gate. Lurching to my unsteady feet once more I reel drunkenly forward. I can see a soft, flickering glow through the windows of the building before me.

I almost fall against the door and bang feebly. "Please, open," I croak, "Help me..." I'm so tired... I try to bang on the door again, my strength almost entirely gone.

Suddenly the door opens a crack and I look up into a pretty face, lit by the faint glow from inside as she tucks her dark hair behind her ear. Shock crosses her face as she sees me.

"I'm here..." I sigh.

Chapter 3: Mysterious Morning

Warmth: it's nice to feel warm and dry. And safe too, especially after that weird dream of cold, wet, terror. I drift, floating between sleep and wakefulness, the occasional soft sound of rain against the window no doubt the trigger for my dreams.

The mattress below me is firm but comfortable, the covers are soft and the person, Rick obviously, snuggled against my back wonderfully warm. Something nudges my drowsing brain, a sort of 'What's wrong with this picture?' puzzled thought. My eyes open slowly and focus. I sit bolt upright, stiff muscles complaining, my right hand bandaged and sore. "Where am I?" I exclaim as I take in my surroundings. It is a large kitchen that simply has to be called a 'farmhouse kitchen'. However, it is a kitchen being worked on as I notice wires protruding from holes in the walls and ceiling and patches and lines of fresh plaster. There is also a row of modern, albeit suitably styled, kitchen cupboards being fitted along the wall under the window, with a large Belfast sink in the middle.

In front of me is an old but solid looking table with three chairs while to my left is a large, black cooking range with a pile of smouldering ash in the grate. The room is tidy and swept clean but the paintwork and walls are patchy and peeling in places. The mattress is just that: simply a mattress laid directly on the stone-flagged kitchen floor. This is nowhere that I recognise.

I turn apprehensively and beside me it isn't Rick but an attractive, dark-haired woman, opening her eyes to look at me, a nervous half-smile on her face. "You're... you were in my dream!" I gasp. If she's here and real then it wasn't a dream. She half sits, propping herself with her elbows behind her, making the covers slip from her and revealing enough to show she is topless. Now I'm really worried.

"Please, don't be afraid; you're quite safe," she tries to reassure me, my fear obviously showing. Her voice is gentle, calming and with a very slight West Country accent. "You turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night. Proper frozen you were and wetter than a fish. All you said to me was 'I'm here,' and then you fainted." She looks a little awkward. "I, er, I had to warm you up so I took your wet things off and put you into bed. I got in with you to help heat you up a bit: You were so cold you weren't even shivering and I know enough first aid to recognise hypothermia and, besides, I haven't anywhere else to sleep."

"Thank you." I can't think of what else to say, sat here in just my bra and knickers, even if it sounds like this woman may have saved my life. I can see my left hand is dirty, although my right has been washed beneath the bandage, and my hair feels matted... so my memories weren't a dream, even if I can't be sure how much was real and how much was panic-induced imagination.

"So, what were you doing out on the Moor at night? You didn't much look like you were dressed for walking."

"No, I wasn't walking... well, I was but only because my car broke down and I couldn't get a signal on my phone so I tried walking up a hill, to see if that helped."

"I bet it didn't; can't use a mobile phone around here more'n ten percent of the time. I have one but it's more use as a clock than anything, when I can charge it. So, what happened?"

"There was something..." No, I can't tell her I was chased by some evil shadow; she'll think I'm on drugs or some kind of escaped lunatic. "It was the dark and I... I guess I panicked. I fell into a bog and nearly sank. I was so scared..." My voice cracks as the terror of last night comes flooding back and I'm sobbing. I feel the woman's arms around me, warm, safe and comforting, and it helps as I strive to control my crying.

I look over her shoulder at the door to the outside, nervous as if at any moment it might fly open and the darkness from the Moor flood into the room. The door remains reassuringly firmly closed and the fear passes, as do my tears. "I'm sorry," I tell her, "I'm not normally like this and certainly not with someone I don't even know the name of." Her arms carefully release, as if she expects me to dissolve into tears again at any moment. I don't and, after her hands give my shoulders a final, reassuring squeeze, she lets me go. "I'm Bethany, by the way, Bethany Cooper."

She straightens up, raising her chin. "Good morning to you, Bethany Cooper, Programme Assistant at the BBC," she says very formally, despite the fact that the covers have fallen away and she's sitting there topless. A silver pendant glints where it hangs between the top of her breasts. "I'm Ruth Penrose and welcome to Trehalow Farm. Would you like some tea?" she adds before smiling.

"I'd love some," I reply earnestly, "but how did you know where I work?" She stands, clad only in knickers, and reaches behind me, taking a woollen jumper from the chair stood there and pulls it on. It is baggy and long, virtually a dress on her. I notice what seem to be my clothes hanging muddy, stained and dishevelled from the back of the chair; I doubt the pale jeans will ever recover.

"Well," Ruth says, as her head pops up through jumper's neck, "I suppose I ought to tell you that I come from a long line of Cornish wise-women and witches." She looks at me and makes mysterious gestures with her hands before smiling and giving a little laugh. "Or I could admit that your work pass fell out of the pocket of your jeans." She bends and picks up a couple of lumps of wood from the basket beside the range and, swinging opening the grille, carefully places the wood on the faintly glowing embers before blowing gently. A yellow tongue of flame licks up the wood and she closes the door.

I watch as she picks up a small kettle and walks over to the old fashioned sink to fill it from the brass tap before replacing it on the hob of the range, right above the fire. She moves with an easy grace that I can only envy, even more since she seems several years older than I. She is quite slim and her straight, dark hair hangs down her neck to below her shoulders. I notice she often reaches up to tuck the hair back behind one ear or the other.

She looks up and sees me watching her and bows her head. "I'll see if I can find you something to wear because your clothes are still wet; back in a moment." She leaves the room and I'm left on my own.

I take a deep breath. "Well, Beth, you didn't expect this!" I mutter. I take stock of myself and my situation. I stretch and the aches in my arms and shoulders and the pain in my bandaged hand bring back all too vividly my struggle in the muddy, sucking bog. Yes, that was definitely real. What about the dark shape that so terrified me? I don't know but I put it down to an overactive imagination in a strange and scary situation.

And what about being here now, with this woman, Ruth? She is, in all likelihood, quite literally my saviour. I have to find some way to thank her when I get myself sorted and so the first thing I need to do is to get back to my car. This, of course, presents the challenge of actually finding it; I was lost when I broke down and I'm even more lost now. "You're not going to win any prizes for fashion I'm afraid, Bethany." Ruth's voice floats through the doorway.

It's odd, but I don't feel lost; no, somehow it feels right that I should be here. I can't help giving a little chuckle and shake my head. I might work on Mystery, Myth and Murder but I've always thought all the spooky supernatural stuff was just, well, bollocks, frankly. And here I am being chased by eerie shadows across Bodmin Moor to arrive at a place where I feel I belong. "Get a grip, girl," I mutter under my breath, "or it'll be Tarot cards and Ouija boards next, and then it's a slippery slope to mystical jewellery and too many cats!" I smile to myself.

"What's so funny?" I look up as Ruth returns carrying an armful of clothes and see she has also slipped on a pair of leggings and thick socks.

"Oh, nothing really," I reply. "I was just thinking that I have never been more lost in my life and yet I don't feel lost. Does that sound weird?"

"Well, a bit, I suppose. I mean, you do know that you're not actually lost, don't you Bethany?" she asks and she drops the clothing on the bed. "There you are. Hopefully, they'll fit, more or less."

"I know you know where we are but I don't, so I feel lost. And I have no idea where my car is... and I've lost my phone, too, in that bog." My litany of complaint is interrupted by my body sending increasingly urgent signals. "Um, is there anywhere I can wash and, er, I need to use the loo."

"Oh, of course. There's no running hot water, I'm sorry to say, but the toilet and the cold tap in the cloakroom work. If you want to use that, it's just through there," she points out through the door to the hallway. "In the meantime, I'll get the bowl I use to wash ready in the sink here. Is that okay? It is a bit primitive, I'm afraid."

I return, my bladder feeling much relieved, to find a gently steaming bowl of water in the sink, with soap and a flannel beside it. She helps me wash so I don't wet the bandage on my right hand. It's not anything like a shower but at least the mud on my face, hand and arms is gone.

"Thanks so much, Ruth; this is so kind of you." I go over to the clothes on the bed and find a baggy t-shirt, jogging trousers, a hoodie and a pair of socks similar to the ones she's wearing. Ruth goes and checks the kettle and moves about while I start dressing. My aches complain but, with my bandaged hand, I'm glad that the clothes have no buttons. They're a little small and smell slightly musty but they cover me up and are warm. "How do I look?" I ask.

"Um, is there a style called 'Refugee Chic'?" she asks in reply and I shake my head. "That's a pity now because you're spot on for it."

"I do feel a bit like a refugee," I say and see a look of disappointment on Ruth's face. "But one who has found a safe place to be," I add hastily.

"Good. Right, would you like some porridge for breakfast?" she asks as I stand stiffly. I suddenly realise how hungry I am.

"Oh god, yes please!" I tell her. "Thank you so much for all this, Ruth. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Certainly: can you add some wood to the fire? Not too much, mind." I stoke the fire, carefully, as instructed, as Ruth mixes the oats and water in a saucepan that goes on the hob beside the kettle. She hands me a wooden spoon. "You can be on stirring duty," she instructs.

It takes a while but eventually the porridge is cooked and the tea made and we sit down together. I take a sip of the tea and I'm surprised by the taste, not unpleasant but, "Hmm, this tea tastes... different. Is it an unusual blend?"

"No, just ordinary tea bags; it's probably that the milk is goat's milk," she explains and I nod. "So, what does Bethany Cooper do as a Programme Assistant at the BBC and what brings her to Cornwall?"

"Okay, well I'm a researcher and, hopefully, a writer on a TV programme, Mystery, Myth and Murder..." I pause, waiting for her to nod or smile or say 'Oh wow,' but she just looks blank.

"Sorry, but I don't have a telly," she says apologetically, "what's it about?"

"Well, it does stories, sort of dramatizations I suppose, of mysteries; like reports of strange events such as sightings of ghosts, of myths and legends and of unsolved or infamous murders."

"And is that why you're here? Are you researching, what, the Beast of Bodmin?"

"I am researching but it's a ghost story, a haunting at Purdew Hall; it's now the Purdew Manor Hotel, do you know it?" She nods.

"I know of the Hotel; it's a couple of miles from here but can't say I've ever visited it. So what's the story?" she asks interestedly and I tell her, relating the story as I had at the creative meeting. She sits, elbow on the table with her chin resting on her hand and she listens intently, taking the occasional spoon of porridge or sip of tea.

"And since then at Purdew Hall people have claimed to have heard a child crying, begging for his mother, or a woman roaming the house, lost and dejected and, out on the Moor, a dark shape has been encountered, a woman fleeing or a man running and chasing. Um..." Last night comes back to me.

"What is it, Bethany? What's the matter?"

"It's... no, I'm being silly." I do not actually believe in ghosts, I tell myself.

"Was it something on the Moor last night?" she asks with disturbing insightfulness. "Come on, you can tell me..."

"Alright, there was something... something and nothing really, but it felt very real at the time. I climbed a hill beside where my car broke down to try and get a signal on my phone and there was something up there: dark shape, sort of human-like but... strange." I take a deep breath. "It was also completely, fucking terrifying!" I blurt out and I am trembling as I recall what I felt. Ruth's hands enclose mine reassuringly. "Sorry. I guess it was my overactive imagination on a dark and stormy night in a strange, unnerving situation. I'm not some mad woman, really."

"I'm sure you're not," she replies with certainty, "but don't assume it was just imagination; perhaps you really did encounter the spirit of Sir Lovell."

"Oh come on, Ruth, surely you don't believe ghosts are real... do you?" She nods.

"I didn't but I... I think this house is haunted," she admits. "People around here think it is too."

"Really? Why, have you seen something?"

"Mostly it's feelings, fear mostly but sometimes," she looks a little shy, "just a couple of times, it's been... love. There have been noises and, just once, I came into this room," she gestures towards the doorway and the hallway beyond, "and I saw a woman clad in grey bending over something pale just inside the back door over there." There is complete conviction in her voice.

"Were you scared?" I ask, fairly predictably given recent experiences.

"No, not at all, strangely; I could feel fear and sadness but, you know, they weren't mine. D'you understand me?"

"I think so... the fear and sadness belonged to the woman, the ghost. Do you know who the woman was?"

"I don't know but there are tales of a woman who lived here being found dead in 'strange circumstances'; maybe it's her." She looks at me. "Another story for your programme?" she asks.

"Perhaps. Would you want to tell your tale on TV?"

"Oh, probably not," she admits and I smile, finishing the last of my porridge.

"Thank you, that was delicious. You've been very kind to me Ruth; what can I do to thank you?"

"Can you milk a goat?"

"What?" I wonder if I heard her correctly. "Why?"

"Because Nancy and Mabel are in the shed and they need milking, obviously!" she laughs, standing and taking the bowls to the sink.

"Oh yeah, obviously. I should have known, obviously, because all my friends have goats in their sheds!" I find her laughter is infectious or perhaps, after last night, I just need to laugh.

"Well, if you want me to help with finding your car, I need to get them milked."

"Why keep goats?" I ask, "Why not just buy milk and keep it in the fridge?"

"In part because I like the taste of goats' milk but mainly it's because I don't have a fridge." I look at her in amazement. "Don't worry, 'Buy a fridge' is on my list of things to do, right after 'Get the electrics in here sorted'! In the meantime, there are Mabel and Nancy. So, are you coming?"

I watch Ruth carefully sterilize a bucket and then apprehensively follow her outside. I feel safe in the house but outside is, after last night, a scary place. The day is unexpectedly bright but cool, with a gusty breeze that keeps the high clouds moving. Ahead is Bodmin Moor, undulating and rising, grey-green, russet and brown. I give a shiver that isn't just the breeze cutting through my borrowed clothes. Ruth turns right and walks around the farmhouse, which is larger than I imagined but also more dilapidated, until I find myself in a shed that's large enough to be called a small barn and is full of the smell of, fairly obviously, goats.

She sets up and washes the goat's udder and a few minutes later I'm standing watching Ruth milking Nancy. She works with an easy confidence that makes the job look simple, though I'm pretty sure it's not. I suspect that I'll get my chance to find out shortly. "So, do I get to learn more about who Ruth Penrose is? What does she do, apart from milk goats, and what brings her to this, please excuse me, very run down farmhouse?"