Clawed hands tried to scratch the psychic's face, but Lili pulled back in time and the widow's brittle fingernails scrabbled in the air before falling and raking Lili's blouse. Lili screamed but the malevolent entity that had appropriated the widow's body did not have the power to make it rise from the tabletop. Instead it lay collapsed on the table, where it twitched and writhed as though in seizure.
When she had screamed, Lili had jumped to her feet, knocking her chair over. Hands to her mouth, she could only stare down at the jerking body on the table as Marion's shrieks died, her borrowed power spent, her curses becoming murmurs and finally dying away altogether.
The poor widow woman was left in a state of shock, although she wasn't aware of what had taken place, only that she was very, very frightened. As was Lili.
She had helped Ada sit back in her chair and quickly brought a glass of water from the kitchen for her to sip. But Ada remained trembling for a long while after and Lili was afraid to leave her alone like that, even though she herself was desperate to get out of the room and away from the bungalow lest the transfiguration recur. She had stayed with the suddenly frail, weeping woman for as long as it took to settle her, to reassure her that nothing like it was going to happen again (a reassurance that lacked conviction).
Lili had told Ada that she had been momentarily possessed by a rogue spirit, an evil one that sometimes came through unbidden. The psychic hadn't explained about her ex-lover's dead wife whose soul, tormented by jealousy and reprisal, had somehow reached out from the dimension in which she now existed to hurt the person she still believed had wronged her.
Unsurprisingly, Ada Clavelly had not wanted to see Lili again; as for Lili, she vowed never again to make herself vulnerable to unearthly forces. Since that evening she had endeavoured to block her psychic sensing and refused to contact the dead any more. Nevertheless, she was still susceptible to psychic vibrations, even though she did her best to ignore them.
That had been eighteen months ago and her resolve remained firm. She had tried to help Eve Caleigh because the poor woman was desperate and had pleaded with her. It had not turned out that way: something evil had manifested itself through Lili and she couldn't let it happen again.
But now, on this Friday night, alone in her flat, she was aware of metaphysical disturbances around her, as if there was a riving beginning in the thin dividing fabric between life and death. Somehow she knew Crickley Hall was at its centre.
She gave a little start and almost spilt her wine as the wind outside threw rain at the windowpanes. Lili shivered, but it was because of an inner coldness and had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
Her hand shaking, she lifted the glass and sipped more wine.
58: MORE MEMORIES
Maurice Stafford, now a man—an old man of more than seventy years who looked and felt much younger—glanced around the room. The inn was filling up despite the storm raging outside. People looked forward to their end-of-week tipple. For some it might be the only social evening of the weekend. Dreary little lives, sad little people. If only they knew the pleasure that comes from fulfilling a duty. He had been looking forward to it for a long, long time, but circumstances had never been right. This night they could not be better.
He drank more brandy and wondered whether to finish it in one big swallow. No, make it last. He had plenty of time, but didn't want to refresh his glass. He wanted to keep a clear head. Too soon to go to the house, though, so take your time with the Hennessy.
Despite the hubbub around him—the telling of stale jokes, the laughter, the complaints and warnings about the inclement weather—Maurice ignored it all.
He easily slipped back into his reverie.
•
Now Maurice had learned that inflicting pain was so agreeable it thickened the penis (Magda had told him the proper word for his willy or wee-wee thing all those years ago when he shared her bed, although she had emphasized it was a bad word, a dirty word), he was willing and eager to enjoy the experience again. And he soon discovered that the beating was not the only aberration (this particular word one that he learned later—many years later) of Augustus Theophilus Cribben's, in his quest for absolution, for not only did he need his soul to be cleansed by pain but he also wanted the vessel in which his soul resided to be cleansed.
On several occasions, Maurice was charged with the task of scouring Cribben's body from tip to toe, using a strong carbolic soap and a stiff-haired brush of the type used for scrubbing floors. Cribben would stand in three inches of water (the same amount he allowed the children) in the bath and Maurice would start with his face and wiry hair.
'Harder!' the guardian would demand of the boy in a voice that was almost guttural. 'Purge my wicked flesh, boy, drive out the impurities.'
And as with the flogging, Cribben's penis would engorge until it stood fully erect. Maurice scrubbed hard as he was bidden, grimacing with the effort, and Cribben's skin turned blotchy red and raw. How his guardian stood the rough scrubbing of brush and harsh soap, the boy could only wonder. Eventually Cribben's neck and back would arch, his arms rise to shoulder height, and he would stare at the bright light in the ceiling, his eyes wide and glazed as if hypnotized, his mouth stretched open, yellowed teeth laid bare, and Maurice would scrub even harder, aware of the pain he was causing, Cribben's chest, his legs, his groin, livid with the scraping, scored by the hard bristles of the brush.
Finally, the purged man would all but collapse, his hands grabbing the edge of the bath as he bent down, legs almost giving way beneath him, hissing at Maurice to cease, to give him respite, his body chastened, his sins absolved.
In later years, Maurice was also to wonder that Augustus Cribben had never once molested him during a session either of scourging or scouring, even though Cribben was clearly aroused (did he never notice that Maurice was aroused too?). Magda, on the other hand, was a different matter.
He had found her waiting for him outside the bathroom door as usual after the scrubbing of her brother and this time there was a peculiar lustre to her usually cold eyes. After he'd closed the bathroom door behind him, leaving the naked man alone to continue his now-gibbering prayers, she had beckoned Maurice to follow. Cribben's sister led the boy along the dingy landing to her bedroom, where she had drawn him in by tugging at his shirtsleeve. She brought him to her bed and, still wordlessly, she lay him down on it. She turned off the bedside lamp and he heard her undressing in the darkness.
If Magda was disappointed with her young lover—he may have been big and mature for his age, but he was only twelve years old!—she didn't reveal it. Instead, she told him to pray with her and beg the Lord's forgiveness for the mortal sin they committed, only they must do it quietly so that they wouldn't be heard by her brother should he pass by her door during his nocturnal prowling. An hour later, after many repeated acts of contrition, Maurice was allowed to leave and sneak up to the dormitory.
Next day, Magda was her usual cold, stone-faced self, although she treated him with less severity than the other boys and girls. Augustus Cribben also regarded Maurice with less asperity, never once using the cane on him nor punishing him in any other way—not that Maurice ever did anything to occasion the guardian's displeasure. In a way, he had become part of Crickley Hall's ruling triumvirate, although his own power was limited to informing on the other orphans and keeping them in order whenever Cribben or Magda were busy in other parts of the house.