TITLE: The Ghosts of Thurmere Hall
FANDOM: The X-Files
RATING: R
PAIRING: Mulder/Scully established
SETTING/SPOILERS: Set post-Brand X but pre-Requiem. Nothing extremely overt with regards to spoilers but there are references to the following: Squeeze, Tooms, Irresistible, Memento Mori, Redux II, Chinga, Fight the Future, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Millennium, Orison, Theef, all things, Brand X, and a slight dig at I Want to Believe.
OVERALL WORD COUNT: 35,603
DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to Chris Carter, including the loose ends and the there’s-no-way-that-possibly-fits timeline.
SUMMARY: A quiet vacation in England begins with a ghost hunt as Mulder and Scully investigate the paranormal activity at Thurmere Hall.
* * * * *
Burning the sage was a time-consuming process. Each corner, nook, and cranny had to be hit with the smoke for reasons Scully didn’t quite understand; Mulder said it had something to do with getting stale air moving, with the sickly sweet smell being so repulsive it worked as a deterrent to prevent anything going back there for a while afterwards. She periodically glanced at her watch out of habit only to be reminded that it had stopped hours ago; it was difficult to judge the time from inside a house with no clocks that worked, especially when she had no idea what time it had been when they had first stepped outside when the birds fell from the skies or even what time it had been when they had arrived at Thurmere Hall to begin with. Had her watch stopped when she set foot inside the building? Earlier, maybe, on the parking lot? She didn’t know, and the lights from the rooms made seeing outside to watch for the impending dawn nearly impossible; several times she caught sight of her own reflection instead.
On a couple of occasions they heard Susan’s steps upstairs but other than that they went about their job quietly, not wasting time with idle chatter. They were a well-oiled machine, swapping sage and matches with ease as they split to assault adjoining rooms, coming together again outside and moving on without a word passing between them.
Having cleared all the rooms along that corridor, they doubled back and aimed for the entrance hall. Mulder pulled each door shut as they went by to contain the burnt sage and to prevent it seeping out through the door leading to the courtyard (he half-suspected it to blow open in an attempt to undo all their hard work). Scully strode ahead determinedly, her mind fully focused on the task at hand. She rounded the corner and stopped dead, as though she was caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
There was a figure dressed in black robes standing in the middle of the entrance hall.
The priest raised a hand slowly, slowly, and a gnarled finger broke free of his clenched fist to point right between her eyes. A necklace dangled from his hand and for a brief moment she thought it held the eyeballs of the archaeological team that went mad - that were driven mad - and who saw the same terrifying image she now saw, but then logic kicked in and she noticed it was just a rosary, just plain old beads, even if they did remind her of the unseeing eyes of a thousand dead birds.
He began to advance, muttering under his breath. “During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.”
“Scully? Did you say some-” Mulder started as he entered the hall, stopping quickly as the priest came into view. The clergymen appeared unperturbed by Mulder’s presence; still he came forward, finger cast out, verses spewing from his mouth without reference to a Bible. The rosary swung from side to side, as captivating as a hypnodisc spiral, and the priest’s words washed over Scully and held her in place as though he was as manipulative as a snake charmer.
His form remained a constant even as the background swirled and morphed behind him, and although she couldn’t take her eyes off the clergyman her peripheral vision picked up on the change in era. The paintings became less faded, the floor smoother and shinier, and suddenly the hall was alive and filled with people on rewind. Jeans and t-shirts gave way to waistcoats and suits, and those to silk stockings, corsets, breeches, garricks. Scully was still aware of the priest heading towards her but the bodices and doublets of a bygone time captured her attention and divided her focus between the past and the present.
When time stood still again, a young woman with a black eye was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor before the fireplace. A shadow loomed behind her and Scully saw the priest - she would recognise that face anywhere - bend over to speak to the girl, who visibly stiffened and minutely shied away. The priest’s hand caressed her cheek delicately before his demeanour changed and he hit her with a closed first, the resulting crack of the woman’s head hitting the floor making Scully wince. But he didn’t stop there. Straddling the girl’s prone form, his punches rained down on her like Hell’s fury before the image faded from view and another took its place.
There was a sudden knock at the door and Scully watched as the young woman, the same one from before, face still swollen and bruised, rushed to answer it. She admitted two policemen, conversed with them for a moment (although Scully couldn’t hear what they were saying; she was watching a silent movie), and then pointed up the stairs. The men ran off and reappeared a moment later, the priest in full regalia clutched by the arms between them. He was enraged, his face red and mouth moving in what appeared to be a series of yells, and his eyes narrowed upon seeing the young woman cowering near the entrance. Wrestling with his captors, he managed to break free and dove for the girl. The light caused something to glisten in his right hand just before he reached her and slit her throat with the knife. The Red Sea flowed from her neck as the policemen pulled the hysterical priest from the body and abruptly the image cut off, bringing Scully sharply back to the here and now.
The priest was staring at her with the same look in his eyes as he had when he murdered four hundred years ago.
Oh my God he’s going to kill me
Scully tried to open her mouth to speak, to scream, but it felt like it was glued shut.
Do something just do something Mulder please help me Mulder
Ten feet away. Seven. Five.
Hail Mary full of Grace
Scully caught a whiff of sulphur seconds before the scent of sage invaded her nostrils. The priest halted immediately, breaking his gaze to glare at Mulder, who took a brave step forward with the plant held firmly between two fingers. The priest stepped back quickly, his Grim Reaper demeanour suddenly replaced with one of a frightened animal caught in a trap. Mulder could see he was panicked by this abrupt turn of events, this changeover of dominance, and pressed the issue, stalking forward like a confident predator.
The priest balked, snarling like a rabid dog before diving into the unlit fireplace and disappearing from sight. Mulder dropped what was left of the burning sage to the floor and turned his attention back to his partner.
“Scully?” he asked softly. She still looked paralysed, eyes wide and fixed on the spot where the priest had been standing. “Hey, Scully, snap out of it. He’s gone, okay? We still have work to do if you don’t want him to come back.” She didn’t respond. He hesitated before reaching up and gently cupping her cheek.
He felt her stir under his palm. “Mulder?”
“Yeah, Scully, it’s me.” He smiled reassuringly and, when it looked like she didn’t know what else to say, wrapped his arms around her tenderly. It only took seconds for her to return the gesture.
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“He had you in some kind of trance, I think. He was pointing and there was that rosary and his words…” Mulder trailed off and shook his head. “We need to burn the rest of this sage as soon as possible. I don’t even want to think about what he might do next.”
“He killed her, Mulder,” she murmured.
“Killed who?”
“This poor woman. I think she worked here. He… he hit her. Abused her. More than once, I’m led to believe. She finally called the cops and when…” She took a minute to compose herself. “When they got here they caught him but he broke free and he killed her. He had a knife; he managed to get to her throat. It was right there, Mulder, right by the door!”
He held her close again, pressing his lips to the top of her head and trying to soothe her with what he hoped were comforting tones. When he felt her shakes subside he said, “The house showed you.” She nodded against his chest. “It was fighting him with you. His hold on you was weakened because your attention was divided.”
“Weakened? It didn’t feel weak.”
Mulder grimaced. “Bad choice of words. But your eyes kept flickering to other parts of the room. I think if he’d been able to keep you looking at him, things would’ve been a lot worse.”
Scully looked around the room and asked, “Where did he go?”
“He disappeared into the fireplace.” Mulder kept an arm around her as they slowly crossed the hall to examine it further. She didn’t protest about his proximity and silent support, and he gathered what happened must have really shaken her. Asking for help came once in a blue moon; accepting it without question was a similar rare occurrence. He tried not to show it but he was worried about what the priest had done to her, and why she had been affected but he hadn’t. Was it a simple question of faith or was it something more sinister? Predators pick off the weakest first and, although he knew Scully was anything but weak, when they stood next to each other a six-foot tall man presented stronger than a petite woman on appearances alone. If they factored in weaponry and hand-to-hand combat, things might have been different.
They shuffled a bit further across the stone before coming to a stop in front of the fireplace, the staircase and the Sirloin chair to their left.
“What is it with ghosts and fireplaces in this house?” Scully muttered.
A light bulb snapped on for Mulder, a mental slap to the forehead, and he berated himself for not thinking of it sooner. “The entrance to the tunnel to the chapel was behind the fireplace in the bedroom upstairs,” he began, “and there were scorch marks on the grate. Our priest dove into this fireplace once I waved a bunch of sage at him.” He knelt down and lit a couple of leaves, throwing them into the fireplace so the smoke could drift upwards.
“You think there’s another tunnel?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. Think about it: there’s got to be plenty of room free to install a fireplace. It needs to be set back into the wall, the air needs a chimney or some kind of ventilation, at least, and then there are all the pipes. What if instead of just the one priest hole and passageway there was a network of them running all over the house?”
Scully folded her arms and eyed up the hearth in front of her. “I suppose it’s plausible. But in that case, why haven’t any been discovered before now?”
“You heard Susan: everything in here is authentic. They can’t go around knocking walls down so it’s remained hidden. Or maybe the archaeological team stumbled across one accidentally and that’s what woke our priest up and made him turn on them, and he’s been protecting his hideaway ever since through whatever means necessary. The house even tried to stop him. I think Thurmere Hall itself set the fire in the bedroom in an attempt to smoke him out but he managed to put it out in time.”
“Why even stay here if this was the place where he was captured?”
“Maybe it’s purgatory: being reminded of his so-called sins all the time can’t be a vacation. Or it’s all he knew when he was alive so he has nowhere else to go. He took care of the ‘problem’ before he was taken away so it would be safe for him to return here.”
“If by taking care of the problem you mean he killed her...”
“And the archaeological team found the bones or evidence of that.”
“Which then brought him out of hibernation. Why didn’t he do something when the rooms were converted in 1922 to be used as war memorials? And why does the house want him out now as opposed to any other time over the past couple of hundred years?”
Mulder shrugged. “I can’t speak for Thurmere Hall. The priest could be disruptive, driving away visitors or generally causing trouble. He might be gaining power through whatever means - anger at the mention of the chapel being converted - and it wants him gone now before he becomes too powerful to overthrow. And the rooms before had no significance to him, no sentimental value. But I’d be willing to bet good money on him being pissed at the idea of converting the chapel.”
He thought she would lament the lack of evidence again but surprisingly Scully remained quiet. Mulder could feel everything starting to come together, the separate strands of the spider’s web joining in the middle, and the knowledge caused a familiar surge of adrenaline to spark over his body. He couldn’t explain why he thought he was right - he just knew; maybe the house had subconsciously told him - but a mystery going back over four hundred years had been taken from the shelf and dusted off, and it was time to be laid to rest. So there was no definitive proof (when was there ever with an X-File?) and no doubt Scully would deny seeing or hearing anything suspicious once it grew light, but he knew the truth. Susan knew. The house knew.
“It was trying to catch our attention,” he murmured. “The woman in the courtyard. The noises and the shadows. The music. That wasn’t the priest; it was the house.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The woman in the courtyard was to alert Susan to another presence in the house. When we arrived, a light appeared upstairs and that shadow passed across the window. We heard the footsteps and then the bulb smashed or exploded or whatever other verb you feel is appropriate. The ghost did that; everything before was the house trying to alert us to that room because it knew that’s where the tunnel was. And then not long ago there was the crying and the moaning, again in that room.”
“The house trying again,” Scully said slowly.
Mulder nodded eagerly and started to pace up and down, gesturing with his hands. “But it cut off and I got the distinct impression someone was watching me.” So that’s why he’d been temporarily out of it. “The house is all-encompassing but the priest can only be in one place at once. When he found out what the house was doing he had to rush over from the chapel or wherever he was hiding to stop it.”
“Why us? Why hasn’t anyone noticed all this before?”
“Susan said there aren’t that many visitors, especially in winter. Those who did show up might have thought it was all part of the experience, like the recording of the baby crying, or maybe the house only comes alive at night and nobody’s here to witness any of it.”
“The magic of the night?” Scully raised an eyebrow. “That’s just a tad too clichéd, Mulder.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah, maybe. But who knows, Scully? Before tonight you would’ve denied that ghosts exist.” He sauntered towards the corridor at the foot of the staircase before she could reply, tossing a “You coming?” over his shoulder.
She scowled at his back as she followed.
* * * * *
A short time later they had covered the entire ground floor between them. It was now enveloped in a nauseating haze that made the place smell like a drugs den with skunks living there for good measure. Their noses had grown so accustomed to the stench, having been surrounded by it for so long, it barely even registered anymore. Susan looked flustered but equally unaffected when they met up with her near the top of the stairs.
“There’s only this side of the corridor to do now,” she explained, a little out of breath. “I think I managed the rest.”
“Good job,” Mulder congratulated her. “And you left the bedroom alone?”
She nodded and lowered her voice. “Should he be in there now?”
“I think he could be but he showed up downstairs earlier.”
“Wh-what? I thought you said the house had control and that he could only go in certain places!”
“Mulder believes there to be a network of tunnels running all over the house and originating near fireplaces,” Scully cut in. “If that’s the case, it’s likely the priest would have been able to get into most rooms when he was living. He feels more attached to certain ones - the chapel, for obvious reasons, the bedroom - because they were just for him. The others were more communal and he couldn’t be in there often because of guests and the high risk of being caught.”
“We need to burn sage in all the fireplaces,” Mulder added.
To her credit, Susan only appeared crestfallen for a few seconds. “There aren’t that many up here. It’s mainly the other couple of bedrooms.”
“I’ll do it,” Mulder offered. “Just give me directions. You can be hitting this corridor while I’m gone.”
Susan began to tell him where to go and Scully’s mind wandered along with the oral map. Turn right here, take the next left, follow the corridor round until you see a painting of a woman in a red dress and it’s the door to the left of that as well as the one directly opposite. It sounded so grand, this journey of sweeping hallways and dozens of rooms with portraits lining the walls like sentries. She would have liked to explore under normal circumstances (or whatever constituted normal anymore), to soak up the atmosphere of an era long gone and almost lost. Both culture and free time in which to enjoy it seemed evasive; Maine, at least, had proven to be nothing like a vacation at all. And England was shaping up to be the same. She just hoped Mulder had forgotten about Pendle Hill.
He pressed a bunch of sage into her hand before he jogged away, promising to meet them outside the bedroom door as soon as he was done.
“Shall we get started?” Susan asked.
“Let’s get it over with. You wouldn’t happen to know the correct time, would you?”
Scully was on the receiving end of a rueful smile. “Clocks don’t work here.”
As if to emphasise her point, the grandfather clock skulking in the corner of the first room they entered did not raise a hand in greeting; it seemed destined to droop at five-thirty forever. Instead of standing proud, it was as if the furniture was slumped in defeat. Running a hand delicately over the top of a hard-backed chair, Scully allowed herself a short minute to mourn alongside them. Footsteps belonging to intelligent and well-cultured people should grace these floors, eyes feasting on a snapshot of history, yet this was a window display far away from Fifth Avenue, trapped behind a locked door in a house few dared to enter.
“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Susan said as she flicked the lighter and a piece of sage began to burn.
“Excuse me?”
“This place. It’s beautiful, really, but being out here in the middle of nowhere and the stories people tell don’t exactly make for a good reputation.”
Scully smiled wistfully. “Unfortunately reputation means a lot.”
“Tell me about it. I wish people would just give Thurmere Hall a chance. I bet most of the citizens of Charnley haven’t been and it’s not that far away. I know I’m biased because I’m a historian and I work here but it’s an amazing building, so magnificently restored and in excellent condition. There’s so much to learn just by coming here; it’s like you can feel the history coming off the brickwork in waves.”
“When we see the back of the priest then maybe more visitors will start to come,” Scully suggested reassuringly. “His presence could have been a subconscious deterrent for some time.”
Susan’s expression brightened. “I hope you’re right. It would be nice to have some interest in the place again.” There was a semi-awkward silence before she said, “Oh, I am sorry. Here, take this.” She pressed the lighter into Scully’s palm. “You could be starting next door while I’m in here.”
The corridor wasn’t overly long and they were split between the final two rooms when they heard Mulder’s footsteps drawing closer. He waited in the hallway until the sage became too diminished to hold and it was reduced to barely-glowing embers on the floors. Nodding briefly to both women, he led the way to the bedroom, his strides long and confident. The silence was oppressive and there was something in the air, lurking beneath the pungent aroma of sage, that felt both supportive and menacing in the same instant. It only increased as they neared the bedroom door.
“If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, get the hell out,” Mulder told them once they were a few paces away from the entrance.
“I’m going with you,” Scully said immediately.
“Have you forgotten what he did to you before? This guy has some kind of power over you, Scully, and I’m not about to let him do that again.”
She argued, “We have a few sage leaves left plus enough salt to surpass a man’s recommended yearly allowance. It’s like garlic and crosses to vampires; if we have them they can’t touch us.”
Mulder wanted to comment on her apparent newfound beliefs but knew now was not the time. A fiery redhead was a bit of a stereotype but she encompassed it on occasion and he could sense her stubbornness on the issue, eyes staring back at him with steely resolve.
“If he starts to move towards you, make a circle of salt around yourself. Throw the damn stuff at him. Whatever makes him back off.” She nodded. He turned to Susan. “Can you make sure there’s sage ready to burn in case something happens? Stay close to Agent Scully; watch each other’s backs.”
“Can we just do this? Standing here talking about it is making me nervous,” Susan admitted. “I want him gone. He’s been here long enough.”
Mulder looked first at one and then at the other. They were both resolute, both ready and determined, and he could think of no reason to wait any longer. “Alright then. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
The door opened with surprising ease. Mulder took the first hesitant step inside, peering around the frame and taking stock of the room. Had the Pamplona Bull Run taken place here? It was a far cry from the manicured neatness that had existed before. The crib had been tipped on its side. The armoire drawers had been thrown across the room. Even the sheets on the bed were lying in a tangled heap.
And it was still so, so cold. Like a morgue.
Mulder crept further inside, indicating to Scully and Susan to follow slowly and silently. He couldn’t see the priest and that worried him; they had burned sage in every other room so where else could he be but here? The trashed room certainly pointed to frustration, although it was more reminiscent of Kurt Cobain than a seventeenth-century clergyman. All the signs suggested an animal in confinement, scrabbling for an escape route in panicked delirium, but there was no visible means of exit and no priest.
He felt Scully’s hand on his arm as she leaned up to whisper, “Where is he?”
He shook his head minutely, still trying to grasp that concept himself. The sage had to have worked! They had seen the priest’s reaction to it firsthand in the entrance hall downstairs, where it was made clear he didn’t like it at all, was repulsed by it. Given that he couldn’t go where the smoke lingered, where could he have been?
“Show your cross,” Mulder murmured. Scully looked up at him incredulously. “Do it,” he urged. “He reacted in the chapel when you touched it; maybe it’ll catch his eye again.”
Warily, she pulled the gold cross out from underneath her shirt and jacket collars and held it aloft. The room seemed to hold its breath. Mulder made a twirling motion with his fingers; Scully turned three-sixty on the spot, a modern-day ballerina in a music box, and waited for a signal.
Instead of a mass explosion of action, the result came about not with a bang but with a whimper. A shape began to form in the middle of the room, a human silhouette gradually taking shape and growing more solid, losing its transparency as it filled out. When it came into view, the look on his face was not of the mild-mannered attitude one expected of a man of the cloth; it was of pure hatred. Hell burned in his eyes and his hand shook with rage as he pointed once more at Scully.
“And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not heard,” he hissed.
“I think that’s our cue,” Mulder muttered, tossing the lid from the tub of salt to the floor and grabbing a handful, throwing it across the room like a crystalline baseball.
The priest howled as the salt made contact, scratching at his eyes with rake-like fingers and dropping to his knees in agony. He was muttering under his breath, something about God and mercy and forgiveness, and when his hands fell to his sides he stared pitifully with bloodshot eyes as red as the fires stoked by Satan.
Staggering to his feet, he moaned, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, stumbling like a drunk in Scully’s direction. Her faith would be his salvation; she carried God around her neck with pride whereas his own crucifix felt like an ever-tightening noose. His hands outstretched like a needy child, the priest lurched forwards, visibly recoiling when Mulder’s hand dug into the tub again, emerging with white grains tumbling from between his fingers. He gave a meek cry as Mulder tossed another handful of salt at him but he kept on coming.
Mulder took a protective step in front of Scully. “Susan,” he warned.
“Just tell me when.”
Scully asked, “Don’t we need a circle around him?” Mulder nodded. “Take the tub and start doing it. He’ll keep heading this way as long as I’m here.”
He shook his head vehemently. “Follow me around,” he suggested instead, keeping one eye on her and one eye on the priest who was growing ever closer, gripped with religious fervour and insanity. Mulder grabbed her wrist and pulled her swiftly to the right; the priest followed, making tiny mewling sounds in the back of his throat. Susan caught the saltshaker Scully threw to her and began to pour a semi-circle behind the ghost.
Confident his attention was elsewhere, namely on his partner, Mulder allowed handfuls of the salt to drop to the floor as they stalked around the room. All the while Scully kept her cross held firmly between thumb and forefinger, direct in the priest’s line of sight. He probably thought he had an ally, she contemplated. And now he’s going to die not on the cross but by it.
He was mumbling pleas and prayers for forgiveness when the circle was completed and he sagged to the floor in a spineless heap, at which point his body took on the same eerily translucent quality as before. His eyes bore into Scully’s and, as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t tear her gaze away. There was no hypnotic trance this time, no pull through rosary beads and Bible quotes, yet this was more than just idle curiosity. She had seen him kill, just like many other men, but she was still shocked that a member of the clergy could ignore God’s word so completely. There was something tying her to this man who was now dying a second death; was it their faith or was there something deeper, something more meaningful hiding just out of reach?
“Put him out of his misery, Mulder,” she finally said, watching as he did as asked and covered the priest’s body with sprinkles of salt as delicate as snow. The dead man’s body (thinking of it as a dead ghost’s body was more than her brain could comprehend at that moment) faded from view and all that remained was a pile of white crystals on the floorboards in the vague shape of a human corpse.
“Now what?” Susan asked quietly. A fire sprung up from the hearth at the other end of the room in answer to her question.
“Guess he’s being cremated,” Mulder replied. The trio stood quietly for a moment, looking as sombre as if they were attending a funeral. There were no sirens rushing to the scene, no paramedics or doctors to pronounce and call time of death, and it was strangely overwhelming to witness the demise of a man over four hundred years old.
“We’d best clean this up,” Susan said after a while. “Dawn’s breaking.”
Swivelling to look out of the window in surprise, they saw the first tinges of gold snapping at the edges of the darkness. “Yeah,” Mulder answered distractedly. “And then it’s time to go.”
* * * * *
It was late afternoon when Scully woke. The space beside her was warm, obviously not long vacated, and from under the thick blanket she could hear the muffled noises of Mulder in the bathroom. Padded footsteps that reminded her of a lumbering bear followed and the mattress dipped as he joined her again, sliding under the sheets and wrapping an arm around her waist, pressing his cold feet into the backs of her legs.
“Grab a pair of socks or something instead,” she grumbled good-naturedly.
She felt his smile as he kissed her shoulder blade. “You’re warmer. And awake now. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“No,” she answered honestly, turning and smiling at the sight of him gazing at her. He looked adorable, all rumpled ex-baseball star with his mussed hair and light hint of stubble. “I think I’ve caught up on lost sleep.”
Mulder mumbled, “Mmm,” as he settled his weight on top of her. “Good to know. I take it you aren’t tired, then.”
“Not right now. Maybe I’ll go for a walk,” Scully mused, fighting a grin. “The fresh air should make me sleep tonight.”
He growled low in her ear, “I can think of something else that should wear you out,” just before he kissed her and she gave up pretending, wrapping her limbs around his body like a cocoon and holding him close.
An hour later they cracked a window so she could get her fresh air.
* * * * *
As night fell, the temperature dropped, and a cold chill whipped around the building, small white crystals began to appear on a grate lodged inside a fireplace in a bedroom at Thurmere Hall.
A voice could be heard whispering in broken tones, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
* * * * *