Haunted. A Spander story. Chapter 2.
First part here
Haunted Chapter 2. "Faery Favours"
As Xander and Spike were finally finding shelter, however bleak, Rupert and Wesley were starting to feel a little worried that their last communication with them had been two hours ago.
Normally this would be of little concern but given that it had been the usually sanguine Xander who had been reporting extremely bad weather conditions with poor visibility and even poorer roads, the two Watchers were at the least curious to know how their associates were faring.
Ripper was finally fulfilling a long-held ambition which was to try out each and every of the Isles' malts. Consequently, he and Wes were sat in front of a very respectable fire in his private library/study sipping at a Ledaig.
Following dinner they had both spent a couple of hours at private studies before Wes had joined Giles for a nightcap. Now, contentedly winding down for the night, it was difficult to imagine anything bad happening to them or their own. Previous experience, though, shrieked at them not to be complacent and each now discovered that the other had spent the intervening time in finding out more details about the area into which Xander and Spike were venturing.
"The interesting thing, is just how long the tradition of disappearances around the house goes back," Wesley was pouring himself a second whisky. He came back to his chair in front of the fire and settled, with a sigh, into the welcoming cushions. "I've managed to find records as far back as 1372, which refer to even older records which, in their turn, report the disappearances of people - usually single travellers - who had just vanished from the road overnight.
"At that time, there was a road - not a main one but frequently used by those who knew of it - between Launceston and the mining area. It was not particularly safe, crossing, as it did, Bodmin Moor, but those who knew it well could rely on cutting a score or so miles off their journey. Those who didn't know it well enough, of course, were as likely to end up in a rather nasty bog and it was this fate that was presumed in many cases of disappearance."
"What about the other cases?" asked Ripper, bending to scent the rich aroma of Scotch, rising from the glass nestled warmly in his hands.
"Ah, well. That's where it becomes interesting from our point of view. Those are the cases where the person concerned had left the perilous areas of the moor behind him, and had already been seen travelling along the safe part of the road. It's now that the legends of older times and elder people start to be mentioned."
"And it's now, I'm guessing, that the Faery Folk come into the picture?"
"Well, yes, actually. Is that what you've been researching?"
"Mmm, yes. The records all agree that the area in which our house is situated has long been associated with the realm of Faery. There are fairy mounds, fairy rings and fairy wishing stones all of which lead the unknowing traveller into the underworld from which he re-appears, if at all, many years after he disappeared. Upon arriving home, he finds it changed and the people all different, or at least decades older than they should have been. He always swears that he has been away only one night and those few who recognise him agree that he looks the same as he did as when he disappeared."
For a while the two men were silent and the sounds of the night intruded into the room. An ancient beam groaned as it settled, a log slipped and spat sparks in the fire, and a gust of rainy wind shook the windows.
Then, "Are you saying that we have sent Spike and Xander into a situation where they may never come back in our lifetimes?" Wes could not subdue his feelings of alarm. That which others considered superstition had proved all too true, too many times, in his experience.
"There's really no reason to think so; the house concerned is on the very edges of the old Faery legends and the disappearances there are quite different from those I've just described."
"So, no need to worry then?" Wes's fingers were beating an agitated tattoo on the arm of his chair.
Giles's wry smile was reassuring, "None at all; they are more likely to be taken by aliens or a serial killer than by fairies. They're perfectly safe where they are."
****************
First appearances had turned out to be deceptive and the house, it seemed, was not, after all, about to fall down around their ears at any minute. The wood of the door was solid and the door itself nestled snugly within its frame.
Unfortunately, the key with which they had been issued did not seem to fit. After much twisting and jiggling, kicking, shoving and swearing, Spike was about to go for serious brute force when there was a sharp, loud click and the door swung ponderously open.
Glad to get out of the weather, the two men stepped in more eagerly than they would normally do in such a situation. They found themselves in a stone lobby with a smaller room on either side; each room was accessed via an open, lavishly carved archway. The one on the right was empty and had probably once been used for donning and shedding bad-weather clothes and boots, while the one on the left was lined with dark wooden cupboards.
Ten feet ahead of them were half-glazed double doors, the stained-glass, in its sagging leading, was woefully bleary in the dark. Pushing open these doors, the two ghost busters found themselves surveying a vast stone hall whose beautiful curved staircase swept up to darkness. A room opened on either side of them, mirroring the set up in the entrance lobby and then a corridor led to left and right to the inner rooms of the house.
"Do you feel something odd about this deserted, haunted house?" enquired Xander.
"A strange feeling, that creeps over you as soon as you come in, that it's neither deserted nor empty?"
"That's the one."
"It's not exactly lived-in, though, is it? I mean, you can tell straight away if people are actually living in a house. There's a... well, another sort of feeling and vibrations and smell and all that. No-one's living here. The odd over-nighter maybe but no-one regular."
Xander opened the door on the left - nothing but shuttered windows and a few bits of furniture hidden by dust sheets. Spike tried the one on the right and found the same.
"Down the corridors we go then - unless you want to try upstairs first?"
Xander shook his head and Spike led the way down the left-hand corridor, turning on his torch so that Xander could see. The darkness here was almost complete and even Spike was glad of the illumination. Although fan lights were positioned above each door the only light they emitted were the occasional flashes of lightning which had to fight its way through heavily curtained windows.
Opening and shutting doors as they progressed, they found nothing of any interest in the rooms. Furniture, in those rooms which held any, was usually covered with dust sheets and the dust, thus denied, was heavy in the air. A smell, that was not quite that of damp, told a tale of general neglect and prompted memories of stone mausoleums and the unquiet dead.
At the end of the corridor was a wall in which was hollowed out a niche for a statue. The statue, rather surprisingly, was that of Priapus. As Spike pointed out, "He should be in the garden. Why the hell is he here? Someone with a cock fetish, perhaps. I'm surprised he's not been stolen by now."
He peered down a corridor which led off to the right. “Well, so far, so many stagnant, boring rooms full of waste-of-time. Do you want to follow this next passage, or go back and try the other side of the hall?"
Xander was staring at the Priapus, "Just thinking about that makes your eyes water, doesn't it?"
Which remark made Spike wonder, somewhat. But, apart from a side-long look, he didn't follow it up.
Xander tore his eyes away from the over-endowed god and looked down the new corridor. "Let's go down here. Is the house a complete square, do you know? Will we end up back in the hall, or don't the wings meet up?"
Spike pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and the two men squinted at the roughly drawn diagram which purported to divulge the layout of the house.
"I think they stop short of meeting up at the back. See? There's a gap leading from the courtyard into the garden proper. Let's go check it out. Be careful at any garden doors, though, they'll probably be guarded by ol' Priapus."
"He was a guard? What did he guard against? And how? He isn't holding any weapon... “ Xander caught Spike's grin, thought about it, blinked, looked back at the statue, thought about it and blinked again. “Oh no, you're kidding me?"
"I kid you not! He was a Roman god, don't forget, which equates to little subtlety. He was the protector of gardens and was usually perched on a plinth, which had a little plaque saying something like, 'Any trespassers that I find here will get well and truly shafted on my incredibly gigantic dick!'."
Xander laughed, "Oh come on, it never said that!"
"That's a very loose translation, I grant you, but it's essentially correct - in fact I think the wording was rape, which emphasised the seriousness of the trespassing. Don't think there were any actual recorded instances of lads or lasses getting raped by priapic gnome gods in their neighbours' gardens, though."
They headed down the corridor, which was, in fact the east wing, opening doors as they came to them, as they had done before. Xander was suggesting that they become requainted with the food and drink they had left in the bags in the hall, as he reached to open one final door. "Right, this is the last one for now, before I'm going out for a pee. Then we have something to eat before setting up the.... Oh my holy hell! Um, Spike, come and look at this will you?"
Spike came up behind him and pushed the door wide open: there, bathed in candlelight was a table set up with fresh food; a jug of iced water stood alongside bottles of wine and brandy. Not only that, but the table was laid with clean white napery and shining silver; the plates were fine porcelain and the glasses were cut crystal.
"Looks like someone is planning a party," remarked Spike. "D'you think we're invited?"
*********************
continues here
Haunted Chapter 2. "Faery Favours"
As Xander and Spike were finally finding shelter, however bleak, Rupert and Wesley were starting to feel a little worried that their last communication with them had been two hours ago.
Normally this would be of little concern but given that it had been the usually sanguine Xander who had been reporting extremely bad weather conditions with poor visibility and even poorer roads, the two Watchers were at the least curious to know how their associates were faring.
Ripper was finally fulfilling a long-held ambition which was to try out each and every of the Isles' malts. Consequently, he and Wes were sat in front of a very respectable fire in his private library/study sipping at a Ledaig.
Following dinner they had both spent a couple of hours at private studies before Wes had joined Giles for a nightcap. Now, contentedly winding down for the night, it was difficult to imagine anything bad happening to them or their own. Previous experience, though, shrieked at them not to be complacent and each now discovered that the other had spent the intervening time in finding out more details about the area into which Xander and Spike were venturing.
"The interesting thing, is just how long the tradition of disappearances around the house goes back," Wesley was pouring himself a second whisky. He came back to his chair in front of the fire and settled, with a sigh, into the welcoming cushions. "I've managed to find records as far back as 1372, which refer to even older records which, in their turn, report the disappearances of people - usually single travellers - who had just vanished from the road overnight.
"At that time, there was a road - not a main one but frequently used by those who knew of it - between Launceston and the mining area. It was not particularly safe, crossing, as it did, Bodmin Moor, but those who knew it well could rely on cutting a score or so miles off their journey. Those who didn't know it well enough, of course, were as likely to end up in a rather nasty bog and it was this fate that was presumed in many cases of disappearance."
"What about the other cases?" asked Ripper, bending to scent the rich aroma of Scotch, rising from the glass nestled warmly in his hands.
"Ah, well. That's where it becomes interesting from our point of view. Those are the cases where the person concerned had left the perilous areas of the moor behind him, and had already been seen travelling along the safe part of the road. It's now that the legends of older times and elder people start to be mentioned."
"And it's now, I'm guessing, that the Faery Folk come into the picture?"
"Well, yes, actually. Is that what you've been researching?"
"Mmm, yes. The records all agree that the area in which our house is situated has long been associated with the realm of Faery. There are fairy mounds, fairy rings and fairy wishing stones all of which lead the unknowing traveller into the underworld from which he re-appears, if at all, many years after he disappeared. Upon arriving home, he finds it changed and the people all different, or at least decades older than they should have been. He always swears that he has been away only one night and those few who recognise him agree that he looks the same as he did as when he disappeared."
For a while the two men were silent and the sounds of the night intruded into the room. An ancient beam groaned as it settled, a log slipped and spat sparks in the fire, and a gust of rainy wind shook the windows.
Then, "Are you saying that we have sent Spike and Xander into a situation where they may never come back in our lifetimes?" Wes could not subdue his feelings of alarm. That which others considered superstition had proved all too true, too many times, in his experience.
"There's really no reason to think so; the house concerned is on the very edges of the old Faery legends and the disappearances there are quite different from those I've just described."
"So, no need to worry then?" Wes's fingers were beating an agitated tattoo on the arm of his chair.
Giles's wry smile was reassuring, "None at all; they are more likely to be taken by aliens or a serial killer than by fairies. They're perfectly safe where they are."
****************
First appearances had turned out to be deceptive and the house, it seemed, was not, after all, about to fall down around their ears at any minute. The wood of the door was solid and the door itself nestled snugly within its frame.
Unfortunately, the key with which they had been issued did not seem to fit. After much twisting and jiggling, kicking, shoving and swearing, Spike was about to go for serious brute force when there was a sharp, loud click and the door swung ponderously open.
Glad to get out of the weather, the two men stepped in more eagerly than they would normally do in such a situation. They found themselves in a stone lobby with a smaller room on either side; each room was accessed via an open, lavishly carved archway. The one on the right was empty and had probably once been used for donning and shedding bad-weather clothes and boots, while the one on the left was lined with dark wooden cupboards.
Ten feet ahead of them were half-glazed double doors, the stained-glass, in its sagging leading, was woefully bleary in the dark. Pushing open these doors, the two ghost busters found themselves surveying a vast stone hall whose beautiful curved staircase swept up to darkness. A room opened on either side of them, mirroring the set up in the entrance lobby and then a corridor led to left and right to the inner rooms of the house.
"Do you feel something odd about this deserted, haunted house?" enquired Xander.
"A strange feeling, that creeps over you as soon as you come in, that it's neither deserted nor empty?"
"That's the one."
"It's not exactly lived-in, though, is it? I mean, you can tell straight away if people are actually living in a house. There's a... well, another sort of feeling and vibrations and smell and all that. No-one's living here. The odd over-nighter maybe but no-one regular."
Xander opened the door on the left - nothing but shuttered windows and a few bits of furniture hidden by dust sheets. Spike tried the one on the right and found the same.
"Down the corridors we go then - unless you want to try upstairs first?"
Xander shook his head and Spike led the way down the left-hand corridor, turning on his torch so that Xander could see. The darkness here was almost complete and even Spike was glad of the illumination. Although fan lights were positioned above each door the only light they emitted were the occasional flashes of lightning which had to fight its way through heavily curtained windows.
Opening and shutting doors as they progressed, they found nothing of any interest in the rooms. Furniture, in those rooms which held any, was usually covered with dust sheets and the dust, thus denied, was heavy in the air. A smell, that was not quite that of damp, told a tale of general neglect and prompted memories of stone mausoleums and the unquiet dead.
At the end of the corridor was a wall in which was hollowed out a niche for a statue. The statue, rather surprisingly, was that of Priapus. As Spike pointed out, "He should be in the garden. Why the hell is he here? Someone with a cock fetish, perhaps. I'm surprised he's not been stolen by now."
He peered down a corridor which led off to the right. “Well, so far, so many stagnant, boring rooms full of waste-of-time. Do you want to follow this next passage, or go back and try the other side of the hall?"
Xander was staring at the Priapus, "Just thinking about that makes your eyes water, doesn't it?"
Which remark made Spike wonder, somewhat. But, apart from a side-long look, he didn't follow it up.
Xander tore his eyes away from the over-endowed god and looked down the new corridor. "Let's go down here. Is the house a complete square, do you know? Will we end up back in the hall, or don't the wings meet up?"
Spike pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and the two men squinted at the roughly drawn diagram which purported to divulge the layout of the house.
"I think they stop short of meeting up at the back. See? There's a gap leading from the courtyard into the garden proper. Let's go check it out. Be careful at any garden doors, though, they'll probably be guarded by ol' Priapus."
"He was a guard? What did he guard against? And how? He isn't holding any weapon... “ Xander caught Spike's grin, thought about it, blinked, looked back at the statue, thought about it and blinked again. “Oh no, you're kidding me?"
"I kid you not! He was a Roman god, don't forget, which equates to little subtlety. He was the protector of gardens and was usually perched on a plinth, which had a little plaque saying something like, 'Any trespassers that I find here will get well and truly shafted on my incredibly gigantic dick!'."
Xander laughed, "Oh come on, it never said that!"
"That's a very loose translation, I grant you, but it's essentially correct - in fact I think the wording was rape, which emphasised the seriousness of the trespassing. Don't think there were any actual recorded instances of lads or lasses getting raped by priapic gnome gods in their neighbours' gardens, though."
They headed down the corridor, which was, in fact the east wing, opening doors as they came to them, as they had done before. Xander was suggesting that they become requainted with the food and drink they had left in the bags in the hall, as he reached to open one final door. "Right, this is the last one for now, before I'm going out for a pee. Then we have something to eat before setting up the.... Oh my holy hell! Um, Spike, come and look at this will you?"
Spike came up behind him and pushed the door wide open: there, bathed in candlelight was a table set up with fresh food; a jug of iced water stood alongside bottles of wine and brandy. Not only that, but the table was laid with clean white napery and shining silver; the plates were fine porcelain and the glasses were cut crystal.
"Looks like someone is planning a party," remarked Spike. "D'you think we're invited?"
*********************
continues here