Winchester Hall had seen better days. Not especially photogenic or a marvel of design, it nevertheless stood proudly between tall oak trees whilst a meandering river coiled around it.
This site was infamous for the legend of Lady Elaine Winchester, accused witch who was rumoured to haunt the grounds.
“Of course,” the groundskeeper informed me, during our steady trek up to the property, “the witchcraft charge was all hogwash. Her accuser, Simon Mathers who was just eyeing the estate, cooked up the witchcraft crap, and after he had her hung, brought the house from her dissolute and estranged son. Oh, and before she died, she vowed to kill any descendant of Mathers who’d dare step foot in her house, and to do everything in her power to help her descendants reclaim their ancestral home. Do you know what happened next?”
“Sure,” I replied, “always gets repeated in paranormal media. As soon as Simon Mathers stepped across the threshold of Winchester Hall, he dropped dead of causes unknown and the people he was with swore they heard the laughter of an elderly woman echoing all around them. Twenty years later his son paid a visit and likewise abruptly died.”
“I’ve seen her you know,” the groundkeeper whispered with a touch of glee, “seen Lady Winchester’s spirit walking the grounds, that’s my bible truth.”
We had by now come to the large double doors at the front of the house, peeling and dirty, with a thin layer of lichen growing all over. As the groundskeeper fumbled with a set of iron keys on a long metal hoop she asked, “What’s your name again?”
“Mathers,” I said, “Emmanuel Mathers, and yes, I’ve checked the family tree, I am a descendant of Simon Mathers.”
There was a pause, and the groundskeeper looking worried, held the key in her dirty hand which I merely took from her, placed in the lock, and twisted with a little force.
“So, if the curse is true,” I said, “I could die at any moment.”
“Err…it’s not worth it, really it isn’t. You may not believe…”
I grunted and shoved open the doors, revealing a dim, musky entrance hall.
“On the contrary,” I replied, “I have every reason to believe that there is indeed a curse upon this place.”
And without another second to lose, I leapt through the door and stood there on the worn mat, decidedly unharmed as the minutes ticked by.
“There’s something else you should know,” I said with a shrug, “my mother was Rebecca Winchester, and yes, she was descended from Lady Elaine Winchester.”
That was the paradox, the vow Lady Winchester had made, to harm any descendant of Simon Mathers, and to help any descendant of hers, but here I was, descended from both.
We heard it then, the cries of an old woman, not in vengeful triumph but instead the wailing of a voice growing fainter, as if plunging into a deep abyss.
