The House on Blackstone Moor (The Blackstone Vampires) (35 page)

“You will like Whitby, Rose. I have been there many times.”

I was pleased and said so, but my mind could not take that in at the time.
For I was thinking only of Marsh and what I would find there.

“Are we going to our new home now, Mama?” The children wished to know.

“Yes we are,” I told them. “But first I have something to do…for there is a place I must visit.”

There were so many questions. For whatever they are and however they exist, they are and always will be inquisitive children.

They wanted to know if I had lived there and when it was that I did. So I looked at Louis for guidance.

“Mama lived there once and had a good friend there, but that friend did die. Now Mama just wants to go back to visit…”

They looked satisfied with that, although Simon, I thought, understood the visit was something of a pilgrimage and it had to do with a sad event having happened. He whispered to Ada and she smiled but the smile was so cheerless.

It took a day to get there. And as we headed south, the countryside began to change so that it looked more familiar. It was hillier and seemed to be more heavily populated.

I waited nervously to see the first signs of Huddersfield. Dr. Bannion and I had arrived by train. From there, we would go to Marsh. He had assured me I would rest in Marsh; that it was just the sort of place I needed. I had been pleased to hear it, but that was before I knew it was a madhouse.

We took a carriage from the station and I remember the driver asking if we wished the town or the asylum though he did not say the word.

That was the first I knew of it being a madhouse, for what was an asylum but another word for ‘madhouse?’

How chatty Bannion had been that day, though I could not reply—I was too nervous. I think he realized and stopped speaking.

And now I had returned, not with him—for he was gone. I was with Louis and the children come back to see my place of torment and outrage. I saw it was changed and I was glad.

The gate was no longer whole. It was but twisted iron and little else. Only a bit of it remained, just one part that still had the power to chill me, for the words still warned lest anyone venture too close:

Marsh Lunatic Asylum

I looked beyond to see the main entrance, but it too had been destroyed and only one wall remained to prove the asylum had ever been there at all.

It was but a ruined shell of its former self; nothing more than fire-blackened rubble already covered in ivy.

“It’s being reclaimed,” I said. “For it is being pulled down into its own grave, to be buried at last and forever.”

“And so it should be,” Louis answered.

I could not get over the sight. It was so strange to see the wide expanse of the grounds with only that one stone wall. “It’s like a tombstone,” I said.

Gone were all the outbuildings, the workshops and stables, the kitchens and bake houses. Only the old chapel was there. The fire hadn’t claimed it. But it looked lonelier than it ever had.

“It is all gone to earth,” I said.

And so it was. For it would never again be used.

“Rose!”

Someone called my name and I whirled around, for I imagined it was Grace who called me. But when I looked I saw there was no one. It was only my own thoughts willing her to live again.

Someone was walking toward me. I could not tell who it was. When he came closer I saw it was an old man leaning heavily on his walking stick. He looked kindly and concerned. He asked if he could be of help.

I thanked him and asked him about the fire.

“It was awful,” he said. “No one lived, not one soul. Proper inferno it was.
Like Hell’s gates opened up all at once.
”

Suddenly he looked at me as if to study me. “You
wasn’t
here, was you? Then, smiling to himself for the idea seemed ridiculous to him, he nodded. “Well, it’s gone now as they are all gone. Perhaps it’s best, from what I heard…”

“I was wondering,” I said.
“Those that died…the inmates.
Are there graves?”

“Over yonder.” he pointed toward some distance away. “Want me to show you?”

I nodded. He spoke as we walked along, telling me of the fire and the excitement.

“The
screams was
the worst.
Proper awful shrieks.
They
was
trapped there, you see, trapped with no way out.”

At last he stopped.

“Is that it?” I asked, pointing toward a stone plaque that said the words:
The Dead Shall Now Know Peace.

“Yes. The council put that there. It’s a mass grave, you see. “Were you looking for someone in particular?”

I said I was.

“I had someone too, a sister what was crippled. I should imagine she died right away; not being able to run and all.”

It was so sad, I wept and he comforted me.
“No, lass.
They’ll all rest now. Really rest. Not like when they
was
alive, being the poor unfortunates they was then.”

I watched him walk away and I wondered why the living world often seems more difficult than the undead one.

We picked some wildflowers to put down upon the grave and then because the undead do not pray, we turned to go.

“I will just say her name,” I said. And I did. I shouted it as loud as I could. “Grace Poole, may you always rest in peace!”

Louis took me in his arms and I cried even though the children saw me. We left Marsh then, all of us, never to return.

*

I thought of Grace a lot after that, and of Marsh and Bannion, too. It hadn’t really been that long, barely a year, and so much had happened since.

Louis asked me if I wanted to talk about any of it and I said no, so I did not. Instead, I was a quiet and morose companion to him and the children, content to dwell on my own sad thoughts.

We had more travelling to do. For now we were bound for Whitby, the hilly town where the people kept to themselves—the town we were to call home for some years