Selena and Nick sat at the kitchen table, piles of papers spread out, a notebook each in front of them. ‘So,’ Selena tapped her pen against her lips. ‘Seventeenth century. What kind of background do we have for the Cotters?’
‘The early part of the seventeenth century would be before our Cotters were born, I would imagine. So, to give them a context, Queen Elizabeth died in 1603 and the Gunpowder plot was in 1605. It was a time of unrest.’ Nick thought for a moment as Selena scribbled, then he said, ‘Shakespeare died in 1616. The Civil War was in 1642.’
‘Would the Cotters have known much about all that, living in Somerset?’ Selena asked. ‘Didn’t everything happen in London?’
‘I think Yeovil and Street were at the heart of a huge battle between Cavaliers and Roundheads. Many of the Somerset men were involved – but I dare say William Cotter was too young.’
‘So, what happened after that?’
Nick frowned. ‘The Great Plague was in 1665; the Puritans had been a strong influence in the country for about a hundred years, trying to purify the Church from all Catholic elements until around 1660, then Charles the Second was on the throne from 1660 to 1685; James the Second ruled from 1685 until William took over in1688. So, the Cotters might have known some changes during their lifetimes.’
‘How do you know all those dates?’ Selena was impressed.
‘The history is parallel with the literature of that period: the latter part of the century was all about Milton, Molière, Dryden, Racine…’
‘It was the time of the Baroque movement in art,’ Selena said as she jotted in her notebook. ‘Rembrandt, then later, Vermeer.’
‘And by 1687, Isaac Newton was published. So that tells us a little bit about the shifting times the Cotters lived in – what had come before them, what changes were happening. But then, being in this rural community as low-paid farm labourers, I don’t expect their lives improved much; they probably rarely travelled as far as Taunton.’
‘I think they must have lived a simple life in this cottage, one room downstairs, plus the lobby and the pantry out the back. Then upstairs…’ Selena pointed to the alcove. ‘The original stairs were over there, leading to two bedrooms, your mum said, which is now all opened up into the second bedroom. That’s a very cold room…’
‘So…’ Nick put his pen down on the table. ‘Anne Cotter. What do we know about her except that she died in 1672? And we think that she was called Mother Cotter and she might have been considered a witch?’
‘Nick…’ Selena took her phone from the table. ‘I need to show you something.’ She handed him her phone. ‘I was painting last night and then – this happened, so I photographed it. It’s a name. It just appeared, written in condensation on the window…’
Nick examined the photo. ‘It says Grace. It’s a very rough, untrained hand.’
‘Yes, I thought the same thing. And just before that, I’m sure someone touched me…’
‘Are you all right? I worry about you here, by yourself.’ He placed a hand on hers, a comforting warmth, then took it away too soon. ‘You must have been terrified.’
‘I was really shaken… The room became icy cold.’ Selena shuddered. ‘It was quite unsettling – I took myself off to bed as quickly as I could and then I couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. Perhaps Grace is our ghost, not Anne. We’ll never know if she was trying to tell us that, but it’s very strange that her name appeared on the glass.’
‘Let’s have another look at Grace…’ Nick picked up the documents from the box file, sifting through them. He found the one he was looking for. ‘So, Anne Cotter died in 1672, therefore Grace and her father must have stayed on in the cottage together.’
‘It doesn’t say when she was born or how long she and her father lived here.’
Nick was thoughtful. ‘Perhaps Rob can help us with that.’
‘So, do you think Old Mother Cotter is in fact the daughter, Grace? Do you think she lived to a ripe old age and people just thought she was a witch because she lived longer than her father and, well, you know how prejudiced people were about older ladies who lived alone or with a cat?’
Nick took a breath. ‘Something you just said about the layout of the original cottage…’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘Let’s go and explore. Have you got a torch? Comfortable shoes?’
Selena nodded. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Up into the attic, where the old roof space used to be, where it was thatched, above the second bedroom. I don’t expect we’ll find much; there will have been so many changes – a new tiled roof, some restructuring – but who knows what clues might be there? I think we should take a look.’
‘Great idea,’ Selena stood up, her face bright with enthusiasm. ‘If we need information about the past, perhaps it’s a good idea to start in the present, and then go backwards?’
As Selena climbed the stairs towards the landing, she thought of the ghostly young woman that David claimed to have seen, dressed in a long skirt and a cap. She recalled hearing the soft voice from the bedroom singing a lullaby, beneath straw-filled rafters, and Claire’s terrified expression, the footsteps on the landing and the soft clunk of the door she had shut being opened again. Nick at her shoulder, she pushed open the door to the second bedroom and immediately felt the chill of the air despite the June sunshine outside.
Nick gazed up at the ceiling where there was a hatch leading to the loft. ‘I wonder how we can get up there? Is there a ladder anywhere?’
Selena said. ‘There might be one in the shed round the side of the cottage, where Matty puts the logs.’
‘I know the place.’ Nick winked and was gone.
Selena clutched the torch in her hand, conscious of being alone. She had been alone in the room before, but she had always been busy, making the bed up for Claire, cleaning. She could smell something, the faint whiff of lavender, sweet and comforting. Selena was confused; she had burned a sage candle in the room, but not lavender. She whispered, ‘Grace… I wonder who you were… and why you are still here?’ She half expected a whispered reply, or an unseen finger writing an answer on the window, or that a young woman wearing a white cap would float in, but she was only aware of the chill on the air and the strangely calming scent. She waited, the silence all around her, then Nick’s quick footsteps could be heard and he was in the room with a stepladder.
‘Right. So, let’s take a look upstairs in the roof space.’
Selena handed the torch to Nick and he moved nimbly up the steps to the top, easing the hatch up and away, then he disappeared into the attic. He called down, ‘Do you need a hand to come up?’
‘No – I’m fine.’ Selena would have relished the warmth of his skin against hers, but she could manage the ladder alone.
She followed him, climbing almost to the top step until her head poked through into the darkness. The smell was musty; it caught in her throat, a stink of age and dampness and something else, possibly straw.
Nick shone the torchlight into the shadows across the loft space. ‘This attic is huge, it goes back and back; it covers the whole house, but it’s this part we’re interested in.’
Selena eased her body up through the hatch until she was sitting on the edges of the opening, then she swung her legs and she was in.
Nick took her hand. ‘It’s best to step on the joists – just in case. Who knows how old the timbers are up here?’
‘What’s that at the end?’ Selena blinked in the darkness.
‘That A-framed structure? It holds up the roof – it was probably the divide between the two original bedrooms. If we crawl through it, we’ll be above the second part of the bedroom, then the house ends at the chimney breast on the flat part of the wall.’
‘I’m right behind you,’ Selena said. The smell of the attic was thick in her nostrils; the air was stone cold.
They crawled through the wooden structure, the light of the beam guiding them into darkness. As Nick shone the torch above them, strands of straw were visible in the roof space. They stood and gazed up into the eaves.
Selena frowned. ‘Why is there still straw here?’
‘Debris from the thatch – I don’t think slate roofs were a thing in the countryside until the 1800s…’
‘So – this would have been the roof of Grace’s bedroom – or her father and mother’s.’
Nick nodded. ‘Almost certainly – someone would have lain in bed and looked up into this space at a thatched roof.’
They edged forward into darkness, led by a single thin torch beam.
‘What are we looking for?’ Selena asked as Nick aimed the shaft of light at the wooden joists below them.
‘I’ve no idea. Anything that gives us a clue. It might not be from the Cotters at all – lots of people will have lived here since, and I don’t think my parents will have been up in decades, if ever.’
They paused, watching the torchlight swivel up and down, into corners. Selena pointed. ‘What’s that on the floor?’
She bent down, lifting a sheet of newspaper. Nick aimed the beam at the yellowed page, the faded print, the sepia photo so that she could see better.
‘It’s just a piece of old paper, dated 1956. A picture of Marilyn Monroe stepping out of an old car – apparently, she visited the UK to film The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier.’
Nick shook his head. ‘Maybe someone came up here in the fifties to fix a slate?’ He gazed up at the roof. ‘Everything’s just about hanging together in the roof.’
‘I’ll leave this where I found it,’ Selena said. ‘Maybe someone else will come up again in the future and find it, and it will be a real treasure.’
Nick took her hand; his was warm, dry and the connection filled Selena with a new feeling of belonging. ‘Shall we move on? I think I can see the end of the house, the chimney breast against the wall.’
They continued to take small steps forward, carefully moving across the rafters, then Nick called, ‘Wait. Don’t move, Selena.’
She heard the tension in his voice. ‘What have you seen?’
‘Please – just stand where you are a moment.’
Selena stood still, watching Nick creep over towards the corner of the sloping roof, crouching down. Then she heard him catch his breath.
‘What is it?’ Selena asked.
‘It’s an animal – it’s not very nice. I hope we don’t find any more. I’m not dealing with it now – it’s been there for a long time and it’ll stay there until another day.’
Selena held her breath as Nick crept back towards her, the beam shining down. She gazed at his face, trying to discern an expression; in the darkness, he seemed serious and a little troubled. ‘What was it?’
He exhaled. ‘A squirrel. I’m not usually squeamish, but it’s mummified. It might have crawled in beneath the thatch, so it could have been there for over two hundred years.’
Selena shivered. ‘Oh…’
‘I hope that’s the only one.’ Nick took her hand again. ‘Right, let’s see if we can find anything useful.’
They moved towards the chimney breast, a formation of stones jutting from the wall.
‘This is from the fire below, the one that’s always lit?’ Selena spoke quietly. ‘This is original, isn’t it?’
Nick bent forwards to avoid the overhanging beams, shining the light at the chimney breast, placing a hand against the rough surface. ‘Yes, it keeps the place warm and dry. This would have been a great source of heat in the bedroom, that and the thatch.’
‘There’s something… look.’ Selena pointed to a wide gap between the stones. ‘What’s the thing wedged in there?’
Nick aimed the torch towards the space. ‘There’s something hidden – some sort of box. Can you reach it?’
‘I think so…’ Selena tugged an old wooden box from the gap in the stones. ‘There’s some stuff inside.’ The beam illuminated the box, a sharp brightness revealing folded material inside, fabric, something else. ‘Should we take it downstairs and look at it?’
‘Definitely,’ Nick replied. ‘I hope it’s very old, and if it is, we’ll have to be careful with it.’
‘It’s probably nothing – just some rags someone used to clean up here,’ Selena suggested, but her voice was filled with hope.
Nick met her eyes, his own gleaming with interest. ‘Let’s have a quick check round for anything else. Then we’ll go back downstairs and take a look.’
They crept tentatively through the attic, closed the loft hatch, leaving the ladder in the chilly bedroom, and took the wooden box to the kitchen table.
Selena held her breath. ‘I feel like I should be wearing plastic gloves…’
‘Whatever it is seems fairly intact.’ Nick watched over her shoulder. ‘There’s some sort of fabric, it could be linen…’
‘Look!’ Selena was excited. ‘The material has some embroidery on it – some numbers.’ She stared at the stiff fold of cloth. ‘If I get it out, will it fall to pieces and just become dust?’
‘The box has been up in the roof, beyond the fire; it’s been away from sunlight and damp – it’s well preserved, but just ease it out.’
‘I’m afraid to touch it in case it comes apart.’ Selena laid the brittle linen on the table, inspecting it closely. ‘Does the embroidery say some sort of date?1680? 1688?’
‘And a letter has been stitched on – is that a C or a G?’
‘C for Cotter? G for Grace?’
‘And what’s underneath?’
‘Oh!’ Selena lifted the cloth out carefully and stared at a piece of disintegrating rope, wispy spines of shapes attached. ‘It’s a piece of knotted string with things tied on it.’
‘And what’s that tiny bit of material next to it?’ Nick pointed to a piece of twisted cloth. ‘The small scrap – what do you think that is?’
‘It has eyes and tufts for hair… it looks like some sort of primitive doll.’ She met Nick’s eyes as a door slammed upstairs, a loud bang from the second bedroom. ‘That wasn’t the wind…’
‘I think you may be right. Is this what happens here all the time? Selena, there’s definitely a feeling of… something very troubled.’ Nick frowned.
‘There’s a presence, yes,’ Selena said. ‘It’s part of the fabric of the house.’
Nick’s eyes shone. ‘And how do you manage, living here alone?’
‘There have been moments where I’m really nervous.’ Selena admitted. ‘But I feel something else now. It’s not an evil presence. It’s as if she’s asking us to help her.’
‘Can I make a suggestion? We keep this stuff in the box intact. I know someone at the university, Colleen, she’s an archaeologist. She’s extremely experienced – she’s spent almost forty years studying all sorts of relics from the past. If she doesn’t know all about it, she’ll know someone who will. I’ll give her a call. Maybe she’ll be able to take a look next week.’
‘That’s great. So, what shall we do now?’
Nick looked up towards the clock: it was almost six.
‘You have time to show me some of your latest paintings – then we’re going out for dinner.’ He offered an arm. ‘I think we deserve it.’
‘We certainly do.’ Selena threaded her arm through his, feeling warm and contented. ‘It feels like we’re moving forward, uncovering the past and I hope we can help a troubled soul to rest. I’d say we’ve had a good afternoon’s work.’