3
So, the question remains: was Ursula Kemp a witch or a devil worshipper? I certainly don’t think so, or at least not in the traditional sense. I believe that she was nothing more than a kind young lady, one who felt the calling to help others with her potions, spells, and arcane healing skills.
I have to agree that she probably was a witch, but a white witch—one who was both kind and good. In the years I spent living inside the Cage, I have seen and heard the spirits of many women from those olden days. Some were crying, others were scheming and plotting, but I shall never forget the one who came to me in broad daylight to sprinkle some type of herbs or leaves over my head.
It was during the early days of my residency. The apparition walked through into the front room of the house from the original prison room, which is many hundreds of years older than the rest of the house. I was sitting on the living room floor at the time, transfixed by the appearance of this woman from a bygone era.
I felt very strongly that she meant me no harm, in fact, quite the opposite. She radiated nothing but the very best of intentions. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was looking at a ghost, and allowing her to cover my head in protective leaves, but I felt no fear at all—not even a little. The spirit woman’s energy felt so kind and well-intentioned that I wasn’t even the slightest bit afraid.
Could this have been the spirit of Ursula Kemp? Well, the woman certainly looked the part. She was about Ursula’s age at the time of her death, her clothes certainly came from that era—or one very close to it. But the truth is that I could never say for certain. The spirit did not give me her name. In fact, she didn’t speak to me at all … she simply smiled. But in my opinion, I believe it truly was her.
I believe that Ursula Kemp had some inkling of the horrific events that were about to befall me and my young son inside the Cage, and she had come expressly to help me, to try and protect me from what was soon to take place inside that extremely haunted house. I believe that her energy can still be felt in the Cage to this very day, and I also suspect that little Tom has come back many times, searching for his mother. In fact, we have actually recorded an EVP that contains the voice of a young boy called Tom, who tells us that he is “looking for my Muma … ”
I’ll be the first to admit that a very real chill went down my spine when Vanessa told me that. Standing there at the end of the long row of houses, I stared at the stout wooden door that led into the Cage. It wasn’t all that difficult to picture an innocent woman being dragged through that doorway in chains, imprisoned on trumped-up charges of practicing black magic.
What must it have felt like to be so badly mistreated? The sheer injustice of it all would burn one to the core, I thought to myself. Emotions that were so powerful indeed … perhaps even powerful enough to survive death itself.
“That’s so very sad,” Stephen said, shaking his head quietly. “The thought that they might both still be trapped here … ”
“Some people would tell you that they are,” Vanessa replied, fishing a key out of her pocket. It was an ordinary house key of the sort that might open the door of any home in England.
Exterior side of the door.
At first I was a little disappointed to find that it wasn’t an ancient old iron key of the variety that would fit the lock of Castle Dracula; then I chided myself for my foolishness. The key may have appeared unremarkable, but there was nothing ordinary about the Cage.
Nothing ordinary at all.
Richard by the interior side of the door.
Stephen and I followed Vanessa up to the rear gate, which backed onto a long track running between two rows of houses. I knew that this stretch of ground was known as “Coffin Alley,” so-called because in bygone days, villagers had used it as a means of conveying their dearly departed to the cemetery. For many years, pallbearers had grimly carried coffins atop their shoulders from one end of the alley to the other, where the deceased’s earthly journey ended once and for all.
Stephen, Vanessa, and Richard.
The back gate was taller than I was. Its paint was chipped and peeling, leaving spots of bare wood here and there. Although Vanessa still owned the Cage, she wasn’t living there any longer. There wasn’t enough money in the world to make her want to do that ever again. Instead, she lived elsewhere and allowed a friend of hers access to the Cage. He would come and go as he pleased, sometimes living there for extended periods and at other times just spending a little time there. He was interested in conducting his own in-house paranormal investigation, and he apparently spent many hours trying to contact the spirits of the Cage. But now my team and I would have the place all to ourselves. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Vanessa’s caretaker, but we needed to account for the whereabouts of each and every person inside the Cage during our investigation if it was going to have any scientific veracity.
I watched Vanessa’s body language with great interest as she approached the back door. When Stephen and I first met her less than an hour ago, she had seemed perky and full of life, embodying good cheer and humor; now all that had changed. She moved in the manner of one who suspected they were walking into an ambush, constantly on the lookout for threats, dangers, and enemies.
With the benefit of hindsight, I feel that Vanessa showed a great deal of courage in simply turning up to give us access to the Cage, let alone going inside to show us around. The dreadful things that she experienced while she and her young son were living inside the former prison had scarred her, both emotionally and psychologically. Her breathing had definitely picked up, and I was willing to bet that her heart rate had too.
No matter how apprehensive she felt, Vanessa forced down her fear and took control. When she inserted the key into the lock, I watched her hand closely for any sign of trembling or shaking; there was none. Taking a deep breath, she turned the key and opened the door. Looking tentatively all around her, she stepped over the threshold and into the house.
Stephen and I both followed. To be honest, I was as excited as a child on Christmas morning. Having heard so much about the place over the past few months, I had been living in eager anticipation of this moment for weeks. Now I was finally crossing over the threshold of what some claimed to be the most haunted prison in England. I had a solid team at my back, years of experience in the field of paranormal investigation, plenty of decent equipment, and best of all, five days and nights in which to find the answers I was searching for.
In short, I was highly confident that I could handle absolutely anything that the Cage was going to throw at me.
In reality, I hadn’t the faintest idea. Looking back, I don’t think any of us did.
The air was on the musty side and smelled of cigarettes—Vanessa’s tenant was apparently a smoker. The house was also freezing cold. I drew my warm winter jacket more closely around me as we stepped inside, allowing Stephen to close the back door firmly behind us.
I pointed out to Vanessa that it seemed colder inside the house than it did outside. She agreed that it did, and went on to say that whether it was the height of summer or the depths of winter, that was usually the case. No matter what one did, it was practically impossible to get warm and cozy inside the Cage.
“Do you think it’s the same for all of these houses?” I wondered, indicating the adjoining wall and the rest of the row of housing.
“No,” Vanessa shook her head. “I’ve spoken to the neighbors and some of the other people further along, they don’t have this problem in their own houses. Just here, in the Cage.”
Stephen shot me a meaningful look, as if to say: is that paranormal, or just a kooky side-effect of the architecture here? I shrugged, mentally adding that to the list of questions that already plagued this particular case.
The downstairs living area.
Vanessa led us through into the living room, which was dominated by a black metal fireplace—a real fireplace, one that ran on wood instead of natural gas. A couple of electric heaters were used as a backup. Other than that, we’d have to bundle up warm if we were going to keep out the February cold.
“Do you want the grand tour?” Vanessa asked. “It will have to be quick. I don’t like spending a minute longer in this house than I have to, and I won’t step foot in here at all when it gets dark.”
Although half of our team hadn’t arrived yet, Stephen and I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. We’d go ahead with the tour and fill our teammates in on the details when they arrived. Eager to be off, Vanessa started to head upstairs, but I stopped her with an upraised hand.
“Just a second.” I fished a digital voice recorder out of my pocket and switched it on. “You never know what might turn up on one of these things, so I’d like to have continuous recording going on over the course of the next week.” It would turn out to be a wise decision indeed.
Stephen shot me a vaguely smug smirk and waggled his wrist. He was wearing a plain plastic bracelet that I had at first mistaken for a Fitbit or some similar fitness tracker. “It’s a digital voice recorder too,” Stephen corrected me, tilting it at an angle so that it caught what little light there was. “But it’s also a wearable wristband. No matter what I’m doing, when I’m inside the Cage, it will be recording everything that we say and do.”
“Remember that when you go to the toilet,” I shot back, secretly a little jealous that I didn’t have one myself.
The entranceway that we were all standing in was decorated with a series of old photographs, all framed and showing people from a bygone era, portrayed in drab sepia tones and hues. Vanessa had no idea who they were; she had simply found them there in the house, the remnants of a bygone age, and had felt that they somehow belonged there.
I peered at each of the faces in turn. All of them were probably long in their graves by now. There were men, women, and children alike. What was their connection with the Cage? Were they perhaps the family of a former tenant or owner?
Ever since she had started renting the Cage out to paranormal research groups, Vanessa had warmed to the theme of witches and witchcraft. Her choice of internal decor ran very much along lines that might best be described as “witchy.” Three broomsticks stood in the entryway, leaning up against one of the walls, for example. “It looks as if my ex-wife has parked here already,” I chuckled, making what was, under the circumstances, a pretty feeble joke.
The historical photographs that were found in the Cage when Vanessa purchased the building.
Vanessa led us from room to room, relating its history and the paranormal experiences that she and her visitors had undergone in each. At no point during the tour did any of us see, hear, or sense anything unusual. We had no idea at the time that we were being watched and, as it would turn out, spoken to by an unseen entity.
The upstairs bathroom was dark and silent. To be honest, I found it to be really quite unremarkable—having no idea that it was one of the most active rooms in the entire house.
Leaning into the doorway, I groped around blindly for a light switch. “Is there a light in here?”
Vanessa said that there was, and told me exactly where to find it. When I flicked the switch, the bare bulb snapped on, casting a dim white glow over the bathtub, sink, and mirror.
Although we would not know it until later on that evening (when we conducted our first day’s evidence review) this was the moment at which an incredible piece of electronic voice phenomena (EVP) was recorded.
Perhaps most importantly, it was recorded on both digital voice recorders: the one that I still held loosely in my left hand and the one that Stephen wore around his wrist. This is actually something of a rarity, because quite often EVPs will turn up on one device only, seeming to completely ignore others that are running in the same area. Strangely, the two EVPs are similar but not identical, which is a difficult thing to explain.
The upstairs bathroom.
On playing back both of the recordings and comparing them, Vanessa can be heard talking, conducting her guided tour of the Cage. Then my voice is heard, asking whether the bathroom has a light. Vanessa responds that it is just behind Stephen.
It is at this point that another voice breaks into the conversation. The voice is very obviously different from any of the other three that have been heard on the recording up to that point, sounding like a rasping, croaky old woman’s voice.
Yes, says the voice, when heard on Stephen’s playback. That’s all. The word yes. Nothing else is said.
On my recording, however, the voice says the words, In the bathroom. The complete sentence on this second recording therefore says: Yes … in the bathroom.
When we played back our recordings for analysis later that same evening, Stephen and I were stunned. We had both been standing very close together, no more than two or three feet apart on the main landing of the staircase. Why had Stephen’s recorder only picked up the word yes whereas mine had recorded the additional in the bathroom?
Due to our close proximity, if this had been any normal, ordinary voice, then each recording should have been so close to identical that the ear wouldn’t detect any difference. Could it perhaps be explained by the differences between the two recording devices? Did my digital voice recorder simply have a more sensitive microphone? We agreed that this was possible, and yet it was equally possible that the bizarre anomaly was simply down to the nature of the recording itself.
The truth is that even with the advanced scientific knowledge and sophisticated recording technologies available to us in the twenty-first century, nobody is entirely sure of just exactly how electronic voice phenomena actually come to be recorded in the first place.
Many skeptics believe that EVPs are nothing more than random snippets of electronic noise from the atmosphere, such as stray cell phone signals or radio waves: in other words, what we think could be the voices of the dead are actually nothing more than taxi cab drivers talking to their base station, or radio station DJs entertaining their audiences. But this attempt to rationalize away a much more complex phenomenon ignores the fact that EVPs have been recorded in locations that were completely shielded from stray emissions across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, by placing them in locations known as Faraday cages (an entirely different type of cage to the one that is the subject of this book).
EVPs are usually not heard by the human ear at the time of recording, although there are occasional exceptions. For example, I was present at a sponsored ghost hunt in support of law enforcement charities in late 2015, which involved a team of paranormal investigators spending the night in the old jail at Cripple Creek, a mining town up in the mountains of Colorado. Two investigators were spending time down in the basement, conducting research and attempting to gather evidence of ghostly activity, when each of them suddenly heard the sound of something akin to a person violently coughing up the contents of their lungs, or perhaps more ominously, that of a throat being cut. When the digital file was played back by the breathless investigators, they were relieved to hear that the sound was recorded with absolute clarity. Talk about feeling vindicated!
Another argument against the EVP that Stephen and I recorded having a non-paranormal explanation is the specificity of the language used on my audio track. Remember that I was standing in the bathroom, fumbling around for the light switch, and asked about there being a light … only to be told, yes, in the bathroom. If somebody is going to ascribe that particular EVP to stray radio waves or some other natural phenomenon, then they would have to be a very firm believer in coincidence.
Yet at the time of the tour, we had heard nothing unusual at all. At its conclusion, Vanessa handed me the key, wished us both the best of luck, and stepped outside. She seemed glad to be leaving, but as she walked back to her car, her eyes kept looking back toward the Cage. It was as if she couldn’t help it.