[Brenda & Effie 06] - Brenda and Effie Forever! by Paul Magrs

[Brenda & Effie 06] - Brenda and Effie Forever! by Paul Magrs

Author:Paul Magrs [Magrs, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Snowbooks
Published: 2012-09-29T23:00:00+00:00


Four

MERMAID LINGUINI

Just a few days away from home, and there’s a great deal of post for me when I get back. Most of it is people trying to book dates at my B&B, which is fine. It’s better than fine, it’s brilliant. I’m getting more queries than ever. I’m doing great business. But as I glance quickly through these letters, proposing dates and times, something about them makes me shiver.

There’s a phrase repeated through many of these missives.

‘Recommended to us by the Hoffmanns.’

So that’s Doctor and Doctor Hoffmann, my suspicious guests, who saw fit to ransack my home when my back was turned. Why are they recommending me to everyone? Why are all these people so keen to come to me? Checking through the post I notice lots of ‘Doctors’, lots of university addresses. But they aren’t medical doctors. It’s not my curious biology then, that’s attracting them. That would almost make sense, if they were interested in me as subject for medical scrutiny.

No, these are all philosophers and people from English Literature departments. Goodness knows what they’re wanting with me.

Anyway, I’m not one to turn away good business. But if anyone goes poking through my private things again, I’ll give them what for.

I fling down the post on the kitchen work surface and survey my attic home. My bags are dumped in the hall and everything in here is tidy at first glance. But that dust has been falling in my absence. Unholy amounts of dust. It’s as if there’s been a blizzard here while I’ve been away. This can’t be natural. I know it’s something else I will have to deal with, and not just with a cloth and a can of spray polish.

Time to get the kettle on and to flop down on the settee and to let the weariness from our recent adventure ease away.

I’m so relieved to be back in Whitby. We may be haunted, sinister and teeming with monsters here, but at least we’re upfront about it. There was something disturbingly clandestine about the way they all carried on in Haworth. The way they worshipped the spirits of those terrible girls…

I can see the Bronte sisters now. Even now as I take a moment to close my eyes and rest on the sofa. I can see them gliding about me and Effie, rolling about as if on castors. They had sharp, daggerlike teeth and they flashed them at us as they whooshed by. Emily was by far the fiercest, and she seemed to take a particular dislike to me. Her hair was falling out of its bun and was flying about crazily as the sisters went round and round.

We were lucky to get out of there alive. At least, I was. I don’t suppose Effie was in any particular danger. She was their darling and their chosen one. The Brontes wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her ancient head.

Effie’s at home now, too, of course. In her tall house of antiques and witchy memorabilia.



Download



Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.