An extract from The House of Cursed Stone 

Jolene Hill

October 31, 1963

‘Watch the bean sidhe doesn’t get you!’ I hear our Lily shout over Paddy’s daft ghost noises from the fields. 

‘Don’t worry, I’m fast,’ I call back. ‘When I hear her shrieking, I’ll come your way.’

Jimmy sternly shushes my giggles as we climb over the high forbidding wall of Clockmally House, using a ladder which he pulls over and hides in the undergrowth on the other side. We slip through the trees onto the woodland path and as the chuckling and calling from the field dies away, I can’t help but move a little closer to Jimmy. He turns and smiles, then pulls me to him.

I wonder if, like me, he’s noticed how it has suddenly grown darker and more silent. And surely that’s natural for the tangle of boughs above us obscures the moonlight, while the knuckled, spindly birches standing shoulder to shoulder with gnarled oaks baffle the sound of eejits in the field…of wind through the grass…of footsteps in the woods…

And as surely as that is only natural, it is after all, just before midnight on Samhain and what felt like a funny dare at the dance after a wee dram, or five in Jimmy’s case, now seems foolhardy. 

He slips ahead of me, his lamp held high as he peers through a gap in the trees, then bends down to examine something on the ground – some sort of rodent, a vole perhaps: headless, bloodied, disembowelled. 

I chew my lip and taste iron. ‘Jimmy!’ I call and he bounds back to me, kicking through a bank of brittle, yellow leaves that respond in a great, crisping, rustling fuss which smells of sweet, red apples. He grabs my hand, twirls me around then holds me tight against him. 

‘The dance was fun, tonight,’ he says. 

‘What are we doing here, Jimmy? Are we actually looking for ghosts?’

‘No,’ he murmurs. ‘I just don’t want tonight to end.’ He takes my hand and gently pulls me onwards. 

The hundred eyes of our lanterns light the way over ruts and tree roots. Above us, clasping boughs begin to sway and whisper and two bright eyes blink in the glare of the lamp. The hackles of the wind rise, bringing a draft of sweetness that is not apples, not soft and light and pleasing but strong, heady, powerful, is it…perfume?

The breeze picks up now that we are at the brow of the hill: exposed, betwixt and between the woods and Clockmally House silhouetted against a rainbow-ringed moon. The pretty, elegant lines of the house have oozed into the night leaving only a hulk of jagged cragginess. 

We clip-clop across the asphalt driveway, for we are in our good shoes, and crouch by the nearest wall. Jimmy peers round to the front of the house and jerks his head to indicate, ‘Let’s go,’ but I’m distracted by a flash of light on the hillside below.

I try to stay him – but he’s off like a wild ferret, running in zig-zags, beckoning to me, leaping and twirling, even throwing in a cartwheel. I don’t find it funny, for I’m nervous about what that light might’ve been. I just retreat tight against the wall and look again for the light – I see nothing. I wonder if I’ve imagined it. Perhaps it’s a will-o’-the-whisp on the bogland.

Jimmy is at the entrance to the house, holding onto a pillar and spinning round and round and round and round. Finally, he collapses, and I make my way to where he lies, all the vitality drained from me. The wind is swirling dry, furled leaves through the gaps in the scrolled pillars, they skitter and scrape across the stone to where Jimmy is catching his breath. I take off my shoes, for it’s hard to walk in heels and even harder to run in them. 

‘Are ye wise, Jimmy?’ 

He laughs, quietly and hoarsely, then stands up. ‘There’s a light on in there,’ he says, meaning the tall, high window next to the door. ‘Get on me shoulders.’ 

‘Absolutely not.’ 

‘Well, let me on yours then.’

I give him a look to indicate my thoughts on that – but curiosity makes me brave. ‘I’ll let you lift me if you’re careful with my outfit,’ I say.

My heart strikes a loud, fast jig as he hoists me up, my dress and coat wrapped tightly around me. The room is empty of people but when he lets me down I tell him about the ceiling with carved plaits; the huge fireplace with roses of stone; flowery, swirling sofas; shiny-polished tables glinting with glassware, porcelain dogs, shepherds and jewelled eggs! Not to mention the flowers – great pink lilies and something with the look of a cabbage with white petals, the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

  Jimmy is quiet for a moment, then asks, ‘Would you want a room like that in a home of your own?’

‘No, I’d never be comfortable in that, I’d put down my tea cup and never find it again. You couldn’t walk across that room without knocking into something, I’m sure.’ 

He takes my hands, and looks at me intently, his warm breath turning to vapour in the cold air. He brushes my lips with his. I don’t speak or move away but I can’t decide if I like it – it’s a funny thing not to know your own mind. 

But I have no need to decide right now for a loud bang has Jimmy scrambling to his feet, yelping, ‘Jaysus, what was that?’ He pulls me up and we skirt by the walls, through the shadows, back the way we came. 

And I see it again – the light – bobbing below us momentarily but certainly closer than it had been the first time. We reach the edge of the house and Jimmy looks behind us. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ he cries hoarsely, pointing in the direction from which we’ve just come.  

We both stand, just stand there, staring, just staring at what we see beneath the tower. For a few moments, the hooded figure illuminated by its own lamp just stares, too. 

Then comes the piercing scream. 

And still we stare.

The front door clicks and a ghoul of light slithers out, advancing forwards as the door swings wide. And we run. We run far from the house and onto the woodland path, me stumbling in my bare feet, still holding my shoes, and my lungs starting to burn. I stop to draw breath – but we hear shouts from behind us and so, we hurry on, scrambling over the wall, the ladder crashing into the shrubs. We run across the bogland, the open land, the free land, breathing hard, stumbling in hollows and over mossy rocks before finally slowing to a silent walk. My stockings are torn, my feet muddy and cut.  

Eventually, we reach our own fields. 

‘Jaysus!’ Jimmy says. ‘Can you believe that? The bloody bean sidhe!’

‘Don’t be daft. And don’t be going round telling people that, Jimmy. Word’ll get back to them that we were trespassing. What were we thinking?’ We’re both shivering in the cold morning air. ‘I’m going home.’ 

‘Right you are. Shall I see you to the door?’

‘No, thank you.’ I go quietly across our yard, without looking back, in through the back door and up to our bedroom where Lily is out for the count. I can’t sleep, I just keep going over and over everything, to make sense of it all. I don’t believe we saw the bean sidhe but I can’t shake the feeling that with it being All Hallows and the veils all thin, that Jimmy and I have started something we shouldn’t have.

27th January 2023

‘Some of us are meant to go it alone, I understand that now,’ her mother had said. ‘I thought I was supposed to find a partner, a soul mate, to stand beside me, to support me, but since the day I was born no-one has wanted me. If I’d been able to accept that, my life, our lives, would’ve been different. I would’ve focused on what was in front of me, what was important in the present. You.’ Clara remembered that encounter with such clarity, not just because of the words but because her mother had hugged her, and that too was unusual. Three days later, she was gone. 

Why though, did she think of this, as she followed the old woman striding across the bog from Clockmally House towards the cottage. The strange figure held a lantern that bobbed and ducked frenetically, like a buoy on a stormy sea, as her swift yet staccato rhythm navigated the knobbly terrain. Her cloak tussled with the fierce wind that tensed her grey coarse hair like rope, yet she was utterly unflinching in her determined journey.

Then, came the scream.

By the light of the bedside lamp, she crept to the window and peered through the curtains. What had made the noise? An animal? All was still on the bogland – but a lamp glowed in the empty house on the hill. Dressing hurriedly, she left her room and then the pub by the back door. 

The sky was a marvel, so unimpeded by clouds and buildings the full over-arching globe of the earth was clearly visible, the millions of stars pricked out upon it like some arcane and ancient tapestry. The house, however, was in complete darkness, its chimney pots and roof ridge silhouetted against the night’s brightness. Yet, far out on the bog, a light burned. Marsh gas? A beacon? Someone picking their way quickly from the house?

Wind rushed down from the mountains, animating the trees to a crazed, rhythmic, noisy swaying. A prolonged shriek pierced the susurration; surely a barn owl but it made her uneasy, nonetheless. The air was so cold and crisp, frost was forming – and she was shivering terribly. 

Hurrying back to the pub, she couldn’t unlock the back door, her electronic key just beeped incessantly. The front door was locked, too, and most of the windows at the front of the building darkened down – how late it must be! But thankfully, a soft mellow light fell from a single downstairs window. Parting the stems sprouting from a black kettle on a sill, she peered through the glass and saw the waiter – Seamus – ambling past, sweeping up. He looked like an Irish dancer with his straight back, slim hips, green shirt and smart shoes, and indeed, he suddenly spun the broom with a little flourish. Pounding loudly on the window with both hands, she saw him glance up then throw the broom across the floor, hands flying to his heart, face stricken – before gathering himself and laughing heartily. He was still laughing as he unbolted the door. ‘You scared me half to death,’ he said.  ‘Thought you were a ghost.’

‘I couldn’t sleep and went for a walk – but my fob wouldn’t work on the back door.’  

‘Ah, we lock the door at midnight. You need to press the wee buzzer to be let in – but you’re foundered. Let’s get you warmed up.’ 

He led her to the blazing hearth where Theresa sat in a winged armchair, abandoning her knitting as she saw Clara. ‘Have you been outside? With no gloves or hat, on such a bitter night,’ she asked. 

‘Really, I’m fine,’ Clara said, dropping onto the nearby sofa, shivering hard.

Seamus brought a glass of turf-coloured liquid. ‘A wee dram,’ he said. ‘Get that into you, warm your blood.’ He also gave her a hot chocolate with marshmallows and threw another log on the fire. The grandfather clock in the corner chimed 2am. As the warmth came slowly back to her body, she had a glimpse again of that alternate life; one without loneliness, with simple pleasures, where after a day with good-natured customers in your family-run pub, you would sit at night by a roaring fire, engaged thoughtfully in a creative craft or chatting companionably.

Seamus came by with a cloth and polish and handed Clara a large coffee-table book. Clockmally’s Landscapes.  ‘We thought you might like to see this,’ Theresa said. ‘It’s a collection of paintings by Nancy Grosvenor who once lived at Clockmally House.’

The book included images of the countryside and bogland Clara now recognised, dating to the early 1950s. There were later paintings too, from the 1960s and 70s, utterly different from the earlier work, rooted in the realist landscape but more surreal. They included The Keen, a take on Munch’s The Scream, featuring a crying woman by a graveside; Bog Girl, a young woman on the bog holding a pink flower on a starry night; and Night of the Sidhe, a whirling riot of colour and strange animalistic creatures.

‘Theresa, what are these figures?’ Clara asked, holding up the book to show Night of the Sidhe.

‘They’re the wee fairy folk,’ Theresa said. She came to sit beside Clara on the sofa, rubbing her stomach absent-mindedly. ‘Look, the hawthorn tree is the portal between worlds. This one is the leanan sidhe or fairy lover; this is the cat sidhe, the fairy cat; there’s the dog fairy, the cú sidhe; and this one is the bean sidhe.’ 

‘The bean sidhe. Yes, I know about that one. The murderous screaming spirit.’

‘Ach, that’s not true,’ Theresa said shaking her head so that her loose curls bounced frantically. ‘Her scream is a warning to those she protects that death is coming to their family. She’s helping them prepare for the pain that’s to come.’ 

Clara shivered and Theresa added another log to the fire which bristled and rose up violently before relaxing and allowing the conversation to begin again. ‘She haunts Clockmally House, you know, the tower is the portal.’

‘Do you really believe that an ancient spirit haunts the house?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she placed both hands upon her stomach, protective of the being within, and stared absently at the fire. ‘It’s on account of the Grosvenors taking stones from the passage graves on Slieve Tadhg.’

‘The passage graves?’

‘Yes, they’re 5,000 years old and the resting place of ancient warriors that had the bean sidhe as their protectorate. Everything was lying dormant until the Grosvenors took the stone to build their tower.’ Theresa leaned back, raising and flexing her stocking feet. ‘Both the dead and the sidhe cursed them for their sacrilege. That’s where the name comes from – cloch mallaithe – Clockmally, cursed stone. It wasn’t the original name of the house but what the locals called it, and it stuck because of all that happened. No woman in the Grosvenor line ever survived childbirth, so they say.’ 

‘But that’s the way it often was in the old days,’ Clara said softly. ‘Many women didn’t survive it.’ Though, she thought, not because of curses from malevolent spirits.

Theresa pulled her green mohair cardigan tight over her stomach, buttoning it up over her burgeoning bump. ‘Some see the bean sidhe as a young woman, others see her as middle-aged and there’s the hag, too. The three stages of womanhood. I wonder if she’s just the symbol of all women and if her scream comes from universal pain.’  

The pair of them stared pensively and quietly at Theresa’s stomach, Clara appreciating her own empty womb, and wondering if somehow the crone in her dream was a symbol of her mother’s and grandmother’s suffering. A warning, perhaps… 

The fire was dying down, condensation hazed the windows, and a chill penetrated the thick stone walls. Seamus finished his tidying and came to their table. She expected him to say goodnight but instead, he said he would get another round in. The atmosphere was expectant, as if they were waiting for something. Indeed, Theresa got up to peer out the window. Clara returned to the book, turning the page beyond Night of the Sidhe. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she whispered, unintentionally aloud, and sat up straight to focus on the image before her. How could it be? The painting depicted the silver-haired crone walking across the grassy bogland plain, Clockmally’s Tower in the background, the cottage in the foreground. 

Just like the dream! 

Hastily examining the footnotes, she saw that the painting, The Long Winter Walk, had been on display at the Tate Modern’s Lost Women Artists exhibition. It sounded familiar. She must’ve gone for she visited the gallery frequently. She must’ve gone, somehow saw the painting, then forgotten it.

Inwardly, she laughed bitterly. Had she really thought the dream held some meaning that would connect her to her dead mother and long-lost grandmother? It was nothing more than a flash of unsettling images drawn from folklore that indicated her mind was under psychological pressure.

‘Are you ok, Clara? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?’ 

It took her a few moments to realise Theresa was speaking. ‘Oh, yes…I was just thinking that Nancy Grosvenor was very taken with the bean sidhe.’ Clara turned the book to show her the painting. 

‘Ah, is that how you interpret that one? I wouldn’t say that’s the bean sidhe. That’s Cailleach, the goddess of winter. Look at Clockmally Tower all covered in snow and she’s walking away from it to the cottage with its spring flowers, it’s a symbol of transformation.’

A whirl of cold air made the page tremble as the front door opened and two figures in heavy puffed jackets with backpacks walked in. Q and Molly.

‘It’s Baltic out there,’ Q said. The pair took off their backpacks and winter wrappings then sat down by the fire. ‘Hello Clara,’ he nodded brusquely from the shadows of the inglenook. Molly, who was in the armchair opposite her, said nothing although her brown eyes glanced up furtively as she fussed with her loose strands of hair. Socially awkward? Or just rude?

‘Here’s something to warm you up,’ Seamus said, passing round shots to all but Theresa. ‘Sláinte!’ he called. Molly gaily repeated the salutation and Q seemed to growl while Clara remained silent and clueless – until they knocked them back, and she choked as it burned.

 ‘Spirits to shrug of spirits!’ Seamus cried. 

‘These two have been ghost-hunting,’ Theresa explained. ‘Up at Clockmally House. Seamus and I used to do it, too. Not anymore with the baby on the way, of course. We don’t want any entities coming home with us.’

‘No, certainly not. You can’t be too careful,’ said Seamus. ‘There’s some phenomenal activity up at that house, that’s for sure. What did you uncover tonight?’

‘We had the repeating words again,’ Q said in his dour, sparse way. 

Seamus nodded solemnly. ‘Strange business, indeed.’

They were all so serious, so earnest, in their supernatural beliefs. Clara found it endearing and smiled warmly – in appreciation – but then she caught Molly’s hard, accusatory stare. ‘So, how do you communicate with spirits, then?’ she quickly asked. ‘Do you use a Ouija board?’ 

She’d asked the question with genuine curiosity only for Molly to roll her eyes. ‘No, Clara. Ghost science has evolved from your teen movie phase. We use electronic and digital equipment now. It’s a proper scientific investigation of the paranormal.’ 

Despite the giggles and lightness of the girl’s tone, Clara felt the barb, and perhaps Q did too, for he interjected gruffly to say, ‘Through the spirit box.’

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘A device that supposedly scans radio frequencies to help spirits communicate. The repeating words came through it,’ Q said.

‘Is it possible, then, you’re simply picking up stray radio chatter? Or an actual station?’ Clara asked, hoping to be convinced otherwise.

‘For sure…’ Q began.

‘Not likely when it’s the same words, the same voice, repeated over several years. A woman’s voice,’ Molly spoke sharply, impatiently, and Clara nodded as if to concede the point, for now Q looked discomfited. She was confused by the relationship between this pair – they seemed to seek each other’s company, yet she sensed between them a distance; a cold detachment on Molly’s part, a subtle wariness on his. 

‘I take it you don’t believe in ghosts, Clara?’ Seamus asked.

‘I think a lot of these incidents can be explained rationally – temperature or energy changes, radio interference, unconscious human action. But tell me, what’s the repeating message? How many times have you heard it? When do you hear it? Tell me, perhaps that will convince me.’ 

Molly went to speak but Seamus slapped his own thigh and said, ‘Let’s keep that to ourselves for now, Molly. Clara, why don’t you go with them next time, as the impartial element of the experiment? See what happens.’

She glanced between Molly’s startled scowl and Q’s thoughtful frown. No-one spoke for several seconds. ‘We’re going again on Thursday night,’ Q finally said. ‘You’d be very welcome.’ 

‘Thank you!’ Welcome or not, ghosts or no ghosts, she didn’t care, for she would finally be able to get inside Clockmally House. The drawing room, the library, the music room, Nancy’s bedroom. All these, they were saying, were paranormal hotspots. 

‘But how do you actually get in?’ Clara asked, wondering what she’d missed on her own urbexing sweep of the house.

‘Ah well,’ Theresa said. ‘We have a key because the board of trustees? Well, myself and Q, are on it.’

‘Oh! I am surprised,’ Clara said. ‘Q, I thought you weren’t interested in the heritage of Clockmally House.’

‘I just said it wasn’t my heritage. If I’d knocked on that door while they lived there, they would’ve told me where to go – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be part of my future, our future, the village’s future,’ he said, speaking assertively yet fiddling intensely with the right-hand cuff of his shirt.  

‘Clara, there’s actually something we wanted to ask you,’ Theresa said. She glanced at Q who stood up suddenly and leaned on the mantlepiece, staring into the fire; the light burnished his bearded face and long hair so that he looked all the more like an ancient warrior. The Fianna, he’d said they were called here. 

‘The sale conditions of Clockmally House to the community, require us to take a survey of the house and its contents,’ Theresa was saying. ‘With your expertise in heritage and restoring these types of places, we thought you’d be perfect for the job.’

Clara blinked a few times, absolutely stunned by this unexpected and pleasant occurrence, the sudden shimmer in the gloom that had lingered for so long.

‘We’d need a proper application though, to keep ourselves right, with a CV and references,’ Q interrupted sternly, and the dark despondency scudded in again. The institute would never agree to provide that after all that had happened. 

‘And I think you may get that boy to bed,’ he said turning to Theresa, for Seamus was snoring gently in his armchair.

Husband and wife soon left for their living quarters deep within the old building. Clara said she would be off to bed, too, but instead slipped again through the back door. Pink light streaked the horizon, and a blackbird sang melodiously in the chill air over the glistening, empty bogland. 

The cottage’s whitewashed walls were dirty, paint peeled from its half-door, curtains were mildewed to the window glass. But as she peered inside, she saw the hearth had been swept while the ceramic hen on the scrubbed wooden table was free from dust – and of course, there had been the light in an upper window.

Someone lived there still, she was certain of that.

Snowdrops dotted the wild courtyard of the house; the first signs of winter becoming spring. Cailleach, Theresa had called the old woman. It meant change was coming.