MRS WIBBSEY'S FESTIVE DIARY
6
LATER
I’m sitting up in bed and at first it’s
like the devil himself has come in my room. I let out a shriek before I realise
it’s that blessed robot dog.
‘Forgive me, mistress,’ he says in that
strange, polite voice, and then, all of a sudden it’s like he’s reading my
mind.
No, more than that.
I can see my past floating out in front
of me. Like ectoplasm.
Long time since I saw ectoplasm. All that
floaty, nasty stuff, like candy floss but with a supernatural aspect.
Not since the days of Mr Wibbsey. Not since him. And his
peripatetic spiritualist church.
And I can see him now. High up in the cab
of that van, with me at his side, chugging through the winding roads of Norfolk,
visiting each small village in turn. I was his unwilling helpmeet. I wanted
nothing to do with all that dark stuff. Turning up in villages and calling up
the dead. Scaring the locals out of their skins when all they wanted was a bit
of peace and reassurance. He was a devil, Mr Wibbsey. I’ve tried for so long to
forget him.
Why’s this robot dog reminding me?
He’s perching on the bedclothes. His
little castors are resting on the candlewick bedspread. Somehow that impassive
face of his looks regretful. He’s sorry for making me relive moments from my
dreadful past.
I see the day I left Mr Wibbsey. That
terrible day when the old man tried to stop me. When I smashed his crystal ball
and he howled like all the demons in hell were after him. He went running into
the sea and I never stopped him.
When they dragged him back up the shingle
the next morning his eyes were gone. The Cromer police were horrified.
I knew already though, that Mr Wibbsey
had never had no eyes.
Not in his head.
The robot dog shows me – pictures coming
through that glimmering, pinkish cloud that hovers over my bed – how I found
happiness of a sort. Living in that little town. Finding a job in that museum.
How it became like a palace to me. I was so proud of being in charge of all the
Curiosities.
This creature must be a spirit to know
all of this. And to know about the eyes of Mr Wibbsey. Mechanical or not, he
must be a hound from hell. Made of minerals and metals forged by the spirits
down below.
‘Get out! Get out!’ I shriek at him and
the dog stares at me sadly.
Then he turns and glides out of the attic
room.
Dawn’s coming up. It’s Christmas morning
out there but I find myself still stuck inside the faraway past.
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