The supernatural story collector

Listening to Mr Ghost Goes to Town by the 5 Jones Boys and Little Demon by Screamin Jay Hawkins.

I have rattled on in the past about the history and traditions of Slackbuie. So rich is it, that there is no surprise that we have academics visiting to collect stories. I suppose it is a surprise that this is a job, and even more of surprise, that as a noted raconteur and keeper of the traditions, they took so long to come and see me.

Last night though, there was a rattle at the door, and a young man with a goatee, and an old bodach with a flat cap were standing there. Goatee started to open his mouth when Flat Cap pushed past him into my house. “Do you not offer guests something?” he demanded. “Well, you weren’t strictly invited” I replied, to which he said, “Yes please, I’ll have both.”

Now this immediately marked Flat Cap as a man of the world. Goatee was obviously an academic, but Flat Cap had been around. To be honest, he looked like he had been around so much that his birth certificate was in Latin. Whilst it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce all this, I realise that there could be some youngster out there not following this line of thought. Tea is always accompanied by something to eat, a dram isn’t. So ‘both’ gets you a a dram and something more solid (but less nourishing) with it.

After selecting something interesting in the form of a bottle, we settled down to swap stories. Sitting, glass in hand in the flickering firelight, fortified against the weather and all harm, the supernatural is the way these things tend to go. I kicked off.

“One winter evening in late November, I was sitting by the fire, meditating on the movement of the flames and the crackle and hiss of the burning wood, when I became aware of another sound, quietly sliding under the sound of the westerly wind hitting the gable end. I went to the window, and the gentle sound that had entered into my awareness became clearer as the coo cooing of a pigeon. I knew it couldn’t be a wood pigeon, as it coos to the rhythm of take two cows taffy take, which is nothing like a coo cooing. Looking out I half expected the reflection of the fire flames to take a more solid shape, when I saw the messenger pigeon – with an envelope in its mouth. After some coaxing the pigeon came close enough for me to grab the envelope addressed to myself. I ripped open the top, eager to see who would send me a missive on a night like this. It was from Father Damian. Captain MacDonald had died. As he was delivering the viaticum, MacDonald’s last breath was used to demand to pipe at his funeral, and the good Father wanted to speak to me about it.

MacDonald had been a difficult man in life, with a terrible thirst that he claimed had come over him in the desert, but we had got on just fine. Related through drink perhaps. The last time I had seen him, his face was the purple of a good wine grape, which suggested he might not be long for this world.

Buttoning up my coat against the foul night, I headed to the chapel. In the darkened interior, illuminated only by candles, was MacDonald’s coffin. The candles reflecting off the brass handles of the container of MacDonald’s earthly remains, and highlighting the pain and blood on the crucified Christ looking down on the coffin.

A cough behind me alerted me to the entry of Father Damian and young MacDonald. “Father Damian”… “Mr Dixon” he replied in a hushed tone, placing a whisky bottle and three glasses on the coffin lid.

In the silence of the church, we heard the scratching in the coffin, and I swear the old Captain was trying for the bottle. Even in death, he had a thirst like a moose.”

Well by the time I had finished, Goatee was gibbering – intellectual to inebriated in the space of a few glasses. No wonder educational standards have fallen. Flat Cap might remember when the whole area was covered in ice, but he was made of sterner stuff, and it was clear the bottles would not be going back in the cupboard.

“You know” he said “I am a medium and a story teller.” Whilst not entirely sure how we got on to clothes, I waited for him to follow up his claim. “There are three types of spirits” he began to explain. “A ghost, a poltergoose and a demonic spirit, but don’t you worry, there is a test to know which is which. You ask to shake their hand.” He explained that a ghost has no substance so can’t shake your hand, a poltergeist has substance, so it will shake your hand, and finally, a demonic spirit has no substance but will try to trick you into thinking it has shaken your hand.

“Incredible, but what do you do when you discover it is a demonic spirit?”

“You run like buggery! What did you think you would do?”

Sage advice indeed.