Room the second
Cold as a held breath. Everything here was left mid-sentence: the clocks, the chairs, the last of the groundsmen's keys.
Found under the floorboards, 1894 — the valet's book
He will not hear the house called empty. Every night he dines in the parlour with the chairs set for five, and tells the empty ones his day. This month a letter came from Bath — a Madame Theodosia Grimm, who writes that the dead are only a room away, and that a table of the right shape is a door.
On the last night of the month the screaming began, and at a quarter past the witching hour it stopped — and the master ordered every clock in the house stopped with it. "Let no hand wind them until she comes home." We turned the faces to the wall. Mine is stopped at 12:15. They are all stopped at 12:15. It was not a request.
He trusted no year but the year the house rose, and no name but one, and I was told never to write the name. The candles too have their order — the medium was strict about it — youngest to eldest, or the dead will not know which of us to speak to.
She came to the water every night at the end, my lady did, and went into it. What I heard under the parlour floor at the end was not her. Two things I was told never to write: the name engraved inside the locket, and what the fifth chair held. I write the first: it is her own name, engraved within, and the house has tried to forget it.
Lot 14 — the hall clock
It has not been wound since 1893. The hands have been moved by hands less patient than yours — but the cabinet below the face is locked, and the lock keeps its own hour.
12:00the hands as they stand
From the cabinet, in wax — transcribed
Grimm's voice, very close to the horn: "…the safe in the long gallery keeps my confession, and the wall will open for the portraits that lie. Ask her by name and she will come. But name her wrong, and she will know you for a stranger."
A second voice, very faint, under the floor: — the rest of the cylinder is a hiss, except once, quite distinctly, the sound of something knocking from the inside.
Pinned to the pantry door, 1894
| Lot | Article | The auctioneer's note |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | Hall clock, eight-day | Stopped. Unwound since 1893. The cabinet below the face still locks — the key was never on the ring. |
| 22 | Stuffed raven, glass case | The case is warm to the touch. No bidder will write a figure beside it. |
| 31 | Portrait of a lady, oval | Canvas turned to the wall by an unsteady hand. Not to be turned back while the house is occupied. |
| 47 | Crate, the medium's effects | Nailed shut in 1893. Sounds hollow. Will not be opened on the premises. |
| 58 | Eleven chairs, walnut | Twelve in the photograph. One has never been sat in, and the Trust declines to say which. |
| 60 | Lot withdrawn | By order of the Trust, without reason given: the contents of the cold hearth. |
The east door, carved oak
The door to the séance parlour bears a carved woman's hand, palm out, fingers half-closed. It is ice-cold, and it is waiting.
Three bolts hold it. The clock must strike, and the lady must have her keepsake.
Three bolts, drawn one by one, by nothing you can see. Cold air comes through the gap, and it smells of candle smoke and pond water. The parlour is still waiting for its five sitters.
Enter the Séance Parlour