Disturbing the Dust

It was ten o’clock, and the morning mists were reluctant to release their hold on the Scottish borders. Gradually, the breeze was revealing a landscape of conifers, some bare, some clinging to their green needles. A road cut through the dense plantation, linking a small, sleepy village to the solid, square outline of a castle. The building’s element-battered exterior revealed that it had been rebuilt and remodelled countless times, its façade subject to both the necessities of war and the fickleness of fashion. In the gloom, one sign of occupation was visible, a yellow light on the top floor of the westernmost tower.

Jenny sat at her bedroom desk, twining a lock of brown hair around the fingers of her left hand, unable to contain her frustration at her laptop. The fans on the computer were whirring maniacally, and the screen had been displaying a blue circle and the word ‘starting’ for about ten minutes now. She rapped at the keypad in irritation, but her efforts were futile. Leaning back in her chair, she rubbed her temples, urging herself to calm down. She closed her eyes, and breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. In through the…

               Something hit her foot. ‘Bloody Hell!’ She opened her eyes to see the robot vacuum cleaner retreating. Its flight was cut short when it encountered the wall, and it rebounded towards her other foot. Jenny lifted her leg and, with admirable restraint, resisted the urge to stamp on the infernal machine as it crawled underneath, making for the open door.

               ‘Why on earth did I buy that thing?’ she muttered to herself, as the vacuum trundled out of sight, waging its half-hearted war with the dust mites in the corridor. She knew the answer to her question. It had little to do with the dubious cleaning ability of the robot, and a lot to do with the charisma of a certain young woman.

She’d been at the King’s Head, in her usual spot at the bar, when the hiker had come in. Jenny had been surprised to see someone of her own age in the inn; the village was almost exclusively populated by the elderly and retired, and the few tourists tended to be more of the same.

This young woman had a striking pale, freckled face, framed by curly ginger hair. She caught Jenny’s eye as she made her order, and came to sit next to her.

               ‘Hi, I’m Ruth,’ she said, setting her rucksack down with a sigh of relief and holding out her hand. Jenny shook it, feeling the cool of the night in the other woman’s fingers. The barman set a cider in front of Ruth and looked at Jenny inquisitively.

‘Another bitter please.’

‘Coming right up.’

               Ruth had a way of talking which set Jenny at ease, and seemed genuinely interested in her. ‘So you live in the castle all alone?’

‘Yeah, that’s right, I’m the caretaker. I used to work there when it was a hotel, and when that fell through the estate wanted someone they knew to look after the place.’

‘That’s awesome! But does it not get lonely?’

Jenny picked up the pint which the barman set before her, and took a long slurp. ‘Sure, a bit. But staying in such an amazing and historical place makes up for it.’

‘Isn’t it scary at night?’

‘Well… I’m not superstitious… But… sometimes. I can deal with it though.’

‘So you wouldn’t want to live anywhere else?’ Ruth’s blue eyes sparkled.

Jenny smiled ‘no. Although I’ll tell you one thing: cleaning the place is a pain in the ass!’

Ruth had suggested the robot vacuum, saying it might make life easier, though she’d never had the experience of using one herself. She’d stayed at the inn that night and then continued her hike through the hills the next day. Jenny added her on Facebook after their meeting, but between the sluggish nature of her computer and the unreliability of the internet, she barely kept in touch. Even so, the memory of that night at the bar, and the joy of having someone to talk to, and drink with, left a warm feeling inside of her.

               A couple of days after the encounter, Jenny had fired up her laptop and, after painstakingly scrolling through the options, bought the robot. She’d hoped the estate would refund her for it, but they insisted that the handheld vacuum they already provided was good enough, and they wouldn’t fork out unnecessarily for something which had less suction power. Jenny hadn’t minded too much; her income was reasonable, and she didn’t have to pay rent.

At this point in time, however, she was pretty frustrated. The little robot was a real irritation, and between that and the laptop it felt like all this modern technology was out to get her.

               The whirling circle still occupied her screen, so she headed out of her room and down the spiral stairs to the kitchen, where she grabbed a packet of biscuits off the worktop, and a smoothie from the fridge.

As she climbed back up the stairs the lights cut out. Another power cut. She really should fix those emergency bulbs. Jenny trod cautiously up the worn stones, letting muscle memory guide her.

The wind whistled through the cracks around the single glazed windows, and a creaking sound came from below her. A door opened and closed. The tobacco smoke scent of a long-dead lord assaulted her nostrils. Even after years of staying at this place, it still had the ability to creep her out. Abandoning prudence, she rushed the last couple of steps and fell face first in the hallway, dropping her snacks. Something tugged her hair.

She screamed.

The lights came back on, revealing the robot misguidedly wrestling a brown lock. She stood, and it toppled over. Then she kicked the wretched device, sending it flying down the corridor. Scooping up her dropped biscuits and smoothie, Jenny stormed into her room, ensuring the door was closed behind her. When she saw that her laptop had made no progress, she slammed it shut and went over to her bed, where she sat propped against the cushions and crunched away at her biscuits. After a little while, she took an archive file from her bedside table and started to read, her fingers absently stroking her poor, abused hair as she concentrated.

There was a fascinating story in the old records of the castle, which told of how, when the place had been taken over by the invading English, they had locked one of the locals in the dungeon. He had been accused of murdering the daughter of the new lord, and had been due to be hanged, drawn and quartered. On the day of his execution, his jailer had gone down to the dungeon to find he had disappeared. The trapdoor of the dungeon had been bolted from above, and there was no other means of escape.

Jenny used this ghost story to impress her few friends and acquaintances, not least Ruth, but what really fascinated her was the fact that it was supported by several, usually reliable, historical sources. As she re-read the accounts of the event for the hundredth time, Jenny decided to take a trip down to the dungeon. Modern technology was not her friend, so she was going to occupy herself with the past instead.

Remembering her earlier fright, she popped a head torch on and headed for the ground floor. She grabbed the robot hoover on the way. ‘You can do something useful and clean up downstairs.’ As she spoke to it, Jenny noticed one of the sensors was damaged, no doubt a result of her fierce kick earlier. She felt a little guilty, although the stupid thing had been incredibly annoying.

With the robot set to work, Jenny opened the trapdoor and made her way down into the dungeon, head torch on. She looked around the confined space and imagined what it would be like to be stuck here, awaiting a gruesome death. She shivered.

Starting in the western corner, she made a thorough examination of the stonework of the cell, wondering how anyone could escape from, or hide in, the place. She’d done this before, and, as ever, came to no satisfactory conclusion. You could climb the wall to the ceiling, but that was absolutely solid. Maybe the story was made up, or an illusion, or the jailer had let his captive go and not wanted to admit it. Jenny sighed.

A thunk sounded above her. Had something just hit the trapdoor? Another thunk. Then a chunk of black plastic somersaulted down the steps. ‘You’ Jenny said to the battered robot.

The trapdoor slammed shut.

Jenny put her shoulder against the heavy square of oak and strained. It wouldn’t budge. She rested for a second and then tried again. No result. Cursing, she pushed with both hands and all the energy she could summon. No use. She hammered against it with the ball of her hand, until she couldn’t take the pain any longer. Defeated, she eventually seated herself on the bottom step. She checked her phone. No signal, of course.

By the light of her head torch, she could see the little robot moving back and forth, sucking away at the dust on the floor of the dungeon. Unbelievable.

She was really tired, drained of energy by her futile efforts at escape. Her heartbeat slowed, her head fell to one side, and she slumbered.

Jenny woke to a buzzing sound. In the dim beam of light from her head, she saw the little robot. Like her head torch, it must be running low on battery. It was stuck in one spot. In fact it was tilted to one side. Curious, Jenny strode over to it. It had vacuumed up the mortar from the side of one of the flagstones. ‘Huh, I wouldn’t have thought you’d have it in you.’ Jenny set the machine to one side and crouched down to inspect. Now that the floor was clean, it was clear that there was something strange about this flagstone. The surrounding mortar, where the robot hadn’t vacuumed, was a different colour from that in the rest of the room, and… Yes. Jenny scratched at it with a forefinger. It crumbled easily.

With mounting excitement, Jenny felt in her pocket and grabbed her keyring. Using the massive old-fashioned front door key, she scraped out the mortar surrounding the flag. The repetitive motion made her wrist ache after a while, but she persevered until the whole stone was loose. She dug her fingers underneath and tried to lift. It shifted a little, but she couldn’t get it all the way up. Dropping it, she snatched her fingers away before they could be crushed. Her biceps and shoulders were burning. Frustrating as it was, she would need to rest a while.

The robot had crawled over to a different section of the room when she’d moved it; its strength was now visibly ebbing. Jenny looked at it in the ever-dimming beam of her torch, and felt a stirring of pity, which was ridiculous, of course. Might as well pity the microwave when porridge exploded over it. She psyched herself up, curled her fingers under the stone again and, with an adrenaline-induced heave, flipped it backwards so it rested against the wall. There was a tunnel underneath.

Peering along the tunnel, Jenny could see a shaft of light at the end. She lowered herself into the hole. It was just big enough to crawl through. She went a little way, then reversed and stood back up in the dungeon. Making her way over to the robot, she picked it up and gave it an affectionate pat. ‘Looks like you saved the day.’ She lowered herself back into the tunnel and crawled along, pushing the robot in front of her.

Damp and grubby, she reached the end. A few loose stones and a substantial thicket of brambles blocked her exit. She pushed the stones out of the way and barged through the brambles, ignoring their tendrils as they snatched at her and snagged on her clothing. She burst into the open air with the robot in both hands, and set it down like a rugby player scoring a try. Then she lay down on the dirty ground and breathed the fresh air. Freedom.

A minute or two later, she pulled her phone out. After a crazy day like this, she needed to talk to someone. The top right corner indicated that she had 4g out here. Someone up there must like her. She opened Messenger and scrolled until she found the name ‘Ruth Mabey’. She pressed ‘call’.

The words tumbled out of her. ‘Hey, it’s me. How are you? You’ll never believe what just happened -- I’ve made an incredible discovery. Well. Actually it was the hoover. So thanks for suggesting that --’

From the other end of the line, Ruth laughed. ‘Jenny, slow down. What are you on about?’

Jenny took a breath, and ordered her thoughts; ‘okay, so you know that ghost story I told you? Are you ready for the sequel?’