The Manse of Achintore

Agatha adjusted the collar of her coat as the train pulled into Fort William station, the late June light brushing the mountain peaks. She’d been pleased when her speaking tour brought her back here after forty-something years, but she hadn’t expected the quiet thrill that coursed through her as the train wound its way across the Scottish moors toward this busy little town at the foot of Ben Nevis.

She stepped onto the platform and breathed in the air - pine and peat, sharp and familiar. She had spent a summer here in the ’70s. The boy she’d been seeing then had sworn the famed Highland air was so distinctive because it was thick with old souls and wraiths.

Of course, there were no such things as ghosts, but still, her hand went to the pendant at her neck - a weathered iron key on a silver chain, cool against her skin. Habit. Nothing more, she told herself.

The hotel was five minutes from the station, a tartan-dressed place full of knobbly woodwork and stag heads mounted on every other wall. At reception, while the clerk looked up her booking, Agatha’s eyes drifted to a rack of local pamphlets. Most were the usual fare - loch cruises, distillery tours, Jacobite steam train rides - but one caught her attention, “The Haunted Manse of Achintore – Mystery Walk Saturdays at Dusk!”

Her stomach flipped, like a coin tumbling through the air.

She picked the brochure up, feigning casual interest. The house looked much the same - just more ivy-covered now. The lawns and gardens weren’t as pristine as she remembered, but they weren’t neglected either.

“Is the Manse still owned by the Drummonds?” she asked.

“Nay anymore - they’ve all passed on. It’s with the National Trust now,” the clerk said, handing over her key card. “You’ve been before?”

“A lifetime ago,” Agatha replied. She slipped the pamphlet into her pocket, thanked him, and made her way to the lift.

In her room, she unpacked slowly: books, notes for the Folklore Symposium, and the battered black boots that had taken her up Skara Brae and down Pendle Hill. She caught her reflection in the mirror - white hair pinned back in its usual twist, sharp eyes behind librarian glasses - and gave herself a look.

“Just do your job and leave,” she muttered.

Still, as she moved about the room, the iron key tapped gently against her chest. A faint warmth pulsed through the chain.

No. She was just imagining it.

Even so, after a satisfying supper and a glass of Oban single malt, she found herself praying that the dreams wouldn’t return.

But they did.

The Highlands had seemed like the perfect place to start her writing career. Not with airy romances or the kitchen-sink dramas the magazines wanted, but with something that had teeth. A book of hauntings. Real places. Real history. Even if the ghosts themselves were nonsense, the stories were worth chasing.

At twenty-one, Agatha had believed herself invincible and determined to be taken seriously. So, she packed her notebooks and clothing into her battered Morris Minor and spent the summer trawling through the Highlands in search of haunted houses, crumbling castles, and whispered legends.

Mostly, what she found was rain. And sheep. And the discomfort of her own overactive imagination when she lay awake at night, listening to the wind claw at the windows or the trees creaking like old bones.

She always asked permission where she could. Some homeowners welcomed the attention, hoping to make a few pounds from a spooky reputation. Others weren’t so keen. The Manse at Achintore had fallen into the latter camp.

The owner, a severe woman with a clipped accent and wary eyes, had been reluctant from the moment Agatha knocked on her door. The house was grand, standing back from the road, its existence hidden behind a tall iron gate and towering rhododendrons.

“Journalist?” the woman had asked, her voice flat.

“Writer,” Agatha corrected, holding up her notebook. “I’m researching a book about hauntings in the Highlands. I’ve heard a few stories about this place. Just looking for permission to spend a night or two observing.”

The woman’s lips thinned. She didn’t ask what stories. She didn’t have to.

“You can stay on the grounds,” the woman finally allowed, after a silence so thick Agatha imagined she could hear the moss growing. “You’re not the first,” the woman said, “You’ll just be disappointed like the rest. You can stay. But not inside. Sleep in your car. I’ll bring you breakfast in the morning.”

Agatha had agreed, a touch disappointed, but also relieved. It was awkward making small talk with the house owners who didn’t really want you there. And for all its charm, the house had an unsettling air even in broad daylight.

That evening, Agatha parked beneath a twisted Scots pine at the edge of the drive, notebook by her side, flask of coffee in hand, and permission to use the bathroom at the back of the house if needed.

It was Midsummer’s Eve. The perfect night for a good story. But as the hours dragged past midnight there were no spectres to be seen. She looked past the natural spookiness of shifting shadows as night descended, and the sounds of skirling wind and the calls of a distant owl. She drained another cup of coffee – she would see the whole night out.

And yet… the dreams came.

They arrived with unsettling clarity. Dreams of a woman standing in the long grass behind the house, her hair wild in the wind, her mouth moving but making no sound. Dreams of a key - iron, old, cool against her palm. And under it all, the steady pulse of the earth, like a heartbeat, deep beneath the stones.

Agatha woke with a start, the morning sun bleaching the sky, her flask cold beside her.

She hadn’t seen a ghost. But when she laughingly told the owner about her dreams, the woman had gone pale and took a necklace from her own neck and pressed it into her hand - a chain with a weathered iron key - and told her, in no uncertain terms, “Wear this. Always. And don’t come back.”

Agatha had driven away, unnerved but not a believer.

And last night, in the hotel, the same dream had returned - exactly as before. The same woman in the long grass. The same silent mouth. The same faint, steady pulse beneath the earth. Even now, wide awake, the unease still pressed at her. She closed her eyes to visualize the woman’s face – if only she could work out what she was saying,

Agatha slipped the necklace from beneath her blouse and let the iron key rest against her palm. It was as cool as it had been that first morning, decades ago. The edges had worn smooth over the years, but it remained unchanged, and, despite herself, so had the habit of wearing it.

She set the key gently back against her chest, her fingers lingering for a moment longer than necessary.

A token. Nothing more, she told herself for the thousandth time.

That day she played tourist, taking the gondola to the top of Aonach Mòr, hiking the trails, savouring the food and the views from the Snow Goose Restaurant. The sun shone, the skies were clear, and her thoughts drifted only to her youthful summer fling with a handsome Highland lad and her upcoming folklore talk at the symposium.

That evening, as dusk drew near outside the hotel window, the mountains were hunched beneath a thick band of cloud, their peaks hidden, their slopes dark with shadow. Agatha ran a bath, looking forward to luxuriating in the deep, claw-footed tub. But as she crossed the bedroom to grab her pyjamas, her eyes caught the brochure on the dresser.

‘The Haunted Manse of Achintore. Mystery Walk Saturdays at Dusk’.

She had told herself the dreams were coincidence. That the faint warmth of the key was in her head. That the old stories were just that - stories.

But she knew herself well enough to recognise the creeping itch of unfinished business. The same itch that, nearly fifty years ago, sent her knocking on doors with nothing but a notebook and foolish determination.

And now, it was drawing her back to the Manse.

Agatha reached for her coat and the pamphlet.

“Just a guided walk,” she muttered, as if saying it aloud might make it true.

But in her bones, she already knew - this was no stroll.

This was a return.

The tour group was smaller than she’d expected - half a dozen tourists in rain jackets, clutching cameras and takeaway coffee cups, milling awkwardly by the old iron gate.

The guide, a wiry man with a rust-colored beard and a laminated badge that read Fraser, glanced up as Agatha approached.

“Right, folks, gather in,” he called, clapping his hands. “Welcome to the old Drummond Manse. Empty five years - while the Trust decides what to do with it. A manse, for those unfamiliar, is just the minister’s house. Though this one’s a wee bit grander than your average man of the cloth needed, if you ask me. Tonight, I’ll share a few of the local legends… and if you're lucky, maybe the ghosts’ll show themselves fer ya Instagram. Especially since it’s Midsummer’s Eve.”

The group chuckled. Agatha didn’t. Her heart gave a sharp, unwelcome thud. Of all the days to find herself here again - it had to be Midsummer’s Eve. The date hadn’t even crossed her mind.

The house loomed beyond the gate, its silhouette softened by ivy and creeping moss, windows blank and dark. Time had done its work - the rhododendrons overgrown, the gravel drive cracked and tufted with grass - but the house still stood. Waiting.

They walked in a slow line as Fraser lit the tiki torches lining the curve of the driveway, their orange glow casting long shadows across the gravel.

He spoke of Highland ghosts - the Phantom Piper whose eerie music drifted across the moors and glens near ancient sites and battlefields. Here, at the Manse, there had been sightings of a Bean Nighe - a banshee who washed bloodstained clothing in the stream that led to nearby Loch Linnhe.

Fraser offered a crooked smile. “Let’s hope we don’t meet the washer-woman tonight. A sighting, after all, foretells death.”

“They’re also linked to spirits trapped between worlds,” Agatha muttered under her breath, immediately annoyed at herself for instinctively filling in the folklore details.

Fraser caught her words and nodded in agreement. As they turned the corner of the house, he launched into a tale about a Green Lady said to haunt the grounds.

Agatha kept to herself the fact that Green Ladies were almost exclusively found in castles, not country houses like this.

They stopped at the edge of the garden as Fraser began the history - a dramatic retelling of owners lost to scandal, unexplained deaths, the usual folklore garnish.

But Agatha barely listened.

The ground beneath her feet thrummed faintly.

She turned, scanning the horizon - the jagged line of hills, the gentle swell of the land.

It was time to admit to herself why she still wore the key. Twice, in the years after her summer in the Highlands, she’d experienced dreams linked to local legends in the places she was staying. They were far from Achintore - but both, she later discovered, sat along the same ley line as the Manse.

She could feel it now, subtle but undeniable, a thread pulled taut beneath the earth, humming with quiet tension.

Her dreams weren’t coincidence. She was here for a reason.

The tour wound its way around the crumbling garden, Fraser spinning his stories with practised ease. The tourists stayed close, their voices low, their footsteps crunching softly over the gravel drive.

Fraser stopped near the overgrown garden, adjusting one of the flickering tiki torches as the group clustered around.

“Old Eleanor Drummond kept to herself after her husband died - superstitious type, by all accounts. Folk say she carried charms for protection… bits of iron, keys, silver coins. Things that are traditionally used to keep the spirits off your back.”

A few of the tourists exchanged amused glances. Fraser shrugged.

“After her son died, they cleared out the house. At the estate sale, someone found a dusty old book on Highland charms and such. Eleanor had scribbled notes in the margins. It talked about binding the threshold.”

He gave a wry smile. “Sounds grand, doesn’t it? Probably meant hanging a rowan branch over the door, that sort of thing.”

But Agatha’s breath caught. Binding the threshold.

She knew that phrase. It wasn’t about protecting yourself - it was about protecting a place. Sealing the boundaries. Holding something back… or keeping something in.

She grabbed at the key at her neck. Eleanor Drummond hadn’t understood what she was carrying. But Agatha did. Now.

The hum beneath her feet seemed to deepen, a quiet, steady pulse rising through the soil.

Fraser's voice faded as he moved on, leading the group around the cracked driveway, their footsteps crunching softly on gravel.

Agatha drifted to the back, her eyes drawn to the rear of the house. The overgrowth parted just enough to reveal the faint line of a footpath winding into the undergrowth.

It pulled at her, quiet and insistent. No one noticed as she slipped away.

The footpath narrowed as it curled behind the house, half-swallowed by brambles and weeds. The garden here was wild, reclaimed by time and weather, but the air hummed with something deeper. Something that prickled beneath her skin.

Agatha pushed aside the branches, her heart thudding, and there it was - the clearing from her dreams.

The long grass tremored in the wind. At the centre, half-hidden beneath creeping vines and moss, lay a low, weathered stone slab. The outline of an old cellar door.

She knelt beside the slab, brushing away the moss. The rusted padlock hung heavy on the latch. The key fit perfectly.

The chain fell away with a dull clatter. The door groaned as she heaved it open, the scent of damp earth curling upward.

Stone steps descended into darkness.

For a moment, she hesitated - the hum beneath her feet was stronger now, steady and urgent.

Then she stepped down.

The chamber was small and circular, its walls etched with symbols - spirals, lines, protective knots worn soft by time. In the centre of the floor, outlined in faint carvings and ancient mortar, was a second door - this one flat against the earth, sealed with stone and age.

A trapdoor. The threshold.

The hum pulsed through her bones now. The ley line, strained. The boundary weakened. She could feel it.

A faint pressure filled the chamber, the air thickening. From the corner of her eye, the flicker of a figure - wild hair, dark skirt, familiar sorrow etched into her face.

The woman from her dreams. Not angry. Not vengeful. Watching. Waiting.

This time Agatha could make out the words the woman was mouthing, “You opened the gate.” There was no anger, no accusation. Just fact.

There was no time for Agatha to wonder how on earth she at age 21 had opened a portal between worlds.

She turned the key.

A soft vibration rippled through the floor, the carvings along the walls glowing faintly, as if the stone itself exhaled relief. The tension in the air ebbed. The hum quieted. The earth settled.

Agatha pressed her hand flat against the cool stone, grounding herself.

When she looked up, the woman was gone.

Outside in the grounds again, the long grass swayed in the twilight. The scent of damp earth and crushed grass mingled with the faint sweetness of gorse and wild thyme carried on the breeze.

Somewhere unseen, a bird stirred in the undergrowth. The leaves whispered overhead, and from beyond the trees came the quiet murmur of the stream as it wound its way toward the loch.

Agatha felt as though she had stumbled into her childhood favourite book - The Secret Garden, a story in which a young girl had uncovered a secret that transformed her life, and the lives of those around her. But how had she, Agatha, influenced anything here on her last visit? Was it her youth and naïveté combined with the crossing of Midsummer’s Eve – that time of year when the veil between worlds was said to wear dangerously thin?

She hadn’t believed in the supernatural then. And despite everything, she wasn’t sure she fully believed in it now. Apart from finding an old chamber and ritualistic markings – had anything really happened – perhaps the vibrations and the vision of a woman were all just her imagination – fuelled by years of studying folk stories?

The next morning, the lecture hall smelled faintly of old books and coffee. Agatha clicked through her slides: Folklore of the Highlands and Islands, rich with tales of mythical creatures, powerful spirits, and ancient beliefs.

She mentioned the Manse of Achintore in passing, cataloguing its stories alongside the rest.

No one asked about keys. Or ley lines. Or dreams.

And she didn’t offer.

Some things didn’t belong in a lecture.

Some things belonged to the land - and to those who had the wisdom to listen.