Guardian Of The Dark Slap (Tales From The Dark Past Book 5)

Book summary

"Guardian of the Dark Slap" intertwines two riveting timelines in the Scottish Borders, merging the eerie past with a troubled present. In 1921, Eleanor and Thomas Armstrong, seeking solace for Thomas's shell-shock, encounter a hostile community and a house with a sinister history. Simultaneously, in 1321, Sir Andrew Douglas's quest for glory leads him to battle the nefarious Hugo de Soulis. This gripping narrative delves into themes of necromancy and demonic forces, as the protagonists confront the haunting legacies of rural Scotland. Will the Armstrongs prevail against an ancient and formidable evil?

Excerpt from Guardian Of The Dark Slap (Tales From The Dark Past Book 5)

Newbigging, Scottish Borders, October 1921

The hotel looked unprepossessing as Thomas pulled the dark green Crossley to a halt outside the front door. Two storeys high, with the whitewash peeling off the outside wall and the sign, Wardlaw Inn, creaking in the wind, it would not have appealed to him before the war. Now, in the aftermath of four years of bloody slaughter, appearance meant nothing, he had discarded luxury, and even comfort was not supremely important.

“Are you ready?” Eleanor asked brightly.

Thomas nodded to her with his eyes dull. “I’m ready.” He glanced along the street, seeking inspiration.

The village of Newbigging was quiet, with the drizzling rain dampening the autumnal dust on the pavement and weeping from a neglected gutter above the inn’s signboard. Nobody walked the street, while a solitary farm cart rumbled slowly along the road. The driver stared at the Crossley as he passed, saying nothing. He managed a reluctant nod in response to Eleanor’s cheery hail.

An aroma of dampness greeted them as they pushed open the inn’s front door. There was no reception desk, merely a small table with a vase of wilting flowers and a brass handbell. Eleanor rang the bell, the sound breaking the sombre silence of the inn. When nobody appeared, she rang again.

“I heard you the first time.” The man was in his late middle age, with a bald head and a limp. “What do you want?”

“We’ve booked in for the week,” Eleanor said. “Thomas Armstrong and Eleanor Machrie.” She waited for his comment.

“That will be two single rooms,” the man said after a short pause.

“Or a twin,” Eleanor said with a smile. “We’re brother and sister.”

Eleanor expected his downward glance to check if she was wearing a wedding ring. “My husband died at Ypres,” she said.

The man grunted, eyeing Eleanor sourly. ‘Twin,” he said. “First floor. Room number three. Where’s your luggage?”

“In the car,” Eleanor told him. “My brother will bring it in.”

The man nodded. “Dinner’s six till eight. Breakfast’s seven till eight.”

“Thank you, Mister…” Eleanor waited for the man to give his name.

“Johnston,” he said grudgingly. Turning away without another word, he slouched through a half-glazed door.

“Twin,” Eleanor confirmed. “First floor. Number three. Could you fetch the bags, Tom?”

She waited for Thomas to return and climbed up the creaking steps to the first floor, past the panelled walls with their faded pictures of Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and the ubiquitous Landseer print of a stag at bay.

The room was decorated in similar taste, with a once-good-quality but now worn rug on the ground above varnished floorboards, two iron beds, and pictures of Edinburgh Castle and the Eildon Hills on the wall. Eleanor half expected to see a portrait of Queen Victoria, dead these last twenty years, frowning down on them.

“How are the beds, Thomas?”

She heard the ominous creak of springs as Thomas sat on the nearest.

“Good,” he said.

Eleanor tested the second bed and nodded when she found it better than she had feared. “Here we are, then.”

“Here we are,” Thomas agreed.

“Tomorrow is the big day.”

Thomas nodded, sitting on the bed, staring at the wall with his mind elsewhere.

“You unpack while I look at the view.” Stepping to the window, Eleanor stared up the street. She gave a wry smile, thinking they must have arrived at the busy period, for now, half an hour later, nothing at all stirred in the village. Newbigging was dead. She counted three shops: a baker, a butcher and one with the name Elliot in faded gold letters against a brown background. Eleanor presumed the locals would know what Elliot’s sold, while any visitors would have to guess.

Eleanor knew the layout of this village, although she had never been here in her life. It was similar to a score of other eighteenth-century planned settlements in Scotland, with two streets intersecting at right angles in a reasonably large market square, where the Inn, the church, and the shops were situated. Simple, robust, and practical, it allowed nothing for the local geography.

“This place doesn’t belong,” Eleanor observed.

“Why not?” Thomas joined her at the window.

“It’s too manufactured. Somebody has deliberately placed it here.” Knowing Thomas would not understand her reasoning, Eleanor looked beyond the houses to the distant hills. Long, grey-green, and gently curved, they had endured tens of thousands of years of history. “I prefer organic growth.”

“Oh.” When Thomas said no more, Eleanor knew she had lost him.

“Best get changed,” Eleanor said. “We’ll be late for dinner.” She watched him out of the corner of her eye, wincing at his clumsiness. “Let me help you.”

“I know how to dress!” Thomas said.

“Of course you do,” Eleanor said, fighting her pain. When Thomas thought he had finished, she adjusted his tie, brushed down his shoulders, and headed downstairs.

Although Eleanor and Thomas were the only guests in the inn, there were two other couples for dinner. One pair had evidently been married for many years, as they communicated with hardly a word while still managing to make themselves understood. The other couple had apparently never seen strangers before, to judge by the interest they took in the new guests. When the man bent forward to murmur something to his companion, Eleanor saw Thomas tense, with his right fist clenching around his knife.

“No, Thomas.” Eleanor shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” Turning around in her seat, she returned their scrutiny, giving them stare for stare until they dropped their eyes. Eleanor continued to watch them as they ate.

“Is everything all right?” The waitress was blonde-haired and cheerful, a breath of fresh air in that room of gloom.

“Fine, thank you,” Eleanor assured her. As she looked willing to help, Eleanor continued. “Are you local to the area?”

When the waitress smiled, her freckles merged, so half her face was one mass of ginger. “I’ve lived here all my life,” she said. “As has my family as long as time.”

“That’s good.” Eleanor gave her an encouraging smile. “You’ll know your way around, then.”

“As well as anybody,” the waitress replied.

“Do you know a house called Anton’s Walls?” Eleanor asked. “It’s a strange name, but I know it’s somewhere nearby. I didn’t see it on the Bartholomew’s map.”

“I ken it fine.” The waitress’s smile broadened. “It’s empty, though. Old Jock Armstrong died over a year ago if you were looking for him.”

“I was not,” Eleanor said. “Could you tell me how to get there, please?”

Pulling up a chair, the waitress sat beside Thomas. “Are you walking? There’s no’ a bus service that way. Maybe you can hire a chaise from Geordie Rutherford’s in the village.”

“We have a car,” Eleanor said. “It’s parked in the street outside.”

“Oh!” The waitress shook her head. “I wondered who owned the Crossley! I should have known it would be yours!” She treated Thomas to a smile.

“Is there a road to Anton’s Walls?”

“There’s a bit of one,” the waitress told me. “A country road, as we call it, not a metalled road.”

Eleanor nodded. She had expected nothing else. “It’ll be a quiet place, then.”

“Aye, it’s quiet,” the girl said. “There’s nothing much there except the moor. Not even sheep, since old Jock Armstrong died.” She glanced at Thomas, sitting quietly at Eleanor’s side. “Maybe Old Jock’s ghost.”

“That won’t bother us,” Thomas said quickly.

A rough voice broke in. “What do you want to go to Anton’s for?”

Eleanor had not seen the elderly man arrive. He stood beside the table, dressed in faded working clothes and smelling of damp soil and tobacco.

“There’s nothing there for toonies and stooriefeet. Anton’s is in the middle of a wilderness. Why would anybody want to build a house there?” The man’s voice was harsh, like gravel dragged under a gate, and a mass of wrinkles hid his eyes.

“It may be a wilderness now,” Eleanor suggested. “It might not have been a couple of hundred years ago. The population has shifted. Back then, there might have been hundreds of little farms, each with a family running it.” She turned to Thomas. “Get the map out, Tom. This lady might point out where Anton’s Walls is.”

“My name’s Sharon,” the girl volunteered.

“Deepsyke’s always been a muir,” the old man grumbled.

When Eleanor spread the map over the table, Sharon bent across with her long hair brushing against Thomas. “I’ve never seen it like that before,” she said. “Look at all the names written down.” She traced her finger over the linen-backed paper. “Hawkshaw, Wolf Rig, Wardlaw, Bareback Knowe, Hangingshaw, Dod’s Bog, Bareback Cleuch, Dundreich, Deepsyke Moor – they’ve spelt it wrong. It should be muir, not moor.”

Eleanor allowed Sharon a few moments to peruse the map. “Could you show us where Anton’s Walls is please?”