MAGDALENA'S GHOST: THE HAUNTING OF THE HOUSE IN GALLOWS LANE by PEPPI HILTON Page A

him.
    She decided to make a hot cup of tea, so she put a pan of water on the range to boil. As she turned round, she found herself staring into the eyes of the cat which had been standing quietly behind her. But she knew those eyes, they were not the eyes of the cat at all, they belonged to her mother. She screamed in shock and horror, and kicked the cat all the way to the door. It shrieked as it fled from the house and into the grounds. Beryl locked the door and bolted it. She now had the answer to her problem. In order to get rid of her mother, she would need to get rid of the cat.
    Soon after that last haunting the cat had gone and Beryl never saw her mother in Juniper again.
    Several weeks had passed since the last incidents and Beryl had not set foot outside the house again, apart from collecting fuel from the old stores in the grounds. Life had taken on some normality for her, and she carried on her daily routine as if the recent past events had never happened. She slept more soundly in her bed, and the only disturbing noises to be heard during the night in Juniper House were from her snoring.
    But one day as she dozed in the old rocking chair, the front door was broken down. Two men wearing white coats marched through the house and into the scullery where they saw the mad woman. They yanked her by the arms and dragged her screaming and kicking out of the door and into a waiting vehicle.
    Beryl never saw Juniper House again. She spent the rest of her days in the York asylum where she had so cruelly arranged for her mother to be detained, after having had her sectioned in her master plan to gain everything for herself.
    But it didn’t end there for Beryl. Crazed with fear she often found herself being strangled into a straight-jacket and injected with drugs, as she put up a panic-stricken fight. But the most terrifying thing of all was when she looked into the face of the nurse who administered the drugs – she saw only her mother!
    Juniper House was closed up and seized by the authorities and used to pay for the fees to keep Beryl locked away for the rest of her life.
    There was no-one to mourn her death a few years later, when word had travelled to the small hamlet that she had finally died of madness. It came as no surprise and she was soon forgotten. She wasn’t missed, she wasn’t remembered, and no-one really cared. She’d ended her life as she’d lived it: a life without compassion, kindness, or consideration to others. Her parting had now suffered the same fate and lack of sentiment.
    She was cremated and her ashes buried with those of her mother’s inside the grounds of the asylum.
    As one year after another slipped by, Juniper House was gradually forgotten by the residents of Judge Fields. Nothing major changed in the hamlet, life continued day after day, month after month, and year after year. Tall grasses and weeds from the long-neglected garden began to mount the old stone walls, keeping it hidden behind the trees and bushes and well away from the prying eyes of the outside world.
    Although the authorities chose to offer the house for sale, it aroused little interest, until it was finally abandoned altogether. The marketing board which had been erected finally fell, and gradually over time it rotted into the ground. And as Gallows Lane didn’t lead to anywhere except a narrow, winding, precarious road, which was difficult to access and which was treacherous in winter, it was hardly ever used. And so no-one ever learned of the existence of Juniper House and from then on it ceased to exist.
    But inside strange things were happening, unexplained things, sinister and eerie, and no-one suspected. Somewhere in those empty spaces, faint stirrings of the past and its memories had been frozen in time and were relived in the still of night, undisturbed and undiscovered.

7
NOW
    Anton had been told by the local authority that his offer would be considered and they did not anticipate a problem. If things went