Page 1 of The Shadow Key

Dros Gymru

Gall pechod mawr ddyfod trwy ddrws bychan

A great sin can enter through a small door

WELSH PROVERB

He wakes to the unmistakable smell of sulphur and a room as black as pitch.

What woke him, he cannot rightly say. There is a chill to the room that can only be accounted for by the cold Welsh stone, stone which retains little heat even with a fire burning fierce in the grate. There is the screech of a barn owl, a sound that has always soothed him despite its harsh hunter’s cry. There too has been the sound of running water from the stream abutting the gatehouse, its watery chime a boon to his tired mind rather than a bane.

And, of course, that smell of sulphur.

It comes and goes. He has tried to account for it, consulted Plas Helyg’s gardener about the matter. Fungus in the water he was advised, a consequence of the stream being so close to the wall, compounded by a lack of natural light on account of the crowding trees. Or, perhaps, the smell comes from the mines up on the nearby hill. If the wind blows a certain way, such things might be possible. In any case (he was told) it is no cause for concern, and so the smell is something he has grown accustomed to. It is not so very bad, after all.

Still. Something is different this night. He tries to place the anomaly, stares wide-eyed into the dark, but soon it is no good. With a groan he swings his legs out of bed and in the dark his gnarled toes feel for the slippers on the rug, pushing the soft pumps onto his feet, first one, then the other. It takes him a moment to stand, to accustom himself to the stiffness in his joints. He almost changes his mind, almost sinks back down on the feather mattress, but now he has exerted himself it seems futile to have wasted the accomplishment, and so he forces himself to the window, pulls the curtains apart on their rings.

There is no moon. The trees that surround the house, unfathomable.

He sees nothing.

Only when the old man moves to turn away does he apprehend what is out of place, what it was that must (must) have woken him, for there is nothing else to account for it. Beneath the familiar sounds of rural night, the running water of the stream, like an undercurrent, he hears it:

Whispering.

With shaking fingers he twists the window latch, pushes the pane up into its casement, leans out, strains to listen. Frowns.

It is no louder. He thought perhaps it was the wind whispering through the willows up at the mansion or those nearby at the family vault; perhaps, even, the lull of the sea across the valley a mere two miles away. It happens, sometimes, on a clear night.

Yet.

He begins to lower the sash, wonders if his hearing has started to fail him, if his body has found one more damnable way to bow to its advancing years. He has diagnosed it in others. The ‘bewitched ear’. Common, in older folk … But what is this? Fingertips pressing onto the glass, he peers down.

Nothing wrong with his eyes.

A light – a lone red orb – has appeared between the trees.

No. Not an orb. A small dancing flame; a candle, he is sure. As he watches, the flame begins a slow trajectory toward the gatehouse and he strains into the darkness, tries to discern a body connected to the candle but perceives none. All he can see is that one, single, suspended light.

‘Who goes there?’

There is no answer, no variation to the candle’s movement, no pause to those infernal whisperings. The red light (such an odd colour for a flame) bobs along on its journey before it disappears, cut off by the wall below.

Gone.

His sister often speaks of the tolaeth, supernatural warnings of death or some other approaching of a calamity. Corpse candles, these. Well, he has never set any store in them, not in any of the local superstitions. He is a man of science, has no patience for silly delusions. Candle it may be, but no corpse about it to be sure. What a notion, he thinks grimly, slamming the window shut. Enaid always did have a fertile imagination.

The old man turns from the window, spends some minutes attempting to quicken the tinderbox. Village folk, he thinks now, descending the stairs with his own candle aloft, and more than one. Though his hearing is very good (and he is convinced now that age has not thwarted him in this instance after all) he did not hear a single voice and no man, no sane one at least, would whisper to themselves outside, alone. It will be those pesky miner’s children – led by Cai, probably – sneaking about the woods, carrying naked flames at that! Troublesome whelps. He will soon see them off.

On the bottom step he stops abruptly. The whispering is louder here, he realises. The wretches, then, have got into the house! But how, when he bolted the door, latched the windows fast and firm?

Concentrate, he thinks. Use reason. Where does the sound come from? The red light went to the right of the gatehouse, did it not? The old man raises his candle in its holder, grips the hoop tightly with one arthritic finger, crosses the hall into his sitting room. Nothing, no one, but the whispering is louder now and so he continues round, through the open door into his library …

… and almost drops the candle on the floor.

A flickering light emits from the bookshelves on the far wall. He shakes his head, rubs his eyes with his free hand, looks again. He must be hallucinating. His bookshelves have no means to glow!

Cautiously he crosses the room, is shocked to discover on the approach that his bookshelves do not glow, but there is instead a wide opening within them, the way beyond lit by thick pillar candles in ornamental sconces. For a moment he stares, perturbed. After all these long years how could he not have known there was a door here? It was rumoured, of course, in old Cadwalladr’s day, that Plas Helyg and its grounds were a haunt for smugglers. Village gossip, he always thought, a tale to thrill and shock. And yet, here, a tunnel!

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