Memento Mori

Memento Mori

by

Alyne de Winter

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PUBLISHED BY

Alyne de Winter on Wattpad

Memento Mori

Copyright c 2012 by Alyne de Winter

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

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Memento Mori

travels through time. In the year1666, the Black Death kills thousands in the city of London. An unwitting tailor carries an infected bolt of cloth to a remote village in the Peak District and all of its inhabitants die. In 1966, art student, Simon Beaumont, is lost in the Pennine Mountains. He stumbles upon the ancient village of Whynnesmere that is still haunted by the ghosts of those who died in the plague. There he meets the witch, Lara, and discovers the secret of a ruined garden, a shadowy house, and the spirit of a girl who has been waiting for her lover for three-hundred years.

Memento Mor

i is a work of Gothic Fiction.

This is a hallucinatory, full-on ghost story. If you like Shirley Jackson, Arthur Machen, Henry and MR James, vampires, paranormal romance, historical and occult mysteries, you should enjoy this story.

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Memento Mori

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Derbyshire, England

Midsummer, 1966

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Chapter One: The Lights

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The footpath disappeared into a field of yellow gorse that shimmered in the bright sunshine to the edge of a dark wood. Simon stopped, uncertain whether to go on.

He looked back. Trees and mountains faded off into the haze. How far had he come? According to the map, he should already have arrived at the next village. But then, he’d veered off the well-worn path, had been drawn away by the impression that he was about to encounter a mysterious place he’d never seen before but somehow knew, a great house, a garden that had haunted him since childhood. Of course there was a girl there, in a white dress. Her image glimmered just at the edge of consciousness, drawing him always somewhere.... There in the mountains, at the summit of a low hill, he’d found a lonely old gravestone leaning in the grass, and was seized by a sense that the longed-for place was taking shape in the land. It seemed to him that a faint, echoing voice called his name and, before he realized it, he was wandering onto remoter paths barely scuffed by human feet. The place felt close, so close, it had to be tucked away somewhere in those mountains.

Only the field of gorse stopped him. It was very bright, and hazy. Simon took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. The path was just within sight on the other side of a thicket, threading its way in the direction of the woods. Simon paused. He didn't fancy getting snagged on the thorns. Gripped by indecision, he looked back again. He'd come so far. And the mysterious place was there. He sensed it. Just over the next hill.

The sun was going down.

The path in front of him had to lead somewhere, maybe even there.

He took a deep breath andstepped into the thicket.

The long thorns grabbed him. He tried to tear away, but the gorse held on, pierced through his trouser legs, and struck hard. Simon jerked his leg away and stepped into another clump of thorns.

“Damn!” he shouted.

His voice boomed among the mountains.

Damn!

Simon was slightly superstious. Though he'd never admit it, he wondered if there was some force trying to keep him from finding the place he'd sought for so long. He carefully disentangled himself and, regretting his over-reaction, worked his way toward the path. Once upon it, he stopped and stood very still, felt the tickle of blood creeping down to his ankles.