Chapter 4 – Undercurrent

Being alone with Sam always stirred bittersweet memories, but she had no choice. Arriving unaccompanied would raise suspicion — better to have a male companion. And Sam was the only one from the ordinary world she could trust.

She visited the Inspector on her way home from the Goodwin garden, presented her credentials, and swore him to secrecy. She requested Sam’s presence on the mission, which he could hardly refuse.

As directed, Sam arrived in civilian clothing, looking troubled as he pulled the carriage up outside the shop.

“Something’s troubling you, Mr Gambrill,” Mabel said, reading his expression.

“The missus gave me an earful about dressing up for work. She’s got it into her head I’m seeing another woman.”

“How right she was,” said Mabel, climbing into the carriage. “Just remember, this is not a date, and we have work to do.”

“Yes, Miss Shirley,” he replied with a smile.

Sam set the horse in motion. It would take just under an hour to reach Brockthorn Abbey. They chatted about old times to pass the time on the journey. Mabel was always cautious during these quiet stretches with Sam. She had resolved to confront the one subject that always surfaced — and, halfway through, it did.

“I’d leave her for you, Mabel. Give up the job, walk away from all this strangeness. We could start over, somewhere new.”

Mabel sighed and lowered her head. She had hoped that, just once, he wouldn’t ask — even though, in her heart of hearts, she wished for the same.

There was an awkward pause as she searched for the right words.

“I love you dearly. But my path was defined at birth. Believe me, I wish it hadn’t been. Certain beings are placed on this earth for a purpose — and I have to fulfil mine. My world is dangerous. I’ve already lost friends to it. I won’t risk you.”

“This damn magic,” Sam muttered. “All the pain, all the sorrow it causes. And for what?”

Mabel’s heart pressed against her reasoning, urging her to soften — to turn back. She resisted, closing herself off before doubt could creep in.

“Magic is the heart of creation,” she said, her voice barely steady above the wind. “We can’t escape it. That’s why we come here — to take form. Souls becoming solid. A breath of stillness in the storm of being.

“What you see in me — in others like me — is a channel for its raw, unfiltered flow. We’re not here for power. We’re here to restore balance, to patch the tears in the fabric of things, to keep the dark from taking it all.

“The price of that is isolation. And I’ve paid it willingly.

“If I let you in, Sam — not just beside me, but inside — you become my weakness. My tether. A target. They would use you to break me.

“And I love you too much to allow that. So for now, I remain alone — by choice.”

“And what about us, our future?” Sam’s voice now also faltering.

“Tied to duty. To protecting the meek — just as you’ve always protected me. That’s enough. To share love as a shield, to bear the cost together. In that way, I will love you. Forever.”

She trembled, tears poised on the brink.

He nodded slowly, the truth a bitter taste on his tongue.

Platonic, he thought. A quiet kind of love, untouched by longing. Perhaps that would be enough. The yearning — a door he must now close.

“Then so it shall be,” he offered. “I will remain your champion, stand by your side, and be there when you need me most.”

It came with a smile that trembled — brave, but already cracking under the weight of what wouldn’t be.

The exchange had now defined the shape of their relationship: quiet, unyielding — a line drawn against the warmth that still pulsing beneath.

As the carriage rumbled on. Silence fell — but not within him. His thoughts stirred, looping and uncertain, trying to find form.

Love — yes, it lingered, he thought. A quiet, stubborn ember.
But the vibrant, hopeful dance of their courtship had faded. He saw it now for what it was: as beautiful — and as agonisingly brief — as a butterfly’s moment in the sun.

Still, inwardly, he prayed for more time.
Just one last dance in the light, before the darkness claimed the sky.

But deep down, he knew: it was never to be.

──✿──

The carriage creaked along the winding coastal road, its wheels whispering over damp stones still slick from the morning mist. A salt wind threaded through the open windows, heavy with wild thyme and sea-brine. Beyond the hedgerows and thickets of wind-stunted hawthorn, the English Channel stretched vast and steel-blue beneath a pewter sky. It was restive, watchful.

On the clifftop ahead, the Abbey emerged: part ruin, part memory. Its silhouette loomed against the horizon like the rib-cage of some vast, long-vanished beast. Once a sanctuary, its hollow windows and splintered towers now stared blind over the water, worn down by wind, salt, and centuries.

Yet not all had fallen. On the eastern edge, part of the cloister remained intact. The roof still held, and a wisp of smoke curling from the chimney hinted at quiet habitation. One window glimmered faintly in the dimming afternoon, a soft defiance against the gloom.

The Abbey stood between worlds: part haunted ruin, part reluctant dwelling. Nature had begun its slow reclaiming, but here, the past clung fast. Not gone — only sleeping.

As the carriage slowed, the air grew still. A hush settled, the kind reserved for sacred places or for the breath before something changes. The horse stamped and shifted, uneasy in the weight of it. Inside the cabin, neither passenger spoke.

Before them, the Abbey waited: ancient, wounded, and watching. A place where history had shape and scent, and decisions made themselves known, even in silence.

By now, Mabel had steadied her emotions. Sam, mercifully, held no anger toward her — yet she could still feel the churn of conflict within him. But as they neared the Abbey, that sense shifted. This unease was no longer his.

It came from the Abbey itself.

The Sluagh. She felt its presence clinging to the stone like mist on a moor — ancient, wild, and unquiet. Not a single soul, but a tide of them. Restless, scattered, wronged.

Her gloved hand tightened around the handle of her specimen case.

Behind her eyes, the world tilted.

Wings beat against a sky that wasn’t there. Whispering rose, in a language the bones of the Abbey had not forgotten. The depthless murmur of hell, calling in the cursed.

It was more than she could bear. Like Malkin, the thing knew her — recognised her — and was calling her name, coaxing her to yield, to merge with it.

She shuddered and tore herself free, closing her mind to the pull.

Frantically, she searched for an anchor, a thought to hold her ground. Then, through the noise, a vision surfaced: her departed father. Strong. Dependable. Wise.

The smile that could steady a storm. The quiet certainty in his voice when all else was chaos.

She held on to that. Let it fill her. Let it remind her who she was — and whose daughter she remained.

Sam leaned forward as a figure came into view by the Lynch gate. A tall man in a dark uniform stood motionless beneath the lichen-covered arch. As the carriage drew closer, Sam saw a pickaxe handle resting on his shoulder.

A night watchman? he wondered.

The man stared hard at them as they approached.

“Private property. Move on,” he said curtly as the carriage drew level.

Sam tipped his cap with an easy smile. “The lady here’s collecting plant samples. Any chance you’d make an exception?”

The watchman’s eyes flicked to Mabel and the case on her lap. “Nothing here but ivy and wind-bent trees,” he muttered. “Not exactly Eden, is it?”

“Her speciality, as it happens,” Sam replied. “We’re touring the coast, collecting specimens for a museum in London. Just looking to walk the grounds. Would that be all right?”

The watchman didn’t move. His gaze lingered on Mabel, then on the sea-stained case at her feet. He wasn’t convinced — but neither was he surprised.

Sam reached into his coat pocket and held up a glint of gold between two fingers.

“Just for your time,” he said casually. “We won’t go near the structure. Ten minutes, tops.”

Mabel had let Sam do all the talking. Better that way — more convincing, coming from a man. She would play the part expected of her: the quiet companion. Seen, not heard.

Sam climbed down, secured the horse, then offered his hand to help Mabel from the carriage.

As they approached, the watchman stepped forward. “The woman can go in. You stay here,” he growled. He tapped the pickaxe handle against his palm with a deliberate thud. “Any funny business — you get it.”

His hand came out. “Money.”

Sam met his stare as he placed the coin in his palm. Neither blinked.

“Ten minutes,” the man muttered. “No more.”

He stepped aside to let Mabel through.

The time limit didn’t trouble her. She only needed a few samples — ivy from the stone and one of the wind-bent trees near the Abbey wall. She made directly for the nearest.

As she drew closer, she glimpsed a second tree through the broken remains of the cloister wall, rooted in the lawn within. A stroke of luck. She gathered what she needed quickly and turned back toward the Lynch gate.

But as she neared it, something shifted.

A wave of despair rolled out from the Abbey — not loud, not spoken, but sensed. Beneath the ceaseless murmur of the damned, another voice pressed forward. A plea. Wordless, yet unmistakable.

It didn’t want her to leave.

Not hatred, not warning — but something else, struggling to be heard above the noise.
An ancient call. Incomprehensible in sound, but felt in the bones.

She steadied herself, masked the shift within. No need to alert the watchman.
As she passed him, she offered a smile and a polite, “Thank you.”

They boarded the carriage once more, staying in character. Sam doffed his cap, but earned only a grunt in return.

He tapped the horse into motion, waiting until they were well out of earshot before speaking.

“Where now?” he asked.

“Home,” Mabel replied. “I have what I came for. Tomorrow, we’ll need to see the Abbey from the sea. Do you know a skipper we can trust?”

──✿──

Countless times, Mabel had come home to an empty house. Mother had retired and moved out. Malkin was now just a frequent visitor. And her father had long since passed.

Sometimes, the solitude was a blessing. But today—after all it had held—the house felt cold and hollow. It mirrored her mood.

After an evening meal, Mabel set about examining her plant samples: some blackthorn blossom and a few small ivy leaves taken from the abbey wall. A scant collection, but enough for her purpose.

Twilight had unfurled its indigo veil—the hour of divination had come. Her scrying bowl awaited, filled with water: hydromancy’s broth of secrets, steeping visions in its still, obsidian depths.

Mabel always kept the ritual simple: salt on the floor around the table, candles lit at each quarter of the room for protection, and a single drop of essential oil to sharpen the senses.

Finally, the incantation:

“By moon and flame, by root and stone,
I scry alone, in light unknown.
No shade may pass, no ill may stray.
This witch is warded, come what may.”

The bowl was ancient—said by some to have been carved at the dawn of civilisation. A family heirloom, passed down through the ages, its history was as murky and deep as the waters it held.

It had been roughly hewn from the root-ball of an olive tree, the wood gnarled and dark, as if it still remembered the soil it once drank from.

Mabel placed an ivy leaf and a few of the blossoms on the surface of the water. She exhaled, relaxed her mind, and leaned in, peering into the bowl’s dark heart.

Slowly, her magic began to stir. The water swirled, drawing the blossoms into motion, letting them ride its lazy spiral. From the depths, something began to rise—a vision, slow and uncertain, making its way up from the stillness.

A vision of the place she had visited that day took shape: the blackthorn tree before her, and beyond the abbey wall where she’d plucked the ivy, the lone, slender tree on the cloister lawn.

It was that tree she wished to speak to.

As she had done with the singing tree, Mabel introduced herself to the blackthorn outside the abbey. A low, indiscernible hum began—almost rhythmic with her breathing. The tree responded, first with a gentle shake of its boughs, then with a hum of its own.

‘Allow me to speak through you,’ she asked the tree, ‘to your sister in the cloister. Tell her I wish to bring peace back to the abbey.’

The blackthorn shuddered again. The water swirled faster, blurring the image. When it cleared, she was no longer an observer—she was within the cloister tree, sharing its mind, linked to it through the web of roots that ran beneath the earth like veins of thought. The undercurrent of the world.

Mabel found herself in a fluid state of sensation—the shifting rhythms of the seasons: light and dark, wet and dry, cold and heat. All the quiet calculations of survival.

But there was more.

The sensation of touch: a bird landing on a branch, a squirrel scampering up and down the trunk. And sound—animal calls, human voices. Layers of life, passing through the tree like wind through leaves.

The she saw it, the link.

She murmured a spell, and all the sensations coalesced. Her eyes opened to her surroundings once more.

Now—to find a memory. Something rooted in this place. Something that would unlock what she needed to understand.

‘The darkness that once buried itself here,’ she asked the tree softly, ‘when did it first reveal itself?’

The tree shuddered—not from wind, but from fear. Still, it complied. Days rewound. Light and dark spun past in a blur until the image stopped, frozen in time.

A door had been flung open in the only habitable part of the building. Thick smoke slithered out, knee-deep, oily and dark. From the tree came a wave of revulsion—a desperate wish not to relive it. Mabel felt it too. In her heart, she didn’t want it to suffer. But she thought of its future.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll protect you. I’ll make it go away. Please—let me see what I’m up against.’

There was a pause. As though the tree were checking her credentials—reaching through the root network to ask for guidance. Then, a whisper returned: ‘A sister of the woods.’

The frozen vision unlocked.

Screams erupted from within the building. Men in German naval uniforms burst out, trying to flee. But the smoke was faster. It caught them—consumed them.

Their legs vanished first. Then clawing arms dragged half-melted torsos along the floor, flailing in futility. And then—nothing. Their forms dissolved into smoke.

Mabel watched their life-orbs rise, souls lifting like fireflies into the twilight—some toward light, some toward shadow. But the natural order was broken.

The smoke gathered them—pulled them back. Then it coiled inward, retreating into the building. The doors slammed shut behind it.

That’s when she felt it. The sensation of the old blood. And on her finger, the ring began to glow—recognition in light.

Her suspicions were confirmed. But its identity remained unknown.

She gave her thanks to the tree, blessed all that had come to her aid, then began the quiet process of disconnecting from the divination.

She yawned. It had been a long, emotional day. The time was now past midnight. The bowl had fulfilled her desires—bar one. As tiredness dulled her control, it revealed an image: she and Sam in the carriage, sharing a moment of joy before the separation of hearts.

For a moment, she pressed her lips together—not to hold back tears, but to stop herself from saying his name. Then came a trembling gasp of air.

A single tear dropped into the scrying bowl. A chill crept into the room.

And then the floodgates opened—not with a roar, but with the quiet ache of a heart finally accepting its broken pieces. She sobbed gently into the night, knowing that tomorrow, she would face him—and neither of them would be the same.

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