The Curse Of The Camerons

By Ian Johnstone

The Cameron men had abused women for centuries, and bullied and assaulted anyone else standing in their way. But ever since 1830 when one of them was executed in France for assaulting and murdering a young woman, they had been under a curse. Now, the end of the family line was in sight and the curse was about to become active. The remaining men of the family would suffer. Supernatural forces were at work, taking them again and again as they slept to suffer pain and torment at the hands of a cloaked woman, and each time returning them to their lives in extreme discomfort and haunted by the sounds and visions of those they had mistreated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Strict Publishing International
• Release date: Jun 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780857792945

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The Curse of The Camerons

by Ian Johnstone

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Ian Johnstone

Published by Strict Publishing International

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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CHAPTER ONE

The year was 1830.

A woman hurried towards the La Conciergerie prison with an urgent message for a prisoner due to be executed. The woman was only twenty-seven, and much responsibility rested on her shoulders. It was essential that message arrived in time.

She knocked on the big oak doors under the towers, and when one door opened she showed the guard a piece of paper. He examined it carefully before letting her pass.

Immediately inside was another guard, who greeted her and ushered her along a stone-paved corridor. Their footsteps echoed as they followed the long corridor passed passages to their right that led into the centre of the prison, but they turned neither right nor left. Finally, they descended a narrow stone staircase and stopped at a large interior door where the guard knocked and called loudly, The Marquise, Madeleine Leclerc, witness to the execution.

The door opened and she was allowed into the huge chamber with arched ceilings. In the centre was the guillotine, the blade already raised and only a single rope preventing it from falling, and in the corner, behind bars, was the prisoner. The executioner stood ready at the side of the guillotine.

She approached the executioner and said, I would like to talk to the convicted person before you carry out your task.

As she spoke, she noted that a clerk at a table in the corner was writing everything she said in a leather-bound book. As she turned to walk to her seat, the prisoner gripped the bars of his cell and said, Madame Leclerc, for what I did I deserve to die.

She stopped before she reached her seat and turned to face him again. May God show you more mercy than you showed your victim. She then put a gold coin in the executioner’s hand and said, Make his death fast. There is no need for him to suffer.

The executioner gave a small nod and replied, As you wish, Madame Leclerc.

The prisoner was brought from the cell and placed behind the guillotine. As he knelt down, a priest gave him the last rites before he placed his head under the blade. No more was said as the executioner pulled the lever and the blade fell, slicing his head off instantly. Madame Leclerc stood up and shook the executioner’s hand. She then gave another gold coin to the priest as she told him, See that he is given a Christian burial.

The young woman walked out of La Conciergerie prison as quietly as she had arrived.

* * * * *

Hamish walked into the kitchen and stared at his wife, Jeanne, standing by the cooker. Is the food ready, woman?

It will be ready in a few moments, Hamish.

You’re bloody useless, woman. You know that I am home every day at the same time, and you still can’t manage to have the bloody food ready and on the table.

I do my best, Hamish. There is a lot more to looking after this house than just standing here cooking food all day.

He stepped forward rapidly and grabbed her by the throat with one hand and raising the other to strike her. Who the hell do you think you are? Start talking to me like that and I will give you a bloody good thrashing. I am the man that puts the food on this table and you will do what I damn well tell you to do.

Jeanne looked at his wavering hand. There was an edge to her voice as she spoke, If you, Hamish, ever hit me with your fist, I will make it my life’s ambition to make sure the rest of your life is both painful and miserable.

Hamish sneered at her, but there was something about the way she looked at him and the tone of her voice that made the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Hamish had struck Jeanne on many occasions in temper, and frequently when he was drunk. He had never punched her, but his backhanders had left marks on her face many times. He looked at the position of his fist and then at Jeanne’s face once more, and slowly he dropped his hand. "Get my food on the table and we will talk about this later. My father has told me on several occasions that you need a good hiding.

Jeanne placed his food on the table and moved away from him. She told herself that she would have her food once he had gone to the hotel to drink himself silly with his friends.

A few hours later he had washed and he left the house. Jeanne watched him go down the path, and then she went back into the kitchen. She had her meal, thinking about the life she led and how much she would like to change it. She knew that tonight Hamish would return home the worse for drink and take it out on her again. He would shout at her, abuse her, but hopefully he would not touch her. She wished she was living somewhere else, away from him, but where would she go? This house in the country outside Glasgow had been given to them by Hamish’s father, and she knew she would never be able to afford somewhere of her own to live.

Jeanne was tall and slim, her long auburn hair curling down to just below her shoulders. She was twenty-four, nearly twenty-five years old, and she knew she was nothing special to look at. Her looks were average, no more, but there were already lines in her face that showed how hard her life had been. She had no relatives. In fact, she was an orphan, left in a box on the steps of a hospital on the south coast with just a letter that said she was French and her name was Jeanne Juliette Leclerc and giving her date of birth. Somewhat bizarrely, the letter also said that she had been left a great sum of money that would be given to her on her twenty-fifth birthday, but it gave no clue as to where this money would come from or by whom it would be given. No one had taken that part of the letter seriously, although at least they had told Jeanne about it when she was old enough to understand, and she still kept the letter hidden away.

She met Hamish Cameron in college while he was doing a course in engineering and she had been finishing off her own studies. They married as soon as they had both finished at college, but then Hamish seemed to change. Much later, his friends told her that he had always been a bully, although if that was his natural disposition then he had managed to suppress it all the time they were at college. He had, so she was told, inherited his behaviour from his father, who owned the local estate and treated his workers like slaves. No one liked John Cameron, and there did not seem much doubt that his son Hamish was following in the family tradition.

By the end of their first year of marriage, Hamish was treating Jeanne as no more than a slave, a possession that he owned and could do with as he wished. He expected her to wait on him hand and foot, and pander to his every whim, and he was not slow with the abuse, both verbal and physical, however hard she tried to please him. In short, he turned from the loving fiancé she had known at college to a despicable husband who was both an arrogant bully and a wife beater. She had also heard that Hamish had often been seen in the company of a young woman who was, apparently the wife of one of his father’s workers. Jeanne knew the girl they were talking about. Once, while shopping in the village, they had met. Not a word was said, but Jeanne saw the smile on the girl’s face and she was sure it was a mocking smile.

Tonight would be a bad one. She already knew that from his attitude when he came in earlier. She went to bed early, hoping that if she were asleep then at least she could not be accused of doing anything wrong to upset him, and perhaps she might avoid the abuse that