The Hunt and the Haunting

By Victoria Audley

Agnes Marchdale loved to tell fantastical stories. She never expected to find herself in one.

 

Everything seems to be looking up for the Marchdale sisters after Marianne's engagement to the rich and handsome Lord Blackett. But when a long-buried scandal rears its head and threatens to overturn everything, Agnes must determine where truth lies or risk greater danger than she ever imagined.

 

The Hunt and the Haunting is a story about ghosts, both literal and metaphorical; a story about the stories we love, the stories we believe, and the stories that shape the world around us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria Audley
• Release date: Jun 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215861387

Victoria Audley

Victoria Audley is a folklorist, museum educator, and ghost escaped from a gothic novel, currently haunting a seaside town on the north east coast of England. In her spare time, she plays too much D&D and makes friends with the neighbourhood crows.

Book preview

I knew the fields and forests of Willowmere like the path through my own house. I knew them in light and darkness equally well, under the brightest sunlight and in the blackest nights. There should have been no shadowy corners unknown to me, no surprises lurking in a grove I did not recognise. Yet, there it was.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Francis and Marianne walking arm-in-arm, smiling at each other without conversation. Counting on them being too lost in each other’s eyes to notice my absence, I slipped away through the dense trees at the edge of the path.

Beyond the beech trees whose delicate lace canopies I knew were dark, hulking trees I did not. Damp, mossy bark splintered off their decaying trunks before my eyes, and the forest undergrowth ensnared my feet in tangling vines and mulching leaves. My eyes raced ahead of my feet as I trudged through the dense vegetation, staring hungrily into the cave before me. The yawning abyss inside the rocky mound was a solid, tangible shadow; I was certain if I reached out, I would touch it. I wondered what shadows felt like.

I reached the mouth of the cave and stopped, balancing myself as my momentum caught up with me. The mournful sound of a distant raven’s call seemed to wind its way through the trees and down into the cave’s darkness. At once, I felt a force pulling me forward by invisible strings and pushing me away with firm, forceful hands. All my life, the world had drawn me in with promises of mystery and magic. I had explored every secret and followed every clue; all around me, the air and trees and birds and dirt had asked if I would come and see, and I did. The cave posed no easy question for me to answer. It seemed to present me with both my options — to find out, or to run away and try to forget I had ever seen it — and insist that I be the one to make the choice.

Of course, I wanted to find out.

As I inched forward, the darkness inched back, mirroring my step in a curious dance. The walls of the tunnel revealed themselves — not smooth, like worked rock would be, but irregular, natural, and angular. A dripping sound echoed from somewhere within, and a damp chill crept into the air that enveloped me as I stepped inside.

In depths sunlight never reached, I felt my way along corridors of cold, slick stone. The echo of my heels was interrupted by soft, squelching patches of moss every now and again. It might have been minutes; it might have been hours. Turning over my shoulder, I could see no pinprick of light marking the way from which I’d come.

There once was a man, I was told as a child, taken to Fairyland by the queen of the fairies. He lived there seven years, to his mind — but when he was returned to the mortal world, it had been a hundred years. I imagined myself descending into a Fairyland of my own, down in the humid dark. My eyes grew dry from opening wide; I was afraid to blink, in case I missed the telltale sparkle of light in the corner that would signal the beginning of my own tale of enchantment.

Instead, I heard a voice call my name.

The voice was at once familiar and unknown, calling to memories buried so deep and long ago I could not think where or when to look for them. Stretching my shaking fingers into the darkness before me, I both yearned for and feared something touching them back.

Agnes!

Dim light crept into the mist surrounding me, and I turned around to see Francis standing at the mouth of the cave calling for me. His voice echoed down the jagged stone tunnel, distorted by reverberation. Though this was the only logical explanation, I could not shake the feeling that the first voice I’d heard was not his.

What are you doing down there? he continued.

Nothing, I shouted in reply. I’m coming back.

Blinking, I emerged into the bright world again. It