BEATRICE: November 8, 1978

The temperature dropped this morning. I had remade my rosemary garland the night before, and once again woke to find it in tatters atop my sleeping bag, in my hair. I felt sluggish going through my morning routine, but the promise of further exploration of the house perked me up. That, and it appeared that the ghost of Annie Haskins had left me another cup of perfectly brewed coffee in the kitchen.

Despite the cold, I headed first outside with my notebook. During my walk home from town the evening before, I’d caught sight of the family graveyard, tucked into a knoll on a hill adjacent to the manor. I’ve been curious about it since my arrival and thought perhaps I better take my chance at looking while the rain kept away.

I have spent much time in graveyards, given my profession. The Knock family graveyard is no different from any other I have investigated in, save perhaps for its size. It isn’t a very large graveyard. There are fourteen graves total, and yet I know now that only eleven bodies were buried. There were so few of the Knocks to begin with, and now they are all gone.

A small lane runs down the middle, with narrow footpaths extended from it like arms. I made my way first to the end of the path, just before the cliff drops off, where two very large, grandiose graves sat. One read BELLEMY KNOCK and the other BELLONA KNOCK, no dates beneath their names. Their graves were a little ways off from Josephine Hark, Bellemy’s wife, and Bastian Bell Knock, his son, and family.

The waves crashed against the cliff in a roar, and overhead the sky was turning a darker, angrier shade of gray. I made my way quickly to the graves of the second set of Knock twins. Celeste and Hester were near a mausoleum, the only one on the plot. The grate to the mausoleum was locked, but inside I could see two tombs, one for Alator, the other for Ophelia. The grave was befitting a stage actress, I thought.

The graves of the twins were much more modest than their parents. Side by side, their headstones nearly identical in shape save for the names upon them. CELESTE CORDELIA BELL KNOCK and HESTER VIOLA BELL KNOCK. Shakespearean middle names, probably in honor of their mother, Ophelia. I knelt and placed my fingers upon Celeste’s grave, remembering her steady gaze in the photograph from Helena.

There were no dates below Hester’s grave.

Tiny fireworks of rain began to pelt my shoulders, so I decided it best to head inside. I made it just as the sky opened and flooded the ground, the rain slapping hard against the ground beneath me, the sound of the crashing waves thundering in my ears.

I found I had no appetite for lunch, but understanding that I had missed at least an entire day of meals I forced myself to eat a couple of pieces of toast. I changed out of my walking shoes, grabbed my notebook, flashlight, looped my camera around my neck, and headed for the second floor.

Despite my missing day, and Helena’s warning, my determination to explore the manor remains undeterred. My plan was to first explore the second bedroom, which I presumed was Hester’s, and then continue going through Delphina’s study. I slowly climbed the stairs, pausing at the stained glass window, listening to the rain pelt the glass. I thought of what Helena had told me, of the young woman in the cottage that had taken in the Knock twins. The young woman who had then mysteriously passed.

Helena’s story hinted at something. Why the window? An homage to the original owner, perhaps. Or a memorial?

Before moving on, I made a quick scribble in my notebook to look into it further. The Knocks seemed to have covered up much of their past here on the island, but they had come from somewhere, and not every Knock had stayed at Knockbury. Surely there were sources off the island I could utilize, especially at the Society.

The door to the second bedroom did not stick like Celeste’s or Delphina’s room. It opened with a mighty creak, one fitting for a haunted house. Inside was a hoarding nightmare. The antithesis of Celeste’s barren, erased room, this room was piled high with water-saturated boxes, stacks of paper, and soil-rotted plants. A pothos plant had once grown the entirety of the space. Now its remains sat sadly in every corner and nook, its vines withered and dried like spindly old arms. I noticed a scratching, shuffling noise upon my entry. An animal, I assumed, trapped among the debris, and warily watched my step, my feet crunching against the dead leaves on the floor.

Due to the piles of boxes and papers, I could not initially make out the back wall. But the two walls I could see were covered in sprawling writing, written in different colors, some parts blotted over by thick bursts of acrylic paintings of flowers of every color, now faded with time. The writing and paintings sprawled floor to ceiling, and in combination with the boxes, it made the room feel suffocating, tiny.

Most of the writing seemed to be ramblings. The words ‘sister’ and ‘father’ appear often, but do not make sense in the context of the sentence - if indeed a sentence is what it could be called. It disturbed me to see that many words strung together in nonsense. I took a picture of each wall and jotted down a few lines that stuck out to me and seemed the most coherent:

I got up and sister climbed the tree. Higher and higher she climbed underground where the worms and letters live asunder. Father said no buzzing for the bees and no climbing for the sisters, but Sister dipped her eyes in honey and climbed even higher.

Well, perhaps not that coherent. Most of the writings are nonsensical, but some is clearly in verse, clearly something someone read and copied onto the wall, for whatever reason.

I shut my eyes and the world stops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head)

The boxes piled in the room are riddled with mold. Inside a few I dared touch were an assortment of things - clothes, old toys, play jewelry. A molded book, its cover destroyed beyond recognition , the words on the pages blurred together like watercolors. A photo was lodged in the middle, the only I’ve come to find in the house so far. It was of two little girls, both dressed in frilly white dresses, their hair long and lovely. They were eight or nine, I would guess. One of the girls’ faces was scratched out beyond recognition.

Unnerved, I returned the photograph to the book and turned my attention to the other objects. A smaller box held some trinkets – a hair comb embossed with gold flowers, art pencils worn down to nubs, a dried rose pressed between a large hair clip and a gold coin. The coin is a curious trinket: it looks foreign and old, perhaps something Delphina passed onto her niece? Or a prize Hester found in her aunt’s study. I logged its existence in my notebook but returned it to the box along with the other items.

A final item of note, or perhaps a bundle of items. A series of letters, tied tightly with a faded purple ribbon, shoved to the very bottom of a box. The bundle was perched on top of a few books, so there is less water damage to them. Excited, I restrained myself from examining them further until I was done exploring the rest of the room. I tucked the letters in the pocket of my pinafore and continued.

The scratching noise had not yet ceased, and as I moved through the middle of the room, towards the back, it seemed to get louder. I drew closer, dread filling my chest at the thought of finding some feral animal, my eyes landing on the wall furthest from the door, which I could now see. It was peculiar - the writing stopped in a perfect square about five feet above a grate that sat low in the wall near the floor. All around the square were iridescent white irises painted onto the wall, framing both the square and grate.

The scratching noise continued and was now accompanied by a what I initially mistook for a low hum of rain. It was not a hum. The quiet sound of someone trying to muffle their crying. A soft, despairing sound.

I looked around me, but I was alone, so completely alone as I ever am in this house.

Creeping nearer the wall, my heart pounded in my chest. Once I was closer, I could now clearly hear it. I knelt and saw that the grate was open, but on the other side that led to Celeste’s room, I saw only darkness. I let out a shaky breath, the sounds of my heartbeat and the ghostly sobs in my ears, and spoke gently into the grate.

“Celeste?”

Silence. Then.

The room erupted into a cacophony of wild banging and wailing. The sound beat all around me, and in shock I shot back up to my feet, stumbling backward. I hit a box and the pile toppled over, the smell of rot rising throughout the room in response. I jostled my camera, and it went off, lighting up the wall in a momentarily eerie light. The scratching continued, only growing louder, more enormous. The walls shook in from the onslaught, bits of plaster raining down my front in rhythm with the wild banging. The noise grew and grew all around me, moving from the wall in front of me to the ones to my right and left, to the floor beneath me. The dead plants toppled from their resting places and shattered upon the ground.

I turned around to flee and halted mid-step, a scream frozen in my chest. It took me a moment, through a haze of fear and adrenaline, to understand that the figure by the doorway was not human, not spirit, but painted. A lifelike rendition of Hester, young and pale, wearing a white dress, her arm outstretched. From her delicate hand, she held a pair of eyes, their exposed veins dripping red down the wall and onto the floor. A very real puddle of a crimson viscus was growing, stretching towards my feet.

Above the painted Hester’s head was another written verse, this time painted in confident artistic scripture:

the king loved Hesther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead

Before I realized what I was doing, I’d raised my camera with shaking hands and shot, the light echoing off painted Hester’s pale glowing eyes.

The thunderous banging continued all around me and I fled the room for hopeful safety. It was silent in the hallway, and I firmly slammed the door to Hester’s bedroom behind me.

Much later Knockbury Manor

I worry sleep will not come to me tonight. Though it has not done me any good, I picked fresh rosemary from Hester’s garden earlier in the evening and spread it around me in a circle. This way, at least I won’t wake up covered in it should my nightly visitor take offense.

I tried calling for Ruthie but received no answer. I feel so suddenly alone in this massive house tonight. Perhaps speaking to Helena Keats reminded me how much I miss my classmates or having someone like-minded to speak to.

I expected to come to Knockbury Manor and find ghosts and, while that remains true, I have also discovered an incredibly powerful haunting. I am determined to continue through the house as planned and try to find out what I can. I have begun to think that the house is trying to tell me something, only I don’t know what. I don’t have all the pieces yet. Regardless, the manor is my responsibility and if it is as dangerous as Helena Keats believes it to be, then I must do all that I can to rectify that.

Much much later

While undressing tonight, I emptied my pinafore pockets and found the bundle of letters. I’d forgotten about them, and they wait for me now on the sidetable nearest the couch.

Till tomorrow.