Dear Mr. O’Kelly,
I hope this letter finds you well, and that you have settled nicely back into Cork. Please also find within this envelope a portion of the payment for the Whistler Farm. I am sorry to say a great deal of misfortune has fallen upon the property in your absence; most notably the death of Fergus.
I have no doubt you knew him well during your tenure as owner. If it comforts you, know that he died peacefully while in his sleep. The doctors are yet to fully understand the cause of his death, although in these days of rapid scientific discovery I believe that they shall soon learn why.
There is another matter I wish to raise with you. Just a few weeks ago - at the time I write - I was in contact with a Miss Whistler, who claims ownership of the land on which Whistler Farm sits. So far she has yet to provide any documentation proving her claims, and I have been assured by trusted individuals that no such proof exists.
I wished to know if you had ever had similar dealings with the hag, and if so, have any information that may assist me when next she knocks on my door.
All the Best
Mr. Fisher
I drafted my letter again and again, unsure how to tell a man that in the weeks he had been away, death had struck his former home.
Efficiency on the farm slowed in the week following the tragedy of Fergus. I had given the men the day off as the local hospital came and carted the corpse away. Having been informed by the other farmhands that he had no living family, I spent a small amount on a gravestone and service for my friend whom I had known for too short a time.
Brandon, another one of the labourers who the rest of the farm seemed to look up to, took charge. He assured me that it was simply a matter of time before we returned to normal.
“Men die,” he said to me as we stood together in the fields, “Fact of life, that. If you waste your life thinking about its end, then when you get to the end you’ll have nothing to think back to.”
“Still you can’t help but be sad. To die in… Such a way.”
“Yes. Before his time, I think, poor old Fergus. Just goes to show I think, it doesn’t matter what sort of life you have. Still, he’ll be in the castle of Lady Selene by now.”
We had continued to follow the night time rota after that, only with far less enthusiasm. I was now paying double for one man each night to sit awake in the hut and watch out of the window for any intruders. It was nowhere near as efficient as I had hoped for, although it was the most I could convince the men to do.
So that left me to take Fergus’ gun from his belongings. With no more nightly patrols, there was no need for the men to keep it. Instead I placed it inside my own bedside cabinet, with no intention of using it however. It thought it may help to calm my mind, and ward off the nightmares which had become a daily occurrence.
In the past week, I had not slept soundly once.
By this time we had managed to replace a few of our dead animals, the horses being among them. I rode one into town to post my letter, and while there thought I would stop in the local pub for lunch. It was The Old Maiden, the same place where I signed the deed to Whistler Farm.
There were a few people there enjoying lunch, talking and laughing as they did so. As I ate my shepard’s pie in silence, an older man took a seat on the stool next to me and ordered lager.
“You want anything, lad?” he asked, the smell of drink heavy on his breath “I haven’t seen your face around here.”
“No, I’m… I haven’t been here too long.”
“Alright. Pint of cider?”
“No, thank you, It’s a little early for me.”
“Early?” the old man laughed, “It’s gone twelve, how much later do you want?”
I considered his argument carefully for a moment, and then nodded slowly. He smiled as he ordered me a glass of cider.
“Made straight in Castel, you know? None of that English crap. Proper Sarnia drink, that is lad.”
“It's nice.”
“I used to own the orchard the apples came from, you know? Back when I was your age.”
“Oh really?” I said, “I’ve recently bought a farm myself, as it happens.”
The old man took a sip of his drink and smiled at me.
“Oh yeah? A lot of farms around here. Which one’s yours then?”
“Whistler Farm.”
I saw his mood shift. His friendly face soured as he placed his drink back down on the bar. It took a second for me to realise that the rest of the pub had also grown quieter. I looked behind me and caught a glimpse of the other patrons watching me, only to quickly turn away. The old man waited for their conversations to resume before he said anything more to me.
“You’re not local, are you?”
“No, no I was born in Vale but lived in the city. Is there something I should know?”
“Well, I suppose that depends on how lucky you are. But, um, that Whistler Farm is very old. Older than me, if you believe that. You know if something is for long enough, then stories start getting told.”
“Stories like what?”
“The man who owned Whistler before you. What was his name?”
“O’Kelly. Finn O’Kelly.”
“Not a local, I assume.”I looked at him a little puzzled, before shaking my head.
“No, Irish.”
“I thought as much. You look back on Whistler Farm, you won’t find many local owners. None in my lifetime, in fact. Although my memory’s not what it was.”
“I assume that this is about that old woman, Miss Whistler.”
“She’s no woman boy. At least none from ‘round here. Every story starts with her, showing up on a rainy night and asking for something. Sometimes she wants money, sometimes she wants shrines built for her. Rumour had it she asked one owner to marry her. Only Selene knows how that marriage would have worked.”
“So she is just some mad old woman. I thought as much.”
“No. Oh no, far from it my boy. Believe you me, I don’t know what that old hag is, but it isn’t a woman. You know about the pouques, don’t you?”
“Of course. Are you trying to tell me that woman’s one of the faeries?”
“If it isn’t that, I’d be afraid to say what else. The Church has been to that farm more than once, you know. We’ve seen them bless every fence, wall and door. Doesn’t stop her from getting in though, does it? No faerie I’ve ever heard of could still get in through all of that.”
“This is nonsense,” I told him, finishing my drink, “If she was a pouque, she’d have been killed the first time The Church tried. This is just some deranged old woman and a bunch of old wives tales. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a bunch of children messing about telling stories, trying to scare each other.”
“If that’s what you think. You go ask your farmhands about what I’m telling you, see what they say.”
“I already have, thank you very much. None of them have ever even met this woman.”
“Oh, but they all know the stories, no doubt. It doesn’t matter what they tell you, each of them know the stories. When you get home lad, you ask them how long they’ve worked there as well. You’ll learn pretty quick no one ever stays there long.”
“I’ve heard enough of this,” I told the fool, getting off my seat. Suddenly I had no desire to finish my pie. I could feel his eyes, as well as those from everybody else within the bar, following me as I made my exit.
“It’s your farm, after all,” he shouted to me as I opened the door, “Don’t say I didn’t try.”
Back on my farm, I did my best to ignore the old man’s stories. He was a drunk I’d met in a pub, and whose testimony was about as useful as one from a child. Of course I knew of the pouques - as all men did. They were the faeries who lived beneath us, venturing up onto the surface world only when they wished to cause us harm. I would know one if I saw one, and that woman was about as far off as one could be.
Still for some reason, I could not shake the man’s words from my head. Against my better judgement, I found myself looking through the records for the farm's previous labourers. Most of the older ones were incomplete, just being first names or nicknames, and with many crucial details missing from them. But for those in the last few years, a pattern did emerge. Most only stayed a matter of months, with very few making it a full year. Rarer still was anybody, farmhand or owner, lasting more than one year. Even my predecessor, Finn O’Kelly, who had sold the farm to me with tales of how much money it made him, had only lasted a few months.
As the day began to wind down I sought out Brandon again and asked to speak with him in private. We took a walk around the fields as I told him of my conversation in the bar, and of the evidence I had discovered.
“Ah, you can’t go around listening to everything drunkards tell you, Mr. Fisher. I’d have expected you of all people to know that.”
“But the evidence supports it. Look, how long have you been working at the farm?”
“Eight months, going on nine.”
“And do you know anyone who’s worked here more than a year?”
“Of course, there’s… Well, there was Fergus. He’d been here just over a year. Then there’s… Well, a lot of them have left now, but there were a few.”
“Why leave? The pay’s good, isn’t it? The work’s the same as any other farm around here.”
“They must of all had their reasons. Some men can’t bear sitting still for too long, I suppose. They want to move around, have a change of scenery.”
That was a poor excuse, and we both knew it. The truth was that something, and I could guess what, drove them away.
“Do strange things normally happen on the farm?” I asked, “I mean like that business with the barn animals. Did anything like it ever occur with Mr. O’Kelly?”
That gave him pause, if only for a moment. He looked at me as if he wished to say something, only struggling to put his words in order. Finally though, he spoke with a quiet voice.
“There have been… A few strange things, here and there.”
“Like what?”
“Well, nothing really. Just… When Mr. O’Kelly first took over from Mr. Langlois, there were a few odd things now and again. Some of the lads working in the outer fields kept thinking they were seeing ghosts appear next to them. One of them even tried telling us a ghost stole his shovel, but we weren’t listening to that now. The Church came and looked around and said it was all nonsense, just like we’d thought.”
“But-”
“I can promise you Mr. Fisher, anything odd that’s happened on this farm has been bad luck. There’s no faeries messing around with you. No curses or anything like that. Just plain old luck, and too much superstition.”
The conversation with Brandon hadn’t gone much further. He was unwilling to even consider any of my fears about what might be afflicting my farm. And so I had had enough of him, instead returning to my desk, upon which I penned a letter to The Church asking for their aid. If they had visited and blessed the lands before, then there should be no reason for them not to come again. It may all just be poor luck, though I would feel much more at ease if they were to reassure me,
This night, however, I feared there was very little that anyone could do to help me. Like my previous Friday evenings, I took up my book and did my best to read while I awaited her visit. I had been tempted to leave a bag of money on my doorstep, as she had so often asked, though my principles and sense convinced me not to. I would not give in to the demands of some mad old woman.
To my surprise, she never visited. So as the last light of my candle died, I made my way back up to my room, only to lay awake in bed. The nightmares which seemed to only grow more and more common would no doubt come again. While I could not remember what occurred within most of them, the terror I felt upon awakening from them still remained.
I checked my bedside cabinet again, making sure Fergus’ gun was still where I had placed it. Perhaps it could not shoot my nightmares, but knowing it was there brought me a small amount of comfort.
Finally, sleep took hold of me. When I next opened my eyes however, the feeling of fear was worse than any which had come from my nightmares.
Miss Whistler stood over me, her rotten teeth hanging over my head. Those eyes so cruel, looking into my own and showing me nothing but hatred. As I screamed she laughed, scampering away from me before I could reach out to grab the hag.
I flung open the drawer to my bedside cabinet, taking a hold of the pistol and aiming its barrel straight towards her.
“Now you!” I roared, “Stay where you are! I warn you, I have had enough of you.”
She didn’t speak, instead only watching me as I climbed out from bed and grabbed ahold of her. She did not so much as fight me as I forced her down the stairs and out into what I now realised was the pouring rain. On my way out I had picked up the lantern which sat near my front door, which left me unable to keep a hold of her.
“Now listen to me,” I warned, jamming the gun into her back, “I’ll shove you in one of the sheds and have The Church around as soon as possible. If you try anything, I’ll kill you myself. Do you understand that?”
“Where was this fire when we first met?” she asked me, still not putting up any sort of fight as I walked her out across the yard. I was too enraged to be bothered by the cold, although she seemed to also have no objection to it.
That doesn’t matter, I thought to myself. Who cared if this old woman could stand the cold; I certainly didn’t. Soon now, she would cease to be-
“Stop!” Cried a voice from the other end of the yard. I turned, gun raised in the direction of the worker’s hut. The candle in the window was still lit, with the farm door now open.
“Thief!” The voice, which I now realised belonged to one of my farmhands, called again. The night rota; he was the one scheduled to be keeping watch.
“It’s me!” I called to him, lowering my gun, “It’s me, Mr. Fisher! Come quickly!”
He hesitated before running out to me, disappearing when he left the candlelight of the worker’s hut and only then reappearing when he came within range of my lantern.
“Mr. Fisher. Oh I am very sorry, I saw your lantern and-”
“Not now! She’s-” and I turned my head to where she had been but a moment ago. Time seemed to slow as I looked upon the empty space, not registering what had happened. She had gone, this old, hunchbacked woman had managed to sneak away out of my sight. I swung my light to the left and right, expecting to see her hobbling away. Only there was no one.
“Oh, you idiot!” I screamed at the man, “She’s gone! Go to the front gates, don’t let her get away!”
“I-”
“Run!” I cried at him. He nodded, disappearing into the blackness.
“You lot!” I shouted to the hut where my now awake farmhands were lingering, “Get out here! We’ve got another intruder, come and search! She can’t have gone far.”
Through the rest of the night we searched. Some scoured through my home, the barn and stables for her, while others traipsed across the fields in the pouring rain, calling out for anybody to show themselves.
Only when the first of the sun's rays broke though the darkness of night did I allow myself to consider the impossible. This old crone, who had been trapped inside my dominion as a dozen men searched for her, had somehow escaped me. While I kept the men searching for some time still, insisting that there was no way she could have slipped past us, come midday I was forced to admit defeat.
Miss Whistler had managed to get away.