Shiverton Hall Read Online Free PDF

unusual indeed. Ma Watkins was in her early seventies when she gave birth to Rose, her only child. Under normal circumstances, a woman having a child out of wedlock would have been enough to have her hounded from the village, but no one dared approach Ma Watkins. Ma Watkins was commonly thought to be a witch, and the fact that she was able to conceive at such an advanced age only proved this belief. When Rose was born, other children were warned away from her, and for many years she was referred to behind closed doors as ‘the devil’s child’. However, the sweetness of Rose’s nature eventually convinced even the most hard-hearted of the villagers otherwise, and the strange circumstances of her birth became a distant memory.
    That is, until Rose went missing. She had been walking back to Ma Watkins’s cottage on a balmy June night, a pink velvet ribbon in her hair, carrying some leftover pie from the tavern. The last person to see her was the landlady, who had begged that Rose wait until her son could walk her home, as it was no longer safe for girls to walk alone at night. Rose had laughed, waving gaily as she cut across a field towards her house. But Rose never arrived there.
    Ma Watkins scoured Grimstone, hobbling on her crooked stick from house to house, muttering under her breath. People no longer feared her claw rapping on their doors, or her tattered cloak and misty, blue eyes; they pitied her. Soon, the entire village went out in search of Rose, battering bushes and peering down wells. The fields echoed with her name, but still Rose was not found. Days went by and the search petered out, but still Ma Watkins combed the fields, looking for a clue as to her daughter’s whereabouts.
    The warm weather dissolved into rain. It became the stormiest, wettest June for over a century and all the crops were spoiled. The villagers began to whisper that it was Ma Watkins’s fault, that she was taking her grief out on them, calling the clouds with one of her spells. After the river had flooded and swept away a herd of cows, the menfolk of Grimstone gathered at Ma Watkins’s house, determined to make her leave.
    Ma Watkins had already left. She was staggering, through the rain and the mud, the ten miles to Shiverton Hall, her cloak clinking with bottles and a frayed, leather tome weighing her down.
    It took the old lady three days to reach the hall, for she was weak and grief-stricken. She arrived at five minutes to midnight, a bloated, yellow moon lighting her way.
    Only one servant remained at Shiverton Hall, the rest having fled, terrified of their master. The butler, a man too ancient to risk leaving the warmth of the hall, answered the door to find a foul-smelling old crone on the doorstep. He tried to shoo her away, fearing his master’s wrath, but the crone barged through with surprising strength and limped, her stick screeching along the stone floor, towards Lord Shiverton’s study.
    The butler watched through a crack in the study door as the old lady approached his master. Lord Shiverton, though still a large, sturdy man, appeared immobilised in his armchair, sweat beading on his brow as he struggled against an invisible force that kept him glued to the seat. The hag encircled him, mumbling words that the butler did not recognise and sprinkling a fine, blue powder on the floor. The powder fizzed and crackled, filling the room with purple smoke. She reached into her cloak and pulled out a yellowing book, chapped and peeling like dead skin, and began to read from it.
    The fire in the grate burned a rushing green as Ma Watkins spoke in a low hiss. The words that left her mouth traced themselves briefly into the smoke, the letters curling up towards the ceiling. The butler plugged his ears but watched the words as they danced over Lord Shiverton’s head. It was a hex so powerful and disturbing that the butler would refuse to ever repeat it. He would only recall the last word that hovered in a thin, red vapour before