Part One
Twenty-five years later
Trepidation twisted knots in Jessica Newman’s stomach, as she drove up to the gate outside her father’s old home in Aviemore, Scotland.
She was thousands of miles from home and literally standing at the doorway to a past she didn’t want to resurrect. However, fate had intervened.
Jessica’s happy existence with her husband and teenage son in Boston was shattered a month ago when a solicitor, representing the estate of Douglas Mackinnon, contacted her with the news of his death. It was the first time she heard his name spoken aloud in more than twenty years.
The solicitor told Jessica her father’s death was declared a suicide. He was found dead in his ancestral home located in the secluded hills of north-east Scotland, a single gunshot wound to his head. He moved back to Aviemore after the court case to hide alone and die alone.
With the news came a long period of grief for Jessica. Old fears and emotions about her mother and her last dreadful night on Earth came rushing back to the surface, and nothing could shut them out.
Jessica told the solicitor she wasn’t interested in her father, that he’d been dead to her for a long time. But there was the matter of the Mackinnon home, her father left it to his only child in his will. She had to decide what to do with it.
In the nights that followed the solicitor’s dark news, Jessica was plagued with nightmares of her mother crying out for help as her father loomed over her like a devil. The dreams, the same ones every night, were vivid and the irony of her parent’s roles being reversed was troubling.
As far as Jessica, the Catholic Church and the Courts were concerned, Felicity Mackinnon had not been possessed by a demon on the night she died.
Douglas Mackinnon, an ordained deacon, was found to have been desperate, but not criminally negligent when he chose to perform an exorcism on his wife on the night of May 7, 1984.
Jessica could almost hear the Judge’s closing remarks to the jury twenty-five years ago, as if he stood behind her reciting it for a second time. He ruled, that as a devout man of the cloth, Deacon Mackinnon felt lost, and seeking help from his church and his God, did the only thing he felt he could do at the cost of his wife’s life.
During the three-week trial, Jessica heard her mother exhibited the symptoms of a form of Manic Depressive Disorder; unpredictable mood swings, suicidal tendencies and a prevalence towards self-harm. Deacon Mackinnon, Felicity’s husband of fifteen years however, did not believe her condition was at all psychological.
The good deacon, the defense said, had served his church for twenty years at the time of the exorcism and was regarded by his fellow clergymen and parishioners as, “the thirteenth apostle”.
As a family man, Deacon Mackinnon had no equal, his friends testified. These friends had no clue of what went on behind the doors of the deacon’s gable home in South Boston. Jessica knew, all too well. Her childhood, her entire life was defined by the horrible actions of her parents. She carried the memories like a cancer in her soul.
Even now, all these years later, Jessica could remember when her mother ventured into her room one moonless night, the gleam of steel in her hand. Her little girl screams still echoed inside her to this day. She could almost see her father’s solemn face as he dragged her mother away and locked her inside the master bedroom, never to appear alive again. With practiced thought, Jessica could block the psychic pain out, but she knew her resolve was about to be tested.
The details of the exorcism ritual Douglas tried to perform on May 7, 1984 played out in graphic detail through Jessica’s eyewitness testimony. Jessica recounted how she heard her mother begging her father to let her go and how the clergyman simply ignored her.
A psychiatrist interpreted Jessica’s evidence as proof of Felicity’s fractured psyche; that in an effort to save herself Felicity tumbled deeper into her mania and became violent and dangerous but not demonic.
Deacon Douglas Mackinnon declined to take the witness stand.
The jury agonized on the verdict for three days, until they ultimately found him not guilty of criminal neglect.
The damage of the trial was too much for the Catholic Church and Douglas Mackinnon was subsequently defrocked. It may not have been as final as prison, but the public and the media accepted the punishment still carried considerable impact.
Jessica, who was then in the care of her mother’s parents following Felicity’s death, was later informed her father had fled back to his home country.
Now, more than two decades on, Jessica stared at the decrepit place her father escaped to. The house, a crumbling manor, looked as dark as Deacon Mackinnon’s past. Jessica felt it exuded fear.
The voice of Jessica’s son, Alex, broke the long silence.
“What a dump!” he exclaimed.
“Alex, please,” Jessica scolded him as she parked the rental car outside Mackinnon Manor. Still, she found it hard not to agree with him. The paint was peeling, the shutters cracked and the wood rot so extensive the entire house looked as if it were infected with some debilitating disease.
“Your father lived here?” Jessica’s husband David asked.
“That’s what the solicitor said,” she replied as she turned off the ignition and stepped out into the chilly October morning air.
Green dales, shrouded in a distant fog from the Grampian Mountains only accentuated the manor’s menacing appearance.
Jessica checked the address against the map. “This is definitely it,” she added, disappointment evident in her voice.
“Looks like it’s been this way for years,” David said. He scanned the structure and pursed his lips, as if he’d swallowed something distasteful.
Jessica held his hand as anxiety gripped her again. David was a good man; he’d been her rock throughout the whole ordeal. He’d shown only compassion when she’d revealed the sordid secrets of her childhood. He’d never felt betrayed when she’d finally told him. He understood, which only strengthened Jessica’s love for him.
David looked toward her with his steely blue eyes, the icy wind tousling his scruffy black hair. “You sure you want to do this, Jess? It’s not too late to turn back.”
Jessica pulled her coat tightly around her, but she knew it wasn’t really the cold that bothered her. She tucked her long brown wavy hair out of her brown eyes and flashed David a half-smile.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to be here, but at the same time, I want answers, you know?”
David hugged her. He felt warm; her warm guardian whose love brought her out of the darkness all those years ago, when she was a thin twenty-something, overwhelmed with grief and depression, trying to study at college. He had been her protector ever since.
“It’s your choice, Hon,” he told her. “Whatever you want to do, I’m with you, okay?”
“Thanks,” she said and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.
Alex’s sigh was audible above the Highland wind. They turned to watch him kick over a rusting tin bucket in the long grass. Jessica understood his frustration; Alex didn’t want to be here and she wasn’t sure she did either, but it was the only way Jessica knew she would attain closure.
Alex was at the sensitive age where peer-pressure and outward impressions meant everything. Jessica knew his dark clothing and shoulder-length scraggly black hair, that obscured his green eyes, put him squarely in the “EMO” crowd. Those pre-pubescent teenagers who willingly regarded themselves as outsiders; listened to morbid punk rock music, wore black and acted constantly depressed. Jessica hoped it was only a phase he would eventually grow out of. Still, she knew her son would not consider living in a dilapidated house in the Scottish countryside very “cool”.
Jessica ascended the rotting stairs and stopped to examine the front door. Its brass doorknob looked like it had been turned a million times. A roll of thunder echoed over the house and the boards under Jessica’s feet shuddered in response. Her heart quickened its pace, but he
r husband’s voice brought her back from the brink of fear.
“Someone’s here,” he said, pointing to a four-wheel-drive coming up the path towards the manor.
Jessica turned away from the door, grateful for the distraction.
They all watched as a short, thin, balding man in an expensive suit stepped out from the vehicle and flashed the family a shining smile.
“You must be the Newman family,” the man said with a thick Scottish accent that belied his quintessential appearance.
“Mr. Douglas?” Jessica asked him.
“Aye, that’s right,” the man replied. “Jessica Newman is it?”
“Yes, it’s nice to put a face to the solicitor.”
Mr. Douglas laughed, which added an even higher pitch to his Highland tone. “True, it is. Please call me William though.
Welcome to Mackinnon Manor.”
Jessica knew none of them felt very welcome.
“Have you had a look around the house yet?” William inquired.
“We only got off the plane in Aberdeen a few hours ago and then we drove here,” David told him. “I’m David Newman, Jess’ husband and this is our son, Alex.”
William shook David’s hand, but Alex just scowled at the Scotsman.
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Newman,” William replied. “Was the flight from Heathrow reasonable?”
“It was long,” Alex chimed in.
William chuckled and walked past them towards the house, briefcase in hand. Thunder grumbled above them again.
“You’ll have to get used to our weather here pretty quickly,”
William said as he climbed the stairs. The Newmans followed reluctantly.
The solicitor fumbled around in his briefcase as he continued talking. “This is actually considered our “dry” season, but when you live near a mountain range as wide as the Grampians, you tend to get rain and fog all year round.”
“Well, we’d better not stay outdoors for very long then,” Jessica said.
“Aye, true again, Mrs. Newman,” William said as he finally retrieved the keys to the house.
Jessica’s stomach quivered when the solicitor put the brass key in the lock and turned it. A plethora of emotions and memories of a man she tried to forget, were about to come rushing to the surface.
The front door hinges let out a long creaking sigh as it opened and about a decade of dust and naphthalene fumes struck their senses. The grey light of the morning scarcely touched the manor’s interior, but Jessica could not help but be captivated by the rich lacquered oak walls and floors. The vestibule floor was accented by a tapestry of tartan, emblazoned with what Jessica presumed was the Mackinnon family crest. A hallstand, built of matching oak was the resting place for a walking cane and a well-worn fedora hat, the first direct link to Jessica’s father. She recalled him wearing the same hat to church when she was a little girl, and it sent a chill through her spine.
Pushing the memory down, Jessica turned to the small banister on the wall opposite. She stared at the ornaments set upon it; a crucifix, empty spectacles case and two framed photographs. One of her father kissing the ringed hand of Pope John Paul II and the other, a picture of Jessica as a smiling young schoolgirl, a few years before her mother’s death. The latter confused Jessica even more.
“This house was built in the eighteen-fifties,” William told them. “The Mackinnon family was quite well to do in their day, I’m told. They were one of the largest cattle farming families in the area. I believe that Mr. Mackinnon was the only descendant to become a man of charity.”
“Really?” David said, with a raised eyebrow. “The black sheep was he?”
“David, don’t,” Jessica scolded him.
“Well,” William continued. “Your father did his best to take care of the inside of the house, but obviously the exterior suffered for it. There are four bedrooms on the top floor and the dining, living rooms and study are down here. I believe Mr. Mackinnon slept in the master bedroom, but spent most of his time in the study.”
“Is that where they found his body?” Alex asked.
“Alex! Please!” Jessica chastised him.
William sighed, but carried on. “Feel free to look around the house. I imagine we’ll have to discuss your plans at some stage.
Do you intend to put it on the market?”
“I don’t know yet,” Jessica replied. “I’m still trying to get used to the idea my father left me all this.”
“I understand,” William said, as he placed his briefcase on a coffee table.
“Do you know much about my father’s time here?” Jessica asked, dreading his response.
“All I know is that he kept himself fairly busy helping the less fortunate here in Aviemore.”
“The less fortunate?” David inquired.
“Yes, the homeless. Mr. Mackinnon helped prepare meals to give to the poor, mostly elderly people, but there were a lot of young ones as well,” William explained.
Jessica found it hard to believe, her father being generous and kind. The Douglas Mackinnon she remembered could only be described as a monster. That was more than twenty-five years ago. Perhaps he changed, maybe even redeemed himself? Jessica was willing to consider any possibility to salvage something good from her past.
“Do you know the name of the place where he helped out?”
Jessica pressed further.
“William smiled. “Aye, I do. It was at the old church in town,
Saint Stephen’s.”
“I thought you said your father was expelled from the church all those years ago.” David said.
“I did and he was,” Jessica told him, a look of surprise on her own face.
“Well, all I can tell you is that in Aviemore, no one is guilty of anything they’ve done in the past. You can start afresh here.”
William said.
“That sounds a bit idealistic,” David retorted.
“It does. The folk here take people as they come.”
Jessica looked around the room again, her mind full of preconceived notions and judgments. The skills she acquired when she was studying to become a child counselor told her, judging someone by their actions was not the true way to get to know a person. She never put those skills into practice because her own troubled childhood kept her from fulfilling her future.
“Mr. Douglas?”
“Yes, Mrs. Newman?”
“Do you think you could show me where Saint Stephen’s Church is? I’d really like to speak to some of the people there who knew my father.”
“Jess,” David said gently.
“Of course,” William replied. “If you don’t mind, can it wait until tomorrow? I’ve got a mountain of paperwork back at the office.”
“That’s fine. I’d really appreciate your help. I’d also like to see where my father is buried, if that’s possible.”
“That won’t be a problem.” William grabbed his briefcase and the house keys. “Now, if you think you’ve seen enough of the house, I’ll have to be locking the place up and heading back into town.”
Jessica took the keys from his hand. “Do you mind if we hold onto these for a while?”
David frowned. “Jess, what’re you up to?”
She turned to him, smirking. “What? I’m thinking we could stay the night.”
“Are you sure? You weren’t certain you wanted to come here in the first place. You were scared out of your wits on the plane over here.”
Jessica glanced around the house again. “Yes, but now that I’m here it doesn’t look that bad. Besides, we have to check the place out if we’re going to sell it. We have to see how much work we need to put into it.”
“You’re not serious?” Alex complained. “You said we were going to stay in a motel.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind, Alex,” Jessica told him.
“You said we’d be here one night and then we’d fly back home.”
Alex continued, on the verge of an adolescent tantrum.
“I’m sorry, Alex, but I’m not ready to go home just yet.”
David searched his wife’s eyes for a hint of emotion, but she looked cool, calm and collected. Like always. He held her hand and smiled.
“Okay one night.” he said.
Jessica kissed him. Alex groaned.
“It’s not proper procedure,” William pointed out. “Legally, the house is in your name. As long as you take care not to damage anything, you can stay.”
“We won’t.” Jessica assured him.
Minutes later they watched William drive away. Jessica jangled the keys in her hand and noticed a new wave of showers rolling in from the mountains. The heavy drops thudded on the roof sheeting and echoed within the manor’s spacious interior like a thousand drums beating. David reached for Jessica, held her around the waist and kissed the back of her neck.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
“Definitely.”
“Look, I’m glad you’re taking such a big step, but I want to make sure you’re not setting yourself up for a fall.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck and fingered his hair.
“My father’s dead, David. He can’t do me any more damage,” she mused. “Maybe spending some time in his home will help me discover who he was in the twenty-five years he was here. Maybe, once I find that out I can move on.”
David kissed her. “Okay Jess I’m with you one hundred percent.
As long as you’re sure.”
“There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
Torment is available in paperback or e-book formats from Damnation Books!