MAKE ME SOME LAMBSWOOL MY DEAR

She wandered into the Museum that day. It was freezing cold that New Year's Eve and raining outside in the dead of Winter.

Shaking herself dry she made her way to the pendulum at the centre of the atrium.

The huge weight hung from the high ceiling. She stared up into the distant roof and blinked as a lightening bolt flashed by. The thunder came next and seemed to shake the building. The pendulum shuddered.

Snuggling into her long coat she took the huge marble steps to the top floor. The levels were circular and the uppermost one held the medieval displays and the whispering wall.

Inside the tall glass cases were dishevelled artefacts from the middle ages found close by; pots, utensils, brooches and canon balls. There was also a large bowl with a gnarled wooden spoon alongside a recipe for something called Lambswool. Peering down she realised that the spoon wasn't just weathered. It had been bitten all over.

Next to the bowl and spoon was a little card, which read 'Kitchen ware found near the site of the old village doctor. The area was said to have been haunted by demons and that the spoon was used by the Devil'.

A map located the old Doctor's surgery.

By coincidence the site of the old surgery was where her own house stood now and it still retained the name. She shivered involuntarily.

"The Devil! Where I live!" she said to herself, "How horrible! What complete tosh!"

Sauntering further into the gallery she found herself staring at a portrait in oils. It was of a man, a man's face. He wore a black hood and held a huge black beaked mask under his arm. His eyes were red and his skin a pale yellow. He looked ill. His smiling mouth was slightly open and behind were stained gritted teeth. He seemed to glare at her with an unexpected but palpable malice and he emanated an utter loathing of her which touched her very core. This was the face of pure evil.

Staggering back from the picture she caught sight of the label.

"Village Doctor: Reputed to have Infected the whole Village with the Black Death and Invited the Devil to Supper to celebrate the Slaughter."

"The Doctor!" she gasped.

Running from the display she could still feel those hateful red eyes burning into her back as she took the corner to the start of the whispering gallery.

She stood taut against the wall and breathed heavily, her breaths coming in large gulps. Slowly she calmed herself and looked around to see of anyone was there. Slightly embarrassed she laughed nervously and took a few paces along the circular wall. 

Making sure that no-one else was on this floor or along the wall she faced into it and whispered "Hello!"

Chuckling and brushing her overcoat she walked a couple of steps and suddenly stopped.

"Hello!" replied a voice slithering almost silently along the wall.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she looked around frantically to see who could have replied to her on the upper floor. She had checked and was certain she was alone a few moments ago.

There was no-one.

"Hello! Are you there my dear?"

The woman exhaled in fright and ran around the circular level looking for the exit.

The stranger's voice continued.

"We shall have company tonight. Make us some Lambswool my dear and I will be pleased! You do want to please me and my guest don't you!"

The woman listened with increasing horror. Who on earth could be whispering to her along the wall? And that voice! A terrible, dreadful voice, so utterly inhuman and full of .....

"Malice!" she exclaimed and all at once knew she was listening to the whispers of the Village Doctor, whose portrait hung in the gallery next door.

Her whole body shook and she searched and searched for the exit but to no avail. The whispering wall seemed to be endless and she ran and ran in continuous circles until she could run no more.

Bent double she struggled for air and sobbed.

The Doctor resumed.

"Use the large bowl and spoon for mixing the Lambswool my dearest and let my guest taste it first lest he should get angry and turn on ... you!"

The woman screamed in terror. This can't be happening. She must be hearing things. Someone downstairs must be talking on the phone and somehow its echoing through the marble to here.

"Yes that's it!" the woman consoled herself.

"I shall be home at the strike of 7, when my work is done my sweet. But heed me, have it ready!" he warned and with that the Doctor's voice receded back into the walls and became silent.

Holding her head, shrieking loudly, the woman found the exit and hurried down the massive stairs until she was outside in the bitter cold once more. The Museum attendant was just shutting the large iron gates for early closing. It was 4 'o' Clock.

"Happy New Year for tomorrow my dear!" he said to her, his breath rising like a ghost.

She froze and stared at the attendant but he was smiling and his friendly face put her once more at ease.

"Yes, Happy New Year!" she replied tucking her ands in her pockets.

She was pleased to feel the tinge of winter on her face again and she shrugged off the past half an hour as nothing more than an unpleasant daydream brought on by the macabre museum.

Regaining her composure she stopped at a micro-pub, the Fleece and sat happily drinking a glass or two of the local bottled beer and after an hour she bought two more bottles to take home, which she thought later, was quite an unusual thing for her to do.

Feeling the warmth of the beer reddening her cheeks she strolled home. She passed the Butchers, where the jolly man waved. She passed the hairdressers, where the ladies waved to her as well. At the village Church she paused to look at the graveyard over the wall. The headstones were lob-sided and stained like old teeth. Many of them were plague victims, re-interred from the fields a century or so ago.

"The plague!" she whispered to herself.

"Did you say something my dear?"

The woman spun round as if her own grave had been walked on and looked straight into the face of the local Priest.

"Wishing you a very happy and healthy new year to come my child" warmed the Priest and took her hands in his.

As he touched her, his smile didn't last and he quickly withdrew his hands and hurried away back to his Church.

"Happy New Year!" she called after him somewhat puzzled and a little frightened by his odd behaviour.

She jumped as the Church clock struck the hour. It was 6 'o' Clock.

Reaching her door the woman had the strangest feeling that someone was behind her. Pivoting round she saw no-one but the feeling persisted as she unlocked the large wooden door, a leftover from the previous house-owner. The house name-plate glistened as the fist New Year's Eve firework lit up the darkness. It read 'The Old Surgery'.

Taking off her long coat she immediately struck a match and ignited the kindling and paper and coal she had prepared in the large kitchen hearth earlier that day. The woman made herself a cup of hot cocoa on the stove and turning with it in her hands she froze.

Standing on the big timber table was a large bowl, a wooden spoon and a parchment curling at the edges.

Shivering uncontrollably she knew instinctively that these were the vary same objects she had peered at several earlier in the Medieval gallery.

She moved closer and saw that the parchment was indeed a recipe for lambswool and nearly fainted.

Clutching the edge of the table she steadies herself and felt an undeniable urge to read the recipe.

Take warme beer, boile creme with thrice cloves, droppe three yolks in withe sippets of bread, put all in a bowl and pour in the warm ale to crowne the bowl full. Scattere sugar, stick with white almonds and spice with cinnamon, ginger, and sugar. This thee shall do to make the Lambswool and howle with your guests.

The urge in her grew stronger and she took the bowl and the spoon and followed the recipe to the letter utilising the beer she bought from the Fleece. Everything else was in her pantry, the ginger, the nutmeg and eggs.

She busied herself completely, overtaken with a compulsion to make the best Lambswool in the village for her husband and his esteemed guest. 

Finished, the thick cream slopped over the sides of the Howling Bowl. The woman dipped her finger in and wrapped her eager tongue around the sweet brew.

"Mmmmm!" she cooed.

Her clock suddenly struck seven. The shock of the chimes brought the woman to her senses.

She stared incredulously at the large bowl of liquid and the wooden spoon in her hand.

"What ...."

She didn't have time to finish her question because the front door of the house burst open. The cold winter air rushed through and into the gloom of the hallway stepped two figures.

The one at the front was wearing a long black coat with a black hood and a huge beaked mask.

"Hello my dear! Happy New Year! Did you make me some lambswool for my guest?"

The guest barged past the Doctor and on two steaming cloven feet lurched towards the woman in the kitchen, violently grabbing the wooden spoon from her and voraciously ladled from the bowl.

"Mmm! Lambswool!" he gurgled smiling through pointed teeth, which he began to bite the spoon with. He took her hand and bit her sticky finger hard.

"You started without me!"

As the Doctor laughed the woman began to scream.