Black Dog and Grey Ladies

by Slate Powell

If York is the city of a thousand ghosts, then my homeland of Norfolk claims to be the most haunted county in England.  Scattered through field, fen, and stately home wander many unquiet spirits, such as the headless apparition of Anne Boleyn riding through the grounds of Blickling Hall, or Nancy the Screaming Cockler of Stiffkey, drowned gathering shellfish as her friends on the beach could only hear her cries for help through the fog.  Less notorious are the two other phantoms, the ones that have been seen so often in hamlet and hedge-lined lane that every granny has met one or other.  Grey ladies are the first – wraiths of women wandering paths and roads silently, garbed in faded widows’ weeds, mournfully searching for lost loves until they are noticed by a startled walker or driver and disappear into darkness.  The second is the black ghost dog, known in Norfolk as Black Shuck.  This monstrous hound with glowing eyes stalks behind petrified travellers out late, perhaps warning them of danger, perhaps chasing them to their doom.

Raised on tales of the spirits of Norfolk, it felt fitting that my present homecoming was to lay my own ghosts to rest, as I mourned the passing of my great aunt and put her affairs in order.  I had been close to Great Aunt Iris, whose love of books and folklore had inspired me to become a librarian like her.  Even after I left the countryside for university and work, I visited Iris often, and when my parents died she became even more important to me.  We spent hours drinking tea in her garden, swapping stories while the chickens bustled around our feet and the bees flew languidly from hollyhock to foxglove.  I dearly regretted that I hadn’t been with her in her final days, but I had been deep in my own illness and was still feeling the effects of a weak body and foggy mind that seemed determined to linger.  So here I was, in Iris’ little cottage, tying up loose ends and unfinished business, and taking the time to let my heart and body start gradually healing too.

Late October in Norfolk is a sombre month, and the clinging mist and browning foliage matched my glum mood one Tuesday afternoon.  The central heating grumbled to life as I stretched my back and winced.  Long hours bent over paperwork and packing books into boxes had made me stiff and miserable.  The lure of a hot drink and hotter bath was strong, but I remembered my doctor’s admonition to exercise more if I were to get over weeks of being bedridden.  So I dropped a teabag into a mug as a promise for later, shrugged into my coat and set off.  As I left, I touched a finger to the shining glass witch ball hanging by the front door and set it swinging.  A large mirrored bauble, it was meant to protect the house by ensnaring any passing witch with her own reflection.  I had no time for superstition beyond enjoying a good tale, but the twilight air had a gathering charge that made my skin prickle, and the moving shadows of the trees outside seemed filled with dark vitality.

I moved down the narrow road from the cottage towards the nearest hamlet, hoping the damp breeze would clear my headache.  The ground smelt richly, satisfyingly fungal and my boots crunched over the fallen leaves of horse chestnut, oak and beech.  I felt my shoulders relax and my breathing come easier as the familiar scents and sounds of autumn in the country surrounded me.  A teenager wearing headphones with a fat black Labrador on a lead passed me in the other direction.  I smiled and nodded, shrugging as I was ignored.  I wondered if tomorrow I might drive over to the nearby woods for a change, remembering Aunt Iris telling me of the ‘grey lady of Weasenham Woods’, who haunted the area, searching forlornly for her fiancé lost in the War. 

Always something undone for these spirits, some regret or task keeping them here, I mused.  An inhuman shriek shattered the dusk behind me and I whirled, gasping – a white shape ghosted across the road and over the hedge.  A barn owl hunting for mice.  I laughed a little to cover my embarrassment and paused.  The black Labrador stood thirty feet down the road, staring at me intently, owner out of sight.  I waved at it and continued on my way, turning left down the side of a field that would loop me back to the lane where the cottage was.  As I reached the corner I looked back to see the dog still watching me.  I made it home twenty minutes later with cold nose and fingers, as the sky darkened from purple to black.  I made my cup of tea and started my well-deserved bath running.

The next day was both uneventful and frustrating.  I attempted to tackle some cleaning and dusting, but in my weakened state it felt like I was getting nowhere.  Spiders seemed determined to spin new webs as soon as I’d swept the old away, while dust bunnies ignored my ineffectually wielded broom.  How was I ever going to get the place packed up and ready for sale?  My exhaustion and brain fog were bad too, and I put off my trip to the woods for fear that I wasn’t safe to drive.  I was determined, however, to still walk.  Before my illness I had hiked regularly, and wanted to get back to that, to who I had been before.  I knew that it might take a while. I had been very sick, but I had lost so much recently - my job, my health, Iris.  I wouldn’t let this awful year take any more from me.  Remembering the sudden fall of darkness the night before, I searched around for a torch and found none, apart from a small battery-operated camping lantern.  A little eccentric, but it would stop me twisting my ankle in a rabbit hole.

This evening’s walk was cold and blustery, with crows being tossed in the currents above the trees like scraps of black cloth.  The east wind comes whistling across the steppes of Siberia, over the North Sea and hits Norfolk with force.  We call it ‘the lazy wind’, because it’s too lazy to go around you, so instead goes straight through.  I snuggled my scarf up under my chin and grasped the silly lantern tightly, focusing on the sounds of rustling leaves, distant cars on the main road, and the noisy rooks settling down in the treetops.  Then, over the whine of the wind through the beeches, I heard a high wailing moan.  I stopped, straining my hearing – there it was again.  Not an owl this time, not a human scream… a third time and my breath caught in my chest.  The distant howl of a dog.

Now, I grew up with animals and I can tell from half a mile whether a dog’s bark is one of boredom, challenge, or excitement.  This wasn’t the howl of a lonely pet shut out of the house.  This felt...different.  Some primal part of my hindbrain came to attention and my senses snapped to full alert.  I pushed my glasses firmly up my nose, made a slow circle in the middle of the road, and froze.  There, at the top of the rise, next to the clump of wilting cow parsley, it stood.  A black shadow, dog-shaped, but big, bigger than the bumbling lab with its adolescent owner yesterday.  Blacker than the shadows cast by the overhanging trees.

The kick of adrenalin the sight gave me made my arm jerk up almost of its own volition, and the unflickering beam of the little lantern spread warmly across the verge and hedgerow.  My rational self hoped I would see a lost dog howling for its owner, but the part of me raised listening to ghost stories on Great Aunt Iris’ knee was unsurprised when instead my light returned a burning red eyeshine of two great orbs, hovering four feet above the tarmac.  Black Shuck, my inner librarian helpfully supplied.  Demon dog. 

I struggled to comprehend, as reason and fear fought within me.  But it’s not real! I thought, even as my heart started to thump painfully and my body prepared for flight.  As I stood frozen to the spot, the distant black shape slowly raised one massive paw.  With great deliberation, the hound began a slow advance.  Towards me.  I turned smartly on my heel and began to walk briskly along the road, gripping my lantern with white knuckles, managing to keep my pace measured.  I was not going to run from a bloody Labrador, however big and spooky it might seem.  I am an adult, not a scared child, I told myself, even as I glanced behind me every few metres to see that the dog was maintaining it’s slow, implacable pursuit.

My breathing grew a little ragged and my controlled fast walk became a shambling trot as I tried to move quickly without falling over the rough verges or losing myself to fear entirely.  My flimsy trousers provided little protection against the stinging nettles as I went off-road to take a shortcut.  I glanced back again, a little sob escaping my lips as I saw the animal had somehow gotten closer, despite its speed remaining unchanged.  It’s just a dog, just a lost black dog, I thought desperately, even though I knew that no dog had eyes that glowed like smouldering coals; no dog grew so huge and menacing.

There!  Not too far away I saw the glint of my lantern-beam reflected in the witch ball hanging in Iris’ front window.  Her cottage, always beloved but never more a sanctuary than now, was close.  Eyes fixed before me, I jogged to the door and scrabbled in my pocket for the key.  Over the sound of my increasingly frenzied attempts to turn the lock I could not hear any padding paws on gravel or breath whistling over gleaming fangs, but surely the beast must be getting nearer?  Finally the stiff door opened and I fell inside, shoving the bolt home and flicking on the light switch with relief.  No warm, instant illumination flooded the little house.  Darkness remained, silent and heavy.  I tried again – no, the electricity must be out.  I clutched the lantern tightly and climbed the twisting staircase to the small bedroom, exhaustion descending so quickly that I couldn’t even muster the energy to look out the window and see if anything was out there, watching.

In the morning the electricity still wasn’t working, and I couldn’t get through to the utility company.  I tried a little packing but it felt like I was making no headway at all.  As I looked around the cluttered rooms, still so full of memories of Iris, I despaired of ever being well enough to make an impact; despaired of ever being ready to let her go.  Eventually I found a camping stove in the cupboard under the stairs, and made some tea in the garden.  I sat on a bench next to a late-blooming rose bush that was just hanging on, and tried to soak in some warmth from the feeble autumn sun.  I considered consulting Iris’ collection of Norfolk folktales and ghost stories, to learn more about Black Shuck, but what I remembered was enough.  A demon dog; a hound of the Wild Hunt; an ancient spirit warning the traveller of danger ahead, or perhaps a malevolent one driving the unwary to their death.

In the light of day these stories felt distant and hollow, untethered from the half-remembered, surely imagined terror of the night before.  Instead I picked up a photo album, and strengthened myself with reminiscing over sunny days with my great aunt.  This was real: the love we had felt, the memories we had made.  I vowed then to hold on to positivity and not let the darkness of October evenings, illness, death and despair take me.  Black Shuck be damned, I would be well again, my heart would be whole and I would say farewell to beloved Iris.  Fortified by tea, Hobnobs and memories, I prepared for my evening walk with a renewed sense of determination.  I would not let fear and superstition have control over me.  Remembering the nettles of the evening before, I slipped on one of Iris’ long tweed skirts to protect my ankles, grasped my lantern once more, and left the dark cottage for the dusk of the lanes.

My walk felt wholesome and nourishing, as I watched a weasel dance across the road, and a single magpie called to me from a gate.  I pulled my scarf up over my head to protect my ears from the lazy wind and walked.  But all too soon the hairs on the back of my neck started to rise, and I reluctantly turned to see the shape of the hound at the end of the path – a shape I had hoped I had imagined the day before.  No, here it was, all too real this time. White teeth almost fluorescing in the lantern light, eyes glowing, body massive and dark.  Terror swamped me as it raised its muzzle to the sky and let loose an unnatural howl.

An echoing cry escaped my own clenched teeth as Black Shuck lowered its head and started towards me at a dead run.  I turned tail and fled in panic along the road.  The howl continued to sound, making my heart stutter, and the burning eyes shone ever nearer.  From ahead a roaring approached, and twin orbs sped through the night towards me. Another beast?  A glance over my shoulder revealed that the dog was almost upon me, running full speed now; and in front was the roaring yellow-eyed creature unbearably loud and close. I stopped, threw up my arms, lantern in front of my face, and shrieked with terror. The roaring joined me in an unholy screech that stopped abruptly, and all was silent.

Eventually I was able to lower my arms and regain my breath, unbelieving that I was whole and unharmed by the spirits on me from either side. I turned to see no demon dog, but skid marks leading to a small car, hazard lights flashing. The driver’s door swung open and a pale-faced man staggered out, eyes searching the road and hedges.

“The woman, where did she go?” he asked his passenger breathlessly.

I gasped with relief and waved. “I’m okay, I’m here!” I called.

I saw the passenger shake her head in confusion. The man turned in a circle and rubbed his shaking hand over his face. “The woman in the dress, with the lantern. I swear I hit her. I swear!”

“But I’m right here!” I said. “I’m right here”.