LIKHO
A Gothic mystery
Pray she doesn't find you out...
Available from AMAZON, FOYLES, WATERSTONES.
In an ancient city, somewhere in central Europe, the new resident of an old and strange building becomes enthralled by its mysterious history, and by his neighbour, an aged man living alone in a derelict room, to whom, reluctantly, he finds himself drawn…
Intrigued by tales of murder, suicide, unexplained disappearances, and disturbed by unquiet souls, our man is pulled into a world of nightmares, haunted by visitations of the dead, and the shadowy form of a one-eyed old woman.
The torments persist, but he refuses to believe any of it, and holds fast to an idea that what doesn’t exist can’t hurt him…
Background and cover illustration:
'Woman and Serpent' c.1890, Odilon Redon (1840-1916).
What happens when those terrors, to which only the night gives existence, follow you into the day, and shadows come to life?
Preface
It is more than thirty years since first I saw the journal you are about to read. I was living in central Europe at the time, in a city where mediaeval streets and alleys lead you through more than fifteen hundred years of history, a city full of myths and legends where a ghost story lurks in every doorway, and a storyteller behind every door.
The manuscript came into the possession of a friend who found himself sole heir to the estate of a distant cousin of whom he knew nothing. Part of the bequest was a large apartment in the old town, and naturally curious, I was happy to go along with him when he went to have a look at it…
Having remained unoccupied for decades, the place was in a very poor state. The floors were bare, the walls damp and blackened with mould, stucco ceilings crazed with cracks, and cobwebs hung heavily in every corner. It was bare of furniture, other than in one of the larger rooms where an old threadbare armchair sat by the fireplace, and next to it, a small table on which stood a dust-covered wine bottle, a glass, and a bundle of papers which, on inspection, seemed to be the diary of a man whom we supposed to have been the last occupant. Thinking it might be of interest, we took it away with us…
The first sheets were missing, so we don’t know if the author identified himself on a title page, or when he started his journal. As it is, the record begins part-way through a conversation with a neighbour, and so we must take the part of late-arriving eavesdroppers and try to catch up as best we can.
His narrative leads us through a series of strange and disturbing events, in a picture-postcard mediaeval city where dreams and nightmares crawl steadily from sleep to invade the day, and the terrors to which darkness gives existence force their way into the light. Unable to break free from the ghosts that begin to haunt him, and which conflict with a philosophy that he refuses stubbornly to abandon, can the man hold on to his sanity?
Though it has been many years since first I read his story, it has come to mind often, and I cannot help but wonder what became of the poor fellow? Did he end his days confined in an asylum somewhere, screaming at shadows? Or might he yet be sitting in a threadbare old armchair, in a decaying apartment, with only those shadows for company?
Anyway, read on, and then give some thought to this — does a man’s troubled mind confine within itself the demons it invokes to terrorise him? Or might that mind become a door through which, once conjured, they are free to pass into our world?
Finally, before I leave you, would you like to know if I have ever seen a ghost? Well, honestly, I cannot say I have. And I cannot say I have not…
And what about you? What do you say?
"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like Reading!"
- Shane Austen, Slough.
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