Ending

And so, as some of you may be relieved to hear,  we come to the final section of "The Lost Schoolgirl". If you have not read the other three parts you will find them in previous blogposts dated the 4th, 7th & 9th of November.

Over breakfast, Liam admitted what had happened during the night. He had been trying to play down the entire thing - whatever that thing might have been. It all ran counter to his normally logical mind.

"Well thank God!" said Annalise. "I was starting to think it was all in my imagination."

Later, as they were clearing up leaves at the front, John the vicar appeared - taking his little dog Taffy for a walk. He stopped for a friendly chat over the old school wall but their conversation soon turned to all the weird stuff and to Florence Foster.

"You say you felt as though someone was sitting on your bed?"

To John, the couple appeared apprehensive and possibly in need of help. He had been thinking about them ever since they met up in the pub that night.

"Something isn't right. I can see it in your eyes. Maybe I can help."

"What? How? How could you help John?" asked Annalise.

"Well. Not me exactly but a colleague of mine. We were at Cambridge together. He's based at Lincoln Cathedral and he plays a special role within the diocese."

"What? What does he do?"

John was slightly evasive. "He... he settles things and he... he performs exorcisms."

Liam and Annalise were gobsmacked.

"Exorcisms? You can't be serious. I thought that was only in films," said Liam.

"I am being perfectly serious," said John as a now yelping Taffy pulled at his lead. A grey squirrel was still scampering  up the closest sycamore.

Weird stuff continued to happen in the house. Footsteps on the stairs. Someone or something in their bedroom. Pale light that seemed to emanate from the old mirror. Dreams mingled strangely with reality. In the distance, a small girl running somewhere.

A few days later a red "Golf" pulled up in front of the old school. A heavy fellow in a grey overcoat came to the door. He was carrying an old attache case. It was Canon Thomas Prendergast from Lincoln. He had arrived at the appointed time just as John promised he would.

Annalise prepared three mugs of tea and they sat in the kitchen for over half an hour. He wanted to know everything and there was lots of nodding as if he did not find any of it unusual or surprising.

He rested his chin on his entwined knuckles. "I think you have got a lost soul here. Someone who  in death has been unable to find peace. It is very likely to be the schoolgirl that John mentioned on the phone. She may simply be  reaching out to you for assistance. All she wants is some kind of spiritual resolution."

The expressions on the faces of the new owners of the old school spelt horror

Canon Prendergast smiled benignly. "Oh please don't worry. She won't hurt you. Remember she is just  a lost schoolgirl. I have dealt with several such incidents in the past twenty years. And the good news is that I believe I can help you."

It was agreed that he would sleep in the house that night. "Just give me a couple of blankets. I'll be happy on the sofa. Don't suppose I will get much sleep anyway. She will need to show me where her mortal remains may be found. Come with me if you wish. I will be glad of the company."

With Canon Prendergast as their guest, they dined in "The Bull's Head" again. It was "Curry Night". Old Farmer Foster was hunched at the bar once more but he studiously ignored them - unless of course he was watching them in the mirror behind the bar.

Back home, Liam and Annalise went up to bed as the Canon snuggled down on the sofa.

They were woken in the early hours by Thomas Prendergast's raised voice. He seemed to be outside the bedroom on the landing and he was chanting verses in Latin as medieval monks may have done in bygone times. Liam unlatched the door and there was the clergyman in his cassock and surplus. He seemed to be addressing the mirror - like some crazy man speaking to his television. He was holding a hand-sized brass cross.

Annalise was right behind her husband now. Prendergast  said, "Come with me!" and he led them down the stairs. It was as if he was following someone but there was nobody there - and there was nothing to see either. They grabbed their coats from near the front door and quickly donned their wellington boots. 

Canon Prendergast was already outside, signalling them to hurry along the lane, under the sycamores.

As luck would have it, it was a crisp moonlit night. They followed an old wooden fingerpost out towards the marshes, stumbling over tussocks of rough grass and through muddy puddles left by recent rains. Less than half a mile from the old school, Prendergast stopped suddenly in his tracks. Later, he would say that the body of Florence Foster would be found close to that place. Indeed, that is where the police team would find her remains the following month. Back in the 1920s, she had simply been sucked into those treacherous murky waters and that was why she never came home.

Standing there by the edge of the marsh, Canon Prendergast uttered more words in Latin as he held up his brass cross to the stars above. They thought they heard a girl's voice though it might have been a sheep or a wading bird. And he said her name three times, "Florence! Florence!Florence!" then all was still and quiet.

The three of them headed back to the house where the Canon soon removed his priestly robes. They would need to go in the wash.

"She has gone now," he reassured them as they drank hot chocolates in the kitchen. "She won't be coming back. She has found her peace at last."

"We can't thank you enough Thomas!" gushed Annalise.

And she was right because from that day henceforth, the old school was never troubled by strange things and those powerful moments of trepidation.

The coroner's report revealed no evidence of foul play. But why Florence wandered down that path to the marshes we will almost certainly never know.

Along with a few other villagers and two police officers, Annalise and Liam attended Florence Foster's very belated burial in St Agnes's churchyard. Standing right next to them was the old farmer from the pub, Florence's nephew. He threw a handful of earth over the coffin. The soil had come from Fieldhouse Farm. "Dust to dust".

She is with her family now.  Plenty of Fosters are buried there where snowdrops appear in the early springtime. The words "At Peace" are carved into her headstone.