Hallowe’en Series: Cathleen Ross’s Special Permission

by Cathleen Ross

Once a year, I go on tour with the eminent historical writer Alison Weir. A few years ago we visited Twekesbury Abbey, where the guide for our party said he and his daughter often saw ghosts in the Abbey, notably one who occupied the pulpit preaching. 

Although Alison’s tours are fast paced, we are allowed free time to explore the Abbey. I’m psychic and although I normally keep my senses reigned in, I relax on vacation and decided to sit at the back of the Abbey and open my third eye.

It didn’t take long when I heard a spectral male voice say, “You do not have jurisdiction here.”

I couldn’t see who was speaking. Sometimes I get an image, sometimes not. I did however recognise the voice of authority. I humbly explained I was a visitor and could I see back into the past to what happened in the abbey after the Battle of Twekesbury  where many soldiers from the losing Lancastrian Army fled to take sanctuary.  

An image came to me where bodies were piled in the back of the Abbey and the floors were awash with blood, so much so that that it flowed like a small wave across the floor under my feet.

I thanked the ghostly custodian of the Abbey, closed down my third eye and decided to leave.

When I asked Alison about what I’d seen, she said the voice had been using Canon Law. I now know that means law as pertaining to the church. The ghostly custodian had allowed me permission to see into his realm.

So much violence had been done in the Abbey 4 May 1471, and it was clear to me that the ghosts still remain.

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The world’s gone to hell, and her only chance of survival is the sexy, dominant soldier determined to keep her safe…

Doctor Ruth Parker has always taken care of herself, and that’s what she’s doing now, hiding out in her apartment and avoiding her neighbours: once privileged Mosman residents, now flesh-eating braindeads, thanks to the virus that’s turned her world—and everyone else’s—to hell.

Captain Jack Lang has always taken care of others, and with the newly secured Base he and his loyal commandos control the only safe place in the city. But the Base has needs that he can’t meet—doctors. And women. So when he discovers Ruth and her two friends in an unsafe apartment, he brings them back to Base where he knows he can keep them safe, and where he will do anything to make them stay.

Ruth is used to giving orders, not taking them, and the Captain’s methods for making sure she stays put don’t gel with her fierce independent streak. But the world has changed, and Jack will make Ruth understand that he is in charge and that her survival is more important than her control-freak tendencies—even if he has to chain her to the bed to do it.