The Ghost of Andrew Neville (Neville Mansion Mysteries Book 1)

Book summary

When Jacob and his family move into an old countryside mansion, he discovers it's haunted by numerous ghosts, including the humorous Andrew Neville. As Jacob navigates the spectral inhabitants, he uncovers the secrets behind their earthly ties and mysterious appearances, especially the enigmatic twins who emerge annually.

Excerpt from The Ghost of Andrew Neville (Neville Mansion Mysteries Book 1)

The journey from London up to Scotland should have taken no more than eight hours, but the car couldn’t go any faster. All the lanes of the motorways seemed to be full of big lorries and the car was jammed between two of them.

The lorry that was behind the car finally pulled out and began to overtake the car and the other lorry in front at a similar speed.

“There you go!” Jacob’s dad James was saying. “What a nuisance!”

Jacob’s dad thought that every lorry driver passing another lorry was a nuisance.

“Great,” he yelled, as the giant vehicle slowed the whole middle lane down. “Why bother overtaking another lorry if you’re going at the same speed?!”

“We are not in a hurry,” said Jacob’s mum, who was called Gemma. She seemed very relaxed, although her expression seemed more like a we are late version.

Jacob knew perfectly where they were going, he had the journey planned on his phone but neither parent would follow his directions. Jacob was fourteen, and quite tall for his age. His hair was black and curly like his dad’s, and his eyes blue and round like his mum’s.

“Dad,” he said, not for the first time that day, “I have the journey planned.”

His dad ignored him. He was too busy grumbling about the lorry hogging the lane in front.

Jacob started feeling dizzy. The journey was taking longer than planned, the midday heat was becoming unbearable, and his parents’ bickering was giving him a headache. At least the view from the windscreen offered a beautiful landscape during the journey. There were trees in every shade of green, beautiful mountains with snowy tips and giant lochs reflecting the sky. They drove through beautiful landscapes of valleys, with rivers and green fields covered with sheep and cows of many different colours.

Sitting in the back of the car with his window open, Jacob smelled the summer air and imagined himself camping and fishing with his dad in the genuine wild.

Beep!

Jacob’s daydream of camping ended with the sound of the horn that his dad blasted at the lorry in front.

“I have had enough!” his dad said, switching on the indicator.

“James, what are you doing?” his mum asked.

“I’m getting off the motorway. We’ll be here all day with all these lorries!”

“But we don’t know the side roads!”

“I’ve got the directions printed out.”

Mum tutted, then she and Jacob exchanged worried looks through the rear-view mirror. They both knew that, after the printed direction, a massive row would follow, arguing about whose fault it was when they ended up lost.

“Can you just look at the directions I printed out and follow them?” Jacob said, trying to hide the frustration in his voice. “I’m sure we must be close.”

Fifteen minutes later, the car was hopelessly lost.

“If you listened to my directions, and – ultimately – stayed on the motorway, we’d be there by now,” Jacob said.

“James, please listen to Jacob’s directions.”

“Ok, ok,” Dad said with a dramatic gesture of hands up (and dangerously off the steering wheel for an instant).

“You need to take the first left turning on this road,” Jacob said, sounding more confident than his mum was with the printed map.

There was no street sign on the little side roads they were on, just unpaved lanes with bramble bushes on each side, nothing but fields for miles beyond the thorn’s bushes.

When they finally saw an old sign for Elm Tree Farm, the relief in the car was palpable. Their journey was almost at its end.

“They sell farm products there,” said Mrs Johnson. “We can buy fresh eggs and vegetables just down the road,” she added with a smile of relief (for both the fresh product and the found way).

The lane stretched for a few more yards after the farm. At its end, the car drove past an apple orchard field, then over a bridge. At least twenty meters below was the motorway that they had been driving along. Jacob had shivers looking down at the drop. He had a bad feeling, though maybe he just felt scared of the height. His strange thoughts stopped as the car reached the other side of the bridge and came to a halt in front of a large and spiked iron gate, held by two columns with a pair of carved angels sitting atop.

“There it is!” Mr Johnson thundered, with a bit too much joy; his wife and son were too tired to share the same enthusiasm. They were in front of the entrance gate of the notoriously haunted Neville Mansion.

The Mansion was built in 1880 following its commission by Lord Ernest Neville, who moved in with his wife, Laura, and sons, Ignatius, and Augustus. During the years that the family lived in the property, there had been a series of tragic deaths, and, after the last member of the disgraced Neville Family, Lord Ignatius, died, several other people had moved in. However, they had quickly left because of the awful energy that lingered within the Mansion’s walls, and because of the hauntings.

Being so big and so old, Neville Mansion was, in fact, home to quite a few spooks. Ghosts were infesting the house, as well as its surrounding grounds. People had said they had seen the chef’s ghost still cooking in the kitchen; every Saturday, whoever was living there would find an apple pie on the counter. This was nice, but the chef was also a picky ghost; she arranged all the pans and utensils the way she wanted so that things couldn’t be found when needed. People had also witnessed a blonde boy and an old lady with white hair wandering around. The boy seemed quite harmless, but the old lady always turned up in the middle of the night, scaring people who were sleeping. Those who saw her said that she seemed to be looking for something. An old man’s ghost has been seen on the top floor; he looked even scarier than the lady. And, as if there wasn’t enough trouble inside the house, the poor, terrified tenants couldn’t even run outside without bumping into the gardener’s ghost, which was said to be still doing work around the house.

After the last tenants left, the Mansion remained empty for nearly twenty years, with no one interested in living there until it was bought by James Johnson, a businessman, who was thrilled at the prospect of making it into a haunted hotel: the most haunted hotel in Scotland.

Jacob’s parents didn’t truly believe the ghost stories. Rather, Jacob’s dad saw a business opportunity; a ghost-haunted mansion sounded to him like it could make money. Jacob’s mum went along with his idea, as always. She was excited by the project but, this time, very worried about the large investment they had to make. Jacob was barely interested, as was the case with everything else at this moment in his life. Being fourteen, he was not sure about many things, one of which was the college to choose to go after school and coming to a rural area had now reduced the number of choices.

Mr Johnson drove through the gate and up the gravel driveway, and finally stopped in front of the main entrance where a woman from the estate agency was waiting. She was dressed in a smart grey skirt and a white shirt that matched the perfect set of white teeth that her smile showed when she approached the car. Mr Johnson shook hands with the woman, as did Jacob’s mum. Jacob looked up at the house, shielding his eyes from the sun with one hand. The Mansion towered large and impressive in front of him.

“Smell the fresh air?” Mr Johnson asked. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, smiling.

“And what a great area this will be to live in,” said Mrs Johnson.

“It is a lovely rural area,” the agent agreed, nodding enthusiastically. Then she pulled some keys from her bag. “Are we ready to go inside?” she said, again flashing her bright white teeth.

“We certainly are!” Jacob’s parents answered in unison. They followed the estate agent inside, while Jacob lingered on the front steps and looked around.

The place was certainly amazing, set in a green valley, surrounded by gardens and woods. The Mansion, grand and beautiful, sat on many acres, like a small castle in the clearing of all the greenery. It was built of red bricks and had a dark brown slate roof and big arched white windows. It had sixteen bedrooms, a summer house, and a lake in which two children were said to have drowned. Jacob read about people seeing two boys, identical twins, with hair the colour of fire, running fast towards the lake and then disappearing.

Jacob had done some research about the Mansion, and he was thinking about the spooky stories about the place whilst sitting on the front steps and sweating in the midday sun. He could feel sweat patches forming under his T-shirt. Normally, in June, the heat was mild in Scotland, but this year, the summer began with a heat wave. The sun’s height and strength were making flowers bloom early; a lavender patch at the bottom of the garden had an overpowering scent. The huge trees were giving lots of shade, a wood-and-rope swing hanging on one of them was gently rocking. Jacob was wearing shorts and suddenly felt something touch his bare leg, he swept his hand across his calf, but soon realised it was just a leaf. He had the strange sensation that he was being watched.

Jacob kept looking at his watch. The woman from the estate agency was talking to his parents about the estate and seemed to be taking hours. Her long blonde hair flowed and swayed as she talked, and that was a continuous movement. Jacob wondered how she found time to breathe; he finally exhaled when she finished speaking and plonked a big set of keys in his dad’s hands before leaving from the front door. Although she had spent a long time chatting, once out on the front steps, she left a bit too quickly. She very briefly said goodbye to Jacob, and he watched her driving away.