FARAWAY IN RIVERSLEIGH

a strange chapter from the strange history of Riversleigh Manor


Mr. Eramus Undercroft tends the cemetery in a place called Faraway.

He’s the Chief Gravedigger, the Lead Mortician and sometimes the Sole Mourner and Mr Undercroft smiles no matter what his duties are on any given day.

This is Mr Undercroft's Home and he always welcomes visitors.

So go ahead and take a walk down that little white gravel path that runs like an artery choked with blood through this dark place in Faraway and you will come to a chapel with no windows that sits in the back of Mr Undercroft’s Cemetery.

It's hidden among the nightshade and Wolfsbane and bright white flowers that smell faintly of smoke and no matter the time of day it's always Nightfall here.

After you've made your way this far go ahead and enter the vestibule and you might see a dark blue casket with bright silver handles sitting all alone in the center of the Windowless Chapel.

If you are feeling overly confident go inside the Chapel itself and look down into the the casket and laying there in his finest, blackest funeral wear is a tall thin man who’s pale thin hands are crossed over his narrow airless chest.

That man is Mr. Eramus Undercroft.

Let me prepare you; he will be smiling and his eyes are shut but you know he can see you all the same.

Once long ago before Mr. Eramus Undercroft came to Faraway he lived in a town called Riversleigh.

He tended the gardens at Riversleigh Manor until the day the Servants all disappeared and upon discovering “ something horrible in the Shed” the Riversleigh
Family was scared enough to leave their home in the darkness and by foot to the next town which was twenty miles away.

The only living thing they found was Mr Undercroft standing alone in his Gardener’s Shed smiling.

The headlines of the town’s newspaper declared:
" Where are the Servants of Riversleigh? "
The mysterious question has been answered by
Grisly Find in the Gardner's Shed...


“ What did you do to them Mr. Undercroft?” the Law had asked, “ What did you do to all 35 of those poor Souls?”

Mr. Undercroft opened his hand and dropped something onto the table and smiled his cadaverous smile and said, “ Why I sent them Faraway.”

On the table were teeth, 7 teeth and from then on for a very long time Riversleigh Manor was called “The House of the Seven Teeth” and no one locked the doors of Riversleigh
Because nobody would go near the house that went on living after everyone in it had died.

Eventually Mr. Undercroft went Faraway too, but before he left he stayed for a short time in a place called the Prefontaine Asylum for the Criminally Insane in a town called Ravenswood.

When the staff there disappeared and the Patients were found wandering the treacherous hillsides it was quickly noticed that all two hundred of them were all missing their left eye the people of Ravenswood decided it would be best to not go looking for Mr. Eramus Undercroft.

They hoped and hoped he was Faraway…and he was.

That was long ago and now in the shade and fog shrouded village of Faraway Mr. Eramus Undercroft drives a black hearse that is so dark it’s invisible when the sunsets and the sun always sets when it knows Mr. Undercroft is out. He digs graves and feasts on the poisonous fruits that grow in Faraway and when it rains the little droplets of water hiss against his skin.

Mr. Undercroft’s best friend is a man called Mr. Nightfall and when he’s lonely he calls on Miss Praecox and they picnic in the ruined Cemetery Mr. Undercroft calls home.

Across the street from the Cemetery is a little house painted light blue.

It looks empty and should be empty but of course it’s not.

It's the home Mr.Anthropophagite and Mr. Undercroft has admired Mr.Anthropophagite for a very long time. He just wishes that his pale friend wouldn't do his own special brand of gardening at the Cemetery.

When the Wardens of Sawajinn come to Faraway in search of Mr.Anthropophagite who lives there inside the Blue House of Shadows it’s Mr. Undercroft who sends them away with little cloth bags full of presents from Mr. Undercrofts days at Prefontaine.

Nowadays Mr. Eramus Undercroft rides out in his dark black hearse at Midnight and he looks for things to take Faraway.

When he brings them back he turns them loose in Faraway and sometimes he buries them and sometimes he feasts on them and the juices turn his teeth black and make his eyes
Water and the tears eat away at his face like acid.

Mr Eramus Undercroft is the Chief Gravedigger and Funeral Director in Faraway and he buries the things best forgotten, the things you hope are Faraway.

Only sometimes for fun and it amuses him every single time Mr Eramus Undercroft brings them back from Faraway.

When his passengers leave his car and swarm and ruin and corrupt everything in their paths you will hear in every storm, fire, war, and plague ridden town he visits...one sound above all the rest.

It’s screaming you'll hear, and if you listen close you will find it’s not many voices its always one voice and it is not screaming it's laughing.

That’s the sound of Mr Eramus Undercroft from Faraway.

The Wicked Midnight Garden

by Heather Blakey