11/11/2025 Episode One
Thursday, 10 April 2025
Miles and Cassandra Fairchild-Harrow are a well-off professional couple who recently purchased Pellgraine House in Hertfordshire, near St Albans. They recently contacted Terry Small, asking if Darling DeVille could visit their home, to investigate a patch in a wall that will not go away. They paint it over, but the stain comes back.
Cassandra Fairchild-Harrow is a big fan of the Ninth Dimension on YouTube and believes there is a supernatural element to this patch. Her husband is a little more sceptical, but of more importance to Terry, they are rich and happy to pay costs. He is very keen to do this as soon as possible, calling a team meeting to tell everyone about it.
Investigating Pellgraine House
William Hackett does some research into the history of the house. It was originally built by Arthur Pellgraine, who was made Earl of Wexhamford by King Charles II after the restoration. The 7th Earl, Thomas Pellgraine, disappeared in 1890 and his wife went mad. The last Earl of Wexhamford died during World War I and the title is now extinct. The house was abandoned between the wars and became a school after World War 2, but that closed down in the 1980s. The house was again abandoned until the Fairchild-Harrow bought it.
The house is listed and the exterior is protected. There is an accepted planning permission request to re-arrange the interior along more modern lines. William tells the others that it looks like a very interesting place and will fit into the show well. The ghost of “Mad Lord Pellgraine” may come up at some point.
Friday, 11 April 2025
The next day, they arrange to drive to the House. Terry has a van that has a lot of their equipment. It is also transport for Sam Powell and Seneschal “Sal” Muscovy, the technical people. It has branding for the Ninth Dimension on the side. The others use their own car. The drive from Milton Keynes is relatively short.
When they arrive, they are greeted by Miles and Cassandra, plus a friend of theirs called Rex Lupton, who is Cassandra’s “advisor” in spiritual matter. Cassandra is pleased to see them and chats all about the channel, how she likes it and how pleased she is to meet them in person. It emerges that it was Rex’s idea to invite them here.
Interior Redesign
The interior of the house has been re-styled in a very modern design. There are lots of mirrors, which makes the place feel larger. One corner has full-length glass windows, allowing a great view of the grounds. It looks like they have spent a lot of money on it.
They sit in the modern living room and have drinks. Terry does the initial talking, explaining how these visits tend to work. They then go to see the mark on the wall.
They are taken upstairs, where the renovations are still underway. After viewing some very tasteful bedrooms, they are taken to a wall in the hallway, where a newly plastered piece of the wall has some odd looking, red blotches on it. Cassandra explains it has been painted over twice and the blotches have come back. Also, when touched, the blotches are slightly damp.
The plan is to knock the plaster away and investigate what is behind. It would be good if Darling and her team filmed this when they do. William proposes doing it at night and Cassandra proposes midnight, for dramatic effect.
At that sort of time, the builders won’t be here, so Sam volunteers to swing the sledgehammer for the cameras.
Interviews and Filming
They decide to do the initial interviews now, during the day, then come back at midnight to film the unveiling. Terry sets up the interviews, starting with Darling talking to Cassandra. The interview goes well.
William attempts to chat with Miles, as he seems rather sceptical about the whole thing. Miles tells him he just wants the renovation to be complete and this patch on the wall has been frustrating him. He is clearly sceptical about the spiritual side of things, but defers to his wife.
Darling then interviews Rex, who is great, he gives them lots of lines that they can re-use in the video. She is very pleased with the outcome. Miles does not want to be interviewed.
William soon starts to drink more of the wine than anyone else, though it only seems to make him a bit merry. Terry attempts to remove a glass from his vicinity when he can, but William is definitely getting a little drunk.
Sam and Sal check out the patch of wall they are planning to break into, planning how they are going to do it. They are concerned about damaging a listed building. Seneschal takes a small scraping from the wall, in case he can get it analysed at some point.
The team then leave for the afternoon and do their own things. Terry mostly works on editing the interviews. William stops off at a pub for a few drinks and then sleeps off the effects in the car.
Back for Midnight
Around 11:30pm they assemble back at the house. Miles, Cassandra and Rex are there, waiting for them. They ask for the lights to be slightly dimmed so add to the effect, which their hosts are happy to do. Seneschal adds a few extra effects as well.
Delwin does an initial “feeling” session in front of the camera, sensing that now it is dark, old spirits in the house are assembling. He “explains to the spirits” that they mean them no harm and are here to help them.
Hidden Door
Sal takes the first blow but accidentally hits the wrong place on the wall. Miles is incredulous but Cassandra encourages him to try again, which he does. After a few blows, it emerges there is a brick wall behind the plaster. Then it emerges the brinks are covering up a doorway.
Darling starts to tell the “Dimensionites” – her viewers and subscribers – that it looks like they have uncovered a secret door. The bricks themselves are also stained with the red blotches, worse than on the plaster work. They also look older and less uniform than modern brick work.
Rex points out that they should be able to unbrick an internal door without planning permission, which William agrees with. Cassandra is pleased and asks Sen and Sam to knock it through.
The Room Beyond
Beyond the door is a small, very old and dirty looking study. There is a desk with bookshelves, a large, full-length mirror that is cracked and a large pentagram drawn on the floor, with a large blood stain covering it and most of the floor. It does not look like this room has been disturbed for a long time.
Everyone is rather surprised and excited. Cassandra invites Darling to go in first. Delwin senses the spirits are stronger in this room and warns Darling to be careful. As she steps in, she notices that the blood on the floor still seems wet. She knees down and touches it, getting some blood on her finger. She decides not to step on the blood, she does not want to get her shoes wet.
Sal brings over a lamp that partially illuminates the room, providing mood lighting. Darling has Sam use his spectrographs to scan the room. William waits outside for now.
Magical Items
Just for a second, Darling catches herself in the mirror and seeing her broken image is a little spooky. She then checks the desk. There is an iron box that can be padlocked, but there is no padlock on it. Next to that is a dagger that looks like a proper magical dagger, with a triangular blade with designs on the blade. Covering a lot of the space is a huge, old-fashioned bound book that has “Ars Umbra” written on the front. It looks like it comes from medieval times.
William asks Miles if it would be ok for them to take some of these items away to study. He refers him to Cassandra.
Sal goes in and opens the iron box at Darlings request. Inside is a large, folded parchment that has writing on it and is tied up with string or a ribbon. He brings the box, the book and the dagger, out of the room and puts it on a table in the hall way for Cassandra, Rex and Miles it examine.
Ars Magica
William examines the book and thinks the title means “Art of the Shadows”. The whole book is written in Latin, but someone has been making notes in the margins in English. Rex examines it too and confirms to Miles that it is likely worth a lot of money.
Darling conjectures that the room was used for magical activity. She also realises that there should be two daggers as they usually come in pairs. One of them seems to be missing.
Delwin feels something is important about the box and so he takes out the folded, bound paper. It looks like the bindings have been interfered with, but it is mostly intact. Darling has him put it to one side, as they can do a separate “unboxing” video with it later. She thinks it is some sort of magical binding, trying to make something happen.
Someone in the Mirror
Sal happens to glance at the mirror and sees something that causes him to cry “Jesus Christ”. Terry zooms in the camera to his shocked face. Sal tells them he saw someone in the mirror, dressed like a young man dressed in 19th century clothes.
Delwin steps into the room and touches the mirror, but gets some sort of shock from it momentarily. This seems to genuinely spook him, though he recovers quickly and is convinced there is a spirit in the mirror that is trying to communicate with them.
William talks to the camera for a moment, wondering if the spirit is the 7th Earl, who disappeared after carrying out some sort of terrifying magical rite. Maybe he is trapped in the mirror and has been haunting the place ever since.
Examining Things (for the Camera)
William then steps in and looks through the other books on the shelves. Rex follows in and notes some of them are rare occult books, possibly first edition. There is also a hand-written journal, which looks very interesting. Neither Darling nor William like Rex and they usher him out from in front of the camera as soon as they can. If he says something useful, Darling repeats the line herself to the camera later.
Terry then suggests doing the unboxing. Darling has them put down some dust sheets to cover the blood stain, so she can go in and put the items back into the study table and examine them in front of the camera. Darling begins to read random passages from books for dramatic effect. This spooks Delwin, who leaves the study for now.
This allows Rex to re-enter and he goes over to the mirror and touches it, but doesn’t seem to get any reaction, much to his disappointment.
Unfolding the Paper
Darling finds a sheath for two daggers, confirming that one of them is definitely missing. She then turns to the folded paper and begins to open it up in front of the camera. She undoes the bindings and opens up the first fold. There are symbols and writing on the inside, including at one point the name “James Bradley” clearly written. William whispers that names have power.
She unfolds the paper again to its full size. There are many more magical symbols draw on the paper. There are also a bit of hair and some finger nail cuttings inside the fold. As she unfolds it, Williams catches some odd aura colours swirling in the mirror, perhaps black and red.
Darling then arranges for something more interesting to be put in the paper, refolds it and re-films the last unfolding with this new item being revealed.
Communicating from the Mirror
Then suddenly they hear some knocking, as though coming from the mirror. William says there is something in the mirror. Sal tells him this is not possible, perhaps there is another room behind the mirror. He checks, but while the mirror is against the wall, there is nothing behind it.
Darling senses something odd, a feeling she has not felt for a long time. She looks at the mirror and sees a figure standing in the mirror and thinks she can hear a voice saying “help, help”. This spooks her, but she is able to maintain her cool demeanour. She wonders if it is James Bradley.
She proposes asking Delwin to communicate with the spirit in the mirror, asking if we can help him. He suggests using an old pen and piece of paper from the study desk and has Darling try to channel the spirit through her.
Burning the Paper
She reluctantly takes the pen and paper, sits at the desk and tries to channel the spirit. She tries very hard to try to focus on this. She really wants it to be true, as while she knows most of her show is fake, she does believe in the supernatural. She begins to think that the spirit has been bound by the paper in the box into the mirror and burning it would possibly release him.
Cassandra agrees that this is OK, she is entirely entranced in the mystery of the room, overriding Miles’s concerns about burning something. Sal brings a bucket of sand just in case of accidents.
The Spirit Comes Through
Darling then calls out to the spirit to appear and burns the binding paper using one of the old matches on the desk. The smoke fills the room. Darling and Delwin both sense something unusual is happening. They can hear distant, echoed voices that are arguing about something.
Then suddenly screams and points at the mirror, the young man in Victorian footman’s uniform that some of them have seen before has appeared in the mirror – and his hand is reaching out of the mirror.
Slowly he manages to push his entire body out of the mirror while everyone in the room scurries to get out. The figure then collapses on the floor. Most of them are more fascinated than scared though.