A Special Invitation

The Investigators received an invite to the wedding of Abby Barker and Isaac Martin in the village of Shelborough in Kent. Shelborough is a small, pleasant looking, village on the coast about five miles west of Old Romney. As close friends and family members, the Investigators planned to  combine the holiday with a well-earned vacation and also help out where they could. Accordingly they arrived several days early to help with the preparations and set-up. Carl, Jimmy and Billy, as relatives, were put up in the rambling house Abby and Isaac had just bought, while the rest took rooms in The Marshman, the local pub.
St. Mary's
After lunch they were all introduced to the vicar who was to carry out the service, the Rev. Jeffrey Petersen and young and enthusiastic priest, just out of seminary and looking forward to performing his first marriage. The Investigators had a few hours to themselves to freshen up before meeting Abby in The Marshman for dinner. Max found himself in the bar, chatting to the owner, Arthur Eatwell, and quaffing a pint of the local brew Marsh Ale. He was joined one by one by the others. Billy arrived just as Arthur was relating an amusing anecdote about someone who had volunteered to stay the night in the "haunted" crypt of the church and was discovered running half-naked across the village green screaming that the trees were trying to eat him! After a pleasant evening the Investigators retired to bed... and found themselves at the ceremony!

The church was eerily silent , and everyone save them, Max included, seemed frozen in  place. Suddenly heavy footsteps were heard at the back of the church as something that looked like a small ambulatory tree moved up the centre aisle towards the frozen-in-spot happy couple.

Overcoming their initial shock, the Investigators rapidly moved into action. Basil, was quickest to react and  leaped forward to the front of the church and grabbed Abbey, hauling bodily her into the vestry. Billy, Paul and Jimmy and Carl attacked the "walking tree" while Max desperately willed himself to move from his frozen state.  He eventually succeeded only to see Young Billy grabbed by the creature and swallowed whole. Paul grabbed a candelabra and began beating at the creature, while Carl launched a series of roundhouse kicks and Jimmy beat it with a hymn book! Basil re-emerged from the vestry and after igniting them with his lighter, began to hurl burning books in the hope the creature might be flammable.

Suddenly under this combined assault the tree-creature dissolved in a shower of black particles, and each of the Investigators, save Billy, woke in bed, covered in a cold-sweat!

A Dearth of Weddings

Assembling for breakfast the Investigators quickly discover that had all shared the same dream. Abby however told them that although she had not slept well, she had no recollection of any dream, and was putting it down to anxiousness over the wedding. Several of the Investigators headed over to the church for morning services to discover that although they had never actually been in the church the dreams have given them a perfect recollection of it!

XiclotanPaul and Carl spent some time exploring the graveyard but save for a couple of gravestones that appeared to have been repaired found little else of interest. Basil and Paul spoke to the vicar, who couldn't really tell them much about the history of the church as he's only been there a few months himself, but gave them contact details for the previous incumbent, the Reverend Simon Mitchell, who had retired to Canterbury. Talking to various locals did not elicit much else save that the church was supposedly haunted and somewhat surprisingly, that there had been a dearth of weddings in the church until this one!

After helping Abby with a few tasks for the wedding, Basil and Jimmy decided to check out the nearest library in Ashford. Max asked to be dropped off at his farm nearby to pick up some supplies he felt were lacking in The Marshman. They others remained to help Abby and keep an eye on young Billy who still slept - though uneasily as if still caught in unpleasant dreams. In the library they discovered there was scant information about Shelborough, but did locate a couple of references to the haunting of St Mary and some strange disappearances. The also checked out the archives of the local newspaper and discovered that between 1846 and the present day there had only been one wedding in the village, though there were several notices of wedding being canceled!

That evening after supper in the Marshman, the Investigators compared notes, and retired to bed, only for them all to have the dream again, except this time there were two walking-tree monsters and max and Jimmy got eaten. As well as several other attendees at the wedding who, as before were frozen in place, unable to run or defend themselves.

Next day, Young Billy awoke, remembering little of his lost day save the strange dream of being eaten! After helping Abby with cleaning and doing initial set-up for the reception in the church hall. Basil and Paul headed off to Canterbury to speak to the retired vicar. The remainder of the Investigators headed out with Abby for a walk in the countryside which  proved much more exciting than expected when a thick fog rolled in of the coast causing them to get lost and take several hours to return to the village.

Pal and Basil had a much pleasanter afternoon with The Reverend Mitchell, who confirmed the information about the dearth of weddings which he had simply given up on doing as so many had gone awry, telling them that his predecessor had  told him he had only performed on wedding in his tenure! He told the story of when he had arranged for an exorcist to visit the church at one point but that the man had subsequent vanished! He also recommended they speak to Julian Baker a local historian. After inviting The Reverend Mitchell to join them for a late fish-and-chip lunch at a local cafe, they headed back. The drive back to Shelborough was a little dicey due to the fog, but arrived back at The Marshman to find the others recently returned from their "little walk" warming themselves with a stiff drink by the fire!

The Graveyard By Moonlight

Next morning, after another of the strange recurring dreams, the Investigators split up. Basil and Billy helped Abby with late minute preparations.  Max and Basil headed to the church to investigate the parish records while Carl and Jimmy headed to Rye to visit Julian Baker, the local historian whom several people had recommended they speak to.

In the parish records they quickly confirmed the mysterious absence of weddings from 1846 onwards except the singular instance in 1887, Paul also found tucked away in a register a reference to repairs to several gravestones later that year. Julian confirmed the legends around the church advising that they started in the 1840's and there have been bad rumours and strange events since then. He suspected a cult for some underground-dwelling deity or monster was established in the area then. He also, helpfully, called Frederick Davis, the son of the couple who had got married in 1887, who told them as a child he remembered lots of discussion over a charcoal covered piece of paper followed by lots of frantic activity the night before the wedding. After this the wedding proceeded without  a hitch, though three months later the family had left the village and moved to Yorkshire.The Investigators reconvened back in Shelborough and updated each other on their findings.

With a flash of intuition Paul suddenly realised that the charcoal covered paper may have been a brass-rubbing! A frantic search of the church found a curious brass plaque near the entrance to the undercroft which as well as a strange rhyme, had pre-Christian symbols on it. Puzzling over the rhyme Paul finally identified several names. A visit to the company who had repaired the gravestones confirmed that the gravestones repaired related to four of the names. They named had been defaced on the gravestones and the company had been hired to repair them precisely as they had been originally. Uncertain of what all this might mean the investigators called once again on Julian Baker, who after hearing the story, speculated the gravestones might be an anchor for a summoning or curse affecting the church. He suggested that the previous successful wedding party had probably managed to suppress the curse by defacing the gravestones but in order to break the curse the gravestones must be destroyed.

That night round about midnight, armed with sledgehammers, chisels and trusty revolvers, the Investigators sneaked tthrough the silent streets of the village and headed to the church. They began hammering at the states only to be attacked by the strange tree-en emerging from the undercroft - and this time it was no dream. The monsters kept coming and Jimmy was badly injured and almost eaten,  but finally all the gravestones were destroyed and the remaining monsters disintegrated into piles of rotting vegetable matter!

Next morning the village was full of tales of poachers firing guns close to the village and of the churchyard being vandalised. Isaac and his family arrived about lunchtime and the final preparations were made for what transpired to be a successful  wedding.  After the Investigators returned home and the joy of the wedding faded, each of the investigators felt strangely discomfited, jumping at shadows and feeling a something like strange itch at the back of their heads.

Then, a few month later they received a letter from Frederick Davis...