The Silent Companions: The perfect spooky tale to curl up with this autumn

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This one is a bit spooky! Not horrific really - it would not keep me awake at night- but it is definitely on the creepy side. This is a deeply unsettling, wonderfully atmospheric and truly creepy novel. We first meet Elsie Bainbridge as a patient in an asylum, where she is suspected of murder. The progressive Dr Shepherd encourages her to write down her story, as she is refusing, or unable, to speak. What emerges is her recounting how she married Rupert Bainbridge, largely to help save her brother’s match factory. However, although the marriage was one of convenience, Elsie found herself surprisingly happy to be the wife of her new husband. Sadly, though, she shortly finds herself both pregnant and widowed; sent by her brother to stay at her husband’s country house, The Bridge. The Silent Companions had the same effect on me as The Bird Eater did. It makes you glance nervously over your shoulder to make sure you’re not being followed. If you wake up at night, your eyes automatically sweep the darkened room, searching for what may be hiding in the corners. And, given that pieces of wood are what’s raising hell in this haunted house, you find yourself wondering if that creak in the floorboard is just your house settling…or, if it’s something else you really don’t want to turn around and see.

I currently have far too many physical and kindle copies of books. It’s nice to have an extensive library, a never-ending tbr list, but it can also feel quite overwhelming at times to decide what to read next. So, this is a group read with the Horror Aficionados group. Usually I save this type of story for cold winter evenings, but end up finding other things to read and forget 😅 It’s hard to transition from that statement but I’m going to try my best. I wasn’t blown away by this novel, I wasn’t really particularly surprised by anything that happened, but I do like that I wasn’t left guessing. The silent companions were a really good creeping menace, and the fact that they kept just appearing made my heart race a couple of times while reading. It’s a powerful story written with more sharp wit and wisdom than most other English novels of the 20 th century. Booth, J.N., Koren, S.A. & Persinger, M. A. (2005). Increased feelings of the sensed presence and increased geomagnetic activity at the time of the experience during exposures to transcerebral weak complex magnetic fields. International Journal of Neuroscience, 115(7), 1053–1079. Soon, these silent companions were brought downstairs where they frightened the staff and appear to move and show up in various rooms. To make matters worse, the silent companions seem to multiply and more appear each day. Plus, several members of the household began to see strange things. Each person sees something different from others living in the home and everyone is upset by this except for the head House keeper, Mrs. Holt who has lived at the home for several years. She claims nothing bad has ever happened while she has been at the house. Sarah finds the diary of Anne Bainbridge, the inhabitants of the country estate over 200 years ago. This once prosperous and noble family fell to ruin in 1635, when the queen's horse was killed on their property and Anne herself was burned at the stake for being a witch.Bleuler, E. (1950). Dementia praecox; or, The group of schizophrenias (J. Zinkin, Trans.). New York: International Universities Press. (Original work published 1911) The story is primarily about Elsie Bainbridge in 1865, pregnant and newly widowed, who moves into the house her late husband was in the midst of renovating when he died. The house has baggage; it spooks the locals and is rumored to have bodies buried in the yard. Shortly after moving in, Elsie and her cousin-in-law are feeling spooked too. A genuinely suspenseful and really quite chilling tale set in an old crumbling Country estate, newly married and newly widowed Elsie is sent to see out her pregnancy at her late husband's crumbling country estate, The Bridge. Irresistibly creepy, this romps along, Purcell turning her screws with skill. It’s what crumpets and dismal afternoons were made for.” In these cases, the idea of a voice not just being an auditory experience, but also one with a social and agent-like presence becomes much more tangible (Alderson-Day & Fernyhough, in press).

The story Ruth has to tell of her deadly creations – of bitterness and betrayal, of death and dresses – will shake Dorothea's belief in rationality and the power of redemption. Haunted houses are my favorite trope ever in a story, there is something so delicately and maliciously beautiful. What I really love is when someone creates a sense of deep, penetrating fear around something you normally wouldn’t look twice at. And, this is exactly what author Laura Purcell does with The Silent Companions.

Of these three explanations, the body-mapping theory has perhaps the most evidence to date, but accounts emphasising the social, agentic and affective elements of presences are also likely to be crucial. Understanding how comforting presences can occur in grief while terrifying presences haunt sleep paralysis will depend on further examination of what drives such vivid alterations and dissociations to the mappings of self and other. And in addition to this, each may also have something to say about another unusual phenomenon: hearing voices. Sheldrake, R. (2005). The sense of being stared at – Part 1: Is it real or illusory? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 12(6), 10–31. Similarly benevolent experiences are also reported by people in extreme survival situations. Known collectively as ‘Third Man’ experiences (see box, over), accounts of guiding or accompanying presences in polar treks, mountaineering expeditions, sea accidents and natural disasters are numerous. The presences described are usually human-like, close by and feel like they share an affinity with the person experiencing them. Occasionally they are associated with sounds or words (Geiger, 2010, p126), or vague visions, such as a shadow or outline, but more commonly such presences are described without any sensory correlates. Like other presence experiences, though, the Third Man usually takes up a distinct spatial location, in some cases appearing to lead those in peril to safety.