The Haunted Staircase

Long before the Carter family set foot in Bovey Tracey, before the Georgian house had walls to hold its silence, the land bore witness to whispered prayers and cloistered lives. On a hill not far from the village, Buckfast Abbey rose in solemn stone, its halls echoing with the chants of monks who passed their days in devotion and penance. Among them was Brother Anselm, whose quiet rebellion against time was carved into the wood beneath his feet—his name, a date, a symbol of faith etched into an oak stair tread worn smooth by centuries of barefoot ascent. When the abbey was rebuilt and the old timber discarded, that piece of history waited in stillness, patient and forgotten, until a man with reverence in his hands brought it home. In reclaiming the past, James Carter awoke more than memory—he stirred a presence bound not by dust or decay, but by ritual and remembrance. And thus began the haunting, not of fear, but of faith unfinished.