Sister Judith 1771–1797

Come back a third time? How exciting! Old Mary is thrilled to get to introduce you to the next in her promenade of lost souls. Just follow her voice and she will introduce you to a holy woman, Sister Judith. You don't mind a little rain, do you? The gravestone is nearly worn away, but you're strong. You just need to be patient.

According to your podcast, Pittford Cemetery's location made it notorious among those who believed in leylines in the 70s. You hear someone speaking a Latin prayer. Sister Judith greets you and describes herself: a woman dressed in a brown tunic, withered and scrawny. No one would think she'd been a nun, but she was. And if you are willing to listen to her story, you are the answer to her prayers.

It is curiosity that draws you here, is it not? It's what drew Sister Judith here as well. She tells you of a terrible vision she had when she was young, and how she wondered why God would have sent her such a sight. She shows you another grave, and says that even though the person in it, Charlotte Fewer, died a century before Sister Judith was born, she she was still plagued with visions of the horrific way Charlotte murdered someone. Sister Judith wanted to be free from the visions so she fled to France to join a convent. You've reached the cemetery gate. Sister Judith asks what you have faith in.

Sister Judith always had faith in God, but even in the nunnery she found no respite from her awful visions. Eventually she confided in the abbess, who suggested that the visions were holy revelations sent by God. Perhaps she was a prophet, sent to warn of the torments of Hell. That gave Sister Judith peace for a year, and the nunnery grew wealthy from her visions. The archbishop eventually came to question her, and as he did, a vision overcame her of the brutal deaths of the abbess and the archbishop. She tried to apologise, but instead she was branded a heretic.

Sister Judith recanted, and that placated the abbess and archbishop for a while, but it also made the visions stop. Despite having tried to flee them, when they were gone she felt empty and begged for their return. When they did return, she was cast out of the nunnery. Sister Judith apologises for her anger over the painful memory. After being cast out, she wandered for a long time, and eventually made her way here.

She was guided to the cemetery by her visions, and it became her one comfort. The visions gave her ecstasy even in their horror, and the cemetery made them clearer. So did blood. She began to kill animals and drink their blood to experience more intense visions, but she got sick and eventually died in the branches of this very tree. No one found her body for five months, and all that was left to bury was bones. She gives an unsettling laugh, and asks you to take her home.

Old Mary senses the worry in your heart. You see it don't you? Something rotten here, something that haunts even the spectres of the dead. She hopes that you will help save them. Return again for one final night, and she will tell you what horror torments them. The dead have stories to tell, as long as you know how to listen.