Where I stand, nothing rises above ankle-height for fifty meters in any direction. Yet I can recall the distinct sensation of something cold touching my fingers.
Passing through my fingers.
Now I’m being silly. Spooking myself. I felt a night-chilled breeze. That’s it. Nothing—
“Please,” a voice whispers, right at my ear.
This time, I jump enough to stumble, my arms windmilling, and I catch a glimpse of a figure standing just behind me.
I veer to run, my hands clawing at the air as if for traction. Instead, my feet tangle, and I go down hard, cracking onto my knees and then tumbling onto my back, rising crablike on the heather to see—
Nothing.
There’s nothing here except fast falling darkness, shadows swallowing me, leaving me squinting at empty moor.
Heart hammering, I start to rise when I catch sight of my dropped phone. I reach down, fingers closing on the cool metal.
“Please,” a voice whispers at my ear.
I twist, phone rising like a sword, and she’s less than five feet away, a feminine figure nearly lost in shadow. Her arms are wrapped around her chest, shoulders hunched, head down. She wears a dress that seems completely unsuitable for the environment—a blue gown with flounces and ribbons and crinolines. I can make out just enough of her face to know she’s younger than me.
“The path,” she whispers, as if she can barely find the words. “I can’t find the path, and I’m so cold, and it’s so dark.”
I open my mouth to answer when I see she isn’t looking at me. Her words are for herself, panic whispered under her breath.
“The path is here,” I say, and I point, but she just keeps whispering to herself. I step toward her. I can see her better now, light hair and wide eyes, her figure small and pale and terrified.
I reach out, and my hand passes through her, my fingers chilling.
“The path,” she whispers. “Should never have left the path.”
I remember what Del said about women disappearing in the moors. This is no victim of foul play, just a woman who ventured into the moors and got lost. Now, she’s close to safety, but the manor house must be dark, and she can’t see it.
I hope she did see it. I hope she took those last hundred steps to safety.
I know better. Her ghost wouldn’t be here if she’d found safety.
The house is close, though. Even if she collapsed here, someone should have found her. Someone—
“Oh!” she says, her head jerking up. I see her face then, a smile of relief crossing her features. “Hello! I was walking, and I lost my way.”
She jogs my way, and I pause, wondering whether she finally sees me. She stops short, staring right at me.
No, staring at something behind me, her gaze fixed just off to my left.
“You!” she says. “You—”
Her hands fly to her mouth, and her eyes widen in disbelief. She lets out a muffled cry and then a shriek as she runs back into the moors.
I wheel. No one’s behind me.
When I turn back, the woman is gone, the moors silent again. I stand there, frozen. Then I run for the house. I can see it ahead, the windows alight. Three more steps and—
A figure steps from behind the garage. I stop short. The garage is a good hundred feet away, but someone’s there. It’s a man with something gripped in both hands.
I douse my light fast. Then he pauses, his gaze scanning the moors, as if he spotted me.
Clouds cover the moon, but I can tell it’s definitely a man. He clutches a sharp spade in front of his chest like a weapon. He’s dressed in a sturdy wool shirt, trousers and an overcoat, and I need only to see the cut and the style and the materials to recognize clothing from a bygone time.
Another figure from the past.
Another ghost.
I shrink back. The man strides out, gripping the spade tight. Then he looks up at the house. I follow his gaze.
There’s someone in the window.
It’s the woman in black, that shimmering dark veil fluttering around her in the breeze through the open window.
I wrench my gaze back down to the man.
He’s gone.
I look up at the woman. She’s still there, illuminated by light, watching me. It’s a wavering light, soft and unfocused and shifting the shadows around her. Then one arm reaches to her side, and the light goes out.
I can still see her shape, black on black, her veiled face fixed in my direction, her gloved fingers clutching the drapes.
Except there are no drapes in that room.
No candles, either.
I blink and look around, wondering whether I’ve somehow stepped into the past. Yet I can see the electric porch lights burning.
I glance up, and the woman releases the drape. It flutters, as if falling as she steps back, and then it’s gone. No drape and no candle and no light in that dark window.
It’s at least five minutes before I move. Five minutes of my heart hammering. Five minutes of my brain screaming for me to run, just run. Get to Del and Freya’s house as fast as I can.
The light of their cottage shines in the distance, and that’s where I should go. That’s what any sane person would do. The alternative is to walk into this house. Which is not sane. Not sane at all.
Only there’s one very good reason to go back inside.
Enigma.
I could tell myself she’d be fine. What’s a ghost going to do to a cat?
Scare the life out of her. Stop her tiny heart with fear, left alone with something she doesn’t understand.
I race to the front porch and yank open the door.
8
As I run inside, I call for the kitten.
Silence answers.
I glance up the stairs. It’s dark and still. I swallow and tiptoe into the kitchen, as if I hadn’t already announced my presence by shouting for my cat. Still, I creep.
There’s a light on here, and another in the kitchen, left to welcome me home. I slip through the dining room. Ahead I see Enigma’s box.
A box . . . and no kitten.
I spin, scanning the kitchen, heart thudding. Then I hear a thready but distinct mew. Soft and yet clearly underlined with kitten annoyance. I’m in the house, and I called her, and she can’t get to me, and she’s not pleased.
The meow comes from upstairs.
I slowly turn in that direction. Then, I remember I didn’t leave Enigma in the kitchen. I’m still uncomfortable giving her the run of the house—I’m not sure how kitten-proof it is. I put her in her bedroom box and shut the door.
I walk slowly to the foot of the stairs and peer up into darkness. Then I start up the stairs, taking one step at a time, wincing with each unavoidable creak. I reach the top and glance down the hall toward the bedroom my parents used to stay in, the one where I just saw the ghost in black. The door is open—I’d been poking around in there earlier. I need to pass that open door to get to my bedroom. To get to Enigma.
I creep toward it, and I tell myself I’ll just keep going. Don’t look. Don’t look. Of course, I look. There she is, poised in the middle of the room. The veiled face rises, and I know those hidden eyes are staring right at me.
She takes a step in my direction. I tear down the hall to my room. As I pass the linen closet, something shimmers. I look to see what seems to be an arm reaching out. A small arm. A child’s hand. I run faster.
My bedroom door is closed. I grab the knob, and my sweaty fingers slip. Ice touches my back. The ice of ghostly fingers, and then the knob turns, and I shove open my door and fall through. Even as my feet tangle, I keep my balance and spin. I catch one glimpse of the woman in black. Then I slam the door shut.
I stand there, still gripping the knob. When something touches my leg, I jump so fast I nearly step on Enigma. She meows—annoyance that I’ve been in the room for five seconds and haven’t greeted her.
I blink hard. When I look at the door, it’s firmly shut, and nothing
comes through. Enigma hisses at it, and the hairs on my neck prickle.
The ghost is there. Poised on the other side. I know she is.
I reach for Enigma, and she fairly leaps into my arms. I cuddle her, and she purrs. Every few seconds, though, her gaze cuts to the door, eyes narrowing, telling me the ghost still lingers.
I move farther into the room. I pet and murmur to Enigma, reassuring her. The latter is ridiculous—I’m the one whose heart hammers, every stray creak making me jump. The room stays silent and still.
After a few minutes, I put Enigma back into her box. There’s no way I’m opening my door before dawn. As I gaze at the window, I have to laugh at myself. I’m no Lara Croft, able to scale the wall with a cat under my arm. My eyes slide toward the garage, reminding me of the man I’d seen coming out of it. The ghost I’d seen.
As if on cue, a figure steps from the shadows. I draw back, heart in my throat, hand reaching to yank shut a curtain that isn’t there.
Before I can take another step, though, I pause. The figure is still shrouded in dark as he walks from the garage, the moon caught behind him, casting shadows where there should be light. Yet I know it isn’t the man with the spade. This one strides out, sure and confident. He’s taller, dark haired, and when I take one careful step closer to the window, my hand is still extended for that missing curtain . . . and it brushes fabric.
I blink and see my fingers resting on thick dark velvet. Below, the garage . . . is no longer the garage. The stonework is solid and whole, no crumbling patches reinforced with cement. The boards that Uncle Stan painted red are bare wood, though already gray with age. The rolling garage door is gone, two big swinging ones in its place. Past the building stretches a stone fence that is rubble in my world.
The figure closes the stable doors and latches them. Then he steps into the moonlight, and when I see him, I only blink as my eyes confirm what my brain already knew.
It’s William.
He’s dressed in coarser garb—trousers and a rough shirt pushed up past his elbows. No jacket. Hobnail boots. Dirt streaks across one cheek and up one pale arm. Not the lord of the manor inspecting his fine steeds, but a true horseman, feeding his stock and laying hay and mucking out stalls.
He’s put the horses to bed for the night, and now he’s coming inside, moving fast and purposefully, his gaze fixed on the house. A shape darts from the shadows, and I surge forward, ready to warn him.
Of what? A ghost?
That’s what I expect—the man with the spade. But it’s only the calico cat—Pandora—dashing from the barn to fall in step with William.
When I move again, William notices the motion and looks up, frowning. Now, he shades his eyes, as if against the moonlight. My breath comes fast and shallow, half of me wanting to jump back out of sight, the other half praying I will be seen.
William stops short. His mouth tightens, his gaze locked on me. I lift a tentative hand in greeting . . . and he turns on his heel and marches back toward the stables.
I hurry from the room. I don’t pause to wonder what I’m seeing, whether I’ve somehow fallen asleep. In that moment, I only see William, and I throw open the door and hurry from the room. Kittens mew from the master suite, but otherwise, the house is silent.
I creep to the stairs. In the dark, these look exactly as they do in my version of this house. Flip on a light, and I’d see the banister is still glossy brown, the stairs showing signs of wear only at the edge. Of course, I can’t flip on a light. There’s no switch, being decades before electricity. This may be a dream, but my mind still fills in all the era-appropriate details right down to a massive walnut hall stand carved with enough flourishes and finials to cover a complete dining room set. The doors are there, too, heavy doors leading to each side of the house, long since removed in my version but here to trap cold air in the foyer when the house is heated by fireplaces.
The front door is heavy enough that I need to tug it open with both hands. Outside, the gravel drive is cobblestone, looping past the house. Even the air smells different. I pick up the scent of spring bluebells from the moors, but the odor of horse is stronger still, mingling with hay and woodsmoke.
I jog around the side to the stables, dirt under my feet, the path as familiar as the smell. One door stands open, and when I step through it, I’m fifteen again, perched on a stall gate watching William work, the stable hands having long learned not to protest even when the young lord picked up a rake to muck out a stall.
Gas lanterns sputter, casting a wavering light through the night-dim stables. This might be the Thornes country house, but the stables are worthy of a duke’s abode. From the outside, the building is nondescript. Inside, though, my breath catches, and I remember, as a girl, being furious at the modern disembowelment of such a beautiful space to make room for cars.
Underfoot is cobblestone, swept clear of hay, though the smell of it permeates the space. Even those cobblestones are arranged in whorl patterns. The true beauty, though, is the stalls. Each one is a work of art, wooden dividers with swooping lines, the doors carved and inlaid with wrought iron. The farrier’s bench would bring a fortune today as a beautiful antique that people would proudly display in their homes, perhaps never realizing it’d once been used for shoeing horses.
The stables are also immaculate. I won’t say I’d eat off the floor, but if I dropped a scone, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick it up and wipe it off. Every grooming tool shines in its place. The horses shine, too, their coats glistening in the lantern light, eyes gleaming with health as they watch me pass.
One horse stamps and whinnies, but there’s no sign of William. I pass stalls, counting six horses: four mares with spring foals, one gelding and a gorgeous black stallion who huffs at me, shaking his ebony mane.
“Go,” a voice says behind me.
I wheel, and there stands William, his face unreadable, Pandora at his side, her cold glower saying everything his impassive stare does not.
Seeing him, any sense that this is a dream evaporates. I’m standing in front of him—seeing him, hearing him, smelling him, feeling the very heat of him, and in this moment, he is absolutely real. Denying that feels as foolish as looking on the black-veiled ghost and telling myself she’s a figment of my imagination.
This is William, and he’s real, and as long as he stands here, my heart will accept no other explanation.
“I—” I begin.
“I would like you to go.” He enunciates each word with care and without inflection.
“It’s me. Br—”
“I know who you are. I am asking you to leave, Bronwyn.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, and then continue before he can interrupt. “I promised I’d come back, and I didn’t, and I’m sorry. I know I hurt you . . .”
Even as the words “I hurt you” leave my mouth, I know it’s the wrong thing to say. His face goes cold for a split second before he laughs, and that laugh cuts icier than any glare.
“Hurt?” he says. “We were children. Did you honestly believe I expected you to keep your word? That I’ve been waiting for you?”
My cheeks heat. “Of course not. I just meant—”
“It’s been twenty-three years, Bronwyn. The fact I even know your name is a shock. Apparently, my memory is better than I thought.”
I flinch at that. “I—”
“I have lived more than half my life since I last saw you. A very full, very rich life, undimmed by any shadow cast by your sudden departure. We were children.” He eases back, something in his face shifting, closing. “You aren’t real anyway.”
“Not real?”
Another shift, distancing himself from this conversation. “You’re a phantasm. I’ve long accepted that.”
“You think I’m a ghost?”
“Of course not,” he snaps. “No sound mind believes in such nonsense.”
“You said phantasm . . .” I say slowly.
“Phantasm, apparition, hallucination. Whatever you wish to call
it. I was a lonely child, and so I conjured up a playmate. At fifteen, I was developing an interest in the female sex while too young to act on it. So I conjured you again. You fulfilled needs. I don’t know why you’re appearing now. Perhaps I have indeed been here too long, and I am in greater need of companionship than I realized. I do not, however, need you.”
“I’m not a phantasm, William. Look at your cat. She sees me. I’m here.”
His gaze meets mine, eyes ice cold. “Perhaps. But the answer remains the same. I do not need you.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
“I am asking you to leave, Bronwyn.” His voice has changed now, neither cold nor cruel, filled with nothing but a sincere wish.
Please leave.
“If that’s what you want,” I say finally, drawing it out, searching his gaze for some sign of hesitation.
“Yes,” he says. “Please.”
I nod, and then I withdraw.
I’m in William’s room. I’m not lying in wait. He genuinely wished me to leave, and I want to respect that. Yet nothing I do takes me home.
After two hours, his footsteps sound on the stairs. Panic explodes in me with the irrational urge to dive under the bed. I’m already humiliated enough. I remember that laugh when I made the mistake of saying I’d hurt him.
The fact I even know your name is a shock. Apparently, my memory is better than I thought.
I have lived more than half my life since I last saw you. A very full, very rich life, undimmed by any shadow cast by your sudden departure.
Even now, I cringe at those words. I didn’t expect him to remember me. Certainly didn’t expect my disappearance to cast any pall over his life. That’s the last thing I’d want.
The door opens. He steps in, exhaling as he relaxes, shoulders rolling, hands reaching for the buttons of his shirt.
“William,” I say.
He gives a start, his face gathering in obvious outrage.
I rise quickly, hands out to stop his words. “I was just warning you, before you—”
“I asked you to leave.”
“Believe me, I’m trying. I’m really trying. I know you want me gone.”
A Stitch in Time Page 7
