A Stitch in Time

by Kelley Armstrong

  A figure flashes in front of me. Right in front of me, materializing less than a handspan away.

  My arms windmill as I fall back, and somehow I manage not to fall backward off the boulder and dash my brains out on the rocks below. I catch my balance and overcompensate, toppling forward, instead, my mangled knee slamming into rock again, my howl of agony ringing across the moors. I huddle there, catching my breath, blinking past the pain until I can lift my head, and when I do, the figure has vanished.

  Rage courses through me. Blind fury as I realize how close I came to smashing my skull or breaking my neck or any of a hundred things that could have left me there, unconscious or immobile, in the middle of the moor where my joke about dying of dehydration wouldn’t have been a joke at all.

  “What do you want?” I bellow into the emptiness.

  Silence returns, the night as calm and still as it’d been moments ago.

  “You want something from me?” I say. “Then talk to me. Kill me, and all you’ll get is another ghost on your turf. A very angry, very vindictive ghost.”

  A whisper at my ear again.

  I spin, scowling at empty air. “I can’t hear you, and I’m not convinced you want me to. It’s so much more fun to scare the life out of me.”

  Another whisper, more urgent now, and some of my fury seeps away. That tone says the ghost is trying to communicate. I remember Freya’s advice for communicating with spirits, passed down from her grandmother with the Sight. There were objects and ingredients I could use, but obviously I have none of them here. The biggest piece of advice, though, required nothing at all. Be firm, and be kind. Do not let them order you about, but remember their difficult situation. Listen and offer support and a reasonable amount of help.

  My voice softens as I say, “I’m not ignoring you. I just don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

  The air ripples. That’s the only way I can describe it. A frisson of energy whipping around me. Angry energy. Frustrated energy.

  Then a figure materializes ten feet away. It’s a woman. Or I presume that from the half-opaque shape. She seems wrapped in a burial shroud, which makes no sense for the region, not unless I’ve somehow encountered a ghost from Roman Britain. There’s a tiny corner of my historian’s brain that cartwheels in excitement at the thought. There were Romans in the moorland, and the remains of an old road connect what would have been two forts in the area. But this is not a burial shroud. It’s just a sheet, inexpertly wrapped around her. It covers her head, leaving her face hidden. I struggle to make out even her size as her figure blurs each time I focus on it. I can tell the ghost is female, and that’s all.

  When I move closer, she backs up. I take another step. She retreats again.

  “Are you telling me to stay away?” I say. “Or leading me somewhere?”

  She lifts one shroud-draped arm and points in the direction I just came. I hesitate, torn between curiosity and the exhaustion of not wanting to retrace my steps. I tune out my throbbing knee and begin the slow process of picking my way over the stones again, following the woman until I’m only a few feet from the stream where William and I had our picnic. That’s when I realize where she’s leading me. Into the bog.

  18

  I shake my head. “I can’t go there.”

  That ripple of energy again, tension slicing through the air.

  “I’m sorry, but I could barely get through the bog in daylight. If what you want me to see is on the other side, where the ground’s dry, I can try—”

  She jabs her covered hand, the air so electric it sets my every nerve on edge.

  She doesn’t want me to see something on the other side. She wants me to walk into the wetlands. Out onto wet ground at night, when I can’t see where I’m going.

  Fresh anger darts through me. “Do you really think I’m going to fall for that?”

  She jabs again, the air sizzling with her own anger.

  “No,” I say, recalling Freya’s advice to be firm. “You nearly killed me on that rock, so I don’t trust you. I’m not wandering into the bog at your beckoning.”

  I turn around. She bursts up right in front of me. I don’t startle this time. I only glare and stride right through her.

  Her whisper sounds at my ear, and this time, I catch the words, “ . . . think you’re the first . . .”

  “First what?” I say, turning on her.

  She’s gone. I continue walking. I plant each foot firmly, every muscle tense, ready for her to pop up again. Instead, she only whispers at my ear.

  “ . . . warn you . . .”

  “You’re trying to warn me?” I say without stopping. “The only person endangering me right now is you.”

  “ . . . listen . . . ,” she hisses.

  “I am listening. I’m just not hearing anything worth listening to.”

  The air ignites, a lash of bitter cold, gale-force strong. I stumble but keep my footing and press on.

  “ . . . warn you . . . him . . .”

  “You’re trying to warn me about him. Can you tell me who he is?”

  A whisper that I can’t make out. I do catch enough to understand that I should already know who she means. In my mind, I see the man with the spade.

  “Okay, I’m warned,” I say. “But I’m not going into the bog. Now, please leave me alone.”

  A whirlwind of air so cold it burns my eyes. My breath hangs in frozen condensation, and I brace myself for another blast. None comes. I start forward again, step by careful step, ready for the sudden gust that will knock me off my feet.

  It never comes.

  She has done what I asked. She’s left me alone.

  I cross the rocks and come out onto flat, soft moor, my toes reveling in the sponge of heather underfoot. The smell of it wafts up, and somewhere in the distance, a cow lows, and a dove coos, and I realize how quiet it’d been before. Too quiet even for the moors at night, every beast going silent as the ghost appeared.

  I round a corner to see a white shape moving across the field. I yelp and fall back . . . and a sheep turns to bleat at my foolishness before clearing out of my way.

  “Sorry!” I call, my voice echoing in the night.

  I find the path easily enough, and then I’m off, circling the bog as I make my way home. I relax, my strides lengthening, step confident, swing around a corner and nearly collide with the ghost.

  I draw back, my lip curling in a snarl. Then, I see that it’s the woman from my first night out here. I’ve all but run into her, poised on the path, her breath coming in sharp, shallow bursts.

  “P-please,” she says. “Please stop.”

  I wave my hand inches from her indistinct face. She only swivels, gaze tripping over the stunted trees all around us.

  “I know you’re there,” she says. “I saw you.”

  She keeps looking.

  “I hear you breathing,” she says. “You want me to hear you.”

  She turns in a full circle, hands clenched but lowered, as if ready to defend herself but having no idea how. Her face is blurred enough that she could be anywhere from eighteen to thirty. I can make out dark eyes and light hair, sweat sodden after her flight. Her blue dress is torn, the crinolines askew.

  “Stop this,” she says, trembling as she struggles to steady her voice. “Please. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know why you’re doing this. I don’t care. Stop it, and let me leave, and I’ll never come back, and I won’t tell anyone what you did. Just let me—”

  A scream as she pitches forward, as if struck from behind. Blood sprays as she drops face first to the ground . . . and disappears.

  I stand there, stock still. When a gasp sounds, I jump, only to realize it comes from my own throat. I’ve been holding my breath, and now it bursts forth.

  I stare at the spot, waiting for the scene to resume so I can see what happened to her.

  I know what happened to her.

  It’s a long time before I can gather my wits enough to leave, and when I
do, it’s at a jog, my lungs burning, panic welling up. I tear down one path and then turn onto another, and a man steps around the next bend. I jerk back, but it’s too late. He’s looking right at me. It’s the man with the spade. Except he isn’t carrying the spade. He’s carrying a body. A figure lies draped over his arms. A figure wrapped in a bedsheet.

  The man keeps coming, moving straight for me. I scramble off the path, but there are no trees here to hide behind. It’s open moor, and all I can do is run. I take three steps and look back over my shoulder to see the man still walking along the path, his face set in the same grim expression, gaze fixed straight ahead. He walks with the slow, measured pace of a pallbearer in a funeral procession.

  “Hello?” I say, my voice creaking.

  His stride doesn’t even hitch. I ease toward him, ready to turn and run at any sign he hears me. But he isn’t there, at least not in the sense that the other ghost was, where I could interact with her. This is one of those “spectral replays,” like the woman I just encountered on the path. I take a deep breath, realizing I’m safe, and as my panic subsides, curiosity slips into its place.

  I keep going until I’m jogging alongside him. Then I swing into his path. I see his face more clearly than the others, the lines and sags of an old man’s face. Weather-roughened skin, red across his cheeks and forehead like windburn. Sunken brown eyes, still bright but emotionless, as if he’s retreated somewhere inside himself.

  As he walks toward me, I back up, so I can keep examining him. He’s lean but strong, as I noticed before, his back straight, shoulders narrow and arms hidden beneath his coarse shirt, yet he carries his burden easily.

  His burden . . .

  A figure wrapped in a sheet. The same sheet that shrouded the ghost I’d seen tonight, the one who tried to lure me into the bog. Her face and hair are covered, but I’ve no doubt it’s the ghost I saw. One hand has fallen partially free of the shroud, pale fingers bouncing with each step. I catch a glimpse of blue.

  A blue dress beneath the shroud.

  This is the ghost that challenged me on the rocks. It’s also the woman I just saw, fleeing her unknown assailant.

  Maybe I should have connected them sooner, but they’d seemed two separate people. A frightened woman lost in the moors and a vengeful spirit enraged by her inability to communicate. Two very different situations, showing two very different sides of the same woman.

  If I’d been lost in the moors, alone, and then stalked by a killer, I’d be terrified and tearful, too. Then, if hundreds of years later, my ghost met someone she could communicate with, and that person couldn’t hear me? Refused to follow me? I’d be just as furious as the shrouded spirit.

  I’m still backing up, committing the figures to memory, when the man turns. It looks as if he’s leaving the path, but then I see a narrow one to the side. I hurry after them. Another ten paces, though, and he does indeed abandon the path, heading deeper into the moors. I take two steps, and mud squelches around my bare feet.

  The bog.

  I’ve circled around and come back on the opposite side of the bog.

  The bog where the shrouded ghost tried to lead me.

  The bog where this man is now taking her body.

  An image flashes, the man looking up at the house, at that window. Looking to see whether anyone noticed him slipping into the moor, spade in hand.

  That’s what the shrouded ghost had been trying to show me. Her burial place.

  I hurry after the man, but in the back of my mind, self-preservation beats a drum tattoo of, “No, no, no.” There’d been a very good reason why I refused to follow the woman into the bog. The same reason William’s picnic spot remained untouched. The same reason he took us the long way over the rocks. The wetlands are dangerous even in daylight. At night? I’m risking my life with every footstep.

  Still, I press on until one foot strikes the wrong spot, instantly sinking to mid-calf. Panic seizes me, and I scrabble for firmer ground. My leg pops free, and I stumble. My other foot slides on the damp earth. I flail, and then down I go, and the ground seems to rise up, sucking me in. More flailing, more panic, until I manage to drag myself from the muck.

  I sit on the ground, heart pounding, as I catch my breath. Then I crawl to ground firm enough to stand on. When I’m upright, I look out to see the dark figure of the man, surefootedly picking a path into the bog. I strain to watch him, noting the direction he went. Finally, he’s gone.

  Gone to bury his dead.

  19

  It’s nearly midnight by the time I get to the manor house. Muddied and exhausted, I tramp across the yard. As the front door slaps shut behind me, Enigma squeaks from upstairs and tumbles down the stairs so fast I use my last iota of energy scrambling to catch her. Then I sit on the steps, kitten on my lap, stare into darkness and catch my breath.

  Memories of the man fade, my heart slows, and I’m reminded that the moors aren’t the only place I see ghosts. It’s past dark. I should take Enigma and flee to my room. But I don’t, because tonight, I want to see the ghosts. I want to talk to them.

  I make my way upstairs, straining ears and eyes, but there’s no sign of the woman in black. I’m turning when I catch movement at the linen closet door. A flash of a white-sleeved arm, lace at the wrist.

  “Hello?” I say, gripping Enigma tight.

  There’s nothing there now, but I know I saw it, as if the ghost of that boy in knickerbockers had started to come through . . . and then retreated.

  I steel myself and walk toward the door.

  “Are you there?” I say. “I’d like to speak to you if you are.”

  I think I catch a whisper. I hesitate. Then I throw open the closet door to see . . . nothing but shelves, empty except for a single change of bed linens and two extra sets of towels. My gaze slides to the side where a hatch leads to a cubby, one of the myriad odd nooks and crannies found in old houses. This one, though, has a panel on it that leads to the secret passage. William discovered the passage in his version of Thorne Manor, and I recall my childish delight on finding it still existed in mine.

  The passage is an oversized gap between walls, constructed when the house was originally built. It runs from the linen closet to the master bedroom. As to its original purpose, William and I had envisioned a hiding place for a highwayman’s treasure. Or a family escape route in case angry villagers descended with pitchforks. Or a horrible prison for an insane relative.

  By the age of fifteen, we were old enough to discern the true purpose. In William’s house, there was no linen closet—the passage ran from a guest room cubby to the master suite. In other words, it allowed the first lord to sneak from his bedroom to a guest’s. By William’s time, the passage had been forgotten. One end led into his mother’s room, blocked by a massive wardrobe, an heirloom that had stood there since before her marriage.

  Now the hatch to the cubby is locked. I yank on the padlock and twist it, but it only squeaks at my efforts, that squeak sounding like mocking laughter. I prod the base of the latch, hoping for wood rotted enough to snap. It’s solid, though. Either I’ll need to find the key or break down the door.

  I step back out of the linen closet, nearly tripping over Enigma, who’s joyfully exploring this new place. I’m turning when I see my bedroom door.

  My bedroom.

  William’s bedroom.

  William.

  William, who doesn’t know I’m all right, who last saw me disappear in the moors at night.

  I run to my room and yank up the floorboard. Underneath is a letter. I snatch it out.

  Bronwyn,

  I am endeavoring, with very limited success, not to worry about you. Admittedly, part of that is the fear that I spoke too soon of any future, however tentative, between us.

  Rationally, I know something startled you, and you fell back into your time as you have before. I also reassure myself that you are quite capable of finding your way home through our moors. Still, I am worried, and so if you receive this not
e, I would appreciate if you would remove it from its place, signaling that you have returned safely.

  I would like to say that I will not lie awake waiting, but I doubt I will find much rest before I am certain you have returned. I shall lie abed with a book and endeavor not to check the floorboard every five minutes.

  Here he signed it, only to stroke that out and add more.

  In my concern for your welfare, I closed the note rather abruptly. I should add that I very much enjoyed our picnic, and I hope we may repeat the adventure soon . . . preferably with a less abrupt conclusion.

  William

  I quickly change out of my filthy clothing. Then I stand in the center of the room and close my eyes and concentrate on seeing him. Air flutters past, a warm shimmer, the opposite of what I felt with the shrouded ghost. When I open my eyes, I’m in William’s room. He’s on the bed, and I start to warn him it’s me. Then I see a book, toppled from his hand, and his head lolling to one side, eyes closed. He’s fast asleep.

  I pick up the novel. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. While the cover proclaims the author as Acton Bell, it’s actually Anne Brontë, the youngest of the famous sisters.

  “Interesting choice,” I murmur, too softly to wake him. I’ll need to ask him about the book—the tale of a woman exiled to a bleak mansion . . . in the Yorkshire moors.

  As I tuck the novel onto his nightstand, I glance at him. Victorian men’s nightwear is familiar to anyone who has seen A Christmas Carol, with Ebenezer Scrooge in his long nightshirt. As with most things, William eschews tradition in favor of comfort, and I certainly can’t argue with that. Like the last time, he’s naked, one leg under the sheets, twisted enough to preserve a modicum of modesty while leaving plenty on display to be admired. And admire I do.

  When I see my cell phone on the bed table, I’m tempted—sorely tempted—to take a picture. Or two. Or three. That, however, would be wrong, given that he’s unable to consent. I sigh with regret and console myself with mental snapshots instead, walking closer for a better view, taking in the flow of his muscular body, the cut of his jaw, the pulse at his throat, those full lips parted in sibilant whispers of breath, black lashes on pale skin, the curl of hair against the nape of his neck.