by R K Dreaming
I gave the Humble man a smile, intending to put him at ease. This did not have the effect I wanted since my scarf was covering up my face. So I pulled it down just a little and tried again.
The man did not smile back.
“You don’t want to go in there,” I said. “There’s a guy in the other carriage who—”
I stopped speaking abruptly. I had just realised why he looked familiar.
It was Chris Constantine!
The Chris Constantine himself. That light brown hair, those blue eyes with a hint of green, six feet tall. His beard had confused me, but it was definitely him — the hunky Hollywood actor who played Captain Shield, America’s favourite superhero.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
He gave me a tense smile as if he was tired of being asked this question.
“Did you want something, madam?” he said coolly.
“Er, well, I just… Er…”
Dammit! I was blithering like a fool and clearly he thought so too by the look on his face.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “I was just going to say you don’t want to go in there. There’s a guy in there who is off his head. A very unpleasant sort.”
He shrugged. “I think I can handle it,” he said.
I glared at him. The arrogant fool.
“I doubt it,” I said, unable to keep the snap from my voice.
Just then the train jerked to a stop. I nearly fell into him. I grabbed a seatback to catch myself just in time.
We had arrived at Brimstone Bay Station. I was immensely relieved. Now we could all get off the train and it would be fine.
But to my annoyance, Chris Constantine turned his back to me and opened the door to the next carriage.
“What are you doing?” I said in irritation, reaching out to grab his arm.
“Let go,” he snapped.
But instead of doing so, I held on harder, determined to stop him and give the werewolf a chance to leave first.
A look of disbelief came onto Chris Constantine’s face, but I didn’t care. He would never know what I had saved him from, but I would.
He tried to yank his arm away, but I threw myself onto him and wrapped both of my arms around his waist.
“Get off me!” he said urgently.
I held on, and started laughing.
I couldn’t help it. I was forcibly hugging Chris Constantine.
How Allegra would laugh, if only I could tell her about it. And Viv and Flaffy would be green with envy.
He struggled to throw me off, and I enjoyed the brief tussle a bit more than was necessary. I was saving him, even if he didn’t realise it.
I looked past him to see where the werewolf was, and was astonished. The werewolf was staring at the both of us, his eyes wide with fright.
And then he turned and ran out of the train as if his tail was on fire.
Laughing harder, I let go of Chris Constantine.
“Sorry about that,” I said between chuckles. “I was doing you a favour.”
Chris Constantine glared at me. “You stupid woman!” he growled. “You’ve let him get away!”
2. The Body In The Garden
Stupid woman indeed! Just who did he think he was?
I slammed the door of the taxi shut behind me and fumbled in my purse for some money. To my annoyance the driver had stopped all the way at the end of the long driveway, refusing to go close to Mansion House itself at this time of night.
Mr High And Mighty Chris Constantine had insisted on calling the taxi for me and had absolutely refused to let me walk home in the night by myself. And now I was handing over a precious couple of banknotes that I would have much preferred to spend on groceries.
It actually physically hurt to part with the cash. The coins that the taxi driver handed over as change were fewer than they should have been. Prices had certainly gone up in Brimstone Bay now that it was a tourist mecca.
The driver did not leave.
“You got no luggage?” he said.
“I won’t be staying long,” I said shortly.
“Mansion House, ey?” he said, looking up with more than a little appreciation at the ramshackle old home that Aunt Adele had left to me. “Doesn’t look like a house to me!”
He was stating the obvious. Mansion House was a castle. Hundreds of years ago it had been called Brimstone Castle.
The reason for its name change was a long story that involved my own ancestors and the ancestors of the Hardwick witching family, who were our mortal enemies for many reasons.
Mansion House wasn’t a huge castle and it might be falling apart, but it was still a castle.
The driver whistled. “I wouldn’t mind owning that,” he said with a grin. “Wouldn’t want to live in it, mind. But it would fetch a pretty penny the way prices are rocketing in Brimstone these days.”
“Haven’t you heard of its history?” I said. “You can’t sell the place. The ghosts in the Black Tower would never allow it.”
He shuddered and glanced nervously up towards the charred old tower, the tallest one in the castle, as if worried the ghosts might have heard him.
I’d only mentioned the ghosts because the driver was a local. The grey tinge of his skin was a dead giveaway that he was finfolk.
Perhaps the fact it was too dark to see the tower at this time of night made him feel braver. Either that or that he felt he was a sufficient distance away to be safe.
He chortled. “But they wouldn’t be haunting me, would they?” he said. “It’d be the new owners’ problem, not mine.”
I scowled at him. I didn’t bother to explain that old magic prevented the castle from falling into the hands of anyone except those considered to be its rightful owners.
And right now, that happened to be me. Because the previous owner, Great Aunt Adele, had said so. Though why she had picked me I could not imagine. I had never met her. Not once.
I pocketed my change and nodded at the driver in farewell, expecting him to drive off.
Instead he stayed there, smiling at me. “You a Hardwick?” he said curiously.
“No,” I said shortly.
He would have never asked me that if he knew I was a Westbrim. It was insulting. Everyone in town knew the Westbrims and Hardwicks were sworn enemies.
It was a good job I had dyed my pink hair to brown or he would have recognised me for sure. I was the only Westbrim with pink hair. The only one in all of Brimstone Bay with Magicwild pink hair, in fact.
Even so, I kept my scarf up over my face in case he recognised me. I had been gone so long that I didn’t know who he was, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t know who I was. People in small towns had long memories.
“A property agent then?” he said. “You going to sell the place?”
“Something like that,” I said vaguely.
I had no intention of telling him who I really was. I was supposed to be hiding out, and the last thing I wanted was for this guy’s gossip to get back to my uncle. All of the taxi drivers around here worked for Uncle Radaghast, or they had back when I had left.
And Uncle Ghastly would tell Granny Selma, our family matriarch, that I was back, and then I would be in for it.
“You drive safely now,” I said to him shortly and turned away.
Perhaps he sensed my dread as I trudged towards the tall iron gate.
He called after me, “You sure you don’t want me to take you to a hotel instead? There’s plenty in this town. It’s the off season. I can find you a cheap one.”
Not cheap enough for me. A hotel would clear out my funds in one fell swoop. Darn that Drew. How could I have been so stupid as to trust him so much?
“I’m fine,” I threw over my shoulder.
I hunted through my bag to find the big bunch of old keys that had been sent to me and took my time about it. I didn’t want him to watch me trudge slowly up the driveway towards the castle main door. I did not want him to see me going in.
I suppose I
was still a bit worried the castle might sense what I’d become and reject me. I didn’t need him to witness that.
He seemed to get the hint and started up the engine again. “You’ve got my card if you change your mind,” he called cheerily as he drove off.
I would not. If the castle rejected me I’d be sleeping out here in the November cold.
It was either that or slink home in defeat to Willow Manor, our ancestral family home, where there was more than enough room for me. But I wouldn’t go there. Not even if chased by feral vampires.
Mum would be glad to see me. So would Allegra, Viv and Flaffy, and probably my two aunts. Granny Selma and the other half of my cousins and my uncles would not. And I hadn’t a clue about Great Aunt Tabby.
I could just imagine Granny Selma frowning at me as if I had confirmed her theory that I was a disgrace to the family name. I would not beg her for a handout. No way. Mum always had said I had too much pride.
So I trudged up that cobbled driveway to the stout wooden door with the spikes in it, and tried out the old iron keys in the lock.
When I found the one that fit, I took a deep breath and then turned it. The door opened with an almighty creak. I took another deep breath, and stepped over the threshold.
Nothing happened.
No blast of ejection. No flash of fiery magic. No seven vengeful ghosts flying at me in fury. Blissful nothing.
“Oh thank goodness,” I murmured, and went in.
* * *
The next day I awoke with a groan. My head was throbbing. The chill had given me a headache. Yesterday evening my dreams of hot chocolate with oodles of cream and a warm bed and a roaring fire had not materialised.
The castle had no electricity and no light switches. I had spent ten minutes feeling around for one before giving up. It had been so dark it had been all I could do to stumble around until I had found a room with a couch for me to collapse into. And that was where I had fallen asleep.
I knew the moment I awoke that something was wrong. Opening one bleary eye, the first thing I registered was that it was light now. I was in what appeared to be a lounge.
A window was nearby. A very pleasant square of warm sunlight was streaming through it. Part of it had landed on my out-flung hand.
With a yelp of pain, I flung myself away from it and landed in an ungainly heap on the floor.
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” I moaned.
Darn it! The entire back of my hand was red and throbbing and the skin had blistered.
Retreating to a dark corner of the room far from the window, I unzipped my backpack and found a large tube of antiseptic numbing cream. I applied it generously and was glad for the mild numbing effect.
A potion would have been better, but I had never had enough magic to learn to brew potions back when I’d been in school. I had concentrated on academics instead of magic. Much good that was doing me now.
I got out some sunblock and started slathering it all over myself. As I was doing so, I became aware of the other thing that was wrong. It was a noise.
A banging and a clanging was coming from somewhere inside the castle. Was it the ghosts? Were they coming for me?
I really did not feel up to facing an audience with them. Or a confrontation more like.
Everyone in town knew of the seven ghosts of the Black Tower. Manor House had several towers. The main ones were North, South, and Black.
The ghosts of Black Tower were rumoured to be vicious. It was said they were poltergeists, which meant they would actually be able to do me physical harm.
I looked around for a weapon and my eyes landed on a poker beside the fireplace. Then I laughed quietly at myself. A poker wasn’t likely to do me much good against ghosts.
Still wary of the sunlight, I draped my scarf low over my face and tucked my hands inside my sleeves.
I dug my wand out of my pocket and I ventured out into the hallway.
I was going to have to confront them and tell them that I had every right to be here and they were just going to have to put up with me, like I would have to put up with them. I had nowhere else to go. And I wouldn’t be here long.
I navigated the maze-like old stone passageways of the castle, following that clanging noise, until I reached the source. The noise was coming from behind a stout wooden door. And so was a mouth-watering aroma that made my stomach growl.
The door was shut. I screwed up my courage and opened it. And was astonished.
The noisemaker was a woman. A stout woman with a big bottom, which was pretty much all I could see of her since she was bent over the oven. From that incredibly delicious smell, she was taking a freshly baked cake out of it.
But what the heck was some woman doing in my castle?
I surprised myself with this thought. It seemed I was feeling possessive of the castle already. I hadn’t really wanted it. But if some Hardwick woman thought she was going to steal it away from me, she had another think coming!
Not wanting to startle her into burning herself, I waited until she had placed the hot cake tin onto the counter. And then I cleared my throat.
She turned.
She took a look at me and I took a look at her and we both screamed.
* * *
A half hour later, after we had both had a chance to calm down, she handed me my second slice of cake and my third cup of tea.
“Why on earth you had to change your lovely hair, I’ll never understand,” she was saying.
As I had never met her before, I was surprised how sad she was about my hair.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to make you some brunch, dear?” she said.
I shook my head, though I was famished from a week of near starvation. Brunch would have been wonderful, but I didn’t want to burden her.
I’d already had a delicious slice of the most incredible rich chocolate fudge cake I had ever eaten in my life, served with a generous dollop of clotted cream, but it had not even made a dent in my appetite. My hunger was like a yawning chasm that had opened up inside me that no food could quench.
I couldn’t stop staring at her in her flowing purple robes. I had thought she was a woman because she had dressed herself up as one.
And she was a woman of course, just not a living one.
It seemed that my Great Aunt Adele had not passed over and had remained in this world as a poltergeist.
I simply could not understand it. Surely she should have crossed over to join her husband, who by all accounts she had loved very much.
Neither could I fathom why she was wearing robes and a wig and that ridiculous powder on her face and a pair of sunglasses so large that they put my own ones to shame.
She had taken the sunglasses off now. Where her eyes ought to be was a hole in her makeup. A pair of transparent greyish ghostly eyes were peering out. To say it was weird was an understatement, and that was with me knowing what I was looking at.
Any Humble who saw them would have a heart attack.
“Why are you dressed like that, Aunt Adele?” I asked her.
“Because life goes on, even after death,” she said cheerfully.
“But…” I hesitated, wondering how to phrase this delicately. “But I thought you loved Uncle Alaric. Didn’t you want to pass over to join him?”
She got an upset look on her face. Even with the layer of thickly smeared makeup, I could tell.
“Sorry!” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
She nodded and started to furiously beat up a bowl of heavy cream with her whisk. I was glad that I wasn’t the cream.
The thing was that the love story of Great Aunt Adele and Great Uncle Alaric was part of our family lore. It was a great big family scandal in fact.
Great Aunt Adele was Granny Selma’s younger sister. Much younger. She had defied her family, the Westbrims, and run off with Alaric Hardwick. A Hardwick of all things. As far as Granny Selma had been concerned, her sister had run off with a mortal enemy.
I didn’t blame G
reat Aunt Adele. It was the effect of our family’s fairy-tale curse after all.
But her family had disowned her. His hadn’t been too pleased with him either.
Granny Selma had never spoken to her again. And that was why I had never met Great Aunt Adele in her lifetime, though we had both lived in the same small town for the first eighteen years of my life.
She had been in her sixties when she passed away. With her plump pleasant face and hair in a neat bun, she probably looked the same as she had done when alive. I wouldn’t know. The last time I had seen her had been from afar, and that had been nearly twenty years ago.
“Is it okay for me to be here?” I asked.
“I suppose we’ll have to rub along,” she said absent-mindedly. She was scraping vanilla seeds from their pods into the cream. It already smelled heavenly.
“Why did you leave me this place in your will, Aunt Adele?” I asked her.
“Better you than the others,” she said. “I suppose I had an inkling I might stay on. And I hardly expected you to actually come back right now, dear. Everyone knew you’d gone off to London for good!”
She looked at me a bit accusingly.
“Sorry,” I said. “Things didn’t turn out quite as I had planned. But I won’t be here for long.”
I left it vague. The last thing I wanted was a ghost hovering around who was going to guess my secret.
She opened her mouth, undoubtedly to ask me to clarify my plans, but I was saved by a banging from somewhere outside.
Aunt Adele’s face lit up. “They’re here!” she cried out in delight.
“Who?” I said, feeling a bit alarmed.
I turned my ear towards where the banging was coming from. It sounded like a fist pounding on glass. I stood up to flee. The last thing I needed was to be seen by a bunch of enemy Hardwicks.
“Customers!” she trilled.
“Customers?”
“Well, who did you think I was baking all these cakes for, dear?” she said. “Everyone always loved my cakes. I’ve decided to keep my café open.”
My mouth dropped open. “But… but…”
I didn’t know what to say. Aunt Adele had run a café called Dele’s Delights out of the castle during her lifetime, named so by her adoring husband.
