by Cross, Amy
“Just think,” he says as I start rinsing the plate clean. “In a parallel universe, you're a happily married man right now, living in a Notting Hill townhouse with your lovely -”
“Don't say her name!” I snap, turning to him.
“You haven't called her, have you?”
“Why would I?”
“You said you would. You promised me that you'd call her before you left London.”
“I lied.”
“I know, but I still hoped you might change your mind.”
I turn back to the sink and start drying the plate.
“So why don't you show me around?” Charlie asks suddenly, and I hear chair-legs scraping against the floorboards as he gets to his feet. “This is a big-ass house, to be sure. Are you not gonna offer me the grand tour? And after that, well, I came all the way from London to feckin' Cornwall, so I'm damn well staying the night and you'd damn well better have some booze in.”
I desperately want to tell him to go to hell, but the last thing I need right now is to feed into his deluded belief that I'm somehow cracking up.
“Fine,” I mutter, turning to him, “but tomorrow I have to get back to work.”
“Got another sixty thousand words planned, have you?”
“Something like that.”
He pauses, eyeing me with a hint of suspicion, before turning and suddenly making his way through to the study.
“Start by explaining this feckin' thing!” he calls back to me.
Sighing, I glance at Bob and see that he's still stalking the spider. With another sigh, I turn and follow Charlie to the next room, where I find him staring at the painting of the bride.
“It was here when I arrived,” I tell him. “It's nothing.”
“No kidding,” he replies. “It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. It's so old-fashioned and cracked. The paint's peeling, man. This belongs on a bonfire or a skip, not on your wall.”
Stepping closer, I look at the painting, and for a moment I'm struck by the beauty of the bride's elegant white dress. Sure, the painting itself is not particularly accomplished, and the style is most definitely dated, but the actual image itself is starting to appeal to me. The bride's hands are the only visible part of her flesh, as they clutch as small bunch of flowers. Her face, meanwhile, remains hidden beneath a white veil, although there are faint hints of a shape and it's quite clear that she's staring out of the painting. In fact, in some strange way, I almost feel as if she's staring straight at me .
“It's shite,” Charlie says suddenly.
“It's beautiful,” I counter.
“Are you kidding? If the Antiques Roadshow people ever show up in this neck of the woods, you should take it down and get it appraised. Just for shits and giggles, you know? But Christ, man, can you at least take it away while I'm staying the night? It gives me the creeps.”
“It's not going anywhere,” I reply, unable to quite take my eyes off the canvas. “If you don't like it, you can always leave.”
“You know who she is, right?”
“I believe her name was Katinka Ashbyrn.”
“Sure, but you know the story behind her, don't you?”
Barely even listening to him, I continue to stare at the painting. The more I look at the veil, the more I feel that perhaps I can see though a little better to the face beneath. And I'm certain, quite certain, that she's staring at me.
“You know,” Charlie says after a moment, “Katinka Ashbyrn has been dead for a long, long time. But that doesn't mean she's not -”
“I don't need to hear this,” I tell him.
“But she -”
“The painting stays,” I add, feeling a flash of anger at the thought that he'd even suggest otherwise. Turning to him, I can see that he's amused by my insistence. “Maybe in London this thing would be laughed at and consigned to the trash,” I continue, “because it's not cool or it doesn't do anything for the hipsters, but this is my house and I happen to like this painting. It stays, and if you have a problem with that, then you know where to find the door.”
He stares at me for a moment, as if he can't quite believe that I actually give a damn about something.
“Alrighty,” he says finally, with a shrug. “Point made. Now how about we get some supplies in? 'Cause as far as I can see, so far you've been living off the crap you lugged all the way from London.”
Chapter Eighteen
Katinka - 1859
“You're acting awfully queer today,” Pippa says as we make our way through the forest beyond the church. “Katinka, is something wrong? You're not having second thoughts, are you? Not you , of all people?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, sticking to the path while Pippa hops from stone to stone. I reach down and pick some flowers, gathering them in a little bouquet. I must practice building a nice bouquet for my wedding day.
“Just that your whole life has been building up to this week,” she continues with a grin. “I know how desperately you've always wanted to be a proud and respectable wife. I must admit, I always thought you'd choose a husband who seemed a little more like Father, but I suppose Charles must simply have caught your attention in some other way. Doubts are natural, my dear sister. You'll feel much better once the ring is on your finger.”
“I'm sure,” I whisper, as a smile creeps across my face. I'm not entirely sure why I'm smiling, but some deep, inner impulse seems highly amused by Pippa's words. She's certainly a good liar.
“Do you love him?” she asks.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you love Charles?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, Katinka... How can you contemplate marrying a man you do not love?”
“You're young,” I mutter. “You're still a child, almost. You wouldn't understand.”
“I understand that people should marry for love,” she replies, “instead of convenience.”
“Well, that is where you're wrong.”
“Is it, dear sister?”
I can't help sighing. “Charles will make a fine husband,” I point out. “He will fulfill his responsibilities admirably.”
“But you don't love him, do you?”
“Why should I?” I snap. “The man is odious and -”
I catch myself just in time. Or rather, perhaps, a little too late. Turning to Pippa, I see that she's smiling at me.
“I'm sure your wedding night will be fun,” she continues, jumping onto another rock. “You'll be a married woman, Katinka. I can't even -”
Suddenly she slips on a wet patch, crashing down and letting out a brief cry of pain as she lands on her knees. Falling to one side, she slams into the grass, and I can already see a bloody patch on her knee. Whereas usually I'd rush to her aid, however, this time I hold back, preferring to watch as she sits up and starts examining the damage.
“That really hurts!” she gasps. “Oh Katinka, look! It's not only my knee that's taken the brunt! My dress is ruined, too!”
“So it appears,” I mutter.
“I've never felt so much pain in my life!” she complains, slowly getting to her feet and then limping over to join me on the path. “I don't think anything's broken, but look at how much skin I've lost!”
I stare at her knee and watch as a trickle of blood runs down toward her feet.
“Well don't just stand there!” she continues. “Katinka, honestly, what's wrong with you? You shall have to support me on the way back to the house, and then hopefully Mother has something she can use to clean the wound. The last thing I want is to die right before your wedding!”
She waits, but I simply stare at her damaged knee.
“Katinka?” she says after a moment. “Are you going to help me or not?”
She looks so pathetic, but I can't help thinking back to my view of her last night. That's when she was on her back, with her legs in the air, enjoying the affections of my husband-to-be. I'm not a naive woman, and I know th
at men often take mistresses once they're married, but I would like to think that a decent man would at least try to hide his actions. I would also like to think that my own sister might have a little more decorum, and that the pair of them would have the sense to avoid being caught. The real insult here is that they seemed not to care that I might stumble upon their sordid little assignation.
“Katinka? Why are you looking at me like that?”
I blink. “Like what?”
“You were staring at me,” she continues, looking and sounding rather unnerved as blood continues to dribble from her knee. “I don't like it. Stop!”
“Aren't you being a panicky little custard?” I ask, stepping closer. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I have power, and I like the fact that my sister seems scared. In fact, as I take another step closer, I can see her discomfort growing. Her knee might only be grazed and little bloodied, but the injury does nudge her an inch or two closer to death. Just an inch or two.
“Katinka, stop it!” she says, trying to sound firm but succeeding only in appearing more nervous. “Katinka, you're being rotten! Just because it's your wedding day soon, you don't have the right to act in such a horrid way! Now will you please help me into the house, so that Mother can tend to my wound?”
I look down at her bloodied knee for a moment.
“It's just a scratch,” I whisper.
“I think I can see the bone!”
“Nonsense.”
“Katinka, I've lost a lot of blood!”
“You have a lot more.”
That, at least, is true. A fair deal of blood has run down onto the rocks, where it glistens in the morning sunlight. The sight is quite beautiful, and I can't seem to look away.
“Oh, you are awful!” Pippa hisses, as she starts hauling herself up. “I won't forget this, you know! Let's see how you like it when I refuse to help you some time! Do you think that just because you're married, you won't ever scrape your knee or get into a jam?”
She limps toward me and then stops, staring into my eyes as if she's searching for something. Compassion, perhaps? Or love? Mere affection? Whatever it is, she won't find it. Not now.
“You think you're so wonderful, don't you?” she sneers. “Charles might have chosen you to marry when he first came here, but that's not because of any quality you possess. We all know you appeal to him only because of the property that he'll acquire once the pair of you are married. Why, if our ages were reversed and I stood to inherit Ashbyrn House upon my wedding day, and pass it to my husband, well...”
A faint, cruel smile crosses her lips.
“I think we both know,” she continues, “whose hand Charles would have requested in marriage, don't we? Certainly not that of a frigid maid who only cares about being seen to do the right thing.”
We stand in silence for a moment. I should be angry, but I feel absolutely, unflappably calm. Calmer, perhaps, than ever before in my life. And all around us, the forest seems to have fallen absolutely silent.
“Well?” Pippa continues. “What do you have to say about all that, dear sister?”
“Just this,” I reply. “That I love you very much.”
***
She lets out a gurgled groan as her wet hands reach up to push me away, but no force in the world could stop me now. After adjusting my grip on her throat, I slam Pippa's head yet again against the rock, cracking another section of her skull. This time, when she looks up at me, I see that one of her pupils is much larger than the other, and now all that comes from her throat is a slow, guttural gasp.
There is blood all over the black stone.
“I know what you did!” I hiss, leaning closer to Pippa's face as blood runs from her lips. She's conscious, but barely so. “You disgusting little whore! I caught you last night!”
She tries to whisper something, and a moment later she places a trembling hand on my arm, as if to beg for mercy one final time.
“Harlot!” I snap. “I love you, dear sister. Is that what you wanted to hear? And where did love get us?”
With that, I crush her head against the rock one more time, this time shattering one entire side of her skull. Her arms and legs twitch for a moment before falling still. Much like all those spiders I killed back in the house.
***
I sit with her for a while, after she is dead. The forest is so tranquil and calm at this time of year, and now I can hear birds – perhaps even squirrels – ruffling the leaves of the trees. The forest has started to breathe again. Sunlight streams down, and the church can be seen in the distance, standing tall and proud.
Everything is perfect.
I hope the weather is this good on my wedding day.
Chapter Nineteen
Owen - Today
The town of Turthfeddow is no more appealing by day than it was by night. I was reluctant to let Charlie drag me away from the house this afternoon, and it's quite clear that I made a mistake by coming here. The streets are dull and gray, with lower-end chain stores offering nothing but crap, and the entire place seems dead and inconsequential. As we make our way along the high street, I can't help thinking that the rules of natural selection should have scrubbed this little dump off the map a long time ago.
“They're looking at you, you know,” Charlie whispers to me.
I glance across the street and see that he's right. A couple of gossiping old women are standing in a doorway, watching me. They look away after a moment's eye contact.
“I guess you're the new lord of the manor,” Charlie continues, as we step around a mother who's tending to her pram-ridden crying daughter. “Ashbyrn House's the biggest place for miles and miles in any direction, and it had been empty for years before you showed up. I'm gonna bet that it really got their tongues wagging when they heard someone was gonna be moving in.”
“If that's all they've got to talk about in their miserable lives,” I mutter under my breath, “then I pity them.”
“Still planning to get all your groceries delivered from an online store?”
“You think I should make a weekly trip into this soul-sapping pit of misery?”
“Careful!”
He grabs my arm to hold me back. Momentarily startled, it takes a few seconds before I see that I was about to step in a steaming dog turd that somebody left on the pavement. Sighing, I step around the pleasant gift and then make my way to the street corner.
“How about that place?” Charlie asks.
Looking over at the pub, I realize it's the same place I tried to get a taxi when I arrived the other night. The last thing I want is to go back inside.
“I heard about this pub,” Charlie continues. “You see the post that the sign hangs from? Back in the day, that was a hanging post. It was where the locals used to hang criminals.”
“Charming,” I mutter, watching as the pub's sign creaks high above us in the breeze.
“Come on, old man,” he adds, patting my back before hurrying across the road. “First round's on you!”
He quickly hurries across the road, and I doubt very much that he'll kindly to any attempt to change his mind. I guess I just have to suffer a beer in this infernal place, and then hopefully I can drag Charlie back to the house. The absolute last thing I want right now is another drinking session. Those days are long, long in the past.
I just want to be left alone.
***
“The thing about Ashbyrn House,” the bartender continues, apparently under the impression that we want his opinion as he pours us two pints, “is that everyone round here had kinda given up on it. We figured no-one'd ever want to buy the place, not after everything that happened there.”
“Hear that?” Charlie asks, nudging my arm. “Your house is infamous.”
I want to tell them all to shut up, but instead I bite my tongue. I'm feeling more misanthropic by the second, and although I don't want to be social, I'd rather not become some kind of parody. I'm sure I can handle company for a few minutes. Thirty, at most
.
“There's a lot of codswallop talked about that kinda thing,” the bartender continues as he carefully brings two overflowing pints over to us. “Are you waiting for someone? Anyway, to be honest, I think it's only really the bells that freak people out. The rest of it can be chalked up to over-excitement, but the bells... Well, I've heard them myself from time to time, and I'm not sure I like them much.”
“But they must come from somewhere,” Charlie points out. “Even if it's just a recording, they can't be ringing out of thin air.”
“You can hear them from the town sometimes,” the man adds. “At night, in the main. People've mostly learned to just ignore them, but you can't entirely put something like that out of your mind, can you? I mean, there used to be a church up there at Ashbyrn House, and there used to be a bell in the tower. But now it's gone, and I suppose that gets people thinking. What with folk having reckoned they saw her up there, too.”
“Saw who?” Charlie asks.
“Keep the change,” I mutter, setting some cash on the bar before taking the pints over to a table in the corner.
By the time I've sat down, Charlie has started wandering over to join me, although I can tell that he'd prefer to keep talking to the bartender. I'm sure that if Charlie had his way, we'd spend the entire day sitting in this pub, drinking several pints and listening to yarn after yarn. I'm sure locals would wander in, and we'd hear their stories too, and by the end of the day we'd be full to the brim with all sorts of hackneyed ghost stories about spectral figures and see-through brides. I doubt the stories about Ashbyrn House are very original. After all, aren't all ghost stories basically the same?
“So why didn't you tell me you called the police the other day?” Charlie asks as he sits down.
I can't help sighing.
“What happened, man?” he continues. “The cops? Seriously? Was there an intruder, something like that?”
I glance at the bartender and see that he's watching me with concern in his eyes. I'm sure everybody in town knows about the diver who had to check my pond. After a moment, I turn away from him and look at Charlie.
