by Betina Krahn
"In love!" Joyful tumult broke out among the old dears. "Our Mimi's going to be married!" They cackled and whooped and clapped their arms around each other and began to bob and hop about. Then as Graham laughed and hugged Mimi, the old ladies engulfed them, hugging them both and jiggling, so giddy with delight that Graham and Mimi were caught up in their irresistible joy and were drawn along, whirling and soaring and dancing for the sheer excitement of being alive, of being together. Clasping hands, they spread into a rowdy ring, which split into a line that wound higgledy-piggledy through the meadow, until all of them were dizzy and breathless, and until the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon and All Hallows' Eve was over.
The wedding was a lovely affair, held exactly one month later in the small church in the village, with the rector's wife playing the organ and the Ladies' Aid Society providing a lovely wedding dinner afterward. Mimi was radiant in a bridal gown of cream and eggshell-white shot silk, and a pert little high-crowned hat with a veil of silk illusion. And Graham, who had only just returned from London, looked quite handsome in a gray cutaway with a shot silk vest cut of the same cloth as Mimi's gown. Wedding clothes cut of the same cloth were good luck, Aunt Phoebe had insisted.
Graham had offered to have the old aunts come to live with him and Mimi in London, but his generosity was graciously refused. They had lived in Asher House for many years, the old ladies said, and they didn't think they'd take to London—or that London would take to them. They even declined Graham's kind offer to hire a staff to look after them at Asher House. The very capable Shaddar and their occasional help from the village were all they needed.
As the carriage arrived to carry Mimi and Graham away to their wedding trip and their new life together, the old aunts hugged her tightly and brushed away her tears, assuring her they would be all right and reminding her of her promise to write and to visit. Graham lifted her into the elegant carriage, and, with tears rolling down her cheeks, she waved until the carriage was out of sight.
Graham held Mimi close and felt the trace of sadness that mingled with the joy in her heart. So when darkness overtook their carriage on the London Road, Graham had the driver pull to the side and stop. And he carried her out into a starlit field and danced with her there in the moonlight.
The old aunts gathered in the tower room when they returned to Asher House. The fire blazed a hot, vivid red as they shed some of their wedding finery and sank with sighs of relief into their claw-footed chairs.
"It was a perfect wedding," Caroline declared with a huge, satisfied smile. "Our Mimi was so pretty with her hair done up like that… in those little curls." She pulled the pins from her own hair, and as she ran her fingers through it, it grew progressively whiter and frowsier.
"And Graham was so handsome," Flora said, shucking her shoes and watching her feet and toes double in size. "My, this feels good. It's been eons since my feet had a breather."
"Well, I for one can't wait to get out of this contraption," Phoebe declared, drawing a deep breath and holding it while her corset strings popped one after another and the noise ricocheted about the chamber like rifle shots. "Ahhh." She sank back, looking greatly relieved. "I don't know why women put up with those things."
"I wonder where they are now," Flora said wistfully, rubbing her face with her hands. As she rubbed, her skin withered and her nose grew long and pointed.
"Somewhere along the London Road," Phoebe supplied, holding her hands out to the fire… and watching them enlarge with an air of satisfaction. "They'll soon be stopping at an inn for the night. I trow they can scarcely wait."
"Phoebe!" Caroline glowered at her sister, her eyebrows thickening to veritable bushes as her eyes burned with fiery red sparks. "You promise me this instant that you won't use your crystals to peek!"
"Don't be a toadwart, Caroline," Phoebe snorted irritably. "I wouldn't do that." She hitched about in her chair. "Anyway, I'm too old for such stuff."
Flora sighed as she conjured up a memory. "Remember how lovely they looked, dancing around in the meadow that night… and after." Before their eyes, a shimmering mist appeared, and in the mist Mimi and Graham materialized, dancing, whirling on a carpet of stars. The old ladies' withered faces broke into toothy smiles. And as the two beautiful, naked lovers sank onto their bed of leaves together, the mist evaporated and they issued three long sighs, one after another.
"I'm going to miss her something terrible," Phoebe declared, dabbing at her eyes.
"Me, too," Flora said, propping her bony chin on one gnarled, blue-veined hand. "I never imagined it would be so much fun, having a real live daughter. Maybe we should think about finding another wealthy orphan to adopt."
"Tsk, tsk," Caroline clucked. "Having a child is so very wearing… you have to do everything so conventionally. Have you forgotten all the times we couldn't practice spells or travel astrally or collect exotic specimens? And just think… we barely got our dance in before sunrise this year."
"That Hamilton fellow was a sharp one," Phoebe observed thoughtfully. "Fortunately for us, Mimi pulled the love over his eyes."
"And look at us…" Caroline waved a gnarled hand at their frizzled white hair and bulbous feet. "We've just barely got our freedom back. Do you really want to have to stuff yourself back into shoes and corsets?" She harrumphed. "I agree… having a daughter was lovely. But I do believe one was quite enough."
"Well, when you put it that way…" Flora sighed. A moment later she brightened. "Mimi will have a daughter someday. We'll be grandmas! And we can invite the little thing to visit and spend summers…" She turned on Phoebe. "You're sure she'll have girls?"
Phoebe smiled wickedly. "That Hamilton fellow's got pink in his loins, all right. A regular ladymaker. Trust me." The old ladies threw their heads back and chortled.
Just then a huge, exotic cat with a tawny coat and black-tipped ears and tail padded into the tower room. He headed straight for Phoebe, crouched and sprang onto her lap, stretching flagrantly and flicking his tail. He gazed at the three old sisters with sultry green-gold eyes, then began to rub his body luxuriantly against Phoebe's plump frame.
"Oh, Shaddar," Phoebe crooned, ruffling his fur affectionately. "You handsome boy—I've missed you!" She gave his ears a good scratching and as he started to purr, she glanced at her sisters with a wicked glint in her eye. "You know, having a daughter around did have compensations. I sort of enjoyed inventing and using all my old phrenology stuff. Flora collected a whole raft of fancy plants, and Caroline learned all sorts of new ways to use her electrical thingumabobs." She gazed down at the lolling cat. "And we learned a whole new side of Shaddar here."
The old ladies' cackles drifted through the silent halls of Asher House.
Betina Krahn
BETINA KRAHN, who lives in Eagan, Minnesota, with her husband and two sons, grew up hearing ghost stories told by her older sister at slumber parties. Despite a lingering habit of turning on lights before entering rooms, she has developed an irrepressible irreverence for things spooky, supernatural, or occult. Thus she can only create witches who have hearts of gold.
As part of the research for the story, she located a real phrenology parlor, operated with antique "psychograph" machinery in a set of specialty shops in Minneapolis, and skeptically submitted to having the bumps on her head "read." The results were astonishing. On a scale of one to five (one being pathetically deficient; five being a step away from sainthood) she scored five in twenty-five out of thirty measurements! The readings indicate that she is very superior in "agreeability," "perceptives," "ideality," "individuality," "dignity," "wit," and "suavity"—in all the real important qualities of human character. The experience has caused her to completely reevaluate her previously unenlightened and regretfully derogatory opinion about the science of phrenology. Any system of analysis that accurate, she now believes, deserves real respect.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
About the Author
