by Katie M John
“My name is Jeremiah,” he said, extending his free hand. “My friends call me Jay.”
She glanced down at his hand and shifted the weight of the drinks tray so she could reach out an unsteady hand in return.
“My name is Fox.”
“Fox?” he replied, nodding. “That’s certainly an interesting nickname.” He threw her a teasing smile. “Any particular reason why?”
“It’s not a nickname, it’s my birth name.” She shifted uncomfortably.
“Oh,” he replied, lifting the glass of champagne to his lips and looking at her over the top of it. He watched Fox flush under the intensity of his eyes’ wicked sparkle, and he smiled. It really shouldn’t be this easy, he thought.
“Anyway,” she nervously cleared her throat, “Lady Asquithe asked me to come and call you to dinner.”
“Does my aunt always insist that you call her by her full title?” he asked, tipping his glass up and draining the last mouthful of expensive vintage champagne.
“It’s what’s expected,” she shrugged dismissively.
“And do you always do what is expected, Fox?” he asked stepping towards her with a complete awareness he was about to invade her space without invitation. It was a move of dominance, a test of her boundaries.
“That depends on who is doing the expecting,” she said sharply, stepping back. She flashed him a warning stare and Jeremiah was surprised by the sudden flare-up in her spirit. He stopped his advance and pressed his lips together, nodding with approval. The flash of venom had intrigued him: he’d underestimated her.
He waved the champagne glass in the air, signaling that he wished to put it down on the tray, but before he had a chance, she’d turned and left, leaving him hanging.
“Touché!” he said under his breath. Far from her cold rebuttal calming his interest in her, she’d just kindled a fascination in his brain like he hadn’t felt since he’d taken on the challenge to seduce Miss Scarlet.
“There’s no such thing as impossible, son!” he said into the night air, bitterly mimicking his father.
*
Dinner was only made tolerable by the momentary flashes of Fox as she carried in the dinner dishes. However, it was clear the usual Chase charm was not having its normal effect. She barely made eye contact with him for the rest of the evening. Jeremiah knew he was an arrogant son of a bitch, he’d come to hear the insult enough from his sister, who took great delight in mocking him whenever she had the chance, but up until now, it seemed to have served him well. His arrogance had ensured he usually got what he wanted. And besides, it wasn’t arrogance, it was confidence, he told himself as he watched Fox flit from guest to guest.
Girls liked a boy to be confident – or so he had been tutored to believe. His education in the art of charm had started young; at the age of fifteen, when his mother’s friend, Gabriella, had come to stay for a while whilst she battled a bitter divorce from her husband. Gabriella had been made for an adolescent’s wet-dream, and Jeremiah could not believe her fat, balding (and ridiculously wealthy) husband could possibly find anything more in any other woman. Gabriella didn’t steal his innocence, he’d been with several girls his own age before, but Gabriella took Jeremiah on as a sort of pet project – and she had enjoyed the role of tutor as much as he had enjoyed being her student.
Although he had no real regrets about any of his past, he had come to understand Gabriella had, in a way, spoiled him. She had left him with a deluded, and slightly warped, sense of human relationships. He had discovered too much too soon, and found he couldn’t really connect with girls of his own age; and he had certainly bypassed the wonderful experience of true first love.
His only socially acceptable relationship (in his parents’ eyes) had been with Harper, High-School-Prom-Queen-Twenty-Thirteen. With her expensive highlights, perfected elocution, and virginal Victoria Secrets lace, she had almost been his first taste of a wholesome relationship. In the end, it had ended miserably because there was only so much chatter about the various love interests of the cheerleading squad he could stand before wanting to take out his own eyeballs. It had ended in a lot of tears and unattractive public scenes in restaurants.
He sighed. The lack of interesting company was making him far too reflective. He’d spent more time having to face his own behaviour in the last few weeks than he’d ever had to before. He wasn’t sure he liked what he saw.
Maybe Lucia had had a point when she’d rather ceremoniously placed a copy of Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray into his travel bag. He smiled at the thought of how she had wrapped it in a large red-satin bow. Lucia always had had a taste for the dramatic.
At last, Fox came over to him so she could take away his dinner plate. As she reached out her hand, he reached out his, as if innocently heading for his wine glass, but then he let it drop so it “accidently” brushed against her fingers. She flashed him an acidic look, which told him quite clearly, she wasn’t falling for his cheap tricks. The heart-stopping sound of shattering Bohemian crystal filled the room.
“I’m so sorry, Lady Asquithe. I’m so sorry!” The waitress, Amber, was already crying as she crouched down to try and retrieve the broken shards of the dozen wine glasses that had toppled from the silver tray.
“You stupid, clumsy, girl!” Lady Asquithe rose from her seat, her hand against her chest, which was puffed out in full force, giving the impression of an angry peacock. “Do you have any idea how much those glasses are worth?” she screeched.
Amber let out a small “ouch” as a shard of glass bit deep into her finger, adding to the general sense of chaos. After flamboyantly discarding his napkin, Lord Faris was on his feet and placing a soothing arm on Lady Asquithe’s elbow. “Now, Penny, old gal – the child didn’t mean it; it was just an accident.”
At the sound of a champion, Amber was wracked with sobs. She fled the room, repeating between gasps of air, “I’m so sorry!”
Jeremiah couldn’t help but break into a bemused smile as the Victorian-style melodrama unfolded aroundhim. Aunt Penelope collapsed back into her dining chair and fanned herself with her napkin as if suffering an attack of the vapours. Lord Yellow-Trousers, red faced, took charge, shouting at various staff to move into action. The rest of the guests did their chattering-best to calm Lady Asquithe down and reassure her things weren’t like they used to be.
Jeremiah slid his eyes towards Fox, who was stood watching the scene as if it were taking place in a different world. Feeling his eyes on her, she turned and blushed, before putting down his plate and rushing towards the scene of crystal carnage. Jeremiah watched as she knelt down and threw her white linen serving cloth over the mess. She gathered the cloth up and impossibly, pulled from underneath it, ten of the dozen goblets. They were perfectly intact. She placed them back onto the table one by one, as if they had simply, by some miracle, survived the crash. The rest of the glass shards were gathered into the cloth.
“I’m sorry, Lady Asquithe but it looks like two of them have gone.” Lady Asquithe looked at the ten glasses on the table and raised an eye-brow in steely surprise.
“Just two of them gone? I thought from the sound of it that I’d lost them all. Such a relief – they were my mother’s.”
Jeremiah scrutinized the goblets in front of him. They were perfect. Not even a chip. They must have been lucky enough to have fallen on the rug rather than the floor boards, he reasoned. Animated with efficiency or keen to get away from Jeremiah’s suspicious looks, Fox bustled out of the dining room, and that was the last he saw of her that evening.
Much of the rest of the dinner-party prattle was about the astonishing luck of the glasses, which released generally tedious topics of other close shaves each guest had experienced. Jeremiah was polite enough to stay through the port and stilton course (even though he had no idea why the English insisted on waiting to eat their perfectly good cheese until it had turned a disgusting shade of green). He didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, and his aunt cast him a look t
hat expressed a little disappointment that her usually glittering, socialite, nephew should not be performing at his best. He couldn’t help it; his thoughts were completely distracted by the mysterious girl. Eventually, he stood and made his apologies, explaining he didn’t feel too well and required his bed.
He took the long way back to his room, idly wondering if Fox attended the same college he’d been enrolled at. Going to the local college and not some private boarder, had been the main condition of him going along with the whole ridiculous “reform” plan.
He hated preppy kids and their Hamptons ways, which were partly why he had gone so wildly off the rails; visiting underground clubs and hanging out with a notorious group of street artists. Following along with them, (mainly out of boredom) he’d committed acts of minor political activism against everything his own family stood. It had all been some futile attempt at rebellion. There had been a certain attractive glamour to it – little rich boy raging against his father’s capitalist empire. It didn’t last. Although, he’d made a convincing go of it, even getting arrested several times for petty acts of vandalism, he was too intelligent to convince himself he really had a cause. It hadn’t really been his scene, but it was certainly a better scene than the pool parties and polo dinners.
He hoped things would be different here. He knew it was going to be a challenge, being an American in a college where almost all of the students came from families who could be traced back to the Doomsday Book, not alone a street-wise, filthy-rich New Yorker, but the thought of going incognito was very appealing. The only hope he had was the village store didn’t sell copies of Time Magazine or Esquire, both of which had run articles on him in the last twelve months for being one of New York’s most eligible bachelors.
A fresh start, he thought. A chance to become a better person; a chance to be happy. His thoughts were broken by the sound of a gentle and rhythmic thudding. He stopped on the turn of the stair and listened. It took him a moment to realise it was the sound of something falling step by step down the flight of stairs above him. He anticipated the object coming into view, but even after a minute, when the sound had stopped, the object remained hidden. Jeremiah continued his upward journey, only to find his heart lodge in his throat. He was by no means a coward, but the sight of the brightly coloured children’s ball sitting brazenly on the stairs, made him feel the ice-chill of unfamiliar fear. He stood for several moments just looking it, as if willing it away. When it refused, he bent down and went to pick it up for closer inspection. As soon as his fingers touched the smooth painted leather, a jolt of static electricity shot up his arm. He stepped back and almost lost his footing. His heart rate accelerated into a panicked gallop and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Using the tip of his shoe, he nudged the ball and it rolled to the step below. He wasn’t going to risk receiving another shock, but was worried about leaving it on the stairs in case it would be a danger to Aunt Penelope. Jeremiah stepped down a step and gave the ball another firm nudge, sending it careering down the stairs and down into the hallway, where it would be far more visible. He couldn’t explain why exactly, but the presence of the ball made him feel sick to his core. The thought of having to walk past the creepy nursery (from where he was sure the ball had originated) made him feel even worse.
“But I locked it,” he said to the silent stairs. “The key is on my desk.” Little shiver-spiders ran over his spine. He knew he would find the door open. His instincts were not wrong.
Even from the bottom of the long corridor, he could see the nursery door had been thrown wide open, creating a barrier between him and his room. There was no avoiding it, he would not only have to travel past the open door, but he’d have to face the spider-webbed nursery in order to shut it. With every step, his heart beat a double rhythm. By the time he was at the door, he felt almost delirious with fear.
He took the handle and resisted the temptation to close his eyes. It was pitch black inside the room. With the shutters continually locked, not even moonlight lit the sad little room. Finding it empty, his nerves began to settle. He strained his ear listening for any tiny movement. It was still. Strangely, he felt a little disappointed not to have been greeted with a glowing pair of red eyes or a ghostly woman in white, as if he had spent all that fear and then been cheated. He let out a little laugh of relief and closed the door, making sure that it was firmly shut.
Just as he started to come down from its adrenalin rush, he saw something move in the corner of his eye and it started all over again. The same little ball was rolling down the corridor towards him.
“So you want to play?” Jeremiah asked the seemingly empty corridor – only he knew with certainty, it wasn’t as empty as it looked. There was no answer. Of course there isn’t, there’s nobody there, he thought.
All at once, the room spun, and Jeremiah had to hold out his hands against the wall to stop himself from falling. Bright lights erupted in his head. Everywhere, he heard the sound of screaming. They were the screams of women and children. Men were shouting. There was chaos and panic, and Jeremiah couldn’t work out exactly what was going on. He felt himself split into two different existences; the one in his head was full of fire and death, and the one where he was standing in the corridor of Coldstone House as he watched himself having some sort of seizure. Acrid smoke assaulted his nostrils. Savage flames licked his boots. Then, as quickly as the vision had come, it faded. Jeremiah was left barely standing.
“What the hell just happened?” he panted.
He stood for a moment, trying to shake away the violence that stained his calm. He looked down at the innocuous little ball. At any other time, it would have seemed a sweet relic from a more innocent age but now, it was full of sinister and heavy meaning. He sped towards his room, his heart still hammering against his bones. Whatever he’d just witnessed, he didn’t relish seeing it again. He’d been left feeling dirty; polluted in a way that he couldn’t quite express. All he wanted was a shower. He hoped that as well as cleansing his body, it would also cleanse his mind. He headed to his room, collected his towels, and travelled back down the haunted little corridor to the shower room. He stripped out of his braces and shirt, exposing his well-defined body (the result of having been on the swim team since his first year in high school). Water had always been his natural element; swimming through the water gave him a sense of freedom he’d never really felt in his daily life. His fingers fumbled over his trouser buttons and he realised with irritation, the events in the hallway had left him shaking.
When he finally managed to wrestle himself out of his clothes, he stood naked looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Jeez, I look like I’ve just seen a ghost!” he said to the reflection.
“You did!” his reflection replied silently.
He shook the idea away. The tremors had spread from his hand and now his whole body shivered. He tried to convince himself it was the result of the cold, damp house, and not because for the first time in his life, he genuinely felt afraid. He stepped into the shower. At least the water was hot – almost too hot. Steam filled the bathroom and at last, Jeremiah began to calm. He reasoned he was letting his imagination get the better of him. Coldstone House was creepy at the best of times and it was no wonder his head had decided to create its own little horror-film montage. What next? Blood running from the taps? Messages on the mirror? He’d been attempting to mock himself but as he glanced towards the flash of silver mirror through the steam, he shuddered. He leant his head against the wall, and let the hard hot water pummel his tense shoulder blades.
“God, I need get out of here!” he muttered.
2
In all times Fox had worked for Lady Asquithe at Coldstone House, she’d never been so relieved to be leaving it as she was tonight. Sitting safely in the warm comfort of Will’s car (who’d also been drafted in as a pot-washer) she watched the house recede into the shadowy distance within the frame of the rear-view mirror.
“Do you think the rumours about Coldstone House
are true?” Fox asked.
Will, who had been more interested in setting his iPod playlist than concentrating on either the road or his passenger asked, “What rumours?”
“You know, the rumours about the house being haunted?”
“You know I don’t believe in all that weirdo clap-trap, Foxy.” Fox bristled and Will, realising he’d been massively insensitive, mumbled, “Sorry, no offence meant.”
Fox cracked him a smile and wrinkled her nose. “I know.”
Fox’s family was well known in Heargton village for their “strange” ways. Fox’s mum, Wren, ran the New-Age, alternative lifestyle shop called Moonstone. The shop was the kind that sold crystals, home-made natural beauty products, fairy-charms, and a whole host of other weird and “magical” things. It also had the proud title of the largest independent retailer of books on magic, alternative therapies, and paganism, in the county. So it was no surprise her family secret was a not-so-secret, secret. Fox had spent all her life being known as a Witch’s child – only it had always been said in jest, creating the interesting paradox that it hid who (and what) her family really was.
It was true, her mother and sisters were Witches. Not that Fox really understood what that meant in the modern age. She knew others in the Witch community respected her family’s bloodline because of its ancient blood-flow, and the name Meadowsweet was synonymous with one of the most powerful covens in their kind’s history. The Sisters of the Meadow, or the Meadowsweets as they had become known as over time, comprised of not only Fox and her two sisters, Swan and Rabbit (known as Bunny), but also of their cousins Primrose, Violet, and Daisy.
The seven women who made up the Meadowsweets were known in the witch community as a Noble Clan. There had never been a single blemish of dark magic in all the generations of Meadowsweets, and they were revered as one of the purist houses in the British Isles. For Fox, this strange sense of fame within the Witch community contrasted greatly with the general contempt her family had been treated with by the “normal” world.
