In that terrible gamble, I lost everything.
I called Austin’s name once, knowing he could never hear me at this faraway field. I had hastened, knowing my time to be short. There was no rope on the limb; it was back in the stable with Old Jerry. I thought of climbing to the top to cast myself down, but what if I only broke my bones and lay there helpless, prey to Madame Arnaud’s worse actions? I looked down at my own crisp white apron, covering me from my chest to the hem of my skirts. It was long enough, sturdy enough. I took it off and fashioned it into a rope of sorts.
I climbed onto that branch and fastened the rope, said a prayer for myself and for the protection of my family and Austin’s family. Breathing heavily, I said a prayer for the children of Grenshire, for, after all, my actions had been for their gain, as useless as they turned out to be. I leaned back to see the blue sky through the broad and light-struck leaves, wanting to die with beauty on my mind. My heart never calmed, though, raced like a jackrabbit’s as I lowered myself and hesitated, swinging on the strength of my arms until I lifted myself up, such that I could bite the bark with my teeth, lifted myself so that with the abrupt drop my neck would snap. I didn’t want to strangle; I did it neatly so it would be quick.
Who found me and cut me down, I’ll never know. I was somewhere else for that part. I do so fervently hope it wasn’t Austin.
But of course it must’ve been.
CHAPTER FIVE
Not until 1983 was the ban lifted that prevented suicide victims from being buried in Catholic cemeteries. The prohibition was originally intended both as a denouncement of sin and as a deterrent to suicide.
—Religion and Viewpoints on Death
A century is quite a long time to rue one’s decisions. Two centuries makes it almost unbearable to contemplate.
I might’ve chosen incorrectly. Perhaps I ought to have been more brave, come to Austin’s family and asked their protection, magical or prosaic as it might’ve been. At the very least, I should have said good-bye to Austin. It’s possible he never knew why I’d done it.
He probably assumed I’d killed myself just like all the other servants who had done so, for the pure shame and remorse of how the manor treated children. It makes me sad, even to this day, that he might not have ever known the sacrifice I made on their behalf.
Apparently, I was well thought of. The entire household, hundreds of serving girls and footmen and butlers and stable lads and groundskeepers, rose up and left their duties. My death was the catalyst for the manor emptying. Why mine, and not that of poor Elsie Harlow or Maud Pike or any number of servants who took their own lives?
I stare down at the words on the tombstone. Whoever ordered its making had wanted the world to know I’d killed myself.
ELEANOR DARROW
Dead by her own hand
October 20, 1839–July 9, 1856
So, after all, my parents did mark my birthdate. They never celebrated it, but they knew it. Or at least recorded it in the family Bible so they could later include it on my grave marker.
I was born on October 20, just like Miles and Phoebe.
A gleam of pride flows through me, so recently wrecked by the awful remembrance of my suicide. So I am special like they are, part of the triad. I wasn’t brought along simply to serve them; I’m their equal.
I look down at my apron. In death, it has refastened itself around my neck in a less fatal way. It’s just part of my uniform again. It has long been the symbol of my lesser rank, and I suddenly hate its white expanse.
I undo the waist ties and pull it up over my head. I regard it. In some other incarnation, it caused my death. Now it’s just a bunch of stiff fabric. I ball it up and throw it as far as I can. It’s instantly swallowed by the tall grass.
Good.
I decide it’s time to share what I’ve learned with Phoebe and Miles. I intention back to the manor.
* * *
I find them on the staircase landing in the old part of the manor. They’re with that terrible fellow who doesn’t know he’s dead yet. I can tell from the conversation I catch midstream that he’s pressed Phoebe to take him on a tour. I can see that Miles, too, is fascinated, although we’ve been through the manor many times now. For me, it’s a dreary place. Its spectacular architecture holds no allure for me. I know it to be a place of incredible mistreatment and criminal behavior.
“Fancy having a party here!” Alexander’s saying. “Put the band on the landing and the bar can be over there by that huge fireplace. We could set up some boards and the bartenders could actually fit in the fireplace.”
“I don’t think there are going to be any parties here, mate,” says Miles.
“But it’s your house, right?” he appeals to Phoebe.
“Not really,” she says.
“Your folks go out of town, we’ll rink it up,” he says.
“It will require remarkable feats of physics, given your state,” says Miles. He glances over at me, and I can see he’s not exactly warming up to our new companion.
“Whoa! Where’d you come from?” asks Alexander. His eyes widen in surprise as he notices me, and then a grin of the most unctuous sort affixes to his face. I’ve always hated that expression on a man’s face, and nearly two hundred years of being dead hasn’t softened me.
“I was in a meadow,” I say properly.
“Your apron,” says Phoebe.
“I’m not going to wear it anymore,” I say.
Phoebe smiles and makes some interesting gesture with her fists in the air, which I take to be encouraging.
“You could take off another layer, too,” says Alexander, leering at me.
“Leave her alone,” says Miles.
“Isn’t your costume thing over now?” says Alexander. “Put on your regular clothes. I want to see what you really look like.”
The tone in his voice is possessive and presumptuous. How I long to put him in his place, but that has never been part of my nature.
“Seriously!” he continues. “That black thing just totally hides everything you’ve got going on, doesn’t it?”
“Next subject, please,” says Phoebe. “You know, we need to figure out what happened to you, Alexander.”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “Nothing happened to me. Hey, this is a cool scene.”
He’s looking at the stained glass window on the landing, where the stairs split into two different directions. It’s a battle scene. Two medieval knights fight each other. One is rising up with a sword, while the other is aiming down with a spear.
“Kind of like an old-school video game,” he adds.
“Or old-school life,” says Miles.
Alexander starts laughing, an unpleasantly high-pitched sound. “Check it out!” he says. “Look at this! It’s an X-rated window!”
I have no idea what he means, but Phoebe rolls her eyes at Miles.
“I don’t think they used XXX to mean that in the Middle Ages,” she says.
“Well, duh! There’s only dudes here! And their clothes are on. Those stupid arses.”
“Alexander, you told us you were out in the woods when you saw something that scared you,” says Phoebe flatly. She’s uninterested in Alexander’s line of thought.
“If you want to make it X-rated,” says Alexander, “get some chicks in there in those crazy dresses that push their tits up to their chin—you know the ones I mean? With the crisscrosses up the front? And then get them started.”
I don’t understand all that he’s saying, but I do know the term tits, used only by the most vulgar men. I turn and begin descending the staircase. I won’t stand for that kind of language in my presence.
“Wait! Oh, come on. I’m just kidding,” calls Alexander. “I’m sorry!” But he ruins his apology by instantly saying to Miles in a low voice I’m not expected to hear, “But this is the one I’d really like to see in one of those outfits. Can you picture it?”
I look up at Phoebe, still on the landing. She’s angry, but also half
smiling, I think out of relief that I’m this man’s target instead of her. “Listen,” she says, “we want to hear about your woodland adventures. Who’d you see out there?”
“No clue what you’re talking about,” says Alexander, but I notice the lines of worry around his eyes. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s still scared.
“You got roughed up in the face,” says Miles.
Alexander shrugs. “Tree branches scratched me.” But as soon as he says it, his shrug turns. He leaves his shoulders up near his ears, and his face takes on a wince.
“There was someone there?” prompts Miles.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” says Alexander. “Do you have anything I could drink?”
“Another Sangreçu candidate,” Phoebe mutters.
“There’s nothing here,” says Miles.
Alexander stares at all of us. I can tell he’s on the verge of understanding more, of taking that vital step to knowing that he’s not in the world of the living anymore.
“Screw you guys,” he says. “I’m off.”
And he trudges down the stairs. He’s not using intention. He’s trying to convince himself his body still operates like a body.
I say nothing as he passes me, but take notice of how his eyes rake down my body. Instinctively, I cross my arms across my chest. I feel exposed without my apron, although my black dress certainly provides a decent shield for lustful eyes.
We watch in silence as he exits through the main doors.
“Should we follow him?” asks Phoebe.
Miles shakes his head. “I’m starting to remember stuff about that guy. I actually knew him, sort of. He’s a few years older than me and already off to university. I think he was involved in some kind of a scandal.”
“For what?”
“Treating women badly.” Miles says it briefly, but I know behind those three short words is a world of pain, of women who may never get their lives back on track again.
“What a creep,” says Phoebe.
“Maybe we should follow at a distance,” I suggest. “We don’t have to talk with him, but we should see if he leads us to his grave. Which reminds me that I need to tell you something.”
“You found yours?” Miles is looking at me alertly.
“I did.”
“And?”
“I’m an October 20 child, just like you.”
Phoebe whoops and comes to hug me. “I knew it!” she says.
Miles gives me a lopsided smile that, I have to admit, makes my heart feel lopsided as well. But Miles belongs to Phoebe. I suppress the joy his smile gives me.
“Where was it?” Miles asks.
“A beautiful meadow. It’s a place I’ve haunted quite a bit over the last centuries. In fact, I wasn’t in the manor much until you two called me to you.”
“Any other clues on the stone? Did you have the same emblem Austin has?”
I shake my head. “No. But . . .”
They both wait.
“There’s a reason I’m not in the churchyard with all my family,” I say. “That’s hallowed ground, not permitted for sinners like me.”
Phoebe frowns, but Miles understands instantly. I can tell by the look on his face. “So many others did that,” he says gently.
I nod. “I know. It was practically an epidemic at one time. The Arnaud Servants Disease.”
“I’m sorry,” says Phoebe. She rubs her hand up and down my arm. I bristle a little and step back. Once again, a void opens between us. She and Miles both had lovely lives from what I can tell, with parents who loved them, and comfortable living with enough food to eat. They attended school rather than blacking someone’s hearth with hands so cold I had to blow on them. They were snatched away from their lives, not by choice. Not like me. The manner of my death is another one of those profound differences between us.
“It’s all right,” I say, but I know my tone is cold. I turn away. “I think I’d like to visit the stables. So many memories of Austin are rising up.”
Phoebe says, “Of course,” in a small, hurt voice.
“Be safe,” says Miles. “Come back instantly if something seems amiss.”
“I will,” I say.
I use intention to move to the stables, the dust-drifted barn from where even the horses abandoned the manor. Their stall doors are left ajar. There’s some rotted hay left in Old Jerry’s bin, as I wander into his close quarters to look. Harness and gear still on the wall pegs.
This was the place where Austin worked his magic, soothing the wildness out of the beasts, picking thorns from their frogs, and currying the lather out of their coats. He spoke to them in a voice they liked and responded to, nickering lightly as he did his tasks. I liked watching him at it, his clean white shirt growing translucent with sweat as he worked, his lips full and lush with a whistle for the commands.
I can almost picture him, bending with his rake to clean the stalls, always in motion, a handsome, vital boy who had turned into a man as I knew him. He would punch the ice atop the horses’ water for them on bright cold mornings, and heave the rim against the wall to dash it. It never bothered the horses. They knew his routines. He was an apple bringer and a firm rider whose horses never dared ignore his orders. Sometimes the sight of him coming into the yard from a long ride at a gallop: oh, it could take my heart away. Austin was handsome, so unbelievably open faced and good.
I walk around, looking for some sign, something of his existence on this earth so long ago. I climb the ladder to the hayloft. We kissed here once, but it was too dangerous, too much coming and going, and I didn’t want to get caught on the ladder with my reputation forever ruined.
I climb it now, a mere pretense, since intention could bring me to the top instantly. But I like imagining I feel the rungs under my palms, imagining Austin is at the bottom waiting for me to reach the hayloft before he begins climbing, such a gentleman, as it wouldn’t do to have him below my skirts.
Up in the hayloft, dust is heavy. No sign of him or anyone. No dragon emblems, no secret notes left for me. Bales of hay have turned gray in the years they’ve sat here fermenting.
“Hey,” says a voice behind me, and I jump.
I whirl around. It’s Alexander, his head cresting the floor as he steps from the ladder onto the hayloft.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“Just looking,” I say. “Actually, I was just about to go.”
“Don’t go,” he says. “We should talk.”
“Oh, I think I must be on my way, but thank you all the same,” I say. The same words I’ve said many a time when alive, when men plucked at my skirts and tried to tarry with me.
“You’re gorgeous,” he says. “I’m dying to see you with your hair out of that awful braid. You’re taking your job a little too seriously.”
He reaches out and touches it, an appalling intimacy that I cannot countenance. I step backward, but he doesn’t let go.
“Ouch!”
“And that dress . . . my God. People back then had no appreciation for a woman’s body.”
“Let go of my hair!”
Instead, he pulls harder, and I stumble toward him. “Let go of me!” I scream.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” he says. “I’m enjoying this too much.”
Panic rises in me. This is not a good person. His mouth descends on mine, and I taste the bitterness of death on his tongue, fear and tree bark and terror. I twist away from him and he presses closer.
I yank my head sideways, despite the fact he has my braid captured, and elbow him as hard as I can. But it has no impact, and he tightens his other arm around my shoulders. I’m trapped.
“No, no,” I try to scream, but his mouth is on mine and I can’t.
Then I remember what horror has made me forget. I can be anywhere, instantly. I look into his wide, angry eyes and bring myself to Miles.
He and Phoebe are hanging out with her family. Tabby’s watching a show on the television, dressed in her pa
jamas, and her parents are reading different sections of the newspaper.
I arrive with a shriek. Miles is instantly at my side, hands on my shoulders in a comforting grip. “Are you all right?” he asks, wide-eyed.
Phoebe races to me as well. I can see through their reaction how very upset I must appear, but Phoebe’s family is unaware of the drama unfolding right before their unseeing eyes.
“It’s Alexander,” I say. “He cornered me in the stables.”
Phoebe catches my gaze in a sisterly solidarity. Every female knows what it’s like to be in that spot at some time.
“We’re going right back there,” says Miles firmly.
I’m about to resist, so happy to be safe, but realize we do need to take care of Alexander. He’s just one of those ghosts who need to come to grips with his being dead. Then: he’ll disappear. Problem solved.
“All right,” I murmur.
“Take us there,” says Miles.
* * *
Alexander’s already down from the hayloft when we arrive, standing by one of the horse stalls.
“Hey, dick boy,” says Phoebe. “You mess with her again and we’ll do worse to you than what happened in the woods.”
He turns a terrified gaze to us. There are three of us and only one of him.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says.
“When a woman resists your attentions, you don’t press her,” I say.
“You weren’t resisting too hard,” he says, with a half smile aimed at Miles. He’s trying to enlist Miles to his side, males against females.
“Listen, and listen well,” says Miles in a low voice. “If a woman is anything other than completely willing, you back off. I know you got into trouble at university for this, and you’re lucky you didn’t get jail time.”
Alexander rolls his eyes. He’s transitioning from terror to more confidence. He’s no longer on the defensive, happily taking to the offensive side and the security it offers. “Please,” he says. “Do I need an engraved invitation?”
“Pretty much,” says Miles.
“We were being gentle with you before, but now you get the smackdown,” says Phoebe. “Don’t touch Eleanor ever again. And just in case it hasn’t dawned on you: you’re dead.”
Avenged Page 5
