Avenged

by Lynn Carthage

  “Try harder!” I shout at her.

  “Gor, we need to send her to ghost-perceiving school!” says Miles. I stop short. How interesting to think that we could train ourselves to do so. When I was alive, I never saw a ghost, but surely they were around me.

  Once again I clamp my hands on either side of her face like a strident lover. “Miss Kate Darrow, I’m your ancestor!”

  “Oh God, I’m feeling it, I’m feeling something,” she whimpers. “I’m scared but I want this so badly.” She doesn’t withdraw but stands there letting my hands brush her cheeks, smoothe her hair.

  “It’s true,” I say an inch from her ear. “I’m here and I’m a ghost.” Miles blows air into her face for good measure. I imagine how this would look to someone who could see the spirit world, two of us accosting her and the confused, terrified, and yet fascinated look on her face.

  “I believe it,” she breathes. “Let go of me while I count to three.”

  I instantly take my hands off her and her eyes go wide. When she reaches four, I again seize her. “Again,” she says. We let go, she counts, we seize. “I’m not alone,” she says wondrously. “I feel you and now I must try to see you.”

  I don’t know how to help her with this one. I can’t make myself more visible. We position ourselves in front of her as if she is taking our photograph. She looks so intently right at me that I begin to laugh at the absurdity.

  “I begin to see a wavering,” she says. “Like when dust motes float through the air.”

  “Thanks,” mutters Miles. “We’re dust to her.”

  “Ashes to ashes,” I remind him.

  “If I look to the side, I think I can see you better,” she says. Miles and I exchange a triumphant glance. She addressed us as “you.” She firmly believes! “It’s like looking at a star,” she continues. “If I look at it straight on, I can’t see it. But if I look to the side, I begin to see the murky outlines of your . . . form. You’re female, aren’t you?”

  “She better be looking at you,” says Miles.

  “Oh my God. Two shapes. There are two of you!” All her courage leaves her and she turns tail and runs. This time she runs full bore and I let her go. I can intention to her when she gets too far.

  She pummels her way down the side of the manor. She’s nearly at her car when Steven flags her down.

  I clamp my hand to my mouth. No. Kate can’t be his next victim.

  “Hello!” he calls. “Are you all right?”

  She slows to a trot. “Oh my,” she says. “I . . . I’m so relieved to see you. I got myself quite scared over there in the cemetery.”

  “This place does have a certain ambiance,” Steven agrees. “But it was all in your head?”

  “I believe so,” she says, gulping down air and laughing in sheer relief.

  “So much for all the counting and the murky female forms,” says Miles. “But I’m sure she would’ve seen my bulging musculature at some point.”

  “How can you joke?” I ask, trembling. “He’s going to hurt her.”

  He blinks. “But it’s broad daylight.”

  Steven walks closer to Kate. “What brought you out here?” he says.

  “Oh dear, this is a terrible way to introduce myself. My name’s Kate Darrow. I’m actually, funnily enough, the descendant of a servant who once worked here at the manor.”

  “Hello,” he says uncertainly.

  I walk up to her and shout into her face, “Get into your car and leave! He’s a bad person!”

  “I heard from my professor that they found swords here on the property,” she answers pertly, without noticing me. “She saw word in the newspaper and rang me. She had been very kind and read an early draft of a book I wrote that mentions the estate, you see. So I drove over right quick. I’m so cheered to learn there’s a family living here now!”

  Steven looks nonplussed.

  “Run, Kate!” I scream into her ear.

  “Hold a bit,” says Miles. “He’s not going to do anything to her right here in the courtyard. Maybe we can learn something.”

  “Oh, I know it’s hard for you to tell that, isn’t it?” says Kate. “The people of the village are never quite as enthusiastic as one might hope, are they? But disregard their frosty airs; I’m sure they’re all delighted to have someone take an interest in the property again!” She’s talking a mile a minute, so thankful to be away from the onslaught of “frosty air” I had given her, and talking to a living human again.

  Steven manages to smile in the midst of this bombastic onslaught. “You’re so kind to take an interest. Unfortunately, the household is shrouded in sadness now, which has overshadowed the excitement about the swords.”

  “Oh dear,” she says. “Am I here at a bad time?”

  “Well, it’s more than just that,” he says. “Several local teens have gone missing.”

  I gasp at his audacity in mentioning it. There’s an unpleasant edge to it, too, as if he is cat and mousing her.

  “Oh!” she says. Her eyebrows lift in surprise.

  “Yes, the police are looking. We’re hopeful the teens are safe somewhere. It’s a large estate, as you know. Perhaps they became lost and are having trouble making their way out.”

  “He’s quite a convincing liar,” comments Miles.

  “We should get Phoebe,” I say. “Oh, Miles, I will not be able to stand it if he starts walking into the woods with her.”

  “Indeed,” she says. “The land holdings here are extraordinarily large. It makes sense that they might’ve lost their way and have only to be found. It’s not too cold at night; they’ll be fine until they’re located.”

  Steven breathes out, a lengthy exhalation.

  “Miss . . . what did you say your name was?”

  “Darrow.”

  “Miss Darrow, since you’ve made your way here with great excitement, I can quickly show you the site, but of course we have to stand at the cordoned limits.”

  “No!” I cry. “Don’t go with him!”

  “Oh shite,” says Miles lowly.

  “I’m so appreciative,” she says. “How astonishing to be able to see the swords in situ from the medieval battle.”

  “Battle?” says Steven. “No, the archeologists have determined that the swords were laid in a ceremonial pattern. No skeletons with them, just the swords.”

  “Get Phoebe,” I say, sick with dread. “Get her so we can get Tabby. Tabby’s the only one we can use.”

  Miles vanishes.

  “What pattern?”

  “A circle.”

  Kate smiles. “How odd the men should all let their weapons go, at the same time. Makes one wonder if they all decided to get new ones at the same time. Sale at the armory!”

  Steven chuckles, an odd sound I haven’t heard much of from him. It sounds artificial. “Well, I’ll show you the site.”

  Kate is an inspired conversationalist after her big scare and babbles all the while as Steven brings her round the side of the manor to the cache. I can’t see Phoebe, Tabby, or their mum; they must’ve gone inside. How awful if they did. If they could just only turn the corner and see Steven with Kate!

  Kate stands at the limits of the yellow tape and strains to see into the archeological pit. “How amazing,” she says. “To think of so many other places all throughout England, where such treasures lie forgotten under the soil.”

  “It is a sobering thought,” says Steven. “And so many of these things simply rot unburied. You say you grew up in Grenshire?”

  I risk leaving him just for a second, to peek back around the side of the manor. No sign of anyone. I bite my lip and fight back tears, returning to stand next to Kate and take her hand. She’s so involved in her discussion with Steven that she doesn’t sense it at all.

  “Please go, please go,” I say in a choked voice.

  I miss a bit of their conversation, but Steven continues questioning her.

  “You mentioned the cold attitude of the villagers. It’s almost as if
they feared us coming across the very cache that we did.”

  She frowns. “How odd. I would think everyone would welcome the brightening of the manor. But I do recall that when I was researching my book there was a wall built across the drive, and I was deeply discouraged from entering the property.”

  “Did you regardless?”

  “No,” she says, smiling. “Bravery is not my strong suit. I relied only on oral histories for the chapter on the manor.”

  “So it is your first time visiting,” says Steven. “Welcome to the place your ancestor once called home. And do you have brothers and sisters?”

  In the midst of my terror, his reasoning registers. Steven knows it’s important to be the firstborn.

  “Many!” emphasizes Kate. “I fall in the middle, where my name gets occasionally forgotten.”

  “I’m sure not,” says Steven. “It’s fortuitous you are here. I’ve been trying to learn more about the manor’s history, despite the locals barking me off.” He pauses. “And just as you have a relationship through ancestry, so, too, do I. I’m an Arnaud come home.”

  I quell my trembling and focus on listening. Miles was right. We can learn from what he tells Kate.

  Her eyes widen. “I had no idea any could still exist. Your family seems the stuff of legend.”

  “It seems my forebears were none too proud of our family name and fled.”

  “Odd, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me the focus of your book.”

  “Well. Please don’t laugh, but my book is a collection of ghost stories from the British Isles. Not At All Resting in Peace. You wouldn’t have heard of it.” She waits, and I see that she wishes he would express knowledge of it. But his head is somewhere else.

  “Do you see ghosts?” His eyes gleam, and the intensity of his desire makes my jaw drop.

  Despite the evil he is capable of, he misses his daughter. He wants to communicate with Phoebe—and Kate Darrow may be the way to do that.

  She blushes. “Well, despite my lifelong fascination with ghosts, I’ve never actually encountered one. At least not in a definitive, no-doubt-about-it kind of way.”

  “But you believe.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Ghosts are here,” says Steven.

  She smiles. “You see them, then?”

  “I’ve seen my daughter. Sometimes her younger sister senses her.” He pauses and I wonder if he’ll explain about the Sangreçu.

  “Your daughter is . . . ?”

  “Yes. Very recently. She was sixteen.”

  “I’m so very, very sorry. I can’t imagine your pain.”

  “My pain is a hundredfold knowing she’s here and I can’t talk with her. Please, won’t you walk around the manor with me and see if you can perceive her?”

  Dread again surges through my body. “No, Kate!” I shout into her ear. “No! No!”

  I see she feels guilty refusing him. She began this interview in excitement for finally seeing the home she’s imagined and written about, and has now been pulled into a darker, sadder duty. “Of course. I’d be honored to. In fact, I oughtn’t say anything in case it was nothing, but before you came outside . . . I could’ve sworn I felt hands upon me. Icy palms upon my face. I was quite terrified, to tell you the truth.”

  “Don’t go with him!” I scream. “Get in your car and go home!”

  “Phoebe wouldn’t do that,” Steven says, frowning. “She wouldn’t try to scare you.”

  “I don’t believe the spirit—if it was one—intended to scare me, but only to convince me. It was extraordinary, really,” she says. “And it scared me.”

  “When our loved ones pass, we are only scared for the realm they inhabit,” says Steven. “My daughter is all right, although confused. She believes she and two others here . . . two other ghosts . . . are intended to fulfill some kind of prophecy.”

  I lower my voice, as if perhaps the hushed intensity might reach her when my shouting doesn’t. “Kate,” I say. “You must leave.”

  “There is a prophecy,” says Kate slowly. “I included only a sentence about it in my book because there wasn’t much to go on. I don’t know the language of the prophecy, only that it has to do with Arthurian legend.”

  Steven puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head in disbelief. “Seriously? That is . . . well, it’s preposterous. And my daughter is female.”

  “There were strong females connected with the Arthur story.”

  “Who?”

  “Guinevere, Morgana, Nimue, to name a few.”

  I tug at her arm, trying to drag her away, but of course it is like pulling at air. “Miles!” I yell. “Come back!”

  “We’re far from Glastonbury Tor,” he says, referring to the place where Camelot was thought to be.

  “True, but there are many other places associated with the legend,” she says. “The castle where the Grail was achieved, the site of the battle where Arthur fell—”

  “These swords,” says Steven, gesturing to them, half buried in the dirt. “Do they have something to do with Arthur?”

  “I’ve no idea,” she says.

  “Then Excalibur would be in there!” Steven says excitedly. “The famous sword he pulled from the stone!”

  “No,” she says. “That was thrown back into the lake, remember? The lady’s hand arose and caught it. But I do wonder . . . if they are arranged in a circle, are they the abandoned weapons of the knights of the Round Table?”

  They stay silently looking at the dull glints of metal.

  “What is my daughter’s role?” he asks quietly.

  Miles is back. “I can’t get her,” he says. I let out a sob. “There’s trouble with her mum. She’s found the—”

  “Kate is so sweet, so vulnerable,” I say. “I can’t stand this.”

  “Listen, there’s a lot going on at once,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “I think Kate will be okay. Steven would be very bold indeed to do something to her right here.”

  “But if he convinces her to start walking,” I say. “Then it’s . . .”

  I run out of words.

  Miles looks at me, and our eyes communicate our incredible helplessness. It’s one thing to meet a ghost after their death, quite another to see the person still living and feel unable to prevent their murder.

  I break the gaze and look down at the swords.

  “Why didn’t they keep digging?” Miles murmurs. “They could find the others.”

  The sounds of the battle worm their way back into my head, growing in volume until I clap my hands against my ears. So much pain. A guttural roar from men who knew if they didn’t kill, they would themselves die. A brutal choice. The clang of metal on metal and then a horrible softer sound as metal found flesh and bone.

  “Look at me,” says Miles suddenly. “It’s different.”

  We stand on a remote grassy plain, nothing but stones and sky surrounding us. Clouds move swiftly, and I fall under the bewitchment of light and shadow capriciously alternating.

  I stare into his face, so very well known to me at one time. I taught him all he knew.

  He was a bewildered child before I trained him. I loved him as a son and fastened his hand around the sword, taught him the birdcalls to bring his falcon swiftly to his side. I cautioned him against usurpers, I hired a man to sip his wine and taste his food for poison. My proudest day was when Arthur regained the throne once stolen from him. I was his champion, his empire builder, his confidant, his rock.

  I hated the hold Guinevere held over him, that foolish, fickle, lovely girl. She came between him and Launcelot, the most pure of men if not for her interference. And she was nothing! Powerless to the extreme, but for that pleasing arrangement of face and figure.

  Tears roll from his eyes. “I know you now,” he says.

  “My guise is greatly changed.”

  “You changed endlessly,” he says. “Why is it any different now? ”

  “My king,” I say. “My beloved, dear king.”r />
  “And you my advisor, Myrddin,” he says.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’ve spent many rainy afternoons at the streaming window, tea in cup, trying to understand what has so compelled me on the topic of ghosts. I believe perhaps it is because they evoke our nostalgia for a life we didn’t live . . . or a life we lived but don’t recall. The Victorian wraith in the forlorn hallway, embittered by her own murder, may simply by her dress and adornments offer an alluring familiarity to me because I, too, once wore such garments.

  —From Not At All Resting in Peace: Ghost Stories of England,

  Scotland, and Wales by Kate Darrow

  My cheek against his shirtfront, and I remember a rougher fabric back then, the cambric spun by the ladies at the fire. What a different world back then. Simple to the extreme. Meat on a spit and rushes on the floor, and stone to keep out the wind. That was all we needed.

  I hover, as he does, in the remembrance of the past and the complexity of today. Sometimes I look down and see my black servant’s gown, and sometimes I see the dyed linen and samite.

  “The day I visited the cottage, when I overheard them say, ‘I believe we are very close to finding mirth and . . .’, I thought there was more to the sentence,” I say. “But it ended in a period. They were saying, ‘We are very close to finding Myrddin.’”

  My ancient Welsh name, pronounced mirth-in. Books, many of them in the library at the Arnaud Manor, with garnet-eyed lions flicking forked tongues in the margins, recorded my name as Merlin.

  “And Phoebe,” he says.

  A world of silence as I contemplate the complicated, centuries-old, devastating guile of that woman. Not Guinevere. No.

  Nimue.

  “It makes sense she drowned in her last life,” he says.

  Yes.

  Perpetually connected with water. One of the ladies of the lake, who sinuously came ashore and with her curls dripping wet, inveigled me. I was undone by the hue of her lips, moist eyes, the vague blue sheen of her skin in certain light. A weird sister from the depths who led me around by my previously dried heart, which she brought to life like a garden after rain. She spoke of the moon’s sitting on the surface like a glowing orb that she would surface through, crowning herself. She had secrets, and she lured mine out of me, like a fisher at the edge with his line cast in. Eagerly I gave her all the power she needed to ensnare me in every possible way.