by Tamara Berry
“Now I’ve got you!” I cry and squint to try to make out the features of my captor.
“On the contrary, it would seem I’m the one who has you,” an unperturbable voice drawls in return.
“Oh, geez.” I stomp my foot on top of Nicholas’s, but since I’m not wearing any shoes and I’m still halfway suspended in the air, it does little more than glance off the top of his slipper. “I should have known it was you. Only someone with zero imagination would say the word moan instead of actually moan.”
“Agreed.”
“So why don’t you moan next time?”
“I’d be happy to, but you’ll have to give me more cause than this.” His words are spoken close to my ear, his breath warm where it whispers over the sensitive skin of my neck. “Not much, mind you, but something.”
I can’t decide whether to be more outraged at his speech or at the fact that he’s making it in the same flat monotone he uses when describing the weather, so I stomp on his foot again. This time, I land squarely on one of the bones, and he releases me with a grunt.
A real grunt instead of a verbalization of it, in case you’re wondering.
I fumble to switch on the lamp, but Nicholas beats me to it and flips the overhead light on. The fixture isn’t from IKEA, but it’s also not of recent origin, and the flickering bulb gives the room an eerie quality that isn’t helped by the disarray caused by my flight from bed. The blankets have been cast on the floor, and almost all the contents of the bedside table are scattered in an arc after I toppled it. My clothes, which I didn’t hang up after I took them off to begin my late-night examination of the room, only add to the disheveled look.
Nicholas bends at the waist to pick up one of my scarves—my favorite, actually, a ragged cream-colored silk that was a gift from Winnie on that fateful eighteenth birthday. “Our ghostly apparition, perhaps?”
“Give me that,” I mutter, and yank it from his hand. “You know very well there was no ghostly apparition. Just that bright—Um. Oops. Fern. Hello.”
“Oh, dear. Did you get a visit from Xavier already?” She crosses the threshold to my room in a silk purple robe that flutters around her legs like a pair of wings. Despite it being the middle of the night, every hair on her head is perfectly in place, and her face bears the immaculate sheen of someone whose skin hasn’t touched a pillow.
In other words, she looks like someone who knew she’d have an audience tonight. Noted.
Vivian is close at her heels, much less put-together in a tattered robe with the bottom panel so frayed it’s almost detached from the rest of the fabric. She doesn’t have curlers in her hair to match—I doubt she’s ever used them in her life—but her gray-streaked hair stands up on end in a way that signals she was deep at rest before the noises awoke her.
She laughs as soon as she takes stock of my room. “I guess he was in one of his moods. I haven’t seen this much disarray since last month when we tried the Ouija board. I probably should have warned you, Eleanor—I hope you don’t have one of those in your bag. He doesn’t care for them. He finds them pedantic.”
“That is the first sensible thing I’ve heard from Xavier,” Nicholas says as we stand surveying the mess. “But you’re mistaken if you think this was caused by our friendly spirit. This, I’m afraid, is nothing more than our medium’s attempt at getting out of bed.”
I glare at him through narrowed eyes. “Not all of it.” I rush to pick up my personal effects and, in so doing, notice that the chair I left in the corner has been upturned. Although my arms are full, I manage to point with my foot. “I didn’t push that over getting out of bed. It’s too far away. Xavier must have done it.”
“You didn’t see him do it?”
“I didn’t see anything. There was a flash of light so bright it blinded me. All I could see were stars. Playful, isn’t he?”
“Oh, very,” Vivian says, ignoring Fern’s snort of derision. “I told you—he’s not dangerous at all. These are just the types of games he plays. To get attention, you know. He’s like a child that way.”
I nod knowingly. “Ghosts are, at their cores, primitive beings—they don’t retain all the memories and intellectual capabilities they had as adults, but they know they once had them, which means they often revert back to childhood. That’s why they make such messes of things. It’s like a baby acting out because he can’t communicate his needs.”
“That’s quite the philosophical reasoning for a figment of our collective imagination,” Nicholas says.
“I don’t remember inviting you to our collective,” Vivian points out. “You can have an opinion when you stop treating me like a senile old woman. Until that day, I’ll thank you to remember this is my house.”
“Technically, I believe it belongs to—” Nicholas begins, but Fern cuts him off with a dramatic sigh.
“I wish you’d all stop talking nonsense and get this cleared up so we can go back to bed,” she snaps. “I need my beauty sleep.”
Even though I’m starting to find this late-night conversation of considerable interest, Fern’s word acts as law. She watches with a disdainful lift of her nose as the rest of us return the room to rights. I don’t love the idea of Nicholas and Vivian pawing through my blankets and personal belongings, but there’s no polite way to refuse their offer, so I make do the best I can.
Things appear to be back on track when Cal appears at the door, looking like a bear awakened from hibernation when it was only halfway through. Like his ursine relatives, he’s naked save for the massive amounts of body hair that keep him warm, though he’s had the decency to wrap himself in a blanket before stumbling our way. A delicate pink blanket, which I can only assume came from Fern’s room.
The only noticeable absence is Rachel’s, which I observe with interest. While teenagers have been known to fall into a kind of slumber that rivals that of the dearly departed, it’s unusual that she’d be the only one undisturbed by tonight’s, uh, disturbance.
“What’s all the racket?” Cal roars, creating quite a racket of his own. “There was enough bumping and screaming to wake the dead.”
“That’s because it was the dead,” Vivian informs him, unperturbed by his outburst. If Xavier makes these kinds of appearances on a regular basis, she’s probably used to it. “Xavier has paid Madame Eleanor a visit.”
“Is that all?” Cal asks. “I thought someone had broken into the armory and taken down the pistols, at the very least.”
Still, he’s not without his kindnesses, because even though he’s six feet of burly, hairy, pink-bedspread-covered man, he turns to me and asks if there’s anything he can do before taking himself back to bed.
“No, thank you.” I struggle not to smile. “Unless Xavier returns, I promise to do my best to stay quiet.”
Cal manages to calm Fern by wrapping one edge of the blanket around her shoulders and murmuring something ribald in her ear. At least, I assume it’s ribald based on the way her face flushes a pink shade to match the blanket. Apparently, the angry bear approach is one that works well for her. Then again, I suppose it could also just be the lateness of the hour.
I wouldn’t mind having a word with Nicholas before he retires, but he, too, leaves as soon as I’ve reassured him that I’m not going to fall into a maidenly swoon.
“I’d stay, but it’s late, and it looks as though Fern isn’t the only one who needs her beauty sleep,” he says from the doorway. I open my mouth to express my outrage at the implication—I’d like to see how rested he looks after eight hours on a plane and a welcome like this one—but he forestalls me with a smile. “Do try not to get yourself murdered on the first day, won’t you? I’d like to get at least a partial return on my investment.”
And with that, he takes himself off. There’s no chance for me to ask how he came to my rescue so quickly, or what he meant to say about the ownership of the house, or anything about anything, really. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s making the mystery of this place more mysteri
ous on purpose.
Because he wants the rest of the family to know I’m a fraud? Because he’s genuinely interested in my unbiased opinion? Or, I think—remembering him catching me in the dark, almost as though he’d been inside my room all along—could it be that he, like everyone else under this roof, has something to hide?
Chapter 7
The delicious scent of bacon draws me out of my room the next morning.
To build a true sense of mystery and allure, I try to appear in public only in full medium attire, prepared for ghostly behavior at all times. Mystery and allure, however, have nothing on the pangs of hunger currently spiking through my stomach. I’m still in yesterday’s leggings and camisole, my hair tossed into a single braid down my back, and an oversized sweater thrown over it all as I make my way through the hall.
“Breakfast smells amazing,” I say as I round the corner into the dining room. To my surprise, no one is seated around the table, and there’s not a scrap of food to be found—not even a lump of turnip left over from last night’s dinner.
“That’s odd.” I sniff the air experimentally. All hints of pork products are gone, replaced by the damp chill that lends an earthy scent to most of the house. “I swear, if this is another one of Xavier’s tricks . . .”
I go back to my room, thinking perhaps someone left me a tray and I simply didn’t notice before. But as was the case downstairs, all I encounter is complete and utter desertion. It’s only then that I glance at a grandfather clock and note the time: five-thirty in the morning. It’s an ungodly hour for anyone to be awake, let alone someone who was up most of the night battling a ghost in her room.
Unfortunately, the hunger pangs and exercise have done wonders in waking my body up. As tempting as it would be to dive under the covers and bury my head until noon, I’ll never get back to sleep now.
Since food is still very much on my mind, I decide to go in search of the kitchen. A lot of these old homes retain their original cook spaces on the bottom floor. Following the most logical path I can come up with, I start at the dining room and try to remember which of the three doors Thomas used last night to serve our meal. After a false start in an oversized cleaning closet, I find the right one—dark and dank and in keeping with the rest of the house. A narrow staircase leads directly down, and I can’t help noticing the heavily nailed wooden step about halfway down.
Aha. That must be Thomas’s encounter with the ghost.
I crouch and examine the affixed board. It’s old enough that several decades of wear and tear are visible, but the deeply grooved scratch along one side indicates more recent handling. In fact, the tooth-like marks on the edge could easily have been caused by a crowbar used to lift the boards loose.
Then again, it could also have been caused by a man-of-all-work angrily nailing the board back into place after an accidental near-death experience. I’m not ready to jump to any conclusions just yet.
Since there’s not much more I can glean from a broken step that’s several weeks old, I continue wending my way down the stairs. From the moment I cross the threshold into the tiled kitchen below, I know I’ve found the best spot in the house. Not only has it been updated to fit in, if not the twenty-first century, then at least the twentieth, but a fire is blazing in the open hearth. To complete the picture of modernity, a cheerful and surprisingly talented male voice has broken into a baritone rendition of “Dancing Queen.”
“Thomas?” I call, not wanting to startle the man by appearing out of the blue. Or the black, as seems more apt given the poor lighting in that staircase.
“Benedict,” the man replies in a voice that isn’t Thomas’s.
I’m about to apologize and introduce myself to the new staff member when I realize who I’m talking to. “Nicholas!”
“Ambrose.”
I’m cast into further confusion, but Nicholas pulls a chair out from the heavy wooden table in the middle of the room and waits for me to sit in it. As it appears he has an egg in one hand and a whisk in the other, I comply. He looks very much like a man about to make breakfast.
A cheerful, singing man about to make breakfast. This might be the strangest thing I’ve seen at Castle Hartford yet.
“Have you lost your mind?” I ask.
“Not that I’m aware of. Coffee?”
“Tea, if you don’t mind. Who’s Benedict?”
“The patron saint of Europe. And of students, I believe, but I never understood the correlation between the two. Do you take cream or sugar?”
“Just lemon. Who’s Ambrose?”
“The patron saint of Milan.”
I accept the teacup he holds out to me. It smells heavenly, some kind of bergamot blend I’m sure doesn’t come out of a box. Trust the eccentric millionaires of England to serve pig slop for dinner and the most divine tea to accompany it. These people have strange priorities.
And strange conversations, it would seem. Trying to follow along with Nicholas’s convoluted logic, I ask, “But isn’t Milan in Europe?”
“Last time I checked, yes.”
“So one guy gets to be the patron saint of all Europe, and the other one only gets a city?”
“Seems like a rather unfair division of labor, doesn’t it? Do you want to keep playing?”
Playing what? Mind games?
“Naming saints,” he prods as if I’d spoken aloud. “I assumed, when you walked through the door shouting ‘Thomas’ at me, we were playing a game. I should probably warn you that I had to memorize them all as a young boy. There’s no way you can win.”
I believe him. Religious education has never been something I’ve worried too much about. If he wanted to start naming Victorian spiritualists, however . . .
“Where’s the food you already made?” I ask, glancing around the kitchen for evidence of the bacon. “It smelled amazing. Believe me when I say few things will get me out of bed this early, but pork products always do the trick.”
“Interesting. And what sort of things will get you into bed this early?”
I strongly suspect him of mocking me, so I answer the exact same way he would. “A concussion. Sleeping pills. Possibly a head cold, but it’d have to be a pretty bad one. A medium’s work is rarely done.”
He flashes his deep, rare smile before resuming his cooking. I’m so caught up in watching him—the efficient neatness with which he works, the way his close-fitting sweater hugs his shoulders—that I almost forget he never answered my question.
“Seriously, though. I woke up to the smell of bacon, but when I came down to the dining room, it was empty. Did trays go up to everyone else already? How come you didn’t send me one?”
“Trays?” He tsks gently. “I’m afraid you’re in for quite a bit of disappointment if you think my mother sends breakfast up to her guests. Or if she serves them anything other than cold toast and weak tea. Sometimes, if she’s in a particularly good mood, she’ll make porridge.”
“But I could have sworn I smelled it.”
“Most likely you dreamed it. I suppose there is a chance Cal installed a hot plate in his room—he’s much more intelligent than he looks, our Cal—but he rarely rises this early.”
I continue staring at Nicholas’s broad back as his meaning seeps through the early morning fog of my mind. It’s the way he says our Cal that does it, the heavy mockery back in his voice.
“You think it’s him, don’t you?” I ask. “You think Cal is behind it.”
He pauses in the act of stirring, but it’s a brief pause, so quick I might have imagined it. “I thought we were going to allow you to come to your own conclusions,” he says. “An untainted investigative process, as it were.”
“He’s very rich, isn’t he?” I ask.
“Obscenely so.”
“And he makes his money buying up old English properties and selling them to foreign investors?”
“Which is equally obscene, if you ask me.”
Asking him is precisely what I’m trying to do, but I can rec
ognize evasive tactics when I hear them. “This is an old English property, isn’t it?” I ask.
But it’s no use. Nicholas turns and, with a social smile that doesn’t touch the deep lines of his face, he says, “Ancient.”
The subject is one I’d like to keep pushing, but it’s difficult to care much about work when Nicholas slides an herb omelet onto my plate. The glistening eggs cause my mouth to water and my stomach to rumble a warning that would make Xavier proud. I am in the presence of a gentleman, however, so I wait until he seats himself and accepts half the omelet before I start shoveling it in.
“Oh, God.” A moan escapes my lips. “This is so good. How did you learn to cook like this?”
“Self-preservation.” He cuts a delicate piece off his omelet and chews it thoughtfully. “Hmm. Too much tarragon. That must have been when you distracted me with all your talk of saints. By the way, this meal is under no circumstances to be discussed with my mother or any of her dependents. If she knew me to be capable of feeding myself, she’d put a padlock on the larder or install a family of mice in the pantry.”
My fork stops halfway to my mouth. “You mean she’s starving us on purpose?”
“You didn’t suspect? It’s the oldest trick in the book. Half of the families in this godforsaken county are known for serving deplorable meals and dampening the bedsheets. It’s the only way to dissuade houseguests.”
I shake my head. “She has to know it’ll never work. Cal’s onto her. He slipped me some biscuits before dinner last night.”
“Did he? How fascinating. He must like you.”
I open my mouth to tell him that lots of people like me—present company excluded—but he continues on in his bland way. “My mother likes you, too. She seems to think you’re the real deal.”
“Yes, well. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?” I retort. He doesn’t have to sound so snide about it. As far as Vivian knows, I am the real deal. “Are you really not going to admit you think it’s Cal?”
“No, I am not.” He pats his mouth with a napkin. “You’ll be much more effective if I give you your head, so to speak, and let you make your own way through this investigation. I’m not sure why, to be honest. Call it a feeling.”
