The Secrets of Ghosts

by Sarah Painter

  Katie laughed. ‘Actually, you can have sex wherever you like, just don’t use my toothbrush.’

  ‘Shari used your toothbrush?’ Anna wrinkled her nose. ‘Yuck.’

  ‘You have no idea,’ Katie said.

  *

  After a pleasant evening sorting out the kitchen with Anna, making flapjack and singing along to the radio, Katie changed into a dark hoodie and jeans. She wasn’t going to be exactly incognito when she lit the candle, plus the light from the massive full moon, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. All she could do was hope Violet and Henry and the other ghosts were busy and that none of the staff or guests of the hotel were out for a late-night stroll.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Anna caught her on her way out of the door. Katie thought about lying, then decided it would be better if someone knew where she was. Just in case.

  ‘I’ll come,’ Anna said, after she’d explained. ‘Give me a sec.’

  Katie waited while Anna put on trainers and a grey bobbly cardigan over her pyjamas.

  The gardens at The Grange were quiet. The pond looked even bigger and deeper in the moonlight than it did during the day. Katie sat on the wide stone edge furthest from the house and set up her candle. There was a gentle ‘plop’ sound as a fish came to the surface to investigate.

  ‘What’re you hoping to do, again?’ Anna sat cross-legged on the other side of the candle. ‘Can I help?’

  Katie thought. Anger was dangerous, but it would also give a boost of power. ‘Could I hold your hand?’

  Anna smiled. ‘Are you kidding? I’ve been wanting to try this stuff since we met.’

  Katie considered launching into her ‘be careful’ spiel, memorised from the countless times Gwen had delivered it, but then decided she couldn’t be bothered. The way she’d been recently, nothing was going to happen anyway.

  ‘Okay. When I light the candle, I want you to hold my hands either side of it, like this.’ Katie held her arms up to demonstrate. ‘Look into the candle flame and try to relax.’

  ‘Do we chant?’

  ‘Nope,’ Katie said. ‘If it’s going to work it’ll be pretty quick. I might zone out for a bit. Don’t worry about it and don’t wake me up.’

  ‘Right, let’s go.’

  Katie glanced up at the moon, then lit the candle. She held Anna’s hands and tried to relax her mind. She wanted to reach out to the memories that might be held in the hotel. In the grounds. She wanted to know what Violet wasn’t telling her.

  ‘Am I doing it right?’ Anna whispered. Her voice seemed to be coming from far away and Katie found she couldn’t open her mouth to speak. The light of the candle flared until her vision was filled with hot white light. The white light turned to sunlight and Katie felt a release; she couldn’t feel Anna’s hands any more. She was sitting in the same place, but the sun was bouncing off the water, the glare hurting her eyes.

  A man with tremendous mutton-chop whiskers and a waistcoat was standing to her left. Just as she became aware of the sunshine, the birdsong and the thwack of a croquet mallet she realised that the man was talking. Hectoring, really. His voice resolved into words as Katie’s mind adjusted to his speech. ‘You can’t see this man again. I forbid it.’

  Katie looked down at herself. A white sundress with more ruffles than was strictly necessary. Dainty feet in soft silk slippers. Not her feet. She felt a lurch of sickness.

  ‘Daddy, please.’ Katie felt her lips moving, the breath leave her body, but the voice wasn’t hers. It was familiar, though.

  ‘This conversation is at an end. You will not see that man, you will not speak to that man, and, come June twenty-sixth, you will marry Lord Somerset.’

  Her father’s face softened. ‘This is for your own good. You’ll see in time.’ Mutton chops had become her father, suddenly familiar and beloved and infuriating. Then his face darkened as if covered by shadow and the garden scene disappeared to blackness.

  Katie felt the familiar panic take her but a moment later Anna was shaking her. ‘Wake up. Oh, God, wake up.’

  ‘I’m okay.’ She sat up.

  ‘Thank Christ.’ Anna looked white in the moonlight. ‘I thought you’d died or something.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Katie said. She couldn’t stop smiling. ‘I did it.’

  Chapter 22

  Gwen took the canal path, not really holding out any hope that she’d meet Hannah Ash again. Perhaps there’d be a likely looking person who could pass on a message, though. It was early and the sun was welcome, cutting through the cloud and damp of the night. It was clear it would be too hot again soon enough. As always, Gwen’s first thought was how that might affect her chances of baby-making. If Cam was too hot to fancy sex, they could go into the garden. At least End House was secluded.

  Gwen reached the first of a series of locks and paused to watch a boat come through. The person who was opening the lock, winding the mechanism with rapid turns, had green canvas trousers tucked into black wellington boots and a voluminous overcoat. The only sign that this was a woman was the bright red headscarf knotted over short silver-grey hair.

  She said ‘good morning’ in a perfunctory sort of way, then did a double take, looking at Gwen with one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Her voice was pleasant but she turned away without smiling and disappeared into the body of the boat.

  A moment later her head reappeared. ‘Are you coming?’

  Gwen hesitated, then clambered after her.

  Inside, Hannah was at the far end of the boat, putting tea bags into blue enamel mugs. A kettle on the small burner began to whistle.

  The inside of the boat was neat and ingenious. A small cushioned bench ran along a narrow table and a curtain hung at one end, screening off the rest of the living area. The walls were filled with tiny compartments and drawers, which made her feelas if they were standing inside a giant bureau. Gwen felt a stab of nostalgia for Nanette, her beloved van.

  ‘Sit.’ Hannah gestured to the bench. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Gwen looked around the interior, part of her mind planning a canal-boat-themed shadow box.

  ‘You need advice about your niece, I take it?’ Hannah opened a tiny window above the cooker and let the steam in the kitchen escape.

  ‘Did you sense a disturbance in the force or something?’ Gwen said.

  Hannah shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like.’

  ‘She’s communicating with the dead. Spirits.’

  ‘And the problem is?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a path she should be on.’ Gwen accepted the mug of tea and blew lightly on its surface while she tried to marshal her words.

  ‘You’re worried that you brought death into her life?’

  The tea slopped dangerously close to the rim of the mug. ‘Yes.’ And no. Katie had brought Fred back to life. That wasn’t death but it wasn’t necessarily good, either.

  Hannah shook her head. ‘I don’t know about that. Except that it doesn’t matter. What matters is what she does with it now. Is she all right? Coping?’

  ‘She wants to help them.’ Gwen felt herself go warm, thinking about Katie.

  Hannah sat on the bench underneath a porthole-shaped window. ‘There was someone in our family who could talk to ghosts. My mother’s cousin.’

  ‘Could she talk to Katie? Help her?’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘She stepped off this mortal coil. Well…’ Hannah pulled a face. ‘Stepped off a kitchen chair with a rope around her neck, actually.’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Gwen said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m telling you this so that you can warn your niece.’ Hannah looked suddenly very fierce. ‘Tell her that she can’t help them. She mustn’t let them get too close.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not like spells or cures or any of that. The dead aren’t in our world, not really. If you can see ghosts it’s like you’re looking through a window into another reality that’s ju
st really close to ours.’ Hannah gestured to the porthole. ‘You mustn’t let her open that window.’

  ‘What will happen if she does?’ Gwen didn’t know if Katie would even listen to her any more.

  Hannah shrugged. ‘She better be damn sure she can shut it again, that’s all.’

  *

  Katie found Violet in The Plum Suite, staring out of the window with a moody expression. ‘Peace?’ Katie said.

  ‘Only because I haven’t any better options,’ Violet said. She pouted for a moment longer and then gave way, her lips turning up at the corners. As a ghost, Violet was utterly irrepressible. A force of nature. God only knew what she had been like in life. ‘I do have something to show you, though,’ Violet said. ‘Come.’

  Katie followed Violet as she ran along the floor, pausing for a skip or a twirl here and there. She stopped in front of the mahogany wardrobe with its full-length mirror and sighed. ‘I do wish I could see myself.’ Then carried on out of the room and onto, Katie assumed, the balcony. Katie opened the door wider and stepped out onto the tiny area, half expecting Violet to have disappeared. She wondered if Violet could just float into the air if she wanted to, fly around the building like something out of Peter Pan.

  Violet was leaning on the stone balustrade, gazing out into the distance with a thoughtful expression that looked manufactured.

  ‘Can you fly?’ Katie said.

  ‘Why?’ Violet said. ‘Are you going to push me over the edge?’

  ‘No!’ Katie took a step back, keen not to appear threatening. She’d only just got Violet speaking to her again. And she had a favour to ask. ‘I was just wondering. I thought it might be fun. Like a perk.’

  ‘A perk of being dead,’ Violet said. ‘Goodness knows there are precious few of those.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not such an awfully big adventure, after all.’

  Katie smiled. ‘I was just thinking about Peter Pan.’

  ‘Most things aren’t how you expect them to be, though, are they?’ Violet turned and gazed at Katie with a forlorn expression. It was heartbreaking on her pretty, young face. A fact of which Violet was no doubt well aware, but, still, Katie felt her heart squeeze in sympathy.

  ‘What did you want to show me?’ Katie spoke gently. She wanted to put a hand on Violet’s arm, something comforting but didn’t know whether her hand would pass straight through thin air or whether there would be something, some kind of electrical energy, to touch. She didn’t know which would be worse, either.

  ‘Down there.’ Violet indicated the gardens.

  Katie looked at the grounds, the lawn, the hedges and flower beds, the ornamental pond and the red brick wall with the iron gate in the centre that led to the old orchard. The cultivated land stopped after the ha-ha, and beyond there were fields and, in the distance, a copse. It must’ve been the view, more or less, from when Violet lived here with her family, her brothers and sisters, mum and dad. She had just been a girl, not very different from Katie, dreaming of her life to come. Maybe falling in love. ‘What am I looking at?’ Katie said, trying to keep her voice light, trying to fight off the blanket of melancholy that had draped over her shoulders.

  ‘I saw you kissing that man,’ Violet said. ‘There, on the grass. It was quite revolting.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Katie said. ‘Revolting is a bit harsh. Like you never snogged anyone in the garden.’

  ‘What is snogged?’

  ‘Kissed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t do that sort of thing if you’re not married. It gives entirely the wrong impression.’

  ‘Look, I know you come from a different time. More refined. Strict rules. I get that. But if you want me to believe that you never snogged — kissed — a boy, then I’m afraid I reserve my right to disbelieve you. Strongly. Disbelieve. You.’ She waggled her eyebrows suggestively, trying to make Violet laugh and was pleased when she did. She had such a nice laugh. For a ghost.

  Violet slapped a hand over her mouth, which was sweet, too. ‘Very well. I might’ve kissed a boy once. Just once.’

  ‘Once can be enough if the kiss is good enough.’

  ‘Ain’t that the truth, honey.’ Violet put on an American accent, stuck a hand on one hip.

  Katie laughed. ‘I’m glad it was good. Everyone should be kissed really well at least once in their lives.’ She thought of Max. That man had moves.

  Violet’s face had fallen. She was staring out at the garden again. ‘I was in love, once,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Katie said, feeling guilty. ‘You told me to look it up, so I did.’

  ‘That wasn’t in a book,’ Violet said, turning to her. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I used a spell,’ Katie said. ‘I peeked into your past and I saw your dad, really angry about a boy. I’m sorry. It was rude of me.’

  Violet hesitated. It looked as if she was trying to decide whether to get angry or not. Then her shoulders went down a notch and she sighed. ‘I wish I could do spells. How exciting.’

  Katie smothered a smile. The ghost was jealous of magic. Of course. ‘I’m not very good, to be honest. Not like my aunt. This—’ she gestured to Violet ‘—is my special talent. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.’

  ‘You’ll work it out,’ Violet said. ‘You’re awfully clever.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Katie said, surprised.

  ‘Not like me,’ Violet said cheerfully. ‘I’m a complete clot. Daddy always said it was a good thing I was pretty.’

  ‘Did he?’ Katie wished she’d slapped Daddy when she’d had the chance. Perhaps she’d head back into Violet’s past and aim a kick at his shins.

  ‘Who did you love, Violet?’

  ‘There was an archaeologist. He was excavating Silbury Hill, you know, near Avebury? And Mummy and Daddy met him at an event of some kind, I don’t know where, but they made friends. He wasn’t titled, but he had a lot of dough. His father had made a lot up north somewhere, something to do with manufacturing. I didn’t really pay attention. So, he was iffy, you know?’

  ‘Iffy?’

  ‘New money. It wasn’t the sort of thing that was supposed to matter, not after the war and with the depression and all, but it still mattered to a lot of people. Including my dear old parents.’

  ‘And you fell in love with him?’

  ‘Worse.’ Violet pulled a face. ‘His apprentice. I may as well have gone googly-eyed over a footman.’

  ‘Oh,’ Katie said. ‘I keep on forgetting how weird everyone used to be about class.’

  ‘Used to be?’ Violet laughed. ‘How many lower-class people are welcomed into this hotel?’

  ‘That’s not about class, it’s money.’

  ‘My darling girl,’ Violet said, suddenly sounding a lot older than twenty, ‘it’s always been about money.’

  ‘But everyone has the same opportunities, now,’ Katie said, realising as she spoke that this was utter nonsense. She felt embarrassed, suddenly, by the twenty-first century. She ought to have something better to tell Violet. Something superior to compare with the dark ages of the nineteen thirties.

  ‘I was the daughter of a lord, and there were certain expectations. I was expected to play the piano or sing, I was expected to show compassion to animals and the lower orders but to remain above reproach as regards my behaviour, and I was expected to make a good match. Lord Talbot had spoken to Daddy and was going to propose on my birthday. I was going to say “yes” and then I would be parcelled up and moved from this estate to my husband’s in Cornwall.’

  ‘Cornwall’s nice,’ Katie said weakly. The thought of being that powerless made her feel faint.

  Violet gave her a withering look. ‘I was a fool. I thought Daddy would change his mind. I thought he would meet Henry and see how much in love we were and relent. I thought it would be like Top Hat.’

  ‘You loved Henry?’ Katie went very still.

  ‘Yes.’ Violet stared out at the garden. ‘I died loving Henry so I still love Henry. I will always love H
enry.’

  Katie tried to contain her smile. This was it. Her purpose. To reunite the lost lovers. It was romantic; it was beautiful; it was perfect. She was going to give Violet her happy ever after. Well, as close to that as she could get, considering the circumstances.

  Chapter 23

  Katie went to find Max. She wanted to tell him about her success and to have a closer look at the stored junk in the basement. She’d been wondering why Henry was haunting the building when he hadn’t died here, and Gwen had said something about spirits being attached to objects. Perhaps if she found the thing that was keeping Henry here it would help her to connect him to Violet.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ he said, before she could say anything.

  ‘Want to help me play detective?’ Katie said.

  ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  Katie pushed him lightly. ‘Behave yourself,’ she said, ignoring the urge to push him again, just to touch him.

  Henry appeared as they walked past Lost Property. He looked more translucent again, the shelves of boxes clearly visible through his torso.

  ‘Is it me or is it cold in here?’ Max said.

  Katie rubbed her arms and glared at Henry. ‘Very.’

  ‘This place is a tip,’ Max said. ‘Has Patrick ever really looked down here?’

  There were a couple of new mattresses, still in plastic wrapping, on the floor with several lampshades perched on top. A vacuum cleaner with a broken handle sat next to a pile of cardboard boxes, and there were mysterious lumps underneath white and dusty sheets and a wall filled with broken chairs, side tables, and a chest of drawers, with half its drawers missing.

  Henry pulled a face and walked close to Max, as if inspecting him. Max shivered. ‘Is that Violet?’

  Katie pushed aside a lampshade and sat on the stack of mattresses. ‘I wanted to talk to you about my periods.’

  Max raised his eyebrows. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Come and sit down.’ Katie patted the mattress next to her and smiled, trying to look inviting but slightly unhinged. She’d bet anything she’d nailed it.