Haunted (15 page)

“If we can't kill her,” I said slowly. “Maybe we can make her kill herself.”

Miles looked up. He flashed a grin that made Eleanor gasp. Oh dear. I looked at her in dismay. Was she falling for him?

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“An eighteenth-century woman probably doesn't know how to swim,” I said.

Miles's face registered the plaintive knowledge that I had died in the water. Eleanor, however, simply looked reflective.

“She doesn't,” she announced.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

In the town of Grenshire, a local legend talks about
an immortal blood-drinker in the abandoned eighteenth-
century manor house on the outskirts of town. My interest in
the subject is personal, as an ancestor of mine worked in the
home as a lady's maid. Empty for many years, the castlelike
building begs for an official paranormal investigation, but access
isn't easily granted. The story goes that a woman
named Yolande Arnaud . . .

 

—From
Not At All Resting in Peace: Ghost Stories of England,
Scotland and Wales,
by Kate Darrow

“S
he doesn't know how to swim,” continued Eleanor. “She hosted parties on the Grand Canal outside. She wouldn't so much as dip a toe in, although she encouraged others to.”

“So we could somehow get her to water, and . . . well, we can't push her in,” said Miles.

“There's a well in the cellars,” said Eleanor eagerly. “For many years it was the sole source of water for the house.”

I pictured the dank stone well in the vault of the manor and shuddered. “No,” I said. “Something far outside the house's influence. Even the Grand Canal is too close.”

Eleanor closed her eyes, thinking. “It's been so many years,” she said. Suddenly she brightened. “There's a woodland pool an hour's walk away,” she said. “Austin said they used to refresh the horses there after a long ride.”

“Let's look at it,” I said.

She rose to standing and began walking to the door.

“No,” I said. “We can go faster than that.” I smiled at her while Miles explained the concept of moving with intention.

“I see,” she said. “I am willing to try.” She touched her cap as if she expected a big wind would come with our movement.

“You know the place,” I said. “You visualize it, and you bring us there.”

She nodded, and the sides of her mouth downturned for a moment. “To think I've wasted all this time,” she murmured. “I've been stuck in the old ways of thinking about my body. Walking, even if through walls sometimes. Stuck here in this foul place.”

I reached out and hugged her. She stiffened for a moment, then her arms crept around me, too. She sniffed.

“Are you all right?” I asked, pulling back.

She blinked back tears. “I haven't felt another soul in all these years,” she said. “I see the other servants, of course, but we don't talk. We're all on our own miserable courses.”

Miles stepped forward and hugged her, too, and this time I saw her hobnailed boots take a step backward. This was a lot to ask of her: not only shedding her ideas of class, but of gender, too. A male would never touch a female in this way in her era. “It's going to be just fine,” said Miles to her softly. She looked up into his eyes. He smiled, and I watched her melt. Just as with me, her arms stole around his body to return the embrace.

I waited. Did this hug last a little too long?

I wanted to slap myself. This didn't matter. Nothing mattered except saving Tabby.

“To the woodland pool!” I said loudly.

Instantly, we were there.

 

Cobalt water slumbered under a floor of lily pads, so profuse and close together that they nearly hid the water altogether. Many of the lilies proffered a vertical shaft: a bud about to flower. It made the pond seem like a miniature forest.

Around the edges of the water, thick greenery. Trees so overgrown that they were wreaking havoc on themselves, one branch struggling for light beneath the canopy of its brother. A dock, fallen into disrepair, led a short way out into the middle.

I studied the scene.

“The lily pads are good,” said Miles. “They hide the depth.”

I looked at him, wanting to kiss him. He was exactly right!

“I have an idea,” I said. “I'll be right back.”

I took myself back to the Hansel and Gretel door, the part of the house where Madame Arnaud actually lived. I knew from looking through the grate on the roof that this part of the house was furnished, that she spent her days here in relative comfort.

I turned the gray stone that constituted a doorknob. I was in an entrance hall, smaller in scope than the grand entrance of the main wing, but still impressive . . . and filled with color. Somehow furniture hadn't molded here, wasn't furred with dust. There were all kinds of sofas for guests to sit upon and remove their outerwear, to hand over to a maid. Little tables to hold the glass of wine offered upon arrival.

I went to the window, covered with powder blue curtains embroidered with gold thread in a fleur-de-lis pattern. I pulled.

Noise from behind me.

I whirled around.

Nothing there.

Nothing I could
see
.

I thought of something horrible. I knew Madame Arnaud preferred children as young as possible, to imbibe their futures. I knew she often chose babies. I had never seen a baby ghost, perhaps because they were all here in this wing of the house where they'd died.

Adrenaline surged through my body. This wing must be filled with babies, crawling on the floors, or maybe even too young to do
that,
unaware that they had died. Thank God I had never been inside this part of the house before I understood that I was dead. I don't think I could bear that sight. Yet . . . I knew they were here.

I turned back around and tugged at the curtain in earnest. I needed it. I had to release those babies.

Another noise.

Was Madame Arnaud behind me? All I had to do was get this curtain down and return to the pond. She wouldn't be able to follow me; she couldn't travel as I did. The one benefit to being dead.

The curtain rod above me squealed with the pressure, and I leapt, using all my body weight to pull down the fabric. The rod broke, and the curtains came to the ground, pooling into elegant ripples.

“Whatever are you doing?” came her voice. Ice formed all over my back. I bent to release the curtains from the rod.
She can't hurt you,
I told myself.
You tried to touch her once, and your hands went through her. You'll be fine.

The rod was heavy, and the curtains so massive that I fought to pull them off the end.

“I asked you a question.” She was only a few yards behind me now.

Now I had lost the rod within the volume of fabric. I continued to yank, but wasn't sure I was pulling in the right direction. I stepped to the side, and the curtains came with me. Were they free, though? I threw the handful to the side and grabbed a new section to pull.

“My dear.”

She had whispered in my ear. I could see her in my peripheral vision, black hair in an extravagant concoction, piled atop her head à la Marie Antoinette. The jewels around her neck caught a wink of sunlight from the now-bared window and momentarily blinded me.

I froze.

“A common thief, taking my curtains,” she said. “But you may have them. In exchange for something, of course.”

Her voice was so foreign, her English spoken with an overtone of ancientness, of French, of something else. The curtains fell from my hands.

“I have told you already what I desire,” she said. “A new child.”

I nodded.

“Oh please,” she whispered. “Something good. With fat, ruddy cheeks. I want to see blood in its face.”

I nodded again.

“Look at me,” she commanded.

I closed my eyes.

“You couldn't touch your sister,” she continued. “You couldn't touch
me
. But look at you, pulling down festoons of curtains. Touch a child for me. Bring a child to me. And I will let your sister go.”

“Forever?” I said.

“Of course,” she whispered.

“All right,” I said. My eyes still closed, I listened as she left, those skirts rustling as they had in the hallway the night she had drunk from my sister.

When I opened my eyes, the curtains lay folded in a neat pile at my feet.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

The
Grenshire Argus
announces the death of Miss Maud Pike,
aged 18, on the 15th of August. Well-loved by her family, Miss
Pike recently undertook employment in the kitchens of the
Arnaud Manor. She returned home for her Sunday visit, and
evidenced a distressed demeanor. The next morning as her
brother readied the carriage to return her, he found her in the
family barn, hanged. She is survived by her mother, Mrs.
Elizabeth Pike, and her three siblings, Jack, Michael, and
Sampson. Services will be held at St. Augustine Parish
at 2 o'clock tomorrow.

 

—Grenshire Argus
obituary, August 16, 1842

T
hat night, we retired to Tabby's room to talk over our plans. We knew none of us were eligible for sleep, and this way I could keep an eye on my sleeping sister. In the dim glow of her night-light, we sat in a circle on the floor and rehearsed the strategy.

“You and Miles should hide in the trees along the far side of the pond,” I said.

“Whatever for?” asked Eleanor.

I steeled myself to not react as if she were stupid. It was like Miles had said: the working class of the 1800s was not educated.

“So that Madame Arnaud can't see you,” I said.

She laughed. “She can't see us!” she said. “She's never seen any of the servants, nor any of the children.” She glanced over at Miles. They shared a look, and I knew they had been talking about me while I was away fetching the curtains.

“I don't see the resemblance,” I said flatly. “She has black hair, mine is auburn.”

“It's in your facial structure and your eyes,” said Miles.

“Don't you see it's the only explanation that makes sense?” Eleanor said gently. “You can touch the things of this house, because they're yours by inheritance. She can see you—and only you—because you're of her line.”

“My real father is Don Irving,” I said. “He lives in Phoenix and
he
has auburn hair. Steven is my stepfather.”

“Your mom's hair is auburn, too,” said Miles softly.

“Look—what does it matter? What if Steven was my real dad?”

“It matters a lot,” said Eleanor. “You're the eldest. If you hadn't died, you would be heir.”

I snorted. “This clunky barfhouse would be mine?” But I realized she was serious.

“It also means you have a very special relationship to Madame Arnaud.”

I looked over at Tabby, slumbering slightly above my eye level in her crib. Not my half sister, but my real sister? Steven had been on the scene
very
soon after my parents divorced. Was it at all possible he had been in Mom's life for years already at that point—truly my father?

“This is really weird for me right now,” I mumbled.

Miles leaned over and nudged my shoulder, knocking me off balance. Eleanor looked horrified as I fell to my elbow; males and females didn't behave this way in her day. “Let's see,” he said. “You found out you were dead, that your house has ghosts and an immortal blood-drinker, that your sister is being stalked, and for a while you thought you were crazy. Weird is your world, baby.”

I didn't get up, but stayed there half perched. I laughed. “Oh my God,” I said. “Weird doesn't even begin to describe it.”

We held each other's gaze as we laughed for what seemed like twenty minutes. After a while, Eleanor joined in with a tentative giggle. I collapsed fully onto my back and let myself roar. My diaphragm started to hurt from laughing so hard.

“And we don't even know what comes next,” I said.

We all abruptly stopped.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

Elsie Harlow, 32, who recently relocated to Grenshire from her
native London to take up service at the Arnaud Manor, is dead
by her own hand this 30th June. Little is known of her, and the
constabulary request assistance with determining next of
kin for notification.

 

—Grenshire Argus
, July 1, 1856

I
was looking for Madame Arnaud. I climbed luxurious, curving stairs in her wing of the house. I passed the statue of a lion on the landing, roaring and clawing the air in some fit of marble pique. On one landing, a coat of arms showed three gold crowns on a field of blue.

Servants passed me, some aggrieved, one who gave me a wink. “We should've helped them,” I heard the whisper going round. “Why did we do nothing?”

I walked down the hall, stopping to look in each door. These were the kind of rooms I'd dreamed about as a girl: made for royalty, with enormous canopy beds and marble fireplaces with shepherdess figurines cavorting on the mantel, and overstuffed armchairs to sit and read in. Candelabra sat atop carved cabinets to hold all one's delicious princess belongings.

Eleanor had told me Madame Arnaud's chambers were on the second floor, and had instructed me which door to look for. Murals covered the walls, 1700s men and women frolicking at a picnic, winding flirtatious hands around the rope of a swing hung from a tree, skirts and hat ribbons flouncing. Their cheeks were red from wine drinking and their painted smiles were greedy. Remembering that Miles thought Madame Arnaud modeled the back lawns after Versailles, I wondered if they were the nobles of that famous palace, who never worked and only played—knowing bread and cakes would always be provided by someone else's labor. Every few feet, glossy white doors interrupted their revels.

A girl, probably seven, crouched in one of these doorways, holding her arm with a cross expression. As I walked past, I noticed the thin line of gray blood seeping from under her hand. “It hurt,” she whimpered to me.

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I'll get her back for you.”

An Americanism she didn't understand?

“I mean, I'll make her pay,” I amended.

She grinned up at me, and I winced to think that her family had been deprived of that sunshine.

I found Madame Arnaud's door, with her initials YA created in serpentine iron on the front. I knocked.

“Entrez,”
she called.

I walked into an abattoir, a slaughterhouse. That's what it looked like anyway: red walls, red curtains, red Moorish carpets overlapping each other.

“Here you are,” she purred. “Just when I was getting thirsty.”

She sat in an armchair, tall as a throne. It was the healthy, beautiful version of Madame Arnaud. She was striking, with jewels sparkling in her dark hair. Her skin pale as muslin, her eyebrows dramatic arches above the wet slickery of her eyes.

“I have someone for you,” I said.

“Tell me.”

My attention was diverted by the table next to her. On it, the silver straw reposed on a tray, with a glint of light hitting it and creating a sparkle of luminosity.

It was a piece of artistry—the silversmith had made something beautiful out of something gruesome. The terminus of the straw was sharpened, like an old-fashioned pen nib, and a simple cylinder stretched out of the tip. But the portion closest to the drinker, to Madame Arnaud's lips . . . that was designed with fetching swirls of rococo flourishes, curled in upon itself, then flaring out in an asymmetric flurry.

I had seen it before, of course, but had suppressed that memory.

She surveyed my face. “Who do you have for me?” she prompted.

“A girl of seven,” I said. “I couldn't find younger. She's robust and quite plump.”

I waited for her to ask me her name. Eleanor had chosen it. My experience from my creative writing class was put to use in creating this phantom victim, but Eleanor had insisted on naming her.

“How did you procure her?”

“I told her about the organ, of course.” Madame Arnaud would understand this reason, as she herself had used it. But no child today would care about playing an organ, nor necessarily know what one was.

“She's from the village?”

“Yes. I walked her here.”

“Well, bring her in!”

I hesitated. “I had to leave her outside. I built a trap for her.”

Madame Arnaud stared at me. For an unnerving second, I thought she saw through the plot.

“How resourceful of you,” she said. “It is too blatant for my taste; I prefer promises of sweet things and favors so that they will come willingly, but I give you credit for ensuring her compliance.”

I nodded.

“You're afraid if you open the trap, she will run?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She sighed. “In the old days, any manner of servants would be available to fetch her.”

“I think it best if you come with me,” I said.

“Is it far?”

“It's very far,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

She pulled up her skirts and showed me the fragile slippers seemingly made of tissue. “Bring me the brown ones,” she said imperiously, pointing toward her wardrobe.

I was tempted to say, “I'm not your lady's maid,” but I wanted her to accompany me. I went over to the large wooden wardrobe and opened it. Inside rows of shoes stood, toes pointed out. Only one pair was brown, leather with stripes of fur that appeared to be fox, and they were indeed sturdier.

I brought them to her. She refused to take them, merely sat with her skirts pulled up. I knelt at her feet and exchanged the shoes for her. Her bare feet were horrible, thin, pallor-less. The veins, carrying too much blood, rose bloated and prominent from her skin.

“Fine, then,” she said. “Do I need a wrap?”

“No,” I said. “The winds have died down.”

As we tried to leave the chamber, her door wouldn't open.
It's the house,
I thought.
It knows somehow.

I stepped aside. “Can you open this?” I asked her.

She stood with one arm straight up, curved at the elbow, and made a motion with her fist. The door immediately opened, with such force that it banged into the wall. She glanced at me to see my reaction. I kept my face bland, although I was screaming inside.

The walk to the pond was an hour, Eleanor had told us, but it seemed like minutes, as we drifted through copse after copse and forlorn meadow after abandoned field. I almost thought Madame Arnaud was gliding, as I glanced back at her once.

Soon enough, I could see the pond ahead of us. “Ah, the site of some of my trickery,” she said.

I whirled around to see a sly smile on her face. My heart began to pound. Did she know it was also the site of
my
trickery?

“She's there,” I blurted out, pointing.

Sitting at the end of the dock, there was a cage I'd created out of branches and tree-fall. Inside it, the figure of a girl slumped. She was made of those thick curtains artfully arranged. I had worried Madame Arnaud would recognize the print, so I'd dyed them by soaking them in the murk and mud by the water's edge.

Madame Arnaud inhaled, and I was reminded of Steven's face when he would stick his nose into a wineglass and inhale.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Nothing?”

“I don't smell her. All I can smell is this terrible brackish water. It's disgusting.”

“Well, she's yours.” I couldn't believe I had said something so horrible. I turned to Miles in tacit apology. He gave me a kindly look. He and Eleanor were standing there guarding the faux girl in a cage, although there was nothing they could do. They couldn't touch her.

Together Madame Arnaud and I walked down the dock. I'd created a large hole in its flooring, then covered it up with lily pads to look like they had just drifted over from the water. It was a low-lying dock, and water touched its edges.

I could scarcely breathe as Madame Arnaud walked closer to the cage. “Why did you trap her here?” she turned her head to ask. “Such a strange—”

She fell through the hole, just as she was supposed to. There was a tremendous splash, and water plunged up to set the cage rocking. She was simply gone. I rushed to the hole and peered down. I couldn't see her, but the water was dark. We waited.

“Oh my sweet Savior!” said Eleanor. “That was too easy.”

“I know,” said Miles. “Is she playing with us?” His face was paler than usual—now that I knew he was dead, his skin had taken on a grayish tint for me—and I saw him looking into the water nervously. I realized Miles had never seen Madame Arnaud before. Her presence as she stood on the dock in her bell-like skirts must have been formidable for someone who was new to the sight.

“What do we do now?” asked Eleanor.

“Wait. Count. No one can hold their breath for more than two or three minutes, especially if not trained.”

I heard a sound that made my heart sink. A splash.

I looked to the right of the dock, where her head appeared. Her coiffure was undone and her hair created a pool of ink around her face.

“Help me,” she cried pitifully.

She was struggling to stay afloat, but she had no idea what to do. She flailed, trying to maintain eye contact. She started to say something else, but sank down under the surface.

“What if . . . what if she swims under the lily pads where we can't see, and gets to the shore?” asked Eleanor. “We'd never know.”

I realized she was right. The lily pads had seemed like a tool for us, but they could also be used to Madame Arnaud's advantage.

“I should go down there and make sure she drowns,” I said.

“No, Phoebe!” said Miles adamantly.

“It's okay, I swim really well as long as I don't faint. And I don't think I can faint anymore.”

“I've a better idea,” said Eleanor. “Take a stick and stir the lily pads. We can see her from up here.”

“The water's too dark,” I said, shaking my head.

“I'm not letting you in there,” said Miles.

“
Letting
me?”

“Eleanor's right. If she can get her feet under her, she can creep through here and we'd never see her.”

“Phoebe, please don't go into the water,” pleaded Eleanor.

“Please,” said Miles.

“She can't hurt me,” I said. “She can't even
touch
me.”

“She'll figure something out,” said Miles.

“This is all too easy,” said Eleanor again, worried.

“I want to make sure she dies,” I said. “Do you think if she gets out of here, she'll even
hesitate
to kill Tabby?”

I put my arms together above my head in a pose I hadn't struck in a long time—not since everything had changed—and dived into the water.

An interesting sensation. I could feel the cool of the pond's temperature, but I didn't need to hold my breath. I guess if I thought about it, it had been this way when swimming with Miles, but I just hadn't noticed, wasn't picking up the subtle nuances of life after death.

The water was indeed dark, and I swam below looking for signs of the waterlogged skirts. Above my head lolled the lilies, blocking the light, forming a curved, circular mosaic. For a moment they induced a mild panic: Would it be hard to surface? Would the house's evil knit them closely together so that I wouldn't be able to get through?

I didn't need to surface to breathe, I reminded myself, and I could use intention to be anywhere, anytime. In fact, I hadn't needed to dive into the water. I could've just
been
there.

I turned my head to the side, and there she was. Her pale face like an underwater moon, her body in those flayed, voluminous skirts like black pirate's sails unfurled from the rigging. She was after me.

I floundered backward. She knew I had spelled her doom, and wanted to revenge herself as best she could before her air ran out.

Although I couldn't feel it, she pressed her face to mine. I couldn't move. I had to listen to her litany.

She whispered incantations against my cheek, spiteful charms, monstrous fairy tales uttered into my skin. Her lips were moving, casting spells, damning me. She rained imprecations down on my head, unheard words given to the water, horrible spite and ancient vows long forgotten, old fireside-shadowed hatred.

I tried to swim away, but she came with me. She raised one white finger into the air, signaling me to wait, then she rose to the surface to catch a breath, flailing. She wasn't good at floating, but she was managing.

I had led her to what I thought would be her death. She was in water over her head, and yet she wasn't drowning.

As she descended to me again, her skirts elegantly and slowly turned inside out, like a jellyfish I'd seen long ago in the Monterey aquarium. I couldn't be here. I had to get out. I looked for the supports of the dock, but didn't see them. Instead, I surged toward the deeper part of the woodland pool. Maybe she would follow me.

I swam the breaststroke, but clumsily. What did technique matter? I just wanted to get away from her and whatever spells she was casting.

All of a sudden, looming in the water ahead of me was a massive shape I first took for a gigantic fish. Then I saw it for what it was: the remains of a tree that had been cut down. Its profuse branchwork was like a heart underwater, veins and arteries sprawled across my vision. I swam down to see the cuts of the ax, now furred with algae, that had separated it from the stump, erratic and varied, as if many men had banded together, in panic, to fell the tree.