A Spirited Girl on Cornish Shores

by Laura Briggs

  "You should," he said. "Trust yourself, Maisie. When you're beginning something, there's no one else you can trust, really. Even a friend can't always see what's in your artistic mind."

  "Including a friend whose life ambition is that of trimming hedges and surfing the mild waves of western Cornwall?" I countered.

  "Maybe," he said, with a half-smile. "If you're so eager to take any advice from anybody just because you think their opinion's the answer. If you're not careful, you'll stumble upon someone who talks you out of your dream. They'll persuade you to write something more commercial, or more artistic. Or turn your Annabel into a — a pumpkin, who knows? You won't until you're so far away from your story that you can't see it anymore."

  I stifled a giggle for his pumpkin comment, an obvious spitball suggestion. "And what about editors and mentors and those things?" I retorted. "Don't you think they might be important to budding novelists?"

  "In good time," said Sidney. "But what would it hurt to write a story that's all you at the very beginning, Maisie? And Edgar Allan Poe's, of course," he amended.

  I toyed with the marker in my hand, meant for drawing faces on pumpkins. "Nothing," I admitted. "Only ... I like the traditional path. That's all."

  "If that's what you want," said Sidney, with another shrug. "But I say think about it. Who knows? You might grow to like it — Maisie the novelist, taking the freewheeling path to her novel's end." He cut a shape in the pumpkin's face, a yellow half moon where before only pencil lines curved.

  "It's not as if I'm a dependent writer creatively," I pointed out. "Although I would welcome some outside suggestions, maybe. I'm still looking for inspiration for Annabel Lee's lover, though I am working on a few ideas for him."

  "Are you?" Sidney lifted his eyebrows. "What inspires these possible changes? Any hints?"

  "None that I would share with you," I answered, flicking a pumpkin seed in his direction. "Not yet." I hid my smile from him, though I knew he could see it, judging by his own as he turned his attention back to his work.

  Annabel's lover was a vague figure in the paragraphs Sidney had read, but the latest vision of the character had taken on a certain odd, gentle humor balanced against the melancholy and passion of the poem's narrator. I was trying to decide whether to keep it or to root it out. I knew where it had come from, of course; I just didn't know if it belonged, anymore than I knew if I was right to entertain certain feelings of attraction in real life.

  I colored a wicked face on my pumpkin's orange ribs, as Sidney carved a funny, pointed nose on his own, turning it proudly towards me in demonstration. But, funnily enough, his words about my work and the influence of Alistair Davies tugged at my mental sleeve the whole time, even while we cut triangles and jagged shapes from pumpkin, and decorated green turnip heads with funky 'hair' from discarded carving leftovers.

  Was the Ink and Inspiration prize what really mattered most to me?

  _________________

  "As soon as we are assembled, let us be silent for a time," said Natalie. "I would like silence while I open the channel of communication with the other side. Tonight more than any other time, I want the spirits to reach through without interruption and make contact with us."

  She glanced around the table, politely but solemnly. "There must be no distractions. No attempts to block or inhibit those who would speak. Those of you who doubt — and are skeptics — I would ask you to hold your objections to whatever might be done or said until after the communication ends."

  Last of all, her gaze landed on the earl, who was sitting close by on her right, with Kay between him and the psychic. Briefly, a smile appeared on the psychic's lips, although it was still a serious one. The elderly man shared it, looking eager and alert to begin as Phil obediently lit the candles in the middle of the table before the séance began.

  In this last evening and final séance for the earl's party, he and his guests were gathered once more around the gold parlor's table, with the drapes drawn closed. Molly and I closed the windows ourselves to ensure there were no strings attached to any latch to help any 'ghosts' open it mid-session.

  Mr. Trelawney himself closed the parlor door, then motioned for me to stand in front of its knob, to ensure that it wouldn't be opened by any human means. Molly stood nervously by the lights, while the hotel manager stationed himself near the room's tall windows.

  Everyone was here tonight. Kate the ghost hunter looked particularly keen as she waited for the night's communication to begin: with the permission of the medium, she had set up a small digital recorder to capture any sounds as part of her investigative procedure. I wondered if Sir Nigel was looking for inspiration for his proposed play about a séance, and if the sculptor Ofong was planning to create a special piece of artwork to capture the 'lifting of the veil.'

  Natalie had resumed her usual quiet pose, her hands folded on her lap. A metallic lace shawl of black trimmed the shoulders of her white silk dress, her only departure from her usual choice of attire. She drew several slow, deep breaths. The lights were dim, the candles glittering in the middle of the table like stars ... or like the glowing beams from the eyes of carved pumpkins and gourds, given that this was the eve spirits wandered the earth by tradition.

  It was fitting to have the séance tonight for that reason. I wondered why the earl chose tonight — if it was for the old traditions of the Celts, with no spirits finding Halloween a little too cliché for appearing.

  Natalie opened her eyes. "Someone is here," she said, in a low voice. "Someone to speak to ... Freddy."

  "Livvy?" the earl asked, eagerly.

  "I smell a perfume, like before. And there is a vision of a low table ... a yellow ceramic jar ... a fan folded."

  "Her opera fan." The earl's voice was low. "I teased her about it. Some silly souvenir from a market in Spain." His voice broke a little with these last words, and he stopped speaking again.

  "She wants to be a comforting presence. She wants you to be strong," said Natalie. "It's so important. So important, because ...." The medium grew quiet in mid-sentence. The tension at the table was thickened, suddenly, by a change in the attitude of Natalie herself.

  Something new was part of the atmosphere. I sensed it, even from across the room at the doors, and so did Molly at the windows, and the party gathered around the table, all of whom I could see in the faint candlelight, and the traces of moonlight not fully stifled by the curtains. Maybe it was imagination, for the medium's face by candlelight looked strange and intense, as if she was concentrating hard on some invisible task. The room felt distinctly cooler, although there was no draft from the door behind me, or the windows.

  I shivered a little, though I remembered Natalie's words from before about her powers.

  The medium lifted her gaze. "You didn't have time to answer the postcard I sent you," she said to Kay. "The one from Zimbabwe."

  The earl's daughter looked startled. "What?" she said. She glanced at the other family members. "What is this?"

  "I wrote you twice. I wish there had been time for you to answer my last one. I did miss you, you know," continued the medium. "And Phil. Phil was always so serious. I couldn't write him one ... only a telegram to say I had arrived safely. A strange way to speak to someone for the last time ... on a piece of paper typed by a stranger. It isn't how I wanted it to be."

  "Will," whispered the earl. "Will ... is that you?"

  Both Kay and Phil looked distinctly unsettled; I saw them exchange glances in the candlelight. The medium had fallen silent momentarily, gazing into the candles.

  Phil fixed his sharp gaze on the medium. "Stop this nonsense," he hissed — quietly, but forcefully. There was no reply from the psychic, although the earl's glittering eyes turned immediately to his son with a glare.

  Suddenly, Natalie's chin snapped upwards again, her body rigid. "Our box is still hidden," she said, in an odd, calm voice. "Remember it? All the pieces of the little vase — I was the one who put them deep enough in the hole that n
o one would ever think to look there. What happened was our secret, just us three."

  There was utterly no color left in Kay's face. "No. It can't be," she whispered. "It can't be Will."

  The candles in the middle of the table ruffled, their flames growing stronger, as if a sudden breeze stirred the room, brushing our skin with a cool breath. Phil sucked in a hoarse lungful of air in reply, and looked hollow-eyed — beside him, young Bill's glower of discontent was becoming confused alarm off his relatives' shifting emotions.

  "We've shared so few things, we three ... but I've kept the secrets. I burned your letter, Phil. And Kay ... even though I never understood why, I didn't ask when you needed the keys to my London flat from time to time."

  "It is him." I heard a low moan follow this statement from Kay. The sound of Phil's breath becoming an even harsher rasp.

  "That's impossible." Phil's voice sounded helpless, even muttered under his breath. "Impossible. Will is dead —"

  The window latch rattled behind Molly, who jumped back from the curtains with alarm. The effect of skeletal fingers tapping against its panes, this sound of something natural or the supernatural pushing against it from the outside. Mr. Trelawney crossed the room to part the curtains, revealing no human shape visible in the outside world — no night bird or bat in the moonrise. The candles flickered more violently when darkness returned, even though the curtains were motionless once more.

  Natalie's hand seized the earl's arm. "Listen." Her voice was urgent — and still strange. "Listen to me. Father, don't waste it. Don't let the opportunity pass to use it for good. Please, do what is right — use your privilege for good while there is still time."

  The earl's hand covered the one gripping him. "Is that you, Will?" His voice was husky with emotion, with eagerness; his eyes were bright, and the glittering light in them was tears gathered on the surface. "It's your father — I'm here. I'm listening, I promise."

  Another moan from the earl’s daughter.

  "This is fantastic," whispered Kate the paranormal investigator.

  "Remember," said Natalie. "Please. Father. Remember."

  The psychic's hand loosened its grip. The candles on the table wavered, their flames drawing low suddenly, so that Natalie receded into shadow as she slowly drew backwards in her chair.

  Behind me, the doorknob moved. Its brass touching my fingers as it twisted faintly, and I nearly leaped out of my own skin. With another tremor, the window swung open in the darkness, letting in the night breeze and rising moon as the curtains billowed aside. The white light cast over Natalie seemed eerie; the candles leaped to life once more, dancing beneath the influence of the wind ruffling the pages of an antique book displayed on a stand by the mantel.

  "Will? Is that you?" said the earl, rising a little from his wheelchair, even though Dalton touched his shoulder to stop him. "Don't go yet. Please, don't go, my boy." He lifted a trembling hand towards the window, as the breeze vanished. Kay had seized his other arm to hold him in his chair also.

  "Wait, Will."

  The candles died out, all but one, as the earl sank back in his chair again. The curtains had fallen over the window once more, leaving us in darkness, and the window's latch thudded gently against itself as the panes swung closed.

  "There is no more." Natalie's voice came to us in the quiet. "We are alone now."

  _________________

  After the séance came to its abrupt and weird end, the family and friends of the earl retired for the evening. In the strange solemnity of the post-spirit atmosphere, Molly and I closed the gold parlor for the evening and carried up the bedtime cups of tea and cocoa ... then I was free to change into my red and white cotton print of vintage fashion and my spice-orange jumper and spend the rest of Halloween night as I wanted.

  With a glittery paper owl half-mask on my face, I joined the last stragglers among the village trick-or-treaters, devils and angels, ghosts and witches among them, who were skipping down the lane with bags of sugary treats and candied apples. Windows were aglow with carved pumpkins and turnips, the true Celtic jack-o'-lantern, and the scarecrow in the front garden had taken on a decidedly sinister look in the autumn mists and moonlight, with a raven fastened to one shoulder.

  The entrance to the little stone and lime wash house of the vicar was cheery and bright with candles lighting sinister carved faces or silly grins, and with pale gold wheat and pinkish-red apples forming garlands strung above window and door in great boughs. The housekeeper Mrs. Graves answered the door, a basket of candy tucked beneath her arm, but no costume except for a cardigan studded with some very outrageously-colored knit pompoms.

  "Good evening, dearie," she said. "Come in. There's a bit of a chill tonight, isn't there? But there's plenty of hot punch to warm against it, and a bit of fruitcake on the plate."

  As cheery as Mrs. Hudson herself, the vicar's housekeeper's cooking skills were, however, every bit as terrible as Dean and Sidney had alluded, for the fruitcake was dry and the candied currants and plums studding it were like tiny bits of gravel.

  Paper black cats and pumpkins decorated the little parlor, along with a large jack-o'-lantern in the middle of the table. The vicar's guests were running around in the midst of a game of blind man's bluff under the supervision of a figure in the usual black and white ensemble of a minister, including the clerical collar, although he had doffed his coat and rolled his sleeves at some point during the evening. A noticeably younger minister than was wont to conduct the service in the local church.

  "What are you doing dressed as a vicar?" I asked.

  "What? Is it such a terrible juxtaposition?" Sidney asked. "Granted, I was the devil only a few nights ago, I suppose." His wicked smile reappeared.

  "You look rather fetching, actually," I answered. "As the saying goes, anyway." Minus the fact he was in slight need of a shave, Sidney did look good in this particular costume, though he had paired it incongruously with his ratty old work boots with the mended laces.

  "The vicar's dressed as Mephistopheles, you know."

  "Really?"

  "No," Sidney laughed. "It would raise too many eyebrows among his congregants. But me dressed this way was his idea. He's dressed as a ghost, but no frightening features, sadly. Or rather, he was — he's gone out for a few minutes to speak with someone at the church. Oy — look out for that fender, Peter! To the left now."

  The blind man in office, dressed as a pirate, obediently stopped short of crashing into a protective fireplace screen, and began wandering the opposite way, towards an armchair currently protecting a sheet-covered ghost and a ballerina. I counted three pirates in the crowd total, including one pirate queen.

  "You have your hands full here," I observed. "Do you want me to corral some of your guests or set up a nice wash tub full of water and apples? Or is it the wax and broomsticks thing you prefer?"

  "Already done, and it's the bobbing that won the day — too many parental fears about eye injuries for the other," said Sidney, checking his watch. "We'll start another game when this one finishes. Have a bite to eat first." He lowered his voice. "And not the fruitcake," he added, softly.

  "I learned that lesson the hard way," I whispered back.

  "Did you listen to nothing I taught you in the past?" A mocking reply. "Never eat the fruitcake, never touch the biscuits, and, above all else, never, ever —"

  "— sample the treacle pudding," I finished. "I remember, see?"

  "A good Nos Calan Gwaf to you," said Mrs. Graves, who was passing out a basket of apples now, the big ruby ones that Sidney and I had purchased a few days ago. "Heavens, imagine if the vicar heard me, calling it that?" She shook her head with a laugh. "Might as well call it Mischief Night in that case."

  "Say Allan Night instead," suggested Sidney. "Nothing of pagan ghosts and ghouls in that name."

  "Anyway, have an apple. 'Tis good luck on the day, as the old traditions say — tuck it beneath your pillow tonight, and you'll dream of the man you're to marry." She gave me
a pointed look before she drifted on to the next recipient. Sidney and I exchanged glances, and it was only my best efforts that kept my cheeks from blushing roses.

  "Are you going to do it?" he asked me.

  "Me?" I replied. "I've had plenty of brushes with future predictions to last me a long time, thanks to the earl's medium and her communications 'beyond the veil.'" Eerie predictions, even if they were only the work of a skilled charlatan. The memory of the earl holding on so desperately to the presence of his dead son was almost painful, and whatever nerve permitted the medium to fool him that way seemed heartless and calculating to me.

  "I might try it," said Sidney, giving his own apple a toss. "See if there's any magic left in the old traditions."

  "So you can dream of the man you're going to marry?"

  "Very funny. I think it applies the opposite way as well," said Sidney. "Who said women were the only ones in history with a little curiosity about their romantic future?"

  "I don't like having my future predicted by anyone or anything," I said. "Even a well-meaning piece of fruit." I polished the apple's cheek. "But I'll bet this tastes delicious."

  I was a little afraid of what I might dream if I tucked it under my pillow, frankly — after all, I had been seeing a lot of Sidney these past few days, which might influence my head to turn in a dangerous direction for my common sense.

  "There's something better on the table," said Sidney. "Voila. Just as you like them." He pulled a white napkin off a tray at one end of the party's buffet, revealing a row of sticky caramel apples studded with chopped nuts, their wine-blushed green tops peeking out just where the skewer entered the core.

  "Caramel apples," I said, amazed. "They look perfect — they're just like the ones my mom and I made." I lifted one, then hesitated. "Did Mrs. Graves —?"