“She all there?” quipped the sound guy to the electrician outside the dining room.
“Does it matter? Admit it, mate: you’d do her even if she wasn’t.”
This uncouth comment was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Mrs. Lamb’s hackles rose so high that Lamb was worried his mother would topple the ladder on which the electrician stood.
“That’s it! It’s got to be tonight,” the woman declared later that afternoon.
Lamb, who was getting one last polish of the drawing room furniture in before filming would commence, tipped his chin in the general direction of her voice.
“What about the cameras? Is it the wisest idea with all this fancy gear in the house? It’s here to catch evidence of you and your spooky friends, you know.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Lamb pursed his lips, then shook his head. “No’ offhand. I’ll defer to your judgement, then. But whatever you do, be subtle.”
Mrs. Lamb’s image flickered in the corner, just briefly. Her small, pert nose was raised, and she was smoothing down her skirts with both hands.
“I’m always subtle,” she sniffed, and disappeared again. “Besides, I spoke to the countess, and she agrees ’tis high time we took matters into our own hands. Since you’ve clearly shown yourself incapable of making things better for her on your end.”
“And how was I supposed to do that?” Lamb paused in his vigorous polishing. “Besides, if that Highlander is as persistent as you seem to think, what makes you think you can convince him to leave her alone?”
“Convince him?” Mrs. Lamb snorted. “No, my dear lad. It’s her we’re going to have a chat with.”
“Emmie? You’re going to talk to Emmie herself?”
“Indeed I am. We are, the countess and I. Together.”
“Lamb gave a long-suffering sigh, and continued his polishing. “Heaven help the lass if you start talking to her, too. You’ve driven me mad enough as it is.”
It was close to midnight. The farce which Haunted Britain called a ghost hunt had been going on for three hours. The process was a curious mix of start-and-stop filming that, once completed, would be edited into a smooth fifteen minute segment—complete with room for commercial breaks. On camera, the host and her hunting crew were the picture of teamwork, professionalism, and general, all-round paranormal investigative enthusiasm. Off camera… not so much.
Tensions, it would appear, were running high behind the scenes. Elena Seaton-Downs and co-hunter Richard Mowbry were in a snit with each other over who got more on-camera time (apparently Mr. Mowbry had actual paranormal investigative training, and felt deserving of a greater amount of on-screen recognition; Ms. Seaton-Downs objected for obvious reasons). The director, Greg, was in a snit with BBC Two over a recent budget cut, and was taking it out on the station’s on-set representative. And much to the surprise of the entire crew, Camera Man A was in a snit with the show’s dedicated historian, Louise Pembroke, because they’d slept together before Louise admitted to Camera Man A that she was married, and refused to leave her husband for him.
It was almost comical to see the team going from squabbling and bickering children one minute, to close-knit, career-minded colleagues as soon as someone called, “Aaaaannnnd… Action!”
A far cry from the professional academics on the Edinburgh dig crew. A testament to the toxic nature of egos when they got too big for one another.
Emmie listened to the goings on from her seated position at the top of the grand staircase. The house was completely dark, save for whatever intermittent moonlight came through the windows when the rolling clouds permitted it. She was given the all-clear by the director to sit there if she wanted. No cameras had been rigged for this angle, but she had been warned that if she were there when one of the investigators walked by, she risked being picked up on a hand-held. If that happened, the producers would blur her face in editing, but the show could not guarantee they would be able to cut her out completely.
In the drawing room, Elena Seaton-Downs was with Richard Mowbry. They’d had the hand-held cameras on for the last half hour, and had been playing nice all that time.
Since filming had started, the petite, Bambi-eyed host of Haunted Britain was as nerve-gratingly on-form as she was in the other episodes Emmie had seen. The woman expressed an expertly rehearsed amount of fear and excitement at every little sound. Emmie was surprised, however, by how many long gaps there were between each gasp and exclamation of “What was that?” Another product of the editing phase of production, she supposed.
So far, Elena’s jumping and gasping had been at the normal sounds of the house settling down for the night. At one point she shushed the others and whispered, “Do you hear that? Footsteps.” The whole crew fell silent, and listened anxiously to the sound of Lamb climbing the servants’ stairs on his way to bed.
“Right,” she said now to her co-host. “That’s enough of that. Richard, why don’t you and I go into the library and meet up with Brent and Louise. I’ll take Brent down to the kitchen, see if we can’t catch more, and maybe you can take Louise up to the attics.”
“Eh, why don’t you take Louise up to the attics?” Richard shot back. “There are more cameras downstairs, and you know it.”
“You’ll go where I tell you, or you can find a new show.”
“Cut it out, Elena,” sighed Greg from somewhere nearby.
Emmie watched the two investigators stalk out of the parlour—Elena first with chin high—catching Richard’s mumbled “Bitch!” as he followed behind.
Soon they were gone, and the house settled back into silence. It was much better that way, she thought. These people didn’t belong here. The framed and mounted faces of Tullybrae’s lords and ladies agreed. Their painted expressions, slight smiles captured by swirls of cracking oil paint, looked relieved to have been left alone at last.
Fatigue had been creeping over Emmie within the last hour, and was now putting up a valiant fight to overpower her.
“Bedtime,” she whispered, knowing that Cael would hear—though she didn’t need to say it for his benefit. He would follow her regardless. In fact, she was aware that talking to him was the last thing she should be doing. Encouraging not only him, but herself in this madness. It was only serving to perpetuate the very cause of her distress.
Yet the desire to acknowledge him, to reach out to him as he was reaching out to her was compelling. Like a scab that she knew she should leave alone but just couldn’t. No, not a scab. A scab was an annoyance, something ugly and mean and little. This was worse than a scab, more dangerous. It was like an addiction.
Even as this knowledge made her blood run cold, an unbidden thrill ran up her spine. It was a thrill that seemed to have come from Cael—was he pleased to have been acknowledged?
Disturbed by the dichotomy that was warring inside of her, Emmie rose from the top step, and began down the second floor corridor to the servants’ stairs.
A sound from behind made her stop.
It was a little girl’s giggle. The same giggle that had been plaguing her since she arrived at Tullybrae. Only this time it was close. Very close.
“Hello?” Emmie’s voice came out pathetically meek. She winced, and tried again. “Clara? Is that you? Are you trying to get my attention?”
The giggle came again, louder this time. The sound was followed by the creaking of floorboards from further down the hall.
Her synapses were firing on all cylinders. Glancing once behind her to make sure no errant camera had found its way upstairs, Emmie followed the sound down the corridor. A dash of white disappeared in a flutter around the corner at the far end.
“Wait,” Emmie called. “Clara, wait.”
She jogged down the hall, past to door to the servants’ stairs, all the way to the end where the corridor made an L turn into a smaller section of the house.
When she rounded the L, Emmie blinked in surprise. At the end of the smaller hallway, the door to t
he last room on the right stood open. Light was coming from within.
Her first thought was that Haunted Britain’s technicians had rigged a camera in this room, and had forgotten to turn the lights off. They’d opened many rooms that were usually closed, letting out a few decades’ worth of dust in the process. But they’d also mapped out the locations of the mounted cameras, and this room hadn’t been one of them. Plus, Emmie couldn’t conceive that professionals would forget to turn the lights off. With them on, the night-vision cameras would be useless.
“Clara?” she asked again, proceeding warily down the final stretch to the open room. Her voice sounded odd to her own ears. Muted. In fact, everything felt muted, even her own senses.
She came to a halt in the doorway. Inside, there was a table laid out with three cups, three saucers, and a tower of biscuits and sandwiches. Seated in the chair facing the door was a little old lady in a starched black dress.
“Ah, there you are, child.”
Emmie started, not believing what she was seeing. She had been in this room once before. Then, it had held nothing but old steamer trunks with vintage, war-era clothing. It was just one of the many rooms still on her to-do list. But here, now, it was neatly arranged with a serviceable brass bed, not unlike her own upstairs. The single, square window was hung with clean lace curtains, and an armoire and a night table stood at attention on either side.
Inside the room, the air was warm and dry, and smelled distinctly of roses. The light, she realized, was daylight. It streamed in through the closed windows. But it was a strange light, sepia almost. Like the colour was being leached out everything it touched.
Time slowed as Emmie took in the scene. The little old woman waited patiently, giving her the space to adjust to her surroundings.
“Why don’t you come in and have a seat?” she suggested in a thick Scottish tongue. “The countess and I were just having tea.”
“Countess?” Emmie studied the two empty places, confused. Her mind felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Her comprehension, normally so quick, trickled like cold molasses. There was something odd about this, but for the life of her, she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
“Aye, the countess. She’s been eager to meet you. We both have.”
Unable to identify any sound reason why she should not join in, Emmie moved into the room, feeling oddly disjointed. Tentatively, she took the seat across from the little old lady, keeping the second empty place setting between them.
“Tea?”
Without waiting for her to answer, the woman reached a knotted hand, the skin paper-thin and softly wrinkled, and poured dark, searing hot liquid into the cup in front of her. The steam rose up, unusually fragrant. A splash of milk followed, creating swirls of umber and cream.
“Biscuit?” The woman picked up the tray and offered one of the shortbread cookies on top.
“Lamb,” Emmie said, her voice thick. She cleared her throat. “Those look like Lamb’s cookies.”
“My cookies,” the woman corrected fondly. “I’d never tell him so, but that lad does shortbread almost as well as I do.”
Emmie took a tentative bite of her cookie, watching the woman as she did. She was familiar. Reminded her of someone. But her senses were competing with her rational mind, drawing her away from logic and reason towards the more primal sensations of taste and touch. The rich, buttery cookie was like a caress on her tongue; the soft crumble of the texture was deeply satisfying.
“Who are you?” she asked when she was done chewing.
“That’s no’ important, Emmeline. What’s important is you. I think it’s high time the three of us had a wee chat, don’t you?”
Emmie glanced at the empty chair between them. “Three?”
“The countess, here, is quite worried. And so am I. Her ladyship says to tell you that she can only do so much to look after your well-being. You need to make sure you’re looking after yourself. And that means eating well.” The woman nudged the tray forward again, urging Emmie to take another cookie.
“The countess is here.” Emmie said, half question, half statement.
The old woman let out a throaty sound, almost a laugh. “Oh, she’s here. When the roses are here, she’s here. More to the point, your Highlander is no’. He’s always around you, you know. I tell you, it’s bloody hard to look after you when he’s always around. But I told him that he’s to stay away now. That this is for your own good, because he’s causing you a lot of undue stress.”
“You told him that?”
The woman nodded, watching Emmie intently. “He’s very curious to know what’s going on, of course. But he is respecting my request, and he’s staying away. To be honest, I don’t think he realized the effect he was having on you. He never imagined that his determination to reach you, to influence you, would be interpreted as you’ve done. You have experienced a very unique set of circumstances that have left you unusually fragile. And who could blame you? We think we’re clever as adults, don’t we? But really, we have no better grip on the events of our childhood now than we did then.”
A warm tear slid down Emmie’s cheek. What was this woman saying? How did she know all that? Self-pity, acute and raw, dug into her. She winced from the sudden surge of pain.
“What’s this all about?” The woman looked at her with sympathy.
Emmie looked back. She was so familiar. Why couldn’t she place her?
Resigned, she answered, “I think you already know.”
The woman closed her eyes briefly. “I do, love. But why don’t you tell me in your own words?”
Emmie looked at her hands, holding the delicate china cup. When she spoke, her words felt stiff and uncoordinated.
“I can’t get him out of my head,” she said. “Cael. He won’t leave, and I don’t want him to. He wants me to solve the mystery for him. I think he wants me to find out why he died, and I have to find out…”
She trailed off, afraid to keep going with her thoughts.
“But…” the woman prompted.
“But,” she breathed, “it’s become an obsession. I can’t stop. I know that I’m losing control of myself, of who I am. And I know that I should stop. I should tell Cael to leave me alone and never bother me again. In one part of my head, I know I’m strong enough to do it. But in another… I don’t think I am.”
“And that frightens you most of all,” the woman concluded.
Emmie nodded, defeated. “I led my whole life thinking I wasn’t like her. Determined not to be like her. I’m terrified that I was wrong all along. That no matter how hard I try to end up different, I’m still like her. In the end, I’ll lose my way just like she did.”
She stopped then, taken aback by the coherency with which she’d expressed her feelings. Feelings which she’d never before been able to articulate. Just getting her thoughts out like this made her feel a fraction better. She looked at the woman, surprise widening her hazel eyes.
“Your mother. You’re talking about your mother’s substance abuse.”
Emmie closed her eyes, allowing fresh tears to spill freely down her cheeks. “She lost her way. She died because she couldn’t keep a hold of herself.”
“What was it like?” the woman asked gently. “Why don’t you tell me what it was like for you as a child?”
“She was…” Emmie thought briefly. “She was weak. So weak. That sounds so horrible of me to say about my own mother, but that’s how I feel. Even as a child I thought that. I tried so hard, so hard, to make her do better, to make her want to do better. I begged her to bring me to school, to take me herself instead of putting me on the bus, because I knew that she’d go right over to those horrible friends of hers as soon as the bus was gone, and do horrible things to herself. I was four then. Four! And even then I thought that if she just saw the other mothers, just remembered what it was like to be outside and… and normal, that maybe she’d want to try.
“And it wasn’t like she didn’t love me.” She wiped the tears fro
m her face with her sleeve. “It would have been easier if she didn’t care. As young as I was then, I knew that, too. If she never cared about me, if I was just a total mistake that she regretted, I think that would have been better. But she did love me. She loved me so much. She hated what she was doing to me, but still, she was too weak to escape the drugs. To make herself better.”
She fell silent then, feeling surprisingly unburdened. She’d never spoken those thoughts aloud before. Never even thought them from start to finish that way. She’d buried her feelings, convinced herself that they didn’t exist. But they’d been there all along, and had not lost one ounce of potency in all these years.
The woman across from her was looking at her with complete understanding. Not pity, which she feared would happen. Compassion.
“She sent me to live with my grandmother when I was five. My grandmother was in no position to take care of a child, but she tried for my mother’s sake. Not long after, we found out my mom died.”
“An overdose.”
“Died while shooting up in her car. I found out years later that she’d probably been with someone. The police found the passenger side door wide open, but nothing was taken, so it probably wasn’t a robbery. They think whoever was with her bolted as soon as things started to go wrong.”
“That’s a heavy burden for a child to have to bear. Especially for such a sensitive and intuitive child. I can see how something like that could colour your perception as an adult. But Emmeline, there’s something you’re no’ taking into account here. Your mother had far greater problems than you know. Her drug addiction was only a symptom of a larger set of issues.”
“Like what?” Emmie felt small, child-like. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what the woman had to say, just as she wasn’t sure she could handle not hearing it.
“Your mother, child, suffered from mental illness. Were you aware?”
Dumbfounded, Emmie shook her head. Was it true?
The Ghosts of Tullybrae House Page 17