Haunting and Scares Collection

by Rosemary Cullen

  “The inquest came in as death from causes unknown, for nobody liked to cross the Corbetts; they didn’t dare try Geoffrey for murder, but they didn’t want to bury the poor lady--Lucinda, her name was—in unhallowed ground. The maid went straight off from the inquest to stay with her kinfolk and never risked crossing Corbett’s threshold again. They had Lucinda’s funeral quiet like, and that very day Geoffrey Corbett slipped at the top of the stairs and fell and broke his neck. Been drinking, probably; or it might have been suicide done up to look like an accident; or it could even have been someone who mourned Lucinda who gave him a push, and if it was that no one wanted to find it out. They gave Geoffrey a quiet burial too, right next to the poor girl.”

  “What did he look like?” Ida asked.

  “What?”

  “Geoffrey. I... I found a locket in the attic.”

  “I never heard what he looked like. They say she was a lovely little thing with long golden hair—just right for the victim in a ghost story.”

  “How do you know the story?”

  “Everybody does. For a while they had the American tourists in and told the story; the Yanks always like something dramatic...well, no offense, dear, that’s what they said. But when Miss Anthea got the place she put a stop to that.” Annie sighed. “Did her best to stop local kids sneaking in, too.”

  “Sneaking in...”

  “For a dare, to spend the night in the haunted house,” Annie explained. “It seemed easy enough, in the afternoon, while we were planning it. And such a lovely house as it is, too; I used to daydream about it being mine.”

  “You snuck in?”

  “Well, I did, but I didn’t last long. Before midnight I woke up thinking I heard singing from the attic. I didn’t wait around to find out. Emily tried to shame me into staying, but I was scared shameless; hared straight home and was a very good girl for almost a month on the strength of that scare.”

  “Emily—your friend—stayed all night?”

  “Far as I know, she did,” Annie said. “Though maybe she just stayed long enough so I was out of sight and wouldn’t know. I can’t ask now. She’s not right in the head, poor thing; she’s been in a home these thirty-odd years.” Annie shook her head, smiling ruefully at something no one else could see. Then her focus shortened and she looked at Ida.

  “Now I’ve upset you. I didn’t mean...”

  “No, you’ve been very helpful,” Ida said, keeping her voice carefully level. “That explains a lot.”

  Chapter Seven No Breath at All

  Ida turned the story over in her mind as she walked home, as she wrestled the dry mattress back up into the bedroom, as she made supper and washed up the dishes. Annie did seem to have a fancy for the house, and it was possible that she’d made the story up to frighten Ida off. But her concern at the end had seemed genuine. And if sensible Annie had heard voices in the attic, maybe they were really there. At any rate, whatever the problem was, it wasn’t in Ida’s mind.

  Ida noticed, as she thought this over, that there was no voice coming from the attic now. Maybe the ghost just wanted someone to know about it. (Which ghost? she thought. Lucinda’s? Geoffrey presumably wouldn’t want the story told...) Maybe now it would leave her alone. Everything would be normal.

  She repeated that to herself as she set her detective novel down on the bedside table, turned off the lamp, curled under the covers, and sank into sleep like a stone into the sea.

  She came awake completely and abruptly. There had been a noise, she was sure of that. What had it been? She listened carefully. The wind was up again, and the house groaned and creaked the way old houses do, but there was nothing in that to wake her. No, whatever she had heard had been much closer.

  There it was again. Another creaking, coming from inside the house.

  From the stairs. Somebody was on the stairs.

  The prankster, she told herself. I’ll catch them this time. Her nightlight had gone out. She felt for her flashlight on the bedside table. It wasn’t there. She reached for the lamp. It wasn’t there either. The only thing on the table was a heavy ceramic candlestick. She ran a finger up the side of the candle, felt at the wick. The wax on the top was still soft and warm.

  Matches, she thought. If I left a candle on my bedside table, there have to be matches. But she couldn’t find any.

  She didn’t need them. The man who opened the door, who stood looking down at her with a set face and burning blue eyes, gleamed as though bathed in moonlight. The light illumined nothing else.

  “Go away. This isn’t your room any more.” That was what Ida meant to say. But she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She could only stare as he plucked her bathrobe from the chair—

  But it wasn’t her terry-cloth bathrobe, it was something older-fashioned and more elegant; something that belted on--

  He dropped the robe, stretched a short section of the belt between his hands, came slowly, slowly toward the bed. He doesn’t need that, Ida thought, I’m suffocating anyway... He didn’t seem to have noticed that. His eyes were turned in Ida’s direction but she didn’t really think he saw her. His corn-gold hair stirred a little in a wind that Ida couldn’t feel. His mouth was working. His gait was that of a sleepwalker or a stage ghost. Ida had seen a production of Hamlet where the ghost moved like that, advancing on Hamlet, who fell back, gasping--

  “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Ida actually managed to say that aloud.

  There was a loud crack. Not thunder; it didn’t come from the window, but from the direction of the dresser. At the sound the man stopped moving. His image warped, flattened, warped again, like an old film imperfectly recorded and played back. For a moment he grew, until his head touched the twelve-foot ceiling and he loomed over her like a colossus. Then he was gone.

  Ida drew in a ragged breath and groped for the candlestick again. Instead her hand found the base of the bedside lamp. She jerked her hand back in surprise and knocked the flashlight off the bedside table. She could see it on the floor... She could see it, because her night-light was on.

  I was dreaming, Ida told herself. Nothing really happened. It’s only a dream. She switched the lamp on, looked around, reminding herself of how normal everything was. There was her terry-cloth robe. There were her slippers on the floor, and her sweater folded up where she’d left it on top of the dresser.

  On top of the dresser...

  An old-fashioned belt that definitely wasn’t Ida’s lay on the dresser next to her sweater. Its blue and gold colors were softly reflected in the mirror.

  In the mirror, which had cracked right down the middle.

  Ida stood, moving like a sleepwalker herself, and walked over to the mirror. It isn’t a crack, she told herself. It’s just a shadow. She ran her index finger down it. Pulled it back and stuck it in her mouth, tasting blood. It was a crack, all right.

  There was another cracking sound as the locked drawer opened itself and shot out, thudding unpleasantly into Ida’s midriff. Ida swallowed hard and shone the flashlight into the drawer.

  The only thing in it was a little picture on an oval piece of paper. One edge of the oval was ragged as though it had been hurriedly torn off. The picture showed the face of a pale woman with delicate features, hazel eyes and long silver-blonde hair. A pretty little thing. The words came back to Ida in Annie’s voice.

  Breathe, Ida told herself. You’re still all right. She looked in the mirror to repeat the words, to reassure herself.

  But the face that looked back at her from the broken mirror was not her own. The hair piled on top of that head shone silver and gold. The skin was salt-white, the eyes almost colorless in the dim light, and the bloodless lips formed a word: Fear.

  Chapter Eight Where Should This Music Be?

  Ida thought the lips moved again as though to form another word. She turned away at the crack of thunder outside the window. When she looked back she saw her own face, olive skin and wide dark e
yes set in shadows like bruises.

  She was done with sleeping for the night, that was plain. But she didn’t want to hide behind the light and the CD player either. She had been terrified of the pale woman in the mirror, but she missed her too. There had been an entreaty in those eyes, and while she had said Fear, she had said it like a child telling a secret, not like an enemy making a threat; Ida didn’t think she had meant it as a simple command. It wasn’t necessary anyway. Ida couldn’t be much more frightened and stay in her right mind—always presuming, of course, that her right mind was where she was now...

  She set that thought aside. The woman in the mirror—Lucinda, surely it had to be Lucinda—was more afraid than Ida was. She needed...What did she need?

  Ida switched off the bedside lamp. She sat still and quiet while the thunderstorm spent itself and rolled away, while the clouds blew past and the full moon shone out. The word revolved slowly in her mind. Fear. At some point she realized that the word was set to music.

  She knew what to do then. She knew what came after. She stood by the window, facing the mirror where Lucinda, or at least her image, had been. She started the words of the song, to the tune she’d learned when she was sixteen. Her voice was thin with fear, but she got the notes out true.

  “Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun,” she sang,

  “Nor the furious winter’s rages.

  Thou thy worldly task hast done,

  Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.”

  (Was Lucinda home? Had she finished her worldly task? Ida didn’t know. She did know the next bit of the song, so she kept singing.)

  “Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney sweepers, come to dust.”

  When she acted in the park she’d stopped there and let Arviragus take the next verse. Now, of course, she’d have to do it all herself. That was all right. She drew in a deep breath...

  And stopped. Another voice was singing. Not in the attic this time; it was right in the room with her, and its tone was sweet and strong and clear, and an octave higher than Ida’s.

  “Fear no more the frown o’ th’ great,” the voice sang.

  “Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke...”

  The words were the words Ida knew. But the tune, oh, the tune... This wasn’t the simple folk melody Ida had learned first. It wasn’t Leighton’s version, either, or Chapman’s. This was a melody that paused in unexpected places, swooped up, cascaded back down, turned round on itself—it seemed to be looking back over its shoulder at something lost, never valued enough before the losing, and then ahead, to something longed for and never yet seen. Ida was simultaneously sure that she had never heard it before and that she had always known it.

  The verse ended and the voice fell silent. But Ida didn’t think it was gone. Of course, the next line was Guiderius’ to sing. Ida sang it to the new tune, softly and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence.

  “Fear no more the lightning-flash...”

  The voice from the air sang the next line back to her. They alternated two more, and then, as Ida took up the last lines, the voice sang with her, a descant that shimmered and danced. It was a short duet, but when it ended and Ida had to take the next line alone she felt the voice’s absence like the sudden removal of a steadying arm around her shoulders.

  “No exorcisor harm thee,” Ida sang. She tried to fit the new melody to the shortened line, but it wasn’t quite right. She waited for the other voice to take the right tune in the next line.

  But the voice, when it came, was thin like Ida’s own voice when the fear filled her throat, and Ida couldn’t hold the thread of the tune; might not have understood that it was saying “Nor no witchcraft charm thee” if she hadn’t already known it.

  “Ghost unlaid forbear thee,” Ida sang back, throwing her voice out like a lifeline.

  The words, perhaps, were unfortunate. The other voice gave an ugly choking cry and then fell silent.

  “Lucinda!” Ida shouted into the thickening air. “I’m not sending you away! I wanted to help! I...” Her words were no good. She fell back on Shakespeare’s.

  “Nothing ill come near thee!” she sang desperately. A low moaning answered the words. She plunged on. “Quiet consummation have...”

  But there was no quiet. The windows rattled in the wind again, but this time the wind came from inside the house and beat outward, finding no exit.

  It wasn’t coming from inside the bedroom. Ida stopped singing and followed it down the hall and into the box-room, leaning hard into its driving force. It was coming from the attic. She wasn’t sure about climbing the ladder while...

  Something else flew down through the open trap and sailed past Ida’s head. She grabbed it with both hands, and the wind stopped.

  It was a roll of yellowed papers tied with faded blue and yellow ribbons. Ida undid the knots with aching care, carried the roll back to her room—to what must have been Lucinda’s room—and gingerly unfolded the top sheet.

  The writing was still clearly legible.

  FEAR NO MORE THE HEAT O’ TH’ SUN, the writing at the top of the page said. From SONGS OF SHAKESPEARE set to music by LUCINDA CORBETT. The lyrics were set under a precisely drawn musical staff. The notes went to the melody the voice had sung with Ida.

  Ida turned to the second page. The melody for the short lines of the last verse was different again, though it had the same wistful quality as the main melody. Ida sang the first line out, soft and true, and her throat didn’t tighten with fear. This time the voice answered with its lines as clearly and as brightly, and it joined her again in the descant at the end.

  “Quiet consummation have,

  And renowned be thy grave!”

  Chapter Nine All is Mended

  New York, six months later

  The concert hall was full to capacity, but the only sound to be heard was the quiet breathing of the audience and the voice of Ida Ellis. The audience leaned into the music. Their programs lay forgotten in their laps. Before the concert and during the intermission some of them had read the program notes about the composer of the evening’s music, one Lucinda Corbett, a nineteenth-century singer and composer who was murdered before she could give the world many songs.

  Those who were bored, or read quickly, might have noticed the small print saying that one-third of the proceeds from the concert admission would go to the Lucinda Corbett Fund for young women in the performing arts and another third would go to a fund for victims of domestic violence. But while Ida sang their minds were wholly on the music.

  Laughter rippled through the audience as Ida sang, “When icicles hang by the wall...” Not a few concertgoers who were not accustomed to shedding tears in public found themselves weeping when she sang, “Come away, death...” And when she sang, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun...” many of the listeners looked away from Ida and into mornings they remembered. The tunes sounded simple enough (deceptively simple, as Ida had found in the process of learning to sing them), and they were simply sung, a capella and solo, but they reached deep into the minds and hearts of the hearers.

  A swell of applause greeted the ending of “Under the greenwood tree...” Ida breathed slow and deep and put her left hand out a little toward the presence she felt beside her. “Are you ready?” she whispered. She didn’t hear the answer; she felt it, as she might have felt the sun’s presence with closed eyes.

  Ida looked out over the audience and began the evening’s last song.

  “Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun...”

  It was perhaps the loveliest of Lucinda’s tunes, and the audience felt that as Ida sang the first verse. Then the second verse began.

  The audience stared. Ida’s lips weren’t moving, but music poured over them like light and wind, music sung in a voice both new and familiar. Not the voice of Ida.

  Then the voices came together, first in call-and response, then in harmony, Ida’s voice strong and sure on the melody, the other voice dancing around i
t. They were singing “All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee and come to dust...” The words, perhaps, should have been gloomy, and certainly there was sorrow in the music; but there was something else, something that swelled in the space between the voices, sudden as sunrise and solemn as trumpets and light as a leaf on the wind.

  The other voice grew quieter as the fourth verse ended, and only Ida’s voice sang the last lines. “Quiet consummation have, and renowned be thy grave!”

  There was no applause. This had surprised Ida the first time. By now she was used to it. The people in the hall had forgotten that they were an audience, had forgotten how an audience was supposed to behave. They were still islanded in the music.

  Ida didn’t wait for them to remember. She turned and walked backstage, feeling the warmth beside her slowly fade.

  She didn’t know where Lucinda was when she wasn’t at the concert hall. Either she had left Hillcrest House, or she was at ease there. Ida had slept in the house for a month without nightmares after she found the song sheets.

  Annie was now managing the house as a place for performers benefiting from the Lucinda Corbett Fund to stay during workshops or rehearsals, and she’d reported no cause for alarm. Annie was also tending the flowering plants that Ida had set around Lucinda’s grave, which was, if not exactly renowned, at least becoming more widely visited.

  Ida didn’t know, either, where the fear that had squeezed her throat and her mind had gone. She seemed to have left it behind on the night when the mirror cracked. Perhaps it would come again someday. If it did she thought she’d be brave enough to face it. For now she walked out the back door and to her waiting car, smiling a little and still singing under her breath, “Fear no more...”

  THE END

  The Haunting of Primrose House