by Nita Round
“I know it’s not my business, but you’re drinking with rather more determination than usual.”
“I don’t care,” Emma answered.
“All right.” Maggie pulled her chair closer to Emma, “You didn’t want to talk about anything earlier, but do you want to talk now?”
“About what?”
“About whatever is bothering you.”
Emma stared away for a moment, but looked back when Maggie reached across the distance between them and her hand covered Emma’s. Emma looked at the long fingers, turned her hand over so they were palm to palm, and sighed. “There is this, and it is so much more than friends.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not sure what it means, or what it should mean,” Emma persisted. “I’m not even sure whether I should.”
“I’m sorry I thought—” Maggie’s face looked a picture of confusion.
“It’s not that,” Emma said and squeezed Maggie’s hands. “That’s not the problem.”
“I’m not sure what you mean now.”
“It means the next time we share a bed I want it to be for more than a cuddle.”
“All right.” Maggie said and sipped at her wine.
“Is that okay?”
“It is probably not the most romantic way to tell a woman you want to be intimate with her, but I’m ever the optimist.”
“Oh Maggie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Well I did, but I’m so distracted, I can’t think.”
“And so what is the problem?”
“My problem is...I think my house is haunted.”
Maggie almost spat her drink out.
“You think I’m silly. I can tell.”
“Not at all, but I think the jump from sleeping together to haunting caught me by surprise.”
Emma stared into the depths of her glass, but she saw nothing except the remains of her wine.
“Tell me why you think there’s a ghost.”
“I didn’t say anything about a ghost.”
“Hauntings always involve ghosts,” Maggie answered with a smug grin on her face. “I know about these things.”
“Do you?”
“Tell me about it,” Maggie prompted.
“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’m not sure I would have believed it.”
“Are you sure you saw a ghost?”
“I am sure I saw something, I think, and it has nothing to do with drinking wine either.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest it was.”
“Good.”
“You should trust me.”
Emma quirked one eyebrow, “Why?”
“Because I care. Besides, if anyone should know about such things, I should. After all, I live in an ancient house, and there are ghosts everywhere.” She stood up and walked to the window, leaned against the stone mullions, and pointed to the dark hills. “The Durrant estates are not extensive, but they are bound, to the north, by two large peaks known for nothing, except the small vein of blue fluorspar running deep underground. Many lifetimes ago, they mined the mountain for the bluestone until not a bit was left. So they mined ever deeper, until one fateful night the mine collapsed and trapped three miners down in the depths. They say the ghosts of those miners can still be seen, toiling in and out of the mine, their lanterns rocking from side to side in the night. So if anyone is going to believe in ghosts, it will be someone like me.”
“Have you seen the ghosts yourself?”
Maggie bit her lip. “Of the mine? No.”
“So you don’t believe me or believe in ghosts.”
“I didn’t say that at all.” But Maggie looked distant and out of reach. “Ghosts are such a complex subject you know. You should come to the library. I’ll show you. I have a pretty impressive collection of books dealing with the subject of ghosts and the paranormal in general.”
“Really?”
“Indeed. It’s been an interest of many of my forebears you know.” She finished off her wine and refilled both glasses. “But that’s for another time maybe, right now, tell me about your haunting.”
Emma drummed her fingers on her thigh until she gathered her thoughts. “It was the pen’s fault. It wanted me to look at a special place inside the bureau and it was most insistent I did so.”
“The pen spoke?” The incredulity in Maggie’s voice unmissable.
“Well not quite. It would have been so much easier if it had. Instead it kept moving from side to side and it got me so upset I locked it in the drawer.”
“Right. Next you’ll say you smacked its arse and sent it to bed without any supper.”
“Don’t be facetious. It’s a fountain pen, not a child.”
“So what happened next?”
“Well, it kept banging away until the sound drove me mad and I let it out. Once it had my attention, it stood on end, waiting for me. Every time I spoke it responded and moved until I understood what it wanted.”
“It wanted something?”
“Yes, and when I did what it wanted the house agreed.”
“So you have a haunted pen and the house is sentient? Do I understand correctly?”
“I think so.” She helped herself to wine and swallowed half of it straight away. “You’re not upset or freaked out by this at all. In fact, it’s almost as though you expected it or something.” Her eyes narrowed. “You know something. I know you do.”
“What do you mean?” Maggie asked, and stared into her glass. No matter how hard Emma tried to look into her eyes, the more determined Maggie seemed to be to avoid her gaze.
“Maggie?” Emma prompted.
“You make it sound as though I am keeping things from you, which is a bit of a stretch.”
“Is it? I feel like I know you better than I know myself.”
“Yet we’ve only met a short while ago.” Maggie said.
“But we aren’t strangers are we Maggie?” Emma said and she squeezed Maggie’s cool fingers.
“No we’re not, but when you talk about weird things, like hauntings, it all seems so confusing. Then you say you have things on your mind, but most of all, I can tell you’re mad at me.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, why are you so mad?” Maggie asked.
Emma stood up, walked to the windows, and stared outside. Why was she so mad?
“Emma? Talk to me.”
When she turned around she stared at Maggie, the anger inside vied with inner sadness. “Because when you hold my hand I feel as though you have always held my hand, and then I never want you to let go.” She smiled, but it was forced. Inside her heart threatened to break. “But I’m not sure you want the same thing, do you?”
“It’s not so simple for me.” Maggie said.
“Isn’t it? I didn’t come here to fall for the bane of my family. I came to see my house and sell it.”
“What do you mean, Emma, ‘bane’?”
“I know about the feud. Is this why you don’t want to get involved with me even when we sit here holding hands?”
“The feud Emma? What do you know?”
“I thought this thing, this feud between Tappers and Durrants, was all a nonsense, but it isn’t, is it?
“You never mentioned anything before.”
“Because I didn’t come here to fall for you Maggie, I came to see where I came from and get ready to go back to where I belong—the city. I wanted to see what the hell Maud meant when she passed the papers to her solicitor for me.”
“And what did it say?”
“Does it matter?” Emma shrugged. “None of it made sense. It was, as I said, a ranting and raving nonsense. A hatred between people over generations is stupid, pointless, and nothing more than the ramblings of some kind of insanity.”
“Maud wasn’t insane.”
“No, but I thought she was, and the bitterness stretched over generations and I thought it looked like a genetic or something, a Tapper madness. They revelled in every Durrant death, you know. I couldn’t understand such
twaddle.” She opened her handbag and waved the documents she had discovered. “And then you never told me about the extent of the animosity between your family and mine. Is that why you back away?”
Maggie looked at the documents. “What are they?”
“It’s a full account of my family, and it fills in the blanks Maud’s book missed out. I’m sure you can guess how it all starts.”
Maggie scowled. “Yes, it all starts with Emily Tapper.” Maggie looked thoughtful. “I’d like to read those if I may.”
“Maggie!”
“What can I say?”
“You can tell me everything you know. I can’t see you being ignorant about such things.”
Maggie’s cheeks flushed. “The animosity between the Tappers and Durrants is well known, but the rest is hearsay. A myth passed down from one Durrant to another.”
“And Maud?”
“Maud kept herself to herself and wouldn’t speak to me or any of my relatives.” Maggie looked away, her gaze so far away Emma thought she was ignoring her. “Maud hated us with a passion. Her and her sister drove my father mad.”
“What do you make of the animosity?”
Maggie pointed at the documents in Emma’s hands. “I think you know so much now, more than I do.”
“Forget this. I want to hear your side of the story, not read some musty old documents.”
The fire grew agitated, hissed and spat a bit of coal at Maggie. “Shhh. Steady,” she whispered and with a pair of blackened tongs, put the coal back into the fire. She smoothed her clothing and wiped the black ash from her trousers.
“I’m sorry Maggie, I am having a tough time. There are so many things to know and I feel lost and helpless. The world, my world, is out of control, and I don’t know what to do.”
Maggie stood up and swept Emma into her arms.
“And then there is you.” Emma stood on tiptoes and kissed Maggie on the lips. “Everything would be better if there was just this, and no other complications.”
“And would it be easier if you thought I was more forthcoming?”
“Maybe.”
Another coal spat out of the fire and landed at Maggie’s feet. She didn’t say a word, but scooped the coal from the rug and threw it back into the fire.
“Today is not—” she began, as several coals jumped out of the fire and no matter where they were they aimed straight at her. She cursed as she batted at the coals closest to her and then put them all back into the fire.
“Are you hurt?“ Emma asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Today is not your lucky day is it?“
Maggie sighed. “You’re right. It isn’t. No luck for a Durrant today.”
“Sounds ominous Maggie.”
“Perhaps it is.” Maggie seemed distant. Troubled even.
“Why today?”
“Today is my birthday—”
“You didn’t tell me.”
Maggie shrugged. “I wanted to spend time with you, today, but I am selfish.”
“Selfish? Maggie why didn’t you say?”
“Today I am thirty years old,” she persisted, “and at some time between today and my next birthday I will die.”
“What? No, Maggie that’s insane.”
Maggie continued without looking at Emma. “Every Durrant first born has died at this same age or before. It is an inviolate fact of our lives, and no matter what, it will be my last year. I cannot change it. No one has ever changed it. And it is why I cannot let you get too close. It would be selfish to hurt you when I know I cannot stay.”
“Maggie!”
“I have never feared this time. It is what it is and it’s as much a part of my life as the Hall itself. Until you came along. Now I have a reason to live. It all seems too futile. I cannot change what will be, and the reason is simple. At least we Durrants think it’s simple.” She shrugged. “We are still paying the price for doing wrong by Emily Tapper.”
Emma looked stricken for a moment, and then she burst out laughing. “Bloody hell Maggie, you sound like Maud herself and all the other Tappers before her. There are no such things as curses Maggie, curses are a gypsy thing to scare the gullible, such things do not happen in the real world.”
“Are you sure, Emma?”
“Of course. You’re pulling my leg. You had me going for a minute.”
“What about haunted houses and pens which sit up and bow?”
Emma cocked her head to one side. “But curses are so dramatic. Like witches and demons, vampires and werewolves, they do not exist.”
“And don’t forget the gothic castle perched on the side of a mountain. You know. Like this one.”
“Now you’re pulling my leg even harder.”
“I suppose this is more neo-gothic,” Maggie continued, “it’s not old enough to qualify for gothic.”
“Looks close enough to me,” Emma said and she looked at Maggie’s blue eyes glinting in the fire light. “And there’s no lightning or fog. Nothing odd.”
“Except the night you arrived.”
“Stop it. Now you’re scaring me. I’ll start looking for bats flying outside.”
“I’m serious,” Maggie said, but they went quiet then and sipped at their wine.
“So this curse is for real then?”
“Yes.” Maggie looked tired, as though she carried the weight of the world upon her shoulders and she had given up trying to carry it.
“I still think it’s nonsense. It has to be.”
Maggie, once proud and tall, now hunched over and appeared diminished somehow. When she looked at Emma, her eyes were so sad. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”
Emma looked, really looked, and the energy and liveliness she associated with Maggie were gone. This was not the Maggie she knew.
“Today I am thirty,” Maggie continued, her voice tired and her shoulders slumped. “I am the first of my line and you’re the last of yours. Coincidence?”
Emma shook her head. “That’s not scary nor coincidence. You are being morbid.”
“Am I?”
“Yes Maggie, what is truly scary is the fact we look like we are the first ones reincarnated. Now that’s spooky.”
Chapter Twenty
EMMA TOOK A deep breath, and wrapped her arms around Maggie’s waist. She held on even when Maggie stood so stiff and did not return the hug.
“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Maggie said and her voice sounded cold and as distant as the peaks.
“What’s not wise? Why?”
“You know already.”
“I don’t know anything, but you seem to know everything, even when you say you don’t.”
“I can’t...we can’t.”
“But why not? Because you’ve convinced yourself you’re going to die?”
“You make it sound as though it’s all in my head.” Maggie grabbed her hand and stopped her talking. “Come upstairs with me, I’ll show you.”
“Show me what?”
Maggie didn’t answer, but now she looked determined, as though action could replace whatever it was she had lost. She didn’t slow as she rushed up the stairs.
“Where are we going?”
“To the east turret,” Maggie said and they marched up to the first floor, along the corridor, passed the room where Emma had stayed, to the door at the end. It was a door like any other door along this corridor, but it didn’t lead to a room. It led to a wide stone staircase. “The stairs are blocked at the bottom,” Maggie said, “I don’t know why.”
Unlike the main stairwell, with its decorative stonework and wood polished until it turned to glass, these steps were plain and functional. There was nothing ornamental to soften the stark stone. Even the walls were plain, lime-washed and without pigmentation, the off-white color looking a little dirty and unloved. Their loud steps echoed through the stairwell as Maggie continued to march onward and now upward.
“Maggie. Slow down, what’s the rush? I can’t keep up with you.”
&
nbsp; Maggie looked at her with distant eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, but even her words seemed lifeless and flat. She didn’t react at all when the distant cry of a baby echoed through the stairs.
“Maggie?” she said as the cry intensified and her steps shuddered to a halt.
“Ignore it,”
“Maggie, it’s a baby! Whose baby is it?”
“No. It’s no baby,” Maggie answered and a cool wind wrapped around the inside of the stairwell. “We need to go now. Keep moving.”
Emma shivered, but she wasn’t sure if it was the drop in temperature, or Maggie’s impersonal and perfunctory demeanour.
“It’s always like this here,” Maggie explained, “always.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will,” Maggie muttered and she continued up.
“Really, Maggie. What is wrong?”
At the stop of the stairs, a solid ironbound door, with huge dark hinges, blocked the way. A lock, all black, metallic and covered in crystals of ice, glinted in the stark glow of the overhead lights.
“It’s icy?” Emma asked.
Maggie said nothing, but rummaged in her pocket, drew out an oversized key and wrapped the handle in a thick wad of linen.
“What a spectacular key.”
“Yes. Genuine seventeenth century. All of it. The key, the lock, and the door.”
“No one is getting through there without an invite.”
“Exactly.”
Emma reached out and the chill of iced wood took the heat from her fingers. “What the hell! It’s frozen?”
“Yes.”
“Why is it so cold Maggie?”
“This door has always been frozen so far as I know. Sometimes it gets worse.”
“How can it get worse, and why?”
“Because it does, Emma. Because it does.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Emma pushed as the temperature dropped several degrees. “And you’re right, it is getting colder.” The walls were so cold they sucked the heat from the stairwell in steamy trails. Goosebumps erupted over Emma’s arms, and she shivered.
“This is why I cannot impose on you. I bring nothing good to anyone who gets close.”
Emma put her hand on Maggie’s arm. “You don’t impose and you’re starting to sound maudlin.”
“And I am justified in all I say and do,” she answered.