Haunted

by Alexandra Inger

  “What did you do?” I asked breathlessly.

  “She immediately began to apologize profusely and begged me for mercy. She got on her knees and held the book up to me and insisted she was only borrowing it and that she was not a thief. I simply wanted to know if she could read! She looked perplexed for a moment, and then she realized I wasn’t going to punish her and she began falling about my feet thanking me for my charitable nature. I jumped back and away from her and repeated my question; she looked up and said, ‘Yes, sir. I am not so well-born as you, but well enough, and I did have a little schooling before I fell into my present circumstances.’

  “Well, you can imagine that I was amazed. And also entranced. She was such a beauty! Her hair was the color of Indian Ink and her complexion had more of the olive in it than yours, but aside from that you two share a similar aspect and I reckon your eyes were wrought from precisely the same piece of jet.”

  He stood looking at me and his eyes showed a mixture of admiration and melancholy.

  “I eventually wrangled her tale from her. It was a sad one. She was from another duchy and was of modest, but respectable means.” He stopped suddenly and his eyes searched about the room as if he didn’t know where to look. “At that time, if a woman was…violated…it was customary for the perpetrator to marry his victim. My Caterina could not abide such a fate and she fled. She was considered to be a fallen woman, ruined,” he snorted. “Because the court of public opinion said so. You see then, why I empathize with the predicament of the girl down the hall. Public shaming of individuals destroys people and families. Anyway, she fled from her family with nothing but the clothes on her back, assumed a false name, and in short, became a scullery maid in my castle – a position much below her, I might point out, but one that was to her preferable to being wed to a monster. She could read, and indeed had a great passion for it, so one night she stole a candle and came up to wander through the house. She found what she was looking for – the library – and borrowed a few volumes to fill her few idle hours. In fact, she admitted having stolen the candle for the purpose and told me that she would obediently accept any punishment I might want to mete out.” He laughed softly to himself at the memory. “As if I could or would punish someone for a candle! And in service of the search for books!” He shook his head sadly.

  “So let us see: she was modest, self-effacing, independent and enterprising, had a passion for literature, and was breathtakingly beautiful….I would say that there are more than a few similarities.”

  He looked up at me and one side of his mouth curved up into a smile.

  “She sounds amazing. I would have liked to have known her. We would have been friends, I’m sure,” I murmured.

  “The first time I saw you, my heart leapt,” he said quietly as our eyes fell into alignment with one another and bound us.

  “I don’t know, my Catherine, if souls can be reincarnated. Mine was not. And I do not know where the others go. I have never met another one like me. But I tell you truly, from the very depths of my heart and soul, that whether she and you are one, or whether you are nothing to do with her and only yourself, I do love you for you, and not because you are a copy of someone else. Every man in his right mind is besotted by incomparable beauty such as yours, but it is your mind and your intellect and your gentle bearing that knit my soul to yours, now.”

  “I know she was the great love of your life,” I began shyly, “and so, for you, I wish I could be her. I wish I could say I had some feeling, or some memory, or some something that would point to it. I can’t. But I think I can honestly say, that at the very least, we are kindred spirits, she and I. And I am honored that you even find me worthy of her memory.”

  I bowed my head.

  He gently placed his fingers on my chin and tipped my face up to him. I thought he was about to say something, but he stifled the impulse and dropped a light, feathery kiss onto my lips instead.

  “I am weary now, my love. And so must you be,” he said.

  “I am,” I agreed with his suggestion that it was time for sleep. I was actually very eager to put some sleep between me and this night. So we curled up into each other and Stefano stayed with me until I drifted off.

  CHAPTER 19

  I slept very late the next day. Although we had not gone to sleep late, the emotional roller coaster of the night before had quite taken it out of me.

  Ah, the night before. As I emerged from the fog of sleep the argument with Cheryl seeped into my consciousness and my guts were seized with a spasm of dread. I knew I’d have to face her eventually and I wondered when the inevitable confrontation would take place. As much as I wanted to avoid it, I also thought it would be good to get it over with as soon as possible so that I could stop thinking about it. And so I began to get ready to face the day with a sickening mix of dread and anticipation.

  I crept down the hallway to the showers, praying that their door wouldn’t be open. It wasn’t. Thank heavens for small mercies. I was the only one in the shower room: another small mercy. I was able to shower and scuttle back to my room without being detected by another living soul. I pulled on my jeans and a t shirt and made sure to toss my Italian text into my shoulder bag and I was off to meet Chad. Would I encounter any enemies in the common room, or in the elevator? This constant apprehension was going to wear thin and me along with it very soon.

  I made it down to the dining hall without any problems, but Chad wasn’t there yet, so I decided to have a cup of tea and some toast while I waited for him. I couldn’t decide where to sit – if I faced the entryway, we’d see each other immediately, but if I kept my back to the entryway I might avoid a confrontation with Cheryl if she walked in. Or, Cheryl could sneak up and take me by surprise, I realized at the last minute and chose to sit facing the door. But I didn’t go anywhere near the back corner of the room by the big windows, which is where she and Lisa and that crowd preferred to sit.

  Chad arrived rather soon after I had seated myself – another mercy to be thankful for!

  “Sorry! I was famished! I just had a few slices of toast while I waited for you!” I said as he approached the table.

  He grinned. “Good. Did it take the edge off? Because I know of a better place, but it’ll take us a while to get there.”

  I looked at him with question marks in my eyes and he explained, “Town. Let’s go to the little all day breakfast place.”

  “Oh no!” I cried. The words flew out of my mouth before I even had time to think them. “Cheryl and Lisa like to go there on weekends.”

  He frowned. And then his mouth twitched and he said, “To hell with them. I’m not going to let their existence prevent me from eating where I want to, and with who I want to.”

  I drew my breath in and smiled at him. “All right!” I agreed reluctantly, “but if they’re there……”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when and if we come to it,” Chad assured me.

  And we headed out to the parking lot where his car was parked and away we went.

  “Actually, we might get lucky,” I remarked as his car glided along the smooth curves of the country road. “I think Cheryl usually likes to get up and go a bit earlier than this.”

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than a cherry red Porsche came speeding up the road towards us.

  “That’s them!” I cried, as the faces of Cheryl and Lisa blurred past us.

  “Ha ha!” Chad laughed, “What do you think the chances are that she’ll pull a u-turn and follow us back into town?!”

  “Do you think she would?” I gasped laughingly. “Is she really that relentless?”

  “That shameless is more like it!” he sighed. “But I think - I hope I made it pretty clear to her last night that I don’t want her bothering me anymore. So we’ll see. Although she had been drinking quite a bit, so I don’t know if she was even hearing me.”

  “Thanks for saving me last night, by the way,” I said, looking over at him.

  “Saving you? From
what?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

  “I couldn’t drink that drink Trevor made for me. I guess I’ve never developed a taste for alcohol. He was going to shame me into drinking it if you hadn’t intervened.”

  Chad laughed. “Well, in the first place I’d say that not having developed a taste for alcohol is probably a very good thing. Doesn’t seem to me that there’s anything terribly attractive about being the sloppy drunk girl at the party, but you’d have to ask Cheryl, I guess. And yeah, I saw Trevor was trying to put the pressure on you. Sorry about that. He was just generally pretty boorish all round last night.”

  We sped along down the country road in silence for a few moments.

  Then after some thought Chad continued, “This is our third year as roommates. He’s been a loyal, good friend. To me.” He paused and I could see he was hesitating about whether or not to say what he was going to say next. “But sometimes I can see that his behavior is objectionable. I’ve mentioned about Lisa to you. He does things that I wouldn’t do. He says things that I wouldn’t say. If we hadn’t been randomly thrown together as roommates would I be friends with him the way I am now? Probably not. But we get along. And like I said, he’s been very loyal over the years.”

  I nodded but said nothing.

  “I mean, it’s like you and Cheryl, right? Can you see yourself ever hanging out with her or being friends with her if you didn’t live twenty yards down the hall from her?” he asked me.

  “Ha! Well I don’t think we’re friends now!” I exclaimed with a laugh.

  “Oh I’m sure you’ll make up. You girls fight and make up and fight and make up all the time!” he grinned. “But you know what I mean – pretend last night didn’t happen. You’d be in the back of her little red car right now on your way home from brunch with the girls, right? Girls you’d never in a million years have made friends with if the circumstance of your living arrangements hadn’t thrown you together.”

  “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t have,” I agreed.

  We got to the little breakfast place and it was crowded with kids from school who had made the drive out for breakfast just as we had done. The vestiges of the events of last night were all over everyone. Most of them looked as though they hadn’t quite wiped the sleep out of their eyes yet. Some were excitedly sharing gossip about pairings and rejections that had gone on last night and two people who looked to be a newly-minted couple were drooped over the table and gazing into each other’s eyes over the coffee spoons. There was even a table of girls who had thought it funny to throw their coats on over their pajamas this morning and away!

  We found a tiny little table for two shoved right up into the corner near the front in the window. I ordered chocolate chip pancakes and a great big mug of hot chocolate.

  Chad smiled at me. “Sweet tooth, huh?”

  I blushed a little.

  “Yeah, kind of,” I admitted.

  “Nothing wrong with that!” he enthused. “I like a girl with a healthy appetite!”

  I felt myself blushing again.

  After we ate, Chad ordered some coffees for us and I reached down into my bag and pulled out my Italian text book.

  “Ah no!” he said in mock-horror, “I was hoping you would have forgotten about the Italian thing!”

  I was perplexed. Hadn’t the whole point of us getting together been to work on our Italian homework?

  “I’m kidding. I really appreciate you helping me,” he said.

  We went over the dialogue that had been assigned in the last class. Any feelings of self-consciousness were needless since it was so noisy in the diner that no one could have heard us anyway. And besides they were all too interested in their own colorful tales of the night before to care much about us huddled down next to the window practicing Italian.

  “You’re really good, Chad! I don’t know what you’re worried about,” I said after we had been practicing a while.

  “Well, I don’t quite have the flair for the accent that you do,” he complimented me, “and it just helps me to say it out loud with someone else before we have to present to class, you know?”

  “Yeah, it is good to practice with someone,” I agreed.

  “Shall we?” he asked as the waitress brought our bill.

  “Oh yeah, sure,” I said as I dug into my bag for my wallet.

  “No, no, I’ve got it,” he shooed my hand with the wallet in it away.

  “Seriously? No, I can’t let you do that!” I protested.

  “I insist! As payment for your tutelage!” he quipped.

  “Oh come on! We hardly spent fifteen minutes working!” I laughed.

  “Worth every minute and worth every penny,” he said as he counted out the cash and laid it down on the little tray with the check in it.

  “Well thank you very much. That’s very kind of you,” I demurred.

  “My pleasure,” he tipped his head toward me.

  “Hey! Cheryl didn’t show up!” I realized.

  “Hey yeah! Maybe she’s starting to mellow out after all!” Chad conjectured.

  Oh how wrong he was. He couldn’t have been more wrong if he had tried.

  We got back to school and Chad dropped me off in front of my dorm before he went to park. Although I had been able to laugh with Chad just minutes ago, now that I was by myself the anxiety of what would happen when I saw Cheryl started gnawing at me again. So I was rather relieved to find that Margie had come back early from her weekend and was blasting her caustic, raucous, punk-knows-what kind of music from our room. I chuckled to myself as I entered the hallway – knowing that she was there and was probably driving everybody else mad made me feel safe for some reason. I had come to realize that the rest of the girls were a bit afraid of Margie: she had no fear of them and had no interest in being part of the club. It was such a foreign concept to the rest of them that they had no idea how to treat her.

  She greeted me enthusiastically as usual as I entered the room.

  “Hey roomie!” she called out above the din.

  “Hey Margie! How was your weekend?” I called back.

  “Oh it was great,” she said as she clicked her music off. “Had to come back early to get some homework done, unfortunately. I forgot my book here, otherwise I’d still be there. Kind of a downer. How was the dance?”

  “Oh well! The dance!” I said melodramatically as I fell backwards into my bed. “Let me just tell you all about it!”

  Margie listened with rapt attention as I regaled her with all the details of the party.

  “Oh, brother,” Margie shook her head at me. “You’re in for it, now! You might as well have a bulls eye on your forehead!”

  “Really? Oh come on. I mean, what can she really do? So we’re not friends anymore. That’s almost a blessing, don’t you think?” I said.

  “Well, yeah, but do you think she’s gonna leave it at that without seeking some kind of revenge on you?” Margie suggested.

  “Revenge for what?! I haven’t done anything wrong! Cheryl is upset because of the stories she makes up in her head. Reality has nothing to do with it!” I protested.

  “Exactly. Reality has nothing to do with it. And you must be punished!” Margie was trying to sound funny, but there was a whole lot of truth to her words.

  “What do you think she’ll do to me?” I was nervous now.

  “Oh, she’ll find some way to make your life a living hell, don’t worry,” Margie trilled. Then, realizing the effect her words were having on me she said, “Ah, look. It won’t be all that bad. You know I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of them or what they think or what they say. I know I always take off on the weekends to go be with my boyfriend, but you know you can always hang with me and my friends during the week.”

  “Thanks,” I said and sighed.

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic!” Margie laughed.

  “No – I didn’t mean it like that!” I insisted and Margie threw a pillow at me.

  That night I wen
t to the computer lab and finished typing up my first column for the paper. I wound up paying very little lip service to the big dance and merely concluded by saying something like, “As it turned out, when it comes to high school dances, it doesn’t matter what state you’re in or whether the school is public or private, the high school dance is the great leveler.” I was disappointed with it, but on the other hand I don’t know how it could have been different. I suppose I’d been hoping for a magical, enchanting evening that would have inspired all kinds of optimism in me to write about, but the truth was that even without all the drama it was a high school dance just like any other. So in that respect my column was honest.

  I also used the payphone in the common room to call home. It turned out that my parents had been all sorts of confused by the logistics of purchasing a cell phone to be used by someone in another state. They were concerned that every time I made a call from my Florida number, long distance charges would apply. I wanted to bash my head against a brick wall listening to my mother painstakingly explain why it was taking them so long to procure a cell phone for me. I brightened, when at the end of the conversation, she finally mentioned that they had indeed gotten one and that I should receive it in the post next week.

  As I was hanging up, Andrea Brown came wandering into the common room with a book. We exchanged tight smiles, and somehow I worked up the nerve to say, “Excuse me, you’re Andrea, right?”

  “Yeah?” she squinted at me.

  “I’m Catherine. I’m new here. But I heard that you have a horse?”

  “I do, yeah! Do you ride?” she asked me.

  “No, but I’ve always wanted to learn. I was wondering, if I wanted to join the Equestrian Club, do I have to have my own horse, or…?”

  She shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “Yeah. The stables are there so that people with horses can board them during the school year. But if you’re interested I can teach you stuff about riding.”