Haunted

by Lynn Carthage

  “Mind if we check it out?” I asked. She turned away and I started to frown at her abrupt departure from a moment of nostalgia I wanted to linger in … but she rubbed her shoulder. This was her little message to me from back in the swimming-lesson days. Rather than nagging me about whether I had my duffel bag slung over my shoulder, she’d touch hers to remind me.

  So I touched my shoulder now, and burst out laughing. Somehow she’d slipped my swim bag onto my shoulder without my noticing. She truly was the coolest mom. “How about just a half hour?” I asked. I doubted there was enough retail to keep her entertained in the town for longer than that.

  As soon as I opened one of the glass double doors, I could smell the magic elixir: chlorine and damp towels. This was my world. Longing rushed through me. It had been forever since I last swam.

  I approached the woman tending the counter in the lobby, a high-ceilinged atrium of wasted space, the kind of grand entrance builders never indulged in anymore.

  “Hi,” I said. “I don’t have any cash on me right now. Any pounds, I mean. But I’ll be buying a membership. Is it okay if I swim today?”

  Toward the end of my pitiful speech, her cell phone rang and she simply nudged the pile of towels on the counter closer to me.

  “Thanks!” I said. “But it’s okay. I brought my own.”

  Although the lobby was a masterpiece, the locker room was dank.

  Lined with those old-fashioned gray lockers that take padlocks (my high school got rid of lockers circa 1982 when the administration wised up to the idea of drugs) and containing a moist concrete floor gently sloping to a central drain, it looked like an asylum basement.

  But when I walked out the door marked POOL , I quickly changed my mind.

  Despite the morose locker room, the building’s owners had obviously once had lots and lots of those pound notes with the image of a slightly worried young queen. The two-story ceiling was high above and created of tinted glass bricks, so everything had a green glow. The water rippled with the handful of people doing laps in their buoyed lanes, and a lifeguard station towered over it all like a derrick. Although I could smell the chlorine, the airiness of the structure made it so it wasn’t the slap in the face an indoor pool can sometimes be.

  I used the ladder and winced as I always did at the initial cold of the water. I kept moving and forced myself to submerge at the bottom, so I could start swimming and get warm. Half the pool was for free swim, and three lanes had been marked with cones for slow, medium, and fast. I dipped under the buoys and went to the fast lane. One person was already swimming there. I waited until he was at the other end before starting, so we wouldn’t lap each other.

  I adjusted my goggles and pushed off, with a wave of relief that was so tangible it broke my heart. Oh, dear water, you are my savior, I thought. With my body doing its mechanical, happy thing, my mind was able to sink into a blue-green haze and release my stress over our sinister mansion and whatever I’d done to get us there.

  My arms pulled overhead, forcefully pushing water behind me as I outswam my furiously churning mind. The rhythm of waiting to take a breath, counting to do so, let me relax in a way nothing else does. Arms moving, legs kicking firmly, my hips slipping like an eel through the water, tilting my head to take that breath when I needed it, my ear catching the muffled buzz through my swim cap of the world above the pool … I could almost burst with how good it felt.

  It took a while for me to even notice the guy in the lane—he had been a flicker every few minutes as we passed each other mid-pool, just someone to avoid bumping into. But when we next drew up level, facing different directions, I’d reached the Zen point where I could begin to accept other input, so I checked him out. He was fine. I couldn’t see his face too well because he wore goggles, too, but he had nice thick black wavy hair and a long, muscular body.

  I continued swimming, but now I was anticipating each time we passed, sucking in my stomach even though I knew he couldn’t see it through the spume of kicked water. But I had to laugh at myself. It’s impossible to look good while you’re swimming. Your mouth is doing funny stuff as you fight for that breath, your eyes are hidden behind the goggles, and your head is encased in black rubber. Not the best look.

  I finished my laps, then moved into the free-swim area to tread water and stretch into my cooldown. I turned my head to look for him still swimming back there—but he wasn’t in the lane. He had followed me.

  Close enough to touch, he treaded water. He had an amazing head, strong jawline and ruddy cheeks, with that great jet-black hair. His shoulders were massive and muscled—but unlike most jocks, his neck was not a football player’s stubby trunk, but instead was graceful and long. This was all I could see of him through the goggles and water, and it was very impressive. He grinned at me and I smiled back, hoping my nose wasn’t running like it sometimes did after a swim.

  “You’ve got a great stroke,” he said in a totally charming English accent.

  I bit my lip to not laugh. My mind’s not always in the gutter, but c’mon, a great stroke? Maybe it didn’t mean the same thing to British guys.

  “Thanks,” I said. “You, too!”

  “Oh, you’re an American.”

  I nodded. “My family just moved here. From California.”

  “Brilliant. Then you can be on our swim team!” He looked truly excited about the idea, even through the dark blue of his goggles. That reminded me; I could take mine off. I slid them up to prop them on my swim cap. I thought it would look way too vain to take the cap off, a little too much like those romance novels where the heroine shakes her hair out of its bun. As soon as I had done it, though, I remembered that these goggles left red furrows around my eyes. Great. Now I looked like a sleep-deprived raccoon.

  But he did the same thing—somehow he had avoided the red mark of goggle suction—and now I had a chance to see his beautiful sapphire blue eyes, with the dark lashes and eyebrows that were just the right amount of tufty. If you had asked me to describe the kind of guy I found most attractive, I could have just pointed to him and saved myself the trouble of explaining.

  “Sure,” I said. “I was on the swim team at home.”

  “It’ll be brilliant to have you. Our lads go to the championship every year, but the females have been a little worse for wear. You’re fast. You’ll be head of team, no doubt, from what I just saw.”

  I grinned. Finally, something was going right for me in Grenshire. “Do you have a good coach?”

  “Yeah. It’s just the sorry luck of the draw that we haven’t had a strong girls’ team.”

  I continued treading water, feeling my heart rate slow back down.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Phoebe Irving.”

  “I’m Miles Whittleby.” He extended his hand and we shook formally, lurching a little in the water.

  “What’s school like?” I asked.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “The usual collection of the clueless and the gifted, and everything in between.”

  “Are your friends all on swim team, too?”

  “No, I’m the only one. They’re more into athletics … I think you call it ‘track and field.’ And a few play in the band.”

  “That’s cool,” I said. “I always wanted to play an instrument.”

  “Yeah, one plays violin and the other the oboe.”

  “Are you musical at all?” I asked.

  “No, just a listener. And don’t even ask me about dancing.”

  I burst out into a peal of laughter. “I’m sure you’re fine,” I teased.

  “No, it’s an abomination. People have injured their eyes watching.”

  “It can’t be that bad!”

  “Oh, worse. At dances I tend to huddle against the wall to spare everyone.”

  “Well, no fear, I’ll huddle with you.” As soon as I said it, I could have hit myself. What a lame thing to say … and so presumptuous. But he didn’t react like it was either.

&nb
sp; “Perfect! Another convert to the ‘let’s not dance’ club. David Bowie hates us.”

  I smiled, relieved at his response. “Actually, I do kind of like to dance.”

  “Maybe I can just shuffle my feet back and forth when no one’s looking.”

  “Sounds elegant.”

  “And do the macarena,” he added.

  “Um …”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Okay, okay!” I said. “I wasn’t sure if you were joking.”

  “I’ll introduce you to my friends,” he said. “They’ll like you. I imagine the first day of school can be hard when you don’t know anyone?”

  “I’ve never done it,” I admitted. Under the water, I clenched my hands in excitement. Things had just become easier. He was going to set me up with people who would most likely be my friends from now on. And a chance to keep hanging out with him? Über magnifico, as German Italians say. Or as Orwell would put it, double-plusgood.

  “It’ll be fine. We can get together beforehand, so you’ll know some of them.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That’s huge. I was a little nervous about the whole thing.”

  “No worries,” he said. “So where do you live?”

  “This really old place that’s been in the family for a while. My stepdad’s family, I mean. The Arnaud Manor.”

  His mouth opened, then he closed it with a shudder. “You live there?”

  “My stepdad couldn’t sell it and we had to move anyway, so this was where we ended up. Wait, what?”

  He had muttered something after I said, “couldn’t sell it.”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “No, really, what’d you say?”

  He dipped his head backward in the water and got his hair wet again. It was sexy but also sort of selfconscious. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to insult you or your family. I said, ‘what a shocker.’ ”

  “I know what you mean,” I said, trying to figure out if I should feel offended. “It’s been neglected.”

  “Neglected. And haunted.”

  “Uh … what?” I asked.

  “There’s the small matter of the undead woman who drinks blood. That tends to inhibit sales.”

  “What?”

  “No one told you about Madame Arnaud?”

  “ No. ”

  “She’s the one who built the house and supposedly still lives there. She’s immortal from drinking blood.”

  “Whose blood?”

  “Children’s blood.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It’s the local legend,” he said.

  I wondered briefly if Steven knew the crazy rumors about the manor. I stared up into the mossy green glass of the faraway ceiling, trying to figure out how to respond.

  Was Miles messing with me? Maybe he’d made it up on the spot. I’d always loved reading ghost stories, but that was because they had nothing to do with real life.

  I looked at him uneasily. He just waited, a half smile playing on his plum-colored lips.

  Finally I said, “You don’t believe it, do you?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Employment prospects for gardeners, groomsmen, smiths,

  and all manner of servants of the interior.

  Enquire at Arnaud Manor, service door of the west wing.

  —Grenshire Argus, October 5, 1721

  “Show yourself,” I said aloud. I was in the old part of the manor near the mouth of the gargantuan fireplace. A damp smell blew down through the network of chimneys. Dust motes swirled around like bacteria in a petri dish.

  After we came home, Mom went to lie down, taking a nap at the same time as Tabby. Steven was working on his laptop. I considered asking him if I could go into the old part of the house, but Bethany taught me that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

  So I had crept out the door and into the mottled sunshine, marching across the dirt to the official entrance to the manor. I had put the key in the screaming mouth, opened the heavy door, and entered.

  Now I stood dwarfed by the enormous stones of the great hall. Trailing up to the ceiling like a bad idea was the grandiose staircase. I inhaled the ferment and automatically found myself slowing into my lap-swimming breathing pattern.

  I went upstairs and soon was opening the thick wooden door to the library, staring up at the rows and rows of shelves. Miles’s words flickered through my mind. A woman who drank blood for centuries, giving the manor a reputation akin to Castle Dracula. A village that turned a blind eye to her evil, too frightened to intervene.

  Just on a whim, I pulled one book out at eye level. It had a French title, and inside were etchings of horses performing some kind of patterned dance. As I looked at its place on the shelf to put it back, I saw instead of wood … glass. It was a tiny window.

  I pulled several more books off the shelf, letting them drop to the floor. The window wasn’t very much wider than a few thick volumes’ spines, though. I pressed myself closer so I could peer through it.

  On the other side, I could see another room, which held a cot and a trunk. It was barely the size of a closet. I couldn’t imagine a more bleak room. In many haunted house movies, the bookcase revolves to reveal a secret passageway. I looked around for whatever lever might activate it, so it would swing open to show a cackling Vincent Price holding a candelabra on the other side. I started pulling books down again, looking for a doorknob or switch.

  In the end, the case didn’t revolve. Instead, a little door was concealed within the larger bookshelf, and the books swung with the door, just like a robe hung from a hook on the bathroom door. I hadn’t needed to take down all those books after all, and in fact their position on the floor blocked the door from completely opening. I took five minutes to put them back.

  The door was heavy with all the books back on the shelves, held up by iron brackets painted to look like books, but I threw my hip into it until it creaked open wide enough for me. I opened it even more because if the weight of the books made it creep closed while I was inside, well … that would suck.

  I went in.

  The room was oppressively tiny, like a fairy’s cottage. I raised my hand and laid it flat along the low ceiling, bringing down a stream of dust. I walked over to the iron cot that was covered in a patchwork quilt with lots of hand-tied knots. If possible, it seemed smaller than a twin bed. Who had had to sleep here?

  I knelt on the floor to open the trunk. Its surprisingly heavy lid creaked. I stared inside at the network of cubbies. Rather than one big empty space, as I’d imagined those large trunks would hold, it was divided into little sections and drawers, all covered in peeling rosebud wallpaper. Poking around, I saw old-fashioned underthings in plain white muslin and lots of heavy black dresses. In the last place I looked, I found floor-length white aprons. Of course! Only a maid would sleep in a room this small.

  I stood, holding one of the aprons to my chest. I was about to hook the ties around my neck, but instead let it drop to the floor, my fingers trembling.

  I took two steps to reach the window to the outside. I pulled aside the gauzy curtain, thick with gray debris—and saw the long plunge down to the ground. But something embedded in the glass itself caught my eye. I rubbed my fingers against the window until a circle of clean glass showed through. Someone had etched a message.

  I shook my head. No, I wasn’t seeing this.

  The poor little babes, it said, in very old-fashioned writing.

  It seemed to be evidence for what Miles had said, that Madame Arnaud drank children’s blood. But I didn’t want to believe it. I began thinking furiously, trying to craft different reasons for a maid to scratch this particular message into the glass. Her own miscarriages?

  In the corner of the window, something began moving, and I saw that it was Mom, outside walking the courtyard with Tabitha on her hip. Tabby was wearing a blue seersucker dress, and pulling at Mom’s hair. I can’t describe how surreal that felt, stuck in the heart o
f that dark stone house, and seeing the two of them out there, smiling.

  I tried to open the window, but it didn’t budge. I began to panic, for no good reason. The house wasn’t on fire, and I wasn’t trying to cast myself out of the window. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t opening.

  Below me, winding up the booky staircase from down the hall, came one note from the organ. A brief sound, almost ignorable.

  But to make sound come from the organ, someone had to pump the foot pedals first. It would never utter a whisper by itself—a boulder could fall on the keys and they would sink down soundlessly.

  I froze, my heart racing. “Steven?” I called.

  He must have noticed the door key was gone and followed me in, and was playing the organ to let me know the jig was up.

  “Steven?” I yelled again, at the top of my lungs.

  Too loud, don’t make the house angry.

  No answer.

  My body flooded with adrenaline, my heart feeling three sizes larger and flailing around in my chest like an out-of-control animal. The servant’s room had trapped me.

  No one knew I was here. The mansion’s size meant no one would hear me screaming. I was completely vulnerable to whoever was playing the organ.

  The only way out was back through the ballroom … where the organ’s player waited. I looked around the miniature room frantically—was there any kind of weapon? I pulled the house key from my pocket; although it was huge it was dull.

  I tried to quiet my panting breath and listen.

  The mansion was quiet … too quiet. It felt like it was listening to me.

  I looked at the open bookcase door, wanting to push it closed, keeping me hidden in the maid’s room. But I couldn’t remember if it squeaked.

  I crept toward it. If the person had hunted me into the library, my movement would be detected. I’d have to close the door quickly and absolutely silently. Thank God I had put back all the books on the other side, or the sprawl of books in front of the shelf would be a giveaway.

  I sucked in a deep breath as I began to ease the door closed, just like I was taught in photography class: to be absolutely still, inhale while taking a picture.