Haunted

by Lynn Carthage

  What was the rule here? I could put a hand on existing elements of the house, but not modern things or things my family had brought?

  I hadn’t been able to touch Steven’s printer or the paper in its tray. If Madame Arnaud hadn’t fanned the pages out for me so each was visible, I wouldn’t have been able to read them. And when I’d tried to gather them up to show Mom and Steven … that’s when I had suffered one of those time blips. My mind was rebelling from the confusion of not being able to touch them.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said to Miles and Eleanor.

  I focused, just the way I’d once called Miles to me. I gave over all my intentions and suddenly I was where I wanted to be, back in Steven’s den. I tried the pencil cup and printer again: untouchable. I walked back out into the hallway, constantly testing my ability to touch. Paintings on the wall, furniture, lamps: all these things had texture and weight for me. But Steven’s briefcase? No.

  I walked down the hall, skirting a few servants who gave me wide berth and curtseyed as they passed.

  Tabitha’s crib, which had been here from the manor’s original nursery furnishings? Yes.

  Her blanket from home? No.

  I smiled to myself. I could touch things: Arnaud things. That could be very helpful in the fight. But the smile instantly dropped from my lips.

  I was remembering the night I’d watched the shadow show in the nursery. Another horrible truth my mind had protected me from.

  That night, like Eleanor, I had been brave. I had tried to pick up my sister, and my hands went straight through her. I’d tried to push Madame Arnaud away, and my hands were made of air.

  “Please … leave her alone,” I’d pleaded.

  Madame Arnaud had simply laughed. “I think not,” she’d said.

  In that complete and utter helplessness I’d sunk to my knees and watched the shadows playing on the wall. I had tried.

  I returned to the two in Eleanor’s room.

  “—and her eyes,” Eleanor was saying.

  They both jumped when I reappeared. “What were you saying?” I asked.

  “Nothing, miss,” Eleanor said. “What did you learn?”

  I didn’t correct her using the honorific “miss” for me this time, as I had the uncomfortable feeling they had been talking about me.

  “I can touch things original to the house,” I said. “But not Madame Arnaud herself.”

  “If you can use a weapon, all that matters is that the weapon touch her, right?” Miles asked.

  “But I stabbed her clean through,” said Eleanor, “and all for naught.”

  We sat there in silence.

  What could we do? I knew elsewhere in the house, Madame Arnaud made her way through lavishly appointed rooms, with the gleam of gold everywhere, and filigreed sconces and heavy velvet festooning her windows. Like a spider fat with silk, she crept to her sofa and perched on a cushion.

  “If we can’t kill her,” I said slowly. “Maybe we can make her kill herself.”

  Miles looked up. He flashed a grin that made Eleanor gasp. Oh dear. I looked at her in dismay. Was she falling for him?

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “An eighteenth-century woman probably doesn’t know how to swim,” I said.

  Miles’s face registered the plaintive knowledge that I had died in the water. Eleanor, however, simply looked reflective.

  “She doesn’t,” she announced.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In the town of Grenshire, a local legend talks about

  an immortal blood-drinker in the abandoned eighteenth-century manor house on the outskirts of town. My interest in

  the subject is personal, as an ancestor of mine worked in the

  home as a lady’s maid. Empty for many years, the castlelike

  building begs for an official paranormal investigation, but access

  isn’t easily granted. The story goes that a woman

  named Yolande Arnaud …

  —From Not At All Resting in Peace: Ghost Stories of England,

  Scotland and Wales, by Kate Darrow

  “She doesn’t know how to swim,” continued Eleanor. “She hosted parties on the Grand Canal outside. She wouldn’t so much as dip a toe in, although she encouraged others to.”

  “So we could somehow get her to water, and … well, we can’t push her in,” said Miles.

  “There’s a well in the cellars,” said Eleanor eagerly. “For many years it was the sole source of water for the house.”

  I pictured the dank stone well in the vault of the manor and shuddered. “No,” I said. “Something far outside the house’s influence. Even the Grand Canal is too close.”

  Eleanor closed her eyes, thinking. “It’s been so many years,” she said. Suddenly she brightened. “There’s a woodland pool an hour’s walk away,” she said. “Austin said they used to refresh the horses there after a long ride.”

  “Let’s look at it,” I said.

  She rose to standing and began walking to the door.

  “No,” I said. “We can go faster than that.” I smiled at her while Miles explained the concept of moving with intention.

  “I see,” she said. “I am willing to try.” She touched her cap as if she expected a big wind would come with our movement.

  “You know the place,” I said. “You visualize it, and you bring us there.”

  She nodded, and the sides of her mouth downturned for a moment. “To think I’ve wasted all this time,” she murmured. “I’ve been stuck in the old ways of thinking about my body. Walking, even if through walls sometimes. Stuck here in this foul place.”

  I reached out and hugged her. She stiffened for a moment, then her arms crept around me, too. She sniffed.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, pulling back.

  She blinked back tears. “I haven’t felt another soul in all these years,” she said. “I see the other servants, of course, but we don’t talk. We’re all on our own miserable courses.”

  Miles stepped forward and hugged her, too, and this time I saw her hobnailed boots take a step backward. This was a lot to ask of her: not only shedding her ideas of class, but of gender, too. A male would never touch a female in this way in her era. “It’s going to be just fine,” said Miles to her softly. She looked up into his eyes. He smiled, and I watched her melt. Just as with me, her arms stole around his body to return the embrace.

  I waited. Did this hug last a little too long?

  I wanted to slap myself. This didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except saving Tabby.

  “To the woodland pool!” I said loudly.

  Instantly, we were there.

  Cobalt water slumbered under a floor of lily pads, so profuse and close together that they nearly hid the water altogether. Many of the lilies proffered a vertical shaft: a bud about to flower. It made the pond seem like a miniature forest.

  Around the edges of the water, thick greenery. Trees so overgrown that they were wreaking havoc on themselves, one branch struggling for light beneath the canopy of its brother. A dock, fallen into disrepair, led a short way out into the middle.

  I studied the scene.

  “The lily pads are good,” said Miles. “They hide the depth.”

  I looked at him, wanting to kiss him. He was exactly right!

  “I have an idea,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I took myself back to the Hansel and Gretel door, the part of the house where Madame Arnaud actually lived. I knew from looking through the grate on the roof that this part of the house was furnished, that she spent her days here in relative comfort.

  I turned the gray stone that constituted a doorknob. I was in an entrance hall, smaller in scope than the grand entrance of the main wing, but still impressive … and filled with color. Somehow furniture hadn’t molded here, wasn’t furred with dust. There were all kinds of sofas for guests to sit upon and remove their outerwear, to hand over to a maid. Little tables to hold the glass of wine offered upon a
rrival.

  I went to the window, covered with powder blue curtains embroidered with gold thread in a fleur-de-lis pattern. I pulled.

  Noise from behind me.

  I whirled around.

  Nothing there.

  Nothing I could see.

  I thought of something horrible. I knew Madame Arnaud preferred children as young as possible, to imbibe their futures. I knew she often chose babies. I had never seen a baby ghost, perhaps because they were all here in this wing of the house where they’d died.

  Adrenaline surged through my body. This wing must be filled with babies, crawling on the floors, or maybe even too young to do that, unaware that they had died. Thank God I had never been inside this part of the house before I understood that I was dead. I don’t think I could bear that sight. Yet … I knew they were here.

  I turned back around and tugged at the curtain in earnest. I needed it. I had to release those babies.

  Another noise.

  Was Madame Arnaud behind me? All I had to do was get this curtain down and return to the pond. She wouldn’t be able to follow me; she couldn’t travel as I did. The one benefit to being dead.

  The curtain rod above me squealed with the pressure, and I leapt, using all my body weight to pull down the fabric. The rod broke, and the curtains came to the ground, pooling into elegant ripples.

  “Whatever are you doing?” came her voice. Ice formed all over my back. I bent to release the curtains from the rod. She can’t hurt you, I told myself. You tried to touch her once, and your hands went through her. You’ll be fine.

  The rod was heavy, and the curtains so massive that I fought to pull them off the end.

  “I asked you a question.” She was only a few yards behind me now.

  Oh my God. Just do it, just pull!

  Now I had lost the rod within the volume of fabric. I continued to yank, but wasn’t sure I was pulling in the right direction. I stepped to the side, and the curtains came with me. Were they free, though? I threw the handful to the side and grabbed a new section to pull.

  “My dear.”

  She had whispered in my ear. I could see her in my peripheral vision, black hair in an extravagant concoction, piled atop her head à la Marie Antoinette. The jewels around her neck caught a wink of sunlight from the now-bared window and momentarily blinded me.

  I froze.

  “A common thief, taking my curtains,” she said. “But you may have them. In exchange for something, of course.”

  Her voice was so foreign, her English spoken with an overtone of ancientness, of French, of something else. The curtains fell from my hands.

  “I have told you already what I desire,” she said. “A new child.”

  I nodded.

  “Oh please,” she whispered. “Something good. With fat, ruddy cheeks. I want to see blood in its face.”

  I nodded again.

  “Look at me,” she commanded.

  I closed my eyes.

  “You couldn’t touch your sister,” she continued. “You couldn’t touch me. But look at you, pulling down festoons of curtains. Touch a child for me. Bring a child to me. And I will let your sister go.”

  “Forever?” I said.

  “Of course,” she whispered.

  “All right,” I said. My eyes still closed, I listened as she left, those skirts rustling as they had in the hallway the night she had drunk from my sister.

  When I opened my eyes, the curtains lay folded in a neat pile at my feet.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Grenshire Argus announces the death of Miss Maud Pike,

  aged 18, on the 15th of August. Well-loved by her family, Miss

  Pike recently undertook employment in the kitchens of the

  Arnaud Manor. She returned home for her Sunday visit, and

  evidenced a distressed demeanor. The next morning as her

  brother readied the carriage to return her, he found her in the

  family barn, hanged. She is survived by her mother, Mrs.

  Elizabeth Pike, and her three siblings, Jack, Michael, and

  Sampson. Services will be held at St. Augustine Parish

  at 2 o’clock tomorrow.

  —Grenshire Argus obituary, August 16, 1842

  That night, we retired to Tabby’s room to talk over our plans. We knew none of us were eligible for sleep, and this way I could keep an eye on my sleeping sister. In the dim glow of her night-light, we sat in a circle on the floor and rehearsed the strategy.

  “You and Miles should hide in the trees along the far side of the pond,” I said.

  “Whatever for?” asked Eleanor.

  I steeled myself to not react as if she were stupid. It was like Miles had said: the working class of the 1800s was not educated.

  “So that Madame Arnaud can’t see you,” I said.

  She laughed. “She can’t see us!” she said. “She’s never seen any of the servants, nor any of the children.” She glanced over at Miles. They shared a look, and I knew they had been talking about me while I was away fetching the curtains.

  “I don’t see the resemblance,” I said flatly. “She has black hair, mine is auburn.”

  “It’s in your facial structure and your eyes,” said Miles.

  “Don’t you see it’s the only explanation that makes sense?” Eleanor said gently. “You can touch the things of this house, because they’re yours by inheritance. She can see you—and only you—because you’re of her line.”

  “My real father is Don Irving,” I said. “He lives in Phoenix and he has auburn hair. Steven is my stepfather.”

  “Your mom’s hair is auburn, too,” said Miles softly.

  “Look—what does it matter? What if Steven was my real dad?”

  “It matters a lot,” said Eleanor. “You’re the eldest. If you hadn’t died, you would be heir.”

  I snorted. “This clunky barfhouse would be mine?” But I realized she was serious.

  “It also means you have a very special relationship to Madame Arnaud.”

  I looked over at Tabby, slumbering slightly above my eye level in her crib. Not my half sister, but my real sister? Steven had been on the scene very soon after my parents divorced. Was it at all possible he had been in Mom’s life for years already at that point—truly my father?

  “This is really weird for me right now,” I mumbled.

  Miles leaned over and nudged my shoulder, knocking me off balance. Eleanor looked horrified as I fell to my elbow; males and females didn’t behave this way in her day. “Let’s see,” he said. “You found out you were dead, that your house has ghosts and an immortal blood-drinker, that your sister is being stalked, and for a while you thought you were crazy. Weird is your world, baby.”

  I didn’t get up, but stayed there half perched. I laughed. “Oh my God,” I said. “Weird doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  We held each other’s gaze as we laughed for what seemed like twenty minutes. After a while, Eleanor joined in with a tentative giggle. I collapsed fully onto my back and let myself roar. My diaphragm started to hurt from laughing so hard.

  “And we don’t even know what comes next,” I said.

  We all abruptly stopped.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Elsie Harlow, 32, who recently relocated to Grenshire from her

  native London to take up service at the Arnaud Manor, is dead

  by her own hand this 30th June. Little is known of her, and the

  constabulary request assistance with determining next of

  kin for notification.

  —Grenshire Argus, July 1, 1856

  I was looking for Madame Arnaud. I climbed luxurious, curving stairs in her wing of the house. I passed the statue of a lion on the landing, roaring and clawing the air in some fit of marble pique. On one landing, a coat of arms showed three gold crowns on a field of blue.

  Servants passed me, some aggrieved, one who gave me a wink. “We should’ve helped them,” I heard the whisper going round. “Why
did we do nothing?”

  I walked down the hall, stopping to look in each door. These were the kind of rooms I’d dreamed about as a girl: made for royalty, with enormous canopy beds and marble fireplaces with shepherdess figurines cavorting on the mantel, and overstuffed armchairs to sit and read in. Candelabra sat atop carved cabinets to hold all one’s delicious princess belongings.

  Eleanor had told me Madame Arnaud’s chambers were on the second floor, and had instructed me which door to look for. Murals covered the walls, 1700s men and women frolicking at a picnic, winding flirtatious hands around the rope of a swing hung from a tree, skirts and hat ribbons flouncing. Their cheeks were red from wine drinking and their painted smiles were greedy. Remembering that Miles thought Madame Arnaud modeled the back lawns after Versailles, I wondered if they were the nobles of that famous palace, who never worked and only played—knowing bread and cakes would always be provided by someone else’s labor. Every few feet, glossy white doors interrupted their revels.

  A girl, probably seven, crouched in one of these doorways, holding her arm with a cross expression. As I walked past, I noticed the thin line of gray blood seeping from under her hand. “It hurt,” she whimpered to me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ll get her back for you.”

  An Americanism she didn’t understand?

  “I mean, I’ll make her pay,” I amended.

  She grinned up at me, and I winced to think that her family had been deprived of that sunshine.

  I found Madame Arnaud’s door, with her initials YA created in serpentine iron on the front. I knocked.

  “Entrez,” she called.

  I walked into an abattoir, a slaughterhouse. That’s what it looked like anyway: red walls, red curtains, red Moorish carpets overlapping each other.

  “Here you are,” she purred. “Just when I was getting thirsty.”

  She sat in an armchair, tall as a throne. It was the healthy, beautiful version of Madame Arnaud. She was striking, with jewels sparkling in her dark hair. Her skin pale as muslin, her eyebrows dramatic arches above the wet slickery of her eyes.

  “I have someone for you,” I said.