by Paula Morris
“Framington.” He said it lovingly. Miranda rolled her eyes.
“He’ll be busy chatting up the Framingtons. We’ll go to the back. Then you and Sally can slip out.”
“Why do you have to say you want to sit with Sally’s imaginary friends?” Rob asked. “And could you open that window? I can’t breathe in here.”
“I just … I just think it’ll be more convincing if both of us go off to sit together.” Miranda had decided not to tell Rob about her plans with Nick. He might disapprove. He would disapprove. He would start asking questions about Nick — how often she’d seen him, what they were planning to do that night. And what could she say? Miranda had no idea what they were going to do that night, but the most likely candidates — looking for ghosts, talking about dead loved ones, kissing — were not things Rob would want to hear.
“Okay. You’re the brains of the operation, apparently.” Rob stood up, clearly eager to open the door. “I gotta go — we’re ripping out the bar today. You do know what they call Dumpsters in this country? Skips. Crazy name, crazy town.”
Miranda waited while Rob loped up the stairs, two at a time, back to his own room. She picked up her toothbrush and put it down again: She’d already brushed her teeth. There was too much to think about today. Too much to worry about.
Her father stuck his head inside the door.
“What were you two conspiring about in here?” he asked, grinning at her. He was way overexcited about his conference.
“A present for Mom,” Miranda told him, amazed at how easily the lie slipped out.
Down in the kitchen, her mother was scrubbing the counter with a little too much vigor. If Jeff was overexcited, Peggy was overanxious.
“I’ll do that,” Miranda told her, but Peggy shook her head. Her hair, still wet from the shower, was twisted up, held by a clip that looked ready to slide out. She was wearing a long sweater and leggings. Miranda had never seen her mother in leggings before. Probably that bossy Second Witch had talked her into buying them.
“Cleaning helps keep my mind off tonight,” she said, moving on to polishing the faucet. “I’m trying to be rational. It’s not a huge orchestra, or a complicated score. The venue is — well, amazing. The soloists, when they’re singing and not talking, are really quite good. Everything should be fine.”
“Everything’s going to be great, Mom,” Miranda said. Oh, and by the way — your children are planning to skip the concert so they can get up to who-knows-what with who-knows-who. Another secret to keep. Another sharp pang of guilt.
Peggy tossed the dishcloth into the sink and rinsed off her hands.
“It’s just …” She was gazing out the window. Miranda couldn’t see her expression. “I have this really bad feeling. Not nerves, exactly. Just this feeling that something isn’t quite right. Hard to explain. Silly.”
“What do you mean?” Miranda asked, trying to keep her tone neutral.
Her mother shook her head, and swung around to look at Miranda.
“Nothing,” she said, pretending to smile. Miranda knew that fake smile: She was an expert at it herself, saying there was nothing wrong, smiling. Peggy reached for Miranda’s hand and squeezed it.
“Just nerves, probably,” Miranda told her. Peggy smiled again.
“I’m sorry we haven’t had any time this week. You and me, I mean. These rehearsals have just consumed my days, and in the evenings I’m so tired….”
“It’s okay,” Miranda said quickly. “Really.”
“I thought we’d have time to do some fun things, like more shopping,” Peggy said, sounding forlorn. She squeezed Miranda’s hand again. “But time’s raced by, and I haven’t even had a minute to look in a store window all week.”
“Where did you get the leggings?”
“A gift. The Second Witch. Too young for me?”
“No. Cute.”
“I swore I’d never wear anything I wore in the eighties,” Peggy said. “If you catch me in leg warmers and an off-the-shoulder top, please stop me from leaving the house.”
“No problem.”
Rob was thundering down the stairs, shouting his good-byes.
“Bye, honey!” Peggy called. The front door slammed shut. “You’d think he had much more exciting plans for our last full day here than cleaning up after the fire. He’s in such a good mood.”
“Hmmm,” agreed Miranda, thinking about their combined secret plans for later on.
“And you’ve been all right, haven’t you?” Peggy looked anxious. Miranda hated making her mother worry — especially today, which was supposed to be her moment of triumph. “Your dad said you seemed to have a nice time at Lord Poole’s house.”
“Really nice.” It was Miranda’s turn for the fake smile. Thinking of Lord Poole’s house made her think of the picture of Nick. It was too late to tell her mother about Nick now. There was too much to explain. Too much to withhold.
“Good.” Peggy looked relieved. “You know, I have no idea why I’m so doom and gloom all of a sudden. I think this trip has been really great for us all. Rob seems so much happier. Despite everything that’s gone on at the White Boar — the break-ins, the terrible fire — it’s as though he’s woken up again. Sally’s been good for him, I think. I wish he would tell her about the claustrophobia — I’m sure she’d understand.”
“But she … oh yeah,” said Miranda, remembering that Sally’s discovery of Rob’s panic attacks — in the White Boar’s cellar, in the middle of the night — was still in the top-secret file. “You’re right. I’m sure she’d understand.”
“The only thing is, with Rob so preoccupied, and Dad busy with his research, you’ve been left on your own, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been fine,” Miranda reassured her.
“You really should have come to the medieval banquet with us.”
“Dad said that you two were the youngest people there by, like, twenty years.”
“True. It’s a shame you didn’t have a chance to meet people your own age here in York. Make some friends.”
“Sally’s got some friends,” Miranda blurted. “I mean, she’s bringing them along tonight, to the concert. We’re all going to sit together and hang out and everything. She says they’re really nice, and that maybe we’ll all go out afterward.”
“Oh, honey!” Peggy looked delighted, and this made Miranda feel worse. She wasn’t used to lying this much to her parents. She gripped the edge of the counter with her free hand, trying not to squirm. “That will be so nice for you. Don’t worry about coming out with us afterward. You all go out and have a good time. Get Dad to give you some money.”
“What’s this?” Jeff appeared in the kitchen door. He was wearing a dark suit and his White Rose of York tie. “Do I have to pay you to come and listen to my paper?”
“Yes,” Peggy told him, winking at Miranda. “A pound a minute.”
“I’ll have to read quickly, then,” he said, pretending to look aggrieved. Everyone was a fake today, thought Miranda. Everyone was pretending. And, hopefully, they’d all make it through the day without anybody getting caught.
Her second conference of the day took longer than the meeting in the bathroom, and Miranda found it much harder to concentrate. Not that her father’s paper wasn’t interesting — in parts, anyway — and not that he expected her to stay for the rest of the afternoon session. But two things had proven really distracting and disconcerting.
The first was the walk up the stone staircase to the expansive paneled room lined with portraits, where an optimistic fifteen rows of chairs were set up for conference attendees. Miranda was following her father, listening to him chat with someone Scottish — who was wearing an identical White Rose of York tie — when a man came racing down the stairs so fast he was almost a blur. Her father and his new friend didn’t flinch, but Miranda had to practically leap out of the runner’s way. As he passed, a whoosh of intense cold whipped through her, as though she were wearing cotton in a snowstorm.
> Great, she thought, hurrying to catch up with her father. King’s Manor was haunted. Of course it was: It was built in the fifteenth century. Henry VIII had stayed here with Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, not long before he had her imprisoned and executed. No surprise at all that a ghost would be charging down the stairs past Miranda, giving her the big chill. But really — it was broad daylight. Couldn’t they just leave her alone for five minutes?
The second thing unsettling her today was the sight of Lord Poole sitting in the front row of uncomfortable folding chairs. He clapped loudly at the end of each paper, even if the person giving it had read in a monotone or impenetrable accent.
He’d smiled broadly when he’d seen her, shaking her hand in his hearty way as though she were an adult. He was so genial, so kind. He’d been nothing but generous to her this whole week. And what had Miranda done in return? Lost the book he’d lent her, when he’d driven into York — a two-hour round trip — just to leave it for her. Miranda wanted to kick herself for being so careless. She must have dropped it somewhere in the street, not noticing when it fell out of her jacket pocket.
But something else she’d done — or rather, not done — was much worse than losing an expensive book. She hadn’t said a word to him about Nick. Nick was Lord Poole’s grandson, the only one he had left. He hadn’t seen or heard from him in years, and it was pretty obvious that he was miserable about that. Miranda could have told him that Nick was alive, and right here in York. But she’d said nothing. At the house, she’d been too surprised, too confused. And then she’d made the promise to Nick.
Tomorrow, Nick was leaving town; it would be too late. Maybe tonight she could try and reason with him. Maybe Nick could be persuaded to write to his grandfather, even if he refused to meet with him in person. Lord Poole was all alone in that big, cold house in the country. And Nick was all alone in the world, too.
That was it, she decided, clapping when a bony woman from the University of Leicester ended a long-winded presentation by dropping her papers all over the floor. Her father, sitting at the table of panelists, was getting ready to read now, shuffling the pages of his talk together. He looked pale and a bit queasy. His tie was askew, and Miranda wished she could send him some kind of psychic message, telling him to straighten it, reassuring him that his talk was going to be awesome.
When his name was announced, and he stood up to move to the lectern, Miranda clapped so loudly that the man sitting in front of her turned around. Tonight, she promised herself, whatever else happened, she would talk to Nick about his grandfather. Your family was your family. You couldn’t turn your back on them, or pretend they didn’t exist. Families loved each other, and stuck together, no matter what. She hoped that Nick wouldn’t get angry with her for interfering. She hoped he would listen. She hoped he would kiss her again.
“You must be Miranda,” said Linda, who was obviously Sally’s mother: They had the same curly hair and bright blue eyes, though Sally’s hair was a vivid yellow, and Linda’s was skeined with gray. “I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet properly yet, with everything that’s been … going on. It’s been a terrible week.”
“I’m glad you could come to the concert tonight,” Miranda said, resisting the urge to hop from foot to foot with cold, or excitement, or a combination of the two. They were standing on the steps of York Minster, bundled up against the winter’s night. Around them, people hurried up from the street and through the big doors. It would be a large audience, according to Lord Poole, who’d been in and out several times, to the detriment of the traffic flow through the revolving doors. Hundreds of people, he’d said.
“Your brother’s been a great help to us today,” said Linda, smiling at Rob, who was brazenly holding Sally’s hand. “He’s such a hard worker.”
“Doesn’t sound like anyone we know,” Jeff whispered to Miranda, handing her a ticket.
“Aye, we’ll have it all cleaned up soon enough,” said Sally’s father, Joe. One of his hands was bandaged, and the tips of his fingers looked blue with cold. “No thanks to the police. They want everything left, just to sit there for days on end while they poke around. I’ve got a business to run.”
“We’re due to leave in the morning, but I could come over first thing to help,” said Jeff, in a great mood after the success of his talk, and still wearing his White Rose of York tie. “We all could.”
“Very kind of you,” said Joe gruffly. A gust of wind blew the flap of his heavy coat open, and a cold drizzle began to fall.
“You should all go in,” Miranda said. “We’ll wait for … everyone else.”
“Sally, you know I would have got your friends tickets if —”
“It’s no problem at all, Mr. Tennant,” Sally said, blushing. At least she felt some shame. “We’ll see you at the party afterward, right?”
“If you’d like to drop by, that would be very nice, but it’s not necessary,” said Jeff. He beckoned Miranda away from the others and slipped her two twenty-pound notes. “One’s for sitting through my talk,” he murmured. “And the other is for the talk on conflicting accounts of the color of Richard III’s horse. Don’t worry about the party. There’ll be too many Witches there, and I think they’re a bad influence. You kids should go to a disco.”
“Nobody says disco anymore, Dad. But thanks.”
As soon as everyone over eighteen was inside and — as reported by Miranda, after a brief espionage mission — settled in their seats on the far side of the Minster, Rob and Sally left.
“Bye, Miranda,” Sally said, giving her an enthusiastic hug. “And thanks. We’ll meet you outside the Two Keys at eleven, okay?”
“Enjoy the concert,” said Rob. “We’ll need a full report later.”
“Sure,” said Miranda. “See you.”
Miranda waited for them to disappear down Stonegate, and then she counted to thirty. An usher who was even younger than Miranda appeared and hurried everyone in: The concert was about to begin.
“Are you coming in, miss?” he asked her, and she shook her head. She walked down the steps and across the street, following the path Rob and Sally had taken down Stonegate. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet; she had more than half an hour to wait. Half an hour until Nick knocked at the door and she took a giant leap into the unknown.
It was strange being alone in the flat at this time of night. Usually they were all getting back from dinner somewhere, or clearing away the debris — take-out packages, newspapers, empty cans and bottles — from an evening in. The flat felt too hot and too empty. Miranda sat for a while in the living room, then she lay on her bed. She finished off the orange juice in the fridge and threw the carton away in the recycling bin. She made another fruitless search for Tales of Old York, in the hope it had fallen behind the sofa or found its way onto her father’s bedside table. She searched through the TV channels, which didn’t take long. Still no Nick. Eight thirty came and went; eight forty-five. Miranda wondered if she should go and stand in the street, because he might have got their flat confused with another. But when she went outside, there was no sign of Nick anywhere, and it was too cold and wet to be hanging around.
Nine o’clock. He’d said he might be late, she remembered. He’d told her to wait — made her promise, in fact. Miranda climbed the stairs to her bedroom and opened the window, her radiator clanking in complaint. If he called her name, she’d hear him, and she could stick her head out of the window every few minutes to try and spot him walking along the street.
Nine fifteen. Miranda put down her cell phone and walked to the window. The rain had stopped, at least. It was Sunday night, but still there were groups of young people out, dressed up — not warmly, despite the weather — and making their way, shouting and laughing, from one pub to the next. Miranda didn’t know what to do. The waiting was gnawing at her stomach, making her feel ill with anticipation. He wasn’t coming, something inside of her was saying. Nick wasn’t coming.
But he said he would. He made he
r miss the concert so they could be together. She would wait downstairs, Miranda decided, out in the street, even if it was freezing. Then there’d be no chance of Nick going to the wrong door. She pulled her head back in and closed the window.
Just as she was about to draw the curtains, a light flickered in the attic window across the street. Miranda could see its beam darting around the room like a skittish insect. That was odd. Usually, the ghost’s candle was lit in the window. But although no candle materialized on the sill, and the handsome ghost didn’t appear, Miranda was sure that someone was up there. The light kept moving, searching something out. And then someone stepped out of the darkness, walking right up to the window, looking straight at Miranda.
Sally stood in the attic across the street, her mouth an O of surprise. Miranda couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d been expecting the ghost, not Sally, of all people. What was she doing in there? How did she get into the boarded-up house?
Sally was jiggling the window, trying to open it, but it must have been stuck fast. She mouthed something at Miranda: It took several tries before Miranda could decipher Go to the pub.
“Okay!” she shouted, not sure if Sally could hear her. But just as she stepped away from the window, she heard a frantic banging on the glass across the street. Sally was waving to her, trying to get her attention again. She’d pressed something up to the glass, holding it high so Miranda could see it. It was a small green book and, even in the half-light, Miranda recognized it instantly. She’d been looking for it today, after all. It was Tales of Old York.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Miranda was running — darting around people, breathing hard. It wasn’t that far from the flat on the Shambles to the pub on Stonegate, despite the zigzag of the route, but there was no time to lose. She’d left a scrawled note for Nick — At the White Boar, it read — hanging out of the mail slot in the front door in case he turned up. If he’d ever planned to turn up, which she was beginning to doubt.