Elizabeth and Zenobia

by Jessica Miller

  I wouldn’t understand just how much further afield Zenobia had gone until the next afternoon.

  Miss Clemency had declared the light ‘very good indeed’ and that we should have our drawing lesson outside. We went up the hill. We stood on the ridge, looking back down towards the house, and we drew what we could see before us.

  The first thing I drew was a squirrel, flashing red in the branches of a tree. I took three tries before I was satisfied with my picture. Then I drew a cloud that had nearly the same shape as a shoe, and I had just picked up my green crayon to start on a tangled box hedge when I sensed a movement behind me.

  Zenobia stood at my elbow. ‘When will you finish?’ she said.

  I looked at my paper. ‘I haven’t begun yet,’ I said.

  ‘You need to come with me. There’s something you have to see.’

  ‘Perhaps I don’t want to come with you.’ I outlined the hedge. ‘After all, you haven’t been especially nice to me recently.’

  ‘It’s important,’ she insisted.

  I shaded a patch of green leaves. I made no sign I had heard her. How typical of Zenobia, I thought. She had treated me so coldly these last few days. Now, as soon as she wanted something from me, she expected that we should be friends again, without her even apologising.

  ‘I’m sorry, then,’ she hissed.

  ‘Sorry for what?’ I hissed back.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been disagreeable to you.’

  ‘Not just to me,’ I reminded her.

  ‘I’m sorry I was disagreeable to Miss Clemency, too. There. Are you happy?’

  I was. I was happy Zenobia had apologised. And happier still to have my friend back.

  I crumpled up my paper. ‘Miss Clemency—’

  Miss Clemency turned, her paintbrush, dripping pastel pink, halfway to her paper. ‘Yes, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Zenobia has something important to show me.’

  ‘Very well.’ Miss Clemency wiped her brush clean on the grass and fastened her hat to her head. ‘If it’s important, I’d best come with you.’

  Zenobia went over the top of the hill, putting the house quickly behind her.

  ‘This way,’ I pointed for Miss Clemency and together we followed her.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked when we were halfway down the other side of the hill.

  Zenobia didn’t answer. She just kept walking, as dark and purposeful as a swarm of bees. I sped up and Miss Clemency sped up beside me.

  On the downward slope of the hill, the ground came away so fast beneath my feet, I felt like I was flying. Finally, we came to a narrow road, crossing the flattish place where our hill joined another.

  ‘This way,’ said Zenobia and she started down the road.

  I waited for Miss Clemency, who was walking with her skirts bunched up about her knees, and beckoned her to follow. In the distance a collection of shapes came together to form the slate-tiled rooves and the spindling church spire of Witheringe Green.

  It didn’t take long to walk from one end of the main street to the other. We passed some houses with neat gardens and shuttered windows, a haberdasher with faded bolts of fabric in the window, an apothecary with its sign shaped like a mortar and pestle, a seed shop selling packets of sweet peas, runner beans, and geraniums.

  Zenobia stopped at last in front of a small stone church. ‘In here,’ she said. We walked through an overgrown garden and around to the back of the building where, cut into the foot of a hill, was a modest graveyard, with rows of small crooked crosses and plain tombstones with most of the inscriptions on them worn away. Zenobia rested her hand on the iron gate that led into the graveyard for a moment, then pushed. It opened with a creak and her white fingers came away dusted orange with rust. She went through and motioned for me to follow.

  I stopped, with one foot over the step. I registered the familiar signs of fear—the dry mouth, the light stomach, the heartbeat that I could feel everywhere in my body: behind my eyes, at the backs of my knees.

  ‘Oh come on, Elizabeth,’ snapped Zenobia. She grabbed a handful of my dress and tried to pull me in, but I didn’t move. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of—I’ve always found graveyards to be—’

  But before she could finish, Miss Clemency spoke. ‘Come on, Elizabeth,’ she soothed. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.’ She looked at a crumbling stone angel whose left hand had fallen off, and at the low-hanging branches of the oak tree that shaded the rows of graves. ‘I’ve always found graveyards to be quite beautiful’—and here, Zenobia looked up at her in surprise—‘in a melancholy kind of way.’ And Miss Clemency unwrapped my fingers from where they were hooked around the gate and led me inside. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I wonder what Zenobia has to show us.’

  Zenobia walked up to the marble tombstone of a grave set apart from the others and there she stopped. I could see the place where a hand had pushed away the ferns and weeds growing over it to make the inscription visible:

  Tourmaline, aged seven years.

  Beloved daughter of Edward and Lydia.

  Adored sister of Henry.

  7

  TOUR MALINE

  I was sitting at the dinner table, looking at a plate of stringy cabbage stew, but in my head I was still at the cemetery. I was still kneeling before the headstone, staring at the words etched across it.

  ‘Tourmaline,’ I had said softly to myself. ‘Adored sister of Henry. Tourmaline. Sister of Henry Murmur. But Henry Murmur is my—’

  I had felt a light hand on my shoulder. ‘Did you know your father had a sister?’ asked Miss Clemency.

  I had shaken my head. I didn’t know.

  And yet I wanted to know—there was so much I desperately wanted to know.

  Who was Tourmaline?

  How had she died?

  And why had she been kept a secret?

  I remembered the dedication at the front of Father’s book. I remembered the nursery with its two narrow beds. One for Father and the other, of course, for Tourmaline. I remembered, too, the uneasy feeling that had stuck to my skin ever since I first went in there.

  Was it Tourmaline that was giving the nursery its haunted feeling?

  Was Father haunted by her, too?

  I looked down the table to Father. His cabbage stew sat uneaten. He was too busy talking to raise the loaded fork in his hand to his mouth.

  ‘A very productive day,’ he was saying to Miss Clemency. ‘My fieldwork has yielded gratifying results, and I am pleased to say I will shortly be able to add several new species to the Caryophyllaceae family.’

  Mother had never tolerated Father’s talk about plants. But Miss Clemency nodded eagerly and, talking with her, father looked happy.

  But I couldn’t feel happy for him.

  I didn’t know that my father had a sister. He had never told me. He never told me anything. Never paid any attention to me. Hardly noticed me at all.

  Suddenly, everything about Father—the way he was talking, the way he was waving his fork about—made me angry. I had never felt anger like this before. It rolled over me like a wave. It left my knees wobbling and knocked the breath out of my lungs.

  Before I could think about what I was doing I slammed my knife against my plate. Hard. Cabbage stew spattered the tabletop, and the ringing sound of silver on china made everyone around the table jump.

  Father placed his fork, quite deliberately, next to his plate and looked up at me.

  He had noticed me now.

  Miss Clemency had, too. And, from her darkened corner, even Mrs Purswell was staring.

  They looked at me expectantly, like they were waiting for me to say something.

  I turned to Zenobia, feeling panicked. Now that I had Father’s attention, I didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. Her voice was almost gentle. ‘Ask him.’

  ‘Tell me about Tourmaline,’ I said. My voice came out louder than I expected it to.

  Father didn’t ask me to repeat
myself and he didn’t lean forward in his chair to hear me better.

  ‘Not now, Elizabeth,’ he said.

  ‘Not now,’ I asked, ‘or not ever?’

  ‘I said, not now.’

  ‘I may be speaking out of turn, Dr Murmur,’ said Miss Clemency, and her cheeks glowed red, ‘but surely Elizabeth has a right to know…’

  She trailed off and looked intently at her cabbage stew.

  ‘Tourmaline. My sister.’ Father’s voice caught on the word ‘sister’. ‘She…she’s not with us anymore.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No more questions. You asked me about Tourmaline. I have told you about Tourmaline. It all happened a long time ago. I don’t wish to discuss it any further.’

  ‘But—’

  He stood up, pushing back his chair so violently that it tipped over and fell to the floor. ‘Enough, Elizabeth!’ he roared. ‘That is enough!’

  He strode past me and out of the room.

  As he went by my chair, I saw his eyes were glistening. I think they might have been filling with tears.

  Miss Clemency reached across the table and laid her hand over mine. ‘Tourmaline must have been very dear to him,’ she said gently.

  I studied my fingernails. They were still black with dirt from the graveyard. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever been very dear to him,’ I muttered.

  ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Miss Clemency said softly. She looked like she might say more, but I gave her such a dark look that she fell silent. Finally, she gave a delicate yawn and said, ‘My, it has been a long day, hasn’t it? Perhaps you’d let me walk you up to your bedroom, Elizabeth?’

  I shook my head. ‘I think I’ll stay here a little longer,’ I said.

  ‘Just a little longer, then.’ Miss Clemency squeezed my shoulder as she went past me and out of the room.

  I turned to Zenobia. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said in a dull voice. ‘Why would Father keep such a secret?’

  ‘It’s all quite shrouded in mystery, isn’t it.’ said Zenobia. ‘The long-hidden sister. The overgrown grave.’ A grin crept into the corners of her mouth. ‘I do love a good mystery.’

  ‘But I don’t!’ I snapped. ‘And I don’t want Tourmaline to be a mystery, either! She would have been my aunt, if she had lived. And I don’t know anything about her. I don’t even know what she looked like!’

  I heard a throat-clearing sound near my elbow. Mrs Purswell had materialised. She gave me a strange look—almost a pitying look, I thought.

  ‘Uncanny,’ breathed Zenobia.

  But while Zenobia was impressed, I was embarrassed. It must have looked to Mrs Purswell as though I was talking to myself.

  Mrs Purswell stacked the cabbage-smeared dishes and went to disappear again. Then she turned around. She looked like she was about to say something. Whatever it was, though, she thought better of it. She pressed her lips together and melted into the darkness.

  In the blue guest bedroom, I sat at the window seat, with my breath misting the glass. Through the window was the moon. When we first arrived at Witheringe House it was the shape of a fingernail clipping. Now it was round, nearly full, and tinged yellow. We had been almost a fortnight here.

  Any hopes I had that things would improve between Father and me at the new house were gone.

  I sighed.

  I was still angry, though not in the way I had been angry at dinner. Now I was a mixture of angry and confused and hurt.

  Zenobia sprang onto the seat with me. I pulled my knees up to make room for her. She didn’t talk, she just softly opened her book. But I could tell that she meant, in her own way, to comfort me. I leaned against her and felt her cold closeness.

  I knew Tourmaline would stay a mystery to me. Father would never speak of her again—he had made that much clear. I wished I could put her from my mind.

  With a rustle, Zenobia turned her page. My eye fell on the sentence she was reading.

  …but when we call up a Spirit Presence, we do not call up that Presence alone: a Spirit Presence brings with it the Keys to the Past, and to all the Long-Forgotten Secrets, Mysteries, and Memories that lie within it…

  I sat up straight.

  If Father wouldn’t tell me about Tourmaline, maybe Tourmaline would tell me about Tourmaline.

  ‘Zenobia?’

  Zenobia let her book fall closed. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think Witheringe House is haunted?’

  ‘Inhabited, Elizabeth, not haunted. Inhabited by a Spirit Presence.’

  ‘And do you think the Spirit Presence inhabits the nursery?’

  ‘So my senses tell me.’

  ‘Then do you think there’s a possibility that the Spirit Presence in the nursery might be Tourmaline?’

  Zenobia’s eyes shone. ‘Why do you ask?’ she said.

  I bit my lip. I knew what I wanted to say next. I knew, too, that once I said it, there would be no taking it back.

  The words rushed out. ‘Because I want to talk with her,’ I said. And as soon as I had said the words, I knew them to be true. For all that I was scared of ghosts and séances, I wanted to talk to Tourmaline very much.

  Zenobia smiled widely. ‘But that’s a marvellous idea, Elizabeth! So marvellous, I wonder I didn’t think of it myself! We’ll hold another séance. And we’ll address Tourmaline directly.’ Her eyes were bright. ‘Tourmaline,’ she said, testing it out. Liking the sound of it, she said it again, ‘Tourmaline.’ Then she went on, ‘Madame Lucent says if you call a Spirit Presence by its True Name, it’s far more likely to answer you. Or, at least, I think that’s what she says.’

  I sprang down from the window seat. I found one sock and I started to hunt around for its pair.

  ‘Now, which chapter was it?’ The pages of the book ruffled against the tips of Zenobia’s fingers. ‘Let me see. “Spirit Doubles, and How to find Yours”—no. “Ten Types of Visitation”—no.’

  I found the other sock, and I began to push my feet into my shoes.

  ‘Here it is!’ she said and she started to read.

  ‘Though the Spectral Inhabitants of the World Beyond the Veil have shed their fleshly forms, they are yet bound to the World of the Living through the names by which they were called. Call a Spirit Presence by its True Name once more and even the most reluctant may be compelled to Answer you.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, putting my arms through the sleeves of my jacket, ‘that sounds very promising.’

  ‘Now,’ said Zenobia, ‘when would you like to hold the séance? We could wait until midnight. I always think midnight is the most atmospheric time. Or’—her eye caught the moon through the window—‘we could wait a few more days until the moon is full. We wouldn’t need the candle. We could conduct the whole séance by the moon’s eerie light.’

  When she looked back from the window, I was standing, fully-clothed, at the door, and fitting the candle into its silver holder.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘I want to have the séance now.’

  ‘Zenobia looked at me admiringly. ‘You’re a different Elizabeth altogether from the one you were this afternoon.’ She grinned. ‘I like it.’

  Zenobia tucked a book of matches into her pocket and, slowly so that its creaking wouldn’t wake the sleeping house, she opened the door.

  By the time we got to the nursery, I was starting to feel more like the old Elizabeth. The one who was timid and afraid of ghosts and darkness. The one who wondered if this séance was such a good idea after all.

  Zenobia opened the door a crack. ‘Come on,’ she said.

  My voice shook. ‘I don’t know if I can, after all,’ I said. ‘I’m not brave like you.’

  ‘I’m not brave,’ she said. ‘I’m just not scared. There’s a difference.’

  ‘There is?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you know what’s brave, Elizabeth? When you’re scared to do something, but you find the courage to do it anyway.’

  She pushed the door open wide and went into the nursery.

 
I decided, just for tonight, I would be brave. I followed her.

  The bright white moon shone through the window. The mirror on the wall showed its reflection, tinged green and rippled, in its murky glass.

  Perhaps it was the moonlight that made the green nursery wallpaper somehow even brighter and greener than before. The tree that grew across one wall seemed taller. The two branches that grew from each side of its trunk looked almost like arms, and they twisted and split apart at their ends to make shapes like open hands with reaching twiggy fingers.

  I turned my back to the tree.

  Zenobia lit the candle. She threaded the ring onto its twine. Then she laid out the Ouija board and sat cross-legged before it.

  ‘Are you ready?’ She looked up at me.

  ‘I’m ready,’ I said. I took my place on the other side of the board.

  Zenobia opened Madame Lucent’s book.

  ‘O Spirit,’ she began in a loud, ringing voice.

  I cleared my throat. ‘Zenobia?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt,’ she whispered. She closed her eyes and tipped her face to the ceiling.

  ‘O Spirit,’ she boomed.

  ‘But, Zenobia,’

  ‘What?’ She snapped her eyes open and gave me an annoyed look.

  ‘Well, we didn’t decide before the séance who should be the one to ask the questions.’

  ‘I am always the one to ask the questions, Elizabeth. I am the medium. I bring a certain gravity to the role that, frankly, I’m not sure you’re capable of.’

  ‘I just thought I might ask the questions this time.’

  Tourmaline was, after all, my father’s sister. And had she lived, she would have been my aunt. Surely she belonged to me more than to Zenobia.

  ‘No one owns a Spirit Presence, Elizabeth,’ Zenobia broke in on my thoughts. ‘And I do have a finer understanding of the art of mediumship, not that I like to point it out—’

  ‘You do, though,’ I said. ‘You do like to point it out. You just pointed it out now.’

  Zenobia leaned in close and spoke in a hiss so pronounced the candle between us flickered and nearly went out.

  ‘Well, if you’re at all as tuned to the Spirit World,’ she said, ‘you’ll know that bickering isn’t conducive to communication with Spirit Visitors. Now’—she allowed a serene expression to fall over her face—‘kindly put your fingers to the corners of the board and follow my lead.’