Tamsin

by Peter S. Beagle

  The nighttime patrols dwindled away pretty fast, once it was obvious that the boggart had gone out of business. Julian and I never said anything—not even to each other, really. Julian more or less decided that he’d dreamed the whole thing, which was just as well. He did spend a lot of time hunting around the Manor for that Persian lady, though, and seriously asking Mister Cat where she was. I still feel guilty about that. I should have told Julian something.

  I did tell Meena, one weekend when I was staying at her house and she was teaching me to put on a sari by myself. They’re all six yards long, and there’s a sort of blouse that goes underneath, and people from different parts of India wrap them around themselves differently, and throw the loose end over their shoulders in special ways. I was getting the hang of it pretty quickly, except for the damn pleats, which I still can’t get right, and which Meena can do on herself in two minutes flat. I look like a big pink horse in a sari, but I don’t care, I love them. And Meena always says I look nice.

  When I told her what happened with the boggart and the cats, she got very quiet for a while. I said, “Don’t you believe me?” and she said, “Oh, yes, yes, I do, that’s the trouble. That’s what frightens me.”

  “Come on,” I said. “What frightens? You’re the one who grew up with ghosts, poltergeists, all those stories you told me. Weretigers, for God’s sake. What’s so specially scary about a boggart?”

  “Nothing much,” Meena said. “In India. India’s so old, Jenny. So many thousands of years, so many things happening to so many people, so much blood and birth—so much death that some things learned not to die, ever. The scary thing would be if India weren’t full of ghosts and spirits and old, old curses. But England’s not like that. I don’t want England to be like India.”

  She was upset enough that she actually messed up her own pleats and had to do them over. I said, “Well, for a little baby country, England’s up to here in weirdness. Eight months here, and I’ve heard more ghost stories, more legends, folktales, whatever, than I heard in New York my whole life. I think England’s probably already like India, blood and all. You know about Monmouth’s Rebellion?”

  Meena laughed. “Oh, yes. In India we know English history better than our own. It’s so much smaller and neater.” She took me by the arms then, and looked straight into my face. She said, “Jenny, I don’t know what that boggart meant about bewaring the servant, the mistress and the—that Other One. But you have to promise me that you’ll take it seriously, what he said. You have to promise, Jenny.”

  With her deep-blue sari on and the blue dot on her forehead she could have been looking at me from any time at all. I’d never seen her like that. I said, “Yes, okay, I do, I promise, do the pleats look all right now?” But Meena kept at it, not just all that weekend, but in school, asking me almost every day if I was minding the boggart’s warning. If I was staying away from the third floor.

  That’s what it came down to, after all. The third floor—still closed up, blocked off, and likely to stay that way for some while yet—was where Mister Cat’s Persian ghost hung out. Haunted, I might as well get used to saying it. She haunted the third floor, where he’d met her, and probably just came down on special occasions. And if she was the servant, the way the boggart had said, then those other two were probably up there, too. And so was my cat these days, most of the time—he showed up for meals, and he usually came rolling in past midnight to sleep it off on my bed, but for the rest of it he might as well have been back at Goshawk Farm Cattery. I’d known him to be gone for a whole day, two days, on West Eighty-third, when the Siamese Hussy was exploiting his body, but then I just had cars and trucks and manholes and crazies to worry about. Now he was spending every waking moment on that third floor with ghosts, monsters, something called the Other One. And sooner or later, I was going to have to deal with it. Like making him quit eating lizards, the summer Norris rented the house in Southampton. You can’t let your cat eat lizards, they’re really bad for cats, and they’re addictive, and you have to get the cat absolutely off them, cold turkey. Same way with ghosts. I can testify.

  Because, of course, I couldn’t stop thinking about the third floor, and not just because of Mister Cat, either. And the more I walked around thinking about it, the heavier it weighed on me, literally. Norris took me scuba diving once, that Southampton summer—once, and never again, because I couldn’t handle it. The breathing-underwater part was fine; it was the weight, the mass, the whole bulge of the entire ocean, all of it, on my head—that was what I could not deal with. And the bulgy fact of the third floor was just like that, another ocean, except that this time I was going to have to cope. Sooner or later. I didn’t live in Long Island Sound. I lived at Stourhead Farm.

  But there were all kinds of perfectly good reasons to put off dealing with anything. The boggart was minding his manners, and school was getting interesting (though I wasn’t about to admit it), and the weather was turning good for more than two days at a time, and Meena and Julian and I—and Tony, a couple of times— could have picnics on the downs. Once we picnicked in Julian’s Hundred-Acre Wood, but that wasn’t such a good idea, though nobody could ever say exactly why. It felt darker than it should have, even for an oak forest; maybe because it was so warm and bright just beyond the trees. Whatever, we packed up our picnic halfway through and moved out into the sunlight, and we never came back.

  When I wasn’t in school, I helped out around the Manor, like everyone else, but I dodged fieldwork whenever I got the chance—and so did Tony, I noticed pretty quickly. The Lovells were putting up enough money that first year that Evan could hire as much help as he wanted, and not need to press Tony or Julian or me into service. The problem was Julian: He kept volunteering the two of us, every time, for everything, no matter how much I threatened his life. He’d give me the big gray eyes and say, “But it’s our home, Jenny!” That kid still has no idea how close he came, once or twice.

  Mostly we weeded, whacking away with our hoes between the ridges of wheat and beans and peas and barley, sometimes even crawling to dig out stuff growing too close to the plants. We helped scatter fertilizer, too, either by hand or climbing on the back of the tractor to make sure the stuff was spreading evenly. Just as he’d told the Lovells, Evan was absolutely obsessed with getting nitrogen back into the soil—even Sally said there was only so much talking she could do about the nitrogen-fixing cycle. But he was finding out he was a farmer, which I don’t think he’d really known before. Maybe it happened like that with old Roger Willoughby.

  I don’t remember the exact day that I finally went up to the third floor. You’d think I would, but I’m no good with dates—I can’t remember my own birthday, let alone anybody else’s. I know it was early in May, and I know it was a Tuesday afternoon, because Sally was in Dorchester with her two piano students—no, she’d picked up a third one by then. Julian had stayed in Sherborne after school for some cricket match. Evan was over at a neighbor’s farm, helping out with some drainage problem, and I think Tony was with him. Either that, or he’d stayed for the cricket match, too, I’m not sure now.

  I was sitting under the chestnut tree out behind the dairy, writing a letter to Marta, when Mister Cat’s ghostly girlfriend trotted by. She looked different in broad daylight—fainter, for one thing, and definitely transparent, but more real, too, maybe because it was daylight. She got a few steps past me, and then she suddenly turned and looked at me.

  I have never watched Lassie on TV. Not when I was little, not when I was thirteen—I’d watch game shows, which I hate, rather than watch Lassie. I’m making a big point about that, so it’ll be clear that I didn’t imagine for one minute that she was trying to get me to follow her. I got up and followed her just because I wanted to. Because I wanted to know what the hell ghost-cats do on a warm Tuesday afternoon in Dorset. That’s all. I may wonder about it now, sometimes, but it was my idea then.

  The Persian never looked back. She cut straight past the dairy, past Evan’s wo
rkshop, that used to be the cider house, and right under the nose of Wilf’s pet billygoat (he had the temperament of a werewolf and a thing about Mister Cat, but he never saw her) into the Manor. I thought she’d just fade through the door, like a special effect, but she used the cat-flap Evan had put in, the same as Mister Cat. It twanged back and forth a couple of times after she’d passed in, just as though a real cat had been there.

  I was right behind her, practically stepping on her tail, but she didn’t pay me any more heed than if I’d been a ghost myself. Straight up the stairs to the second floor, straight toward the east wing, swishing that feather-duster tail behind her like one of those fans slaves wave over emperors in movies. The house was so still that I could actually hear her feet padding on the hard old floors—or maybe I wasn’t hearing real footsteps but the ghost of footsteps, the shadow of footsteps. Hard to be sure, when you don’t know the rules.

  I was following her so closely that I can’t say exactly when Mister Cat materialized beside me. He was just there, for once not scampering after his deceased Persian patootie, but stalking along at my heel, all dignity now, sort of convoying me like a tugboat, escorting me—where?

  At the foot of the east-wing stair, she turned again, and her eyes were glowing green as pine needles in sunlight. Mister Cat did go to her then, and they stood nose to nose, not saying anything I could hear—just looking over at me together from time to time. It got on my nerves, so I finally said, “Enough already. Let’s do it.” And I started for the stairway.

  They went up ahead of me. Once I’d pushed the boards and rubbish aside, those two shot past me and vanished into the darkest darkness I’d ever seen—a darkness that didn’t have a thing to do with the sun rising and setting. An old darkness that knew itself. When I started up, I felt it tasting me, licking at my neck and my face—daintily, carefully—the way Mister Cat will lick at something he isn’t sure he wants to eat. But I kept climbing, out of pure plain stubbornness. I’m not proud of the cranky way I still get sometimes, but I can tell you it has its uses. There’s a line in the Bible about perfect love casting out fear. That I don’t know about, but orneriness will definitely do it every time.

  It was lighter on the third floor, because of the high window at the far end. I could see clouds and sky, and the top branches of that same tree I’d been sitting under. The cats were halfway down the hall, and I walked toward them, already feeling a sneeze coming on, because the dust was so thick everywhere. But a sneeze was fine, a sneeze was ordinary—nothing ghostly or spooky about a sneeze. The third floor was turning out to be a floor, that was all— closed doors and cold dust, a couple of tottery old cabinets, a few faded portraits hanging above curved sconces, candleholders. Dimness, not darkness.

  Mister Cat and the Persian were waiting for me, not at a door, but at a narrow panel on the left side of the corridor. It wasn’t any different from any other section of the wall: same grungy oak trimmed with the same ivy-leaf molding, top and bottom, with the same chipped, bruised satyr faces peeking through at the corners. There was a bigger face about a third of the way down, looking like a lion, or maybe a sunflower with teeth. The other panels had that one, too, but this lion had little hollows for eyes, as though they were supposed to hold bits of bright glass, or jewels.

  Just as I got there, the Persian gave that distant meow of hers and melted through the panel, the way I’d imagined she would when we came in from outside. She didn’t actually walk into it, though—she sort of gathered herself into a shapeless gray-green mist for just a moment, and then she flowed right through, all at once. Five seconds—tops—and gone.

  Mister Cat and I stared at each other. It’s still the one and only time I’ve ever seen him looking as bewildered, dumbfounded and flat-out flabbergasted as I felt. He said, “Prrrp?” and I said, “How the hell do I know?” No doorknob, no hinges that I could see— maybe to everyone else who reads this, that’s a dead giveaway to a secret room, but it wasn’t for me. I felt over the panel, pressing hard on every single ivy leaf, or anything else raised. I even tried pressing the lion-head’s empty eyes, because why not? Nothing. Mister Cat meowed impatiently. I said, “I’m trying.”

  Then I thought, if there had once been stones of some kind in the lion’s eyes, maybe they’d rested on something under the sockets. I dug in my pockets until I came up with a paper clip, bent it straight, and started poking around the hollows. Right eye, nothing—left eye… left eye, a little hole at the bottom of the socket… a soft click, and a louder click after that… and suddenly daylight around the molding, and the panel swinging back, very slowly. I remember, I saw one corner of a painting, and the legs of a chair.

  Mister Cat was through the crack so fast you’d have thought his kibble dish was on the other side. But I stood right where I was, because there was a third click—this one in my head—and I realized that what was beyond that panel had to be the room that we never could find in the house plan, or in any of the paintings of the house; the room whose pointy window never reflected the sun. And when I realized that, I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I stood there, not moving, for maybe a month, maybe two, and then I pushed that secret door the rest of the way open.

  And there was Tamsin.

  Twelve

  She was sitting in a chair with her back to me, looking out that window. The Persian was on her lap. I remember wondering crazily if a ghost could feel the ghost-weight of a ghost-cat, since I hadn’t felt a thing when the Persian jumped up on my bed. Because there wasn’t any more question about the woman than the cat—I could see the window through her, and the chestnut tree through the window; and when she put the cat down and stood up to face me, I saw that her hair and skin and gown were all the same color, a kind of pearl-gray, but with a light in it, the way rain clouds can look when the sky’s almost purple behind them. She said, “Jennifer. Aye, I thought it would be you to find me.”

  I’d expected her voice would be as tiny as the Persian’s meow, but actually it was clear as could be. Low and soft, but absolutely clear, with just a bit of what sounded almost like a Southern drawl. I couldn’t answer her. I just stood there.

  She smiled at me, and I guess that has to be when I fell in love with her. There was so much loneliness in that smile, but there was amusement, too, and understanding. She wasn’t anything more than understanding; she was held together by memories of understanding, memories of laughter. No, of course I didn’t know all that then. I didn’t know anything, except that my life was never going to be the same again. And that was fine with me.

  “I am Tamsin Willoughby,” she said. With the chair behind her, I could see her better as she moved toward me. She wasn’t tall— my height, maybe an inch more—and I couldn’t have said much about her hair or her eyes (except that they were as delicately slanted as the Persian’s), because everything was that glimmering gray color. And I can’t say—even now—whether she was beautiful or not. Her face was a little round, and her mouth was probably too wide, with maybe a bit too much chin below it. But I couldn’t stop looking at her, and I couldn’t speak, not for the longest while. Tamsin just waited, never looking impatient, never looking as though she was patiently being patient. Time didn’t mean anything to Tamsin—that was the first thing I ever really learned about her.

  And the first thing I ever said to her, when I could talk, was, “How do you know my name?”

  She laughed then, in a funny, breathless sort of way, like a child who’s been running for no reason, just to run. “La, indeed”—she really did say that, la—“and how should I not know it, with you and your family abounding this way and that, filling the air with all your sweet riot—your jests, your labors, your songs, and your quarrels?” She pretended to count on her fingers. “Your father is Evan, your mother Sal, your brothers Anthony and Julian. As to Graymalkin here, I confess myself witling.”

  “His name’s Mister Cat,” I said. Graymalkin’s out of Macbeth, which we had at Gaynor, in Introduction to Drama, so I knew. “And
Evan and Tony and Julian aren’t my family.” I’d never said it just like that, not even to Sally when I was really pissed. I said, “They’re my step-family, sort of.”

  Close to, I could see that the grayness had a slow pulse to it— clearer… dimmer… clearer… dimmer—like a heartbeat. Tamsin was looking at me altogether too shrewdly, considering she was dead and we’d just met. But all she said was, “You’re not of Dorset—no, nor of England neither, I think. You’ll be from the Colonies.”

  “The Colonies,” I said. “Oh. Right. The Colonies. America, yes. There was a revolution. We’re an independent country now. I guess you wouldn’t know.”

  Her hair was a mass of corkscrew curls, drawn up on top and spilling down over her right shoulder. It didn’t move when she shook her head. She said, “This house has not always stood empty, Mistress Jennifer—there have been a mort of other voices than yours passing my door, crying the news below my window. Well I know that Romish James is departed, and the Hanovers come long since, and those weighty men who visited my father by night as surely dust as I. Colonies gained and lost, powers arisen and fallen away, alliances sworn, alliances broken, poor Dorset long losel as a Jacobus… What may be the year now, child?”

  I told her. It looked to me as though she swayed for a moment, but maybe that was just that come-and-go pulsation of the grayness. “So late? So late, and here am I still, when I should be as gone as James and… and Edric Davies, and him.” I hardly heard the last few words, they came out in such a whisper. “Art certain, Mistress Jennifer?”

  “I’m certain,” I said. “And please, I wish you wouldn’t call me Jennifer. I’m Jenny—no mistress about it. Everyone calls me Jenny.”

  Tamsin Willoughby smiled a second time, and everything in me just dissolved into marshmallows and Silly Putty. I have never been one of those girls who’s always getting huge crushes on older girls, but Tamsin… It wasn’t that she was so pretty—Meena’s way prettier, if you want to measure these things. Maybe it was just the plain fact of her being a ghost, and smiling at me across three hundred years—I can’t say it wasn’t. But what I thought, and what I still think, and always will, is that she saw me. Nobody else has ever seen me—me, Jenny Gluckstein—like that. Not my parents, not Julian, not even Meena. Love is one thing—recognition is something else.