by Paula Morris
“That Richard III thing?” Miranda asked, bracing as someone opened the door behind her and let in a gust of cold air. “I thought Rob didn’t care about that.”
Jeff smiled. “I suspect a certain young lady made more of an impact on your brother than any number of my history lessons.”
Miranda had no idea what they were talking about.
“The pretty blond girl at Little Bettys,” Peggy explained. “Remember — she served us yesterday? Well, this afternoon when we went back while you were napping, she was working upstairs in the tearooms. Her name is Sally.”
“We had to pass on four tables before we got one in her room,” Jeff said drily. “I thought we’d be waiting there all afternoon.”
“She mentioned that her parents own this place,” continued Peggy, gesturing around the inn. “She just finished her first semester at the University of Manchester, and she’s home for the holidays.”
“She told you all this when she was taking your tea order?” Miranda thought this Sally sounded weird.
“Your brother was interrogating her.” Jeff raised one eyebrow, a trick that Miranda used to think was awesome. She’d never been able to master it herself. “He’s suddenly grown very interested in local culture.”
Miranda stifled a laugh.
“And she said she helps out here in the evenings, when it’s busy,” said Peggy, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers on the damp table. “Oh — she’s coming now! With Rob. Pretend we were talking about something else.”
“Be cool,” Jeff instructed Miranda in a mock stern voice, which made Miranda smirk: Her father was the most uncool person she knew.
“Sally!” her mother said in an ostentatiously casual way. “How nice to see you again!”
“Hello there — so glad you found me!” Sally stood at their table, Rob lurking doofus-like in the background. Miranda wouldn’t have recognized her. At the Little Bettys shop yesterday, she’d worn a prim black-and-white uniform, like some kind of maid from another era, and her curly blond hair had been tied back in a ponytail. Here, her hair was loose, bouncing on her shoulders, and she wore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her bright blue eyes sparkled. Miranda liked the soft burr of her accent and the open way she smiled, as though she was genuinely pleased to see them.
“This is Miranda,” Peggy said, gesturing so wildly that Miranda had to duck to avoid getting smacked in the face.
“I’ve heard all about you,” said Sally, beaming. “I hope you’re feeling better now.”
“What?” said Miranda stupidly, and it sounded ruder than she’d intended.
“You were feeling poorly this afternoon, over at Clifford’s Tower?”
“Oh yeah.” Miranda repressed a shudder at the very mention of that place. The whole experience seemed so surreal now. Almost everything in York she’d experienced so far was surreal, like a strange and unsettling dream. “Thanks. I’m … fine.”
“Good.” Sally smiled again. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work, but I just wanted to say hello. Rob’s got the menus….”
Rob held some laminated sheets in the air, and gave a goofy smile. He was the polar opposite of suave. Miranda had never seen him like this before.
“… but I should warn you that we’ve already run out of the beef hot pot and the seafood pasta. I’m really sorry.”
“Busy night.” Jeff nodded, looking around.
“Yes. Two of the staff left today,” Sally explained breathlessly. “They got jobs at a ski resort in France and didn’t give any notice. It’s a madhouse here during the festival, so it couldn’t be worse timing. My parents are at their wit’s end.”
“I can help, you know,” Rob spoke up. “Clear glasses and plates and stuff.”
Miranda couldn’t believe her ears. Her brother could barely clear his own dishes off the table at home, let alone help out at a busy inn.
“Oh, I don’t want to spoil your —”
“It’s fine, no problem, really.” Rob sounded desperate. Miranda’s parents looked at each other, obviously as bemused as she was. Her mother’s mouth was twitching with a smile. “I like to have something to do. Keep busy, you know.”
This was such a blatant lie that Miranda had to choke back laughter. At home, Rob’s idea of “keeping busy” was lying across the sofa, scattering pistachio shells across the coffee table, and watching the director’s cut of Blade Runner for the ninety-ninth time.
“Well,” said Sally, and when she looked at Rob his face turned red. “When you’ve had your meals, if you can spare some time, I’d be very grateful.”
After Sally had dashed away, and Jeff and Rob had ambled off to the bar to place the Tennants’ orders, Miranda asked her mother why Rob was acting so weird.
“You think it’s weird?” Peggy rested her hand on one of Miranda’s. “I think it’s quite sweet. And it’s very nice to see your brother happy and enthusiastic for a change. It’s good for him to meet someone his own age who … you know. Has nothing to do with everything back home.”
“I guess,” said Miranda, flinching as the door opened again and cold air swirled in. It wasn’t like Rob at all to fixate on a girl and chase after her so blatantly. He’d had girlfriends at school before, but they always seemed to do all the chasing. A girl asked him to junior prom, not vice versa. And since the accident, he hadn’t seemed interested in going out with anyone at all. He’d barely been out at night this summer and fall. He and Miranda had gone to precisely one party, at Halloween, and only then because it was close enough to walk there and back.
But now, all of a sudden, he meets a girl in a foreign country and gets a dazed look in his eyes and starts hanging around her like a lovesick adolescent? Lame, in Miranda’s opinion. Even though she had to admit that Sally seemed nice without being gushy or sickly sweet, confident without being brash. She wasn’t fawning over Rob in a sappy way, like too many of his ex-girlfriends. Still, Miranda was annoyed.
“There’s no need to worry.” Peggy said, apparently reading her mind. Miranda had no idea how her mother could do that. “Or be jealous.”
“Jealous?” Miranda repeated, startled. Peggy patted her hand.
“You know what I mean. You and Rob have been hunkered down for a while now, just the two of you. It’s time, maybe. Time to venture out into the world again. Do things with other people.”
Miranda couldn’t trust herself to speak. She wanted to protest that her mother was being unfair, that she couldn’t care less if Rob fell in love with every waitress in York, that she’d ventured out into the world loads of times without Rob since the accident. She’d been out with Bea and Cami on that trip to the river, the one she’d like to forget; they’d dragged her along to the movies twice as well, and … what else? The class trip to the ice rink at the mall. That was it, pretty much. It didn’t mean Miranda was clinging to Rob. She wanted to be on her own this week, after all. Didn’t she?
Anyway, Miranda was meeting people here in York herself; she just didn’t make a big show of it. There was Nick, who she was meeting up with tomorrow at dusk — actually meeting him, to go somewhere, not just stalking him the way Rob kept turning up everywhere Sally worked. And then there was the mystery guy in the attic window, who she’d seen the night they arrived. If they opened their windows, they’d be close enough to talk. Close enough, Miranda thought with an uneasy shiver, to touch.
“Here they come,” said Peggy, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers again to make room for drinks and cutlery. “Not looking where they’re going, as usual.”
Jeff and Rob were squeezing through the crowd, so intent on their conversation that they seemed oblivious to the way their drinks were slopping onto the floor. Her father practically stepped on a black cat that was sidling, tail curled, around the wall from one room to the next.
“Dad almost tripped over that cat,” Miranda said. She was making an effort to sound normal, not strained and upset and sulky — even though that was pretty much how she was feeling.
“There,” Miranda pointed. The cat had stepped onto the hearth, arching its back against the stone fireplace.
“I don’t see it,” said Peggy, sounding disappointed.
“It’s right there, Mom,” Miranda said. She jabbed her finger toward the fireplace. “See it? It’s licking its paw now. Cute.”
“I can’t see anything. Maybe I need to get new glasses. Jeff, can you see a cat in here? Miranda says you almost stepped on it.”
“No cat.” Jeff lowered two drinks onto the table, spilling both of them. “But I did see a very interesting old Blue Boar sign in the next room. I’ll point it out to you later, after we eat.”
“You guys are all totally blind,” Miranda said, almost snapping at them. “It is RIGHT THERE by the fire.”
“They don’t have cats in pubs,” Rob said, dragging his stool closer to the table. He looked very pleased with himself. “People are allowed to bring their dogs in, so there’d be fights all the time.”
“You’re quite the expert now,” Peggy teased. Miranda kicked him under the table, but Rob pretended not to notice. When she looked again, the black cat by the fireplace was gone.
That night, Miranda couldn’t sleep. She was too hot, then she was too cold. When she tried to read Northanger Abbey, she felt sleepy and had to put the book down, but as soon as she turned off her light, she was wide awake again. At first, there was a little noise outside — people calling to each other and laughing, the tap of heels along the cobbles — but soon everything was eerily quiet. When she was too restless to lie still any longer, Miranda rolled out of bed and pulled one curtain back. Snow was falling again, soft and wet. The street was empty.
She knelt by the window, arms resting on the sills. Through streaks of snow she could see the attic window opposite, dark as the night sky. Miranda yawned, tugging at the curtain to draw it back into place, but a glimpse of sudden light stilled her hand. Across the street, blurred by snow, a candle flickered.
Then he was there, too, his face as pale as the moon, staring straight at her. Miranda felt breathless, something between excited and apprehensive. Slowly, she raised a hand to wave, but waving felt too silly, too girlish. She pressed her palm against the cold glass, not sure of what to do, wondering how long it would take for her to feel embarrassed and look away.
A ridge of mashed snowflakes fell from the window, and now Miranda could see the guy in the attic more clearly. He wore a white collarless shirt, open at the neck. There was something across the base of his throat — a dark line, like a ribbon or a leather string. Miranda squinted, trying to make it out. The candle flickered again, its flame dancing and quivering. And she realized that it wasn’t a ribbon around his neck, or any kind of jewelry. It was a wound, dark with blood or bruising.
The guy in the window smiled at her — just the glimmer of a smile — and raised his right hand to the window, resting his palm on the pane in an exact mirror image of her gesture. A chill rippled through Miranda’s hand. The glass was cold, of course; it was snowing outside. But this was a sudden, intense cold, turning her fingertips numb and shooting some kind of electric currents down her arm. Miranda knew this cold. She knew exactly what it meant.
Miranda wanted to pull away from the window, but she couldn’t. This was different from seeing the face in the river, or the farmer, or the little girl in Bedern, or the ash people. She wasn’t scared. She didn’t want to cry out or run away. All she could do was keep looking into that beautiful face with its sad, dark eyes, feeling the cold of his hand burn its way into hers.
The candle’s flame dwindled and then, as abruptly as last time, was extinguished. Miranda could see nothing but inky darkness through the haze of snow, and her hand, still pressed against the class, stopped tingling. It just felt limp and heavy, not zinging with electricity. Her legs started to feel stiff, cramped from kneeling in one position.
Her heart was still hammering. She’d thought he was real, but the guy in the attic was a ghost. A ghost with a terrible wound.
Crawling back into bed, Miranda flicked on her bedside lamp. The book, she thought, reaching for it — not Northanger Abbey, but the book she’d been reading earlier that afternoon. The Shambles was a famous old street; maybe there was something about the gorgeous ghost in Tales of Old York. She turned its musty pages, looking for a chapter on the shambles. maybe there would be something here to give her a clue.
Many local folk claim to have seen ghostly apparitions along the Shambles, although for a street so ancient and alive with history, it has surprisingly few consistent legends of hauntings and supernatural occurrences. But during the nineteenth century, numerous witnesses reported a sighting in an upper window of one of the oldest houses in the street. The spirit in question was a young man, purported to be the ghost of an apprentice garroted by his cruel master.
Garroted — that meant strangled, Miranda remembered, though where she’d learned that word, she wasn’t sure. Probably one of her father’s gory stories about some medieval king’s evil hobbies. The dark stain at the young man’s throat: It had to be a bruise, the kind caused by a rope drawn tight around his neck. This was the ghost she’d seen tonight, the ghost who’d appeared to her in the attic window. He could be two hundred years old by now. Still sad, still haunting the street where he died. Still insanely beautiful — dark, handsome, angular.
Miranda lay the book down and wriggled low under the covers. If only this guy were living and breathing, and Nick were the ghost, she thought, feeling instantly guilty for thinking something that mean. Nick was just so odd — spiky and caustic. There was something beyond edgy about him. She was sure he was going to get her into trouble, somehow. Even though she wanted to meet up with him tomorrow at dusk, it was out of curiosity, not infatuation. This was nothing like the thing Rob clearly had for Sally, where he was all puppy-dog smitten with someone he barely knew. Nick could see ghosts, just like Miranda could; he seemed to know how to navigate that world. She wanted to hear what he had to say, to see what he had to show her.
The guy in the attic window, on the other hand: He didn’t need to say anything.
When he looked at her, everything else seemed to disappear — all her self-consciousness, sadness, confusion. Nick had said that ghosts couldn’t hurt her, and Miranda was beginning to believe him. This ghost wouldn’t hurt anyone. Miranda could gaze into his eyes and let the chill sear through her body without feeling afraid. She didn’t want to look away. She wanted more.
CHAPTER SIX
Miranda, listen to me. I never ask you for anything.” Rob was pouting, squeezing the cushion on his lap as though he were trying to subdue it.
“Whatever. You ask me for things all the time,” Miranda retorted.
It was Monday afternoon. Their father and Lord Poole had gone out somewhere. Their mother was meeting up with the orchestra at a rehearsal room. Miranda and Rob were sitting around in the flat: The TV was on with the sound turned down, and newspapers lay strewn across every flat surface. Outside, there was a strange greenish tinge to the dense gray sky, something Miranda always associated with snow moving in.
“The other day you ordered me to make you another English muffin.”
“I did not!”
“You gestured at me and, like, pointed to the toaster.”
“Did I say anything with my mouth?”
“What?”
“Answer the question. DID I SAY ANYTHING WITH MY MOUTH?”
Miranda sighed.
“Are you just going to sit around here bugging me all day?” she asked him.
“No.” Rob sprang to his feet, the cushion tumbling to the floor. He clapped his hands together like a camp counselor. So obnoxious. “We should do something. How about I take you to afternoon tea at Little Bettys?”
“You’re so origin
al,” she drawled. Really, he couldn’t stay away from Sally for two minutes.
“You can have hot chocolate with real cream and chocolate flakes. Hmmm?”
“I’m not six years old, you know.”
“And there are these little pancake things called peeklets….”
“Pikelets,” Miranda corrected him. “I haven’t even eaten at Bettys and I know that. Maybe if you read books, you wouldn’t be so ignorant about the foodstuffs of other cultures. Why don’t you just go by yourself?”
“Guys just don’t go to tea shops by themselves. It’s not manly.”
“You’re not manly,” muttered Miranda, heaving herself out of the armchair. She was starting to get nervous about meeting up with Nick later on. Maybe he’d forgotten all about it. Maybe it wasn’t a great idea. She didn’t know anything about Nick. He could be a lunatic. Her English teacher that fall had said that Lord Byron was once described as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” Was that a description of Nick as well?
“Come on.” Rob zipped up his hoodie, ready for action.
“But, you know, I can’t stay long,” she said quickly.
“What — you got somewhere else to go?” he scoffed. Miranda looked away, pretending to search for her woolen hat. Part of her really wanted to tell Rob about Nick. There were times, especially lately, when she did feel close to her brother; the accident was an unspoken bond between them, something that nobody else could understand. But talking about Nick would mean talking about ghosts. Maybe at Little Bettys — somewhere neutral, where he couldn’t shout at her or walk away — Miranda would find the courage.
Upstairs at Little Bettys, they skirted a cart laden with cakes and tarts, and were led through a rabbit warren of little rooms to the very back of the building. Miranda wriggled into a woven chair jammed in the corner. This was more a nook than a room. It was very cozy, she thought, with its exposed brick and dark beams, a shelf of teapots mounted above the black fireplace. She and Rob could barely squeeze around their table. He sat sideways, his legs sticking out like a scarecrow’s.