The Last to See Me (The Last Ghost #1) - M Dressler Page 0,10
don’t release emotion the way that we do. If they did, we’d have to say they were still living. We can try to imagine what they’re feeling, but we can’t really do it. Because they are what they are, and we are what we are. The charge isn’t life. The charge is all that’s left.”
This is the terrible part.
The terrible, terrible test.
I have to keep still. Around talk like this. Unmoved. Stay cold and unfeeling behind the mask, the veil of light, under the three hundred broken suns of the Glass Room. I have to be careful not to be angry or allow myself to feel any emotion at all, feel the very thing he says I cannot feel, because if I do, if I show for one minute that I’m human, then in the next moment I won’t be allowed to be.
The charge is what they call our lasting. That’s all they think we are. A bit of static left in the linen. A spark when you rub your gloves together in the cold.
So I make myself go as cold as ice. I turn myself into the nothing he believes I am. I push all my anger and love and hate and hope deep, deep down inside me, and only when I’ve done it do I glide and stand even closer to both of them, right by their sides, but closest of all to Ellen DeWight, to her ear, so close that any heat, any hint of feeling that might escape my soul he’ll mistake for hers. Oh, how I’ve learned how to manage such moments as this. Haven’t I? Still. Dead. Be still. I’ve learned things that you, Mr. Pratt, and Ellen, would never dream of. But also things the living know very well how to do. How to act as though you don’t care about the life you live. How to lie and seem to be one thing while being another. I’ve gone to school all these years, all this long century, on you, the living. On the young and old and everything in between. I’ve sat in your classrooms and studied your books and I’ve touched your slates and screens and glowing tablets and I’ve listened at your keyholes and to your telephones and I’ve learned more than any living soul will ever know, because I’ve learned the one thing that people give away when you think no one is there, when you think no one is watching: that you’re frightened beyond belief of that place you happily send others to.
Ellen touches her shoulder where I’ve rested on it and shivers.
“Over here—more Chippendale,” she says and turns toward the breakfast table. “These are called hairy-clawed chairs. See, the feet are like lion’s claws? I’ve always thought they were a little frightening. I don’t know why.”
“Even though nothing scares you in this house.”
“It generally doesn’t. I’ve been in the pantry several times, already. Like I said.”
“You’re braver than most civilians.”
“No.” She twitches. “It’s my job. The heirs liked me when they interviewed agents because I’m young and in touch—that’s how they put it—and that’s what an old house needs. New blood.”
“All of this architecture at the back of the house was a later addition, I take it?”
“About twenty years ago. Some members of the historical commission didn’t think a domed conservatory was in keeping with the original structure—but Alice got her way. Apparently the Lambrys pretty much got whatever they wanted. Always. And being in timber, they loved to build things. The steeple, I’ll show you later, and the widow’s walk. But the butler’s pantry, it’s this way …”
“Before we inspect it, I need to ask you, Ellen: have you ever been angry in this house?”
She seems surprised. “If I’m being honest? Absolutely. When the Danes started screaming at me right after I came back into the house. When the whole thing wasn’t my fault; they wanted to be alone. But they tried to blame me for it. I felt they were just trying to set me up, telling lies about a ghost so they could low-ball the price on me. On the heirs. Things like that happen all the time, Mr. Pratt. And I hate to say it, but in my experience people with money are the worst when it comes to money. But then I saw how scared they were and I calmed down and got them away from this part of the house, back out to the porch. Here’s the pantry door.” She presses