a fifteen-year-old boy once wrote me.
I’m asleep on the library floor, curled up in William’s embrace, my dreams dancing with the music of those poems. Yes, they weren’t exactly Shakespearean sonnets. To me, though, they’re the most perfect odes ever written to young love. After I devoured them, he composed a new one, performance art that still sings through my veins, passion in word and touch and kiss.
When the whisper first comes, it weaves through my dream, a discordant thread that I block. It grows louder, a woman’s voice, whispering words that I try to bat away like annoying insects at my ear.
Fool.
Beware.
Danger.
Then . . .
Run.
My eyes fly open to see the pale oval of a woman’s face, lips parting in a “Run” that is not the worried urging of the woman in black. This is a sneer spat from a twisted visage. One glimpse of a face that slams me in the gut, a flash of remembered horror from a night twenty-three years ago.
Run.
I jolt upright, heart slamming against my ribs, hands flailing against the specter. But she’s no longer there, her face leaving only the faintest impression, a wisp of smoke I can’t catch, an image I can’t form again in my mind.
When I jump up, William gives a start. As I crouch there, staring, he scrambles, arms going around me and pulling me to him.
“Did you hear something?” he asks, and his words make the hair on my neck rise.
Yes, yes, I did.
Heard something. Saw something. Let me tell you about it. Please let me tell you about it.
He peers around the room. “The kittens don’t usually wander from their box, but Pandora can make the most terrible noises. Is that what you heard?”
I swallow hard, keeping my face turned from his.
This is not the time to unburden yourself, not if you fear that the ghost is a woman he knew.
I run my hands over my face. “No, it was just a nightmare.”
He pulls me onto his lap, holding me tight, asking whether I want to talk about it. I only shake my head and insist it was nothing.
“Shall we move to a proper bed?” he asks. “That might help you sleep.”
The clock strikes five.
“I should probably go home,” I say. “Spend a little time with Enigma and return for breakfast.”
He tenses, but only for a second before kissing me. “If you’re certain you’ll be all right . . .”
“I dreamed that she was hurt,” I lie. “I’ll feel better seeing her before I return for breakfast with you.” I pause. “What time do you expect Mrs. Shaw?”
“I stopped by the village yesterday to tell her I won’t require her for a few days. She insisted on coming up briefly to prepare meals, but she won’t arrive until late morning. By then, I fear I’ll also be gone. I must return to Whitby on business. I’ll be back by evening. Is that all right?”
“That’s perfect. Thank you.”
By the time I get home, the sun is just rising, and Enigma is up, ready to play “pounce on Bronwyn’s toes under the covers.” So I’m not going back to sleep, which is fine—I have too much on my mind.
First comes kitten-playtime. Then I dress and head downstairs to prepare a hot breakfast for William.
As I cook, I send off a quick e-mail to Freya. I have questions about Rosalind that I might be able to answer with a trip to the village library and archives. Freya has already offered to take me there if I want to know more about William, and this is a fine excuse to accept her offer . . . along with the chance to talk to someone about the ghosts.
Did I actually see a ghost in William’s library? I’d been certain of it, but the rising sun tugs doubt in its wake. I’ve never seen a ghost in his time period. I’d been seized with certainty that it was the same specter who sent me screaming from sleep the night my uncle died, yet I’ve had no experiences like that since I returned. The woman in black and the boy in the knickerbockers both told me to run, but in warning. The one last night had been pure threat.
Run or else.
The thought of the boy reminds me of the bones in the walls. I push that guilt aside. I need to figure everything out before I report his body.
Is he connected to Rosalind’s death? It seems that he should be, but I’m not sure