Being this isolated means the house is subject to power outages, and the utility company is never in a rush to fix them. Granted, I don’t actually need to light a candle. It’s one burnt-out bulb. I could get to my bedroom by leaving on the foyer light. Which would be no fun at all. I’m climbing a darkened staircase, alone in an eighteenth-century haunted house in the English moors. Anyone with a speck of imagination would want to ascend with a lit candlestick, white nightgown—or oversized white T-shirt—billowing around her.
I do exactly that, and I hear not a single ominous creak of a floorboard, catch not one unearthly flicker in the corner of my eye. Terribly disappointing.
I step into the bedroom and—
Something moves across the room. I jump and spin, nearly dropping my candle, only to see myself reflected in a mirror. It’s Aunt Judith’s antique vanity with three-way mirrors. I see it, and I can’t help but smile, that spark of fear snuffed out. As a child, I’d sit at that vanity for hours, silently opening jars of cream and pots of makeup, sighing over the exotic scents and jewel colors. Aunt Judith would always “catch” me, and I loved to be caught because it meant a little girl makeover, creams rubbed on my face, stain on my lips and my hair stroked to gleaming with her silver brush. Then out came the cold cream, as chilly as its name, wiping off Aunt Judith’s work before my mother saw.
I walk over and lower myself into the seat. The top is still covered in pots and boxes, their cut glass and silver tops gleaming as if Aunt Judith were here only moments ago. I open one jar of night cream, and the smell that rushes out is so familiar my eyes fill with tears. I sit there a moment, remember. Then I rise and pinch out the candle.
With moonlight flooding through the drapery-free window, I crawl into bed, and oh my God, I was not exaggerating about the linens, sheets so soft I want to roll in them like a kitten in catnip.
My eyes barely close before I’m asleep.
I wake to a tickle on my cheek, like a stray hair dancing in the night breeze. Michael used to say it had to be twenty below before I’d sleep with the windows shut. I crack open my eyes and—
A face hovers over mine.
I jump up with a shriek and crouch there, fists clenched as my gaze swings around the room. The empty room.
When I spot something big and pale to my left, I twist to find myself gazing out the huge bay window. A nearly full moon blazes through . . . a pale circle hovering above me.
I exhale and shake my head. In the bleary confusion of waking, I mistook the moon for a face, the shadowy craters for features. And I’d woken because a stray hair tickled my cheek, caught in the breeze coming through that window, which I . . .
I look over. Which I did not open last night—the window is shut tight.
Well, then, it was a draft. It’s an old house.
I flip onto my side, away from the window. No sooner does my head touch the pillow than someone whispers in my ear.
I jump, flailing as the sheets tangle. I fight my way free and scramble from the bed with a “Who’s there?” so tremulous that shame snakes through me.
A memory flickers, from my last night in this house, twenty-three years ago. I woke to a figure looming over me. A figure whose face I can never remember, who said words I can never recall. Who sent me screaming from my sleep and then—
I swallow hard and rub my eyes. There is no ghost here. There never was. A hair tickled my cheek. I opened my eyes to see the moon, and then I imagined the whisper. I’m tense and stressed, overwhelmed by memory and emotion, in a place I once loved above all others, a place I haven’t set foot in for two decades when that love twisted to heartbreak and grief and fear.
There’s nothing here except memories, and so many of them are wonderful. Focus on those. Remember those. Exorcise the ghosts and reclaim Thorne Manor as that place of magic and mystery.
I cross the room and open the window. The night breeze rushes in, and I gulp it down, lowering my face to the screen. As I do, I see my beloved moors, paths winding through it, familiar trails that make my feet and my heart ache with wanting. A cow lows somewhere, and a dog barks, as if in answer. My gaze moves to the narrow road down the hill, and the glow of houses below. A reminder that I’m not truly alone.
I’m crawling back into bed when something thuds deep within the house. I go still, my head swiveling. Another thud, coming from the direction of my old room.
I push to my feet, but a yowl sends me tumbling back onto the bed. I grab the nearest thing at hand, wielding it like a shield, taking sanctuary behind a . . . pillow? I stifle a choked laugh, cut short by another yowl, weak and quavering, a drawn-out cry of despair.
Still clutching the pillow, I creep to the door. The sound comes again, prickling the hair on my neck. My fingers graze the doorknob.
What? You’re going out there?
That only makes me square my shoulders. Yes, I’m going out there. I’m not fifteen anymore. I won’t huddle in my bed, a frightened mouse of a girl.
Except I hadn’t huddled in my bed that night. I’d run, which is when everything went so horribly wrong.
Well, I’m not running now. I’m acting clearly and decisively, armed with my . . . I look down at the pillow, toss it aside and snatch the umbrella from my open luggage. I take my cell phone, too, before I slide into the hall.
The creature keeps yowling. Pitiable sounds that come from behind the closed door to my old bedroom.
I turn the knob. Then I knee the door hard enough that it slaps against the wall.
A cry. A skitter of claws on wood. A streak of orange hurtles under the bed.
Orange?
Well, it’s not a ghost.
I play back a mental video of that streak. Too big for a mouse. Too orange for a rat.
Huh.
As I step into the room, the stink of still air and mildew washes over me. Dust cyclones in my wake. Ahead, my old bed is indeed broken, the box spring sagging, mattress gone.
Propping my umbrella against the wall, I turn on my phone’s flashlight and lower myself to the floor. When I shine the light under my bed, teeth flash. Razor-sharp teeth half the length of my pinky nail. Tiny black lips curl in a hiss, and orange fur puffs, little ears flattened in the most adorably fierce snarl ever.
It’s a kitten. One barely big enough to be away from its mother.
It hisses again. She hisses. I know enough about felines to realize that calico means female.
When I move the light aside, the kitten spots me. Or she seems to, her tiny head bobbing, her eyes likely still struggling to focus.
How young is she?
And what is she doing in my old bedroom?
The kitten lets out the tiniest mew.
“Where’s your momma?” I ask.
Another mew. I reach under the bed, and she skitters away, claws scrabbling over the hardwood.
I eye her. Then I back out and look around. There’s clearly no mother cat in here. My gaze trips around the moonlit space as my heart swells with love for this room, and I have to remind myself I’m looking for a mother cat . . . or some way a kitten could get in. Even then, of course, I notice everything, the disrepair hidden by shadow. Two large windows, one overlooking the moors, the other the old stables. My narrow bed and double dressers, and something I’d almost forgotten—a small vanity with a padded stool and mirror, a surprise from Aunt Judith and Uncle Stan when I’d returned at fifteen. My gaze slides over my own collection of makeup and creams, and my eyes mist until the room swims.