Souls Dryft Read online

  "There are bolts on the doors, Richard. If I felt the need to use mine, I wouldn’t even let you stay here, would I?"

  He sipped his whiskey, the last melty remnants of ice slipping and slithering in his glass. "I think you’ll find, Grace, that I’m the one letting you stay here. This is my house. Remember?"

  I ought to argue, but my mood was surprisingly mellow. I’m sure the wine and firelight had something to do with it. Not to mention having him at my mercy.

  "What are you smiling at now?" he asked cautiously.

  "Maybe I should warn you to bolt your door."

  His glass paused halfway to his lips.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it; the sound bubbled out of me. Now he really would think I was crazy. "Don’t worry, Richard. You’ll be quite safe. Somehow we’ll survive this together."

  Chapter Thirty

  By the morning, remnants of rain lingered only in little beads that hid, nestled between the slow, unfurling petals of the dark, purplish red, wild roses growing up the garden wall. Under the strengthening sun, I lounged in my new hammock and scribbled away at Genny’s story, occasionally peeking through my sunglasses, to watch him pace up and down the muddy garden path, the phone clenched to his ear. He managed to reach someone at the local garage, but seemed to have a hard time making them understand his predicament – unless, of course, they were simply having a good laugh at the "yank’s" expense.

  At last he removed his tie and rolled up his shirt sleeves, gradually unraveling.

  Two mechanics arrived in a van. As they pulled into the yard, Richard was so eager to greet them he tripped up the step and fell awkwardly. He blamed the house, claiming the step moved. I’m sure he never put a foot wrong until he met me. It was lucky the mechanics were there; they drove us in their van to the hospital, where his broken arm was set in a cast and then they drove us back again.

  We watched them tow his hired car slowly away down the grassy lane.

  "Never mind," I said breezily. "Think of this as a holiday. A little sojourn in the country. Surely you could do with a break." Then, as his frown deepened, I laughed. "Oops sorry. Bad choice of words." Now he looked around for his phone, which I just knew he would soon lose. The way his luck was going, it was inevitable.

  * * * *

  While I stocked shelves at the shop, Mrs. Tuke trotted up with her basket. "I hear you’ve got a relative staying at the house, dearie." This was her way of prying for information, of course. She must have found out from her nephews, who worked at the village garage. Since Uncle Bob died and I moved in at the house, she wasn’t needed anymore to come there and clean. I couldn’t afford to hire her anyway.

  "He’s a lodger," I said, on the spur of the moment.

  Her small, pert eyes studied my face. "Oh, he’s not a relative then?"

  "Nope."

  "You know dear, it’s not my place to interfere, but…a young, single lady, living in a house with a strange man…well, folk will talk."

  I continued stacking tins of beans. "Yes, but I’m not young and he’s not all that strange." And this is the twenty first century. But I couldn't add that, because sometimes I could never be sure any longer what year I was in.

  "You never know what men will do, dearie. They can’t be trusted."

  "Oh you don’t have to tell me. They’re all filthy beasts. Out for only one thing."

  "Well," she sighed, greatly perturbed, "if you have any trouble, you let me know. I don’t like the thought of you out there – with him – all alone." She took one of the cans out of my hand and said, "Don’t forget! Rehearsal of the Sydney Players tonight. Don’t be late, or we won’t get started in time and the Young Farmers’ Club need the hall at nine for a talk on pig breeding." She took her amateur dramatics very seriously.

  I watched the meddling old gossip trundle off down the aisle and suddenly had an idea. "Hey, wait a minute," I called out, hurrying after her. "There is something you can do for me."

  * * * *

  He fried sausages, just for himself, covered them in ketchup and feigned disinterest in my cooking. We had running water again that night and you would think he’d found gold; he was so excited to clean the dishes. I urged him to leave them all soaking – as was my usual habit – but he insisted on washing up, despite his broken arm. I was guilted into helping; then he complained I left smears on the glasses. Fastidious in the bathroom too, he wiped down the sink and shower, never leaving a single hair on the soap. It was almost like living with a ghost – a noisy complaining one that muttered non-stop about my filthy laziness.

  "Can’t you ever sit still?" I exclaimed, trying to write at the table, while he cleaned around me. He’d already moved my book twice to wipe under it with his one good arm.

  "Sit? And do what?"

  "I don’t know…read a book?" I pondered the idea of getting him a hamster wheel to run around.

  "Why write by hand?" he asked. "Why don’t you use a laptop?"

  Moving my notebook away from his prying eyes, I replied that this was how I always wrote first drafts, but I’d type it up later. Explaining about Genny would only cement his opinion of me as a nutcase.

  Then he began to whistle. I was certain my heart stopped. He stood at the window, gazing out at the yard, whistling her tune. Frantically I resumed scribbling in my notebook.

  She whispered in my ear and would not stop. Bring him back to me.

  That night I lay wide-awake, too restless. Was he humming in his sleep, the sound seeping through the walls that divided us?

  No, it was a woman’s voice, soft but growing stronger. There was a teasing, taunting lilt to the sound. Surrounded by darkness, I felt something brush against my face. Then followed the coarse scratching of a pen across paper and I realized she was writing again, with my hand. I should be used to it by now. Her spirit slipped into me, humming louder. The smoky bitterness of a newly extinguished candle, drifted gently under my nose and the slow, tortuous squeak of a rusty bolt drew my eyes to the window. A breeze, squeezing its way through the opening gap, kissed my face in greeting.

  * * * *

  I lay still, my eyes fixed on the moonlit pleats of the velvet damask curtain.

  Find me, Suzy! It was a light, sing-song whisper.

  I watched the curtain move where something toyed with the pleats. Swallowing my fear, I slid my feet out of bed.

  Find me Suzy!

  As if I walked in a dream, my fingertips trailed across the curtain. It seemed to me, with my senses stretched to their limit, heart beating fearfully, that the length of curtain went on forever. Round the bed; round the bed; round the bed. Was there no end to it ?

  Getting colder, Suzy.

  I was certain this was all an unpleasant dream. Soon I would wake.

  Suzy’s cold and gettin’ colder. Come and find me.

  An image came to me suddenly, of a summer’s day; the courtyard at the Keep; the great apple tree there and myself, sitting up in the branches, peering through them.

  Suzy, Suzy, getting warmer.

  It was much as I imagined it might be to drown – to be held under water by unrelenting, cruel hands; the memory was so strong, so willful and determined, just like…

  Find me, Suzy!

  I looked down at the sleeves of a gown I'd forgotten I ever possessed. Seeing the detail of tiny roses sewn on the sleeves overwhelmed me with sadness. Over at the whetstone, Bob Salley sharpened knives and I could hear pots and pans banging about in the cookhouse. The branches of the apple tree shook. Through them I saw a fair-haired woman, walking slowly across the yard.

  It was, I knew instantly, Suzannah. Before she married Rufus Carver.

  When she drew close to the tree, I dropped down to scare her, hanging upside down with my legs hooked around a branch. She jumped and cursed.

  "I hate you, Grace Sydney. I hate you and your stupid games."

  "It's only hide and seek, Suzy."

  "Well, I wish you were gone so no one could ever find you again"

>   But nothing is ever gone forever," I said. Nothing is ever gone forever. We just can't see them all the time.

  I woke suddenly and found myself in bed again, with Grace Sydney's laughter from so many hundreds of years ago blowing softly through the still air.

  * * * *

  Every day now when I woke, I was twisted up in the rumpled sheets, my body humming with the poised energy of an idling sports car, too aware of his presence across the hall. The house was still, too still. The bright numbers on my alarm clock read 03:33AM. Moonlight fell across my bed through the open window.

  Was this Suzannah’s chamber once then? I’d felt her anger and frustration, her deep, bottomless sorrow. I understood it, the disappointment in a life that had not turned out the way it was supposed to. But she hadn’t wanted to show me; it was the house that let me see.

  Suzannah Carver was resentful of my place in that house, but she could do nothing about me. Like all the other residents, she was forced to live and let live within those walls. Didn’t mean she was happy about it though.

  I got out of bed and went to the door of my room. Across the hall, Richard slept, untroubled by the memories of the house. He’d told me he never dreamed. He just didn’t remember them, of course; that was the trouble; he didn’t yet remember me.

  Opening the door, I crept quietly into the narrow passage and waited, listening, barely breathing.

  Suddenly, footsteps on the stairs. A spoon clanged against a pot, somewhere below in the dark house. I could smell wood ash and the sickly sweet scent of roses just beyond their bloom. From the room across the hall, where Richard slept, a stick banged angrily on the floor, because he grew impatient.

  She was coming. The sun was bright. It was a beautiful day — for everyone but Suzannah, who didn’t want her there. Ever. Not in any incarnation.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Genny

  1536

  My uncle’s cook, unaccustomed to the exercise, paused at the gate to catch her breath. Fanning her hands at me, she panted, "You go on in and I’ll wait here." Casting her eyes about the yard, she spied a little milking stool on which to seat the ponderous dimensions of her backside. "If the Captain lays a finger on you, start screamin’. You’ve wind enough to bring the walls down around his ears." Thus my "chaperone" remained outdoors in the sun. Like most villagers, she thought Souls Dryft was haunted and refused to enter.

  It was weeks since that stormy day, when Hugh carried me inside. Today the house was not so sinister, probably because I was expected. When Suzannah Carver materialized before me, it seemed as if the dusty sunbeams clustered to form her shape. "You came then," she said joylessly.

  "None of this was my idea."

  "Nor was it mine." The scent of rosewater thickened as she approached.

  "Where is he then?" I demanded.

  "He lies abed, of course."

  So the villain made the most of his injury. Anyone would think I’d killed the fellow, for all the yelling it caused. I was sorry for it, in fact, but since he made such an almighty fuss, milking it for all it was worth, he would not get an apology from me.

  I passed Suzannah quickly, but her scent drifted along behind, following closely. At the top of the staircase it was gloomy and close, the air clinging around me, sticky as the tendrils of a broken spider’s web. With my courage plumped like an old, threadbare pillow, I marched into his room.

  "So you still live, despite my efforts." I slammed the basket down on his bed and he let out a piteous groan.

  "Watch where you… my leg! Damn you."

  "Oh, hush!" Sweeping to the window, I opened the shutters. Behind me on the bed, he winced and moaned, as if awoken from a near-death slumber, but his apple core, left there on the ledge, had not even begun to turn brown yet.

  "You took your time coming to me," he complained.

  Looking at that great, brawny oaf, groaning and pouting, I thought I might as well be observing the tantrum of a spoilt, five-year old boy – a freakishly overgrown one, of course. "I came when I could," I replied grandly. "I do have other things to do with my day."

  He noticed suddenly, the woman hovering at the door. "You can go, mother."

  "She will do you more harm than good."

  "She must learn the consequences of her actions."

  Holding her tongue, she glared at me, unleashing all her anger in my direction. When she left, he too turned his foul mood on me. "Tend to my wound, woman. It smarts like the Devil!"

  "Such a baby! ‘Tis but a flesh wound."

  "Flesh wound, be damned! You put a hole in me, and you’ll damn well fix it."

  "You should be in swaddling!" I threw back the sheepskin to examine his wound. He wore only a shirt that came to his knees, hiding the thick bandage around his thigh. I took the compress from my basket and waited for him to lift his shirt.

  "What is that thing?" he wanted to know. "Poison?"

  I explained it was a mixture of herbs and plants, steeped together in ale and proven to seal against infection. When he lifted his shirt, I hesitated, not at the sight of his blood staining the bandage, but at the unabashed revealing of his naked form. Slowly he unwound the old bandage and then fell back, as if this minor exertion drained his last energy.

  "Impressed with your handiwork?" he groaned.

  "Should have aimed to the left. I see that remains unharmed."

  "And lively," he assured me smugly, although I needed no such clarification. One glance was sufficient proof.

  I pressed the new compress down on his thigh and that wiped the grin off his face. Concentrating on the task at hand, I felt his ruthless, searching eyes upon me.

  After a brief pause, he said, "What ailed your first husband?"

  "He fell out of a window."

  He smirked. "Before that?"

  "Explain yourself, Lackwit!"

  "He was not a proper husband to you, I think."

  I looked for something to wipe my hands upon. "All husbands are the same," I snapped.

  "On the contrary." Bemused, he watched me stain his shirt sleeve with my fingers. "You’ll not find me the same."

  I merely shook my head. He stretched suddenly, removing his sleeve from my hands and letting out a mighty, rumbling, groan. It fought its way through his chest, all the way to his feet and then back up to his fingertips. Finally, arms settled behind his head, he regarded me broodingly. Again, I thought how different the brothers were; while Hugh’s eyes demanded empathy, Will’s demanded submission.

  I strolled to the foot of his bed, where crouched a large, padlocked coffer. "What do you keep in here?"

  "Answer my question first. How can you have such distaste for marriage, if you never had a proper husband?"

  My reply was firm. "I do not want a husband. I want a lover, who I can send on his way when he bores me."

  "And I want a wife to grow old beside me. Women not tied by vows, too easily become prey to poachers."

  Rolling my eyes, I swung the padlock of his coffer with one nonchalant finger.

  "Do you really want to know what’s in there, Scrapper?"

  I shrugged.

  He rubbed his chin. "A head."

  "Whose head?"

  "The last fellow who quarreled with me. So be warned."

  "Ha!" Now I wandered back around his bed, fingertips trailing across his blanket. Thought he could frighten me, did he? "I saw a pineapple once."

  "Did you indeed?"

  "In Yarmouth."

  He nodded solemnly. "A woman of the world then."

  No doubt the smug villain had seen many things and been to many places I would never go. The sunlight from all those journeys left its brand in his hair and made me wistful for real adventure. "Tell me about life on those ships of yours." I sat, making myself comfortable against the bedpost by his feet. "You said once that we should get to know one another, remember?" After all, I was forced to come here; I might as well learn something. And his company intrigued me. Morbid curiosity I supposed.

/>   A number of doubts passed through his mind, reflected in his eyes. Finally, he reached a compromise. "You tell me about Yarmouth first."

  So I told him my history, just as I told you.

  * * * *

  When I left his chamber, I heard Suzannah talking in her room and, knowing there was no one else in the house, I stopped to listen.

  "No! Leave me be," she cried. "I have put it somewhere safe." No voice answered hers. "He shall never have that ring back again. Never! Search this house and you will never find it!"

  A soft breeze fluttered under her door, catching the hem of my gown and then moving away down the passage, rocking every door latch as it went. Inside her chamber Suzannah’s muffled voice now changed, drifting like a lullaby. "Remember that day, Grace Sydney, when we gathered lavender? We’ll sew it in little pillows and put it under the mattress, you said. Under the guise of that sweet task, you told me about Rufus, knowing how I loved him. I should have ended your wretched life then, when I had the chance – in that moment when you bent down amongst the lavender, the bees all around us and no one else within sight, I should have taken a stone from the wall. I was weak then, but, oh, I would do it now, Grace." Her voice trembled. "I would do it now."

  The last door latch along the passage stopped rocking suddenly and then began to swing again, this time in the other direction. Surely it was just another draft in this eerie, old house, but one by one, all the latches began to rock again. The breeze apparently returned the same way it had already left. It came for a second feel of me.

  I hurried down the staircase, not looking back. Once out in the sun, however, I came to my senses. The spirit, whoever she was, meant me no harm; in fact, her touch was gentle, almost wary of me. A sweet scent fluttered around the side of the house, as if newly disturbed, shaken free by the nudge of a passing hand. Curious, I followed the fragrance into the orchard and there, in clay pots, sheltered from the wind by the wall and yet receiving the full kiss of the sun, I found little trees full of waxy, dark green leaves. Hearing a window open above, I glanced up, shading my eyes from the sun with one hand.