Of Midnight Born (10 page)

Ten minutes later, he had a new stablelass. The horses had shown not the least hint of shying anywhere in the tunnel, nodding their heads and blowing, ears forward, completely at their ease all the way up to the courtyard.

As soon as Nancy disappeared back into the tunnel with the horses in tow, Alex felt Serena return to his side. It took all his willpower not to look toward her, not to acknowledge in some way what that return told him. If not for her deliberately staying out of the tunnel just now, Nancy would likely be on her way home, jobless.

What they said was true: Serena hated only men. Furthermore, there was some form of intelligent awareness to her.

Movement from behind the gate to the walled garden caught his eye, and he tried to shrug off thoughts of Serena. If that was Ben Flury at work, he wanted to talk to him.

He found the elderly man kneeling beside a flower bed, his hands gently massaging the dirt, pulling out weeds without disturbing the plants that grew there. His grandson did the same on the opposite side of the bed, albeit with a little less grace.

“Mr. Flury, hello,” Alex said.

“Mr. Woding.” Flury sat back on his heels, then pushed himself to his feet. The process was slow and painful-looking.

“The gardens look wonderful, all of them,” Alex said. “I am glad that you’ve stayed on to work them.”

The older man gave a gentle smile. “I couldn’t leave you to a houseful of women, now, could I?”

“I would certainly hope not,” Alex said, although he thought Serena would enjoy having Maiden Castle live up to its name by having a female gardener as well. “You wouldn’t have happened to have seen an orange cat about anywhere, would you?” he asked.

“With chewed ears? Aye, I’ve seen him once or twice.”

“You
have?
”

“Never lets me get close enough to touch him, but aye, he’s been around.”

John spoke up from behind his bush again. “I’ve never seen him.”

“Since when do cats like noisy young boys?” Flury asked his grandson.

Alex chewed his upper lip a moment, thinking how to phrase his next question. “Do you know to whom it belongs?”

“No, sir,” he said. “But I should think the only owner possible is Serena.”

Alex blinked at him.

“You do know it’s a ghost cat, don’t you?” Flury asked, as matter-of-fact as you please.

“Er, I had rather suspected, yes.”

“Well, there you are then. It won’t hurt you none, if that’s what concerns you. Harmless little beast. Seems to enjoy tormenting that hound of yours, though.”

“Yes.” Alex stood silent, staring at the unruffled man, the machinery of his mind again clanking off-kilter. “Yes, well, thank you for clearing that up. What I truly wanted to ask you, though, was a question about the cherry tree.”

He and Flury followed the path over to the gnarled tree. Flury reached up and touched a dead branch, bits of bark crumbling into his hand. “It doesn’t look good,” he said.

“I was thinking it was unlikely it would last more than
another year or two,” Alex said. “But I don’t know much about trees. What do you think?”

“This branch was alive a few weeks ago. See the leaves? It looks as if it may have caught some disease. Do you want me to take it down?”

Some small movement from the corner of his eye caught Alex’s attention. He turned his head, but saw nothing amiss. He turned slowly back to the tree, and as he did so a tall figure became vaguely visible, at the very corner of his vision. He stood stock-still.

“No, I was wondering if there was some way to save it,” Alex said, absurdly trying not to move his mouth while he spoke. The figure started coming closer to him, still out of focus, but from the shape of her silhouette, a woman. A very tall woman.

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Flury was saying. “It’s quite old.”

“It has the most unusual blossoms I have ever seen,” Alex said, trying to sound normal. “I had hoped that there might be a way, if not to save it, then at least to reproduce it.” The figure stopped right beside him, and he caught his breath, feeling that heavy sense of presence that Serena gave him, stronger than ever.

Flury rubbed his chin. “We might try grafting a branch onto another tree,” he said. “Or we might be able to start one by seed.” He looked down at the ground, clear of any cherry debris. “If we can find a seed, that is.”

The figure still hovered at the edge of his vision, only barely holding the form of a woman. He thought he might be able to see the garden through her, but could not be certain.

“Try whatever you can,” he said. And then, tentatively, “Do you ever see anything besides the cat?”

“What, you mean like Serena herself?”

Alex raised his eyebrows in confirmation.

“Just the cat.”

“Ah. Well, thank you. Try whatever you can with the tree.”

“Is Serena giving you trouble, Mr. Woding?” Flury asked, concern on his brow.

“No, no, not at all.”

“They do say as that Briggs had a bad time of it while he was living here. I shouldn’t be surprised to see her play her games with you, as well.”

“You seem remarkably unconcerned about it all,” Alex said, his throat dry as the figure hovered in the corner of his vision.

“Aye, well. I’ve seen a ghost or two in my time, and never known them to do any real harm. As far as Serena is concerned, my guess is she likes her flowers, same as any other woman. I figure that’s why she leaves me alone.”

Alex nodded his thanks to the man and started back to the castle. The figure vanished from his periphery when he turned his head away, and he felt the presence following behind him as he walked back to the castle. At the door he paused and turned, as if taking a last glance outside. He held still when the faint shape came into view, again from the corner of his eye. She was definitely there, not two feet from him.

Either he was having hallucinations now, to go with the imaginary sense of a presence, or he was seeing the ghost that followed him day and night.

Neither explanation gave him comfort.

Woding seemed more tense than usual, Serena thought. His eyes had the wide watchfulness of a wary horse, as if he was expecting something to jump out at him from behind every corner. It was what she wanted, but she wished she knew what had brought it on so suddenly. Maybe it was that whole incident with Beezely.

The cat even now brushed up against her leg, and she bent down to pet him. “Naughty kitty,” she said, scratching him under his chin, feeling his purr rumble against her fingers. “Do you appear to them on purpose?”

She followed Woding to his bedroom, where he shucked off his shoes and lay down on the bed. She knew his habits well enough by now to know that he must be intending to watch stars tonight, and sought to prepare himself with a nap. The clear sky boded well for stargazing.

He didn’t look in the proper state of mind for napping, though. He lay flat on his back, his hands clasped together on his belly, his ankles crossed. She sat down cross-legged on the empty half of the bed, pulling at her skirts so they were loose over her knees. She put her chin in her palm, her elbow on one knee, and settled in to wait.

This was her least favorite part of haunting Woding. Observing him sleep was entertaining for only the first few minutes, and then she began to get both jealous and bored. Jealous because she no longer knew the joys of sleep: she could fade into oblivion easily enough, but it was a black and empty oblivion, devoid of dreams or the luxurious sensations of slumber. The boredom came because he did nothing
but lie there. The thrashings of his nightmares held a certain interest, but even that was a frustration, as she had no way of knowing what images tormented his mind.

Woding was staring at the fabric lining the underside of the tester, a vein throbbing in his temple. She leaned over to look directly into his face. It was not a bad face, she had to admit. She wondered what he’d do if she touched it, maybe brushed her fingertips across those tightly closed lips.

Her fingers tingled with the desire to do it, but she held back. She had to remember she did not like the man. She should not be having thoughts like this about him.

Eventually he closed his eyes, and bit by bit his breathing deepened. She stretched out beside him on the covers, her fingers playing with the ends of his hair on the pillow, passing through without disturbing them.

He wasn’t an entirely bad man, she reluctantly admitted to herself, watching him sleep. She could imagine no other hiring a stablelass. She still couldn’t quite believe that he had done it. Maybe all those times she thought he was being manipulative of servants, he was instead being kind.

No, that couldn’t be right. Manipulative and sly fit her vision of him much better than did generous and kind. He might use the carrot instead of the stick, but he still managed to get his own way. Her brothers would have underestimated him, thinking him weak and laughing at his methods. But who would have laughed last? Woding probably had much in common with Hugh le Gayne, and there was no question of who had won that battle of wits, Hugh or she and Thomas.

Alex woke feeling more tired than when he had laid down, restless images from his dreams flitting into his disjointed memory.
She
was the cause of his poor sleep; he was certain of it. Daytime be damned, it was Serena who had him thrashing and sweating when he sought calm slumber. He
turned his head, catching the pale shape in the corner of his eye.

He needn’t have checked. She had been staying so close to his side these past days, it felt as if she were attached to him—and always would be. He wondered which of them had the greater stamina to endure such closeness. He feared anyone who had hung around a pile of ruined rock for half a millennium might have already proved her staying power.

The thought made him groan, and he quickly masked it with a stretch, easing his stiff muscles. If he knew what she wanted, he would give it to her, if only she would go away. Of course, that was probably just what she herself wanted from him: his departure. And that was the one thing he would not give. He could not imagine explaining to his fellow amateur astronomers that he had left his perfect tower because a female ghost insisted on sleeping beside him at night and watching him at his bath.

His bath. What was he going to do about that? It had been bad enough when he only felt her presence in his room, but could still force himself to dismiss it as his imagination. To actually catch glimpses of a watching woman while he bathed…that would be a different experience.

Perhaps going mad was the best solution. He would simply never again change his clothes or wash his body.

He checked the clock and saw that it was time for dinner under the watchful eyes of the Canadian caribou. The presence tagged along, and as he sat down at the head of the empty table he gave a moment’s thought to what Serena might think of this new version of her castle. Did she like the caribou? The castle must not look much as she remembered. Briggs had not cared much for historical accuracy, and even the flight of stone stairs that Serena had supposedly fallen down was nowhere to be seen. For all he knew they’d been pulled up and the stones used in the walls.

The table was already set, and a ring of the bell brought
Marcy and Dickie, carrying the dishes that held his dinner, lamb stew, a pudding, and an overabundance of boiled peas. Daisy Hutchins was not an imaginative cook, but he would not be left starving. And, truth be told, he rather preferred plain fare to some of the elaborate, sauce-drenched dishes that Leboff had forced on him. He would miss the ice cream, though.

Marcy and Dickie left him alone to fill his plate and eat, and he soon found his mind wandering off into the starry skies, far beyond the realms of stews and puddings. He ate by rote, fork and knife working together without his interference.

Then he noticed the peas. Two of them, sitting on the tablecloth.

Had he done that? He didn’t think he’d been so careless. His sisters had ensured that his table manners were impeccable, even when he was not paying attention.

A third pea hopped off his plate, making a little splat of gravy as it landed on the linen. He stared at the offending legume for a long moment, then from the corner of his eye caught the white movement of a presence.

Serena.

A pea suddenly shot off the table, much as if someone had flicked it with a finger. With his knife and fork, he carefully picked up the two remaining peas, depositing them back on his plate.

Yet another pea inched up the edge of the plate and dropped over the edge. It slowly rolled toward Serena, then took off across the dining room, hitting one of the leadedglass windowpanes with a soft pat and dropping to the floor, leaving a smudge of gravy on the glass.

Alex took a deep breath, watching as a fifth pea made its escape from his plate. He didn’t know if this came under proper ghostly behavior, playing with someone’s food. It seemed more like something a bored child would do. It certainly
was not frightening, although he would admit it was plenty annoying.

The pea took flight, landing in the flower arrangement at the center of the table. Another dropped off his plate.

He turned his eyes away, until he could catch in his peripheral vision the cloudy outline of Serena, her arm extended as she made the pea dance a gravy gavotte on the tablecloth. Still looking away, he readied his fork in his hand, and then—
whap!
—he slapped at where her hand should be with the flat of the utensil.

The shape leaped backward, but not before the fork bounced off something solid. His lips were curling in boyish victory when his entire plate violently upended, sending stew and peas all over the table. He shoved his chair back, standing just in time to save himself from being dripped on by a rivulet of gravy.

He stood surveying the mess, aware of the white figure and unwilling to give her any satisfaction for such a childish display. He rang the bell, and in a minute Marcy bobbed in, her hazel eyes going wide at the mess.

“Please bring a fresh plate,” Alex said.

“Yes, sir,” Marcy said, having the good sense not to ask the obvious question. “I’ll have Dickie come help me remove the cloth.”

Alex nodded, and waited while the two young people cleared away the mess, resetting the table with fresh dishes and cutlery. Dickie knocked over the empty wineglasses twice, obviously having suspicions about what had occurred. When they’d finished, Alex sat down again as if nothing had happened, and served himself small portions of each dish. He would not let a petulant ghost deprive him of his pudding and peas.

He could see the figure move back into place at the seat to his left, and when that vague white shape of a hand moved toward his plate, he lifted his fork in a threatening
manner, making it very clear he knew what she was about. The hand stopped.

He ate the remainder of his meal in peace.

How had he known what she was about to do? This was no good, Serena fretted, chewing her upper lip, sitting with crossed arms watching Woding eat. Was his sense of her that good, and he had been pretending otherwise all this time?

Or—horrid thought—what if he could see her, the way Ben Flury could so often see Beezely? Her fingers went to the scar across her face, tracing the path. No, he couldn’t see her. Even the thought of it made her feel sick to her stomach. Almost no one had seen her for centuries, and that was the way she liked it. No one knew what a lumbering giant she was, or that she had an ugly face. It had been one of the few benefits of her undead state.

Maybe it was something with his astrology that helped him to gauge her so well. She would have to watch him more closely, and pay more attention to what he did. It would help vastly if she could read, but even had she been taught, she doubted she would be able to decipher his scratchings. What flowed from his pen bore little resemblance to the thick script she had seen in her family’s Bible.

Woding finished his main course, and Marcy and Dickie returned to clear away the dishes and serve his dessert, a bread pudding with custard sauce. She really couldn’t let him win like this, sitting there smugly eating his sweet.

Dickie was almost to the door with a trayload of dishes. Serena snuck up to him, took two peas from the dish, and popped one into each of his nostrils.

The resultant crash of dishes snapped Woding’s head around, and had Marcy giving a shriek of surprise.

“My nose!” Dickie cried, stumbling amid the fallen crockery, treading in stew. “I can’t breathe!”

Woding rose, but it was Marcy who reached Dickie first, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Let me see!” And then, when she did, she let go of him, stepping back. “Oh, Dickie,” she said. “That’s not funny. You frightened me.”

Dickie gasped for air through his mouth, his lips hanging wide like the mouth of a fish. “I can’t breathe.” His fingertips touched his nose, jerking back at the smooth, firm texture of the peas. “What is it?” he yelped. “What’s in there?”

Marcy turned away from him, shaking her head in disgust, and began to clear up the mess on the floor. It was Woding who answered him, his face hard. “You have peas in your nose. Go find a mirror and remove them.”

He then stepped past Dickie, leaving the dining room and his dessert.

Serena followed, feeling rather pleased with that bit of mischief. She punched imaginary peas into noses all the way up to Woding’s tower room, wondering what would have happened if she’d used his nose instead of Dickie’s.

He sat down at his desk, placing both hands flat on its surface, staring at the papers scattered there. She could see his chest moving with his breathing under the white folds of his cravat.

“Serena,” he said, raising his eyes and looking straight at her.

She froze, her eyes wide, a fist in mid-pea punch, and just managed to keep herself from answering. She suddenly had the same feeling of dread and fear that had come with being called in front of her father for a misdeed.

“I have had enough of your childish games.”

Good.
Maybe he would leave.

“For a while, I admit, I was growing curious about who you were,” he went on. “I have felt you following me, lying beside me in my bed, and watching me bathe.” He leaned back in his chair. “I have even dreamed about you, and what you may look like.” He looked at a spot in the distance, his
eyes going vague as he recalled. “It seemed you were a tall woman, with long, pale blond hair flowing down past your hips.”

Her lips parted, a chill running up her body.

“I even thought, once or twice, about how fascinating it would be to speak with you, and to hear you talk about your life.”

What?

“Now, though, I am not at all certain that I want to know anything about you. I have doubts that you retain any more of your humanity than its worst qualities, paramount among them cruelty and violence. I fear you may be nothing but the echo of a disturbed mind.”

She was not disturbed! That was unfair. And she was more human than not—why else would she feel this pain when the living were near? He did not understand her, did not understand the purpose of her haunting, did not understand that it was in self-defense. He understood nothing!

He sighed. “Which are you, Serena? Are you a beautiful woman caught halfway between life and death, or are you nothing but an echo of the ugliest parts of humanity?”

Silence stretched to the corners of the room, trapping her mute in its bonds. She was neither, but she wished she could be one of those two, wished it as she always had, with all her heart. She wanted to be a beautiful woman about whom men dreamed.

“If you are indeed a woman, I should like to know you,” Woding said.

Serena drifted a few inches off the floor and sat in a nonexistent chair, trying to make sense of all this. People had but rarely spoken to her during her years as a ghost, and most often when they did they said things like “Stop it,” or “Don’t hurt me.” No one tried talking to her as if she might have something to say. Except for Thomas, no one in her lifetime had, either.

Woding had dreamed of her as a beautiful woman.