Of Midnight Born (5 page)

The comment coaxed a twitch of a smile from Philippa’s lips.

Serena studied the man, her eyes narrowed. There must be something wrong with him. He was placating this woman who cast doubt upon his good sense, when he should instead be telling her to hold her tongue. From what they’d said the woman must be his sister, but that should mean nothing. Thomas had never lacked the backbone to argue with her when he disagreed, even though she usually had been right.

She had been mistaken to think it was strength she heard in this man’s voice. He was obviously some form of coward, weak and trembly as jelly.

Square shoulders and a strong jaw did not make a warrior. She would have him out of here within a week. The fluttering panic in her chest quieted, and she buried that faint, painful sense of yearning.

He surely would be no more difficult to evict than Briggs had been. Easier, as he had nothing but a lease to hold him, unlike Briggs, who had invested huge sums of money in building this “monstrosity,” as the Philippa woman so aptly called it. Briggs’s weak-willed wife had at first pleaded to stay, but when her husband had started reporting to her each of his ghostly encounters, she’d become a sniveling, nervous mess, more eager than he to leave the place.

What a pair of cowards they had been.

Philippa gave a sudden shiver. “’Tis a drafty home you’ve chosen, Alex,” Philippa said, rubbing her arms. “I shouldn’t like to be here in winter, if August is so chilly. Why anyone would build on top of a mountain, exposed to the wind, is beyond me.”

Alex began to move toward the open door to the ancestral hall, where two workmen were fumbling with a crate. “I
find it quite warm, myself,” he said, and then to the workmen, “Careful there! Get that to the tower in one piece, and there’s a shilling in it for each of you.”

Philippa hissed out a note of disgust, barely waiting until the men were out of earshot before addressing her brother. “You spoil them. Why pay them extra for doing their job? You are too soft, Alex. Too soft by half.”

“As you’ve said before,” he replied calmly. “Have you any notion where Sophie may have gone off to?”

Serena came close to Alex, until she was right beside him and could stare into his eyes. Was there any anger there at all for this overbearing sister? A flicker, perhaps. Or was it cunning she saw? Or perhaps he was deaf to her insults, and there was no flicker of emotion in him at all.

He turned his head suddenly, his eyes meeting hers, boring into her. She started, letting out a small yelp of surprise.

“She’s probably taken Louisa into some dreary cellar, to fill her head with superstitious nonsense,” the one called Philippa was saying. “I’d best find them, else that child will be screaming of monsters and goblins into the wee hours yet again. Why either of them take such delight in scaring themselves silly I shall never understand.”

Alex turned back to his sister, the faint crease of a frown visible between his dark brows. “They behave more like sisters than aunt and niece,” he said, but sounded distracted.

Serena, feeling slightly shaken herself by meeting his eyes, let herself fade away into the unconscious oblivion that was her only form of rest. He couldn’t have seen her, but some people seemed able to sense her—as he had. She would have to think on this peculiar man, and on how she could most easily be rid of him.

“No moon, clear skies, and nary a female voice to be heard. A man could ask for no more,” Alex said to his Great Dane Otto as he set down the small, red-shielded lantern on the portable desk. He went to the crenelated wall of the tower and looked out over the dark countryside. There were few lights visible, much of the populace having gone to bed with the setting of the sun. They had work to do at dawn.

He, on the other hand, had but recently awoken, and only the rising of the sun would signal the end of his work for the night.

“Would they think me mad, Otto, if they knew what I was about?”

Otto looked at him, jowls hanging, then turned his shoulder to his master and went to go lie down on his favorite horse blanket.

“As if you are one to talk,” Alex said to the animal, who tucked his nose into his paws and gave a great sigh. “At least I have not been chasing shadows all week, barking at nothing.”

He pushed away from the parapet and went to the table, arranging the star charts and clock within easy reach from the reclining chair he’d had brought up when it became apparent there would be no rain or clouds tonight. A sense of delight, mingled with a trace of guilt, tickled at his chest. It was the same feeling he had known as a child, abandoning schoolwork for games.

“Perhaps Philippa was right about me,” he said aloud. “Not that it matters.” The wool mills were in capable hands;
Sophie was at last engaged and presently living under the watchful eye of Philippa; Amelia and Constance had their own households to concern them; and he was finally free to do as he wished. There was no reason he shouldn’t sit and count stars until he was ninety.

He made himself comfortable in the chair, lying almost supine upon its lowered back, and turned his eyes to the sky. He felt as if he had been waiting twenty-three years to do this, here in this place where he had first been struck by the wonder and mystery of falling stars.

His hand went to the scar above his temple, his fingertips running along it in unconscious habit. Little memory of which he could be certain remained from that night. The falling stars, yes. Rhys and his damnable ghost story, yes. But what had caused him to fall—of that he could not be certain.

There had been something he’d seen, some other light, but whether it was only a brighter star or Rhys’s ghost Serena, he could not say. Logic demanded that it all had been his own imagination upon waking from the fall, that there had been no light, but there was a part of him that wanted this place to hold a mystery, a bit of the unknown that had touched his life on that extraordinary night.

It had touched his life, cracked his skull, and broken his arm. It might be better for him, he reflected, if it were a certain thing that ghosts did not exist—and Serena most particularly.

Serena roamed the quiet corridors and rooms of the castle, many of which had not been touched since the Briggs family left. What type of life was this Alex Woding trying to lead here?

Woding. The name made her smile. Did he know it meant “the mad one”? He would understand by the time she was through with him.

His was a most peculiar household. It was composed completely of men and boys. Where were the women? Her own home had been predominately male, but even so there had been a fair complement of females, for everyone knew they were needed.

Who was going to do Woding’s laundry, mend his clothes, and do a proper job of cleaning? Who would tend to the kitchen herbs and the stillroom? Keep track of the stores and maintain order among the servants? And what would all these men do without the distraction of women? They would descend upon a village inn and throw themselves upon the first poor serving wench they met, like hounds upon a fallen deer.

The girl could likely buy herself a farm on the coins they’d give her, if she survived the ordeal.
Poor wench.

Still, the all-male situation was convenient for her, so she would not complain despite the curiosity it roused. With just men here, there was no reason to feel guilty about her methods of being rid of the filthy beasts. When Briggs was here, she had taken care not to frighten his wife, or any of the female staff. He would have been gone sooner if she had, but women had a hard enough time of life without her directly adding to their grief.

But a household of men? Scaring them would trouble her conscience as much as killing fleas.

Men.
Men like Hugh le Gayne. She let the old anger bubble up into her chest, heating it quickly to a rolling boil.
Murdering, perverted bastards.
She stoked the flames beneath her caldron of hatred, imagining le Gayne’s head floating in the broth, his eyes melting in agony.
Spawn of Satan. Lying, thieving, soulless smear of pig droppings.

To be surrounded by the living was torture enough. To be surrounded by men was not to be endured. The time had come to act.

She ran down the corridor, her footsteps gaining volume
as her fury rose, breaking through the barrier between death and life, becoming audible to the living, the sound a growing pounding upon the wood. Woding, where was Woding, the head of this house and the bringer of these men?

She found his room, empty of all but furniture. Enraged, she grabbed the curtains on the bed and yanked, but they only waved under her efforts, too securely attached to rings and rails to come down unless she consciously made herself more solid. She was too angry to think of that. She jumped onto the bed, kicking at the pillows, tearing at the cloth on the underside of the tester above her head, succeeding only in leaving faint streaks in the cloth.

She leaped off the bed, landing past the bed carpet on the bare wooden floor, her feet making a deeply satisfying boom, as if a log had been dropped on the floor. She ran to the paneled walls and banged her fists along them again and again, harder and harder, the sound growing, echoing, louder than what would have come from human hands on wood.

A narrow door in the wall suddenly opened, revealing a sleep-befuddled man in his nightshirt. It was Underhill, Woding’s manservant-cum-butler.

“Mr. Woding?” he queried, staring blindly into the dark room.

Serena screamed at him, and when he did not hear her she threw herself at him, passing through him, the sensation of going through him bringing her instant nausea. The act brought her to her senses even as the man stumbled back, nearly stepping into her again.

“Who’s there?” he cried.

She left him, staggering through the room out into the corridor again, feeling sick, and angry at herself now as well for being so stupid as to pass through him. The experience always cost her more than it cost the living, leaving her drained and queasy.

She moved silently down the corridor, her mind a welter of hatred and weariness. She stopped at the head of the stairs and sat, breathing deeply with her head between her knees, gathering herself together.

Where was Woding? she found herself asking after several moments had passed. She sat up straight, and the feeling of sickness subsided.

Beezely brushed against her side, purring, then stepped up onto her lap, twisting onto his back and batting at her hand as she scratched his stomach. And that hulking hound, Otto, where was he?

A door down the corridor opened, and Underhill came out, dressed now and carrying a candle. Serena pushed Beezely off her lap and followed him.

He went into one of the rooms left empty after the Briggses’ departure, only a few crates of unknown goods occupying it now, pushed up against one wall. Underhill went through the door in the corner, the one that opened onto the stairs that led to the tower room. He seemed to sense her presence, if only just, peering twice over his shoulder and hastening his step as he went through the door and began to climb the spiral staircase.

Serena followed, then stopped at the top of the stairs, taken aback by what she saw as Underhill set the candle upon the desk in the tower room.

What madness was this?

Taking up half the room was a contraption of polished brass made up of slender arms and balls. As Underhill bumped against it, the balls began to drift about each other, reflecting glimmers of candlelight.

She took a few steps into the room, her eyes going from the spiderish contraption to a thick cylinder of brass atop a wooden tripod placed near the window. Then she saw the maps hanging upon the walls.

Only they were not maps of the land, she saw as she came
closer. They were charts of the heavens. She could see the bright points of the Bear, and the Hunter, and the other constellations she had learned to find her own names for over the centuries of watching their turnings through the night sky.

A shiver ran up her spine and she crossed herself, something she had not done since she had lived. God help her, Woding was an astrologer. He knew the secret workings of the universe in ways she could only guess at, and was likely capable of wielding great powers, for good or evil. It had been the astrologers of Paris who had unlocked the cause of the Pestilence, finding its origins in the conjunctions of the planets, and she was certain that any man who could divine such a truth could also own some control of it.

She remembered the way Woding had sidestepped his sister’s bleatings, deflecting her to other topics or humoring her. She remembered the way he bribed servants to work hard. She had thought him weak. Was he crafty instead, allowing others to underestimate him? Did having a household of men in some way increase his power?

Underhill had gone up the steep wooden stairs at the side of the room, pushing open the hatchway at the top. Serena followed with trepidation, her long skirts gathered in one hand as she half floated, half-climbed behind him.

“Mr. Woding?” the servant, ahead of her, said as he came out onto the roof of the tower.

“Yes, Underhill, what is it?” came Woding’s voice. It was deep, soft, and mildly surprised. She heard no annoyance at being intruded upon.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. Is everything all right?”

Serena gained the top of the tower, standing still a moment as she tried to make sense of what she saw: the man supine in his chair/bed, the dim red lamp, the table and papers. Recalling the charts upon the walls below, she tilted her head back and took in the vast night sky, shimmering with stars.

“I might ask the same of you. I thought you had gone to bed,” Woding said.

“There was…ah…a disturbance, sir.”

There was movement on the other side of Woding’s couch, and then the shadowed head of his hound appeared. A low growl emanated from his throat.

Serena made a face at the beast, knowing that at least with the animal she had the advantage. “Growl all you want, you heaping pile of dog meat,” she said, knowing that only the hound would hear her. “’Twill only serve to aid me.”

“Otto, hush,” Woding commanded gently. The dog’s ears flattened, and he gave a discontented whine, shifting on his haunches. “What type of disturbance?”

“I awoke to knocking, thumping sounds coming from your chamber, as if someone were pounding against the wall. When I went to investigate, fearing you were in some distress, there was no one there and the noise suddenly ceased.”

Serena went to stand beside Otto, consciously making herself solid, albeit still invisible. She reached down and scratched round the base of his ears, knowing how her presence and contact unsettled the creature. The dog cringed away from her, whining more loudly.

“You must have been the runt of your litter,” Serena said, using both hands now to pet and scratch as the dog tried to scoot away from her ministrations.

“Awooo-woo-woo!” Otto howled in distress, and tried to squeeze himself under Woding’s couch, bumping the man half out of his seat. Serena drifted into insubstantiality and went to lean against the parapet and enjoy the show.

“Otto! Good Lord, boy, what is it?”

“Woo woo wooooo!”

Woding got out of his chair and crouched down beside it, peering at Otto. “Here, now, what’s frightened you?”

“I have heard, sir,” Underhill said with a touch of diffidence, “that dogs are especially sensitive to…”

Woding stuck his head farther under the couch, making soothing sounds. “Yes, Underhill?” came his voice. “Sensitive to what?”

“To the presence of ghosts, sir.”

Woding was silent for a long moment, and then he slowly came out from under the chair, the sounds of Otto’s whimpering unabated. “Is that what you think made the noise in my bedroom, rather than, say, a particularly vivid dream?”

“I do not know,” Underhill said, now sounding almost embarrassed. “When I opened your door, I felt a terrible sensation of cold, such as I have heard described by those who have been in the presence of spirits. When I checked the room after finding a light, the covers and pillows on your bed had been slightly disturbed. They were neatly made when I checked before retiring, sir.”

Woding stood, still looking at the chair where his dog cowered. “If there is a ghost, then judging by Otto’s behavior I would say it has followed you.”

“Sir?” Underhill said, his voice cracking. Serena clapped her hands in delight.

“I find it much more reasonable, however,” Woding said, turning to look at Underhill, “to assume that the noise you heard was no more than the settling sounds of an unfamiliar house, distorted perhaps by sleep. Otto, for his part, has obviously been having a hard time adjusting to his new home, but I expect he should calm down in a few weeks’ time.”

“But the covers…”

“Otto likely made himself comfortable for a few minutes, when I went to fetch a heavier coat.”

“And the cold, sir?” Underhill asked, his voice filled with mingled doubt and hope.

“You had just arisen from your warm bed. Naturally my room felt cold in contrast.”

Serena made a moue, not at all pleased. She did not like having her efforts reasoned away.

“Of course.” Underhill all but sighed the words. “I apologize for being so foolish, sir. I should not have listened to the stories going around, or at least should not have allowed them to affect my imagination.”

“Stories? What stories?”

“Various, sir. Some of the men we hired from the village have said that the Briggs family moved out because of a ghost, and they relate the legend of a woman by the name of Serena, who went mad and killed her husband on their wedding night.”