Darker Still (5 page)

Crenfall opened his mouth as if to protest, but Mrs. Northe drove her point further. “Tell Bentrop not to bother coming home from Egypt. He may continue his grave-robbing in peace.”

The broker was wholly out of his league. Maggie was beaming. Clearly she relished the power and privilege her aunt wielded so effortlessly. Crenfall’s shoulders, tight with worry, fell and he shrugged as if acquiescing defeat when he should have been kissing Mrs. Northe’s feet for the sum she would pay.

Muttering, he left the room. The sale of the painting evidently wasn’t about money after all. For any of them. And I now knew why. Unnatural happenings were afoot.

“Well,” Mrs. Northe said brightly, turning to Denbury’s portrait. “My fine chap, you’ve got yourself a new mistress!”

Maggie sighed again, staring up at him with fawning eyes.

I’m sure it was my imagination, but there seemed to be a certain relaxing of Denbury’s brow, as if he’d narrowly escaped certain doom. His blue eyes looked relieved, so unlike the disturbing onyx gaze of his ghost. I found myself wanting to reassure him, to speak words of comfort and friendship.

Where was all this coming from? These two Denburys caused distinct reactions within me. My heart reeled, and I felt sick to my stomach. Were these two different echoes of the man, one his better half, a noble soul with angelic eyes immortalized on canvas, and the other left to wander the earth with darker intent? Had the occult somehow gained what was left of him? The painting remained changed, with that book’s spine and the gilded letters out in plain sight, but there was no further sign of the corporeal form that moved and spoke.

Mrs. Northe kept eyeing me. Could she tell what I was thinking? Could I possibly tell her what had happened?

Father came at his appointed time, and both Mr. Sullivan and Mrs. Northe greeted him warmly.

“Alas, I’ve forced your hand, Mr. Stewart. If I hadn’t intervened, this incredible piece would have fallen into hands as good as thieves’. I’ve signed off on the purchase of the work just now to put a swift end to this circus. But I’ll need the backing of the Metropolitan and its connections to lawyers, creditors, and civil servants of New York, should Crenfall seek to fight me on this.”

“And why should he do that?”

“I don’t know that he will. But something about his handling of this sale is highly suspicious. He seemed in quite a hurry to rush the portrait out of England,” Mrs. Northe replied. “Come, let us be off to dinner. Natalie, ride with me.”

Father trotted along after the three of us, baffled but happy to be invited.

Once in the privacy of the carriage, Mrs. Northe wasted no time. “I kept you in that room, Natalie, to hear it all. Have you ever met someone you feel, in the instant, you were meant to meet?”

I nodded.

“Well, I feel that way about you, Natalie. God brings people into our lives precisely when we need them.”

All I could do was nod again, suddenly quite pleased to be “needed.” Not only did I feel the same way about her, but the impossible had unveiled itself and I could not deny it. Maggie was compelled by her aunt’s urgency, and I was surprised she didn’t edge herself into the conversation.

Mrs. Northe continued. “Earlier I mentioned that some persons associated with occult dealings seek powers beyond themselves. By this I mean all matter of spells, witchcraft, and imbuing of objects.”

“To what end?” I asked. My hands shook as I signed, and I was helpless to control the tremors.

“Most often, immortality. I fear this painting has, in part, something to do with that very desire.”

“Immortality!” Maggie exclaimed as if she were about to burst. “You see, this is the stuff I
live
to hear about!”

Mrs. Northe ignored her, instead eyeing me.

My heart leaped as I signed. “You think Denbury might still be alive? Because I…”

And here I stopped. I was not ready to confess anything. I didn’t want to be shipped to a
real
asylum.

Mrs. Northe again eyed me, now with a knowing look that was both comforting and unnerving. She ignored that I’d stopped midstream. “All I know is this portrait cannot fall into the wrong hands. I’ll have Sullivan transport it to my house tonight.” She looked at me apologetically. “Unfortunately, I do believe I’ve given the Metropolitan more than a beautiful painting’s worth of trouble.”

“I’ll take him off your hands,” Maggie offered eagerly. Mrs. Northe glanced at her with a smirk that showed she wouldn’t consider it for a minute.

Dinner was finer than we’d perhaps ever eaten, thanks to Mrs. Northe, but I had no appetite. Denbury’s eyes—both sets of them—kept searing into my soul. I kept reliving what his ghost had said. My body was warm, tingling in a way I was not at all proud of, but I was flattered that something related to Denbury thought me pretty, that perhaps something of him had indeed chosen to watch me as I watched him. Beautiful together…

I wondered what
The
Girl
meant and how I might explain it to Mrs. Northe. Or if I’d even seen what I thought I saw in the first place. Could it possibly have been wishful thinking? Willing the sort of intrigue found only in wild Gothic novels to a mere canvas? Maggie would, in her words, surely die if she found out.

Mrs. Northe was doing me the honor of trusting my confidence. I know I ought to return the courtesy, even at the risk of sounding like a madwoman. But I am, quite frankly, afraid.

Later…

(Watching a bright moon rise in the sky from my bedroom's bay window)

And here, these diary pages serving as a true friend, I hereby confess what I used to believe, what I rejected, and what I may be forced to believe again in regards to ghost stories.

I have mentioned the Whisper. My childhood world was painfully quiet, of course, as you can well imagine. I did not make noise, and no one made noise around me. Father and I developed our vaguely comfortable silence long ago.

He had me educated as if nothing were wrong with me, bringing in tutors and academics. As my hearing and relative temperament seemed fine, I was taught to read and write from an early age, and I received a very fine education for a young girl, though I could not speak of it. I had made noise until the day Mother died. Evidently I had been quite the chatterer.

Father had just kept waiting for the day I would start back up again. As if nothing had ever happened.

But because I never did simply chatter away again, Father had sent me off, as there was no use pretending that I might.

I assumed that, because of this preternatural quiet, my hearing must be hypersensitive, an overcompensation.

There was often a Whisper at my ear, gentle and subtle. While it was a human voice, I could never decipher words. I heard occasional familiar English syllables and was sure I often heard my name. But if it was a message on the wind, like some paper in a bottle sent to wash ashore, the communication failed because I could determine no meaning. I closed my eyes, straining when I heard her—it was most certainly a
her
.

Once I was old enough, I understood that the vague “mother” I faintly recalled no longer existed. Yet it isn’t beyond the pale for a child, like I was, to hope that an inexplicable, disembodied voice at her ear is that of her lost parent.

A movement would follow the sound, something out of the corner of my eye. A rustle of white like the corner of a lace curtain billowing in a soft breeze. It indulged every fantasy of a ghost without ever producing an actual image of one. I would turn, squint, and strain but never quite grasp hold of it.

No vision, no message. It was infuriating.

Devoted to such authors as Wilkie Collins, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles Dickens, I wished to escape into their worlds where ghosts could be seen and addressed. I wondered what good speaking in this world was if I couldn’t even hear the most important words being said from beyond. What good was speaking when I’d determined none of the world listened to one another, especially not when a woman was speaking. I dreamed that were I to step into Mr. Collins’s or Mr. Dickens’s world, I would be able to speak freely. Then I’d turn and greet the specter that had haunted me ever since I could remember.

But the pain of adoring a world that I could never touch grew too great for me.

At thirteen, I rejected it all, with all the vehemence that year of my life produced, and refused to entertain the idea of a ghost story.

Until Denbury.

He has brought back that old familiar pull, the pining ache of those dear old stories. He is water on parched lips. I’ve missed the sweet longing for those worlds, the titillating sense of magic that courses down my spine with delicious possibility, and the sense that the veil to another existence is very thin near me…the sense that I am gifted. I’ve missed that thought.

However, as that feeling returns to me now, it is drastically altered. There is, of course, the excitement of a ghost story. But if the tale proves true, it’s suddenly not as alluring. It is, in fact, terrifying.

3 a.m.

I woke from a dream and must recount the details. There was the Whisper. Mother’s whisper, surely. I saw a flicker of white at the corner of my room as I lay in my bed. I struggled to move, to crane my neck to see her, but I was pinned. The Whisper was insistent, that female voice. In the dream, I could understand it. It called my name. I opened my mouth to respond. But even in my dream I couldn’t. How cruel to be denied the faculty of speech even by my own unconscious state!

“Natalie…” came another voice. One with a British accent. A delectable voice that sent shivers down my spine.

I turned my head toward that familiar voice. And there in my room was Denbury, striking and compelling Denbury the painting, filling my wall and staring down at me. His blue eyes were wide and searching. “You are the girl…the girl to help me. Please, help me, Natalie…” The lips of his painting did not move, yet I heard him clearly.

My body was heavy, weighted, but I reached out my hand. My back arched. I did want to help him. I wanted to go to him, to be
with
him…

And then he turned. His eyes went glowing black. The lips of his painting moved, and his was the voice of his lascivious shade. “Pretty thing.”

His image peeled from the canvas, and his body stepped down from his painting, down onto my bed, as if entering through a door. He fell upon me, and a hand like a claw closed over my throat.

I shot awake with a small choking gurgle. An ugly sound.

I write this while the moon is again bright. I’m hoping its silver rays can banish the shadows. I rub my throat and still feel the pain. Knowing that a bruise is only in my mind is small comfort.

• • •

From the Desk of Mrs. Evelyn Northe

June 7 (at an hour earlier than anyone should be writing letters)

Dear Mr. and Miss Stewart,

Alas, it seems we are now waging a dangerous war. I’m terribly sorry if I’ve escalated the situation improperly, but I’ll set aside blame for the greater issue of safety.

Last night my house was quite nearly ransacked and my two guards overcome, and I had the opportunity to reassert that I’m a damn good shot with a pistol.

It would seem burglars wished to take Denbury. I did inform the police, but now I’m beginning to regret it, for they simply do not understand the finer points of the darker forces at work here. However, they will post guards at my home. And perhaps at the Metropolitan, where, my dear Mr. Stewart, I hope you won’t mind keeping Lord Denbury from this point on.

Keep your eye open for a man with a limp around the painting. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out the identity of the intruders as I fired a shot and they scrambled for the exit. One took a bullet of mine as a souvenir in his thigh.

Respectfully,

Mrs. Evelyn Northe

June 8

Father knocked on my door before breakfast, handing the above letter to me and having lost what little color he possessed. Once at the breakfast table, he was irate in a way I’d never seen, hardly touched his eggs, and jumped up as I placed the last of my bread into my mouth.

“I’m going to see her. I don’t like that she’s there alone. All this over a silly portrait.”

The fact was that Mrs. Northe wasn’t there alone. She had staff. But Father suddenly wanted to play the hero, and I tried not to smile at his uncharacteristic concern.

He was on his feet and ready for departure more quickly than I’d seen him move in some time, whereupon I took up Mrs. Northe’s letter and have enclosed it in these pages. I shall keep all evidence I find in this curious case. Someday someone might thank me for it.

Father told me I was to remain at the house while he checked on Mrs. Northe. I shook my head. I hailed a carriage and was seated inside before he was. He stared at me with his usual mixture of sentiment: always impressed by my initiative and always wondering why it never initiated my speech. Alas, I never had an answer to offer him.