The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales
Read The Mistletoe Bride and Other Haunting Tales Online
Authors: Kate Mosse
Tags: #Anthology, #Short Story, #Ghost
To Greg and Martha and Felix
THE MISTLETOE BRIDE
& other
HAUNTING TALES
Kate MOSSE
Illustrations by
ROHAN DANIEL EASON
CONTENTS
Why the Yew Tree Lives So Long
I expect to pass through this world but once;
any good thing therefore that I can do,
or any kindness that I can show to any fellow human being,
let me do it now; let me not defer nor neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
ETIENNE DE GRELLET DU MABILLIER
Like most novelists, over the years I’ve been asked to contribute short stories to magazines and anthologies. Some books are intended as pure entertainment, others to celebrate an anniversary or a season or in aid of a charity. Often the request is accompanied by an assumption that most writers will have stories squirrelled away, just waiting for a good home.
That was never true for me. I didn’t start on short stories and graduate to novel writing, rather I came at it the other way around. Each time I was asked if I had anything, I knew my literary bottom drawer was empty. So I always started from scratch and discovered how much I enjoyed the challenge of writing self-contained short stories.
The novels in my Languedoc Trilogy –
Labyrinth
,
Sepulchre
and
Citadel
– took years to research and years to write, so it was fun (and a relief) to work on a more intimate scale. I loved the need to capture a moment of experience, rather than creating a whole world and everything in it; I enjoyed being able to concentrate on one or two characters rather than wrestle with a cast of dozens, even hundreds; I enjoyed the slim time between having the idea and putting the last full stop on the page.
The Mistletoe Bride & Other Haunting Tales
is my first collection of short stories. Of the fourteen, six have been published elsewhere before – though I have expanded or edited them for this edition. The other eight are new, either inspired by a particular time and place – in particular the landscape of Sussex, Hampshire, Brittany and the Languedoc – or by English and French folklore and legend. There are traditional ghost stories – spirits coming back from the dead to seek revenge, lost souls haunting the place where they died, white ladies and phantom hitchhikers – and also gentler tales about loss and grief or guilt. Some are first-person narratives and others told in the third person. What they have in common is a protagonist in a state of crisis, someone whose emotional state makes them more susceptible to experiences or happenings outside everyday life. They are women and men who, for a moment at least, have slipped between the cracks of the physical world we can see and understand and into a shadow world that may not even exist.
My first play,
Syrinx
, is also included. Since its premiere in 2009, it has become a popular piece for amateur groups to perform. There has been, until now, no printed script available.
Finally, I have written a brief Author’s Note for each piece, giving the context and original inspiration – the narrative of the narrative – for those who’re interested in how stories move from head to page. For me, one of the joys of putting together the collection was seeing a microcosm of the themes, ideas and styles I was to develop later in
Labyrinth
,
Sepulchre
,
Citadel
and
The Winter Ghosts
.
Any collection of work written over many years must, by its very nature, tell another story too – of how the author came to be the author she or he is. This, then, is mine.
Kate Mosse
Sussex, May 2013
Bramshill House, Hampshire
October 1935
At length an old chest that had long lain hid
Was found in the castle; they raised the lid,
And a skeleton form lay mouldering there,
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair.
Refrain
: Oh, the mistletoe bough,
Oh, the mistletoe bough.
from ‘The Mistletoe Bough’
THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY
I hear someone coming.
Has someone caught the echo of my footsteps on these floorboards? It is possible. It has happened before. I pause and listen, but now I no longer hear anything. I sigh. As always, hope is snatched away before it can take root.
Even now, after so long, I cannot account for the fact that no one ever ventures into this part of the house. I do not understand how I am still waiting, waiting after all these years. Sometimes I see them moving around below. Sense their presence. Bramshill House has been home to many families in my time and, though the clothes and the styles and the customs are different, it seems to me that each generation is much the same. I remember them all, their faces alive with the legends of the house and the belief that it is haunted. Men and women and children, listening to the stories. The story of a game of hide-and-seek.
I pray that this will be the day. The end of my story. That, this time, someone at last will find me. But the halls and the corridors beneath me are silent again.
No one is coming.
And so then, as always, I am carried back to that first Christmas so very long ago.
It is my wedding day. I should be happy, and I am.
I am happy, yet I confess I am anxious too. My father’s friends are wild. Their cups clashing against one another and goose fat glistening on their cheeks and their voices raised. There has been so much wine drunk that they are no longer themselves. There is a lawlessness in the glint of their eyes, though they are not yet so far gone as to forget their breeding and manners. Their good cheer echoes around the old oak hall, so loud that I can no longer hear the lute or viol or citole set for our entertainment.
There is mistletoe and holly, white berries and red.
At the end of the table, I see my beloved father and my face softens. He is proud of me and what this alliance will bring. Two local families of equal stature and worth, this union will be good for both. My mother has told me time and again how fortunate I am to be betrothed – married, as of three hours past – to a man who loves me and who is mindful of my worth. And see how we sit together, at the head of the feast, to toast the goodly company.
I look to my husband.
Lovell is lively and bright. He touches my hand and compliments my dress, admires my blue eyes and the Christmas decorations that grace the hall. And he – I must learn to call him husband – dances well and speaks well and makes each man believe that he, of all of my father’s guests, is the most welcome.
The scent of lilies, lily of the valley, though I do not understand how such blooms survive in the cold of this December.
I have been told Lovell has done great service to the Crown. He is said to be brave and that he acquitted himself in the wars, but yet the new Queen does not favour him. I do not know how this matters, if at all. In any case, today all affairs of state are forgotten. Lovell has opened Bramshill House to all those who should be here, regardless of their allegiance, and my father approves. This house that will, in time, become my home.