The Haunting of Ashburn House (23 page)

“O-Oh, yeah, sure. My car’s outside.” She coughed. “I think.”

Adrienne leaned on her friend’s shoulder as they shuffled towards the door. As they passed the hallway mirror, Adrienne caught a glimpse of Edith. The tall, immaculate woman stood in the shadowed corner beside the grandfather clock, her hands folded neatly over her skirts. She was smiling.

From the Second Page of Edith’s Letter

As long as you light the candle every week, Eleanor will not be able to reach you. But you must be dutiful about it.

You may have already noticed some messages scratched around Ashburn. I am no longer a young lady, dear Adrienne; my memory fails me increasingly each day. One week I forgot to light the candle, and my sister’s face appeared to me in the mirror I keep in my drawer.

It frightened me so badly that I created permanent testaments so that I could never again forget my purpose.

Every morning, I walk to town and purchase, along with my groceries, a newspaper. The paper sits on the mantel above the fireplace and is burned when I start that night’s fire. Every evening, as I eat my dinner, I see a message on the table reminding me to check if it’s Friday. If I cannot remember, I go to the newspaper and read the date; six nights a week the paper can be burnt to make room for a new paper the next morning. But on Friday, I go to the attic and light my candle.

I have a little box on top of my bed that is full of newspaper clippings in case I ever doubt that my past truly happened. You are welcome to read through them if you like.

Finally, I wrote
no mirrors
about my house. One of my sister’s tricks is to appear in the reflection, especially as her power begins to return. If you ever see her there, divert your eyes immediately. She can take control over your body if you stare at her for too long. This is one of the reasons I never welcomed guests to Ashburn. Even though I cleared the mirrors out of my home—save for that little frame in my room—a visitor might bring one of their own or look into their cars’ rear-view mirrors and fall under Eleanor’s spell.

There is a final thing I must tell you, dear Adrienne, and I hope it is something you can forgive me for. Shortly following your father’s death, I invited your mother to visit me. We had never met before, but I was growing old and wished to find a successor to keep my sister contained.

I had hoped to offer her Ashburn and request that she continue my practice of lighting a candle once a week. However, she was resistant to my story and did not wish to take occupancy here. I do not blame her. She was young and had a small child to care for; tales of ghouls and curses must have been as unnerving as they were unbelievable.

You, a child of four, wandered off while we were speaking, and our discussion was so heated that neither of us noticed for several minutes. When we did, we searched for you. I found you first; you had somehow made your way up to the attic, as though drawn there by a force beyond yourself, and were looking at the photo of my sister.

I sensed, in that moment, that you were destined to be my replacement.

Now comes the part that I must beg your forgiveness for. You see, while my sister held the raw talent and power that comes from an ancient soul, I had picked up a few of her tricks while growing up alongside her. I used this knowledge to bind our souls together.

The ritual involved a cut on both of our hands to exchange blood. Your mother, when she found us, was understandably hysterical. She took you away immediately and never replied to any of my future correspondence. I am deeply sorry for upsetting her so.

Please know that this binding is not something that will harm you; I made sure all of the risk would be on my side. The magic simply tied me to you so that, once I die, my soul will linger in Ashburn for as long as you remain alive. I did this to ensure I could watch over and protect you if possible. I do not know how much power I will have in that form—probably very little—but I will always be there if you need my help.

If you wish to see me, hang a mirror somewhere in the house, and I will try to appear in it. Just be careful that my sister’s face does not materialise instead. You shouldn’t have trouble telling us apart; a life underground had disfigured her and stripped away her sanity.

And finally, if the worst should happen and my sister rises from the dead, remember that fire is your sanctuary. Eleanor burns quite nicely.

Regards and love from the great-aunt who wishes she had the joy of knowing you more,

Edith

“Oh, I almost forgot; here’s your mail.” Jayne dug a small stack of letters out of her bag and passed them to Adrienne. “It must be an abominable walk to the end of the driveway, so I thought I’d collect them for you.”

Beth, who had one scone in her mouth and another in her hand, spoke around the food. “Ask the mailman to hold them at his office. It’ll be a shorter walk.”

“I’ll introduce you when you’re feeling well enough to come into town,” Sarah added.

“That would be amazing.” Adrienne nodded at her leg, which was swathed in bandages. “I should have these off in a couple of days.”

“And if you don’t, just give me a call,” Jayne said. “We’ll bring some extra food and whatever else you need.”

“You guys are amazing. Thank you.” Adrienne glanced at Marion as she spoke. The other woman kept her eyes fixed on her feet. She hadn’t spoken a word since she’d arrived.

“Have another scone,” Adrienne said, nudging the plate towards Marion. “The jam’s incredible. I don’t think you could make a bad batch if you tried.”

Marion snorted and kept her eyes averted, but Adrienne saw a grin flit onto her face.

When the doctors had asked what caused Adrienne’s injuries, she’d told them she’d been attacked by a wild dog. It had been a weak excuse; human teeth and canine teeth made very different imprints, and the doctors’ sceptical looks confirmed they didn’t buy her story. But in her defence, she’d been high on painkillers and so tired that she would have sold several of her organs in exchange for an uninterrupted sleep.

Adrienne had no easy way of confirming her suspicions, but she thought Marion blamed herself for what had happened that night. The vet student didn’t seem to remember anything after seeing Eleanor in her rear-view mirror on the night she’d crashed. Her family must have told her she’d spent days in a fugue, and then she’d woken up to the scene of a break-in with a knife in her hand and Adrienne covered in blood.

To her frustration, Adrienne didn’t have any way to explain her friend’s innocence without bringing up ghosts, curses, and a whole host of stories that would sound thoroughly made up. The best she could do was studiously avoid mentioning that night and make Marion feel as welcome as possible.

Something positive had come out of the whole mess, though; she was certain Marion was to thank for the visit. The last time she’d seen Jayne, she’d been certain the four friends wouldn’t be returning to Ashburn. But just four days after she’d been discharged from hospital, they sat on the rose-pattern chairs in the sitting room, a basket heaped full of fresh food next to Adrienne. She guessed Marion had wanted to visit to make amends but hadn’t wanted to come alone.

Adrienne couldn’t have asked for a better day for the visit, either. The sun was warm and bright as it streamed through the freshly cleaned windows. The light transformed Ashburn; what had once felt cold and aged was now comforting and homely.

Peggy’s brother had fixed the laptop in exchange for access to the road that used part of her driveway. What Adrienne hadn’t expected, though, was that other townspeople were willing to trade for the same privilege. Despite Adrienne repeatedly telling them they could use the road for free, she’d had her windows washed, the lawn mown, and the fireplace cleaned. As the news that Adrienne welcomed visitors spread, more visits and offers came in each day.

The interest in the old house was so strong that Beth had asked permission to start a ghost-tour business. She intended to lead people around the house and share the history, rumours, and ghost stories with them and had offered to split the profits with Adrienne.

“Oh!” Beth clapped her hands together. “I almost forgot—people are telling me the light appeared in Ashburn’s attic last night. What’s that all that about? Ghosts aren’t causing you problems, are they?”

Adrienne laughed. She’d rehearsed her excuse a dozen times. “The Friday light seems really popular in Ipson. Since Edith maintained it for eighty years, I thought I might as well continue the tradition and give the kids some muse for their ghost stories.”

Following Adrienne’s discharge from the hospital, the first thing she’d done on her return to Ashburn was visit the attic. Eleanor’s ashes had lain where she’d left them, scattered over the wooden boards, so she’d swept them into a bucket.

Edith’s letter hadn’t been explicit, but it seemed reasonable to conclude that she’d defeated her sister—both as a child and then again as a young adult—by burning her. But because Eleanor had stolen the rest of her family’s years, simply turning her to ash had not been enough to kill her. She’d slowly regenerated over several years until she’d been whole enough to dig her way out of her grave.

Adrienne had taken the ashes to the little cemetery in the forest and buried them in the open grave. She’d then placed one of the fat, heavy candles onto the attic’s spike and lit it so that it shone over the photograph.

Edith had been able to contain her sister with one candle per week over eighty years. Adrienne would continue the system. She was also keeping the mirrors hung about the house. If Eleanor ever began to strengthen, glimpsing her in the reflections would give Adrienne ample warning. The sunset phenomenon—when Eleanor’s burgeoning power terrified the birds out of their trees—would be a final caution.

Adrienne had done the math. Eleanor had killed four of her family members, all of them in their mid to late thirties. Assuming they’d had between twenty-five and forty years left, and minus the time she’d spent in the grave, Eleanor could be expected to live for another twenty to eighty years. That meant there was a good chance Adrienne could keep her trapped until the living corpse’s hours ran out.

It was less of a chore than she would have expected. She felt welcomed into the town, had four new friends, and her laptop had been returned to her fully functional. There was still a lot to do before she could consider her life back to normal, but she felt that the worst was over.

Before leaving, Jayne casually mentioned that she hoped Adrienne would join in the club’s activities the following month. “Pilates,” she said as she slung her bag over her shoulder. “We can improve both our bodies and our minds with just a few thrice-weekly sessions—”

Her three companions all groaned, and Beth shoved her out of the door. “C’mon, Marion’s gonna run late for her shift if we dawdle any longer. Let me know about the ghost-tours gig, okay, Addy?”

As they piled into their car, Marion glanced back at the house. Adrienne raised her hand in farewell, and Marion returned the gesture, a hesitant smile filling her face.

Adrienne kept waving until the car disappeared into the forest then stepped back inside and leaned her back against the door. She closed her eyes and inhaled, savouring the peace that came with an empty house. Wolfgang emerged from the kitchen, stretched, and sauntered towards her. Adrienne bent to give his head a quick scratch. “Do you want your lunch, my fearsome corpse conqueror?”

He exhaled a purring mewl, and Adrienne laughed as she led him into their lounge room. As promised, she’d bought him a small stack of tinned tuna on her first day back from the hospital, and she added a portion of it to his meal.

As she put the food away, a black-clothed woman drifted into the large mirror over the fireplace. She paused near the glass and smiled at Adrienne.

“Ready?” Adrienne asked.

The reflection dipped her head in a graceful nod. Adrienne moved to the fire, placed a new log on the blaze, and picked up the novel propped on the little side table. Edith moved through the reflection to sit in the chair beside Adrienne’s.

She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been listening, but Adrienne caught the faint creak of shifting wood and saw the empty chair beside her shift a fraction of an inch. The woman in the mirror folded her hands tidily in her lap and smiled as Adrienne opened the novel and began to read aloud.

THE END

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