The Haunting of Maddy Clare (8 page)

The man whirled. His dark eyes took me in. I realized I had backed up to the window, where I stood, trying not to shake. His entrance had been yet another blow to my nerves. There was spilled tea on the tray.

The madman seemed to take in all of this in an instant. He reached up and pulled the hat from his head. Despite the gesture of deference, his expression held only a cool contempt, mixed with, I thought, a tinge of anger. “Oh. Hullo,” he said to me.

I nodded at him.

Mr. Gellis was still amused. “Miss Piper,” he said, “please meet the man you have been replacing—my assistant, Matthew Ryder.”

I stared at Mr. Matthew Ryder in shock. I had pictured another eccentric intellectual, like Mr. Gellis—bespectacled, perhaps shy,
the type of man who could understand complex recording equipment and quietly organize his employer’s notebooks. I could not reconcile the man before me to that picture.

Perhaps he wasn’t a madman or a thief, as I had first thought him, but he did not seem to be very far from either. His quick, dark gaze missed nothing, and some dangerous emotion crackled under its surface. He did not stand still. His accent, in his low gravelly voice, held a lower-class twang, bespeaking his origins; and seemingly aware of this, he was brash, rude, and insolent, as if daring Mr. Gellis to take offense. Mr. Gellis, far from rising to the bait, kept an air of amused tolerance. I could tell from the first moment that their strange acquaintance was a long one.

“What are you doing here?” Mr. Gellis was saying to him now. “You’re interrupting me frightfully. We were just about to begin. You’re supposed to be gone until the end of the week.”

Mr. Ryder shrugged. “Charlotte had her baby. Everything seemed fine to me. What do I know about it? So I got out. I drove all night to get here. Didn’t want to miss a minute of it. What’s been going on?”

“I sent Miss Piper in this morning, but have not examined her yet, thanks to you. You should have taken a few days off.”

“Like fucking hell. You should have told me about this one earlier or I would never have gone. Did it come out?” He turned to me, his black gaze burning. “Did you see it?”

Something in his foul-mouthed insolence awakened some anger in me. I was tired of being spoken of as if I were an object in the room. I met Mr. Ryder’s gaze with my own. “It saw me,” I said.

Mr. Gellis’ head jerked up, and Mr. Ryder stepped forward. They were both avid on me now, alive with an obsessive curiosity I had never seen before. I suddenly felt the imbalance, a female
now outnumbered by two young, strong men in the room, both of them staring at me with fascination. I looked from one to the other.

“What does that mean?” Mr. Ryder said. “Did you see it or didn’t you?”

“She—she wanted me to look at her, I think. I couldn’t do it.” I thought of the heels banging on the wall, the gurgling sound, and suddenly I was weak again. I pressed a cold hand to my forehead and sagged against the window. “Mr. Gellis, did you say this girl Maddy hanged herself?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gellis.

That horrible, horrible gurgling sound, as if she was unable to speak. Again I imagined what I would have seen, had I turned around. “Oh God,” I said quietly.

“Miss Piper.” Mr. Gellis’ voice was quiet, soothing. “You must have a seat. Mr. Ryder has interrupted us, and for that, he apologizes profoundly.” I highly doubted such a thing, but Mr. Gellis went on. “Now—we must have the full account from you, while it is still so fresh in your mind. It’s time to tell us what you saw.”

“What I saw
isn’t possible
,” I said.

He still soothed me. “We see ghosts for a living, Miss Piper. I’ve seen dozens. Nothing you can say is strange. Anything is possible—anything at all. Now, please have a seat, and relieve us both of this torturous curiosity.”

I left the window and made my way back across the room. I could not help limping; Mr. Gellis had turned back to his notebook and did not see, but I looked up to see Mr. Ryder watching me, a sharp look in his eyes. I felt as if he were cataloging me, measuring me somehow in his brain, and finding me wanting. My stomach churned in uneasiness at the sight of him, and I looked away.

I sat down. Mr. Gellis pulled his chair close to mine. Mr. Ryder, still restless and unable to stand still, paced out of my line of vision—he stood somewhere else in the room; I knew not where, perhaps back by the window where I had just been. I did not turn to look. I looked at Mr. Gellis, whose dark gray eyes were on me, the sweet crook of a smile on his mouth. I smiled weakly back at him.

“Now, begin,” he said. And I did.

It took a long time. Despite Mr. Gellis’ assurances, I could hear the words as they came from my lips, and they sounded insane. I sounded like a delusional woman who has had a waking nightmare. I pushed away the thought and kept on, forcing the mad words out one after another. I looked at the ground as I spoke, so I would not have to see the expression on either man’s face.

Partway through my recital, I heard a soft clicking, and a cup of tea was put before me. I raised my eyes. It was Mr. Ryder, his face a careful blank. I murmured a soft thanks and reached for my cup. As he pulled his hand away, I noticed a flat, dark pink scar on the back of his hand, winding up beneath his cuff and into his sleeve. A burn scar, a large one. So Mr. Ryder was, like Mr. Gellis, likely a veteran of the late war. It wasn’t a certainty, of course—perhaps he had received his scar some other way—but I had not seen a young man in years who had not been to war.

“Please go on,” said Mr. Gellis, and I realized I had stopped cold in the wake of my contemplation of the scar. I looked up at both men anew. Mr. Gellis was sitting easily in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, notebook poised on his thigh, ready to continue writing, looking at me with a polite expectation that only barely hid the obsessive gleam in his eyes. Mr. Ryder was still standing, though he had stepped back after serving my tea and
was leaning against the table, balanced on one hip, his arms crossed over his chest. He, too, looked down at me with a gaze that did not blink or look away. I thought of how both men had been in battle, had seen, likely, death many countless times—violent death that disregarded a man’s personal worth or morals, how many loved ones he had, whether he was good or proud or bright or adored. These were men who had contemplated their own deaths, and come terribly close. It somehow seemed more comfortable to speak of the ghosts of the dead with such men.

I took a sip of my tea and continued. When I finished, Mr. Gellis put down his notebook and pen and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and his hands cradling his forehead. He looked at the floor for a long moment.

I looked at Mr. Ryder, but he was turned away.

“Am I mad?” I asked.

“No,” said Mr. Gellis, without looking up.

“Have you seen such a thing before?” I asked.

He gave a low chuckle that sounded distinctly bitter. “No,” he said.

“A hallucination.” Mr. Ryder was looking out the window, unseeing, his thoughts racing, speaking nearly to himself. “It can give hallucinations. I’ve never heard of anything like it. It’s incredible.” His voice was soft. “Alistair, we’ve got to get into that barn.”

Mr. Gellis shook his head, which was still cradled in his palms. “There’s no way. I’ve looked at the angles. Mrs. Clare won’t allow it. The barn is locked tight. They’re never from home.”

I was mildly shocked. Mr. Gellis had thought to break into the barn? For a ghost?

“At night, then,” said Mr. Ryder.

Alistair shook his head, still cradled in his hands.

Mr. Ryder scowled, acquiescing only for the moment. “Maybe the photos will have something. And I’ll check the recording.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to them.

Mr. Gellis raised his head. They both looked at me.

“I know you hired a woman because the ghost does not like men,” I said. “But I seem to have—agitated her. I know Mrs. Clare wanted to avoid that. Perhaps she won’t let any of us back in. I don’t know what I did, but that’s what has happened. It seems it would have been all the same if one of you had gone in the first place.”

Mr. Gellis frowned, but Mr. Ryder turned from the window to me. “Miss Piper, it’s been a long morning. We’ll order some food, and I’ll check the recording. Maybe you’d like to take a small rest?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know if I could. But I could freshen up.” A splash of cool water on my face suddenly sounded like heaven.

Mr. Ryder nodded. “Take your time.”

As I left them, and made my way slowly up the stairs, there was absolute silence behind me. Neither of them said a thing.

I went to the washroom on the second floor and washed my face. It felt just as good as I had imagined. On impulse, I pulled off my blouse and sponged myself off with the hottest water the tap would afford, soaking away some of the tension, dried sweat, and—I imagined—fear. Then I looked at my discarded blouse and realized it was scuffed and dirty from my flight from the barn. My skirt was the same.

I pulled on the blouse again and went to my room. I changed into a soft, flowered shirtdress from my suitcase, my favorite garment, unfashionable but comfortable and easy to wear. Putting it on felt like a hug from a friend. Only a woman can truly understand the feeling of her very favorite item of clothing.

Comforted, I looked at the bed. Yes, I could likely sleep—but
I discovered I was suddenly hungry. Mr. Ryder had mentioned food. Forgoing the bed, I left my room and went back to the stairs.

I stood on the step for a moment, gathering my courage to continue down. The two men below made me feel a little like a finch in a den of lions; Mr. Gellis, for all his easy ways, was a man obsessed, and Mr. Ryder was simply—all my instincts told me—outright dangerous. There were deep currents between them I could not fathom. I took a moment to gather my courage, and I looked out the window.

A man stood there.

I was on the second floor, so he was not close; still, he was close enough. He stood beneath the trees, just where they thinned out at the edge of the woods beyond the inn. He wore a large greatcoat and a wool cap against the damp, and I could not clearly see his face, which was shadowed. But I could discern enough to see he was looking at me. His gaze was fixed directly on my window, and it did not waver.

My breath stopped. I suppose my nerves were still on edge, for at that moment I truly thought I was looking at another ghost. Were there ghosts everywhere in Waringstoke? But the man put a cigarette to his lips, and I distinctly saw the glaring red of the tip as he inhaled. After a moment he dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his heel in a gesture that made me think of my father so strongly, I could nearly smell the smoky tang of the old hand-rolled tobacco my father had smoked.

I turned away from the window, still shaken, and continued down the stairs. Who would want to watch the inn? How long had the man been there, in the trees, and what had he hoped to see? I was still pondering it when I came to the bottom of the stairs and heard Mr. Gellis’ and Mr. Ryder’s voices discussing me.
The door to the inn’s private room had been left ajar, and their voices were clear.

“It’s practically criminal, Alistair.” This was Mr. Ryder’s distinctive, rough voice. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”

Mr. Gellis sounded stiff. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t pull your stick-in-the-arse act with me. I’ve known you too long.” There was a soft clacking as Mr. Ryder, I assumed, did something with the recording machine. “Where did you find her?”

“An agency sent her,” said Mr. Gellis.

“My God. An agency girl, that’s all? A secretary?”

“It isn’t as if there is an agency for girls experienced with the paranormal, you know. It’s a little difficult to come by. And who would you rather I hired? A brassy thing with a movie-star obsession and a mouth like a sailor? A girl who can’t put two words together intelligently to save her life?”

“That girl”—Mr. Ryder’s voice sounded tight—“has the fewest defenses of any girl I’ve ever seen. She’s got a soft shell, Alistair, and you well know it. And you send her alone in the barn with that thing.”

“Goddamn you, Matthew, I needed someone sensitive. You heard her report—it’s extraordinary. It’s the only way it would work. She’s ideal. The minute I met her, I knew.”

“Ideal, my arse. Send her home.”

“Are you worried she’ll take your job? You needn’t be, you know. We’ve been through far too much. I’d never do such a thing.”

“I don’t need your pity, Alistair, or one of your sanctimonious speeches. I say send her home.”

“No. Not as long as Mrs. Clare refuses to let one of us into that barn.”

“You’re going to kill her,” said Mr. Ryder softly.

“I believe that’s a little dramatic,” said Mr. Gellis. “I’ve never known you to be Lancelot, Matthew.”

“Shut up.” There was a small silence. “I can hear something.”

My heart stopped. I had been perfectly still in my spot on the stairs—how had they heard me? I reviewed my options. To retreat would be obvious, and foolish. I quickly decided to go forward, making a normal amount of noise, as if I had just come down the stairs and heard nothing.