CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COVIN
I sat in the ghost’s room surrounded by heartache I created for myself and wished I could speak with her, but Lindy banished me from her side. Quite literally. When I tried the wing door, she had locked the damn thing. Barricaded it, for all I knew. The facade meant little; I could walk out the back door to milk the damn cow which I did each day, and I crept about to shower when she wasn’t around, and used the kitchen as needed.
But otherwise I kept to my side of the door, and for the most part, when he wasn’t with her, Al kept me company.
I wasn’t sure why, exactly, seeing as I was the one who called the odd squad on his behalf, but he stayed around the room while I stared at his portrait until my eyes grew heavy that first day.
When I woke, a leather bound journal sat beside where I’d fallen asleep, covered by a thin rug that barely kept the cold at bay in this uninhabited section of the castle.
Without Lindy’s warmth the cold eked into my bones but the journal gave me a purpose. Al managed to snatch me a few small snacks from my tower, though I knew he couldn’t carry heavy things far. Which begged the question where the journal had been stowed, though I hadn’t searched this part of the castle much at all.
“I arrived with the intent of researching a different man who resided here post WWII. Perhaps you would remember him. Archibald Lincoln Drysdale. He…wasn’t family. A foster child. But he did stay here for a period of time. He had a bad war. Intelligence. Discovered a few secrets that weren't part of his mission and had to live with them. Didn’t, in the end.” I sucked in a breath. “He’s buried back home. Unhallowed ground. I never met him, but…” I glanced up at Al’s portrait, my hand resting lightly on the cover of his journal. “I wondered if perhaps you and he shared a fate.”
The journal nudged beneath my hand.
I nodded, taking the hint, and opened the cover.
The first few pages were covered with the regular life of a noble’s first born son from Al’s era. The social pressures, the expectations. The excesses. And then came what I expected. The boredom. The ennui.
And the affair that ruined him.
I fell in love with a squire’s son.
My father can’t know, a secret just for us. He won’t tell anyone, my Marcus. Each night, we meet behind the folly. There’s a grove there that conceals sight and sound. Cold, yes, but it’s worth it for the love of someone I can trust.
I flicked forward a few pages, but Al kept up with his theme weeks later.
Trust.
A strange word, but one that means everything. Trust of a word, in a kiss. A touch, innocent or not, what can be such a small thing and yet mean so much more. Marcus gives me his attention, holds me when I can’t take my father’s anger or pride anymore. So much pride. I must never be like him. Ever.
Their affair lasted almost a year before their discovery. And then the downfall began.
Marcus is worried. His brother saw us kissing. Made a jibe about it. I don’t care. The word of a squire’s son means little to my kind. Ha. The monster I am inside. My father’s bad seed lives on in me. Who will I become, when I am his age? Who will I be in his place? A miserable crotchet who interferes with his offspring’s life, refusing to let them play out their given years in their own way? I wish I lived in a place where who and what I am—what Marcus and I are together—was accepted.
Instead, if we are discovered by more than his brother, a brother who does not hate us, thank God, he will be hanged and I will be ruined.
I am worried. I am scared.
By the time I read through to the end one final entry held my attention. I read it over and over but that didn’t make the words any less painful.
I am engaged.
Her name is Emelina Justine Alcloth. It’s not a good match, but one made in desperation that matches my mood. Perfection in desperation. Marcus is taken from me. My own father sent him away. How I hate that man. How I hate this life. Colorless. Senseless.
If I marry her I will become him. Thus, I must not.
I will find a way.
I closed my eyes on the last entry, the year date that matched with Al’s death etched on his portrait. My heart fractured for the man who took his own life to escape that which he could not live on his own terms.
“I understand,” I whispered. “My friend.”
The journal shifted beside me, an enormous pressure weighing over my shoulders. For a moment I thought it was the weight of his soul, his presence manifesting, but then it hit me—this was the insurmountable grief he felt then and now, ever present with him.
And so I bore it for him, and cried for the man who couldn’t cry for himself.
On the sixth day of my solitary incarceration with a ghost I decided enough was enough. I milked the cow, and strode up to the bedrooms with my broken heart displayed on my sleeve, bearing two mugs of still steaming coffee. Which was a skill considering how cold the castle had grown with the ongoing snowfall that never let up since Christmas.
“Lindy,” I called, knocking on her bedroom door with the toe of my boot. I’d been careful to avoid her as requested the entire week, but I couldn’t stand not talking to her any longer. Hell, I didn’t even have the woman’s phone number to apologize to her in that way. “Love?” I tapped the door again.
The handle turned and the door swung inward. Relief slammed me—right up until I noted the sterile lack of warm and neatness of the room.
She hasn’t been here in days.
Al opened the door.
Placing the mugs carefully on the floor by the fire, I raked my hands through my hair. “Lindy,” I called, striding deeper into the room, seeking contrary evidence.
Her bed was unslept in. in all the time I’d known her—one solid week at the most—she had never made that damn bed. The cupboard was bare of her clothes and her broken suitcase was gone.
Pressure lodged in the center of my chest and bulged outward.
“Lindy,” I called again, my voice hoarse as I turned on my heel and ran for the front of the castle. Then I checked every damn room in case she moved just because she wanted to.
Nothing. Not a damn thing.
The only place I could think of to check was that ledge where she painted. My chest constricted and every painting I passed rattled as Al got the gist. He arrived first and the door swung open. The portraits quietened.
The stonework stood silent, but the room wasn’t empty.
Her painting of blue skies stood in the middle of the area, buffeted by the winds that entered the ruined room. I strode across and gripped one corner, giving it a cursory glance and stopped.
She’d changed it.
A figure stood at the far side of an invisible horizon where blue sky met a field of blue flowers. The longer I stared the more I saw. What she had added that hadn’t been there before. The tiny figure looking out, her back to me. But it was a her , and her longing was evident in the way she stood, stoic in the wind, her hair and clothing whipped about as she stood still.
The light smattering of impossible snow that started to fall, back when there was still hope.
Before that shattered.
She’s gone.
My chest squeezed and something popped with the sort of sound that usually heralded a muscle tear.
Instead, I felt absolutely nothing.
Numbness.
This was worse.
I lifted Lindy’s painting, the only part of her that remained in Witnot Castle, and carried it out of the room.
Al shut the door quietly behind me.
Californian air closed around me warm and clammy compared to the cold bone bite of Witnot’s snowy climate. All the same I dressed in my slacks, shirt and cape that, though unusual amongst the staff on a day to day basis the students had come to expect of me. A mistake I drew on from a role from Hollywood, and the attire and persona just…stuck.
A relic of a bygone era, perhaps. Now, I kept that part of me aside, a memory I shared with Al. He placed his journal inside my suitcase three times before I left. Twice I tried to return it to his room where his portrait sat bare; on the third time the cover sat over his painting, and his presence was gone.
I kept the journal, and said goodbye to an empty castle.
The trip home spawned a new set of research papers on the rights of the dead. I might get laughed off college grounds, but I finished the set and sent them off to a journal I knew would be interested in the point of view I provided, if only in the interests of keeping history in the news and highlighting yet another crackpot professor from SoCal.
After this month, I no longer cared about my reputation. There were more important things to work through. Hell, I even paid out the remainder of the original shareholders from the low cost housing initiative I supplemented the day it started to tumble, located near the college and my apartment I rarely used, more often than not sleeping in my office. What was the point of having a home when I had no family to fill it? And so I filled my hours with business instead of love. The housing initiative fixed a small part of that hole for a short time. The original idea was sound, the execution beyond poor.
I rescued the project and construction continued. An email came through at the same time as my phone rang.
“Ras. I told you I didn’t want to speak with you,” I said tersely, clicking on the email and hoping he hadn’t bombed me on two fronts at once.
Dear Prof. Drysdale,
We would be delighted to publish your article on the Rights of the Unspoken Wishes of the Past. I have enclosed a contract for your perusal. Edits will follow the publication schedule below should you like to proceed.
Both eyebrows hiked, I scanned the contract, finding nothing out of place and double checked I hadn’t sent the damn article to a vanity press by mistake. Finding out of place I left the contract open for a second reading and turned my attention back to Ras who was in the midst of a soliloquy he’d obviously rehearsed several times.
“—and formally apologize to the department for any inconvenience,” he finished.
I nodded along like I understood even though he couldn’t see me. “For what?”
Ras paused. “Covin? Did I call the wrong person?” he asked tentatively.
“Not at all. I got the first part,” I lied.
“Oh good. I just wanted you to know it was no harm done. We didn’t mean to upset the town or the people. And the poor woman who owns the castle. Her either…” Ras rambled on as a smile spread across my face.
“Alright, my friend. I have some things to do. All is fine,” I reassured him, a laugh bubbling in my chest.
What the hell did Lindy do?
I dialed the dean’s office. “Frankie. Tell me the news.”
“You have a powerhouse in your corner.” The ancient dean chuckled, the first laugh I had heard out of him in years.
I grinned and leaned back in my chair, the contract and Ras’ call forgotten. “Tell me more.”
“Ah, she called here looking for your friend’s contact. His department. Quite the stir up out there in Scotland. Is she Scottish? Didn’t sound it. But what a firecracker, eh? Got us all in a tizz around here.”
“That she is.”
“Alright. Well you take care of her.”
“Ah, that’s the thing. We– missed each other, leaving Scotland. Did you get her number?”
Frankie laughed. “Her number? Oh, my boy. She’s not four blocks away. Came here on foot, nearly blew my door off its hinges. Would you like her address? She invited me for a cup of dandelion tea and offered to teach me to paint on the weekends.” He laughed again at the absurdity of it all.
“That’s her alright,” I said dryly. “Yes, I'll grab that address please.”
That call ended well. I tossed my phone in my hand, and my lips twitched. Two more to make. The first was the easiest one, just to double check.
The second one…well.
“Bettina? I’d like to make you an offer.”