Chapter 6
Everything about this place is incredibly peculiar and yet somehow she makes it feel like home.
“Shit. That’s not going to work!”
Sanders eyes me, confusion lining his brow. “What is not going to work?”
“This!” I gesture toward him. “You! You’re huge and my couch is… not.”
Couch is a generous term. It’s closer to the size of a loveseat, but being a vertically challenged individual, I’ve never thought twice about its size. That is, until this massive, muscled man sat down on it and made it look more like a couch for children.
“It is really no problem, Lady Penelope. I have slept in far less comfortable conditions.” He gifts me with a small smile. “I am just glad to be able to sleep for the first time in centuries.”
I’m not one-hundred percent convinced, but I let it go for now. “Centuries?” I sit down, squeezing next to him so our legs have no choice but to press together. I’m quite sure my leg could catch on fire and I wouldn’t notice because I love the feel of even this small point of contact with Sanders.
“Centuries,” he confirms.
“So you just don’t sleep between visits to the mortal realm?” I ask. “How often do you come back, by the way?”
“I have figured out it is every quarter of a century. It took me a while to adjust to this new lifestyle, so to speak.” He chuckles.
“And to answer your question, I am not sure what happens to me between visits. Typically, the clock strikes midnight on All Hallows’ Eve and I feel nothing.
The next time I open my eyes, it has been twenty-five years, and it is now 12:01 AM on the next All Hallows’ Eve. ”
“Strange,” I muse. Because it is. I can’t wrap my head around living the same day every few decades.
“Indeed,” Sanders replies. “However, I have gotten used to it in the time since my original death.”
“How did you die?” The words fly out of my mouth, and I realize they might come across as incredibly rude. A blush creeps up my neck—Sanders eyes it hungrily which doesn’t help the situation. “I mean, if you are okay with sharing. I know that might be a personal question.”
“I will share anything with you, Penelope.” He says it with such incredible sincerity, I find myself leaning closer into his orbit.
He sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I am not sure how much you know about medieval history, but I was a knight in King Henry V’s court during the Hundred Years’ War against France.”
“Would now be a bad time to tell you I’m part French?” Sanders’ disgust is palpable and sends me into a laughing fit. “I’m joking!”
“The French are no laughing matter, Lady Penelope,” he scolds.
“Yes, sir,” I reply through several more giggles. “I’m sorry, no more joking. King Henry, Hundred Years’ War, go on.” I gesture.
He side-eyes me, a little bit of his tension melting away.
“As I was saying, towards the end of the war there was a fairly famous battle called the Battle of Agincourt. I shall spare you the details, but the good news is that it was indeed a victory for the English. The bad news is that I was severely wounded due to a sword finding a break in my armor. Though I did not die the day of the battle—the twenty-fifth of October—I did eventually pass six days later on All Hallows’ Eve. ”
“So you died on Halloween and that’s why you keep coming back each year?”
He shrugs. “I suppose so.”
I bite the end of my nail, trying to put a puzzle together when I don’t quite have all of the pieces. “Do you know around what time you died?”
“Shortly after sunset, I believe. Those last few days are quite the blur in my mind. All I remember was feeling a lot of pain and then suddenly… none.”
“Have you heard of Samhain?” I ask. “Was that a thing back then?”
His brow furrows. “There were definitely a select few that celebrated. It was mostly a Celtic and Scottish tradition with not many of us Englishmen choosing to partake. Why?”
My foot is falling asleep so I adjust myself slightly, delighted when Sanders follows suit to maintain contact.
Don’t crush on a dead man, Penelope Graves.
“It’s something witches still celebrate,” I reply.
“It begins at sundown on Halloween and continues until November first—today. It’s said to be the day the veil between here and the afterlife is the thinnest. It makes complete sense to me that you would have passed after sundown on the thirty-first. I wonder if you were somehow caught in the veil…
if a piece of your soul wasn’t ready to cross. ”
He nods, leaning forward as though something about what I am saying is resonating with him. “You could be correct in that, Penelope.” His blue eyes look up at me from under dark lashes, dirty-blond hair falling roguishly across his forehead.
“Could I?” I breathe, finding myself also tilting toward him.
“Mmm,” he hums. “You remind me of someone… but there are memories missing.” He’s close enough now to take a strand of my hair between his fingers, twisting it slightly between his thumb and forefinger.
I’m so close to kissing him. So close to closing the miniscule gap between us. But he’s vulnerable, and if we are being honest, so am I. This is a lot—today has been a lot. I stand so abruptly, Sanders sways slightly before catching himself.
“We should go to bed. Hit the hay, so to speak—oh! I wonder if that comes from when you used to sleep on hay? I’ll have to google it. Anyway, give me a minute to get ready and then you can come in.” I dash to my bedroom before he can reply.
A few minutes—mostly spent trying to tame my frizzy waves—later I open the door, gesturing for Sanders to enter my bedroom. I can’t believe I’m about to share a bed with a dead knight. I don’t even know his last name. “What’s your last name, by the way?” Maybe that will make me feel better.
“Wilde,” he answers, unintentionally backing me into the door frame as he enters my room.
Nope, that definitely does not make me feel better.