Bat #2
“Cornelius came to visit. Checking on his inheritance, no doubt. Making lists of what he wanted done here. And making sure his elderly mother was still breathing.” She laughed bitterly.
“I told him I felt unwell. Asked him to come with me to help fetch something from the wine cellar in the basement—a particular vintage Reginald had been fond of. I wanted to toast his memory.”
The basement.
“He was… surprised at first. We weren’t exactly on speaking terms.” She laughed, a terrible hollow sound. “But vanity won out. The chance to appear like the dutiful son, caring for his ailing mother. He couldn’t resist.”
She turned from the portrait.
“I locked him in.”
The simplicity of it. The absolute cold calculation.
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Just like that.” She met my eyes. “There was a wine cellar down there, yes. But also a storage room behind it. Reinforced. My husband had it built to protect valuable documents, silver, things we wanted kept secure. A heavy door. Iron bolts. No windows.” Her expression didn’t change.
“I told him the wine was in there, he fell for it, and I locked him in and walked away.”
“Your own son,” I breathed.
“My own son,” she agreed. “The man who murdered his father. Who drowned a young woman and called her a witch. Who used his position in the Church to abuse, to exploit, to destroy.” Her voice hardened.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of him taking over this manor.
Of living under his thumb. Of watching him mistreat my daughters, my grandchildren.
Of him continuing his reign of cruelty for another thirty or forty years. ”
Charlie released my hand and began to clap. Slowly. Deliberately.
“Charlie—” I started.
“No, seriously.” He looked at Lady Grimthorne with genuine admiration. “That took guts. Proper guts.”
Lady Grimthorne’s form wavered. “I’m not proud of it.”
“Maybe not,” Charlie said. “But you did what needed to be done.”
“He made a terrible noise at first.” Her voice fell distant, memory pulling her back across the centuries.
“Shouting. Banging on the door. Threatening me with hell and damnation.” A pause.
“I told the remaining staff to stay away from the basement. That Cornelius had fallen ill with the sickness and I didn’t want anyone else infected.
That I would personally take that risk. Bring him food and water. Tend to him myself.”
I whistled low.
“They thought I was being a devoted mother.” The bitterness returned to her words. “Risking my own health for my son. How noble. How selfless.”
“How long?” Charlie asked quietly.
“Seven days.” She looked down at her hands.
“I waited seven days, just to be certain. Then I paid two men—strangers passing through, desperate for work—to help me move the body. Discreetly. I never went down there myself. I couldn’t.
Everyone believed he’d died of the illness.
Why wouldn’t they? It was everywhere that autumn.
So I announced his death. Had a small funeral.
Moved on. I spoke of my deep mourning. First my husband, then my son.
Such tragedy. Such loss.” She paused. “No one questioned it. No one suspected.”
“And then?” Charlie prompted.
“Then life was…” She seemed to search for the right word. “Good. I had the manor to myself. My daughters visited with their children. The staff returned once the sickness passed. The clouds lifted.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “For about five years, everything was wonderful.”
The smile vanished.
“Then what?” Charlie leaned forward.
“Then it began.” Lady Grimthorne drifted towards the window again.
“Small things at first. Objects moved. Doors opening and closing. Cold spots in certain rooms.” Her reflection in the glass looked ancient.
Broken. “I told myself I was imagining it. That grief was making me see things that weren’t there. ”
The rain hammered harder.
“But it escalated. A maid found scratches on her arms one morning. Deep ones. She swore something had attacked her in the night. A footman fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. He’d worked here for twenty years.
Never had an accident before. One of my nephews drowned in that same fishpond.
” She turned from the window. “The groundskeeper said he saw a shadow holding the boy under. But that was impossible. There was no one else there.”
“Cornelius,” I whispered.
“I didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it. I sent my grandchildren away. Forbade them from returning. They thought I’d gone mad. Perhaps I had.”
“Did he ever show himself?” Charlie asked.
“In my dreams first. Standing at the foot of my bed. Soaked through. Covered in…” She stopped. Swallowed. “His face was wrong. Twisted. Rotting. But his eyes…” A shudder ran through her. “His eyes were alive. Burning with hate.”
The temperature in the library plummeted. My breath would have fogged if I still breathed.
“I tried everything,” she continued. “Brought in priests. Ladies with herbs, even. Had them bless the house. The basement. Every room. Every corner.” Her laugh was broken glass. “It made him angry. Stronger. He started appearing in daylight. In mirrors. In windows. Always watching. Always there.”
“How many people died?” I asked.
“Seven more. Over the next two years.” Lady Grimthorne’s voice went hollow. “I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. The staff whispered about me. Said that I’d become obsessed with ghosts and demons.” She paused. “They weren’t wrong.”
Charlie shifted beside me. “How did you die?”
Lady Grimthorne went very still. “I was right here,” she said softly. “In my library. My favourite room. The one place I’d always felt safe.” She drifted towards the desk near the window. “It was late afternoon. Autumn again. The light was golden through the windows.”
Her hand hovered over the desk’s surface.
“I felt him enter. There was this awful chill. And that smell…” She stopped. “He smelled like the basement. Like damp earth and rot and old wine gone to vinegar.”
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.
“He slipped inside me like water.” Her voice broke. “One moment I was myself. The next… the next I was trapped. Screaming inside my own head whilst something else controlled my hands. My feet. My eyes.”
I glanced at Charlie. His face was transfixed.
“He made me walk to that cabinet.” She pointed to an ornate piece against the far wall.
“Made my hands open the drawer. Take out the bottle of laudanum I kept there. For sleep. For pain.” She paused.
“Then he walked me back to the desk. Poured my evening wine. The Bordeaux I loved.” Her eyes fixed on the empty surface.
“He made me watch whilst my hands—my hands—tipped the laudanum into the glass. The entire bottle. Enough to kill three people.”
“Lady Grimthorne—” I started.
“I felt everything,” she whispered. “Felt him force my hand to lift the glass. Force my lips to part. Force me to drink.” Her form flickered with violent fury.
“The wine tasted like copper. Like rot. Like all the sins I’d committed catching up with me at once.
” She turned to face us. “I collapsed right there. By the desk. I could feel the poison working. Feel my heart slowing. My lungs struggling. And the whole time, I felt him inside me. Laughing. Triumphant. Forcing me to understand that this—this—was justice. That mothers who murdered their sons deserved to die choking on their own blood.”
The library suddenly felt like a tomb.
“I died in this room,” Lady Grimthorne said.
“And when I opened my eyes again, when I realised I was still here… I knew. I knew what he’d done.
Why he’d done it.” She looked at me. At Charlie.
“He didn’t just kill me. He trapped me. Bound me to this place just like he’s bound here.
So I could spend eternity knowing what I’d done. Knowing that I’d failed.”
“And you’ve spent that eternity helping keep him locked away. Keeping innocent people safe.”
Lady Grimthorne lifted her head, meeting my eyes. A flicker of something—gratitude? relief?—crossed her translucent features.
Charlie asked, “But… how exactly is he locked down there? Can he get out?”
Lady Grimthorne drifted towards the window again.
“About thirty years after my death, things became… unbearable. Cornelius grew stronger. More violent. Three families moved in and fled within months. There were… more than several deaths here.” She pressed one pale hand against the glass.
“The house stood empty for years. No one would buy it. The stories had spread too far.”
She turned back to face us.
“Eventually, a spiritualist from France heard about Grimthorne Manor. A woman named Ms Bénassy. She arrived with two assistants and claimed she could bind malevolent spirits. I revealed myself to her. We spoke.” Lady Grimthorne’s expression turned grim.
“I didn’t believe her, not really. But I was desperate to.
We all were—every ghost in this house could feel him growing stronger. Feel his hunger.”
“What did she do?” I asked.
“She performed a ritual. Something ancient. Something that required…” Lady Grimthorne’s voice faltered.
“Blood. Salt. Iron. Obsidian. She carved symbols into the basement door. Spoke words in languages I didn’t recognise.
” A pause. “One of her assistants died during the work. Heart simply stopped beating.”
“But it worked?” I pressed.