Bat
twenty-six
Cornelius Grimthorne.
My brain couldn’t process it.
The malevolent presence we’d all been terrified of for decades. The thing that made Vivian scream in her sleep. The force that sent cold waves of dread through every ghost in this manor whenever someone got too close to the basement door.
Her son.
“You knew.” My voice came out flat. Dead. “This whole time, you knew exactly what was down there, and you never told any of us.”
Lady Grimthorne didn’t turn from the window.
“Do the others know?” I demanded. “Anyone?”
“No.” Barely a whisper.
Rage flooded through me, hot and vicious. I’d spent twenty-seven years in this house. Twenty-seven years feeling that wrongness seeping up through the floorboards, that hunger, that twisted malice. We’d all felt it. We’d all worked together to scare off anyone who might open that door.
And she’d let us believe it was some nameless evil. The “thing in the basement.”
“Bat—” Charlie started.
“You should have told me.” I rounded on her, my form flickering with the intensity of my anger. “You should have told all of us what we were dealing with.”
Lady Grimthorne’s shoulders hunched, her reflection in the glass fragmenting with the rivulets of rain.
I forced myself to breathe. Go through the motions of it. Focus. Think.
What did I actually know about Cornelius Grimthorne?
Not much. Lady Grimthorne rarely spoke about any of her children, though I’d always assumed grief explained her silence. She’d been dead for over two centuries. Everyone she’d loved had turned to dust ages ago.
But now that I thought about it properly… she did mention her daughters sometimes. Brief comments about their marriages, their children. The Grimthorne line continuing after she’d gone.
Cornelius, though? Nothing. Or near enough nothing that I couldn’t recall a single conversation about him.
I turned towards the portrait above the fireplace. The one I’d passed a thousand times without really looking at it.
Lord Reginald Grimthorne stood stiffly beside his wife, hand resting on the back of her chair. Two young girls flanked them, maybe twelve and fourteen, in elaborate gowns. And standing slightly apart, a young man in his early twenties.
Cornelius.
I drifted closer, my feet inches above the floor.
He wore clerical robes—black with white bands at the collar—and held a Bible in one pale hand.
He’d been handsome, in that cold aristocratic way.
Dark hair pulled back from a high forehead.
Strong jaw. Eyes that looked directly at the viewer with an unsettling intensity.
A smug superiority mixed with something harder. Crueller.
“The book.” Charlie’s excited voice cut through my thoughts. “That book I bought in the village! The Grim History of Grimthorne. It mentioned Lord Reginald’s son, remember? That local legend spoke of a witch who cursed the Grimthorne line after Lord Reginald’s son refused to marry her.”
The words hung in the air.
I turned slowly to face Lady Grimthorne. She still hadn’t moved from the window.
“Did your son drown Margery Darke in that pond?” I couldn’t hide my disgust. “Because that’s what she said when we dug her up. That the monster in the basement murdered her with two of his friends.”
Lady Grimthorne’s head bowed. “I just don’t understand where it all went wrong.”
“That doesn’t matter now!” I couldn’t soften my tone, even for her. “We don’t have long before Harrison Lancaster uses that electric saw to open the basement door!”
She turned at last. Pearly tears tracked down her cheeks, glinting in the grey light from the window.
“He was such a lovely child,” she whispered. “Bright. Curious. When he took holy orders, I thought…” Her hands twisted in her gown. “I thought he would do such good in the world.”
Charlie moved closer to me, the warmth of his living body a small comfort. “What happened?” he asked gently.
Lady Grimthorne drifted towards the portrait. She stared up at her son’s painted face with an expression of such profound sorrow that even my anger faltered.
“The Church gave him power,” she said. “A parish. Influence. The advowson meant he answered to no one. Reginald was so proud.” Her voice hardened. “I felt sick.”
She turned away from the portrait.
“Rumours started. Women from the village. Girls, really. Their families came to the manor, begging for help, for justice.” Her hands clenched. “Reginald told me they were lying. That people resented our position, our wealth. That Cornelius would never…”
The rain hammered against the windows.
“But you knew,” I said quietly.
“I knew.” She flinched. “I told myself I didn’t. That good, Christian women wouldn’t speak such foul lies. That my son, my Cornelius, couldn’t possibly…” She laughed, a broken, bitter sound. “Margery Darke wasn’t a witch. She was a young woman who refused him. Who dared to say no to a Grimthorne.”
Charlie’s hand found mine. His fingers threaded through my translucent ones, and I solidified just enough to squeeze back.
“So he drowned her,” Charlie said.
“Him and two of his… companions.” Lady Grimthorne spat the word like poison. “They called her a whore. Said she’d bewitched good men, led them into sin. The village believed them. Or pretended to believe them. Who would contradict a rector?”
My empty chest ached. Margery’s fury when she’d manifested, the way she’d pinned Charlie against the apple tree… The centuries of rage and injustice burning in her eyes…
“He kept rising through the Church,” Lady Grimthorne continued. “Bishop, eventually. So proud of his position. So certain of his righteousness.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Then he began speaking out against the Methodist movement. Against abolition.”
“He spoke out against abolishing slavery?” Charlie asked gently.
One tiny nod.
“Your husband,” Charlie said. “Lord Reginald. What did he think?”
“After Margery, Reginald finally started listening to my concerns at last. He didn’t agree with him about the Methodists.
” Lady Grimthorne’s form wavered. She was struggling to maintain her manifestation.
“He and Cornelius argued. Terrible, vicious arguments that echoed through these halls. Reginald threatened to disinherit him. To use his influence to have Cornelius removed from his position.”
She fell silent.
The rain continued its relentless assault on the windows.
“A month later,” she whispered, “Reginald died.”
Charlie’s fingers tightened around mine. “Do you think Cornelius killed him?”
Lady Grimthorne nodded slowly. Met my eyes.
“Reginald went to London,” she said. “To speak with friends in Parliament about Cornelius’s activities. He was in perfect health when he left.” She paused. “Three days later, they sent his body home. Said it was his heart. That he’d simply collapsed in the street.”
“But you didn’t believe that,” I said.
“Reginald’s heart was strong. He rode daily. Walked the estate for hours.” She turned back to the window. “The physician who examined him was one of Cornelius’s closest associates. A man who owed the Grimthornes everything. His education. His position.”
“Bloody hell,” Charlie breathed.
“Cornelius stood over his father’s grave and wept.
” Lady Grimthorne’s reflection in the glass looked ancient.
Haunted. “Such convincing tears. The entire village spoke of what a devoted son he’d been.
How Reginald’s death had broken his heart.
” She paused. “I wanted to scream. To tell them all what he was. What he’d done. ”
“Why didn’t you?” I snapped.
She looked at me then. Really looked at me. And I saw the answer in her eyes before she spoke it.
“Because I was a woman.” Her voice went flat. Cold. “A widow, yes. But still just a woman. Property, essentially. To be tolerated whilst I remained decorously silent.”
The bitterness in those words.
“A dog had more freedom than I did,” she continued.
“At least a dog could bark. Could bite. Could fight if someone tried to hurt it.” Her form grew sharper, more solid with the force of her emotion.
“I had to sit quietly in my drawing room, smile at visitors, and pretend my son wasn’t a monster wearing a bishop’s robes. ”
The library felt smaller suddenly. Darker. The rain lashed against the windows with renewed fury.
“What happened next?” I asked.
Lady Grimthorne straightened. The downtrodden widow fell away, revealing steel beneath. “I decided I wouldn’t be collared anymore.”
Charlie inhaled sharply.
“I was fifty-seven years old,” she said.
“I’d spent my entire life being obedient.
Being good. Following every rule society demanded of me whilst watching the men around me do whatever they pleased.
” Her eyes met mine. “Cornelius killed his father. Murdered that poor girl. Terrorised countless others. And he would inherit everything. My manor. My life’s work.
He would install himself here like some feudal lord and continue his cruelties with impunity. ”
Her hands clenched into fists.
“So I killed him.”
The words dropped into the silence like stones into still water.
“You…”
“All by myself,” she said. “I told no one. Not the remaining staff. Not my daughters. No one.” A grim smile touched her lips. “A terrible sickness swept through Wiltshire that autumn. Whole families struck down. Villages decimated. People died in their beds, in their fields, in the streets.”
She drifted towards the portrait again. Stared up at Cornelius’s painted face.
“I insisted that all our servants stay home with their families. Begged them, actually. Told them the manor would operate on reduced staff until the sickness passed. That their loved ones needed them more than we did.” Her voice dropped.
“Most were grateful. They’d heard the stories. Knew people who’d died.”
“Clever,” Charlie murmured.