The Ghost of Thorfell Manor
Outside, the birds are singing.
Euphemia opens her eyes to the dawn’s warm glow.
The words come back to her before she is even fully awake.
“When all of this is said and done, I might just have to marry you.”
Her stomach twists all over again.
She had wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that the warmth in his eyes when he said it meant something more than his wicked sense of humor.
But Dagfinn doesn’t know the truth. He doesn’t know that the woman meeting him at night is already his wife.
He doesn’t know that a marriage was arranged without his knowledge or consent.
What happens when he finds out?
Perhaps his words had only meant to make her blush. Perhaps they had only been another bit of teasing between two people who had no idea what waited for them on the other side of sleep.
Still, the memory warms something inside her.
Whatever happens when Dagfinn awakens, she cannot deny that for one brief moment, he had looked at her as though he wanted a future with her.
For now, perhaps that is enough.
Even though she slept on the cold floor and her bones ache as she stands, Euphemia trusts today will be good. Today she is bringing Dagfinn back, consequences be damned.
Without bothering to change out of the garments she wore the previous day, Euphemia hurries her bedchamber and heads to the garden.
When Euphemia arrives, she stands at the edge of it and stares for a moment.
It is no small plot of land—far larger than the garden she had back home.
She grabs a shovel from the lean-to and sets to work.
By the time the sun has fully risen, she’s already begun to sweat.
By mid-morning, Euphemia regrets not eating breakfast first.
By lunch, her hands are cracked and bleeding.
Still, Euphemia keeps digging, moving in a straight path up and down the garden so that she does not miss a spot.
When Kelda finds her around lunchtime and asks her what she’s doing, Euphemia just says she needs to dig up all the weeds so she can plant a garden. Shortly after, Asvald brings Euphemia two biscuits and a large pitcher of water. Then she keeps digging.
She’s tilled over half of the plot by mid-afternoon.
There is still ample land to dig through, and Euphemia is starting to lose her confidence.
She doesn’t want to have to go back to the dream world and tell Dagfinn she’s failed.
And it’s on her next upturn of the soil, she spots it.
Something wrinkled and clumped with the fresh dirt.
Euphemia drops her shovel.
She kneels and picks through the freshly tilled earth.
And unravels a worn piece of parchment.
Euphemia cannot read, so she cannot be certain.
But she knows in her bones that this is what she’s been searching for.
The true deed to Thorfell Manor. Their chance to honor the ghost. Save Dagfinn.
Save Kelda, as well, for this deed will hopefully remove the pressure Percival has been placing upon her.
Euphemia folds the parchment and, finding no pocket to place it in, she settles for storing the document against her breast.
Despite her sheer exhaustion, Euphemia climbs to the top of the tower with renewed energy in every step.
She throws open the door, reaching for the the document, and—
The room is empty.
Dagfinn’s body is not in his bed. His linens are disheveled, half fallen to the floor. The bedpan has been upturned. The bowl of soup that had been left for him has been thrown across the room.
Footsteps echo behind her and Euphemia jumps.
She twists around to come face to face with Kelda.
More cheerful than usual, Kelda says, “Excuse me, just bringing Dagfinn some tea—”
But her smile falls when she beholds the state of the room.
“What happened?” Kelda asks, setting down the tray.
“I don’t know. I just got here.”
Kelda’s gaze drops to Euphemia’s hands, dusted with dirt and bleeding in places.
She opens her mouth to say something, but her attention snags back on the empty tower, and whatever she had been about to say gets swallowed by panic instead.
Kelda hikes her skirts and quickly descends the stairs, muttering to herself all the way down.
Euphemia follows after her, uncertain what else to do. Without Dagfinn’s body, she has no ghost to reveal the deed to. No way of bringing the real Dagfinn back.
Kelda bellows at the bottom of the stairs. “Dagfinn! Dagfinn!”
She hurries down one corridor, crying out his name over and over.
Asvald appears shortly. “What is it?”
Peering into one room, Kelda looks around, then closes the door again. “Dagfinn’s gone missing. Have you seen him?”
Asvald’s face goes ashen. “Missing? Since when?”
“I don’t know. Just help me find him.”
They fly down separate hallways, occasionally calling a name that never answers.
Euphemia bites her lip, thinking.
If she were a spirit, where would she go?
Fortunately for Euphemia, she’s already met two spirits before. Her father and Dagfinn’s, and both of them had appeared in the same place they died.
Euphemia rushes down the stairs on the tips of her toes, hoping no one will hear her. She wants to confront the spirit first. If they find her with the long-forgotten deed to the manor, surely, they’ll have questions. Questions Euphemia simply doesn’t know how answer until the real Dagfinn is here.
Carefully slinking down the stairs and across the foyer, Euphemia slips into the parlor.
Despite the large windows, the room seems dim without a fire in the hearth. Outside, storm clouds slowly roll across the sky, swallowing what remains of the morning light.
Or perhaps the darkness has nothing to do with the storm.
Perhaps it has more to do with the haunted Dagfinn standing in the corner.
His head hangs toward the ground, autumn locks fallen across his face, making him look even more deranged.
“Hugr?” Euphemia says with a voice like a shaking leaf.
The haunted Dagfinn’s head snaps up.
Its neck twists at an impossible angle as those abyss-like eyes gaze upon her.
Its jaw swivels from side to side, drool dripping.
A rasping, gurgling sound emerges from its throat, just audible enough to make the hair on Euphemia’s arms stand on end.
The haunted Dagfinn takes a shambling step toward her.
Euphemia reaches into her chemise and pulls out the deed.
“Here. I found it. The original deed to Thorfell Manor.”
The thing that is not Dagfinn steps again.
Hastily she unfolds it, her hands trembling. “T-this is what you want. Isn’t it?”
Another step. The stench of moss grows heavier.
Doubt creeps into her belly.
What if this isn’t the deed at all? What if it’s just a random piece of parchment that drifted into the garden and was buried by accident?
Upstairs, Euphemia listens to the frantic steps of her mother-in-law popping and out of the rooms. It won’t be long before she checks down here.
Euphemia can’t stop now.
This is the only plan she has.
She just has to be more convincing.
Euphemia thinks back to what Otho told her.
She holds the deed out more firmly. “You were murdered in this house. Your lands were taken. But your children escaped.”
The thing with Dagfinn’s body stops moving.
It’s head tilts to one side, dark eyes staring at her soul.
Euphemia wants to run, but forces herself to continue. “Your children escaped. They lived. The country of England made your murderers promise to take care of them, but then they buried this deed and hid from their responsibilities.”
The thing before her hisses.
“I would be enraged if I were you. You have every right to be. But the family who lives here did not do this to you. And if you leave this body, I believe the man who belongs in it will make sure this deed—the one naming your heirs in it—is honored.”
The air in the room turns thick.
Suffocating.
The thing that is not Dagfinn tilts its head the other way while its jaw hangs limply. It takes another step, and Euphemia can’t help but step backward with it. But the haunted Dagfinn keeps approaching, slowly, its eyes fixed on the deed, until Euphemia bumps up against the wall.
The creature gets so close that all Euphemia can smell is damp earth and rotting logs. She tastes grime at the back of her throat. Beneath it all is the cold chill of death, wafting from the creature like an infection.
It stares at the document, its tongue heavy like a slug in its mouth.
Then the black eyes close.
The stench of decay flees the room on a draft.
And before she has time to react, Dagfinn’s body goes limp and collapses to the ground.