ghost stories

by

A lost soul in WIP Wednesday

In my story for the next Bluestocking Belles anthology, my hero meets my heroine in unexpected circumstances.

Barney had been staring into the library fire, trying to come to terms with his own death. Perhaps it would have been easier if he could remember it, but he had a blank space in his memory, between riding toward Farrington Grange and finding himself at the house party.

He heard someone enter the room, but he hadn’t bothered to react. After all, whoever it was wouldn’t see him.

The newcomer was the lady who had been playing pall mall with Feltonworthy. He had heard others in the party call her Miss Williamson. He had watched her playing charades partnered with that idiot Melville. They had mimed climbing up, and then climbing down again carrying something between them. After that, first Melville and then Miss Williamson fell down. Barney had guessed “Jack and Jill.” What else could it be?

Had he made it to the house party alive, he would have won the game. Did today’s experiences sum up the rest of his existence? Watching other people living while unable to communicate with anyone? Alone? Always alone?

His shudder was violent, and Miss Williamson turned around just as suddenly. And stared at him. Barney stood. “Can you see me?” he asked. “Can you hear me?”

Disappointingly, she did not respond. But she did raise her lamp to shine the light on the chair where he sat, and she did narrow her eyes in thought.

She cast a quick glance around the library and then focused on him again. At least, he thought she was looking at him, and in the next moment, she confirmed it. “Are you a ghost?” she asked. “Why are you here? Can I help you?”

No scream. No fluster. Three sensible questions. Why didn’t Barney meet ladies like that when he was alive? Clever and composed, as well as pretty.

“I think I must be,” he told her. “I don’t know why I am here or why no one else can see or hear me. Could you tell my parents and my sister? I’ve tried to talk to them, but you are the first person I’ve met that I’ve been able to talk to.”

Miss Williamson shook her head. “I am sorry,” she said. “I can see that you are talking, but I cannot hear a word you say.”

Barney was, as he could confirm by looking down at his own arms and legs, composed of something that resembled mist, but apparently that mist included a heart and guts, or the ghost equivalent, for his heart fell and his guts churned. Now what?

It transpired that Miss Williamson was equal to the challenge.

“I shall ask you some questions, sir, if you wish. Nod for ‘yes’ and shake your head for ‘no’.”

Excellent thinking. Barney nodded like a mad marionette, exaggerating his movements so there would be no possibility of confusion.

She had a rather adorable crease between her eyebrows when she was thinking, and a way of pursing her lips that set Barney thinking about kissing. Which reminded him he was dead, and presumably wouldn’t be kissing anyone ever again.

Unless he met a nice lady ghost. He supposed a single day, however long it seemed, was not evidence there were no other people stuck in spirit form wandering around the world.

“Have you been dead for long?” Miss Williamson asked.

Barney shook his head. His family and his friend looked no older than they had been when he last saw them, and they were at the house party where he was meant to meet them. A couple of days might have passed since his last living memory, but not more than that, surely?

“Did you die in Farrington Grange?” asked his pretty questioner.

He started to shake his head again, but had to pause. Though he thought he had been thrown from his horse, he wasn’t certain the fall had killed him. If he had died recently, and in this house, his parents would know and would be in mourning. Certainly, his mother would not be sitting in her finery calmly playing piquet with her friends.

On the other hand, he had no idea how much time had passed. Perhaps he had been dead for a year, and his family had already put off mourning? He put his hands out to the sides, holding them up and open, and gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders.

by

Secrets on WIP Wednesday

New Zealand television currently has an advert for a car that says ‘when they write the story of your life, will anyone want to read it?’ To which my response as an author is ‘I hope not’. Boring fictional stories are happy life stories.

To keep our fictional stories compelling, we authors look for plot twists and surprises. Where would we be without secrets? If all the characters and all the readers knew everything we know, the plot twists would disappear and the way to the ending would be obvious. No story.

This week, I’m inviting you to give me an excerpt about a secret. Finding it out. Becoming aware of it. Deciding to keep it. Hearing a hint at it. Whatever you wish.

Mine is from The Lost Treasure of Lorne, a made-to-order story I’m currently writing.

Caitlin spent a restless night ignoring the ghosts, which was becoming more and more difficult. She was in the kitchen and had already stoked the fire to toast a slice of bread when the cook arrived from the village, trailed by several kitchen maids.

“A bad night, was it?” Mrs McTavish asked.

Caitlin nodded, threading a slice of bread onto her toasting fork.

Mrs McTavish shook her head. “I can’t say I blame them. Just a week till the young master’s birthday and the end of the three hundred years. Sad, that. I can’t say but that the villagers will be pleased to see the castle free of its haunting, but it seems tough on the poor ghosties. If only there was someone to help young Master John fulfill the prophecy. Have a care, Mrs Moffatt. You’ll have the toast in the fire.”

Caitlin jerked her head back to the toasting fork, and returned it to the proper distance from the flame. “Just a week?” she repeated.

“Why, yes. 1485 it was that the Fourth Marquis of Lorne killed his daughter and her lover, and his father and mother for good measure. On the last day of August, so the old stories say, Lady Normington prayed to God for vengeance, and paid with her blood for the justice she sought.”

So Mrs McTavish was of the school that held the Normington woman was a prophesying saint, rather than a cursing witch. And no wonder the ghosts were growing so agitated. But wait. “Master John is a Normington, Mrs McTavish,” she pointed out.

“Half Lorimer and living in Castle Lorne. That’s been enough to doom someone to be a ghost afore now. He is Lorimer enough to find the treasure. But it is too late. Two, the lady said, and he the last Lorimer of Lorne.

This time, the toast caught alight before she noticed. It was not just what Mrs McTavish had said that distracted her, but the reaction of the ghosts. Crowding into the kitchen, row on row, even standing in the fireplace itself, they were cheering and clapping.

Two Lorimers. She had known that two were required, but — like the cook — she had believed it was too late. The King’s heralds had hunted down all branches of the Lorimer family tree and so had the Duke of Kendal, looking for one surviving twig, and coming up empty. They were wrong.