The overwhelming stench of patchouli oil struck me dumb and was the first thing I noticed when I opened the door. Creaking open on rusty hinges, the door was as old as Colonel Havelock. The attic was hot, dark, and full of shadowy things that moved along the floor and hissed when I moved my feet.
I was afraid to move, afraid those shadows would leap out and grab me. A cold knot of fear coiled my stomach, cramping the muscle and adding to my list of bodily ailments that would soon need tending. “Hello…?” I called, not knowing why. I quickly made a beeline for the window, flinging it open and allowing sunlight to banish the hissing shadows whence they came.
Turning to face the room, I stood amongst the detritus of bygone eras and forgotten memories. Stacks of tattered newspapers surrounded me like Stonehenge, while moldy trunks sat stacked in corners. I was astounded at the number of things. Years of careless accumulation had resulted in a veritable hoarder’s nest of greed. There were silver-topped canes, religious icons wrapped in gilded frames, various pieces of furniture from the Rococo era, tapestries, swords, and cutlasses, along with their scabbards.
And shoes!
There were so many pairs of shoes I lost count. There were heels, thigh-high boots, dancing shoes, even jeweled court slippers. Some had lost their matching companion and lay as if seeking solace. I didn’t even know where to begin.
I ran back to the colonel and asked him which trunk I should look in.
He blinked back at me as if half-asleep. “The brown one,” he answered at last. He brushed at the scratch on his cheek. “Will you clean this mess up?”
“What about the jacket?”
“What jacket?”
“The one you asked me to find.” I let out a frustrated groan. “The regimental jacket.”
“Oh!” He nodded, smiling. “It would be in the brown one. With gold hinges.”
“Brown one with gold hinges,” I repeated for clarity. “Don’t touch anything,” I admonished. “I have to sweep up all this glass.”
“I won’t.”
He sounded odd. Like he had ingested a sleeping draught. I decided to look for the trunk and mark the spot. I’d sort through it tomorrow. After a search in which a tower of newspaper nearly crushed me, I located a trunk with gold hinges. Then another. And yet another.
I counted twenty in all.
As I turned to leave, I felt a burning pain in my side. “I don’t care!” I hissed at it. “I don’t have time to rummage through an old man’s underdrawers!”
I whirled about and felt myself being yanked backward. My feet were not my own as I was dragged away from the door, held in the air, and dropped like a laundry sack. I landed with a painful thump, surely breaking something along the way. “Why?” I moaned in agony. I blinked up at the cobwebs lining the exposed beams. “Was it something I… said?”
A face swam above me, no longer a phantom but a corporeal being. Her flesh hung in tattered strips from her bones, as if she had tried to claw her way out of her decaying body. Bits of stringy black hair jutted out at odd angles from her skull. And where her eyes should be… only sockets. She moved closer and closer still until I could smell the rank odor of death.
“Help me…” she pleaded, her voice a ghostly echo of her former brilliance. “Help me…”
“I—”
Her face inched closer to mine, the empty sockets drawing me in. “NO!” I gasped, scrambling to my feet. The pain in my side was excruciating. “Leave me alone!”
The next word from her lips induced sheer terror.
“Anne…”
She reached for me, her hands nothing but rotten bones. Her touch was cold, devoid of human warmth. The tip of her finger brushed my cheek, then ran along it to touch my ear. I stood paralyzed by fear and the knowledge she sought to draw my life force. I could feel it flowing like a trickling stream from my body to hers. “Stop!” I shouted, prevented by some unholy barrier from escaping. “You’ll kill me!”
Her head tilted to one side, the gesture one the colonel was fond of. “… kill,” she breathed in my ear, stroking my hair. “Me…”
“Please let me go,” I pleaded. “I promise I’ll come back later.”
“Promise…?” she answered, as if she no longer understood the concept.
“Yes!”
She released me, and I fled as if my very life depended on it.
Perhaps it did.
* * *
Still too shaken to return to the attic, I avoided it for a week before the colonel began badgering me about the jacket. “I must have it,” he whined. “It’s mine!”
“Yes, I know,” I sighed through my bruised ribs. Another trip to the doctor and the man was so horrified by my injuries, he threatened to go to the sheriff. The knife wound on my finger festered while my other hand hurt so badly, I could barely hold a hairbrush. I was scheduled for surgery in London at the end of the week.
How I was going to pay for it was beyond my ken.
I had also come to a decision.
Once I arrived in London, I would not return to Briarwood Hall. I didn’t know who would care for the colonel after I left, but at this point, I no longer cared. I just wanted out of that house. I suspected the spirit wasn’t done with me yet. Whatever it was she wanted, she couldn’t get it from the colonel, and I was the next best thing.
Best to get out while I still had some life yet.
I waited until I had put the colonel to bed to retrieve the jacket. Mr. Anson was snoring on the other side of the estate, having proved once and for all that he was completely useless as a man. When I told him I saw a girl in the attic, he laughed at me and advised me to have my head examined.
Why did I tell him?
To convince myself I wasn’t completely mad.
I just wanted affirmation I wasn’t seeing things. But even Mrs. Hutchins was incredulous, so I was on my own. I thought about confiding in the colonel, but he was halfway gone already. The smell of patchouli oil made me dislike the attic. I added it to a list of things to avoid, like hammers and chisels.
I made my way over to the first set of trunks and pried them open with a crowbar. Most were locked, but they could be easily manipulated. The first one flew open in an explosion of moths and dust. Coughing and choking, I set the lantern down on the floor and began rifling through moth-riddled dressing gowns and doublets. After reaching the bottom with no regimental jacket, I moved on to the next one.
I spent a better part of the evening just sorting through gowns and items of clothing better suited to a dust heap. I found hats. Lots of hats. Tricorns, feathered caps, short hats, and tall hats. I even found a wimple! “What’s that doing in here?” I mumbled, setting it aside. I thought I heard a laugh and could not suppress one of my own.
Moving on, the next trunk was more of the same. Only this time it was full of shoes.
Another yielded cultural trophies from the colonel’s travels. I found Chinese silk robes, hand-painted fans from Japan, Russian Matryoshka dolls still in their paper swaddling, and various tribal masks from Africa.
But no regimental jacket.
“Where could it be?” I wondered out loud. It was getting late, and I wanted to go to bed. “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” I said, hoping I’d receive an answer.
The spirit was oddly quiet.
“Well,” I said at last, closing the trunk and retrieving the lantern. “See if you can find it. It’s been a long day. I’ll be back in the morning.”
“… No!” she cried.
“But I’m tired.”
It was almost as if she were guiding me toward a stack of trunks piled high in the farthest corner of the attic. “Over there?” I said doubtfully. “There’s too many. Which one?”
“… Last.”
“Are you mad?” I sputtered. “I can’t possibly lift all of them. The first one alone must weigh as much as Mrs. Hutchins!”
Perhaps it was something I said.
In the next instant, I was on the floor, my breath knocked out of me. I don’t know how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted, but a physical assault was not going to persuade me. “That was uncalled for!” I gasped, shaking it off. “Haven’t you ever heard about polite discord?”
“… No.”
“Look, I cannot stay up here all night! In case you’ve forgotten, I have a job.”
“… Leave.”
My blood ran cold. “H-how do you know about that?”
She didn’t answer, but began humming. I immediately recognized the melody as the same one the colonel sang to himself. “What is that? Is that Hindustani?”
No answer.
I thought she might have angry and skulked off to pout like a spoiled child. I picked up the lantern, determined to leave. “I will return tomorrow night,” I said, hoping to pacify her. “The colonel has a busy day ahead of him. I must roll him out to the conservatory. If you wish to accompany us, you are more than welcome to do so.”
I waited for a reply and decided to sweeten the deal. “If you like, you may point me to a pot, and I will plant some red flowers for you. I don’t think I saw any the last time we were there.” She either refused my generous offer or she was contemplating another line of attack. In any case, I thought it was in my best interest to retreat.
“Suit yourself,” I said lightly, inching toward the door. “But don’t say I didn’t offer.”
I let myself out and locked it behind me. Somehow, I felt I had hurt her. I hadn’t meant to. Some would say it was rather silly, worrying about whether I’d offended a disembodied spirit. In the grand scheme of things, I should have taken her silence as an omen.
And would soon come to regret it.
