Page 56 of Mirrors of the Past

Chapter Twenty-One

Present

Tegan plucked up courage a few days after her conversation with Merryn to go into the ballroom and locate the picture of Viola.

First of all, she had to go and congratulate her sister on the birth of her daughter, Rosie Loveday Penhaligon. That had happened on 30 September, and, once the excitement had died down a little and their parents had been and visited, she felt she could focus a little more on her job. She also realised with a start that if she and Ryan were to do something for Halloween, to tie in with the pumpkin trail, that they really needed to get a wiggle on.

They’d exchanged a few emails; he’d passed on the details of a seamstress in Covent Garden and Tegan had sent her the photos and sketches they’d collected. Ianthe Shelley — what a fantastic name — had promised she could work her magic and recreate the dress. And even though Tegan was secretly disappointed that Elsie’s dress had either not survived the years or been lost to the family — Elsie’s children had, she knew, scattered around the globe — she immediately trusted Ianthe to do her very best with what she had.

And as well as that, she knew that Ryan was looking for artefacts in the archives to help with the Snow Queen exhibition, and, in the meantime, she’d ordered some huge glass floor tiles to make a frozen lake and some frond-y stuff to decorate it all with.

She thought back to when she and Ryan had started discussing the event and that he had suggested a sleigh, but, realistically, she thought that might be pushing both the budget and the fact that a huge thing like that would need to be brought inside that old house. Nope. Not a good idea.

The only thing that hovered over her was the location of Viola’s picture. Something was stopping her from searching for it — probably the same feelings that she had harboured when she’d thought that the girl in the sketch might be the same one who had approached her in the office that time. The thought still made her shudder and she had avoided wandering around Pencradoc after hours in case the couple — because now she was convinced they were a couple — appeared again.

But today — today, she felt as if she needed to go and hunt for it. Something was just pushing her to do it. She found it difficult to concentrate on much else. There was something knocking in the back of her mind anyway which was unsettling her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but she knew if she kept busy, her subconscious mind might just figure it out.

She made it to six thirty, well after closing time at the arts centre, and well after she should have left herself — but she didn’t relish the thought of a long Friday evening stretching out in front of her, alone with her thoughts in her room at Pencradoc House. She hadn’t even had Coren to distract her with his gentle demands this afternoon. He had been off to meet someone about the wedding packages they wanted to offer and then he was coming back to spend the weekend with Sybill.

But, now, she really had no more excuses to stay at her desk, stuck there like a limpet.

Go find it!She imagined the New York voice was speaking in her ear. Or, at least, she thought, as she sipped a cup of strong, black coffee while staring into space (well, staring at the corner that apparition had appeared from), she was imagining it.

Ugh.

‘Right. I’m going,’ she said out loud. She stood up and glared at the corner of the room. God knew how she was actually working in that room. She texted Coren, just to say she was finally finishing up for the day and would be heading to the ballroom for one final task, in case he checked in on her, then, still looking at her phone, she realised she couldn’t resist texting Merryn.

How haunted is the ballroom at Pencradoc? she typed out. She suspected Merryn would take a while to respond, probably being knee-deep in bottles and nappies and things. But, to her surprise, Merryn typed back almost immediately.

Haven’t seen anything there myself!came the response. Not to say there isn’t anything there, though.

Ugh.

Why ugh?

I have to go there and look for Viola.

Haven’t you done that yet?

Why aren’t you with your child? Tegan pulled a face — guilt-tripping her sister maybe wasn’t the smartest thing to do, but the texts were implying there may actually be a ghost there.

She’s sleeping — SLEEPING, THANK GOD . . .

Tegan grinned. Okay. Give her cuddles from me and I’ll report back.

Will do. And you make sure you do! xxx

xxx

Tegan took a deep breath and walked out of the office. It was one step after another, that’s all it was. She went along the corridor, along the hallway, through the drawing room. There wasn’t a soul around — a living soul, anyway. Her heart pounding, she kept walking, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.

The house was — she could feel it — taking on a different personality. It was almost waking up around her, all these silent rooms, filled with modern-day things, but she could swear that as she walked through, everything was changing behind her, ironically taking on new shapes of the old things that used to be there.

Oh, shit. Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea at all.

She didn’t feel like it was polite anymore to challenge the house on the existence of its ghosts . . .

All she wanted to do was keep going forwards — she was, literally, too scared to go backwards and retrace her steps. She was terrified at what she might see, but she was also terrified of what she was leaving behind.