Page 187 of Love at First Fright

“Seven days.” She looked down at her hands. “I waited seven days, just to be certain. Then I paid two men—strangers passing through, desperate for work—to help me move the body. Discreetly. I never went down there myself. I couldn’t. Everyone believed he’d died of the illness. Why wouldn’t they? It was everywhere that autumn. So I announced his death. Had a small funeral. Moved on. I spoke of my deep mourning. First my husband, then my son. Such tragedy. Such loss.” She paused. “No one questioned it. No one suspected.”

“And then?” Charlie prompted.

“Then life was…” She seemed to search for the right word. “Good. I had the manor to myself. My daughters visited with their children. The staff returned once the sickness passed. The clouds lifted.” A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “For about five years, everything was wonderful.”

The smile vanished.

“Then what?” Charlie leaned forward.

“Then it began.” Lady Grimthorne drifted towards the window again. “Small things at first. Objects moved. Doors opening and closing. Cold spots in certain rooms.” Her reflection in the glass looked ancient. Broken. “I told myself I was imagining it. That grief was making me see things that weren’t there.”

The rain hammered harder.

“But it escalated. A maid found scratches on her arms one morning. Deep ones. She swore something had attacked her in the night. A footman fell down the stairs. Broke his neck. He’d worked here for twenty years. Never had an accident before. One of my nephews drowned in that same fishpond.” She turned from the window. “The groundskeeper said he saw a shadow holding the boy under. But that was impossible. There was no one else there.”

“Cornelius,” I whispered.

“I didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it. I sent my grandchildren away. Forbade them from returning. They thought I’d gone mad. Perhaps I had.”

“Did he ever show himself?” Charlie asked.

“In my dreams first. Standing at the foot of my bed. Soaked through. Covered in…” She stopped. Swallowed. “His face was wrong. Twisted. Rotting. But his eyes…” A shudder ran through her. “His eyes were alive. Burning with hate.”

The temperature in the library plummeted. My breath would have fogged if I still breathed.

“I tried everything,” she continued. “Brought in priests. Ladies with herbs, even. Had them bless the house. The basement. Every room. Every corner.” Her laugh was broken glass. “It made him angry. Stronger. He started appearing in daylight. In mirrors. In windows. Always watching. Always there.”

“How many people died?” I asked.

“Seven more. Over the next two years.” Lady Grimthorne’s voice went hollow. “I stopped sleeping. Stopped eating. The staff whispered about me. Said that I’d become obsessed with ghosts and demons.” She paused. “They weren’t wrong.”

Charlie shifted beside me. “How did you die?”

Lady Grimthorne went very still. “I was right here,” she said softly. “In my library. My favourite room. The one place I’d always felt safe.” She drifted towards the desk near the window. “It was late afternoon. Autumn again. The light was golden through the windows.”

Her hand hovered over the desk’s surface.

“I felt him enter. There was this awful chill. And that smell…” She stopped. “He smelled like the basement. Like damp earth and rot and old wine gone to vinegar.”

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

“He slipped inside me like water.” Her voice broke. “One moment I was myself. The next… the next I was trapped. Screaming inside my own head whilst something else controlled my hands. My feet. My eyes.”

I glanced at Charlie. His face was transfixed.

“He made me walk to that cabinet.” She pointed to an ornate piece against the far wall. “Made my hands open the drawer. Take out the bottle of laudanum I kept there. For sleep. For pain.” She paused. “Then he walked me back to the desk. Poured my evening wine. The Bordeaux I loved.” Her eyes fixed on the empty surface. “He made me watch whilst my hands—my hands—tipped the laudanum into the glass. The entire bottle. Enough to kill three people.”

“Lady Grimthorne—” I started.

“I felt everything,” she whispered. “Felt him force my hand to lift the glass. Force my lips to part. Force me to drink.” Her form flickered with violent fury. “The wine tasted like copper. Like rot. Like all the sins I’d committed catching up with me at once.” She turned to face us. “I collapsed right there. By the desk. I could feel the poison working. Feel my heart slowing. My lungs struggling. And the whole time, I felt him inside me. Laughing. Triumphant. Forcing me to understand that this—this—was justice. That mothers who murdered their sons deserved to die choking on their own blood.”

The library suddenly felt like a tomb.

“I died in this room,” Lady Grimthorne said. “And when I opened my eyes again, when I realised I was still here… I knew. I knew what he’d done. Why he’d done it.” She looked at me. At Charlie. “He didn’t just kill me. He trapped me. Bound me to this place just like he’s bound here. So I could spend eternity knowing what I’d done. Knowing that I’d failed.”

“And you’ve spent that eternity helping keep him locked away. Keeping innocent people safe.”

Lady Grimthorne lifted her head, meeting my eyes. A flicker of something—gratitude? relief?—crossed her translucent features.