done wrong, and which neither of them could see to unpick. So, I laid my pretty dear on the sofa, and sat down on a stool by them, and hardened my heart against them, as I heard the wind rising and howling.
Miss Rosamond slept on sound, for all the wind blew so; and Miss Furnivall said never a word, nor looked round when the gusts shook the windows. All at once she started up to her full height, and put up one hand, as if to bid us listen.
“I hear voices!” said she. “I hear terrible screams – I hear my father’s voice!”
Just at that moment, my darling wakened with a sudden start: “My little girl is crying, oh, how she is crying!” and she tried to get up and go to her, but she got her feet entangled in the blanket and I caught her up; for my flesh had begun to creep at these noises, which they heard while we could catch no sound. In a minute or two the noises came, and gathered fast, and filled our ears; we, too, heard voices and screams, and no longer heard the winter’s wind that raged abroad. Mrs Stark looked at me, and I at her, but we dared not speak. Suddenly Miss Furnivall went towards the door, out into the ante-room, through the west lobby, and opened the door into the great hall. Mrs Stark followed, and I durst not be left, though my heart almost stopped beating for fear. I wrapped my darling tight in my arms, and went out with them. In the hall the screams were louder than ever; they sounded to come from the east wing – nearer and nearer – close on the other side of the locked-up doors – close behind them. Then I noticed that the great bronze chandelier seemed all alight, though the hall was dim, and that a fire was blazing in the vast hearth-place, though it gave no heat; and I shuddered up with terror, and folded my darling closer to me. But as I did so, the east door shook, and she, suddenly struggling to get free from me, cried, “Hester! I must go! My little girl is there; I hear her; she is coming! Hester, I must go!”
I held her tight with all my strength; with a set will, I held her. If I had died, my hands would have grasped her still, I was so resolved in my mind. Miss Furnivall stood listening, and paid no regard to my darling, who had got down to the ground, and whom I, upon my knees now, was holding with both my arms clasped round her neck; she still striving and crying to get free.
All at once, the east door gave way with a thundering crash, as if torn open in a violent passion, and there came into that broad and mysterious light the figure of a tall old man, with grey hair and gleaming eyes. He drove before him, with many a relentless gesture of abhorrence, a stern and beautiful woman, with a little child clinging to her dress.
“Oh, Hester! Hester!” cried Miss Rosamond. “It’s the lady! The lady below the holly trees; and my little girl is with her. Hester! Hester! Let me go to her; they are drawing me to them. I feel them – I feel them. I must go!”
Again she was almost convulsed by her efforts to get away; but I held her tighter and tighter, till I feared I should do her a hurt; but rather that than let her go towards those terrible phantoms. They passed along towards the great hall-door, where the winds howled and ravened for their prey; but before they reached that, the lady turned; and I could see that she defied the old man with a fierce and proud defiance; but then she quailed – and then she threw her arms wildly and piteously to save her child – her little child – from a blow from his uplifted crutch.
And Miss Rosamond was torn as by a power stronger than mine, and writhed in my arms, and sobbed (for by this time the poor darling was growing faint).
“They want me to go with them on to the Fells – they are drawing me to them. Oh, my little girl! I would come, but cruel, wicked Hester holds me very tight.” But when she saw the uplifted crutch she swooned away, and I thanked God for it. Just at this moment – when the tall old man, his hair streaming as in the blast of a furnace, was going to strike the little, shrinking child – Miss Furnivall, the old woman by my side, cried out, “Oh, Father! Father! Spare the little, innocent child!” But just then I saw – we all saw – another phantom shape itself, and grow clear out of the blue and misty light that filled the hall; we had not seen her till now, for it was another lady who stood by the old man, with a look of relentless hate and triumphant scorn. That figure was very beautiful to look upon, with a soft, white hat drawn down over the proud brows, and a red and curling lip. It was dressed in an open robe of blue satin. I had seen that figure before. It was the likeness of Miss Furnivall in her youth; and the terrible phantoms moved on, regardless of old Miss Furnivall’s wild entreaty, and the uplifted crutch fell on the right shoulder of the little child, and the younger sister looked on, stony and deadly serene. But at that moment the dim lights, and the fire that gave no heat, went out of themselves, and Miss Furnivall lay at our feet stricken down by the palsy – death-stricken.
Yes! She was carried to her bed that night never to rise again. She lay with her face to the wall, muttering low, but muttering always: “Alas! Alas! What is done in youth can never be undone in age! What is done in youth can never be undone in age!”
Among the Shoals Forever
Gail Z. Martin
“Even for Charleston, it’s too many damn ghosts to ignore.” Sorren, my patron and mentor, leaned back in his chair.
“We’re in one of the most haunted cities in the New World,” Uncle Evann replied. “What’s a few more ‘haints’ when we’ve got so many?” He shrugged. “I never reckoned ghosts were really any of our business.”
Sorren gave Uncle Evann a look that managed to convey both exasperation and affection. “They become our business when they’re bound here by dark magic,” Sorren said. He swirled the red liquid in his goblet, liquid I knew for certain was blood. The glow from the fireplace added colour to Sorren’s pale complexion, but could never warm his skin. He might have let out a long sigh, if he still needed to breathe. Instead, he looked from Uncle Evann to me.
“And it becomes Dante’s business when pirates are involved,” he said with a hint of a smile that just slightly exposed the tips of his elongated eye teeth.
He had me at “pirates”. “Yeah,” I said with a glance at Coltt, my partner in crime. “Whatever it is, count us in.”
Sorren was the silent partner behind the curio shop in Charleston run by my Uncle Evann. Three years ago, when Coltt and I had been the only survivors of a pirate raid on our small fishing village, we’d taken our stolen ship and fled to Charleston, hoping Uncle Evann could give us sanctuary. We’d killed the pirates who had murdered our families, and had a haunted necklace to show for it, one that I knew for a fact was evil. I thought Uncle Evann would know what to do with it.
As it turned out, Uncle Evann’s shop, Trifles and Folly, was more than it appeared. Sorren was one of a small, secret group of mortals and immortals pledged to keeping dangerous magical objects out of the hands of those who might misuse them. Sorren and Evann kept an ear open whenever objects with unusual pasts came up at auction, or were part of an estate being distributed. One way or another, Sorren made it his business to take those objects out of circulation. Evann handled the legal acquisitions. Coltt and I now took care of the rest.
Sorren stretched out his long legs, and watched the fire burn as he spoke. “Felicity Reynolds Barre disappeared on a voyage from Bermuda to Boston almost a year ago.”
I frowned. “Sloan Barre’s daughter?” Sloan Hampton Barre was a scion of an old Boston family with numerous business ties in every port city of the seaboard, including Charleston.
Sorren nodded. “The same. It appears her ship was overtaken by pirates. There were no survivors found, nor bodies recovered. That would suggest that the passengers were either killed and thrown overboard—”
“Or taken to sell in the brothels and sugar cane plantations of the Indies,” I finished, distaste clear in my tone.
“Precisely,” Sorren replied. “Normally, I’d say there was nothing we could do except offer a prayer for the young woman’s soul. But it appears that Miss Barre was exceptional beyond just her family connections. She was given an antique cameo brooch by a young man named Islwyn Lawry, a brooch that her family believed had occult power. Lawry, it seems, convinced her that it had the power to protect the wearer, and Miss Barre never took it off.”
My expression darkened. “Was Islwyn Lawry any relation to Galoshin Lawry, the gent with the fondness for black magic we went after a while back?”
Sorren chuckled. “Islwyn is Galoshin’s son, but he had a big row with his father several years ago, and by all accounts didn’t approve of his father’s schemes or the way he used his power. Islwyn gave the cameo to Felicity
