Ruined 2 - Dark Souls (5 page)

Nothing but ash remained.
Miranda sank back into her pillows. The stone tower — that was why it was built. She remembered the sign she’d read before the dizziness came on. The old wooden tower, the castle keep, had burned down. And now she knew the awful reason why. The Jewish people of medieval York had set it on fire, choosing to die there together rather than be murdered.

Those were the ghosts she’d seen at Clifford’s Tower today, the spirits of ash rising up from beneath the flagstones. But why? Why rise up from the earth, like some kind of whirling dervish of despair, to try to drag her down into the underworld?

Miranda thought about the things Nick had said about ghosts. Sometimes they reached out to certain people because they had unfinished business, because they wanted you to see them, because they thought you could help them. But she couldn’t help the ghosts of Clifford’s Tower any more than she could help Mary and the other workhouse orphans haunting Bedern, or smiling St. Margaret Clitherow serenely floating in the Shambles.

Any more than she’d been able to help Jenna after the other car smashed into theirs.

Miranda lay still, the book upside down in her lap. She was almost afraid to pick it up again. The thought of those desperate people dying there, of their ghosts haunting the place, was too awful. She absolutely didn’t
want
to see these ghosts. But apparently, whether she was in Iowa or York, Miranda didn’t have much choice. Maybe she could ask Nick some more questions about it when — if — she met up with him on Monday afternoon.

And somehow she knew she couldn’t say a word about that to anyone. Like seeing ghosts, seeing Nick had to be Miranda’s secret.

T
hat night, Rob insisted they go to the White Boar Inn for dinner, even though there were other restaurants that were much closer.

“It’s the oldest inn in York,” he said over his shoulder to Miranda, striding ahead of her through the courtyard. The building looked pretty old, she had to admit, its whitewashed walls crisscrossed with beams of black timber. Weathered picnic tables were pushed to one side of the cobbled courtyard, out of use until the summer.

“The white boar was Richard III’s personal emblem,” Jeff told them, pausing to fiddle with the flash on his camera. “Many inns changed their name from the White Boar to the Blue Boar after he was killed in battle. Didn’t want to be associated with the losing side.”

“I knew you’d like it here, Dad.” Rob was holding the door open for them. “It’s a grade eleven listed building or something. There’s a sign over there.”

“Grade two, idiot!” Miranda stepped past him into the warmth and noise of the inn. “I can’t believe you don’t know how to read Roman numerals yet.”

“Now, now,” said Peggy, unraveling her scarf and surveying the warren of crowded rooms. All the small, round tables were crammed with people — eating, drinking, laughing — and some customers had drawn their stools up in front of the crackling fire. “This was a very good idea, Rob. Should we find a table first? Do we order food at the bar?”

“I’ll go get us menus,” Rob offered, and promptly disappeared. What was
his
deal? He was like some one-man pep rally tonight.

“It wasn’t this crowded at the place on Swinegate,” Miranda lamented, following her parents until they wound their way back to a just-vacated table near the door.

“Yes, but …” Her mother flashed Miranda a significant look as they sat down. Jeff reached for Miranda’s coat, bundling it next to him on the long banquette seat. “The other pub lacked a certain something. Or should I say … someone.”

“That Richard III thing?” Miranda asked, bracing as someone opened the door behind her and let in a gust of cold air. “I thought Rob didn’t care about that.”

Jeff smiled. “I suspect a certain young lady made more of an impact on your brother than any number of my history lessons.”

Miranda had no idea what they were talking about.

“The pretty blond girl at Little Bettys,” Peggy explained. “Remember — she served us yesterday? Well, this afternoon when we went back while you were napping, she was working upstairs in the tearooms. Her name is Sally.”

“We had to pass on four tables before we got one in her room,” Jeff said drily. “I thought we’d be waiting there all afternoon.”

“She mentioned that her parents own this place,” continued Peggy, gesturing around the inn. “She just finished her first semester at the University of Manchester, and she’s home for the holidays.”

“She told you all this when she was taking your tea order?” Miranda thought this Sally sounded weird.

“Your brother was interrogating her.” Jeff raised one eyebrow, a trick that Miranda used to think was awesome. She’d never been able to master it herself. “He’s suddenly grown very interested in local culture.”

Miranda stifled a laugh.

“And she said she helps out here in the evenings, when it’s busy,” said Peggy, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers on the damp table. “Oh — she’s coming now! With Rob. Pretend we were talking about something else.”

“Be cool,” Jeff instructed Miranda in a mock stern voice, which made Miranda smirk: Her father was the most uncool person she knew.

“Sally!” her mother said in an ostentatiously casual way. “How nice to see you again!”

“Hello there — so glad you found me!” Sally stood at their table, Rob lurking doofus-like in the background. Miranda wouldn’t have recognized her. At the Little Bettys shop yesterday, she’d worn a prim black-and-white uniform, like some kind of maid from another era, and her curly blond hair had been tied back in a ponytail. Here, her hair was loose, bouncing on her shoulders, and she wore jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Her bright blue eyes sparkled. Miranda liked the soft burr of her accent and the open way she smiled, as though she was genuinely pleased to see them.

“This is Miranda,” Peggy said, gesturing so wildly that Miranda had to duck to avoid getting smacked in the face.

“I’ve heard all about you,” said Sally, beaming. “I hope you’re feeling better now.”

“What?” said Miranda stupidly, and it sounded ruder than she’d intended.

“You were feeling poorly this afternoon, over at Clifford’s Tower?”

“Oh yeah.” Miranda repressed a shudder at the very mention of that place. The whole experience seemed so surreal now. Almost everything in York she’d experienced so far was surreal, like a strange and unsettling dream. “Thanks. I’m … fine.”

“Good.” Sally smiled again. “Look, I’ve got to get back to work, but I just wanted to say hello. Rob’s got the menus….”

Rob held some laminated sheets in the air, and gave a goofy smile. He was the polar opposite of suave. Miranda had never seen him like this before.

“… but I should warn you that we’ve already run out of the beef hot pot
and
the seafood pasta. I’m really sorry.”

“Busy night.” Jeff nodded, looking around.

“Yes. Two of the staff left today,” Sally explained breathlessly. “They got jobs at a ski resort in France and didn’t give any notice. It’s a madhouse here during the festival, so it couldn’t be worse timing. My parents are at their wit’s end.”

“I can help, you know,” Rob spoke up. “Clear glasses and plates and stuff.”

Miranda couldn’t believe her ears. Her brother could barely clear his own dishes off the table at home, let alone help out at a busy inn.

“Oh, I don’t want to spoil your —”

“It’s fine, no problem, really.” Rob sounded desperate. Miranda’s parents looked at each other, obviously as bemused as she was. Her mother’s mouth was twitching with a smile. “I like to have something to do. Keep busy, you know.”

This was such a blatant lie that Miranda had to choke back laughter. At home, Rob’s idea of “keeping busy” was lying across the sofa, scattering pistachio shells across the coffee table, and watching the director’s cut of
Blade Runner
for the ninety-ninth time.

“Well,” said Sally, and when she looked at Rob his face turned red. “When you’ve had your meals, if you can spare some time, I’d be very grateful.”

After Sally had dashed away, and Jeff and Rob had ambled off to the bar to place the Tennants’ orders, Miranda asked her mother why Rob was acting so weird.

“You think it’s weird?” Peggy rested her hand on one of Miranda’s. “I think it’s quite sweet. And it’s very nice to see your brother happy and enthusiastic for a change. It’s good for him to meet someone his own age who … you know. Has nothing to do with everything back home.”

“I guess,” said Miranda, flinching as the door opened again and cold air swirled in. It wasn’t like Rob at all to fixate on a girl and chase after her so blatantly. He’d had girlfriends at school before, but they always seemed to do all the chasing. A girl asked
him
to junior prom, not vice versa. And since the accident, he hadn’t seemed interested in going out with anyone at all. He’d barely been out at night this summer and fall. He and Miranda had gone to precisely one party, at Halloween, and only then because it was close enough to walk there and back.

But now, all of a sudden, he meets a girl in a foreign country and gets a dazed look in his eyes and starts hanging around her like a lovesick adolescent? Lame, in Miranda’s opinion. Even though she had to admit that Sally seemed nice without being gushy or sickly sweet, confident without being brash. She wasn’t fawning over
Rob in a sappy way, like too many of his ex-girlfriends. Still, Miranda was annoyed.

“There’s no need to worry.” Peggy said, apparently reading her mind. Miranda had no idea how her mother could do that. “Or be jealous.”

“Jealous?” Miranda repeated, startled. Peggy patted her hand.

“You know what I mean. You and Rob have been hunkered down for a while now, just the two of you. It’s time, maybe. Time to venture out into the world again. Do things with other people.”

Miranda couldn’t trust herself to speak. She wanted to protest that her mother was being unfair, that she couldn’t care less if Rob fell in love with every waitress in York, that she’d ventured out into the world
loads
of times without Rob since the accident. She’d been out with Bea and Cami on that trip to the river, the one she’d like to forget; they’d dragged her along to the movies twice as well, and … what else? The class trip to the ice rink at the mall. That was it, pretty much. It didn’t mean Miranda was clinging to Rob. She wanted to be on her own this week, after all. Didn’t she?

Anyway, Miranda was meeting people here in York herself; she just didn’t make a big show of it. There was Nick, who she was meeting up with tomorrow at dusk — actually meeting him, to go somewhere, not just stalking him the way Rob kept turning up everywhere Sally worked. And then there was the mystery guy in the attic window, who she’d seen the night they arrived. If they
opened their windows, they’d be close enough to talk. Close enough, Miranda thought with an uneasy shiver, to touch.

“Here they come,” said Peggy, rearranging the salt and pepper shakers again to make room for drinks and cutlery. “Not looking where they’re going, as usual.”

Jeff and Rob were squeezing through the crowd, so intent on their conversation that they seemed oblivious to the way their drinks were slopping onto the floor. Her father practically stepped on a black cat that was sidling, tail curled, around the wall from one room to the next.

“Dad almost tripped over that cat,” Miranda said. She was making an effort to sound normal, not strained and upset and sulky — even though that was pretty much how she was feeling.

“There’s a cat?” Peggy raised herself out of her seat to look. If it were up to her mother, Miranda knew, they’d have a dozen cats at home, but Rob was ferociously allergic. “Where?”

“There,” Miranda pointed. The cat had stepped onto the hearth, arching its back against the stone fireplace.

“I don’t see it,” said Peggy, sounding disappointed.

“It’s right there, Mom,” Miranda said. She jabbed her finger toward the fireplace. “See it? It’s licking its paw now. Cute.”

“I can’t see anything. Maybe I need to get new glasses. Jeff, can you see a cat in here? Miranda says you almost stepped on it.”

“No cat.” Jeff lowered two drinks onto the table, spilling both of them. “But I did see a very interesting old Blue Boar sign in the next room. I’ll point it out to you later, after we eat.”

“You guys are all totally blind,” Miranda said, almost snapping at them. “It is RIGHT THERE by the fire.”

“They don’t have cats in pubs,” Rob said, dragging his stool closer to the table. He looked very pleased with himself. “People are allowed to bring their dogs in, so there’d be fights all the time.”

“You’re quite the expert now,” Peggy teased. Miranda kicked him under the table, but Rob pretended not to notice. When she looked again, the black cat by the fireplace was gone.

That night, Miranda couldn’t sleep. She was too hot, then she was too cold. When she tried to read
Northanger Abbey,
she felt sleepy and had to put the book down, but as soon as she turned off her light, she was wide awake again. At first, there was a little noise outside — people calling to each other and laughing, the tap of heels along the cobbles — but soon everything was eerily quiet. When she was too restless to lie still any longer, Miranda rolled out of bed and pulled one curtain back. Snow was falling again, soft and wet. The street was empty.

She knelt by the window, arms resting on the sills. Through streaks of snow she could see the attic window opposite, dark as the night sky. Miranda yawned, tugging
at the curtain to draw it back into place, but a glimpse of sudden light stilled her hand. Across the street, blurred by snow, a candle flickered.

Then he was there, too, his face as pale as the moon, staring straight at her. Miranda felt breathless, something between excited and apprehensive. Slowly, she raised a hand to wave, but waving felt too silly, too girlish. She pressed her palm against the cold glass, not sure of what to do, wondering how long it would take for her to feel embarrassed and look away.

A ridge of mashed snowflakes fell from the window, and now Miranda could see the guy in the attic more clearly. He wore a white collarless shirt, open at the neck. There was something across the base of his throat — a dark line, like a ribbon or a leather string. Miranda squinted, trying to make it out. The candle flickered again, its flame dancing and quivering. And she realized that it wasn’t a ribbon around his neck, or any kind of jewelry. It was a wound, dark with blood or bruising.

The guy in the window smiled at her — just the glimmer of a smile — and raised his right hand to the window, resting his palm on the pane in an exact mirror image of her gesture. A chill rippled through Miranda’s hand. The glass was cold, of course; it was snowing outside. But this was a sudden, intense cold, turning her fingertips numb and shooting some kind of electric currents down her arm. Miranda knew this cold. She knew exactly what it meant.

Miranda wanted to pull away from the window, but she couldn’t. This was different from seeing the face in the river, or the farmer, or the little girl in Bedern, or the ash people. She wasn’t scared. She didn’t want to cry out or run away. All she could do was keep looking into that beautiful face with its sad, dark eyes, feeling the cold of his hand burn its way into hers.

The candle’s flame dwindled and then, as abruptly as last time, was extinguished. Miranda could see nothing but inky darkness through the haze of snow, and her hand, still pressed against the class, stopped tingling. It just felt limp and heavy, not zinging with electricity. Her legs started to feel stiff, cramped from kneeling in one position.

Her heart was still hammering. She’d thought he was real, but the guy in the attic was a ghost. A ghost with a terrible wound.

Crawling back into bed, Miranda flicked on her bedside lamp. The book, she thought, reaching for it — not
Northanger Abbey,
but the book she’d been reading earlier that afternoon. The Shambles was a famous old street; maybe there was something about the gorgeous ghost in
Tales of Old York.
She turned its musty pages, looking for a chapter on the shambles. maybe there would be something here to give her a clue.