Caitlyn’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. Maybe Mathilde’s ghost encounter was as false as Daniela’s. Rustling noises could have been anything from mice to the wind.
“The noise, though—it did not stop,” Mathilde continued darkly.
Caitlyn blinked.
“What?”
“It got louder, and closer. I could feel the cold air moving in front of her as she came down the hall. I could not move.”
Caitlyn’s pulse raced. “And still you saw nothing?”
“Nothing! I just heard that rustling sound:
Shh, shh, shh
. Getting closer and closer.”
“What did you do?!”
“I stood, right there. My legs would not run. It was like being in a dream, you know? And all the time,
Shh, shh, shh,
getting closer
.
”
“And?”
“When she was right next to me, when my skin had gone cold from her closeness, the sound stopped. The lights flickered, and as they flickered, in the moments of darkness, I saw her standing in front of me.”
A shiver ran down Caitlyn’s spine. “What did she look like?” she half whispered.
“She was dressed all in black, and had a black veil draped over her head, but through it I could see the whiteness of her face. She stared at me. And then the lights went all the way out, and all I could see was the misty white of her face, only it wasn’t really a face, it was just a smear of white against the darkness, and I heard a terrible scream.” Mathilde’s eyes went wide, and she put her hands up to her ears and shook her head, as if to shake away the memory. “Then the lights suddenly came back on, and I saw I was alone.”
It took Caitlyn a moment to free herself of the image, so like the Screechers, and gather her wits. “Did anyone else hear the scream?”
Mathilde shook her head, then dropped her hands and ate another piece of croissant.
“The Woman in Black didn’t say anything?”
“No. I know people in the past have said she calls for her lost lover, but I did not hear that. But those stories are from long ago; maybe the ghost has given up finding him.”
“I wonder why she stays around.”
Mathilde shrugged.
“Thank you for telling me your story.”
“You have enough for your paper?”
“Absolutely.”
That evening Caitlyn was still trying to figure out what it all meant, if anything. She went and stood in the hall on the third floor of the dormitory, where Mathilde had seen her ghost, and tried to picture what it had been like for her. The walls were paneled in wood, and set with sconces every fifteen feet or so, midway between the doors to the bedrooms. Their shaded bulbs cast only a dim golden glow that did little to illuminate the dark corridor.
It had to have been terrifying, to stand here alone and hear the
shh, shh, shh
of rustling skirts approaching, and yet see not a soul.
Why hadn’t the Woman in Black called for Raphael? Mathilde’s idea that she’d stopped looking for him seemed out of keeping with most ghost stories; ghosts didn’t change their behavior, did they?
Whatever the reason, Caitlyn was glad of it. Raphael was
hers
, and she didn’t want to share him. She hated the idea of a long-lost lover roaming the halls of the castle, looking for him. It meant there was someone else in his life.
She was, she realized, jealous.
That’s stupid! How can I be jealous of a ghost, over a guy who might not even exist?
And yet, there was no other word for what she felt. Since the moment she’d seen Raphael riding in the valley, her heart had claimed him as her Knight of Cups.
She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes, not believing her own thoughts. She really was half nuts, wasn’t she? She was getting a crush on a guy she’d seen only in a dream.
A memory surfaced of the feel of his hand holding hers, the pad of his thumb stroking over her knuckles, and she felt a rush of warmth pour down her body. Raphael’s eyes, looking into hers as he tugged her closer, until her knees bumped into—
A bedroom door creaked open, making Caitlyn start and turn.
“What are you doing, standing there?” Daniela asked, leaning against the frame of the open door, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Trying to imagine seeing the Woman in Black!” she said, a little too quickly. “I’m putting Mathilde’s experience into a paper I have to write about
Northanger Abbey
.”
To Caitlyn’s surprise, Daniela’s eyes lit up. “Did you know that
I
saw the ghost, too?”
“I’d heard something like that,” she said, remembering the trick Naomi had played on her.
“You should put my story in your paper, too. Do you want to hear it?”
“Er, sure.”
She followed Daniela into the room she shared with Brigitte; it was the first time Caitlyn had been invited in. If listening to a fake ghost story was the price for being treated civilly by Daniela, she’d pay it. Maybe Amalia was right, and Daniela was beginning to show her good side.
Caitlyn couldn’t help her eyes roving over the room, taking in the hints of the girls’ lives beyond the walls of the château. Brigitte wasn’t there, but her personality was:
Hello Kitty
knickknacks, a bright pink comforter cover, a menagerie of stuffed animals crammed in among the books on her shelves. On the wall beside her bed hung a framed poster of a mermaid combing her hair. The rest of the wall was covered in framed photos of family, friends, and of Brigitte herself grinning beside celebrities. Her father was a famous character actor in French films.
Caitlyn pointed to a black-and-white professional photo of Brigitte and a fair-haired, handsome young man who looked a few years older than her. “Who’s that?”
“Brigitte’s brother Thierry,” Daniela said, sitting down on her own bed with its duvet cover of dark gold silk shantung. She had shimmering gold Klimt posters on her wall, a black fur throw at the foot of her bed, and one onyx-framed photo on her desk, of herself. “Thierry got the looks, but Brigitte got the heart.”
Caitlyn gave Daniela a censorious look. “I think Brigitte is adorable.”
“I know she is. I’m not the one who said that about her looks; she is. Besides, better to have a heart than to be a heartless pig.”
Caitlyn raised her brows in question.
“Thierry’s a playboy: you know the type. Treats women like garbage,” she said, echoing Amalia’s assessment. A shadow moved over her face. “Or at least he did. Not anymore.”
“Is he dead?”
“He’s alive enough,” she said, and then smiled with false brightness. “Unlike … the Woman in Black!”
Caitlyn sat on Brigitte’s desk chair and listened to Daniela embellish her encounter with Naomi in the dark hallway. Some of her details were obviously cribbed from Mathilde’s story, but Caitlyn pretended to be fascinated anyway. She wouldn’t be the one to tell Daniela that she’d been tricked: Daniela seemed delighted to have seen the ghost.
“So the castle really is haunted,” Caitlyn said.
“Eh! All of Europe is, but I think this area here is especially bad. You know about the
gouffre
?”
“The goof? What’s a goof?”
“
Gouffre
. It is a—how do you say … A big hole in the ground, very deep, that sometimes goes down to water.”
“A pit?”
Daniela shook her head. “Big. Deep.”
Caitlyn had a sudden picture of the dragon emerging from a chasm in the ground in the painting of Fortuna. “Chasm? Abyss?”
“Maybe abyss is the word.
Gouffre
in French. There is a large
gouffre
in the forest near the château, and it is haunted. There is a story that it is the door the devil uses to get to and from Hell, but I don’t believe that. I think it is something more primitive than that, something dark in Nature herself. You know the French expression for being almost in despair, almost in disaster?”
Caitlyn shook her head.
“
Je suis au bord du gouffre.
‘I am on the edge of the abyss.’ ”
Caitlyn’s mouth went dry. She had a mental flash of her mother reading the tarot cards, with the Fool about to step into the abyss.
The abyss waits for you. You stand upon its edge.
“The expression might as well have come from the
gouffre
here,” Daniela said.
“Why? What happens there?”
“Brigitte could tell you—”
“I could tell her what?” Brigitte asked brightly, coming into the room with Amalia.
“Why the—” Caitlyn started.
“Why I tell the story about the Woman in Black so many times,” Daniela interrupted, giving Caitlyn a warning look.
“She loves the attention!” Brigitte laughed. “You didn’t make Caitlyn listen to it, did you?”
“She asked. It’s her own fault.”
“If you’d given me a euro for each time you told that story, I’d have a new handbag by now, and you
know
I only like expensive handbags.”
“I’m writing an English paper on real ghost stories in contrast to those in
Northanger Abbey
,” Caitlyn explained.
Amalia dropped onto Brigitte’s bed and kicked off her shoes. “Did you choose the topic because of the ghosts in your nightmares?”
Brigitte and Daniela turned to stare at Caitlyn. “What ghosts?” Brigitte asked.
Caitlyn cast an accusing glare at Amalia, who had the grace to grimace. Her eyes pleaded for forgiveness.
“They’re just in my nightmares. They’re not so interesting,” Caitlyn said.
“Tell us anyway,” Brigitte said, crawling onto her bed beside Amalia.
“There’s not much to tell.” Caitlyn shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with their avid attention. This wasn’t something she liked to talk about. She wanted to make new friends, but she was never going to get close to any of them if she walled herself off.
Besides, if Daniela could tell ghost stories, why couldn’t she?
Caitlyn took a deep breath. What the hell. “In the middle of the night I’m visited by …
things
. I call them the Screechers.”
All three girls stared at her with wide eyes.
“They look like people,” she went on, “but they’re usually in black and white, and sort of smeared, like a bad photo. There’s usually only one at a time, but sometimes two or three. They come in the night, while I’m asleep, and scream at me in my dreams. Sometimes they try to scratch or beat me, or throw things at me.”
“Mon Dieu,”
Brigitte said. “What are they?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. Maybe I could get rid of them.”
“Are they real?” Daniela asked. “Or are they dreams?”
Caitlyn shrugged. “No one else sees them.”
Amalia nodded confirmation.
“That means they’re in my head, doesn’t it?” Caitlyn said.
“Or it means that they’re real and no one else is sensitive enough to see them,” Daniela said. “Like the Woman in Black: only a few people ever see her. They say abilities like that run in families, especially in women.”
Caitlyn’s lips parted, her face going still with realization.
“Caitlyn?” Amalia asked. “What is it?”
“My mom. My real mom, I mean, not my stepmom. She died in a car wreck when I was four, so I never really knew her, but she used to tell fortunes.”
“You see?” Daniela said, delighted to be proved right. “It runs in your family! How about your mother’s mother; did she have any special gifts?”
“I don’t know; she died before I was born. A cousin told me that she once saw the Umpqua Maiden, though.”
“The what?” Amalia asked.
“The ghost of an Umpqua girl, supposedly the daughter of a chief; but they’re always daughters of chiefs, in the stories.”
“Like princesses in fairy tales,” Brigitte said, and nudged Amalia.
“Mmph,” Amalia grunted.
“Anyway, the Umpqua Maiden has been seen in Spring Creek for centuries, since even before the pioneers came to Oregon. There are several versions of her story, but the most popular one is that an evil spirit killed her beloved and took on his form, and then tricked her into marrying him. On their wedding night, she discovered his trick and tried to run away, and the evil spirit was so angry that he killed her. Now she roams the earth, forever looking for her true beloved, but never finding him.”
“What does she look like?” Daniela asked.
Caitlyn shrugged. “I’ve never seen her, but most of the stories say she appears as a horrid, deathly pale face floating in the darkness, watching you. They say that if you see her, it means you’re going to die soon.”
“And
do
people die soon after?” Brigitte asked, breathless.