AN: Untitled for now, if you have any suggestions, they will be gratefully received.
I really don't have time to write this but the trailer, in which Thomas Sharpe doesn't appear to be the primary antagonist (if at all), neatly dovetailed with this idea I'd been playing with, and once I got home last night, I couldn't stop writing this. I literally stayed up until 5am.
I'm setting this in the 1890s because from what I know of the Victorian era (which to be honest, is a fair bit) everything, from the dresses, suits and nightdresses, to the plumbing and the lift/elevator, seem to fit that decade best.
Synopsis: Crimson Peak had been restored and is opening as a holiday destination. Katherine (Kate) Blunt is a travel writer who is reviewing the place, but she'd plagued by bad dreams and ghostly apparitions.
As things progress, it seems that she has been singled out for something, but what? And is the ghost, who seemingly follows her every move, there to harm her, or help her? Is she losing her mind, or is Crimson Peak really home to evils Kate has never dreamed of?
Chapter One
Crimson Peak was an imposing house, gothic in style and slightly spooky in appearance, but undeniably lovely.
Which is why this stupid feeling of disquiet I felt annoyed me.
Since I'd arrived, I would swear I'd glimpse someone behind me in a mirror but when I turned, there was usually no one there. It really wasn't like me and I felt like a child with an overactive imagination.
So as I surveyed the ballroom, I didn't even bother to look to see if the dark haired man was really behind me or not. I didn't even look at his figure in the mirror, in the hopes that if I ignored these figments of my imagination, they would disappear altogether.
Besides, I was too busy taking notes to worry about ghostly apparitions.
Yes, I was. I was not going to look.
It was just a foolish, fanciful notion anyway, probably caused by the gothic style of the house or something. Or maybe I was sleep deprived or something. I had been having odd dreams the last two nights, which had disturbed my sleep. Wait, couldn't caffeine cause hallucinations? Yes, I was pretty sure it could.
Maybe I'd better switch to decaf, no matter how tired I felt.
I felt better at that realisation.
Then I looked at him and my rationalisations fled. Someone was there, standing a little to the right of the fireplace.
It was probably just an employee getting ready for the ball this weekend or something.
I whirled around to look and my heart stopped as I realised no one was there. You'd think I wold be used to the sensation but now, but it never failed to give me that slight feeling of vertigo, as if I was about to drop into an abyss.
"Katherine?"
I turned to Benjamin Wright, who had overseen the restoration and was giving me the tour.
"Sorry." I pushed my disquiet down as I turned to face him. "I thought I saw someone."
"Yes, well, they do say this place is haunted," he smiled at me.
"They do?" It was the first I'd heard of it.
"Oh yes. It's all nonsense of course, just old stories told to explain what happened to the last family that lived here."
"What did happen to them?" I asked, trying not to sound too eager, and reminding myself that I did not believe in ghosts.
"No one knows," he smiled. "One day, they were just… gone. All except Edith Sharpe, who told fanciful tales of evil demons, demonic ghosts and possessions. She was put into a looney bin for a while, but they released her when she came back to her senses."
"When was this?" I asked.
"Oh, over a hundred years ago."
"No one's lived here since then?"
"No, a trust had been set up to keep the house operational, with varying degrees of success and when the money eventually ran out, they had no choice but to sell it."
"No one inherited it?"
"No one knew what had happened to the Sharpes. For a long time it was kept in the hopes that they would return but when they were declared legally dead, no living relatives could be found."
"And the Sharpes never came back?"
"No. Locals have been inventing stories about this house ever since, spurred on by Edith's insanity, no doubt. In fact, coming here was something of a right of passage for local boys. A few boys came away with tales of hideous creatures and ghostly apparitions, but all no doubt to make themselves seem braver. I never saw anything here, not when I was a child and not now."
"You're local?"
"I was, I grew up in these parts. That's partly why my firm was hired, because I already had a passing familiarity with the place."
"And none of the workmen reported seeing ghosts?"
"Some," he shook his head, as if the idea was derisory. "But a lot of them were locals, who were raised with the stories about this place. An imagination can be a magical thing, unless it's left to run rampant, then it can be a hindrance."
"Did it hinder your work here?" I asked, trying to sound like this was a professional question.
"Somewhat. We had a few people quit on us, but very few overall." Now, would you like to see the kitchens?"
"What? Oh, uh, yes, please."
"Right this way."
He headed for a set of double doors and as I followed him, I looked to the mirror once more.
He was still staring at me. I wished I could make out his features.
The house was gorgeous, not only fully restored but also remaining faithful to the original period details, salvaging what they could and recreating what they couldn't.
Frankly, I was amazed at how good a job they had done, and didn't even want to consider the cost, even if it wasn't my investment.
Of course, it was intended to be a moneymaking venture, with the building divided up into individual apartments which could be let. The ballroom lent itself to large scale entertaining and the house itself, along with the scenic location, just screamed wedding venue. I expected they would be very popular… but way out of my league.
I was only here thanks to my job, as a freelance travel reporter. The consortium who now owned the house had given me two weeks free, so that I could get the full tourist experience, including local amenities.
In return, I had managed to sell the story to Hearth and Home magazine, a British magazine that liked to profile grand country houses and hidden gems. My review (which had a slightly different focus to the article) would also appear on my travel blog, Great Escapes, which had over 30,000 hits a month and I expected I'd be able to sell the article to foreign markets too, as an interest piece if nothing else. For obvious reasons, they expected most of their clientele to be from the UK, but they were very open to hosting events for wealthy foreigners as well.
I was typing up my notes from this afternoon when the lights flickered and my heart fluttered.
Benjamin had told me that all the electrics were brand new, so I panicked, standing up so quickly that my chair fell. In the windows, visible in the flickering lights reflected off them, I could see my ghostly apparition, standing just behind me, close enough to touch.
I spun around but nothing was there.
Every muscle in my body was tensed, ready to fight, even if I didn't know how to fight a ghost.
After a few moments, the lights held steady and when I glanced back at the windows, the apparition was gone.
"You're losing it, Kate," I muttered, trying to calm my racing heart with logic. "If you keep this up, you'll have to become a fiction writer, which would really suck since you can't make up a believable story to save your life… And now I'm talking to myself. Great."
I was actually trembling slightly, so I shook my arms and legs out, a little like I might do after a workout, and took deep breaths.
It didn't help much.
I needed a drink so I grabbed my bag and headed to the bar. Since we're about five miles from the nearest town, the developers had thought to include a bar and restaurant in some of the public rooms downstairs, both for guests to take advantage of, and for locals to dine at.
I sat at the bar and ordered a triple Tia Maria over ice, taking first a gulp, then sipping the rest. I'm not a big drinker, so even three small measures had an effect relatively quickly, and I could feel my skin flushing as I finally warmed up.
Suddenly I realised that I'd hardly been warm since I'd arrived here. I put it down to the house being old and draughty, with high ceilings, and it being autumn but maybe it was more than that.
Wasn't the cold linked to gho-
I cut that thought off before I could complete it but I still shivered, and not from cold that time.
I hadn't stocked my self-catering kitchen with anything other than basics since I'd arrived, bread for sandwiches, eggs for an evening omelette, potatoes for baking and fillings for all three, so I hadn't thought to get any alcohol in. As such, I bought a bottle of Tia Maria from the bar, which cost three times what it would in a shop, and carried it back to my room to act as my liquid valium.
I finally felt relaxed and I decided to take a bath. The bathroom was lovely, decorated in teal and white, with a free standing claw tub and a circular window above the bath. It even had one of those old, free standing privacy screens, the concertinaed ones. The initial flush from the alcohol was wearing off now, so I ran the water extra hot, determined to get warm for once.
I was down to my underwear when a huge crash sounded from somewhere in my apartment. My hands shook as I reached for my dressing gown and tied it tightly around me.
I turned the water off then ventured out slowly, wary of what new frights awaited me, looking into each room until I discovered the cause in the kitchen. My Tia Maria lay smashed on the floor.
Relief flooded me as I began to clear it up, and chiding myself for not being more careful with the bottle. But had I really left it balancing on the edge of the counter? I thought I remembered placing it further back but… maybe I had knocked it as I turned away or something, and failed to notice it move to a precarious position.
It took forever to clear up and I cut my big toe on the glass and although not bad or deep, it pissed me off. I hopped over to the side and held a sheet of kitchen paper against it, pressing firmly. When I removed the paper to examine the wound, a drop of blood fell to the floor and at that instant, the lights went out.
I screamed, terrified of what was happening. Or what might be happening. What was happening?
With a few flickers, the lights came back on a few moments later and I chided myself at being so scared all the time.
I admit, I considered leaving but I am a reasonable, rational 28 year old woman, and I was damned if an overactive imagination was going to drive me away. Not only did I have deadlines to meet, if I didn't do this article, I would not only lost that fee, I would damage my reputation. No freelancer can afford that.
Once the bleeding had almost stopped, I hobbled, toe wrapped up in paper, out of the kitchen and found some shoes, then continued the clear up.
When I went to mop the blood up though, I couldn't see it. I knew at least one drop had fallen on the tiles, but I was damned if I could find it.
I was tired by the time I was finished and, desperate to relax and unwind in my bath, I headed back there. I tested the water to see how tepid it had become, only to discover it was ice cold.
I trembled but told myself that like the lights, maybe the water heater wasn't good and maybe there hadn't actually been any hot water to begin with.
I emptied the water and refilled the bath only with hot water, my spirits plummeting when I discovered that the water was piping hot.
Maybe I had added more cold that I though before? That had to be it.
With the water hot enough to sting, I resumed undressing, until I saw what looked like movement in the mirror. My mysterious ghost wasn't visible when I looked, but I still erected the privacy screen around the tub.
My bath was about as uncomfortable as it was possible to feel and the water cooled far too rapidly for my tastes, so I soon got out quickly and dried off.
I usually sleep naked but given how cold I had been last night, I dressed in underwear, leggins and a sweatshirt. I even put socks on. All to help ward off the chill, nothing to do with the annoying and pervasive thought that maybe, I might have to run in the middle of the night.
"Will you be mine?" he asked, and I slipped my hand into his, allowing him to lead me onto the dance floor. He was so handsome, so gentlemanly, so wonderful. Every other man in the room paled in comparison to him.
We danced and danced, despite it being poor etiquette, and my father was displeased with my behaviour.
Thomas seemed to sense that however, and introduced himself to my father, then he expressed his desire to court me, properly. Father was pleased by this and readily agreed, the Sharpes were a highly respected family, after all, even if they were from England.
As I lay back in the tub, it never even occurred to me that I was no longer a woman.
I was tired and I lay my head back, closing my eyes for a few moments. It was bliss.
Until a hand pressed around my throat and held me under.
I kicked and thrashed but the hand was too strong, and all I could see of my attacker was a black silhouette. Their hands were large and bony, yet strong, the nails were long, perhaps a woman's hands. But if that were true, I should be able to fight them off; I might have been getting on in years but I was still fit and virile. Alas, my vitality wasn't enough to save me and I quickly grew tired, my vision darkening at the edges.
Once I went limp, the water above me stilled slightly, no longer agitated by my struggle, and I saw something inhuman, demonic… something evil.
'Edith!' I thought in my final moments, as my vision faded to black.
I say up in bed, gasping for air, my hands going to my throat as a reflex.
It was a dream, nothing more, the product of my fevered imagination no doubt. That thought didn't stop me from gulping in lungfuls of sweet, cool air.
Slowly my breathing calmed and I looked to the window to see that it was dawn, just light enough outside for the horizon to be turning light blue.
Far too early. I am not a natural morning person and these nightmares were starting to take their toll on me.
With a sigh, I got up and went about my morning ablutions while my coffee brewed in the kitchen, then as I went to the fridge to get milk, I saw him again, reflected in the chrome surface. He looked to be standing about five feet behind me but I didn't turn around this time.
"What do you want?" I asked him, focusing on his reflection. I think I had run out of adrenalin because I was nowhere near as scared as I had been when I saw him.
Although it was hard to tell in the slightly uneven surface, I thought his lips moved, but I couldn't hear any words.
"I can't hear you," I said. "Nod your head for yes and shake for no. Can you do that?"
He nodded.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
He didn't move and I realised how dumb the question was.
"Do you want to harm me?"
He shook his head.
"Are you a ghost?"
Nothing. Maybe I was hallucinating this whole thing and my imagination couldn't decide what I wanted him to be.
"Did you die here?"
Again, neither an affirmative nor a negative. It was too early in the morning to have existential talks with ethereal beings. I hadn't even had my coffee yet!
"Does something here wish me harm?"
He nodded, and I felt a chill run down my spine.
"Did you break my bottle last night?"
He nodded again.
"Why?"
No reply. Then again, did I really need to know why a ghost wanted to control my drinking habits?
"Are there ghosts here?"
A vigorous nod this time.
"Lots of ghosts?"
More nodding.
"And other things?"
He stepped closer as he nodded this time.
"What are you here for?" I whispered, it was a rhetorical question as I searched for the right questions to ask. "Are you-"
I stopped talking as he began to struggle with something and I only just managed to override my instincts and not to turn around, (because I knew I wouldn't see him if I did). Just before he faded from sight, like a puff of smoke, I could swear a saw a hand I was familiar with, the huge, twisted hand that had held me under water in my dream.
"Fuck!" I cried.
Grabbing my bag and coat, I left the apartment, unable to stay here a minute longer.