Unmarked letter. Dated August 1903.
My darling.
This letter will never find you. I will never post it. But these innermost feelings must be put down into writing before they rot my insides.
Know this: I love you and will always love you. You grew within me, but I fear that I am not strong enough to help you to grow now that you have left me. I have been tainted by darkness and I never wish you to experience it. My world has been touched by pain and loss. You are too pure and precious to know such things. That is one reason why I am giving you up. The other is much more selfish. Your face will always remind me of ghosts. I could try my best to bring you up and to love you with every beat of my heart, but you need a mother who looks into your eyes and who sees you, not the dead.
I have met the people who will be your parents. It breaks my heart that two such loving people cannot have a child of their own. But the world is a mysterious place. They will love you and show you a much brighter world than I ever could. I wish you every blessing my darling girl. Perhaps we will meet some day, in this life or the next and I will explain everything to you. Until then, this is my goodbye.
Your mother.
The next day was Sunday. An impossible day to get anything productive done. I wanted to go into town again, to visit the library, the public records office, anything to try and find out more about these people.
Edith Cushing. Thomas Sharpe. Lucille Sharpe.
Two of them were haunting both my night-time's and my daytimes. Should I be worried about them? No-one had hurt me so far. Lucille was trying her best to scare me to death, but the effect was beginning to lessen. I probably should have been concerned with my mental well-being. After all, I was spending most of my waking and sleeping hours thinking about ghosts. If I attempted to tell anyone about what had been happening, they would have me committed. Certainly I would be fired. No-one who was speaking with spirits should be put in charge, however briefly, of young and impressionable minds.
Part of me wanted to tell Joe, to confide everything in him. But at the same time, there was something exciting about keeping everything to myself. My own little adventure. My own little secret.
Sunday breakfast was always interesting. There were two. An early, cooked breakfast for those who would walk down into the village to attend the small church. It was an incentive thought up by Mrs Hall and Ms Patchett, the deputy and the headmistress to encourage the girls to invest in their spiritual lives. The school wasn't partnered with any religious organization like a lot of other boarding schools so they had no power to force the girls to go. It worked for a surprising amount of the girls, but not all. There was a second, cold breakfast later in the morning. Boxed cereal or fruit. Most of the staff used the second or made their own breakfasts in the staff kitchen.
Linda had gone out yesterday while Joe and I had been at the historical exhibition and bought the necessary ingredients for making blueberry pancakes and was currently watching one like a hawk as it slowly cooked.
"I picked this up from the post box for you," she passed me a small envelope.
I looked at the small manila piece of paper. The front had been hand written in black calligraphy. I very rarely got any letters. Perhaps it was an early Christmas card from a relative? I began to tear open the seal.
"I got one too," she continued, nudging a pancake with a spatula, "Mrs Hall's husband, he is a professional photographer. This time every year he holds a show, using one of the school halls. It's a big event, lots of famous artists and critics come to see and everyone gets dressed up and eats small squares of toast with some form of animal paste smeared over the top, pretending like it's a proper meal."
I opened the invitation properly and examined it. True enough it was an invite to the exhibition. "Do many of the staff go?"
She raised one eye brow and looked at me out of the corners of her eyes. "Everyone goes. It's supposed to be optional, but she'll find a way to make your life a misery if you don't. No-one warned me in my first year, and she's only just beginning to get over it. For months afterwards I was made to cover almost all of the lessons for sick teachers. I hardly had a free moment and it was so stressful."
"That… doesn't sound fair."
"It wasn't but, you live and learn." She flipped the circular disc onto its other side and smiled at the perfect brown colour. The blueberries were starting to turn to jam and the smell that was radiating from them was magnificent. We resisted eating until we both had a stack of own.
"Have you got plans for today?" she asked when she was done, collecting up our plates. I took them off her with a shake of my head. If she cooked, I would wash.
"Not really. Though, I need to go to the library to check a few things for my lessons later in the week."
The Library was open on Sundays. There were several of the prefects who volunteered to man the desk. Usually they just got on with studies and when an occasional student arrived to take out a book they stamped the return date and took the card from the book and put it into the corresponding folder in the little drawer.
Aside from the student manning the desk, there was no-one else in the Library. "Good Afternoon, Miss," she welcomed, glancing up from the notebook she was writing in. I smiled and walked past towards the section where they kept a record of all previous year books. It was my idea that as a matter of public interest they might publish some of the history of the school in the year books. Maybe over the years I could piece together some sort of picture about the Shape's and Edith.
Some of the earlier books contained a forward from Ms Cushing. It was always encouraging and very poignant. But there was very little revealed. There was nothing about the history, at least nothing about the original Allerdale Hall. Some of the newer additions had history about the construction of the school but they always seemed to neglect the original house itself. It was almost like the old house had been some sort of dirty little secret that nobody seemed willing to talk about. I put the editions back onto the shelf and start looking through the history section. Again, I found nothing of any use. The frustration that was growing inside me was tangible. I wanted to know. I was trying to find out what on earth happened here to make two such restless spirits, but at every turn I seemed to be coming up against obstacles. It was maddening. I reached up to pull down a book about the History of Cumbria when Linda's bracelet snagged on my jumper. I untangled it from where it's caught in the wool.
For a moment, I stared at the little silver charms, running them between my fingers. I was never very good at History. It always seemed to be too much about dates and places, things I was never really good at remembering. But I did remember something. That primary sources, evidence collected first hand, was always the most valuable amongst historians. Sure, you could never rule out bias, but someone who had been there at the event. I was in a unique position where I did have the opportunity for first hand evidence. Thomas. I could take the bracelet off again tonight and he would visit. I could ask him questions, get him to explain everything that was going on.
I put the book back on the shelf and left the library. The rest of the day dragged by impossibly slow as I waited for the approach of the night. I graded a few tests and marked some essays. But I knew that I wasn't really concentrating. It was like trying to read a book when you were too tired. I would read the same sentence over and over again and then realise that although my eyes were seeing the words, my brain wasn't processing what was being said.
Eventually it was night time. I had done as much as I could for the week ahead. But I was too anxious to sleep. What about Lucille? What if she got to me before Thomas? She hadn't hurt me yet, but as a scientist I knew the sample size was too small to make accurate conclusions from. Besides, just because something hadn't happened yet, didn't mean that it never would. There were too many uncertain variables.
I reached down into my bedside cabinet and drew out a small glass, curved bottle. My sister had given me it as a present before I'd left to come here. "For when the kids are too much," she had said. Gin. I hadn't opened it yet. Linda and I had considered it a few weeks ago around Halloween during the first half term break, but had decided against it. I cracked open the top and took a sniff. There was no scent. That's the beauty of Gin. Tasteless, and mostly scentless. I took a small swig and shuddered as it burned its way down the back of my throat. I paused, then took another. And a third. I put the lid back on and put it away inside my cupboard.
I waited in the dark. I could feel the warmth of the alcohol start from the pit of my stomach and work its way up to my head where it rested behind my eyes. But still sleep alluded me. I tried to repeat monotonous phrases to myself. Tried to say the first ten elements of the periodic table over and over to bore my brain.
The floorboards of the room creaked and I sat up. My head spun quickly and I couldn't tell if it was from my sudden transition from horizontal to vertical, the alcohol or a combination of the two.
He was standing there by the door, the way he appeared when he was in the world and not in my head. Gone was the confident, dark, sophisticated man. Instead here was the fragile and broken remains of his soul that refused to leave this world. Thomas.
"Why didn't you come in a dream?" I asked the sad spectre. He raised heavy ochre eyes to meet mine. He doesn't make a sound, but raises one stained arm up and points a marble finger at my bedside table. Towards the bracelet.
"I left if off for you," I explained, "So that you could come to see me in my dreams. I have so many questions for you."
He closed his eyes, the stone of his face crumpled in an expression of pain. He shook his head back and forth, the white tendrils of hair moving slowly in time with him. The finger still pointed to the bracelet.
I frowned and kicked off my blankets. I put my feet over the edge of the bed. "No, I want to talk to you." Again, he just shook his head.
I stood up to walked towards him. If I could get close enough to touch him, perhaps I could convince him to write on my palm again. But as I did, black hands appeared on his shoulders and moved possessively over the tops of his arms. In the darkness, a shape that was more black than I had ever imagined emerged behind him. Lucille. The sister. The one who was intent on making my sleeping and waking hours a living nightmare. My heart beat between my ears, a constant patter that was far beyond anything of a normal rhythm. I stopped dead, watching her darkness move around him like a sinister cloud. I reached out and picked up the bracelet. She stopped. Her head turned to me and for the first time, I saw her face. It was small, but sharp, like their name. She looked like a fox, with high carved, almost skeletal cheekbones, a regal nose and chin. Her eyes beneath the black veil that she wore around her head where two beads of shining black. I held out the bracelet in front of me like a talisman. She tilted her head quickly to the side, a jarring and animalistic movement. I took a step towards her and she hissed, feral. What could possibly be causing her to have this sort of reaction? Was she trying to protect her brother? Did she think that I meant to hurt him in some way? I took another step forward.
She made a noise that sounded like the scream of a car breaking as she shrank back, removing her long talons from around him. She disappeared. Thomas' face also distorted in pain too and I immediately stopped my advance. He opened his eyes and looked at me with heart wrenching sadness, before he too melted into the air.
"No," I breathed, walking forward into the now empty space they had occupied. The air was impossibly cold. It pricked my skin and chilled my airways as I took in a deep shuddering breath. Defeated, I put the bracelet on and got back into bed.
If Thomas wasn't going to talk to me, or being prevented to in some way by Lucille, then I would have to go back to the books. After lessons the next day I went back into the library to look for the book that I'd found on the history of Cumbria. I found the book and took it to one of the tables to read. Checking the contents page, I found a reference to Allerdale and flipped to it. There was a large illustration of the house as it had looked at its heyday. It was impressive, imposing even, with its large gothic spires and tall, narrow windows. But the chapter was a bust. It was about the history of the architect who had designed the house, about the crimson clay mines below, and about the history of the Sharpe family. All there was about Thomas and Lucille was a few sentences that alluded to their tragic deaths from the malfunction of the mining machine. Nothing I didn't already know. With a sigh, I snapped the book closed and looked up just as Joe walked through the main door of the library. He carried a large stack of thin books that looked familiar. Yearbooks. He caught my eye, smiled and came over.
He nodded to the book that I was reading. "I see that we're both thinking along the same lines."
"There's nothing useful in here," I sighed, waving my hand at the book. "I checked the year books too. There's nothing in them either."
"I disagree. There's something very interesting about the year books." I frowned. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, setting his pile of books next to mine. "I've searched through the last twenty years of Allerdale." He pulled out a book from the stack. 1967. He opened it at the forward. "This is the last forward that has been written by your doppelganger, Edith. She would have been in her late eighties."
"I don't get it. How is that useful information?"
"I've checked through the next eight years of yearbooks. There's nothing more about her." He paused and stared at me intently, as if willing me to come to the conclusion on my own. Ever the teacher. He was trying to get me to figure it out for myself. I searched my mind for the connection, but it wouldn't come.
I threw my hands up in defeat. "I don't know."
Joe sighed, then leaned forward across the table. His voice was low, urgent. "There's no obituary. No tribute, no: 'Remembering our great founder'. Beth, I think Edith Cushing is still alive."