The English Descendants

7

From the library window, Lucille watches. The front door groans open as the children enter. She glides to meet them.

Negotiations finish a half an hour after the children leave the village. Edith and Alan look for them and are beginning to worry when the postmaster approaches them.

"Ma'am, are you looking for your children?"

"Have you seen them?"

"They hired horses and rode out of town half an hour ago."

"Ready ours without delay," Alan orders.

"Did they say where they were going?"

"No, Ma'am, but I can hazard a guess."

Edith sighs, "So can I. And that terrifies me."

"Shall we organize a rescue party?"

"No. There's no one living at the house. I think we can manage."

The postmaster nods, "Right. But you should know there are rumours that the living aren't who you should be worrying about at Allerdale Hall." He sends a boy for horses, "If you're not back in a reasonable amount of time for retrieving wayward young people, we'll come riding."

The boy returns from the stables; Alan mounts his horse, but Edith turns to the postmaster, "Kerosene. I need a lot of it. Could you send someone after us with a cart?" He nods. She is soon ready to ride. Alan gives her a quizzical look. She wonders if it is possible to kill a ghost as she spurs her ride forward. He wonders what she is thinking. And the postmaster sends the boy to find kerosene and someone who wants to ride for Allerdale Hall.

"El, look at that staircase! This place must have been beautiful once." Charlotte stands in awe of her surroundings, light streaming down from the hole in the roof from the sunny day it does not shield them from.

The door slams shut behind them and Eliot jumps, "Maybe. But now it's probably going to fall on our heads and kill us."

"No, it won't kill you. At least I don't think it will."

Eyes wide, Charlotte and Eliot turn toward the kitchen- there is a woman standing beside it, her skin black, a turquoise velvet dress draped on her skeletal body, "Who are you?" Charlotte asks.

The woman laughs, "Lucille Sharpe. Welcome to Allerdale Hall."

Eliot wonders how it is that her face still looks somewhat human, even if a bit gaunt and the wrong colour, when her fingers are very obviously bones.

A man fades into view striding from under the balcony; he flickers a little in the light streaming from the lack of roof, "Don't touch them."

"Oh, Thomas! You've returned! Come now, meet our guests."

"I know you know who they are. You're not happy to see them."

Her face hardens, "You stop, Thomas. You've always made me look like the wicked one. And you've always let me take blame. But you...you're the one who ruined it for us."

He turns briefly to Eliot and Charlotte, "Run. Run and don't come back."

Charlotte shakes her head, "No. I don't see why we should. It's our family's property."

Lucille's anger rises, "Yours? You little cretin, it's our house, not yours! We've been here our entire lives!"

"Well by my estimation, you're rather dead and the dead don't have property rights."

Eliot tugs on her arm, "Come on, Lottie. I don't want to be killed by ghosts today."

"Will you stop that? Let go of me."