Ghost Girl

Chapter 1

Could the afterlife really be filled with half-naked, handsome men like him? Celia would not be happy to learn that. I giggled. Then suddenly the man and the ghosts were gone, and I was once more back in the guest bedroom of Frakingham House with Sylvia Langley at my bedside. Her huge blue eyes were filled with tears and her nose was about to drip. She pressed a blessedly cool, damp cloth against my forehead.

"Oh, Cara." The tears wobbled on the edge of her eyelids, but didn't spill. "I thought I'd lost you that time."

I tore my gaze away from her face to search the room for my angel. It wasn't easy. My eyeballs felt like they were on fire, much like the rest of me, and my neck ached. A crack of light between the edges of the drawn curtains told me it was daytime, yet candles burned on the mantel and a low fire glowed all shades of orange in the grate. The smoke didn't hide the pungent scent of illness.

"Here, try some soup." She held out a bowl and spoon, her expression one of hope and urgency.

"I'm not hungry." I could barely manage a whisper.

"You have to eat. Dr. Gowan said so."

"The doctor was here?" I didn't recall being poked and prodded.

"Yesterday morning. He'll return today." She held up the spoon. A drop of thick white soup splashed back into the bowl. "Cara, I'm going to send a telegram to Emily if the doctor tells me there's been no improvement. And believe me, I don't see any improvement. If you don't eat…"

Sweet, demure Sylvia had quite a backbone when she set her mind to it. I sipped the soup. It wasn't hot and had little taste, but it stayed down, unlike the piece of toast I'd nibbled last time. "How long have I been lying here?"

"Four days."

Four! Good lord. I must have been unconscious most of that time. I remembered little. "Am I the only ill one in the house?"

She nodded and I closed my eyes in relief. It would seem I wasn't contagious. "Samuel and Charity have returned to London permanently, and Bollard came home two days ago." Her features relaxed upon mentioning her uncle's friend, servant and laboratory assistant. Bollard the mute had been banished from Frakingham by August Langley, but it would seem their disagreement had been resolved and he'd been welcomed home again.

I consumed more soup but could not finish the bowl, and she set it aside. "I would still like to contact Emily," she said.

"Please wait. She'll only worry and I seem to be improving." I pushed myself up into a sitting position to prove it. My head swam and my limbs complained, but I managed it. My niece, Emily Beaufort, was seven years older than me and had her own family to care for. I didn't want to burden her unless absolutely necessary. "What does Dr. Gowan think is wrong with me?"

Sylvia fluffed up the pillows at my back, her blonde curls bouncing at her temples in time with her movement. "He says it's a fever."

"Brought on by what?"

She shrugged. "He doesn't know. He asked me if there was something in particular you were doing when you first became ill, but I couldn't think of anything. Can you?"

I frowned down at my hands in my lap. They were unusually pale, or as pale as my hands could ever be. My complexion was what polite people called exotic and the not-so-polite labeled dirty. My father was a Frenchman of African descent, and it was through him that I'd inherited both my coloring and my ability to see spirits. Emily too, since he was her grandfather. We were genuine mediums in a country overrun by fakes, but no longer advertised that fact.

"I was down at the ruins when I first felt ill," I said, referring to the Frakingham Abbey ruins situated on the edge of the lake, just visible from my bedroom window. "It was the day we uncovered the bones of Garrett and Owens, and I saw Garrett’s spirit."