The Deeps - Volume 1, Issue 2

Haunted

Holly J. Underhill

You don’t remember dying at first.

It comes to you in bits and pieces, memories that don’t quite line up right. The press of fingers against your throat, the sharp glint of an angry gaze, a shadowed reflection in a shattered mirror. The feel of the cold wind through a broken window, bringing with it the bite of a winter storm, raindrops kissing your skin. You only remember, some time later, the way it felt to gasp and gasp but find no more air in your lungs, as if your mind wanted to spare you the moment when you died for good. The moment when you ceased to exist.

But you’re still existing, aren’t you? Just not exactly the way you had before.

•  •  •

You wake slowly in the dark. There’s a curious weightlessness to your body. A feeling of detachment. You open your eyes, but you can’t see through this void. Your breath is shallow, panic-laced, as you claw at whatever is surrounding you until you realize there is no sensation of touch on your skin. No hint of pressure on your fingers, no scrape of your palm against a rough-edged surface. There is nothing. The panic rises.

You start to sit up and—

Suddenly, you’re startled by a blinding light. You shield your eyes from the glare, blinking away tears. When you open them, you are sitting halfway buried in a forest. The ground comes up to your stomach, but you aren’t trapped. You can move. The sun is a bright glow against your face, dappling the barren winter trees.

You feel neither cold, nor warm. It’s like you are unaffected by nature’s presence.

The wind whistles through the tree branches, rustling the last of the fallen leaves, but it doesn’t stir a single strand of your hair. When you push to your feet, the earth bends around you. No, not simply bends. It dissolves easily, like snowflakes against a warm coat. Your footsteps are noiseless even as you crunch over the dead leaves that haven’t been covered by snow yet. You walk through the forest, feeling strangely insubstantial, strangely emptied of mind.

Memories begin to surface; memories that burn your throat and tear at your insides with anguish. The anguish shifts, simmering to anger, and one image comes into your mind then with startling clarity: Him.

As soon as you think of Emerson, your body flickers before it’s wrenched into existence outside the forest.

The house stands before you now, all distant shadows and crumbling façade. Your parents had sent you here with a dowry Emerson couldn’t refuse because his family had spent their coffers on drink and gambling. Your mother had trussed you up like a prized hog for the dinner table, presenting Emerson with a well-bred lady fit for nobility.

What he hadn’t understood, as he’d grasped your hand and pressed a kiss to the back of your glove, was that you were no lady at all.

When you first arrived, the house had been beautiful. You had a set of rooms to yourself, housemaids to tend to your every wish, a man who had all the makings of a romantic hero from those books your mother told you not to read but that you’d snuck from the library anyway, learning the language of intimacy under the cover of night.

It took a month for the cracks to begin to show, for the rot to ooze through the walls and turn the air rancid. Most of the servants you’d seen when the carriage dropped you off had been hired for the sole purpose of impressing you. The workload for a manor of this size was too much for the rest of them, and Emerson didn’t have your dowry yet. The manor fell into disrepair, and with it, any hope Emerson had of you becoming his wife turned into a bitter ugliness.

It only took him another month to show you who he was, the cruelty of his heart and the bleakness of his soul.

You started leaving rooms whenever he walked into them, always staying in your own wing until you knew he wouldn’t be around. Until, one day, you couldn’t take being shut up inside all day and you left the house.

You’d crept onto the grounds, picking your way past the wild gardens and unkempt hedgerows, the stone fountain with all its cracks and dirty rain water. You’d cleared the house’s sight and stepped into the light of a spring afternoon. The stable was directly in front of you, and a small chapel sat before the woods to your right. You started to turn that way, although you didn’t much care for the religion anymore, when something caught your attention.

A young woman was leading a brown stallion out of the barn, unaware of your presence. She paused, the bridle in one hand while the other trailed over the horse’s flank. You moved closer, not wanting to startle them. As you drew in earshot, you heard the low, melodic murmur of her voice. She was talking with the animal, soothing it, and something about this gentle woman being anywhere near Emerson struck fear in you.

“Hello.” Her voice startled you, even more so when you realized she was speaking to you and not the stallion.

You licked your dry lips, clearing your throat when your first attempt came out hoarse and brittle. “Hello.”

She finally turned in your direction, and her beauty took your breath away. “You must be the new lady of the house.”

"Not the lady yet," you replied, without thinking, a certain uneasiness in your tone.

She didn’t respond, though her eyes softened to something akin to sympathy. “Would you like to come on a walk with us?” You wanted it, more than anything you’d ever wanted in your life. And you knew, even then, that it would change everything.

•  •  •

You stare up at the glorious, crumbling Templeton mansion, a darkness seething from it that threatens to swallow you up once again. You don’t want to go into the house; you’d rather be anywhere else. But you need to find her. Your Annabel.

The house is quiet, and your footsteps make no sound on the floor as you move into the entrance hall. The room is silent and empty. There’s frost on the windows, but your breath doesn’t cloud the air.

There’s a staircase to the right, spiraling up to the second floor. You start up the stairs, but before you can ascend to the top, a shout startles you.

“Paxton! I told you to attend to me!”

If you still had a heart, it would be pounding, furious and fearful at the sound of his voice. You turn, your foot poised on the very bottom step as if to run away, when he appears at the top of the stairs. “Where is that cursed footman of mine?”

He’s disheveled, his cravat untied and his shirt billowing loose over his trousers. The light of the sun gilds his golden hair and paints his features in shadow, but you can still see the sneer on his face.

“You dismissed him, sir.”

It’s the butler, John, appearing from a side door. He and his wife, Mary, are the only two servants left and they’d never had much love for you. He walks over, running right through you. He makes a startled noise, and shivers, looking around as if he can see you. You don’t move, as startled as he is, but you’re not suddenly corporeal. You still aren’t part of their world.

“And why did I do that?” Emerson asks, his voice thin with a razor edge.

“Because you did not have the money to pay him, sir.” John’s face is neutral, the lines even. But there is a slight trembling in his build, fear in the eyes that he keeps downcast.

Emerson curses, and the harsh words echo in the cavernous hall. “Then you must help me with that now, Baker.”

John follows Emerson up to his room on the second floor, leaving you alone again to continue your search for Annabel.

When you think of her, the stable comes to your mind and you gasp. Of course, if Annabel would have come back anywhere, it would be the place she’d considered her home.

You vanish through the walls until you’re in the gardens, hurrying to the building that had come to be your home too. There is so much hope blossoming in your chest.

Still, you pause before walking through the stable doors. What if she’s not there? What if she’s in that afterlife you’ve been barred from? She was never as angry or as frustrated by her circumstances as you. She’d been a servant since she was a little girl, having already decided it wasn’t worth stewing over the injustices because her life wasn’t going to change. But you’d wanted to change it; you’d wanted to pull her away from this broken house and its dangerous master. You’d begged her to run away with you, but she’d been too scared. You’d argued about it.

It was the last time you’d spoken to her, before Emerson found the two of you kissing in the meadow you’d thought no one else knew about.

What if she’s there, and she doesn’t want to see you? What if death by his hands has ruined her feelings for you, has damaged your relationship beyond repair? Or what if it was you? Your fault, for pushing her so hard and ignoring her feelings?

You almost don’t want to know if she’s here.

You are not a coward, though, and your love for her is stronger than anything. You know she’s the reason you haven’t moved on from the world of the living yet.

You push through the doors, stepping into the stable for the first time since you died.

It smells the same: hay and animal and manure. The three horses don’t come to the doors of their stalls, but you think they can sense your presence because they nicker as you walk closer.

You stop when a soft, beautiful humming drifts your way. Annabel used to hum while she tended the horses.

You follow the sound until you reach the last stall where the stallion rests. Annabel is standing next to the horse, brushing her hands over his flank like she can actually touch him.

You stare in wonder. “Annabel?” you ask. She looks the same as the day Emerson drove a dagger through her gut. The same long brown hair, the same warm smile on her face. Yet, there’s a gaping hole in her shirt with dried bloodstains on it. You’re both wearing the same thing you died in; you’ve already looked in a mirror and seen the bruises on your throat and neck, the small cuts from the window’s broken glass after you’d crawled over it to try to get away. You can’t escape the damage. You can’t escape the memories.

Her voice pulls you back to her. “Evelyn?” She steps forward, then stops, as if she can’t quite believe her eyes.

A sob catches in your throat. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

Annabel closes the last bit of distance between the two of you, reaching for your hands. To your surprise, your fingers connect, hers warm and calloused and real.

Annabel looks at you with wide eyes, and you imagine the same emotions are reflected in yours. You run your hand up her arm and over her shoulder before you press your palm to her cheek. You give a delighted laugh, and then lean in. It’s as if nothing bad has happened as you seal her lips with yours. You kiss and kiss, getting reacquainted with one another’s bodies, until you hear a noise.

You break apart at the same time, a habit from when you had to hide your relationship from Emerson. But you hadn’t hidden it enough, hadn’t been careful enough.

It’s just the stallion, pawing at the ground.

“I didn’t know if—”

“I’m sorry I waited—”

You both laugh, gesturing for the other to go first. Annabel waves you on. “I’m sorry,” you say in a rush. “I’m sorry for pushing you, for our arguing to be the last thing that both of us—” You draw in a sharp and anxious breath, needing to release this pent-up emotion before you crumble into tiny pieces. “You don’t know how sorry I am for everything.”

Annabel places her palms on your cheeks, pulling you in close. “It’s not your fault.”

“But it is. If I hadn’t been so focused on getting you to agree with me, I’d have seen Emerson coming. I’d have fixed things before they were out of control.” Before Emerson had driven a knife through your lover’s belly. Before he’d thrown you around the upstairs parlor and choked the life out of you.

Annabel’s smile is small and trembling. “It was probably always going to end this way, darling. He never would have allowed us to escape.”

You know it’s true. You know that even if the two of you had managed to leave, he’d have done everything in his power to find you. To drag you back to this decrepit house and punish you for disobeying him. For betraying him. But still, you want her to forgive you, to absolve you of this wretched feeling that you ruined everything. She’s dead because of you.

“Evelyn, I don’t blame you for any of it.” Annabel presses her forehead to yours. “I only blame him.”

She’s so good, so kind. Even when you should shoulder some of that blame yourself, she won’t let you.

“I love you so much,” you say, capturing her lips again.

It is days before you finally venture from the stable. Annabel walks beside you, her fingers clasped in yours. She wants to see the chapel, but your mind is pulled toward the lake.

When Emerson caught the two of you that day, his rage over your betrayal couldn’t be placated. You had fallen in love with someone else and refused to marry him. Since he couldn’t have you or your dowry, he stole away your chance at happiness.

You remember Emerson dumping Annabel’s body in the dirty, muddy water, ignoring your screams as he did it, wading in until his trousers were wet and his hands were shaking with cold. You remember the pain from his fingers clenched in your hair, dragging you back into the house, cutting off your view of the still water with a slam of the front door.

You will never forget the smirk on his face as he threw you to the floor with disgust and left you there.

You are suddenly burning with so much anger that your form flickers until you are in the house, watching Emerson pace in his study. Your grief returns in full, the pain too much to bear. The force of it would have taken your breath away were you still alive. Your anguish should pierce the room, but the sound doesn’t carry. You wish he could hear it; you wish he could know the hurt he’s caused. You push out with all your might, with all the energy you have in you, and something happens.

The vase, which had been standing tall and proud on the ornate table in the room, suddenly teeters precariously before it crashes to the floor, shattering into dozens of small pieces.

Emerson whirls around with a strangled shout. When he sees what’s happened, his face creases into anger, and he calls for John to come clean up the mess. But you cannot stop staring at what you did.

Because it has to be you. The windows are shuttered, no windy breeze sweeping into the room and knocking into the vase. Emerson himself stood at the far window, staring out onto his immense land.

He could not have moved that vase.

You look at your hands as if they were the culprit, but you still cannot touch anything solid. Yet, you feel an energy pulsing through you. What if you just—

You push out with all your strength, and all the window curtains swirl as if a forceful wind has just torn through. It’s a small thing, insubstantial. But you delight in it; you laugh, spinning in a circle. You can affect the world.

“Was that you?” Annabel asks from the doorway.

“Yes, it was,” you say, your voice pitched high in excitement.

Her gaze is wide-eyed with wonder. “You can still move things on the earthly plane.”

In response, you test your limits by scattering the papers strewn across his desk. Emerson jumps from where he’s seated at the desk, stooping to collect his correspondences, telling John to help him.

“I don’t know what’s going on today,” Emerson mutters.

“Must be a draft. Old houses are fickle like that,” John says dismissively.

“And the vase?”

“It must not have been balanced well.” John’s words do little to assure him, and it gives you an idea.

“Do you know what this means?” you say, walking over and taking Annabel’s hands, your body thrumming with verve, making you feel as if you are alive again. “We can use this against him.”

Annabel’s expression softens into one of warm sympathy. “Evelyn, it won’t change our future.”

You understand her reasoning, but you can’t shake your fury. “Annabel, don’t you want to make him suffer the way he made us suffer? Don’t you want to avenge our deaths?”

“I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my existence being angry,” she says quietly.

You bring her hands to your lips, placing a kiss on each knuckle. “Then I will do it for the both of us.”

You spend your days with Annabel, wrapped in a tangle of limbs in the stable or going on walks through the woods. But at night, you wander the desolate halls of Templeton Manor because you can’t seem to settle into peace. You don’t feel the passage of time, so you watch the multitude of clocks as they tick the hours by. You even try to tug at the hands with your own, trying to mess with the time.

One cold night, you find yourself in Emerson’s bedroom as he sleeps peacefully. He’s spread out on the sheet, the thick, quilted blanket pulled up only to his waist, leaving him bare-chested, one arm flung over his eyes. A soft snore leaves his mouth. Your lip curls at the sound of it.

A fire is roaring in the corner of your eye. You stroll over to it and dip your fingers into the flames, delighted they can’t burn you. You put the fire out, and the room goes dark.

It takes an hour before Emerson rouses from his slumber. He’s groggy, shivering, and he glances at the dead fire in confusion before ringing the servants’ bell so vigorously you know he’s woken both Mary and John.

When they don’t respond quick enough, he flings himself from the bed, eyes wild and fierce, and you start to back away. He can’t see you, he can’t even touch you anymore, but you remember all too well what happens when he doesn’t get his way. The rage that simmers until it reaches a boiling point that ends in pain.

John arrives then, and he stokes the flames high and strong, before leaving with a disgruntled expression to the lord of the manor who isn’t even looking at him as he drifts back to the bed.

You put out the fire again and again through the night, until dawn rises and Emerson’s gotten little sleep.

“I just wish I could do more than simple parlor tricks,” you say as you pace the stallion’s stall, while Annabel softly croons to the horse. Sometimes, you think he can hear her, that he knows she’s there, because his ears will perk up and he’ll lean in closer to her.

Annabel sighs, because she’s heard this more than once. “Evelyn, we have each other again. It’s enough.”

But it’s not enough; it will never be enough. “Help me destroy him.” It’s a quiet plea, and you hadn’t even meant to let it out, but you can’t stop. “Help me avenge our deaths.”

“Perhaps we must simply let it go,” Annabel says with a determined expression. “Perhaps it’s our anger and our pain that is keeping us here.”

“I can’t leave without making him pay for it.”

Every time you think too deeply of him, every time your fury returns, your body brings you to Emerson, wherever he is in the house. You can’t control it. You can’t will yourself away from him, it seems. He’s the reason you’re in this predicament.

You put all of your attention on causing Emerson distress. More nights where you make him wake in the cold and dark, cursing John for being a lousy servant. You follow him through the house, into his office. You shove ledgers off his desk and push more expensive antiques to the floor. Emerson lets loose foul words and screams for John to come fix whatever issue you’ve caused now. He yells at Mary when you knock his food off the table, ruining his meals.

Once, you’re able to shift an ottoman in the parlor, and Emerson unknowingly walks into it, causing him to trip over his own feet. But the pain of stubbing his toes doesn’t satiate you. There is no relief in this half-life.

You find Annabel in the stable by herself on a gloriously bright morning after Emerson decides to go for a ride.

When you explain everything you’ve learned about your power, she appears not horrified but curious. Hopeful. “I wonder if, someday, I’ll be able to actually pet him again,” she says with a wistful look at her companion.

You smile. “I’m sure there’s a way, my love.”

John appears in front of the stall you’re standing in, whistling. He opens the door and clicks at the stallion when it doesn’t come to him. “Filthy, rotten animal,” he curses. You and Annabel move out of the way on instinct as John steps into the stall to grab the bridle, leading the recalcitrant and stubborn horse out.

That stallion had never liked anybody but Annabel.

A few moments later, a loud shout startles the two of you. You grab Annabel’s hand, pulling her out of the stable, and into the bright sunlight.

Emerson’s holding his arm, his face pale and body shaken. The stallion has reared up on its hind legs, refusing to let John anywhere near it.

“Do something about him!”

John’s brow is slick with sweat. “I’m no horse master, sir.”

Emerson’s face is an angry smear in the pale blue of the day. “If you’re not going to do something about this useless creature, then I will.” He walks off, disappearing into the house. When he returns, he holds a rifle in his hands and a dark look in his eyes.

The gunshot cracks the air, and in the silence that follows, no one else can hear the anguish in Annabel’s voice as she drops to her knees beside the horse that used to be her best friend.

“Annabel,” you murmur, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She looks up at you; her eyes no longer burn with grief but anger. “He has to pay for this.”

“He will.” It’s a declaration, a promise.

•  •  •

Emerson lounges in one of the high-backed dining room chairs, but he is far from relaxed. Lines of exhaustion crease his face, and his hair is disheveled. He glowers at the rotting food on his plate, a meal he had to scrounge up for himself, as Mary and John have finally left the Templeton estate. The coffers are empty, and there have been tales that the manor is haunted. They couldn’t take it anymore.

You and Annabel have spent the past few months making his life hell. You’ve grown more powerful, and you scare him now.

You put your hand on one of the paintings in the room and shove it to the side. It falls to the floor with a loud crash and the wooden frame splinters. The fear on his face is delicious.

“No,” he murmurs, putting his head in his hands. “No, stop it.”

Annabel picks up a bruised peach from the sideboard and lobs it at the wall with a splat. The mushy insides trail down the wallpaper and drip onto the floor.

Emerson moans. “Please.” He pulls at his hair, his voice anguished. “Please leave me alone.”

After you extinguish the lamps and the room goes dark, Emerson scrambles out of his chair and disappears from the room. You only have to think his name before you are there, trailing him up the stairs to the second floor. Annabel is at the top, and Emerson pushes through her, shuddering and glancing over his shoulder as if he can feel you chasing him.

Annabel makes the lamps flicker ominously before eventually plunging this hallway into darkness. Emerson screams, flailing around with no sense of direction. Thunder booms outside and lightning stripes his pale face as you let the windows fly open, shutters slamming against the house, bringing in the cool scent of rain. Emerson’s harsh breaths fill the air.

He’s very close to the staircase now, within reach of you and Annabel. As a new peal of thunder shakes the old bones of the house, the lightning illuminates all of you, and Emerson screams again. “Not—not possible.” He points a trembling finger your way. “I killed you. Both of you.”

You relish the terror on his face, smiling wide. You hope he hears you when you say, “And now it’s your turn.”

Emerson trips backward, and you push all your energy forward, until his body tears through the staircase railing and falls to the floor below with a vicious crack. You and Annabel walk over, staring down at the mess.

“He-help me,” he gurgles, reaching out with a shaking hand.

But he has no one. He is all alone now.

Blood pools below his head. You watch until his labored breaths have subsided, feeling a deep sense of satisfaction.

It is months before anyone comes looking for Emerson Templeton, and it is months yet before a new heir to the estate is found. And when that heir arrives, it takes only weeks before you run him out of the house, fleeing in such a flurry that he forgets all his things.

You and Annabel claim the manor as your own. As it falls into a state of complete ruin, empty and devoid of anything living, you hold onto each other. It’s a half-life, haunting the halls and scaring away those who dare try to take it back, but with Annabel by your side, it’s better than any life you could’ve dreamed of.