Deception by Lee Nichols

whose life I lived from the inside: her stolen kiss in the gazebo and her pretty blue gown with the stifling corset.
    Ghosts.
    For a long time, I sat there fiddling with piano keys. Then I stood. Might as well get this over with. I started toward the kitchen to find whomever — or whatever — was cooking my meals and lighting the fires.
    But when I turned toward the door, I found that they’d come to me.
    Three of them standing in line by the door, as if awaiting my inspection. A man, a woman, and a boy.
    I stepped cautiously forward. A shock of white hair rose above the man’s ruddy face, and he had a curly mustache of impressive proportions. He wore chef’s whites and held his floppy hat in his hand. Beside him stood a flirty-looking redhead in a black dress and white apron, with a little white cap pinned to her luxuriant hair. I recognized the hair from that early morning in my room, when she stoked the fire in the hearth. And I knew the boy, too — the kid with the clay marbles and slingshot, dressed basically as Oliver Twist, with a pale face and big mischievous eyes. Frankly, seen in the light, they all looked like some low-budget period piece from Masterpiece Theatre .
    I stared at them, from one to the next and back again, and they stood with gazes lowered. They clearly wanted something from me, but I didn’t know what.
    “Thank you,” I said, finally.
    The boy raised his head and grinned at me, and the maid elbowed him softly. He lowered his gaze to the patched cap he was wringing in his hands, then stuck his tongue out.
    For some reason, this gave me the courage to continue. “You were there for me when nobody else was.” I looked to the chef. “You’re the one cooking dinner and packing me those lunches? I don’t know what you put in the cookies, but they ought to be illegal.” At his expression, I quickly added, “That’s a compliment!”
    The chef bowed slightly, beaming under his mustache.
    “Setting out my clothes for me every morning and looking after my room,” I told the woman, “you’ve made me feel at home here, thank you.” I looked at the boy. “And you! I don’t even know what you do, sweep the chimneys?” Smiles blossomed on their faces, and the boy mimed something to me. “Oh! You fixed the furnace?”
    The boy nodded shyly.
    “Then you’re my hero. Thank you all. I, um, I’m new to this and — ” I stopped, catching sight of myself in the reflection of the big window, alone in the empty ballroom. “Hoo boy. I’m in for a long stay in a padded room.”
    My footsteps echoed as I crossed the ballroom to the window. Maybe the ghosts didn’t appear in the reflection, but I did — and nothing confused me more than myself. Nothing alarmed me more.
    I saw ghosts.
    Every day, here in Echo Point, I saw them more easily, and more clearly. The harmless, helpful ones, like the man in the brown suit, the maid, the chef, and the urchin.
    And the others. The looming figure braided together from burial ashes, the whispering shadows in the village that had ached with hunger and crept toward me with malicious intent. Neossss . The man in the storefront, who’d cut me all those years ago.
    I turned back to the room and the three ghosts were gone. Very discreet, leaving me alone with my feelings. Like good servants, they’d been trained to remain in the background.
    Grabbing my backpack from the piano, I headed to the front door — I needed to get out of here.
    I stopped short in the the hallway.
    Another ghost stood at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by antique luggage, an old steamer trunk, and a capacious velvet bag. She looked like Mary Poppins, with a white ruffled shirt peeping from under a trim black jacket that brought the word bombazine to mind. Her steel gray hair was pinned into a soft French twist.
    Her face caught my attention, because her expression was so sweet and kind that I wanted to throw myself into her arms for a comforting cuddle. Except I’d probably