Haunted by Lynn Carthage

really sorry. I feel awful.”
    He turned and dove under the surface, and in one long push he was at the edge of the pool. He pulled himself up without looking at me and walked away, water streaming down his swim trunks and large calves.
    I stayed in the water feeling stupid. Had anyone seen him kiss me and stalk off afterward? I looked around but no one seemed to pay any attention, everyone still doing their laps and messing around with their kids in the shallow end. No one had seen the newcomer so blatantly humiliated.
    What had I done wrong?

C HAPTER S EVEN
    Of particular interest to the simple townsfolk who, with
widened eyes, ogled the shipload after shipload of arriving
treasures, was the Hall of Ancestors, a portrait gallery on the
top floor of the west wing. Pictured here are several notable
examples, particularly one featuring the mistress of the
residence herself, Yolande Arnaud, painted by French royal
portraitist Hyacinthe Rigaud.
    Â 
    â€”From England: Her Cities, Her Towns, Her Pride, Vol. XII

    T hat night, I watched Tabby sleep again. What else could I do?
    Periodically she flopped noisily from one side to the other, kicking her feet free of the blanket. Then she’d sigh and drowsily pull it back up. My own eyelids never closed.
    Deep shame seethed through me as I stared at the pajama sleeve covering her puncture mark.
    Hours later, she woke and Mom spirited her away for breakfast. If not for that marker, I’d have no idea what time of day it was. Without windows to note the sun’s progress, I was at a loss. Once again I thought how strange it was that there were windows on only one side of the apartment, that our living quarters nested inside the manor like those stout, wooden, kerchief-wearing Russian dolls, each smaller than the one it fit into.
    I walked down the hall. I was going to go back to find Eleanor Darrow’s diary, and if it wasn’t there, I’d try the automatic writing again—Madame Arnaud’s version of it. I’d invite her to write to me again.
    But as soon as I walked past the den, I saw them. Pages carefully placed on the rug in a row like color samples.
    The sheets were riddled with her slanted, aristocratic handwriting. This time she’d done me the favor of numbering them.
    Oh, Phoebe, how droll you are! Madame Arnaud had written.

    I imagined you would have picked up those other pages to bring them immediately to your parents! Aren’t you trying to convince them of my presence? The walls have ears, my dear.
    But you permitted me to scoop the pages up and take them! You left them there!
    I reasoned, though, that even should they be presented to your parents, they would think the only sane thing possible: that you yourself wrote them. A short story of sorts. So I leave these here.
    Is your little mind reeling about things you may have been told about me?
    About the things I myself revealed to you?
    You shall be my confidante, you lucky girl. And my heir in every sense of that word. I can share with you, if you help me. Share what? Yes . . . that thing. That small thing we call immortality.
    When one is obliged to do something unpleasant, why not try to enjoy it? I have heard the maids whistling at their dirty tasks after all. And when provided a distasteful physick, an invalid will manage a way to swallow it. I have come to regard my grim elixir with much glee, for it fortifies me and lengthens my life. I commissioned a special device to enhance my gratification and it is a handsome bit of handwrought silverwork. Who could not help but be pleased when bending to put one’s lips to such a piece?

    I stopped reading for a second. She was talking about the silver straw as if I hadn’t heard of it before . . . which meant she had not been privy to my conversation with Miles as we read Eleanor Darrow’s diary.

    When this household was full, it was the easiest thing to swig all that I needed. Children adore me. As I bent to suck their