Chapter Text
Marianne had ended up with the assignment at the house out on the far-flung edge of the Atlantic Ocean by virtue of being on the lowest rung in the office. Also for having been the only person to mutter, "Cool," when the job was proposed.
Sophie, a colleague with whom she was overlapping very briefly, gave her an equally brief tour of the kitchen.
"There's electricity in a few of the rooms - here, upstairs in the room I've been sleeping in, the one bathroom on this side of the house. It might go off though. There are lots of batteries. Gas in the bottle. Enough canned food to make it through the apocalypse. I'll be back in a few weeks with supplies, take your laundry."
Marianne knew all this - the isolation bordering on desolation. It had been presented to her as though it might make her want to back out of the job. Instead, it had acted as incentive.
"Will you be all right?" Sophie asked.
"Yes, of course."
Sophie looked unconvinced. "It's a long time. I've only been here one night and I can't wait to leave."
"I like being on my own." Sophie looked so serious Marianne almost laughed. "What is it?"
"Only, you might not be on your own."
Ominous! It got Marianne leaning in despite herself. "What do you mean?"
"There's a ghost. Everyone knows. They call her The Lady in White. A poltergeist."
Marianne scoffed, largely to cover the prickle of fear running down her spine.
"They didn't warn you?"
"No," she said. "I would have laughed if they did. There's no such thing as ghosts."
Sophie did a single, slow, pitying nod.
Unhurried and alone, the next day Marianne took herself on a meandering tour of the house. Bleached clean by the sunlight, the sand, the Atlantic winds, it was exposed. Far from naked though: it was piled high with furniture like geological strata.
The house's link to the present was tenuous, moored to the 21st century only by an intermittent electricity supply and very expensive satellite broadband. But Marianne could see the potential in the place.
First, however, it needed emptying and the initial phase of that was Marianne's job. To pick over all this furniture. The driftwood of centuries. To catalogue and turn into a neat spreadsheet. Thankfully this did not involve moving anything anywhere, which was likely to be a monumental task and one Marianne did not envy the organisation of.
And it was true, what Marianne had told Sophie. She liked being alone. She valued her solitude. This could do her the world of good right now: peace and quiet and a job to focus on.
Marianne let her fingers trail a path through the dust on the furniture, looking around at treasures untold.
Out of the corner of her eye... Impossible. A trick of the light, a breeze on a dust cover.
Paranoia was contagious. Marianne would never have considered any such thing left to her own devices. But now the spectre was quite literally raised she found herself second-guessing. Was that where she had left her book, her bowl, her towel? Had she left that door open or closed? Some ancient superstition stirred deep in her genetic memory.
Later that night on the way to the kitchen a ripple of recognition ran through Marianne. An animal instinct detecting the presence of another creature.
Without thinking she spun around. Ready to catch a flap of a bird, a scurrying mouse, even an inquisitive fox. Instead, for the briefest moment, a flash of a lady dressed in white. Then only a dark and empty hall.
Marianne turned to continue walking, a shuddering breath.
The first proper day of work had gone at a painstaking pace. Everywhere Marianne turned there were more objects, more stuff. Inside that stuff, more stuff. Inside that stuff, more stuff again. Half of everything was covered in dust sheets so no wonder everyone thought there were ghosts.
While the sky turned grey and the heavens opened Marianne bustled about upstairs trying to place buckets and bowls to catch drips and just to move furniture out of the way when she ran out of appropriate receptacles. By evening the sky was lit with regular flashes of lightning and an accompanying boom rolling over the sea.
There was an impulse to run outside and stand in that lashing rain. To be cleansed somehow by the raw power of nature. But Marianne couldn't open the front door - swollen shut with the wet, she presumed - and by the time she stopped trying to force it and decided to try the side entrance the impulse had mostly passed. To cement which, the lights gave a quick sputter then all went out. Marianne climbed the stairs to bed waving her phone around for illumination.
The lack of electricity obliged Marianne to go to bed early. This greatly extended the usual several hours that she spent tossing and turning trying to get to sleep each night. The wind howled through cracks and rattled the window panes and Marianne tried to ignore the creaking, slamming door caught in a draught somewhere upstairs.
Driven half-mad - she must have been - she finally disentangled herself from her sleeping bag and switched on her lantern. She allowed herself to turn on her phone. 03:21. As if the night weren't bad enough she knew in her bones that she would be seeing The Lady again. Plus, if she were a ghost, this was prime fucking-with-the-living weather and she would take full advantage.
Marianne crept through rooms with the lantern casting a harsh, uncompromising light. Thank goodness it wasn't a candle. Instead, she stood on the shoulders of giants wielding a hundred years of technology and scientific breakthrough. As though that were any defence against the deep mysteries of the universe.
"Turn around."
Marianne tried to hold herself together. This wasn't possible, but she was going to obey despite every nerve in her body screaming for her to run - out the door and away forever.
Head first, body only following when it absolutely had to. Remaining aligned to flee.
Shining with her own soft light: The Lady in White. Who appeared about as startled as Marianne felt. Thunderous look on her face, Marianne noted, along with the translucency of her dress, the passivity of her hands at her sides.
"No one has ever heard me before," The Lady said. With her scowl it was almost an accusation. Marianne wasn't sure if she ought to apologise.
Having delivered the message, the apparition began to walk away. Against all sanity Marianne followed her. "Wait, please."
The Lady shot a withering glance over her shoulder and disappeared.
Marianne found herself at the noisy door.
Perhaps, Marianne thought, that was the end of it. Either her nerves had calmed and she had stopped these fevered dreams that had seemed so real - and yet clearly were not, could not be. Or the ghost had had her say. It had been two days.
The moment the thought occurred to her as she took a dust sheet from a mirror: the sensation of being watched. From behind. Though Marianne could see in the glass that the room was empty. She realised the choice in the turning - the challenge. So she did, without being asked. "Hello?"
Shimmering into existence, the woman appeared. Marianne took in the long white dress, the blonde hair, the defiant look. The apparition was faded in the daylight.
Marianne cleared her throat. "I'm Marianne," she said, with what she hoped was minimal shake in her voice. "Is there... anything I can do for you?" There was an echo of her brief career as a shop assistant. Clumsily delivered, yes, but utterly sincere.
"You can leave me in peace."
"That's what I want too. I'm sorry to disturb yours. It won't be for long."
The Lady nodded, though whether she was assuaged or not Marianne couldn't tell. After a moment, "Héloïse."
"It's very nice to meet you, Héloïse," Marianne said carefully.
Then she was gone.
Again Marianne began to think she had imagined that strange meeting. But the next morning she heard a noise in the hall as she was getting ready. An otherwise innocuous shuffle, except that Marianne was particularly listening out.
She went to the door and put her head out. "Good morning," Marianne said to the empty hall. Reasoning that there was no embarrassment to be had either way.
It was empty no more as Héloïse appeared a little further down. She was leant against the wall, frowning.
"Were you... waiting for me?"
Héloïse frowned some more but didn't disappear which Marianne took to mean that yes, she had been waiting, and this gave Marianne a good deal of amusement.
"I won't be a moment," she said. "You don't have to wait out here." She ducked back into her room but Héloïse did not follow. She put her head into the hall again.
"Do you need an invitation?" she joked. It fell flat.
"I have no wish to invade your privacy."
"I think I'm doing the invading." Marianne tried to make herself humble. "Come in."
Héloïse stalked in, rigid, looking about as Marianne wrestled her socks and shoes on.
"Your books?" Héloïse indicated the small pile. In response to Marianne's nod Héloïse picked one up and took it toward the window. At first this didn't seem strange at all - Héloïse was a spectral figure but a figure nonetheless. However as she got closer to the window the light seemed to interfere with her and she became more and more translucent to the point where at some angles it was just the book floating in midair.
"Ovid? This was ancient when I was alive."
"I studied classics at university. For a while." And had barely read anything since. When former pleasures all turned to ash. The idea was that at some point in this assignment even Ovid would look like entertainment. And that somehow reading it would prove something. Or that she carried it with her as a reminder of who she had once been.
Héloïse returned. "What's this? You use it often."
"My laptop. A computer. It's a machine, a device for... it's sort of maths and electronics and you can use it to... work." Héloïse's face was still uncomprehending and Marianne felt that more as a judgement on her explanations than the difficulty of breaching such a gap.
"And this?"
Next to the laptop was Marianne's phone. "Er, a smaller computer?"
Héloïse was surveying Marianne's makeshift bedside table: hairbrush, camping lantern... then she poked at the small cardboard box. "This?"
Marianne swallowed. "Medicine."
That made Héloïse look at her sharply with what could have been concern, though the hoping was probably more than the evidence. "You're ill?"
"No. Not now. Thanks to those." The truth in its most reduced form.
Héloïse nodded, satisfied. "You carry fewer possessions than your modern compatriots."
Marianne was aware but Héloïse made it sound honourable. And yet even with so few things there was always a mess. Truly a mystery. But Héloïse had almost paid her a compliment so one was necessary in return. "You live in a grand house with many beautiful things."
"Nothing here was ever mine," Héloïse snapped.
"I'm sorry." Marianne was startled though she immediately realised she shouldn’t be. She knew nothing about Héloïse but she should have known better.
Marianne rocked back on her heels and rubbed at her neck. She looked around the room. She was pretty sure Héloïse was there. "Héloïse?"
After a moment Héloïse appeared by the door.
"Do you want to go for a walk?"
"I can't leave the house."
"Oh." Ghost. "Well, will you point me in the right direction for a walk?"
Héloïse nodded and walked in front of Marianne down to the door, waiting for her to shrug on her coat. Héloïse herself opened the door and hesitated before putting a foot out onto the doorstep. Marianne hung back but Héloïse kept going down the steps and part way down the drive. Then she shook her head. "I can't go any further."
"Of course," Marianne said.
"If you take the western path the steps to the beach are easier. Watch for the tide."
"I will, thank you."
Héloïse nodded as Marianne walked away. When Marianne turned back, Héloïse had gone.
It was night-time and across the other side of the house Héloïse was moving around. Then Marianne heard the tread of the stairs and footsteps on the floor above. She had difficulty sleeping at the best of times and this constant back-and-forth across creaking floorboards was not helping.
Marianne put her hands to her head. " Héloïse!" she whispered in frustration.
"Yes?" came a voice from the door, startling Marianne into sitting.
She allowed her palpitations to subside. "Are you having trouble sleeping? You are being very... moving."
"I don't sleep. I have no need of it."
Marianne couldn't decide whether that was a perk - one could get a lot more done - or a serious problem - life without the sweet release of sleep was a daunting prospect. For an insomniac who was always chasing an elusive good night's sleep it was even more of a quandary.
"But you do."
Marianne was moved by the undercurrent of sympathy in Héloïse's voice.
"May I sit?" Héloïse indicated the chair covered in Marianne's t-shirts.
Before Marianne could leap up to make things tidy Héloïse just sat down atop the clothes. Marianne lay back down with a little smile. "Good night."
A pause. "Good night, Marianne."
Marianne sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a particularly imposing dresser. She traced the edges with her fingers, feeling the joinery and the wood, the condition of the varnish. She pulled her laptop closer and began typing.
A familiar ripple ran across the back of her neck. "Are you there?" she whispered. Duly Héloïse appeared, sat neatly on a sofa. Marianne smiled softly at her. She wasn't offended that Héloïse didn't smile back, or even make much of acknowledgement - she was here at least.
"What are you doing?" Héloïse more or less demanded.
"This is my work. I'm cataloguing the items, surveying the rooms. I haven't taken anything or moved anything."
"I know."
"What do you do?" Marianne winced. "With your day, I mean?"
"Walk, mostly."
"Are there other gh- people - around? That I can't see?" The etiquette of this was unclear.
"No. Most people just die. A few get trapped. Your ghosts."
"How do you know?" Marianne had been at least pretending to keep working so as not to scare Héloïse off with her intensity. Now her hands fell still.
"I've seen it happen."
"There were others?"
Héloïse gave a solemn nod. "A maid who needed to see her murderer hang. A woman who died in childbirth."
"But they aren't here now?"
"No. The mother - she was here for eighteen years. Watching her children grow up and leave. The open threads of her life tied off. She had her peace. And she passed on."
"On to what?" Marianne found herself whispering.
Héloïse shrugged.
"And the maid, she needed justice?"
"Mm."
"And you've been here..?"
For a while Marianne thought Héloïse was ignoring the question. She shuffled round, kneeling at Héloïse’s feet, looking up at her.
Finally, "What year is it?"
"2019."
A shadow passed across Héloïse's features. "Two hundred and forty-five years. I... I am two hundred and seventy years old."
"Héloïse..." Marianne breathed.
Héloïse reset her face to stone. "I cannot seem to find my peace," she said simply. "Do not pity me."
It wasn't pity that Marianne felt in any case. There was the burning desire to ask more questions, certainly. But mostly just this ever-expanding warmth.