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There are nights that Burke leaves the lights off as he walks. Closing the door to his workshop after nodding off at his desk one time too many, he leaves his lamp unlit. In truth, he could walk the whole manor blind if he wanted to. He knew those old halls well enough. In truth, that wasn’t why he did it.
Padding lightlessly down the corridors in those still hours, he could imagine he was still in the house he’d known.
All that was unfamiliar melted into the inky shadows, and soon he was walking back through history. Past scorched wood and the soft crunch of shattered glass underfoot,
(where the lingering smell of smoke or the hollow ring of long-empty corridors sometimes dug their fingers into him, refusing to let him leave.)
(where, sometimes, he would have to light the lamp he carried so he could make it back to his room at all.)
in the dark, he walked, until he stepped into a warmer place.
He’d never been one to believe in ghosts, but walking through the silence and the black of night, some traitorous part of him still hoped to find himself haunted by those who had once made this place so welcoming.
He’d done this before. Countless times, even before the Baron had arrived and rebuilt the manor, he’d walked through its ruined halls. Alone and half-mad and desperate to see the ghosts of any of them.
(It was selfish, he always came around to concluding, to wish that they would stay only for his sake.)
(It never stopped him from trying.)
He stopped, eyes slipping open from where they’d drifted shut as he’d walked. It was still dark; the silvery light from a half-clouded moon spilled across the carpet from a window down the hall. Burke reached for where he knew the doorknob to be.
The creak of the old hinges was stark against the stillness of the rest of the manor, and he entered his room. He set the unlit lamp aside on the bedside table before climbing into bed.
There were no ghosts.
He closed his eyes.
He was haunted, nonetheless.