The Ghost and the Rose

Chapter 7

My eyes fluttered open revealing a crimson canopy above my head. I was back at Burnley, in my bed with sheets drawn up to my chin. They were a comforting weight on my body.

All light had faded from the world outside but a warm, orange glow drenched my room. It took a while for hazy objects to lose their fuzzy edges but eventually my eyes refocused and their edges sharpened.

"Anne! Thank goodness," Phoebe breathed a sigh of relief. She was curled on a chair by my bedside like a cat, a fluffy, pink nightgown wrapped around her shoulders.

"You've given us all such a terrible fright," I knew the gruff tones belonged to Eleanor. I could make out her hunched over form huddled by the window.

"What happened?" I croaked. A scratchy dryness had settled in my throat. I fought to remember, but the images failed to materialise in my head. There was the library and then...

"I found you."

Wait. I knew that voice. He stepped forward, the orange glow illuminating his face. He allowed his lips to form a small smile.

"You were unconscious at the side of the road, as soon as I got to you, I knew you'd been hurt," he gave a curt nod towards my head. "That's quite a nasty graze you've got there."

I brought my fingers to my temple, hissing low as my skin touched. I had ran, I remembered that now but what had I been running from?

"Ralph?" I questioned myself, unsure that it was right. No, Rich.

A strange strangled half-laugh lodged in his throat. "You met me at the library, do you remember? I was worried about you because you seemed so ill when you left the library that as soon as Mrs Hart could free me, I made my way here to make sure you were alright and there you were by the roadside."

Phoebe leant forward and grasped my hand. "And what a good job he did. Who knows what could have happened to you?" She gave me a hard look. "We were all worried and just about to send a search party out to look for you, when he turned up with you in his arms."

"What were you doing for so long?" Eleanor pressed.

Closing my eyes, I tried to evoke images to help me piece together what had happened before running along the bottom road that lay parallel to Burnley's land. Nothing. I had left the library in a hurry, that I was sure but after that, nothing.

"I'm sorry, I don't know," my pathetic mumbles offered no answers.

"Anne needs to rest now. There's been too many questions, I think."

I offered Rich a grateful look as he aided Eleanor from the room.

"Sleep well, child," the old woman said.

With a quick squeeze of my hand, Phoebe left my side. "I hope you feel better soon." She blew the candles out one by one leaving me in silver iridescent gloom.

For once, sleep came easy. But the closing of my eyes brought a new terror, one that made me wish myself awake. This was something new. It wasn't death upon a medieval battlefield, but it wreaked of blood and lifelessness all the same.

The dream didn't play out as normal but instead it came in flashes, very much like the visions that plague me during the day.

There were bursts of red, not bright but more like a copper shade mixed with a tornado of other images. I recognised the turreted outline of Burnley against a clean, navy blue night sky. Then lightning struck showing me a girl with flowing, golden hair stood with her back to me, silk skirts sweeping the floor.