The Ghost and the Rose

Chapter 17

"What now?" Henry breathed. His hands rested on the edge of the dining table.

Meg struggled to conceal the anguish and disappointment on her face. Deep down in my gut, I knew it wasn't disappointment in me, I had tried my best. But I felt it all the same. Their hope was pinned solely on me and I had let them down.

"You must not think like that," Elizabeth soothed, and I snapped my head up. There was nothing but sympathy written on her face.

"You read minds too?"

Elizabeth laughed. "I read faces."

"And yet the question still remains, what now?" repeated Henry.

Something played on my mind. It was the only thing I had not completed of the day. I wasn't sure if I would ever muster enough bravery to say it, so I blurted it out.

"What if my blood needs to be spilt?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Meg.

"Kate's blood sealed the curse, so my thinking is, maybe my blood will unseal it." Every set of eyes looking at me were wide and unblinking. "Obviously doing what she did on her last day didn't help. So maybe something drastic is needed, or the day needs to be completed. Every part of it."

"Anne, you must not put yourself in harm's way."

"Elizabeth is right," said Henry. "I will not allow you to do that."

"I'm not talking suicide, perhaps just a little cut it all that is needed. But I think if I mirror what Kate did on that day, then we might still stand a chance. But I need to know everything now. Anything no matter how small or insignificant you think it might be. The time for secrets has passed and we are running out of time."

"Where to start?" Meg breathed.

"Well, what about the dreams and the visions? I've had them for as long as I can remember but never knew why. Why me at all?"

Eleanor spoke this time. Her voice carrying from next to the fireplace where she huddled near the heat. "We don't specifically know why you. John appeared to me in Yorkshire on the day you died. He told me that one day you would come again, and that I was to wait for you. The dreams were John trying to reach to you, speak to you but Matilda was showing you your memories. Kate's memories. She got you into quite a lot of trouble when you were children and you loved her all the more for it."

"How do you know that?"

"Do you still not know me? I admit, I looked very different the last time you saw me."

Since being here, her hair had thickened and the deep, carved lines of age had filled out. Pink coloured her cheeks replacing the pallid grey tones. She did seem familiar now and to Kate, certainly someone other than Phoebe's grandmother.

But it was in her eyes that I glimpsed the past. My past. The same blue eyes I saw when I looked in the mirror and at Henry. The same eyes that had belonged to a girl dancing in a fire-lit room with flushed cheeks and a hearty smile.

"Who am I?" she asked.

I did know her. "You're Eleanor Farthing, Kate's sister."

Eleanor was overcome with happiness. "Yes! Yes, I am your sister. The curse affected me differently because I was not in the manor at the time. I was married to Lord Bretton and living in the North. Not so far away from where you came to me at Wakefield. I did not die like the others but was still thrust into my own form of purgatory. My curse was to live forever, charged with finding the girl who would end it all." She came towards me with ease now and slipped her hands in mine. "But I am weary now, so very weary. It is difficult to watch your children go before you, then your grandchildren and then their children."