NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

 “No, I’ve got it. But you could light the fire. A fire’d be nice. It’s cold tonight, but thank God, clear. I’d hate to worry about my chicks navigating slick roads on their way home to roost later.”

 “I thought the same thing about my own earlier. Never ends, does it?”

 “No.” She set out the food, the coffee, then sat on the couch, instinctively propped her feet on the table. She stared at her own feet, surprised. It was a habit, she knew, but one she didn’t indulge in when she had guests. She glanced at Mitch’s back as he crouched to light kindling.

 She supposed it meant she was comfortable with him, and that was fine. Better than labeling him a guest as she’d be trusting him with her family.

 “You’re right, it’s nice to have a fire.”

 He came back, set up his recorder, his notebook, then settled on the other end of the couch, shifting his body toward hers. “I’d like to start off with you telling me about the first time you remember seeing Amelia.”

 Straight to business, she thought. “I don’t know that I remember a first time, not specifically. I’d have been young. Very. I remember her voice, the singing, and a kind of comforting presence. I thought—to the best of my memory, that is—that it was my mother. But my mother wasn’t one to look in at night, and I never remember her singing to me. It wasn’t her way. I remember her—Amelia—being there a few times when I was sick. A cold, a fever. It’s more that she was there, and expected to be in a way, than a jolting first time.”

 “Who told you about her?”

 “My father, my grandmother. My grandmother more, I suppose. The family would talk about her casually, in vague terms. She was both a point of pride—we have a ghost—and a slight embarrassment—we have a ghost. Depending on who was talking. My father believed she was one of the Harper Brides, while my grandmother maintained she was a servant or guest, someone who’d been misused somehow. Someone who had died here, but wasn’t blood kin.”

 “Did your father, your grandmother, your mother, ever tell you about their specific experiences with her?”

 “My mother would get palpitations if the subject was brought up. My mother was very fond of her palpitations.”

 Mitch grinned at the dry tone, watched her spread some brie. “I had a great-aunt like that. She had spells. Her day wasn’t complete without at least one spell.”

 “Why some people delight in having conditions is more than I can understand. My mother did speak to me of her once or twice, in a sort of gloom-and-doom manner—something else she was fond of. Warning me that one day I’d inherit this burden, and hoping for my sake it didn’t shatter my health, as it had hers.”

 “She was afraid of Amelia, then.”

 “No, no.” Roz waved that away, nibbled on a cracker. “She enjoyed being long-suffering, and a kind of trembling martyr. Which sounds very unkind coming from her only child.”

 “Let’s call it honest instead.”

 “Comes to the same. In any case, other times, it was bearing and birthing me that had ruined her health. And others, she’d been delicate since a bout of pneumonia as a child. Hardly matters.”

 “Actually, it’s helpful. Bits and pieces, personal observations and memories are helpful, a start toward the big picture. What about your father?”

 “My father was generally amused by the idea of a ghost and had fond memories of her from his own childhood. But then he’d be annoyed or embarrassed if she made an appearance and frightened a guest. My father was fiercely hospitable, and mortified on a deep, personal level if a guest in his home was inconvenienced.”

 “What sort of memories did he have?”

 “The same you’ve heard before. It hardly varies. Her singing to him, visiting him in his room, a maternal presence until he was about twelve.”

 “No disturbances?”

 “Not that he told me, but my grandmother said he sometimes had nightmares as a boy. Just one or two a year, where he claimed to see a woman in white, with her eyes bulging, and he could hear her screaming in his head. Sometimes she was in his room, sometimes she was outside, and so was he—in the dream.”

 “Dreams would be another common thread, then. Have you had any?”

 “No, not . . .”

 “What?”

 “I always thought it was nerves. In the weeks before John and I were married, I had dreams. Of storms. Black skies and thunder, cold winds. A hole in the garden, like a grave, with dead flowers inside it.” She shivered once. “Horrible. But they stopped after I was married. I dismissed them.”

 “And since?”

 “No. Never. My grandmother saw her more than anyone, at least more than anyone would admit to. In the house, in the garden, in my father’s room when he was a boy. She never told me anything frightening. But maybe she wouldn’t have. Of all my family, that I recall, she was the most sympathetic toward Amelia. But to be honest, it wasn’t the primary topic of conversation in the house. It was simply accepted, or ignored.”