A fatal feast at bramsfo.., p.15
A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor, page 15
Bunny took the nightgown with her as she stepped into the spacious en suite and continued with her nighttime ritual. Once her face had been washed and moisturized, and her teeth and hair had been brushed until both glistened, she then took off her dress and slipped into the nightgown. She turned off the bathroom light, the bedroom lights, and dashed straight for the covers on the tall, canopied bed with only her reading light to guide her. That’s when she made the mistake of glancing in the long oval mirror in the corner of the room. The image of a woman in a long white gown, staring at her with hauntingly sad eyes, was enough to freeze the blood in her veins.
Just two giant steps from the bed, Bunny stopped in mid-stride. Her heart pounded in her chest as her focus was drawn to the mirror, like the helpless needle of a compass to true north. Dammit, she thought. Don’t look! But she couldn’t help herself. She looked.
Her eyes widened in the darkness, of their own accord. The light was scant. The mirror was set at an angle. And the image that first struck her, hitting all the way to the marrow of her bones, had somehow morphed into something far less frightening. That must have been it, she thought, clearly staring at herself in the full-length mirror, although her heart still beat erratically in her chest. She had to admit that the long flannel nightgown in pale pink with lace trim on the neck and the cuffs of the sleeves looked very old-fashioned. And dour. Utterly dour. Also, if she was being honest, a bit sad in a frumpy-old-maid sort of way. Oh, if her grandmother could see her now! Seeing her granddaughter, pushing thirty, in a buttoned-up flannel nighty with a pouf of frizzy red hair nearly obscuring her pale face, and frightened of her own reflection, Granny Mac wouldn’t have even bothered to make a comment about sharing her big bed with a former Ghost Guy. This very unsexy thought was enough to lift the corners of her stunned lips, turning them into something resembling a smile.
“It’s just me,” she boldly announced to the mirror, owning the look in an effort to settle her nerves. “Bridget MacBride, super-sexy flannel jammies model who is not afraid of her own reflection, thank you very much. Good night!” She turned from the mirror and leapt onto the bed, aiming for the pillows. Just as she landed the bed creaked, and a soft pitiful moan echoed in the room.
Did that come from me? she thought, knowing perfectly well that it hadn’t. She closed her eyes tightly and convinced herself that it wasn’t a moan at all. It was just the wind. The wind, she reminded herself as she scrambled to get under the covers before stuffing cotton in her ears. She then cast a longing look at the cookbook sitting on the bedside table, turned out the book light, and buried her head, ostrich style, in a pile of pillows.
Bunny slept. In fact, she’d been so tired that the moment her wild imagination settled, and her thoughts turned to the gentler pursuit of cooking, she fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep. It wasn’t until much later that the dang white rabbit hopped into her room.
Although Bunny recognized Hopper immediately—that adorable fluffy white rabbit—his presence in the opulent bedchamber puzzled her. How did he get into the manor in the first place? How had he gotten up the many flights of stairs? How had he known which room she was in? And, most importantly, what was he doing sitting like that at the edge of her bed, wiggling his pink nose at her as if he had something to say? Silly rabbit, she thought, until he spoke.
“Dinna be frightened,” he said, in a distinctly male voice. “It’s just me.”
“Hopper?” she uttered. “Oh, Hopper, it’s so good to see you again! I didn’t know you could talk.” For some reason, call it Doctor Doolittle envy, she was delighted that her rabbit talked and that she could understand him. It was, in a word, empowering. “I have so much to tell you. But first, how are you doing?”
“I’m not Hopper,” the rabbit told her in no uncertain terms, sucking the wind from her sails. “Hopper’s dead, so not fine. Besides, rabbits can’t talk.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re clearly a rabbit and I can hear you. You don’t have to hide your voice from me.”
The rabbit tilted its head at her and thumped its hind foot on the quilt in disapproval. “I’m not really a rabbit and I’m not really here. But I do need you to open your eyes. Please, Bunny, open them.”
That was all the rabbit said. After delivering his odd message, he slowly faded from the foot of her bed, and for some reason Bunny was overcome by a debilitating sadness. That’s when she opened her eyes.
The sight of the woman standing before the dark window, made Bunny suck in a gasping breath, as if her lungs had been deprived of oxygen for several minutes. Maybe they had. She really didn’t know, but what she did know was that the talking rabbit had only been a dream. Disappointment shot through her at the thought. The dream was fading, and she knew it was about to disappear forever. That was the cruel nature of dreams. The woman, dressed head to toe in white and staring out the window, wasn’t a dream at all. Bunny was awake, sitting up in bed, and staring at the ghost of a bride.
The woman was weeping. Not only could Bunny hear her, but the woman’s emotions were so overwhelming that Bunny realized she was weeping too. Great big tears welled in her eyes and rolled down her sleepy cheeks. And she resented the hell out of it.
This is exactly what she was running from. This is what she was trying to avoid at all costs. And now here she was, sleeping in the bedchamber of a haunted manor and staring at the ghost of a poor young woman who had hidden a little too well from her groom on her wedding night. Well, to hell with that! Angry, yet aching with a real feeling of loss that was not her own, Bunny addressed the woman. Unfortunately, she really didn’t know what to say to a ghost.
“Umm, I see you,” she said, projecting her voice across the room. “I see you clear as day.” If she thought the ghost would be happy about this, she was wrong. The ghostly bride ignored her and continued weeping. Bunny tried again. “I also see that you’re very sad. Thank you for sharing your pain.” Why had she said that? Stupid. “I don’t blame you for being sad,” she added, wiping the tears off her own cheeks. “I’d be sad too, in your situation, but could you move along? Please? I’m trying to sleep here.” Unfortunately, this plea fell on deaf ears.
“Dammit,” Bunny uttered under her breath. She gave a thought to trying to close her mind to the paranormal, as Granny Mac had once taught her to do, and turn her back, banishing every specter from her presence. However, the truth of the matter was, she hadn’t the strength. Ever since setting foot in Bramsford Manor her defenses had weakened. The white rabbit had come back, a man had been murdered, and now she was seeing a ghost, one she believed to be young Ann Copeland, the girl who had tragically disappeared on her wedding night, only to be found fifty years later by her grieving husband, who had stumbled upon an old chest. It was the saddest story Bunny had ever heard. Feeling the pain of it, she had no choice. Using Granny Mac’s own words, Bunny knew she had to face her demons. She had to face those otherworldly voices that plagued her. In fact, on some level she knew that this spectral visit was important. Maybe, just maybe, she could learn something important from this ghost.
Angry that her eyes were still shedding tears caused by this specter, Bunny gingerly got out of bed. Lord, how she hated the swirl of emotions coursing through her body, knowing that only one of them was truly her own. Unfortunately, that was anger. A feeling she was becoming way too familiar with lately. She felt that the fear prickling her skin and seizing her gut might have been hers as well, but she couldn’t be certain. She took a deep breath, fighting to recall any tidbits of mediumship her Gran might have imparted to her. Unfortunately, her mind drew a blank. She decided to go for broke and just be direct.
“Ann,” she said, taking a step toward the weeping bride. “I am so sorry. Can you tell me what happened?” She took another step when the ghost turned from the window and looked right through her.
She doesn’t even know I’m here, Bunny realized, feeling her heart pounding against her ribs with fear and anger so palpable, she thought it might explode. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. It was a mind game, steeling herself against this ghostly tide of roiling teenage emotion. Because as the girl looked right through her, Bunny realized that Ann Copeland had been very young when she died. The pity of that realization washed through her, and Bunny felt truly sorry. The ghost bride was also, if Bunny was reading the girl’s emotions correctly, very scared, very sad, and utterly heartbroken. They were all emotions Bunny could identify with. She had once been a teenager too and had suffered loss, even heartbreak, but her loss had been tempered by the passing of time. This poor soul still suffered, and Bunny began to realize that the young ghostly bride was still emotionally stuck in that terrible day. She likely didn’t even realize she was a ghost. It was a sad, sobering thought, and Bunny knew she had to do something. For the sake of the ghost and her own mental health she had to try. Yet as hard as she tried, she could not connect to this agitated spirit. Her years of running from and blocking out her abilities had rendered her useless. Now, standing in a room mere feet from a soul tormented with excruciating anguish, Bunny wished she hadn’t run from her greatest fears, but instead had faced them. Had she done so, she might be able to help this poor soul now. But no, she’d been a selfish coward, and now she was paying the price.
“Tell me how I can help you!” Bunny cried, losing both her patience and control. “What can I do to make it stop?”
Suddenly, as if startled, the ghost faced the bedroom door. For the space of a second the fear and sorrow turned to white hot anger. As Bunny fought to make sense of what was happening, the ghostly bride fled in the opposite direction, heading for a wall where she vaporized the moment she touched it.
The ghost of Ann Copeland was gone, and Bridget Bunny MacBride crumbled to the floor in a blubbering mess of tears and sobs.
Chapter 22
There’s nothing like a good cry before going to sleep, and that’s exactly what Bunny did. She was so overcome by a flood of emotions that at one point she didn’t even know why she was crying. Her own fear, her own uselessness, and the ghost’s sad story were all part of it, but there were other reasons too. The loss of her brother, the way she missed her family, and the fact that she didn’t yet have a man of her own to hold on cold nights such as this, all vied for expression as well. It wasn’t pretty. Once she had cried all the tears that were in her, Bunny, exhausted from her emotional encounter with the manor’s most famous ghost (and now she fully embraced the story) climbed back under the covers and didn’t move until her alarm went off the next morning. Even if other ghosts had visited her in the night, she remained none the wiser. Her one encounter with the ghost bride of Bramsford Manor had been enough for a lifetime.
The next morning as Bunny stood under the fall of hot water in the shower while wearing an ice-cold washcloth over her eyes to help ease the puffiness, a pestering thought struck her. Anger. She clearly remembered a strong feeling of anger emanating from the weeping ghost. Sure, Bunny had been angry enough at the ghostly intrusion, yet in comparison to the emotions of the specter, hers felt more like a minor annoyance. And that got her thinking. Maybe the ghost of Ann Copeland was trying to tell her something after all.
“Morning, Gran,” she said, taking a seat next to her grandmother in the hotel dining room. She’d been the last one to the table, thanks to the unsettling encounter of the night before and the hefty amount of concealer she’d needed to hide the bags under her eyes. The under-eye bags were from all the crying. She still didn’t fully understand why she had felt the emotions of the ghost bride so keenly. That was a question for her grandmother. The moment her rear landed in the chair she offered a smile to the lads. They were all staring at her, or, more correctly, at her puffy red eyes. Brett was especially unnerved. For a man who recoiled at the sight of women’s tears, and he had seen many a lady cry, he knew the signs well. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. Fortunately, she had just the thing to shock him out of his silent revulsion.
“So, get this, lads. Last night the ghost of Ann Copeland paid me a visit in my room.”
“What?” Giff cried. “The Mistletoe Bride was in your bedroom last night and . . . you saw her?” The mere thought made him turn a few shades whiter.
“No way,” Brett breathed, shifting his focus to her words instead of her swollen eyes. Honestly, she felt that the excitement brewing within him was a little insulting. Men, she thought with exasperation, and not for the first time. Oh, how she wished that he wasn’t so hot!
Cody, Ed, and Mike were just as intrigued. As for her grandmother, Bunny got the distinct impression that she wasn’t surprised at all.
“It’s true,” Bunny continued. “I was sound asleep when all of a sudden, I woke up and saw this ghostly figure of a woman standing in my bedroom. She was staring out the window, the one that overlooks the garden.” Technically speaking, the talking white rabbit had woken her up, but she thought it best to leave out that little detail. It had only been a dream, and she really didn’t remember anything about it, only that the rabbit had talked to her. At that moment, Lewis came over to take her order. Bunny glanced around the dining room, noting that there were only two other tables in the spacious room that were occupied. Betsy was nowhere to be seen.
“What can I get you this morning, Ms. MacBride?” Lewis politely asked.
“Tea, a croissant, and two eggs scrambled, please.” She then smiled at him and asked, “Lewis, is it just you this morning, or is Betsy here?”
“Just me, ma’am, but that’s not unusual. It’s Betsy’s morning off.”
Bunny thanked him and continued with her story. The entire table was staring at her, urging her on with their eyes. “Sorry about that. Now, back to the ghost bride. That’s who it was. It was her pitiful weeping that woke me.”
“She was weeping?” Brett asked. “You actually heard her?”
“It was hard not to, it was so loud. It’s frightening, waking up like that to find a ghost in my room.”
“What did she look like?” Giff was cradling his coffee between his hands while leaning on his elbows.
“It was hard to tell at first,” she admitted, “but when she turned to face me, I was struck by how young she was. I’d place her to be sixteen or seventeen.”
Giff took a sip of his coffee. “That sounds about right, according to Bean’s story. They married ’em young back in the day. I wonder how old the groom was. Maybe he was an old coot, and that’s why she hid from him in the first place?”
“He’s got a point,” Mike offered. “Maybe that’s why she was crying—because she didn’t want to marry him?”
Lewis arrived with her tea, and not a moment too soon. Tea, coffee, she needed some form of caffeine to set her right. After stirring in a measure of milk, she took a sip and remarked, “That’s an interesting theory. I can’t speak for the age of the groom, but the ghost that confronted me last night was not only young, but extremely heartbroken.”
“How did you know she was heartbroken, dear?” Granny Mac asked, looking intently at her.
“I think it was the way she was crying. Also, and here’s the weird part, I could feel it. I could feel her emotions. All of them, even the ugly ones.”
“That’s sick,” Cody remarked, utterly intrigued. “You could actually feel what she was feeling? I heard that the Mistletoe Bride has that effect on some people.”
“I’m one of them,” she admitted. “She was crying, and I realized that I was crying too, but there was no reason for my tears. I could feel them rolling down my cheeks. It was, if you must know, highly disturbing.”
“And awesome,” Brett remarked. “Bunny, this is huge! You made contact with the legendary Mistletoe Bride. That’s what we came here to do.”
“She not only made contact, bro, she was swimming in MB’s residual emotions. That’s next-level special,” Cody added. He flashed Bunny a grin and a thumbs-up for good measure.
Unfortunately, Bunny wasn’t nearly as enthused with her encounter as they all were. Quite frankly, the whole incident had been next-level disturbing. And, dwelling on disturbing, she wasn’t too keen on the way her grandmother was staring at her with her penetrating sea-ice gaze.
“What did she tell you?” Granny Mac asked, narrowing her eyes. “Did MB, as Cody calls her, have a message for you?”
Bunny thought for a moment then shook her head. “She didn’t talk, if that’s what you’re asking. The truth was, I tried to communicate with her, but I don’t even know if she knew I was there. All I could do was feel her emotions. I really don’t know how else to explain it.”
“It’s called clairsentient, dear.” Granny Mac picked up her teacup and took a thoughtful sip before returning it to the saucer. “It’s quite remarkable. I knew you had the gift, but I wasn’t certain what form it would take.”
“What do you mean what form it would take?” Bunny snapped, staring back at her grandmother. “This isn’t Harry Potter. I’m not a witch. I don’t have a wand . . . or a familiar, and I don’t have a specialty. In fact, for your information, ghosts freak me out. I don’t want the gift, as you call it.”
“Umm, may I remind you that you see a white rabbit?” Giff offered unhelpfully.
“What are you insinuating?” Bunny’s voice was peppered with annoyance, and she didn’t care.
“Just pointing out your familiar.”
