Chapter 10: If the Boo Fits
Not even the floor creaks as I cross to my shoes and strap them around my ankles. The height of the heels is a little off setting compared to my loose airy night shirt. I open the door carefully and step into the hallway. Looking around and slowly creeping forward towards the main hall of the castle the breeze picks up. At night the air conditioning gets turned way down and the staff open the windows and I take a moment to appreciate that notion. I can smell the musty night wafting through the cracked windows and crickets orchestrate their romances below in the garden winding around the property. Then right in front of me I see the faint glow of a young man hidden behind the flowing elaborate drapes.
I approach the figure. I reach my hand to pull back the drapes hiding his full form from me but I pull my hand away at the icy sensation I feel from getting too close. My heart begins to slam itself against my rib cage but my curiosity gets the best of me. Like before, in the bathroom, the more I focus on him the clearer he gets. His hair sweeps across his forehead and a mischievous grin paints his blue eyes with sparkling wonder giving him the look of a small boy about to put glue in his sister’s hair. But his hands look worn, like he’s worked with every material known to man and his broad shoulders offset his thin waist perfectly making me believe he is indeed a strong man.
I tug my lacelet sleepwear down a little further past my knees and blush a little and his grin waver. I shake my embarrassment off long enough to think clearly. “How do you know me?” I reach forward again and inhale sharply at the cold threatening my hand but go even further until the cold has overcome my arm. I yank the drapes back from him and concentrate on his face. “Who are you?” I rephrase my question. After a second I register his grin has returned. He turns and beckons me to follow him with a shrug of his shoulder.
At that second my internal battle resumes. Do I follow him? The worst that could happen is I die. But The best that could happen is-what? What in the world could possibly happen? Assuming this young man is an actual ghost I can’t imagine anything good happening if I follow him anywhere. This could also be a prank. But no one else here at this castle this summer is quick witted enough to pull something this elaborate off. I have nothing to lose.
With the firm heave of curiosity I jog to catch up to him. He walked along the floor with long strides as if he were alive. Is he doing this so he doesn’t frighten me? I don’t have time to question him before he shoots me a sidelong glance and disappears. Leaving me along in a hallway I have never been in before.
I stop moving and wrinkle my nose. “I don’t like games.” I grumble and a door opens just before a turn in the hallway. “Thank you.” I straighten my back but immediately after tug my nighty down. I come to the room left open for my exploration and stand in the red oak doorway. It looks like some sort of office with a grand desk and swivel chair behind it. Book cases line the wall to the left of the desk but all the other walls are coated in black and white photos framed in wood to match the book cases. I see him standing by the window coated in the powdery light of the moon but he leaves no shadow on the floor. A little mesmerized by his elegant appearance I don’t notice that he is holding a book until he looks into my eyes pulling me into the room towards him. “A directory?” I question and look at the dainty cursive print on the pages he is flipping through. I look up at him and he nods toward the right hand page and turns the book to face me. A list of names of what seems to be employees and their roles in the castle cover the page. The title of the section on the right side is ‘Maids by Price’. “Oh! I read something about this last semester! Maids by price are maids who either owed a debt to the royal family or were taken as prisoners of war and forced to work as servants to the royal families and their nobility. This is so cool!” I tremble a little and scan my fingers across the list of women. “This is an actual historical record, it’s probably hundreds of years old! Maybe thousands even!” I examine the frazzled corners and try to picture this room as it might have been when this directory was being recorded. “Not even Katharine would think this is cool.” I mumble more to myself than the guy holding the book. “Gosh, this is the longest time I’ve ever spent with a boy alone and I’m already making a complete nerd of myself…” I mumble some more to myself but my nose starts to feel cold. I pull my face back from the page and see his finger pointing toward a specific name. “Elinor Rudolph,” I read out loud. Pieces fit together in my head like a childs zoo puzzle. “This-this must be my-“ I stammer and think back to the family tree my grandmother helped me make in the seventh grade. “My great, great, grandmother?” I look back up questioningly. I touch her name fondly and follow the ellipses across the page. “Chamber maid.” I smile a little. My family is known in our neighborhood as being wealthy; I never would have thought that the first of my relatives to reach this soil would have been a chamber maid in a castle. “How ‘bout that.” My giggle catches in my throat as my forehead and nose becomes cold again. He leans down and smiles at my discovery. “I know who I am, but I asked who you were.” I fix my eyes back on his face and his eye brows go up.
Without warning he grips my shoulders with both hands giving me goose bumps and he points my shoulders toward a certain picture on the wall. Upon closer inspection I can tell the picture is of a petite girl dressed in a navy velvet dress and what looks like her mother in an apron. “You were adorable when you were younger.” I joke, insisting that the little girl is him but when I turn my head to see his reaction to my joke he is gone. I knit my eyebrows and notice the desk has been tampered with. The pile of books has been moved and a piece of scratch paper sits atop the documents closest to me. The paper wore extravagant handwriting and seems to be a record of some sort, almost like the registry he had just shown me. I lean in closer to read what it says. “All these people were executed?” I question out loud and feel a cool breeze on my shoulder. He directs my attention to two names labeled by the same date. A Ruby Berkley at eight years old and her thirty year old mother named Quinn were hanged on the morning of September the first. “Berkley… They must be in the picture.” I reason but he motions for me to look below the two names. “Collin Berkley, son to Quinn Berkley and private John Berkley, taken into custody on august fifteenth, died from food poisoning during his prison sentence on September second.” I stop after reading that sentence. “Isn’t that a little suspicious?” The faint glow of his fingers lingers over the name of the son. “He died in prison one day after his mother was executed.” Once the words leave my lips the light zips on in my head. “You’re Collin Berkley?” I pose, afraid to look up now that a name is assigned to this apparition I’ve been following. I become fearfully aware of the dull dusk that fills the time between night and morning. I feel even colder. The office is twice as dark. The sun looks like it is afraid to show itself above the horizon and warm the goose bumps on my arms. Nervously I tug my sleepwear down.
He looks at me with a look of approval and smiles kindly. “Mr. Berkley.” I try the name out in my mouth, still look making eye contact but I can tell by his body language that he doesn’t like how that title wears my voice. “Collin.” I correct, a little more of my confidence coming back. “Hello Collin.” I move my eyes back up his figure imagining his history and getting more and more curious with each frayed hem or scar. “Why are you still here collin?”
Not even the floor creaks as I cross to my shoes and strap them around my ankles. The height of the heels is a little off setting compared to my loose airy night shirt. I open the door carefully and step into the hallway. Looking around and slowly creeping forward towards the main hall of the castle the breeze picks up. At night the air conditioning gets turned way down and the staff open the windows and I take a moment to appreciate that notion. I can smell the musty night wafting through the cracked windows and crickets orchestrate their romances below in the garden winding around the property. Then right in front of me I see the faint glow of a young man hidden behind the flowing elaborate drapes.
I approach the figure. I reach my hand to pull back the drapes hiding his full form from me but I pull my hand away at the icy sensation I feel from getting too close. My heart begins to slam itself against my rib cage but my curiosity gets the best of me. Like before, in the bathroom, the more I focus on him the clearer he gets. His hair sweeps across his forehead and a mischievous grin paints his blue eyes with sparkling wonder giving him the look of a small boy about to put glue in his sister’s hair. But his hands look worn, like he’s worked with every material known to man and his broad shoulders offset his thin waist perfectly making me believe he is indeed a strong man.
I tug my lacelet sleepwear down a little further past my knees and blush a little and his grin waver. I shake my embarrassment off long enough to think clearly. “How do you know me?” I reach forward again and inhale sharply at the cold threatening my hand but go even further until the cold has overcome my arm. I yank the drapes back from him and concentrate on his face. “Who are you?” I rephrase my question. After a second I register his grin has returned. He turns and beckons me to follow him with a shrug of his shoulder.
At that second my internal battle resumes. Do I follow him? The worst that could happen is I die. But The best that could happen is-what? What in the world could possibly happen? Assuming this young man is an actual ghost I can’t imagine anything good happening if I follow him anywhere. This could also be a prank. But no one else here at this castle this summer is quick witted enough to pull something this elaborate off. I have nothing to lose.
With the firm heave of curiosity I jog to catch up to him. He walked along the floor with long strides as if he were alive. Is he doing this so he doesn’t frighten me? I don’t have time to question him before he shoots me a sidelong glance and disappears. Leaving me along in a hallway I have never been in before.
I stop moving and wrinkle my nose. “I don’t like games.” I grumble and a door opens just before a turn in the hallway. “Thank you.” I straighten my back but immediately after tug my nighty down. I come to the room left open for my exploration and stand in the red oak doorway. It looks like some sort of office with a grand desk and swivel chair behind it. Book cases line the wall to the left of the desk but all the other walls are coated in black and white photos framed in wood to match the book cases. I see him standing by the window coated in the powdery light of the moon but he leaves no shadow on the floor. A little mesmerized by his elegant appearance I don’t notice that he is holding a book until he looks into my eyes pulling me into the room towards him. “A directory?” I question and look at the dainty cursive print on the pages he is flipping through. I look up at him and he nods toward the right hand page and turns the book to face me. A list of names of what seems to be employees and their roles in the castle cover the page. The title of the section on the right side is ‘Maids by Price’. “Oh! I read something about this last semester! Maids by price are maids who either owed a debt to the royal family or were taken as prisoners of war and forced to work as servants to the royal families and their nobility. This is so cool!” I tremble a little and scan my fingers across the list of women. “This is an actual historical record, it’s probably hundreds of years old! Maybe thousands even!” I examine the frazzled corners and try to picture this room as it might have been when this directory was being recorded. “Not even Katharine would think this is cool.” I mumble more to myself than the guy holding the book. “Gosh, this is the longest time I’ve ever spent with a boy alone and I’m already making a complete nerd of myself…” I mumble some more to myself but my nose starts to feel cold. I pull my face back from the page and see his finger pointing toward a specific name. “Elinor Rudolph,” I read out loud. Pieces fit together in my head like a childs zoo puzzle. “This-this must be my-“ I stammer and think back to the family tree my grandmother helped me make in the seventh grade. “My great, great, grandmother?” I look back up questioningly. I touch her name fondly and follow the ellipses across the page. “Chamber maid.” I smile a little. My family is known in our neighborhood as being wealthy; I never would have thought that the first of my relatives to reach this soil would have been a chamber maid in a castle. “How ‘bout that.” My giggle catches in my throat as my forehead and nose becomes cold again. He leans down and smiles at my discovery. “I know who I am, but I asked who you were.” I fix my eyes back on his face and his eye brows go up.
Without warning he grips my shoulders with both hands giving me goose bumps and he points my shoulders toward a certain picture on the wall. Upon closer inspection I can tell the picture is of a petite girl dressed in a navy velvet dress and what looks like her mother in an apron. “You were adorable when you were younger.” I joke, insisting that the little girl is him but when I turn my head to see his reaction to my joke he is gone. I knit my eyebrows and notice the desk has been tampered with. The pile of books has been moved and a piece of scratch paper sits atop the documents closest to me. The paper wore extravagant handwriting and seems to be a record of some sort, almost like the registry he had just shown me. I lean in closer to read what it says. “All these people were executed?” I question out loud and feel a cool breeze on my shoulder. He directs my attention to two names labeled by the same date. A Ruby Berkley at eight years old and her thirty year old mother named Quinn were hanged on the morning of September the first. “Berkley… They must be in the picture.” I reason but he motions for me to look below the two names. “Collin Berkley, son to Quinn Berkley and private John Berkley, taken into custody on august fifteenth, died from food poisoning during his prison sentence on September second.” I stop after reading that sentence. “Isn’t that a little suspicious?” The faint glow of his fingers lingers over the name of the son. “He died in prison one day after his mother was executed.” Once the words leave my lips the light zips on in my head. “You’re Collin Berkley?” I pose, afraid to look up now that a name is assigned to this apparition I’ve been following. I become fearfully aware of the dull dusk that fills the time between night and morning. I feel even colder. The office is twice as dark. The sun looks like it is afraid to show itself above the horizon and warm the goose bumps on my arms. Nervously I tug my sleepwear down.
He looks at me with a look of approval and smiles kindly. “Mr. Berkley.” I try the name out in my mouth, still look making eye contact but I can tell by his body language that he doesn’t like how that title wears my voice. “Collin.” I correct, a little more of my confidence coming back. “Hello Collin.” I move my eyes back up his figure imagining his history and getting more and more curious with each frayed hem or scar. “Why are you still here collin?”
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