A Dance with Tilly by Daniel Kelley

Author:Daniel Kelley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: girls fiction, girls mystery fiction, boys and girls short fiction, boys and girls short story, girls and boys good bedtime stories, girls ages 9 to 14, girls 9 to 13

Chapter Four

“I don’t honestly remember the last time I didn’t pull those drapes.” The professor set his cup of tea on the kitchen table. “Though I suppose that after all these years, we were bound to be spotted sooner or later.”

“Years?” I asked in amazement.

He smiled. “Ah, Jack. Since long before you were born.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I’d rung the professor’s doorbell promptly at nine, had been escorted to the kitchen, and after a few minutes of small talk during which he’d brewed an appallingly strong tea, he had sat up in his chair to speak frankly.

“It’s been, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years now. Since about two years after Abigail and I moved here.”

“Did she… did she just appear to you one day? I mean, like…” I obviously wasn’t sure what I meant, but he considered the question anyway.

“No. Not exactly. It happened over time. Time that didn’t necessarily include a visual aspect at first.” He looked down for a second, thinking. “We’d never used the top floor much, except for entertaining; it’s too large for much else.” His eyebrows shot up. “And by the way, it was once a ballroom, just like the Hooper Mansion’s third floor.”

I smiled. Fitting.

“Anyway, I kept experiencing these strange urges to be up there. I would read books, the newspaper, prepare lectures, grade essays. All up in that huge, nearly empty room. I felt comfortable there. Safe, I suppose, as though someone were watching over me.” He smiled gently. “And, of course, someone was. I first saw her standing in a corner, shyly. Watching me. And I wasn’t shocked. It was almost as if I’d known that she’d appear eventually. I didn’t move at all that day, not one inch. I just watched her as well, until she finally walked to a doorway and disappeared. For a while then, for months, really, we mostly gazed at each other. A few minutes, an hour, a whole afternoon would pass by, and I was never quite ready to leave, to go back to what would be considered my real life.”

“Didn’t your wife know?”

His head moved slightly. “No, I never did tell her. I don’t think she would have understood.”

“So how did you end up dancing together?”

His eyes lit up. “An excellent question. At some point, I’d begun to be daring: moving closer to her, circling her to see what she would do, if she would follow me. One day, I brought my hand to within a few inches of hers, and she took it! It was incredible, an absolutely amazing moment! And a few weeks later, it just seemed natural to place my arm around her, and… well, we began to dance.”

“What… what does she feel like? Is she soft? Warm?”

“She feels like a woman, Jack. As though she were as alive as you or I.”

I blinked. “So then she’s…”

He nodded. “Oh yes, she’s definitely dead. I don’t know how, though. Or why she’s still here. Her dress and hairstyle both date from the 1870s, so she’s been around for a while.

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