The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn

Author:Mary Downing Hahn [Hahn, Mary Downing]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2011-10-11T17:06:29+00:00

Eight

FINALLY THE COLD DROVE ME to close the window and put on my own dress, rough and brown and scratchy against my skin. Afraid to stay in my room alone, I took my book and ran down to the sitting room and made myself comfortable in the big leather chair by the wood fire, much warmer than my coal fire.

I was so deeply immersed in Vanity Fair that I didn't notice Sophia until she exhaled her cold breath on my cheek. Startled, I dropped my book. "Go away," I begged. "I've had enough of you."

"But I haven't had enough of you, dear Florence." She perched on the arm of the chair and studied me with her dull eyes. "I see you've changed your clothes. Did you not like my dress?"

"I hate your dress!" I told her. "When James saw me wearing it, he thought I was you."

"Much more flattering to you than to me. Even dead, I'm far prettier than you are." She laughed her spooky little laugh and ran her bony fingers through her tufts of hair. Looking at me closely, she touched my nose. "Consider that bump in your nose: it's especially unattractive and bound to get worse as you age."

She jumped off the chair and did a few turns about the room, as graceful as a sylph in a ballet. Perhaps more so, for a living ballerina could not have floated as lightly as Sophia did.

"I must say, I enjoyed hearing Aunt's response to the sight of you in my dress," she said. "Poor old thing to mistake you for me—her eyesight must be failing."

She twirled around the room again, her ragged skirt floating around her. "I still have Aunt wrapped around my little finger, but she positively detests you."

"Why don't you haunt her and leave me alone?" I asked. "She'd be happy to see you."

"Aunt is a boring old bat. She was useful when I was alive, but now..." Sophia shrugged. "I have no need of pretty things or sweets. Indeed, it's a relief not to make a pretense of loving her. Why should I continue the charade by appearing to her?"

"You are the most wicked creature I've ever met," I whispered. Despite my own feelings toward Aunt, I was glad she hadn't known Sophia's true nature.

Sophia smiled as if I'd complimented her. Twirling back to the chair, she settled next to me, numbing me with cold. "Poor James is so afraid of me," she giggled. "Did he scream and cry and throw a tantrum at the sight of you?"

I tried to move away from her, but she kept me close to her. "He told me you want him to die," I said.

Sophia twirled a strand of hair around her finger and curled it into a ringlet. "I was cheated," she said. "James was meant to die, not me."

"How can you believe such a thing?" I asked. "No one knows who is meant to die and who is meant to live."

Clenching her fists in anger, Sophia jumped to her feet.

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