Sanders expected to discuss the strange happenings in the house over a late dinner with Lee’s friend. Even half-expected her to be looking around like London, fixating on things and seeing shadows which others could not. He felt fairly comfortable with such people after working with different kinds of energy healers over the years for his own crippling pain, before meeting Tom and working through their regressions with Lee.
Instead, Sue, a very young woman who made Sanders think of Stevie Nicks more than healers, sat down to dinner with them like any polite houseguest. She seemed delighted to meet both Sanders and the cat—London taking to her at once—and fascinated by Tom’s explaining about London’s special breed to accommodate his own cat allergies.
Siberian cats, and felines in general, carried them all the way through the salad course before Sanders asked if Sue made her living as a medium. She explained she worked with an online shop supplying magickal accessories, and had gone back to school, only recently gaining a fine arts degree.
Tom asking about her art led to a discussion of mixing pigments from scratch, which somehow transitioned into books and, next thing Sanders knew, they were talking about their favourite authors.
Sanders felt adrift. Tom had been so disturbed by the sightings and lights and feelings, he’d wanted to leave the house on Saturday night for a hotel. Now a medium showed up and neither of them seemed fussed about why she was here.
Having nothing to contribute in a discussion of popular fiction—he was lately reading two different histories of Switzerland and work-related material—Sanders only waited.
The shock had long since worn off from Saturday; finding a tea bag trail leading upstairs. Sanders had been able to talk with Lee right away, still having the number in his phone and Lee having picked up. As it happened, Lee had just been about to attend a Saturday evening meetup with the very friends of his who could help with this sort of thing.
Tom had paced beside him while Sanders, sitting on outside steps leading to the flat over the coach house, talked. Lee’s priority had been ascertaining whether their situation was an emergency. Sanders felt ill-equipped to say, but Lee had quizzed him regarding the nature of the activities.
Did they feel they were in danger? Had anything violent or threatening happened?
“Threatening?” Sanders had hesitated, wondering over the mirror and all the tea movements.
“Yes,” Tom had said emphatically, pausing to face him on the stairs.
Sanders frowned at him and went on into the phone. “No, I wouldn’t say so. Only a man visible to Tom through a mirror, the tea bags—”
“What about my arm?”
“Oh, he says he felt someone pull on his arm last night when we were alone in a room.”
“How do you feel about it all?” Lee had asked through the phone. “About the intentions?”
“Intentions—? You’re assuming this is a...”
“A spirit? We’ll start with what sounds most likely and work our way from there.”
“The intentions are bad,” Tom said. “Grabbing people, blowing out lights, scaring London.”
Oh, yes. Sanders had explained about the cat as well. He finished with, “But, no. As far as the intentions, I can’t say I’ve felt threatened.”
“Sanders—”
“Tom, really, just calm down.” Then, into the phone, “I suspect one’s exposure to a ... haunted house can create its own anxieties. Some people around here have become rather neurotic lately.”
Lee chuckled.
Tom recoiled as if Sanders had hurled the phone at him, but at least he quit interrupting about the evil intent of the house.
“If it were me,” Sanders went on, “I’d say someone or something is trying to get our attention. No more.”
“That’s what I’d say too, based on all you’ve told me,” Lee sounded relaxed about it and Sanders thought to put him on speaker. “I’ll talk to the others. There’s a medium in our group and some with more interest and skills than myself who might be able to help.”
“If anyone you know would be willing to make the trip, and as soon as possible, please have them get in touch. We’ll cover all expenses, provide room and board for as long as any stay is necessary, and pay their normal fee.”
“You’ll probably get more than one out to Switzerland with an offer like that.” Lee laughed. “But I’m not sure about right away. Day jobs and all. We’ll see what we can do.”
“Thank you very much, Lee. We appreciate your assistance.”
“My pleasure. Someone will be in touch.”
“Lee?” Tom stepped up to the phone with Sanders on the stairs. “What are we supposed to do between now and then?”
“Do?”
“About the house?”
“Go on with your lives? Take notes about all that happens? Respect the messages you receive and allow yourselves to be open to communication? I’m no medium, Tom, but I wouldn’t stress over it too much. Unless you actually feel as if you are being threatened or someone could get hurt. That’s a different situation and we’d need to ask Julian.”
Tom shuddered, Sanders smiling at him.
“It sounds like this one just wants to talk,” Lee continued. “And I may even know why you. You’ve both had so much happening spiritually. You’re more connected, more extended than many people. You may have lit that place up like beacons when you got there, even calling out a soul who had long given up trying to communicate with embodied humans. Sue or Amanda would know more about this kind of interaction, but it’s no coincidence.”
“Thank you again,” Sanders said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine until someone is able to make the trip. We’ll let you go to your meeting.” With a meaningful look at Tom, who again seemed about to interject. “Good evening.”
When Sanders had hung up, they’d still faced what to do next. Tom would have got in the car and gone into town for a hotel, whatever Lee said, but two things stopped him. First, his car keys were in the manor. Second, his cat was in the manor.
After much debate, and in gathering darkness, they had returned to the house. Tom had called London, who trotted up as if nothing was amiss, and Tom and Sanders turned on all the lights they could reach before following the tea bags upstairs. Thinking of crime scenes, Sanders took a couple of photographs on his phone before starting to pick them up.
“What if this upsets it?” Tom had whispered, clutching the cat against his chest as if to protect ... Sanders was unsure which of them.
Sanders arched one eyebrow. “Tidying up? Upset it? Allow us to assume that leading us to a significant spot was all it wanted.”
With the smell of English breakfast tea strong in their noses, they stopped at the doorway into which the bags led. Sanders switched on the light. Tom’s office. Undisturbed aside from three or four more bags leading to a wall of built-in bookshelves. Looking from Tom, who held his breath, to the cat in his arms, staring into the room with her fur suddenly on end, to the office itself, perfectly normal besides the tea on the floor, even Sanders found he did not want to step into that room.
After some time, Sanders had recalled Lee’s words and spoke quietly into the silence.
“We’ve asked someone to come here and help us speak with you. We’re not the best at this ourselves, so we hope you will ... be patient with us. If there is anything we can do to help you, we’ll do our best when we have assistants. All right? Until then, we’ll just ... try to leave each other in peace.”
Nothing happened. Of course. No tea bags moved. No voice came out of nowhere.
Sanders started to turn to Tom, to shrug, when the overhead light in the office flickered. Just a tiny, shuttering blink, as if the power was about to go out. Hardly noticeable.
Then nothing. The light stayed on.
Feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, Sanders remained motionless beside the other two for a moment.
When he looked around, Tom was paying more attention to his pet than the room. London had visibly relaxed in his arms, her fur smoothed, her expression softened. For the first time, she looked away from the office to rub her head on Tom’s hand, demanding he pet her, which he did. Her purr soon filled the silent hall.
Whatever had been in that office seemed to be gone.
Still, they had not picked up all the tea bags in there. And Tom had not ventured into his own office, except to grab his laptop, for the past four days.
That night, he’d still advocated sleeping elsewhere. However, the only two detached guest spaces were filled by staff. Francesca’s flat and the groundskeeper’s cottage at some distance with its own small drive. As a matter of fact, both were empty at that moment. Francesca having gone to London and Nicolas, an older widower who looked after the sprawling grounds, often visited family in Geneva or beyond over weekends.
If compelled to remain inside the house, Tom had wanted to use a guest room since he had been “harassed” in the master suite. Sanders had argued with him while dinner baked, decided during the tense meal that Tom could make his own choices, and went to bed in his usual location on his own.
Tom and the cat had been late joining him, but showed up sometime before midnight, Tom turning on the overhead light before he would venture into the room—making Sanders bury his face in the pillow while mentally cursing him.
Tom’s tension when he did get into bed made Sanders wish he had not.
Still, nothing strange had happened. Or the next night. Or the next.
In fact, since the tea bags, call to Lee, and Sanders addressing the empty office, even the cat had settled down. Not altogether, but a great deal fewer mousetraps seemed to be going off.
Sanders had purchased train tickets for Sue, who could leave London as early as Wednesday morning, and they had waited.
Now, Sanders was beginning to wonder if the whole thing had not been rash. Even Tom admitted that the house was not all that terrifying as a rule.
Had everything stopped? Right when someone was coming to check on the issues? And was their medium even able to detect anything abnormal? She certainly seemed unconcerned.
Sue went on about the wondrous setting, the gorgeous old house, the spectacular air and how it made her realise anew how choking London could be. But she did not mention ghosts. Following her lead as a newly arrived guest who should be allowed to settle in, neither Sanders nor Tom mentioned them either. Would there ever be a need?
Sanders did not mind the young woman being here. He enjoyed diverse people in small doses and she was certainly a break from traders, sales people, analysts, or quants. Tom also seemed to like her, which was surely good for him. Something to take his mind off his own anxieties and excessive imagination.
So Sanders was glad to have her no matter what. However, he hated to waste time. His or anyone else’s. For that, he was beginning to regret being so hasty about falling in with Tom’s fears and shouting to Lee for aid when there might be a perfectly rational explanation. He still had not the faintest idea what. But he had no idea what material could be found in the core of Jupiter either. That hardly meant Jupiter had no core.
The conversation was back on cats. No, wild animals. Zoo animals. Quite a lively debate.
Tom felt that zoos were vital to educating and interesting the public in the conservation of wild animals. Sue claimed that educating people to think it was okay to trap and confine wild animals for the entertainment of human beings was so morally wrong there could be no long-term gain to the planet’s species.
Tom pointed out that zoos ran breeding programmes for critically endangered animals that could be gone without their captive numbers. Tigers and pandas, for example.
Sue had a reply for that as well. “If every pound and dollar and everything else spent to support and run every zoo in the world, year after year, was instead poured into preservation of habitat and the eradication of poaching, we wouldn’t have all these critically endangered species needing to be kept alive in cages.”
“A moot point,” Tom told her. “You’re talking like we live in a perfect world. Like we could just drop zoos and turn our attention to the remaining wilderness. But we can’t. The way the world works right now, the way things are, we need zoos.”
“That’s like saying we’re too far gone already so we might as well let all the sea turtles and elephants and bees die because they will at some point anyway. What if everyone in 1900 had said that, because of the Industrial Revolution, they might as well just stop while they were ahead, and no one since then had ever made another breakthrough or invented another object or concept?”
“Come on, you don’t think that’s an extreme analogy? We can’t just give up and shut down zoos. It wouldn’t work. It would be like, like ... closing down all the high rises in the world.”
“But what would happen if all of humanity decided they were going to close down the high rises?” Sue asked. “They would close. It would take time. But it would happen.”
“That’s pipe dreams. It’s not a practical or realistic alternative to existing zoos.”
“Do you know what civilisation was founded on, Tom?”
He looked at her narrowly.
“Pipe dreams.”
Tom changed to Sanders. “It’s nonsense. Zoos have to exist, right?”
“Have to?” Sanders asked. “I’m not sure there is anything at all that ‘has to exist’. Right down to our planet. Much less a manmade, artificial concept like a zoo. Anyway, the guest is always right.”
“Thank you, Sanders.” Sue said, smiling. “You’re very kind.”
Tom rolled his eyes. “He’s making an effort. He wouldn’t say that if you were a man.”
“Do you believe in gender-based divisions, Tom?” Sue asked.
“Divisions of what?”
“The fact that you’re asking the question implies—”
But Tom had apparently already caught that and was making a face. “Sorry. No. Correct answer; no, I don’t. I’m still working on my own rehab from a male chauvinist upbringing though, so bear with me. He’s a feminist, which is good for me.” Jerking his head at Sanders.
“Are you?” Sue looked at Sanders.
“Not that I was aware of.”
“That’s okay. If you don’t discover something new about yourself every day, doesn’t it seem like a day wasted?” Back to Tom. “What have you learned about yourself today?”
“Uh ... that I’ve gotten more comfortable driving over here in the past weeks? You?”
“I learned that I get motion sick if I ride in a train for more than three hours at once. I never knew that.”
“Guess that’s a pretty good thing to know.”
“Would you care to fly back on your return?” Sanders asked.
“Oh, no. Thank you very much. They would never let me through airport security with my bundles.”
Which raised the question of what she had brought. Sanders saw Tom’s eyebrows lift, but neither commented.
“A private flight perhaps?”
Sue hesitated. For the first time through cats and authors, art and zoos, she looked confused. “Private?”
“No need for security. I work through a company out of London. Edward could pick you up and take you home to the airport of your choice with prior arrangement.”
Sue glanced at Tom, back to Sanders. “Really?”
“Of course. I know you said you hoped one or two others might join you out here. If that is the case, and they also need ... instruments, it might make the most sense, at least for the return, to book you all back together on a chartered flight.”
He could see Sue was still at a loss when Francesca returned with their main courses.
By the time they ended the meal with ergolavi, fruit salad, and herbal tea, Sanders was back to allowing Tom and Sue to carry the conversation.
She was telling Tom that she hoped Amanda—whom Sanders had gathered from an email exchange with Sue was either her girlfriend or wife—would be able to join them at the weekend if Sue had not yet been able to sort out what was happening here. And, if she was able to come, Sue hoped that he, Tom, would conceal any lingering tendencies towards male chauvinism from her.
“Of course.” Tom offered her the plate of biscuits.
“Thank you.” She accepted another ergolavi. “And thank you both, and Francesca, for the brilliant meal. I love Greek food.”
Tom fairly glowed, as if he’d cooked and served it himself.
Sanders, who had still been on his way home from work while Tom was showing her to a guest room, asked if her room was satisfactory and if she needed anything, just prepared to push back his chair and retire from socialising for the day, when Sue, though not speaking to him, made him pause.
“Tom, I’m so sorry. I don’t want to rush you.” Sue looked anxiously at Tom. “I hope you don’t mind me saying there is someone who has been trying to come through for you since the train station.”
“Come through? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“It’s a D name. Dave or Dan or something like that?”
Just reaching for his tea mug, Tom’s hand stilled on the ceramic as he stared at her. “Danny.”
“Yes.” Her smile returned. “Your brother?”
“That’s right.” His voice was guarded, tense in his seat.
“He’s been trying to get my attention because he wants you to know he’s sorry and he thinks you did the right thing. There was something wrong ... I don’t know what. A mistake? An accident? Something went wrong and ... there was blood in the snow. And he’s sorry. Does that make any sense? I get the feelings and the picture story. I see the red snow, but it’s not like a word story.”
Colour seeped out of Tom’s face. He sat like marble.
Sue glanced uncertainly to Sanders and back to Tom. “I’m sorry, Tom,” she repeated. “It’s just ... really important to him. Whatever happened the day there was blood on snow, he’s apologising and he’s proud of ... a choice you made? You ... did something he couldn’t do. Or didn’t do. He’s glad you did.”
Tom nodded, mute, tears in his eyes.
Sue bit her lip. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He looked down at his plate, saying nothing.