IT was in Winchester Cathedral that Great-Aunt Butters first confessed her belief in ghosts.
I stared at her, hoping I hadn’t heard correctly. I couldn’t take much more. Not after the crisis that had sent me hotfooting it into Hampshire. I’d arrived unexpectedly on Aunty B’s doorstep at five o’clock on this warm summer Sunday afternoon, desperate for a strong dose of tea and sympathy. Instead, my darling great-aunt had opened the front door, smiled as if she’d been expecting me, and whisked me off to church.
Church? That had been the last thing on my mind. All I’d thought of during my miserable train journey from London was the comfort of Aunty B’s counsel. Instead, here she was, talking about ghosts.
‘Seriously, Aunty B?’ I murmured. ‘Ghosts?’
‘Not all of them.’ Her eager whisper reached me despite the congregation’s rousing rendition of ‘Rock of Ages’. ‘Just the literary ones, and not all of them either.’ Aunty B lifted her hymnbook a little higher and, apparently thinking herself protected from the Bishop’s watchful gaze, winked roguishly at me before pointing a stubby, ring-covered finger towards the ceiling. ‘They always get so excited at this time of year. It’s St Swithun’s Day next week – such a spectral feast. All that heightened emotion and— oh, look!’
Aunt Butters turned her head so fast that her new green-and-purple hydrangea hat lost its precarious hold on her freshly-dyed Titian curls. The hat flew past my nose, appeared to jerk sideways, and landed just out of reach under the pew in front. ‘It’s Oscar,’ she hissed. ‘Pity I can’t introduce you.’
I sighed. I often found my great-aunt’s eccentricities entertaining but right now the last thing I wanted was to meet some man named Oscar.
‘Such high spirits.’ Aunty B giggled. ‘I am glad you’ve come to stay, Cassie. Retrieve my hat, would you, darling? While everyone’s still singing this lovely song.’
I looked doubtfully to my left. Our pew was full and my neighbour was a large horsy-looking woman dressed in stiff tweed, heavy stockings and sensible shoes. She was pressed hard against me singing lustily, oblivious to Aunt Butters’s hat resting by her foot. I stared angrily at the milliner’s latest confection, the hydrangeas reminding me too vividly of the bunch on my desk that morning. I viciously suppressed an urge to scream aloud and frighten the congregation with my frustration. My father had raised me on a strict regime of perfect behaviour, both in private and in public but especially while in church, which meant screaming was out of the question. Instead, I sighed, considered the distance and decided that if I slid my arm down my leg I could probably reach the hat without being noticed. I leaned forward and instantly my horsy companion expanded into the extra space.
‘Hurry up, Cassie dear.’ Aunt Butters poked my thigh with the head of her ineffectual hat pin. ‘Woody’s up next and I do enjoy his sermons. So restful.’
I bent forward until the wooden pew in front pressed into my skull. My fingers closed around the hat, but before I could straighten, it vanished. I pulled back in disbelief, but there was no sign of it. A determined elbow in my back made me turn and I met my tweedy neighbour’s baleful glare.
‘Cassie.’ Aunt Butters was never cross but, even sotto voce, she was still commanding.
Leaning forward again, I reluctantly tapped the shoulder of the grey-haired man in the front pew. ‘Excuse me,’ I breathed. ‘Can you see a ha—?’
‘Shhhh.’ He jerked his chin towards the pulpit.
Looking up, I saw that Doctor Woodford Stiles, Bishop of Winchester, was staring down at me. He’d always reminded me of the popular image of an undertaker, with his long bony face, slender patrician nose and tall, cadaverous body so often clad in black. He had thinning grey hair and pale blue eyes and long white fingers that tapped the lectern in a discordant rhythm of disapproval; still worse, his eyebrows were bristling at me. I instantly shrank back into my seat, uncaring of my neighbour’s displeasure. If I had to face an enemy, then I’d sooner go head-to-head with tweedy-woman than face Dr Stiles’s mournful gaze. His eyebrows alone were enough to crush my spirit.
I did not have fond memories of those bushy bristling brows. As a six-year-old I’d been terrified of them; even now, more than twenty years later, they still frightened me. I sat through the service with my head bowed in an attempt to look pious and prayerful, while beside me, Aunt Butters nodded enthusiastically whenever Dr Stiles said something she liked, and twice gave him a thumbs-up.
He’d almost finished speaking when she suddenly lunged upwards, her short, plump body surprisingly agile for a woman only three years shy of her ninetieth birthday. I watched in bewilderment as she thrust her arms high into the air, her be-ringed fingers grabbing at some invisible thing. ‘Now then, that’s quite enough of that,’ she muttered, before sitting down abruptly and shoving both fists into her capacious tapestry handbag, as though pushing something inside.
‘What is it? Are you all right?’ I whispered, glancing round to see if anyone else had been disturbed by her strange behaviour. I was relieved to see that the congregation still held to the great British tradition of remaining steadfastly impassive in the face of general weirdness.
With one exception.
I’d noticed him on entering the cathedral. He’d been peering at the Jane Austen memorial, as though the shiny brass plaque might contain some hidden message. I’d put him down as just another Austen geek, but now, as he grinned sympathetically at me across the aisle with his long blonde fringe falling across one eye, he didn’t look geeky at all.
He wasn’t tall, but I’d noticed that he carried himself with a sort of air – as if he knew things most people didn’t. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped with a pointed chin, sharp cheekbones and a wide, determined mouth. He looked… I hunted for the right word.
He looked interesting.
Though not to me – at least not in that way – because after the fight I’d just had with Julian I’d sworn off men forever. I’d made that vow on the train from London while Julian’s hateful words were still ringing in my ears, and I wasn’t about to change my mind a few hours later.
So it was only out of politeness that I smiled back and bobbed my head as though apologizing for the vagaries of my dippy great-aunt. The stranger mouthed something, but before I could work out what it was, Aunt Butters whispered, ‘Nothing to worry about, Cassie dear.’ She dumped her handbag in my lap. ‘They’re in the mood for mischief and getting a little out of hand, but I’ve given them a warning, so we should get through the rest of the service without any trouble.’
I nodded absently. Bishop Stiles had announced the prayer and all around me the congregation knelt to pray. I wasn’t religious, but after the awful day that had ended my hideous fortnight, I figured it couldn’t hurt to pray for my life to be different. I slid awkwardly to my knees and closed my eyes.
And opened them. Aunt Butters was jabbing my leg with her finger.
‘Quickly, Cassie. There it is.’ She pointed, and I was stunned to see her hat spinning slowly beside my left knee.
How—?
But she was staring at the ceiling again. ‘Oh dear,’ she muttered. ‘That’s not good.’
I retrieved her hat and gazed up at the ancient stonework high overhead, trying to see what Aunt Butters saw, but all I got was a crick in my neck.
‘Amen.’ The Bishop finished his prayer and the choir rose to sing.
Aunt Butters’s gaze fell on her hat. She gave a barely suppressed shriek of delight and snatched it up. It twitched violently. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she snapped, tightening her grip. The hat twisted as though an invisible force were trying to wrest it from her grasp. ‘Here, Cassie.’ She thrust it into my hands.
I held onto it just long enough to feel a force unlike anything I’d ever known. It was as if ice-cold liquid fire was flowing, molten, through my hands, before surging up my arms with such power that it was impossible to keep holding on. After what seemed like minutes but must have been only seconds, I had no choice but to let it go.
I watched in horror as the hat flew across the cathedral, like a racing pigeon returning to its coop, and hit His Lordship, Woodford Aloysius Woollcott Stiles, Bishop of Winchester, firmly on the nose.