BEATRICE: November 7, 1978

When I wandered into the kitchen this morning, I found the ghost of Annie Haskins making my coffee at the counter.

“Beg your pardon, Miss,” the ghost smiled ruefully, half her face charred and flaking, “Only I know you like your coffee in the mornings.”

At first I was too stunned to speak. A full corporeal manifestation. Annie Haskin had had a gentle face in life, and even with the flecks of skin peeling off into ashy smoke, that gentleness had followed her in death. She looked at me with kind eyes, and I belatedly remembered my manners, “Ah, well, thank you.” I said quickly, and nodded, “I appreciate it.”

The cheerful, charred ghost smiled again, her cheeks audibly crackling with the movement, and curtsied before beginning to move around the space, away from me. Seemingly done with her task, she suddenly vanished, and I was left alone in the kitchen, with only the smell of fire smoke and coffee.

I drank the coffee Annie Haskins made me. It would have been rude, not to. Standing in contemplation in the dingy kitchen of the manor house, I thought of the several tasks ahead of me today. I wanted to send the photos I have taken of the house thus far to another classmate who specialized in photography. Sarika was probably the only classmate of mine who tolerated, even encouraged, my old fashioned tendencies when it came to cameras. Highly specialized in photography, she had interned with the police department in New York, processing damaged photos and assisting with cases of strange natures. Though we had not been close at school, we’d kept a correspondence since her graduation.

Once I returned from my meeting with Helena Keats, dragonness librarian, my plan would be to continue the exploration of the second story.

As I planned my day, my mind kept returning to haunting I experienced yesterday. Visions of the room, the writhing bodies screaming and trapped in the walls, plagued me all night. I would wake throughout the night to the feeling of someone caressing my forehead. When I opened my blurry eyes I saw I was alone. The parlor room where I have been sleeping was once again damp, and the rosemary garland I had recreated before bed last night lay in tatters all around my sleeping bag.

After my coffee, I made myself a quick breakfast of beans on toast. Dressed quickly and warmly, for the weather appeared blustery. Thankfully it looked like the rain would hold off at least during my walk into town.

I packed my film and made off for town. It felt as if the walk was longer that morning, sluggish as I was feeling. The hedgerows along the dirt lane that led from the manor to the town rustled and bent in the wind as I walked, the roar of the water echoing behind me. Directly adjacent to the Knockbury Manor are two fields that drop into a dense thicket of wood that surrounds the town, broken only by the cliffs that lead down to the water.

It is a strange little island, I will say, very isolated, though if you stood at the peak of the cliffs you could see the mainland. It is craggy, and wild looking, and the town feels empty though there were more people out and about as I walked today. The post office had just opened by the time I arrived, and I was able to send the film off without fuss. I made my way to the library, anticipation of possibly learning something from Helena Keats rising in my chest.

Helena looked up with an arched brow and expectant gaze that turned cool when she saw it was I that entered her domain. Today she wore a velvet mauve vest over a pearl white shirt tied at the neck. Pinned to the vest was a small white and orange pin that read WOMEN AGAINST NUKES with the image of a fist. Her skirt was a matching mauve as well, her hair perfectly curled up at the ends.

She sniffed and stacked a series of journals as I approached the desk.

“I do have other responsibilities outside answering your questions,” she said primly, “I would have thought that, in respect towards a working woman, you would have prioritized meeting with me.”

I was thrown off, and briefly put out by her tone. I checked my watch. It read 10:15 am.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Yesterday would have been better.”

Unable to rise above her snide tone, I snapped, “You told me yesterday to come today.”

She set a newspaper down on the desk in front of her, facing it towards me.

I felt my heart skip and a chill run up my back. My fingers trembled as I picked up the paper to observe the date more closely. November 7th. But that was impossible. I went to bed on November 5th. How could I have slept for an entire day?

Helena was silent. She observed my turmoil, a glimmer of understanding growing in her eyes, “My mother used to say time worked differently in the house,” she said with something like reluctance ringing in her tone.

“What?”

“My mother,” she repeated, as if she thought me dumb, “Alodia White. She was the cook at Knockbury Manor, who took over after Annie Haskins died. She was who I wanted to speak to you about, not my father.”

She sighed heavily as if it was she who was apparently missing an entire day and not I. Helena pointed to the other side of the desk where a chair sat, “Sit. Wait here.” Then she disappeared through a door behind her desk.

I did what she asked, my legs numb and heart now racing. Did I sleep in that house for an entire day without waking? I know that to be an impossible feat for me, for anyone not unwell. So how?

Helena was gone for a while, but the library remained empty, quiet. When she returned, she held two cups set upon saucers. She’d made an herbal tea and commanded me to drink it as she questioned me.

“What is your connection, exactly, to Knockbury?” She asked, “No one has lived there in years, not since Alater died. Why have you suddenly decided to take residence?”

Perhaps it was the shock, for I don’t know what came over me. I found myself telling her about the will, about my inheriting the Knockbury Manor, and Mr. Fowl’s suspicions of my biological relationship to one of the Knock sisters. Helena nodded, showing no other outward reaction to my revelations, which, I admit, annoyed me.

My house was sending me into sleep comas and Helena Keats was treating this meeting with the casualness of two friends catching up.

“What do you plan on doing with it?”

“With the house?” I paused, “I’m not sure. There is much that needs to be taken care of before any decision is possible to make.” Then, because I can never help myself, I asked, “Why?”

Helena shrugged elegantly, balancing her cup and saucer on her crossed knee, “Personally I think it should be burnt to the ground.”

My eyes widened, “Why do you say that?”

“It’s not a good house. I’m sure you know that.” Helena said matter-of-factly, “Bad things have happened there. Even before the Knocks built that monstrosity of a home.

I asked, “What was there beforehand?”

Helena sighed, settling into her seat, “Before Knockbury was established there wasn’t much of a village or a town here on the island, but there were a few farmsteads, a church. An insular community,” she added, with some mirth, “More so than now, if you can believe that. Winters were harder and there wasn’t much attraction for anyone on the mainland to set up shop on the island. But there were always people here, and there was a home where Knockbury Manor now sits.”

“There was no record of it,” I told her, “In the files you gave me.”

“No, there wouldn’t be.” Helena said, before sipping her tea, “It’s more hearsay now. Rumors.”

“And what are the rumors?” I pressed

Here Helena’s tone took on an almost whimsical nature: “That there was a home there, at the edge of the cliff, where the twins Bellemy and Bellona crashed. A woman lived there. A young woman. Alone. She rescued the twins when they crashed their boat and they lived with her while they recovered.”

I blinked, surprised, thinking of the stained glass window at the top of the landing, the picture of a seaside cottage, “That’s not quite rumor worthy.”

“The following winter,” Helena continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “the young woman suddenly died, and the twins took over her land. They knocked down the young woman’s home and decided to build the manor right on that very spot. Three generations later, Elphias Knock mysteriously falls to his death at Twins Rock -”

“His death is listed as a suicide.”

Helena nodded once, “Even so. He was set to inherit a vast fortune and a successful clothing empire. He was an accomplished swimmer and sailor. It was ruled a suicide but many here still found it suspicious.” She took another sip, “That’s not even including what happened to all the women.”

“For example?”

She was clearly warming to the subject, “There is no confirmation as to what happened to Bellona. There is evidence that she lived in the manor house for years - her name is listed on the census - but she simply,” she shrugged, “disappeared one day. With no official follow-up as to how or why made by the family. A familial tradition, apparently, with Delphina and Hester doing essentially the same. There are graves for them. The family wasted no time in declaring them dead. Delphina’s funeral was quite the spectacle, apparently.”

She paused and took another sip of tea as I sat rapt with attention, “Every woman in that house has died before the age of thirty. Alice Prentice, the wife of Barsabbas Knock, died in childbirth at twenty-two. Ophelia Conway, a successful stage actress before she married Alater, died of complications after surgery at twenty-six. Delphina disappeared before her 30th birthday. Celeste’s suicide at twenty-eight. Hester’s disappearance afterwards.”

I sat back, tea forgotten, “I didn’t know about Alice and Ophelia. That wasn’t in the family documents.”

“Women’s history is rarely properly recorded,” Helena said sagely, “Annie Haskins died in a kitchen fire, Ruthie Daniels to a head wound. One could argue that some of the men didn’t fare much better, but Bellemy reportedly lived well into his eighties, Bastian the same. Barsabbas drank himself to death at seventy-two, but Alater lived the longest, dying at ninety-four.”

She suddenly put her tea down and reached into a knapsack beneath it. From it she pulled a leather album and set it on the desk, taking up her tea again in a single, graceful motion.

She nodded to the album,“You’ll find a few things in there, letters, articles. I don’t know if Celeste collected them, or if my mother did after she died.” She sighed, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “I know the Knock’s history as if it was my own family’s, and in a way, some of it is. My father was on duty when the call came from the manor about Celeste, and my mother worked in the Knock’s kitchen for nearly twenty-five years.”

Helena was quick to answer my unasked question, “Mother was very young to be the cook for such a large house on her own, but no one else in town was willing to take on the job.”

She tapped on the cover of the album,“She was a little younger than the twins. They weren’t born in the village, and didn’t move to Knockbury until they were older,” she paused, “I assume you’ve never seen a picture of them?”

I shook my head, “I haven’t found many photos in the house.”

Helena handed over the album, “It’s not much.”

I opened the small album: inside there were a few photos, a creased and crumbling playbill, and a newspaper clipping of a funeral notice for Celeste Cordelia Bell Knock.

“Bell?” I asked, pointing to the pamphlet.

Helena nodded, “Odd family tradition, I guess. Every born Knock has Bell added to their name. Some sort of homage to the original Knock twins - Bellamy and Bellona.”

I turned the pages back to the photos and gazed down at the pictures of two, young and identical looking women. Only their eyes told them apart, as did the beautiful cursive writing below the photo. Hester and Celeste. Hester had a dreamy look to her, a far-off gaze that extended beyond the camera. Celeste, on the other hand, steadily met the eyes of whoever was taking the picture.

“Your mother took this?”

Helena nodded, “They were friends, which was odd given the differences of class and status, but the Knock girls were odd.” Her eyes met mine, “She stayed on for a while, even after Hester disappeared.”

I gazed at the two women, standing tightly together as if to create a barrier out of themselves.

“Did your mother ever say if one of them had a baby?”

Helena tilted her head in consideration, “Not to me. I often thought she knew more about what went on at the house than she let on, that she was in Celeste’s confidence especially. But if a child had been born in Knockbury, the village would have known about it. That kind of secret can’t be kept for long in such a town like this.”

So perhaps one of the girls had given birth before arriving on the island. More questions. I turned another page of the album, stopping short at the cheerful image that looked up at me. It was of three women, one a Knock, and the other two unfamiliar to me. One was small, fair and pale, while the other was a statuesque woman with dark hair and deep brown eyes.

Helena noticed, “That’s my mother,” she said pointing down at the small woman, “and that is Sonia Gray.”

“Who was she?”

“A doctor,” Helena said, proudly, “And my mother’s best friend. Sonia was the only physician who bothered making rounds to the island. She became close with the Knock sisters, initially because she was managing Hester’s health, and then she befriended Celeste through my mother.”

I looked down at the photo of the three women again, all sitting together at the top of a hill, a makeshift picnic between them.

“Mother didn’t like to talk about it, her time working for the Knocks. People from the village would harass her with questions after Celeste’s death. When Hester disappeared, she was even questioned by the police despite my father being an officer.” She shifted slightly in her seat, “It was one of the reasons I was suspicious of you when you first arrived here, asking questions.”

I took up my cup again and took a long gulp of the now cooling tea, considering my next question, “How did Celeste die?” I asked carefully, “There was little information in the file you provided me. I would have thought there would have been an investigation, since they were such a prominent family?”

Helena was silent for a moment, observing me. Then: “There was no investigation. It was ruled a suicide, and Alater wanted everything done as quietly as possible, to save face. As I said, my father was on duty when she was found, and was the one to write up the report.” Helena took a sip of her tea, placing the cup back down in the saucer with practiced ease, “She hung herself from the balcony of the staircase.”

I had suspected, quietly, that it was Celeste whose image I had seen in the foyer, but to hear it confirmed sent a chill down my spine. The image of two pale feet, swaying gently, in my mind’s eye. But why had Ruthie lied about Celeste’s spirit being present in the house?

Our conversation trickled to an end soon after. I thanked her for the tea and offered Alodia’s album back to her, but Helena shook her head, “Keep it.” she told me firmly.

She stood and, seemingly with great reluctance, said, “Despite myself, I’m worried that you will get lost in that house,” she tapped the side of her head, “If no one in town sees you in two days’ time, I will come to the manor and check on you.”

I was just as surprised as her by this - comforted, because I am fearful of losing time again - but surprised, nonetheless. I thanked her, tucked the album into my bag, and left the sanctum of the library.