The house was dark and quiet when Charlotte pushed open the front door and crept into the foyer. The rain had stopped, but she could hear the slow, steady drip of water from the eaves, residue of the evening's downpour. She removed her cloak and hung it from the bentwood coatrack in the hall, then unlaced her soft leather ankle boots, which were wet and muddy. Martin hated finding stains on the lush Oriental carpets. It wasn't a long walk from the bus stop, but in the dark she couldn't avoid the puddles lying in wait for her among the cracks in the sidewalks. She propped her boots on the bottom of the rack and tiptoed along the side of the long maroon runner rug leading from the foyer through the front hall. She shivered a little as she dug her bare toes into the deep, plush wool-it felt so good after sitting on the bus for two hours in damp clothes.
She tiptoed up the stairs and toward her room at the end of the long, narrow hall, silent as a cat, sliding her feet along the carpet to avoid tripping in the dark. She crept along the edge of the carpet, avoiding the center, where she knew the floorboards creaked underfoot. This was not the first time she had snuck home at night, hoping to avoid waking her brother. She had to pass his room in order to get to hers, so it was important to be extra quiet.
As she tiptoed down the hallway, she ran her hand along the wall for balance, tracing the familiar pattern of the textured wallpaper with her fingers. As she approached her brother's bedroom, her fingers touched something wet and sticky. It was too dark to see what it was; it felt like someone had spilled pudding on the wall. She made a mental note to wipe it off in the morning-Martin had no doubt spilled it himself, but would hold her responsible and expect her to clean it up.
The house was eerily silent, she thought as she passed her brother's room. She noticed the door was ajar, which struck her as odd. A shaft of moonlight sliced through the crack in the door, the long, pale blade of light falling across her path. Normally Martin kept it closed at night-maybe he had left it open because she was working late at the hospital. That is what she planned to tell him to explain why she was out so late tonight. With the practice of one used to deceiving, she had her story ready: one of her patients had gone into labor. It was a difficult birth, and she had stayed at the woman's side half the night. Of course, he could easily check up on her-he had done so before-so she would have to coach her colleagues to cover for her. But that shouldn't prove too difficult; they had done it in the past. Most of the women she worked with thought Martin was a tyrant and a cad, and couldn't understand why she let her brother boss her around so much.
But they didn't understand-no one did, really. He had a power over her she could not explain, deeper than blood, shared history, or even sex. There was something preternatural about it, a bond that she had tried hard to break, but never with success. He was her Mesmer, her Rasputin, her Houdini.
When she reached her bedroom she slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her. She lit an oil lamp-Martin made concessions to the modern world, but electricity was not one of them-and went to her dressing table. Sitting in front of the graceful beveled mirror, she leaned over and felt underneath the table for what she knew was hiding there. Her fingers closed on the familiar object; carefully she withdrew the ornately carved wooden box, placing it in front of her. Her hands trembled a little as she opened it and took out the amber-colored bottle. She shook it gently to disperse the reddish-brown liquid inside, then used the attached eyedropper to measure out a small amount, which she placed on her tongue. The droplets sparkled like gold in the warm light of the gas lamp. One, two, three drops-her body began to relax the moment she tasted the familiar bitterness. She felt the liquid slide down the back of her throat and let her head fall back. A thin sigh of pleasure escaped her lean body.
She studied the label on the bottle for a moment before putting it away. The handmade lettering was old fashioned and carefully wrought; she was proud of her work. Too bad she could not share it with Martin. Her job at the hospital gave her access to the raw materials; the rest of the work was hers. After a few hours of pouring through herbalist texts and chemists' textbooks for measurements and formulas, the rest was not hard.
She put the bottle back in its hiding place and opened a window-the room suddenly felt unbearably stuffy-then lay down on her four-poster canopy bed. The laudanum went to work quickly-the alcohol in the homemade tincture made certain of that. Her head began to fill with a pleasant cotton-wool sensation, and she stared up at the ceiling, studying the water stain that always reminded her of a unicorn… Her mind relaxed more and more as she slid further from consciousness, wrapped in the welcoming arms of a drug-induced sleep. She floated through opium-flavored dreams in which she danced in a grand ballroom with that handsome Dr. Campbell while her brother watched from the sidelines, his face purple with fury.
She jerked into consciousness abruptly, her skin tingling, shivering from the cool evening air. She wasn't sure what had awakened her-was it an unfamiliar sound or smell, or the curtains billowing out in the sudden gust of wind blowing in through the open window? Whatever it was, she was certain something had changed in the atmosphere of the room-something was different.
She sat up, her head swimming in a blur of opium. The drug dragged at her body as she rose from the bed; the air itself seemed encased in a blue haze. She was not frightened or even startled when the door to her bedroom opened and the tall, slim figure in white entered the room. In her drug-induced fog, she was unable to make out the face, even though she squinted hard at it. She realized all at once that it was a spirit. So her brother's prophecies had come to pass, and she was at long last able to communicate with the dead! She had long chided herself for being unable to sense, as he did, that they were both the embodiment of long-departed souls. He alone seemed to have access to the "world beyond the veil," as he called it. But now, she thought joyfully, the veil was at last lifting for her! She too would know the mysteries that, until now, she had sensed only vaguely.
She approached the shape lurking deep in the shadows of her room, her arms outstretched as if to embrace it. The figure shrank back, and she was afraid it would leave. She tried to speak to it, to call it back, but the laudanum had thickened her tongue, and her attempt at speech came out as a guttural grunt.
The sound of her voice seemed to startle the spirit, and he-she could see clearly now it was a man-gave a little gasp.
She tried to tell him not to be afraid, but it came out as, "Doan bay fried."
Now he was standing less than a yard away, and she reached out a hand to him. To her surprise, the spirit grabbed her wrist, and she was startled to find that, for a ghost, his grip was very firm indeed, the fingers quite strong. His skin was surprisingly warm. She wasn't sure what she expected, but not this.
She tried to wrest her hand free, but, with one quick pull, her visitor drew her body close to his, wrapping his long arms around her. She had an impulse to surrender, to swoon in the firmness of his embrace, but another, more primal impulse took over, and she resisted, trying to wrench free. But the laudanum had turned her muscles to rubber, and her effort was pathetically ineffective. It was like struggling in a hangman's noose-any attempt to free herself only served to tighten his grip.
She fought against the effect of the drug, but it was no use. Her head was hopelessly fuzzy, and she only vaguely felt the sharp prick in her arm. She twisted around to see what had caused it, and was surprised to see her captor holding a syringe in his free hand. She tried to figure out what possible use a ghost could have with a syringe, but her sight was already beginning to dim as he lifted her up and carried her from the room.