Haunted Secrets: Tales of Carl Hesselschwerdt Vol. 2

Fighting Shadows

Carl stood with Eloise in the doorway to the butler’s pantry. They watched as the domestics went about their business in the house, little bees in their hive, always working no matter what else was going on.

There was always work to be done in the household. Floors and walls needed to be scrubbed, food cooked, gardens tended, clothing washed, and a dozen more tasks every day. In a normal household, it would have been tumultuous. In the Anderson house, it was chaotic. Sometimes catastrophic.

Most everyone knew the danger that lurked unseen in the darkness. Or at least some of it. All of them told stories about the cellar. Carl had learned that even before he’d died. Even before he’d seen what waited in those shadows. And that was only the beginning of their troubles.

The girl, Vivienne, was worse than those things below. She held them in thrall and wielded a dark control over them that made her by far the most dangerous thing in the house. None of the servants knew of her. None alive, anyway. And there was Anderson himself, a petty and spiteful man not above killing for any reason, it seemed.

Personal gain was the motive behind some of his crimes. Rage was clearly the reason for others. Those wretched things in the cellar had all crossed him at one time or another. Nothing would stop him from taking his ire out on one of his servants if they crossed him.

The house itself was another thing altogether. Carl had come to learn that it was an entity of a different kind. Not alive, of course. But not dead like himself and Eloise, for it had never been alive. But it was capable of acting, of doing things. It could move and change. It could make rooms appear and disappear seemingly at random.

There was intelligence there, but one Carl did not understand. Perhaps housing so many of the dead for so long had allowed the building to act like some kind of machine, using the dead as batteries. It was powered by their energy, by death itself. Perhaps. It was a question to which Carl had no answer. But the house was sometimes as dangerous as the things within it.

“Who is that?” Eloise asked.

Carl watched the servants going about their business.

Anderson had hired a new maid after the poor girl who was left barren by the Dark Ones could not bring herself to return to the house. It had been a difficult process to find someone new. Carl had no doubt there were rumors in such circles about working in the house on Berkley Street.

“Her name is Felicity,” Carl said. He had overheard when she was introduced to the rest of the staff. “She comes from Colorado.”

“I’ve never been,” Eloise said absently, causing Carl to chuckle. “Why is she here?”

“She is the new maid.”

“No one saw fit to tell her what happened to the previous maid?”

“I do not think that information was made available to her.”

“I am disappointed,” Eloise grumbled. “One of them could have warned her.”

“They take the same risk as the new girl,” Carl pointed out. “They all choose to pretend things are not as they are.”

Eloise shook her head.

“Do you think that’s what they do? Pretend?”

“Yes. To protect themselves from the truth. From their fear,” Carl said. He knew the servants did not want to work for Mr. Anderson. They feared for their lives. But they feared defying Mr. Anderson just as much, if not more. There was no way to win for them.

That no one would be bold enough to warn a new girl away from the job was not a surprise to Carl. That was how people were. They might not wish her ill will, but for some of them at least, having a new face, a new body, meant one more person between them and the dangers of the house.

In the wild, animals traveled in herds for protection, fully knowing that predators would still pick off one or two, but usually the slowest and oldest. Most would survive. Maybe everyone in the house felt the same way. Most would survive.

Eloise left, unhappy with the servants and uninterested in learning more about the new maid. Carl stayed behind, watching Felicity being shown around the house and having her duties explained. He followed them from room to room as the girl nodded sometimes and asked questions every now and again.

Felicity seemed to be a quick study, and she clearly had experience as a maid elsewhere. Within several days, she had a good understanding of the layout of the house and what was expected of her. Never once in that time did anything unusual happen. The spirits of the house left her alone, Mr. Anderson was barely present, and the house itself did nothing to show the true nature of where she was working.

Carl was not with her all day every day. He drifted in and out. He liked to go for walks in the garden sometimes, and along the edges of the property. Sometimes, he loitered about the oubliette with his remains. On the odd occasion, he even indulged Eloise in a game.

When he returned to the new girl, she always seemed in good spirits. He found himself conscious of his presence near her and wondered what made him so interested. It was not a romantic interest; the girl was very young, and his feelings were not of that nature. At some point, he realized he had developed a curiously paternal feeling.

He knew what Felicity was walking into. And as Eloise had said, it seemed that no one was warning her of the dangers. Carl felt like he needed to keep an eye on her just in case something happened.