Haunted Secrets: Tales of Frank Benedict Vol. 4

The Antagonists

Aaron Winthrop woke from an uneasy sleep and lay staring at the ceiling. The thin curtains of his rented room let in a trickle of colorless light. Dawn was very near. Aaron wondered if he would live to see another. Of course, a believer would hope to see the eternal dawn of paradise after death. But as a man of reason, he could not believe, or at least not wholly. For Aaron, death was the end. A terrible prospect? Or perhaps simply the laying down of a burden? 

No! Don’t think such things!

He forced himself to sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the low truckle bed. He groped for his watch and almost knocked the candle holder off the bedside table. Finding his watch, he flipped open the glass cover and felt the hands. Just after six. But had he remembered to wind the watch last night? He could not recall. Surely, it was the habit of a lifetime?

He got up, walked to the window, and pulled back the curtain a few inches. A horse and cart were passing in the muddy street below, the driver’s face hidden by a battered tricorn hat. The cart was about the right size for a coffin. Aaron tried to banish the thought, but it forced itself upon him. If he were shot, would he return to this shabby tavern, perhaps mortally stricken? The innkeeper had called the local doctor a drunken quack with an unsteady hand. Better instant death than to be operated on by a country sawbones in his cups. 

“Honor must be satisfied.”

He tried speaking boldly, straightening his back as a gentleman should. And Aaron Winthrop was a gentleman, yes, and a true red-blooded Englishman. Unlike Thaddeus Holt, who was a low-born creature. The thought of his antagonist’s smirking features ended Aaron’s doubts. Last night, without provocation, Holt—a fat, red-faced boor—had insulted King George, denounced England, and sneered at His Majesty’s soldiery. 

Aaron recalled the raised voices, the calls for calm, and the way he had walked up to Holt and slapped his ignorant peasant face. Perhaps he had spoken rashly in calling the man a traitor and a scoundrel. Perhaps the fool had simply been drunk and loose-tongued. But whatever the reason, Holt had been within his rights. The man had demanded satisfaction on the field of honor. And suddenly, Aaron had been swept up in events, with men eagerly volunteering to arrange the duel, to be his seconds, to provide the weapons.

Pistols at dawn.

A simple phrase, but fraught with grim certainty. If he backed out now, Aaron Winthrop’s name would be mud the length and breadth of the thirteen colonies. Yet, if he went ahead with the duel, he might die. Or, worse still, he might be accused of murder if he killed that fool, Holt. He was unsure as to the legal technicalities. And time was passing. He opened the curtains a few inches so he could see to dress. Then, he turned to retrieve his clothes from a rickety chair in the corner.

It was then that the woman appeared.

She was standing in the doorway, half in shadow, not looking at Aaron but peering at something in her hand. A mirror, perhaps? No, more like a small book. Her attentive expression was not born of vanity. Aaron was not convinced the woman was real. How had she entered the room without alerting him? The door was ill-fitting and creaked on its hinges. And how could her face be illuminated by an unearthly glow?

Even as he stood and wondered, the woman vanished. 

A ghost?