Paula Hillman, author

When I had the first ideas for The Cottage, it was going to be a gothic Victorian/modern day timeslip ghost story, believe it or not. I unzipped Jay and Evie’s story and it became the The Cottage. What I left behind was the ghostly time-slip story, which I haven’t done anything with. This is the prologue… I’d love to know what you think. Is there any mileage in writing the gothic story?

Dalton-in-Furness

December 1881.

           ‘My father’s house has many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.’

This is my ending and my beginning: bleak words from the lips of a man I do not know and the hunched shoulders of some who have claimed an acquaintance with me, though I cannot use the word love, for none love me now.

           ‘I go to prepare a place for you.’

There was no place for me, in the end. Looking down, I see that she is crying. Her body, swathed in black, leans in to his. That simple movement cuts me. She loved me once; she loved my hair. Its course texture turned to silk in her hands. I must look upon her face, this last time. I crouch behind the place where my body lies, cold, silent. She is veiled, but I see wisps of her hair. If I could only reach out. Our eyes lock and her fingers touch that hair. She cannot see me, but she has a sense of me. And now, they stand. My body is lifted; an open door lets in the cold.

           I follow, into a churchyard sheathed in snow, below a slate-grey sky. There is beauty in the scene, but a harshness too; a Cumberland winter is always harsh. Thin streams of frosted air hang above the funeral party as they come together around the open grave. My grave. Mounds of earth stand like snow-capped mountains in miniature. The grim-faced clergyman speaks, bloodless lips murmuring. Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. The reserved dignity of the group breaks, and she falls to her knees, letting out a shrill note, startling for the gathered mourners. He bends down and offers her his hand. She turns away but quiets herself.

           I have climbed an old yew tree in the churchyard. The scene weighs heavy on my heart. The severe set of my brother’s face, pale against the faded wool of his winter coat; his bending towards the open grave; the reaching out; the handful of earth.

            His expression is blank, revealing nothing of the clipped anger in his voice. ‘John Pickthall, I curse the day you were born, you are no brother of mine.’

           I turn away. To conquer death, I had to die. But the darkness was not the sweet release I expected. It presses in on me. I wait, between this place and the next. I am lost in a half-world. I traded, a peaceful death for a life of waiting, crouching in the shadows like a quiet cat. I will find her. I will find out how our story ends.  I must. She will not leave me again. She will be mine.