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and the white bedstead still has its rose-sprigged coverlet and pink frilly canopy. It is only how yellowed and worn everything appears that keeps me from thinking I have stepped back into another time. I feel fourteen years old in this room.
    Ah well, why bother changing the décor? I was always made to maintain the illusion of juvenescence to please my guardian, so why not keep my chambers in a state of static girlishness, too?
    But I should not speak ill of Lord Calipash, or rather, he who was Lord Calipash until his death—his death that I fear I may have caused not an hour ago! And already there is a new lord under the manor-roof tonight …
    Things are far stranger here at Calipash Manor than I anticipated. Perhaps there is something to the idea of a family curse—no! Stop that, Chelone. You are simply tired from your journey, and overwrought.
    Here is what happened, the facts, I mean: I arrived at the Ivybridge station on time, but no one was waiting for me, to my distress. The skies promised rain, and it was miles to walk to Calipash Manor.
    After waiting at the station for some time, I begged the use of a little wheeled cart for my trunk and went into Ivybridge proper, thinking I would visit the post office. It was from thence I had received the letter from my guardian summoning me hither. I thought perhaps I could, rather than sending a message by courier, ride with said courier (if the horse would bear us both) and come back later for my luggage.
    The town looked the same, snug stone houses and muddy streets, the occasional chicken scurrying across the main thoroughfare. The post office was in the same dilapidated cottage, I was happy to discover, with what could have been the same geraniums blooming in the window-box as when I was a girl. I went inside and explained my situation.
    “Quite a lot of traffic to and from the manor-house of late,” remarked the woman at the window, not answering my query of how I might get myself to Calipash Manor. “Telegraph yesterday, and was barely a week ago the prodigal son come in to send a letter. Queer fellow.”
    “Mr. Vincent has come home, then?”
    “Aye, for his father is soon for the grave, they say.”
    “How is he queer?” I was madly curious about Orlando Vincent, the cousin I had never seen. I should remember later to ask him about Rotterdam, where he was educated. Might be able to write something for the Vase about Dutch schoolboys or something …
    “Didn’t say nothing when he came in.” The woman’s frown would have shamed the devil himself. “Grunted his yeses and noes as if he had no human power of speech in him. Gave me a turn, he did. At first I thought he was the Ghast o’the Hills, come to take my soul. Mr. Vincent is very like the apparition, though of course his clothing is different.”
    Her words made me laugh, which I could tell displeased her. As a child I heard tell of the ‘Ghast o’the Hills,’ some sort of spirit in a frock-coat that is said to haunt the parish of Ivybridge. Once I even thought I saw it … a childish fancy, of course. I am lucky that education—and, of course, living in London—has disabused me of such country superstitions.
    “So you’ve seen the Ghast?” I asked, amused.
    “You may laugh, miss, but around here, there’s precious few who haven’t seen the Ghast! He’s as real as you or I, and wanders at night moanin and groanin. It’s said he seeks a wife to keep him company.”
    “And Mr. Vincent looks like him?”
    “Well, he’s thin, tall, with that Calipash face. All thems what come from the Manor have a look, don’t they? In fact, you have it too, my girl. Are you related?”
    I didn’t want to get into that. “I didn’t realize the Ghast was part of the Calipash Curse?”
    “Well, that family’s queer, of course, so if this town had some sort of malign spirit, it’d come from thems what—”
    “You hush your foolish old mouth, Hazel Smith! Telling ghost stories like a heathen. You