Nothing Compares

Part 1 of 3, an "Unquiet World" story

I had the beginnings of an idea shortly after learning of Jenifer Jorgenson’s “Unquiet World” collaboration and here it is finally. It’s in three parts, more than twice her suggested word count limit.

(Go to All The Above Sea Stories.)

If you’re new to The Môrdreigiau Chronicles, welcome! Mostly I share the journals and letters and novels that I found kept in a trunk found in my attic that were written during the Regency period (or shortly thereafter) and involve a small group on quests to find Arthurian treasures that will enable them to save the world from ecological collapse. Oh, and there are shapeshifting sea dragons. I know, sounds like a fantasy story, right?

When the dead returned, they didn’t just haunt us. They changed everything.

When the news reported hundreds of strange ghost sightings appearing in cities all over the world, I thought for sure our little village would get its own collection. We didn’t quite make it into the Domesday Book, but I can see an Iron Age hillfort from my attic window, for Heaven’s sake.

My family has lived in this house for seven centuries. Just to be clear, I mean for generations, not the same people. These days you have to spell that out.

My ancestors must have all been a happy and fulfilled lot for no ghost appeared in my kitchen, attic, or basement.

Not a single wisp of a ghostly apparition in the village or in any of the byways. Another missed opportunity to get our little hamlet of Thinwood on the tourist maps. FOMOG, we called it. Fear Of Missing Out on Ghosts.

A few months later, I opened the front door to find a strange man in my garden.

At first, I thought he was a lost cosplayer, it being Jane’s 250th birthday. Celebrations have been going on all year. Again, Miss Austen has been dead for a long long time and hasn’t seen fit to make an re-appearance. Yet.

The man wore black, his white shirt closed off at the neck with a black cravat. His breeches ended below the knee with white stockings and square silver-buckled black shoes. The knitted silk hinted at padding to show off a shapely calf. A well-turned calf isn’t the same as a codpiece, but sadly the man dressed for a later era.

“Hello,” I called. “Can I help you?” I held back from asking if he were lost. Men tend not to like admitting to that.

He turned from his perusal of my early spring garden and the ancient cherry tree just coming into bud. His mouth dropped into an oh shape. “Emma!” He hurried to me, hope dawning upon his otherwise unremarkable face framed with artfully arranged dark curls. Faint white wisps trailed behind him.

“No!” I backed into the house, grabbing the door. “You’ve got the wrong woman. I’m Emily.”

He halted, his head at a slight tilt to examine me. (Not a creepy zombie head tilt either. A perfectly normal one, thank you.)

“You are not my Emma?” He reached for me. I swatted him off, my arm passing without resistance through his forearm. His hand sunk into my cheek.

We stumbled apart, shocked. The cold burned my cheek, my gums, part of my tongue.

“Your attire is strange but…” His shoulder slumped. “Forgive me, madam.” He swooped a florid, dispirited bow. “You are the very image of her.”

I rubbed my chilled cheek, forgetting all about slamming the door. We had a ghost! I had a ghost. “Who?”

“My beloved Emma.”

“What is the last year you remember?” I tried to guess from his costume. “1794? 18–?”

“1811, madam. But I will trouble you no longer.” He made to turn.

“She lived here?” I don’t know what made me ask. FOMOG, probably.

He covered his mouth, horrified. “Lived, madam? Is she—“ He backed off a step, the edges of him blurring.

“You better come in,” I regretted the words as soon as I said them. Would the ghost go all banshee on me once it crossed the threshold? “I would offer you a cup of tea, but—“

He hiccuped. “Tea? Still a civilised nation, then.”

“So you have noticed the world has changed.” I beckoned to him. “My family have lived in this house since the 13th century. My dad did genealogy. Perhaps we can find out what happened to her?”

He followed me inside. I disappeared into the kitchen, pouring filtered water into the kettle. My hands shook. Well, of course they did. I had a real live ghost in my front room!

I set a steaming cup before his hunched uncertain figure on my midcentury sofa. With his attire, he looked more at home than my parent’s furniture. “I don’t know if you can drink it, but perhaps smell?”

His fingers passed through the cup’s handle. He bent forward. “Mm.”

I sipped my tea, banishing the last of the frost from my tongue. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

He told me of being a second in a duel on Hampstead Heath. “I remember a pistol pointing at me.”

I set down my cup. “Hampstead is in London. How did you get here?”

“I walked. It was hard to find a horse and the few I did find were far too skittish around me.” His head ducked. “I am not the best of riders. They probably sensed it.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t it.” I finished my tea and moved to the filing cabinets that supported the flat-screen TV. I pulled out the relevant manila folders. “As she lived here, she would have been Emma Ashton.”

“Ashton? No, she was their cousin. Her name was Miss Emma Beech.”

I know. A very unfortunate name. “Emma Beech?” I was glad I had my back to him as I was unable to keep a straight face. “There have always been Ashtons here. If she was visiting—“

“She lived here, madam. Her father died when she was a child and she and her mother moved back to this house.”

I grabbed another folder and sat in front of the man and the coffee table. “I haven’t asked you your name yet.”

“Mr. Marcus Thindonton.” He stopped his head. “And you, madam?”

“Thindonton??” I swallowed. He was from that family. “I’m Emily Ashton.” I wiped my hands on my floral skirt and opened up the first folder, busying myself. “Let’s see…if she’s the daughter of a daughter…”

Silence fell as I traced my father’s writing. He’d drawn a number of the charts by hand. “Ah! Found her!”

He leaned forward, the steam from the tea passing through his head. “Where? Where is she?”

“She married Thomas Ashton.” I turned the paper so he could see, pointing out the entry. “She’s my great times eight grandmother. Approximately.”

He turned pale. Well, pale for a ghost. “She—she didn’t even wait a month?” He buried his head in his hands. “We were betrothed!” His shoulders shook.

I stared at him, unable to think of anything to say that would help in his grief.

Uttering an incoherent and not at all spooky cry, he stood and strode straight through the wall into the garden.

I followed by more conventional means. He kneeled under the old cherry tree, sobbing, his arms clasped around its thickened trunk. I retreated inside to give him privacy. By the time I had finished tidying the kitchen and returned to check on him, he had gone.

I deposited my basket of produce by the cash register.

“Did you hear?” Marjorie leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially while she rang up the first item. “We have a ghost!”

I schooled my features, probably not fooling my friend for a second. “We do?”

Thankfully, she was too excited to notice. “In the cemetery.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Many reports say these ghosts appear in people’s houses or on the streets.”

“He’s been wailing and moaning at all hours.” Marjorie waved in the cemetery’s general direction. “Near where your lot are buried.”

“Not a small area,” I admitted. “He?” Was this where Marcus had gone?

“He wears breeches so unless he’s cross-dressing…”

I bounced on my heels and paid quickly. It took everything not to fling my shopping bags in the fridge and run back through the village to the cemetery adjoining the church.

I skipped washing the fruit and vegetables. I might have stuffed all the bags into the fridge. I managed to reduce my dash to a fast walk.

Mr. Marcus Thindonton lay prostrate upon a grave. One that held the remains of his Emma and my several-greats-grandpa. I heard his sobs over the crunch of gravel beneath my feet.

“Mr. Thindonton? Marcus?” I knelt beside him.

He ignored me, continuing to shed tears. Awkwardly, I patted his back. My hand passed between his shoulder blades, sinking into him, burning me with his undead ice.

I repeated the action, with greater care, my hand hovering just over his coat.

Then I made contact with him. Not the air above or the icy chill of his interior. But against him.

His crying ceased. He looked up blearily. “Em—“ he hiccuped. “—ma?”

“Emily,” I gently corrected. “You can’t mean to stay here.”

He pointed at the headstone. “Eight children. Lived until she was seventy! She—she never loved me.”

In Dad’s papers, I had noticed the date of her first born, a mere six months after the wedding. Preemies tended not to survive in those days but this one did, growing to adulthood.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. She named her eldest Marcia.” I looked sidelong at him. “After you, do you think?”

He stared at the headstone, his face red and streaked with tears. “Why?”

“Did you and she—“ I waggled my fingers. “—have an early wedding night?”

His blotchy face alternately darkened and paled. “Oh God. She married her cousin to remain respectable? She must have been so unhappy. I have wronged her terribly.” He flung himself back upon the gravestone with renewed sobbing.

I had nothing to say to that. I patted his back, continuing to make solid contact, although my palm grew icy.

Eventually, his sobs eased. He raised his head, sniffling. “You are my several greats-granddaughter then.”

I had read up on Emma’s marriage. ”I’m descended from her eldest son, the third child. I’m sorry, Marcus, but we’re not related.”

He sat up, dusted his knees and front more from habit as neither leaf nor dirt stuck to his breeches. “I miss her,” he confessed.

“Another cup of tea? You can tell me all about her. A person is much more than their church records. I would like to know more about what she was like.”

He managed a tremulous smile. “I would like that.”

We got to our feet. Mud clung to my jeans at knees and shins.

“Madam, what are you wearing? Trousers??” Marcus’ wide-eyed expression drifted south of my waistline, making me wish for several petticoats.

“Times have changed,” I told him. I tried to sound nonchalant but my burning cheeks probably ruined the effect.

Side by side, we walked to my home, the Cotswold brick glowing in the afternoon light. Behind the house, a small stream gurgled its welcome, hidden amongst overgrown bushes.

I made him a cup of tea, which he sniffed in appreciation. We spent hours talking about Emma and his life. I delivered a potted history of the two hundred and so years since.

He drifted into the kitchen after me, unwilling to pause our conversation, while I whipped up a quick soup. The bread I had stuffed into the fridge with my other groceries had gotten a bit dented. I cut a few slices.

Mr. Thindonton’s stomach grumbled. He reached for the bread but his hand passed through it. He sighed.

I poured myself a glass of red wine, and one more for him. I could always drink it once he was done inhaling it.

I told him about going to London for uni, about leaving it behind for the countryside, about becoming Mum’s carer for a few years until she passed last year.

The night grew late. One glass of red became two, then three.

I stifled a yawn.

“My pardon.” Marcus rose—for he had become Marcus instead of Mr. Thindonton over the course of the evening. “It is late. I should go.”

“Go where?” I found the idea of him returning to the cemetery abhorrent. “Stay with me, if you wish. Or you could go home? Thindon Park still stands.”

Marcus pursed his lips in displeasure. “You live alone? Your husband?”

“I’m not married.” Had he not noticed my distinct lack of love life in our conversation? Not that I had brought it up and he hadn’t asked until now.

Marcus looked aghast. “Madam, to stay with a single woman would not be proper!”

“Please, call me Emily. I don’t mind. I’ll sleep upstairs, you down here. But if you’d rather Thindon Park…”

He frowned. “That place holds no attraction for me.”

And this one does? I wanted to ask. “Then stay,” I said instead.

I plumped up the sofa cushions for him and he lay down. I threw a blanket over him but it sank through him. He levitated an inch to free his mostly incorporeal body.

I said goodnight. He grabbed my hand. His touch was firm, icy, our palms melding. I glanced back, surprised.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

My skin tingled, my heart pounded. I had definitely too much to drink.

Thanks for reading! Would love to know what resonated or sparkled for you in this story. Please share in the comments below, or drop me an email/DM.

If you’d like to read short stories about shapeshifting sea dragons, you check them out in The Red Book of Rhiannon.

(Go to All The Above Sea Stories.)