Is There A Ghost?

[Katherina Selwyn]

31 October

A seance was a perfect way to spend one's Halloween. Helena underestimated herself when she said that hosting wasn't her strong suit. She was more creative with her events than most upper-class hostesses. How many costume parties and dinners would there be tonight?

It was far into the night that the guests had scattered around her sister's old home. Katherina and Helena had retreated to one of the quieter sitting rooms. Kath had prompted them to go there, so she could show Helena some paintings that Olivia had hung there. As it turned out, Olivia's children had removed them following their mother's death.

She and Helena had remained in that room. In the middle of a bout of laughter, caused by something her friend had said, Kath suddenly froze. "Did you hear that?" She sharply turned to look at the slightly opened door. "We didn't left that open, did we?"

@'Helena Macmillan'

  

[Helena MacMillan]

An evening spent communing with the dead – or at least attempting to – had been an excellent choice on her part and Helena congratulated herself for it. Admittedly she was quite sure that the medium she had engaged for the evening was the very worst kind of fraud, but she had at least been highly entertaining and, inevitably, had mentioned Olivia and Philip extensively whilst describing to their siblings habits that were utterly erroneous in voices that were quite incorrect.

Wine had been drunk. The children were distracting themselves with grisly tales and Olivia’s terrible pieces of artwork had not magically reappeared in the sitting room from whence Regan and Evelyn had removed them. All in all it was an excellent night.

And suddenly, with only a few words, everything felt colder. Helena turned to look back at the door and furrowed her brow. She honestly could not remember. But, she was quite sure, there was a cold draft coming through the door, so cold she could not have missed it and yet this was the first time she had felt it.

“Is it colder?”