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“I am, rather.”
“Because this is where you saw him.” Juliet realized this answer could be misconstrued. “I mean, I didn’t choose it because this is where you saw a ghost. But you’re wondering …”
Would he say it, or would she have to? Duncan would never have been able to follow her thought process.
Noah said it. “I’m wondering if you have seen something.”
The thrill of being understood pulsed through her. “I think I’d like to hear about your experience before I share mine.”
“Fair enough. You know Havencross has been empty since Clarissa Somersby’s death in 1992. All that time my family’s acted as caretakers, making sure it didn’t burn down or flood, putting plywood up over broken windows, keeping down the rodent population, things like that. Both Rachel and I would tag along at times. I was ten years old the winter of ’99. Came with my dad to check things over after a snowstorm.”
He motioned to the door at the end of the corridor. “We were up on the attic level, the medieval solarium, where one of the window frames was leaking. Have you been up there? I mean, you must have; it’s part of your job.”
“I go up once a week,” she said.
“Right, so you know how empty it is up there. Boring for a child. I left my dad working and came down the spiral stairs to amuse myself in wider spaces. It was here that I saw him.” He indicated with his hand the corridor in which they stood—the corridor that had lightened so inexplicably last night.
Juliet bit her lip. “What did you see?”
“At first, just an impression of light. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. But then the light settled and coalesced into the form of a young boy, about my age, with fair hair and wide-set eyes.” Another of his too-sharp glances. “Does that sound familiar?”
She nodded, not afraid, exactly. More awed.
Noah nodded back. “And then I heard him, without him ever opening his mouth. He extended his hand and he said—”
“Come hide with me,” Juliet said, word for word exactly with Noah.
With a wondering, admiring expression, Noah said, “You have seen him.”
“Last night. Scared the hell out of me,” she admitted. “I spent the rest of the night with everything moveable shoved in front of my bedroom door.”
He laughed. “I shouted so loud my dad came tearing down the stairs thinking I’d broken my leg. He told me I was just imagining things. Aunt Winnie believed me though. And I never cared to come back to this part of the house again. And yet …”
It was his turn to hesitate. But Juliet felt she knew him well enough to finish his sentence: “And yet, the boy does not seem threatening. Just lonely.”
“Right again.” Without the least self-consciousness, Noah extended his hand, and she took it. “Does that mean you’re going to keep sleeping up here?”
“I think so. For whatever reason, I like this part of the house. It feels the most … loved. Maybe I just like that it’s small and easier to see into every part. Sleeping in that grand front bedroom would feel like being on display in a deserted museum. And despite my initial shock, I’m not afraid of a lost little boy.”
When he looked at her with a question in his hazel eyes, Juliet almost told him why—about her own lost little boy and the grief that had driven her to Havencross. But talking about Liam was one step too far for today.
Noah’s expression lightened. “I don’t suppose your contract requires to you spend every waking minute inside the house. I mean, you came to the farm. Would you like to go dinner some night next week? You could come to Newcastle, or I could meet you in Hexham.”
So he hadn’t just been teasing.
“I’d love to see Newcastle.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JULIET
2018
After that rather extraordinary afternoon with Noah, Juliet spent the next few days in flat-out physical labor, exhausting herself so thoroughly that she had no trouble falling—and staying—asleep.
She kept remembering what he’d said when she’d asked him why the ghost boy couldn’t be Thomas Somersby: “Whoever the boy was in life, he wasn’t Thomas.” She didn’t know why she should find that so reassuring—wouldn’t a ghost who’d been stuck on Earth for even longer than a hundred years be that much more demanding? However, Noah’s strongly voiced certainty had rung through her with rightness, suggesting she’d found the path to follow.
A path that seemed to be mixed up with Clarissa Somersby’s interest in the Wars of the Roses. Maybe.
