Page 69 of The Haunting of William Thorn

Days felt like weeks, weeks felt like years, and to William, years felt like minutes.

That’s how time worked for him now, unimportant as everything else.

Except for Hanbury – he clung to it, his home, the promise of a future he, too, would never have.

But he’d sunk the talons of his determination into the very foundations of this place and refused to let go – ever.

It wasn’t uncommon for strangers to break into Hanbury Manor.

William would hear the giggles of teenagers coming in the dead of night on some drunken ghost-hunting expedition.

Sometimes, he would give them the show of their life – scratching words into walls (they could thank Archie for that idea), throwing open cupboards, banging his feet on floorboards or whispering in their ears.

Sometimes, he would just cry, not bothering to hide it, chasing intruders out of his home with his sorrowful guilt alone.

He’d learned a lot in the time that passed. He’d watched the police investigation as though he was sitting front row in a show. It started in waves, police coming to collect DNA no doubt. They took William and Edward’s broken phones, personal belongings. Even Archie’s coat.

William watched as a group of officials came and dug up the well behind the gatehouse.

It took some time, but eventually they found what they were looking for.

Bodies– or the long-decayed remains of bones, teeth and nails.

There were two of them. Just as William watched on, so did the ghosts he’d encountered the day he found Edward unconscious in the gatehouse.

Once their bodies were discovered, their names read out on a piece of paper, they faded away like ash caught in the wind.

More questions, ones that William no longer had the energy to care for.

Everyone wanted a piece of Hanbury’s story.

Reporters, documenters, film crews and more all came to uncover the dark truth of Stonewell’s cult .

That’s what they called it. Cult sounded better, than ‘desperate families trying to protect their own’ after all.

Strangers dug through rooms which had long been emptied – evidence taken by the police or items stolen by homeless wanders who had just come to Hanbury for a warm place to sleep.

William allowed those people to stay, uninterrupted, for as long as they needed.

Time didn’t care about William, so he didn’t bother paying mind to it either. He watched the seasons change outside his window, always waiting for that one person to return.

His hope never wavered though. That stayed as strong as iron. Or so he thought. Because one day, when he heard the tell-tale crack of the front door opening, it didn’t even cross his mind that his waiting could finally be over.

It was dusk on some tired winter afternoon when slow-moving footsteps altered William to a presence within his domain. He was prepared to do anything to chase them out until he stood in the corridor, facing the person he’d been waiting for all this time.

Edward Jones had returned. His Edward except different, affected by years and the circumstance that came with them. And for a split second, William felt alive again. Something stirred in his chest. The turning of a key in a music box, or the rev of an engine starting up.

“Hello, Will,” Edward said, although much like everyone else who’d come to Hanbury since that fateful day, Edward just looked right through him.

He couldn’t see him, that much was clear. William didn’t understand how or why this happened, was it because his physical body had been taken out of Hanbury or was it because this strange existence had rules that William didn’t yet understand?

So, he didn’t bother replying. Instead, William just stood and watched Edward, taking him in like an artist to their subject.

Edward stood tall, a full beard coating his defined jaw, shadows clinging beneath deep hazel eyes. From the strands of grey hair on the sides of Edward’s head, William knew a long time had passed since he’d last seen him.

Whereas Edward had aged, William had stayed the same.

“I’m sorry it has taken me so long to come back for you,” Edward called out, resting a case down at his side, the whites of his eyes-stained red.

“It turns out our legal system is fucked … Surprised? Not really.” He choked, dropping his chin to his chest. “I – too much time has gone by, but I never forgot. Not you, not my promise. Not for a second.”

William closed the space between them, the patter of his feet so light that it was no wonder Edward didn’t notice. Had time dampened their connection to the point that he could no longer see him?

Whatever it took, William was prepared to show Edward that he was here. Perhaps he couldn’t physically see him, but William could scratch the truth into every wall, floor and ceiling of the manor until Edward was certain that William had also waited.

Those wonders dissipated as William noticed the single tear rolling down Edward’s face, soaking into his beard.

“Please,” William rasped, his voice strange and unused in all this time. “Don’t cry–”

“It’s just they had me down as the cause of your…

murder. I was the easy option out. It took a while to stack up the evidence to say otherwise.

Eventually I was able to prove what happened.

That your… death was an accident. That was the hardest. They thought I was mad when I said that you’d been with me up until the last possible second.

I’m sure it’s no surprise why it took me so long to prove my sanity.

It was only after everything I said about Mike that I finally got proven…

I was able to come back for you, just as I promised.

Mike Dean convinced them all that I was to blame, and the media lapped it up.

Until the truth came out about what his family did.

Once they found the bodies of the two missing Stonewell boys, the ones who were believed to die during World War Two, that helped.

It was Mike’s great-great-grandfather who killed them.

Blunt force trauma. He had, as it turned out, a dark appetite.

Mike ended up confessing a few years later, once the evidence was damning enough.

Will–” Edward took a deep hulking breath in and smiled.

“Andrew Dean killed Teddy for the Thomas family. There were written accounts from Robert’s father about it in the secret room.

Admissions of guilt. With that, and the remains they found, it was enough to… ”

His head dropped down to his chin.

“I’m just talking to myself, aren’t I?’

“No,” William pleaded. “I’m here. I’ve always been here.”

Again, Edward didn’t seem to hear.

“I’ve brought something with me,” he said, bending to his case, unzipping it and withdrawing something from within.

“Cost me a fortune, and I don’t want you to be pissed off.

Actually, I do. I want you to be so mad at me that you come back and tell me yourself.

I want to see the way your brow creases when your frown, or the quiver in your lower lip when you hear something you don’t like. So, please…”

William lifted a hand to his mouth. He’d never realised he did that before, which hurt him. Because Edward noticed, darling Edward with his ever-watching eyes, silently taking in details that shouldn’t have mattered, but made them important by doing so.

“I could never be mad at you, Edward,” William said, taking his hand from his mouth, and laying it upon Edward’s cheek. There, so brief he almost missed it. Edward flinched, looking up as if he sensed the touch. “Yes, see! I’m here. Please, find me.”

“I know how much you hated this before,” Edward said, laying out the object from his bag onto the corridor’s floor.

William smiled through his own tears as Edward unfolded a Ouija board and laid it out before him. This time, it came with its own planchet, and it looked like it was made from amethyst, veined with black marble.

“If you are here, sit with me for a while,” Edward said so suddenly that William almost thought he could see him.

But that wasn’t the case. “Do you know, I’m not even going to follow the rules this time.

If there is ever a moment I want to be haunted, it is now.

” Edward cleared his throat, giving himself the courage to finish. “So, Will, if you can hear me, please.”

Just please. No words after it. Please was enough.

The pain in Edward’s voice, the pleading and desperate need, all but wormed into William’s spirit and poisoned him.

William’s body trembled as he sat on the floor, crossed legs, opposite the man who occupied his thoughts day and night – for however long it had been. He didn’t even want to know how much time he’d lost either – it didn’t matter anymore.

Edward was back; that was the only thing of importance. And William would do anything to make sure he too never could leave him again.

“So, what do you say, Will?” Edward lowered fingers atop the planchet and began swirling it in a board circle. “Do you want to haunt me?”

William broke out in a half sob, half laugh.

He knew he was crying because that was his natural reaction to all emotions.

Happy tears, sad tears, ones of anger and regret, grief or desire.

Although, it happened that he never really felt the tears on his face anymore.

He wondered if that feeling went when his body was taken away from Hanbury, separating his one claim to something physical.

“I just want you ,” William whispered, lowering his paled fingers atop Edward’s hand. “All I’ve wanted is you since they day they took you away from me.”

Edward’s skin was smooth to the touch, warm and welcoming. Upon impact, Edward gasped, and the sound shot right through William’s core. He looked up, searching, but his frown deepened as if what he’d felt was all in his mind.

He shook his head and focused back on the board.

“Ask me a question, Edward,” William encouraged.

Silence rained for a moment, and then Edward finally spoke. “Are you here, Will? Are you with me… please, show me you are still with me by moving the planchet.”

Maybe Edward’s desperation as it cracked his deep voice, or perhaps the tears that continued to flow down his handsome, familiar face, gave William the strength to answer.

William focused on his desire, sunk vicious teeth into it and refused to let go. With that need, he imagined the planchet moving, pictured it so clearly in his mind so that when it finally moved, it wasn’t a surprise.

Slowly, Edward withdrew his tender fingers, letting the planchet move by William’s will alone.

He directed to the answer that mattered.

Edward read it aloud. “ Yes .”

William moved the planchet over the board, pausing briefly over the letters as Edward read them out from chest-wrecking sobs.

“I. Am. Here.”

When Edward drew his eyes from the board, this time he didn’t see right through William. Their gazes met. Hot as summer lightning, the feeling of existence speared through every inch of William. And in reflection of Edward’s tear-filled eyes, William found himself.

“You came back for me,” William said, testing his mouth, urging his voice to be loud and clear.

Edward sucked in a sharp breath, lifted his hand from the planchet and reached across the board as if going to touch William.

William found his hand lifting too, wanting nothing more than to share in a moment of real connection – something he’d craved since watching his corpse be carried out of Hanbury Manor.

“I thought you had forgotten about me,” William tried again, in case the first time didn’t work. “But you came back.”

“I will always find my way back to you. Just as I promised you I would,” Edward replied, eyes fixed on the man who meant everything to him. “A promise is a promise after all.”

“You can…” William didn’t need to finish. Because as their hands met, Edward answered. “Hear me?”

“Yes, William Thorn.” Tears of sorrow, became tears of joy. “I see you too.”

William dared move for fear he’d ruin the moment. He didn’t even want to blink, instead watching the most beautiful smile crease across Edward’s face.

“I’ve missed you,” William found himself saying. “So much.”

Edward sighed, palm pressed to William’s palm, before their fingers entangled, and they were bound once again. “And I missed you.”

There was a brief pause, soft as downy feathers.

“What now?” William asked, voice trembling, knowing that it would take more than the universe’s will to separate them again.

“Well.” Edward fished something from his pocket and withdrew a set of familiar keys. “I’ve won Hanbury Manor at an auction. Barely cost an arm, let alone a leg. Turns out no one wants a haunted house, if you can believe it.”

Both men laughed through their tears, William delighting in how cold and real they felt as each one tracked down his cheek. “I can,” he said. “Welcome home, Edward.”

“Home. Not a place, but a person. You, William.” Edward swallowed hard, the hunch in his shoulders rightening slightly. “Can I ask something of… you?”

“Anything.”

“Haunt me, William Thorn.”

William smiled from ear to ear, sticky tracks of tears drying on his cheeks. “It would be my pleasure.”