Page 7 of The Haunting of William Thorn

I feel I may explode if I do not reveal this to someone. Implode? Perhaps both.

Reader, you are the only one I can trust with this. As the ink dries upon this page, I hope you keep my secret, or by the flaming rivers of hell destroy you.

I love a man.

That admission alone is enough to break me.

Before you grow equally concerned for me, he is unaware of my admiration.

Perhaps I should feel thankful for his oblivious nature.

It may make it easier to deal with these sinful thoughts I hold inside.

However, I want nothing more than to tell him.

But I cannot, must not utter it to a single living soul.

Now, Reader, do not take offence to my previous statement. I said nothing about telling a dead soul. You are nothing but the skin of an old tree, after all.

To date, it has already been three weeks since Teddy came to stay. Mother had briefly warned me he was coming to live with us, and I must admit that the initial thought did not please me. I was used to being alone, to doing what I wanted with my time without the constant concern of entertaining.

Funny how things change. How initial dread can turn into dread for an entirely differing reason. Because now, all I wish to do is entertain him.

Day and night .

I did warn you my thoughts were sinful. I must also make you a promise to put down Mother’s secret stash of romance novels, and I fear the stories are poisoning my pious mind.

These feelings I harbour were not always such a burden.

Upon Teddy’s arrival to Hanbury, it was easier to ignore him.

He only came into my home during breakfast, lunch and supper.

It was not until a week into his stay that I even learned his name.

I heard Father saying it to Mother in a passing conversation about how our gardens have thrived since Teddy moved here.

I admit, I would never have put such a soft name with such a hard-looking man. Teddy? Something soft souls fancy to hug on cold, dark nights. He was more akin to Statue-Man, or Adonis, perhaps. A great god like Zeus with his mighty stature and prowess.

Actually, I always found Zeus to be rather villainous. I think Teddy is more like Hercules, unknowing of his splendour and yet inspiring all the same. With the dark and unwavering stare of Hades himself.

As Mother explained when I asked her in a round-about way, Teddy is twenty-five, almost an entire year older than me.

His parents had been long-time friends with mine, although it had been years since they had last seen them.

Apparently, we used to tumble together as young children, but alas, I do not remember.

Teddy’s mother sadly passed a few years prior, and his father is in the city discussing the growing tension in Europe regarding the potential of further conflict in Germany.

So my parents, ever the dutiful pair, offered Teddy a place to stay until normalcy returned to our shores.

I suppose I should tell you how I went from despising the thought of being around him to loving him in a rather quick period. A tragedy, I know. Homer would have adored me, a silly young man full of fantasies, falling in love with someone who would never love me back.

Yes, I hear you. I will start slower so you understand, or perhaps putting these words down will help me make sense of it. If I can part my thoughts and neatly arrange them, then maybe, just maybe, I will be able to organise them in a box and hide them away in my mind, preferably forever.

Now, as you are nothing but a simple page in a simple book, you will not know that my bedroom overlooks the front gardens.

Now you do. Father arranged for my desk to be neatly placed before the window so I could have a view when working on my studies.

I had asked him to move it only days into Teddy’s stay.

I found the strange man’s presence on our grounds distracting, and I had my studies to focus on.

Soon enough, my studies became the least of my worries.

I watch Teddy as he works. Like an eagle from its nest, spying down on the world and its wonders, I study him with more interest than my books. And soon enough, my secret glances were not so secret.

I must now tell you about the day my feelings blossomed with vigour just like the roses Teddy tended to in the garden.

I had the window cracked open to allow some much-needed fresh air to cool my room.

Teddy was working on Mother’s favourite rose bushes out the front of the garden, snipping away buds to allow new ones to take their place.

I could not focus on the words in my book because every moment the snip of his shears sounded, it drove me to the point of insanity.

I could not see him from my chair, however I certainly heard him.

The infrequent snips and low humming of him singing grated slowly on my nerves.

It may be dramatic to write this, but those nerves soon frayed so much so that I was up, kneeling on my desk until I was practically leaning out of the window.

Do you mind! That is what I shouted, can you believe it? I wish I could recall what he first said back as he lifted his head toward me, hand raised to his brow to block out the sun as he looked at me.

Words meant little when his glistening torso caught my full attention.

Even from my distance, I could see every bead of sweat that lingered across his sun-kissed skin.

The stained vest was tucked into the band of his muddied trousers, tugging down at the front until my eyes travelled down the peculiar shape of his muscles, which showed in the shape of an upside-down triangle.

I was never very good at mathematics, but suddenly shapes became my favourite subject.

I was not familiar with such a physique until seeing it in the flesh.

My own build is thin and wiry, with silly long arms and a narrow chest. Of course, I was familiar with muscles, but I had just never seen them on a real person.

The muscles in the books I owned were usually hand-drawn depictions of the human anatomy.

I admit, those drawings were put to shame in the presence of a man like Teddy.

He took my breath away, and the most awful part was that Teddy had seen my reaction.

After his initial comment that I have since forgotten, Teddy must have taken my silence as idiocy because he rose his voice and shouted something else.

And do you know what he said next, with his thick country accent and harsh vowels?

Care to come down from your castle turret and help me?

I could not believe he had said such a thing to me, and all the while, with a proud grin across his face.

Handsome face, might I add. Yes, yes. I know details like that are not necessary for the tale.

But since I am no famed painter, I wish you to fully imagine the spectre I was looking down at.

Perhaps then you would not judge me for my reaction.

In fact, maybe one day I will even try to my best ability to capture it with the little skill I possess with a paint brush.

There was nothing my mind deemed worthy enough for me to reply to him. If I had not pulled myself away from him, I would have likely leaned far out the window and tumbled to my death.

I think I replied something about keeping quiet, but frankly I am not confident what words tumbled out my mouth. What I do know is that I slammed my window shut so hard that one of the small square panes shattered.

Thank God my father was away for the day in Oxford, and my mother was downstairs in the kitchen preparing roasted lamb, because they would have heard me swear. If they had, no doubt the bar of lavender soap would have been shoved so far down my throat I would be burping bubbles for weeks.

I may have been twenty-four, but the fear of having my mouth washed out with soap was enough for me to bite hard down on my tongue.

All the while, Teddy glanced up with the widest of smiles. I did not know it was even possible to smile so much.

I can still taste the blood on my tongue, as it has been two weeks since the incident.

Weeks since Teddy had first spoken with me. Between then and now, we have shared many more words with one another. Mine are always short, whereas his almost always are accompanied by a smile that seemed to light his handsome face from within.

If these pages could use tongue and speech, you may ask how I know I love a man I have barely known, let alone know anything about.

Because he occupies my mind, always .

When I was a child, sitting on my father’s knee, I asked him why he loved my mother. He had said exactly that.

She always filled his mind, whether far or near. Mother haunts him.

That was his description of such an emotion like love. Haunt, a word that is taken straight out of a Bram Stoker novel.

Teddy never leaves me. Even in my dreams, he is there, haunting me like some phantom of an old or violent Shake-spearean ghost that my tutor makes me read so much about.

I hate it. I hate myself for thinking such thoughts and for feeling such a way.

This is why I must meet him tonight after Mother and Father are in bed. He stays in the gatehouse at the border of our estate. I am going to confront him and tell him to leave Hanbury myself.

Leave me.

The sooner Teddy is away from Hanbury Manor, the sooner my mind can be mine again.

I can be me again.

Teddy must go soon, otherwise I fear I might break. And that, dearest reader, scares me.