“Thanks,” I say again, returning the smile weakly.
We make our way up the staircase and along the landing, Meredith leading the way, until she stops outside one of the doors on the right. She turns the brass door handle, pushes the door open, and I instantly recognise the pale pink bedroom inside. This used to be my room. I guess it is again.
“I’ll leave you to get unpacked then. But I mean it. I know how upset you must be, so please come to me if you need anything at all.” Meredith turns to leave. “Feel free to have a nosy around! This house is yours now too, of course.” She pauses. “Your father’s only request is that you stay out of his study downstairs.” With that, she heads back off the way we came and disappears down the staircase.
No problem. I have absolutely no desire to poke about in his study, and I have no idea why he’d think I would.
I step inside the bedroom, taking my case with me, and haul it onto the bed. I plonk myself down next to it, kick off my shoes and look around. Compared to the rest of the house, which seems dark and gothic, this bedroom is light and airy. The window is large, the mid-morning sunlight streaming in and warming the light pink walls. The dressing table and matching chair are a pale wood, as is the wardrobe standing in the corner. I look at my case and wonder when the rest of my things will arrive. Most of my clothes, my books and other personal belongings got shipped ahead, and I assume they’ll arrive in the next few days.
My mother must have painted this room. Yes, I’m sure I remember her in denim dungarees, hair scraped back and a paint roller in hand. Handing me a small brush and my own tray of paint. Telling me we needed to be serious and do a good job, but then dabbing me on the nose with the wet brush when I turned around, both of us laughing.
I focus on the memory. She had wanted this space to be different than the rest of the house, bright and inviting for her little girl.
That was the thing. My mother had never really suited this place. This house was all Philip Van Tassel, passed down to him from generations of Van Tassels before. Untouched and unchanging, nothing but cold floors and wood-panelled walls. She’d moved in when they’d married, but it had never felt like home to her. My father had allowed her to change this one room and nothing else, telling her that the rest of the house was history, and you couldn’t just rewrite history.
I hope she had been happy here, at some point. But I’m not so sure.
All I remember is being eight years old and my mother asking my father to move. To a smaller house, but somewhere brighter, with more people around and more hustle and bustle. He had refused. For months, she had tried to persuade him to pack up with her and go on an adventure, to try somewhere new, see what else was out there. But he’d been adamant that his place was at Van Tassel Manor, and that he couldn’t leave it. His legacy was in Sleepy Hollow.
So we had left without him. I knew it had broken my mother’s heart to leave him, but it would have broken her more to stay.
I’m not sure I’ve ever really forgiven him for not coming with us, for choosing this place over his family.
And now I’m back. Without her.
Van Tassel Manor is my home for the foreseeable.
3
Iclose my suitcase and stuff it under the bed. The room feels both foreign and familiar. Mine but not. The door to this room must have been kept closed for some time, as there’s a faint smell of mildew in the air, but there’s also a hint of old wood and the lingering scent of lavender.
I shrug out of my jacket and drape it over the dresser chair. Kick off my boots.Well, I may as well have a look around.
Stepping out into the corridor, my footsteps are somewhat muted by the threadbare carpet, although some of the floorboards squeak under my weight. The house seems to breathe around me, a symphony of groans and creaks as I make my way down the long, dimly lit corridors. Shadows lurk in the corners, where the weak light from the sconces fails to reach.
Just as I remember, the upstairs is a warren of rooms, but most are empty, or the doors are locked. The brushed brass doorknobs are cool under my touch, and I feel like an intruder, quietly skulking around a space that isn’t mine.
Turning a corner, I come to a long hall lined with a gallery of portraits. The Van Tassel family. They loom over me, and I swear their eyes track my own as I pass from one end of the corridor to the other. Ancestors whose names I struggle to remember. The Van Tassels have lived in Sleepy Hollow for a hell of a long time, and the further down the corridor I go, the more elaborate the dresses become.
As I walk back along the corridor, a small hatch in the ceiling catches my eye. It occurs to me that if my mother left anything behind all those years ago, then it might still be here, put into storage. If I haven’t come across anything down here, perhaps it was moved to the loft space. Everything here feels strange and unfamiliar. It would be comforting to find something of my mother’s, to have it here with me. To feel connected to her in this place.
I find Meredith in the flagstone kitchen, hands dusted with flour as she kneads a fresh ball of dough. Her eyes well with tears as I ask about the attic.
“Oh love, I understand. Yes, I suppose if your mother did leave anything behind, Philip probably would have had it moved to the attic. Although I can’t really say for certain what is up there,” she says.
She disappears into a side room and returns holding a heavy metal torch.
“I don’t think the attic light has worked for years,” she says handing over the torch. “Be careful up there.”
In all the books I read, the stepmother is always such a bitch. What a shocker that Meredith is actually nice.
I don’t waste any time climbing up to the attic, but once there, I’m disappointed to find that despite its size, the torch casts a surprisingly weak light. Luckily, the sun is on the right side of the house, and it’s coming in through a large, triangular window, which illuminates most of the bigger things up here. Outside,I can see the grounds to the back of the house, stretching out towards the forest. I can even see the old family mausoleum, standing just before the line of trees.
I hold the torch down low to try and see where I’m stepping. The floorboards here are bare and thick with dust. The high wooden trusses are solid, and I can almost feel them holding up the weight of the enormous roof pressing down above me.
I shine the torch around the vast space, but there’s not much up here. I find a stack of boxes under a dust sheet, but they’re only filled with old papers, the corners yellowed and curling, the ink already faded. There’s a big dresser full of china plates and cups with saucers, all with intricate, lacy blue patterns. On the other wall is a double wardrobe, which I discover is filled with fur coats, and the cloying smell of them hits me as I pull the doors open, making me cough. I don’t think my mother would have worn any of these.
Turning away, I spot what looks like an old travelling trunk squatting in the far corner. It’s a hulking great thing, dark leather with straps and metal buckles to keep it shut. Like everything else up here, I have to wipe away a layer of dust before I can look at it properly. I unfasten it, unsure what I’ll find. I don’t think this was my mother’s either. It’s far too old-fashioned and looks like it’s been sitting here a long time.
