Vera never intended to work at the hotel. Her parents had been the George and Pilgrims’ proprietors all her life, and she’d practically lived there even before she actually moved into the innkeeper’s quarters after graduating from university last spring.
While her mother Allison tended to guests, six-year-old Vera had colored by the fireplace in the pub. When her father Martin swept through the guest rooms, perpetually racing to change linens in a record time, nine-year-old Vera searched for hideouts and hidden passageways. In lodgings built in the sixteenth century, a wandering child was bound to find all sorts of secret spots tucked away.
Vera returned to the hotel with just enough time to shower and get dressed for her many daily roles. She pulled her hair into a low ponytail and decided that was good enough. Tidy and nice. Her features were attractive and even, nothing markedly off-center or unconventional: average-sized nose, standard lips, normal-length eyelashes, unevenly wavy brown hair. Pretty, but not extraordinary.
She was embarrassed to admit it, but there’d been a time when being unnoticeable had bothered her. Now, after losing Vincent, moving through life without drawing attention was a relief. The sphere of her world had gotten very small, and it was the simplest way to press on in the space of loss. And her little innkeeper’s quarters, so outside what she’d planned for herself, brought comfort. If she could keep her mind from drifting to him, she’d be fine.
There’d only been six rooms occupied at the George the night prior. Vera got word that one family of lodgers was headed to Stonehenge today, so she carefully built a replica of the standing stones out of butter pats on their table. They were delighted to be greeted by a piping hot breakfast and a preview of their day that they could spread on their toast.
Guests filtered in while Vera served tea and coffee and took their orders. They spoke politely to her but looked right past her. When they left and she wished them a good day, all of them, including the family who’d enjoyed Vera’s butter art, said goodbye as if they’d never spoken to her before.
As if she were a stranger.
It would have been jarring if she hadn’t spent her whole life this way, with everyone around her treating her as a forgettable background player. There had been a few notable exceptions over the years. Vera’s parents, of course. And once, when she was twelve, Vera became inexplicably interesting to her classmates. Girls wanted to be her friends; boys wanted to be her boyfriend. She was invited to special celebrations, even an overnight birthday trip to London. Then, they all simultaneously seemed to decide they didn’t want to be around her anymore. She hadn’t had some awful, embarrassing moment. No one was cruel. They just … lost interest.
Another time, during her third year at university, when she’d been at her absolute lowest and loneliest, something similar happened. Like a lightning strike, Vera had a group of friends overnight. She dated. She had fun. And like before, there was an abrupt and silent agreement that they would all move on without her. It didn’t matter as much then because she found Vincent during that last spell. He didn’t forget her.
And now he was gone, too.
It wasn’t normal, but Vera didn’t know anything different. To her, a life of insignificance was absolutely ordinary.
She brought fresh tea out for the late risers. They scrolled their phones or read the morning paper, except for one man who was markedly out of place in his sharp, grey tweed waistcoat over a crisply pressed shirt. A silver chain looped from his lapel to his breast pocket. He had no phone or reading material.
He looked wise, yet not old. And stately, though not stuffy. His attire matched his perfectly manicured beard, dark and strikingly speckled with silver, and long hair kept in a tight knot at the nape of his neck. People roamed Glastonbury in all manner of clothing. That wasn’t why the hairs raised on Vera’s arms every time she turned in his direction. It was … well, it was hard to say. He sat with his hands folded in front of him, only moving to pull out a pocket watch attached to the end of the silver chain. He inspected it, put it back in his pocket, and resumed doing nothing.
It hit Vera as she delivered his steaming tea kettle and milk: he’d been watching her. No one watched her.
“Thank you, Vera,” he said.
She’d been turning back to the kitchen but froze mid-turn and looked back at him.
She faltered before finding her voice. “You’re quite welcome. I’m—I’m surprised you remembered my name,” she said, though she didn’t recall introducing herself.
He had bright green eyes that met Vera’s with a startling intensity. The man cocked his head to the side, and his eyebrows knitted together.
“Of course I remember you.” He smiled, and something about him looked sad.
Neither spoke for an uncomfortable stretch as Vera hoped she’d recognize him. No memory came to her.
“Well,” she said, breaking the leaden silence. “Let me know if you need anything.”
He nodded, mouth quirked up quizzically at the corners as he turned his attention to his tea.
By the time Vera returned with his check, the man was gone. His payment left on the table was the only evidence that he’d been there at all.
Vera moved on to housekeeping duties, the interaction forgotten as a momentary oddity. The daily linens race, as Martin called it, was his favorite duty. Vera was only temporarily in charge of it until Martin was well enough for it again. But she’d inherited his love for the simplicity of a morning spent setting the rooms. She listened to her favorite music in her earbuds, and when the best bits of the song came up, she paused mid linen-tucking to dance with abandon. In such an old hotel, having music served another purpose, too.
The 500-year-old building stretched and groaned. Its porous wooden beams soaked in the memories of pilgrims past—and every so often, they leaked back out. Anybody who had ever worked at the George and Pilgrims and many guests would attest with their own experiences that the place was haunted, and thoroughly so. Being alone in the George amongst the ghosts and noises didn’t feel so unnerving with music in her ears. But there was almost always something a touch abnormal.
Today, Vera was changing sheets in Room One, particularly known for being haunted, when the television turned on of its own accord. Then, the massive old wardrobe doors slammed open while Vera sanitized the washroom. Both things were easily explained away to aged wiring or wiggly latches on old furniture.
But she had seen her fair share of less explicable happenings, and once, she’d seen a ghost. It was another Tor sunrise nearly a year ago on the Winter Solstice. As she sat in her usual spot with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to stave off the cold, movement drew her eyes away from the horizon to a spot not fifteen feet before her. A little cloud had been mysteriously left behind by the gathering mist in the field below, a puffy sheep of fog that wandered too far from the flock.
It took shape as Vera watched—a person. A man who paced half a dozen steps before turning and doing the same in the other direction.
“Holy shit,” she had whispered.
He had stopped when she spoke, as if he heard her. And he turned and looked directly at Vera. He had facial features, but they were weathered like a garden statue left outside through years of wind and rain, worn down and indiscernible. She was transfixed on the spot as the sun broke the plane of the horizon. When that first beam rose, and its light hit the specter, he dissolved into mist, and the mist was gone in a whisper.
