Gracious me, now I’ve really awoken the dead. It flashed through her.
“You the bride?” the creature asked in a creaky voice.
Birdie snapped her mouth shut. “You the bridegroom?” she countered, somewhat louder in her surprise.
The man stared at her, his white face glinting in the shadows. He opened his mouth and bared a set of yellowed teeth, uttering a noise that was unidentifiable.
Birdie backed off, alarmed.
With a jolt, she realised that the noise must be laughter.
It sounded like wood creaking.
The man attempted to lift her suitcase.
“Perhaps you should leave it,” Birdie said. It looked like the man was going to break in half simply by lifting her luggage.
“Get in,” he replied. He’d somehow managed to pick up all three pieces of her luggage without collapsing.
Birdie stepped over the threshold into the hall. A cold draft of air blew about her. Then the door closed behind her with a thump, and she was swallowed by darkness.
Birdie stood in a hall that seemed to have appeared right out of the time of medieval warlords. A massive stone fireplace was carved into one end of the hall, and a long wooden table stretched across the entire room. A staircase at the end of the hall led to the upper floors. Elaborate tapestries that would put the tapestry of Bayeux to shame hung on the walls.
“Goodness me. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Birdie mumbled and rubbed her hands. She shivered in the cold.
“Follow me,” the creature said as he shuffled to the stairs. He went up slowly, step by step. Birdie was behind him, impatient and worried that he’d collapse under his burden at any moment. He stumbled over the last stair and Birdie caught him by the elbow.
“Isn’t there another servant here who can help with the luggage?” she asked.
“Eh?” He turned his head and squinted at her.
“Isn’t there someone else who can carry the luggage?” Birdie raised her voice.
“Yes, yes. He must marry the baggage,” the man muttered and shuffled on.
“No. I meant—” Birdie interrupted herself as they reached a tremendous corridor.
She gulped. It looked dark, dusty—and definitely haunted. “Stuff and nonsense,” she whispered to herself. The man had shuffled on and halted in front of a room.
“Here.” He nodded at the door.
“Wait, allow me.” Birdie walked to him and opened the door so that he didn’t have to put down the luggage. “Oh!” she exclaimed.
She hadn’t expected such a lovely room. All gothic oak and with velvet blue drapes over the bed and the window. The window! Birdie ran over to it. She had a striking view of the ocean. It was dark grey and turbulent; impossible to tell where the water ended and the clouds began. “How utterly marvellous!” She gasped.
The man dropped off the luggage by her bed and shuffled back to the door.
“Wait! I take it you’re not the, er, bridegroom. Who are you? And where is Captain Eversleigh?”
“Eh?” The man leaned forward and cupped a hand over his ear. “You have to talk louder, miss.”
“Who. Are. You?” Birdie roared into his ear.
He snapped to attention, pulling himself up to his full height as if suddenly remembering who he was.
“Higgins. Higgins at your service, miss,” he said in an unexpectedly clear voice. “I am the butler.” He stared at her and blinked. “And you’re the bride.”
Well. They’d already established that, hadn’t they?
