Castle Mallard, England, in the year 1107
(and perpetually thereafter)
Once, long before England invented its weather, there came a man with more ambition than ancestry, who bought himself a castle. It was a reasonable purchase for an unreasonable sum: part roof, part rumour, several battlements inclined to fall into the moat out of sheer boredom. His lawyers told him he had acquired, quite legally, “the full appurtenances of tenure,” meaning, as it turned out, “us”.
I, Arthur, Duke, deceased since the eleventh winter of our Lord (which was a poor season for Lords), occupy the upper corridors in vapour and velvet. Contractually, I come with the property. I was not consulted on the sale—indeed, the dead rarely are. We are the pink lettering beneath the coat of arms, curving politely beneath the heraldic duck. When the new owner arrived (Norman? Saxon? indistinct), I materialised in the banqueting hall to observe him admiring my ancestors in oil and frown.
He mistook me for draught. I let him. He filled the halls with plaster and Protestantism, both of which make excellent armour against imagination, though none against me.
His first night, he dined alone. The candles wilted. I introduced myself by rearranging his soup—Arthur Mallard, at your eternal service, Duke of Ducks, Baron of Moorish Improprieties, Lord of Things That Cannot Be Returned. He dropped his spoon with reverence, or terror, or indigestion. A fair introduction all round.
He was a self-made man; he had purchased ancestors as one purchases windows—large ones facing south. But we arrived with the house, damply and democratically. Cousin Benedict whispered along the gallery; Aunt Constance wept over the linens she no longer needed; my late horse confined himself to the lawn, emitting philosophical noises. A complete household, invisible, opinionated, faintly translucent.
We took a liking to our new landlord—he believed in Numbers, which is to say he did not believe in anything at all, which is to say he was begging to be haunted. We go where disbelief thickens. God, in His practicality, sends saints to the pious and ghosts to the practical.
Within a fortnight, he began to glow faintly—not with sanctity, no—but with the creeping blush of inheritance. He addressed his servants as if bred for it, claimed he had “an uncle in the North,” and began to refer to the ancestral chapel as ours. The transformation pleased me; possession operates both ways.
The castle, for its part, approved. Its stones like flattery; its chimney enjoys gossip. When he spoke of improvements, the walls leaned closer, listening. They adore audacity—it reminds them of siege engines.
One morning, he ordered the portraits cleaned. I experienced this as exfoliation. My face—once clouded by a century of scandal—emerged shiny, exhausted, and suddenly recognisable. He studied me, or rather, himself in me: a little nose, slightly misplaced courtesy, hints of cowardice made fashionable. I do not accuse him of resemblance, merely of inheritance.
That night, he dreamt of swimming in blood—not his own—and woke to find the moat risen higher, as if something were growing thirsty below stairs. The family, you see, on occasion likes to remind its new recruits that belonging has nutritional requirements. Ghosts must feed, and pride is a lean diet. We sip from vanity, nibble on self‑importance, and take our tea in the residue of ambition. By the second month, our purchaser provided all three daily. He strutted. He congratulated himself for his ancient lineage. He ignored me completely, which, naturally, summoned me more often.
Invisible? Only when it suits me. Death improves one’s timing. The living chatter; I appear in the pauses. I prefer to haunt in a conversational tone. The man listened, at first reluctantly, then by habit, as though the voice in the curtains were a domestic device. I praised his taste, corrected his manners, shared hints from the family annals—small adjustments of style. Soon he began quoting me aloud, believing his genius newly inspired, when in truth he had simply been edited.
By midsummer, the villagers spoke of the “return of the old line.” One could see it in his stride, his sneer, the way he waved (sideways, like royalty at a lesser mirror). These tricks are hereditary. Heritage leaks.
He invited a lady to dine—a countess, lacquered with opportunity. We, all of us, attended in substance, hovering about the candelabra, supervising. She remarked upon the family resemblance between her host and certain elderly portraits; he smiled like a man listening to prophecy. I may have tilted the mirror in approval. She screamed only briefly. Such music! I had missed it.
He did not flee. That impressed me. The brave are easy to haunt; their disbelief has windows. The cowardly shut everything tight and die of drafts. He stayed, conversed, argued, dreamed—until one morning he stopped altogether, gazing into the mirror where I stood splendid and complete in my old silks. “I see you,” he said.
“Yes,” I replied, “and more of you than is comfortable.”
He smiled—an awkward smile, human still—and reached out as though to touch the frame. We are wary of touching: it confuses continuities. But I confess, something passed between us, like recognition passing for love. From that instant, the castle spoke through him. Olives fell from distant trees in his name; wells ran clear for an hour. He murmured instructions in Latin he could not read. The servants worshipped him. The countess kept her eyes closed at dinner, which is the correct condition for seeing.
So now he is mine, or rather, ours. He inhabits the portrait at dusk, the scrape of a violin after midnight. He forgets he was ever external. Nobody does not belong to this family forever. The castle owns its owners.
I drift sometimes through the orchard—what remains of it—and consider the moral, if any. None presents itself. There is a deep pleasure in arrangement without purpose—the taste of endless continuation. Think of us as an elegant sickness: hereditary, incurable, discreet.
If you should ever visit, come without scepticism; we dislike scrutiny in guests. Bring wine, bring scandal, bring a sense of time’s flexibility. You may hear me in the rafters, counting. Or perhaps you’ll wake to find the mirror wearing your expression.
Do not be alarmed. We are all family here.
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