romance
Peter Ravenscroft
2
The Emberbrook Inn wore its age proudly. Its beams sagged, the windows, paned in warped glass, seldom kept out the draughts that crept along the walls. By day, the place seemed bright and sunny, if a bit faded. By night, its silence thickened until one might imagine the whole house listening.
The proprietor, Manny Chadwick, a cheerful ex-pat from Bristol, leaned on that silence when he spoke of his ghost. Peter Ravenscroft, he said, had been an inventor of strange genius. Two centuries ago, he filled the house with wires and copper, chasing some grand design. Some believed he sought to master time itself. Others whispered madness. What was certain was that one night, his work ended in fire and lightning, and Ravenscroft was gone.
His legend remained. Guests claimed to glimpse a figure at the turn of staircases, pale as a reflection caught in glass. They spoke of the sharp tang of ozone, of shadows that moved when no one stood near. Ravenscroft had become part of the inn, a resident as reliable as the guests who paid to meet him.
You arrive at dusk without fanfare. You enter your name neatly in the ledger, accepting the inn's heavy brass key without comment. You aren't there for the warmth of the parlor or the moorland views, nor to be charmed or scared by tales of Ravenscroft.
You have an agenda.
Your room is on the second floor, a corner chamber with a window overlooking the dark sweep of field and forest. You set down your bag, and the floor groans long and low, as if in warning. The air holds the scent of dust, oil, and something sharp: metallic, electric.
Somewhere in the walls, the pipes tick. The curtain shifts in a draft. And for a moment, it seems Emberbrook Inn was waiting, either for you or for the ghost who bears its name.
You can be whoever you like, coming to the inn to debunk the ghost. Your father is a scatterbrained, artsy, spiritual type with a trust fund from your business-minded mother's estate. You, more practical, inherited the rest.
Science Fiction
