Chapter Text
She suspects that there must be a raven, or at the very least a large crow, that makes its home near to the main window. On occasion, the natural light flickers and a slight shadow will briefly fall across the floor of the reception room. The shadow is much too large to be that of a common sparrow, and therefore must belong to the corvidae family. She will have to keep this in mind when she ventures outside. It’s not that she dislikes the large, ominous black birds but simply that a life time of superstition had taught her to be wary of them; ravens bring death with them wherever they go.
Sweating profusely, and dying slightly from the oppressive heat, she wanted to take a break. A cup of tea sounded lovely just about now. Unfortunately, that would require that she opened the boxes that had finally been delivered this morning. Her new home was full of boxes, still packed from the move. Last night -- her first night in her new home -- had been hellish to say the least; while the furniture had been delivered yesterday, all of her basic amenities – the pots and pans, the kettle, the teapot, bedding, even her toiletries – had been brought later by a friend that lived not too far away. In hindsight, she realised that her personal items should have been the first to arrive.
A move such as this, a life decision, well it was difficult in the best of circumstances. Uprooting one’s self after an era set in stone was far from enviable. Siuan Sanche was certainly not in the best of circumstances for this massive change at this point in time, but better now than another twenty years down the line.
Cairhien was a small town, originally erected in the 14th century, that was visually a step back into Victorian streets, located just outside of Tar Valon. In the summertime, the rolling green fields surrounding the little village glimmered with mystery in the early dawn; water droplets shone on the grasses like sparkling diamonds. In the grand light of day, the wild flowers that dotted the country side gave the village a feeling of antiquity. And when the night came, the stars shone like pinpricks of perfect blue-white light; the very essence of pure magic. The very first time that she had witness it, Siuan knew that Cairhien could become a home to her. It would be the perfect place to start anew.
Covered in the dust that had accumulated in the Victorian homestead that had been closed up for several years before she assumed ownership, Siuan pushed a few wayward curls back from her face. The sweat in her hair line was absorbed by the garish blue scarf she’d tied around her head to keep the curls at bay. The house was beautiful; the hardwood floors appeared to be original, and a simple oiling would return their walnut coloured gleam. But first the dust had to be cleared out.
Upon second thought, the dull surface of the hardwood floor gave the home character; a tie to its past. Or maybe Siuan just didn’t much feel like rubbing lemon oil into the ancient wood at the moment. Maybe she could get Leane to come and help her one weekend.
The new owner of Sunriver Manor – and Siuan much wondered about the house’s name because there was no water of any sort on the property – pushed the pile of dirt from the front door with the broom. She decided to leave the front entrance of the house open wide (along with many of the windows on both floors), the house could use the blast of fresh air. It was musty and slightly damp from the pouring rain the night before. Besides, the light summer breeze would cool the stuffy rooms, if only a little. She was going to have to look into having central air conditioning installed into the Victorian manor. For now the few standing fans that she had would do the trick.
Resting the broom handle against the wall, Siuan shrugged off the work gloves that she’d been wearing, and glanced around herself. The home already looked better; a simple sweeping had livened up the drab interior. Sunriver definitely had its potential.
A few coats of paint here and there would make a world of difference, and the lemon oil – if she ever got to it – would vastly improve the hardwood floors. Soon the house would be gleaming like it had in its glory days.
Sunriver had been closed up for years; the people that Siuan had bought the house from had owned it for some time, having lived there for only a matter of months. Originally it had been in the wife’s family since the 1920s, and though it had been lived in up until the early 2000s, it had never felt like home to the couple. They had left Cairhien in 2008, almost as soon as they could. They had boarded up the manor house and left it behind, forgetting it like a book on a shelf.
Siuan had fallen in love with the regency era home the moment she first laid eyes upon it; the manor house itself was a gorgeous late 18th, or very early 19th, century home. Large enough by modern standards, at the time it had been considered more of a large cottage rather than a manor.
Despite the size being enough to alienate her at times, and possibly harp upon her inevitable loneliness, it also offered safety and a feeling of being only one person on the face of an ever changing planet; someone, something that honestly didn’t need to have any true bearing over the world. The interior of the home was an eclectic mix of eras; the furnishings of one period bleeding over into the next. Some rooms still offered the ghosted memories of the days when Sunriver was first built; others were a distinct throwback to the roaring 1920s. Further still were the few modernized rooms in the house; the upstairs privy, the kitchen with modern amenities and marble counter tops, and the master bedroom.
The master bedroom was itself painted a medium grey-blue colour; according to Behr’s colour palette, the colour which was closest to it was called “French Court PPU14-4”. Like the other bedrooms, the crown moulding was white, likely used to brighten the room. The wall separating the bedroom from of the next bedroom was divided halfway up; the lower half was narrow wood paneling that had also been painted white. The hardwood floor, like the rest of the manor, was an earthy walnut.
Siuan lay in her bed, it was only little passed eleven o’clock, but she was tired from a day of cleaning and unpacking. Her muscles ached slightly from the constant strain of taking weird positions to clean the deep corners of the home’s rooms. Still, she did not regret the choice to take the task upon herself as opposed to hiring a service to clean it up before she arrived. This way she felt the house was definitely hers.
The window over her head was open; the curtains fluttered every once in a while with the occasional waft of night air. The moonlight, silvery like a mirror, flooded over her as she lay in bed. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was still running through what she knew had to be done the following day; she needed a proper trip to the grocery, and after that she needed to start setting up her new studio. Staring at the wall, Siuan tried her best to turn off her overactive mind, and drop herself off to sleep. But every time she came close to it, something brought her back into reality; a new item for her shopping list popping into her head, or a sudden curiosity about the location of one of her possessions.
As she nestled back into her mattress once more, the floor around her popped and creaked as the house settled. The ancient hardwood floors in the lower level squeaked slightly, and the old stair case groaned softly under an imaginary weight. Siuan’s eyes started to droop closed, her mind finally giving way under the rhythmic white noise produced by the house. The shadow of a bird flittered through her bedroom one last time as Siuan finally fell asleep.
She felt completely peaceful.
Awakening in the morning, the peaceful nature of the night before was completely gone; Siuan awoke to the wretchedly loud crowing of whatever large corvid that was making its home outside of her home. It startled her, and she registered, vaguely, that the house felt heavier than she remembered it the night before. She wrote it off as the headache that was setting in. Damn that raven.
Thursdays in Cairhien meant the village market was in full swing. The villagers set up kiosks in the town square, and sold whatever wares that they had; produce was bountiful, as was fresh cuts of meat from the local butchers. The local family of florist offered the best arrangements and the freshest flowers to last through the following week; Cairhien specialized in lavender.
Thursday meant that Siuan could finally stock her home with much needed groceries, and help to cut through that damp and musty scent with fresh cut flowers.
Thursday morning was beautiful and sunny; the ivy growing on the outer stone façade appeared to be a brilliant green against the grey stone surface. Outside, the birds were happily singing in the cover of the triple rowan trees. The town rested no more than two kilometres from the house, but the way was slightly twisting and winding. But the pathways and untraveled back route was quiet and peaceful when Siuan walked it.
Her dark curls covered her shoulders, and the top of her back; wearing a denim jacket with a pair of blue leggings and her sandals, she carried with her a wicker flower basket. It was deep enough to carry produce, without fear of overloading it and crushing the vegetables and bruising the fruit.
Siuan breathed in a deep breath of the sweeter-smelling country air; it filled her lungs and brightened her mood; alleviating the headache that she’d awoken to. Cairhien, despite its almost isolated position in the country, had been the right choice. She knew already that here was where she could flourish once more. Here her art would grow and expand; she could test her limits.
Closing the door of her home behind her, and locking it with a key, Siuan set off down the fine gravel driveway and towards the main footpath that lead into the town; it ran parallel to the only slightly wider dirt road. Long grasses swayed in the soft breeze on either side of her walkway, and Siuan ran her hand through them; the leaves were cool to the touch, and still slightly wet with the dew of that morning.
Lost in a world of her own, Siuan barely noticed the sound of twigs snapping nearby her. Her shoulders tensed minutely as she listened; she swore she could feel another person drawing upon her. She didn’t mind; it was a public walkway, but it still caught her off guard. Siuan chose to ignore it, not bothering to turn and look to see who was on the path with her; she didn’t know anyone in the town yet.
The person seemed to keep pace with her, but only for so long; she knew that someone was there with her. As she walked, meandering and strolling calmly through the meadow spotted with wild flowers; the person finally caught up to her. Eyes closed for a brief moment to enjoy the warmth of the sunlight, Siuan could sense the person walking quickly at her side; keeping pace. She could faintly hear their feet on the gravel pathway.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and turned to greet her companion. But as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight once more, a strange truth greeted Siuan; there was no one walking with her. Brows furrowed, she hummed slightly to herself as she glanced around. There was no trace to be found of another person on the path with her, and while it was strange and unexpected, Siuan didn’t put much thought into it. Brushing it off as nothing more than a slight breeze, Siuan continued into the village.
She carried on with her trip into the village; under her feet the old cobble stoned streets of Cairhien. Glancing about, she noted a few others shopping for their weeks’ worth of fresh, organic, produce. They noticed her; she was the newcomer to Cairhien, and while most of them greeted her with smiles and nodded heads (which Siuan returned as she stepped up to a farmer’s stand full of romaine lettuce), one woman in particular left a different impression.
Standing on the other side of the farmer’s stand, picking up her choice of romaine hearts, was a woman with dark red hair. Easily in her middle forties with faint lines dancing around her eyes and her mouth, she looked up when she heard Siuan’s approach. The redhead smiled brightly, her happiness reaching her grey toned eyes. But as fast as the cheer had washed over her, it shifted. Her grey irises flickered, looking just passed Siuan’s cloud of curls; the smile faded from her lips instantly, as the colour started to drain from her face. “You must have come from Sunriver…” the statement seemed to carry a doomed weight too it.
“I did…” Siuan’s brows knit tightly together, trying to decipher the sudden change in the woman and what had inflicted it. Had she been to blame? Wondering what the woman had seen that had caused her to slip from cheer to apprehension, Siuan moved to turn and look over her shoulder, when footsteps coming up behind her stopped her dead. Clat, clat, clat… on the stone surface of the street. They were soft, but sure. Normally Siuan wouldn’t have thought much about the presence of another person walking through a public market behind her, but the redhead’s sudden change and the minor knot forming in the pit of her stomach; the reminder of the unseen presence she’d felt on the pathway leading into the village, all together it told Siuan to stop. Freezing in place and just barely peeking with her peripheral vision out from behind her curls, Siuan strained to hear more than just footsteps.
Humming; she could hear a soft tune, one that was familiar to Siuan, despite her being unable to place it. It was close now, so close that she knew the woman had to be standing just behind her; her body tensed as she felt light warmth against the back of her shoulder and the hair at the nape of her neck started to stand on end. Her curls fluttered; the humming, the soft breath, the distinct aroma of both fresh and dried lavender, it was centred right beside her ear. Any closer… she could almost feel the brush of lips against the shell of her ear.
Siuan felt frozen in time and space.
An arm reached over her, reaching for the produce in front of which she was standing. Barely breathing, Siuan’s stomach flipped when she realised that she could feel the woman’s arm just above her shoulder while she leaned forward, but could not see her.
The redhead that had been standing on the other side was just as petrified as Siuan herself; her eyes were locked on the space just to the right of Siuan’s right ear; where she could hear the mellifluous humming. The woman’s eyes were wide, focused, locked, on that place. With a dismayed epiphany, Siuan realized that the woman could see the other woman, while she herself could not.
It set her on edge, and Siuan quickly gathered and bought what she wanted from the market. Loaded with fresh produce, and cut local lavender, she hurried back along the path to her home. Long strides and repeated hurried glances around herself carried Siuan back to the property that Sunriver Manor sat upon. Her heart raced the entire way.
Throwing herself through the door of her home, Siuan noticed the immediate change of atmosphere; inside seemed lighter and less oppressive than it had that morning. Safe, and contented that she was so, Siuan set about washing the produce and storing it in the large, stainless steel, fridge. The lavender she separated into three equal bundles. Each bundle was placed into a vase, and set within Sunriver. One sat on the butcher’s block kitchen table, a second in the main living room/reception room, and the third in the upstairs bathroom. The flowers would liven up the place, calm her nerves, and hopefully start to dispel the musty, closed-up, smell of the previously sealed manor house.
Siuan pushed the strange experience from the market out of her mind, and set to further unpacking her belongings.
More than a week later, she rolled back and forth in her bed; despite her body being exhausted and wanting nothing more than to fall into a blissful sleep, she just couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had settled over her.
It had started days previous, the night following the encounter in the market, but she had tried her very best to ignore the ominous feeling; with a large corvid living somewhere near her home she was on edge; especially after her first trip to the market. Some might call her superstitious, but Siuan knew enough not to poke Death in the face. A raven, or even a crow, was a symbol, an omen, for the Horseman.
Since the day she moved in, Siuan had felt as if someone had been watching her; at first she thought it had to do with her previous background in entertainment. And when it became clear that the people of Cairhien either did not know who she was, or simply did not care, that thought was surrendered. Besides, if the woman really concentrated on the feeling, she knew she felt it more often within her new home than when she was outside. Perhaps it was the electrical wiring in the Victorian manor house; Light knew it was last wired in the mid-20th century, and for all intents and purposes, Sunriver Manor likely needed a complete electrical over haul. It wouldn’t have been beyond all rhyme and reason that faulty old wiring was giving off a high electromagnetic field, and causing the sense of paranoia.
It wasn’t overpowering, but Siuan wasn’t happy with the subtle feeling that there was another being “living” in her home. She’d been looking for a house with character, not a house full of “ghosts”.
Unsure of herself, four days after she’d finally come to the conclusion that it had to be the ancient electrical system in the house, Siuan rang up an electrician. When the young man came to call, he barely paid her any attention; seeking out the electrical boxes immediately, he inspected the home and the system.
“It’s outdated, rather spectacularly so.” The sandy haired thirty five year old leaned against the doorjamb as he folded his arms over his chest. Siuan unwittingly mirrored his movement as she lifted her jaw in order to look him in the eye. “Sunriver was wired, at least last I heard, in the 1920s. Codes have completely changed. I’m surprised that you’ve not had a fire, Ms. Sanche.”
Her fine brows furrowed together in a mixture of worry and annoyance. “That should have been mentioned when I bought the house.”
“You didn’t have a home inspection?” The electrician blinked.
“No…” Siuan shook her head; her mass of feral curls swayed lightly with the movement.
He gave her a reproachful look.
“I expected to do repairs when I bought it. Still, if it’s 1920s electricals, they should have told me, should they not have?”
“I suspect that there’s a fair bit that they didn’t tell you.” The electrician’s eyes flickered, glancing over Siuan’s shoulder towards the stairway that lead up to the upper floor of the building, as he thought for a split second.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” her brows furrowed more tightly together as her voice leaked from her in a flat tone.
The young man shook his head lightly, “Nothing, honestly. I just meant that if they didn’t tell you something like this than they probably didn’t tell you a lot of things. Not necessarily bad.” He shrugged his shoulders easily.
Siuan sighed, long and low. “So what has to be done?”
“Well, see the thing is Ms. Sanche.” He shuffled his folded arms slightly. “It’s not just that the wiring is putting out massive electromagnetic field, and giving you the creeps – prolonged exposure too that sort of a condition can lead to health problems. After sometime I imagine it’s not so good for the electrical impulses that run your body. On top of that there’s the simple fact that it does cause a feeling of dizziness and paranoia. Even forgetting the EMF readings, the wiring is old and it’s starting to split and fray in some places; one day it’s going to catch fire. I would rather see it rewired and you safe, than find out you were cooked alive in this big old stone house. It’d be like an oven.”
Siuan shuddered at his choice of words, but realising his candour she knew there was no getting around this expense. “So you’ll need to pull out all the old wiring, and redo it all?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It will require opening up parts of … well… most of the walls, honestly.”
She flinched, closing her eyes as if struck. She breathed softly, keeping herself calm, for a moment. “But it will fix all of the problems I have? The fire hazard and the paranoia that I’m being watched?”
The electrician nodded his head in agreement. “Everything from A to Z; it will be completely new wiring; it won’t hum, or spark, or give off a feeling of dread.”
Siuan hummed in agreement, before holding out her hand to the man; he shook it.
Considering what had been required, Siuan was amazed that it only took five days to complete the electrical work, and putting her walls back together. During the out time, Siuan found herself using the library in town to check her emails. When the electric work was finished, Siuan wasted absolutely no time. Paying the final bill, and waving the men out of her front door, Siuan closed the door behind them. Without pausing, she headed for the stairwell, and flew up it, heading into one of the many multiple rooms.
On the first day that she had laid eyes on Sunriver Manor, Siuan had fallen in love with the medium sized third bedroom; right away she just knew that it was meant for her studio. With the work finally finished, and her wall rebuilt, Siuan moved on to making the room hers; properly.
The walls, she started painting them. Tossing newspapers and a cheap plastic drop cloth onto the floor to protect the hardwood, and covering the white moulding around the floor, window, and ceiling with painter’s tape, Siuan pried open a bucket of brilliant blue paint. Pouring it into her tray, and immediately pushing the roller through it, she started on covering the walls of the studio with the thick, cornflower blue, paint. Not bothering to prime the walls first, the paint already had it mixed in.
It took her a few hours to do all of the walls, and by the end she was nearly just as covered with paint as the room was, but she finally stepped back and examined her work. She was happy, and proud of herself; nodding. The paint would take several hours to dry properly. Tomorrow, when the latex paint had turned hard and dry, she would come in and pull up the tape and reveal her crisp edges around the white mouldings. Tomorrow she could start to further make the space her own.
Body tired, and shoulders sore, Siuan crawled into the upstairs bathroom (a previously retrofitted bedroom) and turned the shower on. She pealed the clothing off of her body slowly; careful of her aching shoulder, and in no great rush. Outside the window, the night had set in some hours before; it was pitch darkness outside, and the sudden crowing of the bird caught her off guard. Swearing slightly to herself, Siuan calmed down, and pulled herself under the hot spray.
She relaxed for a long moment, just letting the water wash over her, before starting to scrub the coloured paint from herself.
When she re-emerged, she wrapped her hair up into a towel as she pulled on a loose pair of women’s boxers and a thin camisole to sleep in. Untangling her hair from the towel, Siuan ruffled out her curls as she walked from the steam filled bathroom back into her bedroom.
The air in the bedroom was cool; the window still open as she hadn’t been able to install a Central Air Conditioning system yet, due to the electricians that had arrived to rewire her home. The window allowed enough airflow, for now, that it meant she was cool at night. Siuan laid her towel across the back of a chair that sat by her bed to allow it to dry. Pulling herself into bed, her stiff body now pliant after the hot shower, Siuan assumed she’d quickly fall asleep for the night.
The moment she lied down, she noticed the unmistakeable feeling that someone was watching her.
She was instantly awake; a sense of terror settling over her. The new electrical work in the house was supposed to stop the paranoia caused by the EMF radiating from the wiring.
Her eyes opened immediately; the old hardwood floors were creaking. But rather than the popping and settling that she thought she had grown used to, Siuan heard what seemed to be footsteps. It sounded liked boot heels clicking against the wooden floors, slowly moving throughout the main floor and heading for the stairs. Siuan held her breath, straining to hear the intruder, and struggling not to whimper in terror.
She couldn’t tell if there was actually someone in her home, or if it was the ghost of years long passed.
All said and done, she didn’t know which option scared her more.
Agonizing moments passed; the boot steps continued to make their way towards the ancient stairwell. Siuan’s heart was beating a tattoo beneath her breast. Where once the white noise that she believed to be the Manor groaning with age had soothed her, it now ignited her fears.
The stairs began to groan; under a weight that Siuan knew could not be there. Despite realising that she was safe in the country, it had been somewhat of a habit for her to lock her doors and windows if she was retiring for the night. With that knowledge, she knew it wasn’t possible for there to be a flesh and blood intruder in her home. This meant that Sunriver had to be haunted, in some manner of meaning.
Finally reaching the top of the stairs, the boot clicks picked up their pace; their owner had quickened their movements. Siuan held her breath, straining to hear over the hammering of her heart. She started to relax as the footsteps seemed to move down the hallway away from her bedroom. She couldn’t rest, not completely; part of her still feared that there was a living being in her home; the other part of her knew it wasn’t possible.
Pushing aside all thoughts of what could be happening in her home, Siuan tried to close her eyes and settle down to sleep. Her eyelids sagged as she started to drift off after a long moment of pure silence. A soft sigh of relief escaped her lips as her body totally conformed with the mattress.
.Click. Click. Click.
Siuan froze in her bed.
Click. Click. Clickity-click-clack-click.
The footsteps were increasing in speed and force as they stormed down the landing from the far end of the house and back towards the master bedroom.
Her eyes snapped open and she scrambled, sitting up in her bed; beads of sweat rolled down her neck as she stared towards the closed door. Heart producing a thunderous cacophony in her ears, she could barely hear the figure drawing ever nearer.
In a moment it was in front of her door; Siuan swore that the air around her chilled. Her stomach was knotted; she could feel the spirit reaching for the door knob, and she could swear she could feel hoarfrost forming in her veins from pure terror. Her breathing was laboured; ragged. But she remained quiet.
A pause came; a moment of silence, of terror; what was surely only seconds seemed to drag on for a lifetime.
The tension suddenly lifted, and the hard-soled boot steps retreated from her door, back towards the staircase. Striving to hear their final location, Siuan listened as the stairs creaked loudly and quickly; like a person jogging down them.
Tension snapped and lifted, Siuan was exhausted. She laid back down, and found herself asleep within moments; dreaming of a looming darkness settled over Sunriver Manor.