The Secrets of Darkling Manor

Twenty-nine: Aleksander Morozova

Twenty-nine: 

The key was the birds. Aleksander needed to find out what was killing them. Once he knew that, he could figure out a way to get rid of the ghosts. He moved Genya into a room that was on the same as his bedroom, and he told Alina that she had to sleep in the same room as him. "I mean it," he said as they went inside the house, "you're staying in my room. If you even try to move---"

"Aleks, it's fine," she said, "I don't want to move."

He took a shaky breath. "Alright. Good. I know that things haven't been easy on you----"

"They're complicated," she said, "your ex-wife is haunting us."

He nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry."

Alina smiled up at him. "Did you ever wonder if maybe we were all connected?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Alina, Luda, us. Don't you think it a bit odd that the ghost of the woman who haunts this place is a woman that shares my name? And sort of looks like me except with stark white hair."

"I never thought of that before," he admitted.

"Most everyone thinks that ghosts are the dead, coming back. But the way Alina acts is totally different from Luda. Luda seems coherent, decisive, vengeful. Alina...it's almost as if she doesn't know how to function anymore. She's limited as far as what she can do. Have you ever seen her anywhere else beside the pond or the woods?"

He frowned. "No, I haven't."

"Then how is it that Luda can leave the house?"

"I don't think ghosts are to make sense, Alina. They're ghosts. We're looking for logic where there is none."

They were back at home. It was night. He had gone through all of the rooms and checked to see if there were any ghosts. Baghra roamed the halls like always, but he had never been able to make her leave. He didn't know why she was there.

"What about Baghra?"

He stared at her. "What about her?"

"She's here," said Alina, "but your father isn't."

He flinched. "I don't see what that has to do with anything?"

"The ghosts have to have free will," Alina said, "some part of it. It can't all be tied to the birds. There's something that's keeping them there."

"Are you suggesting that I'm keeping them here? I have no control over the witch."

"There's got to be answers," said Alina, "something here in the house that's causing this. Or something on the property. Maybe...maybe we need to start looking through it. Old houses like these always have remains of the past owners, don't they?"

He shrugged. "I suppose. Although we made most of our fortune by selling off things like that. I highly doubt that we're going to find anything of the witches here."

"What about Luda?" Alina asked. "Didn't you say that she was the groundskeeper's daughter? That all of her stuff was there?"

"Yes," he admitted, "I left it for her parents in case they ever decided to come back and grab it..."

"What if we burned it?" she suggested. "Aren't there legends of spirits attaching themselves to objects? Perhaps that's part of the problem. That she's still here, in this house, on this property."

"Are you accusing me of keeping things of my dead wife?" he demanded.

"I'm trying to get our home back!" she said. "I am trying to not have to wonder if I'm losing my memory, or if...."

"Or if what?"

"Or if I'm losing myself," Alina said, "sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't even know who is looking back, Aleks. Sometimes I think...."

"What?"

"I think that I see her there instead of me."

Aleksander wrapped his arms around her. "You're you, Alina. You're beautiful and brave and you put up with me...."

She laughed bitterly. "I shouldn't. We're being haunted, and you lied to me."

"We'll find a way to fix everything," he promised, "but burning down the groundskeepers cottage isn't going to fix anything. Now, go to bed."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "You're still dressed."

He took a breath. "I'm going to put salt around the house."

"I thought that was only a movie thing," she said.

He shrugged. "I don't know. It's the only thing I can think of to keep them out."

"But Aleks, they're in here. That's the whole problem."

"Well," he said, "I've got to try, don't I? Lock the doors."

"Aleks, they're ghosts. The doors don't matter to them."

"Lock them anyway," he told her.

He kissed her on her forehead, and then he closed the door behind him. He went to the kitchen. Cool air filled it, and he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

"Baghra," he grunted.

"You know what the problem is, don't you?" she said.

"The problem is that you're haunting me," he said.

"You know how this works. Luda couldn't free herself from the witches spell until she told you the truth."

"She didn't free herself," said Baghra, "she sacrificed herself to the witch so that she wouldn't claim you. She's the only one that keeps the witch at bay. She only turned because you left her. Your little salt trick isn't going to do anything. The witch and Luda won't leave until they've got what they want."

"Fuck off, Mother," he snapped.

He took the box of salt he had from the kitchen cupboard, and then, in the dark of the night he went out and drew a line of salt around the house. When he finished, from the front doorway, he could see the witch.

She was hovering in the distance at the edge of the woods. Watching, and waiting. The witch was not his problem though. Not truly. "Aleksanderrr....." he heard Luda's voice whisper into his ear, and then heard her laugh off in the distance.

She was everywhere, and nowhere, and he couldn't get rid of her. Because how did you kill that which was already dead?