✔ | PAINTED IN CRIMSON | T. SHARPE

NINE | ANTIQUE

❝ I'll be painting black and white,
that's how you see our lives
and the reality I hate,
leaving us no fate.❞

───────

NINE | ANTIQUE

"You won't find it here, please, leave," the middle-aged woman from the library was literally kicking me out, "we don't need troubles in this town."

"Troubles? I'm only asking for a book!" I said getting her hands off me.

"You're nothing but another paranormal fanatic, just leave, alright?" She was pushing me to the door.

"Fanatic?" I muttered under my breath, "I'm the fucking owner . . ." She stopped pushing me.

"What . . . did you say?" She asked and I frowned, straightening my coat as she scanned me from head to toe.

"What you bloody heard, my family bought that place and I don't want it. I'm trying to find the former owners and well, I just found out there's a book, I like books and I'd like to read it, I guess." All of a sudden her eyes widened and stared at me in horror, like petrificated and pointing at me.

"You . . . it can't be possible," she frantically shook her head, stepped back but I followed her anyway, "I've seen you in those photos, you, you are . . ." Something clicked in my head, I knew exactly what she was thinking, she was staring at the Baronet's dead wife, a person from another epoch that had returned from the afterlife. It felt weird to be the cause of fear in someone, but I admit it was a bit funny to me.

"Yeah, I've been told that . . . but I'm not," well she didn't believe me. She said something about reincarnation and some other things. I had forgotten I was in, probably, the most superstitious town in England. I took a deep breath and just walked out of there. She began to say more weird things such as how the town was doomed to misfortune and also rude things. I had turned from a normal person struggling to write a book to the image of a woman that had died decades ago.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets to get warm and headed to the car. Now I only had to tell Sir Thomas what I had found about his family and hopefully he'd be satisfied with the little I had found and I would leave and focus on my book and on finding the former owners to return the house and its ghosts to them.

I got in and started the engine. It only had been twenty minutes on the way back to Allerdale Hall when my phone began to buzz.

"Josh, you alright?" I asked, passing the phone from one ear to the other.

"I'm good, I was calling to check on you, you okay? You didn't call back." I bit my lip, I totally forgot.

"Yeah, I'm sorry . . . I got carried away with something and then I went to the town and tried the food in a restaurant, it was good . . ." I didn't know what else to say, I couldn't say that I was helping a ghost to find out more about his descendants. He would have probably driven to Allerdale Hall, get me out of there and lock me into a psychiatric hospital.

"Cool, listen, I have great news for you," he said, "Henry wants to see you."

"Alright? Who's Henry?" I asked.

"The person who is interested in your book?"

"Oh, yes, yes . . . he wants to talk about it? When?"

"Today, at eight. If you had answered my calls, you would already be here. I guess you'll have to wait until January, he's leaving to South Africa tomorrow and then some big stuff to do in the States."

"I'll be there, I can get there on time. Send me the address, please. Erm, where are you?"

"At our place, why?"