The Lady in Yellow: A Victorian Gothic Paranormal Romance

Twenty-Four

The fog was so heavy Veronica could hardly see the boundary wall. The black iron lines of the gate looked like they'd been etched on a cloud. The railings were cold and wet to the touch; the hinges screeched as she pushed the gate open to a mist-filled lane. The children ran out mimicking the screeches, then, giggling, vanished into the mist.

"Jack! Come back here. I can't see you," Veronica shouted. The worry that gripped her was awful. Was this what parents went through all the time? "Come here!"

Returning, the twins were so white they took shape in the fog like ghosts with strangely lit, green-topaz eyes.

"Don't do that again," Veronica said, grabbing their hands. "I couldn't see you at all."

"We're very sorry, Miss Everly," they said.

"Well, you'd better be." Veronica squeezed their hands playfully, though she meant every word.

The trees along the road to village looked like brown smudges, their bare branches floating overhead seemed to have been etched in sepia ink. As they went along, the mist cleared, but the air remained damp and chill. The last of the songbirds sang from the green shadows of the hedgerows. Passing the two standing stones that flanked the path to Saint Lupine's, Veronica and the twins slowed, then stopped to look at them.

Jacqueline tugged Veronica's hand. "Shall we go and light candles for Mamma? For All Souls' een?"

Veronica wasn't sure. In a way she wanted to go there again, if only to make sure that the chapel was real and not something out of a nightmare. Part of her would not have been surprised to go up that path and find an empty clearing.

She squeezed Jacqueline's hand. "Let's go to the village instead. Its still rather a long way."

"Three miles," said Jacques. "It's three and a quarter miles from our house to the village."

"Well, we'd better get on then."

As they headed down the slope into the now rag-bare trees, the fog gave way to cool, dappled sunlight. Ninety minutes later, they arrived at two stone pillars crowned with lichen-cover balls that marked the entrance to the village.

The cobbled High Street curved down between shops unchanged since medieval times, the jutting second story flats above them seeming ready to fall over into the road.

"There's the baker's." Jacqueline pointed at a black-trimmed window in a timber-framed cottage where cakes and rolls were displayed on paper doilies. Veronica could smell the fragrance of warm buns and delicious cakes on the crisp air.

"We must go there and get something for Mrs. Twig," she said. "But first, let's explore."

The sidewalks were so narrow and buckled they were forced to walk single file to stay on course. Veronica marked the haberdasher's, the dress shop, a milliner's, and a book shop before they came out into the square and the market cross. From there, cobbled streets rayed out in three directions, the forth being occupied by a soaring Gothic cathedral.

"It's Church of England," said Jacques. "Would you go there?"

"I'm not sure," Veronica said. Still, she could not take her eyes off the lofty lines of the building, the sculpture of Christ at the Last Judgment on the tympanum, the pillars of angels and saints. The cathedral had been standing there for centuries, had been Catholic long before Henry VIII came along with his heresies.

"How about the antiques shop?" Jacqueline tugged Veronica's cloak, pointing the way.

"Yes, let's try that." Veronica said.