Ruskin House is thoroughly haunted. Its presiding genius is Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury who is my phantom partner.
Anthony is over two hundred years old and still going strong, albeit a little more rarefied than in his heyday in the mid nineteenth century.
Jeannie Church, his secretary, is also a territorial spirit who can manifest materially as long as she remains within certain physical limits. I intend to explore those boundaries not only because I’m enthralled with her beauty, but also because I suspect she’s my soul mate.
As for me, I’m Grant Preston, the living representative of the organization Anthony funded to continue the philanthropic work he began in life and intends to carry on even after his demise.
Today I’m sitting in Anthony’s secret sanctum while he outlines a new project he wants me to undertake.
“You want me to preserve a cemetery?” I croak.
“Not just any cemetery, my boy, but a pioneer cemetery dating back to the early nineteenth century. For some reason that’s dear to my heart.”
“No wonder,” I quipped, “ you probably have some friends resting there.”
Anthony grew somber. “I have one dear love resting there. I met her in Dorset and I proposed to her, but her family was staunch Methodist and wouldn’t hear of her marrying a member of the Church of England. They sent her to Canada to live with relatives and she perished in a church fire on the property where the graveyard now stands.”
My face fell. I felt instant sympathy for the man.
“I’m so sorry, Anthony—I had no idea.”
“It’s understandable, Grant—it’s part of the reason I accompanied Alfred New to Canada and set up Ruskin House here, in memory of Catherine Lyons—the only woman I ever loved.”
“But surely you can contact the deceased, Anthony? After all, you’re a ghost.”
“No, my boy—it doesn’t work that way. In choosing to remain tied to this sphere, I forsook a great deal—particularly, spending eternity with her.”
For the first time it dawned on me the extent of the sacrifice Anthony made in order to carry on his philanthropic work in this realm.
“I’m honoured to be chosen by you to pursue this matter, Sir—I promise I’ll give it my utmost diligence.”
“I’m sure you will, Grant—but take along Jeannie with you. I’m sure her particular talents will come in handy when dealing with Ross Sterling, a local contractor who wants to move the cemetery and build a shopping mall on the site.”
I hesitated at his suggestion.
“Um, can Jeannie venture outside the limits of our Victorian village? She told me she had allotted boundaries.”
Anthony nodded. “She does have limits, but to date those specific boundary lines aren’t clearly drawn. How will we know her boundaries if we don’t test them?”
“Good point,” I conceded.
“Besides,” he added with a twinkle in his eye, “you need to see what latitudes you can take with her, if you intend to marry her.”
“Another point well taken, Sir,” I blushed as I exited his office.
But once out of his presence it was as if a spell had been broken and reality came rushing back to overwhelm me.
I was flooded by details of the 21st century from cars passing outside the windows to my call phone insistently pulsating inside my pants pocket.
To say the experience was surreal would be a cliche, but the tempo and vibe of the present collided with the tranquil pace of Anthony’s century and made my dealings with him seem more like a seance than an actual occurence.
It was icongruous—Jeannie clacking away on her antique typerwriter in an otherwise modern reception area.
For a moment a wave of vertigo rocked me as I contemplated the improbability of straddling this nowhere zone between two centuries.
