Haunted, Chapter 13

[semaphore27.livejournal.com]

Author: Semaphore
Pairing: Dom/Billy
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Is longed for and appreciated. Enormous thanks to all who've commented so far! Honestly, I love you all--you inspire me!
Summary: moonlight_spike gave me a plot bunny for a haunted house story involving Billy as the head of a team of paranormal investigators, and though it seems to be mutating slightly, the basic premise is still the same. This is 1920’s AU (with extensive flashbacks to WWI) and will also feature Elijah, Sean, Andy and Bernard, at the very least. Chapter 13: Billy's been exploring but comes up with more questions than he does answers. There's more to Hill than meets the eye.
Disclaimers: all that’s written here is fiction, and never took place. The lines of poetry toward the end are by Robert Herrick.
Previous chapters and other writings can be found at: Caraidean



Haunted, Chapter 13

Things are uncertain; and the more we get,
The more on icy pavements we are set.
- Robert Herrick, “Things Mortal Still Mutable”

Billy would have been content to lie by Dom’s side, sleeping or not, for as long as it took Dom to awaken to himself again. The last thing in the world Billy wanted was to leave him alone in that house, and yet…

And yet, this place, this Woodleigh Hall (home of ancestors who’d been happy enough to send unborn Elijah, and his mother, to the far side of America) called to him. Billy found himself wandering at odd hours whilst all the others were sleeping, when even Hill had relaxed his vigilance. He’d limp along the corridors with his brace and his stick, like the Man in the Moon of the old stories, missing only his dog and his thornbush to make the image complete.

The thought of dogs, in this place--Baskerville country--made Billy smile a little. For himself, as dogs went, he’d prefer a nice wee terrier with a pleasant disposition. What he’d most likely get instead would be some hell-hound smeared in phosphorescent paint, racing over the moors and baying at the moon, terrifying the natives.

The house confused Billy, and frustrated him. It seemed to have grown up naturally—or unnaturally, as the case might be--out of the stony earth, rather than been composed by ordinary by human design. Nearly all such so-called stately homes had been built over ages—a bit of the Norman here, the Gothic there, the Age of Reason, Neo-Classicism, bits of Victorian ugliness meant to evoke medieval times that had never truly been, parts constructed or torn down to suit fashion, or the needs of the family.

There was some of that here in Woodleigh, recognizable pieces of expected architectural styles, but for the most part it reminded Billy of the way a tree’s roots will twist, far below the ground, or ants will built their mad tunnels. Billy counted doors, he counted steps and turnings, wandering, as he wandered now, in hopes of making some sense of it--yet so far no sense of rightness had come to him.

Billy knew one thing for certain: there ought to have been hauntings. Numerous hauntings, most likely, in such an ancient house, constructed in such a historical location. They were inevitable, in such a place, as mice in the attics or cobwebs in the cellars. Yet, he’d seen nothing. Not so much as a glimmer. The very absence of those played-out scenes of the past made Billy uneasy, made him concerned as to what had siphoned off their energy, and for what purpose that lingering strength had been taken.

In the dark, Billy heard whispers, as of gossiping voices, random threads of speech he could never quite follow. They were present, present all around him, and yet they chose not to show themselves, or speak to him.

If Billy had learned one thing in his life, it was that the dead longed, above anything, to be acknowledged by the living. If they were angry at all, instead of lost, frightened, confused, it was for that reason—they were prisoners in the dark, shut up alone in solitary confinement, going slowly mad for lack of companionship. Only rarely could the living see them, and almost never could they reach one another.

They dead who had not moved on to that other, distant shore were overwhelmingly lonely. Billy knew the feeling well enough; he’d often felt much like them, to the point, sometimes, that he’d wondered, Is this reality I see and experience truly around me, or did I die in the war, and have built up this elaborate bit of play-acting to preserve my own sanity?

If that was the case, then nothing he said or did would matter, would it? Not if it was only make-believe.

But Dom had come back to him, and that had changed everything. Billy felt sharply, painfully, real again. He listened hard to the whispers in the night and wished he could at least understand a word here or there, because he had to keep Dom, and all of them, safe. He had to.

He’d cared for Andy, hapless, good-hearted Andy, for as long as he’d known him, but Billy found himself becoming increasingly fond of Hill and Elijah, as well: the aging, almost regally-proud man who’d been many men’s servant, and the wee, daft American with his great eyes and his open, winning ways.

Billy worried what might be happening to his companions. He’d thought he glimpsed changes in them--small things, so far, shown in subtle ways, but changes nonetheless.

Sean Astin, Elijah’s secretary, remained to Billy a cipher, a talkative man, yet one who revealed little of himself, briskly efficient (some might say slightly overbearing, in a bebvolent way). His entire being seemed focused upon his employer, as if he’d either no identity of his own, or if he had one, chose to deny its existence.

Billy wondered what the man’s story might be. Astin wore a wedding band. He smiled a great deal, yet he reminded Billy of some great, heavy, old tome, the kind bound shut with massive clasps that require a key to open. Not an easy man to know, was Astin, though on the surface he seemed candid and friendly.

If Billy encountered anyone, on his nightly prowlings, it was likely to be Sean Astin. Invariably, when they met, Sean would smile, greet Billy heartily, ask after Dom’s well-being, and then he’d round a corner and the shadows would swallow him completely. Billy wondered if the house spoke to him, too.

If Astin listened to voices, what did they tell him?

Billy paused in a corridor, with no idea where he was, or even what level he stood upon, for all his counting. All of it looked much the same: dark, polished wood in high, arched beams, pseudo-Gothic; jewel-toned carpets of Oriental design; rich hangings on the walls, too faded now to display much of their original patterns. In a way, Billy was thankful of that, because what he could make out of the designs seemed less than pleasant.

It was normal enough that the tapestries would be worn that way, though this case was extreme. In the course of his work, Billy had found himself in a number of manor houses, and found that wear and decay tended to be ignored, for the most part, by the old families. The nouveau riche wanted everything crisp, shiny and new, ready for display at a moment’s notice. The aristocrats more or less left their possessions as they were, until the point they began to fall to pieces.

Billy had completed enough commissions for both sorts of his "betters." He knew their thinking, and the differences between them, that had everything to do with blood and nothing to do with money.

He began flinging open doors in passing, trying to glimpse the owners of the gossiping voices, trying to discover some sign that might tell him where he’d lost himself. His body wanted to react by panicking, but Billy forced himself remain calm by thinking of ordinary things: sheep on hillsides, barges on canals, cups of tea on his workshop table, the individual tools he used in his bookbinding, numbered one by one.

He would not let them make him afraid. He would not. He never had done in the past, and he wasn’t about to begin at this late date.

Billy threw open a door upon mist and shadows, the fog billowing out toward him, and for a moment he thought he’d at last caught one of his invisible culprits, but then came a tremendous splash, and a flood of water over his shoes, and there was a figure, not ghostly in the least, but pink-skinned, stark-naked. It was Dom, holding his hand out toward him, as if to ward off evil.

Billy found himself laughing, giggling really, like a schoolgirl, as his lover stood in a defensive posture, bathwater rolling off his recently-submerged body in torrents.

“Good Christ,” Dom breathed at last, and lowered himself weakly onto the edge of the tub. “Think you may have cost me ten years of my life, there, Bills.”

At that moment, Hill swept in with a dressing down of particular magnificence, quilted silk, and the colour of peacocks. Dom was still breathing hard as Hill swaddled the gown round his body, as he was hustled across the hall into his bedchamber, and sat down by the fire, his fair hair dried roughly and thoroughly with a towel.

“Meant to be resting, you are,” Dom told his valet accusingly. “Why’s everyone creeping about like this? You’ll cause my heart to fail, between you, if you keep it up.”

“My apologies, sir,” Hill answered, sounding quite unconcerned.

“He isn’t, you know,” Dom told Billy, “Not in the least.” Yet he laid his hand on Hill’s arm gently. “What is it, Hill? Honestly. I’ve given you the day off; I expected you to take it.”

Hill met Billy’s eyes, the older man’s face full of knowing. Interesting, Billy thought, He’s like us, isn’t he? Yet he hasn’t told Dommie. I wonder why that might be?

Dom saw the look, and seemed to read it clearly enough. He hung his head, staring down at his own bare toes. “If you won’t, then, you won’t,” he said, “But you will take a rest if you need one? Promise me?”

“As you wish, sir,” Hill responded, which truly wasn’t an answer at all.

Stubborn, Dom mouthed at Billy. Billy smiled in return. Dom possessed a young man’s powers of recuperation, and ill as he’d been, he now showed little sign of it. Though he remained a little pale, his eyes slightly shadowed, his body already seemed to hum with its usual energy, and his glance was sharply alert, no longer heavy with fever.

“You look well,” Billy told him.

Dom grinned, tossing the damp hair back out of his eyes.

God help him, but Billy found Dom charming, and his funny nose and his funny jaw, his off-kilter smile only seemed to add to the appeal. They suited him, oddly, in ways they wouldn’t have suited another.

Dom ran his fingers back, then, through his damp, fair hair, managing to disorder it even more. “I’m better. Much better, actually. Bill, some of those things I said…”

Two expressions were at war on Dom’s face, one of them an obvious example of “you must think I’m mental,” the other something else entirely, something complicated. It came to Billy that Dom was afraid, yet trying not to be, that he devoutly wished he hadn’t actually seen the things he had seen. Dom believed in them entirely, that was clear, he only wasn’t certain how to express it, or to make anyone else believe him.

Why had MacGregor appeared to him, to Dom of all people? Why had a young man who’d died so far away, and had never met the Englishman, come here to give such a warning?

Billy wished he could speak with the young soldier himself—God knows, he’d tried calling to him, had even felt MacGregor near, he’d thought, except that something thick and heavy, like an iron-bound door, lay between them.

Dom was staring at him, his toes curling nervously in and out of the thick carpet, waiting for Billy’s answer.

“I know,” Billy told him. “I know, Dom.”

Hill looked from one to the other of them, then nodded. “There’s something very wrong here, Dominic, William,” he said, seriously.

“Bills, what have you seen?” Dom asked, running the silk sash of his gown through his fingers. He drew his legs up beneath him, sitting cross-legged in the spacious chair.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Billy, even I can feel it. Them.” Dom’s hand rose to rub at his missing arm—down well below where his elbow would have been, then higher, at the end of the stump, a slight ripple of pain crossing his face. “There was something. In the bathroom with me. Something…” His shoulders rose, fell again, curving forward toward his chest. “It wrote on the mirror.”

“Certain… items have been disappearing,” Hill put in. “Only to be found in places where I’ve never put them.”

“That’s normal enough,” Billy said quietly. “The others—they want to be noticed. They write, take small items, move one’s possessions from one place to another. They’re mad with loneliness.”

“Not all of them,” Hill answered, and his face was somber. “No, William, not all of them feel that way.” He sank down onto the bench at the end of Dom’s bed, looking old suddenly. Defeated.

“Harry’s been speaking to me,” he murmured. “My own son. My Harry. I’ve heard him.”

“Hill?” Dom leaned forward in his chair. “Why haven’t you told me before this?”

“I’d thought…” Hill shook his head, rubbing his hands together. They were lined, heavily veined, the knuckles prominent. Powerful hands, belonging to a man who was aged but still in full possession of his strength. “Only it sounds mad, sir. Doesn’t it? They put my old gran in Magdalene, in chains, for saying she heard such voices. They flung refuse at her, called her witch, hag, madwoman.”

“She wasn’t though,” Dom murmured, “She was just like us, at the beginning.”

They sat in silence then, three points of a triangle, all knowing, feeling the atmosphere of that place press down upon them like the first warning signs of a thunderstorm.

Billy startled violently when the door opened behind him, but it was only Elijah entering, wee Elijah bounding into the room with his smiles and his frank young face and his eyes that were more extraordinary than any Billy had ever seen.

“What’s this?” Elijah called. “You all look so terribly somber. Dom’s well again, and it’s a lovely day, almost warm as spring. Come out to luncheon on the terrace with me, won’t you? I want to show you the gardens. There are peacocks. Can you imagine that? Peacocks!”

He was gone again, almost as soon as he’d come, leaving the three exchanging glances again.

“I can’t leave him,” Dom said. “I can’t leave him. Except for you, Bills—and you too, Bernard—“ He stumbled a bit, speaking Hill’s first name. “He’s my dearest friend, d’you see, and I won’t abandon him here.”

“No one’s spoken of that,” Billy answered.

“Not yet,” Dom answered, with a sharp look from those bright blue-grey eyes. “Not yet, but you will.” The blue went silvery for a moment, then returned to normal again. “For now, let’s go down. Enjoy the day while we can.” Dom leaned back in his chair, running his fingers over the brocaded arm. “Yes, let’s gather our rosebuds while we may.”

“Old Time is still a-flying,” Billy quoted.

And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

Dom laughed. “Always the optimist, aren’t you, Bills?”

Billy leaned toward him, meeting Dom’s eyes fully, saying softly, “We two are last in hell; what may we fear? To be tormented or kept pris'ners here.” He touched Dom’s silk-covered knee, squeezing softly, watching some of the apprehension leave his face, and the resolve return. “Yes, you see,” Billy told him. “You see how it is. We can be brave enough for this, Dom.”

Dom glanced at Hill, whose face was equally shadowed. “You can leave though, Hill, whenever you like. I’d never force you to stay.”

“Would you force me to go away from you, then?” Hill asked him. “Because I’ll not leave you, otherwise, Dominic. You ought to know as much by now.”

“And so I do,” Dom said, his hand covering Billy’s, his eyes on Hill’s weathered face. “Yes, so I do.”