A Dance with Tilly Page 4

  Chapter Four

  “I don’t honestly remember the last time I didn’t pull those drapes.” The professor set his cup of tea on the kitchen table. “Though I suppose that after all these years, we were bound to be spotted sooner or later.”

  “Years?” I asked in amazement.

  He smiled. “Ah, Jack. Since long before you were born.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. I’d rung the professor’s doorbell promptly at nine, had been escorted to the kitchen, and after a few minutes of small talk during which he’d brewed an appallingly strong tea, he had sat up in his chair to speak frankly.

  “It’s been, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years now. Since about two years after Abigail and I moved here.”

  “Did she… did she just appear to you one day? I mean, like…” I obviously wasn’t sure what I meant, but he considered the question anyway.

  “No. Not exactly. It happened over time. Time that didn’t necessarily include a visual aspect at first.” He looked down for a second, thinking. “We’d never used the top floor much, except for entertaining; it’s too large for much else.” His eyebrows shot up. “And by the way, it was once a ballroom, just like the Hooper Mansion’s third floor.”

  I smiled. Fitting.

  “Anyway, I kept experiencing these strange urges to be up there. I would read books, the newspaper, prepare lectures, grade essays. All up in that huge, nearly empty room. I felt comfortable there. Safe, I suppose, as though someone were watching over me.” He smiled gently. “And, of course, someone was. I first saw her standing in a corner, shyly. Watching me. And I wasn’t shocked. It was almost as if I’d known that she’d appear eventually. I didn’t move at all that day, not one inch. I just watched her as well, until she finally walked to a doorway and disappeared. For a while then, for months, really, we mostly gazed at each other. A few minutes, an hour, a whole afternoon would pass by, and I was never quite ready to leave, to go back to what would be considered my real life.”

  “Didn’t your wife know?”

  His head moved slightly. “No, I never did tell her. I don’t think she would have understood.”

  “So how did you end up dancing together?”

  His eyes lit up. “An excellent question. At some point, I’d begun to be daring: moving closer to her, circling her to see what she would do, if she would follow me. One day, I brought my hand to within a few inches of hers, and she took it! It was incredible, an absolutely amazing moment! And a few weeks later, it just seemed natural to place my arm around her, and… well, we began to dance.”

  “What… what does she feel like? Is she soft? Warm?”

  “She feels like a woman, Jack. As though she were as alive as you or I.”

  I blinked. “So then she’s…”

  He nodded. “Oh yes, she’s definitely dead. I don’t know how, though. Or why she’s still here. Her dress and hairstyle both date from the 1870s, so she’s been around for a while.” He shook his head. “And for some reason, I’m absolutely convinced that her name is Clara.”

  “But haven’t you tried to find out who lived in this house then? To find out who she was?”

  “No,” he answered flatly. “I don’t know if I could clearly explain my reasons to you, but I don’t have any interest in that.”

  I thought about his response for a minute, and tried to come up with a question that was more basic. “Can she talk to you? Can you hear her?”

  “No. Not aurally, at least.”

  “Does she ever age?”

  “No.”

  “Is she… I guess, how do you know that she actually exists?”

  The professor’s intelligent eyes studied my features. “Did you see her, Jack?” he asked.

  I nodded, and all of a sudden the answer was there. “Then she exists,” I replied softly.

  The professor too nodded, pleased at having subtly imparted a lesson along with the talk. “Yes, she exists.” His voice was slightly hoarse. “It’s because of her that I’ve stayed here all these years. My wife’s been dead for a decade, I hardly use most of the rooms now at all. Nobody even comes for dinner anymore. But for Clara, I don’t know what I would do with myself half the time…” His voice trailed off, and then he looked at me sheepishly. “It’s funny, isn’t it, Jack. After all these years, it looks as though I’m the one who produced that trick, eh?”