blueberry yoghurt and rhubarb
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Ghost
Rating: G/PG (mild language)
Challenge: Blueberry Yoghurt #14: a miracle, Rhubarb ‘My Treat’ #22: long time, no see (Rosalind comes to the future)
Toppings/Extras: none
Wordcount: 640
Summary: Lord Ashdown meets a ghost. Or she was supposed to be.
Notes: Wow. I feel sort of sorry for Ashdown. That’s not right! Thanks to Marina for the wonderful Treat!
At that time, in that place, in that very second there was nothing but Rosalind. Sweet Rosalind. Sixteen years old, just as she had been all those years ago.
It was wrong, it was all wrong. She shouldn’t have been there but she was, and he had been eighteen years old when she’d died and he’d gotten over it and patiently waited for the day to come when he wouldn’t think of her and then...
Here she was.
Edward Ashdown was speechless. Since his fourth birthday this had only happened six times. Newson stood by with the biggest smirk imaginable plastered across his gaudy, handsome face.
“Teddy!” Rosalind wrestled herself from an uncomfortable-looking Robyn Walshe’s grasp with ease and rushed across the room to embrace her brother. “Who are these people? They’re all so strange, and they put me in this device and they all talk oddly and I...” She raised her head from his chest and suddenly stared. “Teddy?” she asked, voice wavering. “You look... old...”
Still not ready for words, Ashdown merely looked at his younger sister a little while longer. It had been twelve years since he had seen her last. The same delicate lavender-blonde ringlets, the same round green eyes, the same fluty voice-she was the same right to her goddamn rosewater perfume.
“Will this be enough to motivate you, Lord Ashdown?” asked Newson lightly.
Had Ashdown been the kind to lose control-which at this moment he easily could have resorted to-he probably would have flung himself across the room there and then to headbutt the man in the face. Most undignified, certainly, but aside from the spinning madness of Rosalind, the only thought whirling through his mind was: bastard, bastard, bastard! He has no right to frolic into my past, to dig up a skeleton that should be left untouched, to turn my sister into another fragile pawn in this ridiculous battle of brains...
As it was, he didn’t even look at Newson, he merely touched his hands onto his little sister’s shoulders as though checking she were real. He half expected his hands to slip straight through the gentle chiffon of her dress.
“Hello, Rose,” he whispered.
She was dead. She wasn’t just meant to be dead, she was dead. And now she was here. How could her memory ever rest if she was here? How could he explain to her that she had died years ago as she stood breathing before him? How could this phantom from the last vestige of his childhood remain both dead and alive?
And how could Newson threaten to take her away again?
It was over. Over. He’d had his fun. He’d played his cards well but Newson had trumped him and there was nothing he could do. He almost felt the cold shackles locking over his wrists. There was no choice left now, nothing at all. All he could do was what he was ordered. Ashdown felt blank with disbelief. He’d lost. He’d lost. When was the last time he’d lost? He honestly couldn’t remember.
He’d thought it would only hurt his pride, but there was more to it than that when his little sister was involved. Perhaps he should have applauded Newson for his extreme manipulation-perhaps if the situation had been anything else he would have-but Rosalind was different. She was untouchable, beyond the realms of possibility; he hadn’t dreamt it feasible for someone to use her against him and so he was utterly unprotected from the impact it had on his soul.
It was a chink in his armour that Newson had struck with deadly accuracy and it was acutely painful. Ashdown hadn’t even realised he had such a weakness. Until now, of course. But how could he have ever been aware of how much a ghost could hurt him?