Campion barely bothered to finish the letter before he was scrunching it into a ball and hurling it at the wall. His aim was shaky thanks to a dull ache behind his temple, weak so it didn’t quite reach the target, the knots in his brain twisted up his synapses and made him shut his eyes tight. But there was soft alcohol to smooth out all the unwanted knots.

Sliding down the wall, lips and bristly blonde mustache clamped tightly around a bottle of gin Campion stared at the letter. Admonished, it lay in the corner, almost staring at him dejectedly. It occurred to Campion that he should probably feel gratitude. The rent was certainly a load from his mind, but- and anger curled around his brain in thick tendrils like thorn bushes at this thought- what right had Margaret to hunt down his landlord and hand out charity like this, family and old friend or not? No, Campion had experienced quite enough of Maggie’s pity to last him this lifetime, and possibly the next to boot.

He would write back to her, Campion concluded, once again finding it remarkable how readily the answers came, clear under all that alcoholic fog. ‘Thank you Maggie, but I don’t want or need your money- give it to the boys, spend it on new baby clothes, I don’t care.’ In this state, in pain, in debt, up to his eyeballs in regret relating to the fairer sex the last thing Campion needed to think about was Margaret Fergusson, Margaret Luccullis even. Feeling thoroughly sorry for himself, Campion spread his long limbs out on to the bare floorboards letting his head rest against the wall behind him.

There was a pain in his chest as he leaned back onto the mostly peeled wallpapering, the most godawful floral pattern you could imagine still stuck to the wall in places, most of the wall a dirty white plaster however. There were ropes and twine twirling against the all too bony expanse of his chest squeezing him tightly and uncontrollably. His heart made itself known to the quiet room, pounding his rib cage violently, Campion could almost hear it plucked like a double bass.

And a strange wave of pain hit him, bringing forth an explosive cough to his lips, mucus and thick glistening black clots of blood spattering on to the wooden floor.

That. Wasn’t normal, he thought, pressing his face against the wall to try and stem the heat that rose in his face sweat pooling around his temples. The pain in his chest was worse and gasping he clutched at it, riding a wave of pain that seemed to be filled with dirty needles.

***********
It was dark. Always was in this place, the thin strips of light from the hall only just filtering through like long spindly fingers caressing the room, shadows twirling and jumping like confisalto dancers in the flickering candle light. Campion didn’t want to believe he could hear sniffling breaths and quiet weeping, but couldn’t quite bring himself not to believe in ghosts.

Ever since he was a boy, Campion had hated this room. Beatrice’s room. It had been left like a shrine to the woman for years now, his mother fearing the dead woman more than anyone else had insisted it was kept that way. It was as though Hyzenthlay was hoping to reach some kind of truce with her long dead aunt, she had the husband, had borne the sons Beatrice never could but Beatrice could have her room how she wanted it.

Campion at feared the ghosts when he was little, but now he felt as though the room was the ghost itself. Her bed sheets were the same, still carrying the more than twenty five year old scent of the woman, her clothes were still in the armoire even. There was a picture of her on the wall too, horrifically enough in her wedding gown, which Campion studied. Poor thing, poor sad scared Beatrice. She was no young Hyzenthlay Luccullis, Campion would give his father that very reluctantly, having heard so many people crow about his mother’s beauty in her youth, having been subjected to the stories of sitting for artists at sixteen, seen the painting his father had commissioned of his seventeen year old niece (when the affair started if the rumors were to be believed).

But Beatrice was not ugly, very very thin and fragile looking her eyes were large and tired, her skin milky, unhealthily pale, like a limp and torn water lily rushed along a current she had no control of. Manipulated by two men fueled by greed she hadn’t wanted to be married to Campion’s father, that was obvious from the sadness in her eyes as she stared out at Campion, he could almost see her hands shaking around the bouquet. But she had gone along with it anyway, out of duty to her family, only to be shunned by the man she had tried to put her trust in. Campion could only imagine what his father had subjected that woman to that was enough to make her end her days the way she had. She hadn’t eaten for nearly a month, was what the gossips had said, turned herself into a ghost long before she’s died and then she went. Off the very balcony in this room, impaled on the gates below.

Though Beatrice had to die in order for Campion and his brothers to have ever been born, Campion still felt pity for that poor dead woman, a closeness even, here in this room, knowing exactly what it was to be second best. Sighing he pushed open the fine glass doors and stepped out onto Beatrice’s balcony, like she would have done all those years ago. She would have looked out at the same estate that Campion did, their rolling green hills, the human farmlands who paid rent to Campion’s father, the land as far as the eye could see almost branded with a giant L. Campion leant against the marble balcony and sighed, playing with his tie. Clocking thing, too uncomfortable, painful even- just like this whole clocking evening.

“This room always gives me the creeps,” said a soft woman’s voice making Campion jump. He turned around and she was there, at the door leading out to the balcony. Margaret Fergusson, lovely as ever but for that rock, that stupid, over the top, gaudy, glistening thing that could have been a dog collar and leash held by Vervain Luccullis Jr, a trophy engraved with gold announcing to the whole world that he was victorious and Campion had lost.

Gods, what did Vervain even want with her? She wasn’t his type, not the glittering socialites with more shining white teeth than brain cells that he’d dated all through Brunnhold. Maggie was some quietly pretty thing, eyebrows arched like playful question marks, mouth wide, lips pursed and playful like a courtesan’s. Campion could draw those lips for hours, strange, unnatural things almost back to front looking, they made for wonderful caricatures. And Maggie laughed, every time. She loved how grotesque he could make her, when really to him she was the most perfect thing in the world. She was too tall, too lanky, masculine hands and feet, dull hair brown hair frizzy and fluffy.

But tonight, tonight the help had been dispatched, bundled that lanky body into a classy, expensive dinner gown that cost more than the farmers who rented their land could hope to make in four years, neck dripping with jewels and his mother’s hairdressers had tamed that thick brown mane into something shiny, trying to turn her into some mini Hyzenthlay Luccullis. She was beautiful tonight, could be one of those vapid socialites Vervain had always gone for, and though he missed the caricature who’d tutored him in ethics he could not help but look and look at her tonight and want her with every inch of himself.

“I didn’t know her, but it’s like I can feel Beatrice here. It isn’t scary, though, it’s just….there really is something heartbreaking about the air in here. Do you think she’s a warning to the unsuspecting women marrying into this family?” Maggie smiled and placed a cool hand on Campion’s shoulder as she leaned beside him on the balcony, that ring burning a hole in Campion’s flesh. “Listen, do you hear her screaming at me not to go through with all this?”

No, that was just Campion.

“Well, one day all this will be yours,” Campion could not help himself but mutter bitterly, gesturing over the balcony to the vast expanse of land and then back into the bedroom. “Beatrice’s legacy and all the skeletons in cupboards that come with old families like this, you think Beatrice it the worst of it? Wait til you hear about great Uncle Digby, wait til you meet my Grandmother. It’s a long way from your mother’s little hat shop isn’t it?”

Maggie’s father had died when she was a baby, and her mother had no head for business- liked to invest in silly things they could never afford, they had a little hat shop in Vienda, but it didn’t do well. They got by, middle class, counting the pennies in a way the Luccullis family would never know. But if she was angry at the mention of her family’s failings then she never showed it. Maggie just sighed heavily, rubbing her temples before looking up at him with very sad, very round blue eyes.
“You would have had me wait for you, Campion?”

He tugged his tie awkwardly, he was a kid, still trying to figure out where he still fit into the world, moving slowly at his own pace. And there was Maggie, racing miles ahead to places they had no business going. Yes he clocking well did want her to wait for him.

“I just assumed you wouldn’t have been bought off so easily,” was all Campion could bring himself to say in a low mumble, “That’s quite a ring, Mags. Sensible you decided to go for the eldest son, maximum payoff, your mother will be pleased.”

Magaret looked at him as though she’d been slapped. Wringing her hands Campion could see her running her fingers over the ring, then up to her throat and the icy diamonds she wore. “I love Vervain,” she said in trembling tones, ripping the necklace from her neck savagely. Diamonds clattered to the floor like shards of ice or broken glass, sharp enough to slice through skin. A few gems rolled of their own accord off the balcony, went the way of Beatrice.

“I know it’s easier to pretend,” Maggie continued, voice stronger and firmer, “that this is about the money. I know how you think. You’ve this great class struggle all set out in your mind, haven’t you? You’ve clamped onto this notion that every golly but you, noble Campion, champion of the poor and the passives, is after nothing but money. But I love him. I really do….I wouldn’t lie to you Campion, you know that. You know me.”

Maggie tried to smile, but Campion couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her. He knew what Beatrice must have felt, the slow feeling of her heart breaking, breaking again, breaking over and over. And for the first time, those gate posts, the spikes that Beatrice had impaled herself against seemed almost inviting.

“You aren’t ready for a wife, darling, what you want is a sandwich and a slice of cheesecake” she nudged him, trying to be playful, to be funny. He did that too. She knew that. Not Vervain, who’s idea of a joke mostly came down to the differences between men and women, galdori and wicks guffawing all the while like an idiot. “And even if you were….anyone who married you would have to marry the SPE and every bloody human you ever felt sorry for. I love that you have passion about it, I do. But…I never felt the same Campion, and Vervain….he loves me. Just me.”

Campion shook his head violently, “He’s my brother. I know him, he-”

But Maggie had obviously heard enough, she raised her hand to the night sky with finality. “I didn’t come out here for a fight.”

Jaw twitching, Campion ran a frustrated hand through his hair, crumpling it into a desperate wild mess. Margaret laughed a little and patted his hair down herself, “Don’t mess it up any more than it always is!” she smiled, “You need to wear that hat I got you more often. Or get a haircut! A better one!” Campion smiled too then, however weak, very much enjoying Maggie’s eyes no matter the context. Icy blue softened warm as she put a cool hand on his face, trailing his cheekbone with the back of one long finger. “You don’t want a wife hanging around you. Not now, not while you’re only getting started. And what you want Campion, what you need to get out of life it’s going to be hard enough on you without feeling like you have to carry even more weight than you have to..just, don’t lose sight of what you really want.” She was close to his face now, very close and Campion remembered study sessions in the library, how nervous he was just talking to her, that flutter of his heart the first time he kissed her.

“Heh,” Maggie patted his chest and jerked her body away from Campion’s, nothing happened, nothing ever would again, Margaret made that perfectly clear. “Really, Campion, I think you’ll make a wonderful brother-in-law.”

It stung of course, like a hand stamping down hard on his foot, like a passive symbol being carved onto his arm on the bathroom floor, “He’s just doing this to get at me,” mumbled Campion petulantly into the night air.

Maggie’s face then changed suddenly, from sad pity right through to quiet, intense, anger in little more than one beat of his hear. With another, she had raised her long, large hands and sent it smack into Campion’s face, the cool metal of her engagement ring stinging far more than the force of her palm against his cheek. There was force in the slap, that was for sure and her face turned the colour of a beetcake, pink lips thin and firm.

“I’m sorry, but you were out of line,” said Maggie shakily, cradling her finger in her hand. “I think I may have broken my finger.”

Campion was first to snap, laughing loudly, laughing hard. Maggie followed, their voices piercing the dark night, like searing two more stars into the sky.

“What’s so funny?”

Campion’s breath hitched in his throat when he turned around and saw Vervain leaning against the door, head cocked with apparent good humor. He was perfectly turned out of course, as always, perfect hair, brown and sleek, parted to one side, perfect suit matching cravat and napkin, perfect smile, perfect teeth, perfect son, perfect husband.

And Maggie lit up when she saw him. That was the worst part, the part where Campion couldn’t pretend that it was him she really loved, that she was just marrying his brother for the money and the security. No, there was genuine love there and Campion felt his chest ache even more.

“I broke my finger,” she said, holding her hand out to her fiancée with a shy smile. Vervain pouted and made a sympathetic noise, reaching out for her hand and kissing the finger, making a great show of it. It was a disgusting display, and Campion had to turn his head, but not before catching Vervain staring at him, something cold in his eyes.

And then he was smiling again. Because nothing had happened, nothing ever happened. Not when Vervain was marrying the girl his little brother had once brought home to meet their parents, not when his brother was lying on some bathroom floor, frightened out of his mind, about to be maimed. Nothing happened, expect Campion always had the bloody scars to disprove that. Vervain spoke the mona for heal and fixed Maggie in a way that Campion never could and she smiled back up at her fiancée with adoring eyes.

“Did you hear, little brother?” smiled Vervain, “Father bought us a house in Vienda. Very nice area, lots of room for a little one too,” he kissed Maggie on the lips and Campion fought the very strong urge to punch him. “Everyone is congratulating us downstairs, you’re missing it.”

“Well I ought to go down and soak up the praise then,” smiled Maggie. “Coming?”

“In a minute, brother talk,” Vervain smiled, “Can’t let you in on this until you are officially part of the family.”

Maggie frowned slightly but nodded, looking from Campion to Vervain slightly worriedly, “Well, don’t be too long.” She paused and leaned up to whisper something into Vervain’s ear which caused him to nod. Campion would have killed to find out what it was she had said.

“I appreciate you keeping your composure tonight Campion,” said Vervain, the minute she was gone. “It’s very big of you. The most mature thing you’ve done in years…shame you had to ruin it by sulking off to this room. What if another guest had followed you here?”

Vervain Sr and Vervain Jr were very alike, in that they never ever made a habit of mentioning Beatrice’s name, never wanted to hear it spoken of, kept her memory contained to this one room. To them, a house guest stumbling upon Beatrice’s tomb would be the greatest of social embarrassment. Because that was what her life was to Vervain Sr, an embarrassment, an errant piece of gossip. Not like Campion and his mother who had that same fearful fascination of the woman, wondering if her ghost was angry that she had died so that Campion could live

“She’s a reminder,” said Campion, turning back to look in the room, “that no good can come of these things if you go into them for the wrong reasons.”

“She’s a corpse is what she is,” said Vervain shortly, “and you’re a fantasist. Now if you’ll excuse me, my fiancée is waiting for me downstairs.”

He patted Campion on the shoulder, hard, more like a punch, knocking his younger brother’s shoulder back. And as he walked into the room and almost out of the door, he paused in the doorway and looked out at Campion, grinning. “You know, when I inherit this house, this whole bloody morbid shrine will be the first thing to go. I’ll make it up nice, see it Maggie doesn’t want it. I can’t have her in Vienda all the time of course, not when I’m entertaining. I think father might have been on to something, you know…”

Campion wasn’t a violent young man, didn’t make a habit of brawling, it wasn’t what gentlemen did- there were some rambunctious wrestling matches, some pile ups, but never brawls. Not like this, leaping on his brother, punching him square on the jaw. It might have been a mistake.

************

To this day, Vervain maintained that the brothers had been reliving Vervain’s days on the Brunnhold wrestling team, but nobody was ever buying it. Vervain got his own back on Campion of course, asked him to be the best man at his wedding, which was a kind gesture from the outside but on the inside it was the worst thing he could have possibly done. And then Vervain got his revenge again, and once again, and now a third time apparently, but Campion was done with all that.

Because Maggie wasn’t Beatrice. Every time he’d seen since the wedding she had been happy chattering loudly at parties, not sad and mad locked up in her room. Happier than she ever was with Campion.

On his hands and knees wiping up his own blood in a rag, Campion could feel yet more pain dancing somewhere in his chest, more than usual stomach ache , more than typical hunger pangs. No, this was something different. Something ominous even. He could feel a pain lying dormant in his chest, looking down at the bloodied rag and felt oddly fearful, like there was a sadness in the air, something mournful even.

To cool the sweat on his forehead, he filled the wash basin and splashed cold water onto his face, catching sight of himself in the grimy mirror. What greeted him made him almost gasp. He’d always had shades of Hyzenthlay in him, far more than Vervain. He was more Groundsel Smythe than Luccullis, but he’d never seen it before. Thin pinched face, tired eyes, sallow skin. The face that stared back at Campion in the mirror was already dead.

“Hullo Beatrice,” he whispered softly.

(NEVER. write ghost lits at night! I'm gonna go curl up in a ball now)