circular staircase

Asche Manor rose before Geoffrey like a carbuncle. Brittle branches and towers of boxwoods shadowed his ancestral home. Geoffrey grimaced and looked away. They promised each other they would never come back.

Miller pulled the car into the circular drive. Nothing had changed, Geoffrey thought. Nothing could. After university, Geoffrey had travelled from base-jumping in South America to shark hunting off the Gold coast. Yet the curse of his home hung around his throat. Windows, white as cateracts, stared back at him.

On stiff legs, he walked towards the door. Miller drove off to the carriage house to park the Rolls and bring his luggage up the back stairs. At the train station, Miller had said Gillian had arrived earlier that morning. He hated himself for being pleased he wouldn’t be alone. A trio of magpies scrowled at Geoffrey’s cowardice as he fiddled with his cigarette case.

With its ragged chimneys and well appointed rooms, Asche Manor was never a home. Father worked as a barrister in London and rarely came home. A club woman, Mater focused on her friends and her causes. The manor house was a museum of objects never to be touched and, of course, the curse. The grand front door opened. Geoffrey burned his fingers unsuccessfully lighting a cigarette.

Solemnly, the housekeeper ushered him in. Walking into the foyer on shaky legs, Geoffrey exchanged polite greeting with Housekeeper Macready. Whispers in the lanes, uncomfortable silences in church, as children Gillian and Geoffrey never understood the pitying looks from others. Always the braver, Gillian haunted the library for the Asche family history searching for answers. She only found more questions. Geoffrey had the idea to interview a few of the old retainers under the guise of a school project.

Old Nanny Threadneedle, who taken to whiskey with her afternoon tea, was a wellspring of information. She detailed the curse of Asche Manor, the unusual deaths that had pruned their family tree over the centuries. There have been deaths by lightning, by mudslide, by unsinkable ships sunk, by tiger attack, by elephant stampede, and even fire ant attack. Asches had dropped in elevators and been crushed by escalators. Gillian said their family tree was a low budget Poe story.

Luckily, the curse had faded away in the 1950s and no strange deaths had been reported. Standing in the grand hall that smelt faintly of grilled ham, Geoffrey didn’t feel lucky. His gold framed ancestors avoided eye contact as Geoffrey sulked across the portrait galley. Gillian was a barrister now with a nicely reliable husband and three or four plump children. They only saw each other now over FaceTime each running from Asche in their own ways.

Cloying the smoky smell beckoned him forward. Father’s study was opened. After retirement, Father and Mater moved to Miami and the manor had a bare bones staff. Entailments meant it could not be sold so the Asche manor festered. In one of Mater’s emails, Geoffrey knew Father had returned to Asche manor for a few months to gather notes for his memoir. The study was intact with a rich patterned hand tufted rug, book laden mahogany shelves, a heavy carved desk, and a father-shaped silhouette burnt into the blacked skeleton of an office chair. The ceiling above Father’s desk was soot gray and the green flocked wallpaper behind the desk had blistered and peeled. Pristine stacks of paper and a notebook splayed open, the desk was unmarred.

“The coroner’s inquest is scheduled for Tuesday. But the rumor is they are calling this spontaneous combustion,” Gillian said from the corner settee.

Wrapped in a comforter, his sister was drinking a pitcher of gin and tonic. Howling, Geoffrey edged closer to the desk. He screamed at his dead father and his family and the death that stalked his every decision and kept him alone. At least that is what Gillian said happened. Geoffrey woke up in one of the guest rooms with his sister holding his hand and Macready holding an icepack to the goose egg on the back of his head. Gillian handed him her cocktail pitcher. Geoffrey guzzled.

“I’m done running from this Gillie. I’m ready to do something. Tell me you have some idea how to stop this curse.”

Geoffrey wiped at his mouth. She squeezed his hand. “Better than an idea Jeffy I have a plan.”