For the next few days, everyone dodged the conversation around the girl. Father, despite his promises, did not send anyone out to scour the woods for her, and it appeared everyone else just allowed her to fade away. I, however, couldn't forget it. There was something about the look on her face, the state she was in and the fact that she had obviously been in the woods for a while that intrigued me. Why had she been there?

Even if I wanted to forget, the bruises on my right side were a reminder whenever I got dressed of what had happened that day. They had appeared the day after the girl, dark purple marks that spread across my ribcage and made my injury look far worse than it was. I hadn't shown the bruises to anyone because I knew Mother would go running to Doctor Merrick and insist I have them looked at.

They had started to fade, the dark purple being fainter and turning a little yellower as the days went by. Every day I would look out the window hoping to see the girl standing in the trees, but she didn't reappear. I would gaze out the window when I was supposed to be studying, and stare through the darkness before bed or early in the morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but I never did. Once or twice, I saw Joseph disappear into the trees with a bucket, but he always returned with drinking water for the horses.

With the topic of the girl expressly forbidden by Father, life continued as normal. One afternoon, Mother had organised a day on the grounds, followed by supper with some old family friends. The Seabrooks had been friends of the family for as long as I could remember and I grew up around their son, Andrew. We got on splendidly with one another, but we could both be rather competitive.

"Are you going to serve the ball, Nate, or should I join the ladies for tea and cake?" Andrew paused. "On second thoughts, that sounds far better than trying to play tennis with you."

I tore my eyes away from the trees. "You're just mad because I have more points than you."

"Because you're cheating. If we had someone else as umpire, half of your points wouldn't have counted."

"No, they would have agreed with me that the ball went out of bounds."

"Out of bounds is just a piece of rope, Nate. It's hardly a real tennis court."

"It's not like we're playing real tennis."

"Touché." Andrew laughed and spun his tennis racket around, gearing up for the next serve.

I threw the ball into the air and smacked it as hard as I could with the racket, watching it fly over the net we had constructed. Andrew stared at the ball as it hurtled over the net, almost falling a few inches or so in front of him. He launched himself onto the floor and caught the ball with the very edge of his racket. I laughed at the sight of him laying face-down on the floor, his racket a short distance away from his hands. The tennis ball fell just to the left of me, but I was enjoying the sight of Andrew on the floor too much to care.

Andrew huffed and sat back on his knees, brushing grass from the front of his shirt. From where I stood, I could see light green grass stains along the rolled-up sleeves and across the front. After an afternoon of playing tennis, my clothes were hardly in a better condition, but I had avoided the grass stains Mother had threatened me about that morning.

As Andrew pulled himself together, a feat that included a lot of complaining and muttering, I glanced back over to the trees, hoping that the girl might have reappeared to see what was going on, but the trees remained still. The trees were easy to become lost in, but I suspected that the girl wouldn't wander too far away. If Joseph knew she was out there, she had to stay close in order for him to find her. She had to have been getting food from somewhere.

"What is it with you and those trees?" Andrew said.

"Huh?" I looked over at him, frowning a little.

Andrew brushed a blade of grass from his trousers, ran a hand through his red hair and gestured over to the trees. "All day you've been staring at the trees like you're expecting something to come out of them. You suggested we play tennis, but you're more distracted than Emily when she's in one of her etiquette lessons. Why?"

"I saw someone in the woods the other day."

"Who?"

"A girl. I don't know who she was or why she was there." I sighed. "No one else believes me and Father refuses to discuss the matter any further. He said he would search the woods, but didn't."

"Maybe you saw a ghost."

"A ghost?"

"Yes, a ghost. My aunt Catherine believes she saw one when she was a girl. According to her, she saw a young boy looking down from an upstairs window, but her brothers were both away. She has believed it was a ghost ever since, but Grandmother thinks it was probably her youngest brother who didn't go away on his trip. It could have been a ghost in the woods."

"How could it have been a ghost? To my knowledge, no one has ever died in the house or on the grounds."

"Emphasis on 'to my knowledge'. Someone could have died in the house and you would have no idea."

I shook my head. "You are so far from the mark. It's comical."

"Boys! Come and get some lemonade. You have been playing for an age," Mother called from across the grounds.

"I'm about to prove you wrong, Nathaniel very wrong indeed."

Andrew spun his tennis racket around in his hand and jogged across the grounds to a small table that had been put up close to the house. The table was covered by a large canopy that helped to protect it from the sun — it almost looked like the circus had paid us a visit. I tucked my racket under my arm, following Andrew up to where the women, and our fathers, were all sitting.

When I reached the table, Father handed me a small glass of lemonade with an ice cube inside, which I gulped down as though it were the best thing I had ever had to drink. I didn't realise how thirsty I had become — tennis could be thirsty work. At the table, Alice sipped her lemonade and nibbled on a small sandwich whilst beside her, Andrew's youngest sister, Emily, fidgeted with the tablecloth. She would much rather have preferred to play tennis with us than sit at a table watching.

We ate a few finger sandwiches in silence, with Andrew spending the entire time bouncing on the balls of his feet like an impatient child. When he had an idea in his mind, he rarely let it go until he had told everyone or executed the idea. Whatever he had to do, he was itching to say it before he had to leave.

"Mr Thorpe, can I ask you something?"

Father raised an eyebrow. "That depends on the question, Mr Seabrook. The last time you asked me a question, I ended up stuck in a three-hour debate over whether Victoria sandwiches are classed as a sandwich because of their name, or a dessert because they're made of cake."

"I still stand by them being a sandwich." Andrew laughed; Father looked concerned. "It's not a debate question, just a simple question."

"Then, by all means, go ahead."

"Has anyone ever died in your house or on the grounds?"

Father choked on a piece of cake, Mr Seabrook snorted into his lemonade and I tried not to laugh at how forward Andrew had been with his questioning. Across the table, the women looked confused with Alice shaking her head a little at Andrew's stupidity and Mrs Seabrook wishing she were anywhere but sitting at the table. Andrew had that effect on people.

"No, Andrew. No one has ever died on the property," Father said.

"What about someone you didn't know about? Someone who got lost in the woods and died?" Andre pointed at Father. "That's possible."

"Yes, it is possible, but highly improbable. The gardeners spend a lot of time in those woods and know them like the back of their hands. If someone had died, we would know." Father sipped his lemonade. "What is this coming from, anyway? No one has ever spoken of ghosts on the grounds before."

I glared at Andrew, hoping he wouldn't say anything further.

"No, but Nate spoke about seeing a girl and I thought it could have been a ghost. It seemed like the most obvious explanation."

Father placed his glass on the table and then did something I never expected him to do. He smiled. In fact, he did a little more than that and chuckled. I glanced across the table at Alice, who looked just as confused as I felt, especially after the dressing down I had received a few nights before. Father had been adamant that no one was to speak of what I saw through the trees, and laughter was not the response I expected after having told everything to Andrew.

"Well, despite no one having died on the property, at least that we are aware of, I suppose it could be entirely probable that what Nathaniel saw in the woods was a ghost. Although I doubt we will ever know for certain."

"I told you," Andrew said, elbowing me in the upper arm as though he had just proved something. "It could have been a ghost."

"It wasn't a ghost," I mumbled, but Andrew didn't hear me.

No one said anymore on the matter, not even Father, but he kept glancing out from the corner of his eyes. I knew better than anyone that I would be in for an earful once the Seabrooks had left, especially since he had addressed me as Nathaniel rather than Nate. That told me all I needed to know. Despite that, it felt good to tell someone outside of the family about the girl in the woods, even if Andrew hadn't been all that helpful. He had believed me. No one else did.

For the rest of the afternoon, I kept my eyes on the trees, but the girl failed to reappear, not that I expected her to. I held onto the hope that she might at least watch us since we had food and that someone might see her before we went inside. That hope ended up being pointless. Instead, I moved through the motions of the afternoon; playing tennis, eating the occasional cake, and trying not to make eye contact with Father.

When the Seabrooks carriage disappeared down the gravel track a few hours later, I expected Father to call me into his study to talk, but he didn't. Instead, he slunk away by himself, leaving me and Alice to occupy our own time before they summoned us for supper. I knew I wouldn't be getting any studying done that afternoon, so I headed down to the stables to see Lightning and Sooty. On the way, I stopped by the kitchens for some carrots with the kitchen staff more than willing to comply.

I crossed the grounds in the late afternoon light; the temperature having dropped a little, but it was still stifling. The sun had dipped below the trees and the shadows had all but disappeared. Were it not for the heat, the late afternoon would have been more than perfect for a wander around the grounds or a trip to the woods.

The stables were quiet when I entered with nothing but the sound of the horses moving around to stop a perfect silence. Cats ran under my feet, including Sooty, who seemed to enjoy himself with the other stable cats. I crept down the middle of the stable, wary of spooking the horses, and stopped in front of Lightning's stall.

"And how are you doing today, my fine four-legged friend?" I asked, producing a carrot from my pocket and holding it in front of him. Almost immediately, Lightning took the carrot from my hand and munched away. "That well, eh? Well, at least one of us is doing fine. I cannot say I'm the same or else I would not be talking to a horse."

"There is nothing wrong with talking to your horse, Nathaniel. The problem is when the horse responds," Father said. He appeared beside me silently, as though he had just stepped out of the shadows.

"I did not know you were here."

"That would be because I have just arrived. I saw you from the window of my study and became curious about why you were walking the grounds so late." He cleared his throat. "I thought, perhaps, it had something to do with the girl."

"Not at all."

Father lifted his hand and lightly stroked Lightning's nose. "I told you the other day, Nataniel, that the matter of what you witnessed in the woods had come to an end. The stable hands have all reported nothing untoward in the woods or that they had seen anyone around, and I consider the matter closed."

"But–"

"–No, Nathaniel. You should not have discussed it with Andrew Seabrook and I will not entertain the matter any further. There is nothing in the woods and there most likely never was. Your comments at afternoon tea humiliated your mother and made us seem like a laughingstock in front of our guests and I will not have that happening again.

"You are to drop the matter completely and speak no more of the other day with anyone. If I find out that you have so much as mentioned the matter to another member of this household, staff or otherwise, I will reconsider the idea of sending you to the city to live with your aunt. Is that understood?"

"I know what I saw, Father!"

Father looked at me, his mouth drawn into a thin line. "Is that understood?" He punctuated every word and didn't break eye contact.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Get back to the house and ready yourself for supper. It would not be wise to arrive smelling like a horse."

With that, Father turned and left me standing alone in the stable, my heart threatening to jump out of my chest.

~~~

A/N - We are back with Chapter Three! I've recently written probably my favourite chapter so far and you'll see that one in a few weeks!

In the meantime, questions! What do you think of Andrew as a character? Should Nate have told Andrew about the girl? Should be defy his father?

Comment below!

Dedication - This chapter is dedicated to cluelessasevxr who I'm pretty sure I've seen pop up on a lot of my works. Your continue support is grately appreciated!

First Published - October 18th, 2022