The advertisement appeared in the paper exactly as it had appeared every sixty years since the house was built: GOVERNESS WANTED. TWO CHILDREN. ROOM AND BOARD. BLACKWATER DOWNS, THE MOORS.
Abigail Willoughby was nineteen when she arrived. Mable was five. Dalton was eight. Their parents, the Buckingshires, were traveling abroad.
That was sixty-three years ago.
The children have been five and eight since 1742. Their parents died of fever and never came home. The house keeps them frozen, preserved, waiting for a mother and father who will never walk through the door. But they need someone living to see them, to believe in them, or they fade to nothing.
Every governess falls in love with them. Every governess stays. And when a governess grows too old to serve, the house transforms her into staff. Mr. Barnes, the stiff-backed butler, was a governess in 1789. Mrs. Gates, the cook, in 1812. They don't remember being anything else.
Abigail is eighty-two now. Her hands shake. Her vision blurs. She has placed the advertisement herself this time, interviewed the candidates, and selected Aileen Moira, twenty-two, Irish, recently orphaned. A girl with no one who would miss her.
Tonight, at dinner, Abigail will tell Aileen the truth. She will show her the ghosts of every governess who came before. She will watch the girl scream and try to run.
And then the children will appear at the top of the stairs, frightened, tearful, asking why the new lady is crying, promising to take care of her forever.
No one has ever resisted that.
