The Bleeding Wainscot
The following is part of a ghost story I haven’t finished. It’s one of many stories I’ve set in a slightly different 1820s England.
ROLAND:
I sat alone in the entrance hall, alone on one of the window seats flanking the formidable front door. As I listened to an inordinately large number of creaks and moans, as though the house were settling more than any house ever settled, I felt pressure on my heart, as though someone were pressing down on it. I knit my brow and frowned, as an inexplicable sense of despair overwhelmed me like a hovering cloud.
It was not the first time I had experienced deep melancholy for no apparent reason. Often the spirits of the dead affect my moods, passing their melancholy and despair onto me. This, I knew, was one of those occasions.
The air in this entrance hall dropped considerably in temperature. I opened my mouth and puffed out. My breath appeared in a ball of fog before my eyes. I heard nothing strange, but as I peered about the room, I noticed the wainscoted wall straight across from me appeared to be turning dark red. With my gaze affixed upon the burnished wall, I rose as quietly as possible. I began to walk across the marble floor toward the wall, and as I watched (and listened to my feet pad softly against the hard floor), I saw the red spreading rapidly. It was covering more and more of the…