Free Doppelgänger by Sean Munger Page B

remembered seeing in her early childhood. It was just before the intersection of one of the other streets—she knew all their names, but she couldn’t quite recall which street crossed at the corner with the orange house. There was a tavern just a stone’s throw away, which she had never been in, of course, but—
    Creak!
    She sat upright in bed. Was that it? Was that the spöke? She was surprised at herself that she’d used this word spöke in her mind. It meant ghost , but when she thought in English about the frightening sounds she usually called it the creak .
    She listened for the laughter. Usually it was very soft and sounded like it was moving, often coming from the right-hand end of the hallway. But she didn’t hear it now. The ticking of the clock seemed to drown out every other sound. At last she willed her body to relax and she lay back down.
    Back to Gamla stan , she thought. She closed her eyes and envisioned it, the orange house, the tavern beyond—
    Creeeeeeak!
    This one was much louder. It sounded like it was just behind the door.
    She reached for the oil lamp on the bedside table. There was a box of matches there too, but fumbling in the dark she couldn’t find it.
    BANG!
    A moment later the bedroom door burst open. In the darkness the figure rushing toward her was impossible to see as anything other than a blur. Anine screamed. The terror was seizing her now. Her nightmare had come true. The thing lunging at her was Ola Bergenhjelm, returned from the grave.
    â€œNo! Please! Forgive me!” Two powerful hands, feeling more human than the cold grasp of Ola’s vengeful corpse, grabbed her wrists. She realized suddenly the monster was alive and human, not dead and ghoulish, but her fear was just the same. One of the warm crushing hands let go of her wrist. A moment later it began hauling her sleeping-gown over her head. In the dim light from the hallway she saw a sudden glimpse of freckles on the back of the hand clutching at her.
    It’s not Ola—it’s Julian!
    She was so stunned that she could barely struggle. It did not last long, but it left her with a feeling of violation so powerful and repulsive that she felt physically sick. As Julian got up Anine lay motionless on the bed, arms up over her head, her groin aching.
    â€œTold you it wasn’t over,” he muttered. “You can keep your goddamn nigger maid. You just paid for her.”
    He left the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. As he walked down the hallway to the stairs she heard the creak of the floorboards beneath the carpet under his feet.

Chapter Six
    The Undisclosed Vendetta
    The next day Julian hired a manservant, and Anine wondered if it was retaliation for—or perhaps adaptation to—Miss Wicks. She expected he’d hire a proper-looking man with gray hair and long experience as a gentleman’s valet; if not a Briton, someone who looked like one. But the man who appeared at the house the next afternoon was barely eighteen. He was a tall youth with tousled brown hair falling in gentle curls and his tie was not quite straight. “My name is Bryan Shoop,” said the boy after Miss Wicks showed him into Anine’s Green Parlor. “I’m supposed to start working here today for Mr. Atherton.”
    All Anine said was, “Miss Wicks will show you to your room.” She was playing solitaire in the parlor, still dazed from the shock and horror of last night’s events, and didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Shoop went upstairs and began to busy himself brushing and arranging Julian’s suits.
    I had no idea it was going to be like this , Anine thought as she thumbed mindlessly through the cards. I had no idea Julian had such savagery in him. She guessed he was sorely provoked by her defiance of his instructions to fire the maid, but she’d never dreamed he would react like that . She did not know what to do. She wanted to kill him, but she