Ruined 2 - Dark Souls Read Online Free PDF

was what it meant, she thought, when people talked about being frozen to the spot. She felt like an ice sculpture. This ghost didn’t scare her the way the woman in the river had scared her, but that didn’t mean Miranda felt calm. The ghosts in England could see her, just like the ghosts in Iowa. But what did they want?
    “Ah!” said Lord Poole, walking over to stand next to her. She could sense his presence rather than see him, because she couldn’t take her eyes off the apparition. “You and your brother have good instincts.”
    Miranda opened her mouth to speak, but only a stifled squeak came out.
    “That’s the thing I was about to tell you in the shrine,” said Lord Poole. “The irony of it. The shrine, you see — they got it wrong. The Clitherows never lived in that house. The house where Margaret Clitherow lived is the one you’re looking at right now.”
    “So all the people who say they’ve felt her presence in the shrine were … deluded?” Jeff was standing on theother side of Miranda now, laughing. Miranda reached out a hand, each finger seized by bracing cold. The woman in white was close enough to touch, but Miranda’s hand passed through her. The woman was as insubstantial as air.
    “Well, you never know,” said Lord Poole. “It may be that —”
    “What was she wearing?” Miranda interrupted, disoriented by the sound of her own voice, high-pitched and breathless. “Margaret — when she died?”
    “Er … her shift, I imagine.” Lord Poole sounded bemused.
    “That’s a sort of all-purpose undergarment,” her father explained. “Like a petticoat, say.”
    “A nightgown?” The woman in white smiled at her, and Miranda’s entire body surged with an icy liquid jet.
    “That kind of thing, yes.”
    The ribs broken first: That was what Lord Poole had said. The blood on her shift — was that from the smashed ribs?
    Everyone was saying good night now, and the woman in white was fading rather than walking away, her sweet smile evaporating into the night. In a moment she was gone. Miranda blinked, trying to focus her eyes, the cold jets seeping from her body. Maybe she was so tired she was hallucinating.
    People strolled by, talking and laughing; some wandered over to the shop window to look at the absurdstaged photographs. They wanted to pretend to live in the good old days, Miranda thought. Not so good for some people.
    “Well, Miranda.” Lord Poole was standing in front of her now, smiling. “At least you know the right place to look for her ghost now.”
    It might have been her imagination, but Miranda could have sworn Lord Poole was giving her a long look.
    “Do ghosts only come out at night?” Rob asked, scratching his head like a sleepy child.
    “Not always,” said Lord Poole, and then he seemed to change his mind. He gave a formal little bow and took a step back. “I mean, I really have no idea. I’ve never seen one myself. At least, I don’t think I’ve seen one. Who can say who’s a ghost and who’s real?”
    He looked at Miranda and smiled, but she didn’t smile back. She was thinking about how many ghosts she might have seen without realizing it. The farmer at the crossroads had looked completely alive. It was only his wound that gave him away — that and the fact that Jeff obviously couldn’t see him at all. Maybe half the people walking down the Shambles right now were ghosts. Miranda wasn’t sure. As Lord Poole said, how could she possibly tell?

CHAPTER THREE
    S o, what are our plans for today?” Peggy asked. It was Saturday morning. She stood at the kitchen sink, squirting orange dishwashing liquid into the frying pan.
    “Finish reading
Northanger Abbey
,” said Miranda, pointing at the book lying facedown on the dining room table. She felt exhausted, and the sighting of St. Margaret Clitherow last night had unnerved her. If more ghosts were lying in wait for her out on the streets of York, Miranda wasn’t in any hurry to see them.
    “Watch English