bones_GEN

by Lila Dubois

  “Elizabeth knows about what happened to us in here,” he explained.

  “She knows? How? Was that her? Did she answer your question about what she is?”

  “She didn’t.” He responded to Melissa but focused on Elizabeth.

  “As I said, she’s not a ghost.” Seamus peered into a casket set out on the table. The edges were reinforced with straps, and a clean sheet of paper waited on the next table over, ready to have the bones laid out.

  “Don’t touch that,” Melissa snapped at him.

  “Then what is she?” Tristan asked.

  Elizabeth didn’t respond. Just when Tristan was about to repeat his questions, Seamus spoke.

  “Do you know what that is out there?” Seamus motioned toward the cemetery.

  “A graveyard full of victims,” Melissa answered. “Every one of these skeletons bears the marks of severe trauma. Some aren’t conclusively the result of violence—they could have been the result of accidents—but all together it’s very clear that people laid to rest out there were purposefully injured prior to death. Many of the injuries were severe enough to be the cause of death.”

  “The victims of my family’s madness are buried there, in a Church of England cemetery, because torturing and killing wasn’t enough. They had to make sure that the souls suffered even after death.” Seamus’ matter-of-fact words were haunting, chilling.

  Melissa frowned. “How do you know all this?”

  “Let’s say it’s family knowledge.” Seamus looked at Elizabeth.

  “Then who destroyed the grave markers?” Melissa asked.

  “The markers were put in place by the families of the dead. It was done in secret, in the dead of night or when the Lord of Glenncailty returned to England, giving these people some measure of peace. Until the day it was decided these dead shouldn’t be acknowledged, and the Lord of Glenncailty ordered the gravestones destroyed.”

  “But they are not your family,” Tristan said. “You inherited the land when Ireland became independent.” He remembered that much from the various castle histories they had posted around.

  “I’m afraid that isn’t true. O’Muircheartaigh is simply the Irish version of my true last name.”

  “Moriarty,” Melissa said. “‘Hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind.’”

  “Who?” Tristan was not sure what the significance of that name was or what Melissa was talking about.

  “Sherlock Holmes’ nemesis,” she explained. “That’s how Holmes describes Moriarty.”

  “Of course.” Tristan nodded.

  “Fitting, in a way, that my family should bear the name of a villain,” Seamus said.

  “If your family was English, how did they keep this place? I thought lands were returned to Irish citizens.” Tristan was holding his anger in check, but it was getting more difficult. Was all this secrecy merely to protect Seamus’ claim to the land?

  “It was, but he has a legitimate claim as an Irish citizen,” Melissa said.

  Tristan frowned as he looked down at her. It seemed that she’d learned more about this place and its history than anyone, even him, had given her credit for. Seamus was examining her with an unfriendly expression.

  “My family has been loyal to this country since the Easter Rising,” he said finally. “Since a second son living here sided with rebels, renouncing his claim to the titles in England and changing his name.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re the direct descendant of the only surviving child from the nursery.”

  Seamus’ gaze slid away from Melissa.

  Tristan’s brows rose. “He is?”

  “Yes. There were five children, and we accounted for four of them.”

  “George was taken to England.” Elizabeth had been strangely quiet as Tristan and Melissa tried to puzzle out what was going on. “The lord’s English wife was barren, and rather than let the title pass to a relative, they lied and manipulated their way into having John’s Irish bastard made heir.

  “George was half-Irish, but he didn’t know—he was so young that he forgot where he’d come from, or he was forced to forget. By the time he was an adult and returned to Ireland as the master of the castle, no one recognized him. Or if they did, they didn’t acknowledge that the harsh, cruel man bore the same blood as one of the glen’s most respected families.”

  Tristan quickly related what Elizabeth was saying to Melissa.

  “Is she really speaking about it as if she were there?” Melissa asked.

  “I was,” Elizabeth answered. “I’ve been here for a long time.”

  “How?” Tristan asked.

  “She keeps track of our sins and makes sure we pay for them.” Seamus looked at Elizabeth, and there was loathing in his eyes.

  “She is your conscience?” Tristan asked.

  “She is the ghost of every person who recognized the sins but did not stop it.” Seamus smiled, and it was a terrible, cold thing.

  Tristan puzzled that over. “She’s not a single ghost. She’s many ghosts, all together.”

  Elizabeth nodded once.

  “And that is why she’s so real?” Melissa asked, brow furrowed as she tried to follow the conversation.

  “She’s nodding,” Tristan reported.

  There was a flash of movement in the corner at the same time that the lights flickered. Tristan shoved Melissa behind him. Protected or not, he couldn’t stand to see the maid in chains hovering near Melissa while she devolved into a thing of horror. He would keep her close. He would protect her.

  Elizabeth and Seamus both looked at the gray-tinged apparition who now stood between them.

  “You said you knew her,” Tristan said. “You said she was your sister.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I began when she died.”

  “How?”

  The work light closest to the door clicked off, leaving half the interior in shadow. Tristan backed himself and Melissa up until they were firmly in the pool of light from the remaining lamp.

  “Once, a long time ago, I was Elizabeth. My father’s titles included that of Lord of Glenncailty. He died when I was young, and my brother inherited. I did not know my brother well—he’d been away at school while I was growing up. When he did come home, I was afraid of him. When he grew bored, he decided to go to Ireland to survey his holding here.”

  Elizabeth paused, looking between Tristan and Seamus. Realizing why she’d paused, Tristan quickly passed on what she was saying to Melissa.

  “Before he left, he decided to take my companion with him. She was a year older than me and we’d been friends since we were small, though she was a servant. My mother elevated her to the status of companion as we grew. But she was still a servant, and I had no power to stop my brother from taking her as part of his entourage, and she had no way of leaving our household to seek different employment—my brother’s influence would have prevented her from getting another position.”

  Elizabeth came to stand beside the skeleton Melissa had been examining. Her hand hovered over the skull, which had a spider web of cracks in the top.

  “I knew when she died,” Elizabeth said. “I could feel it. When my brother returned, I plied his valet with alcohol until he revealed what had happened to my friend.

  “My brother tortured her. He took her from me to torment me. He hated me, or maybe it was just that he enjoyed his ownership of me. He wasn’t as powerful or wealthy as he wanted to be, and it made him mean. Made him long to control something, someone.

  “She was my only true friend. But he couldn’t see me suffering, so instead he made her suffer. She was forced to work as a scullery maid while wearing chains like a slave. She was regularly beaten, raped and tortured. Once, when she fought back, my brother cut out her eye. Then he cut out the other one, blinding her. She died not long after that.”

  The words were bitter and foul on his tongue as Tristan repeated what had been said. Melissa squeezed his hand.

  “What my brother never knew,
and I never told him, was that she was our sister. My mother told me the truth, said that my father had an affair and the woman died when the child was small. Our cook took Joan in, raised her. My mother knew the truth and tried to look out for the little girl. When she saw that we loved one another as sisters did, my mother made sure we were there for each other.

  “My brother tortured, raped and murdered our sister.”

  Silence hung in the air, thick after Elizabeth’s story. Tristan whispered what he’d heard to Melissa.

  “What happened to her, to Elizabeth?” Melissa asked.

  “I died when I was forty. I never married. My brother did, and I tried to help raise his children, to make sure they would not do what their father had done. I died thinking I’d succeeded.”

  “The rot goes deep.” Seamus had been quiet while Elizabeth spoke. “The next man was no better.”

  “Who else is Elizabeth?” Melissa asked. “Didn’t you say she’s more than one ghost?”

  “In every generation there was a woman who knew what was happening in Glenncailty and did not stop it. Some tried, some didn’t, but their consciousness remained, joining with others, until I was here,” Elizabeth explained.

  “But it’s over. There is no one being tortured here. The past is gone,” Tristan said.

  “It cannot be over until it is washed clean,” Seamus said. “For one hundred years, Elizabeth has been there, demanding that we atone for the sins of our family. That’s why I opened the hotel. Hundreds of years of death and torment were waiting in these walls. I wanted to burn it to the ground, but all that would do is remove the physical place. The past would remain.”

  “So you’re trying to cancel out the negativity with positivity,” Melissa said. “There’s a precedent for that in the belief systems of many cultures. I assume that’s why Elizabeth took on the role of general manager, to help in this quest. But if what you want is to cleanse Glenncailty, then why did you fight me? Why did you try and remove the bones?”

  “And if you knew these things, why didn’t you say them?” Tristan added, angry that he and everyone else who’d come to make Glenncailty a success were being used. They were foot soldiers in a war against the darkness of the past.

  “I wanted to bring happiness and life to this wretched place, but I did not intend to do it while revealing the darkness. Perhaps I was naive to think that I could change Glenncailty while maintaining my family’s secrets.”

  “I hate secrets,” Melissa said.

  “I gathered as much.” Seamus walked up to Melissa, and Tristan stepped in front of her.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered, rubbing his shoulder.

  Tristan stepped to the side.

  “You will give them peace?” Seamus asked, gesturing to the bones. His tone was intense, his black eyes piercing in the harsh light.

  “I don’t know about that, but I will find them. I will, if I can, give them back their names, and they will be treated with respect.”

  “All of them?”

  “Everyone in the cemetery.”

  “And the others?”

  “There are more?”

  Seamus nodded.

  Melissa sighed and folded her arms. “I’ll go over every inch of the grounds.”

  “Then Tristan is right. This ends tonight.”

  Seamus reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife.

  Tristan grabbed Melissa, jerking her away, his first thought to protect her. The last thing he saw before the remaining light flickered and died was the glint of metal. He drew them to the floor, crouching in the darkness. He listened for Seamus footsteps but couldn’t hear anything.

  “Melissa,” he hissed, “are you all right?”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay.” She squeezed his hands.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  “I’m not leaving him alone in here with the bones. I think he might be slightly nuts.”

  “They’re dead. We are not.” If she didn’t cooperate, Tristan intended to drag her out of there.

  They were huddled back near the altar, and when their whispers ceased, the church was soundless. Moonlight spilled in the windows and open doorway. The dogs, still seated on the threshold, cast long shadows.

  Tristan’s skin prickled, and his gaze swept side to side. He couldn’t see Seamus in the shadows, but Tristan was sure he was there.

  “What’s she’s saying?” Melissa asked.

  “Nothing. I don’t hear anything.”

  “Then why don’t we—”

  Tristan held up his hand. The maid in chains was back. In the darkness, she seemed to glow with a dirty gray light. Elizabeth stepped into a patch of moonlight. She opened her arms and the maid stepped into her embrace.

  As they hugged, Elizabeth’s previously solid figure wavered. She was a dozen, two dozen, different women. Hairstyles changed, the profile mutating from moment to moment.

  They parted. Elizabeth returned to being the woman who’d hired Tristan.

  “It ends, Elizabeth. You’ll leave my family alone.” Seamus’ voice echoed hollowly. “I’ll pay the debt.”

  “The truth is needed,” she said. “For Joan, and for all the others.”

  “You will have it now. There will be no more secrets, and my line ends with me.”

  Melissa gasped as the knife flashed, catching a stream of moonlight. Seamus made a gurgling noise, and then the only sound was a steady drip, drip, drip.

  Melissa was up and running before Tristan could stop her. After a second of fumbling noise, a torch blinked on. The light swept across the floor, stopping when it reached Seamus.

  The last master of Glenncailty Castle was on his knees, a knife protruding from the right side of his throat.

  “Call 999!” Melissa screamed. She raced to Seamus.

  Her words jolted Tristan from his stunned paralysis. He reached for his cell phone. As he lifted it to his ear, he watched Elizabeth take the maid’s hands. The facades of the modern woman and tormented spirit faded, leaving two lovely girls in full-skirted dresses.

  They took each other’s hands, and in the next breath they were gone.

  Epilogue

  The ghosts were gone.

  Tristan started unbuttoning his coat as he exited into the garden. It had been three weeks since Seamus committed suicide in the little church. They’d been busy weeks. The death of a wealthy, respected man drew even more people to Glenncailty. He could only imagine what would happen once Melissa and Dr. Drummond made their findings about the bodies in the cemetery public. The press would have a field day with a story about a hidden graveyard full of murder victims and what relationship that had to the grisly death of Seamus O’Muircheartaigh.

  Seamus’ residence, the old dowager house beside the church, had been locked up by his solicitor. It was chilling that Seamus had standing orders about what was to happen in the event of his death. Melissa had argued that there may be records in there that would help her and even tried to break in, but the solicitor had hired guards. After the last time she’d been caught, Tristan had promised the off-duty guard that Melissa wouldn’t make another attempt. So far he’d been able to keep her away.

  Word of Seamus’ unusual order had spread, bringing the morbidly curious to Glenncailty. With each day, the mystery around Seamus’ life—and death—deepened. His wolfhounds had disappeared, and reported sightings of the shaggy beasts added fuel to the fire.

  Tristan paused as a gust of cold wind made him shiver. He looked around carefully, examining each of the shadows for a hint of movement. There was nothing. The night was still and silent. Since the church, he hadn’t seen any ghosts.

  Including Jacques.

  His brother’s spirit was gone. Tristan was mourning him a second time, but now he had Melissa to comfort him.

  When he didn’t see anything, Tristan shook his head and made his way to the little cottage he now shared with Melissa. Sorcha had never returned to the cozy little bungalow after Séan moved her to his house.
They were going to be married in a month, with the reception in the newly opened grand ballroom on the third floor of the main wing. Caera Cassidy and her boyfriend—now fiancé—Tim were coming back for it. Caera had officially resigned her job now that she’d signed a record deal.

  That left the cottage Sorcha and Caera had shared empty, and Tristan had moved from his flat in Cailtytown, joining Melissa. He’d never lived with a woman before, and the sex-on-demand was better than he could have imagined. As was the fact that he got to watch her fall asleep at night and wake up in the morning.

  The National Museum declared all of Glenncailty a historic site, but allowed it to remain open. The rights to excavate and explore the grounds had been given to Dr. Melissa Jane Heavey, who was now officially in residence at Trinity and would be going to Dublin twice a week to teach.

  Tristan didn’t see the figure standing in the shadow of an old tree. Didn’t see the wolfhounds that lay silently at the man’s feet. He was focused on the present, on the happiness he’d found.

  There was no room for ghosts and darkness in Tristan’s life.

  Seamus laid his hand on the head of his wolfhound. The beast licked his wrist.

  “Come,” he whispered in a broken, gravelly voice. He turned and disappeared into the darkness, hounds at his heels.

  The End

  Preview another book by this author

  Dial M for Monster

  Monsters in Hollywood, Book 1

  Lila Dubois

  Prologue

  The city was full of life. From high above he could see it, smell it. He wanted that life, ached with the desire for it. From up here the wind tasted of salt, of the sea. He narrowed his eyes, peering through the haze of light that blanketed the city to see the dark sea beyond.

  He fanned his wings, letting the salt-flavored breeze ruffle the jagged edges.

  Beside him two other pairs of wings spread, great arches of dark and light against the indigo sky.

  “Will they help us?” his companion asked.

  He did not have answers, only hopes, ones he was tired of voicing. Without aid their people would be forced to war or will themselves into death. This city, the possibilities it held, the humans who thrived here, were one of their last hopes.