The Ghosts of Ravencrest (The Ravencrest Saga Book 1)

by Tamara Thorne

  ***

  Prudence knew Belinda and the Knight were in the east wing looking for her even as she cowered, locked in the old art studio. The Witch had been casting spells, confining Prudence to the room. She kept her head down, refusing to look at the horrors the Witch had sent to torment her. The Witch knew what she feared.

  Belinda and the Knight were still far away. She concentrated, trying to send Belinda a message, trying to project her own image to the governess, so that she might lead her here. She gathered her energy, focused on the task, ignoring the screams and the blood, the smell of death and the groaning, clutching visions surrounding her.

  ***

  Belinda!

  Belinda, running toward the main corridor, halted. “Prudence?”

  Belinda!

  “Where are you?”

  And then, clear as day, she saw the girl in her sparkling red dress standing in a hallway that led in a new direction. An instant later, the image vanished. Did I really see that? She knew she had and took off after it.

  Turning a corner, Belinda crashed into someone, and screamed.

  ***

  “Belinda! Thank heaven!” Grant dropped the hammer and threw his arms around her. “Thank heaven!”

  “I saw her,” said Belinda. “At the end of the hall.” She pointed.

  “That leads to the northern corridors. Let’s go.” He picked up his claw hammer, his fist tight around the handle.

  They walked quickly, and turning the corner, saw a flash of red dress up ahead.

  Belinda …

  “It’s her. It’s Prudence.”

  “I saw her,” Grant said, awestruck. “I heard her.”

  Belinda … The little girl disappeared around another corner. Follow me ...

  They ran toward her, took another turn and stepped into a blackened hallway.

  Grant tried the lights. They flickered once, twice, and died.

  Belinda clicked her flashlight on. They followed the beam to the next intersecting hall. Twenty feet down, Prudence Manning appeared, beckoned, then walked through a closed door.

  ***

  “She’s in there!” Belinda yanked the doorknob back and forth. “It’s locked!”

  “Stand back!” Grant hefted the claw hammer and brought the head down hard against the door. He struck again and again, splinters flying, until he broke through. Then he turned the hammer around and used the claw to pry away the wood.

  He dropped the hammer, pulled his shirt cuff down over his hand, and pushed through, ruining the shirt, but losing little blood. The air inside the room was icy. He felt around, clutched the interior knob, and turned it.

  The door yawned open as he pulled his hand free. “Good Lord!”

  The words were not remotely enough to describe what he saw. And the Lord had nothing to do with it.

  “What?” Belinda asked as cold air washed over them.

  “I can see her …” His mind reeled, trying to take it all in, trying to understand what was in front of him. In his lifetime, he’d witnessed many anomalies, from the hallucination spells that Cordelia Heller loved to cast, to simple poltergeist phenomena. He’d seen wispy ghosts and dark shadowy figures. But not this. Never this.

  Knight! cried Prudence Manning, she of the red dress and golden curls. Knight of the Mandrake!

  He’d heard phantom footsteps, slamming doors, cries, screams, laughter over the years, even plaintive words had been whispered in his ear. But no specter had ever addressed him.

  Knight! Help! The little girl huddled, self-illuminated, in front of a wall of windows, the blackness beyond like a shroud. Her dress sparkled, just as it did in the painting. Her eyes weren’t on him, though; she was staring at something beyond his line of vision.

  Belinda! Prudence called.

  “Grant! Get out of the way! She’s waiting!” Belinda pushed past him, nearly knocking him down as she entered the room. “Prudence!” Then she paused, her back ramrod straight, her breath coming in white puffs.

  Grant gathered himself and entered the room.

  He saw Prudence look at him and Belinda. Then the spirit’s eyes traveled back to the darkness beyond.

  Grant followed her gaze. “Belinda, do you see it?”

  She nodded.

  The man stood near an old wooden bedframe. Partly in it, to be precise. He was tall and wiry and dressed in old-fashioned clothes that were sodden with blood.

  Belinda stepped toward the little girl. “Prudence! Can you come to me?”

  She glanced at Belinda, longing and terror in her eyes. She didn’t move. Make him go away. Make him go away! Her eyes didn’t leave the bloody phantom.

  “Go to her, Belinda.” Grant took a step toward the male specter. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Belinda move closer to Prudence. “Guide her out of the room. I’ll follow.”

  “Almost there,” Belinda murmured. “Come to me, Prudence. Don’t be afraid.”

  But the little girl didn’t move. Belinda arrived at her side and touched her shoulder. Grant tried to stay focused on the male spirit but he remembered Belinda saying she felt like she’d fallen down a rabbit hole. He felt the same as he watched her hands resting on the girl’s shoulders. How is that even possible? He’d never heard of being able to physically touch a ghost, not even in Bran Lanval’s journals or the Knights’ library in London.

  Belinda was blocking the girl’s view of the frightening phantom. She began to guide her toward the door, then her eyes widened. “Grant! Watch out!”

  The spirit stepped closer. He was tall and cadaverously thin. His mouth crept into a twisted grimace, and as he moved out of the shadows, Grant saw that something hung from his hand - a woman’s head!

  He held it by bloodied locks of long blond hair. The face was frozen in an slack-mouthed mask of death, the eyes half-open, the bluish, swollen tongue protruding from pale lips. At the severed neck, long threads of carnage dripped and slapped onto the floor. The room filled with the stench of blood.

  The phantom tightened his grip on the woman’s hair, and began to swing it in wide circles. He let out a high mad cackle, and released it.

  As the head hurtled toward Grant, the woman’s eyes popped open and her lips peeled back in a rictus sneer. Her scream was shrill, deafening.

  “STOP!” Belinda’s voice drowned out the scream.

  The head hit Grant in the solar plexus and passed right through him, knocking him to the floor. It took his wind. He gasped for breath, feeling as if he’d been smacked by a truck. But he kept his eyes on the phantom. Belinda had just saved his life, he was sure of it.

  “BE GONE!” Belinda ordered. “I command you! BE GONE!”

  The phantom’s smile collapsed and he looked down at himself with wide, shocked eyes as his body began to fade. Nooo! His scream trailed away with his image, until nothing was left.

  The room was silent. The threads of blood on the floor were gone. The air warmed.

  Grant sat up.

  “Grant Phister,” Belinda said, holding - holding! - the ghost girl’s tiny hand. “I’d like to introduce you to Prudence Manning.”

  He stared at the child in amazement. “I am honored to meet you, Prudence.” He put his hand out.

  The ghost blushed and averted her eyes then reached out to touch his fingers and he felt her cool energy pass through them. Yet Belinda was able to hold her hand as if she were a live child. It was astonishing. Prudence shyly looked at him. Sir, you are worthy of Bran Lanval. No other knight has found his way to me.

  “An honor,” he repeated, feeling as if he were in a dream. “But Belinda is the one who rescued you.”

  “We both did,” Belinda said to the little girl. “Your mother and your uncle Thomas are waiting for you.”

  He’s my real papa.

  “How do you know that?” Grant asked.

  Sometimes I can send my thoughts places. That’s how I led you to this room.

  Grant was astonished by the little girl’s words … if they could be ca
lled words. Her mouth never moved. Astral projection by a ghost without a physical body. There were many mysteries in the world and he looked forward to learning more about this one. He smiled at Prudence and hoped he would be able to see her after this. He glanced at Belinda. Perhaps I shall.

  ***

  Their flashlights were dying as Prudence, holding Belinda’s hand, led them out of the northernmost corridor. Everything remained quiet as they moved through the halls. The little girl was a shadowy figure, just like Belinda and Grant. For a moment, when she let go of Belinda’s hand, her image brightened back to a preternatural glow. An instant later, they reconnected and the brightness faded. Grant walked behind them, murmuring encouragement.

  “Do you know where we were?” Belinda asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Grant whispered, “but I think it was once an art studio.”

  Prudence turned her head. Yes. The bad man killed her there.

  “Killed her?” Belinda asked.

  “I believe Prudence is referring to Rebecca Dane, Edward Manning’s second wife. Her murderer was never found. Nor her head.”

  The little girl looked stricken.

  “We’ll talk later,” Grant said. “When we’re all safe and Prudence is reunited with her parents.”

  “Finally, we have lights again,” Belinda said as they turned onto a more familiar hallway and the dusty cobwebbed wall sconces came into view. She looked straight ahead and shivered; that route led to the old chapel.

  Prudence tugged her hand in the other direction. This is the way out!

  They walked faster now, keeping up with the little ghost, who was becoming more fearful with every step. “It’s all right,” Belinda told her. “We’re almost to the main hall. We’re almost out.”

  Come quickly. They’re nearby. Prudence tugged her forward.

  “The nuns,” Grant said softly.

  They rounded the turn to the main corridor, and there they were. In front of the heavy door, hovering, were the sisters Faith, Hope, and Charity. All three cocked their heads to the side and, in a whisper of movement, began gliding closer.

  No! Prudence buried her face against Belinda.

  Grant halted, his sharp intake of breath echoing through the hall.

  The sconces flickered. The cold came.

  Belinda considered running the other way, leading Grant and Prudence away from the sisters, but something stopped her. It was anger, she realized; a flash of rage. “Get away.” Her order came in a plume of frost.

  In unison, three pink tongues moved across three pairs of lips. Prudence. All three whispers carried down the hall.

  Prudence clung, shivering, and Belinda placed a protective hand over the girl’s head, holding her close.

  Grant looked at Belinda. His eyes were wide, his face colorless.

  About twelve feet from them, the central nun clutched the hem of her black skirt, and smiling, raised it.

  Belinda gasped.

  Grant took a step back.

  Belinda stared in frozen horror at the wreckage beneath the nun’s skirt.

  There were no legs, only bloody ropes of carnage draping to the floor. Intestines, strips of flesh, rotted gore - all hanging to trail behind the sister. The smell of it was horrendous - slaughter, death, blood, and rot. Belinda’s stomach tightened and turned.

  Grant coughed and covered his mouth. “We need to go the other way.” His voice sounded shaky and gruff.

  “No.” Belinda stared at the sisters as they drew closer.

  The central nun hiked the skirt higher, and staring at Belinda with glittering black, insectile eyes, said, Eat, eat, eat. The other sisters mirrored her.

  Belinda raised a quaking hand to her mouth.

  The sister dropped her skirt and, as one, the nuns tossed their heads back and cackled.

  Suddenly they were in front of Belinda. She gasped and took a step back as the sisters merged together, their habits a tangle of black. Come, come, come …

  The nuns moved like a black amoeba, hovering near the floor, shifting their shapes, twisting, chanting, Come, come, come …

  Through the blur of black, Belinda saw hands, white as bone - reaching out, clutching, swiping at Prudence, unable to grip her.

  Grant watched, eyes saucer-wide. “Don’t let go of Prudence, Belinda! They can’t get her as long as you have her.”

  A clawed white hand took a swipe at Prudence, again moving through her.

  The air dropped several degrees and there was a low groan - angry, frustrated - coming from the tangle of nuns. Come, come, come … the voices were insistent, sharp.

  Belinda felt the wetness of Prudence’s tears as the girl wept.

  A great, cold wind rose, and Belinda felt the frost of it on her cheeks as it lifted her hair. The ever-shifting black mass groaned, beckoned, insisted. Come! Come! Come!

  “Belinda!” Grant’s hair blew back and he raised a hand to his face. “Command them to leave!”

  Command them to leave? Belinda remembered the phantom in the art studio. Did I really make him disappear?

  The wind blew stronger, dropped several more degrees, and the nuns began to shriek. Come! Hands grasped for Prudence, continuing to slip through her.

  Belinda squeezed her eyes shut. “BE GONE!” she screamed above the wind. “I COMMAND YOU! BE GONE! BE GONE NOW!” She felt energy burgeoning inside her solar plexus as if she’d plugged herself into an electric socket. It built and built, then filled her entire body until her fingers tingled. It burst from her core.

  There was a shriek as the mass of blackness quivered and she heard a sigh like air wheezing from an overfilled balloon. Then another scream, long and bloodcurdling, ricocheted down the corridor.

  “BE GONE!” The energy grew inside her once more. “I COMMAND YOU, BE GONE!”

  A hissing sound rose and Belinda watched in horror as a white arm shot out of the black heap. It twisted, bent, and planted itself on the floor. Another arm did the same, and another, until eight arms and eight hands, having sprouted from the mass like lightning bolts from a great, black cloud, were stationed on the floor.

  There was a cry of pain and the twist, crunch, grind, and snap of bones as the mass turned itself inside out, moving with erratic, twitching jerks, then hefted itself up. It was several feet high and as black as pitch, each of its legs the pale arm of a nun.

  “Be gone!” Belinda was terrified, but didn’t back down. “I command you!”

  Then she saw a white face appear through the cloth like a knob of glistening bone. The other two nun’s faces appeared, their expressions grimaces of agony as their bodies bent, twisted and contorted into unnatural angles. The faces merged and were swallowed into the blackness until all that was left was the mound of black on eight white arms, and the eyes, six glassy pools of moonless night bulging from raw, bleeding sockets.

  She gasped as the thing scuttled closer, a massive arachnid, hands slapping, clicking like insectile legs as it scurried toward them. A hole formed at the front, yawning open, and Belinda realized it was a mouth. A red, wet gaping mouth. It squealed and mewled as thick, sticky ropes of saliva dripped from two massive fangs. Belinda retreated and the eight white arm-legs loped closer, fingers scampering like spiderlings.

  “BE GONE!” Belinda clutched the amulet that hung from her neck and broke the ribbon. “Be gone from us!” Feeling the energy in her solar plexus burst forth once more, she threw it into the center of the fleeing, screaming, clicking thing. It struck and the spider - the nuns - shattered. A thousand birds, like shards of black glass, exploded and took flight.

  Belinda and Grant hunkered down together, holding onto each other, sheltering Prudence, as the birds swooped past them, screeching and cawing and whooshing in a great rush of wind. The throng of winged creatures disappeared down the hall.

  Then the corridor was silent, the temperature rising to normal.

  “Oh my God,” said Belinda. “What happened?” She touched her throat where the amulet had been.

&nbs
p; Grant studied her. “I’m not sure, but I don’t think the amulet had anything to do with it, Belinda.”

  She looked at him, then down at the little ghost. “You mean Prudence did it?”

  Grant’s intense gaze trapped her. “No, Belinda. It was you. All you.”

  She didn’t believe it. “Maybe it was like when someone lifts a car off a child …”

  “In a way, it is, Belinda. But it’s so much more.”

  “I-”

  My parents, they’re outside. Prudence pointed at the carved door.

  “Let’s reunite you with them.” The kindness in Grant’s eyes nearly brought Belinda to tears.

  “But how do we get her over the threshold?” she asked, her voice dry and quaking.

  “You can touch her, Belinda. That’s why you are the one who can reunite them. Your gift is … well; I’ve never witnessed such a thing. Pick her up and carry her through the doorway.”

  Prudence raised her arms to Belinda and she scooped the girl up. She pulsed with life and seemed to weigh as much as a living child. “Let’s go.”

  They approached the door, then Grant stepped ahead and opened it for them. The gray dawn barely showed through the windows as Belinda carried Prudence Manning out of the east wing.

  There, at the threshold, were Alice and Thomas Manning, both smiling, she in the beautiful red ball gown from the portrait, he in pale breeches and an olive topcoat. Prudence twisted in Belinda’s arms.

  Mama! Papa! She reached for them.

  Alice stepped forward and Belinda gave Prudence over to her. Thomas joined them and embraced his family. For just an instant, a shadow touched them, then fled as quickly as it had come. Belinda glanced at Grant beside her. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes sparkled with tears of joy. Belinda wiped her own away.

  They watched the spirits embrace, listened as they spoke to one another, then Thomas looked directly into Belinda’s eyes. We are forever in your debt. We thank you for returning our daughter to us.