Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series)
Page 9
But his high hopes faded to disappointment when the only Devon in the index was a Miranda Devon, who died unmarried at the age of seventeen almost fifty years earlier—way too long ago to have any obvious connection to Devon. And there was nothing entered about where she was buried.
“So we’ll look up your birth chronologically,” Cecily offered, flipping the yellowed pages to March 15—Devon’s birthday—exactly fifteen years earlier. But the only male birth registered between January and May in that year in the town of Misery Point was one Joseph Yoo, whose race was listed as Asian.
“I think we can safely rule that one out,” Devon sighed.
So the search revealed nothing. The severity of Devon’s disappointment was only matched by the sudden reappearance of the rain, coming down finally as they headed back up the steep cliffside stairway. They were drenched by the time they got back to Ravenscliff, but ironically the downpour had the effect of brightening Devon’s spirits rather than dampening them. He and Cecily chased each other across the yard, their clothes sticking to their bodies. They laughed and carried on for three quarters of an hour as if no ghosts intruded into their lives, no secrets hung over their heads. For that brief time, getting wild in the rain, slipping in the mud and taking Cecily down with him, both of them dissolving in hysterics, Devon could actually believe that he was just like any other boy.
It stormed again that night, giant flashes of lightning and horrible cracks of thunder. But Devon slept well nonetheless, exhausted from the night before and worn out from the travel and the adventures of the day. No sounds disturbed his rest, and in his dreams he saw Dad sitting on a gravestone in that windswept cemetery out on the cliff, telling him that his destiny was here.
In the morning, Cecily greeted him at the breakfast table. It was Saturday, and Simon was taking her into the village to go shopping. She asked Devon if he wanted to come, but he declined, saying he wanted to spend some time exploring the estate. There was no sign of Mrs. Crandall; he hadn’t seen her since yesterday morning, in fact. When he and Cecily had returned from town yesterday, she’d already retired. Cecily explained that her mother did that often: either spending time with Grandmama or retreating into her own private suite of rooms, where sometimes she’d remain for days. Simon would bring her meals up to her.
“It’s hard to imagine someone as creepy as Simon being this good of a cook,” Devon said, forking a piece of Canadian bacon into his mouth.
“Oh, he’s really very good,” Cecily said. “He’s a master chef.”
Still, Devon thought, the idea of Simon’s blunt, scarred little hands touching his food was just a little revolting.
He watched as Cecily waltzed off, Simon appearing almost from nowhere to trail behind her, car keys jangling from his belt. Devon pulled back a velvet curtain in the foyer to spy on the Jaguar as it glided down the driveway and disappeared down the hill.
Upstairs in his room, he checked Facebook and was disappointed to see that no one had commented on his status from yesterday. Nobody had wished him good luck, nobody had said they missed them. There was still no message from Suze, though Tommy had sent him a one-liner that said Max was doing really well and seemed quite happy in his new home.
While Devon was glad to know his beloved dog was happy, he felt bad that Max didn’t seem to miss him. No one seemed to, in fact.
It didn’t matter, Devon tried to tell himself. He had come here to find his destiny. The dream of Dad had only confirmed it.
Devon knew he needed to try the door to the East Wing again. He wasn’t sure what secrets this house held—but he felt quite certain that if they were anywhere, they were in the East Wing. That was where he’d seen the man on top of the tower the night he arrived, a man he was now convinced was Jackson Muir. Seeing Jackson’s specter again yesterday in the cemetery made Devon suspect that the nefarious warlock of Ravenscliff held some clue into his past. Mrs. Crandall, he was quite certain, hadn’t simply closed off the wing because there were so few people in the house. She’d closed it off because she didn’t want anyone discovering what was in there.
Of course, when he tried the door, it was still locked. Devon tried willing it open—he could do that sometimes, like the time he’d gotten locked out of the house when Dad was still at work—but nothing happened. The knob still failed to turn. Devon sighed. He figured there must be another way into the wing from the second floor of the house. He roamed up and down the corridor outside his bedroom once again; from the playroom he could hear Alexander’s television set, but everything else was as quiet as a tomb.
He considered talking with the boy again in the hopes of finding some clues. Alexander knew a way into the East Wing; Mrs. Crandall had said locked doors did not stop Alexander Muir. But Devon didn’t trust Alexander. Not after their first meeting. He had to find the way in on his own.
After careful consideration, he deduced which part of the corridor seemed to be directly over the East Wing entrance downstairs. But all he found there was a linen closet—the doorknob of which burned in his hand.
“Yow!” he called out, then bit down on his lip to keep from making any more noise.
So this is it, he thought.
He nudged the door open with his foot. Inside were deep shelves of towels and sheets, pillowcases and tablecloths. A little balsam-smelling star hung from the center rod to scare away moths. Devon peered into the darkness of the closet. There must be a door through here, he thought. This was likely once the upstairs entry into the East Wing, refashioned into a closet when the wing was closed down.
He decided to give up the search for the time being. He could have started taking down the towels and sheets and feeling along the shelves, but Alexander could have come out of the playroom at any time, or Mrs. Crandall might have shown up behind him. It was too risky right now. But he’d be back. That was for sure.
Heading back down the stairs, Devon was surprised to see Mrs. Crandall sitting in her chair in the parlor, sipping a cup of tea with a few crackers on a plate. A fire roared within the hearth, which felt good even out in the foyer, as the day was damp and overcast.
“Oh, Devon,” Mrs. Crandall called to him. “Please join me.”
He sat on the sofa opposite the fireplace. “The fire feels great,” he said.
“Doesn’t it? I’ve always been partial to fires. Oil heat alone always feels so unsatisfying.” She smiled. “Are you warm enough at night?”
“Yes,” he told her. “My room is very comfortable.”
“That’s good,” she replied. “I want you to like living here.”
“So far, so good,” Devon said, pointedly looking at her.
“Is it?” Her response seemed equally pointed, as if she knew something, or suspected he meant more than he was saying.
Devon smiled. “I’ve encountered a few ghosts, but they haven’t scared me away.”
Mrs. Crandall lifted the dainty cup of tea to her lips. It looked fragile and ancient. Devon imagined Emily Muir drinking from that same cup, in that same chair. “Well,” Mrs. Crandall said, after a moment’s consideration, “if everyone ran from the sight of a ghost in this house, there would be no one left.”
He eyed her. “You’ve seen your share?”
“How could I not? I’ve spent all my life here.”
“Mrs. Crandall,” Devon ventured suddenly.
“Yes?”
“Who is buried in the cemetery out on the cliffs under the monument marked ‘Devon’?”
Her blue eyes looked at him over her teacup. She seemed to hesitate, with the cup not touching her lips, just hovering there in her hand. Then she carefully settled it back into the saucer.
“I don’t believe I know,” she said at last. “That’s the center stone, isn’t it?”
At least she wasn’t denying she knew it. “Yes,” Devon said. “The obelisk.”
“Curious, isn’t it?” she asked. “Whoever it is must have been a trusted friend or servant of my father or grandfather.”
She looked at him with a tight smile. “How old do you think I am, Devon March?”
He blushed. “I’m sorry. But I thought maybe you would have heard of her.”
Mrs. Crandall was still smiling. “Two days here and you’ve already been busy conducting your own little investigation.”
“Could it be Miranda Devon who’s buried in that grave?”
“I have no idea. All the records on the Muir family cemetery were destroyed a few years ago when a pipe burst in the basement. But why does all this interest you so much?”
“I’m determined to find out who I am and where I come from.”
“Do you think your father would want that, Devon? After all, he raised you as his own. He never told you about your birth parents. Perhaps there was a reason for that.”
Devon considered this. “My father wanted me to know,” he said after a moment’s pause. “I truly believe that. He could have gone to his death without telling me the truth, and I’d have never known. But he did tell me, Mrs. Crandall, and he told me I needed to know my destiny.”
Her lips tightened. She stood, walking with her teacup toward the fire.
“Not only that, Mrs. Crandall. He sent me here. He could’ve found another guardian. But he sent me here.”
“Yes,” she said, more to herself than him. “He sent you here.”
Devon couldn’t tell what inflection her words carried, if she was bitter or grateful or resentful of that fact. He continued, “I’m certain that my father sent me here because this is where I’ll find the truth of my past.”
Mrs. Crandall turned to face him, leveling her eyes down at him. “I told you the night you arrived here that this is a house with many secrets. I also told you we respect those secrets. We do not pry. I can offer you one piece of advice, Devon, and I hope you take it. The answers are not in the past but in the future. If you want to be happy here, you’ll look forward, not back, and not into every shadow and every closed door of this house. There are reasons that the doors are closed.”
She excused herself then, saying she had work to do, that Cecily could find her in her room if necessary. Devon nodded, watching the flames crackle in the hearth, sending shadows across the marble floor that danced with all the agility of spirits.
Mrs. Crandall definitely knew more than she was saying, he thought. But the Voice added that Devon must be on his guard around her. Whether she was friend or foe wasn’t yet clear, but in either scenario, asking her too much right now would be unwise. Once again, Devon realized the information he sought would need to be unearthed on his own.
That night, the first dry, peaceful night since his arrival, Devon took a walk across the grounds, listening to the roar of the waves below, allowing the sound to soothe him as he made his way along the cliffs.
The moon was bright upon the ocean. He lapsed into a sort of timelessness as he watched the waves, feeling the cool October air on his face. The moonlight mesmerized him as it flickered on the sea, a ballet of light. He found a smooth, flat rock near the edge of the cliff and sat down, his feet dangling in the air below. It was a hundred feet or more of a sheer drop to the beach below. This was Devil’s Rock, he realized; perhaps this was the very stone from which Emily Muir took her final leap. Suddenly Devon was consumed by a horrible sadness, one that settled deep into his body. He thought of Dad, of finding him in bed, still and cold, his eyes open as if he’d been frightened to death.
“Stop it, Devon,” he whispered to himself, but it was too late. The tears flowed. In the few months since his father had died, Devon had thought of finding his body many times, and the image was impossible to push away. Dad had lay there, staring up into the emptiness of death, his blue-veined hand over his heart. He’d been in bed for several weeks, and Devon had become accustomed to their routine: sitting with him until he fell asleep, then crawling into his own bed for a few hours sleep, only to return at dawn to be there when Dad awakened. Only on this morning Dad had never opened his eyes, and when Devon had touched him, he’d been cold and hard. He’d knelt beside the bed and wrapped his arms around the cold body and cried.
“If the ghosts of Ravenscliff can come back,“ Devon whispered into the night, “why can’t you?”
But he can, and does, comes the Voice.
Devon reached down into his pocket and gripped the medal of the owl and the lady in his hand.
“If you ever feel lost, that medal is your talisman,” Dad had told him just a few days before he died.
Sitting there overlooking the sea, Devon squeezed the small, round, flat silver medal tightly in his palm.
He took out his phone. One flickering bar offered a tenuous connection to the world beyond. And he saw he had a message from Suze. Suddenly happy, he clicked on the notification.
“Dear Devon,” Suze wrote. “I wanted to tell you that Tommy asked me to go out with him and so were are dating now. I hope you are doing good and that you—”
He couldn’t read anymore. Wouldn’t you know it? The one time he had reception it was to get a message from Suze breaking up with him.
Except they’d never really been dating. So what was there to make Devon feel so bad? Only the fact that Tommy and Suze and Max all had each other, and he was all alone.
It’s so hard, Dad, Devon told his father. It’s hard because I’m in a place I don’t know, with people I’m not sure I can trust. Dad, I miss you. I wish you were here so much. I’m trying to discover why you sent me here, but there are so many mysteries. And the demons, Dad—they’re here, and they’re far stronger than they ever were back home …
He wrapped his arms around his torso, rocking himself, swaying his legs in the weightlessness below the cliff. He imagined Emily Muir standing here in this very spot, her heart racing in her ears, her tears still wet in her throat, her heart broken by her savage, selfish warlock-husband—and then jumping, plunging onto the rocks below, the white water staining red, her mangled body being claimed by the sea …
Carefully Devon stood and looked away from the waves. His knees suddenly felt weak, as if he might fall, following Emily’s path, and he pushed himself up onto the grass. Away from the cliff, he felt sturdier, and he walked back across the estate, the well-manicured lawns and shrubbery a testament to Simon’s skill. To his left the tennis court stood silent; to his right the gardens stretched lazily toward the sea. Their flowers were mostly withered, although several large round pumpkins caught the moonlight.
Devon looked up at the great house, looming in bleak silhouette against the night sky. Once again he spied the same light in the tower he had seen before, this time from another angle. Whipping out his phone, he snapped a picture. He’d show Mrs. Crandall that he wasn’t seeing things. But despite taking one picture after another, not one image of the tower showed up in his camera roll. Devon tried taking pictures of the sea and the cliffs and the gardens and captured all of them. But every time he tried to take a picture of the light in the tower, all he got was a white overexposed rectangle.
“The tower has been locked for years,” he said.
Yet what were locks, he reasoned, to those who had already managed to break out of the grave?
Cecily looked at him with amusement. “I think I’ve told you one too many stories about our ghosts.”
They were at breakfast, seated at the great long polished oak table that accommodated twenty-six, though it had been a very long time since Ravenscliff had hosted gatherings of such numbers. Devon and Cecily looked even younger than their years as they huddled together at the far end of the table, eating cereal and fresh fruit and whispering between themselves.
“No, Cecily, it was there. I’m sure of it. I saw a light in the tower.”
She made a face, clearly troubled, as if she preferred not to delve much deeper.
“Have you ever seen a light up there?” Devo
n asked her. “You admitted you’ve heard the sobbing.”
“And maybe I shouldn’t have.” She frowned. “Look, Devon. I try not to see too many things in this house. I look the other way.”
“But why, Cecily? You can’t deny—”
“Why?” She looked at him, very upset now. “Because I’d go crazy otherwise! Imagine growing up here. Imagine what it must have been like.”
“You look the other way because that’s what your mother always told you to do.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Isn’t that right?”
She pouted. Her silence told Devon he was indeed correct.
He laughed. “Since when have you done what your mother has told you?”
Cecily’s eyes fluttered up to find his. Years of denial shone there—a denial of anything not easily explained. “In this one area,” she explained, “it’s been easier to merely go along with Mother. Devon, I’d wake up at night with such nightmares as a little girl. Terrifying. Horrible. I had to believe Mother when she told me the sobbing was only the wind, that the figure in the hallway was just a trick of light and shadows in an old house. I had to believe her when she said nothing here could harm me. And I can’t stop believing that now.”
She pushed aside her bowl of cereal and headed upstairs.
Devon hadn’t meant to upset her, but he needed somebody to confirm what he’d seen and heard. After breakfast, when he found Mrs. Crandall in the library, he decided to confront her again.
“You are a determined young man,” she said, her neck high and arch as she listened to his story. She wore a simple black dress and a single strand of pearls around her throat. In her hands were three old volumes: one was Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he could see, but the other titles were obscured. The library smelled dank and dusty, but in a good way, a comforting fragrance of old books and knowledge. Yet in that moment, he felt neither comforted nor literary. Determined was precisely the word he, too, would have used: determined to find out just what this family was hiding from him.