The Haunting of Brier Rose

by Simpson, Patricia

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "Oh, no!" Rose cried, clutching the towel at her breasts. "It's Bea!"

  "So?"

  "She'll see me like this!"

  "Don't worry." He limped to the door and opened it. "What's up, Mrs. Jacoby?"

  Rose looked around his shoulder and saw Bea standing in the hall, her gray hair wild around her face and her dress wrinkled. She held up a huge green gem in one hand and a pistol in the other. Rose was surprised not only by her disorderly appearance but by the very fact that she was standing there at all. When Bea had a migraine she usually got so sick she couldn't function. To be on her feet and talking must have taken all the willpower she possessed.

  Bea took one glance at Rose's own disheveled hair and the towel and pointed the gun at Taylor's chest.

  "All right, Mr. Wolfe!" Bea declared. "I've had enough!"

  "You're going to shoot me, Mrs. Jacoby?" he drawled.

  "Don't think I won't, young man!" Bea waved the gun and leaned forward, trying to clutch Rose's hand, even though she still held the emerald. "Come out of there this instant, Rose."

  Rose hung back, abashed. "It's not how it appears."

  "And how is it?" Bea retorted. "You tell me you'll take in his breakfast. Fine. My head is pounding so hard I can barely stand up. Then I notice the time and wonder why you've taken half an hour to hand Mr. Wolfe his tray!"

  "Mrs. Jacoby, I can explain—" Taylor interjected.

  "Oh, I'm sure you could, Mr. Wolfe. You probably have a million slick explanations. But I don't want to hear a single one. Come along, Rose!" She grabbed Rose's wrist.

  "Bea, please!" Rose yanked free, mortified.

  "I've done nothing but pull out her briers."

  "Pull out her what?"

  "Her briers." Taylor motioned toward Rose's shoulder. "A pack of wild dogs forced her into some brambles yesterday. She couldn't reach the stickers in her back, so I talked her into letting me help her remove a few."

  "Wild dogs? Here at Brierwood? A likely story."

  "It's true, Bea! There were four of them. Rottweilers!"

  Bea stared at Rose's shoulder and then returned her glare to Taylor. "Be that as it may, I don't want you touching my Rose. Do you hear? I don't want you near her!"

  "Bea!" Rose exclaimed, shocked by the vehemence in Bea's voice. "He was only trying to help me."

  "Help you, my foot!" She clutched Rose by the arm. "You're going to get some clothes on, girl, right now!"

  Rose let Bea pull her down the hall toward the room only because she was too embarrassed to remain in Mr. Wolfe's presence.

  At her bedroom door, she broke free of Bea's grip and stormed to the closet, her embarrassment flooding to anger. Bea followed her.

  "Thanks so much, Bea, for treating me like a child!" Rose exclaimed, throwing the towel in the laundry hamper. "I've never been so humiliated!"

  "I was only trying to protect you."

  "With a gun and an emerald?"

  "I had the gun in case he was who he said he was—a Wolfe. I had the emerald in case he was who he pretended not to be—a Bastyr."

  "Oh, Bea, not that again!" Rose grabbed the sides of her unfastened bra. "I'm a grown woman, Bea. And I'm perfectly able to protect myself and make my own decisions."

  "You think undressing in the bedroom of a strange man is a wise decision?"

  "Yes! Mr. Wolfe is a gentleman."

  "You have no idea what Mr. Wolfe is." Bea stepped closer "Listen to me, Rose. We must leave this place, at least until your birthday on Saturday."

  "Why? What is it about my twenty-first birthday that makes you so nervous?"

  "On your twenty-first birthday," Bea replied, lowering her voice, "should the Bastyr family find you—and I believe they have—they will do anything in their power to make you a ritual bride.''

  "A what?" Rose cried, pausing with a dress in her hands.

  "A ritual bride. Please, Rose, you must let me explain about the box and the letter."

  For a moment all Rose could do was stare at Bea and wonder if the old woman had lost her mind. Who had ever heard of such a thing as a ritual bride? A fantastic image of white robes and goat entrails popped into her mind. Yet Bea seemed deadly serious. In fact, she seemed truly frightened. Rose lowered her arms, allowing the hem of the dress to puddle on the floor at her feet. She decided she would have to hear what Bea had to say about Mr. Wolfe, her mother and the Bastyr family before she did anything else, just to assuage Bea's fears. The poor woman had probably suffered the migraine because of it.

  "All right, Bea," she sighed. "I'll read the letter."

  Relieved, Bea put her hands to her mouth and nodded.

  Rose pulled on the dress. "Meet me up in the ballroom in about five minutes, okay?"

  Bea nodded again and hurried out of the bedroom.

  In the salon off the ballroom, Bea leaned forward. "First read the letter. Then we'll talk about our options."

  Hoping she wasn't doing the wrong thing, Rose took the papers and broke the seal. She had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she were launching into territory best left unexplored. But Bea's distraught behavior forced her to continue.

  Rose took a deep breath and plunged ahead, carefully deciphering the small handwriting of her mother.

  My dearest Roselyn,

  When you read this letter, you will be nearing your twenty-first birthday. How I wish I could have seen you grow into a woman. I'm sure you must be an accomplished lady by now, and a lovely young woman, as well, knowing what a precocious little beauty you were at the age of five. It may come as a shock to you to learn about your father and mother, since I have sworn to secrecy any and all people who had a hand in abducting you from the Bastyrs. They were instructed to raise you as an orphan, so that you would have no ties to the past, and so the Bastyrs would have difficulty in discovering your whereabouts.

  Do you remember your mother, my dear Roselyn? I hope you remember me with fondness and love, for I had only loving motives in mind when I sent you away from me. It was a terrible decision to make, but I made it hoping to break the chain that has imprisoned Bastyr women for centuries. I did not want that prison for you, Roselyn. I would rather have killed you myself than subject you to the life of a Bastyr bride.

  By getting you away from the Bastyr family, I had hoped to keep you from the life that I endured and from the knowledge that tainted my heart. They are a dangerous group of people whom you must avoid at all costs. Their practices and appetites have brought my disease upon me and driven to madness many other members of the family. I could not let you be doomed to such a future, and that is why I gambled everything to get you away from them when you were a child.

  On your twenty-first birthday you are destined to become a ritual bride, just as I became one when I was twenty-one. The Bastyrs rarely produce female offspring. But when they do, these females are bound to the patriarch of the family—Seth Bastyr. Therefore, my father became my husband when I was twenty-one. This does not seem heinous to the Bastyrs. It has been a family practice for countless centuries, and it is designed to keep the bloodline pure. As a result, the Bastyr family is riddled with geniuses and idiots, supermen and monsters. The monsters and idiots are not suffered. They are put to death. Such was the fate of the two children who came before you.

  Once a Bastyr woman becomes a bride, she is supposed to forget her former self. She is charmed into forgetting what has happened to her, to overlook the heinous practice of intermingling with one's own kin. At first I did forget, but as time passed and I lost one child and then another, I remembered bits and pieces of my life before I became a bride. I realized that my marriage was unconscionable, but by then it was too late. I was in the first stages of my illness. I wasn't strong enough to get away. All I could manage was to smuggle you out when you were five, before the same thing could happen to you, before the Bastyr curse could damn you as it has damned me.

  The Bastyrs have strange powers of which you must be wary,
Roselyn. I am not certain they will be able to find you, but in the event that they do, I have prepared certain devices to protect you. One is an emerald, imbued with special powers, a discovery I found hidden in the Bastyr library. The other is a list of instructions that you must follow on Midsummer's Eve when you will turn twenty-one—the day you are destined to become a Bastyr bride. Bea Jacoby alone knows the location of these items, and she has promised to look after them until you need them.

  Roselyn, you do not belong to the Bastyrs. Your father was not Seth Bastyr. Your father was a man I met after I became a bride. I loved your father very much, but he lost his life in an effort to save you. Bea Jacoby is your father's mother—your grandmother. Donald is your grandfather. They have changed their names to protect you all these years. And I trust that since you are reading this, they are both still alive.

  When you were a newborn, you were branded with a mark to prove your identity to the Bastyrs. They didn't know at the time that you were not a true daughter. Perhaps they still do not know. I looked everywhere for the brand, hoping to obliterate it and save you. But I was unable to find it. I am afraid that the mark is there nevertheless, and that they will come for you and know who you are.

  I did not want to ruin your childhood with fear, Roselyn. That is why I left instructions to keep all this knowledge from you unless the Bastyrs found you. I wanted you to remain forever separated from that heinous family. But since you are reading this, you must be in danger from them. Have heart, however, Roselyn. We Bastyr women are not as weak as they think we are. With the emerald and my instructions, I trust that you will be free of the fate I had to endure. Like the Bastyr males, I had my own powers during my life on earth, and I hope that my legacy to you, my dear child, was to pass some of that power on to you.

  Keep in mind that it is imperative for you to remain a virgin until you are twenty-one. I am sure that Bea has told you this already. Do not take a lover before that time. In fact, do not fall in love with a man until you are past your birthday. Seth will use your love. He will feed on it and kill your lover. Should you lose your virginity before you are twenty-one, he will assuredly kill you.

  I know this will seem odd to you, perhaps even frightening. But I have done everything in my power to safeguard you and break the chain. I pray that you will escape with your life and your soul.

  Just remember that I love you, Roselyn, with all my heart. You meant the world to me. And should it be in my power after death, I will be looking down on you from above and sending my love and protection to you in every way that I can.

  Be strong, my dear child. Be brave. And know that we will see each other again, I am sure.

  Your loving mother, Deborah

  Rose refolded the letter and looked down at her hands, which didn't seem to be part of her own body. She felt disassociated from reality, split down the middle by the truths she had just learned—that her mother had loved her beyond her wildest dreams, that her father had given his life for her, and that she came from a family with a history of incest and madness. Her vision blurred, and her throat felt as if a huge lump were lodged there. She heard Bea say something to her, but she couldn't focus on the words. She clung to the thought that her mother had loved her after all. She had sent her away to save her life. Her name was Deborah—just like in the dream—and she had loved her. She had loved her so much that she had given her up, never to see her child again. Rose felt Bea's arms come around her. And for the longest time she wept, encircled in the warm embrace of her grandmother, while she held the yellowed papers, the only link to the mother she had never really known.

  "How did she die?" Rose finally murmured.

  "She was a troubled woman, Rose. A troubled woman."

  "How did she die?" Rose looked up, her eyes hot. "Tell me!"

  "She killed herself. When she heard about your father's accident, she lost the will to live."

  Rose swallowed. She could feel the blood surging in her temples and in her neck. "My father was in an accident?"

  "Ostensibly. One night near the Bastyr place, it seems he fell and broke his leg. He bled to death out there."

  "But you don't think it was an accident."

  "No." Bea shook her head. Her gray eyes were like chips of flint. "Seth Bastyr killed him. I know he did."

  "Oh, Bea!" Rose felt new tears pooling in her eyes.

  Bea gently patted her back. "That's why we've worn emerald rings all these years, given to us by your mother to protect us from the Bastyrs. That's why I've always insisted that you wear yours."

  "I'm sorry, Bea," Rose declared, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry I doubted you. I—"

  "There's no need to apologize, Rose dear. No need." Bea gave her a smile of encouragement and understanding, seeming much closer to her old self again, and then she stood up. "But you do realize that we must leave as soon as possible. We can't let the Bastyrs get you."

  "And you think Taylor is connected to the Bastyrs."

  "He told you about them, didn't he?"

  "Well, yes." Rose pressed her lips together in doubt and wiped the tears from her cheeks.

  "How could he know about the Bastyrs and you unless he is somehow connected to them himself?"

  "He just doesn't seem..." Her voice trailed off. Deep in her heart she didn't feel a threat from Taylor, even though he had been arrogant and rude to her. She had suspected him of being the one to hypnotize her at night, but even that suspicion was faltering in the face of his kindness earlier that morning. He hadn't once tried to touch her, even though she had lain half-naked on his bed. The man who came to her at night surely would have taken advantage of her in a similar situation.

  If by some chance Taylor was not connected to the Bastyrs, and if she could have just one or two more days, she could finish her scarf and all would be well. But if she didn't finish, she would miss her deadline and lose a most influential client, not to mention a tidy sum of money.

  Her professional reputation was on the line. She didn't know whether to stay or leave.

  "My mother mentioned a list of instructions and an emerald," Rose ventured.

  '"The same emerald I had a few moments ago." Bea turned to retrieve the box from the floor. She raised the lid. "Your mother gave this box to me to keep for you. I've kept it under my bed for fifteen years."

  Rose peered into the velvet-lined box and saw a piece of parchment about the size of a paperback novel and a small ruby-colored pouch. Carefully Rose picked up the pouch and placed it in her palm. The drawstrings draped over her hand as she loosened the top of the sack. She could feel a hum from inside the pouch, as if something of enormous energy lay within.

  Her fingers felt a hard, cool object about the size of an apricot. Rose drew it out.

  "The emerald," she gasped, holding it up to the light. It glinted a rich green in the lamplight and was full of shifting depths that captivated her.

  "Yes," Bea said softly, her voice full of awe. "Just look at it."

  "My mother says it has some sort of power." Rose looked up at Bea. "That sounds like hocus-pocus to me."

  "When it comes to the Bastyrs, Rose, you have to suspend your belief system. They don't follow the norm, from what your father told me. They have strange powers, strange ways. It's Seth Bastyr, the leader of the family, who has the most powers. But your mother seemed to have had many herself. She must have inherited than from the Bastyr genes. She could speak to animals with her mind. I saw it happen."

  "Speak to animals?"

  "Yes. She could call animals to her. They would bring things to her, do things for her, as she was always doing for them. She was a very gentle woman, your mother." She held the box closer, so that Rose could put back the emerald. "Haven't you noticed you have the same gift, Rose? With Edgar?"

  Rose paused a moment. "Edgar and I are friends. But I've never consciously tried to communicate with him. I've never asked him to do anything in particular. He warns me, sometimes, that people are coming. Things like that."

 
"He is usually with you, though. He sits on your wrist, goes with you everywhere, and yet you've never trained him."

  "I never thought twice about it. I thought he was smart."

  "No, Rose. You taught him, simply by thinking about what you wanted of him. How do you suppose he came to Brierwood?"

  "I don't know. Hasn't he always been here, Bea?"

  "No. He came when you were six. He was hurt. You found him on the lawn, don't you remember? You said you had heard him crying and crying all night."

  Rose smiled faintly as the memory resurfaced. "Yes, I remember now."

  "But I hadn't heard a thing. And neither had Donald, and he had been trimming shrubbery in the area. Only you heard Edgar's cries."

  "I'd forgotten about that."

  "So you see, Rose, you do have certain gifts. Even though you aren't a full-blooded Bastyr, you still have powers of your own."

  Rose nodded and drew out the piece of parchment. She looked up at Bea. "But what else is in my bloodline, Bea? My mother mentioned the Bastyr practice of incest. Doesn't that cause birth defects? Abnormalities?"

  "Sometimes." Bea gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "But you seem to have escaped such problems, Rose. You aren't a full Bastyr, after all."

  "And my real father—what was he like?"

  Bea's eyes softened. "You'll learn all about Will when we get away from here, Rose. I have so much to tell you!"

  Rose smiled. A whole new life lay before and behind her, a life full of people with whom she was connected. She felt a glow inside and out, and wondered if holding the emerald had contributed to the warm feelings that were blossoming inside her.

  "Look over the instructions, Rose," Bea urged.

  Rose picked up the parchment and scanned the writing. The instructions included sitting at the foot of a fir tree and concentrating on the inner self.

  "On your birthday, you must follow the instructions to the letter. Your mother made that very clear."

  "I've never seen anything like this," Rose said, shaking her head. "It seems pretty weird."

  "I'd take it seriously, if I were you, Rose. Seth Bastyr killed your father. He would kill again to get to you."