Taryn had thought about that on the drive home and for the rest of the week. Wales. Her ancestors on her mother’s side were from there, but the lines went back very far. She didn’t even know their names. Wales was certainly not a destination she’d entertained herself with. Ireland? Sure. England? Possible. Italy? Definitely. But Wales? She wasn’t even sure she knew what was in Wales. The word brought up nothing but Princess Diana.
One week later, however, she’d received the email.
Dear Ms. Magill,
On behalf of the Ceredigion House, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Joe Butler and, along with my siblings, we recently inherited the home from our deceased parents. The house was originally started in the 17th century but has been completely modernized. For the past fifteen years, it has been used as budget accommodations. My siblings and I, however, are now interested in having it completely rehabilitated and turning it into an upscale hotel and wedding destination, with my wife and me acting as managers. It is unique in structure and land mass, although I admit it needs quite a bit of rehabbing. I’m sorry to say that it has been on a decline over the past ten years and will take much work to bring her back up to standards. We recently became aware of your fantastic work and were hoping that we might entice you to join us and work with our architect to help bring it back to life.
If you’d please contact me with details regarding your schedule and fees, I’d be most delighted.
Joe Butler
Naturally, Taryn had immediately opened up a new tab and Googled the house. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see its Welsh location and, yet, she was. In fact, she’d sat there for the longest time, just staring at the Google map. Right in the middle of Wales. The thread of excitement that coursed through her veins had her shaking.
Perhaps, by the sheer number of times she’d visited the astrologer, she’d evened the odds. He had finally gotten something right!
Of course, Joe Butler hadn’t been kidding about the state of the house.
“In need of some rehabbing, my foot,” she’d laughed aloud.
The house, which was not so much a house as a mansion, looked on the edge of deterioration. The older pictures of it from the 1980s showed a beautiful manor home, complete with stone walls sprouting ivy up the sides and an immaculate circular driveway lined with lush foliage. Current pictures showed crumbling columns, broken windows, and droopy scaffolding that looked as though it were placed to give the appearance of renovations to distrustful guests.
Tripadvisor reviews claimed that it was “too old, smelled bad, and lacked hot water.”
Well, she’d stayed in worse.
Taryn’s ability as a talented artist with a knack for looking at something in disrepair and seeing its former glory had taken her to stunning buildings all across the United States. Her clients often hired her to work with architects in restoration projects, although she’d also been hired by private members of the community. Some had wanted renderings of the family farmhouse before it was torn down, for instance. Or a painting of the old homestead–a house that was only partially standing, thanks to a fire and even more destructive natural elements.
She’d always prided herself on her vast imagination; being able to look at something that was falling apart and seeing what it used to be, what it could be again, was fun. And she loved to paint.
Two years ago, however, things had changed. She no longer had to rely solely on her imagination. Her beloved camera, Miss Dixie, had started showing her the past. Not on every job, and not always images she desired to see, but it was starting to happen more and more frequently.
She could take a picture of an empty room and come back with a space full of period furniture.
Taryn was now able to see the very past she used to long to visit.
Of course, the ghosts had come then, too.
Taryn was still trying to deal with that particular aspect of her newfound talent. The ghosts were unsettling–restless, sometimes tragic figures that needed her help in the most confounding ways. She’d found herself in more than one scrape although, to be fair, it was the living she normally needed to fear the most.
Ceredigion House was waiting.
“Maybe for a long time,” Taryn whispered as she shut her door and locked it.
As Taryn entered her stinky elevator, rolling her bags behind her with the feel of Miss Dixie bouncing on her chest, she felt hopeful.
Chapter Three
BEATEN AND BRUISED, TARYN SAGGED against the airport counter and closed her eyes. What should have been eight hours of flying had turned into twelve, thanks to an unexpected hiccup in Atlanta.
“I forgot how much I much I hate to fly,” she muttered, feeling grouchy.
Her laptop bag was pulling on her shoulder, her wool pants were cutting her off at her swollen abdomen, and even Miss Dixie was unnaturally bulky around her neck. She longed just to sit down and unwrap everything that was currently dangling on her.
When the annoyingly bright-eyed and pleasant-faced customer service representative approached her at last, Taryn was in no mood to play happy ambassador to the South.
“You all lost my luggage,” she mumbled. “I waited at the carousel, and it never came. Checked the others, too.”
The blonde with the French twist and starched navy blue uniform never lost her sunny smile. “Oh dear, that’s an annoyance now, isn’t it? Let me just check on that for you.”
Taryn waited several minutes as she tapped a bunch of numbers into her computer. When she saw the slight frown, Taryn knew her bags weren’t coming.
“I’m sorry, Miss.” Her smile was still there, but a plastered-on version had replaced the original. The new one didn’t reach her eyes.
“It’s not here, is it?” Taryn asked wearily.
“I’m afraid that although you arrived in London safe and sound, your luggage is still in Detroit,” she said sympathetically.
Taryn straightened and frowned. “How can it be ‘still’ in Detroit? I was never in Detroit to begin with so it shouldn’t have been either!”
The rep’s nametag read “Gemma.” Since Taryn wasn’t real sure how to pronounce that, she barged on ahead, probably more forcefully than she intended. “Look, Miss, can you just tell me when I might expect it?”
Taryn had joked about losing her luggage but she hadn’t really been serious. She actually did want her clothes.
“Unfortunately, the last flight from Detroit has already left for the day. The next one won’t be here until 8:00 am tomorrow,” she replied.
There was a long line forming behind Taryn at the desk. She could hear the impatient shuffling as other disgruntled passengers waited to share their woes with the chipper Gemma.
“So what am I supposed to do?” Taryn asked.
“If you’d like to supply us with an address, we can have your bags delivered promptly, tomorrow afternoon,” Gemma said brightly. “Just let us know the hotel or BnB where you’re staying, and you’ll be all set!”
“All set” except for the fact that she wouldn’t have any way to change clothes or brush her teeth in the meantime.
“I’m not actually staying in London,” Taryn replied. “I’m headed straight for Wales.”
The lines on Gemma’s forehead deepened but her smile didn’t waver. “Oh, then, that might take longer. They’ll still probably reach you in the next day or two, however!”
By the time Taryn walked away from the desk, she was dragging her weary and irritated body with her. And she had barely started her journey.
Standing in the middle of the lobby, searching for the sign that would point her to the buses while hordes of people scurried around her, Taryn sighed. Oh well. At least she’d scored an extra toothbrush and mouthwash from the sympathetic rep.
***
The train ride to Cardiff, the capital of Wales, was the longest leg of her journey. She was too tired to feel real excitement at this stage of the game, but as they left the urban sprawl of London and she bega
n catching glimpses of the English countryside, she did find herself watching out her window with an elevated level of enthusiasm.
With her iPod tuned to some Kelly Willis, she began relaxing into the ride, if not altogether enjoying it. Taryn had never been on a real train before. True, she’d taken the commuter rail out of Boston, and it was on tracks, but this was the first time she’d been on a real train traveling across a long expanse of terrain.
Taryn loved trains. If it were up to her, they’d go back to rail travel, and she’d start lugging around a steamer trunk. She definitely thought she was born in the wrong time period.
The man selling concessions on the little roller cart had been through twice, and she’d bought snacks and drinks on each of his journeys. Even though it was gray, cold, and wet outside she’d worked up a good sweat just walking through the airport and stressing over where to board.
Taryn knew she must look like something the cat dragged in. Her red hair, not so much curly as fluffy, was stuck to her head in matted tangles in some places and flying out in a sticky frizz in others. Her makeup had rubbed off somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, and now her face was two dark holes that served as her eyes set against a pale complexion.
That was it. She looked like Ghost Face from the “Scream” movies. Just bring her a black hood and robe.
Tarn envied those women that could fly or drive long distances and arrive at the other end looking as fresh and put together as they had when they’d started.
Matt had insisted she fly first class. She’d argued that it was too much money, and not worth it since the plane went to the same place whenever she sat.
Oh, how wrong she’d been.
During a bathroom break, upon seeing the cramped horse stalls they now called “coach” she’d returned to the comfy seat she’d all but turned into a bed, pulled her curtain to, and snuggled under the fleece blanket with glee. She flipped through her private television screen not even registering what she saw–just happy that she had her own television and didn’t have to angle her neck around the tall, bushy-haired guy in front of her to watch the newest Kate Hudson film.
Despite the uneventful plane ride, however, she never got comfortable. By the time she landed in London, her back was aching, her head was throbbing, and she’d had to take one of her “special” pills for her hips just to be able to walk.
“Seven more hours,” she chanted to herself now as the train rolled through green meadows and past quaint stations that looked straight out of the movies. “Seven more hours…”
And then she remembered that she’d been delayed.
“Well, crap,” Taryn muttered. For whatever dumb reason, she’d stuck all of her information on the Ceredigion House in her suitcase. She couldn’t call to inform them of her late arrival. What if they thought she wasn’t coming?
She remembered her laptop, but once she got it turned on, she found that it had lost its charge on the plane. She couldn’t charge it because her international adapter was also in her checked bag.
This was not going as planned. There was always one person she could rely on, however.
Matt answered on the first ring, even though it was only 4:00 am back in Florida.
“Hey, I’m sorry to wake you,” Taryn apologized. “I know it’s a pain but could you look up a number for me? The Ceredigion House? The flight was delayed, and I’m going to be a few hours late.”
Matt always sounded alert and ready for action, regardless of the time, and that morning was no exception. “You got it,” he told her. “You want me to text it to you so that you don’t have to stay on the phone and get charged?”
“Sure,” she replied.
Ten minutes later, just as she thought he might have fallen back asleep, she received a call.
“Hey,” Matt began quickly. “I went ahead and called myself. Talked to the caretaker. Told him that you’d be about three hours late but that you were definitely on your way.”
“Aw, Matt,” Taryn grinned. “You’re so good to me. You should be my assistant. I could use you on the road.”
“I would’ve gone with you if you’d ‘a let me,” he reminded her.
After she’d hung up, Taryn rested her head against the cool glass of the window, the world rushing by her in a blur. He had told her that he’d go to Wales with her. But it had been a joke, right? He hadn’t been serious. They’d never had a formal conversation about it. To go with her would’ve meant leaving his job; he didn’t have any more time to take off from work. And it wasn’t like Matt had a generic 9 to 5 that he toiled away at, counting down the days to retirement. Matt worked for NASA. It was his dream job–the job he’d literally dreamed about since he was a boy.
She wasn’t going to take him away from that.
The landscape that looked both familiar and foreign at the same time, the chatter of the foreign passengers around her, and not a single person she knew on that continent– for the first time in a long time, Taryn felt very alone.
Chapter Four
TARYN STOOD AT THE END of the one lane road and sighed. Darkness had fallen hours earlier. She wasn’t just late by her original arrival time; she was now four hours later than that. The bus from Cardiff to Carmarthen had been delayed by three hours, which had then delayed the bus to Lampeter. It was only thanks to a considerate driver who’d taken pity on her that the one to Lampeter even ran at all; she could have been stranded in the other Welsh town overnight.
Now, she had the long walk up the dark driveway to look forward to. Taryn was no longer cursing not having her luggage–she was thanking the gods.
The road, unlit and ominous, looked like a tunnel with the trees growing tall on both sides and meeting above her in the middle. Her footsteps fell heavy on the pavement; the sound of her own breathing was the only other thing breaking the silence. She moved unhurriedly and tried to stay in the middle, just in case she ended up in a ditch. Taryn had never been a fan of the dark, and after a few minutes of basically trying to feel her way forward she rooted around in her pocket for her phone and turned it on as a flashlight.
The pale light that shone through the screen did little to illuminate her way, but she held it out in front of her anyway, somewhat soothed by the tiny ray of light.
Taryn could see nothing ahead of her but more darkness. With her light on, however, the thick fog that closed in around the lane became more evident. In the light the particles appeared to be alive as they moved in closer to her, swirling through the air like tiny bugs. It was so thick in places that she couldn’t see the trees that grew alongside her or more than ten feet ahead.
She’d only walked for another few minutes or so but the dampness had already seeped through her clothing, chilling her skin. Taryn cursed herself for packing her coat in the suitcase. She hadn’t kept it out because it was bulky and just one more thing she would’ve had to keep up with on the airplane. Now, however, she shivered from the bitterness.
“Whenever you’re scared, sing,” her Nana Stella had always told her. “Singing will keep you company and scare off most anything trying to bother you in the dark.”
So now, with only the stars and moon she couldn’t see and the thick mist enveloping her, she began singing. The old Hank Williams’ song about feeling lonesome and wanting to cry was a tinny sound in the compressed air, but it did make her feel safer somehow.
Taryn picked up her pace. Surely it couldn’t be much further?
She’d almost made it to the end of the song when a faint glow appeared ahead.
“Please be a porch light, please be a porch light,” she chanted aloud.
It was hazy in the fog, but when another appeared beside it, she knew she was close. “Yee haw,” Taryn muttered.
Just then, the sky broke open and big, fat raindrops began dropping on her head. They were little slivers of ice that ran down her back and streaked her face. Taryn yelped and picked up her pace, forgetting about her plan to stay in the middle of the lane. The faster she ran, the harder
the rain fell.
By the time she made it to the small porch of the grand house, her hair was plastered to her head, and her clothes were soaked. She was a drowned rat as she knocked on the door and waited.
Welcome to Wales.
Chapter Five
“WELL, IT’S DEFINITELY NOT the worst place I’ve stayed at,” Taryn laughed into her tablet. She stretched back and let her head hit the pillow behind her. The bed groaned from her movements, struggling after years of abuse from the transient crowd of people that had come before her.
“That’s not saying much now, is it?” The voice on the other end sounded like it was right there in the spacious room with her. It was hard to believe that an ocean separated them. Taryn felt way behind the times. She wasn’t even using her phone–she had learned how to download Skype.
“Well, it’s not the awful hostel the reviews had me believing in,” Taryn admitted. “More like a Motel 6. You know, with chandeliers.”
“Chandeliers?”
“Well, dusty ones with broken lights.”
Liza Jane Higginbotham, Taryn’s friend back in Kentucky, giggled. Taryn had met Liza and her sister Bryar Rose on a previous job. She hadn’t expected to bond with the loud, sassy redhead and crazy, gorgeous blonde but she had. There are some people you click with from the moment you meet them; Liza Jane was one of those.
Paul Ifans, Ceredigion House’s resident caretaker, was not.
“I don’t think the caretaker likes me,” Taryn groaned. “I mean, I guess I did show up in the middle of the night but it wasn’t that late. The man hardly said two words to me. Just barked at me to follow him up the stairs. Showed me my room and left. I’ve literally not seen anything of the house but my bedroom.”
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 2