Miriam walked over to the fireplace and pointed at a nick in one of the plaster birds. “See this?”
Taryn nodded.
“Gunshot,” she explained. “Back in the early part of the century there was a servant girl in here, cleaning the mantle. The butler walked in with one of the firearms they kept next door in the trophy room. Was having himself a laugh, being a lad about it I reckon, and threatened to shoot her. She was so frightened that she screamed and jumped and that made him scream and jump and, well, the gun just went off by accident.”
“Good Lord,” Taryn said. “Was he fired?”
“Fired and never heard from in these parts again,” Miriam whispered theatrically.
“Really?”
“No,” Miriam grinned. “I have no idea. But the story’s true enough.”
Taryn shook her head and smiled. It was nice to have another person to talk to. “The wallpaper in here is in better condition than it is in other rooms. Is there a reason for that?”
“The rest of the house is in such terrible shape. The walls all need to be stripped and started over from scratch. There isn’t much for me to do,” Miriam said sadly. “Because it’s still intact in this room, though, I try to do well by it. I clean it once a week, even though the owners don’t ask me to. Doesn’t seem right to let it rot with the rest of the house.”
“I don’t blame you,” Taryn said, sensing a kindred spirit in Miriam.
“A long time ago they used to make up bread dough without the yeast and scrub it on the walls to clean them. I just use a simple washing solution.”
Taryn had never heard of that before. “What did the bread dough do to it?”
“No idea,” Miriam laughed. “I don’t understand half the things I know. I just repeat them.”
They were still laughing when Paul poked his head around the corner. He glowered upon seeing Taryn, but his expression softened some at Miriam. “Guests tonight,” he barked. “I need you to settle up the yellow room.”
“Will do,” she sang.
That seemed to be enough conversation for him. Within seconds, Paul had disappeared and Taryn could hear his footsteps trailing down the corridor.
“Is he always so…”
“Surly?” Miriam replied.
Taryn nodded.
“Paul’s not so bad. They pay him peanuts here and anyone in their right mind would quit, but he can’t,” Miriam said. She lowered her voice and leaned in closer to Taryn. “Not only does he love it like a child, he hasn’t anywhere else to go. His mum’s gone, his dad too, and his wife died years ago. If it weren’t for here, he wouldn’t have a place in the world that was his.”
Taryn felt herself softening at the thought of Paul, alone in the world with nothing but a crumbling house that wasn’t even his. It wasn’t far from the way she felt about her own situation. Still, it didn’t mean he could be rude to her. Her patience and good will only stretched so far.
“Listen,” Miriam said as she straightened back up and raised her voice. “I leave in an hour or so. If you’d like, I’ll find you and fill you in on the rest of the house’s charms.”
“Yes, I would like that,” Taryn agreed. “I’ll most likely be outside somewhere, taking pictures.”
Miriam threw her a salute and turned to head for the door. “See you in a bit then!”
Taryn grinned. Things were on an upswing. She’d found the music room and chatted with someone in the house who didn’t look like they wanted to kill her.
She’d had worse afternoons, all in all.
Chapter Nine
HER ORIGINAL PLAN had been to poke around the entire interior of the house. Get to know it as much as she could. She was itching to start painting, but Taryn never felt comfortable picking up the brush until she had a good feel for her surroundings. As it was, she felt completely disoriented just due to its size.
Instead, after her self-guided tour of the first floor, she’d dragged herself back up to her room and collapsed on her bed. The trip into town and back and then her quickie tour had taken everything out of her.
She’d only meant to take a quick nap but when she woke up she was shocked to find her room swathed in darkness and her bedside clock flashing 11:00 pm. She’d slept for six hours.
Still groggy, Taryn felt her way to the lamp on the table by the bed. Blind from the darkness, she knocked her phone to the floor and the resounding clatter filled the quiet room.
“Damn it,” Taryn muttered. She could hear the plastic battery cover snap off and fly across the floor.
When the warm glow of the lamp was on, Taryn perched on the edge of the bed and studied her room. She’d slept for most of the day. She felt guilty and, somehow, even more fatigued than she’d been when she’d dropped to the bed to start with.
Yawning, Taryn stood and stretched her arms above her head. She walked over to one of the large windows and peered outside. At first, her reflection gazing solemnly back at her was the only thing she could see. Her red hair stuck out from her head in a disheveled mess. Her blouse was wrinkled and plastered to her skin in places where she’d sweated in her sleep. She was a mess.
Soon, her eyes adjusted to the blackness outside. The streetlamp by the driveway illuminated a small patch of land where the old carriage house still stood. Beyond that, the thick fog was rolling in and the ground was covered in a white, filthy cloud.
The tall window ran from the ceiling all the way down to her knees. She leaned forward and placed her hands on the window pane but the glass gave a little, startling her. She quickly leaned back and removed her hands. The last thing she needed to do was to fall through the window. There was nothing but pavement below; she’d crack her fool head.
The house was quiet again. Whatever Paul may be, he certainly didn’t seem to be a night owl.
Taryn sighed. She was hungry. Tugging her hair into a messy ponytail, Taryn slipped on her shoes and shrugged on a sweater. She knew her way around a kitchen. She’d find something.
***
Her small feet didn’t make a sound as she shuffled through the shadowy hallway and down the darkly-lit back staircase. Lamps were on here and there, but the massive ceilings and large rooms dwarfed the minimal light they emitted. Heavy, ornate furniture took on blurry shapes in the darkness. She moved slowly, as though walking through a dream. Without the sounds of traffic or the blare of a television to remind her of the current century, she might as well have slipped back in time. The only sound was that of a ticking grandfather clock resonating hollow from a distant part of the house.
The kitchen was as big as her apartment back in Nashville. She flipped on the switch and the room was suddenly flooded with the glare of an overhead fluorescent light. As she foraged through the cabinets and refrigerator, she hummed Loretta Lynn to herself for comfort.
She was halfway through “You Ain’t Woman Enough To Take My Man” and in the middle of spreading mustard on a turkey sandwich when she heard the jingle of bells.
Taryn paused and looked up, expecting to see a dog or cat prance through the kitchen door. The noise had reminded her of tags against a collar. When nothing appeared, she returned to her sandwich, this time humming more softly. Her ears were pricked expectantly, waiting to hear the sound again.
Off in the distance the clock struck the new hour. The resounding clanging was melancholy, a sad tune that had her shoulders drooping for reasons she didn’t understand.
She was cleaning up after herself when she heard the jingling again. This time it was close, the other side of the kitchen island. Seconds later, a snow white Persian cat hopped up on the island and mewed. It cocked its head to the side and studied Taryn intently and she laughed.
“Hey Kitty,” she smiled. She reached out to touch its silky-looking coat but it darted to the side, leaving her with nothing but a fistful of air. The gold tag that dangled from its neck read “Freckles.”
“Didn’t peg Paul for a cat guy,” she laughed. Freckles turned its backside to her and th
en looked over its shoulder again, almost as though giving her a conspiratorial wink.
“Wanna come up to my room and keep me company?”
Freckles mewed again and turned back around. She thought he might walk over to her but, instead, the cat bounded off the island with an elegant jump and scampered from the room. Taryn was once again on her own.
With food in her belly and a long nap behind her, she was wide awake.
“Not ready to go back to bed,” she sighed aloud. And yet she wasn’t feeling brave enough to explore the rest of the house in the dark. The idea of running into Paul, or waking him up, was not appealing.
Then, surprising herself, she decided to take a walk outside. The fog that appeared to be a recurring thing was mesmerizing and she hoped to get a closer look at it. She wouldn’t have to go far to see it up close–it came nearly all the way up to the porch.
The front door was heavy under her hands. As soon as it was open, the cool, wet air hit her square in the face. She shivered and almost turned around and gave up on the midnight jaunt.
With the door shut behind her, Taryn suddenly found herself feeling exposed. The stretch of flat land before her looked even barer under the night sky and seemed to go on forever. The heavy fog rolled over it towards her, dirty and sweet smelling. It came to a stop about four feet from the earth, making it appear as though the sky were eating the ground.
Taryn wrapped her arms around her waist and shuddered involuntarily. The streetlamps offered some light and she followed them now towards the stables and the old garden. Beside her, the stone walls rose to her shoulders. They were disintegrating in some places, leaving ethereal pockmarks in the darkness.
In the stable yard the columns rose up like ghostly sentries. The old stables in the back were swathed by blackness, mere shadows of themselves. The streetlamps stopped here, so Taryn did as well.
In all, there were eighteen horseboxes- six enormous compartments for the carriages, plus a dozen smaller stable bays for the horses. The stable servants would have had quarters above, which Taryn thought was probably noisy at night, and on the north side there were still remains of the carpenter’s workshop. A small rail line was located close to the workshop; the coal and logs would’ve been laid in the cart and rolled down the rail to the log chute in the courtyard. At one time, the stable yard would’ve had a saw mill, which would have provided wood and timber for the carpenter. The whole estate, which boasted a saddle room, tack room, and office for the stable manager, was almost self-sustained. She’d learned all of that through her research.
Now, Taryn stood on the pavement and peered into the obscurity of the yard. At nighttime it was much easier to visualize the house and property as it might have once looked; the neglect was more difficult to see in the dark. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be in the moment, to feel the history and the energy of Ceredigion House to swirl around her. She tried to imagine herself as a guest at the fine country home, perhaps sneaking out in the midst of a grand party to meet someone in the stables. (Taryn was a closet romantic.) She grinned to herself at the thought of gathering her skirts up to keep them off the ground as she sprinted down the lane, her curls bouncing on her shoulders and a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
And then she heard it.
“I-I’m sorry,” came the cry, faint and soft.
Taryn’s eyes popped open with a start.
“I didn’t do it,” the cry came again. The young voice could have been male or female but, whatever it was, it was full of panic. “It wasn’t me!”
“Hello?” Taryn called back, looking around in confusion. It was difficult to see more than twenty feet in front of her, but the other voice sounded awfully close. “Who’s there?”
The sobs came wildly now, sounds of a heart breaking in dread and terror.
She realized then that it was coming from the stable yard.
Taryn contemplated the blackness before her with trepidation. The idea of blindly entering into something she couldn’t see wasn’t a particularly tempting one, but the voice sounded like that of a child–and a frightened child at that.
“I’m coming,” she called out at last.
As Taryn moved towards the entrance, the sobbing grew louder yet the fog became thicker. By the time she walked through the two imposing pillars, she could barely see her hand in front of her face.
“Are you there?” she cried. “Are you okay?”
Another cry and then a hiccup. “It wasn’t me,” the voice whimpered.
It was close enough to be beside her, and yet she couldn’t see anything at all.
Taryn pushed her hands out in front of her and blindly reached towards the voice. “Where are you? You’ll have to come to me. I can’t see you.”
Just then, a clattering from the driveway filled the air. Her mouth dropped open at the sound; her skin chilled with disbelief. The flying of loose stones, the clanging of heavy hoof beats on the solid ground, and the rattling of metal could only mean one thing–a carriage was coming towards her.
Her mind had no time to form a rational explanation for what she was hearing. She turned to seek out the source but the fog had closed in so thick on her that she could no longer see the streetlamps or even the house. She was engulfed in sooty whiteness. The wetness of the horses’ panting was close enough to her ears that she felt the chill of their saliva. The scent of cigar smoke and damp equine coats filled her nostrils. The carriage was upon her and, in fear of getting trampled, she threw herself to the side and landed on the ground. The pop of her right hip sent a searing pain down her leg and she cried out in pain, but the sound was lost beneath the racket of the wheels and thundering of hooves.
And just as soon as it had started, it was over. Taryn was once again left in the noiselessness of the night. The fog lifted and parted. The glow of the streetlamps rose above her on the other side of the stable yard, their blurry yellow lights softened in the mist.
The child had ceased his or her cries as well. She knew they’d probably never been there to start with.
Chapter Ten
“IN THE FUTURE, I’d appreciate you not bothering anything on the second shelf.” Taryn looked up from Miss Dixie and considered the angry man blocking her sunlight.
“I’m sorry?”
Paul’s face, normally ruddy but slowly deepening into a brighter shade of crimson, was contorted in anger. “The cheddar. The second shelf is for my personal dinner. Please don’t touch it again, I’ll ask of you.”
He turned and stomped off, his shoulders hunched forward and his head bent against the spring breeze.
“What was that about?” Miriam appeared from around the corner, a plastic bag of garbage in her hand.
Taryn shrugged. “I ate his cheese.”
“Ah,” Miriam nodded in understanding. “Second shelf?”
“Yeah, well, if he’d give me a tour of things then I would know what I can and cannot touch,” Taryn grumbled.
“I’ve got a hankering for a break myself,” Miriam told her. “Would you like for me to take you for a little look see around the property?”
“Sure,” Taryn said, excited by the idea of seeing more of the land and to talk to Miriam again.
“Just let me drop this off in the rubbish bin and I’ll be right back,” Miriam promised.
Taryn continued taking pictures of the stable yard while she waited. Now, in the clear light of day, it was hard to believe that what had happened the night before was anything more than a dream. She’d wandered back up to her room, dazed and disoriented. Sleep had not returned easily. Instead, she’d written in her journal until the first rays of daylight and even then she’d tossed and turned, plagued by frenzied nightmares.
She still hadn’t made sense of what had happened.
“Would you like to see the garden and the lake?” Miriam asked when she returned.
Taryn nodded. “Sounds good.”
Together, the two women began walking away from the house. With
their backs to the wind, Taryn’s hair whipped around her face. She pulled it back into a ponytail with the rubber band she kept around her wrist and then zipped her jacket up to her neck. It was difficult to plan for the weather, she’d learned. Days would start out windy and chilly and then suddenly turn sunny and warm at the drop of the hat. Then the fog would roll in, damp and cold. The sudden bursts of rain clouds sent icy pellets down her back that were almost instantaneously dried by the warm breezes that followed. It was a curious way of living.
“So how big is the property?” Taryn asked Miriam.
“Oh, fairly large by today’s standards. Nearly thirty acres,” Miriam answered. “But in the old days there were more than twenty thousand of them!”
“Twenty-thousand acres?” Taryn paused and turned to face the other woman. “That many?”
“Oh yes. It was a grand place.” She pointed to the fields before them. “Everything was well maintained up until the 1950s. My own mother remembers when these were grand gardens. After that, though, it was badly neglected. Lots of decay, even worse than what you see now.”
“That’s too bad,” Taryn murmured. They began walking again.
“Today the acreage includes the garden, the one that’s walled in that used to feed the whole property, the lake, and the woodlands to the north. Pretty much what we can see just looking around right now. We can walk to the lake if you’re feeling up to it.”
“I’d like that,” Taryn smiled.
“This here was the main garden,” Miriam pointed to the walled-in area to their left. Taryn had walked alongside of it the night before but now, in the daylight, she could get a better look.
Taryn had done extensive reading about the house and its grounds. She’d done even more since arriving. She knew, for instance, that a rockery was made in the shrubbery close to the walled-garden entrance. Even now, with the decay, the gate was ornate. Unfortunately, the rockery was no longer there. Although it had once contained beautiful geodes and crystals, they’d all been lost or stolen over the years.
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 5