I do wish I knew what his problem was, though, she thought to herself. She wasn’t sure what she’d done to warrant his nasty attitude.
So far, she’d been in Lampeter for about a week and had taken more than three-hundred photographs of the house and grounds. She was ready to start sketching. In fact, she was planning on dedicating the entire next day to getting the paintings off the ground. Today, however, she was taking a break and getting her bearings. She wanted to go over the last batch of photos from the garden and catch up on her emails and social media pages.
As someone who traveled a lot and was rarely home, Taryn had never really put down roots in Nashville. It was ironic, of course, since Nashville was technically her hometown and she was not a transient to it. She’d split her childhood between a private school in Green Hills and a smaller public one in Franklin, where her grandmother lived.
Neither had been good to her.
Even as a child and teenager, Taryn had been a little “weird.” She’d preferred going for drives, taking pictures, and exploring old houses to drinking and partying. She loved the city’s music scene, and considered herself one of the biggest alt-country fans out there, but she preferred sitting back and listening to the songs to getting smashed or hooking up with anyone.
In high school, Taryn and Matt had spent their weekends renting classic horror movies, visiting historical sites, and riding their bikes around the lake. In college, most of her free time had been spent at the historical house where she had a work study job. She’d signed up to volunteer for every event the house had after hours, from weddings to poetry readings.
Taryn had never really made friends with anyone in Nashville outside of Matt; even now, she didn’t know her neighbors. She was still connected with a few high school acquaintances on Facebook but she was pretty sure they’d only sent her friend requests to cyberstalk her pictures and nose around her lifestyle–the same reason she’d accepted the requests.
The few friends she’d picked up along the way were people she’d met on jobs and projects. Melissa, for instance, was a young woman Taryn had met on a job in central Kentucky. They’d only spent a handful of days together yet Melissa wrote her almost every day, just to check in. Liza Jane Higginbotham, Kudzu Valley’s resident witch, was another Kentuckian with whom Taryn had bonded.
If not for the internet, Taryn would have no social life. She thought she came across better online anyway.
Now, in the cozy pub, she could settle in and bring everyone up to date on her travels with just a single click of a button.
She was pleased with her pictures. Even the ones she’d taken outside of the fog at night came out better than expected.
Damn this house is beautiful, she thought to herself. If only I had a few million spare dollars lying around.
How long had she been dreaming about the house? A few years? Most of her life? It was hard to remember. She hadn’t recognized it all at once, but it was slowly starting to creep back into her memory. Something about it had been gradually eating away at her mind for a very, very long time.
“Maybe I was Iona in a former life,” Taryn whispered.
The thought chilled her.
She was about to switch from her photo album to her Facebook tab when something caught her eye.
“Huh,” she said, not even trying to keep her voice down. “Well, there we go.”
Nobody at the bar even turned and looked her way; they’d seen it all before. Damn college kids.
Taryn had done extensive reading about the house and its grounds. 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.
The walled garden was one of her favorite places on the estate. Overgrown and unkempt, it reminded her of the other walled garden, the secret one, and even though she knew it was silly she couldn’t help but wander into it from time to time and pretend that she was really the one who would bring it back to life. The shabby buildings, tall grass, and ratty weeds did little to hide the grandeur it must have once held.
And now, she was seeing it alive again, as it had been. Miss Dixie had looked hard and found its beauty through her lens; she had captured a scene from the past.
Oh, it and had been so lovely! Even now, in the pictures, it took Taryn’s breath away.
With everything orderly and neat, there wasn’t a plant out of place. The oblong-shaped garden was something from a fairy tale, with the shrubbery trimmed to uniform heights and the luscious plants bursting with color. Symmetrical lines of vegetables poked up through dark soil. Box edging surrounded each plot. Tiny, perfectly white, gravel paths twisted around the vegetable plots. Succulent trees with plentiful fruits stood in a military-style preciseness along the pathways and walls. Twisty vines snaked down the gentle slope, giving way to a small potting shed and pond.
All four of the walls were surrounded by high trees on both sides. She could see brick peeking through on the inside walls.
“It’s better at keeping in the heat,” Matt had explained to her once. It must have done a good job, too, because there wasn’t a thing inside the walls that wasn’t growing like crazy.
Taryn counted six entrances to the garden, compared to the single entrance it had today. Today, the entrance was big enough to fit a tractor through. However, in her picture she could see that the main entrance had been flanked by yew trees, providing an elaborate doorway.
She remembered her dream, remembered the key the other woman held out to her. “Look in the yew tree,” the woman had whispered to her. Of course, the yew trees were no longer there. In her picture, however, she could see a knot in the largest tree’s trunk.
A key must have been kept there, she thought to herself, so that they could lock the garden at night.
Perhaps the woman in her dream was not aware of the fact that things had changed so drastically. Taryn was saddened. She hoped the woman would never know what had happened to her once beautiful garden.
Taryn smiled at the site of the gazebo that stood beyond the wall on the front lawn. “Probably added during the Victorian period,” she said aloud to herself.
And, of course, it would have been popular during the lawn tennis popularity of the Edwardian era. The gazebo was a wooden structure with an iron base. In addition to the two doors that served as its entrance, it contained four windows and an interior bench that ran around the walls. She hadn’t seen any remains of it since exploring the grounds; Taryn assumed it had simply been lost to time. There would be no reenacting Lisle’s scene from “The Sound of Music.”
“What else do we have here?” She flipped through the remainder of the images but she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Only the single shot of the garden, brought back from the dead, had found its way to her camera.
Taryn sat back in her chair and rubbed at her temples. Of course, she’d expected to find something at Ceredigion House. She’d even hoped for it. A couple of years ago, when it had first started happening, she’d had the hell shocked out of her. Gradually over time, however, she was beginning to see more and more. She’d have been more surprised if something didn’t happen at the old estate.
But the garden…she hadn’t expected that. And, in some way, it was a real treat.
“What does it mean?” she asked Miss Dixie. Her camera, resting patiently by her cup of tea, had no ready answer for her.
Taryn knew how this game went–her camera had done its job, now it was up to Taryn to put whatever other skills she had to work.
Chapter Fourteen
“WOULD YOU LIKE A BIKE?”
Taryn glanced up from her book and saw Miriam hovering over her. She was resting in a sunny spot in the library, leafing through a history of Cardiganshire. The more she knew, the better prepared she was for what might be ahead. It was Taryn’s experience that it always started w
ith one peculiar photo and went downhill from there.
The library might have been her second favorite room in the house. The large Georgian oak bookcases lined the walls with dusty leather-bound books and stained paperbacks. Long windows ran floor to ceiling and brought in plentiful light during the day. Although it wasn’t lit now, Taryn enjoyed sitting in one of the leather chairs before the fireplace. She could just imagine how cozy it would’ve been with a roaring fire going and a cup of tea at her side. She was only just now, after her mishap with tea at Windwood Farm, able to drink the stuff again.
“Actually,” Taryn said, “I was going to ask you about that. Do you have one I can borrow?”
Miriam nodded. “It’s a long trek to hoof it into town every day. Don’t know that I could do it myself these days. I can swing you one by tomorrow, if you’d like. It’s my day off but I don’t mind. Get you out a little more maybe.”
“I don’t want to impose on you but I could really use it,” Taryn said, grateful for the offer. “I liked not to have made it back this afternoon. My groceries were heavier than I’d planned.”
“I can fix a basket to the front,” Miriam said. “Make your life a little easier anyway, won’t it?”
“Yes,” Taryn agreed, “it would.”
Miriam smiled and turned to go but Taryn called after her. “Hold on a second!”
She turned on her heel and faced Taryn again. For just a moment the sunlight hit the other woman’s hair and it glowed like a halo around her face. Taryn was taken aback by the sight and even gasped, but at the sound Miriam stepped forward and the light moved off her face. It simply Miriam again, with her rouged cheeks, hot pink lips, and glossy cap on her head.
“Are you okay love?”
“Sorry,” Taryn apologized, rising to her feet in a hurry. “Um, leg cramp.”
“Did you need something?”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about the Holy Grail. Or if you knew anything about its history here in the house,” Taryn said. She looked down at the book in her hand. “This book here talks about it, about how it was supposedly here for awhile. And Iona is apparently holding it in her hand in that painting. I was just wondering if you could fill in the blanks.”
Miriam leaned against the floral-papered wall and bit her bottom lip. “I can tell you a bit about the Grail in regards to Ceredigion House, but my King Arthur history is not altogether up to speed.”
“Neither is mine,” Taryn admitted. “But whatever you know would be good.”
“Give me about an hour,” Miriam promised her. “I’ll be off then and I’ll come and find you. We’ll have a nice cup of tea and a chat, okay?”
Taryn nodded and smiled. “I’ll be around.”
When Miriam left, Taryn straightened and smiled, feeling like she’d accomplished something. She had put away her meager groceries (so heavy when carrying yet so meager when unpacked), edited all of her photos, and had begun her sketching. All in all, it had been a productive day.
She decided to treat herself with a Galaxy bar she’d picked up at the store.
Taryn was halfway down the staircase when she ran into Paul, heading the other direction.
“You know there’s rooms you’re not to go into, right?” he snarled, barely meeting her eye.
“Um, actually, I don’t,” Taryn replied, keeping her voice level. “If you’d like to point those out to me then-“
Paul did look at her then, his eyes steely. “If the door’s shut then you’re to stay out. That seems simple enough to understand, now doesn’t it?”
Taryn’s impulse was to shout at him, call him one of the vulgar names her grandmother had called out to the women on her soap operas. However, she was still stuck with Southern manners and those were not things she could easily shed.
“Actually,” she replied, “the owners told me I could have free reign of the place and go wherever I needed. They stated that explicitly in the letter they sent me. I can show it to you, if you want. Of course, out of respect to you I’ll stay away from your private accommodations and anywhere you might deem unsafe but we’ll have to meet in the middle on the rest.”
Paul’s eyes flashed darkly at her. Then he grunted irritably, lowered his head, and commenced his stomping up the stairs. As he passed, she could hear the mumblings under his breath, although she couldn’t make out what he was saying. She was sure it wasn’t anything pleasant.
When Taryn reached the bottom of the stairs, she was struck by the sounds of an exquisite violin drifting down the corridor from the Music Room. The sweeping, mournful notes had her stopping in her tracks. Not wanting to catch the musician off guard, she tiptoed down the hallway, not dark now but stained with patches of sunlight, and held her breath, trying to catch every note.
She wasn’t familiar with the tune but she thought it might be the saddest sound she’d ever heard. As she listened intently, the music climbed higher and higher to a resounding crescendo, only to drop suddenly back down to repeat the ascent over and over again. It was a song about heartbreak, she knew that without hearing any lyrics, and the musician almost certainly knew a thing or two about the subject matter.
Taryn could feel her eyes welling up with tears. As she stood there and listened to the sorrowful sound, she allowed herself to think of the pain and exhaustion that were taking over her body, the heartache of poor choices and bad decisions she’d made over the years…her multiple losses. She tried to hold herself back; to give in now would be to fall over an edge from which she might never be able to climb up again.
When at last the song had played out and come to an end, Taryn allowed herself to enter the room. The final notes were still lingering in the air when she stepped into the imposing Music Room, ready to meet the musician who had moved her to tears.
At first, Taryn didn’t see anyone. For a startling moment she was afraid she’d been listening to a ghost-a former resident of Ceredigion House who still graced its corridors, clinging to the instrument he or she had cherished during life.
But then she saw the small, elfish girl sitting in the corner of the room, the violin in her lap. She had almost faded in with the backdrop; the busy wallpaper design, gold-tipped carvings, and the details of the room reflected in the walls of mirrors many times over, the girl easily disappeared into her surroundings.
“Did I bother you?” she asked, rising to her feet.
She wasn’t any taller than five feet, probably the same height as Taryn. Her long, light-brown hair hung to her waist in a shiny sheet that rippled with threads of gold when she moved. She wore a long black skirt that scraped the floor and a black top with a neck that reached her chin and sleeves that covered her fingers. Her pale, creamy complexion was a stark contrast and, as a result, made her glow.
“It was beautiful,” Taryn said, sincerely. “Possibly one of the prettiest things I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you. It was a song by Mazzy Star. I went through a grunge stage for awhile,” the girl replied shyly. Taryn couldn’t gauge her age. She looked and sounded young, like a teenager, but her eyes appeared ancient.
The other woman pointed to her violin and grinned. “I carry this with me wherever I go. Miss Mel and I do enjoy trying out our surroundings. When I heard the acoustics in here I just had to…”
“Miss Mel?” Taryn asked with a smile, looking at the beautiful instrument with the polished wood that the girl was clutching for dear life.
“I know it’s silly,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “But we’ve been together for so long that I had to name her.”
Taryn laughed and pointed to her camera. “This here is Miss Dixie. Believe me, I understand. I’m Taryn, by the way.”
“Nicola,” the girl replied. “Or Nicki. Either way. Most people just call me Nicki, except for my dad.”
“Nicki,” Taryn repeated. “Are you a guest here?”
“A gardener,” Nicki replied. “Well, in all honesty, I am a historical landscaper. That just means that I create and restore
gardens that are historically relevant.”
“That’s interesting,” Taryn said. And she truly thought it was; she wasn’t just being polite. “It makes sense, though. People restore houses all the time and want them historically accurate. So you’re here to work outside then?”
“Yeppers,” Nicki replied, once again appearing very young. “Here for at least a few weeks. I think I’m staying next door to you, to be quite honest.”
Taryn felt an instant flood of relief. The idea of another person staying nearby sounded fantastic. She was starting to hate the moment when Miriam’s little Mini Cooper sped away each afternoon, leaving Taryn alone with Paul and his poor manners.
“I’m glad you’re here now,” Taryn said. “Let’s just say that the caretaker is kind of…” Taryn paused and let her voice trail off. She didn’t want to talk badly about her host, after all, and come off looking petty right away.
“A sexist pig?” Nicki supplied. “I’ve met him. It’s alright.”
Taryn laughed, feeling lighter. “To you too then?”
Nicki nodded. “I am almost positive that it’s because I am a woman. When I got out of my car he looked at me and asked where the ‘other’ gardener was-as in the real one.”
Nicki was laughing about it now, though. If she’d been offended, she’d quickly gotten over it.
“Well, I am glad you’re here at any rate,” Taryn said again. “And if you’re not doing anything for dinner tonight then maybe we could…”
“I stopped at the market and bought my dinner already,” Nicki said, cutting her off.
Taryn could feel her stomach sinking a little. In an odd way, she felt like she’d just been turned down for a date. Embarrassed for putting herself out there and being rejected, she started to backtrack but then Nicki interrupted her.
“No, I just meant that I’d bought these chicken Kiev’s, you see, and thought perhaps we could share them. I couldn’t possibly eat them all alone.”
Now Taryn felt childish for feeling rejected just seconds earlier. “That sounds great,” she replied. “I’ll find you in the kitchen this evening.”
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 8