Chapter Thirty-Eight
TARYN AWOKE TO THE SOUNDS of footsteps racing up the stairs. She could hear Joanna’s frazzled voice coming down the hallway but couldn’t make sense of what was being said.
When the pounding came on her door, she gave Shawn a shake. “Someone’s here,” she whispered.
It was seven in the morning.
Taryn opened the door to find the police officers standing before her, arms crossed in front of their chests.
“I told them you’re a dear and wouldn’t hurt a flea,” Joanna spat. “But would they listen to me?”
“Taryn Magill, you’re under arrest for the murder of Paul Chilton.”
Taryn thought she might just pass out. “What? Why?”
“There’s a picture the plumber took of the house right before,” Joanna called out. “They think it’s you standing behind him.”
“I wasn’t here!” she protested. But the officers already had her by the elbows and were leading her downstairs.
“Shawn,” Taryn called out behind her. “Find my phone! Call Matt!”
“I’m on it,” he replied. “And I’ll be down there with you!”
Although she was scared out of her mind, she was also angry as they marched her down the stairs and steered her towards the door. “I can’t believe this,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Of all the stupid…”
“What’s all this about then?” Miriam appeared in the doorway, dark sunglasses and light tan.
“They think I killed Paul,” Taryn replied.
“My God, when?”
“They don’t believe that I left with you to Glastonbury when I did,” Taryn said.
“We’ve been trying hard to get in touch with you,” Joanna said.
“I texted Paul, didn’t I?” Miriam said. “Told him my cousins and I were going on a short holiday to Ibiza.”
“He was already dead by then,” Taryn said.
“I’m sorry but I left my phone behind. Who wants it on holiday?” Miriam stood in the doorway, blocking their exit. The officers had to stop in the foyer. “Did you not even check his phone for my messages?”
Nobody had an answer for that.
Now Miriam sighed and began digging into her purse. “Here, hold this,” she instructed the older officer. He waited patiently while she piled his hands full of lipstick tubes, hand lotion, loose change, and even a tampon. When she at last located her phone, she shoved everything else back into her purse again. “Thanks love.”
They waited again while she flipped through her phone. “Look,” she said, pointing to the screen. “I took this of Taryn on the way. It’s timestamped and everything.”
“It’s a picture of her with a sheep,” the younger officer said.
“I like sheep and that one was in the road,” Taryn replied defensively.
“And here she is in Bristol. At 8:00 pm at night.”
“The same time he died,” Taryn offered to the police.
She suddenly felt their hands loosen on her arms.
“I’ve got a few others,” Miriam said. “If you want to see them.”
The officers looked shamed and embarrassed.
“Besides,” Miriam continued. “You did know that poor Paul had a weak heart, yes? I am sure it’s on his employment application in his files. He went to Manchester to see a specialist once a year. Always put him in the worst of moods.”
“We, um, did know that,” the younger one coughed. “But the death certificate says-“
“Oh, I am sure I know what it says,” Miriam said. “But if you do an autopsy you’ll probably find that cause of death was a heart attack. He was dead before he hit the ground. Paul didn’t think he’d live to the end of the year.”
One officer looked at the other, both of their faces as red as tomatoes. “We, um, need to return to the station. We’ll be in touch.”
They were out the door before anyone could utter another sound. “Bloody hell,” Miriam gasped when they were gone. “The whole place just falls apart when I’m gone.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
PALE AND WEAK, BUT STEADILY regaining her health, Nicki sat on a settee in the Morning Room next to Taryn. Taryn had been babying her all morning, fixing her a terrible cup of tea, trying to make her comfortable by constantly fluffing her pillows and draping blankets across her lap. Nicki had politely put up with it all. Shawn sat across the room from them. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Nicki since she’d walked through the door. Miriam was cross-legged on the floor, her short brown hair a shiny cap on her head.
“So what’s this all about then?”
Taryn and Shawn slowly walked them through what they’d learned. The pregnancy, the poisoning, the murder of the little servant girl, Iona’s self-defense. Taryn talked of the literal writing on the wall in the special room, seeing the Holy Grail, and of the other spirits she’d encountered.
She also relayed the conversation she’d had with Chris that afternoon.
“I just wanted to let you know that I was able to research Amlodd in Somerset,” Chris had told her through the phone. “He died a wealthy man, apparently. No other heir, no trouble with the inheritance. When he was gone, the money automatically went to a distant relative.”
The claims of illegitimacy had been a lie, one probably made up to shame his memory.
“Did Garym love her and want her for himself?” Nicki-the-romantic asked.
“Was she going to let him go and he wasn’t afraid he wouldn’t find another job?” Miriam asked.
“Unfortunately, we will probably never know these things,” Taryn said sadly. “But from my dreams I suspect that there was blackmailing going on. Perhaps he knew something about her and was threatening to go to the village and turn her in for murder or witchcraft.”
“Morgana on the wall,” Nicki said. “As in Morgan le Fey?”
“Could have just been someone with graffiti,” Shawn offered.
“Morgaine was also accused of witchcraft, was turned into the anti-heroine of the King Arthur series,” Taryn pointed out. “Who’s to say she didn’t start off as a healer, too, and that over the years the story just changed?”
“What if Iona was Morgaine?” Nicki asked breathlessly.
“The story isn’t old enough,” Shawn argued. “The King Arthur story has been around much longer than the eighteenth century.”
“It’s a legend,” Taryn said, “perhaps it’s changed over the years as well. It might very well be based on real people.”
“You two are thinking too literal,” Nicki said. “What about reincarnation? What if all the people in that story were reincarnated of the originals? Heck, what if we are!”
“What do you mean?” Taryn asked.
“You have the woman who can do magic,” Nicki said, pointing at Taryn.
“The Lady of the Lake here who takes care of everything,” she gestured to Miriam.
“The free-spirited prince?” Taryn giggled, looking at Shawn.
“History repeats itself, that’s all I am saying,” Nicki huffed.
“We do have the Holy Grail here at this house,” Taryn said. “It’s not a bad theory.”
“Mordred,” Miriam spoke up at last. Her voice was quiet but when she spoke they all turned and looked at her.
“What?” Shawn asked.
“Garym’s middle name. I saw it on a record of the house. It was Mordred,” she said again.
Taryn looked at Nicki, eyes raised. “The man who brought down King Arthur.”
“Amlodd, Arthur’s grandfather.” Shawn said at last. “Hell, what kind of place are we staying at anyway?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Taryn said.
***
Miriam entered Taryn’s room and closed the door behind her. “You wanted to see me?” she asked.
Taryn nodded and gestured to the bed. “I want you to see something,” she said.
When Miriam was settled, Taryn brought over her laptop and turned it on. They brought th
eir heads together close to the screen and waited.
“Iona wasn’t killing people,” Taryn began. “She was helping them reach their deaths.”
“What?” Miriam asked, confused. “Like killing them because they were in pain?”
“No,” Taryn explained, “people who were about to die or already sick were drawn to this place. It’s like the halfway house between life and death. Iona was the caretaker. She made their passing easier. They found comfort here and felt safe to travel on to the afterlife. They didn’t come here and get sick, they were drawn here because something inside of them already knew they were sick.”
Miriam’s eyes grew large and wide. “So Iona was…”
“Their caretaker,” Taryn finished. “She didn’t kill them, she cared for them.”
She showed Miriam the picture now, the other picture that nobody else had seen.
Iona standing at the top of their staircase in her gray dress and cloak, her black hair spilling around her. Only, in this picture, she was gazing straight at Taryn. Her arms were cast wide open in welcome. An extraordinary light shone down upon her face, something warm and inviting that had made Taryn want to rush into her arms. A maternal smile on her face.
“Is that the face of a witch?” Taryn asked.
But Miriam was touching the screen, running her finger over the other woman’s face. “She’s an angel,” she sighed. “That’s what she is.”
“Maybe that’s what some people would call her,” Taryn agreed. “But she wasn’t the only one.”
Miriam looked up at her. Tears were running down her cheeks. “What do you mean?”
“Her mother before her was the same. And I imagine the mother before that. They were all caretakers. All the women who came before,” Taryn smiled. “And all the ones who came after.”
“But Iona didn’t have any children,” Miriam started to protest and then remembered. “But then who raised her? Who took her in and-“
“Anwen,” Taryn replied softly.
“But,” Miriam objected. “Anwen is my…”
“Great grandmother. Times three or four,” Taryn replied.
“I’m the caretaker,” Miriam said in wonderment.
“It’s why you can’t leave. Why you feel like you have to stay. People are drawn to this place but you’re the one they need.”
“And Paul?”
Taryn sighed. “Maybe he felt it inside, knew that this place was never really his. Or if Nicki is right, maybe we all are just on one big loop. Perhaps he is Garym. Still carrying bitterness in his heart.”
When Miriam had left the room, still stunned and trying to digest what she had learned, Taryn fell back against her bed.
She had come to terms with the house being a safe haven, a place for people and animals to quietly and peacefully pass over to the other side from. Had come to terms with the fact that Iona, and all those women before and after, were caretakers of those on earth who needed guidance.
What she hadn’t yet come to terms with was the fact that she, Taryn Magill, had been compelled to come to Ceredigion House herself. Just like the others.
Chapter Forty
TARYN TOOK ANOTHER LOOK at her temporary home for the past three months and sighed. It was over. Life went on. Wales would have to continue without her.
“Are you sitting gown?” Matt had asked her the night before. “I’m sending over some information for you.”
Taryn had been ready for it.
She had been prepared to learn what he shared with her, there was no shock involved. She did find herself smiling with acceptance, though.
Of course her family was from Cardiganshire. Or course they’d come from Lampeter and nearby Aberaeron. She had this land in her blood; she’d known it all along. A direct descendent of Anwen Evans. She and Miriam were cousins, in a sense.
Everything is connected, Taryn thought to herself. There’s no such things as coincidence.
Had Iona brought her there to put the story together? To help prove her innocence? Iona’s life, like the story of King Arthur, was the stuff of legends. Reality had been altered and changed over the decades and centuries, retold by those with other agendas, those that didn’t know or understand. What was left was only tiny slivers of fragments of the truth. Taryn couldn’t tell them how she knew what really happened but she could start telling a different story. Chris at the university would tell it, too, as would Miriam and Shawn and Nicky. In time, as legends do, the legend would change. People would no longer remember Iona as a witch that had killed those around her and cursed her land upon death; they’d remember her as a great healer, a young woman executed under falsehoods.
Taryn had done her job; chapter closed.
***
“Are you sure you can’t stay here longer?” Nicki complained.
“Look, I came for a month, tops, and have been here ninety days,” Taryn laughed. “They’re going to kick me out of your country now.”
“But you’ll come back and visit, right?”
Taryn nodded. “And I see Shawn found the loophole.”
“Hey, I am a bona fide college student,” he smirked.
“With a bona fide student visa,” Taryn laughed.
There was no way he was leaving Nicki. They’d have to drag him kicking and screaming out of Wales and then he’d still find a way back in.
They walked her down the stairs, Shawn carrying both her suitcases. Miriam was driving her to Aberystwyth where she’d catch the train for Manchester. She couldn’t believe that, this time tomorrow, she’d be back in Nashville.
She felt like she was leaving her life behind.
When Taryn heard a sniff beside her, she looked over and saw Nicki trying to wipe away tears. “Aw, dude,” Taryn laughed. She put her arm around her and gave her a hug right there on the stairs.
“I can’t help it,” Nicki cried. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
“And you’re mine, too,” Taryn replied. And she couldn’t believe that it was true, that she had found a close friend on the other side of the world. Nicki was more than just a friend, however. She was a soul mate.
Taryn knew, in her heart, that she loved Matt not for who he was but for what he had done for her. She wasn’t even entirely convinced that it wasn’t the same for Andrew. When Nicki had gotten hurt, however, and was in the hospital Taryn had been gutted. She had realized then how much she loved the other woman, and not for what she did for Taryn but for who she was. And Taryn thought she could say the same about Shawn.
Once you knew the difference, it was hard to go back.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Taryn hesitated. “I’m giving up my apartment. I already gave notice. I’ve decided to move to New Hampshire, get my aunt’s house in shape. And then, I don’t know, maybe I’ll pull a Shawn and come back as a student.”
“That’s a big risk,” Shawn said approvingly. “Good for you.”
“I learned something,” Taryn said. “I haven’t committed to Matt because I was afraid I’d be missing out on something else. But I haven’t left him because I’m afraid I will be missing out on him. The same goes for Nashville and why I haven’t left. It’s time to stop living in fear. So, this is my first step.”
Nicki came forward again and gave her another hug.
“Listen, I want to go say good bye to the Music Room again, okay?” Taryn said. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked down the corridor for the last time, taking in all the improvements that had been made over the past month. It was already looking better; she hated that she wouldn’t be around to see it in its full glory again.
Taryn stopped in the doorway and took in the room before her. She would miss it most of all, miss the music and happiness that it had brought. Sighing, she lifted Miss Dixie and snapped one last picture.
This time, Taryn was not surprised to see the two figures embracing in the middle of the floor. The woman in the long, gray cloak, her black hair flying around her as the m
an led her into a waltz. Her stomach swollen with a child and her face alight with the most beautiful, unnatural light Taryn had ever seen.
Author’s Notes
Ceredigion House is NOT a real place. However, it is strongly based on Nanteos Mansion outside of Aberystwyth, Wales. My husband and I have spent quite a bit of time there, thanks to its former caretaker Paul. (Who, by the way, is absolutely nothing like the character in this book.) Nanteos really does have a Holy Grail legend attached to it, as well as a “Grey Lady.” My stories surrounding these things are entirely fiction, however.
The town of Lampeter is real. I received a MA in Religious Experience from it. It’s where I was living when I met my English husband.
I borrowed my friends’ names for certain characters in this book. Thank you to student union employ Miriam Ifans for letting me steal hers. I would also like to thank Chris, Miranda, Malin, Nicky, Edward, and Iona Evans for either letting me steal their names or inspiring certain characters throughout the story.
Glastonbury, of course, is a real place. I really did stay in a hostel there and we really did watch “Rosemary’s Baby” and then walk up the Tor at midnight. It was during Halloween, though, and not in the springtime.
This entire story is fiction. Characters are made up. The main storyline of the caretaker, however, is an old legend that has been passed around in many incarnations.
Rebecca and Nicky, 2005
About the Author
Rebecca Patrick-Howard is the author of several books including the paranormal mystery series Taryn’s Camera. She lives in eastern Kentucky with her husband and two children. To order copies of ALL of Rebecca’s books, including autographed paperbacks, visit her website at:
www.rebeccaphoward.net
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 21