The Haunting of Lady Sophie

by Marly Mathews

  “He is my divined love match,” she said sighing, realizing that their memories would not have been restored like hers were. “And besides, who is going to tattletale on us? Anyone who lives on the Isle is completely loyal to our family! And as he is my match, Mama and Papa wouldn’t mind.”

  “Ah, well. That does put a bit of a different spin on it,” Trevelyan said. “Regardless, I do believe we should all go inside and get some sleep. The two of you shall be in different bedchambers, and I shall make sure of it. I shan’t have Mama telling me I didn’t do my duty as your brother.”

  “I am her brother as well, and the eldest son, so I think I should be taking Sophie into hand,” Arthur stated.

  “What are the two of you blathering about?” Their aunts, Audrey and Kinsley finally made their appearance. Wearing their dressing gowns, and lacy nightcaps, they looked like they would rather be back tucked into their beds than traipsing around the castle grounds at this ungodly hour!

  “Come inside at once,” Aunt Audrey said. “There is something not quite right about tonight, and I would rather us all be tucked away safely in our beds within the protective enchantments the castle provides. I know the whole Isle is supposed to be a refuge for us Raynes, but something has pervaded its tranquility for the last three years, and I don’t know what it is. It is almost as if we have been invaded.”

  Sophie didn’t know what her aunt was going on about. All she felt was the sereneness of her home, and she could feel something else calling to her—another presence…was it Sylvie?

  “Sophie? Come along with us, you will sleep in the East Wing with us, and Lord Redding may sleep in the West Wing where the boys sleep.”

  “I have to start trying to reach out to her…” She shrugged off her Aunt Kinsley’s hand, and stepped back toward Rupert. “Tell them, Rupert. Tell them what we need to do!”

  “I have made you a promise, so I shall come through for you, Sophie, but right now, you are exhausted. You have had a day of hell already, you need to rest. I think allowing your aunts to take care of you is the best course of action right now. Everything will look much clearer come the morning. And they are right, we must be separated until we are legally wed. I don’t know if I trust the two of us if we are not in different wings of the castle.”

  *****

  Sophie’s emerald green eyes filled with doubt, and for a few moments, he believed she would turn against him, and rightfully so given what he had done to her in the past. He wanted to forge through and continue trying to free Sylvie but she was spent. He could see that in the way she carried herself. She needed sleep, and he would not push her to the point of becoming ill.

  “Sylvie needs your physical strength, Sophie. She needs you to be strong of mind, and of body, in order for your campaign to free her to work. And I should think you’d want her at our wedding, and for my part, darling, I don’t wish to wait long for that blessed day to arrive. I have been waiting three long years, sweetheart, and I don’t want to wait a day longer, but I shall if it means having you blissfully happy at our nuptials.

  “First, you should have this. It used to adorn your ring finger, and it should be back in its rightful place.” He produced the diamond and sapphire engagement ring.

  She smiled and held her hand out for it. “I wondered when you would present me with it…I missed it you know—even without knowing, I missed it warming my skin. Now, where is my gold locket?”

  His laughter rumbled around them, as he pulled out the gold locket to put around her neck. “They are both back where they belong,” he said, smiling.

  She levitated herself with her magic so she could kiss him lightly on the lips. He pulled her against him, and deepened the kiss, and they would have remained like that forever had they not been interrupted by both her brothers and her aunts sternly clearing their throats.

  “Come now, my little miss, you need a hot bath and then off to bed with you,” Audrey said, as she and Kinsley beckoned to them.

  Reluctantly, Sophie walked to them, and they put their arms around her and led her back into the castle.

  “So, I guess we are stuck with you, then,” Arthur muttered. “You can have the Ruby Bedchamber in the West Wing. It is close to ours, but not too close, and the best part is, it is far away from the Amethyst Bedchamber which is where our sister will be sleeping.”

  He liked the way they subtly told him where Sophie would be spending the rest of the night. He wasn’t going to visit her anyway. He wanted their first time together to be their wedding night, and he had been waiting this long for her—he could wait a little while longer.

  Besides, knowing her aunts as he did, one of them would probably be sleeping in Sophie’s bed next to her.

  Grinning, he looked up at the moon, and then at a falling star, as it streaked across the night sky.

  He already had his wish—he had Sophie back by his side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sophie woke up and carefully slid out of bed.

  Her Aunt Audrey was sleeping with her probably to make sure that Rupert didn’t slip in during the night. She walked to the window, and pulled aside the lavender coloured curtains to look out across the grounds.

  Dawn streaked across the sky, as she cautiously opened the window, she could hear the birds singing. Rain had to be on the way, for they were chirping too happily for it not to be.

  She inhaled the scent of summer. The flowers that were indigenous only to this island caught her eyes.

  The multi-hued dragon roses were in full bloom. The colours would change on them from day to day, and for that reason alone they had to employ gardeners who knew of their magical world.

  How she wished she could start reaching out to Sylvie, but her dreams told her to wait.

  The Dragonwyck Ruby might give her the magical boost she needed in order to successfully open a stable channel to Sylvie, and if her parents were on the way like she thought they were—her father would bring the Ruby with him. He never left it out of his watchful care.

  “Sophie?” her aunt asked sleepily.

  She turned around to look at her aunt. Her red hair was plaited, and her amber brown eyes were filled with worry.

  “It is all right, Aunt Audrey. I just felt restless, and I wanted to see the grounds under the fresh light of dawn.”

  Audrey smiled, snuggled back beneath the covers, and fell back asleep.

  “Sophie,” Sylvie’s voice whispered at her ear. She whirled around, hoping to catch a glimpse of her twin.

  Instead, empty air awaited her. She felt so alone.

  The castle was eerily devoid of all spiritual activity. The ghosts had abandoned her. Typically, they followed her back from town whenever she returned to the Isle.

  “How do I help you, Sylvie?” she whispered fervently. “What do I do? I don’t know how to make the potions you used to make. I never took an interest, and I have no idea if you used a spell and a potion to open the portal, or if you opened it out of sheer will. I just want to free you. I just want you back.” She stifled a cry in her throat, and wiped the hot tears off her cheeks.

  “Sophie, follow me,” Sylvie whispered. “Follow me, and I will show you the way.”

  Audrey’s loud snores filled the room.

  She saw a bright orb of light and started toward it, opening the bedchamber door when she had to. Walking down the dimly lit hallway, she continued her pursuit.

  Something niggled at the back of her mind. Something warned her. Something told her she was running toward danger, and yet, she didn’t care. She didn’t care because if the danger brought her closer to Sylvie than it would be all worth it. She would fight whatever force beckoned to her, and she would rescue her twin.

  *****

  Rupert sat upright in bed.

  Something unearthly had woken him. Sophie’s aunt had been right. Something wasn’t quite right about the Isle tonight—or rather, morning. He looked to the open window where rays of early morning sunlight sparkled through, dancing across th
e furniture.

  His instincts were rarely wrong when sensing an evil presence, and right now that presence wanted desperately to stir up trouble and it was strong. Stronger than anything else he had ever encountered.

  He moved over to his belongings, and pulled out the device that would hook up to the mirror in the room and open a communication channel to their HQ in London, where he would request a containment team. He didn’t know if he alone could fight the otherworldly force that had invaded the Isle.

  Had it always been here since Sylvie had been taken on that fateful night three years ago?

  He placed the device on the cheval mirror and waited for the channel to open. When nothing happened, he tapped the glass, and hoped that the magic in the device was just slow to respond.

  Still nothing happened. He stepped away from the mirror, as a ghostly skeletal hand reached out of it for him.

  “You are not going to take me that quickly,” he muttered. He threw an energy bolt at the mirror and gasped when it bounced off. He ducked, and it hit a vase behind him, smashing the thing into a million unrecognizable pieces.

  Mists swirled in the mirror and as they cleared, he saw numerous ghostly images. He only recognized two. One of them was male and the other female. He squinted, trying to make out their faces.

  “Damnation,” he muttered, as he recognized who they were.

  They were in deadly peril, more so, than he had initially thought. All he had to do was get to Sophie, her Aunt Audrey and her brother Trevelyan, and get them away from the rest of the people in the house.

  Sophie’s Aunt Kinsley wasn’t herself anymore. She had been possessed. For how long he had no idea. Her eldest brother, Arthur had also fallen victim to the dark entity that was ruling Castle Rayne. He had to figure out a way to vanquish it without harming the bodies of Sophie’s aunt and her brother. The servants were also compromised.

  He needed Sophie, and she needed him.

  *****

  Sophie followed the bright orb out onto the castle lawn. White mist swirled around her, and hit her body with the force of a brick wall. She screamed, as the foreign entity attempted to invade her body.

  She had to fight it—it was the only way! Pain seared through her body, paralyzing her limbs. Collapsing to her knees, she continued to fight what was attempting to push her spirit out of her body.

  From afar, she heard Rupert shouting to her. Trevelyan and Aunt Audrey’s voices joined Rupert’s.

  They were begging her not to give up.

  “Sylvie,” she rasped. She fell to her back so she was laying staring up at the sky. Images swam before her eyes. Images of another time, and another place…another world—a world so very different from their own.

  Kingdoms laid out before her. Kingdoms filled with untold riches, and magic the likes of which she had never dreamt of. The magic kind lived in the open, they flaunted their powers…they reveled in it!

  The subjects were of the magic kind, and the shifter kind—and the shifters had their own kind of special magic. It was almost too much for her to cope with. How Princess Sophie could have ever left such a beautiful place was beyond her reckoning.

  “Leave your body, you little bitch! I need it to open the gateway back to my own world. I have existed on this dreary planet for far too long! I want to return to the world where I was born. I want to breathe the fresh air of my homeland. I want to see my subjects bow down to me, and know that I am the greatest ruler they will ever have! I need to return to it, and I need your power to do it!”

  The unsettling voice made her heart race. It wasn’t male or female—it was darkness.

  It was sheer evil.

  “Your insipid ancestor thought she destroyed me. She was wrong. I can’t be stopped. No one can possibly hope to vanquish me! I have your twin, I have your aunt, I have your brother Arthur, and now I need you. They all have the same talents you possess…though yours isn’t locked away as theirs is. No, you are in full control of being a Traveler—just like Sylvie was.”

  “I am only a Soul Seer, a Soul Protector—I do not know what a Traveler is,” she said, desperately attempting to push the force out of her body.

  “A Traveler, you stupid little bitch, is what you are. You can open pockets through time and space. You can open a portal to Carn Brea. Sylvie thought she could, but she wasn’t strong enough to do it alone. The two of you can do it together. I shall have to release her from her icy prison, and if I don’t have enough power with the two of you, you can release the potential found within your aunt and your brother.

  “All this time, you thought that there was a dark entity that blocked you from entering Carn Brea. Oh, how wrong you all were. I don’t want to keep you all from accessing the portal that will lead back to the land of my birth, I want you to open it so I can travel through it! A magic of great good blocks me from returning without your help—so you shall give it to me! I will go to any lengths to persuade you.

  “Your aunt and your brother still fight me as we speak, you know. They are trying to free themselves from the prison I put them in, but they won’t. They have Earthly blood running through them, they are not as strong as they should be. They are not as strong as I am! You, however, hold the same magical potential as someone that was born on Carn Brea. I don’t know why—but I know you will do what I need you to do. If you don’t, I will kill your precious Sylvie. I have cursed all in your line that have the same talents, hoping that one day someone like you would be born and here you are. You fell right into my trap, Sophie.”

  “You are without a physical body. How do you expect to enjoy your life back in Carn Brea?” she asked.

  “My followers and I have resided deep inside of our victims since Princess Sophie destroyed our physical bodies. We do quite well inside of them, and we shall continue to do so when we return. Kinsley and the old cook that my two lovers inhabit, are a bit old for the likings of their tastes. They also want to be male again, but your lover and Lord Templeton should suit them just fine. Lord Templeton will come with your family when they return to the Isle. My spy tells me he is planning on making the trip with your dear family as he has quite a thing for Lady Alexandra. I can’t take your other brother for Wolfram, as I intend to take your body, and even we wouldn’t think of taking part in that kind of a relationship. We will go back to Carn Brea, and rule over Tamar just like we always should have done.”

  “Why didn’t you enact your devious plans three years ago when you took Sylvie?” Sophie asked.

  “Sylvie was the bait. We would have had you, except your beloved brought reinforcements with him and we could not hope to stand against that many magically talented men and women. The MIA can’t stop us now!”

  *****

  “There must be something we can do for her,” Trevelyan said, leaning toward her.

  “Don’t touch her! In this state you could be killed!” Rupert warned.

  Shocked, Trevelyan carefully stepped back.

  “So how are we going to free her from it?” Audrey asked.

  “I am debating that issue right now. My true love’s kiss might help us. Oh, hell, I don’t know. I could be killed when I kiss her. I have never been in this situation before. What we need, is to free your aunt and your brother. How do the two of you feel about smashing every single mirror in the castle?”

  Trevelyan eyed him warily, and Audrey sighed heavily.

  “Please, don’t tell me the two of you are superstitious,” he sighed loudly.

  “Not really—but I am afraid of what Mama will do when she sees all of her precious looking glasses smashed to smithereens. She has quite the temper on her when riled, you know.”

  “I do wish to destroy such things of beauty,” Audrey stated.

  “We shall explain to her why you did it. Don’t use your magic, or your hands to break it. You will need something made of iron to do the deed.”

  “I shall fetch the horseshoe from my Aunt Alby’s room. And don’t ask me why she has one. I think she believe
d they would bring her luck,” Trevelyan surmised.

  “Or protect her from evil,” Rupert said. “It didn’t actually work in this case but probably because evil kept itself well disguised. I wouldn’t go back inside unless you’re carrying the horseshoe already. Go to the stables and grab what the two of you need. I am sure there are other tools there that will do the job.”

  “And what do we do once we break all of the mirrors?” Trevelyan asked.

  “Hope to God that they release the spirits of your brother and your aunt, and give us a little more magical ammunition at our fingertips. If your parents are traveling by non-magical means it’s going to take them a while to get here, as they will be traveling by train and then by ferry.”

  “Why didn’t these wicked poltergeists take us?” Audrey asked.

  “Either you are both immune, or they didn’t want you.”

  Trevelyan and Audrey sighed at the same time. “Well, we had better go back inside and hope we don’t come into contact with any of the possessed, until we shatter some glass. Redding?” Audrey asked.

  “Aye,” he said.

  “Do you think they had something to do with the disappearance of my sister? If there is any way to get her back—“

  “I don’t know. Let us hope that Sophie will have some news for us when she comes out of the state she is in.”

  “And Sylvie?” Trevelyan asked softly.

  “Trevelyan, please go with your aunt and break the mirrors.”

  “I had better not get over one-hundred years bad luck for this! And Simone will be pissed. She loves her mirrors,” Trevelyan muttered, as they walked away.

  *****

  “The MIA might not be able to stop you, but I will not allow your evil ways to continue!” Sophie cried.

  “You need to keep your thoughts to yourself, Lady Sophie,” the evil entity said. “We are already winning, and we will emerge victorious when you open the portal back to Carn Brea. With the things we have learned here, it won’t take us long to conquer our old kingdom.”

  “You have lived a half-life for over two-hundred years. Princess Sophie stopped you once before, and I will stop you this time around. I am her namesake. I will live up to the Dragonwyck Legacy!”