Still, Isla forced herself to press on through the shop, testing herself. Where exactly was that butcher's block? And how far then until the Louis dressing table? She made it through to the back of the shop, grazing her hip on the wall as she passed through the curtain. How did Ethan manage to navigate Rosehill? And why bother, when he could live somewhere smaller...easier...less remote?
A low scraping noise sent Isla’s heart leaping into her throat. She stilled, straining her eyes into the back of the shop, trying to distinguish the shades of grey from one another.
What was that in the chair?
Isla gasped as it rose, unfolding into an unmistakably human shape. Her blood froze in her veins. Someone had been sitting in the dark...waiting for her.
*
The bulb above Isla’s head flickered to life, and she blinked furiously, momentarily dazzled. The room slowly came back into focus along with the figure standing opposite Isla, with one hand on the light switch.
“Tim?” Isla gaped. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.” His eyes were bloodshot, his blue shirt rumpled. Isla’s gaze flickered to the table, where a half-empty bottle of wine stood beside a pair of aquamarine Victorian wine glasses.
“But...why?” Isla turned back to Tim in time to see a flush creep up his neck.
“The weather was bad. I wanted to make sure you got back okay.” He straightened his glasses.
Isla’s eyes narrowed. “By scaring the life out of me? Jesus, Tim, I nearly had a cardiac arrest. Why were you sitting in the dark like a serial killer?”
He had the grace to look sheepish at least. “I must have dozed off…I didn’t hear your car round the back.” Tim frowned.
“No, well...you wouldn’t. I got a lift.”
Tim’s thick eyebrows raised, and for a minute Isla was reminded of Len. But Len had never scared her half to death in some misguided attempt to be chivalrous.
“From who?” His voice sounded strange.
Isla was about to tell him about the storm, and the whisky, and Ethan, but she hesitated. Why was she explaining herself to Tim?
Isla tilted her head. “Why do you care?”
Tim flinched, though she hadn’t said it aggressively. “Because I care about you. You’re like a sister to me, Isla-” he broke off suddenly and looked away.
“Tim, I’m twenty-six. Even if I was your sister - which I’m not - I don’t need you checking up on me.”
Tim didn’t respond or even look at her. He was staring at the wine glasses on the table as if they were suddenly the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
“I’m going upstairs now,” Isla said. “Can you lock up, when you leave?”
Tim grunted, and she decided to take it as an agreement. Isla moved towards the staircase.
“Take care, Isla.”
She paused, on the bottom step and turned to Tim. His eyes raked over her, and Isla fought off a shiver. Was that supposed to be a farewell...or a warning?
“Goodnight Tim.”
Isla felt his eyes on her as she climbed the staircase to her front door. Once inside, she flicked the latch and drew the chain across. Her hands were shaking, Isla realised, and she clenched them into fists at her sides, and stared at the locked door, listening for the sound of Tim leaving.
Eventually, she heard the bell above the shop door, and the bang of it closing, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.
Feeling lightheaded, Isla flopped down onto the worn, lumpy sofa rubbed her hands over her arms, as if she could brush off Tim’s gaze.
There had been nothing brotherly about it, at all.
Ten
He was flying through the air, free-falling at a gut-churning speed, hurtling towards oblivion. His body slammed against the ground, knocking the air from his lungs, and his world turned black.
Ethan woke drenched in sweat, the bedsheets twisted around his legs, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
“Fuck.”
He kicked the covers away, and cool air hit his body making goose pimples erupt across his skin. He dragged himself into a sitting position at the head of the bed and pressed his watch: 1.45 pm. Another morning gone.
He’d gone down to the cellar the minute she’d left last night, but even down there he’d been able to hear the thrashing of the rain and the wind chasing itself around the walls of the castle.
Ethan had taken his frustration out on the punch bag and reopened the wound on his palm, but even the hot, throbbing pain of the stitches pulling apart hadn’t been enough to distract him from the needling in his gut. He should have insisted she stay. She should never have come. He’d said too much...or not enough. His conscience had plagued him long into the night, and it had been dawn when he’d finally felt himself dozing.
Well, he was wide awake now.
Ethan shivered and crossed the floor to the window. It was raining again, but the storm had passed. Ethan listened to the soft thump of raindrops against the ivy leaves beneath his window, as remnants of the nightmare rattled around his head.
A flare of headlights, the screech of metal on metal, even the bitter tang of blood in his mouth…
No, wait...that was real. He must have bitten his tongue. Ethan wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and pulled the window closed with a bang.
That’s when he heard it. Somewhere in the house, someone was playing music. And not just any music. Ethan’s entire body went rigid at the sound of the familiar melody, and he fought back the memories crowding his mind, threatening to overwhelm him at any moment.
He yanked on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed his cane and followed the sound along the corridor, further into the west wing, the floorboards rough beneath his bare feet.
He tried to focus on the sensation, ground himself in reality, but already his throat was closing up. He swallowed hard, felt his adam’s apple bobbing. Just breathe...just…
His bow-tie was knotted too tightly, and he hooked one finger into his collar to loosen it. She looked sideways at him, from beneath thick, dark lashes, a half-smile dancing on her painted lips. Their knees knocked together in the cramped space between the seats, and blackness fell across the theatre.
Far below them, the curtain lifted, and a piano began to play…
Ethan paused outside the door. In the room beyond, the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was playing at full volume. He rested his head against the doorframe.
When the curtain lifted for the interval, she was gone. He followed the throng of people towards the bar, until a hand reached out of an alcove, grabbing a lapel of his tuxedo jacket.
‘What-’
‘Shhh!’ she held one finger up to her lips, her eyes dancing. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Ethan gritted his teeth and pushed the door open. Frigid air swirled around him. The record scratched, slicing through the melody, and the music cut off abruptly.
“Oh my god, you scared me half to death!”
Isla. Of course. Who else would it be?
The record went on spinning without the needle, filling the room with static.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I was just turning the music off.” Isla’s tone was defiant, but there was something else beneath it. Fear?
“You shouldn’t have put it on in the first place,” Ethan spat.
“Me? I didn’t put it on. I assumed you did.”
Ethan grasped at the reins of his temper, trying to restrain the tumult of emotion bubbling inside him. “Why would I do that?”
“I have no idea. But if you didn’t…” Isla’s voice wavered, “...then who?”
“There is no one else,” Ethan spoke between gritted teeth.
“Ryder?”
“He knows better.”
Ethan crossed the room carefully, using his cane to navigate the boxes of records that he knew were strewn across the floor, where they’d been dumped the day he’d mo
ved into Rosehill. He hadn’t touched them since. No one had...until now.
Ethan found the turntable switch and flicked it. The silence was deafening.
“I don’t appreciate being lied to.” Ethan snarled.
“And I don’t appreciate being accused of things I haven’t done.” Isla bit back. “Why would I put music on in a room I’m not even working in?”
“I don’t know, maybe the same reason you’d wander into someone’s bedroom uninvited?” Ethan arched an eyebrow.
Silence.
“That was a mistake.”
“So was this,” Ethan said icily.
“You honestly think that I would come in here - after I was explicitly warned not to - and out of the boxes of what - hundreds - of records, I’d pick this one out to play? As if working in this place isn’t creepy enough without having Beethoven wafting down the corridors?”
“You know classical music?” Surprise briefly overpowered Ethan’s anger.
“Not really, but everyone knows that piece, surely?”
Ethan turned away. His chest felt tight like his ribs were closing in. He took a long, slow breath through his nostrils.
“Leave.” Ethan’s voice sounded harsh even to him, but she didn’t move.
“I swear-”
“Just. Go.”
*
Isla marched down the corridor, angry tears pricking the backs of her eyes. How dare he insinuate she was lying? How dare he speak to her like that?
Isla had been set to ignore the music blaring from the west wing, and carry on with her work, but when the song had ended and then begun all over again, she’d been unable to push aside the feeling of unease growing in her stomach, and gone to investigate.
She’d known, the minute that she stepped into the room and saw the record spinning on the turntable, that Ethan would be irritated to find her in there, but she hadn’t expected him to react so strongly, so violently.
What was his problem anyway?
Whatever it was, he had no right to take it out on her. She was quitting. Tim could take the contract, and she would go back to working the counter at the shop, far away from cursed castles, haunted record players, and bad-tempered hermits.
In fact…Isla stopped in her tracks. She was going to tell him so herself. Before she could second-guess herself, Isla spun on her heel and marched back up the stairs and along the corridor, all set to give Ethan MacRae a piece of her mind.
Then she saw him through the gap in the door.
Ethan’s hands were braced on the table either side of the record player, his furious expression gone, replaced by a look of pure anguish. Isla hesitated in the doorway, the words she’d been so ready to say dissolving on her lips as she watched the sharp rise and fall of Ethan’s chest beneath his t-shirt. His fists clenched as he clearly tried to get a hold of whatever violent emotion held him in its grip, but to no avail.
A small sound escaped his throat, half growl and half sob, and Isla pushed away from the doorframe, and stumbled down the corridor, her anger shifting into something new and equally unwelcome- a strange sensation of guilt.
It was ridiculous, she knew. She hadn’t caused whatever pain Ethan was going through, and yet the feeling gnawed at her as she descended the staircase to the ground floor.
Ryder was in the entrance hall, shrugging his way out of a damp jacket, his pale hair darkened by rain. He looked over in surprise as Isla reached the bottom step.
“You didn’t hear the music,” Isla said. A statement, not a question. It was obvious he’d just arrived. But from where?
Ryder’s brow creased. “Music?”
Isla shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” But she had a feeling that wasn’t true. That it mattered very much. Why else would Ethan have reacted like that? And if he wasn’t lying, and Ryder honestly had just come in, then who was responsible?
“Where were you?” The question came out sharper than Isla intended, and she felt a flush creep over her cheeks.
Ryder had the grace not to look affronted by her questioning. “Ethan asked me to take a look at the old groundskeeper’s cottage.”
An image flashed before Isla’s eyes and she fought off the shiver starting in the base of her spine. “And did you find anything?”
Ryder’s eyes flickered away. “No. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.”
Isla frowned. “Aside from the dead rabbits, you mean?”
Ryder scratched the back of his neck and looked back at her. “No, I mean- there wasn’t anything, at all. The table was empty, Isla. Just like the rest of the cottage.” His tone was almost apologetic as if he was delivering bad news.
“But that doesn’t- I mean, that can’t be- are you sure?” Isla searched his face for a hint of a lie but found nothing. But then, why would he?
“Maybe it was a trick of the light, maybe they weren’t dead at all, and found their way out…”
“I know what I saw,” she snapped.
Ryder held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, I believe you.”
But he didn’t. She could tell.
Isla marched away, towards the study, not bothering to check if Ryder was following. She was done. With this place, with him, with all of it.
He did follow her though, and settled into one of the armchairs, as she bustled around the desk. Isla avoided his eye as she packed away her camera, and gathered up her bag, then she stood up, facing him at last.
“My colleague will be back on Monday to continue where I left off.”
“Your colleague?” Ryder’s confusion was clear, and again Isla felt a stab of misplaced guilt.
This wasn’t her fault...but then it wasn’t his either.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I just...I can’t work here.” With him, she added silently.
“I understand.”
Of course he did. Ryder’s words from the night before flashed through her mind: ‘I knew what it was like to have people walk away from you at your lowest point…’ But Ryder hadn’t walked away, he’d stayed.
Isla’s gaze fell on the open file on the coffee table, trailing over the sheets of handwritten notes and loose newspaper clippings strewn across its surface.
“What’s all that?” She moved closer, curiosity getting the better of her.
“Oh, just something a local historian gave me.”
Isla was close enough to see the headlines on a couple of the articles now. “This is all about the castle, about its past...” she murmured.
Ryder nodded and gestured for her to sit.
Isla slid automatically into the armchair opposite, thoughts of mutilated rabbits and ghostly record players momentarily pushed to the back of her mind.
“I got it out to show you,” Ryder said. “After the other night- with the poison bottle…”
He shuffled the papers together and slotted them back into the folder, which bulged at the seams. “Names, dates, details…it’s all in here. I thought you might find it interesting.” He held it out to her.
Isla hesitated a fraction of a second. She was leaving, and she wasn’t coming back. It didn’t matter how interesting the contents of that file were, they had no relevance to her.
Ryder caught her eye, his expression held something Isla couldn’t refuse- the hint of a dare.
She sighed and took the file from his hand, noticing as she did, the title scrawled across the front: ‘The Curse of Rosehill Hall’.
“You don’t really believe it, do you?” Isla traced one finger over the lettering and looked up at Ryder. He held her gaze for a moment, before looking away.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
*
“What’s all this then?” Len gestured to the countertop, not one inch of which was currently visible beneath all the papers Isla had spread across its surface.
“Oh, just some information I thought might be relevant.” Isla shrugged.
“And is it?” Len adjusted his glasses and leant over one of the newspaper cuttings.
The headline read ‘Sudden death of bride-to-be at Rosehill Hall’. He quirked one thick eyebrow.
“I’m not sure yet,” Isla said quietly.
Len pushed his glasses onto his head and levelled his watery blue eyes at Isla. “I don’t expect miracles, my girl.”
“What do you mean?” Isla frowned at him.
“Just that I appreciate you being thorough, but if there’s nothing in there of value - be it financial, or historic, or otherwise - that’s not on you. It is what it is. You’re not going to disappoint me, Isla.”
A lump was forming in Isla’s throat. She swallowed hard. “Thanks, Len. I appreciate that, but that’s not what this is about, honestly.” She gestured to the papers and clippings. “I’m just trying to...get a feel for the place, to understand it better.”
To understand Ethan better, you mean. Her conscience nagged at her, but Isla shoved the thought away.
“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it. Do you want me to lock up on my way out?”
“No, I can do it.”
“Don’t fall down a rabbit hole.” Len winked.
Isla smiled. “I won’t.”
The bell above the door signalled Len’s departure, and Isla went back to staring at the mass of papers spread out in front of her.
The truth was, she’d already fallen down the rabbit hole, and she had no idea how she was going to get back out...or what might be trapped in there with her.
Eleven
In all her time working at Parsons & Co, Isla had never been so grateful for the weekend.
She’d spent hours poring over the file Ryder had given her the night before, but all she’d found was decades of misery, as Ryder had warned, and not a single thing to explain how a pile of dead rabbits might have appeared and then promptly disappeared by themselves, or why Beethoven might suddenly have blasted from an empty room.
Because it was impossible, that’s why, her subconscious whispered.
Isla could feel her grip on reality sliding, questioning her own eyesight and memory. She needed to talk to someone before she lost the plot completely.
After a long soak in the bath, and a quick breakfast, she took the stairs down into the shop. The backroom was empty, but it wasn’t Len she wanted to see. Talking to either him or Tim about Rosehill was out of the question. Len would worry, and Tim would gloat. She needed someone unbiased, impartial.
Out of Sight Page 8