As he stood just outside the city, staring at something he couldn’t have imagined, something a mortal couldn’t imagine, he realized he was utterly alone. There were no people hurrying about, no carriages or wagons, no horses or drays, only himself. As if all the people had simply left.
He heard a woman’s laugh, deep and rich and terrifying because he knew the laugh wasn’t really a laugh, it was a promise of great violence and death and pleasure. He heard screams, and they were coming closer, and he knew, deep down, that soon he would be screaming too.
Grayson fell off the walkway onto his back in the thick tall grass. The grass rose above him, like waving arms all around him. He breathed in and began to choke. He couldn’t breathe, yet he tried and tried to suck in air. He was dying.
CHAPTER SIX
“Grayson! Wake up! You’re having a nightmare. Wake up! Grayson!”
He was gasping, choking. Was that Sinjun’s voice? She was shaking him, but still he couldn’t breathe. His chest was on fire, and he knew he was dying.
Sinjun slapped his face. “Grayson, open your eyes! Look at me. Can you understand me?”
Dying, dying, he was dying.
She slapped his face again, hard. He grabbed her wrist, pulled it down. He managed to open his eyes, blink up at her. He saw Colin running toward the bed, a scared maid behind him.
He thought his heart would pound right out of his chest. He whispered, his chest heaving, “I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know why, but I knew I was dying. My throat hurts.”
She immediately placed her palm on his forehead. “Are you ill?”
“No, no, it was something in the grass, I think, something that is poison to mortals.” He stopped cold, stared up at her.
Sinjun sat beside him and handed him a glass of water from the carafe. At first it hurt his throat to drink, and then it felt like he was being given life. When he handed back the empty glass, Sinjun took his hand between her two warm ones. Colin stood at her shoulder, looking down at him. “Your dream took you to a strange place?”
Grayson realized Colin had chosen his words very carefully. He nodded. “It was Border.” He realized it was early morning.
Colin said, “Alene said you were moaning and screaming, that she couldn’t awaken you.”
Grayson looked beyond Colin to the very young Alene, the daughter of the Kinross cook, and said simply, “Thank you.”
“Border?” Sinjun leaned closer. “Tell us about Border.”
Grayson told them about Pearlin’ Jane’s visit, her fear of Belzaria—yes, that was her name. Was she a demon escaped from this other realm, both in time and in place? He didn’t know. Jane had left him in a panic, leaving, oddly, her pearls hanging looped in the air. And then, in his dreams, he’d been whisked to Border. “I saw a city, like London, only it wasn’t.” He told them how the buildings were huge, that they leaned or curved oddly, described the animals he’d seen, and the tall grass. “And I heard her laughing from the tallest point of a castle that looked something like Warwick, but it wasn’t a laugh, Sinjun, it was a promise of violence and destruction.”
Sinjun said, “Do you think Jane brought you the dream?”
“I don’t think so. The woman laughing, I think it was Belzaria.”
“You never saw her?”
“No. You know what was truly terrifying? There were no people. This huge city with its massive buildings, but I saw no people.”
Colin said, “Do you remember anything more about your lost day?”
“Not yet.”
Colin didn’t like this otherworldly talk, didn’t like the gooseflesh raised on his arms, didn’t like the thought of curving buildings and no people, and a demon bent on no good. Pearlin’ Jane—surely she didn’t really exist, surely it was Sinjun’s imagination. And yet. He sighed, not knowing what to do, and the feeling of impotence drove him mad. He wanted to kick something.
He chanced to look down, and his heart seized. He stared, not wanting to believe what he saw, but there it was, sitting in the middle of the Aubusson carpet—a single large white pearl. His breathing hitched. He picked up the pearl and silently handed it to Sinjun.
Sinjun held the pearl in her palm, very real, that pearl, not a ghostly pearl with no substance, and it was warm. And where was the sense in that? She looked from Grayson to Colin. “This pearl must belong to Jane, but it’s a real pearl. How can a ghost wear a real pearl? Jane has never before lost one of her pearls. She’s very proud of each and every one of them. She told me once there were one hundred and eight pearls and she wore them all the time and thought of her revenge on that murdering wastrel.”
Grayson smiled. “A fitting revenge, forcing him to give her pearls to make her stop tormenting him.”
Colin said, “Supposedly he ran her over with his carriage nearly a hundred years ago. She should move along with her life—or her death—don’t you think?”
Grayson said, “Perhaps, but the Virgin Bride hasn’t moved along either. I asked her once why she stayed at Northcliffe Hall, but she had no answer, only shook her head. I don’t think she knew, only that she was meant to be there. I’ve researched it, and there are no records of her in our family history. So why is Pearlin’ Jane here? You told me records show that she was murdered near Inverness, yet Vere Castle is her home.”
“Yes, but whenever I’ve asked her in the past, she’d toss her head and tell me about the mischief Rory was causing at Oxford or how tightly Dahling pulls her corset.”
Sinjun gently laid the pearl atop one of Grayson’s handkerchiefs on the bedside table. “You know she will come for it. I hope she will see it here.”
And you expect this ghost to pick it up and restring it? But Colin didn’t say it aloud. Pearlin’ Jane couldn’t exist, she couldn’t, yet his heart was still pounding. That wretched pearl—where had it come from? He knew Sinjun didn’t own any pearls like that one. He’d held that pearl in his hand, felt its pulsing warmth. He looked from his wife to her nephew. They both treated this entire ghost business so matter-of-factly. It was enough to drive a sane, eminently reasonable, and intelligent man, daft.
Yet Grayson had believed he was choking to death, dying? Naught but a dream, he thought, naught but a powerful dream.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Day Two
To Grayson, breakfast in Scotland at Vere Castle meant a huge bowl of porridge with berries and the special heather honey from Sinjun’s bees, with a big knob of rich butter and a basket of scones set in the middle of the table, covered with a heavy linen napkin to keep them warm. He wasn’t disappointed.
He was spooning down his porridge, listening to his uncle Colin tell him about the new bell tower in the local church. He saw Sinjun was tapping her fingers. When Colin paused to take a bit of his own porridge, Sinjun said quickly, “I shan’t ask you again how you are feeling, Grayson—I do not wish you to throw your tea at me.”
He was grateful. The dream was still vivid in his mind, and when he swallowed, it still occasionally hurt.
She said, “I received a note a few minutes ago from our new neighbor, Lady Felicity Blackthorn. The MacNab boy, dressed in gold-and-dark-blue livery—her colors, he proudly told me—delivered it.” She added to Grayson, “She has purchased the MacKellar property, which is of great interest hereabouts since it is said to be cursed or haunted or both. Everyone has avoided the ruined manor house until she suddenly appeared on the scene and bought it.
“Colin, you were raised on tales of the MacKellars. Tell Grayson what supposedly happened there.”
Colin forked down a bite of haddock, grilled just the way he liked it. “Ah yes, a tale to keep children on a righteous path. It goes back much farther than even Pearlin’ Jane. Donnan MacKeller, a Campbell, built MacKellar Manor in 1720. But he ran out of money and was forced to wed a Macleod clan heiress.
“Donnan and his heiress wife had eight boys and two girls. Seven of the eight boys were killed in the rebellion in 1746, three of them at Culloden. As you know, t
he English retaliation under Cumberland was brutal. Entire families were butchered, people starved, crofts were razed, and the chieftains were all killed, their castles, if not destroyed, given over to King George II. It was a grim time all over Scotland.
“I tell you this because, oddly enough, the English army didn’t touch the MacKeller property. Nor was the property turned over to the English throne. It was kept in the MacKeller family. No one could call Donnan MacKeller a traitor when seven of his sons had lost their lives to the English. And so it remained a mystery.
“Calum MacKeller, the eldest and only surviving son, succeeded to the property ten years later when Donnan passed to the hereafter. He wedded well and prospered. One fateful night his young son fell off a balcony to his death. The wife blamed the husband for not making the appropriate repairs, though it was said that no repairs were needed. Calum was found dead one morning, stabbed twelve times. The wife disappeared, never to be seen again.
“The property was inherited by the eldest daughter, who never married. She sold the property some twenty years later. The new owners remained only a year. The children, three boys, were found dead at the base of the same second-floor balcony. It appeared all of them had simply climbed over the stone railing and jumped. There was no explanation, though people like to speculate that the ghost of the MacKeller son had lured them over the balcony to their deaths. The parents, devastated, simply left the manor, never to return.
“The manor was sold a decade later to an Englishman, a Colonel Farland. He and his wife had five strapping boys. All was well for five years. Then one morning, all five sons were found at the base of the balcony, dead, again, as if they’d all simply climbed over the stone railing and jumped. And the haunting curse went wild—all the dead children’s ghosts luring these five sons out to join them. The Farlands left, never to return. They did not sell the house.”
Grayson said, “Why did Farland ever buy the property? Surely he knew about the other children’s deaths, the rumors of the dead children drawing the living children to jump and join them?”
“It is said he laughed, called it nonsense. In any case, after the Farlands left, the house stood vacant for nearly thirty years, falling into ruin.
“A Lady Blackthorn bought the place seven months ago, and every available man in the district has been working to rebuild the manor to its former glory. Old Clyde, our local smithy, told me the cost could feed every crofter family for a year.”
Grayson said, “Perhaps she doesn’t know the tales about the house.”
Colin shook his head. “That would be the very first thing she’d hear, believe me. Everyone in these parts has dined out on MacKeller tales for years. Parents still threaten their boy children with a good hiding if they go anywhere near the manor house.”
Sinjun set down her teacup and leaned forward. “Lady Blackthorn has no children, nor is she married. So she must feel she is safe. I met her only once, two months ago, in Kinross. She’s not in her first youth, but she is still quite beautiful and ever so stylish, all the latest London fashions, incredible diamonds and rubies at her neck and ears. When I asked her why she’d come to Loch Leven, she laughed, said she fell in love with a painting of a manor house she’d seen in the Royal Academy in London and was told it was the MacKeller property here at Loch Leven. Then something rather strange happened.” Sinjun, a master of storytelling, paused, making both Colin and Grayson forget their porridge and lean toward her. “Our vicar, Charles Gordon, waved to me from across the main street at the draper’s shop. He was halfway across the road when out of nowhere came a carriage, going very fast. I nearly expired on the spot when Colin suddenly raced to him and managed to jerk him out of the way at the last minute. It was very frightening. Screams, yells, people running to help. I turned to see Lady Blackthorn staring at you, Colin.
“She nodded to me and said in a very pleasant voice, ‘Well, it was a close thing, but he managed it,’ and then she smiled and walked away to her own carriage. Colin, the look she sent you—if I’m not mistaken, and I never am about things like that—there was lust in her eyes. I didn’t realize that until later since I was too frightened for you at the time.”
Colin was shaking his head. “Forget that, Sinjun, she couldn’t have seen me clearly enough to even consider lust. Poor Vicar Gordon, he was stuttering he was so distressed. It was a very close thing, she was right about that. Thankfully, I did make it in time. As for the carriage, young Thomas Lamont was driving. He was babbling that he didn’t know what happened, the horses simply bolted and there was nothing he could do about it. No one believed him. His father, I believe, took a strap to him.”
“‘Well, it was a close thing, but he managed it,’” Grayson repeated. “Aunt Sinjun, Lady Blackthorn said that exactly?”
“Yes indeed,” Sinjun said, then looked thoughtful. “Looking back on it, I don’t think Lady Blackthorn was at all concerned. I know it sounds strange, but I would swear she looked like it was some sort of test.”
Colin waved his coffee cup at her. “Test? My dear, you really want to believe that Lady Blackthorn somehow whipped those horses up to run down the vicar? To see what would happen? To see if I would try to save the vicar? Come now, you always want to explain the simplest things as magical intervention.”
Sinjun wanted to tell him magic was all around them, but she only smiled. “I think she did it to see what you would do, Colin, to see if you were a hero.”
Grayson said, “Uncle Colin, how was it that you were close enough to the vicar to pull him out of the way of the horses?”
Colin frowned, drummed his long fingers on the white tablecloth. “I saw those horses, knew they’d crush the vicar, and I moved faster than I have in my life. Looking back on it, I’m surprised I got to him in time. For a moment, it didn’t seem possible.”
“But you managed it, didn’t you?” And you could have died, she thought, but she didn’t say it. Sinjun waved the letter. “The lady in question has invited us to a party tonight—to celebrate the rejuvenation of the MacKeller property, now to be known as Blackthorn Manor, so she writes to me. Tonight! And she is sending out her invitations this late? It’s very odd.” Sinjun shrugged. “Of course we must go. I imagine everyone in the neighborhood will be mad to go as well.”
Grayson said, “Blackthorn. I’ve never heard of any Blackthorn. I wonder who her antecedents are.”
Colin said, “Well, there was the prelate, name of Blackthorn. He founded Aberdeen University back in the fifteenth century. Maybe she hails from that Blackthorn. But the title? I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell me about Lady Blackthorn before?”
“I didn’t tell you, Colin, because I knew you’d laugh at me, but you must believe me.” She drew a deep breath. “There is something else. I remember you were staring back at her, just before the horses came around the corner.”
Colin looked at her blankly, then threw up his hands. “Come now, Sinjun, I never even noticed her. I have never met her. I have only seen her from a distance in Kinross.”
Sinjun and Grayson exchanged a look. She said, “Well, she certainly appears to remember you, my dear. In her very nice invitation, she specifically asks you to be present. It’s as if I’m invited only because I have to be, as your wife.”
Grayson took a final bite of his porridge and carefully laid his spoon beside the bowl. “Aunt Sinjun, when you reply, please tell her your nephew is visiting and would like to attend as well.”
“Oh, she mentions you are to come too, Grayson. She even wrote your name. She begs the honor of receiving a renowned author, namely yourself.”
Colin said, “It appears word travels very fast hereabouts.”
“Something travels very fast indeed,” Grayson said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Late morning
Colin and Grayson were in Colin’s estate room, Colin telling him about the success of the new farming implements now used by his crofters, when they leaped to their feet at Sinjun’s shout. They ran to
the drawing room to see Sinjun standing stock-still in the middle of the Aubusson carpet staring at the fireplace.
Colin was at her side in a moment, nearly stepping on the wreckage. “The portrait—what happened, Sinjun?”
Grayson couldn’t believe it. From his youngest years, he’d looked up at Pearlin’ Jane’s portrait hung above the grand fireplace in the salon. Now it lay on the floor, three huge tears in it, as if ripped by an animal’s claws. Pearlin’ Jane had told him the previous night that Belzaria would destroy her portrait.
Sinjun was shaking. “I hung that portrait there when I was eighteen, newly married to you. To thank Jane. That was what she wanted, to have her portrait hung next to her husband’s, that horrible man who’d murdered her. He’d taken her portrait down when he remarried. She said she wanted him to know she was back in her rightful place.”
Colin took her hands in his. “I thought you were in the lady’s parlor writing our acceptance to Lady Blackthorn.”
“I was,” Sinjun said. She stopped, shook her head. “I needed something from the marquetry table and—” She stopped cold, said in a whisper, “I can’t remember what it was, only that I needed it urgently, so I came in here to fetch whatever it was, and saw that.”
They watched in stunned silence as the portrait of Jane’s erstwhile murdering husband toppled to the floor to land on top of Jane’s.
Grayson said, matter-of-factly, “It appears Jane’s concerns weren’t imaginary. Is this Belzaria’s work, do you think?”
The Resident Evil at Blackthorn Manor (Kindle Single) (Grayson Sherbrooke's Otherworldly Adventures Book 2) Page 3