by Lila Dubois
“No. God protect him—please no.”
Feeling helpless, Sorcha backed up, watching in fear as he continued to rip apart the wall. He’d torn down more of the plasterboard and now once more took hold of the framing. With a roar of rage that seemed to shake the floor beneath her, Séan heaved and the wall came down. He must have pulled the wood frame free of its anchors, and without those there was nothing holding it to the stone. The whole wall fell. Séan jumped back just in time to avoid being pinned down. Dust was thick in the air, and Sorcha coughed, waving her hands in front of her face. As it settled, she saw, for the first time in years, what they’d covered up.
The stone wall that separated them from the lost space on the other side was battered—the blocks stained by fire, some crumbling. In the center of the wall was a recessed door. Or at least they’d assumed it was a door. The recess had been filled with bricks—much newer than the stones around them. The mortar was clumpy and uneven, as if it had been hastily done.
Sorcha closed her eyes, not wanting to see it. There was nothing good here, she knew it, could feel the sorrow and evil that leached into the air.
“Why?” she whispered. Séan didn’t answer, and she didn’t expect him to.
Pounding footsteps heralded the arrival of Elizabeth, Seamus and some of her staff. Sorcha shook herself from her horrified stupor and turned to meet them. She shooed Liam and Kristina Murray, a young married couple who lived in the cottage beside hers, away, asking Kristina, who worked for her in guest services, to close and lock the west wing, making sure no guests came here, and for Liam, a handyman and gardener, to find something to start cleaning this place up. More than anything, she simply wanted them away from this place.
When they were gone, after looking from Séan to the wall and back again, Sorcha herself turned to face the problem. The lights had dimmed to a sickly yellow, and a few were flickering. The dust closest to the floor wouldn’t settle and it obscured their feet like morning mist.
Seamus, the mysterious owner of Glenncailty, was at her side. Seamus’s family had owned the castle and much of the land in the glen for as long as anyone could remember. He was in his late thirties, with salt and pepper hair and piercing eyes. In all the years she’d worked for him, Sorcha had only spoken to him a few times.
“What happened?” he asked in a low voice.
“I saw Séan come this way and followed him. When I got here, he was punching and tearing at the wall. Then he grabbed the wood part and it all came down.”
As she spoke, Sorcha swiveled her eyes from Séan to Seamus and back again. Séan was, and had been since he managed to pull the wall down, standing perfectly still, as if he were a blood-and dust-covered statue.
“Had he said anything?”
“He told me not to interfere, in Irish.”
Seamus nodded once, though Sorcha didn’t know what the motion meant.
“This is…” Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “This is not good.”
Elizabeth’s English accent was more pronounced, a sure sign that she was stressed. A brilliant hotelier, she’d been the driving force behind much of Glenncailty’s renovations. She also adamantly denied that the castle was haunted. She’d said time and again that it was the overactive imagination and power of suggestion that led to the rumors of ghosts.
“It’s more than ‘not good,’ my dear,” Seamus said to her. “Séan is possessed.”
Sorcha closed her eyes. Seamus’s words didn’t surprise her—she’d known when she looked into those black, rage-filled eyes that she wasn’t looking at Séan, but hearing them said aloud somehow made it worse.
“Nonsense,” Elizabeth said, but her tone lacked the usual air of surety.
“Séan,” Seamus said.
There was no reaction.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” Before they could stop her, Elizabeth took a step forward and grabbed Séan’s arm. “Mr. Donnovan, I’m going to have to—”
Séan whirled on her. His eyes searched her face, his hands raised and reaching for her. “You’re English. Are you his wife? Did you come here to torture us?”
Seamus and Sorcha both leapt forward. Seamus grabbed Elizabeth, jerking her away from Séan. They stumbled, falling to the floor. Elizabeth’s eyes were huge.
Swallowing her fear, Sorcha stepped in front of Séan, her hands up. “Séan. It’s Sorcha. Séan, come back to me.”
She repeated the words over and over. Séan, it’s Sorcha, come back to me. She held her ground even when he stepped forward, even when he loomed over her, his black gaze seeming not to see her. With shaking fingers, she reached up to touch his face.
He blinked and his gaze focused—his eyes once more a pretty hazel. “Sorcha?”
“Séan.” She laughed lightly, relief making the sound watery with tears.
With a pop, all the lights in the hall went out. A wind whipped down the corridor, the air icy, stinging Sorcha through her clothes.
“Sorcha, run!” she heard Seamus shout.
Hands closed around her arms, digging in so hard that she cried out.
“Cuirfidh mé mo chlann sá talamh,” Séan screamed at her.
In her fear, it took her a moment to translate, and when she did, a whimper escaped her. He’d said, “I will bury my dead.”
The faint green glow from an emergency exit sign down by the stairs was the only illumination. She could barely make out Séan’s face—and his eyes, which were black pools. She’d brought him back for a moment, but he was gone again, lost to the rage that poured off of him in waves.
“Leave this place, your time here is done,” Seamus shouted, repeating himself in both English and Irish.
Séan released Sorcha, turning to the wall.
“Séan, no!” Sorcha cried, terrified. She knew, with a surety she couldn’t explain, that he shouldn’t touch that wall, that he shouldn’t reveal what was behind it.
Séan stooped and picked up a short length of wood, exposed nails sticking out. He slammed it into the brick, nails catching the clumps of mortar and ripping them out. The first brick fell, and the thing that was Séan roared in triumph.
Chapter 5
Rage and Dark
The crack of wood against brick was muted by the wind that still whipped down the hallway.
“Sorcha.” Seamus touched her elbow and she looked at him, the wind making the tracks of tears on her face cold as the grave. “We must go.”
“I won’t leave him.”
Seamus examined her face in the little light they had. “That’s not Séan, not anymore.”
“I won’t leave him.”
Light flooded the hall and Sorcha looked up, squinting to see Elizabeth holding a massive emergency light. With efficient movements, she set up the tripod stand, fastening the flood-lamp-style light on top. She must have grabbed it from the linen closet, where they also kept supplies for other emergencies like major power outages.
“We have to stop him,” Elizabeth said, voice calm and measured. She was a dusty mess, and her blonde hair, normally up in a neat bun, hung around her shoulders. Sorcha had to strain to hear her over the noise Séan was making.
“We cannot stop him, he’s possessed,” Seamus said.
“By what? A ghost? If it’s a ghost, shouldn’t we give it what it wants so it will—” Elizabeth waved one hand dismissively, “—go away?”
“Oh, so now you’re believing in the ghosts?” Seamus asked.
Sorcha ignored them, focusing on Séan. He had a few bricks out now, and she stepped to the side to see what lay beyond them. She sucked in a breath.
Wood. There was wood on the other side of the bricks. They’d been horrifyingly right. There was a door back there, a door that someone had bricked over, sealing in whatever was on the other side.
Séan was leaving trails of blood on everything he touched, and under the crack of his improvised hammer she could hear his panting. Whatever thing had possessed him was using him, and in the process hurting him.
She wouldn’t let it.
Taking careful steps, Sorcha walked across the fallen wall to where Séan stood. The closer she got, the larger and stronger he seemed. She was small and weak in comparison. She pushed back her fear, though it made her hands tremble.
“Séan,” she said, repeating his name in a low, even tone. He didn’t react.
Biting her lip, Sorcha mustered her courage, then reached up, touching the hand that held the piece of wood. His head swiveled to her. Instinct told her to keep her gaze on him, as if he was a wild animal. Ignoring that, she turned to the wall, reached out and grabbed a brick.
His arms lowered.
“I’ll help you,” she said. “We’ll all help you.” She tugged and pulled until the brick came free. “No more secrets.”
“The dead cannot rest.” And with that, Séan stumbled back, the wood dropping from his grip as he raised bloody hands to his head before sinking to his knees.
*
Séan gritted his teeth at the tremendous pain in his hands. Had he caught his hand in the belt of the harvester? But he hadn’t been farming—he’d been doing something, something he’d been meaning to do. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind, but he was having trouble focusing. His muscles ached, but the feeling was dull compared to the fiery pain in his hands and forearms.
“Séan?” A hand touched his shoulder.
“Sorcha?” He blinked, opening his eyes. What he saw didn’t lessen his confusion. The world around him was a mix of bright light and shadows and it seemed like he was in a construction zone. There were bits of wood on the floor in front of him, along with what looked like broken plaster boards.
Where were they? Had something happened?
“Sorcha, are you okay?” After a blinking a few more times, he was able to focus enough to make out her face, which was in shadow.
“Yes.” She let out a watery laugh. “I’m okay. Are you?”
“I don’t…remember.” Séan swallowed hard. His throat was raw too.
“You don’t remember anything?”
For a moment he felt angry, scared and relieved, but then the emotions dissipated. He tried to figure out why he’d feel those things, but he couldn’t find a reason.
“No. What happened?”
He’d been scared to look down at his hands, but now he did. He held them out to the side so they weren’t in the shadow of his body. His knuckles were torn, with bits of flesh peeled back and blood coated his hands and speckled his arms nearly up to his elbows.
“You…you tore down a wall.”
“What?” Séan searched Sorcha’s face, sure she must be joking, but not understanding why she would. “I don’t understand. Where are we?”
“We’re in the castle, in the west wing.”
“No.” Séan didn’t go in the west wing, not after what he’d seen there.
“I’m sorry, but that’s where we are.”
“How did we get here? Why are we here?”
“You were possessed,” a male voice said.
Séan whirled to see Seamus standing in a pool of shadow. The hall was lit by two bright floodlights. Seamus stood to the side of them, and next to him was a dusty and rumpled Elizabeth.
Séan put his hand down to push himself up, but pain had him jerking his hand back. Sorcha took his elbow and helped him stand. “What are you on about, Seamus?”
Seamus looked to Sorcha, and Séan shifted his focus to her too.
“I saw you walking across the hotel lobby. You seemed…off…so I followed you.” She stroked his arm as she spoke, as if she were gentling him.
Séan’s confusion was gone, to be replaced by real alarm. Something bad had happened—and he didn’t remember any of it.
“When I got here, you were banging on the wall, ripping it down with your bare hands.”
“What wall?”
All three of them looked behind Séan, and with a feeling of dread he too turned.
He was standing on the broken remains of a plaster wall. Where it had once stood was now old, battered stone. In the center was a patch of brick, a third of which was pulled out, creating a hole through which he could see a wood door beyond.
“Once you pulled down the wall,” Sorcha said, voice low and trembling, “you tore at the brick. You didn’t stop until I went to help you, and told you that we’d take it down, that there wouldn’t be any more secrets.”
Séan didn’t know what to say.
“Then you said…the dead could not rest.”
Séan turned wide eyes on Sorcha. “I was possessed by the ghost.” The words were halting and tasted strange and bitter on his tongue. It couldn’t be true, could it?
Séan struggled to remember, but all he got were foggy impressions of emotion.
“The ghost?” Seamus came up to stand beside him, plasterboard cracking under his feet. “The question is really which ghost.”
At his words Séan’s battered hands curled into fists. He didn’t care about the pain as he turned to face Seamus.
“You fool. You know exactly how dangerous this place is, and still you risk their lives.” He motioned to Sorcha. “And for what?”
Seamus met his gaze. “I don’t take risks needlessly.”
“How can you say that? We’d come here today to tell you that you need to close Glenncailty.”
“You had?” Seamus looked to Sorcha, who nodded. “Interesting. I wonder if that’s what brought this on.”
“What are you on about?” Séan wanted to shake the other man. “I told you what I saw, and I’d seen that same tortured woman before, the night a young woman died, falling through this very floor.” Séan pointed at his feet but didn’t look down. He didn’t want the memory of the broken floorboards, the mangled, crushed body.
“If you have a problem with this place, then you’re welcome to leave.”
“I won’t leave until everyone else does.”
“Then we’re delighted to have you in our company.”
“You’re risking the lives of everyone here. Sorcha told me about how the girl, Caera, was almost strangled.”
“Caera is fine, and better than she would have been if the ghost hadn’t helped her understand what she was about to squander.”
“You think the ghosts are helping people,” Sorcha said, her voice tinged with realization. “What good is help when it comes by scaring, hurting and now possessing people?”
“Seamus, you have to close Glenncailty,” Séan said.
“I won’t.”
Séan hadn’t been this angry in a long time. It had also been a long time since he’d gone toe to toe with someone who wouldn’t listen to him. Like his father before him, Séan kept his counsel until he had something to say, and when he did say it, he expected people to listen.
“Mr. Donnovan, perhaps it would be best if you left Glenncailty.” Elizabeth was twisting her hair into a bun as she spoke. “It seems that you have something of an overactive imagination and a strong temper.”
Séan could only stare at her.
“Elizabeth, surely you’re not still pretending the ghosts aren’t real,” Seamus said.
“What happened here was one man losing his temper, going on a destruction spree, and in doing so damaging the wiring on this floor. That’s all it was.”
Sorcha’s hands tightened around Séan’s elbow. His anger melted away under his astonishment. Were they really denying the danger this place posed to everyone here?
“Elizabeth, the Donnovans have been a part of this glen as long as my own family, and Séan would no more destroy something in his anger than he would burn down a church.” Seamus’s tone was almost disgusted. Elizabeth stiffened. “But I won’t close Glenncailty.” He looked at Séan. “There is a time for all things.”
Seamus’s attention shifted to the wall and Séan looked at it too. He’d never seen it before—it had been overgrown with ivy the first time he’d been here, and by the grand opening it had been covered with the false wall that now la
y in tatters under his feet. He knew there was a lost room—anyone could tell, just by looking at the maps they gave to guests, which showed a blank space where this room was.
“We will talk about this, later,” Séan told Seamus. “But if I truly was possessed, then I’d like to know why.”
The idea of losing control of himself to someone, or something, terrified him. What if the thing that possessed him hadn’t wanted to destroy an inanimate object, but to hurt someone? He could have done very serious damage. He looked down at Sorcha, whose skin was white in the harsh, bright light and deep shadows.
“You were yourself again after I said we’d take the wall down. So that’s what we’ll do.” Sorcha nodded hard. “We’ll take down the bricks and open the door.”
The lights clicked on.
They looked around at the sconces. The far end of the hall looked fine, as if nothing had happened. Midway down, a layer of plaster dust hinted at the destruction that surrounded them. Elizabeth turned and started to box up the emergency lights.
“Keep those,” Seamus said. “We’ll need them.”
“You want to open it now?” Elizabeth gestured to the door.
“I think it’s best not to wait. I don’t want them thinking we were lying.”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. “And by them, you mean…”
“I mean whichever ghost possessed Séan. From what I saw…” Seamus shook his head, then shrugged. “What he was saying and doing is not something I’ve encountered before.”
“So you don’t think it was the maid in chains?” Sorcha asked.
“No, I don’t.”
“How many ghosts are there? I thought I knew about them all.”
“There are more than I care to tell you,” Seamus said.
With that, he stepped up to the bricks and started pulling.
*
Whatever had possessed Séan must have given him super strength, because the bricks were hard to take out. Sorcha radioed Kristina and Liam, asking them to bring ice and tools respectively. She met them at the top of the stairs, not wanting to expose them to anything.
“Do you need help?” Liam asked.
“I don’t want either of you involved in this,” Sorcha said.