[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  Chambers and Garret stood when she entered the hall. Late afternoon sun slanted through two-story glass beveled windows and sparkled on the heavy pewter candlesticks on the table. Goblets, spoons and a knife that looked more appropriate for killing deer sat beside china plates.

  A child in a blue tunic appeared at Petra’s elbow, bearing a bowl of murky water. Petra flashed a look at Garret and Lord Chambers for direction, but Garret appeared to be looking at something outside a window. Lord Chambers frowned at her.

  The child pressed the bowl closer to Petra, and she took a guess and dipped her hands into the water. That must have been the right thing to do, because the child then produced a small hand-cloth from his back pocket.

  After the men washed their hands, they remained standing and Petra, who had sat, bounced back up to her feet.

  Lord Garrett nodded, and Chambers bowed his head. “The Lord is our rock, and our fortress, and our deliverer; in Him will we trust.”

  Garret had his head bowed and eyes closed, but Petra studied him from under her lashes. His resemblance to Kyle was spooky: height, sturdy build, blond hair, blue eyes, thin lips. Kyle had tan skin from his hours on the lacrosse field and she supposed Garret had his from hours outside doing… what? Hunting? Riding? Fishing? She didn’t know what a young seventeenth century earl-to-be did. Kyle and Garret were not the same person; she couldn’t forget that.

  Petra tuned back into the grace.

  “The Lord is our shield, and the horn of salvation, our high tower, and refuge, the Savior from violence.”

  Unless, of course, you happen to be a gypsy. Petra’s heart twisted. Did Lord Garrett/Kyle had anything to do with the gypsy hunt? If he did, she wouldn’t stay in his house.

  Chambers droned on. By the time the food was finally served, she was hungry, but between a tight corset, Chambers’ frown, and fending off Garret’s questions, she found it increasingly difficult to chew and swallow.

  “Perhaps you were on horseback and thrown from the saddle,” Garret guessed. “That would explain the head injury.”

  “But where are her companions?” Chambers countered, speaking over her head as if she wasn’t there. He narrowed his eyes. “The Romas. This is surely their doing.”

  Garret considered his forkful of pork and nodded.

  Anger flashed through Petra. Did these men, the same who prayed for a really long time, order a hunt on the gypsies? How could Chambers go on and on and on about God’s goodness and yet condone the raid? Treating people like pests? Hiring exterminators?

  She took a bite of something steamy and brown and it tasted like sawdust. She remembered to use her napkin/serviette before speaking. “You can’t blame the gypsies,” Petra said, putting her napkin/serviette back into her lap.

  “You said yourself you have no memory,” Chambers said, looking at her from over the top of his goblet.

  Petra rubbed her forehead where it had begun to throb. A tiny pulse beat in her temple. She wasn’t used to lying. She had no idea what the Renaissance people knew of amnesia, for all she knew those suffering memory loss were thrown into an asylum and spent the remainder of their lives trying to remember who might care enough to rescue them.

  “A highwayman,” she stammered, recalling a poem that she had memorized in eighth grade. “I think I remember a highwayman and moonlight.” She tore into a roll and breathed in its yeasty smell. “A moor and an inn.”

  “But the moors are far to the north.” Garret, fork poised mid-air, looked baffled.

  It’d been silly to think that just because Kyle looked like Garret that they were somehow connected, that he would know how to help her home. What I need is a fairy godmother, a wizard or a good witch. Too bad I don’t believe in any of those things.

  “It had to be the gypsies.” Chambers frowned at his plate. “They kidnapped her from somewhere and brought her here.”

  “No,” Petra said too loudly. She swallowed a lump of bread and it lodged in her throat.

  Chambers studied her, eyes calculating.

  “At least, I don’t think so.” Petra stirred the beans on her plate wishing they would turn into chicken nuggets. The limp beans weren’t the green kind she knew; they were yellow and looked like worms. If she was going to have a magical moment why couldn’t she be someplace that served Ben and Jerry’s? If she had wished to be transported to another time and place, she wouldn’t have picked this time or this place.

  Unless she could have stayed with Emory. He had been the one good thing about her trip to Elizabethan England. By the time the pie arrived she was so angry and depressed she only picked at the berries and longed for ice-cream.

  A footman came into the room and bowed before the table.

  “Yes, Francis?” Garret said, tapping his lips with a square of linen.

  “Sir, pray forgive the interruption, but the tapestry artisan has arrived. I took the liberty of having her sent to the first parlor.”

  “She?” Garret threw down his napkin, his eyes lit.

  “Yes, Miss Carl, sir. It seems her father has been detained abroad.”

  “Excellent!” He turned to Chambers and Petra with outstretched hands. “Shall we?”

  Pennington Place reminded Petra of Hogwarts. The first parlor had soaring ceilings and a fireplace with a mantel higher than her head. One wall had a flank of cut-glass windows, another had been lined with bookshelves, and another was blank.

  Petra hung in the doorway, not knowing how to respond to Anne, who stood near the blank wall. A rolled tapestry lay near her feet like a colorful log.

  Two footmen stood on either side of the tapestry. Anne, dressed in a modest gray gown, bowed her head at Garret, but when she saw Petra, her eyes widened in surprise. Petra held her gaze until Anne looked away.

  What should she say to someone who’d drugged her? Petra wanted to forgive Anne simply because she had been friends with Emory. Did Anne know Emory had died? Petra watched Anne greet Garret and quote him the cost of her tapestry. Other than nervous energy, Anne seemed fine.

  After moving chairs and tables to make room, the two footmen rolled the tapestry out over the carpet. Riotous colored flowers, coral and sapphire skies, silvery angels – the Satan tapestry. Petra gasped.

  Garret leaned toward Anne. “Your work, it’s extraordinary.”

  Anne accepted the compliment with stiff shoulders, but stepped back. He followed at her heels like a sniffing beagle. “My father will purchase it, I’ve no doubt.”

  Chambers cleared his throat. “Maybe he’d like to see some of her others before he decides.”

  “Your father, is he not here?” Anne’s face flushed as she shot Chambers a hostile glance.

  Garret looked at his shoes. “No, he’s away.”

  Anne’s mouth dropped open with a sound as if the air had been knocked from her lungs.

  “Tis of no matter. I’m confident my father will be pleased.” Garret stood straighter. “I will purchase it.”

  “Are you sure?” Petra bit her tongue, assuming she shouldn’t have spoken.

  Chambers studying the tapestry became an unexpected ally. “I agree with Miss Petra.”

  Garret looked from Petra to Chambers as if they’d grown horns. “It’s dazzling!” He shot Anne a warm glance. “It’s poetry.”

  “Dante’s Inferno, maybe,” Petra muttered.

  “What’s that?” Garret asked.

  Chambers paced the edge of the tapestry. “It’s the story of the fall of Satan!”

  The color seeped from Garret’s face as confusion replaced his enthusiasm. “Ah, so it is,” he said slowly. “So it is.” Garret straightened and he looked at Anne. “When will your father return?”

  Anne met his gaze with open hostility. “I do not know. He has gone abroad to purchase dye.”

  Petra remembered a second man in Anne’s cottage. She’d assumed him to be her father. Maybe he wasn’t. Or maybe he was and Anne was lying.

  “Do you have other tapestries?” Garret asked.
/>   Anne nodded.

  “Then you must bring me another. Monday hence?”

  “Perhaps it would be best to wait for the Earl’s return,” Chambers suggested.

  “Nonsense. This room and this estate will soon be mine. I can purchase a tapestry,” Garret said, his chest puffing out. “If I should so desire.” The words sounded loaded and his eyes locked with Anne’s.

  Petra felt a current running between them like a live wire.

  “Yes, my Lord.” Anne ducked her head, but not before Petra saw a spark of defiance.

  Garret rocked back on his heels. “Monday then, at the same time.”

  Anne’s shoulders drooped as she watched the two footmen roll up her tapestry.

  Petra had thought that she’d undress herself, but one look in the mirror at the army of buttons and the tiny tool that Mary used changed her mind. “Do you know how I got to Pennington Place?” Petra asked as Mary crouched behind her. She suspected Mary didn’t believe her tale of memory loss.

  Mary sighed, pushed back a lock of hair from her forehead and straightened. “According to Fitz t’was the thick of night, he answered the bell and found you dead to the world at the gatehouse door. A bag of jewels and a note had been tucked in your cape.”

  “A note?”

  Mary raised the heavy brocade dress over Petra’s head.

  “It said to take good care of you until your father arrived,” Mary said, lifting an eyebrow. “But aren’t you the least bit wondering about your jewels?” She motioned for Petra to turn around.

  “Oh, of course, the jewels,” Petra said, taking a deep breath, her first since her corset encounter. “Did Garret just keep them?”

  “He’s keeping you, isn’t he?” Mary shrugged.

  Petra squirmed. The transaction made her feel more like Frosty at the kennel than Petra at the Marriot. Of course, Frosty had to stay in a kennel surrounded by a choir of barking, whining dogs. She wasn’t forced to stay in a cage, but she had to wear a corset, and that was sort of the same thing.

  Mary flung a cottony nightgown over Petra’s head. While Petra put her arms in the sleeves, she asked, “And Garret?”

  “My Lord Garret --” Mary tugged the nightgown into place.

  The nightgown, a soft shimmery and see-through affair, was a hundred times more comfortable than the dress. “Lord Garret wasn’t suspicious?”

  Mary smiled. “Suspicious and yet pleased, miss.”

  “Mary, you don’t know me. Why are you pushing me on Garret?” She corrected herself. “My Lord Garret?”

  “Pushing you on Garret?” Mary thought about that as she pulled pins from Petra’s hair. “I spent years working my way up to being a lady’s maid. Years, mind you. And in the five months since My Lady Falstaff’s been gone I’ve been doing chores like the chamber and scullery maids.” She paused the comb above Petra’s head. “I don’t like emptying chamber pots.”

  Petra got it. Spending time with other people’s pots would make her sick. “Can’t you do something else?”

  Mary looked like she wanted to use the hair comb as a weapon. “I’m a lady’s maid,” she said through gritted teeth. She set the comb down, deemed Petra ready and bustled her into bed.

  Under the rustle of the covers, Petra heard Mary mumble, “Not all of us have the fortune to wander willy-nilly around the countryside with jewels in our pockets.”

  Even with the candle extinguished, Petra could easily see. Moonlight shone bright through the windows, and a fire smoldered in the fireplace. The feather bed had a down quilt, and Petra felt like she was floating in a white cloud, but she wasn’t tired and didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to wander willy-nilly. She wanted to go home.

  If she could Google…but before the Internet, there were libraries. A place like this would have a library, right? She crawled from the bed, shivering in the cold, and searched the room for something to wear.

  No clothes. No shoes. Night gown it is.

  The latch opened with a soft click, and the door swung silently open. The tapestry that ran down the hall felt soft beneath her feet. Candles flickered in sconces on the stone walls. It couldn’t be too late because she heard the rattling and clinking of dishes from below.

  Guessing that a library would be on the ground floor, Petra padded down the stairs, keeping an eye out for servants, or worse, Garret and Chambers. A stack of books sat on a table outside the third door to the left. A telling clue, her dad would say.

  Biting her lower lip, Petra pushed open the door. Less a library, she decided and more like her dad’s office, but some books and maybe some answers.

  Petra stood at the threshold, hating that there were so many things she didn’t know and didn’t understand. She’d been in the seventeenth century for two days. Two days! Who has dreams that last two days?

  A massive desk covered with ledgers and papers dominated the generous-sized room. Two chairs flanked a fireplace so large she could have stood among the embers and ashes without hitting her head on the flue.

  At home, she knew exactly what to do, what to say, and if she made a mistake, which she almost never did, no one called her on it. Except for Zoe, who didn’t count, because of her age and size. Zoe’s freckles didn’t help; they made her look comical, even when she was angry. Maybe especially when she was angry. Her skin flushed red, the freckles stood out and her hair seemed to stand on end. Furious Zoe looked like a cartoon character being electrocuted.

  Petra leaned against the doorjamb, homesickness and loneliness overwhelming her. Casting a critical eye on the leather-bound books, she felt fairly confident that not one of them would provide directions on how to speed travel 400 years, but she stepped in for a closer look.

  The books marched across the shelves and she recognized very few titles or authors. A great many had to do with agriculture. The Modern Egg Farmer. How modern can a seventeenth century chicken be? She passed poultry and poetry and spotted Copernicus. Science. A German bible. Religion. Could either help her?

  While the shelves and book bindings were spotless, most of the book tops were covered with a thin layer of dust. Curious why One Thousand and One Nights was dust free, she pulled at it. The book slipped forward and the fireplace façade rotated nearly noiselessly. Where once there had been blackened bricks, now an opening.

  Astounded, Petra watched the book slide in the shelf and the bricks whirred back into place. She tried it again with the same results -- bricks gone, dark passageway, earthy breeze, and moments later, all on its own, the bricks returned.

  As did the voices.

  11

  Some secret passageways lead to hidden rooms. Hidden rooms are useful for kidnapping, smuggling goods, and other illegal activities. Secret passageways may also be private entrances or tunnels. They’re particularly common in episodes of “Scooby-Do.”

  —Petra’s notes

  Out in the hall, Chambers spoke with animation. “Of course your father must be informed of the gypsy blight!”

  Petra didn’t want to explain why she’d wandered from her room. With no time to consider her options or consequences, Petra lifted her nightgown and dashed through the fireplace. Seconds later, the fireplace bricks closed behind her.

  Darkness engulfed her. She felt the walls on either side. She stood stock still, afraid that perhaps one wrong move would reopen the door and expose her. She strained to hear, hoping they had skipped the office, but Chambers’ voice droned closer and the tenor of his voice changed dramatically after Garret interrupted with a question.

  “She cannot stay, my lord. Her people must be located and notified.”

  Garret said something unintelligible.

  “Precisely why she’s dangerous!” Chambers retorted.

  Dangerous? Were they talking about her? Annoying, bossy, perhaps spoiled, but dangerous?

  Petra didn’t possess any weapons, or knowledge of how to use one if she happened to find one, but she knew things these men couldn’t even dream. All the technological advanc
ements, inventions and discoveries of the past four hundred years.

  Of course, at this moment, she didn’t have access to anything even slightly useful. Beam me up, Scotty, she thought, itching for a Star Trek gizmo that could rearrange her molecules and put her back where she belonged.

  “She’s but a chit,” Garret laughed, his voice startlingly clear.

  Chit? She didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t like it. She also didn’t like how close Garret sounded. What if they accessed the passageway and found her in the dark? In her nightgown?

  As horrible as it would have been to be discovered in an office, being found in a secret passage would be much, much worse. There had to be a way out. Passageways always had a destination.

  Cautiously, Petra toed the darkness ahead before taking a step. Nothing happened. Holding her breath, she took another step, and then another. Then she smacked into a wall.

  She woofed in surprise, stepped back and rubbed her nose.

  The voices rumbling in the office stopped. Petra froze until their murmurs resumed. Stretching out her arms, she felt along the walls, found a corner and slipped around it.

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw stone walls, hard-packed dirt floors and a timbered ceiling. She kept her fingertips against the wall to maintain her bearings. As she moved deeper, quiet and darkness seemed to swallow her. Then she heard a scraping noise.

  Petra stopped, listening.

  Silence.

  Her nerves pricked, and her skin tingled as she continued to who-knew-where. Around a corner, she saw a flickering flash of light and smelled the acrid smoke of candles.

  The footsteps fell in swift purposeful strides. Someone who knew where they were going, which put them at a distinct advantage. She had nowhere to hide.

  Petra hadn’t panicked when she’d been nose-to-beak with fighting roosters, or when she’d been drugged in Anne’s cottage, or even when she saw Emory die, but now, in this gloomy corridor, adrenaline pumped through her. Fight or flight? Blood pounded in her ears as she picked up her nightgown with frantic hands and ran, stumbling in the dark.