The woman was unimpressed by Liz's response. She walked a wide circle around Liz, the dogs at her heels with their fangs bared in grotesque silent smiles that showed teeth larger than Liz knew a dog could have. They looked like some kind of mixture between a Doberman and a Rottweiler or Mastiff, only much larger.
"What shall I do with her?” she asked the dogs, who looked at their mistress with an eerie kind of intelligence that unnerved Liz. The three of them almost seemed to have a conference about her fate, Liz thought, and at last the woman turned her cold stare again on Liz. “What do you want?” she asked Liz.
What to say? How was she supposed to tell a believable story about how she got here when she wasn't even sure of that herself? “In my time, there is a house almost exactly like this one. It was built by a man named Benjamin McCann. My friend and I have been contracted to live in that house for one year and bring peace to the spirits who haunt it. We were exploring the hidden passages in that house and I suddenly found myself here, instead of there."
"Are you a witch?” the woman asked.
"I don't practice any form of magic, no. I do have a relationship with spirits, though and some believe—"
"I am aware of the difference between mediums and witches, Elizabeth Carr. You are a medium, then?” the woman inquired as she guided Liz into the great room off the hallway.
"Yes, I guess I am,” Liz said.
Again the woman circled her. “And this is what women of the future wear?” she asked.
"Not all the time. Sometimes I dress in a more feminine manner, though I seldom wear long skirts like yours, except for special events.” she replied.
The woman snapped her fingers and the two dogs padded quietly from the room. “Forgive my abruptness. We seldom receive visitors here and the ones who do come generally do so by the front door—with great fear and trembling,” she added.
Liz relaxed a bit, smiled at the other woman. “May I ask your name?” she queried tentatively.
"I am Moira McCann. You, Elizabeth Carr, are either very brave or very foolish to stand before me and the dogs without showing fear,” Moira said.
"Maybe a little of both, but more foolish, no doubt,” Liz said with another smile.
"Do you know this Benjamin McCann of whom you speak?"
"I have seen his spirit. He was killed about two hundred years before my time. He is one of the wraiths that roams the manor,” Liz replied.
"The troubled dead are a bother to the living, are they not?” Moira asked, then eyed Liz as if to gauge her response.
"Not always. I have a certain amount of respect and compassion for them, actually. Most of them are just trying to finish business they would have completed had their lives not been interrupted,” she answered.
Her answer seemed to placate Moira, who gave her a radiant smile then. “How long will you be staying with us, Elizabeth?"
"I'm not sure. My coming here was an accident and I have no idea how to return to my own time. I was hoping Tarrh might be able to help me,” she said.
Moira glared at her, took a step backwards. “My brother sees no one, and he hates women, Elizabeth,” she confided. “I doubt you can expect any help from him."
"Is there anyone else who knows about the portal?” Liz asked.
"Only that it exists. He is probably the only one who knows how to use it,” Moira said.
"Ben knew,” Liz interjected.
Moira fixed her with a hard stare, walked swiftly to the other side of the room. “Wait here. I will tell him you are here."
"Thank you,” Liz said and then watched the dogs return to the room and move closer to her at their mistress’ departure. She moved slowly to a straight-backed chair near the center of the room and sat down. She suddenly didn't feel all that strong anymore. She wondered if the swelling in her neck would come back now, since she hadn't taken the dose of medicine she was supposed to have before she went to bed. She cleared her throat again, absently rubbed at her neck. The dogs lay in the floor a few feet from her, their stare never leaving her.
She sat like a stone statue, fearing her slightest movement would trigger the great beasts to attack her. She gradually began to breathe more slowly until her racing heart slacked a bit and she felt a little more at ease. It seemed like hours before Moira swept back into the room, accompanied by a tall lean man who had much the same features as Moira. Liz looked at them deliberately.
"What do you want here?” the man demanded.
"I only want to go back to my home; nothing more,” she answered.
"My—sister tells me you came here by happenstance,” he said.
"Moira is your sister? And who might you be?” Liz asked, a bit too boldly.
The man shot a glance at Moira, flexed his hands nervously. “I told you she would know,” he said to Moira.
"Shut up, you simpleton!” Moira ordered.
"I have seen Tarrh, Moira,” Liz said.
Moira's lips twitched slightly before curling into a sneer as she approached Liz. “Lucky you! Is that why you are here?” she demanded.
Liz held her gaze steady as Moira approached her in what looked to be rage. “I told you why I'm here. Now I would like to speak to Tarrh, please,” she said.
Moira raised her hand and brought it crashing hard against Liz's cheek; the large ring she wore smacked against Liz's jaw and stung powerfully. “I told you, he sees no one,” Moira snapped through gritted teeth.
Liz rubbed her cheek, oblivious to the blood that trickled onto her fingers from the gash the ring had cut into her cheek. “He will see me,” she said simply.
"What makes you so special?” the man standing behind Moira asked.
Liz peered past Moira at the man who might truly be related to Tarrh. “I know his secret,” she bluffed.
Moira whirled to face the man who looked at Liz in amusement. “You are a bit late, woman. Tarrh died last year,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Liz swallowed hard. If what he said was true, she was completely at the mercy of Moira and those beasts she called dogs. Suddenly, Liz thought she would rather face Tarrh. “You are lying,” she said in her best authoritative voice. “I happen to know he is alive."
Moira drew her hand up to strike Liz again, but stopped cold as another person entered the room behind Liz.
"What is the meaning of this?” a man asked in a loud voice Liz thought she recognized.
"I found this intruder in the corridor,” Moira said. “She claims to have come here from the future."
The man walked to Moira's side and peered at Liz with interest. “Her manner of dress is strange, is it not?” he observed.
"Tarrh,” Liz began, then stopped, reconsidered her approach. “Mr. McCann, I am from the future. I was in a house built very like this one by a descendant of yours—Benjamin McCann."
Tarrh McCann turned to Moira and the other man. “Leave us,” he commanded.
"But the woman claims to know secrets about you,” the other man objected.
"Sean, you may be my long lost brother come home from the goddess knows where, but I am still the master of my own manor. Leave us,” Tarrh repeated.
Sean lowered his eyes and nodded in ascent to his brother, backed a few paces from them without speaking. Moira made no move to leave.
"Tarrh, you have not been well. You should not be—” she protested.
Tarrh straightened his back, glared at her. “Leave us—both of you—and take those hungry hounds from Hades with you!"
Moira hissed, her eyes wild as she sprang for Liz once again, her fingers contorted into claw-like talons. Tarrh caught her by the wrist, turned her around, and flung her halfway across the room. “You dare disregard my bidding, sweet Moira? As long as I live, I shall not tolerate your insolence. Get out of my sight!"
Tarrh watched as Moira and Sean slunk from the room, closing the door behind them, before he turned to face Liz. “You are bleeding,” he observed.
She brushed the wound with the back of her
hand, found her face to be already swollen and wet with the blood that oozed from the jagged wound. “I-I had no idea—"
"Better let me have a look at that,” he said. “Was it her terrible fingernails did that to you, or that devil-cursed ring?” he asked as he reached toward Liz's face.
Liz instinctively recoiled at his touch. “It was her ring, I think; it was hard and cold when it struck me."
"Aye, it is as I thought,” he replied. “The ring is only slightly less venomous than the woman herself. You will have to trust me or you might well die from the poison. That wound must be cleaned at once. Come with me."
Liz eyed him warily, gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat.
Tarrh gave her an amused stare. “Would you rather wait here and chance being attacked anew by Moira or her four-legged demon friends? I assure you, I mean you no harm."
Liz gingerly pushed herself to her feet, surprised by how light-headed she suddenly felt as she reeled from side to side. She looked up at Tarrh in surprise, leaned back into the chair.
In less than the length of time it took to blink her eyes, Tarrh scooped her out of the chair and headed with her toward the entrance through which he had entered the room only moments before. He swiftly carried her up the stairs and into a large chamber and laid her on a wide bed. Opening a small vial from the table beside the bed, he poured the thick liquid from it onto a cloth, began to dab at her face with it. The concoction smelled musky and burned the sensitive open sore on her cheek, made her eyes tear, but she stayed still under the heavy strokes he made to scrub out the wound.
"I know, ‘tis a nasty cure, but it will counteract the poison and you will feel better in no time,” he assured her. “Now, suppose you tell me about these secrets you know about me?"
Liz winced as she tried to sidle out from under his abrasive rubbing of her face. “That was only a bluff,” she said.
"A bluff?"
"Yes. I told them I knew your secret because they told me first you wouldn't see me and then that you had died last year,” she said.
"Why did you want to see me? What do you know of me? And who are you, anyway?” he asked.
"My name is Elizabeth Carr and I wanted to see you because I thought you could help me get back to my own time,” she answered.
"Then ‘tis true you came here from the future?"
She nodded wearily, pushed his hand gently away from her face. “Please; it's all I can stand of that."
He smiled slightly as he withdrew his hand, laid the cloth on the table and replaced the lid on the vial. “Start at the beginning and tell me all about how you came to be here,” he instructed.
"It is a very long story,” she said.
He sat beside her on the bed, folded his hands. “That may be, but you will tell it to me, if you really expect me to help you return to your home,” he coaxed.
Liz studied the man in front of her, took a deep breath. He was not at all like she had imagined he would be. This man had saved her from Moira and those unaccountable animals downstairs. Maybe if she told him the entire story, he would help her more than simply sending her back to her own time. Maybe he would actually divulge something that would tell her the reason his spirit became so embittered and vengeful. It was worth a try. She quietly began her tale.
She told him about Missy and John and how she and Kim had come to live at Ben's manor. She revealed Ben's murder at the hands of his business partner and how she had witnessed what Spencer had done to Ben. She disclosed her dream in which Tarrh himself had choked her and her resulting swollen neck that nearly cost her life. She told him of the two conversations she'd had with his spirit and the things he had told her; she finished her tale by revealing the click she had heard as they opened one of the secret passages and how she had wound up here in his house.
Tarrh kept his silence for several minutes after she finished her story. He watched her closely as though he might be pondering the validity of the things she had told him. He nodded, then cocked his head to the side, gazing at her without seeming to see her at all.
"Please tell me you believe all this,” she pleaded.
"I believe you. Benjamin has visited me here, once or twice. I did not know what to make of him at first, but you are wrong in assuming he is a descendant of mine. Moira and I have no children, nor are we likely to,” he said.
"You and Moira? She is your—"
"My wife, yes. She and my dear brother are slowly poisoning me and perhaps Benjamin is the result of their union, but he is not of my loins directly,” he said flatly.
"Poisoning?” Liz asked.
He gave her a bittersweet smile then that melted her heart, an expression full of sadness; yet there was a depth to his eyes, his manner that bespoke a deeper understanding and keener intellect than Liz had ever seen before in anyone. He harbored no self-pity behind those eyes; only a sadness too abiding to overcome. “They think they have convinced me I have somehow contracted some deadly disease, but I know what goes on in my own house. Moira and I had a pleasant enough marriage until Sean came. He is the bastard son of my father's indiscretions and now he has shown up here to claim what he believes is rightfully his. Moira fancies him. Together, they have hatched this plan to rid themselves of me forever."
"Why don't you make them leave?” Liz asked.
"Elizabeth, you are a gentle soul, but the damage is already done. The first dose of poison would have been enough to get rid of me, but it works slowly; too slowly for their satisfaction. So they continue to feed it to me so it will work faster,” he said. “I did not know what they were doing until after I had taken the first dose."
"But this house is a portal through time,” she said. “Why don't you go back in time before it happened and—"
"The house is not a portal, Elizabeth,” he said.
"Not a portal? What do you mean?” Liz asked.
"There are places on the Earth, and other worlds as well, that can transport one through time and space. This place is one of them,” he explained. “I built my house here because I wanted to go back in time to see for myself how things really were before. Moira wants to be here for other reasons, selfish reasons; motives of greed, revenge, control."
"But you could—"
"Aye, I could, perhaps,” he agreed, “but that would be cheating, would it not? Being able to travel through time carries with it a responsibility not to tamper with the things the gods and goddesses have ordained. My fate was sealed when I took Moira as my wife. I knew she was evil, but I thought I could redeem her; instead I doomed myself. I must live with the consequences of my decisions, however ignorant those decisions may have been."
"She tricked you,” Liz protested.
"Aye, what you say is true, which is why I have bound their souls to mine. When I die, I intend to hold their essences and pull them into a pit so deep and black they will never escape to torment anyone else again. I will not take their lives, but when they do die, their souls will join mine,” he said gravely.
Liz sat upright in the bed, shook her head. Things were beginning to make more sense to her now. Her head reeled with the knowledge Tarrh had just given her. “They will escape, Tarrh; it is a fact! We have to undo what you have done,” she said.
He stroked her disheveled hair softly, whispered, “What I have done cannot be undone. I made certain of that. If I must lose my own soul to restrain theirs, I am resigned to that."
"Is there no antidote? Why do you continue to let them give you more of the poison?"
"There is no antidote, dear lady; I am a dead man either way, so why refuse them now? I tire of this life anyway,” he said, a faraway look in his eyes.
Liz sighed. Tarrh had obviously been hurt to the core by his deceptive wife and his brother. He had trusted Moira enough to turn a deaf ear to his own inner reason. Now she robbed him daily of more of the life force he had given to her willingly for the taking. He no longer had a desire to fight against her, even if there might be some reason to hope. Th
e futility of his situation made Liz feel deeply saddened.
"Do you understand what will happen to your soul because of this binding you have worked?” she asked.
"I will lose the right to go to Tir nan Og,” he said simply.
"There is more to it than that, Tarrh,” she said. “You and they will become enmeshed as one spirit. Benjamin will unleash that composite entity by accident in the future and will somehow manage to send it back to that pit of yours. Generations later, two innocent people will loose it again and will lose their lives because of it. Don't you see? The trouble they are causing won't stop because you have bound them."
Tarrh looked her steadily in the eye. “What would you have me do?"
"I don't know. Surely there is something we can do. Can you tell me how to banish the spirit to the pit?” She asked.
"I know only how to go there and bind them to join me; Benjamin would be the one to ask about sending us back, since you say he did it once,” Tarrh said thoughtfully.
Liz nodded, hung her head. “Will you help me return home?"
"I cannot help you,” he replied.
"You mean I'm stuck here?” she asked.
"There is no control over the portal, as far as I can tell. It takes a person to some random time and place and when the time is right, it returns them whence they came,” he said.
"You mean at some point I will just find myself back there, without doing anything to get there?” Liz asked.
"That is the way it has always worked for me,” he replied.
"That's a relief, I think!” she said.
He smiled at her. “You have a good heart. You need to be aware, however; we all know you now; they will try to destroy you."
Liz laughed uncontrollably. “I have already experienced that—thanks for the warning!"
He stared deeply into her eyes, his hands on her shoulders. “If there is any way I manage to retain any control over them, I will not let them harm you, Elizabeth, because you would help me if you could; I see that in your eyes."
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