by Jill Jones
Her heart went out to Ninian, for the woman had suffered greatly since Genevieve’s disappearance. Keely had never seen her so completely undone before. It occurred to her that Alyn, perhaps at the excommunication rite, must have insisted that all Dragoners, including Genny’s own mother, disavow her very existence. No wonder Ninian had gone into virtual isolation. Didn’t Alyn know that Genny’s mother needed to grieve? That they all needed to grieve? But how could they grieve if they were to believe Genny had never existed?
Keely reached the gate to Ninian’s garden and paused a moment, but turned away and proceeded on up the hill. Perhaps the only answers allowed to her at the moment were those she could find in her own heart. She would go to the stone circle and pray for the soul of Genevieve Sloan, whose existence Keely would never deny, no matter what. She would pray for the peace of mind she so desperately needed. Pray for clearer understanding of the ways of the Dragon and of her uncle, the Keeper of those ways. And finally, she would pray for forgiveness for having helped Genny leave instead of holding on to her for dear life and not allowing her to make such a terrible mistake.
When she reached the stones, however, Keely forgot about praying, at least for the moment, for her eyes caught sight of a lone figure walking along the beach, headed for the far end of the island.
The stranger.
She shivered and drew her cloak closer about her, recalling the old ballad verses that told of strangers who’d died for having broken the law by trespassing upon the isle of the Dragon. The sight of the man she knew only as Jack prompted Keely to again question the truth of the old stories. This stranger was leaving, and he was obviously in one piece. One solid, good-looking piece. He was not going to die for having come here, unless the Dragon were to follow him and finish him off elsewhere, as Alyn claimed had happened to Genevieve, a claim that sounded more like the perpetuation of a legend than an actual fact.
Just in case, however, Keely kept an eye on Jack from above once again, following his progress until she knew he was safely off the island. He had, after all, stepped between her and her uncle. It had been an unnecessary gesture, but he hadn’t known that. He’d done it to protect her. Keely smiled wistfully.
She wished she had the nerve to speak with him. He had answers. He knew what had happened to Genny. Maybe he knew why she had run away. But Keely was afraid. It was best that he leave right away. He had stirred up more trouble in their already distraught village, and if she were honest, he’d brought with him more questions than answers. Dark questions that fermented in the depths of her heart, questions she didn’t dare ask, for she feared they had answers she didn’t want to hear.
Reaching the high promontory just above the place where the stranger had tied his boat, Keely peered over the edge to catch one last glimpse of him. For a moment, sunlight pierced the gathering clouds, shining upon him in golden rays, illuminating the strength of his body and stirring other, even more deeply disturbing feelings in Keely.
She saw him stop walking, place a hand on his hip, and run the fingers of the other hand through his hair, as if perplexed.
Only then did she realize his boat was not there.
Where the hell was the boat? Jack stared at the rock where he’d so securely tied it. Surely it wouldn’t have come loose of its own accord. Somebody must have deliberately set it adrift. But when he checked for footprints in the sand, all he saw were his own. He must not have tied it as tightly as he thought.
His first question—how could he have been so stupid?—was quickly replaced with a second—what’re you going to do now? He didn’t relish going back to the village, where he was clearly unwanted, although he would have liked to have a chance to make sure the young woman was all right. But Jack had no doubt that it was his presence that had provoked the incident, and he did not want to cause her further trouble.
He scanned the horizon but saw no sign of the small boat. Overhead, clouds were beginning to gather. Maybe he’d better take his chances and seek help in the village. A squall was brewing, and he didn’t want to be stuck on the beach in a storm. Besides, he was anxious to give Garrison a call soon to check on Brad.
A call.
Jack grinned, remembering what he had in his pocket. Hope returned as his fingers closed around the cool plastic of the cellular phone. He had a card from the boat rental service, and luckily, there was a surprisingly strong cell signal. He dialed the number. Kevin Spearman was not happy when he learned that Jack had misplaced his boat, but he agreed to come for him, mainly, Jack suspected, because he had assured the man he would buy him a new boat. “It’ll be about three quarters of an hour,” Spearman told him. “I have some other business to attend to before I can leave.”
Jack ended the call, noting the battery on the phone was running low. He kicked himself for his stupidity in not sufficiently securing the boat, but he was glad that Garrison Holstedt was a rich man.
A large drop of rain splashed against his cheek, and Jack looked up at a blustery sky. Several more cold drops assaulted him. He had no wish to wait in a rainstorm for forty-five minutes. He glanced at the gaping black holes sculpted into the cliffs. He wasn’t fond of caves, but shelter from the cold drops in the nearby grotto appeared to be his only option if he wished to escape the storm. He quickly covered the short distance to the largest opening and ducked inside.
The walls were cold and damp, the back of the cave obscured in the darkness that swallowed the daylight only a few feet from the entrance. The pungent, salty smell of the sea, ripe with the stench of mud at low tide, assailed his nostrils. The place gave Jack the creeps.
Suddenly from somewhere beyond the darkness came the sound of singing. The tune was faint at first, and Jack thought he must be hearing things. Then he heard it again, this time louder. The woman’s voice was clear and sweet, the song plaintive and repetitive, although he couldn’t make out the words. The tune, however, reminded him of an old Joan Baez song his mother used to listen to on the tape player when he was a little boy.
Curious, Jack got over his aversion to the cave and moved a few feet inside, feeling his way along the damp wall, following the sound. Still he could not make out the words, so he proceeded on, as if mesmerized by a siren.
The singing grew louder, and at last he was able to discern the words:
Away, hide away, on this distant shore,
Let ne’er a stranger in thy door.
Keep your secret safe, hidden in the mist,
And let no one leave who be Dragon kiss’d.
He froze and felt a shudder pass over him as he recognized the words he’d read on the village gate. Other words echoed in his mind.
Bad things happen to those who betray the Dragon.
Did that include strangers who came to the island uninvited?
‘Twas th’ Dragon that kilt her.
Jack laughed at his misgivings. Maybe the islanders took this dragon thing seriously, but he knew it was nonsense.
Then suddenly, Jack considered his present predicament and became even more uneasy, not because he thought a dragon was after him, but because he was such a damned fool. He’d allowed his boat to drift away, stranding him on an island with residents who were clearly hostile to strangers. He’d wandered deep into this pitch-black cave until he feared he might be lost. And he was allowing himself to be unnerved by the Dragoners’ ridiculous superstitions.
“Get a grip,” he said aloud and turned to feel his way back out of the cave. Suddenly, something shoved him violently from behind, slamming him against the rock wall. A sharp pain seared his head just before blackness enveloped him, and he crumpled to the floor of the cave.
Keely stifled a cry when she saw the stranger go into the caves. She guessed he was seeking shelter from the approaching storm, but he was seriously trespassing when he entered the most forbidden of all places on the island. Only the Keeper was allowed into the heart of the Dragon, and then only to commend the bodies of the dead to the purification fires.
H
er first instinct was to call out and warn him to stay away, but she doubted he could hear her from this far above. She also didn’t want to take a chance that someone else would hear her, although with the change in weather, she doubted any of the villagers would be about. She could go to the caves herself and fetch him away, but she was loath to break the law and trespass herself where never in her life had she been. Besides, to get there, she’d have to retrace her steps almost halfway down the island before reaching the path leading to the beach. By that time, he would probably come out again on his own, she reasoned.
So she held her vigil, ignoring the approaching storm, watching, waiting for Jack to emerge from the caves. Why was she concerning herself so with the stranger? she wondered. She owed him nothing. And he’d caused nothing but problems for her.
But Keely knew the answer. She wanted to make certain that he left the island alive and well, which would prove the old tales were just that—tales—and that strangers did not necessarily die for intruding upon the Dragon’s back. In her mind, she knew the Dragon was only mythological, an ancient Celtic symbol adopted by her ancestors as a sign of protection. But she had believed the old legends and honored the laws of Keinadraig for so long it was not easy to get past them, even with rational thinking.
Alyn wasn’t helping either. Keely was disturbed that her uncle seemed to be trying to breathe life into the symbol by insisting that the Dragon had killed Genevieve, as if the Dragon were real. Mayhap, Keely thought sadly, like her, he was desperately trying to find something to blame for Genevieve’s senseless death. She softened. She knew Alyn was grieving too, in his own way. She couldn’t blame him for making up a fiction to help him deal with the horrible truth.
The storm resulted in some gusty winds and a few large cold pellets of rain that dashed from the clouds above, but it blew over quickly, leaving a patchy sky and an unsettled sea. Keely hugged her cloak closer to her in the wind and grew more apprehensive as each moment passed and the stranger did not emerge from the cave. Just as she had decided to climb down and go to the caves after him, she heard the sound of a small craft approaching. The boat appeared to be nearly identical to the one that had brought the stranger to their shore. The figure at the helm looked vaguely familiar, but it was hard to tell from a distance if it was someone she knew. Whoever it was must have come for the stranger, although Keely could not fathom how someone from off the island could have known Jack’s boat had drifted away.
The man beached the craft, but he did not get out. Keely saw him put his hand to his mouth and heard a distant “Halloo.” But there was no sign of the stranger, and after only five minutes or so, the boatman backed away from the beach and turned the craft toward the mainland.
Now Keely became seriously worried. Something had happened in that cave. The man had become lost…or…
She wouldn’t allow herself to believe the Dragon had attacked him. That was daft thinking. But even so, her apprehension turned to fear for his safety. She must go to him.
Racing down the hill, she returned to her cottage and fetched a kerosene lantern. She knew Alyn would be furious if he found out she’d helped the stranger, but she must. For daft thinking or not, at the back of her mind, the old legends screamed at her.
Pocketing some matches to light the lantern, Keely hurried back up the hill, through the grove, past the circle of stones until she reached the path that led to the beach. Her heart thundered. She’d never done anything so bold. Always she’d been the “good girl,” never thinking to question her elders or break the rules. She had always done as she was bidden. She shook to think that now she was doing as she was expressly forbidden.
Keely’s steps faltered as she reached the mouth of the caves. The sacred and prohibited heart of the Dragon loomed dark and menacing before her, as if the Dragon waited there to consume in a fiery breath those who dared enter his chamber.
“Jack?” Her voice sounded weak in her own ears. “Jack, are ye in there?”
The only reply was the sound of the sea birds calling in the wind. Gathering her skirts, she went to the largest opening in the cliff’s face and called again.
Again, no answer.
“Dear God,” she prayed, “let him be whole.” With that, she knelt and lit the lantern, then stepped inside. By the flickering light, she saw that she stood in a large open cavern with a hard floor covered with sand and high ceiling. There was no sign of the stranger. Or the Dragon.
On the far wall, she spied two small openings that appeared almost like tunnels. Did she dare go further? Her heartbeat was erratic and her breath came in short gasps. Where was the stranger? Keely crept toward the passageway to her left, as it was closest, and followed it for a short distance, until it became alarmingly steep and narrow. From below, she could hear the crash of the waves. She surmised it must lead to the sea. “Jack?” she called again tentatively, but she doubted the man had come this way. She believed the tunnel was simply too narrow for his body to pass through.
Returning to the main chamber, she held the lantern high and proceeded through the right-hand tunnel. It was larger, with more level ground, and moments later Keely found herself in another open cavern, even more spacious than the one she’d first entered. She paused and looked around, noting what appeared to be smoke stains at intervals on the walls, as if huge torches had burned there at one time. She even thought she detected the faint odor of old smoke. Then her gaze traveled over the floor of the cavern, and she screamed when she saw the body of the stranger sprawled there.
“Jack, oh, by the Saints!” She ran to him and knelt beside him, her terror subsiding somewhat when she detected a pulse and felt the warmth of his skin. But then another scream escaped her when she saw what lay beyond him in the shadows. Not three feet from where he’d fallen yawned a huge hole in the cavern floor. She scrambled on hands and knees to the edge and peered into the black pit, but she could not see the bottom.
Quaking, she backed away. It must be, it had to be, the abyss known as the heart of the Dragon. The pit into which the bodies of the dead were consigned to be purified by the sacred fires.
If Jack had gone only a few feet further, he would have fallen to his death. There were no fires there now, but from what Keely knew of the Dragon’s heart, the chasm was deep, and there was no way out.
Why on earth had the stranger wandered this far into the cave? He had no light to show the way. Keely glanced nervously over her shoulder, half expecting the Dragon to appear in the flickering lamplight.
“Jack, wake up!” Keely whispered and shook his inert body. “We must get away from here. Jack!”
To her enormous relief, the man stirred and raised up on one elbow. “What? Where am I?”
“Ye’ve wandered into the sacred caves. We must leave here at once. Are ye fit?”
He touched his head and moved his shoulders, emitting a low groan. Then he sat up and turned to her, his face twisted in anger.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Chapter Six
Jack thought he must be dreaming when he heard a woman’s voice calling his name. He followed the sound out of the darkness and regained consciousness, although he felt as if someone were at work with a jackhammer inside his head. He leaned on one elbow and gingerly examined the welt on his skull while trying to orient himself. He was somewhere that smelled dank and slightly smoky. Somewhere dark and chill. And then it came rushing back. He was in a cave. He’d followed the sound of someone singing, and that someone had obviously coldcocked him in the dark.
Then he became aware of the woman who knelt next to him, her eyes anxiously searching his face. “Are ye fit?” he heard her ask.
No, he wasn’t exactly fit. His head hurt like the very devil. But he didn’t think he was seriously injured. He glared at the woman. “What the hell is going on here?”
“We must get out of here, Jack,” she said urgently, standing and taking his hand. “Can you walk?”
Jack got to his feet, still not sur
e if he could trust the woman. But he was puzzled. If she’d been his assailant, why was she now trying to save him? Or was she just leading him into more danger? He jerked his hand away.
“I heard singing,” he said. “I followed the sound of singing in here. Were you the one singing?” he demanded.
“Singing?” A look of genuine surprise lit her face, followed by equally genuine alarm. “God in Heaven! We must flee this place,” she said. “Now! Come. Follow me.”
Before he could catch her, she dashed ahead of him, and since she had the lantern, he had no choice but to follow or be left again in the dark. But Jack wasn’t through with her.
He wanted some answers about this damned strange place.
Outside, the fresh air cleared his mind, and he remembered he’d been waiting for the boat rental operator to come pick him up. Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was well past the time he’d expected his ride. “Damn.” Now how was he supposed to get off this godforsaken island? Looking ahead, he saw that the woman was sprinting down the beach, running away from him. “Oh, no you don’t,” he uttered. “You cost me my ride home. You’ll find me another.”
He followed her at a run, overtaking her a few moments later. Catching her by the shoulder, he wheeled her around to face him. “Stop!” he called roughly. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Let me go.”
Jack took her by both shoulders. “Not until you explain some things to me. Like who untied my boat. And who knocked me on the head in the cave.”
Her face was white as tombstone marble, and she trembled in his hands like a frightened doe. He eased his grip but didn’t let her go. “Why are you so afraid? I won’t hurt you.”