by Linn Chapel
“And worst of all, none of our guests have arrived. Not a single one! The ceremony is tomorrow, and aside from the tradesmen, the only soul I’ve seen about the estate is Hugh, who seems to be everywhere at once, pounding with a hammer. By no means is this the quiet life in the country, Tressa! We may as well move to the middle of London. And where in blazes is my tea?” His gaze darted about the kitchen in agitation. “And the scones – and those biscuits I like – you’ve made them, haven’t you?”
“The tea tray is in the living room. But – Holt,” she cried as he strode past her in search of the tea.
She reached for his arm but he was moving too quickly. In an anxious flurry she raced after him.
He came to a sudden stop just inside the doorway to the living room. After a long moment, what must have been a very thorough schooling in manners and the social graces suddenly came to his rescue.
“Mr. and Mrs. Newman, I presume, with family and friends. Please accept my most sincere apologies for my shocking lack of courtesy,” he said in an even tone, “and welcome to Langley!”
As Tressa came to Holt’s side, she was relieved to see that everyone was laughing over the incident. She took Holt’s hand and drew him further into the room.
“Holt, this is my mother, Mae, and you’ve already met my father, Quinlan.” Her mother smiled brightly as she greeted Holt, but Tressa noticed with a sense of unease that her father’s face was blank.
As he reached forward to shake hands with Holt, Tressa called out sharply, “Daddy! Open your hand!”
Her father shot her a glance and stiffened. Frowning slightly, he obeyed, turning his hand over. In his palm lay a cluster of sparks that twinkled brightly for a moment and then went out. “Just a little static electricity, Tressa,” he said defensively. “I wasn’t going to hurt him.”
“Quinlan!” came her mother’s reproving voice.
“There’s still time to back out of the wedding, Holt,” called Luke from the other side of the room. “That’s what I would do, if I were you.”
Holt just arched an eyebrow. “Your father may discover with time that I’m an able strategist.”
Quinlan laughed and the pair shook hands without any tricks or surprises. Tressa continued with the introductions, coming at last to Bree. Her younger sister had always been the witty, insightful commentator of the family, ever ready with just the right word or quip, but now her voice seemed to have deserted her. She gazed mutely up at Holt.
Holt’s eyes gleamed softly as he kissed her fingertips and murmured, “Just as lovely as your sister.”
Soon Wesley brought forth the paper-wrapped bundle and presented it to Holt, who smiled in anticipation as he took off the paper. But as soon as he caught sight of the small stack of hardbound books inside, their covers faded with age, his smile disappeared. “Where have you been keeping these volumes, my friend?”
“In the back room of my bookshop in London. Does my gift please you?”
Holt opened the top volume and gazed at one of the pages with his brow furrowed. “For two centuries, I read and reread the works of other poets, but I could not bring myself to read anything that I had written in the past, or to write a single fresh line. But now....”
Tressa spoke up softly at his side. “Now everything’s different.”
A smile flitted across Holt’s face. He glanced up at Wesley. “Yes, your gift pleases me.”
Luke peered over Holt’s shoulder at the books. Thoughtfully, he said, “Holt, I just remembered something. There’s going to be a Romantic Revival of arts and poetry at Oxford this summer. Why don’t you attend? You could never reveal your true identity, but you could still dress up in historic clothing and participate in the workshops.” Luke’s eyes glowed as he warmed up to the plan. “You could go as your own modern-day descendent and claim that you’ve had access to privileged information from family accounts and old letters. Just think – you could correct any misinterpretations of your own works. Incognito! What author wouldn’t jump at the chance?”
Holt groaned and shook his head as he closed the cover of his book. “A Romantic Revival? What a ghastly vision. Any drop of sense from those times would most likely be absent and only the eccentricities would be left to parade about. Seeing them return in the nineteen-sixties was painful enough.”
“Do you mean the long hair and the political ideals?” asked Luke.
“Yes, and the same garish clothing and the addictions. Two hundred years ago, there were copious amounts of opium in use, for it hadn’t been restricted yet. When everything returned in the nineteen-sixties and I saw it again with older eyes, the spectacle made me feel quite ill. Nauseated, in fact.”
Tressa darted a look around the room to see if Holt’s critical ways had startled anyone, but she found only humorous smiles.
“Was there any period of history you did like?” asked Luke curiously.
Holt said wryly, “I could give you a long list of complaints for every decade. But as for my future with Tressa – that’s a different matter. It’s just as she said: everything is different, now.” His voice had changed, softening. His glance caressed her face. “And as for Tressa herself, I have only one criticism.”
Tressa had noticed the glint in his eyes. “Oh?” she murmured.
“Simply that she’s a fool to wed me.” Holt drew her closer and brushed his lips against her temple.
Tressa slipped her arms about him as a growing hubbub of cheerful voices surrounded them. Nearby, Wesley opened the bottles of wine he’d brought and began filling the antique wineglasses.
“May bliss and blessings fill all your years together,” Wesley called out after he had served everyone. He lifted his glass in a toast and voices rang out with goodwill from every part of the room. Tressa smiled in gratitude, and as she drank from her glass, Holt did the same.
Over the rims of their glasses, they shared a look. Every bit of Tressa’s recent anxiety suddenly melted away and she felt warm and light, as if her body were filled with a heady glow.
Holt’s own wedding nerves seemed to have vanished as well. His hand was steady as he set his wineglass down on a small table. Then he took her glass from her hand and set it down, too.
As he pulled her tightly into the circle of his arms, Tressa lifted her face to meet his kiss.
Sunset was approaching by the time Brendan found a chance to slip away from the gathering. Leaving the cottage, he walked a short distance up the lane, pausing when he reached a little stone bridge.
His old, worn hands rested uneasily on the stone guardrail as he watched the burbling water pass underneath the bridge and flow onward. His eyes followed the course of the stream as it made its way through a small valley that curved like a gentle bowl in the green hills. A dome of deep blue sky arched overhead.
Birdsong drifted to his ears from a stand of oaks and gentle breezes wafted past his face, warm and scented with rose blossoms.
He could even sense the bones of a Saxon saint buried under the thorny branches of a briar hedge nearby, where the lane curved through the trees. Before he left Langley, he’d take a pair of shears and investigate the spot. Maybe he’d find the signs of some ancient church or shrine at the gravesite, hidden in the roots of the wild briars.
Before he left, he’d also pay a visit to Stephen Langley in the Unseen World. He’d ask the martyr to keep Holt and Tressa under his watchful eye, but the request was probably unnecessary, he told himself. He had a strong feeling that they already were.
The wedding was bound to go without a hitch tomorrow. Langley was so safe and well-protected in both realms that Holt and Tressa were surely free to begin their new life together in joy and peace.
The strange sense of storm clouds gathering had to be coming from some other quarter.
He heard a step nearby and turned to see that Quinlan had left the cottage to join him.
“You’ve been feeling it, too,” Quinlan said when he reached the bridge.
“Yes, but Holt and
Tressa are safe from whatever’s brewing,” replied Brendan with certainty. “Something or someone else is at risk, but it’s not them, Deo Gratias. They’ve already seen enough trouble.”
“Most likely it’s one of us,” said Quinlan, coming to stand next to him on the little bridge.
“I’m sure it’s not me. It’s probably you,” grumbled Brendan. “You’re too confident. I keep telling you not to relax your guard. In any case, we must stay in closer contact with each other.”
After a few minutes of shared silence, Brendan led the way from the stone bridge back to the cottage. As they approached the front door, mingled voices and bursts of laughter could be heard from within the thatched dwelling.
“Put a smile on your face,” Brendan muttered. “Don’t let them know how worried you are.”
“Alright.”
Brendan darted a suspicious glance at his friend. A crafty grin came over Quinlan’s face as he opened the cottage door, ready to play his next practical joke.
Dear Reader
Dreaming up the characters and weaving the storyline for Threshold of Destiny was loads of fun. If revisions and proofreading weren't necessary, then being an author would be an absolutely perfect life. I'm happy to report that caffeine still works as advertised, though, and copious amounts of coffee (mornings) and strong black tea (afternoons) saw me through to publication.
I hope that you'll consider taking a few moments to leave a review of Threshold of Destiny on the site from which you purchased it. (Pour yourself a cup of your favorite brew while you’re at it!)
Leave a review - share your opinion!
and be sure to read on
for a bonus chapter from BOOK 2:
EVERY NOTE BY HEART
Bonus Chapter
from The Mysterium Secret, Book 2
EVERY NOTE BY HEART
The Winter Solstice
She was met at the door by two women robed in black, their faces hidden within the shadows of their hoods.
Her escorts led her to a small room where she donned a simpler, hoodless robe, slipping it over her head and sweeping her long hair behind her shoulders.
She then followed her guides down a narrow corridor until they came to the gathering space. Pausing just inside the vast hall, she watched the two hooded women sweep ahead of her.
Within the space, more robed and hooded figures swirled in eddies across the floor, whispering among themselves. The cavernous hall was dark tonight but for the purple candles that flickered in iron holders all about the perimeter. Overhead, the mighty wooden rafters angled upward until they disappeared into darkness.
Now all of the hooded figures were moving into place and soon a circle of silent members had been formed. Leaving the doorway, she crossed the floor and passed inside the circle to join the pair of initiates who had already arrived for the ceremony.
As soon as she had taken up her stance, a gong was struck. The sound boomed within the hall, deep and vibrating. Bundles were carried forward by some of the members, stiff with dried leaves and buds, their stems bound firmly together with windings of purple cord. In silence, the hooded helpers stacked the bundles into a low wall about the initiates and then melted back into the circle.
The gong was struck again. Robes rustled and a gap appeared in the circle.
The gong was struck for a third time and the Leader swept through the opening, pacing serenely forward. Her deep-set eyes and chiseled features were hidden by her hood tonight. The veils of initiation lay draped over one arm and the purple silk fluttered, soft and gauzy, with the Leader’s steady footfalls. Grasped in her other hand were the ceremonial circlets that had been woven from stems of thin-leaved rosemary.
Rosemary: for remembrance.
“The initiation of new sisters gives us great joy!” the Leader cried out, coming to a stop. The other initiates received their veils.
Then it was her turn, and a veil fluttered down. She felt the rosemary circlet being slid into place.
Through the gauzy fabric, she could see the Leader lifting a ponderous, violet candle from a nearby stand. The Leader raised the heavy candle high, and then stooped to touch its flame to the wall of dried herbs. Fire spread and crackled. Soon the pungent smell of burning wormwood and rue filled the air.
Wormwood and rue: for the passages in life. As an initiate, she had learned they held a second meaning, as well.
Wormwood and rue – for revenge.
She heard the other initiates state their names and intentions. Then it was her turn. Out of habit she almost gave her stage name, but at the last moment she remembered her instructions.
“I, Vivianna Benini, seek full membership in the community.” She felt herself stiffen as the words came out. Her real name was so fanciful, so full of life and hope that it was no wonder she never used it anymore.
But she could still recall the sound of her mother – dead for years, now – calling her by that name. She could remember feeling warm, and seeing the sparkle of bright sunshine on the ocean waves as she played by the shore with her older sister.
All that was gone, though, never to return. As for her heart, the darkness within it had spread so far that she wasn’t sure there was much worth saving. But she had decided to try.
Tonight was the Winter Solstice, the celestial turning point. It was the night when all the hours of winter darkness that had been gathering suddenly came to a halt, ready to retreat.
Tonight, on the Solstice, she would enter The Sisterhood along with the other initiates. The three of them were fortunate that the Council had agreed to admit their kind into the human community. And from now on, any pain and distress from the past would fade, they had been assured. A new life, free of injustice – powerful, purposeful – would emerge in the months to come.
Through the curtain of smoke, she heard the Leader’s voice cry out. “Initiates! Do you solemnly vow to enter a new life within the nurturing fold of The Sisterhood?”
The two others assented. Then it was her turn.
“I do,” she said.
A drumbeat started up. The Leader’s voice rose over it, chanting now.
“Do you reject men, and all their empty works, and all their empty promises?”
The others responded, and again it was her turn.
“I do,” she said.
The drumbeat continued, becoming a little faster now.
“Do you vow to live with women only, and perform all within your power to ruin the plans of men?”
The beating of the drum was joined by the rustling of many robes. The low fire had consumed the dried herbs and the smoke was thinning. Through the haze, the robed and hooded members were now visible, moving in a circle.
The other initiates responded, and then it was her turn.
“I do,” she answered.
The Leader raised her hands high and the drumbeat abruptly ceased. The black-robed figures came to a halt and stretched their arms in supplication toward the center of the circle.
The Leader’s voice cleaved the sudden silence. “Do you swear allegiance to The Sisterhood and obedience to its laws for the rest of your lives?”
“I swear it!” cried one of the initiates.
“I swear it!” cried the other.
It was her turn now, but the breath she had just taken was trapped in her lungs. The rest of her life was going to be very, very long.
At last, she found her voice.
“I swear it!”
Read the rest of the story in
EVERY NOTE BY HEART
The Mysterium Secret, Book 2
You'll find updates on the series at my website:
linnchapel.com
Poetry, Old Poetry
If reading Threshold of Destiny has piqued your interest in old poetry and you’d like to browse through some lines from the past, here are the sources I used throughout the story.
The outward shows of sky and earth,
of hill and valley, he has viewed;
and i
mpulses of deeper birth,
have come to him in solitude.
- William Wordsworth,
A Poet’s Epitaph, 1799
She walks in beauty, like the night
of cloudless climes and starry skies;
and all that’s best, of dark and bright,
meet in her aspect and her eyes.
- Lord Byron,
She Walks in Beauty, 1814
Cruel as death, and hungry as the grave.
- James Thomson,
The Seasons: Winter, 1726
While that heart bleeds,
the hand presses it close.
Grief must run on and pass
into near Memory’s more quiet shade
before it can compose itself in song.
He who is agonized and turns to show
his agony to those who sit around,
seizes the pen in vain!
Thought, fancy, power,
rush back into his bosom;
all the strength of genius cannot
draw them into light
from under mastering Grief;
but Memory, the Muses’ mother,
nurses, rears them up, informs,
and keeps them with her all her days.
- Walter Landor,
So Then, I Feel Not Deeply!, 1853
Our hills and seas and streams, dispeopled of their dreams, their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears, wailed for the golden years.