The Everdon Series- the Complete Set

by L C Kincaide

  The exit ahead, Jen slowed and took the ramp to a two-lane cracked asphalt. She hoped no stragglers got in her way.

  “Slow down. You’ll need to turn left toward Fairmont.” Brad said after forty minutes of silence.

  She turned, and they continued along an even narrower stretch of road to a small town. The streetlights illuminated the narrow lane of a charming village in the approaching dusk. Like in a storybook, they passed by idyllic houses with tiled roofs and windows glowing from within, and soon they were leaving it behind.

  “Where to now?”

  Brad consulted the map. “Stay on this road about a mile then take the next right. About half a mile after that you’ll cross a bridge, and we’ll be there.”

  Jen’s heart raced, and she stepped on the gas. Hold on, Ivy, hold on. We’re almost there!

  She awoke once and opened her eyes to a visitor. An old woman, most of her white hair covered with a frilled cap, gazed upon her. Ivy didn’t realize who it was until she saw the wheelchair, and she slipped under again.

  The next time Ivy awakened, she was alone. She had no idea of how long she had slept, and glancing at the window, only the darkening gray mist shifted and blocked out the rest of the world. Maybe there was nothing left out there to see.

  The fire still burned in the grate, andand she moved closer to the fireplace. Warmed by the flames, she gazed around a room much larger than her previous one. The four-poster bed was similar, and the enormous armoire with floral marquetry, looked familiar from the bedchamber she had found herself in once before. With a start, she realized this was the same room she burst into on Friday night. It had been dark, and the remaining furniture had been concealed under dust sheets then. To her further surprise, the Miltonia orchid had been moved and was in its new home on the chest of drawers among gilt-framed photographs. None of it made sense.

  Thankfully, she was alone and tried to recall what happened earlier as she changed into a fresh dress; her own clothes were not here. At this point, it no longer mattered what century garments she wore as long as they were dry, and help was coming. There was no telling when that would happen. If the fog was really as thick and heavy as it appeared to be for miles around, visibility would be down to nothing leaving no way to cross the bridge safely.

  Ivy lowered her head in her hands. Why was this happening? Was there anyone whom she could trust? A tap at the door turned her attention. For an irrational moment, she thought Victoria was trying to get at her again, but the woman was not inclined to knock and wait politely for an invitation on the other side. If anything, she was more likely to charge in, and if she did, Ivy was prepared to use the fireplace poker against her.

  Nevertheless, she didn’t reach for it, and responded with a tentative, “Come in.”

  Mason entered the room and closed the door behind him. He stopped, his eyes intent on hers and dark with reined-in emotion.

  They watched each other from where they stood stock still. Ivy was at a loss for what to say to him. Would thanking him for apprehending the crazy woman who had tried to push her off the roof be appropriate? She was baffled. What was his role in all of this? If only she understood what was happening to her. Why her? She was bewildered and frightened like at no other time in her life, and she desperately wanted reassurance. Her situation right now was no better than that of an Edwardian virgin in distress! She almost laughed at the comparison, but it didn’t quite come out as such.

  In two strides, he was at her side and enveloped her in an embrace. She struggled against him for a moment, but allowed the comfort and warmth of his closeness to soothe her. As he held her close, her arms moved of their own volition and wrapped around him.

  “I’m so sorry about everything, my darling. So sorry.” He whispered in her ear.

  She started to tremble, and the first wave of tears broke forth. His embrace tightened, and Ivy finally released the emotions she had been holding back. All her fears and anxiety of the past two days poured out of her in wracking sobs. Memories of the woman in the wheelchair, and of what she had seen in the central hall returned in flashes. Other impressions too became clearer, giving way to a new understanding, and in his arms, she found peace. Deep within her, she knew him, even if she could not explain how. Whatever their connection, she did not want it broken.

  When she quieted, he dried her tears with his handkerchief and kissed her forehead.

  “She was here earlier.”

  His grip tighten around her at the mention of the troublesome female. “No, not Victoria.” She added hastily. “The old woman. The one in the wheelchair.” Ivy turned and pointed to the spot. “She was right there, watching me.”

  Mason’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll make sure she keeps away from these rooms.” He said to reassure her.

  Ivy shook her head. “It isn’t like that, not at all. She means me no harm. I can’t explain it, I just know.”

  He searched her eyes and hoped she spoke the truth though he wasn’t convinced. At this point, it would take quite an effort to persuade him that his grandmother or Victoria could be trusted.

  “It was stupid of me to go up on the roof.” She conceded.

  “You were frightened. You thought we had abandoned you. None of us can blame you for that.”

  “I don’t know what would have happened if you and Lucy…”

  “It would never have come to that.” He said decisively.

  She breathed a sigh of relief it hadn’t, and the episode was behind her. She leaned into him again to feel his reassuring strength. He was real, more real than anything she had ever known.

  She pulled away and met his gaze. “I need to know.”

  “I will do my best to answer your questions.” He replied.

  “I need you to be honest with me.” She swallowed hard. “Someone is trying to manipulate me.”

  He nodded for her to continue.

  “The photo album, the one with all the family pictures. Those people — George and Lucy, Styles — it can’t be them, yet somebody would have me believe it is. And the horrible curse that the old Mason Everdon cast on everyone when Amelia was killed, Elinor’s delusions about me and the house, what does any of it have to do with me?” She stepped away from him.

  Mason’s eyes turned to the flames, pondering her questions.

  Ivy continued. “And I’ve seen things, disappearing messages on the windowpane, and the hothouse. I saw it in ruins just this morning! How is that possible?”

  Mason’s eyes met hers.

  “You must tell me!” Ivy said, desperation in her voice and her eyes again brimming with tears. “Were you there with me, or did I imagine it?” Her breath caught in her throat, afraid to hear whatever answer he had to give her, unsure which one was the more alarming, that she had imagined it all, blanked out with seizures, or that everything that happened between them transpired in some mysterious, supernatural way.

  “Yes,” he said softly, “I was there with you. We looked at the orchids and I held your hands. And in the parlor, we had drinks on your first night, that was real too. And I kissed you. It was presumptuous of me, but I never could bear the sight of your tears.”

  Ivy’s mind reeled. “What is happening? Why?”

  Mason seemed torn in how to respond to that. “No one is trying to manipulate you. We are who we say we are.” He said to reassure her, his voice sincere. “Do you trust me?”

  Ivy searched the depths of his eyes, her own pleading. “Can I?”

  “You know you can.”

  She sought the right words if there were any that were appropriate to this situation. “It’s all so confusing, as if I need to remember and I don’t know what it can be. Maybe it’s something that will explain what is happening, but every time I get close, a door closes.” She paced the room with frustration. “Either that, or I’m going crazy!
Won’t I be in fine company?” She laughed bitterly.

  “You are not going mad.” He came to her side, his voice quiet and reassuring. “Come with me. It will all become clear.”

  She stiffened with fear. “Where?”

  “Trust me.”

  His arm around her, he led Ivy down the length of the corridor toward a brass cage. It took her a moment to realize the rooms they were leaving are in the northwest wing which was supposed to be closed. Wasn’t there a fire here that rendered it unsafe? Yet there was no evidence of a blaze. The hallway looked no different from its counterpart on the opposite side.

  They stepped into the cage, and Mason drew the retractable brass door shut and pushed the button. The elevator hitched and whirred until it shuddered to a stop on the main floor. Together, they emerged in the central hall and continued until Mason stopped beneath the great eye of the skylight. Looking up, there was nothing to see, it was blinded with haze. On either side, the long passages to the wings stretched away into darkness. No one else was around, and the silence was smothering. The grandfather clock remained at a standstill in its alcove.

  “Last night I asked you to meet me here for a reason.” He explained, his voice echoing in the vastness.

  They faced each other in front of the staircase, Mason holding her hands in his.

  “When you stood here last, you saw something. It was difficult for you to see it, God knows, I have seen it more times than I care to.”

  A deep memory stirred, then a far off warning, and she tensed. “I don’t know if I can…”

  He squeezed her hands. “Don’t be afraid. I am here with you. Nothing more can happen. These are but shadows from the past.”

  He loathed to endure this again, and he did not want her to suffer through it either, but he was out of options. He had been so sure that spending time among her beloved orchids would bring it all back, but it did not. They had shown her the pictures in the album hoping her memories of their life together will return, yet she clung to her reality tenaciously and resisted. Maybe the end of their life together was too devastating for her to remember, and anything that happened before. This was his final attempt. She would never again be this close.

  Maintaining the form of the manor for over eighty years was wearing on him, and he couldn’t have done it without Lucy’s help, and Styles’, and later George’s. They had held the illusion together over the decades, waiting for her to come back, and he would continue to do so, even if it wore him down completely if that is what it took. Nothing had changed here where they live, the only difference was Amelia’s absence and only fear kept her on this side. Once she remembered and crossed over to them, where she belonged, she would be happy and he could let go. This world was not important to them. They had long ago ceased to be part of it. The effort was all for her.

  He turned her toward the stairs and stepped back.

  Facing the staircase, Ivy’s gaze drifted toward the landing. There was a familiarity about this moment. She had been here before. Without warning, the perspective changed, and she was watching from the gallery through Amelia’s eyes, and Mason stood at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the newel post, looking up expectantly and waiting for her to come down. She stepped forward, a smile on her lips as she gazed upon her husband. The adoration on his features warmed her heart, and it swelled with love, the intensity of the emotion misting her eyes.

  On the downstairs landing, Ivy knew what was coming next, and she didn’t want to see it. She tried turning her head so she wouldn’t have to witness yet again, the grisly, wasteful death, but she could not look away. Then in excruciatingly slow motion, the figure at the top of the stairs appeared from the shadows. First, a cloud of wispy white hair came into view, then a pair of eyes filled with absolute terror, the mouth stretched open in a silent wail.

  Margaret Everdon shot out of the hallway. She hadn’t turned the wheels of her wheelchair herself; someone else had grasped the handles, and she bore down upon her unsuspecting victim. The old lady raised her gnarled hands to her face as if trying to avoid seeing the tragedy she was about to commit. Helpless to change the outcome that followed, a scream of terror finally escaped her throat, but already, it was too late.

  Before Margaret crashed into Amelia, Ivy glimpsed a figure shifting in the deep shadows at the back of the corridor. The form straightened from a bent position and silently watched from the protective gloom. Ivy gasped when she recognized the true murderer, the miscreant who had all this time hidden behind a false façade.

  Others who heard the screams rushed out of the parlor and drawing room, and gathered in the central hall. Stopping abruptly at the horror before them, they cowered in a familial herd among the granite pillars. The ever-loyal Styles watched in anguish, torn between moving to her lady’s side and remaining where she stood, loath to intrude on the couple’s last moments together. Everyone in attendance seemed to sense it was too late for anything. With her final breaths, Amelia whispered to Mason.

  Through Amelia’s eyes, she saw Mason’s face distorted with grief, and again she tried to look away, but it had become impossible. His torment was excruciating for her to see, worse than the agony of the precious life gushing out of her body and staining the marble floor she so loved.

  The last thing Amelia Everdon beheld was the storming night through the eye of the house. Blinded by the white flashes and the rage for her unbearable loss, she uttered the cursed words to the powers beyond and laid waste the future happiness of everyone under this roof.

  In a spectacular flash that tore through her being, it all came back.

  She remembered who she was.

  Pulling up in front of Everdon Manor left Jen speechless. As soon as she had her first glimpse of the structure from the bridge, she knew something was terribly wrong, but she still held out hope as they drove along the sweep of drive leading to it that things weren’t quite as bad as they seemed. Now that she was near enough to have a good look, she could see the situation was much worse.

  “This can’t be the place.” Brad said when they stepped out of the car in front of a squat wooden structure, a double garage, it appeared. One of its doors canted on loose hinges, and on closer inspection, he confirmed their suspicions when he peeked into the dark interior at an oil-stained concrete floor littered with leaves.

  “But I checked her signal on the phone locator. It doesn’t make any sense.” Jen shook her head in disbelief taking in their bleak surroundings.

  They walked around the front of the once magnificent Georgian manor house. Chained and secured with a heavy padlock, the peeling main door prohibited access and the multi-paned windows were shuttered. The building seemed intact and though its pinkish gray facade was not crumbling, there were signs of erosion between the stones. It was also clear nobody lived in it. The mansion wore an air of desolation like a timeworn cloak, and there was plenty of evidence outside to indicate that no one cared about it.

  “Ivy!” Jen called, fearing for her well-being now more than ever.

  Brad turned to her, but made no remarks. A moment later, he too was calling for Ivy. She continued to the center of the block and tried the door, not that she expected it to budge. It gave her chills touching the handle, and she stepped back, perplexed. Regardless of what she had seen on her computer, Ivy wasn’t here. There was no way she could have spent a day in this house, never mind the weekend. Yet, her text had reached her less than four hours ago. What happened to her? She would check around the entire building to make sure, just in case.

  Margaret Everdon watched silently from the top of the stairs, her hands folded in her lap. Gone was the wild hair, and the terror in her eyes was replaced with compassion. Ivy understood everything. Margaret was not responsible for the tragedy. It wasn’t she who had killed her. The lady had never harmed anyone. Nor was it Margaret who had set the northwest wing of the house on
fire. Yet defenseless, she was burdened to carry the blame for it.

  Her eyes swept the hall. Lucy and George solemnly observed in silence only steps away.

  Lucy, her dearest friend, closer to her than a sister could have been, was the one who had introduced Mason to her. Sweet Lucy had never left her, comforting her in the form of the doll of her childhood years though Ivy had no memory of the past. How could she have forgotten her? And Edna Styles, so much more than a lady’s maid, stood gravely off to the side, and beyond, stepping out of the shadows were others; Everdons from the past, Langdons and Ruskins too. So many of them observing quietly and waiting. And Mason, standing beside her, the old pain still haunting his eyes, and even now, heartbreaking to behold.

  “I’m so sorry.” She said to him, her voice barely above a whisper. “I never meant for you to take the blame.” She turned to the silent crowd. “I did this. I did this to all of you. I remember what happened here. All of it.” For a terrifying moment, she thought they would descend upon her in revenge, and who could fault them when she had cursed them all through no fault of their own? But they merely watched. Hadn’t they also been duped?

  “Please, forgive me. I will make this right.” She faced them. “For all of you. And for everyone who came after.”

  How she wanted to go to Mason, her poor, dear Mason who had carried the blame for over a hundred years. And Margaret. Dear God, poor Margaret as well! Even as her most ornery self, she had never had an unkind word for either her or Mason. But there was someone waiting to take advantage of her often disagreeable personality and bided her time for the perfect moment to reveal itself.