by G M Mckay
“Stop struggling, you citified buffoon,” the old man bellowed. “Get dressed and then get out of this house.”
I stared at the scene in astonishment, not sure if I was dreaming again or if this was actually happening. The older man’s shaggy white hair stood up in all directions and his milky blue eyes had a wild, unhinged look to them. His mouth hung open and he glared at Xan with a look of undisguised hatred.
“Jacob!” Aimee’s said sharply, as she pushed past me into the room. “What are you doing in here, you crazy old coot? These people are our guests. Let go of him right now.”
Jacob swung his glare toward Aimee and then reluctantly released his grip on Xan’s sleeve.
“Jacob meant no harm,” she told Xan reassuringly. “He’s a cranky old goat and he gets a little confused sometimes. He thought you were someone else, didn’t you, Jacob?”
“He tried to kill me,” Xan said angrily, pointing at the old man. “When my great aunt hears about this, he’ll be fired.”
“Now, now, Jacob’s a, er, a pensioner. It was just a misunderstanding, is all,” Aimee said, her eyes narrowing at Xan.
The old man brushed past me as he strode into the hall, knocking his shoulder roughly against mine and sending me a look of pure hatred as he passed. I stumbled backward in astonishment, wondering what on earth I could have done to earn such a glare.
“I said I want him dismissed!” Xan’s voice rose to a fever pitch and suddenly, I changed my mind about going in to see him. When Xan was angry, he tended to take it out on anyone around him and it was best to just go away and come back once he’d calmed down. Besides, I wasn’t feeling quite myself again. That fuzzy sensation was back and my head felt like it was full of cotton. And when I held my hands up to look at them, they didn’t seem to belong to me at all.
The hallway had begun to stretch in the strangest way; first, the floor shifted and stretched out as if it were a million miles long, and then the walls began to quiver like Jell-O.
“Jilly? What are you doing out here?”
“Gil?” His disapproving face swam in front of me and I giggled at the way the image shimmered and rippled as if were under water. “Why are there two of you?”
My body was suddenly very, very heavy and the soft hall carpet looked so inviting. Maybe I could just curl up there for a few minutes and rest my eyes.
Someone muttered something and swore next to my ear and somehow, I was swept up into a pair of strong arms and found myself moving quickly down the hallway. “Ugh, don’t move so fast,” I said, shutting my eyes tightly. “You’re making everything spin.”
There was more muttering, and then I was deposited, not overly gently, into my own borrowed bed. I sank into the mattress gratefully and began to laugh. Everything seemed hilarious for some reason and I looked over at the stern painting of the lady on the horse and gave her a wink. It must have been my imagination but both she and the horse looked scandalized.
Gil’s face hovered into view and his lips moved as if he were talking, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. I closed my eyes and chuckled under my breath.
I blinked slowly and now it was Xan staring down at me, his hair tousled and his expression irate. I had no idea how much time had passed but at least he’d changed out of those ridiculous purple pajamas.
“Jilly, you’ll never believe what just happened. I was savagely attacked in my own room by some senile old servant and they refuse to reprimand him. Aunt Ruth is away somewhere, and her servants are apparently complete idiots.
“I think we wasted our time coming here; this shoddy old estate is almost as rundown as Blackwood, so I doubt there’s spare money to sponsor me. The horses are nice enough, though. Maybe she’ll give me one of those in her will. No, don’t look at me like that, you know I’m only kidding. And good grief, what on earth are you wearing?”
I blinked as Xan’s relentless voice worked its way into my brain.
“It’s rude to insult people’s ancient nightgowns,” I tried to say and then the image of his face suddenly blurred and stretched, growing black fur and ears until he looked like a very large rabbit.
I began to laugh again; this really had been the most interesting morning I’d had in a long time.
“Jilly, have you been drinking? Even I draw the limit at drinking before nine a.m. What’s wrong with you?”
“Could you shut up for just two seconds,” Gil snapped, and I jerked. I hadn’t even realized he was still in the room with us. “She’s obviously been drugged with something, even though everyone I’ve asked denies it. I don’t know whether to load up the horses and get us all out of here or let her work it out of her system. There’s no cell service, the servants say the land-line is down which is a likely story, and I’m at a loss as to what to do.”
“Don’t worry, I’m just fine,” I giggled, watching as rabbit-Xan twitched his nose from side to side. “Xan’s a rabbit and the room is turning upside-down. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Well, that’s not good,” Xan said, his usual sarcasm dropping away. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Nothing at all. I am so, so, so amazing,” I said, and it was true. Every muscle in my body was suddenly flowing like water. All those hard hours spent on horseback, all the stress from Mother’s relentless criticism and the tension left over from The Frederick Incident melted from my limbs, leaving me feeling deliciously light and free.
Frederick, I thought as I blinked, and his face swam into view. I studied his beautiful features, the chiselled cheekbones, the mocking eyes, the arrogant mouth slightly pulled up on one side. Then it was my old Nanny’s face there, smiling down at me warmly, her face so vivid that I could almost reach out and touch it. Swiftly it was replaced by the stern woman in the painting; her judgemental stare boring holes in me.
With a whoosh, the bed I was on disappeared completely and I stood in the same long hallway I’d been in earlier. My headache was gone, and I reached up tentatively to find that my bandages were gone, too. I was, unfortunately, still dressed in that terrible nightgown and my bare feet were cold against the worn carpet.
I turned around slowly, taking in my surroundings. The hall stretched out in both directions. It was an uninspiring space; just a tight corridor lined with closed doors. The only decorations were the paintings of rather severe-looking people that lined the hall on both sides. The nearest one was a young girl on a grey pony who stared at me haughtily down her pointed nose. She was dressed in heavy silks and had a small, green parrot perched on one languid finger. Her fiery red hair was scraped back into an ornate style that did not look comfortable at all. I turned away from her cold stare and looked around in confusion, not sure where to go next.
What am I doing here? I’m supposed to be in bed.
There was a faint, scraping noise up ahead and, when I squinted down the hall, I could see a flickering light shining at the other end. There wasn’t really anything else I could do; I crept toward it, reaching out to touch the maple-panelled walls to make sure I was really here and not in a dream. The walls felt solid and yet, how could this not be a dream? Just a minute ago I’d been in my bed and now I was here. What had happened to me?
The end of the hallway opened into a massive entrance. Two imposing front doors were on my right and on the left was a wide, curved, wooden staircase carpeted down the middle with a red runner. I stopped and stared in amazement. A huge stained-glass window dominated the second floor landing; it must have been twelve feet tall and just as wide. Light streamed through it, splashing vibrant colour down the stairs and across the floor like a waterfall.
“Reveal what is hidden,” a voice whispered almost directly in my ear. I yelped and tried to spin away, but I was stuck, frozen in place, unable to even blink. My gaze was fixed on the image in the center of the window. The glass depicted the lady from my earlier dream, but this time she didn’t look quite so enraged. She had long, flowing red hair and fair skin and was mounted on a blood-red horse. In
her hand, she held an upraised knife but her eyes, staring down at me, just looked sad.
All of a sudden I wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs anymore. There was a nauseating pull in the center of my stomach, the scene shifted, and I was in a dark bedroom standing next to three other people. The housekeeper Aimee was there, as was the gnarled old man I’d seen earlier in Xan’s room. He was bent nearly double now and supporting himself with a thick wooden cane. There was another figure—a slim, elfin woman about my age with dark cropped hair. She had a bruise on one cheek and a funny sort of cast on one leg though she wore a pair of dark breeches as if she just come in from riding. All three of them stared solemnly down at a bed where a fourth person lay.
“Great Aunt Ruth,” I whispered, recognizing her pale face. She was as white as her sheets and her grey hair fanned around her on the pillow. She lay with her eyes tightly shut and only the light raspy breathing indicated that she was alive at all.
“I suppose we’ll have to do it,” the old man said grimly, shifting to hold his cane in both crooked hands.
“It’s up to us now,” Aimee said tearfully. She looked up suddenly toward a far corner of the room that was hidden by shadows and nodded slowly as if she were agreeing with someone hidden there. I followed her gaze but didn’t see a thing.
The woman in the breeches turned to look at me slowly, her eyes wide with pain. “You have to help her,” she said sadly, “the Lady rides nine.” Suddenly she reached out and grabbed the cane from the old man’s hands and raised it high in the air over my Great Aunt’s head.
And that’s when I began to scream.
I sat bolt upright in my bed, panting and clutching at the covers. The room was cold and cast in deep shadow, the only light provided by low embers on the hearth.
Just a dream, I told myself, clutching my hands together tightly, you’re here now, safe, it wasn’t real.
There was a sudden horrible roaring, wheezing, rumbling noise from inside the room as if the walls were splitting open, and I shrank back against the headboard with a yelp of fear, my heart pounding wildly in my chest, wondering what sort of horrors were about to be unleashed on me next.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. I thought, realizing abruptly what that awful, familiar sound was. I could just make out Gil’s figure splayed out in an armchair near the dying fire. His long frame was too big for the chair and his head tilted on an awkward angle, mouth drooping open slightly. He inhaled with a soft wheeze and then exhaled with a mighty, snorting roar that could have woken the dead.
That’s so sweet of him to watch over me, I thought, once the sound had died away. And then he exhaled again.
“Gil,” I hissed, “you’re snoring. You’ll wake everyone in the house up.”
“Meh, schme, bleh bleh bleh,” Gil muttered, still deep in sleep. He twisted around uncomfortably in the chair.
“For heaven’s sake,” I said, getting gingerly out of bed and tip-toeing to his side. I felt completely back to my old self again; my headache had retreated to a dull ache and I was steady on my feet. I reached out and poked Gil gently in the ribs and when that didn’t work I gave him a hard shove. “Wake up. You’ll hurt yourself if you stay there. Time to go to bed.”
“Wha-?” he said, looking around in confusion.
“Bed,” I ordered in a whisper. “It’s okay, you don’t need to watch over me anymore, I’m all right now. I’m not sure where your room is, though …”
He struggled sleepily to his feet, looking bewildered, and then stumbled past me the few feet to the king-sized bed and dropped down on top of it like a mighty oak tree falling in the forest.
“No, not there,” I hissed, giving his leg a little push, “I meant your own room.” But it was no use; he was out cold.
I sighed heavily and tiptoed over to the fire to pile some more logs on, then went back to my own side of the bed, getting under the covers and staring up at the ceiling to think about my dream again. It had been terribly frightening at the time, but now that I was awake and could think it through properly, it didn’t make much sense. Just my over-active imagination at work once again.
I repressed a shiver at the memory of the helpless old woman about to be bludgeoned to death and was suddenly grateful to have the uselessly snoring Gil next to me for company.
Besides the snoring, sleeping beside Gil didn’t bother me. From the time we were kids we’d travelled together to many a week-long horseshow, chaperoned by Nanny, Christoph, or my parents. We’d often shared opposite bunks in the horse trailer, staying up late to tell each other scary stories or equally horrifying jokes. This bed was big enough that he might as well have been in a separate room from me.
I sighed, wishing that we could both go back in time to when we were just happy little kids showing ponies. Of course, childhood had not been exactly easy for me. But at least Gil and the horses had made it somewhat bearable.
Gil had always smoothed life’s bumps for me; right up until Frederick had come into my life.
I shifted uncomfortably under the covers, the memory of my mortifying engagement party, when everything had ended so dramatically, worming its way into my mind.
Mother and I had had such high expectations of the day. For once we hadn’t irritated each other; we’d laughed in excitement over the preparations like we were almost friends. The party had been held outside in Victory Park in the center of Maplegrove. It was a beautiful wooded area that originally had been donated to the town by my parents. It had lovely gazebos and gardens and a path winding next to the river. Everyone in town had been invited to come out and celebrate. That had been Frederick’s idea, of course, he was such a social butterfly and often teased me about my reclusive nature.
He’d said that he wanted everyone in town to know how wonderful I was, so he’d invited them all and they’d come, if only for the free buffet. There had been music and dancing, the grassy lawn had been covered in white tents and streamers and silver balloons. It had been beautiful, and I had been happy and so, so in love.
Everyone had been unnaturally nice to me, and the afternoon and evening felt enchanted, like I was playing a starring role in some sort of fairy tale. The champagne was flowing fast and, near the end of the night, Frederick had said he needed to clear his head.
I’d waited and waited, but he didn’t come back. While I sat, I noticed the funny looks people kept sending me. There were whispers. An older woman I’d never even met before came up and gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. But why would she do that when I had every possible thing a person could want in life? I knew then that something was terribly wrong and that I needed to find Frederick.
It didn’t take long. I hadn’t searched more than a minute before I walked in on him and the perky young caterer having a “fling” right on the prep-table in the middle of the make-shift kitchen. The exquisite pain, and the utter disillusionment of that moment I’d carried with me nearly every day since. Worse than that was the shameful memory of the hysterical outburst that had followed. I’d screamed, I’d cried, I’d sworn to forgive him and begged him not to abandon me, I’d broken a whole tray of champagne flutes, all while the stunned townsfolk watched every moment in horrified fascination.
And then he’d grabbed the microphone off the stage and confessed to everyone that he’d never loved me, that nobody could possibly be expected to love a weirdo like me. And then he’d drunkenly begun listing every one of my faults, real and imagined while I stood there sobbing pathetically. The only thing that had finally shut him up was Gil’s fist connecting with his jaw.
“You were such an idiot, Jilly,” I whispered to myself for the billionth time, biting the inside of my cheek hard to keep from crying.
“Not an idiot,” Gil muttered, “scmeh bleh bah … always too good for him.”
I turned my head toward him, studying his chiselled profile in the flickering firelight but he’d already passed back out with another round of snoring. I laughed despite myself.
Gradually, Gi
l’s steady breathing lulled me into a state of relaxation. Even from over here he smelled like home to me; horses and hay and the woodsy soap he always used and the Italian shampoo that I’d ordered online for him to try and tame some of his curls.
I sighed and yawned, feeling the tension drain out of me. Slowly my breathing fell into rhythm with his and I drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
Chapter 4
The next morning, I woke with a start to find both Gil and Morris gone and Aimee hovering shame-facedly over my bed.
The dream from last night came flooding back and I leapt away, remember the similar way she’d loomed over Great Aunt Ruth’s prone body.
“Oh, no, please don’t be afraid,” she said earnestly. “Your cousin Xan and that Gilbert already yelled at me, twice. I swear I didn’t know how much of that medication was in your juice. The doctor just said to dissolve a tablet and that’s what I did. I didn’t know that stupid cook Belinda had already mixed one in, too. It was just supposed to help you sleep a little and take the edge off the pain. Not knock you out for two days. Everyone is so angry with me, but honestly, it was just an accident. Here’s your breakfast and I swear, it’s just food. Nothing else.”
I was still groggy, so it took a minute to process all this information.
“You … you drugged me? But why?”
“I am so, so sorry. The doctor said you needed strict rest and he left pills for you. It was just a silly mix-up, honestly. I swear there’s no harm done. How do you feel?”
“I guess I feel okay now …”
“Oh, that’s good. You had no idea how worried we were. You slept like the dead: we thought you’d never wake up.”
“That’s an awful thought.” I sat up fully and stretched my limbs out gingerly. Everything seemed to be in working order and, overall, I felt much better than I had the day before. “How long have I been here?”
“Two days, more or less; this is your second morning.”
