Table of Contents
Dedication
Author’s note
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Dear Readers,
BESTSELLING AUTHOR
QUINN COLERIDGE
SPECTRIS
Spectris
Copyright © 2017 Brompton Road Literary, LLC
All rights reserved by author.
Published by Brompton Road Literary, LLC
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-0-9988873-3-3 Print.
ISBN: 978-0-9988873-2-6 Ebook.
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Dedication
This book is dedicated to my brothers and my aunt. They each instilled within me a love of stories and language. Thank you Rick, Steve, and Fran.
And also to my sister Lynnette. A poet, an old soul, and a dreamer, you left this world too soon.
Author’s note
American Sign Language is a beautiful form of communication. I feel such respect for those who sign and for the language itself. The main character in this story has difficulty speaking due to a throat condition, and learns to express herself through sign. I have not adhered to authentic ASL grammar, however.
Proper language structure is always preferable. Please excuse this exception to the rules.
Prologue
Cave malum somniam.
Beware of bad dreams.
Stonehenge, Colorado August 1892
The air is heavy and sweet in the orchard, though the sun has barely risen. It’s going to be another scorcher. Blasted heatwave. Everyone in town is short tempered, and with the lightning strikes and fires in the mountains, Stonehenge seems more like hell than ever.
Yet I’ve found heaven amid the peach trees behind my boarding house on Saint David’s Street. It’s blessedly cool at the moment, despite the humidity. Fortunatus mea. Or maybe not so lucky after all. The whole blazing summer has felt odd, unnatural even, for this part of Colorado. Almost like a curse is in play.
One might very well be. I know just the fellow to cast such a spell, but he’s presently licking his wounds in a Georgia hospital.
I push my spectacles to the top of my head and turn blind eyes toward the orchard. The glasses usually stay on if people are present, at least around those who aren’t my friends. Such individuals discuss my appearance at great length—whether I am nearby or not—appraising me like the bargain horseflesh at the end of an auction. Albino-like skin, platinum hair, silver, iridescent eyes. To them, I am a poor specimen, a freak of nature with bad bloodlines.
My supernatural gifts don’t add to my popularity one bit. They’ve completely alienated me from most of Stonehenge, since I tend to reveal what they wish to hide. Killers, in particular, resent my very existence—especially the man in Georgia. Who also happens to be my half-brother, James Scarlett.
Is he the cause of this miserable summer?
Sighing, I recline upon the grass, and listen to bird song. In addition to being a refuge from the record-breaking heat, the orchard provides an excellent escape from domesticity. As well as the beloved tyrant who has made it her mission in life to see that I do my share of chores.
“Be useful,” Cordelia Collins said not long ago, after waking me up. “Fetch some eggs from the chicken coop.”
Dash it all! What sane person wakes their landlady and then tells her to get eggs?
Now that I think of it, I do quite a lot of fetching for Cordie. If it’s not gathering the eggs, she assigns other jobs. “Here’s your cane, Hester, get some potatoes from the cellar . . .” “Grind some coffee for breakfast . . .” “Bring me my knitting needles . . .” Etcetera, etcetera. Shouldn’t it work the opposite way since this is my property?
If things continue as they are, I’ve no doubt Cordelia will soon begin charging me for the management of my own residence.
I scoot the wicker basket of eggs to the side with my shoe. A little shuteye before returning to the kitchen sounds lovely. As I begin to relax, my bones suddenly turn hot, my head grows tight, and ancient magic overwhelms me.
No. Not today. I’m so tired . . .
The magic doesn’t listen to my plea. Instead, my soul travels to that metaphysical realm, where the veil between earth and the world beyond is thin. Somber colors greet me: greys, blues, and black. I see and think like a sighted person here, and behold a scene shrouded in darkness. The ground is covered with snow, and wind gusts against the drifts, tossing bits of ice back into the sky. I rub my stinging fingers, blow on them for warmth. Where am I? Why was I brought here?
I detect smoke in the air, toward the South—faint but definitely present. It’s a friendly smell, not like the lightning strikes burning the mountains back in Stonehenge, but rather hickory logs in a camp fire. Shivering in my summer dress, I follow the smell and walk toward a copse of trees. A clearing opens just beyond the conifers, but I hold back and remain within the shadows. Who built the fire? Should I call out and ask permission to approach or proceed forward unannounced? The flames crack and pop, and I see glimpses of light dancing between the fir boughs. I step forward, trembling. My boots crunch against the snow, but some awareness in the back of my mind warns me to be quiet. Take care, it seems to say. Don’t let them see you.
Why not, I wonder. Who are they?
The name James Scarlett whispers through the night, and my quaking increases. But a desire for warmth overrides my fear, and I continue on toward the fire. As I draw closer, I see a blazing stack of kindling, hemmed in by a circle of river rock. The tall trees give me shelter from the wind and provide me with a means of seeing without being seen. People hunch toward the warmth, murmuring about someone named Rasputin.
Rasputin? I’ve never heard of this person.
The man near the camp fire lifts his face, and one side looks grotesque, a skeleton brought to life. The muscle is missing, melted away, leaving thin scar tissue stretched over cheek and jaw. A patch covers the eye, but his mouth is perfectly sculpted and beautiful. Inhaling with shock, I move back into the darkness.
Damnation! It is James Scarlett. Of all the people in the world who could be sitting in this forest at midnight, it had to be my half-brother! I can still hear the sizzle of his flesh, feel it dissolving beneath my fingertips when I disfigured him last spring. Good magic won over bad that day, but Scarlett isn’t the forgive-and-forget type. The psychopath wants my head on a platter.
He surveys the trees in front of me, and the other section of his face comes into view. Flawless. Like that of a god. A pale green eye glitters as though he knows I’m here. Then the woman turns my way—clever face, salt and pepper hair, the piquant stench of brimstone.
It’s my aunt Mary Arden, confound it. The busybody is always in the thick of things.
She motions toward Scarlett. “Is Hester close? Did she hear us?”
Scarlett rolls his good eye and points at his ears. “Of course she did. Gift of echolocation, remember?”
“What shall we do? Kill her?”
A hunger twists his features, but he shakes his head. “Not now.”
“You know as well as I, she can’t interfere with what’s to come.”
I gasp softly. I didn’t realize until this moment that Mary Arden was also my enemy.
Rising to his feet, Scarlett gazes at her as though she is a simpleton. “Use your magic, aunt. Darken her mind.”
Whirling around, I run toward the woods and crash through some branches, straight into the arms of a man. He has wild dark hair and heavy brows, wears a cassock of rough material with a rope belt. A priest of some kind. “Who are you?” I whisper.
“Rasputin,” he replies. “What is it you want?”
My soul rebels at his closeness, but I can’t stop myself from gazing into the depths of his eyes. The spell is broken when he takes my hand. My senses scream that this stranger is evil, dangerous. I jerk back, yet my fingers remain in his, as though we are connected by a thousand unbreakable threads.
Shake him off, Hester, I tell myself. Pull, twist! I struggle to get away, but I cannot let go.
Over the pounding of my heart, I hear footsteps creep toward us through the woods. It would seem Scarlett and Mary Arden left the campfire to begin their hunt. “This way,” I tell Rasputin and the priestly figure allows me to lead him through the gloom.
His stride is longer, and soon I must push myself to keep up. As we flee, my mind is filled with pictures of domed cathedrals, palaces of gold, and a woman draped in jewels. Damn and blast! A vision within a vision?
Not like the usual scenes of crime and murder that I receive, but a testimony of truth regarding Rasputin’s life. The universe’s way of teaching me about him.
But I concentrate on the woman instead of the priest. “Alexandra,” I hear myself say. “Empress of all Russia.”
The young man running at my side looks much younger than the Rasputin in my head. This secondary vision takes place in the future then? Ten or twenty years hence, perhaps? The older Rasputin hovers near the Tsarina, weaving his cold magic, until her palace begins to crumble. It crashes to the ground and kills the entire Romanov family.
Tears glide down my face at their destruction.
Time rolls back, and Rasputin is young again. These images move even faster through my mind. Prior to gaining favor with Alexandra, he wanders the hills as a mystic. His traveling companion, a former monk, secretly writes down Rasputin’s spells and incantations within a book, the cover red as blood.
My feet strike against the forest floor as I run, and my breathing imitates the staccato rhythm. In my psyche, I continue to watch the monk as he offers to sell the spells to a powerful witch, only to have his treachery discovered. Rasputin rebukes him with a curse and the man surrenders the book, begging for his life. But his pleas are to no avail and the monk falls sick with a fever and dies.
The revelation comes to a sudden end. Nevertheless, my mind relives it as I flee through the night, brain working independently of my body’s exertions. This Rasputin, the one who runs with me from Scarlett, never tires, although I gasp for air. Glancing up at him, I see his lips curve into a smile as we arrive at the edge of a cliff. I stop myself from hurtling into space. Rasputin does not stop. He leaps and takes me with him.
O di immortales! Gods in heaven, do not let me die.
We fall through the air, trailing dirt and debris from the cliff, and land in black water. It is deep enough to cushion our fall, but not so vast that I cannot thrash my way to shore. A small hill rises before me, and I stumble to the summit with Rasputin. Somehow our hands came undone in the fall, though I can’t pinpoint where. His progress is slow, and I look back.
Rasputin’s face is happy. Almost triumphant.
While I watch, the tall man’s body seems to shrink in upon itself, and the skin flakes off in layers. Underneath are red scales, like those of a snake. The priest grows smaller and smaller until he no longer resembles a human, but a well-defined rectangle. Five inches across, eight inches high. Horrified, feeling like Alice beyond the rabbit hole, I reach down to touch him and grasp a book—the cover a bright shade of vermillion. It hums like a hive of bees and fastens itself to my fingers. I tug at it, but the volume remains attached, holding onto me just as the priest did when he would not release my hand.
Hell’s bells! What kind of magic is this? First a vision within a stupid, bloody vision and now a man changing into a book?
Suddenly, the world shakes, and I lose my footing and fall to my knees. A vast cemetery slashes across the valley below. Soil begins to shift atop each grave and erupts into great mounds. The caskets within the graves are plainly visible, but one is different than the others. It’s made of stone, carved with curious runes. The lid begins to rattle and slowly opens.
I scream across the inky night as an unseen force takes hold of my ankles and drags me down the hill. It throws me into the grave, I land inside the peculiar coffin, and the lid shuts. No. I must get out. Let me free.
Still stuck to my fingers, the book hums louder, until I fear my brain will crack. The humming reaches its crescendo, and all sound stops. Except for an echoing heartbeat. Thump-thump, thump-thump. It comes from Rasputin’s book.
I open my mouth in surprise, and the vision spins away. Ejected from the supernatural realm, my soul reunites with my body back in Stonehenge. But I do not feel right. An overwhelming languor consumes me as the specifics of the vision fade, and a strange power erases them one by one.
The air is heavy and sweet in the orchard, though the sun has barely risen. It’s going to be another scorcher. Blasted . . . heatwave.
As I make these observations, the sentences seem repetitive. Like I said them to myself just a moment ago. I’m sure I must have done, but I can’t remember.
Trying to think, I brush the hair from my brow and find spectacles perched on the top of my head. How did the blasted things get there? And why does my mouth taste of soil? I spit and wipe my lips with my sleeve.
Cordelia calls me from the kitchen door. “Hester?” she says. “I’ll be needing those eggs.”
What’s she going on about now? But I remember as soon as I ask the question. Yes. That’s right. I was to fetch a dozen for her. She woke me up even though I’m the landlady.
It had been such a good sleep, too. Such peaceful dreams.
After finding the wicker basket, I begin walking back to the house. How very perplexing! I recall gathering the eggs, don’t I? One of the hens pecked me on the wrist, and the tiny wound still stings a bit.
Ten feet or so, and I should reach the steps to the house. Now five. Three. I swing my hand back and forth at waist level and find the wooden hand rail. On the porch at last, I curse under my breath like a bordello madam. Sweet blazes! Fate is a pox-ridden hag!
I am never one to forget. Never. Perfect recollection is part of my magic.
Details usually brand themselves within my mind, but it hurts terribly when I think of the interlude in the orchard. So intensely painful that I rub my head and wish to avoid any further contemplation of the lost period of time. While the hot sun beats down upon my shoulders, I know only one thing for certain.
I feel cold as the grave.
1
Amicus alter ipse.
A friend is another self—Erasmus
My parlor is abuzz with noisy females —gossiping about the neighborhood, slurping tea, and munching biscuits. Cordelia’s family surrounds me and celebrates her future nuptials to Isaac Baker. As well as eating and drinking, they make her trousseau in preparation of the great day. I tune down my magically-enhanced hearing and smile. Why didn’t I host a bridal sewing circle before this? With all the happy chatter and
crafting, I haven’t been summoned by one ghost or had a single vision all day. No Sir Death, no ancient Roman curses. The entire affair has been rather wholesome and healing to the soul.
Tranquility isn’t typical of Stonehenge, or myself, for that matter. Vendettas, dark dealings, murders—those are more the norm. Today, however, the air is redolent with sugar and spice from the tea biscuits and the over-riding essence of happiness. I once hated my ability to read feelings through olfaction, especially when they were joyful. It is a sweet, floral scent, and rather cloying when one’s own life is anything but happy.
Alas, those days are gone. I shall learn to be lighthearted again with the help of my new chums. It might take a while, but I’ll make an effort. Sipping from my cup of Earl Grey, I listen to them talk. Do they realize how lucky they are to be ordinary humans?
Supernatural powers are not for the faint of heart. I doubt one of these women would volunteer to be descended from a Roman goddess—not if she knew the dangers involved, the time spent with ghosts, and the constant, low-level sense of foreboding.
Over the last two weeks—since my memory loss in the orchard—I’ve felt a great deal of anxiety. When I focus on the cause of my distress, my head hurts like it did that day, and I become cold and dark inside. Am I ill? Is there something truly wrong with my brain?
The touch of a soft hand comes as a surprise, and I jump a bit in my chair. “Feeling peckish?” Cordelia asks. “Can I get you anything? Food, lemonade?”
I decline, and she sits in the next chair. “Thank you for doing this, Hester. I’ll never forget your generosity.”
Smiling, I shake my head in dismissal. We’ve been bosom friends since the age of fifteen when she came to work for my parents as a paid companion and lady’s maid. This party is a spit in the ocean compared to the frequent, commonplace kindnesses she’s shown me over the years. Despite her tendency to order me about . . . compose long lists of chores . . . wake me on mornings when I wish to sleep.
Spectris Page 1
